Category Archives: Environment

Cyclone Alfred live updates: BoM tracking map forecast shows category 2 storm hitting Brisbane and south-east Qld; landfall in Queensland and NSW delayed as storm slows – latest news

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BoM path track map predicts TC Alfred will cross coast on Friday near Brisbane, the first storm of its size to do so in decades. Follow the latest updates today

Speaking of preparations, adjunct senior lecturer at the Centre for Disaster Studies at James Cook University Yetta Gurtner gives advice here:

Chalmers confident insurance companies ‘know their responsibilities’

I’m confident they know their responsibilities and obligations to people.

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River campaigners to sue Ofwat over water bill rises

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Group claims regulator signed off on ‘broken system’ making customers pay for industry’s neglect

An environmental group is to take legal action against Ofwat, the water regulator, accusing it of unlawfully making customers pay for decades of neglect by the water industry.

River Action will file the legal claim this month, arguing that bill rises for customers that have been approved by the regulator could be used to fix infrastructure failures that should have been addressed years ago.

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EU ambassador to China urges Beijing to stop building coal-fired power plants

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Jorge Toledo’s comments come after approvals for coal power projects increased in second half of 2024

The EU’s ambassador to China has urged Beijing to stop building coal-fired power plants, saying that its rapid approval of new projects was increasingly at odds with its green ambitions.

Speaking at an EU-hosted event in Beijing, Jorge Toledo said the war in Ukraine had underlined the need for energy security, but that the EU had managed to navigate the issue without reverting to fossil fuels.

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Exposure to combination of pesticides increases childhood cancer risk – study

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Study on cancer data in US agricultural heartland finds children more at risk than if exposed to just one pesticide

Exposure to multiple pesticides significantly increases the risk of childhood cancers compared to exposures to just one pesticide, first-of-its-kind research finds, raising new fears that children are more at risk to the substances’ harmful effects than previously thought.

The study’s authors say they are the first to look at the link between exposures to multiple widely used pesticides and the most common childhood cancers. Most research considers pesticides’ toxicity on an individual basis, and the substances are regulated as if exposures occur in isolation from one another.

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London exhibition explores design based on needs of nature and animals

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Curator of Design Museum show says ‘human-centric’ approach to design needs overhaul amid climate crisis

Designers need to “fundamentally rethink our relationship with the natural world”, according to the curator of a new exhibition which argues the needs of nature and animals should be considered when creating homes, buildings and products.

Justin McGuirk, the curator of the upcoming More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London, said our current “human-centric” approach to design needs to be radically overhauled as the world adapts to the climate crisis.

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Tropical Cyclone Alfred: Queensland evacuations begin as storm path tracks towards Brisbane

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Up to 20,000 homes could be flooded, with beachside and low-lying suburbs most at risk, city council flood map shows

Queensland authorities are advising some residents to leave coastal properties in the path of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, amid warnings that a storm surge of up to 1 metre higher than typical tides could inundate communities.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Australian Defence Force assets have been placed on standby to respond to the looming storm, which was tracking towards the heavily populated coastline between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

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Killer whales amaze Seattle onlookers with rarely seen bird hunt

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Gasps from dockside crowd watching Bigg’s orca pod in event described as ‘once-in-a-lifetime experience’

A pod of orcas swam close to shore and amazed onlookers in Seattle by treating the whale watchers to the rare sight of the apex predators hunting a bird.

The pod of Bigg’s killer whales visited Elliott Bay and were seemingly on a hunt underwater just off Seattle’s maritime industrial docks. The pod exited the bay close to the West Seattle neighborhood across from downtown, where people were waiting to catch sight of them.

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Bog standard? Study seeks most effective toilet training methods

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UCL team is inviting parents to share their experiences, as age at which children in west acquire the skill rises

Storybooks about potties, underpants featuring superheroes, rewards for doing a wee: toilet training is a rite of passage for any child. But with the average age of toilet training steadily creeping upwards, scientists are now hoping to crack the question of which methods are most effective.

A team at University College London is inviting people from across the world to share their experiences and techniques as part of the Big Toilet Project. The ultimate aim is to uncover evidence that could help parents toilet train children earlier and reduce the massive contribution that disposable nappies make to landfill waste.

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Spain’s rewilding of Iberian lynx at risk after lobbying by hunters and farmers

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Regional governments bow to pressure from agricultural industry, often amplified by far-right Vox party

Only last year it was hailed as a conservation success story: the Iberian lynx, which had been close to extinction, had sprung back to life thanks to a two-decade-long effort to expand the population.

Now, however, that progress is at risk after several regional governments in Spain acceded to pressure from farmers and hunters to block the reintroduction of the species into the wild.

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Mystery donor’s £17.5m gift could turn Scottish estate into rewilding showcase

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Scottish Wildlife Trust plans to create rainforest, restore peatland and end deer stalking on Highland sporting estate

Scottish conservationists hope to convert a Highland sporting estate into a rewilding showcase after a mystery benefactor gave them more than £17.5m to buy it.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), best known for its small nature reserves, has bought Inverbroom estate near Ullapool in north-west Scotland, complete with an 11-bedroom lodge that boasts an indoor swimming pool.

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Ocean rower Aurimas Mockus stranded by cyclone off Australia’s east coast safely rescued

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Lithuanian rower’s two-day wait to be rescued off Queensland comes to an end

A Lithuanian rower has been rescued off the Queensland coast after he was caught in a tropical cyclone’s 130km/h winds and monster waves.

Aurimas Mockus ran into trouble about 740km east of Mackay while attempting a 12,000km Pacific Ocean crossing from San Diego to Brisbane in his solo rowing boat.

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Premier claims WA a ‘renewable energy powerhouse’ but leaked document shows wind and solar projects have ‘stalled’

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Exclusive: Government document confirms electricity from large-scale renewables has flatlined, with one campaigner saying pipeline has ‘little sign of life’

Officials have warned the Western Australian Labor government that work to build wind and solar farms for the state’s main electricity grid has stalled under its leadership, a leaked document shows.

A confidential state government document reveals state bureaucrats advised the government that the “decarbonisation work program” in Perth’s electricity grid had “stalled to date”. It said there were “few new wind developments” advanced enough to be added to the grid before the promised closure of a coal power station in 2027.

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Japan battles largest wildfire in decades

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More than a thousand people have been evacuated near forest of Ofunato in northern region of Iwate

More than a thousand people have been evacuated as Japan battles its largest wildfire in more than three decades.

The flames are estimated to have spread over about 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) in the forest of Ofunato in the northern region of Iwate since a fire broke out on Wednesday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

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Tickled pink: rhubarb growers see explosion in demand for Yorkshire crop

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Despite wet weather hitting yields, supermarkets are reporting a doubling in rhubarb sales compared to last year

It takes a while for the eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the shed. Slowly, the shapes of hundreds of pale stalks emerge from the gloom like an alien species, visible only by the glow cast by a handful of candles.

This candlelit ritual is the harvest of Yorkshire forced rhubarb, being carried out by growers Robert and Paula Tomlinson.

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Weather tracker: six cyclones swirl simultaneously in southern hemisphere

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Bianca, Garance and Honde churn across Indian Ocean as Alfred, Rae and Seru spin through south-west Pacific

An uncommon meteorological event unfolded on Tuesday when six named tropical cyclones were active simultaneously in the southern hemisphere, several in close proximity to one another.

Three developed in the south-west Pacific. Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred formed on 20 February in the Coral Sea to the north-east of Australia, reaching an intensity equivalent to a category 4 hurricane on Thursday with sustained winds of 105mph (170km/h) and gusts at about 140mph.

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Offshore wind farm developer asks Labor to delay application on Illawarra project until after election

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Chris Bowen accuses Coalition of creating ‘sovereign risk’ by opposing offshore projects as Nationals celebrate ‘major win’

An offshore windfarm developer has asked the Albanese government to pause its application to progress its project off the Illawarra until after the coming federal election, after the Coalition campaigned against it.

BlueFloat Energy was the only applicant asking for a seven-year feasibility licence to further develop its project in the deep waters of the Illawarra offshore wind zone.

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UK bumblebee numbers fell to lowest on record in 2024, shows data

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Bumblebees declined by almost a quarter compared with the 2010-2023 average, according to conservation charity

Figures show 2024 was the worst year for bumblebees in the UK since records began.

Bumblebee numbers declined by almost a quarter compared with the 2010-2023 average, according to data from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. The researchers said the drop was probably due to the cold and wet conditions in the UK last spring.

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BP to almost double oil and gas production by 2030 in move away from green goals

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Firm will be selective about investing in low-carbon options, slashing more than $5bn from previous green plan

BP is almost doubling its target for oil and gas production by the end of the decade and slashing its spending on low-carbon energy as part of a fundamental reset of the troubled company away from previous green goals.

The FTSE 100 fossil fuel company has promised shareholders it will increase its planned oil and gas production by 2030 to the equivalent of about 2.4m barrels a day – almost twice the figure in its net zero plan set out five years ago.

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Wildfire debris washes up on LA beaches after major rainstorm

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Beaches in southern California littered with timber, twisted metals, charred silt and urban runoff from Palisades fire

Los Angeles county beaches are contending with the aftermath of recent wildfires and winter storms as debris from the Palisades fire and urban runoff are carried to the shoreline.

After last week’s major rainstorm, beaches in southern California have been littered with timber, twisted metals, construction materials and charred silt and sediment originating from the Palisades fire in January. That blaze, along with the Eaton fire, killed at least 29 people.

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US climate research agency braces for ‘efficiency’ cuts: ‘They will gut the work’

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Workers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fear crackdown will have global fallout

The Trump administration has set its sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, with significant cuts and a political crackdown on climate science. As Trump takes aim at the agency, the impact is likely to be felt across the US and around the world.

Noaa provides essential resources to the public and has helped make the US a scientific leader internationally. Operating 18 satellites and 15 research and survey ships, the agency’s scientists, engineers and policy experts issue forecasts relied on by aviation, agriculture and fishing industries; ocean floor mapping depended upon for shipping; advises on species protection, and increasingly precise and accurate modeling on what to expect as climate crisis unfolds.

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