Designer drives military vehicle through Witney to Chadlington, Oxfordshire, to carry out fake ‘chemical attack’Used to sticking two fingers up at the establishment, Vivienne Westwood has driven a tank to David Cameron’s constituency home in a protest against fracking.Related: Vivienne Westwood takes the fracking debate to Cameron – in pictures Continue reading...

A Cambodian fishing cat, baby mountain gorilla and the Big Mac penguin colony feature in this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Government refuses planning permission for £3.5bn windfarm due to visual impact, in further blow to UK green energy industryThe government has turned down an application to build a £3.5bn windfarm off the south coast of England in another major blow to the green energy industry under the Conservatives.The decision on the Navitus Bay project off Dorset was unveiled by Lord Bourne, the energy minister, even as 13 leading financial investors urged the chancellor to adopt a more positive stance on renewables. Continue reading...

Labour shadow energy minister, Bryony Worthington has said that environmentalists should not take a blanket position against shale gasThis week, Labour shadow energy minister and environmentalist Bryony Worthington dismayed green groups by backing fracking as a way to reduce carbon emissions.Following a speech on the Energy Bill in the House of Lords on Wednesday, Baroness Worthington told the Today Programme: “There are legitimate concerns, absolutely correct, that we need to do this safely, but we shouldn’t take an in-principle objection to the technology and nor should we do that for any other of the low carbon technologies. Because [climate change] is the big challenge we face.” She said that the “common enemy” is very cheap coal which entails much higher carbon emissions. Continue reading...

Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood drives a white tank through David Cameron’s Witney constituency in Oxfordshire to his home in Chadlington in a protest against fracking. The 74-year-old is demonstrating against new fracking licenses being pushed through parts of northern England

Some scientists are predicting a huge sea level rise even if we limit climate change. If that happens, will elevated cities such as Denver end up being the capitals of the world? The Hunger Games predicted that could be the case, and so does this fake promotional video. The changes could become reality if we don’t take action now. Continue reading...

Although numbers are up, plans for oil exploitation could seriously affect themMountain gorillas could be in for a boost this month: a census is set to reveal how many are left in the Virunga massif – an area that spans Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Only 380 mountain gorillas appeared to be left in the Virunga Massif according to a survey from 2003, but conservation efforts are taking effect – their population was estimated at 480 after a census in 2010. A second population of around 400 mountain gorillas live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable national park. Continue reading...

In an ongoing series, NK News poses a reader’s question to a defector. This week, enduring military service on an empty stomachIn North Korea, men serve in the military for 10 years and women for seven. The special unit working as Kim Jong-un’s personal bodyguards serve for 13.Military service is compulsory in the DPRK and most people enlist after high school. Those who are accepted into universities do their military service after they graduate. Continue reading...

From Mumbai to São Paolo, safe water supplies are precarious. Research suggests that conservation could be a cost-effective solutionThey are two of the biggest cities in the world and both are set to grow significantly over the next decade, yet Mumbai and São Paulo are still unable to supply the clean and safe water residents need.

Immigration minister shares awkward open mic moment with PM after Pacific islands fail to convince Australia to aim for a global warming target of 1.5 degreesThe immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has shared an awkward open mic moment with the prime minister, Tony Abbott, where he appears to joke about rising sea levels in the Pacific.Abbott and Dutton were discussing the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Papua New Guinea before a community roundtable at parliament house in Canberra on the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Television cameras had been invited to cover the opening statements of the roundtable. Continue reading...

Energy minister Lord Bourne expected to bow to lobbying by local Tory MPs and veto plan for 121 turbines 10 miles off Dorset coastThe government is expected to turn down an application for a £3.5bn windfarm off the south coast of England in what would be another major setback to green energy under the Conservatives.The decision on the Navitus Bay project off Bournemouth will be announced by Lord Bourne, the energy minister, on Friday just as 13 leading investors have written to the chancellor urging a more supportive attitude towards renewables. Continue reading...

High blood pressure linked to bad diet contributed to most deaths, while smoking and air pollution were also high-ranking risk factors, study finds

Climate officials warn winter’s weather pattern likely to be one of the strongest as effects are likely to be felt from December to MarchClimate officials are warning that this winter’s El Niño weather pattern is likely to be one of the strongest on record, bringing huge storms and a cold, wet winter for many – but nowhere near enough rainfall to reverse the disastrous long-term drought in the western US.Any heavy rainfall will be welcome news for thirsty California, parched for the last four years by a historic dry period. Continue reading...

Greenpeace says it has uncovered a large illegal tuna fishing operation in the waters of Papua New Guinea after apprehending a Taiwanese ship with 75kg of shark fins. Irregularities in the ships log book raised activists’ suspicions and they later found that the Shuen De Ching No.888 had no fishing licence for the area Continue reading...

A new global initiative is bringing together NGOs, industry and government to tackle lost and abandoned fishing gear

People living on small islands in the country’s Kurigram district have been left homeless after floods hit for the second time in a month. At least 21 people have died in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains in 2015. With downpours swelling rivers and flooding roads, many villagers are starving due to lack of food, relief goods and drinking water Continue reading...

Petition calls on US president Barack Obama and UN chief Ban Ki-Moon to help create a world run 100% on renewable energyA petition launched by Desmond Tutu urging global leaders to create a world run 100% on renewables within 35 years has been backed by more than 300,000 people globally.It describes climate change as “one of the greatest moral challenges of our time”. Continue reading...

With only two days left in the legislative session, oil industry successfully rallies for amendment to ambitious environmental bill SB350An ambitious environmental bill in California that attempted to legislate up to a 50% reduction in gasoline use by 2030 had been derailed by the oil industry in the final week of the legislative session.Senate president pro Tempore Kevin de Leon announced on Wednesday that he would amend the bill, SB350, to drop the petroleum provisions. It will be changed in the Assembly Natural Resources committee as soon as Thursday to deal only with increasing the state’s renewable electricity supply and boosting energy efficiency in buildings through retrofits and upgrades. Continue reading...

Rome conference speech describes inaction as discrimination that devalues lives of future generations

I’d always been scared of these great creatures but while filming in the Azores, I jumped into the ocean amid a pod of whales – and met another sentient beingI was born and brought up by the sea – indeed, my heavily pregnant mother nearly went into labour on a visit to a submarine in Portsmouth, and I was almost born underwater. Yet I never learned to swim. I was simply too scared of the water, and what it might contain. I trace my terror to a memory of something I never saw: the bath in my mother’s childhood home, along the side of which my grandfather – whom I never knew – had painted a great spouting whale, a veritable Moby-Dick. The image of that unseen whale haunted me, to the extent that I didn’t even like taking a bath. Throughout childhood and into my teenage years, this fear dominated my feelings towards the sea. It was only when I was in my mid-20s, unemployed in London, that I decided to challenge myself. In a tiled Victorian pool in Hackney, an elderly lady in a rubber hat took pity on me. This Esther Williams of the East End showed me how the water could bear my body up, gloriously. I was hooked.Cut to the Azores, the mid-Atlantic, 20 years later. The water off these black basalt shores drops to half a mile deep within a few hundred feet; further out, it falls to three miles. I’d gone there with a film crew, to make a BBC Arena documentary about the true story behind Moby-Dick. Soon after leaving the harbour, a pod of common dolphin began to ride our bow. The water was so clear there seemed to be nothing between them and me. And they appeared to be leading us somewhere. Suddenly, our young Azorean captain, Joao, stopped the boat. Ahead were what looked like logs. Continue reading...

Food Standards Agency says its focus is on reducing levels of the bug rather than focusing on farming methodsChecks on levels of the potentially lethal bug campylobacter in fresh chicken do not show whether birds reared using organic methods were more contaminated that those produced by mass-market systems.Though experts said the organic birds appeared to be more contaminated, the low sample size meant they could not come to a firm conclusion. Continue reading...

Only Germany and Poland have higher CO2 emissions and health costs from coal-fired power plants than the UK, new study findsDeaths related to emissions from coal cost the UK economy between £2.47bn and £7.15bn in 2013, according to a comprehensive overview of coal production in Europe. Continue reading...

A Taiwanese longline vessel caught with 75kg of shark fins near Papua New Guinea was only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of operations driving a decline in tunaGreenpeace claims to have uncovered a pirate fishing operation in waters near Papua New Guinea after spotting a Taiwanese ship that allegedly had 75kg of illegally caught shark fins and irregularities in its tuna catch logbook.The group said similar cases were the “tip of the iceberg” of pirate fishing which had driven a sharp decline in tuna populations. Continue reading...

Irish government announces that Rian Johnson’s space-opera sequel will film on the tiny outcrop despite the objections of conservationistsDisney and Lucasfilm will return to the remote Irish island of Skellig Michael to shoot scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII, despite the objections of conservationists concerned about the impact of local wildlife, reports RTE.

I used to joke about quitting my job in Leeds and moving to the Seychelles. Then one day I thought, why not?I loved my job for 15 years – really loved it – until one day I didn’t. I ran the pop music degree at Leeds College of Music and it was a great creative environment. But one day it occurred to me that I had to wait 16 years until I got my pension, and the idea of sitting around waiting felt like no way to live.I was 45, and this coincided with the breakdown of my 20-year relationship. It was a classic mid-life crisis. I let it be known that I didn’t want to stay on at work, and when they restructured there was no longer a position for me. At that moment I thought, “Oh shit, what have I done?” Continue reading...

California’s ambitious target is a million zero-emission cars; along the way some charging issues need to be sorted outA freeway in California, late afternoon rush hour. Most of the traffic is doing 65mph; I’m in a new electric VW eGolf at the end of a long drive and the dashboard tells me I have zero miles of range left. Zero miles. I’m just one week into electric car ownership and already mischievously seeing how far I can push it – and in a few more miles that may be literal.The car kicks into emergency mode, the ominous glowing tortoise of doom appears on the dash and the car slows to 25mph. I crawl off at the next junction. Continue reading...

Shannon Phillips says ‘great appetite for action’ on carbon emissions exists in Canadian province despite economy relying heavily on fossil fuel extractionThe environment minister of Alberta – the province where the tar sands industry is Canada’s fastest growing source of carbon emissions – says the days of denying climate change are over.Related: Revealed: Canadian government spent millions on secret tar sands advocacy Continue reading...

Sandy, Bedfordshire So lustrous is the colour it’s beyond compare – but kingfisher blue is due to a trick of the lightCrusty cowpats in the riverside meadow were no longer traps for unwary feet, their liquid mocha hearts baked dry by weeks in the sun. After a summer of circumventing fresh stinky pies there was no need to watch my step.I felt like a liberated child stomping through puddles in wellies. Each scuff and kick at the weightless clods released a sweet odour of fermented grass, a reminder of the cattle who left behind these giant droppings and poached the soil where it was soft at the water’s edge. Continue reading...

With authorities ineffective, the 2,200-strong Ka’apor, in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, are taking on the illegal loggers with technology and direct actionWith bows, arrows, GPS trackers and camera traps, an indigenous community in northern Brazil is fighting to achieve what the government has long failed to do: halt illegal logging in their corner of the Amazon.The Ka’apor – a tribe of about 2,200 people in Maranhão state – have organised a militia of “forest guardians” who follow a strategy of nature conservation through aggressive confrontation.

An analysis of 100 years of temperature data shows that records for warmer weather outnumber those for colder ones by 12 to oneAustralians who have just experienced their coldest winters in decades shouldn’t be fooled, scientists say, with new research showing that new heat records are outnumbering new cold records at an accelerating rate.An analysis of 100 years of Australian temperature data has found that in the past 15 years, new records for heat outnumber those for cold by 12 to one, with human-induced climate change the primary factor. Continue reading...

Researchers catch and tag more than 2,800 sharks along the coast this spring pointing to steady population gains, but numbers come amid increase in attacksUS shark researchers caught and tagged 2,835 sharks along the east coast this spring, a record number which they say reflects a growing population thanks to federal protections.

Refugee crisis is a ‘rehearsal’ for a vast humanitarian disaster that will soon unfold if we fail to act on global warming, former Lib Dem leader tells Climate News NetworkThe former leader of one of the UK’s main political parties says the world will undergo more resource wars and huge movements of desperate people unless it tackles climate change effectively.

Flash floods in eastern Sicily, caused by a Mediterranean cyclone, causes heavy flooding in towns and cities across the island. Cars were submerged and many roads and streets closed off in completely in the city of Messina as flood water rushed through. The bad weather in the region is likely to continue in the next few days Continue reading...

Unicorn theatre, London

More ambitious than the green parliaments of Berlin or Canberra, Israel is leading the way – although we’re still waiting to hear what their UN climate pledge is, reports Le MondeThe Knesset is an imposing rectangular building standing at the top of a hill from where it looms over one side of Jerusalem. Despite the blinding summer sun, the tapestries by Marc Chagall decorating the entrance of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, are awash in a far gentler, natural light.The bay windows on either side of the reception have recently been double glazed, designed to optimise thermal insulation, and fitted with filters to lesson the constant solar glare. The fixtures have been switched to hold energy-saving LED lighting.

Former city mayor launches campaign of daily protests outside Gates’ Foundation visitor centre till it commits to divestmentMicrosoft founder Bill Gates is facing fresh calls to move his charity’s investments out of fossil fuels from the community in Seattle where it is based, led by the city’s former mayor.The Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation is the world’s largest charitable foundation and funder of medical research. It had $1.4bn (£1bn) invested in fossil fuel companies, according to its latest available tax filings from 2013. Continue reading...

Chefs in São Paulo are leading a gastronomic revolution by adding creepy-crawlies to their dishes - reclaiming them as part of the national dietWhen people think of an ant in the kitchen, it is probably of an uninvited little insect painstakingly transporting food remains to its colony. But this concept might soon change.

Officers reportedly fired 20 shots at animal, which is thought to have jumped out of a lorry that was transporting itA lioness found prowling along a motorway in China after apparently jumping from a moving lorry has been shot dead by police, according to reports.How the protected animal came to be on the road in Anhui, eastern Chinese, was not clear, but the illegal raising of endangered species is not unusual in China. Continue reading...

Former BBC and New York Times journalists among new team, with ex-Newsnight correspondent Meirion Jones acting as a consultantGreenpeace has hired a team of investigative journalists as part of plans to make investigations one of three pillars of its environmental campaigning.Former Newsnight and Panorama correspondent Meirion Jones is a consultant on the project, which will be staffed by journalists including former BBC reporter Damian Kahya, New York Times and Vice stringer Lucy Jordan and Maeve McClenaghan, formerly of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Continue reading...

Oil & Gas UK repeats calls for tax breaks and Treasury incentives and says more jobs will go as cost-cutting continuesThe UK’s oil and gas industry expects to continue shedding jobs and heavily cutting its costs despite reducing its workforce by more than 65,000 in the last 20 months.The annual economic report for Oil & Gas UK disclosed on Wednesday that the total number of people employed in the sector had fallen from 440,000 to 375,000 since the beginning of 2014, largely due to the crash in world oil prices. Continue reading...