Environment news

• Ancient DNA sheds light on African history

  21-09-2017 18:08 via bbc.co.uk
  DNA from ancient remains is used to reconstruct thousands of years of population history in Africa.
  
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• Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video

  16-04-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Scientists have recorded widespread bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef as global heating creates a fourth planet-wide bleaching event. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch, 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have been experiencing heat stress high enough to cause bleachingGlobal heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Super cute please like’: the unstoppable rise of Shein

  16-04-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  It is taking fast fashion to ever faster and ever cheaper extremes, and making billions from it. Why is the whole world shopping at Shein?For another five hours and 47 minutes, I can buy a Royal Blue Twist Front Cloak Sleeve Slit Back Dress for $5.90, a Striped Pattern High Neck Drop Shoulder Split Hem Sweater for $8.50, or a Solid Sweetheart Neck Crop Tube Top for $1.90. When today’s 90%-off sale ends at 8pm, the crop top will revert to its original price: $4. There are 895 items on flash
  
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• Soundscape ecology: a window into a disappearing world – podcast

  16-04-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  What can sound tell us about nature loss? Guardian biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston tells Madeleine Finlay about her visit to Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire, where ecologist Richard Broughton has witnessed the decline of the marsh tit population over 22 years, and has heard the impact on the wood’s soundscape. As species lose their habitats across the world, pioneering soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause has argued that if we listen closely, nature can tell us everything we need to know ab
  
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• Conservationists condemn France’s protest over UK’s bottom-trawling ban

  15-04-2024 19:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Paris claims ban breaches UK-EU trade deal but environmentalists say dispute is ‘hypocrisy’, given Macron’s rhetoric on saving oceansFrance has been accused of hypocrisy by conservationists over a fresh post-Brexit dispute with the UK over fishing rights.France launched an official protest after the UK banned bottom trawling from parts of its territorial waters last month, with the aim of protecting vulnerable habitats. Continue reading...
  
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• Climate crisis increasing frequency of deadly ocean upwells, study finds

  15-04-2024 18:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Intense patches of cold water rising from the depths are killing sharks, rays and other creatures, researchers sayA climate-disrupted ocean is pushing sharks, rays and other species to flee ever-hotter water in the tropics, only for them to be killed by increasingly intense upwells of cold water from the depths, a study has found.One of the authors of the paper described the “eerie” aftermath of a mass die-off of more than 260 marine organisms from 81 species in a singular event of e
  
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• Global heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record

  15-04-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The percentage of reef areas experiencing bleaching-level heat stress is increasing by about 1% a week, scientists sayGlobal heating has pushed the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching event that is on track to be the most extensive on record, US government scientists have confirmed.Some 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough to cause bleaching, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch sa
  
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• Wrestling the octopus: the masked gang who fought to save England from urban sprawl

  15-04-2024 15:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Bludy Beershop, Bill Stickers, Red Biddy: with their unlikely pseudonyms, the members of ‘Ferguson’s Gang’ raised a fortune for the National Trust – and rescued many landmarks from oblivion. But who were they?Hanging from a drawing pin in Shalford Mill, in a tiny room just a couple of metres above its mighty water wheel and the tumbling River Tillingbourne, is a brown paper bandit’s mask. It is almost invisible in the shadows of the hefty 18th-century beams, and its
  
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• Earthworm crowned UK invertebrate of the year by Guardian readers

  15-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Lumbricus terrestris claims landslide victory with 38% of vote, while Asian or yellow-legged hornet comes in last with 0.8%It’s a political earthquake! The common earthworm, the soil-maker, food provider and grand recycler, is the landslide winner of the inaugural UK invertebrate of the year competition.Lumbricus terrestris, also known as the lob worm, dew worm and nightcrawler, took a mighty 38% of the popular vote after readers nominated it to be added to the shortlist for the Guardian c
  
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• Dragons, sea toads and the longest creature ever seen found on undersea peaks off South America

  15-04-2024 12:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Underwater mountains are biodiversity hotspots and researchers exploring the Salas y Gómez ridge off Chile have found 50 species probably new to science. How much more has yet to be discovered?Photographs by ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean InstituteSquat lobsters, bright red sea toads and deep-sea dragon fish were among more than 160 species never previously seen in the region that were spotted on a recent expedition exploring an underwater mountain range off the coast of South America. Resea
  
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• Record number of river barriers removed across Europe in 2023

  15-04-2024 11:24 via theguardian.com
  
  Removal of nearly 500 barriers last year will help restore disturbed waterways to their natural state, says Dam Removal EuropeEurope removed a record number of dams and other barriers from its rivers in 2023, a report has found, helping to restore its disturbed waterways to their natural states.Nearly 500 barriers were taken out of European rivers last year, according to figures compiled by Dam Removal Europe, an increase of 50% from the year before. Continue reading...
  
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• Weather tracker: Gulf braced for thunderstorms

  15-04-2024 11:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Heavy rain forecast in Saudi Arabia and UAE as France and Spain cool down after weekend of high temperaturesIntense thunderstorms are forecast across parts of the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday, bringing very high rainfall to the region and a significant flooding risk in parts.Low pressure over the Arabian peninsula will deepen on Monday while a flow of moist tropical air moves into the region, significantly enhancing the production of showers as a result. Continue reading...
  
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• There’s no such thing as a benign beef farm – so beware the ‘eco-friendly’ new film straight out of a storybook | George Monbiot

  15-04-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A highly misleading new documentary claims soil carbon storage can redeem the livestock industry – it’s all so much ‘moo-woo’We draw our moral lines in arbitrary places. We might believe we’re guided only by universal values and proven facts, but often we’re swayed by deep themes of which we might be unaware. In particular, we tend to associate the imagery and sensations of our earliest childhood with what is good and right. When we see something that chimes w
  
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• Exploring why we photograph animals – in pictures

  15-04-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A new collection of wildlife photography aims to help understand why people have photographed animals at different points in history and what it means in the present. Huw Lewis-Jones explores the animal in photography through the work of more than 100 photographers in Why We Photograph Animals, supporting the images with thematic essays to provide historical contextPhotography on display at the Cheltenham science festival 4-9 June 2024 Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: All of life is in these farmyard geese | Kate Blincoe

  15-04-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: There’s such comedy in their waddling aggression, and such tragic hope in their clutch that just won’t hatchThere’s a hissing noise, then a peal of nervous laughter. The grey gander is on the rampage again, chasing anyone who comes within a few metres of him and his goose. Usually the pair are sedate, waddling around together, orange beaks grazing the grass. They’re just another couple of farmyard characters among an assorted bunch of dogs, hor
  
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• ‘Solar powered vacuum cleaners’: the native plants that could clean toxic soil

  14-04-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Indigenous groups see hope in the environmentally friendly process of bioremediation. But will cities pay attention?It almost looked like a garden. In Taylor Yard, a former railyard near downtown Los Angeles, volunteers knelt down to tend to scrubby plants growing in neat rows under the sweltering sun.But beneath the concrete of the 60-acre site overlooking the Los Angeles River, the soils were soaked with an assortment of hazardous heavy metals and petrochemicals like lead, cadmium, diesel, and
  
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• ‘We found 700 different species’: astonishing array of wildlife discovered in Cambodia mangroves

  14-04-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Hairy-nosed otters and cats that catch fish are among the startling diversity of creatures making their home in threatened habitatsOne of the most comprehensive biodiversity surveys ever carried out in a mangrove forest has revealed that an astonishing array of wildlife makes its home in these key, threatened habitats.Hundreds of species – from bats to birds and fish to insects – were identified during the study of the Peam Krasop sanctuary and the adjacent Koh Kapik Ramsar reserve i
  
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• ‘Grownup’ leaders are pushing us towards catastrophe, says former US climate chief

  14-04-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Paris agreement negotiator Todd Stern attacks premiers who say that decarbonisation programmes are unrealistic and should be slowed downPolitical leaders who present themselves as “grownups” while slowing the pace of climate action are pushing the world towards deeper catastrophe, a former US climate chief has warned.“We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and believe decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for is unrealistic,” sa
  
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• The disease-busting hybrids that could bring back the majestic English elm

  14-04-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The tree all but vanished in the 1970s. Now, thanks to two amateur nature lovers, it may soon grace our landscapes againConstable painted them. Shakespeare wrote of them. And Francis Drake sailed the world in a ship made from them. English elms were a mainstay of England’s landscape and culture – until they all but disappeared to Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.Since that devastation, when 25m elms were felled, enthusiasts and academics have searched for varieties resistant to the fun
  
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• ‘The courgettes were so good last year, I got a tattoo of one’: life on a Birmingham allotment

  14-04-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A city of welly-wearers, Birmingham has more allotments than any other UK local authority – some of its keen plotholders tell us whyOn Dads Lane, where several Birmingham suburbs meet, there is a gap in the houses, no wider than a driveway. If you didn’t know what was hiding in there, you would walk straight past. It is a brisk, bright Sunday in late March, and behind the gate, a narrow road stretches out into a busy haven of growth and greenery. The city centre is less than four mil
  
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• Jail for holding a placard? Protest over the climate crisis is being brutally suppressed | Natasha Walter

  13-04-2024 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The legal repression of activism has been fast and frightening, yet it won’t make protesters disappear and only sows divisionYears ago, when Dr Sarah Benn recognised the scale of the climate crisis, she made sure that she was doing all the right things. She recycled, she went vegan, she stopped flying, she voted Green, she signed petitions. It was because she didn’t see real change happening, despite doing all those things, that she then went further. She glued her hand to a bui
  
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• Rope-entangled right whale spotted off coast of New England

  13-04-2024 15:42 via theguardian.com
  
  The marine mammals are increasingly endangered as warmer waters push them into ship traffic and fishing gearA North Atlantic right whale has been spotted entangled in rope off New England, worsening an already devastating year for the vanishing animals, federal authorities said.Right whales number less than 360 and are vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships. The entangled whale was seen on Wednesday about 50 miles (80km) south of Rhode Island’s Block Island, t
  
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• ‘A glittering new world of intrigue’: the rich stories Britain’s insects have to tell

  13-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The fascinating, strange and sometimes hilarious insect world awakens in spring outside our doorsCast your vote for the UK invertebrate of the year I never expected a later-life love affair. But a few years ago, I was commissioned to write a book on garden insects and the earth moved. All of a sudden, I realised that my garden wasn’t just full of six-legged aliens, but characters, all with stories to tell, some of which were often bizarre and others hilarious. A few metres from my backdoor
  
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• Network of ‘ghost roads’ paves the way for levelling Asia-Pacific rainforests

  13-04-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Bulldozed tracks and informal byways in tropical forests and palm-oil plantations ‘almost always’ an indicator of future deforestation, say researchersA vast network of undocumented “ghost roads” is pushing into the world’s untouched rainforests and driving their destruction in the Asia-Pacific region, a new study has found.By using Google Earth to map tropical forests on Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea islands, researchers from James Cook University in Australia doc
  
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• Country diary: Standing up for the lesser celandine, a truly sensitive flower | Jim Perrin

  13-04-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Llandrindod Wells, Powys: At the earliest hint of spring, you can see its gold-spangled profusion across every field and verge here. But not everyone sees its virtuesWilliam Wordsworth’s best‑known poem may be addressed to daffodils, but his favourite flower in the year’s bright early succession was the lesser celandine. It’s a preference I share. On the whole, gardeners and botanists do not. Those I’ve canvassed for their opinion regard its cold-months, late-F
  
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• UK invertebrate of the year: vote for your favourite

  13-04-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Over the past two weeks we’ve gone in search of the UK’s invertebrate of the year. Now it’s your chance to chooseMost of life on Earth is not like us at all. Barely 5% of all known living creatures are animals with backbones. The rest – at least 1.3 million species, and many more still to be discovered – are spineless. They are the invertebrates, animals of wondrous diversity, unique niches and innovative and interesting ways of making a living on this planet, which
  
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• Shell says it ‘lobbies for energy transition’ during climate ruling appeal

  12-04-2024 22:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Company is fighting Dutch court ruling that says it must emit 45% less CO2 by 2030 than in 2019Shell has argued that it “lobbies for, not against, the energy transition” on the final day of its appeal against an important climate ruling.The fossil fuel company is fighting the decision of a Dutch court in 2021 that forces it to pump 45% less planet-heating CO2 into the atmosphere by 2030 than it did in 2019. In court on Friday, Shell argued the ruling is ineffective, onerous and does
  
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• Engineers in Oregon train dog robot to walk on Moon

  12-04-2024 22:35 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The engineering team has a two-year $2 million grant to help Nasa study the Moon's surface.
  
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• Back on the rack: the best ways to sell second-hand clothes | Tegan Forder

  12-04-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Clearing out your wardrobe? Here’s how you can stop good quality clothing from ending up in landfillChange by Degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprintGot a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at [email protected]’s a Saturday morning and I’m pulling clothes out of my suitcase and hanging them on a rack. Around me are three others attending their own displays.
  
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• As Thailand revels in Songkran water fights, tourist hub Samui suffers through drought

  12-04-2024 15:15 via theguardian.com
  
  The resort island is facing days without running water, even as the country celebrates new year with water fightsAcross Thailand, people are getting ready to take to the streets for a giant water fight to mark the new year. Roads will be lined with vendors selling water pistols, businesses will put out buckets of icy water for refills and no passersby is safe.What began as a tradition of the Songkran festival to sprinkle water on the hands of elders, in a symbol of cleansing and reverence to mar
  
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