The most oil-rich and fracking-friendly of states has found itself with the improbable status of being a national leader in a wind energy boomLiving in New York and Washington, Greg Wortham heard all the grand talk about green energy from liberal politicians. Then he returned to the place where he grew up, a small town that embraced wind power so warmly that within a couple of years of the first turbine turning, it had some of the biggest farms on the planet.Yet Wortham is not from California, Oregon or New England, but a deeply conservative sector of Texas on the edge of the Permian Basin, one of the most bountiful oil and gas patches in the world. Continue reading...

Coalition plan for more efficient coal plants could well increase emissions in a sector that is the second most polluting in the developed worldThe government has indicated it will act to allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to finance new coal-fired power plants on the basis that these coal plants have lower emissions than existing coal power plants.While such power plants may have lower emissions than Australia’s ageing and extremely inefficient existing coal plants, they would most likely increase Australia’s emissions rather than decrease them. And this is in a context where Australia’s electricity supply is the second most polluting in the developed world (beaten only by Estonia). Continue reading...

Campaigns in the UK and Australia point to grassroots backlash against plastics-to-fuel sector that could be worth £1.5bn by 2024“A rural residential community is not the right site to be testing this technology,” says Naomi Joyce, a solicitor from Appley Bridge, Lancashire. Born and raised in the village, Joyce helped to lead its fight against a proposed waste-to-fuel plant, which had hoped to convert up to 6,000 tonnes of plastic rubbish into diesel, gasoline and other products each year.Worried that harmful fumes would pollute their valley, locals rallied against the proposal – signing petitions, writing to the council and protesting in the street. In January last year, the project was shelved. Continue reading...

West Dartmoor To have chanced across this night-roamer, lolloping calmly across the muddy lane, was a rare privilege indeed.Hemmed in on either side by tall hedgerows, this narrow Dartmoor lane skirts the flank of higher ground and scores a deep furrow between fields so that after dark you feel you are tunnelling through the terrain, headlights tracing a leaden seam of asphalt. There is little traffic here to trouble nocturnal wildlife. Over the years I have come across badgers, heads striped like road markings, furtive-looking foxes and occasionally a barn owl, achingly white in the full beams.This winter’s night, an unexpected wanderer took shape among the blanched fishbone stems of dead weeds, as if created by the action of light on darkness. Long ears held high, hindquarters arched over rangy rear legs, large eyes that brought me to a halt. A hare! Continue reading...

Prime minister agrees his personal 14.5kW system on the roof of his Sydney home, with battery storage, is a ‘large array’Malcolm Turnbull has hit back at suggestions that his house’s large personal rooftop solar and battery system sends a message contrary to the government’s endorsement of “clean coal”.He rejected the idea that he had ever been critical of the renewables sector and dismissed his treasurer’s brandishing of a lump of coal in question time as “theatrics”. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 20 February 1917On Saturday a grey crow was perched on the topmost rotten branch of an oak beside the river, and was as communicative as usual. Perhaps it enjoyed watching the ice sheets floating past and hearing them scrunch as they piled together at the bend. Yesterday there were three paddling on the sloppy ice of the mere, still talking as they cleaned up the various bird remains. I thought the note was always repeated three times in quick succession, but as often as not four caws follow one another rapidly after each pause of a few seconds’ duration. The grey crow’s call is shriller than the carrion’s but deeper than the rook’s.The thaw livened up the thrushes and starlings and started the dunnocks afresh: everywhere these little hedge-frequenters are shuffling their wings and trilling vigorously. The blackbirds, silent since last summer, immediately tuned up; I heard my first on Saturday, and to-day many are in excellent mellow voice. Herring gulls have not yet left the mere; they have been about for several weeks, for the first appeared long before the waters were ice-bound; they raised a joyous chorus yesterday, their full, clear calls sounding quite vernal. Like the crows, they consorted with the living blackheads and fed upon the dead ones. Near the bank a three-foot eel was embedded in the ice, and crow or gull had got through a weak spot, and reached a few inches of the fish, picking it to the bone. Continue reading...

In the Selous Game Reserve you can see seven different bee-eaters. Each one sports impossibly beautiful coloursBee-eaters are the supermodels of the bird world: slim, glamorous – and hopelessly out of reach for us mere mortals. But in the Selous Game Reserve, in southern Tanzania, you can see seven different species of bee-eater hawking for insects under sun-filled skies. Each one sports impossibly beautiful colours, outcompeting even the half-a-dozen species of kingfisher we saw here. On a game drive from Selous Impala Camp, in the heart of Africa’s largest wildlife reserve, we went in search of the “magnificent seven”.The two commonest species, white-fronted and white-throated, may have similar names, but they are very different in appearance. The white-throated is, by bee-eater standards, almost austere: a plain, foliage green body topped with a black-and-white head. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Coral bleaching found near Palm Island as unusually warm waters are expected off eastern Australia, with areas hit in last year’s event in mortal dangerThe embattled Great Barrier Reef could face yet more severe coral bleaching in the coming month, with areas badly hit by last year’s event at risk of death.Images taken by local divers last week and shared exclusively with the Guardian by the Australian Marine Conservation Society show newly bleached corals discovered near Palm Island. Continue reading...

Damian Carrington is half right (The war against air pollution has begun – and it will be fought in cities, 13 February) in that cities bear a terrible burden from air pollution and municipal action is critical to address it. However, city governments cannot succeed alone. Much of urban pollution stems from outside city limits and significant progress will only be achieved with policies that also require national, regional and even international commitment.A significant part of city air pollution drifts in from regional sources like wood-burning rural households, coal-fired power plants, industries and the open burning of agricultural waste and rubbish. Commuters driving in from car-centric suburbs and transport between cities contribute to urban congestion and pollution too, stymying smart city initiatives like investments in public transportation and safer streets for walking and cycling. Continue reading...

Retailers say demand is at its highest for a decade with popularity spreading from fruit and vegetables to other groceriesDemand for organic food is at its highest for more than a decade, according to major retailers.That’s good news for an industry that was hit hard by the economic downturn but now seems to be returning to rude health as more shoppers say organic food is worth paying the premium for. This week the Soil Association will release its annual report on the state of the organic food market, which is expected to show that it has grown for the fourth consecutive year. Continue reading...

Josh Frydenberg says rules could allow CEFC to invest in projects that do not reduce emissions by 50% or moreThe Coalition is considering changing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation rules to fund new coal-powered plants.One week after the CEFC chief executive, Oliver Yates, told a Senate committee that investment in new coal plants were a very risky proposition for taxpayers, the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the change was an option because “it’s called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, not the renewable energy corporation”. Continue reading...

In Sydney’s baking suburbs, fans have sold out – and fears about the effects of climate change are mountingNahid is resting on a bench outside a Target clothing store, her groceries beside her. A cheery, middle-aged woman with a soft Egyptian accent, she is eating a cone of bubblegum ice-cream as though it contains the secret of life. When I ask her if she’s enjoying her ice-cream, it takes her 30 seconds to stop laughing.“On the weekend I was sick! Sick from the heat! It was like a virus,” she exclaims. “My nephew, he was throwing up from the heat! He couldn’t even take water, he was so sick. Continue reading...

Audits carried out at more than 300 abattoirs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland find major hygiene failings in more than a quarter of meat plantsOne in four slaughterhouses are failing to take basic hygiene precautions to stop contaminated meat reaching high street butchers and supermarkets.An analysis of government audits carried out at more than 300 abattoirs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland identified major hygiene failings in more than a quarter of the meat plants. The failings could expose consumers to serious food poisoning illnesses such as E coli, salmonella or campylobacter. Continue reading...

RSPCA believes baby chickens came from commercial producer but were dumped by a third partyAbout 1,000 day-old chicks have been abandoned in a field. RSPCA inspectors said members of the public made the discovery of the newly hatched chickens in a field in Crowland, near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire on Friday.Many of the chicks are believed to be in good health, although some had died while others had to be put down due to their injuries, the animal welfare charity said. Continue reading...

A new $53m BRT (bus rapid transit) system has the power to reduce Hanoi’s dreadful air pollution. Persuading residents of Vietnam’s rapidly expanding capital to ditch their motorbikes and private cars, however, will be another storyFrom his high-rise office building in Hanoi, Tran Dung can barely see his city’s skyline behind the thick layer of smog. Before leaving work, the 25-year-old executive assistant checks the pollution reading on his AirVisual app, which provides real-time measurements of PM2.5 – the tiny particles found in smog that can damage your throat and lungs.Hanoi’s PM2.5 levels typically range from 100 to 200 micrograms per cubic metre – regularly within the globally acknowledged “unhealthy” category. But on 19 December last year, they hit “hazardous levels” at 343μg/m, which was higher than Beijing. Continue reading...

Slufters Inclosure, New Forest This hardy specimen of butterfly has found an ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of fernOn a bright, cold morning, sandwiched between days of rain and nights of frost, we explore Slufters Inclosure, an area first separated in 1862, when it was planted with Scots pine. It is 6C (43F) when we leave home but the southerly slopes here are harvesting the heat of the sun, and the temperature gradually lifts (just) into double figures. It’s enough to bring liveliness to a dormant scene and makes us wonder from a distance what we will find.Hardly are we in when a dark shape shoots into the sky, does a looping circle around some upper branches and drops to the bankside. This battered red admiral is taking the opportunity offered by a brief change in the weather to soak up some warmth, and transfer it into energy that powers these airborne whorls, and may help to carry the butterfly through the chill days yet to come. A little further down the ride, we spot another, almost immaculate, Vanessa atalanta that has found its ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of hard fern, Blechnum spicant. Continue reading...

The Minerals Council seems mostly intent on using its submission to electoral donations committee to kneecap environmental groups opposed to new minesIn 2010 the mining industry’s $22m campaign against Kevin Rudd’s resources tax helped bring down a prime minister. For years it has spent huge sums on donations and advertising and lobbying to exert enormous political influence. But the deep-pocketed miners really don’t like it when those with different views find the cash and the smarts to wield some clout.The latest squeal came this week in an appearance by the Minerals Council of Australia before the joint standing committee on electoral donations, which seems likely to reach a bipartisan consensus on banning foreign donations to political parties and other organisations that might influence the outcome of elections – including associated entities (like unions or fundraising foundations) and activist groups like GetUp. Continue reading...

Sea turtles laying eggs, buffalo and a swan lake are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Rodrick Ngulube was shot by poachers in West Petauke game management area, after rangers discovered carcasses of a warthog and zebraAt 7am on 12 February, 37-year-old wildlife ranger Rodrick Ngulube was gunned down by poachers in Zambia’s West Petauke game management area. Ngulube and fellow rangers had been tracking seven poachers since the night before when the incident occurred. The slain ranger is survived by his wife and seven children.The sound of a gunshot the day before had set off the team of six rangers, including Ngulube, to track down its source. Forced to give up the search when it got dark, the team picked up the poachers’ trail again the next morning until they discovered the carcasses of a warthog and zebra. Continue reading...

New study says global warming likely to see snowfall replaced by rain across the Alps, with knock-on effects for tourism-dependent villagesAlpine ski resorts are facing the loss of up to 70% of their snow cover by the end of the century, experts have said.Even in the best-case scenarios, global warming is likely to see snowfall replaced by rain across the Alps, according to a report in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) journal the Cryosphere. Continue reading...

Mayor says owners of more polluting cars will have to pay extra levy from October to drive within congestion charge zoneOlder, more polluting cars will have to pay a £10 charge to drive in central London from 23 October, the city’s mayor has said.Confirming he would press ahead with the fee, known as the T-charge, Sadiq Khan said: “It’s staggering that we live in a city where the air is so toxic that many of our children are growing up with lung problems. If we don’t make drastic changes now we won’t be protecting the health of our families in the future. Continue reading...

Stefano Boeri, the architect famous for his plant-covered skyscrapers, has designs to create entire new green settlements in a nation plagued by dirty airWhen Stefano Boeri imagines the future of urban China he sees green, and lots of it. Office blocks, homes and hotels decked from top to toe in a verdant blaze of shrubbery and plant life; a breath of fresh air for metropolises that are choking on a toxic diet of fumes and dust.Last week, the Italian architect, famed for his tree-clad Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) skyscraper complex in Milan, unveiled plans for a similar project in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. Continue reading...

Mexborough, South Yorkshire No longer ‘more or less solid chemicals’, the gunmetal waters of the Don are clean enough for salmonThere were wisps of snow in the liverish sky over Main Street, Mexborough. I passed a shop offering cash for clothes, 40p a kilo, across the road from a tattoo parlour, and then stopped outside its shuttered neighbour. This was, from 1938, the family home of Ted Hughes. The poet’s parents ran it as a newsagent’s. Continue reading...

Great Winter Nurdle Hunt finds thousands of pellets used in plastic production washed up on shorelines around countryA search of hundreds of beaches across the UK has found almost three-quarters of them are littered with tiny plastic pellets.The lentil-size pellets known as “nurdles” are used as a raw material by industry to make new plastic products. Continue reading...

Anti-establishment sentiment is surging to a record high—the question now is who will capture and channel it.

Department of Industry responds to Australia Institute report warning of risks, saying strict conditions are imposedThe New South Wales government has rejected criticisms of its handling of disused mine sites, saying rehabilitation bonds and strict regulations gave it a high degree of confidence that taxpayers would not be lumped with clean-up costs.The Australia Institute released a report on Wednesday on disused mine sites across the state. Continue reading...

Architect who was a pioneer in design for energy conservationRichard Burton, who has died aged 83, was a third of the architectural partnership of Ahrends, Burton & Koralek (ABK), alongside Peter Ahrends and Paul Koralek. It is not particularly rare that three architects should meet as students and go on to practise together, but most unusual that all three should be involved in design and should remain lifelong friends. The partnership survived controversy when its competition-winning extension to the National Gallery in London was dubbed a “monstrous carbuncle” by the Prince of Wales in 1984 and cancelled, and it became one of the few practices founded in the early 1960s to span the gulf between the public and private sectors.Of the partners, Burton was perhaps the least affected by the prince’s diatribe, for he had already forged an independent path in the design of low-rise housing, hospitals and energy efficiency, in the last of which he was a pioneer; he and the prince should have got on. Burton subsequently took charge of the firm’s design of the British embassy in Moscow, completed in 2000, after building a house for himself and his wife, Mireille, in Kentish Town, north London, which he opened to the public on Open House weekends. Continue reading...

Knowing the rate at which the oceans absorb carbon pollution is a key to understanding how fast climate change will occur

Pristine Amazon rainforest and conservation areas are being rapidly opened up to dams, gold mining and soya plantations in Brazil’s least developed stateRead more: Amazon’s final frontier under threat from oil and soya Continue reading...

Premature births across 183 countries may be associated with fine particulate matter, a common air pollutant, with Africa and Asia especially affected

Pesticides, paving and higher temperatures have put huge strain on butterflies in cities over past two decades, finds studyButterflies have vanished from towns and cities more rapidly than from the countryside over the past two decades, according to a new study.Industrial agriculture has long been viewed as the scourge of butterflies and other insects but city life is worse – urban butterfly abundance fell by 69% compared to a 45% decline in rural areas over 20 years from 1995. Continue reading...

Egglestone, Teesdale Near the hart’s tongues, mosses clinging to the rock were becoming fossilised, encased in tufaThis section of moist, shady, wooded bank above the footpath, extending for perhaps 150 metres, is covered with the largest concentration of hart’s tongue ferns I have ever seen. This fern, Phyllitis scolopendrium, dominates because it thrives in calcareous woodland soils over limestone and the conditions here are perfect.This morning, as I approached, hundreds of long, undulating, emerald-green tongues wagged in the breeze: if these plants needed a collective name “a gossip” of hart’s tongues would do nicely. Continue reading...

One of the more frustrating aspects of energy policy is that it begins and ends with electricity prices and the over-arching issue of climate change is a side issueThe government has clearly decided that electricity prices is its key message for the next three years – and as a result the prime minister has ensured the policy debate will be biased towards climate change denial and will continue to treat Australians as idiots.When the prime minister let fly against Bill Shorten in parliament last week, amid the personal attacks, the only policy areas he broached were company tax and energy prices. Pointedly, energy price was the first issue that came to him after he told his jokes about Shorten dining with Dick Pratt. Continue reading...

Plan for pumped hydro project co-located with a large-scale solar farm demonstrates government’s ‘strong commitment to energy security’, PM saysThe Turnbull government has given a $54m loan from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to a large-scale solar development which it says has the potential for pumped hydro storage.Malcolm Turnbull and the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, have announced the government had directed the CEFC and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) to fund large-scale storage and other flexible capacity projects including pumped hydro. Continue reading...

UK is one of five countries persistently contravening legal nitrogen dioxide levels with pollution from factories and vehiclesBritain has been sent a final warning to comply with EU air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) or face a case at the European court of justice.If the UK does not show Brussels how it intends to comply with EU law within two months, a court hearing with the power to impose heavy fines could begin later this year, as the Guardian revealed last week. Continue reading...

Richard Higgins (Letters, 15 February) writes: “Farming is about maintaining the land in such a way as to support the animals and people who live upon it”. The late Tony King, professor of politics at Essex University, argued that all successful popular revolutions, good and bad, were accompanied by land reform and redistribution. One criticism of the EU levelled historically by the progressive, internationalist wing of the Labour party has been that the common agricultural policy encourages wasteful use of our common agricultural wealth. Max Weber, more than 100 years ago, showed that there was a relationship between the existence of large, capital-intensive farming estates and reliance on seasonal, immigrant labour.When the inevitable leftwing reaction to this rightwing Brexit comes we would do well to consider how to reframe agriculture to involve a greater portion of the population and to ensure that a greater portion of our basic needs can be met at a local level rather than, as we seem to do at the moment, relying entirely on production for export and thus throwing ourselves open to the tempestuous nature of global commodity markets in the hope we can be saved by financial calculus alone.

My mother, Mary Welsh, who has died aged 88, inspired thousands of people to walk the wilds of Scotland and northern England and appreciate their flora and fauna, through her numerous books and published articles. While Alfred Wainwright guided walkers up high fells, Mary described walks that explored less visited lower slopes, moorlands and valleys, often covering three or four different habitats in one circular route and providing views of famed peaks from little-known vantage points.Mary’s first book, A Country Journal: The Diary of a Cumbrian Naturalist (1982), chronicled her wonder as she settled into the Lake District village of Broughton-in-Furness, to which she had moved from Islington, north London, a few years before. Her last, Walking Fife: The Ochils, Tayside and the Forth Valley, was published in 2012. She wrote 38 books and 12 substantial booklets, which together sold more than 200,000 copies. Continue reading...

Two groups unite to oppose proposal to plant thousands of trees saying it could threaten the country’s ‘dramatic open views and vistas’Scotland’s mountaineers and gamekeepers have rarely seen eye to eye. But now they have put their differences behind them to oppose an apparently innocuous plan that both say threatens the country’s landscape: a proposal to plant thousands of new trees.The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) and Mountaineering Scotland admit they are unlikely bedfellows, having historically disagreed over access to land for walkers and issues of wildlife preservation. But they are united in their concerns over proposals that are part of the government’s Draft Climate Change Plan, which they say could threaten the country’s “dramatic open views and vistas”. Continue reading...

PM says Tories ‘committed to nuclear’ but fails to confirm funding for a new Cumbrian plant after losses are reported by one of its backersThe prime minister has been accused of ducking the issue of whether the government supports a new nuclear power station in west Cumbria on a visit to Copeland ahead of the constituency’s byelection.

Just under half of requests for exceptions to the neonicotinoids ban were filed by industry not farmers, legal analysis showsThe EU has been criticised after a new legal analysis showed it had allowed scores of “emergency authorisations” of banned pesticides that threaten bee colonies.The research emerged as the European court of justice began hearing a case by Syngenta and Bayer to overturn the pesticides ban. A ruling is expected shortly. Continue reading...

Descendant’s visit served as painful reminder for some Native Americans that historical traumas are closely linked to present-day battles with US governmentFloris White Bull couldn’t believe what she was hearing. On the same day the US government granted permission for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the Missouri river, a descendant of General George Armstrong Custer had arrived at Standing Rock.Alisha Custer – whose lineage traces back to the US army commander who led the 19th-century wars against Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors – had traveled from Wichita, Kansas, to Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and was ready to speak to Standing Rock members. Continue reading...

Document obtained by the Guardian states existing quotas will remain despite promises made by leave campaignersThe hopes of British fishermen that the UK can win its “waters back” after Brexit are expected to be dashed by the European parliament, despite the campaign promises of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, a leaked EU document reveals.MEPs have drafted seven provisions to be included in Britain’s “exit agreement”, including the stipulation that there will be “no increase to the UK’s share of fishing opportunities for jointly fished stocks [maintaining the existing quota distribution in UK and EU waters]”. Continue reading...

It remains a mystery as to where most of Scotland’s bats hibernate. Anne Youngman, Scottish officer for the Bat Conservation Trust, and the ecologist John Haddow conduct a survey in a disused quarry tunnel and at Doune Castle Continue reading...

Marylebone Road has the odd distinction of being the world’s most studied road in terms of air pollution – yet remains a chief culprit in London’s ‘shameful’ air quality. Now it’s home to a series of new experimentsDaybreak in the capital and on the pavement opposite Great Portland Street underground station runners cut virtuous paths through a crisp, cold winter’s morning. To one side of them lies Regent’s Park, deep green beneath a perfect frost. On the other roars a source of contamination so severe that the health of these runners might have been better served staying indoors.Marylebone Road, one of London’s main east-west streets, illustrates with filthy glamour why the city suffers from stubbornly poor air quality – with recent record-breaking pollution levels having caused particular concern.

Report says mine sites may not be able to be successfully rehabilitated and warns of ‘big liabilities’A scarcity of information about disused mine sites is leaving the public in the dark on the clean-up costs from New South Wales’ mining boom, a new report has found.The report, released by the Australia Institute on Wednesday, attempted to analyse what was happening to operating, suspended, closed, rehabilitated, or abandoned mine sites across the state. Continue reading...

Australian Energy Market Operator report says demand was higher than forecast, wind generation lower and thermal generators unable to step inA blackout in South Australia that has intensified a political brawl over energy policy was caused by three factors: demand for power was higher than forecast, wind generation was lower than forecast and several thermal generators were unable to step into the breach, according to the energy market operator.As the partisan conflict about energy continued in Canberra on Wednesday, the Australian Energy Market Operator issued a report detailing the sequence that led to the blackout in South Australia last week – the third such outage in recent months. Continue reading...

Use of solar panels by the side of tracks to provide power to electric trains could make sense given match-up between peak generation and demandHow can we connect solar photovoltaics (PV) directly to railways to power electric trains? That’s the question my charity 10:10 and researchers at Imperial College’s Energy Futures Lab are trying to answer.Electric trains are by far the best long distance transport mode when it comes to carbon emissions – at least when their electricity comes from renewable sources like solar or wind. Continue reading...

Bere Ferrers, Devon On sheltered riverside land, toppled fruit trees encrusted in lichen remain from once productive orchardsNear to Bere Ferrers rail station a muddy way crosses poached and splashy pastures towards Thorn Point, where a causeway, submerged at high tide, used to be the landing place for horticultural produce ferried from Cargreen in Cornwall.Spring flowers and summer strawberries would have been unloaded here, destined for London and upcountry markets via the railway, a mile across the hill. These days yachts moor out in midstream and the expanse of choppy water downstream is spanned by power lines, by Brunel’s Royal Albert and the Tamar road bridges. Continue reading...

Labor’s goal is to have 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030, but asked about the cost, he replies ‘there is a cost in not acting’Bill Shorten has declined to be specific about the cost of Labor’s goal to have 50% of Australia’s electricity generated from renewable sources by 2030.