Toxic best captures ‘the ethos, mood and preoccupations’ of the year, according to the dictionaryOxford Dictionaries has steered clear of “big dick energy” and the derogatory term “gammon” to name “toxic” as its word of the year, citing the adjective’s use to describe everything from the debate around Brexit to the environment and masculinity.Defining the word as “poisonous”, Oxford said it had become a “descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics”. The dictionary pointed to a 45% rise in the number of times the word has been looked up on its website, and said it best captured “the ethos, mood, or preoccupations” of 2018, thanks to “the sheer scope” of its application. Continue reading...

Heatwaves can limit generator capacity and lead to equipment failures, Aemo warnsExtreme weather over summer could reduce the output of coal, gas and hydro power generators and cause problems with the reliability of electricity supply, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.While there has been extensive political debate in Australia about the reliability of various forms of energy supply, the market operator will make the point on Friday that extreme weather imposes significant stress on the supposed ramparts of the system – thermal generators and transmission infrastructure. Continue reading...

Booming LNG sector is driving Australia’s carbon output, but industry claims revealing the details would damage international competitivenessThe Australian oil and gas lobby is pushing to limit public information about greenhouse gas emissions from liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, a move that contradicts the global industry’s pledge to increase transparency about their impact on the climate.The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (Appea) has called for LNG plants to be able to apply for emissions data to be withheld from the public on the grounds that releasing it could help its competitors overseas. It has been backed by Chevron, which operates the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG developments in Western Australia. Continue reading...

Under Greens policy, it would no longer be legal to dig, burn or ship thermal coal by 2030The Australian Greens will propose a phase-out of thermal coal exports by 2030 in a significant strengthening of the party’s existing policy, which has focused on banning new mines.The Greens’ climate change spokesman, Adam Bandt, will outline the shift on Friday in a speech to the United Firefighters Union in Hobart. The speech focuses on the growing risk of wildfires as a consequence of climate change. Continue reading...

Surprise judgment means government must halt capacity market schemeThe UK’s scheme for ensuring power supplies during the winter months has been suspended after a ruling by the European court of justice that it constitutes illegal state aid.Payments to energy firms under the £1bn capacity market scheme will be halted until the government can win permission from the European commission to restart it. Continue reading...

The industry has political supremacy even in left-leaning states, but immediate action can hold off an environmental state of emergencyThe world’s leading scientists issued a report warning of total planetary dystopia unless we take immediate steps to seriously reduce carbon emissions. Then, oil and gas corporations dumped millions of dollars into the 2018 elections to defeat the major initiatives that could have slightly reduced fossil fuel use.Though you may not know it from the cable TV coverage, this was one of the most significant – and the most terrifying – stories of the midterms. For those who actually care about the survival of the human race, the key questions now should be obvious: is there any reason to hope that we will retreat from “drill baby drill” and enact a sane set of climate policies? Or is our country – and, by extension, our species – just going to give up? Continue reading...

Greenpeace says retailers failing to take responsibility for reducing footprintBig supermarkets are producing billions of single-use plastic bags each year despite charges that are designed to reduce their use by the public.The UK’s 10 leading supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Co-op and Aldi, continue to put plastic bags into their shops three years after the introduction of 5p charges under EU law. Continue reading...

Neighbors in tiny Seminole Springs are banding together in the aftermath of California’s deadly wildfires

Retired engineer and manager Bill Bray volunteers with Citizens Climate Lobby, which aims to meet with all legislators twice a yearBill Bray makes sure to wear his ExxonMobil baseball cap to the farmers’ markets and Rotary clubs he visits in Texas to talk about climate change.Related: Shell boss says mass reforestation needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5C Continue reading...

Hilcorp’s plan to extract 70,000 barrels a day follows Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era ban on fossil fuel activity in the regionPlans to establish the first oil drilling operation in US Arctic waters have hit an ironic snag – a lack of sea ice caused by rapid warming in the region.Last month, the Trump administration approved the go-ahead of the Liberty project to extract oil from beneath the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s north coast. The drilling would be the first of its kind in federal waters in the Arctic and follows Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era ban on fossil fuel activity in the polar region. Continue reading...

Man used radio to contact coast guard after shark rammed and bit his craft and sent him flying into the ocean on the Sunshine CoastA kayaker has been sent flying after a four-metre tiger shark rammed and then sank its teeth into his tiny craft on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.The man, aged in his 30s, was fishing from his kayak off Moffat beach on Thursday morning when he was flung into the water, surfacing to find the shark with its jaws still clamped around one end. Continue reading...

Government advisers call for radical changes, including turning farmland into forestsTree planting must double by 2020 as part of radical changes to land use in the UK, according to the government’s advisers on climate change.New forests would lock up carbon but also help to limit the more frequent floods expected with global warming. Continue reading...

Major research also shows charging polluting trucks had no effect on healthPollution from diesel vehicles is stunting the growth of children’s lungs, leaving them damaged for life, a major study has found.The research, conducted with more than 2,000 school children in London, is the first such study in a city where diesel pollution is a significant factor, and has implications for cities around the world. It also showed that charges to deter polluting trucks from entering the city did reduce air pollution a little but did not reduce the harm to children’s lungs. Continue reading...

Fossil fuel companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil ‘knowingly caused harm’ by contributing to warming, group saysFor the fourth-generation crab fisherman John Beardon, the warming of Pacific waters off the coast of California has meant toxic crabs, shortened fishing seasons and a near decimation of his livelihood as a crab boat captain. Now he would like to see the industry he says is responsible pay for the damage.On Wednesday, associations representing California crab fishermen like Beardon filed suit against 30 fossil fuel companies seeking to make the companies pay for the harm global warming has caused to California’s fisheries. The suit demands that petroleum interests finance the changes that will be needed to sustain the crab fishing industry in the future. Continue reading...

Ukrainian author Serhii Plokhy, who grew up downstream from the damaged reactor, wins £30,000 prize for Chernobyl: History of a TragedyA Harvard history professor’s “haunting” account of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which delves into the “heartbreaking stories of heroism” from the people who helped to prevent the whole of Europe from becoming uninhabitable, has won the £30,000 Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction.Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy opens as a radiation alarm goes off in a power plant in Sweden, and as staff begin to suspect a Soviet accident. It goes on to lay out what led to the worst nuclear disaster in history, telling the stories of the firefighters, scientists, soldiers, engineers and policemen who worked to extinguish the nuclear inferno in Chernobyl on 26 April 1986. One of more than 200 books submitted for the Baillie Gifford prize, it beat a shortlist that also featured Carl Zimmer’s look at the science of inheritance, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh; Stephen R Platt’s history of the first opium war, Imperial Twilight; and Hannah Fry’s exploration of what it means to be human in the age of the machine, Hello World. Continue reading...

Hurricane rainfall could increase by a third and wind speeds boosted by up to 25 knots if global warming continuesClimate change worsened the most destructive hurricanes of recent years, including Katrina, Irma and Maria, by intensifying rainfall by as much as 10%, new research has found.Related: 'It's hyped up': climate change skeptics in the path of Hurricane Florence Continue reading...

Consulting engineer known for his work on nuclear safety who was never afraid to take on such a powerful industryJohn Large’s working life was split into two halves, the first spent designing civil and military nuclear reactors and the second trying to make sure the industry was kept safe from accidents, nuclear waste and security threats. In this later role as a consulting engineer John was a dangerous opponent for the secretive nuclear establishment because his inside knowledge gave him the ability to ask difficult questions and expose weaknesses. He was never afraid to speak truth to power, although it took courage to take on such a powerful industry.Despite his chosen role as an outsider, John’s abilities meant he had an astonishing list of clients ranging from the Russian Federation, the British government, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Greenpeace International. He was invited by the IAEA to China, North Korea and Iran, and by others to the US and Japan, to give advice on their nuclear programmes and the risks they posed. Continue reading...

Latest legal skirmish in a long battle between activists and the company building the pipeline, which is also behind Keystone XLLandowners in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin have filed suit against the company building the controversial Bayou Bridge pipeline for trespassing and property damage, claiming that it did not obtain legal authority before running stretches of the nearly completed pipeline through their property.It’s the latest legal skirmish in a long battle between Louisiana activists and Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which is also behind the the more well-known Keystone XL pipeline, and one that advocates hope might shutter the nearly completed 160-mile stretch of pipe before it goes live. Continue reading...

Jack Harries was at protest by Extinction Rebellion aiming to bring London to a standstillThe social media influencer Jack Harries has said young people have a duty to protest against environmental destruction, as he took part in a day of protest in London that led to at least 14 arrests.The 25-year-old, whose YouTube channel has 4 million subscribers, spoke to the Guardian as he helped hold a 68-metre banner over the side of Westminster Bridge with the words: “Climate change: we’re fucked”. Continue reading...

Fresh division among environmentalists over nuclear energy, the single largest source of low-carbon electricityLooming climate breakdown is opening fresh divisions among environmentalists over nuclear energy, with a major advocacy group calling for struggling nuclear plants to be propped up to avoid losing their low-carbon power.Nuclear is the single largest source of low-carbon electricity in the US. But a third of nuclear plants are unprofitable or scheduled to close, risking a rise in greenhouse gas emissions if they are replaced by coal or natural gas, a major Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report has found. Continue reading...

Kazakhstan is rich with oil, gas and coal but Nursultan Nazarbayev, its president for life, has committed the country to a dramatic shift from fossil fuels to green energy. Is this huge nation, which is beset by rural poverty, major infrastructure challenges and environmental crises, able to realise his vision? Phoebe Greenwood travels to the Kazakh capital, Astana, and the Aral Sea region

Retailer’s choice highlighting impact of palm oil production is deemed too political for TVIceland is to unleash a life-size animatronic orangutan on the streets of the UK after its Christmas advert highlighting the impact of palm oil production was banned for breaching political advertising rules.

Trees grow thicker bark and animals burrow for protection. We can use similar techniques to save human livesCalifornia wildfires rarely killed civilians in the 20th century. The Griffith Park fire killed 29 in 1933, while 25 died in Oakland in 1991. Now, for the fourth time in just over a year, California wildfires have become deadly. Within the span of 13 months, nearly 100 civilians have died in wildfires in California, and that devastating number is likely to grow based on the missing persons tally from the town of Paradise.The increasing number of fatalities is occurring globally in so-called Mediterranean climates – regions with mild, wet winters and warm, dry summers. Portugal, Spain, Greece, Chile, Australia and South Africa have all seen civilian wildfire fatalities in recent years, and communities globally are asking themselves the same question: what can we do? How do we stem the soaring number of wildfire fatalities? Continue reading...

Coal, oil and gas subsidies risking rise in global temperatures to 3.2C, well beyond agreed Paris goalClimate action is way off course in all but one of the world’s 20 biggest economies, according to a report that shows politicians are paying more heed to the fossil fuel industry than to advice from scientists.Among the G20 nations 15 reported a rise in emissions last year, according to the most comprehensive stock-take to date of progress towards the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...

The world is waking up to the danger posed by single-use plastics to the environment. But consumer pressure is not enough to reverse the decades of plastic waste that litter the globe and clog up the oceans. Stephen Buranyi tells Anushka Asthana how an anti-plastic revolution is under way but the plastics industry is in no mood for retreat. Plus: George Monbiot on why climate change is a crisis that requires a response of civil disobedienceWho is really to blame for the crisis in plastic waste across the globe? And is it too late to fix it? Stephen Buranyi explains how the rise of the plastics industry since the 1960s created a culture of disposable consumerism that has generated a global crisis of plastic waste. He describes how the industry in response poured money into anti-littering campaigns, but did not apply the same standards of waste control to itself.Plus: the Guardian environment correspondent, Matthew Taylor, explains who is responsible for the “tsunami of plastic” coming our way and what may be our only hope to stop it.

‘By the time the science is proven, it will be too late to act,’ chief Peter Coleman saysWoodside Petroleum chief executive, Peter Coleman, has joined mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto in calling for a price on carbon to help with emissions reduction targets and the transition to renewable energy.But the energy minister, Angus Taylor, has claimed Australia doesn’t need a carbon price as emissions levels are coming down – a position at odds with the government’s official emissions data and independent modelling. Continue reading...

Efforts to protect native fauna and flora ‘lack purpose, direction and coordination’Queensland has systematically failed the state’s growing list of threatened species, delaying declarations by up to seven years and botching its conservation management responsibilities, a scathing report by the state’s auditor general has found.Related: Australia's east coast named as 'deforestation front' in WWF Living Planet report Continue reading...

Trend in US regions where once-brutal winters are now mild raises new concerns over climate changeWarmer winters are linked to increased crime rates in parts of the United States, a new study has found.Researchers found that violent crime is almost always more prevalent when temperatures are warmer in the winter months. The trend was especially strong when winters were mild in regions that usually have fierce winters, like the north-east and midwest. Continue reading...

EPA to start writing rule requiring new trucks produce less nitrogen oxide, one of its first moves to regulate industryDonald Trump’s administration plans to cut air pollution from heavy-duty trucks, marking one of its first moves to regulate US industry rather than roll back environmental standards.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will start writing a rule to require new trucks produce less nitrogen oxide, which contributes to smog and particulate matter pollution that causes breathing problems, asthma attacks and early deaths. Continue reading...

The president blamed ‘poor forest management’ for the state’s crisis. But much of the area burning isn’t forestYou cannot possibly understand what it means to live with the risk of wildfire until you have to do so.I’m a fire scientist and have spent most of my adult life in the flammable south-west. At the start of the fire season, you pack up the things in your house you cannot replace and stage them so they are ready to be thrown into the car. You make a plan for your family and your pets. You identify escape routes and put together a bag with clothing and you spend the summer alert to smoke, radio reports and evacuation notices. Continue reading...

Report bitterly contested by scientists who say threat comes from climate change, which has pushed bears closer to humans – not because the population is growing

Angus Taylor speech leads into crucial board decision on whether or not to proceedThe energy minister Angus Taylor has backed Malcolm Turnbull’s pet project, the expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme, ahead of critical deliberations on the project due next month.Taylor will use a speech on Wednesday to express confidence that Snowy “will be a fundamental part of our future energy needs for many generations”. The board is due to decide in mid-December whether to proceed with additional generation capacity of 2,000MW. Continue reading...

Ambitious scheme also aims to fully decarbonise country’s economy shortly afterSpain has launched an ambitious plan to switch its electricity system entirely to renewable sources by 2050 and completely decarbonise its economy soon after.By mid-century greenhouse gas emissions would be slashed by 90% from 1990 levels under Spain’s draft climate change and energy transition law. Continue reading...

Movement of cattle and poor fencing hamper control efforts, says government reviewFrequent trading of cattle and poor biosecurity on farms is “severely hampering” efforts to tackle the crisis of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in England, according to an independent review commissioned by the environment secretary, Michael Gove.It was wrong to blame badgers as the main cause of the outbreaks, the scientists said, although Gove had told them not to assess whether the current badger culls were working. The scientists did say it was “highly desirable” to move from culling to vaccination of badgers. Continue reading...

Decades after it became part of the fabric of our lives, a worldwide revolt against plastic is under way. By Stephen BuranyiPlastic is everywhere, and suddenly we have decided that is a very bad thing. Until recently, plastic enjoyed a sort of anonymity in ubiquity: we were so thoroughly surrounded that we hardly noticed it. You might be surprised to learn, for instance, that today’s cars and planes are, by volume, about 50% plastic. More clothing is made out of polyester and nylon, both plastics, than cotton or wool. Plastic is also used in minute quantities as an adhesive to seal the vast majority of the 60bn teabags used in Britain each year.Add this to the more obvious expanse of toys, household bric-a-brac and consumer packaging, and the extent of plastic’s empire becomes clear. It is the colourful yet banal background material of modern life. Each year, the world produces around 340m tonnes of the stuff, enough to fill every skyscraper in New York City. Humankind has produced unfathomable quantities of plastic for decades, first passing the 100m tonne mark in the early 1990s. But for some reason it is only very recently that people have really begun to care. Continue reading...

Australia singled out for possible hydrogen boom, but also forecast to increase coal productionAustralia is singled out as a country with strong potential for new hydrogen production facilities in the latest World Energy Outlook, which paints an uncertain future for coal exports and strong projected growth for solar power.The new stocktake from the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in resource-rich countries such as Australia, hydrogen facilities could be built to sit alongside solar photovoltaic and wind facilities. The report says under such a set-up, Australia “could provide nearly 100m tonnes of oil equivalent of hydrogen, equivalent to 3% of global gas consumption today.” Continue reading...

Labor and Greens say cancellation of projects shows policy should be abandonedThe Clean Energy Regulator has cancelled six contracts from the government’s emissions reduction fund because they did not deliver the necessary cuts to carbon emissions.Labor and the Greens say the move is a sign the policy should be abandoned. Continue reading...

An eerie glow is hanging over the region as authorities warn people to stay indoors to avoid unhealthy air quality

Ancient, flightless, nocturnal birds have been absent from Wellington for more than a centuryWellington could soon have kiwis nesting beside Parliament House thanks to an ambitious conservation project that aims to reintroduce the country’s iconic national bird to the capital city within the next decade.There are 68,000 kiwi left in New Zealand but the number of birds are declining at a rate of 2% per year. A century ago, there were millions but attacks by dogs, cats, possums, stoats and rats have led to huge population decline. Continue reading...

At first I kept an open mind about Trump’s interior secretary. But it soon became clear he put the oil, gas and mining industry above our missionBack in 2017, the staff at the interior department was not hoping for the best, we were hoping for the competent. A presidential transition can bring dramatic change to the leadership of a federal agency – particularly the agency that manages the conservation and use of one fifth of America’s land area and the seabed of our continental shelf.Civil servants pledge to continue to serve the American people and the agency mission regardless of whether or not they agree with the political positioning of the president and his cabinet. So we watched the Ryan Zinke confirmation hearings carefully, listening for hints at his management style, his communications style, and his general understanding and respect for public lands and the mission of the agency. These were the qualities that mattered, not his ideology. We were hoping for competence. Continue reading...

Watchdog says new projects must be low carbon or existing plants must be cleaned upThe world has so many existing fossil fuel projects that it cannot afford to build any more polluting infrastructure without busting international climate change goals, the global energy watchdog has warned.The International Energy Agency said almost all of the world’s carbon budget up to 2040 – the amount that can be emitted without causing dangerous warming – would be eaten up by today’s power stations, vehicles and industrial facilities. Continue reading...

Beijing postpones plan to lift ban on their use in traditional medicine after global outcryConservation groups have welcomed an apparent U-turn by China over the use of rhino and tiger products in traditional medicine.The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would postpone a plan to lift the 25-year ban on the endangered animals, following a storm of international protest. Continue reading...

Project will trace tortoiseshell products in shops back to where they were poachedResearchers will use DNA technology to try to stop the illegal poaching of hawsksbill turtles for use in tortoiseshell products.The population of the critically endangered species has declined by more than 75% in the Pacific Ocean in the past century and a key threat to the species’ survival is illegal trade. Continue reading...

LNG is often touted as a good alternative to coal but the increase in production means increased emissions that will cancel out any recent savingsAustralia’s carbon footprint has expanded for the last three years straight – and the coal industry is not to blame. The biggest driver has been liquefied natural gas, known as LNG.Science and policy institute Climate Analytics found that between 2015 and 2020 the emissions growth from LNG will effectively wipe out the carbon pollution avoided through the 23% renewable energy target. Continue reading...

Twenty-two held over protests at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial StrategyTwenty-two people have been arrested after protesters daubed the windows of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in London and blocked passing traffic in an effort to provoke society into action over climate change.One protester climbed above the revolving doors of the main entrance of the building in Westminster and wrote “frack off” in black spray paint, and another sprayed the extinction symbol in red on windows facing traffic on Victoria Street. Continue reading...

Environmental lawyers say reliance on local authorities to take action is not workingThe government’s plan to tackle air pollution in some of the worst affected cities in the UK is unravelling into a “shambolic and piecemeal mess”, according to environmental lawyers.ClientEarth, which has successfully defeated the government three times in court, said the emphasis on local authorities taking action was backfiring with no joined-up strategy, delays and poorly researched proposals. Continue reading...

Trump’s interior secretary has been remaking the agency charged with protecting public lands as an ally of big energy, e-mails and records revealSince his first day on the job, when he surrounded himself with a National Park Service police escort and rode through Washington DC on a white-nosed horse named Tonto, the US interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has exhibited a flair for ostentation.Not long after taking office in March 2017, the new secretary started flying a special flag, adorned with the agency’s bison seal, above the interior department’s elegant New Deal-era headquarters. At a cost of more than $2,000, he also commissioned commemorative coins emblazoned with his name to hand out to visitors and staff. He replaced the doors in his office to the tune of more than $130,000, and installed a hunting-themed arcade game in the department’s cafeteria. Continue reading...

Councils say residents also erroneously putting recyclable waste into plastic bags before disposing of themThrowing soft plastics into the recycling bin is still the most common recycling mistake made by Australians, according to new research by Planet Ark.A survey of 180 councils commissioned by the environment organisation for Recycling Week asked councils to identify what were the most common recycling mistakes made by their residents. Continue reading...

Readers take Attenborough to task for ignoring the human impact on the natural worldI strongly agree with George’s Monbiot’s comments regarding David Attenborough’s latest BBC series, Dynasties (Attenborough has betrayed the living world that he loves, 7 November). Why have most of his wonderful programmes been blind to the tsunami of environmental destruction we have unleashed? Some years ago I confronted Alastair Fothergill, series producer of many of Attenborough’s programmes, at a public meeting: “The Earth is in distress: why do you ignore human impacts?” His response: “Our audience does not want to be disturbed.” What about the mess that future generations will be left with?In the 1980s I worked at Channel 4 for Fragile Earth, which broadcast some 20 environmental documentaries a year. But as soon as Michael Grade took over as CEO in 1988, he sacked the commissioning editor – advertisers did not like disturbing programmes. And so the global devastation continues largely unreported in TV documentaries. Continue reading...

Drilling at Preston New Road site in Lancashire has triggered 37 minor quakes in three weeksA senior executive at the fracking company Cuadrilla privately said this summer it did not expect to cause earthquakes that would be serious enough to force it to halt operations.But despite that confidence, the company has triggered 37 minor quakessince it started fracking for gas at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire three weeks ago. Continue reading...