Late Friday a Burning Man press release claimed that “zero stuck or abandoned vehicles remain on site or on the exit road, as people have returned with friends and tow trucks to retrieve them.”
But the Reno Gazette-Journal reports that as of 5 p.m. Fr…

Governments are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to stave off climate disaster, a major report by the UN has found. From a report: Meeting the goals will require “phasing out all unabated …

Scientists are reporting that this year’s summer was the hottest on record — and by a significant margin. CNN reports: June to August was the planet’s warmest such period since records began in 1940, according to data from the European Union’s Coperni…

One million lorries of sand a day are being extracted from the world’s oceans, posing a “significant” threat to marine life and coastal communities facing rising sea levels and storms, according to the first-ever global data platform to monitor the ind…

More than 200 scientists have signed onto a letter pushing for “responsible” research into ways to trap planet-heating carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans. They want to take urgent action on the climate crisis, while making sure they don’t trigger any…

Invasive species are costing the world at least $423bn every year and have become a leading threat to the diversity of life on Earth, according to a UN assessment. From a news report: From invasive mice that eat seabird chicks in their nests to non-nat…

CBS News reports:
Floridians battered by Hurricane Idalia this week may not have expected another threat — that floodwaters could cause their cars to suddenly burst into flames. Yet that’s exactly what happened when two electric vehicles caught f…

Though it’s Saturday at Nevada’s desert-based Burning Man event “Dawn brought a growing realization for attendees that they might not be going home as planned, given rain forecast for later Saturday into Sunday…” reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. “Mo…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Early human ancestors came close to eradication in a severe evolutionary bottleneck between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, according to scientists. A genomics analysis of more than 3,000 living peo…

The centenary of the Great Kanto earthquake brings angst, and lessons for the world. From a report: Every year on September 1st, Japan’s ministers trek by foot to the prime minister’s office to take part in a crisis simulation. Across the country, loca…