The Guardian

Report tells of 20-hour shifts for £3.50 an hour, racism and sexual abuse under cover of transit visa loophole

A third of migrant workers on UK fishing vessels work 20-hour shifts, and 35% report regular physical violence, according to new research that concludes there is rampant exploitation and abuse on British ships.

“Leaving is not possible because I’m not allowed off the vessel to ask for help,” one migrant worker told researchers at the University of Nottingham Rights Lab, which focuses on modern slavery. They found fishers reported working excessive hours, with few breaks, on an average salary of £3.51 an hour.

The climate crisis is giving trees a bigger window to spread their pollen, but cleaner air and better early warning forecasts can help protect us

If you have sneezed your way through the last few days, you are not alone. About a quarter of the UK population are thought to suffer from hay fever, with numbers continuing to grow. And the latest research suggests that the climate crisis is going to make the hay fever season a whole lot longer and more intense, with up to three times as much pollen wafting around by the end of the century. Hold on to your antihistamines.

For people with lung conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pollen bursts are a serious risk that can be deadly in the most extreme cases. In November 2016, a pollen outbreak caused by a thunderstorm fragmenting pollen into smaller pieces in Melbourne, Australia, overwhelmed the emergency services and resulted in at least nine deaths.

Kate Ravilious is a freelance science journalist based in York, UK; she writes on Earth, climate and weather-related issues

Pascal Lamy to lead commission exploring how methods to tackle global heating could be governed

Countries must urgently agree a way of controlling and regulating attempts to geoengineer the climate, and consider whether to set a moratorium on such efforts, as the danger of global heating exceeding the 1.5C threshold increases, the former head of the World Trade Organisation has warned.

Pascal Lamy, a former director general of the WTO and a former EU trade commissioner, now president of the Paris Peace Forum, said governments were increasingly likely to explore the possibilities of geoengineering, as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions have so far been inadequate.

Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say

Nearly half of existing fossil fuel production sites need to be shut down early if global heating is to be limited to 1.5C, the internationally agreed goal for avoiding climate catastrophe, according to a new scientific study.

The assessment goes beyond the call by the International Energy Agency in 2021 to stop all new fossil fuel development to avoid the worst impacts of global heating, a statement seen as radical at the time.

Promises of jobs and investment are doing little to convince a remote Lincolnshire community to agree to hosting the country’s nuclear waste

On the unspoilt Lincolnshire coast, where dog walkers enjoy the five miles of golden sandy beach and families take holidays in the caravan parks beyond the dunes, the efforts of British politicians to persuade the public nuclear energy is green, safe and clean do not seem to be gaining traction.

A skull glowers down from the sand dunes on to Mablethorpe Beach, a portent of death and destruction, and a throwback to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protests of the 1980s.

Reasons behind drop include people being more conscious of energy use during cost of living crisis, says CPRE

Light pollution has decreased as a result of fears over soaring energy costs, a survey by the countryside charity CPRE has suggested.

Stargazers have been enjoying the best view of the night sky since 2011, as light pollution sharply dropped during the pandemic lockdowns and the levels continue to fall despite restrictions having been lifted.

Non-native bugs will be first attempt at using biocontrol on floating pennywort, after years of research

South American weevils have been released into Britain’s waterways by the government in order to tackle the invasive species floating pennywort.

The industrious bugs are being heralded as a hope to cut back the weed, which grows rapidly and blankets rivers and canals, drowning out the light and choking the life within.

Despite the magnitude of Australia’s environmental decline, we still have the opportunity and ability to turn things around

It’s 1996 and I’m in my last year of undergraduate studies at James Cook University, in Townsville. World coral expert Prof Terry Hughes cautions our class that on current trajectories, climate change and coral bleaching threaten destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. In another class, rainforest expert Prof Stephen Williams shares his concerns that increasing temperatures will force highly climate-sensitive animals – including the golden bowerbird and lemuroid ringtail possum – to move higher and higher up mountains in the ancient rainforests of the Wet Tropics, to cling to survival in cooler refuges. Of course, once trapped on a mountain top, there’s nowhere further for many wildlife species to retreat to.

As an optimistic 21-year-old, their warnings are unsettling, but I’m not panicked. I’m still hopeful science will help provide answers to the challenges at hand, and naively, I trust that our political leaders will act swiftly. In doing so we’ll avoid any genuinely dire outcomes for the wildlife and ecosystems so many Australians, and indeed people globally, hold so dear. After all, we are entwined with and completely dependent upon nature, so allowing its demise would be genuinely reckless, right?

Mount Isa Mines responsible for 91% of emissions in the outback city despite having an ‘industry-leading air quality management framework’

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Mount Isa has been named the most polluted postcode in Australia in a new report from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

The ACF said the outback city is one of four Queensland locations listed among the Top 10 most polluted postcodes in the country, alongside Gladstone, Stanwell and Tarong.

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Ministers instead urged to focus on reducing flights and halting airport expansion to cut carbon emissions

The UK government’s “jet zero” plan to eliminate carbon emissions from aviation relies on unproven or nonexistent technology and “sustainable” fuel, and is likely to result in ministers missing their legally binding emissions targets, according to a report.

The study from Element Energy, which has worked for the government and the climate change committee in the past, says instead of focusing on such unreliable future developments, ministers should work to reduce the overall number of flights and halt airport expansion over the next few years.

Friends of the Earth says there will be no market for Whitehaven coal as Europe’s steelmakers move to ‘green steel’

A new coalmine proposed for Cumbria is likely to be redundant before it even opens because the steelmakers that are its target market are moving so rapidly away from fossil fuels, analysis from green campaigners claims.

Steelmakers across Europe are moving to “green steel”, which uses renewable energy and modern techniques to avoid the need for coking coal of the type that the proposed mine in Whitehaven would produce.

EU concern over ‘cruel’ practice of taking blood from mares to create hormone products that increase reproduction in farmed animals

Iceland is under pressure to ban the production of a hormone extracted from pregnant horses, a practice that has been described as “cruel” and “animal abuse”.

The hormone is used by farmers across the UK and Europe to increase reproduction in pigs, cows and other female farm animals.

Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG) is extracted from pregnant horses in Iceland during the summer at “blood farms”, before being converted into powder and shipped around the world.

Conservationists and Inuit community relieved at decision on Canadian iron mine that threatened ‘extirpation’ of cetacean

The expansion of an iron ore mine in the Arctic that would have increased shipping and led to the “complete extirpation of narwhal” from the region has been blocked.

After four years of consultations and deliberations, the Nunavut Impact Review Board rejected a request from Baffinland Iron Mines Corp asking to significantly increase mining on the northern tip of Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. The area is home to one of the world’s richest iron ore deposits, and the densest narwhal population in the world.

$20m permit buyback aims to help recovery of jackass morwong, redfish, john dory and silver trevally

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The federal government will spend $20m to buy out fisheries in Australia’s south-east in part because the climate crisis is affecting population numbers of some species, making current fishing levels unsustainable.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority will buy back vessel permits in the south-east trawl fishery, which is the largest commonwealth-managed fin fish fishery in Australia.

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More than 200 barriers were taken down last year, helping to restore fish migration routes and boost biodiversity and climate resilience

At least 239 barriers, including dams and weirs, were removed across 17 countries in Europe in 2021, in a record-breaking year for dam removals across the continent.

Spain led the way, with 108 structures taken out of the country’s rivers. “Our efforts to expand dam removals across Europe are gathering speed,” said Pao Fernández Garrido, project manager for the World Fish Migration Foundation, who helped produce Dam Removal Europe’s annual report.

Alok Sharma says global crises should increase, not diminish, nations’ determination to cut greenhouse gases made in Glasgow climate pact

Failure to act on the promises made at the Glasgow Cop26 climate summit last year would be “an act of monstrous self-harm”, the UK’s president of the conference will warn today in Glasgow.

Alok Sharma, the cabinet minister who led the UK-hosted summit that ended with agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, will say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and rising energy and food prices, have changed the global outlook drastically in the six months since.

Man ‘lucky to have escaped with his life’ after reptile latched on to his arm while swimming in the gorge at Adel’s Grove

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A man has been airlifted to hospital after wrestling himself free from a crocodile that latched on to his arm at a waterfall in remote north-west Queensland.

The RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter flew the man from Lawn Hill national park to a Mount Isa hospital where he remains in a stable condition with puncture wounds to his arm, hands and leg.

Think of the images that defined our understanding of war or protest. Similar ones can tell the truth about this disaster

Open a British newspaper as a heatwave looms and you’ll likely see headlines about the unprecedented nature of the upcoming heat, the cost to lives and livelihoods, and even deaths caused by the extreme heat. But accompanying the same story you’ll also likely see images of people having fun in the sun – kids splashing in city fountains, crowded beaches, blue seas, azure skies and holiday happiness.

How the media communicates about climate breakdown reflects and shapes how societies engage with the issue. Behind every picture that makes it into the news is a person mirroring and perpetuating how society thinks about climate breakdown. Images are a key part of any media communication: they are often vivid and colourful, drawing readers in and helping them to remember a story.

They also shape news production: compelling visuals help stories rise up the media agenda. Think about the image of the man blocking a line of tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, a young girl fleeing her village after being burned by napalm in the Vietnam war, smoke billowing from the twin towers. These images become part of our collective psyche – through them we remember the power of protest, the horror of war, and the moments everything changed. Images of the climate crisis can hold the same power, something the Guardian recognised in its sector-leading 2019 editorial decision to rethink the images accompanying climate stories.

Saffron O’Neill is an associate professor in geography at the University of Exeter

From a tiny home in Tasmania to a sprawling multigenerational manor inspired by camping, the Houses awards have chosen a shortlist of this year’s most sustainable architecture

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What to the rest of us has been an aberrant few years has to this new generation been their whole life

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The car was packed lightly as we drove to the ocean. Just towels, water bottles and a couple of buckets and spades. In the back seat, our two girls were fighting over the solitary pair of goggles we had remembered to bring. But we were happy. It was school holidays. We were going to the beach.

We arrived and the sky above us was so thick with blue it was as though we could wrap ourselves in it. It had been a long, wet summer. The wettest start to a year ever in Sydney. The children had barely made it to the water all season, but in the lingering afterglow of summer we hoped to grasp a last chance at a swim. The girls ran through the sandy path cutting the bush scrub towards the ocean. Blue water, white water and golden yellow sand.