Category Archives: Environment

US lifts pause on Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine – as it happened

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  • CDC advisory panel said benefits outweigh risk of rare blood clots
  • Joe Biden urges world leaders to invest in green energy
  • Caitlyn Jenner announces run for California governor

That’s all for today – thanks for following along and have a nice weekend. Some key links from the day:

The CDC’s decision to lift pause on Johnson & Johnson means that the single-dose vaccine could become available again starting this weekend.

In Los Angeles, the county says it is preparing to resume J&J administration as soon as possible:

L.A. County prepping to resume administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine as soon as possible https://t.co/g5tTy8RU2p

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A creature of mystery: New Zealand’s love-hate relationship with eels

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Native species have been revered, feared, hunted and tamed. Now experts hope revulsion can give way to fascination

For many years, the top-rated attraction in the Tasman district of New Zealand was a cafe famed for its rural setting, seafood chowder – and tame eels.

For a few dollars you could buy a pottle of mince and a wooden stick to take down to the stream, where a blue-black mass was shining, writhing, waiting.

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Biden’s pledge to slash US emissions turns spotlight on China

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World leaders will be unable to halt climate breakdown without strong action from biggest emitter

The US, the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is now committed to halving emissions this decade.

Joe Biden’s announcement, at a White House virtual climate summit, has thrown the spotlight clearly on the world’s biggest emitter: China.

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Children of Chernobyl parents have no higher number of DNA mutations

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Study was one of the first to evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to manmade disaster

For decades popular culture has portrayed babies born to the survivors of nuclear accidents as mutants with additional heads or at high risk of cancers. But now a study of children whose parents were exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 suggests they carry no more DNA mutations than children born to any other parents.

The study, published in Science, is one of the first to systematically evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to a manmade disaster, such as accidental radiation exposure.

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Greta Thunberg in climate call to young people: ‘No limits to what we can accomplish’ – live

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John Kerry dismissed a question on whether he was concerned about Republican opposition to Joe Biden’s climate proposals.

The president’s special envoy for climate noted that many policies can be implemented through executive orders, combined with cooperation from the private sector.

John Kerry, Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate, said Donald Trump’s policies “destroyed” America’s credibility on the world stage when it comes to addressing climate change.

The former secretary of state noted that today, which is Earth Day, marks five years since he signed the Paris climate agreement in New York, with his granddaughter on his knee.

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Sharon Matola obituary

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The founder of Belize Zoo and a champion of native species including the tapir and the scarlet macaw

In 1983, after a wildlife film-making project she was working on fell apart, Sharon Matola found herself in Belize, Central America, with a menagerie of homeless native creatures. She scrounged some land, wrote a sign on a piece of wood, and the Belize Zoo was open for business. Suddenly, she became “the zoo lady”, responsible for housing, feeding, cleaning and maintaining the health of the 20 animals.

The “office cat” was a jaguar, and there was a baby tapir in the bedroom on several occasions. It looked chaotic, but Matola, who has died aged 66 of a heart attack, was scrupulous about animal husbandry and determined that Belizeans would have a chance to learn about their tiny nation’s biodiversity.

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Biden vows to slash US emissions by half to meet ‘existential crisis of our time’

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US president tells virtual climate summit that ‘time is short’ to address dangerous global heating in a break from Trump era

Joe Biden has called upon the world to confront the climate crisis and “overcome the existential crisis of our time”, as he unveiled an ambitious new pledge to slash US planet-heating emissions in half by the end of the decade.

Addressing a virtual gathering of more than 40 world leaders in an Earth Day climate summit on Thursday, Biden warned that “time is short” to address dangerous global heating and urged other countries to do more.

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Growing pains: Zimbabwe’s female tobacco farmers struggle to compete

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At the mercy of international markets and denied access to mainstream finance, the enterprising growers face a precarious existence

Moreen Tanhara waits patiently for officials to inspect her tobacco. The 49-year-old has travelled nearly 100 miles (150km) overnight in an old lorry to reach Tobacco Sales Floor, an auction house in Harare. Tanhara sits quietly on one of the fragrant sacks she has brought from Guruve, a farming area north of Zimbabwe’s capital, while on the auction floor workers prepare tobacco leaves for the first sales of the season.

Related: Zimbabwe urged to take action against child labour on tobacco farms

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Compete, confront, cooperate: climate summit test for Biden’s China watchwords

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Analysis: Xi Jinping is likely to push back against US claim to global leadership, but both know their interests overlap on tackling environment

Observers of the US and China this week may ponder whether a joint call to tackle the climate crisis marks a positive change in their fraught relationship, as the two leaders meet for the first time since Joe Biden was sworn into office.

After four years of Donald Trump, the bilateral relationship has reached its lowest ebb since formal ties were established in January 1979. In both capitals, fear of a “new cold war” is on the rise. Many highlight growing competition, and the opposing nature of the two countries’ political systems.

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A little girl climbing the tree of life: Luis Tato’s best photograph

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‘She climbed to the top unaided, to collect leaves for her family’s dinner. The tastiest ones are usually higher up’

The vast Zinder region in Niger, west Africa, is the most populated part of the country. Its people live mostly in traditional villages, their lives relatively unchanged for decades. Yet they are now being profoundly affected by climate change. I was there in 2019, working on stories about the crisis, reforestation and resilience projects. Most of the region’s inhabitants make their living through cattle. Global warming isn’t just causing droughts that affect crops and cause food shortages – it also means the cattle can’t graze. So people are being forced to travel ever further to find water and food for themselves and their livestock. This creates conflicts over land and access to water.

This girl, who was 10 or 11, lived in the village of Malawama. She is at the top of a massive baobab tree, collecting leaves for the family dinner – the tastiest are usually higher up. Baobab leaves are a popular meal in the region. They’re similar to spinach and eaten as a side dish or added to soups and stews. I saw her from a distance and the image quickly caught my eye. I was surprised to see her climbing this huge tree unaided, but she moved so confidently that I soon stopped worrying. She was completely used to it – as most local people are.

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China’s Xi Jinping to attend Joe Biden’s climate summit

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Virtual summit on Thursday will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office

China’s President Xi Jinping will attend a US-led climate change summit on Thursday at the invitation of President Joe Biden, in the first meeting between the two leaders since the advent of the new US administration.

Biden has invited dozens of world leaders to join the two-day virtual summit starting on Thursday, after bringing the US back into the 2015 Paris agreement on cutting global carbon emissions.

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Melting ice in Arctic linked to bowhead whales holding off annual migration

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Researchers in Canada find that population did not make the 6,000km roundtrip in 2018-2019

As the ice melts at pace in the Arctic, the mining and shipping industry has carved itself an opportunity out of the crisis. Meanwhile, the marine ecosystem is left to coping with the heat, noise, pollution and the cascade of other changes that come with the upheaval of the environment.

Now researchers have found a whale species that typically migrates away from solid sea ice each autumn and returns every summer to feast on tiny crustaceans did not make the 6,000km (3,700-mile) roundtrip in 2018-2019.

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‘Water warriors’: the US women banding together to fight for water justice

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Women have been deeply embedded in the movement for clean water and sanitation for decades, which has become even more pressing amid the pandemic

Deanna Miller Berry first learned of the scores of complaints about Denmark, South Carolina’s water supply, during her 2017 mayoral campaign.

For at least a decade, residents of the rural, predominantly Black and lower-income town “knew something was happening” and tried to sound the alarm, said Berry. “A lot of folks [were] complaining that they were starting to get sick, hair loss and skin issues.”

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Montana guide mauled to death in grizzly bear attack outside Yellowstone

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Charles Mock, 40, died of scalp and facial wounds after managing to call 911 for help

A Montana backcountry guide has died after he was mauled by a large grizzly bear that was probably defending a nearby moose carcass just outside Yellowstone national park, officials said Monday.

Charles “Carl” Mock, 40, who lived in the park gateway community of West Yellowstone, died Saturday, two days after he was attacked while fishing alone in a forested area along the Madison River several miles north of West Yellowstone, said a Gallatin county sheriff’s office spokesperson, Christine Koosman.

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Environment protest being criminalised around world, say experts

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More than 400 climate scientists sign letter that says activists are being targeted at pivotal time in fight against global heating

Peaceful environmental protesters are being threatened, silenced and criminalised in countries around the world including the UK and the US, according to some of the world’s leading climate scientists and academics.

More than 400 leading experts – including 14 authors from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – say that non-violent civil disobedience from groups like the school strikers, Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement have transformed the debate around the climate crisis in recent years.

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Ever Given crew fear joining ranks of seafarers stranded on ships for years

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Suez vessel’s crew said to be ‘relaxed but apprehensive’, while 50 miles away a cautionary tale plays out on another ship

For two years Mohammad Aisha has been the lone resident of an abandoned container ship marooned off Egypt in the Gulf of Suez. If he needs to charge his phone, get drinking water or buy food, he has to row to shore, although he can only stay for two hours at most as the area is a restricted military zone. According to one doctor who examined him, the malnourished sailor has started to exhibit similar symptoms to prisoners held in poor conditions.

Aisha has been the custodian of the 4,000-tonne MV Aman, trapped onboard as a prolonged legal battle to sell the vessel and pay the crew plays out thousands of miles away. Less than 50 miles north, the crew of the Ever Given, now immersed in its own legal struggles, are hoping to avoid anything close to the same fate. On Sunday, representatives from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), an umbrella union that represents seafarers, boarded the ship to check on the crew’s wellbeing.

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Joe Biden to reveal US emissions pledge in key climate crisis moment

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President will also call on major economies to join him in bold action at virtual summit of 40 world leaders

Joe Biden faces a key test of his commitment to climate action this week, when he sets out his core plans for tackling the climate crisis and calls on all of the world’s major economies to join him in bold action to slash greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years.

The US president has made the climate emergency one of his administration’s top priorities, and stated that clean growth must be the route for the US to rebound from the coronavirus crisis.

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Germany’s surging Greens step up election race to succeed Merkel

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Robert Habeck or Annalena Baerbock will be named as party’s candidate for chancellorship

Five months before national elections, a Green party that once styled itself as the rebel of German politics is finding itself in an unusually respectable position.

The party’s standing in the polls – in second place at 21-23% of the vote – means it will on Monday, for the first time in its 41-year history, nominate a candidate for chancellor. Furthermore, that candidate will have a realistic chance of filling the top job in German politics by the end of the year.

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The wisdom of water: 12 ways to use blue spaces to improve your health and happiness

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From relaxing baths to seaside swims, water can be a balm in difficult times. Catherine Kelly, the author of a new book on blue spaces, shares her tips

It was after her mother died that Catherine Kelly learned the healing power of water. Following instincts that she did not yet understand, she moved to live alone by the sea in County Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland, and over the next few years began to heal. “It’s an ebb and flow that water gives us that allows us to connect with ourselves. It’s an allowing,” she says.

After eight years studying the therapeutic effects of nature, she has written a book called Blue Spaces, packed with ideas about how to make the most of being in or near water. You don’t have to live near the coast to benefit. “There’s being in it, being next to it, thinking about it,” she says. Nor does it matter how much water is available. From raindrops to the ocean, urban fountains to canals and fast-moving rivers, there is a blue space for everyone. And although the phrase “blue space” typically refers to natural waters, Kelly says the possibilities for meaningful connection are the same whether it is the sea or your shower.

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US and China commit to cooperating on climate crisis

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World’s biggest polluters release joint commitment to climate action following John Kerry visit to Shanghai

The US and China have “committed to cooperating” on the pressing issue of climate change, the two sides said in a joint statement on Saturday, following a visit to Shanghai by US climate envoy John Kerry.

“The United States and China are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands,” said the statement from Kerry and China’s special envoy for climate change, Xie Zhenhua.

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