Environment | The Guardian

The shutdown is the latest employment blow for the state, following on from the closure of the Holden car factoryCoca-Cola Amatil has announced the closure of its South Australia factory in the latest employment blow to hit the state.Around 180 workers will lose their jobs when the bottling operation in the inner-city Adelaide suburb of Thebarton closes in 2019. Continue reading...

Santos says the proposed Narrabri gas project could supply up to 50% of New South Wales’ gas needsA group of New South Wales farmers fear that the federal and state governments are using the South Australian blackouts to push through a controversial 850-well coal seam gas project in the north-west of the state.The NSW government released the environmental impact statement (EIS) on Tuesday for the Narrabri coal seam gas project, weeks after Malcolm Turnbull raised the possibility of a domestic gas reserve where an exploration area could be set aside exclusively for domestic consumption. Continue reading...

The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, told agency staff on Tuesday that the US should not have to choose between the economy and the environment. ‘I believe that we as a nation can be both pro-energy and jobs, and pro-environment. We don’t have to choose between the two,’ Pruitt said in his first speech to EPA workers since he was confirmed as administrator last week Continue reading...

Head of Environmental Protection Agency tells staff he will ‘listen, learn, and lead’ as White House reportedly prepares orders to roll back green regulationsThe new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, told agency staff on Tuesday that the US should not have to choose between the economy and the environment.As the White House reportedly prepares executive orders to roll back Obama-era green regulations, Pruitt struck a conciliatory tone in an address to agency staff, saying he would “listen, learn and lead”. Continue reading...

NFU president says food will ‘rot in the fields’ unless government guarantees access to workforceFarmers have warned that food will “rot in the fields” and Britain will be unable to produce what it eats if the government cannot guarantee that growers will continue to have access to tens of thousands of EU workers after Brexit.Meurig Raymond, president of the National Farmers’ Union, told the body’s annual conference in Birmingham that farmers and food processors, particularly in horticulture and poultry, were already having difficulty recruiting.

Crowd Cow works directly with ranchers across the US, cutting out the middleman and giving farmers an alternative to selling calves to factory farmsIf crowdsourcing makes you think of fundraising campaigns for smartwatches and wine coolers rather than sustainable food, you’re not alone. But a new Seattle-based startup called Crowd Cow is hoping to change that.Crowd Cow works like most crowdfunding campaigns. Every few days, the company hosts an “event” on its website featuring cows from one of the seven beef ranchers it works with on the west coast. There are photos and videos of the ranch itself, to give people a better understanding of the farmers and the cows on the ranch. Customers can then select cuts of beef they wish to buy from the ranch. Once enough beef has been purchased, the cow “tips” – and customers become “steakholders” in the cow. “Steakholders” then receive their beef (frozen in dry ice) in as little as a few days. If the cow doesn’t tip, there is no charge. But most Crowd Cow cows tip within one or two days. Continue reading...

Camera -trap footage shows a giant anteater going toe-to-toe with a jaguar in the Gurupi Biological Reserve in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. The video was filmed by the Brazilian National Research Centre for Carnivore Conservation in September 2016 as part of a survey on jaguars

Professor Lewis’s analysis of ways to tackle air pollution (10 ways to beat air pollution: how effective are they?, theguardian.com, 15 February) is disappointingly dismissive of technology that can work in bus shelters or other pollution hotspots. While these solutions can’t clean an entire atmosphere, there are places where they can make a huge difference and it would be shortsighted to sweep them aside.Tests at King’s College London have independently verified that our technology can clean the air of dangerous and pervasive nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter in pollution hotspots. It can reduce exposure to pollution in bus shelters, tube stations, and potentially hospitals or schools, by up to 80%. The mixing of the atmosphere does not therefore “completely outweigh the benefits” as Professor Lewis claims. Continue reading...

Campaigners chain themselves to a vehicle, blocking motorway tunnel leading to airportClimate activists protesting against Heathrow’s planned third runway caused lengthy delays on the M4 by blocking a tunnel leading to the airport for three hours.Campaigners for Rising Up used three cars to close the tunnel leading from the motorway to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 and 3 at about 8.25am on Tuesday. Three protesters chained themselves to one of the vehicles, which had a banner reading: “No new runways”. Continue reading...

Without camera traps we would never be privy to two endangered species sparring in the remote Amazon rainforest.

Prolonged closure at Flamanville plant after fire damage piles further financial pressure on state-owned energy firmThe prolonged closure of a major French atomic reactor after an explosion this month probably costs EDF at least £1m a day, according to experts.The nuclear plant operator, which will spend £18bn building the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation, shut unit 1 at its Flamanville plant after a fire broke out in the turbine hall. Continue reading...

Blackwater Carr, Norfolk Once you are attuned to this avian tree propagation, it becomes a pleasure to find other instancesAlthough I am in my 50s I still take a child’s pleasure in climbing trees. This particular ascent, however, had purpose, because a hawthorn formerly trapped under a sallow thicket has been steadily freed by felling operations. One last large willow branch had to be severed before my overtopped bush could move into the sunlit uplands of the open glade that I have created around it.

Malcolm Turnbull says technology ‘mature and cost-effective’ as Australian Renewable Energy Agency grant announcedThe Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) has approved a $450,000 grant to EnergyAustralia to investigate a pumped hydro energy storage project off South Australia as the state’s energy mix continues to cause a political storm.

Francis echoes growing body of international law and standards on the right to ‘prior and informed consent’In the 15th century papal bulls promoted and provided legal justification for the conquest and theft of indigenous peoples’ lands and resources worldwide - the consequences of which are still being felt today. The right to conquest in one such bull, the Romanus Pontifex, issued in the 1450s when Nicholas V was the Pope, was granted in perpetuity.How times have changed. Last week, over 560 years later, Francis, the first Pope from Latin America, struck a rather different note - for indigenous peoples around the world, for land rights, for better environmental stewardship. He said publicly that indigenous peoples have the right to “prior and informed consent.” In other words, nothing should happen on - or impact - their land, territories and resources unless they agree to it. Continue reading...

The dirty and dumb antics and the anti-renewables rhetoric being amped up by our politicians is out of step with majority thinking on energyWhen Treasurer Scott Morrison clomped into parliament with his pet piece of coal after South Australia’s electricity network collapsed in the face of extreme weather he was indulging in more than a tacky piece of political theatre.As Barnaby Joyce fondled the fossil, the Turnbull government was signing up to the Coal Club’s most audacious attack on the march of renewables since, well, the last one. Continue reading...

When it comes to the weather, research suggests people often trust the evidence of their own eyes rather than expert opinionWhy do so many people remain sceptical about climate change when the evidence for it seems so obvious? One recent study may offer an interesting clue, because American scientists stood the argument on its head and looked at places across the globe that will probably enjoy more pleasant weather with climate change.For Britain, northern Europe and North America there will be more days of mild weather, defined as 18 to 30C, with low humidity and little rain – the sort of weather which by most people’s accounts would be most agreeable. Parts of southern England, for example, will get an extra 10 to 15 days of mild weather a year by the end of this century. It’s not entirely good news, because the mild days will tend to come in spring and autumn, while the summers will grow hotter and more humid. Continue reading...

The South Australian network operator says a software problem led to load shedding of 300MW instead of the 100MW requested by national marketSA Power Networks has said it knew a software glitch caused an additional 60,000 houses in South Australia to be out of power during load shedding this month.Yet the state’s network operator stayed quiet for a week and a half while the Turnbull government continued to criticise the South Australian government’s use of renewables.

Guardian Essential survey shows a clear majority supports Labor’s goal of sourcing 50% of energy from renewables by 2030More than 70% of voters think the Turnbull government is not doing enough to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy for Australian households and businesses – and a clear majority also supports Labor’s goal of sourcing 50% of energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Woolly mammoths | Transport investment | Baby boomers | Flat cakes | WeetabixCan it be right to bring back the mammoth (Report, 17 February)? It disappeared at the beginning of this man-made age of extinction. For it to be returned towards its end, with declining populations of elephants and rhinos, is irony itself. It also highlights that technology is now so poorly controlled that the march of scientific ability will continue to outpace its ethics. Is a world of super-intelligent robots and their woolly mammoth pets really the direction to be going in?

Oxygen levels in oceans have fallen 2% in 50 years due to climate change, affecting marine habitat and large fish such as tuna and sharksThe depletion of oxygen in our oceans threatens future fish stocks and risks altering the habitat and behaviour of marine life, scientists have warned, after a new study found oceanic oxygen levels had fallen by 2% in 50 years.The study, carried out at Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany, was the most comprehensive of the subject to date. The fall in oxygen levels has been attributed to global warming and the authors warn that if it continues unchecked, the amount of oxygen lost could reach up to 7% by 2100. Very few marine organisms are able to adapt to low levels of oxygen. Continue reading...

Scientists predicted decades ago that climate change would add stress to water management systems like Oroville Dam

The most oil-rich and fracking-friendly of states has found itself with the improbable status of being a national leader in a wind energy boomLiving in New York and Washington, Greg Wortham heard all the grand talk about green energy from liberal politicians. Then he returned to the place where he grew up, a small town that embraced wind power so warmly that within a couple of years of the first turbine turning, it had some of the biggest farms on the planet.Yet Wortham is not from California, Oregon or New England, but a deeply conservative sector of Texas on the edge of the Permian Basin, one of the most bountiful oil and gas patches in the world. Continue reading...

Coalition plan for more efficient coal plants could well increase emissions in a sector that is the second most polluting in the developed worldThe government has indicated it will act to allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to finance new coal-fired power plants on the basis that these coal plants have lower emissions than existing coal power plants.While such power plants may have lower emissions than Australia’s ageing and extremely inefficient existing coal plants, they would most likely increase Australia’s emissions rather than decrease them. And this is in a context where Australia’s electricity supply is the second most polluting in the developed world (beaten only by Estonia). Continue reading...

Campaigns in the UK and Australia point to grassroots backlash against plastics-to-fuel sector that could be worth £1.5bn by 2024“A rural residential community is not the right site to be testing this technology,” says Naomi Joyce, a solicitor from Appley Bridge, Lancashire. Born and raised in the village, Joyce helped to lead its fight against a proposed waste-to-fuel plant, which had hoped to convert up to 6,000 tonnes of plastic rubbish into diesel, gasoline and other products each year.Worried that harmful fumes would pollute their valley, locals rallied against the proposal – signing petitions, writing to the council and protesting in the street. In January last year, the project was shelved. Continue reading...

West Dartmoor To have chanced across this night-roamer, lolloping calmly across the muddy lane, was a rare privilege indeed.Hemmed in on either side by tall hedgerows, this narrow Dartmoor lane skirts the flank of higher ground and scores a deep furrow between fields so that after dark you feel you are tunnelling through the terrain, headlights tracing a leaden seam of asphalt. There is little traffic here to trouble nocturnal wildlife. Over the years I have come across badgers, heads striped like road markings, furtive-looking foxes and occasionally a barn owl, achingly white in the full beams.This winter’s night, an unexpected wanderer took shape among the blanched fishbone stems of dead weeds, as if created by the action of light on darkness. Long ears held high, hindquarters arched over rangy rear legs, large eyes that brought me to a halt. A hare! Continue reading...

Prime minister agrees his personal 14.5kW system on the roof of his Sydney home, with battery storage, is a ‘large array’Malcolm Turnbull has hit back at suggestions that his house’s large personal rooftop solar and battery system sends a message contrary to the government’s endorsement of “clean coal”.He rejected the idea that he had ever been critical of the renewables sector and dismissed his treasurer’s brandishing of a lump of coal in question time as “theatrics”. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 20 February 1917On Saturday a grey crow was perched on the topmost rotten branch of an oak beside the river, and was as communicative as usual. Perhaps it enjoyed watching the ice sheets floating past and hearing them scrunch as they piled together at the bend. Yesterday there were three paddling on the sloppy ice of the mere, still talking as they cleaned up the various bird remains. I thought the note was always repeated three times in quick succession, but as often as not four caws follow one another rapidly after each pause of a few seconds’ duration. The grey crow’s call is shriller than the carrion’s but deeper than the rook’s.The thaw livened up the thrushes and starlings and started the dunnocks afresh: everywhere these little hedge-frequenters are shuffling their wings and trilling vigorously. The blackbirds, silent since last summer, immediately tuned up; I heard my first on Saturday, and to-day many are in excellent mellow voice. Herring gulls have not yet left the mere; they have been about for several weeks, for the first appeared long before the waters were ice-bound; they raised a joyous chorus yesterday, their full, clear calls sounding quite vernal. Like the crows, they consorted with the living blackheads and fed upon the dead ones. Near the bank a three-foot eel was embedded in the ice, and crow or gull had got through a weak spot, and reached a few inches of the fish, picking it to the bone. Continue reading...

In the Selous Game Reserve you can see seven different bee-eaters. Each one sports impossibly beautiful coloursBee-eaters are the supermodels of the bird world: slim, glamorous – and hopelessly out of reach for us mere mortals. But in the Selous Game Reserve, in southern Tanzania, you can see seven different species of bee-eater hawking for insects under sun-filled skies. Each one sports impossibly beautiful colours, outcompeting even the half-a-dozen species of kingfisher we saw here. On a game drive from Selous Impala Camp, in the heart of Africa’s largest wildlife reserve, we went in search of the “magnificent seven”.The two commonest species, white-fronted and white-throated, may have similar names, but they are very different in appearance. The white-throated is, by bee-eater standards, almost austere: a plain, foliage green body topped with a black-and-white head. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Coral bleaching found near Palm Island as unusually warm waters are expected off eastern Australia, with areas hit in last year’s event in mortal dangerThe embattled Great Barrier Reef could face yet more severe coral bleaching in the coming month, with areas badly hit by last year’s event at risk of death.Images taken by local divers last week and shared exclusively with the Guardian by the Australian Marine Conservation Society show newly bleached corals discovered near Palm Island. Continue reading...

Damian Carrington is half right (The war against air pollution has begun – and it will be fought in cities, 13 February) in that cities bear a terrible burden from air pollution and municipal action is critical to address it. However, city governments cannot succeed alone. Much of urban pollution stems from outside city limits and significant progress will only be achieved with policies that also require national, regional and even international commitment.A significant part of city air pollution drifts in from regional sources like wood-burning rural households, coal-fired power plants, industries and the open burning of agricultural waste and rubbish. Commuters driving in from car-centric suburbs and transport between cities contribute to urban congestion and pollution too, stymying smart city initiatives like investments in public transportation and safer streets for walking and cycling. Continue reading...

Retailers say demand is at its highest for a decade with popularity spreading from fruit and vegetables to other groceriesDemand for organic food is at its highest for more than a decade, according to major retailers.That’s good news for an industry that was hit hard by the economic downturn but now seems to be returning to rude health as more shoppers say organic food is worth paying the premium for. This week the Soil Association will release its annual report on the state of the organic food market, which is expected to show that it has grown for the fourth consecutive year. Continue reading...

Josh Frydenberg says rules could allow CEFC to invest in projects that do not reduce emissions by 50% or moreThe Coalition is considering changing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation rules to fund new coal-powered plants.One week after the CEFC chief executive, Oliver Yates, told a Senate committee that investment in new coal plants were a very risky proposition for taxpayers, the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the change was an option because “it’s called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, not the renewable energy corporation”. Continue reading...

In Sydney’s baking suburbs, fans have sold out – and fears about the effects of climate change are mountingNahid is resting on a bench outside a Target clothing store, her groceries beside her. A cheery, middle-aged woman with a soft Egyptian accent, she is eating a cone of bubblegum ice-cream as though it contains the secret of life. When I ask her if she’s enjoying her ice-cream, it takes her 30 seconds to stop laughing.“On the weekend I was sick! Sick from the heat! It was like a virus,” she exclaims. “My nephew, he was throwing up from the heat! He couldn’t even take water, he was so sick. Continue reading...

Audits carried out at more than 300 abattoirs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland find major hygiene failings in more than a quarter of meat plantsOne in four slaughterhouses are failing to take basic hygiene precautions to stop contaminated meat reaching high street butchers and supermarkets.An analysis of government audits carried out at more than 300 abattoirs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland identified major hygiene failings in more than a quarter of the meat plants. The failings could expose consumers to serious food poisoning illnesses such as E coli, salmonella or campylobacter. Continue reading...

RSPCA believes baby chickens came from commercial producer but were dumped by a third partyAbout 1,000 day-old chicks have been abandoned in a field. RSPCA inspectors said members of the public made the discovery of the newly hatched chickens in a field in Crowland, near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire on Friday.Many of the chicks are believed to be in good health, although some had died while others had to be put down due to their injuries, the animal welfare charity said. Continue reading...

A new $53m BRT (bus rapid transit) system has the power to reduce Hanoi’s dreadful air pollution. Persuading residents of Vietnam’s rapidly expanding capital to ditch their motorbikes and private cars, however, will be another storyFrom his high-rise office building in Hanoi, Tran Dung can barely see his city’s skyline behind the thick layer of smog. Before leaving work, the 25-year-old executive assistant checks the pollution reading on his AirVisual app, which provides real-time measurements of PM2.5 – the tiny particles found in smog that can damage your throat and lungs.Hanoi’s PM2.5 levels typically range from 100 to 200 micrograms per cubic metre – regularly within the globally acknowledged “unhealthy” category. But on 19 December last year, they hit “hazardous levels” at 343μg/m, which was higher than Beijing. Continue reading...

Slufters Inclosure, New Forest This hardy specimen of butterfly has found an ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of fernOn a bright, cold morning, sandwiched between days of rain and nights of frost, we explore Slufters Inclosure, an area first separated in 1862, when it was planted with Scots pine. It is 6C (43F) when we leave home but the southerly slopes here are harvesting the heat of the sun, and the temperature gradually lifts (just) into double figures. It’s enough to bring liveliness to a dormant scene and makes us wonder from a distance what we will find.Hardly are we in when a dark shape shoots into the sky, does a looping circle around some upper branches and drops to the bankside. This battered red admiral is taking the opportunity offered by a brief change in the weather to soak up some warmth, and transfer it into energy that powers these airborne whorls, and may help to carry the butterfly through the chill days yet to come. A little further down the ride, we spot another, almost immaculate, Vanessa atalanta that has found its ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of hard fern, Blechnum spicant. Continue reading...

The Minerals Council seems mostly intent on using its submission to electoral donations committee to kneecap environmental groups opposed to new minesIn 2010 the mining industry’s $22m campaign against Kevin Rudd’s resources tax helped bring down a prime minister. For years it has spent huge sums on donations and advertising and lobbying to exert enormous political influence. But the deep-pocketed miners really don’t like it when those with different views find the cash and the smarts to wield some clout.The latest squeal came this week in an appearance by the Minerals Council of Australia before the joint standing committee on electoral donations, which seems likely to reach a bipartisan consensus on banning foreign donations to political parties and other organisations that might influence the outcome of elections – including associated entities (like unions or fundraising foundations) and activist groups like GetUp. Continue reading...

Sea turtles laying eggs, buffalo and a swan lake are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Rodrick Ngulube was shot by poachers in West Petauke game management area, after rangers discovered carcasses of a warthog and zebraAt 7am on 12 February, 37-year-old wildlife ranger Rodrick Ngulube was gunned down by poachers in Zambia’s West Petauke game management area. Ngulube and fellow rangers had been tracking seven poachers since the night before when the incident occurred. The slain ranger is survived by his wife and seven children.The sound of a gunshot the day before had set off the team of six rangers, including Ngulube, to track down its source. Forced to give up the search when it got dark, the team picked up the poachers’ trail again the next morning until they discovered the carcasses of a warthog and zebra. Continue reading...

New study says global warming likely to see snowfall replaced by rain across the Alps, with knock-on effects for tourism-dependent villagesAlpine ski resorts are facing the loss of up to 70% of their snow cover by the end of the century, experts have said.Even in the best-case scenarios, global warming is likely to see snowfall replaced by rain across the Alps, according to a report in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) journal the Cryosphere. Continue reading...

Mayor says owners of more polluting cars will have to pay extra levy from October to drive within congestion charge zoneOlder, more polluting cars will have to pay a £10 charge to drive in central London from 23 October, the city’s mayor has said.Confirming he would press ahead with the fee, known as the T-charge, Sadiq Khan said: “It’s staggering that we live in a city where the air is so toxic that many of our children are growing up with lung problems. If we don’t make drastic changes now we won’t be protecting the health of our families in the future. Continue reading...

Stefano Boeri, the architect famous for his plant-covered skyscrapers, has designs to create entire new green settlements in a nation plagued by dirty airWhen Stefano Boeri imagines the future of urban China he sees green, and lots of it. Office blocks, homes and hotels decked from top to toe in a verdant blaze of shrubbery and plant life; a breath of fresh air for metropolises that are choking on a toxic diet of fumes and dust.Last week, the Italian architect, famed for his tree-clad Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) skyscraper complex in Milan, unveiled plans for a similar project in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. Continue reading...

Mexborough, South Yorkshire No longer ‘more or less solid chemicals’, the gunmetal waters of the Don are clean enough for salmonThere were wisps of snow in the liverish sky over Main Street, Mexborough. I passed a shop offering cash for clothes, 40p a kilo, across the road from a tattoo parlour, and then stopped outside its shuttered neighbour. This was, from 1938, the family home of Ted Hughes. The poet’s parents ran it as a newsagent’s. Continue reading...

Great Winter Nurdle Hunt finds thousands of pellets used in plastic production washed up on shorelines around countryA search of hundreds of beaches across the UK has found almost three-quarters of them are littered with tiny plastic pellets.The lentil-size pellets known as “nurdles” are used as a raw material by industry to make new plastic products. Continue reading...

Anti-establishment sentiment is surging to a record high—the question now is who will capture and channel it.

Department of Industry responds to Australia Institute report warning of risks, saying strict conditions are imposedThe New South Wales government has rejected criticisms of its handling of disused mine sites, saying rehabilitation bonds and strict regulations gave it a high degree of confidence that taxpayers would not be lumped with clean-up costs.The Australia Institute released a report on Wednesday on disused mine sites across the state. Continue reading...

Architect who was a pioneer in design for energy conservationRichard Burton, who has died aged 83, was a third of the architectural partnership of Ahrends, Burton & Koralek (ABK), alongside Peter Ahrends and Paul Koralek. It is not particularly rare that three architects should meet as students and go on to practise together, but most unusual that all three should be involved in design and should remain lifelong friends. The partnership survived controversy when its competition-winning extension to the National Gallery in London was dubbed a “monstrous carbuncle” by the Prince of Wales in 1984 and cancelled, and it became one of the few practices founded in the early 1960s to span the gulf between the public and private sectors.Of the partners, Burton was perhaps the least affected by the prince’s diatribe, for he had already forged an independent path in the design of low-rise housing, hospitals and energy efficiency, in the last of which he was a pioneer; he and the prince should have got on. Burton subsequently took charge of the firm’s design of the British embassy in Moscow, completed in 2000, after building a house for himself and his wife, Mireille, in Kentish Town, north London, which he opened to the public on Open House weekends. Continue reading...

Knowing the rate at which the oceans absorb carbon pollution is a key to understanding how fast climate change will occur