The Guardian
'A national disgrace': Australia's extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight
More than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities are at risk of extinction right now
• Interactive: Wombats, sharks, possums, frogs: Australia’s animals at risk of extinction
Global warming wiped out the Bramble Cay melomys – the first mammalian extinction in the world to be caused by climate change – but a straightforward plan that could have rescued the little rodent was thwarted by red tape and political indifference.
“It could have been saved. That’s the most important part,” says John Woinarski, a professor of conservation biology who was on the threatened species scientific committee that approved a 2008 national recovery plan for the species, endemic to a tiny island in the Torres Strait.
Continue reading...The EPA debunked Administrator Pruitt’s latest climate misinformation | Dana Nuccitelli
Until Pruitt deleted the EPA climate webpages.
Last week, a Las Vegas news station interviewed Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The interviewer brought up the topic of climate change, and virtually everything Pruitt said in response was wrong, and was often refuted on his own agency’s website, until he started deleting it.
Continue reading...Microplastics pollute most remote and uncharted areas of the ocean
First data ever gathered from extremely remote area of the South Indian Ocean has a surprisingly high volume of plastic particles, say scientists
Microplastics have been found in some of the most remote and uncharted regions of the oceans raising more concerns over the global scale of plastic pollution.
Samples taken from the middle of the South Indian Ocean – at latitude 45.5 degrees south – show microplastic particles detected at relatively high volumes. Sören Gutekunst, from the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, who analysed the samples, said the data showed 42 particles per cubic metre, which was surprising given the remoteness of the area.
Continue reading...Country diary 1918: worms crushed and mutilated beneath feet of passers-by
15 February 1918 The ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front
Yesterday morning, and to a lesser extent this morning, worms were unusually active; the influence of spring had penetrated underground and sent them to the surface to feel rather than see the improved conditions. They crawled in thousands over the footpaths; they were crushed and mutilated in hundreds beneath the feet of passers-by; the ground was seamed and lined by their tracks until it resembled the photographs taken from aircraft of trenches at the front. These extensive peregrinations must have begun at an early hour.
Related: From the archive, 19 May 1984: Here's hoping the Guinness worm will turn
Continue reading...Country diary: England's only narrow-headed ants are toughing out winter
South Devon: Outside this field the nearest colony of these heathland ants is in the Scottish Highlands
A soggy mound amid the grass stopped me in my tracks. I had spent the best part of an hour searching the heathland reserve, eyes to the ground, before I chanced across it close to a clump of gorse. It was nothing much to look at, admittedly. After a winter of heavy downpours the dome-shaped structure covered with tiny snippets of vegetation had slumped so that it resembled a spadeful of old lawn clippings. Yet beneath the bedraggled thatch was buried treasure: an exceptionally rare colony of narrow-headed ants (Formica exsecta) toughing out the colder months hidden from view.
Shaped like tiny lopsided dumbbells, these territorial ants, named for the distinctive notch in the back of their head, play an important role in maintaining heathland through their foraging behaviour. Colonies can contain several queens along with about 1,000 workers, each armed with strong mandibles and capable of engaging in chemical warfare by firing jets of formic acid from their rear to deter predators.
Continue reading...From earplugs to bedroom swaps: how to protect against noise pollution
Everyday hubbub can increase your chance of cardiovascular problems, new research claims. Here are four ways to mitigate the effects of background sounds
If you find it vexing that a loud bang can trigger a heart attack, bad news: it turns out a low rumble can, too. Several studies have identified links between noise pollution from railways, airports or roads and cardiovascular conditions such as high blood pressure, stroke and heart failure. According to new research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, this is probably because sound can cause a spike in stress hormones, which damages the heart over time.
The researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany who compiled the research said one of the main ways noise pollution affects heart health is by disrupting sleep. Thankfully, there are simple way to mitigating those effects.
Continue reading...How do you build a healthy city? Copenhagen reveals its secrets
The Danish capital ranks high on the list of the world’s healthiest and happiest cities. With obesity and depression on the rise worldwide, here are its lessons for how to combat them culturally
Maybe it’s the Viking heritage. There is an icy open-air pool in the waters of Copenhagen’s harbour, and although it is mid-winter Danes still jump in every day. On the front cover of the city’s health plan, a lean older man is pictured climbing out, dripping, his mouth open in a shout that could be horror or pleasure. “Enjoy life, Copenhageners,” urges the caption.
It’s not every Copenhagener who wants to take strenuous exercise in cold water either for fun or to get fit. But the packed bike lanes of the Danish capital, even at this sometimes subzero time of year, are testimony to the success of a city that is aspiring to be one of the healthiest in the world. Copenhagen consistently sits at the very top of the UN’s happiness index and is one of the star performers in the Healthy Cities initiative of the World Health Organisation, which, almost unknown and unsung, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The initiative was the idea of a group of individuals inspired by the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, which was about elevating the status of primary care and public health in a world where everybody equated healthcare with hospital treatment after you got ill.
Continue reading...Poison pass: the man who became immune to snake venom
Rock singer Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with snake venom for 30 years. In a strange twist, his bizarre habit could now save thousands of lives. His former partner Britt Collins tells his outlandish story
Sometime in 2006, when my ex-boyfriend failed to show up for dinner, I assumed something was wrong or perhaps he’d forgotten. About a week later, calling to apologise, he told me he’d had an overdose, accidentally injecting a lethal cocktail of venom from three snakes. A lot has been written about Steve Ludwin, widely known as the man who injects snake venom, and lately his life has turned into a non-stop frenzy of international journalists and film crews revelling in the seeming sheer insanity of it.
Steve was once my great love; an animal lover, vegan and musician who wrote songs for Placebo and Ash, and played the Reading festival with Nirvana. In between tours and recordings he dabbled with snake venom. In his latest incarnation as a self-taught snake expert, moulding himself into the role of a lifetime, he appears as a kind of living specimen and star in a short film at the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition, Venom: Killer and Cure.
Continue reading...Labor fires back at Adani Australia CEO over foreign investment claims
Tanya Plibersek rejects Jeyakumar Janakaraj’s claim Bill Shorten casting doubt on future foreign investment
Labor has rejected claims it is destabilising Australia’s ability to attract investment through its growing scepticism of the controversial Adani Queensland coalmine.
Following moves by Labor to distance itself from Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine, the Adani Australia chief executive, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, told the Weekend Australian that Labor’s attacks on the project had cast doubt on Australia’s ability to remain an attractive destination for capital.
But the deputy opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, said none of Labor’s criticism should harm Australia as an investment destination.
Continue reading...The Great Barrier Reef from the sky – in pictures
Photographer Joshua Smith’s latest project, The Reef, is an aerial exploration of his experience with Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Smith’s hope is to raise awareness of Australia’s connection with the reef and the impact humans have on it. The series is the the fifth instalment of Down Under from Above, a captivating film and aerial photo series sharing unique perspectives of Australian landscape while highlighting the importance of preservation
Continue reading...Carillion links put fracking firm’s scheme in doubt
A controversial plan to start fracking for shale gas in rural North Yorkshire has been thrown into doubt amid mounting concerns over the finances and management of the company behind the scheme.
In a move that has encouraged anti-fracking protestors, energy secretary Greg Clark has ordered the start of drilling at Kirby Misperton to be put on hold pending an investigation into the “financial resilience” of Third Energy.
Continue reading...Report warns of dire future for Coral Triangle reef fish
Popular species like grouper and wrasse could be gone from dining tables in decades as trade drives wild populations to the brink of collapse.
The US$1 billion a year Live Reef Fish for Food Trade (LRFFT) is threatening the future of key reef predator species like grouper, coral trout and Napoleon wrasse, according to a recent study.
The study - published by WWF, the Swire Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and ADM Capital Foundation - urges swift action towards regulating an industry that’s decimating stocks of these species across the Coral Triangle, threatening poor communities that rely on the fishery for their livelihoods.
Continue reading...First images of creatures from Antarctic depths revealed
Photographs of rare species from unexplored area of Antarctic seabed highlight need to protect life in one of the most remote places on the planet
The images below are the first of creatures found in a previously unexplored region of the Antarctic seabed offering a fascinating glimpse of life in one of the most remote and pristine places on the planet.
Continue reading...Country diary: finely dressed gadwall has an air of austere decency
Airedale, West Yorkshire: Neck held straight, upright and officer-like, the drake appears dressed in close-fitted tweeds, a fine houndstooth of tan and grey
I don’t know a bird book that has much to say about the gadwall (Anas strepera). Generally this unobtrusive winter duck is compared with the more common mallard, and comes off worse: smaller (just), duller (much), either shriller (the duck) or coarser (the drake) in quack. But like many a winter bird – think of the intricate copper-trimmed scalloping of a starling’s non-breeding plumage – the gadwall repays a little close attention.
Continue reading...Federal penalties against polluters at lowest level in a decade under Trump
Figures released by the EPA show that 115 crime cases were opened in 2017, down from a peak of nearly 400 in 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement activity against polluters has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, with the first year of the Trump administration seeing a sharp drop in fines for companies that break environmental rules.
Figures released by the EPA show that 115 environmental crime cases were opened in the 2017 financial year, down from a peak of nearly 400 in the 2009 financial year, which was largely under the Obama administration.
Continue reading...Lack of migrant workers left food rotting in UK fields last year, data reveals
Exclusive: Brexit fears and falling pound left fruit and vegetable farms short of more than 4,000 workers, with senior MPs warning of a ‘crisis’
Fruit and vegetable farms across the UK were left short of thousands of migrant workers in 2017, leaving some produce to rot in the fields and farmers suffering big losses.
Continue reading...Ozone layer, farm antibiotics and mutant crayfish – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Galápagos marine iguanas, feeding penguins and a camouflaged owl are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...War on the wildest places: US bill may open pristine lands to development
Wilderness study areas are more wild and untouched than national parks. But a Republican proposal threatens this unique terrain, environmentalists say
The Big Snowy Mountains wilderness study area in Montana represents 91,000 acres of the wildest land left in America. Viewed from a limestone bluff high in a timbered gulch, no houses are visible. No transmission lines or roads interrupting the expanse of green. No smoke curling up from cabin stovepipes.
Continue reading...The bird market of Kabul – in pictures
A visit to the narrow lane of Ka Faroshi bird market brings comfort to war-weary Afghans
Continue reading...