The Guardian

Workers can often be first to spot harms, from rule breaches and pollution to false sustainability claims

Concerns about being fired or victimised at work are preventing people from calling out their employers on the climate crisis and the wider environment, according to a charity.

A survey commissioned by Protect, a charity that defends whistleblowers, found fear of reprisals and uncertainty about how to provide proof were the main barriers to reporting on poor and misleading behaviour about the environment. Employees were also sceptical that their concerns would be properly dealt with.

Plumes of ‘forever chemicals’ from at least 245 sites are contaminating water for nearby communities

Plumes of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” flowing from at least 245 US military bases are contaminating or threatening to pollute drinking water for nearby communities, and hundreds more are likely at risk across America, a new Department of Defense report finds.

The number of communities threatened by the military’s pollution is likely to increase as further more investigations are carried out. The defense department has only looked at about one-third of more than 700 facilities suspected of having contaminated the ground with PFAS.

Nineteen captive-bred cats released at secret location in Cairngorms in first phase of rewilding project

Nearly 20 young wildcats have been released into the wild in a pine forest in the Scottish Highlands, in the first phase of a project to rescue the species from extinction in the UK.

The cats were reared at a wildlife park operated by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) as part of a breeding programme that will eventually lead to about 60 wildcats being released in the Cairngorm mountains south of Inverness.

Developing nations need equivalent of US Inflation Reduction Act, says Nobel prize-winning economist

Poor countries should be provided with $300bn (£246bn) a year from the International Monetary Fund to finance their fight against the climate crisis, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said.

Speaking to the Guardian at the IMF’s annual meeting in Marrakech, Stiglitz said developing nations needed their equivalent of the US Inflation Reduction Act – a package of grants and subsidies designed to promote green growth and jobs.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a released beaver, mating damselflies and a fat bear

Findings raise concerns among experts who say climate funding works best when invested directly in local communities

More than £2bn of UK foreign aid aimed at helping poorer countries cope with the escalating climate crisis has been channelled through private consultancies since 2010, according to an analysis.

The investigation by Carbon Brief found that more than 10% of UK foreign aid spent on climate-related projects had gone through consultants like KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Adam Smith International.

Gianluca Grimalda says he was fired when he refused to return at short notice from Solomon Islands research trip by plane

A climate researcher who refused to comply with his employer’s demand to fly at short notice back to Germany from the Solomon Islands says he has been fired from his job.

Gianluca Grimalda is still waiting in Bougainville for a cargo ship, set to depart on Saturday, to begin his return journey to Europe, after six months investigating the impacts of climate breakdown and globalisation on the island’s inhabitants.

My company in Germany has demanded my swift return from climate-change fieldwork near Papua New Guinea. I can’t do it

Two weeks ago, my employer presented me with a stark ultimatum: return to my offices in Kiel, Germany, within five days, or lose my job. I am a climate researcher and since March 2023, I have been completing vital fieldwork into the social impact of climate change almost 24,000km away by overland routes, on the island of Bougainville off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

My fieldwork had been mired in unforeseeable problems, from natural disasters to security threats, and my employer was, unsurprisingly, unhappy that my return had been delayed by many weeks. The urgency of their request to return meant I would have to jump on a plane if I was to meet the deadline; but for me, this was not an option. I have been practising conscientious objection to flying for more than 10 years. My employer has supported me on a “slow trip” in the past. I do not boycott flying altogether, but I will only catch a plane when no other alternative exists.

Gianluca Grimalda, formerly senior researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, is a social scientist interested in social cohesion and adaptation to climate change

Climate Change Committee also says rowing back on climate policies has harmed investment into UK

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Rishi Sunak’s reversals on key climate policies have damaged the UK’s ability to meet its carbon-cutting goals and will keep energy bills high for millions of households, with the effect of “making net zero considerably harder to achieve”, the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.

Rowing back on policies to phase out gas boilers and petrol and diesel vehicles, and the general sense that the government is “weakening its commitments” to shifting to a green economy, have also harmed the prospects of inward investment into the UK, and sent adverse signals to consumers, businesses and other governments.

UK has led the way, with countries across the continent making mass arrests, passing draconian new laws and labelling activists as eco-terrorists

Human rights experts and campaigners have warned against an intensifying crackdown on climate protests across Europe, as Guardian research found countries across the continent using repressive measures to silence activists.

In Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, authorities have responded to climate protests with mass arrests, the passing of draconian new laws, the imposing of severe sentences for non-violent protests and the labelling of activists as hooligans, saboteurs or eco-terrorists.

Guardian investigation finds growing number of countries passing anti-protest laws as part of playbook of tactics to intimidate people peacefully raising the alarm

As wildfires and extreme temperatures rage across the planet, sea temperature records tumble and polar glaciers disappear, the scale and speed of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore. Scientific experts are unanimous that there needs to be an urgent clampdown on fossil fuel production, a major boost in renewable energy and support for communities to rapidly move towards a fairer, healthier and sustainable low-carbon future.

Many governments, however, seem to have different priorities. According to climate experts, senior figures at the UN and grassroots advocates contacted by the Guardian, some political leaders and law enforcement agencies around the world are instead launching a fierce crackdown on people trying to peacefully raise the alarm.

The best way to remind yourself why we need mass agriculture is to try it on a very small scale yourself

Recently, my family welcomed a new arrival. This event was keenly anticipated. We had watched it grow, fretted over its development. And then suddenly, there it was, sitting in the kitchen: a bright orange pumpkin, about the size of my head and equally as weirdly shaped. While I was thrilled to see it, I can take none of the credit for its production. The farmer was my wife, Pat, who fretted appropriately over the way the pumpkin plant clearly shut down all other production to bring forth this one beauty. A reasonably productive tomato plant kept it company. We also got a couple of chillies from a tiny seedling brought to the house by a lunch guest. Tom and Barbara Good had nothing on us.

For a while we fretted over what to do with the pumpkin. We thought about carving it into a lantern for Halloween but in truth we’ve opted out of being mugged by children for sugar. Ours are adults. We’re done. Round our way if you don’t put out a pumpkin, the door knocker stays unmolested. So we thought about roasting and even pickling it.

Luisa Neubauer, of Fridays for Future, cites language used by the chancellor amid protest crackdown

Severe policing and “scary” political rhetoric is fuelling abuse against climate activists, Germany’s best-known environmentalist has said.

“It’s not a shift any more, it’s a slide,” said Luisa Neubauer, from the German branch of Fridays for Future, the protest movement that grew out of Greta Thunberg’s school strikes. “There’s an increase in hate language, there’s an increase in threats, and the threats are getting more concrete. So they’re not saying any more ‘I hate you’ but they’re saying ‘We should come to your place, we should go get you.’”

Research by Material Focus shows everyday items such as disposable vapes are a big contributing factor

Almost half a billion small, cheap electrical everyday items from headphones to handheld fans ended up in landfill in the UK in the past year, according to research.

The not-for-profit organisation Material Focus, which conducted the research, said the scale of the issue was huge and they wanted to encourage more recycling.

We’re racing to keep up with the pace of change as a future arrives faster than we predicted

To protect Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is to protect humanity’s future on this planet.

That may sound overdramatic – until you appreciate this region’s crucial role in the global climate system.

If only we had some kind of climate trigger

Madeleine King concedes the fossil fuel’s emissions are ‘significant’. To be exact, they account for a whopping 21% of Australia’s total

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Sitting on a giant pile of fossil fuels in a year set to go down as the hottest on record – pockmarked by one flame-grilled disaster after another – requires some careful and creative public positioning.

One must be careful not to completely ignore the climate crisis while trying to navigate a path that continues to justify drilling and burning Australia’s fossil fuel du jour – gas.

Tiny island in Bristol Channel has 25,000 Manx shearwaters – 95% of England’s breeding population – and 1,335 puffins

There are more seabirds nesting on the island of Lundy than at any time since the 1930s, conservationists have revealed.

The tiny island in the Bristol Channel, a globally famed location for Britain’s seabirds, is now home to 25,000 Manx shearwaters – 95% of England’s breeding population – as well as 1,335 puffins and more than 150 pairs of storm petrels, a species that only arrived on the island in 2014.

Deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources shows Exxon’s confidence that fossil fuel output will not be hampered in years to come

Oil giant ExxonMobil agreed to buy the shale group Pioneer Natural Resources for $59.5bn in a deal that places a vast bet on a future for fossil fuel production in the United States.

America’s largest oil and gas deal in more than two decades will increase Exxon’s dominance in the Permian Basin shale field, at the heart of the country’s transformation into the world’s biggest oil producer.

Channelling Villanelle, Annabelle Hickson’s onion chopping skills did not prepare her for the entry of the deadly brown snake that slithered into her farmhouse kitchen in rural NSW

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They say you can’t kill a brown snake because it’s a native animal. And that you definitely shouldn’t kill one with a shovel. And that guinea fowls are meant to scare snakes away. And that blue tongue lizards eat snake eggs.

But what are you to do when you’re in the kitchen chopping onions for dinner and the second most venomous snake in the world slithers in?