Environment | The Guardian

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a lounging monitor lizard, breeding puffins and bluebells Continue reading...

Encounters with jellyfish near Cronulla’s Shark Island have prompted warnings on how to treat stings outside of tropical waters

DNA study finds rarest cetacean, only found in Gulf of California, has enough genetic diversity to recover – if gillnet ban is enforced

New resources sent to remote stretches of state to tackle America’s largest wildfire, which is burning over 258 sq milesFirefighters in New Mexico have slowed the advance of the largest wildfire currently burning in the US, as Joe Biden declared the situation a disaster, bringing new resources to remote stretches of New Mexico that have been devastated by fire since early April.Nearly 1,300 firefighters and other personnel are currently battling the fire, which has fanned out across 258 sq miles (669 sq km) of high alpine forest and grasslands at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains. Continue reading...

Political scientist says state’s decision to rule out closing power stations shows major parties are ‘wedged’ on climate change

Cynthia Rosenzweig wins prize in recognition of her modeling of the climate crisis’ impact on food productionA Nasa climate research scientist who has spent much of her career explaining how global food production must adapt to a changing climate was awarded the World Food prize on Thursday.Cynthia Rosenzweig, an agronomist and climatologist, was awarded the $250,000 prize in recognition of her innovative modeling of the impact of climate change on food production. She is a senior research scientist at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies and serves as adjunct senior research scientist at the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University, both based in New York. Continue reading...

People urged to leave out mud pies and dishes of fresh water for migrating birds as temperatures riseThe RSPB is urging the public to get their hands dirty this weekend and create mud pies to help endangered birds such as house martins, swifts and swallows get enough sludge to build their nests.A nine-day mini-heatwave is hitting the UK, which coincides with the return of migratory birds here to breed. Many of these birds have flown thousands of miles on their journey. But conservationists are concerned that the ground is getting so hard it could stop them from being able to make their nests. Continue reading...

Flights suspended and authorities urge people to stay indoors as fifth sandstorm in a month hits IraqHundreds of Iraqis have been taken to hospitals with breathing problems and Baghdad airport suspended flights for several hours as a thick sandstorm blanketed the country, the fifth to engulf Iraq within a month.Iraqi state media said most of the patients suffered respiratory issues as clinics across the country’s north and west struggled to keep up with the influx. Authorities urged citizens to stay indoors. Continue reading...

Launch of Chicagwa met with criticism that the city hasn’t done enough to help thousands of residents drinking lake water through lead pipesLori Lightfoot’s launch of Chicago’s own brand of canned water under the name “Chicagwa” may have created more waves than she expected.On Tuesday, the city’s mayor unveiled the artfully designed cans of Chicago tap water to celebrate their water source, Lake Michigan, in honor of National Drinking Water Week. But the city has been identified as having more potentially toxic lead pipes delivering that water to homes than anywhere else in the US – a fact that concerned locals are now reminding people about. Continue reading...

Campaigners hope to both and expand and entrench the re-imagining of streetscapes that occurred in the early part of 2020As an emergency measure for the pandemic, New York City’s banishment of cars from certain streets saw unexpected space open up for pedestrians, restaurant tables and playing children. A campaign backed by the city’s new mayor now aims to permanently wrest dominance away from vehicles and preserve these new outdoor havens.The alternative vision for America’s largest city demands that 25% of its street space is converted from car use to walkable pedestrian plazas, green space, bus lanes and dedicated cycle paths by 2025. The campaign, called 25x25, has now also been adopted by activists in Los Angeles, an indication of how some Americans are questioning the long-held primacy of cars amid a surge in cycling since the start of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Almost a third of hogs in the US are now raised in Iowa but a new report questions whether that’s good for residents or local economiesLew Carter, a retired long haul truck driver, has always preferred the country. In 1990 he bought a small plot on a hill surrounded by farm fields near his home town of Williams, in Hamilton county, Iowa, where he hoped to retire.Carter planted the homestead with a thicket of trees and replaced the dilapidated farm buildings with a storage shed and modular house. He met his second wife, Kathy, and in 2008 she moved in too. Continue reading...

Analysis conducted by the Ecology Center also finds all car seats under $100 contain either PFAS or flame retardantMore than half of children’s car seats tested for toxic flame retardants and PFAS contain the dangerous substances, a new report in the US has found.The analysis, conducted by the Ecology Center, an environmental and consumer advocacy group, also found all car seats costing under $100 contained either PFAS or flame retardant, which means lower-income children are more likely to be exposed. Continue reading...

Investigation launched after half of eggs from endangered wading bird in small study found to have fragile shellsA scientist has started a national investigation into curlews, after noticing in a small-scale study that some of the eggs being laid by the endangered birds were unusually fragile and crumbly.If it emerges that the problem is widespread, the fragile eggs could pose a grave risk to the future of the species, which has declined significantly in Scotland, England and Wales and by 42% between 1995 and 2008 in the UK overall. Continue reading...

Tomago Aluminium previously said shifting away from coal could lead to blackouts – now it’s publicly embracing renewables in the middle of an election campaign

‘We’re not supposed to live in a secret society,’ expert says after agency delays publishing maps of damage

According to the Last Beach Cleanup and Beyond Plastics report, about 85% of plastic ends up in landfills with 10% incineratedWhen most people toss a plastic bottle or cup into the recycling bin, they assume that means the plastic is recycled – but a new report lays bare how rarely that actually happens.According to the Last Beach Cleanup and Beyond Plastics, the organization behind the report released on Wednesday, the recycling rate for post-consumer plastic was just 5% to 6% in 2021. Continue reading...

Billions of birds are disappearing because of humanity’s impact on Earth, global review findsThe world’s birds, described as the planet’s “canaries in the coalmine”, are disappearing in large numbers as the colossal impact of humanity on the Earth grows, a global review has found.There are about 11,000 species of bird spanning the globe, but the populations of half of them are falling, while just 6% are increasing. Their flight and song make them easier to study than many animals, meaning they are the best studied large group. Continue reading...

The turtles, named after Steve Irwin and his father, Bob, had not been spotted in the Burdekin River since the 1990s

Opposition says it will recommit to phasing out live sheep exports from Western Australia but has not indicated when it will do so

Expert questions climate targets after energy minister says all eight coal-fired stations will remain open

Independent MP accuses Liberal party of caving in to its Coalition partner the Nationals on koala protection

Bank plan meets opposition after environmental protesters disrupt AGM in ManchesterShareholders dealt an embarrassing blow to Barclays’ climate credentials on Wednesday, with almost 20% rejecting the bank’s climate strategy as activists disrupted its annual meeting to protest against the bank’s financing of fossil fuels.Barclays said on Wednesday that 19.19% of voting shareholders were against the bank’s climate strategy, which set out its plans and progress towards goals to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Continue reading...

Move would also lower emissions by reducing razing of trees and methane emissions from livestock, scientists sayReplacing 20% of the world’s beef consumption with microbial protein, such as Quorn, could halve the destruction of the planet’s forests over the next three decades, according to the latest analysis.The move would also halve emissions from the global food system, by reducing the razing of trees and the methane emissions from livestock. Previous studies have found meat alternatives have lower environmental footprints but this latest analysis is the first to assess what impact that could have in the world. Continue reading...

Western Power Distribution agrees to payout after support during power cuts deemed ‘totally unacceptable’The UK’s biggest electricity distribution business has agreed to pay £14.9m after its support for vulnerable customers during power cuts was deemed “totally unacceptable”.The energy regulator said National Grid’s Western Power Distribution (WPD) did not provide proper support to 1.7 million customers during the outages. An Ofgem investigation, launched in 2020, found that WPD had failed customers in a number of areas including not carrying out criminal record checks for all staff visiting customers’ homes. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Global Warming Policy Foundation has led the backlash against UK government’s net zero policyAn influential thinktank that has led the backlash against the government’s net zero policy has received funding from groups with oil and gas interests, according to tax documents seen by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy.Though the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning.Adam Bychawski is a reporter for OpenDemocracy Continue reading...

Exclusive: Global Warming Policy Foundation has led the backlash against UK government’s net zero policyAn influential thinktank which has led the backlash against the government’s net zero policy has received funding from groups with oil and gas interests, according to tax documents seen by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy.Though the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said that it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the new revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning. Continue reading...

Fossil fuel interest groups are telling New Mexicans: let us keep drilling or the state’s education system will collapseThe oil and gas industry wants to play a word-and-picture association game with you. Think of four images: a brightly colored backpack stuffed with pencils, a smiling teacher with a tablet tucked under her arm, a pair of glasses resting on a stack of pastel notebooks, and a gleaming school bus welcoming a young student onboard.“What do all of these have in common?” a 6 April Facebook post by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA), asked. “They are powered by oil and natural gas!” Continue reading...

Frantic conservation efforts couldn’t save the tiny, intricately colored songbird, whose obit is the first in our new series of memorials for species that have gone extinct in living memoryThe last po’ouli died in an unusual nest. Too weak to perch, the brownish-greyish songbird rested in a small towel twisted into a ring. He was the last of his species, the last in fact of an entire group of finches, and occurred nowhere on Earth outside its native Hawaii. For weeks, as scientists tried to find him a mate, he had been getting sicker. The only remaining po’ouli had just one eye. Alone in the towel, alone in all the world, he closed it.He was born, like all po’ouli (pronounced po-oh-oo-lee), in Maui’s Hana rainforest, on the slopes of Mount Haleakalā – “house of the sun” – where it rains all the time. Also known as the blackfaced honeycreeper, his species was discovered in 1973. Then, researchers estimated the total population at 200 birds. Continue reading...

Campaigners seeking land reform to overturn system that they say denies them access to waterwaysCanoeists are campaigning for a right to “blue spaces”, with fewer than 4% of England’s rivers open to the public.Paddlers have described being shouted at and even subjected to physical abuse for passing through some stretches of river during their exercise. Continue reading...

A ban on selling smoky fuels was meant to cut carbon emissions, tackle air pollution and conserve ancient bogs. Instead, it has fuelled a tense narrative of urban elites versus rural poorThe peat sods lay spread on a field, at the end of which was a mound of earth the colour of dark chocolate. It was the edge of a bog, a habitat thousands of years in the making. A mechanised cutter with steel claws had gouged and sliced some of it into chunks that now covered an area the size of a football pitch. Enough, once dried and bagged, to heat a house for an Irish winter.Some environmentalists would consider this tableau in County Kildare – one replicated across rural Ireland at this time of year – akin to a crime scene, a mad, destructive assault on a precious natural resource, turning a carbon sink into a smoky fuel. Continue reading...

Northern rivers residents make their voices heard at first community hearing into devastating events they say could have been avoided

As dry conditions prevail, the state is restricting outdoor watering while exploring other avenues of waterWith little hope of reprieve ahead of the warming summer months, demand for water in parts of drought-stricken California is outpacing supply.The metropolitan water district of southern California declared a water shortage emergency last week for areas that rely on the State Water Project, a sprawling system of canals, reservoirs, and pipelines that snake across roughly two-thirds the length of the state, affecting about 6 million southern Californians in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. Continue reading...

Water levels at the Nevada reservoir have depleted to such a level that officials predict more grim finds in the futureA body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada’s Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest US reservoirs – and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds.“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains,” Lt Ray Spencer of Las Vegas police told KLAS-TV on Monday. Continue reading...

Researchers in Australia and North America say management of oyster reefs should incorporate Indigenous knowledge

Demonstrators stage dawn protest at plans for new oil and gas fields in North Sea off Scotland’s coastJust Stop Oil has taken action in Scotland for the first time, with more than 50 activists blockading an oil terminal in Glasgow.Shortly before sunrise on Tuesday, about 40 supporters of the civil resistance campaign against fossil fuel production blocked the entrance to the Nustar Clydebank terminal, locking themselves together and climbing on tankers. Continue reading...

Conservative candidates placed the most Facebook ads pledging to roll back the schemes, Guardian analysis revealsCandidates in 21 council areas in Thursday’s local elections have pledged to roll back low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) or clean air zones, a Guardian analysis of Facebook ad library data has found.Most of the adverts – 136 out of 164 analysed – were placed by Tory candidates, putting local Conservative parties at odds with central government which has encouraged councils to adopt clean air zones and LTNs, and funded the schemes. Continue reading...

Nightly restriction in north comes as woman says boar ‘was on top of my head’ during encounter on SundayResidents in several neighbourhoods in northern Rome have imposed a nightly “curfew” after a spate of attacks by wild boar, which for years have roamed the Italian capital.In the most recent encounter, a woman said a boar “was on top of my head” after she was pushed to the ground during an attack on Sunday night. The incident prompted exasperated residents of Balduina and six other districts to impose an 8.30pm curfew. Continue reading...

Officials admit they did not conduct equality assessment before launch of heat and buildings strategyThe UK government is to formally consider the impact of its flagship energy efficiency plan on people most at risk from soaring bills, citing the conflict in Ukraine as a factor.The move comes after officials admitted they did not carry out an equality assessment of the heat and buildings strategy before it was announced last autumn. It sets out to slash carbon emissions from 30m homes and workplaces and is a key part of the UK’s net zero target. Continue reading...

Bear had wandered hundreds of kilometres south of species’ territory in incident experts say could become more commonCanadian police have shot and killed a polar bear that wandered into a Quebec community hundreds of kilometres south of the species’ normal territory, in an incident that experts warn could become more common as sea ice coverage becomes more unpredictable thanks to global heating.The Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police service, warned residents this weekend that a polar had been spotted near the town of Madeleine-Centre – the first time the Arctic’s apex predator had been spotted in the community. Continue reading...

Report mapped 10 electorates considered most at risk of becoming uninsurable due to flood, fire and other extreme weather risk

Eco bottle from sustainable brand When in Rome goes on sale through Ocado this weekThe paper wine bottle is one of the biggest ideas since the screw top but as pecorino in a brown paper eco-bottle arrives at Ocado, there’s one thing to remember, try not to get it wet.The £11 white, from the sustainable wine brand When in Rome, goes on sale this week, and is the first wine in a paper bottle to be sold in a mainstream UK supermarket. Even if the bottle does become damp, all is not lost, says Rob Malin, the company’s founder, because the wine is safe in a recyclable plastic pouch inside. Continue reading...

April temperatures at unprecedented levels have led to critical water and electricity shortagesFor the past few weeks, Nazeer Ahmed has been living in one of the hottest places on Earth. As a brutal heatwave has swept across India and Pakistan, his home in Turbat, in Pakistan’s Balochistan region, has been suffering through weeks of temperatures that have repeatedly hit almost 50C (122F), unprecedented for this time of year. Locals have been driven into their homes, unable to work except during the cooler night hours, and are facing critical shortages of water and power.Ahmed fears that things are only about to get worse. It was here, in 2021, that the world’s highest temperature for May was recorded, a staggering 54C. This year, he said, feels even hotter. “Last week was insanely hot in Turbat. It did not feel like April,” he said. Continue reading...

Incredible Edible says a new law could give people better health, wellbeing and access to fruit and vegetablesPeople should be given the right to turn road verges, sterile lawns around hospitals and underused public spaces into vegetable gardens and orchards, say campaigners for a “right to grow” law.Incredible Edible, a network of more than 150 community growing groups, has drawn up plans to oblige local authorities to keep a register of public land suitable for vegetable and fruit-growing, which local groups could apply to access. Continue reading...

Up to 120,000 new homes halted in areas including Eden Valley and Norfolk Broads due to ‘nutrient neutrality’ rulesA legal requirement that new houses do not pollute nearby wetlands, rivers and nature reserves has halted development across a swath of England.Forty-two local authorities in England were last month told they must ensure that new homes are “nutrient neutral” and do not add damaging nitrates or phosphates to river catchments and protected areas including the Eden Valley in Cumbria, the River Camel in Cornwall and the Norfolk Broads. Continue reading...

Thinktank says following Chile’s example would give ministers greater incentive to meet targetsRishi Sunak is being urged to issue a new generation of green bonds that would offer higher returns to investors if the UK government fails to hit its climate change targets.The Social Market Foundation (SMF) said its plan for sustainability-linked bonds would provide ministers with a greater incentive to meet carbon-reduction goals and would help boost the UK’s prospects of being a global financial hub for green finance. Continue reading...

AGL says it’s determined to go ahead with the merger despite the purchase, which has made Cannon-Brookes the company’s largest single shareholder

The Ukraine war has focused minds on win-win policies from ending coal and oil subsidies to raising petrol taxes on petrolRussia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the importance of national-security considerations in western countries’ energy policies. At the same time, governments must continue to focus on reducing environmental damage – in particular, on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. Both goals, geopolitical and environmental, are urgent and should be evaluated together.These two objectives are not necessarily in conflict, as some believe. There are plenty of energy measures the west can adopt that would benefit the environment and further its geopolitical aims. The most obvious steps, especially for the European Union, are sanctions that reduce demand for imports of fossil fuels from Russia. Continue reading...

Liberal Democrats condemn ‘environment scandal’ as party releases figures compiled from Environment Agency dataUntreated sewage was discharged into England’s coastal bathing waters for more than 160,000 hours last year, according to figures collated by the Liberal Democrats to mark the start of the summer sea-swimming season.Data compiled by the party using Environment Agency figures on 2021 discharges shows that water companies released raw sewage 25,000 times into designated bathing waters off the English coast. Continue reading...

RSPB reports 183 pairs at reserves including in Arne in Dorset and Minsmere in SuffolkThe distinctive sight and sound of a Dartford warbler singing from the top of a sprig of gorse in the May sunshine is making a welcome comeback after the bird almost became extinct half a century ago.Dartford warblers suffered a population crash and were at risk of vanishing from the UK in the 1960s, largely because of loss of the lowland heathland they thrive in. Continue reading...

After cutting ties with the agency, Prof David Karoly is free of its restrictions on commenting on climate policy