Exclusive: Sunak urged to take urgent action to solve food crisis at meeting with Defra and farmers
Immigration and food prices must increase to solve the food crisis, ministers are to say at a summit.
Rishi Sunak will be joined by ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as well as farmers and industry leaders at the meeting at No 10 on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Experts warn strong vegetation growth during La Niñas could result in fuel for fires, as up to 90% chance of El Niño predicted
Eastern Australia looks set for a drier winter and spring as a US federal agency predicts an “extremely high likelihood” of an El Niño developing later in the year.
According to the US Climate Prediction Center, a weak El Niño is likely and there is an 80% chance of a moderate El Niño in the next couple of months, with a greater than 90% chance it will persist into our summer.
Continue reading...Ella Reed was bitten in the stomach, arm, knee and finger after attack from probable bull shark, but plans to return to the water
A 13-year-old girl escaped a shark attack at a Florida beach Thursday by punching the aggressive, predatory creature.
The teen, Ella Reed, told South Florida’s Local 10 News, was sitting in waist-deep water, alongside a friend, when she was struck by intense, sharp pain.
Continue reading...Experts say foragers taking too much, selling the goods commercially and harming fragile ecosystems
Foragers for wild garlic and mushrooms have been picking ingredients in protected sites, taking too much and putting wildlife at risk, experts have warned.
The trend of gathering food in the wild has boomed in recent years, with top restaurants serving foraged food on the menu, and it can be a healthy and sustainable way for people to get closer to nature.
Continue reading...The search for the surfer continues after paramedics were called to Walkers Rock Beach near Elliston on Saturday morning
A man is missing and believed to have died after being bitten by a shark on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
South Australia Police have confirmed that a 46-year old man was surfing when he was attacked by a shark, and is now missing.
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Continue reading...Rare sight of giant reptile basking by waterside offers hope that notoriously polluted waterway is getting cleaner
A large snapping turtle dubbed “Chonk” has become a viral favorite of Chicago residents after the enormous reptile has been spotted repeatedly lounging by the once-toxic Chicago River.
“Look at the size of that thing!” Joey Santore said as he filmed “Chonkosaurus”, or “Chonk”, as the giant creature lay atop of what appears to be an old rusty chain and tree snags.
Continue reading...System – extremely rare for this time of year – likely to fuel fires that have already displaced tens of thousands of residents
Western Canada is bracing for a “heat dome” weather system that will push temperatures to new records over the weekend, and is likely to worsen wildfires that have already displaced tens of thousands of residents.
Seventy-five active wildfires burned in Alberta on Thursday, with 23 listed as out of control. In some areas, oil and gas production, which typically resists weather-induced shutdowns, was briefly shuttered.
Continue reading...‘For just 10% of the stage-three tax cuts, we could recover every one of Australia’s almost 2,000 threatened species,’ says ecologist
Leading Australian scientists have accused the Albanese government of offering “grossly inadequate” funding to stop environmental decline, and warned that failing to protect nature would lead to “an existential threat greater than inflation”.
The Biodiversity Council, an independent research hub, said the limited funding for environment programs announced this week suggested that environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s promised target of ending species extinctions in the country was “still hollow”.
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Continue reading...Many reported dead in Rwanda and Uganda, as heavy rain also devastates western regions of continent
May is the end of the rainy season for many parts of east Africa. However, this does not mean the devastation has ended.
Last week heavy rainfall, which started in the late afternoon on 2 May, led to flash flooding in parts of Rwanda and Uganda. These heavy downpours continued through to 4 May, with further wet weather following later in the week.
Continue reading...Controversial MP Moira Deeming expelled from Victorian Liberal party room; ally Renee Heath sanctioned. Follow live
Medicare benefits increase will help all patients, Butler says
The surprise centrepiece of the budget was $5.7bn increased funding for Medicare, including incentives to improve bulk billing for children and concession cardholders.
Rebates aren’t frozen, every rebate on the MBS [Medicare Benefits Schedule] in going to increase next year – the biggest Medicare increase across the board – every single service, for every single Australian.
Continue reading...International fund set up at Cop27 is intended to provide compensation to countries worst hit by climate breakdown
A tax on wealthy Britons of just 0.5% could more than meet the UK’s entire “fair share” contribution to the international loss and damage fund established to support countries worst hit by global climate breakdown, a charity has suggested.
Taxing 5p of every £10 of individuals’ wealth over £1m would raise £15bn a year by 2030, well in excess of an estimated $15bn (£12bn) UK contribution to the new fund, according to an analysis by the anti-poverty campaigners Christian Aid.
Continue reading...Shocking photos of chopped-down tree in western Canada highlights flaws in plan to protect forest from loggers, activists say
Stark images of an ancient tree cut down in western Canada expose flaws in the government’s plan to protect old-growth forests, activists have said, arguing that vulnerable ecosystems have been put at risk as logging companies race to harvest timber.
As part of an effort to catalogue possible old growth forests, photographer TJ Watt and Ian Thomas of the environmental advocacy group Ancient Forest Alliance travelled to a grove of western red cedars on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. But then they arrived to the forest in Quatsino Sound, they found hundreds of trees that has recently been logged.
Continue reading...With 20m people at the highest risk of famine for 25 years, farmers are desperately trying to kill the pests before vast swarms form
The northern “breadbasket” of Afghanistan is battling a potentially devastating outbreak of locusts that threaten to eat their way through up to a quarter of the country’s annual wheat harvest, the UN has warned.
After three years of disappointing, drought-afflicted harvests, Afghan farmers were expecting better this year – a much-needed boost for a country where nearly 20 million people are thought to be at the highest risk of famine in 25 years.
Continue reading...Environmental groups laud the regulation, which would advance clean power in the US – if it survives expected legal challenges
The US is set to impose new carbon pollution standards upon its coal- and gas-fired power plants, in a move that the Biden administration has hailed as a major step in confronting the climate crisis.
Under new rules put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), new and existing power plants will have to meet a range of new standards to cut their emissions of planet-heating gases. This, the EPA predicts, will spur facilities to switch to cleaner energy such as wind and solar, install rarely used carbon capture technology or shut down entirely.
Continue reading...Smoke aerosols from the fires interacted with clouds to cool the south-eastern Pacific, helping the wet weather pattern to form
Smoke from Australia’s 2019-20 black summer fires may have resulted in the rare “triple dip” La Niña that lasted from 2020 to 2022, research suggests.
Modelling from scientists at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research has found that smoke aerosols from the bushfires interacted with clouds to cool surface waters over the south-eastern subtropical Pacific Ocean.
Continue reading...Dead are mainly elderly people unable to flee, Russia media report
At least 21 people have died in wildfires in Russia’s Ural mountains, state media reported.
Wildfires have raged in the Kurgan region of the Urals and in Siberia all week. Local media reported that most of the dead were older people unable to leave their homes. According to local authorities, many of the deaths occurred on Sunday in the village of Yuldus, in Kurgan province on the border between the Urals and Siberia.
Continue reading...Artist records underground sounds generated by Pando, a huge group of aspens in Utah considered to be a single organism
When it comes to the world’s heaviest living organism, it is a “forest of one tree” that is thought to take the crown. Now a sound expert is listening into the quiet grove in an attempt to hear its secrets.
Known as Pando – Latin for “I spread” – the 47,000 genetically identical quivering aspens in south-central Utah are considered to be a single organism, with the “trees” actually branches thought to be connected by a shared root system.
Continue reading...World’s largest energy company’s first-quarter profits fall by 19% to $32bn after dip in oil prices
The Saudi government looks likely to reap greater revenues from the state-backed oil group Saudi Aramco despite the company posting a near-20% fall in quarterly profits.
The world’s largest oil and gas company said on Tuesday its profits had fallen by 19% in its first quarter compared with a year earlier, to nearly $32bn (£25bn), caused by a drop in oil prices.
Continue reading...Call of the coquí frog is affected by rising temperatures, scientists find
Frogs in Puerto Rico are croaking at a higher pitch due to global heating, scientists have found.
The frogs appear to be decreasing in size at warmer temperatures, which causes their croaks to become high pitched. If the trends continue, the heat could become too much for the sensitive amphibians to survive successfully, researchers have said.
Continue reading...Pugh’s mountain frog, which has been ‘evolving since Australia was connected to Antarctica’ was worst affected of nine threatened species, researchers say
Several frog species are feared to be locally extinct in parts of New South Wales after the black summer bushfires, a survey of amphibian populations has found.
Scientists conducted a survey of 411 sites in north-east and south-east NSW, monitoring 35 frog species for 18 months after the 2019-2020 bushfire season.
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