15 h. ago How the climate crisis showed up in Americans’ lives this year: ‘The shift has been swift and stark’

Guardian US readers share how global heating and biodiversity loss affected their lives in ways that don’t always make the headlines The past year was another one of record-setting heat and catastrophic storms. But across the US, the climate crisis showed up in smaller, deeply personal ways too.Campfires that once defined summer trips were never lit due to wildfire risks. There were no bites where fish were once abundant, forests turned to meadows after a big burn and childhood memories of winter wonderlands turned to slush. Continue reading...

Society

18 h. ago American woman living in UK says biggest culture shock was odd bedroom detail

An American woman who now lives in the UK has said the biggest shock she had was discovering there's something starkly different between bedrooms in each country

Events

65 h. ago From ‘global cooling’ to ‘beautiful coal’: Trump’s startling climate claims of 2025

Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to itIn the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago The Guardian view on adapting to the climate crisis: it demands political honesty about extreme weather | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justiceThe record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago US voters linking climate crisis to rising bills despite Trump’s ‘green scam’ claims

New polling shows 65% of registered US voters believe global heating is affecting cost of livingMost Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago ‘Like Kafka by way of Pedro Almodóvar’: 10 debut novels to look out for in 2026

A Pulitzer finalist is among the first-time novelists, in tales of love, a surreal prison, teen murder and a tradwifeBelgrave RoadManish Chauhan (Faber, January)An affecting tale of loneliness and love in Chauhan’s home town of Leicester, Belgrave Road tells the story of Mira, newly arrived in the UK from India following an arranged marriage, and Tahliil, a Somali cleaner who becomes her lunch partner, and her escape. By day, Chauhan is a finance lawyer; his debut novel follows his shortlisting in last year’s BBC short story competition.This Is Where the Serpent LivesDaniyal Mueenuddin (Bloomsbury, January)The Pakistani-American writer’s 2009 story collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, was a Pulitzer finalist. Like his debut, hHis first novel is set in Pakistan, moving between bustling cities and agricultural estates, interrogating the country’s class dynamics through an epic portrait spanning six decades. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Moment American streamer appears to run over someone during a livestream

An American streamer has been banned from Kick after apparently running someome over with his car during a broadcast. 

Sport

8 d. ago Reginald D Hunter has summons for 'antisemitic' social media posts quashed as judge rules private prosecution was a bid to get comedian 'cancelled'

The American comic, who lives in the UK, was the subject of a private prosecution by Jewish group the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Events

8 d. ago Young Kenyans are turning their backs on farming as the climate crisis bites

Young people in Kenya tell Nick Ferris why the agriculture sector – crucial to the national economy and to keep the country fed – is becoming less appealing as the impacts of climate change escalate

Events

1 week ago How private investors are making billions from countries in debt

Exclusive: As an escalating climate crisis and a difficult economic outlook put ever greater pressure on developing countries, new analysis shows how wealthy private investors in the Global North are profiting

Economics

1 week ago ‘Borrowed time’: crop pests and food losses supercharged by climate crisis

Heating means pests breeding and spreading faster, warn scientists, with simplified current food system already vulnerableHow climate breakdown is putting the world’s food in peril – in maps and chartsThe destruction of food supplies by crop pests is being supercharged by the climate crisis, with losses expected to surge, an analysis has concluded.Researchers said the world was lucky to have so far avoided a major shock and was living on borrowed time, with action needed to diversify crops and boost natural predators of pests. Continue reading...

Society

1 week ago As the US invests in fossil fuels, young climate activists push back in the courts

In this week’s newsletter: A generation is using the legal system to demand accountability for climate harm• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereRikki Held grew up on her family’s ranch in Montana, watching the land transform amid the climate crisis. The Powder River, which runs through the property, has sometimes dried up during drought, leaving crops and livestock without water. At other points, rapid snowmelt and heavy rains have caused flooding and eroded riverbanks, making the land difficult to use.Two years ago, the 24-year-old and a group of other young people won a groundbreaking legal victory, intended to prevent those impacts from worsening. In August 2023, a judge ruled in favour of plaintiffs in Held v Montana, in which 16 young people accused the state of violating their constitutional rights by promoting planet-warming fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings late last year, but plaintiffs say lawmakers have since p...

Events

2 w. ago Is chorus of winter birdsong a herald of spring – or warning of climate crisis?

Spells of unseasonably mild weather are prompting species such as the skylark to burst into song December is not noted for birdsong in the UK, as most species are more concerned with finding food during the short hours of daylight than preparing for the breeding season to come. Yet during spells of unseasonably mild winter weather some will practice their sweet refrains.Over the past few weeks I’ve heard several species singing: not quite as forcefully as in the spring, but enough for me to take notice. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Trump national address live: President touts accomplishments as Americans express frustration with the economy

Trump began his address on familiar ground— by blaming his predecessor Joe Biden

Politics

2 w. ago Arctic endured year of record heat as climate scientists warn of ‘winter being redefined’

Region known as ‘world’s refrigerator’ is heating up as much as four times as quickly as global average, Noaa experts sayThe Arctic endured a year of record heat and shrunken sea ice as the world’s northern latitudes continue a rapid shift to becoming rainier and less ice-bound due to the climate crisis, scientists have reported.From October 2024 to September 2025, temperatures across the entire Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years of modern record keeping, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said, with the last 10 years being the 10 warmest on record in the Arctic. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago. But its lessons live on in The Quiet American

Phillip Noyce’s political drama is a searing critique of American interventionism that feels all too pertinent todayGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAlden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) was a “quiet American”, says Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) to a French policeman. “A friend,” he adds, as the lifeless corpse of Pyle stares back at him with a wretched expression.This is the scene that opens Phillip Noyce’s Vietnam-set political drama before the film flashes back a few months earlier to 1952 Saigon, where Fowler, an ageing Englishman, lives leisurely as a journalist reporting on the first Indochina war. When Pyle, a young American aid worker advocating for US intervention, falls for Fowler’s 20-year-old Vietnamese lover, Phượng (Đỗ Thị Hải Yến), the jaded reporter’s tranquil existence begins to unravel.Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago This is another ‘ozone layer’ moment. Now, we must urgently target methane | Mia Mottley

The oil and gas industry must be legally bound to cut methane emissions. With climate tipping points approaching, time is running out • Mia Mottley is the prime minister of BarbadosThe timing is brutal. Just as the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris climate agreement this month, new evidence shows that the world is crashing through the main defence that was constructed against climate catastrophe.The three-year temperature average is – for the first time – set to exceed the Paris guardrail of 1.5C above preindustrial levels. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2025 will join 2023 and 2024 as the three warmest since the Industrial Revolution, reflecting the accelerating pace of the climate crisis.Mia Mottley is the prime minister of Barbados Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Glaciers to reach peak rate of extinction in the Alps in eight years

Climate crisis forecast to wipe out thousands of glaciers a year globally, threatening water supplies and cultural heritageEurope live – latest updatesGlaciers in the European Alps are likely to reach their peak rate of extinction in only eight years, according to a study, with more than 100 due to melt away permanently by 2033. Glaciers in the western US and Canada are forecast to reach their peak year of loss less than a decade later, with more than 800 disappearing each year by then.The melting of glaciers driven by human-caused global heating is one of the clearest signs of the climate crisis. Communities around the world have already held funeral ceremonies for lost glaciers, and a Global Glacier Casualty List records the names and histories of those that have vanished. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago American watches darts live for the first time and is stunned by two things

A social media star from the United States couldn't believe what he saw when he spent a day at the darts

Politics

2 w. ago I've spent 40 years debunking climate crisis hysteria. We've paid a terrible price for pandering to eco zealots

To paraphrase Monty Python, the climate parrot may still be nailed to its perch at the recent Cop30 summit in Belem, Brazil - or at Harvard and on CNN - but elsewhere it's dead.

Events