UK households throw away 24m slices of bread each day, says anti-food waste campaignAround 24m slices of bread are thrown away every day in the UK – more than a million an hour – because people do not get around to using it in time and worry it is stale.Now a new campaign from the anti-waste charity Love Food Hate Waste is urging consumers to freeze bread and toast it straight from the freezer, and to consider eating toast as a snack at any time of day. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: this is mythologised woodland, a secular sacred place, a hunting ground and a sanctuarySunlight pools on thousands of wild garlic leaves on the bank of an abandoned railway cutting. Trees stand in companionable silence, the breath between them is slight. Days ago, slender ash trunks rattled like yacht masts in a marina, hawthorns hissed in the east wind, great oaks and steeple limes soughed in deep snowy murmurs. Much of the storm wreckage has been cleared from the path; it is now a gallery full of early birdsong and light falling in patches as if from high windows.Yesterday a blackbird repeated a one … two-three … four syllable phrase of song; today it is elaborated by bright description and excited story. Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It about the bird under the greenwood tree singing “come hither” with no enemy but “winter and rough weather”. Continue reading...

They might be disparaged as bin chickens now but in ancient Egypt they were reveredIn Australia they’re reviled as bin chickens. But in ancient Egypt, ibises were revered and offered as gifts to the gods.Two mummified ibises have given researchers at the University of Sydney a riveting insight into their ancient appeal. Continue reading...

Conservationists say proposal would make sediment problems on the reef – which funding is designed to prevent – much worse

Committee says government should have got stronger commitments on bank’s futureMPs have accused the government of a “deeply regrettable” failure to put in place strong guarantees that the UK’s green investment bank will continue to support renewable energy after its privatisation.The public accounts committee said it was unclear whether the bank would continue to support the government’s energy policy or climate change goals, because the bank’s new owner is not legally bound to stick to its green aims. Continue reading...

From the Amazon to Africa, WWF report predicts catastrophic losses of as much as 60% of plants and 50% of animals by the end of the centuryThe world’s greatest forests could lose more than half of their plant species by the end of the century unless nations ramp up efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming on biodiversity hotspots.Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds are also likely to disappear on a catastrophic scale in the Amazon and other naturally rich ecosysterms in Africa, Asia, North America and Australia if temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, concludes the study by WWF, the University of East Anglia and the James Cook University. Continue reading...

The liquid tinkling of this tiny finch adds to the springtime chorus in Spain but can we expect to see the bird in Britain?Under a fiercely blue sky, the sun shines down on groves of oranges and almond blossom. I am in the mountain village of Sella, in Spain’s Alicante province, enjoying a sneak preview of spring – a month or more before it arrives in Britain.The migrant birds are not yet back, but half a dozen different butterflies are on the wing and birdsong fills the air. The scratchy sound of Sardinian warblers, the metallic song of the black redstart, and, from every little bush and tree, the liquid tinkling of serins. Continue reading...

Phllip Hammond accused of delaying action after he announces consultationEveryday single-use plastic items such as disposable coffee cups, takeaway boxes and polystyrene packaging could be hit with charges akin to the 5p levy on plastic bags, the government has warned.The Treasury said it was looking at changes to taxation and new levies to tackle plastic waste, but campaigners and politicians accused the government of delaying action. Continue reading...

New bill will be first step by ministers to protect and restore soil as fears grow over a future soil fertility crisisA new bill will be brought before parliament this year mandating, for the first time, measures and targets to preserve and improve the health of the UK’s soils, amid growing concern that we are sleepwalking into a crisis of soil fertility that could destroy our ability to feed ourselves.The UN has warned that the world’s soils face exhaustion and depletion, with an estimated 60 harvests left before they are too degraded to feed the planet, and a 2014 study in the UK found matters are not much better, estimating 100 harvests remaining. Continue reading...

Scientists found a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather farther south.The sort of severe winter weather that has rattled parts of the US and UK is becoming more common as the Arctic warms, with scientists finding a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather further south.A sharp increase in temperatures across the Arctic since the early 1990s has coincided with an uptick in abnormally cold snaps in winter, particularly in the eastern US, according to new research that analyzed temperature data from 1950 onwards. Continue reading...

Justine Greening and Vince Cable among those saying plan would jeopardise spending elsewhereThe true cost to the public of building a third runway at Heathrow has not been spelled out to taxpayers, according to a cross-party group of MPs, who warn that domestic flight connections and other transport spending will be jeopardised.Justine Greening, who quit Theresa May’s cabinet in January, is among the MPs calling on the government to clarify what backing expansion at the London hub airport would mean, saying: “The transport secretary has a duty to spell out the true costs for taxpayers – and to be realistic about the benefits.” Continue reading...

Taxpayers everywhere – including those living hundreds of miles away from the south-east – will all pay for the expansion, write local MPs, lords and council leadersWe are writing to you regarding Heathrow and the hidden costs that we believe need to be explored.Lots of promises have been made to lots of people in different parts of the country about the extra domestic routes they can expect if a third Heathrow runway is built. It’s all part of a divide-and-rule strategy which glosses over the health impacts of worsening noise and air pollution in south and west London while cheerily talking up the prospects of improved internal connections from an expanded hub airport. Continue reading...

New device is designed to prevent power output plummeting when the sun isn’t shining – but practical application is still some years offA solar panel that can generate electricity from falling raindrops has been invented, enabling power to flow even when skies cloud over or the sun has set.

Philip Hammond has delivered his first spring statement. Here are the key points, with political analysis

Greenpeace finds industrial fishing taking place in the feeding grounds of whales and penguins, with vessels involved in oil spills and accidents

Wiggonholt Common, West Sussex: The nuthatch hops around, searching the ground, before launching high into a tree above me, where it starts to singDawn passes barely perceptibly in the damp darkness of the wood. Rain is falling, dripping through the canopy, forming thin, cold cascades of droplets pattering on the mud below. I turn a corner and stop – a nuthatch is drinking from a pool on the track, raising its pointed bill to gulp down the water. With its black eye-stripe, blue-grey back and bright orange underparts, the bird is a flash of colour in the grey woodland.

Former foreign affairs minister says the benefits of immigration could be preserved but effects managed by slowing down rateThe former foreign affairs minister Bob Carr has called for Australia to cut its immigration rate in half, declaring that the country’s experiment of running the fastest rate of immigration in the world was an experiment that was failing.

Tax on luxury fossil fuel cars to fund expansion of Australia’s charging networkThe Greens have proposed introducing mandatory fuel efficiency standards, ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and imposing a four-year 17% tax on luxury petrol and diesel cars as part of an electric vehicle policy announced on Tuesday.Under the proposal Australia would adopt a mandatory fuel efficiency standard of 105g of CO2 a kilometre by 2022, three years earlier than a proposal being considered by the federal government. Continue reading...

A study reveals highest microplastic pollution levels ever recorded in a river in Manchester, UK and shows that billions of particles flooded into the sea from rivers in the area in just one yearThe number of tiny plastic pieces polluting the world’s oceans is vastly greater than thought, new research indicates.The work reveals the highest microplastic pollution yet discovered anywhere in the world in a river near Manchester in the UK. It also shows that the major floods in the area in 2015-16 flushed more than 40bn pieces of microplastic into the sea. Continue reading...

New geological research from Utah suggests the end-Permian extinction was mainly caused by burning coal, ignited by magma

Chew Valley, Somerset: These unruly fields are what we call ‘ancient countryside’ and its pattern may go back to neolithic timesWhen we first visited Folly Farm some 30 years ago this 250-acre plot was up for sale. Gates were hanging from their hinges, the hedges were rampant and the pastures were waist-deep in flowers; the 20th century did not appear to have happened yet, nor even the 19th.These unruly fields were carved from the land, not drawn by a ruler – the first farmers did not go in for squared-off corners as they hacked into the wildwood. The landscape historian Oliver Rackham called this “ancient countryside” (as opposed to the regular fields of “planned countryside” formed by the enclosures) and its pattern may go back as far as the neolithic period. Continue reading...

Photographer Murdo MacLeod visits New Zealand’s South Island where conservationists are seeking to protect the endangered yellow-eyed penguin from predation, disease and habitat destructionAt the end of the day, having avoided being bitten on the flipper by a barracouta or chewed by a shark, a shy yellow-eyed penguin prepares to come ashore and make its bed in the bush. Emerging from the surf, he scans the apparently empty sandy strip with his beady eyes for signs of danger. Though he is a swift swimmer, he is fettered by his stumpy legs when ashore. But he grows confident as he comes close to the dense brush.Then the unexpected happens: eight dark figures spring from three different locations and sprint toward the hoiho – or “little shouter” as the yellow-eyed penguin is known in Māori. He has been bushwhacked like this before and offers only token resistance. “Oh no, not again!” he may have thought. Continue reading...

Some previously rare illnesses are becoming epidemics in some bird populations, scientists sayGarden bird feeders are contributing to the spread of serious diseases among wild birds, scientists have warned, causing previously rare illnesses to become epidemics in some populations.Poor garden feeder hygiene, droppings accumulations and stale food are promoting the transmission of illnesses between garden birds as the animals repeatedly congregate in the same location, coming into contact with species they would not usually interact with in the wild. Continue reading...

Following his shocking photographs of dead albatross chicks and the diet of plastic that killed them, Chris Jordan’s new film is a call to action to repair our broken relationship with planet EarthWe are living in a plastic age and the solutions may seem glaringly obvious, so why aren’t all 7.6 billion of us already doing things differently? Shocking statistics don’t guarantee effective change. So what’s the alternative? American photographer and filmmaker Chris Jordan believes the focus should be on forcing people to have a stronger emotional engagement with the problems plastic causes. His famous photographs of dead albatross chicks and the colourful plastic they have ingested serve as a blunt reminder that the planet is in a state of emergency.While making his feature-length film Albatross, Jordan considered Picasso’s approach: “The role of the artist is to respect you, help you connect more deeply, and then leave it up to you to decide how to behave.” Continue reading...

Digestion of plastic into much smaller fragments ‘doesn’t necessarily help pollution’, Australian researchers sayA world-first study by Australian researchers has found that krill can digest certain forms of microplastic into smaller – but no less pervasive – fragments.The study, published in Nature Communications journal on Friday, found that Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, can break down 31.5 micron polyethylene balls into fragments less than one micron in diameter. Continue reading...

Please note: Apple/IOS mobile users should view within the YouTube appWhat happens to a town that has been abandoned for seven years after a nuclear meltdown? Greenpeace took former residents and a 360-degree camera into the radiation zone north of Fukushima to mark the anniversary of the disaster. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011. The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to go back. Continue reading...

Australian Automobile Association calls for real-world testing after finding nitrogen oxide emissions four times the levels observed in labVolkswagen cars in Australia are guzzling up to 14% more diesel fuel after a recall fix designed to cut emissions, research has found, reigniting calls for emissions to be tested in the real world rather than a laboratory.The analysis, commissioned by the Australian Automobile Association, which is campaigning for real-world testing, examined affected VW cars before recall and immediately after. Continue reading...

Green groups welcome proposed changes to land-clearing law but there are still reasons to doubt they are enough to halt the crisisLast week, the Queensland government tabled a highly anticipated bill seeking to implement its promise to “end broadscale clearing in Queensland”.Queensland is responsible for more tree clearing than the rest of the country combined, so making good on that promise would go a long way to halting Australia’s growing land clearing crisis. Continue reading...

Wentworth voters overwhelmingly favour review – including 70% of Liberal supportersMore than 75% of voters in Malcolm Turnbull’s Sydney electorate of Wentworth would support reviewing the environmental approvals for the controversial Queensland Adani coalmine, according to a new opinion poll.A ReachTel survey of 676 residents in the prime minister’s electorate, commissioned by the progressive thinktank, the Australia Institute, found an emphatic majority favoured a review of the project approvals, including 70% of Liberal voters. Continue reading...

Startup claims device will automatically switch smart-meter users three times a year and save them £300A device that plugs into a home broadband router and automatically switches supplier when cheaper deals become available is set to revolutionise the home energy market.The launch of Labrador comes as more and more people are changing their energy companies. Continue reading...

New York sends its treated sewage to other states to avoid dumping it in the sea – but it has plagued residents with a terrible stenchNew York City is the beating heart of global finance, a cultural behemoth, and home to more than 8.5 million people who create an enormous amount of poo. Some of this expelled waste has been causing a major stink 900 miles away, in Alabama.

Royal announces amalgamation of four charities to help protect communities and local heritageThe Prince of Wales has urged communities not to lose the dwindling skills that shaped the built environment and prevent specialist trades from disappearing “at an alarming rate”.Ahead of his 70th birthday in November, the prince also said he was “deeply concerned” that young people were growing up without a basic understanding of how the world works and our relationship with food. Continue reading...

What happens to a town that has been abandoned for seven years after a nuclear meltdown? Greenpeace took former residents and a 360-degree camera into the radiation zone north of Fukushima to mark the anniversary of the disaster.The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011.The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to go back. Continue reading...

Companies say mining poses scant threat but conservation groups say ban should remain until environmental risks have been fully exploredThe US mining industry has asked the supreme court to overturn an Obama-era rule prohibiting the mining of uranium on public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon.

Some new diesel models emit 12 times legal limit, while others ‘are the cleanest cars on the road’False emissions ratings for cars based on lab tests have cost the UK more than £2bn a year in lost tax revenue, according to the Green party.With CO2 emissions exceeding official measures by an average of 42%, millions of vehicles have been placed in tax bands that do not reflect their true levels of pollution, according to new research published on Saturday. Continue reading...

Cadair Idris, Gwynedd My last visit was with the friend and mentor from whom I inherited this diaryOn foot from Dolgellau, up Cader Road, a wind biting my cheek cold as government social policies. “Gwynt y dwyrain, gwynt o draed y meirwon” (East wind, wind from the feet of the dead)! I flinched before it, turned aside for the Foxes’ Path that climbs a great slope of red scree to the east of the summit.It was 1992 when I last came this way. That scree slope is the simple explanation – one of the most unpleasant ascents on any British mountain, fraught and unstable even in descent. I remember running down it in 1961, and turning a complete somersault as the block I’d landed on chose to career off downhill. No harm done when you’re young, but at the age of worn knees and torn ligaments , it’s best avoided. Continue reading...

Each Australian uses an average of 100,000 litres of water a year, and our electricity use is extreme. Our series Life Swaps looks at ways to reduce the loadDespite living on Earth’s driest populated continent, Australians throw around water as though the supply were endless. We are the planet’s greatest per capita consumers of water, with each person using an average 100,000 litres a year. Much of that is invisible to consumers, expended on the food and products we buy.Our electricity use isn’t much better. A recent Environmental Justice Australia investigation found east coast coal-fired power stations – where emissions limits trail places such as China – are responsible for deadly pollution that causes a suspected 130 premature deaths a year in Sydney alone. Yet oil and coal remain our primary energy sources, powering 70% of the nation. Continue reading...

UK is pushing for a deal that would boost imports linked to deforestation despite EU moves to ban unsustainable palm oil, diplomatic papers revealThe UK is defying EU institutions to push for a hike in nominally “sustainable” Indonesian palm oil imports which have nonetheless been linked to deforestation, leaked documents show.The European parliament is currently trying to force a ban on EU biofuels using palm oil, which have driven deforestation and contributed to the loss of 150,000 orangutans in Indonesia since 2002. Continue reading...

Spinner dolphins and a rehabilitated owl are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Labour says Conservative government should have intervened earlierLabour has accused the Conservatives of costing British households nearly £1,000 in extra energy costs over the past seven years by failing to stop electricity and gas firms raising prices.While the government is now imposing an energy price cap, the opposition attacked what it said was a record of inaction by successive Tory governments. Continue reading...

Exclusive: extractive industry companies who met with Kathleen Benedetto later saw direct benefits from administration decisionsA key Trump administration official scheduled roughly twice as many meetings with mining and fossil-fuel representatives as with environmental groups, public records requests have revealed.Further investigation shows that some of the firms she met later benefited directly from administration decisions that weakened wilderness and wildlife protections.

Formal recognition would help protect those who increasingly risk their lives to defend the land, water, forests and wildlife, says the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environmentIt is time for the United Nations to formally recognise the right to a healthy environment, according to the world body’s chief investigator of murders, beatings and intimidation of environmental defenders.John Knox, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said the momentum for such a move – which would significantly raise the global prominence of the issue – was growing along with an awareness of the heavy toll being paid by those fighting against deforestation, pollution, land grabs and poaching.

Amid plans for an unnecessary law change targeting cyclists, a parallel government consultation on safety makes some unexpectedly sensible pointsFor those interested in the many benefits that come from getting more people cycling, there’s some bad news and good news today – and in another minor compensation, at least the bad news was widely expected.This is the confirmation from the Department for Transport (DfT) that, as widely trailed at the weekend, a review it commissioned has recommended there should be a new law about causing death or injury by dangerous cycling, as for driving. Continue reading...

Government accused of warm words but no action on reducing throwaway packaging wasteThe government has rejected calls for a “latte levy” to be introduced on takeaway cups to reduce the amount of waste they create.Mary Creagh, the chair of the environmental audit committee, accused ministers of being all talk and no action after they refused to adopt a charge on throwaway cups similar to the plastic bag levy. Continue reading...

Hulne Park, Alnwick, Northumberland The dawn redwood is unchanged since the Cretaceous era. No wonder they have a Lord of the Rings qualityContorted and deeply furrowed, the flared bole of this tree has a Lord of the Rings quality. I almost expect it to start moving and lumber towards me like an Ent. Beneath the point where each branch leaves the trunk there are shadowy elbow-deep clefts. Its muscular ridges are a rich burnt orange, and ripple down to the ground like anchoring roots, making the twisted trunk look like it is screwing itself down into the earth. This is a dawn redwood, Metasequoia glypstostroboides, one of an avenue either side of Farm Drive in Hulne Park.

Decision a blow to those wanting Rio to stop funding industry association membershipsA move urging Rio Tinto to rethink its funding of the fossil fuel lobby has suffered a setback – the Anglo-Australian mining company has refused to present a shareholder motion on the issue to its annual general meeting in the UK.Last week, institutional investors who manage a combined $84bn in funds – and hold about $100m of Rio Tinto shares – filed a motion to the Australian arm of Rio Tinto, calling for a review of the company’s funding of industry association memberships.

Seven years after the nuclear disaster, 50,000 people have yet to return to their homes, but the dream of going back enduresOkuma, on Japan’s east coast, used to host a busy community of 10,500 people. But today the houses stand empty.The town is empty because it is one of the closest to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and – seven years after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a triple meltdown – it remains under evacuation orders with decontamination still not finished. Continue reading...

Harold Forbes says the principle of polluter pays is rarely implemented; Jeremy Tomkinson calls for clear policy on lowering petrol emissions; Chris Tidmarsh laments the sparsity of electric-car charging points in Southwark and LambethYour article on carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles (Fall in CO output from new cars goes into reverse, 27 February) makes no mention of the eight-year freeze on fuel duty, which has contributed to UK fuel prices being 4% below their 2000 levels in real terms and 21% below the 2013 peak. The relative price of things is an enormously powerful driver of human choices and behaviour.Dumping the economic assumption that nature is a limitless source of materials and services that can be considered to come for free would be the single biggest leap that humanity could make in securing its future. At present we have few monetary incentives to avoid excess greenhouse gas emissions, single-use plastics or even excess animal manure. In fact, the economy encourages us believe it is “cheaper” to do such things. Continue reading...

Seyed-Emami family were boarding plane to Canada when security forces stopped widowThe widow of an Iranian-Canadian environmentalist who died in a Tehran prison under disputed circumstances has been barred from leaving the country, according to one of her sons.The family – all of whom are dual citizens of Iran and Canada – were boarding a Lufthansa flight for Canada on Wednesday when Maryam Mombeini, 55, was stopped by security forces and told she was forbidden from leaving the country. Continue reading...

Northern Territory government-approved land clearing likely to cause up to 3 megatonnes of C02-equivalent greenhouse gas emissionsA landmark court case in the Northern Territory is set to consider a challenge to a massive land-clearing approval based on its impacts on climate change.The case, brought by the Environment Centre NT, is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, using the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions from clearing as a lever to seek to have an approval overturned. Continue reading...