Woman dies after being pulled from sea off Kent and fears mount for 69-year-old man from Neath who went missing on SundayA woman has died after being pulled from the sea and concerns are growing over 69-year-old man feared drowned as rough seas, flash floods and swollen rivers continued to cause problems across swaths of the UK.Although drier, colder weather is expected, the Environment Agency warned homes and businesses that have escaped so far may still be hit by flooding as water makes its way through river and stream systems. It highlighted particular concerns for Dorset and York. Continue reading...

WWF report states that infrastructure boom could lead to animals’ habitat being carved up, undoing years of progressThousands of kilometres of railways and roads planned across Asia risk dismantling progress made to save the world’s last tigers, conservationists have warned.The WWF said an infrastructure boom in coming years will lead to the construction of 11,000km of new transport projects, carving up the big cat’s habitats and stopping them from travelling across the huge ranges they need. Continue reading...

The cleanup begins after a combination of Storm Angus and continued heavy rain have contributed to widespread flooding around the UK since Sunday Continue reading...

With the US president-elect threatening to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Beijing is to ready to lead world’s climate efforts, reports Environment 360In one of the more entertaining moments of COP22, the global climate conference held in Marrakech last week, the Chinese vice-foreign minister Liu Zhenmin, gave the absent US president-elect a short lesson in the history of climate diplomacy. Climate change, he explained, was not a Chinese hoax. In fact, long before the issue had been discussed behind the high vermillion walls of Zhongnanhai, China’s contemporary Forbidden City, it had been put on the global agenda by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the 1980s, supported by Ronald Reagan and George Bush (senior).Mounting international concern led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol, the first global agreement to try to limit climate change, signed by President Bill Clinton subsequently rejected by the US Congress. When President Obama’s administration formally entered the successor Paris Agreement in September this year, the president knew better than to try to seek endorsement from a hostile Congress. Yet the US has been present throughout, as the world grappled with how to distribute the burden of global action to ward off climate catastrophe, although its leadership has been, at best, intermittent. It has tended to resemble a temperamental adolescent, periodically playing the game, but intermittently flouncing off the field, its ball firmly under its arm. Continue reading...

German carmaker seeks to revive fortunes after diesel scandal by becoming world leader in clean-energy vehiclesVolkswagen said it wants to be the world leader in electric cars by 2025 as it unveiled a major shift to clean-energy vehicles in the wake of the dieselgate emissions cheating scandal.The US market, where the pollution crisis first erupted, will play a key role in the revamp, according to VW brand chief Herbert Diess. He announced a “comeback story” for the region, with plans for electric cars to be built in North America from 2021. Continue reading...

The way opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline have been treated by police is likely to be replicated on a massive scale under Donald TrumpHorrific scenes have been coming out of North Dakota these last several days, where the battle is ongoing to stop the Dakota Access pipeline. On Sunday night, police turned tear gas and rubber bullets on hundreds of unarmed “water protectors”, as those taking on the pipeline prefer to be called. They deployed water cannons as well, in temperatures well below freezing. More than 160 people were injured, and many sent to the hospital. As a result of the standoff, a young woman could lose her arm.For those with a passing knowledge of the kind of tactics faced by America’s civil rights movement, the above might sound like blast from our more brutal past. As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House, it should also sound like our possible future. Continue reading...

The survival of elephants depends on what humans do now. Join us on Tuesday 22 November from 1-2.30pm to discuss how to save this threatened species2.47pm GMTA wonderful and wide-ranging discussion of an immensely complex and emotionally-charged issue. Some final thoughts.2.39pm GMTAn entirely self-indulgent question, I will admit, but that’s my prerogative! This excellent panel give us measured hope for the future.In many countries I'm afraid it will not possible. We often forget Central and West Africa where elephants are in many areas doomed. If we cannot stop the current elephant poaching crisis, your grandchildren will probably be able to see wild elephants only in a handful of African countries, in the Eastern and Southern Africa, tiny islands of elephants surrounded by oceans of people.Yes, but unless we all redouble our efforts to combat poaching, build community support for conservation, reduce HEC, reduce trafficking (including through market closures), and dramatically reduce demand for ivory, the number of places with significant numbers of wild elephants, functioning as they should, will be very much smaller than now. But there is real hope!I think so Karl, because high value tourism areas will be maintained. They might be private, however, like Ol Pejeta and Lewa in Kenya. Unfortunately, in getting to them you and your kids will drive through or fly over farms and livestock grazing lands because people have eradicated the wildlife.You know what the word in English is for pest animals with no value - vermin. Current policy is in effect making wildlife vermin from the perspective of rural African communities.Karl, I think that with increasing momentum to listen to the elephant specialists talking about the species, (not just local abundant populations in one or two countries), we can get ivory under control and poaching significantly lessened. And I strongly believe that if we don't want simply islands of elephants but connected, migrating herds, we have to plan this now and in the next 5-10 years while we have something to work with. This applies in Asia too, where the IUCN Asian elephant specialist group just met last week. For all of those people who have or are going to have grandchildren the question is back to you all, are you with us? We need you to make your desire known to politicians and help us fund the work until the governments and corporations step up their funding and stewardship for elephants and their habitat. Continue reading...

Pop artist behind Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album sleeve says rollout of ‘workaday’ devices inspired Leeds showSir Peter Blake has revealed his latest and perhaps most surprising art collection, inspired by the imminent arrival of smart meters to every home in the UK.

Britain leads world in campus action to pull funds from oil, gas and coal companies, due to climate change concernsThe number of British universities divesting from fossil fuels has leaped to 43, a quarter of the total. The surge means the UK leads the world in campus action to pull university funds from oil, gas and coal.Financial institutions and charities are also divesting and at least $2.6tn (£2.1tn) of assets are covered by such pledges around the world. Scientists have shown that most fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned without dangerous climate change. Campaigners argue this makes fossil fuel companies bad investments on both moral and financial grounds. Continue reading...

Morocco’s ambitious plans for wind power in Western Sahara have drawn international praise - but are raising heckles in the disputed territoryLast week’s Marrakech climate summit shone a light on Morocco’s clean energy plans, which have drawn praise from around the world. At the heart of King Mohammed VI’s ambitions is a windfarm in the country’s south-west region, which, due to an expansion over the summer, has seen off an array of challengers for the title of Africa’s biggest.Built in just two years and launched in 2015, the Tarfaya complex stretches more than 100 square km across the Saharan desert, its 131 wind turbines grinding out enough electricity to power a city the size of Marrakech every day. Continue reading...

Success of natural measures in Bossington coincided with revelation that such schemes receive no current government fundingNatural flood defences, such as allowing trees to fall into rivers, have protected homes in Somerset from the torrential rain brought by Storm Angus. The success came as it was revealed that natural ways of cutting flood risk have no current government funding, despite ministers repeatedly backing the idea.Heavy rains saw the rivers above the village of Bossington rise rapidly on Monday, but the 100 homes placed at risk avoided flooding. The catchments of the rivers, all part of the National Trust’s Holnicote estate, had natural flood prevention measures put in place in 2013. Continue reading...

Houses in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, are inundated after severe floods caused by Storm Angus on Monday. Torrential rainfall meant residents had to be evacuated from their homes. 75 flood warnings remain in place across the country on Tuesday

Sophia Wilansky, 21, may lose her arm after being hit by projectile when officers threw less-than-lethal weapons, her father saidA 21-year-old woman was severely injured and may lose her arm after being hit by a projectile when North Dakota law enforcement officers turned water cannon on Dakota Access pipeline protesters and threw “less-than-lethal” weapons.Sophia Wilansky was one of several hundred protesters injured during the standoff with police on Sunday on a bridge near the site where the pipeline is planned to cross under the Missouri river. Continue reading...

This year has seen some of Asia’s worst urban smog episodes in nearly 20 years, as India’s air pollution soars above levels recorded in ChinaThe winter air in Tehran is often foul but for six days last week it was hardly breathable. A dense and poisonous chemical smog made up of traffic and factory fumes, mixed with construction dust, burning vegetation and waste has shrouded buildings, choked pedestrians, forced schools and universities to close, and filled the hospitals.

Conservationists say introduction of 5p levy on single-use carrier bags was instrumental in the reductionThe number of plastic carrier bags found on UK beaches has dropped by almost half, according to conservationists.

Australia should follow PNG’s lead in resource tax reform. As the budget deficit worsens, reintroducing royalties for LNG projects would provide much-needed revenuePapua New Guinea’s 2017 budget takes big steps in resource tax reform. Following suggestions that I made together with former Labor minister Craig Emerson, starting next year resources companies operating in Papua New Guinea will pay a revamped resource rent tax, as well as the existing royalties and company taxes.With Australia’s budget deficit worsening, following Papua New Guinea’s lead may help us bring in more revenue from natural gas, sooner. Continue reading...

ExxonMobil and Chevron among worst in terms of CO emissions and investment in renewables, according to researchOil and gas companies in North America are lagging behind their European counterparts in cleaning up their operations, new research has found, with higher greenhouse gas emissions and less investment in clean alternatives.ExxonMobil and Chevron of the US, alongside Canada’s Suncor, ranked lowest in a review conducted by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) of 11 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. At the top of the table came Statoil of Norway, Italy’s Eni and the French company Total. Continue reading...

Wind and torrential downpours cause travel chaos as passengers forced to stay onboard ferry that fails to dock in WalesHeavy rain continues to lash Britain as Storm Angus causes flooding and travel chaos across many parts of the country.The wind and torrential downpours that deluged many parts of the UK on Monday saw a ferry stranded at sea, roads closed, homes flooded, schools shut and cars submerged. Continue reading...

Twenty-six people hospitalized from ‘mass casualty incident’ that included bone fractures and hypothermia shown in dramatic video footage of standoff

Morton County police use teargas, a water cannon and rubber bullets against demonstrators from Standing Rock in North Dakota on Sunday night. Protesters braved freezing conditions and percussion grenades as they resisted the controversial pipeline with chants of ‘water not oil’. The company working on the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, has almost completed the system, but lack the permission to drill under the river

Environment minister’s goal to make 90% of Canada’s electricity come from sustainable sources starkly contrasts Trump’s pledge to revive US coal industryCanada has announced plans to phase out the use of coal-fired electricity by 2030.The move is in stark contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to revive the American coal industry. Continue reading...

Recommendations made after Chinese coal carrier the Shen Neng 1 ran aground are yet to be implementedThe government is failing to protect the reef from the effects of shipping disasters, according to environmental lawyers, who say inaction to secure remediation funds will become a bigger problem as shipping traffic increases.The issue could cause a problem for Australia when it reports to the Unesco world heritage committee within the next two weeks, on the state of the reef and how it is acting to protect it. Continue reading...

Concerns raised that not enough is being spent on flood defences as deluge affects homes and businesses

Two-thirds of such household waste is sent to landfill or incinerated each year, Recoup survey revealsOnly a third of plastic packaging used in consumer products is recycled each year, with almost two-thirds sent to landfill or incinerated, according to new research.Of the 1.5m tonnes of recyclable plastic waste used by consumers in Britain in 2015 only 500,000 tonnes was recycled, according to the figures compiled by Co-op from the Recoup UK Household Plastics Collection survey. Continue reading...

President Evo Morales called for local governments to use funds to drill wells and transport water to families and farmers affected by shortagesBolivia’s government has declared a state of emergency over the worst drought in 25 years, making funds available to alleviate a crisis that has affected families and the agricultural sector.The vice-ministry of civil defense estimated that the drought has affected 125,000 families and threatened 290,000 hectares (716,605 acres) of agricultural land and 360,000 heads of cattle. Continue reading...

UK environment department must publish stronger air quality plan by April 2017, five months sooner than the deadline that government wantedThe government is being forced to deliver an effective plan to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis within eight months, after a high court judge rejected a longer timetable as “far too leisurely”.Environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted a humiliating legal defeat on ministers earlier in November – its second in 18 months – when the high court ruled that ministers’ plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in many UK cities and towns were so poor they were unlawful. Continue reading...

The Tories, it has been revealed, have something special lined up for MPs who refuse to toe the party line …Name: Cronus, or sometimes Kronos.Age: One year. Continue reading...

At the Meaning conference in Brighton, entrepreneurs spoke of the need to create companies that benefit society and how crowdfunding could help achieve this

From next year, restrictions will be placed on older cars whenever air-quality warnings have been issued, say officialsNext year, Beijing will ban highly polluting old cars from being driven whenever air-quality alerts are issued in the city or neighbouring regions, according to its environmental protection bureau.China has adopted various measures over the years to reduce the smog shrouding many of the country’s northern cities in winter, causing hazardous traffic conditions and disrupting daily life. Continue reading...

The 2016 US election was a bad sign for climate policy, but galvanized grassroots organizationsBecause America is entirely governed by two political parties, passage of legislation usually requires bipartisan support in US Congress. However, the Republican Party is the only major political party in the world that denies the need to tackle climate change. Therefore, for several years any hope of passing climate legislation hinged upon breaking through the near-universal opposition among Republican legislators. A number of groups have focused on doing just that.In the wake of the 2016 US election results, I contacted these groups to assess their feelings about the prospects of US government action on climate change in the near future. The general sentiment was understandably one of discouraged pessimism, but each group identified glimmers of hope. Continue reading...

Man, 18, was bitten twice in three days, probably by the eastern brown snake, one of the world’s most venomous reptilesA man working to clear trees and shrubs in the Australian outback was bitten by venomous snakes twice in three days.On Friday, the 18-year-old was bitten on his right leg by an unidentified snake while using a chainsaw in a field in Queensland state near the township of Capella, the rescue helicopter service said in a statement on Monday. Continue reading...

With Jakarta’s rats getting ever bigger and more brazen, the deputy governor decided to offer $1.50 per live rodent. But history shows such schemes can have unintended consequences and offering the public a cash bounty could backfireSamin climbed down into the darkness of the sewer, homemade catapult in hand. He wasn’t using stones this time, concerned they might kill his prey. Instead he formed small balls from damp mud, just enough to stun the rats and get them into a rusty wire cage. The plan was to smoke them out. He threw a fistful of lit rags down the tunnel and waited.

The fate of my small, south London road is a microcosm of the ways towns and cities are still planned around cars, not humansThis blog is sometimes criticised for focusing too much on events in London. At risk of seeming more parochial still, I’m about to write about my own London street. But stay with me: the failings in my part of SE5 contain lessons for the wider lack of safe cycling across the whole country.Champion Hill, close to Camberwell in south-east London, is a classic rat run – a narrow and not-very-long residential street which has the misfortune to be on a shortcut between major routes, and is thus awash with traffic several times a day.

As Iraq’s oilfields burn as retreating Isis forces set them on fire, Sebastião Salgado has published a book of his photographs taken in 1991 documenting a similar conflagration as Saddam Hussein’s forces set alight oil wells in Kuwait Continue reading...

Despite government support for measures such as planting trees to stop floods, no funds have yet been been allocatedNatural ways of preventing flooding such as planting trees have no government funding despite ministers repeatedly backing the idea, according to a freedom of information request by Friends of the Earth.Almost a year since devastating floods hits swathes of northern Britain, environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, and floods minister, Thérèse Coffey, have both recently supported the approach, which aims to slow the flow of water off hills and reduce peak levels. Continue reading...

Hardown Hill, Dorset I skirt the old quarry workings, swamped in spring with bluebells and now swathed with rusty brackenOld Bottom, as the Marshwood Vale was once called, has filled with autumn rain. Walking means slogging, ankle deep or more, through cold, claggy clay, navigating puddles of yellow water overhung with dripping trees. Time to escape the woods for higher, drier ground.Hardown Hill is one of a circle of hills and forts ringing the vale. Steep sides of deciduous woodland and gaps of rough pasture run up to a flat top of heath where nightjars call in summer. The summit is open, unfenced common land, home to sand lizards and occasionally Dartford warblers. Villagers used to cut the heath for fuel. Gorse was particularly prized in bread ovens because it burned quick and hot before disintegrating into an insignificant pile of fine ash. In Dorset dialect, gorse was furze, pronounced “vurze”, just as fox was “varx”. Continue reading...

Rats’ agility and keen sense of smell will one day be used to reach parts of shipping containers that sniffer dogs cannot reachThe pangolin – the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal – might have a new champion: rats that will be trained to sniff out trafficked pangolin parts in shipments heading from Africa to Asia.Ten to 15 African giant pouched rats are being reared in Tanzania to detect pungent pangolin remains as well as smuggled hardwood timber. They are just a few weeks old and most are still with their mothers.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth reveals no funding earmarked for natural flood management despite ministerial pledgeThe government has been accused of being “all talk and no action” on flood defences, as the first named storm of the season brought flooding and power cuts to the south of England.Storm Angus saw gusts of up to 106mph recorded 23 miles off the coast of Margate, while gusts of 80mph hit Langdon Bay, also in Kent. Continue reading...

A solar thermal plant in Port Augusta is the best fit for providing both jobs and clean energy. It only needs political will to workPort Augusta, a country town of 14,000 people in South Australia, could have been a perfect example. For 68 years, coal-fired power stations and the local mines generated jobs for 400 workers and provided power for South Australia.This is the story of a community, its power station workers and their union taking their plan for jobs and solar thermal power to state and federal government, and to global energy giants in France and the United States, demanding a just transition for the people of Port Augusta, demanding a zero carbon future for people everywhere. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 25 November 1916At sundown last night the western sky turned a deep and almost brilliant red, changing and softening in colour in its upward spread until the verge from south to north was like an immense but yellowing rainbow. Then frost came lightly; there was the merest sound of a crinkle in walking over the grass away from the oak wood. This morning the air was softer. On the broad marl and flint track which leads to the farmland there were dead brown mice, one here, another there, and so on to the number of six within the space of a few hundred yards; they had crept from among the withered leaves under the bramble bushes; it is one of the signs that winter is sharpening. No other animal or bird appeared to touch them. A jackdaw that had been hopping (it was more like a short and repeated flight) among a company of rooks cast his eye on one of the dead bodies, seemed as if about to strike or seize it with his beak, but, deciding not to, flitted back-towards the wood.There the oaks overhang a wide ditch, and their limbs extend a good way over the meadow. Soon after sunrise the rooks came, not in parties as they would earlier in the year, but in a compact body perhaps 300 strong. The acorns have not by any means all been gathered, and they set about the business in almost as orderly a way as if they were a great gang of human workers sent for the purpose of clearing up the food which remained. They were so intent that it was possible to get tolerably near them. And though they worked so systematically, no one or even more birds seemed to be in command. Occasionally one, two, or more would trespass into the patch belonging to or claimed by others, and be at once driven out sharply by a combined rush, but for the most part order was established by general consent. They went as they came. A little later one saw them in a compact body flying east. Continue reading...

The only wild pelican to be seen in Britain in modern times has been attracting birders to Cornwall all summer. But pelicans were here 2000 years ago. Might they return?It flew in like a seaplane, scattering a flotilla of what looked like small boats as it landed on the waters of the estuary. I blinked, and an avian image displaced this aeronautical one: for it wasn’t an aircraft, but a bird.A Dalmatian pelican (Pelicanus crispus), to be precise: named not because it has a black spotted plumage (it doesn’t), but after the region of south-east Europe from which it hails. Having landed, it floated serenely amongst the gulls and little egrets, which appeared tiny by comparison with this huge and rather ungainly bird. Continue reading...

Graeme Kelleher’s call comes before Australian government’s deadline for reporting to Unesco’s world heritage committeeThe former head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has called for a ban on all new coalmines in Australia, saying the move is needed to protect the Great Barrier Reef from climate change.“I love the reef and I have worked to preserve it since 1979; I will oppose anything that threatens to destroy it,” said Graeme Kelleher, who was the first chief executive of GBRMPA, a position he held for 16 years. “The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the world.” Continue reading...

A $150,000 reward is up for grabs for any data scientist who can write code for facial recognition software that can pinpoint illegal catch on fishing boatsFacial recognition software is most commonly known as a tool to help police identify a suspected criminal by using machine learning algorithms to analyze his or her face against a database of thousands or millions of other faces. The larger the database, with a greater variety of facial features, the smarter and more successful the software becomes – effectively learning from its mistakes to improve its accuracy.Related: The government wants more offshore fish farms, but no one is biting Continue reading...

Government hopes to use final two sitting weeks to push through delayed bills but Xenophon says he’s wary after last week’s spat over waterThe final fortnight of parliament for 2016 begins on Monday and the Turnbull government is hoping to use it to clear its legislative backlog before Christmas.

These flushable friends are highly convenient and proving to be more and more popular. But they play havoc with sewers and the environmentIs there anything more disgusting than a fatberg? These gargantuan mounds of debris block the intestines of civilisation (ie sewers). Fatberg season used to peak on Christmas Day, when people poured turkey fat down the drains in a mass festive clog. Now they’re an all-year hazard, thanks to the inexorable rise of the wet wipe.There are wet wipes for every conceivable bathroom occasion: deodorising under-arms, removing eye make-up and, perhaps the biggest seller, toilet wipes. Apparently swathes of the population no longer find paper bearable. They’re hooked on single-use wipes that combine synthetic cellulosic fibre with plastic fibres, marketed as “flushable”. Continue reading...

Debate on cull reignited when NSW woman Cindy Waldron was killed by a crocodile north of CairnsAustralia Zoo’s Terri Irwin has called on all Queensland MPs to rule out a crocodile cull, saying people need to better understand how to co-exist with the apex predators.The debate on a cull was reignited in May when a New South Wales woman, Cindy Waldron, 46, was taken by a croc at Thornton Beach, north of Cairns. Continue reading...

Middle school teacher photographs animals encased in ice, lying on their sides with antlers apparently locked, in ‘vision of how brutally harsh life can be’Two moose were recently discovered frozen in battle and encased in ice near a remote village on Alaska’s unforgiving western coast.Brad Webster, a middle school social studies and science teacher in Unalakleet, captured images of the huge animals poking through the ice as they lay on their sides with antlers apparently locked together. Continue reading...

Target and Walmart are pulling bedding off their shelves after a falsely labeled Egyptian cotton products controversy involving manufacturer Welspun IndiaEgyptian cotton, which can be spun into fine, long fiber to make sheets with a high thread count, is synonymous with luxury bedding. But in the last four months, it’s been at the center of a controversy that has caused many Americans to wonder whether the Egyptian cotton sheets they rely on for a good night’s sleep actually contain any cotton from Egypt.Related: Why aren't more big brands designing clothes for people with disabilities? Continue reading...

People living upriver from gold-mining are the most contaminated, according to US-based scientistsAsk about the fish in restaurants in the centre of Puerto Maldonado, the biggest town in Peru’s south-east Amazon, and you’ll hear all kinds of things. Some people will shake their heads and say there isn’t any fish on the menu “because of the contamination” or “out of protocol”. Others might say there is fish available, before sometimes hastily clarifying that it comes from farms along the Inter-Oceanica Highway running to Brazil, or from the Pacific coast, or even, according to one chef, all the way from Vietnam.Why such problems with the fish in this part of the Amazon? Answer: alluvial gold and the mercury required to extract it. The gold-rush in the 8.5m hectare Madre de Dios region began in the 1980s and, by 2012, miners had destroyed more than 50,000 hectares of forest, effectively dumping 100s of tons of mercury into the rivers while doing so. In May this year Peru’s outgoing government announced a pathetic 60-day “declaration of emergency”. Continue reading...

We have no rituals for coping with extinction, ecological destruction or environmental loss. And that’s a problem. Now, an impassioned group of artists and activists are trying to create them.