Environment news

• The Guardian view on climate fiction: no longer the stuff of sci-fi | Editorial

  21-03-2025 18:50 via theguardian.com
  
  A new prize recognises the power of storytelling to address the biggest issue of our timeNo novelist should ignore the climate emergency, Paul Murray, author of the bestselling novel The Bee Sting, told the Observer last year: “It is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century.” In recognition of the vital role of literature in responding to the Anthropocene moment, this week the inaugural shortlist was announced for the Climate Fiction prize.The five novels includ
  
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• Department for Education confirms launch of natural history GCSE

  21-03-2025 16:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners have been calling for the qualification for years but plan stalled despite a curriculum being drawn upTeenagers may be able to learn about the importance of newts, bats and jumping spiders after the government announced the introduction of a GCSE in natural history.The qualification had been campaigned for by nature lovers for more than a decade, but despite a curriculum being drawn up, the measure had stalled. Continue reading...
  
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• Mysterious bags of ‘hazardous’ materials appeared in Mexico. Then we found more

  21-03-2025 13:00 via theguardian.com
  An investigation found thousands of white bags near Monterrey, but aerial footage shows a bigger problemCall it the mystery of the white bags. After they were found to be sprawling across acres of land near the Mexican city of Monterrey, authorities ordered their “urgent” removal. Now visual evidence suggests the problem is more extensive than previously known.An investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab first identified the bags in January, piling up around a factory tha
  
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• Reeves scapegoating bats to cut red tape is absurd, says Packham

  21-03-2025 12:11 via theguardian.com
  
  Broadcaster and nature campaigner claims Labour’s attack on wildlife in push for economic growth is ‘PR disaster’Bats are being “scapegoated” by Rachel Reeves, Chris Packham has said, after the chancellor suggested the winged creatures were getting in the way of economic growth.Reeves recently said she wanted businesses to “focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about the bats and the newts”, and this week the press release announcing her shake
  
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• Use of pesticides on UK farms to be cut by 10% by 2030 to protect bees

  21-03-2025 12:03 via theguardian.com
  Campaigners welcome long-delayed proposals to reduce pesticide-related harms to pollinatorsThe use of pesticides on UK farms is to be reduced by 10% by 2030 under government plans to protect bees and other pollinators.Campaigners welcomed the news, but said they were disappointed that the target applied only to arable farms and not to urban areas and parks. Continue reading...
  
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• Sewage in England’s rivers and seas – in pictures

  21-03-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The pumping of sewage into rivers and seas has become a scandal in Britain. Photographer Dylan Martinez has spent years travelling around the country to capture the story of its broken sewage system.In England, water companies discharged sewage for 3.6m hours in 2023, polluting streams, rivers and coastlines, littering them with sanitary products and condoms, damaging ecosystems and habitats, and scaring away tourists. Continue reading...
  
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• What’s in the millions of tonnes of sludge spread on to UK farmland? Toxic waste – and ministers don’t care | George Monbiot

  21-03-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Water companies let waste disposers, for cash, dump their loads into sewage farms. When it is recklessly used as fertiliser, we are all at riskIf humanity has an epitaph, it might read something like this: “Knackered by the things we missed.” It is true that several existential threats are widely known and widely discussed. But some of the greatest dangers we face appear on almost no one’s radar.How often have you thought about this one: spreading sewage sludge on farmland? I w
  
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• What’s in the millions of tonnes of sludge sprayed on to farmland? The answer won’t make you happy | George Monbiot

  21-03-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Thanks to breathtaking negligence, the liquid fertiliser used to help grow our food bubbles with a lethal cocktail of toxinsIf humanity has an epitaph, it might read something like this: “Knackered by the things we missed.” It is true that several existential threats are widely known and widely discussed. But some of the greatest dangers we face appear on almost no one’s radar.How often have you thought about this one: spreading sewage sludge on farmland? I would guess very few
  
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• Week in wildlife: March hares, a dreaming dormouse and the first chicks of spring

  21-03-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• New national forest to see 20m trees planted

  21-03-2025 07:06 via bbc.com
  
  The government says the new Western Forest project will help the UK meet its tree-planting targets.
  
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• First evidence of microplastic buildup in bird lungs found in new study

  21-03-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Researchers describe widespread contamination of plastics in the bodies of more than 50 different bird speciesA new study has provided the first evidence that microplastics are accumulating in bird lungs.Birds have long been used to give early warnings of environmental risks. The absence of birdsong was used in the evocative title of Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, and for more than a century miners carried caged canaries to warn of carbon monoxide – a practice that ended in
  
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• Invertebrates! Everyone loves invertebrates! Which is your favourite? | First Dog on the Moon

  21-03-2025 06:49 via theguardian.com
  
  I love them all even the creepy weird onesSign 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 tiny wildflower meadow with bespoke bee habitats | Kate Bradbury

  21-03-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Hove, East Sussex: Last spring was a washout, but this year – after a few home improvements – my garden is buzzingI sit in my front garden, which is surely a contender for world’s smallest meadow – a tiny square, rich with native grasses, primroses, lungwort, crocuses and the last of the snowdrops. Leaves poke through the soil, telling me that scabious and knapweed will soon bloom, along with betony, meadowsweet and viper’s bugloss. The one red campion, which h
  
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• Schools and hospitals get £180m solar investment

  21-03-2025 03:26 via bbc.com
  
  The government has announced the funding for 200 schools and hospitals apiece across the UK.
  
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• New forest to be created in west of England, with 20m trees planted by 2050

  21-03-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Western Forest will cover 2,500 hectares across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and BristolA new Western Forest is to be created across a swathe of the west of England from the Cotswolds to the Mendips, the government has said.The project, one of the government’s promised national forests, will create 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) of woodland by 2030 across five priority areas in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Bristol, with plans to plant 20m trees by 2050. Continue reading..
  
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• Government ‘absolutely up for the fight’ over net zero, Ed Miliband says

  21-03-2025 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: energy secretary says 2050 target is imperative, and accuses opposition of betraying of future generations The government is “absolutely up for the fight” over net zero, Ed Miliband has said, as he accused the Conservatives and Reform of “a total desertion and betrayal” of future generations by failing to tackle the climate crisis.After a turbulent week for Labour in which it has been charged with abandoning its values by slashing disability benefits, the energ
  
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• Glacier meltdown risks food and water supply of 2 billion people, says UN

  21-03-2025 00:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Unesco report highlights ‘unprecedented’ glacier loss driven by climate crisis, threatening ecosystems, agriculture and water sourcesRetreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world, the UN has warned, as current “unprecedented” rates of melting will have unpredictable consequences.Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in mountain regi
  
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