Category Archives: Environment

Oil built Saudi Arabia – will a lack of water destroy it?

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As Riyadh continues to build skyscrapers at a dizzying rate, an invisible emergency threatens the desert kingdom’s existence

Bottles of water twirl on the conveyor belts of the Berain water factory in Riyadh, as a puddle of water collects on the concrete floor. In a second warehouse, tanks emit a low hum as water brought in from precious underground aquifers passes through a six-stage purification process before bottling.

“In Saudi Arabia there are only two sources of water: the sea and deep wells,” says Ahmed Safar Al Asmari, who manages one of Berain’s two factories in Riyadh. “We’re in the central region, so there are only deep wells here.”

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Big cats and exotic birds: Colombia’s rescued animals – in pictures

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Most of the animals at the Santa Cruz Foundation in San Antonio, Colombia, have been rescued from traffickers and circuses. The multimillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade is the fourth-largest in the country after drugs, guns and human trafficking

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Environmental activist murders double in 15 years

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Death toll almost half that of US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, data shows

Killings of environmental defenders have doubled over the past 15 years to reach levels usually associated with war zones, according to a study that reveals how murders of activists are concentrated in countries with the worst corruption and weakest laws.

At least 1,558 people in 50 states were killed between 2002 and 2017 while trying to protect their land, water or local wildlife, says the analysis, which calculates the death toll is almost half that of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

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Fears of ‘Chernobyl on ice’ as Russia prepares floating nuclear plant

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Scepticism and safety concerns persist before vessel begins 4,000-mile Arctic journey

“I feel like I’m one of the first cosmonauts going into space,” said Vladimir Irminku, one of the chief engineers of the Akademik Lomonosov, as he stood on the deck of the giant, box-like platform on a chilly summer morning at Kola Bay in the Barents Sea.

Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion.

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IPCC leaked report: Going vegetarian and controlling land use are key to climate crisis

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Scientists in Geneva warn that cutting carbon emissions from cars and factories is not enough

Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.

A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.

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Record heatwave ‘made much more likely’ by human impact on climate

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Scientists say July at least equalled and may have beaten hottest month on record

The record-breaking heatwave that roasted Europe last month was a one-in-a-thousand-year event made up to 100 times more likely by human-driven climate change, scientists have calculated.

Around the globe, July at least equalled and may have surpassed the hottest month on record, according to data from the World Meteorological Organization. This followed the warmest June on record.

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Malawi reinstates ban on plastic bags as campaigners hail ‘fantastic victory’

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Judges overturn injunction won by plastic manufacturers after thin plastic bags were outlawed

Malawi’s highest court has imposed a ban on plastic bags, a huge milestone for the government and environmental charities who beat off challenges from some of the country’s big manufacturers.

The government imposed the ban on thin plastic bags in 2015, but the move was overturned by the high court after a number of plastic manufacturers who operate in the southern-east African nation obtained an injunction, citing an “infringement of business rights”.

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Turf it out: is it time to say goodbye to artificial grass?

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It’s neat, easy – and a staggering £2bn global market. But as plastic grass takes over our cities, some say that it’s green only in colour

If your attention during the Women’s World Cup was on the pitch rather than the players, you might have noticed that the matches were all played on real grass. That was a hard-won change, made after the US team complained to Fifa that they sustained more injuries on artificial turf.

In private gardens, however, the opposite trend is happening: British gardens are being dug up and replaced with plastic grass. But this isn’t the flaky, fading stuff on which oranges were once displayed at the greengrocer. Today’s artificial grass is nearly identical to the real thing.

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Taking Macron down: climate protesters strip French town halls of portraits

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More than 100 portraits of president removed in symbolic civil disobedience movement

It was a quiet Monday afternoon in the picturesque town hall of Lingolsheim, outside Strasbourg. The school summer holidays had started and it was exceptionally hot. But at 4pm something extraordinary happened.

Eleven people calmly walked in, politely greeted the receptionists, then headed to the room usually reserved for council meetings. They carefully unhooked the picture of the French president, Emmanuel Macron – the type of portrait that hangs in all local administration buildings – gently placing it in a special protective pouch, and then walked out.

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Greta Thunberg hits back at Andrew Bolt for ‘deeply disturbing’ column

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Campaigner calls out ‘hate and conspiracy campaigns’ after Australian’s attack

The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has hit back at the Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt for writing a deeply offensive column that mocked her autism diagnosis.

The Swedish schoolgirl posted a tweet overnight calling out the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt, adopting his insult that she was “deeply disturbed” and turning it back on him.

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Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash ‘could pay for green transition’

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Redirecting small portion of subsidies would unleash clean energy revolution, says report

Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.

Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.

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Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data

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Ministers look at setting up alternative monitoring scheme as existing system shows alarming rise in clearance rates

The Amazon forest is being burned and chopped down at the most alarming rate in recent memory, but the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro is focused on reinterpreting the data rather than dealing with the culprits, monitoring groups have said.

At a clearance rate equivalent to a Manhattan island every day, deforestation in July was almost twice as fast as the worst month ever recorded by the current satellite monitoring system, which is managed by the government’s National Institute for Space Research.

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I followed the advice for Paris’s hottest day – it didn’t help | Megan Clement

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From walking the dog at midnight to a dip in the canal, I tested the heatwave plan as the city reached 42.6C. Here’s how it went

Last week, as Paris faced down its hottest day since records began, the city authorities declared their readiness. Since the notorious heatwave of 2003 that killed thousands across France, the capital has put in place a heat strategy: cooling areas, a checking system for vulnerable people, shady parks kept open all night.

Could these strategies actually work against a predicted record temperature of 42C (107.6F)? A study released this week shows that the world has never warmed faster than now. By 2050, the average temperature in the hottest month in Paris will rise by six degrees. This heatwave might be the new normal.

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Green shoots: Indian state introduces guns-for-trees scheme

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Punjab residents must plant 10 trees to get a firearms licence – and send photos to prove it

Residents in a district of the Indian state of Punjab who want to buy a gun face an unlikely new hurdle: to secure a firearm licence, they must plant at least 10 trees.

Applicants in Ferozepur district are required to send photos of themselves with their saplings to officials, as well as follow-up pictures a month later to prove they are caring for their trees.

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‘It won’t be long’: why a Honduran community will soon be under water

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Rising sea levels are destroying coastal towns in Honduras – and shrimp farms which export to the UK and US are making it worse

Eric Pineda runs a modest beachfront restaurant which serves up plates of fresh fish and rice – and faces imminent destruction.

A recent tidal surge razed the nightclub next door, leaving a pastel pink ruin, and in the past two years, several other businesses between Pineda’s property and the Pacific Ocean have been destroyed by sudden waves.

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UK’s 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2002: Met Office

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Data also shows that none of Britain’s coldest years have happened since 1963

The UK’s 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2002, the Met Office has said. Its statistics stretching back to 1884 reveal a worrying trend, as the planet as a whole deals with the climate crisis.

In a further indication of how the climate is heating up, the records show that none of the UK’s 10 coldest years have occurred since 1963.

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Fewer than 19 vaquita porpoises left – study

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Calls for Mexico to crackdown on use of illegal fishing nets after further decline of species

There are fewer than 19 vaquita porpoises thought to be left, according to a study.

In 2016, estimates of the vaquita population stood at just 30, but research published in Royal Society Open Science suggests the figure has fallen further.

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Starvation deaths of 200 reindeer in Arctic caused by climate change, say researchers

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Comparable death toll has been recorded only once before, says Norwegian Polar Institute

About 200 reindeer have been found dead from starvation in the Arctic archipelago Svalbard, an unusually high number, the Norwegian Polar Institute has said, pointing the finger at climate change.

During an annual census of the wild reindeer population on the group of islands about 1,200km (746 miles) from the north pole, three researchers from the institute identified the carcasses of about 200 deer believed to have starved to death last winter.

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Henderson Island: the Pacific paradise groaning under 18 tonnes of plastic waste

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Rubbish has been washing up on its isolated beaches in the Pitcairn chain at a rate of several thousand bits of plastic a day

Henderson Island, uninhabited and a day’s sea crossing from the nearest sign of civilisation, should be an untouched paradise.

Instead its beaches, which were awarded Unesco world heritage status in 1988, are a monument to humanity’s destructive, disposable culture.

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The Fairtrade mark is still trustworthy | Letter

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Joy and Richard Webb respond to recent negative coverage about the fair trade movement

As committed and hardworking supporters of fair trade for almost 30 years, we feel your correspondents (Letters, 27 July) missed the point of “The death of fair trade?” (The long read, 23 July) which showed how large corporations are trying to circumvent fair trade and undermine the highly successful Fairtrade mark with their own “fairly traded” and the like. Rest assured, the Fairtrade mark remains an absolutely trustworthy guarantee of internationally agreed standards.

Tim Gossling blames the EU for “not allowing” the production of Divine chocolate in Ghana. This is not true. The EU is primarily a trading bloc, it imposes tariffs on products from outside that bloc. That’s what trading blocs do. It benefits UK manufacturers and farmers, too. No wonder the TUC, CBI and NFU are all appalled at the thought of similar tariffs being slapped on our products after Brexit.

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