Conservationist who inspired the creation of wildlife trusts and nature reservesIn the school summer holiday of 1937, the conservationist Ted Smith, who has died aged 95, cycled 14 miles from his home in rural Lincolnshire to Gibraltar Point. The sixth-former took his cheap binoculars to look for terns on this lonely stretch of sand and salt marsh beyond Skegness and, surrounded by sky and sea, he fell in love with the place. He noted three “gaudy new houses” on a road cut into the sand dunes, typical of the unrestrained development then enveloping the British coastline.A passion for wildlife and its habitats fired Smith for the rest of his life. This unassuming teacher battled against the tides of his time, industrial agriculture, toxic pesticides, the supplanting of ancient woods with conifers, the ploughing of heaths, and urban development, to cajole into existence a national network of 47 conservation charities now known as the Wildlife Trusts. Smith combined practical action – saving the last fragments of heath, meadow and coast (including Gibraltar Point) from destruction in Lincolnshire – with farsighted thinking, stressing the importance of landscape-scale conservation and the need to open the trusts’ 2,300 nature reserves to the public. Continue reading...

New Orleans musicians Tom Henehan and David S Lewis talk – and sing – about hurricane Katrina and the way it changed their city. Look out for special guest Barack Obama and his motorcade.

Rigged tests mean diesel pollution levels are higher than thought. But is diesel that bad? And how will it affect you?The carmaker Volkswagen has been forced to admit that it falsified emissions tests run on its vehicle engines. It did so by employing special technology that only turned on during test conditions, and which artificially lowered the amount of pollutants produced from its diesel cars. This led to vehicle licensing authorities, which conduct the tests in order to protect public safety and cut pollution, believing that the engines were much cleaner than they really were. Continue reading...

EU embargo on trade, possession and transport of 37 invasive species filed at the WTO, but conservationists say species omitted for commercial reasons pose a major threat to biodiversityAnyone caught exporting or possessing invasive species such as grey squirrels, ruddy ducks and water hyacinth in the EU will soon face heavy fines and confiscations, under a new blacklist filed at the WTO, which the Guardian has seen.Raccoons, Javan mongooses, and South American coypus are among the 37 types of flora and fauna that will soon face eradication or strict controls in a bid to halt threats to native wildlife and economic losses, estimated at €12bn (£8.8bn) per year by the EU. Continue reading...

Sick sea stars, a baby opossum and a bright pink river are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Key shareholder blames cuts in renewable energy subsidies for decision to abandon White Rose CCSAn ambitious plan to build a £1bn prototype plant to capture carbon from a coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire is under threat after a key shareholder pulled out.

Nicolas Kent’s series of seven new dramas follow the politics, power and corruption behind the oil that has shaped the modern world

Malcolm Turnbull is now defending the policy he criticised, but his truths about climate change won’t go away and this stop-gap scheme will come badly unstuckYou asked for this Malcolm, standing in the wind outside the war memorial this week. You said journalists had “to hold up the truth to power”. But in the case of your climate policy you’ve made our job easy. You’ve said so much on the subject that for the most part we can hold up your own truth to yourself.Related: Coalition’s climate policy 'best and most efficient' in the world, says Greg Hunt Continue reading...

The Golden State has suffered four parched years, but the land could be too dry to absorb heavy rains anticipated this winterVast swathes of forest are so brittle and bone-dry that they burn up in an instant. A vicious wildfire, whipped up by hot, arid winds and moving faster than anything in recent memory, consumed tens of thousands of hectares in a matter of hours. Hundreds of homes and at least one person were lost in an inferno that took days to get under control. That’s in California’s north.If you drove south on the same day last month, and you would have found darkened skies and heavy sheets of rain pounding the parched earth around Los Angeles. By noon on 15 September, the city had received 63.5mm of rain, that’s 10 times the precipitation the area usually gets in the entire month. The city has only seen two other storms like it in the past 150 years. Continue reading...

After years of reduced fishing and attempts to boost its population, cod numbers have risen above dangerously low levels, conservationists sayConservationists have taken North Sea cod off a red list of “fish to avoid” eating, as the ailing fishery begins to show signs of recovery.

Though born in Guyana, the writer says her experiences in the Ontario wilderness made her feel like a real CanadianMy family moved to Toronto when I was three and I feel very Canadian in many ways. All my formative experiences took place there, but as an immigrant; I was born in Guyana, South America. I’ve lived in the UK for 18 years now, but I still feel displaced. Continue reading...

Lyddington, Rutland Poking around in the greenish sludge of a fresh pat reveals a wealth of beetle lifeSummer is damply fading into Autumn, in the hedgerows the crimson hawthorn berries and flecked bodies of garden cross orbweavers are waxing to their utmost rotundity, while arable fields are in various stages of undress and reclothing.Rutland is a small county – so small it has only half a member of parliament – with a rural, even quaint reputation; one to which the countryside around Lyddington conforms. Hills big enough to have names, including Prestley Hill, Bee Hill and the Barrows, frame the broad vale of the river Welland. Continue reading...

Australia’s two largest urban areas are among 10 new cities added to the UN initiative launched by Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, in 2014Melbourne and Sydney have joined an international coalition of cities that have committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and advocate for action on climate change.

To celebrate the international launch of McDonald’s organic burger, the fast-food company transforms Munich football stadium into a giant burger. The illumination, which may not be immediately recognisable as a burger, is the biggest lighting project in the world, made possible by 300,000 LED lights on the surface of the Allianz arena Continue reading...

White House officials announce deal, which will make China the world’s biggest carbon market, on eve of summit between Barack Obama and Xi JinpingChina, the world’s biggest carbon polluter, will launch a national cap-and-trade scheme in 2017, the White House said on Thursday.

Watch videographer Andrew Walker’s timelapse video of an abandoned power plant in Washington. Walker used two cameras to make the video, taking around 10,000 pictures, most of which were captured in one day over a period of eight hours. Walker said he decided to make the video two years ago after seeing pictures of the power plant, and was particularly impressed by the reactor and cooling tower Continue reading...

VW’s large-scale deception fits a pattern of carmakers cynically exploiting lax emissions testsThe biggest carmaker is imploding. Its chief executive has gone. The lawyers are gathering, the share price has plunged and today ministers announced their own inquiry into car emissions and testing. The scale of Volkswagen’s deception of the public is huge. They rigged 11m cars which together may have emitted up to an extra 1m tonnes of a toxic gas that kills more than 23,000 people in Britain alone each year.Related: The Volkswagen emissions scandal explained Continue reading...

It is unsurprising but disappointing that the initial reaction to Volkswagen’s deceit (Volkswagen scandal: US chief says carmaker ‘totally screwed up’, 22 September) focuses on falling share prices. The impact of this scandal, however, runs far deeper. Research has shown that many car brands tested in factory settings do not perform as expected by European emission standards on the road. With tens of thousands of deaths hastened by exposure to pollution every year, the real lesson to learn is that we absolutely cannot continue to rely on manufacturers for accurate information about vehicles’ emissions. We need independent, real-world testing. This will not only prevent manufacturers from self-certifying results but, by providing accurate data with which to inform both consumer choice and government pollution-reduction strategies, will go a long way in protecting the health and lives of thousands.Signed by members of the Healthy Air Campaign: Continue reading...

Department of Transport vows to rerun laboratory tests on engines and compare results with on-the-road emissionsThe British government is to start its own inquiry into car emissions and testing, running new lab tests on engines from across the industry and comparing the results with on-the-road emissions.The Vehicle Certification Agency, a division of the Department for Transport, will work with manufacturers across the industry as it reruns tests in the wake of the VW test-rigging scandal. The government also called on the European commission to launch a Europe-wide investigation into the car industry. Continue reading...

Pope Francis calls on the US – and Congress – to lead the charge in efforts to combat climate change. Addressing the nation’s leaders on Capitol Hill, Francis said now was the time for courageous action and strategies to protect the environment, saying that the US in particular had an important role to play• Follow our live coverage of the pope’s visit Continue reading...

Climate campaigners applaud pope’s bridging of environmental issues with moral obligation as way to force Republican party leaders to reconsider positionIt just took one utterance from Pope Francis – “earth” – to rouse cheers from the climate campaigners who had gathered on the Mall to watch the pope’s historic speech to Congress.The pope’s visit to what remains a fortress of climate denial among the Republican party leadership greatly boosted hopes among campaigners of elevating climate change from a narrow, partisan issue to a matter of broad public concern. Continue reading...

Critics say island custom of hunting birds migrating across Mediterranean is cruel because they are killed before they can breedThe European commission has referred Malta to the EU’s top court over the controversial tradition of hunting birds migrating across the Mediterranean every spring, officials have said.Malta has been at odds with Brussels for years over the issue. Critics of the practice say it is cruel as birds are killed before they can breed, but supporters defend it as a longstanding custom. Continue reading...

Fife council begins monthly collection for landfill bins, with recycling bins emptied more often, in first UK trialTrials of monthly bin collections in the UK are “an obvious next step” to tackle the UK’s stalling recycling rates, waste management experts have told the Guardian.Fife council have begun trialling once-a-month collections for landfill bins, with recycling bins and food waste taken more often. Continue reading...

Pope Francis urged the US Congress to reject a ‘mindset of hostility’ on immigration and to recognize those who wish to move to the United States as people who are trying to improve their lives and those of their families. Francis gave his historic address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday morning in which he also discussed the death penalty and climate change•Follow our live coverage of the Pope’s visit Continue reading...

Unusual specimens spotted in UK waters may be product of Russian breeding programme in Arctic Ocean, says conservationistBritish anglers have been told to watch out for an alien salmon species that is normally native to the chillier waters of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.Eight specimens of wild pink salmon have been caught in the rivers Tyne and Wear, and off the coast of South Shields. The fish is native to the north Pacific basin and its surrounding rivers, and is the smallest and most common of the Pacific salmon. Continue reading...

Pontiff says divisive rhetoric is not in ‘the spirit of the American people’ and calls for action to combat ‘human activity’ that has caused climate changeThe first pope from the Americas called on US lawmakers to open their hearts to new generations of immigrants on Thursday in a historic address to Congress that urged them to reject a rising xenophobic tendency in politics.

VW built its reputation by using impactful advertising. Here’s a selection of car adverts that appeared in the Guardian from 1956-1991

Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest CO2 polluters because of deforestation, says it will go further and cut emissions 41% if it gets $6bn in aidIndonesia, one of the world’s biggest carbon polluters, said it would cut greenhouse gas emissions 29% by 2030 compared to what it is currently on course for.

Economic modelling suggests that a global emissions budget and trading scheme could tackle climate change and yield $416bn a year for poor countriesWhat if there were an affordable programme to prevent catastrophic climate change and provide the finance that developing countries need to end poverty by 2030?

We can remedy our planet’s problems, but only if we are willing to redesign wasteful manufacturing processes and give up our throwaway habitsThe world’s mineral and metal reserves are dwindling, but that doesn’t mean it’s time for development to switch into reverse gear. If we could redesign our profligate industrial processes, say circular economists, we could put a stop to our throwaway habits without sacrificing growth.Instead of burning or burying millions of tonnes of waste every year, we could take today’s garbage − even the fragments of plastics that hapless seabirds ingest − and use them as the building blocks to make anything from carpets to laptops.

Shares in company drop 9% as results show BMW X3 xDrive exceeded emission limits on nitrogen oxides 11-foldGerman luxury carmaker BMW has been dragged into the emissions testing scandal that has engulfed Volkswagen, with its shares falling sharply after a report that some of its diesel cars exceeded emissions standards.Shares in BMW lost 9% after the report in German trade magazine Auto Bild. Other European carmakers were also down, with Daimler falling 5.6%, Fiat Chrysler shedding 5.2%, Peugeot 6.7% lower and Renault falling 3.7%. VW shares recovered slightly after steep falls in recent days, trading 1.4% higher. Continue reading...

Which goals are key for businesses? What sectors do they address? Will they make any difference? We read all the 169 SDG targets so you don’t have toAhead of the formal adoption of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the UN’s Sustainable Development Summit this weekend in New York, Guardian Sustainable Business asks: what are the SDGs, what do they mean for business and what impact will they have?

Paul Ehrlich writes in Nature Climate Change that Francis is wrong to fight climate change without also addressing the strain from population growth on resourcesOne of America’s leading scientists has dismissed as “raving nonsense” the pope’s call for action on climate change – so long as the leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics rejects the need for population control.In a commentary in the journal Nature Climate Change, Paul Ehrlich, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, argues that Pope Francis is simply wrong in trying to fight climate change without also addressing the additional strain on global resources from population rise. “That’s raving nonsense,” Ehrlich told the Guardian. “He is right on some things but he is just dead wrong on that.” Continue reading...

Australian researchers at the University of Queensland are discovering the secrets to captive echidna breeding. The successful births of 14 short-beaked echidna puggles in the past five years have brought hope that the knowledge can be applied to their long-beaked cousins in Papua New Guinea, which are endangered because of habitat loss and hunting Continue reading...

One of the most emblematic features of East Lothian’s landscape, Cockenzie power station will be blown up on Saturday, its twin towers and turbine hall erased by the shift to clean energy and an unsentimental planning system.

Exclusive: Countries publicly calling for investigations into VW emissions rigging scandal have privately fought to keep loopholes in car tests for carbon emissionsThe UK, France and Germany have been accused of hypocrisy for lobbying behind the scenes to keep outmoded car tests for carbon emissions, but later publicly calling for a European investigation into Volkswagen’s rigging of car air pollution tests.Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show the three countries lobbied the European commission to keep loopholes in car tests that would increase real world carbon dioxide emissions by 14% above those claimed. Continue reading...

Stunned sightseers off the coast of Costa Rica find their small boat surrounded by a ‘superpod’ of dolphins, racing alongside and leaping into the air. Orlando Marin, who posted his footage to Facebook, says they numbered in the thousands. Such a large gathering can be the result of abundant food in the area, or can happen spontaneously Continue reading...

Documents show former PM was briefed on setting up a taskforce into whether the Bureau of Meteorology exaggerated records – as claimed in the AustralianTony Abbott considered asking a taskforce to investigate whether the Bureau of Meteorology was exaggerating temperature data records following the publication of such claims in the Australian newspaper, newly released documents show.Related: Tony Abbott adviser calls for Bureau of Meteorology 'warming' inquiry Continue reading...

Martin Winterkorn steps down despite denying wrongdoing, as legal claims and further senior departures loom

Travel enthusiast Michelle Feis meets a set of more than 20 killer whales while she was out kayaking with a friend at the end of August. The video was uploaded onto social media on September 1 and shows Feis and her friend in their kayaks near the shore when a group of killer whales swim up to them. In the video, Feis can be heard screaming with glee as the whales swim right up to and underneath the kayaks Continue reading...