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Ability of bumblebees to reproduce, and rate at which colonies grow, compromised by new sulfoximine-based insecticides

A new class of pesticides positioned to replace neonicotinoids may be just as harmful to crop-pollinating bees, researchers have warned.

In experiments, the ability of bumblebees to reproduce, and the rate at which their colonies grow, were both compromised by the new sulfoximine-based insecticides, they reported in the journal Nature.

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How we work outside, and how safe we are when make that decision, is governed by daily weather patterns and long term variability.

California regulator ARB’s attempt to reverse a November court ruling on successor liability under the state’s cap-and-trade programme was rejected by a US District Court judge late last month, who argued the appeal would affect the validity of the natural gas facility’s sale.

Between 1982 and 2016, the number of ‘marine heatwaves’ doubled, and likely will become more common and intense as the planet warms, study finds

Even the oceans are breaking temperature records in this summer of heatwaves. Off the California coast near San Diego, scientists in early August recorded all-time high seawater temperatures since daily measurements began in 1916.

“Just like we have heatwaves on land, we also have heatwaves in the ocean,” said Art Miller of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

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A new study from UC Davis found that “grasslands and rangelands are more resilient carbon sinks than forests in 21st century California.” While forests remain vital to global climate mitigation efforts, the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires has heightened the need to explore additional carbon sinks in fire-prone regions. Grasslands lock carbon into the soil, and they don’t release it during wildfires.

A rare Ontario summer legislative session explicitly designed to repeal the law underpinning the province’s carbon market and GHG targets ended on Tuesday without having acted, the first delay in Premier Doug Ford's anti-carbon pricing agenda since taking office in June. 

Chris Bowen says it ‘defies logic’ that the grant was awarded without a competitive tender process

The transfer of $443.8m to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation will cost taxpayers another $11m in public debt interest, Labor’s treasury spokesman Chris Bowen says.

Bowen has questioned what oversight Treasury and the Department of Finance had of the decision to award such a large amount of funding to the small charity in one instalment.

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Attempts to find a new generation of pesticides to replace neonicotinoids have been dealt a potential blow.

Botanist and conservationist who was one of the founders of the UK’s leading wild plant charity Plantlife

The botanist Hugh Synge, who has died of cancer aged 67, was a roving ambassador for wild plants. In 2007, he was voted one of the 20 most influential British conservationists by BBC Wildlife magazine.

While on the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the 1970s, he helped to compile the first Red Data Book of plants. Published in 1979, co-edited with Gren Lucas, this was a landmark publication that assembled for the first time detailed case histories of plant species to explain why so many of them were vanishing.

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The postponement of weekly German EUA auctions from November could be enough to push prices above €20 before the end of the year as the market tightens, analysts said on Wednesday.

Fearsome predator was extinct in England but Scottish relatives have crossed the border and set up home in Kielder forest

The pine marten, a fearsome but diminutive predator driven to extinction in England, has returned to the country’s largest forest for the first time since 1926.

Stills and video from a camera trap have recorded a mature pine marten devouring peanut butter put out for red squirrels at a secret location in Kielder forest, Northumberland.

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How will Ethan Peck compare to Leonard Nimoy and other actors who've played the pointy-eared science officer?

Wildlife campaigner Tom Langton claims the culls themselves risk making bovine TB epidemic worse

Badger culling will be extended across England on an open-ended basis, conservationists have warned, after the high court rejected a challenge to the legality of the government’s policy.

Licences to allow badger culling to continue in particular areas beyond a four-year period are legal, ruled Mr Justice Cranston, rejecting a challenge brought by the independent ecologist Tom Langton.

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Official says "there is no way to verify" what object is and whether or not it may pose a danger.

Scientists collected footage showing basking sharks being "sociable" with each other off the coast of Mull.

European carbon prices reached their highest level in a decade on Wednesday, as traders anticipated further gains during a rare auction-free session amid a month of halved supply.

A new study examines potential climate feedbacks that could push Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state

A new paper, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has received a lot of media attention. The attention is justified because the paper paints a very grim picture of the climate and what humans may be doing to it. In particular, the authors of this study tried to determine the trajectory that the Earth is on so we can predict what the future climate will be.

There are many really important insights from this paper. The authors wanted to know how feedbacks in the Earth’s climate will play a role in shaping the climate in the future. By feedbacks, we mean a change in one part of the climate that then causes another change, which in turn may cause another change, and so on, potentially setting up chain reactions.

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It is clear that there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of the governance and decision making processes at the GCF to make its cooperation with the private sector work, writes Alexandra Tracy, a GCF board member representing the private sector.

The rapid influx of these beaver-like rodents has decimated parts of the Californian wetlands. They were introduced to the US for the fur trade and now share wetland areas with some of the west coast’s most endangered species. The California department of fish and wildlife has compared the threat of their presence to that of wildfires

California v nutria: state seeks to eradicate scourge of giant rodents

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New Zealand carbon allowances continued to rise in Wednesday trade, breaking through the NZ$24 level for the first time as concerns that the government might increase the NZ$25 fixed price option already for the current compliance year spread through the market.