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When people asked me where I drew the line, I wasn’t sure about insects – until a fateful encounter in my kitchen

The Grammy-winning American comedian George Carlin often included animal rights messages in his standup routines. He once joked that he’d like to invent a cockroach spray with a difference: “It doesn’t kill the roaches, but it fills them with self-doubt as to whether or not they’re in the right house.”

As one of those animal rights people who expounds on the virtues and benefits of being decent to all sentient beings, I’m often asked: “Where do you draw the line? What about insects?”

Ingrid Newkirk is the founder of Peta and author of Animalkind

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Australia’s Productivity Commission used its latest report to rebuke the idea of the government introducing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, claiming it to be unnecessary and protectionist for local industry.

The outraged reaction to Just Stop Oil’s mild protests says far more about us than it does about the activists themselves

“Play was not disrupted.” With those four words the R&A summed up its message after Just Stop Oil made their latest protest on the 17th green at the Open on Friday.

A police statement had already done the heavy lifting, with its charges of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and its stern disapproval of public disorder. That left the golfing establishment to sound cool, calm and – unusually for them – like the good guys. They had, after all, triumphed. No one had been inconvenienced in the course of watching their sporting entertainment and that, by and large, has been the focus of anger at Just Stop Oil’s activity this summer. Critics find it frustratingly hard to accuse them of anything else. The protesters haven’t endangered players, or broken equipment; they haven’t altered the course of the sporting action or brought it to an unwanted conclusion. They’ve shown up, made something temporarily orange, then disappeared peacefully in a police van.

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That would never happen to me

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Celebrity gardeners are in uproar – but abandoning perfection can both help the environment and create beautiful spaces

Celebrity gardeners have been throwing down the gardening gloves and stamping up and down on the parterre. The uproar is all about rewilding – how it cannot, must not, should not apply to gardening.

Rewilding gardens is “puritanical nonsense”, rails Monty Don. Alan Titchmarsh believes gardeners have been “brainwashed”. He’s just written to the Lords about it. The rewilding craze, he told peers, is an “ill-considered trend” loaded with “misleading propaganda” that will “deplete our gardens of their botanical riches” and be “catastrophic” for wildlife.

Isabella Tree runs Knepp Castle estate with conservationist Charlie Burrell. They are the co-authors of The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding Big and Small

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Coalition turns its anti-renewables rhetoric on to rooftop solar inverters and the threat of Chinese makers as it ramps up its push for nuclear.

The post Coalition attacks rooftop solar inverters in new scare campaign against renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

South Korea has launched a funding programme to encourage companies to conduct REDD+ feasibility studies for the private sector, as the country has pledged to secure more forest carbon credits abroad to realise its climate goals.

Federal Labor lowers benchmark rate of return on investment for green bank from "unrealistic" levels set by successive Coalition governments.

The post Labor reverses Coalition changes to CEFC mandate, adds local content and social licence appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Generation begins at the first of the biggest turbines to be installed in Australia, at the biggest wind project in NSW.

The post Generation begins at first of biggest wind turbines to be installed in Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Victoria has a plan for the state to electrify, but how do we make the transition fair and equitable for everyone? New research suggests a way forward. Sangeetha Chandrashekeran, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, The University of Melbourne Julia de Bruyn, Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, The University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Australia has committed A$50 million ($33 mln) to support clean energy supply chains in the Indo-Pacific the government announced over the weekend, as the issuance of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) rose, according to a regulatory update.  

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The public defender of a forest-rich Brazilian state has launched legal action against several organisations and a local government over allegations of land theft linked to a REDD+ project.

Bidders in the NSW auction for "firm capacity" to partially replace the country's biggest coal generator given an extra month to lodge financial value offers.

The post Battery developers given extra month to bid for 2GWh of storage to fill coal gap appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Black rockfish caught in May close to disaster-hit nuclear power station is one of dozens caught in the past year above the legal safety limit

A fish living near drainage outlets at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in May contained levels of radioactive cesium that are 180 times Japan’s safety limit.

The black rockfish caught on 18 May was found by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to have 18,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium-137, compared with the legal maximum level of 100 becquerels per kg.

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Biden says wind farms don't cause cancer - as Donald Trump suggested - but some new offshore wind projects are causing indigestion at the price bid in auctions.

The post Biden says wind farms don’t cause cancer, but offshore industry faces headwinds appeared first on RenewEconomy.

It’s not as well-known as the Hills Hoist clothesline, but here’s another Aussie invention worth celebrating: Glide poles are reconnecting severed landscapes for a special group of marsupials. Brendan Taylor, Adjunct Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, Southern Cross University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

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A terrible lesson is being taken from the Uxbridge vote. Labour must stick to its green agenda, and decent Tories must raise a voice

One news story defines this summer: the fact that average global temperatures have recently reached record-breaking levels. Baking European weather is now seared into our consciousness in the form of those heat maps coloured red and orange; as wildfires spread across the Greek island of Rhodes, thousands of people have been evacuated. In the US, China and no end of countries besides, the idea of planetary heating as a looming threat whose worst effects might yet be averted feels like it is turning to ash.

In the UK, unfortunately, the past 48 hours has seen a political story whose parochialist absurdity is off the scale: Conservative voices undermining the fragile cross-party consensus on reaching net zero by 2050 and calling for many of the UK’s tilts at climate action to be either slowed or stopped. The reason? The results of three parliamentary byelections – and, in particular, the views of 13,965 Conservative voters in the outer London suburbs.

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Downpours affect Open golf tournament and fourth Ashes Test and festivalgoers also drenched

Flood alerts have been issued across the north of England where heavy rain disrupted sporting events and left festivalgoers drenched.

It has been a soggy final day of the Open Championship golf tournament in Liverpool and downpours have blighted the fourth Ashes cricket Test in Manchester on Sunday.

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