Environment news

• Oil up: Australian extra virgin olive oil hits price parity with European imports

  15-08-2024 17:00
  
  Australian examples are typically more expensive than imported equivalents. While all prices have increased, local products may now be a better dealGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastAt Marta, a Roman restaurant and bakery in Sydney’s east, Flavio Carnevale has seen “massive” price increases on wholesale olive oil. “We went from buying a bottle of Australian olive oil from $10 a litre, [now we’re] looking between $12 to $15 &hel
  
  Read more

• How AI is revolutionising how firefighters tackle blazes and saving lives

  15-08-2024 17:00
  Fire chief Phillip SeLegue now uses tech every day in California to predict a blaze as much as a week in advanceEvery morning, California’s top firefighters get a forecast of the day in wildfire terms – when the wind will shift, how dry the ground is and a host of other ingredients that can start or spread a fire.Lately, the routine has an extra step: checking a machine’s opinion. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Watchdog investigates ‘unacceptable’ cyanide spill in Walsall canal

  15-08-2024 15:47
  Waterways trust boss calls incident ‘infuriating’ as Environment Agency investigates metal finishing firmThe Environment Agency has described a cyanide spill into a West Midlands canal as “unacceptable” and promised robust action if any wrongdoing is found to have occurred.A major incident was declared after the spill of sodium cyanide into a canal in Walsall on Monday. The public have been advised to avoid about 12 miles of canals and towpaths in the area and on Thursday
  
  Read more

• German climate activists stop air traffic after breaking into four airport sites

  15-08-2024 15:27
  
  Police arrest Letzte Generation protesters who cut holes in fences and glued themselves to asphaltClimate activists have broken into four German airport sites, briefly bringing air traffic to a halt at two of those before police made arrests.Protesters from Letzte Generation – Germany’s equivalent to Just Stop Oil – gained access on Thursday to airfields in areas near the takeoff and landing strips of Cologne-Bonn, Nuremberg, Berlin Brandenburg and Stuttgart airports at dawn. A
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• ‘We should have better answers by now’: climate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heating

  15-08-2024 14:00
  
  The leap in temperatures over the past 13 months has exceeded the global heating forecasts – is this just a blip or a systemic shift?Analysis: Cities have to avoid a dangerous trapIn a remarkably candid essay in the journal Nature this March, one of the world’s top climate scientists posited the alarming possibility that global heating may be moving beyond the ability of experts to predict what happens next.“The 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an un
  
  Read more

• Cities are tackling rising heat – but they have to avoid a dangerous trap

  15-08-2024 14:00
  With modern solutions such as air-con aggravating the problem, ancient heat-management techniques can offer answersClimate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heatingBeneath the streets of Seville – the city nicknamed “El Sartén”, the frying pan of Europe, where summer temperatures regularly top 40C – a €5m (about £4m ) cooling strategy is taking the city back in time.The millennium-old Persian technique of “qanat” features underground c
  
  Read more

• Cities are tackling growing heat – but they have to avoid a dangerous trap

  15-08-2024 14:00
  With modern solutions such as air-con aggravating the problem, ancient heat-management techniques can offer answersClimate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heatingBeneath the streets of Seville – the city nicknamed “El Sartén”, the frying pan of Europe, where summer temperatures regularly top 40C – a €5m (about £4m ) cooling strategy is taking the city back in time.The millennium-old Persian technique of “qanat” features underground c
  
  Read more

• Danish wind power giant Ørsted delays major US offshore project

  15-08-2024 13:12
  
  News follows scrapping of two other Atlantic windfarms and axing of hundreds of jobs as costs surgeBusiness live – latest updatesThe Danish company developing the world’s largest offshore windfarm in the North Sea has been forced to delay a major project off the north-east coast of the US, months after cancelling two nearby developments and cutting hundreds of jobs.Ørsted has pushed back the start of commercial operations at its 704 megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coa
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Mount Etna spews hot ash and lava after four years of dormancy – video

  15-08-2024 10:43
  
  Italy's Mount Etna has erupted, with vigorous activity disrupting flights at Catania airport in Sicily. The 3,330-metre high volcano is the tallest in Europe and is believed to have the longest documented history of eruptions among all volcanoes Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Madrid’s summers can be brutally hot. So why are so many of our trees being chopped down? | Felicity Hughes

  15-08-2024 08:00
  Increasing tree cover in urban areas could reduce heat-related deaths – but a fight has ensued between corporate interests and residentsIt’s 9pm on a blistering July night in Plaza de Santa Ana, a square at the heart of Madrid’s literary district. The thermometer has barely dropped below 39C, but despite the heat a 78-year-old woman climbs on to a bench to give an impassioned speech to a 200-strong crowd.“Did you think we weren’t going to be here, Señor Almei
  
  Read more

• Madrid is one of the hottest cities on Earth. So why are so many of our trees being chopped down? | Felicity Hughes

  15-08-2024 08:00
  
  Increasing tree cover in urban areas could reduce heat-related deaths – but a fight has ensued between corporate interests and residentsIt’s 9pm on a blistering July night in Plaza de Santa Ana, a square at the heart of Madrid’s literary district. The thermometer has barely dropped below 39C, but despite the heat a 78-year-old woman climbs on to a bench to give an impassioned speech to a 200-strong crowd.“Did you think we weren’t going to be here, Señor Almei
  
  Read more

• Minuscule wasps enlisted to fight off moths in new pest control strategy

  15-08-2024 07:00
  
  Rentokil to use the wasps as a sustainable alternative to sprays in museums and homesThe newest recruits for the battle against moths will be the smallest pest control team in town.Rentokil plans to release entosite parasitoid wasps into the nooks and crannies of museums, heritage sites and homes to stop moth infestations. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Clean and bright or cloying and musky? Horse milk ice-cream taste test

  15-08-2024 07:00
  Ignoring the neigh-sayers and want to try some Red Rum and raisin? The Guardian tracked down a horse, a farmer and an ice-cream maker to try it outDoes the thought of tucking into an ice-cream made from horse milk leave a sour taste in your mouth? Ignore the neigh-sayers: some experts believe an equine gelato can be both tasty and healthier than the traditional cow variety.Food scientists from the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland, have managed to make a batch of equin
  
  Read more

• Anyone for horse ice-cream? It’s healthier than cow gelato, say scientists

  15-08-2024 07:00
  Ignoring the neigh-sayers and want to try some Red Rum and raisin? The Guardian tracked down a horse, a farmer and an ice-cream maker for a taste testDoes the thought of tucking into an ice-cream made from horse milk leave a sour taste in your mouth? Ignore the neigh-sayers: some experts believe an equine gelato can be both tasty and healthier than the traditional cow variety.Food scientists from the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland, have managed to make a batch of eq
  
  Read more

• Country Diary: My secret garden, my lunchtime retreat | Anita Roy

  15-08-2024 06:30
  
  Tonedale, Wellington, Somerset: I pick my way over builder’s debris in the yard and sit by the river, water-crowfoot and demoiselles around meI’m in my secret place. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. You can’t see it from the road. You can’t see it from the old warehouse building where I work. It’s tucked around the corner, behind a line of dilapidated outhouses on the site of a Victorian textile mill. I come down here most lunchtimes.It’s a bit treacherous, pick
  
  Read more

• What’s happened to all the butterflies? – podcast

  15-08-2024 06:00
  Butterfly numbers appear to be at the lowest on record in the UK after a wet spring and summer dampened their chances of mating. This comes on top of a long and worrying trend of decline. To find out what’s going on and what we can all do to help butterflies cope with extreme weather patterns, Phoebe Weston speaks to Dr Richard Fox, head of science for the charity Butterfly Conservation, and to Matthew Hayes who is part of the Banking on Butterflies project, a collaboration between the Ins
  
  Read more

• ‘This year has been dead’: where have Britain’s insects gone?

  15-08-2024 06:00
  Surveys suggest that wet weather and habitat deterioration are among the causes of devastating population declines, but there are ways to helpWhen Christina Letanka moved to Chiddingly village in East Sussex 28 years ago, insects were everywhere. “Everything was prolific when we first arrived,” she says. The kitchen used to be full of flies during the day and moths at night, swarming under the light. “Now they’ve all gone.”Fewer butterflies, wasps and hornets dance
  
  Read more

• ‘I am so happy to see them!’: fan mussels are back in Europe’s waters – but can scientists keep them alive?

  15-08-2024 06:00
  
  After a series of mass mortality events, it is more common to find these huge Mediterranean clams dead. Which is why the species’ ‘biggest fangirl of all’, Susan Smillie, is thrilled to see a thriving population in Greece I swim and I stare as my shadow causes panic on the seabed below. Shells snap shut, one, two, three. Alive, alive, alive. I am so happy to see them: noble pen shells, all improbably but indisputably alive. These giant Mediterranean clams are a species on the v
  
  Read more

• Cost of fighting flooding is soaking up English councils’ cash, ministers warned

  15-08-2024 01:01
  
  District councils in low-lying areas say they have cut day-to-day services such as bin collections to fund pumping stationsThe costs of preventing major floods caused by extreme weather and excessive rainfall have fuelled a growing financial crisis among district councils in low-lying areas of England, ministers have been warned.Districts in the east of the country say they are having to cut day-to-day services such as bin collections to meet dramatic and unsustainable rises in payments levied t
  
  Read more

• Watch: The Northern Lights seen from space

  15-08-2024 00:48 via bbc.com
  
  A timelapse captured from the International Space Station shows the Moon setting into streams of aurora.
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!