The Guardian
Plastic, poverty and paradox: experts head to the Ganges to track waste
India’s most sacred river is also its most polluted, with plastic a major culprit. Now moves are afoot to monitor the flow of rubbish and assess its link to poverty
Drop a plastic bottle into the Ganges and where does it end up? An all-female team of engineers, explorers and scientists is about to find out by undertaking the first expedition to measure plastic waste in one of the world’s most polluted waterways.
Following the Ganges upstream from where it empties in the Bay of Bengal to its source in the Himalayas, the National Geographic-backed expedition aims to better understand how plastic pollution travels from source to sea and provide solutions for reducing the amount that ends up in the world’s oceans.
Continue reading...Recycling crisis escalates as another Victorian recycling firm gets waste ban
Phoenix Environmental Group banned by EPA from accepting rubbish at its Coolaroo facility
Another Melbourne recycling company has been banned from accepting rubbish, just days after a major recycling player went into liquidation.
Phoenix Environmental Group has been told to stop accepting waste at its Coolaroo facility – the third time Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority has slapped a ban on the company.
Continue reading...Warm weather may make 2019 a boom year for butterflies, say experts
Last summer, overall numbers of butterflies in England were up 110% on 2017 figures
The common blue butterfly could be booming in the UK thanks to recent spells of hot weather, according to a conservation charity.
Experts are predicting that the July heatwave and Met Office forecasts for above-average temperatures in August might mean that the common blue has its “best ever summer”, Butterfly Conservation said.
Continue reading...Whaley Bridge residents refusing to evacuate put lives at risk, says police chief
Derbyshire’s deputy chief constable said there are about 20 properties with residents refusing to leave
A police chief who has been at the forefront of a near disaster in a Derbyshire town has said some residents who refused to leave their homes had put lives at serious risk.
About 400 mainly local people packed a school hall to discuss the damaged dam in Whaley Bridge which is still at risk of collapse.
Continue reading...Britain’s 2,800 dams: why they were built and how safe are they?
England and Wales have about 2,000 dams and there are around 800 in Scotland. These structures were built for a variety of reasons: to make reservoirs that can supply drinking water to nearby towns and cities; to fill local canals; to help farms; and to create places for fishing, sailing and water sports.
In the case of Toddbrook’s dam, it was built in the 1830s to create a reservoir that would provide water for the local canal system. It is still owned by the Canal & River Trust.
Continue reading...The five: species affected by plastic pollution
Scientists from the University of Tasmania reported last week that plastic ingestion is having a negative impact on the health of flesh-footed shearwaters, a near-threatened species of seabird. The study found that birds that had eaten plastic had stunted growth and a decline in kidney function. Plastic ingestion kills many species, with more than a million seabirds estimated to be dying from it each year.
Continue reading...Do windfarms kill birds? How Australia can limit the impact on threatened species
Bob Brown’s objection to a proposed windfarm draws attention to where renewable energy projects are being built
Do windfarms kill birds? Unarguably, they have and do.
The damage turbines can inflict was infamously highlighted at California’s Altamont Pass, where early industry farms were built in a migratory path. One estimate suggested it killed as many as 1,300 birds of prey a year before changes were made to reduce death rates.
Continue reading...Whaley Bridge residents allowed to return for 15 minutes
People evacuated from town threatened by damaged dam make ‘controlled’ visits to pick up pets and other essentials
Residents of the Derbyshire town evacuated after a dam threatened to burst have been allowed back into their homes for short, controlled visits to pick up pets and other essentials.
Derbyshire police took the decision to allow one person from each of the 400 Whaley Bridge properties evacuated on Thursday to return for a 15-minute visit on Saturday.
Continue reading...IPCC leaked report: Going vegetarian and controlling land use are key to climate crisis
Scientists in Geneva warn that cutting carbon emissions from cars and factories is not enough
Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.
A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.
Continue reading...Whaley Bridge: storms forecast as work to repair dam continues
Evacuated residents urged not to return home with damage to structure at ‘critical level’
Emergency services will continue their efforts to prevent a damaged dam from collapsing in Derbyshire, as forecasters warn more bad weather could be on the way.
Water levels at the Toddbrook reservoir in Whaley Bridge have been reduced by half a metre since Thursday but the damage to the 180-year-old structure remains at a critical level.
Continue reading...Alarm over North Atlantic right whale's survival after recent deaths
Six right whales were killed in June, and two in July – a potentially devastating blow to a population estimated to be no more than 400
Canadian conservationists are sounding an alarm over the survival of the North Atlantic right whale, a once numerous species that live off the east coast of the US and Canada.
This June, six right whales were killed, followed by two more in July – a potentially devastating blow to a population that is now estimated to be no more than 400 strong.
Continue reading...Whaley Bridge dam: heed flood defence warning, experts urge
Government told it is not acting quickly enough to upgrade infrastructure
The Whaley Bridge dam scare is a warning of the potentially disastrous consequences of failing to build new infrastructure to cope with the climate emergency, experts have said.
As the environment secretary, Theresa Villiers, chaired a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee on efforts to make the dam safe, the government was facing calls for an urgent overhaul of flood defences and water infrastructure.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A dragonfly in Turkey, moose calf in Finland and wild boar in Barcelona
Record heatwave 'made much more likely' by human impact on climate
Scientists say ‘July has rewritten climate history’ after wildfires raged around the world
The record-shattering heatwave that roasted Europe last month was made at least twice – and possibly hundreds of times – more likely as a result of the human-driven climate crisis, scientists have calculated.
Across the globe, July at least equalled – and may have surpassed – the hottest month in recorded history, according to new data from the World Meteorological Organization. This followed the warmest ever June.
Continue reading...Bearded vultures soar again in Alps after breeding scheme
Record 35 chicks expected to leave nests this year in successful wildlife comeback
This summer, as the snows finally melt across the Alps, a record 35 bearded vulture chicks are expected to leave their nests and take to the skies to patrol their mountain home, in one of the most successful wildlife comebacks of recent times.
“Bearded vultures were hunted to extinction in the Alps in the early 20th century. People referred to them as the devil bird believing that they would carry off small children and sheep,” said Théo Mazet, who works for Asters, a French wildlife organisation helping to bring the birds back to the Alps.
Continue reading...Australia records third-hottest July
Mean maximum temperature 2.23C above average as authorities predict fire season worse than average
Australia has just experienced its third-hottest July on record, beaten only by records set in 2017 and 2018, as fire and water authorities in the eastern states prepare for a worse than average fire season.
The year-to-date temperatures from January to July were the second warmest on record, according to a monthly statement from the Bureau of Meteorology. Rainfall recorded during that period is the fifth lowest on record, with the drought worst in New South Wales, southern Queensland, and eastern and central Victoria.
Continue reading...Heatwaves amplify near-record levels of ice melt in northern hemisphere
Greenland’s ice sheet shrunk more in past month than in average year, experts warn
The frozen extremities of the northern hemisphere are melting at a near-record rate as heatwaves buffet the Arctic, forest fires tear through Siberia and glaciers retreat on Greenland fjords and Alpine peaks.
Unusually high temperatures are eating into ice sheets that used to be solid throughout the year, according to glaciologists, who warn this is both an amplifying cause and effect of man-made climate disruption across the globe.
Continue reading...SKM to be wound up and 280,000 tonnes of recycling could end up in landfill
Firm handling half of Victoria’s recycling hoped buyer’s $40m injection would save it but ‘funds have not been received’
The supreme court of Victoria has ordered recycling company SKM to be wound up, as tens of thousands of tonnes of recycling more than previously disclosed may be headed for landfill.
SKM, which is owned by Melbourne’s Italiano family and handles about half of Victoria’s recycling, had staked its hopes on a buyer who was willing to rescue the company with a $40m injection. But a lawyer representing SKM, Reegan Grayson Morison, told the court on Friday that the “funds had not been received as hoped by the company” and SKM was not in a position to oppose the wind-up.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg hits back at Andrew Bolt for 'deeply disturbing' column
Campaigner calls out ‘hate and conspiracy campaigns’ after Australian’s attack
The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has hit back at the Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt for writing a deeply offensive column that mocked her autism diagnosis.
The Swedish schoolgirl posted a tweet overnight calling out the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt, adopting his insult that she was “deeply disturbed” and turning it back on him.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: James Lovelock still right on summer smog
In 1973, scientist concluded that controlling UK air pollution needed Europe-wide cooperation
July’s record-breaking temperatures brought summertime smog to most of the UK. Worst affected was eastern England, from Kent to Yorkshire, where air pollution reached seven on the government’s10-point scale.
The heatwave occurred just before the 100th birthday of the scientist James Lovelock. Best known for his Gaia theory, which hypothesises that life on Earth acts as a self-regulating system, Lovelock was also an atmospheric scientist. In 1973 he was part of a team investigating summertime smog in the UK and Ireland. Up until then the idea that the UK, with its damp grey summers, could experience smog like Los Angeles was thought so improbable that no one had made measurements to check. Lovelock and team set up a line of measurement sites from a water tower in Sibton, Suffolk, to Adrigole, near Cork. Not only was there enough smog in the UK to breach US health limits but it was taking days to form in the air, sometimes from sources up to 620 miles (1,000km) away in continental Europe.
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