Environment news

• Great British Energy’s budget has been nuked | Nils Pratley

  11-06-2025 20:16 via theguardian.com
  Ed Miliband’s vehicle for investing in renewables lost 30% of its pot to small modular nuclear reactors in the spending reviewGB Energy’s promised £8.3bn budget raided to pay for small nuclear reactorsThere was a weirdness in the government’s welcome announcement this week that Rolls-Royce SMR had been selected as preferred bidder to build the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors, and that £2.5bn of public money would be thrown behind the project. The gov
  
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• Otters posing for selfies in Japanese cafes may be linked to illegal trade, experts warn

  11-06-2025 12:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The DNA of rare small-clawed otters in captivity in Japan has been matched to wild populations in poaching hotspots in ThailandPosing for selfies on the laps of excited visitors, the otters of Tokyo’s animal cafes have learned to play their part in their online stardom. In thousands of social media videos, the aquatic mammals wriggle through the outstretched hands of adoring customers who reward their attention with food.But the booming demand has raised major concerns among conservationis
  
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• Reefs made from human ashes could revive British seabeds, says startup

  11-06-2025 12:06 via theguardian.com
  
  UK company offers alternative to land-based burials after success of memorials in Bali made from remains of petsDeath is killing our planet. That is the stark assessment of a new business offering an innovative alternative: having your loved one’s ashes made into a reef and anchored to the British seabed.There are increasing concerns about the environmental cost of traditional funerals: a single burial generates 833kg of CO2, while a typical cremation has a footprint of about 400kg of CO2.
  
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• ‘The impact has been profound’: the headteacher bringing play back to the classroom

  11-06-2025 11:30 via theguardian.com
  Tina Farr has put play-based learning at the heart of lessons at her Oxford primary – with ‘phenomenal’ resultsWhen Tina Farr visits the year 2 classroom at her Oxford primary school, she can feel the changed atmosphere since play was put firmly back on the curriculum.“When I walk in there, I just feel the energy. The children come running up with things they have made, there is always a shop on the go so they will be pricing up something or finding change. They are alway
  
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• ‘Win-win’: new maps reveal best opportunities for global reforestation

  11-06-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  New study shows regions with best potential to regrow trees and suck climate-heating CO2 from the airNew maps have revealed the best “win-win” opportunities across the world to regrow forests and tackle the climate crisis, without harming people or wildlife.The places range from the eastern US and western Canada, to Brazil and Columbia, and across Europe, adding up to 195 million hectares (482 million acres). If reforested, this would remove 2.2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, abo
  
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• Something in the water: how kelp is helping Maine’s mussels boom

  11-06-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  When a US firm saw the seaweed was making their shellfish the ‘biggest and best’ scientists realised they’d hit upon a natural way to combat ocean acidificationPhotographs by Greta RybusMore on this story: A drop in the ocean: does experimental technology hold the key to saving the world’s seas?On a glimmering May morning, Tom Briggs pilots a 45ft aluminium barge through the waters of Casco Bay for one of the final days of the annual kelp harvest. Motoring past Clapboard
  
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• Parts of Australia are suffering another devastating drought, but you wouldn’t know it in the cities | Van Badham

  11-06-2025 09:09 via theguardian.com
  It’s not so much that rural and metro communities hold different opinions about climate change but rather they are holding completely different conversations• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereWe got some rain in rural Victoria over the weekend, and that’s headline-worthy news.There’s been a record-breaking drought that’s been afflicting the states of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and parts of New South
  
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• Down by the river: a meditation on mental health – in pictures

  11-06-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  During a period of deep personal turmoil, Marjolein Martinot took her camera down to the riverside in southern France – and began to feel connected again Continue reading...
  
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• ‘A billionaire will pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated being’: historian Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire

  11-06-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In her new book, Vanished, the history professor picks apart the political and philosophical dimensions of species lossWould you bring an extinct species back to life if you could? If so, which species would you pick? Prof Sadiah Qureshi has taken to asking her friends, students and complete strangers this question because, she says, their answers reveal a lot about how we understand extinction.Some choose a dinosaur, others pick a species like the dodo, killed off by humans. Almost no one choos
  
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• Birdwatch: the immigrant species bringing a splash of bright green to Britain

  11-06-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Opinions vary on wild ring-necked parakeets but they have become a defining sight and sound of London’s birdlifeA high-pitched screech penetrates the distant hum of traffic, as two impossibly green birds tear across the Hyde Park skyline. Although Londoners have got used to their presence, visitors to the capital are still surprised to see wild parakeets, even though they’ve been here for more than 50 years.I saw my first ring-necked (aka rose-ringed) parakeets in suburban Shepperton
  
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• Country diary: A horse chestnut that knows a bit about risk and reward | Mary Montague

  11-06-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Ormeau Park, Belfast: Planted in a perilous position by an inveterate gambler, this grand specimen has been bearing fruit for about 200 yearsOrmeau Park is Belfast’s oldest municipal park, but it was once the country estate of the second Marquis of Donegall (1769-1844). An inveterate gambler, the marquis retreated here to escape his creditors in England, finally taking up residence to spend his life surfing his debts. Belfast’s expansion in the 18th century had led to widespread defo
  
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• Drought fears in Europe amid reports May was world’s second hottest ever

  11-06-2025 04:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Copernicus data shows month was 1.4C above estimated 1850-1900 average used to define pre-industrial levelIt has been an exceptionally dry spring in north-western Europe and the second warmest May ever globally, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).Countries across Europe, including the UK, have been hit by drought conditions in recent months, with water shortages feared unless significant rain comes this summer, and crop failures beginning to be reported by farmers. Continue
  
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