The Guardian

Study shows ‘disastrous consequences for wildlife’ if human-caused emissions push global temperatures up 4.4C

More than 40% of land vertebrates will be threatened by extreme heat by the end of the century under a high emissions scenario, with freak temperatures once regarded as rare likely to become the norm, new research warns.

Reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals are being exposed to extreme heat events of increasing frequency, duration and intensity, as a result of human-driven global heating. This poses a substantial threat to the planet’s biodiversity, a new study warns.

Protest held over levelling up secretary’s decision to approve new coalmine in Cumbria

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Extinction Rebellion activists have chained themselves together at the entrance of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in London to protest against a new coalmine in Cumbria approved by its secretary, Michael Gove.

As police hurried to block access to the doors, protesters lit smoke bombs and poured black water-soluble paint designed to resemble oil across the floor, while others danced around dressed in canary costumes outside the building on Marsham Street in Westminster on Wednesday.

Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating

• ‘Nowhere else to go’: Alto Mayo, Peru, at centre of conservation row
• Greenwashing or a net zero necessity? Scientists on carbon offsetting
• Carbon offsets flawed but we are in a climate emergency

The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.

The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, according to two studies, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate.

The threat to forests had been overstated by about 400% on average for Verra projects, according to analysis of a 2022 University of Cambridge study.

Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam were among dozens of companies and organisations that have bought rainforest offsets approved by Verra for environmental claims.

Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects. The Guardian visited a flagship project in Peru, and was shown videos that residents said showed their homes being cut down with chainsaws and ropes by park guards and police. They spoke of forced evictions and tensions with park authorities.

I recently moved from a gas stove to an induction range, and I love it. Other Americans probably will, too

Of all the political issues I assumed would come to the fore in 2023, gas stoves were not on my bingo card. And yet Americans’ right to cook on an open gas flame has turned into a red-hot culture war issue. Conservatives are gearing up for a War of the Cooktops – and unfortunately, some Democrats aren’t helping.

Some five decades’ worth of studies have found that gas stoves are hazardous to human health, with a recent one suggesting that gas stoves in US homes may be to blame for nearly 13% of childhood asthma cases. Gas stoves are bad for the environment, too, powered as they are by fossil fuels.

Scientists say yields from crops fertilised with recycled human waste rival those produced by organic methods

Using fertilisers derived from human faeces and urine can be as productive as conventional organic ones, with no risk of transmitting disease, according to new research.

It may seem unappetising, but humans have been using human waste as a fertiliser for thousands of years because it contains the key nutrients that plants need to grow, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Ploughing human excrement – conventionally flushed down our toilets and into the sewage system – back into the soil creates a more sustainable farming system without significant drops in yield, the researchers found.

In relationships, controlling and coercive behaviour is now a criminal offence. In British politics, it is glorified

Don’t let them talk to you about freedom. This government is stripping out fundamental liberties with the speed and determination you would expect in the aftermath of a military coup. Knowing that their days in office are numbered, the Conservatives seem to be snuffing out democracy as quickly as they can.

Even before the latest amendment, the public order bill was the most repressive legislation of the modern era, potentially criminalising all meaningful protest. If Rishi Sunak’s new proposal is passed, protests can be stopped before they begin on the grounds that they might be “disruptive”. Disruptive protest was redefined by last year’s Police Act to include noise. Now the definition is being further extended to incorporate “slow marching”. This Minority Report amendment puts us on the wrong side of the law before we even raise our hands in objection.

Automatic warning system activated to issue flood alerts during industrial action by staff on Wednesday

Flood-prone areas in England will be relying on automated back-up systems for flood alerts and warnings on Wednesday, as Environment Agency (EA) workers strike over pay.

Systems that would normally be monitored by experienced staff, some of whom have been left relying on food banks as a result of the cost of living crisis, will be put on autopilot during the industrial action, after weeks of working to rule failed to bring the government to the negotiating table.

High court in Japan agreed defendants could not have predicted the massive tsunami that crippled the power plant and triggered a nuclear meltdown

Three former executives from the company that operates the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have had their not-guilty verdicts upheld by a court in Japan, dealing a blow to campaigners demanding the firm take legal responsibility for the disaster in March 2011.

The Tokyo high court on Wednesday cleared Tsunehisa Katsumata, the former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), along with former vice-presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto, of professional negligence resulting in death.

Study also says eating one serving of fish with PFAS could be equivalent to drinking contaminated water every day for a month

Wild caught, freshwater fish in the United States are far more contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” than those commercially caught in oceans, and the highest levels are found in fish from the Great Lakes, a new analysis of federal data suggests.

The peer-reviewed study by public health advocate Environmental Working Group (EWG) also found eating one serving of US freshwater fish contaminated with median PFAS levels could be equivalent to drinking highly contaminated water every day for a month.

Queensland researchers train artificial intelligence to trawl recordings and help confirm presence of elusive eastern bristlebird

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The fact the eastern bristlebird had not been seen nor heard in south-east Queensland since its Gondwana rainforest home was ravaged in the black summer bushfires of 2019/20 was, in some ways, unsurprising.

For one, there are thought to have been fewer than 40 individual birds in its northern population.

Our national research on bushfires since 2003 means we know much more about how they behave – and Australians are safer for it

It has been 20 years to the day since bushfires burst out of the Brindabella Ranges and into the suburbs of our nation’s bush capital. Four lives were lost, many people were injured and more than 500 homes were destroyed.

There had been big bushfires before, and there were bigger bushfires to come, but the tragic day in Canberra of 18 January 2003 marked a pivotal moment in Australian bushfire science.

The climate activist was taken away by police during a protest against the demolition of a German village to make way for a coalmine. Thunberg was detained after sitting near the edge of the opencast Garzweiler 2 mine, about 5 miles from the village of Lützerath. Riot police backed by bulldozers removed activists from buildings in the village, with only a few left in trees and an underground tunnel at the weekend, but protesters including Thunberg remained at the site and staged a sit-in into Tuesday

• Greta Thunberg detained at coal protest in Germany
  

Almost two-thirds of sharks and rays living on world’s coral reefs at risk, with 14 of 134 species reviewed critically endangered

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Almost two-thirds of sharks and rays that live around the world’s coral reefs are threatened with extinction with potentially dire knock-on effects for ecosystems and coastal communities, according to new research.

Overfishing was the main cause of the declines over the past half a century, with larger sharks and rays being particularly hard hit.

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Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall was given £5,000 according to parliament’s register of members’ interests in 2020

A Conservative MP who received thousands in a donation from a wealthy landowner who took Dartmoor National Park Authority to court has refused to comment on a legal decision that has led to a ban on wild camping in the park.

Last week, the right to wild camp in England and Wales was lost after hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall successfully brought a case against Dartmoor national park. It was the last place it was possible to wild camp without seeking permission.

Whitehaven colliery will release about 17,500 tonnes of methane every year, estimates thinktank

The new coalmine in Cumbria is likely to prevent the UK from meeting its internationally agreed commitment to reduce emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, analysis has suggested.

The Whitehaven colliery, controversially approved by ministers shortly before Christmas, will release about 17,500 tonnes of methane every year, according to estimates from the Green Alliance thinktank.

The high court ruling is an outrage when we are already banned from 92% of the country’s land

When I did the Ten Tors challenge at school in 2017, I would fight back tears with my teammates, anticipating the relief and joy we would feel at crossing the finish line after 45 miles of backpacking on Dartmoor. On Friday, different tears fell. Messages flooded my phone announcing that the right to wild camp on Dartmoor had been overturned in an astonishing defeat.

The now infamous high court case in London, instigated by the hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall, saw victory for landowners, who can now choose to grant (or not to grant) campers a quiet night under the stars. Now, there is nowhere to legally wild camp in England or Wales. The windswept fury of Dartmoor was the stage of its extinction.

Sophie Pavelle is a writer and science communicator

Material from dry landscapes has surged since the 1800s, possibly helping to cool the planet for decades

Dust that billows up from desert storms and arid landscapes has helped cool the planet for the past several decades, and its presence in the atmosphere may have obscured the true extent of global heating caused by fossil fuel emissions.

Atmospheric dust has increased by about 55% since the mid-1800s, an analysis suggests. And that increasing dust may have hidden up to 8% of warming from carbon emissions.

With drenching rain, local rivalries and – crucially – no animals harmed, the Kerry Beagle drag hunt has fascinated photographer Tony O’Shea for three decades

Toxic pesticides used to eradicate grain-eating quelea may harm the country’s endangered raptors, say conservationists

A drive by the Kenyan government to kill up to 6 million red-billed quelea birds that have invaded farms will have unintended consequences for raptors and other wild species, experts have warned.

The continuing drought in the Horn of Africa has reduced the amount of native grass, whose seeds are queleas’ main food source, causing the birds to increasingly invade grain fields, putting 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of rice under threat. About 300 acres of rice fields have been destroyed by the birds.

Financial institutions signed up to GFANZ initiative accused of acting as ‘climate arsonists’

Banks and finance institutions that have signed up to net zero pledges are still investing heavily in fossil fuels, research has shown, leading to accusations they are acting as “climate arsonists”.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) initiative was launched by the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, as one of the main UK achievements in hosting the Cop26 UN climate summit at Glasgow in 2021.