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Pity SUV drivers, fast being priced out of their badges of contempt for the planet | Catherine Bennett
With the royals as ambassadors for these luxury cars, there’s little hope for the rest of us
If you have tears – that is, any not used up on MPs struggling to get by, parents forced to choose between skiing and private schools, second homeowners who feel unwelcome, Etonians shut out of Oxbridge, and people cut adrift with unusable city wood burners – prepare to shed them on the latest affluent but afflicted minority: Range Rover owners unable afford their car insurance.
Thanks in large part to the Daily Mail, which has been prioritising their plight, a series of distressing cases has recently come to light. One owner, it reports, gave up after being quoted £14,000 to insure his £100,000 Range Rover Sport, and instead “bought himself a new Mercedes GLE”. Insurers, who say the vehicles are too likely to be stolen, seem to be deaf to the suffering of owners whose only fault was to buy an obese status symbol coveted by many hard-working criminals, as well as by Prince Andrew.
Continue reading...Researchers enhance accuracy in EU carbon price forecasting
US Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax credits expected to increase budget deficits by $428 bln through 2033
Sydney’s 90m-year-old climbing galaxias fish may have been wiped out by school building works
The species can climb waterfalls and reaches back to Gondwanaland – but there are fears polluted runoff has proven fatal
A “miracle fish” may have been snuffed out in its Sydney habitat by bungled construction work at a nearby government high school, local environmentalists fear.
The climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis) belongs to a species line reaching back to Gondwanaland. It was only identified in the Manly Dam region in Sydney’s north – the fish’s most northerly known location in Australia – in 1998.
Continue reading...UK farmers vow to mount more blockades over cheap post-Brexit imports
Inspired by French action, British campaigners say they will continue slow tractor protests after Dover roads were blocked
Farmers say there will be further French-style blockades following a slow tractor protest at Dover against low supermarket prices and cheap food imports from post-Brexit trade deals.
Around 40 tractors and other farm vehicles blocked roads around the Kent port for several hours on Friday evening by driving slowly and carrying signs with slogans such as “No More Cheap Imports”.
Continue reading...Forget range anxiety: we should really worry about China’s global dominance in the electric car market | John Naughton
EVs heavily subsidised by Beijing are flooding Europe and the globe. If we don’t watch out, it could start a major trade war
Whenever people learn that I have an electric vehicle (EV) the conversation invariably turns to whether I suffer from “range anxiety” – the fear of running out of charge. The answer is that generally I don’t, though I might if I were contemplating a drive across the Highlands of Scotland to Aviemore, say. But otherwise, no. Why? Because I am able to charge the car overnight at home, and most of my trips are much much shorter than the vehicle’s 300-mile range.
In that sense I am statistically normal. Government estimates are that 99% of car journeys in England are of less than 100 miles. So if you can charge at home, then most of your problems are over, which probably explains when the last time the Department for Transport did a survey, 93% of the country’s EV owners had home charging.
Continue reading...Climate-crisis deniers sought for exclusive Florida residence. Private ark essential | Gaia Vince
Gordon Pointe is going for a snip at $295m – but set in a location particularly vulnerable to sea-level rises, buyers should beware
Reality deniers with big pockets are sought by a family of Floridian property developers hoping to sell the most expensive home in the US: a waterfront property on the market for $295m (£234m). The compound squats on Gordon Pointe peninsula, a spit of beachfront in south-west Florida, extending perilously into the Gulf of Mexico. The late financier John Donahue bought the land for $1m in 1985, when it was a beautiful remote nature spot, protected by mangroves, with a small fisherman’s cottage on it. He soon razed this and replaced it with McMansions with de rigueur swimming pools and lawns. Offered for your $295m are three houses with parking for yachts and other conveniences for the wealthy sea-level-rise gambler. The Donahue family is selling at the right time. This is one of the parts of the world most vulnerable to climate impacts, with sea levels rising three times faster than the global average, and increasing risk from hurricane damage. The whole neighbourhood, Port Royal, has been categorised as at “extreme risk of flooding” over the next 30 years, and is regularly hit by weather disasters, making it very expensive to get home insurance. Buyer beware, as Canute might say. Diminishing returns…
Continue reading...Dover tractor protester says farmers could launch more demonstrations
Organiser of go-slow protest says farmers in Europe have ‘shown us what can be accomplished’
The organiser of a protest in which tractor-driving farmers caused traffic jams around the Port of Dover has said there could be more demonstrations.
Road traffic in and out of the coastal town in Kent was disrupted by the go-slow demonstration on Friday night.
Continue reading...Labour’s reduced home insulation plans ‘simply not enough’
Housebuilders and campaigners warn of cold, damp homes and UK missing legally binding targets
Labour’s slashing of proposed spending on home insulation will leave millions of people on low incomes in cold, damp homes and could prevent the UK meeting its legally binding carbon targets, campaigners and housebuilders have warned.
The Federation of Master Builders criticised the drastic scaling back of Labour’s low-carbon policies, announced by Keir Starmer on Thursday after months of speculation.
Continue reading...Cyclone Tracy cleanup to Melbourne Cup upset: archive images of 20th century Australia – in pictures
The Focus exhibition at the National Archives of Australia contains pictures drawn from its collection of almost 11m images. Government photography is usually associated with politics but the photographers also documented the lives and work of well-known and everyday Australians
Continue reading...Is Iceland entering a new volcanic era?
Bushfire survivors call for communities to support shift to renewables
The post Bushfire survivors call for communities to support shift to renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Speculators take profits across North American carbon markets, emitters make modest additions
Global carbon markets post 2% increase in value in 2023 -analysts
California carbon market watchdog urges ARB to initiate Washington linkage process
Dinosaur Island: 40 years of discoveries on Skye
Researchers reiterate insufficiency of California forest offset buffer pool
Italian climate-tech firm partners with energy major, US startup on Norway marine CDR pilot project
Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point, study finds
Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible
The circulation of the Atlantic Ocean is heading towards a tipping point that is “bad news for the climate system and humanity”, a study has found.
The scientists behind the research said they were shocked at the forecast speed of collapse once the point is reached, although they said it was not yet possible to predict how soon that would happen.
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