Environment | The Guardian

Results show Carmichael mine in Queensland no longer a viable proposition, analysts say

Choice compares prices from electricity retailers and handles switch to most economic dealsThe consumer group Choice has launched a $99 service to compare prices from electricity retailers, monitor them for 12 months and automatically switch subscribers to the best deal.Canisaveonenergy.com.au, which was launched on Monday, allows consumers to upload a recent power bill PDF and find out how much they could save with a new service based on a price comparison from 33 providers. However, they won’t be told which retailer is offering the best deal unless they pay the annual fee. Continue reading...

Supporters say the oil firm has experience drilling in rough seas but conservationists fear damage to wildlife and fisheriesThe cold and violent waters of the Great Australian Bight are home to one of the country’s most biodiverse and important marine ecosystems, the heart of its fishing industry, a growing tourism hotspot – and potentially its newest oil field.Of the species in the bight, 85% are found nowhere else on the planet. It is a breeding ground for the endangered southern right whale and a feeding zone for Australian sea lions, great white sharks, migratory sperm whales and short-tailed shearwaters.

Environmental fashion campaigner visits Tasmania to learn about wool production, its impact on the environment and mulesingHow safe are the people who make your clothes?Livia Firth still has the wool sweaters she wore as a teenager. The environmental fashion campaigner, who grew up in Italy, remembers hand washing her sweaters each summer, carefully storing them away, then unpacking them the following winter. She would wear them year after year so she had to look after them. This was before fast, disposable fashion she says, “We did it a different way.”Related: Rana Plaza, five years on: safety of workers hangs in balance in Bangladesh | Michael Safi and Dominic Rushe Continue reading...

Government bows to protesters and agrees to shelve development near Chiang MaiEnvironmental activists in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai claimed victory on Sunday after the country’s military government agreed not to continue the development of luxury property on forest land.The decision follows a demonstration in Chiang Mai last week in which more than 1,000 people protested against the construction of a luxury development earmarked to house judges in the foothills of the Doi Suthep mountains. Continue reading...

Residents in Derbyshire pilot town cut waste by only 9% despite free gadgets and toolsSainsbury’s has abandoned a £10m project to halve food waste in a designated town across Britain after a year-long trial produced miserable results.The supermarket group gave families in one town, Swadlincote in south Derbyshire, free gadgets to cut food waste – such as devices to measure the correct amount of spaghetti to cook, “smart” fridges to control content and temperatures more accurately, food planners and magnetic shopping lists – and monitored the results. Continue reading...

Problems at Hunterston B in Scotland trigger doubts over six other 1970s and 80s plantsThe six month closure of one of Britain’s oldest nuclear reactors will burn a £120m hole in the revenues of owner EDF Energy and has raised questions over the reliability of the country’s ageing nuclear fleet.EDF said this week that it was taking reactor 3 of Hunterston B in Scotland offline for half a year, after inspections found more cracks than expected in the graphite bricks at the reactor’s core.

Sound emitters will give warning of vehicles travelling at low speedsThey are green, clean and make very little noise. It is this latter quality, initially seen by many as a good thing, that has become an acute concern for safety campaigners, who fear that the rising number of electric vehicles constitutes a silent menace.When they travel at under 20mph the vehicles can barely be heard, especially by cyclists or pedestrians listening to music through headphones. “The greatest risks associated with electric vehicles are when they are travelling at low speeds, such as in urban areas with lower limits, as the noise from tyres and the road surface, and aerodynamic noise, are minimal at those speeds,” said Kevin Clinton, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. Continue reading...

Project to recreate London estate accused of subverting history by opponents, who say elaborate grounds may never have existedThe restoration, even at huge cost, of what English Heritage calls one of “the great lost gardens of London” sounds a worthwhile, even noble, project. But what if that “lost garden” is a myth, a pipe dream never really built? English Heritage plans to transform the estate of Marble Hill, a grand house by the Thames, by reintroducing elaborate gardens it says were inspired by Alexander Pope, the satirist and poet, and 18th-century royal garden designer Charles Bridgeman.The original designs featured a ninepin bowling alley, an ice-house seat and a flower garden, surrounded by twisting paths and groves of trees and English Heritage plans to recreate all this, alongside a “vibrant” cafe and children’s play area. Continue reading...

Brexit, online delivery services and bans on plastic threaten Britain’s national dishAnyone wanting to understand the economic problems facing Britain in the early 21st century need only consider its national dish.Chippies are confronting a long list of issues that threaten to send the price of their product rocketing as the holiday season approaches. Brexit, the popularity of online delivery services, freakish weather and concerns about the pollution caused by plastic are all putting pressure on the nation’s 10,500 fish and chip shops. Continue reading...

Tracks in White Sands national monument suggest hunters tracked 8ft creature with long arms and sharp claws – but it’s unclear whyResearchers studying a trail of fossilized footprints on a remote New Mexico salt flat have determined that the tracks tell the story of a group of ice age hunters stalking a giant sloth.Scientist David Bustos said the tracks, both adult and children’s footprints found at White Sands National Monument, showed people followed a giant ground sloth, purposely stepping in their tracks as they did so. Continue reading...

Tensions have come to a head over the fate of dozens of wild peacocks that have taken up residence on a city streetFor a decade, a group of feral peacocks have divided the community of Sullivan Heights. Some of the residents of this suburban neighbourhood outside Vancouver love the birds, who have taken up residence in the local trees; others say they are kept awake by the peacocks’ screeching.For Parminder Brar, the final straw came last year, when he says his father injured himself slipping on peacock excrement on Brar’s property. He formally issued a request to take down the tree where the peacocks had built a nest. The city turned him down. Continue reading...

Billionaire bike-lover Sylvan Adams has a dream to get Israel cycling – he funded the Middle East’s first velodrome, gave car-centric Tel Aviv a cycle network, and is behind the country’s first Grand Tour. But will it work?While some wealthy benefactors to Israel choose to plant forests, build scenic promenades or put their names on hospitals, Sylvan Adams loves cycling so much he seed-funded some cycleways to help transform Tel Aviv into the “Amsterdam of the Middle East”.The Canadian real-estate billionaire also supplied cash to build a new velodrome – the first in the Middle East – and created a professional Israeli cycling team. He also stumped up some of the £9m fee for staging the first three stages of the 101st Giro d’Italia in Israel, which kicked off yesterday.

Once the right whale to hunt, Eubalaena glacialis is now beset by nets, ships and changing seas. We are losing a beautiful beastAs if to confound everyone, this past week Dr Charles “Stormy” Mayo and his team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies reported seeing up to 150 right whales in Cape Cod Bay. Dr Mayo – who has been studying these animals for 40 years and has a scientist’s aversion to exaggeration – is stunned.Related: North Atlantic right whales may face extinction after no new births recorded Continue reading...

Barns Ness, East Lothian: Pools teem with tiny creatures and fossilised coral demands attention – the whole place is dense with life, old and newOut on the headland at Barns Ness, the strand is pitted with rockpools and slung with seaweed of all textures. Bladderwrack and fleecy gutweed and long-tailed oarweed and sugar kelp lie heaped upon one another, slick and slippery underfoot. The pools themselves seem empty on first approach, but after a minute’s silent watch they come to life: periwinkles inching almost imperceptibly along, shore crabs sidling from under rocks with a suspicious air, and – best of all – tiny hermit crabs in their pilfered shells, peeking shyly out, antennae waving.We have spent a week here in the lighthouse cottages in Barns Ness, waking to the sound of crashing waves beyond the wall. The weather has been temperamental, so when the sun appears we rush out the door and down to the shoreline. Today the clouds are strung high and thin in the sky, and the sun casts a great halo around itself – a ring of light that encircles the lighthouse too, and the peregrine falcon that perches on its rail. Continue reading...

Environment secretary favours the move but it is hotly contested within governmentMichael Gove is spearheading plans to halt the sale of new hybrid cars by 2040 to help tackle UK air pollution, Whitehall sources have said.

Local government wants to convert totally to renewables by 2050 but plan will not be easyAs thousands of holidaymakers fly into Menorca this summer, a glance out the window will illustrate the past and future of the island’s energy system.

Snake humanely killed after it escaped from tank and wrapped itself round eight-month-old puppy in Amherst, MassachusettsPolice in Massachusetts say they shot and killed a pet boa constrictor after it fatally crushed a puppy.Related: Poison pass: the man who became immune to snake venom Continue reading...

A marmot emerging from hibernation, a friendly elephant and a baby ring-tailed lemur are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Reusing shower water, limiting toilet flushing and night-time irrigation were among measures that saved South Africa’s second city from running dryLate last year, as the South African government faced the prospect of its largest city running out of water, they took an unprecedented gamble.The government announced “day zero” – a moment when dam levels would be so low that they would turn off the taps in Cape Town and send people to communal water collection points.

This week’s edition of the Upside series looks at the use of new tech to fight dirty money, sexual harassment and pollutionOur world is full of persistent, apparently unsolvable problems that often stem from the type of behaviour that can shake our faith in our fellow human beings. But amid that gloom, the advance of technology is one of the great and renewable sources of hope. And while technology alone can never provide all the answers, history is a story of breakthroughs and revolutions triggered by all manner of scientific discoveries.This week, we present to you: tales of how technology is being leveraged to tackle some of our most demoralising problems. Continue reading...

In the rush to accommodate increasing numbers of electric cars, some cities are letting bulky charging stations take space from pedestriansCities across the world are rushing to install charging points to encourage and keep up with demand from increasing numbers of electric vehicles. By the end of last year there were almost 600,000 street charging points globally.But while some cities, such as Paris, are introducing charging points inconspicuously, many others are not. In some areas of London chargers have been taking over pavements and blocking pedestrians.

Governments often lack necessary data to determine if conservation measures are effective, says review’s leader• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noonOne-third of Australia’s threatened species are not subject to any formal monitoring program and monitoring for the remaining species is largely poorly done, a review has found.The findings come as the ABC reports the federal environment department could cut up to 60 jobs in its biodiversity and conservation division, which conducts threatened species assessment and monitoring. Continue reading...

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire: They wield their snouts like a blade, slicing into the root layer then slashing vigorously with a deft twist that turns the ground overYou can’t miss the signs of wild boar in the Forest of Dean – the road verges appear to have been enthusiastically but amateurishly rotovated. When we visited in January hundreds of square metres around the car park had been worked over, and it did not take much by way of fieldcraft to spot the culprits. A small sounder (family group) of mother and three young were only metres from the cars, intently truffling for root, grub and worm, a blackbird following them as a gull follows the plough. Continue reading...

Scott Pruitt’s cancelled trip would have promoted ‘innovation deregulation’, emails released under FoI show• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noonThe climate sceptic thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs was mooted as a co-host of an Australian visit by Donald Trump’s beleaguered Environment Protection Agency head, Scott Pruitt, which may have included discussion with local officials on whether environmental deals should be changed or cancelled.Emails released to the US environment group the Sierra Club under freedom of information laws show that Matthew Freedman, a Washington consultant who describes himself as “a close personal friend” of the Australian environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, played a central role in organising Pruitt’s proposed August trip before it was cancelled when Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas gulf coast. Continue reading...

With a target to halve its huge carbon footprint, the race is on to find new technologies to green the world’s shipping fleetWatch out for the return of the sailing ship.

In a bid to protect its marine environment, Hawaii has passed a bill banning sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate, chemicals that have ‘significant harmful impacts’ on ecosystemsCoral reefs and sunshine keep tourists flocking to Hawaii but add sunscreen to that holiday mix and the result can be serious damage to the marine environment that makes the islands so attractive to visitors in the first place.

All my life I’ve struggled with my identity but when I go out to cook with traditional owners, we are all connected

Salter’s Gate, Weardale: Having performed her provocative display, the female seems to ignore the suitor with his bandit eye-stripeThe sky above this open hillside, overlooking Tunstall reservoir in the valley below, was filled with skylark song, but lapwings, Vanellus vanellus, commanded attention with reckless display flights and calls reminiscent of rusty hinges. Thirty years ago, when we came here to watch them with our children, they christened them “creaky doors”.Related: The lapwing's unearthly sounds fill the fields Continue reading...

Study says 40% of transport could be emissions-free by 2035 and neighbours could trade clean electricitySign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon A total shift to renewable energy would pay for itself through cost savings within two decades, and ultimately save Australians $20bn a year in combined fuel and power costs, a new report says.The report, released on Thursday morning, outlines a path to powering homes and businesses from renewable sources by 2030. By 2035, 40% of transport could be emissions free, it says. Continue reading...

Donor nations’ 2020 target of $100bn annual fund for adapting economies falls short by near 50% says OxfamFinance for poor countries to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and deal with climate change is lagging behind the promises of rich countries, an Oxfam report finds.While taxpayer-funded finance has increased, and the private sector has stepped up with some initiatives, the amount raised could still fall short of the goal of providing $100bn a year to the developing world by 2020. Continue reading...

Widespread frost caused damage to fruit and vegetables as temperatures plungedIt has not been a great spring – so far, at least – but temperatures have been more or less normal: unlike those of May 1935. The month in which King George V celebrated his silver jubilee started well, with fine, sunny weather, and highs of 23C. Continue reading...

Sydneysiders urged to join party in former PM’s seat to ‘shift the politics’ and speak up for the environment• Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningTony Abbott’s political future could be under threat from a group of activists who have been organising environmentally conscious voters to join Liberal party branches on Sydney’s north shore – a move that could unseat the former prime minister.Billing themselves as “the counterweight” to the pro-coal power Monash Forum, the North Shore Environmental Stewards have held at least two recruitment functions at which attendees were urged to tap into their networks of environmentally conscious people to join the Liberal party branches in Abbott’s seat of Warringah and on the lower north shore.

Citizens consider fleeing Nawabshah in fear of what summer might bringA Pakistani city has set a global record temperature for the month of April, with the mercury rising to more than 50C on Monday, prompting fears that people might leave to escape even higher temperatures when summer sets in.The southern city of Nawabshah recorded a high of 50.2C on Monday. Continue reading...

Isle of Lewis residents protest against windfarm plan to raise turbine height to 200 metresThe first government-backed effort to revive onshore windfarms after ministers scrapped public subsidies for the technology has run into opposition in the western isles of Scotland.EDF Energy has said its plans for two major windfarms on the Isle of Lewis may need to reach heights normally the preserve of turbines at sea, prompting an outcry from residents. Continue reading...

The ‘river of grass’ wilderness and coastal communities are in peril, with the buffer coastal ecosystems on a ‘death march’ inlandFlorida’s mangroves have been forced into a hasty retreat by sea level rise and now face being drowned, imperiling coastal communities and the prized Everglades wetlands, researchers have found. Continue reading...

We waste £13bn worth of food each year in the UK, with 71% of that being wasted at home. At the same time, use of food banks has boomed. Is Olio the answer?I am walking with a woman named Kerry, whom I have just met, to her car. She is in her mid-30s and has a tinge of attitude. When we reach her car, she opens the boot. Inside are hundreds of industrial-sized tubs of hummus, enough to power Brighton for a week.I met Kerry online, not via some kind of hummus-appreciation society messageboard, but on Olio, an app that is attempting to end food waste at home by letting people upload details of the food they would otherwise chuck out, so that others living nearby can take it off their hands. I am trying out the app for a few weeks to see if it can reduce my own waste to zero (and to see if I can get some freebies). Continue reading...

Women in the US Forest Service love what they do. But they also describe a toxic male environment that tolerates, and even promotes, their harassersDenice Rice handles things for herself. A more than 20-year veteran of the US Forest Service’s wildfire operations, she’s spent weeks at a time working blazes deep in the wilderness. So she thought she could manage when, in 2009, her new second-in-line supervisor started giving her unwanted attention. “He immediately befriended me and started mentoring me, and from there it just got weird,” she remembers.For two years she said nothing. “He’d get handsy and then I’d snap and make him back off and it would stop for a while, and then it would start up again.” But in 2011, the two got into an argument and he assaulted her, poking her breasts with a letter opener, as she related in 2016 testimony before a congressional committee examining sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees the forest service. The man did it “with a smile on his face in an arrogant way like he could get away with it. And I stood there in shock.” Continue reading...

French president and Australia’s PM talk up rules-based order in region – and praise China’s rise• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon France and Australia can be the heart of a new Indo-Pacific axis, promoting peace, stability and a rules-based order, Emmanuel Macron said in Sydney on Wednesday.But the French president was at pains to stress that France’s continued emphasis on its Pacific presence was not one antagonistic to China, saying he welcomed Beijing’s economic and geopolitical rise. Continue reading...

More than 5,000 wet wipes found in an area next to the Thames the size of half a tennis courtWet wipes are changing the shape of British riverbeds, campaigners said after finding more than 5,000 of them alongside the Thames in an area the size of half a tennis court.

The ‘Jilamito Five’ are the latest to be caught up in battles over land and natural resources, that have seen more than 130 defenders killed since 2009The suspects pray together on a concrete podium opposite the courthouse where they face criminal charges. Their alleged misdemeanour: “land invasion” during a protest against the construction of a dam. A guilty verdict could bring a jail term of up to four years.If that seems harsh, then it’s because this is Honduras, where hundreds have been jailed and scores killed for environmental activism over the past decade. The accused – a teacher, hardware-store owner, farmers and the newly elected municipal mayor – are opposed to a dam on the Jilamito river in the tropical region of Atlántida. The authorities are hoping a prosecution will enable them to clear a makeshift community blockade in the remote hilly pastures so construction can begin. Continue reading...

Mark Butler says ‘we’re not going to get deep decarbonisation’ without end to toxic politicsAustralia will not achieve its emissions reductions targets until it ends the “culture war” on climate policy, Labor frontbencher Mark Butler has said.Speaking at the Carbon Market Institute emissions reduction conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, Butler said that Australia was a case study in how “toxic politics” could stymie efforts to decarbonise the economy. Continue reading...

Wild animals lash out at visitors to NSW hospital site after being fed inappropriate food such as carrots, chips and even McDonald’s• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon

Scientists and health experts say Trump administration’s bid to undo pollution rules are ‘extremely counterintuitive and worrying’America’s leading cities have some of the cleanest urban air in the world but huge advances made in reducing smog are in danger of falling backwards, experts are warning.New Yorkers breathe air that is 800 times less polluted than Delhi’s and twice as clean as in London and Berlin, the World Health Organization reported. Continue reading...

Officials say frogs caught at city’s Audubon zoo could soon pose a threat to native frogs across the Mississippi riverInvasive, noxious Cuban treefrogs that eat smaller frogs and grow as big as a human fist have established a population in New Orleans, and officials say they could soon pose a threat to native frogs across the Mississippi river.The US Geological Survey says frogs caught at the Audubon zoo in the city and at a nearby riverfront park are the first established population of Cuban treefrogs on the US mainland outside Florida, where they’ve been multiplying at least since the 1950s. Continue reading...

Rich cities have improved, but pollution in poorer countries is still rising and kills 7 million people a year globally, WHO data revealsPollution inequality between the world’s rich and poor is widening, according to the latest global data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) which shows that 7 million people – mostly in developing nations – die every year from airborne contaminants.Overall, nine in 10 people on the planet live with poor, even dangerous, air, says the WHO report, which is considered the most comprehensive collection of global air quality data. But levels of contamination vary widely depending on government actions and financial resources. Continue reading...

Mike Hodge injured in jaw and neck after being attacked at Marakele animal sanctuaryA British wildlife park owner has been mauled by a male lion in South Africa after entering its enclosure.Mike Hodge was pounced on by the lion as he tried to leave through a gate. Video footage showed him being dragged off towards bushes. Continue reading...

Bret Walker, who chairs South Australia’s royal commission, says authority made fundamental legal error in setting water targetOne of Australia’s foremost lawyers has issued an extraordinary warning that the Murray-Darling basin plan is likely to be unlawful because the authority overseeing it made a fundamental legal error when it set the original 2,750-gigalitre water recovery target in 2012.Bret Walker SC, who chairs the South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling basin plan, issued the warning in a second issues paper. He also spelled out the far-reaching implications of the plan being unlawful. Continue reading...

As wild wolves return to Europe, one of the first wolves to settle in Denmark has been shot dead in an incident captured on filmOne of the first wild wolves to roam free in Denmark for 200 years has been shot and killed, threatening the survival of the species in the country.Two naturalists who were observing the wolves captured the moment the animal was shot on camera. The film has sparked outrage. Continue reading...