Environment | The Guardian

Environmental and animal welfare groups call on lender to phase out support for industrial' livestock operationsThe private sector arm of the World Bank is facing claims that it contributes to global heating and the undermining of animal welfare by providing financial support for factory farming, including the building of pig farming tower blocks in China.A coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups is calling on the World Bank to phase out financial support for large-scale industrial" livestock operations. More than $1.6bn was provided for industrial farming projects between 2017 and 2023, according to an analysis by campaigners. Continue reading...

The last time Brood XIX and Brood XIII emerged from underground at the same time, Thomas Jefferson was presidentThey look a little like cockroaches and have bulging orange eyes, and trillions of them are about to erupt from the earth in much of the midwestern and eastern United States. The emergence of two groups of cicadas will assemble a chorus of the insects not seen in several hundred years, experts say.The simultaneous appearance of the two cicada broods - known as Brood XIX and Brood XIII - is a rare event, not having occurred since 1803, a year when Thomas Jefferson was US president. It's really exciting. I've been looking forward to this for many years," said Catherine Dana, an entomologist who specializes in cicadas at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the public, it's going to be a really special experience."This article was amended on 8 April 2024 to correct the name of Brood XIII. It was formerly written as Brood XII. Continue reading...

Gas platforms in the area are among the oldest offshore oil and gas operations in the country

Act now on air quality in the Belgian capital, which is among the filthiest in Europe, say doctors and environmentalistsMore than 100 doctors and environmentalists in Brussels have called on their politicians to follow London and Paris and take measures to improve the choking air pollution in the Belgian capital.According to IS Global research, Brussels is ranked as the eighth worst of more than 800 European cities for nitrogen dioxide, which damages the lungs and is one of the main byproducts of internal combustion engines. The capital of the European Union is also ranked 308th out of 858 cities for PM2.5, or fine particulates, which can travel deep into the respiratory tract. Continue reading...

Farmers lay carcasses in front of government building in Lausanne to press for resumption of wolf cullFarmers in Switzerland dumped the carcasses of sheep that were killed by wolves in front of a regional government building on Saturday as part of a protest to demand more action against the predators.About a dozen breeders came from the Saint-Barthelemy area in the western Swiss canton of Vaud to lay 12 carcasses in front of Lausanne's Chateau Saint-Maire, the regional government headquarters, AFP reported. Continue reading...

The fate of the calf trapped in a British Columbia lagoon has gripped the public. Can Brave Little Hunter be reunited with her pod?In the early 1960s, Canada's fisheries ministry installed a .50-calibre machine gun on an island in British Columbia. The weapon, typically used against armoured vehicles and low-flying aircraft, was mounted with the sole purpose of killing orcas. The high-powered gun was never used, but the message was clear: the whales, derisively called blackfish", were the enemy.Now, six decades later and less than 100 miles away from where the gun was mounted, that same ministry has joined residents of a remote community in a frantic attempt to rescue a stranded orca calf. Continue reading...

Climate activist detained after Extinction Rebellion protesters tried to block road near Dutch parliamentGreta Thunberg was detained by police at a demonstration in The Hague, in the Netherlands.The climate activist was put in a bus by local police along with other protesters who tried to block a major highway into the city on Saturday. Continue reading...

The late illustrator's elephant hero is to star in a new ecological fable after the discovery of a rough manuscript and drawingsFrom the depths of his extraordinarily vibrant imagination, he famously conjured up Mr Benn, Not Now, Bernard, King Rollo and Elmer the patchwork elephant.Now a manuscript and rough sketches for a new illustrated story about Elmer has been in the archive of the late British children's author and illustrator David McKee. It will be published next year by hisfamily. Continue reading...

A government proposal to cull half a million owls, in order to save a related species, has raised complicated questionsIt sounds like a set-up for an ecological horror film - to save one species of owl, US wildlife officials want to shoot down half a million of its cousins.The federal government's latest proposal to save the endangered spotted owls has raised complicated questions about the ethics of killing one species to save another, and the role of humans to intervene in the cascading ecological conundrums that they have caused. Continue reading...

Publication by mayor's office of environmental justice is first comprehensive survey of environmental inequalitiesNearly half of all New Yorkers live in areas with disproportionate" burdens from pollution, a city report has found. Most affected are communities of color, which are also more vulnerable to impacts from climate change, according to a citywide assessment released on Friday.We've had the orange sky last year, we're going to have more recurrent extreme weather events that are going to impact the most vulnerable in our communities," said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UpRose, an environmental justice group based in Brooklyn. Continue reading...

Letitia James's lawsuit accuses JBS of deceiving customers about being climate-friendly - and the implications could be far-reachingWhen the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, announced that it would be suing the world's largest meat company, JBS, for misleading customers about its climate commitments, it caused a stir far beyond the world of food. That's because the suit's impact has the potential to influence the approach all kinds of big businesses take in their advertising about sustainability, according to experts.It's just one in a string of greenwashing lawsuits being brought against large airline, automobile and fashion companies of late. It's been 20 years of companies lying about their environmental and climate justice impacts. And it feels like all of a sudden, from Europe to the US, the crackdown is beginning to happen," said Todd Paglia, executive director of environmental non-profit Stand.earth. I think greenwash[ing] is actually one of the pivotal issues in the next five years." Continue reading...

Fish taxi' tanker crashed after driver lost control on sharp turn, leading to deaths of 26,000 smolts, but remaining fish survivedA creek in Oregon was inadvertently restocked with tens of thousands of young salmon when a tanker carrying the fish overturned and spilled its cargo.State officials said more than 75% of the 102,000 Chinook salmon smolts that the tanker was transporting from a hatchery to the Imnaha river made it into Lookingglass Creek following the accident last Friday. Continue reading...

Regulator faces accusation of acting unlawfully in its investigation of Global Warming Policy FoundationThe Charity Commission is facing a legal challenge by MPs over its failure to investigate campaigning by a thinktank that questions climate science.Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, Labour's Clive Lewis and Green MP Caroline Lucas, supported by the Good Law Project, have sent a legal letter to the regulator over an unresolved complaint they made in October 2022. Continue reading...

Testing of 40 types of bandages found 65% had alarming levels of forever chemicals' in adhesive flaps and pads that touch woundsMany popular US bandage brands contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS forever chemicals", new research suggests, raising questions about the products' safety.Testing of 40 types of bandages made by companies such as Band-Aid, Curad, Walmart and CVS found 26 products, or 65%, contain alarming levels of a marker of PFAS. The chemicals were detected in the adhesive flaps and in absorbent pads that press against wounds. Continue reading...

A supermarket is using eye-tracking technology to find what messaging encourages take-up of unpackaged fruit and vegWith thick black frames and hidden cameras, the glasses look designed for espionage or the metaverse but instead the eye-tracking headgear is being deployed to get inside shoppers' heads as part of the drive to cut plastic packaging from the weekly food shop.It is an unlikely scene. Hooked up with the glasses a shopper is being tailed around a Waitrose produce department by a researcher carrying a large tablet that displays live footage of them picking up banal things such as potatoes, apples and bananas. Continue reading...

California, Vermont and Colorado push for ban after slow federal response to research finding forever chemicals in period productsState lawmakers in California, Vermont and Colorado are working to ban the sale of period products containing highly toxic forever chemicals", or PFAS, nearly a year after a report revealed the chemicals were found in everything from tampon applicators to period underwear.Despite a growing awareness of the dangers and ubiquity of PFAS, federal regulators have been slow to respond to the bombshell 2023 report from the University of Notre Dame, in which researchers found forever chemicals in various menstrual products including those mentioned above and more. Federal bills designed to address PFAS in everyday consumer items - including period products - stalled last year in large part due to chemical industry lobbyists. Continue reading...

Masses of ephemeral organisms known as by-the-wind sailors' wash up in a blue tide' on the west coast most years but warmer winter seas could be increasingly their numbersFrom Oregon to California, blankets of alien-like blue creatures are washing up on rocky beaches. They are Velella velella, tiny colonies of organisms with a sombrero-esque fin sticking out the top and tentacles dangling down.Millions have been spotted along the US west coast this spring, much to the surprise and delight of beachgoers who have gleefully posted footage on social media. Some call it a blue tide" and it happens most springs - but not always to the same degree of abundance. Continue reading...

Hobsons Bay city council, in the city's west, confirms late on Friday that three further sites have been identified

The best of this week's wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Country needs to speed up environmental response to protect its ageing population, multinational study findsIn 2005 Beijing was crowned the smog capital of the world. Concerns about air pollution and athlete health overshadowed preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games and required industry and traffic shutdowns to clean the air during the event itself.Now, a team of researchers at Chinese, German and Canadian universities have tracked the impacts of deteriorating air at that time. They found that particle pollution deaths in China were increasing at about 213,000 a year and peaked at 2.6mn people in 2005. Continue reading...

In an ancient walled city in eastern Ethiopia, the animals are fed in return for cleaning up the streets and keeping spirits at bay

Saving their social time - and their emotional lives - is more important than achievement' activities

Marine biologist Helen Scales had seen octopuses before - but she had never had a meeting quite like this one

Governments across region grappling for response as temperatures soar to unseasonable highsThousands of schools in the Philippines have stopped in-person classes due to unbearable heat. In Indonesia, prolonged dry weather has caused rice prices to soar. In Thailand's waters, temperatures are so high that scientists fear coral could be destroyed.A historic heatwave" is being experienced across south-east Asia, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. In updates posted on X, he said heat that was unprecedented for early April had been recorded at monitoring stations across the region this week, including in Minbu, in central Myanmar, where 44C was recorded - the first time in south-east Asia's climatic history that such high temperatures had been reached so early in the month. In Hat Yai, in Thailand's far south, 40.2 C was reached, an all-time record, while Yen Chau in north-west Vietnam hit 40.6C, unprecedented for this time of year. Continue reading...

Lending to meat, dairy and feed corporations led to significant proportion' of banks' emissions, Friends of the Earth foundAmerican banks are sabotaging" their own climate commitments by financing meat, dairy and feed corporations, according to a report.The report analysed funding from 58 US banks to animal protein and feed companies in the form of loans and underwriting, such as share and bond issuance guarantees. Continue reading...

Mining company hit with accusation it contaminated waterways with harmful levels of uranium and leadRio Tinto is facing a likely lawsuit in an English court brought by the UK-based law firm Leigh Day on behalf of people living in villages near a mine in Madagascar.In a letter of claim, a document that is an early step in a lawsuit, the villagers accuse Rio Tinto of contaminating the waterways and lakes that they use for domestic purposes with elevated and harmful levels of uranium and lead, which pose a serious risk to human health.This story was published in partnership with The Intercept. The reporting for this investigation was supported by a grant from Journalists for Transparency, an initiative of Transparency International. Continue reading...

Despite major progress in Brazil and Colombia, deforestation led by farming still cleared an area nearly equal to SwitzerlandThe destruction of the world's most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling 37,000 sq km (14,200 sq miles), according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. This is a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, often driven by more land being brought under agricultural cultivation around the world. Continue reading...

Schemes to replace EU subsidies will not plug gap left by loss of EU subsidies for most farmersFarmers are calling for the government to grant them a universal basic income, saying the post-Brexit agriculture subsidy scheme has left many poorer.Delays to the sustainable farming schemes put in place after the UK left the European Union, to replace the common agricultural policy (CAP), have meant that in England many farmers have been left out of pocket. The new regime initially suffered from low subscription rates, and the government has underspent hundreds of millions from the 2.4bn farming budget each year due to lack of sign-up. Continue reading...

Local council confirms material was found at the Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood

Environment groups say increased pollution levels means it would be absurd and harmful' to extend life of Eraring, which is due to close in August 2025

Emmerson Mnangagwa says country needs $2bn of aid as severe dry spell caused by El Nino afflicts southern AfricaZimbabwe has declared a national disaster over a drought caused by the climate event known as El Nino and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the country needs $2bn in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry.The severe dry spell is wreaking havoc across southern Africa. Continue reading...

Researchers applaud move away from fossil fuels but say more must be done to mitigate effects on endangered speciesUp to a third of Africa's great apes are threatened by a boom in mining projects for minerals required for the renewable energy transition, new research shows.An estimated 180,000 gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk due to an increase in demand for critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt, a study has found. Many of those minerals are required for clean energy technologies such as wind turbines and electric cars. Researchers say the boom in demand is driving destruction of tropical rainforests which are critical habitats for Africa's great apes. Continue reading...

German's appointment to head Convention on Biological Diversity follows global failure to meet any targets on protecting ecosystemsThe next UN biodiversity chief will be Astrid Schomaker, an EU civil servant who will be entrusted with helping the world confront the ongoing catastrophic loss of nature.Schomaker has been a career official with the EU commission for 30 years. A surprise appointment, she will be tasked with corralling governments to make good on their commitments to protect life on Earth - something they have not done in more than 30 years since the UN biodiversity convention was created.Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features Continue reading...

While Toyota falls in line on vehicle emission standards, questions are raised about solar sunshot' and carbon offsets

Ninety wildlife and landscape photographers from around the world are marking the primatologist Jane Goodall turning 90 with a print sale of environmental pictures. The Jane Goodall Institute and the nonprofit Vital Impacts have collaborated on The Nature of Hope: 90 Years of Jane Goodall's Impact, a 90-day sale with 60% of the proceeds going to the institute Continue reading...

Exclusive: public anger over river pollution affecting employee safety, union survey suggestsWater industry workers say they have been physically assaulted and feel unsafe working alone for fear of attack amid a public backlash over sewage dumping.More than one in three UK water employees have been verbally abused at work, according to a survey of almost 1,300 staff conducted by the GMB union. Continue reading...

Rate of decline in 2023 thought to be linked to climate breakdown as UK-wide survey shows mixed picture across 58 speciesThe small tortoiseshell butterfly has suffered its worst year on record in England, and has declined by 82% across the UK since 1976, according to the annual scientific count of butterfly populations.The sharp decline in numbers of the once-common garden butterfly has puzzled scientists, but it is thought to be linked to climate breakdown. It had its worst year on record in England, its second worst in Wales and its joint-fifth worst in Scotland in 2023 but did well in Northern Ireland, logging its second-best year. Continue reading...

After years of swinging extremes, state snowpack is at rare average of 110%, setting up good water savings account for year aheadOn Tuesday morning California officials trekked into the mountains to share some exciting and unusual news: the state's snowpack measurement is just about average. Across the state, the snowpack came in at roughly 110% - a measurement that is exceedingly rare in a changing climate.The fourth survey of the year, conducted at the beginning of April, is considered one of the most crucial. It serves as an indicator for how the state's water supply will fare through the drier, warmer seasons ahead. The snowpack acts as a water savings account for the state, supplying roughly 30% of California's water and slowly refilling reservoirs, pumping rivers and streams and wetting soils during the dry, warm seasons as it melts. April typically marks the shift out of the precipitation season, which is why this snowpack measurement carries so much weight. Continue reading...

Meteorologist says bears were not aggressive but they fired signal gun to scare them awayKatarzyna Kudacz was preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs at a research station on Svalbard when she looked up to see she had three unexpected guests.Shocked and in awe, the meteorologist immediately alerted her colleagues to the female polar bear and her two cubs peering into the Polish research station in Hornsund, in the south of the Norwegian archipelago, their noses pressed up against the window. Continue reading...

An old flooded slate mine used as a dumping ground for cars in north Wales is in danger of being destroyed by visitors trashing the site, it has been claimed. The eeriness of the flooded cave attracts Instagram photo seekers. The cave, part of the Gaewern slate mine, became a dumping ground for old cars, TVs, microwaves and other rubbish after its closure in the 1970s. It was rediscovered by urban explorers who posted stunning photographs of the scrap illuminated by shafts of sunlight, leading to others braving a perilous 20-metre (65ft) descent and using inflatable dinghies to cross the lake to reach the scrap. Volunteers are now working to remove trash and graffiti

Modelling points to huge' soil emissions in interior rangelands, which are more sensitive to a warming climate

Recent $74m investment made alongside assessment that 10% of electricity could be generated by geothermal by 2050A limitless supply of heat exists beneath our feet within the Earth's crust, but harnessing it at scale has proved challenging. Now, a combination of new techniques, government support and the pressing need to secure continuous clean power in an era of climate crisis means that geothermal energy is finally having its moment in the US.Until recently, geothermal has only been viable where the Earth's inner heat simmers near the surface, such as at hot springs or geysers where hot water or steam can be easily drawn to drive turbines and generate electricity. Continue reading...

Pipeline' of clean projects being assembled, according to head of agency charged with multibillion-dollar transformation

Letters revealed under FoI laws show council asked environment secretary to investigate planThe government has been accused of quietly shelving a delayed plan to restore the polluted River Wye after letters from the government show it is incomplete with no publication date in sight.Letters revealed to the Guardian under freedom of information (FoI) laws show the then environment secretary, Therese Coffey, told stakeholders in August that the government was close to finalising" the plan to save the Wye and measures would be published within three months. Continue reading...

Fall to 14.4p comes after shareholders said they were unwilling to inject further fundsA bond issued by Thames Water's parent company has fallen to record lows as the embattled company scrambles to secure its future, and the government signalled it is ready to step in if necessary".The 400m bond, issued by the water supplier's parent company, Kemble, has slumped to only 14.4p after shareholders indicated that they were unwilling to inject further funds into the heavily indebted utility company. Continue reading...

Reducing cattle populations and restoring native ecoystems is our best chance to tackle global heating. Here's one way to do itThere is a simple, cost-effective and scientifically sound way to turn back the clock on global warming and reverse the catastrophic collapse of biodiversity: pay ranchers to raise trees instead of cattle.By mass, the world's 1.7 billion cows are the dominant animal species on Earth, far outweighing the human population, and outweighing all the wild terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians left on Earth by more than 15-fold. More than a third of Earth's land is used to feed livestock. Continue reading...

Rainfall expected to ease before surging back later this week after central Victoria and western Melbourne hit by flooding and building damage

Increase in Fairtrade income to 13m shows shoppers still prioritising environment and workers' wellbeingBritish consumers might have faced the sharpest increase in living costs for four decades, but despite the cost of living crisis, concerns over the environment and the treatment of farmers in poorer countries has fuelled a steady increase in ethical shopping.As households across the country rein in their spending to deal with rising bills, Michael Gidney, the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation trade body, said consumers were still prioritising ethical products. Continue reading...

Labor describes claims as fear-mongering' and says government would not accept waste from other nations

Dutch court's ruling that KLM misled customers is a wakeup call' on decarbonisation plans, climate advocacy group says