The Guardian
Guess who’s coming for dinner? The world’s second most venomous snake | Annabelle Hickson
Channelling Villanelle, Annabelle Hickson’s onion chopping skills did not prepare her for the entry of the deadly brown snake that slithered into her farmhouse kitchen in rural NSW
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They say you can’t kill a brown snake because it’s a native animal. And that you definitely shouldn’t kill one with a shovel. And that guinea fowls are meant to scare snakes away. And that blue tongue lizards eat snake eggs.
But what are you to do when you’re in the kitchen chopping onions for dinner and the second most venomous snake in the world slithers in?
Continue reading...Felled Sycamore Gap tree to be moved to secret location
The much-loved tree must be removed to protect Hadrian’s Wall, but its ultimate fate remains uncertain
The Sycamore Gap tree is being removed from its spot on Hadrian’s Wall after it was cut down by vandals two weeks ago.
On Thursday a crane will lift the 50-foot sycamore off the wall in Northumberland and it will be put into storage at a National Trust property – the location of which is not being disclosed for security reasons.
Continue reading...Never mind the French connection. Bedbugs are already at home in Britain, and we must live with them | James Logan
These hardy insects are incredibly good hitchhikers. We can slow their march, but we’ll never entirely eradicate them
The reported outbreak of bedbugs in Paris is hardly surprising. Reports of sightings on the London Underground – so far unsubstantiated, but quickly addressed by Sadiq Khan – are not surprising either. Bedbugs are everywhere. Bedbugs can be found in any city around the world, in any location, from youth hostels to five-star hotels. There are not yet clear numbers on the purported “explosion” of bedbugs in Paris, but in the UK, pest control company Rentokil reported a 65% increase in bedbug infestations in the UK from 2022 to 2023.
As we return to pre-pandemic levels of travel, bedbugs are on the move, and this is likely to cause more sightings. They tend to travel in people’s suitcases and end up in our bedrooms – they are incredibly good hitchhikers. The rise in popularity of secondhand furniture is another way for bedbugs to enter our homes.
James Logan is professor of medical entomology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Continue reading...Waiting list for allotments in England almost doubles in 12 years
There are at least 157,820 outstanding applications to local authorities, and waits of up to 15 years
There are few things so quintessentially English as the allotment, but the number of people waiting for a space of their own has almost doubled in the last 12 years.
The most recent figures, obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information requests, show there are now at least 157,820 applications sitting on English local authorities’ allotment waiting lists, up 81% from 12 years ago when researchers found the figure was 86,787.
Continue reading...Politicians, not public, drive U-turns on green agenda, says UN biodiversity chief
People are ahead of governments, says David Cooper, who blames backtracking on parties seeking ‘wedge issues’ for electoral gain
Government backtracking on environmental promises is being driven by politicians and vested interests, not the public, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, as he called for greater support for those experiencing short-term costs from green policies.
David Cooper, acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), told the Guardian he believed the public mood was not moving against greater environmental protections, and that vested interests opposed to action on the climate crisis and nature loss were trying to frustrate progress.
Continue reading...Australia needs climate trigger laws, conservation groups say after failed challenge to coalmines
Calls come after federal court dismisses legal action against environment minister’s decisions on two mine expansions
Conservation groups say Australia’s environment laws must be changed to include a climate trigger after the federal court dismissed a legal challenge against the environment minister’s decisions on two proposed coalmine expansions.
Known as the living wonders case, the legal action launched by the Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) alleged the minister, Tanya Plibersek, failed to protect the environment from climate harm when she decided the projects could move the next stage of the federal assessment process.
Continue reading...2023 wildlife photographer of the year winners – in pictures
Selected from 49,957 entries from 95 countries, the winners of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious wildlife photographer of the year competition were revealed at an awards ceremony in South Kensington on Tuesday. The flagship wildlife photographer of the year exhibition featuring the awarded images will open on Friday 13 October 2023 at the Natural History Museum in London
Continue reading...Orangutan killings in Borneo likely still occurring in large numbers
Despite it being taboo and illegal to kill critically endangered primate, 30% of villages have evidence of killing in ‘last five to 10 years’
Orangutans on the island of Borneo continue to be illegally killed, likely in large numbers, even when there are nearby projects to save the critically endangered primate, according to new research.
Despite the taboo and illegal nature of killing orangutans, researchers heard evidence of a direct killing from at least one person in 30% of 79 villages surveyed in Indonesia’s Kalimantan region.
Continue reading...Brazil is taking a new direction after Bolsonaro – but will Britain take note? | Richard Bourne
Much has changed already under Lula da Silva’s presidency, but this vast country does not receive the attention it deserves
British interest in Latin America, and its biggest country, Brazil, has been disgracefully fitful. It woke up when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly beat Jair Bolsonaro, the disastrous tree-felling extreme rightist, last October. It even caused the BBC to lead its morning news bulletin in January, when a mob inspired by Bolsonaro and the example of the Capitol riot in the US two years ago attempted to take over the centre of Brasília.
But what is really going on in this vast country of 203 million people? How was it that Bolsonaro, an obscure congressman who had dedicated a vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s leftist successor, and was a frank admirer of the dictatorship that Lula and Rousseff had struggled to overthrow, ever got elected as president in 2018?
Continue reading...‘Uncharted territory’: more than 2m fungi species yet to be discovered, scientists say
Report on state of flora and fungi says newly discovered plants should be listed as threatened by default
More than 2m fungi species are waiting to be identified around the world in what scientists have called “a new frontier of discovery” for life on Earth, according to a new report.
But researchers also warn that the vast majority of new plant discoveries are endangered species, which should be listed as threatened with extinction by default, warning that three-quarters of undescribed species are likely to be at risk of disappearing.
Continue reading...Australia doing ‘very poorly’ at protecting unique plants, researchers warn
Study finds only 39% of unique species have had threats and status assessed – less than half of New Zealand’s
More than half of Australia’s unique plants have not been assessed to determine whether they are at risk of extinction, scientists warn.
Conservation experts have gathered in London to provide a snapshot of plant heath and what countries are doing to safeguard hundreds of thousands of species.
It warns an estimated 45% of the world’s known flowering plants could be at risk of extinction as climate change and other threats mount.
The situation is even worse for 100,000 or so plant species yet to be formally named, with an estimated 75% of those at risk of vanishing.
The study analyses what individual nations are doing to protect their unique species – those found nowhere else on earth. In Australia, almost nine out of 10 plant species fit that bill.
But the nation isn’t doing what’s needed to understand if they are in trouble.
“By international standards, Australia performed very poorly in conservation assessments,” said Western Sydney University’s Rachael Gallagher, who led the global evaluation of those efforts.
Only 39% of Australia’s unique species have had their threats and conservation status assessed – less than half of what New Zealand and South Africa have managed.
US agency refuses to examine toxicity of ‘inactive’ pesticide chemicals to crops
EPA says too many pesticide formulas exist to check all for the safety of ingredients that could harm humans, plants and wildlife
Ingredients labeled as “inactive” in pesticide formulas are potentially poisoning the environment, crops and animals, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rebuffed calls to examine their toxicity and risks.
Agency rules do not require the EPA to account for inactive ingredients when it evaluates pesticide formula safety despite the fact that industry labels dangerous substances like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as inert.
Continue reading...Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates
Analysis shows at least $2.8tn in damage from 2000 to 2019 through worsened storms, floods and heatwaves
The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather alone has already cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.
Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The new study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating.
Continue reading...Microplastics detected in clouds hanging atop two Japanese mountains
Findings regarding clouds above Mount Fuji and Mount Oyama highlight how microplastics are highly mobile
Microplastics have been found everywhere from the oceans’ depths to the Antarctic ice, and now new research has detected it in an alarming new location – clouds hanging atop two Japanese mountains.
The clouds around Japan’s Mount Fuji and Mount Oyama contain concerning levels of the tiny plastic bits, and highlight how the pollution can be spread long distances, contaminating the planet’s crops and water via “plastic rainfall”.
Continue reading...Dear Keir Starmer: here’s what you should know about Sunak’s attack on climate policy – he lied and lied | Fiona Harvey
He says measures are unaffordable: official figures say otherwise. He says costs will fall on the poor, but that’s a choice made by his government
Keir Starmer faces a challenge at party conference that no UK opposition leader has faced in more than 30 years. He will have to defend his climate policy against a bitter and sustained attack.
Since the late 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher became the first UK prime minister to vow to tackle the climate crisis, a cross-party consensus on the issue has endured. In the last eight general elections, there has been no serious debate over whether to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions, only over how.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s first-ever ‘Chook Symphony’ to boost wellbeing of chicken flock – video
New Zealand’s first-ever ‘Chook Symphony’ to boost wellbeing of chicken flock – video
Continue reading...Groundwater a significant source of pollution on Great Barrier Reef, study shows
New research casts doubt on effectiveness of targeting surface runoff only and highlights need to use fertilisers more efficiently, experts say
Scientists say they have discovered large flows of pollution are reaching the Great Barrier Reef after soaking into underground water, a finding that could have implications for policymakers focused on cutting pollution from river catchments.
The new research claims almost a third of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and two-thirds of dissolved inorganic phosphorus in the reef’s waters are coming from underground sources – an amount previously undocumented.
Continue reading...A hotter world forcing people on the move needs vision, not Suella Braverman’s rabble-rousing words | Gaia Vince
Suella Braverman is right when she says there is a “hurricane” of migration coming, but the UK home secretary has no plan to weather the storm and her actions leave us all exposed.
Braverman’s populist speech, a thinly disguised leadership campaign, at the Tory party conference last week, contained all the predictable tropes and dog whistles aimed at bolstering nationalism: the trumped-up threat of outsiders; the mysterious and ubiquitous “woke” menace; and the liberal elites with their “luxury beliefs”.
Continue reading...Off-duty US air force officer saves fallen climber on Yosemite’s Half Dome
Joshua Haveman employed tactical combat casualty care to patch up the wounded hiker’s badly mangled legs and help him to safety
An off-duty US air force flight instructor braved strong winds, hail and slippery conditions to rescue a fellow climber who had fallen about 80ft (24.4 meters) down a slippery slope at Yosemite national park this past Labor Day weekend, according to the military branch.
Joshua Haveman’s valiant actions not only earned him a hero’s praise from his air force colleagues – but they also prevented another hiking tragedy from occurring after the last few months have seen multiple hikers lose their lives amid a range of perilous conditions.
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