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Producers promoted chemical recycling – processes used to break plastics into constituent molecules – but knew of limitations
Plastic producers have pushed “advanced recycling” as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible solution, a new report argues.
Advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling, refers to a variety of processes used to break plastics into their constituent molecules. The industry has increasingly promoted these technologies, as public concern about the environmental and health effects of plastic pollution has grown. Yet the rollout of these technologies has been plagued by problems, according to a new analysis from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group.
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The University of Queensland system is intended to give policymakers idea of how species traverse the oceans and what it will take to save them
Off the east coast of Florida, female loggerhead turtles swim more than 1,000km north, hugging the edge of the continental shelf to get to feeding grounds.
Humpback whales move through Moreton Bay off the Brisbane coast in Australia, on their way to feed around the Balleny Islands more than 4,000km away off the Antarctic coastline, where wandering albatross circle above, travelling 1,000km a day.
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
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Small-scale schemes are replacing dirty diesel with clean electricity in remote areas – and ensuring a just transition
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Roxana Borda Mamani had to leave Mexico, where she was studying for her degree in rural development and food security, and return to her remote village in the Peruvian Amazon.
At the time, the Indigenous community in Alto Mishagua had neither an internet connection nor a reliable energy source. “How am I going to study?” Borda asked. “With energy from the sun,” replied her friend, a fellow member of the Latin American Observatory for Energy Geopolitics at the Brazil-based Federal University of Latin American Integration (Unila).
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Jaguars, giant armadillos and ocelots among species threatened by shrinking habitat in one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world
In the Gran Chaco forest, vast green expanses – home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys – have turned to fields of dust. The forest once brimmed with life, says Bashe Nuhem, a member of the Indigenous Qom community, but then came a road, and soon after that logging companies. “It was an invasion. Loggers came without any consultation and families moved away. Those that stayed were left with only a cemetery of trees,” she says.
The Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon; its 100m hectares (247m acres) stretch across Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. It is also one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world – host to more than 3,400 species of plants, 500 birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles and 100 amphibians.
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Weardale, North Pennines: This one is showing its worth, teeming with aphids, ready to kickstart a vast and far-reaching food web
Sunbeams flicker through the translucent young foliage of the sycamore canopy overhead. A shadow darts among them: a blackcap, pecking aphids from the underside of the leaves.
The insects hatched from overwintering eggs in early April, congregating on loosening bud scales, waiting for tender new leaves to unfurl. Now there are legions of them, aligned along leaf veins, hypodermic stylets plugged in, siphoning sweet sap while simultaneously giving birth to more. They stand with regimented parade-ground spacing, just close enough to stay in touch with their long antennae. A shiver of fidgeting sweeps through the colony as the blackcap approaches.
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Mount Augustus snail, among largest in world, can live for decades and eats slugs and earthworms
A large rare carnivorous New Zealand snail has been filmed laying an egg from its neck for the first time, in a delightfully icky stroke of luck.
The department of conservation, which has been managing a captive population of Powelliphanta augusta,or the Mount Augustus snail, for almost two decades, was undertaking a routine weight check when a small, white egg started emerging from a snail’s neck.
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Researchers say AI could give every developing country a vital early warning system of extreme events
Weather forecasting has gradually been getting more and more sophisticated. It has also got far more important as the climate gets more unpredictable and extreme events threaten to cause massive economic damage and loss of life. So an early warning system is vital.
Ever larger computer systems making millions of calculations over many hours are now part of the daily forecasting in most developed countries. Sadly large parts of the world, many very vulnerable to dangerous climate events, do not have the money, personnel or computing power to develop the 10-day forecasting system they need.
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After a relationship breakup, rambling 700 miles from the Highlands to Dorset with Martin helped restore my faith in people
I’ve always had a keen sense of adventure. During the summer holidays, my parents would push me and my sister out of the front door and tell us only to come home to eat. I went from roaming the streets of Hackney in east London as a child, to trekking, wild camping and hitchhiking the length of the Americas in my late 20s.
After returning to my home in Liverpool, I worked as a photographer and got into a relationship. When we broke up years later, I was distraught – but it led me back to the life of exploration that I’d put on the back‑burner. In the summer of 2016, I embarked on a solo 1,000-mile (1,600km) route through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Not wanting to feel sealed off from the wondrous environments around me, I did the majority of it on foot.
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With less than a month before the start of the 2025 hurricane season, residents are still recovering from catastrophic damage from the past two years
Idalia. Debby. Helene.
Not visiting friends, not neighbors. All hurricanes that have not yet faded into memory for the residents of Taylor county in Florida, where all three powerful storms hit in just two years.
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Commoners say restrictive grazing may be raising risk of fires like one that scorched 500ha of moorland
The spot where the wildfire broke out could hardly have been worse. Cut Hill is one of the remotest and highest peaks on Dartmoor, miles from any road, a place of tussocky, ankle-turning terrain.
And the weeks of hot weather meant the molinia, the moorland grass, was as tinder dry as farmers can remember it at this time of year. Once it took hold, on Sunday, the fire raged.
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