Louisiana fisherman stumbles across scene of sharks gorging themselves on large pod of fishThinking he had spotted a “tuna boil”, and thereby found his own prey, a Louisiana fisherman soon realised he had instead stumbled across a huge group of sharks engaged in a feeding frenzy.“Never seen anything like it,” Dillon May told Storyful, to whom he provided video of the remarkable scene. Continue reading...
Conservationists condemn latest cull as ‘trophy hunting’, while hunters admit it is ‘about the excitement’Sweden has issued licences to hunters to kill a total of 201 lynx, weeks after dozens of wolves were killed in the country’s biggest wolf cull in modern times.The number of licences to kill lynx throughout March, issued by Sweden’s country administrations, is more than double the number in recent years. Continue reading...
Brian Eno, Jacob Collier, Anna Calvi and more will add ‘Earth’ to songwriting credits so that royalties are diverted to environmental causesMusicians including Brian Eno are to name the Earth as a co-writer of their music, in order to divert a portion of their royalties towards environmental activism.Described as “a poetic construct … a beautiful idea” by Eno, the likes of Dave and Stormzy producer Fraser T Smith and multiple Grammy winner Jacob Collier will add the Earth to the credits of a forthcoming song or composition. A royalties percentage of their choice will be given in perpetuity to EarthPercent, a charity of which Eno is a founder and trustee, that raises money from the music industry to fund environmental activism. Continue reading...
The best mages from the magazine’s annual competition, with categories for travel, wildlife, urban settings, people, food, landscape and portfolio Continue reading...
Wealthy countries and businesses should act now to ensure success of historic nature agreement signed at Cop15 in MontrealGovernments and businesses must start implementing this decade’s deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems as soon as possible, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, urging rich nations to tackle overconsumption of the planet’s resources.David Cooper, the new acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), said countries and corporations must immediately act on December’s historic agreement in Montreal, which includes targets to protect 30% of Earth, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and address and disclose the impact businesses have on biodiversity. Continue reading...
Study adds to fears Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfallFor the first time researchers have proven a clear correlation between deforestation and regional precipitation. Scientists hope it may encourage agricultural companies and governments in the Amazon and Congo basin regions and south-east Asia to invest more in protecting trees and other vegetation.The study found that the more rainforests are cleared in tropical countries, the less local farmers will be able to depend on rain for their crops and pastures. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#69BEB)
Judgment handed down after five-year legal battle is landmark ruling for protection of green spacesCampaigners have won a supreme court appeal to stop houses being built on a park protected by a 100-year-old statutory trust in Shrewsbury, in a landmark ruling for the protection of green spaces.A judgment handed down on Wednesday after a five-year legal battle ruled in favour of a resident who argued a statutory trust created in 1926 gave residents rights of recreation over the land, even after the council had sold it to a developer. Continue reading...
Lewes council passes motion recognising Sussex river’s rights to protection, amid growing concerns over pollution of waterwaysThe River Ouse is on course to be the first river in England to be granted legal rights, as part of a growing movement to bolster protection for nature through the law.Lewes district council passed a rights of river motion acknowledging the rights of nature as a way of improving the health of local rivers by giving them similar protection to people, and agreed there was “a case to be made for considering our interactions with our local waterways”. Continue reading...
More than 60 US scientists, including James Hansen, renowned former Nasa climate researcher, sign open letterThe controversial concept of purposely deflecting the sun’s rays to cool down an overheating Earth should be further studied, according to a group of scientists headed by James Hansen, the renowned former Nasa climate researcher.An open letter from more than 60 scientists across the US, Canada and Europe warns that it is “increasingly unlikely” the world will remain below 2C of heating beyond pre-industrial times, due to a failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions, requiring a “rigorous, rapid scientific assessment” of previously outlandish proposals for solar geoengineering to provide rapid cooling. Continue reading...
A global pandemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza is driving deaths in the egg industry. And factory farming is largely to blameThe increased cost of eggs has been in the news, but the cause has largely been absent in mainstream media. A global pandemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a form of bird flu (H5N1), has resulted in the deaths of over 43 million hens in the egg industry, causing a drop in the supply of eggs and higher prices for consumers. While industry and government officials are feverishly working on getting this outbreak under control, the more significant issue is that confining animals by the billions in cruel and stressful conditions exacerbates the spread of disease. The problem is getting worse, and agribusiness needs to stop distracting consumers with messages about high egg prices and be held accountable for its irresponsible conduct.On factory farms across the US, animals used to produce meat, milk and eggs for human consumption are crowded by the thousands in unsanitary conditions, and they’re fed a steady diet of pharmaceuticals to ward off the resulting illness. This helps keep animals productive and alive long enough to reach market, benefiting agribusiness in the short term, but it is contributing to the development of more virulent forms of resistant pathogens that jeopardize the wellbeing of both human and nonhuman animals. As a study published in 2018 warned: “The golden age of antibiotics (the 1950s through 1970s) marked the beginning of the arms race between humans and bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance is now among the greatest threats to human health.” Continue reading...
With little rain forecast for spring and reservoirs still not refilled, drought could be worse than last yearThe government risks sleepwalking into drought, experts have said, after England experienced an extremely dry February with very little rain forecast for spring.Last year, most of England was plunged into drought conditions, with farmers struggling to plant and harvest crops, and hosepipe bans in action across the country. Water companies were preparing to take drastic action, including banning the filling of public swimming pools and cleaning non-domestic buildings. Continue reading...
Photographer Daniel Leal takes a look at the various ways London handles its waste, from incineration north of the city to street recycling and waste management facilities along the Thames riverside Continue reading...
by Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspon on (#69B3A)
Pacific island country will put resolution to UN general assembly seeking opinion on international legal obligations that countries have to act on the crisis
A North Sea trial aims to develop methods for growing and harvesting the seaweed as a means of carbon sequestrationBefore the Met Office was set up, and long afterwards in seaside towns, sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) was used to forecast the weather. Plucked from rock pools, it often hung on a hook by the seaside landlady’s door. If the seaweed was limp and damp because of moist air, it was sure to rain soon. If it was dry, then the day would be fine.This species has also long been gathered for food and as a cosmetics ingredient in Asia and in the UK. More recently, seaweed has been suggested as a means of carbon sequestration comparable to rainforests. Last month, Amazon gave a huge boost to efforts to test that idea by giving a €1.5m (£1.3m) grant to set up a farm-scale trial in the North Sea. The idea is to develop methods for growing and harvesting seaweed on a large scale between the thousands of turbines being built in shallow water on the continental shelf that now cannot be commercially fished. Continue reading...
Exclusive: company plans to sell carbon and biodiversity credits in endangered gorilla habitat and Congo basin rainforest as alternative to drilling for fossil fuelsA New York investment firm is to launch a $400m (£334m) bid for oil concessions in the Congo basin rainforest and Virunga national park with plans to turn them into conservation projects, the Guardian can reveal.EQX Biome, a biodiversity fintech company, has sent an expression of interest to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) government for 27 oil exploration blocks put up for auction last July, some of which are in critical ecosystems. Continue reading...
Patients in New Brunswick with array of symptoms ‘show signs of exposure to glyphosate’, says neurologistA neurologist who believes his patients are suffering from a suspicious illness has pleaded with the Canadian government to carry out environmental testing he thinks will show the involvement of the herbicide glyphosate.For more than two years, dozens of people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have experienced a distressing array of neurological symptoms, initially prompting speculation that they had developed an unknown degenerative illness – and that figure is believed to be far higher than official reports. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Political correspondent on (#69B17)
Grant Shapps to tell suppliers that reduced wholesale prices must be seen in consumer pricesMinisters have warned energy firms that they must pass on the benefits of lower wholesale prices to consumers, amid concern that bills could rise this spring.In a speech on Wednesday, Grant Shapps will tell energy suppliers that reduced wholesale prices must be seen in consumer prices, “no ifs, buts or maybes”. Continue reading...
Absence of long-term plan could deter investors or lead them to increase prices, says National Audit OfficeMinisters’ efforts to tackle the energy bills crisis have left the UK at risk of missing a key target to source green power and are threatening the country’s net zero goal, the government spending watchdog has said.The government said in 2021 it wanted all electricity to be generated from low-carbon sources by 2035, a pillar in the plan to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Continue reading...
Airline claim that it was protecting the world’s future is latest ad to fall foul of ASA rulesAn ad campaign by Lufthansa claiming that its green initiatives were protecting the world has been banned by the UK advertising watchdog, which ruled it was misleading consumers over the environmental impact of flying.The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) launched an investigation into the campaign – which featured a plane with an image of the Earth on its underside and the strapline: “Connecting the world. Protecting its future” – over concerns the German airline was giving consumers a “misleading impression of its environmental impact”. Continue reading...
Japanese company Denka, along with US chemicals giant DuPont, have operated the plant that produces cancer-causing chloropreneThe US justice department has sued the two petrochemical giants behind a facility in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” responsible for the highest cancer risk rates caused by air pollution in the US in a major federal lawsuit that seeks to substantially curb the plant’s emissions.Unveiled on Tuesday, the lawsuit alleges emissions at the Pontchartrain Works facility in Reserve, Louisiana, violate the Clean Air Act and “present an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare”. Continue reading...
Residents can sign up for air monitoring and cleaning services for their homes as well as information on the clean up effortsThe head of the US Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday he doesn’t want any stigmas attached to the Ohio community where a train derailed and spewed toxic gases three weeks ago and that he’s pushing the railroad to clean up the mess as fast as possible.The agency is continuing to monitor the air around East Palestine and working to protect the area during the cleanup, said EPA administrator Michael Regan. Continue reading...
Complaint filed against retail giant after an experiment found that the teabags did not biodegrade after a year buried in soilA team of researchers has filed a complaint against Tesco, saying its “biodegradable” teabags do not fulfil that claim following an experiment that involved burying them in soil for a year to see what happened.Dr Alicia Mateos-Cárdenas from University College Cork (UCC) set out to investigate how well teabags advertised as biodegradable broke down. She buried 16 Tesco Finest Green Tea with Jasmine pyramid teabags in garden soil. However, when the teabags were dug up, they remained intact. Continue reading...
Were we able to perceive afresh the sheer scale of fossil fuel impact we might be horrified, but because this is an old problem too many don’t see it as a problemIf fossil fuel use and impact had suddenly appeared overnight, their catastrophic poisonousness and destructiveness would be obvious. But they have so incrementally become part of everyday life nearly everywhere on Earth that those impacts are largely accepted or ignored (that they’ve also corroded our politics helps this lack of alarm). This has real consequences for the climate crisis. Were we able to perceive afresh the sheer scale of fossil fuel impact we might be horrified. But because this is an old problem too many don’t see it as a problem.Human beings are good at regarding new and unfamiliar phenomena as dangerous or unacceptable. But long-term phenomena become acceptable merely because of our capacity to adjust. Violence against women (the leading form of violence worldwide) and slower forms of environmental destruction have been going on so long that they’re easy to overlook and hard to get people to regard as a crisis. We saw this with Covid-19, where in the first months most people were fearful and eager to do what it took to avoid contracting or spreading the disease, and then grew increasingly casual about the risks and apparently oblivious to the impacts (the WHO charts almost 7 million deaths in little over three years).Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#69A3Z)
Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say expertsThe continued global rise in sales of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost 1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips in the Yanomami Indigenous territory on (#69A1G)
An elite unit is on a mission to expel the illegal miners who devastated Yanomami territory during Bolsonaro’s presidencyFor the last four years Brazil’s rainforests bled. “They bled like never before,” said Felipe Finger as he prepared to venture into the jungle with his assault rifle to staunch the environmental carnage inflicted on the Amazon under the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.Moments later Finger, a mettlesome special forces commander for Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, was airborne in a single-engine helicopter, hurtling over the forest canopy towards the frontline of a ferocious war on nature and the Indigenous peoples who lived here long before Portuguese explorers arrived more than 500 years ago. Continue reading...
Thames Water proposal to deal with droughts in capital draws ire of river users and environmentalistsAlmost 10,000 people have signed a petition against proposals by Thames Water to tackle drought by drawing off up to 100m litres of water a day from the Thames and replacing it with treated effluent from one of Europe’s biggest sewage treatment works.The company, which leaks 630m litres a day from its pipes, is attempting to get a new scheme approved involving tens of millions of litres of treated effluent being pumped into the Thames from Mogden sewage works in west London to tackle future water shortages. Continue reading...
From spicy pumpkin soup to caramelized banana ice cream, these culinary artists share the family stories – and cooking instructions – for some of their tastiest creations Continue reading...
Authorities announce death of cub named Pirouz from kidney failure at veterinary hospital in TehranThe last survivor of three critically endangered Asiatic cheetah cubs born in captivity in Iran has died in hospital from kidney failure.Pirouz, who was admitted to the Central veterinary hospital due to kidney failure last Thursday, died after undergoing dialysis, the official IRNA news agency said. Continue reading...
Museum says no talks took place between October 2021 and December 2022 and most recent deal has endedFurther questions have been raised about the future of the British Museum’s controversial sponsorship deal with BP, after the museum said the two parties had no meetings or correspondence about renewing their funding arrangement for more than a year before their most recent contract expired.The museum’s Hieroglyphs exhibition, which ended last week, was the final BP-sponsored show in the latest five-year contract between the energy company and the museum; according to its terms, that commercial partnership has now ended. No renewal or extension of the funding deal, first forged 27 years ago, has been announced by either party. Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#699SE)
Country would need to devote half its farmland or more than double its renewable electricity supply, says studyThe UK would have to devote half its farmland or more than double its total renewable electricity supply to make enough aviation fuel to meet its ambitions for “jet zero”, or net zero flying, scientists have said.A report published on Tuesday by the Royal Society argues there is no single, clear, sustainable alternative to jet fuel that could support the current level of flying. Continue reading...
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall leads letter to secretaries of state voicing concerns government will renege on promises to lift banFears that the government is quietly planning to renege on promises to lift the ban on onshore windfarms in England have prompted a large group of green campaigners, business leaders and prominent figures to protest to ministers.Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the chef and environmental campaigner, has led a letter to secretaries of state, signed by conservation groups, academics and business people who are concerned that the pledges to free up planning restrictions are being quietly subverted. Continue reading...
The pressure is building around critical negotiations that could, if successful, shield swathes of the world’s oceanAlmost two-thirds of the world’s ocean lies outside national boundaries. These are the “high seas”, where fragmented and loosely enforced rules have meant a vast portion of the planet, hundreds of miles from land, is often essentially lawless.Because of this, the high seas are more susceptible than coastal seas to exploitation. Currently, all countries can navigate, fish (or overfish) and carry out scientific research on the high seas practically at will. Only 1.2% of it is protected, and the increasing reach of fishing and shipping vessels, the threat of deep-sea mining, and new activities, such as “bioprospecting” of marine species, mean they are being threatened like never before. Continue reading...
Forgotten grape varieties offer adaptation hope for an industry particularly sensitive to changeThe ads – tucked in the corners of local newspapers and directed at winemakers – began turning up across Catalonia in the 1980s. “If you know where to find any uncommon grape varieties, please get in touch,” they read.Dozens of tips came pouring in, shepherding Miguel A Torres in his search for long-forgotten wine grapes. But it wouldn’t be until a decade later, as the climate crisis began wreaking havoc on vines, that the fourth-generation winemaker realised his foray into the past could play a key role in tackling what lies ahead. Continue reading...
Graham Stuart refuses to apologise for rising bills and blames Labour government – last in office in 2010The energy minister has refused to apologise for soaring household bills, blaming instead the “dire situation” inherited from the Labour government.On Monday, it was announced that the average consumer energy bill would rise from £2,100 a year to about £3,000 after the government stops giving grants. The price hike is due to the increasing cost of gas. Continue reading...
Changing habitats and behaviours lead to interactions with a negative outcome for wildlife and humansFrom blue whales colliding with ships to African elephants raiding crops in villages, the climate crisis is causing a rise in conflicts that lead to injury or death for humans and wildlife, new research shows.The climate crisis is making food, water and healthy habitats harder to come by, forcing animals and human populations into new ranges or previously uninhabited places. It is also changing the way they behave. This means a rise in human-wildlife conflicts, as well as damage to personal property and loss of livelihoods for people, according to a review paper led by the University of Washington. Continue reading...
Action against one of Europe’s largest financial institutions is the first climate-related lawsuit against a commercial bankFrench campaigners are suing one of Europe’s largest financial institutions for financing fossil fuels in the first climate-related lawsuit against a commercial bank.Oxfam France, Friends of the Earth France and Notre Affaire à Tous accuse BNP Paribas of supporting companies that aggressively develop new oil and gas fields and infrastructure, despite repeated calls by scientists to stop investment in fossil fuels. Continue reading...
Demand for wood stoves is soaring in energy crisis despite research showing their harmful effectsDemand for wood-burning stoves, including in urban areas, has soared as households look for more affordable ways to stay warm during the energy crisis.Campaigners have called for stricter legislation on their use because of their negative impact on air pollution and health, with wood burning in the UK gaining in popularity over the past decade. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Political correspondent on (#698TP)
Exclusive: Cross-party group recommends policies such as mortgage penalty for landlords of energy-inefficient homesThe UK will need to embrace innovative, community-based solutions to environmental and energy problems if it is to have any hope of meeting looming net-zero deadlines, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has recommended.A report by the all-party group on a green new deal argues for a combination of robust, top-down policies on green issues including localised power generation, food and transport schemes. Recommendations include a mortgage penalty for landlords who let energy-inefficient homes, and also real community decision-making, notably on power schemes. Continue reading...
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