Langstone Mill Pond, Hampshire The swans’ nest lies deserted, the eggs presumably scavenged while the bereaved cob was defending his territoryAlmost two weeks have passed since the nesting female mute swan was viciously attacked by dogs and succumbed to her injuries, but it feels as though the mill pond is still in mourning.Rain tears my cheeks, the water is turbid with suspended silt, and the customary raucous gaggles of mallards, coots and moorhens are conspicuous by their absence. Even the rising chorus of chiffchaffs, Cetti’s warblers and reed warblers is muted. Continue reading...

Nationalising rail and energy, protecting the NHS and education and tighter regulation of big business are exactly what Labour should be focusing on, say readersThe leaked release of the Labour party election manifesto (Report, 11 May) has prompted predicable claims from the right that Jeremy Corbyn wants to take the country back to the 1970s, forgetting to mention that this was a time when corporations and high earners contributed a fairer share to the public purse and we had a functioning welfare state and regulated public utilities providing essential services. The Conservatives are also pushing to return to the 70s, the 1770s, and Adam Smith’s manifesto for market fundamentalism, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Smith believed that market transactions were governed by a hidden guiding hand that moderated selfishness and, freed from government restraint, business always operated in the public interest. He was tragically mistaken. As recent experience confirms, without strong regulation, progressive taxation and a vibrant public sector, unscrupulous corporations will take the money and run, avoiding tax, exploiting workers, overcharging customers and demanding savage cuts to welfare and public services to pay for their mistakes. The coming election offers us a stark choice between two histories and two futures.

New chair of Arctic council calls for Paris treaty on global warming to be respected amid fears of commitment downgradeFinland, the new chair of the Arctic council, has appealed to climate change scientists to fight the threat of the US and Russia tearing up commitments to combat global warming.

Are the proposals set out by the party ahead of the vital clause V meeting too radical – or do they not go far enough? Continue reading...

Customers are being asked to save water, but more than 20% of water is lost before it reaches homes and leakage levels are not declining, Guardian analysis showsFears of a drought are rising after an exceptionally dry spell and water companies are asking customers to save water, but the vast amount of water that leaks from company pipes every day has not fallen for at least four years, according to a Guardian analysis.Furthermore, many companies in the parched south and east of England have been set leak reduction targets for 2020 of zero or even targets that could allow leakages to increase. Critics blame a system where it is “cheaper to drain a river dry than fix a leak” and say it is unfair to place the water saving burden on customers while 20% of all water leaks out before it even reaches homes. Continue reading...

Leaked draft says Labour will protect bees by banning all neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been linked to species declineIf you were wondering why bees popped up in the Labour party’s leaked manifesto this week, then here’s the answer.Since 1900 about 20 bee species have become extinct in the UK and 35 more are now at risk. Continue reading...

Senate committee fails to make official recommendations after South Australia Labor senator, Alex Gallacher, votes with LiberalsA Labor senator has broken ranks with his party to vote with Liberals in support of oil and gas drilling in the Great Australian Bight, deadlocking a Senate committee investigating the proposal.The Greens have accused the Labor party of being directly influenced by donations from oil giant Chevron. A long-awaited Senate report into the consequences of opening up the Great Australian Bight Marine National Park for oil or gas production was published on Thursday. Continue reading...

A new study suggests there are remaining biases in the oft-corrected University of Alabama at Huntsville atmospheric temperature estimates

Warming climate makes it ‘inevitable’ that contiguous US will lose all of its glaciers within decades, according to scientistsIt’s now “inevitable” that the contiguous United States will lose all of its glaciers within a matter of decades, according to scientists who have revealed the precipitous shrinkage of dozens of glaciers in Montana.Related: Worried world urges Trump not to pull out of Paris climate agreement Continue reading...

‘Whale cams’ and digital tags attached to minkes and humpbacks allow scientists to go below the surface of the Antarctic ocean and experience a day in a life of these ocean giants. The data will help them to understand the animals’ behaviour and the impacts of climate change• ‘Whale cams’ reveal humpbacks’ habitats – video Continue reading...

Greens MP responds to damning report, warning taxpayers are left exposed to footing the bill ‘for the huge damage the mining industry is doing to the environment’Mining companies should be forced to set aside more money for the rehabilitation of mine sites, according to a damning report by the New South Wales auditor general.While security deposits provided by mining companies have increased from $500m in 2005 to around $2.2bn in 2016 for about 450 mine sites in NSW, the report found the money was still not likely to cover the full costs of each mine’s rehabilitation if the company went out of business or the mine suddenly stopped operating. Continue reading...

Consumers are needlessly buying bottled water in restaurants and pubs because they feel awkward asking for free tap water, says environmental charityUK consumers who are too embarrassed to ask a pub or restaurant for a glass of tap water or a refill of their empty bottle are helping to fuel the rising tide of discarded single-use plastic drinks bottles, according to a new survey.Only a quarter of people admitted to knowing their legal rights when it comes to asking for a glass of tap water, while a third admit to feeling awkward when asking for water for a reusable bottle even if they are buying something else, according to research commissioned by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy and Brita UK, a manufacturer of filter jugs.

Sandy Bedfordshire In a dry, wormless spring our resident male blackbird has become a fisher of newtsThrough french windows framed by flowering clematis, I saw a blackbird touch down on the lawn. Leaning even as it landed, its beak led it in a pitter-patter metre-dash for the pond. At the water’s edge its head dipped then jerked back, and it tossed something very large over its shoulder on to the turf.In this droughty, wormless spring, our resident male blackbird had switched to becoming a fisher of newts. Continue reading...

Leak raises fresh concerns about hazards to waterways and outrages indigenous groups, who have long warned of threat to environmentThe Dakota Access pipeline has suffered its first leak, outraging indigenous groups who have long warned that the project poses a threat to the environment.The $3.8bn oil pipeline, which sparked international protests last year and is not yet fully operational, spilled 84 gallons of crude oil at a South Dakota pump station, according to government regulators. Continue reading...

Vote on Obama-era rule to reduce emissions from oil and gas drilling on federal land fails 51-49 as three Republican senators defectA Republican move to undo limits on the emission of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has suffered an unexpected defeat in the Senate.

An armed group ambushed a convoy of rangers from the Itombwe reserve fatally injuring one and holding two others ransom, including a French nationalA park ranger was killed and two conservation workers were briefly abducted when bandits ambushed a convoy of rangers from the Itombwe reserve in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Anselme Matabaro, an ICCN staff member and deputy chief of the Itombwe reserve was seriously injured in the attack on 5 May in eastern Congo and has since died. Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon’s party criticised by Tories and industry leaders over leaked excerpts of letter about integrating EU fisheries lawA battle has broken out over the future of Britain’s fishing industry after the Scottish National party was accused of twisting the words of the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom.The Conservatives and industry leaders said the SNP had selectively leaked excerpts from a letter from Leadsom to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation that disclosed that the UK government knew it may have to integrate some parts of EU law on fisheries after Brexit.

Plummeting wholesale prices put the country on track to meet renewable energy targets set out in the Paris agreementWholesale solar power prices have reached another record low in India, faster than analysts predicted and further undercutting the price of fossil fuel-generated power in the country.The tumbling price of solar energy also increases the likelihood that India will meet – and by its own predictions, exceed – the renewable energy targets it set at the Paris climate accords in December 2015. Continue reading...

Achill islanders ready themselves for wave of tourism after reappearance of Dooagh sands washed away in storms in 1984For Achill islander Emmet Callaghan, the beach at Dooagh where he grew up sounded as mythical and unreal as Brigadoon, the mysterious Scottish village that only appears every 100 years.The 300-metre stretch of golden sand where his grandfather used to collect seaweed for villagers to fertilise their land was destroyed in 1984 by Atlantic storms that battered Ireland’s north-west coast – seven years before Callaghan was born. Continue reading...

Deutsche Bahn budgets €15m to relocate threatened sand and wall lizards as costs continue to grow in major station upgradeA multibillion-euro railway development project in southern Germany, which has already been waylaid by spiralling costs and rows over environmental concerns and viability, is facing its latest challenge – two threatened species of lizard.Thousands of sand and wall lizards have been found along the route of the project, known as Stuttgart 21. A major upgrade of Stuttgart’s central station, it is part of 35 miles (56km) of new lines for the trans-European rail network. Continue reading...

Hit men attacked a remote Brazilian settlement where deforestation, land grabbing and violence go unpunished, reports Climate HomeNine men were stabbed or shot dead on 19 April over a territorial dispute in a remote area of Mato Grosso state, deep in the Amazon rainforest.In the afternoon, hitmen swept through the land in question, known as Linha (road) 15, killing everyone they found. Some of the bodies bore signs of torture. Continue reading...

Stanbrook Abbey is located in the North York Moors national park and claims to be the world’s first environmentally friendly nunnery. Designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios at a total cost of £7.5m, it features solar panels, rainwater harvesting and a sedum roof. The nuns relocated from a Grade-II listed church in Worcestershire that had proved to be uneconomical and unmanageable Continue reading...

Elephants can help humans live longer, healthier, happier lives. Help them, and we help ourselvesIt sometimes feels as if we are living in the elephant’s darkest hour. China may be closing down its domestic ivory trade and the EU getting to grips with smuggling, yet the poachers continue their bloody business. Meanwhile, forests are being destroyed, herds’ migration routes are being blocked, and humans and elephants are competing ever more fiercely for land, food and water.

Investigation finds failure to properly respond to spill near drilling platform posed ‘significant threat to the environment’

Onshore wind has higher public approval than nuclear and fracking, so why are Tories expanding unpopular industries with higher carbon footprints?Renewable power expanded exponentially under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition elected in 2010 and by 2015 the renewable industries had a turnover of £14.9bn and had reduced wholesale electricity prices. If this expansion had continued under the next government, an all-renewable UK electricity supply was achievable by 2025.Though the 2015 Tory manifesto claimed onshore wind farms “often fail to win public support”, the government’s own surveys demonstrate widespread approval. Support remains high even for a large-scale local wind farm. Continue reading...

After photographing tigers and tapirs in one of Sumatra’s least known wildernesses, an unlikely pair of conservationists are hoping to discover a hidden population of orangutans in high altitude forests – and who knows what else.

Benthall Edge, Shropshire This plant has had a symbolic, medicinal and folkloric importance for centuriesThe margins of woodland paths are full of woodruff, white on green, and sheltered under trees is the ghost of its scent. Galium odoratum is the sweet woodruff, an erect perennial of limestone woods, 15cm-30cm high with square stems through whorls of up to nine leaves – the ruffs – ending in tight umbels of cross-shaped, bright white flowers that have a vanilla scent.

Oilier plants, new processing technologies and multipurpose crops could put the biofuel industry back in the race for greener transport fuelsBiofuels have long been touted as a carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels, doing for the world’s planes, ships and automobiles what windfarms and solar panels are doing for its electricity grids. With the transport sector accounting for almost one fifth of Australia’s total carbon emissions, green biofuels could be an important ingredient of the zero emissions future envisioned by the Paris climate agreement.

Saltwater crocodile attacked the 54-year-old as he tried to wade across a flooded causeway in the Daly river regionA 54-year-old man is recovering in hospital after being attacked by a saltwater crocodile in the Northern Territory.The man was wading across a waterway near Palumpa, a Daly river region community about 370km south-west of Darwin, when he was attacked by the two-metre animal. Continue reading...

Environmental activists seek to use Trump’s cabinet of fossil fuel millionaires to pressure New York City pension funds to divestEnvironmental activists held a rally inside Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday, ahead of an expected decision from the president on whether to leave the Paris climate change agreement.

Pollution and climate change are election issues, write Professor Steve Tombs and Geoff NaylorThe government attributes 40-50,000 premature deaths each year to the effects of airborne pollution; there are some 1 million cases of foodborne illness, which result in 20,000 hospital admissions and 500 deaths a year; and up to 50,000 people die each year as a result of injuries or health problems originating in the workplace (Enemies of the state: the 40-year Tory project to shrink public services, G2, 9 May). Yet the rate of inspection and enforcement actions for environmental health, food safety and hygiene, and health and safety have all been falling. The statistically average workplace now expects to see a health and safety inspector once every 50 years.In the name of cutting red tape, governments of all political persuasions have attacked independent regulation and enforcement. Budget cuts in the name of austerity have compounded the problem – especially at the level of local authorities. There is now a plethora of schemes to outsource and privatise wholesale some regulatory and enforcement activities. Private companies are increasingly involved in “regulating” either other private companies, or themselves, or both. Such changes mark the beginning of the end of the state’s commitment to forms of social protection put into place since the 1830s.

Legislation is ‘cause for optimism’ as big body of laws is hard to reverseNations around the world have adopted more than 1,200 laws to curb climate change, up from about 60 two decades ago, a sign of widening efforts to limit rising temperatures, according to a new study.“Most countries have a legal basis on which future action can be built,” said Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s climate change chief, at an international meeting on climate change in Bonn, Germany. Continue reading...

Speaking at a global food convention in Milan on Tuesday, the former US president says he prioritised climate change while in office because it would be the issue that ‘defines the contours of this century more dramatically than any other’. His comments come as the Trump administration decides whether to keep the US in the Paris climate agreement

UK had just 47% of the average rainfall for the month but water companies say there is no need to panicOne of the driest Aprils on record could ruin crops in the most arid parts of the country if it does not start raining soon, farmers have warned.Whisky and beer production could be affected if May and June prove similarly dry, with crops such as malting barley particularly vulnerable if not given enough water when they sprout in spring, according to Guy Smith, the vice-chair of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). “A good May may put them back on track but it’s last chance saloon for them,” he said. Continue reading...

As we kick off a series looking at how business can embrace sustainability, particularly renewables and the circular economy, tell us what you think we should be coveringWith millions dying prematurely every year due to air pollution, species becoming critically endangered as a result of hunting and deforestation, and water shortages emerging across whole regions of the world, the question of how companies can integrate sustainability into business strategy and investment decisions is more urgent than ever.In our new rethinking business series, we will be exploring how organisations can embrace sustainable business models and what support they need to make their goals a reality. Continue reading...

President promises decision on US involvement before this month’s G7 summit, but the debate reveals deep divisions within his core team

The critically endangered orangutan is under threat from hunting and habitat deforestation. A new book, The Orangutan’s World, is a photographic celebration of this great ape and its rainforest home in southern Borneo Continue reading...

Between 1934 and 1940 the UK built 280 miles of cycle paths with Dutch guidance. A Kickstarter campaign to rescue these lost cycle paths needs supportIn September 2012 the Google Street View car drove slowly along a road in Twickenham, London. It had to reverse when the driver found three wooden bollards blocking its way. The road was not a road at all, it was a cycleway. A cycleway built in – wait for it – 1937.Originally surfaced with red concrete, the cycleway has faded to light pink but the granite kerbs are still in situ and, fooling the Street View navigation algorithms, it looks like a narrow road instead of the normal kind of “crap cycle lane” we are so unhappily used to in the UK. Continue reading...

Waltham Brooks, West Sussex The golden reed along the river’s edge vibrates with the pulsing, chattering songs of the warblersIt’s a cold morning, and a glistening coating of frost clings to the green surfaces of the vegetation that is still in the shade. The sun is reaching through the trees, and plumes of mist rise from the river’s surface as it warms.The golden reed along the river’s edge vibrates with the pulsing, chattering songs of reed warblers and sedge warblers – the sound of a wetland summer. They began to return to Waltham Brooks about a month ago, and now I count more than 30 singing around the reserve. I hear a whirring from a sedge warbler in the brambles next to me, and I turn to watch as it inches up to the top of the bush. Continue reading...

Gemini windpark off the coast of the Netherlands will eventually meet the energy needs of about 1.5 million people, according to its ownersDutch officials have opened what is being billed as one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, with 150 turbines spinning far out in the North Sea.

Defending decision not to finance mine, Brian Hartzer says coal needed for economy to 2050 can be met by existing minesThe Adani Carmichael coalmine is not needed to support the economy, the Westpac chief executive has said in defence of his bank’s decision not to finance the mine.On Radio National on Tuesday, Brian Hartzer said Westpac’s decision to set a climate policy, which in effect rules out financing the Adani Carmichael coalmine, was based on its acceptance that climate change should be limited to 2C by 2050. Continue reading...

Friends of the Earth urges other retailers to follow suit after studies show damaging effects of neonicotinoids on beesAll flowering plants sold by B&Q are to be grown without using pesticides that are harmful to bees, the retailer has announced.A series of scientific studies have shown that bees are exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides in fields and suffer serious harm from the doses they receive. The European commission has drawn up draft legislation to ban the pesticides, citing “high acute risks to bees”. Continue reading...

Northern tundra’s autumn carbon dioxide emissions increased 70% between 1975 and 2015, researchers find, blaming warming temperaturesAlaska’s soils are taking far longer to freeze over as winter approaches than in previous decades, resulting in a surge in carbon dioxide emissions that could portend a much faster rate of global warming than scientists had previously estimated, according to new research.Related: Worried world urges Trump not to pull out of Paris climate agreement Continue reading...

Theresa May talks big but doesn’t deliver on cleaning up Britain’s polluted citiesTheresa May recognises that air pollution is one of the biggest threats faced by millions of citizens: last November, after a judge ordered the government to produce a plan to tackle an avoidable cause of up to 40,000 premature deaths, she told MPs: “Nobody in this house doubts the importance of the issue of air quality. We have taken action, there is more to do and we will do it.” Roll forward six months to last Friday, and, after a further court appearance and another ruling, a plan was finally produced. It came out almost without warning on the day when most media organisations were preoccupied with the aftermath of the local elections. In the previous week, some ideas had been trailed all of which seem to have been too radical for inclusion in the plan, at least for a government on an election footing.What emerged was a vacuous, flimsy ragbag of half-formed proposals that try to pass the buck to local government while denying it the powers councils need to act. ClientEarth, the group of environmental lawyers that brought the case, says the plan is barely worth the paper it is written on. They think it is actually weaker than the plan that was ruled inadequate in November. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called it “woeful”. Continue reading...

Cross-section of MPs urge £612m pension fund to show greater leadership and “take climate change seriously”A campaign calling on parliament’s £612m pension fund to divest from fossil fuels has won the backing of 50 MPs from across the UK’s main political parties.The Divest Parliament campaign has announced it has secured support from a cross-section of MPs from Labour, the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, SDLP and Plaid Cymru, who are all urging the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) to show greater leadership on tackling climate change. Continue reading...

Two forest patrollers have been killed and four hospitalised in what is believed to be retaliatory action from illegal settlers in Sapo National ParkTwo forest rangers have been killed by a violent mob in a Liberian rainforest after discovering a community illegally settling and hunting in the park, according to authorities.Related: Another day, another dead wildlife ranger. Where is the outrage? | Sean Willmore Continue reading...

A daring Australian Museum expedition to Balls Pyramid near Lord Howe Island has succeeded in its search for the rare and elusive Lord Howe Island stick insect Continue reading...

Villagers express delight after entire beach that vanished in Achill Island storms in 1984 turns back sands of time