The Guardian
‘More plastic than fish’: Greek fishermen battle to clean a cruel sea
The fish market at Keratsini comes alive at night. Under floodlights, crews in rubber waders and boots wash down the decks of boats moored in the harbour, repair nets dangling from cranes, and put on ice the shrimp, calamari, mullet and hake that are their latest pickings.
Recently other things – objects that might never have been pulled from the sea – have also supplemented hauls. “We’re talking about lots of waste, lots of garbage,” says Dimitris Dalianis. “We’re finding it almost everywhere.”
Continue reading...Earth Hour: landmarks to switch off lights to help save planet
UK sites including London Eye and Eden Project take part in WWF event highlighting climate change
More than 100 landmarks across the UK, from Buckingham Palace to Edinburgh Castle, are switching off their lights to mark this year’s Earth Hour.
The lights will go off at famous buildings and structures across the country between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on Saturday as part of the international event organised by conservation charity WWF to urge action to save the planet.
Continue reading...Labor to tighten emissions regime as it draws climate battle-lines
Land-clearing and vehicle pollution measures also expected in opposition’s final election offering on climate
Labor is set to unveil a climate policy that will beef up the Morrison government’s heavily criticised safeguard mechanism, creating new pollution reduction requirements for the aviation sector, cement, steel and aluminum, mining and gas, direct combustion and the non-electricity energy sectors.
Currently the safeguard mechanism applies to businesses with direct emissions of more than 100 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent pollution each year, and Labor’s policy is expected to lower that threshold to 25 kilotonnes, which means more sectors and businesses will be covered.
Continue reading...What better replacement for dirty Hazelwood than a windfarm? | Simon Holmes à Court
A plan to generate enough wind power for 200,000 homes hints at a coal valley’s clean energy future
At exactly 5pm on 29 March 2017, Unit 1 of the Hazelwood station reported the last energy generation after 53 years of faithful operation. Hazelwood isn’t the first coal power station to close in recent years — in fact it is one of 13 that closed over a five year period — but, as one of the largest and dirtiest power stations in the country it has become totemic, for both the environment movement and Australia’s coal fetishists.
Now, two years on, fears of mass workforce dislocation — such as the Latrobe Valley suffered when the region’s power stations were privatised in the 1990s — have largely failed to materialise. More than 1,000 jobs have been created in the region and unemployment has dropped from 8% to 5.7%, in no small part due to the efforts of the Latrobe Valley Authority, set up by the state government to help ensure a “just transition” for the workers and local community.
Continue reading...Butterflywatch: hope for the rare white-letter hairstreak
Dutch elm disease caused a catastrophic decline for the butterfly that relies on the elm to feed its caterpillars. But help is at hand
Most butterflies are still hibernating after a reassuringly normal March following the February heatwave. Our five hairstreak species all hibernate in their minuscule eggs, stuck fast to bare branches – a wise and robust strategy. The white-letter hairstreak, a diminutive dark butterfly with a white W on its underside, has declined by 93% since the 1970s because Dutch elm disease has destroyed the trees on which its caterpillars feed.
Related: Rare UK butterfly under threat as elms disappear
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A frog hopping onto a duck, bats hibernating in a fridge and a bee collecting nectar from a cherry blossom tree
Continue reading...Scientists to take 1.5m-year-old ice samples for climate research
East Antarctica drilling project will give snapshot of Earth’s atmosphere and climate
Scientists are planning to extract ice samples from more than 1.5m years ago in a bid to discover more about our ancient climate – and hopefully learn more about our future climate.
The Beyond Epica project plans to extract samples from the bottom of a 2.75km-thick ice sheet in East Antarctica. The ice cores will be the oldest ever drilled for.
Continue reading...EU bans widely used pesticide over safety concerns
Officials say chlorothalonil poses high risk to wildlife and may potentially harm humans
One of the world’s most common pesticides will soon be banned by the European Union after safety officials reported human health and environmental concerns.
Chlorothalonil, a fungicide that prevents mildew and mould on crops, is the most used pesticide in the UK, applied to millions of hectares of fields, and is the most popular fungicide in the US. Farmers called the ban “overly precautionary”.
Continue reading...Survival in Mozambique after cyclone Idai – in pictures
Millions of survivors face dire conditions after the tropical cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique’s coast, unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain that flooded swathes of the country. More than two million people have been affected in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where the storm killed 60 and displaced nearly a million people. Hundreds are still missing in Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Continue reading...Can the world quench China’s bottomless thirst for milk?
China’s leaders have championed milk as the emblem of a modern, affluent society – but their radical plan to triple the nation’s consumption will have a huge environmental cost.
By Felicity Lawrence
Beijing-based film-maker Jian Yi, now 43, clearly remembers the arrival of fresh milk in his life. It was an image of it, not the real thing. “It was the 1990s, and I first saw it in an advert on TV. The ad said explicitly that drinking milk would save the nation. It would make China stronger and better able to survive competition from other nations.”
Like most ethnic Han, who make up about 95% of the population, Jian was congenitally lactose-intolerant, meaning milk was hard to digest. His parents did not consume dairy at all when they were growing up; China’s economy was closed to the global market and its own production very limited. Throughout the Mao era, milk was in short supply and rationed to those deemed to have a special need: infants and the elderly, athletes and party cadres above a certain grade. Through most of the imperial dynasties until the 20th century, milk was generally shunned as the slightly disgusting food of the barbarian invaders. Foreigners brought cows to the port cities that had been ceded to them by the Chinese in the opium wars of the 19th century, and a few groups such as Mongolian pastoralists used milk that was fermented, but it was not part of the typical Chinese diet.
Continue reading...Australia's coal export bonanza at risk from China switch, says report
Despite record $278bn export earnings from resources sector, revenues are set to fall with coal under threat from Beijing rethink
Australia’s booming earnings from coal exports could be in jeopardy if China switches to more domestic supply and if port restrictions continue to favour competing exporters, a federal government report has warned.
The country’s energy and resources exports will rake in an extra $20bn to rise to $278bn this financial year, the report by the industry department said, creating a timely bonanza for the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to exploit in next week’s federal budget.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: time to dispel the myth of the inconvenient youth
Study debunks idea that parents find children’s concern about climate change irritating
In 2007, an article in the Wall Street Journal appeared with the headline “Inconvenient youth”. A pun on Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, it described parents being badgered by their children to drive less or install low energy lighting to help climate change. It even included tips and strategies for fed-up parents to deflect these suggestions. A new study challenges this narrative.
In 2015, a poster competition for Utah schools was launched to encourage teens to consider the air pollution implications of their driving privilege and to learn strategies to preserve air quality. Although the competition was directed at the teenagers, it soon became clear that they were talking to their parents and encouraging them to change behaviour too.
Continue reading...Deadly skin-eating fungal disease wipes out 90 amphibian species in 50 years
Study reveals extent of chytrid fungus and how devastating it has been for frog, toad and salamander species worldwide
A deadly disease that wiped out global populations of amphibians led to the decline of 500 species in the past 50 years, including 90 extinctions, scientists say.
A global research effort, led by the Australian National University, has for the first time quantified the worldwide impact of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid fungus, a fungal disease that eats away at the skin of amphibians.
Continue reading...Greenhouse gas emissions in UK fell 3% in 2018, official figures show
Pollution from energy sector continues to drop, while low-carbon generation rose to 53%
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 3% in 2018 as pollution from the energy sector continued to decrease, provisional government figures show.
Emissions of the gases that drive climate change have fallen for six years in a row, and are 44% below the 1990 baseline for the UK. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are at the lowest level since before the start of the 20th century, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, government officials said.
Continue reading...Searching for invisible giants – Look at me podcast
Eastern Victoria is home to a strange creature that few have seen and even fewer have researched. You may be able to hear its gurgles under the ground but the 1.5- to 3-metre-long Giant Gippsland earthworm never comes to the surface in its natural life. In this episode of Look at me, Chris McCormack finds the only world expert on this creature and asks: why would you devote your life to a giant worm?
Continue reading...Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
Not long before coal use is over, say analysts, while warning of possible resurgence in China
The number of coal-fired power plants being developed around the world has collapsed in the last three years, according to a report.
The number of plants on which construction has begun each year has fallen by 84% since 2015, and 39% in 2018 alone, while the number of completed plants has dropped by more than half since 2015.
Continue reading...Helicopter crushes flowers as crowds flock to 'super bloom'
Park officials say many wildflower tourists have been well-behaved, but some have ignored pleas to stay on trails
In one of the most famous literary descriptions of wildflowers, the English poet William Wordsworth wrote in the early 19th century of happily gazing upon a host of daffodils “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. In 21st-century California, wildflowers dancing in the breeze are being trampled by helicopter.
As thousands of sightseers descend on southern California parks for a springtime “super bloom”, officials reported on Wednesday that a couple in a helicopter landed in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, crushing the delicate plants. They proceeded to walk around, further inflicting harm. As soon as they were approached by law enforcement officers, they scurried back into their aircraft and zoomed away.
Continue reading...'Common sense': Littleproud backs Victoria plan to curb logging to earn carbon credits
Minister breaks ranks on forest policy amid fears for beekeeping industry and the knock-on impacts on farmers
The agriculture minister, David Littleproud, is breaking ranks on federal forest policy and backing a long-stalled proposal for Victoria to earn carbon credits by winding back logging and better conserving its native forests.
The minister cites concerns over the future of the Australian beekeeping industry and the knock-on impacts for farmers for his support, saying: “It seems as though it is common sense.”
Continue reading...The last straw: European parliament votes to ban single-use plastics
Vote by MEPs paves way for law to come into force by 2021 across EU
The European parliament has voted to ban single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers as part of a sweeping law against plastic waste that despoils beaches and pollutes oceans.
The vote by MEPs paves the way for a ban on single-use plastics to come into force by 2021 in all EU member states. The UK would have to follow the rules if it took part in and extended the Brexit transition period because of delays in finding a new arrangement with the EU.
Continue reading...Improving Britain’s geological mapping | Letter
David Nowell (Letters, 23 March) suggests that the Environment Agency should put pressure on the British Geological Survey (BGS) to improve the quality of geological mapping. Mr Nowell will be pleased to hear that there is no need for them to do this as the BGS is already working with the Environment Agency to update our geological maps in areas where groundwater resources are vulnerable to over-abstraction and/or pollution.
As new data and new requirements arise, we recognise that in some areas the existing geological interpretations become out of date. A case in point is the area to the north of Holderness (referred to in Mr Nowell’s letter), where modern imagery highlights geological structures that would not have been apparent during the original 1800s survey. This is an area important for groundwater and we are currently working with the Environment Agency to improve the geological understanding of the area to help the better management and protection of water resources. In fact, our geologists are currently “in the field” re-mapping this area.
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