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From "cancelled" Christmas dinners to numerous energy suppliers collapsing and items missing from supermarket shelves, many industry experts claim Britain is in crisis. The UK economy has been disrupted by several factors including labour shortages, new immigration rules and the lingering effects of the pandemic. There is estimated to be a shortfall of around 100,000 lorry drivers, and soaring energy costs have also added to the cost of food production and logistics. The use of CO2 is critical in the food supply chain - particularly when it comes to packaging and meat production. It is also used to stun animals...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell world leaders at the United Nations that humanity has to “grow up” and tackle climate change, saying humans must stop trashing the planet like a teenager on a bender. Johnson is due to host a major United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland in six weeks’ time. He is using a trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York to press governments for tougher emissions-cutting targets and more money to help poor countries clean up their economies. In a speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday, he’ll say...

LOS ANGELES, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Human-caused climate change has intensified the withering drought gripping the Southwestern United States, the region's most severe on record, with precipitation at the lowest 20-month level documented since 1895, a U.S. government report said on Tuesday. Over the same period, from January 2020 through August 2021, the region also experienced the third-highest daily average temperatures measured since record-keeping began near the end of the 19th century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) drought task force. The study warned that extreme drought conditions are likely to worsen and repeat themselves "until stringent...

Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration are working towards an ambitious goal of eliminating coal-fired electricity and 'decarbonize' the US electric grid by 2035.To meet such an aggressive deadline, House Democrats unveiled a $150 billion 'clean electricity' program to incentivize utility companies to phase out fossil fuels for clean energy. The Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP, would reward utility that boost their percentage of electricity supplied to the grid from green sources - such as solar, wind and hydro, between 2023 and 2030. Exhaust rises from the East Bend Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant owned and operated by...

Decaying wood releases around 10.9 gigatons of carbon worldwide every year, according to a new study by an international team of scientists. This is roughly equivalent to 115 percent of fossil fuel emissions. Co-author of the study Professor David Lindenmayer from The Australian National University (ANU) says it’s the first time researchers have been able to quantify the contribution of deadwood to the global carbon cycle. “Until now, little has been known about the role of dead trees,” Professor Lindenmayer said. “We know living trees play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But up until now,...

Can you find Gambia on a globe? Either way, it is the only nation on Earth that is successfully living up to its commitments under the Paris accord on climate change. That's how serious the Paris Agreement is — no one is living up to their commitments except for Gambia. Aren't you glad President Joe Biden's first act in office was to rejoin the accord? ...Usually, the most astounding thing about government actions on climate change is the way Western leaders live in denial. They pretend their own nations' emissions mean something when China continues to build coal-fired power plants...

The European Court of Justice slapped Poland with a €500,000 ($586,000) daily fine on Monday in response to the country’s refusal to shut down the Turow open-cast lignite mine near the Czech border. The Czech Republic took the case to court over complaints that the mine is causing cross-border environmental hazards, especially as it concerns air and water quality. In May, the EU’s top court told Poland to shut down the mine, though Poland has refused to comply. In June, Prague asked the EU’s top court to fine Poland €5 million ($5.9 million) per day for failing to halt production...

Jussie Smollett, Crystal Magnum and Susan Smith are three names that at various times over the last 25 years have riveted America’s attention. Smollett is a black man who lied about being attacked by two Trump supporting white racists in 2019. Magnum is a black woman who lied about being raped by three white Duke Lacrosse players in 2006. Smith is a white woman who killed her two boys in 1994 and blamed it on a fictional black carjacker. While race was central to the first and incidental to the last two, as is with much news in America, the...

Rolls-Royce Aerospace makes jet engines that power many of the world’s airplanes. While they are state of the art in terms of efficiency, they also leave a lot of greenhouse gas emissions in their wake. The company has been a leader in developing electric propulsion systems for airplanes in order to help lead the world forward into a future of zero-emissions flight. Getting there will involve lots of innovations. The major hurdle is that batteries have a much lower energy density per unit of weight than jet fuel. Let’s dig into that a bit. According to JetPack Aviation, a liter...

Another climate activist on hunger strike in Berlin has been taken to the hospital after fainting. Six activists calling themselves "the last generation" have not eaten since the end of August. A 19-year-old climate activist on a weeks-long hunger strike outside the German parliament was taken to the hospital on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Charite hospital said. The spokeswoman said it was unclear if the teen intended to continue her hunger strike. Six climate activists began an open-ended hunger strike in front of the Reichstag building, home to the German lower house of parliament, on August 30. They said...

Trying to establish political dominance over weather is destined to invite tremendous skepticism. Back in 2006, three Mammoth Mountain ski patrollers suffocated when they fell into a crevasse. Cause of death was attributed to naturally occurring carbon-dioxide gas. Mammoth is a sleeping" volcano, and various gasses ooze out of it from vents that reach down into the bowels of the Earth. The local toxicity from the outgassing is such that trees have been eliminated from much of its higher surface, making it an ideal place for skiing. The CO2 output is estimated to be 1,200 tons per day. Lurking beneath...

Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised California voters for not recalling Gavin Newsom this week. Speaking with The Los Angeles Times this week, the former Terminator star, who himself became governor of the Golden State through a recall election in 2003, said California “made the right decision” to stick with Newsom, characterizing Larry Elder as a “wacky” candidate. “I think voters made the right decision,” Schwarzenegger said. “It’s better to stay with someone who you know what they’re going to do, rather than someone who comes in wacky and is changing everything around.” Only 36.2 percent of California...

Cattle for milk and meat production are responsible for about 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Methane — a gas about 25 times more climate-damaging than CO2 but which breaks down after just a decade — is spewed into the atmosphere in large quantities each time the 1 billion cows on the planet burp and fart. And while scientists have shown that eating less meat is a necessary step to greening the farming sector — particularly in industrialized countries, where the average person eats three times as much as in poorer ones — world leaders have mostly avoided policies to...

Encountering concrete is a common—even routine—occurrence. And that's exactly what makes concrete exceptional. As the most consumed material after water, concrete is indispensable to the many essential systems—from roads to buildings—in which it is used. But due to its extensive use, concrete production also contributes to around 1 percent of emissions in the United States and remains one of several carbon-intensive industries globally. Tackling climate change, then, will mean reducing the environmental impacts of concrete, even as its use continues to increase. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of current and...

A growing number of young people are combating “climate anxiety,” and a majority think “humanity is doomed,” according to a study published in Lancet Planetary Health Tuesday. According to the study, which authors claim is the most comprehensive study in the world analyzing “young people’s fear about the climate crisis,” 45 percent of 16-25-year-olds said, “climate-related anxiety and distress is affecting their daily lives and ability to function normally,” Vice News reported of the study. Approximately 10,000 young people were surveyed across ten countries, 60 percent of which said national governments are “betraying” the present and future generations by not...

British Airways operated its first-ever carbon-neutral flight powered by recycled cooking oil this week, a major step in the airline’s goal to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The plane traveled from London Heathrow to Glasgow Airport on Tuesday and was powered directly by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) provided by British multinational gas giant BP, according to a British Airways press release. The flight’s SAF was blended at 35 percent with traditional jet fuel “in accordance with technical aviation specifications,” according to British Airways.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are calling top executives at ExxonMobil and other oil giants to testify at a House hearing as lawmakers investigate what they say is a long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming. The House Oversight Committee on Thursday requested that executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell testify at a hearing next month, along with leaders of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades...

Despite its ambitious green energy targets, Europe could be forced to burn more coal this winter if natural gas stockpiles are not adequately replenished amid record-high gas prices, an expert on the EU energy market told Russian news agency TASS on Thursday. Gas prices continue to be pushed up by the risk of insufficient gas storage ahead of the winter heating season, EU energy expert Simonas Vileikis told TASS. “If inventories are not refilled now and winter turns out cold enough, EU countries may be forced to fire up power plants burning fuels other than gas, including coal, to generate...

The UN released a report on Thursday warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has not slowed the pace of climate change. […] In its United in Science 2021 report, global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions between January and July in the power and industry sectors were already back to the same level or higher than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic. …

Nearly every nation is coming up short — most of them far short — in their efforts to fight climate change, and the world is unlikely to hold warming to the internationally agreed-upon limit, according to a new scientific report. Only one nation — tiny The Gambia in Africa — is on track to cut emissions and undertake its share of actions to keep the world from exceeding the Paris agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, the report said. Only one industrialized nation — the United Kingdom — is...