The Scandinavian country faces a crisis of conscience on the eve of elections
Norway goes to the polls on Monday in parliamentary elections that are forcing western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer to confront its environmental contradictions.
Climate issues have dominated the campaigning since August, when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its starkest warning yet that global heating is dangerously close to spiralling out of control.
Continue reading...The former EPA scientist is among five who have come forward alleging that the agency has become deeply corrupted
The US Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect children by ignoring poisons in the environment and focusing on corporate interests, according to a top children’s health official who will testify this week that the agency tried to silence her because of her insistence on stronger preventions against lead poisoning.
“The people of the United States expect the EPA to protect the health of their children, but the EPA is more concerned with protecting the interests of polluting industries,” said Ruth Etzel, former director of the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP). The harm being done to children is “irreparable”, she said.
Continue reading...Newspapers to cover ‘all views’ and ‘not just the popular ones’, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial
News Corp Australia has confirmed it will ramp up its company-wide coverage of climate change next month but says its stable of commentators won’t be “muzzled”.
The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, says the mastheads will cover “all views” and “not just the popular ones”, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial and ridicule towards climate action.
Continue reading...Exclusive: revelations come amid rising concerns over government’s plans to meet net zero target
UK government ministers have held private meetings with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers roughly nine times as often as they met companies involved in clean energy production, despite the increasing urgency of meeting the government’s climate targets.
Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, of publicly available data shows that ministers from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) held 63 private meetings – with one company present, along with ministers and advisers – with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers between 22 July 2019 and 18 March 2021.
Continue reading...In the developing world most people are not factory farming and livestock is essential to preventing poverty and malnutrition
The pandemic has pushed poverty and malnutrition to rates not seen in more than a decade, wiping out years of progress. In 2020, the number of people in extreme poverty rose by 97 million and the number of malnourished people by between 118 million and 161 million.
Recent data from the World Bank and the UN shows how poverty is heavily concentrated in rural communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people are surviving by smallholder farming. This autumn there will be two key events that could rally support for them.
Continue reading...Operators say the Orca plant can suck 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year and inject it deep into the ground to be mineralised
The world’s largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock started has running, the companies behind the project said on Wednesday.
The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes that look like shipping containers.
Continue reading...Glue and duct tape used to fit rat snakes with dosimeters and GPS movement trackers to help researchers understand long-term effects of radiation
Researchers have used snakes fitted with tracking devices and dosimeters to measure radiation levels in the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered triple meltdowns in March 2011.
The meltdowns in Japan caused by a giant tsunami released more radiation into the atmosphere than any nuclear disaster except Chernobyl in 1986.
Continue reading...At least 866 arrested since April, as police condemned for violence against protesters defending Vancouver Island’s ancient forests
A string of protests against old-growth logging in western Canada have become the biggest act of civil disobedience in the country’s history, with the arrest of least 866 people since April.
The bitter fight over the future of Vancouver Island’s diminishing ancient forests – in which activists used guerrilla methods of resistance such as locking their bodies to the logging road and police responded by beating, dragging and pepper-spraying demonstrators – has surpassed the previous record of arrests set in the 1990s at the anti-logging protests dubbed the “War in the Woods”.
Continue reading...It is every climber’s worst nightmare. In this extract from his thrilling book about the glorious – and treacherous – Cuillin Ridge on Skye, Simon Ingram recalls the day its wild peaks almost took his life
I had been out of signal for most of the day, so when my phone suddenly stirred in my pocket, I decided to have a look. Remembering a climbing maxim – “Don’t try to do two things at once” – I shouted for my friend Kingsley to hang on, stopped and took out my mobile. The message was junk, but I took the opportunity to send some that weren’t and then check my voicemail.
Wandering absent-mindedly to where a boulder jutted off into the mist, I noticed Kingsley moving down the path. Shouting to alert him that I’d stopped, I brought the handset up to my ear and looked out at the cloud hanging off the Cuillin Ridge, waiting for the phone to connect. I took another step, just a small one to the left. And then everything went wrong.
Continue reading...Environmental activists demand delay to Glasgow climate talks if costs and travel restrictions block attendance of those worst-hit
The Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow should be postponed until the government can ensure that the talks won’t be a “rich nations stitch-up”, a diverse coalition of international organisations has said.
With less than two months to go before the talks, the Climate Action Network (CAN), a global alliance of more than 1,500 civil society organisations, is warning that many delegates from the global south will be unable to attend due to vaccine inequity and prohibitive quarantine costs.
Continue reading...Number of species of sharks, rays and chimaeras facing ‘global extinction crisis’ doubles in a decade
A third of shark and ray species have been overfished to near extinction, according to an eight-year scientific study.
“Sharks and rays are the canary in the coalmine of overfishing. If I tell you that three-quarters of tropical and subtropical coastal species are threatened, just imagine a David Attenborough series with 75% of its predators gone. If sharks are declining, there’s a serious problem with fishing,” said the paper’s lead author, Prof Nicholas Dulvy, of Canada’s Simon Fraser University.
Continue reading...Economic cost of climate crisis has cut 37% from global GDP this century, say researchers
A return flight from the UK to New York could cost the global economy more than $3,000 (£2,170) in the long run, owing to the effects of the climate crisis, according to a report.
Researchers examined the economic cost of the climate crisis and found it would cut about 37% from global GDP this century, more than twice the drop experienced in the Great Depression.
Continue reading...ShareAction says lack of plans to tackle climate crisis and biodiversity loss casts doubts on banking’s sustainability pledges
Europe’s 25 largest banks are still failing to present comprehensive plans that address both the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, putting their sustainability pledges in doubt, campaigners have warned.
While some lenders such as NatWest are demonstrating leadership on specific issues – such as net zero targets and policies restricting financing for new fossil fuel – research by investment campaign group ShareAction found none of the banks it reviewed were taking action across all key areas.
Continue reading...Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes
The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.
As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.
Continue reading...Editorial in publications worldwide urges leaders to take measures to stop ‘greatest threat to public health’
More than 200 health journals worldwide are publishing an editorial calling on leaders to take emergency action on climate change and to protect health.
The British Medical Journal said it is the first time so many publications have come together to make the same statement, reflecting the severity of the situation.
Continue reading...With passenger numbers growing and time to slash emissions dwindling fast, the industry must tackle urgent stumbling blocks on fuel, frequent flyers and more
Aviation tanked in 2020. The number of people taking flights fell by three quarters compared with 2019 levels and as a result there was a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. But as countries open up and people begin to fly again, aviation is expected to see a slow climb back to previous levels. The industry anticipates a return to 2019 passenger numbers globally by 2023 and to be back on track with previous growth projections within a couple of decades.
All this is bad news for the planet. CO2 emissions from the industry are likely to triple by 2050. But if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, it needs to have hit net zero CO2 emissions by this time. Aviation is a complicated sector to decarbonise. It has some prickly ingredients: difficult technological solutions, hidden extra climate effects, an association with personal freedoms and a disproportionately wealthy and powerful customer base. Here are just a few of the big hurdles the sector will need to overcome if it is ever to be carbon neutral.
Continue reading...Drone footage has captured the extent of destruction caused by Hurricane Ida in the barrier island town of Grand Isle in Louisiana. The US death toll from Ida has risen towards 60. In Louisiana, the confirmed storm-related death toll is nine.
It is nearly a week since one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US mainland made landfall in Louisiana. The White House has said the president, Joe Biden, will survey storm damage in New York City and Manville, New Jersey
Continue reading...Power outages from the storm have left air quality tracking systems out of commission, making public health concern hard to gauge
Behind a playground littered with downed tree branches, Shell’s refinery in Norco, Louisiana spewed black smoke from its stacks. The smell of rotten eggs, the signature scent of sulphur emissions, lingered in the air. In an effort to burn off toxic chemicals before and after Hurricane Ida, many industrial facilities sent the gases through smoke stacks topped with flares.
But the hurricane blew out some of those flares like candles, allowing harmful pollution into the air.
Continue reading...The actor’s latest project is a book to teach teenagers their rights. Here, she sits down with four young people to hear what they’re fighting for
• Read an interview with Jolie here
Angelina Jolie How do you feel the older generation are handling things?
Christina Adane, 17, a British anti-poverty campaigner, originally from Ethiopia If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said they had failed us and left us with a bunch of problems. I still feel that way at times, but I think cross-generational communication is crucial when fighting issues like racial and climate justice. It’s easy to fall into the mentality of us v them, youth v old people in power. But loads of older people want to help us. So it’s about connecting with decision-makers and ensuring they are listening, so they can represent us where we are not represented – in government, at meetings at the top of companies. We need to work with the older generation.
Continue reading...The space cemetery, named for the fictional captain in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is where the International Space Station is likely to end up
At the furthest point from any landmass on earth, and 4km under the sea, lies the space cemetery.
When their outer space journeys come to an end, old satellites, rocket parts and space stations are sent to this desolate spot in the Pacific Ocean to rest on the dark seabed forever.
Continue reading...