Environment news

• Australian nature: if our laws don’t radically change, environmental degradation will continue | Adam Morton

  03-02-2025 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Australia has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted, but what has happened in this term of parliament is remarkableFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThere is something significant missing from most of the political and media discussion about the Australian government’s promised, and now abandoned, nature protection laws: the environment. Logically, it should be a focus of the de
  
  Read more

• UN monitors asteroid with a tiny chance of hitting Earth

  03-02-2025 18:02 via bbc.com
  
  The asteroid named YR4 has a 1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
  
  Read more

• Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico | Greg Grandin

  03-02-2025 17:21 via theguardian.com
  
  Environmental disasters have plagued the water body for decades. Now the region is thrust in the global spotlightThe enormous semi-enclosed bay, its waters flanked by the Florida and Yucatán peninsulas and partially blockaded by Cuba, has been called the Golfo de México for centuries, a name that first appeared on a world map in 1550. And for centuries the name bothered no one.Thomas Jefferson used the name without shame, even as he, Donald Trump-like, imagined dominating nearby na
  
  Read more

• Greenland ice sheet cracking more rapidly than ever, study shows

  03-02-2025 17:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Crevasses increasing in size and depth in response to climate breakdown, Durham University researchers find The Greenland ice sheet – the second largest body of ice in the world – is cracking more rapidly than ever before as a response to climate breakdown, a study has found.Researchers used 8,000 three-dimensional surface maps from high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to assess the evolution of cracks in the surface of the ice sheet between 2016 and 2021. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising, study suggests

  03-02-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Research looking at tissue from postmortems between 1997 and 2024 finds upward trend in contaminationThe exponential rise in microplastic pollution over the past 50 years may be reflected in increasing contamination in human brains, according to a new study.It found a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024. The researchers also found the tiny particles in liver and kidney samples. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Wild hogs: why a gang of rogue pigs is causing chaos in Norfolk

  03-02-2025 16:20 via theguardian.com
  Villagers are sick of their lawns being ruined – but these rowdy pigs just keep escaping Name: Wild hogs.Age: It’s been going on for months. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• This firefighter survived the worst of black summer. His new exhibition hurls you right in

  03-02-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  CJ Taylor was pushing back a fire front when a wind change almost killed him. A new exhibition aims to recreate a flashover – and disturb the public into actionThe roar of an advancing bushfire, for those who have heard it, is often described as being as loud as an aircraft or an approaching freight train. “But my recollection was the opposite,” says volunteer firefighter and visual artist CJ Taylor, of the moment a fire burned over him. “Everything went quiet.”It w
  
  Read more

• A manatee: Imagine eating lettuce under water | Helen Sullivan

  03-02-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Manatees don’t have incisors or canines, only ‘cheek teeth’. No hair, only whiskers. Algae growing on their backs. Everything is gentleA manatee looks like every animal I have ever tried to make with play-dough: roll a big piece into a sausage, flatten a bit on either side with your forefingers, and a bit at the end with your thumb. Hey presto. A manatee also happens to be the grey of all Play-Dough colours mixed together.Imagine eating lettuce underwater: the crunch, the squel
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Why are Gen Zs deserting garden centres? Maybe they’re more into planting than shopping | Claire Ratinon

  03-02-2025 14:09 via theguardian.com
  They can be joyful and important social spaces, but a new generation of customers runs a mile from the shelves of plastic and chemicalsWhen I first heard that garden centres are facing a wave of closures, I immediately thought of the one around the corner from where I live. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the car park was full and the cafe was bustling with people my parents’ age and older, chatting over milky coffees and slices of cake. The retired ladies who talk to me in the gym changi
  
  Read more

• How Trump is targeting wind and solar energy – and delighting big oil

  03-02-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Critics say Trump is using every presidential power possible against clean power in sharp turn after Biden investments created jobsFor several years, Republicans accused Joe Biden of waging a “war on energy” even as the Untied States drilled more oil and gas than at any time in its history. Now, a more tangible assault is gathering pace under Donald Trump – aimed squarely at wind, solar and other cleaner forms of power.In the first two weeks of his return as president, Trump ha
  
  Read more

• I always needed background noise in my life. Then I turned off my phone and embraced the silence | Krissi Driver

  03-02-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  The cacophony around me seemed to drown out my daily worries until a writing retreat showed me there was a better way I’ve lived in South Korea for more than a decade, but it’s only recently that I discovered just how loud it is here. The bing-bong when someone presses the “stop” button on the city bus, and the accompanying sing-songy announcements in Korean, the beeps of riders scanning their transit cards to board or depart; soju-drunk office workers loudly singing off-
  
  Read more

• Scenic loch becomes magnet for Scotland's plastic waste

  03-02-2025 07:23 via bbc.com
  
  One of Scotland's biggest plastic problems, the Arrochar litter sink, sits at the head of Loch Long.
  
  Read more

• Environmental groups in UK ‘still very white – especially at the top’

  03-02-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Greenpeace co-director responds to report finding fewer than one in 20 working in sector identifies as non-whiteEnvironmental organisations “are still very white, especially at the top”, the co-director of Greenpeace has said as research showed little to no improvement in the ethnic diversity of their workforces.Areeba Hamid’s comments came as the third annual racial action on the climate emergency (Race) report into diversity among environmental charities found fewer than one
  
  Read more

• Country diary: A bird that had existed only in my imagination becomes vividly real | Nic Wilson

  03-02-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Bramfield, Hertfordshire: My long-unanswered prayers to see the elusive hawfinch are finally rewarded in a churchyardWe’ve come to church this morning in search of a fictional bird. On the south side of the graveyard, sunlight paves the lime walk, but offers little warmth for those who choose to linger. It’s not the first time I’ve haunted this churchyard in winter, praying for hawfinches in the yew trees, but so far my only sighting of the UK’s largest finch has been in
  
  Read more

• Residents capture footage of severe floods in north Queensland – video

  03-02-2025 06:24 via theguardian.com
  
  Authorities say there is 'more significant rain to come' in north Queensland, amid warnings to residents not to return to flooded homes. Dams and river catchments from Mackay to Cairns remain swollen from a week of heavy rain, which has dumped more than 1.2 metres at some locations. More than 400 people – mostly in Townsville, Ingham and Cardwell – are in evacuation shelters after being advised on Sunday to fleeNorth Queensland floods: hundreds evacuated, dozens rescued as 1.2m of ra
  
  Read more

• The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear? – podcast

  03-02-2025 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 Bulgaria. By Tess McClure. Read by Sara Lynam Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• A flooded quarry, a mysterious millionaire and the dream of a new Atlantis

  03-02-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  An innovative mission on the Welsh border, funded by an anonymous private investor, has begun work to create a ‘permanent human settlement’ under the seaDown an easy-to-miss turnoff on the A48 just outside Chepstow on the Welsh border, the gentle rumble of trucks, cranes and people at work mixes with birdsong in what is an otherwise peaceful rural setting. It is a crisp and sunny winter morning when I visit and, at first glance, the site appears to be little more than prefab containe
  
  Read more

• What’s behind the deadly, record-breaking floods in north Queensland? | Steve Turton for the Conversation

  03-02-2025 02:35 via theguardian.com
  Some tropical lows are stalling, dumping huge volumes of rain – and climate change is playing a roleFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRecord-breaking floods across north Queensland have turned deadly, with one woman drowning while being rescued on Sunday. And the flood waters were still rising, with rain set to continue.With reports of up to one metre of rainfall in parts of north-east Queensland, the heaviest r
  
  Read more

• Endangered frog dads travel 7,000 miles to 'give birth'

  03-02-2025 01:51 via bbc.com
  
  Male frogs carrying tadpoles made an incredible journey to the UK by boat, plane, and car.
  
  Read more

• Endangered frogs born at London zoo after rescue mission in Chile

  03-02-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Group of Darwin’s frogs threatened by chytrid fungus thrive in specially built room that mimics their natural habitatDozens of endangered froglets have been born at London zoo after conservationists launched an emergency mission to rescue members of the species from a remote national park in Chile.Researchers rushed to Tantauco Park on the southern tip of Chiloé Island after tests confirmed that the lethal chytrid fungus had reached the nature reserve and threatened to wipe out some
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!