Environment news

• Some Floridians choose to stay despite warnings of life risk: ‘We have faith in the Lord’

  09-10-2024 22:22
  
  As Hurricane Milton approaches many cities were largely deserted but some people decided to shelter in placeHurricane Milton – live updatesMost left when they were told to. But some chose to stay, even though officials warned Hurricane Milton would turn their homes into coffins.Along Florida’s Gulf coast, where millions of people were urged to get out of harm’s way, cities were largely deserted on Wednesday afternoon as time ran out to evacuate. Those who remained were advised
  
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• Mama bear beats rival who killed her cub to win Fat Bear Week

  09-10-2024 17:43 via bbc.com
  
  The brown bear, named 128 Grazer, also defeated her rival, Chunk, last year to win the title.
  
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• Our dystopian climate isn’t just about fires and floods. It’s about society fracturing | Bill McKibben

  09-10-2024 16:51
  Climate disasters risk pulling society apart, getting us to a place where people can’t work together because they’ve been so divided by disinformation and hateEven as the good people of Florida’s west coast pulled the soggy mattresses from Helene out to the curb, Milton appeared on the horizon this week – a double blast of destruction from the Gulf of Mexico that’s a reminder that physics takes no time off, not even in the weeks before a crucial election. My sense i
  
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• English water system singled out for criticism by UN special rapporteur

  09-10-2024 16:23
  
  Prof Pedro Arrojo-Agudo says regulator Ofwat ‘complacent’ about water firms putting their shareholders before public The privatised English water system has been singled out for criticism by the UN special rapporteur on the human right to clean water.Prof Pedro Arrojo-Agudo said water systems should be managed as a publicly owned service, rather than run by private companies set up to benefit shareholders. Continue reading...
  
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• The hidden underside of an iceberg: Laurent Ballesta’s best photograph

  09-10-2024 16:06
  ‘This iceberg in Antarctica was so vast, I had to dive down and take 147 photos in sub-zero water, then get a computer to join them up. Ten years on, my toes are still damaged’As a kid, I was fascinated by the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau. There was nothing else quite like them – they were a weekly TV appointment. My family lived not too far from the sea and, although that coast wasn’t great for diving, my brother and I used to pretend we were exploring beneath the w
  
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• Andrew Forrest says net zero is ‘fantasy’ so his goal is ‘real zero’. What does he mean – and can he achieve it? | Temperature Check

  09-10-2024 15:48
  The mining tycoon says his iron ore business will stop using fossil fuels by the end of the decade without carbon offsets or carbon capture and storageGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAbout $45 trillion of global business revenue is covered by corporate “net zero emissions” pledges but iron ore billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest thinks the whole net zero thing is “fantasy”.“Now is the time to walk away from net zero 2050, that
  
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• ‘It’s path-breaking’: British Columbia’s blueprint for decolonisation

  09-10-2024 15:00
  
  First Nations are negotiating with government on sharing crucial decisions over forestry, mining and constructionA wild experiment is under way in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province: the government is rewriting its laws to share power with Indigenous nations over a land base bigger than France and Germany combined.Decades in the making, this transition entered history in 2019, when BC became the first jurisdiction on Earth to sign the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Pe
  
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• Europe was a leader on saving nature. Now, its backsliding could threaten global progress

  09-10-2024 12:00
  Once a champion of initiatives to protect nature, the EU is now giving in to pressure from farmers and the far rightWhen diplomats struck a deal to save nature in 2022, pledging to halt biodiversity loss by the end of the decade, Europe was seen as a credible leader in fraught negotiations. The EU cajoled others into stepping up their game as it championed a target to protect 30% of the land and sea by 2030.But two years later, as delegates meet in wildlife-rich Colombia for Cop16 – the in
  
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• Google DeepMind boss wins Nobel for proteins breakthrough

  09-10-2024 11:50 via bbc.com
  
  Three scientists share the prize for their revolutionary work on proteins, the buildings blocks of life.
  
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• Anger at UK’s ‘bonkers’ plan to reach net zero by importing fuel from North Korea

  09-10-2024 11:37
  Government criticised over list of potential countries for sourcing biomass, which also includes AfghanistanA plan by the British government to burn biomass imported from countries including North Korea and Afghanistan has been described as “bonkers”, with critics saying it undermines the credibility of the UK’s climate strategy.A bioenergy resource model, published in late summer, calculates that only a big expansion in the import of energy crops and wood from a surprising lis
  
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• Wildlife photographer of the year 2024 winners – in pictures

  09-10-2024 08:00
  
  Selected from a record-breaking 59,228 entries from 117 countries and territories, the winners of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious wildlife photographer of the year competition have been announced, with an exhibition opening on Friday 11 October. The Canadian marine conservation photojournalist Shane Gross was awarded wildlife photographer of the year 2024 for his image of tadpoles, The Swarm of Life, captured while snorkelling through lily pads in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, B
  
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• Hurricanes like Helene twice as likely to happen due to global heating, data finds

  09-10-2024 08:00
  
  Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heatingAs Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, fueled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, a new analysis has shown how the Gulf’s heat that worsened last month’s Hurricane Helene was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating.Helene, one of the deadliest storms in US history, gathered pace over the Gulf before crashing ashore with 140mph winds. Contin
  
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• Global heating makes hurricanes like Helene twice as likely, data shows

  09-10-2024 08:00
  
  Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heatingAs Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, fueled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, a new analysis has shown how the Gulf’s heat that worsened last month’s Hurricane Helene was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating.Helene, one of the deadliest storms in US history, gathered pace over the Gulf before crashing ashore with 140mph (225km/h) win
  
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• A delegation of Maugean skates are listening to the keynote speaker at the global nature-positive summit | First Dog on the Moon

  09-10-2024 07:53
  
  Ahahahah oh this is goldSign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...
  
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• China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years

  09-10-2024 07:00
  
  IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the cle
  
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• Birdwatch: a mesmerising Costa Rican encounter with the sunbittern

  09-10-2024 07:00
  The only member of its zoological family, this curious creature almost seems to have been designed by AI“Garza del sol! Garza del sol!” I speak some Spanish, but even so, I struggled to understand what I was being told. Ella – the sister of José, owner of the Hotel Quelitales in Costa Rica – impatiently beckoned me down the path, until we reached a small, tree-canopied creek.Then I realised what she was so excited about: the “sun heron” – in Engli
  
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• ‘A huge loss’: is it the end for the ship that helped us understand life on Earth?

  09-10-2024 07:00
  The Joides Resolution has contributed to our understanding of climate crisis, the origin of life, earthquakes and eruptions. But funding cuts mean it may have sailed its last expeditionIn the early summer of this year, a ship set sail around the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. But this wasn’t any ordinary ship. For almost 40 years the Joides Resolution drilled into the ocean floor to collect samples and data that helped scientists to study Earth’s history and structure. Expedition
  
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• Energy industry trade body chief to head UK’s climate watchdog

  09-10-2024 01:01
  
  Emma Pinchbeck will take over as chief executive of Climate Change Committee next monthThe government’s official climate watchdog has appointed the head of the energy industry’s trade association to lead its work helping to drive the UK’s emissions to net zero by 2050.Emma Pinchbeck, the head of Energy UK, will take up the role of chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) from early next month after four years at the helm of the trade association. Continue reading..
  
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• Klamath River dam removal: before and after images show dramatic change

  09-10-2024 00:45
  
  Dam removal concluded a decades long fight on 2 October, which also saw Chinook salmon return to the watersWith California’s Klamath Dam removal project finally completed, new before and after photos show the dramatic differences along the river with and without the dams. The photos were taken by Swiftwater Films, a documentary company chronicling the dam removal project – a two decade long fight that concluded 2 October.“The tribally led effort to dismantle the dams is an expr
  
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