August rains wiped out the promise of a long-awaited bumper summer for birds, insects and plants, say experts, though autumn will be good for fungiThe summer holiday washout wiped out a much needed bumper season for wildlife across the UK, according to wildlife experts at the National Trust.A normal winter and balmy spring provided ideal conditions for birds, insects and plants but the heavy rains that rolled in during August dampened the promised bonanza. However, the weather patterns should see a good autumn for fungi and some nuts and berries. Continue reading...

Chew Valley Lake, Somerset Redshank, mud-wort, cudweed and crowfoot – their names are peasant-simple – rise from the mud like miniature GrendelsThe lake in late summer is brimming with life. Swallows and martins sweep through rafts of duck, coot and gulls, sometimes dipping to sip flies from the surface. The shoreline is lush with plants and wet with drizzle. We push through shoulder-high bushes of water mint and spires of gypsywort and golden dock.This is the seasonal outburst of the inundation community, the plants that spring up on the mud of the lake edge. The vegetation may have a grand title but the plants themselves have earthy, Old English names, mud-savoury and peasant-simple. Continue reading...

Officials give conflicting accounts of whether to avoid emissions after it was flooded by waters from tropical storm Harvey

Rising sea levels pose a serious threat to cites like Boston, New York and Miami Beach. So what are they doing to protect themselves?Tropical storm Harvey may have bared its teeth at Houston, but other cities in the US have felt the pangs of nervousness. Several cities are vulnerable to the fiercer storms and sea level rise that are being fueled by climate change.Cities, by their very nature, struggle during flood situations. Water that would have been soaked up by grass and other vegetation washes off the concrete and asphalt of urban areas and, if not properly diverted away, can inundate homes. Continue reading...

Protests planned after prime minister says Roșia Montană’s Unesco application may be withdrawn, allowing mine to go aheadRomania’s prime minister has suggested his government will withdraw an application to have the Roman gold-mining area of Roșia Montană declared a Unesco world heritage site, potentially reviving controversial plans to resume mining. Continue reading...

A climate “red team” is just a polite way to describe bailing out scientific losers

Winning and shortlisted images from this year’s competition, from awe-inspiring action shots to charming portraits, featured in a new book celebrating some of the best bird photography of the year Continue reading...

From the US to India and China, human impact on the climate is likely to have made droughts and storms more severe – and the trend is only set to continueThe 17tn US gallons of rain (roughly 26m Olympic swimming pools) dumped on Texas by Hurricane Harvey has set a new high for a tropical system in the US, but it is unlikely to last long as rising man-made emissions push the global climate deeper into uncharted territory.Images of flooded streets in Texas are mirrored by scenes of inundated communities in India and Bangladesh, the recent mudslides in Sierra Leone and last month’s deadly overflow of a Yangtze tributary in China. In part, these calamities are seasonal. In part, the impact depends on local factors. But scientists tell us such extremes are likely to become more common and more devastating as a result of rising global temperatures and increasingly intense rainfall. Continue reading...

Skipjack tuna from the western Pacific is common on supermarket shelves, but a new coalition argues its certification as sustainable is illusoryConsumers of tuna from the world’s biggest fishery are are being “betrayed” over its sustainability, according to a coalition of scientists, retailers, politicians and campaigners, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.The vast Western and Central Pacific fishery provides about half of the world’s skipjack tuna, the type most commonly found in cans on supermarket shelves. Some is certified as sustainably caught by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and carries the group’s “blue tick” logo. But the same boats can also use, at other times, unsustainable methods to catch uncertified fish, a contradiction seen as unacceptable by the new On The Hook coalition. Continue reading...

Australian government’s draft Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan provides new water quality targets, but has very few other concrete changesAustralia’s draft plan to improve water quality on the Great Barrier Reef has ignored official government scientific advice, which was published by the Queensland and federal governments alongside the new plan this week.The draft Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan is an update to the plan released in 2013, and provides new water quality targets for specific parts of the reef but has very few other concrete changes overall. Continue reading...

Hundreds dead in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, while millions have been forced from their homes and 18,000 schools shut down across the region

Hundreds feared cut off by flood waters as storm moved east Wednesday, making landfall in south-west LouisianaAn industrial chemical manufacturer has warned its plant outside Houston could explode as fears turned to potential fuel contamination and ten oil refineries in the impact zone of tropical storm Harvey were shut down.Related: 'We ain’t doing no damn good': volunteer rescuers struggle in Houston Continue reading...

Critics say authorisation of supplementary culls shows the programme, which began four years ago, is not workingAnother 1,000 badgers are set to be killed this autumn and winter in the two UK counties where the controversial cull began four years ago.Natural England confirmed on Wednesday that supplementary culls had been authorised in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Continue reading...

After being criticised by Canberra, South Australia is leading the race, with ACT and Tasmania close behind, says Climate CouncilAustralian states and territories are powering ahead, developing policies that will meet the federal government’s internationally agreed greenhouse gas emission targets, with South Australia, the ACT and Tasmania leading the race.Despite being chastised by the federal government for unilateral action, South Australia is leading the race, with the ACT and Tasmania not far behind, according to a report by the Climate Council. Continue reading...

Half-mile exclusion zone set up near nuclear plants after third unexploded device discovered in as many weeksA half-mile (1km) exclusion zone has been set up in the Bristol Channel near the Hinkley Point nuclear power stations after a third unexploded second world war bomb was discovered in as many weeks.Bomb disposal experts will carry out a controlled explosion on the 250lb (113kg) ordnance on Wednesday, two miles north-west of the power plants. Continue reading...

Campaigners urge court of appeal to overturn communities secretary’s decision to allow Cuadrilla to drill in LancashireThe communities secretary, Sajid Javid, “misunderstood key local and national planning policies” when he gave the green light to fracking in Lancashire, campaigners have told the court of appeal.Leading judges were urged on Wednesday to overturn a government decision to approve a fracking site at Preston New Road in Lancashire. Continue reading...

Houston has experienced an unexpected side-effect of the floods that have hit the Texan city – floating islands made up of thousands of venomous fire ants. The naturally aggressive ants are able to survive the rising water by forming rafts with their own bodies, and can survive for weeks before breaking up

Flood waters were still pouring into homes in Houston – bringing with them a further threat to public health

Tony Abbott fires opening salvo in looming party debate over clean energy, insisting PM must ‘go ahead with new coal-fired power’ because he backs hydroTony Abbott has thrown down the gauntlet to Malcolm Turnbull in the lead-up to the Coalition’s renewed deliberations over the Finkel review, declaring if the prime minister is prepared to back pumped hydro, he also needs to support a new coal-fired power station.

每头大象都是巨大的象群数据库和信息网络的一个神秘入口，让我们守护这份自然的奇迹。

Myron Ebell, who headed the EPA’s transition team when Trump became president, said the last decade has been a period of ‘low hurricane activity’Conservative groups with close links to the Trump administration have sought to ridicule the link between climate change and events such as tropical storm Harvey, amid warnings from scientists that storms are being exacerbated by warming temperatures.Harvey, which smashed into the Texas coast on Friday, rapidly developed into a Category 4 hurricane and has drenched parts of Houston with around 50in of rain in less than a week, more than the city typically receives in a year. So much rain fell that the National Weather Service had to add new colours to its maps. Continue reading...

After meeting with energy chiefs, Malcolm Turnbull says the Coalition will not set a clean energy target to exclude coalMalcolm Turnbull has signalled the government’s eventual response to the Finkel review will not create any barriers to building new coal-fired power stations, as he secured additional undertakings from energy retailers to be more transparent with customers.

From self-healing phone screens to concrete that repairs itself, businesses are investing in futuristic materials. But can it curb our throwaway habits?Smashed screens, broken circuits, water damaged keyboards – we send millions of tonnes of broken electronics to the dump every year. But what if our phones and laptops could fix themselves?This month, it emerged that smartphone company Motorola had filed a patent for a self-healing phone display. The design includes a “shape memory polymer”, which the patent application says would at least partly reverse damage when exposed to heat. In theory, at least, users could hit a “repair” button and wait for their cracked screens to mend. Continue reading...

St Dennis, Cornwall From the moss-coated fort, spoil heaps dominate the view but close by sits the waste energy plant and a bog has become a nature reserveFrom the ancient vantage point of Carne Hill, china-clay works dominate the landscape with vegetated spoil heaps, older conical tips and the whiteness of an open-cast pit at Fraddon.The curved roofs and twin stacks of the Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre are close by, and lower down, to the north, rows of pylons slung with cables stretch along the flat expanse of Goss Moor towards the electricity substation. Continue reading...

Images of ants swarming together in ‘rafts’ and riding on top of floodwaters alarm TexansThere is a new threat to the millions of people in Texas affected by ex-hurricane Harvey: large “rafts” of fire ants that have been spotted floating in floodwaters.Displaced by record flooding, the insects have responded by creating rafts built on top of dead ants to stay on the top of water and keep dry. Continue reading...

‘Last-chance tourism’ spurs on other visitors but there has been lull in bookings after coral bleaching, senators toldOverseas tourists have begun to doubt the value of a trip to the ailing Great Barrier Reef and it is getting increasingly difficult to “show people what they expect to see”, a dive operator has told a federal Senate inquiry.A Port Douglas operator, John Edmondson, said “last-chance tourism” was spurring on other visitors but there had been a “weird” lull in bookings this year after back-to-back mass bleaching events made dead coral an unavoidable sight on reef visits. Continue reading...

At least 14 people have died and tens of thousands evacuated as Houston is battered by catastrophic rainfall. Our environment editor unpicks the facts behind the disaster

Protesters hope appeal court will uphold council’s decision to reject planning consent for Cuadrilla, which was overturned by Sajid JavidA last-ditch legal challenge to prevent fracking in Lancashire is being launched at the court of appeal.The case brought by anti-fracking protesters, to be heard on Wednesday and Thursday, seeks to overturn planning consent that was granted to Cuadrilla by the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, last October. Continue reading...

Haze that led to 150 people seeking treatment caused a pollution spike and ‘might have been caused by a ship venting’Authorities investigating the cause of Sunday’s chemical cloud are working on the assumption that it came from a ship in the Channel after environmental monitoring sites picked up a localised spike in pollution levels.The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is working with the Environment Agency to establish the source of the cloud, which left 150 people seeking medical treatment and caused the evacuation of Birling Gap beach in East Sussex. Continue reading...

Canada has a hand in the misery Haitians are fleeing. Asylum should serve as reparationsThe minders of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s brand are surely displeased. He’s spent two years cultivating an image of Canada’s refugee system as the political equivalent of airport hugs and teddy-bears. And now the pressure is on him to act like that were remotely the truth.The image of the country as a welcome haven was pitched to win the support of millions of people in Canada who rightly feel two things: compassion for the plight of refugees and disgust for the antics of Donald Trump. But refugee rights advocates had warned what would come to pass: desperate people would take Trudeau at his word. Continue reading...

Floridians have long recognised climate’s threat to their homes. Amid the disaster wrought by Harvey, home buyers may look to higher ground

Findings of British Social Attitudes Survey coincide with years of lobbying and government U-turn on Heathrow expansionThe number of people opposed on environmental grounds to expanding airports and travelling by plane has dropped sharply in recent years, according to government research.In 2010, a narrow majority backed unlimited plane travel if it meant building new runways, but more than twice as many people now prefer airport expansion to curbs on demand. Continue reading...

Target will transfer pressure to other sectors of the economy to reduce their emissions, research showsThe clean energy target recommended by Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, won’t deliver Australia’s obligations under the Paris agreement and will only transfer pressure to other sectors of the economy to reduce their emissions, according to new analysis.The new research comes as the Coalition’s difficult internal deliberations over the Finkel review are set to resume, with a report due from the Australian Energy Market Operator about the dispatchable power requirements of the electricity grid after the closure of two ageing coal-fired power stations. Continue reading...

Work on clearing site for the controversial Ilisu dam on Tigris river threatens collapse of ancient monument famed for thousands of manmade cavesThe destruction of Turkey’s 12,000-year-old Hasankeyf citadel has moved a step closer as authorities have begun to collapse cliff faces around the ruins of the settlement.The move, linked to the construction of a highly controversial dam about 50 miles downstream, is also expected to damage the rich ecosystem of the Tigris river basin. Continue reading...

Houston has some of the most lax building regulations in potential flood zones – and the president wants to spread that policy across the US• Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesAfter all the furore, it’s hard to remember now that Donald Trump’s combative press conference earlier this month was supposed to be about infrastructure. Holding two flowcharts, the president explained how his latest executive orders would slash the time it takes to get new buildings improved and that the permitting process would “go very, very quickly”.Related: Trump's infrastructure plan: let's have another look at those really long charts Continue reading...

A study finds that accelerated growing conditions on some fish farms are causing hearing impairments in salmon. It’s a reminder that aquaculture’s own accelerated rise needs to be closely managedTo grasp the wide-ranging impacts of our industrial food systems, take a peek inside a salmon’s ear. That’s what marine biologist Tormey Reimer did when, in 2013 at the University of Melbourne, she began to investigate deformities that were developing on the structures that salmon use to hear.Bony fish species have structures called otoliths in their ears, small crystals that they use to detect sound. Biologists have for decades relied on otoliths to age fish, using them like rings on a tree. But what Reimer saw was an altogether larger, lighter, and more transparent crystal called a vaterite, growing into the otolith and obstructing the fish’s ability to hear. “I did a bit of digging and found it was much more common in farmed salmon than wild,” she says. And, she began to suspect it had something to do with the accelerated growth rates in fish farms. Continue reading...

This year, China’s government enacted a ban on ivory sales and started closing down carving workshops, despite ivory carving being seen as an ‘intangible cultural heritage’. How did such an astonishing U-turn come about?For years Chinese government officials were followed around the world, at every meeting, by a single issue: the scores of dead elephants across Africa, and the international community that blamed China for this “ivory “holocaust”.

The anti-cycling backlash in the media in the aftermath of Charlie Alliston trial suggests roads and streets overrun by dangerous cyclists, but is this true?

Claxton, Norfolk Lined up on the telephone wires, they stretch, preen and snooze, riding the tide swell of airThe view from my office includes a junction box where five telephone wires converge at the top of a pole. For several years, it has been a favourite gathering place for the season’s young swallows and they wreathe this banal technology in the joyous rhythms of their movements and sounds.The immatures are separable by pale fringes to their wing feathers, but also by the downturned yellow gape-lines at the corners of their mouths, which give them a wonderfully comic clown-like glumness. It is as if all the swirl of these late-August days – the balletic fly-snatching, the sun-blessed leisure, the quiet feather care as they sit amid a pool of the adult swallows’ desultory song – were a source of strange ennui. Continue reading...

La Trobe University Bendigo student Kirra Coventry filmed her group of outdoor and environmental education classmates helping a koala that had become stranded by rapidly rising water in the Murray river. The students were learning to be river guides when they saw the koala on the edge of Ulupna Island. The students told associate lecturer Chris Townsend it was low in a tree and seemed to be trying to find dry land. They pushed an empty canoe out to it and it climbed aboard, took a seat, then disembarked once it reached shore, where it had a lengthy drink. Townsend said koalas, which are considered a vulnerable species in parts of Australia, were relocated to river islands like Ulupna in the late 1980s and there was now a healthy population there. ‘Koalas are very, very fussy about the trees they will feed in and live in,’ he said. ‘Obviously leading up to this it had found the perfect tree, but I think the floodwaters came up a little bit quickly and it didn’t have time to get down’ Continue reading...

Captain Paul Watson accuses ‘hostile governments’ in the US, Australia and New Zealand of being in league with TokyoThe anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd will not contest the Southern Ocean against Japanese whalers this season, Captain Paul Watson has announced, accusing “hostile governments” in the US, Australia and New Zealand of acting “in league with Japan” against the protest vessel.Sea Shepherd has been obstructing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean each year since 2005, but Watson said the cost of sending vessels south, Japan’s increased use of military technology to track them, and new anti-terrorism laws passed specifically to thwart Sea Shepherd’s activities made physically tracking the ships impossible. Continue reading...

The size of storm Harvey is unusual – but rapid expansion, poor infrastructure and a distinctive topography have played a role in the devastating impact

Theories include toxins from algal blooms and accidental discharge from a water plant though true cause still unclearThe chemical cloud that left beachgoers on the East Sussex coastline with stinging eyes, sore throats and even vomiting on Sunday remains a mystery, with officials saying it is unclear what caused the haze or what it was composed of.Experts have put forward a number of possibilities, ranging from accidental discharges of chemicals at water treatment plants to toxins from algal blooms. Continue reading...

The small Louisiana town of Cameron could be the first in the US to be fully submerged by rising sea levels – and yet locals, 90% of whom voted for Trump, still aren’t convinced about climate change

Producing, selling and using plastic bags becomes illegal as officials say they want to target manufacturers and sellers first