The South American leaders are in the spotlight as they prepare to host this week’s Cop16 biodiversity summit, November’s G20 meeting and next year’s Cop30 climate summit
The rainforest nations of Brazil and Colombia have the best opportunity in a generation to drag the Amazon back from the abyss as they host three of the world’s most important environmental negotiations in the space of little more than a year.
In the process, their leaders – pacesetting Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and the more cautious and contradictory Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will offer up overlapping visions for the future of the Amazon, and the world’s path to net zero.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/16/2024 - 06:00
10/16/2024 - 05:00
More than 94,000 birds have died at Tule Lake wildlife refuge in northern California, its worst recorded epidemic
An ongoing outbreak of botulism, a bacterial illness that causes muscle paralysis, has killed more than 94,000 birds at Tule Lake national wildlife refuge in northern California, the worst such outbreak at the lake ever recorded, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Affected birds often cannot control their muscles and suffocate in the water, said biologist and ornithologist Teresa Wicks with Bird Alliance of Oregon, who works in the area. “It’s a very traumatic thing to see,” Wicks said.
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10/16/2024 - 05:00
Tech barons are forever predicting some amazing new technology to fix the climate crisis. Yet fixes already exist
There are so many ways to fiddle while Rome burns, or as this season’s weather would have it, gets torn apart by hurricanes and tornadoes and also goes underwater – and, in other places, burns. One particularly pernicious way comes from the men in love with big tech, who are forever insisting that we need some amazing new technology to solve our problems, be it geoengineering, carbon sequestration or fusion – but wait, it gets worse.
At an artificial intelligence conference in Washington DC, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that “[w]e’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it” and that we should just plunge ahead with AI, which is so huge an energy hog it’s prompted a number of tech companies to abandon their climate goals. Schmidt then threw out the farfetched notion that we should go all in on AI because maybe AI will somehow, maybe, eventually know how to “solve” climate, saying: “I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.”
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
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10/16/2024 - 04:30
Wolsingham school’s carbon-cutting event had been planned by pupils but parents raised concerns
A school has made a U-turn on a student-led plan to turn the heating off for a “blue nose” climate action day after parents raised concerns.
The heating was due to be turned off at Wolsingham school, County Durham, on Friday but the plan has now been postponed until the summer term of next year when it is likely to be warmer.
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Coalition pledge to subsidise Australia’s most expensive form of energy makes ‘no sense’, Labor says
10/16/2024 - 02:16
Chris Bowen questions why gas companies who already produce energy should get windfall gain under opposition’s plan
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Labor says a Coalition pledge to offer subsidies to existing and new gas power plants makes “no sense” and would ensure fossil fuel plants that are already in the grid receive windfall gains.
In a speech to an Australian Pipelines and Gas Association Convention in Adelaide, the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said that gas would be “here to stay” under the Coalition.
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10/16/2024 - 00:39
Surfers were seen catching waves near a suspected oil slick off the coast of Coogee in Sydney a day after hundreds of pieces of black debris washed up along the beach. The beach was closed and beachgoers warned not to touch the material, which could be 'tar balls' formed from oil spills or seepage at sea
Suspected oil slick spotted off Sydney's Coogee beach after mysterious black balls wash ashore
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10/16/2024 - 00:00
Bring in ‘future homes standard’ or leave families at risk of higher bills and emissions for decades, MPs and experts say
Ministers must take steps now to ensure that all homes are built to the most efficient low-carbon standards, or risk locking households into higher bills and greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, a group of MPs and experts have urged.
The government is mulling changes to the building regulations in England to bring in a “future homes standard” that would require all new homes to be built with low-carbon equipment such as heat pumps and solar panels.
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10/16/2024 - 00:00
International Energy Agency says transition to clean energy means there will be a surplus of oil, gas and coal
Fossil fuels could soon become significantly cheaper and more abundant as governments accelerate the transition to clean energy towards the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency.
The world’s energy watchdog has signalled a new energy era in which countries have access to more oil, gas and coal than needed to fuel their economic growth, leading to lower prices for households and businesses.
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10/15/2024 - 15:09
Coogee and Gordons Bay beachgoers had been warned not to touch the material. ‘Tar balls’ form from oil spills or seepage at sea
What are tar balls – and what’s the risk?
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Thousands of black golf ball-sized pieces of debris that washed up on the sand and forced the closure of two Sydney beaches have been confirmed as “tar balls”.
Coogee beach was closed on Tuesday and Gordons Bay beach was closed on Wednesday with beachgoers warned not to touch or go near the “mysterious black, ball-shaped debris”.
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10/15/2024 - 13:15
Researchers have discovered seven new species of tree frogs that make otherworldly calls in the rainforests of Madagascar. Their strange, high-pitched whistling calls sound more like sound effects from the sci-fi series Star Trek. As a result, the researchers have named the new species after seven of the series' most iconic captains.
