Handbook outlines practical ways faith organisations can speak truth to power' to help protect planetChristians around the world are being encouraged to take legal action against polluters and those who finance them.In a new climate justice handbook, the World Council of Churches sets out practical ways faith organisations can help protect young people and future generations from the climate crisis. Continue reading...
Measures blocking companies involved in modern slavery from receiving public money could be overturnedMeasures that would have blocked companies found to have used forced labour in any part of the state-owned Great British Energy supply chain from receiving public money could be overturned this week.Labour MPs are being whipped on Tuesday to throw out the clause that was inserted into the energy bill in the House of Lords in February. Continue reading...
BYD, a Chinese carmaker once dismissed by Tesla's CEO, claims to have outpaced western rivals with charging tech that's as fast as filling petrol enginesTesla's boss, Elon Musk, once thought the idea that China's BYD could compete with his company was laughable. In 2011, he smugly dismissed the Chinese carmaker as unimpressive, its products unattractive and its technology not very strong". He's not laughing now - and not just because Tesla's stock has plummeted amid a boycott by motorists protesting against his embrace of far-right politics. More pressingly, Mr Musk, like other western carmakers, has been outpaced by BYD.Last week, the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer unveiled new charging technology that, it says, is capable of delivering 400km (249 miles) of driving range in just five minutes - as quick as filling up a petrol car. The system, released next month, will be fitted in two EVs, priced from 270,000 yuan (29,000) - comparable to Tesla's most affordable model in China. Yet BYD claims to quadruple Tesla's kilometres-per-minute charging rate. Technological supremacy at a competitive price may help to explain why BYD now sells seven times as many cars in China as Tesla. Continue reading...
MPs claim during her 2022 party leadership campaign she promised them she was committed to green targetsKemi Badenoch has been accused of breaking a promise made to Tory MPs during her leadership campaign after abandoning the party's commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.Speaking to the Observer, Chris Skidmore, who served as a government minister between 2016 and 2020, said that Badenoch had made clear to a group of Tory MPs and other Conservatives at a leadership hustings in 2022, when she was seeking their votes in the race to replace Boris Johnson, that she backed the policy. Continue reading...
Australia's world heritage-listed reefs - Ningaloo on the west coast and the Great Barrier Reef on the east - are being hit by simultaneous coral bleaching, with teams of scientists on both coasts monitoring and tracking the event across thousands of kilometres of marine habitat. On Western Australia's Ningaloo reef, waters have accumulated the highest amount of heat stress on record during an extended marine heatwave that has hit coral reefs all the way along the state's vast coastline
Giant blobs along 5,000-mile-wide sargassum belt has killed animals, harmed human health and discouraged tourismScientists in Florida believe they have identified a tipping point" in atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic Ocean they say caused giant clumps of toxic seaweed to inundate beaches around the Caribbean in recent summers.Previous theories for the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt that has killed marine animals, harmed human health and plagued the tourism industry in several countries include a surfeit of nutrients in the water, such as nitrogen and phosphorus in runoff from intensive farming and carried into the ocean in the Congo, Amazon and Mississippi rivers. Continue reading...
Conservationists find critically endangered species thriving on Indian Ocean island of ArideRecord numbers of Wright's gardenia, one of the world's rarest and most fragrant trees, have been counted on the tiny tropical island of Aride in Seychelles.The only place in the world where the critically endangered tree occurs naturally is on the 72-hectare granite island in the Indian Ocean. The tree was once found on other, larger islands in the Seychelles archipelago but its sturdy wood was harvested for firewood, leading to its disappearance from everywhere except Aride. Continue reading...
Bird of prey's violent reign in Flamstead could soon come to an end, according to parish councilIt stole two woolly hats from the head of a 91-year-old pensioner. It clawed a jogger's scalp and left him reeling. It is said to swoop in from behind without making a sound, has a penchant for tall men's heads and - so far - has evaded capture.But the violent reign of the Flamstead hawk, which has made men in the Hertfordshire village of Flamstead afraid to go out without covering their heads, may soon be at an end. Continue reading...
A new prize recognises the power of storytelling to address the biggest issue of our timeNo novelist should ignore the climate emergency, Paul Murray, author of the bestselling novel The Bee Sting, told the Observer last year: It is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century." In recognition of the vital role of literature in responding to the Anthropocene moment, this week the inaugural shortlist was announced for the Climate Fiction prize.The five novels include Orbital by Samantha Harvey, set during one day on the International Space Station and the winner of last year's Booker prize; time-travelling romcom The Ministry of Time from debut novelist Kaliane Bradley; eco-thriller Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen; And So I Roar, about a young girl in Nigeria, by Abi Dare; and a story of migrants in an abandoned city in Tea Obreht's The Morningside. Allthe shortlisted authors are women.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Researchers spot orange Maori octopus clinging to back of large shark off coast of New Zealand in December 2023Footage of an octopus riding a shark has stunned scientists - and delighted marine animal enthusiasts.Researchers spotted the orange Maori octopus clinging to the back of a large shortfin mako shark in the Hauraki Gulf off the northern coast of New Zealand in December 2023. The University of Auckland research team was searching the ocean for feeding frenzies at the time. Continue reading...
As Trump pushes drill, baby, drill' agenda, Greenpeace verdict offers startling outlook for environmental activismA pipeline company's victory in court over Greenpeace, and the huge damages it now faces, will encourage other oil and gas companies to legally pursue environmental protesters at a time when Donald Trump's energy agenda is in ascendancy, experts have warned.On Wednesday a North Dakota jury ruled that three Greenpeace entities collectively must pay Energy Transfer, which was co-founded by a prominent Trump donor, more than $660m, deciding that the organizations were liable for defamation and other claims after a five-week trial in Mandan, near where the Dakota Access pipeline protests occurred in 2016 and 2017. Continue reading...
Broadcaster and nature campaigner claims Labour's attack on wildlife in push for economic growth is PR disaster'Bats are being scapegoated" by Rachel Reeves, Chris Packham has said, after the chancellor suggested the winged creatures were getting in the way of economic growth.Reeves recently said she wanted businesses to focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about the bats and the newts", and this week the press release announcing her shake-up of all the UK's regulators mentioned bats six times. A very niche directive to Natural England, the nature watchdog, to take advice from the Bat Conservation Trust out of a planning document, became the linchpin of Reeves's deregulation plan. Continue reading...
Campaigners welcome long-delayed proposals to reduce pesticide-related harms to pollinatorsThe use of pesticides on UK farms is to be reduced by 10% by 2030 under government plans to protect bees and other pollinators.Campaigners welcomed the news, but said they were disappointed that the target applied only to arable farms and not to urban areas and parks. Continue reading...
The pumping of sewage into rivers and seas has become a scandal in Britain. Photographer Dylan Martinez has spent years travelling around the country to capture the story of its broken sewage system.In England, water companies discharged sewage for 3.6m hours in 2023, polluting streams, rivers and coastlines, littering them with sanitary products and condoms, damaging ecosystems and habitats, and scaring away tourists. Continue reading...
Water companies let waste disposers, for cash, dump their loads into sewage farms. When it is recklessly used as fertiliser, we are all at riskIf humanity has an epitaph, it might read something like this: Knackered by the things we missed." It is true that several existential threats are widely known and widely discussed. But some of the greatest dangers we face appear on almost no one's radar.How often have you thought about this one: spreading sewage sludge on farmland? I would guess very few would include it in their top civilisational hazards. Despite the best efforts of a handful of us, it trundles on, unknown to most. Surprising as it may seem, new research suggests that it could help call time on us.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Hilo office, with scientists and their volcano-monitoring equipment, may have lease cancelled from Doge cutsAs Hawaii's most active volcano shot out fountains of lava on Thursday, some of them reaching as high as 700ft, scientists from the US Geological Survey have been posting regular updates on the scale and pace of the eruptions.But those same scientists, along with their volcano-monitoring equipment, may soon be evicted from their office because of Elon Musk's federal government cost-cutting, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported. Continue reading...
Unesco report highlights unprecedented' glacier loss driven by climate crisis, threatening ecosystems, agriculture and water sourcesRetreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world, the UN has warned, as current unprecedented" rates of melting will have unpredictable consequences.Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in mountain regions, driven by the climate crisis, according to a Unesco report. Continue reading...
Amendment brought by coalition of parties says wolves add to food waste due to remains of livestock they killThe Spanish parliament has voted through a measure that will in effect lift the hunting ban on wolves that was imposed in 2021.A coalition led by the conservative People's party, with the support of the far-right Vox party and Basque and Catalan nationalists, added an amendment to a law aimed at reducing Spain's estimated 1.2bn kilograms of food waste. Continue reading...
Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular Nestle and Mondelz brandsWest Papua's Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture. Continue reading...
A consortium of Black farmers in the north-east take financial hits as harsh USDA cuts threaten their operationsFor the last several weeks, Jocelyn Germany has been asking herself is it safe for us to exist" as Black farmers?, since US Department of Agriculture cuts have put her work in jeopardy.Germany is the farmer advocate of Farm School NYC (FSNYC), an urban agriculture education center focused on food sovereignty and social, economic and racial justice. About 85% of Farm School NYC's funding comes from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Continue reading...
Conservationists voice concern that the Ontario theme park will struggle to find suitable homes for its animalsCanada's embattled Marineland theme park is to raise money to expeditiously" remove animals from its grounds, including the world's largest captive beluga population, as it looks for a buyer. But a lack of available sanctuaries in the country suggests finding a home for stranded whales, dolphins and pinnipeds will be a daunting task.In February, the park won approval to divide its sprawling property so it can take out mortgages on separate parcels, with the aim of using the funds to keep the park operating and to move the animals. In documents filed to the city of Niagara, Marineland said the financing it had secured requires the owner to remove the marine animals from the property expeditiously". Continue reading...
by Todd Wilkinson in Yellowstone national park, US on (#6W2EF)
The contagious, fatal illness in deer, elk and moose must be taken seriously, say experts as it takes hold in the US and reaches other countries. While it has not infected humans yet, the risk is growingIn a scattershot pattern that now extends from coast to coast, continental US states have been announcing new hotspots of chronic wasting disease (CWD).The contagious and always-fatal neurodegenerative disorder infects the cervid family that includes deer, elk, moose and, in higher latitudes, reindeer. There is no vaccine or treatment. Continue reading...
Experts warn new memo could deter families from accessing food assistance, despite no changes to eligibility rulesThe Trump administration is now using popular anti-hunger programs, including food assistance and school lunch, as part of its attack against immigrants in the US - a move many say will prevent large numbers of families, especially children, from getting the food benefits they're eligible for.In a recent memo, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins told senior staff at the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS): It is essential to use all available legal authority to end any incentives in FNS benefit programs that encourage illegal immigration." Continue reading...
by Josh Toussaint-Strauss Alex Healey Steve Glew Ali on (#6W2EG)
As droughts become more prevalent, corporate control over our drinking water is threatening the health of water sources and the access people have to them. Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores how foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from natural aquifers to sell back to the same communities from which it came - for huge profits
The ancient Mediterranean city is at risk as sea levels rise. But most people in the vulnerable fishing village of El Max believe it will always weather the storms of timeOn a sunny January morning in El Max, west of Egypt's second city, Alexandria, where a canal meets the Mediterranean Sea, Ahmed Gaz is untangling his fishing net on the beach after landing his catch at dawn.Like almost everyone in the neighbourhood, Gaz was born and raised by the water, destined to fish for a living: My whole life is in the sea. My life, my work and my livelihood." Continue reading...
The run-up to 2016 shows common sense' isn't enough. Even ignorant, reactionary arguments must be properly counteredKemi Badenoch's speech on climate this week was not interesting of itself: she said net zero couldn't be achieved by 2050 without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us". She has no expertise in climate science, no background in renewables or apparent familiarity with the advances made in their technology, no qualification in economics - just about the only bit of that sentence she knows anything about is bankrupting us.Yet even if Badenoch can take its particulars and shove them, the fact of its existence is interesting for a number of reasons. First, this attack on net zero has been predicted, not secretly by new-Conservative fellow travellers, though conceivably them too, but by progressives - and for years. Among the first was the Cambridge academic David Runciman, who predicted a backlash against action on the climate crisis as the new galvanising issue on the radical right after it had moved on from Brexit. On his Talking Politics podcast, he was in conversation with Ed Miliband, who took that point but said he hoped Runciman was wrong. He was not wrong.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Researchers cite 2.4bn annual cost of flooding and say a third of England's critical infrastructure is at riskSpending on flood defences will fall off a cliff edge next year, a report warns, calling on the chancellor to commit at least 1.5bn a year in the spending review to protect the economy and the public.Nearly 2 million people across the UK are exposed to flooding every year, which is equivalent to the combined populations of Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle upon Tyne. Continue reading...
Charity's poll finds 80% feel more positive after spending breaks outside, but only 10% do soEmployees are being urged to step outside to take time to observe one of the wonders of the natural world: the fleeting but lovely spring blossom season.Research commissioned by the National Trust, which operates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, shows that while almost all those polled said they felt better if they took breaks in nature, only one in 10 did so. Continue reading...
Non-profit, which will appeal decision, says lawsuits like this are aimed at destroying the right to peaceful protest'A jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, had sued Greenpeace, alleging defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017, claiming the organization incited" people to protest by using a misinformation campaign". Continue reading...
by Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent on (#6W1QF)
German coal giant is one of world's biggest polluters and should contribute to flood defences, says farmer in PeruA Peruvian farmer's home is in concrete danger" from climate change, a court has heard, in the resumption of a decade-long legal battle to get German coal giant RWE to contribute to flood defences in the Andes.Lawyers for Saul Luciano Lliuya, who say his home is threatened by rapidly melting glaciers, told the upper regional court in Hamm on Wednesday that the risk of extreme flooding represented a breach of civil law. Continue reading...
The endangered great apes of Malaysia and Indonesia struggle when translocated despite efforts to protect them, finds researchWhen authorities were called about reports of an orangutan in an Indonesian village, they arrived to find it bound with ropes by concerned local people. Worried about the animal's proximity to humans, plans for translocation were made: removing it to an undisturbed forest habitat, far from human settlements, where it could peacefully live in the treetops. But when they finally identified the 20-year-old male, they found it had been relocated before, but, instead of settling in the new site it had travelled about 130km (80miles) away.Researchers are starting to realise that many great apes struggle when they are moved far from their homes, despite well-intentioned efforts to protect them. Continue reading...
Agriculture department cuts to funding for local food in school meals betrays growers, kids and collective wellbeingIf you happened to smell hickory smoke in the city this week, we were probably to blame," the North Little Rock school district's child nutrition program shared in a 30 January Facebook post featuring a picture of the day's lunch.The locally sourced menu included school-smoked chopped beef, pulled pork, fresh apples and coleslaw. This isn't standard cafeteria fare, but funds from the US government helped kids in this Arkansas town get fresh, nourishing foods produced by farmers and ranchers in their own community. Continue reading...
Americans eat takeout more. Some drink less. Bar-and-grill chains have shuttered. But the restaurant industry has evolved and reboundedBefore Covid, Li'l Dizzy's, a Creole buffet run by one of New Orleans' famous Black restaurant families, was a mainstay of the city's Treme neighborhood. But when officials issued the first Covid stay-at-home orders in March 2020, Li'l Dizzy's closed, and it did not reopen: how could a buffet restaurant operate during a pandemic?That fall, the cafe's 73-year-old owner, Wayne Baquet Sr, announced he was selling the restaurant, citing his age and pandemic health risks. The closure appeared to mark the end of a Baquet culinary family legacy that started in Treme in the 1940s and expanded to other family outposts across the city. Continue reading...
Scotland's first minister speaking as report suggests up to 1,200 jobs could be created - but too late for refinery's workersThere is a realistic chance that one of the UK's largest oil refineries can be converted into a hub for green chemicals, sustainable fuels and plastics, Scotland's first minister says.Grangemouth oil refinery, which is being shut down by its UK and Chinese owners PetroIneos this year with the loss of 400 jobs, could become a world leader in low carbon chemicals and green fuels, John Swinney told media on Wednesday. Continue reading...
by Oliver Milman and Dharna Noor, with data reporting on (#6W17W)
Moves to roll back 31 pollution regulations risk public health and big annual healthcare savings, Guardian analysis showsA push by Donald Trump's administration to repeal a barrage of clean air and water regulations may deal a severe blow to US public health, with a Guardian analysis finding that the targeted rules were set to save the lives of nearly 200,000 people in the years ahead.Last week, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provoked uproar by unveiling a list of 31 regulations it will scale back or eliminate, including rules limiting harmful air pollution from cars and power plants; restrictions on the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin; and clean water protections for rivers and streams. Continue reading...
Litter such as crisp packets and bottle tops are polluting the coast at the rate of nearly two items a sq metre, conservation charity report findsSingle-use plastic waste increased on UK and Channel Island beaches last year with items such as crisp packets and bottle tops polluting the coast at the rate of almost two items a sq metre, according to data from beach cleanups.The amount of plastic waste collected on beaches rose by 9.5% in 2024, compared with 2023, and more than three-quarters of a million pieces of waste were picked up by volunteers, according to evidence from the State of our Beaches report by the Marine Conservation Society. Continue reading...
by Damien Gayle Environment correspondent on (#6W15G)
Academics say UK defendants should be able to explain reasons for their actions and not have to express remorseProtesters charged with non-violent offences should not be forced to disavow their motives when defending themselves at trial or seeking mitigation on their sentences, academics have said.In a challenge to the current approach to protest trials, a study argues courts should allow defendants to explain the reasons for their actions as a defence, and respect their integrity as a mitigating factor. Continue reading...
I drove 2,000 miles with a French friend across my home country - and saw the endless nowhere land that is the crucible of TrumpismIn 1941 Dorothy Thompson, an American journalist who reported from Germany in the lead-up to the second world war, wrote an essay for Harper's about the personality types most likely to be attracted to Nazism, headlined Who Goes Nazi?" Those who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't - whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi," Thompson wrote.Talia Lavin, a US writer, recently gave Thompson's idea an update on Substack with an essay of her own: Who Goes Maga?"Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe correspondent Continue reading...