Winning images from this year’s competition, which will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum, London, from 15 October

The land on which 10% of the world’s population lives could be lost to sea level rise if carbon emission trends continue, new maps and visualizations show.

Sixteen major wildfires have burned in Butte County over the last two decades, including the 2018 Camp and 2020 North Complex fires, major blazes that together burned more than 470,000 acres. Now, an innovative plan to rehabilitate the forests scarred by those fires projects a potentially dismal climate situation in the decades ahead: erratic rainfall and less snow, drought-stressed trees, and hotter, longer dry seasons more hospitable to insects than vegetation. And it asks, what if the decimated forests surrounding the county’s seven ridge communities could be restored as buffers in the hotter, drier, more fire-prone climate?

Over the last five years, the 100 top ranked law firms in the US facilitated $1.36tn of fossil fuel transactions, represented fossil fuel clients in 358 legal cases and received $35m in compensation for their work to assist fossil fuel industry lobbying, according to a “climate scorecard” published in August.

Scientists, firefighters and experts have contrasting opinions on the effects of forest thinning on wildfires

President Joe Biden signed proclamations Friday reversing former President Donald Trump’s rollbacks of three national monuments — two in Utah and a third off the East Coast — restoring them to their original boundaries and reinstating more stringent protections.

Offending content will include anything that refers to climate change as a hoax or scam, claims which deny the science that shows the planet is warming or those that deny greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels or other human activity contribute to climate change.

California's agricultural empire is facing a shakeup, as a state law comes into effect that will limit many farmers' access to water. ‍ The limits on that water use will force many farmers to scrap practices that relied on unfettered access to that shrinking underground reservoir. "It's unsustainable to continue over-drafting the aquifer the way we are," said Rick Cosyns, a farmer near the town of Madera, just north of Fresno. "It's just a race to the bottom." (Cosyns was interviewed in August. He died unexpectedly on Sept. 7.)

Extreme heat is one of the deadliest consequences of global warming. But in a state that prides itself as a climate leader, California chronically undercounts the death toll and has failed to address the growing threat of heat-related illness and death, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation.

“Even one day of breathing in polluted air is dangerous for our health,” wrote Jessie Kochaver, Campaign Associate with Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center

Carbon offsets are allowing the world's biggest polluters to forge ahead with business plans that are threatening global climate goals, the head of Greenpeace International said in an interview.

No longer. Today, more than 95 percent of California’s coastal kelp are gone, devoured by a population explosion of purple sea urchins in the past seven years. This proliferation has led to dead zones known as “urchin barrens,” where carpets of urchins can be seen for miles. One such barren encompasses 400 miles of coastline from Marin County to the Oregon border.

"This spill — in virtually the same spot as a devastating 1990 spill — is a reminder that petroleum and water are a dangerous mix along California's precious coast and that continued reliance on oil kills birds and other wildlife, threatens our public health, and harms local economies and recreational opportunities," she added. The groups say air pollution increases the risk of premature death, asthma attacks, cancer, and other adverse health effects.

Lauren Sloss describes her experiences sailing throughout California's Delta, one of the state's main water sources.

The island has rare elements needed for electric cars and wind turbines. But protesters are blocking one project, signaling that mining companies must tread carefully.

Floating wind projects take advantage of steady winds that blow offshore. Those faster, steadier winds can produce more energy. Wind power increases with the cube of wind speed. Bigger turbines with longer blades capture more wind and are more aerodynamically efficient. How they overcome obstacles such as interference with fisheries, environmental damage, and high cost will influence how many, and which ones, get built.

It turns out that the Senator wielding this awesome power – America’s climate decider-in-chief, one might call him – has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron.

Industrial livestock systems designed to extract ever greater commercial value from farmed animals have repeatedly been shown to depend on cruelty to animals and the armies of workers processing them.

3-NOP is one of several methods being developed to reduce cow methane.

Though vehemently opposed by Republicans and West Virginia’s own Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, there is some evidence that the proposals contained in the spending plans – which some have likened to the 1930s New Deal – are more popular among grassroots Republicans than their political representatives. That may be especially true in West Virginia, which is a poor, largely white and working class state whose residents would stand to greatly benefit from the Biden effort." "When the nonpartisan nonprofit WorkMoney surveyed more than 50,000 of its 2 million members nationwide, it found 81% of respondents said they supported this plan. That includes 90% of liberals who took the survey, 81% of moderates and 66% of conservatives.

After years of lawsuits, mounting anger from homeowners and lingering uncertainty over the site’s safety, Southern California Gas Co., which operates the storage facility, and its parent company announced agreements Monday to pay up to $1.8 billion to settle years of legal action.

While big corporations tell Americans how virtuous they are, they lobby up a storm against Biden’s social policy bill

"I just reconnected to nature and my past, where I was like a kid in the woods," Matzeldelaflor said. "And I realized there's so much healing in being outside in nature, getting your hands in the dirt and doing good work."

There have been some positive moves in recent days, with China saying it will end its financing for highly polluting coal-fired power stations abroad – though not at home – and the US doubling its climate finance to vulnerable nations.

“It’s about reputation and credibility,” he said. Formally joining the broader global effort, he said, was “good for the environment, good for the economy and good for trade.”

As the first presidential envoy for climate, he wants to persuade world leaders to “do what the science tells us.” With global climate talks less than two months away, he faces a tough path.

Despite an appeal by Gov. Gavin Newsom for all Californians to voluntarily cut water use by 15%, Southern California has lagged in conservation efforts and even increased water consumption slightly in Los Angeles and San Diego, according to newly released data.

Green Acre Park is an important stop along the creek’s journey and another example of how a community exists side by side with the natural resources that sustain it. For the residents that live near the park, and for the city of Gainesville as a whole, the protection and preservation of Hogtown Creek is vital to ensuring that future generations will have clean drinking water for years to come.

“This is America. We’ve already been deprived and red-lined out of the American dream. Is fresh drinking water, the thing that’s life, too much to ask? Make it make sense.”

We have to make sure that those jobs are available not just to the current workforce, but that they’re committed to workforce development, apprenticeship programs, especially bringing in people of color and people from marginalized communities.

This approach — telling people to solve a crisis by changing their own habits — is a tried and true corporate tactic, pioneered by the tobacco and plastics industries. Now, fossil-fuel giants like Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil have spent millions to convince the public that consumer choices and lifestyle changes will solve the problem.

The study concluded that there's a correlation between negative emotions, such as worry, and beliefs that government responses to climate change have been inadequate. So the way governments have been addressing — or failing to address — climate change is directly affecting the mental health of young people.

Mr. Soong and Mr. Tea spent hours watching seven different species of milkweed butterfly, including Blanchard’s ghost and the ismare tiger butterfly, scratching caterpillars, both dead and alive, so violently with mighty claws on their feet that the caterpillars’ internal juices oozed out. They said the behavior can’t be described as predatory because many caterpillars survive the encounters.

President Biden warned Americans on Tuesday that Hurricane Ida’s lethal destruction was the sure sign of a nation and world “in peril” from climate change and said drastic action would be needed to prevent extreme weather patterns from worsening. “They all tell us this is code red,” Mr. Biden said

The ambitious 150,000-acre proposal promises eco-friendly architecture, sustainable energy production and a purportedly drought-resistant water system. A so-called "15-minute city design" will allow residents to access their workplaces, schools and amenities within a quarter-hour commute of their homes.

Every day of wildfire exposure upped the risk by half a percentage point on average, and each week — the average each expectant mother was exposed to during the period — worked out to a 3.4 percent increase in preterm births.

Will this be the year that California finally reckons with its past and climate changed future? You’d think so, as wildfires threaten Lake Tahoe and reservoirs dry up after two dry winters. Arax is not so sure. ARAX: As an aggregate, agriculture is defying all logic. There’s a kind of delusion that my book speaks to — a kind of a communal madness. Here we are, in the midst of the driest 10-year period in California’s recorded history, and we’re planting ever-more crops and trees on poor ground, which requires deep, deep extraction from the aquifer.

Tens of thousands of people were without power in the Philadelphia area, where a portion of the Vine Street Expressway that runs through the center of the city was submerged. “Al Gore gave us a wake-up call 20 years ago and no one paid attention,” said Frank Feingold, 76...

Globally, more than a million plants and animals face extinction due to habitat loss, climate change and other factors related to human activity, and this alarming loss of biodiversity is only accelerating. In California, conservationists and biologists have identified scores of species in potential peril, including many icons of the state’s beloved wildlands — chinook salmon, giant sequoias, Joshua trees, desert tortoises, California red-legged frogs, gray whales. Now, a hellish summer of extreme fire activity, drought and heat are again pushing some species to the brink of oblivion. Seized by a newfound urgency, state and federal biologists, research institutions, conservation organizations and zoos have been racing to save the most threatened species with a bold campaign of emergency translocations, captive breeding programs and seed banks. Some have likened the effort to a modern-day Noah’s Ark.

The San Onofre reactors are among dozens across the United States phasing out, but experts say they best represent the uncertain future of nuclear energy. “It’s a combination of failures, really,” said Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the top federal enforcer, between 2009 and 2012, of the situation at San Onofre.

On one side, proponents of nodule extraction claim it could save the world, while opponents warn it could unleash fresh ecological mayhem. For better or worse, these mineral spheres are going to play a critical role in determining our future – either by extricating us from our current ecological woes or by triggering even more calamitous outcomes.

In May, the Biden administration and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced a plan to bring floating offshore wind to California. They have identified two sites: a nearly 400-square mile area north-west of Morro Bay, which could host 380 floating wind turbines, and another further north off Humboldt Bay. Together these projects could bring up to 4.6GW of clean energy to the grid, enough to power 1.6m homes.

Recent research has shown that small increases in air pollution are linked to significant rises in depression and anxiety. It has also linked dirty air to increased suicides and indicated that growing up in polluted places increases the risk of mental disorders. Other research has found that air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence and is linked to dementia. A global review in 2019 concluded that air pollution may be damaging every organ in the human body.

Congress enacted legislation in 2016 designed to tighten oversight of the toxic chemical approval process. Instead, career EPA managers have worked to sabotage the process by altering risk assessments, waging harassment campaigns against employees, internally accelerating the approval process and retaliating against staff who raise concerns, according to the four agency scientists.

But the most promising concrete technologies utilize very little energy to incorporate CO2. That’s because when CO2 is incorporated into concrete, it’s literally piped into the mix. The natural tumbling motion of churning concrete is all the energy that’s needed to transform the CO2 into a calcium carbonate, a substance that doesn’t just act as filler but also actively strengthens the concrete mix. All of this tough calcium carbonate means the concrete needs less cement in its mix, which is another environmental savings, since cement is the worst polluting component of concrete.

"We consider it most likely that it's due to females, mums, not laying eggs in these areas," he said. The lighting also disturbed their feeding behavior: when the team weighed the caterpillars, they found that those in the lighted areas were heavier.

We need to address the root of the problem, redesigning the system and tackling the throwaway society once and for all.” The government intends to make companies pay the full cost of recycling and disposing of their packaging and has consulted on introducing the scheme, called “extended producer responsibility” on a phased basis from 2023.

The researchers said the findings were likely to apply to most cities in developed nations, and cutting air pollution could benefit millions of people. “Air pollution is modifiable, and on a big scale as well, reducing population-level exposure,” said Joanne Newbury, of the University of Bristol, part of the research team. “We know there are interventions that can be used, such as expanding low-emission zones. Mental health interventions at the individual level are actually quite difficult.”

Meanwhile, the federal government is taking the first steps to vastly increase the size of the nation’s carbon dioxide pipeline network as a way of fighting climate change. Our investigation reveals that such pipelines pose threats that few are aware of and even fewer know how to handle.

“I am ‘report fatigued.’ We need action,” Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s atmospheric sciences program, wrote at Forbes this month. He called for more planning from local and federal governments for a transition to “a renewable energy economy,” and urged leaders to “address the disproportionate burden” of climate disasters on “vulnerable, poor, and marginalized populations.” The experts HuffPost spoke to all had the same antidote to climate dread: Take action. The climate crisis is urgent, the changes needed are at a massive scale, but it doesn’t mean individuals can’t make a difference.“We are now in an all-hands-on-deck moment,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s program on climate change communication. “We need everybody doing everything they can, at the individual level, community level, national government and business level. This is all of society.”