Electricity generated from whirling fans among the waves means that nuclear is rightly vanishing as the answer to meet our energy needs and our climate goalsThe precipitous drop in the price of electricity from offshore wind turbines should be a tipping point for green technology. In 2014 the current generated by a forest of giant whirling fans out at sea was priced at around £150 per megawatt hour. In the latest auction this week the comparable cost dropped as low as £57.50/MWh. Even when the cost of providing back-up capacity for still days is added, the cost of producing energy from offshore wind is little more than £70/MWh. Compared to the new Hinkley C nuclear plant which produces electricity at a cost of £92.50/MWh, one has to wonder whether as a nation we should persist with nuclear energy as an option to reduce our greenhouse gas output.Hinkley looks like a dinosaur even before it arrives on earth. It’s unclear whether the unproven design will ever get built. If it does, the cost of complying with safety and anti-terrorism standards may well be prohibitive. Hinkley was conceived when the conventional wisdom was that we would start to run out of hydrocarbons. Fears of a runaway price for oil and gas now look overheated. The government has however supported plans to install a nuclear power plant, backed by French and Chinese state operators, costing £18bn. Nuclear power has a trump card: it is a zero-carbon technology which delivers a continuous, uninterrupted supply. This may be a consideration in the years ahead if the UK banned petrol engines and only allowed electric cars. Imagine, say nuclear fans, the surge of demand when everyone got home and plugged in their motors. But we are not there yet. Continue reading...

Exclusive: new tests are intended to close loopholes but cars can still emit excess fumes in slow traffic, data showsNew “real world” emissions tests fail to prevent high levels of pollution from diesel cars during rush hour, according to new data.Diesel vehicles are the main cause of the UK’s widespread levels of illegal air pollution, with the VW cheating scandal exposing the fact that virtually all diesel cars emitted far more toxic fumes than in official laboratory based tests. Since 1 September, new models must now be tested on real roads, but the new data shows even this does not prevent high levels of fumes in slow traffic, when pollution is at its worst for drivers and other road users. Continue reading...

A ‘monster’ blockage has been discovered in London sewers and wet wipes are a major contributor. But from makeup removal to household cleaning, what should we be using instead?Images of melting icebergs have long proved inspirational to environmentalists and politicians seeking to mitigate the threat of man-made climate change. So why is it that images of giant fatbergs clogging our sewers can’t seem to stop people flushing wet wipes down the loo?These fatty underground tumours, comprised largely of wipes, nappies and cooking grease, have proliferated, backing up plumbing systems as far afield as New York City, San Francisco and Sydney. This month, a 130-tonne fatberg stretching the length of two football pitches was revealed during a routine inspection of the ageing sewage pipes beneath Whitechapel, in east London. Weighing about the same as a medium-sized jetliner, the fatberg is among the largest ever found and, left unchecked, could have sent a deluge of raw sewage on to the streets of London. Thames Water’s sewer chief Matt Rimmer described it as “a total monster” that would take three weeks to clear with shovels and high-powered water jets. Continue reading...

People must be told where the government’s badger culling programme will take place, say Jonathon Porritt, Mark Jones, Alick Simmons and Chris Cheeseman. Plus an alternative to shooting badgers suggested by David HurryThousands more badgers are to be killed in new and extended government-licensed control zones (Huge rise in badger culling will see up to 33,500 animals shot, 12 September).The government believes badger killing will eliminate bovine tuberculosis but won’t publish details of the zones, arguing public safety might be compromised. However, much of the killing takes place on land to which the citizen has some access. Disclosure would equip citizens to make informed judgments about their safety and that of their pets and about whether the shooting and trapping in their own backyard is legal or not. They could then engage in legitimate protest about the systematic killing of our native wildlife – in short, ensuring licence holders and the government can be held to account. Continue reading...

Mayor Sadiq Khan announces first 50 schools to undergo audits to help identify measures to minimise the impact of pollution on childrenThe most polluted schools in London are to be audited as part of the mayor’s drive to clean up toxic air across the capital.Earlier this year a Guardian investigation revealed that hundreds of thousands of children are being exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution from diesel vehicles at schools and nurseries. Continue reading...

Exclusive: As global demand for chocolate booms, ‘dirty’ beans from deforested national parks have entered big business supply chains

Head of ACCC shoots down talk AGL is breaching act, but says lack of energy competition is pushing up billsThe head of Australia’s competition watchdog has quashed accusations from government MPs that AGL is misusing its market power by refusing to sell the Liddell power station to a rival – but says a lack of competition in the energy sector is inflating power prices for consumers.

Ministers are thought to be planning to offer £3m for initiatives such as solar panels on social housingGreen energy projects run by cities and local authorities around the UK stand to receive millions of pounds of government support, providing another fillip for renewable power just a day after the subsidised price of windfarms hit a record low.The Guardian understands that ministers this autumn will offer more than £3m to help local leaders build low carbon initiatives, such as installing solar panels on social housing. Continue reading...

The Long Mynd, Shropshire There have been ponies here since the iron age hillfort was occupied, but few workers toil the fields at harvest timeTwo white ponies were grazing on the high slopes above Carding Mill Valley. A mare and colt, white in the soft light, which felt more autumnal than was usual for the turn, grazed on a hidden lawn surrounded by bracken and heather. Up there, they seemed still, absorbed in feeding, but whenever a dog barked in the distance, they became watchful.A pair of ravens flew across the valley and landed nearby. The ravens watched the ponies; the ponies watched the ravens. Continue reading...

Industry body warns over need for seasonal workers after Brexit as growers face 20% shortfall in supply of labourUK apple growers are in the grip of a 20% shortfall in the supply of seasonal labour, pushing them towards “a cliff edge” as Brexit nears, the industry has warned.At the start of the annual British apple harvesting season with more than 20 indigenous varieties going on sale in supermarkets, the main trade body for both apples and pears says worries about future labour availability are at the top of its lobbying agenda. Continue reading...

The state’s $90bn industry is taking a beating in the wake of the hurricane, and it’s small businesses that could be hardest hitBarely a month ago, Florida proudly announced a record-setting number of visitors to the Sunshine State – more than 60 million tourists coming to enjoy its theme parks, beaches and other attractions since January.Now, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Irma, tourism is facing a major challenge. The devastation caused by one of history’s largest storms, especially in the popular Florida Keys, is a direct strike at the $90bn industry that fuels the state’s economic engine, with the harm caused incalculable, experts say, at least in the short term. Continue reading...

Lawyers for two anti-fracking campaigners argue in high court that injunction obtained by Ineos curtails protester rightsThe legality of a wide-ranging injunction obtained against anti-fracking protesters by a multinational firm is to be examined in a three-day court hearing.Two campaigners have launched a legal challenge against the injunction obtained by Ineos, the petrochemicals giant. Joe Corré, the son of the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, and Joe Boyd, say it is draconian, oppressive and dramatically curtails protesters’ rights. Continue reading...

Fertile soil is being lost at rate of 24bn tonnes a year through intensive farming as demand for food increases, says UN-backed studyA third of the planet’s land is severely degraded and fertile soil is being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year, according to a new United Nations-backed study that calls for a shift away from destructively intensive agriculture.The alarming decline, which is forecast to continue as demand for food and productive land increases, will add to the risks of conflicts such as those seen in Sudan and Chad unless remedial actions are implemented, warns the institution behind the report. Continue reading...

Creatures, which can deliver a painful and occasionally fatal sting, have been blown in from the open ocean by strong windsAn “unprecedented” number of Portuguese men o’ war have washed up on the Cornish coastline in recent days, causing lifeguards to close a beach on Monday and issue safety advice.More than 140 of the floating tentacled organisms, which can deliver a painful sting that can be fatal in rare circumstances, have been spotted off the Cornish coast in the last three days, according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. They are reported to have been blown in by strong south-westerly winds. Continue reading...

CCTV footage from under Whitechapel in east London shows a fatberg that weighs as much as 11 double decker buses and is the length of two football pitches blocking the sewer. It is mostly made up of fat, wet wipes and nappies, and is expected to take three weeks to clear

Thames Water must break up congealed mass of fat, wet wipes and nappies to prevent raw sewage flooding streetsA fatberg weighing the same as 11 double decker buses and stretching the length of two football pitches is blocking a section of London’s ageing sewage network.The congealed mass of fat, wet wipes and nappies is one of the biggest ever found and would have risked raw sewage flooding on to the streets in Whitechapel, east London, had it not been discovered during a routine inspection earlier this month. Continue reading...

Eight to 10 members of a remote indigenous group were allegedly killed by men working for illegal prospectors in Javari ValleyBrazilian authorities are investigating reports of a massacre of up to 10 people from an isolated tribe in the Amazon by illegal gold miners.The killings, alleged to have taken place in Javari Valley, are claimed to have been carried out by men working for gold prospectors who dredge illegally in the region’s rivers. Continue reading...

Deputy PM tells Coalition party room AGL’s refusal to sell Liddell power station is about market behaviour but declines to repeat allegation on Sky NewsThe deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has pulled back from a comment he made to the Coalition party room on Tuesday that AGL was “shorting” the market by refusing to sell the ageing Liddell coal-fired power plant to a competitor.

In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Harvey, the market has finally bought into the business case for renewable energy. The price of change is getting cheaperLike the debate over gun control, the public discussion in the US about whether to take action on the climate has often been characterised as a struggle between powerful lobbies and violent reality.After each campus shooting or hurricane disaster, there is a brief uptick of concern followed by a gradual return to entrenched positions as the National Rifle Association or the oil industry reassert their influence, inevitably raising the question: just how bad do things have to get to reach a tipping point? Continue reading...

Tasmanian government plans to cover midden sites in Tarkine with rubber mats to protect from damage caused by reopening off-road tracksIndigenous groups have criticised a Tasmanian government proposal to cover ancient midden sites with rubber mats to protect them from damage caused by reopening off-road vehicle tracks in the Tarkine, saying it is disrespectful and will cause further damage.The Hodgman government referred the proposal to federal environment minister Josh Frydenberg on Friday as part of a three-year-long attempt to reopen the tracks, which were closed by the former Labor government in an attempt to protect an extensive network of archeological and cultural sites. Continue reading...

Villagers near illegal burial site in Zhejiang had complained for years of a terrible stench around their homesStomach-churning symbols of the environmental calamity facing China have never been in short supply: exploding watermelons, toxic running tracks, rivers that flow the colour of blood.Now, the world’s number one polluter brings you: porcine mass graves.

A hungry arctic fox, mating sea angels and playful brown bears are among the creatures captured by photographers for this year’s competition. The exhibition opens on 20 October at the Natural History Museum Continue reading...

Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex One by one, the birds tip dramatically to one side, lowering one wing while raising the other, to lose heightThe sharp honking sounds of geese echo across the Brooks. The air is clearing, but the rain still hangs over the low-lying hills in the distance, spreading down the sky like dark ink on wetted paper. As I walk out onto the marshes and towards the river Arun, the sun is rising behind me, spearing through the grey cloud. Continue reading...

Military crews were on standby with body bags for possible fatalities in the Keys while millions remain without power across FloridaThe horrific scale of Hurricane Irma’s trail of devastation across Florida has becoming evident as the remnants of the most powerful storm in Atlantic history limped north into Georgia, turned towards Alabama, and was downgraded to a tropical depression.

The National Park Service is looking at a reduction plan that would allow volunteers to shoot bison using non-lead ammunition

In Lealman, Florida, where Jessica Glenza grew up, Sunday was filled with foreboding – and the sense of scare didn’t let up until the rain didWhen we woke up, the house was still standing. The cars were still parked in the grass. The baby was still crying. None of those things had been guaranteed.Hurricane Irma delivered a “glancing blow” to Tampa Bay, in the words of Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn. Not all of Florida was so lucky. Continue reading...

The UK should concentrate on wind- and gas-fired stations, and involve nuclear only if it can vaguely compete on priceHinkley Point C nuclear power station was conceived in the days when offshore wind cost £150 per megawatt hour and a few misguided souls, some of them government ministers, thought a barrel of oil was heading towards $200.Successive governments swallowed the line that Hinkley represented a plausible answer to the UK’s threefold energy conundrum – keeping the lights on, reducing carbon emissions and producing the juice at affordable prices for consumers and business. Continue reading...

Lib Dems and green groups say reduced price of state support should sound death knell for plants such as Hinkley Point CThe government is under pressure to reconsider its commitment to a new generation of nuclear power stations after the cost of offshore wind power reached a record low.Experts said green energy had reached a tipping point in the UK after two windfarms secured a state-backed price for their output that was nearly half the level awarded last year to Britain’s first new nuclear power site in a generation, Hinkley Point C.

Confusion reigns over whether the government will, or can, keep the ageing power station going. But there’s a much better way to ensure grid reliabilityCoal fails in the heat. And so it did on 10 February 2017, as the heatwave that sparked South Australia’s blackout rolled across into NSW and emergency load-shedding was required in Australia’s biggest state. The Liddell power station failed to perform and could only operate at below half-capacity. In fact, throughout 2016-17 the 45-year-old power station’s average capacity was only 54%. It almost never operates at peak performance.To increase grid reliability, the last thing you would want to do is rely upon an underperforming, old power station prone to failure during heatwaves. Continue reading...

Poll shows 81% support for more investment in renewables, as Labor remains ahead on a two-party preferred basis, at 54% to the Coalition’s 46%

On Marco Island, widespread destruction in Irma’s wake is not enough to make believers out of some climate change skeptics

Second-hand Vauxhall, Audi and BMW diesels have fallen most in price, according to research

Joe Boyd is appealing to public for donations to challenge petrochemicals giant over ‘anti-democratic’ injunctionA second campaigner is challenging a sweeping injunction obtained by a petrochemicals giant against anti-fracking activists that has been criticised for profoundly limiting protests.Joe Boyd, an anti-fracking campaigner, is going to the high court in London on Tuesday in an attempt to stop the injunction which has been secured by the multinational firm, Ineos. He is appealing to the public for donations as he could face a large bill if he loses. Continue reading...

A small great white shark was rescued after it was found floundering on a beach in Sydney, Australia, on Monday. The shark was found by beachgoers in shallow waters at Manly beach and was moved to a beach rockpool to be monitored by authorities

Stag deers in London’s Richmond Park, elks in east China, and Bactrian deer in central Asia are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Public pool closed to swimmers after injured marine predator transferred for observation by wildlife expertsA juvenile great white shark was rescued after washing up on a Sydney beach – and given a new temporary home in a nearby public swimming pool.The shark, which washed ashore on Manly beach in Sydney’s north about midday, appeared to be injured and onlookers alerted marine rescue and lifeguards. Continue reading...

Government backing for mines, which could potentially include the Adani Carmichael project, comes as banks under pressure from activist groupsThe Turnbull government has responded to the increasing unwillingness of Australia’s banks to fund major coal projects by overturning a ban on government-backed loans to domestic miners.Steve Ciobo, the minister for trade, says protesters and activist groups have so discouraged Australia’s retail banks from financing “otherwise viable exporters in the coal sector” that the government must to step in to fund a growing “market gap.” Continue reading...

Locals blame coca interests for the state’s broken promise on protecting Tipnis national park, biodiversity hotspot and home to thousands of indigenous peopleWhen Ovidio Teco’s Amazon homeland was declared “untouchable” by the Bolivian government in 2011, his war had been won.The concerns of people like him had been listened to: their beautiful and ancient land would not be carved in two by a 190-mile highway. Continue reading...

Announcement aimed at tackling pollution will prove a huge incentive to development and sale of electric and hybrid vehiclesChina, the world’s biggest vehicle market, is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution.

Interim report finds an urgent fix is needed in NSW to repair an ‘ineffectual’ water compliance and enforcement systemNew South Wales’s top water bureaucrat, Gavin Hanlon, is facing misconduct proceedings after an interim report into allegations of water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin was submitted to the state government.The report released on Monday found an urgent fix was needed in NSW to repair an “ineffectual” water compliance and enforcement system. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 14 September 1917Already a peacock butterfly has selected our curtains for winter quarters, but it is early for this fly to be going into hibernation, and many are still on the wing, settling on the scabious and ragworts in the lanes or the flowers in our gardens. Perhaps the yellowing foliage of the sycamore and showers of curled, crisp beech leaves already down had given it a warning; it had a duty to fulfil: a long death-like slumber and a short flight next spring to find the young nettles and lay its eggs, thus linking up the years. It is many years since peacocks and red admirals were so abundant as they are now; everywhere people are struck by the numbers, not only locally nor even in other parts of England. A friend in France writes:– “The crops here are barbed wire, thistles, and nettles; I don’t know what the first produces, but the two last have brought out great lots of painted ladies, red admirals, peacocks, and a positive swarm of small tortoiseshells.” The weeds of the war-scarred, untilled land have produced one beautiful crop.Related: Red Admiral spotting: desperately seeking a British butterfly revival Continue reading...

Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect people’s lives and healthThe UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.

There is still no confirmed cause for the toxic haze that affected the Sussex coastline last monthItems from the shipping lanes frequently wash up on UK beaches. Occasionally hazardous chemical containers appear prompting local beach closures. The incident on the East Sussex coast on 27 August was on much larger scale.Although media reports focused on the beach at Birling Gap, air pollution monitors tell us that the affected area was much bigger. An apparent sharp rise in ozone was detected on Eastbourne sea front at 4:45pm and then about 30 minutes later at Lullington Heath, 8km to the west and 5km inland from Birling Gap – an area of over 40 square km. Continue reading...

It is possible to determine which nations and companies are responsible for damaging the climate. It’s only a matter of time before courts decide they must pay for global warmingRecent days have seen Houston, Texas literally sunk under sheer weight of rain, Carribbean islands battered by powerful storms barrelling across the Gulf and now Florida homes blasted by Irma, the largest of three hurricanes churning in the Atlantic basin. It seems almost certain that man-made climate change has a role in such events. Scientists used to be circumspect at attributing any single extreme event to global warming. No longer. Now scientists make the link between climate change and droughts in Kenya, record winter sun in Britain and torrential downpours in south-west China. The unmistakeable fingerprint of extreme weather at the crime scene of global warming seems intuitively obvious: consider that Houston is reckoned to have been hit by three “500-year floods” in three years. A 500-year flood does not have to happen only twice a millennium. But a run of three indicates that past climate is no longer a reliable guide to the present weather. The explanation is that the climate itself is changing. Continue reading...

Small but fast-growing Green party, which is demanding an immediate halt to gas and oil exploration, seen as potential kingmakerWhen Truls Gulowsen began campaigning in the 1990s, telling Norway it had both a moral obligation and an economic interest in phasing out the industry that has made it rich was not what might be called a vote winner.But as Norwegians go to the polls on Monday, the future of their country’s giant oil and gas business is a major electoral issue – with parties that back curbs or even a shutdown of the industry set to play a key role in post-election coalition-building. Continue reading...

A new film tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas – a small town dominated by a Koch brothers-owned paper mill, blamed for dumping cancer-causing chemicalsThe documentary Company Town opened in New York City on Friday night, for a short run at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. Introducing a sold-out screening, New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman said co-directors Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian had captured one of the “quiet tragedies that are taking place all across America all the time”.Related: Dark Money review: Nazi oil, the Koch brothers and a rightwing revolution Continue reading...

Analysts predict sea change in energy policy as falling costs for offshore power will charge UK taxpayer at least 10% less than deal handed to new nuclear plantWindfarms around Britain’s coast will beat the planned nuclear power station Hinkley Point on price when the winning bidders for a £290m-a-year pot of government subsidies are announced on Monday, experts predict.Such a milestone would mark a dramatic cost reduction for a technology that was once far more expensive than atomic power, and could fuel calls for a rethink over the UK’s future energy mix. Continue reading...

Cambridge University has completed the first stage of its ambitious £1bn development of homes, shops and schools on the city’s outlying farmlandAt the centre of debates about green belts is the question of trust. In theory it should be possible to build on a very small proportion of the nation’s green belts in such a way that affordable housing and sustainable communities are created, and more people have more and better access to nature than before. In practice few people trust that this will happen, as the available evidence is that we will get instead a smearing of developers’ standard products across the countryside, for sale at inflated prices.The promise of what’s called the North West Cambridge Development is that it will indeed achieve these good things. Here the University of Cambridge is turning 150 hectares of what was flat, inaccessible and somewhat featureless farmland, located between the city and the M11, into a billion-pound urban district the area of which is not much smaller than the historic centre of Cambridge itself. Three thousand homes are planned, half of them affordable, plus 2,000 postgraduate student bed spaces, 100,000 sq m of research facilities, and the schools, shops, surgeries and the like needed to sustain them. Two new public parks are being created, one between the new development and the old city, the other a series of lakes and mounds that buffer the sights and sounds of the motorway. Continue reading...

It’s not about pristine sands – we need seaweed, coral and mangroves to sustain marine wildlife and protect the world’s coastsTo the untrained eye, all beaches can look healthy – the sea gives them a restorative glow. The Beach Ecology Coalition is based in California, but its indicators for a healthy beach broadly hold for Skegness as much as California’s Laguna. Don’t be fooled by pristine beaches. A healthy one should be strewn with wrack: organic litter including seaweed that sustains beach hoppers and birds.Healthy beaches should be strewn with organic litter Continue reading...