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Stunning low costs inspire Alinta to ramp up renewables push, sees early coal exit
Alinta ramps up renewables push, says falling costs will force coal to close early and that change in coming rapidly to the grid.
The post Stunning low costs inspire Alinta to ramp up renewables push, sees early coal exit appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Knitted jumpers can help Little Penguins survive oil spills
Labour calls for review of grouse shooting on eve of ‘glorious 12th’
Party points to environmental impact of driven shooting as well as £3m a year subsidy to largest moors
Labour has called for a formal review into driven grouse shooting to examine its environmental and economic impacts, as well as possible alternatives such as simulated shoots and wildlife tourism.
Under such shoots, beaters drive the birds towards the shooters in an organised way. With a four-month season starting from the “glorious 12th” of August, it is a highly managed commercial process.
Continue reading...Environmental destruction is a war crime, but it's almost impossible to fall foul of the laws
Dave Eggers: why we should listen to teenagers speak about climate crisis
As the International Congress of Youth Voices kicks off in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Guardian invited young delegates to write about their fight against the climate crisis
Teenagers speak with a directness and a moral clarity that is desperately rare in our elected leaders, and perhaps in the adult species as a whole. That’s why we created the International Congress of Youth Voices. It’s an annual gathering of young writers and activists, ages 16 to 22, who speak and live with urgency.
The first conference was last summer in San Francisco, where almost a hundred delegates from twenty-six countries gathered, and were mentored by the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Khaled Hosseini, and congressman John Lewis. One of our most inspiring young delegates in that first conference was 15-year-old Salvador Góomez-Colón from Puerto Rico, who created his own non-profit to help the island’s recovery after Hurricane Maria.
Continue reading...‘Greta effect’ leads to boom in children’s environmental books
The 16-year-old climate change activist has galvanised young people to read more about saving the planet
Some seek to convey the wonder of endangered animals while others give tips on how to tackle waste or tell tales of inspirational environmental activists.
All are part of what children’s publishers are calling “the Greta Thunberg effect”: a boom in books aimed at empowering young people to save the planet.
Continue reading...Giant Lowestoft street art paintings to celebrate wildlife
New chicks raise hope for hen harrier survival … but shooters take aim
A row has broken out between conservation groups over the wellbeing of one of Britain’s most critically endangered birds of prey: the hen harrier. The dispute reveals a basic divide between experts on how to save the birds from eradication in Britain.
Natural England announces on Sunday that 2019 has been a record year for breeding success in England. A total of 15 nests had 12 successful breeding pairs and produced 47 chicks – improving on the previous high point of 46 set in 2006, news that was hailed “as a positive result” by the organisation.
Continue reading...Will 'flight shame' stop jet-setting Australians taking overseas trips?
Extinction Rebellion: hitting a nerve at Australia's climate flashpoint
The amorphous climate action group has fired up activists and opponents alike as it tries to shut down Brisbane
The Extinction Rebellion protesters think you should be angry. They want politicians and opinion columnists to be angry. The more people they upset stopping traffic in the Brisbane city centre – the louder the car horns, the more vicious the insults – the more certain it is they’ll be back.
“It’s not an enjoyable experience, we don’t take pleasure in doing it,” says Emma Dorge, an activist arrested in Brisbane on Tuesday, during a day of mass civil disobedience that shut down Australia’s third-largest city.
Continue reading...Nuclear energy inquiry: is Angus Taylor's move logical or just for the backbench?
Minister says the debate is different this time around, but critics say it’s best left to experts rather than ‘energy illiterate MPs’
Political arguments about nuclear power in Australia are not new, but the energy minister, Angus Taylor, says this time is different.
Announcing a parliamentary inquiry into what would be necessary to develop a nuclear energy industry, Taylor suggested people should no longer be thinking of the large-scale plants that had dominated the global industry since the 1950s. The future of nuclear, if it had one, was small.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg takes climate fight to Germany’s threatened Hambach Forest
Greta Thunberg started her long journey to climate summits in the Americas by joining a treetop protest in Germany’s Hambach forest, where environmentalists have been fighting for years to stop the ancient woodland being torn up for open-cast coal mining.
The battle to save the last remaining oak and hornbeam trees reflects the young activist’s entwined fights to protect the natural world from human exploitation and to halt carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Dolphin spotted juggling with jellyfish in Denmark
Suspected 'pollution incident' turns River Frome tributary blue
Environment Agency analysing Somerset stream but says there are no reports of dead wildlife
A mysterious substance that has turned a tributary of a river in the West Country bright blue is being investigated by the Environment Agency.
Tests are being carried out on the River Frome in Somerset this weekend after the water turned a luminous colour. The Environment Agency said it was treating it as a suspected “pollution incident” but there were no reports of dead wildlife.
Continue reading...Just a flutter? Why this butterfly summer is so fragile
Suddenly, painted ladies are everywhere. From roadside verges and patches of waste ground to the flowerbeds in my Somerset garden, I am seeing dozens of these attractive black, white and orange butterflies, as they flit from flower to flower, feeding hungrily on nectar.
They’re not the only butterflies currently on the wing. As the last meadow browns, pale and faded from the sun, straggle along the hedgerows, I’m seeing newly minted gatekeepers and common blues wherever I go. And, on a recent visit to my coastal patch, I came across two exquisite little butterflies, brown argus and small heath: the latter the 21st species of butterfly I have recorded there in less than five years.
Continue reading...'It makes me angry': is this the end for America's Joshua trees?
Even with major efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, 80% of the trees’ habitat will be whittled away by the end of the century
Joshua trees have dotted the Mojave desert for 2.5m years, but even if humans take urgent action to combat the climate crisis, their decimation is all but ensured by the end of this century, a study has found.
Only .02% of the tree’s current habitat in Joshua Tree national park would remain viable amid unmitigated climate change, according to research published in the journal Ecosphere. Even in a best-case scenario, with major efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, 80% of the trees’ habitat will be whittled away.
Continue reading...Typhoon Lekima: Dramatic rescues after floods in China
'We were burying 10 children a year': how toilets are saving lives in Madagascar
One village in the country has seen the tragic consequences of poor sanitation. Now it has come together to turn things around
The sisters were buried in their favourite clothes: Patricia in a white dress and Mirana in plimsolls, a skirt and a blouse. Patricia was three and loved her Barbie. Not the Barbies that most girls in the village play with – dolls made from bamboo sticks, with grass “hair” tied in elastic bands – but a real one, with a pink plastic face. Her father, Augustin Randrianasolo, now 62, had bought it a few years earlier from the market for 200 Malagasy ariary (then worth 50p), a lot of money in the early 80s.
Mirana died seven years after her sister, in the early 90s; she was two and a half. “Not yet old enough to really speak,” says her older sister, Odile, who is now 35. “She was the most beautiful of all of us,” she continues. “She had the nicest hair, the most beautiful face. She looked like my dad.”
Continue reading...Giant river animals on verge of extinction, report warns
Populations of great freshwater species, from catfish to stingrays, have plunged by 97% since 1970
Populations of the great beasts that once dominated the world’s rivers and lakes have crashed in the last 50 years, according to the first comprehensive study.
Some freshwater megafauna have already been declared extinct, such as the Yangtze dolphin, and many more are now on the brink, from the Mekong giant catfish and stingray to India’s gharial crocodiles to the European sturgeon. Just three Chinese giant softshell turtles are known to survive and all are male. Across Europe, North Africa and Asia, populations have plunged by 97% since 1970.
Continue reading...Coordination required to build a hydrogen-based economy
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