Steven Pearce captures up to 10,000 birds swooping for a drink at an outback water hole in rare display he describes as a marvel of agilityA wildlife photographer has captured stunning images of budgerigars in a murmuration of up to 10,000 birds near a water hole outside Alice Springs.Steven Pearce said the display was rare, unique and relatively short-lived – lasting for only about 10 minutes. Pearce was able to shoot dozens of photos displaying the birds’ agility and dazzling splashes of colour in the middle of the desert. Continue reading...

Report reveals Adani needs to refinance $2bn of loans for Abbot Point coal terminal, which is more than it paid for it in 2011Adani’s financing for its proposed Carmichael coalmine could face a further hurdle, with Westpac appearing to indicate it will not refinance its existing loan to Adani’s coal terminal at Abbot Point.A recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (Ieefa) revealed Adani needed to refinance more than $2bn worth of loans for its Abbot Point coal terminal in the coming year – an amount that is more than it paid for the port in 2011. That means the company has negative equity on the facility – owing banks more than it is worth. Continue reading...

Coal, oil and gas finance from major development banks totalled $5bn in year after historic climate pact, according to estimatesBillions of dollars of public money was sunk in new fossil fuel projects by the world’s major development banks in the year after the Paris climate change deal was agreed, according to campaigners who are calling for the banks to halt their financing of coal, oil and gas.The new analysis also reveals that some of the taxpayers’ money given to coal and gas projects was counted as “climate” finance. Continue reading...

For decades the national park’s stunning vistas have been compromised by poor air quality, and prospects of improvement were derailed by Trump TuesdayBig Bend national park is Texas at its most cinematic, with soaring, jagged forest peaks looming over vast desert lowlands, at once haughty and humble, prickly and pretty. It is also among the most remote places in the state.

The NUS vice president wants university unions and young people to play their part in reducing plastic wasteRobbie Young has had enough.“We’re surrounded by plastic straws. 500 million of them are used and discarded every day in the United States alone, with fatal consequences for the wildlife that swallows them. As young people we have a responsibility to do something about that.”

This new device literally sucks rubbish from the water’s surface, and it’s starting with Portsmouth harbourName: The Seabin.Age: Brand new. Continue reading...

Just 1% of the 2.5bn disposable cups thrown away each year in the UK are recycled, committee of MPs is toldCoffee shops are not doing enough to deal with the billions of disposable cups that are thrown away in the UK each year, an influential committee of MPs has been told.The environment audit committee heard that the phenomenal growth of on-the-go coffee meant that 2.5bn disposable cups are thrown away annually in the UK, a number expected to rise to about 3bn by 2025. Only 1% are recycled.

Deaths of environmental activists locked in conflict with mining, logging and agricultural companies across three continents has passed 150• Interactive: recording the deaths of environmental activists around the worldThe number of people killed this year while defending their community’s land, natural resources or wildlife has passed 150 – meaning 2017 is on course to be the deadliest year on record.Environmental activists, wildlife rangers and indigenous leaders are locked in fierce conflicts with mining, logging and agricultural companies in hundreds of places around the world. The Guardian is working with watchdog Global Witness to record all the deaths in 2017, and this week that figure reached 153 with a spate of killings across three continents. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsThis year we have had a big problem with jackdaws spoiling our apples: they have taken a peck from so much of our fruit that it has ruined a good crop of russets. We never used to have jackdaws round here, but they moved in a few years ago and are now a serious pest – they rival the magpies. Does anyone know why jackdaws arrived here, or if there’s anything we can do to prevent them ruining our apples in the future?Jill Bennett, St Albans, Herts Continue reading...

Mitsuko Sonoda will say evacuees face financial hardship and are being forced to return to homes they believe are unsafeA nuclear evacuee from Fukushima will claim Japan’s government has violated the human rights of people who fled their homes after the 2011 nuclear disaster, in testimony before the UN in Geneva this week.Mitsuko Sonoda, who voluntarily left her village with her husband and their 10-year-old son days after three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant went into meltdown, will tell the UN human rights council that evacuees face financial hardship and are being forced to return to neighbourhoods they believe are still unsafe almost seven years after the disaster. Continue reading...

The plastic beads used for filtering sewage are hard to spot and pose a risk to wildlife, according to a new reportSewage plants are contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans with millions of tiny beads spilling into the seas around the UK, according to a new report.Dozens of UK wastewater treatment plants use tiny plastic pellets, known as Bio-Beads, to filter chemical and organic contaminants from sewage, according to a study from the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition (CPPC). Continue reading...

Surveyed corporations stated that Trump’s election had no impact on their decision to buy renewable energy

Cash-strapped councils would save money thanks to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as having less recycling bins to collect, says reportCouncils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new report.Earlier this month environment secretary Michael Gove told the Conservative party conference that he would work with the industry to see how the scheme might be implemented in England. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire Seen through the shaggy boughs of an old larch, the full moon had the strange allure that moths and wanderers knowA streetlight in the lane enamelled hollies with a sodium glow and sucked the colour from the leaves of other trees. The church bell rang eight or maybe nine; there was a soughing through the limes.Suddenly, I felt a tiny sonic boom and the draught of a bat’s wing close to my ear. It was like a tap on the shoulder, not a shock so much as a greeting but, all the same, a jolting from thoughts about one world into another, where unseen lives almost touch. Continue reading...

New methods to capture and store emissions, such as planting more forests and pumping carbon underground, are currently costly and need testingAs efforts to cut planet-warming emissions fall short, large-scale projects to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be needed by the 2030s to hold the line against climate change, scientists have said.

Contract to dispose of material from 12 sites went ‘wrong on a fundamental level’ and led to multimillion pound payoutsThe government agency responsible for mishandling a major nuclear cleanup contract – costing the state more than £122m – has been severely criticised by Whitehall’s spending watchdog.A National Audit Office inquiry into a bungled £6.2bn contract to dispose of material from 12 different nuclear sites has questioned whether the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is capable of understanding procurement rules.

Oil and food scraps are finding their way into pipes and drains as majority of eateries have no grease trapsThe vast majority of London restaurants and takeaways are responsible for feeding the fatbergs that are choking the capital’s sewers, according to survey findings that Thames Water called “staggering”.Ninety per cent of eateries in London are contributing to the problem by failing to install grease traps, the report found. As a result, grease, oil and food scraps washed off plates, utensils and saucepans are finding their way into pipes and drains. Continue reading...

Wildfires leave 150 missing and destroy 2,000 structures and large swaths of land, as powerful winds fuel ‘an inferno like you’ve never seen before’At least 15 people have died in northern California after what officials are describing as an “unprecedented” wildfire that has already destroyed 2,000 structures and devastated large swaths of wine country.“We often have multiple fires going on, but the majority of them all started right around the same time period, same time of night – it’s unprecedented,” Amy Head, the fire captain spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection, told the Guardian. “I hate using that word because it’s been overused a lot lately because of how fires have been in the past few years, but it truly is – there’s just been a lot of destruction.” Continue reading...

Modern fleets and holding-tank facilities will end dumping of raw sewage on to railway linesThe final flush on train toilets that empty their contents directly on to Britain’s tracks will be pulled in 2019, rail bosses and ministers have promised.A combination of new trains and retrofitting old stock with modern, holding-tank toilets will end the dumping of raw sewage on the railways. Continue reading...

Jeremy Simons of the City of London Corporation wants to see existing diesel private hire vehicles removed from fleets as soon as possible, and Tompion Platt of Living Streets wants more children to be able to walk to school

The Coalition’s other major energy policy of expanding the Snowy hydro scheme would only partially offset the increases, Reputex saysThe government’s proposed extension of Liddell power station would push up power prices, with its proposed investment in the “Snowy 2.0” pumped hydro project only partially offsetting the extra costs, analysts have said. .

Jackie Brookes, who had been providing refreshments at Kirby Misperton camp for past month, accuses officers of bullyingA 79-year-old woman who set up a tea and cake stall at the site of an anti-fracking protest in North Yorkshire has been forcibly removed by police.Related: Slinging mud: inside (and outside) the UK's biggest fracking site Continue reading...

Petrochemical company backs down after earlier refusal to the Guardian’s request to hand over the legal documentA multinational firm has backed down and disclosed a legal document that it used to justify a controversial sweeping injunction against anti-fracking protesters.Ineos, which aspires to become one of the UK’s major frackers, had refused to disclose the document after it had been requested by the Guardian under open justice guidelines. However the petrochemical giant has reversed its stance and handed it over to the newspaper. Continue reading...

Court rules that Japanese government could have done more to prevent meltdown at plant caused by tsunamiA court in Japan has ordered the government and the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to pay 500m yen (£3.37m) in damages to residents affected by the March 2011 triple meltdown.

Photographer Ian Berry takes us from Uganda’s makeshift goldmines to a London jeweller’s, documenting how a Fairtrade programme is helping to end the exploitation, mercury poisoning and treacherous conditions faced by Africa’s small-scale miners Continue reading...

Rather than require no negative impact on water, requirement would be for no more impact than from original developmentThe New South Wales government is rushing through changes to laws that protect Sydney’s drinking water, weakening them to allow extensions to mines, or any other development, that pollute the water catchment.

Mayor must do more to reduce car use and promote public transport, walking and cycling, says reportLondon mayor Sadiq Khan has been urged to do more to tackle the capital’s air pollution crisis by leading health experts and academics.In a new report published on Tuesday, the group, including the chair of the NHS Sir Malcolm Grant, said the mayor must go further to reduce car use across the capital and harness new technology to create a system based around “public transport, walking and cycling”. Continue reading...

Entomologist names parasitoid wasp after ‘redeemed’ character Lucius Malfoy in hope of showing not all wasps are badA Harry Potter fan turned entomologist has named a wasp after a redeemed villain in the series in the hope of drawing attention to the much maligned insect.Tom Saunders named and described a New Zealand parasitoid wasp as part of his masters study at Auckland University. Continue reading...

Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex Jackdaws, ravens and hobbies dance in the sky, oblivious to tales of fairies and ghosts and ritual sacrificeThe morning sun shines through the canopy of the wood at the bottom of the hill, making the fallen leaves on the ground glow rust-red. The steep chalk and grey mud track is greasy from last night’s rain. Either side, flocks of tits – blue, great, coal and long-tailed – flit about, and wrens heckle my laboured climb with loud alarm calls.At the top of the hill, the strong, cold wind is shaking the trees, some already stripped skeletal-bare. Emerging into the open, I turn on to the South Downs Way and follow the path through a gate, over a cattle grid. The soft contour of the hilltop sweeps up to the early iron age fort, hidden by a cap of dark trees. Continue reading...

Former resources minister refuses to endorse clean energy target and says he has ‘queries’ about Finkel price predictionsThe government’s sidelined resources minister, Matt Canavan, has refused to back a clean energy target and says he thinks some of the Finkel review’s economic modelling is wrong.On the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night Canavan, who quit cabinet when it was revealed he is one of seven politicians facing uncertainty about his eligibility to stand in parliament because of dual citizenship, did little to pour cold water on expectations the government is planning to walk away from a clean energy target. Continue reading...

Former Australian PM delivers speech in London comparing global warming action to ‘killing goats to appease volcano gods’Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has suggested climate change is “probably doing good” in a speech in London in which he likened policies to combat it to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods” .Abbott delivered the annual lecture to the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a climate sceptic thinktank on Monday evening. The Guardian and several other media outlets were blocked from attending the event but a copy of the speech was later circulated. Continue reading...

Facility run by E.ON, to be followed by many more, will help UK grid cope with fast-growing amount of renewable energyBritain’s switch to greener energy will take another significant step forward this week with the opening of an industrial-scale battery site in Sheffield.E.ON said the facility, which is next to an existing power plant and has the equivalent capacity of half a million phone batteries, marked a milestone in its efforts to develop storage for electricity from windfarms, nuclear reactors and gas power stations. Continue reading...

Boral has just days to tell the environment watchdog what it will do about zinc, nickel and manganese leaching into a river in NSW southern highlandsMultinational company Boral has been told to take urgent action to stop pollution flowing from a disused mine site into the Wingecarribee river in the New South Wales southern highlands.Boral now has three days left to tell the state’s environmental watchdog, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), what it will do to stop zinc, nickel and manganese leaching into the river, which is part of Sydney’s drinking water catchment. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Company pledges products will be free from ingredients tainted with controversial herbicide after survey found traces in its European ice-creamsBen & Jerry’s has moved to cut all glyphosate-tainted ingredients from its production chain and introduce an “organic dairy” line next year, after a new survey found widespread traces of the controversial substance in its European ice-creams.The dramatic initiative follows a new survey by Health Research Institute (HRI) laboratories which found traces of the weedkiller in 13 out of 14 B&J tubs sampled in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Ruling made in effort to halt spike in toxic smog that led to closure of schools, power stations and construction sites last yearIndia’s supreme court has banned the sale of fireworks in Delhi during the upcoming Diwali festival, hoping to prevent the usual spike in toxic air pollution levels that accompany the holiday.Last year’s Hindu festival of lights, in which tens of thousands of firecrackers are burst in Delhi over several days, left the city sheeted in toxic smog that forced the closure of schools, power stations and construction sites. Continue reading...

New EU rules that allow car firms to keep their emissions control systems secret from the public risk another dieselgate and should be made illegal, say environmental lawyersNew EU rules that allow car manufacturers to keep pollution control systems secret from the public should be declared illegal, according to environmental lawyers.The systems can legally cut emissions controls under certain conditions on the road, meaning more pollution is produced. But keeping these strategies secret risks another “dieselgate” scandal, according to ClientEarth lawyers, who announced on Monday that they are seeking to challenge the regulation in the European Union’s court of justice. Continue reading...

Coal can no longer compete in the free market, so the Trump administration wants to prop it up with taxpayer subsidiesThe conservative philosophy of allowing an unregulated free market to operate unfettered often seems to fall by the wayside when the Republican Party’s industry allies are failing to compete in the marketplace. Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry recently provided a stark example of this philosophical flexibility when he proposed to effectively pull the failing coal industry out of the marketplace and instead prop it up with taxpayer-funded subsidies. Continue reading...

Chief scientist once again endorses proposed mechanism as fastest, most flexible way to transform marketThe chief scientist says changes the Turnbull government is contemplating to the national electricity market would take five years to take effect, whereas his proposal for a clean energy target would achieve transformation more quickly, with “enormous flexibility” for the market.

Our readers on their most cherished cycling routes, from remote Scottish islands to Japanese mountain ranges

Dolebury Warren, Somerset In an iron age hill fort once ruled by rabbits, waxcaps speckle the ground with luminous colourThis shapely hill has steep sides, the sheep-walked turf trodden into neat pleats along the contours. On the ridge, upstanding stony ribs encircle a heart of deeper soil – the iron age hill fort, the Dolebury. In medieval times, when rabbits were tender creatures, a protective warren was built up here, completing the modern name for the place. Nowadays the rabbits look after themselves and the place is often deserted, especially on a ditchwater-dull day like this.We had come to hunt waxcaps, glistening mushrooms in parrot shades of red, orange, yellow and green. In this peaceful soil their mycelium spreads undisturbed beneath thyme and tormentil (Potentilla erecta). We have been here before, quartering their favourite corners, luckless, only to look back and see them hiding behind a tussock, shining as brightly as lights on a Christmas tree. Continue reading...

Ashort film shot by Heath Patterson captures photographer Vaughan Brookfield and TomLynch'sjourney to a New Zealand glacier equipped with hundredsof kilograms of gear and a light projector. Their plan was to project images on to the rapidly receding Tasman Glacier. Brookfield says: 'We want to remind people of the effects humans are having on the environment'

State energy minister Don Harwin says mine that supplies Lithgow’s Mount Piper power station is ‘vital for energy security and affordability’The New South Wales government will introduce legislation to approve an underground coalmine that was blocked by the courts because it was polluting Sydney’s drinking water.On Monday the state’s energy minister, Don Harwin, announced the government would overturn a decision by the NSW court of appeal to block the extension of the Springvale colliery. Continue reading...

With pressure to boost recycling and cut costs, landfill waste in England is collected less frequently – with six councils collecting it once in three weeksMore than three quarters of English councils now pick up household rubbish which cannot be recycled or composted just once a fortnight, a survey reveals.With councils under pressure to boost recycling and cut costs, some have gone further, with six local authorities picking up residual household waste only once every three weeks. Continue reading...

It is no surprise the mayor of London wants to ban wood burning: even new stoves are much more polluting than the exhaust of a heavy goods vehicleBrowse through the home style magazines in your newsagent’s or watch Channel 4’s Grand Designs and you will see beautifully decorated living rooms complete with a roaring fire. Wood burning has become very fashionable and, let’s face it, a log fire is cosy.Natural gas central heating largely banished solid fuel and brought huge improvements in our urban air. For two decades the UK’s official energy statistics said that home wood burning was too small to be quantified, but under the radar it has been making a return. A 2016 government survey found that 7.5% of UK homes burned wood making up 30% of UK particle emissions. In London, one home in 12 burns wood, but this accounts for more than a quarter of the particle pollution produced in the capital. It is no surprise that the mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn, has called for powers to address this problem. Continue reading...

Birds reproduce only on three remote islands in Bass Straight and are listed as ‘vulnerable’ with just 1,500 breeding pairs remainingThe Tasmanian shy albatross has embraced the idea of settling down in an artificial, specially constructed nest, according to scientists who are trying to boost the population of the endangered seabird.

The black market’s insatiable demand for ivory has turned poachers’ attention away from well-protected elephants to more vulnerable hippos

A competition, now in its 43rd year, dedicated to showcasing the beautiful and bizarre as seen under a light microscope attracted over 2,000 entries from 88 countries. Here’s a selection of the winning and commended images from the 2017 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition Continue reading...