Representatives at the Cop16 summit in Colombia negotiated against a backdrop of extreme weather and ecosystem collapse
As world leaders gathered in Colombia this week, they also watched for news from home, where many of the headlines carried the catastrophic consequences of ecological breakdown. Across the Amazon rainforest and Brazil’s enormous wetlands, relentless fires had burned more than 22m hectares (55m acres). In Spain, the death toll in communities devastated by flooding passed 200. In the boreal forests that span Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada, countries were recording alarming signs that their carbon sinks were collapsing under a combined weight of drought, tree death and logging. As Canada’s wildfire season crept to a close, scientists calculated it was the second worst in two decades – behind only last year’s burn, which released more carbon than some of the world’s largest emitting countries.
In global negotiations, climate and nature move along two independent tracks, and for years were broadly treated as distinct challenges. But as negotiations closed at the Cop16 biodiversity summit in Cali on Saturday, ministers from around the world underscored the crucial importance of nature to limiting damage from global heating, and vice versa – emphasising that climate and biodiversity could no longer be treated as independent issues if either crisis was to be resolved. Countries agreed a text on links between the climate and nature, but failed to include language on a phase out of fossil fuels.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/04/2024 - 01:00
11/03/2024 - 13:39
Media reported stories of survivors including the woman trapped in her car in a flooded underpass for 72 hours
Her car was among the scores that were swept up in Spain’s deadly floods, tossed about by the mud-coloured waters that surged on to streets. But after 72 hours spent trapped in an underpass, the woman was hailed as one of the lucky ones.
“After three days, we found someone alive in their car,” Martín Pérez, the head of Valencia’s civil protection service, told volunteers on Saturday. The announcement prompted hearty applause.
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11/03/2024 - 12:00
Conservationists worry amendment 2 will open the door to banned practices like blast fishing and undercut their work
On election day, Florida voters will decide whether to enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish in their state.
Amendment 2, proposed by the Republican state lawmaker Lauren Melo, seeks to “preserve traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife”.
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11/03/2024 - 11:54
Ashes of 28-year-old female grizzly bear returned to Grand Teton national park where she spent much of her life
The remains of a beloved grizzly bear who died last month after being hit by a car in Wyoming have been returned to Grand Teton national park.
In a statement released on Friday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it returned the ashes of Grizzly No 399, a 28-year-old female grizzly bear, to the Pilgrim Creek area of the national park where she spent much of her life.
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11/03/2024 - 11:09
More than 130 organisations take part in protest demanding government action over country’s sewage crisis
Thousands of blue-clad protesters have told the government to “stop poisoning Britain’s water” as they marched through London calling for action on the country’s contaminated coastal waters and rivers.
A coalition of more than 130 nature, environmental and water-sport organisations called supporters out on to the streets of the capital on Sunday afternoon, aiming to create the country’s biggest ever protest over water.
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11/03/2024 - 10:38
Letter by 61 Labour MPs supports ‘cheapest and most pragmatic’ plan for new electricity infrastructure
More than 60 Labour MPs have formed a bloc to push back against anti-pylon lobbying by Conservative and Green MPs, saying they back plans to build the pylons despite local opposition in several areas.
MPs, particularly in rural areas, have come under mounting pressure from anti-pylon activists to oppose the infrastructure. The Tories found themselves forced to commit to hold a “rapid review” of overhead pylons in their July manifesto.
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11/03/2024 - 08:21
King Felipe heckled in Paiporta, one of the municipalities worst affected by last week’s floods
Hundreds of people have heckled Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia, as well as the prime minister and the regional leader of Valencia – throwing mud and shouting “murderers” – as the group attempted an official visit to one of the municipalities hardest hit by the deadly floods.
The scenes playing out in Paiporta on Sunday laid bare the mounting sense of abandonment among the devastated areas and the lingering anger over why an alert urging residents not to leave home on Tuesday was sent after the flood waters began surging.
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11/03/2024 - 07:39
It turns out long-held resentments exist even in the animal kingdom. Does that mean they hold an evolutionary advantage?
The best thing that happened to me during the whole of the pandemic was a story on the internet. An Oregon resident, furloughed, saw on a daytime nature documentary that, if you fed crows, they would bring you small gifts. Curious, they tried it, and were delighted to find themselves in effective possession of a 15-strong crow family – but then things took a dark turn. The crows became an army, fiercely protective of their leader’s property. If neighbours came near, the crows would dive-bomb them. “To be clear,” the person wrote on Reddit, “they’re not aggressive 100% of the time. If just the neighbours are out [on their own porch], they are friendly, normal crows. They only get aggressive when someone gets close to me or my property.”
It’s such a lovely phrase, “friendly, normal crows”; it’s just a pity that it’s an oxymoron. Crows are the most prodigious grudge-holders – something that John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife at the University of Washington, Seattle, discovered by capturing seven of the birds while wearing an ogre mask in 2006. A full 17 years later, crows were still regularly attacking him. Even if you were to query the ethics of his original experiment, you’d have to admit that he paid a high price. How such a thing is possible when the lifespan of a crow is only 12 years is this: not only can they hold a grudge, they can also pass it on to one another. Originally, even birds that witnessed the ogre-trap attacked Marzluff, then over time they transmitted the hostility to their offspring, creating a multigenerational grudge.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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11/03/2024 - 07:00
A second Trump term will threaten everything from freedom of the press and gun safety to foreign policy and climate change. The impact will be felt in many aspects of American life and across the world
If Donald Trump returns to the White House for a second term as president, the impact will be felt in many aspects of American life and also across the world.
On almost every issue of domestic US policy – from immigration to the environment to gun laws to LGBTQ+ rights – Trump has tacked far to the right of the American mainstream.
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11/03/2024 - 04:54
Brutal economic situation has inflicted misery on farmers who struggle to turn a profit and forced some to look for alternative streams of revenue
Revealed: billionaires are ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ linked to €3bn of EU farming subsidies
When Coen van den Bighelaar first spoke to school friends about taking over their parents’ dairy farms, he was the only one of the four to voice serious doubts. Fresh out of university, he was making more money in a comfortable office than his father did toiling for twice as long in the field.
But six years later, Bighelaar has followed in his parents’ footsteps, while his friends’ enthusiasm has waned. One quit farming to take a job in logistics. Another opened a daycare centre to supplement the income from selling milk. A third is thinking about buying land and moving to Canada.
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