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Millions of people rely on the 1,450-mile waterway as increasing periods of drought and rising temperatures reduce flow of river
The flow of the Colorado River is dwindling due to the impacts of global heating, risking “severe water shortages” for the millions of people who rely upon one of America’s most storied waterways, researchers have found.
Increasing periods of drought and rising temperatures have been shrinking the flow of the Colorado in recent years and scientists have now developed a model to better understand how the climate crisis is fundamentally changing the 1,450-mile waterway.
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Brazil’s JBS says it can’t trace the origins of all stock, as concern grows over deforestation linked to beef industry
The world’s biggest meat company has frequently been accusedof links to deforestation. Now JBS is facing growing pressure from Brazilian politicians and environmentalists to address the information gaps and transparency failings in its supply chain.
Critics say these deficiencies mean JBS is unable to ensure it does not buy cattle from farms involved in illegal deforestation over a decade after promising to do so.
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Ministers were planning to ban environmentally harmful practice of burning old heather
Owners of large grouse moors threatened to take legal action against government ministers who had started developing plans to ban repeated heather burning, Whitehall documents have disclosed.
The landowners issued the threat after ministers started working on producing a law to ban them from carrying out the environmentally damaging practice on their moorland estates. The old heather is burned to expose new shoots – a source of food for grouse, whose numbers are boosted. The estates then charge people who want to shoot grouse.
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Experts call for solutions to be enforced immediately to halt global population collapses
The “fates of humans and insects are intertwined”, scientists have said, with the huge declines reported in some places only the “tip of the iceberg”.
The warning has been issued by 25 experts from around the world, who acknowledge that little is known about most of the estimated 5.5 million insect species. However, enough was understood to warrant immediate action, they said, because waiting for better data would risk irreversible damage.
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Climate scientist who pioneered the global work of the IPCC as its chair and tackled the ‘climategate’ hacking scandal
To stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis – already being felt in the form of extreme weather, fires and floods – we have only about a decade to cause greenhouse gas emissions to peak and then fall rapidly. That we know this is largely thanks to one global organisation, a loose collection of hundreds of academics around the world that has amassed our knowledge of the climate for more than 30 years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, is made up of the world’s leading experts on climate science, who draw on thousands of academic papers to prepare comprehensive assessment reports about every five to seven years. Those reports are the gold standard, representing the summation of our knowledge of how the climate system works, and how we are affecting it.
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If ocean temperatures don’t drop in the next two weeks, heat stress could tip reef over into another widespread event
The Great Barrier Reef could be heading for a third major coral bleaching outbreak in the space of five years if high ocean temperatures in the region do not drop in the next two weeks, scientists and conservationists have warned.
Heat stress is already building across the world’s biggest reef system, with reports of patchy bleaching already occurring. But a major widespread event is not currently taking place.
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Scientists’ call follows national assessment that finds gum trees in Western Australia wheat belt suffering worst rate of decline
An iconic Western Australian eucalypt, known for the size of flowers, is among almost 150 eucalpyt species scientists have recommended be listed as threatened under national environment laws.
The eucalyptus macrocarpa, commonly known as mottlecah, has the largest flowers of all eucalypt species. The bright red flowers can measure up to 10cm in diameter.
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Peter Funch’s latest photo-book, The Imperfect Atlas, explores human impact on the environment by using a technique invented at the height of the industrial revolution – RGB tri-colour separations
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Use of harmful chemicals is higher in poorer nations, according to data analysed by Unearthed
The world’s biggest pesticide companies make billions of dollars a year from chemicals found by independent authorities to pose high hazards to human health or the environment, according to an analysis by campaigners.
The research also found a higher proportion of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) in the companies’ sales in poorer nations than in rich ones. In India, 59% of sales were of HHPs in contrast to just 11% in the UK, according to the analysis.
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A series of storms have lashed Britain in the past two weeks resulting in widespread floods that have left residents and businesses devastated. But as the climate heats up and towns expand into floodplains, is this the new normal? Also today: Richard Partington on the government’s plans for Britain’s new immigration rules
Thousands of homes and businesses across Britain have been hit by flooding after a series of major storms hit the country in the past two weeks. Six people are thought to have died in the flooding and evacuations from residential areas have continued all week.
Despite the destruction and loss of life, Boris Johnson has refused to convene a Cobra emergency response meeting or travel to any of the affected areas. Anger has been growing in some areas over a lack of warning or sufficient protective measures. George Eustice, the new environment secretary, said: “We’ll never be able to protect every single household just because of the nature of climate change and the fact that these weather events are becoming more extreme.”
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