Environment news

• Trapped with a Tesla: my dream car has become a living nightmare | The secret Tesla driver

  03-04-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  I bought it to be part of a greener future, but that was before Musk proved so awful. I’d sell it now, but prices have droppedAfter our children left home, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves and buy a new car for a driving holiday in Europe. We’d been driving a family estate car for years, loading it up with kids and making trips to and from universities, but we wanted something for ourselves.As a surprise, she booked a test drive for the Tesla Model S for my birthday. It was u
  
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• Plan for Norfolk megafarm rejected by councillors over environmental concerns

  03-04-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Application, submitted by Cranswick, would have created one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in EuropeA megafarm that would have reared almost 900,000 chickens and pigs at any one time has been blocked by councillors in Norfolk over climate change and environmental concerns.Councillors on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council unanimously rejected an application to build what would have been one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe. Continue readin
  
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• Revealed: Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from data-center boom and green rollbacks

  03-04-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centersOil and gas barons who donated millions of dollars to the Trump campaign are on the cusp of cashing in on the administration’s support for energy-guzzling data centers – and a slew of unprecedented environmental rollbacks.Energy Transfer, the oil and gas transport company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, has received requests to power 70 new data centers – a 75%
  
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• Our lives depend on seeds. Trump’s cuts put our vast reserves at risk | Thor Hanson

  03-04-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential – and requires constant work. It’s time for Congress to return to the seed businessFrom 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegeta
  
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• Top genome scientists to map DNA sequence of invertebrate winner 2025

  03-04-2025 13:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life team say genomes offer invaluable insight into how species will fare under climate crisisVoting is now open! Vote for your favourite here“We are following the ‘invertebrate of the year’ series with bated breath,” began the email that arrived in the Guardian’s inbox last week.Mark Blaxter leads the Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life programme, a project that sequences species’ DNA to understand the diversity and origins
  
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• Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer

  03-04-2025 11:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figureThe climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE
  
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• Weatherwatch: Mixed woodlands can help temper weather extremes, study shows

  03-04-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Species-rich plot can produce cooling effect 4C greater than single-species plotWoodland with lots of different kinds of trees can do a good job of buffering heatwaves and extreme cold. Now a new study demonstrates that increasing the mix of species can help to mitigate climate extremes.Florian Schnabel, from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig, and colleagues measured forest temperatures over a six-year period at the world’s largest tree diversity experiment
  
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• Country diary: They look like tiny green toenails. So why the name ‘maidenhair’ spleenwort? Sara Hudston

  03-04-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Bridport, Dorset: The common fern’s name was inspired by another phase of its life cycle, when fronds die off and spindly threads of stem remain in luxuriant, wiry tuftsThe modest clumps of fern clustering on the wall have a strangely reptilian appearance. Their short, slightly wavy green fronds with blackish central stems seem frozen in mid-writhe, as if they are the tails of lizards disappearing into cracks.Maidenhair spleenwort is one of the commonest small ferns. It grows in stony plac
  
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• Big, biodiverse and beautiful: can Romania’s centuries-old giant haystacks survive modern farming?

  03-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Traditional methods benefit hundreds of species but as new agricultural techniques take over, the distinctive haystacks mark a vanishing way of lifeGolden haystacks shaped like teardrops have been a symbol of rural life in Romania for hundreds of years. The 3-metre-high (10ft) ricks are the culmination of days of hard work by families, from children up to grandparents, in the height of summer.Together they cut waist-high grass, leave it to dry in the hot sun and stack it up to be stored over the
  
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