The Guardian

Conservationists say climate change threat must be addressed to avoid reef’s inclusion on ‘in-danger’ list

Conservationists say an official government report to the UN’s world heritage committee to be released next week must show Australia has fresh plans to attack the Great Barrier Reef’s two key threats – climate change and water quality.

At a forum earlier this month environment ministers signed-off on the “state of conservation” report for the reef,which was then sent to Unesco’s world heritage committee.

‘They survived all this, they deserve a nice old age,’ says head of rescue team

A comfortable retirement to an all-you-can-eat grassy field seems the least that the 250 surviving sheep from the Queen Hind disaster in the Black Sea deserve. But there is still some debate over their fate, according to animal campaign groups working in Romania.

More than 14,600 sheep were on the ship, heading to Saudi Arabia on a busy animal export route, when it overturned coming out of the harbour on Sunday afternoon. All of the crew got away safely, but most of the animals are now believed to be dead.

The climate crisis is affecting people and wildlife across the UK, and WWF is urging political parties to respond

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. More than 1,000 British species are at risk of extinction. Polls have repeatedly shown that while the British public may be divided on Brexit, we are united by our love of nature and concern about climate. The charity WWF is urging UK political parties to respond to the nature and climate crisis by committing to bold policies and investment to make the UK the first major economy to halt its contribution to climate change, put nature on a path to recovery and stop deforestation in food supply chains. It says the UK must pioneer an economic and financial system that works for people and planet and drive global ambition to respond to the climate emergency.

Staff at Mossgiel farm hope to promote a more sustainable model of dairy farming, including delivering milk in reusable glass bottles

Lying in a field of grass among his herd of dairy cows, Ayrshire farmer Bryce Cunningham picks up and pretends to throw away a plastic carton of milk. This is what we want to get rid of on our farm, he says in a promotional video, as he explains his quest to become the UK’s first single-use plastic-free milk producer.

After raising more than £10,000 from a crowdfunding campaign, he’s managed to replace single-use plastic cartons with 32,000 glass bottles adorned with the face of Robert Burns – who’s said to have once worked on the farmland – which he is able to wash and reuse.

There are, of course, other farms selling milk in glass bottles, but Bryce is now also eliminating single-use plastics from feed, chemicals and other inputs bought onto the farm, as well as finding alternatives to plastic silage wraps used to store fodder for feeding the cows over the winter.

As well as buying glass bottles, he refurbished a milk bottling machine dating back to the 1960s from a local dairy farm that had been left unused after the owner had left dairying.

The milk from Bryce’s 55-cow herd, along with milk from two other organic farms that supply him, goes out to around 8–10,000 people in glass bottles across Scotland.

Jeremy Corbyn announced plans to create 10 national parks under a Labour government and plant 2bn trees by 2040 to help tackle the climate crisis. 

Speaking in Southampton to a crowd that included climate strikers, the party leader said: ‘We are living in the jaws of a climate and environment emergency. We cannot afford more wasted years of Conservative inaction from a government bought and paid for by the big polluters and the billionaires'

Dams have fuelled decline in fish populations, says chief executive of RiverWatch

Europe’s last free-flowing rivers could be fatally disrupted if a new generation of hydroelectric dams are built, experts have warned.

More than a quarter (28%) of new hydropower plants are to be constructed in nature reserves, with many planned in the Balkans, home to some of Europe’s last free-flowing rivers.

Genetic modification, banned in Europe, could have ‘great potential promise’

Gene-modifying techniques could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, helping to feed the world while combating the climate emergency, scientists have said.

“Conventional [genetic] selection is extremely powerful,” said Mike Coffey, a professor of livestock informatics at Scotland’s Rural College. “At this point in time, GM [genetic modification] is not allowed in Europe, but some of these technologies could have great potential promise.”

Calls for ban or higher prices as sales jump to 1.5bn, equivalent to 54 bags per household

Plastic “bags for life” should be banned or raised in price, campaigners say, as new figures reveal a surge in the bags is fuelling a rise in the plastic packaging footprint of leading supermarkets.

Despite high profile promises by the country’s best known supermarkets to tackle the amount of plastic waste they create, their plastic footprint continues to rise, according to research from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Greenpeace.

The crisis is in the spotlight now more than ever, so we consulted experts on how they navigate climate discussions those who see the world differently

The climate crisis is in the spotlight more than ever before. And that means it will probably come up at family events over the holidays.

The daily stream of climate news is unavoidable. Scientists are issuing warnings about the dangerous trajectory of rising temperatures. Weather disasters are increasingly being linked to human-caused changes to the climate. And national-level Democrats are making the climate disruption a top campaign issue.

Charity says findings underline need for deposit return scheme for plastic and glass bottles

Findings from a national beach cleanup underline the urgent need for a comprehensive deposit return scheme to stem the tide of plastic and glass bottles and cans littering the UK’s coastlines, a marine charity has said.

During four days of beach cleaning in September, volunteers logged more than 16,000 drinks containers of various kinds, the Marine Conservation Society said.

Results chime with earlier review indicating almost every cell in the body may be affected by dirty air

The number of health problems linked to air pollution could be far higher than previously thought, according to research suggesting hospital admissions for conditions ranging from heart failure to urinary tract infections increase as air becomes dirtier.

Air pollution has already been associated with a number of conditions, from strokes to brain cancer, miscarriage and mental health problems.

The Moorland Association’s Amanda Anderson (Letters, 26 November) has nowhere to hide among the heather, like the grouse her association protects for the purpose of shooting. Her plea for moor burning is spin: her association is a protective body for the shooting class, and the moors must be protected as their playground. But the moors need trees, shrubs and more ecological variety, not huge fires, autumn closures and the desert-like emptiness that comes with preserving a monoculture for the rich to satisfy their bloodlust.

I live among this and my feeling as I walk or run on the moors is of fear, not wild freedom. The moor burning is horrific every year, the shooting establishment and landowners seem ever more powerful, and the pseudo-green spin is deeply sinister.
Catherine Francis
Burley in Wharfedale, West Yorkshire

Warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events

The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.

Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.

Decision may prompt those detained in October protests to sue for wrongful arrest

More than 100 Extinction Rebellion protesters have had charges against them dropped after the ban forbidding protest in London last month was ruled unlawful.

The Crown Prosecution Service decision will affect about 105 cases immediately, mostly those involving defendants facing trial for allegedly breaching section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act.

The restoration of the Flow Country peatlands has created a vital carbon sink and a thriving habitat for a range of species

The bog at Forsinard stretches to the horizon, a vast mosaic of greens and browns. The tallest plants here grow only ankle high, but even so, walking requires careful attention. Hummocks covered in heather (Calluna vulgaris) or cotton grass (Eriophorum spp.) offer lumpy but secure footing. Soggy patches of sphagnum moss are less predictable.

These bogs, in northern Scotland’s Flow Country, are deceptive in more ways than one. Beneath the moss and the heather and the sedge lies one of the planet’s largest surviving expanses of peat – a nutrient-poor, carbon-dense mass of partly decayed organic matter. But here lies the peatland’s hidden strength: a prodigious ability to lock away carbon, making it an important resource in the fight against climate change.

Only 9% of plastics get recycled, and significant reductions will require systemic change – but there are easy tips for individuals to cut back

As plastics corporations ramp up production, they are also promoting a failing recycling system.

Just 9% of plastics get recycled. Traditional plastics are made from extracted oil and gas, and they contribute to the rising temperatures behind the climate crisis.

WaterNSW briefing to New South Wales cabinet said Sydney’s storages could be at ‘emergency levels’ by next May

The New South Wales government was advised six months ago that Sydney’s water storage levels could be at “emergency levels” by May next year unless it started planning immediately.

A cabinet-in-confidence document prepared by state-owned agency WaterNSW warns that storage levels could fall to 40% by Christmas and were likely to reach what are considered emergency levels – about 35% and declining – by mid-next year if the coming summer is hot and dry.

Bottlenose dolphins found to have an even stronger right-side bias than humans

Dolphins, like humans, have a dominant right-hand side, according to research.

About 90% of humans are right-handed but we are not the only animals that show such preferences: gorillas tend to be right-handed, kangaroos are generally southpaws, and even cats have preferences for a particular side – although which is favoured appears to depend on their sex.

Habitat of creature, sometimes known as Scotch halibut or woof in chip shops, has been depleted by trawling

In the north of England, Atlantic wolffish, Anarhichas lupus, is offered as fillets in fish and chip shops where it might be called Scotch halibut, Scarborough woof or simply woof. You are unlikely to have seen it whole since the fish has large teeth and an off-putting ferocious appearance that accounts for its common name. It can grow 1.5 metres (5ft) long. Its powerful jaws are used for crunching up shellfish, sea urchins and starfish. Despite the fearsome appearance wolffish are shy and will hide if approached by divers.

Unusually for fish, both male and female are conscientious parents, spending months guarding the patch of seabed containing their eggs against predators.

A coral reef restoration project on a tiny island off Kenya’s south-east coast is reaping dividends for local people

Three years ago, coral reef along the Kenyan coastline was almost totally destroyed in some areas. Rising surface sea temperatures had triggered devastating bleaching episodes for the fourth time in less than two decades, and with the whitening of coral came a dwindling of marine life. Overfishing only exacerbated the problem.

For coastal communities dependent on the sea for their livelihoods, the degradation of the coral reef and its effect on the marine ecosystem threatened to overturn an entire way of life. In some areas surveyed by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), as much as 60-90% of coral was destroyed.