Environment news

• In Alaska, prisons are part of the climate problem

  06-08-2024 17:00
  With correctional centers crumbling atop melting glaciers, advocates are pushing to reduce prison populationsOver millions of years, glaciers slid across what is now northern Juneau, forming the craggy valleys and alluvial plains of south-east Alaska. Then about 200 years ago, when these glaciers shrank amid rising global temperatures, meltwater flowed downstream, depositing loose, silty soil along bodies of water like Lemon Creek.In 1969, the state chose to build a prison on this flat land &nda
  
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• In Alaska, advocates say reducing prison population is a key climate strategy

  06-08-2024 17:00
  
  Ageing correctional centers and the people within are threatened by floods, extreme heat, and building collapses due to snowfall and thawing permafrostOver millions of years, glaciers slid across what is now northern Juneau, forming the craggy valleys and alluvial plains of south-east Alaska. Then about 200 years ago, when these glaciers shrank amid rising global temperatures, meltwater flowed downstream, depositing loose, silty soil along bodies of water like Lemon Creek.In 1969, the state chos
  
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• Almost 500 chemicals found in England’s rivers and groundwater

  06-08-2024 16:00
  More than half classed as very toxic, toxic or harmful to aquatic life, with 20 categorised as ‘substances of very high concern’Almost 500 different chemicals, some of which are banned, have been found in various mixtures across all 171 river and groundwater catchments tested in England in 2024, according to data from the Environment Agency, analysed by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations.More than half of them are classified as very toxic, toxic or harmful to aquatic life, acc
  
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• UK rivers and beaches have been heaped with pollution for years – when will we talk about restoration?

  06-08-2024 14:36
  
  The penalties reflect the failings of the Environment Agency and Ofwat as much as the water companiesBehind the record fines announced by Ofwat for the routine dumping of sewage into rivers and seas by three water companies, there is a voiceless victim, one that does not sit in boardrooms, or get a chance to count dividends. It is our rivers and coastal waters, subjected to years of continuous pollution under the noses of the regulators, which are suffering.In all likelihood the £168m pena
  
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• Sewage discharge fines are a damning indictment of the water regulators

  06-08-2024 14:36
  The penalties reflect the failings of the Environment Agency and Ofwat as much as the water companiesBehind the record fines announced by Ofwat for the routine dumping of sewage into rivers and seas by three water companies, there is a voiceless victim, one that does not sit in boardrooms, or get a chance to count dividends. It is our rivers and coastal waters, subjected to years of continuous pollution under the noses of the regulators, which are suffering.In all likelihood the £168m pena
  
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• Water firms to be punished for years of sewage leaks

  06-08-2024 12:00 via bbc.com
  
  Thames Water, Northumbrian Water and Yorkshire Water face fines for repeated sewage leaks.
  
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• A bolt of lightning struck my plane – and I plunged 3,000m into a rainforest

  06-08-2024 11:00
  
  Juliane Diller was 17 when the aircraft she and her mother were on exploded. Of the 92 people on board, Juliane was the only survivor – and it would take her 11 days to walk to safetyJuliane Diller’s mother had booked herself and her daughter seats in the penultimate row of Lansa flight 508 from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru, to reunite with her husband for the Christmas holidays. Diller was sitting next to the window, so when a bolt of lightning struck the plane’s right-hand wing,
  
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• Western Australia’s EPA has made a big call on a major gas expansion. Will state and federal governments back it up? | Adam Morton

  06-08-2024 08:42
  
  The environmental regulator has a history of backing fossil fuels – that is why its preliminary view on Woodside’s Browse project is extraordinaryFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe news that the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority is likely to recommend that a massive gas export development off the state’s north-west shouldn’t go ahead is remarkable, but shoul
  
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• End of the adventure: council funding cuts imperil Leicester’s playgrounds

  06-08-2024 07:00
  
  Decade of austerity blamed for impending closure of inner-city spaces that provide meals and outdoor activities All nine of Leicester’s remaining adventure playgrounds are to lose all their council funding and are beginning the process of shutting down.Three are already handing out redundancy notices and setting dates for closure in September with playworkers at another warning they are “just a few months behind”. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: If there’s such a thing as an unnatural bird, it’s this | Mark Cocker

  06-08-2024 06:30
  
  Northumberland: Millions of pheasants are released each year, and this was just a few hundred of them – confused and distressed, not quite wild, not quite domesticatedOur sense of unease arose slowly. Initially it was inspired by nothing more than the maze of rat runs through the lank grass – a warren of paths spreading outwards in all directions. Who could have made these, was our first question. It might have been rabbits, but every step was marked by a slug-like dark squidge strea
  
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• Vaccinating badgers more effective than culls in stopping bovine TB, study finds

  06-08-2024 06:01
  Percentage of badgers with bTB fell to zero in Cornish study, raising hopes of end to cull of 210,000 badgers since 2013A large-scale vaccination programme could help eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in badgers, according to a first-of-its-kind study with “really promising” results for cattle farmers, whose herds have been devastated by the disease.Over four years, researchers vaccinated 265 badgers across 12 farms in Cornwall. They found the percentage of badgers testing positive
  
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• ‘It made me cry’: photos taken 15 years apart show melting Swiss glaciers

  06-08-2024 06:00
  
  Married couple from Bristol attract awe and abuse on X with photos that show ‘staggering’ changes in the AlpsA tourist has posted “staggering” photos of himself and his wife at the same spot in the Swiss Alps almost exactly 15 years apart, in a pair of photos that highlight the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.Duncan Porter, a software developer from Bristol, posted photos that were taken in the same spot at the Rhone glacier in August 2009 and August 2
  
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