Exclusive: Expert involved in first assessment of NSW coalmine says government approval before a detailed water management plan is ‘backwards’Uncertainty around the Shenhua Watermark mega-mine’s effect on underground water creates “huge risks” and “is always open to creating irreversible impacts”, according to a former member of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee (IESC).

Putting solar on the chopping block may damage the industry badly at a time when it just needs that last push to become independent

Joint letter by 24 scientific, medical and engineering bodies say mitigation will also bring economic and health benefits

Animal rights groups condemn orca’s 40 years in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium, leaving her unable to ‘carry out virtually any natural behaviors’Animal rights groups seeking the release of Lolita, a killer whale in captivity since 1970, sued the Miami Seaquarium and its parent company Palace Entertainment on Monday saying her conditions violate the Endangered Species Act.

The impact air pollution has on Londoners is no one-day story; last week’s figures reveal an ongoing saga of suffering and misery for ordinary people (London air pollution leads to 9,500 early deaths a year, study says, 16 July). Every year the UK’s filthy air leads to up to 100,000 deaths, and many more people being diagnosed with respiratory illnesses. The supreme court has ruled against the government’s lack of action on air pollution, but no minister seems willing to drive change on the issue.We need a national solution now. Part of this could be for the government to enable all schools, hospitals and other critical institutions to become local clean-air zones that would protect those most vulnerable from the insidious effects of pollution. Another option would be to bring forward the imposition of the ultra low emission zone in London and get those vehicles that pollute the most off our streets. Continue reading...

Jeffreys Bay officials examine options such as hilltop lookouts to avoid repeat of scare involving Australian surferOfficials in the South African town where a surfer came face-to-fin with a shark said they would consider hiring spotters and even using drones to prevent another scare.Australian Mick Fanning’s lucky escape on Sunday in Jeffreys Bay – said to be one of the five best surfing locations in the world – comes two years after a swimmer was killed by a shark close by. Continue reading...

Disclosure of Japan’s biggest corporate scandal in years could lead to restatement of earnings at computers-to-nuclear firm, plus a board overhaul and big fines

After a few gull attacks on family pets, David Cameron has talked of culling. He would be better off imparting a bit of common senseSlowly dying from poison. Maimed with air rifles. Lured with food and deliberately run over. Eggs crushed. Offspring snatched and killed. Given our treatment of seagulls, it would be understandable if they launched a campaign of terror against us. Listen to the news, and you would think they had. Stig the tortoise was last week “flipped over like a crab” by seagulls who devoured him in Cornwall. Roo the Yorkshire terrier was pecked to death in Newquay. Bella the chihuahua puppy died of gull attack injuries in May. And so David Cameron – off to Cornwall for his hols – called for a “big conversation” about matters such as a cull, declaring that residents of seagull-blighted towns best know what to do about them.Gull attacks normally only happen at this time of year, when birds are protecting chicks from perceived threats Continue reading...

Artists are installing work in the poisoned nuclear landscape devastated in 2011’s tsunami – and of course, no one can visit it. I can’t think of a more fatuous planIt is no surprise that art is drawn to politics. The drama and emotion of a conflicted world can make for moving, haunting images. But is art really capable of useful commentary on world events – or does it encourage fatuously emotional responses?An exhibition in the Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan is an example of what I am talking about. That’s right, the Fukushima exclusion zone – the 20km zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was damaged in Japan’s devastating 2011 earthquake and leaked radiation. Continue reading...

With California thought to have only one year of water left, Silicon Valley data centres are trying to reduce their needs for coolingWe hear a lot about what the tech giants are doing with our data, but what are they doing with our water?

Tim Flach, the renowned UK photographer, is exhibiting a series of animal portraits at the Retina Scottish International Photography Festival, Edinburgh. His work, which often examines the anthropomorphism of creatures in an abstract way, is on display at 11 Gayfield Square until 30 July. Continue reading...

More prosperous countries have the largest carbon emissions and poorer countries bear the consequencesThe atmosphere is warming. Ice is melting. Droughts are worsening; seas are warming, rising and acidifying. We’re past theory and well into measurement on those points. Pope Francis recently observed that “[n]ever have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years.” The matter of climate change is urgent, and it commands a moral dimension.Related: The Earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth Continue reading...

Little fish and shellfish have as much potential for a delicious dish as the overfished favouritesThere are plenty of fish in the sea as good at sharpening our minds and oiling our bones as tuna and salmon. They are not big fish, but small fish and shellfish and fish whose silvery little bodies are unfamiliar – at least in the US – but delicious, or fish whose hard shells intimidate, but keep safe the sweetest flesh. There are plenty of freckly mackerel, meaty little sardines, delicately saline squid, and flinty-shelled clams and oysters. Most of these fish are more affordable than environmentally troubling tuna and salmon.We should approach this wide variety of smaller fish with the inclusiveness of cultures that rely on fish as staple. Their diets are not made up of one kind of fish, cooked one way, but all the fish the deeps can offer, all cooked in different ways. Continue reading...

From Asia’s peat swamp forests to Europe’s wetlands, swamp farming can provide valuable low-carbon energy, wildlife habitat and a means of depolluting waterways – and help reduce carbon emissions in the processOn a boat drifting through a swampy reed plantation in the Polish Baltic, Szymon Smolczyński surveys his blanket of green crops destined to heat northern European homes.“Many animals have their homes in our reed fields,” he says. “There are thousands of wild boar in this area and plenty of roe deer too.” Continue reading...

Would you stop showering if it meant that was the only way you could keep eating beef? California's ongoing drought needs radical action. But in a state dependent on water-hungry meat production, it would be politically dangerous to suggest eating less beef. Activists the Yes Men collaborated with comedy video website Funny or Die to produce a spoof campaign encouraging California's hipsters to skip showers for beef. Did it fool anyone? Continue reading...

The mother of surfer Mick Fanning, who was attacked by a shark during the J-Bay Open championships in South Africa on Sunday, describes her fear during the incident. Elizabeth Osborne watched the events unfold live on TV and says she 'couldn't believe' what she was seeing. Fanning escaped from the shark unhurt. The remainder of the surfing championship was cancelled Continue reading...

Smoking ban may be extended from pubs and cafes to outdoor public areas as Brighton council meets to decide on public consultationBrighton beach could become smoke-free under plans being considered by the city council.

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

More of us are in the water than ever before – and while we kill 100m of them every year, it seems that sharks just don’t like the way we tasteMick Fanning’s close shave with a shark while competing in South Africa is likely to amplify mutterings from some ocean-goers over what they perceive as a dangerous escalation in shark numbers.

Dufton, Eden Valley, Cumbria The Helm Wind blasts down Dufton Pike so violently it can fan fires into infernos

The atom can indeed be stripped of its military casing and adapted to the arts of peace, says the chairman of the Atomic Energy CommissionTen years after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, when a group of nuclear scientists saw the first mushroom cloud and confessed that they “knew sin,” a switch was thrown in up-state New York yesterday, and for the first time in this country generated atomic power for such innocent uses as lighting lamps, turning fans and cooking hamburgers.Mr Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called it “a moving demonstration that the atom can indeed be stripped of its military casing and adapted to the arts of peace.” This was a precise description of what was happening yesterday at West Milton, New York, because the power was flowing from a reactor built and used to test a model of the power plant that was installed two years ago in the atomic submarine. This idle reactor belongs to the Government, through the Atomic Energy Commission, which is now leasing 10,000 atomic kilowatts to an up-state power company, the Niagara-Mohawk Power Company, at a rate of 2 ½ d per 10 Kilowatt-hours of energy. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Osborne, the mother of the champion surfer, describes how her terror turned to overwhelming relief when she saw he had survived unscathedMick Fanning’s mother has described her terror as she watched a huge shark attack the champion surfer in South Africa and the heart-wrenching moments when she feared she had lost another son.Elizabeth Osborne was watching the J-Bay Open surf competition live on television when the shark stalked her son. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 24 July 1915If the potatoes in these parts have thriven lately as much in the root as they have in the haulm we shall enjoy a wonderful crop. Passing through a field white and pink in flower to-day, one was knee-high among the earthed-up rows, and a trial with the prong showed that the acres of soil covered tons of sound, delicious food. In the corner of this fifteen-acre plot, there is a spread of turnips which also promises well; all the roots are helped by the intermittent rain and sunshine. From among the green tops which glistened in the light - these young leaves hold the clear rain water like small saucers - there went away with a whirring noise, but rather slowly, a dozen or so of brown birds, a covey of partridges. It was one family; a week or two ago the youngsters could only have run, now they were across the hedge and lost in the tall grass out of which it would have been unkind to dislodge them.The grass ought by this time to have been hay, but when the rains came it was thought better to let the “tops” wither so that the richer “bottoms” might spring anew. But it is now all overripe; the white-flowered clover has faded to brown, the intruding thistles are sere above their roots, and the hedge-side, where the haws are beginning to ripen, as do mellow apples, would bear a premature touch of middle August were it not for the livening of these showers. It is greener, however, where the young rabbits have come out to feed. They nibble within sight of their run, and very little will make them scutter. Continue reading...

The bird came out of the sun like a second world war bomber, lumbering towards me before swerving off at the very last moment, leaving me breathless and shaken. That’ll teach me for getting too near its nest, I thought. For somewhere in the marshy ground alongside the boardwalk there was a small, fluffy chick, in need of protection from intruders.Great skuas are impressive birds. With their dark brown plumage and broad wings they look rather like a cross between a buzzard and a gull, with twice as much aggression as either. They are also one of the rarest birds, globally speaking, that you will ever see in Britain. For well over half the world population – roughly 10,000 pairs – breeds in Scotland, most on Shetland, where they are known by the Old Norse name of “bonxie”. Continue reading...

In America and Australia there are government health warnings to parents about the danger of their children getting burned on playground equipment that has been heated up in the summer sun.The sun can be so hot that even plastic coatings and other materials that replace traditional metal surfaces can be enough to burn a toddler’s skin, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Continue reading...

Environment Agency found about 150 dead fish in the river Penk and more in the river Sow, near Stafford – identifying the tarmac-melting fire as the likely causeA lorry fire that shut a motorway for 16 hours after it melted the road is believed to be responsible for killing more than 100 fish in nearby rivers, the Environment Agency has said.

I was seven when I went to Germany in 1934. It seemed the thing to do then to raise your hand and say “Heil Hitler” – it was a fun thing to do, and we did it all the time as children (Palace criticises Sun’s ‘Nazi salute’ image, 18 July). We got one rebuke – when two nuns who came to the house where we were staying, to treat the mosquito bites on my mother’s legs. When we raised our hands to them and said “Heil Hitler” they said “Nicht Heil Hitler, Grüss Gott.”

After pestering vulnerable charity supporters with cold calls and requests for donations, charities are being told to clean up their actHow did it come to this? Over the past two months some of the best-known UK charities, on the front line of environmental and social justice, have become connected to unethical fundraising practices. It’s not surprising we’re in a spin.The story broke after the death of an elderly charity giver. Before her death, Olive Cooke had revealed to local media that she had received 260 pieces of charity mail and would no longer answer her landline due to repeated requests for donations. Since Olive’s death the near-daily bombardment and insufferable levels of “asks” suffered by many elderly and vulnerable people from and on behalf of charities has been laid bare. Continue reading...

Quizzed about recent gull attacks on a tortoise and two small dogs, Cameron tells BBC Radio Cornwall it is dangerous subject for a PM to dive intoDavid Cameron has flown into the debate about culling seagulls, calling for a “big conversation” about the issue.The prime minister’s call follows an attack on a pet tortoise in Cornwall this week. Liskeard resident Jan Byrne said that gulls swooped on tortoise Stig, who died two days later from his injuries. Continue reading...

Clinton attacked Jeb Bush and Scott Walker by name and said Democrats ‘are in the future business … but the Republicans are the party of the past’Hillary Clinton delivered a fiery barn burner to a gathering of more than 1,300 Iowa Democrats Friday night.

New Forest Aptly named, greater broomrape gains all its nourishment from broom or gorseThe grapevine is important. We were about to leave for Ireland when the call came in. “The plant you told us about in your talk is showing through.” No time to check it out before we departed, but we did go to look soon after our return. Nationally scarce and in decline, greater broomrape is uncommon throughout Hampshire. The one colony in the New Forest where it has some strength is possibly the largest in Britain.In the weeks we have been away, most of the plants have flowered, gone over, and stand as tan-brown sentinels among gorse bushes. A few are in more open ground along root runs. A few still hold their florets with down-turned yellowish-pink lips tinged with purple, and a brightly coloured stigma that looks like two close-set yellow eyes peering out from under the upper hood. Some plants are no more than 10cm tall, others reach nearly a metre. Continue reading...

Brown bears in Alaska, lions in the Serengeti and pond turtles in the Philippines in this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

This year I will celebrate 10 years’ marriage to a hospital consultant – but your article has caused me great concern (Hospital consultants face ultimatum, 16 July). When I get a moment with her, without the kids (which is likely to be sometime next week), I will be expecting an explanation for the one in three weekends she has spent away from the family, claiming to have been “on call”.

A clergyman’s borrowed warning of ecological doom reminds me that theology can be flexible enough to fit many times and placesMy ears pricked up in the Church of England’s global warming debate when a clergyman in a brightly coloured shirt announced that the Earth would “vomit us out” because we had defiled it. People should say more of this kind of thing at synod. They should say more of this in almost all dull meetings. Certainly, it is an arresting figure of ecological doom.The speaker, Richard Burridge, the dean of Kings College London, went on to describe the form this vomiting out would take: “God says: ‘I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.” Continue reading...

Pledge to UN criticised by analysts as being less ambitious than it looks due to using 2013 levels as baseline, RTCC reportsJapan will cut greenhouse gas emissions 26% from 2013 levels by 2030, under a plan to be submitted to the UN on Friday.That commits the source of 2.65% of global emissions to steeper reductions than the US (18-21%) and EU (24%) over the same period, Reuters reported. Continue reading...

Legal core of a new UN accord on climate change should be short and concise, compared to current 90-page draft, says French governmentA United Nations accord to slow global warming should be short, flexible and long-lasting to avoid complex re-negotiations every few years, according to a document prepared by France before a Paris summit in December.

Footage shows the first kit to be spotted this year at location in Scottish Highlands where the animals were returned to the wildFootage has been released of the first baby beaver to be spotted this year at a Scottish site where the animals have been reintroduced.It is the first young beaver – known as a kit – to be captured on camera this year at the site at Lochan Buic in the Knapdale Forest of Argyll, in the Scottish Highlands, though wildlife experts suspect there may be more. Continue reading...

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

A school of up to 50 sharks is captured on film in Medmerry nature reserve near Selsey in West Sussex on Wednesday morning. The sharks were identified as smooth-hounds, which are not dangerous to humans. They are usually found in coastal waters, but it is rare to see them in such large numbers Continue reading...

Paul Hickson says when he signed access agreement he had no idea of physical or psychological impact that gas drilling could have on him and his familyA farmer who gave an energy company permission to dig a test borehole for coal bed methane gas out of a sense of national duty has warned other landowners not to allow fracking and other unconventional gas exploration companies on their land.The potential of gas drilling to pollute water courses and the effect it could have on the value of farmland left Paul Hickson and his family stressed for years and no wealthier, he said. Continue reading...

Is the UK running out of money for clean power, as reports suggested this week? No, not yet, and no, wind turbines aren’t the reason for rising billsEnergy bills are back in the news, with the Office of Budget Responsibility calculating new figures for the cost of low carbon power, the Competition and Markets Authority investigating energy companies, and both IPPR and Policy Exchange releasing reports in the past few weeks. With so much to debate, and a lot of seemingly conflicting numbers to grasp, here are five things you should know:1. The levy control framework (LCF) makes up 3% of the average energy bill.

What will commercials look like after the Earth has grown skin-meltingly hot? Here's the best guess from UCB Comedy, the virtual side of the Upright Citizens Brigade live comedy theater troupe. At the imaginary Stuff Mart of the future, the deals are the only thing hotter than the planet, with great prices on now-useless items like winter coats, scarves, snowboards and more. Don't miss this sale! Continue reading...