Environment | The Guardian

Ministers should find out what the regulator says before signing away a further 1.8bn of public moneyThere is already a scandal of bad accounting at Drax, one could say mischievously. It's the one that maintains that transporting wood pellets from North America to burn in North Yorkshire is a carbon neutral" activity because replacement trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. You don't have to be a green lobbyist to think there's something wrong there. As the research group Ember regularly reminds us, Drax is the UK's biggest emitter yet qualifies for renewables subsidies.That weirdness in the methodology is one for the government to justify. The Financial Conduct Authority's investigation is into the grittier issue of Drax's historical statements" about its sourcing of wood pellets. Three sets of annual accounts - 2021, 2022 and 2023 - are in the spotlight for adherence to listing rules for quoted companies and transparency disclosures. Continue reading...

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Feargal Sharkey back campaign to save the animal, which once inspired placenames, songs and storiesWhen the Somerset Levels flood in winter, their reed-fringed waterways swell into a glinting inland sea - haunting and half forgotten.Generations ago, these wetlands pulsed with the seasonal arrival of eels: twisting through rhynes - human-made water channels - and ditches in their thousands, caught in baskets, sung about in pubs and paid as rent to Glastonbury Abbey. Today those same waters flow more slowly, more sparsely: once-teeming channels now show only the barest traces of what was here. Continue reading...

Volunteers are tasked with logging about 150,000 park trees by hand - and for some, it's become a strange obsessionOn a recent morning, as the late August sun began to beat down, a few dozen New Yorkers stood in the shade of one of the nearly 500 trees adorning Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park, worrying a bit about hurting its feelings.We had already identified the species - bald cypress - thanks to its feathered leaves and strong pyramidal shape", measured its trunk's circumference (17in; 43cm), and noted that its roots appeared normal, its leaves were healthy and its branches had suffered some damage from improper pruning. But now we were tasked with assigning the tree an overall grade - on a scale of poor" to excellent" - and no one seemed to want to say. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Analysis of responses shows firms are urging parliamentarians to limit regulation of forever chemicals'Chemical firms are lobbying MPs not to ban forever chemicals" in the same way as proposed in the EU, using arguments disputed by scientists and described as big tobacco playbook" tactics, it can be revealed.Pfas, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and commonly known as forever chemicals owing to their persistence in the environment, are a family of about 10,000 chemicals, some of which have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers. They are used across a range of industries, from cosmetics to firefighting. Continue reading...

Particles are small enough to burrow into lungs, says report, with health impacts more substantial than we realize'Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat.The study, published in the journal Plos One, estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long, or move as deep into the pulmonary system. Continue reading...

The invaders present a devastating threat to Britain's pollinators - constant watchfulness and clever technology are needed to thwart their progressWere it not for the bags of destroyed hornets nests in the corner, you could be forgiven for confusing Peter Davies' office with the set of a TV detective show. Maps dotted with Post-it notes cover the wall in the repurposed hotel suite just off the M20 in Kent. There is no natural light: the only window looks down on an atrium below, and is partly obscured by a flip chart with the plan for the day. From here, Davies and his team run the national command centre for holding back the Asian hornet, an invasive species that preys on honeybees and other pollinators.In effect, I'm the incident commander to tackle the hornet. We have a forward operating base at the hotel so we can get anywhere in Kent quickly, because that's where we've had the most incursions," he says. Continue reading...

Steps to make electricity cheaper, such as ending levies, could transform prospects for pumps, thinktank showsHeat pumps could save households hundreds of pounds a year on heating bills, if the government took simple measures to reform the energy system, an analysis has found.The average household's heating bills could be roughly halved, saving about 375 a year with a heat pump instead of a gas boiler, if steps were taken to make electricity cheaper. Continue reading...

A tournament in Cornwall will pit anglers against these magnificent creatures, as part of a rising trend for so-called sportfishing'It's the UK equivalent of bullfighting. Next week, in Falmouth in Cornwall, anglers will compete to fish for bluefin tuna in a three-day tournament. Sponsored by companies including Suzuki and Shimano, it's a festival of cruelty and destruction, waging war on a magnificent giant which, in a rare instance of ecological hope, has begun returning to our shores.Where's the sport in this sportfishing"? While some forms of angling require knowledge and skill, in this case the paying customer (the angler) sits in a boat while the professional skipper motors up and down, trailing a set of lures. When a tuna is hooked, the angler, strapped into a harness, either stands or sits in what is called the fighting chair" and plays" the fish to exhaustion: a one-sided fight of 30 minutes or more. It's a risk-free means of pitting yourself against nature, a truly pathetic form of macho gratification. You can imagine my surprise on discovering that Nigel Farage is a big fan.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistThe Guardian's climate assembly with George Monbiot and special guests On 16 September, join George Monbiot, Mikaela Loach and Emma Pinchbeck as they discuss the forces driving the big climate pushback, with an address by Feargal Sharkey Continue reading...

The old saying about late summer rain being good for vineyards and bees may be plausibleEach month has its weather folklore, and according to one old saying: When it rains in August, it rains honey and wine."Historically, vineyards were not irrigated, and some winemakers believe natural rainfall is needed to keep the all-important terroir characteristic of a particular area. Irrigation increases the grape yield, potentially quadrupling the weight per hectare, but supposedly reduces wine quality. Similarly drought years are sometimes said to produce the best vintages. Continue reading...

In the waters of the Johor strait, Indigenous communities are struggling to survive as nearby cities expand and fishing stocks dwindle

A group of farmers, bikers, truckers and scientists from the political left and right are working to bring attention to the health risks of using toxic sludge as fertilizerAn unlikely alliance of farmers, bikers, truckers, a detective and scientists from across the political spectrum are working to pressure the Trump administration and Republican leadership to rein in the use of toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer on the nation's farmland.Sludge often teems with Pfas, or forever chemicals", which present a health risk to farmers and the public, and have destroyed farms and contaminated water across the country. The issue has touched the groups' lives in different ways, highlighting its broad risks to health. Continue reading...

Aerial footage shows thick plumes of smoke from wildfires raging in the northern Spanish region of Asturias.Wildfires have burned more than a million hectares (2.5m acres) of land in the European Union this year so far, the highest amount in any year since official records began in 2006, EU data showed.Spain and Portugal have been worst hit and together accounted for about two-thirds of the EU's burnt area Continue reading...

Localised rises in temperature caused by land clearance cause 28,330 heat-related deaths a year, researchers findDeforestation has killed more than half a million people in the tropics over the past two decades as a result of heat-related illness, a study has found.Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found. Continue reading...

Thinktank predicts wider inequality gap and calls for revised policies to tackle flying and excess private car useInequality in transport emissions between the richest and the poorest in the UK is set to widen dramatically over the next decade, an analysis has found.The most affluent and mobile already produce 10 times more carbon through their domestic travel than the poorest and least mobile. Under current decarbonisation policies, thinktank researchers forecast this to grow to 13 times by 2035. Continue reading...

Burst of wet and windy weather' on the way signals chilly start to spring for much of the country

Picked from a record 60,636 entries, the first images from the Natural History Museum's wildlife photographer of the year competition have been released. The photographs, which range from a lion facing down a cobra to magnified mould spores, show the diversity, beauty and complexity of the natural world and humanity's relationship with it. The winners will be announced on 14 October Continue reading...

Firefighters try to corral Garnet fire, with parts of California under red flag warning, as Oregon blaze destroys homesNumerous wildfires across the US west coast are challenging emergency crews from California wine country to central Oregon, as weather forecasters warned that the risks of more blazes sparking is not over yet.In central California, firefighters are working to corral a fast-growing wildfire that is churning through the Sierra national forest as forecasters warned on Tuesday that lightning strikes from thunderstorms could ignite new fires.

Educators across the country confronted with how to deal with children in their schools who experienced tragedySchools in parts of Texas reopened their doors two months earlier than planned this summer. But the reason was tragic.They were transformed into relief hubs" to welcome volunteers whose efforts were instrumental in responding to devastating floods in the state. Now, as lessons have mostly resumed in Texas, the classrooms have been turned back from temporary emergency centres into places of learning, but that's not to say the memories of what was lost will linger with the community indefinitely. Continue reading...

Mean temperature is tracking at 16.13C after four heatwaves, significantly above current record of 15.76CThis summer is set to be the warmest on record for the UK, the Met Office has said, after the country experienced four heatwaves.The mean temperature for summer is tracking at 16.13C (61.03F), which is significantly above the current record of 15.76C set in 2018. Continue reading...

Activists claim Anant Ambani's Vantara facility has no plan to return its endangered species to the wildIndia's supreme court has ordered an investigation into a vast private zoo founded by the son of Asia's richest person over allegations of illegal wildlife imports and financial misconduct.Home to a reported 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, Vantara in western Gujarat state describes itself as the world's biggest wild animal rescue centre". It is run by Anant Ambani, a son of Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire head of the conglomerate Reliance Industries, and was one of the venues for his extravagant wedding celebrations last year, where celebrities were encouraged to wear jungle fever" outfits. Continue reading...

As survivors and experts reflect on the storm 20 years on, fear is growing that the US is just as unprepared to take on extreme weather amid cuts to FemaDarren McKinney grew up in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward. When Hurricane Katrina struck 20 years ago this week, he watched his neighborhood wash away. From his second-floor apartment, he saw flood waters rise up to his window.I had no food at all, no water, no electricity," he recounted one rainy day this month, while taking a break from his job leading home restoration in the neighborhood as field operations director of the non-profit lowernine.org. Continue reading...

Across the globe, oil, gas and coal companies use an ever-widening set of tactics to crush competition and opposition. With the world's most powerful man helping them at every turn, it's critical we reveal their full impactToday the Guardian launches its annual environment support campaign. To back our vital climate journalism, please click hereWhy does capital love fossil fuels? It's not hard to explain. They exist in a small number of discrete locations, where the right to exploit them can be owned and monopolised. Most can be extracted commercially only at scale, excluding small competitors. They can be stored and traded all over the world, allowing prices to be optimised across time and space. Renewable energy, by contrast, can be generated almost anywhere, by almost anyone with a small amount of money to invest.Renewables might now be cheaper than fossil fuel in the vast majority of cases, but this makes them less attractive to capital, not more. Fossil fuels are uncompetitive and highly profitable. Renewables are highly competitive and not very profitable.Join George Monbiot and special guests on 16 September for a special climate assembly to discuss the growing and dramatic political and corporate threats to the planet. Book tickets - in person or livestream Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: Extreme heat, droughts and floods are proving disastrous for farmers on the frontline of climate change, and consumers in the supermarket, tooGood morning. My mum is a livestock farmer in Kent. This year her hay crop was down by 50% because the spring rains never came. She's not alone - up and down the UK, farmers have watched their fields turn brown and their hay crops collapse.Hay keeps animals alive over winter (when there is no fresh grass outside) and some farmers are already selling off cows because they can't guarantee they will be able to feed them. From extreme drought to biblical floods, more than 80% of UK farmers are worried wild swings in weather are affecting their ability to earn a living.Israel-Gaza war | Israel bombed the main hospital in southern Gaza on Monday and then struck the same place again as rescuers and journalists rushed to help the wounded, killing at least 20 people including five journalists, health officials said.UK news | Schools will need to give democracy lessons to children from the age of 11 and ask teachers to leave their politics at the classroom door to help prepare for votes at 16, the head of the UK elections watchdog has said.Health | People using the weight loss jab Mounjaro have been warned against switching to black market sellers or bulk buying after its manufacturer announced the UK will get a significant price rise this autumn.US news | Some national guard units patrolling the US capital at the direction of Donald Trump have started carrying firearms, an escalation of the president's military deployment that makes good on a directive issued late last week by his defence department.UK news | Ministers are introducing a clearer legal definition of honour-based" abuse in an attempt to catch more perpetrators and protect women and girls from violence and coercion. Continue reading...

Views of forward-thinking artist and writer who lived off land in national park celebrated at museum in GlastonburyShe was considered an eccentric by some, eking out a frugal existence on a wild English moor, surviving off the land and exchanging her sketches of the countryside for meals.But the first museum exhibition on the life and work of the largely forgotten nature writer and artist Hope Bourne highlights that her views on the environment, recycling, access to the countryside - even rewilding - were ahead of her time. Continue reading...

Customers to get 5 vouchers for donating M&S clothes to Oxfam, which will get 15% of profits from eBay salesMarks & Spencer is opening a secondhand clothing store on eBay to find new homes for old favourites" as the household name taps into booming demand for preloved clothing.The retailer has collected 36.5m secondhand clothes since it launched its shwopping" clothing recycling scheme - now called Another Life - over a decade ago. Most of that clothing has been resold by charity partner Oxfam. Continue reading...

Workers say president's attacks on the agency and lack of qualified leadership could lead to deadly catastropheDonald Trump's attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) risk exposing the US to another Hurricane Katrina, staff at the agency have warned Congress in a withering critique that also takes aim at its current leadership.Writing in the run-up to this week's 20th anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm that killed 1,833 people and caused widespread destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf coast, more than 180 current and former Fema employees say the Trump administration's policies are ignoring the mistakes that led to it. Continue reading...

A fad for consuming high-protein, high-fat food, while avoiding vegetables, has taken off online. Followers are doing themselves no favoursOnce, it seemed that much of the world was intent on drastically cutting back on meat for health and environmental reasons. Vegetarian and vegan options appeared on restaurant menus and the very idea of a bloody red steak became almost unthinkable in liberal circles. And yet the carnivore diet is now all over Instagram and TikTok, prompting health bodies to start issuing warnings.Followers of this diet eat meat, fat, seafood, eggs and butter, avoiding all vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes as if plants were, as Paul Saladino, an advocate of this diet alleged, poison". Dr Saladino is a US psychiatrist and health influencer with a range of supplements called Heart and Soil that contain dried animal organ meat. He appears shirtless on social media, denouncing vegetables, which he says will harm us. Other Instagrammers tuck into plates of huge steaks and seven or more eggs for breakfast. It's not just for weight loss.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Labor will seek to legislate national standards and federal EPA in one package rather than multiple stages, as it tried and failed to do last term

After Ice's infiltration of LA, the community is rallying to provide essentials for survival for those forced to stay homeWhen Danielle Duran Zecca saw military-style immigration raids and people being snatched off the streets and put into unmarked vehicles in her native Los Angeles earlier this summer, she was in disbelief.It just felt unreal like this wasn't a world that we could be living in right now," said Duran Zecca, a James Beard Award nominated chef and co-owner of Amiga Amore in Highland Park, a historically Latino neighborhood in north-east LA. I didn't know what to do, but I knew how to feed people and love on people because that is exactly how I was brought up in my family." Continue reading...

Rangers cleared about 2,377 marijuana plants and 2,000lbs of trash and hazardous chemicals from Sequoia parkPark rangers have removed an illegal marijuana cultivation site in California's Sequoia national park spanning approximately 13 acres (5 hectares).In a press release on Thursday, the National Park Service said that it had removed a total of 2,377 full-grown marijuana plants and approximately 2,000lbs of trash and infrastructure last week by hand and helicopter sling-load operations. Continue reading...

Shares drop by 17% after stop-work order on $1.5bn project off Rhode Island, which was 80% completeShares in Orsted hit an all-time low on Monday after the Trump administration ordered Europe's largest wind power company to stop work on a near complete windfarm.Orsted's shares plunged 17%, after it was forced to stop construction on its $1.5bn (741m) Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. Continue reading...

Charlotte Walker, 21, spoke of being bullied and battling mental health issues, and said she will focus on issues including housing, domestic violence and the climate crisis

According to latest government figures, heat-trapping pollution dropped by 1.4% in the year to March

You can sell fossil fuels overseas till the cows come home as long as you don't burn it here

Shoppers in England bought 437m carrier bags last year as online food shops replace supermarket tripsPlastic bag sales have risen for the first time in 10 years on the back of the so-called Ocado effect as online food shops and ultra-fast deliveries replace supermarket trips.Shoppers in England bought 437m single-use plastic carrier bags last year, compared with 407m the year before, a rise of 7%, according to data from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Continue reading...

The president's fossil-fuel obsession can't stop global progress, writes the former Environmental Protection Agency headOver the past decade, the United States has turned technologies into tools that strengthened our economy, delivered good-paying union jobs, cleaned up our air and water, conserved our precious natural resources, and saved families money all across our country. Yet now the country is choosing to cede that leadership, letting China dominate and control the clean-energy market across the world. It's no surprise that people are scratching their heads, wondering what happened.Our president is obsessed with fossil fuels. He wants to resuscitate what everyone knows is a dying coal sector while turning a blind eye to the health, environmental, and economic downsides of the climate crisis. Coupled with inconsistent threats of increased tariffs against virtually all our allies, he has isolated the US and amplified threats to global security.Gina McCarthy is the managing co-chair of America Is All In, former White House national climate adviser and 13th US EPA administrator Continue reading...

Country's weather agency says 10-day period from 8-17 August was hottest since at least 1950, as fires still rageA 16-day heatwave Spain suffered this month was the most intense on record", the country's state meteorological agency (AEMET) has said.Provisional readings for the 3-18 August heatwave exceeded the last record, set in July 2022, and showed an average temperature 4.6C higher than for previous such phenomena, the agency said on X. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Charity says footage shows fish being struck repeatedly and at least one child taking part in killing fishAnimal welfare campaigners allege that a harrowing series of welfare abuses" have taken place at one of England's oldest working trout farms in a tourist hotspot in the Cotswolds, including the participation of children in killing fish.Animal Equality UK, a charity that works to end cruelty to farmed animals, has released video footage that it claims shows fish being repeatedly beaten with batons, mishandled and left to suffocate by untrained members of the public including a child at Bibury trout farm in Gloucestershire. Continue reading...

BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Toyota lobbied against zero emission vehicle mandate, documents showCarmakers claimed that leaving electric car sales rules unchanged would threaten British jobs and cost them hundreds of millions of pounds, according to documents that show the private lobbying for a slower transition away from fossil fuels.BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Toyota claimed that rules forcing them to sell more electric cars each year would harm investment in the UK, according to responses to proposed changes submitted to the government. The responses were obtained by Fast Charge, a newsletter covering electric cars, and shared with the Guardian. Continue reading...

Clear majority backs restarting Maanshan reactor but doesn't reach legal threshold, as president says nuclear power may be reconsidered if it becomes safeA referendum to push for the reopening of Taiwan's last nuclear plant has failed to reach the legal threshold to be valid, though the president said the island could return to the technology in the future if safety standards improved.The plebiscite on Saturday, backed by the opposition, asked whether the Maanshan power plant should be reopened if it was confirmed" there were no safety issues. The plant was closed in May as the government shifts to renewables and liquefied natural gas. Continue reading...

Pausing changes to Construction Code, establishment of strike team' within environment department and use of AI in planning among reforms

A reliance on politicians and lack of government content on TikTok during recent cyclones allowed misinformation to flourish, academic says

Rhode Island and Connecticut officials say project, slated to power 350,000 homes, is essential to their climate goalsThe Democratic governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut promised on Saturday to fight a Trump administration order halting work on a nearly complete wind farm off their coasts that was expected to be operational next year.The Revolution Wind project was about 80% complete, with 45 of its 65 turbines already installed, according to the Danish wind farm developer Orsted, when the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent the firm a letter on Friday ordering it to halt all ongoing activities". Continue reading...

Australians produced 3.2m tonnes of plastic waste in 2023-24, up from 3m tonnes the previous year

The close call in Tracy Arm 50 miles south of Juneau on 10 August is the latest sign that as glaciers melt, risks may riseThe landslide that triggered a powerful tsunami in Alaska's Inside Passage early on 10 August was a close call, say scientists, tour operators and agency officials, with the risk of such events apparently increasing as glaciers retreat because of climate change.It's a historic event," said scientist Dennis Staley from the US Geological Survey of the slide, which occurred in the Tracy Arm fjord 50 miles (80km) south of Juneau. Continue reading...

Toxic forever chemicals' were found at a level 10 times higher than people who did not work in contaminated zoneNew research shows alarming levels of Pfas in the blood of people living or working near a US air force base responsible for polluting drinking water with high levels of the dangerous forever chemicals", a new state regulatory report has found.The levels are high enough in those who lived and worked near the Cannon air force base in Curry county to raise health concerns - about 10 times above the levels of those in the region who did not work in the contaminated zone. The pollution stems from a type of Pfas-laden firefighting foam the military has used across the nation, and the types of compounds found at high levels in participants' blood were also commonly used in foam. Continue reading...

Leading researcher forecasts beginning of the age of non-tourism' despite industry returning to pre-pandemic highsIt was a prediction nobody wanted to hear. On the main stage of the world's biggest tourism fair, Stefan Gossling, a leading researcher in sustainable transport, had just calmly announced the looming death of the holiday industry.We have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism," said Gossling, to an uneasy audience of travel agencies, car rental companies, cruise operators and hoteliers. Continue reading...

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More than 20 places across New South Wales have already surpassed their highest August rain on record

Flames and a tower of smoke rose above an automotive supply company 50 miles north-east of Baton RougeAn explosion and fire Friday at an automotive supply company in southeast Louisiana sent flames into the air and a tower of thick black smoke billowing above rural communities, forcing nearby residents and an elementary school to evacuate.Officials said no injuries had been reported in the fire at Smitty's Supply just north of the town of Roseland, but that everyone living within a one-mile (1.6km) radius must evacuate. Roseland, which is home to about 1,100 people, is roughly 50 miles (80km) north-east of Baton Rouge. Continue reading...