Category Archives: Environment

$1m a minute: the farming subsidies destroying the world

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‘Perverse’ payments must be redirected to measures such as capturing carbon, report says

The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report.

Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser.

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Cyclist dies after crashing while under attack by swooping magpie

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Seventy-six-year-old suffered head injuries when he veered off a bike path and hit a fence post in Wollongong

A man has died of head injuries after he was startled by a magpie and crashed his bicycle in Wollongong.

The 76-year-old was riding a pushbike on an off-road path alongside Nicholson Park at Woonona on Sunday morning when he veered off to avoid a swooping magpie, witnesses reported.

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Collapse of PNG deep-sea mining venture sparks calls for moratorium

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Papua New Guinea out of pocket $157m from failed attempt at mining material from deep-sea vents as opponents point to environmental risk

The “total failure” of PNG’s controversial deep sea mining project Solwara 1 has spurred calls for a Pacific-wide moratorium on seabed mining for a decade.

The company behind Solwara 1, Nautilus, has gone into administration, with major creditors seeking a restructure to recoup hundreds of millions sunk into the controversial project.

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The world has a third pole – and it’s melting quickly

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An IPCC report says two-thirds of glaciers on the largest ice sheet after the Arctic and Antarctic are set to disappear in 80 years

Many moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 metres (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.

However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behaviour, including an inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable.

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US says man can bring back ‘skin, skull, teeth and claws’ of hunted Tanzania lion

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Environmental organizations say ‘very concerning’ move could open floodgates for importing other endangered species

The Trump administration has authorized a Florida man to bring back the “skin, skull, teeth and claws” of a lion he hunted in Tanzania, granting the first permit to import a lion from that country since the species gained protection under the US Endangered Species Act.

Environmental organizations say the move could open the floodgates for importing other endangered species like lions and rhinos. A freedom of information request made public by the US Fish and Wildlife Services also revealed that the hunter, Carl Atkinson, was represented by lawyer John Jackson III, who is also a member of the Trump administration’s International Wildlife Conservation Council, a controversial advisory board that promotes trophy hunting.

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In troubled waters: telling the story of fish in Vanuatu theatre – in pictures

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Fish play a big role in the lives of people in Melanesia; coastal fisheries are not just a source of food and income, they are also central to cultural identity. The Wan Smolbag Theatre Company, from Vanuatu, travels to small fishing villages and performs a play called Twist mo Spin, which tells villagers about the challenges fisheries face across the region and about sustainable fishing

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Naomi Klein: ‘We are seeing the beginnings of the era of climate barbarism’

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The No Logo author talks about solutions to the climate crisis, Greta Thunberg, birth strikes and how she finds hope

• Read an extract from her new book, On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal here

Why are you publishing this book now?
I still feel that the way that we talk about climate change is too compartmentalised, too siloed from the other crises we face. A really strong theme running through the book is the links between it and the crisis of rising white supremacy, the various forms of nationalism and the fact that so many people are being forced from their homelands, and the war that is waged on our attention spans. These are intersecting and interconnecting crises and so the solutions have to be as well.

The book collects essays from the last decade, have you changed your mind about anything?
When I look back, I don’t think I placed enough emphasis on the challenge climate change poses to the left. It’s more obvious the way the climate crisis challenges a rightwing dominant worldview, and the cult of serious centrism that never wants to do anything big, that’s always looking to split the difference. But this is also a challenge to a left worldview that is essentially only interested in redistributing the spoils of extractivism [the process of extracting natural resources from the earth] and not reckoning with the limits of endless consumption.

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‘I don’t know how we come back from this’: Australia’s big dry sucks life from once-proud towns

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Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory

Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.

The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.

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Global renewable energy initiative aims to bring a billion people in from the dark

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Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technology

Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.

According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.

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Dolphins in Channel carry ‘toxic cocktail’ of chemicals

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High levels of mercury and banned industrial fluids, found in blubber and skin, can impact reproduction

Bottlenose dolphins in the Channel have been found to carry a “toxic cocktail” of chemicals in their bodies, some of which have been banned for decades and which may be harming the marine mammals’ health, scientists have said.

Belgian and French scientists said they detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of dolphins in the waters off the north-west coast of France.

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Australian natural disasters minister’s complete about face: ‘I believe in climate science’

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David Littleproud’s comments to parliament entirely at odds with earlier statement to Guardian Australia

Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, now says he accepts the science on manmade climate change, and “[I] always have”.

Littleproud’s comments to the House of Representatives on Thursday were entirely at odds with a written statement he made to Guardian Australia on Tuesday. In response to questions, Littleproud said: “I don’t know if climate change is man-made.”

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Japan should scrap nuclear reactors after Fukushima, says new environment minister

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Shinjiro Koizumi says: ‘We will be doomed if we allow another accident to occur’

Japan’s new environment minister has called for the country’s nuclear reactors to be scrapped to prevent a repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Shinjiro Koizumi’s comments, made hours after he became Japan’s third-youngest cabinet minister since the war, could set him on a collision course with Japan’s pro-nuclear prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

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Shocking news: world’s most powerful electric eel found in Amazon

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Electrophorus voltai can deliver a jolt of 860 volts, much more than existing record of 650 volts

DNA research has revealed two entirely new species of electric eel in the Amazon basin, including one capable of delivering a record-breaking jolt.

The findings are evidence, researchers say, of the incredible diversity in the Amazon rainforest – much of it still unknown to science – and illustrate why it is so important to protect a habitat at risk from deforestation, logging and fires.

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Environment officials sensitive about Angus Taylor grasslands meeting, emails show

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Before the meeting an official asked about the Taylor company being investigated for alleged illegal land clearing

Department of the environment officials were acutely sensitive about meeting Angus Taylor over critically endangered grasslands while his family’s company was being investigated for alleged illegal land clearing in New South Wales, according to internal emails.

The information is revealed in correspondence that had previously been partially redacted from documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws in June this year.

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Diesel cars emit more air pollution on hot days, study says

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Emissions rose 20-30% in Paris when temperatures topped 30C, raising urgent questions as the climate gets hotter

Emissions from diesel cars – even newer and supposedly cleaner models – increase on hot days, a new study has found, raising questions over how cities suffering from air pollution can deal with urban heat islands and the climate crisis.

Research in Paris by The Real Urban Emissions (True) initiative found that diesel car emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) rose by 20% to 30% when temperatures topped 30C – a common event this summer.

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Barcelona’s car-free ‘superblocks’ could save hundreds of lives

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Report predicts radical scheme could cut air pollution by a quarter as other cities including Seattle prepare to follow suit

Barcelona could save hundreds of lives and cut air pollution by a quarter if it fully implements its radical superblocks scheme to reduce traffic, a new report claims.

A study carried out by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health calculates that the city could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created all 503 superblocks envisaged in its initial plan – up from the current six schemes.

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World ‘gravely’ unprepared for effects of climate crisis – report

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Trillions of dollars needed to avoid ‘climate apartheid’ but this is less than cost of inaction

The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders.

This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns.

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‘Chaos, chaos, chaos’: a journey through Bolsonaro’s Amazon inferno

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A 2,000km road and river odyssey in Brazil reveals consensus from all sides: Bolsonaro has ushered in a new age of wrecking

From afar it resembles a tornado: an immense grey column shooting thousands of feet upwards from the forest canopy into the Amazonian skies.

Up close it is an inferno: a raging conflagration obliterating yet another stretch of the world’s greatest rainforest as a herd of Nelore cattle looks on in bewilderment.

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Australia launches emergency relocation of fish as largest river system faces collapse

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There are doubts the Noah’s Ark plan for the Lower Darling will be enough to prevent more mass fish kills

Faced with a looming ferocious summer with little rain forecast, the New South Wales government has embarked on a Noah’s Ark type operation to move native fish from the Lower Darling – part of Australia’s most significant river system – to safe havens before high temperatures return to the already stressed river basin.

Researchers have warned of other alarming ecological signs that the Lower Darling River – part of the giant Murray-Darling Basin – is in a dire state, following last summer’s mass fish kills.

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How snakebites became an invisible health crisis in Congo

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Daily life is fraught with danger for people living in remote areas of a country where health funding is as scarce as specialist medicine

All photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

In the vast jungles that cover the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world’s most invisible health crises burns on. The country’s extensive equatorial forests are home to numerous species of venomous snakes, but their habitat is shared by secluded communities that are being forced to look further and further afield for their resources due to poverty and the pressures of conflict and climate change.

It puts DRC at the centre of an issue Médecins Sans Frontières has called a “neglected crisis”: death by snake bite.

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