New research warns pressures of rising heat and loss of oxygen reminiscent of ‘great dying’ that occurred about 250m years agoGlobal heating is causing such a drastic change to the world’s oceans that it risks a mass extinction event of marine species that rivals anything that’s happened in the Earth’s history over tens of millions of years, new research has warned.Accelerating climate change is causing a “profound” impact upon ocean ecosystems that is “driving extinction risk higher and marine biological richness lower than has been seen in Earth’s history for the past tens of millions of years”, according to the study. Continue reading...

The jolt in costs is being blamed mostly on more expensive fossil fuels and falling reliability of coal-fired power plants

Landscape ‘primed for flooding’ with dams at capacity after back-to-back La Niña events

Environmental activists say action is ‘significant escalation’ in campaign against fuel distribution in EnglandEnvironmental activists have sabotaged petrol pumps at two motorway service stations, in what they described as a “significant escalation” in their campaign against fossil fuel distribution in England.About 35 supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign staged blockades at the Cobham services in Surrey and the Clacket Lane services in Kent, both on the M25, smashing the display glass on petrol pumps with hammers and defacing them with spray paint. Continue reading...

Laborers worked for a month disposing of birds killed in a gruesomely inhumane manner. Then they found they too were disposableLabourers at the one of the world’s largest egg factories arrived at the plant in Rembrandt, Iowa, early one morning in March to discover they were about to work themselves out of a job.As they gathered at the huge barns housing stacks of caged hens, the workers were told to forget about their usual routine of collecting eggs and feeding the birds. Overnight, the factory had begun slaughtering more than 5 million chickens using a gruesome killing method after detecting a single case of avian influenza. Even supervisors were assigned to the arduous task of dragging dead hens out of packed cages as Rembrandt Enterprises raced to contain the spread of the virus, amid the largest bird flu outbreak in the US in seven years. Continue reading...

Fast food chain under pressure to join the Fair Food Program as several cases of what has been called modern day slavery on farms show the need for corporations to end these abusesOver the past several years, farm workers have held protests and hunger strikes on college campuses, outside of corporate headquarters, at annual shareholders meetings, and in cities around the US, and called for a public boycott to demand the fast food corporate chain Wendy’s join the Fair Food Program.The Fair Food Program was launched in 2011 by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida out of the group’s Campaign for Fair Food, to ensure workers are involved in enforcing, monitoring, and designing programs to protect workers in their workplaces through the food supply chain, relying on partnerships between workers, growers, and retail buyers to raise wages and adhere to workplace standards. Continue reading...

Tropics lost 11.1m hectares of tree cover in 2021, including forest critical to limiting global heating and biodiversity loss, finds World Resources InstitutePristine rainforests were once again destroyed at a relentless rate in 2021, according to new figures, prompting concerns governments will not meet a Cop26 deal to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of the decade.From the Brazilian Amazon to the Congo basin, the tropics lost 11.1m hectares of tree cover last year, including 3.75m ha of primary forest critical to limiting global heating and biodiversity loss. Continue reading...

Liberal MP tells North Sydney candidates debate that moderates won commitment despite opposition from Nationals

Scott Morrison is criticising the Coalition’s own climate policy – it’s just one that has barely been used

Country receives about €62bn from exports of oil, gas and coal in two months, with Germany the biggest importer

Scott Morrison says Labor wants to use government safeguard mechanism as a ‘sneaky carbon tax’ but it is already making big business pay for offsets

Adam Bandt to unveil minor party’s climate policy including making Australia a ‘renewable energy superpower’ and net zero by 2035

Federal judge says farmers had been blindsided by a government order to shut downCanada’s effort to phase out open-pen salmon farms has hit a roadblock after a federal judge said farmers had been blindsided by a government order to shut down.Federal court judge Elizabeth Heneghan ruled earlier this month that former fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan had failed to grant farm operators the right to procedural fairness when she announced plans to phase out the farms, and criticized the minister’s lack of clarity surrounding the controversial decision that companies said would cost them millions in losses. Continue reading...

Largest analysis to date on the state of the world’s reptiles warns of threat to ecosystems as more than 1,800 species fight to surviveMore than a fifth of all reptile species are threatened with extinction, which could have a “devastating” impact on the planet, a new study warns.The largest ever analysis of the state of the world’s reptiles, published in Nature, found that 21% of reptile species are facing extinction. From lizards to snakes, such a loss could have disastrous impacts on ecosystems around the world, the study says. Continue reading...

Rising damage, caused mostly by food production, puts ability to feed planet’s growing population at riskHuman damage to the planet’s land is accelerating, with up to 40% now classed as degraded, while half of the world’s people are suffering the impacts, UN data has shown.The world’s ability to feed a growing population is being put at risk by the rising damage, most of which is caused by food production. Women in the developing world are particularly badly affected as they often lack legal titles to land and can be thrown off it if conditions are tough. Continue reading...

Business Council of Australia says safeguard mechanism ‘is already in place alongside a suite of other measures to reduce emissions’

Study finds tidal currents could introduce pollution from coalmine into seagrass meadows and dugong sanctuary in marine park

Proposals to prepare the country for more floods, massive storms and wildfires include building away from high-risk areas and protecting cultural sitesThe New Zealand government has released new plans to try to prepare the country for the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis: sea level rise, floods, massive storms and wildfires.The proposals, released for consultation on Wednesday, outline sweeping reforms to institutions, councils and laws to try to stop people building in hazardous areas, preserve cultural treasures, improve disaster responses, protect the financial system from the shocks of future disasters, and reform key industries including tourism, fisheries and farming. Continue reading...

The resolution will limit watering to just one day a week, affecting millions in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino countiesSouthern California officials declared a water shortage emergency Tuesday, and adopted new unprecedented restrictions on outdoor watering that will affect millions of people living in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties.Metropolitan water district of southern California’s resolution will limit outdoor watering to just one day per week for district residents supplied by a stressed system of canals, pipelines, reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants called the State Water Project, which supplies water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. Continue reading...

Scientists believe the reptiles have shifted from marine prey towards land-based food sources in the Territory, helping to boost numbers

Farming union NFU wants two-year delay but Green Alliance says move would keep emissions high beyond 2035There will be a “substantial gap” in UK agriculture’s efforts to reach net zero if post-Brexit environment-friendly subsidies are delayed by another two years, according to new analysis.The National Farmer’s Union (NFU) is urging the government to delay Environmental Land Management schemes (Elms) until 2025 and keep the EU’s Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in the interim period, which pays farmers for the amount of land they own, regardless of its impact on the environment. Continue reading...

Retired GP Diana Warner, accused of obstructing M25, joined by two others in the act of ‘civil resistance’Three members of Insulate Britain have disrupted a magistrates court trial, gluing their hands to court furniture and paying tribute to the environmental activist who died after setting himself on fire outside the US supreme court.Dr Diana Warner, a retired GP from Bristol, had been due to face trial at Stratford magistrates court on a charge of causing a public nuisance by obstructing junction 14 of the M25 on 27 September last year. Continue reading...

Death toll likely to rise, say witnesses to indiscriminate attacks on Kreinik and El Geneina by Sudan’s notorious Rapid Support ForcesAt least 200 people are now known to have died in West Darfur in the latest attack on civilians and local forces blamed on Janjaweed militia.Darfur, the semi-arid western region of Sudan where a vicious civil war erupted in 2003, has seen a new outbreak of fighting over the past few months as rival groups clash over water and grazing land, shortages of which are being exacerbated by the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Can a $100m cleanup operation save Mead, Nebraska, from putrid pesticide-laced waste that has polluted water, with health implications yet unknown?

Labor earlier jumped on climate crisis split between Liberals and Nationals after Colin Boyce said emissions target had ‘wiggle room’

Calls for international standard on extraction and better monitoring of most-exploited resource after waterHumans extract 50bn tonnes of sand and gravel every year, according to UN research, enough to build a wall 27 metres high by 27 metres wide around the planet.Sand is the most-exploited resource after water. But unlike water, it is not recognised as a key strategic resource by governments and industry, something, the UN says, that must change and fast.

The 190,000 residents who previously accessed a $1,400 rebate to install solar panels will now be able to access up to $1,000 for solar hot water

Case centres on whether proposed Galilee Coal Project would harm climate and limit human rights

Number of new plants planned fell last year, but coal-generated electricity rose by 9% to record highThe number of coal-fired power plants under development around the world fell last year, but far too much coal is still being burned and too many new coal-fired power plants are planned for the world to stay within safe temperature limits.Coal use appeared to be in long-term decline before the Covid-19 pandemic, but lockdowns around the world and economic upheaval drove an increase in new coal projects in 2020, particularly in China. Continue reading...

Failed energy firm poses political puzzle for business secretary with wholesale markets still in turmoil

Group’s description disputed by scientists, with seals recognised as important part of food chainSeals are the “rats of the sea” and should be culled, a group of Cornish fishers have said.Marine campaign groups hit back after fishers on an online marketplace and forum expressed anger about the amount of fish seals eat. Continue reading...

Wynn Bruce, 50, from Colorado, who friend said had been planning self-immolation for a year, died on Saturday from his injuriesA US climate activist has died after he set himself on fire outside the US supreme court building in Washington.Wynn Bruce, from Boulder, Colorado, died on Saturday from his injuries, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said. Police said Bruce had set himself on fire at about 6.30pm on Friday, and was airlifted to hospital. Continue reading...

Report finds strong support for climate policies among Tory voters despite some MPs’ negative stanceThe Conservative party could lose more than 1.3 million voters if the government scraps its net zero target, research suggests.A report by the centre-right thinktank Onward, which counts the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, among its supporters, has found there is strong support for tackling the climate crisis among Tory voters despite attempts by some on the right of the party to campaign against the measures. Continue reading...

Oil and gas CEOs received nearly $45m more in combined total compensation in 2021 compared to 2020 amid a spike in pricesWhile gas prices soar for consumers, one group of people isn’t faring so badly.Chief executives from the largest oil and gas companies received nearly $45m more in combined total compensation in 2021 as compared to 2020 amid the steep rise in gasoline prices across the US over the last year, a new report states. Continue reading...

Generations of students at Jordan high in Los Angeles lived with extreme pollution nearby. Now, could things finally change?As the closing bell rings at Jordan high school, a cacophony of adolescent chatter nearly overpowers the mechanical noises that emanate from the metal recycling plant next door. Students hardly register the lustrous dust – laced with lead, chromium and other contaminants – that settles into the blacktop as they rush out the front gates.For generations of Jordan students, the mounds of scrap metal behind campus are a familiar sight. The high school opened in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts in 1923, while the plant, owned by S&W Atlas Iron & Metal Co has been there since 1949. Continue reading...

Solar and wind could bring ‘jobs boom’ to regions that have previously depended on coal, Australian Conservation Foundation saysReplacing Australia’s largest coal-fired power station with renewable energy would create tens of thousands more construction jobs than replacing it with gas, a new analysis has found.The Eraring coal-fired power station in the Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales is scheduled to close in 2025. Continue reading...

Shaji NM has devoted his life to collecting and farming tubers such as yam, cassava and taro, and promoting them across the countryKnown as “the tuber man of Kerala”, Shaji NM has travelled throughout India over the past two decades, sometimes inspecting bushes in tribal villages, at other times studying the ground of forests closer to home among the green hills of Wayanad in Kerala. His one purpose, and what earned him his title, is to collect rare indigenous varieties of tuber crops.“People call me crazy, but it’s for the love of tubers that I do what I do,” says Shaji. “I have developed an emotional relationship with the tuber. When we did not have anything to eat, we had tubers.” Continue reading...

Standing in Queensland electorate of Flynn, Colin Boyce says Scott Morrison’s commitment to UN is ‘not binding’

State government proposes ‘eco-tourism’ accommodation in Sunshine Coast national park

One person killed in Nebraska, while hundreds of structures damaged in New Mexico, where thousands forced to leaveWind-driven wildfires sweeping through parts of Nebraska contributed to the death of one person and injured at least three firefighters, authorities said Sunday.The person who died was in Red Willow County, in the southwest corner of the state, Nebraska Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Jodie Fawl said. She said she did not have details about that person or where the firefighters were injured, though she said their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening. Continue reading...

Reversing a trend for ‘knock it down and start again’, the climate crisis is encouraging developers to rethinkFrom a former ice factory becoming a shiny home for offices and shops, to a Victorian bus works getting a new lease of life as a flexible workspace, across the country, buildings are being retrofitted and repurposed for the future.It stands in stark contrast to what seemed like the commercial property industry’s motto in recent years: knock it all down and start again. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Research finds fuel price surge due to war in Ukraine means it now costs £600 less to drive an electric car for a year

Many are still missing after this month’s floods. Extreme weather is becoming more frequent, and it can be devastatingSurvivors of South Africa’s devastating floods have described “sheet upon sheet of relentless rain” that washed away entire houses, bridges and roads, killing about 450 people and making thousands homeless.The storm, which delivered close to an entire year’s usual rainfall in 48 hours, took meteorologists by surprise and has been blamed by experts on climate change. The new disaster comes after three tropical cyclones and two tropical storms hit south-east Africa in just six weeks in the first months of this year. Continue reading...

Authorities say victims ‘burnt beyond recognition’ in explosion at bunkering site in Imo stateMore than 100 people were killed overnight in an explosion at an illegal oil refining depot on the border of Nigeria’s Rivers and Imo states, a local government official and an environmental group said on Saturday.“The fire outbreak occurred at an illegal bunkering site and it affected over 100 people who were burnt beyond recognition,” the state commissioner for petroleum resources, Goodluck Opiah, said. Continue reading...

Ninety years ago, Peak District ramblers defied the law to push for open access. This Sunday wild swimmers take their own standAt 2pm on 24 April 1932, hundreds of rebellious ramblers descended on Kinder Scout, Derbyshire’s highest point, to “take action to open up the fine country at present denied us”.Six people were arrested at what became known as the Kinder mass trespass, which established the principle of open access land and laid the foundations for the UK’s first national park, the Peak District. Continue reading...

Calls for rules akin to environmental regulations to reduce risk of collisions and preserve night skyThe orbital space around Earth must urgently be protected by environmental rules and regulations akin to those that safeguard the planet’s land, seas and air, leading scientists say.An international team of researchers warn that a dramatic rise in the number of satellites is polluting the night sky for astronomers and stargazers, while increasing the risk of objects colliding in space and potentially even striking people or aircraft when they fall back to Earth. Continue reading...

The Atolla reynoldsi is one of three formally identified new specimens of Atolla jellyfish floating in the depths of Monterey BayScientists have discovered an “unusual” new species of deep-sea jellyfish living in the waters off the California coast.The creature, a type of Atolla jellyfish, was discovered by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). It lives in the so-called midnight zone of the ocean – between one and four kilometers deep – a mysterious region where light only comes from animals that produce it themselves and the pressure reaches 5,580 pounds a square inch. Continue reading...

Campaigners warn ‘baffling’ decision could be part of nationwide patternBirds of prey are being put at risk by the disbanding of one of the country’s leading wildlife crime teams, campaigners have warned, raising fears it could be part of a nationwide pattern.Wildlife crime officers work to stop offences such as raptor persecution, where birds of prey are poisoned or shot by gamekeepers and landowners. Continue reading...

Activists irate at Treasury decision and fear expansion of publicly accessible land will not go aheadThe English countryside is a “place of business” and already has “hundreds of thousands of miles of public footpaths”, a minister has said in response to questions about why the “right to roam” report has been shelved.The comments by Mark Spencer, the leader of the house, came as campaign groups expressed their fury over the Treasury’s decision to shelve the review, which was commissioned to search out a “quantum shift in how our society supports people to access and engage with the outdoors”. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a busy bee, a baby bear and a very hairy sheep Continue reading...