Environment | The Guardian

Expansion of metallurgical coalmine in Queensland will add 31m tonnes alone with activists accusing Albanese government of being reckless

Garie beach, currently only accessible via hour-long hiking trails, will have controversial anti-shark technology restored in heavily criticised move

George Eustice given consultancy job with Augean, which had to pay 36,000 after groundwater contaminatedA former UK environment secretary is to take a consultancy role with a waste management firm that had to pay 36,000 after an Environment Agency (EA) investigation found contamination of groundwater at a site.George Eustice, who was the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs from February 2020 until September 2022, is joining Augean, a waste treatment company with sites across the UK. Continue reading...

Graham Stuart says if reforms to energy charter treaty not passed by November, UK would consider exitThe UK could pull out of the international energy charter treaty if attempts to reform it fail, the energy minister, Graham Stuart, has said.The energy charter treaty (ECT) is a system of secret courts that enables companies to sue governments over policies that would cut their future profits. Companies have sued over phasing out coal-fired power stations, ending offshore oil drilling and banning fracking, with some receiving large taxpayer-funded payouts. Continue reading...

Experts warn that global heating is exacerbating inherent dangers of high altitude mountaineeringAvalanches in the Himalayas are causing an increasing number of deaths and threatening the safety of climbers, research suggests.While high-altitude mountaineering comes with an inherent avalanche risk, global heating is exacerbating the danger during the climbing season in the Himalayan mountain range, experts warn. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs, including hungry puffins, arctic rabbits and curious bears Continue reading...

There has been a lot of commentary about how to measure the cost of renewables - but much of it misses the point

Stronghold Digital Mining contends it is repurposing waste material, but those living near by are outraged by the proposalA crypto-mining company in Pennsylvania is seeking to burn tires to produce bitcoin, prompting an outcry from residents and environmental groups.Stronghold Digital Mining says it is repurposing waste materials, while opponents worry about the risks of emissions to human health. Continue reading...

Activists say that whales will still suffer agonising deaths despite new regulations and monitoringAnimal rights groups and environmentalists have described as hugely disappointing" the news that Iceland has given the green light for commercial whaling to resume, after a temporary ban introduced this year came to an end.The Icelandic government said there will be tougher regulations in place - including better equipment, training and increased monitoring - but campaigners said these were pointless and irrelevant" because whales will still suffer agonising deaths. The hunted whales are shot with grenade-tipped harpoons. Continue reading...

Conservation officers believe animal was shot and dragged into Squamish River in British ColumbiaConservation officers in Canada are asking the public for help after the body of a grizzly bear was discovered floating in a British Columbia river.This week, the province's conservation service said it was investigating the illegal killing of the bear, after remains were discovered near the town of Squamish. Continue reading...

Money owed by Recharge Industries to the Geelong Cats include unpaid hospitality packages that typically involve premium match-day seating

Discovery that most canids in Australia are not hybrids with wild dogs leads researchers to push to change policy and terminology

Do the charity's accusations that the government has reneged on a range of environmental pledges stand up to scrutiny?If the RSPB hoped to raise awareness about the perplexing concept of nutrient neutrality" their post calling Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove and Therese Coffey LIARS!" worked: it has, to date, been viewed by five million people.You lie, and you lie, and you lie again," the conservation charity declared on X, formerly Twitter, listing a number of environmental statements from the trio over recent years. Continue reading...

Analysts estimate the category 3 storm has already racked up a preliminary cost of $9.36bn, straining the insurance industryHurricane Idalia could become the costliest climate disaster to hit the US this year, analysts say, with massive implications for the insurance and risk management industries.The category 3 storm that barreled into Florida's west coast from the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, then carved a path of destruction and flooding through Georgia and the Carolinas, has a preliminary price tag between $9.36bn, based on early estimates, from risk analysts at UBS, and $18bn-$20bn calculated by AccuWeather. Continue reading...

Prof Hugh Durrant-Whyte calls for overhaul of environmental regulation to prevent further fish deaths

Plant Heritage calls for volunteers to grow rare pollinator-friendly plants in their homes or gardensPeople in the UK are being urged to keep rare plants in their living rooms or gardens to help create a national collection" that can save pollinator-friendly plants from becoming extinct.Plant Heritage, a charity that works to keep rare garden flowers growing even when they are out of fashion, has started a campaign to protect pollinator-friendly plants and is asking for volunteers to set up a collection.Astrophytum: With large yellow flowers in late spring and summer, these North American cacti will survive in a cool glasshouse if kept dry. International plant breeders have created many highly ornamental hybrids and cultivars, too.Campanula: Also known as bellflowers, these distinctive open, bell-shaped flowers can be blue, pink, purple or white. There are about 80 species and 232 cultivars available.Colocasia: These dramatic foliage plants can be grown outside in a warm, sheltered spot, or in greenhouses or conservatories. There are 19 cultivars available. Continue reading...

June hunt in Alaska that killed 99 bears and five wolves prompts activists to renew their call for crackdown on rogue states'The US federal government has been accused of simultaneously paying to protect endangered species while funding state-organized hunts of large, endangered predators, like gray wolves and grizzly bears, that increase the likelihood of their extinction.A coalition of more than 35 animal welfare and Indigenous groups in late 2021 formally petitioned the US Department of the Interior to develop rules to withhold money from state agencies that fund the slaughters". But the department has not responded to the petition, the groups allege. Continue reading...

Beccy Speight says frustration at weaker protections' prompted criticism of Sunak, Gove and Coffey

Sites cover less than 1% of planet and although protected are at risk from climate breakdown and human consumption, say expertsA fifth of known life on Earth can be found in Unesco world heritage sites, according to the first survey of the planet's most important cultural and historical landmarks.From the Great Barrier Reef to the Kazakh steppe, nearly three-quarters of all recorded bird species, two-thirds of all mammals and more than half of all hard corals have been recorded at world heritage sites even though they cover less than 1% of the planet, according to the new analysis produced by Unesco and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Continue reading...

Hurricane Idalia tore into Florida with powerful winds splitting trees in half, ripping roofs off hotels and turning small cars into boats. After coming ashore in the state's Big Bend region, the storm swept into Georgia where it flooded roads and sent some residents fleeing to higher ground Continue reading...

Parliamentary committee recommends overhead transmission but groups opposing 360km of lines being built across regional NSW vow to keep fighting

Electrical Trades Union boss Troy Gray says campaign to continue the activity will now expand

A forest rodeo, a hidden stargazer and a mason bee at work are just a few of the awe-inspiring images featured in the 59th wildlife photographer of the year competition.The Natural History Museum in London will unveil the latest wildlife photographer of the year exhibition showcasing 100 extraordinary photographs from around the world on 13 October 2023.This year's competition attracted an astounding 49,957 entries from photographers of all ages and experience levels from 95 countries. Entries were judged on their creativity, originality, and technical excellence by an international panel of industry experts.The winners of each category, and the prestigious grand title and young grand title awards, will be announced on 10 October 2023 at a ceremony hosted by wildlife television presenters and conservationists Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin Continue reading...

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Idalia makes landfall on Florida's Gulf coast with torrential rains and 125mph winds and heads up coast to Georgia and the Carolinas

Almost 7bn wiped off value of world's largest offshore wind company over possible 1.8bn write-downShares in the world's largest offshore wind company have tumbled by nearly a quarter after it said it may have to write down the value of its US portfolio by nearly 2bn.Orsted said it had been hit by a flurry of setbacks in its American business, triggering a rapid sell-off in its shares, listed in Copenhagen. Continue reading...

Office for Environmental Protection chair tells ministers plan will degrade England's rivers and demands that they explain it to MPsPlans to rip up pollution rules for housebuilders are a regression" that will degrade England's rivers, the government's environment watchdog has said.An amendment tabled by the government to the levelling up bill orders local authorities to ignore nutrient pollution from new developments in ecologically sensitive areas in England, including the Norfolk Broads and the Lake District. These nutrients, when untreated, cause algal blooms that choke the life from rivers. Continue reading...

Report reveals foreign interests hold 11.3% of Australia's water entitlements - about half of which are in the food and fibre producing Murray-Darling Basin

Greens leader says Albanese government is hellbent on opening more coal and gas mines' and people must fight back'The Australian Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has called on people to join disruptive climate protests to pressure the Albanese government to stop opening new fossil fuel mines, saying he plans to help blockade the country's largest coal port.He has also written to the leaders of 16 Pacific Island nations suggesting they should make any support for an Australia bid to host a UN climate summit conditional on the government taking stronger climate action". Continue reading...

One of the endangered marsupials was found dead close to the controversial operation in Tallaganda state forest near Canberra

Key meteorologist says timing is pretty bad for this one' as moon expected to make tidal flooding worseA rare blue supermoon could raise tides above normal just as Hurricane Idalia smashes its way across Florida's west coast, exacerbating flooding from the storm.The moon will be closest to the Earth on Wednesday, the day Idalia made landfall in Florida. While a supermoon can make for a spectacular backdrop in photos of landmarks around the world, its intensified gravitational pull also makes tides higher. Continue reading...

Rule requires wetlands to be more clearly connected to other waters, overturning half-century of federal regulationThe Biden administration weakened regulations protecting millions of acres of wetlands on Tuesday, saying it had no choice after the supreme court sharply limited the federal government's jurisdiction over them.The rule would require that wetlands be more clearly connected to other waters like oceans and rivers, a policy shift that departs from a half-century of federal rules governing the nation's waterways. Continue reading...

Follow-up to 2015 encyclical on climate crisis urges people to take side of victims of environmental injustice'Pope Francis has said he will issue a follow-up document on the protection of nature because a terrible world war" against the environment was taking place.The pontiff said the papal statement - a follow-up to his 2015 encyclical on the climate crisis - would be issued on 4 October, the feast day of Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment. Continue reading...

The hurricane could strengthen to category 3 by the time it hits the state's coast, with a storm surge of up to 12ft

The scraps in your bin marked compost' may end up as methane. Here's what that meansWhen orange bins marked for compost" drop-off first started proliferating on the streets of New York in February as part of a department of sanitation pilot, many residents celebrated. I was one of them: even as an environmental reporter who has visited the landfill where my trash ends up and is well aware of the problems with food waste, the lack of convenient composting options near me was often prohibitive. Having a bin within walking distance I could access at any time meant all my food waste would finally be converted back into soil.Or at least that's what I thought it meant, until the news broke in April that the contents of those compost" bins mostly don't go to compost sites, but to an anaerobic digester at a wastewater treatment plant called Newtown Creek. There, the food waste is mixed into sewage before being converted partially into methane. Continue reading...

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The warming planet is causing steep declines among some of the world's 26,000 wild polar bears, but it is not universal and the picture is complicated, say expertsAlone in the Arctic, surrounded by disappearing sea ice ... few fables of the climate crisis are better known than the plight of the polar bear. The marine mammals are heavily dependent on sea ice for hunting, and as the Arctic warms, scientists warn they will become extinct across much of the region.Long term declines have already been recorded in three of the 19 polar bear subpopulations found across the Arctic, including those in the western part of Hudson Bay in Canada - among the most southerly populations - whose numbers dropped from an estimated 842 to 618 between 2016 and 2021. Continue reading...

Government to state that climate crisis poses systemic risk to bond value after class action brought by student Katta O'Donnell

Ministers have claimed Ulez is cash-raising ploy - but letter reveals Grant Shapps backed a separate charge for same reasonMinisters have been accused of hypocrisy in claiming Sadiq Khan expanded London's ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to raise revenue after it emerged the Department for Transport urged the mayor to extend the city's congestion charge for the same reason.On the first day of Ulez covering every London borough there was renewed bickering between the Labour mayor and the government, with Khan castigating Mark Harper, the transport secretary, for what he called factual mistakes after the pair crossed paths at a TV studio. Continue reading...

Only two companies make bids for right to develop offshore wind off Gulf coast, in setback for administration's green-energy plansThe Biden administration on Tuesday held the first ever auction for the right to develop offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico, with just one of the three available leases provisionally awarded and only two bidders.The historic sale fell on the anniversaries of 2005's Hurricane Katrina and 2021's Hurricane Ida, climate crisis-fueled disasters that devastated Gulf communities. It also comes the day after the Gulf cities of New Orleans and Houston saw their hottest temperatures in recorded history, and as the largest wildfire in state history ravages Louisiana. Continue reading...

The acclaimed writer takes on a new challenge with his first art show, bringing together work and writing that tells a long history of environmental changeClimate change is a very complex topic that is not just about data and information and physics, it's about culture and politics and psychological responses," the author and newly minted museum curator Jeff Goodell said to the Guardian. It's about how we choose to live, what we value. The science part of it is a small sliver of the larger conversation - it's really important, but it's just the beginning of the conversation. There are vast dimensions of thinking about this subject that we have not really begun to approach."He's speaking from Austin, Texas, where he's putting the finishing touches on a new show at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas. Called If the Sky Were Orange, it seeks to bring complexity and curiosity to a climate change discourse that is often reduced to political polarization and degrees fahrenheit. Goodell hopes in talking about climate change in ways that are often not heard, the show will generate new thinking that might move us beyond the familiar impasses. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese continues to reject calls to make even a sanitised version of the assessment public

Eleven planes and a helicopter from the bloc have been sent to help Greece counter the fireA forest blaze in Greece is the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU" and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesperson has said.Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, Balazs Ujvari said on Tuesday. Continue reading...

When civil war broke out in 2015, a leaky oil tanker in the Red Sea became a crisis point - triggering a nail-biting series of events that saw special negotiations between the Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government, and the UN begging the public for help - and getting it from a bunch of US schoolchildrenSince 1988, the hulking form of the FSO Safer has floated in the Red Sea, receiving crude oil from the bountiful Marib oilfields of Yemen. For 30 years, the ship was a critical piece of infrastructure in Yemen's booming oil industry, which at one time generated 63% of government revenue.But the civil war broke out in 2014, and most of the Safer's crew were forced to abandon ship, leaving behind its cargo: 1.1m barrels of oil. Against mounting costs and security risks, maintaining the vessel became near impossible. Continue reading...

Fossil Free Media, a non-profit media organization, installed the ads in cities rocked by heatwaves including Phoenix and AustinDrive down the highways of Phoenix, Arizona; Austin, Texas; or Fresno, California, this week and you may see an unfamiliar advertisement, thanks to a group of climate activists.The non-profit media organization Fossil Free Media has unveiled a series of billboards calling out oil and gas companies for their role in fueling climate disasters. Installed in cities hit hard by recent heatwaves, the ads feature a map of temperature records broken across the country this summer, and read: Brought to you by Big Oil." Continue reading...

Under Lords amendment, developers will no longer have to offset nutrient pollution from new homes' sewage

World's biggest carbon emitter approving equivalent of two new coal plants a week, analysis showsChina is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week, a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.The government has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and in 2021 the president, Xi Jinping, promised to stop building coal powered plants abroad. Continue reading...

Warmer winters, late freezes and wildly variable rainfall have formed a perfect storm to wreck the one of the region's favorite fruitsFarming is inherently risky, a profession that always involves an expectation of loss and damage. But among many farmers, peaches are considered an unpredictable crop, with high risks and high rewards.Farming peaches is like gambling in a casino," said 44-year-old Robert Jackson II, of Lyman, South Carolina. The fruit bruises easily and is vulnerable to weather changes, but can earn handsome profits. Continue reading...

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Canada and UK only donor countries to contribute so far, leaving scheme short of $40m to formally launchDeveloped countries have been urged to contribute to a new nature fund after it was left undercapitalised by $40m (32m), receiving money from just two donors.At the Cop15 biodiversity summit in December, where countries agreed this decade's biodiversity targets that included aims to protect 30% of Earth, governments agreed to the creation of a fund to help developing countries meet the deal's aims, which included a target to provide $200bn for nature a year by 2030. Continue reading...