The Guardian

Water containing radioactive tritium being pumped into ocean via tunnel from Tepco plant, amid protests from China, South Korea and fishing communities

Japan has begun discharging more than 1m tonnes of tainted water into the Pacific Ocean from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, news agency Kyodo has reported, a move that has sparked protests and import bans from China and Hong Kong, and anger in nearby fishing communities.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), pumped a small quantity of water from the plant on Thursday, two days after the plan was approved by Japan’s government.

The energy transition is a race and what’s needed are policies that will drag large-scale renewable power into the system faster

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This week should be a wake-up call on the future of the electricity grid, but we seem in danger of collectively drawing the wrong conclusions about which way to go.

The main problem is straightforward – investment in large-scale solar and windfarms has dried up to next-to-nothing just as it is supposed to be moving into overdrive.

A study of the biggest known congregation of breeding octopuses, about 20,000, has made discoveries as to why so many of the species gather there. A volcanic vent in the ocean bed off California provides warm water and nutrients to the brooding octopuses, and scientists from MBARI have found this helps shorten the time it takes for their eggs to hatch, increasing their chances of survival

• Discovered in the deep: an octopus’s garden in the shade

New study published in Nature says period was as destructive as record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave

The first half of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency was so destructive for the Amazon that it was comparable to the record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave in terms of carbon emissions, according to scientists.

Annual emissions from the world’s largest rainforest roughly doubled in 2019 and 2020, compared with the 2010 to 2018 average, according to a new study published in Nature, as swaths of forest were deliberately cleared and burned for cattle ranching and farming during the first two years of the far-right leader’s time in office.

Some kinds of tree leaf could become too hot to be able to conduct photosynthesis, researchers warn

Tropical forests could become so hot that some kinds of leaves will no longer be able to conduct photosynthesis, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

The photosynthetic machinery in tropical trees begins to fail at about 46.7C on average. The research suggests that forests may be nearing dangerous temperature thresholds sooner than expected.

UK Oil and Gas says work is to resume at Avington site in national park after decision from Planning Inspectorate

The Liberal Democrats and green groups have accused the government of “an environmental crime” after it emerged that potentially large-scale oil drilling is to take place inside the South Downs national park, despite widespread local opposition.

In a statement, UK Oil and Gas, which is part of the consortium wishing to drill at the Avington site near Winchester, said work was to resume in the hope of extracting “potentially significant” amounts of the estimated 59m barrels there, lasting up to 2025.

Experts shocked as analysis finds no traces of eel DNA in area once teeming with the endangered fish

Eel experts say they are shocked to find no evidence of the animal in the network of drainage ditches that make up its traditional habitats in the Somerset Levels, which once teemed with the critically endangered fish.

DNA sampling by the Sustainable Eel Group and Somerset Eel Recovery Project in the drainage ditches found no traces of eel DNA.

Prof Richard Kingsford and his Waterbirds Aerial Survey team’s work over forty years has influenced Murray-Darling Basin conservation and helped create three new national parks

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“When it’s perfect flying weather and it’s still, I have to pinch myself,” says Prof Richard Kingsford. “I’ve got the best job in the world.”

At the start of October for almost 40 years, Kingsford has climbed into a small plane to lead one of the world’s biggest and longest-running wildlife surveys, scanning and recording waterbirds across almost a third of the Australian continent.

Exclusive: Letter signed by more than 1,200 leading figures calls for ‘unambiguous statement’ about climate crisis

The Royal Society is under pressure from more than 1,200 leading academics to issue a clear condemnation of the fossil fuel industry.

The academics have written to the association of the world’s most eminent scientists calling for an “unambiguous statement about the culpability of the fossil fuel industry in driving the climate crisis”.

Advocates say state governments, especially NSW, are ‘trashing and trampling’ natural, Indigenous and historic values by failing to cull brumbies

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The failure of state governments to manage feral horse populations is “trashing and trampling” the natural values of the Australian alps, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

The Invasive Species Council has expressed concern about the “devastating impact of feral horses in the Australian alps, and also the failure of state governments, particularly in New South Wales, to take adequate action to address this”.

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Report says hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of work hours in productivity are at risk due to hotter conditions

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Success in limiting global warming will spare Australia a sharp fall in economic activity but would see coal exports fall to a trickle by 2063 under a low-emissions scenario, according to the government’s intergenerational report.

The report, to be released in full on Thursday, will provide much greater detail on the range of impacts and their scale in a warming world than the five previous intergenerational reports.

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IPPR wants government to take a stake in green technology firms to help Britain keep up with EU and US

The UK risks losing out to the US and EU in the global race to a net zero economy unless the government increases green investment by taking a stake in the companies of the future, a thinktank has said.

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said Britain needed a “national investment fund” (NIF) that would back new firms and secure a share of any future profits for the public as it called for the state to adopt a “Dragons’ Den” type approach to supporting enterprises.

Events that inject smoke and gas into high atmosphere help to cool planet but are no solution to climate crisis, says study

Explosive volcanic eruptions and wildfires have offset global heating by around a fifth over the last eight years, a study shows. In particular the eruption of Calbuco in southern Chile in 2015 and the 2019-20 Australian wildfires injected vast amounts of smoke and gas into the high atmosphere, which helped to cool the planet by absorbing heat leaving the Earth and reflecting sunlight back to space.

Pengfei Yu from Jinan University in China and his colleagues used data gathered by high altitude balloons over the Tibetan plateau and the US to model the cooling impact of stratospheric volcanic eruptions – those that inject ash into the high atmosphere – and wildfires.

Public money still flowing into industry despite agreement to phase out ‘inefficient’ subsidies, thinktank says

The G20 poured record levels of public money into fossil fuels last year despite having promised to reduce some of it, a report has found.

The amount of public money flowing into coal, oil and gas in 20 of the world’s biggest economies reached a record $1.4tn(£1.1tn) in 2022, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) thinktank, even though world leaders agreed to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow two years ago.

A government plan to cut funding to the charity that manages inland waterways is shortsighted and out of step with the times

The restoration of much of Britain’s vast canal network has been a notable and uplifting success story. Originally saved in the 1960s from Beeching-style closures by Labour’s transport secretary, Barbara Castle, many of these formerly working and polluted waterways have become modern urban oases.

Otters, kingfishers and dragonflies can be glimpsed along the 100 miles or so of Birmingham’s canals. In Manchester, barge users and walkers can trace the origins of the Industrial Revolution along intersecting routes that crisscross the city. Across the country, canalside regeneration has transformed urban landscapes, partly enabled by the thousands of unpaid volunteers who rescued abandoned channels from dereliction and paved the way for Castle’s vision of “leisureways” to become a reality.

Technology has the potential to make deep cuts to emissions of the potent greenhouse gas but requires major investment

A bacteria that consumes the greenhouse gas methane could slow the rate of global heating, according to a study out this week.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted from energy (natural gas and petroleum systems), industry, agriculture, land use and waste management activities.

Light-sensitive proteins below colour-changing cells mean fish can ‘take a photo of their own skin from the inside’

What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh. What about a fish that can also use its skin as “eyes”? Well, that would be a hogfish.

Hogfish often use their ability to change colours to support their camouflaging abilities. They also have light-sensing skin, or skin vision, that can help them “see” their surroundings.

Researchers focused on turtles and tortoises from sites of nuclear tests

Tortoise and turtle shells can be used to study nuclear contamination, scientists have found.

Just as tree rings can provide snapshots of the Earth’s climate, and ice cores can give us information on past temperature, researchers found that the layers of shells can be used as a time stamp of periods with nuclear fallout.

As temperatures rise across Oceania, droughts are becoming more extreme and strong winds drive catastrophic fires

Hawaii was never paradise. Since the day my ancestors first stepped ashore, our islands have been devastated by hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and erupting volcanoes that buried whole towns.

But fires are something new. We were not prepared. Our officials were not prepared, for a raging inferno of 1,000-degree heat that moved at lightning speed, reducing our historical town of Lahaina – once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom – and 2,000 homes to ash. More than 1,300 people are still missing. At this stage, many will not be found. Cadaver dogs whine with frustration. They are uncovering mostly ash.

Kiana Davenport is a writer of Native-Hawaiian and Anglo-American descent. She is the author of eight novels and three anthologies: Prize-Winning Pacific Stories

What the UK needs is pragmatic, joined-up policymaking. But what we get instead are culture wars, and a tabloid feeding frenzy

What’s an acceptable number of dead people in European waters? What about dead children? I’m asking largely about healthy young people, albeit exhausted ones. Migrants, who have braved long, terrible journeys, often experiencing horrific violence and terror.

So how many should we write off as justifiable collateral damage in our war against … what, exactly? There is no war except with ourselves: it’s a culture war. The cause is “strong borders”, but strong against what? Despite the rhetoric, this not an invasion. If the strong borders are to protect our economy – well, these are young, fit workers who could boost our economies if we actually let them work.