Environment news

• Thinking Big by Burning Small

  20-11-2017 18:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  A recent paper by scientists from Wits University in South Africa shows how creative fire management can increase habitat for wildebeest and other grazing animals in national parks.
  
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• ‘We’re in danger of extinction’: can Bolivia’s ‘water people’ survive a rising tide of salt and migration?

  16-01-2026 14:00
  The Uru Chipaya, one of South America’s most ancient civilisations, are battling drought, salinity and an exodus of their people as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on their landIn the small town of Chipaya, everything is dry. Only a few people walk along the sandy streets, and many houses look abandoned – some secured with a padlock. The wind is so strong that it forces you to close your eyes.Chipaya lies on Bolivia’s Altiplano, 35 miles from the Chilean border. The vast platea
  
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• Are our bodies full of microplastics or not? There’s a way to resolve this debate, and scientists must hurry | Debora MacKenzie

  16-01-2026 12:00
  This week’s furore is microplastics researchers’ ozone moment. If they fail, the powerful plastics lobby will step into the breachDebora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save HumanityAre we being injured and killed by ubiquitous, teeny-tiny shards of toxic plastic? Or aren’t we? For many months, the Guardian has reported a series of worrying scientific resultsthat our bodies are full of jagged microplastic part
  
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• Extreme rainfall inundates South Africa and Mozambique

  16-01-2026 11:16
  Flood warning raised to highest level with roads washed away and rain forcing evacuation of Kruger national parkLarge areas of north-eastern South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique have been inundated for several days with exceptionally heavy rainfall. Some locations in South Africa recorded hundreds of millimetres of rain over the weekend, such as Graskop in Mpumalanga, where 113mm fell in 24 hours, and Phalaborwa, which recorded about 85mm of rainfall. Rain has continued to fall across the re
  
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• Water restored to most Kent and Sussex homes after six days’ disruption

  16-01-2026 11:10
  Up to 30,000 customers of South East Water had no supply or low pressure at height of incidentWater has been restored to most homes across Kent and Sussex after almost a week of disruption.South East Water (SEW) said the outage, which began on Saturday, was the result of Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts. Continue reading...
  
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• Week in wildlife: monkey spa day, a frisky kākāpō and a camouflaged owl

  16-01-2026 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Trump’s anti-climate agenda won’t just hurt the planet, but American incomes too

  16-01-2026 08:00
  In this week’s newsletter: US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis, a study reveals – and the hotter the world gets, the greater the economic losses• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDonald Trump has long railed against emissions-cutting policy as an expensive “hoax” and “scam”. But the climate crisis itself comes with a major price tag for Americans, a new study shows.Previous research has found that g
  
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• ‘Walk like penguin’ to avoid adding to winter trip toll

  16-01-2026 07:00
  Changing the way you get about offers some protection from the hazards of ice, snow and compacted leavesWinter is peak season for slipping and falling outdoors, which is ironic given that we are advised to go outside for our mental and physical wellbeing.Ice is the most obvious danger but snow, which looks so cheering, becomes a slip hazard when compacted or melted and refrozen. The most common risk, though, is from fallen leaves. Safe when dry, leaves crushed underfoot exude a mix of waxes, lig
  
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• Country diary: The new year shopping centre is packed – with hundreds of pied wagtails | Claire Stares

  16-01-2026 06:30
  Whiteley, Hampshire: It’s a remarkably mundane place for a large communal roost, but these birds are here for good reasonAt the heart of the shopping centre, a courtyard opens between the shops and restaurants. A row of ornamental silver birches rises from the concrete paving, their pale trunks reflecting the glow from the storefronts. I was passing through on my way to meet friends for dinner when a burst of sound pulled my gaze upwards. The crown of the nearest tree was alive with moveme
  
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• ‘If you’re flushing the toilet with grey water, people should know’: how China turned rain into an asset

  16-01-2026 06:00
  Architects and designers have recycled ancient practice of collecting rainwater to make buildings ecologically friendlyWhen the legendary Taiwanese rock band Mayday were due to perform in Beijing one evening in May 2023, some fans were worried that the rainy weather could affect the show. Mayday were taking to the stage in Beijing’s National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, built for the 2008 Olympics. Like the real-life twig piles that give the building its nickname, the stad
  
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• See how Victoria’s bushfires spread: a visual guide to the scale of devastation

  16-01-2026 02:45
  Authorities and firefighters say the Victorian fires of January 2026 were unlike anything seen before in speed, scale and destruction. And they came much earlier than normalGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA new fight for Victorian farmers – saving livestock that survived devastating bushfiresVictoria has been battered by some of the most destructive bushfires in its history, with blazes tearing through 400,000 hectares across the state and claiming the life of a
  
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• Judge allows offshore windfarm halted by Trump to resume construction

  15-01-2026 23:22
  Setback for president, who has called windfarms ‘losers’, as Empire Wind project allowed to move forwardA federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for a New York offshore wind project to resume construction, a victory for the developer who said a Trump administration order to pause it would probably kill the project in a matter of days.District judge Carl J Nichols, an appointee of Donald Trump, ruled construction on the Empire Wind project could go forward while he considers the me
  
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• Spain’s meteorologists subjected to ‘alarming’ rise in hate speech, minister warns

  15-01-2026 14:01
  Environment minister says attacks on social media affect perceptions of meteorology and denigrate researchers’ workEurope live – latest updatesSpain’s environment minister has written to prosecutors to warn of “an alarming increase” in hate speech and social media attacks directed against climate science communicators, meteorologists and researchers.In a letter sent to hate crimes prosecutors on Wednesday, Sara Aagesen said a number of recent reports examined by the
  
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• Greenland: new shipping routes, hidden minerals – and a frontline between the US and Russia?

  15-01-2026 13:10
  Key maps show the growing strategic importance of Greenland as Arctic ice melts under global heatingLying between the US and Russia, Greenland has become a critical frontline as the Arctic opens up because of global heating.Its importance has been underscored by Donald Trump openly considering the US taking the island from its Nato partner Denmark, either by buying it, or by force. Continue reading...
  
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• Historic market in Kinshasa ready to reopen to a million shoppers a day after five-year makeover

  15-01-2026 13:00
  Long criticised as overcrowded and filthy, the city’s Zando marketplace has had an elegant and sustainable redesignSelling vegetables was Dieudonné Bakarani’s first job. He had a little stall at Kinshasa Central Market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Decades later, the 57-year-old entrepreneur is redeveloping the historic marketplace that gave him his start in business to be an award-winning city landmark.Bakarani hopes to see the market, known as Zando, flourish agai
  
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• Six-yearly count to track diverging fortunes of UK and Ireland’s wintering swans

  15-01-2026 07:00
  The international swan census takes place this weekend, with volunteers helping count whooper and Bewick’s swans Volunteer birders across the UK and Ireland will be among those taking part in the six-yearly international swan census this weekend, counting numbers of the countries’ two wintering species, whooper and Bewick’s swans.The survey, which last took place in January 2020, aims to track changes in the populations of these charismatic wildfowl in the UK and Ireland. The w
  
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• Country diary: A chilly tour of our historic churches (while the tourists are away) | Virginia Spierss

  15-01-2026 06:30
  St Kew, Cornwall: Midwinter is the best time for us to visit heritage sites and speculate on legends, starting at the secluded St Winnow’s churchThe stained glass window of St Kew’s church, with a tamed bear at the saint’s feet, is temporarily out of sight, penned in by a jumble of scaffolding. On a chilly hilltop a few miles to the south, St Mabyn’s tower features weathered carvings of heraldic beasts, including a muzzled bear pointing its snout northwards; ins
  
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• The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age

  15-01-2026 06:00
  Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enteredIn late January 2025, 10 days after Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time as president of the United States, an economic conference in Brussels brought together several officials from the recently deposed Biden administration for a discussion about the global economy. In Washington, Trump and h
  
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• Africa’s great elephant divide: countries struggle with too many elephants – or too few

  15-01-2026 06:00
  In countries such as South Sudan, the great herds have all but disappeared. But further south, conservation success mean increasing human-wildlife conflictIt is late on a January afternoon in the middle of South Sudan’s dry season, and the landscape, pricked with stubby acacias, is hazy with smoke from people burning the grasslands to encourage new growth. Even from the perspective of a single-engine ultralight aircraft, we are warned it will be hard to spot the last elephant in Badingilo
  
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• Traces of cancer-linked pesticide found in tests at UK playgrounds

  15-01-2026 01:01
  Pressure mounting for use of glyphosate, listed by WHO since 2015 as probable carcinogen, to be heavily restrictedChildren are potentially being exposed to the controversial weedkiller glyphosate at playgrounds across the UK, campaigners have said after testing playgrounds in London and the home counties.The World Health Organization has listed glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen since 2015. However, campaigners say local authorities in the UK are still using thousands of litres of glyphos
  
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• I’ve been thinking a lot about dog poo | Adrian Chiles

  14-01-2026 18:52
  There was a time when nobody picked up after their dogs – and it would have been considered disgusting to do so. What caused the change in attitude?A PE teacher from Cardiff called Tony is frozen solid after being caught in an avalanche in 1979. There he remains until global heating sees to his thawing and he pops up in the present day, exactly as he was back then. Comedy ensues. This is make-believe, by the way; it’s the premise of Mike Bubbins’ BBC series Mammoth. In the mast
  
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• Labour still faces risks on energy despite ‘record’ wind power auction | Nils Pratley

  14-01-2026 17:44
  Government hails step towards clean power in Great Britain by 2030 – but the auction shows trade-offs are now neededOffshore windfarm contracts to fuel 12m homes in Great Britain after record auctionEd Miliband: With this record wind power auction, we’ve proved the rightwing doubters wrongThe government has defied gloomy price expectations for its latest auction for offshore wind capacity. The worry a few months ago was that bill payers would be forced to pay more than £100 a m
  
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• BP to take hit of up to $5bn on green energy as it refocuses on fossil fuels

  14-01-2026 13:57
  Energy company also under pressure from worse oil trading performance and weaker oil pricesBusiness live – latest updatesBP has said it expects to write down the value of its struggling green energy business by as much as $5bn (£3.7bn), as it refocuses on fossil fuels under its new chair, Albert Manifold.The oil company said the writedowns were mostly related to its gas and low-carbon energy divisions in its “transition businesses”, but added that wiping between $4bn and
  
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• UK secures record supply of offshore wind projects

  14-01-2026 13:08 via bbc.com
  The government says the projects will bring down bills but the Conservatives say it is locking in high wind prices.
  
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• Solar grazing: ‘triple-win’ for sheep farmers, renewables and society or just a PR exercise for energy companies?

  14-01-2026 11:52
  For Hannah Thorogood, a first-generation Lincolnshire farmer, grazing her sheep on solar land gave her a leg-up in the industryOn a blustery Lincolnshire morning, Hannah Thorogood paused between two ranks of solar panels. Her sheep nosedived into the grass under their shelter and began to graze.“When I first started out, 18 acres and 20 sheep was as much as I could afford,” said the first-generation farmer. “Now, because I can graze this land for free, I have 250 acres and over
  
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• With this record wind power auction, we’ve proved the rightwing doubters wrong | Ed Miliband

  14-01-2026 10:30
  The only way that Britain’s energy bills can come down is if we are no longer reliant on fossil fuels. Today marks a big step towards that goalOffshore windfarm contracts to fuel 12m homes in Great Britain after record auctionIn the 18 months since I became energy secretary, the government has made a simple argument: that if we want to bring down energy bills for good, Britain needs to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and instead build up clean homegrown power that we control.We k
  
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• Offshore windfarm contracts to fuel 12m homes in Great Britain after record auction

  14-01-2026 08:25
  Subsidies guaranteeing price for each unit of clean electricity generated given to 12 renewables projectsA make-or-break auction for the UK government’s goal to create a clean electricity system by 2030 has awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore windfarms to power a record 12m homes.In Great Britain’s most competitive auction for renewable subsidies to date, energy companies vied for contracts that guarantee the price for each unit of clean electricity they generate. Continue r
  
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• Birdwatch: Cold snap brings fieldfares and redwings to the fore

  14-01-2026 07:00
  Britain’s winter thrushes, the swallows and swifts of the season, were strangely absent until recentlyJust as swallows and swifts are the constant sight and sound of spring and summer, so our two winter thrushes – fieldfares and redwings – are usually ever-present during the autumn and winter months.Last autumn, however, the fields and hedgerows around my Somerset home were unusually devoid of these birds, while their favourite food – the hawthorn’s bright scarlet b
  
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• Country diary: Which is the ‘fast sinker’ out of me and the grebe? | Nic Wilson

  14-01-2026 06:30
  Waresley, Cambridgeshire: In a near-freezing lake, I’m treated to an up-close view of one of my favourite birdsThe spring-fed lake is a picture of tranquillity this morning. On the far side, ivy-clad trees touch trunks with their watery counterparts, creating an image of a child’s mirror painting folded along the shoreline. Only the soft blurring of branches distinguishes reflection from reality.The scene might look serene, but I must focus on my breathing to stay calm as I lower mys
  
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• Global temperatures dipped in 2025 but more heat records on way, scientists warn

  14-01-2026 04:44 via bbc.com
  The last three years were Earth's hottest on record, as humanity's carbon emissions continue to heat the planet.
  
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