Four-year study warns destabilised marine food webs could jeopardise food security by 2050

Warming seas around the UK and the wider north-east Atlantic could destabilise marine food webs, weaken ocean health and jeopardise food security by 2050, according to a four-year study.

Scientists who projected the impact of climate breakdown on four key groups of marine life crucial to maintaining ocean ecosystems in the region said their results challenged assumptions that in middle latitudes, such as the UK, marine biodiversity was likely to increase across the board.

Liverpool: Their summer flowers provide the name and the fame, but this species is arguably at its best now

Beech mast crunches underfoot, and the occasional conker catches the sunlight, tiny beacons leading me to Camp Hill, south Liverpool, with its distant views over the Mersey estuary. Goldfinches erupt from desiccated knapweed, and a flock of pink-footed geese fly overhead. For once, the birds are not my goal, but a tree: the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera).

Every autumn, the Camp Hill tulip tree flaunts its flamboyant presence: the Lady Gaga of the parkland. Named because its flowers resemble a tulip flower, and its leaves a tulip silhouette, few can resist its tulle lace canopy of butter-gold leaves. The luminescence is enhanced by the sheen of its leaf cuticles, and the fissured trunk adds yet more sensory impact. Yet this year there is a strangeness: instead of the golden monotone you would expect of this moment, there is a messy mix of different shades. Might the summer drought have disrupted the pigment battle between anthocyanins and carotenoids?

Events that deliver about half of global rainfall are getting shorter but more intense, with wide-ranging implications

The world's wettest rainstorms produce about half of the global annual rainfall. Now a study shows that these intense downpours have become shorter in duration and fewer in number, compressing the same amount of rain into quicker and more extreme events, with implications for flood and drought risk.

Chiyuan Miao and colleagues from Beijing Normal University in China analysed daily measurements between 1980 and 2022 from more than 19,000 rain gauges around the world. They found that an average of about half of the world's rainfall fell during about nine multi-day storms, delivered over a cumulative time of about 28 days.

We were promised a panacea for the climate crisis and a way to save our food system. So why is nobody firing up the chicken vats? I went to find out

On 5 August 2013, a man and a woman ate a burger. Not just any burger: a world-historic burger, made from cattle cells grown in a laboratory by Mark Post, a professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The burger had taken two years to produce and cost €250,000 (about £210,000 at the time), money furnished by the Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Now it was being tasted in public for the first time at Riverside Studios in London, at an event attended by 200 members of the press and livestreamed to thousands.

To make this particular burger, Post had extracted stem cells from the shoulder muscle of a living cow, then cultivated them in plastic containers filled with a nutrient-rich supplement called foetal bovine serum, which is derived from cow foetuses. The cells eventually became 20,000 strands of tissue, which in turn became a single 140g patty. Post believed that beef produced this way had the potential to dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and slow the climate crisis. Raising cattle for consumption requires massive amounts of land and water - and massive amounts of feed grown at a high environmental cost. He projected that global demand for meat would soon outstrip our ability to produce it the old-fashioned way, at which point our food systems would become unsustainable. But that didn't have to mean a mass recalibration of our consumption habits or a global shift away from red meat. Post and his team had found another way.

Ministers urged to go further than proposed cut to 110 decibels to ease acute stress on birds and others animals

Campaigners are calling on the government to protect the welfare of wild animals by cutting the maximum noise level of fireworks sold to the public from 120 to 90 decibels.

The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) has said lowering the limit to 90 decibels - which is about one-eighth of the loudness of 120 decibels - would help to protect millions of wild animals from acute stress by reducing the area over which a firework disturbs surrounding wildlife.

When the water in Flint, Michigan, became contaminated with dangerous levels of lead, Dr Siddhartha Roy, then a third year PhD student, was part of the team of scientists who publicly contradicted state and federal claims that it was safe. He became a local hero until a new piece of research challenged the idea that children in Flint had been left permanently brain damaged by the crisis. His adherence to the evidence, no matter who it offended, has earned him the 2026 Maddox prize, which recognises individuals who stand up for science and evidence, despite challenges or hostility. He tells Ian Sample how he reflects on his experience in Flint, and why he lost friends as a result of his work there

Researchers find the birds' guano feeds algal blooms that absorb significantly more solar energy

Penguin poo is making the Antarctic snow melt faster, a study shows. As temperatures rise, penguins are waddling closer to the south pole, with potential for this previously unrecognised phenomenon to affect a wider area.

Snow algae are tiny single-celled plants that make a home in some of the coldest places on Earth. When nutrients are scarce, the algae produces red pigments to protect itself from the sun and slow growth.

Frome, Somerset: Dippers and fritillaries and pink campion … there is a deep satisfaction in accumulating associations with a regular haunt

Enchantment surely fills the eyes of first-time visitors who come upon this little stone bridge over the stream. Do they marvel at the judgment of hands in building, wedding rock with rock, face against face? Do they arrive on a brighter morning than this, one on which sunbeams chase each other under the arch and cast sparkling reflections of water on the underside? Does their pulse quicken watching the brook breaking out of its tunnel and skittering over the pebbled bed, hastening through even in times of sluggish drought?

Me? I see a bird that isn't there.

Mink farms are the perfect petri dishes for deadly flu strains to emerge. Yet officials appear to be protecting business interests over human lives

Could this be ground zero? Could it be the spot where the next pandemic begins? It's certainly a candidate, not least because the chain of events that could trigger a plague far worse than Covid-19 looks like the opening sequence of a disaster movie. A really bad disaster movie, in which the levels of carelessness and turpitude defy belief.

A report by the investigative news service ProPublica reveals that bird flu has been raging in a mink farm in Utah since August, and it appears next to nothing has been done by public officials. In 2023, I warned in the Guardian that mink farms could scarcely be better designed to generate lethal plagues. This is for three reasons: mink are fed on the offcuts of chickens, cows and other farm animals, in which new viral variants often develop; mink readily host both avian and human flu viruses, which can then exchange genetic material, turning a bird disease into a human one; and mink possess extremely high "zoonotic potential" - the ability to infect animals of other species, including human beings.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing too

Hajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family's field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.

"It should be perfect for planting," she says. "If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year."

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors

This week, from 2023: A year ago, Germany's vice-chancellor was one of the country's best-liked public figures. Then came the tabloid-driven backlash. Now he has to win the argument all over again

By Philip Oltermann. Read by Sam Peter Jackson

Read the text version here

Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/longreadpod

British Veterinary Association president tells MPs surge in cases putting farmers under severe pressure and stress

The worst bluetongue season on record has been a major animal welfare crisis in Great Britain, MPs have been told, putting farmers under "severe emotional stress".

Bluetongue, a viral disease that affects sheep, cattle and goats, can cause fever, lesions, stillbirths and death. The tongue may go blue and protrude from the mouth.

With globe-spanning artists - including Charlotte Church doing angry electropop - the Flow project is hoping to make an impact at this month's Cop31

Amid tense and long-winded negotiations, and with the future of the planet at stake, emotions can often run high at Cop climate summits. But last year, when the annual conference arrived in Brazil, one UN official was unexpectedly moved to tears by five women singing about the power of water.

"She gave me a massive hug after the event and said, 'We need to bring music into Cop,'" says Nikita Llerena, the project manager for Flow, a music collective that's hoping to bring art to the centre of the climate movement. What started as a handful of musicians meeting over Zoom last year has grown into a full-length album that unites female artists from around the world, including Charlotte Church, Maxine Peake and Nadine Shah. This month, members of the collective will return for Cop31, in Turkey, where they have been promoted to a slot at Global Cultural Action's opening event.

Cop30 host sets out steps to break link with coal, oil and gas as it aims to move focus from negotiating to implementing

All countries can start to break their dependence on fossil fuels now without needing to wait for new technologies or economic changes, Brazil's government has said ahead of a global climate summit.

Brazil, the host of last year's UN climate conference, set out the world's first global "roadmap" for phasing out fossil fuels on Tuesday, showing that countries could boost their economies and pull people out of poverty while breaking the link with coal, oil and gas.

Exclusive: Garden Climate Assessment Tool will allow users to predict a plant's response to the projected climate in a given location

"In the 20th century, we could pretty much grow the same things with confidence, we could learn from previous generations," said Prof Sam Brockington, a curator at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

"But now we're moving into climate scenarios that we just don't have the traditions to understand fully."

For the first time since 1937, no open permits to hunt ruffed grouse in Ohio have been issued due to falling numbers

Every November, hundreds of hunters descend on four designated wilderness areas in southern Ohio in pursuit of the elusive ruffed grouse.

But not this year.

Scientist Adalberto Luis Val's pioneering research on the tambaqui fish is revealing the effect of climate disruption in Brazil, with global implications for biodiversity and food security

As a boy in rural São Paulo, Adalberto Luis Val used to stare into the lake where his father took him fishing and wonder how all those creatures swimming below stayed alive. One day, he netted a few, put them in a jar, and brought them home to observe. The next morning, they were all dead. Val was devastated but intrigued.

"I needed to know how fish are able to live," he says.

Guardian and Mongabay reveal approaches to officials and MPs on behalf of Vantara zoo ahead of UK-chaired Cites meeting on endangered animal imports

British government ministers were told not to engage formally with Vantara, the controversial mega-zoo run by the Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, after lobbying efforts by the private animal sanctuary in the run-up to a UK-chaired meeting on the trade in endangered species, according to documents.

This week, the UK heads a 32-country committee meeting in Geneva of Cites, the United Nations body that regulates trade in endangered species. The meeting will examine how India has responded to compliance concerns about imports of endangered animals.

The handover marks the end of a 13-year licence for Smart DCC, a subsidiary of Capita, after years of spiralling costs and delays

Control over Great Britain's 39m smart meters has passed to a non-profit startup after its former owner presided over more than a decade of spiralling costs and delays in the troubled network.

The company owned by crisis-hit outsourcing firm Capita has promised a "seamless transition" to its not-for-profit successor, which will take over running the data network connecting the smart meters from this week.

Hortobágy, Hungary: Their sheer size is striking enough, but the noise is something else, especially when they gather in huge migratory flocks

With a standing height of 1.4 metres, common cranes are Europe's tallest birds and at this famous national park they collect in astonishing numbers as they migrate.

The autumn count is 180,000, although the only accessible spot to see them supports a sub-roost of 50,000. Each bird has a wingspan of 2 metres and the flight is slow and rhythmically precise. The visual effect of any large airborne congregation is at the scale of a whole landscape and its skies above.

Patroclo and Achille's interspecies affair sheds new light on social and sexual relations between animals, scientists say

In ancient myth, Achilles and Patroclus were two Greek heroes of the Trojan war whose intense bond was believed by some to have turned into a sexual relationship.

In modern science, they are a bull, Achille, and a donkey, Patroclo, whose tender interspecies affair has helped to shed new light on social and sexual interactions between animals.

Timau's industry has provided local Kenyans with an economic lifeline. But now, many believe it has made them seriously ill

When Reuben Muriki fainted while doing a chore in the compound of his home near the horticultural town of Timau in central Kenya several years ago, it marked the start of a series of increasingly serious health episodes.

His joints became swollen, his skin became discoloured and he found breathing difficult. He was in and out of hospital, and was forced to quit his work as a pesticide sprayer at a flower farm. Doctors treated him for suspected tuberculosis in vain.

Kashmiri saffron is one of the world's most expensive spices. It's primarily cultivated in the Pampore region of Jammu and Kashmir in India. Often referred to as 'red gold' because of its high value, saffron is prized for its rich aroma, distinctive flavour and quality

Devon nature reserve says 'reckless' theft of narrow-headed ant colony sets back years of conservation work

A nest containing up to 5,000 of England's rarest ant species has been stolen from a nature reserve, a conservation charity has said.

Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) said a nest of narrow-headed ants had been dug up and taken from Chudleigh Knighton Heath nature reserve in south Devon, which is the last place in England where the species still exists.

Action taken to prevent bottom trawling in the marine protected area and conserve porpoise populations

Greenpeace activists have dropped boulders in the North Sea to snag the dragnets of industrial trawlers fishing in a marine protected area.

Activists onboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise dropped the giant stones to form an underwater barrier around the Southern North Sea marine protected area (MPA) - the UK's most bottom-trawled MPA.

At more than $52m, the race has become the most expensive in US history, but residents are fed up with flooding

Aida Havel mulled her fate over coffee after working the early voting polls all day in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. "We are trapped," she concluded.

The Dare county commission candidate lives about 50 miles (80km) south, on Hatteras Island on the state's Outer Banks.

Disruption to winds above Arctic threatens to alter weather patterns across parts of continent in coming weeks

The stratospheric polar vortex over the northern hemisphere is facing the prospect of an unusually early weakening. Forecast models suggest it could weaken significantly over the next 10 days, when it would typically be strengthening.

A major sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event is possible. This could influence weather patterns in the following weeks, increasing the likelihood of persistent areas of high pressure across the mid-latitudes and colder conditions weeks later.

From feeding schoolchildren to recycling tyres, these entrepreneurs are challenging stereotypes while solving social and environmental problems

Africa is thought to have a higher proportion of female entrepreneurs than any other continent and yet many still struggle to access financing. Four business leaders from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi tell us about the inspiration behind their success - and the challenges women still face.

UN-backed report finds even temporary rises above Paris agreement target could cause harm to glaciers and polar ice sheets

Earth's icy regions face such dangerous melting that global heating should be brought back below 1C after an inevitable period of overshooting global temperature targets, a UN report has found.

Permanent and widespread losses of snow and ice expose a "persistent myth" that overshooting the 1.5C target of the Paris climate agreement - to 2C or 3C - could be manageable or even preferable to urgent cuts to emissions, the report found.

Inkpen and Combe, Berkshire: If the price goes down, the village WhatsApp group lights up

Beyond the reach of the gas mains, there is tension about the coming winter. Many rural homes have an open fire or wood burner, but most rely on kerosene oil for hot water and heating. Since the US-Iran war began, its cost has more than doubled. Currently, 1,000 litres (lasting 10-12 weeks) is £1,219. A year ago, it was £549. Seasoned wood is in demand.

We watch the oil price rise, with none of the consumer protections afforded to gas customers. If the price per litre drops, as during the June ceasefire, the village WhatsApp group lights up.

Google's AI summary is punching a huge hole in their own profits - is this good?

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A Guardian investigation has found that despite a recommendation to slow down, leading shipping companies continue to travel above advised speeds in a key habitat for cetaceans

Marine biologist Alice Barbarioli waits with her camera trained on the horizon. A few minutes earlier, the hydrophone beneath the Pelagos research vessel detected codas - the sequence of clicks sperm whales use to communicate.

The sperm whale reveals its head and dorsal fin as those onboard the vessel in the Pelagos sanctuary, a conservation area established to protect marine mammals in the north-western Mediterranean, rush to take photos and note the rhythm of its breathing. After a few minutes, the animal arches its back, and begins to head back into the depths of the sea. They wait to catch a glimpse of its tail.

Natural Resources Wales says short-necked oil beetle has been found in country for first time in nearly 60 years

A rare beetle has been rediscovered in Wales after nearly 60 years, conservationists have said.

The short-necked oil beetle, driven to the brink of extinction in Britain due to habitat loss over the course of the 20th century, has been found at the Castlemartin range in Pembrokeshire, according to Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

Allerton Project attracts abundant wildlife and its success can offers clues to reversing the sharp drop in populations

Farmer Alastair Leake is standing in a field of sprouting winter wheat, pointing at his experiment. One side was ploughed before planting, with green shoots breaking through neat rows of upturned soil. On the other, the crop was drilled directly into the earth, emerging through a messy carpet of "trash" - stems, stubble and crop residue from previous harvests.

"When we're watching to see where the birds are landing to feed, none of them are going on to the ploughed side," says Leake, the director of the Allerton Project farm, standing on the trashy side. "They're all coming and feeding down here.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylviania, a post-industrial site gets a second life

A temporary injunction in the coastline battle for beaches to be publicly accessible, not sealed off for private developments, is just a step in fighting what islanders call a tourism model that disadvantages Jamaicans

When the Australian human rights lawyer Eva Buzo emerged from the sea on to the shores of One Man Beach in Montego Bay on Sunday after her gruelling, nearly 11-hour-long swim, the thunderous pulse of welcome drums was drowned out by the chants of "free beach" from jubilant supporters.

Here in Jamaica's tourism capital, against a backdrop of jagged mountains and sunset-tinted clouds, Buzo - a celebrated marathon swimmer - said she was pleased to help support the important work of the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (Jabbem) and others fighting for free public access to Jamaica's beaches.

Cop17, focused on protecting nature and restoring ecosystems, concludes on Saturday with critics saying system allows 'one idiot' to stall progress

Calls are growing for major reforms to UN biodiversity summits as countries fail to deliver on their promises to halt the destruction of the natural world, with governments likely on track to continue their record of never having met a target in the 34-year history of the convention.

Two weeks of negotiations at biodiversity Cop17 in Yerevan, Armenia, concluded on Saturday morning with countries vowing to redouble their efforts to meeting this decade's targets, which include commitments to protect 30% of the planet for nature, restore nearly a third of Earth's degraded ecosystems and reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies.

More than 100,000 species are traded globally, whether illegally smuggled, sold as ornaments or in fisheries, timber and fashion industries, study finds

The number of plant and animal species in use or sold in the wildlife trade is more than twice as high as previously thought, researchers have discovered.

A study, published in Science Advances, warns that there are huge gaps in global assessments of how wildlife is traded, and that past estimates have failed to keep up with changes such as the boom in the online exotic pet trade, where sellers offering to post spider eggs across the world or sneak reptiles on to planes are just a click away.

Andrea Egan calls for same political focus on teachers, care sector and NHS and says Jackdaw decision 'a serious misstep'

The leader of the UK's biggest trade union has called for the same political focus to be given to NHS, education and care sector workers as there has been on those employed in North Sea oil and gas.

Andrea Egan, the general secretary of Unison, said too often public sector workers were treated as an "afterthought" by the government compared with the "massive political focus" on protecting jobs in the North Sea.

Voters are feeling the pinch of Trump's anti-climate agenda as energy costs rise, but a shake-up in Congress could shift things

If the polls can be believed, the US could see a blue wave in the midterms, giving Democrats a chance to take back the House and Senate, and gaining up to four governor's seats.

These wins could give Democrats new power to resist Donald Trump's anti-climate agenda, and to push forward climate policies at the state level. But if Republicans maintain power, it could further embolden Trump's "drill, baby, drill" agenda and leave intact his administration's latitude to continue dismantling regulatory measures his critics say protect public health and the planet.

Slimbridge, Gloucestershire: A chance meeting led me and my partner into an afternoon of discovery and generosity that is nothing like a certain YouTube documentary on birding

"What did you just see?" a bearded man asked, through the open window of his old Mini Cooper.

"Just some crows in that tree."

Dolly Parton, tulips and outback life all feature in the best images captured across the country in October

• Apartments, community centres and a pink outdoor toilet: Australia's 2026 National Architecture award winners - in pictures

Keen to join in the revelry but don't have a costume? You can still fashion a get-up without buying - or wasting - anything

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The thrill of an event like Halloween doesn't come from a brand new costume or "two pillowcases' worth of sweets", says play specialist Cat Sewell.

The fun comes from carving out the time to play, making ridiculous outfits, and the terror and delight of haunting the neighbourhood, says the artistic director and co-CEO of Polyglot Theatre, a company that creates participatory, immersive, child-led theatre.

Congress must act to ensure that families are able to heat their homes before the start of the season

Heating oil may be the clearest warning yet of how the war in Iran is deepening the US's energy affordability crisis. Families who heat their homes with oil are facing bills that could be 50% higher this winter, adding nearly $900 to the cost of keeping their homes warm. These families were already struggling before the war began.

As the Guardian recently reported, research by my organization found that electricity shutoffs in 10 states had increased 28% over the past two years. Millions of Americans were already falling behind on their utility bills, forced to choose between paying for energy, food, medicine and rent. Now they face another round of increases in gasoline, electricity and home heating costs.

Ex-energy secretary Ed Miliband's agenda appears undermined as money is diverted from renewables to defence

Britain is unlikely to hit its targets on green heating after the cuts announced by John Healey this week, experts have warned, as critics of Ed Miliband claim the former energy secretary's green agenda is being dismantled.

The chancellor unveiled more than £3bn worth of cuts to the energy department's budget this week, much of which will pay for higher defence spending.

Turkey has been hit by powerful thunderstorms and a fatal tornado this week with more heavy rain expected

Heavy rain and strong winds will continue to affect parts of south-eastern Europe and Turkey over the next few days, as an area of low pressure in the region has allowed for the formation of powerful thunderstorms. During a particularly intense thunderstorm in Antalya, a coastal city in the south-west of Turkey, the formation of a tornado resulted in the deaths of four construction workers on Tuesday. Authorities in Greece and Turkey have released severe rainfall and flooding warnings, as a further 100-150mm (nearly 4-6in) of rain is expected this week in central Greece and western parts of Turkey, with locally higher totals possible.

Travelling eastwards towards south Asia, strong winds and heavy rainfall have swept across the Indian regions of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh as Cyclone Arnab made landfall. With wind gusts in excess of 85mph (140km/h) and rainfall totals in some regions exceeding 200mm, the severe storm has prompted mass evacuations of more than 180,000 people, as well as widespread disruption to energy and transport infrastructure. The cyclone will weaken as it continues to traverse northwards over the coming days, though will continue to deliver heavy rain to parts of northern and central India as it does so.

After UK's hottest summer on record, Ardingly near Haywards Heath is just 19% full - and next-closest reservoir is unusable due to broken treatment works

"You can see the water level at Ardingly going down and down. I don't remember ever seeing it this low," says Caroline Allan, a lifetime resident of Haywards Heath, the nearest town to one of England's most depleted reservoirs.

The Ardingly reservoir, managed by South East Water and serving about 95,000 properties in and around Haywards Heath and Uckfield in Sussex, is currently 19% full.

This week's best wildlife photographs from around the world

Scientists call for incentives to preserve vegetation as study highlights benefits of plentiful planting in London

Your front garden could be a first line of defence against air pollution, according to a year-long field study in two London neighbourhoods.

The UK's 26m gardens cover nearly 5% of the country's land area, but they account for a much larger share in urban areas. In Greater London, domestic gardens cover 41% of the city, compared with 27% of Cardiff and 23% of Edinburgh.

In this week's newsletter: There are too many meetings, and not enough decisions, say experts - and time is running out

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When things are not going well at an environmental summit, organisers often tell delegates that the "world is watching" in an attempt to focus minds. But spend any time at biodiversity Cop17 in Armenia and it is clear that the world's attention is elsewhere.

The negotiating halls of Yerevan's Meridian centre are subdued. Environment ministers have arrived from all corners of the world to plan their response to being so far behind the biodiversity targets they agreed four years ago. Right now, they appear on track to miss nearly all of them. They risk continuing the miserable record of never having met a biodiversity target they have set for themselves.

The climate crisis will destroy our economies - we learned this 20 years ago. When will we act?

Heat killed 'staggering' 50,000 people in Europe's cities this summer, scientists warn

Angry Labour MPs urge leadership not to overrule energy secretary on Rosebank