Feed aggregator

Researchers in Canary Islands coin term for new type of marine pollution they say could be leaking toxic chemicals into oceans

The discovery came as a team of researchers were combing the shores of the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canaries. Time and again, set against the sparkling waters that lapped the Playa Grande, they spotted clumps of hardened tar, dotted with tiny, colourful fragments of plastic.

They swiftly realised that this combination of tar and microplastics – or “plastitar” as they named it – was unlike any other plastic pollution they had seen.

Continue reading...

Wealthy landowners have filed a high court case to ‘clarify’ law around public access to the moor

Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) has vowed to defend wild camping on the moor, following a case brought by a wealthy landowner.

The huge moorland in Devon is one of the few places in England which legally allows wild camping in certain areas. DNPA fears the case, which seeks, according to the complainants, to clarify the law governing wild camping in the park, could throw into doubt popular overnight events such as Ten Tors and the Duke of Edinburgh’s award.

Alexander Darwall, a City fund manager, and his wife, Diana, own 2,784 acres in south Dartmoor. They have filed a case questioning the legal basis of the authority’s bylaws, which allow for responsible backpack camping, where campers leave no trace in permitted areas of the national park.

Papers lodged by the Darwalls’ lawyers in the high court claim there is no legal right to camp on Dartmoor, as the Dartmoor Commons Act, which gives the park authority the power to make bylaws, does not allow for camping without a landowner’s consent.

According to the documents, the couple argue: “There is an additional requirement that the camping regulated by the defendant [the park authority] must only take place in areas where the landowners consent and subject to whatever additional conditions and requirements the landowners may stipulate in return for their consent.”

The park’s chief executive, Kevin Bishop, said the authority would not give in to pressure from the Darwalls. “We will defend the right to responsibly wild camp on the moor because national parks exist to both conserve the environment and to create opportunities for public enjoyment and understanding of nature,” he said. “The Darwalls’ claims lack substance. Done properly wild camping is not, as suggested in this claim, a threat to the environment nor a significant risk of wildfires.”

Bishop told the Guardian that section 10 of the Dartmoor Commons Act does give the public right to access the moor for the purposes of outdoor recreation. “We believe this includes wild camping, provided it is done properly,” he said. “This means you carry all you need in a rucksack, stay for no more than one or two nights, and leave no trace.” He said the authority was already working with landowners and the police to clamp down on “fly-camping”, where campers light fires and leave a mess.

A spokesperson for the Darwalls said they were not challenging the park’s existing bylaws but “just asking the Dartmoor National Park Authority to cooperate with those who are responsible for looking after the land and the environment”. The spokesperson added their action would not put events at risk: “I am sure that in all circumstances wild camping could continue on Dartmoor, though it depends in part on the DNPA.”

A Cambridge graduate and former Goldman Sachs analyst, Alexander Darwall is the chief investment officer of Devon Equity Management. After purchasing Blachford Estate on Dartmoor in 2011, the couple soon came into conflict with ramblers by terminating a permissive agreement allowing people to park near the New Waste area of the moor. A petition against the move, which was signed by more than 500 people, claimed the car park had given families, school groups, walking clubs, horse riders and locals access to a “truly beautiful part of Dartmoor”, with a rich prehistoric and industrial history.

Mark Horton, who helps run the 3,800-strong Dartmoor wild camping Facebook group and the Dartmoor access group, said thousands of people, including increasing numbers of women and families, camped responsibly on Dartmoor every year. He accused landowners of looking for any excuse to prevent wild camping. “It’s people with money restricting other people’s pastimes because they want it all to themselves,” he said. “The majority of wild campers should not lose out because of the action of a tiny minority who pitch up next to roads and leave a mess. The fact is cattle and quad bikes used by farmers and landowners cause more damage on the moor than wild campers.”

On the page, there are posts this month from parents taking their sons and daughters out for their first wild camping experiences. All members must leave a photo showing how they left no trace of their visit. Horton, a local builder, who started wild camping on geography field trips in the 1980s, added: “I’m out there camping on Dartmoor all the time. People of all walks of life do it to get away and switch off for a night or two. On the jubilee weekend, I met an electrician, an air-con guy and a doctor out camping.”

Continue reading...

Swedish power company lines up partnerships to recycle wind turbine blades to make skis, snowboards, and construction materials for solar farms.

The post Wind turbine blades recycled as skis, snowboards and solar farms appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Extraordinary scenes in Queensland and NSW markets come from an electricity system - its markets and its regulatory environment - that are completely broken.

The post “Bonkers:” Queensland and NSW energy supply crunch underlines farce of broken market appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Mining giant enters strategic partnership to manufacture li-ion batteries with fewer steps, lower costs, less complexity, and a smaller environmental footprint.

The post Mining giant Rio Tinto invests in Canadian battery innovator Nano One appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The New Zealand government's quarterly carbon allowance auction is set for this Wednesday, putting 4.825 million units out for sale on the NZX-EEX platform, with analysts expecting the cost containment reserve (CCR) to be completely exhausted leading to an upshoot in prices.

Clean energy is indeed essential to mitigating the risks posed by climate change and volatile markets. But generating demand for it will be essential.

The post Why Biden declared heat pumps and solar panels essential to national defense appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Market operator warns of load shedding - or power outages - in Queensland in new supply crunch in Australia's most coal dependent state.

The post AEMO warns of load shedding in Queensland supply crunch, as prices capped appeared first on RenewEconomy.

England's future food strategy is being released amid criticism from campaigners it lacks ambition.

Thousands of sick and dead frogs are turning up around Australia, bizarrely lying out in the open. If you see one, let these scientists know. Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Karrie Rose, Australian Registry of Wildlife Health - Taronga Conservation Society Australia, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

In the study at a zoo in Helsinki, white-faced sakis could trigger audio or visual stimuli on demand

Monkeys given their own “primate-focused” versions of Spotify and Netflix were more likely to choose audio stimuli over screen time, a study has found.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow and Aalto University in Finland set out to explore how a group of three white-faced saki monkeys at Korkeasaari zoo in Helsinki would respond to being able to trigger audio or visual stimuli on demand.

Continue reading...

The world’s poorest people ought to be helped to cope with a climate emergency they did little to cause

What is troubling about the heatwave affecting the 1.8 billion people on the Indian subcontinent is not just that it is so hot, but that the record-breaking temperatures arrived so early. Scorching heat is usual for the months of April to July, but a heatwave in March is not normal. March was the hottest in India and Pakistan since records began 122 years ago. Records are being broken by large margins. In India’s capital, Delhi, thermometers reached an unprecedented 49C in May, far exceeding the previous highest-ever temperature of 45.6C in 1941. Meanwhile, heatwaves raged at both of Earth’s poles. This weekend, deadly heat hit Spain and the south-western US.

Heatwaves around the world – including this year in south Asia – have been made more frequent and hotter because of the human-made climate emergency. The world’s poorest people, who have contributed very little to global heating, will bear the brunt of it. There will be a loss of life and livelihoods, especially for those forced to work outside in skin-splitting heat. A study in the Lancet last year suggested that 740,000 deaths in India a year could already be attributed to global heating.

Continue reading...

Phoenix reported 114F, Las Vegas soared to 109F and Denver hit 100F, while inland areas of California reached triple digits

A dangerous heat swept across the American south-west over the weekend as potentially deadly heat set temperatures soaring to record levels in numerous major US cities in the region.

Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and California’s Death Valley all posted record temperatures on Saturday.

Continue reading...

An avid diver saw how lionfish have devastated populations of Florida’s native tropical fish and resolved to help solve the problem

Aarav Chavda has been diving off the coast of Florida for years. Each time he became increasingly depressed by the ever-growing void, as colourful species of fish and coral reefs continued to disappear.

A significant reason for that disappearance is the lionfish, an invasive species that has boomed in Atlantic waters from Florida to the Caribbean in recent decades, and in numerous other places from Brazil and Mexico to the Mediterranean.

Continue reading...

AEMO intervenes to impose price cap on Queensland, which has been suffering the country's highest prices for nearly a year, and warns of supply crunch.

The post AEMO imposes price cap on electricity market for first time since 2009 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad

Wading in to the ocean the cold takes my breath away. Less than an hour ago I was beneath my warm doona in bed, and now the sun is spreading across the winter horizon and I’m wearing two millimeters of neoprene on most surfaces of my body. It’s Sunday, 7am, and I am about to swim out from Coogee beach to Wylie’s Baths and then across the length of the bay and back again with a group of others, some in just their swimsuits, some in full wetsuits, and some (OK – just me) in a full wetsuit with neoprene booties and fins.

If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad; I hate the cold, I’m scared of deep water. But Covid lockdowns brought strange new hobbies to many. And mine – bracingly – is ocean swimming.

Continue reading...

Ecologists say discovery of scaly-tailed possum at Bullo River Station is a sign of positive benefit of private land conservation

A rare scaly-tailed possum has been caught in the Northern Territory for the first time in what scientists say is a sign that private land conservation is having a positive effect.

The scaly-tailed possum, also known as the Wyulda, is a rock-dwelling marsupial with stout limbs and a “grippy” tail it uses to hang from branches and rock ledges to reach for seeds, fruits and flowers.

Continue reading...

The food should not be "forced" on Scottish markets by a new UK bill, a government minister says.

An investor’s rant gives an insight into the City’s short-termist view of the environment crisis

If the future remembers any corporate villain from 2022, it will be Stuart Kirk. The satirically titled head of “responsible investment” at HSBC looks the part: shaven headed, tightly trimmed beard, hard, sharp eyes. Like all the best villains, the banker’s arguments are insidiously appealing. He says out loud what his audience thinks, cutting through polite society’s pious crap to reveal its selfish desires.

“There’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world,” he told the Financial Times’s Moral Money conference – and I haven’t made that title up either. “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”

Continue reading...

The then 12-year-old had diplomats squirming in their seats when she berated them at the 1992 gathering

• Thirty years of climate summits: where have they got us?

Fidel Castro was there, along with George Bush, John Major and 100 other heads of state, billionaires and rock stars. But the biggest star of the 1992 Earth Summit was a young girl who delivered what would be known as the speech that “silenced the world”.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki was just 12 years old, and had set up a children’s environment group in Vancouver with her nine-year-old sister Sarika and friends Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler and Michelle Quigg. When they heard about the Rio meeting they pestered family and friends to raise the money to fly south, accompanied by her father, David Suzuki, one of Canada’s leading geneticists. The group hired a small booth at a side event and set about ambushing anyone and everyone (I met them and was knocked out by their enthusiasm and intensity).

Continue reading...