The Guardian

Peak at Sonnblick in Austrian Alps has melted more than a month before previous record time

The snow at the highest observatory in the world to be operated all-year-round is expected to completely melt in the next few days, the earliest time on record.

Scientists at the Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian Central Alps, which is 3,106 metres (10,190ft) above sea level, have been shocked and dismayed to see the snow depleting so quickly.

We may be approaching a legal tipping point for fossil fuel companies and the spin masters that work for them

In 2005, I was the lead counsel on behalf of the US in one of the biggest corporate accountability legal actions ever filed. That trial proved that the tobacco industry knew it was selling and marketing a harmful product, that it had funded denial of public health science, and had used deceptive advertising and PR to protect assets instead of protecting consumers.

Today, the fossil fuel industry finds itself in the same precarious legal position as the tobacco industry did in the late 1990s. The behaviour and goals of the tobacco and petroleum industries are pretty similar – and there are many similarities in their liabilities.

Sharon Y Eubanks served as lead council in the federal tobacco litigation United States v Philip Morris USA, et al. She is the co-author of Bad Acts: The Racketeering Case Against the Tobacco Industry

More than 50 experts say proposal redefining forest degradation could undermine net zero emissions plans

More than 50 scientists have warned MEPs that a high-level move to water down EU legislation on deforestation could undermine Europe’s net zero emissions plans.

European environment ministers rewrote a draft regulation last week to define “forest degradation” as the replacement of primary forest by plantations or other wooded land. In the EU, which has about 3.1m hectares of primary forest amid 159m hectares of overall forest, it would limit the law’s reach to just 2% of the total area.

In the glare of history, failure on climate will overshadow any other fact about their tenure. Let’s hope they feel the heat as much as we do

On Thursday, the supreme court of the United States struck down the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, sharply limiting the federal government’s ability to fight climate change.

With Earth’s temperature rising steadily, with the scientific community shouting at the top of its lungs for more aggressive action, with fires and hurricanes pushing entire regions beyond the bounds of human habitability, the court’s Republican-appointed supermajority has chosen to actively inhibit our ability to respond to the crisis. The decision was in keeping with the Republican party’s deepening climate nihilism: as the train careens off the rails, they strangle the conductor, destroy the brakes.

Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist

Unpublished government records show rise in poultry products testing positive for salmonella infantis

• Potentially deadly superbug found in British supermarket pork

A dangerous strain of salmonella is becoming more common in meat in the UK, unpublished government records show.

Test results obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) and the Guardian reveal a rise in poultry products contaminated with salmonella infantis, with raw and processed meat found to be affected. Beef, pork and animal feed have also tested positive for the bacteria, which can cause serious illness that sometimes proves fatal.

Two whales that became entangled in shark nets in Queensland have been freed after being stuck for several hours. The two humpbacks were found on Tuesday at Kirra beach on the Gold Coast and Marcoola beach on the Sunshine Coast where shark nets intersect with a major whale migration pathway. Dr Leonardo Guida, a shark specialist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said entanglements happened every year like 'clockwork' and could cause major physiological trauma for the whales even if they were freed. He called for the complete removal of shark nets, which he said harmed marine life without actually making anyone safer

• Two whale rescues in one day prompt fresh call for removal of shark nets in Queensland
  

The cat-sized nocturnal marsupials, which are unique to Australia, live in areas from north Queensland to central Victoria

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One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals – the once common greater glider – has been pushed closer to extinction and is now officially endangered.

The cat-sized gliding marsupial has been moved from vulnerable to endangered on the federal government’s list of threatened species.

December clash of biodiversity talks in Montreal and World Cup in Qatar will cause ‘embarrassment’ if ministers fail to act wisely

World leaders must not let the World Cup in Qatar distract them from a simultaneous nature summit, or they face being embarrassed by the outcome, the UN’s biodiversity chief has warned.

This December, delegates will travel to Montreal, Canada, for the UN biodiversity conference, known as Cop15, to negotiate a new set of global goals for nature over the next decade after two years of delays, with the final agreement due to be reached on the eve of the World Cup final on 18 December.

Greenhouse gas has undergone rapid acceleration and scientists say it may be due to atmospheric changes

Methane is four times more sensitive to global warming than previously thought, a new study shows. The result helps to explain the rapid growth in methane in recent years and suggests that, if left unchecked, methane related warming will escalate in the decades to come.

The growth of this greenhouse gas – which over a 20 year timespan is more than 80 times as potent than carbon dioxide – had been slowing since the turn of the millennium but since 2007 has undergone a rapid rise, with measurements from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recording it passing 1,900 parts a billion last year, nearly triple pre-industrial levels.

We lost a critical decade of preparation under the Coalition. As floods hit NSW again, we cannot afford to lose a minute more

Almost unbelievably, communities in New South Wales are once again having to flee the fourth major flooding event in the state in just 18 months.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but there’s no avoiding it: this is our new climate reality of consecutive, compounding disasters.

The colonisation of Australia coincided with a boom in European interest in exotic animals – so kangaroos, dingoes, wombats and more were shipped off, regardless of practicalities

In early 1943, the second world war raged across multiple theatres. Hitler’s army had just suffered a historic defeat at Stalingrad, but U-boats still prowled the Atlantic and Britain’s resources were stretched to the limit. So it must have come as a surprise to Australian prime minister, John Curtin, when a telegram arrived from Winston Churchill requesting six platypuses be sent to Britain forthwith, in a scheme conservationist Gerald Durrell described as “magnificently idiotic”.

Historians have tried to place this episode in a broader context of empire and international geopolitics, but it seems Churchill just really wanted a platypus. He had collected exotic animals throughout his life, including black swans, a white kangaroo, a budgie named Toby who attended ministerial meetings, and a lion named Rota, which he sensibly kept at London Zoo.

Effects of human-caused global heating are blocking vital winter rains, with severe implications for farming and tourism

Spain and Portugal are suffering their driest climate for at least 1,200 years, according to research, with severe implications for both food production and tourism.

Most rain on the Iberian peninsula falls in winter as wet, low-pressure systems blow in from the Atlantic. But a high-pressure system off the coast, called the Azores high, can block the wet weather fronts.

The more we automate our farms, the less we understand about our food. Let’s not get too hands-off

After one of my regular 4.30am starts last week, I caught a snippet of a feature on Farming Today about fruit-picking robots. Hearing about the multi-billion-pound mechanical arms and 3D sensors of this new machine, I was filled with something like sadness. Not just because of what this says about our self-inflicted workforce shortage (sigh) due to political foot-shooting and the undervaluing of manual work. But because fruit picking could be so different.

I once spent an interesting few nights in New Zealand, sharing a motel with about 50 apple-pickers from Vanuatu, Samoa and beyond. We listened to reggae, washed our pants in the sink and smoked cigarettes as they told me about thinning out baby apples, and picking pineapples and peaches. It was a hard life, absolutely no doubt. A dawn start in a cramped rented room, sleeping under polyester floral eiderdowns with nothing but a kettle and a juddering shower, before being driven to different farms is not easy work. And, of course, these setups are rife with corruption and exploitation and modern slavery. But are robots our only alternative?

Nell Frizzell is the author of The Panic Years and Square One (published 7 July)

Emergency services rescue more than 80 people while thousands are evacuated in NSW as parts of the east coast expected to receive up to 100mm of rain on Monday

• NSW floods: thousands evacuated from rising waters as Sydney braces for more wild weather
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Bowston is the largest river barrier removal planned for the UK this year and will allow fish and other species to move more freely

Nearly 150 years after it was built for a paper mill, work has begun to demolish a 3-metre-high weir in Cumbria as part of nationwide efforts to improve biodiversity by allowing fish and invertebrates to move more freely along the UK’s rivers.

Bowston weir lies across the River Kent, an internationally important site of special scientific interest, home to white-clawed crayfish and freshwater pearl mussels, as well as water crowfoot, an oxygenating aquatic plant. But the river is in poor condition due to human interference over the centuries.

‘Deception’ gives false impression firms are addressing climate crisis, says Emma Howard Boyd

Widespread greenwashing by businesses is compromising efforts to prepare for climate impacts such as floods and heatwaves, the chair of the Environment Agency will say in a speech on Monday.

Emma Howard Boyd, addressing the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment Annual Forum, will warn businesses are embedding liability and storing up risk for their investors by giving the false impression they are addressing the climate crisis.

The new species is also the largest giant waterlily on the planet, with leaves growing up to three metres in the wild

A giant waterlily grown at Kew Gardens has been named as new to science, in the first discovery of its type in more than a century.

Scientists at the south-west London garden suspected for decades there could be a third species of giant waterlily and worked with researchers in its native home in Bolivia to see if their thesis was correct.

Boom clouded by supply chain disruption, a fragmented industry as well as ethical issues

“It’s hot,” says Steve Springett, a director of the renewable energy brand Egg, cheerily assessing the solar market. “There’s two key factors: people are understanding the environmental benefits of it better, and energy is really, really expensive at the moment.”

Consumer interest has increased in recent months as Britons hunt for ways to cut huge energy bills. A reduction in VAT on energy efficient systems from 5% to nothing this spring has added to the appeal of solar power.

Party makes promise amid reports UK is falling behind European rivals in production capacity for EVs

Labour has pledged to create at least 30,000 jobs by promising to build three gigafactories for electric car battery production in Britain by 2025, as it warned the country was falling behind its European competitors in the race to ditch petrol power.

Amid recent reports that Britain faces a battle to hold on to the production of electric vehicles (EVs) made by manufacturers already in the UK, the party has committed itself to a major expansion of the part-financing of gigafactories. It follows research suggesting countries such as Germany, which already has a huge car industry, are significantly ahead in establishing the plants.

In the depths of a Melbourne winter, when it’s 4.6C on the bank and 6C in the Yarra, the true believers gather

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I asked my friend if she wanted to come swimming in the Yarra/Birrarung – near the city – as dawn broke last week.

“It’s safe, they test!” I said. She paused, and for a second I thought she would join me in this foolhardiness. Then she replied: “That’s like saying drinking your own piss is safe.”