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Weeks of fires amid warm and dry spell have decimated ecosystems and threatened endangered species, say experts
Britain’s national parks have warned of a “catastrophic” risk from wildfires this Easter after one of the driest early spring seasons on record.
Park rangers from the South Downs to the Highlands said the prolonged warm weather and breezy conditions had left large areas extremely dry despite recent rain.
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Scientists sound the alarm over substances such as arsenic and lead contaminating soils and entering food systems
About one sixth of global cropland is contaminated by toxic heavy metals, researchers have estimated, with as many as 1.4 billion people living in high-risk areas worldwide.
Approximately 14 to 17% of cropland globally – roughly 242m hectares – is contaminated by at least one toxic metal such as arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel or lead, at levels that exceed agricultural and human health safety thresholds.
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In an exclusive extract from Friederike Otto’s new book, she says climate disasters result from inequality as well as fossil fuel
My research as a climate scientist is in attribution science. Together with my team, I analyse extreme weather events and answer the questions of whether, and to what extent, human-induced climate change has altered their frequency, intensity and duration.
When I first began my research, most scientists claimed that these questions couldn’t be answered. There were technical reasons for this: for a long time, researchers had no weather models capable of mapping all climate-related processes in sufficient detail. But there were other reasons that had less to do with the research itself.
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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Online exhibition collects soundscapes from nature reserves and sites such as Machu Picchu and Taj Mahal
The sounds of wind turbines, rare whales and the Amazonian dawn chorus are among the noises being preserved as part of an exhibition of soundscapes found in world heritage sites.
The Sonic Heritage project is a collection of 270 sounds from 68 countries, including from famous Unesco-designated sites such as Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, as well as natural landscapes such as the monarch butterfly sanctuary in El Rosario, Mexico and the Colombian Amazon.
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Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producers
Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.
Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.
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Thousands go to hospital with respiratory problems after massive dust cloud blows in from Saudi Arabia
Iraq was hit by its most severe sandstorm of 2025 this week, turning skies from blue to an orange haze. Visibility dropped to less than half a mile, causing travel disruptions, with two major airports halting flights, and streets in Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, deserted. Respiratory problems sent thousands to hospital. The storm also affected Kuwait, where wind gusts exceeded 50mph, and visibility in some areas was diminished to zero.
This massive dust cloud originated in Saudi Arabia before being blown into Iraq. While dust storms are common in Iraq, the climate crisis is expected to intensify them across the region in the future, fuelled by desertification in Saudi Arabia and Syria.
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Campaigners say authorities should be doing more to clean up waters around city of nearly 5 million people
On a clear summer’s day in Cape Town, the Milnerton Lagoon was serene, reflecting the bright blue sky and Table Mountain. But there was an unmistakable stench, and up close, the water was murky.
A few hundred metres away, adults and children played in the water as it flowed into Table Bay. On the boardwalk, a sign read: “Polluted water: for health reasons, swimming and recreational activities are at your own risk.”
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Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods
One afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.
Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisiscalled climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view.
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Illegally diverted rivers, seawater and poorly managed building projects have polluted the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. But the Unesco site has a vital role to play in fighting climate change
From the porch of her family home in Nueva Venecia, Magdalena, Yeidis Rodríguez Suárez watches the sunset. The view takes in the still waters of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta wetlands. Pelicans dip their beaks into the lagoon, ripples breaking the glassy surface. Distant mangroves turn from green to deep purple in the dying light.
The 428,000-hectare (1,600 sq mile) expanse of lagoons, mangroves and marshes in Colombia has been a Unesco biosphere reserve since 2000. Yet, for Rodríguez, 27, the natural abundance is little more than an illusion.
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