Rising heat in Saudi Arabia threatens millions of Muslim pilgrims – but cutting fossil fuels would keep it safer
Global heating has “fundamentally altered” the climate of Mecca and is exposing millions of hajj pilgrims to extreme and dangerous heat even in months outside summer, new analysis has found.
Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels means scorching temperatures of 40C (104F) are now regularly experienced in May, the study showed. In past decades, such peaks would only have occurred in summer. The researchers said that hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, would take place amid dangerous heat almost all year round by the end of the century without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/28/2026 - 12:47
London authority’s new Tory-led administration delivers significant blow to Labour’s flagship housebuilding scheme
Enfield council in north London has withdrawn from the government’s new towns programme, in a significant blow to Labour’s flagship housebuilding scheme.
The move by the new minority Conservative-led administration could present one of the first tests of Rachel Reeves’s planning changes, designed to curb the use of judicial reviews against new infrastructure.
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05/28/2026 - 12:44
Clean power remains essential. But until it arrives, Britain must stop LNG made scarce by the Iran war setting gas and electricity prices
The US-Israel war on Iran will drive household energy costs in Britain to their highest level in two years over the summer. This has given fresh impetus to calls for the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, to change course. The cabinet minister is vulnerable because he promised cheaper bills if Britain embraced his clean, green power plan.
Critics, including Labour’s former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, are circling. Yet Mr Miliband ought to ignore the naysayers. Until global carbon emissions, including Britain’s, are reduced to net zero, the planet will continue to fry and temperature records will continue to be broken.
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05/28/2026 - 12:01
Water company blames increased demand in extreme heat, but customers want answers about lack of storage reservoirs
“Spitting, fuming, angry and powerless” is how Pat Prestage describes her emotions after a water outage that has affected thousands of homes in Kent during the heatwave.
On Wednesday, 8,000 South East Water customers in Whitstable lost water, with 14,000 more in Tankerton, Ashford, and its surrounding areas facing an intermittent supply or low pressure. South East Water’s incident manager, Matthew Dean, said on Thursday that 22,000 people had had water supply problems.
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05/28/2026 - 10:58
As summers become hotter, air conditioner sales are booming. If you’re looking to invest, here’s what to consider
When a heatwave struck the UK this week, Jon Connorton, a software developer, began monitoring temperatures inside his east Hampshire terrace house. With some rooms reaching close to 40C, it was time to deploy the air conditioner. “We just wheel it out in emergencies,” he said. “We were having trouble sleeping.”
Connorton and his wife have a portable air conditioner. These plug-in devices cool interior air by removing heat from it and blowing that heat outside, typically via a large hose slung from a window or door.
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05/28/2026 - 10:53
Bodies of two teenagers recovered by emergency workers following separate incidents in Kent and Oxford
The number of water-related deaths during the UK’s recent heatwave has risen to 11 after the bodies of two teenage boys were recovered in Kent and Oxford.
Emergency workers recovered the body of a 14-year-old boy from the River Thames near Donnington Bridge, Oxford, at about 5.30pm on Wednesday. Thames Valley police said the boy’s family had been informed and that his death was being treated as “unexplained but not suspicious”.
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05/28/2026 - 10:22
The insect may learn to associate the chemical Deet with a ‘blood meal’, researchers say
It is a spray used worldwide to protect humans from mosquito bites, but now research suggests Deet can become attractive to the insects if they associate it with feeding.
Deet – which has the chemical name N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide – is widely used in insect repellants, with the UK Health Security Agency recommending products with 50% Deet as the first choice to protect against mosquito bites.
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05/28/2026 - 10:00
For those of us working in Aboriginal health, the outbreak doesn’t come as a surprise. We must invest in housing that keeps remote communities safe
The diphtheria outbreak should shock Australia. Not simply because a disease once considered virtually eradicated has returned, but because of where it is spreading and why.
More than 220 cases have been recorded in 2026, primarily across the Northern Territory and northern Australia. The overwhelming majority of patients are Aboriginal people, including those living in remote and very remote communities.
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05/28/2026 - 09:00
In the last century, industrialized farming has killed off delicious food – but a brigade of chefs, breeders and farmers are fighting to bring it back
Bill Tracy is clearly not one to brag, but after a while, it seems he just can’t help himself. “I did come up with something absolutely amazing actually,” he says softly. “Really quite amazing.”
Tracy has spent the last 40 years in the fields of Wisconsin as one of the US’s leading sweetcorn breeders, tasting up to 300 ears a day in search of the perfect corn that might one day sizzle on barbecues across the country.
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05/28/2026 - 08:01
Datacentres used 22% of country’s electricity last year, pushing up household bills, study suggests
Energy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a report.
Ireland’s growing number of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban homes combined, according to the Central Statistics Office. The equivalent figure in the US and UK is 6%.
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