Relaxing of specifications on fine green beans is expected to save more than 135 tonnes of edible crops being wasted each year, supermarket saysTesco is to relax rules on fine green beans imported from Kenya in a move expected to save more than 135 tonnes of edible crops from going to waste every year.

Global warming attribution studies consistently find humans are responsible for all global warming over the past six decades.

The tiny beads used in exfoliant scrubs and toothpastes are at various stages of being phased out by the industry. Until a blanket ban comes into force, here’s a handy list of popular brands to help you choose which to use and which to avoidLast week a Greenpeace poll found that two-thirds of the British public think plastic microbeads used in exfoliant toiletries should be banned.The tiny beads - found in face and body scrubs and some toothpastes - are too small to be captured through existing wastewater treatment processes, and wash straight into the ocean where they harm fish and other sea life. Continue reading...

Use of Amitrole and Isoproturon, herbicides that have been linked to cancer, infertility and birth defects, is prohibited from 30 SeptemberThe European commission has ordered a ground-breaking moratorium on two endocrine-disrupting weedkillers that have been linked to thyroid cancer, infertility, reproductive problems and foetal malformations.Use of Amitrole and Isoproturon will now be banned from 30 September across Europe, after an EU committee voted unanimously for the first ever ban on endocrine-disrupting herbicides. Continue reading...

Storms have dumped more than a foot of rain in the Houston area, flooding dozens of neighbourhoods and forcing the closure of city offices and the suspension of public transport. Massive flooding has become nearly an annual rite of passage in the city, which is experiencing deaths and devastation for the third year running Continue reading...

GetUp! and SolarCitizens say its ‘homegrown power plan’ means it would be technically feasible and cheaper for Australia to switch from fossil fuelsA plan to transform Australia’s energy use to 100% renewables was published by GetUp! and SolarCitizens on Tuesday after a modelling studycommissioned by the groups suggested such a transition was technically feasible and would be cheaper than the status quo.The “homegrown power plan” spells out dozens of policy ideas the two organisations say would achieve a switch to 100% renewable energy while delivering more equitable access to electricity and a fair transition for workers in the fossil-fuel industry. Continue reading...

Attorney general attacks ‘illogic’ of Labor’s opposition to cuts and says taxpayers’ money would be better spent elsewhereThe attorney general, George Brandis, has mounted a bizarre defence of the Turnbull government’s funding cuts to the CSIRO, saying there is no need to keep funding climate science if the science of climate change is settled – but adding that he personally doesn’t believe it is settled.Brandis said the science body’s decision to cut funding for its scientists, who have produced vital climate science research – in response to the former Abbott government’s cuts to the CSIRO in 2014 – is what it ought to do if it believes climate change is real.

Illnesses ranging from nosebleeds to leukaemia among pupils at Changzhou Foreign Languages School, with highly toxic illegal waste dumping blamedEnvironmental activists in China are calling for new laws and an independent investigation into how hundreds of Chinese students fell ill – in some cases severely – after attending a school built on a toxic waste dump.In a case that is being compared to one of the worst environmental catastrophes in US history, about 500 students at a school in the eastern province of Jiangsu have reportedly been affected since late 2015 by ailments including nosebleeds, headaches, coughs, rashes and, in the worst instances, lymphoma and leukaemia. Continue reading...

With a combined ascent of more than 49,000m, the Cent Cols challenge is a daunting experience. And I’ve signed up to ride itFrom early May to the start of September, the three grand tours of cycling – the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España – see the world’s best riders tackle countless punishing climbs amid three weeks of racing.And then, just as this rolling spectacle packs away for another year, 30 amateur riders will attempt an arguably equally difficult feat of ascending. Participants in September’s self explanatory-named Cent Cols challenge will try to ride 100 categorised climbs through the French Pyrenees in just 10 days. Continue reading...

Reform of drug policy is essential to protect the rights of cultivating communities, and ensure they make a living from their landReform of international drug control is urgently needed. The war on drugs has left a trail of suffering and criminality in its wake and has manifestly failed to achieve its objectives. The UN special session of the general assembly (Ungass) this week presents an opportunity. Many reformers put drug users at the centre of changes to international drug policies, but the people growing the plants producing the substances they consume are often overlooked.Farmers’ livelihoods and their communities’ sustainable development are inherently linked to reform of international drug policies. For hundreds of thousands of farmers’ families, existing crop control laws and practices cause conflict and poverty (pdf), and crush hopes for economic improvement. Continue reading...

Eastern Australia is now considered a ‘global deforestation front’. Is this massive loss of wildlife and increased pollution really what Australians want?Somewhere today in Queensland, bulldozers are tearing down native bushland that was once protected.After the weakening of tree clearing controls by the previous state government, more than 200,000 hectares of threatened species habitat was destroyed in the two years from July 2012 to July 2014. Continue reading...

Lightwood, Derbyshire The females act like magnets for all that testosterone. A toad ball could number about a dozen

Delia Lawrie says Labor’s policy of a moratorium is insufficient and voters should be given a clear say on the issueA referendum on fracking should be held at one of the two elections scheduled in the Northern Territory for this year, the former NT opposition leader Delia Lawrie has said.On Tuesday, Helen Bender from Queensland’s Darling Downs and the US cattle rancher and anti-fracking activist John Fenton warned Territorians that “if you do not think this will impact you, you are very … wrong”. Continue reading...

ZCell developer says its battery for homes is more efficient and recyclableAustralia is at the dawn of a battery storage revolution. A recent report from US-based IHS Technology states that Australia’s energy storage market will grow from less than 500 battery installations in 2015 to 30,000 installations by 2018, while Morgan Stanley has found that half of all households in Australia are interested in installing solar panels with battery storage, with the market potential estimated to be $24bn.From the lithium battery Tesla Powerwall unit to the lead acid gel battery of AllGrid Energy’s GridWatt system, the Australian market seems to be welcoming one battery innovation after another. Continue reading...

The deputy prime minister and Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, says Johnny Depp’s performance in the apology video could’ve used a bit more ‘gusto’, claiming the actor looked like ‘he was auditioning for the Godfather’. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard released the video to apologise for smuggling their two dogs, Pistol and Boo into Australia. The video has since gone viral, with many online commenters not buying the authenticity of Depp’s performance Continue reading...

Air and water quality, biodiversity and countryside would be at risk, Commons environment select committee report saysLeaving the EU would threaten the UK’s air and water quality, biodiversity and the countryside, a committee of MPs has warned.

Exclusive: Estimated cost of moving all electricity, industry and transport onto renewables by 2050 would be $800bn, a saving of $90bnTransitioning Australia to 100% renewable energy by 2050 would cost less than continuing on the current path, according to a new report.Related: Australia's defence force could run on sugar cane and tyres under biofuel plan Continue reading...

The city of Miami Beach is slowly disappearing under water. At the big high tides of the year the sea washes over the famous wide beach and floods many of the city streets and magnificent Art Deco buildings. And over the past decade the floods have been striking more frequently.Most of the city sits just a few feet above sea level, built on a foundation of porous limestone, allowing the rising seas to seep into the city’s foundations, surge up through pipes and drains, encroaching on fresh water supplies and saturating infrastructure. The city is now investing in a $500m project to raise roads and a pumping system to hold back the floods. Continue reading...

Decision by organisation representing farmers in England and Wales comes after report on impacts of Brexit on farmingFarmers’ interests are best served by the UK remaining in the European Union, their union has concluded.

The latest tax scandal is bringing the erosion of our democracy into ever sharper focus. Britain suffers under an enormous democratic deficit due to state capture by “free”-market neoliberal fundamentalism and its associated corporate and financial interests, in aggressive ascendancy since the 1970s. Notwithstanding the 2008 financial crisis, this capture of the state has remained unaddressed, with successive governments shamefully complicit in it. Despite copious corroborative research and endless petitioning and protesting, all we’ve seen is disingenuous hand-wringing and political evasion.Our collusion with this apology for a “democracy” must stop. We, the citizenry, are therefore taking matters into our own hands – with a “Golden Rule Tax Disobedience” whose intention is grassroots mobilisation against systemic injustice, favouring far greater equality, shared and stable prosperity, enhanced quality of life and, most importantly, an environmentally sustainable future. Continue reading...

Letter from John Gummer, Chris Huhne, Adair Turner, Craig Bennett, Tom Burke, Amy Cameron, Michael Jacobs, John Sauven, Matthew Spencer, James Thornton and Crispin TickellBritain has shown great diplomatic leadership on climate change and successive governments have had a major influence on action to decarbonise the world’s economy. We believe that the UK’s standing as an international climate leader could recede within months if we were to leave the EU.Membership of the EU has enabled the UK to punch above its weight. It has given us a platform to influence not only the climate commitments of our European neighbours, but also those of the US and China. In the last European parliament, all countries agreed to follow the carbon reduction trajectory set by the UK for the next 15 years. Continue reading...

French-owned outsourcing company pledges to employ army veterans, ex-offenders, long-term unemployed and homeless peopleVeolia, the rubbish collection and road sweeping company, has vowed to ensure that 10% of new recruits come from marginalised groups – including army veterans, ex-offenders, long-term unemployed and the homeless.The French-owned outsourcing company employs 14,000 people in the UK and operates water, waste management and energy services for local councils across the country, covering half the UK’s population.

In early April, Israel expanded the fishing zone open to Palestinians to nine nautical miles off the Gaza coast. Israel had limited the area for security reasons during its conflict with Hamas Continue reading...

I greet deer and blackbirds – so there is no way I would ignore other walkers. It’s sad if we need a social media campaign to encourage friendlinessWhat do you say when you pass someone sauntering along a country path? A hearty hello? Acknowledgement, muttered and grudging? If you reside in Sussex, you’ll be cheerily hailing fellow walkers, runners and cyclists – the fruit of a £35,000 campaign by the South Downs national park authority.Related: The British countryside has never had it so good Continue reading...

This is a programme that both celebrates country life and holds it to account. Now it has an 8 million-strong constituency – David Cameron, take noteCountryfile is my guilty secret. On a Sunday evening, when I want to sit back and not think too much, BBC1 offers me an hour of alternative reality. It offers a Britain that is beautiful yet real, hard-working yet leisured, a place without streets, housing estates or crowds, yet unmistakably British. Its star presenter, Adam Henson, does not lie in the grass contemplating the view with a piece of straw in his mouth. He works. But round him people are allowed to play.This year, Countryfile broke through 8 million viewers, putting it in the same league as Downton Abbey and Strictly Come Dancing. The appeal of the programme to Britain’s overwhelmingly urban population is undeniable. But is it what Henson claimed this weekend, that Countryfile offers not only space, a skyline, less light pollution, livestock, hills and mountains but also a “rural idyll”, somehow a place apart? Continue reading...

Parent company Centrica reveals fall in number of domestic accounts, nearly twice total for whole of 2015, at AGM in LondonBritish Gas lost more than 220,000 customer accounts in the first three months of this year, almost double the number for the whole of 2015, as consumers turned away from the big energy providers.Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, said the number of domestic accounts fell by 224,000 to 14.44m between the end of December and the end of March. British Gas lost 119,000 accounts last year. Continue reading...

Swedish state-owned energy giant reaches deal with Czech company to sell German coal operations as it ‘accelerates’ shift to greener energySwedish state-owned energy giant Vattenfall said on Monday it had reached a deal to sell its German coal operations, employing 8,000 people, as it moves away from activities blamed for climate change.Vattenfall said it would sell its German lignite, or brown coal, business – opencast coalmines and two power plants close to the German-Polish border – to Czech operator EPH. Continue reading...

Cambridge physicist and government scientific adviser with a rational approach to the climate and energy debateSir David MacKay, who has died of cancer aged 48, was a true polymath, a rare breed in today’s world, where the frontiers of scientific knowledge are increasingly remote and complex. It is a testament to David’s intellectual brilliance that he was able to contribute to advancing more than one of these frontiers during his short career.David latterly achieved cult status among climate and energy aficionados following the publication of Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air (2008), initially self-published using £10,000 of David’s own money and offered – as were all his works – simultaneously free for download on his website. Described as a “tour de force” by the Economist magazine and lauded by Bill Gates as “one of the best books on energy that has been written”, within two years it had sold 40,000 copies and been downloaded nearly half a million times. Continue reading...

Nelson effigy and 17 other statues around London given bespoke gas masks to highlight need for improved air qualityTwo Greenpeace activists have climbed Nelson’s column in central London to fit a gas mask to the statue as part of a city-wide protest over air pollution.Alison Garrigan and Luke Jones evaded security and scaled the 52-metre monument to Admiral Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square soon after dawn on Monday. Continue reading...

Gary Connery, who scaled monument in 2003, says anti-pigeon spikes have now made the climb even harderGary Connery, a professional stuntman who performed a Base jump off Nelson’s column in 2003 to raise awareness about China’s occupation of Tibet, has praised the bravery of the latest activists to scale the monument.Connery said he did not necessarily agree with the Greenpeace activists but admired the audacity of the stunt, which involved fixing a gas mask to Nelson’s statue at the top of the 52-metre column in London to highlight concerns about air pollution. Continue reading...

Greenpeace protesters climb London’s landmarks – including Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square – on Monday in protest over air pollution standards. Alison Garrigan and Luke Jones evaded security and scaled the 52-metre monument to Admiral Lord Nelson in central London after dawn, fitting a giant gas mask to Nelson’s stone face to highlight dangerous levels of toxic air in the capital. The Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statues of Oliver Cromwell and Sir Winston Churchill were also fitted with masks

Forest activist, Ouch Leng, has just been awarded the Goldman prize for his work protecting the Cambodian rainforest. Over 20 years his dangerous, undercover investigations have exposed some of Cambodia’s biggest timber magnates, identified land grabbing by Chinese and western corporations and taken on corrupt elements within government

Excessive work and pressure are status symbols. But overtime is deadly. If we worked less we’d make fewer errors, address inequality and have a better lifeHad you asked John Maynard Keynes what the biggest challenge of the 21st century would be, he wouldn’t have had to think twice.Leisure. In fact, Keynes anticipated that, barring “disastrous mistakes” by policymakers (austerity during an economic crisis, for instance), the western standard of living would multiply to at least four times that of 1930 within a century. By his calculations, in 2030 we’d be working just 15 hours a week. Continue reading...

Ban comes after UCG pilot company Linc Energy, which last week went into administration, was committed for trial for causing serious environmental harmThe Queensland government has immediately banned underground coal gasification in the state, arguing the environmental risks outweigh economic benefits.Natural resources minister Dr Anthony Lynham says the ban, which would apply immediately as government policy, would be made official by the end of the year through legislation introduced into parliament. Continue reading...

Early start date would add momentum for deeper emissions cuts and lock a future US president into the deal for four yearsThe US and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections – aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.

Kendal, Cumbria It’s illegal to fell a tree containing active nests, but the responsibility for surveying lies with the owner or the tree surgeonA notice appeared on a lamp post in our lane, an application to remove a conifer. While that tree was not a thing of great beauty, I knew it was important to our birds. Blackbirds and thrushes used it as a song-post, proclaiming their territories, and it provided cover for small birds travelling down from Kendal Fell into the gardens to feed.There was cover for fledglings too – I knew this because of watching the fortunes of our garden blackbirds and their broods over the years. I knew too that there were blackbirds nesting in the hedge in the lane. I’d seen the telltale signs of one bird feeding at a time, taking beakfuls of insects back to the hedge, the male adopting his swirling, banking flight, and on one occasion winging past my ear, zooming away uttering his alarm call, letting me know I was in the way. Continue reading...

Edward Loure wins leading environmental award after helping communities in Tanzanian Rift Valley secure legal title to ancestral landThe Tarangire national park in Tanzania is known for its vast concentrations of wildlife in the dry season, the spectacular annual migrations of its elephants, wildebeest and zebra, and its majestic old baobab trees.But few people who visit it realise that the 1,100 sq mile park was, until colonial times, widely used by pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, or that many of the new tourist lodges built around it are situated on ancestral lands “grabbed” by government or companies, without compensation, to stimulate money-spinning tourism. Continue reading...

After 20 years defending Cambodia’s rainforest, human rights lawyer Ouch Leng has won the world’s leading environmental award for his workYou could not see the logging camp from the narrow track on the edge of the once vast Prey Lang forest in central Cambodia. But human rights lawyer and forest defender Ouch Leng had recced the location on motorbike, identified its owners, studied aerial pictures from a drone and within minutes of arriving was crawling through the dense undergrowth and tree stumps towards it.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 18 April 1916The lambs, very white beside the grey-fleeced ewes, complained in infantile tones when the rain drifted in dense clouds over the windswept fields, but the leaf-buds, opening almost visibly, welcome the warmer wind and invigorating rain. Round those Cheshire farms where damson trees line the hedges as well as the orchard borders white blossom is everywhere, and in many orchards cherry, plum, and pear are well decorated; a few yards from where I now write some beautiful sprays of pink apple blossom are already open. In the fields, beyond easy reach of urban root-grubbers, primroses are plentiful, and jack-in-the-hedge and silver stitchwort whiten many a roadside ditch; a little sun after the rain, and countless still folded flower buds will burst open. Although I met with several dainty willow wrens feeding along the now green hedgerows and in the bushes by a small stream, not one burst into song; they repeatedly called plaintive “looits,” but seemed too depressed by the dull sky to sing. The sand-piper, the redstart - announced by “R. C. S.” from Surrey, - and the yellow wagtail are due here now, but I failed to find them in likely spots. There may be a rush of migrants any time now.“H. H.” - I have several times stated in these notes that not only are there white and piebald blackbirds, but that this species is more given to such “sports” or variation than coy other; indeed a white blackbird is far commoner than a white sparrow. Continue reading...

The sound fell from the sky like notes from a stave; a chorus of twitters, tweets and rattles. Newly-arrived sand martins – my first long-distance migrants of the spring – hawking for invisible insects in the Good Friday sky, above the River Brue on the Somerset coast.After the long flight from Africa, this Easter sunshine was just what they needed, to bump up their energy levels and get ready for the breeding season to come. Continue reading...

My younger brother, Julian Usborne, who has died aged 76, was an extraordinary mixture; engineer, shopkeeper, builder, prankster, painter, farmer, conservationist and furniture-maker all in one.The son of Thomas, a civil servant at the Ministry of Transport, and his German wife, Gerda (nee Just), Julian spent his childhood, and the second world war, in a house in Weybridge, Surrey, that our parents bought as a bargain because it was often under the flight path of enemy bombers returning after a run over London. After prep school in Oxford, Julian went to Charterhouse, Godalming, where he discovered a talent for painting. National service was unexpectedly abolished just when Julian was expecting to have to do it. He was accepted to spend those two years (rather than the usual four) at the Slade School of Art: two years, as he put it, that changed his life forever. Continue reading...

Government urged to crack down on rogue practice of garages removing compulsory diesel particulate filters from vehiclesMore than a thousand diesel cars have been caught without an essential pollution filter that traps deadly particles, according to government figures. But experts warn the rogue practice of removing the filters, which contributes to air pollution-related deaths, could be far more widespread.Almost 29,000 people die prematurely each year in the UK owing to particle pollution, causing £15bn in health costs. Since 2009 diesel particulate filters (DPFs) have been compulsory in new diesel cars. But, particularly for cars driven in cities, the DPFs can become clogged and cause breakdowns. Continue reading...

The Natural Environment Research Council have conducted a poll to help decide the name of its new £200m polar research vessel and the winning name is – RRS Boaty McBoatface – receiving 124,109 votes. Four times more than RRS Poppy-Mai, which came in second place. The final naming decision lies with Duncan Wingham, chief executive of the NERC, who faces a tough dilemma, between the credibility of his organisation and the overwhelming burden of public opinion Continue reading...

Figures show bank cut investments by 70% in oil and gas firms in 2015 and doubled UK green energy loans to £1bn a yearRoyal Bank of Scotland has reduced its global lending to oil and gas companies and doubled its green energy loans in the UK to £1bn a year, according to new figures released to the Guardian.

Two friends created their Snact product to try to provide a solution to the millions of tonnes of fruit and veg discarded each yearWith forklift trucks carrying pallets of fruit and vegetables between sellers, and voices from all corners of the world shouting at each other, New Covent Garden market can be an intimidating place in the early hours of the morning.But this is where environmental enthusiasts Ilana Taub and Michael Minch-Dixon found inspiration for an idea to use goods that would otherwise be thrown out to make a snack consisting of apples, bananas, mangoes and other produce.

NERC chief has final say and faces dilemma between credibility of the organisation and burden of public opinionForget the EU referendum. The major test of modern democracy has fallen into the hands of the Natural Environment Research Council – over the naming of a boat.As the polls finally closed for the naming of its new polar research ship, the NERC confirmed that the votes were overwhelmingly in favour of RRS Boaty McBoatface. Continue reading...

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

The northern hemisphere is home to some incredible and diverse species, this gallery by Dieter Braun celebrates some of them with facts and beautiful illustrations Continue reading...

Using products from livestock reared on grass as opposed to grain improves the lives of farm animals – and it has health benefits, too‘Grass-fed” is the new organic. It appeared on Whole Foods’ new trend list, with “heirloom ingredients” and “ancient grains”. US sales of grass-fed labelled milk, eggs, yogurt, butter, cheese and even protein powders are soaring.The attraction is that livestock are reared outside, deriving most of their diet from grass. This is in contrast to the North American system where cows are grain-fed in a Cafo (concentrated animal feeding operation), with scant access to pasture. Continue reading...

Despite its tropical associations, the evergreen tea plant can thrive almost anywhere in the UKYou might think you’d need a colonial estate high on some exotic hillside to grow your own tea, but this pretty evergreen, with scented flowers and delicious leaves, can thrive pretty much anywhere in the UK.A close relative of the garden camellia (Camellia japonica), the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), despite its tropical associations, is a distinctly temperate plant. Hailing from the same cold, soggy regions in China that gave us the rhododendron, these guys can handle pretty much anything the British winter can throw at them. In fact, the only reason they are grown at high altitudes in places like Kenya and Malaysia is that those are the only regions chilly enough to keep them happy. Take it from someone who tried and failed to grow it dozens of times in Singapore, yet has had a mini plantation of it in Croydon for 10 years – tea is not tropical. Continue reading...