Category Archives: Environment

Revealed: 1.6m Americans live near the most polluting incinerators in the US

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Lower-income and minority communities are exposed to majority of the pollution coming from waste-burning plants, report finds

A total of 1.6 million Americans live next to the most polluting incinerators in the country, with lower-income and minority communities exposed to the vast majority of pollution coming from these waste-burning plants.

The burning of household and commercial waste can give off a stew of pollutants, including mercury, lead and small particles of soot. This pollution isn’t evenly distributed, however. Of the 73 incinerators across the US, 79% are located within three miles of low-income and minority neighbourhoods, according to research by the Tishman Environment and Design Center at New York City’s New School.

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Europe’s Greens ready to be kingmakers in EU elections

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Green candidates, on course for their best showing, could play a big role in a divided parliament

Europe’s Greens are on course for their strongest showing to date in next week’s European elections – and could find themselves kingmakers in a newly fragmented EU parliament.

“We’ll be at the table,” said Bas Eickhout, an MEP from the Netherlands and a co-candidate of Europe’s Green parties for European commission president. “We have a good chance to determine the new majorities. And we will have our demands, on green issues, social issues, and the rule of law.”

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‘That’s where the dream ends’: the surfers who took on a development company in Fiji

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Jona Ratu has lived on Malolo Island his entire life. One day he walked down to the beach of the land he owns with two Australian surfers to find that diggers had arrived and a Chinese development company was tearing up the reef. Ratu and his two friends started a battle that would cost tens of thousands of dollars in order to save their land.

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Reef wipeout: surfers fight China-linked mega resort in Fiji

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Jona Ratu and his friends wanted to build an eco-lodge in their corner of paradise – then the diggers arrived

It was one of the most surreal days of Jona Ratu’s life. On a May morning in 2018 he strolled down to the palm-fringed beach on a parcel of land he owns on idyllic Malolo island to find a digger parked on the coral reef.

“They just dug, they kept digging, digging, digging,” Ratu remembers.

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Japanese man prepares for landmark case against dolphin hunts

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Taiji resident will testify in attempt to ban activity as part of charity’s legal challenge

A man from Taiji, the Japanese fishing town whose annual slaughter of dolphins has drawn widespread condemnation, will appear in court on Friday in an unprecedented legal challenge to the hunts.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the plaintiff, who has asked not to be named until the hearing has concluded, said he had been been ostracised in Taiji, where he was born and raised but decided to speak out against the hunts.

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414 million pieces of plastic found on remote island group in Indian Ocean

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Debris on Cocos (Keeling) Islands was mostly bottles, cutlery, bags and straws, but also included 977,000 shoes, study says

On the beaches of the tiny Cocos (Keeling) Islands, population 600, marine scientists found 977,000 shoes and 373,000 toothbrushes.

Related: ‘Monstrous’: Indigenous rangers’ struggle against the plastic ruining Arnhem Land beaches

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‘One day we’ll disappear’: Tuvalu’s sinking islands | Eleanor Ainge Roy

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Rising seas are on the verge of swallowing two of the tiny archipelago’s nine islands, and the encroaching waves haunt locals’ dreams

On the hottest days, Leitu Frank feels like she can’t breathe any more. The housewife and mother of five decamps from her airless concrete home to catch the breeze in a simple wooden shack by the water’s edge. She folds washing and stares out at the unsettled turquoise sea, its moods and rhythms increasingly unpredictable, as its rising proximity threatens to strangle her family.

“The sea is eating all the sand,” says Frank, 32, dressed in a pink stretchy T-shirt and faded sarong.

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‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica

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New research shows affected areas are losing ice five times faster than in the 1990s, with more than 100m of thickness gone in some places

Ice losses are rapidly spreading deep into the interior of the Antarctic, new analysis of satellite data shows.

The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places.

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Heavy metals and harmful chemicals ‘poison Europe’s seas’

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Three-quarters of areas tested show contamination, European Environment Agency says

Heavy metals and a cocktail of dangerous chemicals continue to poison Europe’s seas, with more than three-quarters of areas assessed showing contamination, according to a report.

The sea worst affected was the Baltic, where 96% of the assessed areas showed problematic levels of some harmful substances, according to the European Environment Agency. Similar problems were found in 91% of the Black Sea and 87% of the Mediterranean. In the north-east Atlantic, unsafe levels of chemicals or metals were found in 75% of assessed areas.

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‘It would destroy it’: new international airport for Machu Picchu sparks outrage

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Peruvian archaeologists decry new airport that would carry tourists directly to already fragile Inca citadel

Among the Inca archeological sites that abound in Peru, none draw nearly as many tourists as the famed citadel of Machu Picchu. There were more than 1.5 million visitors in 2017, almost double the limit recommended by Unesco, putting a huge strain on the fragile ruins and local ecology.

Now, in a move that has drawn a mixture of horror and outrage from archaeologists, historians and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet tourists much closer to Machu Picchu .

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Tax carbon, not people: UN chief issues climate plea from Pacific ‘frontline’

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Antonio Guterres hears from leaders at Fiji summit who warn region is facing ‘an unprecedented global catastrophe’

Governments around the world must introduce carbon taxes, halt plans for new coal plants and accelerate the closure of existing ones if damage to the Pacific from climate change is to be limited, the UN secretary general has told Pacific leaders on his first visit to the region.

Antonio Guterres met leaders of Pacific countries in Fiji, on a trip that will also see him visit Vanuatu, considered one of the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change, and Tuvalu, which is at risk of sinking under rising waters.

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Australia’s biodiversity at breaking point – a picture essay

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Land clearing, deforestation, emissions, drought and warming oceans are all worsening the attack on Australia’s threatened species

Australia’s biodiversity is in trouble. The UN global assessment report painted a stark picture: the decline of the world’s natural support systems means that human society is in danger. According to the report, nature is being destroyed at a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. More than a million species are at risk of extinction, natural ecosystems have declined by about 47% and the biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%. All of this is largely because of human activity. And the resulting impacts are likely to worsen unless we take action immediately.

As Guardian Australia has reported, Australia’s natural support systems are at breaking point. Increased land-clearing, warming oceans and a drought exacerbated by climate change are taking their toll on our biodiversity. The country is already experiencing rising oceans, marine heatwaves, longer fire seasons and extreme heat patterns. These are consistent with a changing climate.

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Germany’s AfD turns on Greta Thunberg as it embraces climate denial

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Rightwing populists to launch attack on climate science in vote drive before EU elections

Germany’s rightwing populists are embracing climate change denial as the latest topic with which to boost their electoral support, teaming up with scientists who claim hysteria is driving the global warming debate and ridiculing the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as “mentally challenged” and a fraud.

The Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) is expected to launch its biggest attack yet on mainstream climate science at a symposium in parliament on Tuesday supported by a prominent climate change denial body linked by researchers to prominent conservative groups in the US.

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Man makes deepest-ever dive in Mariana Trench and discovers … trash

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A retired naval officer dove in a submarine nearly 36,000ft into the deepest place on Earth, only to find what appears to be plastic

On the deepest dive ever made by a human inside a submarine, a Texas investor found something he could have found in the gutter of nearly any street in the world: trash.

Victor Vescovo, a retired naval officer, made the unsettling discovery as he descended nearly 35,853ft (10,927 meters) to a point in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench that is the deepest place on Earth, his expedition said in a statement on Monday. His dive went 52ft (16 meters) lower than the previous deepest descent in the trench in 1960.

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Holy and unholy waters: a tale of two Indian rivers

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While the Ganges is sacred but heavily polluted, the Chambal’s ‘cursed’ but pristine waters have proved a blessing for locals

Cold-blooded gharials, a crocodile-like species unique to south Asia, catch the last of the day’s warmth as a setting sun paints the sky crimson above the Chambal river.

Two jackals and a jungle cat scuttle up thorny ravines that box in the expansive blue water, while the orange-beaked Indian skimmer bird glides overhead.

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Could climate change submerge Joe Biden’s presidential bid?

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The former vice-president has yet to put forward a plan to address global warming, which polls suggest is the single most important issue for Democrats

Climate change is transforming life by redrawing coastlines, turning vast areas of forest into infernos, stirring enormous storms and spreading exotic diseases. An indirect casualty of this upheaval could be Joe Biden’s hopes of becoming US president.

Biden, frontrunner in the polls to secure the Democratic nomination, has not laid out a plan to address the crisis.

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Octopus farming is ‘unethical and a threat to the food chain’

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Mass-breeding of the highly intelligent creatures is ecologically unjustified, a new study says

Plans to create octopus farms in coastal waters round the world have been denounced by an international group of researchers. They say the move is ethically inexcusable and environmentally dangerous, and have called on private companies, academic institutions and governments to block funding for these ventures.

The researchers say that farming octopuses would require the catching of vast amounts of fish and shellfish to feed them, putting further pressure on the planet’s already threatened marine livestock.

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‘Climate emergency’ edict in UK to shape decision on Heathrow expansion review

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Britain’s net zero by 2050 goal may have impact on whether existing policies are reassessed

Britain’s move to “net zero” carbon and the declaration of a climate emergency in parliament will be “given careful consideration” in deciding whether to grant a review of Heathrow airport’s expansion, the government has said.

The new approach falls well short of any commitment to review Heathrow’s expansion, but means the decision on whether to grant campaigners’ request for a review will include the net zero target and the climate emergency among its criteria.

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Nearly all countries agree to stem flow of plastic waste into poor nations

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US reportedly opposed deal, which follows concerns that villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia had ‘turned into dumpsites’

Almost all the world’s countries have agreed on a deal aimed at restricting shipments of hard-to-recycle plastic waste to poorer countries, the United Nations announced on Friday.

Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.

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