The Guardian

Rapid decline stumps researchers, who theorise traffic collisions, climate crisis, cane toads and inbreeding could play a role

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Numbers of spotted-tail quolls in north Queensland have dwindled to critically endangered levels, new research into the threatened marsupials suggests.

Over two years, scientists monitored populations of the north Queensland subspecies of the spotted-tail quoll, Dasyurus maculatus gracilis, which lives in cool regions at high elevation.

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David Nixon defied judge’s instruction not to cite climate crisis as motivation for causing public nuisance

A supporter of the Insulate Britain climate protest campaign faces a prison sentence after he was convicted for contempt of court for telling a jury his actions were motivated by the climate crisis.

David Nixon was one of four defendants found guilty at Inner London crown court on Monday for causing a public nuisance by blocking the junction of Bishopsgate and Wormwood St in the City of London on 25 October 2021.

Australia’s total of EVs almost doubled in 2022, growing from 44,000 to more than 83,000, sales data shows

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The number of electric vehicles on Australian roads has almost doubled over the past year, growing from 44,000 at the beginning of 2022 to more than 83,000, according to research based on sales data released in the Electric Vehicle Council’s yearly recap.

That figure is expected to top 100,000 in the coming months.

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The stem is evidence, the thing that reminds you the fruit once weighed down a branch in a heavy orchard

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“My father liked his fruit very ripe, so whenever one of us came across an overripe pear we gave it to him,” Natalia Ginzburg writes in The Family Lexicon. “‘Ah, so you give me your rotten pears! What real jackasses you are!’ he’d say with a hearty laugh that reverberated through the apartment, then he’d eat the pear in two bites.”

You can feel it: the almost alcoholic impression a very ripe pear leaves somewhere between your throat and your lungs, more like a smell than a taste. It’s the thing that makes a pear drop a pear drop. It’s the thing that makes it feel like you breathed the pear in, that a moment ago it was a piece of fruit in a dark and golden painting, then it was gone.

Time will go by the way it did
before history, pure and unnoticed,
a mystery that arose between the sun and moon
before there was a word
for dawn or noon or midnight,

before there were names for the earth’s
uncountable things,
when fruit hung anonymously
from scattered groves of trees,
light on the smooth green side,
shadow on the other.

Company rebuts claims by scientists that ‘uncontrolled and unscientific’ practices highlight dangers of going ahead with seabed mining

Video footage from a deep-sea mining test, showing sediment discharging into the ocean, has raised fresh questions about the largely untested nature of the industry, and the possible harms it could do to ecosystems as companies push to begin full-scale exploration of the ocean floor as early as this year.

The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian mining firm that is one of the leading industry players, spent September to November of last year testing its underwater extraction vehicle in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone, a section of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.

Pollution from wood stoves, popular among middle classes, missed from monitoring which focuses on roads but is just as if not more harmful

A sharp rise in wood burning in urban areas could be bringing harmful pollution to greater numbers of people, and shifting the pattern of pollution from poorer to more affluent areas, one of the UK’s leading air pollution experts has warned.

Currently, air pollution monitoring focuses on busy roads, which have been the main hotspots for fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) and other air pollutants, largely from diesel vehicles.

Fishing has been central to life on Holy Island in Northumberland for centuries. Now, despite intense opposition, a proposed highly protected marine area – which would effectively kill off local industry – threatens the livelihoods of the island’s 15 fishing families

• Photographs by Peter Summers/Getty Images

Scientists urge people to stop ‘spraying gardens with poison’ and adopt wildlife-friendly practices

Gardeners who use pesticides are contributing to the decline of British songbirds, a study suggests.

Scientists have urged people to stop “spraying their gardens with poison” in order to halt bird decline and adopt instead wildlife-friendly practices.

Why should we care and what business is it of ours anyway?

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The reality of intensive egg production is grim, with hens subject to all manner of inhumane conditions. We must face up to the unacceptable costs of our current food choices

Is brunch over? I hope so – like afternoon tea, it’s a stupid meal, sabotaging two perfectly good ones. Then there’s the queueing, all that sourdough massacring your soft palate, and dribbles of hollandaise, horribly reminiscent of baby posset. None of this has stopped people, but perhaps egg shortages will.

The UK egg drought never quite reached pandemic pasta proportions, but rationing was widespread through November and supply has not wholly recovered. The United States is now in the grip of acute shortages, with 60% year-on-year price rises, a dozen eggs reportedly reaching $18.

Private sector is not seen to be ready to act as main buyer and draft is similarly worded to a Morrison-era bill

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An Albanese government environment plan to encourage companies to invest in nature merely expands a Coalition proposal under Scott Morrison and is at risk of failing due to a lack of business interest, experts say.

The federal government is consulting on legislation to establish a scheme to incentivise investment in nature restoration by creating tradable certificates for projects that protect and restore biodiversity.

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As the US, China and now the EU compete for the fruits of the green economy, the UK is hamstrung by Tory dogma, dither and delay

The United States is out of the blocks. The European Union is hurrying along the track. China is competing too. Here in dear old blighty, we are not even at the starting line. While others are dashing towards the horizon, the UK still hasn’t tied its laces.

The government appears to have barely noticed that there is a global race to dominate the green technologies of the future. In investment attracted, jobs created, income earned and lives bettered, the prizes for the winners will be huge. In prosperity foregone, the penalty for the laggards will be severe.

Dogs lead lives of loneliness. Grey parrots die years earlier than their natural lifespans. And it is hard to fathom the boredom of pet fish

At the end of last year, the state of New York banned pet stores from selling cats, dogs, or rabbits. The state wants to encourage pet stores to work with shelters, rather than puppy mills, to get animals adopted. With any luck, other states will follow suit.

In her story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula Le Guin described a society where the joy of its citizens depended upon the “abominable misery” of a single child immured in a dungeon. Le Guin asked the reader if even great happiness could justify suffering. Humanity’s relationship to animals is predicated on a similar utilitarian calculus. Like the town of Omelas, we have made a silent pact to dominate pets for our benefit, despite the cost to the pets themselves, to wild and farmed animals, and to our own morality.

Troy Vettese is an environmental historian at the European University Institute and co-author of Half-Earth Socialism (Verso 2020)

We look at the best cosy and climate-friendly options that are less likely to land you with a £300 fine

As wood-burning stoves have become a talking point in England after warnings about the pollution they emit, those who installed them and feel guilt may worry about how to replace their beloved burner.

However, there are good options that are just as cosy-looking and warm but emit fewer particulates and are less likely to land you with a £300 fine.

People urged to submit specimens to an app as private gardens may be fresh source of scientific discovery

Record the “weeds” that pop up in your garden because they could be a rare plant, the Royal Horticultural Society has said.

Private gardens in the UK may be an untapped source of scientific discovery, according to the RHS’s new ecologist, because “scientists can’t just go into people’s gardens”.

The annual photographer of the year winners were chosen from more than 3,000 entries across nine categories. The top prize goes to images captured in the deep south of New Zealand, an area the photographer says she enjoys for its wonderful light and colour

• Wildlife photographer of the year – people’s choice award

The EU needs an ambitious climate strategy for industry. So why is Giorgia Meloni its chief supporter?

European governments have for many years basked in a sense of climate superiority over the US. We had the most ambitious climate goals; we were the constructive actor at Cop conferences; we had carbon-pricing mechanisms; and since 1990, we have reduced emissions by 28% against just 2% in the US. The US, by contrast, had climate-denying Republicans.

The Biden administration now has the world’s most generous package of climate incentives – a $370bn green subsidy package, which goes by the misnomer Inflation Reduction Act. But instead of celebrating the US handouts and tax breaks for investment in such things as electric vehicles and solar panels, many European governments are furious.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including snow monkeys, beavers and a selfie-crazy bear

Campaigners urge leading poultry producer Avara Foods to fund reparations for pollution from its chicken farm suppliers

Avara Foods, a leading supplier of chicken to Tesco, is being urged by campaigners to pay reparations to help clean up the River Wye.

The Wye, a river running from mid-Wales to the Severn estuary, has been affected by increasing algal blooms. These are partly caused by poultry farms spreading more manure than the land can absorb, say scientists, leading to excess phosphorus leaching into waterways.

Local authorities say policing government’s new standards on smoke pollution is beyond their means

Local authorities lack the resources for the crackdown on highly polluting wood burners promised by the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, they say.

Wood-burning in urban areas is an increasing source of harmful air pollution, as people install stoves for aesthetic reasons or to save money on gas.