Queensland snake catcher says 80kg albino Burmese python found in Oxenford is the largest he has come across in 27 years
As a seasoned snake catcher, Tony Harrison is used to the people the claiming there is a five-metre snake on their doorstep. But for the first time on Monday, the caller wasn’t exaggerating.
“This was the largest snake I have come across in 27 years,” Harrison said. “The poor old lady who opened the front door to see it there got the fright of her life”
Continue reading...Finding will come as boost to governments seeking to move to net zero carbon emissions
Electric vehicles produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars across the vast majority of the globe – contrary to the claims of some detractors, who have alleged that the CO2 emitted in the production of electricity and their manufacture outweighs the benefits.
The finding is a boost to governments, including the UK, seeking to move to net zero carbon emissions, which will require a massive expansion of the electric car fleet. A similar benefit was found for electric heat pumps.
Continue reading...Possible slaughterhouse shutdowns and staffing issues put pressure on ‘vulnerable’ supply chains, as campaigners call for restriction of live exports
Campaigners have called for the suspension of all live animal shipments out of Europe, and a restriction to the shortest possible journeys within Europe, over welfare and animal diseases concerns – as meat supply chains face potentially debilitating strain.
Last week queues of up to 60km (37 miles) formed at the Polish/German border on Wednesday after Poland announced that it was shutting to foreigners. Although the closure was supposed to apply solely to people, cargo experienced a knock-on effect, with some trucks reportedly taking as long as 18 hours to get through border controls. More queues formed at the Bulgarian/Turkish border.
Sabine Fisher of German animal welfare group Animal Angels said: “One driver told us that it had taken him three hours to travel 300 metres. There were trucks of sheep, bulls, cows. I’ve never seen a queue like it.”
As evangelical Christians use their influence with Brazil’s government to cast their net ever wider, indigenous people vulnerable to common diseases face a growing threat
A radical group of evangelical Christian missionaries set on converting every last tribe on Earth has raised fears that deadly diseases – and even the coronavirus – will spread in the Brazilian Amazon. The group has based its newly bought helicopter right beside a reserve with the world’s highest concentration of isolated indigenous groups, who have little resistance to common illnesses.
There are more than 100 isolated indigenous groups in Brazil, all highly vulnerable to common diseases such as measles and flu, and 16 of them live in the same reserve in the Javari Valley, a vast, remote area the size of Austria. Covid-19 could wipe out any of them.
Continue reading...Slowdown in large-scale clean energy projects started before coronavirus crisis due to lack of state support
Europe’s energy storage boom stalled last year due to a slowdown in large-scale schemes designed to store clean electricity from major renewable energy projects, according to the European Association for Storage of Energy (Ease).
A new study by consultants Delta-EE for Ease found that the European market grew by a total of 1 gigawatt-hours in 2019, a significant slowdown compared with 2018, when the energy storage market exceeded expectations to grow by 1.47GWh.
Continue reading...Planes will this week cover areas in the southern half of the reef that escaped earlier bleaching but may have undergone high levels of heat stress
The full impact of coral bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef will become clearer this week as aerial surveys of hundreds of reefs are completed in the bottom two thirds of the world’s biggest reef system.
An aerial survey carried out last week over almost 500 individual reefs between the Torres Strait and Cairns revealed some severe bleaching of corals closer to shore, but almost none on outer reefs.
Continue reading...On World Water Day, UN warns that more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation
Decades of chronic underfunding of water infrastructure is putting many countries at worse risk in the coronavirus crisis, with more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation, experts said as the UN marked World Water Day on Sunday.
Good hygiene – soap and water – are the first line of defence against coronavirus and a vast range of other diseases, yet three quarters of households in developing countries do not have access to somewhere to wash with soap and water, according to Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the charity WaterAid. A third of healthcare facilities in developing countries also lack access to clean water on site.
Continue reading...Video shared on social media shows clear and calm water in Venice as animals take advantage of the lockdown in Italy to move into usually crowded spaces. Dolphins and wild boar have been spotted as ports and roads have been quiet as the country remains under strict quarantine at least until 3 April
Continue reading...For 20 years Kamikatsu has led the way in the world’s second biggest producer of plastic waste
The residents of a remote village on the Japanese island of Shikoku have spent almost two decades reusing, recycling and reducing, united behind a mission to end their dependence on incinerators and landfill as the world struggles to tackle the climate emergency and the plastic waste crisis.
Although Kamikatsu, an hour’s drive from the nearest city, Tokushima, and 370 miles from Tokyo, has not managed to banish waste altogether, its heroic efforts have inspired other communities in Japan and further afield to take up the zero-waste challenge.
Continue reading...With the cruise ships gone and the souvenir stalls closed, the coronavirus lockdown has transformed La Serenissima’s waterways
Look down into the waters of the Venice canals today and there is a surprising sight – not just a clear view of the sandy bed, but shoals of tiny fish, scuttling crabs and multicoloured plant-life.
“The water is blue and clear,” said Gloria Beggiato, who owns the celebrated Metropole Hotel a few steps from St Mark’s square and has a view over the Venice lagoon. “It is calm like a pond, because there are no more waves caused by motorised boats transporting day-tripper tourists. And of course, the giant cruise ships have disappeared.”
Continue reading...At least 83 murdered in 2012-2019, with a third of attacks targeting opponents of energy mega-projects
At least 83 Mexican land and environment defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2019, while hundreds more were threatened, beaten and criminalized, according to a new report.
Latin America is the most dangerous continent in the world to defend environmental, land and human rights, with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala ranking worst.
Continue reading...Experts fear swarms like those seen in Africa will become more common as tropical storms create favourable breeding conditions
The locust crisis that has now reached 10 countries could carry on to endanger millions more people, forecasters have said.
Climate change created unprecedented conditions for the locusts to breed in the usually barren desert of the Arabian gulf, according to experts, and the insects were then able to spread through Yemen, where civil war has devastated the ability to control locust populations.
Continue reading...Volunteer army led by a local taxi driver scours the streets in the middle of the night to save endangered birds
A taxi driver in New Zealand has swapped drunken revellers for wayward seabirds in an attempt to halt the decline of one of the nation’s endangered species.
Local cabbie Toni Painting leads a volunteer army that scours the streets of the South Island town of Kaikoura in the middle of the night in search of Hutton’s shearwater chicks that crash-land onto the road – mistaking the shiny bitumen for the sea.
Continue reading...Campaigners welcome decision which allays fears for fragile biodiversity and communities dependent on river for livelihood
A Cambodian government decision to postpone building new hydropower dams on the Mekong river has been welcomed by campaigners, who say it will provide welcome relief to the tens of thousands of people whose livelihood depend upon its rich resources.
Cambodia announced on Wednesday that it would not build any new hydropower dams on the mainstream Mekong for the next decade, allaying fears that the river’s fragile biodiversity could be further devastated by development projects.
Continue reading...Slow recovery due to relocating groups and stronger protection through law enforcement
Numbers of African black rhinos in the wild have risen by several hundred, a rare boost in the conservation of a species driven to near extinction by poaching.
Black rhinos are still in grave danger but the small increase – an annual rate of 2.5% over six years, has swollen the population from 4,845 in 2012 to an estimated 5,630 in 2018, giving hope that efforts put into saving the species are paying off.
Continue reading...Analysis of satellite data reveals astounding loss of 600bn tons of ice last summer as Arctic experienced hottest year on record
Last year’s summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn tons of ice from Greenland – enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm in just two months, new research has found.
The analysis of satellite data has revealed the astounding loss of ice in just a few months of abnormally high temperatures around the northern pole. Last year was the hottest on record for the Arctic, with the annual minimum extent of sea ice in the region its second-lowest on record.
Continue reading...Researchers find people are being forced from their homes because poor water supplies are leaving families unable to sustain themselves through agriculture
• Photographs by Tom Peyre-Costa for the Norwegian Refugee Council
Continue reading...A duo in India have been spurred into action to fix pipes to conserve the water supply in Kolkata
There is light drizzle as Vijay Aggarwal and Ajay Mittal manoeuvre their two-wheelers through the labyrinthine alleyways of Kolkata’s Tiljala road slum. Early Sunday morning, the neighbourhood is teeming with activity – women sit on their haunches washing clothes and utensils; half-soaped children scurry in and out of their baths; towel-clad men wait to brush their teeth. Every 50 metres a community pipe gushes out water – plastic bottles, jerry cans and metal buckets are lined up to fill.
The duo along with their plumber, Ravi Shaw, who rides pillion, make their way to the first huddle of people and get to work. All it takes is a blow and twist of a wrench – the nozzle pops loose. Shaw fishes out an orange and white tap from his bag and fits it. While Aggarwal hurriedly plasters a Save Water Save Life sticker on to a lamppost, Mittal tells the people to close the tap once they are done and points out the helpline number on the sticker.
Continue reading...Officials say proposed 38,000-tonne sea barrier could damage sand dunes at Doonbeg resort
The climate crisis just became more personal for Donald Trump, after authorities in Ireland rejected an attempt by his Doonbeg golf resort to build a wall to combat rising sea levels.
The planning agency An Bord Pleanála said on Wednesday that the proposed 38,000-tonne rock barrier at Doughmore Bay could damage dunes that straddle the golf course in County Clare, on the Atlantic coast.
Continue reading...The AfD are using the climate crisis strategically to distance themselves from the established parties
A dead bird of prey lying in the grass near a windfarm is the stark image on the home page of a new German website. “Climate change – we have got a couple of questions” is the headline that greets visitors, but the questioners already seem to know the answers to their 16 questions. “Due to an alleged climate emergency, new laws are to be passed prescribing a new way of life for us, one that will have adverse environmental effects and could lead to the deindustrialisation of Germany.”
Klimafragen.org is the latest attempt to question the scientific and social consensus around the climate crisis in Germany. The authors, all from well-known climate-denier institutions and conservative political circles, list areas where they say Germany’s climate policy still has blindspots, notably over climate models, sea levels, energy conversion and counter-opinions. Parliamentary groups in the Bundestag, they argue, should provide answers to their questions, although some are based on outdated findings. According to the organisers, about 33,500 people have signed up, seeking answers.
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