Environment | The Guardian

Private equity bids for supermarket chain have raised fears among Morrison’s thousands of suppliersMorrisons has written to the UK farmers whose produce fills its supermarket shelves to reassure them that the takeover offer led by US investment firm Fortress will protect the character of the business and its relationship with its suppliers.In a letter to the 3,000 farmers who supply the grocer, seen by the Guardian, Morrison’s chief executive, David Potts, writes that the company’s board believes the Fortress would be a “suitable and responsible owner”, and that its pledges about the future of the company “carry genuine weight”. Continue reading...

Campaigners say MoD and local authority agreed ‘bespoke metric’ to push through permission to develop Middlewick Ranges in EssexThe Middlewick Ranges are an ecological marvel by the standards of 21st-century Britain. The army firing range near Colchester, Essex, has been untouched by a plough for nearly 200 years, allowing skylarks and nightingales to feast on the threatened invertebrates and insects that thrive in the rare acid grassland.Yet a plan to sell off the ranges to build more than 1,000 homes has prompted accusations from campaigners that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has rewritten environmental protection rules to suit its case. Continue reading...

Records show the firm FTI and its fossil fuel clients benefit from local government tiesWhen Joe Biden paused oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands earlier this year, the alarm bells rang in south-eastern New Mexico.Officials in Eddy county – which, along with neighboring Lea county, holds New Mexico’s share of the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin – immediately worried about potential economic fallout. Continue reading...

U-turn deals blow to Japan’s hopes of using Games to showcase recovery from 2011 tsunamiThe Fukushima prefecture of Japan will bar spectators from the Olympic events it hosts this summer owing to rising Covid-19 infections, its governor said on Saturday, reversing a position announced two days earlier by organisers.The decision deals another blow to Japan’s hopes of using the Olympics to showcase its recovery from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern coast in 2011, destroying a nuclear power station in Fukushima in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Continue reading...

From Peckham to Plymouth, wildflowers are thriving in urban areas as councils let the grass grow to create ‘managed messiness’ for wildlife to thriveA patch of purple wildflowers springs out of Peckham Rye like a bruise. Elsewhere, strips of long grass quiver in the wind, breaking up the uniformity of well-cut grass. Poppies, red campion and meadowsweet are among spring’s colourful arrivals.Since May, London’s Southwark council has mowed a third less grass than it normally does and these flowers sprouted by themselves from seeds that had lain dormant in the earth. It is the latest addition to Southwark council’s flower-rich grasslands that have been extended by seven hectares (17 acres) since 1994. Continue reading...

The world was watching as a judge formalised into law a government’s duty of care to protect under-18s from the climate crisisAt about 9.30am on Thursday morning, 17-year-old Melbourne school student Anjali Sharma was walking her two-year-old kelpie-cross dog Maya down to the creek when the notifications started buzzing on her phone.“I was getting updates from the lawyers in the court,” says Sharma, who as we speak is about to take another call from a journalist at the Times of India. Continue reading...

Privatised firm dumped billions of litres of raw sewage off north Kent and Hampshire coasts to avoid costs and penalties

Company has been issued with a huge fine but those affected by its actions are finding it hard to celebrate

Authorities reclassify animal as vulnerable with a population outside captivity of 1,800Giant pandas are no longer endangered in the wild, but they are still vulnerable with a population outside captivity of 1,800, Chinese officials have said after years of conservation efforts.The head of the environment ministry’s department of nature and ecology conservation, Cui Shuhong, said the reclassification was the result of “improved living conditions and China’s efforts in keeping their habitats integrated”. Continue reading...

Water investigators track down wasteful homeowners and public turf torn up to conserve scarce water suppliesInvestigator Perry Kaye jammed the brakes of his government-issued vehicle to survey the offense. “Uh oh this doesn’t look too good. Let’s take a peek,” he said, exiting the car to handle what has become one of the most existential violations in drought-stricken Las Vegas – a faulty sprinkler.Kaye is one of nearly 50 water waste investigators deployed by the local water authority to crack down on even the smallest misuse of a liquid perilously scarce in the US west, desiccated by two decades of drought. The situation in Las Vegas, which went a record 240 consecutive days without rain last year, is increasingly severe. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a hungry hippo, coot chick and mother and basking turtle Continue reading...

Armin Laschet, frontrunner for next chancellor, says Germany will focus on innovation and market incentives

Harmful PFAS chemicals are being used to hold food, drink and cosmetics, with unknown consequences for human healthMany of the world’s plastic containers and bottles are contaminated with toxic PFAS, and new data suggests that it’s probably leaching into food, drinks, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and other items at potentially high levels.It’s difficult to say with precision how many plastic containers are contaminated and what it means for consumers’ health because regulators and industry have done very little testing or tracking until this year, when the Environmental Protection Agency discovered that the chemicals were leaching into a mosquito pesticide. One US plastic company reported “fluorinating” – or effectively adding PFAS to – 300m containers in 2011. Continue reading...

It is the monthly board meeting of the Coalbastards Corporation

Researcher accidentally spots tiny insect walking on the underside of the water surface as if it were a pane of glassAn Australian beetle has been observed walking upside down along the surface of water – the first instance that such behaviour has been visually documented.The tiny aquatic beetle, about 6mm to 8mm in length, has been recorded scuttling along the undersurface of a pool of water in New South Wales. Continue reading...

The governor has only requested, not ordered, the restriction as reservoirs have dwindled to dangerously low levelsCalifornia’s governor has asked people and businesses to voluntarily cut their water use by 15% as the western US weathers a devastating drought.Gavin Newsom’s request is not an order, but it demonstrates the growing challenges of a drought that will only worsen throughout the summer and fall and is tied to recent heatwaves. Reservoirs across the state, which are depended on for agriculture, drinking water and fish habitat, have dwindled to dangerously low levels and some counties have already enacted mandatory water restrictions. Continue reading...

State protests lost revenue and insists on right to control “its own natural resources”North Dakota has sued the Biden administration over its suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and water, saying the move will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.Joe Biden shut down oil and gas lease sales from the nation’s public lands and waters in his first days in office, citing the need to combat climate change, which he has called the “existential crisis of our time”. Continue reading...

BP’s annual report reveals renewable energy boom in pandemic coincided with slump in demand for oilThe world’s wind and solar energy capacity grew at a record rate last year while the oil industry recorded its steepest slump in demand since the second world war, according to BP.The impact of coronavirus lockdowns on the energy industry led carbon emissions to plummet by 6% on the year before, the sharpest decline since 1945, according to BP’s annual review of the energy sector. Continue reading...

Spaniards encouraged to reduce their meat consumption – the highest in EU – for sake of health and planetTo many Spaniards it was a sensible, responsible and rather overdue suggestion. But to others it was as heretical as a well-done steak, a lean slice of jamón or a barbecue of nothing but assorted veg.This week Spain’s consumer affairs minister, Alberto Garzón, launched a campaign inviting people to consider reducing their meat consumption for the good of their health and the planet. Continue reading...

Commission imposes €875m fine for breaching antitrust rules by delaying cleaner emissions technologyThe EU has fined Volkswagen and BMW €875m (£750m) after finding that the German carmakers colluded with another rival, the Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler, to delay emissions-cleaning technology.The European Commission said that the carmakers had “breached EU antitrust rules by colluding on technical development in the area of nitrogen oxide cleaning”. Continue reading...

In Canada, almost every policy to help wean us off fossil fuel has been watered down by oil and gas lobbyistsAfter recording the country’s highest ever temperatures of 49.6C, the town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, burst into flames. Residents had minutes to flee a “wall of fire” with nothing but the clothing on their backs. Like people in many other places in the world struggling with heatwaves, fires, droughts and strange extreme storms, BC residents now know what it feels like to live in a changing climate on an increasingly inhospitable planet.It’s the helplessness you feel as a mother when your son is throwing up from heat exhaustion. It’s the fear you feel when your asthmatic niece struggles to breathe because of the dense smoke from wildfires. It’s the panic you feel when you know that your oldest son is out in northern British Columbia tree planting and that there are now 180 wildfires raging across the province, caused by unprecedented “fire weather” – 710,000 lightning strikes in a 24-hour period. Continue reading...

British Columbia scientist says heat essentially cooked mussels: ‘The shore doesn’t usually crunch when you walk’More than 1 billion marine animals along Canada’s Pacific coast are likely to have died from last week’s record heatwave, experts warn, highlighting the vulnerability of ecosystems unaccustomed to extreme temperatures.The “heat dome” that settled over western Canada and the north-western US for five days pushed temperatures in communities along the coast to 40C (104F) – shattering longstanding records and offering little respite for days. Continue reading...

Couple steps in to rehabilitate injured sloths amid conservation crisis caused by Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing economic slumpIt is almost a year to the day that Haydée and Juan Carlos Rodríguez first spotted an injured sloth lying by the side of the road while they were out on a drive. In an attempt to cross from one tree to another in the Venezuelan town of San Antonio de Los Altos, near Caracas, the sloth had climbed on to a high-voltage power line and been electrocuted.The animal had lost the claws on three of its paws because of burns and the Rodríguezes were told by a local wildlife expert that it was not likely to survive, and that they should leave it to die. Continue reading...

Funding for offshore kelp forest, butterflies, beavers and wetlands among other schemes will help address climate crisisRestoring a kelp forest off the Sussex coast, creating new habitat for heat-sensitive butterflies and connecting fractured wetlands for the reintroduction of beavers are among 12 new projects receiving funding to help the UK tackle climate change, the Wildlife Trusts has announced.Planting new seagrass pastures in the Solent, expanding salt marshes on the Essex coast and restoring peatlands in Cumbria, Durham, Yorkshire, Northumberland and Somerset are some of the “high-impact” schemes that the nature charity said will help mitigate the impact of global heating on land and at sea. Continue reading...

Move follows recent buzz around rented clothes after Carrie Johnson wore a hired gown at her weddingWhen Carrie Johnson wore a rented gown to marry the prime minister, it prompted a fashion frenzy. And this week a study revealed that renting clothes is worse for the planet than throwing them away.Now one of the world’s most famous department stores, Harrods, is launching its first fashion rental service. In partnership with My Wardrobe HQ, which supplied Johnson’s wedding dress, it will offer showstoppers by the Italian couture designer Giambattista Valli and more everyday brands to rent from its Knightsbridge store. Continue reading...

Reducing global heating could save millions of people from mosquito-borne diseases, study findsMore than 8 billion people could be at risk of malaria and dengue fever by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, a new study says.Malaria and dengue fever will spread to reach billions of people, according to new projections. Continue reading...

Environment minister has 28 days to appeal historic ruling that carbon emissions from coalmine should not cause young people ‘personal injury or death’• Download the free Guardian app; get our morning email briefingAustralia’s federal court has formally declared the nation’s environment minister has a “duty to take reasonable care” that young people won’t be harmed or killed by carbon dioxide emissions if she approves a coalmine expansion, in a judgment that could have wider implications for fossil fuel projects.In the federal court case, brought by eight schoolchildren and an octogenarian nun, Justice Mordecai Bromberg on Thursday also ordered the minister pay all costs. Continue reading...

The Marshall Islands’ climate request is one of 55 human rights-related recommendations Australia has rejected

Environmental groups criticise grant to Empire Energy, which had lobbied ministers for information on funding, as a ‘brazen misuse of taxpayer funds’

The drought has created ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch and for the insatiable eaters to survive into adulthoodThey’re arriving in swarms so dense it can appear the earth is moving. They’re covering roads and fields, pelting ATV riders, and steadily devouring grains and grass to the bedevilment of farmers and ranchers.A massive population of grasshoppers is proliferating in the sweltering American west, where a deep drought has made for ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch and survive into adulthood. Continue reading...

More people died of cold than heat in past 20 years but climate change is shifting the balanceMore than 5 million people die each year globally because of excessively hot or cold conditions, a 20-year study has found – and heat-related deaths are on the rise. Continue reading...

Hydrogeologist says groundwater changes may have already caused irreversible damage to nearby Doongmabulla SpringsAquifer levels have dropped “significantly” near the Adani Carmichael coalmine since 2019, prompting concern from groundwater experts that the large volumes of water being pumped may have already “locked in” irreversible damage to sensitive wetlands.Groundwater monitoring data from one aquifer in the south-west corner of the mining lease shows a drawdown of about 50 metres in the past two years. Continue reading...

Kenyan ministry of tourism and wildlife expresses concern about reports of scheme to transport herd from KentConfusion has erupted over plans to fly a herd of elephants from Kent to Kenya, after the Kenyan wildlife service said it had not been contacted or consulted about the operation.On Monday, the Aspinall Foundation announced ambitious plans to transport 13 savanna elephants, born and bred in captivity, almost 4,500 miles from their home at Howletts Wild Animal Park to a site in the east African country, in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). The wildlife charity, where the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, has a top corporate role in communications, said it would be a world-first operation to “rewild” the mammals. Continue reading...

More than 1,000 jobs created or safeguarded as SeAH and Smulders projects are backed by state fundingThe north-east of England is in line for a green jobs windfall thanks to private investment in the offshore wind industry backed by a grant of undisclosed size from the government’s £160m support fund.The cash boost is expected to increase the UK’s offshore wind manufacturing capacity in the Humber and Newcastle-upon-Tyne by creating or safeguarding up to 1,000 jobs. Continue reading...

Global summit to be held in Glasgow in November will be ‘most inclusive’ ever, says spokespersonYoung people will interview government ministers on stage as part of plans to make this autumn’s climate change summit the “most inclusive ever”, the government has announced.A whole day will be dedicated to listening to the views of selected young climate activists at Cop26, the global summit due to be held in Glasgow in November. The event will heavily feature the “marginalised generation”, many of whom have said they have been ignored by governments. Continue reading...

Satellite data shows temperature peaks are lasting longer and rising higherNorth America endured the hottest June on record last month, according to satellite data that shows temperature peaks lasting longer as well as rising higher.The heat dome above western Canada and the north-west United States generated headlines around the world as daily temperature records were shattered across British Columbia, Washington and Portland. Continue reading...

But watchdog warns government that costs will double if it delays action to cut emissionsThe UK’s climate targets will cost the government less over the next 30 years than the price of battling the Covid-19 pandemic if it acts quickly, according to the UK’s fiscal watchdog.Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that ending the UK’s contribution to the global climate crisis would add 21% of GDP to the national debt by 2050, or £469bn in today’s terms. But those costs could climb twice as high if the government delays action to cut emissions. Continue reading...

The receding water is affecting wildlife and could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breatheThe silvery blue waters of the Great Salt Lake sprawl across the Utah desert, having covered an area nearly the size of Delaware for much of history. For years, though, the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River has been shrinking. And a drought gripping the American west could make this year the worst yet.Related: ‘A scourge of the Earth’: grasshopper swarms overwhelm US west Continue reading...

Tracy Stone-Manning faces Senate Republican opposition to her nomination who accuse her of collaborating with ‘eco-terrorists’Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management is in danger of failing to be confirmed, over her involvement in an ecological protest more than 30 years ago which Republican senators say marks her as an environmental extremist.Tracy Stone-Manning is currently a senior adviser at the National Wildlife Federation. She acknowledges that in early 1989 she borrowed a typewriter to copy an anonymous letter given to her by environmental activists who claimed to have driven hundreds of metal spikes into trees in the Clearwater national forest, in Idaho. Continue reading...

Environment minister calls for ‘due process’ to be followed before 21-country United Nations committee rules on the reefAustralia is demanding world heritage experts carry out a monitoring mission to the Great Barrier Reef before an international committee decides if it should be placed on a list of global sites in danger.The Australian government on Monday night briefed international ambassadors and Paris-based delegates to Unesco as part of lobbying efforts to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the in-danger list. Continue reading...

Threat to health of five-year-old triggers proceedings over fumes from Walleys Quarry landfill near Newcastle-under-LymeA five-year-old boy from Staffordshire has begun legal action against the Environment Agency over fumes from a landfill site that a medical expert has said is shortening his life expectancy.Campaigners said a letter to begin legal proceedings had been sent on behalf of Mathew Richards, who was born prematurely and has significant respiratory health problems that have been worsened by fumes from a landfill site near his home in Silverdale, near Newcastle-under-Lyme. Continue reading...

Victim, 65, felt a nip in the genital area shortly after sitting on the lavatory at his home in GrazAn Austrian man was bitten by a 1.6-metre (5.25-foot) python during an early-morning visit to the toilet at his home, police have said.The 65-year-old victim “felt a ‘nip’ in the genital area” shortly after sitting on the toilet at home in Graz just after 6am on Monday, according to a statement from police in Styria province. He then looked into the toilet and discovered the albino reticulated python. Continue reading...

Younger people have been more aware of the risks compared with older groups, but over the past decade that has changedOn his early morning bike rides to school, David Yockney would deliberately seek out the crunch and splash of the ice-hardened puddles. It was a winter joy he loved, and one he took for granted. Now, 60 years later, he is surprised when ice forms a thin crust in the bird bath at his home on the Kāpiti coast, north of Wellington.The 74-year-old climate activist has become increasingly disturbed by the changes to his environment wrought by global heating and he is not the only one. New research from the University of Waikato shows that younger and older New Zealanders are becoming concerned about the climate emergency. Continue reading...

Company awaits sentencing after admitting 51 violations in biggest-ever Environment Agency investigationSouthern Water discharged enormous volumes of raw sewage into protected coastal waters for nearly six years causing “very considerable environmental damage” because it was cheaper than treating it, a court has heard.This was “the worst case brought by the Environment Agency in its history”, the court was told. Southern Water had acted “deliberately” and had reaped “considerable financial advantage” by allowing the discharges. Continue reading...

Newly discovered insect called Pycnogaster ribesiglesiasii in tribute to two men shot by a hunter in 2017A new species of grasshopper discovered in Catalonia in north-east Spain has been named in honour of two local wildlife rangers who were murdered by a hunter in 2017.The insect, a member of the orthoptera order that includes crickets, grasshoppers and locusts, has been named Pycnogaster ribesiglesiasii after Xavier Ribes Villas and David Iglesias Díez, who were shot dead when they were working in the Segrià region of Catalonia. Continue reading...

While millions of people around the world have gone into lockdown amid the coronavirus crisis, a family in the Ecuadorian Amazon has opted to move deeper into the relative safety of the jungle.As they reconnect with dormant ancestral knowledge, away from the distractions of modern life, their affinity with nature begins to flourish. As news spreads that Ecuador might lift lockdown soon, will the family stay? Continue reading...

New film charts the journey of the Kichwa people deeper into the Ecuadorian Amazon and the lessons they drew from reconnecting with natureAs billions of people isolated around the world in 2020, villagers from Sarayaku , a Kichwa community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, headed deeper into the forest to escape the coronavirus pandemic. The journey, documented in a new short film called The Return, reaffirmed the bond the community has had with the forest for generations, protecting ancestors from missionaries, militias and emerging diseases such as measles and smallpox, as well as sustaining life. Continue reading...

While millions of people around the world have gone into lockdown amid the coronavirus crisis, a family in the Ecuadorian Amazon has opted to move deeper into the relative safety of the jungle.As they reconnect with dormant ancestral knowledge, away from the distractions of modern life, their affinity with nature begins to flourish. As news spreads that Ecuador might lift lockdown soon, will the family stay?

Indigenous leader welcomes apology but says community waiting to see how mining giant will step up in land agreement negotiationsThe mining giant Glencore has apologised to traditional owners for the “legacy of sadness” left by the impacts of its controversial Northern Territory mine as it pushes to expand the zinc and lead operation.The McArthur River mine has been dogged by environmental incidents and alleged damage to cultural sites for decades, including the diversion of the entire river in 2006. Continue reading...

Researchers blame poaching and hunting far beyond quotas after species dropped from endangered listAs many as one-third of Wisconsin’s gray wolves probably died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government announced it was ending legal protections, according to a study released on Monday.Poaching and a February hunt that far exceeded kill quotas were largely responsible for the drop-off, University of Wisconsin scientists said. Continue reading...