Environment | The Guardian

Hundreds of the large birds have been spotted and become a nuisance to many residents, while others enjoy themAmid stalled relocation efforts due to the pandemic, parts of southern California have now reportedly become overrun with peacocks.The large birds, which are traditionally known for their vibrant, beautiful tail feathers, have become a nuisance to many residents of the region where they run wild, the Washington Post reported. Spotted across Pasadena and in the San Gabriel Valley, just north-east of Los Angeles, hundreds of peacocks have been seen standing in homeowners’ lawns, on rooftops, and casually sauntering down city sidewalks. Continue reading...

Bank of England to examine risks rising temperatures and sea levels could pose for financial systemUK banks will for the first time be forced to reveal their exposure to the climate crisis, highlighting the risks that rising temperatures and sea levels could pose for the financial system, as part of the Bank of England’s climate stress tests this year.The stress tests will put 19 banks and insurers through three climate scenarios, according to an update released on Tuesday, including one in which governments fail to take further steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in average temperature increases of 3.3C and a 3.9-metre rise in sea levels. The central bank will be monitoring how those scenarios could affect potential loan losses, as customers default due to slowing growth and economic uncertainty. Continue reading...

Demonstrations have sparked fears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing anti-government activistsFears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing militia supporters over the control of water in the drought-stricken American west have been sparked by protests at Klamath Falls in Oregon.Protesters affiliated with rightwing anti-government activist Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network are threatening to break a deadlock over water management in the area by unilaterally opening the headgates of a reservoir. Continue reading...

Prime minister to say it should be up to sovereign nations to chart their own course and Australia does not support ‘setting false deadlines’Scott Morrison is resisting international pressure to lock in more ambitious climate commitments, declaring Australia opposes setting targets for certain parts of the economy or “false deadlines for phasing out specific energy sources”.Before he sets off for the G7 summit in the UK later this week, the prime minister will use a foreign policy speech to say that “ambition alone won’t solve the problem of actually reducing emissions”. Continue reading...

Opposition likens Coalition’s proposed legislation to Abbott government’s controversial ‘one-stop shop’ schemeThe Morrison government will face a battle in the Senate to pass environmental protection legislation amendments, with critics accusing it of resurrecting a maligned Abbott-era “one-stop shop approval” system that will “fast-track extinctions”.The government has not yet formally responded to the Graeme Samuel-led review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act, which made 38 recommendations to address two decades of failure in environmental protection law, despite receiving it nearly a year ago. Continue reading...

The swarm that emerges every 17 years can feel like a horror movie, requiring homemade armor and escape plans

In a 2011 study by the Fish and Wildlife Service, 93% of birders surveyed were white while just 4% were Black“This is my form of therapy,” says Mariana Winnik, a third-grade teacher and avid birdwatcher from Brooklyn. Wearing a T-shirt with illustrations of birds and wielding a pair of binoculars and a trusty bird identification app, Winnik makes her way through north Central Park, on a mid-morning Saturday walk led by Christian Cooper.Cooper says he doesn’t usually lead bird walks because of the responsibility that comes with it. “I feel awful if we go out and we don’t see a lot of good birds,” he says. Continue reading...

Government is investigating the cause as locals point the finger at a herbicide used by the National Parks and Wildlife ServiceDead marine life, including beach worms and pipis, found on a beach on the New South Wales mid-north coast has been blamed on aerial spraying of bitou bush around the Seal Rocks area.Mid-north coast resident Lochlan Tisdell posted a video showing a pile of dead worms on the beach and blamed the herbicide used by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Continue reading...

Tonnes of crushed rocks could help the Great Barrier Reef recover from global warming, but the ‘reckless’ idea comes with ‘unquantified risks’Continually dumping crushed rocks from a bulk carrier along a Great Barrier Reef shipping route could counteract the acidification of ocean water caused by fossil fuel burning, but would come with unknown side effects on the marine environment and coral reefs, according to a study from Australia’s science agency.In what is described as a “first order assessment”, scientists at CSIRO found it was theoretically possible to turn back the clock on the effect of decades of fossil fuel burning, but the radical step came with “as yet unquantified risks”. Continue reading...

Scientists say experiments could cause whales stress and injury and call for them to be scrappedPlans to capture and run six-hour-long sound tests on young minke whales are set to go ahead in Norway despite condemnation from more than 50 international scientists and wildlife experts as “completely unacceptable”.According to the plans, approved by the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, over one or two seasons a dozen juvenile minke whales will be captured in a strait off Vestvågøy island in the Lofoten area of northern Norway, where the animals pass through every year on their way to feeding areas further north in the Barents Sea. Continue reading...

Emissions rose to 419 parts per million in May, the highest such measurement in the 63 years that the data has been recordedThe data is in: carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit 419 parts per million in May. The levels have now reached the dangerous milestone of being 50% higher than when the industrial age began – and the average rate of increase is faster than ever.The figure is the highest measurement of the crucial greenhouse gas in the 63 years that data has been recorded at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii – despite slowdowns in air travel and industry during a global pandemic in the past year. Continue reading...

First-in-the-nation ban targets grass at office parks, street medians and housing development entrances that no one usesIn Sin City, one thing that will soon become unforgivable is useless grass.A new Nevada law will outlaw about 40% of the grass in the Las Vegas area in an effort to conserve water amid a drought that is drying up the region’s primary water source: the Colorado River. Continue reading...

Paper is based on 40 years of record-keeping involving 40,000 dead birds, started after an offhand remarkTurning off building lights at night can save migrating birds from crashing into buildings, a study based on decades of research has shown.Scientists found that on nights when half the windows of a large building in Chicago were darkened, there were 11 times fewer bird collisions during spring migration and six times fewer collisions during autumn migration than when all the windows were lit. Continue reading...

Conservationists call for state’s application to distribute more toxic pesticides to be denied as crop areas overlap with locations of the superb parrotThe New South Wales government should be blocked from using a more potent poison to deal with the state’s mouse plague after reports emerged of a mass bird death, BirdLife Australia and scientists say.Experts say the areas where the government wants to distribute the more toxic rodenticide, bromadiolone, overlap the known locations of threatened superb parrots and could devastate the species. Continue reading...

Legislature seeks to strip funding of Hawaii’s largest tourism agency, just as it refocuses on community and environmentSince 1998, the Hawaiian Tourism Authority (HTA) – the state’s leading agency to manage tourism – has had its focus largely on marketing Hawaii to the world. But in 2019, when the state hit a record of over 10 million tourists, the milestone taxed residents, and caused significant environmental impacts on trails, beaches and sacred sites.During the pandemic, the agency’s new leader, John De Fries, called the time a “huliau”, which in Hawaiian means a time of transition. It was one that De Fries, the first Native Hawaiian in the role, felt would be the perfect moment to reset Hawaii in a way that would marry modern technology and Indigenous wisdom to protect the future of the island and promote its state-adopted sustainability goals by 2030. Continue reading...

Politician urges G7 to deliver on climate crisis and vaccines, which threaten richer and poorer countriesThe global solidarity inspired by the Covid pandemic disappeared as soon as vaccines came along, the Mozambican politician Graça Machel has said before the G7 summit, as she called on richer countries to share vaccines and for progress on tackling the climate crisis.Machel, a member of the Africa Progress Panel and a prominent politician, served as first lady in Mozambique and South Africa, as the wife of first Samora Machel and then Nelson Mandela. She said: “Without everyone on Earth being vaccinated, there is no safety. It’s a question of survival, even for the developed world. We have to take the necessary steps. To make sure everyone all of us get the vaccine – that is common sense. Continue reading...

Failing, heavily subsidized private oil companies enjoy the profits of oil extraction while the rest of us pay in tax dollars, human rights abuses, and an unlivable climateIt has been a bad month for big oil. A Dutch court just ruled that Shell must cut its carbon pollution by 45% by 2030. The court’s decision has rightly been celebrated: it is a much more stringent requirement than the ineffective regulations imposed to date. Meanwhile, shareholders are waging rebellions at various oil giants – ExxonMobil shareholders won two seats on the board to pressure the oil company towards a greener strategy, and shareholders at Chevron and ConocoPhillips passed nonbinding resolutions pressuring the companies to disclose their lobbying efforts and emissions amounts.Private oil and gas companies are finally up against the wall. Shell has promised to appeal the Dutch court decision, but oil prices went negative last year and put companies on bankruptcy notice, and last week the International Energy Agency said to stop digging. Politicians have floated the idea of oil and gas magnates becoming “carbon management companies” as a way for those companies to have a “future in a low-carbon world” while retaining control over oil, gas, and profit in a planet increasingly aware of and hostile to their emissions-generating activity. Continue reading...

Republican-led states are threatening retaliation against banks that refuse to lend to coal, oil and gas companies in effort to delay transition to clean energyJoe Biden may be pressing for 2021 to be a transformational year in tackling the climate crisis, but Republicans arrayed in opposition to his agenda have dug in around a unifying rallying theme – that the fossil fuel industry should be protected at almost any cost.For many experts and environmentalists, the Republican stance is a shockingly retrograde move that flies in the face of efforts to fight global heating and resembles a head in the sand approach to the realities of a changing American economy. Continue reading...

Warning comes amid fears of further delays to Kunming summit, which aims to agree on curbing destruction of ecosystemsThe world is running out of time to reach an ambitious deal to stem the destruction of the natural world, the co-chair of negotiations for a crucial UN wildlife summit has warned, amid fears of a third delay to the talks.Negotiators are scheduled to meet in Kunming, China, in October for Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, to reach a hoped-for Paris-style agreement on preventing wildlife extinctions and the human-driven destruction of the planet’s ecosystems. Continue reading...

The state is facing another drought just two years after the last one ended. Here’s what you need to knowJust two years after California celebrated the end of its last devastating drought, the state is facing another one. Snowpack has dwindled to nearly nothing, the state’s 1,500 reservoirs are at only 50% of their average levels, and federal and local agencies have begun to issue water restrictions.Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a drought emergency in 41 of the state’s 58 counties. Meanwhile, temperatures are surging as the region braces for what is expected to be another record-breaking fire season, and scientists are sounding the alarm about the state’s readiness. Continue reading...

Study finds leading economies have funded projects related to fossil fuel, worsening global heatingWealthy nations are breaking their climate commitments by funding a new dash for gas in the global south, according to a study.A week before the G7 summit begins in Cornwall, the report reveals low and middle-income nations received nearly $16bn a year between 2017 and 2019 to fund projects related to gas, a fossil fuel that worsens global heating. Continue reading...

China funnelling billions into harmful production of beef, soy and palm oil, says campaign groupCampaigners have called on Chinese banks to stop funding overseas agribusinesses that accelerate deforestation and biodiversity loss and have a negative impact on regional water cycles and climate.In a report, the campaign group Global Witness said Chinese banks were funnelling billions into global agribusinesses, becoming some of the biggest global financiers of deforestation. Continue reading...

G7 countries will lose $5tn a year by 2050 if temperatures rise by 2.6CThe economies of rich countries will shrink by twice as much as they did in the Covid-19 crisis if they fail to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions, according to research.The G7 countries – the world’s biggest industrialised economies – will lose 8.5% of GDP a year, or nearly $5tn wiped off their economies, within 30 years if temperatures rise by 2.6C, as they are likely to on the basis of government pledges and policies around the world, according to research from Oxfam and the Swiss Re Institute. Continue reading...

Global heating and habitat destruction may together devastate humanity’s closest relativesGreat apes – humanity’s closest relatives, are predicted to lose a “devastating” 90% of their homelands in Africa in coming decades, according to a study.All gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are already endangered or critically endangered. But a combination of the climate crisis, the destruction of wild areas for minerals, timber and food, and human population growth is on track to decimate their ranges by 2050, the scientists said. Half of the projected lost territory will be in national parks and other protected areas. Continue reading...

Sightings of black bear continue but state wildlife officials unsuccessful in attempts to trap and relocate itIn a summer’s tale to enthrall inhabitants of the south-western Florida city of Naples, a black bear seen wandering around downtown eluded wildlife officials – even as sightings of the animal continued.Police said the bear was first spotted in the city on Friday, near 12th Avenue South and 6th Street South. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to trap the bear in hopes of relocating it, the Naples Daily News reported. Continue reading...

Purchase of Langidoon and Metford sheep stations is the second-biggest national parks land procurement in NSW in the last decadeThe New South Wales government has purchased more than 60,000 hectares of farmland near Broken Hill for an outback nature reserve, home to at least 14 threatened species.In an effort to expand conservation efforts in the traditionally underrepresented far west of the state, on Monday NSW environment minister Matt Kean announced the government had finalised the purchase of the neighbouring Langidoon and Metford sheep stations. Continue reading...

Surge in sales for US carmaker in first four months of 2021 pushes Nissan Leaf into second placeThe Tesla Model 3 has become the most popular battery electric car on British roads after a surge in sales, as the race to dominate the car industry’s new era heats up.The number of Model 3s on British roads overtook Nissan’s Leaf models during the first four months of 2021, according to calculations by Matthias Schmidt, an independent electric car analyst. There are now 39,900 Model 3s in the UK, compared with 38,900 Leafs, many of which are built at Nissan’s factory in Sunderland. Continue reading...

Substance has spread through sea south of Istanbul, posing threat to marine life and fishing industryTurkey’s environment minister has pledged to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, with a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry. Continue reading...

People said Williston, North Dakota, would boom for decades. Instead, Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith learned, it went the way of every other legendary boomtownLife in a modern boomtown is living on the frontier but with a smartphone. “Capitalism on crack” is the way historian Clay Jenkinson referred to it – everyone taking what they can get, as fast as they can.I spent nearly a year in an oil boomtown: from summer of 2013 to winter of 2014, I worked in the Bakken oil patch out of Williston, North Dakota. At the time, politicians, geologists, and much of the national media claimed the town would be booming for decades to come. They were all wrong. Continue reading...

‘It was as if they didn’t even flinch,’ researcher says as study finds tiger sharks’ presence consistent before and during stormForecasters expect the Atlantic hurricane season that began this week to bring increasingly fierce storms to the US east coast. One notoriously fierce kind of shark, however, does not seem likely to be swimming for cover.Related: Sharks use Earth’s magnetic field as ‘GPS’ guidance system, study says Continue reading...

Heritage charity says many ‘renovated’ monuments are filled with cement, not water, so can’t quench thirst or help reduce plastic pollutionThey were a much-loved feature of London life for over a century, ever since the first of hundreds of public drinking fountains opened in 1859 at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate church in the City.At its peak, thousands of people a day were drinking from it and Charles Dickens observed that “300,000 people take advantage of the fountains on a summer’s day”, although some preferred to drink beer for fear of polluted water. But now, London’s few remaining historic fountains are under threat, with some local councils filling the fountain bowls with cement rather than water – ensuring that no one will ever be able to quench their thirst at their taps again. Continue reading...

Call for ‘solidarity’ in Covid fight as Boris Johnson calls on world leaders to help vaccinate global population by end of 2022Progress on climate change could be scuppered by developing nations if they are not given equitable access to vaccines, Boris Johnson has been warned, as rich nations come under new pressure to donate more doses.Figures compiled by the Observer show that the wealthiest nations, including the UK, have enough vaccines to inoculate their populations more than twice over. Continue reading...

Campaigners say plans for a new tailings dam threatens wilderness that should be declared a heritage areaFour days before the Morrison government was due to decide the future of a mining development in the takayna/Tarkine, 77-year-old Frits Harmsen planted a camping chair in front of trucks on an unsealed road snaking through Australia’s largest temperate rainforest.Harmsen, a former French horn player with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, was part of a small band of Bob Brown-endorsed protesters who on Friday began a 19th day attempting to block work by MMG, a majority Chinese-owned minerals company, in Tasmania’s remote north-west. Continue reading...

Ban on huge vessels passing St Mark’s Square proves to be temporary after liner docks in city for first time in 17 monthsAnti-cruise ship campaigners in Venice claim they were “deceived” by the Italian government as hundreds protested against huge vessels docking in the historic city’s port on Saturday.Residents were caught by surprise on Thursday when a cruise liner sailed into the lagoon city for the first time since the pandemic began, despite prime minister Mario Draghi’s government declaring that the ships would be banned from the historic centre. The 92,000 tonne ship MSC Orchestra collected 650 passengers before leaving for Bari, in southern Italy, on Saturday. Continue reading...

As UK prepares for environment push at G7 summit, letter asks richest to make climate charitable focusThe UK’s 100 richest families are being urged to commit £1bn over the next five years to tackle the climate emergency and halt the destruction of the natural world, as the world prepares for a big push on environmental issues at the G7 summit.Each of the 100 richest families in the UK, and the 100 biggest charitable foundations, will receive a letter on Saturday asking them to make the climate and biodiversity crises a focus of their philanthropic efforts, in order to stave off pending disasters that would imperil all their other charitable efforts. Continue reading...

Plaintiffs want court to order Mario Draghi’s government to adopt more ambitious climate policiesEnvironment campaigners in Italy are suing the government for failing to sufficiently tackle the climate crisis in what is the first legal action of its kind in the country.The 203 plaintiffs will submit their lawsuit to Rome’s civil court on Saturday. They want the court to order the government, led by the prime minister, Mario Draghi, to adopt more ambitious climate change policies as well as significantly increase its carbon emissions reduction target. Continue reading...

Big Basin state park, scorched last August in the CZU Complex fire, is showing signs of rebirth in its majestic redwood treesThere are spots inside Big Basin Redwoods state park that appear to be frozen in time.Roughly 10 months after the CZU Complex fire burned 97% of California’s oldest park, some trees still smoke and smolder. An open champagne bottle sits untouched atop a scorched picnic table alongside cooking utensils that are melted and singed together. Contents from a toppled cooler, left agape, have begun to blend into the forest duff. The skeletons of burnt cars and trucks are still parked in front of once-iconic headquarters, now reduced to rubble. Continue reading...

While cannabis remains taboo topic, economic crisis means Turkey is trialling hemp for industrial useA bespectacled, well-dressed Islamist recently expelled from the Turkish Journalists’ Association for comparing campaigners against domestic violence to prostitutes is perhaps not the most likely candidate for ardent cannabis advocate.But Abdurrahman Dilipak, 72, is one of Turkey’s loudest voices in favour of legalisation as attitudes change and the country begins to experiment with reintroducing the once widespread crop. Continue reading...

The mucilage blamed on pollution and warming is killing shellfish in the Sea of Marmara and alarming residents of IstanbulA thick, brown, bubbly foam dubbed “sea snot” has covered the shores of the Sea of Marmara, alarming residents in Istanbul and threatening marine life.The naturally occurring mucilage was first documented in Turkey in 2007, when it was also seen in parts of the Aegean near Greece. Continue reading...

Departure marks one of the largest-scale abandonments of eggs ever at coastal site north of San DiegoAbout 3,000 elegant tern eggs were abandoned at a southern California nesting island after a drone crashed and scared off the birds, a newspaper reported Friday.Two drones were flown illegally over the Bolsa Chica ecological reserve in Huntington Beach in May and one of them went down in the wetlands, the Orange County Register said. Continue reading...

A conservation effort is planting a poisonous flower along the state’s central coast in hopes of lifting butterfly populationIn one of the biggest mobilizations of resources and talent ever organized to save an insect, the state of California is teaming with conservation groups, biologists and scores of citizen scientists to rescue the western monarch butterfly from the brink of extinction.To do this, they are placing their hopes on an unassuming, poisonous plant called milkweed. Continue reading...

Fishing communities fear for future as oil, plastic and toxic chemicals devastate ecosystem

The $2,9bn Line 3 pipeline has brought thousands of workers to Minnesota – and one crisis center has received more than 40 reports of harassment and abuseOn 15 May, a woman met a pipeline worker at a bar in Minnesota and agreed to go to his house, but when they arrived, there were four other people there and she felt uncomfortable.“She wanted to leave, she tried to leave,” said Amy Johnson, executive director of the Violence Intervention Project (VIP) in Thief River Falls, who spoke to the woman on the phone. “It was very scary with those other men there. She said he had her in the bedroom and she couldn’t leave.” The woman finally got out of the house. Continue reading...

Ending the destruction of nature to stop outbreaks at source is more effective and cheaper than responding to them, scientists say

Soils provide 95% of all food but are damaged by industrial, farming, mining and urban pollutionThe world’s soils, which provide 95% of humanity’s food, are “under great pressure”, according to a UN report on soil pollution.Soils are also the largest active store of carbon, after the oceans, and therefore crucial in fighting the climate crisis. But the report said industrial pollution, mining, farming and poor waste management are poisoning soils, with the “polluter pays” principle absent in many countries. Continue reading...

Animal rescue worker shocked by piles of dead galahs in Parkes cemetery says ‘I felt broken’

Tiny hedge fund Engine No 1 says a strong climate strategy simply makes good business senseThe activist hedge fund behind ExxonMobil’s boardroom coup last week has claimed another seat from the oil giant’s board, to take the number of new directors who will push for climate action from within the company to three.The result of last week’s shareholder vote has installed the hedge fund, named Engine No 1 after a San Francisco fire station, as a reluctant hero of the climate movement. Continue reading...

Conservationists lobby World Heritage Committee to demand Australia reduce emissions or risk reef being placed on ‘in danger’ listMembers of the United Nations World Heritage Committee are being lobbied to pressure Australia to commit to more ambitious climate action as part of its plan to slow the decline of the Great Barrier Reef ahead of a key July meeting.Conservationists have lobbied representatives of 13 of the 21 countries that make up the committee, saying the threat of placing the reef on an “in danger” list should be used to lever more domestic action on greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

More than 600 residents have complained of ‘rotten egg’ stench from the Eastern Creek Bingo Industries plant which EPA says is under investigationA pervasive stench, likened to the smell of rotten eggs, is gripping suburbs across western Sydney, as local politicians call for the closure of a local recycling plant.More than 600 complaints have been made to the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) from residents in Minchinbury, Mount Druitt, St Clair, Erskine Park, Horsley Park and Eastern Creek about the smell. Continue reading...