-
Oil Change International says plans do not stand up to scrutiny and describes US fossil-fuel corporations as ‘the worst of the worst’
Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny.
The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US and European-based international oil and gas producers – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – and found none was compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached.
Continue reading...
-
‘Critical slowing down’ of recovery raises concern over forest’s resilience to ecosystem collapse
More than a third of the Amazon rainforest is struggling to recover from drought, according to a new study that warns of a “critical slowing down” of this globally important ecosystem.
The signs of weakening resilience raise concerns that the world’s greatest tropical forest – and biggest terrestrial carbon sink – is degrading towards a point of no return.
Continue reading...
-
‘Catastrophic’ global decline due to dams, mining, diverting water and pollution threatens humans and ecosystems, study warns
Migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970, new findings show.
Populations are declining in all regions of the world, but it is happening fastest in South America and the Caribbean, where abundance of these species has dropped by 91% over the past 50 years.
Continue reading...
-
Species, with only a few dozen seen by humans since first discovered, usually lives in darkness up to 3,300ft below sea level
Oregon beachgoers stumbled across a rare find over the weekend, after a deep-sea anglerfish washed up from the ocean depths.
The discovery marked the first time this creature, which typically dwells in the darkness up to 3,300ft below sea level, was seen on Oregon shores according to the local Seaside Aquarium, which posted about it on Facebook.
Continue reading...
-
Experts call for conservation action as the features on Rapa Nui’s famous monoliths are eroded by fire and rain
The Ahu Tahai moai, on the east side of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is an impressive 4.5 metres high. Carved from a soft volcanic rock, the statue looks out solemnly over the island, with its back to the bay.
The Tahai (“where the sun sets”) and the island’s other thousand or so moai were erected roughly between 1100 and 1700 as a representation of Rapa Nui’s ancestors.
Continue reading...
-
Hollinsclough, Staffordshire: A fox has forced a pair into the air as it snuffles for eggs, and they treat us to remarkable array of vocalisations
In 40 years of attending to nature in print, I’ve almost never written about curlew sounds. I wonder if this is because they are most completely heard when we are unattending. You hear them unconsciously, as I do as I sit at my desk. Or as we wander a moor or shoreline, and we intuit the voice as being intrinsic to the setting. Curlew sounds live within the whole of the place, but to pick them out is to lose some unitary quality.
Now, alas, we cannot treat curlews as subliminal partners in our land. The population has plunged by half since 1995 and curlews are red-listed here and near-threatened globally. So the thrill of them on these Staffordshire moors carries additional melancholy. And sadness is, in truth, intrinsic to the voice. “Loveweep” was the poet WS Graham’s unforgettable coinage for curlew song. My birds, however, were faced with a fox whose snouting wander over the moor – timed to the metronomic sweep left and right of its long brush – no doubt included a search for curlew eggs.
Continue reading...
-
- Read more from the DIY Climate Changers, a new series on everyday people’s creative solutions to the climate crisis
Jim Gregory, 59, loves to cycle. More than a decade before the work-from-home revolution, the Iowa business owner was grappling with a conundrum now faced by many: how to stay active while spending so much of his day at the computer.
Jim wondered if he could combine the joy of cycling with a desire to reduce his energy consumption. Thus was born the PedalPC, a machine built from a repurposed bicycle trailer that generates enough electricity to run his computer, printer, phone chargers and home wifi.
Continue reading...
-
Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has garnered glittering prizes, but concerns have been voiced over the influence it can buy – and its interest in carbon offsets
Late last month, the coronation of Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez as environmental royalty was complete. At Conservation International’s glitzy annual gala in New York, with Harrison Ford, Jacinda Ardern and Shailene Woodley looking on, the couple were given the global visionary award for the financial contribution of the Bezos Earth Fund to the natural world.
“Jeff and Lauren are making history, not just with the sum of their investment in nature but also the speed of it,” said the Conservation International CEO, Dr M Sanjayan, whose organisation received a $20m grant from Bezos in 2021 for its work in the tropical Andes.
Continue reading...
-
Brandon Johnson promised to tackle the city’s legacy of environmental racism, with communities of color facing disproportionate climate risks
On the campaign trail, Brandon Johnson often talked about the asthma he suffered growing up just west of Chicago, connecting it to industrial pollution.
“For too long our communities have been seen as dumping grounds for waste and materials that no one seems to know what to do with,” the then mayoral candidate said at an event in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen.
Continue reading...
-
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
Why are bodies of water so calming? In my experience, this is true whether they are placid or tempestuous. Mary Vogel, Vancouver
Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them tonq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.
Continue reading...
