Category Archives: Environment

Climate breakdown ‘is increasing violence against women’

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Exclusive: attempts to tackle crisis fail because gender issues are not addressed, report finds

Climate breakdown and the global crisis of environmental degradation are increasing violence against women and girls, while gender-based exploitation is in turn hampering our ability to tackle the crises, a major report has concluded.

Attempts to repair environmental degradation and adapt to climate breakdown, particularly in poorer countries, are failing, and resources are being wasted because they do not take gender inequality and the effects on women and girls into account.

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Guardian to ban advertising from fossil fuel firms

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Move follows efforts to reduce carbon footprint and increase reporting on climate crisis

The Guardian will no longer accept advertising from oil and gas companies, becoming the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels.

The move, which follows efforts to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and increase reporting on the climate emergency, was announced on Wednesday and will be implemented with immediate effect. The ban will apply to any business primarily involved in extracting fossil fuels, including many of the world’s largest polluters.

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Africa is humanitarian ‘blind spot’: the world’s top 10 forgotten crises – report

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Climate emergency is fuelling drought, food poverty and disaster in the global south but humanitarian crises under-reported

The African continent is a “blind spot” for coverage of the humanitarian crises that are being fuelled by the climate emergency, according to a new analysis [pdf].

Madagascar’s chronic food crisis, where 2.6 million people were affected by drought in 2019, came top of the list of 10 of the most under-reported crises last year, Care International’s annual survey found.

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This was supposed to be Ireland’s climate election – what happened?

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Country was among first to declare climate emergency but health and housing take priority at ballot box

Ireland had seemed poised for its first climate-centric general election, with concern about carbon emissions and species extinction expected to shape the battle for votes on 8 February.

Last year, after all, Ireland became only the second country in the world to declare a climate and biodiversity emergency. “Great news from Ireland!! Who is next?” Greta Thunberg tweeted at the time.

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Federal government withholds water funding from NSW in Murray-Darling standoff

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Minister disappointed that New South Wales did not submit Murray-Darling basin resource plans

The federal government is withholding millions of dollars from the New South Wales government for failing to complete water resource plans for the Murray-Darling basin.

In a letter to the state’s water minister, Melinda Pavey, the federal water resources minister, David Littleproud, raised concerns the 20 plans had not been submitted.

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Kenya suffers worst locust infestation in 70 years as millions of insects swarm farmland

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UN urges immediate action as east African nations already experiencing devastating hunger see large areas of crops destroyed

The worst outbreak of desert locusts in Kenya in 70 years has seen hundreds of millions of the insects swarm into the east African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia. Those two countries have not had an infestation like this in a quarter century, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger.

“Even cows are wondering what is happening,” said Ndunda Makanga, who spent hours Friday trying to chase the locusts from his farm. “Corn, sorghum, cowpeas, they have eaten everything.”

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Court to probe Carrie Symonds’ influence on PM after cancellation of badger cull

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Boris Johnson’s partner and animal rights activist was briefed by Badger Trust weeks before the policy was changed

The influence exerted on the prime minister by his partner, Carrie Symonds, will be explored in court after permission was granted last week for a judicial review into how the government came to pull a cull on badgers in Derbyshire.

The case could embarrass Boris Johnson and raise questions about the government’s willingness to listen to its advisers when formulating policy.

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Race to exploit the world’s seabed set to wreak havoc on marine life

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New research warns that ‘blue acceleration’ – a global goldrush to claim the ocean floor – is already impacting on the environment.

The scaly-foot snail is one of Earth’s strangest creatures. It lives more than 2,300 metres below the surface of the sea on a trio of deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Here it has evolved a remarkable form of protection against the crushing, grim conditions found at these Stygian depths. It grows a shell made of iron.

Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum – which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defence department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour.

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Cacao not gold: ‘chocolate trees’ offer future to Amazon tribes

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In Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining

The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye’kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren’t just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.

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Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya – in pictures

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Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

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US and Europe clash over climate crisis threat on last Davos day

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US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin downplay risks posed by climate emergency

The US and Europe have clashed over the threat posed by global heating as Donald Trump’s finance minister downplayed the risks of a climate crisis during the final session of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, said the debate should be about “environmental issues” rather than climate change, that the costs were being over-estimated and that climate was only one of several concerns that needed to be discussed.

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Doomsday clock lurches to 100 seconds to midnight – closest to catastrophe yet

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  • Nuclear and climate threats create ‘profoundly unstable’ world
  • Robinson: climate inaction is ‘death sentence for humanity’

The risk of civil collapse from nuclear weapons and the climate crisis is at a record high, according to US scientists and former officials, calling the current environment “profoundly unstable”.

Related: Trump's impeachment lawyers 'tending toward conspiracy theories' says Schiff – live trial updates

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Out cold: unseasonal temperatures litter south Florida with stunned iguanas

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The weather forecast warned it would be raining reptiles and Floridians recorded encounters with lizards feeling the chill

It truly was the night (and day) of the iguana.

After the National Weather Service (NWS) sent an unusual alert to south Florida residents on Tuesday night warning them of possible “falling iguanas” in light of unseasonably low temperatures, residents were indeed treated to a show of rigid reptiles out of the sky (or, actually, the trees).

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US drinking water contamination with ‘forever chemicals’ far worse than scientists thought

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Highest levels of PFAS in Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans, report by environmental watchdog finds

The contamination of US drinking water with manmade “forever chemicals” is far worse than previously estimated with some of the highest levels found in Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans, said a report on Wednesday by an environmental watchdog group.

The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some have been linked to cancers, liver damage, low birth weight and other health problems.

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‘A whole sheep for £18’: how live exports are hurting farmers in Romania

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Country’s lack of meat processing facilities means livestock must be shipped to international markets – at a high cost to both shepherds and welfare

Gheorghe Dănulețiu, also known as Ghiță Ciobanul (Ghiță the shepherd), has more than 500,000 followers on Facebook after he featured in an advertising campaign that went viral, but he leads the modest life of a traditional shepherd.

Looking after 1,500 sheep in western Romania, Dănulețiu’s life changes with the seasons. During lambing in spring, he barely sleeps four hours a night while in winter he leads his sheep in a three- to four-week journey from the mountains down to graze in the valleys.

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New Zealand has been a life-raft for unique species – now they must adapt or die | Erica Wilkinson

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Our nation has been in a biodiversity crisis for more than 100 years, but the climate crisis could push our at-risk animals to the brink

As world leaders debate how to curb emissions to shape a better tomorrow, for New Zealand’s iconic wildlife the reality is clear – the environment they once thrived in has rapidly changed and species must adapt to survive.

New Zealand is home to species found nowhere else in the world – a flightless parrot, a reptile as old as the dinosaurs, a bat that uses folded wings as “limbs” to scramble around on the forest floor. The unique wildlife thrived on a landmass that was essentially a life-raft separated from predators such as rats and stoats for 80m years.

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Former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull says Trump is the world’s ‘leading climate denier’

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Turnbull says US president is ‘actively working against global action to reduce emissions’

Donald Trump is the world’s “leading climate denier”, the former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has said.

Turnbull, who lost the prime ministership in August 2018 in part because of his own party’s opposition to his plans to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, made the comments to BBC Newsnight on Tuesday (Wednesday morning, Australian time).

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Frozen iguanas forecast to shower south Florida as temperatures drop

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National Weather Service warned of reptiles falling from trees as iguanas are susceptible to freezing once temperatures fall to 40F

The National Weather Service (NWS) took the unusual step on Tuesday of warning that frozen iguanas are expected to shower south Florida as temperatures drop to unusually low levels for the region overnight.

Iguanas, as it turns out, are susceptible to freezing once temperatures drop to around 40F (4.44C). When frozen, these cold-blooded creatures lose their grip on the cozy trees they call home and slip. But the experts informed the public to be aware that the chilled reptiles may be stiff and appear lifeless – but they are not dead.

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Brazil prosecutors charge 16 people with murder in dam collapse that killed 270

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  • Former CEO of mining giant Vale among those charged
  • Vale ‘acted directly to create false impression of safety in dams’

Brazilian prosecutors have charged 16 people – including the former CEO of mining giant Vale – with murder and environmental crimes over the collapse of a tailings dam which killed 270 people on 25 January 2019.

The charges were announced by state prosecutors in Minas Gerais days before the first anniversary of the disaster, which sent a torrent of liquid mining waste across the picturesque countryside, flattening Vale’s plant, offices and canteen, and killing guests at a nearby countryside guesthouse.

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UK could tap into Africa’s $24bn market for off-grid solar power

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Rapidly growing sector could prove lucrative as Britain seeks post-Brexit trade opportunities

UK investors could seize a $24bn investment opportunity by helping to connect millions of people without access to electricity to off-grid home solar power systems.

The market for pay-as-you-go home solar packages is expected to boom in Africa, where millions of homes are using mobile technology to rent low-cost solar panels.

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