Environment news

• Country diary: willow warblers soundtrack a stoat sighting

  17-05-2018 06:30
  Romaldkirk, Teesdale: Lithe and lethal, the stoat emerged into a patch of bare ground, sniffed the air, then vanished into a dense patch of wild garlicThe warm weather arrived, and with it willow warblers. Soon their song would merge into the background sounds of summer but this was the first of the year, so we stopped to listen. The warbler was delivering its liquid cadences, exultant, then dying away to a subdued ending, from a hawthorn on the embankment of the disused railway line that now fo
  
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• Toby Carvery to fund orchard replanting as settlement for felling ancient oak

  10-06-2026 17:30
  Enfield council in north London took legal action against restaurant chain after outrage over damage to treeThe UK restaurant chain Toby Carvery has settled a legal dispute over taking a chainsaw to an ancient oak tree without permission, by agreeing to pay to restore a lost orchard.The unauthorised partial felling of the 500-year-old oak next to a Toby Carvery car park in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, north London, in April last year, prompted widespread public outrage and questions in parliament.
  
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• Deepest and most extensive whale graveyard discovered in Indian Ocean

  10-06-2026 17:00
  Some remains found in Diamantina fracture zone date back more than 5m years and reveal species and ecosystems unknown to scienceThe oldest, deepest and most extensive whale graveyard yet discovered has been found in the south-eastern Indian Ocean, with fossils dating back more than 5m years.Whale falls – the term for dead whales that sink to the ocean floor – are not uncommon, but most have been found at depths of less than 4km (2.5 miles). By contrast, the newly discovered necropoli
  
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• ‘Every day it’s more barriers’: how the US is shutting out climate refugees

  10-06-2026 15:00
  As the US shuts its doors to most refugees, there’s little hope of a new system to help those forced from home by climate impactsTrump targets migrants from countries hit most by climate shocksMillions of people around the world are having their lives upended by floods, storms and heatwaves worsened by the climate crisis. Those forced to flee their home countries, however, are finding that the door to the US is more firmly shut than ever.Neither US nor international law recognizes environm
  
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• The rightwing campaign to control how US judges view the climate crisis

  10-06-2026 14:00
  US energy secretary Chris Wright featured in seminars to judges when he was a fracking executiveAs cities and states sue big oil for billions in damages over allegations that it covered up the dangers of its products, rightwing organizations are attempting to discredit the wave of litigation. They claim the lawyers behind it are teaming up with an environmentally focused legal education non-profit to bias federal judges against oil companies.But it is actually fossil fuel-backed organizations th
  
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• Big agriculture is killing our bees. We’ll all pay the price | Jennie Durant

  10-06-2026 12:00
  We’re thinking about the crisis facing pollinators all wrong. And we’ve come to a crucial momentLast winter, commercial beekeepers lost more than 60% of their colonies – their worst losses on record. We tend to blame bee losses on separate, singular threats: pests, pesticides, habitat loss or extreme weather. But we’ve been thinking about bee losses wrong.The real culprit is our industrial food system. Continue reading...
  
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• Pollinators in peril: scientists reveal the hidden human health costs of the world’s disappearing bees

  10-06-2026 10:00
  Crops and flowers rely on them for survival, but wild bees are declining – andcrucial nutrients will go missing from our diets as a resultThere are few ways in and out of Nepal’s Jumla district. The Karnali highway, considered one of the world’s most dangerous roads, provides the only land link, splicing through the Himalayas to connect Jumla’s terraced valleys to the rest of the country. As such, the 120,000 people that live there are almost entirely self-sufficient, wit
  
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• Nothing says stupidity like Reform's obsession with destroying British jobs | George Monbiot

  10-06-2026 09:00
  The net zero economy is booming, so claims that prosperity depends on oil and gas are bunkum – unless you’re a Reform backer with fossil fuel interests, of courseReally? You want to destroy a million jobs? Vote Reform UK for mass unemployment: is that your pitch? Hammer these questions home whenever you meet a supporter of the party. Or, for that matter, a Conservative, as their party now takes an almost identical line.The figures are stark. They were compiled not by Just Stop Oil or
  
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• A question for Nigel Farage – why is your nationalist party so obsessed with destroying British jobs? | George Monbiot

  10-06-2026 09:00
  The net zero economy is booming, so claims that prosperity depends on oil and gas are bunkum – unless you’re a Reform backer with fossil fuel interests, of courseReally? You want to destroy a million jobs? Vote Reform UK for mass unemployment: is that your pitch? Hammer these questions home whenever you meet a supporter of the party. Or, for that matter, a Conservative, as their party now takes an almost identical line.The figures are stark. They were compiled not by Just Stop Oil or
  
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• More than half of clean energy schemes needed for Labour’s 2030 target offered grid connection

  10-06-2026 08:00
  The 700 projects include wind and solar farms, battery storage, gas and hydro plansMore than half the renewable energy projects needed to meet the government’s clean power targets by 2030 are now able to plug into the electricity grid after years of delay, according to the system operator.The National Energy System Operator (Neso) has offered more than 700 clean energy projects in Great Britain a grid connection date since the start of the year, after a two-year process to unblock a bottle
  
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• Super-rich’s assets cause outsized amount of climate harm, study says

  10-06-2026 07:00
  Greenpeace calculates that wealthiest contribute nearly $1tn of damage a year with ownership-based emissionsUltra-wealthy people zooming across the world on their private jets, lounging on yachts and conspicuous by their Instagrammable consumption are among the most easily identified individual culprits when it comes to the climate crisis – but new research argues that it is not just their heady lifestyles to blame, but also their bank accounts.Through their ownership of companies and priv
  
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• Country diary: A late-night nightingale serenade | Nic Wilson

  10-06-2026 06:30
  Strawberry Hill, Bedfordshire: After an evening round the campfire, we head into the wonderfully, chaotically alive scrub, to hear the headline act“Now I walk in beauty / Beauty is before me”. Earlier this evening we learned the simple melody to this Navajo prayer, and sang it as a round in the hawthorn clearing, adding our voices to the chorus of chiffchaff, blackcap and garden warbler. Afterwards we sat for a few moments, listening, newly aware of the beauty before us. Across the m
  
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• Bycatch has ‘shocking’ toll on British marine life, first-ever analysis reveals

  10-06-2026 06:00
  Conservationists say cherished creatures such as whales, dolphins and seabirds are being killed in large numbers by fishing tackleThousands of Britain’s most charismatic and protected marine wildlife, including whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals and seabirds are being killed as “collateral damage” by fishing vessels every year, according to the first-ever analysis of bycatch data.The analysis, by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups, r
  
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• Cattle in England to get tuberculosis vaccine from 2030 as badger cull to end

  10-06-2026 01:01
  
  Targeted vaccination and improved testing planned as part of drive to eradicate disease by 2038Cattle will be vaccinated against tuberculosis from 2030 as a “gamechanging” part of a new strategy to drive eradication of the disease in England by 2038. In parallel, the last badger culls are expected to end by 2029, with vaccination of badgers expanded.More than 20,000 infected cattle are slaughtered each year, costing taxpayers £100m and inflicting a heavy toll on affected farmer
  
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• This US neighborhood is full of hazardous air pollution. Can a network of sensors make ‘the invisible visible’?

  09-06-2026 15:00
  Pacoima is hemmed in by highways and heavy industry, and its residents are fighting pollution with hyperlocal air quality monitoringJose Luis Salas looks up at the ladder. “Are you ready?” he asks Shance Taylor, an environmental project manager who’s holding a white container, about the size of a shoebox, covered with wires and numbers.Taylor nods and climbs up to reach the side of Salas’s tidy house in Pacoima, a neighborhood in Los Angeles’s north-east San Fernand
  
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• This LA neighborhood is choked by smog. The solution: a network of sensors on offices, homes and bags

  09-06-2026 15:00
  Pacoima is hemmed in by highways and heavy industry, and its residents are fighting pollution with hyperlocal air quality monitoringJose Luis Salas looks up at the ladder. “Are you ready?” he asks Shance Taylor, an environmental project manager who’s holding a white container, about the size of a shoebox, covered with wires and numbers.Taylor nods and climbs up to reach the side of Salas’s tidy house in Pacoima, a neighborhood in Los Angeles’s north-east San Fernand
  
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• Here are 10 ways a ‘super’ El Niño could impact the planet | Benjamin Selwyn

  09-06-2026 14:00
  The climate phenomenon is intensifying an already unequal global economy Continue reading...
  
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• The Galápagos is a wildlife haven. But is that enough to protect the rare scalloped hammerhead shark?

  09-06-2026 13:00
  The species is abundant within the protected archipelago but when they migrate outside the marine reserve to give birth they run the gauntlet of industrial fishingThe unmistakable fluted T-shape of a scalloped hammerhead shark slides by, followed by a diver holding his breath and a metal spear like an extra-long snooker cue. The spear hits the fish behind its dorsal fin and the 2-metre shark darts away, disgruntled but otherwise unharmed.Carlos Robalino, a marine biologist from the Galápa
  
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• ‘Electrify daily life’, urges Cop31 host

  09-06-2026 13:00
  Third of world’s energy needs should come from electricity by 2035, says Murat Kurum, as priorities set out for this year’s UN climate summitThe world should aim to meet a third of its energy needs from electricity within a decade to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the host of the next UN climate summit has said.While about a third of global electricity generation already comes from renewable sources, other energy-intensive sectors – chiefly transport, heating and industries &nda
  
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• A third of world’s energy needs should come from electricity by 2035, says Cop31 host

  09-06-2026 13:00
  Turkish minister Murat Kurum says ‘electrifying daily life’ will be priority for this year’s UN climate summitThe world should aim to meet a third of its energy needs from electricity within a decade to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the host of the next UN climate summit has said.While about a third of global electricity generation already comes from renewable sources, other energy-intensive sectors – chiefly transport, heating and industries – have lagged behind. C
  
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• World’s largest banks pledged $906bn to fossil fuel companies in ‘unfathomable’ increase in 2025, report finds

  09-06-2026 10:00
  
  JPMorgan Chase leads 65 banks making decisions incompatible with restraining rising temperatures, researchers sayThe world’s largest banks committed $906bn in financing to the fossil fuel industry last year, an “unfathomable” increase in investment locking in years more of coal, oil and gas production as the world continues to overheat, a new report has found.The surge in new fossil fuel lending, up $64bn or nearly 8% on 2024, shows that the world’s largest 65 banks are m
  
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• Christian leaders alarmed by climate crisis raise questions over GB News owner’s £28m church donations

  09-06-2026 08:00
  Exclusive: Sir Paul Marshall’s climate views and those broadcast on GB News said to be ‘in direct opposition’ to those ofChurch of EnglandThe co-owner of GB News, a British TV channel accused of broadcasting climate change denial, has donated £28m to influential Church of England institutions that support climate action.This raises “serious questions”, say Christian leaders, given that Sir Paul Marshall’s views on the climate crisis and those frequently
  
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• Country diary: Ladybirds and wasps are the unsung heroes of the farm | Colin Chappell

  09-06-2026 06:30
  Brigg, Lincolnshire: With harvest approaching, we’re putting the glorious long evenings to good use, and both humans and insects are working hard to protect the cropsThere’s something magical about the long evenings in June, the warmth and the way the setting sun casts long shadows across the fields. The extra hours are much-needed though as there is plenty to do.We’re in the run-up to harvest in July, so if the weather is dry we walk up and down the seed crop tramlin
  
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• Ping-pong sponges, ‘black smokers’ and floating somethings: the secrets of the deep sea

  09-06-2026 06:00
  The bottom of the ocean has barely been explored, but every journey to the deep reveals wondrous new lifeforms. As underwater mining gains momentum, we risk destroying one of the Earth’s last great wildernessesOn 8 March 2014, at 1.20am, Malaysian Airlines flight 370 veered off its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. An hour later, military radar spotted the plane heading west over the Andaman Sea. Six or seven hours later, it is presumed to have crashed somewhere over the southe
  
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• Blue mushrooms, shy trees and glowing seas: Beaker Street science photography prize – in pictures

  09-06-2026 02:00
  The 12 finalists will be exhibited at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery during Beaker Street festival from 6 to 17 August, including images of newborn fish, a native wasp and satellite trails across the night skyThe language of termites: Liss Fenwick’s The Colony – in pictures Continue reading...
  
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• The Guardian view on climate equality: a richer life and real public abundance, not just more stuff | Editorial

  08-06-2026 19:28
  The Global Justice Report offers a hopeful bargain: tax extreme wealth and replace consumer excess with social and economic security for allHumanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival, the Guardian reported last week. In an age of ecological dread, that is a bracingly hopeful claim. The optimism came courtesy of the Global Justice Report, produced by Thomas Piketty’s World Inequality
  
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• ‘Severe’ stress on oceans as rate of sea level rise doubles in 10 years, UN warns

  08-06-2026 18:45
  Global effort needed to limit effects of pollution, industrial fishing and climate crisis, World Ocean Assessment saysThe world’s oceans are under “severe and accelerating” pressure from human activities, with the rate of sea-level rise double that of a decade ago, according to a damning assessment from the United Nations.The “intensifying” stressors, which include pollution and large-scale industrial fishing, are cumulative, said the report, resulting in widespread
  
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• If Australian data centres are going to power the AI revolution, we deserve a fair return | David Pocock

  08-06-2026 17:00
  We cannot afford to make the same mistake as we did with gas. If tech companies are going to use our land, energy and water for AI, they must pay their fair share of taxFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOver the past few months, tens of thousands of Australians have emailed their local MP calling for a 25% tax on gas exports. More than 2,200 people have even chipped in their own money to fund billboards promoting the
  
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• Diver captures rare footage of great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea – video

  08-06-2026 16:19
  Footage captured by a diver shows a rare sighting of a great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea, spotted between Tunisia and Sicily. The sighting happened during a mission, organised by the NGO Healthy Seas Foundation in partnership with Ghost Diving and the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites, to remove abandoned fishing nets in the strait of Sicily. Healthy Seas, which removes rubbish from seas, said the video was believed to be the first underwater footage captured of an adult grea
  
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• Call to phase out ‘inhumane’ guga hunt by working with Hebridean islanders

  08-06-2026 16:05
  Annual killing of infant gannets has been carried out on a remote Scottish island for at least 400 yearsAnimal welfare campaigners have called for talks on phasing out the “inhumane” hunt for infant gannets known as guga, which are killed by hunters on a remote Scottish island once a year.OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports said it should be slowly phased out in dialogue with the Hebridean islanders who see the hunt, which has been carried out for at least 400 years, as a cul
  
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