Rene becomes storm number 17 of the year, forming earlier than the previous record-holder, Rita in 2005Tropical storm Rene has formed in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the Atlantic’s earliest R-named storm on record, as the year’s extremely active hurricane season continued.Rene formed on Monday, breaking the previous record held by Rita in 2005, which formed 18 September. Continue reading...
Sussan Ley says conditions of export licence for shark fins and other products have not been metEnvironment minister Sussan Ley has moved to revoke the export of shark fins and other seafood products from a Queensland government fishery over inaction on reforms to protect threatened species.Ley has written to Queensland’s fisheries minister, Mark Furner, saying the state had not met the conditions of its export licence for the East Coast Inshore Fin Fish Fishery, which would be revoked from 30 September. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Watts Global environment editor on (#57VH0)
Report calls for more support if plan to plant 100m hectares of vegetation is to be realisedThe world’s most ambitious reforestation project, the Great Green Wall of Africa, has covered only 4% of its target area but is more than halfway towards its 2030 completion date, according to a status report.More funds, greater technical support and tighter oversight will be needed if the plan to plant 100m hectares of trees and other vegetation is to be realised, say the authors of the study, which was unveiled on Monday at a meeting of regional ministers. Continue reading...
From blockading printers to meditating outside Barclays, the climate crisis campaign has drawn a variety of participantsThousands of Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists and supporters have been staging “die-ins”, preventing copies of newspapers from being distributed and meditating outside banks over the past week in a series of actions aimed at highlighting the worsening ecological crisis.At printing plants in Merseyside and in Hertfordshire on Friday evening, many trucks carrying newspapers were unable to deliver to shops. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, accused XR of seeking to limit the public’s access to news amid suggestions that the environmental group could subsequently be treated like an organised crime group by the authorities. Continue reading...
Yersinia pestis killed millions of people across Europe in the middle ages. Today it remains a deadly threat to one of the US’s most endangered speciesEvery year, from August to November, Travis Livieri becomes nocturnal. The field biologist goes out in his truck in Conata Basin, South Dakota, armed with a spotlight in search of one of the most endangered mammals in North America: the black-footed ferret. When the light catches the reflective green shine of the ferret’s eyes, he waits for the animal to disappear into a burrow and then lays a trap at the entrance.Once the ferret is trapped, Livieri coaxes it into a long black tube and anaesthetises it before giving it a vaccine shot. Then he takes a blue marker and draws a line from the ferret’s left ear to its right shoulder. About a month later, he returns again at night to the same location to give the ferret its booster, drawing a line from its right ear to its left shoulder. Ferrets marked with an X are safe from the plague. Continue reading...
by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent on (#57TYH)
Friends of the Earth seeks judicial review, saying aid deal contradicts climate commitmentsEnvironmentalists at Friends of the Earth will mount a legal challenge against the government’s decision to offer $1bn in financial support to a major fossil fuel project in Mozambique that they say is “incompatible” with the Paris climate agreement.The green group will go to the high court this week to seek a judicial review into the government’s decision to use taxpayer money to “worsen the climate emergency” by helping to finance a $20bn gas project on the Mozambican coast. Continue reading...
Regional and presidential votes in next two years will test Europe Écologie-Les Verts’s claim of a ‘historic turning point’Regional and presidential polls over the next two years will show whether the “green wave” that surged through a swath of big French cities earlier this summer heralded a fundamental redrawing of the country’s politics – or a transitory ripple.In June’s municipal elections, Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) – alone or at the head of leftwing majorities – held Grenoble, seized Annecy, Besançon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Poitiers and Strasbourg, and were part of winning coalitions in Paris and Marseille. Continue reading...
Researchers estimate the new calf, which was seen ‘swimming vigorously alongside its mother’, was born last weekAn orca who became famous around the world in 2018 when she carried her stillborn calf aloft in the water for 17 days has given birth to a healthy baby.The not-for-profit Center for Whale Research spotted the baby, dubbed J-57, “swimming vigorously alongside its mother”, named Tahlequah, on Saturday in waters near the border between the US state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. They estimate that the calf was born on Friday. Continue reading...
Conservation groups warn Australia’s natural world heritage sites are ‘under more pressure than ever before’Australian conservation groups have written to the UN’s peak environmental heritage body urging it to oppose the Coalition’s bid to devolve the approval process for projects to state and territory governments.In a letter to the director general of Unesco, the 13 groups warn of the “alarming moves … to weaken legal protection for Australia’s 20 world heritage listed properties” through changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. Continue reading...
Labour defence spokesman who helped to move the party away from a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament in the 80sMartin O’Neill, latterly Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, was an able Labour politician who as shadow defence secretary in the late 1980s played a crucial role in moving the party away from the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament under Neil Kinnock.A well-liked figure across all sections of the party, O’Neill, who has died aged 75, was appointed as deputy spokesman on defence by Kinnock in 1984 as the policy transition began to evolve, though Labour still went into the election three years later on a unilateralist platform. Continue reading...
Hundreds of campers descended on the Devon national park this summer as the UK’s Covid lockdown easedThe scene could hardly be more idyllic. A broad grassy bank next to a clear, burbling river. Downstream from the stone bridge, herons patrol the shallows, while deer, wild ponies and cattle trot down the hillside in the early autumn sunshine for a drink.This spot at Bellever in the heart of Dartmoor was very different at the height of the summer, when hundreds of “fly-campers” descended from across the UK with tents, gazebos, music systems, fairy lights and generators to grab a taste of post-lockdown freedom. Continue reading...
Western condemnation is worthless. But if Angela Merkel cancels the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Putin will take noticeAlexei Navalny, who lies critically ill in a German hospital after being poisoned in Siberia, is Russia’s unofficial leader of the opposition and the politician Vladimir Putin fears most. Relatively young, resourceful and smart, he has bravely defied many previous attempts to silence him, including imprisonment and physical attacks. Navalny is not easily dismissed as a pro-western dissident or leftwing intellectual. He is a Russian patriot, a daring, Jason Bourne-like figure who recently flew drones over the private dachas of the Kremlin elite to expose their apparently corruptly acquired wealth, then posted videos online.That the Kremlin is responsible for Navalny’s plight is not in serious doubt. Whether Putin had prior knowledge of the plot, or personally authorised it, will probably never be known. As usual, the Kremlin is hiding behind a wall of denials and absurd claims, such as that Navalny fell ill after flying on an empty stomach. But his German doctors are unequivocal. He was poisoned by a chemical nerve agent, novichok, which the Russian state secretly developed and which only Russia is known to have used. Continue reading...
Renewable energy equivalent to four large coal plants will be installed this year but lack of investment could put a brake on further growthThe numbers make a clear case that renewable energy is booming in Australia. Data released last week by the government’s Clean Energy Regulator suggests 6.3 gigawatts of new solar and wind energy – roughly equivalent in capacity to four large coal plants – will be installed across the country this year.It would equal the record set last year, and is about five times greater than what was installed in 2016. Continue reading...
Climate campaigners stage a range of public events over five days despite Covid restrictionsMore than 600 people have been arrested during five days of climate crisis protests in central London, police have said.Environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR) reignited its efforts to highlight the dangers of climate crisis this month after they were largely placed on hold by the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...
Global climate activist pleased with film’s portrayal of her as a ‘shy nerd’A documentary following Greta Thunberg and her journey from Swedish schoolgirl to global climate activist accurately portrays her as a “shy nerd”, the teenager said as the film premiered at the Venice film festival.Director Nathan Grossman recorded Thunberg’s everyday life for a year, chronicling her rise to fame from the beginning of her school strike outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018 to her trips around the world demanding that political leaders take action to fight the climate crisis. Continue reading...
Extinction Rebellion protests at News Corp sites condemned by Society of Editors as ‘attempt to silence other voices’Ministers and MPs from all parts of the political spectrum have condemned Extinction Rebellion for blocking the delivery of newspapers across the UK on Saturday.Four national newspapers, including the Sun and the Daily Mail, were missing from some newsagents’ shelves on Saturday morning after more than 100 environmental protesters targeted printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp on Friday evening. Continue reading...
Parks in California are seeing double or even triple the usual number of campers, who can bring trash and unsafe behaviorChris Giesige thought planning a camping trip would be simple. He’s a regular, often heading out into the wilderness several times per year. But when he recently tried to reserve a campsite online in Yosemite, then Mammoth, then Whiskeytown Lake, he was shocked to see they were all booked for weeks. Twice he thought he’d found an open spot, only to see it get snapped up moments later.“I know May, June and July are busy camping months, but I don’t remember it being like this,” he says. “I have never had as much trouble before in trying to find a campground.” Continue reading...
Project by supermarket and charity Hubbub aims to tap into changing attitude to food waste after lockdownConsumers are being asked to rifle through their bins in order to weigh and record their daily food waste, in an ambitious trial that aims to reduce the 6.6m-tonne mountain of food thrown away by UK households every year.The UK’s largest supermarket, Tesco, has linked up with the environmental charity Hubbub to run the six-week experiment in which families will receive advice on meal planning and food storage along with recipe tips for using up leftovers. Continue reading...
Births between May and August mark regional record for National Park Service researchersA mountain lion baby boom has occurred this summer in the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills west of Los Angeles.Thirteen kittens were born to five mountain lion mothers between May and August, according to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Continue reading...
Campaigners spray fake blood over building’s entrance in protest against high-speed lineAnti-HS2 protesters have sprayed fake blood over the entrance to the Department for Transport and glued themselves to its doors, on the day it was announced that formal construction of the high-speed rail line will begin.The five activists chanted “HS2 is ecocide” and “HS2 has blood on their hands” as police attempted to remove them. Continue reading...
World political leaders must step up on the environment, activist tells Venice film festival showing of documentary about herThe Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has called for more action to be taken to address the climate crisis, which she says has slipped dangerously off the political agenda.Thunberg appeared by video link at the Venice film festival where the film, I Am Greta, has been screened. It documents her life as one of the most famous teenagers in the world after she became the figurehead for a global climate crisis campaign. Continue reading...
High court ruling comes as work on high-speed rail line formally beginsHS2 has been granted a new injunction barring environmental protesters from land in west London where work on the high-speed rail link is being carried out.The high court ruling in HS2’s favour came as the company announced the formal start of the project. Preparation work has been taking place since 2017. Continue reading...
Communities that rely on a steady stream of tourists are suffering financially as locals can’t make up for the loss in visitor spendingOn a normal Saturday in August, Mara Goodman would see up to 300 visitors at her job at the Mariposa county visitor center located on Highway 140, one of the major routes into Yosemite national park.But it’s been months since Goodman saw a normal Saturday. This year, she’s more likely to get 30 visitors on a good day. That’s partly because Yosemite, which reopened in early June after a two-month closure, is only admitting half of its normal number of daily visitors due to the coronavirus. Continue reading...
Bureau of Land Management accused of giving a handout to rich corporations at the expense of states who depend on oil revenuesThe oil and gas industry has been allowed to pay far less than usual to the government for the right to drill on public lands under a controversial Trump administration coronavirus relief policy, an analysis by a watchdog group and the Guardian reveals.The Bureau of Land Management has granted economic relief for drilling on land leased by the energy giants BP and ExxonMobil, according to records from the bureau. Continue reading...
Derek Gow is winning over doubters in his bid to reintroduce storks, beavers, wildcats, water voles and much, much moreI am sleeping in a shepherd’s hut 30 metres from a dozen wildcats. It’s an unusual way to spend a Monday night, especially in rural Devon. In the valley are the familiar sounds of dogs barking and foxes shrieking, as well as the unfamiliar sounds of storks clapping their beaks together, a noise that has been absent from Britain for 600 years. Beavers, iron age pigs, mouflon (wild sheep), Heck cattle and Exmoor ponies also live on this 120-hectare farm near Lifton, owned by rewilding specialist and farmer Derek Gow.This unassuming old dairy farm with its small whitewashed barns is a hub for covert species reintroductions. In 1995, Gow started working with water voles – his first species of interest – after buying a batch from a fish farm in Hampshire. Then he noticed restored wetlands were naturally silting up and realised another keystone species was missing: beavers. Bereft of beavers, ponds require huge amounts of management to keep them open, so in 1997 he drove to Poland to get some. Continue reading...
Major oil firms plan to grow plastic supply to counter impact of shift against fossil fuelsThe war on plastic waste could scupper the oil industry’s multi-billion dollar bet that the world will continue to need more fossil fuels to help make the petrochemicals used in plastics, according to a new report.Major oil companies, including Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, plan to spend about $400bn (£300bn) to help grow the supply of virgin plastics by a quarter over the next five years, to compensate for the impact of electric vehicles and clean energy technologies on demand for fossil fuels. Continue reading...
Water minister Keith Pitt says decision to rule out farm buybacks is not in contradiction of the basin plan and will not be legislatedEnvironmental groups and scientists have warned that ending buybacks of water in the Murray-Darling basin will be a disaster for the river and will deprive the government of its most effective way of retrieving water.The federal water minister, Keith Pitt, said the government planned to formally end buybacks and would instead rely on water efficiency projects as the way to retrieve the last 700 gigalitres of water needed to meet the plan’s targets for reclaiming water for the environment. Continue reading...
A bumper litter of kids has helped the distinctive, long-horned wild goats to prosper after being introduced from SpainThe population of ibex recently introduced to the French Pyrenees is thriving more than a century after the native species was wiped out in France.Officials have counted 70 newborn ibex this year at the Pyrenees national park and nearby Ariege regional park in the craggy mountains that separate France and Spain. Continue reading...
Cost deterrent ‘risks UK being in slow lane’ in transition from fossil fuel vehicles, says car industry bodyExpensive prices for electric cars could hold back the UK’s transition from fossil fuel vehicles, the industry has warned, amid signs that demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is waning.Related: Electric cars: five best buys, from new models to used bargains Continue reading...
Dennis family says the value of land it was selling in 2018 was slashed by the establishment of the reserveProperty developers the Dennis family have demanded about $194m in compensation from the Victorian government, claiming the value of land they owned was slashed by the establishment of a troubled grasslands reserve.Five companies run by Dennis patriarch Bert Dennis filed claims in the state’s supreme court on Tuesday. Dawn Dennis also filed a claim under her own name. Continue reading...
Sussan Ley announces audit after Guardian Australia revealed her department allowed the birds to be exported to GermanyThe environment minister, Sussan Ley, has appointed an auditor to investigate her own department over the export of hundreds of native and endangered parrots to Germany over a three-year period.Guardian Australia revealed in 2018 that the Australian government permitted the export of hundreds of birds to a German organisation despite concerns they were being offered for sale rather than exhibited. Continue reading...
List comes after Trump order in June directed agencies to use emergency authority to speed projects amid economic downturnThe Trump administration has identified dozens of major fossil fuel, energy and water projects that could be fast-tracked by expediting environmental reviews amid the pandemic, according to internal government documents.At least 19 of the projects are from companies that have spent a total of $16m lobbying the interior department since early 2017, according to an analysis by the conservation group the Center for Western Priorities. ConocoPhillips spent $11.2m of that amount lobbying the department, including on plans to drill for oil and gas within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the group said. Continue reading...
Gulf Livestock 1, carrying more than 40 crew members and nearly 6,000 cattle, foundered off coast of JapanNew Zealand has suspended live cattle exports after a ship carrying almost 6,000 animals sank off the Japanese coast on Wednesday. There are growing fears for the fate of the more than 40 crew members on the Gulf Livestock 1, with reports of just one survivor so far.
Ground-breaking crowdfunded case demands that states make more ambitious emissions cutsYoung activists from Portugal have filed the first climate change case at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, demanding 33 countries make more ambitious emissions cuts to safeguard their future physical and mental wellbeing.The crowdfunded legal action breaks new ground by suing multiple states both for the emissions within their borders and also for the climate impact that their consumers and companies have elsewhere in the world through trade, fossil-fuel extraction and outsourcing. Continue reading...
Hundreds of animals perished in Botswana and new deaths are reported in Zimbabwe – now scientists are trying to find the causeEarlier this year, more than 350 elephants mysteriously died in the Okavango delta in Botswana. Individuals of all ages and both sexes were affected, with many walking in circles before dying suddenly, collapsing on their faces. The mass die-off in May and June was described as a “conservation disaster”.Three months later, most surviving elephants have fled. Last week a plane flew over the Okavango Panhandle, an area in the north-west of the delta where most of the deaths occurred, and eight elephants were spotted, when normally you would see hundreds, says Dr Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue. “It is understandable, I’m sure you or I would flee if all our friends and relatives were dying, and that’s what the elephants appear to have done.” Continue reading...
Two companies granted permission to clear land at Hwange national park, home to cheetahs, elephants and rhinosRhinos, giraffes, cheetahs and other endangered species face a new threat in Zimbabwe’s Hwange national park: Chinese mining companies.Zhongxin Coal Mining Group and Afrochine Smelting have received permission from the government to begin environmental impact assessments for drilling, land clearance, road building and geological surveys at two proposed sites inside the park, which is home to almost 10% of Africa’s remaining wild elephants. Continue reading...
Green activists say 74-year-old’s primary victory over Joe Kennedy in Massachusetts shows putting the crisis first can succeedUS climate advocates have their highest-profile evidence yet that putting the crisis first can win elections. And it arrived in an unlikely package: a 74-year-old Senate incumbent, who garnered intense grassroots support from young activists.Related: 'A political awakening': south Asians to play growing role in US elections Continue reading...
Liberty condemns ‘unworkable restrictions, fines and arrests’ used by police to stifle ralliesCivil liberty experts have warned that peaceful protest is under threat in the UK, after the environmental campaigners were targeted with pre-emptive arrest and “unworkable restrictions” were placed on this week’s Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations.Thousands of people have taken to the streets this week to highlight the escalating climate emergency and demand urgent action from the government. Continue reading...
The devastating blazes began just as I began a two-week quarantine. We desperately need leadershipAt 10am on 16 August, I drove east from Santa Cruz to Oakland to my mom’s nursing home, where I was being allowed in, in full PPE, to kiss her a last goodbye. As I curved north through San Jose, I could see a billowing steel-gray fire cloud among the hills to the east. Lightning flashed past Berkeley as I pulled into the parking lot. On the way home, I took the long route across the San Mateo Bridge, then over the top of the San Francisco Peninsula and south from Half Moon Bay. Halfway down the coast I saw a helicopter dropping bright red pillows of retardant on to a fire streaming its smoke in a flat horizontal panel out to the ocean. Ten minutes later I passed white smoke pouring down another canyon on my left. Before I pulled into my driveway at the edge of Santa Cruz, I could see a fourth, giant fire spewing far to the south beyond Salinas.By afternoon it was clear that the fires I’d seen were just a few of the hundreds sparked all over northern California by freak thunderstorms that weekend, in which 10,800 lightning strikes ignited 367 fires. Soon, hundreds of the small fires converged into bigger and bigger ones, so fast and so vast that Cal Fire didn’t even give names to the largest ones as it usually does, resorting to acronyms like the SCU Lightning Complex, the LNU Lightning Complex, and my own fire to the north and east of Santa Cruz, the CZU Lightning Complex. Continue reading...
Conservationists say relaxing of regulations poses threat to welfare of minke whalesDemand for whale meat in Norway is rising after years of decline, although activists have warned the loosening of regulations could damage the welfare of the animals.Norway remains one of only three countries to publicly allow commercial whaling, along with Japan and Iceland. Much of the catch is sent to Japan, where demand is high, but for the first time in years businesses have reported increased interest in eating whale meat domestically. Continue reading...
The move outrages Labor, the Greens, crossbench MPs and conservationists with the legislation now headed to the SenateLegislation to change Australia’s environmental laws has been rammed through the lower house by the Morrison government prompting outrage from Labor, the Greens and the crossbench.The government’s bill would amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, clearing the way for the transfer of development approval powers to state and territory governments. Continue reading...