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The ecological pawprint of doggies, moggies and more.

Coral bleaching is affecting the world’s largest coral reef system, the Great Barrier Reef, but what does a dying reef look like? These images from the Climate Council and Great Barrier Reef Legacy show the difference in what they should look like and what happens as they move from bleached to dead

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Prof Tim Cockerill of the University of South Wales explains where you can find snakes in the summer.

Oil company criticised for its findings on animals and plants at planned Narrabri coal seam gas project

Conservationists have said the oil company Santos has not addressed questions about how its proposed 850-well Narrabri coal seam gas project in New South Wales would affect threatened species.

Two new reports, including one by a former ecologist for the NSW environment and heritage office, say the company had not adequately responded to submissions which raise concerns about animal and plant surveys Santos conducted for its environmental impact statement.

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Farmers’ representatives and government officials meet to tackle impact of the prolonged dry weather

Farmers are to meet with Whitehall officials this week for an emergency drought summit amid fears that the heatwave could have a serious impact on the UK’s food supply.

What the National Farmers Union describes as “tinderbox conditions” have severely reduced grass growth and depleted yields for many crops, leading to concerns that there will be a shortage of feed for livestock and dairy farmers later in the year. Concerns about the fragility of the UK’s food chain come at a sensitive time after the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, admitted last week that the government was taking steps to ensure that there were “adequate” supplies for Britain in the event of a no-deal departure from the European Union. The revelation led to speculation that the UK might be forced to start stockpiling food.

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As Britain faced a heatwave, the Observer’s architecture critic found himself between Norway and the north pole, exploring icy Svalbard on an epic trip for artists and writers

In a tragicomic photograph to be found on the internet, a hydrogen balloon lies sideways on the sea ice, somewhere north of Svalbard. Still inflated, it clings to its spherical dignity, while the ropes that connect it to its upended basket describe elegant. It is a dark silhouette against a horizonless surround, in which the white ice of the foreground grades into a lightly greying sky.

The two men posing by the basket and the one behind the camera don’t have long to live. They will make it across the ice back to land but, with inadequate provisions and equipment, will die there. It will take some decades before their remains and their camera are found. Such was the fate of the 1897 expedition, brave to the point of idiocy, in which the Swede SA Andrée tried to fly to the north pole. He used a steering system that was almost certain not to work, and he set off in his newly made balloon without final checks for leaks.

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As technology finds innovative ways to recycle, waste products are being used in an unlikely range of goods in high street stores

First it was “bags for life”, chunky doormats and, more recently, clothing such as fleeces, swimwear and pack-away macs. Now towels made from recycled plastic bottles are to go on sale in the UK for the first time in August – the latest initiative in the war against single-use plastics and the result of a technological breakthrough that has produced a fabric deemed soft and fluffy enough to use on human skin.

The new range of eco-friendly bath towels will go on sale online and at 18 branches of John Lewis in the last week of August, after nearly two years of extensive testing and work with suppliers. The polyester from the recycled plastic bottles accounts for 35% of their content, while the rest is regenerated cotton.

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Scientists use genetics to help save marsupial from its diet of deadly cane toad flesh

Australia’s northern quoll, one of the world’s rarest carnivores, has developed a feeding habit that puts its very existence in peril. The squirrel-sized marsupial turns out to have a fondness for the poisonous flesh of invasive cane toads, introduced into Australia in the 1930s. And this appetite has wiped out vast numbers of the species across the country. As a result, the northern quoll is now considered to be nationally endangered.

But scientists have launched a remarkable project aimed at saving the little nocturnal hunters. They have pinpointed an isolated group of quolls that have evolved an aversion to cane toads and, instead of munching meals of their venomous flesh, give cane toads a wide berth and seek other prey.

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Next to nothing was known about sperm whales in the Southern Ocean. That is, until the Australian Antarctic Division started listening to their clicks.

White Gum Valley, a suburb 3km from Fremantle WA has 110 housing units powered 100% from solar power and communal batteries, all linked using blockchain technology. The electricity also powers electric vehicles.

Dirk Erler at Southern Cross University is harvesting biosolids found in human sewerage, and the waste from milk and meat production as valuable sources of nutrients and energy.

The Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin is investigating methane hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico as a future energy resource.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Whale is one of just 75 in an endangered group off the coast of Washington state and Canada

A grieving mother orca near Vancouver Island has been carrying her dead calf for four days, after refusing to leave her baby behind when the rest of her pod left.

The mother whale, named J35 by researchers, gave birth Tuesday in what was initially a hopeful moment. Mother and female calf were seen swimming together that morning near Victoria, British Columbia, according to the Washington state-based Center for Whale Research.

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Recycling should be the last option, says Lucy Siegle. Instead we should record, reduce, replace, refuse, refill, rethink – and reuse

The recycling crisis is forcing us all to consider what to do with our waste, but recycling should be the last resort for the global problem of plastic pollution.

In her new book Turning the Tide on Plastic, eco lifestyle expert and regular Guardian contributor Lucy Siegle sets out a better strategy, namely record, reduce, replace, refuse, reuse, refill, rethink, recycle.

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Ontario entities that were not holding enough allowances to cover their emissions prior to Premier Doug Ford revoking the province’s cap-and-trade regulation earlier this month will be deemed in compliance as the government winds down the programme, the environment ministry confirmed on Friday.

This week, how food producers are finding their own solutions to cut down on plastic use, especially with fresh produce like fruit, veg and meat.

US state-led Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) are in need of reform to stimulate a more rapid transition to renewable energy and avoid crediting dirty energy forms that are undermining programme goals, according to an NGO report released this week.

At least three dead and thousands evacuated as officials worry potentially devastating fire season has only just begun

At least three people have died and thousands have been evacuated in California as eight active wildfires continue to burn across the state. More than 3,000 firefighters have been deployed to contain the flames, and the destruction is expected to worsen throughout the weekend as high temperatures and dry conditions inhibit efforts.

The state governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in northern California’s Shasta county, and in southern California’s Riverside county, to help provide local fire crews with the resources they need to battle the blazes. Donald Trump has not yet commented on the fires.

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Prof Michael Mann, one of the world’s most eminent climate scientists, declares the impacts of global warming are now ‘playing out in real-time’

• Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, scientists find

The extreme heatwaves and wildfires wreaking havoc around the globe are “the face of climate change”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has declared, with the impacts of global warming now “playing out in real time”.

Climate change has long been predicted to increase extreme weather incidents, and scientists are now confident these predictions are coming true. Scientists say the global warming has contributed to on the scorching temperatures that have baked the UK and northern Europe for weeks.

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