Environment news

• One of Australia’s most elusive birds, a 2,200km journey and a mid-winter mystery solved

  03-08-2024 22:00
  A new project that aims to uncover where the Australian painted-snipe goes during winter has revealed why, until now, no one knewGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt had been three months without a peep, and the ecologist Matt Herring thought Gloria had perished. He had captured the elusive bird on 22 October 2023, on a property north of Balranald in New South Wales – the first Australian painted-snipe to be fitted with a radio transmitter.But contact
  
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• Is the dream of nuclear fusion dead? Why the international experimental reactor is in ‘big trouble’

  03-08-2024 18:00
  
  The 35-nation Iter project has a groundbreaking aim to create clean and limitless energy but it is turning into the ‘most delayed and cost-inflated science project in history’It was a project that promised the sun. Researchers would use the world’s most advanced technology to design a machine that could generate atomic fusion, the process that drives the stars – and so create a source of cheap, non-polluting power.That was initially the aim of the International Thermonucl
  
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• I swear by almighty river: an ancient practice is making a comeback in Britain's courts | Tim Adams

  03-08-2024 17:00
  When a juror was sworn in on a cupful of water from the Roding he made modern historyThe barrister Paul Powlesland, who has acted for climate protesters, was called to jury service last week, and made judicial history by taking an oath on the thing most holy to him – not an ancient book, but a cupful of water from his local river in north-east London: “I swear by the River Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames,” he said, “that I will
  
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• Cold showers and ‘farmers’ hours’: how readers stay cool in a heatwave

  03-08-2024 15:30
  
  Air conditioning isn’t always enough to keep you safe – but people across the US have hacks to handle extreme heatAnother heatwave is sweeping much of the US this week, with millions under heat advisory. The blistering and potentially life-threatening temperatures come as much of the western US faces devastating wildfires and the north-east endures “apocolyptic” floods.Scientists agree such conditions would be virtually impossible without the climate crisis. Last week saw
  
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• Ecologist taking on MoD to protect skylarks says he has faced threats and assault

  03-08-2024 14:00
  Campaigners say rare grassland on former firing range in Essex was mowed, killing the birds and their chicks that nest on the groundThe song of the skylark has filled poets’ hearts for centuries, from Shelley’s “blithe spirit” to Wordsworth’s “ethereal minstrel”. But there is little that is poetic about a row over the birds that has blown up in Colchester.Campaigners seeking to save Middlewick Ranges, a former Ministry of Defence firing range in Essex, a
  
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• ‘This is climate change’: Scottish beach eroding by 7 metres a year

  03-08-2024 08:00
  
  Centuries-old Montrose golf links falling into the sea and town at risk of flooding as coastal erosion acceleratesA beach in north-east Scotland is eroding rapidly owing to climate change, leaving a town at risk of flooding and its centuries-old golf links crumbling into the sea.The Dynamic Coast report in 2021 studied the rate of erosion at Montrose and predicted that 120 metres would be lost over 40 years, an average of 3 metres a year. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Building something better’: the UK residents retrofitting their homes amid the climate crisis

  03-08-2024 07:00
  From weekly skills-sharing to rewilding streets, communities are working to improve the planet while bolstering the health of peopleAt first glance, Melrose Avenue is just two ordinary rows of terrace houses, tucked behind Moseley Road in Birmingham. Only the eye-catching orange benches and a pair of communal pink bicycles suggest something special is happening here.On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Jan Burley, a retired social worker who lives at number 10, fills her watering can and helps the chil
  
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• Country diary: Snowdrops can come good in the summer | Andrea Meanwell

  03-08-2024 06:30
  
  Tebay, Cumbria: I anxiously picked berries while waiting for Snowdrop to give birth to the first pedigree calf of our herdThe first steps in any new venture are exciting, and I was impatiently waiting for Snowdrop to have her first calf. Our belted Galloway herd was established in March 2023, and since our purchase of Acorn the bull I have been anxiously waiting for the first of his pedigree calves to be born.Two days ago, at the start of a rare break in the rain this summer, another of our cows
  
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• ‘There’ll be no countryside left’: Opposition to pylons puts UK carbon targets at risk

  03-08-2024 06:00
  
  Infrastructure essential to decarbonise electricity generation by 2030 met with resistance by those affectedTucked away beyond the industrial landscapes of north-east Derbyshire and the M1 corridor, the Amber Valley is an oasis of greenery: ancient trees, listed buildings and public footpaths that are increasingly popular with tourists.But Katie Hirst, a local resident, fears that appreciative visitors will vanish along with the unspoilt landscape if a route of 50-metre-high pylons is brought do
  
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