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Buried deep under the Greenland ice sheet is a unique archive of life on Earth 40,000 years ago. Scientists are using this information to try to predict future changes to the planet

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Mikołaj Golachowski describes plan as ‘evil’ and warns of environmental consequences

Conservationists have branded plans by the Polish government to cull almost the entire wild boar population of the country as “pointless, counterproductive and evil”.

In a move to tackle an epidemic of African swine fever, the Polish government has ordered a series of hunts, beginning this weekend, with the aim of killing the vast majority of the country’s population of around 200,000 wild boar.

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Logo drawn up by water firms aims to ensure only wipes that degrade properly are flushed

The fight to eliminate “fatbergs” is to receive a major boost with the launch of a universal standard for wet wipes, clarifying which can be safely flushed down the toilet.

Manufacturers of wipes will be able to use a “fine to flush” symbol on their packaging – drawn up by the water industry – provided they pass stringent tests. The logo aims to reassure consumers that the products do not contain plastic and will break down in the sewer system instead of clogging up sewers and contributing to fatbergs.

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The environmental education association Re-Think has launched The Guidebook of Marine Debris to highlight the 101 most commonly found plastic items washed up on Taiwan’s beaches. From Hello Kitty toys to cigarette lighters from thousands of kilometres away on the Midway Islands, Re-Think photographed the items in a bid to educate young people on the extent of the problem. The project took a year to complete with the help of beach clean-up volunteers around Taiwan and the Society of Wilderness.

The oldest piece of waste was a military food pack found in Kinmen dated 1988. It still carried the slogan: “Unite against the Communists and promote love for our compatriots.”

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The BBC's Aaron Heslehurst explains how dynamite became a million dollar idea.

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

A Washington state representative introduced a new low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) proposal on Thursday, as a separate study argued lawmakers can aim for a higher carbon intensity (CI) reduction target than the goal outlined in that bill.

Several fossil fuel and business trade groups are asking the US Supreme Court to review a lower court’s ruling last year that upheld the Oregon Clean Fuels Program (OCFP), arguing that the clean fuel standard illegally regulates interstate commerce.

• Two dozen boats douse conversation vessel with gasoline
• As few as 15 vaquita may remain in Gulf of California

The Sea Shepherd environmental group has published video showing an attack by about two dozen small fishing boats on the group’s vessel Farley Mowat in Mexico’s Gulf of California.

The fishermen in the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, oppose environmentalists trying to protect the vaquita marina, the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise.

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California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices trended down toward the WCI 2019 floor price of $15.62 during the first full trading week of 2019, while RGGI allowances (RGAs) failed to awaken from their holiday slumber.

"This isn't about drought. This is about cotton, about corruption, and about climate change. While the National Liberal Party have their head in the sand on all three of these issues, this system is not going to be fixed."

"The problem with the fish kills is we're trying to turn around 100 years of over allocation. You don't do that over night."

Bees are starving, hives are dying and honey production is well down across parts of south-eastern Australia.

European carbon prices hit a fresh one-month low on Thursday, though a bullish auction result helped lift them back above €22.

Seawater temperature is rising faster than predicted, which is likely to worsen extreme weather events around the world

The world’s oceans are warming at a faster rate than previously estimated, new research has found, raising fresh concerns over the rapid progress of climate change.

Warming oceans take up more space, a process known as thermal expansion, which the study says is likely to raise sea levels by about 30cm by the end of the century, on top of the rise in sea levels from melting ice and glaciers. Warmer oceans are also a major factor in increasing the severity of storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.

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Proposal is intended to protect African elephants from being poached for their tusks

The long-extinct woolly mammoth could gain protected status in an unprecedented attempt to save the African elephant from the global ivory trade.

If approved, the protection of the mammoth under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) could prove vital in saving its modern relatives. The proposal by Israel would close a loophole that enables the trafficking of illegal elephant ivory under the guise of legal mammoth ivory, which is almost identical in appearance.

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The haul, worth more than $1.3m (£1m), is one of the largest seized in South Africa in recent years.

Prof Tim Lang and Prof Mike Rayner suggest that a select committee should explore Caroline Lucas’s idea for a meat tax, while the Green MP herself defends it from a claim that it would only hurt the less well-off

The academic evidence is quite clear on a number of fronts that meat production and consumption worldwide need to change (MPs should ‘seriously consider’ meat tax, says Lucas, 4 January). Health gains from reducing red and processed meat consumption are well documented. Study after study has shown unnecessary risks and costs associated with raised meat consumption. Meat adds to the burden of non-communicable disease. Its production is a key driver of antimicrobial resistance. Somehow the scale of meat consumption must be reversed.

We do not underestimate the political complexity. Swathes of the UK are rough land where sheep and cattle are raised. UK farmers operate on tight margins and receive too low a proportion of the money made from food. The much-reviled common agricultural policy actually keeps many afloat. But the hard facts are clear: the UK, like all rich countries, needs a transition to more sustainable diets from sustainable food systems. Low meat and dairy consumption, and more plant-based diets, are the future. This implies significant land use changes that could be beneficial: lower greenhouse gas emissions and water and biodiversity stress.

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Mysterious cosmic signals have been picked up. What are they and where do they come from?

UK engineers complete the build of a novel software-defined telecoms satellite called Quantum.