Environment news

• Why the Increase in Solar-Powered Schools?

  25-06-2016 00:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Out of the 125,000 K-12 schools in the United States, over 3,700 are running on solar power. Three-thousands of these schools installed their solar power systems within the past six years, as solar technology continues to become less expensive and more sophisticated.This trend in powering our schools reflects the growing recognition by district and state officials that photovoltaic electrical systems offer significant financial and environmental benefits.
  
  Read more

• When bird flu hit the UK, suffering seabirds died in their thousands. Australia’s wild flocks will soon do the same

  08-08-2026 22:00 via theguardian.com
  Australia’s bird population will experience ‘large mortalities’ and risk species loss, modelling based on global outbreaks showsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastSandwich terns are a graceful seabird known for their committed, forceful and spectacular plunging dives into the ocean to catch fish.Thousands of the species started to fall sick across Europe in 2022 with tens of thousands dying as a lineage of the H5N1 bird flu – 2.3.4.4b – sprea
  
  Read more

• The ornithological artist drawing 1,000 birds by hand – all for an app that wants you off your phone

  08-08-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  The mission of the Flock app is quietly subversive: to encourage users to ditch their screens and explore the wonderful world of birdingOn a brilliantly bright afternoon in his gallery and studio in Bolinas, a small town on the northern California coast, Keith Hansen was putting the finishing touches on a watercolor of an almost improbably flamboyant painted bunting.With an ultra-fine sable brush, he made a few intricate additions to the cobalt blue plumage on the bunting’s head, and, sati
  
  Read more

• ‘Fearless and quietly astonishing’: the dragonfly that migrates further than any other insect

  08-08-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Wandering gliders are descended from some of the earliest known insects – and breed as one global populationRevealed: the top 10 invertebrates of the yearAll hail the wandering glider, a citizen of the globe, an insect for all of us.Whenever we see a dragonfly zipping through the airspace and devouring tiny insects with aplomb, we can appreciate they are so timelessly effective that they have barely needed to tweak their way of life in 200m years. Odonates are directly descended from some
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Christopher Harry on a summer of devastating wildfires – cartoon

  08-08-2026 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Scratch of the day: local football season postponed due to ‘rock hard’ pitches

  08-08-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Drought and record heat have forced the Norfolk and Suffolk league to move kick-off to the end of August as the ground is deemed too dangerous to play onThis summer’s record drought has forced a football league to delay the start of its season because “rock hard” pitches are a danger to its players.The 2026/27 season in the Anglian Combination League of 85 amateur teams in Norfolk and Suffolk was due to start next weekend. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Sadiq Khan calls on Andy Burnham to commit to climate action as pressure grows over North Sea oil

  08-08-2026 10:00 via theguardian.com
  London mayor points to ‘terrifying scenes’ this summer amid speculation Burnham may back Jackdaw and Rosebank projectsSadiq Khan: This burning summer is the proof: the voices of climate denial aren’t just delusional, they’re deadlySadiq Khan has called on the government to commit to revamped climate action and to reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas, as the UK endures a summer of drought, wildfires and heatwaves.Writing in the Guardian, the mayor of London said t
  
  Read more

• ‘I couldn’t breathe’: the deadly health burden of wildfire smoke

  08-08-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Scientists race to untangle complex links between exposure and mortality as fire weather grows more prevalentA thousand kilometres from the infernos gorging on northern Ontario’s boreal forests, Erin O’Connor watched the sky above Canada’s biggest city turn an “almost post-apocalyptic” orange as it filled with light-scattering particles of soot and ash. Stepping outside the halls of Toronto General hospital, where air filters were keeping patients safe from the wors
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Scientists create OnlyFans account for marmots to fund research – video

  08-08-2026 02:18 via theguardian.com
  UCLA professor Daniel Blumstein and his team started an OnlyFans account – @OnlyMarms – featuring cute, G-rated photos and videos of marmots to raise money for their research amid government funding cuts Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Is this the best day of the year for stargazing?

  07-08-2026 17:30 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Put 12 August in the diary for some of the best astronomical events of the year.
  
  Read more

• Is the promise of AI living up to the hype? | Fiona Katauskas

  07-08-2026 17:00 via theguardian.com
  It’s certainly increasing its outputSee more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Capybaras caught roaming government building in Brazil – video

  07-08-2026 16:32 via theguardian.com
  Footage captured by a civil servant shows capybaras calmly roaming the entrance hall of the legislative assembly building in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The large rodents are regular visitors, often wandering over from a nearby park. 'They show up here quite often, so we've gotten used to seeing them,' Nayara Bueno says Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Trump administration to pay German firm $1.2bn to halt US wind projects

  07-08-2026 15:32 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The RWE payout is the latest in a string of deals cancelling wind energy projects, a power source long derided by Trump.
  
  Read more

• Global food prices at three-year high as heatwaves and wars push up crop costs

  07-08-2026 13:47 via theguardian.com
  UN index says weather is affecting wheat yields while conflicts in Ukraine and Iran hit exports and drive up pricesBusiness live – latest updatesGlobal food prices have hit their highest level in three and a half years, as summer heatwaves and conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East push up crop costs.The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) index of food commodity prices rose last month to its highest level since January 2023, after a jump in prices for cereals, sugar and vegetable
  
  Read more

• ‘Walking sausage’: the giant stick insect that proves it’s not over till we give up

  07-08-2026 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Also known as the tree lobster, this ultra-rare creature was inadvertently driven to the brink by European settlersRevealed: the top 10 invertebrates of the yearWhen small species are left alone to evolve for centuries on small islands, they often become larger. Quietly, over thousands of years, Dryococelus australis grew to a great size on Lord Howe Island, in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.But the peaceful life of the Lord Howe Island stick insect, an invertebrate of such gar
  
  Read more

• Could the UK ever run out of water?

  07-08-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Last month in England was the driest July since records began almost two centuries ago. How concerned should we be?Half of England and all of Wales are officially in drought. But what does this mean and could the UK’s taps eventually run dry? Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Could England and Wales ever run out of water?

  07-08-2026 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Last month in England was the driest July since records began almost two centuries ago. How concerned should we be?Half of England and all of Wales are officially in drought. But what does this mean and could taps eventually run dry?• The headline of this article was amended on 7 August 2026 to refer to England and Wales, rather than the UK. Also, the average usage of 139 litres of water a day is for people in England and Wales, not in the UK as stated in an earlier version; and the 47bn ki
  
  Read more

• Europe’s dry riverbeds and scorched earth – in pictures

  07-08-2026 08:31 via theguardian.com
  Europe continues to struggle with the effects of extreme hot weather that has caused wildfires and droughts across the continent Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• ‘Waste colonialism’ – the Turkish city carrying the weight of Britain’s pollution problem

  07-08-2026 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In this week’s newsletter: a Guardian investigation reveals that the UK exported 139,000 tonnes of rubbish to poor districts in Adana, where farmers are left to cope with microplastics, toxic smoke, and debris• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereA year ago this month, when global talks to end our spiralling plastic crisis collapsed, Emma Hardy, Britain’s then marine minister and the UK’s head of delegation, said she was “hugely disappo
  
  Read more

• Wildfire damage could take hundreds of years to recover from, experts say

  07-08-2026 07:15 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Habitats belonging to snakes and rare moths have been destroyed after the wildfires this summer.
  
  Read more

• Why Britain is breathing the world’s wildfire smoke

  07-08-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Scientists say global blazes account for 10% of UK’s particle pollution – and climate crisis could make the problem worseSmoke rising above wildlife habitats, thousands of people evacuated and homes and livelihoods reduced to ashes – this is fast becoming the defining image of Britain and European summers.Dr Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said: “Recent wildfires in south-western Europe produced large quantities of smok
  
  Read more

• Week in wildlife: a tiger release, an Exmoor eagle and Pallas’s kittens

  07-08-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Extreme heat breaks temperature records in central and eastern Europe

  07-08-2026 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Slovakia reaches new high of 42C as authorities in Poland forced to shut down Kozienice and Połaniec power plantsEurope’s dry riverbeds and scorched earth – in picturesTemperature records have been broken in several countries across central and eastern Europe as the extreme weather that has caused wildfires and droughts across the continent continues.Countries including Slovakia, Austria and Hungary registered record temperatures. On Thursday, the Slovakian hydrometeorological a
  
  Read more

• Drone warnings and sheltering in airports as South Korea battles historic heatwave

  07-08-2026 06:49 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The president has called the extreme heat a "national disaster" and ordered agencies to mobilise all resources.
  
  Read more

• Country diary: Rare Wensleydale sheep have their day in the sun | Andrea Meanwell

  07-08-2026 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Garstang, Lancashire: With fedora and broken shepherd’s crook, I was a judge at an agricultural show, inspecting the mouths and fleeces of some fantastic breeds As I walked across the show field in the sunshine on my way to the secretary’s tent, my shepherd’s crook snapped in half. On closer inspection, it was riddled with woodworm – not the best start to a day of judging at the Garstang agricultural show. The event was first held in 1813, and it was an honour to be asked
  
  Read more

• Le Corbusier’s social housing was meant to be the dream. In a summer of extreme heat, it is a nightmare | Anna Richards

  07-08-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  When temperatures get to 40C inside, and French building regulations won’t even allow shutters, these tenants’ listed homes are simply unlivableThe population of Firminy, south-east France, has been dwindling for decades. Its recent history is one of factory closures in a region built by steel, and locals tell me that many people leave for better opportunities in neighbouring Saint-Étienne, or to live in the Haute-Loire’s countryside.On the top of a hill, however, stands
  
  Read more

• Experience: I dress up as rubbish

  07-08-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  On my TikTok I find trash that’s blowing in the wind, and mimic its movements using what I have to handI’ve always been interested in the concept of value and what is thought of as rubbish. When people throw things away, a perfectly good table, say, I think, “That’s still usable.” I’m a dancer and choreographer and hoard clothing – costumes from shows or pieces my mum has lent me. Sometimes, I’ll collect random things offered on Facebook.Durin
  
  Read more

• After decades of decline, New Zealand’s wool industry is making a comeback

  07-08-2026 03:15 via theguardian.com
  Forty years ago there were more than 22 sheep to every New Zealander, but wool prices and production declined with the uptake of synthetic alternativesJohn Hargreaves’ family has farmed sheep and beef in Kaiwaka, north of Auckland, for generations. In the 1960s they had 3,000 ewes but in the decades since, as the value of wool declined and shearing costs grew, his flock slowly decreased to just over 1,700.But now, for the first time in roughly six years, his wool is making money. Continue
  
  Read more

• Where is Jackie? Beloved live cam eagle in critical condition

  07-08-2026 00:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The bald eagle, who has gained worldwide fame as the protagonist of a nest live-stream in California, has been diagnosed with anaemia.
  
  Read more

• Watch: Nasa astronauts conduct 6.5-hour spacewalk outside ISS

  06-08-2026 23:49 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir ventured out to install a mounting hardware for the future addition of solar arrays to the space station.
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!