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Campaigners say consumption such as travel, gifts and food are destroying planet and the meaning of Christmas
Whether out of poverty or virtue, many of us spend much of the year reining in our appetites to save our pennies and our health. But at Christmas many of us put our worries aside and go wild in an orgy of lavish gifting, extensive travel and a gluttonous feeding frenzy.
This carnival of consumption has a cost: not just to our wallets and our waistlines, but also to the climate.
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From the Flask glacier to King George Island, intrepid researchers expect good cheer, snow and penguins
Many of us will not get a white Christmas this year, but a group of scientists are guaranteed one while carrying out research on the Antarctic peninsula.
While ice and good cheer are expected, their yuletide activities will be very different from those back home. Dr Kate Winter, of Northumbria University, and colleagues will be deploying instruments on Flask glacier to study the way that meltwater affects how quickly glaciers flow into the ocean.
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Betchcott Hill has glorious views across the county and a mix of habitats home to curlew, cuckoo and lapwing
One of the most scenic and nature-rich spots in western England could be protected for ever in a boost for the curlew, cuckoo, lapwing and snipe that nest there.
Betchcott Hill has views across much of the county and its mix of grassland, wet flushes, woodland and heath sings with the calls of endangered birds in spring.
This article was amended on 24 December 2024 to correct the size of the site, which is 50 hectares, not 50 acres.
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Aldro, North Yorkshire: The ‘major lunar standstill’ only happens every 18.6 years, and once upon a time it would have been an unavoidable event
There’s a place a short drive from home where I’m often drawn to watch the sunset. It’s been special for thousands of years – a high point on a pre-Roman trade route and a gateway to the chalklands of the Yorkshire wolds. The area is thick with prehistoric archaeology, including mounds, cursuses and earthworks.
Here at Aldro, the banks of a vast bronze age ditched enclosure would once have stood out white against both land and sky. It is a truly spectacular vantage point, with unobscured views west and north across the vales of York and Pickering to the dales and the moors. From here it is also possible to see almost all the setting stations of the sun as they track north in summer, south in winter, falling fully west only during the spring and autumn equinoxes.
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Conservationists and scientists in New Zealand were astonished to find the world’s rarest whale washed ashore in South Island in July. As only the seventh spade-toothed whale identified, and with none ever seen alive, this month saw the first dissection of a complete specimen
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Exclusive: UK’s biggest water company assessed risks before cutting back on cost of environmental work, investigation shows
Thames Water intentionally diverted millions of pounds pledged for environmental clean-ups towards other costs including bonuses and dividends, the Guardian can reveal.
The company, which serves more than 16 million customers, cut the funds after senior managers assessed the potential risks of such a move.
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With restrictions due next month, food vendors are still using such plastics and some traders have not heard of ban
Labake Ajiboye-Richard, the founder of a Lagos-based sustainability consultancy, was driving in Nigeria’s most populous city earlier this month when she saw someone throwing rubbish out of their car window.
“I was so shocked to see that in 2024,” she said. “If you’re throwing something on the road, what are you doing in your home? What are you doing in your community?”
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While some residents take to building houses in trees, officials recognise need for national response to climate disasters
Every summer, Dongting Hu, China’s second-largest freshwater lake, swells in size as flood water from the Yangtze River flows into its borders. Dams and dikes are erected around the lake’s edges to protect against flooding. But this year, not for the first time, they were overwhelmed.
For three days in early July, more than 800 rescue workers in Hunan province scrambled to block the breaches. One rupture alone took 100,000 cubic metres of rock to seal, according to Zhang Yingchun, a Hunan official. At least 7,000 people had to be evacuated. It was one of a series of disasters to hit China as the country grappled with a summer of extreme weather. By August, there had been 25 large floods, the biggest number since records began in 1998, reported state media.
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The death of Tanaru, the last member of an uncontacted group in the Amazon, raises questions about ethnic cleansing of Indigenous people, justice and the future of ancestral lands
For at least 26 years a man known as Tanaru lived alone in a small forest in the south-western Brazilian Amazon, moving around his territory, building several houses, planting crops and hunting. He also dug large, mysterious holes inside his homes.
When a team from the National Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai) came across him in 1996, he resisted contact, aiming an arrow at them through a gap in his palm shelter, a scene captured in the 2009 documentary Corumbiara. In 2007, Funai officials made another attempt at contact. Again Tanaru repelled it, leaving one man with a bad arrow wound.
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Our 20 favourite pieces of in-depth reporting, essays and profiles from the year
Nicholas Saunders was a counterculture pioneer with an endless stream of quixotic schemes and a yearning to spread knowledge – but his true legacy is a total remaking of the way Britain eats
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