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The Guardian Climate Change

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Latest Climate crisis news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice
Updated: 3 hours 48 min ago

‘Vengeful’ Trump withheld disaster aid and will do so again, ex-officials warn

October 13, 2024 - 06:00

Former administration officials say Trump deliberately denied funds to states he deemed politically hostile

Donald Trump deliberately withheld disaster aid to states he deemed politically hostile to him as US president and will do so again unimpeded if he returns to the White House, several former Trump administration officials have warned.

As Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton have ravaged much of the south-eastern US in the past two weeks, Trump has sought to pin blame upon Joe Biden’s administration for a ponderous response to the disasters, even suggesting that this was deliberate due to the number of Republican voters affected by the storms.

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Categories: Climate

The big picture: Khashayar Javanmardi explores the decline of the Caspian Sea

October 13, 2024 - 02:00

The Iranian photographer reveals the dangers posed to fishermen and farmers by the polluted water in which he used to swim

The world’s largest enclosed body of water, the Caspian Sea, is surrounded by jeopardies. Declining water levels from global heating have been exacerbated by increasing levels of extraction from the Volga and the Ural, the Russian rivers that flow into it. Satellite photographs show the sea shrinking at a dramatic rate. And each year increasing levels of pollutants from the five coastal states that border the Caspian contaminate it with spills from growing numbers of oil and gas fields, and with industrial and domestic waste from expanding coastal towns and cities, a magnet for internal migration.

The Iranian photographer Khashayar Javanmardi grew up on the shores of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and used to count the hours at school before he could return to swim in it. He has spent the past few years, however, documenting the environmental decline along its coastline.

Caspian: A Southern Reflection is published by Loose Joints (£44)

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Categories: Climate

The Observer view on climate change: Hurricane Milton is a portent – but it’s not too late | Observer editorial

October 13, 2024 - 01:00

We are losing in the fight against global warming, it is time to put effort into controlling what we pump into the atmosphere

The havoc unleashed by Hurricane Milton provided unambiguous evidence that we are entering a critical and alarming new phase in the planet’s climate crisis. Rising fossil fuel emissions have triggered increases in ocean temperatures and sea levels to such an extent they are generating some of the most destructive storms ever experienced in Florida. Together with Hurricane Helene earlier, the lives of about 250 people have been claimed and thousands of homes destroyed. Florida has been left reeling and forecasters have warned there is more to come – a lot more.

It is a grim prognosis that should be galvanising Florida’s political leaders into taking urgent action to protect the state. Extraordinarily, this has not been the case. Despite the intensification of hurricanes and worsening flooding over the past decade, governor Ron DeSantis has consistently rejected the idea that global warming poses a threat to Florida or that the phenomenon exists at all. A few weeks ago, he signed a law erasing the words “climate change” from state statutes and effectively pledged the state’s future to burning fossil fuels. Such behaviour is disturbing.

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Categories: Climate

Fears for future of ski tourism as resorts adapt to thawing snow season

October 12, 2024 - 00:00

While some embrace technological innovations, others are forced to close as global heating causes lack of snowfall

Sitting at his window in Västerås, central Sweden, Thomas Ohlander is wondering when the winter season might start for his outdoor adventure business, Do The North. “To schedule a trip we have to be sure of snow,” he says, “And that start date is going backwards at a crazy speed.”

Each year, Ohlander’s local ice-skating club has recorded the first date on which its members managed to get out on the frozen lakes. In 1988, that date was 4 November; this year the prediction is 4 December.

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Categories: Climate

The week around the world in 20 pictures

October 11, 2024 - 14:50

Hurrican Milton, the Middle East crisis, forest fires in Brasília and the Northern Lights: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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Categories: Climate

Drone footage shows rare flooding in the Sahara desert – video

October 11, 2024 - 14:43

Drone footage from 2 October shows how more than a year’s worth of rain fell in two days in September in south-east Morocco, filling up lakes that had been dry for decades

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Categories: Climate

Hurricane Milton live: Harris accuses Trump of ‘playing politics’ with hurricane comments

October 11, 2024 - 09:08

Harris and White House criticize Donald Trump for attacks on federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a category 3 hurricane on Wednesday night at around 8.30pm near Siesta Key in Florida. For about eight hours, the storm brought intense rainfall, flooding, tornadoes, storm surge and strong winds before moving off over the ocean just north of Cape Canaveral as a category 1 hurricane.

Our visual team have put together this visual guide to the damage caused:

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Categories: Climate

Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century

October 11, 2024 - 07:32

More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-eastMorocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

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Categories: Climate

‘It’s mindblowing’: US meteorologists face death threats as hurricane conspiracies surge

October 11, 2024 - 06:00

Storms Helene and Milton have triggered rise of misinformation stoked by Trump and fellow Republicans

Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.

A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.

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Categories: Climate

Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions | George Monbiot

October 11, 2024 - 01:00

The supposedly green project – brainchild of the previous Tory government – will increase emissions, not reduce them

This will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossil fuel-driven boondoggle that will accelerate climate breakdown. Its ticket price of £21.7bn is just the beginning of a phenomenal fiscal nightmare.

There might be a case for a CCS programme if the following conditions were met. First, that the money for cheaper and more effective projects had already been committed. The opposite has happened. Labour slashed its green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to £15bn, and with it a sensible and rational programme for insulating 19m homes.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Categories: Climate

The Guardian view on Hurricane Milton and other disasters: extreme politics is worsening extreme weather | Editorial

October 10, 2024 - 13:36

Climate change deniers such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis lament the impact of such events but won’t acknowledge the underlying problem

The preparations for Hurricane Milton were on a mammoth scale, as the clean-up will be. The storm thankfully lost some of its force before it slammed into Florida, making landfall on Wednesday night as a category 3 hurricane. But many more lives would surely have been lost without the massive evacuation and the deployment of thousands of national guard troops and personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This was the second direct hit on the state in less than a fortnight, after Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 225 people in the US. The hotter ocean temperatures which worsened these storms are hundreds of times likelier because of human-made global heating, a new analysis has shown. Climate change may have increased the rain dumped on parts of the south by Helene by 50%, scientists believe. Another study has suggested such double punches could arrive every three years thanks to the continuing burning of fossil fuels.

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Categories: Climate

A visual guide to the damage caused by Hurricane Milton

October 10, 2024 - 13:22

Graphics show storm that made landfall as category 3 and ushered in intense rainfall, tornadoes and storm surge

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a category 3 hurricane on Wednesday night at around 8.30pm near Siesta Key in Florida. For about eight hours, the storm brought intense rainfall, flooding, tornadoes, storm surge and strong winds before moving off over the ocean just north of Cape Canaveral as a category 1 hurricane.

Some of the hardest-hit areas included Sarasota, Fort Myers, St Petersburg, St Lucie and other cities on the Gulf coast. Storm surge warnings were in effect along Florida’s east coast to Georgia’s Altamaha Sound.

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Categories: Climate

Tornadoes, mass outages and deaths: what to know about Hurricane Milton’s impact

October 10, 2024 - 12:52

Tempest brought up to 10ft of storm surge and left millions at risk from flooding after hitting Florida on Wednesday

Hurricane Milton has killed at least nine people and left extensive property damage across Florida, hitting some areas previously affected by Hurricane Helene last month.

Here are the key takeaways from what we know about its impact and what experts are saying about a hurricane that it had been feared could be one of the worst in the state’s history.

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Categories: Climate

Harvest in England the second worst on record because of wet weather

October 10, 2024 - 08:55

Wheat haul in England estimated to be down by 21%, with Britain’s wine producers also hit hard

England has suffered its second worst harvest on record – with fears growing for next year – after heavy rain last winter hit production of key crops including wheat and oats.

The cold, damp weather, stretching from last autumn through this spring and early summer, has hit the rapidly developing UK wine industry particularly hard, with producers saying harvests are down by between 75% and a third, depending on the region.

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Categories: Climate

Hellish heat and primal fear: Croatian firefighters on frontline of climate crisis

October 10, 2024 - 07:19

Firefighters are stoic about the risks they face but say climate change has affected every part of the job

A short drive and a world away from the tourist-thronged old town of Split, past retirees clambering out of cruise ships and bachelor parties stumbling into beachside bars, Ivan Sanader studied a smouldering hillside that stank of smoke.

The night before, he had fought a fire that charred the slope and threatened to engulf a roadside restaurant. Now, the commander of a mobile firefighter centre in Croatia was issuing orders to stop it flaring back up.

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Categories: Climate

‘I think, boy, I’m a part of all this’: how local heroes reforested Rio’s green heart

October 10, 2024 - 04:00

A restoration project to revitalise the Atlantic forest is making the city a much more liveable place in the face of increasingly frequent heatwaves

From his vantage point at the top of the hill where he grew up, Luiz Alberto Nunes dos Santos gazes down at the city below. White apartment blocks are nestled among mountains covered with luxuriant vegetation. The statue of Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain appear through gaps in the trees. The sea is just about visible in the distance.

Rio de Janeiro’s striking blend of urban infrastructure and tropical jungle, cradled between granite peaks and the sea, earned the city Unesco world heritage status in 2012. Yet few people realise that the verdant forests cloaking Rio’s dramatic hills are largely the result of human intervention.

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Categories: Climate

Hurricane Milton: nearly 3 million without power in Florida as category 3 storm makes landfall

October 10, 2024 - 03:46

Powerful cyclone slams into coast, bringing deadly storm surge to Sarasota, Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers

A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, leaving more than 2 million homes without power, while bringing “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage.

The cyclone, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8:30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

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Categories: Climate

Collapsing wildlife populations near ‘points of no return’, report warns

October 10, 2024 - 02:26

As average population falls reach 95% in some regions, experts call for urgent action but insist ‘nature can recover’

Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.

Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest average declines in recorded wildlife populations, with a 95% fall, according to the WWF and the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report. They were followed by Africa with 76%, and Asia and the Pacific at 60%. Europe and North America recorded comparatively lower falls of 35% and 39% respectively since 1970.

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Categories: Climate

On the climate crisis, housing and more, politicians avoid clarity because it demands action | Greg Jericho

October 9, 2024 - 22:50

Our leaders may prefer complexity because it means they can defer taking action – but doing something about emissions reduction or slow wage growth is actually not that complex

After spending any time analysing policy you quickly realise that politicians expend a supreme level of effort to avoid doing the obvious, and instead they do complex things that neither solve a problem nor appease their opponents.

For politicians, the problem with clarity is that it demands action. Complexity provides safety because action can more easily be avoided. And so the obvious and clear are painted as “extreme”, while the complex is regarded as “mature”.

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Categories: Climate

Some Floridians choose to stay despite warnings of life risk: ‘We have faith in the Lord’

October 9, 2024 - 16:22

As Hurricane Milton approaches many cities were largely deserted but some people decided to shelter in place

Most left when they were told to. But some chose to stay, even though officials warned Hurricane Milton would turn their homes into coffins.

Along Florida’s Gulf coast, where millions of people were urged to get out of harm’s way, cities were largely deserted on Wednesday afternoon as time ran out to evacuate. Those who remained were advised to shelter in place as best they could. Others who fled spoke of their dread at what, if anything, they would return to once the storm had passed.

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Categories: Climate