Environment | The Guardian

Aerial surveys of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef conducted in late 2016 and early 2017 show the Unesco world heritage site has suffered severe coral bleaching for the second year in a row. According to Prof Terry Hughes, who conducted the surveys, the bleaching is caused by ‘record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming’.

Warmer days are welcome, but this is often our most polluted time of year, with agriculture one of the biggest culpritsLonger days are here at last, but in terms of air quality, spring is often our most polluted time of year. Pollutants left over from the northern hemisphere winter cause increased ozone at ground level. Coastal areas are most vulnerable and the problem tends to move south through spring.During March, ozone on Shetland reached four on the UK’s 10-point warning scale. Heavy fertiliser use and spreading manure that was stored over winter causes big releases of ammonia each spring. This reacts chemically with pollution from traffic and industry to create particles that can stay in the air for a week or more. These caused pollution to reach eight on the UK’s 10-point scale across England in February, and six during March. Continue reading...

Leaving the EU could make moving animals abroad for breeding programmes a lot harder. But how easy is it to transport zoo inhabitants across the continent anyway?In the latest warnings about the effects of a post-Brexit future, it isn’t just humans who could be affected. The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums has said that leaving the EU without a deal could threaten already endangered species, whose survival depends on easy access to Europe-wide breeding programmes.At the moment, breeding progammes in Europe are overseen by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), and work efficiently thanks to shared resources and free movement. “I think the lack of clarity [over post-Brexit legislation] is the largest concern for us,” says Zak Showell, animal records registrar at Twycross zoo. “There are more than 400 breeding programmes operated by EAZA. These breeding programmes are there to ensure the genetic and population survival of those species we have in captivity.” Continue reading...

Government will also instruct councils to end charging at tips, and issue on-the-spot fines for motorists caught throwing rubbishFly-tippers could be forced to pick up litter as part of community service, the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has said.The government will also instruct councils to end the “unfair” practice of charging people to use tips, which Leadsom said could be a lead factor in the rise of fly-tipping. Continue reading...

Not so long ago, they were the pests that made a mess on the lawn. But now they have crept into our homes – their images on mugs, cushions and tea towels – into TV adverts, fashion and literatureBritish cities are full of foxes. Within a mile of my home in east London, there is one with an organic gastro menu, one stuffed with feathers that, when plumped, makes my desk chair more comfortable, and another, in pen and ink, on the masthead of the Hackney Citizen. There is one on a mug, another on a toast rack, one on a poster advertising the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. And then, of course, there are the two – one a little mangy, the other fine and bushy – that visit my back garden. I say “visit”, but I doubt they see it like that.Foxes are having a moment in popular culture. Admittedly, I have a highly sensitive fox radar, because four years ago I started to write a novel, called How to be Human, about a woman who sees a fox on her lawn one day, and thinks he winks at her. She becomes obsessed with him – she never doubts he is a he – and undergoes a, let’s say, emotional rewilding. I had only written two chapters when Sarah Hall won the BBC short story award with Mrs Fox, and the Norwegian duo Ylvis released their song The Fox (What Does the Fox Say)? I remember feeling aghast that the fox was finished. Continue reading...

With the Trump administration poised to roll back rules on smog and drilling off Alaska and the east coast, environmental campaigners are ready for legal actionEnvironmental campaigners promised on Saturday to wage fierce and protracted legal battles against “outrageous and wrong-headed” Trump administration moves to open Atlantic and Arctic waters for drilling and loosen smog limits.Related: Environmentalists sue EPA for reversing Obama-era move to ban pesticide Continue reading...

The UN’s 17-point plan to save the planet is ambitious but will keep humanity on trackIt’s important to have goals (I’m sure that’s what life coaches say). But even if you’re laidback about your own prospects there is no reason to lack ambition for the planet and humanity.On the face of it the 17 Global Goals (also called Sustainable Development Goals) ratified by the UN and adopted by all countries in 2015 are moon-shootingly ambitious. They aim to “end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all” by 2030. Continue reading...

Conservation charity WWF and online brand AwayToMars aim to make desirable clothes that have zero impact on the environmentIt is not a brand synonymous with style, but WWF, the world’s biggest conservation organisation, is teaming up with a London-based online fashion community to produce what it claims will be the world’s first 100% sustainable clothing range.Big-name stores including Selfridges and Harrods are being lined up to sell the range in the UK, but WWF wants to make this a global project. It is determined to prove to the fashion industry that it is possible to design and produce clothes with zero impact on the environment. Continue reading...

Human activity has put wildlife around the world at risk, but many creatures are now thriving thanks to conservationistsThe saiga antelope makes a strange pin-up for the conservation world. With its odd bulbous nose and spindly legs, it is an unlovely looking creature – particularly when compared with wildlife favourites such as the polar bear or panda.But the survival of Saiga tatarica tatarica is important, for it gives hope to biologists and activists who are trying to protect Earth’s other endangered species from the impact of rising populations, climate change and increasing pollution. Once widespread on the steppe lands of the former Soviet Union, the saiga has suffered two major population crashes in recent years and survived both – thanks to the endeavours of conservationists. It is a story that will be highlighted at a specially arranged wildlife meeting, the Conservation Optimism Summit, to be held at Dulwich College, London, this month and at sister events in cities around the world, including Cambridge, Washington and Hong Kong. The meetings have been organised to highlight recent successes in saving threatened creatures and to use these examples to encourage future efforts to halt extinctions of other species. Continue reading...

Director of CEDIB in Cochabamba says they’re being punished for criticising natural resource exploitation and other government policiesOne of Bolivia’s leading social and environmental organisations has been plunged into crisis after being told it must clear out of its current premises storing millions of records and tens of thousands of books and other publications.The Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia (CEDIB) runs one of the biggest and most important libraries in the country, but was told recently it had just two days to leave. The order came from the new rector of the state-run University Mayor de San Simon (UMSS), where CEDIB has been based since 1993. Here CEDIB’s director, Marco Gandarillas, in Cochabamba, tells the Guardian, via email, what has been going on:

Startup Akamai is on a mission to get people to wash less – but changing modern hygiene habits will not be easyImagine clearing out that bathroom cupboard bursting with bottles and tubes and replacing them with just three products.

Hundreds of oil rigs will be decommissioned over the coming years, at enormous cost to taxpayers. Why not use British workers and expertise to do it?To witness the beginning or end of a great industry or a way of living isn’t unusual. Each generation has its list of comings and goings – great grandfathers who remember the advent of the motor car, grandmothers who recall the last factory hooter in Accrington, fathers and mothers who can say where and when they last used a typewriter or first saw a mobile phone. But for the same generation to know both – the end, say, of the car or the typewriter, as well as their beginning: this is exceptional.North Sea oil is coming close to that distinction. Its life seems to be passing with remarkable speed. You don’t need to be impossibly old to remember the discovery of its first reserves in 1969 or its initial exploitation six years later, and while the very end is still some way off – perhaps as late as the 2050s, if the oil price goes high enough – its inevitability has recently become stark, and nowhere more so than at a recently built concrete quayside at the mouth of the Tees. This, I felt on Wednesday, looking around the quay and the adjacent hundred acres that waits to be filled by scrap, is where the ending begins. Continue reading...

South Uist The plumage of the few birds present seems to be in harmony with the muted colours of the dayThe hail shower begins within seconds of the car coming to a halt. Driven by furious gusts, the ice pellets ping off the roof and rattle against the windscreen, sliding down the glass to obscure the sight of the sand and the sea beyond. Then, departing as swiftly as it arrived, the squall is past, the wind subsiding again to a stiff breeze. Getting out for a walk, which had seemed so unlikely just a few minutes before, now becomes a certainty.

Governor announces end to the historic drought, yet water conservation is far from finished as state tries to build climate change resilience

The findings in your article (Hundreds of thousands of children being exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution from diesel vehicles, 4 April) are scandalous. We are storing up huge unknowns in terms of the future of our children’s lung health. We need urgent action. The government must bring in a fair and ambitious Clean Air Act with targets to ensure pollution levels are monitored around every school and nursery located close to busy roads, arming parents and teachers with the information they need to take action to protect children’s health. Traffic emissions are the main culprit, but we know people bought their old diesel cars in good faith. A targeted scrappage incentive scheme would be a positive step, which could persuade drivers to switch quickly to cleaner vehicles. The Guardian and Greenpeace’s investigation shows our children’s lung health demands action now.

The assertion by Professor Dave Goulson (Farmers could slash pesticide use without losses, research reveals, 6 April) cannot go unchallenged. He says that pesticides are massively over-used because farmers are advised by agronomists working on commission to sell products.The Agricultural Industries Confederation represents the majority of businesses that supply both agronomy advice and crop protection products to UK farmers. Farmers can elect to pay separately for agronomy advice and crop protection products. Farmers also have access to information from agrochemical manufacturers as well as independent agronomy research organisations – much of it free online. In many instances, those delivering advice do not receive commission. Continue reading...

Experts have suggested car makers pay for the air pollution crisis rather than drivers. If you own a diesel car we’d like to hear what you think

Snowshoe hare, flying fish and pink flamingos are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Ridhima Pandey, daughter of green activist, urges ministers to reduce emissions to limit impact on younger generationsA nine-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to take action on climate change, warning that young people will pay the price for the country’s inaction.In the petition filed with the National Green Tribunal, a special court for environment-related cases, Ridhima Pandey said the government had failed to implement its environment laws.

Unsuccessful visa application prevents Athanase Monja from attending Rio Tinto AGM, where he hoped to highlight impact of mining on his communityA Madagascan farmer who says he and his neighbours have lost access to their land because of the UK mining company Rio Tinto has been blocked from visiting London, where he had been due to address the firm’s annual general meeting.Athanase Monja planned to speak at the firm’s AGM on 12 April, but was refused a visa by the Home Office. Monja, a subsistence farmer, fisherman and first assistant to the mayor in his town of Antsontso, was told by British officials he had a “lack of qualification” to speak about environmental and human rights concerns. Continue reading...

He said he was looking for parasitic wasps but volunteers at Daneway Banks where the large blue is flourishing suspected Phillip Cullen had ulterior motivesMark Greaves, a butterfly enthusiast, points out the slope where he first spotted Phillip Cullen. “He and his mate parked in the layby, climbed over that locked gate, and he was down there running around with a little net.”Greaves asked Cullen what on earth he thought he was doing with a net on one of the most precious butterfly sites in the UK and was doubtful about the explanation. Continue reading...

Phillip Cullen ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work after illegally capturing and killing specimens of the large blueAn insect enthusiast who illegally captured and killed specimens of Britain’s rarest butterfly, the large blue, has been given a six-month suspended prison sentence.The amateur entomologist and former body builder Phillip Cullen, 57, was caught after being spotted by volunteers and wardens acting suspiciously at two nature reserves in the west of England. Continue reading...

New law allows private landowners to cut down any number of trees without applying for permission or even informing authoritiesA controversial change to Polish environmental law has unleashed what campaigners describe as a “massacre” of trees across the country.

Cheating, dodging rules and heavy lobbying by motor manufacturers fuelled the toxic air the UK is struggling with today

Human activities are altering the jet stream, which leads to extreme weather patterns getting stuck in place

Commonwealth, NAB and ANZ are each analysing the financial position of business customers in sectors exposed to climate changeThree of Australia’s big four banks are reviewing their exposure to fossil fuels, including their lending practices to households and farmers, in response to climate change.The Commonwealth Bank is conducting a “detailed climate policy review” that will be released publicly pending board approval, and NAB has a working group reviewing the risks from global temperatures rising two degrees. Continue reading...

From basking gharial to stampeding muskoxen, these images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have been selected for a Natural History Museum book, Unforgettable Behaviour, and offer a unique glimpse into hidden worlds of animal survival and joy Continue reading...

Dartmoor, Devon A thick cylindrical form, bent double like a trombone pipe, in a sheltered patch of grass, stops me shortBeneath the granite knuckles of this east Dartmoor tor the land spreads and softens high above the valley. Sheep-clipped grasses and scattered clumps of gorse cover the sides of the outcrop, punctuated by exposed boulders. After a lengthy spell of rain, morning sunshine makes a welcome change, and the temperature along this south-facing incline is climbing steadily. Continue reading...

Endangered Carnaby’s cockatoo treated by vets at Perth Zoo after it was badly burnt on a power lineVets at Perth zoo have used matchsticks and glue to replace the flight feathers of a Carnaby’s cockatoo which was badly injured after it was burned on a power line.Using a syringe to coat the donor feathers with superglue and a matchstick to shape the quill, vets replaced the juvenile bird’s feathers and cut away the burnt remains in an effort to help it fly again. Continue reading...

This year is unlikely to be a brilliant butterfly summer because 2016 was so poor. But insects can rapidly bounce backSpring is an unquenchably optimistic time, and two weeks of plentiful sunshine – in the south, at least – has brought out the first butterflies of the year. My first, like last year, was a male brimstone, bobbing beside the old ivy-covered hedge beyond my garden.

Former Barrier Reef authority director Jon Day says the idea such an approach would save the reef from bleaching is ‘ridiculous’A proposal to use $9m to pump cold water on to the Great Barrier Reef’s tourist hotspots to stave off coral bleaching has been described as a “band-aid” solution, which does little to address the fundamental threats to the world’s largest living structure.

Study shows almost all farms could significantly cut chemical use while producing as much food, in a major challenge to the billion-dollar pesticide industryVirtually all farms could significantly cut their pesticide use while still producing as much food, according to a major new study. The research also shows chemical treatments could be cut without affecting farm profits on over three-quarters of farms.The scientists said that many farmers wanted to reduce pesticide use, partly due to concerns for their own health. But farmers do not have good access to information on alternatives, the researchers said, because much of their advice comes from representatives of companies that sell both seeds and pesticides. Continue reading...

Animal welfare advocates have filmed some of the wild elephants captured in Zimbabwe last year and shipped to China

Green groups say the Resgen Boikarabelo project in South Africa will lead to worker exploitation and hinder Paris commitmentsEnvironmental action groups including Greenpeace, Oxfam and GetUp have signed an open letter to Australia’s export credit agency asking it not to fund a controversial new coal mine.

Ruling by South Africa’s highest court means rhino horns can be sold locally by traders holding permitsSouth Africa’s highest court has rejected a bid by the government to keep a ban on domestic trade in rhino horn, a court document shows.The ruling by the constitutional court effectively means rhino horns may be traded locally. Continue reading...

Study finds three-quarters of consumers throw away rather than recycle or donate unwanted garmentsA predicted 235m items of Britons’ unwanted clothing are expected to end up in landfill unnecessarily this spring, according to new research.Three-quarters of consumers admit to binning their discarded garments, usually because they do not realise that worn-out or dirty clothes can be recycled or accepted by charities, a survey of 2,000 people commissioned by the supermarket Sainsbury’s has found. Continue reading...

English Heritage asks public to help map spread and intensity of pale-backed clothes moth, a particularly destructive speciesClothes-devouring moths infesting the wardrobes and drawers of many homes in the UK are now threatening precious curtains and carpets, costumes and tapestries in some of England’s most historic properties. Conservators are reporting that the number caught in traps has doubled in the last five years.A particularly destructive species, Monopis sp., also known as the pale-backed clothes moth, has recently been discovered for the first time by English Heritage, which is now enlisting the help of the public to map the spread and intensity of a menace that only a few decades ago seemed as relevant a historical plague as the Black Death. Anyone with a precious cashmere sweater now resembling a piece of lace will sympathise. Continue reading...

Wolsingham, Weardale Whitlow grass marks the spring flora advent as moschatel unfurls its luminous green clustersThree warm days in a row and the longed-for spring had arrived. In a week there would be drifts of wood anemones and primroses everywhere, but on this day I went in search of two of the supporting cast in the annual floral pageant.I saw the white flowers of whitlow grass (Erophila verna) as I climbed over the stile in the wall. Here it grows on meadow ant nests on a south-facing slope. In some years it blooms in such profusion that each hummock seems snow capped. This year it wasn’t so plentiful, but then 10 days ago this field was covered by snow. Continue reading...

An innovative bioenergy project in New South Wales could produce enough electricity to supply 5,000 homes and produce fertiliserEd Fagan’s family has been farming the same 1,600-hectare block of land in Cowra, about 240km west of Sydney, since 1886.These days Cowra is a shire of nearly 13,000 people and straddles the Lachlan river. It’s a diverse agricultural town with a strong industrial sector. And if a keen group of locals get their way, it could soon be home to an innovative bioenergy project that cleans up waste, produces renewable energy and creates valuable fertiliser as a byproduct. Continue reading...

A bioenergy project could take the waste streams of a group of farms in New South Wales and turn them into electricity and heat for local residents, and make fertiliser from the leftovers• Renewable roadshow: transforming waste into a cleaner Cowra Continue reading...

About 450 icebergs – up from 37 a week earlier – have drifted into waters where Titanic sank, forcing vessels to divert and raising global warming fearsMore than 400 icebergs have drifted into the North Atlantic shipping lanes over the past week in an unusually large swarm for this early in the season, forcing vessels to slow to a crawl or take detours of hundreds of kilometres.Related: Greenland: the country set to cash in on climate change Continue reading...

Technologies that use gels, liquids, and molten silicon or salt could all claim a slice of the growing renewable energy storage market

Complaint lodged over prospect of Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility partially funding 400km rail lineA $1bn federal loan to builders of a railway line between the proposed Adani coalmine and the coast would be a direct breach of government policy, a legal group has claimed.Environmental Justice Australia has lodged a formal complaint with the Productivity Commission over the prospect of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility partially funding the 400km rail line. Continue reading...

Risk of energy sector being denied entry to Europe’s internal energy market looms large – with Brexit also likely to exacerbate industry skills shortagesVital energy projects including the £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant and interconnectors used to import cheap electricity from Europe are under threat due to Brexit, energy experts have warned.They said the projects, which are key to efforts to keep the UK’s lights on, could be at risk if the energy sector is denied entry to Europe’s internal energy market. Continue reading...

MGM’s National Harbor resort opened in Maryland last December with the aim of building strong ties to the local community and encouraging local businessWhen Toya Mitchell first learned MGM Resorts International had won a contract to build a new casino down the street from her house in Prince George’s County, Maryland, she was cautiously optimistic. Mitchell, the owner of Lord & Mitchell, a small, women-run business specializing in customized promotional and printed materials, was excited about the possible jobs and business opportunities the casino could bring, not to mention the much-needed boost to the county’s economy.But she was also wary. Casino developers aren’t exactly known for their community spirit, and cities that have authorized casinos in the hope of reviving their economy in the past have not fared well. Atlantic City’s storied and troubled past is probably the best example of this – despite rigorous economic investment resulting in a strip of glitzy casinos and hotels, the local community suffered long and hard – high taxes, failing infrastructure the loss of tens of thousands of jobs – before it all came crumbling down. Continue reading...

The EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, has ignored the scientific recommendation of his own agency to allow continued use of chlorpyrifos, despite its links to brain damageEnvironmental groups have filed a complaint against the US government over its support of a pesticide linked to brain damage in children, one week after Donald Trump’s administration rejected federally backed science and reversed an Obama-era policy.The Pesticide Action Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed the case against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, seeking to force the government to follow through with the Obama administration’s recommendations to ban an insecticide widely used in agriculture. Continue reading...

German and French governments have already required that manufacturers fix vehicles spewing high levels of toxic pollution but UK is ‘doing nothing’The diesel-fuelled air pollution crisis should be solved by making motor companies recall and upgrade the dirty cars they sold, experts said on Wednesday.Current UK plans are focused on making diesel drivers pay to enter cities and a possible taxpayer-funded scrappage scheme. Continue reading...

Companies from every EU nation except Poland and Greece sign up to initiative in bid to meet Paris pledges and limit effects of climate changeEurope’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland. Continue reading...

We’d like to find out about how single-use plastic bottles are recycled where you live. Share your you views and experiences from around the worldThe disposal of plastic bottles is a global issue. Every year millions of single-use bottles end up in landfill sites or in our oceans and a very small proportion are recycled.It’s estimated Americans throw away at least 50 million bottles every day. Every year, a UK household uses 480 plastic bottles, but only recycles 270 of them, according to Recycle Now, a campaign group funded by the government’s waste advisory group Wrap. A survey by Greenpeace found five out of six global soft drinks firms sold single-use plastic bottles weighing more than two million tonnes – only 6.6% of which was recycled plastic. Continue reading...

Three recent studies point to just how broad, bizarre, and potentially devastating climate change is to life on Earth. And we’ve only seen one degree Celsius of warming so far.