The Guardian

A snacking water vole, two-towed sloths and humpback whales and among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Unpublished study warns of the global health consequences of delaying by five years a cap on the sulphur content of shipping fuels

A push by the shipping and oil industries for a five-year delay to curbs on toxic sulphur emissions would cause an extra 200,000 premature deaths from lung cancer and heart disease, according to an unpublished International Maritime Organisation (IMO) study.

Fatalities from illnesses such as asthma were not covered by the leaked paper, which was based on shipping satellite data and modelling work.

As BP pushes ahead with plans to drill in the pristine Bight, the oil leak off the coast of Scotland serves as a timely reminder of the company’s track record on environmental disasters

Monday’s news of an oil leak at a BP platform off the coast of Scotland could not have come at a worse time for the company. This latest stain on BP’s environmental record coincides not only with Hollywood reminding everyone of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, but with the company’s faltering efforts to secure Australian regulatory approval to open up the pristine Great Australian Bight for oil drilling.

“Small spills” during oil operations are part and parcel of the business – even in the North Sea, where BP has decades of experience, and established infrastructure. BP’s response was predictably bland, keen to downplay any potential impacts.

Tracker dogs trained on human scent are the latest weapon being used to help catch criminals in South Africa’s Kruger national park, the epicentre of the rhino poaching epidemic

“I am ready to die for conserving the rhino,” says Wisdom Makhubele. But the brave young ranger now has another weapon in the war against rhino poaching: the extraordinary nose of tracking hounds.

The trained dogs can run poachers to ground far faster than people, sometimes even being set free in packs and followed from helicopters. The new canine training unit at the Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC), near Acornhoek, opened earlier this year and dogs have already brought armed poachers to heel in Kruger national park, the epicentre of the rhino poaching crisis.

Dibbinsdale, Wirral The alarm builds, then we hear a plaintive whistle from on high, the birds take flight and we glimpse the buzzard

Entering Thornton Wood you have to watch your feet, treading cautiously through crisp leaves to avoid disturbing the bumblebees burrowing into the soft soil of the bank. This is one of the wildest patches of the Dibbinsdale woodland and there are no accessible footpaths or signed trails to lead the way.

Brambles and nettles are running rampant after summer growth spurts. The valley drops steeply down but there are plenty of ivy-wrapped tree trunks to help keep explorers upright. At the bottom Clatter Brook defies its name and progresses almost soundlessly over the smooth black stones.

Aerial footage shows a humpback whale calf desperately nudging its mother in an apparent attempt to free her from a sandbank off North Stradbroke Island, Queensland. The mother is eventually able to free herself and the pair are seen swimming away from the shallow water

Global scheme, agreed to by 191 nations, applies to passenger and cargo flights that generate more than 1,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually

The world’s first agreement to curb aviation’s greenhouse gas pollution has been struck by 191 nations in a landmark United Nations accord, although environmental groups have warned the deal doesn’t go far enough.

A meeting of 2,000 delegates at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency, in Montreal has settled upon a global emissions-reduction scheme that will apply to passenger and cargo flights that generate more than 10,000 tonnes of annual greenhouse gases.

If we were to redesign the farm financial support system so that, instead of encouraging agro-industrial approaches, it required recipients to practise the sort of agro-ecological methods advocated by Felicity Lawrence (Hyperintensive farming will never feed the world, 3 October), we would be able to re-conceptualise it as not a “subsidy” or “welfare payment” (Letters, same day) but a management fee for essential ecological services. After Brexit, we will in principle have the opportunity to do this. But will Mrs May and Mrs Leadsom see things this way?
Richard Middleton
Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway

• In the early postwar years, Monsanto’s William Rand claimed that the chemical industry was a form of alchemy, unmatched in its dynamic power and therefore entitled to protection from criticism of its products’ potential dangers. Willard Dow, of Dow Chemicals, regarded the industry’s critics as “traitors to civilisation” and “economic parasites destined to destroy themselves”.

Report by Global Commission on the Economy and Climate says world needs ‘urgent’ shift away from carbon-heavy infrastructure over the next 15 years

A gigantic overhaul of the world’s buildings, public transport and energy infrastructure costing trillions of dollars is required if dangerous climate change is to be avoided, according to a major new report.

The study by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which is co-chaired by prominent climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern, found that the world is expected to invest about $90tn in infrastructure over the next 15 years, requiring an “urgent” shift to ensure that this money is spent on low-carbon, energy-efficient projects. Such smart investment over the next two or three years could help ameliorate the climate crisis, but “the window for making the right choices is narrow and closing fast”.

Ministers heed expert advice warning that underground coal gasification poses ‘numerous and serious’ risks to the environment and climate

Scottish ministers have banned the use of a technique to extract methane by burning underground coal beds, after expert advice said it posed too many risks to the climate and environment.

Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish environment minister, said he was asking ministers in London to revoke six licences to find test sites for the technique, known as underground coal gasification (UGC), in central and south-west Scotland.

Campaigners in Lancashire say Sajid Javid’s decision to overrule council is an affront to local democracy

In Heather Speak’s immaculate back garden in the Lancashire village of Roseacre, the only sound was the tranquil rustling of trees and the singing of the budgerigar, finches and miniature Chinese quail in her aviary.

But a gloomy atmosphere hung over the picturesque village on Thursday after Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, overturned Lancashire county council’s rejection of plans for a fracking site on its doorstep, saying he was “minded” to permit the drilling if Cuadrilla provided evidence on road traffic issues.

Communities secretary, Sajid Javid, has accepted an appeal from Cuadrilla against an earlier decision to turn down their plans to frack on the Fylde

Sajid Javid has overturned Lancashire county council’s rejection of a fracking site, paving the way for shale company Cuadrilla to drill in the county next year and drawing outrage from local groups, environmentalists and politicians.

The council cited visual impact and noise when it turned down the company’s two planning applications to frack on the Fylde last year, but a month later Cuadrilla submitted an appeal.

The UK government supports unproven, climate-polluting and unpopular fracking, while undermining proven, clean and popular renewables

Spot the difference. Fracking, which is climate-polluting and unproven in the UK, gets “all-out” government backing, with ministers steamrolling over local opposition. Onshore windfarms, proven to be low-cost and low-carbon, get undermined by the government, with local opposition given power to block applications.

The decision by the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, to overturn Lancashire council’s rejection of Cuadrilla’s plan to drill four fracking wells in the county is, therefore, nothing short of hypocrisy.

The Wildscreen festival is the world’s biggest celebration of screen-based natural history storytelling which takes place every two years in Bristol. Among the highlights is the Witness the Wild open-air photography exhibition, which runs on College Green from 7-28 October and features large-scale images by several of the world’s top wildlife and conservation photographers

Only 48% of Americans – and 15% of conservative Republicans – realize that humans are causing global warming

Climate scientists have 95% confidence that humans are the main cause of global warming over the past six decades. Their best estimate attributes 100% of global warming since 1950 to human activities. 90 to 100% of climate scientists and their research agree on this. Human-caused global warming is as settled as science gets.

Yet most Americans don’t realize it. Moreover, the more conservative a person’s ideology, the less likely they are to accept this scientific reality or to trust the scientific experts.

Francis Egan says process is best solution for fuel shortage as his company awaits government ruling on sites in Lancashire

A fracking boss has insisted drilling for gas is better than importing it as the government prepares to rule on two sites in Lancashire.

Francis Egan, the chief executive of Cuadrilla, the company behind the plans in Fylde, said the controversial process was the best solution for the UK’s fuel shortage.

Study reveals ‘worrying’ 68% decline in all regions since 1985, with multiple factors to blame

Toad numbers have fallen by more than two-thirds in 30 years, according to a study using data from volunteer patrols set up to help the amphibians cross roads.

While the reckless but loveable Mr Toad in Wind In The Willows is a fan of motor cars, in real life common toads are vulnerable when crossing busy roads as they migrate to their breeding ponds.

The theory that bike routes clog motor traffic has moved from the internet to the newspapers. It’s time to counter the myth

The headline on the front page of the Daily Mail definitely made me sit up and take notice. “Cycle lane lunacy!” it boomed, next to a photo of a cyclist on a bike lane, kept safe from a line of cars by a kerb.

My first thought was: ah, good, the Mail finally agrees it’s lunacy we have so few decent bike lanes. It seemed gratifying, if unlikely. But then I saw the smaller headline below, and my heart sank: “The new blight paralysing Britain.”

FoI requests reveal ‘alarming discrepancies’ in the monitoring of particulate pollution outside schools by local authorities - despite government advice

Councils are failing to monitor most schools in Britain for dangerous air pollution despite government advice, freedom of information requests have revealed.

All Britain’s 433 local councils were asked by the British Lung Foundation (BLF) whether they placed pollution monitors within 10 metres of school grounds. Of the 322 which replied, only 140 said they did.

Crook, Durham The butterflies became stupefied drinking liquid seeping from the plums, completely losing their inhibitions

For well over a week now the air under the plum tree has reeked like the dregs of a half-drunk bottle of red wine left opened for a fortnight – alcoholic and vinegary. I can not remember such a good plum crop, ever. After the pies and the jam and the ones that were frozen or given away, the fallen plums could only be left to rot, but I piled some on the bird table in the sun. Soon the red admirals arrived.

Related: The insects of doom