Environment news

• The Guardian view on animal welfare: a timely reminder that cruelty is wrong | Editorial

  23-12-2025 19:25 via theguardian.com
  New protections for hares, and more humane conditions on farms, should be welcomed by allLooking after wildlife and improving the lives of farm animals and pets are the related but distinct aims of the government’s new animal welfare strategy for England. Its launch is timely: more than 1 billion chickens and around 8 million turkeys are reared each year – with many of the latter slaughtered in the run-up to Christmas. Winter is also peak season for pet abandonments, with animal char
  
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• Government waters down inheritance tax plan for farms

  23-12-2025 18:29 via bbc.com
  The government has now said it will lift the intended threshold from £1m to £2.5m.
  
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• Ministers raise inheritance tax threshold for farms after backlash

  23-12-2025 13:53 via theguardian.com
  U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at riskMinisters will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas.In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn which will apply from April when the tax is due to kick in. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘We finally have a tool to at least shave some tenths of a degree off’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewable energy

  23-12-2025 13:51 via theguardian.com
  The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rivalBill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, warned early of the dangers of climate changes and he has been campaigning and writing ever since. His most recent book, Here Comes the Sun, takes a look at the soaring potential of renewable energyIs your latest book a more optimistic take on this world? Continue reading...
  
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• ‘This is the Costco of energy, man!’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewables

  23-12-2025 13:51 via theguardian.com
  The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rivalBill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, warned early of the dangers of climate changes and he has been campaigning and writing ever since. His most recent book, Here Comes the Sun, takes a look at the soaring potential of renewable energyIs your latest book a more optimistic take on this world? Continue reading...
  
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• 'This is our future,' climate adviser warns as 2025 to break heat records

  23-12-2025 12:44 via bbc.com
  The Met Office says that 2025 is likely to be the UK's hottest year since records began.
  
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• Something gnawed your oak tree? Sink hole in your road? How Zurich’s beaver hotline is reassuring residents

  23-12-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  As the number of the semi-aquatic creatures soars so can tensions. But the Swiss have a tried and tested system to calm the neighbours and restore harmony“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.The caller is one of 10 new p
  
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• Forecasters say 2025 ‘more likely than not’ to be UK’s hottest year on record

  23-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Met Office says temperatures are tracking ahead of 2022 after year of heatwaves and drought, though late cold spell could yet interveneForecasters say 2025 is “more likely than not” to break the record for the hottest year in the UK since records began, after a summer of heatwaves and drought followed by a mild autumn.According to the Met Office, the official forecaster, the mean temperature for 2025 is tracking well ahead of the previous highest year, set in 2022. However, a colder
  
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• Country diary: Welcome to the woods where bomber aircraft once hid | Jennifer Jones

  23-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Speke, Merseyside: Walking through Stockton’s Wood today, you’d never know it played such a vital role in the second world war For most visitors, the Tudor house of Speke Hall, with all its rich history and magnificence, is the star of the show here. But right next door, Stockton’s Wood has a history all of its own.Today, on a chilly winter day, there’s no escaping that right now this ancient woodland is an important “deadwood” site. It’s rich
  
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• Country diary: These woods have a secret – the bomber aircraft that once hid here | Jennifer Jones

  23-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Speke, Merseyside: Walking through Stockton’s Wood today, you’d never know it played such a vital role in the second world warFor most visitors, the Tudor house of Speke Hall, with all its rich history and magnificence, is the star of the show here. But right next door, Stockton’s Wood has a history all of its own.Today, on a chilly winter day, there’s no escaping that right now this ancient woodland is an important “deadwood” site. It’s rich i
  
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• The best of the long read in 2025

  23-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Our 20 favourite pieces of in-depth reporting, essays and profiles from the yearVictor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist? Continue reading...
  
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