The Guardian

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a bearded seal, peacocks and mating humpback whales

Australia has a rich history of environmental protest. We shouldn’t threaten communities trying to speak out

Coming from Sri Lanka, where dissent has been violently quashed and stable government broke down, I know how important it is to sound the alarm when our democracy is being threatened.

My first experience of protest was watching my primary school teachers strike to gain better working conditions. The biggest was the rally to protest the war in Iraq in Melbourne. The most moving have been those to free asylum seekers from detention.

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Thames Head is now more than 2 miles downstream as forecaster warn of further high temperatures to come

The source of the Thames has dried up during the drought, with river experts saying it is the first time they have seen it happen while forecasters warn of further high temperatures to come.

The river’s source has shifted from its official start point outside Cirencester during the continuing dry weather and is now more than 2.4 miles (4km) downstream.

As Guardian analysis reveals that human-caused global heating is driving more frequent and deadly weather disasters, there is no place for denialism any more

Revealed: how climate breakdown is supercharging toll of extreme weather

In November 2015, prolonged and heavy rainfall dumped 341mm (13.4in) of rain in Honister, Cumbria, within 24 hours. Just as in 2009 and again in 2013, when massive rainstorms inundated Cumbria and the West Country, lives were lost, thousands of homes were flooded, it took months to recover from and cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

But how far have these winter storms been caused by the climate crisis? Until 2015, the stock answer of government and meteorologists was that it was impossible to attribute the climate emergency to any particular weather event and that they were most likely extreme, once-in-a-century disasters and by implication not much for politicians to worry about.

John Vidal is a former Guardian environment editor

Guardian analysis shows human-caused global heating is driving more frequent and deadly disasters across the planet, in most comprehensive compilation to date

The devastating intensification of extreme weather is laid bare today in a Guardian analysis that shows how people across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts brought by the climate crisis.

The analysis of hundreds of scientific studies – the most comprehensive compilation to date – demonstrates beyond any doubt how humanity’s vast carbon emissions are forcing the climate to disastrous new extremes. At least a dozen of the most serious events, from killer heatwaves to broiling seas, would have been all but impossible without human-caused global heating, the analysis found.

The 12 events deemed virtually impossible without humanity’s destabilisation of the climate span the globe, including intense heatwaves in North America, Europe and Japan, soaring temperatures in Siberia and sweltering seas off Australia.

Seventy-one per cent of the 500 extreme weather events and trends in the database were found to have been made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change, including 93% of heatwaves, 68% of droughts and 56% of floods or heavy rain. Only 9% of the events were less likely, mostly cold snaps and snowstorms.

One in three deaths caused by summer heat over the last three decades was the direct result of human-caused global heating, implying a toll of millions.

Huge financial costs are also now attributable to human influence on the climate, such as $67bn of damages when Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas and Louisiana in 2017, which was 75% of the total damages from the storm.

Global heating has been hurting us for far longer than commonly assumed, with traces of its influence as far back as the heatwaves and droughts that triggered the infamous Dust Bowl in the US in the mid-1930s.

Wildlife with little data faces double the risk of dying out – which may mean many more species are endangered than previously thought

Plants and animals that do not have enough data to be properly assessed appear to be at twice the risk of extinction as those that have been evaluated, meaning more species may face being wiped off the planet than previously thought, a study has warned.

Researchers looked at the extinction risk of species assessed on the red list of endangered species and found that 56% of species in the data deficient (DD) category were threatened, compared with 28% of those that had been assessed.

The Babakina anadoni – less than half the size of a little finger – was sighted off the Isles of Scilly

An extremely rare multi-coloured sea slug has been spotted in British waters for the first time.

The multi-coloured sea slug, Babakina anadoni, measures just 2cm in length and was confirmed as a first sighting by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust.

Rising temperatures have made beach sand so warm that eggs incubate above 31C and are overwhelmingly born female – experts

Nearly every sea turtle born on the beaches of Florida in the past four years has been female, according to scientists.

The spike in female baby turtles comes as a result of intense heatwaves triggered by a growing climate crisis that is significantly warming up the sands on some beaches, as CNN reported this week.

Thames Water’s £250m desalination facility out of action amid supply capacity doubts

A £250m desalination plant launched 12 years ago to increase drinking supplies during long dry spells has been put on hold, as water companies in England and Wales face growing political pressure over their management of the supply crisis.

The Thames Water plant at Beckton, east London, opened in 2010 with plans to supply up to 1 million people during emergencies, but that ambition has been scaled back amid doubts as to when the facility can begin operating.

Veteran diver struck by ‘intricate detail’ sent footage to be uploaded to Jellyfish app

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A diver has captured footage of an unusual-looking jellyfish off the coast of Papua New Guinea, sparking interest among researchers.

The video was captured by Dorian Borcherds, who owns Scuba Ventures in Kavieng, in the New Ireland province of PNG.

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Australia’s environment minister says billionaire Palmer’s Central Queensland Coal proposal would likely have ‘unacceptable impacts’ on reef

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The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has said she intends to block a coalmine project backed by mining billionaire Clive Palmer that would have dug for the fossil fuel just 10km from Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef coastline.

Palmer’s Central Queensland Coal project would have mined up to 18m tonnes a year from two open-cut pits near Rockhampton.

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Fast-growing species of branching and plate-like corals push cover up but are also the preferred prey for crown-of-thorns starfish

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Marine scientists monitoring the Great Barrier Reef say they have recorded the highest levels of coral cover in 36 years in the north and central areas, but warned any recovery could be quickly overturned by global heating.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s annual long-term monitoring report says the fast-growing corals that have driven coral cover upwards are also those most at risk from marine heatwaves, storms and the voracious crown-of-thorns (COTS) starfish.

The latest comments from the former PM, who once said he was ‘agnostic’ on climate change, remind us some remain unmoved by science

The former prime minister John Howard remains an elder statesman among conservatives so when he’s asked on primetime television if he doubts that climate change is happening, his response is revealing.

That moment happened on the ABC on Tuesday evening during an interview with actor David Wenham, who asked: “You’re not refuting the fact that there’s climate change?”

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has condemned the record profits of energy companies during a global energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 'It is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from this energy crisis on the back of the poorest people and communities and at a massive cost to the climate,' he said during a press conference where he presented the third report by the Global Crisis Response Group. Guterres called on governments to tax these profits and use the funds to support vulnerable people through the energy crisis

• Humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chief
• Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’

António Guterres urges governments to introduce windfall tax and use money to support vulnerable people

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the record profits of oil and gas companies as immoral and urged governments to introduce a windfall tax, using the money to help those in the most need.

Speaking in New York on Wednesday Guterres said the “grotesque greed” of the fossil fuel companies and their financial backers had led to the combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year hit almost $100bn.

Just two companies have banned use as firms in drier areas wait until last minute to avoid annoying customers

Water companies are in a standoff with the government over hosepipe bans as they resist bringing in restrictions despite growing concerns about rivers running dry and the prospect of drought in England and Wales.

The decision to restrict water usage is made by individual water companies, which are advised by the government and charities as part of the National Drought Group.

Passing legislation tethers the nation to the fact that moral people have to do what we can to avert the collapse of the planet’s climate

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There have been a lot of bad days for the climate in the Australian parliament. Days that make you rage. Days that make you weep.

That infamous vote in 2009 sinking Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme. Years of apocalyptic screeching about nonexistent carbon taxes. The repeal of the clean energy scheme. That day when Scott Morrison brandished a lump of coal supplied by the Minerals Council of Australia and told MPs across the chamber not to be scared.

Results of 10-year project reveal that rewilding areas can boost biodiversity and crop yields

Putting farmland aside for nature does not have a negative effect on food security, a study has found.

A 10-year project by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology revealed that nature-friendly farming methods boost biodiversity without reducing average yields.

As the climate crisis escalates, oil companies are posting record profits. We must end the expansion of oil, gas and coal and accelerate a fair energy transition

This week, major oil and gas companies reported 11-figure profits in the second quarter. At the same time, inflation has reached 40-year highs around the world and recessions loom. The obscene profits of the fossil fuel industry are jarring when set against the many households currently struggling to afford basic heating, cooling and food needs.

Today, high energy prices are one of the leading factors driving inflation and those prices are getting embedded into every facet of daily life, most obviously at the gas pump but also in delivery costs that affect everything from produce to paper towels.

Tzeporah Berman is the international program director at Stand.earth and the chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative

Conservationists find native magnolia for first time since 1925 after original habitat destroyed by deforestation

A conservation team has rediscovered a native magnolia tree in a forest in Haiti for the first time since it was lost to science in 1925.

Boasting pure white flowers and uniquely shaped leaves, the northern Haiti magnolia (Magnolia emarginata) was found originally in the forest of Morne Colombo, which has since been destroyed by deforestation. It was considered endangered and featured on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, and its discovery has sparked new hope for the potential rewilding of Haiti’s forests.