After years caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and security forces, farmers in Kandahar face a new threat, as water sources dry up
The war in Afghanistan might be over but farmers in Kandahar’s Arghandab valley face a new enemy: drought.
It has hardly rained for two years, a drought so severe that some farmers are questioning how much longer they can live off the land.
Continue reading...Warsaw argues suspension of operations at Turów on Czech border would put its energy security at risk
Poland’s rightwing government has said it will continue to mine coal on its border with the Czech Republic despite being ordered to pay €500,000 for every day that it defies a European court of justice order to stop.
The fine was issued by the EU’s highest court on Monday after four months of Warsaw ignoring an earlier order to suspend extraction of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, at the Turów opencast mine in south-west Poland.
Continue reading...Region’s leaders make joint declaration vowing to step up efforts to address extreme weather
With the catastrophic effects of this summer’s unprecedented wildfires still being counted, leaders from around the Mediterranean – the European region most at risk from climate breakdown – have vowed to intensify their efforts to tackle the challenges posed by extreme weather.
A joint declaration, signed in Athens, has fired the starting shot on what is hoped will bring groundbreaking change in how the neighbouring states shore up their defences against natural disasters.
Continue reading...Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warns
Millions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking over the coming decades, a new report warns.
The climate crisis and the increasing frequency of extreme weather disasters including floods, droughts and megafires are having a devastating effect on the livelihoods of people already living in poverty and making them more vulnerable to slavery, according to the report, published today.
Continue reading...Prime minister estimates just 60% chance of securing $100bn in aid pledges before Glasgow conference
Boris Johnson has said he fears there is only a 60% chance that the $100bn in climate finance viewed as key to securing an ambitious outcome to the Cop26 summit will be in place by the time world leaders meet in Glasgow in November.
Speaking to journalists en route to New York at the start of a three-day visit to the US, in which he hopes to “galvanise” progress towards a new climate deal, the prime minister said he would be urging developed countries to come forward with additional funding.
Continue reading...Election has framed future of automobility as showdown between petrolheads and green zealots
The second Steve Dumke spots a gap in the traffic on the road from Eggersdorf to Strausberg, his white Hyundai Ioniq lurches forward and nestles between two fast-moving Volkswagens in the right-hand lane. “A tap on the accelerator and the gap is mine,” he howls with glee.
Dumke, a 37-year-old former chef, is less a speed freak than, in his own words, “a vehicle eroticist”. “I love cars with curves and the growl of an eight-cylinder piston engine,” he says. But for the last four years the vehicular object of his desires has run on megawatts rather than litres.
Continue reading...Hartsop, Cumbria: I look down and notice a slug-sized, dark brown invertebrate clinging to my leg
A good September day can feel more like true summer than any other time of year, and this sunny, sultry Sunday in the Patterdale valley is an excellent example. The landscape has eased into a settled maturity: the hedgerows are full of dark fruits, the rowans are full of lipstick-red berries, and juvenile sparrowhawks call out from woods of deep, well-aged green. This late-summer lull feels like the equivalent of a piece of music resolving on a satisfying chord, the culmination of everything the year has been building towards.
I am on holiday here with my girlfriend and some of her family and friends, staying above the village of Hartsop, close to Brothers Water. This small, shallow lake is home to rare species such as the schelly (Coregonus stigmaticus) – a relic whitefish endemic to just four Lake District lakes – and a community of bottom-rooted plant species, some of which brush slimily against my legs as I go in for a quick dip. My companions are fazed by the reeds, but I wave away their concerns with the haughty confidence of a seasoned wild swimmer.
Continue reading...Ignorance about plastic recycling has tricked us into guilt-free consumption – decision makers have to give us sustainable options
Growing up my school lunches were covered in plastic wrapping, like those of many of my schoolmates. I was taught from a young age to pick up my rubbish and recycle, and I trusted the recycling systems in place especially because New Zealand streets were so clean. Years later, I saw a video on Facebook of a turtle with a straw in its nose, but I knew Kiwis weren’t to blame, our rubbish systems were too sturdy. Ignorance is bliss, and ignorance is the cause of the world’s plastic pollution crisis.
The illusion was shattered for me when I watched For The Blue, a documentary by Project Blue, a group of young ocean enthusiasts from Aotearoa, who travelled across the globe to investigate the world’s plastic-waste crisis – only to find themselves back in clean, green New Zealand experiencing the effects of the global plastic epidemic in their own back yard. During their visit to a once pristine area in the South Island, they found plastic trash strewn across the land, after the Fox river breached a closed landfill on its banks.
Continue reading...Cheers and jeers greet political rivals trying to succeed Merkel, as they chase green votes in the former DDR
As Annalena Baerbock steps on to the stage, the downpour that minutes before had soaked those gathered on Chemnitz’s Theater Platz ceases. The Green party candidate is quick to use the opportunity to stress that everything is still possible. “Minutes ago it was raining, now the sun has come out – it can happen,” she says with a huge grin, hinting that the change in the weather is a good omen for her party’s fortunes.
There are both chuckles and jeers from those gathered. With a week to go before one of the most open and tension-filled German elections in years, Baerbock is in the last stages of a campaign that weeks ago saw her heading for the top job, as successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in which she is now fighting for second or third place.
Continue reading...After asking for public help with their investigations, scientists have received thousands of reports and specimens of dead, shrivelled frogs
In the middle of Sydney’s lockdown, scientist Jodi Rowley has been retrieving frozen dead frogs from her doorstep.
Occasionally one will arrive dried and shrivelled up in the post.
Continue reading...Kerim Sabuncuoğlu – just one winner in this year’s Ocean photography awards – tells the story behind his picture of a moray eel that also shows the wider perils of ‘ghost fishing’
In July, off the Turkish port city of Bodrum, Kerim Sabuncuoğlu stepped from the edge of a boat into the azure Aegean Sea and began to descend. A scuba diver with more than 30 years’ experience, he took up underwater photography in 2002 and has since devoted considerable amounts of time and money to his “out-of-control hobby” – capturing the wonders of the ocean on camera so that “the less fortunate people above” can also marvel at them.
Sabuncuoğlu has travelled the world, photographing marine life in Palau, Cuba and the Galápagos islands and winning several awards for his work. Closer to home in Bodrum, he was embarking on a standard dive with a group of friends, equipped with a Nikon D800 camera. The camera had an 85mm micro Nikkor lens and was clad in Nexus underwater housing, with a single Backscatter snoot to train light on the subject.
Continue reading...National Weather Service issues weather watch for critical fire conditions in Sequoia national park
Crews continue to battle California wildfires that have burned into some groves of ancient giant sequoias, the world’s largest tree.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a weather watch for critical fire conditions in the Sequoia national park in the Sierra Nevada, where the Colony fire was burning about a mile from Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias.
Continue reading...Seabird carcasses discovered along Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Scottish shores, with many more found emaciated
Several hundred seabirds have been found dead along the coasts of north-east England and Scotland, while many have been discovered emaciated.
The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), which is investigating the cause of the deaths, said the majority of the birds were guillemots.
Continue reading...Overfishing, a heating planet, pollution and habitat destruction have devastated reefs, scientists warn
The world’s coral reef cover has halved since the 1950s, ravaged by global heating, overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction, according to an analysis of thousands of reef surveys.
From the 1,430-mile (2,300km) Great Barrier Reef in Australia to the Saya de Malha Bank in the Indian Ocean, coral reefs and the diversity of fish species they support are in steep decline, a trend that is projected to continue as the planet continues to heat in the 21st century.
Continue reading...Fikile Ntshangase was involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine when she was shot dead in her home. Her daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells her story to Rachel Humphreys
In October last year, Fikile Ntshangase, 65, was at her home in Ophondweni in South Africa when three men burst in and she was shot dead. The murder was witnessed by her 13-year-old grandson. No one has so far been charged with any part in the crime.
Ntshangase’s daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells Rachel Humphreys that her mother had been involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, close to Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa. She campaigned as part of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation.
Continue reading...Residents of Shoal Lake 40 can drink from taps thanks to a new water treatment facility but dozens of communities lack access
Residents of a First Nations community in Canada, who were deprived of clean drinking water for nearly a quarter of a century, can now drink from their taps after a water treatment facility became fully operational earlier this week.
Shoal Lake 40, a community on the Manitoba-Ontario border, has been under drinking water advisory since 1997.
Continue reading...Minister reveals plans to change laws inherited from EU, with rules on medical devices also in crosshairs
Rules on genetically modified farming, medical devices and vehicle standards will be top of a bonfire of laws inherited from the EU as the government seeks to change legislation automatically transferred to the UK after Brexit.
Thousands of laws and regulations are to be reviewed, modified or repealed under a new programme aimed at cementing the UK’s independence and “Brexit opportunities”, David Frost has announced.
Continue reading...Despite protests from locals and Green councillors, wildlife haven will become hard courts at cost of £266,000
A wildflower meadow containing 130 different flowering plants, dragonflies and rare bats that sprung up on Norwich’s last public grass tennis courts has been bulldozed.
Despite protests from local people and Green councillors, all-weather hard courts with floodlights and fencing are being installed in Heigham Park, where species including whiskered and brown long-eared bats, pygmy shrews, hedgehogs and 18 species of dragonfly have been recorded.
Continue reading...Coal plants being warmed up as market prices surge to £2,500 per MWh from a norm of £40
A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices.
National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...National disaster declared as crops fail after poor rains and locusts, while ethnic conflicts add to crisis
An estimated 2.1 million Kenyans face starvation due to a drought in half the country, which is affecting harvests.
The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in 23 counties across the arid north, northeastern and coastal parts of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months, after poor rains between March and May this year.
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