The smell of chlorine pervades Conyers as residents say BioLab’s accident was a danger hiding in plain sight
For Vonnetta West the plume of smoke rising in the sky outside her home in the city of Conyers, Georgia, was a sign not just of immediate risk – but a danger that had been hiding in plain sight for years.
The plume was the result of an accident at the BioLab pool and spa chemical company in the city of nearly 20,000 residents about 25 miles east of Atlanta. Tens of thousands of people were impacted by an evacuation order for those immediately nearby or by the wider shelter-in-place order for those further away. The smell of chlorine drifted over much of the Atlanta area.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/01/2024 - 05:00
10/01/2024 - 04:40
Government urged to use power to control companies such as Thames Water and reform the industry
Thames Water and other failing water companies should be placed into special administration to allow the government to tackle much-needed reforms to the industry, campaigners say.
Triggering special administration would put Thames and other failing companies in government control, removing company directors and ending the dividends paid to shareholders. The companies could then be transferred to new owners who could be publicly owned or controlled.
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10/01/2024 - 04:00
The historic North Carolina city was touted as a climate ‘haven’ – a reputation deadly Hurricane Helene left in ruins
Nestled in the bucolic Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and far from any coast, Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States.
Helene, which crunched into the western Florida coast as a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, brought darkly familiar carnage to a stretch of that state that has experienced three such storms in the past 13 months, flattening coastal homes and tossing boats inland.
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10/01/2024 - 02:00
Everyday Plastic calls supermarket takeback schemes a diversion and says there is too much plastic packaging
Seventy per cent of soft plastic collected in supermarket recycling schemes and tracked after collection ended up being burned, an investigation by campaigners has found.
By placing trackers inside packages of soft plastic that were collected by Sainsbury’s and Tesco in July 2023 and February 2024, campaigners found that most of them ended up being incinerated rather than recycled.
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10/01/2024 - 01:00
Fifteen of the nimble, tree-climbing mammals were released last month at secret locations in Devon
Fifteen pine martens are darting through the woods of Dartmoor for the first time in 150 years after the rare but recovering species was reintroduced into south-west England.
The nimble, tree-climbing mustelids were released last month at secret locations in the steep, tree-lined valleys of Devon in what conservationists are hailing as a historic step in the restoration of the region’s woodlands.
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10/01/2024 - 00:00
A project on Spain’s Costa Brava is reviving dwindling populations of the prized seafood – and keeping small-scale fishers in business
Clinging to almost vertical cliffs on the Costa Brava in north-east Spain, the resort of l’Estartit has a dramatic location but the real drama is unfolding under the waves, where an innovative approach to ancient techniques is helping to revive declining populations of prized cuttlefish
Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) are a valuable catch for Spanish fishers and a popular dish, either on their own or as a key ingredient in seafood paella. However, their numbers have declined on the Catalan coast through a combination of pollution and unregulated recreational fishing.
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10/01/2024 - 00:00
Kew study reveals areas with at least 100,000 undiscovered plant species – most likely to be under threat of extinction
Botanists have identified 33 “dark spots” around the world where thousands of plant species are probably waiting to be discovered, according to new research.
From a palm tree in Borneo that flowers underground to a Malagasy orchid that spends its life growing on other plants, researchers are still making dozens of new species discoveries every year.
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09/30/2024 - 20:28
A human rights-based approach to coral reef protection could ensure governments are held to account for safeguarding marine ecosystems.
09/30/2024 - 20:27
This blog is now closed
Burke accuses Dutton of trying to ‘throw kerosene’ on public debate over Middle East
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National weather forecasts
Sticking with the weather, here’s a look at the forecasts across Australia’s capital cities today:
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09/30/2024 - 17:39
It’s difficult to overstate how rapidly Australians have embraced solar power – there’s now more rooftop solar than coal-fired power. The key question is what policymakers can learn from its success
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Australia was a different place in 2011. Julia Gillard’s Labor government, the Greens and a couple of country independents were rewriting the country’s climate policies, including introducing a world-leading carbon pricing system and creating three agencies to back it up.
Those organisations – the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Climate Change Authority – have survived and help shape the investment and policy landscape. The carbon pricing system – falsely described as a tax – famously didn’t.
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