Category Archives: Environment

Madrid could become first European city to scrap low-emissions zone

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Region’s likely new president Isabel Díaz Ayuso believes congestion is part of city’s cultural identity

Madrid may be about to become the first European city to scrap a major urban low-emissions zone after regional polls left a rightwing politician who views 3am traffic jams as part of the city’s cultural identity on the cusp of power.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is expected to become the new Popular party (PP) president of the Madrid region, believes night-time congestion makes the city special and has pledged to reverse a project known as Madrid Central, which has dramatically cut urban pollution.

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Queensland signs off Adani’s plan for endangered black-throated finch

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Coordinator general releases decision to approve the coal mine’s management plan for bird

The Queensland government has signed off on Adani’s black-throated finch management plan, one of two state approvals the company needs to begin preparatory construction for its Adani coalmine.

Queensland’s coordinator general published the decision on Friday morning.

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How wildcats will be reared for release in England and Wales

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Swiss expert behind successful reintroduction in Bavaria is training UK conservationists

“If any beast has the devil’s strength in him it is the wildcat,” wrote a 15th-century hunting author – but historic persecution has brought the wildcat to the brink of extinction in Britain.

Now there is a new attempt to breed hundreds of wildcats in captivity and return the shy animal to England and Wales, where it has not roamed for 150 years.

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Malaysia cracks down on imported plastic – video

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The Malaysian government says the country has become a dumping ground for rich nations as it announces it will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to the countries it came from. Malaysia became the world's main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import last year. 'We will fight back,' Malaysia’s environment minister, Yeo Bee Yin, said. 'We will fight back. Even though we are a small country, we cannot be bullied by developed countries'

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Cyprus begins lionfish cull to tackle threat to Mediterranean ecosystem

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Voracious fish are bleeding into ocean ‘like a cut artery’, says top marine biologist

Cyprus has held its first organised cull of lionfish after numbers of the invasive species have proliferated in recent years, threatening the Mediterranean ecosystem and posing a venomous danger to humans.

“They’re actually very placid,” said Prof Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist, after spearing 16 of the exotic specimens in the space of 40 minutes in the inaugural “lionfish removal derby” off the island’s southern coast. He added: “The problem is they are not part of the natural ecosystem and we are seeing them in plague proportions.”

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Childish Gambino choreographer urges fans to step up for young rural Africans

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Sherrie Silver, who was behind acclaimed video This is America, launches virtual dance ‘petition’ to promote investment in farming

She made a name for herself as the choreographer behind one of the most controversial yet critically acclaimed music videos of last year.

Now Sherrie Silver, the creative force behind the dance moves in Childish Gambino’s This Is America, is using her success to drive a social media campaign promoting investment in young people in rural Africa.

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Australia to achieve 50% renewables by 2030 without government intervention, analysis finds

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RepuTex modelling suggests surge in state schemes and rooftop solar will reduce wholesale prices, making gas- and coal-fired power less competitive

Australia is on track to achieve 50% renewable electricity by 2030 even without new federal energy policies, according to modelling by the energy analysts RepuTex.

The analysis, to be released on Wednesday, suggests that a surge in renewable energy driven by state schemes and rooftop solar installations will reduce wholesale prices from $85 per MWh to $70 over the next three years.

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Africa’s elephant poaching is in decline, analysis suggests

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Researchers still fearful as approximately 10,000 to 15,000 are killed every year

Elephant poaching rates in Africa are declining, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a high of more than 10% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2017, but the researchers warned that current levels were still unsustainable and could spell trouble for the future of the animals on the continent.

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How eminent domain is blighting farmers in path of gas pipeline

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Compulsory purchase – or the threat of it – of property on the route of a pipeline for fracked natural gas has left a slew of grievances and lawsuits in West Virginia and Virginia

In July 2015, Neal Laferriere and his wife, Beth, purchased a home in Summers county, West Virginia. The first time they visited the property after purchasing it, they found stakes outlining what they would later find out to be the route for a gas pipeline.

About two years later, representatives for the Mountain Valley pipeline approached the Laferriere family over the land rights to their property. “The land agent was saying if we don’t come to the table they would just take it via eminent domain,” Laferriere told the Guardian.

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From chicken to tomatoes, here’s why American food is hurting you

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The recent news about glyphosate and cancer only highlights a broader problem with our system: our obsession with killing the natural world is poisoning us

The recent headlines announcing billions of dollars in damages to people who have gotten cancer after using Roundup are just the tip of a very large iceberg. There are over 1,000 lawsuits against Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer, waiting to be heard by the courts. Beyond concerns about that specific glyphosate-based weedkiller, we should be talking about the innumerable other potentially punishing chemicals in our food system.

After all, our food and our health are deeply connected. American healthcare spending has ballooned to $3.5tn a year, and yet we are sicker than most other developed countries. Meanwhile, our food system contains thousands of chemicals that have not been proven safe and many that are banned in other countries.

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A sweet tale: the son who reinvented sugar to help diabetic dad

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The natural substitute helps diabetics, combats obesity and tackles climate change

Javier Larragoiti was 18 when his father was diagnosed with diabetes. The teenager had just started a degree in chemical engineering in Mexico City. So he dedicated his studies to a side project: creating an acceptable alternative to help his father and millions of Mexicans like him avoid sugar.

“It’s only when you know someone with this sickness that you realise how common it is and how sugar intake plays a huge role,” he says. “My dad tried to use stevia and sucralose, just hated the taste, and kept cheating on his diet.”

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European elections: triumphant Greens demand more radical climate action

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Green politicians to push agenda urging climate action, social justice and civil liberties

Europe’s Greens, big winners in Sunday’s European elections, will use their newfound leverage in a fractured parliament to push an agenda of urgent climate action, social justice and civil liberties, the movement’s leaders say.

“This was a great outcome for us – but we now also have a great responsibility, because voters have given us their trust,” Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP and the Greens’ co-lead candidate for commission president, told the Guardian.

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Treated like trash: south-east Asia vows to return mountains of rubbish from west

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Region begins pushback against deluge of plastic and electronic waste from UK, US and Australia

For the past year, the waste of the world has been gathering on the shores of south-east Asia. Crates of unwanted rubbish from the west have accumulated in the ports of the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam while vast toxic wastelands of plastics imported from Europe and the US have built up across Malaysia.

But not for much longer it seems. A pushback is beginning, as nations across south-east Asia vow to send the garbage back to where it came from.

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Memorial Day: sweltering heat and storms follow tornadoes and flooding

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Sweltering heat, storms and possible twisters were expected to hit the southern plains and south-eastern states on Memorial Day, on the heels of deadly tornadoes and flooding.

Related: Are hurricanes getting stronger – and is the climate crisis to blame?

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World’s rivers ‘awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics’

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Largest global study finds the drugs in two-thirds of test sites in 72 countries

Hundreds of rivers around the world from the Thames to the Tigris are awash with dangerously high levels of antibiotics, the largest global study on the subject has found.

Antibiotic pollution is one of the key routes by which bacteria are able develop resistance to the life-saving medicines, rendering them ineffective for human use. “A lot of the resistance genes we see in human pathogens originated from environmental bacteria,” said Prof William Gaze, a microbial ecologist at the University of Exeter who studies antimicrobial resistance but was not involved in the study.

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Snake mistake: CSIRO says it’s a myth that Australia is home to world’s deadliest species

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Australian science agency says there are a ‘negligible number of human deaths’ from snake bites in Australia

The popular suggestion that Australia is home to the world’s deadliest snakes is largely a myth, with the risk of bites and death far greater across Asia, Africa and South America, the nation’s science agency has said.

Herpetologist Ruchira Somaweera from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said the myth was born a few decades ago and came out of a study of the relatively high toxicity levels found in Australian species, such as brown snakes.

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Schoolchildren go on strike across world over climate crisis

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Hundreds of thousands walk out of lessons in 110 countries demanding urgent action

Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren across the world have gone on strike in protest at the escalating climate crisis.

Students from 1,800 towns and cities in more than 110 countries stretching from India to Australia and the UK to South Africa, walked out of lessons on Friday, the organisers of the action said.

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Guardian spurs media outlets to consider stronger climate language

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Use of terms ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’ prompts reviews in other newsrooms

The Guardian’s decision to alter its style guide to better convey the environmental crises unfolding around the world has prompted some other media outlets to reconsider the terms they use in their own coverage.

After the Guardian announced it would now routinely use the words “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” instead of “climate change”, a memo was sent by the standards editor of CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, to staff acknowledging that a “recent shift in style at the British newspaper the Guardian has prompted requests to review the language we use in global warming coverage”.

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Scientists pursue universal snakebite cure using HIV antibody techniques

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British specialist among those aiming to develop ‘next generation’ treatment that could help millions of victims each year

Scientists in five countries, including the UK, hope to find a universal cure for snakebite using the same technology that discovered HIV antibodies.

A new consortium of venom specialists in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Britain and the US will locate and develop antibodies to treat critical illness from snakebites, which harm nearly 3 million people worldwide each year.

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