The Guardian
How should world leaders punish Trump for pulling out of Paris accord? | Wael Hmaidan
The international community must show Trump, and any other leaders that may follow suit, that other core diplomatic goals – such as Nato funding – will depend on honouring their climate commitments
World leaders’ response to Donald Trump’s announcement that he would withdraw the US from the Paris agreement was strong and unified. But did it sting the president and his administration? To deter other potential backsliders and maintain the integrity of the Paris agreement, the perpetrator of a defection of this magnitude should be made to feel the pain. But how?
Continue reading...Ratty returns: hundreds of water voles released in UK's biggest reintroduction
Almost 700 of the endangered rodents, immortalised in Wind in the Willows, will be released in Northumberland – and it’s all thanks really to the otter
The biggest reintroduction of water voles in the UK began this week, with 325 voles released into Kielder Forest in Northumberland, and 350 more to follow later in the summer.
Water voles hold a special place in Britain’s natural history, providing the model for Ratty, the much-loved character in The Wind in the Willows. But the species has suffered catastrophic declines over several decades, driven by loss of habitat, the pollution of waterways, increased urbanisation, and rampant populations of American mink, originally farmed for their fur but which escaped into the wild and proved a voracious predator on the native vole.
Continue reading...Lily beetle wears a frock of frass to deter foes
Crook, Country Durham Tiny larvae hatched then covered their bloated bodies in their own sticky excrement so they resembled bird droppings
At first I thought the flash of red under the leaf was a ladybird. Then I realised that this was a scarlet lily beetle, which has the delightfully alliterative scientific name of Lilioceris lilii.
These gaudy insects have a formidable appetite for lily foliage and have spread from their native Eurasia throughout most of the temperate northern hemisphere. They first appeared in a Surrey garden in 1939 and reached the US in 1943. They turned up in my garden in May.
Continue reading...Marine expert warns of climate emergency as fish abandon tropical waters
Daniel Pauly is calling for a new plan to manage fishing levels as the industry’s expansion combines with global warming
As climate change pushes marine species towards cooler waters, and the fishing industry expands around the globe, the tropics are emptying out, a leading fisheries expert has warned.
The federal government is expected to release its new management plan for marine reserves in coming weeks, after a 2016 review recommended winding back protections. However Dr Daniel Pauly has called for the creation of more, saying they are the only realistic form of mitigation to the current crisis.
Continue reading...Adani mine loses majority support of traditional owner representatives
Wangan and Jagalingou representative who had backed an Indigenous land use agreement now says he opposes the mine
Adani has lost majority support from traditional owner representatives for a land access deal for its Queensland mine, casting doubt on moves to implement the agreement.
Craig Dallen, a Wangan and Jagalingou representative who last year backed an Indigenous land use agreement (Ilua) with the miner, now says he opposes a deal that will not make up for “the destruction the project will wreak upon the traditional culture and lands of our people”.
Continue reading...Air pollution is killing wildlife and people | Letters
On National Clean Air Day, Thursday 15 June, we’re calling for action to cut air pollution which threatens our native wildlife (Nature needs fresh air too, 2 June). The UK government’s air quality consultation, closing on 15 June, focuses on “tackling nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities”. That issue deserves urgent action – but it’s not enough. Air pollution is a problem in both rural and urban areas, for people and wildlife. We need to tackle the sources and solutions as a whole.
Nitrogen in air pollution acts as a fertiliser, making conditions too rich for many wild fungi and plants. That’s why you’re more likely to see nitrogen-tolerant species, such as common orange lichen, nettles and hemlock, on road verges and field margins – rather than bird’s foot trefoil, harebells or orchids, which are more sensitive. In 63% of special areas of conservation, our best wildlife sites, nitrogen levels are already too high. This has dire consequences for animals, including pollinating insects, that depend on wild fungi and plants for food, nutrients and shelter. This affects us all, as biodiversity is vital to our health and wellbeing, our culture and our economy.
Continue reading...‘Plankton explosion’ turns Istanbul’s Bosphorus turquoise
Transformation of the usually blue waters of the Bosphorusas is not caused by pollution, say scientists
A sudden change in the colour of the Bosphorus Strait that divides the continents of Europe and Asia in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul has surprised residents, with scientists putting it down to a surge in a species of plankton across the Black Sea.
The sudden transformation of the usually blue waters of the Bosphorus to a milky turquoise since the weekend had alarmed some residents.
Continue reading...Thames Water given maximum £8.5m fine for missing leak target
Penalty for ‘unacceptable’ water leaks comes three months after the company received a record fine for an untreated sewage leak
Thames Water will pay a £8.5m penalty after failing to meet its target to cut water leakage from its pipes. Ofwat, which regulates the privatised water industry, called the failure “unacceptable” and said the penalty was the maximum possible.
Leaks from Thames Water’s network rose by 5% in the last year, or 35m litres per day. In May, the Guardian revealed that amid fears of a drought and with some water companies asking customers to save water, the vast amount of water that leaks from company pipes every day across England has not fallen for at least four years.
Continue reading...New research may resolve a climate ‘conundrum’ across the history of human civilization | Dana Nuccitelli
The new study also confirms the planet is warming 20 times faster than Earth’s fastest natural climate change
Earth’s last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. The warmer and more stable climate the followed allowed for the development of agriculture and the rise of human civilization. This important period encompassing the past 12,000 years is referred to as the Holocene geological epoch. It also created a “conundrum” for climate scientists, because global temperatures simulated by climate models didn’t match reconstructions from proxy data.
To be specific, the overall temperature change during the Holocene matched pretty well in reconstructions and models, but the pattern didn’t. The best proxy reconstruction from a 2013 paper led by Shaun Marcott estimated more warming than models from 12,000 to 7,000 years ago. Then over the past 7,000 years, Marcott’s reconstruction estimated about 0.5°C cooling while model simulations showed the planet warming by about the same amount.
Continue reading...Fatal crocodile attacks rising in Northern Territory, data shows
Report shows 14 people died following attacks between 2005 and 2014, compared with 10 deaths in the 33 years to 2004
The number of people being killed by crocodiles in the Top End is on the rise, new data shows.
A study by the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, Royal Darwin Hospital and the Menzies School of Health Research has found croc-related deaths have jumped since hunting was outlawed in 1971.
Continue reading...Satellite Eye on Earth: May 2017 – in pictures
Vesuvius in Italy and volcanoes in northern Tanzania, lights going out in Syria, and flooding in Sri Lanka are among images captured by Nasa and the ESA this month
A vertical view of Vesuvius in southern Italy, taken by the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the International Space Station. The Proxima mission is named after the closest star to the sun, continuing a tradition of naming missions with French astronauts after stars and constellations. The mission is part of the ESA’s plan to use Earth-orbiting spacecraft as a place to live and work while preparing for future voyages of exploration further into the solar system.
Continue reading...'If we stopped poaching tomorrow, elephants would still be in big trouble'
Ivory poaching is the most immediate, urgent threat to Africa’s elephants. But even if that can be tackled, they will have to fight humans for land, food and water
It is the dead of night. The day’s red-dust heat has given way to a cooling breeze. A hundred frogs chirp urgently. Tim and his crew are preparing for another stealth raid. Their mission is highly dangerous and now there’s a new threat: armed men are following them.
This is the scene repeated nightly on the eastern fringes of Amboseli national park in Kenya, close to the border with Tanzania. Tim is an elephant who, along with a group of up to 12 other males, has developed a taste for the tomatoes and maize growing on local farms on the outskirts of the park. The armed men are park rangers who have been tasked with keeping him from the crops – and saving his life.
Continue reading...Side street routes to avoid city pollution can cut exposure by half
Clean air signposts and online walking maps to sidestep diesel fumes would benefit public health, finds study
Taking a side street route when walking through a city cuts a person’s air pollution exposure by half, according to a new study.
Signposting these clean air routes and providing online maps would keep people away from heavily polluted main streets and would benefit their health, the researchers said. In fact the UK group behind the research have developed a new interactive map of London that allows people to put in any route and be shown a low-pollution walking option.
Continue reading...Mining bees create a theatre of enchantments
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire There is in them a curious combination of industry and decadence, fun and devotion
There’s something Elizabethan about the ashy mining bees. The females are 10mm long, black with a bluish reflection, a ruff of grey hair, a further grey ring around the thorax and a furry white facial mask. The males are smaller, squatter and less strikingly marked.
Andrena cineraria is one of 67 species in Britain and Ireland belonging to the mining bee genus. They are hairy little sprites with pollen baskets on their back legs, short tongues and pointed antennae, and the most effective of pollinators. They excavate nests underground in all kinds of soils.
Continue reading...Global demand for coal falls in 2016 for second year in a row
UK leads trend away from coal, with use down 52.5%, while China continues to consume less of the dirtiest fossil fuel
Global demand for coal has fallen for the second consecutive year, according to a BP study, helped by the US and China burning less of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
The UK was described as the “most extreme example” of the trend away from coal, which has resulted in use of the fuel returning to levels not seen since the start of the industrial revolution.
Continue reading...Multi-million dollar upgrade planned to secure 'failsafe' Arctic seed vault
Improvements aim to ensure the vault’s role as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds after a recent flooding by melting permafrost
The Global Seed Vault, built in the Arctic as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds, is to undergo a multi-million dollar upgrade after water from melting permafrost flooded its access tunnel.
No seeds were damaged but the incident undermined the original belief that the vault would be a “failsafe” facility, securing the world’s food supply forever. Now the Norwegian government, which owns the vault, has committed $4.4m (NOK37m) to improvements.
Continue reading...Melodious encounter with a family of redstarts
West Sussex The male calls three times, then segues into a short, complex phrase of tweets and whistles
The wind crashes through the tree tops, like the sea breaking on the shore, the great pines and silver birches that encircle the heathland swaying and shimmering. A red admiral butterfly rises from the heather, but it is snatched up by the wind and tumbles away too quickly for me to follow it.
I walk along the muddy track that threads between the trees. Where only last week the ground had been dry and parched, offering very little moisture to thirsty animals and birds, now all the pools are replenished with just one day’s heavy rain. I stop to watch three goldfinches drink from a puddle in front of me.
Continue reading...Butler reveals Labor CET plan on Q&A: 'Get Josh to do all the hard work' – video
Energy minister Josh Frydenberg eventually offers a wry smile after opposition MP Mark Butler makes a joke about Labor’s strategy on the clean energy target during Q&A. Butler says the plan is “to get Josh to do all the hard work. Then lose [the election] and hand it over.” The pair were on ABC TV program to discuss Australia’s energy future.
Continue reading...Battery storage and rooftop solar could mean new life post-grid for consumers
The Finkel report offers glimpse of opportunity for consumers and businesses to play the electricity market
To illustrate the impact of battery storage on the electricity network in Australia, Prof Guoxiu Wang likes to compare it to the invention of refrigeration.
“Before people invented the fridge, we produced food, we consumed food immediately,” says Wang, director of the Centre for Clean Energy Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney. “With the development of appropriate electricity storage technology, the electricity is like our food – you can store it and whenever you need that electricity, you can use that immediately.”
Continue reading...India has enough coal without Adani mine, yet must keep importing, minister says
India’s energy minister, Piyush Goyal, says the country would be self-sufficient in coal, except that power plants had been designed to run only on imports
India now has “sufficient coal capacity” to power itself without Queensland’s Carmichael mine project, thanks to the increased productivity of domestic mines, cheaper renewables and lower than expected energy demand, the country’s energy minister has said.
But Piyush Goyal said India would be forced to keep importing coal, including from the proposed Queensland mine, because too many Indian power plants had been designed to run on foreign coal.