Environment | The Guardian

Documentary has made opposition to orca practices ‘the mainstream view’, says expert as company grapples with $10m blow to profitsSina Schmocker asks for a minute to think before responding. “I have really enjoyed seeing the whales and the other animals,” she said. “But I am really shocked by how little space they have.

Chief executive Matthias Müller asks ministers to charge carmaker for taxes incurred after admitting understatement affecting 800,000 vehiclesVolkswagen has said it will foot the bill for extra taxes incurred by drivers after it admitted understating the carbon dioxide emissions of about 800,000 cars in Europe.In a letter to European Union finance ministers on Friday, seen by Reuters, Matthias Müller, the VW chief executive, asked member states to charge the carmaker rather than motorists for any additional taxes relating to fuel usage or CO2 emissions. Continue reading...

President ends years of political drama and hands environmentalists a big victory with decision to turn down proposal to build 1,700-mile pipeline through USBarack Obama ended seven years of high-wire political drama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, saying the decision reflected America’s determination to be a global leader in the fight against climate change.The move, less than four weeks before more than 190 countries gather in Paris to try to reach a global deal to reduce carbon pollution, reinforces Obama’s commitment to making climate change the domestic and international legacy of his second term in the White House – even in the face of Republican hostility. Continue reading...

Barack Obama announces at the White House on Friday that he is rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline because he does not believe it serves the national interest. Keystone XL, which has divided petroleum interests and environmentalists, was designed to pump crude oil from the Alberta tar sands for 1,700 miles to the Gulf coast Continue reading...

Green Climate Fund announces eight projects to be funded in Asia, Africa and Latin America ahead of Paris summitThe head of the UN’s climate fund has hailed a “paradigm shift” as poor countries began receiving money to help them tackle global warming, weeks before climate talks take place in Paris.The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is intended to be the major conduit for funding to flow from wealthy economies built on fossil fuels to those that will suffer most from climate change they did not cause. Continue reading...

I recall vividly the first meeting of the parliamentary environment group after Labour’s election win in 1997. Michael Meacher arrived, breathless and late, into a packed and hot committee room in parliament. He proceeded to give a sharp and detailed analysis of environmental challenges, without notes, for 40 minutes, leaving the roomful of NGOs and industry lobbyists captivated by his zeal and determination. His speech set the tone for his term as environment minister.Short of being in the cabinet, which Tony Blair had denied him, he was determined to make the most of the job he had been given. He did just that, and can be credited with a vital role in Kyoto negotiations, as well as the delivery of a waste strategy that created thousands of jobs in the recycling industries as well as a fourfold increase in recycling rates over a decade. Best of all, he delivered into law the right to roam. That was a strong green legacy that deserves to be fully acknowledged. Continue reading...

Production plummets to 100-year low as supermarket price war forces farmers to switch to more lucrative cropsThe British cucumber is facing extinction, the latest victim of a supermarket price war that has knocked retail prices down from up to 90p to less than 30p in some stores.According to the Cucumber Growers Association, production has plummeted to less than 100 hectares for the first time in nearly 100 years as farmers switch to more lucrative crops. Continue reading...

The artist joined writer-environmentalist Andri Snær Magnason at a press conference in Reykjavík to promote an online petition against plans for a high-voltage power lineTwo of Iceland’s best-loved artists are trying to draw the world’s attention to the plight of the country’s landscape.

Photographer Francesca Moore’s show in London features images of wall surrounding site and families affected by disasterIt was just past midnight on 3 December 1984 when a pesticide plant at the heart of Bhopal, India, exploded. It was the worst industrial disaster in history, killing at least 3,000 people in the days following the incident and about 15,000 subsequently, and exposing tens of thousands to poisonous gas.

Sherry Young apologizes for fire that tore through 48-unit apartment complex after she doused herself with rubbing alcohol that was ignited by a stoveA Detroit woman has apologized for a massive fire that she and authorities said was accidentally started by her efforts to eradicate bedbugs from her apartment.Tuesday’s fire tore through Ramblewood Apartments, destroying the 48-unit complex. Sherry Young was injured along with four others, including three firefighters, the Detroit Free Press reported. Continue reading...

Saplings growing on slash and burn land in central Kalimantan in an area public maps suggest has no palm oil concession, say GreenpeaceFreshly burned land in Indonesia has already been illegally planted with oil palm, new evidence suggests, following the loss of two million hectares of forest and peatland since July to fires.Planted in charred earth, the oil palm saplings were identified near the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Sanctuary in central Kalimantan, by Greenpeace Indonesia. Continue reading...

The last US Sumatran rhino, a mushroom fairy ring and an amazing Jesus lizard are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Environmental group says home ministry ordered cancellation of its registration to operate, following earlier crackdown on foreign fundingGreenpeace says its registration to operate in India has been cancelled under orders from the country’s home ministry.The environmental group said in a statement that it would challenge Friday’s decision in court. Continue reading...

The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing continues to spread, even though critics say it can potentially poison water supplies and cause earthquakes. Here’s a series of postcards that would make anyone want energy companies to get the frack out of their neighborhood Continue reading...

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Concern over potential terrorist attacks and violent protests in Paris leads interior minister to announce month-long restrictionFrance will reinstate controls on its borders – normally open to countries in Europe’s free-travel zone – for the period around a UN climate conference in Paris, the interior minister has said.Authorities are on alert for violent protesters as well as potential terrorist attacks around the conference, which takes place from 30 November to 11 December. Eighty heads of state, including President Barack Obama, and tens of thousands of other people are expected in Paris for the opening. Continue reading...

The hugely expensive and polluting power stations the government is planning won’t solve the systemic problems of an inefficient, over-centralised energy systemThe National Grid’s urgent request for extra generation this week has been widely hyped as an emergency, with the country at risk from blackouts.On closer examination, it turns out that the National Grid has been calmly explaining that a “notification of inadequate system margin” (NISM) is not a last resort. It’s simply part of the standard toolkit for balancing supply and demand, issued this time because of multiple breakdowns at some large power stations. Given that almost all the UK’s coal-fired power stations are over 40 years old, it’s not terribly clear why anyone would expect them to be particularly reliable in the first place. But even if, behind the hysteria, we didn’t come that close to an outage, this episode should nevertheless serve as a wake-up call to a government beset by short-term, last-century thinking on energy. Continue reading...

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

Governments will need to increase efforts to limit carbon emissions in order to stop climate change, says UN report ahead of Paris summitCurrent global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions leave about half of the reductions needed still to be found, according to a new analysis by the UN.The report suggests that governments will have to go much further in their pledges to limit future carbon dioxide emissions, which have been submitted to the UN ahead of the crunch conference on climate change taking place this December in Paris. Continue reading...

Dozens of people still missing after dam burstsiron-ore mine in south-eastern Brazil, with village destroyed by mudslidesA dam that burst at an iron-ore mine in south-eastern Brazil on Thursday is thought to have killed at least 15 people, devastating a nearby town with mudslides and leaving officials in the remote region scrambling to assess casualties.Forty-five people were still missing after the disaster at the Germano mine near the town of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, a local union told the G1 news portal. Continue reading...

Cromer, Norfolk I choose the easterly path lit by a luminous streak of sunshine pouring between bulbous purple cloudsOut to admire the abundance of sea buckthorn on the clifftop, I meet only one other person. I have paused to listen to the churning of the sea and to decide which path to take when he ambles by. “Not a bad day,” the man tells me with certainty and without a backward glance. Before I can gather myself to reply he is lost from sight, disappearing into the copse of sycamore scrub that circles the townward side of the cliffs.I choose the easterly path lit by a luminous streak of sunshine pouring between bulbous purple clouds. It is the peak of a high tide and out at sea two cormorants circle restlessly while slim-winged gulls flit like paper caught on a breeze. The heaving water is olivine in colour and crested white by winds blowing to shore. A kestrel hangs like a ragged scrap of polythene over the cliff face face. Continue reading...

Dramatic footage shows the aftermath of a burst dam in south-eastern Brazil, which has left homes and streets flooded and at least 15 people feared dead. A further 45 people are still missing following the disaster, which happened on Thursday near an iron-ore mine partly owned by Australia’s BHP Billiton Continue reading...

Hydroelectric power, wind energy, biomass and solar provide 100% of electricity for 1.65 million peopleAustria’s largest state said Thursday that 100 percent of its electricity is now generated using renewable sources of energy.

New York attorney general subpoenas Exxon and Peabody Energy, two giants of the fossil fuel industry, over claims it misled the public and investorsThe New York attorney general is investigating whether ExxonMobil misled the public and investors about the dangers and potential business risks of climate change, sources familiar with the investigation said on Thursday.

However, more than two-thirds of Chinese people support global deal to reduce emissions, part of marked support seen in all but one of 40 countries surveyedConcern about climate change among people in China – the world’s biggest carbon polluter – has plummeted in the past five years, according to new research. The Chinese were the least concerned among 40 nations surveyed.

Thanks to seed money from the Illinois department of corrections, Sweet Beginnings employs 40 people a year and enjoys a recidivism rate of just 4%Reggie Davis was only nine years old when he started selling drugs, before living the next three decades in and out of prison.His story isn’t uncommon in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, where unemployment is almost triple the city’s average. More than one-third of households are below the poverty line, and more than half of the neighborhood’s adults have had some involvement with the criminal justice system. Continue reading...

Uniting art and science, the award-winning Dutch photographer’s project has led him all over the world, from ice formations in Greenland to Shark Bay in AustraliaLife started with the humble horseshoe crab. Not life itself, but Life: A Journey Through Time, nature photographer Frans Lanting’s multi-year experiment travelling the globe, searching for places and specimens as old as the planet itself. The idea came to him when he was on assignment photographing the horseshoe crabs that gather every spring in a place as prosaic as the New Jersey shore. He realised the scene must have looked much the same aeons ago.Lanting’s big bang came in 2006 with a book, a documentary, a TED Talk and a Philip Glass symphony all dedicated to the ever-changing peripatetic photo show. Now the project has culminated with an exhibition at Los Angeles’s Annenberg Space for Photography, with added video elements and regular screenings of the documentary, which features interviews with biologists including Harvard professor Andrew Knoll. Continue reading...

Attendance at orca theme parks in San Diego and San Antonio continues to fall after 2013 documentary criticizing the company’s treatment of whalesSeaWorld on Thursday warned investors that its full-year profits will fall by a further $10m this year, due to continuing collapsing attendance at its orca theme parks in San Diego and San Antonio.Related: SeaWorld lawsuit alleges orcas are drugged and confined in 'chemical tubs' Continue reading...

More than 60% of English bathing waters rated ‘excellent’, with 97% passing minimum standardA number of English beaches have made dramatic improvements, with almost two-thirds of the country’s bathing waters now meeting the new “excellent” standard set by the EU.Blackpool’s three beaches have reached the tougher standards, with one achieving the highest level after improvements to sewage works. Sewerage infrastructure on one pier has been rectified and further piers have been checked. Other actions included fixing leaking pier toilets and working to stop donkey and starling droppings polluting beaches. Continue reading...

Conservationists hope the US-born rhino will breed with female ‘hairy rhinos’ at the sanctuary and boost population of the critically endangered speciesA US-born Sumatran rhino ate leaves and wallowed in mud at an Indonesian sanctuary, as the US formally handed over the animal on Thursday in hopes he will have offspring and help save his critically endangered species from extinction.The eight-year-old rhino is now in quarantine at Way Kambas national park after traveling more than 10,000 miles (16,000km) from a zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Continue reading...

More than 100 green groups warn that changes to tax relief on community solar and wind projects will be the ‘final nail in the coffin’ for their prospectsEfforts by local communities to install their own solar panels and wind turbines will be decimated by Treasury changes to tax relief, more than 100 green energy groups have warned.In a letter to the chancellor, George Osborne, the groups claim that a move to axe tax relief for so-called “community energy” projects will be the “final nail in the coffin” for their prospects. Continue reading...

Alternative protein sources will be needed for humans and livestock to reduce land and energy use, says UK government’s waste agencyInsects should become a staple of people’s diets around the world as an environmentally friendly alternative to meat, according to a report by the UK government’s waste agency.But persuading consumers to overcome “the yuck factor” will be a key issue, says the report by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) which assesses challenges to the development of the food system in the next 10 years. Continue reading...

Sculpture sent as gift to mark 20th anniversary of the environmentalist’s execution seized by Lagos customs officials because of its ‘political value’A sculpture created as a memorial to Nigerian environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists has been denied entry to Nigeria, where it had been sent as a gift to mark the 20th anniversary of their execution by the military government.

Researchers in Hawaii are using an assisted evolution experiment to grow coral that can withstand the hotter and more acidic oceans caused by global warmingScientists at a research centre on Hawaii’s Coconut Island have embarked on an experiment to grow “super coral” that they hope can withstand the hotter and more acidic oceans that are expected with global warming.The quest to grow the hearty coral comes at a time when researchers are warning about the dire health of the world’s reefs, which create habitats for marine life, protect shorelines and drive tourist economies. Continue reading...

The 43-year-old former schoolteacher and son of late prime minister Pierre Trudeau will face the media with members of his cabinet later on WednesdayJustin Trudeau has been sworn in as Canada’s prime minister, following in the footsteps of his storied father.The 43-year-old Trudeau, a former schoolteacher and a member of parliament since 2008, on Wednesday became the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history. Continue reading...

Build on brownfield? Not so fast. Nature can thrive in railway sidings, disused quarries and rubbish dumpsThe Ebbsfleet elephant died about 420,000 years ago, killed by early humans with bits of flint. His substantial remains – he weighed the same as four Hondas – were uncovered in 2003, during the construction of the HS1 high-speed rail link from St Pancras to the Channel tunnel. To pay a trip to his penultimate resting place (Southampton is now home to the bones), you need to exit Ebbsfleet International, walk down Station Road, and head for the junction with the B259.It’s unmarked. The cars roar by, past a pristine verge. Not even the place for a picnic, let alone a quiet prayer. For maximum atmosphere you’d be better off having a look at the painting that accompanies an academic report on the find. In this, our doomed elephant cheerfully waves its trunk at some deer across the swamp. Other animals wander around (also uncovered was evidence of rhinos, lions, aurochs and monkeys). All are unaware of the butt-naked hunter watching from the shore. Continue reading...

A haunting new series by photographer Mário Macilau documents the children living in the city’s shadows, without access to electricity. African Digital Art reports Continue reading...

State Department spokesman says there was no legal requirement to pause US review, a request seen by many as an attempt to avert rejection from ObamaThe United States has formally denied a TransCanada Corp request to pause the US review of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a State Department spokesman said on Wednesday.John Kirby told a briefing there was no legal requirement to pause the Keystone review based on the developer’s request. Secretary of state John Kerry has not given a timeline for making a recommendation. Continue reading...

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unveils a new bill aimed at stopping future production of oil and other fossil fuels on US land. Sanders made the announcement along with the bill’s author, Senator Jeff Merkley. The bill is called the Keep it in the Ground Act. Sanders also laid down a challenge to Barack Obama to categorically reject the proposed extension of the Keystone XL pipeline Continue reading...

Now that Guinness is to be made without isinglass (Pass notes No 3,575: Guinness, G2, 4 November) I may start drinking it. Let’s hope the rest of the drinks industry follows Guinness’s example and removes not just isinglass but also albumin (from egg whites), milk protein, chitin (from shellfish) and gelatine (from the bones and tissues of cows and pigs).A first step would be to label the ingredients in drinks. This is only required for low alcohol drinks, as full labelling has been resisted by the drinks industry. Shamefully, the European commission has not acted, despite pressure from the European parliament. It is surely time that drinks as well as foods had all their ingredients listed.