Environment news

• Independents' day: why safe Coalition seats are facing grassroots challenges

  20-11-2020 20:00
  
  Inspired by the success of Helen Haines and Zali Steggall, a new generation of independents are sizing up Liberal and National MPs Australia’s independent movement is gaining traction. Inspired by the success of Warringah’s Zali Steggall and Indi’s Helen Haines in 2019, the next federal election could see up to a dozen safe Coalition seats facing serious, well-organised challenges.The motivations vary: the lack of action on climate change, the tenor of modern politics, mining b
  
  Read more

• Weather tracker: Heatwave breaks June temperature records across Europe

  03-07-2026 11:20
  UK provisional peak of 37.7C shatters previous record by huge margin, while Germany hits all-time high of 41.7CLast week’s heatwave across western Europe shattered national June records and set new all-time highs.The UK recorded a provisional high of 37.7C at Lingwood in Norfolk on Friday 27 June, smashing the previous June record of 35.6C, set in 1976. Such a margin is exceptionally rare: temperature records are typically broken by 0.1C or 0.2C, not a remarkable 2.1C. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The battle for access to Jamaica’s billion-dollar beaches

  03-07-2026 08:00
  In this week’s newsletter: Activists are accusing the government of privatising the coastline to support the country’s thriving tourism industry, at the expense of locals• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereEvery year, millions of visitors from across the globe visit Jamaica to enjoy its gorgeous beaches, fuelling a multibillion dollar tourism industry. But, in recent years, its picture-perfect coastlines have become a battleground for access afte
  
  Read more

• Ruined utopias: the afterlife of the Amazon’s forgotten company towns – in pictures

  03-07-2026 08:00
  For decades, foreign firms established settlements in the Brazilian Amazon to support extractive activities, only to eventually abandon the buildings and workers. The remains show human resilience as nature reclaims the land Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Weatherwatch: how thunder is made

  03-07-2026 07:00
  Sound of thunder varies depending on distance of listener from lightning as atmosphere muffles and absorbs sound A bolt of lightning heats the air almost instantly to as high as 30,000C, causing explosive expansion and a supersonic shock wave that becomes thunder. What that thunder sounds like to a listener depends largely on where they are.Nearby lightning produces a distinctive snap or crack, or a startling explosive boom. Large, complex lightning with multiple segments generates a peal of thu
  
  Read more

• ‘Scavenger’ dolphins increasingly rely on trawlers for food in overfished Adriatic, say scientists

  03-07-2026 06:00
  In one area 76% of fishing boats were followed, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parentsBottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic are increasingly following trawlers to scavenge for food, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents, a study has found.“These days the easiest way to find [bottlenose dolphins] is to look for trawlers,” said Giovanni Bearzi, a co-author of the study and the president of Dolphin Biology and Conservation in Italy. “Many
  
  Read more

• Listen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years

  03-07-2026 06:00
  
  Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lostImagine a deafening abundance of birdsong so loud it wakes your children at dawn; the chirrup of house sparrows, the chattering of starlings, the melody of the wren, and the clear high-pitched flute of blackbirds saturating the garden, reverberating around your local park, dominating your neighbourhood from early morning to evening twilight.So loud is the song of the thrush that the naturali
  
  Read more

• Wildfires sweep across France – in pictures

  03-07-2026 03:55
  Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated in south-western France as the country swelters through a record-breaking heatwave. The fire started at a campsite, destroying dozens of mobile homes before spreading to the marina area, where thick, toxic smoke blanketed the boats. The fire broke out in the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and spread to Canet-en-Roussillon on Thursday Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Race to control wildfires in southern France – in pictures

  03-07-2026 03:55
  Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated in southern France as the country swelters through a record-breaking heatwave. The fire started at a campsite, destroying dozens of mobile homes before spreading to the marina area, where thick, toxic smoke blanketed boats. The fire broke out in the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and spread to Canet-en-Roussillon on Thursday [• This gallery’s headline and subheading were amended on 3 July 2026; an earlier version referred to south-western France] C
  
  Read more

• Race to control wildfires in south-western France – in pictures

  03-07-2026 03:55
  Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated in south-western France as the country swelters through a record-breaking heatwave. The fire started at a campsite, destroying dozens of mobile homes before spreading to the marina area, where thick, toxic smoke blanketed boats. The fire broke out in the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and spread to Canet-en-Roussillon on Thursday Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• As seas rise, American history could be washed away

  02-07-2026 20:00
  In Jamestown, Virginia, one of the most important places in American history is in a race against time from rising watersSean Romo stops digging the moment he sees a faint line emerge in the sandy Virginia soil.It’s just a slight change in color, but to Romo, director of archaeology for Jamestown Rediscovery, it may be another piece of America’s origin story.Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing cl
  
  Read more

• Defra breached law when it let farmers use bee-killing pesticide, watchdog says

  02-07-2026 19:10
  Office for Environmental Protection finds failures by department when it granted emergency authorisation in 2023 and 2024The UK government breached environmental law on several occasions when granting farmers permission to use a bee-killing pesticide, a watchdog has found.In 2023 and 2024, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the then Conservative government granted emergency authorisation to allow farmers to use a banned neonicotinoid pesticide on sugar beet crops.
  
  Read more

• ‘I don’t just watch climate change happening’: the young Swedes being paid to make a difference

  02-07-2026 17:14
  Participant-led YPS scheme creates green projects while providing summer jobs in country with high youth unemploymentOona Verveld and Clara Vikberg have just secured their first paid summer jobs. While their peers are mostly limited to entry-level positions in retail or fast-food restaurants, the 18-year-olds are some of the first among their generation to have landed a new type of role: young planetary stewards.“Someone came up with the simple idea that, since young people clearly need jo
  
  Read more

• Donald Trump is the accidental hero of a real-life feelgood climate tale even as a creeping horror story plays alongside | Clear Air

  02-07-2026 17:00
  Despite a deadly heatwave sweeping through Europe, the US president’s ineptness has created reason for optimism on the climate crisisSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereTwo real-life climate-themed movies are playing in parallel across the globe. They are about the world today, but they are also a snapshot of the future. The first is a slow-building horror story; the second, a feelgood summer hit. Both are worth watching.Horror films
  
  Read more

• Trout sushi for breakfast? The surprising diets of Wimbledon stars

  02-07-2026 15:03
  With probiotic foods thought to boost performance, tournament chefs are catering with gut health in mindTrout sushi washed down with coffee kombucha may not be the stereotypical breakfast of champions, but it’s become the go-to for Wimbledon’s tennis stars.Athletes are increasingly demanding sustainable options, as well as seeking out gut-friendly foods aligned with a microbiome diet, according to the tournament’s chefs. Recent research has shown a link between gut health, whic
  
  Read more

• ‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump’s campaign to erase US history from national parks

  02-07-2026 15:00
  Critics say the Trump administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public landsJerry Bransford, a former US National Park Service (NPS) ranger, has always had a deep connection with the land he grew up on – and the land hundreds of feet below it. His great-great-grandfather, Materson “Mat” Bransford, was one of the earliest explorers of Mammoth Cave in south-central Kentucky, the largest known cave system on the planet.Bu
  
  Read more

• Voyage to the end of the world: floating lab to explore life in Arctic adrift in ice

  02-07-2026 13:00
  
  An eight-month expedition will set off soon from Norway on a mission to find new species before the climate crisis and pollution changes the northern ocean for everSix scientists and six crew will travel next month to Kirkenes, a remote Arctic town in Norway near the Russian border, to begin an odyssey to one of the most inhospitable, inaccessible and least-studied regions on Earth. There, they will climb onboard a futuristic, floating laboratory – the French-built Tara polar station.They
  
  Read more

• Understanding Ebola’s wildlife origins is crucial to preventing next big outbreak

  02-07-2026 11:00
  If we don’t know the source, not only do humans remain at risk but wildlife can suffer needlessly via retaliationWhile virologists and public health departments were palpitating over the news of an Andes virus infectious disease outbreak on a cruise ship (13 cases, three deaths), in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the Bundibugyo virus, the root of the current Ebola outbreak (currently more than 1,250 cases and at least 362 deaths), was smouldering under the radar.Bundibugyo virus is a
  
  Read more

• Weatherwatch: Cleaner clouds may slow rate of global heating

  02-07-2026 07:00
  Study shows falling dust levels are making clouds more reflective, an effect not taken into account in climate modelsCleaner clouds are helping to slow the rate of global heating, a study shows. Falling levels of dust in the atmosphere are making clouds more reflective. This previously unidentified effect is not being taken into account by current climate models, which may mean they are slightly overestimating the projected rate of global heating.Researchers analysed satellite observations of hi
  
  Read more

• How Bolivia’s breakthrough in jaguar rehabilitation could bring the big cat back from the brink

  02-07-2026 07:00
  More jaguars are killed in Bolivia each year by poachers than in any other country, driving the population to critical levels. But a recent successful release from captivity could radically increase the jaguar’s chances of survivalA tentative paw emerged from a steel cage on to the sandy riverbed deep in the Bolivian rainforest. Then, another. Slowly, the female jaguar looked right, left and right again, as if waiting to cross a busy road. Then, muscles stiff from the long journey, it stro
  
  Read more

• Global boom in livestock farming since 2006 is piling pressure on nature, report finds

  02-07-2026 07:00
  
  Wildlife at risk as demand for cropland and water grows to feed 50% rise in farmed animals, campaign alliance saysThe number of mammals and poultry farmed worldwide has increased by half in the last two decades, research shows, and the amount of cropland used for feeding livestock has increased by about a quarter.These increases are putting rising pressure on natural systems, threatening wildlife and plant species and adding to the climate crisis. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• ‘Exploratory and curious animals’: mysterious rise in orca sightings off Northumberland coast

  02-07-2026 07:00
  Reasons for increase not clear but experts say it could be welcome sign marine ecosystem is becoming healthierThe Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast have long drawn fans of the natural world keen to catch sight of the resident guillemots and puffins.But as recently as last week, another much bigger black-and-white animal has been delighting wildlife spotters. Orcas have been appearing more regularly than ever before. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• EU-approved pesticide found to have potential effects on brain development

  02-07-2026 07:00
  
  New study on fluazinam’s neurotoxicity comes up with different findings from earlier report based on manufacturer’s dataResearchers who re-ran a crucial fungicide study on neurotoxicity have come up with significantly different findings, and campaigners argue that the substance should now be withdrawn from the market.In 2005, a study conducted by Huntingdon Life Sciences on behalf of ISK, the manufacturer of fluazinam, on the development of neurotoxicity of fluazinam in pregnant rats
  
  Read more

• Can Bolivia’s historic big cat release help change jaguar conservation in the country?

  02-07-2026 07:00
  Poaching and wildfires have driven the country’s jaguar population to a critical level, and until now even rescued animals faced life in captivity. A new approach to rehabilitation could change that – but critics are unsureA tentative paw emerged from a steel cage on to the sandy riverbed deep in the Bolivian rainforest. Then, another. Slowly, the female jaguar looked right, left and right again, as if waiting to cross a busy road. Then, muscles stiff from the long journey, it stroll
  
  Read more

• Scientists fear seabird die-off as El Niño looms: ‘We don’t know how bad this will get’

  01-07-2026 21:37
  Many seabirds are starving to death as a marine heat wave lingers off California and fish seek deeper, cooler watersWithin minutes of walking on a San Diego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses – one after another.Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Nominate your invertebrate of the year

  01-07-2026 18:07
  
  We’re asking people from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our third Invertebrate of the Year competitionStep aside World Cup heroes, there’s a bigger global competition in town. The whistle has been blown to launch the third Invertebrate of the Year contest.We want you to nominate your favourite spineless creature for the hugely popular annual Guardian jamboree which celebrates the wonder and importance of the world’s invertebrates. Continue re
  
  Read more

• England has just had its hottest June on record, Met Office data shows

  01-07-2026 17:47
  
  Chief scientist says dangerous heatwaves, which are getting more likely, ‘bring home the implications of climate change’The month of June was the hottest in England on record, driven by a searing heatwave in the final days of the month, which for the first time had red heat alerts for three days, according to Met Office data.The Met Office said provisional statistics showed Wales and the UK as a whole had recorded their second-warmest June since 1884. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• New Orleans residents on warning to abandon sinking city: ‘Nobody wants to leave home’

  01-07-2026 14:00
  After a recent study found New Orleans is at a ‘point of no return’ amid the climate crisis, some locals say they will ‘only leave if forced to’. But what would it take to stay?When a study in May concluded that New Orleans has hit a “point of no return” due to the climate crisis that will require people to eventually retreat from their storied yet ultimately doomed city, the local reaction was swift and fiery.The onward march of rising seas around a sinking c
  
  Read more

• Sycamore Gap tree sapling stolen from castle grounds months after planting

  01-07-2026 12:01
  Cumbria police and National Trust appeal for information after young tree taken from Wray parkland and castle A sapling taken from the Sycamore Gap tree has been stolen from the grounds of a castle just months after it was planted.The Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, was one of the UK’s best-known and most loved trees. It was criminally felled for no apparent reason on a stormy night in September 2023. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• What is the United States of America now? | Rebecca Solnit

  01-07-2026 12:00
  The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursedThe United States of America is a truck that has driven into a ditch. The United States of America is a program that has been hacked. The United States of America is ... so many things, horrific and magnificent, good and evil, promising and cursed, as it approaches its quarter millennium mark. I say it as though the US was one thing, but it is a thousand things.It is the masked ICE ag
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!