Sir David Attenborough has said at 92 he doesn't have long left to live, but wants to make the most of it. The broadcaster opened up about the precarious position the planet finds itself in and says his generation has not done enough. Speaking to the Guardian about what he thinks the planet will look like after he's gone, the 92-year-old said: "I can't bear it.

As it scours the universe for signs of extraterrestrial life, nasa has a motto-cum-mission-statement: “Follow the water”. About 70% of the human body is made up of water, it says, and 70% of Earth’s surface is covered in the stuff. “Water creates an environment that sustains and nurtures plants, animals and humans, making Earth a perfect match for life in general.”

During extreme storms, ocean waves can be more than 20 metres high, or as tall as a five-storey building. More than being just a product of our weather systems, waves are critical for ocean shipping, the stability of beaches, coastal inundation or flooding and determining the design of coastal and offshore structures.

More than half of the world’s new oil and gas pipelines are located in North America, with a boom in US oil and gas drilling set to deliver a major blow to efforts to slow climate change, a new report has found. Of a total 302 pipelines in some stage of development around the world, 51% are in North America, according to Global Energy Monitor, which tracks fossil fuel activity. A total of $232.5bn in capital spending has been funneled into these North American pipeline projects, with more than $1tn committed towards all oil and gas infrastructure.

The release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming and add up to $70tn (£54tn) to the world’s climate bill, according to the most advanced study yet of the economic consequences of a melting Arctic. If countries fail to improve on their Paris agreement commitments, this feedback mechanism, combined with a loss of heat-deflecting white ice, will cause a near 5% amplification of global warming and its associated costs, says the paper, which was published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.

Because I am concerned about inequality and about the environment, I am usually classed as a progressive, a liberal. But it seems to me that what I care most about is preserving a world that bears some resemblance to the past: a world with some ice at the top and bottom and the odd coral reef in between; a world where people are connected to the past and future (and to one another) instead of turned into obsolete software.

For as long as climate change has been a part of America’s national consciousness, it’s been talked about in dire terms, evoking images of some hellish, “Mad Max”-style dystopia. The title and much of the content of David Wallace-Wells’s recent book is a variation on the same theme, stirring up hundreds of pages of images’ worth of an “Uninhabitable Earth” to make the case that the conversation has not been dire enough.

In the nine years since private equity and venture capital investments into sustainable technologies last crossed the $6 billion threshold, the problems caused by global carbon emissions have only intensified. Now, as the world confronts the reality that there’s not much time left to reverse course on carbon emissions and the impact they will have on life on earth, both corporate and private investors are once again stepping up their commitments to startups in the space.

With each successive Earth Day, the scale of the global environmental crisis becomes more disheartening. So too does the collective failure to respond to the planet’s plight. Over the past year, scientists have issued dire warnings about global warming, mass extinction, the extent of plastic pollution and the death of the world’s oceans. Humanity is now deep in the Anthropocene, a new geologic era defined by the human transformation of the natural world, and the lights are blinking red.

Concern over climate change is highest in the Northeastern and Western U.S., according to new data released Monday. Sixty-seven percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup living in the Northeast and West believe climate change is now occurring, compared to 60 percent in the Midwest and 53 percent in the South. People in the first two regions were similarly more likely to believe the seriousness of global warming is correct or underestimated.

More than 80% of parents in the U.S. support the teaching of climate change. And that support crosses political divides, according to the results of an exclusive new NPR/Ipsos poll: Whether they have children or not, two-thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats agree that the subject needs to be taught in school. A separate poll of teachers found that they are even more supportive, in theory — 86% agree that climate change should be taught.

In the early 1990s, Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado was stationed in Rwanda to cover the horrific accounts of Rwanda genocide. The on-ground experience left him traumatised. In 1994, he was returning to his home in Minas Gerais, Brazil, with a heavy heart, hoping to find solace in the lap of a lush green forest, where he had grown up. But, instead, he found dusty, barren land for miles and miles, in place of the forest. In only a few years, his beautiful hometown underwent rampant deforestation, leaving it fallow and devoid of all the wildlife. For him, everything was destroyed.

I’ve been asking myself a question – and even posing it makes me queasy. Is it too late – are we beyond saving? As a culture and a polity, when it comes to climate change, have we arrived at a point where we are now expected – even trained – to abandon hope and submit to the inevitable? OK, I guess that’s two questions. In good faith I can still say that the answer to the first is no. But I’d be a liar and a fool to give the same response to the second.

Governments around the world must fully protect 30% of Earth’s surface and sustainably manage another 20% by 2030 if they’re to have a hope of saving ecosystems and limiting global warming, researchers have said in a new report. The recommendations are part of a fleshed out ‘global deal for nature’ — initially proposed1 by researchers in 2017 as a companion to the Paris climate accord — that outlines what it will take to maintain a liveable planet.

We are all doomed, it is said. Carbon dioxide is amassing in the atmosphere at levels not seen for millions of years when there were trees at the South Pole and Florida was under water. We have barely a decade to make amends. Protesters are on the streets. But huge numbers of people have not given up. Not yet. Call them the carbon cutters. They are companies and cities, niche groups and nations.

The degree to which climate change threatens the ecosystems of the Earth and societies around the world has been an ongoing subject of debate – and sometimes protest. As Earth Day nears, we take stock of U.S. public opinion about climate change, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys. For more on how people globally see climate change, see our companion post, “For Earth Day, a look at how people around the world view climate change.”

At just 16 years old, Greta Thunberg is making her mark in this world. From a Swedish schoolgirl to a global influencer, her work is inspiring individuals to act. As a result, activism for climate change reform is increasing at an exponential rate. Greta’s platform started with a school strike outside of the Swedish parliament in August 2018. Since then, her strides of progress earned her a position in front of politicians. On April 16, 2019, Greta spoke towards a room of members of the European Parliament and European Union officials.

Sir David Attenborough has issued his strongest statement yet on the threat posed to the world by climate change. In the BBC programme Climate Change - The Facts, the veteran broadcaster outlines the scale of the crisis facing the planet. Sir David says we face "irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies". But there is still hope, he says, if dramatic action to limit the effects is taken over the next decade.

The University of Bristol has become the first in the country to declare a climate emergency. It follows a raft of organisations and local authorities, including the city council and North Somerset Council, across the UK in taking the step. Deputy vice-chancellor and provost Professor Judith Squires said the declaration reaffirmed the institution’s “key role” in fighting climate change.

Researchers are using AI to tackle the flood of data needed to understand and respond to the effects of climate change.