Conservation charity raises alarm over climate crisis after wet spring and summer dampen mating chances
Butterfly numbers are the lowest on record in the UK after a wet spring and summer dampened their chances of mating.
Butterfly Conservation, which runs the Big Butterfly Count, sounded the alarm after this year’s count revealed the worst numbers since it began 14 years ago.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/29/2024 - 04:00
Marking a pivotal moment for the fate of the barely known ecosystems on the ocean floor, 168 nations will decide this week who will head the International Seabed Authority
Leticia Carvalho is clear what the problem is with the body she hopes to be elected to run: “Trust is broken and leadership is missing.” Later this week, at the headquarters of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, nations negotiating rules governing deep-sea mining face a critical vote that could impact the nascent industry for years: who should be the next leader of the regulatory body?
Carvalho, sponsored by Brazil, is in the running against the current secretary general, Michael Lodge, a British lawyer, who is being sponsored by Kiribati, a small Pacific state.
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07/29/2024 - 00:00
Civil society organisations demand home secretary protects the ‘safety valve’ of democracy
Environmental groups are among 92 civil society organisations who have warned Yvette Cooper against “the steady erosion of the right to protest” in the UK, and called on her to reverse the previous government’s crackdown on peaceful protest.
“The right to protest is a vital safety valve for our democracy and an engine of social progress,” the letter, delivered on Friday, said. “The achievements of peaceful protest are written on the labour movement’s own birth certificate.”
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07/28/2024 - 18:01
Hailing the success of carrier bag laws, the Marine Conservation Society urges nations to push forward with plans for other single-use items
The number of plastic bags washed up on UK beaches has fallen by 80% over a decade, since a mandatory fee was imposed on shoppers who opt to pick up single-use carrier bags at the checkout.
According to the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual litter survey, volunteers found an average of one plastic bag every 100 metres of coastline surveyed last year, compared to an average of five carrier bags every 100 metres in 2014.
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07/28/2024 - 06:00
Ex-president’s allies and Project 2025 propose restrictions to EPA’s ability to protect public from toxins like PFAS
A second Donald Trump presidency would represent a serious threat to dealing with the toxic impact of PFAS “forever chemicals”, as well as other toxins, and could be a danger to the health of millions of Americans, experts and environmental campaigners warn.
For example, over the last year, the Environmental Protection Agency developed groundbreaking drinking water limits for highly toxic PFAS compounds, and designated several of the “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances, a move that will force industry to clean up its pollution. The steps represent a major win for the water quality and taxpayers, but a new Trump administration would likely shred the rules.
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07/27/2024 - 07:00
Residents face tough choices on whether to shelter in place or flee – ‘There’s risks associated with each’, experts say
Hurricane Beryl was unusual in many ways before it struck Texas on 8 July – it sped up more than 35mph in a 24-hour period twice, and it became the first category 5 storm to form as early as it did in the hurricane season. And as the world increasingly warms because of the burning of fossil fuels, research suggests that storms like Hurricane Beryl will become more common – concerning coastal residents who will have less time to evacuate.
While residents are more likely to leave when directed to do so by their local government, emergency managers are shying away from enacting community-wide mandatory evacuations because of how much time they take to put in place.
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07/27/2024 - 06:00
State’s wildfires have already torched more than 1m acres, and experts say heat, dryness and lightning are to blame
Oregon’s wildfire season is off to an explosive start with more than 1m acres (405,000 hectares) charred in less than a month, as experts warn that extreme heat and unusual lightning strikes are creating “catastrophic conditions” for fires to ignite and spread.
The state is currently home to the largest wildfire burning in the US. By Friday afternoon, the Durkee fire had burned nearly 290,000 acres (117,000 hectares) and was only 20% contained. The fire had forced evacuations, shut down a major interstate highway and even produced its own weather system.
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07/27/2024 - 06:00
Wind turbines are among changes being considered by heir to the Duchy of Cornwall estate to tackle the climate crisis
His father thinks windfarms are a blot on the landscape, once saying he feared Britain would end up like Denmark “knee deep in these damn things”. But now Prince William is considering overturning their effective ban on royal land.
The Prince of Wales has ordered a major review of renewable energy on his 130,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate, which is expected to change the face of his hereditary property empire stretching across 20 counties in England.
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07/26/2024 - 23:00
Public health adviser says higher temperatures caused by climate crisis pose danger for visitors not used to them
The climate emergency poses a “real risk” to Spain’s traditional mass tourist model as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves hit the country’s most popular coastal destinations, a senior public health adviser has warned.
Héctor Tejero, the head of health and climate change at Spain’s health ministry, said the increasingly apparent physical impacts of the climate emergency had already led the ministry to begin talks with the British embassy on how best to educate “vulnerable” tourists about coping with the heat.
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07/26/2024 - 11:14
Energy secretary seeks to reestablish UK as a global leader on the climate crisis with meeting of Cop presidents
Labour will honour a pledge of £11.6bn in overseas aid for the climate crisis, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, told an unusual meeting of Cop presidents past and present on Friday, as he sought to re-establish the UK at the heart of international climate discussions.
As the Labour government prepares for this year’s climate-emergency summit in November, Miliband hosted Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan government minister who will lead Cop29, and Ana Toni, the top official on the climate for Brazil, which will host Cop30 in the Amazonian city of Belem in 2025 in a meeting to discuss what steps are needed to make a success of the next two UN climate Cops, as the “conferences of the parties” under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are known.
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