Environment news

• The Guardian view on GB Energy: a good idea turns up just in time | Editorial

  21-07-2024 19:30
  Ed Miliband has won the argument that his party must go big to cut carbon emissions. But he will need to go bigger stillSir Keir Starmer’s legislative plan to green Britain has arrived not a moment too soon. Last week, the government’s advisers warned that only a third of the carbon reductions required by law would be met under existing plans. The Climate Change Committee said that, for the first time since setting itself carbon-reduction targets, the UK is not on track to meet its g
  
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• Real-time water quality monitors installed at wild swimming spots in southern England

  21-07-2024 15:00
  
  AI-based system designed to help people assess immediate risk of getting ill from water polluted with bacteriaReal-time water quality monitors are being installed at wild swimming spots and beaches across southern England to help people assess their immediate risk of getting ill from polluted water.Wessex Water is installing sensors at three freshwater sites in Dorset, Somerset and Hampshire, plus two coastal sites in Bournemouth, after a successful pilot study at Warleigh Weir near Bath. Here,
  
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• Florida grasshopper sparrow: scientists hail resurgence of endangered bird

  21-07-2024 14:00
  
  Sparrows were taken into captivity after numbers dwindled – and this week experts released 1,000th bird back into wildScientists in Florida are hailing the landmark release this week of a tiny bird only 5in tall as an oversized success in their fight to save a critically endangered species.Numbers of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, seen only in prairies in central regions of the state, dwindled so severely by 2015, mostly through habitat loss, that authorities took the decision to remove
  
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• Biologist Rosemary Grant: ‘Evolution happens much quicker than Darwin thought’

  21-07-2024 14:00
  
  The evolutionary expert discusses the triumphs and challenges of the groundbreaking research on Galápagos Islands finches she undertook with her husband, PeterStudying Darwin’s finches has been the life’s work of the renowned British evolutionary biologists Rosemary and Peter Grant. For several months every year for 40 years, the husband-and-wife team visited the Galápagos Islands in the eastern Pacific to meticulously track the fate of thousands of finches on two small
  
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• Tensions rise in Guyana as Maduro uses border dispute to build support ahead of Venezuela poll

  21-07-2024 13:00
  
  An old territorial claim to part of Guyana rich in oil and gold has proved a useful for Hugo Chávez’s successor. But the land grab has sparked outrage among the GuyaneseAndre Mohabir will not leave his village. He is a toshao, the Indigenous leader of Wakapau village in Essequibo, a region along Guyana’s border with Venezuela. Since Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, announced in April that he would annex Essequibo, a huge slice of Guyana’s territory, Mo
  
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• ‘It’s the least I can do’: meet Etienne Stott, 2012 Olympics gold medallist turned XR activist

  21-07-2024 13:00
  2012 canoeing champion highlights parallels between sport and activism, and the urgency of the climate crisis‘When the door closes on the police cell and you’re in there on your own, you start to think,” Etienne Stott says as the London 2012 Olympic gold medallist reflects on the times his environmental activism has resulted in him being arrested and briefly incarcerated. “Each time, while using my platform to communicate, I’ve sat in the cell and thought: ‘Wh
  
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• Yes, five years in jail is too harsh, but the Just Stop Oil Five shouldn’t have done it | Sonia Sodha

  21-07-2024 08:00
  
  The urgent needs of the road users they held up were ignored during this climate crusadeIt was “a dark day”, according to a UN special rapporteur. Others lamented “a gross miscarriage of justice” and “a farce” marking “a low point in British justice”. Such language would not have been hyperbolic had they been talking about the review highlighting the failings that left Andrew Malkinson jailed for 17 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Or
  
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