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Germany heads for three-party government with climate focus after tight elections
Traffic light, Jamaica, or black-green - just some of the coalition options as major parties look to climate alliances after Sunday poll.
The post Germany heads for three-party government with climate focus after tight elections appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Love Canal: The suburb built on 20,000 tonnes of chemical waste
The clock is ticking on net-zero, and Australia’s farmers must not get a free pass
Without action now, agriculture may become Australia’s largest source of emissions, requiring costly offsetting - paid for by taxpayers, consumers and farmers.
The post The clock is ticking on net-zero, and Australia’s farmers must not get a free pass appeared first on RenewEconomy.
How climate change is making inequality worse, especially for children
Manta rays inspire new device to filter microplastics
Children set for more climate disasters than their grandparents, research shows
Climate crisis brings stark intergenerational injustice but rapid emission cuts can limit damage
People born today will suffer many times more extreme heatwaves and other climate disasters over their lifetimes than their grandparents, research has shown.
The study is the first to assess the contrasting experience of climate extremes by different age groups and starkly highlights the intergenerational injustice posed by the climate crisis.
Continue reading...German parties prepare to jostle for coalition standing following close election
You don’t need a PhD to tune into birds. Just open your ears to the soundtrack of your neighbourhood | Erin Lennox
I learned that loving birds is best done by walking in the sun, being curious and appreciating the chatter. Not by sitting on my own looking at books and screens
- The Guardian/BirdLife Australia Bird of the Year poll for 2021 will begin on 27 September
I once saw a picture of a kid standing proudly next to his science project. It was a handmade poster and emblazoned across the top was the strikingly catchy title: “Birds: they’re fucking everywhere!”Obviously photoshopped, these words nevertheless struck me as being both funny and more or less true.
Many years ago, camping in the Cathedrals in Victoria, I woke early to a strange, whirring birdcall. Groggily, I unzipped the tent enough to stick my head out and squinted unattractively in the dawn light. The bird I saw had astonishing violet-blue eyes and was sort of, I dunno, stripy? I am, you may have guessed, a novice birder. So, I did the exact thing that any experienced birder will tell you not to do. I pulled my head back inside my tent and went straight for my field guide. If you too are new to birding, here’s a tip: your field guide isn’t likely to fly away in the next few seconds and (if you’re not me) you have this ace thing called working memory. So get your priorities straight, put down your field guide (or, more likely these days, your phone) and give your new friend your undivided attention. Because life is short and this moment is fleeting.
Continue reading...Australian bird of the year 2021: poll returns as climate change threatens beloved species
The shortlist features some birds hit by bushfires and a few urban ‘bullies’ that dominate as cities grow
• The Guardian/BirdLife Australia 2021 bird of the year poll begins on Monday
Blue Mountains resident Carol Probets remembers the gang-gang cockatoo as a bird that was commonly spotted in the region in the 1980s.
“You’d see them really often, most times when you went walking both in the bush but especially around the towns actually,” Probets says.
Continue reading...The clock is ticking on net-zero, and Australia's farmers must not get a free pass
Scott Morrison will return home to a fight on two fronts – and one could prove ruinous | Katharine Murphy
Replacing Christian Porter is just the start of the PM’s problems, as climate jostling in the National party over net zero threatens to spill into all-out warfare
When Scott Morrison arrives home from his week in Washington, the prime minister needs to deal with two pressing problems – replacing Christian Porter and getting some material in front of the Nationals about net zero.
When it comes to the reshuffle, colleagues think the prime minister will keep changes surgical. People speculate the he will replace the departing Porter with another Western Australian – Ben Morton. Morrison is close enough to Morton to call him “the apprentice”.
Continue reading...Always a bigger fish: Florida scientists seek new angle on shark depredation
Study of how fish are snatched from lines will investigate what species of sharks are the most prolific offenders
Many anglers lament the one that got away. In Florida, the issue is more often the fish that is caught but is then snatched by a shark before being reeled in.
Related: Judge recommends tribe be allowed to hunt gray whales off Washington state
Continue reading...AEMO installs early warning system for surplus solar and rooftop PV shutdowns
AEMO institutes early warning system for potential rooftop solar "shutdowns" if there is too much PV in the grid for it to control.
The post AEMO installs early warning system for surplus solar and rooftop PV shutdowns appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Powerful owls are gentle giants stalking our suburbs, but they are also on the edge
These are massive, charismatic birds with an exhibitionistic streak who have increasingly moved to the city with their natural habitat under pressure
• The Guardian/BirdLife Australia 2021 bird of the year poll begins on Monday
For the past several months, I’ve kept a slightly uneasy vigil on a pair of breeding powerful owls in inner Brisbane, just a couple of kilometres from home. In that time they’ve seen off crowds of curious onlookers, and a determined eviction attempt by sulphur-crested cockatoos, to raise one confident and healthy-looking chick, which will remain dependent on them for several more months yet.
After that, it faces a much bigger challenge: finding and establishing its own territory and mate.
Continue reading...This haunting vision of climate change could concentrate minds at Cop26 | Tim Adams
I’ve been reading Jonathan C Slaght’s wonderful book Owls of the Eastern Ice, his account of four seasons trying to locate and protect the largest living species of owl in the remote Russian forests of Primorye, bordering North Korea. The Blakiston’s fish owl is a creature that seems entirely made of mythology. The threats to its continued existence include radioactive rivers and deforestation as well as the by-products of climate change: increasing floods, wildfires, typhoons.
Slaght’s extraordinary adventures on its behalf are like scenes from the end of the world. Rather than rely on the prime minister’s prep school arguments for a revolution in how the planet is managed at the forthcoming Cop26 gathering in Glasgow, organisers might be better advised to leave a copy of Slaght’s book at every world leader’s bedside. If they picked it up in the jet-lagged early hours they might find their dreams haunted, as mine have been, by huge, endangered owls swooping low through their subconscious, reminding them what survival might mean.
Continue reading...Judge recommends tribe be allowed to hunt gray whales off Washington state
Makah chairman welcomes ruling opposed by animal welfare groups and says: ‘We’re doing it for spiritual and cultural reasons’
An administrative law judge has recommended that a Native American tribe in Washington state be allowed to hunt gray whales – a major step in its decades-long effort to resume the ancient practice.
Related: Horror at the Faroes dolphin slaughter is only human – but it risks hypocrisy | Philip Hoare
Continue reading...Ministers close to deal that could end China’s role in UK nuclear power station
Exclusive: deal in which UK government would take stake in Sizewell C would risk inflaming geopolitical tensions
Ministers are closing in on a deal that could kick China off a project to build a £20bn nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast and pump in tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer cash instead – a move that would heighten geopolitical tensions.
The government could announce plans to take a stake in Sizewell C power station, alongside the French state-backed power giant EDF, as early as next month, ahead of the Cop26 climate summit.
Continue reading...Call of the wild: planned Dartmoor crackdown ‘will penalise campers’
Move to restrict where people can sleep under canvas will reverse the public’s hard-won right to enjoy the national park
Shamus McCaffery, 53, who lives in the heart of Dartmoor and wild camps there three or four times a month, is among many who are worried about an imminent threat to their freedoms.
Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) has launched a consultation on new bylaws that could reduce the areas where people can legally wild camp in England and Wales by 2,400 hectares, as well as ban activities involving more than 50 people without the agreement of landowners. People caught by the moor’s rangers camping in the wrong spot or gathering in large groups without permission could be fined £500. “Our hard-won freedoms to spend nights on the moor surrounded by nature are at risk,” said McCaffery. “This will criminalise law-abiding users of the countryside.”
Continue reading...Commodities firm Gunvor parts ways with emissions trading boss
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