Category Archives: Environment

Glacier melt will lead to ice-free peaks in California for first time in human history

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New research shows massive glaciers in Sierra Nevada projected to melt away by the beginning of the next century

Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in human history, new research has found.

The mountain range’s glaciers are older than previously known, dating back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to an article published last week in Science Advances.

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Media and political attacks on Australia’s emissions targets ‘straight out of the climate obstruction playbook’, expert says

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Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction

Political and media attacks on renewable energy and climate action in Australia in recent months have come “out of the climate obstruction playbook” that has been honed over decades around the world by fossil fuel interests.

Prof Christian Downie, an Australian researcher, says he has studied techniques used by business groups and lobbyists all over the world which are now being seen in Australia.

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Fiery Senate exchange reveals investigation into coal firm allegedly clearing endangered greater glider habitat

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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called environment department bureaucrats ‘weak’ - though later withdrew the remark

Australian government officials are investigating whether a coal mining company is putting threatened greater gliders and koalas at risk by illegally clearing bushland in central Queensland without approval under federal law.

The revelation came in a fiery Senate estimates hearing in which the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the Albanese government for not doing more to stop the clearing and described environment department bureaucrats as “weak” – an allegation she later withdrew.

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Trump orders approval of 211-mile mining road through Alaska wilderness

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Ambler Road project, approved in Trump’s first term but blocked by Biden, would harm Native tribes and wildlife

Donald Trump on Monday ordered the approval of a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in the US president’s first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Indigenous tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

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Cause of Gold Coast mass fish kill unknown with marine heatwave most likely culprit, scientists say

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Local community group says whatever the cause ‘kids shouldn’t be in the water’ with dead fish

Queensland authorities are investigating the deaths of thousands of fish that washed up on a popular Gold Coast beach.

The state environment department said dead baitfish had been observed at The Spit, at the northern end of the Gold Coast since last Wednesday, but no obvious source of pollution had been found.

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Hot public holiday expected for Sydney and Brisbane after record rain for parts of NSW and Queensland in September

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Warm weather follows deluges in more than a dozen places in NSW and Queensland which topped daily records for the month

Sydney and Brisbane are in for a hot public holiday on Monday, with temperatures set to pass 30C in both capitals.

The warm weather comes after a soaking September on Australia’s east coast smashed monthly rain records across 21 places in Queensland and six in New South Wales following a record-breaking rain in August.

Sydney – sunny, minimum 20C, maximum 31C

Brisbane – sunny, minimum 15C, maximum 32C

Melbourne – shower or two, minimum 12C, maximum 16C

Adelaide – shower or two, minimum 11C, maximum 17C

Canberra – shower or two, minimum 11C, maximum 23C

Perth – sunny, minimum 8C, maximum 21C

Hobart – possible shower, minimum 7C, maximum 14C

Darwin – partly cloudy minimum 25C, maximum 35C

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‘Baudin’s or bauxite?’ Stark warning black cockatoo won’t survive mining expansion

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BirdLife WA calls consequences of Alcoa’s proposals to clear 11,000ha of jarrah forest ‘irreversible and catastrophic’ for endangered bird

The destruction of Western Australia’s northern jarrah forests for bauxite mining will push a threatened black cockatoo “to and beyond the brink of extinction” if governments allowed it to continue, conservationists have warned.

Mark Henryon, a volunteer with Birdlife Western Australia, said there was a clear choice that would decide whether the endangered Baudin’s black cockatoo would survive. “Baudin’s or bauxite – we can’t have both,” he said.

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Wildfires are getting deadlier and costing more. Experts warn they’re becoming unstoppable

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Of 200 fires in the past 44 years, half of the fires that cost US$1bn or more were in the last decade

Wildfires tore through central Chile last year, killing 133 people. In California, 18,000 buildings were destroyed in 2018 causing US$16bn (A$24bn, £12bn) in damage. Portugal, Greece, Algeria and Australia have all felt the grief and the economic pain in recent years.

As the headlines, the death tolls and the billion dollar losses from wildfires have stacked up around the world, so too have the rising temperatures – fuelled by the climate crisis – that create tinderbox conditions.

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Israeli naval forces board pro-Palestinian flotilla 75 miles from Gaza

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Greta Thunberg arrested and taken into custody after six of the flotilla’s boats were boarded

A number of boats from a pro-Palestinian flotilla have been boarded by Israeli forces roughly 75 miles off the coast of Gaza, as the vessels attempted to breach the maritime blockade of the war-torn territory and bring aid.

The raid began with the flotilla’s leading vessel, Alma, whose crew were detained by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday. A video from the Israeli foreign ministry showed the most prominent of the flotilla’s passengers, Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, sitting on a deck surrounded by soldiers.

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Corporate ‘middlemen’ mask who really profits from Australian fossil fuel projects, report warns

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Nominee companies – paid to be listed as shareholders on behalf of unnamed investors – could be reducing accountability over financial support of industry

Three global banks are being paid to obscure who profits from 51 fossil fuel projects in Australia that produce 22m tonnes of carbon emissions each year, according to new analysis.

An analyst who authored the report says it highlights a “massive problem” in Australia that could be reducing the amount of scrutiny investors face for financial support of the fossil fuel industry.

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‘Dominant on the river’: 32 Chunk crowned champion in ‘biggest Fat Bear Week yet’

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Brown bear’s nearly 100,000 votes leads him to victory despite suffering for most of season with broken jaw

“The merely chubby have been winnowed away,” a naturalist intoned. “We are left with a clash of titans.”

After a record-breaking week of public voting, Katmai national park and preserve in Alaska has announced the winner of its “biggest Fat Bear Week yet”.

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Zelenskyy sounds alarm over unprecedented power outage at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

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Ukrainian president says Russian shelling is preventing work to restore links to grid and that one of the plant’s diesel generators has failed

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been off the grid for seven straight days, warning of the potential threat of a “critical” situation.

It is the longest outage at Zaporizhzhia since Russia invaded and seized the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest.

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Trump administration spending $625m to revive dying coal industry

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White House allocating 13.1m acres of public land to coal mining, which has been on rapid decline over past 30 years

The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.

The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Namibia deploys army to fight wildfire burning third of Etosha game reserve

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Vast tract of park that is home to 114 mammal species, including critically endangered black rhino, affected

Namibia has begun deploying hundreds of soldiers to fight a fire that has burned through a third of the vast Etosha national park, one of Africa’s largest game reserves, officials said.

The park in the north of the largely desert country is home to 114 species of mammals, notably the critically endangered black rhinoceros, and is a major tourist attraction.

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Crisafulli insists on more shark nets to protect human lives despite trapped mother and baby whale

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Queensland premier says he won’t protect whales ‘at the expense of one single human’

Queensland’s premier said the state is “not for turning” on its plan to expand shark netting, and won’t put protecting whales “at the expense of one single human”.

A mother and baby humpback were discovered trapped in shark netting near Rainbow Beach on Saturday, the eighth and ninth whales to become entangled in nine days.

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Native forest logging must end in order to reach Labor’s emissions reduction target, expert says

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Murray Watt says ‘it’s not the government’s intention to stop old growth logging’ as Greens and academics press for total halt

The Albanese government is being urged to end old growth logging “at a minimum” in order to meet a 2035 emissions reduction target recommended by the Climate Change Authority.

One of Australia’s most respected forest scientists, Prof David Lindenmayer, of the Australian National University, has also written to the authority questioning why it did not go further in its advice and recommend an end to all native forest logging.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

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Abnormally hot days may hit Australia’s south-east after rare sudden warming over Antarctica

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Phenomenon extremely unusual in southern hemisphere and last occurred in 2019 when it contributed to worsening of black summer bushfires

A rare rise in stratospheric temperatures over Antarctica could influence weather into summer, with previous events driving hotter and drier conditions for south-east Australia.

The phenomenon – called sudden stratospheric warming – is extremely unusual in the southern hemisphere.

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‘History will remember who showed up’: Keir Starmer faces call to attend Cop30 summit

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Response from leaders and key climate figures comes after PM’s aides advised non-attendance over concerns Reform may attack him

Leading climate figures and Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to attend the crucial Cop30 climate summit this November, after aides advised him not to attend for fear of attracting the ire of the Reform party.

Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said: “Cop30 is where leaders are expected to come and roll up their sleeves, make deals to help their nation’s economy transition faster, creating more jobs, and guide the world on what next steps we take together.”

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Super Typhoon Ragasa rampages through Taiwan, Hong Kong and southern China

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Peak winds of 165mph bring 17 deaths in Taiwan, while Storm Bualoi threatens to strengthen into typhoon on its way to the Philippines

Super Typhoon Ragasa pounded Taiwan, Hong Kong and China before moving into Vietnam on Thursday night, though as a much-weakened storm.

At its peak Ragasa had mean wind speeds of 165mph as it moved to the south of Taiwan, where it brought significant heavy rain resulting in 17 deaths as a barrier lake burst.

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