Environment

Big six firm to focus exclusively on renewables, adding solar power to its windfarms

Scottish Power, one of Britain’s biggest energy companies, has said it will invest in solar power for the first time as part of its move away from fossil fuels.

The big six firm sold off its last gas-fired power stations to Drax Group this week to focus exclusively on renewables, which today consists of onshore and offshore windfarms.

In sun, sea and sand, Kirk Lombard teaches people how to responsibly fish and forage for dinner along the Northern California coast.

(Image credit: NPR)

World body urges Conservative government to ‘step up and show leadership’ on the air pollution crisis

The UK government is putting the health of millions of its citizens at risk by failing to tackle the country’s air pollution crisis, according the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and the environment.

David Boyd said people’s right to breathe clean air was being violated in the UK and warned the crisis was responsible for up to 50,000 deaths – and devastating the lives of “many millions” more in towns and cities across the country.

A 1,000-metre spider web and a hellbender devouring a snake are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Research forecasts Iowa corn yields could drop in half within the next half-century thanks to extreme weather – yet it’s not part of the political conversation

Farmers around here are itching to go after that amber wave of soya beans, but there was that 5in rain a couple of weeks ago and then a 7in rain, and it drives even the retired guys batty.

Those beans aren’t worth much at the elevator thanks to a Trump trade war with China, but they’re worth even less getting wet feet in a pond that was a field which the glacier made a prairie bog some 14,000 years ago – until we came along and drained it.

Photographer Christopher Thomond has been documenting protests over fracking in the north of England since 2011

After years of protest, hyperbole and delays, fracking has returned to the UK. After seeing off a last-minute legal challenge, shale gas firm Cuadrilla began fracking near Blackpool on Monday.

The drive to extract gas from the rocks beneath the UK has catalysed the environmental movement in recent years, uniting concerned local residents and climate campaigners.

Exclusive: Watchdog examining claims plastic waste is not being recycled but left to leak into rivers and oceans

The plastics recycling industry is facing an investigation into suspected widespread abuse and fraud within the export system amid warnings the world is about to close the door on UK packaging waste, the Guardian has learned.

The Environment Agency (EA) has set up a team of investigators, including three retired police officers, in an attempt to deal with complaints that organised criminals and firms are abusing the system.

Close passing and dooring are serious concerns but there is more to be done to make our streets safer and cleaner, from funding boosts to road planning

The announcement of a Highway Code review for walking and cycling is a forward step for active travel and road safety. It may not be the millions of pounds of investment needed, but it’s a start.

The Department for Transport (DfT) review will cover issues such as how to safely overtake cyclists, guidance on preventing car-dooring of cyclists, and giving pedestrians and cyclists the right of way at side roads.

UK risks falling behind global switch to electric vehicles with ‘unambitious’ target of 2040, says committee

MPs have urged ministers to bring forward their ban on new petrol and diesel car sales by eight years to 2032, to avoid the UK being left “in the passenger seat” in the global switch to electric vehicles.

Government plans for a 2040 ban on fossil fuel-powered cars and vans across Britain were unambitious and did not even show leadership within the UK, given Scotland has set itself an earlier target, the business, energy and industrial strategy committee said.

Hundreds of families in Florida displaced by Hurricane Michael have been sheltering in school buildings for more than a week. Many are not sure where they'll live after these temporary shelters close.

As rescues continue after Hurricane Michael, officials expressed frustration at people who didn't evacuate. But experts say people's decisions to stay are almost always carefully considered.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

"I have never seen anything like this," said tree surgeon Hiroyuki Wada. Two typhoons that recently struck the country are a likely cause of the sudden flowering.

(Image credit: Kwiyeon Ha/Reuters)

Oil-rich kingdom says money is needed to protect against water scarcity but request sparks strong criticism and fears over the fitness of the public fund

Bahrain – one of the world’s most oil-rich nations – has applied to the international Green Climate Fund for $9.8m for its National Oil and Gas Authority, raising questions over whether taxpayer-funded assistance for poor countries is reaching its intended targets.

The kingdom has requested funding for water conservation work to be carried out by its national oil and gas company, which it says is necessary to protect against water scarcity in future – a problem that is likely to grow worse around the world as a consequence of climate change.

Uncontrolled imports spark ‘garbage dump of the world’ fears and raise fears over how much is ending up in landfill

Itinerant garbage pickers run down the hilly streets of Istanbul, their trolleys packed with plastic and other waste.

Their haul is a boon for the recycling industry in Turkey. “We collect 80% of the waste from the streets,” said Recep Karaman, head of the street waste collectors association.

Trio of activists freed from prison after appeal get hero’s welcome at site of anti-fracking protest

On Thursday morning, the day after being released from prison, three environmental activists who became the first people to be jailed for an anti-fracking protest in the UK returned to the Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool.

Related: I’m out of jail after my fracking protest. But justice has not been done | Simon Roscoe Blevins

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(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The injustice of my time in prison is dwarfed by the profound inequities that inspired my action in the first place

This morning I woke up outside of prison for the first time since 26 September. I was jailed for 16 months after being convicted of causing a public nuisance for a four-day protest on top of a lorry at the UK’s first fracking site. On Wednesday the verdict was quashed by the court of appeal, on grounds that the sentence was, as the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, put it, “manifestly excessive”.

Many people are saying justice has been served – but we know there is still a long way to go before we get there.

In a confidential document obtained by the Guardian, officials say releasing records could have a ‘chilling effect’ on their deliberations

The Trump administration is moving to restrict the release of information about its decisions on endangered species, according to a confidential internal document obtained by the Guardian.

It comes as wildlife advocates and scientists accuse the government of attempting to weaken protections for wildlife, including wolves, grizzly bears and sage grouse, while boosting domestic energy production and mining in crucial animal habitat.

U.S. production of heat-trapping greenhouse gases fell 2.7 percent last year. But larger cuts will be needed to address climate change.

(Image credit: Branden Camp/AP)

Scientists work to stay ahead of white nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that has killed millions of bats in the US and Canada

Nate Fuller was just starting out as a bat scientist nine years ago when he entered a massive cave in rural Pennsylvania to look for live animals. Instead, he found himself wading through a distressing muck, the decomposing bodies of thousands upon thousands of dead bats.

That was in the early years of white nose syndrome, the creeping, lethal fungus that has decimated North America’s bat population, killing millions of bats and sparking frantic research and conservation efforts across the United States and Canada.