-
Exclusive: Getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using efficient aircraft could slash CO2, analysis suggests
Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half – without reducing passenger journeys – by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis.
These efficiency measures could be far more effective in tackling the fast-growing carbon footprint of flying than pledges to use “sustainable” fuels or controversial carbon offsets, the researchers said. They believe their study, which analysed more than 27m commercial flights out of approximately 35m in 2023, is the first to assess the variation in operational efficiency of flights across the globe.
Continue reading...
-
Outcome of aggression will determine whether rare earths and other resources drive energy transition – or strengthen US military power and oil interests
The US’s first overt attack on an Amazon nation last weekend is a new phase in its extractivist rivalry with China. The outcome will decide whether the vast mineral wealth of South America is directed towards a 21st-century energy transition or a buildup of military power to defend 20th-century fossil fuel interests.
Although this onslaught was ostensibly aimed at one corrupt dictatorship in a miserably dysfunctional country, the ramifications are far wider.
Continue reading...
-
Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland: There’s not much light to play with today, deep in midwinter, but this once-coveted fort still puts on a show
Maybe it’s the invitation of the slowly lengthening days, but at this time of year I crave a long view. And here, on the approach to the ringfort of Grianán of Aileach, I have it. As the late afternoon sun squints over the fort’s high walls, it’s easy to understand why early medieval monarchs cherished this summit.
I watch my shadow loping across the heath before my gaze plunges to the Inch Levels reserve, where flocks of wintering whooper swans and greylag geese speckle the flooded fields. I stop for a moment, lingering over the sky’s perfect reflection in the reserve’s brackish lagoon, with Lough Swilly beyond. Not far from here to Ireland’s northernmost edge and the Atlantic Ocean.
Continue reading...
-
When rain falls on snow it creates a layer of ice that impedes feeding, which in turn has reduced herds’ birthrates
Reindeer survive typically harsh Arctic winters by using their specially adapted hooves to scrape through the snow to nibble on the lichen and moss below. But paradoxically a warming climate is making it harder for them to reach this food, and research shows it has led to a drop in reindeer birthrates.
When rain falls on snow, the snow melts and refreezes, creating layers of ice that make it more difficult for reindeer to scrape through to the fodder below. Climate records going back to 1960 show that warmer winters have resulted in more rain-on-snow events in Arctic regions. By comparing the weather data with reindeer herd birth statistics from Norway and Finland, researchers have shown that birth rates tend to drop in summers that follow winters with lots of rain-on-snow events.
Continue reading...
-
In this week’s newsletter: nature’s last stand against the DRC capital’s rampant development, plus looking back on last year’s stories of hope
Anyone who has ever seen a living baobab tree should find it hard to forget. Alongside the ubiquitous acacia – the thorny umbrella tree – baobabs are statuesque icons of Africa’s drier landscapes.
The trees have influenced, anchored and fed communities for tens of thousands of years, influencing culture and traditions, inspiring art and folklore. This week, freelance reporter Emmet Livingstone’s dispatch for us from the Democratic Republic of Congo, ironically also the home of the world’s largest tropical forest, really struck a chord with me and with many readers.
US ‘adapt, shrink or die’ terms for $2bn aid pot will mean UN bowing down to Washington, say experts
Packing a punch: the true story behind the first Zimbabwean film to qualify for Oscars
From childhood staple to luxury food: how Nigeria’s jollof became too expensive to eat
‘You sneak in and hope you make it back’: the Sudanese volunteers risking it all to bring care to millions
Three children dead in Iran protests as security forces accused of ‘indiscriminate targeting’
Childbirth under attack: how women and babies became targets in conflicts around the world
In the Caribbean and Africa a reparations movement is growing: so why is Britain pretending otherwise? | Kenneth Mohammed
‘The source of all life is here’: plan to mine lithium in Chilean salt flat sparks fears of water scarcity
‘When you plant something, it dies’: Brazil’s first arid zone is a stark warning for the whole country
The chatbot will see you now: how AI is being trained to spot mental health issues in any language
Continue reading...
-
Behind the west’s huge appetite for the fruit lies the dark reality of environmental destruction and Indigenous exploitation in Mexico
I grew up in San Andrés Tziróndaro, a Purépecha community on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán. My childhood was shaped by water, forests and music. The lake fed us. The forest protected us. In the afternoons, people gathered in the local square while bands passed through playing pirekua, our traditional music.
That way of life is now under threat as our land is extracted for profit.
Continue reading...
-
Problem at water treatment centre left 24,000 Tunbridge Wells homes without drinking water for two weeks
A failure at a water treatment centre that left tens of thousands of Kent households without water was foreseen weeks before it happened and could have been stopped, the regulator has said.
Twenty-four thousand homes in the Tunbridge Wells area were without drinking water for two weeks from 30 November last year due to a failure at the Pembury water treatment centre.
Continue reading...
-
A year after the Eaton fire, residents returning to Altadena confront lingering contamination and little official clarity
One year on from the Eaton fire, long after the vicious winds that sent embers cascading from the San Gabriel mountains and the flames that swallowed entire streets, a shadow still hangs over Altadena.
Construction on new properties is under way, and families whose homes survived the fire have begun to return. But many are grappling with an urgent question: is it safe to be here?
Continue reading...
-
Across Africa, baobabs have rich symbolic meaning, but the breakneck expansion of the DRC’s capital has reduced their number in the city centre to one
The older inhabitants of Kinshasa can remember when trees shaded its main avenues and thick-trunked baobabs stood in front of government offices.
Jean Mangalibi, 60, from his plant nursery tucked among grey tower blocks, says the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s frenzied expansion has all but erased its greenery. “We’re destroying the city,” he says, over the sound of drilling from a nearby building site.
Continue reading...
-
Every year a Chinese-dominated flotilla big enough to be seen from space pillages the rich marine life on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned part of the South Atlantic off Argentina
In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.”
Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the distant-water fishing fleet – are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea.
Continue reading...
increase font size
