The Guardian
The pipeline plan that will drain the lower Darling River dry
‘If you think this is bad,’ say locals of recent mass fish kills, ‘just wait until the Menindee Lakes project goes ahead’
On the banks of the Darling, near Menindee, two grown men are fighting back tears.
It’s a week on from the fish kill that saw hundreds of thousands of fish die near their small town, including Murray cod that were estimated to be about 70 years old. These fish had survived the millennium drought of the late 1990s. Yet here they are dying.
Continue reading...Pollution at fracking protest site rises despite lack of fracking
Lorries, demonstrators and police drive up air pollution in Kirby Misperton, study finds
A shale gas company’s lorries, police vehicles and protesters’ wood fires have combined to drive up air pollution levels near a gas well in the north of England, despite fracking failing to get started at the site.
Operations at the Kirby Misperton well in North Yorkshire have been delayed after the operator Third Energy ran into financial problems, but the project’s local pollution impact has been revealed by government-backed research.
Continue reading...Drone surveillance spots sharks off Sydney's beaches: 'It's a big one' – video
Jason Iggleden, the creator of a new app called Drone Shark, talks to Guardian Australia about why he decided to start simultaneously filming surfers on Sydney's eastern beaches while monitoring for sharks.
The app, which was designed for surfers who want footage of themselves catching waves, is a 'first in the world', says Iggleden. It also reports on surf spots and conditions, and provides drone footage of predators lurking off the beach.
Iggleden believes drones are a more effective and ecological way of keeping surfers and swimmers safe than shark nets, drumlines and helicopter patrols.
If Iggleden spots a shark, he contacts lifeguards, or if it's urgent, uses his own megaphone to shout out to surfers.
Adani: 2,000 hectares of black-throated finch habitat removed from conservation plans
Ecologists say Adani’s plan for endangered bird’s conservation area amounts to ‘a plan to manage a cow paddock’
About 2,000 hectares of proposed habitat offsets for the endangered black-throated finch were removed from Adani’s conservation plans last year, mostly on land earmarked for the nearby China Stone coalmine.
The Indian mining company also intends to allow cattle to graze on the remaining conservation areas surrounding its Carmichael mine.
Continue reading...'The Garden of Eden is no more', David Attenborough warns Davos summit – video
Broadcaster David Attenborough challenged business leaders at the World Economic Forum to "move beyond guilt and blame" and focus on the practicalities of preventing climate change from reaching catastrophic levels.
“If people can truly understand what is at stake, I believe they will give permission for business and governments to get on with the practical solutions," he told delegates at the summit in Davos, Switzerland.
Continue reading...Yellow crazy ants: world heritage area at risk through lack of funding
Program holding crazy ants at bay in world’s oldest continuing rainforest suffers from lack of government funding commitment
Funding to keep a voracious invasive ant from establishing super colonies in Australia’s wet tropics world heritage area has less than six months of funding left, risking its future, Guardian Australia has been told.
The wet tropics management authority (WTMA), which manages the vast world heritage area in north Queensland, is asking state and federal governments for a $6m a year package for the next seven years – enough, the authority says, for it to finish the job of eradicating the yellow crazy ant.
Continue reading...Founders of plastic waste alliance ‘investing billions in new plants’
European NGO says firms are likely to be at centre of global boom in plastic production
The founding companies behind a self-styled alliance to end plastic waste are among the world’s biggest investors in new plastic productions plants, according to a European NGO.
A majority of the firms which announced this week they were collaborating to try to help tackle plastic pollution are likely to be at the heart of a global boom in plastic production over the next 10 years.
Continue reading...What can we do, right now, about climate change?
Calamitous weather events and warnings from scientists that the planet is warming faster than previously believed are causing alarm. Global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, describes the shifts needed to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C. Plus: David Conn on how football and gambling have become inseparable
A series of extreme weather events in 2018 again highlighted the urgency of making the social and political changes needed to keep the increase in global warming to a maximum of 1.5C (2.7F). In September this year, the UN will convene a dedicated climate summit where agreement will be sought for ambitious and far-reaching policies.
Joining India Rakusen today is the Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, to discuss the extent of the political change required if the world has any chance at all of keeping within the 1.5C upper limit on warming. He also explores some of the most effective ways individuals can join the battle against global warming: a vital, existential issue often drowned out by other news events.
Continue reading...'We are clearly losing the fight': scientists sound alarm over invasive species
Invaders are a greater threat to native species than climate change, land clearing and energy production, experts say
“We might be the last people on earth to take a sample of an Australian native guava in flower,” says botanist Rod Fensham, as he studies a small cluster of white flowers.
The guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides) is heading for extinction, says Fensham, of the University of Queensland – but not because of land clearing or climate change. Instead it’s the relentless march of the invasive fungi myrtle rust that will cause its demise.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef Foundation funds first project after controversial $443m grant
Health survey of remote parts of reef by the Australian Institute of Marine Science the first venture
The not-for-profit foundation that was awarded a controversial $443.3m grant for the Great Barrier Reef has funded its first project – a research survey that will be carried out by a government agency.
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation will announce on Monday that a 25-day health survey of remote parts of the reef by the Australian Institute of Marine Science is the first venture awarded money through the Reef Trust partnership set up by the government last year.
Continue reading...How to stop the climate crisis: six lessons from the campaign that saved the ozone
Amid the anti-globalist chest-thumping of Brexit, Donald Trump, and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, it may sound like the stuff of folklore. But there was a time in the recent past when all the countries of the world moved quickly to discuss a common threat, agreed an ambitious plan of action and made it work.
The Montreal protocol, which came into effect 30 years ago, was drawn up to address the alarming thinning of the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere. It was the first agreement in the history of the United Nations to be ratified by all 197 countries. Since it came into effect on 1 January 1989, more than 99% of the gases responsible for the problem have been eradicated and the “ozone hole” – which, in the late 80s, vied for headline space with the cold war, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Madonna – is receding in the sky and the memory.
Continue reading...How Orkney leads the way for sustainable energy
A tech revolution – and an abundance of wind and waves – mean that the people of Orkney now produce more electricity than they can use
It seems the stuff of fantasy. Giant ships sail the seas burning fuel that has been extracted from water using energy provided by the winds, waves and tides. A dramatic but implausible notion, surely. Yet this grand green vision could soon be realised thanks to a remarkable technological transformation that is now under way in Orkney.
Perched 10 miles beyond the northern edge of the British mainland, this archipelago of around 20 populated islands – as well as a smattering of uninhabited reefs and islets – has become the centre of a revolution in the way electricity is generated. Orkney was once utterly dependent on power that was produced by burning coal and gas on the Scottish mainland and then transmitted through an undersea cable. Today the islands are so festooned with wind turbines, they cannot find enough uses for the emission-free power they create on their own.
Continue reading...The curse of tail-docking: the painful truth about Italy's pigs | Cecilia Ferrara and Catherine Nelson
In the country’s two main breeding regions, 98% of farmers rely on the banned, traumatic practice of routinely cutting pigs’ tails
On a farm deep in Italy’s Lombardy region, scores of contented-looking pigs gambol, play and root about in spacious pens deep in straw. It looks more rural idyll than 1,000-strong breeding farm, but the pigs at this Fumagalli farm are in a lucky minority.
Unlike many of the pigs destined for the country’s prestigious prosciutto market – worth 7.98bn euros (£7bn) last year – they have not been subjected to the painful practice of tail-docking. A recent EU audit found that across farms in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, the country’s two main pig breeding regions, 98% of farmers remove their animals’ tails, a rate that stands among the highest in Europe.
Continue reading...Could flexitarianism save the planet?
Scientists say a drastic cut in meat consumption is needed, but this requires political will
It has been known for a while that the amount of animal products being eaten is bad for both the welfare of animals and the environment. People cannot consume 12.9bn eggs in the UK each year without breaking a few.
But the extent of the damage, and the amount by which people need to cut back, is now becoming clearer. On Wednesday, the Lancet medical journal published a study that calls for dramatic changes to food production and the human diet, in order to avoid “catastrophic damage to the planet”.
Continue reading...North American glaciers melting much faster than 10 years ago – study
Satellite images show glaciers in US and Canada, excluding Alaska, are shrinking four times faster then in previous decade
Glaciers in western North America, excluding Alaska, are melting four times faster than in the previous decade, with changes in the jet stream exacerbating the longer-term effects of climate change, according to a new study.
The retreat hasn’t been equal in the US and Canada. The famous alpine ice masses in the Cascade Mountains in the north-west US have largely been spared from the trend.
Continue reading...Diver filmed with huge great white: sharks must be 'protected not feared'
Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher, came face-to-face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded
Two shark researchers who came face to face with what could be one of the largest great whites ever recorded are using their encounter as an opportunity to push for legislation that would protect sharks in Hawaii.
Ocean Ramsey, a shark researcher and conservationist, told the Associated Press that she encountered the 20ft (6m) shark Tuesday near a dead sperm whale off Oahu. The event was documented and shared on social media by her fiance and business partner, Juan Oliphant.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Puerto Rican parrots, a tufted duck and a giant panda feature in this week’s gallery
Continue reading...Windfarm industry urges UK to lift onshore subsidies ban
Firms say 800 renewable projects ready to plug gap left after Wylfa nuclear plan scrapped
Ministers have been urged to drop their block on subsidies for onshore windfarms, as industry figures showed that nearly 800 renewable projects are ready to plug much of the power gap left by the abandonment of the Wylfa nuclear project.
Related: Hitachi scraps £16bn nuclear power station in Wales
Continue reading...Recalls of ‘potentially lethal’ US meat and poultry nearly double since 2013
Products withdrawn because of serious contamination are on the rise, report finds
The number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.
The US Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.
Continue reading...Readers on coping with Australia's summer heatwave – in pictures
Readers responded to our request for images of hot weather across Australia as temperature records tumbled
Continue reading...