World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause
Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death trap” conditions during recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years such as this one had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/25/2024 - 10:02
04/25/2024 - 10:00
Channel Ten show’s planned use of biomethane and hydrogen in cooking challenges ‘completely out of sync’ with changing attitudes, critics say
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Environmentalists have accused the hit reality TV show MasterChef Australia of greenwashing after the Network Ten program announced sponsorship deals with gas companies.
The official sponsors for MasterChef’s 16th season include the Australian Gas Network (AGN), a subsidiary of Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, which is responsible for a national fossil fuel distribution network.
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04/25/2024 - 08:44
Proposed global treaty to curb production represents challenge to producers of fossil fuels, from which most plastics are made
The number of fossil fuel and petrochemical industry lobbyists at UN talks to agree the first global treaty to cut plastic pollution has increased by more than a third, according to an analysis.
Most plastic is made from fossil fuels, via a chemical process known as cracking, and 196 lobbyists from both industries are at the UN talks in Ottawa, Canada, where countries are attempting to come to an agreement to curb plastic production as part of a treaty to cut global plastic waste, according to analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel).
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04/25/2024 - 07:05
Scheme for plastic bottles and cans put back to 2027 while environment minister says glass recycling ‘unduly’ complex
A UK deposit return scheme for recycling drinks bottles has been delayed to 2027, meaning it will not be in place until almost a decade after it was proposed.
Campaigners say the delay is a “huge disappointment”, adding they are doubly dismayed that the plan will not include glass bottles.
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04/25/2024 - 06:35
New EPA directive will cut pollution equivalent to the emissions of 328m cars, but industry group decries it as a ‘reckless plan’
Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to the climate crisis. The rules are a key part of Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.
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04/25/2024 - 06:17
Energy watchdog warns pace must accelerate to hit targets after new batteries increased capacity by 130%
The rollout of batteries across the global electricity industry more than doubled last year but will need to be six times faster if the world hopes to meet its renewable energy targets, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A report from the global energy watchdog found that new batteries totalling 42 gigawatts (GW) were plugged into electricity systems around the world last year, increasing total capacity by more than 130% from the year before to 85GW.
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04/25/2024 - 06:00
Years after the emergency, the Michigan city is yet to replace all lead pipes and affected families are still awaiting justice
Earlier this month, Brittany Thomas received a call that her 11-year-old daughter Janiyah had experienced a seizure at school.
“She’d been seizure-free for about two years now,” said Thomas, a resident of Flint, Michigan. “And they just came back.”
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04/25/2024 - 06:00
Mona Hanna-Attisha launched a program to provide funds during a newborn’s first year – and wants to replicate it across the country
In 2015, Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha alerted the world that children were being poisoned by lead in the water of her home town of Flint, Michigan. Now, as Flint marks the 10-year anniversary of the crisis, she’s set her sights on another target: the underlying poverty that she says allowed it to all happen.
“For a long time, I have literally wished for the ability to prescribe an antidote to poverty,” Hanna-Attisha said. Study after study has shown poverty-related stress and lack of resources can damage everything from babies’ physical health to children’s abilities to learn and later thrive in careers. In Flint, which has a majority Black population, an astounding 47.6% of children live in poverty, according to a 2022 analysis of census data.
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04/25/2024 - 05:00
As the climate crisis has deepened, protesters have become more confrontational – and their ambitions have grown
The head of ExxonMobil told to “eat shit” as he was about to receive an award. A US senator and coal boss called a “sick fuck”, almost sparking a brawl. Theatre shows interrupted. As the climate crisis has deepened, protests aimed at those deemed responsible are becoming starkly personal, and often confrontational.
At the vanguard of this new style of in-your-face activism is Climate Defiance, a group of just a handful of core staffers now marking its first birthday following a year of disrupting, often crudely, the usually mundane procession of talks, speeches and panels that feature Joe Biden administration officials, oil company bosses and financiers.
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04/25/2024 - 03:53
Scottish first minister says scrapping power-sharing deal ‘marks a new beginning for the SNP government’
UK politics – latest updates
Humza Yousaf has put the Scottish National party on an election footing after unilaterally scrapping his party’s landmark coalition with the Greens and signalling he will drop vote-losing policies.
In a surprise move early on Thursday morning, the first minister called in the Scottish Greens’ two co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, to tell them they were being sacked, as he axed a power-sharing deal first hailed as a new era in consensus politics.
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