Category Archives: Environment

Arms company drops plan to test bombs at Scottish world heritage site

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Firm says it had no idea proposed test site on Lib Dem peer’s land included part of Strathmore peatlands in Flow Country

A British arms company has abandoned plans to detonate fragmentation bombs in the middle of the Flow Country world heritage site, the Guardian can reveal.

The company, Overwatch, asked the Civil Aviation Authority this month for permission to carry out “live fire testing” of anti-personnel bombs dropped by drones on to land owned by the Liberal Democrat peer John Thurso.

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Humpback whale in Sydney Harbour freed from rope entanglement in hours-long rescue

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Operation to free young animal from ropes and buoys conducted ‘very carefully’

A humpback whale has been freed after being entangled in ropes in Sydney Harbour.

Jessica Fox, the second vice-president of volunteer organisation Orrca, confirmed the rescue late on Friday morning.

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Big polluters targeting esports industry with advertising deals, report reveals

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Oil firms, petrostates, airlines and carmakers ‘doubling down’ on sector that is popular with young people

Oil companies, petrostates, airlines and carmakers are among the big polluters bombarding the esports industry with adverts, a study has found.

Esports, short for electronic sports, are competitive video games watched by spectators, with multiplayer games such as League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 attracting peak viewer figures in the millions.

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Could a £2-a-day basic income be the key to protecting rainforests?

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Pilot scheme in Amazon communities of central Peru aims to help people choose a more sustainable way of living

“At the beginning, there was a lot of fear and disbelief,” said Ketty Marcelo. “There was a perception from the communities that this was another scam, that it was only looking to steal information or our integrity.”

Indigenous communities in the Amazon have grown weary of people coming in from outside with plans that could mean them losing their land or way of life. When a team from Cool Earth, a climate action NGO, came to the Amazon communities of central Peru in October 2022, local people were hesitant. “These fears caused some families not to participate,” Marcelo said. “And we, as an organisation, were afraid this would be another project that would seek to impose activities without respecting the autonomy of the communities.”

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‘Heat engine’ fuelled by climate crisis bringing blast of summer weather to Australian winter

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August temperature records threaten to break as Oodnadatta in South Australia braces for 38C and BoM forecasts above 30C in Brisbane next week

Australia is on track to face its hottest August on record as a global heating-fuelled “heat engine” brings spring and summer warmth to Australia’s winter, experts forecast.

Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said the unseasonably warm weather was coming from a “heat engine” in Australia’s red centre, where clear skies in the coming week would drive maximum temperatures towards 40C, more than 10C above average, in northern SA, southern NT, and western NSW.

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Global surge of water-related violence led by Israeli attacks on Palestinian supplies – report

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A quarter of all incidents, such as destruction of dams, pipelines and treatment plants, seen in Gaza Strip and West Bank

Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip accounted for a quarter of all water-related violence in 2023, as armed conflicts over dwindling resources surged globally, according to new research.

Almost 350 water conflicts were documented worldwide in 2023, a 50% rise on 2022, which was also a record year, according to the Pacific Institute, a California-based non partisan thinktank tracking water violence. The violence included attacks on dams, pipelines, wells, treatment plants and workers, as well as public unrest and disputes over access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war.

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China’s coal-fired power boom may be ending amid slowdown in permits

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Permits for coal-fired power plants drop by 83% despite leading world in construction as focus turns to renewables

Coal-fired power is still enjoying a construction boom in China, but a marked slowdown in the permitting of future plants has given experts hope that the world’s biggest emitter may be turning a corner.

China led the world in the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the first half of 2024, with work beginning on more than 41GW of new generation capacity, data published on Thursday showed.

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‘Ingrained in our heritage’: UK’s ancient oaks showcased in Tree of the Year contest

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Woodland Trust’s competition comes as charity campaigns for more robust legal protection for precious trees

An oak tree shaped like an elephant and the oak with the widest girth in the UK have been shortlisted for the annual Tree of the Year competition.

The Woodland Trust runs the annual competition to raise awareness of the UK’s ancient and at-risk trees.

Marton oak, Cheshire
Sessile oak (quercus petraea) / Approximate age: 1,200 years / Girth: 14.02 metres.

Bowthorpe oak, Lincolnshire
English oak (quercus robur) / Estimated age: 1000 years / Girth: 13.38 metres.

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Heat deaths in Europe may triple by end of the century, study finds

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Countries in south most at risk, with rise likely to outstrip fall in cold-related deaths if global heating hits 3C or 4C

Heat deaths in Europe could triple by the end of the century, with the numbers rising disproportionately in southern European countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain, a study has found.

Cold kills more people than heat in Europe, and some have argued that climate change will benefit society by reducing those deaths. But the study, published in the Lancet Public Health, found that the death toll would respond slowly to warming weather and may even rise through people growing older and more vulnerable to dangerous temperatures.

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Badger cull may have increased bovine TB risk in neighbouring herds – study

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England’s controversial eradication scheme may have caused higher rates of disease in surrounding areas, research shows

England’s controversial badger cull may have increased the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) among herds in neighbouring areas, according to new research.

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighbouring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third.

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Climate crisis fuelled storm that sank yacht in Sicily, say experts

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Record sea temperatures in the Mediterranean contributed to waterspout that hit Bayesian

Record temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea this summer contributed to the freak storm that sank a superyacht off the coast of Sicily, with similar extreme events expected to increase in frequency and intensity as the climate crisis tightens its grip, Italian scientists have said.

One person is confirmed to have died and rescuers are searching for six missing people, including the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, after the 56-metre Bayesian capsized in the early hours of Monday.

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Australia could save thousands of bats a year with simple tweak to wind turbines, study says

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Raising the wind speed at which turbines start spinning could prevent tens of thousands of bat deaths each year, researchers find

Australian windfarm operators are being urged to embrace a simple measure used overseas that scientists say could dramatically reduce the number of bats killed by turbines.

Curtailment – lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning – is used in some European countries and parts of the US and Canada, but rarely in Australia. A global study published in the journal BioScience found it was an effective way to limit bat deaths.

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Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn

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Exclusive: research tracks dozens of oil and fuel shipments that could have aided Israel’s war on Gaza

Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.

Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.

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First £1 coin featuring King Charles III enters circulation

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Design with bees on reverse, part of collection inspired by plants and animals, was voted people’s favourite

The first £1 coin bearing the official portrait of King Charles III has entered general circulation as part of a collection inspired by plants and animals found across the four nations of the United Kingdom.

The latest design, featuring two bees, has been issued to Post Offices and banks, with nearly 3m coins making their way into tills and pockets.

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Rare moth found in Cambridgeshire orchard threatened by busway plan

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Appearance of dark crimson underwing causes excitement on land that would be bisected by road scheme

Beneath oak canopies, in an orchard full of hundred-year-old apple trees, excited exclamations rose from a group of moth enthusiasts last week.

The Cambridgeshire Moth Group had just trapped a dark crimson underwing, a species so rare that none of them had ever seen it before. Indeed, the colourful invertebrate is only usually ever found in the New Forest and is considered nationally scarce.

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About 90kg of dead fish removed from Walsall canal after sodium cyanide leak

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Environmental charity fears ‘the aquatic ecosystem will have been devastated or lost’ after chemical spill last week

About 90kg (200lbs) of dead fish have been removed from a canal after a sodium cyanide leak in Walsall that experts fear could have “devastated the aquatic ecosystem” in the area.

A 1km stretch of the waterway remains closed to the public after the chemical spill from a metal finishing company, Anochrome. The spill was declared a major incident last week.

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London City airport expansion given green light by ministers

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Climate campaigners criticise decision to allow capacity to increase from 6.5m to 9m passengers a year

Ministers have approved London City airport’s application to expand, in a decision that has disappointed climate campaigners.

The airport submitted a proposal to increase capacity from 6.5 million to 9 million passengers a year by putting on more weekend and early morning flights. Local campaigners and Newham council opposed the move, arguing the air and noise pollution would affect people living nearby and that it could potentially increase carbon emissions.

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Former NSW Coalition government was warned recycled soil products posed ‘unacceptable risks’

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Exclusive: Environment watchdog advised in 2021 the material ‘should not be used broadly’, before backing away from proposals to tighten regulations

The New South Wales environment watchdog warned the former Coalition state government that a widely used recycled landscaping product posed “potential unacceptable risks to the environment and the community”.

Guardian Australia revealed in January that the Environment Protection Authority had known for more than a decade that producers of soil fill made from construction and demolition waste – known as recovered fines – were failing to comply with rules to limit the spread of contaminants.

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More than 100 people treated for heat-related illness at Colorado airshow

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Attendees who fell ill suffered from dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke in 96F temperatures

More than 100 people were treated for heat-related illness at a Colorado airshow on Saturday, with attendees describing a lack of shade and free water on festival grounds as temperatures soared to 96F (36C) highs.

The Colorado Springs fire department said those who fell ill at the Pike’s Peak regional airshow suffered conditions such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, according to KRDO.

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London City airport: 54% of journeys take under six hours by train, data shows

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Exclusive: Most popular routes can be reached quickly by train, as government mulls expansion proposal

More than half of the journeys taken from London City airport last year can be reached in six hours or less by train, data reveals.

The Labour government is preparing to make the final call on the airport’s application to significantly increase its passenger numbers. The airport wants to increase capacity from 6.5 million to 9 million passengers a year by putting on more weekend and early morning flights.

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