Free Republic

As climate change threatens our planet, AP climate choices reporter Caleigh Wells is explaining what readers can do. Here’s what she said: Climate change stories can be devastating — frustrating policy fights, environmental destruction, public health disasters — and my fellow AP climate reporters are great at telling them. That’s not my job. I cover “climate choices.” I tell readers how their actions impact the planet. It’s important for two reasons: First, if we’re going to tackle this big existential climate threat, we have to know how, and 2) climate news sparks dread and anxiety. And the best antidotes I’ve...

If heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil and gas continues unchecked, thousands of hazardous sites across the United States risk being flooded from sea level rise by the turn of the century, posing serious health risks to nearby communities, according to a new study. Researchers identified 5,500 sites that store, emit or handle sewage, trash, oil, gas and other hazards that could face coastal flooding by 2100, with much of the risk already locked in due to past emissions. But more than half the sites are projected to face flood risk much sooner — as soon as 2050. Low-income, communities...

Germany, France, Canada, and Belgium are among 12 nations that signed on to the “Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change,” documenting the so-called “threats” that free speech and the free press pose to what U.S. President Donald Trump refers to as the climate “con job.”Signed at the United Nations’ COP30, the UN’s annual climate confab, the declaration marks the first time that “information integrity” has been on the docket for COP’s Action Agenda.The rise of independent media, social media, and the internet has created a source of non-establishment news that has elevated legitimate criticism of the so-called man-made climate-change...

As many as 25 areas across the UK could be hit by power cuts due to a 15-hour snowstorm coming today (Tuesday, November 18). Households are being warned of potential disruption from an Arctic blast, affecting travel and power supplies in various parts of Scotland, while a separate ice warning has been issued for the north of England. The Met Office has issued a 15-hour yellow weather warning for snow, starting at 3am on Tuesday, November 18 and continuing through to 6pm, impacting seven areas in Scotland. Meanwhile, in England, a yellow weather warning for ice could also bring snow...

Britons' anxiety about climate change plays a big role in many mental health struggles among the country's youth and can trigger guilt about having children, a new report has claimed. The report by the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also suggests that yoga and visiting "climate cafés" could help stave off this "eco-anxiety" and build emotional resilience in times of change. "An awareness of climate and environmental change can also lead to emotional or psychological responses, such as eco-anxiety," it reads, defining the term as distress caused by the threat of climate change. The authors also reference "solastalgia," which...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday urged countries at United Nations climate talks to take “concrete actions” to stop climate change that is threatening the planet, telling them humans are failing in their response to global warming and that God’s creation “is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat.” In a video message played for religious leaders gathered in Belem, Leo said nations had made progress, “but not enough.” “One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes,” Leo said. “To them, climate change is not a distant threat, and to...

Countries are gathering in Brazil at the COP30 summit to take stock of climate change. As in past summits, the negotiations are starting on the back foot: countries already aren't meeting their goals to cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels. The world has barely budged in its efforts to combat climate change compared to one year ago, according to a new report from the United Nations. If countries stay on that track, the planet will warm by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, compared to the pre-industrial temperatures of the mid-1800s. That's slightly better than...

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -With the United States absent from the U.N. annual international climate summit for the first time in three decades, China is stepping into the limelight as a leader in the fight against global warming. Its country pavilion dominates the entrance hall of the sprawling COP30 conference grounds in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem, executives from its biggest clean energy companies are presenting their visions for a green future to large audiences in English, and its diplomats are working behind the scenes to ensure constructive talks. Those were Washington's roles, but they now reside with Beijing. China’s transformation...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The world’s climate leaders are conceding that Earth’s warming will shoot past a hard limit they set a decade ago in hopes of keeping the planet out of a danger zone. But they’re not conceding defeat. United Nations officials, scientists, and analysts are pinning their hopes on eventually forcing global temperatures back below the red line they set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which sought to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. Busting that limit and then coming back down is called “overshoot.” In the way climate science uses the term,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause new California laws expected to require thousands of companies to report emissions and climate-risk information. The laws are the most sweeping of their kind in the nation, and a collection of business groups argued in an emergency appeal that they violate free-speech rights. The measures were signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, and reporting requirements are expected to start early next year. Lower courts have so far refused to block the laws, which the state says will increase transparency and encourage companies...

Every autumn, news feeds get flooded with stories about climate change. That’s because around this time each year, global leaders gather to discuss collective efforts to limit our emissions of planet-warming gases, released primarily from oil, gas and coal. Some of the information coming out of the COP30 conference is bleak. But it’s not just COP. Climate stories can be difficult to consume year-round, whether it’s about natural disasters, victims of heat waves or sea level rise or new studies about global warming impacts. “When you throw a ton of scary facts and information at people, their nervous system shuts...

*** On Wednesday, Swedish automaker Polestar announced plans for a reverse stock split in a bid to avoid being delisted from the exchange — a move that slashes the number of shares in circulation but boosts their per-share value. For example, a one-for-ten split would turn ten shares trading at $1 into a single share worth $10. Companies typically attempt these reverse splits when their stock has fallen so low that they risk losing their stock-market listing — it’s a cosmetic fix that can buy time, but rarely changes the underlying problems. Wall Street wasn't impressed. The stock plunged nearly...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — For each of the past several years, scientists, analysts and officials have been hoping that it would be the year when emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas would stop going up. They’ll have to wait another year. For the second straight year, emissions from fossil fuels rose 1.1% in 2025, scientists reported Wednesday at United Nations climate negotiations. “It’s disappointing that we haven’t brought down carbon dioxide emissions,” said University of Exeter scientist Stephen Sitch, a member of the Global Carbon Project, which uses data from around the world to calculate the...

BOSTON (AP) — After years of living on the street and crashing on friends’ couches, Quantavia Smith was given the keys to a studio apartment in Los Angeles that came with an important perk — easy access to public transit. The 38-year-old feels like she went from a life where “no one cares” to one where she has a safe place to begin rebuilding her life. And the metro station the apartment complex was literally built upon is a lifeline as she searches for work without a car. “It is more a sense of relief, a sense of independence,” said...

A key Atlantic current could be pushed to the brink of collapse within decades, supposedly ushering in a new ice age and dramatically raising sea levels, climate scientists have claimed in a controversial new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The apocalyptic predictions came as a result of a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego — weeks after one-time climate alarmist Bill Gates publicly downplayed the impact of temperature fluctuations on the planet.

That climate is a-changin'! The Gulf Stream is near collapse, scientists warn — inviting a new ice age and rising sea levels https://t.co/mtZqDdQwce pic.twitter.com/37bikEYbXU— New York Post (@nypost) November 12, 2025I get it. It's a New York Post link. It's supposed to be clickbaity. But this is a real study published in Communications Earth & Environment that was conducted by researchers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego. Per the new findings, the at-risk current in question is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC, a 'conveyor belt...

"Don't kill it, don't squish it, don't cut it up," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller warned residents via NBC as a toxic flatworm spreads across North Texas. While this invasive species has been in the US for years, the state's fatally heavy rains, fueled by climate change, are enabling the hammerhead flatworm (Bipalium kewense) to thrive and spread. This brown and black-striped, flattened land planarian with a distinctive half-moon-shaped head can reach lengths of up to 40 cm (15.7 inches). Like many flatworm species, it can regenerate a whole new worm from slices of itself. Decapitating the worm will only...

NBC Connecticut recently spoke with Matthew Mathison, an entrepreneur who has just written his first book, "Leadership Orbit." A key part of the book, Mathison says, is making small simple changes to overcome large problems. A global problem like climate change is a great example. “The act of doing something that you can actually control, completely changes a mindset from one of being scared and overwhelmed, sometimes paralyzed, to actually getting energy, getting excited and getting motivated,” Mathison said. If you’re waiting for someone to lead, well, that leader could be you. Mathison believes we can all be leaders -...

Tens of thousands of trees in the heart of the Amazon rainforest have been wiped out to prepare for a global summit on saving the environment. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump slammed the creation of a multi-lane highway that tore straight through the ancient rainforest for this month’s COP30 climate summit. Approximately 100,000 trees across eight miles have been removed to ferry 50,000 world leaders, climate change activists, journalists, and other high-profile guests to the conference in Belém, Brazil. “They ripped the hell out of the Rainforest of Brazil to build a four-lane highway for Environmentalists to travel. It’s...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — U.N. climate negotiations were expected to begin Monday at a meeting on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, with leaders pushing for urgency, cooperation and acceleration after more than 30 years fighting to curb global warming by drastically reducing the carbon pollution that causes it. André Corrêa do Lago, president of this year’s conference, known as COP30, emphasized that negotiators engage in “mutirão,” a Brazilian word derived from an Indigenous word that refers to a group uniting to work on a shared task. Complicating the calls for togetherness is the United States. The Trump administration did...