theSIGNAL
ENVIRONMENT
2 October 2026
"The cost of progress is rarely paid by those who profit from it first."
Environment
Berliners Track City's Trees to Save Them
Amanda Gläser-Bligh climbs her stairs weekly, watering can in hand, to feed a linden tree she has named Linda. She is one of 12,000 volunteers using Gieß den Kiez, an app mapping over 900,000 Berlin trees and calculating each one's water needs from age, species and rainfall. Launched in 2020, the project fills gaps left by overstretched district crews as summer heatwaves intensify. Saplings, lacking deep roots, appear flagged in red when critical. "It feels almost like a video game," Gläser-Bligh says.…
- Could tree-tracking apps like this work in your own city?
Environment
Fires Push Indonesia's Orangutans to Crisis
Mama Abu's hands had peeled from walking across scorched ground before rescuers found her, clutching her starving infant, inside an oil palm estate in Kalimantan. A fierce El Niño has intensified Indonesia's annual land-clearing fires, burning habitat that holds over half the world's Bornean orangutans, plus endangered gibbons and Sumatran elephants. The IUCN warns thousands of animals face death or displacement, as drained peatland smoulders underground for months, resisting extinguishing efforts entirely.…
- Should palm oil companies bear legal liability for wildlife deaths from land-clearing fires?
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What health problems might I face in the future? Because I've been exposed to all of that, my kids have been exposed to it.
Tiffany Leone-Vespa, Vineland resident
GLOBAL · Environment
UN warns of ‘narrowing window’ to restore world’s forests
WORLD · Environment
World’s oceans absorbed record heat equal to 40 times annual global energy use
AMERICAS · Environment
The night sky is getting 10% brighter every year. We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
EUROPE · Environment
‘Are these chemicals in my blood?’ How one community learned the truth about Pfas pollution