Charity urges gardeners in England to swap thirsty brassicas for drought-tolerant cropsThey are an integral part of the British Sunday roast – but cauliflowers are now going to be off the menu, according to the Royal Horticultural Society.England’s climate has changed so much that the RHS is now recommending that gardeners exclude the brassicas from their vegetable patches. Continue reading...
As trust in institutions wavers, experts say local, collective action is more effective in driving changeWildfires, excess deaths, hosepipe bans, school closures: this summer many British people have experienced the often devastating effects of the climate crisis in ways they had not before. In that sense, policymakers and climate experts have a unique opportunity to engage with the public about what needs to happen to better prepare the country for the years ahead. But as trust in institutions wavers – and yellowed, drought-stricken grass begins to recover – can the messaging cut through?This week, reflecting on a summer as “hot as hell”, the UN’s head of climate, Simon Stiell, said: “Climate is sometimes seen as a partisan issue, as territory in the culture wars. That is palpably false.” Continue reading...
Severe weather, from heavy rain and hail to extreme heat and drought, is making this year's pumpkin season increasingly unpredictable for Canadian farmers.
After the UK’s hottest ever summer on record, when much of the country has experienced a fraction of…
Party leader, who will contest Starmer’s former seat of Holborn and St Pancras, says gas drilling has come up on doorstepUK politics live – latest updatesZack Polanski has said a vote for him in the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras byelection is a vote against the government’s reported plans to greenlight a North Sea gasfield.The leader of the Green party in England and Wales, who was selected on Friday to contest the London seat, also said he was considering building a stockpile for the extreme weather predicted with the arrival of the biggest El Niño in 1,000 years, a meteorological phenomenon that supercharges floods and droughts. Continue reading...
Climate Debrief | Vijay Jayaraj joins Angela Wheeler on Climate Debrief to examine the history of the modern environmental movement and the rise of today’s climate crisis narrative. Drawing on historical and environmental data, he challenges claims about worsening extreme weather, wildfires, droughts, and heat while highlighting improvements in human life expectancy, agriculture, and global greening. The post Beyond the Narrative and Following the Data with Vijay Jayaraj | Climate Debrief appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
SMD is the moisture the soil must make up until it is at capacity, with very dry conditions over most of England and WalesWhen the ground is thoroughly wet, after excess rainwater has run off it is said to be at field capacity. Meteorologists describe drought in terms of soil moisture deficit (SMD) from field capacity. The SMD is a measure of how thirsty the soil is, expressed as how many millimetres of rain it would take to top it up to field capacity.In southern England, the SMD tends to hover around zero in winter when fields are wet. In summer it may be about 100mm, going up to 150mm or more in a dry year. The extreme of dryness, when soil has no water accessible to plants, is known as the permanent wilting point or PWP. Continue reading...
For the first time, French champagne producers are allowed to sell their bubbly with more than 13% alcohol, as record heatwaves and drought have resulted in grapes containing unusually high levels of sugar. They fear that climate change may eventually force them to permanently rewrite the rules governing winemaking. Also in the segment, the European Central Bank raised interest rates for the second time this year amid higher energy costs, as a potential new gas crisis looms over Europe.
Gardeners don’t need to take the hacksaw to the shrub border yet with the notion of making a fresh start
Environment Agency says talks under way about increasing prices for industrial users to try to reduce poor water managementMinisters are exploring making water more expensive for some users, in the face of severe supply shortages.Despite the UK being a famously wet country, the precarious nature of the water supply has been made particularly acute this summer, with almost three-quarters of England and all of Wales in drought and 27 million people facing restrictions on their water use. Continue reading...