The Guardian

The Net Zero Scrutiny Group is blaming the cost-of-living crisis on green policies. Its potential influence shouldn’t be ignored

In the final days of Theresa May’s premiership, the UK’s net-zero target, like the landmark 2008 Climate Change Act before it, entered the statute book with hardly any resistance.

Well-founded complaints were made that it did not match the pace and scale required to address climate breakdown, but, as in 2008, across parliament there appeared to be an underlying consensus that “something had to be done”. Outright climate-change denial was kept to a faint background hum.

Eleanor Salter writes about climate, culture and politics

In the shadow of New York City, one of the world’s richest cities, the people of Mount Vernon, New York face an unpleasant problem inside their homes: sewage. The city’s under-resourced sanitation crew struggles to keep up with complications stemming from its crumbling, 100-year old sewer system — a system strained even further by the extreme rain brought on by climate change. Meanwhile, residents must shoulder the financial, emotional and health burdens when sewage backs up into their basements and homes

Clever corvids become newest weapon in Södertälje’s war against street litter

Crows are being recruited to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets and squares of a Swedish city as part of a cost-cutting drive.

The wild birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a bespoke machine designed by a startup in Södertälje, near Stockholm.

As people gather to celebrate the lunar year of the tiger, a report by WWF highlights areas where progress has been made in tiger conservation during the past 12 years and examines the threats that remain for the largest of big cats

Second world war codebreaking calculations used at Bletchley Park
find 9,000 of those species are yet to be discovered

There are an estimated 73,300 species of tree on Earth, 9,000 of which have yet to be discovered, according to a global count of tree species by thousands of researchers who used second world war codebreaking techniques created at Bletchley Park to evaluate the number of unknown species.

Researchers working on the ground in 90 countries collected information on 38m trees, sometimes walking for days and camping in remote places to reach them. The study found there are about 14% more tree species than previously reported and that a third of undiscovered tree species are rare, meaning they could be vulnerable to extinction by human-driven changes in land use and the climate crisis.

Editorial calling for cycling licences and insurance is odd given paper’s previous campaigns for safer roads

Even in the context of the UK media’s famously curious coverage of everyday cycling, this was a surprise. Away from the more familiar tabloid cries of a “battle” over changes to the Highway Code, tucked away in the sober enclave of the Times’s editorial pages, something odd was happening.

It was near the bottom of a leader column on cycling that a paper which, less than a decade ago, launched the most concerted and effective media campaign for safe cycling seen in this country for years, decided in effect to declare war on those who opt for two-wheeled transport.

US company’s Model 3 makes up almost two-thirds of electric cars sold in Australia in 2021, as EV market share grows to 2.39%

The number of new electric vehicles in Australia has tripled after years of lagging sales, off the back of incentives introduced by state governments to support their uptake.

Australia recorded 24,078 EV sales in 2021, a significant increase from the 6,900 sold in 2020, which means electric cars now make up 2.39% of the new car market.

US giant agrees to hire auditors after calculation errors, poor record-keeping and inconsistent data collection discovered

US coalmining giant Peabody Energy has repeatedly submitted incorrect greenhouse gas emissions reports to the Australian government, prompting questions about the reliability of national climate data based on company assessments.

The Clean Energy Regulator found Peabody had a history of filing inaccurate reports required under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act due to calculation errors, poor record-keeping and inconsistent data collection and analysis.

Wind speeds of up to 100 miles an hour recorded in Scotland helped send power generation soaring

The UK’s windfarms generated a record amount of renewable electricity over the weekend as Storm Malik battered parts of Scotland and northern England.

Wind speeds of up to 100 miles an hour recorded in Scotland helped wind power generation to rise to a provisional all-time high of more than 19,500 megawatts – or more than half the UK’s electricity – according to data from National Grid.

The humpback population has recovered miraculously from near extinction, but increasing numbers – and climate change – mean more tragic encounters with the snares left by humans

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Wayne Phillips has both feet firmly on dry land as he acts out cutting a whale loose from fishing gear.

The 51-year-old head of marine sciences at SeaWorld in Queensland oversees the park’s marine rescue team – four cutters, a coordinator, a captain and a videographer – who untangle humpback whales that have become bound up in rope and net.

A beach in eastern Thailand has been declared a disaster area as oil leaking from an underwater pipeline in the Gulf of Thailand continues to wash ashore and blacken the sand.

The leak, from a pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining, started late on Tuesday and was brought under control a day later after spilling an estimated 50,000 litres (11,000 gallons) of oil into the ocean about 12 miles (20km) from the country’s industrialised eastern seaboard

• Beach in Thailand declared disaster area after oil pipeline leak

Campaigners say a superyacht can produce 1,500 times more carbon than a typical family car, and the polluters should pay

The rising fortunes of the world’s billionaires during the pandemic helped fuel a record £5.3bn in superyacht sales last year, prompting calls for new curbs on their emissions.

New figures reveal that 887 superyachts were sold in 2021, an increase of more than 75% compared with the previous year. Yachting brokers say some of the demand has been from wealthy clients seeking a secure refuge from the pandemic.

For the past five years, Thirza Schaap has been creating delicate sculptures out of plastic debris from beaches on the South African coastline. The artist, who divides her time between Cape Town and Amsterdam, has named the project Plastic Ocean. “The objects are disgusting and ugly in a way, but sometimes they could also look pretty,” she says, “because of the time they’ve been in the ocean, with colours faded by the sun.”

The series is meant as a stark reminder of the dangers of plastic waste. “It’s easy to think that it’s not your fault. But if you start to realise that the rubbish could have been yours, you can make a difference by not buying the item in the first place.”

Minette Batters decries trade deal with Australia and New Zealand

The president of the National Farmers’ Union has accused the government of using British food producers as a “pawn” in post-Brexit trade deals.

Minette Batters, who has led the organisation representing British farmers since 2018, said “the most prized food market in the world” had been “handed over for nothing” by ministers, in their rush to sign wide-ranging free-trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand after the UK’s departure from the European Union.

Hunting and trapping will end after 82 wolves killed but commissioners won’t reinstate quotas ended by Republicans

Montana wildlife commissioners on Friday moved to shut down gray wolf hunting in around Yellowstone national park, amid mounting criticism over a record number of animals shot or trapped after roaming across the park boundary this winter.

But commissioners rejected calls to revive quotas that would limit the number of wolves killed along Yellowstone’s northern border to just a few annually. Those longstanding quotas were lifted last year after Republicans passed laws intended to drive down the wolf population by making it easier to kill the animals.

A rescue team from SeaWorld struggles for hours to free a young humpback whale trapped in a shark net near Coolangatta on the Gold Coast on 8 September 2021.  The whale calf is surrounded by an escort of four protective adult humpbacks, making the rescue incredibly dangerous for both humans and whales

• Can fake whale poo experiment net Australian scientists a share of Elon Musk’s US$100m climate prize?
• Entangled humpback whale’s sad fate has researchers calling for action on fishing nets

It has been a big breeding season for the Christmas Island red crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis). After the adult crabs spawned in the sea at the end of 2021, the baby crabs are trekking back to the forest in record numbers.

Some years all of the baby crabs vanish and are never seen again, but on special years when the weather and currents are just right, the island wakes one morning to find the coastline smothered in a living red carpet of tiny baby crabs.

Early 2022 has seen one of the biggest baby crab returns ever documented.

Exclusive: ‘Shocked and concerned’ US government scientists say heat stress over Australia’s ocean jewel is unprecedented

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Temperatures over the Great Barrier Reef in December were the highest on record with “alarming” levels of heat that have put the ocean jewel on the verge of another mass bleaching of corals, according to analysis from US government scientists seen by Guardian Australia.

On Friday the Morrison government announced $1bn for reef conservation over the next nine years if it wins the next election – a pledge branded by some as a cynical attempt to stop the reef being placed on the world heritage “in danger” list at a meeting in July.

In the past half century, North America has lost a fourth of its birds. Earth is now a coalmine, and every wild bird is a canary

When the poet Mary Oliver wrote “Instructions for living a life,” she reminded us: “Pay attention. Be astounded. Tell about it.”

This past autumn, wildlife officials announced that a bird, a male bar-tailed godwit, flew nonstop across the Pacific Ocean 8,100 miles from Alaska to Australia in just under 10 days. Fitted with a small solar-powered satellite tag, the godwit achieved “a land bird flight record”. But of course godwits have been doing this for centuries. Come next April-May, all things well, determined godwits will make the trip in reverse, bound for Alaska to nest and raise their young.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

A frequent contributor to the Guardian, Kim Heacox is the author of many books, including The Only Kayak, a memoir, and Jimmy Bluefeather, a novel, both winners of the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Alaska. His favorite bird is whichever one he’s watching

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a big-headed frog, a relocated rhino and a hungry swan