The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight on Tuesday, the closest to catastrophe in the timepiece's 78-year history. The Chicago-based group cited Russia's nuclear threats during its Ukraine invasion, growing tensions in the Middle East, China's military pressure near Taiwan, and the rapid advancement of AI as key factors. The symbolic clock, created in 1947 by scientists including Albert Einstein, moved one second closer than last year's setting.

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Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more people in Europe by the end of the century, a study has found, with the lives lost to stronger heat projected to outnumber those saved from milder cold. From a report: The researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would die each year as a result of "suboptimal temperatures" even under the most optimistic scenario for cutting planet-heating pollution. The hottest plausible scenario they considered showed a net increase of 80,000 temperature-related deaths a year. The findings challenge an argument popular among those who say global heating is good for society because fewer people will die from cold weather. "We wanted to test this," said Pierre Masselot, a statistician at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study. "And we show clearly that we will see a net increase in temperature-related deaths under climate change." The study builds on previous research in which the scientists linked temperature to mortality rates for different age groups in 854 cities across Europe. They combined these with three climate scenarios that map possible changes in population structure and temperature over the century.

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The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2025 (PDF) highlights misinformation as the top global risk due to generative AI tools and state-sponsored campaigns undermining democratic systems, while cyberespionage ranks as a persistent threat with inadequate cyber resilience, especially among small organizations. From a report: The manipulation of information through gen AI and state-sponsored campaigns is disrupting democratic systems and undermining public trust in critical institutions. Efforts to combat this risk have a "formidable opponent" in gen AI-created false or misleading content that can be produced and distributed at scale, the report warned. Misinformation campaigns in the form of deepfakes, synthetic voice recordings or fabricated news stories are now a leading mechanism for foreign entities to influence "voter intentions, sow doubt among the general public about what is happening in conflict zones, or tarnish the image of products or services from another country." This is especially acute in India, Germany, Brazil and the United States. Concern remains especially high following a year of the so-called "super elections," which saw heightened state-sponsored campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion. But while it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish AI-generated fake content from human-generated one, AI technologies, in itself, is low in WEF's risk ranking. In fact, it has declined in the two-year outlook, from 29 in last year's report to 31 this year. Cyberespionage and warfare continue to be a reason for unease for most organizations, ranked fifth in the global risk landscape. According to the report, one in three CEOs cited cyberespionage and intellectual property theft as their top concerns in 2024. Seventy-one percent of chief risk officers say cyber risk and criminal activity such as money laundering and cybercrime could severely impact their organizations, while 45% of cyber leaders are concerned about disruption of operations and business processes, according to WEF's Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 report. The rising likelihood of threat actor activity and sophisticated technological disruption is listed as immediate concerns among security leaders.

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Microsoft will pay to restore parts of Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic forests [non-paywalled source] in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of carbon credits, becoming the latest Big Tech player to bet that nature-based solutions can offset an artificial intelligence-driven surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Financial Times: The $3.2tn US company told the Financial Times it had signed a deal to buy 3.5mn credits over 25 years from Re.green, a Brazilian start-up which buys up farming and cattle land. It restores the land by planting native tree species, in projects financed through carbon credits and timber sales. Neither company disclosed a value for the deal, but recent market analysis suggests it could be worth around $200mn. Microsoft's recent dealmaking has made it one of the biggest buyers of nature-based carbon removals globally. The deal comes as groups including Microsoft, Google and Amazon invest heavily in data centres to cope with the huge demand stemming from the growth of generative AI. But the buildout is leading to a surge in their energy usage and complicating their pledges to investors to curb emissions.

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According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century. The Guardian reports: "We're seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles," said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton. Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Organization, overseas authorities and UK records to see how height and weight have changed with living conditions. The latter was measured by the human development index (HDI), a score based on life expectancy, time in education and per capita income, which ranges from zero to one. Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women. To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm. "To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958," Halsey said. Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled "The sexy and formidable male body: men's height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits," the scientists speculate that women's sexual preferences may have fueled a trend for taller, more muscular men -- although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular. Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favors men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others. "Women can find men's height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made," said Halsey. "As they've grown up, they haven't been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they've reached more of their height potential. It's an indicator that they're well-made."

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More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found. The Guardian: Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef after heat stress began to turn the corals white in early 2024. Researchers said they encountered "catastrophic" scenes at the reef. Only 92 coral colonies escaped bleaching entirely and by July, when the analysis for the study ended, 193 were dead and a further 113 were still showing signs of bleaching. Prof Maria Byrne, a marine biologist at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study, has been researching and visiting the island for 35 years.

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France's low-carbon electricity output surged to more than 95% of annual power production for the first time in 2024, as rising nuclear and hydro generation squeezed the use of fossil fuels. From a report: Rebounding atomic production together with record output from renewables boosted France's electricity production to a five-year high of 536.5 terawatt hours, transmission network operator Reseau de Transport d'Electricite said in a statement on Monday. Net exports almost doubled to record of 89 terawatt hours as domestic demand remain subdued due to sluggish economic growth. Electricite de France SA's nuclear fleet -- the backbone of western Europe's power system -- has largely recovered from maintenance issues that worsened the continent's energy crisis in 2022. That's helping keep a lid on electricity prices, even as the cost of natural gas has risen since Russia's attack on Ukraine.

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The European Commission intends to propose a ban on the use of PFAS, or "forever chemicals", in consumer products, with exemptions for essential industrial uses, the EU's environment chief told Reuters. From a report: PFAS, or Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, do not break down in the environment, raising concerns about the consequences of them building up in ecosystems, drinking water and the human body. They are used in thousands of items, from cosmetics and non-stick pans to aircraft and wind turbines, due to their resistance to extreme temperatures and corrosion. "What we know we are looking for is a ban in consumer products," EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told Reuters in an interview. "This is something that is important for us human beings, of course, but also for the environment, but I think also for the industry so they know how they can phase out PFAS."

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CNN has the latest on "a startling discovery made public in July that metallic rocks were apparently producing oxygen on the Pacific Ocean's seabed, where no light can penetrate. "Initial research suggested potato-size nodules rich in metals, predominantly found 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) below the surface in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, released an electrical charge, splitting seawater into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis." The unprecedented natural phenomenon challenges the idea that oxygen can only be made from sunlight via photosynthesis. Andrew Sweetman, a professor at the UK's Scottish Association for Marine Science who was behind the find, is embarking on a three-year project to investigate the production of "dark" oxygen further... Uncovering dark oxygen revealed just how little is known about the deep ocean, and the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ, in particular. The region is being explored for the deep-sea mining of rare metals contained in the rock nodules. The latter are formed over millions of years, and the metals play a key role in new and green technologies... Understanding the phenomenon better could also help space scientists find life beyond Earth, [Sweetman] added... Officials at NASA are interested in the research on dark oxygen production because it could inform scientific understanding of how life might be sustained on other planets without direct sunlight, Sweetman said. The space agency wants to run experiments to understand the amount of energy required to potentially produce oxygen at higher pressures that occur on Enceladus and Europa, the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, respectively, he added. Those moons are among the targets for investigating the possibility of life. Deep-sea mining companies are aiming to mine the cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium and manganese contained in the nodules for use in solar panels, electric car batteries and other green technology. Some companies have taken issue with Sweetman's research. Critics say deep-sea mining could irrevocably damage the pristine underwater environment and that it could disrupt the way carbon is stored in the ocean, contributing to the climate crisis. CNN's article also notes Massachusetts microbiologist Emil Ruff, who found unexpected oxygen far below the Canadian prairie in water isolated from the atmosphere for more than 40,000 years. "Nature keeps surprising us," he said. "There are so many things that people have said, 'Oh, this is impossible,' and then later it turns out it's not."

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Sweden has begun constructing a long-term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, making it only the second country after Finland to build such a site. It is not expected to be completed until the 2080s, but once finished, it will securely house radioactive waste for up to 100,000 years. Reuters reports: The Forsmark final repository, about 150 kilometers north of Stockholm on Sweden's east coast, will consist of 60 km of tunnels buried 500 meters down in 1.9 billion year old bedrock. It will be the final home for 12,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, encased in 5 meter long, corrosion-resistent copper capsules that will be packed in clay and buried. The facility will take its first waste in the late 2030s but will not be completed until around 2080 when the tunnels will be backfilled and closed, Sweden's Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said. [...] The Forsmark repository will cost around 12 billion crowns($1.08 billion) and be paid for by the nuclear industry, SKB said. It will have room to hold all the waste produced by Sweden's nuclear power plants. However, it will not hold fuel from future reactors. Sweden plans to build 10 more reactors by 2045.

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More than 150 Nobel and World Food prize laureates have signed an open letter calling for "moonshot" efforts to ramp up food production before an impending world hunger catastrophe. From a report: The coalition of some of the world's greatest living thinkers called for urgent action to prioritise research and technology to solve the "tragic mismatch of global food supply and demand." Big bang physicist Robert Woodrow Wilson; Nobel laureate chemist Jennifer Doudna; the Dalai Lama; economist Joseph E Stiglitz; Nasa scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig; Ethiopian-American geneticist Gebisa Ejeta; Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank; Wole Soyinka, Nobel prize for literature winner; and black holes Nobel physicist Sir Roger Penrose were among the signatories in the appeal coordinated by Cary Fowler, joint 2024 World Food prize laureate and US special envoy for global food security. Citing challenges including the climate crisis, war and market pressures, the coalition called for "planet-friendly" efforts leading to substantial leaps in food production to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050. The plea was for financial and political backing, said agricultural scientist Geoffrey Hawtin, the British co-recipient of last year's World Food prize. [...] The world was "not even close" to meeting future needs, the letter said, predicting humanity faced an "even more food insecure, unstable world" by mid-century unless support for innovation was ramped up internationally.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not consider whether to quash lawsuits brought by Honolulu seeking billions of dollars from oil and gas companies for the damage caused by the effects of climate change, clearing the way for the cases to move forward. The legal battle pursued in Hawaii state court is similar to others filed against the nation's largest energy companies by state and local governments in their courts. The suits claim that the oil and gas industry engaged in a deceptive campaign and misled the public about the dangers of their fossil fuel products and the environmental impacts. A group of 15 energy companies asked the Supreme Court to review a decision from the Hawaii Supreme Court that allowed a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Honolulu, as well as its Board of Water Supply, to proceed. The suit was brought in Hawaii state court in March 2020, and Honolulu raised (PDF) several claims under state law, including creating a public nuisance and failure to warn the public of the risks posed by their fossil fuel products. The city accused the oil and gas industry of contributing to global climate change, leading to flooding, erosion and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. These changes, they said, have led to property damage and a drop in tax revenue as a result of less tourism. The energy companies unsuccessfully sought to have the case moved to federal court, arguing that the claims raised by Honolulu under state law were overridden by federal law and the Clean Air Act. A state trial court denied their efforts to dismiss the case. The oil and gas industry has argued that greenhouse-gas emissions "flow from billions of daily choices, over more than a century, by governments, companies and individuals about what types of fuels to use, and how to use them." Honolulu, the companies said, was seeking damages for the "cumulative effect of worldwide emissions leading to global climate change." The Hawaii Supreme Court ultimately allowed (PDF) the lawsuit to proceed. The state's highest court determined that the Clean Air Act displaced federal common law governing suits seeking damages for interstate pollution. It also rejected the oil companies' argument that Honolulu was seeking to regulate emissions through its lawsuit, finding that the city instead wanted to challenge the promotion and sale of fossil fuel products "without warning and abetted by a sophisticated disinformation campaign." "Plaintiffs' state tort law claims do not seek to regulate emissions, and there is thus no 'actual conflict' between Hawaii tort law and the [Clean Air Act]," the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled. "These claims potentially regulate marketing conduct while the CAA regulates pollution." The oil companies asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling from the Hawaii high court and urged it to stop Honolulu's lawsuit from going forward. Regulation of interstate pollution is a federal area governed by federal law, lawyers for the energy industry argued. [...] The Supreme Court in June asked the Biden administration to weigh in on the cases and whether it should step into the dispute. In a filing submitted to the Supreme Court before the transfer of presidential power, the Biden administration urged the justices to turn away the appeals, in part because it said it is too soon for them to intervene.

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As an ecological disaster devastated two coastal California cities, more than 7,500 firefighters pushed back against the wildfires. 900 of them are inmates, reports NPR. That's about 12%: California is one of more than a dozen states that operates conservation camps, commonly known as fire camps, for incarcerated people to train to fight fires and respond to other disasters... There are now 35 such camps in California, all of which are minimum-security facilities... When they are not fighting fires, they also respond to floods and other disasters and emergencies. Otherwise, the crews do community service work in areas close to their camp, according to the state corrections department... A 2018 Time investigation found that incarcerated firefighters are at a higher risk for serious injuries. They also are more than four times as likely to get cuts, bruises or broken bones compared to professional firefighters working the same fires, the report found. They were also more than eight times as likely to face injuries after inhaling smoke, ash and other debris compared with other firefighters, the report said. "Two of the camps are for incarcerated women," reports the BBC. One of them — since released — remembers that "It felt like you were doing something that mattered instead of rotting away in a cell," according to the nonprofit new site CalMatters. They can also earn credits that help reduce their prison sentences, the BBC learned from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Friday one local California news report shared the perspective of formerly incarcerated Californian, Matthew Hahn (from a 2021 Washington Post column). "Yes, the decision to take part is largely made under duress, given the alternative. Yes, incarcerated firefighters are paid pennies for an invaluable task. And yes, it is difficult though not impossible for participants to become firefighters after leaving prison," Hahn said. "Despite this, fire camps remain the most humane places to do time in the California prison system." From that 2021 Washington Post column: California prisons have, on average, three times the murder rate of the country overall and twice the rate of all American prisons. These figures don't take into account the sheer number of physical assaults that occur behind prison walls. Prison feels like a dangerous place because it is. Whether it's individual assaults or large-scale riots, the potential for violence is ever-present. Fire camp represents a reprieve from that risk. Sure, people can die in fire camp as well — at least three convict-firefighters have died working to contain fires in California since 2017 — but the threat doesn't weigh on the mind like the prospect of being murdered by a fellow prisoner. I will never forget the relief I felt the day I set foot in a fire camp in Los Angeles County, like an enormous burden had been lifted... [When his 12-man crew was called to fight the Jesusita Fire], the fire had ignited one home's deck and was slowly burning its way to the structure. We cut the deck off the house, saving the home. I often fantasize about the owners returning to see it still standing, unaware and probably unconcerned that an incarcerated fire crew had saved it. There was satisfaction in knowing that our work was as valuable as that of any other firefighter working the blaze and that the gratitude expressed toward first responders included us. There are other reasons for prisoners to choose fire camp if given the opportunity. They are often located in secluded natural settings, giving inmates the chance to live in an environment that doesn't remotely resemble a prison. There are no walls, and sometimes there aren't even fences. Gun towers are conspicuously absent, and the guards aren't even armed.... [C]onsider the guy pushing a broom in his cell block making the equivalent of one Top Ramen noodle packet per day, just so he can have the privilege of making a collect call to his mother. Or think of the man scrubbing the streaks out of the guards' toilets, making seven cents an hour, half of which goes to pay court fees and restitution, just so he can have those couple of hours outside his cage for the day... So, while we may have faced the heat of a wildfire for a few bucks a day, and we may have saved a few homes and been happy doing so, understand that we were rational actors. We wanted to be there, where some of our dignity was returned to us.

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As the ecological disaster continues, CNN reports the Palisades Fire near Malibu, California has burned at least 22,660 acres, left 100,000 peope under evacuation orders, left at least 11 people dead and "destroyed thousands of homes and other structures." From the last reports it was only 11% contained, and "flames are now spreading east in the Mandeville Canyon area, approaching Interstate 405, one of LA's busiest freeways." But the Atlantic's assistant editor wrote Friday that "I have received 11 alerts. As far as I can tell, they were all sent in error." My home is not in a mandatory evacuation zone or even a warning zone. It is, or is supposed to be, safe. Yet my family's phones keep blaring with evacuation notices, as they move in and out of service.... Earlier today, Kevin McGowan, the director of Los Angeles County's emergency-management office, acknowledged at a press conference that officials knew alerts like these had gone out, acknowledged some of them were wrong, and still had no idea why, or how to keep it from happening again. The office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but shortly after this article was published, the office released a statement offering a preliminary assessment that the false alerts were sent "due to issues with telecommunications systems, likely due to the fires' impacts on cellular towers" and announcing that the county's emergency notifications would switch to being managed through California's state alert system... The fifth, sixth, and seventh evacuation warnings came through at around 6 a.m. — on my phone. At the same time a Los Angeles-area couple "spent two hours watching a live stream of flames closing in on their home," reports the Washington Post, and at one point "saw firefighters come through the house and extinguish flames in the backyard." At around 4:30 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the camera feeds gave out and the updates from their security system stopped. About four hours later, [Zibby] Owens's husband got an alert on his cellphone that the indoor sprinkler system had gone off and the fire alarm had been activated. They do not know the current status of their home, Owens said on Tuesday. Real estate agent Shana Tavangarian Soboroff said in a phone interview Thursday that one set of clients had followed their Pacific Palisades home's ordeal this week in a foreboding play-by-play of text alerts from an ADT security system. The system first detected smoke, then motion, next that doors had been opened, and finally fire alerts before the system lost communication. Their home's destruction was later confirmed when someone returned to the neighborhood and recorded video, Tavangarian Soboroff said. Soboroff also lost her home in the fire, the article adds. Burned to the ground are "the places where people raised their kids," Zibby Owens wrote in this update posted Friday. But "even if my one home, or 'structure' as newscasters call it, happens to be mostly OK, I've still lost something I loved more than anything. We've all lost it... [M]y heart and soul are aching across the country as I sit alone in my office and try to make sense of the devastation." [I]t isn't about our house. It's about our life. Our feelings. Our community. Our memories. Our beloved stores, restaurants, streets, sidewalks, neighbors. It's about the homes where we sat at friends' kitchen tables and played Uno, celebrated their birthdays, and truly connected. It's all gone... [E]very single person I know and so many I don't who live in the Palisades have lost everything. Not just one or two friends. Everyone. And then I saw video footage of our beloved village. The yogurt shop and Beach Street? Gone. Paliskates, our kids' favorite store? Gone. Burned to the ground. Gelson's grocery store, where we just recently picked up the New York Post and groceries for the break? Gone... The. Whole. Town. How? How is it possible? How could everyone have lost everything? Schools, homes, power, cell service, cars, everything. All their belongings... All the schools, gone. It's unthinkable.... I've worked in the local library and watched the July 4 parade from streets that are now smoldering embers... It is an unspeakable loss. "Everyone I know in the Palisades has lost all of their possessions," the author writes, publishing what appear to be text messages from friends. "It's gone." "We lost everything." "Nothing left." "We lost it."

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Scientists said the world just reached a grim milestone: the first full year where global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial times. Reuters reports: The milestone was confirmed by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which said climate change is pushing the planet's temperature to levels never before experienced by modern humans. "The trajectory is just incredible," C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters, describing how every month in 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest for that month since records began. The planet's average temperature in 2024 was 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than in 1850-1900, the "pre-industrial period" before humans began burning CO2-emitting fossil fuels on a large scale, C3S said. Last year was the world's hottest since records began, and each of the past ten years was among the ten warmest on record. Britain's Met Office confirmed 2024's likely breach of 1.5C, while estimating a slightly lower average temperature of 1.53C for the year. U.S. scientists will also publish their 2024 climate data on Friday. Governments promised under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent average temperatures exceeding 1.5C, to avoid more severe and costly climate disasters. The first year above 1.5C does not breach that target, which measures the longer-term average temperature. Buontempo said rising greenhouse gas emissions meant the world was on track to soon also blow past the Paris goal - but that it was not too late for countries to rapidly cut emissions to avoid warming rising further to disastrous levels. "It's not a done deal. We have the power to change the trajectory from now on," Buontempo said.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The six biggest banks in the US have all quit the global banking industry's net zero target-setting group, with the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president expected to bring political backlash against climate action. JP Morgan is the latest to withdraw from the UN-sponsored net zero banking alliance (NZBA), following Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. All six have left since the start of December. Analysts have said the withdrawals are an attempt to head off "anti-woke" attacks from rightwing US politicians, which are expected to escalate when Trump is sworn in as the country's 47th president in just under a fortnight. Trump's vows to deregulate the energy sector, dismantle environmental rules and "drill, baby, drill," were a big part of his campaign platform and are expected to form a key part of his blueprint for governing the US, the world's biggest oil and gas producer.

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Thailand has banned plastic waste imports over concerns about toxic pollution, as experts warn that failure to agree a global treaty to cut plastic waste will harm human health. From a report: A law banning imports of plastic waste came into force this month in Thailand, after years of campaigning by activists. Thailand is one of several south-east Asian countries that has historically been paid to receive plastic waste from developed nations. The country became a leading destination for exports of plastic waste from Europe, the US, the UK and Japan in 2018 after China, the world's biggest market for household waste, imposed a ban. Japan is one of the biggest exporters of waste plastic to Thailand, with about 50m kg exported in 2023. Thai customs officials said more than 1.1m tonnes of plastic scraps were imported between 2018 and 2021. Imports of plastic were often mismanaged in Thailand, with many factories burning the waste rather than recycling it, leading to damage to human health and the environment.

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Communities across the U.S. experienced unprecedented warmth in 2024, with numerous cities breaking temperature records set just a year earlier. Phoenix recorded an average temperature of 90.5F and endured 70 days with highs at or above 110F, surpassing its previous record of 55 days. Major metropolitan areas including Chicago, Nashville, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Burlington, Vermont, all registered their warmest year. Even northern Maine cities like Caribou and Houlton saw record-breaking temperatures, reflecting broader global warming trends that made 2024 the hottest year on record worldwide.

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The climate crisis is "wreaking havoc" on the planet's water cycle, with ferocious floods and crippling droughts affecting billions of people, a report has found. The Guardian: Water is people's most vital natural resource but global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record, found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn. Rising temperatures, caused by continued burning of fossil fuels, disrupt the water cycle in multiple ways. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, leading to more intense downpours. Warmer seas provide more energy to hurricanes and typhoons, supercharging their destructive power. Global heating can also increase drought by causing more evaporation from soil, as well as shifting rainfall patterns. Deadly flash floods hit Nepal and Brazil in 2024, while river flooding caused devastation in central Europe, China and Bangladesh. Super Typhoon Yagi, which struck south-east Asia in September, was intensified by the climate crisis, as was Storm Boris which hit Europe the same month. Droughts also caused major damage, with crop production in southern Africa halving, causing more than 30 million people to face food shortages. Farmers were also forced to cull livestock as their pastures dried up, and falling output from hydropower dams led to widespread blackouts.

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If we dissolve acid-neutralizing rocks in the ocean, will it absorb more carbon dioxide? Climate ventures and philanthropic funders have been spending millions of dollars to find out, reports the Washington Post. "Researchers have been exploring this technology for the last five years, but over the last two months, at least a couple of start-ups have begun operation along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts." Planetary, a start-up based in Nova Scotia, removed 138 metric tons of carbon last month for Shopify and Stripe. The start-up Ebb Carbon is running a small site in Washington that can remove up to 100 carbon metric tons per year and committed in October to remove 350,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere over the next decade for Microsoft. Proponents of the technology say it's one of the most promising forms of carbon removal, which experts say will be necessary to meet climate goals even as the world cuts emissions. But in order for this to make a dent, it will need to be scaled up to remove billions, not hundreds of thousands, of metric tons of carbon per year, Yale associate professor of earth and planetary sciences Matthew Eisaman said... Removing carbon could also help prevent ocean acidification. Although the ocean's chemistry has varied through geologic time, it has become more acidic as it has absorbed more carbon from human-generated emissions, said Andy Jacobson, a geochemist at Northwestern University. The increased acidity makes it difficult for some marine organisms to build their skeletons and shells... Researchers are still investigating the best strategy to implement the method. Ebb Carbon, for example, takes existing saltwater waste streams from treatment and desalination plants and uses electricity to alkalize it before returning it to the ocean, said Eisaman, who is the start-up's co-founder and chief scientist. Another method is depositing alkaline minerals or solution into the ocean using a ship; others want to enhance the rock weathering that already occurs on the coast... The growing evidence from early studies in labs and controlled outdoor settings suggest no serious impacts on plankton, which are at the bottom of the food web.

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