Environment news

• Opencast coal mine planned for Northumberland coast

  22-06-2016 13:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Plans to open a new mine have been criticised by local residents and NGOs for contradicting government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and phase out coal, reports ENDSA new surface coal mine could be created on the scenic Northumberland coast if an application is approved next month.Banks Mining wants to create a three million tonne (Mt) opencast mine which will operate for seven years from an area of 250 hectares at Druridge Bay, between Widdrington and Cresswell.Continue reading
  
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• Sharks have always stoked panic in Australia. While scientific understanding grows, conservation efforts can be unseated by fear | Anna Clark

  17-08-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  From Aboriginal rock art to colonial encounters, sharks have been a figure of fear and fascination throughout the long human history of this continentIs there a more primal fear among beach-goers than the shark? Although many more Australians drown each year at the beach than are killed by these creatures, it’s sharks that inhabit the jagged edges of our collective consciousness.After a terrifying spate of bites earlier this year, calls for shark culls resurfaced. Ocean swimming and surfin
  
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• Reform’s Tice says people should stop fighting climate crisis and ‘enjoy’ heat

  17-08-2026 16:51 via theguardian.com
  Deputy leader says it is ‘arrogant’ to try to stop global heating, despite UK being left reeling by summer firewaveReform’s deputy leader has dismissed efforts to tackle climate breakdown as futile, as he urged British people to “enjoy” the warmth of the recent heatwaves.Richard Tice told a press conference on Monday he believed it was “arrogant” to try to stop the climate emergency and added that politicians should focus instead on adaptation efforts, w
  
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• I tried everything to rid my yard of mosquitoes. This German-engineered trap finally worked

  17-08-2026 16:15 via theguardian.com
  After trying nearly everything to prevent mosquito bites, I tested Biogents’ traps, used by the CDC and WHO, to find if backyard results are worth $200This $380 kayak goes from backseat to lake in 10 minutesSign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better thingsDon’t get me wrong: I’m a peaceful person with compassion for all earthly creatures. Except mosquitoes, which deserve all the swats, cursing and loathing they get.As someone for whom a sing
  
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• Temperatures to fall across Europe as substantial rain heading for parts of UK

  17-08-2026 14:44 via theguardian.com
  Temperatures could drop by more than 15C compared with last Thursday as cold front moves inRelief from the unrelenting heat is finally arriving this week across western Europe, with more unsettled conditions bringing the chance of rain. Temperatures are expected to fall back towards the seasonal norm, with some parts of the UK even falling about 3C below normal by Thursday. After such a scorching summer, and with a temperature drop of more than 15C compared with last Thursday’s heat, it ma
  
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• Thom Yorke, Romy and Brian Eno among 200 musicians urging PM to reject new North Sea drilling

  17-08-2026 13:16 via theguardian.com
  Robert Smith, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma also among signatories to letter saying exploitation of Rosebank and Jackdaw fields defies climate realityBusiness live – latest updatesMore than 200 musicians including Massive Attack and Brian Eno have written to Andy Burnham urging him to reject plans for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.The letter, signed by 211 artists such as Bobby Gillespie, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma, called on the prime minister to reject the Rosebank oi
  
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• Rhossi, a rare sea turtle, recovers after 5,000-mile trek from Wales to Texas

  17-08-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, near death on Welsh beach in 2023, is thriving in Houston despite lingering pneumoniaA Kemp’s ridley sea turtle native to the Gulf of Mexico is largely thriving after he was found nearly dead on a beach in Wales in late 2023, nursed back to health and then flown to Houston recently to continue recovering – though scans revealed signs that the creature has been grappling with lingering pneumonia, according to his caretakers.Rhossi’s condition was
  
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• ‘Our new normal’: how marine heatwaves affect life in British seas

  17-08-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  As warming seas push native species to cooler waters farther north, once-rare visitors have become more common‘It sounds silly but I thought it was a person in the water waving,” says Kurt Lander, skipper of the Yellowfin charter boat, based out of Brighton. But when he grabbed his binoculars, he realised the fluttering movement he had noticed in the middle of the Channel shipping lane was a pair of sunfish.The huge fish were lying on their sides and flapping their fins. “Appar
  
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• British Gas paid me £38,000 by mistake, and I can’t give it back

  17-08-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  It said that was what I was due after I submitted a claim for £300 for energy exported through my solar panelsBritish Gas paid me more than £38,000 by mistake, then had no idea how to reclaim it. I receive quarterly feed-in tariff (Fit) payments for energy exported by my solar panels.In May, I submitted a claim for £300, based on my meter reading, and I received an email stating that I was due £38,611.59. Continue reading...
  
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• Spotlight on UN desertification summit as it mulls how to spend $12bn war chest

  17-08-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Extreme weather has raised the significance of Cop17 talks starting this week on tackling drought and land degradationAs swathes of the northern hemisphere bake in what could be the hottest year on record, with wildfires blazing across North America and Europe and heatwaves afflicting millions across Asia, the UN’s bi-annual talks on desertification have assumed much greater importance – and have started attracting more money.Work will begin this week on allocating more than $12bn (&
  
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• Country diary: Solar eclipse night was a social phenomenon – who cares if it was cloudy? | Mary Montague

  17-08-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Lisnabreeny, Co Down: There was little fanfare beforehand, but when the moment arrived, so did a group of strangers with a sense of occasion “Eclipses be – predicted – / And Science bows them in –” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson. As last Wednesday’s solar eclipse was bowed in across my news apps, those lines resonated with me. Dickinson’s masterly use of dashes to suspend the word “predicted” mirrored my experience of the Met Office&rsqu
  
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• Country diary: Solar eclipse night was a phenomenon – who cares if it was cloudy? | Mary Montague

  17-08-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Lisnabreeny, Co Down: There was little fanfare beforehand, but when the moment arrived, so did a group of strangers with a sense of occasion“Eclipses be – predicted – / And Science bows them in –” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson. As last Wednesday’s solar eclipse was bowed in across my news apps, those lines resonated with me. Dickinson’s masterly use of dashes to suspend the word “predicted” mirrored my experience of the Met Office&rsquo
  
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• Coping with 54C heat: Delhi slum diaries detail living in extreme temperatures

  17-08-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  With heatwaves now recognised as disasters, personal testimonies are key to a new project that looks to protect those living in the most cramped districts of India’s capitalEvery summer evening, Gulshan follows the same routine. She washes the floor of her one-room home several times so it cools a little for her four children to sleep on. Last summer, the family saved enough to buy a desert cooler, which uses evaporation as a cheaper alternative to air conditioning.The family uses the appl
  
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• Nicola Jennings on Andy Burnham’s disposable barbecue ban – cartoon

  16-08-2026 17:37 via theguardian.com
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• ‘Awed by nature’: fans mourn California’s beloved Jackie the bald eagle, whose legacy soars on

  16-08-2026 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Famous raptor helped livestream viewers in difficult moments, and inspired a conservation project at her lake homeThe bald eagle Jackie made her home on the shore of southern California’s Big Bear Lake for most of her 14 years. But her death earlier this week drew international attention.The Los Angeles Times described her as “arguably the world’s most famous bald eagle”. For years, millions of people tuned into a live stream of Jackie’s nest, watching her rear her
  
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• Is it inevitable that consumerism will literally fill up the planet?

  16-08-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsReaders reply: How is it physically possible to continue breaking sporting records?If consumer capitalism continues at its current rate, will we reach a point at which there is literally no space left on Earth for all the stuff that has been created? Alex Robinson, Alnwick, NorthumberlandPost your answers (and new questi
  
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• Andy Burnham has barely acknowledged the climate crisis. If only Britain’s workers had that luxury | John Harris

  16-08-2026 13:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Nurses collapsing, builders with heatstroke, bus drivers in cabs that reach 44C. The new PM wanted to spend the summer talking about the cost of living – he should change his plansI don’t think I have ever written before about a British strike directly related to the climate emergency. But that’s exactly what began late last week in north London, with a zeitgeisty connection to Andy Burnham’s fixation on buses: picket lines outside depots and massed walkouts, while the te
  
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• ‘It is not only a future certainty – the disaster is already here’: why we need climate fiction

  16-08-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  As wildfires rage across Europe and Britain swelters through its hottest summer on record, literary fiction has a vital role to play in capturing the severe consequences of climate crisisEarlier this summer, I travelled through Europe on a book tour. Everywhere I went, the heat broke records. In Italy, Germany and Spain, I sought refuge from the afternoon sun in air-conditioned hotels. In normally temperate Zurich, it averaged 37 degrees. I jumped into the Limmat for relief. On my final day
  
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• ‘If only people knew’: the fascinating lives of flies

  16-08-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Most people associate the insects with filth, but they are vital to the food cycle and sometimes even prettyVote for your favourite invertebrateEvery spring, billions of flies commute thousands of miles in a huge web around the world. They may begin life in Iran and then spend the rest of it in the UK. They may hatch in India but undertake seasonal migrations to the fertile regions of Mongolia, China and Siberia.Most of us assume that bees carry out pollination. But look closely at the creatures
  
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• Which plants will survive and can I use grey water? Gardening as UK summers get drier

  16-08-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  As parts of Beth Chatto’s visionary drought-tolerant gardens in Essex turn brown, the head gardener offers adviceHer debut book, in 1978, was titled The Dry Garden. Since then, the late Beth Chatto created a rich legacy with her expertise as a plantswoman and by setting up one of the oldest unwatered public gardens in England.Once a car park but transformed in 1992 into an experiment to test what plants were drought-tolerant in Essex, the driest county in the UK, Chatto’s gravel gard
  
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• From tourism to power generation and productivity, Europe feels economic cost of heatwaves

  16-08-2026 10:00 via theguardian.com
  Low river levels have stalled German freight traffic and forced closure of nuclear plants in FranceAcross Europe this scorching summer, workers have struggled in the heat as wildfires raged and critical infrastructure was shut down.Here we look at the impact of the heatwaves on several major economies across mainland Europe – with the help of analysis from economists at the Dutch bank Triodos, who estimate a total of €180bn could be wiped off EU GDP by the heatwaves. In the UK, the gr
  
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• Gorging on bearcam: the livestream of big beasts eating that draws millions

  16-08-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Ahead of Fat Bear Week, avid fans are glued to the spectacle of brown bears devouring salmon at Brooks Falls in AlaskaOne of this summer’s biggest onscreen hits has had big beasts, great escapes and choppy waters, but it’s not Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – it’s a livestream of Alaskan brown bears catching salmon.The Brooks Falls bearcam at Katmai national park in the US was watched 7.3m times between 22 June and 4 August – up 70% from the same period last
  
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• Fire rangers of Mongolian steppe: climate crisis spurs revival of ancient knowledge – photo essay

  16-08-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Fire has always be part of life on the grasslands, but has grown worse due to rising temperatures and severe droughts. In response, people have turned to their nomadic heritage to help tackle the blazesSodnomjamts Damchaabadgar squats in a shallow, rocky depression, working quietly with his hands. Inches above the rim of the pit, the wind whips across the grasslands. But in the marginal shelter of the dig site the air remains calm – essential for delicate operations.Damchaabadgar, a resear
  
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• Destroyed crops, riverbed cyclists and a ‘Rock of Starvation’: how drought has devastated the Danube

  16-08-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  The Guardian travelled 100 miles along the EU’s longest river, where some residents are struggling to secure drinking waterFor centuries, the rock was seen as a warning. When it began to emerge from the Danube, beneath Gellért Hill in Budapest, it meant the river had fallen so low that floating mills could no longer operate, crops were probably failing, and hunger would almost certainly follow. That is why, in the Hungarian capital, where over time the boulder became little more tha
  
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• Hawaii braces for potential first direct hit by a hurricane in 34 years

  16-08-2026 05:54 via bbc.co.uk
  
  In a worst-case scenario, category one Lala could dump up to 25in (63cm) of rain on Big Island.
  
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• The influencers getting bitten while chasing the perfect shark shot

  16-08-2026 01:04 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Tayane Dalazen was on a shark-diving trip in Brazil when she was attacked.
  
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• Firefighters battle wildfire tearing through Belgian nature reserve

  15-08-2026 19:47 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The fire burning through the major park was described as the country's worst in recent years.
  
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• ‘Once I started zooming in, I never stopped’: the mesmerising art of macro photography

  15-08-2026 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Converts describe a demanding form of capturing nature very close up that has grown in popularity in last few yearsVote here for your favourite invertebrate of the year“I always just pray ‘please don’t fly away’,” says Dara Ojo. As a wildlife photographer, he can handle spending minutes, hours and sometimes days waiting for the shot, but insects are not always very cooperative.Ojo is one of an increasing number of photographers turning their lenses towards something
  
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• Hollywood actor seeks help from vicar for series

  15-08-2026 15:46 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Rev Paul Cawthorne helped Michael Sheen identify sites where toxic waste was dumped in the 1970s.
  
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• Cornish sardines back on menu for penguins

  15-08-2026 13:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The move follows a chance conversation at the wildlife attraction and replaces imported fish.
  
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