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The chronicle of a fire foretold | Rebecca Solnit
The current fires in Los Angeles are reminders of the costs of forgetting
The fires raging in and around Malibu are huge, and they’re terrible, and they’re also the latest in a series of catastrophic fires in Los Angeles county and the region, the latest consequence of heat and drought and wind that have long created the region’s volatile fire weather.
The climate crisis has made it hotter and dryer and made wildfire worse here and across the west and around the world, but this region’s ecology has always been wedded to fire. Homes built in and around natural landscapes – canyons, chaparral coastal hills, forests, mountainsides – with a history of wildfire that are pretty much guaranteed to burn again sooner or later create the personal tragedies and losses and the pressure for fire crews to try to contain the blazes. But suppressing the blazes lets the fuel load build up, meaning that fire will be worse when it comes.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
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Scientists prize neutrality – that doesn’t cut it any more. In 2025, they must fully back the climate movement | Bill McGuire and Roger Hallam
With 2024 set to go down as the hottest year on record, we know that what is coming is truly horrifying
The past 12 months have seen our world enter new territory. Last year will go down as the first time that the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above preindustrial times over a calendar year. We could crash permanently through the 1.5C guardrail within the next five years, and shatter the 2C limit as soon as 2034. This will almost certainly result in the tipping points for collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets being crossed, committing us to the drowning of coastal towns and cities.
In years to come, we will look back at this time and ask the same question that future generations will ask: why didn’t we stop this catastrophe?
Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and author of Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant’s Guide
Roger Hallam is co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil
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Labour’s agriculture plans will increase chicken waste in rivers, say campaigners
Steve Reed says planning rules ‘have got in the way’ of farmers and apologises for ‘shock’ of inheritance tax change
Labour’s proposal to loosen planning regulations for farmers will deluge rivers with chicken faeces, environmental campaigners have warned.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, promised farmers on Thursday they would be able to build larger chicken sheds, but experts have said this would create “megafarms” and contribute to river pollution.
Continue reading...Australia weather: rainy week forecast for Sydney and Brisbane – but BoM says summer isn’t over yet
Bureau of Meteorology says showers and storms a regular feature of Australian summer, but warm and dry periods still to come
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Showers are expected to continue for Sydney and Brisbane throughout much of the coming week, but summer isn’t over yet, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
In fact, senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said showers and storm activity were a regular feature of the Australian summer, especially for northern Australia, as well as south-east Queensland and eastern New South Wales.
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Continue reading...I’ll never be a summer person but I’ve found ways of surviving the season and even enjoying it – sometimes | Indigo Perry
Everyone around me is commenting on the loveliness of the weather and I’m wiping the sweat off my upper lip and hoping for a nice southerly
I’m not made for heatwaves. If my DNA could talk, it would tell me about how it still dreams of the windswept Scottish island that was home to my ancestors and then ask why it’s so hot outside.
Many people talk about suffering low moods in winter but I’m the opposite. I adore winter but easily get sad in summer. Everyone around me is commenting on the loveliness of the weather and I’m wiping the sweat off my upper lip and squinting at the rain radar again in case I missed a hint of a cloudburst or nice southerly that’s on its way to save me. It can be isolating to be one of the seemingly few who fail to revel in a season that others thrive in.
Continue reading...EPA to require municipal waste incinerators monitor for toxic emissions
New rule hailed as major step toward reining in source of local toxic air pollution that hits low-income neighborhoods
The EPA plans to require the nation’s municipal waste incinerators to monitor for dangerous air emissions, a move environmental groups have hailed as a major step toward reining in a staggering source of localized toxic air pollution that most frequently hits low-income neighborhoods.
Municipal incinerators’ stacks often spew hazardous pollutants like dioxins, particulate matter, PFAS, carbon monoxide, acid gases, or nitrogen oxides. The substances are linked to cancer, developmental disorders and other serious diseases, but still are burned with limited or patchwork oversight.
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