Environment news

• The Guardian view on Labour eyeing green cuts: they would undermine growth and climate goals | Editorial

  02-03-2025 18:25 via theguardian.com
  
  Bold pledges to fund climate projects now appear under threat, exposing deeper fiscal constraints and policy dilemmas within the government In October, the prime minister, chancellor and energy secretary pledged billions to kickstart the UK’s first carbon capture projects – one of the biggest green spending promises of the parliament. By December, Ed Miliband was signing contracts, Sir Keir Starmer vowed to “reignite our industrial heartlands” and Rachel Reeves warne
  
  Read more

• Madeleine Watts: ‘Climate change should be in everyone’s writing right now’

  02-03-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  In her second novel Elegy, Southwest, the Australian author writes into the climate crisis from a millennial perspective with a mixed sense of melancholy and hopeGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThere is a hole in the heart of Madeleine Watts’ melancholic second novel Elegy, Southwest. “A really big, and expensive, hole,” says Lewis, one half of the married couple whose desert road trip forms the novel’s narrative arc. The hole, a land artwork in progress, is ti
  
  Read more

• Dolomites soundscape and a nightingale’s song win nature music prize

  02-03-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Inaugural Tune into Nature prize is aiming to highlight how the natural world is central to creative lifeOne is a dreamy soundscape collected from the peaks of the Dolomites. The other is a drum’n’bass track that samples a nightingale’s quickfire song.These contrasting tunes have won the inaugural Tune into Nature music prize, a contest that seeks to showcase new music by upcoming artists that is inspired by the natural world. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• A gorgeous flash of colour in a murky loch: how nudibranchs won my heart

  02-03-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  With a beauty that belies its name, the sea slug is an invertebrate that reminds me of a happy Scottish summerIt has been a long time since I’ve thought about nudibranchs, let alone spotted one. But a lifetime ago, as a zoology undergraduate at Glasgow University, I spent hours underwater, swimming through kelp forests, corals and shipwrecks, looking out for the tiny, colourful creatures.Diving on the west coast of Scotland is spectacular for all the reasons you might expect: the drama of
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Never mind the planet’s fate when the jet set feel the urge to seek out some winter sun | Catherine Bennett

  02-03-2025 09:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Self-denial will save the Earth, we’re told. But big emitters seemingly haven’t had the memoThat I fully expect to be dead by the time the UK achieves net zero is, of course, no reason to dodge interim advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK’s official climate authority. Its latest report to government is of particular interest to the public, in arguing that a third of the emissions cuts required to achieve net zero by 2050 will have to come from consumers themse
  
  Read more

• Mine copper without destroying the planet? London-based project gives scientists hope

  02-03-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Experts hope research can create greener methods of extracting the metal vital for renewable energy revolution and boom in electrical devicesIt is the key ingredient of bronze, the alloy that helped create some of the world’s greatest civilisations and took humanity out of the stone age on its way to modern times. For good measure, the metal is invaluable for electrical wiring, plumbing and industrial machinery. We owe a lot to copper.But the metal now faces an uncertain future as manufact
  
  Read more

• David Archer, let it go. Beavers are nature’s answer to our broken rivers | Helena Horton

  02-03-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The cute rodent helps combat drought and boosts biodiversity. Its rewilding is welcome and long overdueThe first time I laid eyes on a beaver was a couple of years ago on the Devon farm of Derek Gow, the farmer turned rewilder, who brought the furry rodents back to the UK 30 years ago.It was magical. Sitting in the June dusk, the pink-and-purple sky was reflected in the still ponds of the beaver habitat. Suddenly, ripples emerged from the lodge and the head of a kit – a baby beaver &n
  
  Read more

• 'They don't belong in the Med': Fate of mother orca and son still uncertain

  02-03-2025 01:47 via bbc.com
  
  Animal rights campaigners and marine zoo official say Mediterranean is 'too warm' for killer whales.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!