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Climate

Alarmed by Trump Cuts, Scientists Are Talking Science. For 100 Hours.

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 20:55
Meteorologists and climate researchers aim to run a livestream for 100 hours in protest of the Trump administration’s cuts to weather and climate research.
Categories: Climate

A Court Debates Whether a Climate Lawsuit Threatens National Security

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 19:59
The judge asked lawyers how a suit by Charleston, S.C., claiming oil companies misled people about climate risks, might be affected by a Trump executive order blasting cases like these.
Categories: Climate

Energy Dept. Cancels $3.7 Billion for New Technologies to Lower Emissions

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 16:02
The 24 awards would have gone to a range of companies trying in novel ways to reduce the pollution that is heating the planet.
Categories: Climate

Flooding in Nigeria Flattens a Town, Killing at Least 56

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 15:30
Nigerian authorities said they had expected flooding as part of the rainy season but were surprised by the extent of the damage.
Categories: Climate

Sussan Ley wants to keep the Coalition together – but caving on net zero won’t help her win back seats | Tom McIlroy

The Guardian Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 11:00

High-profile Nationals and powerful forces in business and media are pushing back against climate action, posing a test of credibility for the new Liberal leader

After another scrappy week for the faltering Coalition, Bridget McKenzie on Thursday called for the National party to stop talking about itself.

No sane observer of politics since the 3 May election could disagree, but the party’s Senate leader made the observation in an awkward setting: a Sky News interview.

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Categories: Climate

Can you live without a car in the mountains? Yes, with planning and a few different bikes

The Guardian Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 07:50

Even in the foothills of the Italian Alps, cycling can be a practical alternative to driving, and more enjoyable, too

Living car-free in a big city is fairly common these days. Yes, it can mean some adaptation, but when so many things are on your doorstep it’s not such a big challenge. So how about car-free life in a remote Italian mountain village, with barely any public transport?

We have been living in rural Italy without a car for more than five years now. Even though we have always loved bicycles, the decision to sell our car wasn’t a particularly considered one.

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Categories: Climate

How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out

The Guardian Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 07:00

Academic Neta Crawford warns that if Donald Trump follows through on his threats of war, emissions will soar and the planet will pay the price

The climate impact of Donald Trump’s geopolitical ambitions could deepen planetary catastrophe, triggering a global military buildup that accelerates greenhouse gas emissions, a leading expert has warned.

The Pentagon – the US armed forces and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies – is the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for at least 1% of total US emissions annually, according to analysis by Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University.

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Categories: Climate

Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries

The Guardian Climate Change - May 30, 2025 - 01:00

Exclusive: Climate cost of war is more than than the combined 2023 emissions of Costa Rica and Estonia, study finds

The carbon footprint of the first 15 months of Israel’s war on Gaza will be greater than the annual planet-warming emissions of a hundred individual countries, exacerbating the global climate emergency on top of the huge civilian death toll, new research reveals.

A study shared exclusively with the Guardian found the long-term climate cost of destroying, clearing and rebuilding Gaza could top 31m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). This is more than the combined 2023 annual greenhouse gases emitted by Costa Rica and Estonia, yet there is no obligation for states to report military emissions to the UN climate body.

Over 99% of the almost 1.89m tCO2e estimated to have been generated between the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and the temporary ceasefire in January 2025 is attributed to Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza.

Almost 30% of greenhouse gases generated in that period came from the US sending 50,000 tonnes of weapons and other military supplies to Israel, mostly on cargo planes and ships from stockpiles in Europe. Another 20% is attributed to Israeli aircraft reconnaissance and bombing missions, tanks and fuel from other military vehicles, as well as CO2 generated by manufacturing and exploding the bombs and artillery.

Solar had generated as much as a quarter of Gaza’s electricity, representing one of the world’s highest shares, but most panels, and the territory’s only power plant, have been damaged or destroyed. Gaza’s limited access to electricity now mostly relies on diesel-guzzling generators that emitted just over 130,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or 7% of the total conflict emissions.

More than 40% of the total emissions were generated by the estimated 70,000 aid trucks Israel allowed into the Gaza Strip – which the UN has condemned as grossly insufficient to meet the basic humanitarian needs of 2.2m displaced and starving Palestinians.

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Categories: Climate

Williams to Revive Plans for N.Y. Natural Gas Pipelines

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 17:28
An energy company plans to revive pipelines that were blocked on environmental grounds, as President Trump pushes states on fossil fuel projects.
Categories: Climate

The Growing Legal Battle Over Climate Change

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 16:22
Oil and gas companies are facing a wave of new lawsuits over their role in global warming.
Categories: Climate

California and Nevada May Set Heat Records This Week

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 15:57
The National Weather Service warned of “dangerously hot conditions” from Friday through Sunday.
Categories: Climate

Trump violating right to life with anti-environment orders, youth lawsuit says

The Guardian Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 14:40

Twenty-two plaintiffs between ages seven and 25 allege government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach

Twenty-two young Americans have filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over its anti-environment executive orders. By intentionally boosting oil and gas production and stymying carbon-free energy, federal officials are violating their constitutional rights to life and liberty, alleges the lawsuit, filed on Thursday.

The federal government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach by breaching congressional mandates to protect ecosystems and public health, argue the plaintiffs, who are between the ages of seven and 25 and hail from the heavily climate-impacted states of Montana, Hawaii, Oregon, California and Florida. They also say officials’ emissions-increasing and science-suppressing orders have violated the state-created danger doctrine, a legal principle meant to prevent government actors from inflicting injury upon their citizens.

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Categories: Climate

Some Glaciers Will Vanish No Matter What, Study Finds

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 14:35
Glacial ice will melt for centuries even if global temperatures stop rising now, according to new research.
Categories: Climate

Progressives Are Driving Themselves Into Extinction

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 12:56
What would make you want to have more children?
Categories: Climate

Oil Companies Are Sued Over Death of Woman in 2021 Heat Wave

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 12:35
Experts said it is the first wrongful death case targeting fossil fuel companies over their role in global warming.
Categories: Climate

Youth Climate Activists Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Orders

NYT Global Warming Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 12:11
The complaint argues that orders aimed at increasing American fossil fuel production infringe on the fundamental rights of young people.
Categories: Climate

‘A significant disaster’: extreme floods risk conservation efforts in outback Queensland

The Guardian Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 11:00

Wildlife sanctuary manager Josh McAllister was stranded for three days with six tins of tuna, a bag of Doritos and a salad roll – but he was more worried about the bettongs

When heavy monsoonal rain was forecast in north Queensland at the beginning of February, Josh McAllister and his family headed to Townsville to stock up on supplies.

As the rain came down, his partner and children did the bolt to home on Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s (AWC) Mount Zero-Taravale wildlife sanctuary, 80km to the north-west, taking with them the groceries. McAllister stayed in town to complete a few jobs.

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Categories: Climate

UK must consider food and climate part of national security, say top ex-military figures

The Guardian Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 10:00

Former army and navy leaders urge government to think beyond military capability in advance of key defence review

Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.

Earlier this year Keir Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending in the UK since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%.

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Categories: Climate

Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla

The Guardian Climate Change - May 29, 2025 - 08:00

The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way for state-controlled science

Science is under siege.

On Friday evening, the White House released an executive order called Restoring Gold Standard Science. At face value, this order promises a commitment to federally funded research that is “transparent, rigorous, and impactful” and policy that is informed by “the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available”. But hidden beneath the scientific rhetoric is a plan that would destroy scientific independence in the US by giving political appointees the latitude to dismiss entire bodies of research and punish researchers who fail to fall in line with the current administration’s objectives. In other words: this is Fool’s-Gold Standard Science.

Colette Delawalla is a PhD candidate at Emory University and executive director of Stand Up for Science. Victor Ambros is a 2024 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine at the Chan Medical School, University of Massachusetts. Carl Bergstrom is professor of biology at the University of Washington. Carol Greider is a 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine and distinguished professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor of earth and environmental science and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Brian Nosek is executive director of the Center for Open Science and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia

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Categories: Climate