The Guardian
The great dismantling of America's national parks is under way | Jonathan B Jarvis and Destry Jarvis
In this waking nightmare, the Trump administration has filled the parks department with anti-public land sycophants
- We’re expanding our public lands project this year. Help us raise $1.5m to support our groundbreaking reporting on the environment and much more in 2020.
Under this administration, nothing is sacred as we watch the nation’s crown jewels being recut for the rings of robber barons.
For more than 100 years, professional management of our national parks has been respected under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Yes, they have different priorities, the Democrats often expanding the system and the Republicans historically focused on building facilities in the parks for expanding visitation. But the career public servants of the National Park Service (NPS), charged with stewarding America’s most important places, such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and the Statue of Liberty, were left to do their jobs.
Continue reading...America's public lands are in danger – and in 2020 we'll report from the frontlines
Amid mounting threats posed by privatization, energy extraction and climate change, we’re devoting new resources to our public lands journalism
Public lands are facing threats like never before. Seasoned superintendents have been shuffled around the country to force their retirement. Ancient cacti are being plowed up to make way for a border wall. Mention of climate change has been suppressed.
These attacks are outlined by none other than Jon Jarvis, the head of the National Park Service under Barack Obama, in a Guardian op-ed co-authored with his brother, Destry. “These are not random actions,” the Jarvises conclude. “This is a systematic dismantling of a beloved institution.”
Continue reading...Cashmere country: the perils of making the world's finest fabric
In the freezing and windswept Changthang Plateau, nestled between the Himalayas and the Karakoram mountains, traditional goat herders practise an arduous and dying trade
At an altitude of 5,100m (17,000ft), where winter temperatures can fall to -40C, it is hard to believe anyone or anything can survive. The vast ice desert of the Changthang plateau, situated between the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges, is the highest permanently inhabited plateau in the world and home to an extremely hardy and rare breed of goat: the Changra.
The altitude, freezing temperatures and harsh bitter winds in this unforgiving mountainous region stimulate the growth of the goats’ supersoft undercoat. The fibres measure a mere 8-10 microns in width, making it about 10 times finer than human hair and eight times warmer than sheep wool. This luxurious fibre is known the world over as pashmina, the softest and most expensive type of cashmere wool in the world.
Continue reading...Blair attacks nuclear power privatisation - archive, 10 January 1985
10 January 1989: As well as cost, Labour’s energy spokesman warns about the risk of nuclear accidents
Tony Blair, Labour’s energy spokesman, yesterday launched a new assault against the flotation of the electricity industry by declaring that the sale of nuclear power will be “the most expensive mistake in the history of privatisation”.
Speaking on the eve of the Electricity Bill starting its committee stage in parliament and today’s long awaited Department of Energy publication of the ‘licences’, Mr Blair added that the Government faces “a potential bill running into billions of pounds”.
Continue reading...Fire in the sky: Mallacoota's horrific New Year's Eve through the eyes of a local – in pictures
Photographer and resident of Mallacoota Rachael Mounsey has documented the horrors of the fire that hit Mallacoota on New Year’s Eve, destroying an estimated 100 houses. People were forced to seek refuge on the beach and holidaymakers were told to get in the water if the raging fires got too close. Later the navy would organise mass evacuations. Mounsey sent her children to safety but chose to stay behind and document the plight of the town and its people
Continue reading...Grass growing around Mount Everest as global heating intensifies
Impact of increase in shrubs and grasses not yet known but scientists say it could increase flooding in the region
Shrubs and grasses are springing up around Mount Everest and across the Himalayas, one of the most rapidly heating regions of the planet.
Related: 1.9 billion people at risk from mountain water shortages, study shows
Continue reading...BlackRock joins pressure group taking on biggest polluters
World’s largest investor signs up to Climate Action 100+ after criticism from activists
BlackRock, the world’s largest investor, has joined an influential pressure group calling for the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions, after criticisms that it was undermining action addressing the climate crisis.
The US investment firm has signed up to Climate Action 100+, a group of investors managing assets worth more than $35tn (£27tn), that pressures fossil fuel producers and other companies responsible for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions to show how they will reduce carbon dioxide pollution.
Continue reading...Can lab-grown food save the planet? | Letters
It’s encouraging to find agreement across the political divide on the potential of new technologies to combat climate change, reduce animal suffering and supplant massive agricultural subsidies. The Adam Smith Institute recently released a paper on the topic that made many of the same points as George Monbiot (Lab-grown food will end farming – and save the planet, Journal, 8 January).
One overlooked benefit of lab-grown food is that it may help the UK tackle the crisis in housing affordability. As farming is superseded by precision fermentation, the significant amount of land currently used for livestock farming (including parts of the green belt) will be freed up for development in places that people actually want to live.
Continue reading...Flycatchers and fantails: new songbirds discovered on tiny islands
Five species and five subspecies found in Indonesia in the largest discovery of its kind in more than a century
Ten new songbird species and subspecies have been identified on a trio of previously under-explored Indonesian islands in the largest discovery of its kind in more than a century, according to a new study.
Hidden away on the remote Wallacean islands of Taliabu, Peleng and Batudaka, close to where British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed the theory of evolution to Charles Darwin, five new bird species and five subspecies were detected during a six-week expedition to the area, off the coast of Sulawesi.
Continue reading...White House unveils plan for major projects to bypass environmental review
Plan would help Trump administration advance projects held up over global heating concerns such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline
The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled a plan to speed permitting for major infrastructure projects such as oil pipelines, including dropping consideration of their potential impact on the climate crisis.
The plan, released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), would help the administration advance big energy projects such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline that had been tied up over concerns about their effect on global heating.
Continue reading...National Trust to plant 20 million trees in UK over next decade
Plan to cover area 1.5 times size of Manchester is part of goal to achieve net zero emissions
The National Trust is planning to plant 20 million trees over the next decade as part of efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
The organisation made the announcement, which it says will cost £90m-100m, on Thursday to mark its 125th anniversary.
Continue reading...Sidney Holt obituary
Sidney Holt, who has died aged 93, aimed to live long enough to save the great whale species from extinction – something he had been fighting for since being appointed to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1961 to give scientific advice on annual catch limits for each hunted species.
He managed to curtail the slaughter but did not succeed in halting it until 26 December 2018, when the Japanese left the International Whaling Commission and announced they would no longer kill whales in Antarctica, at last guaranteeing the great whale species a sanctuary where their seriously depleted numbers might continue to recover.
Continue reading...UK could put tariffs on food from countries with lower standards
Environment secretary tells farmers WTO rules would allow UK to uphold standards
The UK could introduce tariffs on imports of food from countries with lower food safety and farming standards than the UK, using World Trade Organization rules, the environment secretary has suggested.
“We want to ensure all our food comes from countries that meet our standards,” Theresa Villiers told an audience of farmers on Wednesday. “That is what the powerful tools of the WTO do, they enable us to impose tariffs where we believe products do not meet our high standards.”
Continue reading...'Like sending bees to war': the deadly truth behind your almond-milk obsession
Bees are essential to the functioning of America’s titanic almond industry – and billions are dying in the process
Dennis Arp was feeling optimistic last summer, which is unusual for a beekeeper these days.
Thanks to a record wet spring, his hundreds of hives, scattered across the central Arizona desert, produced a bounty of honey. Arp would have plenty to sell in stores, but more importantly, the bumper harvest would strengthen his bees for their biggest task of the coming year.
Continue reading...Birdwatch: treasured moments as the day, and year, closes
Even on a dull December day my local patch yields snatches of song and glimpses of egrets
A spare hour at dusk, on the last day of work before Christmas, and after a wet month I took the chance for a walk around my local patch. As often happens here, I saw virtually nothing for the first half of the walk: a few blackbirds chinking along the wooded drive, the rooks in the rookery by the car park.
And then, after dusk had fallen, when it was almost too dark to see, it all kicked off. First, two marsh harriers, floating low over the reedbed; then, no fewer than half a dozen great white egrets, each heading purposefully south to roost on the main Avalon Marshes. These elegant birds arrived here from France just a few years ago, enabled by the warming climate to extend their range northwards. Cetti’s warbler, another relatively recent arrival from continental Europe, wren and robin – the three birds that do sing during the winter – all uttered snatches of song. And as darkness fell, the jink and twist and turn of a male sparrowhawk, shooting across the path in front of me before disappearing into the trees.
Continue reading...Scorched earth: the bushfire devastation on Kangaroo Island – in pictures
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT OF DEAD ANIMALS
The once pristine environment of Kangaroo Island, including the Flinders Chase national park, is now a barren burned land after the weekend’s fires. Ecologists have grave fears for the future of many species, and for some the island is their only known habitat
One year to save the planet: a simple guide to fighting the climate crisis in 2020
Veganism might help and it’s always good to avoid flying. But the answer to Earth’s emergency must involve political, collective action – and there are countless ways to get active
The impact of the climate crisis is all too visible. Bushfires have killed more than 20 people in south-eastern Australia and forced thousands more to flee their homes. Floods and storms have left hundreds dead and many more destitute in Argentina, Uruguay, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi. And in the UK, record temperatures were seen last summer and this winter.
Last year, people across the world took to the streets to demand goverments act to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Did you watch and wonder what you could do to help the global climate movement?
Continue reading...Trump administration to overhaul environmental review regulations
Regulations would limit projects that require environmental review and no longer require agencies to weigh climate impacts
The Trump administration is set to unveil new regulations which would limit the types of projects like highways and pipelines that require environmental review and no longer require federal agencies to weigh their climate impacts, sources familiar with the plan said.
The proposed overhaul will update how federal agencies implement the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa), a law meant to ensure the government protects the environment when reviewing or making decisions about major projects, from building roads and bridges, cutting forests, expanding broadband to approving interstate pipelines such as the Keystone XL.
Continue reading...Shutdown of US coal power facilities saved over 26,000 lives, study finds
Shift to gas saved more than 300m tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide levels dropped
The human toll from coal-fired pollution in America has been laid bare by a study that has found more than 26,000 lives were saved in the US in just a decade due to the shift from coal to gas for electricity generation.
Continue reading...Urgent new ‘roadmap to recovery’ could reverse insect apocalypse
Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers and aggressive emission reductions among series of solutions outlined by scientists
The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts.
The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species.
Continue reading...