The chicken industry is facing calls to halt the expansion of intensive production in the River Severn catchment, with campaigners warning that the river is at risk from the same pollution that has blighted the River Wye.

An outcry over the ecological plight of the Wye has effectively halted the proliferation of intensive poultry units across the catchment. Campaigners say that the pollution threat is being transported “from one catchment to the other”.

The ecological health status of the Wye was downgraded in May last year by Natural England. Campaigners warn of phosphates from poultry litter that are being washed into the Wye and fuelling the growth of algae blooms, which can suffocate a river.

River Action, a charity promoting the restoration of rivers, is now supporting an application for judicial review of a decision by Shropshire council to approve four units to house 230,000 birds at Felton Butler, Shropshire, in the Severn catchment.

Charles Watson, chairman of River Action, said that planners in the Wye catchment had failed to consider the combined effect of intensive poultry units. He warned that the River Severn now faced a similar threat.

Watson said: “Like an appalling car crash in slow motion, exactly the same set of tragic events is now unfolding in the neighbouring catchment of the River Severn. Shropshire council is waving through the planning system more and more huge intensive poultry-unit applications.

“River Action is determined to prevent a re-run of the environmental scandal of the Wye taking place across yet another one of the UK’s iconic rivers.”

The application for judicial review says that the council failed to assess the likely effects of manure and biomass emissions. The farm has proposed various mitigation measures to reduce manure pollution, emissions and odour.

The planning documents state: “no manure arising from the poultry sheds will be spread on the land; it is taken to a licensed waste treatment.” River Action says that the planning conditions do not prevent the phosphate-rich digestate from the processed manure being spread on other land in the catchment.

The application has been made on behalf of Alison Caffyn, a rural researcher who has helped collate data on intensive poultry production in the catchments of the Wye and Severn. She estimates that there are about 250 intensive poultry units and 30m birds in the western catchment of the Severn, including Shropshire and Herefordshire. She said: “They just look at each individual planning application one by one. They are not doing a good job of assessing the cumulative impacts.”

The Angling Trust last year reported a “worrying level of pollution” after taking water samples on the Severn. It published data last year showing that 11 sites had a mean average that exceeded the upper limit of the UK water framework directive for phosphates.

Stuart Singleton-White, head of campaigns at the Angling Trust, said that the Severn faced pollution from sewage discharges, agriculture and run-off from roads. “The Angling Trust hopes the new government grasps the urgent need for restorative action on the Severn, and across all the UK’s badly polluted rivers,” he said.

A Shropshire council spokesperson said: “The decision to grant planning permission was made having taken full account of the likely environmental impacts of the proposal.

“The permission includes a number of conditions to control how the development is carried out, and the operation would also be regulated under an environmental permit. Shropshire council has received a claim form for judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission and is considering its position.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We remain committed to protecting watercourses across the country and working with farmers to meet their regulatory requirements and reduce diffuse pollution.” Officials said that planning permissions were decisions for local authorities.

The immediate reaction to the shooting at a Donald Trump rally today was the condemnation of violence from political figures, and an early swell of conspiracy theories on social media.

Trump appeared to have been struck in the incident, while one audience member and the shooter were killed. The incident was being investigated as an assassination attempt.

Joe Biden said on X: “I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information. Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety.

“There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

In remarks on Saturday, Biden said: “I have tried to get hold of Donald. He is with his doctors. Apparently he’s been doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly, I hope when I get back to the telephone.”

When asked by reporters, Biden said he did not know if it was an assassination attempt.

Biden said: “It’s not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”

Vice-President Kamala Harris said she had been briefed on the shooting. “Doug and I are relieved that he is not seriously injured,” she said. “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting … We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence.”

Marla Maples, Trump’s ex-wife and the mother of Trump’s fourth child Tiffany, said on X: “We ask for prayers for my daughter’s father… prayers for her heart and all the family and all who know how he is leading on behalf of all of us. We stay together in our faith knowing that the path of God is the path.

“Those who want to stop him are in fear of the power of God. May Christ create an opening in the hearts of those who want to stop the Light and the souls of humanity.”

Lawmakers on the left and right were united in condemning political violence.

“Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable,” said the Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro on X. “It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States.I have been briefed on the situation. Police are on the scene in Butler County and working with our federal and local partners.”

Former congresswoman Liz Cheney described reports of the shooting as “horrifying”.

“Violence of any kind has no place in American politics,” she said. “We are grateful for the reaction of Secret Service and other law enforcement and pray for the former president and all those injured.”

“Laura and I are grateful that President Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life,” George W Bush said in a statement. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”

Advocacy groups, including those focused on gun control. also shared statements condemning the shooting.

“This is an unacceptable and tragic reminder of our nation’s gun violence crisis. Violence of any kind has no place in our political process,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “This horrific act is another reminder that no one is immune from experiencing gun violence. When guns are everywhere, for anyone, with no questions asked – no one is safe.”

“Political violence does not represent the values of America. We are devastated by the tragedy that unfolded today in Pennsylvania,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action.

“Time and time again our communities are shaken by acts of gun violence that have invaded what should be our safe places, and that includes the violence that we saw today. But they are a consequence of our country’s weak gun laws and guns everywhere culture – laws that allow hate to be armed with a gun to easily take someone else’s life.”

The condemnations of violence and the thoughts and prayers of politicians and activists followed the reflexive rituals of American politics following a shooting that rises to public notice.

The other reaction on social media has been sharply different. The word “staged” and the phrases “they missed” and “how do you miss” began trending on X in the hour following the shooting, as did the photograph of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in defiance as he was being hustled off the dais by Secret Service agents.

“Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still standing,” the conservative commentator Matt Walsh wrote.

“The Republican district attorney in Butler county, Pennsylvania, should immediately file charges against Joseph R Biden for inciting an assassination,” Mike Collins, a Republican congressman in George, wrote about an hour after the shooting. “Joe Biden sent the orders.”

Former congressman Joe Walsh denounced the violent rhetoric.

“We are beyond dangerously divided. We are at each other’s throats,” he said on X. “We consider the people we disagree with to be our mortal enemies. We can’t continue down this road. Our democracy can’t stand if we continue down this road.”

“What EVERY American should say: political violence is ALWAYS wrong. No matter where it comes from. This isn’t how we solve our differences in America. But not every American will say this. Most Americans on the right and the left will try to score political points with this.”

A shooting at a Donald Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday comes at a time of heightened support for political violence in the US, including against Trump.

It is still unclear who fired the gunshots at Trump’s rally or what political beliefs they hold. Trump is safe, according to the Secret Service, but at least one rally attendee and the suspected shooter were killed, according to reports.

But the moment is sure to intensify an already fraught election year, in which elected officials have faced an increasing number of threats and fear of violence.

A survey conducted in late June from the University of Chicago found that there is now more support for violence against Trump (10% of American adults, or 26 million people) compared with violence in favor of Trump (6.9%, or 18 million people). Until January, the survey showed there was more support for violence in favor of Trump.

And of the 26 million American adults who support violence to prevent Trump from regaining the presidency, more than 30% own guns and almost 80% have access to internet organizational tools.

“There are more violent anti-Trump sentiments than pro-Trump sentiments,” Bob Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, had said in an interview before the incident on Saturday night.

“So we have to be prepared for violence coming from the left in opposition to Trump’s rule.”

The rise in support for political violence in the US comes at a time of extreme partisanship, rampant misinformation on social media, and violent rhetoric from Trump and his allies. Those factors came together on 6 January 2021 when thousands of people stormed the US Capitol.

According to the survey, which was first shared with the Guardian as part of a series on political violence and attitudes towards democracy, the underlying causes of support for violence on both sides of the aisle both stem from distrust of the establishment and beliefs in conspiracy theories.

On both sides, those that support violence are predominantly urban Americans.

The survey also found that 58.6% of American adults agree that in today’s America, elections will not solve the country’s most fundamental political and social problems.

“The shooting of Trump is a consequence of such significant support for political violence in our country,” Pape said. “We also need to worry about [the] threat in retribution to President Biden.”

“It is crucial that political leaders from both parties and at all levels of government … the president, Senate, House, governors and mayors immediately condemn political violence from whichever side of politics it arises,” he added.

The immediate reaction from politicians has been largely consistent. In a statement shortly after the shooting, Joe Biden said: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Barack Obama also issued a statement, saying: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy.”

“Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics,” Obama said.

But political violence in the US in recent years has taken many forms, including the 6 January insurrection, violent threats and harassment of election officials, and swatting attempts targeted at elected officials.

In October 2020, a month before the last presidential election, the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was the target of a kidnapping plot. And a week after the election, an executive at Dominion Voting Systems was forced into hiding because those that believed the election was stolen shared his home address and a million-dollar bounty.

It’s also easier than ever for those that hold extreme political beliefs to organize on the internet. Most political violence in the US is committed by people who do not belong to any formal organization, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

The shooting at Trump’s rally occurred two days before the start of the Republican national convention, when Trump is scheduled to become the party’s formal nominee. The convention has law enforcement on heightened awareness after an assessment by the FBI, Secret Service, the Milwaukee police department and the Southeastern Wisconsin Threat Analysis Center.

According to CBS News, the assessment found that there is concern the convention could be a target for foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremist groups, so-called lone-wolf bad actors and active shooters, a law enforcement source said.

“We shouldn’t be at a level of political discourse in this country where this is going on,” Joseph, a rally attendee who was an eyewitness to the incident said on CNN Saturday.

“We have a lot of political violence in this country,” he said. “It just needs to stop.”

Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was a genuine attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Gugliemi said on X that “the former president [was] safe” after more than a dozen gunshots erupted, prompting agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic.

In a pair of statements, Trump himself said he was “fine” after a bullet struck “the upper part of [his] right ear”.

Secret Service agents shot the suspected attacker dead after he fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Gugliemi said.

One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The shooter was not immediately identified.

Trump issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a post on X in the shooting’s aftermath.

“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” Trump said.

“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”

Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.

A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.

Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”

As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”

Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”

And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”

Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.

Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.

Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.

NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.

Local district attorney Richard Goldinger appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.

“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”

The BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.

The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired several shots.

At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the makeshift sniper to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.

One rallygoer who described himself to CBS News as an emergency room physician recounted walking toward a voice saying: “He’s been shot.” The rallygoer, whose shirt was bloodstained, said he saw a man with a bullet wound to the head who had been spun around and ended up “jammed between the benches”.

He said he had tried to perform CPR on the wounded man, who at the time was about to be loaded into a medical helicopter.

Joe Biden said Saturday on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.

“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”

In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.

“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”

The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including support for Trump from Republicans such as former president George W Bush as well as the US senators Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio.

Former first lady Laura Bush “and I are grateful that president Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life”, Bush said. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”

Rubio said on X on Saturday: “Praying for President Trump and all those attending the rally in Pennsylvania today.”

And Vance posted on X: “Everyone join me in praying for our President Trump and everyone at that rally. I hope everyone is OK.”

The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, also offered prayers to Trump.

“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”

The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”

In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.

“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”

Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start on Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”

Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war.

“Remember John Wilkes Booth. In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.”

There were reports of shots fired at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, followed by the former president being rushed off the stage with apparent blood around his ear. Here’s what we know about the situation so far.

• Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when loud noises were heard in the crowd around 6.13pm.

• Trump appeared to have been struck in the area of his right ear as he was speaking, and videos show him quickly clutching his ear and then ducking down to the ground, as security agents and others leap to his aid.

• Trump stood up with blood on the side of his face and appeared to be saying “fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

• Trump was then quickly escorted from the stage and into his vehicle.

• The rally location is now an active crime scene.

• Trump’s team and the Secret Service confirmed that he was “fine” and being checked at a local medical facility.

Ed Miliband’s decision to give the go-ahead for the construction of three big solar sites in eastern England is a major boost for renewable energy generation in the UK and has been welcomed by green campaigners. But many other changes are needed in the way electricity is generated and transmitted if Britain is to achieve its net-zero ambitions. Here we sum up some of the issues and headaches that lie ahead.

The need for subsidies

Britain’s commitment to solar power has fluctuated. Initially, government subsidies encouraged homeowners to install solar panels and the UK became a leader in the technology among western nations. “The UK was then one of the most attractive European markets to develop large-scale solar farms and install rooftop solar panels – until 2016 when subsidies were wound down,” said Hamish Beath of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. “UK solar power plateaued so we are now underperforming compared with other countries.”

China still leads the way

China tops the league of countries using solar energy, followed by the US, Japan and Germany. Britain trails in 10th place with a total solar power capacity of about 16 gigawatts. The new solar farms approved by Miliband, the secretary for energy and net zero, will significantly add to this total: 500 megawatts each for the sites in Sunnica in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, and 350MW for the one at Mallard Pass in Rutland and Lincolnshire. “That is a total of 1.35 gigawatts which adds, at a stroke, almost 10% to the nation’s capacity to generate electricity from the sun. It’s very encouraging,” said Beath.

Wind trumps solar

Last year, renewables contributed 41.1% of the UK’s total electricity generation, with wind accounting for 29.4% and solar 4.9%. “However, a lot of that electricity came from offshore wind farms in the north and had to be transmitted south where demand is concentrated,” said Sugandha Srivastav, of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment. “And that is a problem, for our electricity transmission lines are highly congested. Solar provides a key opportunity to avoid this congestion by generating more electricity in the south – and so meet demands locally.”

New pylons

The new government’s push to solar gives Britain a chance to make a rapid improvement in its power output from renewable energy sources. The decision to scrap the moratorium on onshore wind energy plants will provide a further boost to this goal. However, that spur for renewables will bring its own problems as it will have to be followed – quickly – by improvements to the national grid whose capacity is now heavily strained, experts have warned. “If we are going to turn our backs on fossil fuels and electrify society, we need to be able to move power across the country without serious restriction,” said Srivastav. “Improving the UK grid should be seen as a key priority,” she said, or else the country would not be able to go ahead with electrification of vehicles and transport. This view is backed by Beath. “Alongside the building of renewables capacity, you need to make big changes to our network,” said Beath. “It will require new pylons, transmission lines and new cables under the sea.”

Farmers revolt

The need to make vast improvements to the national grid will come at a political price that will set landowners and farmers in battles against city planners and power utilities. The Mallard Pass solar farm is opposed by 3,000 people who say prime farmland should not be repurposed to generate electricity and the local Tory MP Alicia Kearns has said she is “utterly appalled” by the scheme. The government defends the development on the grounds that it will provide clean energy that will power about 92,000 homes over the next 60 years.

Reliance on China

There is one other headache for ministers as they strive to reach net zero in a decade or so. China makes about 80% of the world’s solar panels while Britain has no manufacturing capacity. This gives China a “chokehold” on Britain’s solar industry.

Keir Starmer’s new Labour government today unveils plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels in order to bring down domestic energy bills and tackle the climate crisis.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, also took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers.

The three sites alone – Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, Sunnica’s energy farm on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border and Mallard Pass on the border between Lincolnshire and Rutland – will deliver about two-thirds of the solar energy installed on rooftops and on the ground in the whole of last year.

Now, before Wednesday’s king’s speech, which will include legislation for setting up the new publicly owned energy company GB Energy, ministers are working with the building industry to make it easier to buy new homes with panels installed, or instal them on existing ones.

The Observer understands that ministers are looking at bringing in solar-related standards for new-build properties from next year.

At present, while formal planning permission is not required, there are restrictions on where and how high up on buildings they can be placed. There are also restrictions in conservation areas and on listed buildings. These may potentially also be re-examined.

Miliband, who has promised to triple the amount of solar power in the UK by 2030, as well as double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind, said on Saturday night: “I want to unleash a UK solar rooftop revolution. We will encourage builders and homeowners in whatever way we can to deliver this win-win technology to millions of addresses in the UK so people can provide their own electricity, cut their bills and at the same time help fight climate change.”

His officials insisted the new government was showing its willingness to “take on the Nimbys” as part of the fight against the climate crisis.

As one of his first acts last week, Miliband lifted the Tories’ de facto ban on the building of new onshore windsfarms.

Miliband’s rapid moves on solar power were hailed by UK energy experts, who said they would speedily rectify a huge imbalance in the use of renewable energy in Britain.

At present, most power from renewable sources is concentrated in the north but has to be transmitted to the south, where demand is most intense. “Unfortunately, these transmission lines are congested and power supplies from the north to the south are often curtailed,” said Sugandha Srivastav, of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

“Instead, gas generators have to be turned on to provide electricity for households in the south, and as we all know, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, gas can be extremely expensive. So solar in the south is going to fix a key problem. It will keep power costs low, which is what we desperately need.”

In addition, the opening of the Gate Burton, Sunnica and Mallard Pass solar farms will increase the nation’s capacity for using solar radiation to generate electricity. “The three farms will have a capacity of around 1.35 gigawatts, which is almost 10% of current capacity – so this is very welcome,” said Hamish Beath, an energy consultant at Imperial College London.

However, the decisions have caused local outcries. The Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford, Alicia Kearns, said she was “utterly appalled” by Miliband’s decision to give the go-ahead to the Mallard Pass farm.

The government hit back, saying the move was justified on the grounds it will provide clean energy to power about 92,000 homes over the next 60 years.

Opening the door to more large solar power farms will have to be quickly followed by improvements to the National Grid, experts also say. “We need to think urgently about how we transmit and distribute electricity,” added Srivastav. “The demand for power is only going to go up as we electrify society and if we cannot get electricity to where it needs to be, we will be in an untenable situation.”

The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses.

“A likely harbinger of a hyperactive season” was how CSU researchers characterized Beryl, which set numerous records on the way to its Texas landfall, including the earliest category 5 hurricane, strongest ever June storm, and most powerful to strike the southern Windward Islands.

In the Caribbean, the storm caused almost unprecedented destruction, and killed dozens from Grenada to the US.

With the six-month Atlantic hurricane season only six weeks old, and a monster storm such as those only usually seen in the later, peak months already in the books, climate scientists fear for what’s to come.

They also warn that nobody should be surprised about the eye-popping start to the 2024 season, or the rapid intensification of Beryl from a modest tropical storm into a deadly 165mph cyclone, because of “crazy” ocean heat that acts like rocket fuel for developing hurricanes.

“It’s a big wake-up call, certainly for folks in the US and throughout the Caribbean, that a greater risk for more extreme hurricanes is certainly there, and with warmer waters into the late spring we’re getting an earlier start to the hurricane season,” Brett Anderson, senior climate scientist with AccuWeather, told the Guardian.

“We’re seeing these types of storms developing very quickly, more so than 20 to 30 years ago, with all that warm water in place. Science has become really good with computer models forecasting the tracks of these storms, but intensity is still a challenge. Rapid intensification certainly we’re very concerned about, especially when these things get closer to the coast.”

It’s an old adage in hurricane season that it only takes one storm to make it an active season. On Monday, the team at Colorado state, one of the most respected in the forecasting business, predicted even more of them.

They now expect six major hurricanes with sustained wind speed above 111mph, and 12 hurricanes overall, before the season ends on 30 November.

In April, they predicted five major hurricanes from 11, both scenarios matching the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration prediction in May of a season well above the average of seven hurricanes and three major cyclones.

The meteorologists are confident that the alphabetical list of 21 names allocated when a disturbance becomes at least a 39mph tropical storm will be depleted this year for only the fourth time since 2005. Previously that had not happened since the naming convention began in 1950.

“We’re at well over a year now, probably 15 or so months of record breaking or close to record breaking ocean heat, and when I say close I mean comparing 2024 with 2023, so well above any previous year,” said Brian McNoldy, a climate scientist at the University of Miami.

“Obviously we have climate change acting on everything, it’s got its finger on this for sure. But it doesn’t totally explain the abrupt jump we saw in the spring of 2023 that hasn’t ended. There are other things going on.

“Last year, yes, we had these record-smashing warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic, but we also started to get a stronger El Niño as the year went on, and all things being equal El Niño acts to reduce Atlantic hurricane activity.

“It probably did to some degree, but thanks to the ocean temperatures being so warm it ended up being an above average hurricane season anyway.”

Beryl, meanwhile, reinforced one often overlooked aspect of a coastal hurricane strike, the spawning of tornados and flooding far inland that can be equally as destructive and deadly. Beryl’s reach extended as far as New England, and caused fatalities in Texas, Louisiana, Vermont. AccuWeather’s initial estimate of economic loss in the US is up to $32bn.

“People need to be prepared for these kinds of storms,” said Matt Marshall, AccuWeather’s senior director for strategic projects.

“More die from water than wind in a hurricane, but people track storms by the wind speed. We use a real impact scale for wind, storm surge intensity, how much rain is going to fall and therefore how much flooding there’s going to be from rain, and it uses the overall economic impact expected by the storm to capture how much damage there’s going to be overall.

“We anticipated extended power outages in Texas, we anticipated the flooding rain coming up through the Great Lakes and into New England, we anticipated the potential tornado outbreak to the east and north of the storm track so things are pretty well aligned with what we forecast.”

As the frequency and intensity of storms continue to escalate, Marshall said, so will the cost.

“They’re causing more damage, the cost of materials has gone up, the cost of supply chains is going up,” he said.

“So when a hurricane comes in and knocks out power for days to areas and knocks out the supply chain, all of that’s going to have a downstream impact.”

Every day for the last two weeks, Johannes-Harm Hovinga has sat at a raised table in Museum Arnhem, using a two-hole page puncher to systematically perforate the 7,705-page sixth assessment report produced by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He has printed it out on coloured paper and the result is a vibrant heap piling up at the artist’s feet.

Hovinga remains completely silent during each performance in the Netherlands-based museum. He drinks water, but doesn’t eat, with bathroom breaks his only intermission.

“We are at a crucial turning point in history,” says Hovinga, “where the consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly evident. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and microplastics are just some examples of what our planet faces.”

The artist calls his living piece The Elephant in the Room. It is an artistic protest, meant to illustrate the lack of urgency by policymakers and global leaders. Hovinga believes in the power of creative expression to help raise awareness and persuade people to take a stand.

“The changing political landscape in Europe makes the work more relevant than ever. As humans, we are exhausting the Earth. Our current system of consumption is not sustainable. We need change, especially in our western world.

“For me, art and activism are symbiotic. The performance challenges each of us to confront our role in the climate crisis and encourages a renewed commitment to meaningful change.”

Hovinga’s artistic protest will last 20 days in total. By the end of it, he will have punched holes for 120 hours, at a physical and mental cost. “It’s getting harder to sit in silence concentrating on the same repetitive motion. I didn’t expect it to be so intense. After two days, my back, neck, elbows and wrists all started to hurt. I’ve been taking painkillers daily since the second week.”

Even so, he remains committed, accepting that change often comes with discomfort and sacrifice. For Hovinga, the most rewarding part is seeing the public reaction.

“Visitors have left me notes thanking me,” he says. “One day, two students from the art school next door waited until the museum closed so they could speak with me. I didn’t expect the reaction to be so positive. People see the layers of pain and are touched by it.”

However, Hovinga has had the odd negative response: “I’ve been called a WEF [World Economic Forum] puppet. Online, someone threatened to come and disrupt the performance. But that’s also fine because it still makes people reflect.”

Saskia Bak, the director at Museum Arnhem, says: “It’s crucial to showcase different perspectives on current topics, so we team up with artists not typically seen in museums. We highlight issues that are relevant in society, such as climate change. Johannes-Harm Hovinga’s performance fits perfectly.”

Of the audience reception, she says: “It’s been overwhelmingly positive. Some viewers get quite emotional during the performance, while others have applauded Hovinga for tearing up the nonsense that is the IPCC report.”

The hole-punching part of Hovinga’s art will wrap up on 14 July, after which the confetti installation will remain dispersed for two weeks. “After that, I will come back and clean in silence,” says Hovinga.

Having already staged a pilot version of Elephant in the Room for 11 days in 2022, during which he invited viewers to join him in the hole punching, the artist next plans to recreate the act during Cop29 in November.

In the long run, he hopes to take the performance across Europe, presenting his live art in museums and public spaces.

The Science Museum has been forced to cut ties with oil giant Equinor over its sponsor’s environmental record, the Observer can reveal.

Equinor has sponsored the museum’s interactive “WonderLab” since 2016, but the relationship is now coming to close, a move that will be seen as a major victory for climate change campaigners.

The London museum said that it was severing ties with the Norwegian state-owned energy giant over its failure to lower carbon emissions sufficiently to ensure it was aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

The sponsorship deal had been controversial because of Equinor’s role in Rosebank, the biggest undeveloped oil and gas field in the North Sea, which the government gave the go-ahead to develop last year.

The company also inserted a “gagging clause” in its original deal with the museum, which prevented staff from making comments that could be seen as “discrediting or damaging the goodwill or reputation” of Equinor.

Although the museum claimed that such clauses were reciprocal and standard in corporate partnerships, it has pledged to remove them in future.

In a statement, the Science Museum confirmed that Equinor’s sponsorship had “drawn to a close at the end of their current contract term”.

A museum spokesperson added: “The partnership concludes with our warm appreciation and with our ongoing encouragement to Equinor to continue to raise the bar in their efforts to put in place emissions reduction targets aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.”

In emails disclosed under Freedom of Information legislation and shared with the Observer, Science Museum director Sir Ian Blatchford told Equinor that the company was in breach of the museum’s pledge to ensure its sponsors complied with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

In other correspondence, the museum confirmed that sponsors in breach of climate commitments and unable to change course would be subject to gradual disengagement.

The move has added to pressure on the museum to cut ties with other fossil fuel sponsors, including the oil giant BP and the Indian coal-mining conglomerate Adani.

Last year the Church of England cut its fossil fuel investments after concluding no big oil and gas company was “aligned with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, as assessed by the Transition Pathway Initiative”.

The move is a major shift in policy by the museum, which has forcefully defended its relationships with oil and gas companies in the past. In 2019, Blatchford told the Financial Times that “even if the Science Museum were lavishly publicly funded I would still want to have sponsorship from the oil companies”.

Campaigners welcomed the decision to end the sponsorship. Chris Garrard, co-director of Culture Unstained, which has campaigned against the fossil fuel sponsorship of the Science Museum, said: “This is a seismic shift. After years of mounting pressure, the Science Museum has now adopted red lines on climate change which have led to Equinor being dropped.

“Yet rather than proudly telling the world that it took action because its sponsor was flouting climate targets backed by governments around the world, the museum continues to push the false narrative that its polluting sponsors are leading the energy transition.”

He added: “With BP also failing to align its business with Paris Agreement goals and Adani the world’s biggest private producer of coal, the museum must now hold these companies to the same standard and stop promoting their toxic brands.”

The move comes after the controversy surrounding investment manager Baillie Gifford and its ties to Israel and fossil fuel companies.

A campaign by Fossil Free Books led to Baillie Gifford ending funding for nine book festivals, including Edinburgh, Cheltenham and the Hay festival, which was the first to decline sponsorship after speakers began to boycott the event.