Environment news

• Virgin Galactic spaceship completes test flight

  06-04-2018 18:31 via bbc.co.uk
  The supersonic test flight of its SpaceShipTwo rocket ship was the first since a crash in 2014.
  
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• ‘It sounds apocalyptic’: experts warn of impact of UK floods on birds, butterflies and dormice

  01-02-2026 14:00
  Events such as Storm Chandra take a terrible toll on ecosystems, but nature can be part of the solution for mitigating flood waters“The flood waters are only good for scavenger species,” says Steve Hussey, searching hard for a silver lining to last week’s deluges brought by Storm Chandra. When the waters recede, crows and ravens will feast on the carrion of hedgehogs, dormice and other small animals unable to escape the rising water, he says.“It sounds very apocalyptic, d
  
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• Fossil fuel firms may have to pay for climate damage under proposed UN tax

  01-02-2026 13:00
  Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation could also force ultra-rich to pay global wealth tax Fossil fuel companies could be forced to pay some of the price of their damage to the climate, and the ultra-rich subjected to a global wealth tax, if new tax rules are agreed under the UN.Negotiations on a planned global tax treaty will resume at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday, with dozens of countries supporting stronger rules that would make polluters pay for the impact of the
  
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• Australia’s best photos of the month – January 2026

  31-01-2026 20:00
  Bushfires, marches and a summer of sport – Guardian Australia’s best photos from around the countryPrayers, vigils and mitzvahs on the national day of mourning for Bondi beach terror attack victims – in picturesDrag racing at Sydney’s weekly street meet offers a change of pace for all walks of life Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Justice is optional’: why Trump’s pardon of Honduran ex-president scares nature defenders

  31-01-2026 17:00
  Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists – and the release of Juan Orlando Hernández has reinforced its ‘crisis of impunity’, say criticsWhen Donald Trump announced that he would pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, only the second world leader to be convicted of drug trafficking, Anna*, an environmental defender, was shocked.In 2022, Hernández, also known as JOH, was extradited to the US and later convic
  
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• Snow and blizzards move into US east coast as 85 dead from last week’s storm

  31-01-2026 16:36
  About 190,000 are still without power in the south-east as states scramble to prepare for more winter weatherDozens of people have died in the teeth of a severe winter storm across the US south, with further freezing temperatures, snow and blizzards set to assail the east coast on Saturday.At least 85 people have died across multiple states, according to an Associated Press tally, with frigid conditions and icy roads causing car crashes, hypothermia and other fatal incidents. Continue reading...
  
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• The rise of ‘beef days’: why even meat lovers are cutting back

  31-01-2026 10:00
  Inspired by YouTube creators, some people are limiting beef to a handful of ‘feast days’ a year to cut their climate impact“I love beef,” says Vlad Luca, 25. But unlike most other self-proclaimed steak lovers, Vlad eats it only four times a year, on designated “beef days”.The “beef days” phenomenon has been popularised by the brothers John and Hank Green, known collectively as vlogbrothers on YouTube. John, 48, is better known for his YA fiction, i
  
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• ‘Humanity’s favourite food’: how to end the livestock industry but keep eating meat

  31-01-2026 08:00
  Bruce Friedrich argues the only way to tackle the world’s insatiable but damaging craving for meat is like-for-like replacements like cultivated and plant-based meatFor someone aiming to end the global livestock industry, Bruce Friedrich begins his new book – called Meat – in disarming fashion: “I’m not here to tell anyone what to eat. You won’t find vegetarian or vegan recipes in this book, and you won’t find a single sentence attempting to convince you
  
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• Electric ​cars ​go ​mainstream as ​adoption ​surges ​across ​rich and ​developing ​nations

  31-01-2026 08:00
  A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereLast year, almost every new car sold in Norway, the nature-loving country flush with oil wealth, was fully electric. In prosperous Denmark, which was all-in on petrol and diesel cars until just before Covid, sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reache
  
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• ‘Homes may have to be abandoned’: how climate crisis has reshaped Britain’s flood risk

  31-01-2026 07:00
  As rivers swell and homes are cut off, scientists say UK winter rainfall is already 20 years ahead of predictionsWhen flooding hit the low-lying Somerset Levels in 2014, it took two months for the waters to rise. This week it took two days, said Rebecca Horsington, chair of the Flooding on the Levels Action Group and a born-and-bred resident. A fierce barrage of storms from the Atlantic has drenched south-west England in January, saturating soils and supercharging rivers. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: Purple catkins light the way towards spring | Oliver Southall

  31-01-2026 06:30
  Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex: Look out for the alders – they’re remarkable trees and one of our first to come to life as winter recedesA few wet weeks have left the ground here sodden, making walking a challenge. It doesn’t help that my wellies have sprung a leak. On the rainiest days, I find my range reduced to a few splashy circuits of the village fields, the nearby Downs receding into hanging cloud.Nevertheless, there are signs of drier times to come. Today, my eye is drawn b
  
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• New type of Bordeaux wine to gain official status as result of climate pressure

  31-01-2026 01:01
  Exclusive: Formal validation for claret reflects hotter conditions, falling consumption and shift towards chillable redsBordeaux’s wine industry has historically adapted to consumer habits. In the 1970s the region leaned towards white, but by the 2000s was famed for powerful oak-aged reds.Now it’s turning to a much older form of red with a name familiar to anglophones: claret. With origins in the 12th century, when it was first shipped to Britain, claret was soon our favoured wine, a
  
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• Plastic patrol: the citizen scientists tackling litter in Australian waterways

  30-01-2026 15:00
  Plastics make up the majority of litter across the country. In the absence of regulation, the public are taking matters into their own handsChange 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] Blake weighs a paper bag of fake grass fragments he has collected from a stormwater gutter near Darebin Creek in Melbourne&r
  
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• Day and night, there’s no relief: five ways this heatwave is one of Australia’s worst on record

  30-01-2026 15:00
  Soaring temperatures, heat at altitude and hot summer nights combine to create one of south-eastern Australia’s ‘most significant’ heatwaves Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastHeatwaves and hot days during an Australian summer may seem unremarkable. Days spent at the beach, sunburn and mosquitoes are part of the national psyche, along with outback pubs serving crisp lager as relief from searing afternoon heat.But when the opal mining town of Andamooka (p
  
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• How Trump’s EPA rollbacks could harm our air and water – and worsen global heating

  30-01-2026 14:00
  Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at riskIn his first year back in office, Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, initiating nearly 70 actions to undo rules protecting ecosystems and the climate.The agency’s wide-ranging assault on the environment will put people at risk, threatening air and water quality, increasing harmful chemical exposure, and worsening
  
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• Week in wildlife: a rescued owl, a brave blackbird and Fukushima boar babies

  30-01-2026 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Homes with air source heat pumps or solar panels for sale in England – in pictures

  30-01-2026 08:00
  From a renovated Victorian village house in Hampshire to a new-build apartment in south London Continue reading...
  
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• Rare butterflies bounce back after landowners in Wales cut back on flailing hedges

  30-01-2026 07:00
  More than 300 brown hairstreak butterfly eggs discovered near Llandeilo this winter after decade of declineRecord numbers of eggs of the rare brown hairstreak butterfly have been found in south-west Wales after landowners stopped flailing hedges every year.The butterfly lays its eggs on blackthorn every summer. But when land managers and farmers mechanically cut hedges every autumn, thousands of the eggs are unknowingly destroyed. Continue reading...
  
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• Exploding trees: the winter phenomenon behind frost cracks

  30-01-2026 07:00
  When temperatures drop suddenly, trapped water can freeze and expand, splitting trunks with a gunshot-like soundDuring the recent cold spell in the northern US, meteorologists issued warnings about exploding trees.A tree’s first line of defence against freezing is its bark, which provides efficient insulation. In cold conditions, trees also enter a form of hibernation, with changes at a cellular level: cells dehydrate, harden and shrink, increasing their sugar concentration. This is the bo
  
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• Country diary: Bit by bit, bird by bird, our wildlife is waking up | Josie George

  30-01-2026 06:30
  Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire: No finches yet and only a single thrush, but tuning into January’s sounds has revealed that nature is beginning to stirIf my teenage son hadn’t mentioned it one grey morning this week, I’m not sure I’d have noticed, having been too caught up in the January doldrums. But he was right: there’s a new fullness to the soundscape here on our urban housing estate. “The birds just sound louder,” he said, scanning the rooftops, &ldq
  
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• Experience: a bear moved into my house

  30-01-2026 06:00
  I heard this huff, then a stomp. A growl that sounded like a death warningLast November, I’d been out for the evening with friends who were visiting Los Angeles. Afterwards, I checked the notifications on my phone. There was a motion alert from one of the cameras around my house. It had captured a big black bear nosing around my bins.We get wildlife here: raccoons, skunks. But I’d never had a bear rummaging through my trash. I watched as it turned things over, then wandered off.
  
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• Critically endangered skink births expected after captive breeding program success – video

  30-01-2026 02:14
  Eleven endangered skinks released into a gated community in Victoria's Alpine national park will soon become 13, when Omeo, one of the females, gives birth in March. One of Australia's only alpine lizards, guthega skinks live on 'sky islands' above 1,600 metres in two isolated alpine locations – Bogong high plains in Victoria and Mount Kosciuszko in NSW. 'They're extremely vulnerable, given where they live,' says skink specialist Dr Zak Atkins, director of Snowline Ecology. As the climate
  
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• ‘The LED of heating’: cheap geothermal energy system makes US comeback

  29-01-2026 18:33
  Minnesota housing project to draw energy from water stored deep underground, 45 years on from city’s initial researchNearly half a century ago, the US Department of Energy launched a clean energy experiment beneath the University of Minnesota with a simple goal: storing hot water for months at a time in an aquifer more than 100 metres below ground.The idea of the seasonal thermal energy storage was to tuck away excess heat produced in summer, then use it in the winter to warm buildings. Co
  
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• ‘Clean air should not be a privilege’: how Bogotá is tackling air pollution in its poorest areas

  29-01-2026 18:30
  Colombian city launched its first clean air zone in one of its poorest neighbourhoods and has plans for green spaces tooEvery Sunday in Bogotá, streets across the city are closed to cars and transformed into urban parks. Shirtless rollerbladers with boomboxes drift leisurely in figures of eight, Lycra-clad cyclists zoom downhill and young children wobble nervously as they pedal on bikes for the first time.This is perhaps the most visible component of a multipronged plan to clean up the Co
  
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• ‘Feels like a losing battle’: the fight against flooding in Somerset

  29-01-2026 17:18
  Emergency pumps are deployed in attempt to stop water inundating homes around River Parrett‘Like a sea out there’: flooded Somerset residents wonder how water can be managedSince medieval monks started draining and managing the Somerset Levels, humans have struggled to live and work alongside water.“At the moment it feels like a losing battle,” said Mike Stanton, the chair of the Somerset Rivers Authority. “Intense rainfall is hitting us more often because of climat
  
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• Polar bears on Norwegian islands fatter and healthier despite ice loss, scientists say

  29-01-2026 17:00 via bbc.com
  Scientists think that Svalbard bears have adapted to recent ice loss by eating more land-based prey.
  
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• ‘Pesticide cocktails’ polluting apples across Europe, study finds

  29-01-2026 13:38
  Pan Europe found several pesticide residues in 85% of apples, with some showing traces of up to seven chemicalsEnvironmental groups have raised the alarm after finding toxic “pesticide cocktails” in apples sold across Europe.Pan Europe, a coalition of NGOs campaigning against pesticide use, had about 60 apples bought in 13 European countries – including France, Spain, Italy and Poland – analysed for chemical residues. Continue reading...
  
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• Valium, health checks and fabric slings: the complex logistics of moving 30 beluga whales

  29-01-2026 13:11
  Canada has reached a tentative deal for 30 belugas in an amusement park to be shipped to four aquariums in US‘It’s heartbreaking’: how 30 captive beluga whales have become pawns in row over animal crueltyBefore boarding the plane, the travellers will be given a dose of Valium to calm their nerves. For some, it will be the first time they’ve flown. Others have logged thousands of miles over the Pacific Ocean. Like most weary and anxious passengers, they will be offered min
  
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• US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate

  29-01-2026 12:00
  Projects this year expected to triple global gas capacity, forecast finds, as concerns grow over impacts on planetThe US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast.This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with planned and under-co
  
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• Baltimore bridge collapse: crew members from ship still held by US two years on

  29-01-2026 12:00
  Despite no criminal charges being brought against them, four officers have been detained since the MV Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, killing six workersSeveral crew members of a ship that collided with a bridge in Baltimore almost two years ago are still being held in the US by federal authorities despite the fact that no criminal charges have been brought against them.In the early hours of 26 March 2024, the MV Dali departed the port of Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka. While navigating
  
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