My grandmother, Margaret Lawson, who has died aged 96, was in many ways a woman ahead of her time. She was a passionate environmentalist who worked as a civil servant as well as raising seven children, and at the age of 67 went to university.Margaret was born in Brixton, south London, to Joseph Shaw, an accountant, and his wife, Eleanor (nee Wells), a year after the end of the first world war, the eldest of seven children. Her parents were spiritualists. Continue reading...

The trial in Hwange, Zimbabwe, of the Zimbabwean hunter who lead the trip to shoot Cecil the Lion is adjourned on Monday to allow the defence to prepare its case. Theo Bronkhorst lead the expedition that allowed an American dentist to shoot Cecil in July 2015 and he is charged with leading an unlawful hunt Continue reading...

Ministry of Justice denies proposals for higher cost caps are timed to coincide with HS2 and Heathrow expansionGreen organisations could face steep rises in the cost of legal challenges to Heathrow’s expansion, or air quality policies, under reforms the government is contemplating.Proposals to expose claimants in environmental cases to higher financial liabilities if they lose their cases could deter people from bringing actions, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). Continue reading...

British climate campaigns need a dose of diversity – the absence of people of colour on panels is impossible to ignoreIf you were to trust what you see in the UK media you would think that climate change is a white issue that speaks to and is populated by one demographic alone.The reality is that from Seattle to Beijing the international climate movement is a dynamic, multicultural, multi-class and intergenerational force using a diversity of tactics to challenge the root causes of climate change. It’s just the British movement that is a bit, shall we say, stuck in its ways.

Environmentalists claim victory as Shell abandons Arctic oil drilling, but the energy company is still pursuing oil and gas elsewhere in the short-termShell’s decision to put its Arctic oil exploration plans in deep freeze will have several knock-on effects for global oil exploration, environmental protests and the future of the company itself.The broader Arctic retreat by energy firms once bullish about polar prospects has now left just two working operations in the region: BP’s Prudhoe Bay field, which feeds the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, and Gazprom’s largely symbolic Prirazlomnoye platform in the Pechora Sea. Continue reading...

Lawyers for Theo Bronkhorst argue circumstances surrounding death of famous 13-year-old big cat do not constitute a chargeable offenceThe case against a professional hunter who helped an American dentist kill a popular lion in Zimbabwe should be thrown out of court, his lawyers have argued.Theo Bronkhorst, 52, is charged with “failing to prevent an illegal hunt” when Walter Palmer paid $55,000 (£35,000) to shoot the lion, known as Cecil, with a bow and arrow in early July. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Continue reading...

Brazil becomes first major developing country to pledge an absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions ahead of Paris climate talksBrazil on Sunday became the first major developing country to pledge an absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for an envisioned global pact against climate change.The world’s seventh biggest greenhouse gas polluter said it would cut its emissions by 37% by 2025 from 2005 levels by reducing deforestation and boosting the share of renewable sources in its energy mix. It also indicated an “intended reduction” of 43% by 2030. Continue reading...

Religion correspondent Harriet Sherwood recaps pope’s stance on climate change, immigration, poverty and other key themes of his six-day tripExpectations among American Catholics were high for the pope’s first visit to the US. Those on the liberal wing of the church hoped that Francis would focus on his signature themes of poverty and climate change; conservative Catholics were looking for papal reinforcement of their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.On the plane to Washington DC from Cuba, Francis sought to play down the notion that he was a leftwing pope. He told reporters he “may have given the impression of being a little more to the left, but it would not be a correct interpretation.” His doctrine was the doctrine of the church, he said: “Nothing more, nothing less.”

Small plastic water bags are one of Haiti’s safest and most affordable ways to hydrate. But without a robust waste management system in place, the used bags find their way on to streets and into rivers. Now one organisation is cleaning up the city and turning this trash into accessories Continue reading...

Cars are banned from large parts of Paris on Sunday as the city goes car-free for the first time. The eight lanes of vehicles on the Champs Elysées are replaced with bikes, scooters, skateboards and people on foot between 11am and 6pm. Exceptions are made for taxis, buses and residents’ vehicles. The initiative was launched by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo as the city prepares to host this year’s climate change conference

Zimbabwean Theo Bronkhorst trial to begin, but lawyers say they will apply to throw case outThe trial of Theo Bronkhorst, the professional Zimbabwean hunter who led the expedition that killed Cecil the lion, is due to start but his lawyers say they will attempt to have the case thrown out of court.Bronkhorst, 52, is charged with “failing to prevent an illegal hunt” in early July when Walter Palmer, an American dentist, paid $55,000 (£36,200) to shoot the lion with a bow and arrow. Continue reading...

Sweden abounds in moose, cheering the country’s passionate hunters but not its agriculture and forestry sectors which say profits are being munched awayA mild-mannered monster of the Scandinavian forests is setting Swede against Swede as farmers and hunters bicker over how to coexist with the world’s largest population of moose.Hunting season will open in the south of Sweden on 12 October, when more than a quarter of a million Swedes will fell about 90,000 moose in a matter of weeks. Continue reading...

This transitional season when the sun comes out, then disappears as fast as it arrived, can make growing food tricky, as spring can be as lean as winter

Newman, whose term as chairman of PM’s business advisory council has expired, repeatedly questioned climate science in columns for the AustralianOutspoken climate sceptic Maurice Newman’s term as chairman of the prime minister’s business advisory council expired last week and he has not been reappointed, a spokesman for prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 28 September 1915The specific name of that legless lizard that looks, so like a snake, the blindworm or slowworm, is fragilis; it is a good name, too; far better than many scientific titles. But the blindworm, though fragile or brittle, is not delicate, for it can part with a portion of its anatomy without any inconvenience; indeed, it does so willingly in order to save its life. I saw one on a bank of heather and thyme, caught it, and allowed it to glide over my hand, but as it slipped away I gripped the extreme tip of its tail. There was no perceptible check to the progress of the blindworm; the major portion - the part that mattered - proceeded swiftly down the stony path to safety, and two inches of writhing tail remained in my fingers. The insensible bit it left behind struggled violently, and twenty-three minutes later still moved slightly and rhythmically; the happy owner had retired and in course of time would grow another end to replace the lost bit, an end it could again part with if danger threatened. The advantage to the lizard is obvious. A bird, snake, or other enemy is attracted by the struggles of the reflex tail, whilst the lizard itself escapes, moving, like my blindworm did, swiftly but without squirms and curves; all the enemy secures is a bit of rather dry latter end.Only a few days before I had this object-lesson I had been reading of an incident witnessed by that delightful Indian writer “Eha”; he saw a scorpion vigorously stinging to death the really dead tail of a gecko, whilst its late owner quietly walked away “grinning.” Continue reading...

Imagine if waste carbon dioxide in the air could be turned into useful products such as fuels, building materials or even baking powder. At a stroke it would help get rid of a greenhouse gas, slow down climate change and make money from a major pollutant.If that sounds like cloud cuckooland, the technology is already being used and companies are turning waste CO2 into commercially viable products. Continue reading...

Lawyers acting for Volkswagen drivers in UK attack ‘lack of clarity’ as UK prime minister calls company’s actions unacceptable

David Cameron says cash spread over five years will come out of foreign aid budget as he meets Ban Ki-moon and François Hollande at UNAlmost £6bn of the UK’s foreign aid budget will be spent on tackling climate change in poor countries over the next five years, David Cameron has said, as Britain steps up its contributions by 50% to help meet international targets.The prime minister will unveil the UK’s offer at the United Nations general assembly, before crucial international climate change talks in Paris in December where nations are expected to collectively pledge $100bn (£66bn) a year by 2020. Continue reading...

Weather has caused planting delays in the southern states and while the price hike is limited to the US, experts wonder if parts of Asia will be nextBlame El Niño. The weather phenomenon is causing havoc for US rice farmers and a sharp price spike in the world’s most important staple food may foreshadow possibly higher prices in Asia in the coming months.While other commodities have hit recent lows, US rice futures prices are up nearly 40%, to about $12.90 per hundredweight, their highest level since August 2014. In sharp contrast, soybean and cotton prices are at their lowest level since early 2009, while sugar prices are just off their lowest levels since 2008. And matters are likely to get worse. Continue reading...

Every sensible investor has avoided this nuclear power plant project. Not George Osborne

George Brandis won’t rule out a review of the policy, saying he cannot ‘pre-empt what discussions may occur in the future’Senior members of the federal government have indicated that a review of proposed laws that would restrict environmental groups’ ability to challenge development projects could be on the cards, in the leadup to a Senate inquiry issuing its findings on the controversial bill.Related: Coalition MPs on 'green lawfare': mung bean soup to treasonous sabotage Continue reading...

Here’s how to change your shopping habits when one-use disposable bags are taxed in England from 5 OctoberThe disposable shopping bag’s moment has come – 5 October marks the introduction of a long-awaited bag tax in England, which should put a massive dent in the 8bn plastic bags a year dispensed by supermarkets. In Wales and Scotland, people have been living (in most cases very happily) without free plastic bags for some time.To carry on polluting, it’ll cost you 5p per new bag, while online grocery delivery services will continue to infuriate by using loads of plastic bags and charging a flat fee. Continue reading...

Stock Gaylard, Dorset The oak fair is for those interested in timber, woodcraft, the countryside and conservationIn the great gathering of craftsmen, artificers and artisans at the Stock Gaylard oak fair, the one who first caught our eye was Terry Heard, bent over his ingeniously fashioned wooden bench specially adapted to the broomsquire’s traditional craft of making besoms from bundles of twigs bound to a pole.His twigs, he said, were of birch, though heather was often used, and his poles were of hazel, though any straight pole would do. A blacksmith friend had made his tools. He tightly bound and wired a bundle of twigs, trimmed them with a sharp hand-axe, inserted the sharpened end of the pole and hammered in pins to fix it all with the deft handiness of the expert. Continue reading...

New South Wales swimmers could soon use technology to monitor sharks in a bid to halt a wave of recent attacks at the state’s beaches this summerRelated: 'Sharks don't like to eat people': attack statistics contradict untested theoriesNew South Wales swimmers could soon be able to monitor sharks with real-time tracking apps.

Video footage shows driver’s panic as flames spread from his gas tank to the pump after ill-judged attempt to get rid of the arachnidA motorist scared of spiders gave himself a double shock when he accidentally set a gas station on fire trying to get rid of one using a cigarette lighter.The man told authorities he saw a spider on his gas tank as he went to fill up and unwisely decided to use a lighter to remove it. Continue reading...

Department of the Environment department advised MEPs to vote against tighter control of ‘real-world’ car emissionsThe British government sought to block new EU legislation that would force member states to carry out surprise checks on the emissions of cars, raising fresh questions over ministers’ attitude to air pollution and their conduct in the Volkswagen scandal.A document obtained by the Observer reveals that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been advising British MEPs to vote against legislation that would oblige countries to carry out “routine and non-routine” inspections on vehicles’ “real-world” emissions. Continue reading...

With a quarter of a million fatalities every year, health organisations are struggling to cope. Now antivenom supplies are also under threatIn the late 1970s, a 50-year-old farmer was working in his fields in the Hausa region of west Africa when was he was bitten on the ankle by a snake, probably a carpet viper. Within two hours his leg was badly swollen. The unnamed man, whose case is included in a report by a group of doctors led by Oxford University tropical medicine specialist David Warrell took herbal medicine but continued to sicken. Six days later he was taken to hospital, where doctors found that his urine was bloodstained and he had suffered intense internal haemorrhages. A day later, he died.The farmer’s fate was grim, if not uncommon at the time, but now, decades later, deaths from snakebites are still on the rise. Recent evidence shows that hundreds of thousands of individuals are dying every year as a result of encounters with cobras, vipers or kraits. Continue reading...

Bargain hunters expect VW to do the right thing on emissions and cut prices at the dealershipsWarren Marvelley was in a hopeful mood on Saturday. He and his wife, Jane, have set their hearts on buying a new VW Golf and believe the time is ripe to buy one. The decision may seem odd, given the turmoil that now surrounds Volkswagen. Last week its share price plummeted after senior executives admitted that Volkswagen had disguised illegal levels of emissions produced by some diesel-engined cars.Nevertheless, the Marvelleys, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, were buoyant during their visit to the Lookers showroom in Blackburn. “I’ve read all about the scandal, but it really doesn’t bother me that much,” said 51-year-old Warren. “Yes, a few of their people have cooked the figures, but I don’t think we’re talking drastic amounts, so I won’t be holding it against them.” Continue reading...

A birdwatcher and writer explains why the rare sighting of an American flycatcher species in Kent caused such excitementBirds on passage beautifully stitch the world together. The swallows that bred yards from my front door in the Fens this summer may now be gracing a pond on a friend’s farm in southern Zambia – and not one of them carrying bags or passports.It has been a busy few days for birds and birders. September is mega month and this year has delivered. More than half the birds in the northern hemisphere are migratory and are now on the move. Most of the birds leaving their summer homes head south, but some (often youngsters who haven’t made the journey before) go wrong and, through a fault in their own navigation or blasted by adverse weather, stray badly off course. Continue reading...

Car industry and the government need to prove that cars can deliver clean emissions for the sake of public healthAs the emissions cheating scandal runs into its second week, we could be witnessing the death throes of diesel in Europe.The VW revelations will draw much-needed attention to the dreadful health impacts resulting from diesel traffic. Government figures published this month estimate that more than 50,000 people die early every year from air pollution. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands more who are made seriously ill through asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, strokes and other debilitating illnesses. Continue reading...

Lord Browne’s career has seen good times and bad: and coincidentally, his new book discusses how firms should tackle disastrous turns of eventsLord Browne is no stranger to crises, both professional and personal. His reign as chief executive of oil giant BP was marred by the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005, in which 15 people died. And his BP career ended prematurely two years later after he lied to a court about the manner in which he had met his boyfriend.Nevertheless, Lord Browne, 67, is recognised as a wise veteran of the business world. His comeback was helped by a stint as a senior government adviser on business until last year. He has written a book, The Glass Closet, about being homosexual in the workplace. He has even re-entered the oil business, becoming executive chairman of Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman’s LetterOne group, with $10bn of Russian cash. Continue reading...

After a disastrous week for VW, we look back at 30 years of business disasters and their cost in lives, money and reputationsEstimates suggest up to 25,000 people died and more than 550,000 people were injured, some seriously and permanently, after a gas leak incident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984. Continue reading...

Country halts sale of VWs in the Euro5 class, which contains bulk of vehicles said to have defeat devices, which mask true emissionsSwitzerland has banned sales of Volkswagen diesel cars in the most severe step taken so far by a government in reaction to the emissions crisis.The country has stopped the sale of any VW cars in the Euro5 category, which contains the majority of the cars that the company has admitted have defeat devices. Continue reading...

The two largest markets for illegal ivory agree to enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory to help reduce the loss of elephants to poachingRelated: China calls on US to follow its lead in eradicating ivory tradeWhile differences on cyber security and talk of sanctions dominated the headlines for Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the US, the two countries also signed up to a major agreement to end the global trade in ivory. Continue reading...

Tarbat Ness, Highlands Before I left, I could not resist dropping down to the shoreline to look for cowrie shellsThe number of house martins nesting under the eaves of our house has been the lowest we have recorded in the 28 years we have lived here. The peak of 24 occupied nests was in 1988, and there has been a steady decline since. Last year there were seven pairs but this year just one, despite the fact that there are 12 artificial nestboxes to save the birds the trouble of building their own.So on the trip to Tarbat Ness I wondered if some might still be nesting under the cliffs near the lighthouse. Cliff nests of house martins, whether inland or on the coast, are now rare, but were commonplace before the eaves of houses became so widespread. I walked to a vantage point above the enticing shoreline to look at the cliffs, and there was that thrill of seeing house martins swooping up from the sea to their nests. Why do they seem so dramatic compared with the ones at home? Continue reading...

Matthias Müller, the new Volkswagen CEO, vows to win back customers’ trust and to make the company stronger than ever. Müller says it accepted responsibility for using a defeat device to mask illegal levels of nitrogen oxide pollution from diesel engines, and says it is crucial it never happens again Continue reading...

Francis laid out the idea of the ‘rights of the environment’ in a speech that also spoke of the need to end the persecution of Christians around the world. Our Rome correspondent decodes what the pope said to the general assembly Continue reading...

The chancellor used his visit to China to secure support from Chinese investors despite reservations on the cost-effectiveness of the power plantNuclear power returned to the top of the political agenda this week when George Osborne used his visit to China to underline the government’s determination to push through the Hinkley Point C power station project.There are expectations that the energy company behind the proposed plant, EDF of France, will announce a final investment decision on the £24.5bn scheme during the visit of Chinese premier Xi Jinping to London next month. Continue reading...

Pontiff tells general assembly the environment should enjoy the same rights and protections as humanity and expresses concern for persecution of ChristiansThe Pope demanded justice for the weak and affirmed the rights of the environment on Friday in a forceful speech to the United Nations that admonished against “a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity”.

A prediction: it’s some time in 2016. Your phone rings. Silence, followed by a robotic recorded voice. “Have you or any member of your family ever owned a VW vehicle? If so you could be in line for a large payment” (Letters, 25 September). Press 1 to hear, etc, etc.” Repeat ad nauseam.

The Pope uses his speech to the UN to call for a ban on nuclear weapons and to highlight climate change and the ‘ecological crisis’Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen,Thank you for your kind words. Once again, following a tradition by which I feel honored, the secretary general of the United Nations has invited the Pope to address this distinguished assembly of nations. In my own name, and that of the entire Catholic community, I wish to express to you, Mr Ban Ki-moon, my heartfelt gratitude. I greet the heads of state and heads of government present, as well as the ambassadors, diplomats and political and technical officials accompanying them, the personnel of the United Nations engaged in this 70th session of the General Assembly, the personnel of the various programs and agencies of the United Nations family, and all those who, in one way or another, take part in this meeting. Through you, I also greet the citizens of all the nations represented in this hall. I thank you, each and all, for your efforts in the service of mankind. Continue reading...

Join the debate on the 17 sustainable development goals – the roadmap for a fairer world – by telling us what you consider to be the most pressing issuesAfter more than two years of consultation and planning, the sustainable development goals have come to fruition. The 17 goals are designed to be the roadmap leading to a fairer world, tackling issues of poverty, inequality and climate change. Unlike their predecessors, the millennium development goals the new global goals are universal in nature, meaning they will be applied to all countries, rich and poor.Related: Sustainable development quiz: what do you know about the global goals? Continue reading...