The Guardian
Greta Thunberg in first-class Twitter spat with German rail firm
Deutsche Bahn says activist’s tweet implied she had not been offered a seat on journey home
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been criticised by a German rail firm for what it said was her implication that she had spent a journey without a seat on an overcrowded train.
The teenager tweeted a photograph of herself looking pensively out of the window of her German train on Saturday, writing: “Traveling (sic) on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home.”
Continue reading...Governments must act on public health emergency from bushfire smoke, medical groups say
The 22 groups link the bushfire smoke to climate change, saying lives are being put at risk
Some 22 groups representing health and medical professionals in Australia have issued a joint call to act on a “public health emergency” caused by smoke from the catastrophic bushfire season in New South Wales.
In Sydney and others areas of NSW communities have been exposed to air pollution up to 11 times worse than “hazardous” levels.
Continue reading...The UN climate talks are over for another year – was anything achieved?
A conference marked by squabbling and deferral yielded little progress despite protests
Governments at the UN climate talks in Madrid responded to the growing urgency of the crisis with a partial admission that carbon-cutting targets are too weak, but few concrete plans to strengthen them in line with the Paris agreement.
Two weeks of talks ended on Sunday afternoon with a formal recognition of the need to bridge the gap between greenhouse gas targets set in 2015 in Paris and scientific advice that says much deeper cuts are needed. Current targets would put the world on track for 3C of warming, which scientists say would ravage coastal cities and destroy agriculture over swathes of the globe.
Continue reading...UN climate talks drag on as rifts scupper hopes of breakthrough
Governments including the US, Brazil, Australia and China accused of frustrating negotiations
Global climate talks look set to continue past midnight on Saturday, after a marathon final negotiating session that has been ongoing since Friday without clear resolutions on how to implement the Paris agreement, to the frustration of many countries and the dismay of campaigners.
Some bodies attending the summit – notably the EU – came forward with new long-term goals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but most were content to spend the two weeks of UN talks in Madrid arguing over narrow technical issues, including the details of carbon trading.
Continue reading...Rupert Murdoch says 'no climate change deniers around' – but his writers prove him wrong
Some columnists in News Corp’s papers didn’t get their boss’s message
“There are no climate change deniers around I can assure you,” Rupert Murdoch said last month at News Corp’s annual general meeting.
His declaration that the publisher of the Daily Telegraph, the Australian and owner of Sky News was free of climate deniers was widely greeted with mirth.
Continue reading...'How do you transform an entire economy?' The firm taking on the climate funding problem
Martijn Wilder says more companies are talking about the climate crisis but not moving quickly enough – and his new firm Pollination aims to improve that
A growing number of governments, including of every Australian state, Britain and the European Union, have set targets of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Few have mapped how to get there.
It is a similar story in the corporate sector. Businesses are under increasing pressure from investors and shareholders to back up claims they are committed to the goals of the Paris agreement. Take BHP, one of the world’s 20 big emitters: it has set a mid-century net-zero emissions target but is yet explain how it will reach it, and plans to invest more in oil and gas than climate solutions.
Continue reading...Summer loving: Paul Blackmore captures Australia’s affair with the ocean – in pictures
In his book Heat, the Sydney-based photographer Paul Blackmore pays homage to Australia’s obsession with the coast, exploring the relationship between water, heat and humanity. He documents the pursuit of individual freedom on crowded beaches during sweltering summer days and shoots the sea in its various guises – cool, dark and icy; a powerful force to be reckoned with; a backdrop to foggy Bondi mornings; and a stormy refuge for the wild at heart
• Some of these photographs will be on display at Water, a group exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane from 7 December until 26 April 2020
• Sculpture by the Sea: an inspired stroll along Sydney’s coastline – in pictures
Continue reading...Tasmania's flowering giants: 'We will never see such trees again'
Many of Tasmania’s giant trees suffered in the summer fires of 2019 and now lie in ruins
In Australia’s island state of Tasmania, many of the world’s biggest flowering trees lie in ruins after this year’s bushfires.
The Arve Giant, a eucalyptus regnans (“king of the eucalypts”), had attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors in recent decades, but it succumbed in January.
Adventure photographer Steve Pearce recently photographed the collapsed giant. Before its fall, it was a contender for the world’s biggest flowering tree by volume at 360 cubic metres, which is roughly the equivalent volume of three Boeing 737-300s. “This tree was 87 metres tall. It had a circumference of 17.2 metres. Now it is just a crumpled mess,” said Pearce.
The world’s biggest and tallest trees are the softwood redwood trees of California. This year a 100.7-metre (Yellow meranti) flowering giant was discovered in the Borneo rainforests, topping the tallest of Tasmania’s trees by just 20cm.
Related: Almost a quarter of eucalypt trees found to be threatened with extinction
Continue reading...Experts raise new fears about killer air pollution in UK
The UK’s failure to meet World Health Organisation standards limiting the amount of ultra-fine particles in the air represents a major danger to health that is only now being recognised, experts claim.
Studies published this year link the particles to cancers, lung and heart disease, adverse effects on foetal development, and poor lung and brain development in children. They are considered a key threat to health because they go deep into the lungs and then reach other organs, including the brain. But European standards allow the levels of particles in the air to be 2.5 times higher than those stipulated by the WHO.
Continue reading...Indigenous boy, 15, murdered on Brazil's Amazon border
Erisvan Soares Guajajara’s body was found with knife wounds in Maranhão region
A 15-year-old indigenous boy has been murdered in Brazil on the edge of a heavily-deforested indigenous reserve in the state of Maranhão, on the fringes of the Amazon.
The murder, the fourth from the Guajajara tribe in recent weeks, came as a wave of racist abuse against indigenous people swept social media in the state.
Continue reading...Green groups urge Boris Johnson to act on climate
Green party improves on 2017 vote and campaigners say weight of responsibility now rests on Tories
The new Conservative government must urgently bring forward plans to fulfil its pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 or risk losing the fight against climate breakdown, green campaigners have urged.
Rebecca Newsom, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said the Tory manifesto was “full of holes” on the environment and had been judged inadequate by green groups, and people would expect swift action.
Continue reading...Michelle Obama sends Greta Thunberg message of support after Trump tweet
Former first lady told climate activist ‘don’t let anyone dim your light’ after Trump said teen had an ‘anger management problem’
Michelle Obama has sent a public message of support to the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg after the teenager was mocked by Donald Trump.
“@GretaThunberg, Don’t let anyone dim your light,” the former first lady wrote following a visit to Vietnam. “Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all. Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”
Continue reading...Harvest mice found thriving 15 years after reintroduction efforts
Volunteers find nests made by descendants of creatures released by student in 2004
As an idealistic PhD student, Wendy Fail’s ambition was to reintroduce harvest mice to Northumberland. She painstakingly bred 240 mice in captivity and in 2004 released the elusive mammals on to a coastal nature reserve with plenty of reedbeds for them to hide in.
When not a single harvest mouse – Britain’s smallest rodent – was recaptured in subsequent trap surveys, Fail concluded that her efforts to reintroduce them had been unsuccessful.
Continue reading...European Green Deal to press ahead despite Polish targets opt-out
Poland opts out of 2050 net-zero emissions after hours of wrangling over timetables and money
European Union leaders have vowed to press on with a major economic plan to confront the climate emergency, despite Poland’s opt-out from a net-zero emissions target by 2050.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told journalists he had secured an exemption for Poland on the 2050 target, which is meant to become the legally binding centrepiece of the “European Green Deal” , a plan to transform Europe’s economy announced two days ago.
Continue reading...What became of the great Pacific pumice raft?
It captured the world’s imagination when it appeared in the middle of the ocean – but where did it come from, and where is it going?
It floated into the collective consciousness in August, twice the size of Manhattan and probably powerful enough to exfoliate the feet of the entire world. The giant Pacific Ocean pumice raft was as mysterious as it was vast.
The world only knew of its existence thanks to Michael Hoult and Larissa Brill, two Australians who sailed into it while travelling by catamaran to Fiji. Photographs they took showed a mass of grey stretching as far as the eye could see.
Continue reading...'I couldn't prise its jaws open': the woman who fought a mountain lion to save her dog
Ilene Dondlinger of California says she does not want the big cat killed, despite its fatal attack on her miniature schnauzer
When Ilene Dondlinger jumped on the mountain lion attacking her miniature schnauzer in the early hours of 5 December, she reacted without thinking. The 54-year-old wrestled with the big cat in her backyard, desperately trying to open its jaws to save her beloved dog Pumba. But there was nothing she could do.
“I couldn’t prise its jaws open, no matter what I did,” Dondlinger said, detailing how she punched, kicked and jumped on the big cat, even putting her knee to its throat in desperation.
Continue reading...Australia's bushfires have emitted 250m tonnes of CO2, almost half of country's annual emissions
Exclusive: forest regrowth can reabsorb emissions from fires but scientists fear natural carbon ‘sinks’ have been compromised
Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period.
Continue reading...Activists protest at ‘sidelining of social justice’ at UN climate talks
Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard
Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.
Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.
Continue reading...Climate crisis leaves us with real choices to make | Letters
Joyce Quin is right to draw attention to the links between trade agreements and responding to the climate crisis (Letters, 7 December). But the link goes way beyond the advantages of trading closer rather than more distantly.
As the climate emergency grows more serious, the world’s nations will at last start having to make real choices about whether to respond seriously to the challenge. Those that do will be faced with the urgent dilemma of how to deal with those that don’t.
Continue reading...Bushfires and drought leave NSW town of Tenterfield without clean water for 72 days
Turbidity levels in the Tenterfield dam have been measured at 60 times the World Health Organisation’s limits
For 72 days, but who is counting, residents of the New South Wales town of Tenterfield have been told to boil their drinking water.
Straight from the tap it reeks of bushfire smoke and heavy doses of chlorine. The community’s filtration system, built in 1932, cannot cope effectively with turbidity levels in the Tenterfield dam that have recently been measured at 60 times the World Health Organisation’s limits. The town’s swimming pool has been closed indefinitely through weeks of extreme heat.
Continue reading...