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Climate
Documentarian Alex Gibney Teams Up With a Google Billionaire
Jeff Bezos fund ends support for climate group amid fears billionaires ‘bowing down’ to Trump
Concerns raised as $10bn Bezos Earth Fund halts funding for Science Based Targets initiative, which monitors companies’ decarbonisation
Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has halted its funding of one of the world’s most important climate certification organisations, amid broader concerns US billionaires are “bowing down to Trump” and his anti-climate action rhetoric.
The Bezos Earth Fund has stopped its support for the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an international body that assesses if companies are decarbonising in line with the Paris agreement. Earth Fund had been one of two core funders of the SBTi, with the Ikea Foundation: the two accounted for 61% of its total funding last year. Earth Fund’s decision was first reported by the FT.
Continue reading...Trump’s EPA to prioritize AI, lobbyists and staff cuts in ‘mission to traumatize’
New EPA administrator Lee Zeldin’s pillars pledge to help auto industry and have no mention of the climate crisis
A new and starkly different vision for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been outlined by the Trump administration – one that involves mass staff cuts, an influx of industry lobbyists and, unusually, the promotion of artificial intelligence as a key agency priority.
A set of five “pillars” issued by new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, to guide the agency, set up under President Richard Nixon in 1970 to protect US public health and the environment, does include one referencing “clean land, air and water for every American”.
Continue reading...Hottest January on record mystifies climate scientists
EU monitor says global temperatures were 1.75C above preindustrial levels, extending run of unprecedented highs
A run of record-breaking global temperatures has continued, even with a La Niña weather pattern cooling the tropical Pacific.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the warmest January on record, with surface – air temperatures 1.75C above preindustrial levels.
Continue reading...Dog treat made from lab-grown meat on sale in UK as retailer claims a ‘world first’
Chicken used in dog treat was cultivated from single sample of cells taken from one egg, says manufacturer Meatly
A dog treat made from lab-grown meat has gone on sale at Pets at Home in a move the retailer claims is a world first.
Chick Bites are made from plant-based ingredients combined with cultivated meat, which is produced by growing cells and does not require the raising or slaughter of animals.
Continue reading...January Was Hottest January on Record, Scientists Report
Urgent action needed to ensure UK food security, report warns
The UK’s food supply has been threatened by recent events, such as the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic
Urgent action is needed to secure the UK’s food supply in the face of climate change-induced extreme weather, the imposition of tariffs and global insecurity, a report has warned.
Days after the US president, Donald Trump, warned Europe would be next for tariffs on trade after he imposed tax levies on Canada, China and Mexico, the report said the UK’s post-second world war food system was no longer fit for purpose, and the country’s food security was in a precarious state.
Continue reading...On the edge: Massachusetts home at peril of tumbling into bay from erosion
Multimillion-dollar home perched at edge of Cape Cod Bay in Wellfleet affected by erosion accelerated by climate crisis
The waters of Cape Cod Bay are coming for the big brown house perched on the edge of a sandy bluff high above the beach. It’s just a matter of when.
Erosion has marched right up to the concrete footings of the multimillion-dollar Massachusetts home where it overlooks the bay. Massive sliding doors that used to open onto a wide deck, complete with a hot tub, are now barricaded by thin wooden slats that prevent anyone from stepping through and falling 25ft to the beach below.
Continue reading...Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats
Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’
Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reportedly entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Department of Commerce in Washington DC today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency.
“They apparently just sort of walked past security and said: ‘Get out of my way,’ and they’re looking for access for the IT systems, as they have in other agencies,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former Noaa official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “They will have access to the entire computer system, a lot of which is confidential information.”
Continue reading...Minister promises to spend £250m to top up England’s flood defences
Labour pledges to protect 66,500 more properties, criticising previous Tory efforts
Ministers are topping up flood defence investment in England to a “record” £2.65bn, after accusing the previous government of “putting lives at risk” by under-spending.
An extra £250m is being pledged on top of the £2.4bn previously announced, to shore up defences and protect an extra 66,500 properties from flooding over a two-year period, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.
Continue reading...Trump Rehires Neil Jacobs, Former NOAA Chief Involved in ‘Sharpiegate’
Deaths of 30,000 fish off WA coast made more likely by climate change, research finds
Analysis drawing on satellite data and 13 climate models concludes that global heating makes marine heatwaves 20 times more likely
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Marine heatwaves linked to the deaths of 30,000 fish off the Western Australia coast were up to 100 times more likely to occur because of climate change, new research has found.
Waters off WA have been affected by prolonged marine heatwaves since September.
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Continue reading...E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More
How Trump’s Trade War Could Affect Climate Change
Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree
The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”.
A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which has raised temperatures, and the sensitivity of the climate to increasing fossil fuels emissions are greater than thought.
Continue reading...Rightwing MEPs threaten huge funding freeze for environmental NGOs
Freeze to EU’s LIFE programme funding would deprive 30 NGOs of up to 70% of annual incomes
Several environmental NGOs could be effectively shut down in Europe, if a defunding push by rightwing MEPs is successful, campaigners say.
At the same time that centre and far right MEPs are revving up strategies to defang, deregulate or decapitate the European Green Deal, an EU plan to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, a proposed funding freeze in the European Parliament would weaken green groups.
Continue reading...Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point
Scientists say unusually mild temperatures linked to low-pressure system over Iceland directing strong flow of warm air towards north pole
Temperatures at the north pole soared more than 20C above average on Sunday, crossing the threshold for ice to melt.
Temperatures north of Svalbard in Norway had already risen to 18C hotter than the 1991–2020 average on Saturday, according to models from weather agencies in Europe and the US, with actual temperatures close to ice’s melting point of 0C. By Sunday, the temperature anomaly had risen to more than 20C.
Continue reading...Scientists brace ‘for the worst’ as Trump purges climate mentions from websites
Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop impacting Americans’ lives, say experts
Donald Trump’s administration has started to remove or downgrade mentions of the climate crisis across the US government, with the websites of several major departments pulling down references to anything related to the climate crisis. Climate scientists said they were braced “for the worst”.
A major climate portal on the Department of Defense’s website has been scrapped, as has the main climate change section on the site of the Department of State. A climate change page on the White House’s website no longer exists, nor does climate content provided by the US agriculture department, including information that provides vulnerability assessments for wildfires.
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