The Guardian

Now is the time to rebuild towards a society that can mitigate and adapt to the threats that confront us – from climate change to pandemics

In September 2019, people from all walks of life stood together, waving banners and leading chants, to demand action on climate change. Across Australia, 300,000 people gathered outside parliaments, in parks and on the streets for the climate strike, creating the largest climate protest in our nation’s history.

We envisioned a different future. A future with no new coal, oil or gas projects, 100% renewable energy generation and exports, and a just transition where workers and marginalised communities are supported. Without these changes, we feared a future of melting ice caps, bleached coral, eroding beaches, dangerous heat waves and perpetual bushfires.

Treasury and business committees to question whether policies will help or hinder sustainable recovery

MPs plan to scrutinise the government’s green economic plans and industrial strategy to test whether they are still fit for purpose in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

The government will face two separate inquiries into its plans, by the Treasury and business department parliamentary select committees, to question whether its existing policies will help or hinder sustainable post-pandemic economic growth.

Muir, who helped spawn the environmental movement, made derogatory comments about Black and Indigenous people

The Sierra Club has apologized for racist remarks its founder, naturalist John Muir, made more than a century ago as the influential environmental group grapples with a harmful history that perpetuated white supremacy.

Michael Brune, the group’s executive director, said Wednesday it was “time to take down some of our own monuments” as statues of Confederate officers and colonists are toppled across the US amid a reckoning with the nation’s racist history following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Current and planned waste-cutting efforts will reduce volume only by about 7%, say researchers

Plastic waste flowing into the oceans is expected to nearly triple in volume in the next 20 years, while efforts to stem the tide have so far made barely a dent in the tsunami of waste, research shows.

Governments could make drastic cuts to the flow of plastic reaching the oceans through measures such as restricting the sale and use of plastic materials, and mandating alternatives, but even if all the most likely measures are taken it would only cut the waste to little less than half of today’s levels, the analysis found.

Exclusive: Federal government gave proponent of coal-fired power plant a $4m grant despite having no energy sector experience

The proponent of a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in north Queensland was asked to lodge an application for a $4m feasibility study grant two days after it had already been publicly announced as the recipient.

The government’s support for the project has broadly been considered a concession to pro-coal Nationals and an effective political wedge in Queensland coal country.

Study of mosquitoes’ biting preferences reveals that urbanisation is shaping behaviour

More species of mosquito may evolve to bite humans instead of other animals and spread disease because of urbanisation, according to a scientific study.

While the vast majority of the 3,500 species of mosquito do not bite humans, scientists studied Aedes aegypti, an invasive species which has evolved a taste for humans, and become the primary spreader of infectious diseases including dengue and yellow fever.

The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) has announced the stunning winning images in its annual photography competition.

The 2020 winners show the important work of zoos and aquariums at an immensely challenging time. After months of closures, these conservation organisations are reeling from the financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The competition, only open to zoo or aquarium staff and volunteers, received hundreds of entries capturing amazing moments from pensive monkeys to a diver swimming with sharks. It was judged by TV naturalist Nick Baker, among others.

Judge and BIAZA spokesperson Andrew Hall said: “Every day our zoos and aquariums are sharing the extraordinary beauty and fragility of the natural world and this is evident in the incredible winning photos.”

The Australian home has a big problem: it's draughty, poorly insulated and costs a fortune to heat and cool. Most older homes have an abysmal energy efficiency rating – and we are paying the price. So what can be done to fix the problem? A lot, actually. And the government could play a role in retrofitting Australia's existing housing stock with its coronavirus stimulus spending. Here's how. 

Australia’s leaky homes are leaving millions of us vulnerable to extreme weather. In the first of a series of features on the Green Recovery, we look at how coronavirus stimulus could fix the problem

Tony O’Connell used to build whatever was put in front of him.

The 53-year-old from Wonthaggi, a coastal town in Gippsland, Victoria, has been in construction for 34 years. “What was on the plan was what was on the plan,” he says. “I wouldn’t question it.”

Worldwide study finds Australia among nations with highest shark numbers, but 34 out of 58 nations have half what was expected

Destructive and unsustainable fishing has caused a crash in shark numbers across many of the world’s coral reefs, upsetting the ecological balance of the critical marine ecosystems, a major study has found.

A network of remote underwater cameras across 58 countries found sharks were “functionally extinct” at almost one in five of the 371 reefs studied over four years.

Great American Outdoors Act would allocate $9.5bn annually for five years for previously neglected park maintenance

The US Congress is poised to approve a sweeping, long-awaited bill to continuously fund national, state and local parks – a major boon to conservation and one of the few pieces of significant legislation the government has been able to agree on in a divisive election year.

The Great American Outdoors Act, which the House is expected to pass on Wednesday afternoon, allocates $9.5bn annually for the next five years for previously neglected park repairs. And it sets up $900m a year to acquire land for conservation and continue maintenance.

Scientists predict rise of between 2.6C and 3.9C compared with earlier forecasts of 1.5C to 4.5C

Doomsayers and hopemongers alike may need to revise their climate predictions after a study that almost rules out the most optimistic forecasts for global heating while downplaying the likelihood of worst-case scenarios.

The international team of scientists involved in the research say they have narrowed the range of probable climate outcomes, which reduces the uncertainty that has long plagued public debate about this field.

No one had tested positive via nasal swabs, but researchers’ investigation tells a different story

Yosemite national park officials suspect that hundreds of visitors this summer may have had Covid-19 thanks to an unorthodox approach – testing sewage.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that the county health department has been collecting untreated wastewater flowing from the idyllic Yosemite Valley for testing. Prior to this effort, according to the Chronicle, no one had tested positive for the virus through nasal swab testing at the park’s health clinic. Scientists at a lab called Biobot Analytics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have examined the sewage water to determine if there are traces of genetic material from Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in the human feces. From the traces in a given sample, they can estimate how many people passing through Yosemite might be infected with Covid-19 at that time.

Microfibres from fishing lines and nets and materials from textiles discovered in 67% of seabed-dwelling sharks

Microplastics and synthetic microfibres from clothing have been found for the first time in the guts of sharks that live off the UK coast.

Scientists examined the stomachs and intestines of 46 seabed-dwelling sharks that had been caught as bycatch by Penzance-based hake fishing trawlers.

The first Aboriginal minister in the Northern Territory parliament has died. This is a shortened version of the Labor senator’s tribute to him

When announcing the death of our great friend, Jack Ah Kit, his immediate family said “this is a life that should be the focus of celebration and commemoration” – and that is indeed why we are here today.

In remembering and celebrating, we are thinking of the many, many stories that made up his life – some that we shared with him; some that we heard tell of; some that we witnessed.

Industry group says Britain’s climate goals may be doomed without heating overhaul

The installation of new gas boilers must be banned from 2025 or the UK’s net-zero climate target will be “doomed”, according to a high-level commission convened by the CBI.

The ban would apply to conventional gas boilers, but hybrid or hydrogen-ready boilers would be allowed under the business organisation’s recommendations, which were developed in collaboration with energy industry leaders.

Researchers say potent climate-heating gas almost certainly escaping into atmosphere

The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists.

The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape.

Boris Johnson’s ‘return to normality’ will only mean more consumerism at the expense of the planet – we must resist it

Out there somewhere, marked on no map but tantalisingly near, is a promised land called Normal, to which one day we can return. This is the magical geography we are taught by politicians, such as Boris Johnson with his “significant return to normality”. It is the story we tell ourselves, even if we contradict it with the very next thought.

There are practical reasons to believe that Normal is a fairyland to which we can never return. The virus has not gone away, and is likely to keep recurring in waves. But let’s focus on another question: if such a land existed, would we want to live there?

Activist says €750bn package shows leaders still not treating climate change as a crisis

Greta Thunberg has accused EU politicians of failing to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and said the €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan does not do enough to tackle the issue.

She said the package of measures agreed by EU leaders on Tuesday proved that politicians were still not treating climate change as an emergency.

Plan B says government proposals unlawful in light of obligations to cut emissions

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Climate campaigners have launched a formal legal challenge against the government’s green recovery plans, claiming they are inadequate and “clearly unlawful” in light of the UK’s obligations to reduce emissions.

Plan B, the pressure group that successfully challenged the UK government over its plans to expand Heathrow, sent a “pre-action” letter to the prime minister and the chancellor on Tuesday, saying the government was missing an historic opportunity to avoid catastrophe.