The Guardian

A few intrepid tour operators are determined to reduce the harm we do to the planet with our holidays

I love an untapped resource (as opposed to a very overstressed one). The responsible travel movement is perfect. It takes the huge global travel industry (1.2 billion people holidaying abroad in 2015) and shapes it into a force for good, rather than one that trashes local host communities, siphoning profits to rich countries.

It’s untapped partly because we’re encouraged to think like travel consumers (obsessed with injustices such as single-person supplements) and not as citizens of the world. But a few tour operators are determined to change us.

Londoners are being warned not to breathe too deeply when they go outside. A toxic fog is hanging over the streets, threatening the health and wellbeing of the capital. It is small consolation to know that this has been the state of the city’s air for more than 200 years.

London is in a natural basin surrounded by hills and its air generally holds moisture because of the river running through it, so it has always had a natural fog problem.

Those of us who want to eat safe, healthy food awoke to a nightmare on Tuesday, a chilling interview on Radio 4’s Today programme. Bob Young, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, made it crystal clear that any US trade deal struck by Theresa May would be contingent on the UK public stomaching imports of US foods that it has previously rejected: beef from cattle implanted with growth hormones, chlorine-washed chicken, and unlabelled genetically modified (GM) foods.

Wiping the sleep from our eyes, we hoped it was just a bad dream, but the grim reality worsened. Martin Haworth, director of strategy at the National Farmers Union (NFU), was up next. Surely our own farmers, who have worked for decades to stricter EU standards shaped by consumers’ demand for safe, natural food, would reiterate their commitment to keeping them? Not a bit of it. Haworth’s only concern was that if such controversial American products were allowed into the country, British farmers should be able to use the same production techniques to ensure “an even playing field”. Do you find it credible that British farmers could beat the US’s vast industrial feedlots, hi-tech poultry plants and vast GM prairies at their own game? No matter, the NFU does.

A tiny town in southern Greenland is fighting for its future. Behind it sits one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium. Should a controversial mine get the green light?

It is a beautiful morning on the southern tip of Greenland; the sun is high in a cloudless sky, but there is a tang of cold in the air. A crowd of Spanish tourists in red parkas has gathered at the small jetty in Narsaq, to watch boatmen who have just returned from hunting a minke whale in the open sea. From the shoreline, the Spaniards watch the men below busy themselves, slicing the whale meat into slippery rectangular chunks. They work swiftly, as if cleaning up the scene of an emergency, deferring to one young man in orange overalls. As word spreads that a catch has landed, local people arrive with carrier bags and choose from the cuts laid out on the bloodstained floor of the little boats bobbing in the water. The bags are slung on handheld scales; today, whale meat costs 80 Danish kroner a kilo, about £9. A woman pushes a wheelbarrow down the jetty, loaded with what looks like a ribcage.

The whale hunter is a symbolic figure in Greenland but the flurry the Spaniards are observing is humdrum, devoid of ceremony. Sebu Kaspersen, the hunter in orange overalls, explains that there was a calm sea and they could see a lot of whales; they shot one with a rifle and then fired a harpoon to finish it off. It is, he says, the second minke whale he has killed this year, the limit of his quota. His living largely comes from fishing halibut, and hunting seals for their skin; mostly, he works alone, without a crew.

Strathnairn, Highlands Looking at siskins so close is a delight. I can never decide if their plumage is yellow-green or lime-green

My study is separate from the house, in the 0.4 hectare garden, and I find there are three main distractions when I try to write there during daylight. (Though not the Toad’s Hole engraving by the door, which so intrigues visitors – it’s a family joke, dating back to a time when I used to work away a lot and write home signing myself “Toad”).

The first is the large pond just below the window. We had the pond dug out 30 years ago, for the wildlife, and it has been a great success – you can even see it on the latest Ordnance Survey map.

In trial aimed at cutting air pollution, diesel motorists parking in Marylebone will pay an additional 50%, or £2.45 extra an hour

Westminster will become the first council in the UK to charge drivers of diesel cars extra money to park as town halls across London battle air pollution.

The charge will be introduced for a trial period from April. Drivers of diesel-powered cars and vans will pay an additional 50%, which at current rates would be an extra £2.45 an hour to park on the street in Marylebone, one of the most polluted areas of the borough.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

A baboon squaring up to a leopard, white-tailed eagles, and a cauliflower jellyfish are among this week’s pick of animals from the natural world

The La Hacienda hotel collapses into the swollen waters of the Sicra river in the Peruvian town of Lircay on Thursday. The foundations of the three-storey tourist hotel, which is built on the river’s edge, eroded due to the constant rainfall over the past week and the rising waters. According to local media, no injuries were reported as all guests had been evacuated before it fell

Participants in the world’s biggest wildlife survey this weekend could see droves of charismatic waxwings arriving from Scandinavia, says RSPB

Unusual migrant birds could be seen in UK gardens in the cold snap, experts said as they urged people to take part in the world’s biggest wildlife survey.

More than half a million people are expected to take part in this year’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which is taking place over three days for the first time.

Eric Pillot photographs animals in captivity, amid poorly approximated backdrops of their natural habitats, for his award-winning series In Situ

MPs from across the political spectrum say the UK prime minister must urge the US president to remain in the global Paris agreement

Prime minister Theresa May must challenge President Donald Trump’s “contempt” for environmental protection and urge him to remain in the global agreement to fight climate change, according to MPs from across the UK’s political parties.

May will meet Trump on Friday in Washington DC and has been warned by MPs that the US president’s approach to global warming could determine whether or not people around the world suffer the worst impacts of climate change, such as severe floods, storms and heatwaves.

Old Hall Marshes, Essex: Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls

A tongue of land borrowed from the mouth of the Blackwater estuary. Inside the mile-long V of grassy banks that exclude the sea the tamed land is riven by the contorted veins of once-tidal channels, now filled with freshwater. Today they are frozen into wide, snaking sheets of white. The khaki reeds that fringe the ice blend into fields of dead grass dotted with the greener humps of ancient yellow meadow ant hills.

Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls by the dendritic tidal excavations. The higher areas are carpeted with a wiry mat of grey-leaved sea purslane, while the exposed mud in the channels is criss-crossed by probing redshank, grey plover and curlew. Between these two zones horizontal rims of salty ice mark the last two nights’ high tides. The air is largely still, under a blue sky, but bears the rich salty reek of saltmarsh, a mixture of whisky, earth and algae.

Researcher says new coal plants aimed at reducing emissions would cost $62b, while the cost using renewables would be $24-$34bn

A plan for new coal power plants, which government ministers say could reduce emissions from coal-generated electricity by 27%, would cost more than $60bn, a new analysis has found.

Achieving the same reduction using only renewable energy would cost just half as much – between $24bn and $34bn – the report found.

Statement of claim lodged at federal court alleges that a general manager said company calculated it was cheaper to pay fines than comply with regulations

Origin Energy has had a deliberate policy of ignoring coal seam gas wells that have been leaking and an offshore gas well that has potentially been leaking for more than a decade, a corporate whistleblower has alleged.

The claims, filed in a revised statement of claim to the federal court and denied by Origin Energy, suggest Origin also failed to properly measure the amount of gas it was producing and therefore underpaid its royalties to the Queensland government – something the whistleblower says senior management were alerted to but also ignored.

Environmental Protection Agency spokesman says employees are anxious after Trump team placed a hold on the release of work and edited website

Fears that Donald Trump’s presidency will suppress climate science at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are causing widespread unease, with a spokesman for the administration admitting staff are experiencing “tension and stress” over the transition.

Related: Standing Rock Sioux tribe says Trump is breaking law with Dakota Access order

My friend Martin Alder, who has died aged 69 from an embolism, was a driving force in building the renewable energy industry in Britain.

Martin led the renewable energy committee of the Association of Electricity Producers from 1992 until 2014, by which time it had become Energy UK. He also served as the association’s vice-chair, supporting renewable energy interests on the board alongside representatives from the largest British electricity companies. He steered this broad church of member companies towards policies that have increased the proportion of UK electricity provided from renewable energy from 2% in 1992 to more than 25% today.

The name of my friend, Margaret Bowdery, who has died aged 83, will be forever linked with the public footpaths of east Berkshire.

When she moved to Maidenhead in 1964 the paths were in a dire state. An officer from the former Berkshire county council told her that they were not needed and should not be maintained. Margaret was indignant and swiftly called a public meeting to form the East Berkshire Ramblers’ Group, with herself as footpath secretary.

Accused has ‘no memory’ of shotgun killings in Spanish olive grove

Two forest rangers have been shot dead in the Spanish region of Catalonia after approaching a hunter reportedly carrying an unlicensed shotgun.

The rangers, who worked for the region’s agriculture department, were on a routine mission on Saturday when they met a hunter in an olive grove and asked to see his firearms licence, according to Roger Cole, from the International Rangers Federation.

A new study identifies an extra 0.1°C of human-caused warming

We don’t want the Earth to warm more than 1.5–2°C (2.7-3.6°F) compared to the pre-industrial climate. These targets are not magical; they are expert judgements about what it takes to avoid some of the more serious effects of climate change. We know the seas will rise (they already are). We know droughts and flooding will get more severe (they already are). We know there will be more heat waves, more intense storms, and ocean acidification (all happening now). We cannot stop some of the changes. But if we keep climate change to these limits, we think we can avoid the worst effects.

Where did these targets come from? Well, I mentioned that they are expert judgements but they are based on science. For instance, we can look into the deep past using ice cores, sediment records, and other tools to see how the past climate changed. We can also look into the future with computer models to predict how the future climate will evolve. Through these tools we can get a sense of how large the impact is if temperatures rise.