An ecologically realistic 24-year field study of grasslands showed that elevated levels of carbon dioxide nearly tripled species losses attributed to nitrogen pollution.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/16/2024 - 10:58
10/16/2024 - 10:56
From Tasmania to Madagascar to New Guinea, islands make up just over five per cent of Earth's land yet are home to 31 per cent of the world's plant species. A new study shows that of all plants classified as threatened worldwide, more than half are unique to islands, facing risks from habitat loss, climate warming and invasive species.
10/16/2024 - 10:00
The devastation wrought by Helene and Milton could shake up priorities and bring the climate crisis more to the fore
Despite its enormous implications, the climate crisis has so far mostly been a dormant issue in the US presidential election. Some hope the devastation wrought in quick succession by two major hurricanes will shake up the priorities of American voters before a stark choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on polling day.
Last month, Hurricane Helene became one of the deadliest storms ever to hit the US, killing more than 220 people and causing billions of dollars in damage as it tore a path northwards, through the key election swing states of Georgia and North Carolina. This was followed two weeks later by Hurricane Milton, which rampaged across Florida.
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10/16/2024 - 08:11
Bailiffs working on behalf of TfL recoup £25m in 12 months from people who refuse to pay penalty charge notices
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More than 1,400 vehicles have been seized from drivers who have persistently ignored fines relating to London’s Ulez clean air zone, Transport for London has revealed, with more than £25m being recouped by bailiffs.
Bailiffs working on TfL’s behalf seized 1,429 vehicles in the last year from drivers who had repeatedly ignored penalty charge notices, with £710,000 being raised from the sale of nearly 800 of these cars.
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10/16/2024 - 06:30
Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see ‘funga’ get global legal consideration distinct from flora and fauna
A new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.
Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October.
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10/16/2024 - 06:00
The South American leaders are in the spotlight as they prepare to host this week’s Cop16 biodiversity summit, November’s G20 meeting and next year’s Cop30 climate summit
The rainforest nations of Brazil and Colombia have the best opportunity in a generation to drag the Amazon back from the abyss as they host three of the world’s most important environmental negotiations in the space of little more than a year.
In the process, their leaders – pacesetting Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and the more cautious and contradictory Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will offer up overlapping visions for the future of the Amazon, and the world’s path to net zero.
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10/16/2024 - 05:00
More than 94,000 birds have died at Tule Lake wildlife refuge in northern California, its worst recorded epidemic
An ongoing outbreak of botulism, a bacterial illness that causes muscle paralysis, has killed more than 94,000 birds at Tule Lake national wildlife refuge in northern California, the worst such outbreak at the lake ever recorded, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Affected birds often cannot control their muscles and suffocate in the water, said biologist and ornithologist Teresa Wicks with Bird Alliance of Oregon, who works in the area. “It’s a very traumatic thing to see,” Wicks said.
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10/16/2024 - 05:00
Tech barons are forever predicting some amazing new technology to fix the climate crisis. Yet fixes already exist
There are so many ways to fiddle while Rome burns, or as this season’s weather would have it, gets torn apart by hurricanes and tornadoes and also goes underwater – and, in other places, burns. One particularly pernicious way comes from the men in love with big tech, who are forever insisting that we need some amazing new technology to solve our problems, be it geoengineering, carbon sequestration or fusion – but wait, it gets worse.
At an artificial intelligence conference in Washington DC, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that “[w]e’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it” and that we should just plunge ahead with AI, which is so huge an energy hog it’s prompted a number of tech companies to abandon their climate goals. Schmidt then threw out the farfetched notion that we should go all in on AI because maybe AI will somehow, maybe, eventually know how to “solve” climate, saying: “I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.”
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
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10/16/2024 - 04:30
Wolsingham school’s carbon-cutting event had been planned by pupils but parents raised concerns
A school has made a U-turn on a student-led plan to turn the heating off for a “blue nose” climate action day after parents raised concerns.
The heating was due to be turned off at Wolsingham school, County Durham, on Friday but the plan has now been postponed until the summer term of next year when it is likely to be warmer.
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Coalition pledge to subsidise Australia’s most expensive form of energy makes ‘no sense’, Labor says
10/16/2024 - 02:16
Chris Bowen questions why gas companies who already produce energy should get windfall gain under opposition’s plan
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Labor says a Coalition pledge to offer subsidies to existing and new gas power plants makes “no sense” and would ensure fossil fuel plants that are already in the grid receive windfall gains.
In a speech to an Australian Pipelines and Gas Association Convention in Adelaide, the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said that gas would be “here to stay” under the Coalition.
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