The Guardian

Failure to heed warnings over unchecked growth meant blaze was ‘a disaster waiting to happen’, say scientists and academics

Scientists and academics say they have been warning for several years that invasive grasses covering a quarter of the Hawaii islands are a major fire risk.

Untamed grassland helped fuel the spread and intensity of last week’s deadly fires on the island of Maui, according to experts. The fires, which broke out last Tuesday, have killed at least 106 people and destroyed the island’s historic town of Lahaina.

Twenty-five countries are using 80% of their water supplies each year, research shows

Twenty-five countries that are home to a quarter of the world’s population are facing extreme water stress, according to research.

Data from the World Resources Institute suggests these countries are regularly using 80% of their water supplies each year.

By the war’s end, it will be too late to prevent the worst consequences of these terrible crimes. Global leaders must act now

• Andriy Yermak is head of the Office of the President of Ukraine; Margot Wallström is a former foreign minister of Sweden

Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist who led the team that developed the world’s first nuclear weapons, quoted from ancient Hindu scriptures to illustrate his conflicting feelings about the forces his science unleashed: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” he said. In his later years, Oppenheimer longed for a future “without nation states armed for war, and above all, a world without war”.

Yet there’s another kind of loss that Oppenheimer recognised only too clearly in his readings of the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient text he turned to after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Humans now possess the power to destroy the world they live in.

The people of Ukraine have grown cruelly familiar with war and death, inflicted on them by a nation state with vastly superior resources: they will never forget the human loss they have suffered in fighting to save their homeland. But Ukraine is also facing a destruction of habitat and nature on a scale that will reverberate far beyond its borders. While it is almost impossible to measure, the breadth and depth of this damage must be understood.

Russia has taken deliberate aim at Ukraine’s environment: its rivers, forests and fields. Many of Ukraine’s natural reserves – its animal and sea life, water and impressive biodiversity – have been terribly damaged or polluted. Toxins leak from its damaged industries and infrastructure. Global food security is at risk. The world cannot afford to ignore this growing environmental threat.

The overwhelming threat to Ukraine’s environment was highlighted in June, with the extraordinary collapse of the huge Nova Kakhovka dam, which held back one of the biggest water reservoirs in Europe. This was no coincidental collapse: the dam was under Russian control when an explosion inside an internal passageway blew its concrete heart to pieces. This unleashed a catastrophic flood that wrecked over 40 towns and villages and one of the world’s most valuable agricultural regions. Tonnes of oil were spilled into the Dnipro River. An uncountable number of landmines were strewn into the river and the Black Sea, leading to toxic leakage.

Half of regular green tweeters abandoned platform after its sale and cuts to moderation, analysis finds

Half of people regularly tweeting about the climate and nature crises abandoned Twitter after it was taken over by Elon Musk, according to new analysis.

The researchers said Twitter, now renamed X, had previously been the leading social media platform for environmental discussion and the decline was “troubling”. They said the “exodus of environmental users on Twitter is an existential threat” to a main way of informing people who want to take climate action.

There are many reasons to be vegetarian but I don’t mind about what happens to an animal after it dies, so long as it lives well

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I used to only eat meat from sheep whose names I knew. This was not a particularly difficult task: they were all called Sam, through a naming convention established by my father. He assured us it had nothing to do with both his daughters dating people named Sam at the time.

Being vegetarian except for lamb grown on my parents’ farm, from sheep I had likely held as babies, has baffled meat eaters and vegetarians alike. When my parents sold the farm, and the last cuts left the freezer, I stopped eating meat altogether. I didn’t miss it. I never cook it myself and, when given the choice, I will always choose not to eat it.

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People have had enough. Our historic class action could be the start of desperately needed change in the water industry

In England and Wales, anger about the state of our rivers and beaches is vast. Open-water swimmers, fishers and canoeists describe navigating through filthy liquid covered in brown scum. Social media posts show disturbing pictures of bankside tree roots and sewer outfalls festooned with the tatty remains of toilet paper and tampons. Blankets of silt and algae mask the previously pristine spawning grounds of salmon. Many people report that their local streams are cloudy, stinking and virtually bereft of fish and aquatic plants, whereas they used to be sparkling waters full of life. Clearly, all is not well in the aquatic environment.

That’s why, for the first time in English law, I have begun legal action with the support of Leigh Day against six of the largest water companies, on behalf of more than 20 million householders. If we win, the compensation could be more than £800m, which would result in about £40 or £50 being paid back per household. Our case is this: we hope to prove that the water companies have been underreporting the number of pollution incidents and overcharging customers as a result. To top it off, rather than reinvesting their substantial revenues, these companies have paid out handsome dividends to shareholders and attractive bonuses to senior staff. During the financial year 2021-22, the main water companies in the UK paid out almost £966m in dividends.

Carolyn Roberts is a water and environment consultant and emeritus professor at Gresham College, London

Family and friends delight in telling me tall tales about rodents and now my unfortunate phobia has been passed on to my children

While I couldn’t spontaneously name them, I feel sure there were good qualities I wanted to pass on to my children. But all I’ve managed to transmit is a violent fear of rodents, and even that, to only one of them. I didn’t realise how successful I’d been until a couple of years ago, when we saw a mouse in my son’s bedroom. I screamed; he screamed. I jumped on the bed; he jumped on a chair – but it was a revolving one, so he started spinning round, screaming, and I screamed more. Mr Z ran in expecting an intruder, though I notice he didn’t bring anything to use as a weapon. As much as I reviled it, I felt a bit sorry for the mouse. It was all so ultra.

Consequent to this very noisy, melodramatic phobia, it pleases my associates to tell me stories about mice and rats, which, generally speaking, aren’t true. My brother-in-law told me that, if they have a rat problem on a building site, they contain all the rats in a zone where the only food source is each other, until finally they have one giant rat, and they shoot it in the head. It stalks my dreams, this mutant rat cannibal, even though it makes no sense. On holiday, my friend told me there was a rat in the kitchen, and while I could recognise this at 50 paces as the title of a popular song, I nevertheless believed that there was also a real rat, in the kitchen.

Lack of funding and staff limit climate sector’s impact on conservation and net zero efforts, say workers

Staff shortages, a lack of specialist personnel and low pay are major barriers to achieving net zero, according to workers in the UK environment sector.

The trade union Prospect, many members of which work in the climate and environment sector, received more than 500 responses to a survey on workplace trends.

Candidates include an oak in Exeter that survived the blitz and a walnut in a car park in Perth

Urban trees that provide vital food and shelter for wildlife in towns and cities take a starring role on the Woodland Trust tree of the year shortlist.

They include a holm oak in Exeter that survived the blitz and another oak in Surrey that Queen Elizabeth I reputedly had a picnic under.

In a new reality of climatic instability and volatility, proactive planning for the very worst needs to be part of the new normal

The dreadful scale of the loss of life on the Hawaiian island of Maui has emerged day by day, as search and rescue teams scour ash and rubble. But it is already clear that the wind-fuelled blaze which last week ripped through the historic town of Lahaina was the deadliest wildfire in the United States for more than 100 years.

Hundreds are still missing, and the sheer intensity of the fire means that the identification of bodies and the notification of relatives will be a difficult and slow process. The west Maui town itself, the former capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, is a charred wasteland in which close to 3,000 structures were burned to the ground at terrifying speed.

We asked a panel of commentators for their view on the government’s electoral strategy

In the face of Labour poll leads, Rishi Sunak and his government appear to be increasingly focused on rightwing campaigns related to the culture wars, migration and opposition to environmental initiatives and targets. Do you think this is, or could be, a credible strategy?

John Redwood is the Conservative MP for Wokingham

Many see climate breakdown as a problem of the future, but it’s here now. To move forward, we must understand our part in it

During the summer of 2021, I flew to Greece to learn more about the wildfires there. I wanted to hear people’s stories, to understand what it meant to be displaced by environmental disaster. I have family in Greece and Cyprus and the approach of each summer causes a lot of anxiety. That year, fires were raging in Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Cyprus, and I was three months pregnant. Feeling Evie growing inside me made me wonder what kind of world she would live in – and made me all the more determined to learn as much as I could about what people had experienced.

I spent a lot of time in Mati, a small town on the east coast of Greece, less than 20 miles from Athens. There, I talked to local people, and their experiences profoundly moved me. In a cafe that had survived the fire, a hub of safety and community for survivors, I met brave children who now have to live with terrible scars, physical and emotional. I met a man who could not even speak to me, his eyes filling with tears, and he told me that he had no words in a way that has stayed with me ever since.

Polymer from black soldier flies seen as promising source as it has no other competing uses such as food

Dead flies could be turned into biodegradable plastic, researchers have said.

The finding, presented at the autumn meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), could be useful as it is difficult to find sources for biodegradable polymers that do not have other competing uses.

Fresh fruit and vegetables from Europe will be more expensive as drought and wildfires shrink supplies

A healthy diet in the UK will be put at risk by climate breakdown as European droughts shrink fresh fruit and vegetable supplies, experts have said.

Fresh produce from the Mediterranean, upon which the UK is reliant, will become more expensive and harder to obtain as extreme heat causes yields to reduce, putting a healthy diet out of reach of the poorest in society, according to a report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

Conservationists hope to tempt the subspecies from Kangaroo Island by planting drooping sheoaks and eucalypts

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Conservationists are planting trees to lure the endangered glossy black cockatoo back to the South Australian mainland, where it has been extinct for decades.

Two potential “scouting” birds have already been spotted.

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Head of industry standards body says more people are turning to renewable technology as energy costs grow

British households are making more green energy upgrades than ever before after installing a record number of solar panels and heat pumps in the first half of the year, according to the industry’s official standards body.

The industry figures show there were more green energy installations in June alone than in any six-month period in previous years.

Activist Mikaela Loach staged a protest over investment firm’s ‘bankrolling’ of the climate crisis

A leading climate crisis author has staged a walkout at Edinburgh international book festival in protest at its sponsor’s links to fossil fuel companies.

The author and climate activist Mikaela Loach interrupted a discussion about changing the climate narrative on Saturday evening to lead a demonstration about the festival’s main sponsor, the investment company Baillie Gifford.

Median premiums across all areas rose 28% in the year to March, and actuaries warn climate disasters are driving them to unaffordable heights

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Home insurance premiums have climbed by 50% in high-risk parts of Australia as global heating increases the frequency and cost of climate disasters, a new report has found.

The Actuaries Institute’s research on home insurance affordability and funding for flood costs, released on Monday, found median home insurance premiums rose by 28% in the year to March, sitting at an average of $1,894 across all states.

As the Australian summer approaches, my apprehension is both a daily shock and uncannily normalised – and I know I’m not the only one feeling it

These days, when I come back into the house after being out on the land, it’s dust that I drop, not the mud I carried in on my boots and clothes during the past three years when the rain kept everything, and everyone, sodden most of the time. The rain that also kept at bay the feeling of impending disaster that now attaches itself to the arrival of an Australian summer.

Not that La Niña was safe, as all of those whose homes and habitats were washed away know. But in the early months of 2023, as if the weather gods had snapped a finger, soaked turned to parched, and I find myself here again. Borne by news of soaring temperatures and wildfires in the northern hemisphere, the shift from a medium to a high likelihood of the arrival of El Niño to the official declaration of its onset, and the feeling of hardening earth under my feet, summer dread is returning to my body.

US government plans to roll out carbon capture rather than phase out fossil fuels prompts outcry in heavily industrial state

Millions of dollars of investments in new carbon capture projects in Louisiana – with more announced this week, are unwelcome developments to some environmental activists in the state.

“We’ve been trying to fix the oil and gas damage, while at the same time trying to push the transition away from it,” said Monique Hardin, director of law for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.