The decision of the struggling entertainment chain to end its captive breeding programme shows the power of protestAt the end of 2013, I interviewed Gabriela Cowperthwaite, the director of Blackfish, a documentary about SeaWorld keeping orcas in captivity. It had quite an impact, not least that human attractions such as US stadium rockers Heart and Willie Nelson declined to play at the theme park in Orlando.Related: Stopping SeaWorld isn't enough. The fight must now go to the open oceans | Philip Hoare Continue reading...

Researchers calculate that humans are pumping out carbon 10 times faster than at any point since the extinction of the dinosaurs

Higher temperatures in France are producing exceptional vintages but the run will come to an end if global warming continues at the current rateConnoisseurs of fine wine should be drinking a toast to global warming, according to new research.

Oscar-winner said country has ‘an opportunity to change the world’ while promoting The Revenant, which has taken the Chinese box office by stormOscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio has said China can be a “hero” for the environmental cause while on a trip to the world’s most populous nation to promote The Revenant.Alejandro González Iñárritu’s stark and harrowing western scored a hugely impressive $33m on debut at the Chinese box office this weekend, pushing the film’s worldwide debut close to $500m. At a Beijing news conference to promote the film, DiCaprio praised China for moving towards renewable energy in order to reduce carbon emissions. Continue reading...

The marketing boss of Unilever on why consumer expectations mean brands need to lead for positive changeThere has been much talk in marketing circles over the past few years about brands with purpose, brands with meaning, brands that matter – whatever you chose to call them. In fact purpose was one of the three most used words at the Cannes Lions festival back in 2013 along with storytelling and data.What people actually mean when they talk about this can be hard to pin down. What’s key for me when thinking about how this is different to corporate social responsibility is that deep and intrinsic connection to the brand and what it stands for. Purpose must sit at the core of the brand, driving everything it does. It cannot be an add-on or something that comes and goes according to whim or budget. It’s this authenticity that consumers recognise and reward, because today’s consumers, especially millennials, can smell bullshit a mile away. Continue reading...

Belgium-sized area around northern islands of Darwin and Wolf will be off-limits for fishing in bid to conserve sharks and unique habitatEcuador has created a new marine sanctuary in the Galápagos Islands that will offer protection to the world’s greatest concentration of sharks.Some 15,000 square miles (38,000 sq km) of the waters around Darwin and Wolf - the most northern islands - will be made off limits to all fishing to conserve the sharks that congregate there and the ecosystem on which they rely. Continue reading...

Smoke from cookstoves among range of environmental factors driving rise in costly non-communicable diseases in poor countries, says Dr Maria Neira

World Meteorological Organisation says unprecedented rate of change sends a powerful message to world leaders to implement the Paris deal to cut emissionsThe “alarming” and “unprecedented” rate of climate change is “sending a powerful message to world leaders”, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has warned.Releasing its Status of the Global Climate report, the WMO – a United Nations body – detailed the string of climate and weather records that were broken in 2015, including global temperature records, exceptional rainfall, devastating droughts, unusual cyclone activity and intense heatwaves. Continue reading...

A new £200m polar research ship being built on Merseyside will put the UK at the cutting edge of ocean research. The new ship ‘is absolutely critical to provide accurate forecasts over how our planet’s going to change over the coming centuries,’ said Dr Emily Shuckburgh from the British Antarctic Survey

Celebrations and plans to buy washing machines greeted the arrival of power in Hotasar, Rajasthan, as India’s ambitious electrification plan gathers paceWhen a government official first came to Hotasar in western India, the villagers shooed him away. He had come to tell them an engineer was on his way and the village would get its first electric light bulb within months. “Bring light? To Hotasar? It’s impossible,” they told him. Others had promised the same, but plans to electrify the village had repeatedly failed.Hotasar, a small village of about 200 people in the Rajasthani desert, is very difficult to reach. In April last year, it was one of 18,452 Indian villages without electricity. In the past few months, that number has fallen to 12,100 under a flagship programme launched by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. Continue reading...

Nene Valley, Cambridgeshire Unusually, there’s water underfoot, and the water in the air steals any remaining familiarityThe rain starts to fall in the early dark, and it continues all day. It’s sudden and fierce. The valley seems caught out. Water appears everywhere. The river bloats, quickens, turns brown. In the fields, filthy water bleeds up from the ground. And then, the rain stops.For two days, the water just sits, the sky appearing untidily in the ground where it shouldn’t. It looks up at itself from a big, mucky wound in the field. Continue reading...

State government calls UN recommendation ‘disappointing’ but says it would be irresponsible to ignore itPlans to allow logging inside Tasmanian world heritage forests have been abandoned after a United Nations report recommended against it.The UN also expressed concern about plans for expanded tourism in the area and called for a master plan that would detail what sorts of tourism would and wouldn’t be allowed. Continue reading...

Environment minister accused of omitting climate change as cause of bleaching after surveying death of coral in reef’s far northAustralian environment minister Greg Hunt has been accused of going silent on climate change as the cause of dying coral in the Great Barrier Reef after a bleaching alert was raised to its highest level.Hunt, who surveyed the widespread death of coral in the far north of the reef by plane on Sunday, announced plans for more monitoring and programs to tackle run-off pollution and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks. Continue reading...

The Human League co-founder releases his Sea Inside Us All project, an 82-minute recording of familiar sounds of the seaside Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 21 March 1916Clinging to a swaying osier wand, now thickly studded with silver catkins, the reed bunting, black-capped and white-collared, stammers his uncertain metallic notes. Even in the height of the season his efforts are feeble; he never sounds as if he had reached beyond the learning stage: the reed bunting, though like others of his family performing persistently, is at the best a poor singer. In the wood beyond the blackbirds flute finely, the thrushes constantly change their rich notes, and the chaffinches continually repeat their cheerful songs; above the fields beyond, where a few leggy lambs are staggering after their heavy-fleeced parents, the larks are up, filling the air with music, and the wanton lapwings are calling everywhere. Yet the reed bunting’s insignificant stutter, drowned by the other birds, is another sign of spring. Although in many woods the marsh marigold buds look no further advanced than a week ago, in a few sheltered spots the golden blossoms have opened, and in at least one spot, known only to a few, the sweet violets have appeared. Even the calendar, which pays no attention to varying weather, admits that this is the end of winter. Continue reading...

Some birds perform right in front of you, as if they are auditioning for the X-Factor. Others give themselves up grudgingly, momentarily, and all too fleetingly. The jack snipe is just such a bird: an avian Greta Garbo, legendarily elusive. The epithet “jack”, incidentally, means “small”; another name for the species is “half snipe”.In half a century of birding, I can count the number of prolonged views of this little known species on the fingers of one hand. That’s because, although the jack snipe is not exactly uncommon, it stays hidden, hugging the damp earth, until you virtually tread on it. Only then will it fly – and usually not very far. Continue reading...

Canada’s Lax Kw’alaams show us how we can be saved: by loving the natural world and local living economies more than mere money and profit

Information commissioner, under pressure from FOI requests, agrees to oral hearing on documents on the nuclear power plant projectAn 18-month battle to discover the true cost to consumers of building the Hinkley Point C nuclear reactors is to come to a climax in London.

Eccentric choices dominate in quest to name royal research ship, outpacing more inspirational suggestionsThe good news for the Natural Environment Research Council’s decision to crowd-search a name for its latest polar research vessel is unprecedented public engagement in a sometimes niche area of scientific study. The bad news? Sailing due south in a vessel that sounds like it was christened by a five-year-old who has drunk three cartons of Capri-Sun.

Nuclear power project on the agenda as energy and climate change committee quizzes Vincent de Rivaz this weekThe furore surrounding the planned Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset is likely to go, er, nuclear on Wednesday when MPs question the UK chief executive of EDF, the debt-laden, state-controlled French utility that is meant to be building the plant. Here are some questions for the energy and climate change committee to ask Vincent de Rivaz: Continue reading...

Sunday 20 March is World Sparrow Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the house sparrow and the threats facing urban birds’ environments Continue reading...

Google has celebrated the astronomical start of the season – the spring equinox – but in reality spring has been arriving weeks early for yearsGoogle has marked the first day of spring with one of its famous doodles – in this case, a charming little blobman watering a handful of lovely flowers. Google’s chap obviously doesn’t live in England, which has suffered its wettest winter in 250 years and where the daffodils definitely don’t need watering.But there’s also something curiously dated about announcing the start of spring after daffodils, crocuses and other buds of spring have been out for several months in some parts of the country. 20 March is the spring equinox which, in the astronomical system of seasons, is the first day of spring. Continue reading...

From Alaska to Australia, an unprecedented heating of planet Earth is underway with rising temperatures across huge swathes of land mass and oceansOur planet went through a dramatic change last month. Climate experts revealed that February was the warmest month in recorded history, surpassing the previous global monthly record – set in December. An unprecedented heating of our world is now under way.With the current El Niño weather event only now beginning to tail off, meteorologists believe that this year is destined to be the hottest on record, warmer even than 2015. Continue reading...

Solar-powered civic lighting could play a key role in tackling Britain’s energy crisisNot far from the House of Commons, a stone’s throw from Westminster bridge, two streetlamps will soon be erected.Paid for by Transport for London, these are no ordinary lights. According to their manufacturer, they could play a major role in tackling Britain’s energy crisis. Continue reading...

Major landmarks, businesses and households in cities around the world turned their lights off for one hour at 8.30pm on Saturday 19 March to raise awareness about climate change and show support for renewable energy Continue reading...

Unrest in Brazil, daily life in Cuba, whales, pelicans and moths – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Continue reading...

As the dawn chorus fills the early morning skies again, Maria Ana Peixe Dias and Inês Teixeira do Rosário share inspiration and nature discovery tips from their wondrous book Outside, with beautiful illustrations by Bernardo P Carvalho Continue reading...

By Alison BrackenburyWe may know the trees but rarely wood.

Highland Water, New Forest We come across beech trunks with extensive rich brown and vanilla etchings – the destructive work of poniesThe national red maple leaf symbols on the two large flags at the back of the Canadian war memorial are luminous in the afternoon sun as I arrive with my family visitors from Dublin. The emblems triggered a memory of two brothers, distant relatives of theirs who had served with the Canadian forces; only one returned. Had they trained here-abouts, and did the memorial include them? Having phoned these questions to Ireland for further information, we walk down the track towards Highland Water.Two pines stand on the edge of an area of clear-fell. One would make a ship’s mast. Why had its crooked companion been left? A black, deeply fissured stem growing among conifers contrasts with that of its orange algae-covered neighbour. Another is cloaked in moss. Only one in this group of silver birches shows the shining white bark that gives the tree its name. Why is that individual so distinctive? Continue reading...

Land clearing surge in Queensland since 2012 could create emissions roughly equal to those saved by the federal government’s emissions reduction schemeThe latest federal government carbon emissions inventory shows Australia has increased its emissions and has come under fire for allegedly vastly underestimating the amount of land clearing that has occurred, and its associated emissions.The Quarterly Update of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which counts emissions in Australia up to September 2015,says greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing have fallen to record lows. Continue reading...

Swedish environment ministry says Maine lobster could wipe out European species with deadly diseasesOversexed, overfed and over here: that, in a nutshell, is what the Swedes think of the American lobster from Maine, New England. It may be much sought after in restaurants but Sweden does not want the American crustacean to darken EU waters in case it spreads diseases and kills off its smaller cousin.The Swedish environment ministry on Friday asked the EU to list the Maine lobster as an invasive species and ban the import of the live creatures. Continue reading...

New polling data shows that public concern about climate change is at a new high, as the US emerges from its warmest-ever winterA record number of Americans believe global warming will pose a threat to their way of life, new polling data shows, amid strengthening public acceptance that rising temperatures are being driven by human activity.Related: February breaks global temperature records by 'shocking' amount Continue reading...

The Flint water crisis hearings were an exercise in blame, but there was little solace for those poisoned by lead

On Saturday 19 March many of us will be turning off the lights for Earth Hour. While this will make for a nice romantic meal, if you truly want to combat climate change, cross off meat, eggs and dairy foods from your shopping list. Foods derived from animals, whether eaten by candlelight or not, require more resources and cause more greenhouse gas emissions than plant-based foods do. Each year, humans kill 60 billion land animals for food – that’s about 7 million animals every hour. All these animals produce massive amounts of waste, which releases powerful greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. The livestock sector is the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouses gases that are 25 and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively. A person who follows a vegan lifestyle produces the equivalent of 50% less carbon dioxide than a meat-eater and uses 1/11th of the oil, 1/13th of the water and 1/18th of the land, which is why the United Nations has stated that a global shift towards a vegan diet is essential to combat the worst effects of climate change. So blow out the candle, turn on the lights and get into the kitchen and cook a vegan meal this Earth Hour. It’s the best thing any of us can do for the environment as well as for animals.

Expert on indigenous rights demands consumers boycott ‘blood-tainted’ products from land grabs amid weak state response, Climate Home reports

Dutch diplomat denies tour, offered to 28 energy attaches and organised by the energy giant and Dutch presidency of the EU, is a ‘lobby exercise’A tour for EU diplomats jointly organised by Shell and the Dutch presidency of the EU has been branded a “blatant PR exercise” by campaigners.An email seen by the Guardian invites energy attaches from the EU’s 28 countries to visit the Shell technology Centre, take an ‘oil majors and oil paintings’ tour of the Van Gogh Museum, and have lunch with Shell’s president in the Netherlands. Continue reading...

The UK government has denied that there’s a plan to tax coffee cups, but would you be for or against one? Here are some of our readers’ reactionsWith less than one in 400 paper cups handed out by high street coffee chains currently being recycled, environment minster Rory Stewart suggested a tax on coffee cups could be issued to tackle the growing recycling problem. While this suggestion has been ruled out by The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, here are some of your thoughts on a coffee cup tax. Continue reading...

A baby gorilla, boxing hares and bald eagles are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Every Friday we apply critical attention to things that don’t normally get it. This is an important function that might hold civilisation together. Or, more likely, not. Drop your suggestions for reviews in the comments or tweet them to @guideguardian Continue reading...