Environment | The Guardian

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 15 April 1916Surrey

Last month, scientists from 12 European countries gathered in a Paris suburb to watch a spring phenomenon. They were not disappointed. Once again, western Europe was enveloped in particle pollution. The Parisian pollution warning service was activated on 11 March. On the next two days, the UK air pollution index reached its top value across London and north-east England; the worst spring episode here since the index was launched in 2012. This spread to cover all of England and parts of south Wales.Despite the two seasons having similar weather, spring is often the most polluted time of year in the UK and autumn the cleanest. Traffic in our cities is much the same each week, but in the countryside, spring is very different to autumn. Crops are planted, fields are fertilised, farm animals are let out of their barns and their manure, stored over the winter, is spread on the land. This causes a massive release of ammonia, that mixes with diesel exhaust and emissions from heating and industry to create airborne particles over a wide area. Continue reading...

Amateur scholar and journalist whose book Seeds of Change altered the way we understand modern historyHenry Hobhouse, known as Tom, made his mark with a groundbreaking book, Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind (1985). An exploration of how western man’s discovery, use and trade of sugar, tea, cotton, the potato and quinine transformed the world, it changed the way we understand modern history.Hobhouse, who has died aged 91, was not a professional historian, botanist or writer, but in succession a sailor, a journalist, a West Country farmer, and county council chair. But his love of debate, insatiable search for facts and inquisitive nature defined all that he did. Continue reading...

ShareAction says that BP has fallen well short of the environmental commitments it made at last year’s meetingCampaigners claim BP has failed to do enough on environmental pledges made at last year’s annual general meeting (AGM) and will hold bosses to account at the oil company’s shareholder gathering.At last year’s AGM, BP worked with groups under the “Aiming for A” banner on a resolution committing it to greater openness about its impact on climate change. The resolution, supported by the board, received 98% shareholder approval and the company’s new environmental awareness won wide praise. Continue reading...

In 2006, Eli Reichman began photographing a ranching community in the fracking fields of western North Dakota. For the last decade, he has documented the cultural and social breakdown of an agricultural community being pressured to compromise in order to stay on land originally homesteaded by their ancestors in the early 1900s.

Busy stations including Waterloo, King’s Cross and London Bridge among the most threatened, unpublished review statesEighty-five sites on the London Underground are at high and rising risk of flooding, according to a report that says it is “only a matter of time” before serious flooding strikes.Most threatened are some of the capital’s busiest stations, including Waterloo, King’s Cross and London Bridge, and the report warns of potential dangers to passengers. “The rapid nature of flooding events often produces high safety consequences,” it reads. The report was funded after Hurricane Sandy swamped the metro in New York City in 2012. Continue reading...

Letter to firms including McDonald’s and JD Wetherspoon raises concerns over health and damage to firms’ reputationsA group of powerful City investors who together control more than $1tn in assets have written to leading fast food, pub and restaurant chains urging them to take immediate action to reduce antibiotic use in their meat and poultry supply chains.The financiers, including Aviva Investors, Strathclyde Pension Fund and Coller Capital, are particularly concerned about the use of antibiotics classified as “critically important” to human health and the routine use of drugs on factory farms to prevent disease. Continue reading...

As long as six years after the school district learned of possible contamination, the EPA required testing across 300 schools in what was one of the largest such efforts in the country – but ‘people have no idea’, says a watchdogAfter the Philadelphia school district failed to tell the public about lead contamination in school water for as long as six years, officials in the city undertook one of the largest remediation programs in the nation to try to get the lead out.But with $5m spent and 20,000 water sources tested, few people know about the project, why it left spray painted “do not drink” signs above taps in nearly every school, or why the Philadelphia school district continues to struggle to provide students with access to water. Continue reading...

The air-trapping properties of feathers – a by-product of poultry farming that often goes straight to landfill – are being put to use by studentsThe ability of chickens to stay warm in winter has inspired a new energy-efficient home insulation product developed by students at Imperial College London.

Outdoor raves have a rich green heritage. But the new ravers must take steps to limit environmental damageIn eco news as in fashion, it has all gone a bit early 90s. Illegal outdoor raves are returning. Remember them? Recent police crackdowns include Operation Enigma in Hampshire, which sounds like a rave itself. Oddly, it is wildlife crime police who are charged with shutting down these events.In truth, it’s hard to stop a multi-sound-system outdoor rave in the dark once it gets going, so the police often have to sit it out. When dawn comes the extent of the damage is revealed. According to police, landowners and many conservationists, illegal raves trash habitats. Continue reading...

Two weeks ago, Clive Aslet wrote about how the countryside had never had it so good. Tobias Jones argues that the reality is very differentTwo weeks ago these pages featured one of the most bizarre encomiums to the countryside I’ve ever read. Written by Clive Aslet, editor at large of Country Life magazine, the argument went that the British countryside is a far better place than it was when Aslet started travelling around it, first class, in the 1970s. It read like a parody: things are improved because it’s no longer “ruinously expensive to heat a country house”, Anglesey is now OK because Waitrose delivers there, and – “hurrah!” says Aslet – you can easily source Baron Bigod brie.If you read the piece carefully, it demonstrated the opposite of Aslet’s argument. In a relatively short article the word “look” appeared nine times. This, it became clear, was the countryside as spectacle, something pleasing to gawp at, photograph and visit. Aslet wasn’t just looking through rose-tinted specs but through a windscreen. Continue reading...

Scientists warn that wild ape populations, already devastated by poachers and habitat loss, now face a new threat from Ebola and other virusesVaccine campaigns to protect wild chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans could be the only hope of preventing the planet’s remaining great apes from suffering catastrophic population crashes, scientists have warned.They say that recent surveys of several populations of great apes have revealed devastating drops in numbers and that protective steps must now be taken as a matter of urgency. Continue reading...

EPA data shows 278 schools and daycare centers across the country violated federal lead level requirements within past three years

While celebrities like Katy Perry, Diplo and Adam Levine are pushing premium Core water, experts say few of the touted benefits are realYou may have seen Core water in any number of music videos. Katy Perry has been quoted as endorsing the “nutrient enhanced” bottled water, which advertises its “science based ingredients”. You may even have bought it at a nearby Whole Foods or 7-Eleven, where the company claims it is “locally made” from nearby municipal tap water.Manufacturers of premium bottled waters in the US bend over backwards to differentiate themselves. The brand Smartwater positions itself as high-tech: “We one-up mother nature by adding in electrolytes for a clean crisp taste”, reads the product description. Essentia bottled water claims that it is “hydration perfected”. Continue reading...

Global warming is changing the way the Earth moves on its polar axis. A new Nasa study says that Melting ice sheets are affecting the distribution of weight on Earth, which is causing both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, to change course. Scientists say the polar motion shift is harmless, but that it highlights the impact humans are having on the planet Continue reading...

The continuing refugee crisis in Europe, the ongoing violence in Syria, the Nuit debout protest movement – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Continue reading...

Three decades after the nuclear disaster, the concrete protecting the reactor is starting to crack. Yet people still live there – and a new virtual reality project will take many more inside the ‘death zone’At first they thought it was just a fire, then the chickens started to turn black. When it comes to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, everyone has a vivid detail that is snagged in the memory; the absurdities or the obscenities. It might be the local village that, once evacuated, was claimed by a mob of pigs. Or the way milk would turn to white powder whenever the residents of Pripyat (the town built a few hundred metres from the doomed power plant) would attempt to churn butter. Or the cat that refused to be stuffed into a suitcase by its owner, who couldn’t bear to abandon his pet during the mass exile, 36 hours after the explosion. Who can forget that 70 Belarusian villages had to be buried under the ground? Or that Soviet soldiers shot every dog, in case it wandered, toxically, into a neighbouring city? Or that many of those same men risked their lives hoisting flags on the roofs of buildings every few weeks, whenever the old ones were chewed to lace by the radioactive breeze?For many, it is the story of a 23-year-old pregnant woman, married to one of the brave and reckless firemen who put out the blaze at reactor number four in the early morning of 26 April 1986. Doctors at the Moscow hospital to which he was transferred warned her not to hug her husband. She refused, tending to him even when the nurses would no longer enter the room where he lay, naked, under a sheet of thick plastic. Two months after he died, she visited the cemetery where he was buried in a matryoshka nest of coffins: one zinc and, within that, one wooden. She knelt at his grave and promptly went into labour. At her late husband’s suggestion, she named the baby Natashenka. Due to the radiation, Natashenka was born with cirrhosis of the liver and congenital heart disease. She died less than four hours later in a tragedy of appalling symmetry: a child both conceived and destroyed in her parents’ lingering embrace. Continue reading...

Government-backed scheme has started offering cover to at-risk householders, but there still are exclusionsFlood Re, the scheme designed to offer affordable insurance to 350,000 UK homes at high risk of flooding, has finally opened for business. But thousands of householders may have to switch home insurer to take advantage.Developed by the insurance industry, with government backing, Flood Re was set up after insurers said they were no longer prepared to offer universal flood cover to households who had been flooded in the past. Continue reading...

Big Moor, Derbyshire The glimpse resolved itself into a knot of plump, scaly flesh, two adders wound around each other“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,” Brutus warned in Julius Caesar, “and that craves wary walking.” As I crossed the white dome of Big Moor, snakes were the last creatures on my mind. That morning’s blue skies had given way to dark, scudding clouds and a keen wind. Twelve hundred feet up, it felt too cold for snakes. I sank my chin into my jacket and walked less warily and more briskly.The moor, rich with curlew and lark, is split by Bar Brook, dammed in the past but no longer; it descends to enter a smaller reservoir, sheltered with birch and willow. Here on the ground were sheets, randomly placed, of corrugated iron. This looks like building waste, but the tin was in fact placed deliberately 20 years ago to attract adders for a census. The warm air building up underneath was thought to be irresistible, herpetologically speaking. Continue reading...

The controversial Belo Monte hydropower dam was pushed through by President Rousseff despite protests by environmental and social campaignersIndigenous communities and the Amazon rain forest have joined the growing list of potential victims of Brazil’s huge corruption scandal, according to a senior construction executive who testified that the Belo Monte dam was used to generate 150m reais ($41.4m) in donations to the ruling coalition.In a plea bargain that adds to the pressure on Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, Otávio Marques de Azevedo, the former president of the construction company Andrade Gutierrez, also told investigators that dozens of other projects were used to generate funds for political parties.

Company has taken more than £700m in free carbon allowances and offsets, according to analysis of emissions trading scheme dataNo other British company has benefited from the EU’s emissions trading scheme as much as Tata Steel, according to a recent report by consultants CTDelft. And it’s not alone — only firms in one country, Germany, received more than the €3bn pocketed by British businesses through the ETS between 2008 and 2014.Yet Tata Steel’s chairman, Theo Henrar, argued that the ETS put its Port Talbot steelworks at “a competitive disadvantage”, because foreign rivals were not burdened by such tough environmental rules. Continue reading...

To coincide with the Woodland Trust’s Big Bluebell Watch, we’d like to see your pictures of the bluebells you have discovered so far this springOften found in ancient woodland, bluebells are a significant part of our springtime. These forest flowers only have a small window to bloom; between the arrival of the warmer sun and the opening of the tree canopy which casts them in shade.This spring the Woodland Trust is mapping bluebells across the country with the launch of its Big Bluebell Watch. The idea is to determine how bluebells are being affected by climate change, and whether any action is needed to protect them.

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Dubai’s flamingos, wolverines in Scotland and hedgehogs in a Tokyo cafe are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

With Massey Energy boss Don Blankenship headed to prison and some of the industry’s biggest companies bankrupt, a historic transformation may be aheadOn a wintry night in 2010 a few months before 29 men were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, the coal boss, Don Blankenship – then one of the richest and most powerful men in West Virginia – squared up to Robert Kennedy Jr in a public debate about destructive mining practices and climate change.The contest had been an epic smackdown and about 1,000 people turned out to see the scion of the liberal Kennedy clan take on the native son and champion of coal. Continue reading...

Landmark event on 22 April to mark the record for highest number of countries signing an international treatyA record number of more than 130 countries will sign the landmark agreement to tackle climate change at a ceremony at UN headquarters on 22 April, the United Nations said on Thursday.Secretary general Ban Ki-moon is hosting the signing ceremony on the first day that the agreement reached in Paris in December opens for signature. Continue reading...

Environment minister told to ‘watch the series’ after saying David Attenborough documentary is evidence reef is safeEnamoured by stunning footage in David Attenborough’s latest documentary series, the Australian environment minister, Greg Hunt, took it as proof that the Great Barrier Reef remained an untouched beauty.But he might have been better off waiting to see the whole series before commenting. Continue reading...

West Dean Woods nature reserve, West Sussex They are half the size of commercial daffodils and more subtly coloured, but en masse they are resplendentWe dawdle at a crossways, puzzling over our map. The guide instructs us to take the path through the larch trees, but the entire stand of conifers has been felled, the logs stacked to dry in neat pyramids by the side of the track. Honey coloured globs of resin ooze from the cut stumps, infusing the air with a sweet menthol aroma.We continue on, and after a 15-minute trudge along the mud churned bridleway we spot our next route marker up ahead, one of the 14 chalk stones by the environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy. Continue reading...

A Queensland couple had a very near miss with a bronze whaler shark when it charged at their jet ski, only just missing the woman’s leg. The Hervey Bay couple were riding a jestki off the coast of Fraser Island when they started filming the large black silhouette of a shark under the water. When they tried to get closer to the shark it lunged towards them and charged at the jetski. The couple didn’t seem all that fazed by the encounter – they can be heard laughing after the attack. Continue reading...

Dangerous levels of chemicals found in underground water, while waste was dumped in unlined pits and barriers to protect groundwater were inadequateTwo scientists have highlighted dangerous water contamination from a fracking operation in Wyoming, three years after the US Environmental Protection Agency decided to abandon its investigation into the matter.The report found there were dangerous levels of chemicals in the underground water supply used by the 230 residents of Pavillion, a small town in central Wyoming. Levels of benzine, a flammable liquid used in fuel, were 50 times above the allowable limit, while chemicals were dumped in unlined pits and cement barriers to protect groundwater were inadequate, the research found. Continue reading...

Clinton’s conviction that she can get the fossil fuel companies on board is mistaken: this can’t be solved by convincing the ultra-rich to do the right thingThere aren’t a lot of certainties left in the US presidential race, but here’s one thing about which we can be absolutely sure: the Clinton camp really doesn’t like talking about fossil-fuel money. Last week, when a young Greenpeace campaigner challenged Hillary Clinton about taking money from fossil-fuel companies, the candidate accused the Bernie Sanders campaign of “lying” and declared herself “so sick” of it. As the exchange went viral, a succession of high-powered Clinton supporters pronounced that there was nothing to see here and that everyone should move along. Continue reading...

Malathion and chlorpyrifos are each likely to harm most of the 1,782 mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and plants listed under the Endangered Species ActAlmost all of the 1,700 most endangered plants and animals in the US are likely to be harmed by two widely used pesticides, an alarming new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis has found.Malathion, an insecticide registered for use in the US since 1956, is likely to cause harm to 97% of the 1,782 mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and plants listed under the Endangered Species Act. Malathion is commonly used to treat fruit, vegetables and plants for pests, as well as on pets to remove ticks. Continue reading...

Defra confirms U-turn after outcry over move to repeal legislation and put industry in charge of guidance on chicken farmingMinisters have backed down on plans to repeal farm animal welfare codes, abandoning their move to put the poultry industry in charge of the guidance on chickens that was scheduled to come into force this month.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs released a statement confirming the U-turn, saying the decision was taken “in light of views raised”. Continue reading...

A giant panda cub born in Malaysia last year is named ‘Nuan Nuan’ on Thursday, which means ‘warm’ in Chinese . The move is intended to be a a symbol of the good relations between Malaysia and China according to the Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar, the Malaysian minister of natural resources and environment at a press conference Continue reading...

Researchers find clouds contain more liquid – as opposed to ice – than was previously believed, threatening greater increase in temperaturesClimate change projections have vastly underestimated the role that clouds play, meaning future warming could be far worse than is currently projected, according to new research.Researchers said that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere compared with pre-industrial times could result in a global temperature increase of up to 5.3C – far warmer than the 4.6C older models predict. Continue reading...

Fridays in April and May will be non-working holidays in the latest attempt to curb energy use as a drought dries up reservoirs used to generate electricityVenezuela has declared two months of three-day weekends in the latest attempt to curb energy use as a months-long drought dries up reservoirs used to generate electricity.President Nicolás Maduro announced that Fridays in April and May would be non-working holidays as part of an effort to stave off electricity rationing. Continue reading...

Australia battled a 14-year drought with recycled toilet water, rooftop tanks and shared showers – and now California is hoping to do the sameAs hopes that a much-hyped “Godzilla” El Niño event will banish California’s record drought fade, the state is starting to look for clues from overseas on how to conserve each increasingly precious drop that does fall on its parched land.The water capture efforts of Australia, itself plagued by a lengthy recent drought, are in the sights of Californian politicians mindful of how the pulses of rain that did arrive in January resulted in much of the water washing out into the sea. Continue reading...

Sanders says Indian Point facility is ‘a catastrophe waiting to happen’, but former New York senator says he’s late to the issue and site simply needs more oversightThe Indian Point Energy Center, a controversial and ageing nuclear plant near New York City, has split the Democratic presidential candidates .Related: Indian Point nuclear plant reeks of troubled history Continue reading...

British overseas territory stops 24-year national day tradition because of threat to marine life