Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire This trickle may be unmapped, but when the water rises, it delivers enough force to damage a bridgeIt has no name, but it has torn a bridge apart. “The brook” rises west of Lower Benefield, near Spring Wood. There, a dendritic network of tiny streams converges and flows to Sheepwalk Spinney, after which, for much of the year, the water disappears underground leaving the valley floor dry. Further downstream, around Brook Farm on the eastern side of Lower Benefield, it re-emerges as a wriggly stream that runs all year round. After winding south of Glapthorn, the brook unites with the broad, slow-flowing river Nene near Cotterstock.Thunderstorms with torrential rain formed flowing sheets of brown water on the roads and saturated the valley this week. Then another storm, and the brook springs into vigorous life, water erupting overground and rising rapidly. Quickly, the stretch upstream of Lower Benefield and the A427 transforms from a trickle between stickleback-occupied pools (we get the three-spined and the scarcer nine-spined) into a tumultuous force; pouring across fields and impelling through spinneys. Continue reading...

Be it renewable energy, manufacturing or urban planning, our natural advantages are being squandered. But what influence do voters really have?What are governments for? I don’t imagine I’m the only one asking myself that question. With political debate spiralling in ever-diminishing circles most intelligent people are left tearing their hair. How did politicians in this country become so timid? And so incapable of using power well?

Bequest of $30m makes Cellarmasters founder David Thomas the country’s leading environmental philanthropistDavid Thomas, who became wealthy by pioneering mail-order wine, has become Australia’s biggest philanthropist to the environment, announcing a bequest that takes his donations to about $60m.“Barbara, my late wife, and I – it was always our intention that we’d give about 50% of our wealth away during our lifetime and then we’d give the other 50% away when we died,” Thomas told Guardian Australia. Continue reading...

SunCrowd says its pioneering program, launched in Newcastle on Thursday, has attracted keen interestAustralia’s first bulk-buy program for solar battery storage has launched, with more than 1,000 people in Newcastle expressing interest and more than 500 attending a sign-up event on Thursday night to buy home battery systems. From Friday, the program is being opened to people all around Australia.

Dark bordered beauty moths have declined by over 90% at their last stronghold near York due to sheep grazing and habitat lossThe dark bordered beauty moth is heading towards extinction at its last site in England, new research has found.The tiny, rare insect is now found only on Strensall Common, an area of protected lowland heath near York, having been lost from Newham Bog in Northumberland. But scientists have found that even in its last stronghold numbers have plunged by over 90% in the last seven years, with only 50-100 thought to remain. Continue reading...

Pilot Bertrand Piccard has just completed the first ever Atlantic crossing by solar plane, from New York to Seville, in the latest leg of the first solar flight around the world. We look back at some highlights so far Continue reading...

Cook et al. (2013) has remained the most-read paper in Environmental Research Letters for most of the past 3 yearsIn 2013, a team of citizen science volunteers who collaborate on the climate myth debunking website SkepticalScience.com published a paper finding a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming in peer-reviewed research. Over the past 3 years, that paper has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. For perspective, that’s 4 times more than the second-most downloaded paper in the Institute of Physics journals (which includes Environmental Research Letters, where the 97% consensus paper was published).The statistic reveals a remarkable level of interest for a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Over a three-year period, the study has been downloaded an average of 440 times per day, and the pace has hardly slowed. Over the past year, the download rate has remained high, at 415 per day. Continue reading...

EPA has been reviewing lead and copper rule since 2010 but has yet to make changes even as its own scientists have criticized current regulationsChanges to laws that protect Americans’ drinking water are still at least six months away, the US Environmental Protection Agency has said, despite the ongoing lead crisis in Flint and calls for reform from lawmakers and public health groups.

The birth of joey Mian is a major coup in global efforts to conserve the endangered species native to Papua New GuineaPerth zoo has successfully bred a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo for the first time in 36 years, bringing the number of males in the endangered marsupial’s global captive breeding population to 15. Continue reading...

Solar Impulse 2 lands in Seville, four days after setting off from New York, using solar panels and batteries to finish latest leg of its round-the-world journeySolar Impulse 2 has completed the first ever crossing of the Atlantic by a solar-powered aeroplane, landing in Spain early on Thursday morning.The four-day trip, which started in New York, was the latest leg of a round-the-world journey due to end in Abu Dhabi. Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire A queen hit the bullseye – a 2.8cm hole in our nestbox – and there is a clearly active colony of tree bumblebees in residenceSince the start of the millennium, a new tune for summer has been spreading north. It was first picked up in Wiltshire; within a decade, it had reached southern Scotland. I can hear it from the bathroom, the bedroom, or standing under the eaves at the back door. The sound is not discernibly different from that made by the maker’s nearest relatives, though the animal’s habits certainly are.We know this newbie as the tree bumblebee. Common on the continent, it flew the Channel, as wild creatures are apt to do, though we rarely understand why they choose a certain time to move. Most bumblebees nest underground. The tree bumblebee, with a taste for high living, has taken to birdboxes. Continue reading...

Wherever you are in the world, if you are running or participating in food waste projects we’d like to hear from you

The 81-year-old farmer will die in jail after being handed a minimum 24 year sentence for murder of NSW environment officer Glen Turner in 2014An 81-year-old farmer who callously gunned down NSW environment officer Glen Turner during a routine departmental visit has been sentenced to 35 years in jail – with a non-parole period of 24 years – after being convicted of murder.Ian Turnbull, now 81, used a hunting rifle to murder Glen Turner, 51, who was on public land with a colleague on 29 July 2014, near the farmer’s property at Croppa Creek in the state’s north. Continue reading...

Trees are dying at an ‘unprecedented’ rate due to drought, warmer weather and a bark beetle epidemic, prompting the US agriculture secretary’s warning

If tests of the 100m-long barrier that collects rubbish on the sea’s surface are successful, it could be deployed at a larger scale in the ‘great Pacific garbage patch’A bid to clear the Pacific of its plastic debris has moved a step closer with the launch of the biggest prototype clean-up boom yet by the Dutch environment minister at a port in The Hague.On Thursday the 100m-long barrier will be towed 20km out to sea for a year of sensor-monitored tests, before being scaled up for real-life trials off the Japanese coast at the end of next year. Continue reading...

Some conservationists say endangered birds at the South African reserve take priority, but others argue that locally the big cat is rarerA leopard killed dozens of endangered penguins at a nature reserve outside Cape Town earlier this month, prompting a renewed debate about how best to protect South Africa’s threatened species.Ranger Cuan McGeorge found the bloodied, lifeless bodies of 33 African penguins on 11 June scattered across Stony Point, a reserve at the sleepy holiday town of Betty’s Bay that protects one of just four mainland breeding sites.

Plans to open a new mine have been criticised by local residents and NGOs for contradicting government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and phase out coal, reports ENDSA new surface coal mine could be created on the scenic Northumberland coast if an application is approved next month.Banks Mining wants to create a three million tonne (Mt) opencast mine which will operate for seven years from an area of 250 hectares at Druridge Bay, between Widdrington and Cresswell.

Electric car company attempts to acquire solar panel seller to create a Silicon Valley one-stop-shop for clean energy for car and home

Scientists discover corals that look healthy but cannot reproduce, dashing hopes such reefs could repopulate bleached areasZombie corals, which look healthy but cannot reproduce, have been discovered by researchers, dashing hopes that such reefs could repopulate areas destroyed by bleaching.Scientists have also found that a common ingredient in sunscreen is killing and mutating corals in tourist spots. Continue reading...

As sightings in populated areas increase, authorities are trapping leopards and keeping them captive, often in small cages without adequate food. The solution is to educate the public on coexisting with the big cats, reports Environment 360When an escaped leopard tackled a man at a poolside on a school campus in the southern Indian city of Bangalore early this year, the video went viral. The victim was one of the wildlife managers trying to recapture the animal. His colleagues finally managed to tranquilize it late that night and return it to a nearby zoo that was serving as a rescue center for a population of 16 wild-caught leopards. A week later, the leopard squeezed between the bars of another cage and escaped again, this time for good.All the news and social media attention focused on the attack – and none on the underlying dynamic. But that dynamic affects much of India. Even as leopards have vanished in recent decades from vast swaths of Africa and Asia, the leopard population appears to be increasing in this nation of 1.2 billion people. The leopards are adept at living unnoticed even amid astonishingly high human population densities. But conflicts inevitably occur. Enraged farmers sometimes kill the leopards. Trapping is a standard response, but religious and animal rights objections have made euthanasia for unwanted animals unthinkable. Continue reading...

Queensland government’s $7m purchase aims to cut back on sediment flowing on to the reef, where it can smother coral and prevent its recovery from bleachingEnvironment groups are applauding a “fantastic move” by the Queensland government to protect the Great Barrier Reef by buying a Cape York cattle station responsible for a disproportionate amount of pollution that flows on to the reef.The Queensland government has spent $7m buying the 560 sq km Springvale Station, situated south of Cooktown, the ABC reported on Wednesday. Continue reading...

In the 1990s almost all rubbish in the UK went to landfill. Today nearly half of household waste is recycled, thanks to EU legislationWe recycle and compost far more in Britain today than at the turn of the millennium.Recycling targets come from Europe, and are the result of decades of directives from Brussels to reduce the environmental harm from our rubbish. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge There is something about the wildness of the dog rose, the way it stands outside cultivation with a beauty that inspires so much imitationDays of rain and wild roses, a very British June. After the breathless spell of hot weather and sunshine, the showers were inevitable. Although some have been gently summery – good growing weather, as gardeners say – many have been epic downpours, looming like fantastical cities of cloud, bursting into tempests, thunder and lightning, cats and dogs, stair-rods, flash floods.Sometimes the whole Wagnerian spectacle comes and goes in minutes, fascinatingly local when a mile or two down the road remains bone dry. The weather feels personal, purging, and inside the storms is another, existential world. Or that’s how it felt, broken down on the motorway. Mercifully, we were in a service station car park, and once the vehicle was fixed enough to get us home, we churned through the carwash of motorway spray back to Wenlock. Continue reading...

University of Sydney study, conducted after two shark-related deaths, reveals overwhelming preference for non-lethal responses to attacksPerth residents overwhelmingly prefer non-lethal responses to shark attacks, a new survey shows. Seventy-five per cent of those polled said they wanted money be spent on education and research rather than catching the shark, according to a survey published by the University of Sydney on Wednesday.The survey was conducted between June 8 and 15, two days after university lecturer Doreen Collyer was fatally mauled by a great white shark while diving 1km off the Mindarie marina, in Perth’s northern suburbs, and five days after surfer Ben Gerring died in hospital from wounds also sustained in a great white attack. Continue reading...

Leadership forum hears of ‘huge gap’ between experts’ advice on phasing carbon out of the economy and public willingness to go along with that adviceA group of business and academic leaders have bemoaned the “huge gap” between what experts say ought to be done to decarbonise Australia’s economy and the public’s willingness to accept such a policy.They want Australia’s leaders to restart a conversation after the federal election about the need to transition the economy towards renewable and cleaner energy. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Solar Citizens says since the 2012-13 financial year, rooftop solar owners have saved about $1bn on their household bills each yearAustralian households and small businesses have invested more than $1bn a year in rooftop solar over the past five years, spending a total of almost $8bn since 2007, new calculations show.In its latest State of Solar report, Solar Citizens – which campaigns for, and represents the interests of, solar owners – has for the first time estimated Australian’s out-of-pocket investment in rooftop solar, how much money it has saved consumers, and how much carbon it has abated. Continue reading...

Galaxy polling finds only 17% of voters think the Coalition has a credible climate plan and only 20% think Labor doesSupport for strong action on climate change is at its highest level since 2008, with much sought after uncommitted voters showing the strongest support, according to Galaxy polling commissioned by the Climate Institute.Despite that, voters were dissatisfied with both Labor and Coalition policies, with only 17% saying the Coalition had a credible climate plan and only 20% saying Labor did. Continue reading...

Grocery chain agrees to reduce leakage of hydrochlorofluorocarbons and pay $500,000 fine after US officials claim it did not promptly repair refrigeratorsTrader Joe’s agreed on Tuesday to reduce its stores’ greenhouse gas emissions and pay a $500,000 penalty to settle claims from the federal government that the grocery chain had violated the Clean Air Act.US officials alleged that the company did not promptly repair leaks of a hydrochlorofluorocarbon that the chain used as a coolant in its stores’ refrigerators. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons are an ozone-depleting substance and a potent greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming. The federal complaint also said the company had not kept adequate records of refrigerator repairs. Continue reading...

Organisers say low-cost vehicle emits no noise or fumes, although its maximum speed is unlikely to impress Top GearFirst Paris introduced the Vélib’ bicycle; then the Autolib’ electric car. Now, in a further move to reduce noise and pollution, a moped-sharing scheme has rolled into the French capital.Called Cityscoot, a fleet of 150 electric scooters similar to the old-fashioned 50cc mobylette, made their appearance on Paris’s streets on Tuesday. Continue reading...

‘Historic’ agreement between the state’s largest utility company and environmental groups follows safety debates over proximity to seismic faultsCalifornia’s last nuclear power plant will close by 2025 under an accord announced Tuesday, ending three decades of safety debates that helped fuel the national anti-nuclear power movement.The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co (PG&E), and environmental groups reached an agreement to replace production at Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with solar power and other energy sources that do not produce climate-changing greenhouse gases. Continue reading...

Justin Schmidt sampled the stinging power of ants, bees and wasps. His reviews – from ‘blinding, fierce’ to ‘hot and smoky’ – have now been published in their entiretyEver wondered what it’s like to be stung by an artistic wasp? (This being an actual insect species of the order Hymenoptera, as opposed to a Turner-nominated waspish type with a vendetta.) “Pure, then messy, then corrosive,” according to entomologist Justin Schmidt, otherwise known as the King of Sting. “Love and marriage followed by divorce.” Or what about something with a little more bite? Like the sting of the fierce black polybia wasp, which apparently feels like “a ritual gone wrong, Satanic. The gas lamp in the old church explodes in your face when you light it.”Now that summer is sort of here, and wasps are blithely buzzing around the nation’s Coke cans (or San Pellegrino, if you want to be posh about your pop), check out the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the exquisite life’s work (and pain) of a biologist at Southwest Biological Institute and the University of Arizona who appears to be a cross between Steve Irwin and Jilly Goolden. As in he likes to stick his hand into a hornet’s nest and then sample the venom as though as it were a glass of classic vintage barolo. Continue reading...

London mayor has told TfL to develop system of alerts and signs to increase awareness of air quality blackspots, BusinessGreen reports Roadside signposts and online alerts could be used to inform Londoners of air pollution hotspots and periods of poor air quality, under proposals announced today by the capital’s new Mayor Sadiq Kahn.Londoners should be much better informed when air pollution reaches dangerous levels in the UK capital, Kahn said, announcing he has directed Transport for London (TfL) to “urgently” develop a package of public alerts and signs aimed at increasing awareness of poor air quality in the city. Continue reading...

Total greenhouse gas emissions fell by 24% between 1990 and 2014 but road transport emissions rose by 17%, European Environment Agency data showsRoad transport has bucked a downward trend in European greenhouse gas emissions, growing by 17% between 1990 and 2014, at the same time that emissions from other sectors fell by almost a quarter.Cars, vans and lorries reported the biggest absolute increase of any sector in CO2 emissions over the last 25 years, growing by 124 megatonnes (Mt), European Environment Agency (EEA) data published on Tuesday shows. Continue reading...

Environment and energy minister of small island state, one of the countries most at risk of global warming impacts, says ‘no time to waste’ on Paris dealRich countries must ratify the climate change agreement reached in Paris last December, one of the world’s most at-risk nations has warned.Thoriq Ibrahim, environment and energy minister of the Maldives, told the Guardian that there was “no time to waste”, in ratifying the agreement that was reached more than six months ago, and that it should be a matter of urgency for industrialised countries. Continue reading...

Residents in the Ukip stronghold of Clacton-on-Sea are rightly proud of their clean beaches, fresh air and wildlife. Would they still vote leave if they knew the things they love about their town are thanks to EU membership?Audrey James and and Mary Chivers, skirts hitched and shoes off, are paddling with their grandchildren by the pier at Clacton-on-Sea. A huge offshore windfarm spins in the distance and all around them are clean beaches, clear water and protected nature reserves.But Groyne 41, the name of the beach on the “Essex sunshine coast” where they are picnicking, is the exception, having failed to meet tough new EU water quality tests last year possibly because of the many seagulls living below the pier. Continue reading...

Off-grid communities such as those in sub-Saharan Africa can pay thousands of times as much as the rest of us for their energy. Designer Jim Reeves has developed a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that uses a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. Children can do their homework and study, families and friends can eat together and interact after dark adding new dimensions and possibilities to their lives Continue reading...

Aigas, Highlands The pine marten undulated through the trees in such soft eel-like loops that one could imagine it was an animal lacking in boneFor all their recent spread – they now skirt the edges of several Scottish cities and pop up occasionally even in England as far south as Shropshire – pine martens are still rare and hard to see. Aigas field study centre, with its dedicated hides and long-established feeding programme, must be one of the best places in the country to see them.The closest I’d come in the previous 40 years were glimpses of a close relative, the beech marten, dead at the sides of Greek roads. So when one came bounding through the shadow towards us, it was a wonderful moment. Continue reading...

Voracious predator with sting that has been known to kill humans is spotted in waters off Turkey and CyprusThe lionfish – a tropical creature with poisonous barbs and a painful sting that can kill humans in rare cases – may be spreading through the Mediterranean, a conservation group has warned.The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN) said the fish had been spotted in waters around Turkey and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. Continue reading...

The death of the young animal, known as ‘Snowy’ for its ‘notably white face’, comes at a fraught time for grizzly bears and their advocatesThe sole cub of one of the US’s most beloved grizzly bears was reportedly struck and killed by a car on Sunday evening in Grand Teton national park in Wyoming, prompting mourning among lovers of the mother animal known as 399.Wyoming Wildlife Advocates announced the news in a Facebook post: “399’s cub, known as Snowy or Spirit by the bear watchers of Grand Teton, was adored for its antics and notably white face and will be sorely missed.” Continue reading...

New studies show that alarming numbers of tiny fibers from synthetic fabrics are making their way from your washing machine into aquatic animalsThe first time professor Sherri Mason cut open a Great Lakes fish, she was alarmed at what she found. Synthetic fibers were everywhere. Under a microscope, they seemed to be “weaving themselves into the gastrointestinal tract”. Though she had been studying aquatic pollution around the Great Lakes for several years, Mason, who works for the State University of New York Fredonia, had never seen anything like it.

US weather agency says bleaching is now the most widespread on record and is likely to continue for unprecedented third yearThe coral bleaching event sweeping the globe and destroying vast tracts of valuable coral reef is now officially the most widespread in recorded history, and is likely to continue for an unprecedented third year, according to the US weather agency.For the coming four months, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration says its forecasts show warm ocean temperatures are expected to cause bleaching in the northern hemisphere, including around Hawaii, Micronesia, the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico. Continue reading...

New dietary guidelines could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1bn tonnes by 2030, and could lessen country’s problems with obesity and diabetesThe Chinese government has outlined a plan to reduce its citizens’ meat consumption by 50%, in a move that climate campaigners hope will provide major heft in the effort to avoid runaway global warming.

Survey shows a majority of Chinese tourists and about a third of US and UK visitors will travel to somewhere other than AustraliaIf the bleaching continues on the Great Barrier Reef, tourists say they will pack their bags and go elsewhere, taking with them an estimated $1bn a year and costing 10,000 jobs in regional Queensland, according to a new poll.The majority of Chinese tourists, and about a third of UK and US tourists, said if severe bleaching continues, and “some of the reef dies completely,” they would be more likely to visit somewhere other than Australia, according to the online polling of more than 4,000 people commissioned by the Australia Institute Continue reading...

Experts in Malawi will move 500 elephants 185 miles across the country to a sanctuary that will act as a ‘reservoir’Wildlife experts in Malawi will next month start moving up to 500 elephants to a sanctuary that they hope could eventually serve as a reservoir to restore some elephant populations in other parts of Africa where the threatened species has been heavily poached.The massive relocation, slated for completion next year, will involve darting the elephants from a helicopter, hoisting the slumbering animals by crane and loading them in crates on to trucks for a ride of about 185 miles (300km) to Malawi’s Nkhotakota wildlife reserve. Continue reading...

Today is a once in a lifetime event: the longest day of the year, first day of summer and a full ‘strawberry’ moon – which means it’s time to go outside

German discounter joins rival Aldi in signing up to farmers’ union-backed code that aims to boost profitability of suppliersLidl has become only the second grocer to sign up to a 12-month-old scheme to back British farmers by promising to buy more of their produce and offer long-term supply deals.The German discounter joins its close rival Aldi, which almost a year ago became the first retailer to sign up to the National Farmers Union-backed “fruit and veg pledge”, which aims to boost the profitability of British farmers and suppliers. Continue reading...

Braunschweig prosecutor’s office looking into Martin Winterkorn and another senior figure over suspected market manipulationGerman prosecutors have opened an investigation into the former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn over allegations of market manipulation in relation to the company’s diesel emissions scandal.According to the state prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, there was “sufficient concrete evidence” that Volkswagen had deliberately delayed informing shareholders of last year’s emissions scandal and the potential financial damage it could cause. Continue reading...

Global Witness says at least 185 activists were killed and anti-mining activities were the most deadly – with 42 deaths related to protestsAt least 185 environmental activists were killed last year, the highest annual death toll on record and close to a 60% increase on the previous year, according to a UK-based watchdog.

Report says figures could rise to nearly one-third with power sector reforms, making it the world wind energy leader by a large marginChina is on track to generate more than a quarter of its electricity from wind power by 2030, and the figure could rise to nearly a third with power sector reforms, a new study has found.Within 14 years, more new generating capacity – mostly clean energy – will come online in China than currently exists in the whole of the US, further cementing the country’s image as a burgeoning green giant. Continue reading...

A recent aerial survey has revealed that the numbers of all three saiga populations in Kazakhstan are going up, Mongabay reportsLast year, catastrophe hit saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan. About 200,000 of these critically endangered antelopes died in Betpak-Dala in May, deeply worrying conservationists. The deaths, scientists eventually found, were most likely caused by bacterial infection.But there may be hope for these severely threatened migratory mammals. Continue reading...