Environment news

• ‘This is ideal for them’: business is booming for Birmingham’s ‘rat king’

  04-04-2025 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Guardian joins a pest controller on the city’s streets as residents fear a rise in rodents during bin workers’ strikes“They’re not fussy,” said Martin Curry, describing the far from epicurean appetites of the scurrying rodents that the residents of Birmingham fear could flood the streets of their city.“Rats all have their own personal tastes but if food is scarce they’ll eat anything,” he said. Curry, who has been called the “rat king&rdq
  
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• Mining firm withdraws plan for UK’s first deep coalmine in 30 years

  04-04-2025 18:12 via theguardian.com
  
  Move ends bid for site near Whitehaven, Cumbria after planning permission was quashed by high courtThe Whitehaven coalmine’s planning application has been withdrawn, bringing an end to a process that could have created the UK’s first deep coalmine in 30 years in Cumbria.Planning permission for the mine was quashed in the high court last year which meant the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had to reassess the planning application. However, the company has now wri
  
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• Is the Silvertown tunnel a bridge to the future or a step backwards?

  04-04-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As the £2.2bn tunnel prepares to open, opinions are divided: will it reduce congestion, or is it a relic of transport planning that worsens pollution?From high above the Thames, the distinctive portals of the new Silvertown tunnel are clearly visible: a black arch on the North Greenwich peninsula, a green conical building a mile across the water in Newham.On Monday, tens of thousands of cars and lorries will start passing between them, almost directly below the cable car built by Boris Joh
  
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• Extension of huge offshore windfarm in Sussex approved

  04-04-2025 16:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Plan to add 90 turbines to Rampion will create 4,000 jobs in construction and could power 1m homesThe government has approved plans to build an offshore windfarm capable of powering about 1m British homes before the end of the decade.The plan to extend the Rampion offshore windfarm by adding 90 turbines off the Sussex coast is expected to add about 1.2 gigawatts of clean power for British households and businesses. Continue reading...
  
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• Dirty laundry: what really happens to your clothes when you donate them to charity?

  04-04-2025 16:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Only a fraction gets resold on the domestic secondhand market, but there are ways consumers can help reduce wasteChange by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprintGot a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at [email protected] year, Australians donate the equivalent of 250m pairs of jeans to charity (around 200,000 tonnes of textiles) and send another 200,000 tonnes to landf
  
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• Bigger than Texas: the true size of Australia’s devastating floods

  04-04-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  In outback Queensland, an area four times the size of the UK has been inundated with torrential rain, leaving many cut off or forced to abandon homesThe extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined – and is even bigger than Texas.The seemingly endless plains of outback Queensland are so vast and remote as to b
  
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• A lucky rascal or a feral critter that ‘should be euthanised’? Hunt for Valerie the dachshund divides Kangaroo Island

  04-04-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Wildlife groups claim the resourceful miniature sausage dog was sighted again this week. But not everyone is on Team ValerieElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastThere’s a roo carcass on the side of the road, near the turnoff to one of Kangaroo Island’s many excellent cellar doors. Black ravens lift sullenly from their feast as cars speed past.Some think this sort of roadkill is how Valerie, the
  
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• Chance of asteroid hitting Moon increases slightly

  04-04-2025 14:49 via bbc.com
  Asteroid 2024 YR4 won’t hit Earth but now has a 3.8% chance of striking the Moon.
  
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• US ports to use Covid-like tests to identify illegally trafficked seafood species

  04-04-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Devices similar to those used during pandemic to be deployed to help stamp out trade in threatened fishLast year, a colleague of Diego Cardeñosa sent the international shark trade researcher a few pieces of shark fin taken from a bowl of soup in New York City. Using a PCR test similar to those used during the Covid-19 pandemic to test for the virus, Cardeñosa was able to identify the species behind the fin as sandbar shark, an endangered species found in tropical and warm-temperate
  
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• From burger wrappers to masks, bird nests tell story of throwaway culture

  04-04-2025 12:57 via theguardian.com
  
  A single coot’s nest in Amsterdam is an archive of plastic waste and shows how the material ‘is really here to stay’One day in 1996, someone ate a McDonald’s McChicken burger in Amsterdam.Perhaps it was a quick bite after work? A leisurely stroll down the canals? A family outing? These details are lost to time, but others are hard to erase completely. Continue reading...
  
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• Week in wildlife: a fish dinner and Galápagos wonders

  04-04-2025 10:23 via theguardian.com
  The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Leading the charge: how a drive for electric vehicles is cleaning up Nepal

  04-04-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  With air pollution causing a fifth of deaths in Nepal, growing EV use could add nearly three years to Kathmandu residents’ livesIn a rundown hangar in the heart of Kathmandu, the remains of a dozen electric trolley buses stand abandoned and corroding. Caked in dust and bird-droppings and lined with rubbish, they are a reminder of a bold experiment, launched 50 years ago, to electrify the city’s public transport system. Down the side of one is written, “Keep me alive”.Toda
  
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• ‘Cathedral of crap’: is this the world’s most beautiful sewage treatment plant?

  04-04-2025 09:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Its lab buildings have a rusticated air while its sleek, paper-thin louvre windows are reminiscent of a luxury ocean-liner. More importantly, the people of Arklow in Ireland can finally go swimming without fear of floatersIt is not often that the arts section of a newspaper finds itself concerned with the aesthetic merits of a sewage works. But then there are few facilities designed with the finesse of the new €139m (£117m) wastewater treatment plant in Arklow, which stands like a pai
  
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• Africa’s last glaciers: an expedition to map ice loss in the Rwenzori mountains – in pictures

  04-04-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The project in Uganda has captured the disastrous effects of the climate crisis on a vital source of waterthat is central to the lives and sacred beliefs of the local Bakonzo community• Photographs by Project Pressure Continue reading...
  
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• Are rising lower respiratory infection hospital admissions linked to dirty air?

  04-04-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As LRIs put pressure on health services, a Spanish-led study examines what role exposure to air pollution may playThe Covid crisis highlighted gaps in our understanding of the role that air pollution plays in infections.A flurry of studies carried out during and after the crisis allowed a UK government advisory group to conclude that long-term exposure to air pollution may contribute to worse coronavirus symptoms. The group offered examples that included a study of more than 3 million people in
  
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• Country diary: On it flows, this lick of flame through the forest | Merryn Glover

  04-04-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Badenoch, Cairngorms: As we pause above the river, a sudden flash catches our eyes – a red squirrel is rippling along the branches belowIt’s early morning and the sky is a billowing parachute of blue, bursting its seams with sunshine and the fluffiest white clouds. A cool wind blows up Loch Insh, roughening the water and bearing the scent of spring. From the island, a song thrush pours out all the trills, beeps and chirps of its bravura performance, oystercatchers pipe and a woodpeck
  
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• Musical vans, school oaths and civic pride: how an Indian city beat the litter

  04-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Indore in Madhya Pradesh was once dotted with fetid waste dumps but after a huge campaign is now virtually spotlessThis is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for being th
  
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• More than 1m cars sold in UK each year too big to fit typical parking space

  04-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaign network calls on government to prioritise smaller cars and introduce higher charges for SUV ownersMore than 1m cars too big to fit in parking spaces are being sold in the UK each year, and numbers are growing, research has found.A trend for cars bigger than the average urban parking space means new vehicles are outgrowing towns and cities. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I’ve seen people stop their cars to pick up litter’: how one city cleaned up its streets

  04-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Indore in Madhya Pradesh, India, was once dotted with fetid waste dumps but after a huge campaign is now virtually spotlessThis is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for
  
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• Greece’s Aegean islands reel from ‘lake of mud’ flash floods before Easter rush

  04-04-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Authorities race to complete clean-up operation after devastation from gales and heaviest rainfall in 20 yearsPeople on the Aegean islands, more used in April to the sight and scent of spring’s blossoms, have been left reeling from flash floods spurred by typhoon-strength gales, with authorities calling a state of emergency in some of Greece’s most popular destinations less than three weeks before Easter.“It’s a total catastrophe and it happened in just two hours,”
  
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• Brazil to host Prince William's Earthshot Prize

  04-04-2025 04:18 via bbc.com
  The climate prize ceremony will come just before Brazil hosts the COP30 climate summit in November.
  
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