The Environmental Update

World News (National Geographic): Farms, water, and endangered wildlife are threatened as ReconAfrica expands its operations despite violations.

World News (The Guardian): As western governments untangle themselves from Russian oil and gas, Svitlana Krakovska notes that the roots of the climate crisis and invasion are in fossil fuels.

US News (The Guardian): The US Environmental Protection Agency is poised to allow the use of four of the most devastating chemicals to bees, butterflies and other insects to continue in America for the next 15 years, despite moves by the European Union to ban the use of toxins that have been blamed for widespread insect declines.

World News (Guardian): Temperatures over the Great Barrier Reef in December were the highest on record with “alarming” levels of heat that have put the ocean jewel on the verge of another mass bleaching of corals, according to analysis from US government scientists seen by Guardian Australia.

Ecuador News (NBC): The private company that runs an oil pipeline in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest stopped pumping oil Saturday after a rupture in the pipeline, according to a statement from the company.

UK News (The Guardian): A high-profile UK fracking company has been taken over by a green energy group and now has an anti-fracking campaigner as a director.

US News (Gizmodo): A decades-old pipeline spilled 315,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) of diesel into an environmentally sensitive area in Louisiana last month, killing thousands of animals, the AP reported Thursday.

US News (CNN): Rep. Joe Neguse, of Colorado’s 2nd congressional district, said on Thursday he had evacuated with his family as a precaution and hoped expected snow tomorrow would provide some relief from the wildfires.

World News (CNN): Last year was the hottest on record for the world's oceans for the third year in a row, according to new research, part of a long-term upward trend in ocean temperature that scientists say is overwhelmingly due to planet-warming fossil fuel emissions.

World News (The Guardian): An exclusive Jane Goodall self-portrait is among prints from 100 leading environmental photographers being sold to help protect endangered habitats. 

World News (Mongabay): A new study reveals that more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers and one in 200 jaguars have been affected by habitat loss linked to hydropower projects.

US News (WashingtonPost): In the wake of deadly storms that ravaged parts of the South and the Midwest this weekend, scientists had a warning: While the exact link between climate change and tornadoes remains uncertain, higher temperatures could add fuel to these violent disasters.

World News (The Guardian): The “disastrous” way in which plastic is used in farming across the world is threatening food safety and potentially human health, according to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

UK News (BBC): The Climate Change Committee (CCC) says that, at current rates, the UK will be contributing to a disastrous temperature rise of 2.7C by 2100.

World News (Washington Post): Slalom the North Atlantic right whale, survivor of multiple deadly fishing net entanglements, gave birth. But can mother and calf survive dangerous, human-infested waters?

UK News (The Guardian): Three young people are taking legal action against the prime minister, accusing him of breaching his legal obligations to take “practical and effective measures” to tackle the climate crisis.

Australian News (BBC): Australia has said a La Niña event has developed for a second consecutive year, meaning there is a greater risk locally of floods and cyclones.