The Guardian

Critics call cattle-raising project on Hawaii ranch ‘a billionaire’s strange sideshow’ and bad for the environment

The social media tycoon Mark Zuckerberg’s latest business venture raising “world-class” beef cattle on his sprawling luxury Hawaiian hideaway has been derided as out of touch and environmentally irresponsible.

The Meta billionaire posted a picture of himself on Wednesday eating a steak – medium rare, no sides – from his Ko’olau ranch, a 1,400-acre compound on Kauai, Hawaii’s oldest island.

Climate Council finds average Australian car needs more petrol to travel same distance as more efficient models common overseas

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The average Australian car needs more petrol to travel the same distance as more efficient models common overseas, with climate advocates saying inaction from the government on fuel efficiency standards is adding hundreds of dollars to the cost of road trips.

Analysis from the Climate Council has found that while drivers of battery electric vehicles charging their cars pay only a fifth of the cost of fuelling an internal combustion engine car, there is still a large discrepancy between how much it costs to run petrol-reliant vehicles of varying efficiency.

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James Meadway, once a Labour adviser and now a podcast host, says the separation between climate and economy has to end

James Meadway is an economist who is not at all impressed with economics. Formerly an adviser to John McDonnell when he was Labour shadow chancellor, Meadway has plenty to say about what mainstream economics gets wrong. But one of his central gripes is the way it treats the environment. “We cannot simply pretend that … the entire ecological crisis is a separate and distinct thing from what’s happening in the economy,” says Meadway, who now works on climate finance. And yet that is precisely what happens.

This critique informs the podcast, Macrodose, which Meadway presents and which has recently turned one year old. Its tagline is “Your weekly fix of climate economics”. Every Wednesday, in 15 minutes or so, Meadway analyses the key economic stories of the week. Part of the aim is to make economics more accessible because, he says, it is often thought of as something so difficult that “you have to be really clever to do it”.

Alexander Darwall is challenging decision last year to overturn ban on wild camping on the moors

The right to wild camp on Dartmoor could be under threat again after the supreme court granted permission for a wealthy landowner to bring a case against it.

Last year, the Dartmoor National Park Authority won an appeal against a decision to ban wild camping on the moors.

Increased flooding blamed on years of government delays over ‘sponge cities’ rules

Increased sewage pollution, urban flooding and water supply interruptions are the result of a decade of failures by the Conservative ministers, according to water experts who are demanding an independent inquiry into water be set up by the next government.

The repeated failure of the Tories to implement rules to create “sponge cities” has led to much more visible sewage pollution, more flooding and increasing instances of water being cut off for householders and businesses, they say.

The sharp-tailed sandpiper migrates from Siberia to a Port of Hastings site that Tanya Plibersek last week blocked a state plan to develop

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A migratory shorebird that visits globally important wetlands the Victorian government wanted to dredge to make way for an offshore wind industry terminal is among eight birds added to the nation’s threatened species list.

The sharp-tailed sandpiper migrates from Siberia for the Australian summer and is now listed in Australia as vulnerable.

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Study of sounds and feeding habits shows animals organise into female-based groups of up to 20,000

Sperm whales live in clans with distinctive cultures, much like those of humans, a study has found.

Using underwater microphones and drone surveys, Hal Whitehead, a sperm whale scientist at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, examined the sounds the animals made and their feeding habits and found they organised themselves into groups of up to around 20,000.

Scientists say mining could have devastating impact on marine life, but Norway claims it will help green transition

Norway is expected to become the first country in the world to open up its seabed for deep-sea mining with a highly contentious parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

The decision comes despite warnings from scientists who say it could have a devastating impact on marine life, and opposition from the EU and the UK who have called for a temporary ban on deep-sea mining because of environmental concerns.

Rapid reduction in fossil fuel burning urgently needed to preserve liveable conditions, say scientists, as climate damage deepens

2023 “smashed” the record for the hottest year by a huge margin, providing “dramatic testimony” of how much warmer and more dangerous today’s climate is from the cooler one in which human civilisation developed.

The planet was 1.48C hotter in 2023 compared with the period before the mass burning of fossil fuels ignited the climate crisis. The figure is very close to the 1.5C temperature target set by countries in Paris in 2015, although the global temperature would need to be consistently above 1.5C for the target to be considered broken.

More than 5% of global emissions are linked to conflict or militaries but countries continue to hide the true scale

Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe

In early 2022, journalists began to ask us how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was affecting the climate crisis. While we could point to landscape fires, burning oil refineries and the thirst of diesel-hungry military vehicles, the emissions data they sought just wasn’t available. When it came to the reverberating consequences of Russia’s manipulation of Europe’s fossil fuel insecurity, or to the weakening of the international cooperation necessary for coordinated global climate action, our guesses were no better than theirs.

Two decades of international analysis and debate over the relationship between climate change and security has focused on how our rapidly destabilising climate could undermine the security of states. But it has largely ignored how national security choices, such as military spending or warfighting, can have an impact on the climate, and so undermine our collective security.

Two Siamang gibbons rescued from the illegal pet trade have been rehabilitated in a new Indonesian centre

The forest chorus of South Sumatra in Indonesia has some of its finest singers back: a pair of rare Siamang gibbons, rescued from the illegal pet trade, have been released into the wild.

Siamang gibbons (Symphalangus syndactylus) are known for their distinctive large throat sacs. But their powerful, haunting voices, used for communication and marking territory, are a blessing and a curse.

As floods, fires and storms escalate, it’s time for a body with the expertise and resources to protect people and the planet

In 1859 a Swiss businessman, Jean-Henri Dunant, travelled to northern Italy to discuss his investments in Algeria with the French emperor. The business meeting took place near the site of the battle of Solferino – a key confrontation in the war of Italian independence. Moved by the carnage and the sight of 40,000 wounded soldiers, abandoned on the battlefield, Dunant decided to dedicate his life to bringing humanitarian relief to war zones.

He was surprisingly effective. Thanks to his initiative, in 1863 the Red Cross was established, soon to be joined by the Turkish Red Crescent. In 1864, representatives of the main European powers signed the first Geneva convention “for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field”. In 1867 Dunant declared bankruptcy, his business interests entirely eclipsed by his philanthropic devotion.

Lorenzo Marsili is a philosopher, activist, author and director of the Berggruen Institute Europe

Starmer says Labour would take pre-emptive action as minister confirms 2,000 homes have been flooded by Storm Henk

Ministers have been accused of doing little more than “staring out of the window and watching the rain come down” as it was revealed that 2,000 homes have been flooded by Storm Henk.

Labour called for a new taskforce to be created that would meet before the winter storms hit to pinpoint the areas most at risk and protect threatened homes and businesses.

James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s

The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.

James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.

Rishi Sunak says the policy shift towards fossil fuels will lower bills and is backed by independent advisers. Is he right?

The UK government is about to bring through legislation for an annual licensing programme for oil and gas in the North Sea.

To justify this shift in policy towards fossil fuels, ministers have made a number of claims about the impact on climate breakdown and UK bills, as well as whether it is in line with recommendations from its independent climate advisers.

They know how to get fed by people – like babies, you can’t ignore their squawks

In Sydney, sulphur-crested cockatoos play when they fly, ducking under power lines and soaring up again, squawking, charging through gaps in trees, landing only to hang upside down, as though they are mocking the bats. Cockatoos know how to have as much fun as it is possible to have while flying (a lot).

In a painting by William Patrick Roberts of a mother and her children looking at parrots in a shop, the macaws and the black cockatoo perch majestically; at the bottom of the painting a cockatoo fools around on a pole, looking right at you.

Helen Sullivan is a Guardian journalist.

Do you have an animal, insect or other subject you feel is worthy of appearing in this very serious column? Email helen.sullivan@theguardian.com

Research has found that several factors have hampered bees’ ability to create honey over the past decade

It’s a question that has bedeviled beekeepers across the US in recent years: where has all the honey gone? Scientists now say they have some answers as to why yields of honey have declined, pointing to environmental degradation that is affecting all sorts of bees, and insects more generally.

The amount of honey produced by honeybee colonies in the US has dropped by around half a pound, on average, per colony in the past decade, US government data shows, even as the number of managed colonies increased slightly.

I have become obsessed from afar with Flaco, an owl who fled a zoo in New York nearly a year ago. Over Christmas, I could no longer resist the urge to track him down

I often wonder why birds speak so universally to the sagging middle-aged soul that it has become a comic trope – the vertiginously swift passage from: “Is that a robin?” to: “There’s a lesser yellowleg two hours’ drive away, start the car.”

Is it the freedom they represent? No cholesterol, no mortgage, no self-assessment tax deadline to worry about? Or a sense of wonder in the everyday miracle of their existence, induced by an awareness of mortality? Whatever it is, I am in deep: disposable income frittered on fat balls; constantly snooping on feathery goings-on in the garden; home decor reminiscent of the Portlandia “put a bird on it” sketch.

Environmentalists condemn news of higher forecast production which is also seen as a conservative forecast

Azerbaijan, which is hosting this year’s UN climate talks, plans to increase its fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade, according to an analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian.

The forecast indicates the Cop29 host will grow its annual gas production by about 12bn cubic metres (bcm) over the next 10 years, which is considered a crucial period in which global leaders must cut fossil fuel production if they hope to limit global heating.

Environment minister says ‘large areas of [wetland] will be destroyed or substantially modified’ by the proposal for windfarm development

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Tanya Plibersek has blocked plans by the Victorian government to build a plant to assemble wind turbines for offshore windfarms because of “clearly unacceptable” impacts on internationally important wetlands.

Plans to build the terminal at the Port of Hastings – seen as critical for the state’s strategy to develop an offshore wind industry – included dredging up to 92 hectares (227 acres) of the Western Port Ramsar wetland and reclaiming 29 hectares of seabed.

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