The Guardian

Exclusive: Campaigners fight decision that United Utilities cannot face private legal action for outflows of sewage into canal

Environmental campaigners are fighting to stop a water company being given almost total immunity from any private legal action for discharging untreated sewage into waterways.

The Good Law Project (GLP) and the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) are challenging a decision by the high court that the water company United Utilities cannot be subject to any private legal action for its discharges of raw sewage from storm outfalls into the Manchester ship canal.

Chemicals used in everyday products have been associated with ‘a range of serious health problems’ including cancer and birth defects

A new analysis of popular brand name products detected toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in nearly 75% of items labeled stain- or water-resistant. The study’s authors say the companies are needlessly putting customers’ health at risk.

The findings highlight how the compounds are widely used in everyday products and clothing despite mounting evidence that the entire class of PFAS chemicals is associated with a range of serious health problems, and safer alternatives exist.

London and Paris among cities with highest number of avoided deaths thanks to lower pollution in first lockdown

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More than 800 lives may have been saved across Europe thanks to better air quality in the first phase of Covid lockdowns, research suggests.

Measures brought in to stem the rise in infections resulted in far fewer cars and lorries on roads, which had the biggest impact on reducing deaths, according to the study led by experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Themes of making a small change for a big impact and joining a movement are effective in nudging consumers, research finds

Simple changes to messages on restaurants’ menus can double the frequency of customers choosing plant-based options instead of meat, research on the impact of food on the climate crisis has found.

The production, transportation and consumption of food has become an increasing focus for climate researchers, with a recent study finding the food industry accounts for more than a third of the world’s total annual planet-heating emissions.

Blipfoto members, or ‘blippers’, choose to record a single photo from their day. This unique community of photographers enjoy recording life as they see it. Perspectives on climate are often presented as ad hoc events so it’s not often we get to see a global perspective of public opinion and perception.

We look back at a selection of photos and snippets of day-to-day reflections on climate change from some of their 2021 journals. Questioning, observing, acting and responding - it’s a compelling insight into everyday views on climate change.

The gallery was put together at Blipfoto by Rebecca Cole and Richard Hunt-Smith.

Analysis from Greenpeace finds deserted flights are generating millions of tons of harmful emissions

At least 100,000 “ghost flights” could be flown across Europe this winter because of EU airport slot usage rules, according to analysis by Greenpeace.

The deserted, unnecessary or unprofitable flights are intended to allow airlines to keep their takeoff and landing runway rights in major airports, but they could also generate up to 2.1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions – or as much as 1.4 million average petrol or diesel cars emit in a year – Greenpeace says.

Overwintering insects in the state rise to 247,000 a year after fewer than 2,000 appeared but numbers are still historically low

The number of western monarch butterflies overwintering in California rebounded to more than 247,000 a year after fewer than 2,000 appeared, but the tally remained far below the millions that were seen in the 1980s, leaders of an annual count said on Tuesday.

The Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count revealed the highest number of butterflies in five years but it is still less than 5% of the 1980s population, said Emma Pelton, senior endangered species biologist with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

Attorneys for BP, Exxon and Shell claim city of Baltimore’s case over ‘deception and failure to warn’ could kill offshore drilling

US oil firms have been accused of using scare tactics after telling a federal court on Tuesday that lawsuits alleging fossil fuel companies lied about the climate crisis could threaten America’s oil supply.

At a closely watched appeals court hearing to decide whether a lawsuit by the city of Baltimore should be heard in state or federal court, an attorney for BP, Exxon, Shell and other energy firms painted the case as a threat to America’s energy independence.

‘Shark bites dropped drastically in 2020 due to the pandemic – this past year was much more typical,’ says researcher

Shark attacks increased around the world in 2021 following three years of decline, though beach closures in 2020 caused by the coronavirus pandemic could make the numbers seem more dramatic, officials in the US said on Monday.

Researchers with the International Shark Attack File recorded 73 unprovoked incidents last year compared to 52 in 2020, according to a new report administered by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the American Elasmobranch Society.

As the arctic warms four times faster than the global average, Europe’s only indigenous population is under threat. For centuries, the Sámi people have herded reindeer throughout northern Europe. Now, warmer winters are turning the snow the reindeer dig through to find food into ice, blocking their only source of sustenance. In the last two years, 10,000 reindeer died. If this winter is bad, herders fear up to half the herd could be lost

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Only one of 21 previous locations would be able to reliably host Games in future if emissions remain on current path, study shows

Rising temperatures caused by the escalating climate crisis mean future Winter Olympics will struggle to find host cities with enough snow and ice, according to a study.

Only one of 21 previous Winter Olympics locations would be able to reliably host the Games in future if global greenhouse gas emissions remain on their current trajectory, the report says.

$9tn of annual investment required to avoid most catastrophic climate impacts, consultancy says

Reaching net zero climate emissions by 2050 will require a “fundamental transformation of the global economy”, according to a report by McKinsey, one of the world’s most influential consulting firms.

It estimates that $9.2tn will need to be invested every year for decades to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C and end the climate emergency. The sum is a 40% increase on current investment levels and equivalent to half of global corporate profits.

Six years ago poachers hacked off Sehawukele’s horns; now he’s back in a game reserve

A 10-year-old white rhino whose horns were brutally hacked off has returned to the wild after 30 operations over six years to repair the gash in his face.

His rescuers named the bull Sehawukele, meaning “God have mercy on us”. Called Seha for short, he was found by police stumbling near a fence in a reserve, so disfigured that he could barely hear or eat.

Researchers say ‘wheeze honks’ are identity signals, with reactions ranging from calls to spraying dung linked to level of familiarity

A call from a stranger may elicit myriad responses – panic, confusion, maybe even excitement – but it turns out that hippos have a rather more corporeal reaction: they spray dung.

Researchers studying hippopotamuses in Mozambique have revealed that the creatures not only react to the vocalisations of other hippos, but that the calls act as an identity signal. In other words, they allow hippos to tell the difference between a familiar individual and a stranger.

Shoots cause stress for migratory species such as Svalbard barnacle goose, whose numbers are down 38%

The RSPB has called for an emergency shooting ban after an “unprecedented” outbreak of bird flu that has left wildfowl populations in “catastrophic decline”.

Migratory geese that overwinter on the Solway Firth, which stretches between Scotland and Cumbria, are being hardest hit, with a 38% decline in the Svalbard barnacle goose breeding population from winter last year.

Crocodile meat began to grow in popularity in Thailand when pork prices surged after a shortage caused by the spread of African swine fever. Wichai Roongtaweechai, who owns a farm and a restaurant specialising in crocodile meat, says he has seen sales of crocodile meat go up by 70%

Four years after a new post-Brexit payments system was promised by ministers, confusion leaves bid to improve biodiversity in limbo

Farmers are putting off planting trees because of the uncertainty surrounding the government’s plans for subsidies based on protecting nature, delaying the UK’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and stem the drastic decline in farmland wildlife.

New farm payments are expected from 2024, under the post-Brexit subsidy regime the government has promised, but farmers fear if they plant trees now they will not get the credit for it when the new schemes start. Meanwhile, they face potentially losing their existing subsidies if they switch to more tree-planting now.

Two-thirds of all new cars bought by Norwegians last year were electric. Turns out you just need a government with a clue

I’ve just been standing for 10 minutes at a moderately quiet junction near where I work in Cambridge. During that time I’ve seen six electric vehicles (EVs) – three VW ID.3s, a Nissan Leaf, a Nissan white van and a Renault Zoe. Three years ago, if I’d been standing at the same spot, I’d have seen precisely zero such vehicles. And what that brought to mind was Ernest Hemingway’s celebrated reply to the question: how does one go bankrupt? “Two ways,” he said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

Something similar is going on in relation to adoption of EVs in Britain. The hockey-stick graph is common in consumer technologies. We saw it in the early years of mobile phones, when text messaging was ignored by adults as an inferior form of email. But when pay-as-you-go tariffs arrived and teenagers could have phones, SMS use suddenly shot skywards. The arrival of kids represented a tipping point – a point in time when a group rapidly changes its behaviour by widely adopting a previously rare practice.

Leicester politicians hope levy on local firms will help cut pollution in city

Councils across the UK are using radical strategies to cut the number of polluting vehicles on their streets in response to the climate emergency.

Leicester city council hopes a new charge on workplace parking will improve air quality, fund public transport and incentivise walking and cycling.

Rewilding teams are facing a huge task to encourage the return of wildlife after decades of damage by the forestry industry

Chopping down trees is not how most people would expect a river restoration project to begin, but Janne Raassina – who is expertly using a chainsaw to take down four or five earmarked trunks around the Särkkäjoki River in remotest eastern Finland – explains that the rotting wood will be hugely useful to the ecosystem.

“This is a huge buffet for insects, and it’s something that has been missing in our nature for 100 years,” he says. “We are creating the food chain from scratch.”