-
Exclusive: Economic harm of CO2 pollution from Rosebank and Jackdaw forecast to far outweigh any boost to UK
The climate damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields under consideration by the UK government would destroy their economic benefits many times over, according to an analysis.
It estimates the economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced would be between £119bn and £336bn in the coming decades, compared with the £28.7bn in value to the UK estimated by Adura, the fossil fuel company promoting the new fields.
Continue reading...
-
A local initiative is testing simple ways to stop algal blooms in the River Fal threatening some of England’s most biodiverse marine habitats
On a rocky beach in Cornwall, a group of wetsuit-clad freedivers and snorkellers are wading into the shallows. Below St Mawes Castle, built by Henry VIII to defend Falmouth harbour, they disappear in a swish of florescent pink and green fins.
They are volunteers, trained by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust to use underwater cameras and floating GPS devices to detect changes in marine habitats over time.
Two volunteers, Simon Tagney and Max Behnert, prepare to survey the seabed beneath the 16th-century St Mawes Castle. Photograph: Luke Gartside/The Guardian
Continue reading...
-
Ynys Môn (Anglesey): The rosy footman is a relative newcomer to this part of Wales, bringing with it nectarine tones and markings like hieroglyphs
I have a routine in the summer months that I like to keep to as often as I can. That is, to start my day in the company of moths.
This morning, after a gentle night – too cloudy to see the flight of Perseid meteors but mild enough to encourage the flight of moths – I head out to my Robinson light trap. It’s 40 years old and somewhat shabby, and sits between the meadow plots in our wildlife garden like a tiny flying saucer. With cuppa to hand, and joined by our familiar robin, who knows this routine well, I examine the live catch.
Continue reading...
-
Henry Astor looked back to his grandfather’s time for the inspiration to find older varieties that could help nature on his Cotswold farm
It is the earliest harvest Henry Astor can remember. But walking through the scorched wheatfields of his Cotswolds farm, signs of life are everywhere – swarms of insects, kaleidoscopic wildflower meadows, bushy hedgerows several metres wide. A yellowhammer perches on a nearby tree.
There are 18 other red-listed birds on the farm, says Astor, who this year ringed 23 barn owls, three kestrels, two little owls as well as goshawk chicks. “Last winter we had clouds of goldfinch, chaffinch and greenfinch,” he says. Britain has lost 73 million birds since 1970; but at Bruern Farms, a small but welcome reversal is taking shape.
Continue reading...
-
True figure likely to be much higher as it only covers about half of continent and does not include August totals
At least 35,000 more people died during Europe’s four record-breaking, back-to-back heatwaves this summer than would normally be expected, according to incomplete figures from barely half the continent.
Excess mortality in three of the EU’s larger countries – Germany, France and Spain – alone has already exceeded 25,000, according to the provisional national figures, and experts say the toll will rise significantly once August totals are consolidated.
Continue reading...
-
Rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and illness, especially among older people, could drive up premiums
Europe’s intense heatwaves could hit insurers’ earnings as companies face a rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and worsening health conditions, the rating agency S&P has said.
While a long summer of extreme heat will have increased drought and wildfire-related claims, the rating agency said there would also be fallout for life and health insurers, and for the reinsurers who provide financial protection to insurance companies.
Continue reading...
-
Hélène Duguy is taking on companies accused of failing to stop Pfas pollution in the area of France she calls home
The factories were just part of the landscape for Hélène Duguy growing up in the heart of an area known as France’s “Chemical Valley”.
“Those factories are visible from my mother’s apartment,” says Duguy, 34, whose mother still lives in St-Genis-Laval, south of Lyon.
Continue reading...
-
There are countless initiatives around the world that can inspire people and spur them into action. Amid the devastation of the climate crisis, our journalists strive to highlight these stories of hope
The news is very often about the bad things (especially if you’re on the Guardian’s environment desk). Wildfires, floods, tipping points, billionaires making huge profits and buying themselves island refuges for the apocalypse … And yet, ticking along beside that is the steady pulse of what the rest of humanity is doing in response to the climate crisis. From housing developments with no cars to buildings made out of hemp, all over the planet, people are ploughing ahead and changing their neighbourhoods and cities and world.
But as news stories typically need to be about new developments or things people didn’t previously know about, it can be hard to cover all those brilliant initiatives being undertaken in the background – no matter how cheering they are. Which is why, back in 2023, we decided to ignore the usual rules about what constitutes “news” and start writing about them anyway. Readers, we knew, would like to hear about them.
Climate campaign 2026: help us reach 30,000 acts of support
Continue reading...
-
MVRDV – the firm behind Marble Arch Mound – says Rotterdam ROCKS! will inspire visitors to live sustainably. But in an era when the greenest building is the one that already exists, this tottering cairn looks set to misfire
‘It looks like something Shrek would throw up,” sniffed one online commentator, unflatteringly comparing Rotterdam ROCKS!, the recently unveiled proposal for a waterfront site in Europe’s largest port, with the vomitings of a cartoon ogre. Designed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, which gave London the supremely underwhelming Marble Arch Mound in 2021, Rotterdam ROCKS! (the use of EMPHATIC CAPITALS connoting an in-your-face energy) is the winner of a major architectural competition intended to create “a new world wonder”.
But instead of a modern Hanging Gardens of Babylon or contemporary Colossus of Rhodes, MVRDV’s super slick renderings depict a pile of artificial “rocks” (or ROCKS!) stacked together in a humongously scaled tottering cairn, wreathed in suspiciously luxuriant foliage and sluiced by a preposterous waterfall.
Continue reading...
-
New documentary To Use a Mountain spotlights the pain and triumph of resisting government efforts to turn parts of rural US into disposal sites
Nuclear energy was supposed to be our salvation, humanity’s chance to retool technology first conceived as a weapon of mass destruction into an engine of limitless prosperity. But even as the industry touted nuclear fission as an economic game-changer (never mind the astronomical startup costs), a safety paragon (never mind the spills at Chornobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima) and harmless fodder for an American comedy institution (never mind that glowing rod on Homer’s back or the three-eyed fish), there was no getting around the matter of what to do with all the toxic waste (never mind nuclear’s claimed green credentials).
The stagnant state of that dirty business brought Casey Carter, the director of the new avant-garde documentary called To Use a Mountain, back to his interview with a Washington state farmer who was part of a class-action lawsuit against the government over the release of radioactive material from the Hanford nuclear reservation – site of the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. The farmer’s words still echo, despite ultimately being cut to fit the film’s 90-minute runtime. “He joked that nuclear power is the only faith-based energy because everyone always asks, ‘Do you believe in it?’” Carter says. “He was like, ‘You don’t have to believe in solar. It’s just a pretty good idea.’”
Continue reading...
