Bipartisan accord signed by governors of 17 states sets out commitments to expand energy efficiency and use more solar and wind generation for electricityA bipartisan group of governors from 17 states has pledged to accelerate their efforts to create a green economy in the US by boosting renewables, building better electricity grids and cutting emissions from transport.

Consequences of Zika outbreaks could be ‘staggering’ says WHO as it advocates further trials and assessments for controversial mosquito control techniquesNew and potentially controversial techniques including releasing genetically modified or irradiated mosquitos could be deployed to hamper the spread of the Zika virus, according to a statement from the World Health Organisation (WHO) today.Zika is a disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The disease originated in Africa, but in the last decade has spread to French Polynesia in the Pacific, and to Brazil and Colombia. More than 13 countries in the Americas have reported sporadic infections. Continue reading...

Stirling University study shows dams mitigate flooding by acting like a sponge, storing and then slowly releasing waterA population of beavers in Scotland that was blamed for flooding may actually be preventing it, a study has shown.Dams built by beavers in eastern Scotland act like a sponge, experts say, and mitigate flooding by storing and then slowly releasing water. Continue reading...

Whether you’re talking about appliances, cars or clothing, it’s true: they don’t make ’em like they used to. Here’s an easy way around a persistent problemWhen eight different people send me a link to the same website in the span of a week, I know I have to write about it.The site is called Buy Me Once. I’m in love, and I think the site and its mission are incredibly important. Continue reading...

Green campaigners say commission’s continued reliance on fossil fuel imports as part of sustainable energy security package is at odds with Paris climate dealThe future of Europe’s energy supply is to rely heavily on natural gas for the coming two decades and beyond, according to a new strategy set out on Tuesday by the European commission.

The Thames Vision project wants London’s great waterway to be a bustling enterprise zone again – but can the waterfront property developers be kept at bayThe first day Chris Healy came to see the Thames, he was so excited he almost killed his father. Aged five, he was helping pump air down to Healy senior, a Port of London Authority diver – until he abandoned the wheel to see what all the activity on the river was about.Fifty years later, Healy’s patrol boat is passing a safer-looking dive operation, surveying the riverbed to build London’s super sewer. “It’s all changed dramatically,” he says. “But the river changes every hour. From the height of summer and top of the tide it’s totally different. You’ve not seen London until you’ve seen it from the river.” Continue reading...

US climate envoy says threats by Republican presidential candidates to withdraw from the global agreement would be ‘diplomatic black eye’President Obama’s special envoy for climate change has warned Republican presidential hopefuls including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that any attempt to scrap the Paris climate agreement would lead to a “diplomatic black eye” for the US.

Developers have abandoned their original goal of building the world’s first zero-carbon city in the UAE desert. With completion originally scheduled for this year, just how much of the once-revolutionary vision has actually been realised?Years from now passing travellers may marvel at the grandeur and the folly of the futuristic landscape on the edges of Abu Dhabi: the barely occupied office blocks, the deserted streets, the vast tracts of undeveloped land and – most of all – the abandoned dream of a zero-carbon city.Masdar City, when it was first conceived a decade ago, was intended to revolutionise thinking about cities and the built environment. Continue reading...

UK Oil & Gas Investments says the well has produced 463 barrels a day under its own pressureOil flowing easily from a well near Gatwick airport proves large quantities can be brought to the surface, bringing the prospect of an oil bonanza in Sussex closer, the company responsible for the site has said.Shares in UK Oil & Gas Investments jumped more than 40% after it said oil had flowed to the surface under its own pressure at a rate of 463 barrels a day at Horse Hill in Sussex’s Weald Basin. UKOG owns just over 20% of the licence for the HH-1 well. Continue reading...

Final decision on investment in Hinkley Point still pending, with analysts and activists casting doubt on the projectEDF plans to extend the life of four nuclear power plants in the UK and has said it is close to announcing a decision on its investment in two new reactors at Hinkley Point.The French energy company said the lives of the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool plants would be extended by five years until 2024, and the closure dates of Heysham 2 and Torness will be delayed by seven years to 2030. Continue reading...

Resources minister believes China ‘not the only game in town’ but acknowledges global demand for coal will fall as percentage of overall energy mixAustralia’s resources minister has predicted India’s demand for coal will increase, even as some analysts warned him against relying on “overly bullish” forecasts.

Flinders University researchers reveal the extinct megafauna were adept climbers, tore meat cleanly off bones and reared their young in cavesWhen humans first set foot in Australia about 50,000 years ago, they could have faced ferocious marsupial lions that ambushed prey from trees and grew to the size of African lions. A new study reveals the now-extinct megafauna were adept climbers, could tear meat cleanly off bones, and reared their young in caves.Related: 'Like a demon in a medieval book': is this how the marsupial lion killed prey? Continue reading...

Blackwater Carr, Norfolk Silky dark fur squirming on the duckweed, looking like a paintbrush head writhing through green paintThe other day I was using my crome in one of the dykes. It is a tool dating to the Middle Ages with a name said to derive from Celtic (crom meant ‘crooked’). Although it was a gift from a friend, it sometimes feels like a curse.The thick ash handle is well over 2m long and the heavy iron head resembles a massive fork, but the tines are bent at more than 90 degrees back from the line of the shaft. Continue reading...

Critics react with disbelief as car companies suggest EU should spend public money to resurface roads so that mandatory car emissions cuts are not requiredEurope’s car industry has suggested that the continent’s entire road network be resurfaced at a cost of hundreds of billions of euros as a “climate initiative” so that it does not need to make mandatory car emissions cuts by 2030.

The Met Office must have been tempting fate when it began naming storms. Since then the country has had to endure a run of stormy weather, and so far nine storms have been powerful enough to earn a name.But has the new system been worth all the hype, or has it just been a storm in a teacup? The Met Office would argue that the move has garnered lots of media attention and alerted everyone to the dangers of the storms, and so is well worth the effort. Continue reading...

As market leader John West commits to sustainably sourced tuna, WWF Australia CEO says the move will drive fishery reform, helping to provide food security for Pacific islanders as well as save vulnerable marine speciesThere has never been a more urgent time for seafood businesses and fishing nations to make a commitment to sustainability. The world’s oceans are in trouble, with marine life plummeting and the people who are dependent on the sea for income and food left increasingly vulnerable. Data shows populations of fish and other marine vertebrates, including marine mammals, reptiles and birds have halved since 1970.Fourteen years ago when I was based with WWF in the Pacific – where most of Australia’s tuna is sourced – I saw first hand the stress that was being placed on the ocean ecosystems. Valuable fish stocks were declining as foreign fishing nations began eyeing the western and central Pacific’s tuna stocks as their next goldmine. Continue reading...

Merlin in the Highlands, harriers in the Fens, peregrines in Coventry cathedral … James Macdonald Lockhart on how he travelled the length of Britain to capture the wild beauty of its thriving raptorsThere is a spring-like buoyancy in the air and the rolling countryside of south Warwickshire is filled with the see-sawing song of a great tit. A wood pigeon clatters through the trees where buzzards are nesting, sparrowhawks dash, and red kites float. When James Macdonald Lockhart moved to the Cotswolds five years ago, there were no red kites. Now these “least linear of raptors”, which spend their time “unravelling imaginary balls of string in the air” as Lockhart puts it in Raptor, his beautifully written first book, are another charismatic presence in his local patch.

Parliament unanimously agree to ratify UN climate treaty ahead of signing ceremony in April in New York, reports BusinessGreenFiji has become the first country in the world to formally approve the UN climate deal agreed by 195 nations in Paris in December.The island nation’s parliament unanimously agreed to ratify the Paris agreement on Friday, according to local news reports. Continue reading...

Scientists from the UK’s Cetacean Strandings Investigation team are trying to determine the cause of the biggest mass stranding in a centurySlicing cleanly through two inches of skin and blubber, Rob Deaville considers the possible causes of death of the sea mammal on his dissecting table. “It’s a female, juvenile, stranded in north Devon,” he says. “No signs of parasite infestation. It looks healthy. It may have just come too close to shore.”This porpoise, in the process of being dismembered with small parts of its vital organs tested for disease and pollutants, is one of hundreds that come to the labs in the Zoological Society of London each year, awaiting a post-mortem – a necropsy, in the scientific term – that will help to establish how the animal lived and why it died. Continue reading...

Farms are springing up in cities across Europe, but if they exclude lower income groups they’ll do little to help shift towards sustainable food systemSpending on ethical food and drink products – including organic, Fairtrade, free range and freedom foods – hit £8.4bn in the UK in 2013, making up 8.5% of all household food sales.By leveraging environmental credentials, such as local, sustainable and transparent production, a new wave of urban agriculture enterprises are justifying a premium price. But while a higher price point might better reflect the true cost of food production and help build a viable business, it can also exclude lower income groups, fuelling perception that local, sustainably produced food is the preserve of food elitists.

They’re both extreme hazards, but evolutionary responses favor real-time threats, not those that take place on an extended time scaleExtreme weather, water shortages and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like Zika are all having very real effects on everyday realities globally, and they are all linked to a fast-heating earth system. Yet we still don’t treat climate change with the reverence we reserve for something like a terrorist attack.Maybe the blame goes deeper, into our very natures: evolution did not design our bodies to treat climate change with urgency. Continue reading...

Leaked European commission document calls for wide-ranging debate on how to keep global warming to 1.5CEuropean countries should prepare for a far-reaching debate on the “profound lifestyle changes” required to limit climate change, according to a leaked European commission document.The commission will tell foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday that a Europe-wide debate is needed on how to limit global warming to 1.5C, according to a staff working document for ministers seen by the Guardian. Continue reading...

A new US law allows commercial space ventures – but is it responsible and safe? Four experts discuss the issue.Related: American 'space pioneers' deserve asteroid rights, Congress says Continue reading...

Carrock Fell, Lake District “Trough Gully! It’s as good as a Scottish ice climb.” Given that the Highlands are where Britain’s Alpine-style winter climbs are found, here’s praise indeedThe northern outlier of Carrock, 2,168ft (661m), is a craggy dumpling, like its old Cumbrian and Norse name “Rock Fell” suggests. En route to visit Doug Scott I drive past Carrock fell boulders jumbled by the Mungrisdale to Hesket Newmarket road. As abrasive as an angle-grinder, these big gabbro rocks, more akin to the Cuillin of Skye than Lakeland, become as frosted in winter as glacier mints. It is apt then that Scott, 74, has such an electrifying mountain so nearby.Barrel-chested and busy – one minute telephoning Kathmandu where his charity Community Action Nepal (CAN) raises money for Sherpa families, the next forking his garden – he tells me over instant coffee how Carrock gives cliffhanging winter ice climbing. I heft one of the two short ice axes he wields on steep ice. Perfectly balanced, it swings like a tennis racket, arcing overhead. Next I feel the front points of his crampons. Sharp! Clipped under his plastic winter boots – rigid like ski boots – crampons and boots are clamped together by a toe bar and heel clip. Continue reading...

Figures reveal overseas migration accounted for 54% of Australia’s increase last year, and that the population is now expected to reach 50 million by 2086The Australian population is expected to tick over to 24 million at 12.51am on Tuesday, with more than half of that growth driven by new migrants.The milestone will see Australia draw level with the population of Shanghai, which houses 24 million people in a thousandth of the space. Continue reading...

Draft findings of royal commission in South Australia back nuclear fuel storage and expanded uranium mining, but rule out nuclear energy industryThe storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel from other countries is likely to deliver substantial economic benefits for South Australia, a royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle has found.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 18 February 1916The fury of the gale has abated, but the gusts, swinging the tree-tops, are still severe. There has been, however, less damage to twigs and branches than in earlier gales, not because the wind had less force but because the trees are now better able to withstand the assault. This morning the sun is lighting up the poplar tops, the pliant willows, and the red dogwood in the covert with a warm glow; the sap is running and the twigs are full of life and energy; they are now tough and elastic, not stiff and brittle, and the fierce gusts which bring down chimneys and hoardings bend but seldom break these healthy branches.Writing from Whitchurch, a Manchester correspondent tells of a huge roosting-place of starlings, fifteen to twenty thousand arriving in about half an hour is his rough estimate. It sounds a large army, but I have known roosts in Cheshire, Derbyshire, and North Wales which were probably quite as crowded. When the birds had settled he disturbed them, and the noise of the rising multitude was like “some great waterfall”; I know the sound, which reminds me of the rush of an express train through a station. During autumn and winter the starling is one of our most sociable birds, and these roosts are the nightly gathering-spots for the birds, which during the day hunt over very many square miles of country. They are most interesting places to visit. Continue reading...

The country’s highest court is likely to be deadlocked on cases involving abortion, guns, immigration and the environment that it had been due to rule onThe death of Antonin Scalia on Saturday, at the age of 79, created an opening on the US supreme court.Related: Antonin Scalia: man of his word who shaped America in life and in death Continue reading...

I was told I could claim £140 but because I chose a green energy provider, I can’tIn October last year I received a letter from the government telling me not to miss out on £140 help with my energy costs through the Warm Home Discount scheme. I qualified as I receive the guarantee credit element of pension credit. However, I have since learned that this only applied to customers of the bigger electricity suppliers.I am with Good Energy, which I chose because it supplies electricity from sustainable sources, but it is not in the scheme. So I lose out on £140. This seems grossly unfair. I have phoned Good Energy but there is nothing it can do. I also sent a message to my MP, to no avail. £140 would mean a lot. What a strange situation to be in. RS, Littleborough, Lancashire Continue reading...

The carbon footprint of a vegetarian is half that of a meat eater, but it’s not all bad news for carnivoresInstead of the steaks and pork chops in our fridges, should we be investing in clean, green protein? Well, yes. Methane from livestock is responsible for 14% of global warming, and the gas is 25 times more potent than CO. The more meat and dairy you eat from ruminants, particularly cows, the more burping and farting you are responsible for. The 2014 documentary Cowspiracy focuses on the idea that this is the great neglected greenhouse gas source.By 2050, experts predict, the demand for meat will have doubled, and meat-related emissions will boom at 12bn tonnes of carbon to feed a population of 9 billion. Our consumption has to tail off if we are to achieve Paris emissions goals. Continue reading...

Xylella fastidiosa has wreaked havoc in the US and Europe and could dwarf the impact of ash dieback in the UKIt has caused severe damage to plants and trees in the US and southern Europe and now there are fears it is heading this way. With experts warning that it could make the devastating ash dieback disease seem like “a walk in the park”, the UK is on red alert for signs that Xylella fastidiosa has entered the country.First confirmed in Europe three years ago when it ran rampant across olive plantations in southern Italy, a subspecies of Xylella has since been detected in southern France, where it has destroyed vines and lavender plants, and in Corsica. Xylella fastidiosa has also been found in both South and North America where it is commonly referred to as “phony peach disease” and where it has caused severe damage to citrus and coffee plantations. In New Jersey it has attacked more than a third of the state’s urban trees. Continue reading...

After a 400-year absence, the industrious rodents are back. On a river near Okehampton their reintroduction has led to biodiversity and cleaner water“Look at these teeth marks!” Professor Richard Brazier pauses, mud oozing over his Wellington boots, to admire the work of a pair of beavers who have been introduced into a patch of Devon woodland. “Just look at the size of them!” He runs his fingers along the incisions left in the exposed trunk of a recently toppled tree, before turning to survey the devastation around him.The devastation is part of a scheme that backers hope will provide a template for a more balanced approach to flood prevention. The government is spending £3.2bn on flood management in the course of this parliament. As flood events such as those seen in Cumbria at the end of last year become more common, so attention has turned to flood management, with a call for resources to be allocated not to building flood defences to deal with the water when it arrives downstream but prevent it getting there at all. Continue reading...

Boost for UK’s power industry promised by revolutionary cementBritish scientists are designing a revolutionary cement that could withstand the impact of intense radiation for thousands of years. The project could prove vital in dealing with the challenges of Britain’s proposed expansion of its nuclear industry.Related: UK radioactive waste disposal site search continues despite opposition Continue reading...

An estimated 150,000 Adelie penguins living in Cape Denison, Antarctica, have died after a giant grounded iceberg forced them to trek 60km to the sea for food. In 2010 a colossal iceberg measuring 2900sq km became trapped in the bay, rendering the colony effectively landlocked. The iceberg had apparently been floating close to the coast for 20 years before crashing into a glacier and becoming stuck

Gastornis was also discovered in Wyoming but scientists confirm finding of fossils on Ellesmere island as bird thought to migrate during dark Arctic wintersA giant, flightless bird with a head the size of a horse’s roamed the Arctic 53m years ago when the icy wilderness was more like a swamp, scientists have confirmed.A joint study by American and Chinese institutions found that the massive beast, known as Gastornis, existed on what is now known as Ellesmere island, found above the Arctic circle. It’s estimated the bird was 6ft tall and weighed several hundred pounds. Continue reading...

Among 21,000 documents released by Michigan’s governor one shows officials due to discuss Flint ‘water issues’ in June 2014, within weeks of supply switchMichigan governor Rick Snyder’s top aides were probably apprised of water quality issues in Flint just weeks after the city switched its water source, according to documents released on Friday.Related: Flint water crisis: What's in that contaminated water Continue reading...

Mark Ruffalo says that David Cameron should respect the wishes of people in Lancashire and not overturn the county council’s rejection of fracking bidsThis weekend I have the pleasure and honor of coming to London for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards for Spotlight, a film honoring the victims of a terrible injustice and celebrating exceptional journalism that brought the story to light.I’m also taking this opportunity to lend my voice to residents of Lancashire who are fighting to prevent another kind of injustice, drilling and fracking in their neighbourhoods. Fracking is an extreme form of oil and gas extraction that leads to water contamination, air pollution, earthquakes, illness, exacerbates climate change, and turns communities upside down. Continue reading...

Community empowerment, an inclusive economy and small initiatives with big effects are key elements of the Green idea for running the capital