The snake bit John David Brock on his left arm as he was handling it during a Sunday service at a Pentecostal church, and he refused medical treatmentA Kentucky sheriff’s office says a man has died from a snake bite suffered during a church service.The Bell County sheriff’s office said on Monday that 60-year-old John David Brock of Stoney Fork was handling the snake during a Sunday service at a Pentecostal church in Jenson. Continue reading...

Resource scarcity is a major business challenge, but evolving market conditions mean companies that can adapt quickly could reap big profitsAs São Paulo, Brazil, suffers from the worst drought in its history, multinational pulp company Fibria, which is headquartered in the city, is one of many that has felt the pinch. At times, water has been shut off to 40% of the city and even now, after the rainy season, only 6-13% of the city’s reservoir’s capacity has been filled. In response, the company is working to reduce the amount of water it uses for forest irrigation.This isn’t the first time that Fibria has had to adapt to a shifting environment. Over the last several years, the rising scarcity of several essential resources – including water, fertilizer, labor and land – has pushed the company to reconsider its business model. It has diversified into renewable energy, biofuel production and sustainable real estate development. Fibria’s goal is to make these portfolio additions 20% of total free cash flow by 2025, making the company less pulp-dependent and giving it alternative options for future business growth in light of looming sustainability challenges.

Archive footage of Cecil the lion, the star attraction at Zimbabwe's Hwange national park that was killed earlier this month. The 13-year-old lion was found skinned and headless on the outskirts of the park. Authorities say an American man paid $50,000 (£32,000) for the chance to kill Cecil. Bryan Orford, a professional wildlife guide who has filmed Cecil many times, posted the footage online after his death Continue reading...

Northern white rhino on brink of extinction after deaths of male in San Diego zoo last year and female named Nabire in Czech Republic this weekOnly four northern white rhinos remain on earth after a 31-year-old female named Nabire died in the Czech Republic late on Monday, zookeepers said.

Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force alleges trophy hunter shot one of Africa’s most famous lions near Hwange national park

Conservation programme aims to protect the endangered species and restore biodiversity of the polluted river, reports The Straits TimesThe conservation of dolphins in India’s holiest, but most polluted waterway, is under the spotlight as the country conducts its first official count of the freshwater species.An estimated 450 volunteers, government experts and conservationists will take part in the exercise, which spans the states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, in November and December. Continue reading...

Archipelago continues to rebuild after natural disaster but predicted El Niño drought could hit food securityMore than four months after Cyclone Pam, one of the most powerful ever recorded in the south Pacific, emergency aid is winding down in the Vanuatu archipelago, leaving inhabitants of rural islands facing an uncertain future. Tanna, an island 200km south of the capital Port-Vila, took a direct hit on 13 March. The wreckage is still visible: the tops of banyan trees have been lopped off, roofs ripped away and churches flattened. Trees on island were stripped by winds gusting at over 320km/h, but now fresh greenery is bursting out and people are rebuilding their homes and replanting their fields.“We’ve sawn up timber from banyan and avocado trees to make beams, cut bamboo for the walls and dried coconut leaves for the roof. Once we’ve gathered up all the materials in the forest, it takes a fortnight to actually build a house; everyone here knows how to do that,” says David, from Port Resolution on the east coast. Continue reading...

Celebrating her 37th birthday in enclosure at Ocean Park, Jia Jia claims title of oldest ever panda living in captivityIt may not be considered a landmark birthday for humans, but turning 37 has made Hong Kong’s Jia Jia the oldest ever giant panda in captivity, and she celebrated in style.The equivalent of more than 100 years old in human terms, Jia Jia was presented with a towering birthday cake made from ice and fruit juice with the number 37 carved on top, in her enclosure at the city’s Ocean Park theme park. Continue reading...

France wants to see serious progress by October on text for a new deal on global warming, says Laurence TubianaFrance’s top climate ambassador has said she is very concerned at the slow rate of progress on a negotiating text that will form the basis of a new international deal on global warming in Paris later this year.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveils her renewable energy goals on the US campaign trail, announcing she wants to move the country away from a 'fossil fuel economy' towards a 'clean renewable energy economy'. The former Democratic senator and secretary of state has been criticised for going beyond President Barack Obama's actions in relation to climate change policy Continue reading...

EU birds directive is having a positive impact on threatened populations as Dalmatian pelicans, griffon vultures, red kites and cranes see their numbers riseBirds which have been given the highest level of protection by European rules are faring significantly better than other bird species, research has shown.

In every South American country, along with Mexico, India, Tanzania and Morocco, concern over climate change is above 90%People living in the world’s wealthiest nations generally understand what climate change is but in many countries just half perceive it to be a threat, new research has found.

Moray Firth, Highlands A merchant ship came powering in with dolphins riding its bow waveWe had sailed the length of the Great Glen on the Ros Crana, the largest barge in Scotland, and now, for the last half mile, could smell the sea. Past the Clachnaharry Works Lock, then the swing railway bridge, we were at the point where the Caledonian canal juts into the Beauly Firth.Between the closely mown arms of twin embankments there is one last lock before open water. The solid wooden gates opened slowly and the Ros Crana eased into a sea so smooth that its surface looked viscous like the skin forming on boiled milk. Inverness was behind us as we headed under Kessock bridge, the barge’s engines reducing the noise of the traffic above to a blur of sound. Sun lit up vast banks of broom on the Black Isle and the green slopes where sheep grazed its fertile soil. Continue reading...

Former Queensland National party senator Ron Boswell made a gaffe-riddled appearance on the ABC TV's flagship show on Monday night, criticising the pope's encyclical on the environment while admitting that he hadn't read it. Boswell said that 'as a practising Catholic … I was somewhat concerned about the pope's statement' last month calling for more action on climate change because he said it risked condemning 300 million Indians to poverty by denying them access to cheap coal-fired electricity Continue reading...

Ron Boswell admits he had not read the pope’s encyclical on climate change, and mistakenly claims Australia takes more refugees than any other countryThe former Queensland National party senator Ron Boswell made a gaffe-riddled appearance on Q&A on Monday as the Coalition’s only representative, three weeks into the Abbott government’s boycott of the ABC talk show.Boswell, the one-time “father of the Senate” who retired from politics last year, spoke out against the pope’s encyclical on the environment, despite admitting he had not read it. Continue reading...

Researchers call for humpbacks to be delisted as threatened as numbers leap to 90% of pre-whaling population along west coast and 63% along east coastHumpback whale populations have rebounded to up to 90% of pre-whaling numbers in Australian waters, and should no longer be officially considered a threatened species, new research has found.

Democratic frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination promises to save Americans money and to free them from monthly electricity billsBarack Obama ran for president promising to save the planet. Hillary Clinton is promising to help people save money on their electricity bills.

I agree with much of your first comment on climate change (Editorial, 23 July). However, I would like to expand upon the observation that “just like fracking and nuclear, greening the energy supply needs intervention”. The question is: what is a reasonably sensible subsidy to provide energy technologies, especially those that generate electricity?You report in the same edition of the Guardian (Government to cut solar power subsidies saving customers 50p per year) that the discontinuation of solar subsides will save customers a trivial amount off their annual energy bills, but will simultaneously devastate a fast-growing, but still young, sustainable energy sector. Continue reading...

The solar plane’s attempt to fly around the world has been grounded by battery failure. As the pilots regroup for the next leg, they discuss the highs and lows of their epic journeyThe darkest moment of André Borschberg’s unprecedented solar flight across the Pacific was not when he learned of the battery failure that has now suspended the Solar Impulse flight until next spring.It was 12 hours into the journey, as he flew about 6,000 metres over the Pacific, south-east of Tokyo, and a decision had to be made about whether to continue. “Before every flight you have what we call the point of no return – it was the afternoon of the first day,” he says. Continue reading...

In a perfect world, all packages would be fully recyclable. In reality, it can be harder than expected to turn packaging into something valuable for reuse

Walmart, Coca-Cola and Google, among others, commit to reducing their carbon footprints following the Obama administration initiative to slash US emissionsThe Obama administration’s attempts to cut US carbon emissions by 6bn tons by 2030 were boosted on Monday, when 13 of the country’s largest companies added their names to the American Business Act on Climate Pledge.Among them were Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Cargill and Alcoa. While many of the commitments under the pledge were not new, the White House stated that the news showed the private sector to be “committed to stepping up and doing its part in taking on this global challenge”. Continue reading...

Explore.org, Polar Bears International, Frontiers North Adventures and a group of wildlife experts have launched a wild beluga livestream, broadcasting footage from a boatcam that will follow the whales as they migrate to a small estuary on Hudson Bay. The livestream will run until 21 August, with a guide narrating footage from above and below the water Continue reading...

Zimbabwe’s famous lion was lured out of a national park, killed, beheaded and skinned. Over 200 lions are legally killed and turned into trophies and sent to Europe every yearConservationists and politicians have called on the EU to ban the import of lion heads, paws and skins as hunters’ trophies from African countries that cannot prove their lion populations are sustainable, following the killing of Zimbabwe’s most famous lion by a European hunter with a bow and arrow.The death of a radio-tagged lion called Cecil in Hwange national park was described as a tragedy by wildlife groups and has led Zimbabwean authorities to attempt to track down the big cat’s hunter, who is believed to be Spanish. Continue reading...

Climate change rendering coastlines uninhabitable is starkest in the Arctic, but places like New Jersey and California will soon be at risk tooThe Arctic is warming at a rate almost twice the global average, making climate change’s effects there far more intense and rapid than any other ecosystem in the world. While nature photographs of polar bears and melting ice dominate media narratives, the top of the world is home to 4m people who face an uncertain future.Related: Whale hunting in Alaska: Point Hope, the village caught between tradition and climate change Continue reading...

The UK government’s sudden abolition of subsidies for wind, solar and biomass energy send a risky message and could shake investor confidenceThe government’s U-turn on renewable energy risks sending this country back to the dark ages of relying only on fossil fuel.Since the election we have seen a slashing of subsidies for biomass, anaerobic digestion and biogas as well as solar and wind. Continue reading...

City links: Growing the green stuff in Arcata, bike-friendly Jakarta and Auckland’s ancient underground waterway feature in this week’s best city storiesThis week’s best city stories from around the web talk about marijuana zones in California, a forgotten waterway under the streets of Auckland, a mushroom farm in Camden and mime-artist-assisted traffic control in Bogotá. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories, and any others you’ve read recently, both on Guardian Cities and elsewhere. Just share your thoughts in the comments below. Continue reading...

An emissions trading scheme would be cheaper and more effective than Labor’s 50% renewables goal or the government’s Direct Action policy, Paul Hyslop saysThe author of the $60bn price tag for Bill Shorten’s new renewable energy goal – cited by Tony Abbott as proof the scheme is unaffordable – says an emissions trading scheme like the one the Coalition abolished would be more cost-effective than either the coalition’s “Direct Action” plan or Labor’s new goal.

Coverage of a recent paper on Arctic sea ice and climate change suggests conservative media can’t seem to grasp the concept of long-term trends

Victorian MP Sarah Henderson asks the government to include in its draft mandate investment in emerging technologies such as wind and solarA Liberal backbencher is lobbying the government to stop its push to, in effect, ban the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) from investing in wind and small-scale solar energy.The Victorian Liberal MP, Sarah Henderson, has written to the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, asking that the government include wind and small-scale solar energy in its investment mandate. Continue reading...

The population in the mangrove forest is far less than believed, officials say, after a census uses cameras hidden in trees to record numbersOnly around 100 tigers remain in Bangladesh’s famed Sundarbans forest, far fewer of the endangered animals than previously thought, according to a census.

At a Paris climate change meeting, the celebrated Brazilian photographer joined Bishop Fredrick Shoo of Tanzania in extolling the merits of reseeding forestsWhen the renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado took over family land in the state of Minas Gerais, instead of the tropical paradise that he remembered as a child, he found the trees cut down and the wildlife gone. He was devastated.It was 1994 and he had just returned from a traumatic assignment reporting on the genocide in Rwanda, he told a meeting of religious leaders discussing climate change in Paris this week. Continue reading...

There are hundreds of Australian mining companies working in Africa, but just one full-time Australian journalist. What does that mean for accountability?Australian miners are making a killing overseas. With little regulation or oversight, billions of dollars are being made in some of the most remote places on Earth.The necessity of partnering with autocratic regimes has proved no impediment to investment. Human rights have been breached. Victims are largely invisible.

Horsington, Somerset The former turnpike road, winding as it does between hedgerows and through narrow village streets, must cope, not with curricles and landaus, but with huge intercontinental freight carriers, tankers, cars and vans, coaches, giant tractors and agricultural machineryWe were surprised the other day to see, at the farm gate, a new notice saying: “Sorry, no eggs – visit of fox”. This was the farm where we had for years regularly picked up our freshly gathered eggs. It lies just off a little cul-de-sac that once formed part of the old east-west trunk route to Devon, which used to pass through the heart of Wincanton with its once fine coaching inns.For many years now, traffic has skirted the town on the modern A303, and travellers seeking refreshment stop at the out of town supermarket café rather than at the former Greyhound Inn, where the future Queen Victoria was a guest in 1825. Continue reading...

As the PM ramps up attack on Labor’s promised emissions trading scheme, the communications minister admits all emission reduction policies come at a costMalcolm Turnbull has cut through the slogans and semantics dominating the climate policy debate – pointing out that all policies to push low-emission electricity generation come at a cost to households, including the ones the government supports, and that the cost of renewables is falling.Tony Abbott on Monday unveiled a new three-word slogan to attack Labor’s promised emissions trading scheme – saying it was an “electricity tax scam”. The prime minister also labelled Labor’s promise to source 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030 “bizarre” and “unnecessary”, said it would cause “a massive overbuild in windfarms” and claimed it could cost “$60bn or more”. Continue reading...

Democratic presidential frontrunner also says she wants America to generate enough clean renewable energy to power every home within 10 yearsDemocratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced goals for increasing US reliance on renewable energy, pledging to have more than half a billion solar panels installed nationwide within four years of taking office.Clinton, the front-runner for her party’s 2016 presidential nomination, also pledged on her website on Sunday that the United States would generate enough clean renewable energy to power every home in the country within 10 years of taking office. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 27 July 1915At first, as we approached the mere, no birds were visible under the bank, for the turf, worn into tiny inlets and bays by winter storms, rose, a line of miniature cliffs, above the narrow sandy beach where the broken mussel shells shone like silver. Suddenly a nervous redshank flew out with a loud cry of alarm, immediately followed by a larger and darker bird and the clear, ringing “choo, choo” of the greenshank. As the two flew together, calling repeatedly, we noted the striking differences between these closely related birds. Apart from call and size, the general appearance differed; the greenshank’s darker wings showed no white border, so noticeable a pattern caused by the redshank’s white secondaries, and when they settled the pose was distinctive, the larger bird’s body being held almost at right angles to the long green legs. Certainly migration has begun when a greenshank appears on a Cheshire inland water.Ragwort, thistle, sorrel, dock, and goosefoot do their best, and do it very well, to convert waste places into interesting and even beautiful botanic gardens, and a fine weed with long graceful spikes of yellowish-green flowers has joined them in the Northwich salt area; dyer’s rocket, a wild mignonette, is now exceedingly fine on some of the most uninviting tips of chemical waste. When the Cheshire Flora was published this plant was hardly known away from the coast, but evidently the soil and conditions of the salt country approach those of the marshes and sandhills of the shoreline. Continue reading...

In contrast to the wet and windy start to the summer in the northern half of Britain, the south-east of England is looking rather parched right now, even after the weekend’s rain. The south-east has been on the margin of a brutal heatwave which has taken grip in central and southern Europe, with temperatures reaching over 40C in many places. What is particularly shocking about this heat is its persistence, because it began early, in June. For now the extreme heat has returned to its more normal habitat, confining itself to north Africa and southern parts of the Mediterranean but over the past weeks long standing temperature records have been tumbling across Europe.Germany’s all-time highest temperature record was broken on 5 July with 40.3C in Bavaria, and in the Netherlands, Maastricht set a new national record for July of 38.2C. Spain set new record temperatures for both May and June, and this month Geneva recorded the highest ever temperature in Switzerland north of the Alps, with 39.7C. Continue reading...

Since the French have obviously lost control of Calais (Report, 25 July), isn’t it time they handed it back to the British?

Gloomy second-quarter figures from the oil company will be made worse by an extra $10bn provision from the Deepwater Horizon accidentBP is expected to report that its profits are down by more than half despite a recent increase in oil prices.The gloomy second-quarter figures to be revealed on Tuesday will be made worse by an extra $10bn (£6.5bn) provision that the company will take to pay for the latest legal settlement resulting from the Deepwater Horizon accident.

European allegedly paid €50,000 for chance to kill tourist attraction, who was found headless after being shot with a bow and arrow and tracked for 40 hoursAuthorities in Zimbabwe are trying track down a Spaniard who allegedly paid park guides €50,000 (£35,000) for the chance to kill Cecil, one of Africa’s most famous lions, who was the star attraction at the Hwange national park. The creature was found skinned and headless on the outskirts of the park.The 13-year-old lion was wearing a GPS collar as part of a research project that Oxford University has been running since 1999, making it possible to trace its last movements when it was tricked into leaving the park and shot with a bow and arrow. The hunters then tracked the dying animal for 40 hours before they killed it with a rifle. Continue reading...

Tony Abbott’s confidence may have been premature. From climate change to boat turnbacks, for the first time in a long time, Shorten looks like a leader who believes in somethingA few months ago Tony Abbott was sure he had Bill Shorten’s measure.The Labor leader’s confidence was ebbing by the day and huge challenges loomed – his appearance “in the dock” at the royal commission into trade union corruption, the ugly reminders in the ABC’s Killing Season and his party’s national conference which was already shaping as a treacherous Labor family outing. Continue reading...

People have been warned to stay out of the water after the Hobart man was attacked while diving for scallops with his daughterPolice patrols are continuing off Tasmania’s east coast after a man was killed by a shark as his daughter watched.Related: Man killed by shark while diving with daughter off Tasmania’s Maria Island Continue reading...