Dozens of projects are in development across US despite concerns over environmental and health risks
The plan to bury carbon under remote Indiana farmland is supposed to be a slam dunk for the climate, according to its supporters – all generously funded by US tax dollars.
But as far as Melissa Harrison and some other residents of Clymers, Indiana, are concerned, it just might be the end of their town. “This is our place,” she says. Generations of her family are buried in the cemetery, and she is raising her five grandchildren in one of several dozen white-clapboard homes among corn fields and industrial plants serving the farming industry.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/12/2026 - 07:00
07/12/2026 - 06:00
Scientists worry that current eradication efforts won’t be able to contain parasitic infestation pushing into US
When conservationists set up cameras in remote regions of Central American forests, they wanted to monitor illegal cattle movement, which can lead to deforestation. But in recent months, they discovered another alarming development: wildlife rapidly infected with the new world screwworm.
It’s a warning sign of how the fly could spread in the US – and it signals new difficulties in pushing it back south, a process that will probably take years, experts say.
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07/12/2026 - 02:00
Weather cycle threatens harvests worldwide, adding to inflation already fuelled by the Iran war
Economists are warning that a “super” El Niño weather cycle this year could cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028.
As the Iran war pushes up world food prices to the highest level in three years, economists said supply chains faced “two shocks at once” stoked by extreme weather linked to global heating.
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07/11/2026 - 15:00
Below the surface is one of the only places I can switch my brain off. Coming face to face with a shark comes with the territory – and we all have to adapt to this new normal
The first time I came face to face with a great white shark I felt something shift inside me. One look into those eyes darker than a planet-sucking black hole really does humble you.
But it wasn’t the eyes.
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07/11/2026 - 09:00
The president wooed farmers in his campaign, but now the USDA is yanking funding, citing ‘DEI’ and wasteful spending
It’s just an eighth of an acre, but for Lawrencia Rogers, the plot where she grows broccolini, lettuce and beans on land once tilled by poorhouse residents in eastern Iowa is the closest she has come to living her dream.
Iowa is one of the most agriculturally productive states in the country, but getting into farming is not easy, particularly for people like Rogers who have no family connections to the business. It’s nonetheless been a lifelong passion for the 33-year-old Iowan: at age six, she planted a rosebush that’s still alive today, and managed to grow cantaloupe on a strip of dirt and chain-link fence next to the driveway of her grandmother’s house.
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07/11/2026 - 07:53
Two striking Asian praying mantis species that have rapidly spread across Europe have now been officially classified as invasive, raising new concerns about their impact on native wildlife. Boosted by climate change and urban environments, these fast-breeding predators are expanding northward, where they prey on native insects, pollinators, and even small vertebrates while also reducing native mantis populations through deadly mating interactions.
07/11/2026 - 07:00
Increase in sightings may not reflect increase in sharks with little evidence that threat to swimmers has risen
Experts say that despite recent increased investment in drones to monitor for sharks in states like New York, the machines have limited usefulness as a public safety tool and there does not appear to be evidence that the threat to swimmers from sharks has increased.
There have, however, been more reports of sharks around local beaches.
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07/11/2026 - 06:00
Microsoft, Amazon and Google say they still aim to achieve net zero output despite construction boom
Microsoft, Amazon and Google’s collective carbon emissions have increased by nearly a fifth in the past year, driven largely by datacentre construction.
In the financial year ending March 2026, the three tech companies emitted 119m mTCO₂e (metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent), or about a third of those of France.
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07/11/2026 - 03:45
The tube cannot easily be adapted to cope with heatwaves, making conditions almost unbearable
As the escalator descends below ground at King’s Cross St Pancras station in London, the shift from what was already a hot station entrance to the furnace-like subterranean depths is perceptible.
On the tube it’s worse: a man leans back in his seat, eyes closed, sweltering; people hold electric fans an inch away from their faces. London commuters are known for their stoicism and the heat appears to be another tribulation to accept. They will need to: heatwaves in the capital are becoming routine.
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07/11/2026 - 03:00
Every few decades mass blooming in Mizoram’s forests causes a rodent boom – and devastation to crops. The cycle is well-known, so why aren’t farmers and authorities better prepared?
In the hills of Mizoram state in north-east India, the first thing that farmers notice are the swarms of stink bugs, known locally as thangnang. It can mean only one thing: the rats are coming. And with them, famine.
As dawn breaks in Mamit district, Maunsanga, a 62-year-old farmer, walks across his plot, stopping where his rice crop once stood. He bends down to examine a broken stalk.
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