Protesters charged with causing criminal damage of more than £5,000, Surrey Police saidFour climate activists have been charged after protests at two motorway service stations in Surrey.Nathan McGovern, 22, Amber Alexander, 18, Louis Hawkins, 22, and Rosa Sharkey, 22, have been charged with causing criminal damage of more than £5,000, Surrey police said. Continue reading...
Attorney general has launched an inquiry into fossil fuel companies’ role in causing global environmental crisisCalifornia’s attorney general has subpoenaed ExxonMobil as part of what he called a first-of-its-kind broader investigation into the petroleum industry for its alleged role in causing a global plastic pollution crisis, allegations that the company called meritless.Attorney general Rob Bonta said on Thursday that the industry for decades has encouraged the development and use of petroleum-based plastic products while seeking to minimize public understanding that their widespread use harms the environment and public health. Continue reading...
LA-based based Climate Emergency Fund donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to activistsJust Stop Oil’s disruptive protests, blamed for petrol shortages across parts of England, have been funded by US philanthropists who say they want to incite a global “spring uprising” over climate change.The environmental activists, whose oil terminal blockades have enraged ministers and rightwing commentators, have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Los Angeles-based Climate Emergency Fund (CEF). Continue reading...
Insect’s forest populations have halved over past half-century despite increased woodland habitatMoths have declined faster in British woods over the last half-century than on farmland or in cities, despite woodlands having increased and moths being shielded from chemical and light pollution by the trees.Forest populations of moths halved between 1968 and 2016 compared with average national losses of a third, according to a study. Continue reading...
by Sandra Laville Environment correspondent on (#5YPCF)
Campaigners say move by Cornish garden is latest example of epidemic of plastic being laid across UKThe Eden Project in Cornwall has installed plastic grass in a children’s play area to stop them getting muddy.The garden is one of a number of organisations and public bodies laying artificial turf in what environmental campaigners say is an epidemic of plastic being laid across the UK. There was a surge in interest across the UK in buying artificial grass during lockdown, according to data on Google Trends. Continue reading...
Residents are voicing fury over expansions set to displace thousands while Biden’s administration last year launched an investigation into a Houston projectTexas, with its wide-laned roads and supersized highways, seems like an unlikely place for a rebellion against the supremacy of American car culture.But last week a band of residents from across Texas descended upon the state’s department of transportation (DoT) to voice fury over new highway expansions that are set to displace thousands of people and raze hundreds of businesses, schools and churches. Meanwhile, the state is actively crushing local plans to encourage more cycling and walking as an alternative to driving. Continue reading...
No Mow May scheme promotes letting wild plants thrive to provide nectar for insectsThe number of people not mowing their lawns is increasing after a successful campaign to keep gardens wild, a leading nature charity says.Gardeners are this year being urged once again by Plantlife to keep their lawnmower in the shed during No Mow May, in order to let wild plants thrive and provide nectar for insects. Continue reading...
Pacific Elders Voice group says military tension ‘created by China and the US and its allies’ are secondary to rising seas and catastrophic cyclonesGrowing military tensions in the Pacific between China, the US and Australia do not address the most significant security threat to the region – climate change – former leaders of Pacific nations have warned.In a statement on Friday, the Pacific Elders Voice group, which includes former leaders of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati and Tuvalu, as well as Dame Meg Taylor, the former secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat, said that “the primary security threat to the Pacific is climate change”, rather than geo-strategic tensions. Continue reading...
The ‘gas-guzzling fleet guarantees decades of pollution with every postcard and package,’ says an attorneyCalifornia and 15 other states that want the US Postal Service to buy more electric delivery vehicles are suing to halt purchases of thousands of gas-powered trucks as the agency modernizes its mail delivery fleet.Three separate lawsuits, filed by 16 states and environmental groups Thursday in New York and California, ask judges to order a more thorough environmental review before the Postal Service moves forward with the next-generation delivery vehicle program. Continue reading...
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...
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...
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...
by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent on (#5YKW2)
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...
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...
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...
by Zeinab Mohammed Salih in West Darfur, Sudan on (#5YJAG)
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...
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.
by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent on (#5YJ2S)
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...
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...
Environment | The Guardian