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University of Queensland modelling says reef will suffer ‘rapid coral decline’ in coming decades but could still recover if targets met
The Great Barrier Reef will undergo “rapid coral decline” until 2050 but could recover if global heating is kept below 2C, according to the most detailed modelling so far of the future of the world’s biggest coral reef.
The finding contradicts a widely held view that the decline of the oceanic gem would become irreversible as global temperatures rise above 1.5C, with one report last month suggesting the world’s tropical corals had already reached a tipping point of long-term decline.
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Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and major supermarkets want to double amount of beans Britons eat
Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are among a group of celebrity chefs and supermarkets leading a new campaign to double UK bean consumption by 2028.
There has been a long push for people to include more legumes in their diets – they are climate friendly and healthy. As the UK faces increasing disease related to poor diets as well as increasing food prices, and the campaigners argue that it is the correct time to launch a drive to “bang in some beans” to the nation’s meals.
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Blocking the sun may reduce global heating – but ‘rogue actor’ could cause drought or more hurricanes, report finds
Solar geoengineering could increase the ferocity of North Atlantic hurricanes, cause the Amazon rainforest to die back and cause drought in parts of Africa if deployed above only some parts of the planet by rogue actors, a report has warned.
However, if technology to block the sun was used globally and in a coordinated way for a long period – decades or even centuries – there is strong evidence that it would lower the global temperature, the review from the UK’s Royal Society concluded.
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Communities in the middle of new national forest to show how housebuilding can be delivered alongside nature
A new set of forest towns will be built in the area between Oxford and Cambridge, nestled in the middle of a new national forest.
After facing anger from nature groups over the deregulation in the upcoming planning bill, ministers are trying to demonstrate that mass housebuilding can be delivered in conjunction with new nature. The government has promised to plant millions of trees to boost England’s nature.
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Lawyers call for clarity over law as six are found guilty while being stopped from using defence used by fellow activists
Six environmental protesters were convicted after they were denied the ability to put a “reasonable excuse” defence or climate facts before the jury, despite these being afforded to other activists acquitted for taking part in the same demonstration.
After an eight-day trial at Southwark crown court in London, the six Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists were found guilty of public nuisance, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence, for climbing gantries on the M25 in 2022 to demand an end to new fossil fuel projects. They will be sentenced next month.
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Exclusive: Experts say impact on people of colour and those who do not drive is ‘grave environmental injustice’
Air pollution in England and Wales has fallen, but the poorest neighbourhoods are still exposed to the most extreme levels of toxins, new analysis has found.
Experts have called this a “grave environmental injustice” as the inequality around who is exposed to air pollution has dramatically grown in the last decade.
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Indigenous leaders, environmental activists and forest defenders are determined to make this a summit like no other
A day into a river voyage between Santarém and Belém, a dozen or so passengers on the Karolina do Norte move excitedly to the port side of the boat to see the cafe au lait-coloured waters of the Amazon river mix with the darker, clearer currents of the Xingu.
“That confluence is like the people on this boat,” said Thais Santi. “All from different river basins, but coming together for this journey.”
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Eucalyptus production is dominated by large multinationals that convert farmland and forest into monoculture plantations
Razor-straight rows of eucalyptus clones flank the Baixa Verde settlement in north-eastern Brazil. The genetically identical trees are in marked contrast to the patches of wild Atlantic forest – one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth – that remain scattered across the region.
Surrounded by nearly 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of eucalyptus plantations, Baixa Verde is a rare example of a local victory over a multinational in Brazil. The rural settlement owes its existence to nearly two decades of legal battles over land rights – but the fight is not over yet.
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Experts find artefacts left behind in Caral showing how population survived drought without resorting to violence
Archaeologists in Peru have found new evidence showing how the oldest known civilization in the Americas adapted and survived a climate catastrophe without resorting to violence.
A team led by the renowned Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady, 78, concluded that about 4,200 years ago, severe drought forced the population to leave the ancient city of Caral, and resettle nearby.
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We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2022: Kenya’s great lakes are flooding, in a devastating and long-ignored environmental disaster that is displacing hundreds of thousands of people
By Carey Baraka. Read by Reice Weathers
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