The Guardian
Levels of e-waste soar in Asia as gadgets become affordable, UN says
Amount of electronic waste up 63% in five years, with China’s more than doubling, United Nations University report finds
Levels of electronic waste are rising sharply across Asia, as higher incomes mean hundreds of millions of people can afford smartphones and other gadgets, according to a UN study.
The amount of e-waste in Asia has risen by 63% in five years, a report by United Nations University said, warning of the need to improve recycling and disposal methods across the region to prevent serious environmental and health consequences.
Continue reading...Protests escalate over Louisiana pipeline by company behind Dakota Access
Louisiana residents are starting to get involved in environmental issues and are making themselves heard about the disputed Bayou Bridge pipeline
Scott Eustis did not stop smiling for hours. The coastal wetland specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network was attending a public hearing in Baton Rouge. Its subject was a pipeline extension that would run directly through the Atchafalaya Basin, the world’s largest natural swamp. Eustis was surprised to be joined by more than 400 others.
“This is like 50 times the amount of people we have at most of these meetings,” said Eustis, adding that the proposed pipeline was “the biggest and baddest I’ve seen in my career”.
Continue reading...Photos show Japanese whalers killing minke in sanctuary, says Sea Shepherd
Anti-whaling campaign group alleges it photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary
Anti-whaling campaign group Sea Shepherd says it has photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary, the same day the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was in Australia on a state visit.
In the first documented killing since the international court of justice ruled Japan’s Antarctic whaling illegal in 2014, Sea Shepherd released photographs of what it says is a dead minke on the deck of the whaler Nisshin Maru at 11.34am on Sunday.
Continue reading...Call of the wild: can America’s national parks survive? | Lucy Rock
America’s national parks are facing multiple threats, despite being central to the frontier nation’s sense of itself
Autumn in the North Cascades National Park and soggy clouds cling to the peaks of the mountains that inspired the musings of Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg 60 years ago. Sitting on a carpet of pine needles in the forest below, protected from the rain by a canopy of vine maple leaves, is a group of 10-year-olds listening to a naturalist hoping to spark a similar love of the outdoors in a new generation.
This is one of 59 national parks which range across the United States, from the depths of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the turrets of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. All – plus hundreds of monuments and historic sites – are run by the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrated its centenary last year. The parks were created so that America’s natural wonders would be accessible to everyone, rather than sold off to the highest bidder. Writer Wallace Stegner called them America’s best idea: “Absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
Continue reading...Two cheers for Swansea’s tidal lagoon
Britain’s west coast is facing a revolutionary change. If renewable energy advocates get their way, swaths of shoreline will soon be peppered with giant barrages designed to turn the power of the sea into electricity for our homes and factories. These tidal lagoons could supply more than 10% of the nation’s electricity, it is claimed.
Last week former energy minister Charles Hendry published a review that strongly backed the construction of a £1.3 billion prototype lagoon in Swansea Bay. The trial project was a “no regrets option”, Hendry concluded.
Continue reading...UK Police defend choice to warn thousands to evacuate as storm falters
East coast residents have derided the severe storm warnings as ‘a load of rubbish’
Police and Environment Agency officials today defended their decision to warn tens of thousands of people living near the east coast of England to leave their homes because they were at risk of flooding.
Thousands were evacuated on Friday after the Environment Agency issued 17 severe weather warnings – which warn of danger to life – with people living in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex told they were most at risk.
Continue reading...‘The last five years have not been great at Greenpeace’
With former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson poised to lead US foreign policy, activists like Peter Willcox, skipper of the Rainbow Warrior, are needed more than ever. But are they losing their nerve?
Dawn was breaking when the campaigners used slingshots to fire ropes on to the rig. But as they began to scale the Prirazlomnaya, aiming to unfurl a banner denouncing Russia’s attempts to drill for oil in the Arctic, their hopes of another successful Greenpeace “action” swiftly faded. They had been anticipating high-pressure hoses that sprayed freezing seawater at intruders. They weren’t prepared for balaclava-wearing soldiers shooting at their inflatable boats.
One soldier grabbed the rope used by one of the climbers, slamming her body repeatedly against the rig. They captured two other activists. Then the Russians demanded to board the Greenpeace ship. But the Arctic Sunrise’s captain, Peter Willcox, fearing his boat would be seized, resisted.
Continue reading...It's never too early for spring song
Airedale, West Yorkshire A book from a century ago tells me when I might hear the ‘spring’ songs of each common songbird
The robin has uncorked its spring song. This one – a male, I suspect, giving it some welly in the upper reaches of a bare horse chestnut – is the loudest, the fullest, I’ve heard so far.
David Lack, the author of the landmark 1943 study The Life of the Robin, wrote that its autumn song was “thinner and less rich” than its spring reprise. In autumn, robins are more likely to mutter, to essay half-hearted impersonations of other birds, to engage in circling, absent-minded vocalisations known as sub-song, like a man whistling idly to himself as he walks in the woods.
Adani coalmine activists gear up to fight: ‘This will dwarf the Franklin blockade’
As the protest against the Carmichael project – Australia’s largest proposed coalmine – moves beyond the courts and into the realm of civil disobedience, activists have a clear warning: ‘If you’re in bed with Adani, you’re a target’
Across Australia a secretive network of activists are laying the groundwork for what they expect will be the biggest environmental protest movement in the country’s history.
Of course this won’t materialise if Adani and the rest of the miners proposing to open up one of the world’s biggest coalfields walk away from Queensland’s Galilee basin first.
Continue reading...Birds, bees, Rex Tillerson and Trump – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Fighting meerkats, a posing leopard and rescued turtles are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...A raptor strikes at sunset
Langstone, Hampshire As the sparrowhawk swoops, corvids explode into the air like a firework starburst
It is the hour before sunset and the paddock is bathed in liquid gold light. Heavy rain and frost melt have saturated the soil and the turf is pockmarked with hoofprint craters. The horses’ coats and feathered fetlocks are caked with mud the colour of wet concrete. Huddling round an old tractor tyre stuffed with hay, they jostle each other for the best stalks.
Related: Birdwatch: Sparrowhawk
Continue reading...Jane Fonda slams Justin Trudeau over climate efforts – video
Actor Jane Fonda criticises Justin Trudeau while speaking in Edmonton on Wednesday, saying the Canadian prime minister ‘betrayed’ what he committed to in the Paris climate talks. Fonda says people should not be fooled by ‘good-looking liberals’ such as Trudeau, who disappointed her by approving pipelines from the Alberta oil sands
Continue reading...Jane Fonda: don't fall for 'good-looking liberals' like Trudeau on environment
Canadian prime minister ‘betrayed’ what he committed to in Paris climate talks and ‘disappointed’ her by approving oil pipelines, political activist and actor said
Actor Jane Fonda has said that people should not be fooled by “good-looking liberals” such as the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who “disappointed” her by approving pipelines from the Alberta oil sands.
Fonda said after touring the oil sands area that environmentalists everywhere were impressed by Trudeau at the Paris climate conference in late 2015.
Continue reading...The case for farming subsidies after Brexit | Letters
George Monbiot makes many good points (Farmers fear life outside the EU, but it could mean a rebirth for rural Britain, 11 January), including free markets’ impact on small farmers whose incomes fall in times of plenty. He could have said more on food security. Climate change, including gas escapes from frozen deposits, is a growing threat but pests, diseases, routine weather and even large volcanic eruptions (eg Tambora, 1815) can create havoc. So who is actually responsible for food security, here or abroad?
“Britain can always import” is the reply despite a falling pound, but a recent Russian drought caused a grain export ban which could spread if global supplies struggled. Fisheries are exhausted, good British land is vanishing under development, yet nobody wants the bill for food storage. Instead surplus food yields quick profits via livestock feed, biofuels, brewing or even cosmetics.
Continue reading...Gas companies have manufactured shortage myth, economist says
But Shell Australia’s Andrew Smith says onshore gas production ban will lead to price hikes for Victorian manufacturers
Australia’s gas companies have manufactured a myth that there is a gas shortage, an economist with the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis, Bruce Robertson, said.
The idea that onshore coal seam gas exploration would ease pain for manufacturers by bringing down high local gas prices in a low-price global environment “goes against basic economic theory”, he said.
Continue reading...Europe should expand bee-harming pesticide ban, say campaigners
The threat posed to bees by neonicotinoid pesticides is greater than perceived in 2013 when the EU adopted a partial ban, new report concludes
Europe should expand a ban on bee-harming pesticides in light of a new report warning of widespread risks to agriculture and the environment, Greenpeace has said.
The report by biologists at the University of Sussex and commissioned by Greenpeace, concluded that the threat posed to bees by neonicotinoid pesticides was greater than perceived in 2013 when the European Union adopted a partial ban.
Continue reading...Lost British birdsong discovered in New Zealand birds
Recordings of New Zealand yellowhammer accents enable scientists to hear how their British relatives might have sounded 150 years ago
A new study reveals that a type of native birdsong, now lost in Britain, can still be heard in New Zealand where the birds were introduced in the 19th century.
By comparing recordings of yellowhammer accents in both countries scientists were able to hear how the birds’ song might have sounded in the UK 150 years ago.
Continue reading...Solar power to rise from Chernobyl's nuclear ashes
Chinese companies plan to spend $1bn building a giant solar farm on land contaminated by the nuclear disaster in Ukraine, reports Climate News Network
It was the worst nuclear accident in history, directly causing the deaths of 50 people, with at least an additional 4,000 fatalities believed to be caused by exposure to radiation.
The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine also resulted in vast areas of land being contaminated by nuclear fallout, with a 30-kilometre exclusion zone, which encompassed the town of Pripyat, being declared in the area round the facility.
Continue reading...Tidal lagoons 'could ensure UK power supplies'
Former energy minister’s words will boost efforts to get Swansea Bay lagoon project off the ground
Tidal lagoons could play an important role in ensuring secure power supplies, according to a former energy minister who has led a review into the technology.
Charles Hendry was speaking before the publication of his independent review, commissioned by the government, into the potential for tidal lagoon energy in the UK.
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