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China’s summer of climate destruction
Indigenous rangers are burning the desert the right way – to stop the wrong kind of intense fires from raging
The Guardian view on hydrogen hype: it’s perhaps not as green as you think | Editorial
Low carbon emissions in Europe cannot come at the cost of environmental destruction abroad
Tunisia is one of the driest countries in Africa, and has just suffered three years of drought. Yet the EU sees the country as key to producing “green hydrogen” for export to Europe. The trouble is, this fuel is obtained by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with electricity generated by renewable sources. Tunisia has lots of sun but precious little fresh water.
The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations.
Continue reading...London Ulez residents ‘offered £100 a month’ for parking spaces to avoid fee
Drivers want to park on Moor Lane and Bridge Road, a charge-free corridor in Chessington
Residents of a road that will form a charge-free corridor through London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) say they have been offered “£100 a month” to let people park on their driveways and avoid paying the fee.
Motorists travelling along Moor Lane, which becomes Bridge Road, in Chessington, south-west London, do not have to pay the Ulez charge, but should they turn off at any stage they will immediately enter the zone.
Continue reading...How 18th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox
Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even more
In the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.
But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.
Continue reading...Put ‘pest’ animal species on the pill, don’t cull them, says scientist
Humane alternatives to killing rampant creatures such as wild boar, deer and grey squirrels are being developed
Conflicts between humans and wildlife are triggering growing numbers of disease outbreaks, road accidents and crop damage. And the problem is likely to get worse unless new, humane measures to curtail animal numbers are developed in the near future, say scientists.
It is a critical environmental issue that will be debated this week at a major conference in Italy where experts will discuss how best to limit numbers of grey squirrels, wild boar, deer, feral goats, pigeons, parakeets and other creatures that are causing widespread ecological damage in many countries.
Continue reading...Australia to host global nature positive summit
The indigenous groups fighting against the quest for 'white gold'
Melbourne has treated the Yarra River terribly – but it doesn’t have to stay that way
The city’s largest waterway has been abused for so long we’ve forgotten what it could be like if it ran clear again
In 2017, on a hot March day, I went looking for azure kingfishers. Tiny, elusive and even bluer than their name suggests, they’d been seen several times on the Yarra River in the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
I rode to the river from Lilydale station along the busy roads that pulled like taut wire between the paddocks and empty lots out there, nearly crashing at the bottom of a fast, steep hill while cars and trucks whooshed past me.
Continue reading...Met police vows to combat protests against London’s Ulez rollout
Threats of violence as ultra-low emission zone expansion begins – but mayor defends it as essential for health
• Read more: how Ulez expansion is affecting lives of Londoners
The Metropolitan police has vowed to throw “considerable resources” at protecting this week’s expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) amid fears the rollout will prompt a spike in vandalism and disruptive protests.
The force’s declaration came as London mayor Sadiq Khan issued a fierce defence of his bitterly contested policy, saying he was acting to tackle “toxic air” and prevent the capital’s children “growing up with stunted lungs”.
Continue reading...Europe hits roadblocks in the race to switch to electric cars
Despite progress towards a 2045 zero-emission goal, the high price of EVs has created a headache for governments
European countries are struggling to persuade people to switch from combustion engine cars to electric ones, experts warn.
Europe sells 10 times more electric cars today than it did just six years ago, according to the International Energy Agency, but its fleet is cleaning up too slowly to meet its climate goals. Governments across the continent are struggling with the price-tag of electric vehicles, which can cost several thousand euros more upfront than comparable ones that burn fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Health alarm as tide of rotting seaweed chokes UK holiday beaches
Potentially lethal to fish and dangerous for humans, the summer’s toxic invader is caused by warming seas and strong winds
When Owen Francomb from Margate set out on a walk with his dog Gertie along Kent’s picturesque Thanet coast early this month, he didn’t imagine he’d need to be rescued from a tide of toxic sludge. But on the beach at Newgate Gap, French bulldog Gertie started sinking into a thick carpet of rotting seaweed and began to panic.
“She couldn’t move,” Francomb. says. “So I scrambled down the slipway and jumped down on to the beach, expecting the seaweed to be a foot deep, but it came up to my belt. I really struggled to wade through it.” Another dog walker had to help him and Gertie out of the stinking slime.
Continue reading...After America’s summer of extreme weather, ‘next year may well be worse’
A freakish season of record temperatures, wildfire smoke and the destruction of Lahaina could soon become normal, climate experts say
It’s been a strange, cruel summer in the United States. From the dystopian orange skies above New York to the deadly immolation of a historic coastal town in Hawaii, the waning summer has been a stark demonstration of the escalating climate crisis – with experts warning that worse is to come.
A relentless barrage of extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused global heating, has swept the North American continent this summer, routinely placing a third of the US population under warnings of severe heat and unleashing floods, fire and smoke upon communities, with a record 15 separate disasters causing at least $1bn in damages so far this year.
Continue reading...In the battle to save the world’s forests, women are leading the resistance | Elif Shafak
From the Akbelen forest in Turkey to northern India to Brazil, rural women are standing up against the power of the corporate chainsaw
This summer, as Rhodes was ravaged by wildfires and the world witnessed the destruction of precious trees and fragile ecosystems, on the opposite shore in Turkey, only miles away, ancient forests were being felled for the sake of more coal, more profit. But what the energy company hadn’t reckoned with was the resistance of local women.
Akbelen, in the province of Muğla, is a woodland of about 730 hectares (1,800 acres) that provides a natural habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna. It is this beautiful place that YK Energy, a private energy company, has been aiming to occupy in order to expand an open-pit lignite mine to supply a thermal power plant. The combustion of lignite (brown coal) generates more CO2 emissions than hard, black coal, making it the most health-harming variety. For the last four years, villagers and environmental campaigners have been holding vigils to protect the forest. But the company has carried on.
Continue reading...India birds report identifies 178 species as being of high conservation concern
Large-scale study indicates population declines after collation of data from country’s conservation organisations and birdwatchers
A report on India’s bird population has painted a grim picture for many of the country’s species.
The State of India’s Birds (SoIB) report – published on Friday – showed worrisome declines, with 178 species of wild birds identified as needing immediate priority for conservation.
Continue reading...Growing number of countries consider making ecocide a crime
Mexico latest country where government is considering passing new laws to criminalise environmental destruction
A growing number of countries are considering introducing laws to make ecocide a crime.
Mexico is the latest country where politicians are seeking to deter environmental damage – and to get justice for its victims – by criminalising it. Karina Marlen Barrón Perales, congresswoman for Nuevo León, has submitted a bill to the Mexican congress introducing a new crime of “ecocide”.
Continue reading...Climate change: it’s not all bad news | Fiona Katauskas
Try to look on the bright side
Continue reading...Drivers warned of copycat websites overcharging for Ulez fee
Which? advises drivers paying London ultra-low emission zone fee to make sure they’re using official TfL website
Drivers are being ripped off by copycat websites that add extra fees to the ultra low emissions zone charges in London, consumer champion Which? has warned.
As Ulez expands across all boroughs in the capital from Tuesday, Which? has found a series of identical, unofficial websites targeting people trying to pay the charge. This has led to drivers paying more than the £12.50 daily fee.
Continue reading...CP Daily: Friday August 25, 2023
Producers pick up CCAs and sell off RGAs, while speculators shorten in both markets
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