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As rivers swell and homes are cut off, scientists say UK winter rainfall is already 20 years ahead of predictions
When 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.
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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 meat
For 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 to eat differently. This book isn’t about policing your plate.”
There’s more. Friedrich, a vegan for almost four decades, says meat is “humanity’s favourite food”.
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Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex: Look out for the alders – they’re remarkable trees and one of our first to come to life as winter recedes
A 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 by a line of alders (Alnus glutinosa) that marks the course of a stream. Their graceful silhouettes are bathed in a distinctive maroon haze. Up close, the cause resolves into delicate clarity: purple catkins dangling in bunches from the tip of each twig. Formed at the end of last summer, they have recently begun to lengthen and unclench, coaxed by warming days. Soon (and well before the tree’s round leaves unfurl), they will split open, revealing hundreds of vivid yellow stamens: tiny, lantern guides through the murk and mire of late winter.
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Soaring temperatures, heat at altitude and hot summer nights combine to create one of south-eastern Australia’s ‘most significant’ heatwaves
Heatwaves 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 (population 262) in the far north of South Australia reached 50 degrees on Thursday, it was only the eighth time in recorded history anywhere in Australia.
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Pan Europe found several pesticide residues in 85% of apples, with some showing traces of up to seven chemicals
Environmental 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.
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Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at risk
In 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 global warming, experts told the Guardian. The changes amount to “a war on all fronts that this administration has launched against our health and the safety of our communities and the quality of our environment,” said Matthew Tejada, the former director of the EPA’s environmental justice program.
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More than 300 brown hairstreak butterfly eggs discovered near Llandeilo this winter after decade of decline
Record 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.
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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, including The Fault in Our Stars, while Hank, 45, is a self-described science communicator and entrepreneur.
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A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds
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Last 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) reached a share of 68%. In California, the share of zero-emissions vehicles hit 20%. And at least every third new car now bought by the Dutch, Finns, Belgians and Swedes burns no fuel.
These figures, which would have felt fanciful just five years ago, show the rich world leading the shift away from cars that pump out toxic gas and planet-heating pollutants. But a more startling trend is that electric car sales are also racing ahead in many developing countries. While China is known for its embrace of electric vehicles (EVs), demand has also soared in emerging markets from South America to south-east Asia. BEV sales in Turkey have caught up with the EU’s, data published this week shows.
The Fukushima towns frozen in time: nature has thrived since the nuclear disaster but what happens if humans return?
The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised
The 16-month battle to reveal the truth about Sydney Water’s poo balls
Powering up: how Ethiopia is becoming an unlikely leader in the electric vehicle revolution
‘My Tesla has become ordinary’: Turkey catches up with EU in electric car sales
The electric vehicle revolution is still on course – don’t let your loathing of Elon Musk stop you joining up
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Plastics make up the majority of litter across the country. In the absence of regulation, the public are taking matters into their own hands
Neil Blake weighs a paper bag of fake grass fragments he has collected from a stormwater gutter near Darebin Creek in Melbourne’s north.
Over the past three years Blake has conducted 56 collections of synthetic turf in the waterway alongside the KP Hardiman Reserve hockey pitch.
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