The Guardian
The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction and the fault is ours
The rate at which vertebrate species are dying far exceeds the norm
Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.
These are extraordinarily difficult questions. There are many millions of species, many elusive and rare, and inhabiting remote and dangerous places. There are too few skilled biologists in the field to keep track of them all. Demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that any single species is extinct is arduous and painstaking (think how long it took to show – to most people, at least – that Loch Ness probably does not harbour a large monster).
Continue reading...Humans creating sixth great extinction of animal species, say scientists
Study reveals rate of extinction for species in the 20th century has been up to 100 times higher than would have been normal without human impact
The modern world is experiencing a “sixth great extinction” of animal species even when the lowest estimates of extinction rates are considered, scientists have warned.
The rate of extinction for species in the 20th century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man’s impact, they said.
You're really spoiling us: has Ferrero been wrongly accused over Nutella?
Industry observers including Greenpeace have defended the confectionery firm on sourcing sustainable palm oil after a French minister urged citizens to stop buying its spread
It is not often that government ministers urge their citizens to boycott a specific product. But that is just what the French environment minister Ségolène Royal did with Nutella this week – claiming that the palm oil it is made from contributes to deforestation and does “considerable damage” to the environment.
Cue irritation from the Italian company Ferrero that makes the chocolatey spread and a backlash from Royal’s opposite number in Italy. Industry observers including Greenpeace and WWF also leapt to the defence of the company, pointing out that it has in fact led the industry in cleaning up its act and goes much further than most competitors on responsible sourcing of palm oil.
US west coast toxic algae bloom might be largest ever, say scientists
Researchers on NOAA research vessel begin survey of massive toxic algae bloom recorded in region that has led to shutdown of shellfish harvests, reports the Seattle Times
A team of federal biologists set out from Oregon on Monday to survey what could be the largest toxic algae bloom ever recorded off the west coast.
The effects stretch from central California to British Columbia, and possibly as far north as Alaska. Dangerous levels of the natural toxin domoic acid have shut down recreational and commercial shellfish harvests in Washington, Oregon and California this spring, including the lucrative Dungeness crab fishery off Washington’s southern coast and the state’s popular razor-clam season.
Continue reading...Eastern Cougar extinct, no longer needs protection, says US conservation agency
The US Fish and Wildlife service has called for the eastern cougar to be removed from endangered species list after four-year review confirms their extinction
Eastern cougars that once roamed North America from Canada to South Carolina are extinct and no longer warrant federal Endangered Species Act protections, US wildlife managers have said.
The proposal to remove so-called eastern cougars from the list of endangered and threatened species comes nearly 80 years after the last of those mountain lions was believed to have been trapped and killed in New England, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Continue reading...Polar bears eat dolphins as Arctic warms
Global warming is driving more species further north, scientists say, as polar bears are spotted devouring dolphins for the first time
Norwegian scientists have seen polar bears eating dolphins in the Arctic for the first time ever and blame global warming for the bears expanding their diet.
Polar bears feed mainly on seals but Jon Aars at the Norwegian Polar Institute has photographed dolphins being devoured by a bear and published his findings in the latest edition of Polar Research this month.
Continue reading...Giant great white shark circles diving cage near Guadeloupe – video
My generation does give a damn about climate change, says 14-year-old activist
Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez has been campaigning since he was six. He explains why young people are not afraid to take on the fossil fuel industry
Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez is 14, but has a confidence beyond his years. He carries on his back an organisation that his mother Tamara founded almost 10 years before his birth, created to inspire young people to defend the environment.
Roske-Martinez is its spokesperson, its youth director, and a self-defined eco hip hop artist, activist and change-agent. He raps. He lectures children younger and older than him at schools around the United States. He rallies before state politicians. And he has addressed world leaders in the United Nations.
Continue reading...Robin wins vote for UK's national bird
More than 224,000 people cast their ballot in the National Bird Vote with robin taking 34%, followed by barn owl and blackbird, at 12% and 11%
It’s territorial, chippy and punches above its weight – and that’s why Britons have voted for the robin to be the country’s national bird, according to the organiser of a nationwide poll.
More than 224,000 people cast their ballot in the National Bird Vote, organised by “urban birder” David Lindo, which finished on the day of the general election.
Continue reading...Sea Shepherd agrees $2.55m payment to Japanese whalers for injunction breach
Radical environmental group does not accept it is in contempt, but agrees payout after getting involved in confrontations with whalers in 2013
A radical environmental group has agreed to pay $2.55m (£1.6m) to Japanese whalers for breaching a US court injunction to stay clear of their vessels in the Antarctic Ocean.
The United States-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and former senior officials of the group last week agreed to pay the sum to resolve civil contempt charges against them in the US ninth circuit court of appeals.
Continue reading...Yellow-breasted buntings 'being eaten to extinction by China'
Birds once abundant in Europe and Asia could share the same fate as passenger pigeon as they are killed in millions for food
A bird that was once one of the most abundant in Europe and Asia is being hunted to near extinction because of Chinese eating habits, according to a study published on Tuesday.
The population of the yellow-breasted bunting (Emberiza aureola) has plunged by 90% since 1980, all but disappearing from eastern Europe, Japan and large parts of Russia, said the study, published in the Conservation Biology journal.
Continue reading...Former BP executive not guilty of reporting false information after 2010 spill
David Rainey was accused of lying about amount of oil being expelled into Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon explosion to match government reports
A federal jury found a former BP executive not guilty Friday of making false statements to investigators in connection with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Related: Deepwater Horizon: jury selection begins for BP exec charged in oil spill
Continue reading...Can Sea Shepherd survive its own success?
With a new $12m ship on the way and the Japanese whaling fleet on the retreat, the conservation organization is having a banner year – provided the Whale Wars stars can navigate a rising tide of multimillion-dollar lawsuits
In 2010, the world watched a $3m eco-action boat called the Ady Gil sink off Antarctica after being run through by a Japanese whaling ship. In many ways, it was a moment that defined the last five years for Sea Shepherd, the vigilante conservation group to which the trimaran belonged. With the sinking came renewed public support for their mission to do anything necessary to stop whaling.
The collision is likely to make headlines again this summer, as three separate multimillion-dollar lawsuits against Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) come to a head.
Continue reading...Why an opinion article on Delhi's air pollution upset many Indians | Janaki Lenin
A New York Times story of an eight-year-old’s struggle to draw a breath of air set off a storm of protest. Was it a case of shooting the messenger?
Gardiner Harris, the South Asia correspondent for The New York Times, wrote a critique of Delhi’s abysmal air quality before fleeing to the US. Since then his story has been re-published by major news websites and shared widely online.
Within nine months of the family moving to Delhi, Harris’ eight-year-old son Bram suffered respiratory distress, lost half his breathing ability, and had to take steroids regularly. Then the Harrises agonised if it was ethical to continue living in the city at the cost of their children’s health, especially when they had a choice. They could move elsewhere, while most of the city’s residents were grounded.
Continue reading...Seven new species of Australian spider discovered including unique tarantula
A team of scientists, rangers and field assistants had great success in their quest to find new and endangered species in the huge Judbarra national park
Seven new species of spider, including a type of tarantula completely new to science, have been discovered in a Northern Territory national park.
The discoveries were made by a team participating in the Bush Blitz nature program which saw 16 scientists, Indigenous rangers and field assistants, searching the 1.3m hectare Judbarra park for new species.
Continue reading...It's time to wean ourselves off the fairytale version of farming | George Monbiot
Children’s tales bear no resemblance to the cruelty of most modern farms, yet this image enables us to turn a blind eye to animal welfare and is exploited by the industry for profit – as Kerrygold’s recent Guardian advertorial shows
The way that meat, eggs and milk are produced is surrounded by one of our great silences, in which most people collaborate. We don’t want to know, because knowing would force anyone with a capacity for empathy to change their diet.
You break this silence at your peril. After I published an article on chicken farming last week, I had to re-read it to check that I hadn’t actually proposed the slaughter of the firstborn by terrorist devil worshippers – so outraged and vicious were some of the responses. And that was just the consumers.
Continue reading...Fort McKay: the Canadian town that sold itself to tar sands
This tiny Alberta town is one of the world’s single biggest sources of carbon pollution. The community grew rich on oil, and was wrecked by oil. So local Cece Fitzpatrick decided to run for chief, promising to stand up to the industry that came there 50 years ago
Within a 25-mile radius of Fort McKay, 21 projects with a capacity of up to 3.3m barrels a day have been approved or are in production. Another 20 with a combined capacity of about 1.6m barrels a day are in the planning stage, according to Fort McKay First Nation.
Locals can hear, smell, feel and taste the evidence of extraction, even inside their homes. On bad days, it smells like cat piss, according to Cece Fitzpatrick.
Continue reading...The devil’s birds reveal their tender side
Bristol This is an aerial holiday park: the swifts are here for the local cuisine and to find romance
The wall next to Clifton Down train station is alive with the sounds of spring; the blackbird’s bubbling song, bees buzzing and the chirping of tiny tits hiding in the ivy. But sitting outside a bar with a pint of cider I’m willing it to be summer already. I’m trying to block out the commuter traffic and gossiping students to listen for a sign that the next season is on its way.
The sky is an obliging cornflower shade and the sun shines honey-coloured through my glass but the breeze is bracing. It has driven the resident swifts up beyond my hearing. A pair circle high over the shopping centre, two thin black crescents in the perfect blue sky.
Continue reading...Can we save the rhino from poachers with a 3D printer?
In a meeting room in an industrial area of San Francisco, Matthew Markus unpacks the contents of a small carved wooden box that depicts a rhinoceros with an impressive horn. Inside it are vials containing powder and small, hard-looking chunks. There are also what looks like miniature horns. “I term it conservation 2.0,” says Markus.
Markus is the co-founder of Pembient, a startup that aims to thwart the illegal wildlife trade by recreating animal products in the lab. It is starting with rhino horn but has plans for more complex materials such as elephant tusk. The hope is to produce rhino horn so biologically similar to wild horn – but at about one tenth of black market costs – that buyers and illegal traders will switch, thereby curtailing relentlessly increasing poaching levels. The mysterious box contains Pembient’s collection of prototypes. “We are working towards a bio-identical product by reverse-engineering rhino horn down to the smallest degree,” says Markus, who claims his version can be better than the real thing. “Our goal is that the only way you can tell the difference is that there will be pollutants in the wild horn.”
Continue reading...'Stable' Antarctic ice sheet may have started collapsing, scientists say
Southern Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet losing ice 8,500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza every year, satellite data shows
A vast slab of Antarctic ice that was previously stable may have started to collapse, according to new analysis of satellite data.
Research published in the journal Science on Thursday found the Southern Antarctic Peninsula (SAP) ice sheet is losing ice into the ocean at a rate of 56 gigatons each year – about 8,500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This adds around 0.16mm per year to the global sea level.
Continue reading...