The Guardian
Nicola Jennings on fears about the Tories dumping green policies – cartoon
As Greece burns, we see the existential climate crisis dragged into shoddy UK party politics. That can’t happen | John Harris
A terrible lesson is being taken from the Uxbridge vote. Labour must stick to its green agenda, and decent Tories must raise a voice
One news story defines this summer: the fact that average global temperatures have recently reached record-breaking levels. Baking European weather is now seared into our consciousness in the form of those heat maps coloured red and orange; as wildfires spread across the Greek island of Rhodes, thousands of people have been evacuated. In the US, China and no end of countries besides, the idea of planetary heating as a looming threat whose worst effects might yet be averted feels like it is turning to ash.
In the UK, unfortunately, the past 48 hours has seen a political story whose parochialist absurdity is off the scale: Conservative voices undermining the fragile cross-party consensus on reaching net zero by 2050 and calling for many of the UK’s tilts at climate action to be either slowed or stopped. The reason? The results of three parliamentary byelections – and, in particular, the views of 13,965 Conservative voters in the outer London suburbs.
Continue reading...UK weather: flood alerts in northern England as rain hits sports events
Downpours affect Open golf tournament and fourth Ashes Test and festivalgoers also drenched
Flood alerts have been issued across the north of England where heavy rain disrupted sporting events and left festivalgoers drenched.
It has been a soggy final day of the Open Championship golf tournament in Liverpool and downpours have blighted the fourth Ashes cricket Test in Manchester on Sunday.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan to press ahead with Ulez expansion amid Labour pressure
London mayor is open to ideas to mitigate impact on residents, but not on scheduling of policy some blame for loss of byelection
Sadiq Khan is open to new ideas for mitigating the impact of the anti-pollution levy in London being expanded next month, but refusing to back down on the planned timing of its implementation.
Despite pressure from some in Labour for city hall to rethink the policy they believe lost the party the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection on Thursday, the mayor is determined for it to come into force.
Continue reading...It won’t cost much to make free school meals a universal right | Larry Elliott
A new push to offer free school meals across the globe won’t end world hunger but it’s a very good start
During the pandemic the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford turned food into a hot political issue in the UK with his campaign for every child in a low-income family to be guaranteed a free school meal.
Since then, things have moved on. The problems facing low-income families – not just in Britain but everywhere – have worsened owing to rising global food prices. Consumers in the western economies have seen the cost of their weekly shop rise sharply. Food bank use in Britain has surged as a result of a cost-of-living crisis that has seen grocery bills rise by almost a fifth in the past year.
Continue reading...Scientists battle to save Guam kingfisher after snakes introduced
A species almost wiped out by tree snakes is being returned to the wild and, eventually, to its Pacific island home
As arks go, the shipping container that has been placed inside Sedgwick County Zoo, in Wichita, Kansas, looks an unlikely vehicle for saving species.
Nevertheless, work there is expected to play a key role in undoing one of the world’s worst conservation disasters: the accidental introduction of brown tree snakes to the Pacific island of Guam. The snakes’ arrival, at the end of the second world war, eventually wiped out huge numbers of indigenous birds, mammals, and lizards including the Guam kingfisher, the Guam rail, and the Guam flycatcher.
Continue reading...As my home city of Athens burns, I can only watch in amazement as sunseekers fly in | Helena Smith
I’ve had my fair share of messages from friends abroad recently asking if it really is as hot as “they say” in Greece. Hot, I usually retort, doesn’t say it all. “It’s mind-meltingly blistering, baking from morning to night. You struggle to sleep, you struggle to eat, you’re ill-tempered and you can’t even drink; a consolatory sundown cocktail is usually the kiss of death.”
After the emojis and exclamation marks, the response has invariably been: “Well, over here it’s all cloud and rain, I’ll make sure to pack my factor 30+. Looking forward!”
Continue reading...Fire ants breach Queensland containment zones six times as authorities try to stop march to NSW border
Experts say pest eradication program is underfunded and it is a ‘matter of time’ before ants move beyond Queensland
Fire ants have breached containment zones in south-east Queensland six times in the past six weeks, triggering the expansion of biosecurity controls at the New South Wales border.
The imported red fire ants – considered one of the world’s worst invasive species – were detected at a site at Tallebudgera last week, about 5.5km from the NSW border. The find was the farthest south the pest has been detected in Queensland.
Continue reading...Dropping green pledges would be ‘political suicide’, Sunak and Starmer warned
Science and business leaders say lurch away from climate agenda after byelections would be deeply unpopular with voters and damage UK’s reputation
Britain’s leaders have been warned against a “politically suicidal” lurch away from their green pledges as concerns grow that both major parties may dilute their plans to combat the climate crisis in the wake of a shock byelection result.
Senior figures from business, the scientific community and across the political divide warned that any watering down of climate policies would be deeply unpopular with voters, set back the international fight to reach net zero and damage Britain’s green reputation.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan in U-turn on ‘eco’ wood-burners amid pollution fears
Campaigners’ pressure sees London mayor withdraw approval for stoves billed as better for the environment
The London mayor Sadiq Khan has withdrawn his endorsement of woodburning stoves promoted as “environmentally friendly” after a surge in sales of the appliances, which contribute to harmful air pollution.
In 2018, Khan endorsed the Ecodesign stoves, which comply with new regulations in an EU’ directive on minimum energy efficiency standards that came into force on 1 January last year, in order to encourage householders to switch from open fires and older stoves to more modern technology. He said Londoners could make a big difference by using the “right kit”.
Continue reading...Avian flu may have killed millions of birds globally as outbreak ravages South America
Virus has spread around the world, with 200,000 wild birds dead in Peru alone and concerns Australia could be next
Millions of wild birds may have died from bird flu globally in the latest outbreak, researchers have said, as the viral disease ravages South America, with 200,000 deaths recorded in Peru alone.
The highly infectious variant of H5N1, which gained momentum in the winter of 2021, caused Europe’s worst bird flu outbreak before spreading globally. The disease reached South America in November 2022, and has now been reported on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica.
Continue reading...Indigenous art unites Australians in a common cause: abuse of the ocean
The country’s ‘first mining boom’ drove its oyster reefs to near extinction. But a new generation of artists has a voice their ancestors never did
Megan Cope calls it the “first mining boom”, one that drove Australia’s oyster reefs to near extinction. First, British colonists raided the enormous piles of shells and animal bones Indigenous people had gathered after feasting and ceremony, mixing these middens with water into a lime slurry for building the new colony.
Then, once these “Aboriginal architectural forms” – sites of carbon-dated evidence of traditional life – were exhausted, the colonisers began demanding live oysters to eat. They sent fishers to deploy harmful extractive processes on the reefs. “Within 15 to 20 years of the British arriving, the landscape changed so incredibly,” says Cope. “Our ancestors were witness to that, but powerless, of course.”
Continue reading...Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Pepsico named UK’s biggest packaging polluters
Surfers Against Sewage’s annual audit finds 12 companies responsible for 70% of branded pollution
Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Pepsico have been named as the biggest packaging polluters in the UK, according to an annual audit.
The campaign group Surfers Against Sewage examined more than 30,700 individual polluting items collected by 4,000 citizen scientists alongside coastlines, canal paths, bridleways and city streets over a 12-month period up to 5 June 2023.
Continue reading...Marine heatwave in north-east Queensland sets off alarm over health of Great Barrier Reef
Experts fear for health of corals and other marine life as about 1m sq km of ocean experience prolonged elevated temperatures
A marine heatwave has broken out along more than 2,000km of the Queensland coast, raising concerns for the health of corals on the Great Barrier Reef and other ocean life.
Satellite data managed by the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) shows the heatwave started to emerge at the end of June.
Continue reading...A post-servo highway? How electric vehicles are changing the Australian roadscape
EVs are heralding a new kind of driving culture, from friendly chats at charging stations to reshaping where and how long we stop on road trips
A couple with a brand-new electric Lexus stand blankly at the EV charging station, walking from one charger to the other with cables in hand. Within minutes, a crowd of EV drivers gathers. The strangers offer to help the couple with charging their car, showing what plugs and apps to use. Soon enough, the appreciative pair are charged up and back on the road.
Motorists are not generally known for their community spirit and small acts of kindness. But around electric vehicle charging stations – whether on a regional highway, outside a cafe or in the centre of a busy city – a strange and wonderful communal vibe is developing.
Continue reading...Tories and big business are in the driver's seat on climate action. Here’s what the left must do | Richard Power Sayeed
If the market decides, eco-friendly policies will mean ruinous inequality. There’s an old-fashioned solution: social democracy
Earlier this week, 100-odd energy companies sent a letter warning the prime minister that his lack of new climate policies will threaten their profit margins. Then, the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, announced a new attempt to end the de-facto ban on onshore wind energy in England, and Liz Truss backed him.
Neither of these calls made a huge splash in the news, because big business and rightwingers calling for green policy is no longer news. Instead, this is what normal looks like when capitalism starts to go green.
Continue reading...Severe heatwaves engulf the northern hemisphere – video report
Heatwaves are ripping through North America, Europe and Asia, with the global hottest day ever recorded at the start of July. The heat has sparked intense wildfires threatening homes and livelihoods and supercharged torrential rains in some areas, leading to extreme weather events such as flash flooding and landslides. Here is a look at how the extreme heat has affected half the planet
Continue reading...The Scottish villagers who defied Donald Trump
Activist and photographer Alicia Bruce has documented the residents and landscape of Menie in Scotland, detailing 16 years of Donald Trump’s impact on the area where he built a golf course. Her work honours the community who have ‘refused to bow down, sell up or be pushed around by Donald Trump’. I Burn But I Am Not Consumed is published by Daylight Books
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including flying foxes, a parrotfish and a rehabilitated sea turtle
Continue reading...Rampant heatwaves threaten food security of entire planet, scientists warn
After hottest day ever, researchers say global heating may mean future of crop failures on land and ‘silent dying’ in the oceans
Successive heatwaves threaten nature’s ability to provide us with food, say researchers, as they warn of an “unseen, silent dying” in our oceans amid record temperatures scorching the Earth.
Heatwaves are ripping through Europe, the US and China, with the global hottest day ever recorded at the start of July, endangering human life as well as the land and sea it depends on.
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