Environment

Sharp rise in number of droughts, floods and wildfires has claimed 1.23 million lives and affected 4.2 billion people

Extreme weather events have increased dramatically in the past 20 years, taking a heavy human and economic toll worldwide, and are likely to wreak further havoc, the UN has said.

Heatwaves and droughts will pose the greatest threat in the next decade, as temperatures continue to rise due to heat-trapping gases, experts said.

Denial of endangered species protections threatens species at risk amid climate crisis, conservationists say

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has denied protection to wolverines under the Endangered Species Act, frustrating conservation groups who argue the species faces an existential threat from the climate crisis.

According to the ruling announced on Thursday, the FWS considers wolverine populations in the lower 48 states to be stable and threats against wolverines to be less significant than they previously thought. The agency is consequently withdrawing a proposal to federally protect the species.

Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss Re report

One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re.

Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity.

From heat-related illness to mosquito-borne infections, physicians are seeing the effects of a warming planet in the exam room. There's a growing push to teach doctors-in-training how to respond.

(Image credit: Chelsea Beck for NPR)

We Indigenous people are fighting to save the Amazon, but the whole planet is in trouble because you do not respect it

Dear presidents of the nine Amazonian countries and to all world leaders that share responsibility for the plundering of our rainforest,

My name is Nemonte Nenquimo. I am a Waorani woman, a mother, and a leader of my people. The Amazon rainforest is my home. I am writing you this letter because the fires are raging still. Because the corporations are spilling oil in our rivers. Because the miners are stealing gold (as they have been for 500 years), and leaving behind open pits and toxins. Because the land grabbers are cutting down primary forest so that the cattle can graze, plantations can be grown and the white man can eat. Because our elders are dying from coronavirus, while you are planning your next moves to cut up our lands to stimulate an economy that has never benefited us. Because, as Indigenous peoples, we are fighting to protect what we love – our way of life, our rivers, the animals, our forests, life on Earth – and it’s time that you listened to us.

Research also found 73% would pay for food that would otherwise be wasted

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The majority of Britons plan to return to pre-lockdown levels of restaurant visits as soon as they can, ahead of looming new restrictions that could further cripple the ailing hospitality sector, a survey reveals.

Diners are also ready to turn their raised concern for the environment into action and ditch their favourite menu choices for sustainable dishes, according to research carried out by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA).

The pandemic has major repercussions for the world of fashion. That could be a good thing because fast fashion can be ecologically devastating.

In Libby, Mont., an estimated 1 in 10 have an asbestos-related illness, after decades of pollution from a now-shuttered mine. With lungs already scarred, many fear contracting the coronavirus.

(Image credit: Nate Hegyi / Mountain West News Bureau)

Charity says licensing system is needed to prevent ‘unacceptable’ damage to countryside, plus stricter enforcement of existing laws

The RSPB is demanding new regulations and better enforcement of existing laws to control the shooting of game birds in the UK. The charity made the call yesterday at its AGM after publishing a review that found self-regulation by the shooting community had failed to address the environmental impacts of the game bird industry.

Illegal killing of birds of prey, the use of poisonous lead ammunition, the burning of vegetation on peatlands and the release of 57 million game birds - mainly non-native pheasants and red-legged partridges - into the countryside each year are now causing unacceptable damage, the organisation claims.

Navy divers remove live bomb after fisherman called in find on Lord Howe Island’s Elizabeth reef

An unexploded 45kg bomb has been towed into deep waters five months after being found off the New South Wales coast.

The weapon was found in late April by a fisherman on Lord Howe Island’s Elizabeth Reef. Defence personnel said it could have posed “a significant risk to the general public”.

People in south Louisiana are cleaning up after another hurricane walloped the state. Delta hit with 100-mph winds. More than a half-million homes and businesses are without power.

More than 12,000 pages of US government documents show military operations contaminating the Pacific with radioactive waste, nerve agents, and chemical weapons like Agent Orange

In 1968, Leroy Foster was a master sergeant in the US Air Force, assigned to the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, a United States island territory in the Pacific. The day after he arrived on the island, he recalled being ordered to mix “diesel fuel with Agent Orange”, then spraying “it by truck all over the base to kill the jungle overgrowth”.

Soon after, Foster suffered serious skin complaints and eventually fell sick with Parkinson’s and ischemic heart disease. Later, his daughter had cancer as a teenager, and his grandchild was born with 12 fingers, 12 toes, and a heart murmur. Foster died in 2018.

Activist’s claim of racist assault on bypass adds to litany of alleged violations of human rights sent to UN rapporteurs

A campaigner against the HS2 rail line whose head and back were knelt on by police after he says he was thrown to the ground during a peaceful protest believes he was singled out because he is black. He has lodged a complaint of assault amid rising calls for UK government action on the policing of environmental protests.

Video footage shows William Harewood, the only person of colour in a small group of activists at a bypass in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, offering no resistance as he is held face down by Thames Valley police officers, two of whom kneel on his head and upper back while two others pin his legs down with their knees.

The government’s high-profile commitment to renewable energy could bring a decade of opportunities for young people

The Hywind offshore windfarm stands 15 miles off the coast of Peterhead, and firmly on the cusp of Britain’s most dramatic energy revolution since the discovery of North Sea oil.

The world’s first floating windfarm was one of the first low-carbon energy projects developed by Norway’s state oil giant Equinor, and today is one of the best performing windfarms ever built.

William Perry Pendley says ‘I have the support of the president’ despite court ruling he is serving illegally as head of the Bureau of Land Management

A controversial environment chief in the Trump administration has said he has no intention of leaving his post after a US district court judge deemed his tenure and ongoing occupation of the position illegal.

William Perry Pendley, head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), said this week that the judge’s ruling “has no impact, no impact whatsoever”.

The president’s energy stance may not play well in a swing state threatened by pipeline projects and supportive of climate action

In early August, Ginny Kerslake’s lush green yard in a middle-class Pennsylvania suburb turned into a muddy river, thanks to another spill at the pipeline drilling site opposite her house. A couple of days later, 10,000 gallons of drilling mud, or bentonite clay, contaminated a popular recreational lake that also provides drinking water for residents of Chester county.

The spills are down to construction of the Mariner East (ME) pipelines – a beleaguered multibillion-dollar project to transport highly volatile liquids extracted by fracking gas shale fields in western Pennsylvania to an export facility in Delaware county in the east, ready to ship to Europe to manufacture plastics.

Pennsylvania is a major state for drilling natural gas. President Trump has made fracking a significant issue of his campaign in the swing state, but it's unclear how much it may help him.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including a ‘most wanted’ bear and a lost elephant seal

£2bn scheme risks becoming ‘postcode lottery’ without government action, says expert

Householders trying to apply for the government’s £5,000 Green Homes Grants to make energy improvements have described how it is nearly impossible to find an accredited installer to do the work.

Homeowners in Cornwall have been pointed towards installers as far away as Scotland, Manchester and south Wales – who understandably, are not interested in quoting for their work.

Away from the headlines, there’s an important fight happening that is pitting real estate developers and utilities against efforts to make America’s new homes more climate friendly

Some challenges to US climate action are obvious – like when Donald Trump boasts about leaving the international Paris agreement and rolling back pollution rules.

But many more play out behind the scenes. One of those is the battle over efforts to make America’s new homes and buildings more energy-efficient.