Environment news

• How Sweden is taking back parking spaces to improve urban living

  08-02-2021 15:48 via theguardian.com
  
  An experiment with the ‘one-minute city’ gives priority to pedestrians and cyclistsIt was a couple of parking spaces a few days ago. But now the area outside Malin Henriksson Talcoth’s gourmet sausage shop in Gothenburg has a bench, a picnic table and racks for cycles and e-scooters. It also has people talking, eating and enjoying themselves, despite subzero temperatures.The workmen had arrived the previous week and built the wooden unit with benches facing, importantly, toward
  
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• Is Trump to blame for Americans getting explosive diarrhea? | Arwa Mahdawi

  01-10-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  As the midterms approach, Americans’ digestive health has become a bizarre talking pointDonald Trump seems to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about toilets.Back in 2019, he bizarrely claimed: “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once.” He repeated this claim at a Michigan rally the following year. “Ten times, right, 10 times,” Trump complained. “Not me, of course not me, but you,” he added while pointing at an unfortunat
  
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• ‘Water yes, mining no!’: the 87-year-old farmer who became a nature hero in Colombia

  01-10-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Porfirio Garcés is one of the ‘Jerico 11’, who face kidnapping charges after opposing a copper mine. Now, with a far-right president prioritising extraction, their fight has become more urgentIn the rural hamlet of Palo Cabildo in Colombia’s western Andes, 87-year-old farmer Porfirio Garcés tends to his anthuriums in the garden of his small house. He talks with passion about his vinyl record collection, which ranges from classical to pop music, but his main intere
  
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• US datacenter discharged large amounts of pollution for almost a year with no permits

  01-10-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Records show Vineland facility in New Jersey emitted health-harming pollution before regulators stepped inDataOne, the Microsoft-linked New Jersey datacenter recently hit with a $1m fine for running unpermitted generators, emitted large amounts of health-harming air pollution for nearly a year before state regulators stepped in, according to public records obtained by Floodlight.The Vineland facility’s 62 gas-fired generators became public in August after a Floodlight/Guardian visual inves
  
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• Trump the environmentalist? How his Iran war exposed the fragility of dirty energy

  01-10-2026 13:30 via theguardian.com
  Gavin Newsom says Trump is a ‘gift’ to the climate cause for dispelling notions of fossil fuel energy securityOf all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last week – that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.Trump is the “greatest gift” to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran. Continue reading...
  
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• 'Special surprise' as rare moth found in nature reserve for first time

  01-10-2026 07:03 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Experts called it a "special surprise" to find an "incredibly sparse moth" in this habitat.
  
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• The zero-bills home: how one family is beating the energy price hikes

  01-10-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The Naylors’ four-bedroom home in Milton Keynes acts like a mini-power station after retrofitting solar panels, a battery and a heat pumpClare Naylor paid close attention to how much energy she and her family were using last winter, filling hot-water bottles and bringing out extra blankets to ensure they didn’t go over budget. This year, she won’t have to worry as she is guaranteed not to receive a bill.While millions of British households face the highest energy charges in thr
  
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• Country diary: Which tree sounds the best in the wind? Take a bough, the poplar | Derek Niemann

  01-10-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Frome, Somerset: With a sway and a swoosh, we’re entering the season to enjoy psithurism – the aural quality of the breeze in the treesThe wind-catchers along the bottom of the valley miss nothing. Even the lightest breath has them whispering. And when the wind strengthens, they do a good imitation of the river streaming over boulders below their feet. Truly, when it blows, it pours.Pass a poplar and you are enjoying the best example of psithurism, the sound of wind in trees. All thi
  
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• ‘They raped our country’: documentary follows Kenyans’ fight for restitution over stolen land

  01-10-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Multinational tea companies still occupy ancestral highlands of communities displaced during British colonial eraFor British colonialists, the fertile and cool uplands of central Kenya were the “White Highlands”, to be reserved exclusively for European settlers. Local communities were forced from the land, which was turned into plantations for tea and other crops.In recent decades, descendants of the displaced have fought to reclaim their ancestral land, some of which is now occupied
  
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• ‘Explosion of melt rates’: 20% of Swiss glaciers lost in five years

  01-10-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Alpine regions in Europe experiencing extreme glacier collapse due to heat-trapping effects of fossil fuel pollutionSwitzerland has lost almost one-fifth of its ice in just five years, research has found, in a dramatic reshaping of the Alpine country whose big white glaciers have been reduced to moonlike rock deserts, scientists say.Swiss glaciers shrank by 5.5% in the first eight months of 2026, according to an annual monitoring report, after a summer of scorching heatwaves that followed a wint
  
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• ‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population

  01-10-2026 05:00 via theguardian.com
  The global climate phenomenon has triggered devastating infernos in the ape’s Indonesian heartlands, with long-term effects on the animals still unknownThe mother’s hands were peeling from walking on the torched ground. Her eight-month-old baby, which clung to her side, was dehydrated and thin. The pair, named Mama Abu and Abu (“ash” in Indonesian), were found in an oil palm subsidiary estate, rescuers say.The orangutan pair were saved last month from wildfires that are d
  
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• The green light for the largest coalmine in NSW history is shocking proof that our governance systems are betraying Australians | Georgina Woods

  01-10-2026 05:00 via theguardian.com
  There is no greater treachery than this failure to face up to the climate crisis. How can we now fend off despair?The Independent Planning Commission’s published reasons for approving the largest coalmine in New South Wales history in the context of mounting death, disaster and despair brought on by global heating reads like a hostage statement.In its decision, the commission accepts that the extension of the Hunter Valley Operations’ mine for a further 19 years – resulting 809
  
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• Swiss glaciers suffer 'disastrous' year of ice loss, threatening water supplies

  01-10-2026 02:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists say such rapid melting is no longer surprising given the pace of climate change.
  
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• Tiny image sparks big backlash in Nikon photo contest

  01-10-2026 01:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Dr Ning Xu denies he broke the rules of Nikon's annual Small World In Motion contest.
  
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• The AI telling farmers when to harvest

  01-10-2026 01:02 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Will farmers want AI tools to help judge when to pick fruit, or is their own intuition enough?
  
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• Trekkers helicoptered off mountains as more deadly landslides hit Nepal

  01-10-2026 00:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A month after mass catastrophic flooding, around 30 people have died in landslides and heavy rain.
  
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• The Guardian view on Lula v the Bolsonaros: the decision of Brazilian voters will affect us all | Editorial

  30-09-2026 19:37 via theguardian.com
  Sunday’s general election is too close to call, with the incumbent president facing the son of the man who attempted a coup against himSunday’s election in Brazil could hardly be a clearer-cut choice – nor a closer call. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, is neck and neck in the polls with Flávio Bolsonaro, the son and champion of the jailed far-right former president Jair. Mr Bolsonaro senior is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to &
  
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• The 2026 BirdLife Australia photography awards – in pictures

  30-09-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Gliding king penguins, a sugar thief rosella and a bin brush turkey are among the winning and shortlisted photos in this year’s prize. Funds raised by the competition support bird conservation programs in AustraliaAustralia’s best photos the month – September 2026 Continue reading...
  
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• Meet '89 Backpack', the chunky bear who won Fat Bear Week

  30-09-2026 15:51 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The brown bear, described by one supporter as having both the "chonk and the badonk", will shortly enter hibernation, which can last up to six months.
  
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• Two million people in England unaware their properties are at risk of flooding

  30-09-2026 15:50 via theguardian.com
  Environment Agency warns residents of 6m at-risk properties to prepare for wet and windy three months aheadMore than two million people in England are unaware their properties are at risk of flooding, as the UK braces for a wet and stormy start to the winter, according to the Environment Agency.Experts say the next three months are more likely than usual to be wet and windy – due to a combination of large-scale weather patterns and the “subtle” impact of a supercharged El Ni&nt
  
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• Two million people in England unaware that their properties are at risk of flooding

  30-09-2026 15:50 via theguardian.com
  Environment Agency warns residents of 6m at-risk properties to prepare for wet and windy three months aheadMore than two million people in England are unaware their properties are at risk of flooding, as the UK braces for a wet and stormy start to the winter, according to the Environment Agency.Experts say the next three months are more likely than usual to be wet and windy – due to a combination of large-scale weather patterns and the “subtle” impact of a supercharged El Ni&nt
  
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• Homeowners in England urged to check flood risk: ‘A third of people don’t realise’

  30-09-2026 15:50 via theguardian.com
  Environment Agency warns residents of 6m properties to prepare for a wet and windy three months aheadMore than two million people in England are unaware their properties are at risk of flooding, as the UK braces for a wet and stormy start to the winter, according to the Environment Agency.Experts say the next three months are more likely than usual to be wet and windy – due to a combination of large-scale weather patterns and the “subtle” impact of a supercharged El Niño
  
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• Only 28% of nurdles 'recovered', researchers say

  30-09-2026 14:16 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists predict that nurdles will continue to wash up on North East beaches.
  
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• Wildlife arrives on time at rewilded chalk grasslands built along HS2 route

  30-09-2026 14:00 via theguardian.com
  The trains may be running late, but the Western Slopes project is already attracting birds and insects on lands around the high-speed railwayThe air is scented with the sweet tang of ladies bedstraw and made musical by skylark and blackcap song. An abundance of marbled white butterflies, small skippers and common blue damselflies dart over the flowering knapweed, yarrow and wild carrot.That the largest chalk grassland in the Chilterns is full of wildlife may not surprise you. But the fact that i
  
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• UK banks are Europe’s biggest coal financiers, report finds

  30-09-2026 13:58 via theguardian.com
  Study says UK-based banks provided $8.3bn in coal financing in four years, with Barclays and HSBC leading riseUK banks are Europe’s biggest financial backers of the global coal industry, providing billions of pounds in funding for the climate-wrecking fossil fuel in the past four years, according to a report.The study found UK-based banks had provided $8.3bn (£6.2bn) in coal financing since Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, when global leaders pledged to “phase down” coal use. Th
  
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• Insects play critical role in ecosystems beyond just providing food, new research shows

  30-09-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Insects provide protection, sanitation and even shelter to vertebrates, making them a priority for conservation effortsFor many vertebrates, insects are more than a food source. As “little things that run the world”, insects provide critical functions such as protection, sanitation and shelter across ecosystems, according to a new study.The study, published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity on Wednesday, sheds light on the various ways insects support vertebrates, ranging from birds and
  
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• ‘Beyond priceless’: how a halt to dredging saved the seas of Scotland’s Summer Isles

  30-09-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Fish and shellfish populations were falling rapidly as scallop dredgers devastated the seabed, but local activists and small-scale fishers battled hard to protect their coastlineInside a bothy overlooking the Summer Isles, in the north-west of Scotland, the lilting tones of a traditional Gaelic duo fill a room full of musicians, storytellers, artists, local people and revellers, hung with fish-shaped lanterns and “Happy Birthday” signs.It’s no ordinary birthday. The people in t
  
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• Young minds develop ideas to tackle climate change

  30-09-2026 11:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Sixteen teenagers take part in a hackathon to devise ways to combat issues such as light pollution.
  
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• Dead animals found in canal where children row

  30-09-2026 11:19 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Residents in Brentford raise concerns about sewage flowing into the local canal network.
  
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• Orionid meteor shower to streak across night sky this week

  30-09-2026 08:32 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Orionid meteor shower peaks in October as Earth passes through debris left behind by Halley’s Comet.
  
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