The Guardian
We must have a green industrial revolution. And Labour will lead it
Where I grew up, visits to Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum were a staple rainy-day activity. I remember the clanking of the huge, iron waterwheel and being amazed by its power. It was the plentiful rain, I was told, and the ingenuity of those behind the technology that powered the mills that ushered in the first industrial revolution, bringing Manchester and Salford into existence.
I remember thinking: if this is how far we’ve come in 200 years, what’s the future going to look like?
Continue reading...Corbyn launches bid to declare a national climate emergency
Labour will this week force a vote in parliament to declare a national environmental and climate change emergency as confidential documents show the government has spent only a fraction of a £100m fund allocated in 2015 to support clean air projects.
Jeremy Corbyn’s party will demand on Wednesday that the country wakes up to the threat and acts with urgency to avoid more than 1.5°C of warming, which will require global emissions to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” before 2050.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion activists scale trees in anti-HS2 protest
Action by 12 protesters in Colne Valley highlights damage they say is being done by rail project
Twelve Extinction rebellion activists have scaled trees in the Colne Valley nature reserve in west London to prevent HS2 operatives from chopping them down.
The activists have joined forces with Stop HS2 and Green party campaigners, along with local residents, to raise concerns about the destruction they claim the HS2 development is causing to the environment.
Continue reading...US farmers count cost of catastrophic 'bomb cyclone' in midwest
With grain stores ruined and many fields still under water from last month’s extreme weather, producers are facing devastating losses
Five weeks after historic flooding in the midwest, waters still cover pasturelands, corn and soybean fields. Much of the water has receded, but rivers still run high and washed out roads force people to take long detours. Residents in Missouri are putting their ruined possessions on the street and corn stalks heaped by floodwaters look like snowdrifts in the fields.
In March, more than 450,000 hectares (1.1m acres) of cropland and 34,000 hectares of pastureland flooded, according to an analysis of government and satellite data, prompting governors from Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota to declare states of emergency.
Continue reading...Uranium miner coaxed government to water down extinction safeguards
Cameco did not have to show if WA mine would lead to extinction of tiny fauna before its approval on 10 April
A multinational uranium miner persuaded the federal government to drop a requirement forcing it to show that a mine in outback Western Australia would not make any species extinct before it could go ahead.
Canadian-based Cameco argued in November 2017 the condition proposed by the government for the Yeelirrie uranium mine, in goldfields north of Kalgoorlie, would be too difficult to meet.
Continue reading...Trump plans to allow fracking near California's national parks
Environmental groups are preparing for a fight against the proposal that would end a five-year fracking moratorium in central California
The Trump administration has issued a plan to open more than a million acres in California to fracking, including areas close to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks.
In its proposal, the government made a case that the effects on a range of delicate issues – from degrading air quality to threats to cultural and Native American resources in the area – could be avoided or minimized on 1,011,470 acres across eight counties. The plan could end a five-year fracking moratorium in California enforced by a federal judge.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Hungry bears, busy bees and disappearing penguins
Continue reading...Embracing revolution on climate change and neoliberalism | Letters
George Monbiot (Time to declare the system dead – before it takes us down with it, 25 April) says he has slowly and reluctantly rejected capitalism because the endless impulse for growth and wealth creation ineluctably drives climate change. Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want, in his global justice seminar at the Extinction Rebellion protests, focused more on neoliberalism – the even more rapacious, ever-expanding incarnation of capitalist exploitation of people and planet over the last four decades – as the driver of global climate inequality and impending calamity. But left-of-centre ideologies also focus on growth in the bid to tackle inequality, with social and economic priorities overshadowing ecological imperatives.
This paper has had occasional discussions of the degrowth movement. In one such, Christiane Kliemann (Let’s face it: we have to choose between our economy and our future, 23 January 2015) posited that once we have accepted there are only radical options left, we have a choice between our economy and our future if we are to meet everybody’s needs more sustainably and equitably, using fewer resources. More focus on degrowth on the political left, and more analysis in these pages of its underpinnings and its potential, could contribute to movements for creating a global economy that can truly be described as “ours”, and a future not only for those of us in the global north, but also a present for those in the global south already experiencing the ravages of growth-driven climate change.
Sarah Cemlyn
Bristol
Extinction Rebellion protesters to stand in European elections
Nine candidates will stand under Climate Emergency Independents banner
Activists who took part in the Extinction Rebellion protests have announced they will stand in the European elections on a “climate emergency” ticket.
Under the name Climate Emergency Independents, nine candidates will stand in the 23 May polls – seven in London and two in south-west England region.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg's train journey through Europe highlights no-fly movement
Success of Sweden’s flygskam campaign means rail-only travel agencies are getting a boost
When Greta Thunberg stepped on to the platform at Stockholm Central station on Thursday after completing her European tour to raise awareness of climate change, an unassuming 69-year-old who runs a tiny travel firm was there to greet her.
Ivar Karlsson has found his business in the spotlight as appetite grows for alternatives to flying. It was Karlsson, whose company specialises in rail-only holidays, that Greta and her father contacted to book their trip, which took in stops in Strasbourg, Rome, London before heading back to Sweden.
Continue reading...'Outrage is justified': David Attenborough backs school climate strikers
Exclusive: broadcaster says older generations have done terrible things and should listen to young
The outrage of the students striking from school over climate change inaction is “certainly justified”, according to Sir David Attenborough, who said older generations had done terrible damage to the planet.
In an interview with the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, the broadcaster and naturalist dismissed critics of the widely praised global movement of school strikes as cynics.
Continue reading...Siren song: can a charity single save Britain’s birds from extinction?
Let Nature Sing, two and a half minutes of birdsong, is being released by the RSPB to highlight the 44m birds lost since 1966 – and the many more at risk
Almost 40 years since The Birdie Song haunted the charts – and every children’s birthday party for a long time afterwards – the wildlife charity RSPB is releasing a single that, while far from novelty, may just match the Tweets’ infuriating oompah hit for sheer oddness.
Let Nature Sing is all chorus – and not in the same way as Blur’s Song 2, say, is all chorus. This is two and a half minutes of pure birdsong, featuring 25 of the UK’s best loved or most threatened birds among its guest vocalists, including the common blackbird and robin and the endangered nightingale and bittern.
Continue reading...If you build them, they will come: record year for cycle counters
New superhighways and better networks are helping cycle lane usage boom across the UK
Cycle lanes are one of the most efficient and healthiest ways of moving people. A single bike lane can transport five times as many people as a motor traffic lane, without the air and noise pollution. This is good news for everyone, whether you drive, walk or cycle – or breathe.
What’s clear from the data, though – despite occasional bizarre claims to the contrary, and attempts to have lanes removed – is that to reap cycling’s benefits you have to build proper infrastructure. But if you build it, they will come – and the cycle counters prove it.
Continue reading...A fortnight with Extinction Rebellion – in pictures
The Guardian photographer Sean Smith has spent every day with the climate change group Extinction Rebellion during their two weeks of protests in central London
Continue reading...Coalition under fire for approving uranium mine day before election called
WA mine approved on 10 April despite native species risk and not announced until 24 April
The Morrison government is under fire for quietly approving a giant uranium mine in outback Western Australia the day before the federal election was called, despite warnings it could lead to the extinction of native species.
Canadian company Cameco’s Yeelirrie uranium mine, 500 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, was approved by the environment minister, Melissa Price, on 10 April. There was no public notification on the decision until 24 April, when documents were posted on the environment department website.
Continue reading...Trump halts plans to expand offshore drilling after legal setback
Court decision blocking fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic complicated administration plans to ramp up fossil fuel extraction
The Trump administration has shelved plans to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling in the wake of a recent court decision that blocked fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic.
The administration had opened up almost all US waters to companies seeking to drill oil or gas deposits but this expansion has been halted due to a legal setback, according to David Bernhardt, the interior secretary.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion holds Hyde Park rally to mark 'pause' in protests
Ceremony in London park marks break in activism after day spent targeting the City
Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion activists have gathered at Hyde Park Corner in London to celebrate a pause in the protests that have gripped London for over a week and are preparing to take the fight back to local communities.
Climate protesters targeted the city’s financial hub on Thursday to highlight the role the sector plays in climate change. The environmental group said it was the last day of action before choosing to stop this stage of its campaign of peaceful mass civil disobedience, following protests in which hundreds of people were arrested and thousands of police officers deployed to sites occupied by the group for more than a week.
Continue reading...Polly Higgins obituary
What would it take to create a legal duty of care for the Earth? That is the question the Scottish barrister Polly Higgins found herself asking 15 years ago; a question that led her to abandon her courtroom career and embark on a quest to establish an international crime of ecocide. Such a crime would render persons of superior responsibility (such as company chief executives and government ministers) liable to prosecution for causing or contributing to large-scale ecosystem destruction.
Polly, who has died aged 50 of cancer, had begun to see the climate activist movement take up her call in the weeks before her death, with Extinction Rebellion actions demanding that ecocide law be established around the world.
Continue reading...The Extinction Rebellion scorecard: what did it achieve?
After two weeks of mass civil disobedience, we look at what has changed
Organisers of the climate protests that have seen peaceful mass civil disobedience across London over the past two weeks have said the first stage of the “rebellion” is drawing to a close. How much of an impact has it had, and how realistic are its goals?
Continue reading...Chris Packham defiant after activists leave dead crows at his home
BBC Springwatch presenter condemns campaigners in row over ban on shooting birds
Chris Packham has said he will not be intimidated by campaigners who left two dead crows hanging outside his home and glued shut his security gate.
The broadcaster told the police about the threats and vandalism, which came after the Wild Justice group he founded with fellow conservationists Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery successfully challenged the “general licence” that allowed the shooting of 16 species of bird, including crows, jays and woodpigeons.
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