Environment | The Guardian

The blaze started on Saturday close to the site of the world’s worst ever nuclear disasterUkrainian officials have sought calm after forest fires in the restricted zone around Chernobyl, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident, led to a rise in radiation levels.Firefighters said they had managed to put out the smaller of two forest fires that began at the weekend, apparently after someone began a grass fire, and had deployed more than 100 firefighters backed by planes and helicopters to extinguish the remaining blaze. Continue reading...

Fall in energy use combined with bright, breezy weather leads to lowest electricity prices in 10 years

Students and laid-off bar and restaurant workers given jobs as pickers after urgent appealScottish fruit farmers have solved a recruitment crisis that could have resulted in this year’s harvest of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries being destroyed.Several thousand people, including students and restaurant and bar workers laid off because of the coronavirus outbreak, have taken low-paid fruit-picking jobs in Tayside and Fife normally done by seasonal workers from Bulgaria and Romania. Continue reading...

The oil industry saw its opening and moved with breathtaking speed to take advantage of this momentI’m going to tell you the single worst story I’ve heard in these past few horrid months, a story that combines naked greed, political influence peddling, a willingness to endanger innocent human beings, utter blindness to one of the greatest calamities in human history and a complete disregard for the next crisis aiming for our planet. I’m going to try to stay calm enough to tell it properly, but I confess it’s hard.The background: a decade ago, beginning with indigenous activists in Canada and farmers and ranchers in the American west and midwest, opposition began to something called the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry filthy tar sands oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. It quickly became a flashpoint for the fast-growing climate movement, especially after Nasa scientist James Hansen explained that draining those tar sands deposits would be “game over” for the climate system. And so thousands went to jail and millions rallied and eventually Barack Obama bent to that pressure and blocked the pipeline. Donald Trump, days after taking office, reversed that decision, but the pipeline has never been built, both because its builder, TC Energy, has had trouble arranging the financing and permits, and because 30,000 people have trained to do nonviolent civil disobedience to block construction. It’s been widely assumed that, should a Democrat win the White House in November, the project would finally be gone for good. Continue reading...

Monitoring work suspended due to restrictions on travel and physical contact, in a blow for research into threatened speciesScientists are being forced to shut down or scale back fieldwork to assess the impact of last summer’s devastating bushfires on threatened species amid the coronavirus crisis, prompting concerns it could affect wildlife recovery.Several universities have shut down fieldwork to comply with restrictions on travel and physical contact and government agencies working on the recovery have had to scale back some of their operations. Continue reading...

Scientists, farmers and volunteers are looking for ways to lessen the impact of climate change as experts warn a third mass bleaching has taken place

Scientists race to halt spread of pungent insect species after it sweeps eight citiesThe world’s hazelnut supplies could be threatened by a stinkbug that has recently invaded Turkey, scientists have warned.The brown marmorated stinkbug, which is native to north-east Asia, has been spreading across the world in shipping containers, breeding freely thanks to warmer temperatures and a lack of natural predators. Continue reading...

The presenter’s daily Self-Isolating Bird Club draws on wildlife footage caught by enthusiasts on mobile phones in their gardens. Packham calls it ‘Dad’s Army makes TV’Lockdown day 10 in south-east London. A loud rhythmic tweeting is emanating from the cherry plum tree in my back garden. A great tit? Blue tit? I catch a glimpse; too small for a great tit, not as colourful.I don’t know my birdsongs beyond the basics, but I remember a friend imitating calls to coax birds nearer so he could identify them. I have an idea and grab my phone and Google “coal tit song”. I press play and the rival tweeting produces instant results. Hopping from branch to branch towards me a delightful but agitated coal tit emerges and alights on a branch barely two metres away (I think it knows). Is it angry or amorous? My exhilaration at our proximity turns to doubt and guilt – I’ve used gadgetry to disrupt the natural world. What was I thinking? The coal tit flies off, its song tinged with irritation. Continue reading...

Activists says resolution shows strong support for fossil fuel companies to set limits on their own emissions and those that result from their productsOil and gas giant Santos faces increased pressure over its stance on climate change after nearly half its shareholders backed resolutions that it should strengthen emissions targets and review its membership of fossil fuel lobby groups.Ethical investor group the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility said the level of support for a shareholder-led climate resolution was unprecedented, and showed large institutional investors had “woken up to the damage a growing gas industry is wreaking on the planet”. Continue reading...

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a veiled chameleon and other animals enjoying the quieter streets Continue reading...

High court has decided there was ‘no real prospect of success’ for judicial reviewThe clearing of ancient woods for HS2 is to proceed this month after the high court refused an emergency injunction and judicial review of the government’s decision to proceed with the high-speed railway.HS2’s felling of woodlands in spring when birds are nesting has been widely condemned by wildlife charities but the conservationist Chris Packham’s attempt to halt “enabling” works was rejected after the court decided there was “no real prospect of success” for a judicial review. Continue reading...

Research into North Atlantic plankton likely to lead to negative revision of global climate calculationsThe North Atlantic may be a weaker climate ally than previously believed, according to a study that suggests the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide has been overestimated.A first-ever winter and spring sampling of plankton in the western North Atlantic showed cell sizes were considerably smaller than scientists assumed, which means the carbon they absorb does not sink as deep or as fast, nor does it stay in the depths for as long. Continue reading...

Motor traffic and air pollution decline steeply, with walking and cycling in cities also down

Fewer law enforcement officials going into the field open door for land invasions, indigenous communities and NGOs warn

Growers from Ireland to Spain says coronavirus lockdown has stopped migrant workers from arriving

Conservationists call on the state to explain how it will boost wildlife protection in the wake of devastating firesA federal and Victorian government decision to extend agreements that exempt the logging industry from conservation laws has sparked calls for the state to explain how it will boost wildlife protection in the wake of the summer’s devastating bushfires.The state government posted five updated regional forest agreements (RFAs), covering native forest logging in different parts of the state, online late on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Moving summit gives world time to respond to coronavirus and may allow a new US leader to join talksGreen campaigners and climate leaders have vowed to keep up the pressure on governments around the world to make stringent new commitments on the climate crisis, as a vital UN climate summit was delayed until next year because of the coronavirus pandemic.The Cop26 talks were scheduled to take place this November in Glasgow, but the UK hosts won a delay on Wednesday night from the UN and other nations, after weeks of speculation the talks would be cancelled. Continue reading...

Video by activists appears to show cruel treatment of weeks-old cattle transported on long journeys to Europe for vealFootage which appears to show Irish calves being beaten and kicked at a French feeding station has been published by animal campaign groups.The video, published by Eyes on Animals (EoA) and French welfare organisation L214, appears to show workers repeatedly beating calves that are a few weeks old with sticks. One is kicked and another is dragged away, unable to stand. The calf was euthanised by a vet, said an EoA observer. Continue reading...

People are increasingly looking to restore the soil’s ability to retain water, planting trees and hedges, and creating relief channels to tackle the recurring threat of high waters

RSPB’s Big Garden Watch finds numbers rising, along with coal tits, wrens and long-tailed titsThe decline of the house sparrow in British gardens appears to be reversing, according to the latest RSPB national garden survey.As well as a rise in house sparrows, the milder winter also brought long-tailed tits, wrens and coal tits to British gardens in huge numbers this year. Continue reading...

Crucial UN conference will be delayed until next year as a result of the coronavirus crisis

Major review reports recovery of marine life but a redoubling of efforts is still needed

Former EU climate chief Miguel Arias Cañete fears end of Covid-19 will bring higher carbon emissionsFinancial help from taxpayers to airlines hit by the coronavirus crisis must come with strict conditions on their future climate impact, the former EU climate commissioner and a group of green campaigners have said.“It must be conditional, otherwise when we recover we will see the same or higher levels of carbon dioxide [from flying],” said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU climate commissioner who led the bloc to the Paris agreement, in an interview with the Guardian. “We know the level of emissions we have to commit to [under Paris]. They [airlines] are worried about survival and will need lots of support, lots of liquidity – that gives them a big responsibility.” Continue reading...

Golden eagles are one of the most protected species in the US – so what happens when one turns up dead in a field?One morning toward the end of January 2019, Steve Lewis, a US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologist in Juneau, Alaska, logged on to the website Movebank.org to check the whereabouts of some golden eagles that he had tagged with GPS trackers.Lewis, a lanky, outdoorsy 49-year-old, usually tried to look at the location data once a week, but he had spent most of the month at home on furlough, unable to work as a result of the government shutdown. Eager to catch up with his birds, Lewis beelined it to his office when he got back to work. “The first thing I did,” he says, “was go and check on my eagle tags.” Continue reading...

Plastics factory will not only contribute to pollution in Louisiana town of Gramercy, but will also be a significant source of greenhouse gas emissionsGail LeBoeuf makes an unlikely climate justice campaigner. Although the 67-year-old resident of Gramercy, a small town in south Louisiana by the banks of the Mississippi River, has been fighting against local pollution for the last few years, she spent most of her career working at an area plastics manufacturer.“These plants just kept popping up, one after another, built by these billionaires who decided they just want to make money. So they come into these little river parishes, and sweep everyone else aside,” she said. Continue reading...

As rivers and wildflower meadows in the UK struggle to recover from repeated flooding, the ecosystems they support are collapsing

Lisa Nandy, Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey answer 17 questions put by the Guardian

Analysts say the coronavirus and a savage price war means the oil and gas sector will never be the same againThe plunging demand for oil wrought by the coronavirus pandemic combined with a savage price war has left the fossil fuel industry broken and in survival mode, according to analysts. It faces the gravest challenge in its 100-year history, they say, one that will permanently alter the industry. With some calling the scene a “hellscape”, the least lurid description is “unprecedented”.A key question is whether this will permanently alter the course of the climate crisis. Many experts think it might well do so, pulling forward the date at which demand for oil and gas peaks, never to recover, and allowing the atmosphere to gradually heal. Continue reading...

Lisa Nandy, Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey answer 17 questions put by the Guardian

Analysis of underwater photographs has demonstrated what marine biologists have long suspected – seasonal fish migrationsNew research has finally demonstrated what many marine biologists suspected but had never before seen: fish migrating through the deep sea.The study, published this month in the Journal of Animal Ecology, used analysis of deep-sea photographs to show a regular increase in the number of fish in particular months, suggesting seasonal migrations. Continue reading...

Verdict expected after four years of protracted talks as production of the fossil fuel fell to record lows of 2.9m tonnesMinisters will decide this month whether to give the green light to plans for the UK’s largest coalmine after years of fierce opposition from environmentalists.A letter from the government’s lawyers, seen by the Guardian, said the government will draw a line on the protracted battle to develop an opencast mine at Highthorn in Northumberland by giving a verdict on the plans by Tuesday 7 April. Continue reading...

Migration to European breeding grounds from Africa is harder due to evolutionary changesThe nightingale was feted by John Keats as a “light-winged Dryad of the trees”. But the much-celebrated small bird with a beautiful song may be increasingly endangered because its wings are getting shorter.The nightingale makes an epic journey from sub-Saharan Africa to breed in Europe each summer but there are barely 7,000 nesting pairs left in England. Continue reading...

Australian Conservation Foundation says about 729,000 tonnes of CO above agreed industrial limits went unpenalisedNearly one in five of Australia’s big polluting industrial sites increased greenhouse gas emissions above government-set limits last financial year, an analysis of official data shows.It found 38 of the 210 mines, smelters, refineries and other industrial facilities covered by the federal government’s “safeguard mechanism” policy exceeded previous pollution limits based on historic or projected emissions. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Mass bleaching seen along Great Barrier Reef could mark start of global-scale event, expert warnsRising ocean temperatures could have pushed the world’s tropical coral reefs over a tipping point where they are hit by bleaching on a “near-annual” basis, according to the head of a US government agency program that monitors the globe’s coral reefs.Dr Mark Eakin, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Guardian Australia there was a risk that mass bleaching seen along the length of the Great Barrier Reef in 2020 could mark the start of another global-scale bleaching event. Continue reading...

Shutdown of SSE and RWE plants comes before UK ban on coal-fired power from 2025The energy corporations SSE and RWE have shut the door on coal-fired power generation by closing the Fiddler’s Ferry power station in Warrington, Cheshire, and the Aberthaw coal plant in Wales after almost 50 years.The Fiddler’s Ferry power plant began generating enough electricity to power 2m homes in 1973 and is officially closing on Tuesday. The Aberthaw plant, which is slightly smaller and first began helping to power the UK electricity system in 1971, is shutting on the same day. Continue reading...

Recycling Association warns of serious impact on supplies of food and medicine packaging

Berejiklian government gives green light to Peabody Energy to extract coal beneath reservoir for its Metropolitan mineThe New South Wales government has approved the extension of coalmining under one of Greater Sydney’s reservoirs in a move that environment groups say could affect the quality of water in the drinking catchment.The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment has granted approval to Peabody Energy for three new longwalls that will extract coal as part of its Metropolitan mine. Continue reading...

Graphic imagery should be used on petrol pumps and air tickets, experts sayCigarette packets with grisly warnings of the consequences of smoking are intended to deter smokers. Now a group of public health experts says similar warnings should appear on high-carbon products, from airline tickets and energy bills to petrol pumps, to show consumers the health impacts of the climate crisis.Warning labels would be a cheap but potentially highly effective intervention that would make consumers aware of the impact of their purchases on climate breakdown, according to the experts. Continue reading...

The site of mass fish kills in 2019 has received significant inflows and the lower Darling River will finally reconnect with the Murray“It’s hard to put into words,” Graeme McCrabb says of seeing water flow again into the Menindee Lakes.“After the fish kills there’s a more emotional viewing of water coming through. The significance of these pools being refreshed and fish getting a chance to survive, it’s pretty moving.” Continue reading...

They might be closed to the public, but the animals still need to be tended and fed by staff

Bank pledges to align all of its financing activities with goals of Paris climate agreementBarclays has bowed to investor pressure over its climate track record and announced plans to shrink its carbon footprint to net zero by 2050.The bank, which has its headquarters in London, has pledged to align all of its financing activities with the goals and timelines of the Paris agreement, starting with the energy and power sectors, and to publish “transparent targets” to track its progress. Continue reading...

Proposals criticised amid fears countries may use coronavirus crisis to rein in commitments

Internal documents describe how to profit from farmer losses and desire to oppose some independent testingThe US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who would buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, according to documents unearthed during a recent successful $265m lawsuit brought against both firms by a Missouri farmer. Continue reading...

Neal Maxwell wants trade to go from 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year to zero by 2040A builder from Merseyside has launched a project that aims to remove plastic from the British construction industry within two decades.Neal Maxwell, who has worked in the trade for more than 30 years, co-founded the non-profit organisation Changing Streams after a trip to the Arctic. Continue reading...

UK prime minister’s refusal to criticise Amazon fires and sharp rise in deforestation praised by Brazilian ambassadorBoris Johnson was personally thanked by the Brazilian government for refusing to support European action over the Amazon fires, according to documents obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.As the rainforest burned last summer – fuelled by a sharp rise in deforestation that critics blame partly on President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda – Johnson criticised a threat by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to block the EU’s Mercosur trade deal with Brazil. Continue reading...

Activists say hundreds have been trampled by previous cross-country races near pond

Broadcaster says in magazine interview that if we damage nature ‘we damage ourselves’The natural world can be a source of solace during times of crisis, Sir David Attenborough has said.Speaking about the climate, the broadcaster and naturalist, 93, said the world was at an unprecedented point. Continue reading...

The annual Australia’s Environment report finds last year’s heat and drought caused unprecedented damageRecord heat and drought across Australia delivered the worst environmental conditions across the country since at least 2000, with river flows, tree cover and wildlife being hit on an “unprecedented scale”, according to a new report.The index of environmental conditions in Australia scored 2019 at 0.8 out of 10 – the worst result across all the years analysed from 2000. Continue reading...

Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles awayNearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, were born last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco. Continue reading...