Category Archives: Environment

Stop the east African oil pipeline now | Bill McKibben, Diana Nabiruma and Omar Elmawi

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The fate of a planned line from Uganda to Tanzania will be the first test of whether anyone was listening to António Guterres’ call to end fossil fuels

If there is one world leader trying to look out for the planet as a whole, not just their own nation, it’s the UN secretary general. Last week, António Guterres was resolute in the wake of the damning report from the IPCC on the perilious climate crisis. It should, he said, sound “a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet”.

He called for an end to “all new fossil fuel exploration and production”, and told countries to shift fossil fuel subsidies into renewable energy.

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Is this the beginning of the end of the American gas station?

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A movement in California seeks a moratorium on new pumps – and a transformation of the US transportation system

Emily Bit remembers a time when she didn’t feel the constant threat of climate change. Her family lives in American Canyon, in southern Napa county, California, a state now being hit by record high temperatures and devastating wildfires. “It didn’t used to be this bad,” she said.

These days her family has to evacuate their home every summer. Two of her friends lost their homes in Paradise, the town consumed by the 2018 Camp fire disaster, the deadliest in California history. Last year, a wildfire burned the nature reserve behind her local school until it was “entirely black. It was like something from a dystopian novel”.

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BHP to shift oil and gas assets into Woodside Petroleum as part of major overhaul

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Global miner declares a bumper profit due to high iron ore prices but slashes value of NSW coalmine to become a $200m liability

Global miner BHP is planning a major overhaul, simplifying its company structure and dumping its oil and gas assets into Woodside Petroleum, creating one of the biggest energy producers in the world.

BHP on Tuesday declared a bumper profit due to high iron ore prices, as it announced it will bring together its Australian and UK arms into one company and leave the London Stock Exchange, which could have ramifications for investors.

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Exxon’s oil drilling gamble off Guyana coast ‘poses major environmental risk’

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Experts warn of potential for disaster as Exxon pursues 9bn barrels in sensitive marine ecosystem

ExxonMobil’s huge new Guyana project faces charges of a disregard for safety from experts who claim the company has failed to adequately prepare for possible disaster, the Guardian and Floodlight have found.

Exxon has been extracting oil from Liza 1, an ultra-deepwater drilling operation, since 2019 – part of an expansive project spanning more than 6m acres off the coast of Guyana that includes 17 additional prospects in the exploration and preparatory phases.

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Snake shocks Sydney shoppers by slithering along supermarket spice shelf

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Shopper Helaina Alati, who happens to be a former snake catcher, was luckily on hand to return the three-metre python to nearby bushland

A three-metre-long python has surprised shoppers in a Sydney supermarket by slithering along a shelf in the spice section with a Woolworths spokesperson saying it was a “slippery and rare customer”.

“Only in Australia!” Hilary Leigh wrote in a Facebook post when sharing a video of the large snake at the Glenorie supermarket in Sydney’s north-west.

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Mallorca marine reserve boosts wildlife as well as business, report finds

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Protected area delivered a tenfold return on investment, with benefits for fishing, biodiversity and tourism

A marine protection area established off the coast of Mallorca is proving beneficial not just for the environment but for business, too, according to a study that appears to confirm the long-term benefits of MPAs for both habitats and economies.

According to the study, carried out by the non-profit Marilles Foundation, the protected area has generated €10 in benefits for each euro of the €473,137 (£402,000) invested in the scheme.

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Humans ‘pushing Earth close to tipping point’, say most in G20

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Global survey finds 74% also want climate crises and protecting nature prioritised over jobs and profit

Three-quarters of people in the world’s wealthiest nations believe humanity is pushing the planet towards a dangerous tipping point and support a shift of priorities away from economic profit, according to a global survey.

The Ipsos Mori survey for the Global Commons Alliance (GCA) also found a majority (58%) were very concerned or extremely concerned about the state of the planet.

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Biggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west

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Officials issue first-ever declaration of tier 1 shortage at Lake Mead as it falls to lowest level since its creation

Officials have declared a dire water shortage at Lake Mead, the US’s largest reservoir, triggering major water cuts in Arizona and other western states. The US Bureau of Reclamation’s first-ever declaration of a “tier 1” shortage represents an acknowledgment that after a 20-year drought, the reservoir that impounds the Colorado River at the has receded to its lowest levels since it was created in the 1930s.

Already, the lake is at about 35% capacity – the white “bathtub ring” that lines its perimeter indicates where the water level once was. The lake’s level is projected to fall even lower by the end of the year, prompting cutbacks in January 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation announced Monday.

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Cooling consumerism could save the climate | Letters

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Bill Kingdom says the battle against Covid provides lessons in how to cut consumption to ease global warming. Plus letters from Sue Dalley, David Hughes and Dave Hunter

In Adam Tooze’s article (By pushing for more oil production, the US is killing its climate pledges, 13 August), he surmised that economic activity and fossil fuel consumption are hardwired together. It may be more that economic activity and energy consumption are hardwired together – and thus the need to move to renewables or low-carbon energy sources. That must be part of the strategy, along with as yet unavailable technical solutions such as carbon capture.

However, we seem to tiptoe around the consumption part of any strategy. Lower consumption results in lower carbon emissions. The government has managed to exert strong influence over personal actions during the Covid pandemic using a myriad of three-word slogans. We need a similar push linked to consumption and climate change.
Bill Kingdom
Oxford

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Country diary 1921: an Alpine idyll

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20 August 1921 My door leads on to the open hillside, a rough trellis forming a shady arbour outside while the grass all around is made beautiful by fallen plums

After the sweltering heat of Vienna it is like coming to heaven to be in the Salzkammergut. My quarters are in a peasant’s house with a spacious room containing the usual excellent spring bed and the usual quilted cover which is the despair of English sleepers. My door leads on to the open hillside, a rough trellis forming a shady arbour outside. The grass all around is made beautiful by fallen plums, unripe and useless, but most exquisite to see in their slender oval form and colours, shot rose and lilac and purple; the drought here has been very destructive. Now the rain has come heavily and such corn as is not yet stacked has been pitched upon long poles, and there are rows of these standing melancholy in the fields like gigantic Capuchin friars.

Related: Plant of the week: ivy-leaved cyclamen

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‘You follow the government’s agenda’: China’s climate activists walk a tightrope

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The IPCC’s alarming report has Chinese environmentalists wondering how to push a government that brooks no criticism into taking more action

In the wake of the IPCC’s alarming warning last week that human induced climate change is affecting every corner of the planet, China’s environmental activists were left wondering what they could do to push their government into taking more action.

Having prioritised rapid economic development for decades, China is responsible for a long list of environmental disasters and concerns, and produces around a third of the world’s carbon emissions. It has made ambitious pledges to hit peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060, but still drawn warnings that it may not be possible under their current trajectory.

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Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’

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Increase means country will slip back from goal of cutting emissions by 40% from 1990 levels

Germany is forecast to record its biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 this year as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related downturn, according to a report by an environmental thinktank.

Berlin-based Agora Energiewende said the country’s emissions would probably rise by the equivalent of 47m tons of carbon dioxide.

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Flooding death toll passes 57 in Turkey’s Black Sea region

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People thought to be trapped in collapsed buildings in Bozkurt as rescuers search for survivors

Families of those missing after Turkey’s worst floods in years anxiously watched rescue teams search buildings on Saturday, fearing the death toll from the raging torrents could rise further.

At least 57 people have died from the floods in the northern Black Sea region, the second natural disaster to strike the country this month.

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‘Ten years ago this was science fiction’: the rise of weedkilling robots

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The makers of robot weeders say the machines can reduce pesticide use and be part of a more sustainable food system

In the corner of an Ohio field, a laser-armed robot inches through a sea of onions, zapping weeds as it goes.

This field doesn’t belong to a dystopian future but to Shay Myers, a third-generation farmer whose TikTok posts about farming life often go viral.

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Wisconsin says hunters can kill 300 wolves this fall against biologists’ advice

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• Hunters killed double limit during February breeding season

• State wildlife officials recommended a 130-kill limit

Wisconsin wildlife officials have authorized the killing of 300 wolves for the 2021 fall hunting season, more than doubling biologists’ recommendation of a 130-wolf kill limit.

Scientists with the state department of natural resources (DNR) recommended the 130 limit after the four-day hunting season in February saw hunters kill almost twice as many wolves as allotted during the wolves’ breeding season, raising concerns over potential long-term ramifications for the population.

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At the frontier of the climate crisis, one scientist’s quest to record the ‘invisible world’ of the Arctic

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Lighter nights, orange sunsets, straying killer whales: Wayne Davidson has observed the subtle signs of a tragically warming Arctic for four decades

Wayne Davidson has been taking atmospheric readings from the Arctic Weather Station at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, for 40 years.

The climate of the high Arctic, he believes, is a guide in many respects to our past and is also the place from which our climate future can be previewed, as this week’s IPCC climate change report laid out in stark terms.

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Turkey flooding death toll reaches 38 as Erdoğan tours disaster zone

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Rescuers sift through rubble for victims and survivors as country reels from floods and wildfires

The death toll from Turkey’s flash floods has risen to 38 as emergency crews searched for more victims and survivors in the devastated Black Sea region just as the country was gaining control over hundreds of wildfires.

The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, announced on Twitter late on Friday that 32 people died in Kastamonu province, along the Black Sea, and six in the neighbouring area of Sinop. The toll was also reported by the government’s disaster agency AFAD.

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When Covid came to the anti-vax capital of Australia

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A noisy minority in NSW’s northern rivers are pushing back against Covid-19 restrictions

Benny Zable has lived in Nimbin on and off since 1973, when he arrived in town for the Aquarius festival – the event that seeded counterculture and escapist lifestyles into the northern rivers of New South Wales.

The 75-year-old artist and activist is a storied figure in this part of Australia, now a heartland for alternative health and wellness advocates, and notorious for low immunisation rates. He was also the first person from Nimbin to show up for a Covid-19 vaccine.

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Washington state confirms first live ‘murder hornet’ sighting of the year

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Asian giant hornet spotted about two miles from where first US nest was found last year

Washington state has confirmed its second “murder hornet” sighting of 2021 – the first glimpse of a live one, officials reported.

A statement released by the Washington state department of agriculture (WSDA) confirms the first report of a live Asian giant hornet in the state this year.

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Turkey flood deaths rise as fresh fires erupt on Greek island of Evia

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Twenty-seven killed in Turkish flash flooding, with southern Europe bracing for more extreme weather

The death toll from flash floods in Turkey has reached 27 and fresh wildfires erupted on the ravaged Greek island of Evia, as southern Europe braces for more extreme weather events caused by human-made climate change.

Record Mediterranean heatwaves fuelled blazes that have devastated parts of Italy, Turkey and Algeria, with Spain and Portugal on high alert, while Turkey’s Black Sea region has been hit by some of the worst floods in living memory.

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