The deregulation agenda being pushed by Germany's chancellor and Italy's prime minister is economically and ethically flawed

When the European Union launched its green deal in 2019, putting into law the goal of climate neutrality by the middle of the century, it showed strategic foresight as well as global leadership. Russia's war in Ukraine has starkly underlined the extent to which the continent's energy security - and its future prosperity - is dependent on the transition away from fossil fuels. Lately, however, EU leaders' environmental approach appears to be echoing the youthful St Augustine's plea on chastity: make us greener, but not yet.

The recent European Industry Summit in Antwerp made unusually big headlines thanks to Sir Jim Ratcliffe's xenophobic outburst over immigration. But it was also notable for fierce attacks on one of the most important pillars of EU environmental policy. The bloc's emissions trading system (ETS) - which makes polluters pay for the C02 they emit - has achieved dramatic results in driving down overall emissions since 2005 and encouraging green innovation. Worryingly, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, appeared to sympathise with demands from Sir Jim and other CEOs for a radical relaxation of the rules.

Faaborgs rail against oppressive industrial agricultural system with unexpected evolution into indie artisan food firm

As a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, Tanner Faaborg is all too aware that agricultural traditions are hard to shake. So when he set in motion plans to change his family's farm from a livestock operation housing more than 8,000 pigs each year to one that grows lion's mane and oyster mushrooms, he knew some of his peers might laugh at him. He just did not necessarily expect his brother to be chief among them.

"My older brother has worked with pigs his entire adult life, managing about 70,000 of them across five counties," Faaborg says. "But we got to a point where he went from laughing at me to saying: well, I guess maybe I'll quit my job and help you out."

A bill banning the sale and use of plastic and metallic glitter has yet to go through in Brazil as the capital's sandy shores bear cost of carnival's shine

Whether it is embellishing elaborate costumes, delicately applied as eye makeup, or smeared across bare skin, glitter is everywhere at Rio de Janeiro's carnival in Brazil. The world's largest party, which ended on Wednesday, leaves a trail of sparkles in its wake.

At one bloco last weekend, a huge sound truck and dancers in leopard print led thousands of revellers down the promenade at Flamengo beach. Among them was Bruno Fernandes, who had jazzed up an otherwise minimalist outfit of navy swimming briefs by smearing silver glitter over his body.

Staff are using stoves and generators to keep lions, camels and Ukraine's lone gorilla safe from winter and war

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Kyiv zoo's most famous resident lays on his back watching television. On screen: a nature documentary.

For a quarter of a century, Toni has been the zoo's star attraction, drawing tens of thousands of visitors. He is Ukraine's only gorilla. At 52 - old by western gorilla standards - he needs warm conditions similar to the lowlands of central Africa.

Plastic production has doubled over the last 20 years - and will likely double again. For author Beth Gardiner, metal water bottles and canvas tote bags are not the solution. So what is?

Like many of us who are mindful of our plastic consumption, Beth Gardiner would take her own bags to the supermarket and be annoyed whenever she forgot to do so. Out without her refillable bottle, she would avoid buying bottled water. "Here I am, in my own little life, worrying about that and trying to use less plastic," she says. Then she read an article in this newspaper, just over eight years ago, and discovered that fossil fuel companies had ploughed more than $180bn (£130bn) into plastic plants in the US since 2010. "It was a kick in the teeth," says Gardiner. "You're telling me that while I am beating myself up because I forgot to bring my water bottle, all these huge oil companies are pouring billions …" She looks appalled. "It was just such a shock."

Two months before that piece was published, a photograph of a seahorse clinging to a plastic cotton bud had gone viral; two years before that England followed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and introduced a charge for carrier bags. "I was one of so many people who were trying to use less plastic - and it just felt like such a moment of revelation: these companies are, on the contrary, increasing production and wanting to push [plastic use] up and up." Then, says Gardiner, as she started researching her book Plastic Inc: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future, "it only becomes more shocking."

Report says common agricultural policy provides 'unfair' levels of support to unhealthy, meat-heavy diets

Beef and lamb receive 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, a report has found, despite scientists urging people to get more of their protein from less harmful sources.

Analysis by the charity Foodrise found the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP) provides "unfair" levels of support to meat-heavy diets that doctors consider unhealthy and climate scientists consider environmentally destructive.

While most hybrids are said to use one to two litres of fuel per 100km, a study claims they need six litres on average

Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about a million vehicles of this type has shown.

The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, using the data transmitted wirelessly by PHEVs from a variety of manufacturers while they were on the road.

Extinction Rebellion says some members have been visited by agents claiming to be FBI amid Trump's threats toward liberal groups

Environmental group Extinction Rebellion said on Wednesday it was under federal US investigation and that some of its members had been visited by FBI agents, including from the agency's taskforce on extremism, in the last year.

Asked for comment, the FBI said it could neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations, citing justice department policy.

22 February 2001: How the Guardian first covered the national crisis that unfolded as a result of the virus that spreads like wildfire

An outbreak of the highly infectious animal transmitted foot-and-mouth disease in the UK was one of the worst in the world. Roughly 6 million cattle, sheep, and pigs were culled, and mass funeral pyres became a striking image of the British countryside. Rural communities were shut off, tourism devastated, and movement across the countryside severely restricted. The crisis was so serious that the 2001 UK general election had to be postponed.

Forth River, Ligoniel, north Belfast: A riverfly monitoring survey involves rapt focus on these tiny creatures, whose presence is an indicator of water health

I wish I'd worn kneepads. But then I hadn't imagined that a riverfly monitoring survey would require this much genuflection. Like the followers of an undine creed, we kneel on the riverbank, bent over the Forth's secrets. What is her message? How do we understand it?

With me are Patricia Deeney and Geoff Newell, conservation officers from Belfast Hills Partnership (BHP), an environmental charity, and we're in a wooded glen below Wolf Hill, close to the former mill village of Ligoniel. Like many community groups and angling clubs, BHP uses the riverfly survey (a citizen science protocol) to monitor local rivers.

Wet fields drive away rodents, leaving barn owls without much prey, but gulls of all kinds are attracted by the water

The Somerset Levels flood regularly - but this year, after very heavy winter rains, the fields and moors are overflowing with water. So what effect does this have on wintering birds?

Like most extreme weather events, there are winners and losers. Huge flocks of gulls are gathering in the flooded fields to feed, with scarcer Mediterranean and little gulls joining the regular black-headed, herring and common varieties. These have attracted a white-tailed eagle from the Isle of Wight reintroduction project, although it does not appear to have caught any victims yet.

Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand

A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand's capital, Wellington, as the city's toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

By repealing the EPA's determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health, the president is denying reality itself

The climate crisis is killing people. These deaths are measurable, documented and ongoing. Concluding otherwise is just playing pretend. Studies explain the mechanics, but lived experience supplies the truth. The people who suffer the consequences see the fire rising and water closing in. They need their government's help.

Despite that, the president of the United States stood at a microphone last Thursday and abdicated his duty to them. "It has nothing to do with public health," he claimed about the climate crisis while announcing that the federal government would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding", a determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. "This is all a scam, a giant scam."

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Government takes its first serious steps to crack down on dangerous driving but progress is slow

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The first time Lucian Mîndruță crashed his car, he swerved to avoid a village dog and hit another vehicle. The second time, he missed a right-of-way sign and was struck by a car at a junction. The third time, ice sent him skidding off the road and into two trees. Crashes four to eight, he said, were bumper-scratches in traffic too minor to mention.

That Mîndruță escaped those collisions with his life - and without having taken anyone else's - is not a given in Romania. Home to the deadliest roads in the EU, its poor infrastructure, weak law enforcement and aggressive driving culture led to 78 people per million dying in traffic in 2024. Almost half of the 1,500 annual fatalities are vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.

Lawsuit from health and environmental justice groups challenges the EPA's rollback of the 'endangerment finding'

More than a dozen health and environmental justice non-profits have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its revocation of the legal determination that underpins US federal climate regulations.

Filed in Washington DC circuit court, the lawsuit challenges the EPA's rollback of the "endangerment finding", which states that the buildup of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare and has allowed the EPA to limit those emissions from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources since 2009. The rollback was widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

With Trump blocking Venezuelan oil imports and old power plants breaking down, the island - with Chinese help - is turning to solar and wind to bolster its fragile energy system

Intense heat hangs over the sugarcane fields near Cuba's eastern coast. In the village of Herradura, a blond-maned horse rests under a palm tree after spending all Saturday in the fields with its owner, Roberto, who cultivates maize and beans.

Roberto was among those worst affected by Hurricane Melissa, which hit eastern Cuba - the country's poorest region - late last year. The storm affected 3.5 million people, damaging or destroying 90,000 homes and 100,000 hectares of crops.

Exclusive: Pensthorpe was believed to be home to just one individual but pair have been filmed grooming each other

No one knows where they came from or how they ended up in Norfolk. But one thing is certain: now, there are two of them.

Until last week, experts believed there was only one wild beaver living in Pensthorpe nature reserve, about 20 miles outside of Norwich. But just in time for Valentine's Day, two were caught on camera going for a late-night swim together and grooming each other by the riverbank.

Five countries responsible for 75% of world's coffee supply record average of 57 extra days of coffee-harming heat a year

In Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, more than 4m households rely on coffee as their primary source of income. It contributes almost a third of the country's export earnings, but for how much longer is uncertain.

"Coffee farmers in Ethiopia are already seeing the impact of extreme heat," said Dejene Dadi, the general manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (OCFCU), a smallholder cooperative.

Less than a decade ago, the Balkan country had just one breeding pair of the eastern imperial species of raptor left. Now things are changing, thanks to the dogged work of conservationists

At the start of every spring, before the trees in northern Serbia begin to leaf out, ornithologists drive across the plains of Vojvodina. They check old nesting sites of eastern imperial eagles, scan solitary trees along field margins, and search for signs of new nests.

For years, the work of the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia (BPSSS) has been getting more demanding - and more rewarding. In 2017, Serbia was down to a single breeding pair. Last year, BPSSS recorded 19 breeding pairs, 10 of which successfully raised young.

Figures from Aviva also show number of homes being built in risky areas is rising

One in nine new homes in England built between 2022 and 2024 were constructed in areas that could now be at risk of flooding, according to new data.

The figures show the number of homes being built in risky areas is on the rise - a previous analysis showed that between 2013 and 2022, one in 13 new homes were in potential flooding zones.

Hitchin, Hertfordshire: It's not quick, it's not graceful, but these early nesters are hard at work in preparation for egg-laying in a few weeks

Is it too early to whisper the S word? If so, I blame the magpies. Every day for the past two weeks, while enjoying my morning cuppa in bed, I've been watching a pair nest-building in a Norway maple across the road. But though the arrival of spring advances each year at a faster pace than any other season, the magpies' calendar is not out of kilter. Like their corvid cousins the rooks and ravens, they usually start nesting in winter, occasionally as early as December.

Now, a fortnight in, they're shoring up the bowl-shaped platform in a fork between three upper branches. The movement of their swinging tails as they manoeuvre twigs into place looks graceful, even balletic.

In 1999, Heather Preen contracted E coli on the beach. Two weeks later she died. Now, as a new Channel 4 show dramatises the scandal, her mother, Julie Maughan, explains why she is still looking for someone to take responsibility

When Julie Maughan was invited to help with a factual drama that would focus on the illegal dumping of raw sewage by water companies, she had to think hard. In some ways, it felt 25 years too late. In 1999, Maughan's eight-year-old daughter, Heather Preen, had contracted the pathogen E coli O157 on a Devon beach and died within a fortnight. Maughan's marriage hadn't survived the grief - she separated from Heather's father, Mark Preen, a builder, who later took his own life. "I've always said it was like a bomb had gone off under our family," says Maughan. "This little girl, just playing, doing her nutty stuff on an English beach. And that was the price." Yet there had been no outrage, few questions raised and no clear answers. "Why weren't people looking into this? It felt as if Heather didn't matter. Over time, it felt as if she'd been forgotten." All these years later, Maughan wasn't sure if she could revisit it. "I didn't know if I could go back into that world," she says. "But I'm glad I have."

The result, Dirty Business, a three-part Channel 4 factual drama, is aiming to spark the same anger over pollution that ITV's Mr Bates Vs the Post Office did for the Horizon scandal. Jumping between timelines, using actors as well as "real people" and with actual footage of scummy rivers and beaches dotted with toilet paper, sanitary towels and dead fish, it shows how raw sewage dumps have become standard policy for England's water companies. Jason Watkins and David Thewlis play "sewage sleuths" Peter Hammond and Ash Smith, Cotswolds neighbours who, over time, watched their local river turn from clear and teeming with nature to dense grey and devoid of life. Hammond is a retired professor of computational biology, Smith a retired detective, and together, they used hidden cameras, freedom of information requests and AI models to uncover sewage dumps on an industrial scale.

Users of Birdex get points for each bird they see and can compete with friends, with 200,000 sightings logged so far

A new app has launched that aims to gamify birdwatching by allowing people to collect digital cards of UK bird species whenever they record seeing one.

Users of Birdex accumulate points for each bird they see, with less common and rare species yielding the greatest rewards. It is possible to add friends and compete over bird sightings. The app has got birdwatchers talking online - though it has raised hackles among some for its use of AI-generated artwork.

From high-end boutiques to housing in disaster zones with beer-crate foundations, the Japanese architect creates with things people throw away. What will his distillery in whisky's holy land look like?

'I don't like waste," says Shigeru Ban. It's a simple statement - yet it encapsulates everything about the Japanese architect's work. He takes materials others might overlook or discard - from cardboard tubes to beer crates, styrofoam to shipping containers - and subjects them to a kind of alchemy, refining rough edges and transforming fragility into sturdiness.

The outcome is a perpetually ingenious and curiously poetic scavenger architecture that finds beauty and purpose in the everyday. From high-end boutiques to housing for refugees, Ban's buildings blur the lines between eastern and western design traditions, between the luxurious and the ordinary, and between what constitutes a temporary building and permanent one.

Aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across country with flooding under way or expected on Garonne, Maine and Loire rivers

France has issued red alerts for flooding in three départements as the aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across the country.

Flood waters have inundated homes and isolated villages after the Garonne River burst its banks, with hydrologists warning that rain is falling on soils that have hit record-breaking levels of saturation.

Huge project by Norwegian-owned Scottish Sea Farms gets go-ahead amid concerns over the environmental cost of fish farming and threat to traditional way of life

At Collafirth, north Shetland, Sydney Johnson is unloading bags of two-dozen scallops by throwing them over his head like medicine balls to the pier above. Johnson, who has just finished a 10-hour shift on his boat, the Golden Shore, is concerned that plans for a new salmon farm will put fishers like him and his two sons out of business.

"They say it's just one farm," says Johnson. "But it's one farm more. There's only so much water and we're at saturation point."

Industry using 'diversionary' tactics, says analyst, as energy-hungry complex functions such as video generation and deep research proliferate

Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.

Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector's explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found.

Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is 'not rocket science'

Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather "is not rocket science", a top researcher has said, as the EU's climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating.

Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already "paying a price" for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part "common sense and low-hanging fruit".

President says it is inappropriate for UK to be dealing with Gavin Newsom after Ed Miliband meets governor in London

Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California's governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate.

"The UK's got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum," Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. "Gavin is a loser. Everything he's touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster."

Buxton, Derbyshire: From those who planted them, to those who pruned them, to the pollinators and the mosses, it's a long, collective endeavour

As I prune one of our pears - a black Worcester, incidentally, a British variety from the 13th century - I ponder the linguistic connections that arise from our garden "acre" in a place called "Hogshaw". The first word derives from Old English æcer, meaning an "acorn". It was linked to wildwood, where the people would fatten their swine on wild pears, apples and oak mast. An acre of pig woodland (or hog shaw) was probably the land required to feed one beast for the winter. I wonder, therefore, how many pigs were put to pannage in our original Hogshaw for it to have acquired its name permanently?

Another thought arising as I clip away the three Ds - dead, diseased or damaged wood - is how much orchards are founded on connection and sharing. I'm not just thinking of the veilwort (a liverwort) on many branches, nor the bristle moss that gives colour and body to every lovely limb, but also the fact that we relied on previous owners to plant trees and their successors to prune them. We also depend totally for our fabulous pear harvest on pollinators, which I've mainly found here to be solitary bees. To date, we've recorded 19 bee species.

The Congo River basin is one of the planet's most biodiverse ecosystems. But it is also home to a growing population and relentless trade in timber and charcoal

"You can't be scared of the storms," says Jean de Dieu Mokuma as the sun sets on the Congo River behind him. "With the current, once your voyage has begun, there is no turning back." Mokuma, along with his wife Marie-Therese and their two young children, is piloting a cargo of timber downstream lashed on to a precarious raft and tied to a canoe.

Families wake up at dawn on rafts of logs and merchandise that are being transported down the Congo River by boat to Kinshasa, the DRC capital

JD Vance is seeking to create a 'trading bloc' as shortages and climate crises mean a kaleidoscope of rare earths are increasingly jealously guarded

The announcement by the US vice-president, JD Vance, that the country is seeking to create a new critical minerals "trading bloc" is a final, exotic, nail in the coffin of the old global trading system. The era of mass abundance, as supplied by unfettered free trade and global markets - "neoliberalism" - is over. We live in a new world of strategic competition between states over scarce but essential resources, with shocks to supplies from human activity and natural disasters an ever-present risk.

This means recalibrating how we think about our economy: the new economic fundamentals today are resource constraints and climate and nature crises, and these, rather than human activity, will increasingly shape the world we inhabit. Flows of finance and stocks of wealth will matter less than stocks and flows of real material resources.

Low pressure system funnels rain over already saturated areas, compounding risk of further flooding

A deep area of low pressure to the south-east of New Zealand's North Island swept into the region on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, gale-force winds and dangerous coastal swells that lashed exposed shorelines. The storm triggered power outages, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure, with further impacts likely on Monday as the system lingers for a time, before tracking southwards later.

Its arrival came after days of widespread flooding in the Ōtorohanga district, where a man was found dead after his vehicle became submerged in flood waters. Some areas recorded more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours on Thursday, with Gisborne, Hawke's Bay and the Bay of Plenty bearing the brunt of the deluge. The Tararua district and Wairarapa have also been experiencing heavy rain and strong winds from the storm, with 24-hour rainfall totals reaching more than 100mm locally, and wind speeds of about 80mph (130km/h) along coastal parts.

Analysis reveals big regional disparities as critics say Labour's proposed levy could slow uptake of EVs

Drivers in the south-west of England would pay nearly four times as much as those in London as a result of Labour's mileage-based tax on electric cars, according to analysis of official data.

The 3p-a-mile road charge, announced in the autumn budget and due to take effect in 2028, is expected to raise £1.1bn a year, partly offsetting the loss of fuel duty revenues as drivers switch from petrol to electric vehicles.

Frome, Somerset: As the large raptor squirms and uses its wings to try to balance on a precarious perch, I find my own arms lifting in solidarity

Six, seven, eight, nine long‑tailed tits are on a foraging flit through hawthorn bushes, and the straggler drops obligingly on to a berry‑stacked twig before my eyes. Its tail works like the hand of a clock as the clinging bird jiggle‑jumps through a full 360-degree rotation, beak pecking for who knows what. The twig is unmoved by such exertions, for the bird weighs the equivalent of seven paperclips. What must it be like to inhabit the insubstantial ghost‑world of a long‑tailed tit, where you can leap and land all you like with no discernible impact?

Ahead and above, a bird 100 times its weight is weightless in the sky. The soaring buzzard masters gravity with its "fingertips" - the deeply separated primary feather tips on the wings. I cannot see the little flicks and tilts that enable it to descend in controlled steps; drop and hold, drop and hold.

The charger firm claimed the site operated 24 hours a day, but the parking operator had different ideas

I charged my electric car at the 24-hour Mer EV charging station in my local B&Q car park.

I then received a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from the car park operator, Ocean Parking. It said no parking is allowed on the site between 9pm and 6am.

The president's destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year - at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump's assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a "hoax" framed this primarily as about deregulation - perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.

Project in Ceredigion aims to help country catch up with large-scale nature recovery projects elsewhere in UK

A Welsh charity has bought more than 405 hectares (1,000 acres) in Ceredigion to establish Cymru's "flagship" rewilding project, helping the country catch up with large-scale nature recovery projects under way elsewhere in the UK.

Tir Natur (Nature's Land), founded in 2022, announced it had acquired the site at Cwm Doethie in Elenydd, or the Cambrian mountains, after a fundraising drive launched last year raised 50% of the £2.2m purchase price. A philanthropic bridging loan enabled the sale.

Wetter winters are set to become the norm, so unless we're farmers or flood victims, we need some coping strategies to keep our spirits up

There's a lot of complaining about the weather currently and I get it, it's wet. Here in York the river is getting above itself yet again and the council has fenced off large puddles in the park for health and safety reasons, to widespread mockery. Things currently taking in water include the letterbox (yesterday the postman told me with a manic laugh that he was leaving for the Philippines), the hens, my shoes and our car, which is growing moss around the windows. On the inside.

But does it merit all the moaning? I don't mean farmers, for whom it's a catastrophe, flood victims or the poor folk of Cardinham, North Wyke and Astwood Bank, who endured a biblical 40 days straight of rain. They're entitled to rend their garments and corral their pets into boats, two by two. But maybe the rest of us, just dealing with it being "quite wet", could get a grip. When life gives you rain, make rain-ade (do not drink rain; it's full of forever chemicals)! After all - OK, not the cheeriest thought - this could be as good as it gets in future, given accelerating climate breakdown. At the very least, these wet patches will probably happen more often, so we need coping strategies. Here are mine.

Some districts are adding programs in clean energy and sustainability, while one state is infusing environmental lessons into culinary education and construction

On one end of the classroom, high school juniors examined little green sprouts - future baby carrots, sprigs of romaine lettuce - poking out of the soil of a drip irrigation system they built a few weeks prior.

On the opposite end of the room, a model of a hydropower plant showed students how the movement of water can stimulate electrical currents. In this class in South Carolina's Greenville county school district, students primarily learn about one topic: renewable energy.

The fight for Hope Moor is set to be repeated across the UK as the government aims to hit its renewable energy targets

Instead of a slingshot, the Davids are brandishing a sculpture and a coffee table book. Their Goliaths are a Norwegian energy company and a UK energy secretary with renewable targets to meet.

A fierce battle has begun over one of England's tallest windfarms, proposed for deep peat moorland overlooking the Yorkshire Dales national park, in what residents say will mark the irrevocable industrialisation of their rural landscape.

Wild gardening is about shedding obsessions with tidiness, embracing a looser aesthetic and providing a home for 'the most important creatures on the planet'

On a wintry January day in Manchester, I crossed University Green, navigating a paved path behind our hotel through lush patches of lawn. It was the start of the inaugural "Wilding Gardens" conference. For two days, scientists and practitioners were gathering to discuss new ways to think about gardens and nature, about what nature needs to thrive, and the untapped potential of gardens - if we step back and allow ecological processes to unfold - to help counter climate change and biodiversity loss.

Clumps of snowdrop flowers poked through the unmown grass and a grey squirrel streaked across it, from one bare-branched tree to another. Probably common alders, going by the University of Manchester Tree Trail. The world's first industrial city seemed an apt venue for a talkfest on the urgency of rewilding suburban gardens to help save the planet from precisely what drew Marx and Engels there to study, 180 years ago: the impacts of industrialisation.

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Tackling the tension between promoting conservation, keeping animals in captivity and its heavy history, the zoo has been reshaped around environmental awareness

On the other side of wire mesh, two large lions pace, shaking their shaggy manes and occasionally letting out a low rumbling, not quite a roar. They think - or perhaps hope - it is feeding day but their keepers have other plans.

"We sort of mimic what happens in the wild," Meryl says. "They got fed on Monday." It's Wednesday, so Meryl is walking around the temporarily empty enclosure with a bucket and a shovel, looking for the outcome of that feed: lion poo.

Vanessa Napaltjari Davis puts $70 per week on her prepaid electricity card - but as Alice Springs swelters through ever-hotter summers, that credit lasts less than three days

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Since the start of summer, Vanessa Napaltjari Davis and her grandchildren have sweltered in their two-bedroom home. Temperatures in the southern half of the Northern Territory have been well above average, and the electricity running their single air-conditioner has been regularly disconnected.

"We almost had 40 days over 40," she says. "I was struggling to keep on top of the power bill and keep my little grannies [grandchildren] cool."

Senators said repeal was 'particularly troubling' and was counter to EPA's mandate to protect human health

More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.

In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.

Exclusive: High levels of banned 'forever chemical' have been detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites

A string of toxic pollution hotspots has been uncovered across Cumbria and Lancashire, with high levels of the banned cancer-causing "forever chemical" Pfos detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites.

The contamination, spread across a large area, was uncovered by Watershed Investigations and the Guardian after a freedom of information request revealed high concentrations of Pfos in Environment Agency samples taken in January 2025.

Cardiff: It steals light, it discourages growth at its base, and it blocks what was once a panoramic view. How do I make peace with it?

It goes against the grain for me to hate a plant, but I've been resenting a certain Leyland cypress for a long time. Planted by a neighbour in the 1970s to give the house we overlook privacy, it now blocks part of our panoramic view over Cardiff. When we moved in 12 years ago, I was able to lie down in bed and see only sky. In that time the solitary tree has grown four metres and now looms over my sleep. Crows, robins, pigeons and green woodpeckers use it as a lookout over the city. Magpies have attempted (unsuccessfully) to build a nest in it. Polite requests to the owner have been ignored.

Hesperotropsis leylandii is an accidental hybrid of Cupressus macrocarpa and Callitropsis nootkatensis. First noticed in 1888 in Leighton Hall near Welshpool, it was exploited commercially as a cheap, fast-growing screen. Leylandii hedges are light-stealers, tolerant of pollution and notorious for discouraging growth around their base. They often generate disputes between neighbours (including one murder). One person was convicted of criminal damage for urinating on an offending plant. So far I have resisted this, and another suggestion that I knock copper nails into its trunk.

Bizarre idioms for downpours are just one facet of how the UK uses dark humour and ritual to brave the wet

May it fall as a blessing, not as a curse. So goes the ancient prayer inviting us to embrace days of rain.

It is a prayer that would not be welcomed by anyone on the floodplains the UK persists in filling with houses. It would be met with outright hostility by any farmers who are now unable to do any of the things they need to do in February because their land has had literally 40 days and nights of rain.

A thatcher, gardener and others on keeping their business afloat in the bad weather - and their fears for the future

With 76 flood warnings still in force across the UK and further downpours forecast this week and next, parts of the country have endured rain almost without pause since the start of the year.

The prolonged wet weather is disrupting livelihoods as well as daily life, particularly in rural areas, where flooded roads, waterlogged ground and repeated storms are making it harder to keep businesses afloat, protect crops and maintain steady work.

Images confirm xAI is continuing to defy EPA regulations in Mississippi to power its flagship datacenters

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.

State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don't require permits. However, the EPA has long required that such pollution sources be permitted under the Clean Air Act.