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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...National ‘green legacy’ initiative aims to reduce environmental degradation
About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.
The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.
Continue reading...Narendra Modi claims the programme will showcase India’s ‘beautiful mountains and mighty rivers’, in the latest in a string of choreographed media appearances
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, will appear with Bear Grylls in a wilderness survival television programme, the latest in a series of Putin-style media appearances in which the 68-year-old leader projects himself as a man of action and a champion of the environment.
A trailer for the programme, Man vs Wild, which will air in India on 12 August, shows the two men cutting through forests, sniffing animal dung and floating down a river on a makeshift raft. In one scene, Modi holds an improvised spear and tells Grylls: “I’ll hold this for you.”
Continue reading...A guide to species you might spot on Britain’s urban waterways
Canals are often seen as a kind of second-class version of a river. Perhaps that goes back to their industrial history, but from a wildlife point of view canals and rivers are more or less interchangeable.
Visit a city canal on a fine, sunny day in spring or summer, and you’ll see plenty of dragonflies and damselflies on the wing. Some, such as the red-eyed damselfly, banded demoiselle and scarce chaser, have a special preference for the slow-flowing water of a canal, sometimes perching on waterlilies in the sunshine.
Continue reading...Minister tells parliament he requested briefings because of constituents’ concerns, not family business interests
A conversation with an unnamed Yass farmer, not the interests of his farming family, had spurred the minister for energy, Angus Taylor, to seek briefings from the environment department about a listing to protect native grasslands, he told parliament on Monday.
In a personal explanation to the House of Representatives, Taylor sought to deflect further questions and a possible Senate inquiry into meetings he had with bureaucrats on the grasslands laws in 2017.
Continue reading...Roads closed in north-west after Manchester area gets two weeks’ worth of rain in 24 hours
Thunderstorms are expected to hit parts of the UK this week with a risk of more flooding following a weekend of heavy downpours.
Commuters woke up to road closures and diverted trains after parts of Greater Manchester were hit with two weeks’ worth of rain in 24 hours.
Continue reading...Rona Mcseveny, a former patient of UCHL, is showcasing her photos of the continent at the hospital’s Street Gallery. The exhibition is a thank-you to the NHS for the treatment she received. Below, she details the spellbinding sights she captured on her trip
As part of the Running Dry series, the Guardian looks at how drought and famine are forcing Guatemalan families to choose between starvation and migration
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
Continue reading...If there is a glimmer of light amid the darkness of recent reports from the Brazilian Amazon, where deforestation is accelerating along with threats to the indigenous people who live there, it could lie in the growing power of climate diplomacy, combined with increased understanding of the crucial role played by trees in our planet’s climate system. The deal agreed a month ago between the EU and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Venezuela is suspended) enhances European leverage with its South American trading partners. Already, the prize of access to EU markets is credited with having convinced Brazil not to follow Donald Trump’s lead by withdrawing from the Paris climate deal. Now the EU must strengthen its environmental commitments, as a letter from 600 scientists demanded before the deal was agreed.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, made no secret of his plans to promote development, and drew powerful support from Brazil’s agribusiness and mining interests before last year’s election. He scorns conservation and indigenous rights, claiming recently that his foreign opponents want Amazon tribes to live “like cavemen”. Satellite data shows the message is getting through, with clearances up sharply and this month set to be the first in five years in which Brazil has lost an area of forest bigger than Greater London. Illegal gold mining too is spreading. Last week one of the leaders of the Waiãpi people, Emyra Waiãpi, was found stabbed to death on a remote reserve in the state of Amapá, after armed men raided his village.
Continue reading...CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating
Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.
More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.
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