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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Environment

  • Satellite image of crooked green shape amid brown hills.

    California lake so green with algae it’s visible from space, says Nasa

    Bright hue of Clear Lake, state’s largest freshwater basin, may have been caused by cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton
  • The view of a snow-covered road from the front windshield of a car in motion

    Texas sees snowploughs in May as ‘DVD-sized’ hailstones strike state

  • Aerial view of US Steel factory with smokestacks in Granite City, Illinois.

    New US rules aim to crack down on toxic air pollution by steelmakers

  • A farmer sweeps up hay in a muddy barn with cows

    New bill could bail out US farmers ruined by ‘forever chemical’ pollution

  • MixCollage-29-May-2024-02-08-PM-1277

    Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were ‘likely junk’, analysis says

  • a pregnant person touching their belly

    Heatwaves increase risk of early births and poorer health in babies, study finds

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CO2 tracker

  • The most important number of the climate crisis:

    422.2

    atmospheric CO2 in parts per million, 7 May 2024

    72.2

    above safe level,
    passed 1990

    24.9

    increase in past
    10 years

    280300320340360380400420 parts per million1960199020142024Safe level: 350ppmLatest: 422.2ppm

Latest news

  • Keir Starmer in front of the words Change and Scottish Labour

    Starmer admits he flew by private jet to clean energy jobs rally in Scotland

  • Pink oyster mushrooms growing in a home kit

    Mushroom-growing boom could cause biodiversity crisis, warn UK experts

    RHS fears non-native fungi could alter microbiology of soil when grown in gardens or disposed of in compost heaps
  • A Chester zoo employee in blue scrubs hold one of the recently hatched Humboldt penguins.

    Endangered penguin chicks hatched at Chester zoo named after plants

    Zoo welcomes 11 Humboldt chicks, its highest number in a decade, including Thistle and Daffodil
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Big oil uncovered

  • A flooded street in a Vermont town with a Highway 14 sign sticking out of the water.

    ‘Game-changing’: Vermont becomes first state to require big oil to pay for climate damages

  • A large pollution-spewing oil refinery.

    Majority of US voters support climate litigation against big oil, poll shows

  • A man wearing a navy blue suit, yellow tie and white shirt speaks

    Senate Democrats to investigate Trump’s reported big oil ‘deal’

  • body of water with snowy mountains beyond

    Young Alaskans sue state over fossil fuel project they claim violates their rights

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America's dirty divide

  • composite photo of mountain range on the left and man wearing sunglasses and grey top on the right

    In one of the US’s hottest deserts, utilities push gas rather than solar

  • A man in a T-shirt stands in a kitchen with a chair on a table and mud on the floor

    Displaced by climate disasters, ageing Americans struggle to find housing

  • a sign reads "warning restricted area"

    EPA announces $300m funding to clean up US former industrial sites

  • Brandon Johnson, the Chicago mayor

    Wealthy residents of Chicago may live 30 years longer than poorer ones. Can a new mayor help close the gap?

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Our unequal earth

  • A selection of junk foods

    I went a week without ultra-processed foods. Here’s what I learned

  • Piles of red paper bags with black hexagons on them.

    Latin America labels ultra-processed foods. Will the US follow?

  • Four grocery-store shelves filled with brightly colored bags of Doritos, mostly in shades of orange.

    The US food industry has long buried the truth about their products. Is that coming to an end?

  • Full frame of brightly colored gummy candy.

    What are those weird ingredients in our favorite US packaged foods?

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The age of extinction

  • Illegal cannabis greenhouses dot the landscape in the shadow of Mount Shasta in Siskiyou county, northern California.

    California comedown: how illicit cannabis farms have left a wilderness where ‘you’re lucky to see a lizard’

  • A line of people walk along the edge of a filed thickly planted with sunflowers. People can be seen among the flowers taking pictures.

    Nature’s ghosts: how reviving medieval farming offers wildlife an unexpected haven

    Agriculture is often seen as the enemy of biodiversity, but in an excerpt from her new book Sophie Yeo explains how techniques from the middle ages allow plants and animals to flourish
  • Two people in blue protective overalls and masks use absorbent pads to wipe oil from a small mangrove on a beach

    Half of world’s mangrove forests are at risk due to human behaviour – study

    The loss of the ecosystems, which are vast stores of carbon, would ‘be disastrous for nature and people across the globe’, says IUCN
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Seascape

  • Charles Saunders shows off an enormous dungeness crab, caught as part of a population survey by the Nuxalk Guardian Watchmen.

    ‘It was like the wild west’: meet the First Nations guardians protecting Canada’s pristine shores

  • A view shows Anemones at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge at a depth of around 500m, in this undated handout picture. University of Bergen, Centre for Deep Sea Research

    Norway sued over deep-sea mining plans

    • Jackass Penguin, Stony Point, Betty's Bay, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa / (Spheniscus demersus)<br>FKNHCP Jackass Penguin, Stony Point, Betty's Bay, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa / (Spheniscus demersus)

      Penguins in peril: why two bird charities are taking South Africa’s environment minister to court

    • Two small Korean girls and a woman stand in front of an aquarium as a white whale looks at them through the glass

      ‘Free Bella’: campaigners fight to save lonely beluga whale from Seoul mall

    • A middel-aged white woman sits on a rock by the sea, wearing a wetsuit and surrounded by other wetsuits

      The search for the perfect wetsuit: is there one that doesn’t harm the planet?

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Opinion

  • Adam Morton

    On Australia’s climate and extinction crises, the major parties both have questions to answer

    Adam Morton
  • Graham Readfearn

    The claim of a $600bn carbon capture windfall for Australia is based on heroic assumptions and selective analysis

    Graham Readfearn
  • Adam Morton

    Labor’s strategy is to reduce emissions from gas – but not if that means doing anything to cut its use

    Adam Morton
  • Graham Readfearn

    Gina Rinehart, One Nation and the Greens all oppose Glencore’s plan to store CO2 in the Great Artesian Basin – why?

    Graham Readfearn
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Multimedia

  • A black-and-white ruffed lemur pup hanging off a branch.

    Week in wildlife – in pictures: playful baby lemurs, kingfisher tug-of-war and a beautiful bee-eater

  • A man looks through the window of a property which has the slogan and logo of a political party painted on it and a bicycle resting against it

    India’s ‘sinking island’ looks to election for survival – in pictures

    For many on Ghoramara, the general election is about the climate crisis and survival. The island, 150km south of Kolkata, has lost nearly half its area to soil erosion in the past two decades and could disappear if a solution is not found
  • Hundreds of Indian farmers who have been protesting outside Delhi endured a savage heatwave

    Protesting Indian farmers endure severe heatwave – video

    Hundreds of Indian farmers who have been protesting outside Delhi endured a savage heatwave
  • Three young parrots patiently wait for their parents to return with food in Chandigarh, India.

    Week in wildlife – in pictures: dormouse gets a checkup, a lucky kingfisher and a waving seal pup

  • Gliese 12b is the size of Earth, or slightly smaller, like Venus. And its surface temperature is estimated to be a balmy 42C

    Australian student helps discover potentially habitable planet the size of Earth – video

  • Fulani families of semi-nomadic herders in a tent

    ‘I pray to you not to shoot us’: Mali’s Fulani herders languish in camps after violence – in pictures

  • Building surrounded by flood water

    The flooded buildings of Porto Alegre, Brazil – in pictures

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