Water firm Severn Trent accused of being in breach of environmental permits over pollution near Malvern Hills
• Top-rated UK water firms ‘dumped 1,374 illegal spills into rivers’
Colwall, a village of less than 3,000 people on the border between Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is renowned for its spring water, which comes from the nearby Malvern Hills. An area of outstanding natural beauty, it has been favoured by the royal family for centuries, including Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.
But the water at Colwall is now in the spotlight for very different reasons. The most recent data from Severn Trent Water, the company that covers the area, reveals that a sewage treatment works on Cradley Brook, near the village, spilled sewage for 1,756 hours in 2021 and 1,361 hours in 2022.
Continue reading...
10/13/2024 - 00:00
10/13/2024 - 00:00
We are losing in the fight against global warming, it is time to put effort into controlling what we pump into the atmosphere
The havoc unleashed by Hurricane Milton provided unambiguous evidence that we are entering a critical and alarming new phase in the planet’s climate crisis. Rising fossil fuel emissions have triggered increases in ocean temperatures and sea levels to such an extent they are generating some of the most destructive storms ever experienced in Florida. Together with Hurricane Helene earlier, the lives of about 250 people have been claimed and thousands of homes destroyed. Florida has been left reeling and forecasters have warned there is more to come – a lot more.
It is a grim prognosis that should be galvanising Florida’s political leaders into taking urgent action to protect the state. Extraordinarily, this has not been the case. Despite the intensification of hurricanes and worsening flooding over the past decade, governor Ron DeSantis has consistently rejected the idea that global warming poses a threat to Florida or that the phenomenon exists at all. A few weeks ago, he signed a law erasing the words “climate change” from state statutes and effectively pledged the state’s future to burning fossil fuels. Such behaviour is disturbing.
Continue reading...
10/12/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 13 October 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00083-5
Global hake production and trade: Insights for food security and supply chain resilience
10/12/2024 - 08:22
Party donor Dale Vince warns that urging homeowners to switch to clean-power technology risks political storm bigger than Ulez
The government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.
Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy advocate, called on Keir Starmer to rethink national programmes, championed by Boris Johnson, pushing the technology. Vince argued that Whitehall should explore alternatives to the devices, which he said were expensive, caused serious disruption and could end up increasing energy bills for some people.
Continue reading...
10/11/2024 - 13:15
A collection-based survey of lichen species at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, USA and Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in Nunavut, Canada was conducted as part of the Mars-160 mission, a simulation of Martian surface exploration. The survey identified 48 lichen taxa, with 35 species from the Utah site and 13 species from the Canadian site.
10/11/2024 - 09:00
Financial impact on mining company does not outweigh ‘permanent loss’ to cultural sites, environment minister says
Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
Tanya Plibersek has defended her decision to issue an Aboriginal heritage protection order for the site of a proposed goldmine near Blayney, saying the financial impact on the mining company does not outweigh “irreversible damage and permanent loss” to Aboriginal cultural heritage sites.
The environment minister made a partial declaration under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act in August, blocking a proposal by mining company Regis Resources to build a tailings dam for its $900m McPhillamys gold project in the headwaters of the Belubula River. The declaration did not cover the rest of the proposed mining area.
Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter
Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
Continue reading...
10/11/2024 - 07:18
50,000 people sign petition against creation of channel for river water through Ferris Meadow Lake
A freshwater lake that attracts more than 30,000 swimmers a year is under threat of closure from an Environment Agency (EA) plan to reduce flooding that will channel in polluted river water, according to campaigners.
Almost 50,000 people have signed a petition calling on the EA and Surrey county council to reroute the flood channel away from the lake, which is a site of nature conservation. But the EA and Surrey council seem likely to press ahead with the 50-metre wide channel, bisecting the lake and feeding river floodwater into its centre.
Continue reading...
10/11/2024 - 06:32
More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades
Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.
Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.
Continue reading...
10/11/2024 - 05:00
Storms Helene and Milton have triggered rise of misinformation stoked by Trump and fellow Republicans
Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.
A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.
Continue reading...
10/11/2024 - 02:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...