Voiceover narrates fairy penguin’s high-stakes waddle from shoreline to burrows in parade that used to attract thousands of visitors nightly
With live sport now a scarce resource, BBC commentator Andrew Cotter has lent his distinctive voice to the fairy penguins of Phillip Island.
He has narrated the birds’ nightly waddle back to their burrows, turning Victoria’s famous penguin parade into a high-stakes, long-distance race.
Continue reading...Company that owns factory admitted it did not have valid environmental clearance
The chemical factory that leaked gas into a coastal Indian city on Thursday morning, killing at least 12 people and putting hundreds in hospital, was operating illegally until at least the middle of 2019, documents show.
In an affidavit [pdf] filed by LG Polymers in May 2019, as part of its application to expand the plastic plant’s operations, the South Korean multinational admitted it was operating its polystyrene plant without the mandatory environmental clearance from the Indian government.
Continue reading...Administration is weakening protections ahead of the election, making changes that could take years for a Democratic president to undo
The Trump administration is diligently weakening US environment protections even amid a global pandemic, continuing its rollback as the November election approaches.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, US federal agencies have eased fuel-efficiency standards for new cars; frozen rules for soot air pollution; proposed to drop review requirements for liquefied natural gas terminals; continued to lease public property to oil and gas companies; sought to speed up permitting for offshore fish farms; and advanced a proposal on mercury pollution from power plants that could make it easier for the government to conclude regulations are too costly to justify their benefits.
Continue reading...‘Ticking time bomb’ as contracts aren’t honoured and ports stop crews going ashore even for urgent medical care
Thomas Stapley-Bunten was due to finish his contract aboard the Al Shamal, a huge cargo ship carrying liquid natural gas, early last month. The ship docked at the LNG terminal in Fos Cavaou, southern France, as planned, but by then the world was in coronavirus lockdown. He couldn’t disembark, and international flights were grounded, preventing him from getting home to Newcastle, UK.
So the 27-year-old former Royal Navy warfare officer has been stuck onboard as the Al Shamal criss-crosses the ocean from Qatar to Turkey and France and back. The 34-man crew, from the Philippines, India, Russia and Ireland, have had their pay increased by 50%, but they just want to go home.
Continue reading...They have a middle-class reputation, but one outdoor school near Nottingham is reconnecting disadvantaged 10-year-olds with nature and a sense of freedom
When Kate Milman was 21, she paused her English degree at the University of East Anglia to join protests against the Newbury bypass. It was 1996, and the road was being carved out through idyllic wooded countryside in Berkshire. She took up residence in a treehouse, in the path of the bulldozers, and lived there for months. It was a revelation. She lived intimately with the catkins, the calling birds, the slow-slow-fast change in the seasons. Despite being in a precarious position as a protester, she felt completely safe and her brain was calmed.
“You know when you go camping and go back to your house, and everything feels wrong? The lighting is harsh and everything seems complicated indoors. It just got under my skin, this feeling – that [living in the woods] is like being at home.”
Continue reading...Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass
Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.
Related: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study
Continue reading...Oceans rising faster than previously thought, according to survey of 100 specialists
Sea-level rise is faster than previously believed and could exceed 1 metre by the end of the century unless global emissions are reduced, according to a survey of more than 100 specialists.
Based on new knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt, the experts say coastal cities should prepare for an impact that will hit sooner than predicted by the United Nations and could reach as high as 5 metres by 2300.
Continue reading...India’s ‘champagne of teas’ among those affected as country’s tea board estimates output could drop 9%, amid strain in China and Sri Lanka
Trouble is brewing for the world’s tea producers as the coronavirus lockdown shut down the harvest in several important regions, including the picking of India’s “champagne of teas”.
Despite forecasts of increased demand from drinkers stuck at home across the world, producers have become frustrated by the enforced quarantining of their workforce, with India’s output expected to drop by 9% in 2020.
Continue reading...Everyone within 5km of the plant in Andhra Pradesh told to leave over fear of repeat of accident that has left at least 11 dead
Indian officials have evacuated more people from the area around a chemical plant in the south of the country that leaked toxic gas, killing at least 11 people and sickening hundreds more.
There was confusion about whether the wider evacuation orders were sparked by a renewed leak at the LG Chem factory in Andhra Pradesh, or by the fear that rising temperatures at the plant could lead to another leak.
Continue reading...Styrene gas leaked from the LG Polymers plant, part of the Korean conglomerate LG, in Andra Pradesh state
A gas leak at a chemical factory in southern India has killed at least nine people and led to hundreds being taken to hospital, amid fears that the death toll could climb higher.
Styrene leaked from the Korean-owned LG Polymers plant during the early hours of Thursday morning when families in the surrounding villages were asleep, a local official in Andra Pradesh state said.
Continue reading...Fears Jair Bolsonaro’s ‘land grabbers decree’ may be pushed forwards after new rule allows land-grabbing on indigenous reserves
As the coronavirus pandemic eats its way into the Amazon, raising fears of a genocide of its vulnerable indigenous tribes, the government of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and its supporters are dismantling rules shielding protected reserves. Key environment officials have been sacked, and environmentalists and indigenous leaders fear the pandemic is being used as a smokescreen for a new assault on the rainforest.
They say a presidential decree awaiting congressional approval and new rules at the indigenous agency Funai effectively legalise land grabbing in protected forests and indigenous reserves.
Continue reading...Most Europeans support a universal basic income, yet young people doubt democracy’s capacity to deliver change
The coronavirus crisis seems to be encouraging belief in radical change. An astonishing 71% of Europeans are now in favour of introducing a universal basic income, according to an opinion poll designed by my research team at Oxford university and published today. In Britain, the figure is 68%. Less encouraging, at least to anyone who believes in liberal democracy, is another startling finding in the survey: no less than 53% of young Europeans place more confidence in authoritarian states than in democracies to tackle the climate crisis. The poll was conducted by eupinions in March, as most of Europe was locking down against the virus, but the questions had been formulated earlier. It would be fascinating now to ask Europeans which political system they think has proved better at combating a pandemic, as the United States and China, the world’s leading democracy and the world’s leading dictatorship, spray viral accusations at each other.
Those two contrasting but equally striking survey results show how high the stakes will be as we emerge from the immediate medical emergency, and face the subsequent economic pandemic and its political fallout. What kind of historical moment will this turn out to be, for Europe and the world? It could lead us to the best of times. It could lead us to the worst of times.
Continue reading...Crowds are coming to see the light show as beaches begin to reopen after an almost month-long closure due to coronavirus
Mother nature has provided a radical gift to nighttime beach-goers in southern California, in the form of bioluminescent waves that crash and froth with an otherworldly light.
Related: California eases Covid-19 restrictions, allowing some businesses to reopen
Continue reading...Brazil, France and Germany say UN can’t hear complaint against five countries of flouting child rights to clean air
Greta Thunberg and a group of other children have pushed forward their legal complaint at the UN against countries they accuse of endangering children’s wellbeing through the climate crisis, despite attempts to have it thrown out.
The 16 children, including the Swedish environmental activist, lodged a legal case with the UN committee on the rights of the child against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey last September.
Continue reading...Human cost of climate crisis will hit harder and sooner than previously believed, research reveals
The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder, wider and sooner than previously believed, according to a study that shows a billion people will either be displaced or forced to endure insufferable heat for every additional 1C rise in the global temperature.
In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.
Continue reading...El confinamiento y la caída del precio del petróleo ponen en juego el futuro de un enorme yacimiento petrolífero argentino
En las próximas semanas, se esclarecerá si el mundo vuelve a los combustibles fósiles tras la pandemia o si da un paso adelante hacia una economía limpia, mientras el FMI (Fondo Monetario Internacional) y Argentina deciden si van a continuar ofreciendo su apoyo a los inmensos yacimientos de petróleo y gas de Vaca Muerta, en Patagonia.
El objetivo del proyecto es explotar el segundo depósito más grande de esquisto del planeta (después de la Cuenca Pérmica, en Texas), pero su futuro es incierto debido al confinamiento forzoso provocado por COVID-19, que ha causado el descenso más drástico en el precio del crudo de los últimos treinta años.
Continue reading...Images captured on cameras being used for film shoot in thinly populated area of Galicia
A brown bear has been spotted traversing a rugged and sparsely populated area of north-west Spain for the first time in 150 years thanks to a set of camera traps and a bit of luck.
Images of the animal were captured on cameras set up by a crew shooting the film Montaña ou Morte (Mountain or Death) in the Invernadeiro national park in Galicia’s Ourense province.
Continue reading...Asian giant hornet, which became more active in the state in April, is the world’s largest and can kill humans with multiple stings
Researchers and citizens in Washington state are on a careful hunt for invasive “murder hornets”, after the insect made its first appearance in the US.
The Asian giant hornet is the world’s largest and can kill humans. But it is most dangerous for the European honeybee, which is defenseless in the face of the hornet’s spiky mandibles, long stinger and potent venom.
Continue reading...Green groups fear coronavirus lockdown has weakened environmental protections
An “armada” of more than 100 fishing vessels are illegally plundering south Atlantic waters close to Argentina, environmental groups say, raising concerns that the coronavirus lockdown has weakened already fragile marine protections.
The incursion of the ships, mostly from east Asia, appears to have been carried out by stealth. The vessels waited until nightfall, shut down satellite tracking systems in coordination and then moved into the squid-rich waters of Argentina’s exclusive economic zone, Greenpeace said.
Continue reading...Currents act as conveyor belts that concentrate microplastics in hotspots, study suggests
Scientists have discovered microplastics in greater quantities than ever before on the seabed, and gathered clues as to how ocean currents and deep-sea circulation have carried them there.
Microplastics – tiny pieces of plastic less than 5mm in size – are likely to accumulate most densely on the ocean floor in areas that are also biodiversity hotspots, intensifying the damage they may do to marine ecosystems, according to the research.
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