Environment news

• The best Christmas trees: everything you need to know, from sustainability to style

  28-11-2024 18:41 via theguardian.com
  Oh, Christmas trees, how lovely are your branches and are you going to cost the Earth? Our writer demystifies buying the perfect tree, whether real, potted, rental or artificial• The best Christmas baubles and decorations: 28 trinkets to deck the hallsFew things signal the beginning of Christmas like a beautifully dressed tree. But as more of us try to make sustainable choices, the idea of discarding a real tree come January can feel wasteful. The alternative – artificial trees &ndash
  
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• ‘You have to find your own recipe’: Dutch suburb where residents must grow food on at least half of their property

  28-11-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  In the suburb of Oosterwold, a living experiment in urban agriculture, the 5,000 inhabitants find different creative ways to fulfil the unique stipulationWhen Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn’t need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. During the winter months, he and his wife can pretty much survive off the vegetables stored in
  
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• Can you take a clean cruise holiday and which vessels are the worst emitters?

  28-11-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In a booming sector where the biggest ships have doubled in size since 2000, pressure is growing to make cruising a greener, more sustainable way to travelRead more in this seriesToxic, filthy and cheap, the sludge-like substance known as heavy fuel oil has powered the shipping industry since the 1960s. What is perhaps less well known is that this same substance is still used to power more than half of cruise ships today, making what many choose as an alternative to flying one of the most enviro
  
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• Weatherwatch: Diatoms, the masters of capturing carbon

  28-11-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Miniscule algae are one of the world’s most powerful resources for removing CO2, according to research paperDiatoms are tiny one-celled algae, too small to see with the naked eye. These minuscule organisms are masters of capturing carbon dioxide from the environment, and so productive and prolific that they fix up to 20% of the Earth’s CO2. According to a recent research paper, they are one of the world’s most powerful resources for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, absorbing a
  
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• Labor’s sad capitulation on the environment has shaken even true believers like me | Felicity Wade

  28-11-2024 06:43 via theguardian.com
  As Australia’s natural environment declines, Labor appears to cave to vested interests, writes Felicity WadeOn Thursday we were hoping to be celebrating the Australian parliament passing legislation to create a federal Environmental Protection Agency, an expert watchdog to oversee our country’s natural bounty. This was going to be a major moment for which my organisation, the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) and many others had worked for years. Promised on the eve of the 2022
  
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• The return of bovine TB is a threat to our farm | Sarah Laughton

  28-11-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Long Dean, Cotswolds: It’s only one steer, thankfully, but with badger activity changing we fear further infectionThere is a bee bumbling about the winter jasmine, which belies the fact that we’re in November. Earlier I collected hay, anticipating colder days, but trundled home with the window down, past the cattle, which didn’t even turn their heads. Yet despite this sense of late autumnal ease, I’m disquieted. Our farm is under threat – not from climate change, no
  
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• ‘We’ve heard these promises before’: is this the end of the line for Irish fishing?

  28-11-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Devastated by quota changes post-Brexit, fishers are pinning all their hopes on Ireland’s politicians as they head into a general electionWords and pictures by Finbarr O’ReillyGale force winds gusting across the North Atlantic Ocean kicked up thick spumes of spray from the heaving swell soon after the Ocean Crest and Carmona trawlers left the main Irish fishing port of Killybegs in County Donegal. No other boats were fishing in the area when the storm swept over Ireland’s north
  
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• The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?

  28-11-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to BulgariaAbandonment, when it came, crept in from the outskirts. Homes at the edge of town were first to go, then the peripheral grocery stores. It moved inward, slow but inexorable. The petrol station closed, and creeper vines climbed the pumps, amassing on the roof until it buckled under the strain. It swallowed the outer bus shelters, the pharmacies, the cinema, the cafe. The s
  
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