Environment | The Guardian

Langstone, Hampshire Grey squirrels begin mating in mid-December, but here the males’ chittering pursuit started weeks ago

Shire river, which generates almost all of the country’s power, has fallen to critical levels, leaving major cities strugglingLarge parts of Malawi have been plunged into darkness as water levels at the country’s main hydro power plant fell to critical levels due to a severe drought, according to its electricity company.The impoverished southern African country which relies on hydroelectricity has been hit by intermitted blackouts since last year, but the outages have recently worsened, lasting up to 25 hours. Continue reading...

Infrastructure Australia says governments should privatise state-owned metropolitan water utility businessesAustralians can expect to pay double for their water supply within 20 years unless there are big reforms, a report from Infrastructure Australia says.It says a lack of investment in ageing infrastructure, population growth in urban centres and climate change will play a part in pushing up prices. Continue reading...

From Florence Broadhurst to Romance Was Born, Australian designers have long looked to birds for design inspiration Continue reading...

Retailer, Best Connection and Transline named and shamed by government after having to repay £946,000 in totalSports Direct and its employment agencies Best Connection and Transline have been named and shamed by the government for paying workers less than the legal minimum wage, underpaying them by nearly £1m.The companies make up three of the top four underpayers in the latest list published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Continue reading...

A combination of short and longer-term events have conspired to spark a ring of fires that have dotted the Los Angeles areaThe exhausted firefighters battling fires that have menaced Los Angeles wouldn’t normally expect to be dealing with such ferocious conflagrations with Christmas just a few weeks away.Related: California wildfires: winds pose ‘extreme danger’ for Los Angeles Continue reading...

The company says Donald Trump is exceeding the powers of his office by enacting the largest removal of protection from federal lands in historyA trail run that began years ago in the desert of Utah has brought outdoor retailer Patagonia to an unexpected – and considerably less scenic – crossroads, at a federal courthouse in Washington DC.Related: Trump slashes size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments in Utah Continue reading...

Brush turkeys are often the last holdouts against gentrification. But they still face peril in urban environments and researchers are enlisting citizen scientists to understand how they can better surviveIt’s hard not to look at the brush turkey as the avian archetype of the Aussie battler – persisting and thriving, even though the odds are stacked against it. These birds’ work ethic in the face of almost impossible living conditions, environmental hardship and sometimes outright hostility is truly something to behold.And without diminishing the likely (and deserved) victory of the majestic white ibis in this year’s Bird of the Year poll, it must be said that this year there has also been a lot of talk about – and love and loathing aimed at – the Australian brush turkey. Continue reading...

UK government study finds electricity would be nearly one-third pricier than it would from plants such as Hinkley Point CElectricity from the first mini nuclear power stations in Britain would be likely to be more expensive than from large atomic plants such as Hinkley Point C, according to a government study.Power from small modular reactors (SMRs) would cost nearly one-third more than conventional large ones in 2031, the report found, because of reduced economies of scale and the costs of deploying first-of-a-kind technology. Continue reading...

Chinese restrictions from January will hit UK recycling efforts and risk plastic waste being stockpiled or ending up in landfill, warn industry leadersA ban on imports of millions of tonnes of plastic waste by the Chinese government from January could see an end to collection of some plastic in the UK and increase the risk of environmental pollution, according to key figures in the industry.Recycling companies say the imminent restrictions by China – the world’s biggest market for household waste – will pose big challenges to the UK’s efforts to recycle more plastic.

The Senate tax bill could prise open the vast Arctic national wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling, and the Gwich’in fear they could be erased from their homeFor tribal people in northern Alaska, a Republican tax overhaul that was hastily cobbled together in congressional backrooms 3,000 miles away has raised fears that their entire way of life could be erased from this frigid corner of the US.The Senate’s tax bill may land a decisive blow in a 30-year environmental battle over the Arctic national wildlife refuge, a vast untrammeled area hailed as America’s Serengeti by conservationists, by finally prising open the wilderness to oil and gas drilling. The region’s Gwich’in people fret that their primary food source, caribou, may be lost, and with it the future of the tribe itself. Continue reading...

There was not a lot of love for the ibis on the red carpet for the 2017 Aacta awards in Sydney on Wednesday. Nominees were asked to cast their votes in the Australian bird of the year poll – and passions ran high.

Bishop Auckland, Durham Gnarled, leafless branches reach out like those menacing trees in Arthur Rackham’s fairytale illustrations

The annual calendar features stunning shots of the red-tailed black cockatoo and the red-capped robin, as well as the shy and unobtrusive painted button-quail, and the crested shrike-tit, which is heard more often than it’s seen• Vote for Australia bird of the year 2017 Continue reading...

Andrew Warren of the British Energy Efficiency Federation says that Rolls-Royce’s calls for public subsidies are unwarrantedYou report that the defence firm Rolls-Royce has been lobbying for government funds to assist it to diversify into building nuclear reactors (Millions on offer to develop small nuclear plants, 4 December). It is arguing that the switch to electric transport will “drive up future demand”.The National Grid concludes that, provided that vehicle recharging is concentrated into non-peak demand hours, even large-scale electrification of surface transport requires an increase in electricity system capacity by around 15%. Continue reading...

Tim Evans says that UK beekeepers should swap their frame hives for top-bar hives if they want to avoid chemical interventions and sugar feedingThe photograph accompanying your piece (How Liberia’s killer bees are helping to rebuild livelihoods, 4 December) shows a Liberian beekeeper holding curved comb from a top-bar hive, not the oblong combs of the frame hives generally used in the UK. Top-bar hives, traditional in Africa, allow bees to build comb in the shape they wish, and to structure their nest according to their natural instincts. These hives are usually managed without constant intrusive inspections, chemical interventions and sugar feeding.A significant minority of UK beekeepers have adopted these methods. We find that they keep bees healthier than conventional systems, and our experience is borne out by the work of Cornell University’s eminent Professor Thomas Seeley, among other scientists. Continue reading...

Australian and Chinese banks have turned it down, and analysts say Adani’s failure to secure funding for the Carmichael mine leaves it high and dryAdani’s operations in Australia appear to be hanging on by a thread, as activists prove effective at undermining the company’s chances of getting the finance it needs.China seems to have ruled out funding for the mine, which means it’s not just Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine that is under threat, but also its existing Abbot Point coal terminal, which sits near Bowen, behind the Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading...

After a series of set backs the international project is back on track, say scientists, giving tentative hope for a major new source of clean power by 2025An international project to generate energy from nuclear fusion has reached a key milestone, with half of the infrastructure required now built.Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), the main facility of which is based in southern France, said the completion of half of the project meant the effort was back on track, after a series of difficulties. This would mean that power could be produced from the experimental site from 2025. Continue reading...

State-owned Kepco confirmed as preferred bidder to build reactors in Cumbria

A small group of civilian para-enforcers is taking the protection of Palawan’s threatened rainforest from illegal loggers into their own handsTata gives hand signals for his men to drop to the rainforest floor as the searing whine of a chainsaw fades, their mission to save a critically endangered piece of paradise in the Philippines suddenly on hold.Former paramilitary leader Efren “Tata” Balladares has been leading the other flip flop-wearing environmental crusaders up and down the steep mountains of Palawan island for the past 15 hours in the hunt for illegal loggers. Continue reading...

Reducing Utah’s national monuments is not simply about economics, archeology, ecology or grazing. The degradation of our public lands is a degradation of our humanityMonday, 4 December, in a much anticipated announcement, US President Donald Trump called for the reduction of Bears Ears National Monument by 84%, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 50%. This is just the latest in a series of assaults on cultural heritage under this administration.In October President Trump announced that the US would pull out of Unesco. It was disheartening, to say the least. This was not an decision that went un-remarked. Many cultural groups and institutions have condemned the attacks, and both the Washington Post and the Guardian have discussed how this move is part of a larger pattern of protectionism and withdrawal from the international community – at a time when, arguably, we need international cooperation more than ever, with 21st century issues such as climate change crossing national borders. Continue reading...

Wildlife photographer Ian Wood has been capturing great apes in the wild for decades, but when a young orangutan discovered his hidden camera on a recent Borneo trip he got some truly unexpected resultsOne of the challenges of wildlife photography is trying to come up with ways to take images that haven’t been shot before. Through my conservation work with orangutans I’ve had numerous opportunities to photograph these great apes over the last couple of decades, but on a recent annual fundraising trip to Tanjung Puting national park in Borneo I got some unexpected, close-up results.I had decided to hide a GoPro camera near to where orangutans often appear, hoping to get some close-up wide-angle images of them in the forest. I figured that in the worse case, if an orangutan found my camera it would realise it wasn’t food and discard it. Continue reading...

All of nature’s thermometers indicate a rapid rise in global temperatures.

Ruling by advertising watchdog could have knock on effect on other electric car advertisingThe car company BMW has been censured by the UK’s advertising watchdog for claiming an electric car equipped with a small petrol engine was “clean” and “zero emissions”, in a ruling that could have a knock-on effect on other electric car advertising.The advertising was published in the form of a Facebook post that used testimonials from real customers to extol the virtues of the BMW i3. That model is unusual among electric vehicles, as in addition to the electric drive, it also has a small petrol engine. However, unlike “hybrid” cars, which have a petrol-driven engine that can take over from the electric system when it runs out of charge, on longer journeys or at higher speeds, the i3’s petrol engine is only used to maintain the charge on the electric drive. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This shrub and its toxic fruit have a minor but magical part in ancient woodlandShocking pink in a winter hedge, as if blown from some forever summer place, it is a colour out of season. And yet the spindle berries are perfectly at home in wood margins and hedges on the limestone of Wenlock Edge. It seems the spindle tree – which can grow six metres (20ft) tall but is usually a shrub – has a minor but magical part in ancient woodland and here associates with ash, field maple and dogwood. It has waxy, serrated-edge leaves, greeny-white four-petalled flowers and these extraordinary lipstick berries, each a four- or five-valved pod holding orange fruits that ripen in November-December.Spindle is a square peg in a round hole, or vice-versa: its green stems begin round, develop a corky bark to become four-cornered, then turn rounder with age. It is named after the stick used to spin and wind thread from wool. In the psycho-mytho-panto of Sleeping Beauty, the goddess is deceived, pricks her finger on the spindle of human ambition, and sleeps until she is woken up by the god of rebirth. It is a winter story. Continue reading...

New UK research links toxic air to low birth weight that can cause lifelong damage to health, raising fears that millions of babies worldwide are being harmedAir pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study.The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are “something approaching a public health catastrophe”, the doctors involved said.

We cannot see the tiny deadly particles that are killing people – but new digital advances are about to change that, which may spark actionIn the days of London smogs it was possible to both see pollution and smell it. Now the deadliest particles are so small that it is hard for human senses to detect them, yet they are killing people just the same.Health professionals and environmental groups may complain, but the general public seems oblivious to the danger that is damaging the health of children and adults alike in many towns and cities across the country. Perhaps it is our inability to see the cocktail of chemicals and particulates we are breathing in that has allowed successive governments to get away with doing so little about it for so long. Continue reading...

Bob Carr says decision could be the end for controversial Carmichael project, adding: ‘It couldn’t have been more emphatic’Adani’s Carmichael coalmine project will not be funded by Chinese banks, the Chinese embassy has said, in a move some see as dooming the project, and potentially Adani’s operations in Australia.Bob Carr, the former New South Wales premier and former foreign minister, told the Guardian he had been lobbying Chinese businesses and government for three weeks before receiving confirmation from the Chinese embassy in Australia that no Chinese bank would be financing the controversial project. Continue reading...

A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities, writes Graeme WillisYour article (Clean, green New Zealand is a lie – and a warning for Britain’s countryside, 4 December) highlights the huge opportunity Brexit has presented us to create a new agriculture policy that will restore the natural environment, as well as help the farming industry to become more financially resilient and environmentally sustainable. The removal of “subsidies” following the New Zealand model is not the route to achieving this. Public funding is critical to farmers’ livelihoods – without it, roughly half of farming is uneconomic. Those likely to suffer the most are small- to medium-sized farms already struggling in very tough markets. A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years, and the rate is fastest amongst the smallest. Almost a third of farms under 50 hectares vanished between 2005 and 2015. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities through jobs as well as protecting distinctive local character. It is also crucial to maintaining England’s world-renowned landscapes and diversity of food. We are presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a farming policy framework and new funding model that will support all farmers, rural communities and economies if we are to create the diverse, thriving countryside most of us want to see.

Martin Parkinson says Abbott sacked him for following legally mandated directions of Rudd and Gillard governmentsThe head of Malcolm Turnbull’s department says he has no “personal animus” towards Tony Abbott, but he says the former prime minister damaged the public service when he sacked him for following the legally mandated directions of the Rudd and Gillard governments.Martin Parkinson was sacked by Abbott from the Treasury department after he came to power in 2013, alongside a handful of other departmental heads. He was brought back to the public service by Turnbull to be secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet. Continue reading...

‘Wall to Wall’ project will see heritage experts from the UK and China work together to increase understanding of both sites and boost tourismOne is 13,171 miles long and, contrary to popular belief, cannot actually be seen from space. The other is 73 miles long and cannot be seen from Sunderland.But now the Great Wall of China is joining up with its much tinier British counterpart, Hadrian’s Wall, to encourage more tourism and increase the historical and cultural understanding of both great barriers. Continue reading...

Part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest US wilderness, risks being transferred to the hands of the fossil fuel industry. Join the fight against this• Trip Van Noppen is president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organizationThe Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the last intact wild landscapes on Earth – and the largest wilderness left in the US. The 19.6m-acre swath of mountains and tundra is publicly owned and ecologically unique. Now, thanks to the Republican tax bill making its way through Congress, a part of the refuge we’ve long fought to protect risks being transferred to the hands of the fossil fuel industry.History will judge the decision as an egregious error. Continue reading...

Antibiotics that has spilled from farms into the natural environment may be a bigger factor in spreading resistance to life-saving drugs than previously thought, report saysThe overuse of antibiotics in farming has been highlighted as one of the biggest emerging threats to human health, spreading resistance to vital drugs and endangering millions of lives.Antibiotics used on farms can spill over into the surrounding environment, for instance through water run-off and slurry, according to a report from the UN’s environment body, with the potential to create resistance to the drugs across a wide area. Continue reading...

Surfers Against Sewage charity lauds town after community beach cleans and businesses reduce single-use plasticsA Cornish town has become the first community in the UK to be awarded “plastic-free” status after dozens of residents and business people backed a grassroots scheme aimed at helping clean up oceans and beaches.As part of a campaign being run by the marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), Penzance has been given “plastic-free coastlines approved” status. Continue reading...

Unsustainable farming, fishing and climate change has intensified the struggle for survival among vulnerable animals and crops, says IUCN at the release of its latest list of endangered speciesThousands of animal species are at critical risk of going extinct due to unsustainable farming and fishing methods and climate change, a conservation group has warned as it released the latest red list of endangered species.In a rare piece of good news, the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] praised New Zealand for its success in turning around the fortunes of two species of kiwi, prompting it to upgrade them from endangered to vulnerable. Continue reading...

Bowlers Suranga Lakmal and Lahiru Gamage are forced to take a break as harmful pollutants reach 12 times WHO safe limitA Sri Lankan player vomited on the field and was escorted off the ground as heavily polluted air continued to plague an international cricket test match in Delhi.The fast bowler Suranga Lakmal was seen doubled over and retching on Tuesday afternoon as levels of the most harmful pollutants hovered at about 300 micrograms per cubic metre in parts of the Indian capital – 12 times the World Health Organisation safe limit. Continue reading...

Rush to secure trade deals could lead to a lowering of standards and poorer quality food in supermarketsBrexit poses huge risks to food standards in the UK and will have “seismic implications” for its food and farming systems, according to a new report.Author Dan Crossley, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, said that the UK faced a stark choice between promoting a high quality, ethical and sustainable system and “a race to the bottom” driven by a desire to secure post-Brexit trade deals “at any cost”. Continue reading...

New migrants are arriving while rising temperatures drive others away, and egg laying is taking place earlier in the yearClimate change is radically reshuffling Britain’s birds, with some species disappearing while new migrants are settling. Timings are being reset too, with egg laying getting earlier in the year, while autumn departures for warmer climes are delayed by up to a month.The State of the UK’s Birds report for 2017, published on Tuesday, reveals the profound impact of global warming on Britain’s bird life, which is set to become even greater in the future. Continue reading...

An exclusive Guardian investigation into water fountains across Britain reveals a shocking lack of alternatives to plastic bottles – but could change be coming?Michael Gove has suggested water fountains to combat the tide of plastic produced in Britain. Sadiq Khan wants drinking points to dot the London landscape. Twice in the same week, two of the most powerful environmental decision-makers in the UK have offered the same antidote to the country’s plastic addiction: don’t re-buy, refill.It’s a timely idea. A million plastic bottles are bought worldwide every minute, and drinking fountains have the potential to dramatically cut the consumption of such single-use plastic. Continue reading...

Blue Planet 2 producers say final episode lays bare shocking damage humanity is wreaking in the seas, from climate change to plastic pollution to noiseThe world’s oceans are under the greatest threat in history, according to Sir David Attenborough. The seas are a vital part of the global ecosystem, leaving the future of all life on Earth dependent on humanity’s actions, he says.Attenborough will issue the warning in the final episode of the Blue Planet 2 series, which details the damage being wreaked in seas around the globe by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and even noise. Continue reading...

Rockland Broad, Norfolk The water rail’s distressed call tells you everything about its solitary life buried in deepest coverAs the light falls in my neighouring parish and the mercury drops, so the bird sounds acquire extra layers of intensity. I’m thinking of the hysterical chinking of blackbirds in the ivy and the disembodied sharp pitt notes of Cetti’s warblers. Most evocative of all, however, are the water rails.Related to the moorhen and coot, this arch introvert is long-legged and long-billed, with a curious laterally compressed body that enables it to thread tiny gaps between reed stems. It is common in our valley but I seldom see one. Tonight there are four, and the way they answer each other’s sounds at 100-metre intervals across the marsh tells you everything about their solitariness and oddity. Continue reading...

President signs two proclamations slashing protections for Utah monuments, representing a triumph for fossil fuel industries, ranchers and RepublicansDonald Trump was widely condemned on Monday for drastically shrinking two national monuments, representing the biggest elimination of public lands protection in US history.Related: 'We'll see the battle lines': Trump faced by Native American alliance over Bears Ears Continue reading...

Switch from coal to gas has left residents of towns around Beijing without heating after gas supply falters, reports Climate Home NewsWhile middle class Beijingers breathe the cleanest air in recent winters, in Zhuozhou, a small city 20 minutes by train from Beijing’s downtown, residents are shivering through cold nights without heating. The reason: a five-year anti-pollution drive has forced rural areas in northern China to switch from dirty coal to the cleaner alternative. The massive retrofitting campaign has sent gas prices soaring while many are left without heating systems at all.In two villages close to Zhuozhou’s high-speed railway station, on the city’s eastern edge, villagers estimate only about one third of homes have been connected with natural gas supply, while others say they are still anxiously waiting for the gas company to install furnaces. Their old-fashioned coal stoves were all demolished as the government intensified efforts to phase out coal use in rural homes. Continue reading...

If we want the US’s majestic national parks, clean air and water for future generations we must press leaders to address food’s environmental impactOur collective minds are stuck on this idea that talking about food’s environmental impact risks taking something very intimate away from us. In fact it’s just the opposite. Reconsidering how we eat offers us hope, and empowers us with choice over what our future planet will look like. And we can ask our local leaders – from city mayors to school district boards to hospital management – to help, by widening our food options.

The president is expected to announce the shrinking of two national monuments on a visit to Utah but native tribes are uniting to oppose a ‘monumental mistake’

Meeting government walking and cycling targets would save 13,000 lives and almost £10bn, finds Sustrans studyIf the UK hits government targets for walking and cycling more than 13,000 lives and almost £10bn would be saved over the next decade, according to a new report.The study from the transport charity Sustrans has found that meeting government plans in England and Scotland for an increase in walking or cycling would reduce deaths from air pollution by more than 13,000 in the next 10 years. It would also save almost £9.31bn. Continue reading...

The GOP strategy on taxes and climate: reject evidence and expert opinion, lie, and wage culture wars