Environment news

• Solar Impulse completes Pacific flight

  24-04-2016 11:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The zero-fuel aeroplane Solar Impulse completes a three-day flight from Hawaii across the Pacific Ocean, to land in California.
  
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• Sky monkeys, pink tutus and bum nuts: behind the scenes at the Eden Project as it turns 25

  17-03-2026 09:00
  Our photojournalist explores the Cornish landmark on the eve of its anniversary and meets some of its staff, visitors, plants and creatures“Give me a sleeping bag and I’ll happily sleep here overnight,” says Kim Mackintosh as she wanders amid the vibrant flora of the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project on the eve of the tourist attraction’s 25th anniversary.Loupe in hand, the leader of the biome’s horticulture team is marvelling at an array of plants that have r
  
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• A total hoot! Beautiful birds – in pictures

  17-03-2026 08:00
  From fluffy owlets to rosy-hued flamingos, Claire Rosen’s portraits of live birds took her on a journey that touched on colonialism, wallpaper design … and chickens Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: A wildflower display of astonishing richness | Mark Cocker

  17-03-2026 06:30
  Drosopigi, the Mani, Greece: This rocky region’s abundance of flora takes the breath away – not least a long and winding trail of Chios chamomileThe Greek name for this southernmost tip of the Peloponnese is linked to a Byzantine fort at Cape Tigani (called Megali Maina), but it may well also draw on the region’s desolate, mountainous rocky country that persists throughout the entire peninsula.The fierce Maniot people were well described by Patrick Leigh Fermor in his book Mani
  
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• Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating

  17-03-2026 06:00
  Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analystsThe world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global
  
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• Reduced physical activity due to global heating will lead to rise in health issues, study says

  17-03-2026 00:30
  Researchers project that reduced activity could contribute to half a million additional premature deaths annually by 2050Rising temperatures are making physical activity undesirable and even dangerous in many parts of the world, and as global heating worsens, it will further affect how much people are able to move.Researchers analysed data from 156 countries between 2000 and 2022 and modelled how rising temperatures may affect physical activity globally by 2050. Continue reading...
  
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• The Guardian view on SUVs: London’s mayor is right to push back on supersize cars | Editorial

  16-03-2026 19:40
  Huge vehicles are popular with drivers, but their wider impacts on road safety and the environment must be tackledNo one who walks, cycles or drives around London, or many of the world’s big cities, could fail to notice the vastly increased size of the typical car. A type of vehicle once associated with rural settings and outdoor lifestyles is now ubiquitous. Heavily marketed as sports utility vehicles (SUVs), supersize cars are among the key consumer trends of recent decade
  
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• Trump’s war is bringing economic calamity to the UK – and another shock to our politics | Gaby Hinsliff

  16-03-2026 19:08
  Hard choices lie ahead for Downing Street if higher fuel prices spark resentment and trigger a renewed cost of living crisisSeventy years ago this winter, the streets of Britain fell eerily quiet. After one last panic buying spree, many garages shut, and traffic even in the heart of London dwindled away. The formal introduction of petrol rationing had begun, limiting drivers to 200 miles’ worth a month – with exceptions for farmers, doctors and vicars – after the Suez crisis bl
  
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• Realtime pollution alerts needed on Windermere, campaigners say after boy nearly dies

  16-03-2026 17:00
  Exclusive: Claire Earley’s son Rex spent six weeks in hospital after contracting E coli from contaminated lakeRealtime pollution alerts are needed across Windermere urgently, campaigners have said, as the mother of a seven-year-old boy who kayaked on the lake described how he nearly died after contracting a dangerous strain of E coli from contaminated water.Claire Earley’s son Rex spent six weeks in hospital, and underwent two emergency operations, after a family kayaking trip on Win
  
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• Oldest-known whale song recording provides new insight into ocean sounds

  16-03-2026 14:05
  Recording of humpback whale from 1949 could also provide new understanding of how the huge animals communicateA haunting whale song discovered on decades-old audio equipment could open up a new understanding of how the huge animals communicate, according to researchers who say it is the oldest such recording known.The song is that of a humpback whale, a marine giant beloved by whale watchers for its docile nature and spectacular leaps from the water, and was recorded by scientists in March 1949
  
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• ‘We cannot replace USAID, but we can do big things’: conservation plots a future without American money

  16-03-2026 13:00
  The Trump administration’s cuts to biodiversity funding have imperiled species, habitats and the people who defend both. Now the world is seeking a new way forwardOn 22 January 2024, at the inauguration of the current Liberian president, Joseph Boakai, the US-based Liberian poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley paid tribute to the west African nation’s tropical forests – one of the places where, she said, “our fathers came / centuries ago, and planted our umbilical cords / deep in
  
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• Farmers 'hammered' by fertiliser and fuel rises

  16-03-2026 07:13 via bbc.com
  Andrew Williamson, who farms near Bridgnorth, says he is concerned how the Iran war is affecting prices.
  
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• Country diary: A saliva test for George the pony, and a rethink on worm control | Kate Blincoe

  16-03-2026 06:30
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Deworming horses is as important as ever, but not at the expense of dung beetles – which are coming out of hibernation nowI slide a medical spatula into George the Connemara pony’s mouth, carefully finding the interdental gap in his teeth after his incisors. He begins licking and chewing, working out if it is edible. My job is to hold it in place for at least 30 seconds to get a good sample of his saliva on the absorbent swab, which will be analysed to see
  
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• Mining made this US tribal area a toxic wasteland. This Indigenous nation brought it back to life

  15-03-2026 15:00
  The Quapaw Nation is the only US Native community to carry out a cleanup of one of the country’s worst sites of environmental contaminationThey call this land the Laue. In the late 1800s, part of these 200 acres of grassland inside the Quapaw Nation were allotted to tribal citizen Charley Quapaw Blackhawk. After forcing dozens of tribes into Indian territory before the civil war, the US government then parceled out reservations and property to individual members. It was part of the governm
  
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• I love vultures, mosquitoes and, yes, even wasps. This is why you should too | Jo Wimpenny

  15-03-2026 14:00
  No species is a ‘villain’ – and even humans’ least favourite creatures are part of a web that makes all life possibleA wasp has just flown into your kitchen. Do you: a) scream and run away; b) roll up a magazine and try to bash it; or c) open a window and usher it outside? Now imagine it’s a bee – do you respond in the same way?Our emotional responses towards the other animals on this planet are diverse, complicated and often irrational, and our contrasting pe
  
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• Create hedgehog havens – and seven other ways to help our prickly friends

  15-03-2026 14:00
  Hedgehogs’ habitat is shrinking, they’re vulnerable to cars, and pesticides are affecting their food supply. Here’s how we can help them pull throughWith stumpy, speedy legs, questing snouts and a fierce quiver of needles, hedgehogs are enchantingly strange, like fantasy creatures from a medieval bestiary. “It’s the nation’s favourite wild animal – every time there’s a vote or a poll, the hedgehog wins,” says ecologist Hugh Warwick, AKA &ldqu
  
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• Police-style powers to tackle fly-tippers being considered

  15-03-2026 11:41 via bbc.com
  The move would allow officers to search premises without a warrant, seize assets and arrest those suspected of criminality.
  
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• ‘The fish fled’: Nile fisherman earning more from collecting plastic than fish

  15-03-2026 11:00
  Mohammed Ahmed Sayed Mohammed is among those redeploying his skills for a local recycling company that is cleaning up the NileAt 6am, Mohammed Ahmed Sayed Mohammed steers his boat from al-Qarsaya island through Cairo’s Nile waters towards the capital’s riverside clubs. Fifteen years ago, he searched for fish. Now he hunts plastic bottles.“The fish fled from the plastic chokehold,” said Sayed, who has lived on the Giza island since arriving from Assiut, further south on th
  
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• Can scientists really resurrect the dodo? Inside the company that says it can

  15-03-2026 11:00
  Colossal Biosciences’ CEO says its work follows a ‘moral obligation’ while critics say it’s ‘tech bro’ hype that could undermine conservationCan and should we resurrect animal species that have been extinct for thousands of years? Such weighty, existential questions were once the preserve of science fiction but are now being played out within an unassuming brick building in a Dallas business park.Colossal Biosciences, valued at $10.2bn after raising hundreds o
  
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• Funding for green community initiatives

  15-03-2026 08:32 via bbc.com
  Staffordshire Moorlands District Council says projects can receive up to £5.000.
  
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• The astronaut who took one giant leap for Manx-kind

  15-03-2026 08:30 via bbc.com
  Retired astronaut Nicole Stott says being in space "does make you look at Earth differently".
  
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• Major hedgerow restoration project begins on farm

  15-03-2026 07:19 via bbc.com
  The restored hedgerows will boost wildlife and help farm productivity, says the National Trust.
  
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• Some top US lobbying firms are working both sides of the Pfas issue at the same time

  14-03-2026 13:00
  Review from non-profit finds range of scenarios of firms simultaneously lobbying for and against Pfas regulationsSome top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas “forever chemicals” issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states’ efforts to rein in the public health threat.The review of six states’ lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which f
  
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• Former dairy farm could become peat research centre

  14-03-2026 10:28 via bbc.com
  Honeygar Farm is one of the few areas in the UK that still holds deep lowland peatland.
  
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• ‘My ideas are a little revolutionary’: ecologist Suzanne Simard on intelligent forests, the climate and her critics

  14-03-2026 10:00
  Her research popularised the idea of the wood wide web, but the scientific backlash was brutal. As the author of The Mother Tree returns to the forest in a new book, she discusses her battle to reimagine our relationship with natureIn 2018, the ecologist and writer Suzanne Simard was conducting research in the forested Caribou Mountains of western Canada when a thunderstorm rolled in. She was with her two teenage daughters and her close friend and colleague, Jean Roach. They saw flashes of light
  
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• How reintroducing beavers is changing our landscape

  14-03-2026 08:23 via bbc.com
  Four pairs of beavers were released into the Par and Fowey river catchment in February.
  
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• 'Carnage' unleashed on sleeping town when river hit 18-times normal level

  14-03-2026 08:19 via bbc.com
  Storm Claudia devastated residents in Monmouth, with many still living with the damage.
  
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• ‘Shockingly bad’: Nissan Leaf drivers voice anger over app shutdown

  14-03-2026 08:00
  Carmaker’s decision to drop NissanConnect EV app on relatively recent cars fuels warnings from expertsOwners of some Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are angry after the carmaker announced it would shut down an app that lets them remotely control battery charging and other functions.Drivers of Leaf cars made before May 2019 and the e-NV200 van (produced until 2022) have been told that the NissanConnect EV app linked to their vehicles will “cease operation” from 30 March. This mean
  
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• Country diary: A dawn search for the rare black grouse | Eben Muse

  14-03-2026 06:30
  Ruabon grouse moor, Wrexham: Mating season is upon us. Will I be lucky enough to spot a courtship lek?I’m shooting grouse on the moor today. There are two kinds here: red grouse, a gamebird reared and shot in its thousands; and its larger, rarer cousin, the black grouse. The latter is supposedly spared by a ban that remains voluntary despite catastrophic declines in recent decades. As it’s not shooting season, which runs from August to mid-December, I shoulder a camera, not a sh
  
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• ‘Drinking from a fetid pond’: superbug-creating genes found in UK’s largest lake

  14-03-2026 06:00
  Exclusive: Lough Neagh, which supplies drinking water for 40% of NI, contains genes resistant to last-resort antibioticsGenes capable of creating antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been detected in the UK’s largest lake, which supplies drinking water to about 40% of Northern Ireland.Testing of water from Lough Neagh, which has a surface area 26 times bigger than Windermere, found genes resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, including carbapenems – drugs reserved for life-threaten
  
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