Environment | The Guardian

Greenpeace wants health shops like Boots to follow the lead of Holland & Barrett and ditch products that threaten the pristine waters home to penguins, seal and whalesCampaigners are calling on high street retailers to stop stocking health products containing krill that have been caught in the pristine waters of the Antarctic.The Guardian reported earlier this month on the threat industrial krill fishing poses to animals like penguins, whales and seals. Continue reading...

Network thinks infrastructure and capacity can be in place a decade earlier in 2030National Grid would support the government bringing forward its 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales by a decade.The company, which runs the UK’s national electricity network and wants to build superfast car charging points at motorway services, told MPs it could cope with the demands of an earlier surge in electric car numbers. Continue reading...

Ground rising and falling in region that has been ‘punctured like a pin cushion’ since the 1940s, new study findsOil and gas activity is contributing to alarming land movements and a rising threat of sinkholes across a huge swath of west Texas, a new study suggests.Related: 'Like thunder in the ground': Texans fear link between quakes and fracking waste Continue reading...

Parties have the option of redrafting the disallowance and resubmitting it as soon as WednesdayA first attempt by Labor and the Greens to disallow controversial new marine park management plans proposed by the Turnbull government last week has failed in the Senate after the government flipped the order of business and brought on the chamber debate.The Turnbull government on Tuesday night pulled its proposal to lower the tax rate for big business to 25% and abruptly changed the order of business in the Senate to force consideration of Labor’s disallowance motion on the marine parks. Continue reading...

Conservation charities estimate cost of dealing with predators at £2bn a year, and warns this may spiral without strong prevention measuresInvasive species such as Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and New Zealand flatworms must be subject to stronger safeguards after Brexit, a group of conservation charities has urged, or the cost of dealing with them may spiral.They fear that future increased international trade outside EU rules could threaten further invasions, while the status of safeguards under potential trade deals could be put in doubt. Continue reading...

With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being maroonedAvery Island, a dome of salt fringed by marshes where Tabasco sauce has been made for the past 150 years, has been an outpost of stubborn consistency near the Louisiana coast. But the state is losing land to the seas at such a gallop that even its seemingly impregnable landmarks are now threatened.The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condiment controlled by the same family since Edmund McIlhenny first stumbled across a pepper plant growing by a chicken coop on Avery Island, is under threat. An unimaginable plight just a few years ago, the advancing tides are menacing its perimeter. Continue reading...

Barford Wood and Meadows, Northamptonshire: Yes, the trees have established beautifully, but a randomness to the planting pattern would be more aesthetically pleasingAgain the landscape is etched with snow. The footpath to Barford Wood and Meadows from Rushton village crosses first under the Midland mainline, emerging on to a wide and exposed field where the chilled wind bites, before passing over the Corby branch line and on to the nature reserve; a tapering wedge of land, bound on the west by the railway and by the thundering A43 on the east. Continue reading...

A row between state and federal ministers has thrown Victoria’s long-term native forest logging agreements into disarrayThe future of long-term native forest logging agreements in Victoria is uncertain because of a row with the federal government over the need to carry out fresh scientific assessments.Three of Victoria’s regional forest agreements (RFAs) – in east Gippsland, the central highlands and the north east regions – were extended on Monday on a short-term basis, to 31 March 2020. Continue reading...

Site owner appears to have no employees or premises and its phone is disconnectedPlans to mine a vast coal deposit in north Queensland have been quietly revived, despite the failed sale of the project last year and the collapse of an associated company.Guardian Australia understands that Wilton Coking Coal made two applications to the Queensland government for coal production permits in the Bowen basin in January. Continue reading...

The bill condemned by environmentalists would allow ethanol production, driving more deforestation and unravel protectionsA bill being rushed through Brazil’s senate would lift a ban on the cultivation of sugarcane for ethanol fuel in the Amazon, driving more deforestation and making it harder for the country to meet its commitments under the Paris Climate Deal.The bill, which has been roundly condemned by environmentalists, companies and even Brazil’s union of sugarcane producers (UNICA), marks the latest move by a conservative congress to unravel Amazon protections. Continue reading...

Oil firm says gas could account for 10% of global energy consumption by end of centuryPlanes and trucks powered by hydrogen will be a crucial part of efforts to cut carbon emissions to safe levels, according to oil giant Shell.For the first time, the Anglo Dutch firm, which is facing calls by activist shareholders to take stronger action on global warming, has mapped out how the world could hit the Paris climate deal’s target of keeping temperature rises below 2C. Continue reading...

Renewable energy also produced 40% more than gas and was exceeded only by black coalRenewable energy generated more electricity than brown coal during Australia’s summer for the first time in 2017-18, according to a new report by Green Energy Markets. Continue reading...

Labour’s vision to reshape the world order will require political will to end tax evasion and create a fairer global economyIn the foreword to Labour’s new policy paper, Jeremy Corbyn characterises the party’s vision for development as “a progressive, outward-looking, global view, driven by social justice and human rights”. So far, so expected.For those who remember the Blair-Brown era of Make Poverty History, the most exciting shift is the plan to tackle rising inequalities alongside the more familiar focus on reducing poverty, treating inequality and poverty as two sides of the same coin. Continue reading...

More than 3.2bn people are already affected and the problem will worsen without rapid action, driving migration and conflictLand degradation is undermining the wellbeing of two-fifths of humanity, raising the risks of migration and conflict, according to the most comprehensive global assessment of the problem to date.The UN-backed report underscores the urgent need for consumers, companies and governments to rein in excessive consumption – particularly of beef – and for farmers to draw back from conversions of forests and wetlands, according to the authors. Continue reading...

Council’s £2bn project to cut down thousands of dead, dying or dangerous trees put on holdSheffield city council has announced an immediate pause of its controversial tree-felling scheme after a barrage of criticism.Thousands of trees assessed as dead, dying, dangerous or diseased have been cut down under a £2bn project to improve the condition of the streets. Continue reading...

The UK’s pothole problem is getting worse and cyclists risk serious injury if they hit one. Here’s what to do if you find one and how to claim compensation if neededThe UK’s pothole problem is bad and getting worse, with a recent report by Alarm revealing 24,000 miles of road will need essential maintenance in the next year. While hitting one in a car may mean a trip to the garage, if you are cycling the outcome can be far worse.A BBC 5 Live questionnaire found half of almost 5,000 cyclists had suffered a pothole-related accident, with 1,516 injured as a result, 207 of those seriously. More than 10% of respondents said they missed work because of a pothole crash, and 31% were put off cycling. This survey was backed up by a mass freedom of information report from Cycling UK, which revealed cycling pothole crash compensation claims to councils in England and Wales are 10 times higher than motoring claims because of the higher risk of personal injury. Continue reading...

A new Starbucks provides convenience and caffeine to visitors, but to many it represents a trend of commercialism and 25,000 people petitioned to stop it from opening Continue reading...

Mayor of London and green groups call for swift action after new research suggests government cuts are putting wildlife protections under threatSadiq Khan has accused ministers of stalling over the setting up of a new tough environmental watchdog body post Brexit.

Dairy farms need female cows to produce milk but with little demand for male calves many farmers can’t afford to keep them beyond birthThe number of male calves being killed straight after birth is on the rise again, despite efforts by the dairy industry to end the practice known as ‘the dirty secret’.A Guardian analysis shows that it can cost a farmer up to £30 per calf to sell it on for beef or veal, while early disposal costs just £9. A growing number of farmers feel compelled to take the latter option, with 95,000 killed on-farm in the most recent set of figures.

Carpenter’s Lodge, Lincolnshire: Why was a kestrel so interested in the rising corner of a small rural overpass?The climbing bend of an overpass, in a frigid easterly wind, early. I’ve come because of an eye-hook bird I’ve often seen hovering here. A kestrel – static in the air as if on a pole, above this corner in precisely the same place. More recently, I’ve seen a red kite showing interest too, wheeling and listing and riding the wind like its namesake. If it was a child’s kite, its line would have been tied to the barrier of this bend.I’ve seen the kestrel for years, usually at dusk, against the sunset sky like a mad little spatter of dirt on a west-facing window. Wings frantic, head down, tail splayed. Watching. Continue reading...

Landslides close highway north of Cairns as more than 100 people call for helpCairns and Port Douglas were mopping up on Monday after torrential rain from ex-cyclone Nora caused flash flooding in Queensland’s far north.

Sawmillers say industry in ‘wind-down mode’ as state government discusses logging agreements extensionVictoria’s national parks and water catchments should be opened up for sustainable logging, according to a group of six Victorian sawmillers.The sawmillers – who call themselves the G6 – say the Victorian timber industry is in crisis. They want access to either more timber or exit packages. Continue reading...

We may be only a few years from hearing the purring of the last turtle dove in the UK, writes Jonathan WallaceThank you Jonathan Franzen (Why do birds matter? Where shall I begin? 24 March) for your wonderful paean to birds. They enrich our lives yet we continue to push birds towards oblivion. We may be only a few years from hearing the purring of the last turtle dove in this country, for example. There are many ways in which we harm bird populations, some easier to address than others. The outrageous persecution of birds of prey on some shooting estates could be stopped tomorrow with sufficient goodwill and government commitment. Slowing the general bleaching of wildlife from our countryside is less straightforward and will require creative thinking in order to balance the legitimate need for farmers to make a living and produce food with the need to protect wildlife, water supplies and soils. We must not shirk the challenge or Mr Franzen’s grandchildren will be denied the opportunity of experiencing anything but a fraction of the wonders he has enjoyed.

Management failings could affect safety at EDF power station if unaddressed, says inspectorThe UK nuclear regulator has raised concerns with EDF Energy over management failings that it warns could affect safety at the Hinkley Point C power station if left unaddressed, official documents reveal.

New data shows global emissions are at a historic high. Political leaders must now consider imposing serious penaltiesFor optimists, it was tempting to view three years of flatlining global carbon emissions, from 2014-16, as the new normal. We now know celebrations should be put on hold. Figures for 2017 published last week show global emissions from energy have jumped back up again, to a historic high.The data from the International Energy Agency shows we still have much to do when it comes to stopping global warming. Three years ago experts cautioned that 2015’s near standstill in emissions might be only a temporary pause before resuming the upward march as India and China developed. Those warnings were prophetic. Continue reading...

Scientists believe they can bring the species back from the brink after the death of the last male last weekThe story of humanity’s interaction with the northern white rhino is one of the conservation movement’s grimmest tales of recent years. “In the 60s there were 2,500 northern whites left in central Africa,” said Paul De Ornellas of the Zoological Society of London. “Poaching brought that down to 30 by the end of the 20th century, and now to the last two.”Last week the species’ last male, Sudan, had to be put down because of ill health, leaving only two ageing females on the planet as representatives of a creature that once roamed in its tens of thousands across Africa. It is a sad history which, most of the world assumes, is nearing its end. Continue reading...

Mayor Sadiq Khan confirms that four of 20 outdoor fountains will be in the West End, Liverpool Street station and SouthwarkThe mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has revealed the locations of the first four drinking fountains to be installed in the capital under a new pilot scheme in an effort to combat single-use plastic.The first fountain was installed last week in Carnaby Street in the West End, while in the coming weeks two will be set up in Liverpool Street station and another in Flat Iron Square in Southwark. Continue reading...

With seven coalmines and a gas company surrounding their cattle property, a Queensland family is battling to stay putIt’s a hot summer’s afternoon at Riverside station, 50km north of the purpose-built mining town Moranbah in the central Queensland highlands. Jeanette and Allan Williams are drinking tea and eating Christmas cake around the kitchen table with three of their six children. Holly and twins Claire and Charles have returned to live and work on the family’s 80,000-hectare cattle enterprise. Running more than 16,000 Brahman cattle, the family breeds and fattens their stock on prime cattle country that grows brigalow trees and buffel grass.The homestead, which sits on top of the world’s highest-quality coal deposits, has been under threat for more than 15 years. A proposed underground mine at the family’s adjoining property, Red Hill, is likely to cut through to Riverside and under the house. Continue reading...

Two federal MPs among more than 100 people arrested challenging 1,000km lineOne of Romilly Cavanaugh’s first jobs was an environmental engineering position at the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which carries crude and refined oil across western Canada.

Kirkham Abbey, North Yorkshire: More snow came, but the genie was out, and the dawn chorus continued even as the flakes swirledThere’s a view I’m fond of, and it’s worth a short diversion up a steep, anthill-studded pasture to spend a while taking it in. Looking out over the sidewinder course of the Derwent, and the equally sinuous rail line to Scarborough with its toytown signal box, it takes in wooded valley flanks, a ruined priory, and the genteel Georgian doll’s house and sweeping parkland of Kirkham Hall.On this day, however, something felt wrong, though I had to close my eyes to realise what it was. It was the sounds. A peppery rash of shotgun fire had already made me tetchy, and now some trick of atmospherics, perhaps the layering of air in a clear, cold sky, meant that the other noises reaching my ear were coming from above. The murmurs of subsong, building for several weeks, were gone. Instead, a single goading crow barked over a funk rhythm emanating from a radio half a mile away where two hi-vis figures were working on the old river bridge. Behind that was the pulsed white hiss of traffic on the A64. Continue reading...

‘Time to Choose’ protest demands a fresh focus on renewable energy by the state governmentExactly a year out from the state election, thousands of people from across New South Wales – including some on horseback – have marched through Sydney, calling for an end to coal seam gas and coal mining and a renewed focus on renewables.The “Time to Choose” rally, which began at Martin Place, marched to Prince Alfred Park in the city’s south stretching almost 2km along a partially closed Elizabeth Street. Continue reading...

Australians throw away a lot of plastic, often after only one use. Here’s how to give it upIt’s almost everywhere you look – and it’s undeniably destroying our planet.Over the past half a century, plastic has infiltrated modern life to such an extent that our oceans may have more of the stuff than fish by 2050.

Some say the Coalition’s marine management plans are too compromised; others say some protection is better than none. But how did it come to this?• Jessica Meeuwig: The government’s marine park plans are diabolical for ocean protection

IUCN says the measure is a bit like the flipside to the World Heritage In Danger listNews about conservation often seems like an endless battle to merely slow the decline of nature. Continue reading...

Supermarkets say pineapple is UK’s fastest growing fruit with sales surging 15% in 2017For a while avocados had it all their own way as Britons smashed them on toast and whizzed them up for smoothies but there is a new pretender to the fruit crown – 2018 is shaping up to be the year of the pineapple.Supermarkets say demand for the tropical fruit is at an all time high after a dramatic reappraisal by shoppers who increasingly view it as as an ingredient for curries, barbecues and cocktails as well as fruit salads. Continue reading...

Tim Megarry on recent freak weather in the UK and fears of worse to comeMichael Dukes’ Weatherwatch report at the back of Tuesday’s Guardian (20 March) is far too important to be relegated to such a minor position. He is giving us what should be considered front-page news and his few column inches must be expanded into a longer article that fully explains the science and mechanism behind the two unprecedented weather events of the past three weeks, when London was colder than the north pole.Climate change, bringing Arctic meltdown, has serious global effects which mean very much more than the extinction of polar bears. Climatologists have long been warning of new atmospheric conditions which make freak events the new normal. The latest by Jennifer Francis comes in the April edition of Scientific American, which predicts massive coastal flooding within the next 20 years. In the short term, however, we should be concerned about the return of more “beast” events next month or even in May, when plant growth will be in full swing. Imagine the effect on food production.

Women’s movement demand an end to unrestricted oil drilling and mining on indigenous lands and action on violence against land defenders in first meeting with president Lenin MorenoAmazon indigenous women leaders have told Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno to limit oil drilling and mining in their territories and combat the sexual violence and death threats they claim accompany the industries.The delegation of women dressed in traditional tunics and with intricately painted faces were granted a meeting with Moreno after nearly 100 of them camped in Quito’s central plaza in front of the Carondelet government palace for five days, earlier this month. Continue reading...

Birds are not just diverse, vivid and extraordinary. They can also save our souls – let’s protect themFor most of my life, I didn’t pay attention to birds. Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that’s been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it’s a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska. When someone asks me why birds are so important to me, all I can do is sigh and shake my head, as if I’ve been asked to explain why I love my brothers. And yet the question is a fair one: why do birds matter?My answer might begin with the vast scale of the avian domain. If you could see every bird in the world, you’d see the whole world. Things with feathers can be found in every corner of every ocean and in land habitats so bleak that they’re habitats for nothing else. Grey gulls raise their chicks in Chile’s Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Continue reading...

Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study revealsHuman destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday. Continue reading...

Sajid Javid says environmental impact of Northumberland plan outweighs economic benefitsThe government has rejected plans for an opencast coal mine in Northumberland on the grounds that it would exacerbate climate change.Eighteen months after Sajid Javid first took responsibility for a planning decision for a new coal mine at Highthorn, the communities secretary said he had concluded the project should not go ahead. Continue reading...

EU’s subsidy system, that benefits big farming rather than sustainability, needs to change to prevent ongoing collapse in birds and insect numbers, warn green groupsEurope’s crisis of collapsing bird and insect numbers will worsen further over the next decade because the EU is in a “state of denial” over destructive farming practices, environmental groups are warning. Continue reading...

If even oil companies accept human-caused global warming, why doesn’t everybody?In a California court case this week, Judge William Alsup asked the two sides to provide him a climate science tutorial.The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland. They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming. Chevron’s lawyer presented the science for the defense, and most notably, began by explicitly accepting the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, saying: Continue reading...

‘His blubber shook like Jell-o,’ says researcher of the attack on newborn orca by unrelated 32-year-old maleScientists in the Canadian province of British Columbia have documented what is believed to be the first reported case of an orca whale killing an infant of the same species.“We knew right away that this was a remarkable event,” said Jared Towers, a Cetacean researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, of the encounter he and two colleagues witnessed in December 2016. Continue reading...

Leopards roaming the Sanjay Gandhi National Park could be helping to control the city’s dangerous stray dog population, study suggestsA fleeting glimpse of the black spots and gold fur of a leopard is not an uncommon sight at Sanjay Gandhi National Park in the Indian city of Mumbai.

Mining for lignite - or brown coal - in Greece is a huge industry. Together with Germany and Poland, the country accounts for more than one-third of the world’s coal production. But for residents of villages in the extraction areas of West Macedonia, it has many impacts, from displacement to health problems. Photographs and research by Anna PanteliaThick dust suspended in the atmosphere makes it hard to see the sun over Ptolemaida, a city 500 kilometres north-west of Athens in the West Macedonia region, known for its brown coal (lignite) mines and power stations.Kostas works as a guard for the state-owned Public Power Corporation (PPC), like his father before him. “My father died of cancer when I was 12,” he says. “Four other men from his shift lost their lives from cancer.” Continue reading...

Helm Crag, Lake District A flock of pregnant Herdwick ewes are expertly herded along the rocky fellsides

Rescue operation under way to save 15 beached whales in Hamelin Bay near Augusta on state’s south-west coastOne hundred and thirty-five whales have died after being washed ashore in Western Australia.A rescue operation began on Friday morning in Hamelin Bay, on the state’s south-western tip, to save the remaining 15, with volunteers and vets trying to keep the surviving short-finned pilot whales alive before deciding when to herd them out to sea. Continue reading...

Tony Burke says if the Greens back the plan, the ‘largest removal’ of a conservation area will be locked in for a decadeLabor has blasted the Greens for not lining up immediately behind their commitment to disallow controversial new marine park management plans proposed by the Turnbull government this week.

If we are to reduce our consumption levels, says Linda Marriott, we must walk the walk, not just talk the talkBravo, Mark Boyle – your world sounds very beguiling to an oldie like me (I left a troubled world behind. Now let me tell you how to fix it, 20 March). However, I’ve lost count of the number of times in my life that I have heard this siren song, but no one with any influence ever seems to listen or even wake up. But, as Mark says, we can try small remedies ourselves should we be lucky enough to have a garden. It reminds me of an old Canadian friend who was convinced he could protect his family from the coming apocalypse by buying a farm, until he realised he’d have to have a gun – and use it – to stop those less fortunate from taking what he had. Or the 1970s German bumper sticker that translated as “everyone wants to go back to Eden but no one wants to go on foot”.