The Guardian

The country’s ‘first mining boom’ drove its oyster reefs to near extinction. But a new generation of artists has a voice their ancestors never did

Megan Cope calls it the “first mining boom”, one that drove Australia’s oyster reefs to near extinction. First, British colonists raided the enormous piles of shells and animal bones Indigenous people had gathered after feasting and ceremony, mixing these middens with water into a lime slurry for building the new colony.

Then, once these “Aboriginal architectural forms” – sites of carbon-dated evidence of traditional life – were exhausted, the colonisers began demanding live oysters to eat. They sent fishers to deploy harmful extractive processes on the reefs. “Within 15 to 20 years of the British arriving, the landscape changed so incredibly,” says Cope. “Our ancestors were witness to that, but powerless, of course.”

Surfers Against Sewage’s annual audit finds 12 companies responsible for 70% of branded pollution

Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Pepsico have been named as the biggest packaging polluters in the UK, according to an annual audit.

The campaign group Surfers Against Sewage examined more than 30,700 individual polluting items collected by 4,000 citizen scientists alongside coastlines, canal paths, bridleways and city streets over a 12-month period up to 5 June 2023.

Experts fear for health of corals and other marine life as about 1m sq km of ocean experience prolonged elevated temperatures

A marine heatwave has broken out along more than 2,000km of the Queensland coast, raising concerns for the health of corals on the Great Barrier Reef and other ocean life.

Satellite data managed by the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) shows the heatwave started to emerge at the end of June.

EVs are heralding a new kind of driving culture, from friendly chats at charging stations to reshaping where and how long we stop on road trips

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

A couple with a brand-new electric Lexus stand blankly at the EV charging station, walking from one charger to the other with cables in hand. Within minutes, a crowd of EV drivers gathers. The strangers offer to help the couple with charging their car, showing what plugs and apps to use. Soon enough, the appreciative pair are charged up and back on the road.

Motorists are not generally known for their community spirit and small acts of kindness. But around electric vehicle charging stations – whether on a regional highway, outside a cafe or in the centre of a busy city – a strange and wonderful communal vibe is developing.

If the market decides, eco-friendly policies will mean ruinous inequality. There’s an old-fashioned solution: social democracy

Earlier this week, 100-odd energy companies sent a letter warning the prime minister that his lack of new climate policies will threaten their profit margins. Then, the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, announced a new attempt to end the de-facto ban on onshore wind energy in England, and Liz Truss backed him.

Neither of these calls made a huge splash in the news, because big business and rightwingers calling for green policy is no longer news. Instead, this is what normal looks like when capitalism starts to go green.

Heatwaves are ripping through North America, Europe and Asia, with the global hottest day ever recorded at the start of July. The heat has sparked intense wildfires threatening homes and livelihoods and supercharged torrential rains in some areas, leading to extreme weather events such as flash flooding and landslides. Here is a look at how the extreme heat has affected half the planet

• From Kawasaki to Phoenix: tracking a day of extreme heat around the world

Activist and photographer Alicia Bruce has documented the residents and landscape of Menie in Scotland, detailing 16 years of Donald Trump’s impact on the area where he built a golf course. Her work honours the community who have ‘refused to bow down, sell up or be pushed around by Donald Trump’. I Burn But I Am Not Consumed is published by Daylight Books

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including flying foxes, a parrotfish and a rehabilitated sea turtle

After hottest day ever, researchers say global heating may mean future of crop failures on land and ‘silent dying’ in the oceans

Successive heatwaves threaten nature’s ability to provide us with food, say researchers, as they warn of an “unseen, silent dying” in our oceans amid record temperatures scorching the Earth.

Heatwaves are ripping through Europe, the US and China, with the global hottest day ever recorded at the start of July, endangering human life as well as the land and sea it depends on.

Gavin Schmidt of Goddard Institute for Space Studies warns of likelihood of new high as heatwave bakes large parts of planet

July will likely be Earth’s hottest month in hundreds if not thousands of years, Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters on Thursday, as a persistent heatwave baked swaths of the US south.

Schmidt made the announcement during a meeting at Nasa’s Washington headquarters that convened agency climate experts and other leaders, including Nasa administrator Bill Nelson and chief scientist and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin.

Our planet faces ecological catastrophe – and 50% of aviation carbon emissions are caused by private flights. That’s untenable

Last Friday, I was arrested along with a group of climate activists for blocking the entrance to the East Hampton airport in New York and stopping private jet arrivals and departures. Many people have asked me why.

The truth is I am terrified of the future of our climate, and I believe that non-violent civil disobedience is the best way to create transformative change. I have covered disruptive protest and social issues in my films, and supported movements through philanthropy. So, at 63, I decided it was time for me to stand in protest with other activists, to put my body on the line.

Abigail E Disney is an Emmy-winning documentary film-maker and activist and the great-niece of Walt Disney

Detailed analysis finds plant diets lead to 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than meat-rich ones

Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.

The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.

In a cost of living crisis, heat pumps and electric cars are out of reach for most. Britain needs to fund a genuinely fair transition – and fast

It can’t be easy being Barbie. As if life wasn’t tough enough for an ageing doll with a decorative dimwit for a boyfriend, this week she suffered the indignity of being dragged into a byelection.

Or more precisely, her bright pink classic Corvette did. In easily the most excruciating moment of an already awkward attempt to cling on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat, Tory HQ briefly tried to enliven its main line of attack by suggesting to friendly newspapers that if Barbie for some unexplained reason rocked up in the suburbs, she might have to pay £12.50 for breaching mayor Sadiq Khan’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), due to be extended to the capital’s outer fringes from August. At the time of writing, the voters’ verdict on this one is still hotly awaited. But whatever the outcome, hiding behind a dolly feels like the kind of political low point nobody gets over in a hurry.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Climate campaigners complain to ACCC over Appea ad that claimed gas was ‘50% cleaner’ than coal

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Environmental campaigners have asked Australia’s consumer watchdog to investigate an oil and gas industry public relations campaign that critics claim is misleading the public on the climate effects of fossil fuel.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (Appea) last month dropped a claim in its “Future of Gas” advertising campaign that gas was “50% cleaner” than coal.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Operators warn long-haul routes to nation risk being ‘priced out’ of international aviation when carbon pricing takes effect over next decade

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

International airlines could cut back flights to Australia in coming years because the high-polluting long haul routes stand out as low-hanging fruit to meet future environmental commitments, the country’s parliament has been warned.

Mandatory emissions reductions schemes for global aviation are still being negotiated. However, Australia risks being “priced out” of the international aviation network when carbon pricing and other binding targets begin taking effect over the next decade, the Australian Airports Association (AAA) said in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Males show fewer tooth-rake marks when mothers are present and have stopped breeding, research shows

Post-menopausal killer whales protect their sons from getting injured in fights with other whales, scientists have found.

The study showed that males showed fewer tooth-rake marks – scars left when whales scrape their teeth across another’s skin – when their mother was still present and had stopped breeding. But the protective effect did not extend to daughters.

The state’s wildlife department is concerned the friendly fur-covered swimmer has become too acclimated to humans

A five-year-old sea otter who gained notoriety for commandeering surfboards has continued her reign as a viral sensation as she’s managed to avoid multiple efforts to capture her.

For days, staff with California’s department of fish and wildlife (CDFW) and the Monterey Bay aquarium have attempted to catch otter 841 – but she has given them the slip each time.

Campaigners lose judicial review of decision to approve plan by UK Oil & Gas to drill on agricultural land

Fossil fuel prospectors have cleared another hurdle on their path to drill for oil and gas near an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) in the Surrey Hills after campaigners lost a judicial review of the plan.

Opponents of the plan to sink an exploration well near the village of Dunsfold argued it was inconsistent with a decision to refuse a similar application on the basis of the greenhouse gas emissions it would produce.

Politicians seem to have no idea of the action required if we want to keep a functioning society and economy

• Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL

It’s hard not to wonder if the government is living on another planet. One that isn’t in the grip of the highest temperatures ever recorded, where tens of thousands of people are not dying every summer in blistering heatwaves, where the oceans aren’t boiling. This is the only explanation for the colossally inadequate national climate adaptation programme released this week.

There is so much wrong with it that it’s hard to know where to begin. The programme actually constitutes the third of three five-year plans, and therein lies the main problem. You can’t plan in five-year chunks for climate mayhem that is set to last for decades, probably centuries. If it is to make living in Hothouse Britain safer and more bearable, any plan worth its salt has to look much further ahead and take in the bigger picture.

Trade association, which promotes hydrogen for home heating, called for clean heat market mechanism to be pushed back to 2026

Lobbyists for the gas boiler industry are trying to delay the introduction of new government measures to speed up the take-up of heat pumps, a leaked document shows.

The move, in a draft document obtained by the DeSmog investigative journalism group and seen by the Guardian, appears to be part of an intensive two-year lobbying effort by a key gas boiler industry organisation, which has been critical of heat pumps, and promoted hydrogen for home heating to government and opposition parties, despite strong evidence of its unsuitability.