Environment news

• Health experts rally for ‘call to arms’ to protect children from toxic chemicals

  08-01-2025 23:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, leading researchers to propose action to protect kidsChildren are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (E
  
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• Charges against 34 people dropped over plastic pollution protest at Unilever HQ

  08-01-2025 15:31 via theguardian.com
  CPS says there is not enough evidence to proceed against Greenpeace activists who blockaded firm’s London officeCriminal charges have been dropped against dozens of people who staged a protest against plastic pollution outside the headquarters of Unilever.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided not to proceed against 34 individuals days before their trial was due to start. Continue reading...
  
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• UK ministers may lift BSE-era ban on animal remains in chicken and pig feed

  08-01-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: England and Wales proposals expected to follow Scottish consultation amid fears British farmers are being undercutMinisters may lift a ban introduced during the BSE crisis on the use of animal remains in feed for farmed chickens and pigs over fears that foreign producers are undercutting British farmers.A consultation on permitting the use of processed animal protein (PAP) from poultry, pigs and insects has opened in Scotland, and it is understood that proposals will be made for Engla
  
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• Sweat-wicking and radiative cooling: can new fabrics make living through extreme heat more bearable?

  08-01-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  How a team of researchers is reducing skin temperature under clothes and energy bills with some forward fashion thinkingGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThis year is on track to be the hottest in recorded history. With rising temperatures and more intense and frequent heatwaves, keeping cool in summer will get harder. Air conditioning can only go so far, especially when extreme heat raises the risk of electricity outages.Wearing light, loose-fitting clothing is well recognised health a
  
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• Scuba diving has opened my eyes to a new world. Being a beginner again feels magical | Kieran Pender

  08-01-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  There are significant health benefits to trying new things, whatever the activity – and there is always more to learnThere is a paradox to being 20 metres under the ocean. It is a place of calm and wonderment. I am immersed in a foreign world, with a new watery sky above me. There is a sense of serenity, blissful peace as countless colourful fish glide past.Only the tranquillity is deceiving. As a novice diver, my mind ticks over in hyperdrive. All that stands between me and an agonising f
  
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• RSPB stops selling flat bird feeders owing to deadly finch disease

  08-01-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Feeding birds from flat surfaces such as tables could be contributing to spread of finch trichomonosis, says charityThe RSPB has withdrawn flat bird feeders from sale on its website amid warnings they could be spreading deadly diseases to finches.The charity has said feeding birds from flat surfaces such as tables could be contributing to the spread of illnesses such as finch trichomonosis, which has been blamed for the plummeting greenfinch population. Continue reading...
  
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• Six big US banks quit net zero alliance before Trump inauguration

  08-01-2025 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exodus from target-setting group is attempt to head off ‘anti-woke’ attacks from rightwing politicians, say analysts• Business live – latest updatesThe six biggest banks in the US have all quit the global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group, with the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president expected to bring political backlash against climate action.JP Morgan is the latest to withdraw from the UN-sponsored net zero banking alliance (NZBA), foll
  
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• Malawi sees influx of refugees from post-election violence in Mozambique

  08-01-2025 12:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Marauding gangs and political unrest since October’s polls have driven thousands of Mozambicans across the border into Malawi, despite its drought, food and fuel shortagesOn a sunny Saturday afternoon, Manase Madia, 50, shows his Mozambican identity card. Once a sign of pride, he does not know what to believe in any more. Over the past few weeks he has seen houses being burned down, and shops and businesses looted, including his own. He now fears for his family, which has scattered in fear
  
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• Want to sponsor a piece of ocean paradise? How one Pacific island’s novel response to rising seas is paying off

  08-01-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  The tiny nation of Niue has raised £3m selling sponsorship of its marine protected area at just over £100 for a square kilometreNiue, also known as the Rock of Polynesia, is one of the tiniest island states in the world. It takes a mere two hours to drive around it, giving views of its rugged limestone cliffs and occasional sandy coves. These coves give way to caves and chasms, once used for storage, burial sites and even as living spaces. But perhaps what visitors seek most are its
  
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• Look at the underside of a log, and you’ll find my new obsession: the beautiful, bonkers world of slime moulds | Lucy Jones

  08-01-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  These tiny organisms matter. They have been used to map dark matter and improve transport networks, and they’re living all around usA few years ago, I started looking at the underside of logs and it changed my life. I found a secret carnival of the most bodacious and interesting organisms I had ever seen. Bubbles of candy-pink gloss on stilts (Comatricha nigra), bunches of rainbow iridescence on toffee strings (Badhamia utricularis), bouffants of raspberry parfait (Arcyria denudata) &ndash
  
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• ‘Get on my land’: the farmers who want strangers wandering their fields

  08-01-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A growing number of landholders are joining forces with right-to-roam campaigners to boost public access to the countrysideWhen Debra and Tom Willoughby first arrived at their tenant farm in Nottinghamshire, they tried to reroute a bridleway that runs through their farmyard. Now the organic farmers are relieved they were refused permission because of the benefits they have found from the connections they make with people who walk through their farm. They have since opened new permissive footpath
  
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• Bumblebees winter nest-building 'due to climate'

  08-01-2025 07:19 via bbc.com
  
  Active worker bumblebees were spotted in Scotland over the Christmas break.
  
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• Labour hopes ‘new deal for farmers’ can reset relationship with industry

  08-01-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Steve Reed to announce focus on making farming ‘more profitable and sustainable’ at Oxford Farming ConferenceThe government is aiming to reset its relationship with farmers with what it describes as a “new deal” for the industry.Farmers have protested in their tens of thousands after controversial changes were made to agricultural inheritance tax and the EU-derived subsidy scheme. Continue reading...
  
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• Birdwatch: an unlikely encounter with the least sandpiper in Somerset

  08-01-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Diminutive bird breeds in Alaska and Arctic Canada and sightings in Britain are rare enough to attract a crowdIf you’d asked me which rare bird I might see in Somerset in early January, the least sandpiper would have been very low on my list. Yet on a fine, bright, chilly morning here it was: running along the edge of the water like a clockwork toy, probing the mud for food with its stubby bill.This species is well-named. It is the world’s smallest wading bird, just 13-15cm long and
  
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• Country diary: All is damp and dripping in the misty shroud | John Gilbey

  08-01-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: On days like this, it’s clear that sunset will be a technical event rather than a spectacleMist wraps the valley in a cold, grey shroud that eases around the barren trees and chills everything it touches. On the hard cuticle of a holly leaf, pinpoint lenses of water form – coalescing into large drops that roll to the leaf tip and drop, before the cycle repeats. In the hedgerow, webs hang low, like miniature hammocks, weighed down by the droplets that out
  
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• Fewer than one in 14 male humpback whales in New Caledonia are fathers

  08-01-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Reproduction is ‘very rare’ for a humpback male, study of South Pacific whales findsAs few as 7% of male humpback whales in New Caledonia in the south-west Pacific may have fathered offspring, a study has found.The paternity analysis found that 93% of males had no evidence of genetic offspring throughout the 25-year study period and no male had sired more than two offspring. It was unclear why some males were more successful than others, the authors said. Continue reading...
  
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