Silver fire leading to fears about Methuselah, a nearly 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine in eastern part of state
Firefighters have managed to make “strong progress” containing a fire burning through eastern California near the world’s oldest trees, but the blaze remains an active threat, officials said.
Since igniting on Sunday afternoon, the Silver fire has scorched nearly 1,600 acres (647 hectares) in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and forced residents of about 800 homes to evacuate. Strong winds fanned the flames, which burned through dry grass and brush in Inyo county, threatening neighborhoods, endangered species and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/01/2025 - 10:29
Invertebrates may be the unsung heroes of the planet but they have received a lot of love and recognition from Guardian readers. A dazzling array of nominations have flown in for insects, arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals and many more obscure creatures for our invertebrate of the year competition. Natural history reporter Patrick Barkham reviews this year’s shortlist of 10
Vote for the beast that may be as ruthlessly predatory as us – the fen raft spider
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04/01/2025 - 07:01
Conservative party leader says she believes show ‘is based on real story’, a claim described as wholly untrue by writer and co-creator of series
Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, is giving evidence to the Treasury committee. There is a live feed here.
Hughes started by telling the committee that he wrote to the chancellor earlier this year to say that, when his five-year term ends later this year, he would like to have a second term in office.
We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope … mitigate the tariffs.
The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.
So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.
We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that.
Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.
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04/01/2025 - 06:00
Hundreds of projects supported by USAID have been thrown into doubt, as fears grow of an increase in crimes such as poaching and trafficking
When the guns finally fell silent in 1992, little was left alive in Gorongosa national park. During the 15 years of Mozambique’s civil war – in which more than a million people died – the country’s wildlife also paid a terrible price. Poaching for meat and ivory was so intense that the small surviving elephant population rapidly evolved to lose their tusks. Leopards, wild dogs and spotted hyenas had all disappeared. Populations of zebra, buffalo and other herbivores had collapsed.
In the following years, a huge effort to restore the park took shape. Led by the philanthropist Gregory Carr and Mozambique’s government, it was the start of the park’s journey to becoming one of Africa’s most celebrated wildlife conservation success stories. Today, elephants, lions, hippos, antelope, painted wolves, hyenas and leopards all thrive in the park once again – thanks to work that for the past 20 years has been supported by a long-term partnership with USAID.
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04/01/2025 - 05:14
Land speculation to blame for lack of progress amid Labour drive to build 1.5m new homes, says Wildlife Trusts head
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Housebuilders in the UK are failing to supply much-needed new homes not because of restrictive planning laws, but because they are “very bad” at building houses, the head of one of the UK’s biggest nature charities has warned.
“There’s planning permission today for a million new houses,” said Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. “So why aren’t they being built? Why is it that volume housebuilders in this country are actually very bad at building houses, even when they’ve got planning permission?”
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04/01/2025 - 03:01
Industry leaders say there is little detail on how the opposition’s policy will work and it is ‘difficult to predict’ what the final price would be
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Gas industry leaders have expressed confusion and concern about a Coalition plan to force them to sell more of the fossil fuel in Australia and cast doubt over whether Peter Dutton’s target to cut gas prices can be delivered.
Speaking at an Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference in Sydney, several executives argued the policy to create what the opposition leader called an “east coast gas reservation policy” could exacerbate future gas supply issues in southern states.
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04/01/2025 - 02:58
Experts say previous economic models underestimated impact of global heating – as well as likely ‘cascading supply chain disruptions’
Economic models have systematically underestimated how global heating will affect people’s wealth, according to a new study that finds 4C warming will make the average person 40% poorer – an almost four-fold increase on some estimates.
The study by Australian scientists suggests average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2C above pre-industrial levels. This is a much greater reduction than previous estimates, which found the reduction would be 1.4%.
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04/01/2025 - 00:38
Inferno spread to nearby homes, trapping residents, while full extent of damage still being assessed
A fireball erupted from a burst gas pipeline outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring 145 people as it burned for several hours before being extinguished.
The national oil company Petronas said the blaze started at one of its gas pipelines outside Kuala Lumpur. The inferno sent flames 20 storeys high and left a huge crater near a residential neighbourhood.
The health minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad, was quoted by the New Straits Times daily as saying 145 people including three children were injured. He said 67 people were still being treated at public hospitals, mostly for second and third-degree burns, while 37 others had sought treatment from clinics and private hospitals.
The fire department said the fire damaged 190 houses and 148 vehicles.
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03/31/2025 - 18:37
Exclusive: Moetai Brotherson fears environmental risks of controversial practice and says independence from France must not be ‘rushed’
Read more Pacific leaders: in their words
French Polynesia’s president has issued a stark warning over the risks of deep-sea mining, saying it will be allowed in his territory “over my dead body” as he argues the potential for environmental damage outweighs any benefits.
Moetai Brotherson’s comments to the Guardian come as countries in the Pacific and elsewhere grapple with whether to extract minerals from the sea floor. Deep-sea mining has not yet begun, but some companies and countries are exploring the practice, which could start in the coming years.
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03/31/2025 - 18:21
A new study warns that global climate change may have a devastating effect on butterflies, turning their species-rich, mountain habitats from refuges into traps. Think of it as the 'butterfly effect' -- the idea that something as small as the flapping of a butterfly's wings can eventually lead to a major event such as a hurricane -- in reverse. The new study also suggests that a lack of comprehensive global data about insects may leave conservationists and policymakers ill-prepared to mitigate biodiversity loss from climate change for a wide range of insect species.
