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US landfill emissions are 40% higher than what’s being reported to regulators, study finds
BRIEFING: Canada set to increase federal carbon tax again, to the dismay of conservative leaders
Digested week: Germany has the right idea on dachshunds. Dogs should be cuddly | Lucy Mangan
Germans want to ban ‘torture breeding’ for extreme characteristics. Plus: don’t even think about swimming in British waters this Easter
I’ll say this for the Germans: when they’re right, they’re so right. Word reaches us that dachshunds are to be banned in Germany.
Continue reading...Hunter Valley coal mine gets second life as motorsport park
The post Hunter Valley coal mine gets second life as motorsport park appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Bolivian Indigenous groups assert claim to treasure of ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’
Descendants of enslaved miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo
Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.
Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San José in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia argue that the excavation would rob them of their “common and shared” heritage.
Continue reading...‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime?
Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable
In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.
Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.
Continue reading...Week in wildlife – in pictures: pedalo hijinks and a raccoon doing a handstand
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...Extortionate Easter eggs and shrinking sweets: fears grow of a ‘chocolate meltdown’
Poor harvests in extreme weather conditions have led to a tripling of cocoa prices – but farmers have seen no benefit
Around the world this holiday weekend, people will consume hundreds of millions of Easter eggs and bunnies, as part of an annual chocolate intake that can exceed 8kg (18lb) for every person in the UK, or 5kg in the US and Europe. But a global shortage of cacao – the seed from which chocolate is made – has brought warnings of a “chocolate meltdown” that could see prices increase and bars shrink further.
This week, cocoa prices rose to all-time highs on commodity exchanges in London and New York, reaching more than $10,000 a tonne for the first time, after the third consecutive poor harvest in west Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast, which together produce more than half of the global cacao crop, have been hit by extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis and the El Niño weather phenomenon. This has been exacerbated by disease and underinvestment in ageing plantations.
Continue reading...US National Park Service sued over plan to trap Puerto Rico’s famous stray cats
Activists say plan to remove 200 felines near Old San Juan fortress within six months is not enough time and worry cats will be killed
A non-profit organization said Thursday that it sued the US National Park Service over a plan to remove Puerto Rico’s famous stray cats from a historic district in the US territory.
The lawsuit filed by Maryland-based Alley Cat Allies comes four months after the federal agency announced it would contract an animal welfare organization to remove an estimated 200 cats that live in an area surrounding a historic seaside fortress in Old San Juan.
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