Environment news

• How anger at the rollout of renewables is being hijacked by a new pro-nuclear network

  09-12-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  An alliance of political groups is harnessing real fears about the local impact of renewables projects across Australia – and using them to spruik nuclear powerGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe entrance is marked by an AI-generated image of a dead whale, floating among wind turbines. On the first floor of the East Maitland Bowling Club, dire warnings are being shared about how offshore wind may impact the Hunter region – but also a feeling of not being co
  
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• How anger at Australia’s rollout of renewables is being hijacked by a new pro-nuclear network

  09-12-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  An alliance of political groups is harnessing real fears about the local impact ofwind and solar farms – and using them to spruik nuclear powerFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe entrance is marked by an AI-generated image of a dead whale, floating among wind turbines. On the first floor of the East Maitland bowling club, dire warnings are being shared about how offshore wind may impact the Hunter region &ndas
  
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• BP shifts offshore wind to joint venture amid retreat from renewables

  09-12-2024 14:52 via theguardian.com
  Energy company’s deal with Japan’s Jera will allow it to focus on exploiting oil and gas assetsBusiness live – latest updatesBP has agreed a deal worth up to £4.5bn to build offshore windfarms with Japan’s biggest power producer, in a shift that will allow it to gain some access to zero-carbon wind energy while focusing on fossil fuels.The FTSE 100 company will create a 50-50 joint-venture with the Japanese power generator Jera to combine their offshore wind assets,
  
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• ‘It is ambitious, but ambition builds the world’: can the Gambia’s bold plan to cut plastic pollution work?

  09-12-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Tourists flock to the country’s dazzling beaches, but its vast, smoking waste sites tell a different story – one that the government is keen to change Travelling through the Gambia, it is hard to avoid the makeshift dumpsites burning along the roadsides, filling the air with toxic fumes. Outside the tourist areas, beaches and waterways are littered with plastic rubbish.The Gambia has long acknowledged it has a problem with plastic. For nearly a decade, it has attempted to solve it th
  
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• Harrogate Spring Water planning to cut down wood planted by schoolchildren

  09-12-2024 13:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Conservation groups join those who helped plant woodland in opposing expansion of bottling plantHarrogate Spring Water, which is owned by the multinational Danone,is planning to cut down a wood planted by schoolchildren in order to expand its bottling factory in the North Yorkshire town.Two primary schools, along with other local volunteers, helped to plant 450 trees in a project organised by the Rotary Club of Harrogate almost 20 years ago. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I feel dizzy but I can’t stop’: global heating is already making kiln workers’ lives unbearable. And it will only get worse

  09-12-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Researchers mapped brick kilns across India and used climate models to forecast the levels of heat stress workers face between now and 2050Photographs by Ishan Tankhar“I work with fire. But this has been the hottest ever, even for me,” says Harilal Rajput, squinting in the blazing midday sun. Rajput, 41, is a chief fire worker at a brick kiln near the town of Danapur on the outskirts of Patna, capital of the eastern state of Bihar. He is a migrant worker; his wife, a farmer, lives in
  
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• Drylands now make up 40% of land on Earth, excluding Antarctica, study says

  09-12-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  An area nearly a third larger than India turned permanently arid in past three decades, research showsAn area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland – arid areas where agriculture is difficult – in the past three decades, research has found.Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world’s land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according
  
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• UK ‘needs to play catch-up’ in global race to rewire electricity grids

  09-12-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  For every £1 spent on renewable energy projects, only 25p was invested in connecting them to grid, report findsThe UK is lagging behind in the race to rewire the world’s power grids by investing four times more on renewable energy projects than on the electricity cables needed to connect them to the grid and consumers, according to a new report.For every pound the UK has spent on renewables it has spent only 25p on the cables and power lines, claims the report by Bloomberg NEF, which
  
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• Country diary: The frosts are no match for this ancient survivor | Susie White

  09-12-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Allendale, Northumberland: These strange, alien blobs are nostoc, and they are doing well in the valley at the moment, when little else isAfter several nights of -7C here in this north Pennine valley, the trees are leafless, the thistles, docks and other wild plants collapsed and frost-browned. The following thaw has made the earth sticky and heavy, and my boots collect mud as I walk. My way leads past an old farmhouse, its gravel drive made of large chunks of whinstone, grey and hardwearing. Wi
  
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• ‘It shouldn’t be that easy’: inside the illegal wildlife trade booming on social media

  09-12-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Social media sites have become crucial tools for the sale of endangered species and platforms should do more to combat it, say expertsWhen the baby parrots were delivered to Alice Soares de Oliveira’s desk they had no feathers and could barely open their eyes. Housed in a dirty cardboard box, the pair were barely a month old, and showed signs of underfeeding.The parrots – along with a pair of young toucans that arrived just under a month later – were victims of wildlife traffic
  
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