Plus: Doomsday Clock ticks one second closer to midnight
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Hello and welcome to your latest Independent Climate round-up. Wildfires that claimed 29 lives in California this month were intensified by climate change, researchers have said. According to World Weather Attribution, the fires were fueled by dried vegetation, low rainfall, and the combination of drought and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds. "Without a faster transition from planet-heating fossil fuels, California will continue to get hotter, drier, and more flammable," said Dr. Clair Barnes of Imperial College London. |
Firefighters battle the Kenneth fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles earlier this month. The state's deadly wildfires were made worse due to impacts from climate change, scientists said Tuesday Credit: AP |
The study found that warming—mainly from burning oil, gas, and coal—made the hot, dry conditions 35 per cent more likely. With 2.6°C (4.7°F) of warming, such conditions will become 35 per cent more frequent. A UN report suggests global temperatures could rise that much or more by 2100. After months of drought, Southern California saw rain and snow this week. However, low rainfall from October to December is now 2.4 times more likely than in preindustrial times, increasing wildfire risks as hotter temperatures dry out vegetation. "All the pieces were in place for a wildfire disaster—low rainfall, tinder-dry vegetation, and strong winds," said Park Williams, a geography professor at UCLA. Read more: |
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Life in the climate crisis |
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Trump spoke at the 2024 Bitcoin conference while campaigning for the presidency Credit: AP |
If you've never heard of cryptocurrencies before, stop now. Hold on to whatever innocence you've maintained thus far, and just enjoy your day. If you have, it was probably explained to you on a bad date with some over-caffeinated dude who watches too much Joe Rogan and won't stop texting you. Don't worry – we won't try to explain it today. But you should know that its boosters and their energy-consuming supercomputers have captured American politics, and they're hoping their industry will grow to immense proportions over the next four years. In fact, these infamously anti-government crypto bros were perhaps the biggest contributors to the 2024 presidential election. The crypto industry pumped more than $200m in direct donations and hundreds of millions more into industry Super PACs. Like any big donor group, they're now expecting massive returns on their investments. Their biggest libertarian dream is not only for the industry to expand, but for the US government to step in and subsidise their speculative investments by trading US gold reserves to buy a national reserve of billions of bitcoins. You should also know that because these cryptocurrencies require massive amounts of interconnected computer power to perform thousands of complex calculations every time they want to "mine" a new "coin", they soak up electricity like a sponge. Admittedly, some are better than others. But just like any type of unregulated mining, the industry in general is an environmental disaster. |
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That's how many trees were lost in Storm Eowyn Read more |
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There is no getting around the fact that biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates across the globe – but there are glimmers of hope. |
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University of Sydney Associate Professor Catherine Grueber said in a statement about her study on genetic diversity. Read more |
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