From merrily dismissing climate science, to promoting irresponsible health claims, the podcast was an unintentional warning for our times
Looking back on this crazy year, one event, right at the start, seems to me to encapsulate the whole. In January, recording his podcast in a studio in Austin, Texas, the host, Joe Rogan, and the actor Mel Gibson merrily dissed climate science. At the same time, about 1,200 miles away in California, Gibson’s $14m home was being incinerated in the Palisades wildfire. In this and other respects, their discussion could be seen as prefiguring the entire 12 months.
The loss of his house hadn’t been confirmed at the time of the interview, but Gibson said his son had just sent him “a video of my neighbourhood, and it’s in flames. It looks like an inferno.” According to World Weather Attribution, January’s fires in California were made significantly more likely by climate breakdown. Factors such as the extreme lack of rainfall and stronger winds made such fires both more likely to happen and more intense than they would have been without human-caused global heating.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/27/2025 - 03:00
12/27/2025 - 01:48
With the snow line edging higher, 186 French ski resorts have shut, while global heating threatens dozens more
When Céüze 2000 ski resort closed at the end of the season in 2018, the workers assumed they would be back the following winter. Maps of the pistes were left stacked beside a stapler; the staff rota pinned to the wall.
Six years on, a yellowing newspaper dated 8 March 2018 sits folded on its side, as if someone has just flicked through it during a quiet spell. A half-drunk bottle of water remains on the table.
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12/26/2025 - 17:47
Beachgoers from the Tweed to Batemans Bay have been asked to be on the lookout – and every nest reported to TurtleWatch NSW will be protected
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The first sea turtle nest discovery of the breeding season has led to a rescue mission and kicked off a campaign to protect an endangered species.
The nest, found recently on the New South Wales north coast, was too close to the water’s edge and the eggs needed to be moved to save them from being inundated by waves and the tides.
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12/26/2025 - 12:30
Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justice
The record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.
Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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12/26/2025 - 12:00
These fungi boost plant growth and restore depleted ecosystems, but federal funding for a library housing them has been cut – and it may be forced to close
Inside a large greenhouse at the University of Kansas, Professor Liz Koziol and Dr Terra Lubin tend rows of sudan grass in individual plastic pots. The roots of each straggly plant harbor a specific strain of invisible soil fungus. The shelves of a nearby cold room are stacked high with thousands of plastic bags and vials containing fungal spores harvested from these plants, then carefully preserved by the researchers.
The samples in this seemingly unremarkable room are part of the International Collection of Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (INVAM), the world’s largest living library of soil fungi. Four decades in the making, it could cease to exist within a year due to federal budget cuts.
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12/26/2025 - 07:30
New polling shows 65% of registered US voters believe global heating is affecting cost of living
Most Americans now connect the worsening climate crisis with their cost of living pressures, with clear majorities also disagreeing with moves by the Trump administration to gut climate research and halt windfarms, new polling has found.
About 65% of registered voters in the US think that global heating is affecting the cost of living, according to the polling by Yale University.
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12/26/2025 - 05:00
As part of the Guardian’s Against the tide series, readers aged 18 to 30 share what they love about living in their coastal town, the challenges and why they often choose to leave
Megan, a 24-year-old from the Isle of Wight, is very familiar with saying goodbye. She decided university wasn’t for her and remembers how, one by one, she waved off her friends who left the island to study. Many never came back.
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12/26/2025 - 03:00
We look back over the year’s wildlife photographs, and hand out some much-deserved gongs to brilliant and beautiful creatures around the world
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12/26/2025 - 02:00
Mersey Valley Way takes in Manchester and Stockport on its 13-mile route with other walks to be identified in 2026
A new river walk has been announced by the government as ministers try to improve access to nature in England.
The 13-mile (21km) walk will go through Greater Manchester and the north-west of England. There will be a river walk in each region of the country by the end of parliament, the government has pledged.
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12/26/2025 - 01:00
Provisional figures in government mandate’s first year show 20% shortfall in levels of SAF supplied for UK flights
The take-up of sustainable aviation fuels is on course to fall short of the UK government’s first annual mandate, official figures suggest.
Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 shows that sustainable fuels (SAF) only accounted for 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights – 20% less fuel in volume than the 2% needed to fulfil the requirement.
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