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Landmark review says urgent action needed to conserve resources and save ecosystems that supply fresh water
More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review.
Half the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water published on Thursday.
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Supermarket will buy almost two-thirds of the energy generated by the new £450m Cleve Hill solar park in Kent
Tesco has struck a deal to buy enough solar power to run 144 of its large supermarkets, buying almost two-thirds of the entire electricity output from the Cleve Hill solar park in Kent.
The £450m solar park is being built on farmland near Faversham by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a London-based firm that invests in renewable and low-carbon energy in the US, UK and Australia.
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Newly ‘discovered’ underwater topographical features are paving the way for nation states to exploit previously untouched marine resources
“The sea does not belong to despots,” Jules Verne wrote in 1869 in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. “Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at 30 feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.”
Now, more than 150 years later, geopolitics experts are warning that Verne’s final sentiment, expressed as it was through the character of Captain Nemo, was wrong. From seabeds and sea caves to sea canyons, underwater ridges, seamounts, sea knolls and reefs, academics say countries around the world are using the politics of nationalism to permanently stamp their mark on the topography of the ocean.
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Research suggests the marine animals are inhaling pollutants when they come up for air, with even rural populations affected
Microplastics have been found in dolphin breath for the first time, according to a study that suggests the marine mammals are inhaling the potentially harmful contaminants when they come up for air.
The US research team, whose preliminary findings are published in the journal, Plos One, are concerned about the potential impact of inhaled plastics on the animals’ lungs.
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Off-course bird that breeds in China and North Korea and winters in the Malay peninsula was seen at Bempton Cliffs
In September in the UK, rare birds often come from the west, swept over the Atlantic from North America on the tail end of tropical storms and the fast-flowing jet stream. But from the end of that month and well into October, birders look eastwards, hoping for visitors from Siberia. These have usually taken a wrong turn on their own migratory journey and have been brought across the North Sea on easterly winds.
Hotspots include Fair Isle and Shetland, off the northern coast of mainland Scotland, and the more accessible (for most of us) coastal headlands of Yorkshire. This autumn, as the Birdguides website reveals, both have produced the goods.
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Levy rising by €100 for each return flight after the first in a year could cut emissions by 21%, report says
A “jet-setter” tax on Europe’s frequent flyers could slow global heating and raise €64bn (£54bn) a year at no extra cost to most people, a report has found.
Carbon pollution pumped out of planes could fall by 21% if people were made to pay more for each extra flight they take beyond the first return trip, according to analysis from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and partner organisations. Just over half the benefits in a given year would come from the 5% of people who fly the most, while 72% of people would escape fees by flying once or not at all.
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The government is auctioning off plots of pristine Indigenous reserves for fossil fuel projects, with campaigners warning of a ‘silent genocide’
Above the canopy of the tallest trees that vie for sunlight in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, gas flares shoot into the sky. Below, Julio Cusurichi, 53, can see the thick, dark grease that clings to the leaves and the toxins leaking into the streams.
“Oil and gas projects are coming closer and closer. They are expanding into new lands,” says Cusurichi, a member of the Shipibo-Conibo people, a Goldman prize winner and one of Peru’s foremost Indigenous leaders. “Our territory is our life, but the government is auctioning off plots. It is a great invasion with a grave impact.”
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The destruction in northern Italy has ignited debate in a country where just 6% of homes are insured against natural disaster
It was 2am when the parish priest, Giovanni Samorì, was woken by a phone call from the mayor of Traversara ordering him to start ringing the church bells. The traditional call now forms part of the civil protection procedure deployed by many Italian towns. Its aim: to warn residents of impending calamity.
As torrential rain pounded the village, Samorì sprang into action, a task he compares to “sounding the death knell”. It worked: the evacuation of Traversara’s 480 residents was swift and, despite the priest’s foreboding, there were no deaths.
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A well-preserved thylacine head was a gruesome sight – but it also contained RNA molecules crucial to reconstructing the extinct animal’s genome
Breakthroughs sometimes turn up in unexpected places. The researchers working on the international push to bring back the thylacine say they found theirs in a bucket in the back of a cupboard at a Melbourne museum.
It contained an astonishingly well-preserved head of the extinct marsupial, also known as the Tasmanian tiger.
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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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