The Guardian
Invasion of the monster plants
The Chevin, Otley, West Yorkshire The most prolific plants spring up to monstrous heights and otherwise orderly places become twisted and tangled
There is a point every summer where the pastoral dream of the English countryside turns feverish, almost psychedelic. The most prolific plants spring up to monstrous heights and otherwise orderly places become twisted and tangled. In Yorkshire’s gritstone country, these individual takeovers feel like a conspiracy, as if the armies of entropy are silently massing, taking up positions ready for some coordinated coup of the countryside.
Continue reading...Queensland University of Technology to dump fossil fuel investments
QUT vice-chancellor says university’s $300m endowment fund will divest its shares in coal, oil and gas companies
One of Australia’s largest universities, the Queensland University of Technology, has committed to dumping fossil fuel investments after a two-year campaign by students and staff.
In a move that surprised and delighted campaigners, the university’s vice-chancellor, Peter Coaldrake, revealed on Friday the university’s $300m endowment fund would divest its shares in coal, oil and gas companies.
Continue reading...Spider lurks in its perfect wire entanglement: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 September 1916
The autumnal touch of morning mist reveals the fact that spiders are more numerous than we imagine. Over the hedge-top, slung between the garden plants stretched across the road and pathway, and suspended beneath the bushes are innumerable lines, nets, and traps, all carefully prepared to ensnare the heedless fly or other insect. They are there, these nets, on every summer day, but it is only when the moisture ropes them with scintillating minute drops –
“every fairy wheel and thread
Of cobweb dew-bediamonded” –*
Climate Change Authority's plan is 'a dog's breakfast', say dissenting members
Climate scientist and economist publish minority report calling for full emissions trading scheme and closure of brown-coal-fired power plants
The Climate Change Authority’s latest report is a “recipe for further delay” on climate change, contravenes the authority’s legal obligations and recommends “a dog’s breakfast” of policies, say two key members in a dissenting minority report.
Climate scientist David Karoly and economist Clive Hamilton said they could not “in good conscience” put their name to the majority report, which they said privileged “political feasibility” over environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency.
Continue reading...Eastern gorilla now critically endangered due to illegal hunting
Largest living primate joins three other great ape species on International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list
Humanity has moved a step closer to wiping out our closest evolutionary relatives, with four of the six great ape species now listed internationally as critically endangered.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the eastern gorilla, the largest living primate, as critically endangered in its latest “red list” of threatened species. The eastern gorilla has suffered a 70% population collapse over the past 20 years, primarily due to illegal hunting.
Continue reading...Eastern Gorilla now 'critically endangered', says world conservation congress - in pictures
Orangutans, Gorillas, Duiker antelopes, and Plains Zebras, are amongst the animals that have moved up the global list of endangered species
Continue reading...First they came for our plastic bags, now they’re coming for our coffee cups
Having led the way with the coalition’s popular 5p bag levy, the Lib Dems have another cunning plan ...
Name: The 5p cup charge.
Status: Just a possibility.
Continue reading...US beekeepers fear for livelihoods as anti-Zika toxin kills 2.5m bees
- ‘It kills everything’: conservationist warns over threat to other animals
- Regulators: ‘clear and public health crisis’ allows use of Naled chemical
Huddled around their hives, beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with mosquitos that carry the Zika virus.
Related: Miami fears Zika virus may hit $24bn tourism industry hard
Continue reading...The National Trust, the sheep farm and the fight for a Lakes way of life
Deep in the Borrowdale valley, where England is observed in its finest garments, there is ferment in the fields and on the hillsides. The gnarled farming communities who toil with their sheep on these lakeland slopes have prevailed in the face of Vikings, Normans and rampaging Scots for thousands of years and have learned to harness tempests. Now they believe they are in a mortal struggle with what they regard as a more implacable enemy: the National Trust.
The trust, guardian of England’s natural treasures, is one of the biggest landlords in this part of the Lake District. Of the dozen or so farms scattered in these parts, only three are not owned by the NT. That number is now down to two, following the trust’s £950,000 purchase of the land around the historic Thorneythwaite farm.
Continue reading...‘Human swan’ conservationist takes to skies on 4,600-mile migration
In a few days, conservationist Sacha Dench will take to the air in the most unusual company. She will launch herself from the tundra of Siberia in a motorised paraglider and, when airborne, she will follow the thousands of Bewick’s swans that will have begun their annual migration from the Arctic to their wintering grounds in western Europe.
The 4,600-mile trip will take several weeks to complete. Dench will either camp in the open or seek shelter with local people, including Nenets, nomadic reindeer hunters.
Continue reading...Fantasy art: the future of energy and water technology - in pictures
They look like designs from the pages of a futurist’s notepad, but the concepts below are all finalists in the biennial public art contest held by the Land Art Generator Initiative (Lagi).
These ideas illustrate the possibility of marrying aesthetics with renewable energy and water technology and educate the public about the challenges of addressing climate change and feeding a growing population.
Santa Monica, a beach town west of Los Angeles, is the setting for this year’s competition. The theme is clean water, to acknowledge California’s fifth year of serious drought. The winners will be announced on 6 October.
Cash prizes are $15,000 for first place and $4,000 for second place. While winning doesn’t guarantee that the concept will be brought to life, Lagi works with city governments and local businesses to try and turn the more feasible projects into reality.
Continue reading...Latin America's largest Ramsar Site facing 586 km transmission line
Indigenous peoples in Peru’s Amazon demand to be consulted about electricity project that would cut through their territories
Indigenous peoples in Peru are demanding to be consulted about a proposed electricity transmission line that would run for approximately 586 kms through the Amazon. The stated aim of the line is to connect Iquitos in Peru’s northeast, often described as the world’s largest city or town without road or rail access, to the national grid.
Doing so would mean crossing the territories of numerous indigenous peoples, including the Achuars, Kandozis, Kichwas, Kukamas-Kukamirias and Urarinas. Representative organisations are expressing serious concern about the project’s potential impacts and say they have not been consulted about it despite the government’s obligation to do so under Peruvian and international law.
Continue reading...Obama: US and China have joined Paris climate pact – video
President Barack Obama announces that the US and China have formally joined the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions. Speaking on the eve of the G20 summit in Hangzhou on Saturday, he says he believes history would judge today’s announcement as a ‘pivotal’ moment in the fight against climate change
Continue reading...Paris climate deal: where US and China have led, others must quickly follow
Saturday’s joint declaration by world’s two biggest emitters is vital but not enough to bring agreement into force
The decision by China and the US, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, to ratify the landmark Paris accord on climate change heralds a new era of global cooperation on limiting emissions.
Only a few years ago, such a commitment looked like a pipe dream. Today, with the two most powerful nations on board, the United Nations can celebrate a victory on this world-changing issue that has been more than 20 years in the making.
Continue reading...Amazing sea creatures made of glass – in pictures
Father and son team Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka created perfect reproductions of invertebrate marine life in glass in their studio in Germany in the 19th century. Cornell University acquired a collection of 570 items in 1885, and a selection of these can be seen at an exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass. Fragile Legacy: The Marine Invertebrate Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka runs until 8 January
Continue reading...Breakthrough as US and China agree to ratify Paris climate change deal
Campaigners hail key moment in battle against global warming as presidents Obama and Xi announce deal on eve of G20 summit in Hangzhou
The United States and China, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have announced they will formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement in a move campaigners immediately hailed as a significant advance in the battle against global warming.
Speaking on Saturday, on the eve of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, US president, Barack Obama, confirmed the long-awaited move, the result of weeks of intense negotiations by Chinese and American officials.
Continue reading...The 20 photographs of the week
The aftermath of the Italian earthquake, the continuing refugee crisis in Europe, the Burning Man festival – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week
Continue reading...Protected lands and endangered species aren't properly safeguarded, report says
Some of the most biodiverse ecosystems are not being protected and the management of many protected areas is deficient, a progress report warns
The world is edging towards a major conservation target for protected land and oceans, but there are concerns over how safeguarded areas are managed and whether they are effectively protecting endangered species, according to a new report.
Nearly 15% of the Earth’s land, covering around 20m sq km, is contained in national parks or other protected areas. This figure has flatlined over the past year, largely because of improved data collection, but is close to an internationally-agreed goal to protect 17% of the land surface by 2020.
Continue reading...How to converse with a raven
Fishguard I am of the opinion that you can have as satisfying and varied a conversation with these dark and gleaming bright birds as you can with the majority of humankind
The first hatch of small heath butterflies dipped and darted along the path to Garn Fawr’s rocky summit, their open wings a delicate Indian orange, eye-markings prominent, their undersides muted umber and silver. Here and there, wings folded, they settled on flowers of potentilla and heather in crevices among basaltic columns.
I scrambled to the top, the view suddenly taking in Strumble lighthouse and the Rosslare ferry thrumming past behind. As soon as I was at rest, sandwiches to hand and my back to the Ordnance Survey pillar, the first raven appeared, closely followed by her mate once he’d chased away some upstart from this year’s brood.
Continue reading...Gaping chasm between Coalition's climate mantra and the real debate | Lenore Taylor
Like the emperor with no clothes, Josh Frydenberg is continuing the grand parade, insisting that Australia is making a successful transition
Almost every group with a financial, intellectual or ethical interest in salvaging a workable climate policy is now deep in an urgent debate about how Australia can break a decade of policy paralysis. Everyone except the Turnbull government, that is.
The debate, involving big business, small business, investors, the government’s own independent climate advisers, academics, environmentalists, the welfare lobby and the unions, is predicated on the obvious conclusion that our policy – as it stands – cannot deliver the cuts to greenhouse emissions that are domestically necessary and which Australia has promised internationally.
Continue reading...