EPA tosses out scientific research carried out under Biden and says toxic sludge not a significant threat to publicThe Trump administration has killed proposed regulations for sewage sludge contaminated with Pfas and spread on farmland as fertilizer, a practice that has sickened farmers, destroyed their livelihoods, killed livestock, polluted water supplies, and poisoned meat and food products sold to the public.The proposed regulations would largely have ended the use of sludge, also called biosolids, in the nation's food system. But the Environmental Protection Agency tossed out its scientific research from less than two years ago that formed the basis of the proposed regulations. It justified the decision by declaring that sludge was not a wide threat to the public because it is mostly used on farms, and only a small percentage of cropland. Continue reading...

Top Democrat says findings show public way ahead of the politicians' as Trump dismisses global heating as hoax'Amid a summer of dangerous heat, drought and floods, a majority of Americans are connecting increasingly severe weather to the climate crisis, new polling shows, despite efforts by Donald Trump to dismiss global heating as a con job" and a hoax".It's a sign that attempts to suppress polarize climate concerns may not be seeing full success, said Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist at Data for Progress. Continue reading...

From manufactured election insecurity to an outbreak of explosive' diarrhea, Americans are bearing the brunt of harmful policiesBetween widespread cuts to vital government agencies, various disease and illness outbreaks, and new environmental disaster vulnerabilities, the United States is facing a convergence of crises with widespread repercussions.Yet the Trump administration has hamstrung the federal government from addressing these crises - and in some cases is actively fanning them. Over the past year, the administration has moved to shrink the federal workforce, roll back environmental protections and policies intended to fight the climate crisis, reduced funding for scientific research and is seeking to advance legislation that would impose new voting restrictions. Continue reading...

From Nevada to Manchester, developers are trialling innovative solutions to clean energy's biggest challengeIn the deserts of the United Arab Emirates a sprawling clean energy project, stretching across an area roughly the size of 12,600 football fields, will play host to a breakthrough allowing solar energy to power the equivalent of half a million homes through the night.The Gulf state has been steadily combining 5.2GW of solar power capacity with 19GWh of battery storage to create the largest battery scheme in the world. Continue reading...

Award-winning entomologist Dino Martins, known for his work on pollinators, shows in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to playDino J Martins has never been able to resist the small things. The renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, Joe and Sarah Ellen, looking at birds, flowers and insects on Mt Elgon, and in Kakamega forest and Kerio valley.He was especially transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet - dung beetles rolling mounds of cattle dung; safari ants' migrations across the plains; male butterflies that suck salt and other nutrients from the mud to produce nuptial gifts" during mating; and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet alongside crops in a farmer's field. Continue reading...

Campaigners hope move will force commercial banks to rethink holding assets linked to the fossil fuelClimate campaigners have declared a victory after the Bank of England said it would no longer accept bonds linked to one of the most polluting industries on the planet for key loan arrangements.The ban, which comes into force in October, marks a fresh crackdown on thermal coal, which is burned in power plants to create electricity, and has long been a target of green policy activists. Continue reading...

Poor air quality from wildfires continues to plague New York City as several neighborhoods hit by thunderstormsSaturday is delivering a double dose of dangerous weather across the north-eastern US, with smoky skies from Canadian wildfires giving way to severe thunderstorms that have already triggered a flash flood warning as torrential rain pounds parts of the region.After a brief break on Friday, smoke from the wildfires moved back into New York City and surrounding communities on Saturday, sending air quality back into unhealthy levels. Continue reading...

Government's food security push is said to rely on animal feed imports with vulnerability to supply chain shocksThe government's planned poultry sector growth plan is a risk to national security, campaigners have warned.Earlier this month, the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, told the Groundswell agriculture festival that the key to improving food security was consuming more homegrown produce, and said this was why the government had set up the Farming and Food Partnership Board, whose members include industry leaders such as the president of the National Farmers' Union and the chief executive of the Food & Drink Federation. Continue reading...

CEO's pay packet surges to 791,000 as union says public sick of obscene pay' and bosses feathering own nests'Wessex Water awarded its chief executive an above-inflation pay increase even as the company was banned from paying bonuses because of sewage spills, it has emerged.Ruth Jefferson received a 14% base salary increase in October, from 590,000 to 670,000, before other benefits, according to accounts published this month. It was far above the 3.5% given to workers, and put her pay at 18 times that of the company's median employee. Continue reading...

Fire broke out last Thursday in the southeastern province of Almeria, which is home to many foreign residents

Around the world, climate-sceptic parties are exploiting floods and fires to make political capital. Without urgent changes, this deadly spiral will continueRecent unprecedented heatwaves in the UK may have killed thousands of people. Children are suffering in overheating schools. NHS trusts are straining under record-breaking demand. This all comes after climate extremes have even affected national security, with three of Britain's five worst harvests coming since 2020, impairing food security.This is what life looks like in the adaptation gap".Laurie Laybourn is executive director of the Strategic Climate Risks InitiativeDo 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...

Campaigners criticise C of E for failing to show moral leadership as one of country's biggest landownersThe Church of England has voted against plans to restore 30% of its land for nature, with campaigners criticising its failure to show moral leadership.The C of E owns about 42,500 hectares (105,000 acres) of land, making it one of England's biggest landowners. Currently just 3.5% of its land is used for nature restoration. Continue reading...

GenCost report contradicts parties' claims about abandoning emissions target, and finds nuclear would be most expensive way to generate power

El Nino climate phenomenon heating waters off Mexico but incidents with humans remain a rarityCalifornia is set to see one of its sharkiest summers in a decade, with large numbers of juvenile great whites already on a reverse vacation from the warm waters of Mexico to cooler pastures along the western United States.The marine predator has become more common along the west coast in recent years, with stories of surfers seeing underwater behemoths closer to shore and scientists saying swimmers and ocean-lovers alike are probably already sharing their favorite beaches with great whites, whether they know it or not. Continue reading...

Covert footage obtained by the Guardian shows how crime networks are using front souvenir shops to hide a booming wildlife trade targeted at a new influx of Chinese touristsThe shop is dark and deserted. Though the door is open, there is clearly no expectation of any customers walking in off the street. Visits are likely by appointment and from a specific clientele. This shop is part of an organised crime network. What is being sold is highly illegal and incredibly unethical.Anyone wandering in would see large bags of specialist tea, local coffee, trinkets and cigarettes on the shelves. But the photographs of wild animals adorning the walls offer a clue to what is truly for sale here. Continue reading...

Chinese tourism is booming in Laos and the illegal wildlife trade is booming with it. Pangolin scales, rhino horn and elephant ivory are all being sold at secret shops and restaurants as a new high-speed rail line brings millions of visitors to the country. Working with Chinese activists, the Guardian goes undercover to investigate the criminal networks profiting from this trade and to reveal how wildlife trafficking is pushing the critically endangered pangolin ever closer to extinction Continue reading...

Many seabirds are starving to death as a marine heat wave lingers off California and fish seek deeper, cooler watersWithin minutes of walking on a San Diego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses - one after another.Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks. Continue reading...

As bird flu reshapes agriculture, small farms operate under strict rules. Just a single case could tank their businessJoshua Beebe often starts his day by cleaning the tires of trucks and cars entering his poultry farm.We spray them off and scrub them with a brush. It's a precaution; the goal is to eliminate as many potential avenues for a pathogen to enter as possible," said the owner of Tardif Poultry Farm, located in the Connecticut countryside east of Hartford. Continue reading...

Chief scientist says dangerous heatwaves, which are getting more likely, bring home the implications of climate change'The month of June was the hottest in England on record, driven by a searing heatwave in the final days of the month, which for the first time had red heat alerts for three days, according to Met Office data.The Met Office said provisional statistics showed Wales and the UK as a whole had recorded their second-warmest June since 1884. Continue reading...

After a recent study found New Orleans is at a point of no return' amid the climate crisis, some locals say they will only leave if forced to'. But what would it take to stay?When a study in May concluded that New Orleans has hit a point of no return" due to the climate crisis that will require people to eventually retreat from their storied yet ultimately doomed city, the local reaction was swift and fiery.The onward march of rising seas around a sinking city was unsettling, but the study is more focused on generating publicity and clickbait headlines" than coming up with solutions, said Helena Moreno, New Orleans' mayor. There is flooding in Miami, and wildfires and earthquakes near San Fransisco, Moreno pointed out, yet no serious movement exists to declare those cities lost causes". Continue reading...

Theodore Roosevelt protected swathes of land, while Trump has lifted protections from more than 86m acresDonald Trump will attend a ribbon cutting for the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library on Wednesday, touting the legacy of a president his own administration is attempting to destroy, critics say.While in office from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt established five new national parks, protected swaths of land and passed legislation enabling himself and future presidents to proclaim historic landmarks and other objects of historic or scientific interest in federal ownership as national monuments. Continue reading...

The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursedThe United States of America is a truck that has driven into a ditch. The United States of America is a program that has been hacked. The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursed, as it approaches its quarter-millennium mark. I say it as though the US was one thing, but it is a thousand things.It is the masked ICE agent shooting Renee Good as she stood up for immigrants, but it is also Good herself and the immigrants, and the streets of Minneapolis and their Dakota and Ojibwe Indigenous past - and present and future. The US before 1865 was slaveowners, but it was also the enslaved and the abolitionists.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her newest book is The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change Continue reading...

The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous - but that doesn't stop the billionaire press from peddling its agendaEvery time you think the idiocy has hit rock bottom, it discovers a new level. It turns out there's an even deeper hole you can dig for yourself than climate-science denial: heat-stress denial. Across the billionaire press last week, columnists and leader writers minimised the health impacts of the heatwave, particularly in schools. Expect more of this next week, when temperatures are forecast to soar again.An editorial in the Telegraph (which represents the newspaper's view) titled Hot weather alarmism treats the public like children" maintained that unlike in the seventies, when people were largely trusted to look after themselves, officialdom now feels the need to lecture the public about the risks of hot weather at every opportunity". Extreme heat warnings are issued and weather maps are painted in an alarming red". Outrageous! Instead of issuing warnings, the government should just trust people to take the appropriate precautions". We should all learn to live" with it. Quite right too: whatever happened to the bulldog spirit of ignorance and needless death? Cricket, warm beer, excess mortality: these are the markers of national character. Continue reading...

Bollards, cones, fences and LandCruisers stand little chance against a 1,000kg giant known as 'Neil the seal'. The five-year-old elephant seal is already a local legend and has once again taken up residence in towns in southern Tasmania. He's bypassing barricades, he's crushing fences, he's lying in roads

Ruling means Boca Chica Beach, located near sprawling Starbase site, likely to close during future rocket launchesA Texas beach can be closed during rocket launches by Elon Musk's SpaceX after the state's supreme court ruled unanimously against a bid by environmental organizations to sue over preserving public access.The court's decision that the organizations did not have legal standing upheld a trial court's dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice, preventing the groups from filing the case again with revisions. Continue reading...

Mona Khalil led decades-long effort to protect nesting site for turtles near her home in south of the countryThe Lebanese marine activist Mona Khalil, who became a beloved figure in the country for a decades-long effort to protect a nesting site for turtles near her home, has died from injuries sustained in an Israeli strike.Khalil, 76, ran a sanctuary called the Orange House Project near the Mediterranean city of Tyre. She hosted volunteers in her house to clean and monitor a mile-long beach and welcomed tourists to stay and learn about conservation. Continue reading...

The reconstruction of the vaquita, whose numbers barely reach double figures in the wild, is designed to help research and conservation effortsScientists have created a digital reconstruction of the world's most endangered marine mammal, preserving its anatomy in three dimensions to aid research and conservation efforts as the species teeters on the brink of extinction.The project digitised the skeleton of a female vaquita, a small porpoise found only in Mexico's northern Gulf of California, using a combination of medical imaging, ultra-high-resolution micro CT scans and photography. Continue reading...

Lanchester Wines in north-east England uses heat from a disused coalmine to maintain wine temperatures and with 23,000 flooded mines in the UK, there's huge potential for more businesses and homes to follow its leadShove them in a fridge, stash them in a cellar - this is how most people store their favourite bottles of wine. But if you have warehouses full of thousands of vintages, you have to think a little differently.For the last eight winters, Lanchester Wines has used heat from a disused coalmine to maintain ideal storage temperatures at its facilities in the north-east of England, helping to prevent freezing or spoilage. Continue reading...

Supplier Agratas sacks its main building contractor on the government-backed project amid a budget mismatchJaguar Land Rover faces the risk of delays to the first deliveries of electric car batteries from a 5.2bn government-backed factory in Somerset after construction problems.The British carmaker is planning to rely on the Agratas factory in Bridgwater, Somerset, to supply the batteries for its new electric models. Agratas and JLR are owned by the Indian industrial conglomerate Tata. Continue reading...

As datacenters' connections to electric grids are held up, big tech is forced to throw money at producing its own powerDatacenters are driving unprecedented growth in the US clean energy industry, paradoxically boosting a sector that was sputtering before the artificial intelligence boom even as AI's rollout creates immense environmental challenges.However, observers caution that while the centers are propelling wind, solar, and other clean energy companies, datacenters remain a climate nightmare. Continue reading...

Do we really want to play dice with our planet?A series in the Guardian recently declared it's time to talk about geoengineering." So let's talk about it. And let us start with some simple truths about this cluster of techno-optimistic quick fixes" which purport to somehow offset our slow progress towards zeroing out planet-warming carbon emissions.Solar geoengineering proposals - reducing sunlight - have received the most attention, but a host of desperate schemes have been proposed in an effort to fix" the disruption of climate caused by the growing burden of carbon dioxide human activities add to the atmosphere. Continue reading...

This week's best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

It is still not totally clear what the government wants but the political mood seems to be shifting towards a decision

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator, joins Democrats in bid to stop dismantling of Ocean Observatories Initiative

Asda, Amazon and B&Q among retailers in talks to sell devices that feed into household sockets and can cut electricity bills by 30%

Sea ice is melting fast, worsening the climate crisis, but a bold attempt to rethicken it is showing early signs of successThis would have been a wild dream a year ago," says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white, the light dusting of snow on top continuing to sparkle.It's incredibly different, the boundary - I mean, you can point to it," he says. The difference is the result of a bold geoengineering experiment being conducted by Ceccolini's company, Real Ice, funded by the UK government. Continue reading...

Environment secretary raises concerns that customers would face undue burden' from 10bn plan

Exclusive: Sources say Defra's policy on livestock fails to distinguish between ponies and sheepNatural England and MPs are urging the government to change its livestock rules to stop ponies on Dartmoor from being culled.Semi-wild ponies have roamed Dartmoor for more than 4,000 years and have become uniquely suited to the boggy landscape, providing a charming sight for those who visit the national park. Continue reading...

The short-tailed roundleaf bat was feared extinct until scientist Iroro Tanshi found one in Afi sanctuary in Nigeria, and set out to protect the only confirmed roosting colonyJust after sunrise, a cacophony of whoops and chatter can be heard over the verdant forests of the Afi mountain wildlife sanctuary. Nestled within the Cross River rainforest in south-east Nigeria, and spanning an area about the size of central Paris, the steep sanctuary is a haven for endangered gorillas, drill monkeys, the grey-necked rockfowl - and the short-tailed roundleaf bat.The Nigerian biologist Iroro Tanshi remembers the moment she first spotted the endangered bat in 2016, during a field expedition for her PhD research. We were trapping near a roost that night, so we caught a lot of bats," says Tanshi. But, she adds: This looked very, very different. Big-eared." She promptly turned to her identification guide, which revealed that the tiny furry creature she was holding between her fingers was Hipposideros curtus, better known as the short-tailed roundleaf bat, last recorded in the wild in the 1970s. Continue reading...

A five-year-old girl was swept away and a woman was pulled into the water, prompting authorities to urge precautionMassive waves, coastal flooding and dangerous rip currents are roiling the California coastline this week as authorities advise people to take precautions while visiting beaches following two deaths last week.Turbulent waters swept a five-year-old girl, who was walking with her mother and brother, out to sea from the shore of Treasure Island Beach in Orange county in southern California on Tuesday. Bystanders were able to rescue the mother and son, but the girl was not found and her body was recovered on Thursday. Continue reading...

The 12 finalists will be exhibited at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery during Beaker Street festival from 6 to 17 August, including images of newborn fish, a native wasp and satellite trails across the night sky

The Global Justice Report offers a hopeful bargain: tax extreme wealth and replace consumer excess with social and economic security for allHumanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival, the Guardian reported last week. In an age of ecological dread, that is a bracingly hopeful claim. The optimism came courtesy of the Global Justice Report, produced by Thomas Piketty's World Inequality Lab.It arrives against the grain of the times. Antimigrant demagoguery, fossil-fuel revivalism, attacks on multilateralism and billionaire capture all militate against the redistributive state capacity that the report requires. Yet Prof Piketty's team insists that decarbonisation, sufficiency" and equality can meana good life for most people.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...

Global effort needed to limit effects of pollution, industrial fishing and climate crisis, World Ocean Assessment saysThe world's oceans are under severe and accelerating" pressure from human activities, with the rate of sea-level rise double that of a decade ago, according to a damning assessment from the United Nations.The intensifying" stressors, which include pollution and large-scale industrial fishing, are cumulative, said the report, resulting in widespread biodiversity loss and putting ocean systems under severe strain". Continue reading...

We cannot afford to make the same mistake as we did with gas. If tech companies are going to use our land, energy and water for AI, they must pay their fair share of tax

Footage captured by a diver shows a rare sighting of a great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea, spotted between Tunisia and Sicily.The sighting happened during a mission, organised by the NGO Healthy Seas Foundation in partnership with Ghost Diving and the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites, to remove abandoned fishing nets in the strait of Sicily.Healthy Seas, which removes rubbish from seas, said the video was believed to be the first underwater footage captured of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean in its natural habitat. The species has come close to extinction in the region, thought by Healthy Seas to be due to threats such as overfishing. Continue reading...

Annual killing of infant gannets has been carried out on a remote Scottish island for at least 400 yearsAnimal welfare campaigners have called for talks on phasing out the inhumane" hunt for infant gannets known as guga, which are killed by hunters on a remote Scottish island once a year.OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports said it should be slowly phased out in dialogue with the Hebridean islanders who see the hunt, which has been carried out for at least 400 years, as a cultural pursuit and as sustainable food harvesting. Continue reading...

Wildlife department says drought conditions and water released from dam led to major fish kill' at San Carlos LakeArizona officials have indefinitely closed a popular lake to visitors after its entire population of fish died recently.The recreation and wildlife department that maintains San Carlos Lake said in a Facebook statement on Friday that drought conditions as well as water released from a dam there resulted in a major fish kill affecting approximately 100% of the fish population". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Labour's Makerfield byelection candidate advocates public ownership of water companies as he prepares for potential leadership bidThames Water should be nationalised, Andy Burnham has said, revealing public ownership of water companies would absolutely be an option" under his potential leadership of the Labour party.Burnham, Labour's candidate in the Makerfield byelection, has previously called for greater public control" over the companies. In an interview with the Guardian, he has confirmed this could mean nationalisation. Continue reading...

The bipartisan Roadless Rule is under fire. It's just one way Trump could make our public lands unrecognizableModern roads in the United States will last for decades. And yet the damage they cause in our national forests is immediate.Since 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected more than 58m acres of national forests from development, barring road construction and timber harvests. The policy came to be with huge bipartisan support; almost 2 million people submitted comments on it, the majority of whom championed the protections.Charles F Sams III (Cayuse and Walla Walla) was director of the National Park Service from 2021 to 2025. He is now director of Indigenous programs at the Yale Center for Environmental Justice Continue reading...

Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will severely degrade' the accuracy of weather predictionsThe Trump administration's plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would severely degrade" the accuracy of weather predictions and El Nino forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month. Continue reading...