MCA publicises report asking governments to commit similar resources to carbon capture and storage as to renewablesThe Minerals Council of Australia has stepped up its advocacy for coal power in spite of its biggest member, BHP, saying it will leave the group unless it shifts its stance to become technology-neutral.On Tuesday the MCA publicised a report by the Coal Industry Advisory Board that called for governments to commit similar resources to carbon capture and storage as they do to renewable energy. Continue reading...
Allendale chimneys, Northumberland: The flue lines from the smelter in the valley can still be seen, bulging like veins across the frosty peatlandHigh above Allendale on this frost-sparkling January day, two stone chimneys reach up into a clear blue sky. Built in the 19th century, they exhaled fumes from horizontal flues that ran from a lead smelter more than two miles below on the valley floor. The flue lines can still be seen, bulging like veins across the fields. In places they have collapsed, revealing arched interiors where lead and silver would condense to be intermittently scraped off and recovered.
Townsville and Rockhampton councils to spend $34m on airport hundreds of kilometres from either cityOutspoken federal MP Bob Katter has questioned why two Queensland councils are paying $34m to build an airport to service a massive Adani coalmine, saying there is an “unpleasant odour†to the deal.In October Townsville and Rockhampton councils announced they would spend $18.5m and $15.5m respectively on an airport, hundreds of kilometres away from either city, at the Carmichael coalmine, as part of a funding deal with Adani. Continue reading...
Researchers have tracked Naya from eastern Germany into the Netherlands and now FlandersThe first recorded wolf on Belgian soil for at least 100 years has made her bloody mark.Farmers in north-east Flanders have been put on high alert after evidence emerged that Naya, a female originally from eastern Germany that has been making a pioneering trek across Europe, had killed two sheep and injured a third near the Belgian town of Meerhout. Continue reading...
Nearly 60% of US carbon pollution comes from power and transportation, and power is already decarbonizing fastIn order to meet its share of the carbon pollution cuts needed to achieve the 2°C Paris international climate target, America’s policies are rated as “critically insufficient†by the Climate Action Tracker. The Trump Administration has taken every possible step to undo the Obama Administration’s climate policies, including announcing that America will be the only world country to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and trying to repeal the Clean Power Plan.In 2020, the next American president will have to make up the lost ground and come up with a plan to rapidly accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. Currently, transportation and power generation each account for about 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions, so those sectors represent the prime targets for pollution cuts.
Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire: The trunks tangle back from both sides of the track, like wiry hair, their bark papery. Packed dense, this makes the forest look grey and odd
Iranian ship Sanchi went down carrying one million barrels of oil that is highly toxic to marine lifeThe spill from a sunken Iranian tanker off China’s east coast has more than trebled in size, just over a week after the ship sank in a ball of flames.
Malcolm Turnbull announces $36.6m will be spent on ‘supporting farmers stopping runoff’ to improve water qualityMalcolm Turnbull has announced a $60m rescue package for the Great Barrier Reef which includes research on developing “resilient†coral, and paying farmers to pollute less.The package, to be spent over 18 months, will also include an increased number of reef officers and vessels targeting crown of thorns starfish outbreaks. Continue reading...
Right geology and local consent are key in consultation due to be launched this weekThe government is expected this week to begin a nationwide search for a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste dump to store highly radioactive material for thousands of years.Britain has been trying for years to secure a site with the right geology and local communities which would volunteer to host a £12bn geological disposal facility (GDF), as a long-term solution for the most dangerous waste from nuclear power stations. Continue reading...
Firm follows other big UK and European insurers by excluding coal companies from 1 AprilLloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market, has become the latest financial firm to announce that it plans to stop investing in coal companies.
Private landowners present a rising threat to the millions of acres set aside for public use by blocking access to public landsThe Diamond Bar X is a postcard-perfect slice of Montana solitude. A former cattle ranch that’s been parceled up into sprawling home sites, it sits not far outside Augusta, a cowboy town beneath Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, where the Great Plains crash into majestic snow-peaked mountains to dramatic effect.The area is prime habitat for elk and grizzlies, people are few, and its residents have easy access to countless miles of trails and streams on the adjacent public lands. Continue reading...
Underbidding for contracts to bring in cash – if that is what has happened – is a dangerous practice. We need to knowThe collapse of Carillion, the building and outsourcing company, throws up so many questions about the state of UK business and government services it is difficult to know where to begin.Lifting the lid on Carillion’s strategic plans, it is clear that the company’s board mistook tactical nous for strategy. Not that there was much common sense in taking a building company and morphing it into a conglomerate that tries to meld together the management of prisons, hospitals and schools as if they were all the same. Continue reading...
Extinction prevention plan branded ‘deeply inadequate’ after environment department publishes paper without targetsThe federal government’s latest strategy to protect Australian plants and animals facing extinction has been branded “deeply inadequate†and “a global embarrassment†by environment groups.The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that a new 13-page document had quietly replaced the old 100-page biodiversity conservation strategy just before Christmas on the Department of Environment’s website. Continue reading...
Friends of the Earth, National Trust and others voice ‘serious concerns’ that UK will not cooperate with EUA coalition of leading environmental groups says there is a “significant risk†that British environmental protections will be reduced after Brexit, despite the government’s positive rhetoric.Greener UK, which represents 13 campaign groups including WWF, National Trust, RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance and the Wildlife Trusts, says there are “serious concerns†that the government will not cooperate with the European Union after Brexit on environmental issues which need international agreement. Although the environment secretary, Michael Gove, has made several recent announcements, such as the 5p levy on plastic bottles, Greener UK believes there may be a “lack of willpower to ensure high standards across the UKâ€. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Watts in Mananhão, Brazil on (#3DVAE)
The Ka’apor tribe fight a daily battle in Brazil’s Maranhão state to protect their forestsSairá Ka’apor patrolled one of the most murderous frontiers in the world, a remote and largely lawless region of the Brazilian Amazon where his indigenous community has fought for generations to protect their forest land.Armed with clubs, bows and arrows, GPS trackers and crude guns, he and fellow members of Ka’apor Forest Guard drove off – and sometimes attacked – loggers who intruded into their territory, the 530,000-hectare Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land, which is roughly three times the area of Greater London and contains about half of the Amazon forest left in Brazil’s northern Maranhão state. That vigilante role came to an end last April when Sairá was stabbed to death in Betel, a logging town close to Ka’apor territory. Continue reading...
A 70-metre-high waste incinerator is being built next to the M5Marooned on the flatlands between the Severn river and the Cotswolds escarpment, Stonehouse in Gloucestershire isn’t the sort of place to make the news. But, of late, outrage has been the dominant emotion here as construction traffic has brought what was a country village to a standstill. Blue plastic barriers proliferate, mobile traffic lights are set down apparently at random and workers clad in hi-vis saunter about with the swagger of the new sheriff in town.While the slow crawl of traffic to and from the M5 is frustrating, it is the cause of the blockage that is more troubling. Stonehouse is being dug up to lay a cable to service the giant waste monster being built next to junction 12 of the M5, an edifice that its opponents warned would grow to four times the size of nearby Gloucester cathedral, a glorious testament to the grand folly of another age. Continue reading...
One $2.2m experiment involves giant fans to cool water down, despite government’s own advisers highlighting risksMillions of dollars of commonwealth money is being handed to tourism-linked groups for Great Barrier Reef protection, despite official advice recommending against the projects, or repeatedly finding them to be failing.The contracts include millions of dollars for tourism operators to cull out-of-control coral-eating crown of thorns starfish. Funds continue to be distributed, despite researchers employed to evaluate the program repeatedly finding it to have failed, and potentially having made the problem worse. Continue reading...
Canada aquarium has announced it will end the practice of keeping cetaceans in captivity, after pressure from the publicFor years the Vancouver aquarium fended off pressure from animal right activists, local government and residents, arguing instead that whales and dolphins were central to its mission. But this week the tourist attraction gave in to public pressure, and announced that it would end the practice of keeping cetaceans in captivity.“It had become a local hot topic, to the point where it was just hijacking everything else,†said John Nightingale, the aquarium’s president. Continue reading...
We find organic mushrooms in non-recyclable trays next to plain veg in compostable wrappingMy environmentally conscious wife Clare is the keenest recycler possible. She even collects and recycles the silver milk bottle tops that I tend to chuck out. But when it comes to organic food she’s furious. Why? Because she finds it is the worst culprit for wrapping almost everything in plastic and polywrap that cannot be recycled. How, she asks, did we reach the situation where the most environmentally produced food is also the worst for packaging and recycling?Like many others, the Brignall household despairs at the revelations over the past year that 86% of collected plastic is not actually recycled, and the Blue Planet claim that 8m tonnes of the stuff ends up in oceans. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Boonchai Bach allegedly ran tusk and horn smuggling route from AfricaPolice in Thailand have arrested one of the world’s most notorious wildlife traffickers, allegedly involved in the smuggling thousands of tonnes of elephant tusks and rhino horns from Africa to Asia, the Guardian has learned.Boonchai Bach, who goes by multiple aliases including Bach Mai Limh, was arrested at his operational base in the north-eastern province of Nakhon Phanom, next to the Mekong River on Thursday. Continue reading...
Keyhaven, Hampshire: The brent geese feeding on the grassland are restless, but not because of the people walking along the skyline above themThe mudflats are still, but first impressions are deceptive. On a grey, raw day, we stop on the bridge across the Avon Water as it enters the Keyhaven Marshes. The tide is out, gulls mill in the air, but below us the glutinous foreground seems devoid of life. As our eyes settle to what we are seeing, we realise how misleading those first impressions are. The mudflats are teeming with waders. We’ve left the binoculars in the car and so don’t attempt identification until one long-legged, straight-billed bird wades out to feed, head-down into the stream. In this murky light, it’s impossible to see markings but surely this is a black-tailed godwit.
The Sapphire Wind Farm in northern NSW has invited the locals to invest in it – the first such co-investment project in AustraliaIn the early days of windfarming, carpetbaggers almost ruined it for everyone.Opportunists scoured regional Australia looking for prospective project sites. Farmers were pressured to sign up to leases and planning applications were rushed through. As soon as the permit was in hand, the developer would flip the project and start again. Continue reading...
Photographs show only localised bleaching but there is concern it has come so early in the seasonWarm water has already begun bleaching coral on the Great Barrier Reef, weeks ahead of the period with highest forecast risk. Satellite data suggest widespread bleaching is possible by March.Selina Ward, a coral reef biologist from the University of Queensland, has photographed the bleaching, which she said appeared to be very localised so far, but was concerning because of how early in the season it was. Continue reading...
You are more likely to die from a bicycle accident, lightning strike, or mauling by alligator or bear than from a shark attackThe president of the United States does not like sharks.Related: Stormy Daniels on Trump: pajamas, unprotected sex and … scary sharks Continue reading...
Government extends deadline for installation of older model despite interoperability issuesMore than 1m extra first generation smart meters will be fitted in homes because the government has extended a deadline for their installation, despite the devices being criticised because they can “go dumb†when customers switch energy suppliers.Related: Energy firms say price cap on bills could hit UK roll-out of smart meters Continue reading...
Icelandic horses, an endangered hawksbill sea turtle and snow leopards are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...
MPs write to major supermarkets, as pressure grows over the huge amounts of plastic waste they generateTwo hundred cross-party MPs are calling on heads of the major supermarkets to eliminate plastic packaging from their products by 2023.The MPs, who are from seven political parties, have written to Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, Waitrose, Aldi, Lidl, Budgens and Marks & Spencer urging them to scrap plastic packaging. Continue reading...
Last-minute opposition by Westminster city council to park gate closures could leave the new superhighway ‘dead’, says former London cycling commissionerPlans to close the outer circle of Regent’s Park to rat-running motor traffic are being “significantly watered down†to shutting just two gates – down from four – and to shorter periods, in only the morning and evening peak, it has been revealed.Although still in discussion, plans for the road, which will form part of cycle superhighway 11 (CS11), have reportedly been under pressure from Westminster city council since they gained 60% approval in a public consultation in August 2016. Those close to discussions say weakened changes are now being blocked by the body that runs the park’s roads on the grounds they could be more dangerous than the status quo. Continue reading...
The killing of two rangers in Catalonia a year ago this week, marked a chilling turning point for colleagues facing up to increasing violence towards Europe’s wildlife defendersOn a hill above the olive trees and dun scrublands of western Catalonia, two rusty iron silhouettes maintain a still and silent vigil. One peers out over the land through a pair of binoculars; the other kneels and holds a bird forever on the cusp of release.At their feet is a simple plaque: “In memory and recognition of Xavier Ribes Villas and David Iglesias DÃez, wildlife rangers whose lives were taken in the line of duty on 21 January 2017.†Continue reading...
Until last year I’d never been in a protest. Now I’m due in court for trying to stop this destructive industry ruining our landscapeI am a 73-year-old grandmother. On a sunny day in the middle of July I found myself sitting in the central reservation of the A583 outside Cuadrilla’s fracking site near Blackpool, one arm locked into a steel tube within a brightly coloured wooden box and surrounded by police. I was not alone. Locked into a neighbouring box was my partner, Paul, and my granddaughter, Megan. A few feet away my son, Sebastian, was also locked on, along with two other female friends.The next morning in the Guardian there was a large photograph of me with a caption describing me as an activist. I almost laughed out loud. I thought I must be the unlikeliest person ever to be described as an activist. Unlikely because of my age and because I am definitely not given to defiance; I do feel deeply about inhumanity, greed, the wrecking of the planet, but thus far I had confined myself to petition-signing, infrequent letter-writing and furious, but powerless, indignation in the company of like-minded friends. Continue reading...
Erik Solheim cites ‘huge decline’ in world’s reefs but says shift from coal and new awareness of plastic pollution are good newsThe battle to save the world’s coral reefs is at “make or break pointâ€, and countries that host them have a special responsibility to take a leadership role by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution and impacts from agriculture, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has said.Speaking to the Guardian after the launch of International Coral Reef Initiative’s international year of the reef, Erik Solheim said he expected governments to take their efforts on reef protection in 2018 beyond symbolic designation. Continue reading...
Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Conservationists are using hidden cameras, DNA testing and a sense of smell, to follow the lives of the city’s otter populationA dank winter’s day in the Steel City did not hold obvious promise of the transformative power of nature. But not far from where a gaggle of office workers were enjoying a fag break, a friendly conservation volunteer called Paul ushered me down a ladder to an otherwise inaccessible spot on the banks of the river Don. I found myself, like Alice down the rabbit-hole, in a new sort of country, a lush carpet of floating weeds and a swift-moving ribbon of clear water at my feet muffling the sound of traffic and freshening the air.Paul and his colleague Karon were checking hidden cameras for a lottery-funded survey of Sheffield’s small otter population, called Otterly Amazing! The motion-sensitive cameras have captured these shy creatures, hunting successfully in a river so polluted when I was a boy in the 1970s that it would literally catch fire. Continue reading...
Modern cars can start in the cold, so why are manufacturers failing to make exhaust controls more efficient below 20C?Twenty-five years ago, starting a car in winter required careful balancing of choke and accelerator and sometimes sprays of WD40 or a bump start. Now, modern vehicles simply work in the cold. However, a European parliament inquiry following the Volkswagen scandal found that the nitrogen oxides abatement systems on many diesel cars shut down below the official test temperature of 20C. Manufacturers say that this prevents engine damage and is therefore legal. Real-world driving measurements on 9,000 cars in Gothenburg, Sweden, have shown this shutdown in action. Average emissions at 10C were almost twice those at 25C.Related: What is behind the diesel cars emissions scandal? Continue reading...
World Economic Forum outlines huge increase in all five eco risks since the US president assumed officeThe World Economic Forum delivered a strong warning about Donald Trump’s go-it-alone approach to tackling climate change as it highlighted the growing threat of environmental collapse in its annual assessment of the risks facing the international community.In the run-up to the US president’s speech to its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, next week, the WEF avoided mentioning Trump by name but said “nation-state unilateralism†would make it harder to tackle global warming and ecological damage. Continue reading...
Scientists say consumers should be wary of buying any seafood that may have passed through the area until the toxic impact of the spill has been assessed
The biggest impact comes from electricity used to power the microwaves, but study also highlights rising environmental cost of our throwaway culturePopping frozen peas into the microwave for a couple of minutes may seem utterly harmless, but Europe’s stock of these quick-cook ovens emit as much carbon as nearly 7m cars, a new study has found.And the problem is growing: with costs falling and kitchen appliances becoming “status†items, owners are throwing away microwaves after an average of eight years, pushing rising sales. Continue reading...
University of New South Wales colleagues pay tribute to pioneer with ‘Crocodile Dundee persona’ who died age 60 from malignant melanomaAustralia’s scientific community has paid tribute to Prof Stuart Wenham, a solar energy pioneer described as the “Einstein of the solar industryâ€, whose research increased the efficiency of solar cells a hundredfold.Wenham passed away on 23 December, age 60, after suffering from malignant melanoma. He was the director of the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Photovoltaics and Photonics at the University of New South Wales. Continue reading...
An initiative led by Europa Nostra has shortlisted at-risk cultural landmarks and aims protect seven of the most endangeredAn aerial cableway in Georgia, a modernist monument in Bulgaria and an ice factory in Grimsby, are among 12 heritage sites that have been shortlisted by a campaign that is highlighting Europe’s most at-risk cultural monuments.Heritage federation Europa Nostra, which works with Unesco and the EU, lobbies to protect cultural and natural heritage across the continent and represents national and local heritage groups. The shortlist is part of its 7 Most Endangered initiative that will lead to monuments receiving exposure, as well as guidance from Europa Nostra experts about preservation. Continue reading...
Haldon Forest, Devon: Britain’s hawfinch population has been boosted by hundreds of unexpected but welcome visitors from the continentTowering electricity pylons bisect the western edge of Haldon Forest, their splayed metal arms echoing the shapes of surrounding conifer trees, as if they have broken ranks from the plantation pines. It is bitterly cold but I take a seat at the foot of a pylon. I have come in search of one of Britain’s most elusive birds and the surrounding woodland, I have been assured, is the place to spot it.Hail soon begins peppering the ground around me and causing the power cables above to fizz alarmingly. I consider retreating to my car, but a sudden sharp pit! jolts my senses like a static charge. The storm passes and I hear the sound again, tracing its source to a bird perched deep within a stand of hornbeam trees. I can just make out a heavy head fronted by a powerful nutcracker of a beak. It is enough to identify it: a hawfinch. My luck is in. Continue reading...