Environment news

• Trump officials to reconsider whether greenhouse gases cause harm amid climate rollbacks

  12-03-2025 23:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Activists horrified as EPA reverses pollution laws and reviews landmark finding that gases harm public healthDonald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an e
  
  Read more

• Trump officials decimate climate protections and consider axeing key greenhouse gas finding

  12-03-2025 23:59 via theguardian.com
  EPA takes aim at almost every major pollution rule in what environmentalists call act of ‘malice toward the planet’Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency
  
  Read more

• BBC travels out to 'blistered and burnt' oil tanker in North Sea

  12-03-2025 22:32 via bbc.com
  
  While at least two million litres of jet fuel are in the water, there is some positive news.
  
  Read more

• Plastic pollution leaves seabirds with brain damage similar to Alzheimer’s, study shows

  12-03-2025 19:00 via theguardian.com
  Blood tests on migratory chicks fed plastics by their parents show neurodegeneration, as well as cell rupture and stomach lining decayIngesting plastic is leaving seabird chicks with brain damage “akin to Alzheimer’s disease”, according to a new study – adding to growing evidence of the devastating impact of plastic pollution on marine wildlife.Analysis of young sable shearwaters, a migratory bird that travels between Australia’s Lord Howe Island and Japan, has foun
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Balance of power: why Loch Ness hydro storage schemes are stirring up trouble

  12-03-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  As Scottish energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics fear proposals will affect delicate hydrology of lochBrian Shaw stood at the water’s edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped storage power station, had recharged itself drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbine
  
  Read more

• Balance of power: Loch Ness hydro storage schemes fuel local anxiety

  12-03-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  As energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics worry about fluctuations in the depth of the lochBrian Shaw stood at the edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped-storage power station, had recharged itself, drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbines to boost the UK’s
  
  Read more

• Green scheme closure a 'shattering blow' to farms, says union

  12-03-2025 14:27 via bbc.com
  
  The government says it cannot accept any new applications for its key green farming funding scheme.
  
  Read more

• ‘They turned our home into a cemetery’: the high price of El Salvador’s Bitcoin City dream

  12-03-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Mangroves are being destroyed and residents displaced to make way for an airport to serve president Nayib Bukele’s vision of a tax-free economic hubWhen Nayib Bukele launched his presidential campaign in the eastern department of La Unión in 2018, the new outsider politician stood in a street packed with supporters and promised a new airport. La Unión and the rest of El Salvador’s eastern region have historically been neglected by governments, with few infrastructure pr
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer | Raymond Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

  12-03-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trialsSome years ago in the pages of the Guardian, we sounded the alarm about the increasing attention being paid to solar geoengineering – a barking mad scheme to cancel global heating by putting pollutants in the atmosphere that dim the sun by reflecting some sunlight back to space.In one widely touted proposition, fleets of aircraft would continually inject sulphur compo
  
  Read more

• The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer

  12-03-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trialsSome years ago in the pages of the Guardian, we sounded the alarm about the increasing attention being paid to solar geoengineering – a barking mad scheme to cancel global heating by putting pollutants in the atmosphere that dim the sun by reflecting some sunlight back to space.In one widely touted proposition, fleets of aircraft would continually inject sulphur compo
  
  Read more

• Changes to bathing water status test will deny rivers protection, say critics

  12-03-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners say introduction of feasibility test in England and Wales over bathing status is ‘snub to communities’Rivers are unlikely to be granted the protections of bathing water status under the government’s changes to the system, campaigners have said.River activists have reacted with fury as details of the reforms were revealed on Wednesday. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit

  12-03-2025 07:02 via bbc.com
  
  The infrastructure required to host COP30 in Belém is undermining the cause, campaigners say.
  
  Read more

• Birdwatch: in spring, the unshowy grey plover undergoes a transformation

  12-03-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  However, you will most likely have to venture to the polar tundra to see this striking wader at its black-bellied bestAny bird with “grey” in its name is not likely to make the average birder quiver with excitement. And it is true that in winter, when grey plovers visit our shores from the high Arctic, they are easy to overlook, especially among the spectacular flocks of lapwings, golden plovers and avocets on my Somerset coastal patch.Stout and unassuming, grey plovers usually lurk
  
  Read more

• A bloke at the dog park said the government was controlling the cyclones. He is accidentally sort of correct | First Dog on the Moon

  12-03-2025 06:38 via theguardian.com
  
  If you don’t believe the scientists, will you believe the insurance companies?Sign 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...
  
  Read more

• Country diary: Cherry plum blossom brings a little spring spangle to the hedges | Nic Wilson

  12-03-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Hitchin, Hertfordshire: It’s often mistaken for blackthorn at this time of year, and you may be more familiar with its pink and purple varietiesThe winter-flowering cherry (Prunus x subhirtella) at the end of our road had been caught in a blizzard for months, flurries of flowers hanging from its bare branches like snowflakes that had forgotten to melt. Now its blossom has mostly fallen and turned to slush, but further along the bank, cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) flowers are unfurling &n
  
  Read more

• In the middle of cyclone preparation I found a baby bird – one tiny, wild life amid the wind and rain | Jessie Cole

  12-03-2025 03:44 via theguardian.com
  My homeplace has experienced four natural disasters in eight years. But I’d never seen the like of this bird before, vibrantly green and startlingly beautifulWe were midway through our cyclone preparation when my mother broke her leg. She stepped into her bedroom to retrieve something, tripped and fell, and that was that. My mother is 74 and hardy, so this sudden break took us by surprise. Once I got her home, leg in brace, we’d lost significant time, and my household was down to one
  
  Read more

• ‘Patchy and behind deadline’: MPs attack UK rollout of EV charging points

  12-03-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Committee warns of serious injustice to disabled motorists and those reliant on public chargersThe rollout of electric vehicle chargers across Britain is “patchy”, behind deadline and ignores the needs of disabled drivers, the parliamentary spending watchdog has found.A report published by the public accounts committee (PAC) warned that the charging points needed to give drivers confidence for the switch to EVs were still lacking, particularly on Britain’s biggest roads. Contin
  
  Read more

• ‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

  12-03-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Swings between drought and floods striking from Dallas to Shanghai, while Madrid and Cairo are among cities whose climate has flippedClimate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed.Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa. The report
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!