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Updated: 33 min 47 sec ago

Farage and Truss attend UK launch of US climate denial group

Wed, 2025-01-15 16:00

British arm of Heartland, which has taken oil and Republican funding, to be led by ex-Ukip head Lois Perry

Climate science deniers are lining up a political offensive in Britain after a US lobby group opened a UK branch which is already working with Nigel Farage.

The Reform UK leader was the guest of honour at the launch of Heartland UK/Europe, which is to be headed by a former leader of Ukip and climate denier.

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‘A viable business’: Rolls-Royce banking on success of small modular reactors

Wed, 2025-01-15 15:00

British firm in the vanguard of companies arguing SMRs are a quicker and cheaper option than large Hinkley-sized plants

The Hinkley Point C power plant in Somerset is gargantuan. The 176-hectare (435-acre) plant will provide 3.2 gigawatts of power, enough for 6m homes. It is not just the project that is huge: the cost is as well. With a price tag that has ballooned to a reported £48bn, and delayed by at least five years, it has become a symbol of the pitfalls of nuclear power.

But a clutch of companies argue they have a quicker, cheaper option than large Hinkley-sized plants in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be built in a factory and then slotted together on site.

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Biggest ever male funnel-web spider confirmed to be new species – video

Wed, 2025-01-15 08:40

First there was Colossus, then Hercules … now, Thor. A funnel-web spider recently captured in Sydney is the biggest male ever recorded. Measuring 9.2cm foot-to-foot, he has been confirmed to be a new species. Nicknamed 'Hemsworth', after the actor, he now lives at the Australian Reptile Park

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The Guardian view on chemical pollution: the UK can’t ignore the risks from PFAS | Editorial

Wed, 2025-01-15 04:47

Efforts by the plastics industry to thwart regulation come from a familiar playbook

As the public wake up to the risk of “forever chemicals”, or PFAS, the industry is fighting back with a campaign researchers have compared with big tobacco’s battle against restrictions on smoking. New findings about its intense lobbying efforts are highly concerning and require a response from the environment secretary, Steve Reed. A recent consultation by the European Chemicals Agency, regarding proposals for comprehensive regulation of the substances, which take an enormous length of time to degrade, was inundated with responses from business.

Varieties of these chemicals have been used in manufacturing and consumer goods since the 1950s. They protect equipment, remove grease and smooth skin – hence their appearance in kitchenware and cosmetics. But they can also leak into soil and water, and accumulate inside human tissues. Some have been linked to health problems including cancer and high cholesterol.

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Climate activists who target artworks ‘using Suffragette tactics’, says artist

Wed, 2025-01-15 02:53

Alex Margo Arden says ‘symbolic damage’ helped force public conversation about climate crisis

Protesters who targeted paintings to raise awareness of the climate crisis were using an “effective” tactic also used by the Suffragettes, according to an artist whose new show focuses on recent attacks on high-profile artworks.

Alex Margo Arden, whose debut exhibition, Safety Curtain, opens this week at Auto Italia in east London, said the “symbolic damage” caused to the images, which were protected by glass, helped force a public conversation about the climate crisis.

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Chemicals in sewage sludge fertilizer used on farms pose cancer risk, EPA says

Wed, 2025-01-15 01:45

Environmental Protection Agency officials warn of toxic PFAS found in sewage often spread on pasture

Harmful chemicals in sewage sludge spread on pasture as fertilizer pose a risk to people who regularly consume milk, beef and other products from those farms, in some cases raising cancer risk “several orders of magnitude” above what the Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable, federal officials announced on Tuesday.

When cities and towns treat sewage, they separate the liquids from the solids and treat the liquid. The solids need to be disposed of and can make a nutrient-rich sludge often spread on farm fields. The agency now says those solids often contain toxic, lasting PFAS that treatment plants cannot effectively remove. When people eat or drink foods containing these “forever” chemicals, the compounds accumulate in the body and can cause kidney, prostate and testicular cancer. They harm the immune system and childhood development.

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No 10 blocks beaver release plan as officials view it as ’Tory legacy’

Wed, 2025-01-15 00:00

Exclusive: Natural England furious that years of work has been undone, with minister urged to push policy through

Downing Street has blocked plans to release wild beavers in England because officials view it as a “Tory legacy”, the Guardian can reveal.

Natural England, the government’s nature watchdog, has drawn up a plan for reintroductions of the rodent, which until about 20 years ago had been extinct in Britain for 400 years, having been hunted for their fur, meat and scent oil. Beavers create useful habitats for wildlife and reduce flooding by breaking up waterways, slowing water flow, and creating still pools.

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Dream come true for Australian funnel-web spider enthusiast after he discovers a new species

Tue, 2025-01-14 18:01

Newcastle funnel-web spider’s last shared common ancestor with the Sydney funnel-web was 17 million years ago, experts say

Kane Christensen’s passion is an arachnophobe’s nightmare. For two decades, he worked with deadly spiders at the Australian Reptile Park, a zoo located 80km north of Sydney – paying such close attention to the eight-legged predators that he helped scientists discover two new species.

He began there as a volunteer in 2003, milking venom from the fangs of Sydney funnel-web spiders. The park takes donations of captured male spiders from the public, using their venom to create life-saving antivenom. “Funnel-webs for me are just the pinnacle,” Christensen says.

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Ministers to appeal against river pollution ruling won by Yorkshire anglers

Tue, 2025-01-14 16:00

High court had ruled government was not meeting legal duty to clean up Costa Beck near Pickering

The UK environment secretary, Steve Reed, is pursuing legal action against a group of anglers who are trying to restore the ecosystem of a river.

Lawyers for Reed will argue on Tuesday in the court of appeal that cleaning up individual rivers and streams devastated by pollution is administratively unworkable.

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Cost to clean up toxic PFAS pollution could top £1.6tn in UK and Europe

Tue, 2025-01-14 15:00

Exclusive: Costs of UK cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in UK if emissions of ‘forever chemicals’ remain uncontrolled

The cost of cleaning up toxic forever chemical pollution could reach more than £1.6tn across the UK and Europe over a 20-year period, an annual bill of £84bn, research has found.

The number of British pollution hotspots is also on the rise. If emissions remain unrestricted and uncontrolled, the costs of cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in the UK, according to the findings of a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 experts across 16 countries.

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What is happening in Los Angeles is our future | Francine Prose

Tue, 2025-01-14 02:00

The news from California is clear, but we don’t want to see it. It’s too confounding, big, complex. But we can sense the danger

When I send anxious texts to friends in Los Angeles – friends who have been evacuated or who are waiting to leave , friends escaping a fire zone, wondering if their life’s work has been destroyed, worrying about the smoke’s effect on an asthmatic child – I always begin with the same three words:are you OK?

But a continent away, watching photos and videos of a city I love being incinerated, overcome by waves of terror, grief and mourning, I have other questions.

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Calls to halt kangaroo culling after bushfires raze swaths of Victoria’s Grampians

Tue, 2025-01-14 00:00

Australian mainland states permit killing of nearly 5 million annually as part of industry supplying meat and leather products

Wildlife advocates are calling for a halt to the commercial harvesting of kangaroos in Victoria’s Grampians region in the wake of recent bushfires.

Wildlife Victoria warned of “catastrophic and long-term impacts” on native plants and animals due to the fires, which burned through 76,000 hectares of national park and farmland, and called for a stop to the controversial practice until the impact on kangaroo populations could be fully assessed.

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'1.5 is dead': Just Stop Oil activists paint over Charles Darwin grave – video

Mon, 2025-01-13 23:18

Climate activists from Just Stop Oil painted over the grave of the British naturalist Charles Darwin at Westminster Abbey in London. Two activists wrote '1.5 is dead' in orange over the marble gravestone, in reference to recent news that global temperatures in 2024 had exceeded 1.5C above the pre-industrial era for the first time

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UK faces broccoli and cauliflower shortage this spring

Mon, 2025-01-13 19:44

Growers blame weather challenges in UK and Europe, which Met Office says will become more frequent with climate breakdown

Broccoli, cauliflower and other brassicas may be in short supply this spring as the mild autumn and winter has caused the crops to come up early, growers have said.

Any shortages will prolong the so-called “hungry gap”, which runs from April to early June, when very few crops are grown in the UK.

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Mystery syndrome killing rainbow lorikeets and flying foxes leaves scientists baffled

Mon, 2025-01-13 17:04

‘The animals that don’t die need total nursing care,’ wildlife rescuer says, ahead of a potential spike in cases in coming weeks

Thousands of rainbow lorikeets and hundreds of flying foxes have been hospitalised in Queensland in the past year with a mysterious paralysis that can affect the animals’ ability to fly, swallow and even breathe.

Lorikeet paralysis syndrome has struck birds in Queensland and New South Wales since at least 2012, and a similar syndrome was identified in flying foxes five years ago.

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As the world burns, young Australians are feeling disbelief – and looking for answers | Anjali Sharma

Mon, 2025-01-13 10:25

My generation feels trapped in a political system not built for us. Why wouldn’t we be disillusioned?

I’m scrolling on TikTok after work when I get a text that would have sent 12-year-old Anjali into a spiral, a frenzy of extreme climate anxiety. The text is from a friend letting me know that it’s official – 2024 is the hottest year on record. Not just that, it’s the first year to exceed 1.5C of warming over preindustrial levels.

The news comes as my entire feed is flooded with images of an inferno of flames ripping through neighbourhoods in LA, in winter.

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Falsely labelled ‘organic’ products rife on Australian shelves, shoppers warned

Mon, 2025-01-13 00:00

Warning from organic farmers and retailers comes as government faces push to introduce national domestic standard

Organic farmers and retailers have warned Australians are being misled by producers who engage in a form of greenwashing by falsely labelling their products “organic”.

Australian consumers may be happy to pay higher prices for meat, cheese, cosmetics and other goods marked “organic”, but producers can use the term without meeting any particular standards or being certified.

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In utterly unsurprising news, Maga blames diversity for the Los Angeles wildfires

Sun, 2025-01-12 00:00

Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation, is saying it, so it must be true

Women, eh? They’re simply not to be trusted. Eve ate that apple; Pandora opened that horrible little box; and now women are to blame for the devastating wildfires in California. I know that sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but it’s what Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation – and one of the most powerful people on Earth – is saying, so it must be true.

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We built our world with fire. Now heat is destroying our lives | John Vaillant

Sat, 2025-01-11 23:43

We fell in love with the power and speed that fossil fuels brought us. But the price being paid in California, and around the world, has become too high

Zero per cent contained. In layperson’s terms, that means “out of control and burning at will”. It’s a common designation for a wildfire – in the wild. But when a fire like this enters an urban area such as Los Angeles County, the most highly populated metropolitan area in the US, it becomes an exploding bomb, and this one has been detonating since last Tuesday.

By now, the energy release from this wind-driven, drought-fuelled firestorm turned urban conflagration is into the megatons, and the nuclear-scale destruction is there for all to see: block after block and neighbourhood after neighbourhood levelled – roughly 12,000 structures destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, 55 sq miles of city and mountain burnt, nearly 200,000 residents evacuated – so far. There is more to come.

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