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Marshall Islands’ vanishing kit for a team under threat from climate crisis
The isolated Pacific nation is trying to build its first football team amid a battle for survival against rising sea levels
The Marshall Islands, an isolated sprawl of atolls covering 750,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean but home to barely 42,000 people, may be the final frontier for the world’s most popular sport. It claims to be the last country on Earth without a football team, and to this day, the islands have never hosted an 11-a-side game.
Until recently, football was an alien concept in a nation occupied by the US since the second world war, with baseball and basketball the traditional sports. As interest has grown in recent years, another barrier has emerged. Land has always been at a premium on these fragile shores, but never more than now with rising sea levels bringing fears of permanent flooding.
Continue reading...Reeves’s Heathrow expansion plans leave Labour’s green agenda grounded
The chancellor’s apparent volte-face in backing a third runway has left many in her party disillusioned and led them to label it as an act of desperation
In 2020, Rachel Reeves, the MP for Leeds West and Pudsey, was clear why she opposed expansion of nearby Leeds Bradford airport. It would, she said, “significantly increase air and noise pollution”, so on environmental grounds, it should not happen.
By the autumn of 2021, as shadow chancellor, Reeves was the senior Labour figure chosen to lead her party’s hugely ambitious plans for a green industrial revolution.
Continue reading...Reeves’s Heathrow third runway report was commissioned by London airport
The chancellor is under fire after a study cited as evidence for expanding the terminal to boost the UK’s economic growth was ordered by Heathrow itself
Rachel Reeves was facing criticism on Saturday night as it was confirmed that a report she cited as evidence that a third runway at Heathrow would boost the UK economy was commissioned by the airport itself.
Experts and green groups also challenged Reeves’s view that advances in the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) had been a “gamechanger” that would substantially limit the environmental damage of flying, saying the claims were overblown and did not stand up to scrutiny.
Continue reading...Chris Riddell on Rachel Reeves’ burnt offerings to the golden calf of growth – cartoon
A third Heathrow runway, planning law reform to build more houses and a windfall tax on oil and gas – but will it all make up for the cost of Brexit?
Continue reading...‘Humanure’: RHS plans rollout of first compost toilet to fertilise flowerbeds
The horticultural charity’s showpiece garden in Surrey is setting aside an space to test human waste fertiliser
For more than 200 years, gardeners at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have been reaping the benefits of using compost and manure in their flowerbeds.
But until now, they have never had the satisfaction of using compost created from their own human waste.
Continue reading...7 Steps L.A. Could Take to Gird Against Future Wildfires
‘It’s incredible, the place just swarms with birdlife’: inside England’s biggest bird sanctuary
The reserve in Geltsdale in the north Pennines has been expanded by a third after RSPB buys land
It covers more than 50 square kilometres of blanket bog, heath, meadows and woodland and rises from a valley floor to the 640m summit of Cold Fell in the north Pennines. This is RSPB Geltsdale, and it will now be the organisation’s largest English bird sanctuary when the society announces this week that it has bought land that expands the existing reserve by a third.
“This is going to be a reserve on a different scale from many of our other sites in England,” said Beccy Speight, the RSPB’s chief executive.
Continue reading...Trump’s Halt on Climate Spending Freezes Jobs and Stalls Projects
In Trump’s fantasy politics, he can accomplish anything – but reality will prevail | Andy Beckett
His second term seems to represent an unassailable victory for conservative white men – but soon he’ll be another incumbent in an anti-incumbent world
Why exactly is Donald Trump’s new presidency so disorienting? So far, explanations have tended to focus on its manic pace, contempt for political conventions and blatant subversion of supposedly one of the world’s most robust democracies.
But all these elements were also present in his first presidency. Meanwhile, other features of both his terms, such as his cult of personality, scapegoating of immigrants and accusation that liberal elites have caused national decline, are standard practice for hard-right strongmen, and have been for at least a century.
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Labour warned it risks losing support for net zero if costs not spread fairly
Exclusive: Chief climate adviser calls on Starmer to make ‘strong, confident’ case for green UK that public can buy into
Ensuring that the costs of decarbonisation are shared fairly across society must be a top priority for ministers or they risk losing public support for net zero, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should be making a “strong, confident” case for decarbonisation as an engine of economic growth, according to Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, the independent statutory adviser.
Continue reading...Leaders in the Pacific raise alarm over ‘direct impact’ of Trump’s climate retreat and aid freeze
Samoa’s prime minister says US withdrawal from Paris climate agreement is ‘very disappointing’ and puts the survival of Pacific countries at greater risk
Leaders and environmental advocates in the Pacific have expressed alarm over Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and freeze foreign aid, warning the moves will accelerate the existential threats they face as nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
The Paris agreement is the world’s main effort to address the impacts of the climate crisis. Trump has called it “unfair” and a “rip off”.
Continue reading...Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis
Forest service website among many sites affected as agencies scramble to comply with president’s orders
On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to unpublish its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.
By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”
Continue reading...The week around the world in 20 pictures
Palestinians return to Gaza, Americans survey the aftermath of the Palisades fire and Hindus gather at the Shahi Snan in India: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
Continue reading...‘Perfect rat storm’: urban rodent numbers soar as the climate heats, study finds
Sharp rise in population in 11 of 16 cities expected to continue as rising temperatures make it easier for the animals to breed, say researchers
Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows.
Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed “significant increasing trends in rat numbers”, said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue.
Continue reading...The Climate Fix: Africa’s Solar Revolution
‘We’d go absolutely nuts’: PM warned of Labour fight if he backs huge oilfield
Exclusive: MPs and ministers say they would oppose Starmer if he tries to approve Rosebank development
Senior Labour figures are warning of a serious fight if Keir Starmer tries to give the go-ahead to a giant new oilfield off Shetland later this year.
MPs and ministers have told the Guardian they are prepared to oppose the UK prime minister should he try and give final consent to the Rosebank development, which is Britain’s biggest untapped oilfield.
Continue reading...Britain’s favourite fish at risk of wipeout within decades, predicts report
Brown trout unlikely to survive in most rivers at height of summer by 2080, says Environment Agency
It has been native to Britain for thousands of years and was heralded as the national fish on the BBC’s Springwatch, but a government report suggests the brown trout risks being wiped out in large parts of England within decades.
The first national temperature projections for English rivers by the Environment Agency forecasts that by 2080 the water will be too warm almost everywhere in England at the height of summer for the Salmo trutta species to feed and grow.
Continue reading...Farmland in England to be reduced by more than 10% under government plans
Grassland for livestock faces largest cut, so people will be encouraged to eat less meat, says environment secretary
Farmland in England will be reduced by more than 10% by 2050 under government plans, with less meat produced and eaten by the country’s citizens.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, launched the government’s blueprint for land use change on Friday, designed to balance the need to build infrastructure and meet nature and carbon targets.
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