Fat innkeeper worms typically burrow under the sand but recent storms have swept away layers, leaving them exposed
I’m not sure this is what the Weather Girls meant when they sang, “It’s raining men.”
Related: 'Truly astounding': inside the Farallon Islands' battle against a plague of mice
Continue reading...Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard
Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.
Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.
Continue reading...Greenpeace activists unfurl climate emergency banner on Brussels venue before event
European leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels will make a new attempt to set the European Union on course for carbon neutrality by 2050, in a test of the bloc’s credibility on the climate emergency.
Hours before EU leaders were due to arrive on Thursday, Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner on the side of the summit venue warning of the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Melting sea ice is prompting fevered dreams of ever-easier access, and a renewed jockeying among Arctic nations for status, profit and ownership
I could not keep my eyes off the graves, could not stop staring at them even as I walked away, turning repeatedly to look over my shoulder at them as I slogged my way across the gravel-strewn shore of Beechey Island until they disappeared from view.
It was profoundly saddening to contemplate their presence on a low-lying, windswept outpost of the Canadian Arctic, to imagine the fear and loneliness those buried here must have felt as they faced death in the harshest of conditions, thousands of miles and a world removed from their homes. And yet, they were the lucky ones, the first casualties of an expedition that vanished 173 years ago while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage between Atlantic and Pacific, whose remaining members met their doom after their ships became frozen in never-yielding sea ice, who perished one by one waiting for a summer that never came.
Continue reading...Green groups say 52% vote against federal government facility should rule out region as potential site
Residents in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges have voted narrowly against having a nuclear waste dump in their region.
About 52% of the people who took part in the ballot voted against the federal government’s facility being established on land near Hawker.
Continue reading...Popular broadcaster and scientist hailed as man who ‘inspired a whole generation’
The naturalist and broadcaster David Bellamy has died aged 86, the Conservation Foundation has said.
Bellamy died on Wednesday, according to the foundation, of which he was president and co-founder. In a statement, David Shreeve, its director, said: “Sadly, I have to report that David Bellamy died this morning. David and I worked together on a variety of projects in various places since launching the Conservation Foundation in 1982.
Continue reading...Everything from travel to air quality has been looked at in order to create ‘a growth that gives back’
Nearly every major aspect of the European economy is to be re-evaluated in light of the imperatives of the climate and ecological emergency, according to sweeping new plans set out by the European commission on Wednesday.
The comprehensive nature of the European Green Deal – which encompasses the air we breathe to how food is grown, from how we travel to the buildings we inhabit – was set out in a flurry of documents as Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, made her appeal to member states and parliamentarians in Brussels to back the proposals, which would represent the biggest overhaul of policy since the foundation of the modern EU.
Continue reading...Bloc considers itself international leader on environment, but progress has been stunted
The European Union considers itself as a leader on the environment and not without cause: policymaking in Brussels moved ahead of the international consensus in the 2000s.
But the soaring rhetoric has not always been matched by the necessary structural changes in the way European economies work and citizens live their lives.
Continue reading...Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has derided Greta Thunberg after the teenage climate activist added her voice to growing international condemnation of a surge of anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon.
Related: Amazon indigenous leaders killed in Brazil drive-by shooting
Continue reading...Scale and speed of loss much higher than predicted, threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people
Greenland’s ice sheet is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with inundation and bringing some of the irreversible impacts of the climate emergency much closer.
Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data.
Continue reading...Repentance, reparation and remedy for the terrible damage done to the people of Bayelsa state in Nigeria is long overdue
• John Sentamu is the archbishop of York
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins: “All human beings … should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” It is now widely acknowledged that human rights cannot be enjoyed without a safe, clean and healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment is enshrined in more than 100 constitutions all over the world because human and environmental rights are intertwined.
However, despite the endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, oil companies exploiting irreplaceable resources in the Niger Delta are callously flouting fundamental human rights. That is the conclusion I have been forced to draw from my work as chair of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC).
Continue reading...Almost 3,000 firefighters across New South Wales will be deployed as more than 80 bushfires continue to burn and temperatures are expected to hit 40C. Follow all the latest updates
• ‘National security issue’: Turnbull tells Q&A Morrison must step up response to bushfires
• Greg Jericho: the Coalition isn’t being honest about the climate crisis. But neither is Labor
Thick “hazardous” smoke back in Sydney this morning pic.twitter.com/HyBxweEFYZ
#Sydney barely visible through the bushfire smoke. Temperatures forecast to reach 36C in the city, 42C in the west. #NSWfires pic.twitter.com/kqAnlDmSLB
I think this is the worst I've seen. #sydneysmoke pic.twitter.com/u3fpI7ZosY
The Bureau of Meteorology says a southerly wind later this afternoon will help ease the smoke choking Sydney this morning, though it may not help firefighters battling blazes across the rest of the state.
A smoky start for #Sydney, with #smoke from nearby fires trapped overnight in a low-layer of the atmosphere, causing it to become concentrated. A southerly buster this afternoon will help reduce the smoke, especially nearer the coast. Health info re smoke: https://t.co/I3gS1GMBVA pic.twitter.com/WJCrmDHsrv
Continue reading...Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock
Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.
Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.
Continue reading...Pascal Canfin says he cannot back deal with South American bloc owing to ‘political context’
The EU’s trade deal with four South American countries will not be ratified in its current form because it contradicts Europe’s plans to confront the climate emergency, a leading MEP has said.
Pascal Canfin, a Frenchman who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said he could not vote in favour of the EU trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (the bloc known as Mercosur).
Continue reading...Intensively managed estates have created treeless landscapes with few animals and plants
Conservation groups have called for Scotland’s grouse moors to be closed down and replaced by woodland to protect the country from the impacts of the climate emergency.
A report for Revive, a coalition of environmental and animal rights groups, has found grouse moors cause significant ecological damage by burning heather, allowing heavy grazing by deer and sheep, and using intensive predator control.
Continue reading...Dozens of species are now at risk but a conference this week will showcase new technology that could help stop the illegal trade
The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey.
“There only about 600 of these animals left in the wild, in the Bahamas, and these animals were being taken to a private collector somewhere in Germany. Incredibly, we were able to return 12 of them, alive, to their homeland – on San Salvador island,” said Grant Miller, who was then working for the Border Force’s endangered species team.
Continue reading...The Union Carbide factory explosion remains the world’s worst industrial accident – but as its dreadful legacy becomes increasingly apparent, victims are still waiting for justice
The residents of JP Nagar have no way to escape their ghosts. This ramshackle neighbourhood, on the outskirts of the Indian city of Bhopal, stands just metres away from the chemical factory which exploded just after midnight on 2 December 1984 and seeped poison into their lives forever. The blackened ruins of the Union Carbide plant still loom untouched behind the factory walls.
Related: The Bhopal disaster victims still waiting for justice 35 years on – in pictures
Continue reading...As air quality plummets on the Australian east coast as a result of devastating bush fires, residents of cities clogged with smog share their coping strategies
The east coast of Australia is in the grip of a bushfire and air pollution crisis. But plummeting air quality levels are a regular occurrence in cities in India, Latin America and China. Here, residents and experts from Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City explain how they survive the smog.
Continue reading...Photographer Judah Passow has documented those were affected by the Bhopal disaster 35 years ago, which killed an estimated 25,000 people ad has left more than 150,000 suffering from chronic medical conditions
Judah Passow has waived his fee for this work. Contributions to the Bhopal Medical Appeal can be made at www.bhopal.org
Continue reading...Save the Children urges people taking part in its charity event to source sweaters through clothes swaps and vintage shops
Save the Children is calling on people to hold clothes swaps and scour vintage shops rather than buy new Christmas jumpers, after research found that 95% of the novelty items for sale contained plastic.
The appeal for consumer “sustainability” comes ahead of the charity’s annual Christmas jumper day on Friday, when it encourages supporters to buy and wear festive pullovers. Research by the environmental charity Hubbub estimates that 12m jumpers will be bought this year, triggering huge amounts of plastic waste.
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