Guardian: Anger in Finland as Google Illegally Fells 250,000 Trees for Datacentre

Guardian: Anger in Finland as Google Illegally Fells 250,000 Trees for Datacentre

And the trees can’t even be used.

I switched out of Gmail yesterday. And increasingly use Ecosia for web searches.

In addition to the 250,000 trees felled at Muhos, Mari Annala, an ecologist from the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (SLL), estimates that an additional 150,000 trees were felled at Otanmäki. Because the trees have been felled illegally, she says wood from the two sites cannot be sold to wood-processing plants.

The move has also prompted questions over why Finland’s renewable energy sources are being used to power international corporations.

Link.

Yale e360: Arctic Wildlife Research Suffers as Geopolitical Competition Grows

Yale e360: Arctic Wildlife Research Suffers as Geopolitical Competition Grows

Arctic agendas are shifting to national security and the hunt for rare minerals. That has translated to an unprecedented slashing for wildlife research in the region at a time when climate change is dramatically reshaping every facet of life on the planet’s northern reaches.

“There have always been ebbs and flows in the support for environmental monitoring in the Arctic,” said Larry Hinzman, an expert in Arctic change at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “But what we are seeing now is unprecedented. It’s heartbreaking because we need to know more than ever how to respond to a warming Arctic that is affecting almost every facet of life.”

And:

The decline in Arctic research comes at a time when at least 96 Arctic and sub-Arctic mammal and bird species may be responding to warmer winters, earlier spring snowmelt, and profound landscape changes by migrating earlier in the year and traveling farther afield, sometimes in new directions. But dozens of studies have shown that these journeys don’t always lead to more food. And they often expose birds to additional parasites and pathogens and put them at greater risk of predation.

Link.

How a Great Gray Owl Uses Sound to Hunt Under Snow

Incredible footage from the CBC show The Nature of Thing of a Great Gray Owl hunting voles burrowing in the snow, relying almost exclusively on its incredible sense of hearing. And specially adapted feathers that allow it to swoop in in dead silence.

Ranging from 61 to 84 cm (24 to 33 in) in length, the Great Gray Owl is the world’s largest species of owl. Their breeding range stretches from the Pacific coast of North America –California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia– east to Quebec and in Europe from Finland and Estonia across northern Asia. The CBC video was shot in Manitoba.

Via kottke.org.

Inside Climate News: How the Climate Crisis Fueled the Youth Protests Roiling France

Inside Climate News: How the Climate Crisis Fueled the Youth Protests Roiling France

The heating planet is fueling unrest, that’s been clear. The past month of youth protests in France, which come after the country’s hottest year, are just one example.

The students’ demands are far-ranging: more teachers, smaller class sizes, a shortened school day and an overhaul of the post-secondary college application system. But the heart of the revolt is indignation over crumbling school infrastructure—a problem laid bare by climate-change-fueled heat waves.

This year was France’s hottest on record, and the country counted 8,000 excess deaths during the summer’s heat waves. In June alone, deaths spiked 11 percent compared to the same month in 2025.

France’s schools, meanwhile, were not built for the hotter world the students have inherited after generations of fossil fuel use have warped the climate. Many buildings were designed to hold onto heat; air conditioning is rare. As classrooms recorded temperature peaks above 100 degrees Fahrenheit this spring, schools reported incidents from fainting to nosebleeds.

Link.

NYT: New York’s Latest Famous Family Is a Hoot. Yes, They’re Owls. – Gift Link

NYT: New York’s Latest Famous Family Is a Hoot. Yes, They’re Owls. – Gift Link

A family of Barn Owls has taken up residence on a rooftop on New York City’s Upper West Side. The family includes adolescents who are learning to fly.

The owls begin their evenings at about 7:45 p.m. with a series of screeches, Ms. Williams said. The adolescents hop along the water tower’s roof and take short test flights. Then the adults depart. Sometimes, they perch on sections of the Kenilworth Building on Central Park West, scanning alleys and the park for mice and rats. When they return with food, the children hop with excitement. By 10 p.m., the horrifying screeches begin to quiet.

Gift Link.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art – Notebook and Snapshots

In the Giacometti Hall at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, pictured above, Alberto Giacometti’s “Walking Man” appears to be entering from the lush woods beyond the glass. The image doesn’t quite do justice to the work—or to its stunning setting beside the Garden Lake, just a few metres away.

It’s an apt image for a museum, located in the quiet town of Humlebæk just north of Copenhagen, that feels less like a conventional gallery and more like a journey through art, architecture and landscape.

Continue reading →

Climate Brink: The World Without Solar and Wind?

Climate Brink: The World Without Solar and Wind?

On his excellent Substack, The Climate Brink, climate scientist and researcher Zeke Hasufather notes how quickly renewable energy continues to expand and grow and how, despite arguments by skeptics to the contrary, renewables are displacing fossil fuels.

Twenty years ago, wind, solar and other non-hydro renewables were close to a rounding error. In 2005 they supplied a mere 2.0% of the world’s electricity generation. By 2015 that had risen to 6.8%, and by 2025 it was up to 19.8%. According to the IEA Electricity 2026 outlook, non-hydro renewables will supply around 21.8% of global electricity in 2026, edging past natural gas (21.6%) to become the second-largest source of power after coal.

Link.

Copernicus: September 2026 was the second-warmest September on record globally

Copernicus: September 2026 was the second-warmest September on record globally

.. And the second consecutive month with temperatures more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, reports the Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation and monitoring programme. For Europe as a whole, it was the third-warmest September on record, and the joint warmest for western Europe.

Global surface air temperature anomalies for September 2026 (Copernicus)

Here in Europe:

  • In September 2026, most of Europe experienced above-average temperatures.
  • Warmer-than-average conditions were most pronounced across much of western Europe, continuing the unusual warmth seen throughout the summer in this part of the continent. The largest anomalies occurred over southern France, Portugal, Spain and parts of Italy, reaching 4–6°C above average. As during much of the summer, the unusual warmth was associated with persistent high-pressure conditions over the region.
  • Across much of this region, as well as in southern Ireland, average temperatures for September were the highest since at least 1979 in the ERA5 dataset. According to national reports, Portugal experienced its warmest September on record, and France and Ireland their second warmest (based on preliminary data for Ireland).

Outside of Europe:

  • Outside Europe (discussed below), monthly temperatures in September 2026 were above average across the majority of continental regions outside of Antarctica.
  • As observed in August, the West Antarctic region showed the largest positive temperature anomalies worldwide, reaching 10–15°C above average in September. This pattern is consistent with the typical El Niño teleconnection in the region, characterised by high pressure over the Amundsen Sea that channels warm marine air toward this part of the continent.
  • Pronounced warm anomalies were also observed across western Siberia, the central United States, northern Canada, eastern Africa.
  • Colder-than-average conditions prevailed across Greenland, the western United States, parts of South America, Africa, and Asia, northern Australia, and the region around the Weddell Sea and the adjacent part of Antarctica to the south (Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf).
Surface air temperature anomaly September 2026 (Copernicus)

In the oceans:

  • The average sea surface temperature (SST) across the extra-polar ocean (60°S-60°N) for September 2026 was 21.05°C, the highest value on record for September. It was only slightly below the all-time record set in August (21.07°C).
  • Since 19 June, the daily extra-polar SST has been the highest recorded for each calendar day.
Sea surface temperature anomaly September 2026 (Copernicus)

And the intensification of El Niño:

  • Much of the central and eastern tropical Pacific continued to show record-high SSTs for the month, as has been the case since spring. SST anomalies across the region increased further since August, reflecting the continued intensification of El Niño.
  • Monthly SSTs for September were more than 3°C above average across the central and equatorial Pacific, including much of the Nino 3.4 region. The largest anomalies occurred farther east along the Peruvian coast and west of the Galápagos, reaching 6–7°C above average in those areas.
  • The monthly SST for the Niño 3.4 region reached an all-time high of 29.70°C in September, exceeding the peak values of the previous very strong El Niño events of 1982/1983, 1997/1998, and 2015/2016, which all occurred between November and January. The corresponding September SST anomaly was also the highest on record, at 2.99°C above the 1991–2020 average, exceeding the previous record of 2.81°C set in December 1997.
  • According to the World Meteorological Organization, El Niño is expected to intensify into a very strong event over the coming months, peaking towards the end of 2026 and continuing until at least February 2027.

The full release is here.

Guardian: Corporations claim their fossil fuel emissions are a drop in the ocean. But what if we could count the real cost?

Guardian: Corporations claim their fossil fuel emissions are a drop in the ocean. But what if we could count the real cost?

Below, from a Guardian analysis of the Carbon Impacts Tracer, a new tool developed by the Australian National University and the Lethal Humidity Global Council that helps visualise the connection between COâ‚‚ emissions from specific fossil fuel projects or companies and their attributable climate impacts by translating abstract emission quantities into tangible consequences, using peer-reviewed scientific relationships:

The biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, the Hunter Valley Operations mine, will emit the equivalent of about 809m tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval.

That number, for most people, will carry little meaning, as might the calculation that adding that amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere will cause an extra 0.00036C of global heating.

But what if the public was instead told that that amount of carbon dioxide would expose almost half a million people to unprecedented heat, or kill nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches, or lead to more than 100 additional deaths from heatwaves in Europe to the end of this century.

I’ll give it a test drive over the weekend.

Link.

Jeff Goodell on Attribution Science in the NYT: The Science That Has Oil Companies Running Scared – Gift Link

Jeff Goodell on Attribution Science in the NYT: The Science That Has Oil Companies Running Scared – Gift Link

Goodell, author of ‘The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet’ argues that no matter how the US Supreme Court rules in a liability lawsuit brought against Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy by the city of Boulder, it will not kill attempts to hold those responsible for the impact of climate change accountable.

In fact, he writes, “the age of accountability for the fossil fuel industry has just begun and has a bright future. The reason for that is the emergence of a powerful field of climate science known as attribution science”, which measures how much human-caused climate change influences the frequency, intensity, and likelihood of specific extreme weather events. [Here is a Union of Concerned Scientists piece with a longer explanation on how it works.]

The simple truth is, the climate accountability genie is out of the bottle, and the Supreme Court is unlikely to jam it back in. Even if the court sides with Suncor, attribution science will continue to move forward, filling in the gaps between cause and effect in our understanding of how climate works.

And

In the end, the promise of attribution science is that it helps us see a storm or a heat wave or a flood not as an act of a god or the whim of Mother Nature, but as a disaster that has been knowingly shaped or intensified by particular human actions. And by identifying perpetrators and victims, it transforms the question of who should pay for climate damages into a moral question as much as a legal one.

Gift link.

Related coverage on the case: