-
Exclusive: Officials say Miatta Fahnbulleh minded not to give approval in victory for climate campaigners
Miatta Fahnbulleh is minded to reject the giant Rosebank oilfield, sources have told the Guardian, in what would be a blow for the North Sea energy industry and a major victory for climate campaigners.
After approving the smaller Jackdaw gasfield on Wednesday, officials say the energy secretary is leaning towards refusing approval for what would be one of the biggest oilfields in the North Sea.
Continue reading...
-
As glaciers melt and permafrost thaws, Longyearbyen, on the remote Arctic islands of Svalbard, faces climate-induced problems from tap water to housebuilding to landslides
• Heavy metals make Norwegian village’s tap water toxic
On a rugged mountain plateau of snow-dusted rocks, in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, a glaciologist, Andy Hodson, points out the “ears” of ice, white against the rock, that gave Foxfonna glacier its name, after the arctic fox.
The small glacier, on a mountain 8 miles (15km) outside the Norwegian village of Longyearbyen, is a popular summer hike for tourists who come here seeking the Arctic experience.
Continue reading...
-
Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body
The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin.
Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
Continue reading...
-
As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps
Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.
Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.
Continue reading...
-
United Utilities, Environment Agency and local campaigners say 12-mile tunnel could take sewage away from England’s largest lake
Plans are under way for a new giant tunnel to transport sewage away from Windermere, England’s largest lake.
Windermere, in the Lake District, has suffered from widespread raw sewage and bacterial pollution driven by discharges from United Utilities. Campaigners say this pollution has caused more frequent toxic blue-green algal blooms, with the public advised to avoid swimming in the lake.
Continue reading...
-
Poole, Dorset: At this time of year, migrants are constantly on the move here, whether leaving, arriving or just stopping to refuel
With the sadness of our summer migrants departing the UK for another year comes the joy of our wintering birds returning. Working in conservation at Poole harbour, I’m out most days, connected to the ebb and flow of this change.
As it is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and located on the East Atlantic Flyway, birds are constantly on the move here, whether leaving, arriving or stopping to refuel.
Continue reading...
-
This summer alone, 26 local authorities in the UK had to stop accepting fridges and freezers for recycling. Now the appliances are piling up around the country – with no proper disposal date in sight
Not much is happening in the tiny Norfolk hamlet of Little Hautbois on the day I visit. The pub, once popular with airmen from RAF Coltishall, stopped being a pub a long time ago, even before RAF Coltishall stopped being RAF Coltishall. It’s not Saturday, so there are no weddings at Hautbois Hall. Nor is it 19 May, so the restless, headless ghost of Thomas Boleyn isn’t driving his carriage across the bridge over the River Bure, as he is said to do on the anniversary of the execution of his daughter, Anne. Today, a lovely autumn one, all is as it should be.
But half a mile down a narrow country lane is an incongruous and baffling sight: a strip of gentle hillside made up of large white rectangular blocks, piled up and sparkling in the sunshine. A glacier, you might think, if you were in Norway rather than Norfolk. (And ice is involved, as it happens.) As you get nearer, the picture becomes clearer; the blocks have coils on one face, doors and handles on the opposite one, plus the manufacturers’ names. It’s a glacier of fridges, more than 3,000 of them.
Continue reading...
-
Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push
Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone.
After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River.
Continue reading...
-
After decades of violent displacement and land theft, the country’s quilombolacommunities are fighting back
For most of his 39 years, Josias Dias dos Santos, known as Jota, has endured degrading cycles of displacement as a quilombola, a descendant of Black people once enslaved on Brazil’s sugar cane and coffee plantations. He says his and other quilombola families subsisting in the rainforests in Pará, northern Brazil, were first forced out of their settlements by violent loggers, then by ranchers and miners.
Yet, they say the worst came with the arrival of the palm oil industry in what is now the country’s most deforested state. Palm oil companies producing biofuels and supplying global customers, subsidised by the federal government, have laid claim to ever larger tracts of traditional quilombola territory over the past two decades.
Continue reading...
-
With no wind to disperse the low cloud, mist and fog and less sunlight to burn it off, anticyclonic gloom can set in
In summer, a high-pressure system over the UK usually means fine weather. But in the colder months it can result in anticyclonic gloom, characterised by grey skies, mist, fog and drizzle.
A settled high-pressure system brings stable conditions and impedes the usual vertical movement of air. This is a recipe for sunshine when humidity is low, but can act like a lid, trapping atmospheric moisture near the surface.
Continue reading...
