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Will water soon be a marketable commodity or a priceless public good?

There’s a scene in the film Mad Max: Fury Road where the evil ruler Immortan Joe, gazing down from a cliff upon his parched, emaciated subjects, turns two turbines, and water gushes from three gigantic sluices. The wretched masses surge forward to catch the deluge in their pots and bowls. And as imperiously as he opened the gates, Joe shuts them. “Do not become addicted to water,” he roars. “It will take hold of you.” But, of course, he already has taken hold of them by withholding, essentially, life.

We don’t have to await the dystopian future for the water wars to begin. The struggle over water, between private interests and the public good, the powerful and the weak, is raging now. From Love Canal to Flint, Michigan; Bolivia to Ukraine to Tunisia; budget-cutting, privatization, corporate malfeasance and climate crises are conspiring to create political violence, mass migration, property damage and death.

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Methane emitted from the Nord Stream pipeline leak in 2022 has been found to be nearly double the initial estimates, according to academic researchers.

Four-fifths of companies that are on track to meet their climate targets also tie their executive pay to meeting green objectives, new research has found.

The EU should create a new fund to stave off the existential threat of Chinese and American competition while moving closer to the bloc's climate neutrality objectives, according to former Polish Climate Minister Marcin Korolec.

Norwegian energy giant Equinor has revised a key claim about its flagship carbon capture and storage (CCS) project after official figures revealed discrepancies with the company’s public statements, an investigative journalism project has found.

A new Finnish law aims to push the construction industry to take into account both the positive and negative impacts of a new building's entire life cycle, as part of an effort to push the sector to reduce emissions and boost circularity.

DNA analysis suggests Iron Age societies in Britain were built around women rather than men.

The programme of the UN Ocean Conference is missing three crucial points on industrial fishing, fossil fuels, and protected areas, a group of NGOs has said.

A study on corporate reporting in the Asia-Pacific region has found that only a quarter of surveyed companies believe biodiversity issues impact their business, with South Korea, Vietnam, and China among the countries with the biggest gaps in nature-related disclosures.

Global heating means atmosphere can drive both extreme droughts and floods with rapid switches

Climate “whiplash” between extremely wet and dry conditions, which spurred catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, is increasing exponentially around the world because of global heating, analysis has found.

Climate whiplash is a rapid swing between very wet or dry conditions and can cause far more harm to people than individual extreme events alone. In recent years, whiplash events have been linked to disastrous floods in east Africa, Pakistan and Australia and to worsening heatwaves in Europe and China.

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Prices for Californian credit allowances (CCAs) and EU ETS allowances will rally 19-20% this year, despite surpluses in the former and balanced fundamentals in the latter, a bank predicted on Wednesday.

An ecological consultancy has endorsed the English government’s proposals for centralising its nutrient credits scheme, while highlighting potential risks with its approach regarding the impact on species.

Expert says the planet parade will be best viewed around 21 January and recommends downloading a sky map app to help spot them

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Stargazers are being treated to a rare “planet parade” this month, with most of the planets visible in the night sky at the same time.

Astrophysicist Dr Rebecca Allen, co-director of Swinburne University’s space technology and industry institute, said it would be a rare opportunity to see so many planets lined up above the horizon, especially outer ones like Neptune.

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Korean researchers believe they may have found a lower cost approach to make hydrogen from natural gas and then liquefy it for export with the same carbon profile than hydrogen made from water and renewable energy.

An Iceland-based carbon registry on Wednesday announced it has partnered with a sustainability software provider to integrate its carbon offsets into the firm’s corporate platform.

The consequences of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss are seen as the greatest global risks over the next decade among experts across the private and public sectors, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Australians lead the world in rooftop solar uptake, but a new study finds negative messaging and misinformation are drowning out the broader renewables success story.

The post Study finds major public knowledge gaps on renewables – and they’re being filled with misinformation appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Review could lead to bans on plastic chemicals including vinyl chloride, compound at center of 2023 Ohio train wreck

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a formal review of five highly toxic plastic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, the notorious compound at the center of the East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck fire. The move could lead to strong limits or bans on the substances.

Vinyl chloride is most commonly used in PVC pipe and packaging production, but is also cancerous and highly flammable. For about 50 years, the federal government has considered limits on the substance, but industry has thwarted most regulatory efforts, hidden the substances’ risks and is already mobilizing against the new review.

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Exclusive: Newly uncovered documents reveal chemicals giant was aware ‘environmentally neutral’ products did not biodegrade

The multibillion-dollar chemicals company 3M told customers its firefighting foams were harmless and biodegradable when it knew they contained toxic substances so persistent they are now known as “forever chemicals” and banned in many countries including the UK, newly uncovered documents show.

From the 1960s until 2003, 3M made foams containing PFOS and PFOA (perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid), synthetic chemicals that can take tens of thousands of years to degrade in the environment and have been linked to cancers and a range of other health problems such as thyroid disease, high cholesterol, hormonal problems and fertility issues.

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Adventure centre projects will promote interest in natural world, boosting young people’s wellbeing

A £150,000 initiative to tackle the “teenage dip” in nature connectedness will involve the Scout Association introducing rewilding to its adventure centres across the UK.

The funding, announced on Wednesday by the environmental charity Rewilding Britain, will support 11 projects aimed at putting young people at the heart of nature restoration. Several focus explicitly on reversing the sharp decline in young people’s engagement with the natural world during adolescence.

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