Environment news

• Could California's gridlock generate electricity for the grid?

  27-09-2016 21:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  California is testing whether its heavy traffic can produce not just emissions and air pollution, but electricity. The state’s Energy Commission says it will spend $2 million to examine the potential of using piezoelectric crystals embedded under asphalt as a way to send the energy created by moving cars to the grid.
  
  Read more

• Australia’s renewables transition is well under way – but meeting its 2030 target will be ‘extremely challenging’

  18-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  A gap looms between the Albanese government’s goal of 82% renewable energy and planned solar and wind projectsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe challenges of Australia’s energy transition – from a system once fired by coal and gas to one powered by solar, wind and supporting technologies – are being underlined on an almost weekly basis.On Tuesday, the Carroll Labor government in Victoria announced a review of the Western Renewables Link, a maj
  
  Read more

• Drone footage shows severe drought hitting river in Brazil – video

  18-09-2026 16:04 via theguardian.com
  Drone footage from 17 September shows the Araguaia River drying up, as severe drought grips parts of Brazil. The country is preparing for potential El Niño impacts in late 2026-27, with the Tocantins-Araguaia basin already experiencing severe drought conditions Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Drone footage shows severe drought hitting Brazil’s northern river – video

  18-09-2026 16:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Drone footage from 17 September shows the Araguaia River drying up, as severe drought grips Brazil’s northern basin. The country is preparing for potential El Niño impacts in late 2026-27, with the Tocantins-Araguaia basin already experiencing severe drought conditions Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Fat Bear Week has returned – and the salmon are swimming for their lives

  18-09-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  The public will, for the 12th year in a row, vote for the fattest of brown bears in Alaska’s Katmai national parkThe bears have returned to the river and are packing on the pounds as another Fat Bear Week begins at Katmai national park.The 12th annual Fat Bear Week, in which the public will vote for the fattest of Katmai’s brown bears as mothers, cubs and males gather along the salmon-run at Brooks river in Alaska begins on Monday. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• From old railways to an oasis of art, food and nature: how an eco-park was born in Greater Manchester

  18-09-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Northern Roots is launching Britain’s biggest urban farm and eco-park, in an effort to boost people’s health and wellbeingStanding in the open green space of Northern Roots, it is hard to imagine the landscape as it once was.Two cotton mills, two coalmines and an industrial railway once occupied this 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Later, about 24 hectares became a tip, with much of the space left to nature. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Week in wildlife: swimming pigs, circling sharks and a fox on the cricket pitch

  18-09-2026 09:00 via theguardian.com
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The world’s rivers are at breaking point. Can we save them before it is too late?

  18-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s newsletter: As the Guardian launches a year-long project, Our Rivers, we take stock of the issues facing waterways around the worldDon’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe nicknames of the world’s biggest rivers give a sense of how we feel about them: “the great river”, “the river that swallows all rivers”, “Mother Ganga” and “Old father Thames”. They feed and water us, and many other animal
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• MPs urge ministers to break off Thames Water talks with US hedge funds

  18-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Efra committee calls for emergency legislation enabling government to take public control of the company Andy Burnham is under further pressure to take control of ailing Thames Water from a cross-party group of MPs who are calling for ministers to break off talks with the US hedge funds who are effectively running the company.Adding their voices to demands that the prime minister takes public control of the company, which has debts of £20bn and is being controlled by a group of 100 hedge f
  
  Read more

• Improved air quality linked to better mental development in toddlers, study finds

  18-09-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Long-term research in New York shows efforts to reduce air pollution associated with higher cognitive test scoresImprovements in air pollution are leading to brighter, smarter toddlers, according to a new study from Columbia University in New York.For more than two decades, Prof Frederica Perera and a team from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health measured the air pollution exposure of pregnant women and the development of their children in the disadvantaged communities
  
  Read more

• Country diary: Dinner time for the buzzard family is not a dignified affair | Kate Blincoe

  18-09-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: We have three breeding pairs on the farm, and one in particular has been a source of fascination and amusementI’m out on the farm most days, but I miss so much. It took a few days to notice a mother mallard with her late brood of 12 ducklings until they were all dabbling in a yard puddle. Dad sees more than me. He told me of the lazy adult buzzard that waited in a tree, then dive-bombed a peregrine that had caught a pigeon. The peregrine dropped its prey, which
  
  Read more

• ‘Forcing a reckoning’: How Asia is preparing for a ‘supersized’ El Niño

  18-09-2026 01:57 via theguardian.com
  From Sri Lanka to South Korea, governments are preparing for droughts, wildfires, typhoons and floods – with climate plans facing their biggest challenge to dateAsian governments are rushing preparations for the most severe El Niño weather event on record, with hundreds of millions of people bracing for multiple crises at once as extreme heat, heavy rain and food shortages hit the region.Fuelled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific – and developin
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on the Nepal-Tibet floods: a spur to action on climate | Editorial

  17-09-2026 19:47 via theguardian.com
  
  New research links last month’s disaster to fossil fuel pollution. Supporting disaster-hit countries must be at the centre of climate politicsFollowing a familiar pattern, coverage of the glacier collapse on the Nepal-Tibet border three weeks ago has subsided with the initial shock. But while the world’s attention has shifted, Nepal remains in the midst of an appalling tragedy. As well as at least 1,300 people who are known to have been killed, more than 5,000 are missing, some of th
  
  Read more

• Scientists are fighting a longer mosquito season with ... more mosquitoes

  17-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Nearly half a million more of the insects are being released in California – they’re all male and carry a bacteriumThe box arrived in the San Gabriel Valley, just east of Los Angeles, filled with more than two dozen paper tubes about the size of toilet paper rolls.“All 25 tubes are here,” said Tristan Hallum, who oversees scientific programs for the San Gabriel Valley mosquito and vector control district. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Planet’s atmosphere breaks record for water vapour levels increasing risk of extreme heat and rainfall

  17-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Global heating contributes to record, with a warmer atmosphere able to hold more water, scientists sayThe planet’s atmosphere held more water vapour in August than any other month on record, further increasing the risk of extreme heat and rainfall around the world, according to Europe’s climate change service.Climate scientists said global heating was a contributor to the record because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water, and the historic El Niño in the Pacific Ocean was
  
  Read more

• Fire, ice and family: Australia’s 2026 Bowness photography prize – in pictures

  17-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Here are 26 images by the shortlisted artists who submitted works for the 21st William and Winifred Bowness photography prize.Tamara Dean has been named the winner. The judges says her photograph is ‘operatic and poetic: an opus that is the culmination of a sustained body of work evident not only in its conception and process but also in its exquisite execution and presentation’ Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• El Niño and global heating pushes water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere to record levels in August

  17-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Global heating contributes to record, with a warmer atmosphere able to hold more water, scientists sayThe planet’s atmosphere held more water vapour in August than any other month on record, further increasing the risk of extreme heat and rainfall around the world, according to Europe’s climate change service.Climate scientists said global heating was a contributor to the record because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water, and the historic El Niño in the Pacific Ocean was
  
  Read more

• ‘It bloody works’: why the world’s oldest cheddar-maker uses a ‘milk-source’ heat pump

  17-09-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Barber’s Farmhouse Cheesemakers can draw enough heat from cows’ fresh milk to bring water close to the boil, slashing carbon emissionsIn many ways, the world’s oldest cheddar-maker hews to tradition. Since 1833, Barber’s Farmhouse Cheesemakers has operated from the rolling green pastures of south-west England, milking grass-fed cows and fermenting the milk with microbial starters passed down for generations. That heritage has led to award-winning cheese, now popular acros
  
  Read more

• British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it | Andy Burnham

  17-09-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  With nearly £30m of funding, I’m giving communities power over local energy. They know the gravity of global heating, and they want to be part of the solutionAndy Burnham: UK must fully commit to reaching net zero by 2050On the day I became prime minister, I pledged to bring power to every postcode. Today, we begin to make good on that promise in the most literal sense. With nearly £30m of funding for People’s Power projects, communities across every nation of the UK will
  
  Read more

• Andy Burnham: UK must fully commit to reaching net zero by 2050

  17-09-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: PM, who is facing pressure over whether to approve North Sea oil and gasfields, makes strongest comments yet on issueBritish people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle itUK politics live – latest updatesThe UK must fully commit to reaching net zero by 2050, Andy Burnham has argued in his strongest comments yet on the issue, saying it is no longer possible for Britons to believe they are not already affected by a changing climate.Writin
  
  Read more

• ‘I see them like my own children’: reforesting Ethiopia with 50bn trees, one step at a time

  17-09-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  After losing much of its forests in recent decades, ordinary citizens have led the way in planting saplings across the country as part of the government’s Green Legacy InitiativeWhen Halima Kedir first began planting trees, she was met with scepticism and even mockery. “My neighbours discouraged me,” she recalls, sitting on a wooden chair in her garden, which is lush with the trees and fruits she has planted – banana, olive and grevillea among them.“They thought I w
  
  Read more

• Fifty billion trees by 2030: how Ethiopia is recruiting citizens across the country to plant, plant, plant

  17-09-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  After losing much of its forests in recent decades, the country’s people have led the way in planting saplings across the country as part of the government’s Green Legacy InitiativeWhen Halima Kedir first began planting trees, she was met with scepticism and even mockery. “My neighbours discouraged me,” she recalls, sitting on a wooden chair in her garden, which is lush with the trees and fruits she has planted – banana, olive and grevillea among them.“They th
  
  Read more

• Trump’s love of fossil fuels is about more than money | Moira Donegan

  17-09-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The US decision to remove limits on coal and gas plant emissions is rooted in a perception of manliness in these industriesYou can impress a certain kind of person at a party by reciting the fact that there are more yoga instructors in the US than there are coalminers. In fact, the disparity is greater than this catchy phrasing suggests: there are actually more yoga instructors in the US than there are people employed in the entirely of the coalmining industry, miners and otherwise. It’s n
  
  Read more

• ‘It’s beautiful when it’s clean’: the Argentine neighbourhood saving a contaminated river

  17-09-2026 10:00 via theguardian.com
  Sewage, dog carcasses and industrial waste clog Argentina’s second most-polluted river. Meet the activists cleaning it upTwenty-three years ago, María Monges looked around her flooded neighbourhood and knew something had to be done.Founded in 1998 in Buenos Aires province’s San Martín district, the community of Costa Esperanza sits on the banks of the Reconquista, Argentina’s second most-polluted river and owes its name to the fictional location of a hit Argentine
  
  Read more

• Access-to-nature crisis ‘on par with that of Victorian Britain’s filthy air’

  17-09-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Research finds many in England lack proximity to green and blue spaces as Labour urged to speed up manifesto pledgeNearly half of all parliamentary constituencies in England have low access to nature despite a government target to ensure everyone is within a 15-minute walk from a green or blue space, new research reveals.The analysis by the Wildlife Trusts comes as the charity presents a green paper to ministers in an attempt to speed up Labour’s manifesto promise to improve access to natu
  
  Read more

• Country diary: Facing the flax – this city was once built on the stuff | Mary Montague

  17-09-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Botanic Meadow, Belfast: I visit my local community garden, and the woman who has returned to growing this graceful crop that eventually becomes linenIn my hands is a brownish-grey hank of flax yarn. I twine it between my fingers to feel the thread’s strength and admire the fibres’ diffuse sheen. Along with fruit and vegetables, it’s the produce of our Friends of the Field community garden. It’s also the work of Merle, whose love of textile crafts has led her creative pro
  
  Read more

• ‘Like a Disney movie’: Three wild dog brothers make Africa’s longest journey

  17-09-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs’ perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territoryIt sounds like a Disney movie: three wild dogs, all brothers, on an epic journey to find a home of their own after their family tells them to leave. They dodge cars and hunters in search of a new life, navigating bushmeat snares and the hostility of a human-dominated landscape until they find a new haven on the African savannah.But this is exactly w
  
  Read more

• English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft

  17-09-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder beeIt sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of bread and cheese.But the conservation charity English Heritage is recruiting a team of volunteer scythers to maintain 21st-century meadowland in the old-fashioned way. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• 2025 was among driest years on record for world’s rivers, study finds

  17-09-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Analysis of global resources reveals depletion in world’s water savings bank to 42% below normal levels last yearRivers across the world experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in 2025, a comprehensive study of global water resources has found.The assessment of the global water cycle by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reveals a depletion in the world’s water savings bank: the amount of freshwater held on or under the ground, including groundwater,
  
  Read more

• Do whales grieve? Rare footage of humpback alongside stillborn calf suggests they might | Olaf Meynecke for the Conversation

  17-09-2026 04:22 via theguardian.com
  The behaviours we observed could represent grief, but they could also reflect maternal attachment, confusion or instinctive caregivingIt was a tragic sight.One day last July, a newborn humpback whale calf lay motionless on the seafloor, just a kilometre off Australia’s Gold Coast. The encounter was captured through underwater video. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!