Environment | The Guardian

People get involved with a cause without considering themselves a donor or activist – if charities stop categorising them, they can achieve much moreIt’s easy to put your charity’s supporters into boxes and label some people as donors or volunteers and others as activists, when in fact most people just want to support a cause they believe in. They sign petitions, join protests and donate funds.Charities can be guilty of categorising supporters and, in my mind, this can only make them less effective. At Greenpeace, we’ve found that we can further our aims by combining all elements and thinking of supporters as people, instead of volunteers, donors or campaigners. Continue reading...

Business claims to take drought seriously, but many have no idea how much water they use and where. This is why they should actUnder the new Sustainable Development Goals, 193 countries have pledged to deliver water for all by 2030. With the UN recently publishing a list of indicators to evaluate progress, now is the time for the business sector to step up and contribute. Continue reading...

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, announces six new directors who have been appointed for a two-year termThe government has appointed six new directors to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) board, to be headed by a new chairman, Martijn Wilder, an environmental markets lawyer.The appointments of Arena’s former board members expired in January, leaving it governed by the environment department secretary, Gordon de Brouwer. Continue reading...

Greenpeace poll finds 61% of women and 53% of men would follow US example and ban the use of plastic microbeads in exfoliant toiletriesAlmost two-thirds of the British public think plastic microbeads used in exfoliant toiletries should be banned, according to a poll for Greenpeace.The tiny beads are too small to be filtered effectively by water treatment and flow into the oceans, where they harm fish and other sea life. The US passed a ban at the end of 2015, with Canada set to follow suit and several EU nations - but not the UK - calling for a legal ban. Continue reading...

Slowing the Flow scheme, which saw 40,000 trees planted, reduced peak river flow by 20%, after 50mm of rain fell in 36 hoursTree planting and other natural approaches have prevented flooding at Pickering in North Yorkshire over Christmas, at a time when heavy rainfall caused devastating flooding across the region.An analysis of the Slowing the Flow scheme published on Wednesday concludes that the measures reduced peak river flow by 15-20% at a time when 50mm of rain fell on sodden ground in 36 hours. The scheme was set up in 2009 after the town had suffered four serious floods in 10 years, with the flooding in 2007 estimated to have caused about £7m of damage. Continue reading...

Accorhotels, which includes Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis, will reduce number of main courses on offer and record all food thrown awayOne of the world’s biggest hotel chains has announced it will plant vegetable gardens at many of its hotels as part of a plan to cut food waste by a third.

Staff believe the common New Zealand octopus fled its enclosure when the lid was left ajar and headed to freedom down a pipe that leads to the seaAn octopus has made a brazen escape from the national aquarium in New Zealand by breaking out of its tank, slithering down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing into the sea.In scenes reminiscent of Finding Nemo, Inky – a common New Zealand octopus – made his dash for freedom after the lid of his tank was accidentally left slightly ajar. Continue reading...

James Hansen has crossed the classic divide between research and activism. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he responds to critics and explains why he believes the reality of climate change requires him to speak out

Red crabs, also known as tuna crabs or pleuroncodes planipes, swarm at the Hannibal Bank Seamount, off the Pacific coast of Panama. To see such huge numbers of crabs so far south is very unusual, according to biologists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who have documented the phenomenon

Green party wants first minister to raise tax rates to prevent spending cuts if it gains seats in parliamentary pollThe Scottish Green party has promised leftwing voters it would put Nicola Sturgeon under friendly pressure to tax the rich if it wins a large number of Holyrood seats in May.Patrick Harvie, the party’s co-convenor, said raising tax rates to prevent spending cuts would be “agenda item one” if Sturgeon invited the Scottish Green party (SGP) into talks after the Scottish parliamentary election. Continue reading...

Supermarket’s TV campaign will use footage shot that day from its UK suppliers and comes after Tesco ‘fake farms’ rowA dairy cow wearing a small, lightweight camera will take centre stage in a series of Waitrose TV commercials that the supermarket hopes will help shoppers connect with the farms their food and drink comes from.In what it claims is an industry first, Waitrose is using “cow cam” to capture scenes from a Berkshire dairy farm. Other ads will focus on a farm producing free range eggs and fishermen that supply Waitrose fresh fish counters. Continue reading...

As shareholders gather for the AGM, the energy giant is still hunting for more hydrocarbons while pretending to care about the planetAs shareholders gather for BP’s AGM in London this week, they deserve to be made aware of just how at-risk their investments are — and what BP thinks about the future of the firm and the planet. Because the company their investments allow to operate is fourth in a list of the world’s top-emitting companies and was responsible for 2.47% of global emissions from 1751-2010.The company will be forever linked to the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico — but its the daily environmental toll that ultimately matters more — the constant, minute-by-minute flow of carbon into the atmosphere. Continue reading...

Researchers ‘have no idea’ why red crabs off Panama might be behaving in such a way, says a biologist: ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen’Descending in a submersible in waters off Panama, scientists noticed something strange happening near the seafloor. It was a drifting fog of sediment, disturbed by something below. Diving deeper, the scientists found the cause: crabs, thousands of them, swarming in a way never before recorded.“We just saw this cloud but had no idea what was causing it,” said Jesús Pineda, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the lead author of a paper on the crabs published on Tuesday. Continue reading...

In recent years, public contests have been used for everything from the New York ‘Dryline’ to a new Guggenheim. But do these competitions just encourage gimmicky ideas – or are they a better way to prepare cities for a changing world?Just as musicians can build their year around festival appearances, architects can now fill their calendar with deadlines for design competitions. The international contest is an increasingly fashionable way of generating new ideas, forging reputations and getting some interesting things built.

Climate Home: Climate change could aggravate water shortages in three-quarters of world’s small islands by 2050, researchers warnClimbing sea levels bedevil low-lying islands.But a hotter planet brings a less obvious menace: drought. Continue reading...

This series of images shows the extent of China’s pollution problems and the human toll of exponential growth on local communities in China’s vast and severely damaged northern region.All photographs by Souvid Datta, an Abigail Cohen Fellow, for ChinaFile. The fellowship is a joint initiative of ChinaFile and Magnum Foundation Continue reading...

This is our opportunity to fix the accounting rules and keep national emissions within UK carbon budgetsLast month the government made a landmark decision to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero sometime this century. This makes Britain the first country to commit to one of the key pledges in the Paris climate agreement reached last December.

Ministry’s samples from 2,103 wells in eastern flatlands show none were considered pristine and half were unfit for human consumption of any typeMore than 80% of China’s underground water drawn from relatively shallow wells used by farms, factories and mostly rural households is unsafe for drinking because of pollution, a government report says.The Water Resources Ministry study posted to its website on Tuesday analysed samples drawn in January from 2,103 wells used for monitoring in the country’s major eastern flatland watersheds. Continue reading...

Designed for Stalin as the world’s first completely planned city, Magnitogorsk has yet to confront its controversial past – from the forced labour that helped build it in record time, to the severe pollution that has plagued its residentsIn July 1931, Ibragim Akhmetzyanov arrived in Magnitogorsk in a wooden boxcar with his wife and eight children. The sight that greeted them was bleak.In the middle of the frigid, windswept steppe, a cluster of tents and ramshackle barracks stood at the foot of the ominous “Magnetic Mountain”, a landform so full of iron ore that compasses could not function near it and birds avoided flying over it. Continue reading...

Villagers in Zambia’s Copperbelt region claim water was contaminated by a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, but the firm claims case should be heard in Zambia, not the UK

Snake expert rejects suggestion that the 7.5m python might have killed itselfA python caught in Malaysia and first thought to be the longest snake in captivity has lost both its run at the title and its life.

Ebernoe Common, West Sussex These flowers are in a race against time to propagate before the trees burst into lifeThe trees are still bare but spring flowers are emerging through the leaf litter of the woodland floor. White, star-like wood anemones, yellow lesser celandines and the green blades of bluebell plants are scattered in the pools of morning sunshine. A few native bluebell flower heads are beginning to unfurl, raising their blue-mauve trumpets as the light streams down through the skeletal canopy above.These early spring flowers are in a race against time to propagate before the trees burst into life again and the wood below returns to relative darkness. A bold wren announces my presence from a log with a panicked series of rapid-fire “chicks”, its tail flicking up and down. Continue reading...

Farmers in the occupied West Bank struggle daily against a broken supply chain that restricts access to agricultural equipment, technology and waterHow produce from the West Bank should be labelled – be it from Israeli-occupied or Palestinian territories – has become a highly controversial issue. Yet the daily obstacles facing Palestinian farmers in the West Bank is probably less well known.

Tami Wilson, a zookeeper at Symbio Wildlife Park in New South Wales, has developed such a strong bond with little Harry, an orphaned koala joey, that at the sight of her he will climb down from the trees for a belly rub and cuddle. Video of Harry has gone viral since the sanctuary posted it on Saturday, with millions of views worldwide Continue reading...

If Jayden Burleigh, 22, did die as a result of the redback bite, it will be the first such fatality in more than 60 years thanks to the introduction of antivenomA 22-year-old Australian has died after being bitten by a redback spider in what may turn out to be the first such death since the antivenom was introduced 60 years ago.Jayden Burleigh, from Sydney’s northern beaches, was reportedly bitten while walking on the north coast of New South Wales last week. Continue reading...

Friends of the Earth joins union and business groups to call on state premier to adopt an ambitious targetWith the Victorian Labor government’s announcement on a renewable energy target imminent, environment, union and business groups are urging the premier, Daniel Andrews, to be ambitious, saying it would send a national message on clean energy.Related: Australia's 'future' fund should not consider financing the energy projects of the past | Stephen Bygraves Continue reading...

Cranswick’s purchase of East Anglian poultry producer, with £83.8m revenues, follows acquisition of Benson Park in 2014The family behind East Anglian poultry business Crown Chicken is set for a multimillion-pound windfall after it was sold to UK pork producer Cranswick in a £40m deal.Crown Chicken was set up in 1951 and is currently chaired by David Thacker – son of the founder, Fred Thacker – who owns a majority of the shares. Thacker will step down once the deal is completed, but his fellow directors Nigel Armes and Matthew Ward, who own stakes in the business, will stay on. Continue reading...

From counting petals to developing deployable structures, nature’s blooms can help teachers explore a variety of topics in the classroomWe use flowers to mark all kinds of moments – celebration, remembrance, romance (or, for the more suspicious among us, a hint that the flower-giver has done something wrong). But at this time of year, they signify one thing above all else: the fact that spring is here and winter is finally on its way out.

Blighted European hop harvest last year and growing demand for craft beer may see prices rise too high for some independent brewersFans of craft beer could soon face higher bar bills as small, independent brewers face a potentially serious shortage of hops.

A break in the Isles of Scilly showed me how children thrive away from traffic. Just a shame that we had to navigate the M5 to get thereI realised it would be an unusual Easter holiday when we were met at the jetty of St Martin’s, in the Isles of Scilly, by a 1965 Massey Ferguson tractor. Its tiny trailer transported me, my children and our luggage to our chalet.Here was a rural idyll of the kind that vanished from mainland Britain in the last century: sparrows chirruping from every bush, roadside stalls with open money boxes selling free-range eggs and everyone saying hello. Continue reading...

Three men found on a south Pacific island pulled off a text-book escape by writing ‘HELP’ in the sand. But other castaways have been even more inventiveWhat would you do if you were stranded on a desert island? Keep calm and wait for Man Friday? Finally decide on those Desert Island Discs? Fashion a boat out of nothing but a washed-up piece of portable toilet and some Hollywood-sized chutzpah a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away? Wish you were as handy, or at least as good looking, as the cast(aways) of Lost? Or would you take a different palm leaf out of the Book of Desert Island Rescue Motifs (one imagines it has a foreward written by Bear Grylls), write HELP in the sand with it, and wait …Related: Three men rescued from deserted island after spelling 'help' with palm leaves Continue reading...

Malaysian civil defence officers look after a python, measuring nearly eight-metres in length, after it was caught in Penang, northern Malaysia on Thursday. The snake was caught by the civil defence department after workers spotted it on a construction site the town of Paya Terubong. The reptile is currently at the southwest district civil defence team’s office in Sungai Ara, but will eventually be handed to the state wildlife department Continue reading...

Local authorities say snake is estimated to be 8m long, beating the previous Guinness world record for a snake of the same species called MedusaA huge python found on a construction site in Malaysia could take the record for the longest snake ever to be caught, with initial estimates at eight metres.

Concerns remain chemical widely used in agriculture as a herbicide can kill all plants, algae, bacteria and fungi in a crop’s vicinity, affecting biodiversityTwo-thirds of Europeans support a ban on glyphosate, the most-widely used agricultural chemical in the world’s history, according to a new Yougov poll.A prohibition on the herbicide ingredient was backed by three quarters of Italians, 70% of Germans, 60% of French and 56% of Britons, in a survey of more than 7,000 people across the EU’s five biggest states. Continue reading...

To build on its historic election victory, Myanmar’s ruling party must invest in agriculture to tackle poverty and stimulate growthOn 30 March, Htin Kyaw, a long-time adviser and ally of Aung San Suu Kyi – whose National League for Democracy party achieved a historic victory in recent elections – became the first elected civilian to hold office in Myanmar since the army took over in 1962.The NLD won the democratic battle and enjoys unparalleled political capital and legitimacy. It must now deliver on exceedingly high expectations, build a cohesive multi-ethnic state and improve citizens’ lives. Economic progress will be indispensable if the country is to overcome years of ethnic armed conflict and move towards a common future. So what can the new government do?

Companies from Walmart to McDonald’s have listened to American consumers on animal welfare standards – UK retailers have no excuse not to follow suit

Independent review says EU rules, such as on clean water and wildlife protection, have benefited UK’s environmentEU membership has been a major factor behind the “marked improvement in environmental quality in the UK” since the 1980s, according to an independent report into the potential impact of a leave vote in the June referendum.The 60,000-word report, from the group The UK in a Changing Europe, found that the net result on the UK’s environment from EU membership had been positive and that leaving the union would be risky and could damage key green protections. It said that actions taken to fulfil EU obligations, for instance on clean water and wildlife protection, had been beneficial to the UK’s environment, along with EU policies that have helped infrastructure investments, for instance in renewable energy. Continue reading...

The Grattan Institute has proposed adapting the Coalition’s Direct Action into a bipartisan policy that effectively cuts emissionsA climate change policy that could be both effective, and potentially supported by both major parties, has been proposed by the Grattan Institute in a new report that tries to find a pragmatic solution to the decade of toxic political debates on the issue.Media reports have emerged suggesting Labor would adopt a policy of opening an inquiry into Australia’s energy industry, and shutting down the oldest and dirtiest power stations to lower emissions and create more demand for renewable energy. Continue reading...

As polar ice retreats, tourists are rushing in, many claiming to bear witness to climate change. But their expeditions are only speeding the region’s destructionEvery year at about this time, a Russian cargo plane deposits many tonnes of equipment on an ice floe one degree off the north pole. There, at the 89th parallel, engineers begin construction of a private ice air strip and base camp for scientists, adventurers and, more than ever, wealthy tourists.Related: Northwest Passage, Canada: going with the floe Continue reading...

Holmes Chapel, Cheshire Drones make brief, veering, playful flights, revealing the familiar from fresh anglesRough ground looks like chenille, softly tactile, from 20 metres up. A puddle blinks back whitely, a fallen fragment of sky. I can’t absorb what I’m seeing fast enough. The land beneath me rolls away and the horizon pulls near, creating a sense of adventurous possibility. I’m used to trudging about the garden, hauling sacks of compost, dragging wheelbarrows over gravel; this, by contrast, feels like freedom.Hoping for deeper knowledge of my garden, a hectare (2.47 acres) of former farmland on the Cheshire plain, I’ve acquired a small drone with a camera. Drones make brief, veering, playful flights, revealing the familiar from fresh angles. Mine seems more like a kite or a bird than a human with wings: it’s heedless of paths, happiest in ascent, sensitive to the breeze. When it skims the ground it glides over obstacles with grace and purpose, motors no louder than a couple of bumblebees. Continue reading...

Documentarian’s message rings especially loud for Australians, who have the privilege and duty to look after this natural wonder“Do we really care so little about the Earth on which we live that we don’t wish to protect one of its greatest wonders from the consequences of our behaviour?”Related: Greg Hunt rebuked by Attenborough film-maker after upbeat verdict on Great Barrier Reef Continue reading...