Environment news

• Was 2025 the year that business retreated from net zero?

  20-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  From retailers to banks, carmakers to councils, the bold pledges for carbon-neutral economies are being watered down or scrappedAlmost a year since Donald Trump returned to the White House with a rallying cry to the fossil fuel industry to “drill baby, drill”, a backlash against net zero appears to be gathering momentum.More companies have retreated from, or watered down, their pledges to cut carbon emissions, instead prioritising shareholder returns over climate action. Continue rea
  
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• Muddy eruption at Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone national park – video

  22-12-2025 16:45 via theguardian.com
  Video shared by the US Geological Survey on social media shows mud spraying up and out from the Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone national park. Other recent eruptions have mostly been audible but not visible because they happened either at night or when the camera was obscured by ice. The agency said the Black Diamond Pool was previously the site of a hydrothermal explosion, in July 2024, that sent rocks and mud flying hundreds of feet into the air and damaged a boardwalk. It prompted the closu
  
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• Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate

  22-12-2025 13:05 via theguardian.com
  Researchers have realised the records are a ‘goldmine’ to study changes in environmental conditionsYangang Xing had never heard of organ-tuning books, but his colleague Andrew Knight often played the pipe organ at churches as a teenager.When the pair, who are researchers at Nottingham Trent University, set out to study how environmental conditions in churches had changed over time, Knight explained that all over the country many organs had notebooks full of data tucked away in their
  
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• ‘Unashamedly capitalist’ rewilders claim ‘Moneyball’ approach could make millions – but experts sceptical

  22-12-2025 12:26 via theguardian.com
  Rich Stockdale says model of ‘regenerative capitalism’ would maximise profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, and installing windfarms across its estatesThe founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit.Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalis
  
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• US farmers say Trump’s $12bn package not enough to undo damage from tariffs

  22-12-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Thousands of farms set to go bankrupt as grain farmers in particular hit by trade disruptions caused by price hikesDonald Trump, having promised to “NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN”, appeared to come through for them this month when he unveiled a $12bn aid package. Industry leaders say thousands of farms will still go bust this year.While the US president has vowed to increase domestic farm production, and even claimed this formed a “big part” of his plan to lower grocery pric
  
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• Trump’s shuttering of the National Center for Atmospheric Research is Stalinist | Michael Mann and Bob Ward

  22-12-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  This is the latest in the relentless purge of climate researchers who refuse to be co-opted by the fossil fuel industryThe Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would no doubt have understood and even appreciated the latest attack by the Trump administration on climate researchers and their work.The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is to be dismantled after more than 50 years at the forefront of global research on climate science and monitoring.Professor Michael Mann is the
  
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• 2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast

  22-12-2025 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Milder weather led to a bloom in the invertebrates in south Cornwall and Devon, wildlife charity saysRecord numbers of sightings of one of the world’s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 “the year of the octopus” in its annual review of Britain’s seas.A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along England’s south coast,
  
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• Country diary: A seal so close I can see its nostrils flaring | Tom Allan

  22-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  River Dart, Devon: It probably came here for the shoals of grey mullet, but just for a second, it’s more interested in me and my paddleboardThere’s a lull between the storms, and for the first time in days it’s calm enough to take out my stand-up paddleboard. It’s 7.30am, and on this sheltered tidal creek on the River Dart, the water is barely moving: a gentle pulse in the scum line along the beach is the last gasp of the tide’s energy.When I join the main course of
  
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• Forget elf on the shelf – these Aussie birds are perfect for the festive season | Jess Harwood

  22-12-2025 04:13 via theguardian.com
  Magpie on a mince pie anyone? Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Miracle’ of Zealandia: chick is born to rare takahē pair thought to be infertile

  21-12-2025 19:00 via theguardian.com
  Unexpected arrival is a boon for birdlife in New Zealand, where there are only 500 takahē leftA pair of rare native New Zealand takahē birds who were believed infertile have stunned staff at the world’s largest urban eco-sanctuary, after hatching a “miracle” chick.The roughly seven-week old chick was discovered inside Zealandia, a fully fenced eco-sanctuary 10 minutes from Wellington’s city centre, in November, but its arrival has been a closely guarded secret t
  
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• Do prawns feel pain? Why scientists are urging a rethink of Australia’s favoured festive food

  21-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Studies show crustaceans can learn, remember, solve problems and form relationshipsMore summer essentialsSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereCrustaceans are a festive season staple for many families, particularly in Australia where an estimated 18.5m kilograms of prawns and more than 150,000 lobsters are eaten over Christmas and New Year.Globally, trillions are caught and consumed each year. Australia is a major producer, with prawn, lobst
  
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• Sea change: the drive to restore millions of oysters on the Norfolk coast

  21-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  The first ever mass deployment of mother reef bricks aims to rebuild habitats – and could reshape the North SeaAllie Wharf’s career unfolded amid conflict. As a senior foreign producer for Newsnight, she reported on Iraq and Afghanistan. Just two years ago, she was filming mass graves in Ukraine.But burnt out by wars, and after a detour farming ducks in Tanzania, Wharf has now settled on the quiet north Norfolk coast. Here, alongside her life and business partner, Willie Athill, she
  
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• The plants that thrive in salt: could halophytes help save coastal farming?

  21-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  As rising seas salinise the soils of the Venice lagoon, scientists and chefs are turning to long-forgotten wild herbsOn the scrubby banks of the rural swathes of the Venice lagoon, an evening chorus of cicadas underscores the distant whine of farmers’ three-wheeled minivans. Dotted along the brackish fringes of the cultivated plots are scatterings of silvery-green bushes – sea fennel.This plant is a member of a group of remarkable organisms known as halophytes – plant species t
  
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• Winners of the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards 2025 – in pictures

  21-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  The winners and runners-up of this year’s RSPCA Young Photographer Awards have been announced with an image of a stag lit up in the darkness by Thomas Durrant, 17, from London, named the overall winner Continue reading...
  
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• ‘The anxiety never disappears’: Monmouth businesses recover from severe flooding

  21-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Restaurants, bars and shops are happy to be back after Storm Claudia – but there are fears for the future“It was heart-wrenching,” says Andrea Sholl, recalling the Friday night last month when flood waters started rising inside Bar 125, the restaurant she and her husband, Martin, own in the Welsh border town of Monmouth.The Sholls and a couple of colleagues were still clearing up after a busy evening serving diners when the building started to fill with water at about 1am. Cont
  
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• Snails on a plane: Australia flies rescue mission to Norfolk Island for a tiny, critically endangered species

  20-12-2025 20:00 via theguardian.com
  The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail is officially extinct, but researchers have‘high hopes’ that translocation will allow the population to thrive Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereOn a grey day in early June, a commercial plane landed at Norfolk Island Airport in the South Pacific. Onboard was precious cargo ferried some 1,700km from Sydney: four blue plastic crates with “LIVE ANIMALS” signs affixed to the ou
  
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• ‘The biggest transformation in a century’: how California remade itself as a clean energy powerhouse

  20-12-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  The Golden State’s clean energy use hit new highs in 2025. As the Trump administration abandons US climate initiatives, can California fill the void?As officials from around the world met in Brazil for the Cop30 climate summit last month, the US president was nowhere to be found, nor were any members of his cabinet. Instead, the most prominent American voice in Belém was that of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.During the five days he spent in Brazil, Newsom described Donald Tr
  
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• This year’s Christmas could be Britain’s greenest yet, energy operator says

  20-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  System operator Neso predicts lowest carbon intensity ever on Christmas Day after new wind and solar power come onlineBritain’s energy system operator has predicted that this year’s Christmas Day could be the greenest yet.If the weather remains mild and windy for the rest of December, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) has said it could record the lowest carbon intensity – the measure of how much carbon dioxide is released to produce electricity – recorded on the
  
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• When is a sausage not really a sausage? Ask the meat lobby | George Monbiot

  20-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  European legislators may ban plant-based products from using the name to prevent ‘confusion’. Just don’t mention beef tomatoes or buffalo wingsMost of what you eat is sausages. I mean, if we’re going to get literal about it. Sausage derives from the Latin salsicus, which means “seasoned with salt”. You might think of a sausage as a simple thing, but on this reading it is everything and nothing, a Borgesian meta-concept that retreats as you approach it.From ano
  
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• Country diary: There’s more to mistletoe than Christmas kisses | Kate Blincoe

  20-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Wildlife seems to like it as much as we do, and if you’re patient, you can make like a mistle thrush and spread it aroundStripped of their leaves, the trees are sculptural against the grey sky, revealing what is usually obscured. Trunks thick with ivy offer roosting sites for wrens and robins. Messy rook nests sway precariously in the breeze. And of course great balls of mistletoe, suspended among the bare branches as if put up for the festive season, although t
  
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• ‘Radiator rattling’ earthquake hits Lancashire village for second time in two weeks

  19-12-2025 15:47 via theguardian.com
  People of Silverdale report rattling and shaking as 2.5 magnitude earthquake strikes in probable aftershockA village in Lancashire has been hit by a “radiator rattling” earthquake for the second time in little over two weeks.Residents of Silverdale, a small coastal village located five miles south of the Cumbria border, reported the now strangely familiar feeling of rattling and shaking in their homes at 5.03am as a 2.5-magnitude earthquake hit the area with its epicentre 1.6 miles (
  
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• Food becoming more calorific but less nutritious due to rising carbon dioxide

  19-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in leadMore carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants’ responses to increased CO2 levels. The results, she said, were a sh
  
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• Weather tracker: Early snowfall in New York and a storm ruins Christmas lights in Spain

  19-12-2025 10:24 via theguardian.com
  Long Island receives 21cm of snow, while a tornado tears down decorations near MálagaHeavy snow fell in parts of New England this week. New York’s Central Park received a few centimetres of snow, while 21cm (8.5in) was dumped in parts of Long Island. This is the earliest New York has experienced snowfall since 2018.New York narrowly missed out on widespread snowfall a few weeks ago. The low-pressure system tracked ever so slightly to the north of New York, enabling the warmer air to
  
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• ‘I can’t think of a place more pristine’: 133,000 hectares of Chilean Patagonia preserved after local fundraising

  19-12-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Ancient forests and turquoise rivers of the Cochamó Valley protected from logging, damming and developmentA wild valley in Chilean Patagonia has been preserved for future generations and protected from logging, damming and unbridled development after a remarkable fundraising effort by local groups, the Guardian can reveal.The 133,000 hectares (328,000 acres) of pristine wilderness in the Cochamó Valley was bought for $78m (£58m) after a grassroots campaign led by t
  
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• Week in wildlife: honeymooning owls, an otter on the razz and a magical frog

  19-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• As the US invests in fossil fuels, young climate activists push back in the courts

  19-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s newsletter: A generation is using the legal system to demand accountability for climate harm• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereRikki Held grew up on her family’s ranch in Montana, watching the land transform amid the climate crisis. The Powder River, which runs through the property, has sometimes dried up during drought, leaving crops and livestock without water. At other points, rapid snowmelt and heavy rains have caused flooding
  
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• How we hold back the tide: levees, drains and a bronze age circle of skulls

  19-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Were children’s bones found at the edge of European lake settlements an attempt to appease water gods?Flood protection takes many forms, from the levees of Louisiana to the drains of East Anglia. Some villages in bronze age Europe may have had a more unusual barrier: a circle of skulls.Researchers from Basel University have found children’s skulls at the edge of lake settlements vulnerable to flooding, dating to the ninth century BC. As flooding became worse, villages in the Circum-A
  
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• Country diary: Postcard from a pier, where brent geese are the main attraction | Lev Parikian

  19-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Ryde, Isle of Wight: Lots of commotion here among the hovercraft and herring gulls, but it’s the wonderful, tubby geese that make my winterThere’s a hovercraft on the sand, skirts deflated, dumped like a beached whale. Behind it, the pier stretches into the Solent. The air has the dull taste of off-season resort, with background notes of seaweed and vinegar. Welcome to Ryde.We eat fish and chips, fending off the attention of a hungry herring gull. The clicks and whistles of 20 starli
  
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• They survived wildfires. But something else is killing Greece’s iconic fir forests

  19-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  In the Peloponnese mountains, the usually hardy trees are turning brown even where fires haven’t reached. Experts are raising the alarm on a complex crisisIn the southern Peloponnese, the Greek fir is a towering presence. The deep green, slow-growing conifers have long defined the region’s high-altitude forests, thriving in the mountains and rocky soils. For generations they have been one of the country’s hardier species, unusually capable of withstanding drought, insects and t
  
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• Drones detect deadly virus in Arctic whales' breath

  19-12-2025 02:44 via bbc.com
  Whale breath collected by drones is giving clues to the health of wild humpbacks and other whales.
  
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