by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#6A2KP)
London borough to replace West Kentish Town estate, but rival plan claims to have a much smaller climate impactA conflict between saving carbon and building better homes has broken out on a groundbreaking 1960s council estate in London.The London borough of Camden is planning to raze and replace the West Kentish Town estate, which was built almost 60 years ago. It says the homes are too small, the concrete panel buildings are dilapidated and most residents want new homes. Continue reading...
Protesters cut up credit cards and march to Washington branches of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells FargoHundreds of older Americans gathered in Washington on Tuesday to protest against four of the country’s largest financial institutions, cutting up their credit cards in an act of defiance meant to condemn the banks’ funding of oil and gas projects.The protesters marched to the downtown DC branches of the four targeted “dirty banks” – JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – before staging a “die-in” to symbolize the global threat posed by fossil fuels. In a nod to the age of the protest’s participants, demonstrators sat in painted rocking chairs as they chanted “Cut it up!” to those slashing their credit cards outside the banks’ branches. Continue reading...
The Australian Museum’s new multimedia exhibition, The Birds of Australia, traces the journey of the 19th-century naturalist and ornithologist John Gould and his wife, illustrator Elizabeth Gould, as they travelled through New South Wales and recorded the unique birdlife, identifying hundreds of species new to western science
Dutch authorities try to tempt out animals, which dig setts under quiet and raised train embankmentsLeaves on the tracks, signal failures and strikes can all cause train delay headaches, but commuters in the Netherlands are facing railway havoc caused by badgers burrowing under the lines, with authorities struggling to tempt the protected animals out.In the densely populated country, there is limited natural space for the country’s 7,000 badgers. They often dig out their homes, or setts, under relatively “quiet” train embankments, which are ideally situated away from people and also slightly raised, which prevents the sett from flooding. Continue reading...
World Bank among those urging levy to fund climate action in developing world and encourage fleets to upgradePressure is growing on the international shipping industry to accept a carbon levy on ships that would fund climate action in the developing world, with the World Bank among those pushing for the measure at a crucial international meeting this week, the Guardian has learned.A levy on the greenhouse gas emissions produced from shipping would encourage companies to upgrade their fleets, run them more efficiently and seek cleaner fuels and technologies. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Roark Capital and Silver Lake Management showed to have a web of connections to the Atlanta police foundationA new investigation has uncovered connections between private equity firms and the contentious development of a sprawling police and fire service training complex in Atlanta known as “Cop City” and the police force which fatally shot an environmental activist.Private equity refers to an opaque form of financing away from public markets in which funds and investors manage money for wealthy individuals and institutional investors such as university endowments and state employee pension funds. Continue reading...
Authors of paper accepted for publication in Harvard Environmental Law Review argue firms are ‘killing members of the public at an accelerating rate’Oil companies have come under increasing legal scrutiny and face allegations of defrauding investors, racketeering, and a wave of other lawsuits. But a new paper argues there’s another way to hold big oil accountable for climate damage: trying companies for homicide.The striking and seemingly radical legal theory is laid out in a paper accepted for publication in the Harvard Environmental Law Review. In it, the authors argue fossil fuel companies “have not simply been lying to the public, they have been killing members of the public at an accelerating rate, and prosecutors should bring that crime to the public’s attention”. Continue reading...
The Vjosa River in Albania teems with more than 1,000 species, while rare vultures and Balkan lynx visit its banks. It has seen off the threat of a surge in barriers, but the shadow of development persistsThe fast-moving Vjosa River in Albania curves and braids, sweeping our raft away from the floodplain towards the opposite bank, and back again. The islands that split the waterway in two are temporary, forming, growing, then dissipating so that this truly wild river, one of the last in Europe, never looks the same.“There’s a saying, ‘you can’t step in the same river twice’,” says Ulrich Eichelmann, the head of Riverwatch, a Vienna-based NGO for river protection, who is paraphrasing the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. “A river is a living, dynamic thing, an architect of its surroundings. It changes all the time. That’s its beauty.” Continue reading...
by Sandra Laville Environment correspondent on (#6A214)
Lords committee criticises Ofwat for failing to ensure firms invested enough in sewage networkWater companies have been too focused on maximising financial returns at the expense of the environment, a House of Lords committee has found.The investigation by peers into the regulation of the privatised water industry found Ofwat, the regulator, had chosen to keep bills low for customers at the expense of investment in the industry, which is now sorely lacking. Continue reading...
Some species of insect no longer being seen in areas that are becoming drier and hotterDrought is threatening some British moth species with local extinction, a study has found, as the insects are no longer being seen in areas which are becoming drier and hotter.The new research, published today by wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation and Northumbria University, looked at data gathered over a 40-year period by volunteers of Butterfly Conservation’s National Moth Recording Scheme. Continue reading...
Officials at a heated town meeting in Menindee, outback New South Wales, are challenged to drink a mug of town water in front of the crowd after assuring the community that it meets Australian drinking water standards. The request is issued by Jan Fennell, a resident who says the town is tired of being given instructions by authorities without being granted meaningful involvement or reassurances► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
UN report predicts water demand will increase by 80% as crisis threatens to get out of controlThe number of people lacking access to safe drinking water in cities around the world will double by 2050, research has found, amid warnings of an imminent water crisis that is likely to “spiral out of control”.Nearly 1 billion people in cities around the world face water scarcity today and the number is likely to reach between 1.7 billion and 2.4 billion within the next three decades, according to the UN World Water Development Report, published on Tuesday ahead of a vital UN summit. Urban water demand is predicted to increase by 80% by 2050. Continue reading...
Residents accuse St James parish officials of civil rights and religious liberty violations by approving petrochemical plantsResidents of St James parish, Louisiana, have unveiled a federal lawsuit accusing local government officials of civil rights and religious liberty violations by repeatedly approving the construction of petrochemical plants in two majority Black districts.The lawsuit, part of a wave of litigation in the heavily industrialised corridor known as “Cancer Alley”, also calls for a moratorium on the construction of new plants and the extension of existing facilities in St James parish. Continue reading...
by By Fiona Harvey, environment editor on (#6A1GS)
Only 19 cases of cetacean bycatch reported under Defra scheme, but experts say figure much higherOnly a handful of instances of accidental bycatch of whales, dolphins and porpoises have been recorded under the UK government’s self-reporting initiative, despite the likelihood that hundreds are being caught by fishing vessels.Fishers have been encouraged to voluntarily record the bycatch of marine mammals in an attempt to reduce the accidental catch, which would benefit the fishing industry and the health of the seas. Continue reading...
Councillors vote to chop down trees in Coton Orchard for busway from Cambridge to CambourneHundreds of trees in an orchard designated as a habitat of principal importance in England should be felled to build a new busway to tackle climate change, councillors in Cambridgeshire voted on Tuesday.The county council voted by 33 to 26 to approve a new public transport busway, which will use optically guided electric or hybrid buses on its route, to provide links between Cambridge and Cambourne, an expanding new town eight miles outside the city. Continue reading...
Staff at the bank have voted to authorize a strike as they fight for higher wages: ‘We deserve respect’When the nation’s bankers show up to work in New York City and shuffle in line at the coffee bar, Virginia Vargas has already been on her feet for two hours.Vargas arrives at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where regional bankers make decisions that shape US economic policy, by 6am to start prepping the office coffee bar. By 8, she is ready to greet employees in need of a jolt of caffeine with a smile. Continue reading...
A decades-old neighborhood project in Tucson provides food to residents as well as shade to cool streets in the third-fastest warming city in the USNear downtown Tucson, Arizona, is Dunbar Spring, a neighborhood unlike any other in the city. The unpaved sidewalks are lined with native, food-bearing trees and shrubs fed by rainwater diverted from city streets. One single block has over 100 plant species, including native goji berries, desert ironwood with edamame-like seeds and chuparosa bushes with cucumber-flavored flowers.This urban food forest – which began almost 30 years ago – provides food for residents and roughage for livestock, and the tree canopy also provides relief to residents in the third-fastest warming city in the nation. It has made Dunbar Spring a model for other areas grappling with increased heat, drought and food insecurity caused by the climate crisis. Continue reading...
The climate crisis is lengthening allergy season in some US cities – and intensifying the allergen content of pollenAn uncharacteristically warm winter in the US has brought on the earliest spring on record across parts of the US. And from New York to Seattle to the deep south, pollen is already prompting sneezing and scratchy eyes for allergy sufferers. Climate change is in fact intensifying allergy season across North America, and has lengthened it by an average of 20 days. In some places, though, it is even longer than that.Which cities have it worst, why do scientists think allergies are becoming even more unbearable, and what can we do to manage them? Continue reading...
Avian flu has decimated the marine creatures on the country’s Pacific coastline and scientists fear it could be jumping from mammal to mammalAt first, it appears to be dead. Its head lies in the sand, and a small tide pool has formed around it. Its shoulder blades jut out and its coffee and beige pelt hangs loosely on protruding vertebrae that taper down to its long tail flippers.But the young male sea lion is still alive. Its round wet eyes blink and occasionally it tries to move, rolling over or lifting its head, as the flooding tide inches it up the beach in Chepeconde, about 75 miles south of Peru’s coastal capital, Lima. Continue reading...
Head of seabed authority accused of abandoning neutrality at critical point with first commercial application imminentMichael Lodge, a British lawyer and the head of the UN-affiliated body responsible for governing mining in the high seas, has been criticised by diplomats who claim he has been pushing them to accelerate the start of deep-sea mining.A German diplomat said Lodge – the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – has a duty of neutrality and has overstepped his role in resisting measures put forward by some council members that could slow down approval of the first mining proposals, according to the New York Times. Continue reading...
Regulation may allow ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers that can run on fossil fuel gas, and are unlikely ever to use hydrogenMinisters are preparing to allow new houses to continue to be fitted with gas boilers, long after they were supposed to be phased out, campaigners fear.A loophole being considered for the forthcoming future homes standard, a housing regulation in England intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from newly built homes in line with the net zero target, would allow new homes to be fitted with “hydrogen-ready” boilers. Continue reading...
Members of the Menindee community are trying to come to terms with how another mass fish kill incident has occurred in the Darling-Baaka River. 'This is an Australian disaster and it should be treated as such: like a bushfire, like a flood. Fish kills and unhealthy river systems have got to be taken seriously," says Barkandji woman Denise O’Donnell► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Federal Labor MP Josh Wilson says he is not convinced Australia should pursue nuclear-powered submarines. The member for Fremantle says the cost and timeframes are likely to blow out and he is 'concerned about the question of nuclear waste' given that 'we haven’t yet managed a storage solution for low-level waste after 40 years'► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Invasive house mice threaten endangered seabirds and wildlife on Marion Island in Indian OceanNon-native house mice are to be removed from Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean to protect the wandering albatross and other endangered seabirds, in the world’s largest eradication programme of its kind.Mice accidentally introduced on to the remote island by 19th-century seal hunters have thrived in warmer and drier conditions over the past 30 years, devastating the island’s invertebrates and plants, and then devouring the chicks and even adults of ground- and burrow-nesting seabirds. Continue reading...
Historian Dan Snow assembled team to ‘secure the shark for science’ but head, tail and fin were goneThe discovery of a rare shark on a Hampshire beach is as valuable as the unearthing of an ancient treasure trove, an expert has said, as calls grow for the return of the head, tail and fin, which were removed before scientists could salvage the carcass.The 2-metre (6ft) animal, believed to be a smalltooth sand tiger shark, would normally only be seen in warmer waters – and rarely anywhere north of the Bay of Biscay. Scientists believe the weekend discovery can help them learn more about how the species develops and lives its life. Continue reading...
Ladybirds know how good they look, and they don’t keep it to themselvesThe ladybird gets the first part of its name from Our Lady, The Lady, Mary. Its spots – seven, if you are in Europe – symbolise Mary’s seven sorrows, its red shell the cloak she wears sometimes, when she is feeling passionate or loving, or devoted to her son, or, when she’s in a particularly generous mood, devoted to all of humanity.Ladybirds come from the coccinellid family of beetles, the name for which comes from the Latin for scarlet. They were given this title by Pierre André Latreille, a priest who had grown up an orphan and was thrown into a dungeon during the French Revolution and released because he recognised a rare species of beetle. Continue reading...
Government urged to ratify UN convention in order to protect undersea areas like shipwrecks and now-submerged First Nations heritage sitesThe underwater world – from shipwrecks with human remains inside to First Nations sites that are tens of thousands of years old – needs better protection, a parliamentary committee has found.Pirates have targeted second world war shipwrecks for scrap metal, looters have been trophy hunting in sunken boats and the bodies of drowned sailors have been disturbed in the process. Technological advancements mean Australia’s underwater cultural heritage is more vulnerable than ever, the committee heard. Continue reading...
Ofwat says new powers will be used if firms fail to reach performance and environmental goalsThe UK water regulator is to use new powers to block companies from shareholder payouts if they fail to hit performance and environmental targets.Ofwat, which in December heavily criticised some of the country’s biggest suppliers over the size of dividend payments relative to their financial performance, said the new rules would also mean water companies would “maintain a higher level of overall financial health”. Continue reading...
Residents in industry-choked Randolph renew efforts to block the power company’s plans near their fragile townA handful of weary residents gathered at the windowless Randolph church to mull over the latest effort by an electric utility to expand its power station – a polluting gas-fired plant next door to the community that the state regulator has blocked on environmental and health grounds.Randolph is a historic Black community in central Arizona flanked by railroads and heavy hazardous industries, a small dusty place where residents are exposed to some of the worst air quality in the state while lacking basic amenities like fire hydrants, trash collection and healthcare. Continue reading...
As the war in Ukraine sent natural gas prices skyrocketing, liquid natural gas (LNG) plants are springing up all along the fragile Gulf Coast – seriously harming not just local communities but the world’s ability to keep the entire climate crisis at bayAbout 30 miles south of New Orleans, a construction site visible from space is rising. Sandwiched between the Mississippi River and disappearing wetlands, the 256-hectare (632-acre) site is visited by a stream of tipper trucks and concrete mixers that stir up dust on Louisiana 23, the state highway that goes down to Venice, the last spot of land before the river’s water flows into the Gulf of Mexico.The wetlands protect the area from hurricane surge and provide critical habitat for fisheries. But when completed in 2025, the construction site here will host a series of tanks and pipes designed for one purpose: to supercool natural gas into liquid form, so it can be transported on giant tankers to sell around the world to the highest bidder. Continue reading...
Electric utilities spent billions after 2014’s polar vortex to ensure power plants and the grid could handle extreme cold, but this winter it still wasn’t enoughThe warnings to residents in the south-east US came right before Christmas: delay washing clothes or running the dishwasher, and curb hot water use until the bitterly cold temperatures eased up.It still wasn’t enough for two of the nation’s largest electric utilities. Continue reading...
Coton Orchard can literally boast a partridge in a pear tree – but the idyll is threatened by a busway scheme, which campaigners say is totally unnecessaryThe Coton Orchard is the eighth largest traditional orchard left in the UK, its owner Anna Gazeley is proud to say. “Not because we’re huge but because 80% have gone since the 1900s,” she said. Commercial fruit trees are smaller and more productive, but this orchard is filled with wildlife, a legacy of Gazeley’s father, who bought the land three decades ago to save the trees from developers.That may have been a temporary reprieve. The fate of the the trees and farmland west of Cambridge will be decided on Tuesday, when Cambridgeshire county council votes on a £160m scheme to include a bus bypass that would tear through the orchard. Continue reading...
Demonstrations at 90 sites are billed as first major action by older activists: ‘It’s not fair to ask 18-year-olds to solve this’Climate activists across the US will on Tuesday blockade branches of banks that finance fossil fuels, cutting up their credit cards in protest and holding rallies featuring everything from flash mobs to papier-mache orca whales. Unusually for such a spectacle, the protests won’t be led by young activists but those of a grayer hue.The protests, across more than 90 locations, including Washington DC, are billed as the first set of mass climate demonstrations by older Americans, who have until now been far less visible than younger activists, such as the school strike movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg. In a nod to the more seasoned age of participants, older people in painted rocking chairs will block the entrances to some of the US’s largest banks to highlight their funding of oil and gas extraction. Continue reading...
by Katharine Gammon in Calabasas with photographs by on (#69YWK)
Unusual weather has created the ideal conditions for fungus, delighting foragers and researchersOn a sun-dappled trail in the woods of Calabasas, Jess Starwood narrows her eyes and gasps with glee. Scrambling up a leafy hillside, she points to a small hump in the ground, covered in leaf litter. “That’s a shrump,” she says – a mushroom hump, where a mushroom may be pushing up the ground as it emerges.There were times when Starwood, an author, naturalist and foraging guide, would walk this trail and consider herself lucky to find even one mushroom. Today, on one of the hikes she regularly leads, we uncover nearly 50 mushrooms of 10 different species pushing up through the ground, growing out of damp logs, or springing from the dark earth. Continue reading...
Drone footage filmed above a stretch of the Darling-Baaka River near the Australian town of Menindee showed millions of dead fish blanketing the water on Saturday. The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries said the deaths were related to low oxygen levels after the extreme flooding in the region in January had receded. It is the latest in a series of large-scale fish deaths that have prompted questions about the management of water levels in the Murray-Darling Basin
Swifts, swallows, bats and geckos all enjoy a ‘coexistence of mutual respect’ on the football stands, wildlife census showsIn the silence after the final whistle you can hear the blackbirds sing, or perhaps a chaffinch or a Sardinian warbler. Or, if night has already fallen, you may see the bats swoop low over the centre circle as the fans shuffle towards the exits. This is the Spotify Camp Nou, the home of Barcelona football club … but also of myriad creatures.Barcelona is probably the first major football club in the world to produce a guide to its stadium’s wildlife, after carrying out a census of its animal occupants. The guide is part of the club rethinking its role in the community and its environmental impact, says Jordi Portabella, an environmentalist and former candidate for mayor of the city, now in charge of developing the club’s sustainability policy. Continue reading...