Farmers that supply supermarket are already harvesting wheat, oilseed rape and oats amid dry conditionsHarvests are coming two weeks early because of drought, Waitrose has said, as it prepares to stock autumnal fruit in summer.Farmers that supply the supermarket are harvesting wheat, oilseed rape, oats and malting barley a fortnight before they generally would, according to the supermarket. A lack of rainfall coupled with the hot weather has caused the crops to race through their growing stages and mature early. Continue reading...
Changing weather patterns are affecting planting and pose a threat to a variety of species, says head of developmentRising temperatures in the spring and unpredictable autumns are making the huge task of restoring the UK's lost meadows even more challenging, the National Wildflower Centre (NWC) has warned.The centre, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary next month, champions projects aimed at reviving wildflower-rich meadows, 97% of which have been lost in the past 80 years. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Watts Global environment editor on (#6ZF9T)
Suspension of soy moratorium could open up area of rainforest the size of Portugal to destructionOne of the key agreements for Amazon rainforest protection - the soy moratorium - has been suspended by Brazilian authorities, potentially opening up an area the size of Portugal to destruction by farmers.Coming less than three months before Brazil hosts the Cop30 climate summit in Belem, the news has shocked conservation groups, who say it is now more important than ever that consumers, supermarkets and traders stand up against Brazilian agribusiness groups that are using their growing political power to reverse past environmental gains. Continue reading...
In Glass Mountain, Michael Lundgren captures remote American landscapes with a haunting stillness, revealing the hidden rhythms and enthralling mystery of the natural world Continue reading...
The demilitarised zone between North and South Korea has become an ecological oasis with nearly 6,000 species documented, including rare cranes, deer and bearsStanding on top of a small mountain, Kim Seung-ho gazes out over an expanse of paddy fields glowing in their autumn gold, the ripening grains swaying gently in the wind. In the distance, North Korea stretches beyond the horizon.It's so peaceful," says the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. Over there, it used to be an artillery range, but since they stopped firing, the nature has become so beautiful." Continue reading...
by Presented by Helen Pidd; produced by Tom Glasser , on (#6ZF6E)
Helen Pidd grew up in Morecambe, and life in seaside towns has only got harder since she was a teenager. She went back to find out whyAs a teenager, the Today in Focus presenter Helen Pidd could not wait to leave her home town on the Lancashire coast. But today she looks back with fondness at her time spent at the fairground or misbehaving on the beachfront, and watching bands at the local music venue.She returned this summer to find out what life was like for young people today - and found things were not as she remembered. All of her old haunts had shut down and young people spoke about a town in which they had nothing to do. Continue reading...
Temperatures are expected to spike with a trio of heat, thunderstorms and fire risks compounding dangersCalifornians are bracing for the first major heatwave of the year, a multiday scorcher that could bring triple-digit temperatures, pose significant threats to public health and sharply heighten wildfire risks.After a notably cooler summer, temperatures are expected to spike across the American south-west starting on Wednesday and extending through the weekend, as severe conditions expand north along the coast into British Columbia by the end of the week. Continue reading...
North Carolina anticipates the most brutal surf conditions after storm reportedly rebuilds inner eye wallHurricane Erin's arrival is being felt all along the east coast, where higher tides and powerful surf have triggered expanded warnings for flooding and tropical storm conditions.Coastal residents are bracing for the possibility of a dangerous storm surge reaching up to 4ft (1.2 metres), along with severe beach erosion. The hurricane is expected to generate life-threatening" waves ranging from 15 to 20ft, with North Carolina beaches anticipating the most brutal waves. Continue reading...
by Damien Gayle Environment correspondent on (#6ZEFM)
Shut the System says its supporters carried out actions at offices of JP Morgan Chase, Allianz and BarclaycardThe City of London police are investigating claims by environmental activists to have carried out acts of sabotage on the offices of major insurers and financial institutions.Activist group Shut the System said its supporters had cut cables and glued electrical service cabinets at JP Morgan Chase and Allianz, in what it described as the start of a period of sustained sabotage" against fossil fuel finance. Continue reading...
by Pam Radtke, Evan Simon and Jeffrey Basinger on (#6ZEDJ)
Residents cite pollution, loss of fishing and diminished tax revenue as liquefied natural gas production for export acceleratesThis story was originally published by Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action*** Continue reading...
The Guardian's former north of England editor returned to Morecambe after 25 years to discover the place where she grew up has even fewer amenities for young people - and the feeling of being left behind' is stronger than ever
Research shows steep increases over past 30 years, after summer of strandings across EuropeThe number of marine mammals stranded in Scotland has risen dramatically in the past 30 years, a study has found.From 1992 to 2022, 5,147 cetaceans died on Scottish shores, and a new paper shows steep increases in the rate of strandings of up to 800% in some species, continuing exponentially every year. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#6ZEAS)
Natural climate variation is most likely reason as global heating due to fossil fuel burning has continuedThe melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005.The finding is surprising, the researchers say, given that carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning have continued to rise and trap ever more heat over that time. Continue reading...
The scourges of picnics have arrived early and in greater numbers amid ideal conditions for colonies to thriveIf dodging swooping gulls trying to steal your chips wasn't already enough, you might be spending your bank holiday trying to keep wasps away from your ice cream too.Britain is in the middle of a wasp boom. Not only have they arrived earlier than expected, but there are more of them than in recent summers. Experts say 2025 is an excellent year for them. Continue reading...
Only 28 countries have submitted carbon-cutting proposals to the UN, with some of the biggest emitters yet to produce plansBrazil has issued an urgent call for all countries to come forward with strengthened national plans on the climate, in a last-ditch attempt to meet a key September deadline.Only 28 countries have so far submitted carbon-cutting proposals to the UN, with some of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases - including China and the EU - still to produce their plans. Continue reading...
PM says wildfires are proof climate emergency is getting worse, and that sustained non-partisan effort is neededThe wildfires that have devoured 382,000 hectares of land in Spain and killed four people underscore the need to readjust and recalibrate" the country's preparation and response capacities as part of a non-partisan effort to tackle the impacts of the climate emergency, the prime minister has warned.Speaking during a visit to the south-western region of Extremadura on Tuesday, Pedro Sanchez said that while the record-breaking 16-day heatwave that had fanned the flames was over, difficult hours" lay ahead as firefighters continued to battle huge blazes across parts of the country. Continue reading...
by Tom Ambrose (now) and Matthew Pearce (earlier) on (#6ZDE5)
The Lib Dem leader is seeking a review of the laws to prevent the en masse' arrestsParents in England are skipping meals and turning to buy-now-pay-later services such as Klarna in order to afford school uniforms before the autumn term, according to a survey.Almost half (47%) of the 2,000 parents who took part in the poll said they were worried about uniform costs, which can run into hundreds of pounds due to expensive branded items, while more than a quarter (29%) said they had forgone food or heating to pay for uniforms. Continue reading...
Before It's Gone is a series about the climate crisis and water scarcity in Morocco by photographer M'hammed Kilito, who highlights the degradation of countless oases Continue reading...
Exclusive: Concentrations of faecal bacteria in the lake were found to peak in summer but there were high levels throughout yearBathing water quality across most of Windermere is poor throughout the summer, indicating high levels of sewage pollution, according to a comprehensive analysis of water quality in England's largest lake.High levels of bacteria found in human faeces - Escherichia coli (E coli) and intestinal enterococci (IE) - indicating sewage pollution, were found to be highest in the summer months, when Windermere is used heavily by holidaymakers for swimming and watersports. Continue reading...
by Presented and produced by Madeleine Finlay, with K on (#6ZDD8)
After three years of negotiating, talks over a global plastics treaty came to an end in Geneva last week with no agreement in place. So why has it been so difficult to get countries to agree to cut plastic production? Madeleine Finlay hears from Karen McVeigh, a senior reporter for Guardian Seascapes, about a particularly damaging form of plastic pollution causing devastation off the coast of Kerala, and where we go now that countries have failed to reach a dealClips: Fox News, BBC, 7News Australia, France 24, DW News, CNA Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England editor on (#6ZDC0)
Herring gulls and kittiwakes have learned the easiest meal comes from robbing humans rather than at seaIn a flurry of wings, the predator was off with its prize: a steaming pasty snatched from the hands of a day tripper from Birmingham. What do you want me to do about it?" her unsympathetic husband said. I can't fly."Such a scene has become an almost daily spectacle on the Scarborough seafront, said Amy Watson, a supervisor at the Fishpan restaurant, where hungry herring gulls lurk for their quarry. Continue reading...
New trial for Mylene Vialard after Minnesota judges find pervasive' prosecutorial misconduct in Line 3 protest caseThe controversial felony conviction of a peaceful climate activist has been overturned by an appeals court due to pervasive" prosecutorial misconduct.Mylene Vialard, 56, was found guilty of felony obstruction in 2023 for her role in trying to halt construction of a fossil-fuel pipeline through Indigenous territory in Minnesota, in a trial beset by irregularities. Continue reading...
Last year's floods have been followed by heatwaves. Ministers must throw their weight behind resilient, adaptable agricultureBritish farmers are, of course, not the only people who are suffering from the effects of this summer's heatwaves. Across Europe and the Middle East, record-breaking temperatures are threatening lives as well as livelihoods. France has experienced its largest wildfire since 1949, while across Europe an estimated 500,000 hectares of land have burned.But farmers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, which has a direct impact on crop yields. So reports of a second consecutive year in which food growers in parts of the UK are seeing dramatic falls in production should concern the British public. Access to food is frequently taken for granted in the world's wealthiest nations. But increased food insecurity is among the dangerous effects of the climate crisis, as well as being worsened by Trump's tariffs, and geopolitical instability including the war in Ukraine.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...
Assessment suggests cost of project to store 700,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste could reach 54bnThe UK's proposal for a new underground nuclear waste dump has been described as unachievable" in a Treasury assessment of the project.Ministers have put new nuclear power at the centre of their green energy revolution. But the problem of what to do with 700,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste - roughly the volume of 6,000 doubledecker buses - from the country's past nuclear programme, as well as future waste from nuclear expansion, has yet to be solved. Continue reading...
Mike Wirth, CEO of company responsible for more greenhouse gases than any other independently owned entity, thinks Australia should adopt US policies to attract fossil fuel dollars
People returned to Palacios de Jamuz, a village in north-west Spain, after homes, crops and trees were badly burnt in recent blazes. Relentless heat and raging wildfires continue to ravage southern Europe, with a quarter of weather stations in Spain recording temperatures of 40C (104F) or above over the weekend
Fishing club chaired by singer threatens court action over abstraction it says is putting rare trout population at riskThe singer and environmentalist Feargal Sharkey is threatening to take the Environment Agency to court for draining a river that hosts the oldest fishing club in England and putting a rare population of brown trout at risk.The former Undertones frontman chairs the Amwell Magna Fishery, which has used the secluded stretch of the River Lea in Hertfordshire since 1841. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Public comments show that a crackdown on signs disparaging' Americans is not popularAs part of his administration's war on woke", Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything negative" about Americans in US national parks. But the public has largely refused to support a world view without inconvenient historical facts, comments submitted from national parks and seen by the Guardian show.Notices have been erected at every National Park Service (NPS) site, which spans 433 national parks, monuments and battlefields, following an order from May entitled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", issued by Trump's department of the interior. The president had demanded a crackdown on any material that inappropriately disparages Americans". Continue reading...
We can save water and help the environment just by clearing out our inboxes - so what am I doing with all these old takeaway receipts?Our worst water-wasting habit might not even feel slightly damp: we're now being told to save water by clearing out our inboxes. Deleting emails, unbelievably, makes a difference to the amount of water the country uses," Helen Wakeham, the Environment Agency director of water, told the World at One last week. Hoarding decades' worth of Your Amazon order is out for delivery" notifications in datacentres consumes not just energy but water for cooling, and tech companies are building those datacentres in some of the most water-scarce places in the world.Wakeham called an email cull something really tangible people might not think of that can make a difference", and I do want to make a difference. I don't use water-gobbling ChatGPT, I comply with the hosepipe ban (albeit swearing at Yorkshire Water as I slop washing-up water into my shoes transporting it to my dying plants) and my showers are so short they're basically pointless. So I checked my inbox: 39,674 emails dating back to 2009. Ugh. Continue reading...
The country's coastal communities have long lived with flooding but as climate change accelerates rising sea levels and reclamation projects reshape Manila Bay, residents now see their homes under water more often
There's been fury in Spain over the tragic death of a street cleaner. It's not hard to imagine something similar playing out in the UKMontse Aguilar was only 51 when she died. She lived in the El Poble-sec area of Barcelona - it translates from Catalan as the dry village" - where she cared for her 85-year-old mother and sang in a local choir. For three years, she had worked as a city street cleaner for an outsourcing company, wearing a lime-green uniform - made, her family later said, from 100% polyester ... a material used to make coats".On 28 June, her shift in the city's Gothic Quarter began at 2.30pm and ended seven hours later. The temperature that day had reached more than 35C, which left workers like her exposed: Spain has a clearer system of regulations covering heat and work than a lot of other countries, but it is still full of gaps.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Canada's response to the extreme weather threat is being upended as the traditional epicentre of the blazes shifts as the climate warmsRoad closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada's wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction.Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms. Continue reading...
by Brendan Jones on Admiralty Island, Alaska on (#6ZCC7)
After a historic land buyback by the US Forest Service, Tlingit crew members are demolishing culverts to restore streams, salmon runs and cultural history deep in the Tongass national forestThe morning begins with a sense of anticipation - the calm before 1,200lbs of explosives detonate a stream culvert buried 10ft in Alaska's Tongass national forest.Jamie Daniels, 53, and his crew of Tlingit forestry workers take cover in a glade of alders. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Senior political correspondent on (#6ZCC2)
Exclusive: Study expected to confirm there are enough suitable sites to support bird of prey's returnAfter more than 150 years, golden eagles could be set to return to England, as a study is expected to confirm there are enough suitable sites to support the reintroduction of the UK's most iconic bird of prey.Golden eagles, which can have a wingspan of more than 2 metres, are occasionally seen in areas such as Northumberland. However, these birds come from a growing population in southern Scotland. A recent project to reintroduce the birds in Scotland is likely to be a model for any reintroduction in England. Continue reading...
I've often laughed at those who are voluntarily extremely frugal. But in a world of dwindling resources, aren't the real weirdos the ones throwing yacht parties and sending Katy Perry into space?Here's a silly season story for you: a 51-year-old woman in the German town of Spaichingen in Swabia is under criminal investigation on suspicion of filling watering cans from her neighbour's water butt. The total estimated value of the purloined water: 0.15.It's wonderfully daft. She allegedly hid behind a bin to evade detection and, according to reports, the police declared, with Solomonic gravity: Once it is in the barrel, [the water] no longer belongs to the heavens." Who knows what motivated this nano-crime: a moment of midlife madness? Some kind of grudge? But water is metered in Germany so there might be a kind of extreme parsimony at work (Swabian housewives are legendarily thrifty, apparently). Continue reading...
by Sam Jones in Madrid and Stephen Burgen in Baix Pen on (#6ZBV5)
Near-disaster in Pauls is latest incident to show Spain's vulnerability to the effects of the climate emergencyOn Saturday, the people of Pauls will celebrate the feast of their patron saint, Sant Roc, with a mass, followed by a communal meal eaten at stone tables, jota folk dances and a profound and lingering sense of relief.Last month's wildfire - which turned the night skies a hellish orange, blackened the surrounding hills and devoured 3,300 hectares (8,154 acres) of land - was a near-disaster that stirred memories of the 2009 blaze in nearby Horta de Sant Joan that killed five firefighters. Continue reading...
Hurricane is predicted pick up steam toward Florida before veering away from the US mainlandA tropical storm sped up to become Hurricane Erin mid-morning on Friday, as it approached Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, bringing heavy rains that could cause flooding and landslides on its way to becoming a major Atlantic hurricane.The huge storm was swirling across the Caribbean and is ultimately expected to head towards Florida, picking up speed over warm ocean water, before ultimately veering away from the US mainland. Continue reading...
Conservationists flag dangers of human interaction after Reggie' filmed playing with familyThe public has been warned to keep away from an injured dolphin that was filmed dancing and playing with swimmers off the coast of Dorset earlier this month.The Marine Management Organisation (MMO), a government-backed agency responsible for England's seas, said it was increasingly concerned about a lone dolphin spotted in Lyme Bay, Dorset, following multiple potential marine wildlife disturbance offences observed online and shared on social media". Continue reading...
A bottlenose dolphin surprised a family on their morning swim in Dorset this month, appearing to playfully engage with them.However, the UK's Marine Management Organisation has since asked the public to keep away from the injured creature, warning that such encounters 'can harm dolphins leading to injury, death or aggression'
Associated British Foods says 160 jobs will be lost at Vivergo site in Hull after ministers refuse to fund rescueThe UK's largest bioethanol plant is to close after being dealt a body blow by Keir Starmer's trade deal with Donald Trump.The owner of the Vivergo plant in Hull, owned by Associated British Foods (ABF), said it would close with the loss of 160 jobs, just hours after the government said it would not fund an industry rescue package. The first redundancies will be made on Tuesday. Continue reading...
Temperatures did not drop below 36C in Sedom, Israel on Tuesday night, while several parts of Jordan stayed above 35C on MondayJordan and Israel have suffered through their hottest nights on record, with nocturnal temperatures in the Levant well above levels that scientists consider hellish".Temperatures on Monday night did not go below 35C (95F) in Ghor es-Safi and Aqaba in Jordan, while in the capital, Amman, they stayed above 31.8C. Continue reading...
The failure of UN talks in Geneva should anger us all. The increasing threat to our health, our environments and wildlife must be addressed.By ensuring the collapse of UN talks seeking the first legally binding agreement on tackling plastic pollution, blockers in Geneva have failed the next generation. Most states are willing, even determined, to act. But the US joined petrostates obstructing action. Their children too will live to regret that.To say that plastics are part of our lives from cradle to grave is an understatement: microplastics have been found in placentas, as well as blood and breast milk. While we can't yet be certain of the full impact of the substances, we know that many have been linked to health effects and that foetuses, infants and young children are highly vulnerable. Microplastics have been shown to damage human cells in laboratory experiments, and a review published this month documented how exposure is associated with increased risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects, impaired lung growth, childhood cancer and fertility problems as an adult. Continue reading...