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Eating less meat will help, but governments remain indispensable actors in solving the climate crisis

The Ministry for the Future is a sci-fi novel in which the climate crisis is an emergency so dire that it forces humankind to shift course. In the book, a catastrophic Indian heatwave in the near future causes the death of more than 20 million people. Climate activism turns to terrorism, and the author, Kim Stanley Robinson, writes about how panic induces behavioural change. To rid people of their addiction to beef – responsible for 8.5% of human-induced climate emissions in 2015 – mad cow disease is cultured by climate terrorists and injected by drones into millions of herds all over the world. Cows die off and beef, now too risky to eat, quickly comes off the menu.

Nothing so drastic has been advocated by the UK government’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby. He sensibly favours public messaging based on persuasion rather than fear. The science is clear: animal-based foods account for 57% of agricultural greenhouse gases versus 29% for food from plants. By cooking meat, people are cooking themselves. That explains why Mr Dimbleby is in a hurry. Ministers, he told the Guardian, need to warn the public that they have to stop eating meat to save the planet.

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Boris Johnson gives financing go-ahead after warnings decision could limit incoming government

Boris Johnson has approved funding for a new nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk in the final weeks of his premiership, but some of Liz Truss’s senior allies are split over the decision.

The prime minister and the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, approved financing for the construction of two new reactors known as Sizewell C, enabling private funding of about £20-30bn to be raised.

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As sewage is discharged into the UK’s seas and targets are missed, company chiefs use their time on other roles

Some of the highly paid bosses of England’s water companies are earning tens of thousands of pounds in second boardroom jobs, advising on the pay deals of other top executives.

Five of the chief executives of England’s nine water and sewerage companies are also working as non-executive directors in other firms, sitting on remuneration committees.

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An oversight system with teeth would stop utilities from inflicting misery by profiteering

There is change in the air – vast change. Two years before the next general election it is obvious – just as it was in 1977 before Margaret Thatcher won in 1979 – that the existing policy framework has reached its sell-by date. Then it was the postwar settlement – including incomes policies and public ownership – whose weaknesses were becoming ever harder to defend, even among those of us who recognised its strengths. At the very least it needed a wholesale rethink and makeover, or, as Thatcher argued, be repudiated with a bracing new framework adopted in its place.

So, in 2022 we have the prospect of 13% inflation or even higher, swingeing energy bills that will topple millions into destitution. Add in the failures of privatisation dramatised by excessive water leakages and raw sewage blighting many beaches and rivers, an impossibly overstretched NHS, and workers being badged as irresponsible for merely trying to resist dramatic cuts in their real incomes. All this has crystallised how the whole Thatcherite edifice of economic and social policy, decaying for years, is suddenly and obviously redundant.

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Traditional western storytelling conventions aren’t up to the task of understanding the enormity of the climate crisis or the pandemic

People love to talk about the power of stories: the force of the right hero’s journey spurring an individual into action; the power of a compelling narrative to change minds; the way empathy can break down barriers and re-shape society … I’ve done it myself for this very publication.

We do it because various iterations of these arguments are real and true. National Geographic says storytelling “helps us to find order in things that have happened to us and make sense of the events of a random world”, and that studies suggest “the more compelling the story, the more empathetic people become in real life.” According to the BBC, “storytelling is a form of cognitive play that hones our minds, allowing us to simulate the world around us and imagine different strategies, particularly in social situations … brain scans have shown that reading or hearing stories activates various areas of the cortex that are known to be involved in social and emotional processing …”

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Billions of the pellets end up in the sea, killing turtles, whales and dolphins, and are washed up on beaches around the world

Maritime authorities are considering stricter controls on the ocean transport of billions of plastic pellets known as nurdles after a series of spillages around the world.

Campaigners warn that nurdles are one of the most common micro-plastic pollutants in the seas, washing up on beaches from New Zealand to Cornwall. The multicoloured pellets produced by petrochemical companies are used as building blocks for plastic products, from bags to bottles and piping.

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Jumping spiders display rapid eye movements and limb twitching similar to what is seen in dreaming dogs and cats, researchers say

The question is not “do you have nightmares about spiders?” but, do spiders dream? About juicy flies, about humans, about anything at all?

A US-European research partnership suggests that thousands of species of jumping spiders might experience rapid eye movement stages of sleep. That is the state in which humans have their most vivid dreams, though the study in question stops well short of concluding that spiders have dreams.

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Experts say the unusual weather has triggered a 'false autumn' as trees struggle to cope with drought.

Uncrewed surface vessel Maxlimer surveys the underwater Hunga-Tonga seamount that erupted in January.

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

Financial players continued adding to their California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings this week ahead of the Q3 WCI auction, while regulated entities shortened their positions, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

One of the world's largest REDD+ tropical forest protection projects has voluntarily slashed the number of offsets it issues amid a clash of two separate methodologies, which has reignited criticism of over crediting.

Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative (PC) Premier Tim Houston on Thursday submitted an emissions reduction plan to Ottawa that does not contain any form of carbon pricing, while the future of the province’s cap-and-trade system remains uncertain.

After becoming a tourist attraction in Oslo, a travelling walrus was killed. Was that right?

We should be keeping endangered species alive rather than bringing animals back from extinction

The last official sighting of a Tasmanian tiger in the wild occurred in 1930, when it was shot by a farmer. The marsupials, formally known as thylacines, were hunted to extinction by European settlers who considered them a threat to their sheep and poultry. However, the 6ft-long creatures may reappear if a group of biotechnologists have their way.

The company Colossal Biosciences, along with researchers from the University of Melbourne, plans to “de-extinct” the thylacine by using gene-editing technology. Australia has the fastest rate of mammal extinction in the world; disappearances are down to the arrival of foreign species and wildfires linked to the climate crisis. Scientists argue that in Tasmania the loss of the thylacine left the numbers of smaller marsupials unchecked, leading to over-grazing and threatening a fragile ecological balance.

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The European Commission on Friday approved plans by four EU member states including Germany to compensate their ETS-covered industries for indirect costs caused by power producers passing on the cost of paying for their carbon allowances.

European carbon prices have followed their now-traditional course in August by rising on the back of the 50% reduction in auction volumes. This has happened every year since 2008 – with one exception – and is pretty much baked in to trading strategy, writes Alessandro Vitelli.

Pennsylvania on Friday seemed primed to have allowances removed from the September RGGI auction after a court did not rule on a request to temporarily lift an injunction against the state’s power sector cap-and-trade rulemaking.

EU carbon prices set a new record on Friday as sustained buying interest amid thin volumes drove prices closer to €100, taking strength from energy markets that have risen four-fold since the start of the year, while UK allowances also recorded a new all-time high.