The Guardian
Enough scandalous time-wasting on climate change. Let's get back to the facts | Lenore Taylor
At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing
- Our new series focuses on the climate change emergency. You can help support it
Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start. I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.
“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”
Continue reading...Our wide brown land: looking back at a year of environmental reporting
Our wide brown land has come to an end. As we launch the editorial appeal for The Frontline: Australia and the climate emergency, we look back at the impact made by the series
- Our new in-depth series focuses on the climate change emergency and you can help support it
It was a very long list.
When we first considered the idea of a new investigative series looking at Australia’s less-scrutinised environmental issues, we knew we had to speak to those on the frontline. We discussed the idea with Australia’s top scientists and environmentalists and it became clear there were many issues needing urgent attention.
Continue reading...Trump approves five national monuments – from black history to dinosaur bones
The new sites created by a sweeping public lands bill have been years in the making – here’s our guide
Donald Trump has signed a sweeping new public lands bill that protects 1.3m acres of wilderness and creates monuments to US history that has been overlooked, including the African American experience in the civil war and the fight for civil rights.
Years in the crafting, the measure will designate 367 miles of new scenic rivers and 2,600 miles of new national trails. It protects nearly 500,000 acres in California alone, and enlarges both Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks. And it reauthorizes a crucial funding mechanism for land and water conservation that had lapsed.
Continue reading...Orange-bellied 'Starry Dwarf Frog' discovered in Indian mountains
Astrobatrachus kurichiyana lurks in leaf litter and is sole member of an ancient lineage
An orange-bellied frog with a brown back, covered in tiny spots that resemble a starry sky, has been discovered in a mountain range in India, surprising researchers who said its ancestors branched off on the evolutionary tree from other members of the same frog family tens of millions of years ago.
The frog, which is about 2cm to 3cm long, has been named Astrobatrachus kurichiyana, although some might prefer its more rock-star sobriquet: “Starry Dwarf Frog.”
Continue reading...Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions
Extraction also causes 80% of biodiversity loss, according to comprehensive UN study
Extraction industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 80% of biodiversity loss, according to the most comprehensive environmental tally undertaken of mining and farming.
While this is crucial for food, fuel and minerals, the study by UN Environment warns the increasing material weight of the world’s economies is putting a more dangerous level of stress on the climate and natural life-support systems than previously thought.
Continue reading...Air pollution deaths are double previous estimates, finds research
Researchers say dirty air is killing 800,000 people a year in Europe, and urge the phasing out of fossil fuel burning
The number of early deaths caused by air pollution is double previous estimates, according to research, meaning toxic air is killing more people than tobacco smoking.
The scientists used new data to estimate that nearly 800,000 people die prematurely each year in Europe because of dirty air, and that each life is cut short by an average of more than two years. The health damage caused by air pollution in Europe is higher than the global average. Its dense population and poor air results in exposure that is among the highest in the world.
Continue reading...Surge in chemical use ‘a threat to health and environment’
UN warns of global failure to tackle hazards – with risks ranging from cancer to coral damage
Sales of synthetic chemicals will double over the next 12 years with alarming implications for health and the environment, according to a global study that highlights government failures to rein in the industry behind plastics, pesticides and cosmetics.
The second Global Chemicals Outlook, which was released in Nairobi on Monday, said the world will not meet international commitments to reduce chemical hazards and halt pollution by 2020. In fact, the study by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the industry has never been more dominant nor has humanity’s dependence on chemicals ever been as great.
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: how autumn winds can help predict winter temperatures
Air pressure over Europe and North Atlantic may provide vital data to UK energy suppliers
This time last year the UK was recovering from the “beast from the east”. Across the country heating was dialled to max and gas suppliers struggled to keep up with demand. Now a study shows how autumn wind patterns could help utility companies anticipate winter weather.
Normally energy providers use historical data to predict the temperature in the colder months. But British weather is fickle and winters vary, so this technique is unreliable. Instead Prof Adam Scaife, the head of long range prediction at the Met Office, and his colleagues compared atmospheric circulation patterns in November with gas demand the following winter.
Continue reading...Radical proposal to artificially cool Earth's climate could be safe, new study claims
Experts worry that injecting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere could put some regions at risk
A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world.
Related: Geoengineering may be used to combat global warming, experts say
Continue reading...Gas strategy in the UK is wrongheaded | Letters
It is no surprise that the government’s strategy on fracking has been deemed unlawful (Fracking guidance illegally ignores climate change, 7 March). Gas may be more fuel efficient than coal when burnt, but shale gas is 95% methane, and methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. According to the IPCC it has a global warming potential (GWP) 85 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. Misleadingly, HMG have relied on an obsolete figure of 36 for the GWP of methane, dating back to 2013.
Methane levels plateaued in the late 1990s, but have started to increase again over the past decade and have now reached 1,900 parts per billion, against a pre-industrial level of 700. Fracking is the obvious culprit. Satellite data over the US has shown that methane leakage exceeds 5% of shale gas production, an observation that fits with more recent studies by Nasa showing that fossil fuels are the major contributor to the continuing rise in atmospheric methane.
Continue reading...Martin Woodcock obituary
Amid the economic uncertainty of the mid 1970s not many people gave up a job in the City of London. But in 1974, Martin Woodcock did just that, swapping life as a stockbroker to become a freelance bird artist.
He never looked back. Martin, who has died aged 84, spent the rest of his distinguished career travelling through Asia and Africa to observe, draw and paint some of the world’s most elusive birds. His masterwork, which kept him busy for almost three decades, was the monumental, multivolume The Birds of Africa, for which he painted more than 200 colour plates.
Continue reading...Pathogens hitchhiking on plastics ‘could carry cholera from India to US’
Research finds ‘nurdles’ washed up on Scottish beaches tainted with E coli, with potentially far-reaching health implications
Dangerous sewage pathogens have been found “hitch-hiking” on plastic litter washed up on some of Scotland’s finest bathing beaches, raising concerns from scientists the phenomenon could have far-reaching implications for human health worldwide.
The findings, by the University of Stirling, have confirmed environmentalists’ fears that ubiquitous, persistent and tiny plastic beads, or “nurdles”, found on beaches and in rivers and seas around the world, act as rafts for harmful bacteria, transporting them from sewage outfalls and agricultural runoff to bathing waters and shellfish beds.
Continue reading...Judicial review of Heathrow airport third runway decision begins
High court to hear five challenges to plans for UK’s biggest aviation hub
Five judicial reviews challenging the legality of the government’s decision to allow a third runway at Heathrow airport have begun in the high court.
Protesters against the decision by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, to approve the expansion demonstrated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday before the start of the hearing.
Continue reading...Ban cars from idling near schools, says UK public health agency
Public Health England calls for raft of urgent measures to tackle air pollution
Cars should be banned from idling near schools and congestioncharges imposed across the UK as part of measures recommended by the government public health agency.
In a report on Monday, Public Health England (PHE) will warn that up to 40,000 people are dying each year from air pollution.
Continue reading...'We’ve been forced into this': Australia's school climate strikes to go global
In November, Scott Morrison told the striking students to ‘go to school’ – this time even more of them will strike
Four months on, 17-year-old Doha Khan says the school climate strikers have learned a lot.
On Friday, thousands of primary and high school students are again planning to walk out of class across the country, protesting against the government’s inaction on climate change, and what they see as the destruction of their future.
Continue reading...‘Rubbish police’ check bin bags to drive up recycling rates
A pair of council officers in hi-vis jackets scrutinise a clipboard before approaching a bungalow on a windswept estate on the western outskirts of Swansea. They are looking for residents who have sneaked recyclables into black bin bags destined for landfill sites or incineration plants.
Recycling promotion officer Scott Matthews shakes two bulging, partly ripped bags and listens to the telltale clinks and clanks: “There’s glass and cans in these. There is food too. And there is no recycling out whatsoever.”
Continue reading...Rowan Williams says pupils are right to protest over climate
The former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has backed pupils who have been taking part in school strikes to protest over climate change and who are planning to join a “climate rebellion” next month, warning that the ecological crisis means “the future of the human race is now at stake”.
Williams, whose stark comments come amid a growing wave of protests over the scale of the ecological crisis, said non-violent civil disobedience should have “wide and deep” support from the public.
Continue reading...The Roundup row: is the world’s most popular weedkiller carcinogenic?
Producer Monsanto is facing thousands of lawsuits from customers who now have cancer. But not all experts are convinced of a link…
As a third-generation cotton farmer in Bakersfield, California, John Barton estimates that he sprayed thousands of gallons of the herbicide Roundup over the course of his 30-year working life.
“My family were farming 1,000 acres of cotton, so we’d be out in the fields spraying it, and we’d get our pants wet, our shoes wet, our socks wet, and if the wind changed it would blow in our face,” Barton tells me. “We did that spring, summer and fall for most of my life. There was really no regulation at the time that we were spraying Roundup; no one was offered any protection. But I didn’t think anything of it, as they kept telling us how safe it was.”
Continue reading...'Was that disruptive?': congressman blasts Trump official with air-horn in committee hearing – video
Joe Cunningham intervened in a House committee hearing on the environmental impact of seismic air-gun testing. The Democrat reached for the 120-decibel device after the official claimed the practise, used to locate underwater oil deposits, would have no effect on marine animals. Cunningham said seismic air guns were 16,000 times louder than his air-horn
Continue reading...First gin made from discarded grapes to hit Tesco's shelves
Hyke gin is part of effort to drive down UK’s annual £20bn food waste bill
A major British fruit supplier and a craft spirits producer have teamed up to find a way to prevent an estimated 166m surplus supermarket grapes from going to waste every year – by turning them into gin.
The new Hyke gin – the first in the UK to be made from grapes grown to be eaten fresh – goes on sale at 300 Tesco branches later this month.
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