It's a short one this week.

Hi friend,

I lost three days of my life to flu this week, so I’m behind in life.

While I catch up, here’s the news highlights from the week.

— Tarryn ✌️

P.S. Did someone forward this to you? You can subscribe here and get it straight in your inbox.

News worth noting

⛏️ An unpublished UN analysis warns that global extraction of raw materials is expected to increase by 60% by 2060, which would be devastating for the climate and the environment.

🪸 Coral Reef Watch, the world’s system for monitoring heat stress on reefs, has added three new alert categories to reflect how extreme climate change-driven bleaching is getting.

🍔 Existing food systems destroy more value than they create due to hidden environmental and medical costs, a new study has found. If nothing changes, 640 million people will be underweight by 2050 and obesity will increase by 70%. A shift towards a more sustainable global food system could create trillions of dollars in benefits a year, improve human health, and ease the climate crisis.

🚢 The Panama Canal Authority has reduced daily traffic through the narrow corridor by nearly 40% compared with last year. Extreme drought has driven water levels to the lowest ever for the start of a dry season. This means not as many ships can pass through the canal, and many ships are being diverted to longer ocean routes, which increases both costs and carbon emissions. The drought could extend to May.

💨 The UK is banning disposal vapes.

🌀 Wild weather:

• 🔥 Wildfires in Columbia.

• 🌧️ Cyclone Kirrily dumped the heaviest rains in 40 years on parts of New South Wales, Australia, with most of the state on flood alert.

• 🌬️ Heavy rain and damaging winds trigger “atmospheric river flooding” in California. States of emergency were declared in eight counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.

• 🌵 States of emergency declared in Catalonia and Barcelona amid ongoing drought. Some regions have gone more than three years without rain and water reservoirs have dropped below 16%.

• 🔥 Forest fires kill over 120 people in Chile and wipe out entire neighbourhoods, leaving thousands homeless.

• 🌧️ A landslide triggered by torrential rain killed at least six people, with over 100 still missing, in the Philippines. 

And in business news

🤥 While California drowns, a bunch of businesses are trying to block California’s two landmark corporate climate disclosure laws, saying it’s too hard and too expensive (it’s neither) to report on their environmental impact. Good on the senator for calling a spade a spade: “it’s straight up climate denial … many large corporations — particularly fossil fuel corporations and large banks — are absolutely terrified that if they have to tell the public how dramatically they’re fuelling climate change, they’ll no longer be able to mislead the public and investors.”

✋🏻 In Utah, lawmakers want to stop a rising movement that believes nature should have rights. Activists are pushing for laws to acknowledge that the Great Salt Lake has the right to exist. However, Utah's House of Representatives voted for a bill that would prevent lakes, animals, plants, and even AI from being recognised as having the same legal rights as humans.

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