The Guardian

Commons report finds organised criminals view illegal dumping fines as business expense and there is no coherent plan

The government’s attitude to waste crime is “close to decriminalisation” as fines are so low, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee (Pac) has said.

Organised criminals view the relatively tiny fines as a business expense, MPs have warned, as illegal waste dumping becomes a lucrative income stream for gangs.

The Just Stop Oil activists are accused of using tactics that will backfire. But ‘respectable’ protest is roundly ignored

What does it take? How far must we go to alert other people to the scale of the crisis we face? Only one answer is clear: further than we have yet gone. We are hurtling towards planetary tipping points: the critical thresholds beyond which Earth systems collapse. The consequences are unimaginable. None of the horrors humanity has suffered, great as they are, even hints at the scale of what we now face.

Everywhere I see claims that the “extreme” tactics of environmental campaigners will prompt people to “stop listening”. But how could we listen any less to the warnings of scientists and campaigners and eminent committees? How could we pay any less attention to polite objections by “respectable” protesters to the destruction of the habitable planet? Something must shake us out of our stupor.

Exclusive: Lancashire site responsible for 192 earthquakes over course of 182 days in 2018-19, Lib Dem analysis has found

Fracking caused an earthquake every day at the UK’s only active site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, analysis has found.

Between 2018 and 2019, the site near Blackpool was responsible for 192 earthquakes over the course of 182 days , according to analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Liberal Democrats.

Residents of the northern Victorian town spent hours constructing a wall of sandbags to fortify against incoming flood waters from the Murray River. The wall stretched the length of the town's NRMA Holiday Park. Echuca remains under an evacuation warning as the river peaks, and two rain fronts are forecast to hit the region over the next seven days

• ‘You can’t help but help’: year 12 students forgo VCE study to fortify Echuca’s town hall against floods

The internet is awash with speculation after a viral TikTok video showed a large animal 'part' washed up on the shores of Magnetic Island in northern Queensland. Experts say it could be part of the intestine or even the penis of a whale as the area is known for its humpback whale sightings. However, scientists also said only a proper dissection could ascertain what the pale appendage actually is 

Fewer than half of those questioned in global poll believe climate change poses a ‘very serious threat’

Concerns about climate change shrank across the world last year, with fewer than half of those questioned in a new survey believing it posed a “very serious threat” to their countries over the next 20 years.

Only 20% of people in China, the world’s biggest polluter, said they believed that climate change was a very serious threat, down 3 percentage points from the last survey by Gallup World Risk Poll in 2019.

Artist Siobhán McDonald will turn recordings into an acoustic installation exploring humanity’s impact on the ocean

An expedition of scientists and an artist is deploying underwater microphones in the ocean off Greenland to record and preserve the soundscape of melting icebergs.

The hydrophones will record sounds every hour for two years before being collected, harvested for data and the recordings turned into an acoustic composition.

Rewilding Europe’s 10th project ‘has potential to benefit both nature and people’ in one of the continent’s least populated areas

Black vultures, lynx and wild horses are among the animals being reintroduced to eastern Spain with the launch of a rewilding project spanning 850,000 hectares (2.1m acres) in the Iberian highlands east of Madrid.

Rewilding Europe’s 20-year landscape recovery scheme, which covers an area more than five times the size of Greater London, aims to make the land wilder and more nature-friendly. The protected area is the southern part of the Iberian Chain, a mountain range that stretches 500km (300 miles) from the north-west of the country to the Mediterranean in the south-east.

Government’s ‘dangerous deregulatory agenda’ risks missing pledge to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, says report

The UK will miss its key nature pledge to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 unless it scraps plans to deregulate environmental protections, a new report has warned.

The UK is one of more than 100 countries committed to protecting “30x30” as a way to halt the destruction of the natural world. However, just 3.22% of land in England and 8% of the sea is being properly protected and managed for nature, according to the report from the environmental charities coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL).

As big firms stop insuring coal, complex schemes unlikely to find expertise needed, says Insure Our Future

New coal power projects are becoming “effectively uninsurable” outside China because so many insurance companies have ruled out support for them, a report has found.

Recent commitments to stop underwriting coal by prominent US insurers AIG and Travelers have brought the number of coal insurance exit policies to 41, according to the latest industry scorecard by the climate campaign Insure Our Future.

The state is going after five oil companies – ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips – for their role in the climate crisis

New Jersey has joined the ranks of Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont as the latest state to sue some of the world’s largest oil companies for their role in delaying climate policy and increasing the climate impacts, risks and costs borne by state governments. Like Minnesota and the District of Columbia before it, New Jersey has also included the industry’s top US trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, in its suit, which includes not only liability, but also fraud claims against five oil majors: ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips.

Some two dozen climate liability suits have been making their way through the courts since 2015, bolstered by media investigations and attribution studies that are able to accurately pinpoint the precise contribution climate change has made to the damages inflicted by extreme weather events. A 2021 study in the journal Nature, for example, found that just over $8bn (£7bn) of the $62.7bn (£55.3bn) in damages caused by Superstorm Sandy across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is attributable to sea-level rise caused by climate change.

Climate Emergency Fund lauds National Portrait Gallery stunt and pledges to keep fighting against ‘mass delusion of normalcy’

The US funders of a climate activist group that poured tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London have vowed similar attention-grabbing stunts will take place in various countries in the weeks ahead.

On Friday, two young activists from the Just Stop Oil group entered the gallery, opened two tins of Heinz tomato soup and hurled them over the painting, which is protected by a pane of glass. As onlookers exclaimed “Oh my gosh!”, the activists glued themselves to the wall beneath the painting.

Analysis finds ‘widespread contamination’ in the US, with forever chemicals frequently exceeding federal and state limits

Most of America’s waterways are likely contaminated by toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, a new study conducted by US water keepers finds.

The Waterkeeper Alliance analysis found detectable PFAS levels in 95 out of 114, or 83%, of waterways tested across 34 states and the District of Columbia, and frequently at levels that exceed federal and state limits.

The rate of warming in the top 2km has doubled from levels in the 1960s, review finds

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The amount of heat accumulating in the ocean is accelerating and penetrating ever deeper, with widespread effects on extreme weather events and marine life, according to a new scientific review.

One of the report’s authors said the devastating floods in eastern Australia had likely been made worse by warming oceans. The risks would continue to rise as the ocean took up more heat, the report said.

Closure of major road bridge linking Essex and Kent causes fresh rush-hour delays

Just Stop Oil protesters remain on top of the M25 Dartford Crossing, threatening another day of commuter chaos.

The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge linking Essex and Kent was closed after it was scaled by two climbers from the group, whose demands include that the government “halts all new oil and gas licences and consents”.

Charities say calls at international meeting to lift restrictions are distraction from climate crisis and plastic pollution

A 40-year-old ban on commercial whaling is in danger after “misleading” resolutions were put forward at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Portorož, Slovenia.

The wildlife protection organisations OceanCare and Humane Society International said proposals by pro-whaling countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, could reverse progress made by the IWC.

PM urged to increase windfarm capacity and expand energy company obligation to make more homes efficient

If Liz Truss is looking to give her leadership a new start, a cross-party group of MPs has suggested some answers, in the form of a 10-point wishlist for climate and nature.

Tripling the capacity of floating offshore windfarms, restoring 30% of the UK’s saltmarshes and seagrass meadows, and expanding the existing energy company obligation to make more homes efficient, are among the recommendations by the MPs on the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on the environment.

It’s far better to speak too loud than to remain silent. In the midst of a worsening environmental disaster, protests matter more than ever

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In the midst of a worsening environmental disaster, protests matter more than ever.

Last week, two Just Stop Oil activists threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in London as part of a broader push for the cessation of new fossil fuel projects – something the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes as crucial to prevent climate disaster.

Wildlife Victoria reports receiving almost 1,000 calls over the weekend about animals caught in flooding. The organisation is providing emergency financial support to flood-affected wildlife volunteers. The public are advised not to approach distressed animals on their own and instead contact their local wildlife rescue group

• ‘Everything is saturated’: what’s driving the latest floods in eastern Australia

Time will tell whether the water takes us over. But perhaps the biggest risk is complacency or denial

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I never imagined I’d be a traffic controller on the main route into my home town of Echuca. But that’s how I spent nine hours on Sunday alongside other volunteers and emergency services staff: managing local roads.

On Monday, I was shocked to hear that my town may be in for a one-in-1,000-year flood event. Emergency Management Victoria representatives told us: “There are things that are happening that have never been recorded before. So I am not sugarcoating this. This is serious.”