Environment news

• Microplastics hinder plant photosynthesis, study finds, threatening millions with starvation

  10-03-2025 20:00
  
  Researchers say problem could increase number of people at risk of starvation by 400m in next two decadesThe pollution of the planet by microplastics is significantly cutting food supplies by damaging the ability of plants to photosynthesise, according to a new assessment.The analysis estimates that between 4% and 14% of the world’s staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles. It could get even worse, the scientists said, as more microplastics pour in
  
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• Bills to rise by 80p to fund discounts for homes near pylons

  10-03-2025 19:00 via bbc.com
  
  Households near new pylons are set to get up to £250 a year off their energy bills, under government plans.
  
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• To win the bush, Australian politics needs to embrace its 'curves' | Nick Rodway

  10-03-2025 15:00
  
  Regional voters are often stereotyped so I propose a new demographic category ahead of the election: conservative, uncommitted rural voters with environmental sympathiesSign up for the Rural Network email newsletterRecently, an arborist operating in my town in remote north-western Australia put out a public statement. He found it necessary, given the number of queries he had received, to explain his reasons for cutting down native vegetation.It sounds like the start of a joke, but what this cont
  
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• A beaver: to get attention they will slap the water with their tails | Helen Sullivan

  10-03-2025 15:00
  
  They prefer to carry branches in their teeth, like dogs. And when they swim, they hold their front paws to their chests, like a severe governess in a Victorian novelThe heads of beavers, large rodents known for building dams, are their own kind of highly complex dam structure, with various retractable walls that let water in or keep it out. They can close valves in their nostrils and ears and a special membrane over their eyes; their epiglottis, the flap that stops water entering the lungs, is i
  
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• US will be ‘central’ to climate fight even without Trump, says Cop30 president

  10-03-2025 14:00
  André Corrêa do Lago suggests US organisations can play a constructive role even if government limits participationThe US will be “central” to solving the climate crisis despite Donald Trump’s withdrawal of government support and cash, the president of the next UN climate summit has said.André Corrêa do Lago, president-designate of the Cop30 summit for the host country, Brazil, hinted that businesses and other organisations in the US could play a const
  
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• Plants, animals and insects come to Britain from all over the world. It would be a mistake to welcome them all | Tim Blackburn

  10-03-2025 12:00
  
  Biodiversity is great in theory, but there are reasons to fend off invasive species and the knock-on effect of their presenceBritain would be a wasteland if it weren’t for immigration. Fifteen thousand years ago, most of the country was buried a kilometre deep in ice – not ideal conditions for life. That all changed as we moved out of the last ice age into the current, milder climate phase. The ice sheets retreated, leaving an empty landscape for anything with the wherewithal to seiz
  
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• Immigration’s a hot topic – and it applies to non-native plants, animals and insects, all over the world | Tim Blackburn

  10-03-2025 12:00
  Biodiversity is great in theory, but there are reasons to fend off invasive alien species and the knock-on effect of their presenceBritain would be a wasteland if it weren’t for immigration. Fifteen thousand years ago, most of the country was buried a kilometre deep in ice – not ideal conditions for life. That all changed as we moved out of the last ice age into the current, milder climate phase. The ice sheets retreated, leaving an empty landscape for anything with the wherewithal t
  
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• Weatherwatch: Year’s worth of rain falls in Argentinian city in eight hours

  10-03-2025 11:48
  Rainfall in Bahía Blanca led to 10 deaths, swept away vehicles, destroyed bridges and left areas underwaterThe city of Bahía Blanca in Argentina had a new rainfall record on Friday, after a recent heatwave. More than 400mm (15.7in) of rain was recorded in just eight hours, more than twice the city’s previous record of 175mm set in 1930, and roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of rainfall.The heatwave primed the atmosphere for heavy rainfall by creating high instability
  
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• We’re facing a ‘forever chemicals’ crisis. We must stop Pfas at the source

  10-03-2025 11:00
  
  Pfas are poisoning our soil and polluting our lungs. The EPA is finally sounding the alarm – but that’s not enoughSeveral years ago, I made a movie called Dark Waters, which told the real-life story of a community in West Virginia poisoned by Pfas “forever chemicals”. DuPont – a chemical manufacturing plant – contaminated the local water supply, killing cows and wildlife, making its workers sick and exposing local residents to toxic chemicals. It was an enviro
  
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• A cacti-smuggling case with a prickly end: the novel way courts are making poachers pay

  10-03-2025 11:00
  
  Two Italian cacti smugglers have been fined for illegally trading plants from Chile – and for the cost of restoring the environment. Conservationists hope more cases will followChile’s Atacama desert is one of the driest places on Earth, a surprisingly cool environment, sucked clean of moisture by the cold ocean to the west. This arid, golden landscape is home to many rare species of cacti, which attract professional and amateur botanists from around the world keen to make discoverie
  
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• Trump’s USAid cuts will have huge impact on global climate finance, data shows

  10-03-2025 09:00
  
  Campaigners say funding halt is a ‘staggering blow’ to vulnerable nations and to efforts to keep heating below 1.5CDonald Trump’s withdrawal of US overseas aid will almost decimate global climate finance from the developed world, data shows, with potentially devastating impacts on vulnerable nations.The US was responsible last year for about $8 in every $100 that flowed from the rich world to developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impa
  
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• Destroying the environment and sending species extinct is one thing, but now I can’t take my dogs to the beach!? | First Dog on the Moon

  10-03-2025 06:33
  
  The toxic Tasmanian salmon industry has gone too far this timeSign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: A sunlit view of two hungry bullfinches | Jim Perrin

  10-03-2025 06:30
  
  Llandrindod Wells, Powys: They’re such captivating birds to watch, and this pair is indulging their preference for flower buds on my cherry tree“Hardly hedgerows, little lines of sportive wood run wild”. I was sitting at my dining table, relishing the growing warmth of early spring sunlight, idling over coffee and musing on how apt a description of the towering unkempt hedges around my garden Wordsworth’s lines from Tintern Abbey are, when the pair of bullfinches tha
  
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• Cyclone Alfred evacuation centres 'not a solution for homelessness', NSW premier says – video

  10-03-2025 03:04
  
  Chris Minns stresses that the New South Wales evacuation centres set up for people fleeing flooding will be closed once the immediate threat from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred is over. The premier says his government contributed $5bn for social housing in its last budget. 'Evacuation centres are not going to be long-term solutions for homelessness on the northern rivers,' he says. 'And I just want to be really transparent and clear … They can’t operate longer than they were intended to
  
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• Lab-grown food could be sold in UK within two years

  10-03-2025 02:38 via bbc.com
  
  The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can speed up the approval process for lab-grown foods.
  
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