The Guardian

Australia’s agricultural production will fall and food insecurity will rise without a climate strategy, report warns

Nationals MPs have snubbed a farmers’ group launching a major climate change report that warns the Australian agricultural sector faces “significant threats to viability” without a new national climate strategy.

The report, launched by the Farmers for Climate Action group at Parliament House on Monday, warns that agricultural production will fall, farm profits will decline and food insecurity will increase if the government does not come up with a cohesive national strategy on climate change and agriculture.

‘Perverse’ payments must be redirected to measures such as capturing carbon, report says

The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report.

Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser.

Eight years after the triple disaster, Japan’s local industry faces fresh crisis – the dumping of radioactive water from the power plant

On the afternoon of 11 March 2011, Tetsu Nozaki watched helplessly as a wall of water crashed into his boats in Onahama, a small fishing port on Japan’s Pacific coast.

Nozaki lost three of his seven vessels in one of the worst tsunami disasters in Japan’s history, part of a triple disaster in which 18,000 people died. But the torment for Nozaki and his fellow fishermen didn’t end there. The resulting triple meltdown at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 people and sent a plume of radiation into the air and sea.

Fiona Harvey is surely right when she says “adaptation alone won’t save us from climate disaster” (Journal, 12 September). She gives an apt metaphor that adaptation “while continuing to burn fossil fuels is like trying to mop up an overflowing sink while the taps are still running”, but she still talks of mechanisms for “better economic growth”.

Political leaders worldwide need to recognise the causal connection between economic growth and global heating, manifest in fossil fuel consumption. To save the planet, fossil fuels need to stay underground – unused by the greed of humankind. Our energy must come from wind, wave, hydraulic and solar sources, but this will be insufficient to maintain many of our industries and, consequently, many jobs will be lost.

The Guardian’s comic artist Susie Cagle draws some conclusions from a major CBS News poll released today as part of Covering Climate Now

• Read the full poll results: ‘Americans are waking up’

CBS News surveyed a representative sample of more than 2,000 Americans earlier this month and found that…

Major CBS News poll released as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of more than 250 news outlets around the world to strengthen coverage of the climate story

Two-thirds of Americans believe climate change is either a crisis or a serious problem, with a majority wanting immediate action to address global heating and its damaging consequences, major new polling has found.

The Guardian joins The Nation and Columbia Journalism Review in launching a new partnership among more than 200 news organizations to improve coverage of the climate crisis.

Hundreds of newsrooms around the world are banding together this week to commit their pages and air time to what may be the most consequential story of our time: the climate emergency.

As world leaders descend on New York for the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September – and millions of activists prepare for a global climate strike on 20 September – the media partnership Covering Climate Now is launching its first large-scale collaboration to increase climate coverage in the global media and focus public attention on this emergency.

An IPCC report says two-thirds of glaciers on the largest ice sheet after the Arctic and Antarctic are set to disappear in 80 years

Many moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.

However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behaviour, including an inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable.

In 1991, 17-year-old Alex Lockwood was flipping through the Guardian Weekend magazine in his family’s car, en route to a family Sunday roast, when he spotted an image that changed his life. A harpooned whale, its body bloodied and lifeless, drew him to a feature about its killing.

“That picture just shook me; it seemed so wrong. When I got to my nan’s house it hit me that the roast on the table was an animal that had also been killed.” He became vegetarian, then vegan, and nearly three decades later is one of the founding members of Extinction Rebellion’s new sister organisation, Animal Rebellion, which formed in June and plans to blockade London’s Smithfield Market – Britain’s largest meat distribution market – in October.

Tuberculosis levels in cattle have risen in the original two areas of the country where the badger cull has been piloted over the past five years, raising questions about the merit of expanding the scheme.

The figures are confirmed in official data quietly released last week as the government announced plans to expand the controversial cull in England, which campaigners say could see more than 60,000 badgers killed this year.

Environmental organizations say ‘very concerning’ move could open floodgates for importing other endangered species

The Trump administration has authorized a Florida man to bring back the “skin, skull, teeth and claws” of a lion he hunted in Tanzania, granting the first permit to import a lion from that country since the species gained protection under the US Endangered Species Act.

Environmental organizations say the move could open the floodgates for importing other endangered species like lions and rhinos. A freedom of information request made public by the US Fish and Wildlife Services also revealed that the hunter, Carl Atkinson, was represented by lawyer John Jackson III, who is also a member of the Trump administration’s International Wildlife Conservation Council, a controversial advisory board that promotes trophy hunting.

Fish play a big role in the lives of people in Melanesia; coastal fisheries are not just a source of food and income, they are also central to cultural identity. The Wan Smolbag Theatre Company, from Vanuatu, travels to small fishing villages and performs a play called Twist mo Spin, which tells villagers about the challenges fisheries face across the region and about sustainable fishing

Organisers expect a stronger presence from unions, workers and companies as student activists reach out to adults

Thousands of Australian school students are again preparing to walk out of classrooms across the country to demand action on the climate crisis.

The global mass day of action will take place on Friday 20 September, three days before the United Nations climate summit in New York.

Group said that Roger Hallam had been apprehended for the second time in three days

One of Extinction Rebellion’s co-founders has been arrested for the second time in three days after trying to fly a drone near Heathrow Airport during an environmental protest, the group said.

Roger Hallam was detained on Saturday while attempting to disrupt flights at Britain’s busiest airport with the device.

• Bird apprehended after brief chase on US 99 near Fresno
• Officers unsure if escapee came from farm or moving vehicle

Authorities in California captured an emu which led officers on a chase down a highway.

The Fresno Bee reported on Friday that the bird was apprehended following a brief pursuit by officers with the California highway patrol.

The climate protesters had promised to shut down the Princes Bridge near Flinders Street station from midday

Climate protesters have blockaded a bridge in central Melbourne with police moving in and arresting multiple people.

Organisers from the Extinction Rebellion movement promised to shut down the Princes Bridge near Flinders Street station from midday.

The photography competition is a global, online and free-to-enter showcase of light-hearted images of the Earth’s most amazing wildlife. It aims to highlight the importance of wildlife conservation, working with its partner the Born Free Foundation

Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory

Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.

The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.

Most major players, including China, remain committed to the Paris process in a way Australia apparently is not

On one level it appeared just another week in Australian climate politics. A ridiculous statement by a government minister made headlines; the crossbench pushed for stronger action; the prime minister’s office quietly suggested he may not fulfil the next step of the Paris agreement, a deal he has repeatedly promised voters he would honour.

Meanwhile, much of the media coverage of climate policy focused on what the opposition might do if it wins power in three years’ time.

Young activists rallied in protest of inadequate government action on the climate crisis, chanting: ‘Protect our future’

• Thunberg joins young activists in climate protest – live updates

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – who has inspired young people around the world to strike in protest of inadequate government action on the crisis – accompanied her American counterparts in the youth climate movement at a rally near Donald Trump’s White House on Friday.

Thunberg quietly joined near the edge of the group, whispering along with chants and shaking her head when thanked by other advocates.