The Guardian

Sometimes, a tune can say so much more than an image or words. Here, we turn almost 150 years of global temperatures into music. The higher the temperature, the higher the pitch of the note. And the louder the note, the more carbon there is in the atmosphere

Oliver Duggan recounts the geographical, physical and mental rollercoaster of cycling 100 mountain passes in 10 days across southern France and Spain

The col de la Core is not a famous climb – in cycling, or any other sport. There are no champions’ names spray painted on the ground, no monuments at the top to riders past or present. It has no especially beautiful scenery or harsh gradients. It is a simple, two-lane road, and on a Saturday morning last month, it nearly killed me.

Britain’s first ‘green gas mill’ will convert grass into biomethane to heat more than 4,000 homes and is set to come online in 2018

The grass is always greener than the gas on the other side, according to a British businessman who claims grasslands could provide enough gas to heat all of the UK’s homes.

Dale Vince, the chairman of renewable energy company Ecotricity, is investing £10m in the first of a generation of what he calls ‘green gas mills’ that he says could compete against gas from fracking.

The man in his 60s is the third person to die on the reef this week, after two French tourists apparently had heart attacks on Wednesday

A British man has died while diving on the Great Barrier Reef, the third death in three days among visitors to Australia’s popular natural tourist attraction.

The 60-year-old man was found without a breathing device during a tandem scuba dive at Agincourt reef, 100km north of Cairns, on Friday.

Lake Manasarovar, Tibet Bar-headed geese are popular with British fanciers, but better to think of them here, readying for their lofty migration over the Himalayas

From the roof of Chiu monastery, perched high on its rocky hill, the water of Lake Manasarovar was cobalt, the surrounding hills rich ochre, luminous in the sunlight of a late autumn afternoon. With a shoreline 55 miles (90km) long, and at an altitude of more than 4,500 metres (15,000ft), this is one of the highest and largest bodies of freshwater in the world. Its name translates from the Sanskrit as “mind’s lake”; the mind in question being that of the Hindu creator Brahma, and in the thin air there is something ethereal about it, something unworldly. It is a sacred site of pilgrimage for a quarter of the world, not just Hindus but Buddhists too, as well as the lesser known Tibetan religion of Bon and India’s Jains.

Parliament adopts amendment that declares country’s abundant clean supplies are ‘a public good managed by the state’ and ‘not a market commodity’

Slovenia has amended its constitution to make access to drinkable water a fundamental right for all citizens and stop it being commercialised.

With 64 votes in favour and none against, the 90-seat parliament added an article to the EU country’s constitution saying “everyone has the right to drinkable water”.

• Colin Scott, 23, was looking for a ‘hot pot’ to swim in with his sister
• Rescuers concluded that extreme heat and acidity dissolved remains

An Oregon man who died and “dissolved” after falling into a boiling, acidic hot spring at Yellowstone National Park last June, had been looking for a place to swim, officials investigating the incident have concluded.

Colin Scott, 23, was hiking through a prohibited section of the park on 7 June with his sister, Sable, when Scott fell into a hot spring “and did not get out”, according to a report released by the National Park Service on Thursday.

Estimated 20bn barrels of oil found in Texas’s Permian Basin, three times larger than the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota, could be worth as much as $900bn

A huge deposit of untapped oil, possibly the largest ever discovered in the US, has been identified by the US Geological Survey (USGS) in west Texas.

The USGS estimated that 20bn barrels of oil was contained within layers of shale in the Permian Basin, a vast geological formation that stretches across western Texas and an area of New Mexico. The discovery is three times larger than the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota and is worth around $900bn.

A coalition of bivalve enthusiasts is trying to revive oyster farming in water that is beset by trash and raw sewage

The oysters in the Hudson River around the Statue of Liberty are some of the plumpest and fastest growing Crassostrea virginica in the whole of New York harbor. Fitting it should be that way, at least in contrast to the East River, between Manhattan and Brooklyn, where untreated effluent is allowed to flow out during storms in what New York authorities describe as a “rain event”.

Related: Lives in the balance: climate change and the Marshall Islands

Thousands of dead fish were seen on the surface of the Shinnecock Canal in Southampton, New York, on Monday, after becoming trapped inside overnight. Tom Jones, a marine adviser at Hampton Watercraft, shot drone footage of the bizarre occurrence. It is believed the fish were chased into the canal by larger predatory fish and then became trapped inside when the canal shut early Monday morning. The fish eventually dispersed back into the bay when the canal opened later on Monday

Foreign minister, Boris Johnson, signs global pact to cut carbon emissions in London

The UK has become the 111th country to ratify the Paris climate agreement, which aims to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change by cutting carbon emissions.

The foreign minister, Boris Johnson, who has flirted with climate scepticism, signed the pact in London on Thursday after a parliamentary deadline passed on Wednesday night, with no objections raised.

Government changes to rules on claimants’ costs could make it harder for anyone to challenge public projects, warn campaigners, lawyers and politicians

Environmental legal challenges face being hit by the “chilling effect” of new government rules that remove a cap on claimants’ costs, according to campaigners, lawyers and politicians.

They warn that the changes could deter organisations and individuals challenging projects such as fracking wells, HS2 and the Heathrow third runway for fear of racking up huge court costs.

We’d like to find out about air pollution around the world. How does it affect your daily life? Share your views and experiences

Air pollution has risen by 8% in in five years with fast-growing cities in the developing world worst affected, according to the WHO. We want to explore its impact on the daily lives of people around the world. If you live in a city that is affected by toxic air or you work in air quality control, we’d like to hear from you.

Two weeks ago, India’s capital city, New Delhi, was effectively shut down because of air pollution. The threat to citizens from smog in Delhi was judged so great that traffic was rationed, coal-fired power stations closed and diesel generators suspended. This week schools were closed in Iran’s capital, Tehran after a blanket of smog was blamed for a string of deaths and in Beijing, students have been told to stay indoors. Air quality in London is among the worst in Europe, and is illegally in breach of EU limits.

Award-winning wildlife photographer, Sue Flood, is one of the world’s only women to specialise in polar photography. Her images capture wildlife, people and landscapes in the Arctic and Antarctica

• Cold Places: Pictures from the Poles exhibition opens in Chester on 19 November

A cohort of US delivery services want to change the way we view, cook and eat ‘imperfect’ produce that grocery stores regularly banish

King-sized kiwis, curvy squash and smaller-than-usual apples and limes. That was the “ugly” produce count in boxes of fruits and vegetables Deborah Levine recently received at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. While most of the produce she gets in her biweekly deliveries is “very normal”, she recalls one particular veggie. It was like a siamese carrot, but with part of it broken off, it looked like it “didn’t have its leg”.

Related: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

Climate change and deforestation mean people who once lived among trees now go to bed not knowing if their homes will be lost to the desert by morning. Villagers are learning how to adapt and stop the sand

Standing next to a thin belt of rattling trees that represents the only line of green in vast stretches of orange desert, 70-year-old Hamud El-Nour Hamdallah recalls a time when this area in Sudan’s River Nile state was dense forest. If you had not found Goz El Halg village by nightfall, you would have to wait until morning to find your way out.

But decades of drought and deforestation have allowed sand to roll through the desert and swallow homes and farmland. Hamdallah and his community now go to bed not knowing if they will make it out of their homes the next day.

Trump’s plans to roll back environmental protections seem worse than many feared

Come on, you can admit it. I admit it. I admit that after Trump’s election victory, I secretly hoped and even though that his rhetoric was worse than its bite. He only said those crazy things during the campaign to get elected. He wouldn’t really follow through on his plans to completely gut the US commitment to keeping the Earth habitable. Oh how naive we were. Trump’s planned staff to fill positions in his administration show things are worse than we could have ever feared.

According to recent reports, Trump has picked long time climate denier and spokesperson for the fossil fuel industry (Myron Ebell) to head the Environmental Protection Agency transition. This basically means the EPA will either cease to function or cease to exist. It also appears that the US will pull out of any agreements to limit greenhouse emissions.

Animals are still being killed in horrifying numbers despite global efforts to stop the poaching crisis, says prince at Hanoi summit

Poachers killing Africa’s rhinos and elephants are still one step ahead of efforts to stop the multibillion wildlife trade, Prince William has warned.

Traffickers have become more sophisticated and increasingly brutal, and animals are dying in “horrifying numbers”, the Duke of Cambridge told an international wildlife summit in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday.

Will the new mayor uphold his election pledges and prove he is serious about improving cycling in the capital?

Over the next few years, the future of cycling in Britain may depend on what happens in London, the place that has done more than any other to build segregated bike lanes.

Only six months after they opened, the new tracks have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams – the Embankment one carries an astonishing 3,000 people an hour in the peaks, according to Transport for London’s Alan Bristow.

Conservation programme sees numbers of the endangered cirl bunting reach 1,078 pairs - up from just 118 in 1989

One of Britain’s most threatened farmland birds has reached a major milestone in its recovery from the brink of extinction, figures show.

A nationwide survey by the RSPB shows the UK population of the cirl bunting - a small, finch-like bird - has reached 1,078 pairs after numbering just 118 in 1989.