Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 27 December 1915Mistletoe is dear this year, but holly has never been more plentiful and thickly berried. I have even seen a variant on the traditional spruce fir Christmas tree, in a magnificent young holly tree, covered with fruit. It seemed superfluous to decorate that, for it could not be made brighter. The lighting of it presented considerable difficulties, however, because the branches ran up much more nearly perpendicular than the branches of the fir, and only electric lights would be well adapted to such a form. It was possible, however, to suspend little Chinese lanterns from the branches. A good deal of our mistletoe comes from abroad, and we are on rather short commons in consequence; yet it grows very freely here, especially in orchards, and is a very charming sight on the leafless branches. The result of experiments has been to show that it will grow on nearly any tree, although it does not like resinous trees, and is not common on the oak. Perhaps it was its rarity which made the quercine mistletoe precisely the sacred plant of the Druids. Mistletoe is by no means difficult to grow from seed, though much better results are attained on young than on old hosts. The berry is squashed upon a bough in any desired position, and in a few weeks it germinates. The little roots, bright green at first, look almost like suckers attached to the bark, but they speedily pierce it and run beneath and feed upon it. A healthy tree can endure some of the parasite without injury, but an excess will cause weakness and even death, partly from exhaustion, partly from overcrowding. It is quite possible that the missel thrush or some other bird will find your berry and eat it before the seed has germinated, unless you tie a little bit of muslin loosely over it and leave it so for a few weeks. Continue reading...

Hanford Nuclear Reservation, country’s newest national park and home to the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor, prepares for expanded crowdsThousands of people are expected next year to tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, home of the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor and the most polluted US nuclear weapons production site.Related: Manhattan Project national park to preserve atomic bomb building sites Continue reading...

China is finally responding to the challenge posed by pollution, but there’s a long way to goWhen Sir Alec Douglas-Home visited Beijing in 1972, his Chinese hosts greeted the foreign secretary with a carefully crafted joke about London pea soupers. Replying, Sir Alec rather snappishly referred to the Clean Air Act of 1956, which he said had largely ended the problem. The Great Smog of 1952, which was estimated to have killed at least 4,000 Londoners, had led to a huge effort to clean up the city’s air. Beijing then was a city of bicycles, narrow alleys and small courtyards, intersected by broad boulevards on which there was virtually no motor traffic. These days, it is periodically choked by smog as thick as any which Charles Dickens recorded, while London has little visible pollution, although its levels of some dangerous particles remain unacceptably high.Beijing issued its most severe air pollution warning for the first time ever three weeks ago. Now a second “red alert”, which is expected to last until Tuesday, will keep some cars off the road, close factories and allow school authorities to cancel classes. Beijing pollution has actually been much worse on previous occasions, with the government issuing less severe warnings or none at all. Such inconsistencies and evasions have angered ordinary Chinese. The new red alert warnings may thus be intended as much to dissipate public mistrust as to physically dissipate the smog. The measures taken arguably make little difference to air quality. Rather they are intended to signal to citizens that the government wants to be seen to be dealing with a problem it has persistently denied in the past. Continue reading...

The business leaders, academics and environmentalists warning that we need a major U-turn in UK energy policy (Government ‘must change course’ after climate pact, 14 December) were clearly correct. They were focusing rightly on the need for renewables and energy conservation to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets. But it is also worth focusing on how we need many of the environmental measures that the government has cut back, delayed or abolished for economic and social reasons.George Osborne has understandably stopped talking about rebalancing the economy – given his patent failure to achieve that in five years as chancellor – but effective policies to support wind and tidal power offer design and manufacturing opportunities for British business that are currently being squandered. The rest of the world is powering ahead on renewables, and we’re being left behind. Small- and medium-sized enterprises around the country who’ve invested in training staff – and could be taking on many more apprentices to improve Britain’s skill base – for solar installation and home energy efficiency could be given a secure future by a sensible response to the feed-in tariff consultation and a recognition that housing is part of our national infrastructure and desperately needs investment. Continue reading...

It is appropriate that the Guardian had a quote from Dennis Skinner before the last shift at Kellingley colliery (Last bow for King Coal, killed by cheaper, greener options, 18 December), although I feel sure that he would leave the last word to the miners. The march on Saturday was an attempt at lasting community solidarity, which Skinner knows all about, having served the pit villages of Bolsover through the same upheaval of closures and moving to new pits to the ultimate closure of an industry and a very different and challenging world.We import cheap and cleaner coal rather than invest in clean coal technology and support for our own industry in thrall to the market. George Osborne has removed the subsidy for carbon capture and storage, while the government supports fracking beneath national parks and we seek investment from China to build a nuclear power station while they plan hundreds of coal-fired stations at home. Did our prime minister negotiate for less restrictive competition laws in Europe in order to subsidise our industries? Continue reading...

Re the study by a team of researchers at Leiden University into the effect of watching horror movies on coagulation levels in the blood (Horror is truly blood-curdling, study finds, 18 December), a much more interesting and serious research topic would be how it comes about that various languages developed terms such as “bloodcurdling”, “bloedstollend” etc, centuries before the process of blood clotting was medically and scientifically understood.

Taken during the miners’ strike, this picture of the Handy family came to signify the era. But what happened to them? As the last deep mine in Britain closes, Richard Benson finds out‘I did it by working at night,” says Gill Handy, explaining how, in the early 1990s, she juggled three kids, her own job, and all the housework for a miner husband on early shifts.Related: And now the game's over: Kellingley miners finish final shift Continue reading...

Thanks in part to a strong El Niño, December has been unseasonably warm. Besides being unfestive, it’s playing havoc with flora and fauna on both sides of the Atlantic

Former Labour leader looks to build ‘high-ambition coalition’ to persuade government to change tack on environmentEd Miliband has vowed to build a “high-ambition coalition” of UK businesses, trade unions and civic society to challenge the government’s “backward” environmental policies.The former Labour leader said the agreement reached at the UN climate talks in Paris this month provided a historic opportunity to tackle climate change. But he said time was running out. Continue reading...

Frustration over noise and pollution have led to campaigns against the gardening tools, and concerns about links to class and race have increased the tension. But a new generation of equipment could help ease the disagreementIt will be happening, this weekend, all across the US. The country’s front lawn feuds over the disruptive leaf blower have been at full-blast for decades. Bad faith, personal slights and endlessly circulated misinformation about leaf blowers makes it nearly impossible for those who hate the noise and pollution to come to some sort of agreement with those who love the convenience.Now, for the first time since the divisive garden tool came into existence in the 1970s, there are signs that the suburban conflict may be starting to subside. Continue reading...

San Diego Zoo’s three polar bears, Kalluk, Tatqiq and Chinook, have fun in 26 tons of snow, specially prepared for them to enjoy. San Diego is having a mild December and is unlikely to see snow and senior keeper at the zoo, Susan Purtell, says the bears are making the most of their new surroundings. Polar bears are classed a vulnerable species and are threatened by climate change. The current population stands between 20,000 and 25,000

In the state with the highest density of black bears – and of humans – authorities have allowed a yearly hunt since 2010. Supporters argue the bear population must be kept down, but protesters call the hunt inhumaneLouis Webber has shot a black bear. He proudly poses with the animal as it is weighed, the butt of his shotgun wedged in his armpit. The tableau is punctured by the shouts of a handful of people who are holding placards.Related: Hunter who shot Cecil the lion illegally killed black bear in Wisconsin in 2006 Continue reading...

National Wildlife Federation spokesperson cites ‘cause for celebration’ as young animal is observed among population hemmed in by freewaysConservationists are celebrating after sighting a young mountain lion they did not know existed amid a tiny, threatened population of the animals in the hills around Los Angeles.

While record-breaking temperatures are blamed on the global effects of climate change, naturally warming waters in the Pacific are adding to the effectDecember temperatures in London have been warmer than July’s. Scotland is balmier than Barcelona. Artificial snow covers European ski slopes. Africa faces its worst food crisis in a generation as floods and droughts strike vulnerable countries.With unusual weather from Britain to Australia, scientists are blaming climate change – but also the natural phenomenon called El Niño, which is raising temperatures and disrupting weather patterns. A double whammy then, but how disturbed should we be as the records tumble? Continue reading...

Relying fully on clean energy is not only good for the environment, human health and the economy, it is also doable

Now is not the time to pull the plug on supporting renewable energy. A few years of vital subsidies cannot make up for a century of support for fossil fuels.The entire global energy system is undergoing a clean revolution. The old certainties of centralised power and fossil fuels are falling apart before our eyes. In Paris last week world leaders set legally binding targets to decarbonise their economies in order to keep temperature rises at a maximum of 2C. The future is almost here.It’s a future that is necessary and one that presents the economic opportunity of the century. Bloomberg NEFs New Energy Outlook for 2015 estimates that renewables alone will see more than $8tn of investment in the coming years with $3.7tn in solar alone. Continue reading...

Some institutes of higher education are scoring high in terms of sustainabilityA festive message for prospective students this week. Firstly, most Ucas forms are due in January. And while I wouldn’t want anybody to spend the entire Christmas break fretting about the carbon emissions they’ll emit over the next three years, you deserve an establishment that reflects your values.I realise that few people choose a university on the basis of which is the most responsible. But sustainability is a special case, not least because research tells us that millennials and post-millennials expect green. Often they have to fight for it, however. Students at the University of California are engaged in a showdown with officials over land once used to teach and research agro-ecology (the science of green land management) being sold for development. They allege an “iron triangle” among industry, universities and the state, where the green curriculum is repressed. We can’t be complacent. If it is built into the campus, it will be harder to jettison it from the curriculum. Ecocampus.co.uk has a register of UK universities certified to international standards on everything from energy ratings to low-impact building materials. Continue reading...

Brazilian government holds the mining giants responsible for one of the nation’s worst ever environmental disasters, and is demanding $5bnA judge has frozen the Brazilian assets of mining giants BHP Billiton and Vale SA after determining their joint venture Samarco was unable to pay for widespread damage caused by the bursting of a dam at its mine last month.

Most factors in intense storms and hurricanes are short-term phenomena but there are longer-term influencesWe have always been baffled by the weather and have often used strange arguments to explain its unexpected behaviour. More than 2,000 years ago, one hapless Roman citizen was so worried that unusual gales and storms might be due to the impiety of the nation that he asked the gods for guidance via a carved lead tablet which he left at a local oracle.Today we have a better idea of the factors that influence our weather, though we still struggle to make sense of the reams of data – wind, pressure, sunshine, temperature, moisture levels, and other factors – that we now know influence the daily regimes of rain and sun that we experience. Continue reading...

By all the usual environmental measures, the airport is a dangerous menace to those who live around itWill Hutton’s otherwise excellent article was let down by the confusing argument on Heathrow. Clearly,London and the south-east are home to 469 global companies not because of Heathrow, since Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt also have well-connected airports. Companies base themselves in the UK because of other matters: English, access to the EU, a benign tax policy etc (“Vital Heathrow expansion must not be held up by craven politics”, Comment). Continue reading...

What does Santa Claus think of climate change? Are the elves and reindeer feeling the effects at the North Pole? We took to the streets during SantaCon NYC to get a colorful cast of Christmas characters to comment on our warming planet. Warning: some of the Santas featured may have overdone the eggnog. Continue reading...

For poets, painters and film-makers, ice is much more than just frozen waterIce plays on the human imagination, the object of our fear and fascination. In the Book of Job, the Lord asks: “Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven who hath gendered it?” His wonder is divine and universal, musing on the mysteries of form, the crystalline artifice of concealment. “The waters are hid as if with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.”We mere mortals might be left quaking in our boots. By its sheer otherness, ice can leave us sliding around in search of meaning, lacking the familiar footholds for experience and expression. But we remain receptive to its changing nature, transported by its appearance and movement, durability and fragility, left solemn at its ultimate impermanence. The opaque surfaces and spangled architectures of ice bring us to see so much more than water in solid state. Continue reading...

The Geminid meteor shower, Tim Peake’s journey to the International Space Station, Europe’s refugee crisis, Manchester United’s poor form – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Continue reading...

Jennifer Peedom set out to make a documentary about the untold role the Sherpas play in helping wealthy western climbers conquer Mount Everest, but when an avalanche hit during her shoot, she ended up with an even bigger storyOn 18 April 2014, a 14,000-tonne block of ice slid down the southern face of Mount Everest, killing 16 people. It was the mountain’s deadliest day, until just over a year later, when 22 died in the aftermath of the Nepalese earthquake.Thirteen of the men who died in 2014 were Sherpa, an indigenous ethnic group famed for their ability to withstand high altitudes. They had been finding their way through the Khumbu Icefall, one of Everest’s most dangerous passes. When the avalanche hit they were fixing a route so that tourists – some paying up to $75,000 to climb the world’s highest peak – could fulfil a dream. Continue reading...

Stockley Inclosure, New Forest I make my way back following pony tracks on a path around toppled treesIt’s not long before midwinter’s day when I step out into Stockley Inclosure. It’s brightish, with a chill wind that rustles in the treetops and makes interlacing branches creek eerily as they rub together. Yet, within a dozen or so paces, my touching shadow pops a peacock butterfly into the air. It rapidly vanishes over a bank of still-flowering gorse. In a sheltered spot, close by a log shorn of all bark, gathers some filtered warmth. A large hoverfly Eristralis pertinax, basks at one end, while a clutch of bluebottles huddle together at the other.Related: Country diary: New Forest Continue reading...

Australian prime minister makes 15-hour visit to Japan to promote trade and education links, but says he also expressed concerns about whalingMalcolm Turnbull has expressed his disappointment at Japan’s resumption of whaling on a brief visit to Tokyo.Related: Australia considers legal action against Japan's decision to resume whaling Continue reading...

President touts ‘steady, persistent leadership’ by administration in several landmark negotiations in 2015 including Paris climate talks and Iran nuclear dealAmerican leadership in the world “is not just a matter of us bombing somebody”, Barack Obama insisted on Friday as he reeled off a year of achievements from a global climate deal to the Iran nuclear pact.During an end-of-year press conference at the White House, the president also claimed steady progress in the war against Islamic State and expressed optimism about working with Congress to reform the criminal justice system, but declined to rule out the idea of going it alone to close the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. Continue reading...

Overhunting affects seed dispersal and thus survival of hardwood trees, resulting in drastic reduction in Earth’s natural carbon storage, study findsLarge fruit-eating monkeys and birds in tropical forests have been revealed as surprising climate change champions, whose loss to over-hunting is driving up carbon emissions. This is because their seed-spreading plays a vital role in the survival of huge, hard-wooded trees.Tropical forests store 40% of all the carbon on the Earth’s surface and the slashing of trees causes about 15% of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming. Continue reading...

I was dismayed to read your article (UK lobbying for weaker limits on air pollution, 14 December). The British Lung Foundation (BLF) has written to the government, urging ministers not to open a back door for laggard car manufacturers to escape through.If one in every 10 cars manages to meet legal standards under real-world test conditions, then the rest need to meet the bar, too. After the VW emissions scandal, now is certainly not the time to weaken testing. Indeed, 96% of people in a recent BLF air pollution survey agreed with us that real-world tests are sorely needed. In the UK, there are tens of thousands of premature deaths every year from air pollution, which increases risk of lung cancer and impairs the development of children’s lungs. Continue reading...

Mining is dangerous, arduous work but people doing this job love it. Now, as one union rep says, the industry has ‘thrown them on the scrapheap’The lobby of the Kellingley colliery is thick with cameras as the last shift at the country’s last deep coalmine comes to an end. A man in hi-vis orange walks through, his trousers cut down to shorts, a few inches of coal-dusted thigh showing over the thickest boots; goggled, gloved, protected and unprotected. The coal clogs the miners’ eyes like eyeliner, so that they look incongruously showbiz.

Giant humpback whales, rare African wild elephants and Siberian ibexes are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Nigerian farmers affected by oil pollution get green light to pursue case against Anglo–Dutch multinational as judges order release of key documentsA Dutch appeals court ruled on Friday that Royal Dutch Shell can be held liable for oil spills at its subsidiary in Nigeria, potentially opening the way for other compensation claims against the multinational.

The Conservative government didn’t have faith in CCS and ditched a £1bn plan, but at a lab in Imperial College London, Aniruddha Sharma believes his team has hit upon a chemical that could make decarbonising fossil fuels affordable“I have seen first hand what can happen if pollution is not controlled,” says Aniruddha Sharma. The Indian entrepreneur was born in Bhopal, where his parents’ wedding took place three days before the catastrophic chemical leak in 1984 that killed thousands and injured many more.

We chart the decline of the industry from 1960

Dysfunctional transport and lack of access to electricity are holding back development and endangering lives in Nigeria’s biggest cityNaomi Ndukwu has to leave her apartment in Lagos two hours ahead of schedule every morning to beat the traffic gridlocks on the city’s roads. In the evenings she is stuck for similar periods of time on her way back. She says the worst part is inhaling smoke from the fumes of a thousand cars on the return journey.“I have asthmatic allergies so it becomes hard for me to breathe sometimes if the windows are down, and my eyes get watery,” says Ndukwu, who works in a bank. “By the time I get home, I keep coughing and even exhale soot sometimes.” Continue reading...

The US president treks through a remote part of Alaska with Bear Grylls to promote action on climate change in a special episode of the British adventurer’s reality show, Running Wild With Bear Grylls. Obama and Grylls hike on the Exit glacier in the Kenai mountains, but also discuss the dangers of climate change for the Alaskan landscape

US president treks across a glacier and eats a bloody salmon discarded by a bear on British adventurer’s reality TV showHe declined to drink urine but Barack Obama did make tea from glacier water and munch on a bloody salmon previously chewed by a bear in his wilderness bromance with Bear Grylls.The US president trekked through a remote part of Alaska to promote action on climate change – and show a more human side – in a special episode of the British adventurer’s reality show, Running Wild With Bear Grylls. Continue reading...

Government met cull targets in Somerset, Gloucestershier and Dorset to combat bovine TB, but scientists criticise plan to drop time limit on future cullsThe government is to relax the restrictions on its controversial badger culls as it rolls them out to new areas in 2016.But a leading scientist has warned that the move makes it even less likely that culling will achieve its aim of reducing tuberculosis in cattle and could even make it worse. Continue reading...

From safety lamps and record demand to miners’ strikes, we chart the rise and demise of King Coal in the UK Continue reading...

Belt drive, single speed or gravel bike? We try out three very different bikes from BMC, On One and GenesisAsk someone in, say, Utrecht about the idea of a “commuter bike” and they’ll give you a puzzled look. In such more civilised cycling cultures, a bike is a bike, and is generally weighty, upright, bomb-proof and festooned with dynamo lights, baskets and child seats.In the UK it can be a different matter. Here, with cyclists usually obliged to share the road with motor traffic, many prefer a more nippy machine for going to and from the office, often the ubiquitous hybrid, sometimes even a road bike. Continue reading...

The last deep coal mine in Britain closes today, drawing to an end a series of closures in an industry once known as King CoalWhen the last shift of underground miners emerges at Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire on Friday, it will bring down the final curtain on one of Britain’s most successful and enduring industries.Coal has been dug out of the ground since pre-Roman times. It fuelled the Industrial Revolution and was still providing 40% of power for electricity generation as little as three years ago. Continue reading...

Increased expense, cheaper reserves from overseas and climate change all played a part in the demise of the country’s deep-mined coal industry Continue reading...

South Uist A merlin has just swerved its way around and between their massive bodies in pursuit of preyThey’re a companionable bunch, the cattle in the field opposite. Keeping close to one another, rumps to the prevailing wind, they wait out each bout of bad weather. Today, though the wind has dropped and the rain has ceased, they’re still sticking together and are grazing in a compact group by the edge of the little pool that appears each winter.Heads down, they are placidly content in their own cow world and completely oblivious to the life or death struggle taking place about and above them. A merlin has just swerved its way around and between their massive bodies in pursuit of prey that has tried to confuse it by dodging among the cattle. But the ruse fails, and both birds emerge to engage in aerial battle silhouetted against the blank grey sky. Continue reading...

Councillors at Western Australian shire of Cuballing unanimously agree large regional tip should not be built near significant numbat habitatA Western Australian council has voted unanimously to scrap plans for a rubbish dump near a significant numbat habitat, a move hailed by conservationists as a win for biodiversity.

Four days of heavy pollution in China’s capital means restrictions on vehicle use, school closures and bans on fireworks and outdoor barbecuesChina’s capital city issued a “red alert” for pollution on Friday, hard on the heels of its first-ever such warning earlier in December, as Beijing’s leadership vowed to crack down on often hazardous levels of smog.Authorities in the Chinese capital warned the city would be shrouded by heavy pollution from Saturday until next Tuesday, prompting the highest-level warning that leads to emergency responses such as limiting car use and closing schools. Continue reading...