By Helena Horton, Sam Bright and Clare Carlile

Climate science deniers from a US-based thinktank have been working with rightwing politicians in Europe to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian can reveal.

MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”.

The Heartland Institute, which has links to the Trump administration and has …

By Erik De La Garza

And the ripple effect could soon hit supermarkets, as the chaos surrounding Trump’s strict immigration policies – which already include stepped-up ICE raids – is already threatening to send food prices soaring before long, according to a report in The New Republic.

“Bakersfield, California saw a massive drop off in the number of field workers showing up for work Tuesday while ICE agents in unmarked Chevy Suburbans rounded up and …

By Adeel Hassan

So what do you do if you find a 1,000-pound moose stuck in a partly frozen lake in the center of a six-million-acre wilderness?

When rescuers arrived at Lake Abanakee in Northern New York, only the head of the moose was above the water. It had fallen through about 40 minutes earlier, and was spotted by an unidentified bystander in the vast forests of the Adirondacks.

The moose, a male that had …

By Francine Prose

When I send anxious texts to friends in Los Angeles – friends who have been evacuated or who are waiting to leave , friends escaping a fire zone, wondering if their life’s work has been destroyed, worrying about the smoke’s effect on an asthmatic child – I always begin with the same three words:are you OK?

But a continent away, watching photos and videos of a city I love being incinerated, overcome …

By Victoria Namkung in Los Angeles

When writing about the hot, dry Santa Ana winds and how they affect the behavior and imaginations of southern Californians, Joan Didion once said: “The winds show us how close to the edge we are.”

I’ve lived here my entire life. I evacuated my family’s hillside home as a teenager. I’ve experienced the surrealism of watching ash rain down from the sky more times than I can count. But …

By Yan Zhuang, Corina Knoll, Soumya Karlamangla, and Judson Jones

Here’s the latest on the fires.
At least two people were killed and many suffered serious injuries as out-of-control wildfires raged across Southern California on Wednesday. Four blazes in the Los Angeles area destroyed homes and businesses, covered cities and highways in smoke and whipped up storms of embers that turned the skies red.

Officials have tallied devastating losses but warned that the worst was …

By julia Haldoupis

Humans today take Earth’s magnetic North Pole for granted. But for the planet’s history, the direction of its magnetic field has shifted. A new study suggests that the last time the field flipped around and flopped back again, the effects on Earth’s surface were cataclysmic, Carolyn Gramling reports for Science News.

The study, published on February 19 in the journal Science, makes use of massive, fossilized Kauri trees from New Zealand to …

By Ian Livingston

With 2024 mostly in the rearview, another year enters the weather books — one that will be remembered for persistent and record-breaking warmth, recurrent drought, and several significant weather events including a tornado outbreak on June 5 in Maryland. And it’s now official: Cooler December weather couldn’t keep the year from becoming the city’s warmest on record.

This year’s annual average temperature of 61.8 degrees will end up 0.3 degrees ahead of …

By Rachel Cramer

Between two corn fields in central Iowa, Lee Tesdell walks through a corridor of native prairie grasses and wildflowers. Crickets trill as dickcissels, small brown birds with yellow chests, pop out of the dewy ground cover.

“There’s a lot of life out here, and it’s one of the reasons I like it, especially in these late summer days,” Tesdell said.

This is a prairie strip. Ranging from 10-40 metres (30-120ft) in width, …

By David Gelles and Christopher Flavelle

This summer, Bill Gates huddled in London with representatives of some of the world’s wealthiest people, including the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, the SoftBank founder, Masayoshi Son, and Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.

They were evaluating their joint investments in companies that could help the world combat climate change. Among the businesses in their portfolio, four stood out as having a particularly audacious goal: They were working …

By Nabou Ramu in Los Angeles, California

The plate is her canvas.

Imani Cohen never wants her dish to look too brown nor too starchy. She gravitates toward foods bright with luminous colors such as greens, purples and orange, during her weekly Saturday visits to the farmer’s market – a ritual she’s kept for herself and family as a way to be intentional in the foods she purchases for quality health and manifesting energy.

“My …

by Denise Hruby

Dozens of luxury beachfront condos and hotels in Surfside, Bal Harbour, Miami Beach and Sunny Isles are sinking into the ground at rates that were “unexpected,” with nearly 70 percent of the buildings in northern and central Sunny Isles affected, research by the University of Miami found.

The study, published Friday night, identified a total of 35 buildings that have sunk by as much as three inches between 2016 and 2023, including …

By Mary Whitfill Roeloffs

Topline Snowfall records were broken this week in the Gulf Coast states of Texas, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana when an unprecedented winter storm slammed the region, leading to closures, travel disruptions and several deaths, with more extreme weather yet to come.
Large Winter Storm Brings Rare Snowfall To Large Swath Of Southern States
A statue of Pete Fountain is covered in snow on Jan. 21, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Getty
…

By Tiffanie Turnbull

Months after mysterious black balls forced the closure of some of Sydney's most famous beaches, small marble-like debris has begun washing up on the city's shores again.

The balls - this time grey or white in colour - have prompted councils to shut nine beaches, including popular Manly and Dee Why, while authorities investigate.

Eight beaches including Bondi were closed for several days in October and a massive clean-up ordered after thousands …

By Christopher Flavelle

This week’s fires around Los Angeles present a puzzle: Why is California, the state best equipped to deal with wildfires, seemingly unable to prevent blazes from consuming entire chunks of the country’s second-largest city?

California’s building code for wildfires is among the most protective in the nation. Its local fire departments are backed up by CalFire, the state fire agency, which has a $4 billion budget and some of the best trained …

Two people have died and a number have 'significant' injuries as Eton fire continues to grow, say officials


Officials in California are holding a news conference on the wildfires.

LA county fire chief Anthony Marrone says the Eaton fire has burned over 2,000 acres and the fire continues to grow with 0% containment.

More than 500 personnel have been assigned to the Eaton fire, he said.

There have been two reported fatalities to civilians as …

By Sheila Dang and Jonathan Stempel

Jan 6 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), opens new tab filed a lawsuit on Monday against California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several environmental groups, court records show, accusing them of defaming and disparaging the oil giant's advanced plastics recycling initiatives.
The lawsuit is a sign of how Exxon is increasingly fighting back against environmentalists and other critics who have brought lawsuits against the company alleging its involvement in …

By Hiroko Tabuchi

In early 2000, scientists at 3M, the chemicals giant, made a startling discovery: High levels of PFAS, the virtually indestructible “forever chemicals” used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and many other products were turning up in the nation’s sewage.

The researchers were concerned. The data suggested that the toxic chemicals, made by 3M, were fast becoming ubiquitous in the environment. The company’s research had already linked exposure to birth defects, cancer and …

By Hilary Howard

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York on Thursday signed a law that requires companies that are big fossil fuel polluters to help pay to repair damage caused by extreme weather, which is becoming more common because of greenhouse gas emissions.

The legislation, called the Climate Change Superfund Act, mandates that the companies responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions buildup between 2000 and 2024 pay about $3 billion each year for 25 …

by Egan Ward, Missouri Independent

DEXTER – On an early August morning in 2023, Shawn Hinkle received a call from one of his technicians at Tyson Foods who, through tears, told him the company’s plant in Dexter was shutting down.

Hundreds of jobs at the poultry slaughterhouse would be lost and farmers like Hinkle, who contracted with Tyson to raise egg-laying hens, would be out of business.

A decade earlier, Hinkle borrowed $2.3 million to …

By Daniel Boffey

Paul Watson, the anti-whaling campaigner, has spoken of delight that he will be reunited with his young children for Christmas after Denmark rejected Japan’s extradition request and released him from prison in Greenland.

After 150 days in jail on the Danish autonomous territory, Watson, 74, was told by his lawyer on Tuesday morning that the Danish authorities had decided he was free to leave the island.

Watson told the Guardian: “At 8.46 …

Climate Change may not be the most popular item, especially on MSNBC FOX CNN etc but the devastating fires is the west and the record snow in the deep south, along with winter rain in ALASKA do tell the story quite well by themselves. We are in a decline of climate stability, where no one knows where or when the next 100 year storm will hit.

We drive fossil cars around thinking about what we …

By Fiona Harvey Environment editor

World leaders, senior ministers and key figures in climate diplomacy have, one by one, reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement this week, in response to the order by Donald Trump to withdraw the US from the pact.

The prospect of the world keeping temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, as the treaty calls for, was damaged by the incoming US president’s move. Hopes of meeting the target were already …

By Claire Moses

Hundreds of thousands of customers in Ireland were without power and more than 100,000 were without water on Friday, as a powerful storm moved across the island, bringing record-breaking winds and disrupting travel.

The storm, named Eowyn, brought gales to Ireland throughout Friday morning and afternoon, according to the Irish Meteorological Service. Northern Ireland, southern Scotland and the northern and western areas of England and Wales experienced strong winds, with gusts of …

NYA Thanks @hormonespecialist!

NYA Thanks kurt.fuechslin!

by Oliver Milman in New York

Donald Trump’s desire to seize control of Greenland and the Panama canal is being shaped in part by a force that he has sought to deny even exists – the climate crisis.

Last week, Trump ramped up his demands that the United States annex both Greenland and the Panama canal, refusing to rule out economic or even military interventions to take them and threatening “very high” tariffs upon Denmark, …

by Ajit Niranjan in Oslo

Tafseer Ali felt no need to raise his voice as the pair of diggers lumbered past him, their treads weighing heavy on the rock and asphalt.

Quiet electric machines like these make it easy to work in the city centre, the construction manager said – and keep the neighbours happy. “If they have less noise, we get fewer complaints.”

The peaceful streets of Oslo are growing even calmer as the …

By Carey Gillam

Children are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large …

Multiple wildfires are burning out of control in Los Angeles County, fanned by hurricane-strength wind gusts that showed no signs of letting up on Wednesday and may intensify in the hours ahead. The largest of the fires, the Palisades Fire, broke out near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Los Angeles’ Westside on Tuesday morning and has burned more than 2,900 acres, forcing at least 30,000 people to evacuate. The second largest, the Eaton Fire, erupted …

By Reid Frazier

Steel is a modern necessity – a critical component of everything from appliances and cars to buildings and bridges. But making it is a huge climate problem. Steel production generates vast amounts of carbon pollution, owing to its heavy use of coal. It’s estimated to account for as much as 10% of global emissions of carbon dioxide, the key driver of global warming.

Now, a new process to make steel with almost …

By Esther Addley and Geneva Abdul

Gary Johnson was clearing clay with a digger at the Oxfordshire quarry where he works when he hit an unexpected bump in the limestone surface.

“I thought, it’s just an abnormality in the ground,” he said. “But then it got to another, three metres along, and it was hump again, and then it went another three metres, hump again.”

What Johnson had discovered was part of an enormous dinosaur …

By Maanvi Singh

Hidden amid a vast expanse of snow-brushed pines in northern California is a rare, half-million-year-old volcano called Sáttítla. Thousands of years ago, its flows created crystalline mountains of obsidian and dim grey bands of pumice rock, which from a bird’s-eye view look like ripples of taffy.

“When you’re there, you really do feel like you’re in another world, or on the moon or even another planet,” said Brandi McDaniels, a member of …

By Maanvi Singh

Red torrents of lava and billows of volcanic gas began erupting from Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island – one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

The eruption was confined to the volcano’s summit caldera, in a remote, closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes national park, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported. Increased earthquake activity began at about 2am local time and within about half an hour webcam images began to show lava emerging through …

By Gary Hartley

It is easy to get mired in a sense of hopelessness about the biodiversity crisis, but amid the doom and gloom, there are more than a few reasons to remain upbeat. For one thing, research this year underlined that conservation action works.

Thanks to the efforts of dedicated organisations, scientists, engaged private-sector partners and thousands of committed local people, there is an abundance of biodiversity success stories springing up in the UK. …

By Max Bearak

With her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, her arms and legs covered with 20 tattoos, and her compact frame fitted out in athleisure, Crystal Smith, the elected chief of the Haisla people, looked more like the hometown basketball star she once was than the fossil fuel exporter she’s about to become.

Ms. Smith, 45, lives in an apartment that overlooks a nearly 100-mile-long inlet — a fjord, really — whose …