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Rwanda’s plastic bag ban | Sugar in recipes | School funding | Autocorrect | Tessa Jowell

While “other East African nations are considering following suit” (Nairobi feels the force of world’s most draconian plastic bag ban, 26 April), Rwanda banned plastic bags in 2008. Plastic bags can trap pools of water which host mosquitos so their ban helps fight malaria.
Alex Morton
London

• In Saturday’s Feast Ottolenghi’s tamarind recipes all call for added sugar, honey or syrup. Meera Sodha adds two tablespoons of palm sugar to her aubergines. My old-fashioned Indian recipe books don’t add sugar at all. Even the Anna Jones lettuce recipes advise a method to make them “sweet”. Is this the way to address an obese nation?
Deborah van der Beek
Chippenham, Wiltshire

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London warns Brussels that it is prepared to block Galileo technologies from leaving the UK.

Production begins from the first turbines at 200MW wind farm near Broken Hill.

We asked you to tell us about the time you crossed from one side of the debate to the other

I first thought it was fake as I used to watch Fox News with my family. In 2015 I met my partner Stephen who knew that the facts of climate change couldn’t be ignored. He took it upon himself to try to convince me. We started watching documentaries on the subject on Netflix. The first documentary that caught my attention was Cowspiracy directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. This documentary really hit home and I even wrote an essay on it. Then came What the Health by the same directors. After we watched the movie Stephen and I turned to an all plant-based diet. We have our ups and downs on staying true to our new lifestyle change, but we always keep in mind that for every burger we don’t eat that is 660 gallons of water that we are saving for others in need. I was lucky enough that Stephen took the time and saw that if I could see the issues I would see that the facts are true.

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Douglas Domenech held meetings with Texas Public Policy Foundation, which was involved in suing the department

As allegations of ethics violations mount at the US Environmental Protection Agency, new evidence is raising ethics concerns about key Trump-administration appointees at the interior department.

Records reviewed by the Guardian and Pacific Standard show that a high-level interior official, Douglas Domenech, held meetings with a previous employer, the Koch-linked Texas Public Policy Foundation, while it was involved in legal action against the department.

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Local people and environmentalists have 16 working days left to stop the first spade going into the ground at a beauty spot in Co Durham

Four months after the UK government announced it was phasing out coal, campaigners are digging in to stop what they say will be the devastation of opencast mining at a beauty spot in the north-east of England.

Local people and environmentalists have 16 working days left to stop the first spade going into the ground on 71 hectares of grassland, fields and woods in the Pont valley, Co Durham.

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Hit by record droughts and rainfall and wildfires, California leads the way in tackling global warming

In 1988 – the same year Nasa’s James Hansen warned Congress about the threats posed by human-caused global warming – water expert Peter Gleick wrote about the wet and dry extremes that it would create for California:

California will get the worst of all possible worlds – more flooding in the winter, less available water in the summer.

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Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.5% in 2017, according to official data released just days after the government halved its climate spending.

Plastic can only be recycled a few times before it becomes useless. But even non-recyclable plastic can be used to help produce petrol and diesel. Could this process help overcome the recycling crisis? Muxina Konarova, Advanced Queensland Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

16 May 1968 The planting of alien conifers and poplars is changing this superb example of primeval clay woodland out of all knowledge

Norfolk
I have just been revelling in the glories of one of Norfolk’s few remaining ancient woodlands, seated on glacial boulder clay almost exactly in the centre of the county. The Domesday record shows this wood to have been a notable one in 1088, when it afforded a pannage of acorns for a hundred pigs. Over the centuries its trees and plants of the undergrowth have transformed the stiff topsoil into a rich and friable mould and it is clear that the long-continued practice of coppicing hazels in association with standards of oak and ash has encouraged the development of an exceedingly rich and flourishing ground flora. Anemones, lilies of the valley, bluebells, wild strawberries and dog’s mercury dominate vast areas, with subsidiary colonies of yellow pimpernels, early purple orchids, woodruff, ramsons, primrose, wood spurge, bugle, enchanter’s nightshade, mountain speedwell, yellow archangel, wood sorrel, and the graceful wood millet grass. In a few places I came upon patches of Herb Paris where the ground was relatively moist in the valley of a little stream.

Related: Country diary: Wayland wood, Norfolk: This small parcel of woodland inspired one of our most disturbing myths

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Queensland state govt backs up electric vehicle super-highway with release of Australia-first guide to installing EV chargers.

Energy markets are now showing negligible value for renewable energy certificates within 2 years. It gives lie to the nonsense and scare campaigns about the "crippling" cost of wind and solar.

Australia emissions rise for 3rd year, with electricity the only sector to show a fall, thanks to a policy mechanism the government tried to kill.

New Forest: Janet Elizabeth Case braved treacherous sink holes and snagging briars to see these enchanting flowers 80 years ago

Fascinated by JEC’s account of her search for the bog bean (Menyanthes trifoliata) in a Country diary dated 5 June 1933 (I’d come across it in the slim grey selection of her diaries published posthumously in 1939), we tried last year to relive the adventure.

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LNG was major contributor to 1.5% rise in year to December 2017, government data shows

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Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar, increasing for the third consecutive year according to new data published by the Department of Environment and Energy.

The Turnbull government published new quarterly emissions data late on Friday which reveals Australia’s climate pollution increased by 1.5% in the year to December 2017.

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It is claimed the UK's roadside wild flowers are suffering because of pollution and poor management.

Interested in finding out more about water for the environment in the northern rivers? Join us at a community forum in towns along the Barwon-Darling during May and June.

Interested in finding out more about water for the environment in the northern rivers? Join us at a community forum in towns along the Barwon-Darling during May and June.

Sturt National Park prepares for an animal release; making the switch from cows to chooks; a disability support group grows organic oyster mushrooms; and raw honey straight from the hives.

Anheuser-Busch , the largest brewer in the USA have placed an order for 800 Hydrogen-Fuel-Cell EV trucks. Will Foster's follow?