The Guardian

Analysis of thousands of species finds some invertebrates and plants also getting smaller, while others are increasing in body size

A global analysis of thousands of animal and plant sizes has found that species are shrinking, an effect most clearly found by researchers in changes to the body size of fish, which are getting smaller.

Species such as the thorny skate, a north Atlantic fish that can grow up to a metre in length, have become smaller, while smaller-bodied species such as mackerel are growing in abundance, according to the researchers, changing the composition and functioning of ecosystems.

A golden orb has been discovered on the ocean floor off the Pacific coast of Alaska. The smooth object with an intriguing hole at the centre was found at the depth of about two miles by a remote-controlled submarine explorer. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US, made the discovery. Researchers are conducting tests to work out what the object is.

Countries forced to choose between climate resilience, fighting poverty and paying debts, says Ban Ki-moon

The flow of climate adaptation finance to Africa must increase up to tenfold by 2035 to meet the deepening effects of the climate crisis, according to research.

As the Africa Climate Summit continued in Nairobi, campaigners spoke of the desperate need to get funding to people who are already being affected by climate change. Africa, the region most impacted by the climate emergency, receives only 3% of global climate finance.

Speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' summit in Indonesia, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said 'greater cooperation' was desperately needed on the climate front.

'We have just learned that this past June, July and August were officially the hottest three-month period on record,' Guterres said. 'The so-called dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting'

• World meteorologists point to ‘vicious cycle’ of heatwaves and air pollution

Scientists analysing DNA of object that could be an egg from an unknown sea creature or a marine sponge

A mysterious golden orb that may be an egg laid by an unknown sea creature has been discovered on the ocean floor off the Pacific coast of Alaska.

The smooth object with an intriguing hole at the centre was found at a depth of about two miles by a remote-controlled submarine explorer.

Up to 180 vehicles can be charged at any one time in as little as 15 minutes at the just-opened Gigahub

The UK’s largest electric vehicle charging hub has opened at Birmingham’s NEC conference centre with the power to charge up to 180 vehicles at a time in as little as 15 minutes.

The multimillion-pound site will provide the UK’s highest concentration of super-fast chargers in one location after the biggest-ever private investment in Britain’s charging infrastructure.

Study shows resilience workers, mostly refugees and immigrants, poorly protected as top firms ‘pad their pockets by cutting costs’

Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found.

The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires.

Tweet viewed millions of times claimed ground temperature was being confused with air temperature

As thermometers creep upwards, it has become harder and harder to deny the reality of the climate crisis. Some, however, are questioning whether temperatures are being measured properly in the first place.

In a tweet seen millions of times, the influencer Robin Monotti said in July that media outlets were repeating a report from the European Space Agency (ESA) that confused air temperature with ground temperature, which is generally higher.

Billionaire says renewables will drive Australia’s next commodities boom as his Grok Ventures finalises acquisition

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The tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has renewed plans by the Sun Cable project to develop giant solar farms in inland Australia to supply electricity to Darwin – and to Singapore via an undersea cable.

Grok Ventures, the private investment company of Cannon-Brookes, on Thursday finalised its acquisition of Sun Cable, months after a dispute between its billionaire backers threatened to derail the huge solar project.

To mark Threatened Species Day, Perth zoo has shared footage of 13 newborn numbat joeys. With less than 2,000 remaining in the wild, it is hoped these baby marsupials will contribute to the survival of the species. Careers and zookeepers have provided around-the-clock care for the joeys, raising three by hand after one of the mothers was showing signs of mismothering. They are expected to be released into the wild by the end of the year

• What even is a planigale? That’s right, it’s time for MARSUPIAL NEWS

• Home of endangered marsupial hit by state-sanctioned logging in NSW, environmentalists say

• Environmentalists condemn Australia’s ‘woeful record’ after 48 plants and animals added to threatened species list

Secondhand fashion supports many livelihoods, but by nurturing local resources the country can wean itself off the used rag trade

“Stop buying secondhand clothes, these clothes are for dead people.” At the opening ceremony of the Sino-Uganda Mbale industrial park in late August, our president announced an unexpected ban on imported secondhand clothes. The audience responded to Yoweri Museveni’s rhetoric with laughter. A dead white person’s clothes being packed and shipped to Uganda is a compelling image with which to galvanise the masses.

But secondhand clothes don’t come from the dead. That’s not how fast-fashion systems work. People don’t die quickly enough for fast fashion, only trends do.

Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s east Africa global development correspondent, Caroline Kimeu, about the challenges and tensions at play at the inaugural climate summit

Read more reporting from Caroline Kimeu here

States face challenges getting federal aid amid dwindling Fema funds and laws that don’t consider heat a climate disaster

The spiraling costs of extreme weather in the US are hitting hard as more than 60 million Americans are under heat alerts this week, experts say, even though federal law does not explicitly consider heatwaves to be climate disasters.

Temperatures on Tuesday climbed toward record highs across the north-east, upper midwest and mid-Atlantic, with the south also bracing for soaring temperatures later in the week.

Decision on regulations for ground-level ozone – AKA smog – avoids election-year battle with industry groups and Republicans

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying plans to tighten air quality standards for ground-level ozone – better known as smog – despite a recommendation by a scientific advisory panel to lower air pollution limits to protect public health.

The decision by the EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, means that one of the agency’s most important air quality regulations will not be updated until well after the 2024 presidential election.

Michael Gove, who pledged to boost protections, now plans to scrap them. No wonder natural habitats are threatened

• Stella Creasy is the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe and the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow

This week politicians have again been talking crap – the kind that ends up clogging our waterways and streams and making them toxic. Nutrient neutrality sounds like something a health food drink promises. In layperson’s terms, these policies ensure that the materials leaching into our natural water sources help to maintain a healthy oxygen balance so that all – fish, fowl or human – can imbibe it safely. This can be put at risk by sewage discharges into our rivers. In political terms, however, these debates are proof that this government is happy to sell our precious environmental standards down the river.

As a result of farming and development, phosphates and nitrates get discharged into the soil and then to rivers, leading to eutrophication – waterways choking with algae.

The climate crisis and soaring temperatures are worsening air quality, WMO says, with ‘knock-on effects’

Heatwaves across the world are worsening air quality and pollution, scientists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said extreme temperatures are not the only hazard from heatwaves but that they also cause pollution-related health problems.

Heavy rain in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria has triggered flash floods that have left at least seven dead and many missing. In Turkey, some holiday makers were feared dead after flash flooding at a campsite in Kirklareli province, near the border with Bulgaria. Nikolai Denkov, the prime minister of Bulgaria, said two people died and three others were missing.

• Seven dead as severe storms trigger flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria

Areas of Greece report 75.4cm of rain late on Tuesday – the highest level recorded since 2006

Fierce rainstorms have battered neighbouring Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, triggering flooding that caused at least seven deaths, including those of two holidaymakers swept away by a torrent at a campsite in northwestern Turkey.

Ali Yerlikaya, the Turkish interior minister, said four other people were missing after the flash flood at the campsite in Kirklareli province, near the border with Bulgaria. He said about 12 holidaymakers were present when the waters hit.

The de facto ban on building onshore wind sites has been lifted, but experts say they remain at the whims of ‘quixotic decisions by local councils’

UN-developed Marine Sand Watch estimates 6bn tonnes dug up a day, well beyond rate at which it is replenished

One million lorries of sand a day are being extracted from the world’s oceans, posing a “significant” threat to marine life and coastal communities facing rising sea levels and storms, according to the first-ever global data platform to monitor the industry.

The new data platform, developed by the UN Environment Programme (Unep), tracks and monitors dredging of sand in the marine environment by using the AIS (automatic identification systems) data from ships. Using data from 2012-19, Marine Sand Watch estimates the dredging industry is digging up 6bn tonnes of marine sand a year, a scale described as “alarming”. The rate of extraction is growing globally, Unep said, and is approaching the natural rate of replenishment of 10bn to 16bn tonnes of sand flowing into the sea from rivers and needed to maintain coastal structure and ecosystems.