theSIGNAL ENVIRONMENT
25 October 2026
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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Environment

Four Years After Dom Phillips, the Amazon Votes Again

As Brazil heads into a presidential runoff, a murdered journalist's warnings about the Bolsonaro family and the rainforest feel newly urgent.

In 2018, a few weeks before Brazil's first-round vote, the British journalist Dom Phillips typed a message that now reads like a forecast. "I don't think I have ever been so negative about Brazil's future," he wrote to a fellow Guardian contributor, after a week in Manaus, where almost everyone he met seemed ready to vote for Jair Bolsonaro. If the former army captain won, he asked, what would it be like to live there? His answer, given in the same exchange, was that a Bolsonaro victory would mean more deaths, more destruction of the Amazon rainforest and more danger for reporters.

Phillips was killed four years ago, together with the Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. Now Brazil is preparing for a runoff this Sunday in which a member of the same family is once more a favourite to win. Polls suggest that Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son, is narrowly ahead of the Workers' Party incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The gap lies within the margin of error, however, and Lula appears to have gained momentum, so the outcome remains genuinely open.

What is clear is that the stakes reach well beyond Brazil, because the Amazon helps regulate climate and rainfall across several continents. It would be a mistake to remember Phillips as a partisan. Messages from an earlier election show him backing the centre-right challenger Aécio Neves, because he believed the then Workers' Party government had become too entangled in corruption. His test was practical rather than ideological: did a government serve people and the planet?

Photo: Leon Beckert / Unsplash
Aerial view of Amazon rainforest canopy, where Brazil's election result could shape the fate of the forest.
Discuss
  • Why might voters treat a candidate from a political dynasty differently from a first-time candidate, especially on environmental policy?
  • Dom Phillips supported different parties at different times; how does a non-ideological approach to politics help or hinder public debate?
  • The Amazon affects climate and rainfall across continents; should outside countries have a voice in Brazil's elections?
Science

The Leap Second's Quiet Farewell

Since 1972, timekeepers have inserted 27 leap seconds into the world's clocks, nudging atomic time back toward Earth's slightly irregular spin. Now metrologists, meeting in France, have voted to phase the practice out, a change Philippe Richard of Switzerland's metrology institute says most people will never notice. The reason is technical: computer networks, satellites and financial systems have repeatedly stumbled over the extra second.…
  • If Earth's spin and official time drift apart, who should decide when to correct it?
Environment

Britain's Birches Went Bare After Record Heat

At Wisley garden in Surrey, one birch stands leafless among the copper and purple of October. After Britain's hottest summer on record, shallow-rooted birches, beeches and sycamores shed their leaves early to save water, skipping autumn colour altogether. Deep-rooted oaks coped better. Most of England and Wales remains in drought, so the Royal Horticultural Society expects an earlier, shorter colour peak.…
  • If drought can fake autumn, how should gardeners and cities choose which trees to plant?
"
I don't think I have ever been so negative about Brazil's future.
Dom Phillips, British journalist, in a 2018 message
EUROPE · Environment
Heat killed ‘staggering’ 50,000 people in Europe’s cities this summer, scientists warn
GLOBAL · Environment
World must cut emissions by 18% in four years ‘to find our way back’, UN says
ASIA · Environment
At Cop17, the pressure is on to rescue a deal that could end the destruction of nature
AMERICAS · Environment
Marine life in Gulf of Mexico has still not fully recovered from 2010 BP oil spill
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
forecastrunoff
margin of errormomentumpartisan
shallow-rootedphase out
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Passive voice — full range (simple, continuous, perfect, modal passive)
The passive is formed with a form of 'be' plus the past participle, and the tense or modal is shown by changing 'be' (is/was, is being, has been, must be). Use it when the action or the receiver matters more than the person doing it.
was · is being · has been · will be · were · can be · been
  1. Dom Phillips killed four years ago, together with the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.
  2. A runoff held this Sunday, and the result is still too close to call.
  3. The Amazon's importance for climate and rainfall recognised well beyond Brazil's borders.
  4. Phillips's private doubts about Brazil's future have proved more accurate than many public forecasts.
  5. Because the gap between the candidates is so small, the outcome cannot predicted with confidence.
  6. At Wisley garden, birches, beeches and sycamores affected most by the record heat, shedding their leaves early.
3PHRASAL VERBS
Match the phrasal verb to its definition. All six appear in today’s articles.
  1. phase out (the leap second)
  2. shed (their leaves)
  3. cope better
  4. stumble over (the extra second)
  5. nudge back (toward Earth's spin)
4CRITICAL THINKING
Phillips's private message turned out to be a startlingly accurate prediction, while the leap-second story shows experts quietly deciding what most of us will never notice. When should the public trust specialists and those closest to a problem, and when should it question them? Think about who benefits from each decision and who bears the risk if it goes wrong.
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Choose one of the three stories (the Brazilian runoff, the bare birches or the leap second) and write a short paragraph explaining what ordinary readers lose, or gain, when a slow change is noticed late. Use at least two phrasal verbs from the exercise above.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • uneasy→→
  • damage→→
  • narrowly ahead→→
  • dry→→
  • slightly irregular→→
  • stumble over→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Which warnings from experts do people tend to ignore, and why?
  2. Would you risk your safety to report a story you believed in?
  3. Is abandoning leap seconds a sensible step or a lazy shortcut?
  4. How have extreme weather events changed the way you live?