The Guardian

A train derailed and flooded a town with cancer-causing chemicals. But something larger, and more troubling, is at work

Earlier this month, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke on the small town of East Palestine. The train’s freight included vinyl chloride, a chemical known to cause liver cancer and other sicknesses.

In response, government and railway officials decided to “burn off” the vinyl chloride – effectively dumping 1.1m lbs of the chemical into the local community, according to a new lawsuit. Officials said that they did so to avert the vinyl chloride from exploding; in contrast, an attorney for the lawsuit has said that the decision was cheap, unsafe, and more interested in restoring train service and appeasing railway shareholders than protecting local residents.

Steven Donziger is a human rights and environmental lawyer, a Guardian US columnist, and the creator of the Substack newsletter Donziger on Justice

Key people are talking but there’s frustration in both camps. The weeks ahead will require maturity and dexterity

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Anthony Albanese believes Australians are suffering from “conflict fatigue” so he’s sought to establish a collaborative tone in the current parliament. Not everybody is on board with that aspiration of course. But thus far, the vibe has skewed towards peace and harmony.

That changed on Wednesday. Labor arrived in the House of Representatives chamber for question time ready to rumble. Albanese and the climate minister, Chris Bowen, held themselves above the fray, but frontbenchers Madeleine King and Tanya Plibersek let rip at the Greens. The trigger was the Greens signalling through media outlets earlier in the day that the next round of climate policy negotiations needed to deliver a ban on new coal and gas projects.

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Minette Batters accuses ministers of ‘dereliction of duty’ in failing to ensure safety of agricultural imports

Britain is in danger of a “disastrous” food scandal, owing to lax post-Brexit border controls on agricultural imports, the leader of the UK’s biggest farming organisation has warned.

Minette Batters, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, accused ministers of a “dereliction of duty” in failing to ensure food and other agricultural imports were safe. She warned that the government had failed to learn the lessons of the horsemeat scandal of 2013.

When discussions take place about environmental protection, we are always ignored. That’s a huge mistake

This week the UK government is holding a meeting to discuss generating more finance to conserve and restore nature. This is following its adoption of a global biodiversity framework in Montreal – the so-called biodiversity Cop15 – in December. Given that it is the destruction and loss of nature that drives the biodiversity crisis, and the framework aims to protect 30% of the Earth by 2030, this all seems like good news.

But as with the discussions in Canada over the framework itself, when it comes to the money, Indigenous peoples are being left out in the cold yet again. While the meeting will bring together private, public sector and philanthropy groups, we have no seat at the table. That’s a mistake. Addressing this crisis is not simply about getting the numbers right. The question of how these funds will be spent should be part of the agenda too, including who will spend them.

Minnie Degawan is a Kakaney/Igorot activist from the Cordillera region of the Philippines and a member of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB)

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SSW phenomenon is linked to polar vortex, an area of low pressure across the North Pole

There has been keen interest over recent weeks in the much-anticipated sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event, which only began this week but is now well under way. The SSW phenomenon is linked to the polar vortex, an area of low pressure across the North Pole that forms within the stratosphere during autumn, as temperatures plummet in the absence of solar radiation.

SSW events are very common and occur two in every three winters. It remains unclear how climate change will affect these events in the future. As the vortex develops during autumn and into winter, westerly stratospheric winds increase in strength. But in the event of a SSW episode, stratospheric temperatures rise rapidly in the space of only a few days, leading to the weakening or even reversal of these winds. The zonal mean winds at 10hPa pressure – about 30km high – turned to an easterly direction on 15 Wednesday February, significantly displacing the polar vortex away from the North Pole. The vortex and zonal winds are forecast to stay much weaker than normal for the remainder of February and into the first half of March.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a lucky sea eagle, a hungry monkey and a dozing panda

Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed will criticise ministers’ attempts to repeal Human Rights Act

Labour is planning a new wave of human rights legislation to guarantee clean air quality and proper nutrition for all, the shadow justice secretary will announce on Friday.

Steve Reed will vow to fight “tooth and nail” against any attempt by the government to repeal the Human Rights Act, and instead look to roll out the “next frontier” of “fundamental freedoms”.

RHS gardeners say buds on trees suggest glorious spring blooms and season will potentially last longer

The UK is expected to have a spring of beautiful blossom, after a heatwave followed by a cold early February set the trees up for peak condition blooms.

Gardeners at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have been studying the buds on the trees in their gardens across the country. They say buds suggest trees will be floriferous with blossom this spring because of the perfect conditions last year for bud formation, and also because early flowering has been prevented by the cold this February.

Researchers say Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up household energy costs by between 62.6% and 112.9%

Soaring energy prices triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict could push up to 141 million more people around the globe into extreme poverty, a study has found.

The cost of energy for households globally could have increased by between 62.6% and 112.9% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a modelling study by an international group of scientists published in Nature Energy.

Whaling company says construction of new vessel will help ‘pass on our whaling culture to the next generation’

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A Japanese company is building a new whaling ship designed to travel as far as Antarctica, sparking fears commercial operations could resume in the Southern Ocean.

Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Plibsersek, reaffirmed the Albanese government’s commitment to a global moratorium on commercial whaling, while Greenpeace condemned the practice as “brutal and unnecessary”.

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Australian Academy of Science points to over-reliance on volunteers and says more regular surveys needed

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The Australian Academy of Science has called for an overhaul of the nation’s approach to studying plastic pollution, warning there is an over-reliance on volunteers and a lack of consistent data to document the “astronomical” problem.

About three-quarters of rubbish along Australia’s coast is plastic, posing a threat to more than 690 marine animals including turtles and seabirds. CSIRO researchers believe 43% of short-tailed shearwater birds in eastern Australia have plastic in their gut.

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David Pocock tables anonymous statement in parliament describing 25,000L spill of condensate off northern WA in 2022

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A Santos employee has sought protection from federal parliament to accuse the Australian oil and gas company of covering up the severity of an oil spill that killed dolphins off the northern Western Australian coast.

A statement by an anonymous whistleblower, tabled in federal parliament by the independent senator David Pocock, described witnessing a 25,000L spill of condensate – a light form of oil – near the Lowendal Islands in March last year.

Report says simply coping with escalating impacts of climate crisis could override tackling root cause

The world is at risk of descending into a climate “doom loop”, a thinktank report has warned.

It said simply coping with the escalating impacts of the climate crisis could draw resources and focus away from the efforts to slash carbon emissions, making the situation even worse.

Guy Debelle points to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and warns ‘I’m really concerned that we are missing out on a huge opportunity’

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Australia’s natural renewable energy advantage in the race to create a green hydrogen industry is at risk of being overwhelmed by “huge and aggressive” policy support in the US and the Middle East, according to Fortescue Future Industries’ Guy Debelle.

Debelle, formerly FFI’s chief financial officer and now serving as a director, said the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act was mostly aimed at accelerating decarbonisation and was “one of the largest pieces of industrial policy we’ve ever seen”. Without a formal spending cap, it could eventually top $US1trillion ($1.44tn).

Funding for the EV charging network comes from the infrastructure bill that allocates $7.5bn to the expansion

The White House is partnering with Tesla to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US, with the company opening at least 7,500 of its chargers to all electric vehicles (EVs) by the end of 2024, the White House announced Wednesday.

Tesla charging stations currently use a certain power connector that require non-Tesla EV to use an adapter. The White House said that Tesla will work to include at least 3,500 new and existing 250 kW superchargers along highways and level 2 destination chargers at locations like hotels and restaurants across the country. Tesla is also planning to double its network of Superchargers.

Research by Global Canopy also finds many companies are not monitoring set commitments

A third of the companies most linked to the destruction of tropical rainforests have not set a single policy on deforestation, a report reveals.

Research by Global Canopy has found that 31% of the companies with the greatest influence on tropical deforestation risk through their supply chains do not have a single deforestation commitment for any of the commodities to which they are exposed.

The PM sent ‘thoughts and hearts’ to the nine-year-old’s family, but his environment secretary refused to back clean air targets

Ella Roberta Adoo-Kissi-Debrah was a remarkable child. Energetic, joyful, active – she loved playing sport, reading books and making music. But living close to the South Circular Road in Lewisham, south London, from the age of seven she began to develop a chest infection and persistent cough. A happy, healthy child was disabled by chronic asthma.

As her condition deteriorated, she suffered seizures and breathing problems, and was shifted from hospital to hospital. Ella died aged nine, in the early hours of 15 February 2013 – 10 years ago today.

Bundeena residents spotted snake slithering on their balcony before calling firefighters

A two-metre diamond python has been removed from a home in Sydney’s south after the homeowners spotted the serpent on their balcony.

The Bundeena residents had suspected something was wrong when they noticed their local ringtail possums were not around.

The snake was eventually removed from the front garden of a home in Sydney's south by local firefighters after it was spotted slithering on a balcony. The Bundeena residents had suspected something was wrong when they noticed their local ringtail possums were not around. 'We used to have ringies in the roof, but something's been flushing them out,' one said

Woods at Wembury will expand by 84 hectares with additional 90,000 trees along with hedgerows and banks full of wildlife

Within a few decades, if all goes well, swathes of oaks and other native British trees will tumble down the banks of the River Yealm in Devon and provide a home to owls, woodcocks, hares and butterflies as part of a new community woodland project.

There will also be an orchard planted in a place known to be favoured by bats and an area of wood pasture – a more open landscape of flower-rich meadows where animals can graze and shelter around trees and shrubs.