Environment news

• Separating methane and CO2 will become more efficient

  18-10-2017 17:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  To make natural gas and biogas suitable for use, the methane has to be separated from the CO?. This involves the use of membranes: filters that stop the methane and let the CO? pass through. Researchers at KU Leuven have developed a new membrane that makes the separation process much more effective.
  
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• The influencer racing to save Thailand’s most endangered sea mammal

  20-01-2026 11:58 via theguardian.com
  Amateur conservationist and social media influencer Theerasak ‘Pop’ Saksritawee has a rare bond with Thailand’s critically endangered dugongs. With dugong fatalities increasing, Pop works alongside scientists at Phuket Marine Biological Centre to track the mammals with his drone and restore their disappearing seagrass habitat. Translating complex science for thousands online, Pop raises an urgent alarm about climate change, pollution and habitat loss — before Thailand&rsq
  
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• Why have there been so many shark bites in Sydney? Experts say the conditions are a ‘perfect storm’

  20-01-2026 09:23 via theguardian.com
  Intense rainfall has caused the water to go murky in some areas, making them attractive spots for fish and sharks to feedGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFour people have been attacked by sharks in New South Wales in 48 hours, including three incidents at Sydney beaches.Any shark bite incident is traumatic and Sydney swimmers have been warned to stay out of the water. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: Is the willow Britain’s finest tree? In one sense, it is | Mark Cocker

  20-01-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Buxton, Derbyshire: Others are taller, wider, older, but our varied stock of willows have a generosity that sets them apartUsually in this country when we think about important trees, we focus on height, girth, age, visual impact – in short, their material properties. Few therefore would probably name willow as a number one British species.Willows often have no central trunk as in our archetypal tree model, and few specimens are more than 7 metres tall. Yet there is a sphere in which willo
  
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• Antarctic penguins have radically shifted their breeding season – seemingly in response to climate change

  20-01-2026 06:01 via theguardian.com
  Changing temperatures may be behind change in behaviour, which experts fear threatens three species’ survivalPenguins in Antarctica have radically shifted their breeding season, apparently as a response to climate change, research has found.Dramatic shifts in behaviour were revealed by a decade-long study led by Penguin Watch at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, with some penguins’ breeding period moving forward by more than three weeks. Continue reading...
  
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• Is your body really full of microplastics? – podcast

  20-01-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Studies detecting microplastics throughout human bodies have made for alarming reading in recent years. But last week, the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reported on major doubts among a group of scientists about how some of this research has been conducted.Damian tells Ian Sample how he first heard about the concerns, why the scientists think the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives, and where it leaves the field. He also reflects on
  
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• Water firms could be let off pollution fines as part of government overhaul

  19-01-2026 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Campaigners claim changes will let companies ‘off the hook’, as government prepares to unveil new white paper for water industryWater companies could be let off fines for polluting the environment under changes announced in the government’s new white paper.The environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, hailed the changes as “once-in-a-generation reforms” featuring “tough oversight, real accountability and no more excuses”. Continue reading...
  
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• Bill Gates charity trust’s holdings in fossil fuel firms rise despite divestment claims

  19-01-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Trust had $254m invested in companies such as Chevron, BP and Shell in 2024, a nine-year record, analysis showsThe Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019.End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it
  
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• Weather tracker: tropical storm brings torrential rain to Philippines

  19-01-2026 12:42 via theguardian.com
  Warnings in place for storm surges and flooding, with landslides and volcanic mudflows possible on LuzonThe Philippines is experiencing its first tropical storm of the year. Ada, also known as Nokaen, slowly developed into a tropical storm on Friday, travelling northwards along the east coast over the weekend and bringing torrential rain of up to 200mm a day and maximum wind gusts of up to 65mph near the storm’s centre.The system is expected to remain a tropical storm until Tuesday as it t
  
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• Scientists warn of ‘regime shift’ as seaweed blooms expand worldwide

  19-01-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Study links rapid growth of ocean macroalgae to global heating and nutrient pollutionScientists have warned of a potential “regime shift” in the oceans, as the rapid growth of huge mats of seaweed appears to be driven by global heating and excessive enrichment of waters from farming runoff and other pollutants.Over the past two decades, seaweed blooms have expanded by a staggering 13.4% a year in the tropical Atlantic and western Pacific, with the most dramatic increases occurring af
  
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• ‘We thought they would ignore us’: how humans are changing the way raptors behave

  19-01-2026 10:00 via theguardian.com
  Experts call for tighter regulation as GPS tracking reveals how people’s behaviour affects the lives of some of the world’s largest birdsMany people look up to admire the silhouette of raptors, some of the planet’s largest birds, soaring through seemingly empty skies. But increasingly, research shows us that this fascination runs both ways. From high above, these birds are watching us too.Thanks to the development of tiny GPS tracking devices attached to their bodies, researche
  
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• Country diary: This is true water music – and the more you listen, the more you hear | Derek Niemann

  19-01-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Frome, Somerset: Get tuned in to the river’s sounds and you’re treated to a symphony of noise, from susurrating hisses to great belchesAfter three decades living alongside mute waterways in East Anglia, with their soundless glide over clay, I am learning a liquid language here, and all its boulder dialects, as our winter‑filled local stream gushes down its limestone gorge.My fellow country diarist and wild swimmer Amy-Jane Beer shares my passion for river music.
  
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• 15 years after Fukushima, Japan prepares to restart the world’s biggest nuclear plant

  19-01-2026 02:46 via theguardian.com
  A return to nuclear power is at the heart of Japan’s energy policy but, in the wake of the 2011 disaster, residents’ fears about tsunamis, earthquakes and evacuation plans remain The activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is reaching its peak: workers remove earth to expand the width of a main road, while lorries arrive at its heavily guarded entrance. A long perimeter fence is lined with countless coils of razor wire, and in a layby, a police patrol car monitors
  
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• It’s been a busy month for Anthony Albanese on the environment | Jess Harwood

  19-01-2026 01:28 via theguardian.com
  Talk about climate whiplash Continue reading...
  
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• The Guardian view on microplastics research: questioning results is good for science, but has political consequences | Editorial

  18-01-2026 18:58 via theguardian.com
  Errors in measuring microplastic pollution can be corrected. Public trust in science also needs to be shored up It is true that science is self-correcting. Over the long term this means that we can generally trust its results – but up close, correction can be a messy process. The Guardian reported last week that 20 recent studies measuring the amount of micro- and nanoplastics in the human body have been criticised in the scientific literature for methodological issues, calling their resul
  
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• Why am I a vegan? I do it for my mental health | Emma Beddington

  18-01-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Vegan restaurants are closing, RFK Jr is sounding the drum for carnivores, and the protein cult is bigger than ever. But eschewing animal products helps me ward off a sense of impotence – and despairLet’s get this out of the way, because I’m itching to tell you (again): I’m vegan, and this is our time, Veganuary! Imagine me doing a weak, vitamin B12-depleted dance. Unlike gym-goers, vegans are thrilled when newbies sign up each January, for planetary and animal welfare re
  
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• Australia’s koala paradox: why is the beloved marsupial endangered in parts but overabundant in others?

  18-01-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  There are so many koalas in some places that food is the issue – while elsewhere populations are threatened by habitat loss. And there are no easy fixesSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereOn French Island in Victoria’s Western Port Bay, koalas are dropping from trees. Eucalypts have been eaten bare by the marsupials, with local reports of some found starving and dead. Multiple koalas – usually solitary animals – can
  
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• Why are onions turning up on Brighton beach?

  18-01-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Food produce and other waste has been littering Sussex coastline as capsized shipping containers wash ashoreCoral Evans was walking along the beach in Brighton on Tuesday evening when she came across an unfamiliar sight.“Hundreds of dust masks had washed up, along with single-use plastic gloves and cans of dried milk,” she said. “It was odd to see in winter – because nothing surprises us in summertime with the amount of people on the beach.” Continue reading...
  
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• Inventor says robo-vaccination machine could be used to combat bovine TB

  18-01-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Tony Cholerton created Robovacc to inoculate a timid tiger at London zoo – but says it could administer jabs to badgersIt began with the tiger who wouldn’t come to tea. Cinta was so shy that she refused to feed when keepers at London zoo were around, and staff wondered how they would ever administer the young animal’s vaccinations without traumatising her.So Tony Cholerton, a zookeeper who had been a motorcycle engineer for many years, invented Robovacc – a machine to qui
  
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• Dublin Bay’s oyster graveyard rises from dead in effort to restore rich ecosystem

  18-01-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Pioneering scheme hopes species that thrived for thousands of years in Irish waters can do so againThe dinghy slowed to a stop at a long line of black bobbing baskets and David Lawlor reached out to inspect the first one.Inside lay 60 oysters, all with their shells closed, shielding the life within. “They look great,” beamed Lawlor. So did their neighbours in the next basket and the ones after that, all down the line of 300 baskets, totalling 18,000 oysters. Continue reading...
  
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• The road to Trish’s Queensland farm was blown up for a coalmine – now flood waters have left her ‘stuck in a hole’

  17-01-2026 20:00 via theguardian.com
  The cattlewoman is stranded alone, rationing her supplies and worried about her health. Meanwhile the mine sits mothballedGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCattlewoman Trish Goodwin should be celebrating.Last Friday, her parched property off the Capricorn Highway near the tiny town of Bluff in the central highlands of Queensland received “very good soaking rain” – nearly 200mm would fall in a few days. Continue reading...
  
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• The fate of the planet’s coastlines depends on how fast Antarctica’s ice sheets melt. We don’t know what’s coming

  17-01-2026 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Some regions of the continent have enough ice to push up sea levels by 15 metres if they all melt, but researchers don’t yet fully understand the consequencesOn one side of Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi’s view across the vast Totten ice shelf, the sun sat low on the Antarctic horizon. On the other, a full moon.The ice shelf is “flat and white”, says Galton-Fenzi. “If there’s cloud around, you lose the horizon.” Continue reading...
  
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• How Trump’s promise to slash energy bills in half has failed across the US

  17-01-2026 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Guardian analysis shows electricity bills were up 6.7% last year, and much higher in some states, and gas bills up 5.2%Donald Trump has comprehensively failed to meet a key election promise to slash Americans’ energy bills in half within the first year of his presidency, with power prices instead surging across the US.The average household electricity bill in the US was 6.7% more expensive in 2025 compared with the previous year, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Energy Inf
  
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• ‘I’m losing £1,800 a day’: the stark reality for Britain’s dairy farmers

  17-01-2026 15:00 via theguardian.com
  The cost of producing milk is higher than that being paid by milk processors, leaving farmers operating at a loss“Every morning that I roll out of bed at 4.40am, I know I’m losing £1,800 that day, just by getting up.” This is the stark daily reality for Paul Tompkins, as he and his fellow dairy farmers struggle in the face of plummeting milk prices.Tompkins, who is the third generation to run his family’s 234-hectare (600-acre) farm in the Vale of York, can produce
  
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• UK urged to ratify high seas treaty to avoid being shut out of Ocean Cop summit

  17-01-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  As international treaty comes into force, bill to make it law in Britain is moving at ‘glacial pace’ through parliamentThe UK risks being shut out of a historic oceans summit because parliament has failed to ratify the UN’s high seas treaty, environmental charities and campaigners have warned.The high seas treaty, formally known as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, comes into force on Satu
  
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• Rare twins born in DRC raise cautious hope for endangered mountain gorillas

  17-01-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Virunga park ranger says babies are well cared for by mother Mafuko but high infant mortality makes first weeks criticalIt was noon by the time Jacques Katutu first saw the newborn mountain gorillas. Cradled in the arms of their mother, Mafuko, the tiny twins clung to her body for warmth in the forest clearing in Virunga national park, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring in Virunga, has seen dozens of newborns in his 15 years as a ranger. But, he
  
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• Country diary: There’s a hard, ancient pleasure to laying a hedge | Michael White

  17-01-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Cranbrook, Kent: I have a stretch of leggy hawthorn that needs attention, so I head out into the cold with my axe and billhookWire netting is everywhere in the Kent Weald – barbed boundaries to ancient pastures where sheep and cattle still idly graze. But what did farmers do for the hundreds of years before stock fencing was invented?Hedges, so rooted in what we wistfully consider to be our natural landscape, are in fact human-made features, planted almost solely for the purpose
  
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• ‘The whole thing was just mind-blowing’: my trip into the abyss to see the Titanic

  16-01-2026 22:59 via theguardian.com
  From Sydney’s northern beaches to the bottom of the Atlantic – the story of a man who won a trip of a lifetime in a local supermarket competitionBandra, Mumbai, 1998.Andrew Rogers, a 34-year-old Sydney greenkeeper, was visiting family in India with his wife, Winnie, and one-year-old son, Terence. Inside, as aunties prepared breakfast – the kitchen a sanctuary from the humid, honking streets – the phone rang. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Garden of Eden’: the Spanish farm growing citrus you’ve never heard of

  16-01-2026 15:14 via theguardian.com
  Todolí foundation produces varieties from Buddha’s hands to sudachi and hopes to help citrus survive climate changeIt was on a trip with a friend to the east coast of Spain that the chef Matthew Slotover came across the “Garden of Eden”, an organic farm growing citrus varieties he had never heard of. The Todolí Citrus Foundation is a nonprofit venture and the largest private collection of citrus in the world with more than 500 varieties, and its owners think the r
  
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• Sustainability on the clock: how to make your workplace more eco-friendly

  16-01-2026 15:01 via theguardian.com
  From ride-to-work challenges to waste-conscious catering, making your office more environmentally minded doesn’t have to be a slogChange by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprintGot a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at [email protected] marks the start of a new work year, and as Australians head back to the office, site or shop floor, it’s a good opportu
  
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