As patios bloom with cold drinks and barbecues get fired up, use this guide to have the greenest shindig on the blockI suspect that we socialize more during the spring and summer months. Under the warm sun, patios bloom with cold drinks and conversation, barbecues get fired up, and parties quickly spill out on to decks and into back yards. Shifting these sweet summer parties to ones that are also waste-free can be both simple and inexpensive, with just a few small shifts to the status quo.The first step is to keep invitations virtual. Creating a Facebook event or sending a simple email is perfect for inviting guests to your party without generating waste from paper invitations, and if you’re looking for something a bit more formal, sites such as Greenvelope and Paperless Post have given the cheesy e-vite a brilliant makeover. Virtual invites also allow you to track RSVPs, communicate with guests, and provide clickable info about your event. Continue reading...

Court dismisses government bid to uphold seven-year ban on domestic trade in rhino horn - but global ban remains in placeSouth Africa’s supreme court has dismissed a government bid to uphold a seven-year ban on the domestic trade in rhino horn, an industry group said this week.The decision has no bearing on a ban on international trade in rhino horn. Potential domestic buyers could include those who see rhino horn as a store of wealth that could appreciate in value and those who want it as a decoration. Continue reading...

Push for nuclear and gas over renewables could be more costly in the long term, warns UN’s environment chiefThe UK government risks slowing the shift to clean energy sources by cutting support for renewable energy and strongly backing gas as a transitional fuel, according to the UN’s environment chief.Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told the Guardian that he thought the UK’s push for nuclear and gas over renewables could be more costly in the long term. Continue reading...

In a city of 10 million designed around the car – but where most can’t afford one – could bicycles be the answer? The legacy of apartheid planning makes change difficult but cyclists are pushing and, crucially, they have the mayor’s support“Minibus taxis are our biggest problem. They are dangerous. They just don’t care,” says Lovemore as he joins us on a dusty corner in Johannesburg’s Diepsloot township. We are waiting for a group of cyclists to form near the minibus queue, which in the half-light of 6am already stretches around the block. Lovemore consults his smartphone. Around 100 cyclists living in this informal area of makeshift shacks and dirt roads on the edge of South Africa’s biggest city use WhatsApp to coordinate their journeys – there’s safety in numbers. A couple more will be along shortly, he says.The group have agreed to let me join them on their commute to the northern suburbs where most work as gardeners and security guards in luxury shopping malls or the electric-fenced homes of the wealthy. Once the group is deemed big enough we join the slow flow of 4x4 bakkies and cars heading into the city on William Nicol Drive, Johannesburg’s busiest cycling street. There’s a small but steady stream of people on old steel-framed racers and mountain bikes sturdy enough to cope with the potholes and broken glass. Continue reading...

For those backing fracking, the approval of exploration plans at Kirby Misperton is a vital victory, but they are fighting growing public oppositionFor those backing fracking, the approval of exploration plans at Kirby Misperton in Yorkshire is a vital victory.But the war is far from won, with public opinion moving ever further against fracking. The more zealously the government goes on the offensive on shale gas, the more people oppose it. Continue reading...

From phasing out coal to creating nature reserves, it is the EU which should be taking lectures from the UK, not the other way roundThe leading lights of the UK environmental movement would have us believe that a win by the Brexit camp on 23 June would be akin to a natural disaster.

Sinderhope, Northumberland Goldcrests peep high up in the pines. Rabbits have grazed the turf to the tight sward of a lawnThe faded blue footbridge that spans the East Allen stands on tall supports, necessarily high for when the river is in spate. Last December it was a surging, terrifying flood; today the water barely wets the painted wooden gauge in the centre of the ford. A sign warns: “Caution. Due to scouring, depths may be deeper than indicated”. Now, two walkers dry their feet after paddling before putting on their socks. This is Old Man Bottom, a local name – with no apostrophe S – that you won’t find on any map.Mines were often known as Old Man, so it may have some connection with lead extraction. Next to the ford, there’s a new milestone, a stone sculpture of a packhorse pointing five miles upstream to the lead mine, ten miles down to the Dukesfield smelt mill. Continue reading...

Speaking on Q&A, Christopher Pyne rejects a suggestion that the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy could operate as a de facto emissions trading scheme, while responding to a question from the audience, Pyne claims the scheme was not intended to work that way. The industry minister and his regular sparring partner, opposition frontbencher Anthony Albanese, were the only two panellists on Monday’s election special, which fell in week three of the eight-week campaign Continue reading...

BBC’s Chris Packham says nature reserves are becoming ‘a bit like art galleries’ while Martin Hughes-Games raises concerns about conservationThe presenters of BBC2’s Springwatch have warned that wildlife programmes are failing to reflect the reality of the natural world.Chris Packham said there was a danger that nature reserves such as the RSPB’s Minsmere in Suffolk, where the new series of Springwatch is based, “become a bit like art galleries or museums where we go to get our fix” when much of the countryside is “largely sterile, too intensively farmed and with very poor biodiversity”. Continue reading...

In Barnaby Rudge, his novel of the Gordon Riots, Charles Dickens gives us a vision of sunlit bliss before the murderous climaxBarnaby and his mother have almost nothing, and Barnaby wants nothing, because he has his pet raven, Grip.“A crust of bread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for their repast. Barnaby’s enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap, till he was tired; then to lie down in the long grass or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upwards at the light clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song,” wrote Charles Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, his 1841 novel of the Gordon Riots and the burning of Newgate in 1780. Continue reading...

A coalition of organisations have entered into unprecedented joint action to ensure climate change is in the minds of voters on 2 JulyAn unprecedented level of coordination between climate activists and conservation groups is aiming to raise the profile of climate change in this year’s election.A coalition of groups has been organising tactics aimed at engaging both politicians and voters with climate change for the 2 July election. Continue reading...

Council approves shale gas tests in village of Kirby Misperton despite receiving 4,375 objections to the plansFracking is set to take place in Britain for the first time in five years after councillors approved tests in North Yorkshire, sweeping aside thousands of objections from residents and campaigners.Related: How does the fracking debate affect you? Share your experiences Continue reading...

Squid, cuttlefish and their relatives appear to benefit from ‘live fast, die young’ mentality as study shows cephalopods have thrived over past 60 yearsOctopuses, cuttlefish and squid have thrived in the world’s oceans over the last 60 years despite – or because of – human activity that has warmed oceans and reduced fish populations.

While today’s consumers demand all natural products, in the case of perfume, synthetics might prove to be the greener choiceIn a coastal jungle in northern Madagascar, biologist Fanny Rakotoarivelo places a plastic bubble over a branch of papaya flowers. Inside, air currents run through the flowers, sucking out essential oils. The scented air that remains is funneled into another bag, which Rakotoarivelo places inside a metal briefcase. It will be flown and delivered to the German headquarters of Symrise, the second largest flavors and fragrances company in the world, where scientists will attempt to recreate the scent.

Arctic would warm by as much as 20C by 2300 with disastrous impacts if action is not taken on climate change, warns new studyThe planet would warm by searing 10C if all fossil fuels are burned, according to a new study, leaving some regions uninhabitable and wreaking profound damage on human health, food supplies and the global economy.The Arctic, already warming fast today, would heat up even more – 20C by 2300 – the new research into the extreme scenario found. Continue reading...

Drone footage shows around 70 tiger sharks eating a whale in the aptly named Shark Bay, around 500 miles north of Perth, Western Australia. The video was posted to the Eco Abrolhos Facebook page, which operates cruises to nearby islands. Continue reading...

Temperatures in a city in the desert state of Rajasthan have hit 51C (123.8F) – the highest on record in India. A drought has left many villages and towns without regular water. Schools have closed, some hospitals have stopped performing surgery, and in some regions daytime cooking has been banned due to the fire risk Continue reading...

The first of its kind, a new international treaty obliges signatories to intercept pirate fishers before they can sell their catchIn March, the Argentinian coast guard shot at and sank a Chinese vessel that was alleged to be fishing illegally in Argentinian waters (the crew were all rescued). While it’s unclear whether the boat was committing crime, the incident showed that the tension surrounding pirate fishing is reaching a peak, marked elsewhere by increasing conflict, and the detainment and scuttling of illegal fishing fleets. But for pirate fishers, the financial gains appear to be worth these risks.Illegal fishing vessels siphon off up to 26 million tons of illegally caught fish each year, which amounts to over $23bn (£16bn) in profit. This not only deprives legitimate fishers of their catch, but as it’s an unregulated practice, it also undermines the stability of fisheries stocks around the world. Illegal fishing also has a hand in driving already threatened species closer to extinction—like the critically-endangered vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise, whose fate is rapidly being worsened by illegal fishers in Mexico who tangle and drown the small, protected mammals in their gill nets. Continue reading...

A vote allowing Third Energy to frack for shale gas could pave way for technique to be used across England, critics sayNorth Yorkshire councillors have been urged not to turn the region into “the fracking capital of the UK” before a crucial vote that could pave the way for the technique to be used across England.

UN’s top environmental scientist warns bottles and bags do not break down easily and sink, as report highlights the ubiquity of plastic debris in oceansBiodegradable plastic water bottles and shopping bags are a false solution to the ubiquitous problem of litter in the oceans, the UN’s top environmental scientist has warned.Most plastic is extremely durable, leading to large plastic debris and “microplastics” to spread via currents to oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic, a UN report published on Monday found. Continue reading...

Takeover would create world’s largest agricultural supplier in the biggest deal ever by a German firmGerman drug and chemicals group Bayer has offered to buy the American GM seed pioneer Monsanto for $62bn (£43bn) in a deal that would create the world’s biggest agricultural supplier.The offer of $122 a share in cash values the Monsanto group at 37% more than its closing share price on 9 May, before rumours of a bid emerged. Continue reading...

In a ‘Pepsi challenge’ test, economist and statisticians find mainstream climate arguments accurate and contrarian arguments wrong and misleading

Councils have issued licences for thousands of animals, research shows, including lions, wolves and crocodilesLions, wolves and deadly venomous snakes are among thousands of dangerous animals being kept on private properties across the UK, figures have revealed.Big cats including 13 tigers, two lions, eight leopards, seven cheetahs and nine pumas are prowling behind the fences of addresses up and down the land, an investigation by the Press Association has found. Continue reading...

Abthorpe, Northamptonshire Blue-purple columns of bugle and the crimped leaves of betony abound“Do you ever get over to the Silverstone area?” queried John in his first email to me. I don’t, but when he then enthused that the rustic parish of Abthorpe “seemed to be a relic of a long disappeared countryside”, he had my attention.South of Abthorpe a network of footpaths traverse straight lines across clayey fields of blossoming yellow oilseed rape and blue-green sprays of wheat. A visually unexceptional landscape perhaps, but an encounter soon hints at more. An unfamiliar voice from the apex of a small hedgerow tree: “Cheeese pleeese” it calls shrilly. And there it is, a neat little lemon-yellow bird with a fine acute bill – a male yellow wagtail. This red-listed insectivore was three times more common in 1970s Britain than it is today. Continue reading...

Internet trading sites host ads for prohibited weeds, with Invasive Species Council warning postal system a ‘big gap’ in quarantine systemAmazon and eBay have been exposed as weak points in Australia’s quarantine system, with the internet trading sites hosting dozens of offers to import the nation’s most dangerous weeds.Any Australian with a credit card can order home delivery of thousands of seeds of gorse, blackberry or cactus. Also available is the Mimosa pigra tree, which the Northern Territory government spends $500,000 each year trying to eradicate from Kakadu national park. Continue reading...

Private club owned by oil giant appealing against judicial review defeat in favour of co-operative renewable energy scheme at Teddington LockShell is involved in blocking the development of a renewable energy project in a legal battle between a private club owned by the company and a community hydropower scheme on the river Thames.The scheme at Teddington lock and weirs has won planning permission and defeated a judicial review from the Lensbury club, but the club is now seeking to appeal against the judicial review decision. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 27 May 1916Surrey

After a slow spring, Stephen Moss’s favourite summer visitors have all returned to Somerset – cuckoo, swift, hobby and a surprise redstartSometimes birds appear when you least expect them. One evening towards the end of April I was driving my son to football training when the first swifts of the year zoomed past – low as fighter jets, heading due north.On the way back, I thought I’d stop to see if there were any more. No swifts, but a real surprise, heralded by a flash of orange, as a small brown bird flew into a hawthorn. A lift of the binoculars confirmed my hunch – a female redstart, flicking her russet tail before plunging deep into the foliage, never to be seen again. Continue reading...

Graham Edwards defends environmental credentials of titanium-mining projectA wealthy British investor has been dragged into a deadly dispute over a South African mine, after a community leader was killed amid allegations that excavating the site would damage the environment.Threatening comments by Mark Caruso, the chief executive of the firm at the heart of the dispute, have also served to heighten tensions, say locals. Continue reading...

Rock climber Alex Honnold argues we must do more to defend US national parks from a slew of imminent environmental threatsJust over eight years ago, I completed a free solo ascent – unroped – of the one of the most beautiful and challenging climbs in the world: a 350 metre crack called Moonlight Buttress in southwestern Utah’s Zion national park. At the time, Alpinist magazine called it “one of the most impressive free solos ever achieved.”While I find it hard to articulate exactly why I’m drawn to this type of exposed, unroped climbing, the setting certainly plays a big role. Zion is aptly named: it’s a promised land of striking multicolored sandstone cliffs soaring from a green valley below. Though I’m intensely focused when I climb, the gift of doing it in such breathtaking places is not lost on me. Continue reading...

From Angola to Zimbabwe, food prices are soaring and malnutrition is on the rise as the latest El Niño weather event takes a brutal tollDrought is affecting 1.4 million people across seven of Angola’s 18 provinces. Food prices have rocketed and acute malnutrition rates have doubled, with more than 95,000 children affected. Food insecurity is expected to worsen from July to the end of the year. Continue reading...

A second year without rain threatens to bring catastrophe for some of the poorest people in the world. Donor countries, in the grip of wars and refugee crises, have been slow to pledge funds. But by the time they do, it could be too lateHarvest should be the time for celebrations, weddings and full bellies in southern Malawi. But Christopher Witimani, Lilian Matafle and their seven children and four grandchildren had nothing to celebrate last week as they picked their meagre maize crop.Related: 'It's a disaster': children bear brunt of southern Africa's devastating drought | Lucy Lamble Continue reading...

Take a leaf from the designs of Buckminster Fuller and redefine the space you live in with a freedomeMost of us are trapped in rectangular living, trying to retrofit eco-efficiency, but we could be enjoying life in a geodesic freedome. For starters, freedomes are inherently efficient: they need no intermediate columns or supporting walls. After all, a geodesic line is the shortest line between two points on the surface of a spheroid, and the sphere is nature’s most efficient shape.Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller, who created the Montreal Biosphère in 1967, was the foremost pioneer of geodesic domes, the master of tensegrity – tensile integrity – and the reason why geodesic structures are forever associated with eco living. Continue reading...

Boulder, Colorado, has been voted the US’s happiest city, thanks to its urban planning, high level of healthcare and burgeoning service jobsThe future is here and it works. Importantly, it is not a conservative future. Boulder, Colorado, is not as famous as San Francisco or even Palo Alto – but this city of some 100,000, where the high plains end and the Rocky Mountains begin, is the leading American urban area of the 21st century. It is a bewildering alchemy of 1960s hippy culture, frontier technologies, thoughtful urban planning and burgeoning service jobs ranging from diet counselling to advanced road bike maintenance. Boulder has become the exemplar of how rich and satisfying urban life can be. It is also a Democrat stronghold.It has been voted the US’s brainiest city, its happiest city, the country’s foodiest place and the number one city for health. It is a standing reproach to Donald Trump, and indeed Britain’s rightwing Brexiteers who ape his thinking. The place is booming around values and principles to which they are hostile – but attracting families, entrepreneurs and innovators from all round the US because it is such a delightful place in which to live and work. Continue reading...

Europe can no longer turn its back on the benefits of genetically modified cropsFor a generation, a campaign by the green movement against the growing of genetically modified crops has held sway across Europe. These foodstuffs are a threat to health, the environment and the small independent farmer, NGOs have argued. As result, virtually no GM crops have been grown on Europe’s farms for the past 25 years. Yet hard evidence to support what is, in all but name, a ban on these vilified forms of plant life is thin on the ground. In fact, most scientific reports have indicated that they are generally safe, both to humans and the environment.This point was endorsed last week when a 20-strong committee of experts from the US National Academies of Science announced the results of its trawl of three decades of scientific studies for “persuasive evidence of adverse health effects directly attributable to consumption of foods derived from genetically engineered crops”. It found none. Instead the group uncovered evidence that GM crops have the potential to bestow considerable health benefits. An example is provided by golden rice, a genetically modified rice that contains beta carotene, a source of vitamin A. Its use could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children who suffer from vitamin A deficiency in the third world, say scientists. Continue reading...

Up to 500,000 people transferred to shelters as cyclone causes landslides, house collapses and embankments to break in ChittagongA cyclone battered coastal Bangladesh on Saturday, killing at least 21 people and injuring many more.It has now weakened into a depression that, according to the weather office, could still bring brief periods of violent wind or rain. Continue reading...

Torrential rains continue to deluge island nation, with hundreds of thousands in temporary sheltersLandslides and heavy flooding have killed at least 73 people in Sri Lanka, with scores more missing and hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes.Torrential rains have deluged the island nation since last weekend, triggering huge landslides that have buried victims in up to 15 metres (50 feet) of mud. Continue reading...

Hugh Grant (no, not that one) is CEO of the agrochemical firm that’s been called ‘the most evil company in the world’ and faces a challenging futureMeet Hugh Grant. No, not the famously charming Four Weddings and a Funeral actor, but the far more controversial self-described “Scottish optimist” who is chairman and chief executive of US agrochemical company Monsanto, AKA “the most evil company in the world”.It’s a big weekend for Grant and Monsanto, a company that has been fighting against adverse publicity since its production of deadly herbicide Agent Orange in the 1960s and, more recently, its role at the forefront of genetically engineered crops. Now it is battling an unsolicited multibillion-dollar takeover from the German chemicals company Bayer that would create the dominant force in the world’s food supply. Continue reading...

From 3-15 May, thousands of young people around the world took part in civil disobedience on six continents, calling for oil, coal and gas to be kept in the ground. Anna Pérez Català from Climate Tracker shares some of her favourite pictures from the Break Free protests. Continue reading...

…In the US, it’s a reason to hand names to the FBILast week there were several sunny days in succession, arousing hopes that a teasingly hesitant spring might finally be arriving. A few birds showed up. One neat little bird that perched for a full minute in my maple tree was identified by a bird-wise friend as a coal tit. Provocatively, I suggested that, in view of the current hostility to anyone still evincing tolerance of fossil fuels, it might be better to call it a renewables tit. The bird flew off and my expert friend went home, leaving me trembling at the daring of my own heresy.One of my most easily angered critics has been posting tweets, railing against my “climate blindness”. Already hard to please by my work in general, he says that the occasional remarks in which I flaunt my “science denial” have tested his patience “to the limit”. I am left to guess what he might do if his patience is tested beyond the limit. If he shows up at my door in a tank, I could try engaging him in a discussion of the renewables tit I just saw in my garden. Or I could try calling the police. Continue reading...

As Harmony of the Seas sets sail from Southampton docks on Sunday she will leave behind a trail of pollution – a toxic problem that is growing as the cruise industry and its ships get ever biggerWhen the gargantuan Harmony of the Seas slips out of Southampton docks on Sunday afternoon on its first commercial voyage, the 16-deck-high floating city will switch off its auxiliary engines, fire up its three giant diesels and head to the open sea.But while the 6,780 passengers and 2,100 crew on the largest cruise ship in the world wave goodbye to England, many people left behind in Southampton say they will be glad to see it go. They complain that air pollution from such nautical behemoths is getting worse every year as cruising becomes the fastest growing sector of the mass tourism industry and as ships get bigger and bigger. Continue reading...

Two architects are building a house with bricks made from old construction waste produced by Dutch startup StoneCyclingRotterdam, the Dutch city home to more than 600,000 people and hundreds of high-rise buildings, can feel pretty dense. But hop on a bike and cycle around the city centre and you can still discover empty plots of land.

Furzey Gardens, New Forest For this rare beetle to breed successfully, it needs thatch – preferably old – and herb-rich meadows within short flying distanceFor an insect only 8mm in length, the scarlet malachite beetle is picky about where it will live. Location is everything. Though it has been seen in a few other places, it has only two strongholds, one in Essex and another in the New Forest, both very vulnerable.That’s why I’m visiting Furzey Gardens near Minstead in Hampshire, where in the past it has been found in some numbers. It’s sunny, warm enough for folk to be having tea on the lawn. The buildings close by are thatched. The gardens range down the valley into an area of moist grassland, before crossing paddocks grazed by alpacas, donkeys and sheep, to more fields across the stream. Continue reading...

County hall meeting hears objections to project by Third Energy to frack for shale gas near village of Kirby MispertonDozens of people living near a proposed fracking site in North Yorkshire have lined up to tell councillors they do not want to be the first community in the UK to allow the controversial gas extraction technique.

I note your recent correspondence on church roofs and solar panels (Letters, 19 May). Gloucester cathedral has recently been awarded a substantial grant for Project Pilgrim phase one: the heart of Gloucester from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Project Pilgrim is a £6m restoration and improvement project to help the cathedral to fulfil its role as a dynamic place of spiritual, community and heritage activity.A key part of the proposals fully supports the Church of England’s Shrinking the Footprint campaign as we will install approximately 200 solar panels on the cathedral’s nave roof. Continue reading...

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

ExxonMobil and others pursued research into technologies, yet blocked government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, findings showThe forerunners of ExxonMobil patented technologies for electric cars and low emissions vehicles as early as 1963 – even as the oil industry lobby tried to squash government funding for such research, according to a trove of newly discovered records.Patent records reveal oil companies actively pursued research into technologies to cut carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change from the 1960s – including early versions of the batteries now deployed to power electric cars such as the Tesla. Continue reading...

Illegal fishing robs the world’s oceans of 26m tons of seafood annually. Now, a new international treaty aims to make it tougher for thievesIn the time it takes you to read this sentence, nearly 10,000 lbs of fish will be stolen from the world’s oceans. Illegal fishing, which accounts for up to 26m tons of seafood annually, robs legitimate fishers and governments of revenue, undermines the accuracy of fisheries’ stock assessments and threatens the stability of coastal communities that rely on the legal trade.Related: Off the hook: can a new study in the Pacific reel in unsustainable fishing? Continue reading...

Every year at the shareholders’ annual meeting, there is an attempt to push the company on reducing emissions. It’s time to stop trying and divest insteadIn 1990, a small group of investors offered a resolution at Exxon’s annual shareholder’s meeting asking that it “develop a company-wide plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The company opposed the motion, which won 6% of the vote, on the grounds that “the facts today and the projection of future effects are very unclear.”

A fleeing giraffe, a sleeping racoon and a close encounter with a great white shark are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...