Environment | The Guardian

More than NZ$1.4m raised so far to protect stretch of coastline in Abel Tasman national park from becoming out of bounds to the publicA pristine slice of New Zealand coastline may soon be safe in public hands if “head dreamer” Duane Major gets his wish and crowdfunds the NZ$2m (£900,000) needed to buy it.Just before Christmas a golden stretch of beach in Abel Tasman national park came up for sale for NZ$2m. If bought privately, public access to the turquoise waters and unspoilt native bush could have been restricted. Continue reading...

International Shark Attack File notes 98 unprovoked shark attacks – including six fatalities – with US, Australia and South Africa witnessing highest numbersSharks attacked people 98 times in 2015, a spike in unprovoked attacks that set a new record as human populations rise, researchers found in an annual global tally released on Monday.

International Civil Aviation Organisation plan of 4% fuel reduction of new aircraft starting in 2028 not enough to halt emissions, environmental groups sayGovernments proposed for the first time on Monday to reduce climate pollution from airplanes, plugging one of the biggest loopholes in last December’s landmark Paris agreement.

Boy, five, and girl, seven, hit by falling wall in Worcestershire, with Mike Reid, 54, not seen since being called out near PenzanceTwo children have been seriously hurt and an RSPCA inspector is missing after Storm Imogen battered the south of England with hurricane-force winds of almost 100mph and torrential rain, while more than 13,000 homes were left without power across the UK and Ireland. Continue reading...

While I am sorry to see the photo archive move to London (Letters, 6 February) I find it ironic that Bradford council is happy to do to Ilkley what London does to it. It has closed our Manor House Museum, taken the exhibits to Bradford and proposes selling the building, which was originally bequeathed to the people of Ilkley, presumably keeping the proceeds. They too can be accused of “metropolitan cultural fascism”.

Transport secretary insists government has made progress on expansion issue as Heathrow chief reveals concern over ‘worrying’ timeline

Scotland Yard is looking at using eagles to take down unmanned flying objects – yet another argument for preserving all species, in case they might prove useful laterIf we ever needed persuading that animals are smarter than technology, we should take heed of the drone-fighting eagles. Scotland Yard is examining the deployment of bald eagles by Dutch police after a private security firm demonstrated how the mighty birds can deftly pluck a drone out of the sky.The drone featured in the video I’ve watched is a pretty feeble-looking specimen. The eagle easily avoids the blades and takes its plastic prey away for a mauling. Dutch police say this solution is less hazardous than shooting down drones that deliver drugs to prisons or menace planes (UK authorities recorded 30 near misses with aircraft in 2015). Continue reading...

Research warns of the long timescale of climate change impacts unless urgent action is taken to cut emissions drasticallyHuge sea-level rises caused by climate change will last far longer than the entire history of human civilisation to date, according to new research, unless the brief window of opportunity of the next few decades is used to cut carbon emissions drastically.Even if global warming is capped at governments’ target of 2C - which is already seen as difficult - 20% of the world’s population will eventually have to migrate away from coasts swamped by rising oceans. Cities including New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta and Shanghai would all be submerged. Continue reading...

Sea water in Croyde is whipped up into foam by the violent winds of Storm Imogen and deposited over parts of the North Devon village. Several seafront properties are engulfed by the foam. Storm Imogen has been battering Britain with winds of nearly 100mph and waves as high as 19.1m off some coastlines.Live updatesWatch: massive waves hit Welsh seafront homes Continue reading...

Greenpeace petition calling for UK to follow US and ban use of microbeads in cosmetics has collected more than 140,000 signatures, reports ENDSThe UK government is being urged to ban the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetics.More than 140,000 people have backed a petition launched by Greenpeace UK just three weeks ago, saying the UK should follow the US in forbidding the use of “these wholly unnecessary bits of plastic”.

World’s largest furniture retailer is keen to trumpet its green credentials but is no longer selling solar after drastic cuts to government subsidies

City links: An ambitious proposal to protect the Japanese capital, the rise of night mayors and a greener Madrid all feature in this week’s roundup of the best city stories from around the webThis week’s collection of urban gems takes us all the way from Tokyo to Porto Alegre via Amsterdam and Copenhagen – and ends with a first-hand experience of commuting. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories, and any others you’ve read recently: share your thoughts in the comments below. Continue reading...

Big cat wanders into grounds of school in Bangalore before being shot with tranquilliser dartFive people have been injured during an attempt to capture a leopard that wandered into a school in southern India, a wildlife official has said.Photos of the incident in Bangalore show the animal prowling around the closed school and trying to maul forestry officials as well as a wildlife activist and others who came too close.

Huge waves crash into houses on the Aberystwyth promenade on Monday, hard enough to reach the second floor windows. The Environment Agency issued 62 flood warnings early in the morning and suggested immediate action in the south-west and south-east of England and Wales as Storm Imogen strikes BritainMain image: Waves crash over the sea wall at Porthcawl in Wales as winds of nearly 100mph batter Britain – Joe Giddens/PA WireLive updatesWatch: Storm Imogen whips sea into foam and blows it over Croyde Continue reading...

133 individuals who were monitored by undercover police are pressing for the publication of the fake names of the spies and the groups they infiltratedMore than a hundred individuals who will play a key role in the public inquiry into undercover policing have called for a list of police spies to be disclosed.The 133 individuals are also calling for a list of political groups that were infiltrated by the police spies to be made public. Continue reading...

Actor Mark Ruffalo calls on the UK prime minister to abandon his push on fracking and leave fossil fuels in the ground. A prominent opponent of fracking in the US, Oscar-nominated Ruffalo addresses David Cameron in a video message, telling him he is making an enormous ‘legacy mistake’ in supporting the controversial process of extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing. Ruffalo makes his comments in an interview with Friends of the Earth Continue reading...

Europe and US try to bridge differences to come up with the world’s first carbon dioxide emissions standards for aircraftEurope and the United States tried to bridge differences over emissions standards for aircraft on Sunday as global aviation leaders prepared to adopt new rules that could affect Boeing Co and Airbus Group’s production of the largest jetliners and freighters.Proposals being debated in Montreal by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the United Nations’ aviation agency, would force makers of the world’s largest passenger jets to upgrade or stop producing certain models as early as 2023, according to sources close to the negotiations and documents seen by Reuters. Continue reading...

Survivors continue to be found in Tainan City following the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit southern Taiwan on Saturday. A 14-year-old girl was rescued on Sunday and man in his 40s on Monday. The girl, buried by a bed on the sixth floor of a toppled building, was taken to hospital, but her mother has not yet been found. The man was also taken to hospital but his condition is unknown. The official death toll is 38, with more than 100 people still missing. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft MediaRead: two survivors pulled from rubble after more than 48 hoursPhotos: earthquake in southern Taiwan – in picturesWatch: drone shows damage caused by Taiwan earthquake Continue reading...

Chief executive Larry Marshall is right that we need to invest in adaptation, but this requires a proper understanding of how the climate will changeThe decision to gut Australia’s government science agency of climate research may seem hard to fathom. But let’s pause from the hyperventilation of the past week and ask whether there is an underlying logic.Could the shift from studying how climate changes, to studying ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change, be a good thing? Continue reading...

Despite the lack of oxygen and health risks, high-altitude locations are home to at least 140 million people around the world. From Bolivia’s El Alto to Lhasa in Tibet, what’s urban life like at such dizzying elevations?At 3,640 metres above sea level, the city of La Paz sits in a canyon resembling something of a bowl within the Bolivian altiplano – a high altitude, windswept plain that dominates the southern and western territory of the country. It’s the world’s highest administrative capital, yet more of the metropolitan population lives in the even higher city of El Alto at 4,150 metres, on the rim of the canyon.El Alto was uninhabited at the start of the 20th century, but as land became more expensive in neighbouring La Paz, the city grew: for the last 50 years, new development has spiralled out of control into a chaotic mix of winding streets through which water and sewer services struggle to extend. Continue reading...

The agency, which the government is still seeking to abolish, will fund up to 1,000 homes for low-income earnersThe Turnbull government will announce $250m in loans for energy-efficient public housing on Tuesday, funded by an agency it is still seeking to abolish.

Rydal, Lake District The trees watch stiffly, the path a tunnel through their motionless squabble of branches, bare as picked bones. Coffins passed this way, for burial in consecrated ground in Grasmere.Winter on a fellside path, just a path between here and there. But there seems to be a disagreement in terms with this path, and those like it: the method of conveyance, or the thing being conveyed. Coffin Trail, or Corpse Road.Dread names spread branch-like from these old pathways, through folklore and onto maps. Church ways, bier paths, spirit lines, ghost walks. They eulogise an old passage: along corpse roads, the living carried the dead. Continue reading...

Oscar-nominated Hollywood actor tells PM he is making a ‘legacy mistake’ by supporting shale gas industryOscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo has called on David Cameron to abandon fracking and leave fossil fuels in the ground.A prominent opponent of fracking in the US, Ruffalo told the prime minister he was making “a legacy mistake” in supporting the controversial process of extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 12 February 1916The hoar frosts which came with the new moon do not appear to have been too unkind to the young corn on the chalk uplands of our southern border, where many acres of wheat are green. If the early-sown crops are forward, the frost, on the other hand, has not been exceptionally severe; when the rime has been drawn up by the Sun you see beads on the little spears, and there is no sign of withering at their sharp ends. They stand a change of weather better than some of the early shrubs in the farm garden. The wild currant (Mezereon) has curled a little, the tassels contract on the hazel, and yet an hour of sunshine puts everything in tune again.The blackbird has finished her nest near the top of the ditch bank in a hollow that looks like a disused rabbit-hole overgrown with coarse grass, the remains of last autumn’s growth, and she has begun to lay. The foundation of a thrush’s nest is fixed in the crook of a thorn, quite open, as if the mistaken bird thought that the quicks would bud and leaf enough to hide it before the young brood extend their yellow throats, always clamouring for more and yet more food. Or, perhaps, thrushes, like some other birds, do not care to make a secret of these matters any more than the Dorkings in the farmyard, where a couple of hens are this evening moving restlessly about making those continual odd cawing noises which inform you that the “broody” time is on them. The housewife shakes her head; eggs are so useful that she does not want sitting hens for a week or two yet. Out on the common the furze is in bloom, and a couple of finches are flitting about the prickly tops. They, too, will soon bring new life here. Continue reading...

In mid-January 2016 a three-day smog covered London, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham. January used to be a peak month for pea-souper smogs. Between 1952 and 1962 these killed nearly 15,000 Londoners and many people in other cities including Glasgow and Manchester. These days our winter smogs are full of nitrogen dioxide and particles from diesel exhaust rather than smoke from coal.Madrid is the latest European capital to introduce emergency measures to control pollution episodes. If Madrid’s new laws applied in London we would have had public health warnings on 19 January, lower speed limits and parking restrictions on 20 January followed by a ban on even-number-plate cars in central areas on 21 January. Continue reading...

While some praise the candidate’s visit for bringing attention to the city as its water crisis continues, others see a candidate plying a cause ‘just to get votes’Hillary Clinton has made every effort to make Flint her own. The water crisis afflicting this predominantly black Michigan city – ignored by Washington politicians for years – has become another battlefield in a progressive war between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Race, class and the environment matter again in an issues-based, neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

When bicycle courier Emily Chappell first rode through the capital 10 years ago, she discovered a side of the city hidden from other road users. With cyclists in central London forecast to soon outnumber drivers, she looks at how the streets, and her part in them, have changedI was shocked to realise last week that I’m approaching the 10-year anniversary of the day I started cycling in London, as a nervous first-time commuter with a lopsided backpack and a Transport for London cycling map stuffed down my top. As many do, I very quickly fell in love with the city as seen from the saddle of a bike, revelling in the curious sense of ownership that comes from knowing where things are, rather than just how to get there using the tube map.For many others, that love affair is just about to begin. Last week TfL released figures predicting that, on present trends, there will be more bicycles than cars entering central London during rush hour in the next few years. The number of rush-hour drivers fell from 137,000 in 2000 to 64,000 in 2014, while the number of cyclists trebled, from 12,000 to 36,000. Continue reading...

Efforts to stamp out the mosquito that carries the virus are undermined by poverty in the most vulnerable areasWith rubber gloves, a plastic container full of larvicide and the official badge of Rio de Janeiro’s epidemic control department, Gilberto de Souza gains permission to enter the home of a stranger in the Vila Canoas favela, in one of the latest missions against the Zika virus.As the bemused residents look on, he goes room to room inspecting every sink, flower vase and empty bottle, shining his torch behind fridges and washing machines, checking every corner for possible mosquito breeding areas. Continue reading...

Governor Andrew Cuomo orders review following detection of ‘alarming levels of radioactivity’ at nuclear power plant 40 miles north of ManhattanRadioactive material has leaked into the groundwater below a nuclear power plant north of New York City, prompting a state investigation on Saturday and condemnation from governor Andrew Cuomo.Cuomo ordered an investigation into “alarming levels of radioactivity” found at three monitoring wells at the Indian Point energy center in Buchanan, New York, about 40 miles north of Manhattan. Continue reading...

The Met Office has forecast up to 80mm of rainfall on Dartmoor, with winds of 40-50mph predicted across the south-west regionParts of the West Country have been placed on flood alert following heavy rainfall.There were 40 flood warnings in force on Saturday night across Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, as well as six in the Midlands and one in Wales. Continue reading...

The charity, known for its opposition to turbines, claims to have commissioned a model that will not threaten local pipistrelle and noctule batsIt is renowned for its opposition to the installation of wind turbines across the nation. According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the machines’ blades pose too much of a threat to local species in many areas.But now the RSPB has joined the opposition. The organisation has agreed to the construction of an 800kW wind turbine at Sandy in Bedfordshire – the site of its headquarters and one of its most important nature reserves. Continue reading...

With outer space mining increasingly likely to become reality, firms are drawing up exploration plans. Here’s how one of them, Deep Space Industries, will tackle the job Continue reading...

From the plastic-wrapped Phalaenopsis crammed on the shelves of your local supermarket to the vanilla seeds in your ice cream, orchids are one of the biggest and most fascinating plant families. Find out more in our latest podcastThis week gardening editor Jane Perrone visits the annual orchid extravaganza at Kew Gardens in London, taking a guided tour with Elisa Biondi, botanical horticulturist at Kew, and Nick Johnson, manager of the Princess of Wales Conservatory. And she talks to wild orchid hunter and plant scientist Susanne Masters about some of the more unusual uses of orchids, and finds out the strange origins of the name

Withdrawing government investment from the £1bn clean energy project would be ‘utter madness’, says Tim FarronIt would be “utter madness” for the government to withdraw its support at this late stage from a £1bn revolutionary tidal energy scheme at Swansea Bay, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron will tell his party’s spring conference in Cardiff on Saturday.

Receding waters are just the beginning of the struggle for those affected by this winter’s devastating weather. We talk to some of the city’s residents and uncover feelings of anger and despair … and hopeIt’s been just over a month since York experienced its worst flooding for decades, bringing Christmas to an abrupt end for many. Heavy rainfall on Boxing Day, combined with a controversial decision by the Environment Agency to raise one of York’s major flood barriers, left almost 600 homes and businesses submerged in filthy river water contaminated with sewage for 48 hours.With little warning, hundreds of residents had to be evacuated from their homes in the middle of the night by Mountain Rescue teams as the water levels rose rapidly. Many were only able to take the clothes they were wearing with them. Continue reading...

At a charity event, instead of just saying, ‘Give us your money’, I recited from my Dante translation

Growing a wide diversity of fruit and vegetables is the best way to mitigate changeable weather, particularly by growing perennialsIt has been warm and wet, then windy and wet, then cold and wet, then the water froze, then it thawed, then it was warm and wet… and on winter’s wild furies raged. For some that meant biblical issues; flooding and all its detritus spewed over flowerbeds, wrecking gardens and much more. For others it was more prosaic; just a garden that wasn’t sure which season it was in.Initially, there is little to be done with a flooded garden. Sadly, the rule is that you shouldn’t eat vegetables that have been covered by flood water, even if you cook them. Continue reading...