Driverless cars appear unstoppable – except of course you can simply walk in front of one and force it to brake. Could this conundrum eventually mean a return to a dystopian world of segregated urban highways?Picture yourself cycling down a city street in the year 2035. You’re late for a meeting, but the road you must cross ahead has recently been designated an “Autonomous Vehicle-only” route, where platoons of driverless cars whizz past, mere centimetres apart. You can’t ride across it, as cyclists and pedestrians have been banned for fear they would slow the driverless traffic. You must find a way around.The clock is ticking. Do you attempt to climb the barrier and make a dash through the traffic? As you wait, you see a group of kids on a side street which is open to all vehicles. They are darting between driverless pods and forcing them to a stop. It’s a popular game. Continue reading...

Nord Stream 2 will transport gas from Russia to Europe, endangering habitats, fuelling climate change and funding Putin’s regime for decadesTough western sanctions on Russia may be squeezing the economy – but that’s only half the story. The other half you can understand better by attending a public hearing into a project that will finance the Putin regime for another 50 years.The project is called Nord Stream 2. It involves piping gas directly from Russia to Germany through the Baltic sea, and it is unaffected by sanctions. Its progress means that Europe is excoriating the Putin regime diplomatically while at the same time promising to inflate the same regime with billions of gas dollars. Continue reading...

Vesuvius in Italy and volcanoes in northern Tanzania, lights going out in Syria, and flooding in Sri Lanka are among images captured by Nasa and the ESA this monthA vertical view of Vesuvius in southern Italy, taken by the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the International Space Station. The Proxima mission is named after the closest star to the sun, continuing a tradition of naming missions with French astronauts after stars and constellations. The mission is part of the ESA’s plan to use Earth-orbiting spacecraft as a place to live and work while preparing for future voyages of exploration further into the solar system. Continue reading...

Jacobs Group modelling suggests clean energy target is also more expensive than an energy intensity schemeThe clean energy target recommended in the Finkel review does relatively little to reduce emissions, extends the life of coal power plants and is more expensive than the alternative energy intensity scheme, the modelling behind the report shows.Released today, five days after the report itself, the economic models that inform the report reveal the main thing the policy achieves is giving some confidence to power generators – including coal power stations – so they can make informed decisions about investments. Continue reading...

Clean air signposts and online walking maps to sidestep diesel fumes would benefit public health, finds studyTaking a side street route when walking through a city cuts a person’s air pollution exposure by half, according to a new study.Signposting these clean air routes and providing online maps would keep people away from heavily polluted main streets and would benefit their health, the researchers said. In fact the UK group behind the research have developed a new interactive map of London that allows people to put in any route and be shown a low-pollution walking option. Continue reading...

Ivory poaching is the most immediate, urgent threat to Africa’s elephants. But even if that can be tackled, they will have to fight humans for land, food and waterIt is the dead of night. The day’s red-dust heat has given way to a cooling breeze. A hundred frogs chirp urgently. Tim and his crew are preparing for another stealth raid. Their mission is highly dangerous and now there’s a new threat: armed men are following them.This is the scene repeated nightly on the eastern fringes of Amboseli national park in Kenya, close to the border with Tanzania. Tim is an elephant who, along with a group of up to 12 other males, has developed a taste for the tomatoes and maize growing on local farms on the outskirts of the park. The armed men are park rangers who have been tasked with keeping him from the crops – and saving his life. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire There is in them a curious combination of industry and decadence, fun and devotionThere’s something Elizabethan about the ashy mining bees. The females are 10mm long, black with a bluish reflection, a ruff of grey hair, a further grey ring around the thorax and a furry white facial mask. The males are smaller, squatter and less strikingly marked.

People were less happy to consider coal generation with 100% capture and storage as a ‘low emission’ energy sourceAustralian voters would back a new low emissions target over emissions trading as a policy to reduce carbon pollution, but are not sure about including “clean” coal in the mix, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.The latest survey of 1,785 voters, which follows Tuesday night’s three-hour Coalition party room meeting in which significant concerns were ventilated about the Finkel review, also taps significant community concerns about the rising threat of terrorism in Australia. Continue reading...

UK leads trend away from coal, with use down 52.5%, while China continues to consume less of the dirtiest fossil fuelGlobal demand for coal has fallen for the second consecutive year, according to a BP study, helped by the US and China burning less of the dirtiest fossil fuel.The UK was described as the “most extreme example” of the trend away from coal, which has resulted in use of the fuel returning to levels not seen since the start of the industrial revolution. Continue reading...

Chief executive will leave post in October after 15 years, having secured deal with UK government over Somerset nuclear plantThe man who helped secure Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation will step down as chief executive of EDF Energy in October, marking the end of a 15-year tenure.Vincent de Rivaz is the longest-serving CEO among the heads of the UK’s big six energy suppliers and will be replaced on 1 November by Simone Rossi, who leads the company’s international division. Continue reading...

Danish brewer to eliminate brewery emissions and halve its water usage by 2030 as part of sustainability driveCarlsberg has unveiled plans to reduce its brewery carbon emissions to zero, singling out Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate agreement as a motivating factor.The Danish brewer, whose beers also include Holsten Pils and San Miguel, said it would eliminate brewery emissions and halve its water usage by 2030 as part of a new sustainability drive. Continue reading...

Three-hour meeting fails to resolve government’s position on Finkel review but energy minister denies there’s a backbench revoltJosh Frydenberg says it is too soon to say if the Coalition party room will support a clean energy target after a three-hour extraordinary meeting in which a number of government colleagues raised concerns about the core recommendations of the Finkel review.

Tom Perriello’s progressive campaign for governor could be a model for Democrats preparing to run against Trump in the midterm elections“The state ends at Roanoke, we are the forgotten corner of Virginia,” says local Democratic activist Oliver Keene of Tazewell, where 20% of the town lives in poverty. “In our eyes, past Roanoke, nobody cares about us. We don’t exist.”Campaigning for statewide office, most Democratic candidates have typically ignored the deep red Appalachian corner of the state where Trump won many of the counties by 70% margins.

Improvements aim to ensure the vault’s role as an impregnable deep freeze for the world’s most precious food seeds after a recent flooding by melting permafrost

West Sussex The male calls three times, then segues into a short, complex phrase of tweets and whistlesThe wind crashes through the tree tops, like the sea breaking on the shore, the great pines and silver birches that encircle the heathland swaying and shimmering. A red admiral butterfly rises from the heather, but it is snatched up by the wind and tumbles away too quickly for me to follow it.

The Finkel report offers glimpse of opportunity for consumers and businesses to play the electricity marketTo illustrate the impact of battery storage on the electricity network in Australia, Prof Guoxiu Wang likes to compare it to the invention of refrigeration.

India’s energy minister, Piyush Goyal, says the country would be self-sufficient in coal, except that power plants had been designed to run only on importsIndia now has “sufficient coal capacity” to power itself without Queensland’s Carmichael mine project, thanks to the increased productivity of domestic mines, cheaper renewables and lower than expected energy demand, the country’s energy minister has said.But Piyush Goyal said India would be forced to keep importing coal, including from the proposed Queensland mine, because too many Indian power plants had been designed to run on foreign coal.

Josh Frydenberg distances himself from former prime minister Tony Abbott and says target is ‘not a tax on coal’The clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, was designed so future governments could ratchet up the ambition of the emissions cuts, Finkel has said on the ABC’s Q&A program.Labor’s climate and energy spokesman, Mark Butler, indicated that Labor would do exactly that, if the mechanism was instituted and they then won government. Continue reading...

Interior secretary Ryan Zinke urges president to shrink 1.3m-acre national monument as administration continues push against federal public landsRyan Zinke, the US interior secretary, has recommended to Donald Trump that Bears Ears national monument in Utah be reduced in size to the “smallest area compatible” with its conservation. Continue reading...

Predictions of gloom after the Brexit vote didn’t materialise – but this time we face an income squeeze and an EU ticking clock“It is hard to overstate what a dramatic impact the current political uncertainty has on business leaders, and the consequences could – if not addressed immediately – be disastrous for the UK economy,” says Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors, pointing to a poll of members that showed 57% were quite or very pessimistic about the economy over the next 12 months.We heard similar predictions of gloom from the business world after last year’s referendum, of course. They did not materialise, or at least not in the style imagined. The Brexit flunk was a brief affair and the Bank of England and almost every other forecaster was obliged to admit that Armageddon would not be arriving as previously advertised. Could the plot run so happily again? Continue reading...

Canada’s PM is a counterfeit progressive who champions war-planes, pipelines and privatization - look across the pond for economic and environmental justiceTheir depiction in the international media couldn’t be more different.You know Justin Trudeau from the Buzzfeed photo-spread or the BBC viral video: the feminist Prime Minister of Canada who hugs refugees, pandas, and his yoga-mat. He looks like he canoed straight from the lake to the stage of the nearest TED Talk — an inclusive, nature-loving do-gooder who must assuredly be loved by his people.

Appointment greeted with anger by environmental campaigners who lament his record on green issuesMichael Gove’s appointment as environment secretary is like “putting the fox in charge of the hen house”, according to a colleague who worked alongside him in the coalition government.Theresa May announced Gove’s return to politics as part of her reshuffle on Sunday. The news was greeted with anger and frustration by environmental campaigners, who lamented his record on green issues, including his attempt to remove climate change from the geography curriculum while education secretary. Continue reading...

US says it will not join other six nations in reaffirming 2015 Paris pact but will take its own action to reduce carbon footprint

Slowing demand for oil and forecasts of rapid growth in green power pose risk to core business, says analystMore than a fifth of investment by the largest oil and gas companies could be in wind and solar power in just over a decade, according to analysis of how global changes in energy will reshape the sector.Slowing demand for oil and forecasts of rapid growth in renewables posed both a threat and and opportunity BP, Shell and Total among others cannot ignore, said research group Wood Mackenzie. Continue reading...

Mule deer, pronghorn and other animals rely on unbroken migration routes for food and survival, a necessity now in jeopardy as Trump pushes for development

Collapsing ice shelves will further accelerate global sea level rise

New York City, Houston, Miami and San Francisco have all taken steps to mitigate the risks associated with rising sea levels and global temperatures. Are their successes a blueprint for action at the state and local level?Wholly unintentionally, Donald Trump may have sparked unprecedented determination within the US to confront the danger of climate change.

We dare you to strike up a conversation with a fellow cyclist this week, and tell us the highlights here or on social media using #cycleconvo

Epping Forest Yellow rattle steals nutrients from grasses, releasing butterfly-friendly plants from the oppression of shadeThe poet John Clare crossed here 180 years ago seeking the “furze and clouds” of Buckhurst Hill, but I’m happy to linger on Whitehall Plain amid its dazzling drifts of buttercups. Natural grasslands are now rare in southern England – 98% of them were destroyed in the 50 years after 1945 – and too often seen as easily replicated green space. Not here in Epping Forest, though. Beneath its surface gloss of buttercups, this old pasture, which straddles London’s boundary with Essex, is complex and dynamic.

Former prime minister says Bill Shorten the favourite to win election and Coalition must not adopt a new tax on coalTony Abbott has declared the new clean energy target proposed by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, sounds like a “magic pudding” and he says the Coalition must not adopt a new tax on coal.

Originally published in the Guardian on 17 June 1967DARTMOOR: The best way to see the country of the high moorland is, I am now convinced, from horseback. A docile eight-year-old mare carried me for three hours over Holne Moor and along the thickly wooded valley of the Dart and provided a morning of great delight. Early in the ride, descending from the moor to the river valley, we started a buzzard from the heather. The bird rose into the air and crossed the valley in gracious soaring and gliding. The silhouette of the buzzard is particularly appropriate to its function as a bird of prey – a menacing dark brown shape with broad wings upturned at the tips. Its loud mewing call which echoed in the confined valley was an eerie warning to small creatures on the ground.Related: Dilemma on the moor: The truth about pony slaughter on Dartmoor Continue reading...

Engineers call them nano-particles, and close to congested roads and busy airports, we inhale them in astonishing numbersIn 1996, the Scottish scientist Anthony Seaton put forward a new theory about the health problems from modern air pollution. Throughout our evolution, we have always lived with dusts, but Seaton suggested that the problems from modern air pollution were due to the sheer number of tiny pollution particles that we are now exposed to.Related: Time for the oil industry to snuff out its flares Continue reading...

The new environment secretary will need every bit of his famed intellect to come up with a post-Brexit replacement for the Common Agricultural PolicyIf Michael Gove brings the same zeal to bear in his new post as environment secretary as he exercised on schools and prisons, some of Britain’s farmers may be in for a shock.Even before he gatecrashed last year’s Tory leadership contest, knocking his supposed friend Boris Johnson out of the race, Gove was a deeply controversial figure. Continue reading...

Miner initially said it was selling Coal & Allied to Yancoal, which is majority controlled by China’s Yanzhou CoalA multibillion-dollar bidding war for most of Rio Tinto’s Australian coalmines has broken out between China-backed Yancoal and Glencore after the Swiss commodities company made an unexpected offer.Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest miner, is exiting coalmining in Australia at a time of falling prices and market volatility. Continue reading...

The world’s biggest companies, from Starbucks to Victoria’s Secret, use prisoners to work on their products. Is it helpful work experience or sheer exploitation?We are all, at heart, ethical consumers. I’ve never met anyone actively looking for a dose of slave labour with their teabags, window frames or underwear.71% of companies surveyed in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery Continue reading...

Minister argues Alan Finkel’s recommendations won’t punish existing coal-fired power stations nor rule out new onesThe federal energy minister is working to convince all his Coalition colleagues of the merits of a proposed clean energy target as several publicly raise concerns about its impact on coal.Josh Frydenberg is at pains to point out the recommendations from chief scientist Alan Finkel’s review of electricity market security would neither punish existing coal-fired power stations nor rule out new ones. Continue reading...

Use of wrasse to combat parasite threatens natural stocks, say expertsSalmon farmers have been accused of playing dirty by using fish caught in the wild to clean lice from Scottish fish farms. Marine conservation experts say that shipping tonnes of English-caught wrasse a year – to tackle lice infestations in salmon pens north of the border – is endangering natural stocks. English anglers have also warned wrasse is becoming harder and harder to find in local waters.However, salmon farmers have rejected the charge. They say the use of wrasse as a “cleaner” fish is part of a long-term plan to replace chemicals – which are currently administered to pens to control lice infestations – with sustainable, biological controls. Continue reading...

South Uist The dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another wildflower species comes to the fore on land left to lie fallowThe continuation of traditional crofting methods ensures that the island’s machair is still celebrated for the spectacular profusion of wildflowers that occurs in the summer. Yellows, whites, purples and blues are all present, though the dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another species comes to the fore on the land left to lie fallow. But where, after their period of rest, different areas are put back under cultivation, there are other changes in colour.

Marine mammal experts make ‘really tough decision’ after rough sea conditions hinder rescue attempts• Australian volunteers help keep animal breathing – video

Brown bear protecting three cubs closes Poenari Castle used by Romania’s Vlad the Impaler in the 15th centuryWhile Dracula’s legend usually fails to scare tourists away from the blood-sucking vampire’s 15th century castle, a large, furry and protective mother bear has had more success.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

A stalking tiger, playful long-eared owl chicks and a rare dormouse are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

A directeur sportif must juggle route navigation, team communication, tactics and technical backup – all while driving at high speed. Amy Sedghi hitches a ride on the women’s Tour de Yorkshire to see how it’s done“I need a bike change”. The urgent call comes after about 45km.Another rider has hit Audrey Cordon-Ragot’s rear wheel in women’s Tour de Yorkshire and the radio crackles with her call for a replacement to be brought forwards. The Wiggle High5 team’s directeur sportif, Donna Rae Szalinski, has her foot on the accelerator and a hand on the horn, beeping a warning at the other support cars as she zips up the right hand side at 70kmh to deliver a new bike. Continue reading...

The highly anticipated Finkel review on the future of the national electricity market was released on Friday. Its weak emissions target breaks Australia’s Paris commitments, but the review may well end the deadlock on carbon emissions that has plagued politics for over a decade Continue reading...

Voluntary initiative marks first time companies from Asia, Europe and US have joined together to stop overfishing, illegal catch and use of slave labourNine of the world’s biggest fishing companies have signed up to protect the world’s oceans, pledging to help stamp out illegal activities, including the use of slave labour, and prevent overfishing.The initiative will be announced on Friday, as part of the UN Ocean Conference this week in New York, the first conference of its kind at which member states are discussing how to meet the sustainable development goal on ocean health. Continue reading...

Helpers endure the rain and swell to look after a whale that became stuck on a beach in New South Wales, Australia. The group used guide ropes to keep the animal upright as the tide fell, enabling it to breathe. The animal, which is nine metres long and weighs about 18 tonnes, will remain beached at least until the high tide arrives in the evening, experts said. Continue reading...

Rescuers will try to refloat the 9m-long juvenile, which weighs up to 18 tonnes, at Sawtell on Saturday morningRescuers are working to save a young humpback whale that washed onto a beach on the New South Wales mid-north coast on Friday. The animal, which is nine metres long and weighs around 18 tonnes, would remain beached at least until the high tide arrives in the evening, experts said.Beachgoers spotted the whale in the surf at Sawtell Beach south of Coffs Harbour early on Friday and it washed closer to shore at about 7am. Continue reading...

Trump’s climate stance is blatant and extreme but just as damaging is the daily denial that goes unchallenged, from airport expansion to pub patio heaters. A first step to change is to call it out #DailyClimateDenialYou know things are bad when it takes Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris agreement for climate change to be discussed during the UK election. His climate denial is of the extreme and obvious variety: pages were removed from the Environmental Protection Agency website explaining its causes and consequences when he came into office.Equally if not more damaging, however, is the daily climate denial that passes mostly unremarked all around us. The Institute of Directors recently proposed not one, but two new airport runways for London in a report called Let’s push things forward. It made no mention of the effect on rising emissions and a better title might have been “Let’s push things over the edge”. The oil company BP’s irony free sponsorship of the British Museum’s Sunken Cities exhibition merely highlighted how removed climate now is from our everyday cultural imagination.

Chief scientist’s report flies in the face of previous recommendations on reducing electricity emissionsLess than two weeks ago, Alan Finkel told the Senate his landmark report would help Australia meet the commitments it made in Paris to reduce its economy-wide emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.But his recommendations on the future of the National Electricity Market, released today, appear to fly in the face of those very commitments. Continue reading...

Langstone, Hampshire Bees scouting the hawthorn unrolled their tongues to mop up the sticky fluid excreted by the greenflySince mid May the hawthorn next to my kitchen window has been covered with greenfly. The leaves and stems are plastered with clusters of the sap-sucking insects and a dandruff of white cast skins, which the sub-adults moult as they mature.Reproducing asexually by parthenogenesis, these aphids give birth to live offspring born with the embryos of the next generation inside their bodies. Nymphs reach sexual maturity in as little as five days, and a reproductively active adult can produce up to 12 genetic copies of itself a day. Continue reading...