Environment

• Two dozen boats douse conversation vessel with gasoline
• As few as 15 vaquita may remain in Gulf of California

The Sea Shepherd environmental group has published video showing an attack by about two dozen small fishing boats on the group’s vessel Farley Mowat in Mexico’s Gulf of California.

The fishermen in the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, oppose environmentalists trying to protect the vaquita marina, the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise.

Seawater temperature is rising faster than predicted, which is likely to worsen extreme weather events around the world

The world’s oceans are warming at a faster rate than previously estimated, new research has found, raising fresh concerns over the rapid progress of climate change.

Warming oceans take up more space, a process known as thermal expansion, which the study says is likely to raise sea levels by about 30cm by the end of the century, on top of the rise in sea levels from melting ice and glaciers. Warmer oceans are also a major factor in increasing the severity of storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.

Proposal is intended to protect African elephants from being poached for their tusks

The long-extinct woolly mammoth could gain protected status in an unprecedented attempt to save the African elephant from the global ivory trade.

If approved, the protection of the mammoth under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) could prove vital in saving its modern relatives. The proposal by Israel would close a loophole that enables the trafficking of illegal elephant ivory under the guise of legal mammoth ivory, which is almost identical in appearance.

A new study shows that when ads made hedonistic marketing claims, such as "exotic" or "delicious," rather than targeting environmental interests, more people were willing to try eating insects.

(Image credit: Oliver Brachat/for NPR)

Druridge Bay project makes mockery of UK’s goal to phase out coal by 2025, say critics

A wild stretch of Northumberland beach has become the ultimate testing ground of the government’s much-vaunted commitment to phase out coal by 2025, according to campaigners.

On Friday, James Brokenshire, the minister for communities and local government, will start examining whether to allow a local coal mining company, Banks Group, to extract three million tonnes of coal from 250 hectares of land behind the sand dunes of Druridge Bay, in a project that will extend beyond the government’s own deadline for the end of coal.

Girl to be transferred from Hamilton Island to have bite on foot treated, while woman was bitten on leg

A girl and a elderly woman have been bitten by a shark in the Whitsundays, continuing a spate of attacks in the popular north Queensland region.

Related: Shark attack: five survivors on what it's like when a great white tries to eat you

Maintenance and sanitation problems also reported 18 days after government shutdown furloughed the vast majority of park staff

A day after this story was published, the National Park Service announced that it had averted the closure by tapping revenues from recreation fees, and that campgrounds and entrance stations would be reopened on Thursday. In a press release, the NPS expressed thanks to volunteers “who provided basic sanitation at campgrounds and other closed areas during the lapse in appropriations”.

For 17 days, a host of volunteers and a skeleton staff kept the trash cans and toilets from overflowing at Joshua Tree national park.

Furloughed staff will return to 38 protected sites around the country. Critics are panning the move as a way to avoid bad optics during the political tussle.

(Image credit: Adam Kealoha Causey/AP)

Bureau of Meteorology says average temperature was 1.14C above average for 1961-1990, making 2018 slightly warmer than 2017

Last year was Australia’s third-warmest year on record, with every state and territory recording above average temperatures in 2018.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement, the nation’s average temperature last year was 1.14C above the average for 1961-1990, making 2018 slightly warmer than 2017.

Thousands of Syrians seeking refuge in neighboring Lebanon are scrambling for shelter and an 8-year-old girl was reported dead.

(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Pollution in tube stations 30 times higher than beside busy roads in capital, experts say

Fresh concerns over air quality on the London Underground have been raised after researchers found that the concentration of particulate pollution in tube stations was up to 30 times higher than beside busy roads in the capital.

Air pollution experts have called for more analysis of the possible harmful effects of the underground’s particulates.

Progressives should think twice about who their allies are. Conservatives, especially those who hunt, can be alarmed about climate change too

I first read about Bald Knob, Arkansas, in 2010, after thousands of poisoned blackbirds dropped dead from the sky in nearby Beebe. On first look, Bald Knob has an unsettling aesthetic: a sparsely populated town, a bygone agricultural zone with toppled silos, old trailers, taxidermy businesses, boarded-up shops and a Waffle House. It’s a narrative cliche to present a rural place below the Mason-Dixon line this way, yet the scenery fits the bill.

I’ve lived in places like these, where a casual observer sees a weathered town and locals just see home. I proceed with caution anyway. I’m also unsettled by news reports of armed white nationalists marching at the capitol building in nearby Little Rock. I know this is how a lot of people experience the rural south – sorting through stereotypes and history as they go, wondering how much of the old south is present in the new.

Closure of agriculture department offices could not have come at a worse time for farmers awaiting emergency federal aid

Just as American farmers thought Donald Trump had rescued them from the economic consequences of his trade war with China, along came the government shutdown.

Related: American farmers fear being caught up in Trump's trade wars

The Environmental Protection Agency has been cut to a skeleton staff, meaning work to ensure clean air and water is left undone

The US government shutdown has stymied environmental testing and inspections, prompting warnings that Americans’ health is being put at increasing risk as the shutdown drags on.

More than 13,000 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not at work, with just 794 people deemed essential staff currently undertaking the agency’s duties.

As wolves arrive in California for the first time since the 1920s, ranchers try non-lethal methods to deter animals once seen as livestock-killing vermin

Breanna Owens had no idea where to turn for help when the wolves arrived. The northern California-based rancher used to take her cattle to graze each summer in Oregon, but in 2014, OR-7, a solitary wolf dubbed Journey, found a mate and produced a litter of pups in the vicinity of Owens’ herd. The Rogue pack was the first in the area in generations.

“All of a sudden it’s, ‘Oh, he set up camp. And there’s a female. And there’s pups – oh my gosh!’” she recalled.

The giant clump of fat, oil and wet wipes lurking below the town of Sidmouth measures 210 feet, making it 42 feet longer than the White House. It will take about eight weeks to break it apart.

(Image credit: South West Water/AP)

Reversing an announcement made earlier this week, park officials said recreation fees will be used to keep the popular park open and to mitigate sanitation problems and environmental damage.

(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A newly released report shows that the United States' CO2 emissions spiked last year. A booming economy and busy transportation sector are to blame.

(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Twenty-two people have been hospitalised this summer with Irukandji stings, which can cause brain haemorrhages

The deadly Irukandji jellyfish is likely to spread further down Australia’s east coast as temperatures warm, an expert says, after twice as many Queenslanders were stung by the species this season than usual.

Twenty-two people have been hospitalised this summer with Irukandji stings – which are so severe they can cause brain haemorrhages and a debilitating sensation of impending doom, known as Irukandji syndrome.

People who install solar from April will have to give away surplus until scheme launches

Households with solar panels are to get a guaranteed payment for excess electricity they export to the grid – but there will be a hiatus when people are expected to give it away for free.

Energy minister Claire Perry said on Tuesday she would legislate for a new market that will make energy firms compete to offer solar homes the best price for any unused energy they export.