Analysis of a similar system in Norway shows no one will be out of pocket as long as bottles and cans are returnedRetailers will not suffer financial losses from the introduction of a plastic bottle deposit return scheme (DRS) in the UK, according to an analysis of a similar system in Norway.

Sandy, Bedfordshire: There was something terrible about this pike, so strong and adept in open air, breaking loose from its watery domain to display a row of jagged teethThe inflatable banana caught my eye again, drawing my attention from a stretch of riverside towpath that had been mined and undermined by rabbits, tunnelled by moles and pummelled into unevenness by the hooves of the Travellers’ horses that were long before left loose to run here.It was on that same walk the day before that I’d first seen the metre-long, primrose-yellow plastic banana lodged in bankside vegetation, as clean and bright as the moment it had been laughed down a weir or launched on the water to see how fast this bent canoe would go. Did they wonder if their joke would carry to the sea, the open ocean? Did they think the river a sink that would wash it down the plug hole? Had they even heard of microplastics? Continue reading...

The 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it“We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year. Continue reading...

Record-breaking dive in Antarctic waters emerges after scientists accidentally tagged wrong emperor penguinsScientists in Antarctica have recorded the world’s longest penguin dive, an astounding 32.2 minutes under the water; a full five minutes longer than the previous record.Emperor penguins, which live only in Antartica, are the tallest and heaviest penguins in the world, and have the best diving ability. They can dive as much as 500 metres down in some of the world’s harshest and coldest seas. Continue reading...

But is it a genuine energy solution – or just a prop for the Carmichael mine?• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noonGodda, in the Indian state of Jharkhand, is surrounded by the country’s most productive coalmines. It will soon also be home to the Adani group’s latest coal-fired power station, a plant built for the sole purpose of sending energy across the border to Bangladesh.

Critics say retailers can pick and choose whether to sign up to Plastics Pact, a series of pledges that have no enforcement mechanismUK supermarkets and food companies launched a new voluntary pledge to cut plastic packaging on Thursday as ministers consider forcing them to pay more towards collecting and recycling the waste they produce.In a first response to a growing public backlash against the huge volumes of plastic rubbish, most of the UK’s largest supermarkets signed up to support the UK Plastics Pact – an industry-wide initiative which says it aims to transform packaging and reduce avoidable plastic waste.

Mexico City police found 416 totoaba swim bladders, prized for their purported rejuvenating qualities, in passenger’s suitcasesMexican authorities have arrested a Chinese airline passenger after a strong smell emanating from his suitcases led to the discovery that he was transporting body parts from hundreds of endangered fish.Police at the Mexico City international airport “found 416 totoaba swim bladders in [the passenger’s] two suitcases,” the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Those dedicated to going plastic-free wonder how to dispose of cat litter or buy cleaning products sans packaging. Share your problems – and solutions

Cross-party group asks auditor general to seek information about three 2017 purchasesA cross-party group of federal MPs has asked the auditor general to urgently investigate $180m spent on water buybacks last year, amid concerns about whether the government got value for money.The buybacks of water rights from three large properties as part of the Murray-Darling basin plan proceeded without tender, and took place while Barnaby Joyce was minister for agriculture. Continue reading...

Larger-than-expected population in Africa gives hope for species survival, scientists say, but animal remains critically endangeredThere are far more gorillas left in the world than previously thought, according to a landmark new survey, with numbers as much as double earlier estimates.However, their populations are continuing to fall fast, down 20% in just eight years, leaving them critically endangered. Furthermore, 80% of the remaining gorilla troops do not live in protected areas, leaving them vulnerable to the threats the researchers summarise as “guns, germs and [felled] trees”.

Low-lying atolls around the world will be overtaken by sea-level rises within a few decades, according to a new study

The centennial flame is a popular attraction in Ottawa, but it could be replaced with an ‘alternative sustainable approach’

Since 2014, Flint has received millions of dollars in aid, and the state of the water is improving – but residents are still left with physical ailments and lifelong fearsLeeAnne Walters was one of the activists who brought Flint’s brown, lead-laden water to the world’s attention, thrusting plastic bottles of dingy liquid into camera lenses and the national consciousness.Four years later, you might think things have improved in the Michigan city. But Walters is still bathing her kids in bottled water, which she heats on the stove in four separate pots and a plastic bowl in the microwave. Continue reading...

Over 600 NAS members called out ‘the Trump Administration’s denigration of scientific expertise’

Guardian investigation reveals $64bn fund includes investments in companies involved in bribery and major environmental damageThe United Nations is facing calls for a full review of its staff pension fund after the Guardian uncovered that it has around a billion dollars invested in companies whose activities are or have been incompatible with core UN principles and programmes.

Royal Dutch Shell wants to cut its own climate emissions in half by 2050 - a target wiped out by burning one month’s worth of their fossil fuelsIf you’re a millennial, the global oil and gas company Shell will have been most pleased if you’d seen one their #makethefuture music videos.Twice now Shell have lined up superstars including Jennifer Hudson, Pixie Lott and Yemi Alade to sing about solar panels, hydrogen cars, clean cooking stoves and lights powered by a bag of rocks and gravity. Continue reading...

Friends of the Earth says countryside would be industrialised with a new well fracked daily until 2035More than 6,000 shale gas wells would be needed to replace half the UK’s gas imports over a 15-year period, according to a new report.The nascent UK fracking industry has argued that growing reliance on gas from Norway and Qatar necessitates developing home-produced supplies in addition to North Sea output. Continue reading...

Exclusive: The prime minister says the UK leads the world on climate action, but Foreign Office officials dedicated to the issue have plunged since 2016The number of full-time officials dedicated to climate change in the Foreign Office has dropped by almost 25% in the two years since Boris Johnson became foreign secretary, according to data released under freedom of information (FoI) rules.

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: Toads can control their skin tone and this soft yellowishness showed it was ready to ‘a-wooing go’“How could a purse / squeeze under the rickety door and sit, / full of satisfaction, in a man’s house?” wrote the poet Norman MacCaig in Toad. This toad, a soft yellow-brown and ornamentally purse-like, had come through the back door somehow and was squatting defiantly on quarry tiles. It was seeking asylum from an extraordinarily brilliant morning, unfamiliar heat and ultraviolet light that the weather forecast said was moderate but to toadskin was extreme radiation. It did not seem full of satisfaction to me but then Bufo bufo’s narrowing eyes with horizontal pupils and that broad enigmatic smile may be mistaken for smugness.The place in the toad’s head that myth says contains a jewel is hidden by an inscrutable mask that is somewhere between divine and reprobate. The bulging paratoid glands on its head, the warty skin excrescences that secrete toxins, and the sumo stance, all suggest repulsion but its soft yellowishness is the colour of fading daffs, with hints of celandine, primrose, agate and potting sand. Toads can control their skin tone and this was being dressed to “a-wooing go”. Continue reading...

Kenya’s ban comes with the world’s stiffest fines and some businesses are struggling to find affordable alternatives, but in Nairobi’s shanty towns the clean-up is changing livesWaterways are clearer, the food chain is less contaminated with plastic – and there are fewer “flying toilets”.A year after Kenya announced the world’s toughest ban on plastic bags, and eight months after it was introduced, the authorities are claiming victory – so much so that other east African nations Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan are considering following suit. Continue reading...

Spring is risky for mountain hares; to avoid predators, they have to time their change from white to brown carefullyBritain’s mountain hare Lepus timidus should presently be turning from white to grey-brown with a blue tinge as the breeding season starts. Spring is a dangerous time; the snow disappears and adults need to blend in to avoid hungry eagles or a fox.Unlike brown hares and rabbits the mountain hare is a true native species, but is increasingly threatened by climate change as it has to climb higher to find a suitable habitat. There are mountain hares as far south as Derbyshire and on the Pennine Hills, where they have been introduced, but their true home is in alpine Scotland. Continue reading...

We can take back control of our waters, writes Bertie Armstrong, while Steve Peak laments the Tories’ broken promisesWe agree with Polly Toynbee that fishing is “deep-dyed in the national identity” (Opinion, 23 April). The UK is in the middle of some of the best fishing grounds in the world. Where she is wrong is in making two assertions: firstly, that taking back control of our waters “is not going to happen, because it can’t”; and secondly, that the problem is that UK skippers sold their quotas to foreigners.On the first, actually it can. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) awards sovereign rights over and responsibilities for the natural resources to coastal states in their own exclusive economic zones. That will be us on Brexit, and there are a couple of pre-packed examples of the benefits in the EEZs of our near north-east Atlantic neighbours. Iceland catches 90% of the seafood resource in its EEZ and Norway some 85%. For us, under the rules in the common fisheries policy, we catch 40%, which is absurd. It certainly can change, and according to the prime minister and DexEU and Defra, it will change. It will be a negotiation, but if, as Polly says, the referendum was actually won on fishing sentiment, then public support will see the negotiations move in the right direction. Continue reading...

Renowned conservationist dedicated to saving orphaned elephants and releasing them back into the wildElephant babies like coconut oil. This discovery has saved the life of hundreds of orphaned, unweaned elephants, left behind when their mothers were killed, victims of the ivory wars that have catastrophically reduced elephant populations across Africa.The discovery came after two decades of efforts by the renowned conservationist Daphne Sheldrick, who has died aged 83. She devoted most of her life to rescuing young elephants and releasing them back into the wild. Continue reading...

Substances used to aid muscle-building and weight loss made up more than half of the pharmaceuticals found in the capital’s sewers. What does this tell us about modern life?Along with the flushed debris and the thriving bacteria – the wet wipes, condoms, and sanitary towels; the listeria and E coli – that have congealed within the giant fatbergs in the sewers under central London, are chemicals found in banned gym supplements. In fact, they were discovered in greater quantities than drugs such as cocaine and MDMA.In tonight’s Fatberg Autopsy: Secrets of the Sewers, on Channel 4, samples from a giant block were examined to see what it contained. Caused by people pouring cooking oil down the drain – which then congeals with items that should not be flushed, such as wet wipes – fatbergs are an increasing problem for water companies, particularly in urban areas. But the examination of fatbergs’ chemical content also provides a picture of the way we live. The scientists who did the analysis discovered numerous predictable substances, such as paracetamol, prescription medications and substances used in skin creams. But more surprising was the amount of hordenine and ostarine – described by the programme-makers as often being found in gym supplements, which made up more than half of the pharmaceuticals found. Continue reading...

Samples taken from five locations found concentrations of more than 12,000 microplastic particles per litre of sea iceScientists have found a record amount of plastic trapped in Arctic sea ice, raising concern about the impact on marine life and human health.Up to 12,000 pieces of microplastic particles were found per litre of sea ice in core samples taken from five regions on trips to the Arctic Ocean – as many as three times higher than levels in previous studies. Continue reading...

Bob Dudley faces criticism for calling for university to ‘come to its senses’ over divestmentBP’s chief executive has come under fire from campaigners after he urged Cambridge University not to drop its fossil fuel investments.Bob Dudley was greeted with laughter when he told an industry conference on Tuesday: “We donate and do lots of research at Cambridge so I hope they come to their senses on this.” Continue reading...

Demand lower following recent warm weather, making it easier for gas, renewables and nuclear to cover UK’s needsThe UK has been powered without coal for three days in a row, setting a new record and underlining the polluting fuel’s rapid decline.Coal has historically been at the cornerstone of the UK’s electricity mix, but last year saw the first 24-hour period that the the country ran without the fuel since the 19th century. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Taking back control of UK waters would lower the price of British-caught fish, new analysis shows – but most of the fish we eat is importedA hard Brexit that banned EU fishermen from UK waters would lead to many more fish being landed by British boats and a corresponding drop in prices, according to new economic analysis.But there’s a catch. Two-thirds of the fish UK consumers eat are imported from overseas, and the costs of those would rise, due to the trade barriers resulting from a hard Brexit. Moreover, the fall in the price of UK fish would lead to a drop in earnings for UK fishermen. Overall, the analysis shows closing the UK’s sea borders would be a “lose-lose situation” for both UK and EU consumers and fishing industries. Continue reading...

The global network of 85,000 members runs on goodwill and a ‘pay it forward’ philosophy, allowing riders to navigate the lonely and sometimes testing side of cycle touring and connect with kindred spiritsImagine you’re nearing the end of another long day in the saddle, partway through your latest cycling tour. Your panniers feel heavy and your tyres sticky as you drag your bike over the final climb of the day. You pull your map out and wrestle with the foreign characters on the paper, trying to match them with those on the road sign ahead. Continue reading...

Ferry Meadows, Peterborough: The sun is shining and tiny furrow bees join other species feeding on pollen and nectar

Soil erosion and water pollution caused by poor farming practices mean land could become too poor to sustain food crops by the end of the centuryEngland must invest £10m a year to ensure its soil is productive enough to continue to grow food by the end of the century, a new report warns. Continue reading...

Report recommends few changes to vegetation management act but notes LNP concernsThe Queensland government may push land-clearing laws through parliament as early as next week, after a committee report recommended few changes to its proposed vegetation management act.The report, tabled late on Monday night, noted concerns from the Liberal National party opposition that the process was rushed and that consultation with people in regional areas had been inadequate. Continue reading...

A campaign to prevent the pollution of the Earth’s oceans with plastic, begun by Lauren St John, now has 50 children’s writers involvedFifty children’s authors, including Michael Morpurgo, Quentin Blake and Jacqueline Wilson, have come together to call on the book trade to ditch plastic and help save the oceans.The Authors4Oceans campaign wascreated by the award-winning novelist Lauren St John, whose children’s books include the eco-adventure Dolphin Song and the forthcoming seaside mystery Kat Wolfe Investigates. St John devised the project, which is asking publishers, booksellers and young readers to help halt the amount of plastic being dumped in our oceans, after she ordered a drink in a bookshop, and found it came with a plastic straw. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Scientists say governments and corporations need to ‘legislate and incentivise’ to tackle ocean plastics• Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningPlastic has been found in ocean-floor sediments 2km below the surface in one of Australia’s most precious and isolated marine environments.

Form of carbon incorporated into concrete created stronger, more water-resistant composite material that could reduce emissionsThe novel “supermaterial” graphene could hold the key to making one of the oldest building materials greener, new scientific research suggests.Graphene has been incorporated into traditional concrete production by scientists at the University of Exeter, developing a composite material which is more than twice as strong and four times more water-resistant than existing concretes. Continue reading...

Pruitt is one of TIME’s 100 most influential people for his efforts to maximize polluters’ profitsTIME magazine announced last week that Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is among their 100 most influential people of 2018. George W. Bush’s former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman delivered the scathing explanation:If his actions continue in the same direction, during Pruitt’s term at the EPA the environment will be threatened instead of protected, and human health endangered instead of preserved, all with no long-term benefit to the economy. Continue reading...

The discovery of the Tapanuli orangutan has not stopped a Chinese state-run company from clearing forest for a planned dam. Conservationists fear this will be the beginning of the end for a species only known for six months

Arctic Dispatches, part 3: A pilot project at a lake in northern Alaska is one of a number aiming to slow climate change with geoengineering – but some worry about unintended consequences

Hundreds of academics, authors and scientists sign open letter as divisive issues comes to headHundreds of academics, scientists and authors have signed an open letter calling on Cambridge University to stop investing in fossil fuel companies, marking an escalation in an increasing bitter divestment campaign at the institution.The move, by signatories including Sir David King, until recently the UK’s permanent special representative for climate change, Thomas Blundell, the former president of the UK Science Council and the author Robert Macfarlane, comes as the university council is set to consider the issue at a meeting on Monday. Continue reading...

Afon Mawddach, Gwynedd: As I pondered my options, pools of water formed in the carpet of vegetation around my bootsPassengers for Morfa Mawddach station, to use the formal language of the announcement, “should inform the conductor that they wish to alight”. Your reward, if you do so, is a single narrow platform overlooking the salt marsh on the southern side of the Mawddach estuary. The station was once an important railway junction and, almost hidden by the undergrowth, an abandoned platform edge marks where a second track curled eastward towards Dolgellau. This line has been closed for more than 50 years, but the trackbed has found a new life as a route for walkers and cyclists. Continue reading...

Winners are all grassroots activists who have taken on powerful vested interests

Winners of the world’s leading environmental award faced down Vladimir Putin and the country’s recently deposed leader, Jacob Zuma, to overturn a multibillion-dollar nuclear deal

From an anti-nuclear court ruling in South Africa to a campaign that nudged the Vietnamese government from coal to renewable energy, the winners of the world’s leading environmental prize are all grassroots activists who have taken on powerful vested interests Continue reading...

Report on the state of the world’s birds reveals a biodiversity crisis driven by intensive farming, with once-common species such as puffins and snowy owls now at riskOne in eight bird species is threatened with global extinction, and once widespread creatures such as the puffin, snowy owl and turtle dove are plummeting towards oblivion, according to the definitive study of global bird populations.The State of the World’s Birds, a five-year compendium of population data from the best-studied group of animals on the planet, reveals a biodiversity crisis driven by the expansion and intensification of agriculture. Continue reading...

Survey suggests pest problem is worst in south-east England, and in flats and pre-1950s housingGot a lovely collection of cashmere sweaters you don’t want devoured by moths? Then maybe you should move to a new-build house in the east Midlands. That, you see, is the type of dwelling and region least likely to be tormented by the pesky insects, according to a new study by English Heritage at least.English Heritage conservators have been monitoring the remorseless rise in moth numbers, blamed on a string of exceptionally mild winters – although the survey ended before the spectacularly bitter weather of last winter – and last year invited visitors to their properties to help by collecting free moth traps and reporting their haul. Continue reading...

The environmental scourge of plastic has shot to the top of the political agenda. We talk to the creatives and campaigners behind five imaginative new venturesAmong retailers and manufacturers, they talk of “the Blue Planet effect”. The BBC series, screened late last year, was the moment that many of us realised the catastrophic impact our use of plastics was having on the world’s oceans. Scenes such as a hawksbill turtle snagged in a plastic sack, the albatrosses feeding their chicks plastic or the mother pilot whale grieving for her dead calf, which may have been poisoned by her contaminated milk, are impossible to unsee.It’s a crisis that affects us all, and the facts make for dispiriting reading. If nothing changes, one study suggests that by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic swimming around, by weight, than fish. It’s already estimated that one third of fish caught in the Channel contain plastic; another piece of research found that “top European shellfish consumers” could potentially consume up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic a year. Continue reading...

Arctic Dispatches, part 2: As the Arctic heats up, residents of Utqiaġvik are experiencing first contact with unusual species that are making their way polewards

Removing a thick fishing rope from a highly fertile whale’s jaw was a priority for scientists who fear the species may be in terminal declineA mission to disentangle a particularly important North Atlantic right whale from a thick rope wrapped around its jaw has proved a partial success, amid growing fears that the endangered species is approaching a terminal decline.The individual female whale, known as Kleenex, is considered one of the most productive North Atlantic right whales left in existence, having given birth to eight calves. Its condition has deteriorated, however, since it was spotted off the coast of Delaware in 2014 with a thick fishing rope wrapped around its head and upper jaw. Continue reading...

Taps in capital city of Maputo being turned off every other day as climate change exacerbates southern African droughtIn the township of Chamanculo, in Maputo, Mozambique, a network of household taps made the community water pump obsolete years ago, freeing residents from the daily burden of lugging massive jerrycans of water long distances.But a water crisis, partly caused by an ongoing drought affecting much of southern Africa, is already reversing progress in this coastal city. An emergency “orange alert”, declared last February by the country’s disaster management council after failed rains, has triggered such strict water rationing across the capital city that the taps are turned off every other day and irrigation is banned. Continue reading...