Much of the land near the atomic bomb’s birthplace was converted to recreational areas, but toxic waste remains
Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed.
Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, said the plutonium levels in and around New Mexico’s Acid Canyon were among the highest he had ever seen in a publicly accessible area in the US during his decades-long career – comparable to what is found in Ukraine at the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/26/2024 - 07:00
08/26/2024 - 06:00
From the merveille du jour to the burnished brass, Britain’s 2,500 species of moths are all special in their own way
Tim Blackburn is professor of invasion biology at UCL and author of The Jewel Box: How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules
Let me start with a confession: I love moths. If your instant reaction to that statement is a shudder and expression of dislike (or worse), be assured that you’re not alone. It is the commonest response I get. But before you scroll on or turn the page, I hope you will give me a couple of minutes of your time to persuade you to change your mind. Moths are extremely important and beautiful creatures, and we should all love them.
Almost all of them, anyway. There’s a couple of tiny species that nibble holes in your jumpers and chew your carpets, and I’m not going to try to make you love those. Feel free to hate them with a vengeance, particularly as autumn draws in and you open your jumper drawer to find unwanted evidence of their labours. But Britain has about 2,500 other species of moths, and it would be unfair to let the clothes moths colour your perceptions of the other 99.9%. And the others really are special, in all sorts of ways.
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08/26/2024 - 01:39
Incident happened as tour group of 25 was visiting Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in south-east of country
At least one person has died and two others are missing after an ice cave partially collapsed as a group of tourists was visiting a glacier in southern Iceland.
In a statement posted on social media, local police said first responders received a call shortly before 3pm on Sunday. They said a group of about 25 foreign tourists from several nationalities were exploring ice caves at the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier when four people were hit by ice.
Two people were seriously injured, one dying from their injuries at the scene of the accident, another taken by helicopter to a hospital in the capital, reportedly in a stable condition.
A large number of rescuers worked throughout the afternoon and into the evening searching for the two missing people. The operation was paused after dark due to the dangerous conditions but was to resume in the morning, police said.
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08/26/2024 - 01:00
Major report released at 4pm on Friday with no media release or a press conference from Tanya Plibersek
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A leading conservation group has accused the government of trying to “bury bad news” about the health of the Great Barrier Reef by releasing a major five-yearly outlook report on Friday afternoon.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s 600-page report said the “window of opportunity to secure a positive future” for the reef was “closing rapidly” and the outlook for the ecosystem was “very poor”.
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08/25/2024 - 04:32
Dion George says avoiding extinction of African penguin is his objective, and settling case aimed at stopping fishing around major colonies will help
South Africa’s new environment minister has said he wants to stop African penguins from going extinct by taking measures including settling a case brought by two environmental charities to stop fishing around the birds’ major colonies.
BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCOB) said they want an extension of no-fishing zones around six beaches and islands where the penguins breed, after failing to reach an agreement with fishing industry groups demanded by the previous minister.
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08/24/2024 - 23:00
The International Whaling Commission has become a ‘zombie’ and should vote to disband itself, insists Peter Bridgewater
Peter Bridgewater has a clear message for the International Whaling Commission (IWC) that he once led. The organisation – which played a critical role in ending whale hunting in the 1980s – has become a zombie institution that should vote to disband itself at its meeting next month.
“The commission did great work, but that was last century,” Bridgewater told the Observer last week. “Today it has – like so many other international conventions or organisations – outlived its useful life and should be quietly disbanded.”
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08/24/2024 - 15:00
Australia must urgently halt new fossil fuel projects and scale up investment in renewable energies such as solar and wind
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My first visit to the Pacific Islands was in 1981 and, for two decades, I spent several months each year carrying out biodiversity surveys and conservation work there. Even in the 1980s, Pacific communities were acutely aware of climate change, experiencing it first-hand through rising seas and intensifying storms. Over time, their understanding of the role that climate pollution plays in worsening these impacts has deepened, leading to a highly organised movement to limit pollution from big coal and gas exporters such as Australia.
As the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) approaches, Australia must urgently align with the position of its Pacific neighbours and take decisive action to reduce climate pollution further and faster.
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08/24/2024 - 10:00
From Starbucks to local cafes, Petaluma’s reusable cup project aims to cut down on rampant plastic waste
A line of purple, plastic cups grows longer on the counter at Avid Coffee as Sam Gearhard takes orders at the Petaluma, California, store on a recent weekday morning.
The cups might seem unassuming, but they’re part of a groundbreaking new scheme that has the community buzzing. Instead of the single-use paper or plastic cups that Gearhard would usually line up for the barista slinging espresso, he’s passing over shiny new reusable cups that bear the slogan “Sip, Return, Repeat”. Customers who need their lattes to go can take the purple cups with them, then return them to one of 60 bins scattered across downtown Petaluma when they’ve finished. Each cup comes with a trackable QR code to help monitor results.
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08/24/2024 - 08:00
The Chips and Science Act has led to a production boom but experts say it could generate huge amounts of toxic waste
Producers of PFAS chemicals and semiconductors, a key part of most electronics, have formed a group that develops industry-friendly science aimed at heading off regulation as facilities release high levels of toxic waste, documents seen by the Guardian show.
The group, called the PFAS Consortium, was formed during a boom in domestic semiconductor production spurred by the Chips and Science Act that has led to $825bn in investment aimed at shoring up the industry.
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08/24/2024 - 00:00
I see looming political and environmental threats – and too few willing to address them. Where is the urgency?
The world is on fire. At no time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has the world looked so dangerous, nor has an end to its 56 conflicts – the highest number since the second world war – seemed so distant and so difficult to achieve.
Distracted by domestic election campaigns, preoccupied by internal divisions and blindsided by the seismic geopolitical shifts happening beneath our feet, the world is sleepwalking into a “one world, two systems”, “China v America” future. And the cooperation needed to firefight is proving so elusive that even now, an international agreement to prepare for and prevent global pandemics remains beyond our grasp. Nor, even up against the existential problem of climate change (the planet is on course for a temperature increase of 2.7C above pre-industrial levels), can many hold out hopes that Cop29 in Azerbaijan will be equal to the challenge. At a time when global problems urgently need global solutions, the gap between what we need to do and our capacity – or, more accurately, our willingness – to do so is widening by the minute.
We are at a global turning point, not just because crises are multiplying far beyond the very public tragedies of the Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, but because in a year when nearly half the world has gone to the polls, few political candidates have been prepared to acknowledge the altered geopolitical landscape. For three seismic shifts that are bringing to an end the unipolar, neoliberal hyperglobalised world of the last 30 years make a total rethink essential.
Gordon Brown is a former UK prime minister; he will give a keynote lecture at the Edinburgh international festival on Sunday 25 August
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