Discovery draws criticism from those who say fashion industry generates too much wasteHundreds of Victoria’s Secret bras have reportedly been found discarded in a bin close to a recently closed branch of the lingerie store in Colorado.The discovery comes at a time when the fashion industry is under fire for generating significant levels of waste, while Victoria’s Secret continues to face criticism regarding recent controversies. Continue reading...

Utah aims to reduce emissions over air quality concerns as other red states are also starting to tackle global heatingIn a move to protect its ski slopes and growing economy, Utah – one of the reddest states in the nation – has just created a long-term plan to address the climate crisis.Related: Washington state takes bold step to restrict companies from bottling local water Continue reading...

The billionaire couple want to provide ready-made solar and battery arrays to communities cut off from the power gridSoftware billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie have promised up to $12m to install solar and battery systems in communities disconnected from the electricity grid by bushfire or flood.The couple say they will provide prefabricated solar panel and battery systems through a new venture, known as Resilient Energy Collective, that will power up to 100 sites disconnected from the grid in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Some are relying on diesel generators, others are without power. Continue reading...

The ALP leader says a feasibility study into a new coal-fired power station in Queensland is ‘hush money’ for climate scepticsAnthony Albanese says he supports jobs and economic activity from the Adani coalmine, but he has blasted a feasibility study into a new coal-fired power plant in Collinsville as “hush money” for climate sceptics in the Coalition.In Queensland on Wednesday for his fourth “vision statement” since taking the Labor leadership, Albanese told reporters the ALP needed to improve its electoral performance in the state given the poor showing in last year’s federal election. He said he was listening to voters in a number of regional centres. Continue reading...

Rivers Severn, Teme and Wye will remain high as rain builds up again from Wednesday morningFlood-hit UK communities are braced for further heavy rain as river levels continue to threaten to breach barriers.Hundreds of properties have been flooded and at-risk areas evacuated across England and Wales after the downpours brought by Storm Dennis. Continue reading...

For all the talk of retraining Polish miners, this fund will most likely line the pockets of the carbon finance elites

Children in biggest carbon-emitting nations are healthiest, while those with tiny environmental footprints suffer twofold from poor health and living at the sharp end of the climate crisisEvery country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report.The report says that despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over the past 20 years, “today’s children face an uncertain future”, with every child facing “existential threats”. Continue reading...

State senate passes bill to ban new permits for water bottling operations, calling process ‘detrimental to public welfare’Washington has taken a major step toward becoming the first US state to restrict companies looking to extract, bottle and sell local water supplies.On Monday night the state senate passed a bill that would ban new permits for water bottling operations. SB 6278 states “any use of water for the commercial production of bottled water is deemed to be detrimental to the public welfare and the public interest” and would apply retroactively to new permits filed after 1 January 2019. Continue reading...

Miner will not set climate targets, but will produce less coal as reserves are depletedMining giant Glencore has predicted its carbon footprint will shrink by almost a third by 2035, but will not set climate targets for the company.The company expects its total carbon emissions to fall by 30% in the next 15 years as it gradually produces less coal due to the “natural depletion” of its coal reserves. Continue reading...

Many facilities lack the ability to process ‘mixed plastics’, a category of waste that has virtually no market as new productsMany plastic items that Americans put in their recycling bins aren’t being recycled at all, according to a major new survey of hundreds of recycling facilities across the US.The research, conducted by Greenpeace and released on Tuesday, found that out of 367 recycling recovery facilities surveyed none could process coffee pods, fewer than 15% accepted plastic clamshells – such as those used to package fruit, salad or baked goods – and only a tiny percentage took plates, cups, bags and trays. Continue reading...

Scientists propose best use of funds pledged by Amazon founder to fight climate crisisAmazon revenue to restore the Amazon rainforest? A political war chest in the US to counter the pernicious influence of big oil? Or research funding for “moonshot” technologies to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?The world’s richest man is never going to be short of suggestions for how to spend money, but Jeff Bezos’s announcement of a new $10bn (£7.67bn) Earth Fund to fight global heating has raised the question of what is the best bang for a climate buck. Continue reading...

P&O Maritime employee Madeleine Habib was asked to remove social media post of a banner on the ship after the Australian Antarctic Division contacted P&OAn officer on Australia’s flagship Antarctic icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, was asked by bosses to remove a social media post showing her on deck with a banner critical of Scott Morrison’s climate policies after Australia’s Antarctic Division contacted her employer.Madeleine Habib, currently in Antarctica, unfurled the banner with the words “Scomo – Coal or Ice?” and posted the picture on her Facebook page. Continue reading...

Pollination has become big business, and thieves are now targeting hives with growing sophistication in the USMike Potts was aware he was at risk of being a victim of crime, he just didn’t think it would happen to him. But Potts is an owner of an increasingly valuable commodity that thieves are targeting with growing sophistication in the US: bees.A booming demand for honeybees for pollination drew Potts, owner of Pottsy’s Pollination in Oregon, to load 400 hives of his bees on trucks and drive them down to California’s agricultural heartland last month. He unloaded them to a holding area just outside Yuba City and returned just a few days later to find 92 hives had been whisked away by thieves. Continue reading...

Experiment revealed increased wind speeds reduced the efficiency of their foraging

Water is being trucked to several NSW south coast towns and a mobile treatment plant is filtering water at the Brogo damTowns in the bushfire-ravaged Bega Valley are relying on water carted in milk tanks after flooding made the catchment’s water supply undrinkable.Bega Valley shire council has been trucking bore water from Bega for towns such as Bermagui, Cobargo and Quaama and the Australian Defence Force has set up a mobile water treatment plant to filter the water supply at the Brogo dam. Continue reading...

Solar panels, heat pumps and sustainable designs bypassed – but now one Somerset school is taking a standIt is a modernist version of a log cabin nestling in a busy south London suburb – and it is about to make history. The new building for Hackbridge primary, in Sutton, opens next week as England’s first zero-carbon school, able to produce and conserve as much energy as it uses, and even put unused electricity generated back into the grid.With its wood frame and cladding, solar panels, pumps to collect heat from the ground, and insulation made from recycled newspaper, it is the first school in England to meet the ambitious Passivhaus Plus low-energy design standard. Continue reading...

As governments prepare to negotiate a Paris-style UN agreement on nature, 23 former foreign ministers have issued a call for urgent actionHumanity’s ongoing destruction of nature threatens the survival of our species, a group of former foreign ministers has warned, calling on leaders to step back from “the precipice” of irreversible ecological ruin and protect the planet.The planet’s rapidly warming oceans must be the focus of increased conservation efforts due to their importance in producing oxygen and food for billions of people, the former ministers added, as governments prepare to begin negotiations for a Paris-style UN agreement on nature next week. Continue reading...

Northland residents describe ‘heartbreaking’ find as experts warn climate crisis could make it a more frequent sightHundreds of thousands of mussels have been cooked to death on a beach in New Zealand’s North Island, with experts saying more will die as the effects of the climate crisis accelerate.The mass die-off in Northland was sparked by “an exceptional period of warm weather” combined with low tides in the middle of the day, which had exposed the shellfish, said Dr Andrew Jeffs, a marine scientist from the University of Auckland. Continue reading...

Government pledges to spend £20m turning canals, mines and rail lines into heat sourcesThe canals of the West Midlands may seem an unlikely source of warmth, but these waterways could soon be used to heat hospitals and tower blocks under a plan to harness Britain’s hidden heating sources.The government has promised to spend more than £20m on nine schemes across the country to exploit cheap, renewable heat from canals, old mineshafts and in London tube lines. Continue reading...

Drop from level 2 to level 1 restrictions announced after the ‘biggest rain event in 20 years’

Discovery of reptiles comes days after 13 royal pythons were found in same locationA second nest of 16 snakes has been found dumped outside a fire station, days after 13 royal pythons were found in the same spot.Related: Scottish animal welfare baffled by python mutilation in Aberdeen Continue reading...

Survey shows ‘significant and substantial’ decline in the popularity of Scott Morrison and the CoalitionAustralia’s bushfire crisis has caused a spike in concern about the environment, a hit to the popularity of the Coalition and Scott Morrison and a drop in support for new coalmines, even among Coalition voters.Those are the conclusions of a poll of 3,249 Australians conducted by the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, which found a “significant and substantial decline” in the Coalition’s vote from 40% in October 2019 to 35% in January. Continue reading...

Engineers at the University of Queensland say technology could be used to power small devices, such as a phone, within two yearsA flexible solar “skin” that could be used to generate power on homes, cars and phones is a step closer to development after the technology was used to break a world record for electricity conversion, researchers say.Engineers at the University of Queensland have been working with nanoparticles known as quantum dots that pass electrons and generate an electrical current when exposed to solar energy. Continue reading...

Action at Trinity part of week-long protests over ties between colleges and fossil fuel industryExtinction Rebellion protesters have dug up the lawn of Trinity College, Cambridge, as part of a week-long series of demonstrations.The climate activists dug channels into the turf in front of the college’s 16th-century great gate with shovels and pitchforks and planted Extinction Rebellion flags. Continue reading...

Spill is enough to fill 320 Olympic-sized pools and fouled Tarpon River, Himmarshee Canal and streets in three neighborhoodsFort Lauderdale officials say 211.6m gallons of sewage has spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways in the past few months.The Sun-Sentinel reports that’s enough to fill 320 Olympic-sized pools. Continue reading...

Every February Horsetail Fall is lit by the setting sun, bringing thousands of people to Yosemite to watch the phenomenon

The backbencher calls for a roadmap to net zero as ‘an arms race’ in low emissions technology drives transformationThe Victorian Liberal Katie Allen has declared the world is approaching an “iPhone moment” when it comes to new technology lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and Australia needs to be part of the revolution, rather than being a technology “taker”.Allen has joined fellow Liberal Trent Zimmerman in noting the Coalition’s decision to sign the Paris agreement means Australia has already committed to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. But she said the government should not nominate a specific date to hit the milestone until it had developed a policy roadmap. Continue reading...

Explorer says halting imports would recognise the devastating impact of colonialism on wildlifeBanning the import and export of big game hunting trophies would recognise the destructive impact European powers have had on wildlife in former African and Asian colonies, Sir Ranulph Fiennes has said.Speaking to the Guardian, the veteran British explorer said hunting endangered species such as rhinos, elephants and lions to keep their body parts as trophies should be viewed with the same scepticism as Chinese traditional medicine in terms of the damage it does to biodiversity. Continue reading...

Use of ‘scrubbers’ to cut air pollution increases pollutants pumped into sea, UN report saysNew shipping pollution regulations introduced earlier this year could harm humans by contaminating fish and crustaceans with toxins, according to an internal report compiled by the International Maritime Organization and obtained by the Guardian.In the report the IMO, the United Nations agency responsible for regulating shipping, says that there is insufficient “toxicity data” to be able to assess the risk to humans caused by the increased use of exhaust gas cleaning systems, which are also known as “scrubbers”. Continue reading...

Mining giant allowed 13% increase in emissions in three years under Coalition policy that promised to limit increases in pollution from big industryMining giant BHP has repeatedly applied and been granted approval to increase its emissions under an Australian government policy that promised to limit carbon pollution from big industry.Government data shows BHP exceeded its initial emissions limits, set under the scheme known as the “safeguard mechanism”, at eight of its 14 large Australian industrial sites since 2016-17. Continue reading...

Downstream communities furious after northern Murray-Darling Basin irrigators told harvesting embargo to be lifted

Local council leaders said they were forced into ‘exceptional’ move to protect jobsA French ski resort has angered ecologists by using a helicopter to move snow from higher up the mountains after exceptionally mild weather left its slopes bare.Officials at Luchon-Superbagnères in the Pyrenees authorised the “exceptional” emergency operation overnight on Friday. Continue reading...

Enthusiasts say red tape and enforced fees would spoil popular Hampstead pondsEven in the bleak midwinter, a hardy few can be found bobbing around the dark waters of the Highgate bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath in north London, their faces wreathed in near-beatific smiles.As the late nature writer Roger Deakin enthused about wild swimming: “I can dive in with a long face, and what feels like a terminal case of depression, and come out a whistling idiot.” Continue reading...

As Dennis rages in a week after Ciara, flights are cancelled and trains are delayed amid warnings of widespread floodingStorm Dennis has wreaked havoc on Britain, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains, and the deaths of at least two people yesterday.As the so-called bomb cyclone battered the coastline, as much as a month’s worth of rainfall was predicted overnight and into Sunday morning in some parts of the UK. Continue reading...

Wet weather expected to continue in parts of NSW, with showers and possible storms predictedSydney and New South Wales coastal residents are in for more wet weather with showers and possible storms predicted throughout the Sunday.The Bureau of Meteorology said central and southern NSW coastal areas would experience offshore winds, which caused havoc after ex-cyclone Uesi passed through to the south of the country. Continue reading...

The Liberal moderate says a 2050 target will bring Australia into line with its commitments under the Paris agreement• Australian politics live podcast with Trent Zimmerman: ‘I don’t think we should fund new coal-fired power plants’The Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman says the Morrison government should work towards adopting a target of net zero emissions by 2050 to bring itself into line with commitments Australia made under the Paris agreement, and to align Canberra’s policy with emissions reduction targets adopted by the states.In an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast, Zimmerman said it was reasonable for the prime minister to want to do due diligence on what net zero would cost, and to consider what a policy roadmap would look like, “but this is something that we should be looking very seriously at”. Continue reading...

Once one of western Europe’s biggest landfill sites, Thurrock Thameside is now a thriving haven for wildlifeStanding on top of the visitor centre at Thurrock Thameside Nature Park, you could be forgiven for being disappointed by the view: a large field of brambles. But just 10 years ago, the same view would have been even more disappointing: mountains of rubbish heaped up on one of Europe’s largest landfill sites.For 50 years, the site absorbed waste belched out by Londoners. Now the only reminder of its past life is the odd piece of discarded metal. Continue reading...

Activists aim to raise awareness of sustainable design and the need to reduce emissions from flightsActivists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) blocked traffic outside a London fashion week venue on Saturday and also staged a protest at Gatwick airport.Dozens of demonstrators prevented traffic from passing through a busy intersection leading to the Strand in Westminster, where the fashion trade show was being held. Continue reading...

Unilever-backed Loop launches ambitious bid to deliver refills of staple goods to householdsThe home delivery model pioneered by milkmen is getting a 21st century makeover as part of the war on plastic. A major new online service backed by the world’s biggest brands will deliver products ranging from soft drinks to washing powder and shampoo in refillable containers to your front door.The Loop, which launches next month, is one of the most ambitious attempts yet to eliminate plastic waste from the weekly shop. It is backed by major consumer goods companies Unilever and PepsiCo, who have created eco-versions of popular brands including Tropicana, Persil and Hellmann’s, to sell via the website. Continue reading...

Forceful declaration calls for governments to set short-term zero emissions target to avoid catastrophic warmingThe megafires of Australia’s summer “are a harbinger of life and death on a hotter Earth”, a climate summit has said in a forceful declaration for urgent and dramatic climate action.The Climate Emergency Summit, held in Melbourne this week and of which Guardian Australia was a partner, released a declaration saying the warming world was a clear threat to Australian society and civilisation. Continue reading...

IEA welcomes appointment of Alok Sharma but others worry about nature of his dual roleBoris Johnson must put the climate crisis at the top of his government’s agenda if crunch UN talks this year are to be a success, leading international figures have told the Guardian.Alok Sharma was appointed on Thursday as the business secretary and president of Cop26, the UN talks on the climate crisis to be held this November in Glasgow. Some climate experts are concerned that he won’t be able to stand up to governments reluctant to make strong commitments to cut greenhouse gases, while at the same time supporting British businesses struggling in the turmoil of Brexit. Continue reading...

Scientists say it’s the poppies’ fat and protein, not their narcotic alkaloids, that keep the birds coming back for moreTasmanian farmers have reported their poppy crops are being ravaged by cockatoos, but experts say it is likely that it is a taste for the fatty seeds, and not an addiction to opiates, that is attracting the birds.Tasmanian farmer Bernard Brain told the ABC on Tuesday that flocks of about 300 white cockatoos had decimated his harvest by ripping capsules from his poppy flowers and eating them, leading him to believe that the native birds were addicted to the alkaloid found in the seed. Continue reading...

Art, culture, nature and property prices are tempting people away from the capital

Airline is committing $1bn over next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global businessDelta announced an ambitious plan on Friday to become the first US airline to go carbon neutral, committing $1bn over the next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global business.The move by Delta will put pressure on other airlines to follow suit at a time when the UN is warning that airplane emissions of carbon dioxide will triple by 2050. Continue reading...

In UK, students march on first anniversary of nationwide protests by young people

UK’s largest water firm opts not to join rebellion against Ofwat’s crackdown on profit levelsThames Water has backed down from the water industry rebellion against the regulator by accepting Ofwat’s toughest crackdown on profits.The UK’s largest water supplier gave “careful consideration” to joining the industry’s first rebellion against Ofwat, in which three major water utilities plan to challenge the regulator. Continue reading...

New chief executive sets out strategy at bank bailed out by the government in 2008Royal Bank of Scotland’s new chief executive is renaming the group NatWest in a corporate overhaul designed to put its 2008 government bailout, and the fallout from a a string of scandals, behind it.The lender said it was ditching the 293-year-old RBS company name, saying it was the right time to make a change at the parent company and reflect that NatWest is its biggest brand. However, the existing RBS bank branches – most of which are in Scotland – will keep their name, as will Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland. Continue reading...

If a company that made its name in oil wants us to believe it can be part of the climate solution, it needs to stop drillingBP’s got a new boss, Bernard Looney. He doesn’t wear a tie, he’s on Instagram and he’s going to shrink its carbon footprint to “net zero” by 2050. Is this for real?It’s a sign the tide is turning. Maybe not enough to save us from catastrophic sea-level rises, but a turn nonetheless. The oil industry is incredibly savvy when it comes to public opinion, and can see the steady erosion of its “social licence to operate” (a company’s ability to go about its business without too much challenge). It has been struggling to recruit young people for years, well before the school climate strikes started. Continue reading...

Protesters have blocked railways and barricaded ports in wave of dissent – and the pressure on Justin Trudeau has increasedAs armed Canadian police officers advanced through snow towards their camp, the group of Indigenous women was absorbed in a drumming ceremony to honour the spirits of missing and murdered Indigenous women across the country.Rows of red dresses hung from a fishing line slung across the road, and from pine and spruce trees in the surrounding forest – each one a memorial to the thousands of Indigenous women killed or disappeared in recent years. Continue reading...