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Comics, including Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Kimmel, discussed Paul Manafort’s trial and the threat of climate change

Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed the trial of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump’s approach to climate change.

Related: Trevor Noah: 'Trump gets a vacation, but we don't get a vacation from him'

If you’re involved in money laundering, don’t be surprised when your associates hang you out to dry. pic.twitter.com/OUkx2cOfUW

Related: Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state

Richard Di Natale joins Labor in calling for money to be handed back

The awarding of $444m in taxpayers’ money by the prime minister to the small Great Barrier Reef Foundation without consultation “stinks” and the money should be handed back, the Greens have demanded.

The party leader, Richard Di Natale, joined Labor in demanding the return of the huge sum given to the private foundation – which had just six full-time staff – and called for the whole process to be put to tender.

Related: Head of reef foundation says $444m grant was 'complete surprise'

Related: Reefgate part two: the plot (and the water) thickens, starring Brenda the Antifa Penguin | First Dog on the Moon

This is the summer when, for many, climate change got real. The future looks fiery and dangerous. Hot on the heels of Trump, fake news and the parlous state of the Brexit negotiations, despair is in the air. Now a new scientific report makes the case that even fairly modest future carbon dioxide emissions could set off a cascade of catastrophe, with melting permafrost releasing methane to ratchet up global temperatures enough to drive much of the Amazon to die off, and so on in a chain reaction around the world that pushes Earth into a terrifying new hothouse state from which there is no return. Civilisation as we know it would surely not survive. How do we deal with such news?

As a research scientist in this field, I can give some nuance to the headlines. One common way of thinking about climate change is the lower the future carbon dioxide emissions, the less warming and the less havoc we will face as this century progresses. This is certainly true, but as the summer heatwave and the potential hothouse news remind us, the shifts in climate we will experience will not be smooth, gradual and linear changes. They may be fast, abrupt, and dangerous surprises may happen. However, an unstoppable globally enveloping cascade of catastrophe, while possible, is certainly not a probable outcome.

Related: Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state

Related: Was this the scorcher that finally ended climate denial? | Michael McCarthy

Leading scientists warn that passing such a point would make efforts to reduce emissions increasingly futile

A domino-like cascade of melting ice, warming seas, shifting currents and dying forests could tilt the Earth into a “hothouse” state beyond which human efforts to reduce emissions will be increasingly futile, a group of leading climate scientists has warned.

This grim prospect is sketched out in a journal paper that considers the combined consequences of 10 climate change processes, including the release of methane trapped in Siberian permafrost and the impact of melting ice in Greenland on the Antarctic.

Fifty years ago, this would be dismissed as alarmist, but now scientists have become really worried

Related: Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted | Simon Lewis