Environment

Environment

"pretty clear landslide"

New York City is moving toward phasing out Central Park's horse drawn carriages by June 2026. The proposal is known as Ryder's Law. It would replace horses with electric carriages on city streets. According to the Mayor's Office of the City of New York, the goal is better welfare for animals and safer traffic for everyone. Supporters say a busy city is no place for working horses in heat, noise, and unpredictable congestion.

Prolonged exposure to the cold conditions will lead to hypothermia for people, pets, and livestock. Cold conditions may damage or kill sensitive crops, plants, and vegetation if appropriate precautions are not taken, according to the NWS. Ensure portable heaters are working properly and are used correctly to avoid sparking a fire indoors. Do not use generators or grills inside as carbon monoxide poisoning can result.

The emissions in our atmosphere are at work, heating the planet, acidifying our oceans, and leading to climate-fueled disasters: heat waves, fires, flooding, droughts, and storms. For some climate impacts, devastation can be followed by the painstaking work of recovery. But for many natural systems, like our tropical coral reefs, the stress we are putting on them is reaching the realms of permanent decline and ultimate collapse.

Extremes of weather have pushed nature to its limits in 2025, putting wildlife, plants and landscapes under severe pressure, an annual audit of flora and fauna has concluded. Bookended by storms Eowyn and Bram, the UK experienced a sun-soaked spring and summer, resulting in fierce heath and moorland fires, followed by autumn floods. The National Trust, which provides a snapshot of how the weather is hitting wildlife every Christmas, described it as a rollercoaster of conditions that tested nature's resilience like never before in modern

The crumbling cliff edge is just metres away. An automatic blind, which I can operate without getting out of bed, rises to reveal an ocean view: the dramatic storm-surging North Sea with great black-backed gulls circling nearby and a distant ship on the horizon. A watery gold sunrise lights the clouds and turbulent grey water. I'm the first person to sleep in the new Kraken lodge at Still Southwold, a former farm in Easton Bavents on the Suffolk coast.

The north-eastern town of 128,000 people is best known for its Naruko Onsen hot springs, autumn foliage and kokeshi cylindrical dolls carved from a single piece of wood. But this year it has made the headlines as a bear hotspot, as the country reels from a year of record ursine encounters and deaths, with warnings that winter will not bring immediate respite.

For the rain year to date, which began on October 1, San Francisco and Oakland are both above normal in terms of rainfall, and the rain total is only set to rise further before 2025 is out. San Francisco recorded almost four inches of rain between December 20 and December 27, and that means the city is at 105% of average rainfall for the rain year to date since October 1.

Ulster and Connacht will see the best of the brighter spells later in the day, with highest temperatures ranging between 3 and 7 degrees. Clouds are expected to remain into the night, with scattered showers forecasted for the east and south of the country. Temperature lows of -2 are forecast in the north and northwest, with higher temperatures of between 2 and 6 degrees expected elsewhere.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, certain storms undergo bombogenesis, which happens when a storm's central pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. These storms are sometimes called bomb cyclones. Storm intensity is measured by central pressure, so the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm. Such rapidly strengthening storms are capable of producing heavy rain, blizzard conditions and intense winds that can create dangerous conditions such as downed trees and power outages.

When news broke this weekend that an elusive, endangered wildcat was spotted in Thailand for the first time in three decades, I rejoiced, obviously. What wonderful news that the flat-headed cat, which is estimated to have a wild population of just 2,500 in Southeast Asia, had not gone extinct in Thailand. The wildcat's presence was confirmed by remote camera traps, which recorded the cats 13 times in 2024 and 16 times in 2025 in the swampy peat forests of the Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary.

Cold conditions with temperatures as low as 34 degrees expected. Cold conditions will be hazardous to sensitive populations such as unhoused individuals. Prolonged exposure to the cold conditions will lead to hypothermia for people, pets, and livestock. Cold conditions may damage or kill sensitive crops, plants, and vegetation if appropriate precautions are not taken, according to the NWS. Ensure portable heaters are working properly and are used correctly to avoid sparking a fire indoors.

Scientists have watched in horror as its retreat has accelerated significantly. Now, as detailed in a study published by the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) and spotted by Wired, large cracks forming in the ice shelf are continuing to weaken its structural integrity. Doomsday has never been closer. If it were to collapse under its own weight, scientists suggest it could ultimately trigger up to 11 feet of global sea level rise, meaning certain devastation for tens of millions of people.

With winter setting in across the UK, staying warm at home is becoming a daily priority. However, with energy costs still high, households are increasingly weighing up whether turning on the heating is really the most cost-effective option. At the current cost of energy in the UK, it costs around 6p per kilowatt-hour if connected to mains gas. Using a 24-kW boiler, that works out at roughly £1.42 per hour.

I was retracing my steps of 20 years earlier to a scene of mass death I had never been able to erase from my mind. At a small plateau alongside Ninemile Creek in the Golden Trout Wilderness Area, I had stood in a forest of black sticks standing on both sides of a steep canyon like whiskers on a beast too large to comprehend.

High pressure is likely to be centred to the west or northwest over the North Atlantic through this period with low pressure to the east. Slowly evolving weather patterns are therefore most probable through this time. However, around the turn of the year, an area of low pressure may move through the North Sea bringing a period of wetter and windier weather, especially to the north. With cold air close to the UK, some wintry hazards are possible in places.

"What we believe has happened here is some unauthorised waste has been dumped." Peter says he thinks the waste has come from a barber-shop before he triumphantly pulls out a scrap of paper revealing details of the business. "So now we'll use that evidence to issue a fixed penalty notice for fly-tipping on that address," says Eiman, who is Lewisham's planning enforcement manager and interim environmental enforcement manager.

Every year, TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups all blew us away as well in their respective categories and compete in their own pitch competition.

Household waste increases 25% between Thanksgiving and New Years according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Dan Hoornweg, an energy engineering professor at Ontario Tech University, said people should check with their local recycling policies when sorting through holiday trash. Rules vary by municipality, including what belongs in recycling bins and what should go in the trash. Hoornweg cautioned residents to pay close attention to what they are throwing away.

Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 shows that sustainable fuels (SAF) only accounted for 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights 20% less fuel in volume than the 2% needed to fulfil the requirement. The government introduced the mandate in January, which requires suppliers to hit targets for SAF which the industry has argued is important for cutting its carbon emissions within the overall UK aviation fuel mix.

A strong storm system that brought relentless winds, rain and snowfall to California this week was expected to ease Friday, but there was still a risk of high surf along the coast, flash flooding near Los Angeles and avalanches in the Sierra Nevada. Waves near the San Francisco Bay Area could reach up to 25 feet Friday, parts of Southern California were at risk of flooding, and avalanches could hit the Lake Tahoe area, officials warned.

Marin Coastal Range, Coastal North Bay including Point Reyes National Seashore and North Bay Interior Valleys are included in a report for showers by the National Weather Service on Friday at 2:30 p.m. The alert is in effect until 3 p.m. Residents may experience wind gusts of up to 40 mph. At 2:30 p.m., Doppler radar tracked a shower 11 miles west of Stinson Beach, or 19 miles southwest of San Rafael, moving northeast at 25 mph, the NWS San Francisco CA said.

Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible from multiple lines of showers and thunderstorms, strong at times, moving across the area. Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations. Creeks and streams may rise out of their banks. Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas, the NWS said.

San Francisco Bay Shoreline, San Francisco Peninsula Coast, Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley Including San Jose are included in a report for strong thunderstorms by the National Weather Service on Thursday at 4:17 p.m. The alert is in effect until 4:45 p.m. Wind gusts of up to 40 mph and pea-sized hail (0.25 inches) are anticipated.