Greens’ Jeremy Buckingham says Coalition government frightened of public scrutiny following allegations of water theft in Murray-Darling basinWater regulations due to be reviewed and updated on 1 September have been postponed for another year by the New South Wales government following the controversy over allegations of water theft in the Barwon-Darling region of the Murray-Darling basin.The Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham accused the NSW Coalition of running scared over the recent scrutiny of state water management following the Four Corners program.
Country that produces almost half the world’s avocados contemplates the unthinkable as dietary staple becomes too costly for ordinary MexicansThe growing global appetite for avocados has been blamed for a litany of sorrows, from self-inflicted stab wounds to stopping young people from buying their own homes.But in Mexico, the world’s biggest producer, what used to be a dietary staple is now too expensive for many ordinary consumers. And, now the country where the avocado is believe to have originated is considering the unthinkable: importing avocados from abroad. Continue reading...
Infected larvae are exploding in Lincolnshire – and the virus is spreading …Name: Zombie caterpillars.Age: Not very old, and dead before their time, after a tragic life in which their bodies were taken over by a malign force. Continue reading...
Seafood eaters consume up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic a year. Scary, isn’t it?I’m officially declaring this the Summer of Plastic. With the rising tide of plastic waste – 38.5 million plastic bottles a day in the UK alone and production set to quadruple by 2050 – the plastic pollution crisis in our oceans has become the breakout issue.Activists are stepping it up from quiet beach cleans to strident zero-tolerance campaigns. In terms of severity, Surfers Against Sewage (sas.org.uk) rates plastic pollution up there with climate change. Its campaign, Wasteland, urges us to boycott throwaway plastics now. Meanwhile, Greenpeace continues to hound soft-drinks brands, mapping their alarming use of plastic and abject failure to take responsibility. Continue reading...
It was a damp day on Denbies Hillside in the North Downs, but is the outlook now better for the insect?By any standards, it was a poor day to count butterflies. Denbies Hillside, on the south-facing flank of the North Downs – supposedly a summer haven for lepidopterists – was swept by wind and heavy showers. Butterflies, like humans, take a poor view of such conditions and had made themselves scarce.Such are the discomforts of involvement in the Big Butterfly Count. The national survey has seen thousands of members of the British public counting butterfly species across the nation. It has been a damp and cold process on occasion. Continue reading...
In a new occasional series, Guardian journalists discuss their careers and achievements. Here Felicity Lawrence considers her role as special correspondentFelicity Lawrence has reported on some of the most challenging issues facing the modern world, from corporate power – especially in the food system – to migration, the re-emergence of slavery, climate change, and global tax avoidance.She was recently awarded the coveted Orwell prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils, for her latest piece on migrant gangwork in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and its human and political consequences. Continue reading...
Talsarnau, Gwynedd Not another person was visible in this elemental landscape. But there was activity on the waters of Llyn y DywarchenBeyond the water-lily lake of Llyn Tecwyn Isaf, in Snowdonia national park, the farm road zigzags steeply to Caerwych, from whence a splashy path slips round beneath Y Gyrn to climb into a region of marshy flats where bog asphodel and creeping spearwort flower. Recent waymarking lures you on through terrain problematical in mist to the bronze age trackway.A short, gentle, ascent leads to Bryn Cader Faner’s corona of outward-pointing rocks atop a grassy bluff. It’s one of the most beautiful bronze age monuments in Britain. Continue reading...
NFU says UK produces only 60% of its own food and must increase production to avoid food insecurity after leaving EUBritain must increase home-grown food production and build stronger supply chains to face Brexit uncertainties, the National Farmers Union has said.In an annual calculation to draw attention to the UK’s decline in food self-sufficiency, the NFU said the national larder would be bare this Sunday if Britain opted for a cliff-edge departure from Europe and imports became unavailable. Continue reading...
Frozen bodies of couple who vanished 75 years ago among those uncovered recently as global warming forces ice to retreatSwiss police say hundreds of bodies of mountaineers who have gone missing in the Alps in the past century could emerge in coming years as global warming forces the country’s glaciers to retreat.Related: Extreme weather deaths in Europe 'could increase 50-fold by next century' Continue reading...
by Jon Henley European affairs correspondent on (#2YC1B)
Authorities in 11 countries warn residents and tourists to take precautions amid region’s most intense heatwave – nicknamed Lucifer – since 2003Eleven southern and central European countries have issued extreme heat warnings amid a brutal heatwave nicknamed Lucifer, with residents and tourists urged to take precautions and scientists warning worse could be still to come.Authorities in countries including Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia are on red alert, the European forecasters’ network Meteoalarm said, and swaths of southern Spain and France are on amber. Continue reading...
The government’s new strategy does not go far enough in recognising fewer vehicles, not just cleaner ones, are the answerWith more and more of the world’s population living in cities, we need to get urban transport right. That means making sure that people and goods can move around easily and cheaply. It also means ensuring that city transport systems don’t damage people’s health, as diesel and to a lesser extent petrol are currently doing in London and other UK cities.
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#2YBTS)
Prof Frank Kelly says fewer not cleaner vehicles are needed, plus more cycling and walking and better transit systemsCars must be driven out of cities to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, not just replaced with electric vehicles, according to the UK government’s top adviser.Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit. Continue reading...
Figures reveal trend of increasing emissions since the carbon tax was repealed in 2014 and cast doubt on whether Australia can meet cuts in Paris agreementAustralia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising to the highest figures seen in years, according to official government figures, increasing 1.6% in the last quarter and 1% in the past year.The country’s emissions in the year to March 2017 are the highest on record at 550.3m tonnes of CO equivalent when emissions from land use change are excluded – a sector where the government says its figures have a high degree of uncertainty. Continue reading...
Green Alliance calls for making retailers take back bottles and cans to significantly reduce plastic pollution in seasPlastic marine litter could be cut significantly if the government adopted a bottle deposit scheme as part of five key actions to tackle pollution of the oceans, a green thinktank has said.The single most effective action to reduce plastic pollution in the seas would be a container return scheme along the lines of those run in large parts of Europe, north America and Australia, according to a new analysis by Green Alliance. In such schemes, a small tax is added to recyclable and reusable containers at the point of sale, which consumers can reclaim by returning them. Continue reading...
Plymouth, Devon A busy harbour is not a place you’d expect to find much in the way of wildlife, so that bubble trail in the water is intriguingThis is a place of arrivals and departures, a centuries-old harbour where few stop for long. From hosting the steamships and trans-Atlantic liners of the past to today’s colossal cross-channel ferries, Plymouth’s historic Millbay dock has served the comings and goings of countless travellers.On work lunch breaks I regularly walk beside the innermost basin, now transformed into a marina as part of the area’s regeneration. Solid harbour walls designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel provide shelter for luxury yachts neatly berthed along wooden pontoons. Continue reading...
Dedicated searches have revealed a rare butterfly back in its former Kent stronghold and gaining other territoriesBritain’s most charismatic and elusive butterfly, the purple emperor, has a habit of turning up unannounced. This powerful, treetop, butterfly lives at low densities in the landscape but has been spotted in many new places thanks to the combination of a fine mid-summer and some astonishingly thorough searches by devotees.Related: Interesting times for lepidopterists Continue reading...
Government research finds drastic drop in people backing drilling for shale gas since the study was launched in 2012Public support for fracking has reached a record low, according to the latest government research.A survey by the Business and Energy Department showed just 16% supported the controversial process of shale gas extraction, down from 21% last year and the lowest since the study was launched five years ago. Continue reading...
The interoceanic canal and its ‘murky legal framework’ was also criticized by former model Bianca Jagger, who called the canal ‘an insane project’Nicaragua’s former revolutionary leaders have led a campaign of harassment and persecution against communities opposing the construction of a controversial canal that threatens the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people, according to Amnesty International.Plans to construct a $50bn shipping canal 175 miles long and 500 yards wide have provoked a mix of anger, fear and defiance not witnessed since the civil war between the Sandinista government and US-backed Contra rebels ended in 1988. Continue reading...
Mussels among materials tested in pilot project to see if small artificial reefs can protect beaches from North Sea stormsThe humble mussel, that much-loved staple of Belgian cuisine, has been deployed by scientists in an innovative attempt to save the country’s storm-battered beaches.Small artificial reefs of mussels, algae and tube worms have been built off the Belgian coast to test whether eco-friendly barriers can protect Flemish beaches from storms brewing in the North Sea.
VW, BMW, Opel and Daimler’s promise to fix 5 million cars not enough to undo the damage done by emissions scandal, say campaignersMajor car makers are being accused of clutching at straws after they agreed to fit software to 5m diesel vehicles in Germany to reduce harmful emissions by up to 30%.VW, Daimler, BMW and Opel made the decision at a summit with leading politicians in Berlin. They have been under pressure since the diesel emissions scandal two years ago exposed how VW and – it is suspected – other manufacturers have been cheating the testing regime. Continue reading...
Scott Pruitt claims change is testament to responsiveness but makes no mention of legal challenge over Obama-era rules to lessen ground-level ozoneOne day after getting sued by 15 states, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief, Scott Pruitt, reversed his decision to delay implementation of Obama-era rules reducing emissions of smog-causing air pollutants.Pruitt presented the change as his agency being more responsive than past administrations to the needs of state environmental regulators. He made no mention of the legal challenge filed against his prior position in a federal appeals court. Continue reading...
Over four decades of exploration and extraction have caused an environmental and health crisis in indigenous communitiesWho is going to clean up Peru’s northern Amazon after decades of companies spilling oil and dumping billions of barrels of toxic production waters? Certainly not US company Occidental which ran the biggest concession, Lot 1-AB, until 2000, nor, it would seem, Petroperu, which ran the other major concession, Lot 8, until 1996 and operates the rusty, leaking North Peruvian Pipeline to this day.Nor Pluspetrol, a company founded in Argentina and now registered in the Netherlands which took over both Lot 1-AB and Lot 8, if its actions to date are anything to go by. Nor the China National Petroleum Corporation, which bought 45% stakes in both concessions in 2003. Nor the subsidiary of a Canadian company now called Frontera Energy which, in 2015, when Lot 1-AB’s name was effectively changed to Lot 192, bought 100% of operations in a two year temporary contract. Continue reading...
Researchers are racing for answers after at least 10 deaths of north Atlantic right whales, marking the deadliest year since tracking beganResearchers are scrambling to figure out why one of the world’s most endangered whale species is dying in “unprecedented†numbers, after at least 10 north Atlantic right whales have been found floating lifelessly off the coast of Canada.The first whale carcass was reported in early June. Within a month, another six reports came in, leaving researchers reeling. This week, after several carcasses washed up on the shores of western Newfoundland, Canadian officials confirmed that the number of whale deaths had risen to at least 10, making 2017 the deadliest year for the whales since researchers began tracking them in the 1980s. Continue reading...
Madrid has its scheme, while Muswell Hill’s never happened. Hilly cities from Rome to Rio will be watching as Lisbon starts e-bike hireWander around Lisbon’s city centre with its vertiginous cobbled streets, treacherous enough on foot in the rain, it’s hard to imagine cycling ever taking off. Some streets are so steep there are funiculars to help you scale them, and Lisboetas on bikes are a rare sight outside of summer.
Exclusive: Senate inquiry told the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund is ‘sorely wanting’ on transparencyA group of prominent economists have told a Senate inquiry the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund (Naif) is “sorely wanting†on transparency, accountability and its track record for public disclosure, and called on it to make major changes to the way it operates.In a submission to the Senate inquiry into the governance and operation of Naif, the group discusses the potential $900m loan to Adani for a rail link to its proposed Carmichael coalmine as a case study, and raises serious concerns about the way the body operates. Continue reading...
Highways Agency studies Dutch scheme using ‘cantilevered canopies’ covered with pollution-absorbing material in effort to improve air qualityMajor roads could be turned into tunnels covered with pollution-absorbing material in an effort to cut emission fumes and improve air quality.Highways Agency officials are studying a Dutch scheme in which cantilevered canopies are constructed over the most polluted sections of road to prevent local residents breathing in noxious car fumes. Continue reading...
National Trust chief says seamless transition in funding is vital post-Brexit to protect countryside from short-termismBritish farmers are returning to intensive measures that deplete wildlife and damage the environment as a vacuum in government policy leaves them facing an uncertain future after the Brexit vote, the director general of the National Trust is warning.In an outspoken message to ministers, Dame Helen Ghosh says action is needed now to create a seamless transition of subsidies and green incentives for farmers after the UK leaves the EU in order to avoid creating a decade of uncertainty in the countryside. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#2Y6D3)
If warming is not tackled, levels of humid heat that can kill within hours will affect millions across south Asia within decades, analysis findsExtreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research.
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#2Y58W)
Two recently fledged night herons have been seen at Somerset’s Westhay Moor nature reserve, which suspects climate change drew their parents northNight herons are among the most mysterious of birds, and for the first time in recorded history they have been spotted breeding in the UK.Long-distance photographs captured an adult pair of black-crowned herons and one of their two offspring at the Westhay Moor national nature reserve, run by Somerset Wildlife Trust. The young birds have recently fledged, having been born either on Westhay Moor or the nearby Avalon Marshes. Continue reading...
Council apologises for serious errors in air quality readings over three years and says it is reviewing planning applicationsA local authority has admitted its air pollution data was deliberately manipulated for three years to make it look cleaner.Cheshire East council apologised after serious errors were made in air quality readings from 2012 to 2014. Continue reading...
As bin collectors’ strike enters fifth week, volunteers in Balsall Heath and Small Heath are using tipper truck to clear streetsVolunteers in Birmingham will hit the streets in a tipper truck on Wednesday as they attempt to clean the area of rubbish which has been piling up because of a refuse collectors’ strike.Workers began a series of walkouts on 30 June after an industrial dispute between unions and Birmingham city council over job losses. Continue reading...
Video from Dr Greg Skomal shows the moment a curious white shark took a GoPro camera in its mouth. The fish, seen off the Monomoy national wildlife refuge in Massachusetts on Monday, is believed to have been 12ft (3.6 metres) long. Skomal works for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
Rules put in place before the national Murray-Darling basin plan favour larger irrigators, say experts and farmersFarmers and water experts say New South Wales government rule changes could be causing more water loss to the Murray-Darling river system than before the national plan was put in place.
Researcher says emissions from fracking in the basin could be ‘far bigger than everything you’d get’ from the proposed Queensland mineFracking the McArthur basin could release four to five times as much greenhouse gas emissions as the proposed Adani Carmichael mine, a leading researcher has said.
Some global corporations are trying to address the environmental impact of throwaway culture, but campaigners say they remain part of the problemWhen John Sauven, executive director at Greenpeace UK, heard a woman complain on the radio that supermarket croissants were cheaper to buy wrapped in plastic than paper, he was so startled he went straight to his local Co-op“It was true,†Sauven said at a recent Guardian roundtable discussion on the future of waste. “If I bought two croissants in a brown paper bag, it was 79p [each], and if I bought them in a big plastic container it was 63p [each]. And I just thought ... this is a complete failure of the system.†Continue reading...
Ski resort of Alta Badia enters the craze for cycling sportives allowing amateurs to experience closed-roads settingsA ski resort in Italy is experimenting with closing sections of its mountain roads in an effort to become a mecca for road cyclists during the summer season.Alta Badia in the Italian Dolomites has hosted three “bike only†days this summer to boost its cyclo-tourism credentials and capitalise on the trend for closed-roads sportives. Continue reading...
Cancellation and downgrading of projects will lengthen journey times and increase costs, says partyScrapping rail electrification projects will lengthen journey times, increase carbon emissions and raise the cost of running the network, the Labour party has warned. The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, announced in July that plans to electrify lines in Wales, the Midlands and the North have been cancelled or downgraded.Labour has claimed that this would increase journey times, including those between Manchester and Liverpool, by nearly half an hour, and between Leeds and Newcastle by over 20 minutes. It also puts the estimated 19-minute cut to journey times from new trains between Swansea and London at risk, according to the analysis. Continue reading...
Attingham, Shropshire Over centuries people have watched with wonder these almost unreal, too bright, too quick insectsThe banded demoiselles are dancing like laser lights over the river Tern. There is something CGI about these creatures: too bright, too quick, too beautiful to be real.The banded demoiselle is large for a damselfly, small for a dragonfly; a 40mm long emerald-cobalt pin with gauzy wings marked with the indigo fingerprints of when they were plucked from the water, or so it seems. Continue reading...
Huw Jones charts the impact on farming of cuts in support and Michael McLoughlin looks at the causes of suicide among Indian farmersPolly Toynbee (The Tories are split over farming. It’s hard not to gloat, 1 August) raises important issues. Subsidies were intended to lower food prices and increase discretionary income for manufactured products. The subsidy fills the gap between production costs and farm-gate prices, which were lowered by imports and by allowing food-chain “efficiencies†resulting in domination by the supermarkets. The inflexibility of EU-wide subsidies resulted a few years ago in tiny farm incomes, despite substantial investment in farms. This, combined with oppressive and chaotic management of subsidies by Defra, resulted in support for Brexit. Loss of subsidies will result in the closure of most affected farms that cannot subsidise themselves with non-farming income. Perhaps the price of rural holidays will have to increase.You also report increased suicide rates amongst Indian farmers due to climate change (Farmers’ suicides linked to climate, 1 August), but suicides in response to agricultural depression are not uncommon in UK, either. Meanwhile, BNP Paribas is buying Strutt and Parker (Report, 1 August), famous for major land sales. French bankers clearly see a growing opportunity in selling distressed UK farms. Buyers will keep huge areas under common management, regardless of local land quality and ecosystems. Merged farms will need to use large suppliers, while smaller suppliers will go out of business. Small rural communities and dedicated local infrastructure will become unsustainable, reducing opportunities for tourism or even online businesses. Changes to subsidies will affect far more people than just farmers and will need to be considered very carefully.
Energy prices | Moeen Ali | Prudish chemists | Gay chants | LiberalismIt is disappointing to see such a large price rise from British Gas (Report, 1 August), but let’s not slam these suppliers for being greedy. They’re inefficient and outmoded – and it’s customers who pay the price. Energy doesn’t have to be this expensive, as proven by the dozens of newer suppliers with lower costs and better service. The only way to fix the broken energy market and the stranglehold of the big six is with the urgent introduction of an energy price cap which will benefit all families.
Elephant and tiger territories are shrinking as India’s growing population encroaches on wild spaces causing an increase in fatalitiesA deadly conflict is under way between India’s growing population and its wildlife confined to ever-shrinking forests and grasslands. Data shows that about one person has been killed on average every day for the past three years by roaming tigers or rampaging elephants.Statistics released this week by India’s environment ministry reveal that 1,144 people were killed between April 2014 and May 2017. That figure breaks down to 426 human deaths in 2014-15, and 446 the following year. The ministry released only a partial count for 2016-17, with 259 people killed by elephants up to February of this year, and 27 killed by tigers through May. Continue reading...
With no fossil flowers older than 130m years, their evolution has long been a mystery. A new structural discovery provides an important piece of the puzzleDelicate and upturned, with curving petals arranged in threes, it looks like the subject of a Monet painting. In fact, it is what scientists believe the bloom of the last common ancestor of all living flowers looked like.Flowering plants – or angiosperms – are thought to make up about 90% of all living land plants. There are more than 300,000 different species on the planet, from tiny forget-me-nots to glorious magnolias. Continue reading...
A new report shows toxins from suppliers to companies like Tyson Foods are pouring into waterways, causing marine life to leave or dieThe global meat industry, already implicated in driving global warming and deforestation, has now been blamed for fueling what is expected to be the worst “dead zone†on record in the Gulf of Mexico.
The electric utility sector is broken – but the transformation we need will be virtually impossible so long as a handful of wealthy elites are calling the shotsA new report from the US-based Energy and Policy Institute last week found that investor-owned utilities have known about climate change for nearly 50 years – and done everything in their power to stop governments from doing anything about it.From their commitment to toxic fuels to their corrosive influence on our democracy to their attempts to price-gouge ratepayers, it’s long past time to bring the reign of privately-owned electric utilities to an end. Continue reading...
Whether basking in sunshine in the northern hemisphere or fighting cooler temperatures in the south, we’d like to see the wildlife you discoverWherever you are in the world and however professional or amateur your photography set up, we would like to see your images of the wildlife living near you.Related: Otters, geese and grebes: your photos as the Wetland Trust turns 70 Continue reading...