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.

Ending global legal markets is a great plan A, but that alone won’t stop elephant poaching or stem the illegal consumption of ivoryIt appears inevitable now that almost all legal domestic ivory markets will be closed. This is the plan A of a large consortium of animal rights and welfare organisations aimed at stopping elephant poaching – informed by the belief that legal trade provides cover for illegal trade and stimulates demand.

Weighing just 750g, the Italian-made frame is stiff in sprints and doesn’t twitch in corners – even during one of the toughest bike challenges aroundThe greatest compliment you can pay a suit is that you forget you’re wearing it. The fit is so good, the stitching so subtle and the fabric so well cut that it exists as a background reality; seamless tailoring that never distracts by being too lose or too tight. The Sarto Seta is that in a bike, and the sartorial comparison is totally appropriate.Sarto, an Italian frame builder, has endeavoured to bring Saville Row to the cycling industry, building bespoke made-to-measure bicycles as exclusive and as sought after as classic British tailoring. The company was founded in 1950 by the Sarto family. Continue reading...

The influential African figure champions smallscale agriculture in an increasingly insecure global climateAt vast global gatherings like the COP22 UN climate conference, which has just concluded in Marrakech, the seductive grandeur of the occasion frequently strips attention from the people, in faraway places, who climate change threatens the most.But on Wednesday at the COP, during a panel discussion on how agriculture can support the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal for zero hunger, Kanayo F. Nwanze brought these forgotten people into the spotlight with an impassioned plea. To achieve food security in a changing climate, we need to focus on the world’s smallscale farmers—who are not only responsible for the bulk of food production in developing countries, but ironically face some of the worst threats to their own food security, Nwanze said. As the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an organisation that invests in smallscale agriculture in rural environments around the world, Nwanze’s work to highlight the importance of these farmers on the global agriculture scene won him the inaugural Africa Food Prize in 2016. Continue reading...

Holmsley Inclosure, New Forest Each silk button spangle gall has a minute larva inside. Looked at later under the microscope, they remind us of a scrumptious doughnutWe drop down the side of this woodland on a bright day buffeted by a cold wind. First planted in 1811 with scots pine and oak, its fences now enclose a wide variety of trees. We turn along the eastern edge to find the lower gate and, on entering, are plunged into a claustrophobic tangle of branches, before quickly coming to a narrow path close set with brambles on one side and hollies on the other. The recent rains have made the soil beneath the fallen leaves a muddy squelch, deeply incised with fresh bike tracks.Getting our eyes in, we begin to see a host of small brown and greyish fungi tucked into the patchwork of sodden foliage and decaying leaf-fall. For us, most of them are “little brown jobbies”, as they are known to those without sufficient skill to identify them. We notice, too, some so much smaller that we are drawn into a Lilliputian world. Continue reading...

Survey shows 36m trees have died since May, as record low snowpack and warm temperatures leave trees thirsty and prone to beetle infestationThe California drought has killed more than 102m trees in a die-off of forests that increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires and other threats to humans, officials said on Friday.

It’s easy to get lost in the old Moroccan medina – just as disorientating as the UN climate process, where emission-cutting goals are being bartered tooMarrakech has an ancient heart — centuries old and unafraid to show it — and it has all the ingredients needed to disorientate an outsider. You get lost, often.Lanes in the centuries-old medina are narrow and the walls are high, making it impossible to spot a landmark and get a fix on where you are. Continue reading...

Australia cannot hail the Paris accord as a turning point and simultaneously rejoice in a great long-term economic future for coalWhen Malcolm Turnbull was dumped by the Liberal party in 2009 because he refused to renounce support for emissions trading, the man now about to assume responsibility for implementing Donald Trump’s evisceration of US climate change policy was elated.

Five years after the last rabbit was killed, endangered birds such as the black-browed albatross are growing in numbersEight species of threatened seabird have begun to recover on Macquarie Island, signalling a possible end to 130 years of death and destruction on the sub-Antarctic outpost.The island has been formally declared pest-free, five years after the last rabbit was killed. Continue reading...

US Department of the Interior says ‘fragile and unique’ Arctic ecosystem at risk if drilling allowed, possibly by pro-fossil fuels Trump administrationBarack Obama’s administration has ruled out drilling for oil and gas in the pristine Arctic Ocean, throwing up a last-ditch barrier to the pro-fossil fuels agenda of incoming president Donald Trump.The US Department of the Interior said that the “fragile and unique” Arctic ecosystem would face “significant risks” if drilling were allowed in the Chukchi or Beaufort Seas, which lie off Alaska. It added that the high costs of exploration, combined with a low oil price, would probably deter fossil fuel companies anyway. Continue reading...

Ahead of the autumn statement next week (Report, 18 November), we urge the chancellor not to answer calls from oil producers in the North Sea for another round of government subsidies. Instead, Philip Hammond should put an end to the taxpayer-funded bonus for oil and gas companies and set the UK on a pathway to a more prosperous, clean energy future. If the world is to deliver on the Paris agreement on climate change, most of the known oil, gas and coal reserves must remain untapped. Yet in spite of warnings about risks of stranded assets from the governor of the Bank of England, the UK continues to promote the production of yet more oil and gas.The tax breaks introduced by former chancellor George Osborne in 2015 and 2016 have been costly. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the Treasury will hand oil and gas companies a net £4.8bn in rebates between 2015 and 2021. These tax breaks have also failed to protect jobs. Even with current subsidies, North Sea oil and gas operators expect to lay off one in six UK-based workers this year. By contrast, a recent UK Energy Research Centre study found that similarly sized renewable energy projects create 10 times more jobs than their fossil fuel counterparts. Continue reading...

Marrakech COP22 president urges US president-elect to join battle against global warming for sake of humanityThe president of the COP22 climate summit in Marrakech has made a direct plea to the incoming US president Donald Trump to join the struggle against global warming for the sake of humanity and the planet.Salaheddine Mezouar, who is also the Moroccan foreign minister, had spent most of the week-long summit diplomatically trying to steer clear of questions about Trump, telling reporters at one point that “no one can stop history”. Continue reading...

Despite a 2012 EPA report finding that dry cleaning is a toxic process in the US, many Americans have no idea the way they clean their clothes is carcinogenicWith the results of the most recent presidential election, Americans are faced with all sorts of uncertainty in regards to their health. But there are some consumer choices that individuals can make to protect against future illness: cutting down on sugar, for example; exercising daily; and, surprisingly, being careful about how you clean your delicates.

At COP22, the African Development Bank’s president, Akinwumi Adesina, tells of strategies to improve energy supplies and fight the impact of climate change“We lose 5% of our potential GDP every year, and African industries cannot be competitive without access to electricity,” says Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank. “I believe that’s why we can’t break away from reliance on exporting our raw materials – new industries will only go to where there’s power.”He is speaking on the sidelines of the COP22 climate change conference in Marrakech, which ends on Friday. Continue reading...

A pheasant that sports Donald Trump’s hairdo, a line of baboons and a ‘teddy bear’ bee and among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Election of a climate sceptic as US president sparks outpouring of donations and a surge in planned protests and court challengesThe global green movement is preparing for the fight of its life against efforts by Donald Trump to rollback action on climate change, with a surge in fundraising, planned court challenges and a succession of protests.Environmental activists said the election of a climate change denier as US president, along with the prospect of former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and various oil billionaires holding senior posts, has prompted an “outpouring” of donations. Continue reading...

Policy Exchange paper argues government should stick with carbon price floor until coal is fully forced off the grid, reports BusinessGreenPolicy Exchange has become the latest organisation to call for the retention of the UK’s carbon price floor ahead of next week’s autumn statement, arguing changes to the policy would seriously undermine the government’s efforts to phase out coal power by 2025.The influential thinktank joins the CBI and trade body Energy UK in arguing the levy should be kept in place, despite lobbying from some industry groups calling for it to be axed. Continue reading...

South Australia’s water minister Ian Hunter reportedly used colourful language against Joyce in a heated meetingThe Turnbull government’s legislative agenda is in doubt after Barnaby Joyce rejected a deal to release 450 gigalitres of environmental water to South Australia, a stand which may jeopardise Nick Xenophon’s votes on other legislation.The deputy prime minister wrote to the South Australian water minister Ian Hunter on Thursday night to tell him that it was not possible to deliver the 450 gigalitres without hurting other people and local economies along the river. Continue reading...

Oliver Duggan recounts the geographical, physical and mental rollercoaster of cycling 100 mountain passes in 10 days across southern France and Spain

Britain’s first ‘green gas mill’ will convert grass into biomethane to heat more than 4,000 homes and is set to come online in 2018The grass is always greener than the shale gas on the other side, according to a British businessman who claims grasslands could provide enough gas to heat all of the UK’s homes.

The man in his 60s is the third person to die on the reef this week, after two French tourists apparently had heart attacks on WednesdayA British man has died while diving on the Great Barrier Reef, the third death in three days among visitors to Australia’s popular natural tourist attraction.The 60-year-old man was found without a breathing device during a tandem scuba dive at Agincourt reef, 100km north of Cairns, on Friday. Continue reading...

Lake Manasarovar, Tibet Bar-headed geese are popular with British fanciers, but better to think of them here, readying for their lofty migration over the HimalayasFrom the roof of Chiu monastery, perched high on its rocky hill, the water of Lake Manasarovar was cobalt, the surrounding hills rich ochre, luminous in the sunlight of a late autumn afternoon. With a shoreline 55 miles (90km) long, and at an altitude of more than 4,500 metres (15,000ft), this is one of the highest and largest bodies of freshwater in the world. Its name translates from the Sanskrit as “mind’s lake”; the mind in question being that of the Hindu creator Brahma, and in the thin air there is something ethereal about it, something unworldly. It is a sacred site of pilgrimage for a quarter of the world, not just Hindus but Buddhists too, as well as the lesser known Tibetan religion of Bon and India’s Jains. Continue reading...