Current whale population estimate could be wrong as Japanese fleets misreported number and size of sperm whales killed in 1960s, study findsJapanese whaling fleets have been accused of systematically falsifying data on the number and size of sperm whales they killed in the late 1960s, calling into question our understanding of current whale populations.

Under pressure from shareholders, company promised eight years ago to stop funding climate denial – but financial and tax records tell a different storyExxonMobil gave more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial, the Guardian has learned.Climate denial – from Republicans in Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level – is seen as a major obstacle to US and global efforts to fight climate change, closing off the possibility of federal and state regulations cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the ability to plan for a future of sea-level rise and extreme weather. Continue reading...

3,831 Palawan forest turtles, as well as Asian leaf turtles and southeast Asian box turtles, are rescued from a terrible conditions in remote warehouseThousands of critically endangered turtles have been saved from possible extinction after being rescued from terrible conditions in the Philippines, conservationists said Wednesday.

Plane grounded in Hawaii until spring 2016 after on-board batteries overheat on first day of record-breaking trip from Japan to Pacific island chainA team attempting to fly a solar-powered plane around the world has been forced to suspend its journey in Hawaii after the plane suffered battery damage during its record-breaking flight to the islands.The Solar Impulse team said it would continue the bid to circumvent the globe, but irreversible damage caused by overheating batteries would ground the flight until at least April. Continue reading...

Scientists say wind patterns altered by climate variability is resulting in longer flight times, extra fuel consumption and an increase in CO2 emissions, reports Climate News NetworkGlobal warming may already be taking its toll of air miles. As jet planes burn fuel and release carbon dioxide, the atmosphere warms and causes head winds to build up. Tail winds do too, but round trip journey times are nevertheless creeping up − and so are fuel costs.A team of US scientists say the cumulative effect of the longer flight times that they think may have resulted from climate variation would have added millions of dollars to airlines’ costs, and perhaps a billion gallons of extra fuel. Continue reading...

US thinktank finds those in western countries, including Australia, rank Islamic State as the world’s greatest threat, in contrast to Africa and Latin AmericaAustralians perceive Islamic State (Isis) as being the greatest threat to global security ahead of climate change and economic instability, according to a survey from a major independent thinktank in the US.Between March and May, the Pew Research Center surveyed 45,435 people aged 18 and above from 40 countries, including 1,004 Australians. Continue reading...

Environment minister attacks what he calls Labor's carbon tax 'double whammy' while hosting a press conference promoting Caltex's 'Vortex fuel efficiency challenge'. Hunt says the ALP's leaked carbon working paper is an attempt to either kill off Labor's plans for a tax, or Shorten himself, and that the paper shows plans for a 'massive tax' on gas, electricity and 'potentially' fuel Continue reading...

Report says exploring for shale gas in the UK could be made safe, provided it is tightly regulated and monitoredIt is too soon to say whether shale gas fracking would be a “good thing” for the UK, the chief of the task force on shale gas has said. Lord Smith of Finsbury, better known as former Labour MP Chris Smith, said the industry had not been transparent enough and that it would take time to reassure the public about the technology.But Smith said that fracking would be acceptable if certain conditions were met, including a tightening of regulations and monitoring set out in a report from the taskforce on Wednesday. The report found that fracking was safe, for human health and the environment, but only if properly regulated. Continue reading...

Land reclamation in the South China Sea could be damaging irreplaceable reef ecosystems, threatening the food security of millions. It’s time for a treaty, says leading scientist

A young great white shark is rescued from a sandbar in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Tuesday. People on the beach doused the shark with buckets of water until officials arrived who, after tying a rope to its tail and carefully dragging it back to water, guide it back out to sea. Witnesses said the two-metre male was stranded by a receding tide.

Hot weather devastating farmland has led to an abundance of cephalopod in the East Sea, and citizens are desperate to reap the benefits. Daily NK reportWith North Korea in the midst of a severe drought, residents are rushing to the East Sea to catch squid. News of the profits available has spread rapidly, spurring a growth in seasonal jobs and a huge increase in the the price of housing along the country’s coast.“The areas on the East Sea are bustling with people from all over the country,” said a source from South Hamkyung Province on the eastern seaboard. “There are so many people seeking lodging in these areas that fishing villages and towns around piers have seen their rental fees increase to five times the going rate.” Continue reading...

Prime minister quickly seizes on leaked ALP options paper, saying Labor wants ‘to reintroduce not just a carbon tax but a triple-whammy carbon tax’Tony Abbott has revived his anti-carbon tax campaign after the Labor party recommitted to take an emissions trading scheme (ETS) to the next federal election.

Republican and Democratic hawks could derail historic agreement that will grant relief from sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programmeThe battle over the Iran nuclear agreement is set to move to Washington as the Obama administration begins a three-month campaign to stop the hard-won deal being derailed by congressional Republicans.The deal – reached in a Vienna hotel early on Tuesday morning after prolonged talks between foreign ministers – binds Iran, the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China to a series of undertakings stretching over many years. Iran will dismantle much of its nuclear infrastructure, while the UN, US and European Union will remove a wall of sanctions built around Iran over the last nine years. Continue reading...

Peta released photos of a SeaWorld employee and an activist who urged others to get ‘aggressive’ against SeaWorld – and they appear to be the same manSeaWorld has been accused of sending an employee to infiltrate animal rights protests against the company’s controversial treatment of killer whales.People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) on Tuesday claimed that Thomas Jones, an activist who had urged other protesters to “burn it [SeaWorld] to the ground”, is in fact Paul McComb, an employee of the aquatic theme park. Continue reading...

Funds will be awarded to wildlife and conservation projects and other collaborative initiatives around the world

But king coal won’t be dislodged just as yet despite shale bounty and Obama’s clean energy climate policiesFor the first time ever, gas has usurped coal as the biggest producer of electricity in the US. Analysts say Obama administration’s proposed climate change rules are likely to establish gas as the predominant source of electricity as early as 2020.Figures released by the US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that in April, natural gas produced 31.5% of the country’s electricity and coal 30.2%. Continue reading...

Three startups, Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat and Climeworks, are making strides with technology that can directly remove carbon dioxide from the air. What they need now is a viable business modelIn Squamish, British Columbia, a Canadian town halfway between Vancouver and Whistler where the ocean meets the mountains, a startup led by Harvard physicist David Keith – and funded in part by Bill Gates – is building an industrial plant to capture carbon dioxide from the air.Carbon Engineering aims to eventually build enough plants to suck many millions of tons of CO2 out of the air to reduce climate change. Its technology could help capture dispersed emissions – that is, emissions from cars, trucks, ships, planes or farm equipment – or even to roll back atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Continue reading...

General Synod votes in favour of policies to mitigate climate change and divesting from tar sands and coal companiesThe Church of England’s governing body has thrown its weight behind efforts to slow climate change by backing the move earlier this year to divest its resources from from companies involved in extracting two of the most polluting fossil fuels.In May, the Church Commissioners, who manage investments worth £6bn, took the decision to divest from tar sands oil and thermal coal – the first time they had ever imposed investment restrictions on environmental grounds. Continue reading...

62 former military bases have been turned into nature conservation areas, but they face challenges from careless motocross bikers and unexploded ordnanceMike Onslow juts out his chin as he scans the deep slug tracks that motorbikes have carved into a 40m-year-old sand dune on the newly-created nature reserve of Borkenberge, his former training camp.“These ‘motocross’ guys are causing enormous, irreplaceable damage,” the lieutenant colonel says. “When I think about all the environmental protection work that the British army and the German federal authorities have done for this area, it really grips my bits.” Continue reading...

If climate scientists’ predictions are right, it will become impossible to maintain our sea defences. This project shows what managed realignment could doBritain became smaller over the weekend, with the redrawing of our coastline to create Europe’s largest man-made nature reserve. Sea banks were breached on Wallasea Island, Essex, as part of an RSPB scheme to restore farmland to its natural state – mud flats, salt marsh and shallow salty lagoons. The coast here is being reconfigured with new sea banks constructed from soil and clay excavated from Crossrail’s tunnels beneath London.The first such “managed realignment” of our shores was in 1991, on the Essex island of Northey, which became famed as a place of retreat exactly 1,000 years earlier when Earl Byrhtnoth (“bright courage” in old English) charitably withdrew to allow 3,000 Vikings on to the mainland to fight his small army. Byrhtnoth’s retreat had disastrous consequences but the redrawing of coastal maps for conservation and sea defence is a more uplifting story. Continue reading...

The opposition leader says he is committed to bipartisanship, but not at any cost, while government sources say no final figure has yet been decidedBill Shorten has signalled Australia’s post-2020 emissions reduction target may not win bipartisan support if Tony Abbott forces Australia into “the path of lowest common denominator” in Paris later this year.

Located on the island of Sarichef, in the far north-west corner of Alaska, the village sits beside the Chukchi Sea where Shell has been given approval to begin drilling. The community, mostly made up of Inupiat Inuit, is concerned about the plans, which add to the daily problems they already face as a result of climate change Continue reading...

Andy Gotts has photographed almost 60 celebrities wearing the Save the Arctic T-shirt designed by fashion icon and activist Dame Vivienne Westwood, in a project that has taken 18 months. Here are more than a few of his pictures Continue reading...

Founder of National Park City initiative, Daniel Raven-Ellison, says idea would make the city greener, get children connected to nature, and tackle obesityThe national park concept should be extended from the countryside to the urban jungle, say the backers of a bid to have Greater London declared the world’s first “national park city”.Advocates of the idea want to increase London’s green spaces, which currently make up 47% of its total land area, to 51% by 2051, and to help children connect with nature. Continue reading...

Woods Mill, West Sussex The bird is somewhere in the tall tree above me. I stand up and walk around the path for a better view of the upper branchesThe children stomp across the non-slip chicken wire on the wooden bridge, laughing and clutching their pads and pencils. I follow the path that winds around the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve, past reeds and meadow flowers, and find a secluded bench by the pond, shaded beneath the trees from the harsh afternoon sun.I close my eyes and listen to each sound: the mew of a distant buzzard, a chiffchaff singing, a tuneful garden warbler in a nearby bush, and the shrieks of the adult coot calling to its softly whistling chicks. Continue reading...

Vow to expand marginal-seats campaign against Coalition comes after ban on Clean Energy Finance Corporation from financing wind and small-scale solarAustralia’s solar power industry has vowed to expand its marginal-seats campaign against the Coalition and aims “to remove this government from office” after ministers directed the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to avoid wind and small-scale solar investments.The Australian Solar Council has previously targeted numerous marginal electorates in opposition to cuts to the 2020 renewable energy target (RET) but is now flagging a much larger campaign with a multimillion-dollar budget aimed directly at the prime minister, Tony Abbott. Continue reading...

On his Latin American tour he called unfettered capitalism ‘the dung of the devil’, but he will face a very different political landscape in WashingtonAnti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-oil activists who question the world order don’t usually get much of a hearing inside the halls of the US Congress, where most lawmakers have little patience for views deemed too far outside the mainstream.But if there is one thing to be gleaned from Pope Francis’s trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, it is that an exception may have to be made in September. When the Argentinian pontiff arrives in Washington for his highly anticipated visit, his message will be just as contentious and radical as any protester calling for change. Continue reading...

Since a white paper was published 12 years ago, arguments over environmental issues, as well as land ownership, have been constantly on the moveIt was 3.30am on Monday morning when 13 people, one dressed as a polar bear, cut through the wire at Heathrow airport and chained themselves to its northern runway. The runway’s three-hour closure has resulted in 13 cancelled flights, around 1% of the airport’s daily landings and departures.Direct action group Plane Stupid said its protest aims to highlight “the terrifying consequences of flying”, by bringing climate change back into the debate on airport expansion in the UK. It was reignited two weeks ago when the Airports Commission published its “clear and unanimous” recommendation for a £17bn expansion plan, including a third runway, at Heathrow. Continue reading...

Twenty-two flights cancelled and 13 people arrested after demonstrators from Plane Stupid cut through fence and entered runway at 3.30amThirteen climate change activists have been arrested after they chained themselves together on the northern runway at Heathrow, causing delays and cancellations for passengers.The demonstrators from direct action group Plane Stupid cut through a perimeter fence and entered the northern runway at 3.30am on Monday. Activists wore armlocks and lay on the runway, where police brought heavy machinery to cut them free. Continue reading...

London charity The Bike Project is part of a scheme helping women who have fled war, persecution and poverty gain confidence with lessons on donated second-hand bikesUntil recently, Célestine had never ridden a bike. Only now, in her mid-50s, after fleeing her home in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and applying for asylum in the UK, has she finally been given the chance.It is a bright summer morning in Wapping as she slowly pedals her way through a park, draped in a high-visibility vest that glints whenever the sun comes out. For many of us, cycling is the most natural thing in the world. For this woman, it is nothing short of extraordinary. Continue reading...

In foreword to Foreign Office report, Baroness Joyce Anelay highlights holistic risks of global warming, including food security, terrorism and lethal heat levelsThe threat of climate change needs to be assessed in the same comprehensive way as nuclear weapons proliferation, according to a UK foreign minister.Baroness Joyce Anelay, minister of state at the Commonwealth and Foreign Office, said the indirect impacts of global warming, such as deteriorating international security, could be far greater than the direct effects, such as flooding. She issued the warning in a foreword to a new report on the risks of climate change led by the UK’s climate change envoy, Prof Sir David King. Continue reading...

More and more people have safe drinking water, economic security and better health. We must keep moving forwardThe past 15 years have yielded unprecedented gains in the fight against extreme poverty and hunger, with emerging economies heralding record economic growth.The number of people living in extreme poverty is half of what it was in 1990, as is the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. More than 3m deaths from malaria have been averted since 2000. Women’s labor force participation has jumped significantly. And technological innovations – led by the increasingly ubiquitous mobile phone – have brought dramatic economic, social and financial opportunities to remote parts of the world. Continue reading...

Avon Gorge: At first glance this moth might seem a simple, papery insect but its enchanting subtlety invites further studyEverything I’ve heard about the silky wave moth puts me in mind of fairy lingerie. It is small, pale tan, with a pearly sheen and delicate fringing at the edges of its wings. It appears from midsummer and is very rare, found in just one place in England and a further two in Wales.Conservationist Jen Nightingale is taking me on a tour of the sites she surveys for the moths in the Avon Gorge. After two vertiginous rockfaces open to the growl of traffic on the Portway, I am relieved to be guided to something a little closer to a storybook scene. Continue reading...

Target had been expected this month, but Tony Abbott says policy must clear Coalition party room before it is unveiledAustralia’s prime minister says the country will not publicise its new post-2020 emissions reduction target until the Coalition party room has cleared the policy in August.The government had been expected to unveil its climate target this month, but Tony Abbott told reporters on Monday the policy must first clear the government party room, which will not meet again until parliament resumes next month. Continue reading...

Improved air quality, energy efficiency and energy security, plus falling cost of renewables among extra gains of reducing global emissions, says Fergus GreenThe economic benefits for a country from tackling climate change easily outweigh the costs, according to a study that seeks to highlight the incentives for individual nations to take urgent action to cut emissions.Countries stand to gain more than they would lose in economic terms from almost all of the actions needed to meet an agreed global warming limit of no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, according to the paper published by two research institutes at the London School of Economics. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 16 July 1915The tall reeds which fringe the mere have spread in both directions. Landward they invaded the ground occupied by willows and elders, and have even pushed their blades through the bramble tangle. In the deep water they are reaching up amongst the floating lily leaves, where the white flowers rest on the rippling water and the yellow lilies reach a little higher, as if anxious to keep their petals dry. Amongst the inner reeds, growing from marshy ground but not actually with roots submerged, two handsome plants, in no ways related though sharing a common name, are now fully out; the dense whorls and spikes of the purple loosestrife stand side by side with the more widespread heads of the yellow loosestrife. In the centre of the reed-bed the great spearworts, finest of all the buttercups, are appearing, but we must wait a week or two before they are at their best.If most of the abundant blossom turns to fruit the blackberry season will be an excellent one, and already the wild raspberries are full of sweeter, larger berries than we have seen for years; in one wood the straggling canes, covered with delicious fruit, grow amongst and wave over the loosestrifes and reeds. Continue reading...

The record temperature this month also brought problems with summertime smog. Ground-level ozone reached between 7 and 9 on the UK’s 10-point air-quality index. Millions of people across the eastern half of England were exposed to pollution levels that were about twice World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. This was the worst summertime smog across southern England since 2012.Ozone is synonymous with Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, when concentrations could be assessed by measuring how fast the smog rotted rubber. Continue reading...

Following Giles Fraser’s excellent article (Money is the only God Tories want us to worship on a Sunday, 11 July), may I propose that we now rebrand as Sunday as “a day of contentment”. This would not only emphasise the benefits of connecting to and enjoying the natural world and the company of friends and family, but also provide an opportunity to truly enjoy, use and benefit from the material possessions we already have. This might also provide a useful antidote to the commercial pressures which build a constant sense of wanting things that we don’t need and of needing things that we don’t want.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation banned from investing in small-scale solar projects in move industry claims is ‘revenge politics’ that will strangle the sectorA directive banning the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) from investing in existing wind technology will also apply to small-scale solar projects, a move that will effectively throttle the industry, the Australian Solar Council said.The federal government on Sunday confirmed that the $10bn CEFC will no longer invest in wind power, instead focussing on “emerging technologies”. Continue reading...

Extreme weather events, underinsurance and banks invested in a nation of coastal properties mean the economy is vulnerable, the Climate Council saysAustralia’s financial system is ill-prepared for the impacts of climate change, the Climate Institute has said.A new discussion paper warns of threats to Australia’s banking, insurance and superannuation sectors not mentioned in the Abbott government’s inquiry led by David Murray. Continue reading...