Speaking at Hay festival as UK breaks May heat record, author says optimism is a ‘moral duty’
Pessimism is probably “a bigger problem than climate change”, said the novelist Ian McEwan on Monday afternoon, as temperatures broke May records in the UK.
McEwan “constantly” hears people say that they don’t “expect their children to have as good a life as they did”, but suggested that optimism is a “moral duty”.
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05/25/2026 - 11:34
The UK is experiencing record-breaking temperatures in an unprecedented May heatwave, while large parts of Europe are also facing blistering conditions. As the climate crisis makes extreme heat more likely, are we prepared?
Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian reporter Helena Horton.
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05/25/2026 - 07:00
Jay Morris denies experts’ claims that he violated ethics rules over land deals near the site of Meta’s Hyperion datacenter
This story is from Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action
For more than two years, John “Jay” Morris, a Louisiana state senator, helped pave the way for Meta to build one of the world’s largest datacenters, called Hyperion, in Richland Parish.
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05/25/2026 - 06:00
The state saw 33 tornadoes last year and severe flooding as researchers say links to climate change are undeniable
The tornado hit west Ann Arbor at 1.45am on 15 April, passing through Veterans Memorial park, where it knocked several mature oak trees and ripped up baseball field fences before setting its sights on a local ice rink.
“It came up through the parking lot and, in that time, the pressure differential between the tornado and the air inside the rink collapsed the wall,” said Scott Spooner, a manager at Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation.
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05/25/2026 - 05:30
Given the scale of its contribution to global heating, the world’s biggest miner has a duty to invest heavily in solutions that could have a global impact
Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push
Read more from the BHP files investigation here
Sign up for Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here
The revelation that BHP cancelled and delayed commitments to act on the climate crisis should be a wake-up call.
It matters in its own right: millions of tonnes of additional heat-trapping pollution will go into the atmosphere, adding to climate harm and making Australia’s climate targets that much harder to reach.
Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter
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05/25/2026 - 05:30
The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to stall major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, according to documents leaked to the Guardian and ABC’s Four Corners. In a statement, BHP said its progress towards net zero emissions was dependent on technological shifts in trucks, trains and dozers, which were not yet ready to be deployed.
Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push
Read more from the BHP files investigation here
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05/25/2026 - 00:00
Most people have joyful memories of playing outside as children – and now wildlife charities are urging people to ‘rewild their inner child’
Climbing trees, squelching in mud, paddling in ponds or making dens in the woods – people’s memories of playing outside as children are often vivid and, a new poll has found, overwhelmingly positive, even those who remember falling in cowpats.
Almost 90% of UK adults had rosy memories of the excitement and the feeling of freedom that outdoor play had brought them, the survey found. However, almost half of adults now spend less than three hours a week in natural settings such as gardens, parks, fields or woods, according to the survey. For one in 10 it is less than one hour.
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05/24/2026 - 18:01
Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural Scotland
A Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.
“Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland.
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05/24/2026 - 14:36
Lee Zeldin says ‘low-volume release’ of flammable chemicals is most likely amid fears of explosion at Orange county facility near Disneyland
Government officials in Orange county, California, have warned that an overheated chemical tank “will fail” and could result in a chemical explosion in the area, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator said on Sunday.
“We’re being told that the tank will fail, but there are different scenarios as to what that means,” Lee Zeldin, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. Zeldin, a former Republican congressman with no prior experience in environmental policy, was chosen by Trump as the head of the EPA.
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05/24/2026 - 09:44
Highest temperatures of 2026 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as Kew Gardens in London reaches 32.3C
England, Wales and Northern Ireland recorded their highest temperatures of 2026 on Sunday, which was also the UK’s hottest May day for at least 79 years.
Kew Gardens in west London recorded 32.3C (90.1F), Cardiff 27.4C and Armagh 23.4C.
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