Environment news

• UK public electric car chargers rose by a third in 2024 to more than 70,000

  26-12-2024 16:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Number hits record level but rate of growth slows as installers face delays to government fundingThe UK installed a record number of public electric car chargers in 2024, although the rate of growth slowed as installers contended with delays to government funding.Numbers rose by more than a third to reach 73,421 by 20 December, according to Zapmap, whose data the government uses. The increase of 19,600 was nearly equivalent to the total number of chargers at the end of 2020. Continue reading...
  
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• Chemtrail conspiracy theories: why RFK Jr is watching the skies

  26-12-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Belief in a supposed US government plot linked to aircraft condensation trails has been boosted by confusion over proposals to geoengineer a response to the climate crisisA conspiracy theory that airplanes are leaving nefarious “chemtrails” in their wake due to a sinister government plot has been given fresh impetus in the US amid a swirl of concerns and confusion about proposals to geoengineer a response to the climate crisis.State legislation to ban what some lawmakers call chemtra
  
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• Dirty water, sentient trees and hope in a climate crisis: 10 environmental long reads to digest over Christmas

  26-12-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s Down To Earth newsletter: These essential features – chosen by the Guardian’s Long Reads editors, cover everything from dirty water and sentient trees to how to find hope in a climate crisis
  • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to get the newsletter in fullThis year the Guardian Long Read series celebrates its 10th anniversary. Since we launched in 2014, we’ve run more than 1,000 pieces, on everything from Algerian shee
  
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• ‘A place to heal’: Native tribes urge Biden to protect sacred lands before leaving White House

  26-12-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Environmental groups are also petitioning Biden to protect Sáttítla, Kw’tsán and Chuckwalla in CaliforniaHidden amid a vast expanse of snow-brushed pines in northern California is a rare, half-million-year-old volcano called Sáttítla. Thousands of years ago, its flows created crystalline mountains of obsidian and dim grey bands of pumice rock, which from a bird’s-eye view look like ripples of taffy.“When you’re there, you really do feel
  
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• Campaigners call for right to roam on edges of private farmland in England

  26-12-2024 13:27 via theguardian.com
  
  Group says people in rural areas have to walk on roads without pavement, which can be very dangerousGive people the right to walk around the edges of privately owned fields, say campaigners seeking to open up more paths in the countryside in England and Wales.Slow Ways, a group advocating for more access to the countryside, said people in rural areas often have to walk on roads that do not have pavements, which can be extremely dangerous. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘The dead zone is real’: why US farmers are embracing wildflowers

  26-12-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Strips of native plants on as little as 10% of farmland can reduce soil erosion by up to 95%Between two corn fields in central Iowa, Lee Tesdell walks through a corridor of native prairie grasses and wildflowers. Crickets trill as dickcissels, small brown birds with yellow chests, pop out of the dewy ground cover.“There’s a lot of life out here, and it’s one of the reasons I like it, especially in these late summer days,” Tesdell said. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Britain’s wildlife safari’: baby boom in Norfolk as seal colonies flourish

  26-12-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Grey seals are growing in numbers on England’s east coast as a result of environmental safe havens and cleaner North Sea watersIt is a cold winter’s day to be lying on a beach, but the seal pup suckling from its mother doesn’t mind. A few metres away, a pregnant seal is burrowing into the sand, trying to get comfortable, while a third seal, which has just given birth, is touching noses with her newborn pup.The shoreline – a mass of seals and their white pups – is on
  
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• UK gambling with climate targets over carbon capture, say campaigners

  26-12-2024 11:07 via theguardian.com
  
  Potential IPCC rule changes could award planned carbon savings from burning US wood pellets to the exporter, not the importerThe UK government is gambling with its own climate targets on claims that the Drax power plant will create “negative emissions” because new rules could hand the carbon savings to the US, campaigners say.The owners of the North Yorkshire power plant have promised ministers that a key project to capture the carbon emissions created from burning biomass wood pelle
  
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• UK churchyards are havens for rare wildlife, finds conservation charity

  26-12-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Caring for God’s Acre mapped out 20,000 cemeteries and recorded 10,000 speciesChurchyards are vital havens for rare wildlife including dormice, bats and beetles, according to an extensive audit of burial grounds around the UK.The conservation charity Caring for God’s Acre mapped out 20,325 cemeteries, with 800,000 wildlife records submitted and more than 10,800 species recorded. Continue reading...
  
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• They lived through the ice age. Can the mighty musk ox survive the heat?

  26-12-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Rising temperatures are pushing these Arctic mammals ever farther into Greenland’s north. But eventually there will be nowhere left for them to goBuilt like a small bison, weighing as much as a grand piano and covered in thick, shaggy coat, the musk ox is one of the most distinctive species in the high Arctic. But from a hill on Greenland’s tundra, they seem impossible to find.Each bush, rock and clump of grass resembles a mass of wool and horns in the blustery chill on the edge of t
  
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• Deadline to record forgotten footpaths to be scrapped

  26-12-2024 03:01 via bbc.com
  
  Walking campaigners welcome the move, which the government says will help prevent paths from being lost.
  
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• Indian Ocean tsunami: how survivors found love after Boxing Day disaster

  26-12-2024 02:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A rise in the number of remarriages and a baby boom in the years since 2004 gave hope to survivors and helped them cope with the tragedyIt was Mahyuddin’s mother who had pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting their small coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party, but a powerful earthquake had struck just before 8am. Buildings in some areas had collapsed. He should go and check on his employer’s office to see if they needed hel
  
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• Illegal trade booms in South Africa's 'super-strange looking' plants

  26-12-2024 01:47 via bbc.com
  
  A biodiversity hotspot has become the stomping ground of poachers.
  
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• Defra scraps England deadline to register thousands of miles of rights of way

  26-12-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners jubilant after government heeded warning 2031 cutoff would mean loss of precious footpathsA deadline for registering historic rights of way is to be scrapped after a warning that the looming cutoff date could result in the loss of thousands of miles of footpaths.The last government set a deadline of 2031 for all rights of way in England to be added to an official map, after abandoning a previous commitment to scrap the policy. Continue reading...
  
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