Water sweeps away cars and more than 13,000 properties lose power as storm also prompts cold snap in south-eastWild weather caused flash flooding in Hobart on Friday morning, with cars swept away and emergency crews responding to hundreds of calls for help.Police said the city centre was hit hard, forcing the closure of many roads and, with more heavy rain expected on Friday, motorists were urged to stay off roads.

Scientists tested nine different masks bought from Beijing, with variable resultsWe are all familiar with images of Beijing citizens wearing masks, but do they work? Scientists from Edinburgh’s Institute for Occupational Medicine tested nine different masks bought from Beijing shops. Generally, the filter in each mask worked well, the best stopped over 99% of the particle pollution and the worst stopped 70% to 80%. Next, volunteers wore the masks in a test chamber filled with diesel exhaust. Pollution inside the mask was measured as they walked, nodded and talked. One mask stopped 90% of the particle pollution while others offered almost no protection. The tightness of fit was crucial. Facial hair prevents a good seal and the fit also depends on the shape of the user’s face. If it fits well then breathing through a mask is not easy. Wearing a mask could therefore pose problems for people who already have breathing or heart difficulties. So, face masks are not the answer to our problems. Walking alongside quiet instead of busy roads can help, and generally you will experience less pollution if you walk or cycle rather than sit in a car, but the best route to clean air is not masks. We need reduce the pollution in our cities. Continue reading...

Independent body will be backed by law requiring ministers to ‘have regard to’ core principles but green experts say targets should be included in legislationThe government’s plans for a new environmental watchdog to maintain standards and hold ministers to account in post-Brexit Britain has come under near universal attack from green campaigners.The statutory body was announced as part of ministers’ plans to protect landscapes and nature after the UK leaves the European Union.

Photojournalist Carolina Arantes documented Brazil’s thriving cattle industry and witnessed how farmers work with genetics companies to improve the performance and profitability of their herdsJabriel is an awesome, imposing creature. His humped figure, size and weight represent everything that is prized and revered in a bull. He is quite literally the top of the pyramid in Brazil’s vast, complicated and money-driven cattle industry.

Tanzanian government accused of putting indigenous people at risk in order to grant foreign tourists access to Serengeti wildlifeThe Tanzanian government is putting foreign safari companies ahead of Maasai herding communities as environmental tensions grow on the fringes of the Serengeti national park, according to a new investigation.Hundreds of homes have been burned and tens of thousands of people driven from ancestral land in Loliondo in the Ngorongoro district in recent years to benefit high-end tourists and a Middle Eastern royal family, says the report by the California-based thinktank the Oakland Institute. Continue reading...

Court grants injunction to Friends of the Leadbeater’s Possum to protect mountain ash forest until 25 FebruaryVicForests has been banned from logging in areas of sensitive greater glider habitat in the central highlands until next year, pending the outcome of a legal challenge.The federal court on Thursday granted an injunction to conservation group Friends of the Leadbeater’s Possum to protect the mountain ash forest until 25 February, when a three-week trial on the validity of the central highlands regional forests agreement (RFA) is due to commence. Continue reading...

A trip following bats along the river Cam has become one of the hottest tickets in town – and raised money for their protectionIt’s an impossibly idyllic early summer evening on the Backs of Cambridge. A blackbird flutes as a man pressure-washes a table outside a hotel. Mating flies drift on the breeze, alongside a whiff of marijuana. A student lies flat on the riverbank, feet in the water.

New video analysis reveals the furry thieves are looting up to half the seed put out in feeders, leaving gardeners and birds short-changedDaylight robbery worth millions of pounds is taking place in gardens across the country with grey squirrels raiding bird feeders on a huge scale, new research has revealed.

Sandy, Bedfordshire: I lean forward and the skater darts away in a series of fitful starts. A water measurer beneath my gaze stays put at the pond’s edgeA pond skater’s feet feel prey landing on the drumskin-tight surface of the water. Just how can this skater skate on thin “ice” while a fly the size of its eye falls through? Though the fly tries to drag its legs free, surface tension binds it to a sheet of elastic glue.I lean forward and the skater darts away in a series of fitful starts. A water measurer beneath my gaze stays put at the pond’s edge. An aquatic stick insect, Hydrometra stagnorum could easily be mistaken for a strand of dark human hair. My eyes are just a handspan away, so I can observe the detail of alternating light and dark strips along its abdomen, which remind me of a ruler. However, it gets its name from the way it walks over the surface with a measured tread. Continue reading...

Researchers hope that insights into reproductive behaviour will help save endangered species• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon A whiskery love bite on a hairy bum. It may sound like a perturbing form of foreplay but scientists believe it could help save critically endangered wombat populations in Australia’s north.Scientists have spent two wombat breeding seasons seeking to better understand the sex lives of vulnerable southern hairy-nosed wombats, using 24-hour infrared cameras and urine samples. Continue reading...

State commission approves plan, saying consumer energy savings would outweigh higher building costsCalifornia is set to require solar panels on new homes and low-rise apartment buildings starting in 2020, the first such mandate in the country and the state’s latest step to curb greenhouse gas emissions.“Adoption of these standards represents a quantum leap in statewide building standards,” said Robert Raymer, technical director for the California Building Industry Association. “You can bet every other of the 49 states will be watching closely to see what happens.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: five-year ‘enhanced clearance’ programme targets trees along 20,000 miles of track to avoid delays, according to an internal documentNetwork Rail is to target all “leaf fall” trees for removal alongside its tracks in a new £800m five-year programme of “enhanced clearance”, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.The policy document for 2019-24 emerged as the environment secretary, Michael Gove, summoned the chief executive of Network Rail for talks over their approach to environmental management following revelations about tree felling across the country by the Guardian. Continue reading...

Young boy becomes latest in series of casualties at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, which lies on migration route long used by elephantsBangaldesh has pledged to step up its response to a series of deadly elephant attacks at a refugee camp housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees after a 12-year-old boy was trampled to death.Shamsu Uddin died instantly when an elephant attacked him after he had fallen asleep while guarding paddy fields with friends in Uttar Shilkhali village in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.

Warming oceans melting Antarctic ice shelves could accelerate sea level rise

Millions of seabirds saved after remote island is officially declared rodent-free for the first time since humans arrived there more than 200 years ago

Plan to change timeline for energy use reduction puts Paris targets at risk, say MEPSA secret UK push to weaken key EU climate laws before Brexit risks scotching the bloc’s Paris commitments, MEPs say.The EU has committed to a 20% cut in its energy use by 2020 to be achieved by two directives, covering energy efficiency and buildings. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: These delicate flowers are the colour of the far blue yonder, blue remembered hills, into the blue, the beyond, a spiritual eternity“Is love so prone to change and rot/ We are fain to rear forget-me-not/ By measure in a garden plot?” asked Christina Rossetti (A Bed of Forget-Me-Nots, 1856). The flowers of forget-me-not, Myosotis, may have been reared by measure in a garden plot here, before it was abandoned a hundred years ago and a wood of change, rot and indeed love took over.Water, creeping, pale, tufted, Jersey, wood, alpine, field, changing and early … forget-me-nots are species of Myosotis belonging to the borage family, famous for their blue flowers; the delicate pale blue of forget-me-not is unique. Some flowers on this plant growing along the path are a brilliant white, too. Continue reading...

With more electricity often generated than needed the excess could be utilised to generate the green power sourceGreen energy would be boosted if excess electricity from wind and solar farms was used to produce hydrogen for use in heating and other parts of the energy system, according to engineers.Renewables were the UK’s second biggest source of electricity in the last three months of 2017, and now provide about a third of the country’s power at certain times of day. Continue reading...

World’s biggest project to kill off invasive species to protect native wildlife is hailed a success

If scandals oust Pruitt, Andrew Wheeler is an ex-coal industry lobbyist pledged to end the ‘pure hell’ of Obama regulationsIf the extraordinary barrage of ethical scandals buffeting Scott Pruitt finally dislodges him as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a reassuringly familiar figure to Republicans will take over and probably continue much of Pruitt’s controversial work to scale back environmental protections.

After nearly becoming extinct in Britain, the cirl bunting has bounced back, thanks to joint efforts by RSPB and farmersFew British birds have enjoyed such mixed fortunes as the cirl bunting, Emberiza cirlus. Discovered by my ornithological hero George Montagu in 1800, near his Devon home, it extended its range across much of southern Britain, before going into sharp retreat in the 1970s.By 1989 there were just 120 pairs – all but two in south Devon. Then, thanks to the RSPB, and especially project officer Cath Jeffs, it bounced back. Jeffs persuaded local farmers to create the right habitat for the buntings, and today there are more than 1,000 breeding pairs. Continue reading...

Waltham Brooks, West Sussex: Newcomers are adding their voices to the morning chorus, alert to the emerging insects

Much of Kinder Morgan pipeline’s proposed route lies within Secwepemc territory, and locals describe their fightback as ‘a matter of life and death’In the heart of the Canadian province of British Columbia, dozens of activists have been gathering to saw lumber, raise walls and install windows. By the time their work is done, 10 tiny homes will have been built – all in the name of thwarting a pipeline. Continue reading...

NHS, schools, government and other services should use UK ingredients for food wherever possible, according to proposalsFood procured for Britain’s public sector after Brexit should be sourced from the UK wherever possible, the biggest farming organisation has said.Promised sweeping reforms of food and farming have been cast by ministers as a flagship policy that will unlock some of the biggest potential benefits from Brexit. But farmers fear they will lose the £3bn-a-year taxpayer subsidy they enjoy under EU rules and be hamstrung by subsidised competition from Europe. Continue reading...

Mike Harding on Richard Martin, who pushed the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle Act through parliament in 1822, and Robin Russell-Jones on how our love of meat is helping to drive other mammals to extinction“Humanity Dick” (real name Richard Martin), who got the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle Act that you mention in your briefing (What is the true cost of meat?, 7 May) passed in 1822, was the owner of Ballynahinch Castle in Connemara.In the middle of Ballynahinch Lough there is a small island; Humanity Dick used to have anybody he found mistreating animals rowed out there and marooned until they repented of their crimes. He was particularly hard on anybody who mistreated donkeys it seems. Continue reading...

Regulators told shortcuts may be taken as pressure grows on producers from price cutsThe proposed merger of Sainsbury’s and Asda puts too much power in the hands of large retailers and will have a damaging impact on the environment, regulators have been warned.Food campaigners, environmentalists and farmers’ leaders are claiming the proposed deal, and the accompanying promise to further drive down prices, will put more pressure on producers, many of which may be forced to cut corners on environmental safeguards and shelve green initiatives. Continue reading...

It’s global warming that will hurt the economy in red states, not a carbon tax.

Labor decides not to back Greens’ motion, instead coming to an agreement with Coalition to keep plan intact

Results show Carmichael mine in Queensland no longer a viable proposition, analysts say

Choice compares prices from electricity retailers and handles switch to most economic dealsThe consumer group Choice has launched a $99 service to compare prices from electricity retailers, monitor them for 12 months and automatically switch subscribers to the best deal.Canisaveonenergy.com.au, which was launched on Monday, allows consumers to upload a recent power bill PDF and find out how much they could save with a new service based on a price comparison from 33 providers. However, they won’t be told which retailer is offering the best deal unless they pay the annual fee. Continue reading...

Supporters say the oil firm has experience drilling in rough seas but conservationists fear damage to wildlife and fisheriesThe cold and violent waters of the Great Australian Bight are home to one of the country’s most biodiverse and important marine ecosystems, the heart of its fishing industry, a growing tourism hotspot – and potentially its newest oil field.Of the species in the bight, 85% are found nowhere else on the planet. It is a breeding ground for the endangered southern right whale and a feeding zone for Australian sea lions, great white sharks, migratory sperm whales and short-tailed shearwaters.

Environmental fashion campaigner visits Tasmania to learn about wool production, its impact on the environment and mulesingHow safe are the people who make your clothes?Livia Firth still has the wool sweaters she wore as a teenager. The environmental fashion campaigner, who grew up in Italy, remembers hand washing her sweaters each summer, carefully storing them away, then unpacking them the following winter. She would wear them year after year so she had to look after them. This was before fast, disposable fashion she says, “We did it a different way.”Related: Rana Plaza, five years on: safety of workers hangs in balance in Bangladesh | Michael Safi and Dominic Rushe Continue reading...

Government bows to protesters and agrees to shelve development near Chiang MaiEnvironmental activists in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai claimed victory on Sunday after the country’s military government agreed not to continue the development of luxury property on forest land.The decision follows a demonstration in Chiang Mai last week in which more than 1,000 people protested against the construction of a luxury development earmarked to house judges in the foothills of the Doi Suthep mountains. Continue reading...

Residents in Derbyshire pilot town cut waste by only 9% despite free gadgets and toolsSainsbury’s has abandoned a £10m project to halve food waste in a designated town across Britain after a year-long trial produced miserable results.The supermarket group gave families in one town, Swadlincote in south Derbyshire, free gadgets to cut food waste – such as devices to measure the correct amount of spaghetti to cook, “smart” fridges to control content and temperatures more accurately, food planners and magnetic shopping lists – and monitored the results. Continue reading...

Problems at Hunterston B in Scotland trigger doubts over six other 1970s and 80s plantsThe six month closure of one of Britain’s oldest nuclear reactors will burn a £120m hole in the revenues of owner EDF Energy and has raised questions over the reliability of the country’s ageing nuclear fleet.EDF said this week that it was taking reactor 3 of Hunterston B in Scotland offline for half a year, after inspections found more cracks than expected in the graphite bricks at the reactor’s core.

Sound emitters will give warning of vehicles travelling at low speedsThey are green, clean and make very little noise. It is this latter quality, initially seen by many as a good thing, that has become an acute concern for safety campaigners, who fear that the rising number of electric vehicles constitutes a silent menace.When they travel at under 20mph the vehicles can barely be heard, especially by cyclists or pedestrians listening to music through headphones. “The greatest risks associated with electric vehicles are when they are travelling at low speeds, such as in urban areas with lower limits, as the noise from tyres and the road surface, and aerodynamic noise, are minimal at those speeds,” said Kevin Clinton, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. Continue reading...

Project to recreate London estate accused of subverting history by opponents, who say elaborate grounds may never have existedThe restoration, even at huge cost, of what English Heritage calls one of “the great lost gardens of London” sounds a worthwhile, even noble, project. But what if that “lost garden” is a myth, a pipe dream never really built? English Heritage plans to transform the estate of Marble Hill, a grand house by the Thames, by reintroducing elaborate gardens it says were inspired by Alexander Pope, the satirist and poet, and 18th-century royal garden designer Charles Bridgeman.The original designs featured a ninepin bowling alley, an ice-house seat and a flower garden, surrounded by twisting paths and groves of trees and English Heritage plans to recreate all this, alongside a “vibrant” cafe and children’s play area. Continue reading...

Brexit, online delivery services and bans on plastic threaten Britain’s national dishAnyone wanting to understand the economic problems facing Britain in the early 21st century need only consider its national dish.Chippies are confronting a long list of issues that threaten to send the price of their product rocketing as the holiday season approaches. Brexit, the popularity of online delivery services, freakish weather and concerns about the pollution caused by plastic are all putting pressure on the nation’s 10,500 fish and chip shops. Continue reading...

Tracks in White Sands national monument suggest hunters tracked 8ft creature with long arms and sharp claws – but it’s unclear whyResearchers studying a trail of fossilized footprints on a remote New Mexico salt flat have determined that the tracks tell the story of a group of ice age hunters stalking a giant sloth.Scientist David Bustos said the tracks, both adult and children’s footprints found at White Sands National Monument, showed people followed a giant ground sloth, purposely stepping in their tracks as they did so. Continue reading...

Tensions have come to a head over the fate of dozens of wild peacocks that have taken up residence on a city streetFor a decade, a group of feral peacocks have divided the community of Sullivan Heights. Some of the residents of this suburban neighbourhood outside Vancouver love the birds, who have taken up residence in the local trees; others say they are kept awake by the peacocks’ screeching.For Parminder Brar, the final straw came last year, when he says his father injured himself slipping on peacock excrement on Brar’s property. He formally issued a request to take down the tree where the peacocks had built a nest. The city turned him down. Continue reading...

Billionaire bike-lover Sylvan Adams has a dream to get Israel cycling – he funded the Middle East’s first velodrome, gave car-centric Tel Aviv a cycle network, and is behind the country’s first Grand Tour. But will it work?While some wealthy benefactors to Israel choose to plant forests, build scenic promenades or put their names on hospitals, Sylvan Adams loves cycling so much he seed-funded some cycleways to help transform Tel Aviv into the “Amsterdam of the Middle East”.The Canadian real-estate billionaire also supplied cash to build a new velodrome – the first in the Middle East – and created a professional Israeli cycling team. He also stumped up some of the £9m fee for staging the first three stages of the 101st Giro d’Italia in Israel, which kicked off yesterday.

Once the right whale to hunt, Eubalaena glacialis is now beset by nets, ships and changing seas. We are losing a beautiful beastAs if to confound everyone, this past week Dr Charles “Stormy” Mayo and his team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies reported seeing up to 150 right whales in Cape Cod Bay. Dr Mayo – who has been studying these animals for 40 years and has a scientist’s aversion to exaggeration – is stunned.Related: North Atlantic right whales may face extinction after no new births recorded Continue reading...

Barns Ness, East Lothian: Pools teem with tiny creatures and fossilised coral demands attention – the whole place is dense with life, old and newOut on the headland at Barns Ness, the strand is pitted with rockpools and slung with seaweed of all textures. Bladderwrack and fleecy gutweed and long-tailed oarweed and sugar kelp lie heaped upon one another, slick and slippery underfoot. The pools themselves seem empty on first approach, but after a minute’s silent watch they come to life: periwinkles inching almost imperceptibly along, shore crabs sidling from under rocks with a suspicious air, and – best of all – tiny hermit crabs in their pilfered shells, peeking shyly out, antennae waving.We have spent a week here in the lighthouse cottages in Barns Ness, waking to the sound of crashing waves beyond the wall. The weather has been temperamental, so when the sun appears we rush out the door and down to the shoreline. Today the clouds are strung high and thin in the sky, and the sun casts a great halo around itself – a ring of light that encircles the lighthouse too, and the peregrine falcon that perches on its rail. Continue reading...

Environment secretary favours the move but it is hotly contested within governmentMichael Gove is spearheading plans to halt the sale of new hybrid cars by 2040 to help tackle UK air pollution, Whitehall sources have said.

Local government wants to convert totally to renewables by 2050 but plan will not be easyAs thousands of holidaymakers fly into Menorca this summer, a glance out the window will illustrate the past and future of the island’s energy system.

Snake humanely killed after it escaped from tank and wrapped itself round eight-month-old puppy in Amherst, MassachusettsPolice in Massachusetts say they shot and killed a pet boa constrictor after it fatally crushed a puppy.Related: Poison pass: the man who became immune to snake venom Continue reading...

A marmot emerging from hibernation, a friendly elephant and a baby ring-tailed lemur are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Reusing shower water, limiting toilet flushing and night-time irrigation were among measures that saved South Africa’s second city from running dryLate last year, as the South African government faced the prospect of its largest city running out of water, they took an unprecedented gamble.The government announced “day zero” – a moment when dam levels would be so low that they would turn off the taps in Cape Town and send people to communal water collection points.

This week’s edition of the Upside series looks at the use of new tech to fight dirty money, sexual harassment and pollutionOur world is full of persistent, apparently unsolvable problems that often stem from the type of behaviour that can shake our faith in our fellow human beings. But amid that gloom, the advance of technology is one of the great and renewable sources of hope. And while technology alone can never provide all the answers, history is a story of breakthroughs and revolutions triggered by all manner of scientific discoveries.This week, we present to you: tales of how technology is being leveraged to tackle some of our most demoralising problems. Continue reading...

In the rush to accommodate increasing numbers of electric cars, some cities are letting bulky charging stations take space from pedestriansCities across the world are rushing to install charging points to encourage and keep up with demand from increasing numbers of electric vehicles. By the end of last year there were almost 600,000 street charging points globally.But while some cities, such as Paris, are introducing charging points inconspicuously, many others are not. In some areas of London chargers have been taking over pavements and blocking pedestrians.