The Guardian

Focus should shift to renewables to avoid risk of being stranded with fossil fuel infrastructure, AMWU national secretary says

A member of a government Covid-19 recovery taskforce has rejected the overwhelming focus on gas as the path out of recession, saying the country risked ending up with stranded fossil fuel infrastructure and should be doing more to back renewable energy.

Paul Bastian, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and a member of a manufacturing taskforce advising the federal government’s handpicked National Covid-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC), said gas had a significant role to play, but the importance of cheap clean energy in cutting costs for industry had barely featured in public discussion when it should be “front and centre”.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including ibises on the Nile and a vermilion flycatcher

A survey of 11 remote western locations found the fragments had traveled through the atmosphere like rain or water particles

Microplastic particles equivalent to as many as 300m plastic water bottles are raining down on the Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree and other US national parks, researchers have found.

In a survey of 11 remote western locations, also including the Great Basin and Craters of the Moon national parks, researchers discovered more than 1,000 tons of microplastic particles that had traveled through the atmosphere like rain or water particles.

AXA, Liberty Mutual and HDI will not provide future policies to the Carmichael coalmine after previous cover expires

Three major insurance groups that provided cover for parts of the Adani coal project in Queensland have said they will not provide future policies to the project.

AXA XL, Liberty Mutual and HDI have told Guardian Australia they will not have any further involvement in the project after previously providing insurance cover that has now expired.

Busier roads to blame, with fears of worse to come as workers shun public transport

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Carbon dioxide emissions have rebounded around the world as lockdown conditions have eased, raising fears that the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could surge higher than ever after the coronavirus pandemic unless governments take swift action.

Emissions fell by a quarter when the lockdowns were at their peak, and in early April global daily carbon dioxide emissions were still down by 17% compared with the average figure for 2019, research published last month in the journal Nature Climate Change found.

Reactions to the announcement by eccentric millionaire Forrest Fenn that his hoard had been found range from surprise to delight and dismay

Treasure hunters have reacted with shock, delight and dismay to the news that a chest containing gems, gold and antiques worth up to $2m has been found in the Rocky Mountains.

“I’ve had every emotion under the sun,” said Sacha Dent of Kansas City, who dedicated years to a quest that resulted in the deaths of up to five people.

From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean

World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.

Vast vessels spent almost 3,000 hours fishing in officially protected areas in 2019

Supertrawlers spent almost 3,000 hours fishing in UK marine protected areas in 2019, making “a mockery of the word ‘protected’,” according to campaigners.

Supertrawlers are those over 100 metres in length and can catch hundreds of tonnes of fish every day, using nets up to a mile long. A Greenpeace investigation revealed that the 25 supertrawlers included the four biggest in the world and fished in 39 different marine protected areas (MPAs).

More than 21,000 tonnes of fuel was released when a fuel reservoir collapsed last month

Officials in Siberia have warned that it will take years to clean up a massive fuel spill in the Arctic Circle, as investigators detained three employees of a power plant where the disaster originated.

More than 21,000 tonnes of fuel was released when a fuel reservoir collapsed last month at a power plant operated by a subsidiary of metals giant Norilsk Nickel in the city of Norilsk.

Environmental groups say Australian government is violating legal obligations to protect reef from global heating and UN committee should hold it to account

Environmental law groups in the US and Australia are pushing Unesco to place the world heritage status of the Great Barrier Reef on an “in danger” list, arguing the Morrison government has violated legal obligations by not doing all it could to protect the natural wonder.

Earthjustice, based in San Francisco, and Environmental Justice Australia say the federal government is failing to live up to an obligation under the World Heritage Convention that member countries do all they can, including dedicating “the utmost” of their resources, to protect and conserve protected sites.

With slaughterhouse capacity in crisis due to Covid-19, one farmer believes he has developed a more humane way of ‘depopulating’ animals

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As traumatised US farmers continue to cull their animals in response to the slaughterhouse crisis, an Iowan pig producer has developed an on-farm method which he believes is quicker and more humane than other available options.

The coronavirus crisis has hit US meat plants particularly hard. As a result there is a lack of slaughter capacity, and farmers are being forced to cull or “depopulate” their animals on-farm. 

Researchers have pioneered a new way of calculating the large green sea turtle population on Raine Island in the Great Barrier Reef. Using drones and a stripe of white paint on the back of adult turtles, the researchers from the Raine Island Recovery Project estimated there were 64,000 endangered green turtles at the Raine Island rookery. The new count shows there may be 1.73 times the number of turtles previously believed and they have now been able to adjust historical data to paint a more accurate picture of the area’s endangered green turtle population

Since 2014, entomologists have sampled millions of insects around the city, identifying 800 species, including 47 new to science. The most striking of Los Angeles’ miniature inhabitants are showcased in an online exhibition of photographs taken using a special digital microscope

• All photographs by Lisa Gonzalez

Falcon, built for agility and rapid response, can pursue insects in flight

Sometimes, a bird doesn’t just appear in your field of view, but forces itself instantly into your consciousness. So, as soon as I noticed a movement in the skies outside my office window, I instantly knew that it was something special. And it was: a hobby, scything through the warm spring air like a swift on steroids.

The hobby is to a kestrel what a Ferrari is to a Ford: the same basic blueprint, but honed into a high-speed version, built for agility and rapid response. Hobbies don’t pursue earthbound mice and voles, but aerial insects such as dragonflies, which are pretty fast flyers themselves. Indeed, the name of this slender falcon comes from a medieval French verb meaning “to dart about”.

The pandemic is an opportunity to tackle the climate emergency by creating productive green jobs for those made redundant by the crisis

Britain needs a green job-filled recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Unlike Germany and South Korea, it is far from clear that we will get one. While Berlin and Seoul are retooling their fossil fuel-reliant economies to be greener and cleaner, the UK has yet to announce a policy that deals with the environmental emergency and the spectre of mass unemployment.

Unless a vaccine for coronavirus is found soon, Britain faces a surge in joblessness at the end of October, when all forms of wage support stop. The size of this spike in unemployment will determine how long it is before we may return to normal. Currently, 12 million people are covered by the job retention scheme for furloughed workers and its equivalent for the self-employed. There are few takers for the idea that there will be a sharp bounce-back to business as usual.

Business, charity and trade body leaders urge Johnson to tackle inequality and climate crisis

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The bosses of Unilever, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland are among 150 business, charity and trade body leaders urging Boris Johnson to put UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the centre of the UK’s Covid-19 recovery plans.

In a letter addressed to the prime minister, they called on the UK government to view the crisis as an “opportunity” to tackle looming problems including inequality and the climate crisis.

Campaigners hope the move will help end global trade in the scaly anteater, identified as a possible host for Covid-19

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Pangolin scales have been removed from an official 2020 listing of ingredients approved for use in traditional Chinese medicine in a move lauded by animal protection groups as a key step in stamping out trade in the scaly anteater, the world’s most trafficked mammal.

As many as 200,000 pangolins are consumed each year in Asia for their scales and meat and more than 130 tonnes of scales, live and dead animals were seized in cross-border trafficking busts last year, a figure estimated to represent up to 400,000 animals, according to conservation group WildAid.

We could create a virtuous circle of investment and cost savings, alongside warmer, healthier homes

Right now, we are choosing the course of our economic recovery. We can choose to stimulate the economy in the short term, make huge progress on climate and take care of vulnerable people.

Last week’s homebuilder policy was a blunder, leaving too many benefits on the table, and handing out budget treats to the wrong people and projects.

A glut of discarded single-use masks and gloves is washing up on shorelines and littering the seabed

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Conservationists have warned that the coronavirus pandemic could spark a surge in ocean pollution – adding to a glut of plastic waste that already threatens marine life – after finding disposable masks floating like jellyfish and waterlogged latex gloves scattered across seabeds.

The French non-profit Opération Mer Propre, whose activities include regularly picking up litter along the Côte d’Azur, began sounding the alarm late last month.

Research shows how supply chains around world have been disrupted by pandemic

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Small fishing boats, fish markets and female workers are among the categories worst affected by the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis on the world’s fisheries, research has found.

Supply chains around the world have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and artisanal fishing – small boats – has borne the brunt, according to the annual report on fisheries by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). While industrial fishing fell only by about 6.5% in April, a large proportion of small vessels around the world have been in effect confined to port, and their markets are uncertain.