Scientists say they can revive the extinct thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, within a decade, but does anybody want them to?

There is a plan to edit the genome of a related species — the dunnart — to resemble the thylacine's DNA, then use another relative as a surrogate to gestate the reincarnated baby thylacines.

Let's look at the two decades to 2001, compared to the two decades afterwards. In Australian forests, the average annual burned area in the second period was 350 per cent greater than in the first. If we include 2019 — the year the Black Summer fires began — the increase rises to 800 per cent.

The Black Summer fires were started by lightning and human activity. They were fuelled by extreme heat, record low rainfall and widespread dieback of vegetation. It meant the fires burned at unprecedented intensity.

The Black Summer fires burned more than 24 million hectares nationally. Some 33 people were killed by the fires, more than 429 died from smoke-related effects, and more than 3,000 homes were destroyed.

The drying and warming that drove the Black Summer fires are linked to human-caused climate change. These changes are resulting in longer fire seasons and extended periods of drought.

As I watch the fires blazing in Hawaii, I'm constantly asking myself: when will Australians — who live on one of the most fire-prone continents on Earth — get a grip on this escalating global problem? How many more warning signs do we need?

"There is a realisation that we've got to do something fast, an energy transition at a rate that we have never seen before.

"This will have a huge impact not just on governments making decisions, but everyone will have to think about the way we live."

Asked if governments were moving fast enough on action to affect climate change, Dr Foley answered in the negative before calling for a dramatic increase in carbon reduction.

"At the moment the requirement is we need to be reducing by 16 megatons of carbon a year, we are doing two, we need to increase by eight times"

business as usual.

Kiribati is facing a real challenge.

With no part of its land rising more than 2 meters above the ocean, the country is among the most vulnerable to the encroaching tides.

Small islands have already succumbed to inundation, while others suffer erosion, jeopardising crop cultivation and freshwater reserves.

The I-Kiribati people, who may not use the words "climate change", have now experienced its harsh reality and continue to face the constant threat of rising sea levels.

The bill aims to completely phase out elephant captivity in Canada, and protect over 800 wild animal species from suffering in captivity. The Jane Goodall Act would also grant some animals limited legal standing. The Canadian legal system is notorious for denying animals legal standing, preventing them from having representation in court. The Jane Goodall Act would allow interested specially-appointed “animal advocates” to make arguments before a court about the best interests of animals, if a zoo or individual is convicted of keeping or breeding the animal illegally.

The Jane Goodall Act builds upon groundbreaking laws banning whale and dolphin captivity in Canada, which passed in 2019. It’s now a criminal offence to capture wild whales and dolphins from the ocean, confine them in tanks, breed them, or make them perform for entertainment.

Similar to the whale and dolphin bill, the Jane Goodall Act has faced many obstacles, primarily from Conservative Senate leader Don Plett. Senator Plett delayed the whale and dolphin bill for years in an attempt to kill it, and now appears to be doing the same thing to the Jane Goodall Act.

If approved, this bill would:

• Completely eliminate the import, breeding, and captivity of elephants.
• Restrict the import, keeping, and breeding of over 800 species of wild animals, including big cats, bears, many monkeys, wolves, sea lions, walruses, and dangerous reptiles like crocodiles and snakes, for individuals and most zoos.
• Empower the federal government to add more species to this list in the future.
• Provide limited legal standing to animals so that the court can consider their best interests in case of a conviction for violating anti-captivity laws.

It is "virtually certain" that July is going to be the world's warmest month since records began, according to scientists.

Some researchers believe it might even be the warmest month in the past 120,000 years.

The UK on the other hand, has experienced milder temperatures and a fair amount of rain.

BBC Weather's Ben Rich has this analysis.

Outdoor workers with jobs involving physical labour can be more vulnerable, especially when paired with limited protections.

But efforts to bolster regulations have faced pushback from powerful business interests in sectors, such as agriculture, who have rejected calls for enhanced rules and enforcement.

And some US states have moved in the opposite direction: Republican lawmakers in the state of Texas, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 42 workers died from extreme heat between 2011 and 2021, recently banned municipalities from requiring employers to provide workers with shade and water.

“Farmworkers will still be told they can’t take a break or that they should drink out of an irrigation hose,” De Loera said. “Even in a state like California with good laws on the books, workers are afraid of speaking up.”

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

According to ERA5 data from the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record.

In the face of “tragic” consequences, he repeated his call for swift and far-reaching action, taking aim once again at the fossil fuel sector.

“The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable,” said Guterres, Portugal’s former prime minister.

One of those on the road this morning, Jonathan Kennedy, 44, an Engineer and Parent of two young children, from Brighton, said:

“I’m marching today with Just Stop Oil to demand that the government stops all new oil and gas licensing. We are on track for devastating climate chaos, food scarcity, water scarcity, hundreds of millions of climate refugees- leading to conflict and war. It’s already happening. As a parent, I can’t sit by and watch as the government actively makes the situation worse by issuing more oil, gas and coal licences. This is the complete opposite of what we need to do.”

“When my children ask me what I was doing when there was still a chance to prevent the worst effects of climate breakdown. I will say I tried everything I could. Rishi Sunak and Grant Schnapps, what will you say to your children when they ask you the same question? You have the power to stop all new oil and gas licences. For the sake of your children and their generation, make the right choice. Be on the right side of history, be able to look at your children and say, ‘I did what I could’.”

Yesterday, James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s said “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis. Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing severe impacts such as stronger storms, heatwaves and droughts, which will lead to millions unable to eat and forced to flee their homes.

What's going to happen to Otter 841 if they catch her?

Mr Connor said that once captured, the otter would be evaluated by aquarium vets.

She'll be put into a zoo or an aquarium where she can be "an ambassador for her species", he said.

However, if she harms a human, wildlife officials have said that would consider euthanising her.

Three months of rain fell in just 24 hours in some areas.

The flooding is the latest extreme weather event to hit northeast Canada - recent wildfires have burnt a record area, sending clouds of smoke south into the US.

There has also been extreme flooding in the US this month. The body of a two-year-old girl found along a river in Pennsylvania is believed to be one of two missing children swept away by flash floods last weekend. Her nine-month-old brother is still missing.

Scientists cannot say for certain that such extreme rainfall is caused by climate change, but the floods are consistent with the changes they expect in a warming world. This is because the warmer the earth becomes the more moisture the atmosphere can hold. This results in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area.

In 2016, Loblaw announced it would stop selling eggs from hens confined in cages in all their stores, including Loblaws grocers and Shoppers Drug Mart. The transition was supposed to be completed by 2025. But seven long years after the promise was made, the company says it won’t meet this deadline, and refuses to share a new timeline for stamping caged cruelty out of its supply chain.

Animal Justice, our supporters, and thousands of concerned citizens have been reaching out to Loblaw Companies about their failed cage-free promise for months. But the only response from Loblaw has been to point toward their President’s Choice house brand of eggs, which is already cage-free. They won’t share any information about all the other brands they continue to sell from hens confined in tiny cages.

Over the past weeks, Loblaw brands have been blocking people from some of their social media accounts, and deleting customer questions about the company’s cage-free policy. This secrecy falls short of Loblaw’s promises on their website, stating they’re committed to “transparency, accountability and sound corporate governance” and to have a “customer-centric and values-based approach to decision making.” While this is not what we’d expect from a grocery leader, it shows that our message is being heard.

Join us in demanding Loblaw keeps their promise and go cage-free.

July 22, 2023 AFP

"We are the last generation capable of preventing the point of no return," three young activists from the Last Generation group shouted at the festival's premiere of "Jedermann" (Each Man) late Friday, before being escorted away by security, according to a video posted by the group on social media.

Founded in 1920, the Salzburg Festival is one the world's top classical music festivals.

"The citizens of the Last Generation Austria demand that we face this question as a whole society," the group said in a statement. "Especially now, when global heating is getting more out of control and is making itself felt all over the world with ever more extreme temperatures and ever more destructive weather, they can no longer look away."

The protest came as swathes of southern Europe and the United States were baking in record heatwaves.

"Merseyside Police respects the right to protest and expression of views but anti-social, criminal behaviour or disorder will not be tolerated and will be dealt with robustly."

Brave souls took their turn at racing towards a camel, sticking a piece of duct tape on its fur, then racing back to their starting position before returning to the camel to retrieve the tape and finally racing back to the judge to complete their run.

The unpredictable nature of camels and dexterous legs that can kick in any direction delivered a painful price for participants who were slow on their feet.

"My tactic was to try and get it in the front, slow it down and tag its front shoulder and, of course … try not to get kicked in the head," contestant Dylan said.

Limbo is directed by Ivan Sen, best known for the films Mystery Road, Goldstone and Beneath Clouds. It also stars Natasha Wanganeen as Emma, Charlie's surviving sister, and Nicholas Hope as Joseph, the brother of a key murder suspect.

The film was shot in the South Australian opal mining town of Coober Pedy, which stands in for the fictional town of Limbo.

Sen's decision to film in black and white accentuates Coober Pedy's otherworldliness, making the pockmarked desert look like a moonscape.

Collins says he can't imagine filming the story anywhere else.

"The whole place feels like a muffled scream, which worked a lot for Charlie," he says.

The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's ruling that ordered the government to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies. President Biden and the other federal defendants in the case "hereby appeal" the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, according to a notice filed in US District Court yesterday. The US will submit a longer filing with arguments to the 5th Circuit appeals court.

On Tuesday, Judge Terry Doughty of US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits White House officials and numerous federal agencies from communicating "with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."

Doughty found that defendants "significantly encouraged" and in some cases coerced "the social-media companies to such extent that the decision [to modify or suppress content] should be deemed to be the decisions of the Government." The Biden administration has argued that its communications with tech companies are permissible under the First Amendment and vital to counter misinformation about elections, COVID-19, and vaccines.

....

The injunction doesn't cut off all contact between the Biden administration and social media companies. Doughty's ruling said the government may continue to inform social networks about posts involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies, national security threats, extortion, criminal efforts to suppress voting, illegal campaign contributions, cyberattacks against election infrastructure, foreign attempts to influence elections, threats to public safety and security, and posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures.