The Guardian
In doomed Alaska town, hunters turn to drones and caribou as sea ice melts
Climate change is forcing indigenous people to find new ways to survive as a remote village of 600 grapples with rapid erosion
At the edge of an imperiled Alaska town, Dennis Davis sent a drone over a patchwork of ice covering the Chukchi Sea.
“Some people think it’s a toy, but a lot of people know that it’s an actual tool,” he said of the $5,000, microwave-sized machine with a camera mounted to a carbon fiber frame. As snowmachines zoomed past, Davis, 39, a resident and former police officer, looked at the pictures that were beamed back.
Continue reading...'Mega-colonies' of 1.5 million penguins discovered in Antarctica
The discovery shows the remote area is a vital refuge for wildlife from climate change and overfishing and should be protected by a new reserve, say scientists
Huge “mega-colonies” of penguins have been discovered near the Antarctic peninsula, hosting more than 1.5 million birds. Researchers say it shows the area is a vital refuge from climate change and human activities and should be protected by a vast new marine wildlife reserve currently under consideration.
The huge numbers of Adélie penguins were found on the Danger Islands in the Weddell Sea, on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is a difficult place to reach and has seldom been visited. But scientists, prompted by satellite images, mounted an expedition and used on-the-ground counts and aerial photography from drones to reveal 751,527 pairs of penguins.
Continue reading...We must honour lost land defenders by fighting the system which killed them
Two more defenders in Latin America have lost their lives challenging their country’s economic growth model which prizes profit at all cost
As the Guardian and Global Witness revealed that almost four environmental defenders were murdered every week in 2017, War on Want learned of two more killings through our Latin American partner organisations.
On 24 January, Márcio “Marcinho” Matos, involved in the fight for rights of landless peasants in Bahia in north-east Brazil, was shot in front of his son. Three days later, Temístocles “don Temis” Machado, a prominent figure in the struggle of Afro-Colombian communities across the Colombian Pacific, was murdered in his home in the Isla de Paz community.
Continue reading...How America's clean coal dream unravelled
Exclusive: Kemper power plant promised to be a world leader in ‘clean coal’ technology but Guardian reporting found evidence top executives knew of construction problems and design flaws years before the scheme collapsed
High above the red dirt and evergreen trees of Kemper County, Mississippi, gleams a 15-story monolith of pipes surrounded by a town-sized array of steel towers and white buildings. The hi-tech industrial site juts out of the surrounding forest, its sharp silhouette out of place amid the gray crumbling roads, catfish stands and trailer homes of nearby De Kalb, population: 1,164.
The $7.5bn Kemper power plant once drew officials from as far as Saudi Arabia, Japan and Norway to marvel at a 21st-century power project so technologically complex its builder compared it to the moonshot of the 1960s. It’s promise? Energy from “clean coal”.
Continue reading...Air pollution: England’s chief medical officer calls for focus on health threat
Dame Sally Davies says issue is not just environmental and calls on UK government to bring in tougher standards to tackle toxic air
England’s chief medical officer is calling on the government to do more to reduce air pollution by introducing stringent new national standards to reduce the threat to human health.
Dame Sally Davies says pollution must be seen as a public health issue and not just an environmental concern. She recommends the government bring in tougher standards to cut air pollution and standardise any road charging introduced to cut nitrogen dioxide pollution from diesel traffic.
Continue reading...Box caterpillar and fuchsia mite top UK garden pests list
The Royal Horticultural Society also warns that a ‘game-changing’ bacterial disease called xylella poses a very serious danger to UK plants and trees
The box tree caterpillar and fuchsia gall mite will continue their march across British gardens in 2018, experts warn, after the fast-spreading bugs topped the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) pest list for 2017.
The RHS also warned that a “game-changing” bacterial disease called xylella, which is devastating parts of southern Europe and has already been intercepted at the UK border, is a very serious danger to UK plants and trees.
Continue reading...Richest UK households 'should pay more to fund clean energy'
Government-funded researchers urge change in way clean energy is funded to reduce burden on poorest households
The richest households should pay £410 a year more towards supporting energy subsidies for wind farms, solar rooftops and home insulation schemes, government-funded researchers have urged.
The UK Energy Research Centre (Ukerc) said that shifting environmental and social levies off electricity bills and instead loading them on to general taxation would reduce the cost of energy for more than two thirds of households.
Continue reading...Maules Creek land clearing continues despite lack of required offsets
Whitehaven Coal receives second extension while it continues to bulldoze critically endangered NSW forest to make way for mine
Five years after the controversial Maules Creek coalmine in north-east New South Wales was given approval to clear critically endangered native ecosystems, Whitehaven Coal has still not secured the biodiversity offsets demanded by the federal government, receiving a second extension in February.
The delay has led opponents to call for offsets – intended to make up for lost ecosystems – to be established prior to the destruction taking place.
Continue reading...Snowy Hydro: NSW and Victoria to sell their stakes to federal government
Deal worth $6bn allows Malcolm Turnbull to proceed with plan to expand hydro to boost east coast grid
The federal government has reached an agreement to buy the stakes held by New South Wales and Victoria in the Snowy Hydro project for $6bn.
The agreement, clinched late on Thursday by Malcolm Turnbull, allows the federal government to proceed with its $4.5bn plan to expand Snowy Hydro to benefit the east coast electricity grid.
Related: Snowy Hydro 2.0 is viable but will cost billions more than predicted, study says
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: wood burning is not climate friendly
Burning wood releases more CO2 than gas, oil and even coal, so to make it climate neutral we need an increase in forests
With snow on the ground, many people will have been huddling around a wood fire, but researchers are questioning if wood burning is really climate neutral. Burning wood is not CO2 free; it releases carbon, stored over the previous decades, in one quick burst. For an equal amount of heat or electricity, it releases more CO2 than burning gas, oil and even coal, so straight away we have more CO2 in the air from burning wood. This should be reabsorbed as trees regrow. For logs from mature Canadian woodland, it could take more than 100 years before the atmospheric CO2 is less than the alternative scenario of burning a fossil fuel and leaving the trees in the forest.
Related: Wood fires fuel climate change – UN
Continue reading...Cotton company reaped $52m windfall in sale of water rights to government
Deal with Eastern Australia Agriculture raises, which was done without a tender, raises questions over taxpayer value
One of Australia’s largest cotton companies, Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA), sold water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m and then booked a $52m gain on the sale.
The deal, which was done without tender, will raise questions about whether the government paid over the odds for the water in southern Queensland.
Continue reading...Wildlife on your doorstep: share your March photos
Has an earlier than usual spring in some parts of the northern hemisphere affected the wildlife near you?
What sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps this month? We’d like to see your photos of the March wildlife near you, whether you’re a novice spotter or have been out and about searching for creatures great and small for years.
Related: 'A first in my 60 years': readers spot early signs of spring
Continue reading...Decisions today will decide Antarctic ice sheet loss and sea level rise | Dana Nuccitelli
A new study finds that waiting 5 extra years to peak carbon pollution will cost 20 cm sea level rise
A new study published in Nature looks at how much global sea level will continue to rise even if we manage to meet the Paris climate target of staying below 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. The issue is that sea levels keep rising for several hundred years after we stabilize temperatures, largely due to the continued melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland from the heat already in the climate system.
The study considered two scenarios. In the first, human carbon pollution peaks somewhere between 2020 and 2035 and falls quickly thereafter, reaching zero between 2035 and 2055 and staying there. Global temperatures in the first scenario peak at and remain steady below 2°C. In the second scenario, we capture and sequester carbon to reach net negative emissions (more captured than emitted) between 2040 and 2060, resulting in falling global temperatures in the second half of the century.
Continue reading...Nature showing early signs of spring despite cold snap
Woodland Trust records show more evidence that spring is arriving earlier in the UK
Winter in the UK has become a landscape of yellow hawthorn, the orange flash of red admiral butterflies, blackbirds nesting, and bumblebees feeding on mauve chives, pink valerian and lavender.
Before the white-out of snow which covered much of the country on Wednesday, reports by the Woodland Trust charity showed yet more evidence that spring is arriving earlier and earlier.
Continue reading...Grey squirrels are unfairly maligned | Letters
Your article (The faddy eater: Could I stomach southern-fried squirrel?, 22 February) should be admired for its honesty in showing appropriate discomfort with the idea of eating a creature that should have been living, breathing, playing, instead of suffering an early violent death. However, it also propagates a couple of myths regarding the highly intelligent and successful grey squirrel. The thing is, red squirrels, for whose troubles the greys are blamed, became virtually extinct in this country before greys were even introduced. That happened because of habitat loss. The reds were then also reintroduced from continental Europe, so the “nativeness” narrative is flawed. The tree damage is hugely exaggerated as well – the Forestry Commission puts the damage at 5%. More is lost due to poor growing practices. Furthermore, that figure relates to commercial forestry: in natural woodland grey squirrels are uniformly good for the ecosystem.
Natalia Doran
Urban Squirrels, London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Continue reading...Adani asked Coalition to help secure funding from China, FOI shows
Exclusive: Despite official denials, emails reveal discussions about the Indian company’s requests before ministers wrote to a Chinese agency vouching for the $16bn project
Adani asked the Australian government to help secure funding for its controversial Carmichael coalmine, documents obtained under Freedom of information reveal. Two government ministers subsequently wrote to a Chinese government agency vouching for the proposed coalmine.
Continue reading...Peru moves to create huge new indigenous reserves in Amazon
Major step taken by government Multi-Sector Commission following 15 year process
Two “naked” people spotted hunting armadillo. One “naked” family on a river-bank. About five other “naked” people - plus houses, settlements and crops - seen from small planes. Fresh footprints on a path, on a tree trunk, and along a Canadian oil company’s seismic lines. Noises in the night. Whistling and birdsong imitation. A loosed arrow. Fishing utensils, abandoned fires, and food stolen from inhabitants in the surrounding areas. . .
This is just some of the vital evidence currently being used to promote the establishment of two new reserves for indigenous peoples living in “isolation” that together could extend for more than 2.5 million hectares across one of the remotest parts of Peru’s Amazon, along the border with Brazil. If created, they could become the biggest indigenous reserves in the country.
Q&A: What does all this snow mean for climate change?
Why are scientists worried about freezing temperatures in winter, is the beast from the east a freak event – and what is the polar vortex?
Q: Snow in winter. That feels reassuringly normal. Does this mean the climate has fixed itself?
A: Unfortunately not. In fact, many scientists are concerned this is a prelude to more extreme and less predictable weather.
Continue reading...Latin America poised to agree world's first legal pact for nature defenders
After lengthy negotiations and record deaths of defenders on the continent, sources say a deal is very likely to be reached
Latin American countries are poised to agree the world’s first legally binding convention to protect environmental defenders at a conference in Costa Rica.
Land activists and indigenous people were killed in record numbers on the continent last year, with more than two nature protectors murdered every week.
Continue reading...Rome to ban diesel cars from city centre by 2024
Mayor announces ‘strong measures’ to tackle pollution in Italy’s traffic-clogged capital
Rome, one of Europe’s most traffic-clogged cities and home to thousands of ancient outdoor monuments threatened by pollution, plans to ban diesel cars from the centre by 2024, its mayor has said.
Virginia Raggi announced the decision on her Facebook page on Tuesday, saying: “If we want to intervene seriously, we have to have the courage to adopt strong measures”.
Continue reading...