Order for 60-day pause on regulations not yet implemented includes protection for endangered rusty patched bumblebee, which experts say is near extinctionDonald Trump has been accused of targeting Muslims, media outlets and even department stores in his first month in the White House. Now, the US president may have doomed a threatened bumblebee.
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...
A tiger family drinking at the watering hole, a nightingale and a snake that plays dead are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...
As records tumble on east coast, politicians debate the energy mix they need to combat climate change and ensure supplyA long, hot summer in Australia is smashing weather records, with about a fifth of the country predicted to swelter in temperatures of more than 40C on Saturday.The hottest days yet this summer are forecast for parts of New South Wales and Queensland, which have taken the brunt of a series of heatwaves in recent months. Continue reading...
Do you like pangolins or silky sharks? How about the black-legged kittiwake? Vote for your favourite in the Wildscreen Arkive’s Valentine’s Day campaign to help protect underappreciated species from poaching and climate change
Australian Energy Market Operator executive David Swift admitted to Senate committee there was an error in South Australia forecastThe Australian Energy Market Operator says it was not asleep at the wheel after another electricity shortage in South Australia on Wednesday caused blackouts for 40,000 people.
Warblington, Hampshire By associating with large ungulates, these birds can obtain up to 50% more food using two-thirds of the energy required for lone foragingA loose flock of egrets has gathered by the cattle in the corner of the pasture to the west of the cemetery. Three of the white herons are immediately identifiable as little egrets, their yellow feet beacons in the mizzle. The fourth bird looks dumpy, hunchbacked and stubby-billed next to its elegant, slim-necked, rapier-billed cousins. It is a cattle egret, a species that has had one of the most rapid and wide-ranging natural expansions of any bird, but is still relatively rare in Britain. Two of them were spotted here in mid-December. A few days later, they were joined by a third and, by the new year, five birds were regularly being sighted in the fields surrounding the church.Related: A solitary little egret is an elegant sentinel on the muddy creek Continue reading...
A small opportunity to avoid a frightening world has been tossed away by this government and the lobbyists and financiers that they answer toSpeaking in parliament on Thursday, treasurer Scott Morrison held aloft a large lump of coal and made the funniest joke he’ll ever think of in his life.“Mr Speaker, this is coal. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be scared! It won’t hurt you.†Morrison yelled at the opposition as his colleagues jeered and hooted behind him. It was a comedic performance on-par with the guy at an open-mic night who opens with a joke about women shopping, but the people in charge of running the world’s twelfth-largest economy couldn’t get enough. Continue reading...
Dozens of volunteers form a barrier in Golden Bay in an effort to prevent more whales from stranding themselves after hundreds died on Thursday night. The Department of Conservation (DOC) discovered 416 pilot whales had beached themselves at Farewell Spit at the top of the south island, the largest stranding in decades. Volunteer Peter Wiles said: ‘It is one of the saddest things I have seen.’ Continue reading...
Urgent plea issued for locals to drop work and school commitments and head to the remote beach to save surviving whalesRescuers are trying to save dozens of whales after a mass stranding on a New Zealand beach thought to be the largest in decades.The Department of Conservation (DOC) discovered 416 pilot whales had beached themselves overnight at Farewell Spit in Golden Bay at the top of the South Island, with more than 70% dying by the time dawn broke on Friday. Continue reading...
Federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation says coal ‘seriously challenged’ as a commercial investmentThe Clean Energy Finance Corporation has said it is “very unlikely†it would invest in new coal-fired generators and poured cold water on the federal government’s push to support “clean coal†technology.The CEFC’s hostile approach to the sustainability and commercial viability of new coal plants means the government will have to change CEFC’s investment rules or directly subsidise new coal plants if it wants to support them. Continue reading...
If governments want to make energy more affordable, making competition work for the community rather than the industry would be the sensible first stepIn his address to the National Press Club last week, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called out that families across the nation need not just reliable but affordable power. For lower income earners who spend up to five times as much of their disposable income on energy than higher income earners, this is very welcome.However, the federal government’s focus on energy generation – the cost of coal versus renewable energy – ignores the reality that it is the failure of retail competition that is hitting households’ hip pocket. If governments want to make energy more affordable, making competition work for the community rather than the industry would be the sensible first step. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Smithers Consumer affairs correspondent on (#2C4S2)
Research highlights generational divide in attitudes towards food as millennials focus on its appearance while buying too muchA generation gap in attitudes towards cooking and eating is helping to fuel the UK’s food waste mountain, research reveals, driven by time-poor millennials who do not understand the value of the food on their plate.
Once it’s completed in 2018, the NSW site will produce enough electricity to power 137,000 housesAfter years in planning, construction on the Silverton windfarm in western New South Wales is finally set to begin after the sale of the project from AGL to its Powering Australian Renewables Fund (PARF).
States from South Australia to Queensland prepare for temperatures above 40C as parliamentary inquiry examines power supply crisisAuthorities have warned of health risks, catastrophic bushfire danger and possible power cuts as southern and eastern Australia faces several days of extreme heat.Temperatures are tipped to rise as high as 48C in some parts of New South Wales, with total fires bans and extreme or severe fire danger warnings in place across most of the state. Continue reading...
While it is good news for the environment that UK sales of electric cars are rising (Report, 7 February) this trend is unlikely to really take off while we have such a disjointed and shortsighted policy regarding electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.Boris Johnson sold the London-wide charging network to a French company that now runs the system as Source London. It has started to charge for charging, at rates that are unviable for many drivers, especially those with hybrid vehicles, where the cost of the electricity is more than the cost of petrol for the same mileage travelled. Furthermore, some London councils now make their own arrangements with other providers so there is no longer a functioning London-wide system. Continue reading...
In Australia-first move, private fund to pull $20m out of fossil fuel companies in acknowledgement climate change harms healthHCF has become the first Australian private health fund to divest from fossil fuels, having decided that the industry harms the health and wellbeing of its members, pulling about $20m out of fossil fuel companies in Australia and overseas.In a letter to the campaign group Market Forces dated 15 December 2016, HCF said it would be divesting from fossil fuels on the same ground it used for pulling out of the tobacco industry. Continue reading...
Experts say decline to coverage of only 7.19 acres of forest could be due to late winter storms last year that knocked down more than 100 acres of treesThe number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped by 27% this year, reversing last year’s recovery from historically low numbers, according to a study by government and independent experts released Thursday.The experts say the decline could be due to late winter storms last year that blew down more than 100 acres (40 hectares) of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico. Continue reading...
Authorities say fire in turbine hall was outside nuclear zones of Flamanville power station near CherbourgAuthorities have said there is no risk of contamination from an explosion that occurred at EDF’s Flamanville nuclear plant in northern France.EDF said the blast at 9.40am on Thursday was caused by a fire in the turbine hall, which is outside the nuclear zones of the power station, located 15 miles west of the port of Cherbourg. Five people were treated for smoke inhalation. Continue reading...
Europe will vastly overshoot its carbon emissions target for coal unless it closes all 300 power stations, says thinktank Climate AnalyticsThe European Union will “vastly overshoot†its Paris climate pledges unless its coal emissions are completely phased out within 15 years, a stress test of the industry has found.Coal’s use is falling by about 1% a year in Europe but still generates a quarter of the continent’s power – and a fifth of its greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...
Consumers and employees want to know where their companies stand on Trump’s policies. Here’s how businesses should be reactingOn 12 January, a week before the inauguration, LL Bean found itself smack bang in the middle of one of now-President Trump’s notorious tweets:Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L.Bean for your great support and courage. People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean. @LBPerfectMaine Continue reading...
I grew up with a piano in my bedroom, but now the thought of ivory fills me with revulsion. The UK needs to impose a total ban on the trade of elephant tusksGrowing up in our two up, two down terraced house on the Southside of Edinburgh, I shared my bedroom with a cherished family heirloom – my granny’s mini-grand. This beautiful piano had been to the other side of the world and back. It ended up taking up half my room and a whole lot of my life. I taught myself to play on it, bashing out the sevenths while pretending to be (pre-Wings) McCartney. Now I think of that piano with total revulsion. I believe anyone in the possession of ivory should feel the same. It is over. It has to be.Look at the knife handles or antique toothpick and then think of the dead mother with her face hacked off as her tuskless, helpless one-year-old tries to nudge her back to life. Google image search is always a useful resource. I feel no differently about the thought of a gorilla-hand ashtray (yes, they are a thing in parts of the Far East) or a nice cool glass of lion bone wine (ditto). One more time: ivory is so over.
Discarded sugar from split bags plus leftovers from in-store bakeries heads to Cornish beekeepers as winter nectar shortage hits speciesWaste sugar routinely thrown away by supermarkets is being collected to help feed stricken bees in Britain struggling to get enough nectar to feed themselves.Related: Pesticides stop bees buzzing and releasing pollen, says study Continue reading...
What a bunch of clowns, hamming it up – while out in the real world an ominous and oppressive heat just won’t let upThere is no way you can write the sentence, “The treasurer of Australia, Scott Morrison, came to question time with a lump of coal on Thursday,†and have that sentence seem anything other than the ravings of a psychedelic trip, so let’s just say it and be done with it.
Galilee Blockade, which opposes the $16bn Carmichael mine, urges followers to apply for jobs with the Indian companyA civil disobedience campaign targeting Adani’s controversial Queensland coal project has asked almost 12,000 supporters to sign up for a job with the miner.The Galilee Blockade is working on infiltrating Adani and related companies to gain sources of information to help its plans for “direct actionâ€. Continue reading...
by Michael Slezak and Katherine Murphy on (#2C0YB)
Market operator Ameo says the state could run out of power on Friday while Coalition and Labor clash over energy policyNew South Wales is facing a possible power blackout on Friday as the state’s electricity system struggles to cope with soaring temperatures.As Coalition and Labor frontbenchers sparred over the latest blackouts in South Australia, the power market operator warned on Thursday that Australia’s most populous state will run out of electricity between 3-5pm on Friday unless generators step in with the offer of more supply. Continue reading...
Sandy, Bedfordshire: Peewit, teeack, chewit … whatever you call it, it sounds like the ClangersUnearthly sounds have filled the fields lately, breaking frosty silences or cocking a whooping snook at louring skies. The lapwing’s voice is the joker in the pack, shooting up and down the scales like a novice twiddling the knobs on a synthesiser. It does not feel grounded in this landscape of puddles, mud slaked over boots, ragged grass margins, finches giving out throwaway chirrups, and the dull ribbed skeleton leftovers of last year’s flowers.Our field-working forebears must have listened daily and tried to capture the distinctive peculiarity of these sounds in words. So much so that Vanellus vanellus may well have more regional names than any other bird. Lancashire’s chewit calls to Orkney’s teeack, Norfolk’s pie-wipe answers Lothian’s peasiewheep. I’m a child of the TV generation, and I always think when I hear the birds that the Clangers have landed. Continue reading...
Wind energy overtakes coal as the EU’s second largest form of power capacity but concerns remain over politicians’ enthusiasm for renewablesRenewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels.But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end. Continue reading...
With the help of snake handlers and Trish Prendergast, a senior veterinary nurse at a clinic in Townsville, Queensland, the 1.5m-long carpet python manages to regurgitate an entire tennis ball after it was found swollen in a residential yard Continue reading...
by Sam Levin in Cannon Ball, North Dakota on (#2C0EF)
Tribal leaders may have urged activists to let the fight play out in the courts, but many on the ground are calling for a final push as the pipeline moves ahead
Energy retailer raised $100,000 from customers, which will be given out as grants to community-owned energy projectsAmid fresh attacks on renewable energy targets from the federal government and large energy retailer ERM Power, smaller electricity retailer Powershop has raised $100,000 from its customers to be given out as grants to 10 community-owned projects around the country.Three months ago Powershop launched the Your Community Energy initiative, where they gave customers the opportunity to pay higher rates, which it said would then be distributed to renewable energy projects that were community-owned. Continue reading...
GOP elder statesmen urge Donald Trump’s administration to impose a ‘free market, limited government’ response to rising global temperaturesA group of senior Republicans will meet with White House officials on Wednesday to call for a new national carbon tax to replace federal regulations as a way to combat climate change.
Environment minister Anil Madhav Dave overlooks Greenpeace research stating 1.2m Indians die each year from airborne pollutantsIndia’s environment minister has been accused of playing down the health risks of the country’s extremely polluted air by claiming, contrary to research, that there is no conclusive data available linking “death exclusively with air pollutionâ€.The environmental group Greenpeace released a report in January citing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) research that estimated nearly 1.2 million Indians die each year due to high concentrations of airborne pollutants such as dust, mould spores, arsenic, lead, nickel and the carcinogen chromium. Continue reading...
Fish is Norway’s most valuable export, more so than its vast oil fields. Two-thirds of UK cod comes from the Barents Sea. As the climate changes and the sea grows warmer the fish move north, and so, too, do the fishermen Continue reading...
A proposed government ban on the tiny plastic beads that pollute the ocean should be extended to include items such as make-up, sunscreen and cleaning productsPlans to ban tiny pieces of plastic that pollute the ocean should be extended to more products that people commonly wash down the drain, campaigners have urged.
Government criticised for failing to keep consumers updated as overspend on renewables is forecast to push up billsMPs have criticised ministers for their “shambolic†failure to regularly spell out the impact of government green policies on household energy bills.The Commons public accounts committee said the government had missed its commitment to publishing annual reports on how consumer bills were affected by subsidies to support solar and wind power. Continue reading...
Federal funding for Adani project amounts to $683,060 a job, compared with $32,191 a worker in Queensland’s clean energy sector, 350.org saysClean energy projects in Queensland are already on track to create more employment than Australia’s largest proposed coalmine, which if funded federally would cost taxpayers 21 times more per job, according to new study.Federal government agencies are investing $71.4m in seven solar farms and a windfarm in Queensland, which are set to deliver a total of 2,218 jobs, according to analysis by climate advocacy group 350.org. Continue reading...
Wenlock Edge With its riotous sex life and quick, edgy, movements, the hedge sparrow is like a little ticking bombTseep! The hedge sparrow will not break loose from the gravity of the hedge. Hedge is home: a four-dimensional forest that travels through a landscape beset by dangerous space, and provides for a kind of dwelling that supports a very particular society. This tiny passerine is also called a dunnock – literally, little brown bird – an anonymous, blended-in, could-be-anything.
by Julia Carrie Wong and Sam Levin in San Francisco on (#2BVPP)
The army corps of engineers says it intends to grant a permit for the oil pipeline to cross the Missouri river, following Donald Trump’s executive orderThe US government is set to allow the final phase of construction of the Dakota Access pipeline to begin as early as Wednesday, dealing a major blow to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.Related: Over 70 arrested at Standing Rock as Dakota Access aims to finish pipeline Continue reading...
We were saddened, though not surprised, to hear that fewer gardeners are spotting hedgehogs (Report, 6 February). We have long known hedgehog numbers are in decline. Since the turn of the century numbers have dropped by about a third in urban areas and a half in rural ones. A major factor in their decline is loss and fragmentation of habitat. We have joined forces with People’s Trust for Endangered Species on a project called Hedgehog Street, designed to help tackle the habitat crisis. We ask people to create 13cm square gaps in the bottom of their boundary fences and walls to join up usable habitat, and to ask their neighbours, and their neighbours’ neighbours, to do the same, until the whole street is accessible to hedgehogs. To date we have had over 42,000 people sign up as “hedgehog championsâ€. There are lots of simple things we can all do to help hedgehogs that could make a big difference. To find out more (or to sign up as a champion) see hedgehogstreet.org
by Paul Hockenos for Yale Environment 360, part of th on (#2BT9K)
With ambitious emissions-reduction targets, support from government and the car industry, electromobility is on the verge of major expansion in Europe, reports Yale Environment 360Oslo, Norway’s capital, like most of the Scandinavian country’s cities and towns, boasts bus-lane access for electric vehicles (EVs), recharging stations aplenty, privileged parking, and toll-free travel for electric cars. The initiative began in the 1990s as an effort to cut pollution, congestion, and noise in urban centres; now its primary rationale is combating climate change. Today, Norway has the highest per capita number of all-electric [battery only] cars in the world: more than 100,000 in a country of 5.2 million people. Last year, EVs constituted nearly 40% of the nation’s newly registered passenger cars.And the Norwegian experiment shows every sign of accelerating. Earlier this year, Norway opened the world’s largest fast-charging station, which can charge up to 28 vehicles in about half an hour. The country, joined by Europe’s No 2 in electromobility, the Netherlands, intends to phase out all fossil fuel-powered automobiles by 2025. Elon Musk, CEO of the US electric car company Tesla Motors, responded to Norway’s goal by tweeting: “What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!†Continue reading...
The dorado catfish travels 11,600km from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon and back, but is threatened by dams and miningA giant silvery-gold catfish undertakes the longest freshwater migration of any fish, according to new research, travelling 11,600km from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon and back.The dorado catfish, which can grow up to 2 metres long, is an important source of food for people along the world’s longest river. It was suspected of making a spectacular journey, but a careful new analysis of the distribution of larvae and juvenile and mature adults has confirmed the mammoth migration. Continue reading...
From Wordsworth’s gardens to the south’s white cliffs and salmon rivers in Wales, climate change is wrecking historic sites, finds reportClimate change is already wrecking some of Britain’s most significant sites, from Wordsworth’s gardens in Cumbria to the white cliffs on England’s south coast, according to a new report.Floods and erosion are damaging historic places, while warmer temperatures are seeing salmon vanishing from famous rivers and birds no longer visiting important wetlands. Continue reading...
Trial stemming from a 2014 standoff could be derailed by a ploy to pose as a ‘fake film company’ and an ethics scandal involving a BLM officer and Burning ManFBI agents posed as journalists and tricked the Bundy ranching family and their supporters into giving on-camera interviews that prosecutors may use in upcoming trials, according to defense attorneys and court records.The FBI’s “fake film production company†and “wide-reaching deceptive undercover operationâ€, as lawyers described it in a court filing, is one of multiple controversies that some say could derail the government’s prosecution of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his four sons and a dozen of their followers. A recent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ethics scandal involving tickets for the popular Burning Man festival could further hinder prosecutors in the high-profile trial, which began this week in Las Vegas federal court. Continue reading...
Claxton, Norfolk Most of spring is here but hidden somewhere in all this quiescenceIt is not dense enough to call mist, let alone fog, but February’s invisible damp gives milkiness to the air and weight to the morning’s mood. The ivy leaves in our hedge seem to droop as if they have all been licked downwards, and our garden robin hugs their shadow with its brown back to me. As I walk to the river I notice that the oak leaves by the track, which were frosted copper last month, are in mid journey from leaf mulch to soil.Across the marsh there is no division between the grey of the sky and land, and no horizon, and the dark of the woods is burred with softness. The north-westerly is mild and lifts only the lightest vegetation – the reed tops by the sides of the path – and the moisture adds to each intake of breath the cold savour of bare earth and dead leaves. Continue reading...
Climate science denial group the Heartland Institute helped inspire Cory Bernardi and Malcolm Roberts to push back against policies to cut emissionsIf the dissident conservative senator Cory Bernardi’s new political party shares the views of its founder, then we can chalk up it up as another fringe party firmly in the climate science denial camp.Ignoring mountains of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry carried out over many decades, Bernardi has for a long time chosen to listen instead to fake experts pushing talking points that walk like zombies through barbecue conversations across Australia. Continue reading...
Environment | The Guardian