Jaguars, giant armadillos and ocelots among species threatened by shrinking habitat in one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world
In the Gran Chaco forest, vast green expanses – home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys – have turned to fields of dust. The forest once brimmed with life, says Bashe Nuhem, a member of the Indigenous Qom community, but then came a road, and soon after that logging companies. “It was an invasion. Loggers came without any consultation and families moved away. Those that stayed were left with only a cemetery of trees,” she says.
The Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon; its 100m hectares (247m acres) stretch across Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. It is also one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world – host to more than 3,400 species of plants, 500 birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles and 100 amphibians.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/07/2025 - 08:00
05/07/2025 - 08:00
Party intends to block projects despite net zero industries contributing nearly £1bn to local economy, analysis shows
UK politics live – latest updates
Reform UK’s plans to obstruct green energy projects in Lincolnshire put at risk almost £1bn in local investment and more than 12,000 jobs, analysis suggests.
No 10 said it would fight any attempt by the party to dismantle or block renewable investment in the area, after its deputy leader, Richard Tice, said Reform-controlled councils and its mayors would be able to block what he called “net stupid zero” infrastructure, including solar farms, pylons and battery storage systems.
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 05:42
Trials will test ways to block sunlight and slow climate crisis that threatens to trigger catastrophic tipping points
Real-world geoengineering experiments spanning the globe from the Arctic to the Great Barrier Reef are being funded by the UK government. They will test sun-reflecting particles in the stratosphere, brightening reflective clouds using sprays of seawater and pumping water on to sea ice to thicken it.
Getting this “critical missing scientific data” is vital with the Earth nearing several catastrophic climate tipping points, said the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), the government agency backing the plan. If demonstrated to be safe, geoengineering could temporarily cool the planet and give more time to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis: the burning of fossil fuels.
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 05:00
On average, five fatal whale strikes occur in the country’s waters each year, the highest in the world – and just a fraction of the total number killed, say researchers
Photographs by Francis Pérez
The memory of a blue whale gliding past his small boat haunts Patricio Ortiz. A deep wound disfigured the cetacean’s giant body – a big chunk had been ripped from its dorsal fin. Cargo ships are the only adversary capable of inflicting such harm on a blue whale, he says.
“Nothing can be done when they’re up against those floating monsters.”
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 04:53
Feeding the world sustainably is an incredibly complex challenge, yet some people are trying to sell us a bucolic fairytale
The fire that has just destroyed 500 hectares (1,230 acres) of Dartmoor should have been impossible. It should not be a fire-prone landscape. But sheep, cattle and ponies have made it so. They selectively browse out tree seedlings, preventing the return of temperate rainforest, which is extremely difficult to burn. In dry weather, the moor grass, bracken and heather covering the deforested landscape are tinder.
The plume of carbon dioxide and smoke released this week is one of the many impacts of livestock grazing. But several recent films, alongside celebrities, politicians, billionaires and far-right podcasts, seek to persuade us that cattle and sheep are good for the atmosphere and the living planet. This story, wrapped in romantic cottagecore, is now the most active and seductive frontier of climate-science denial. It is heavily promoted by the meat industry, which is as ruthless and machiavellian as the fossil fuel industry. It sows confusion among people desperately seeking to do the right thing in an age of misinformation.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 04:00
Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes
The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study.
While researchers have previously shown that higher income groups emit disproportionately large amounts of greenhouse gases, the latest survey is the first to try to pin down how that inequality translates into responsibility for climate breakdown. It offers a powerful argument for climate finance and wealth taxes by attempting to give an evidential basis for how many people in the developed world – including more than 50% of full-time employees in the UK – bear a heightened responsibility for the climate disasters affecting people who can least afford it.
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 03:11
Ørsted cancels fourth stage of Hornsea project off Yorkshire coast, which was set to include enough turbines to power 1m homes
The world’s biggest wind power developer has cancelled plans for one of the UK’s largest offshore windfarms in a significant blow to the government’s green energy targets.
The Danish wind power company Ørsted said the Hornsea 4 project no longer made economic sense because of soaring costs in the industry’s global supply chain, after it won a government contract two years ago.
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 00:53
Data suggests pollution from energy is falling again after previously stalling, but experts say faster growth needed to achieve Labor goal of 82% renewable electricity by 2030
Australia news live: latest politics and federal election updates
Get our breaking news email,free app ordaily news podcast
Renewable energy generation rose substantially in Australia’s main power grid over the past year, producing 43% of electricity used across the five eastern states and the ACT between January and March.
The increase – from 39% last year – came as generation from black and brown coal-fired power plants fell to its lowest level on record for the first quarter, in part due to ageing stations being unavailable due to outages. Gas-fired electricity generation was also down.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 00:00
Emissions from abandoned coalmines, oil and gas wells globally are larger than any single country except China, the US and Russia
Abandoned coalmines and oil and gas wells are now one of the biggest sources of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, new data shows, and little effort is being made to clean them up.
The methane emissions from abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure now exceed those from Iran, and if considered as a country would be the fourth biggest source in the world, behind China, the US and Russia.
Continue reading...
05/07/2025 - 00:00
Whitehall analysis provides no data or research to support the government argument that environmental legislation holds up building
There is very little evidence that protections for nature are a blocker to development, the government has admitted in its own impact assessment of the controversial new planning and infrastructure bill.
The analysis by Whitehall officials provides no data or research to back up the government’s central argument that it is environmental legislation that holds up building.
Continue reading...
