Environment news

• Attenborough at 99 delivers 'greatest message he's ever told'

  06-05-2025 18:30 via bbc.com
  
  Sir David says his new film Ocean is one of the most important of his career.
  
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• ‘Blood timber’: western firms fuel conflict and ‘slavery’ in Colombia

  06-05-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Trade in uncertified hardwood illegally logged in Chocó rainforest and imported by US and Europe is financing paramilitaries, says Environmental Investigation AgencyThe Atrato River winds through the dense rainforest of Colombia’s Chocó region for nearly 400 miles (600km) before spilling into the Caribbean Sea. Some of these tropical forests are among the wettest on Earth. Their flooded lowlands and swollen rivers are so impenetrable they have acted as an evolutionary barrier
  
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• England faces drought this summer as reservoir water levels dwindle

  06-05-2025 17:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Government and water firms preparing for possible shortages as dry weather is expected to continueEngland is heading towards a drought this summer unless there is significant rainfall soon, as reservoir water levels dwindle.The government will on Wednesday convene the National Drought Group of water companies, farming groups and other experts to prepare for what is expected to be a dry summer with potential water shortages. Continue reading...
  
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• Plastics industry pushed ‘advanced recycling’ despite knowing problems – report

  06-05-2025 17:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Producers promoted chemical recycling – processes used to break plastics into tiny molecules – but knew of limitationsPlastic producers have pushed “advanced recycling” as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible solution, a new report argues.Advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling, refers to a variety of processes used to break plastics into tiny molecules. The industry has increasing
  
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• ‘It’s pretty scary’: Sunshine Coast residents fear storm surges as Bribie Island buffer erodes away

  06-05-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Successive cyclones have gradually worn away the northern tip of the Queensland barrier island, which shields coastal residents on the mainlandGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastJen Kettleton-Butler is on “a postage stamp of island” trying to rescue an echidna she calls Eddie.Wind roars in her microphone and the camera she holds pans from a public toilet that is disappearing beneath waves to a thin strip of coastal forest that, too, is being reclaimed by the o
  
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• GM mosquitoes: inside the lab breeding six-legged agents in the war on malaria

  06-05-2025 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A British company is producing mosquitoes that carry a ‘self-limiting’ gene that kills off female offspring, limiting the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue feverIn an unassuming building on an industrial estate outside Oxford, Michal Bilski sits in a windowless room with electric fly swatters and sticky tape on the wall, peering down a microscope. On the slide before him is a line of mosquito eggs that he collected less than an hour previously and put into position with a
  
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• UK falling behind on tackling microplastic pollution, scientists say

  06-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Researchers call for urgent action as fragments of plastic found in human brains and pollute food, water and airThe UK is falling behind on international efforts to tackle microplastics, scientists have said, as the pollutants continue to infiltrate food, ecosystems and human bodies.The tiny fragments of plastic have been found in human testicles and brains, and they burrow into plants, inhibiting their ability to photosynthesise. The impact on human health is largely unknown, but they have been
  
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• Aviation industry is ‘failing dramatically’ on climate, insiders say

  06-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Professionals call for a fundamental transition including controlling flight numbersThe aviation industry is “failing dramatically” in its efforts to tackle its role in the climate crisis, according to a newly formed group of aviation professionals.They say they are torn between their passion for flying and their concern for the planet and are calling for a fundamental transition of the industry, including controlling flight numbers. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: I inhaled a whiff of wolf urine – it was the true essence of wilderness | Mark Cocker

  06-05-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Białowieża Forest, Poland: This is a vast and overwhelming place, a glimpse into a world as it was before we came alongThis place, which straddles two eastern European countries, has a reputation as the continent’s last primeval forest – a glimpse of a world before it was smothered in ourselves and the homolith. To arrive at night is to tunnel through trees for mile after mile without end. And this, you realise, represents a fraction of the whole. Because beyond the border
  
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• Country diary: A whiff of wolf urine is the true essence of wilderness | Mark Cocker

  06-05-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Białowieża Forest, Poland: This is a vast and overwhelming place, a glimpse into a world as it was before we came alongThis place, which straddles two eastern European countries, has a reputation as the continent’s last primeval forest – a glimpse of a world before it was smothered in ourselves and the homolith. To arrive at night is to tunnel through trees for mile after mile without end. And this, you realise, represents a fraction of the whole. Because beyond the border
  
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