The Guardian
Leading burger supplier sourced from Amazon farmer using deforested land
Brazilian meat company which has supplied McDonald’s and Burger King bought cattle from farm using deforested land earlier this year, investigation shows
The world’s biggest supplier of burgers sourced meat from a farmer in the Amazon who had been found guilty of using deforested land, say reports, even as new figures reveal the beef industry’s deforestation risks.
Marfrig, a Brazilian meat company that has supplied McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food chains around the world, bought cattle from a farm that had been using deforested land earlier this year, according to a joint investigation by Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Continue reading...Air pollution particles found on foetal side of placentas – study
Research finds black carbon breathed by mothers can cross into unborn children
Air pollution particles have been found on the foetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are directly exposed to the black carbon produced by motor traffic and fuel burning.
The research is the first study to show the placental barrier can be penetrated by particles breathed in by the mother. It found thousands of the tiny particles per cubic millimetre of tissue in every placenta analysed.
Continue reading...South Korea confirms African swine fever outbreak
UK government says it expects disease to arrive within a year as China ditches pork tariffs
South Korea is the latest country to confirm an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF), as the UK government has said it expects the disease to arrive within a year.
In the midst of what has been described as the “largest ever animal disease outbreak”, China announced this week that it was ditching its pork tariffs. China, the largest pork consuming and producing country in the world, has been hit particularly hard by ASF, a disease that is fatal for pigs and extremely contagious.
Continue reading...Wall Street investment giants voting against key climate resolutions
Asset management companies BlackRock Inc and Vanguard have failed to live up to pledge to support climate action at energy firms
Some of Wall Street’s largest asset management companies are failing to live up to commitments to use their voting power to fight the climate crisis, according to a new report.
The report, published on Tuesday by the Washington DC-based Majority Action and the Climate Majority Project, claims that BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6tn under management, and Vanguard, with assets of $5.2tn, have voted overwhelmingly against the key climate resolutions at energy companies, including a resolution at ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting, and at Duke Energy.
Continue reading...Outrage as blue shark is cooked and served at Plymouth Seafood festival
Animal is paraded through town before being chopped up as part of cookery event
Conservationists have criticised an event during a seafood festival in which a shark was paraded through a British port city before being chopped up, cooked and served to onlookers.
The blue shark, a near-threatened species, was hoisted in the air by two men and carried through Plymouth, Devon, before being deposited on a stage where it formed part of a cookery demonstration.
Continue reading...Senate inquiry into Great Barrier Reef seen as bid to discredit Queensland laws
Greens and conservationists warn it will be used by the Liberal National party to attack state Labor environment rules
The Senate has approved a Liberal-backed inquiry into whether farming and poor water quality harm the Great Barrier Reef, interpreted as a bid to debate the claims of the controversial scientist Peter Ridd and discredit Queensland laws to protect the reef.
The Greens and marine conservationists have warned the inquiry – due to report in October 2020 – will be used by the Queensland Liberal National party to attack the state Labor government, which is seeking land management changes and will be up for re-election in the same month.
Continue reading...Bogong moth tracker launched in face of 'unprecedented' collapse in numbers
New website asks Australians to record sightings of insect that is main food source of the mountain pygmy possum
Every spring, 4.4 billion bogong moths migrate up to 1,000km to the alpine regions of Victoria and New South Wales ahead of the summer heat.
But for the past two years, the number of moths that have made the journey to those areas from breeding grounds in Queensland, NSW and western Victoria has crashed to almost undetectable levels and scientists are turning to the community for help.
Continue reading...A fifth of UK fresh food imports from areas at risk of climate chaos, MPs warn
Committee calls for ministers to spell out how supplies can be protected from climate crisis
About a fifth of the fresh food the UK imports comes from areas threatened with climate chaos, putting people’s health and diets at risk, MPs have found.
The environmental audit committee called on ministers to set out a clear plan for how the UK’s food supplies could be protected from the climate emergency and to publish information on how food may be affected by Brexit.
Continue reading...'See you on the street!' Greta Thunberg urges all to join Friday's climate strike – video
'Even though it is slow, the pace is picking up and the debate is shifting,' 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tells a rapturous audience at George Washington University. Thunberg pioneered the Fridays for Future school climate strikes in August last year by staging a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament. The movement has since grown around the world. The next mass protest is on 20 September. 'Activism works', she says, before concluding: 'See you on the street!'
Shetland wages war on trout poachers – archive, 17 September 1957
17 September 1957: As well as commercial poachers, the crofter who wants ‘one for the pot’ is just as likely to be the victim
“Wha’ll gang a poachin’ tae Kergord wi’ me?” is the challenging refrain of a comic song, sung to the tune of Waltzing Matilda, popular at village hall concerts in Shetland. Hear an audience of young Shetlanders taking up this refrain and you may assume that they are no less willing than their forebears to encroach on a laird’s preserves. But times have changed and, like the Cornish pastime of shipwrecking, the Shetland sport of netting the burns joins the list of anti-social nocturnal activities.
Related: Eerie silence falls on Shetland cliffs that once echoed to seabirds’ cries
Continue reading...Amazon deforestation is driven by criminal networks, report finds
Criminals threaten and attack government officials, forest defenders and indigenous people, Human Rights Watch finds
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is a lucrative business largely driven by criminal networks that threaten and attack government officials, forest defenders and indigenous people who try to stop them, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
Rainforest Mafias concludes that Brazil’s failure to police these gangs threatens its abilities to meet its commitments under the Paris climate deal – such as eliminating illegal deforestation by 2030. It was published a week before the UN Climate Action Summit.
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: why slow-motion natural disasters don't make the news
Millions of acres of midwest farmland have been underwater for months in poor rural US areas
Media interest in natural disasters concentrates on events such as hurricanes that happen over a short period in a specific area. Sometimes, though, destructive weather effects build up gradually across a region over many months, like the floods afflicting the American midwest this year.
A blizzard described by the National Weather Service as “of historic proportions” in March added to already deep snow cover. Spring rains rapidly melted the snow and the inundation began. Above-average rainfall has continued through August, and a slow-motion disaster has played out.
Continue reading...This is what climate change looks like in Australia – in pictures
As predictions about the climate crisis increasingly become observations, Australians are witnessing first hand the impacts of more frequent and severe weather events. These images supplied by the Climate Council show the devastating effects on the continent’s ecosystems and unique wildlife. Australia’s ecosystems are already under grave stress from land-clearing, over-harvesting and invasive feral animals and plants; climate change is adding to the litany of woes and proving to be the last straw for some systems and species
Continue reading...Smart energy meter rollout deadline pushed back to 2024
Government decision follows critics saying 2020 deadline had no chance of being met
The government has pushed back the deadline for its £13bn smart energy meter rollout by four years to 2024 after critics said the project had “no realistic prospect” of meeting its deadline.
The government has bowed to pressure to extend the deadline after a damning report from the National Audit Office said households might be forced to pay £500m more than expected after a string of delays affecting the software underpinning the network.
Continue reading...Some farming will always need subsidy | Letter
It is impossible to disagree with the Food and Land Use Coalition report’s findings ($1m a minute global farm subsidies ‘are destroying the world’, 16 September). Yet it would be wrong to dispense with all agricultural support programmes, particularly in the UK. Big changes are needed, but there will always be targeted support to certain sectors and farm types.
First, we do need to support the small-scale, family-based business structure. This is the only way of sustainable farming in the uplands and less productive land areas. All land use requires management, even woodland. This is not poor resource use; it is supporting public benefit from business centres that would otherwise not be financially viable.
Continue reading...David Attenborough to front UK study on biodiversity loss
Broadcaster will act as ambassador for government review into global costs and risks of habitat loss
Sir David Attenborough has agreed to become the public face of a landmark government study into biodiversity loss and its impact on the economy.
The broadcaster and naturalist will act as an ambassador to promote the review around the world as the government attempts to demonstrate its determination to fight the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Legs be having you! How to create a spider-friendly garden
There’s an explosion of the eight-legged creatures in Britain’s gardens due to the warm weather. Here’s why you should welcome them into your outdoor spaces
Where have all these huge spiders in our back gardens come from? It is a question asked a lot at the moment, given the apparent population explosion in recent weeks, and the webs lacing our outdoor spaces. But actually, they’ve been here since early spring. They hatched last autumn, as tiny 1mm spiderlings, from eggs deposited under a silken protective igloo last autumn. At this time of year, they are reaching adult maturity – finally big enough to be noticed.
This year’s warm summer has been kind to spiders, giving them plenty of invertebrate food (mostly flies, but also bees, wasps, butterflies and beetles), and a temperature that speeds up their growth.
Continue reading...About the age of extinction – a Guardian series
Our reporting draws attention to the catastrophic loss of species across the planet and looks at ways to tackle the crisis
This project focuses on biodiversity: the variety of all life on our planet. It highlights the crisis represented by huge losses of animal, insect, bird and plant life around the world, as well as innovations to tackle these losses.
This series is supported, in part, through grants to theguardian.org by the BAND Foundation, a private family foundation established in 1999 to oversee charitable interests through strategic grant making, primarily in nature conservation, epilepsy and climate change, and by the Wyss Foundation, a private foundation founded in 1998 by Hansjörg Wyss that is “dedicated to supporting innovative, lasting solutions that improve lives, empower communities, and strengthen connections to the land”.
Continue reading...Why the UN climate action summit matters
With Trump expected to skip the global meeting, the question will be: can the rest of the world save itself from climate breakdown if the most powerful nation is pulling in the opposite direction?
This story originally appeared in the Nation. It is republished here as part of the Guardian’s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
As world leaders converge on New York City for the United Nations climate action Summit on 23 September, they enter what may be the most consequential week in climate politics since Donald Trump’s surprise election as president of the United States in 2016. Trump, of course, announced soon after taking office that he was withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, the landmark treaty signed at the last big UN climate summit in 2015. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, convened this week’s summit precisely because the US and most other countries remain far from honoring their Paris pledges to reduce heat-trapping emissions enough to prevent catastrophic climate disruption.
Continue reading...'Like a sunburn on your lungs': how does the climate crisis impact health?
Children, pregnant people and the elderly are the most at risk from extreme weather and heat – but the impact is already felt across every specialty of medicine
The climate crisis is making people sicker – worsening illnesses ranging from seasonal allergies to heart and lung disease.
Children, pregnant people and the elderly are the most at risk from extreme weather and rising heat. But the impact of the climate crisis – for patients, doctors and researchers – is already being felt across every specialty of medicine, with worse feared to come.
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