News follows scrapping of two other Atlantic windfarms and axing of hundreds of jobs as costs surge
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The Danish company developing the world’s largest offshore windfarm in the North Sea has been forced to delay a major project off the north-east coast of the US, months after cancelling two nearby developments and cutting hundreds of jobs.
Ørsted has pushed back the start of commercial operations at its 704 megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut by a year, to 2026.
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08/15/2024 - 05:00
More than 10,000 people sign letter to justice department for federal investigation into industry’s misinformation
Allen Myers grew up in Paradise, California, which for him is “sacred land”. At age 11, he sat beside his mother’s bedside as she passed away in his beloved family home. Years later, that house, along with 90% of the town, burned to the ground in the devastating 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people.
Today, he is demanding the fossil fuel industry be held accountable for its role in that deadly blaze and other climate disasters. Myers and 1,000 survivors of climate disasters signed a letter delivered in person to the US Department of Justice on Thursday, demanding federal investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s “climate crimes”.
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08/15/2024 - 03:46
Waterways trust boss calls incident ‘infuriating’ as Environment Agency investigates metal finishing firm
The Environment Agency has described a cyanide spill into a West Midlands canal as “unacceptable” and promised robust action if any wrongdoing is found to have occurred.
A major incident was declared after the spill of sodium cyanide into a canal in Walsall on Monday. The public have been advised to avoid about 12 miles of canals and towpaths in the area and on Thursday a UK waterways boss described the situation as “distressing” and “infuriating”.
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08/15/2024 - 03:36
The bank is latest to be named by officials in the US state, which has law to protect oil and gas sector
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Texas officials have added NatWest Group to a growing list of financial firms considered to be taking part in a “boycott” of energy companies, in a move that could limit the UK bank’s business with the oil-rich US state.
The high street banking group is the latest company to be targeted by the Texas comptroller, Glenn Hegar, who has been naming companies that restrict their business dealings with climate-harming fossil fuel firms.
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08/15/2024 - 01:00
Increasing tree cover in urban areas could reduce heat-related deaths – but a fight has ensued between corporate interests and residents
It’s 9pm on a blistering July night in Plaza de Santa Ana, a square at the heart of Madrid’s literary district. The thermometer has barely dropped below 39C, but despite the heat a 78-year-old woman climbs on to a bench to give an impassioned speech to a 200-strong crowd.
“Did you think we weren’t going to be here, Señor Almeida?” She scans the crowd, searching for José Luis Martínez-Almeida, Madrid’s mayor, while anguished cries of “Arboricida!” (tree murder) punctuate the silence. Her face is immediately recognisable. She is movie star Marisa Paredes, an actor immortalised in Almodóvar classics such as High Heels – just one of many activists trying to stop what seems like a concerted campaign to strip central Madrid of its trees.
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08/15/2024 - 00:49
Exclusive: Fish farms in Macquarie Harbour are the greatest threat to survival of ancient ray-like species, scientists advising Australian government find
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Scientists advising the Australian government on how to save the threatened Maugean skate from extinction have recommended the salmon industry be either scaled back dramatically or removed from Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour after finding fish farms are the greatest threat to its survival.
The advice is included in a report by the government’s threatened species scientific committee that says the skate – an ancient ray-like species found only in the harbour in the state’s west – should be considered critically endangered.
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08/15/2024 - 00:00
Rentokil to use the wasps as a sustainable alternative to sprays in museums and homes
The newest recruits for the battle against moths will be the smallest pest control team in town.
Rentokil plans to release entosite parasitoid wasps into the nooks and crannies of museums, heritage sites and homes to stop moth infestations.
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08/14/2024 - 23:00
Butterfly numbers in the UK appear to be at the lowest on record after a wet spring and summer dampened their chances of mating. This comes on top of a long and worrying trend of decline. To find out what’s going on and what we can all do to help butterflies cope with extreme weather patterns, Phoebe Weston speaks to Dr Richard Fox, the head of science for the charity Butterfly Conservation, and to Matthew Hayes, who is part of the Banking on Butterflies project, a collaboration between the Insect Ecology Group at the zoology department in Cambridge University and the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire
‘Warning sign to us all’ as UK butterfly numbers hit record low
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08/14/2024 - 23:00
Surveys suggest that wet weather and habitat deterioration are among the causes of devastating population declines, but there are ways to help
When Christina Letanka moved to Chiddingly village in East Sussex 28 years ago, insects were everywhere. “Everything was prolific when we first arrived,” she says. The kitchen used to be full of flies during the day and moths at night, swarming under the light. “Now they’ve all gone.”
Fewer butterflies, wasps and hornets dance around in the garden. “Normally everything comes out with the buddleia, but this year has been surprisingly bad – it’s dead,” Letanka says. “Is it the wet? I don’t know what’s happened. It’s been truly shocking.”
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08/14/2024 - 23:00
After a series of mass mortality events, it is more common to find these huge Mediterranean clams dead. Which is why the species’ ‘biggest fangirl of all’, Susan Smillie, is thrilled to see a thriving population in Greece
I swim and I stare as my shadow causes panic on the seabed below. Shells snap shut, one, two, three. Alive, alive, alive. I am so happy to see them: noble pen shells, all improbably but indisputably alive. These giant Mediterranean clams are a species on the verge of extinction, with so few left that it is rare to find one living anywhere in Europe.
Often known as fan mussels, the moniker is a suitable one for this beautiful bivalve, its pearlescent point dug into the sand, fanning up to a rounded posterior. I’m in the Amvrakikos Gulf on the west coast of Greece, where I have the privilege of watching these creatures grow. Their presence is such good news that Spanish scientists have flown in to see the clams for themselves as part of an EU project focused on trying to rescue, and hopefully expand, what is left of the pen shell population.
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