Category Archives: Environment

‘It’s our time to rise up’: youth climate strikes held in 100 countries

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School and university students continue Friday protests to call for political action on crisis

From Australia to America, children put down their books on Friday to march for change in the first global climate strike.

The event was embraced in the developing nations of India and Uganda and in the Philippines and Nepal – countries acutely impacted by climate change - as tens of thousands of schoolchildren and students in more than 100 countries went on “strike”, demanding the political elite urgently address what they say is a climate emergency.

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Former Liberal adviser appointed head of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

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Josh Thomas, who worked with three Liberal environment ministers, will get an annual salary of $353,180

A former policy adviser to multiple Liberal party environment ministers has been appointed the new chief executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government body responsible for managing the reef.

Josh Thomas, who worked as an adviser to current minister Melissa Price, as well as former environment ministers Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt, will start a five-year term in the role on 18 March with an annual salary of $353,180.

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Pollutionwatch: China shows how political will can take on air pollution

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Sulphur dioxide in Beijing was reduced by 70% and particle pollution by 36% in just four years

It’s been a while since we saw images of smog-obscured Beijing landmarks in the news. A United Nations report explains this.

In four years, sulphur dioxide in the city was reduced by 70% and particle pollution by 36% by tackling the problem at source. Initially, old coal-powered industry and power stations were fitted with air pollution abatement systems before being replaced by cleaner facilities built to run on natural gas.

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‘Social disaster’: South Korea brings in emergency laws to tackle dust pollution

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Air quality has become a key political issue after record pollution levels hit the country last week

South Korea has passed emergency measures to tackle the “social disaster” being unleashed by air pollution, after record levels of fine dust blanketed most of the country in recent weeks.

The national assembly passed a series of bills on Wednesday giving authorities access to emergency funds for measures that include the mandatory installation of high-capacity air purifiers in classrooms and encouraging sales of liquified petroleum gas vehicles, which produce lower emissions than those that run on petrol and diesel.

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‘A good day’: New Zealand adds area half the size of Auckland to national park

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Environmentalists ‘stoked’ by expansion they say will protect blue duck, native kaka bird, bats and giant land snails

A national park in New Zealand has been expanded by 64,000 hectares – the largest gain for a national park in the country’s history.

Kahurangi national park is situated in the north-west corner of New Zealand’s South Island, and is already the second-largest national park in the country.

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Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions

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Extraction also causes 80% of biodiversity loss, according to comprehensive UN study

Extraction industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 80% of biodiversity loss, according to the most comprehensive environmental tally undertaken of mining and farming.

While this is crucial for food, fuel and minerals, the study by UN Environment warns the increasing material weight of the world’s economies is putting a more dangerous level of stress on the climate and natural life-support systems than previously thought.

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Radical proposal to artificially cool Earth’s climate could be safe, new study claims

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Experts worry that injecting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere could put some regions at risk

A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world.

Related: Geoengineering may be used to combat global warming, experts say

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Fukushima grapples with toxic soil that no one wants

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Eight years after the disaster, not a single location will take the millions of cubic metres of radioactive soil that remain

Not even the icy wind blowing in from the coast seems to bother the men in protective masks, helmets and gloves, playing their part in the world’s biggest nuclear cleanup.

Related: Eight years after Fukushima, what has made evacuees come home?

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Fires of Jharia spell death and disease for villagers

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The inhabitants of a remote village at the heart of India’s coal industry brave deadly sinkholes and toxic gases simply to survive

In the village of Liloripathra, in a remote corner of India’s eastern Jharkhand state, mother-of-three Sushila Devi grips the hands of two women sitting on either side of her. Coal fires spew clouds of smoke into the already heavy, polluted air.

At about 8pm, a policeman cradling a small body wrapped in black plastic bags emerges through the smoke and the crowds that have gathered around her home. He has come to deliver the body of her 13-year-old daughter Chanda, killed along with two others from the village when a coal mine caved in on top of them. They had been scavenging in a colliery operated by Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of state-owned Coal India.

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‘A lot at stake’: indigenous and minorities sidelined on climate change fight

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The two groups are affected the most by environmental degradation and pollution, but they often feel left out of the movement

Bernadette Demientieff, a representative for the indigenous Gwich’in nation, finds Washington DC anxiety-inducing, especially compared to the wide open spaces and tall mountains of Alaska.

She makes frequent trips to the US capital to fight oil drilling in what she considers sacred caribou calving grounds in the Arctic. But Demientieff is an outsider in the nation’s capital, where her concerns have fallen on deaf ears with the Trump administration. She’s also a bit of an outsider to the national environmental movement, too.

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‘Was that disruptive?’: congressman blasts Trump official with air-horn in committee hearing – video

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Joe Cunningham intervened in a House committee hearing on the environmental impact of seismic air-gun testing. The Democrat reached for the 120-decibel device after the official claimed the practice, used to locate underwater oil deposits, would have no effect on marine animals. Cunningham said seismic air guns were 16,000 times louder than his air-horn

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Ranger killed weeks after reopening of Virunga national park

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Park in DRC was shut last year for more than eight months after series of attacks on staff

A forest ranger has been killed in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, weeks after the reserve was reopened to tourists.

Virunga, home to critically endangered mountain gorillas as well as hundreds of other rare species, was shut for more than eight months for a review of security after a series of attacks on staff last year.

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Western Australia environment watchdog plans tougher curbs on emissions

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EPA chief says new regulations are needed to meet Paris targets, putting future LNG projects under threat

Western Australia’s environmental protection authority has announced tough new measures aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from large projects.

The EPA, which works independently and makes recommendations to the WA government about whether new developments should be granted environmental approval, said on Thursday it was setting a “higher bar” for how it would assess the impact of major projects on the climate.

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Microplastic pollution revealed ‘absolutely everywhere’ by new research

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Contamination found across UK lakes and rivers, in US groundwater, along the Yantze river and Spanish coast, and harbouring dangerous bacteria in Singapore

Microplastic pollution spans the world, according to new studies showing contamination in the UK’s lake and rivers, in groundwater in the US and along the Yangtze river in China and the coast of Spain.

Related: Rivers of waste: Pakistan's recyclers go out on patrol – in pictures

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‘Chilling reality’: Afghanistan suffers worst floods in seven years

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Thousands of homes swept away as rains follow devastating drought, with UN ‘shocked’ by lack of crisis funding support

Afghanistan has been hit with the worst flooding in seven years, with 20 dead, thousands of homes swept away and many families, already displaced by drought, forced to leave their homes for the second time.

The latest climate shock, which affected eight provinces including Kandahar, came as the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan criticised the European Commission for its “wholly insufficient” response to hunger and suffering in a country already in the grip of what analysts describe as the world’s deadliest conflict.

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22 of world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India, Greenpeace says

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Analysis of air pollution data finds that 64% of cities globally exceed WHO guidelines

Twenty-two of the world’s 30 worst cities for air pollution are in India, according to a new report, with Delhi again ranked the world’s most polluted capital.

The Greenpeace and AirVisual analysis of air pollution readings from 3,000 cities around the world found that 64% exceed the World Health Organization’s annual exposure guideline for PM2.5 fine particulate matter – tiny airborne particles, about a 40th of the width of a human hair, that are linked to a wide range of health problems.

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Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal

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Extreme temperatures destroy kelp, seagrass and corals – with alarming impacts for humanity

The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”.

The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, storm protection and the removal of climate-warming carbon dioxide the atmosphere, they say.

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‘We are fighting’: Brazil’s indigenous groups unite to protect their land

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Residents of Raposa Serra do Sol are determined to face down the threat posed by mining

“A united people will never be defeated!” shouted Maria Betânia Mota, as the indigenous assembly in a partially burned-out agricultural college began. Hundreds of voices roared back in approval.

Betânia Mota is the women’s secretary of its organisers, the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), which represents the majority of those living in the 1.7m hectares of savannah and scrub that make up the Raposa Serra do Sol reserve in Brazil’s northernmost state.

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Holy mola: huge sunfish washes up in northern waters for first time in 130 years

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Beached hoodwinker sunfish, which is two metres long, baffles locals on California beach

A giant sunfish has washed up on a beach in California, the first time this particular species of the animal has been sighted in the northern hemisphere in 130 years.

The sunfish measuring 2.05 metres (6ft 8 in) and weighing several hundred kilograms, or more than 600lb, was found on the beach of the Coal Oil Point Reserve in California.

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