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 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...
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...
by Peter Walker Deputy political editor on (#6E96M)
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...
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...
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...
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...
Sadiq Khan defends expansion of ultra-low emission zone as government continues to criticise itClean air is a right not a privilege", the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said as the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was expanded to include the outer boroughs of London.People who drive in the zone in a vehicle that does not meet minimum emissions standards are required to pay a 12.50 daily fee or risk a 180 fine, reduced to 90 if paid within 14 days. Continue reading...
Swedish teenager Ia Anstoot says group's unscientific' opposition to EU nuclear power serves fossil fuel interestsAn 18-year-old climate activist has called for Greenpeace to drop its old-fashioned and unscientific" campaign against nuclear power in the EU.In April, the environmental campaign group announced it would appeal against the EU Commission's decision to include nuclear power in its classification system for sustainable finance. This taxonomy" is designed as a guide for private investors wanting to fund green projects, aiming to boost environmental investment. Continue reading...
Protesters arrested after blocking route to festival, leading to fiery exchanges and threatsThe road into Burning Man is a rural, two-lane highway winding through north-west Nevada. Approximately 80,000 people make an annual pilgrimage to the beloved bacchanal, many hauling trailers and RVs across miles of scorching desert in order to make it to their fabled Gomorrah. This year, however, climate activists temporarily halted the influx of eager festivalgoers, blocking the road with a 28-foot trailer and causing a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam for over an hour. They clashed with outraged Burning Man attendees as well as Nevada rangers.In recent years, Burning Man has drifted from its hippy roots and become better known for luxury RVs, wild orgies, and Silicon Valley bros. Protestors from the Seven Circles -a coalition of activists representing the climate groups Extinction Rebellion, Rave Revolution, and Scientist Rebellion - demanded that Burning Man ban private jets and single-use plastics, as well as unlimited generator and propane use. Signs painted with the slogans Burners of the world, unite!", Mother Earth needs our help" and System change" were erected around the blockade, while four activists chained themselves to the trailer and locked arms through PVC pipes. Continue reading...
by Helena Horton, Kiran Stacey and Peter Walker on (#6E86W)
Exclusive: Announcement set to anger environmentalists, but builders say nutrient neutrality laws are exacerbating housing crisisMichael Gove is planning to rip up water pollution rules that builders have blamed for exacerbating England's housing crisis but which environmental groups say are essential for protecting the country's rivers.The housing secretary, alongside Therese Coffey, the environment secretary, will announce the move on Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the plans, alongside hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of extra funding to mitigate the potential impact on England's waterways. Continue reading...
Fast charging stations that allow for longer journeys are being added in regions beyond LondonCharging companies are plugging the gaps in the UK's high-speed charger network, with hundreds added this year outside London in a shift that will help end the range anxiety" that holds back some would-be electric car buyers.The capital and the south-east still have far more chargers of all speeds - ranging from slow to rapid and ultra-rapid - than the rest of the country. But the presence of high-speed chargers, generally used for quick recharging on longer journeys, is increasing in other regions as electric car sales surge. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#6E7X4)
Comprehensive analysis calls into question whether such resorts have a future as global heating intensifiesA quarter of European ski resorts will have scarce snow every other year with 2C of global heating, a comprehensive analysis has found. It calls into question whether such resorts have a future as the climate crisis intensifies.The study took into account artificial snowmaking, without which half the resorts would have scarce snow every other year at 2C. Current action and policies mean the world is on track for 2.7C of global heating. Continue reading...
The recent heatwaves in Arizona, stoked by the climate crisis, have led to a spike in contact burns from asphalt almost as hot as boiling waterOn a sunny day in mid-May, Bobby Hunt fell asleep by the side of a gas station in Phoenix. Hunt says he was waiting for a friend to pick him up.Next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital." Continue reading...
Protesters say classification as domestic terrorists' for opposing planned Georgia police facility has upended their livesBefore boarding a flight from San Francisco to New York last month, Luke Lucky" Harper was pulled aside and subjected to a search of his body and his belongings in front of other passengers waiting to board.The experience would have been even more upsetting if it wasn't the third time in several weeks. Harper was also searched in airports in Nashville, Tennessee and Salt Lake City, Utah. His name was called out on a loudspeaker; officials swabbed his hands, seeking traces of explosives. Continue reading...
The Committee on the Rights of the Child urges governments to respond to young people's concerns about environmental threatsGovernments must respond to growing concerns expressed by children about the effects of the climate crisis and other environmental emergencies on their lives and futures, a UN body has said.In a strongly worded formal opinion published on Monday, the Committee on the Rights of the Child concludes that the triple planetary crisis - the climate emergency, the collapse of biodiversity and pervasive pollution - is an urgent and systemic threat to children's rights globally". Continue reading...
Shadow foreign secretary says Starmer government would work with President Lula on radical climate actionThe shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has taken his green diplomatic policy for a test spin in Brazil this month in the hope that climate justice" can serve as an international rallying cry for a future Labour government.In an interview with the Guardian, Lammy said a Labour victory at the next general election would allow Keir Starmer to build a partnership for radical climate action with Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, before the UN's Cop30 climate summit in Belem in 2025. Continue reading...
Large flightless birds, thought to be extinct for 100 years, have been returned to the wilderness of the Greenstone Valley in New Zealand's South Island
London mayor bemoans lack of ministerial support for pollution charging policyThe government is weaponising air pollution and climate change" by not supporting the expansion of the capital's ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has claimedAhead of Tuesday's rollout of the expansion of Ulez to all London boroughs, Khan expressed his disappointment" at the lack of government financial support for the policy, and its accompanying scrappage scheme, unlike those run in some other cities in England. Continue reading...
Drivers want to park on Moor Lane and Bridge Road, a charge-free corridor in ChessingtonResidents of a road that will form a charge-free corridor through London's expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) say they have been offered 100 a month" to let people park on their driveways and avoid paying the fee.Motorists travelling along Moor Lane, which becomes Bridge Road, in Chessington, south-west London, do not have to pay the Ulez charge, but should they turn off at any stage they will immediately enter the zone. Continue reading...
Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even moreIn the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it Venice of the Pacific". A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina's streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people. Continue reading...
by Ossie Michelin in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut on (#6E70D)
The environment Inuit have lived in for millennia is changing fast. Canada's government once ignored Indigenous knowledge of it but now they are jointly creating the Nunatsiavut conservation area Photographs by Eldred AllenA plume of red erupts in the grey-blue waters and Martin Shiwak accelerates his boat to grab the seal he has shot before the animal sinks out of sight. Shiwak has hunted for years in the waters of Lake Melville, by the Inuit community of Rigolet in Nunatsiavut.As he hauls the ringed seal into the vessel, he says he counts himself lucky to have found one so quickly. Sometimes you have to drive around here in the boat nearly all day to find a seal," Shiwak says. Nowadays you can't even afford to - $60 only gets you five gallons of gas."Martin Shiwak with his hunting rifle in his boat, on Lake Melville, near Rigolet in Nunatsiavut Continue reading...
Humane alternatives to killing rampant creatures such as wild boar, deer and grey squirrels are being developedConflicts between humans and wildlife are triggering growing numbers of disease outbreaks, road accidents and crop damage. And the problem is likely to get worse unless new, humane measures to curtail animal numbers are developed in the near future, say scientists.It is a critical environmental issue that will be debated this week at a major conference in Italy where experts will discuss how best to limit numbers of grey squirrels, wild boar, deer, feral goats, pigeons, parakeets and other creatures that are causing widespread ecological damage in many countries. Continue reading...
Votes invited for the public's top 10 resorts and experiences, from beach huts and lidos to the Blackpool TowerThe British seaside may be derided by some for being as tacky as the candyfloss stuck to the side of your mouth. Yet tackiness is fundamental to its charm, according to campaigners who say that seaside heritage sites should be protected as fiercely as castles and stately homes.The Seaside Heritage Network (SHN) says amusement parks, lidos and scenic railways are all part of the UK's role in the creation of modern tourism and should be cherished. Continue reading...
Threats of violence as ultra-low emission zone expansion begins - but mayor defends it as essential for health Read more: how Ulez expansion is affecting lives of LondonersThe Metropolitan police has vowed to throw considerable resources" at protecting this week's expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) amid fears the rollout will prompt a spike in vandalism and disruptive protests.The force's declaration came as London mayor Sadiq Khan issued a fierce defence of his bitterly contested policy, saying he was acting to tackle toxic air" and prevent the capital's children growing up with stunted lungs". Continue reading...
Despite progress towards a 2045 zero-emission goal, the high price of EVs has created a headache for governmentsEuropean countries are struggling to persuade people to switch from combustion engine cars to electric ones, experts warn.Europe sells 10 times more electric cars today than it did just six years ago, according to the International Energy Agency, but its fleet is cleaning up too slowly to meet its climate goals. Governments across the continent are struggling with the price-tag of electric vehicles, which can cost several thousand euros more upfront than comparable ones that burn fossil fuels. Continue reading...
Councils are letting grass and weeds grow to increase urban biodiversity. But many people are unhappy with the resultBrighton is home to the UK's only Green member of parliament and is outwardly a bastion of progressive politics. Wild spaces here are not only the rolling hills of East Sussex or the beachfront but the smaller, often overlooked, green areas within residential neighbourhoods.These untamed enclaves are full of nature's drama, but another kind of drama is playing out among residents who feel that rewilding in the city's backyard has gone too far. Continue reading...
Potentially lethal to fish and dangerous for humans, the summer's toxic invader is caused by warming seas and strong windsWhen Owen Francomb from Margate set out on a walk with his dog Gertie along Kent's picturesque Thanet coast early this month, he didn't imagine he'd need to be rescued from a tide of toxic sludge. But on the beach at Newgate Gap, French bulldog Gertie started sinking into a thick carpet of rotting seaweed and began to panic.She couldn't move," Francomb. says. So I scrambled down the slipway and jumped down on to the beach, expecting the seaweed to be a foot deep, but it came up to my belt. I really struggled to wade through it." Another dog walker had to help him and Gertie out of the stinking slime. Continue reading...
A freakish season of record temperatures, wildfire smoke and the destruction of Lahaina could soon become normal, climate experts sayIt's been a strange, cruel summer in the United States. From the dystopian orange skies above New York to the deadly immolation of a historic coastal town in Hawaii, the waning summer has been a stark demonstration of the escalating climate crisis - with experts warning that worse is to come.A relentless barrage of extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused global heating, has swept the North American continent this summer, routinely placing a third of the US population under warnings of severe heat and unleashing floods, fire and smoke upon communities, with a record 15 separate disasters causing at least $1bn in damages so far this year. Continue reading...
Large-scale study indicates population declines after collation of data from country's conservation organisations and birdwatchersA report on India's bird population has painted a grim picture for many of the country's species.The State of India's Birds (SoIB) report - published on Friday - showed worrisome declines, with 178 species of wild birds identified as needing immediate priority for conservation. Continue reading...
Unsuspecting drivers could be caught out when scheme extends to all London boroughs from TuesdayThe expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to cover all of London means that from Tuesday travellers setting off for Heathrow airport will have to pay the daily charge for the first time if they use an older, more polluting car to get there.While people who regularly drive into the capital will probably be aware of the rollout of the scheme, the motorists most likely to be caught out are those making a rare visit to the airport when they go on holiday or those dropping off and picking up friends and family. Continue reading...
Mexico latest country where government is considering passing new laws to criminalise environmental destructionA growing number of countries are considering introducing laws to make ecocide a crime.Mexico is the latest country where politicians are seeking to deter environmental damage - and to get justice for its victims - by criminalising it. Karina Marlen Barron Perales, congresswoman for Nuevo Leon, has submitted a bill to the Mexican congress introducing a new crime of ecocide". Continue reading...
Which? advises drivers paying London ultra-low emission zone fee to make sure they're using official TfL websiteDrivers are being ripped off by copycat websites that add extra fees to the ultra low emissions zone charges in London, consumer champion Which? has warned.As Ulez expands across all boroughs in the capital from Tuesday, Which? has found a series of identical, unofficial websites targeting people trying to pay the charge. This has led to drivers paying more than the 12.50 daily fee. Continue reading...