The Guardian

Research shows more than a quarter of US population suffered ill health last summer, and it’s likely to get worse

The summer of 2020 brought fear of Covid-19, social distancing – and heat-related health problems that affects tens of millions of Americans.

Related: Last month was worst July for wildfires on record, say scientists

Soldier in his 20s, who was swimming in croc-infested waters, and friend who went to help, suffer serious injuries

A soldier has head, chest and arm injuries after being mauled by a crocodile that also attacked an army colleague who went to his aid in far north Queensland.

The men, who were reportedly swimming in croc-infested waters north of the Lockhart River on Friday afternoon when the attack occurred, have been airlifted to Cairns with serious injuries.

An ‘unholy pact’ and several politically fuelled decisions have UN advisers to Unesco concerned the committee is not acting to protect the world’s most special places

Along Thailand’s border with Myanmar, in rich forests filled with rare plants and animals, the indigenous Karen people are fighting for the right to live on their traditional land.

Last month, the UN’s human rights agency said the Karen continued to be forcibly evicted from the Kaeng Krachan forests. Thailand’s application to inscribe the forests as a world heritage site must be denied, the agency said.

FoI request shows BEIS employees and ministers took the flights after signing of net zero emissions target

Employees at the government department responsible for tackling climate change have taken 612 domestic flights since June 2019, when the UK signed the net zero emissions target into law, figures show.

Of the total flights taken – which are single journeys and do not include travel to Northern Ireland – by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), 34 of them were by government ministers.

The prime minister was asked about his plans for transitioning away from fossil fuels. He chose to distract, not answer

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Many people working in politics and the media openly discuss the fact that Boris Johnson’s gaffes are entirely calculated. I once met someone who used to work for him and they told me that before he appears in the media, Johnson ruffles his hair to ensure he appears more dishevelled than he actually is.

This ruse has been useful to our prime minister throughout his political career. It has helped him to climb the greasy pole without facing any consequences for accusations of serial lying, allegations of bigotry or his involvement in the planned assault of a journalist. And it is what we must bear in mind when we consider his latest comments on the closure of British coal mines.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including baby pandas, common red soldier beetles and flight from wildfires

Agricultural runoff from farms and livestock operations creates oxygen-depleted areas inhospitable to animal and plant life

Scientists recently surveyed the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Louisiana and Texas and what they discovered was a larger-than-average area of oxygen-depleted water – a “dead zone” where nothing can live.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists announced their findings this week: about 4m acres of habitat in the Gulf are unusable for fish and bottom-dwelling species. The researchers had estimated a smaller dead zone this year, predicting an average-sized area.

The prime minister’s core belief is that things will work out, and there’s no need for a plan B. We’ve seen how that works

First came the plague, then the flood, and now the fire. This has been a biblical summer, one where the doomsday warnings of climate scientists have felt increasingly close to the bone.

Horror stories of Chinese commuters drowning as underground train tunnels suddenly filled with water have merged uncomfortably in our imaginations with images of flash floods in east London, wildfires burning up the Turkish coast and a Canadian heatwave so fierce it cooked mussels in their shells on the beach.

Exclusive: IPCC says gas, produced by farming, shale gas and oil extraction, playing ever-greater role in overheating planet

Cutting carbon dioxide is not enough to solve the climate crisis – the world must act swiftly on another powerful greenhouse gas, methane, to halt the rise in global temperatures, experts have warned.

Leading climate scientists will give their starkest warning yet – that we are rushing to the brink of climate catastrophe – in a landmark report on Monday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish its sixth assessment report, a comprehensive review of the world’s knowledge of the climate crisis and how human actions are altering the planet. It will show in detail how close the world is to irreversible change.

Satellite images confirm snow decrease spurred by climate crisis as glaciers recede and communities reliant on mountain water face shortages

The Andes mountain range is facing historically low snowfall this year during a decade-long drought that scientists link to global heating.

Scant rain and snowfall are leaving many of the majestic mountains between Ecuador and Argentina with patchy snow cover or no snow at all as dry, brown earth lies exposed.

Minister responsible for climate conference travelled mainly during winter and spring and did not isolate

The government minister responsible for this year’s UN climate change conference in Glasgow has flown to 30 countries in the past seven months, it has been reported.

Alok Sharma, who was appointed as president of Cop26 in January, has visited countries including Brazil, Indonesia and Kenya since February, according to the Daily Mail.

Hottest Games in history will put pressure on organisers to rethink sport in light of climate change

Olympic athletes and volunteers in Tokyo are being “tortured” by dangerous heat, meteorologists have warned, as the hottest Games in history puts pressure on organisers to rethink the future of sport in a climate-disrupted world.

Temperatures hit 34C in the Japanese capital on Thursday with humidity of nearly 70%. Athletes and sports scientists say this combination of heat and moisture has led to “brutal” conditions, which must be avoided at future events.

Homes still lack water and power three weeks after at least 187 people died

Three weeks after catastrophic floods in western Germany devastated communities and claimed at least 187 lives, those affected are calling on the government to increase its effort to salvage homes and businesses.

More than 20 people are still missing after the disaster, which came after heavy rainfall caused scores of rivers to burst their banks, and led to the loss of large numbers of houses, roads and bridges.

A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say

Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.

The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.

Invoking climate change as the sole cause of terrible shortages lets those in authority off the hook

• Kaveh Madani is a former deputy vice-president of Iran

Iran’s water bankruptcy has been in the news lately, prompting deadly protests in Khuzestan province that also garnered the attention of global media. But this kind of problem is neither new or unique in the country. Drying rivers, vanishing lakes, shrinking wetlands, declining groundwater levels, land subsidence, sinkholes, desertification, soil erosion, dust storms, air, water and waste pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation and wildfires are among the other familiar signs of Iran’s environmental devastation.

Khuzestan, in south-west Iran, is known globally for its rich oil and gas resources. But this wealthy province’s contribution to Iran’s development is not just its oil and gas revenue. Khuzestan is also water-rich compared with most of the country. So, its large rivers have been blocked by gigantic dams to store water for agriculture, industrial and domestic uses and hydroelectricity production. Considerable amounts of water have been also transferred from its rivers’ tributaries to dry regions in central Iran.

President outlines plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions and tightening pollution standards for cars and trucks

Joe Biden is setting a goal for half of all new US vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 while also tightening pollution standards for cars and trucks, in a barrage of action aimed at reducing the largest source of planet-heating gases in America.

On Thursday, the White House outlined its plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions from vehicles, with Biden set to sign an executive order demanding that 50% of all new cars and trucks sold by the end of the decade be powered by electric batteries.

This summer will have highest number of fledged chicks since 2002, according to Moorland Association

The endangered hen harrier is continuing its recovery from near extinction in England with this summer set to have the highest number of chicks fledging since 2002.

Of 24 successful nests producing at least 77 fledged chicks this summer, 19 were on moors managed for red grouse, according to the Moorland Association.

As irrigated crops compete with fish for scarce water, farmers in the Klamath Basin lament they may be the last generation to work the land

They are land rich and resource poor. Most have hundreds of acres of fertile soil, some thousands, but little money in the bank and – most importantly – no water.

Now the young farmers of the Klamath Basin, an agricultural community on the border of Oregon and California, fear they might be the last generation of their kind.

Musan, a gallery of sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor exploring our relationship with nature, has opened off Ayia Napa

The ‘heat dome’ over the Pacific north-west brought unprecedented death to sealife. And the effects will be felt for years to come

As a marine biologist who has studied the effects of extreme weather events for decades, I expected it would be bad. The ‘heat dome’ brought record high air temperatures to the Pacific north-west, and for the plants and animals living along our extensive coastlines the late June timing could not have been worse. The scorching heatwave coincided with some of the lowest daytime tides of the year, leaving tidal lands exposed to hot air and sun for hours during the hottest part of the day, several days in a row.

And bad it was. In the days immediately after the historic heatwave, I visited shorelines that looked and smelled like death. Mussel, oyster and clam shells open wide with rotting tissue exposed, snails and chitons no longer able to cling to the rock, kelp and surfgrass bleached white and sloughing off dead tissue. Similar scenes were reported throughout the Salish Sea of Washington and British Columbia by scientists, shellfish growers and the general public, with mortality estimates ranging from millions to billions of individuals. We’ve never seen anything quite like this before.