This year, the Met Office started naming extreme weather events to avoid confusion. But does calling a storm Desmond really help?Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond and Eva. These may sound like the first few names on the register at a trendy north London primary school, as one comedian has suggested. But to the people of northern England, being battered by high winds, incessant rain and the resulting floods, the list is anything but amusing.For these are the names of the first five storms to hit the UK since the Met Office decided earlier this year to adopt the US convention of naming extreme weather events. And now the sixth storm to hit the UK in rapid succession – Storm Frank – is causing untold misery to thousands of householders across a broad swath of Britain. Continue reading...

Rescuers use a large net and ropes to help a 20-metre blue whale stranded on a beach near the port city of Iquique, Chile. Boats then tug it into deeper water. Blue whales are an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of threatened speciesRead: 337 whales dead in Chile in one of history’s biggest beachings Continue reading...

Liz Truss says repairing town’s collapsed bridge is ‘national priority’ as authorities are accused of responding too slowlyTadcaster is bracing for more bad weather the day after the bridge in the North Yorkshire town collapsed into a swollen river.

Aid agencies call for urgent action as failed harvests, stunted crops and soaring prices trigger widespread food shortages in Africa, the Caribbean and AsiaAid agencies have warned that tens of millions of people in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia face severe hunger in the next six months following failed harvests, stunted crops and soaring prices of staple foods.Droughts and floods have occurred across the world as a result of the strongest recorded El Niño weather event. The natural climate phenomenon is peaking now and leading to a humanitarian disaster, say agencies including Oxfam, ActionAid, Care International, Plan and Catholic Relief Services. Continue reading...

A giant squid, rarely seen outside of deep waters, is filmed swimming near a pier in central Japan. The 3.7-metre-long squid was spotted swimming under fishing boats at Toyama Bay on Christmas Eve. It reportedly lingered around the moorings for several hours and was joined for a swim by local dive shop owner Akinobu Kimura

Snyder apologizes on Tuesday for decisions that caused the Michigan city’s water supply to be poisoned by lead as top state environment official resignsMichigan governor Rick Snyder apologized on Tuesday for the debacle that caused the city of Flint’s water supply to be poisoned by lead, while the top state environment official resigned in light of a report that chiefly placed the blame for the crisis on his department.

Alternative farming companies like FarmedHere see a bright future in indoor agriculture, which they say can take over local food productionIn early October, a little more than a hundred people gathered in an unlikely event space in New York City to talk about farming. They discussed water usage and efficient transportation, the price of LEDs and intellectual property concerns.

Fiddling the figures on sustainability claims and fudging responsibility – a roundup of some of the biggest scandals and what they mean for sustainabilityOverstated profits, secretive lobbying, the dirty side of industries laid bare – 2015 saw yet another clutch of corporate scandals. Sustainability and corporate responsibility may have become watchwords for global companies, but this doesn’t seem to have stemmed the bad behaviour of some businesses.Here we round up some of the most significant corporate scandals of the year. Continue reading...

A large section of a bridge over the river Wharfe in Tadcaster collapses into the waterway on Tuesday evening. Onlookers back away as a wave rushes towards the bank, followed by a strong smell of gas from newly exposed pipes. Following the partial collapse, the Environment Agency issued a severe flood warning and urged those in the area to evacutae their homes immediately Continue reading...

Four dogs are airlifted out of the flooded Daly region in the Northern Territory of Australia. They are a few of around 60 animals being rescued from the area following the devastating floods in the region. The dogs will be taken to a temporary kennel at Five Mile, which is ten minutes away by helicopter, where they will receive professional care Continue reading...

In Britain we’ve become so divorced from nature that its power now shocks us. Our assumptions about safety can be punctured by a few days of rain

Warmer temperatures, as seen in the UK, means more rainfall in wet regions, compounding probability of floods and extreme weather.December is set to be Britain’s mildest since records began in 1910, according to the Met Office. And not just a bit warmer – the December average for England has been 9.5C, which is more than 5C above the long-term average, and 2C higher than the previous record, in 1934. Wales and Northern Ireland are also likely to set new records while Scotland may fall just short.For some parts of the UK – Cumbria, Lancashire and Wales – it will have been the rainiest December on record, but people who live there do not need to be told that. The two sets of statistics are connected, if only because the capacity of the air to hold moisture rises with each degree of temperature. Continue reading...

Winning images from national and international wildlife photography competitions of the year Continue reading...

St Dominick, Cornwall The Tamar is choppy, brown, but a brief spell of sunlight makes a dazzling mirror on the waterWhite hydrangeas and the camellia named Cornish snow, bloom side by side brightening the midwinter gloom, while the fragrance of daphne pervades the damp mild air. Late apples, like the yellow Longkeeper, red Tommy Knight, and Reinette de Brucbrucks, cling to leafless branches while shoals of fallen fruit are picked over by blackbirds and pheasants. As yet there is no competition from visiting redwings.Burrowing moles heave up sprouting snowdrop bulbs and, on steep slopes of former commercial plots, rows of daffodil leaves poke through the rough grass. Continue reading...

Water levels are expected to exceed those of the catastrophic 1993 floods as the National Guard is called in, roads are closed and sewage leaks into waterwaysMissouri has been engulfed by “historic and dangerous” flooding with water levels expected to crest at record levels in the coming days following a severe storm that has wreaked devastation throughout the southern and midwest United States.Related: Missouri engulfed by flash floods after three days of rainfall Continue reading...

Three-year-old Jeremy suffered second-degree burns in the Adelaide Hills bushfires, was hit by a car and attacked by a dog – but he lives to fight another dayYou’d struggle to think of a more pathetic figure – a koala on an operating table, eyes closed and face-down in a scratchy towel, four paws immersed in containers of sodium chloride.Jeremy the koala became a figurehead for the victims of the Adelaide Hills bushfires in early January after a photo of him receiving treatment for dehydration and second-degree burns went viral. Continue reading...

Environment Agency warns of potential for more floods, particularly in Cumbria, with multiple severe weather warnings in placeNorthern England is bracing itself for the impact of Storm Frank as torrential rain and gale force winds threaten further misery for the flood-ravaged area.As the clearup from the Boxing Day floods continued on Tuesday in communities across Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria, the Environment Agency (EA) said there was the potential for further significant flooding, particularly in Cumbria, already badly affected by storms. Continue reading...

Emergency crews are working on a new access point and hope it will allow experts to further examine the wreckage of the train which derailed on SundayA derailed freight train that spilled tens of thousands of litres of sulphuric acid in north-west Queensland is set to undergo further tests amid fears the toxic cargo will contaminate nearby water.All of the train’s 26 wagons overturned at the Quarrells site, 20km east of Julia Creek, on Sunday. Continue reading...

Continue reading...

Aerial footage on Tuesday shows major flooding along rivers in Missouri, submerging the town of Union. Governor Jay Nixon did not give details about the latest confirmed fatalities in the state, but said nearly all of those who died in Missouri were in vehicles that drove on to flooded roadways. Previously, 10 deaths from flooding had been reported. Continue reading...

If people such as floods minister Rory Stewart, David Cameron and other politicians are to serve a useful function to the public on issues such as flooding we need them to finally learn and apply a new vocabulary. They must replace useless words like “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” with the words “predicted”, “adaptation”, “mitigation”, and “climate change”. They must replace platitudes such as “once-in-100-years event”, designed to give an excuse for doing nothing, with a new vocabulary that accepts changed circumstances and responsibilities.They must acknowledge the predicted changes in rainfall patterns that the Met Office and others have been warning about for well over a decade. Continue reading...

The floods in the north of England are a tragedy. More so, as your editorial (28 December) suggests, because of the government’s lacklustre approach to flood management, which is proving increasingly inadequate in the face of climate change. It is indeed time for a Delta plan as radical as the Dutch response to the 1953 North Sea storm surge (Opinion, 28 December). But a growing number of hydrologists and ecologists now argue that this doesn’t necessarily mean big engineering to hurry flood waters away downstream. Rather we should allow nature a freer hand to slow flood waters upstream of urban areas. In the north of England this might mean devoting less of our upland landscape to grouse shooting and sheep farming, and more to replanted native woodlands and reintroduced keystone species, such as beavers.Burning heather moorlands for grouse shooting, which has increased markedly in the catchments of the Ouse and its tributaries over the past two decades, degrades the landscape’s ability to absorb rainwater. In contrast, wooded uplands, with watercourses slowed by beaver dams (once common in Yorkshire) absorb storm waters and release them slowly. The choice we face now is between shoring up an ever more industrialised and degraded landscape or working to restore a wilder, healthier landscape more resilient to foods and other climatic extremes.

I agree with John Gummer that the government should use the Housing Act to prevent further developments in at-risk areas. Even as we watch unprecedented flooding taking place in northern counties, planning authorities here in the south are contemplating building on floodplains and their environs. Whatever the pressures for new housing land in the overcrowded south, the move is short-sighted and should be resisted.

For those who have already been flooded this winter, their future losses will be compounded by a lack of affordable height information. Ahead of privatisation, the Ordnance Survey has long sought to put profits ahead of public service by selling detailed information to insurance companies, while providing the public with wholly inadequate 5m contouring. Many continental maps show 2.5m intermediate contours in flatter areas. Belgium has a 1:10,000 series contoured to 1.25m intervals in some areas only costing €6.50 a sheet, while the Brandenburg state survey in Germany has printed even cheaper 10k maps with 0.25m intermediate contours in exceptional places, and spot heights and weirs to within one 10th of a metre. Compare this with the eye-watering prices for buying extrapolated digital elevation data to produce more detailed contouring from the Ordnance Survey, so that most researchers use Lidar topographic imaging data, if they can.

Congratulations on a notably hard-hitting editorial (28 December). I can only fault it on one point – your contention that Leeds and Manchester carry more weight in Westminster than do Somerset or Cumbria. Not with the Conservatives, they don’t. If they did, the government would be acting on George Monbiot’s advice and re-afforesting the uplands, to mitigate flooding in urban areas downstream.

The government pays grouse moor owners to drain their glorified outdoor chicken runs. Meanwhile it’s the proles downstream who get a soakingThese floods were not just predictable; they were predicted. There were clear and specific warnings that the management of land upstream of the towns now featuring in the news would lead to disaster. On 9 December one of my readers told me this. “I live in the middle of Foss drainage board land above York, where flooding would not harm a single property but water is sent down as fast as possible to York.” A few days later another reader wrote to me, warning that “upstream flood banks now protect crops, not the city of York”. On 26 December the Foss exploded into York.Related: Storm Frank: Environment Agency chief returns from Caribbean as storm looms - live coverage Continue reading...

Residents are glad to receive help as they clean up after flooding but see little point in protecting ruined homes against more heavy rainFour days after the worst floods anyone in Rochdale can remember, the town was gearing up for the next torrent after forecasters predicted yet more heavy rain. Everyone was playing their part. A group of Syrian refugees from Manchester had even pitched up ready to help, and were put to work shovelling sand into sandbags, in the car park of the Conservative club in Littleborough.“We saw the pictures on TV and wanted to help,” said Yasser al-Jassem, 35, a teacher who came to Britain in the back of a lorry from Calais in May. “The people of Greater Manchester have been very good to us and so we wanted to offer our help to them.” Continue reading...

As people in York assess the damage to their flood-hit homes, they express anger and frustration about government decisions and the lack of adequate warning after years of false alarms. With a layer of silt covering the entire ground floor of his house, Rodger Pierce accuses politicians of hiding behind the emergency services to deflect from the decision they made to cut fundingStorm Frank: Environment Agency chief returns from Caribbean as storm looms - live coverage

My generation has a responsibility to find practical solutions to the environmental problems we have inherited and ensure politicians honour their promisesI was 15, sitting on a London tube headed for the Houses of Parliament with my mum, when she leant forward and warned me that she might be about to get arrested. It was 2009 and we were on our way to a climate change protest she had helped to organise.

North of England, Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland told to prepare for floods, with Yorkshire expected to bear bruntPeople in the north of England, south and central Scotland, and Northern Ireland are being advised to brace themselves for further downpours and the possibility of increased flooding overnight, as Storm Frank hits.

On the heels of the Paris climate deal, the president is likely to focus on the environment in his final year in office – and Congress can do little to stop himBarack Obama will defend the Paris climate change agreement and forge ahead on his environmental agenda until his final days in the White House, according to analysts. And there is very little Obama’s opponents in Congress can do to stop him – unless they win the elections and install a Republican in the White House in 2017.Republicans’ initial attempts to derail the Paris agreement fell flat, with Congress failing to deliver on threats to cut off climate aid to developing countries or block the deal. Continue reading...

‘Tables and chairs were floating around everywhere’ says Sue Hardy as she describes how her restaurant in York was affected by the flooding. Water levels are receding and the Environment Agency says the pumps are now working at the Foss barrier. However forecasters say more heavy rain is expected. Photograph: AFP/Justin Tallis

From a failure to invest in flood defences or renewable energy to cuts to social care, austerity has left Britain dangerously exposed“Money is no object in this relief effort,” came the passionate anti-austerity cry. “Whatever money is needed for it will be spent. We will take whatever steps are necessary.” David Cameron made this statement during the flood crisis of February 2014, and his defenders will point out that the prime minister was referring to flood relief, not defence. But here is “false economy” at its starkest: cutting back on services ostensibly to save money, then having to spend far more on the consequences. As official documents now show, the government’s own advisory board recently pointed out that a lack of funds would leave northern communities at risk of floods. One £180m floods defence project was scrapped in Leeds, for example. And now? Well, according to KPMG estimates, the long-term cost of the disaster to everyone could be somewhere between £5bn and £5.8bn.Related: Labour calls for long-term cross-party flood protection plan Continue reading...

Parts of northern England were swamped by flooding, and Storm Frank threatens the UK with more bad weather. Have you been affected? Share your experiences with us