The Guardian

Hollow bricks are ‘easy win’ to help several endangered species, say experts and Zac Goldsmith who is tabling amendment

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An amendment to make swift bricks mandatory in new housing will be debated in the House of Lords this week in what campaigners call a “golden opportunity” for the government to halt wildlife decline.

The change to the controversial levelling up bill is being tabled by the Conservative peer Zac Goldsmith, who resigned from government over Rishi Sunak’s “apathy” towards environmental issues.

Call for EU to match WHO’s air pollution regulatory limits as impact of climate emergency interlinks with human health

The climate crisis may pose the greatest risks to people with respiratory illnesses, with high temperatures and changing weather patterns exacerbating lung health problems, experts have said.

Respiratory experts have called on the EU to lower its regulatory limits for air pollution in line with the World Health Organization (WHO). In a European Respiratory Journal editorial, they said: “We need to do all we can to help alleviate patients’ suffering.”

Beyond this ferocious, partisan row lies a vital principle: politicians must place facts and judgment over the biases of the public square

Here is a question that is nowhere as parochial as it might sound: does it matter if Sadiq Khan is re-elected as London mayor next year? Not really, you might say in Newcastle; we’re more engaged in the drama over Labour’s dumping of popular metro mayor Jamie Driscoll. Yada yada, you might say in Manchester; we’ve got our own show, as Andy Burnham jousts with central government.

And yet it does matter. We are almost one week into the creation of that expanded ultra-low emission zone in London and yet the world still turns, the lights stayed on and the pubs are still serving beer. There has been some hardship for those who have struggled and will struggle to adapt, despite the scrappage scheme to offset expense. It’s no joke for poorer people who can’t just buy another car in an overheated secondhand market, and tradespeople who don’t have another £25,000 for a new compliant van (though they can claim tax relief on the charge).

Spanish research centre achieves first tank-bred Atlantic bluefin as NGOs warn of poor welfare, more antibiotic use and water pollution

The first successful breeding of Atlantic bluefin tuna at a Spanish research centre has spurred at least two companies to ramp up plans for the industrial farming of land-bred tuna.

The companies would be the first to use only tank-bred Atlantic bluefin stocks of fertilised eggs or young tuna. Up to now, farming of Atlantic bluefin has relied on catching young wild fish and fattening them in open-sea cages.

Ministers hope to make it easier for councils to pass planning applications for new turbines in move that has Labour support

Rishi Sunak is reportedly planning to revoke the ban on building new onshore windfarms in order to head off a row with Tory MPs for the second time.

Ministers are preparing to introduce changes to planning rules that will allow councils to give the go-ahead to turbine proposals where there is broad public support, according to the Telegraph.

Party’s apparent support for Tory move to axe controls on pollution caused by housebuilders is condemned by a range of environmental organisations

Labour will “lose public trust” over moves to clean up the environment if it continues to back Tory plans to scrap pollution rules for housebuilders, green groups have said.

Secretaries of state Michael Gove and Thérèse Coffey last week tabled an amendment to the levelling up bill removing rules that require local councils to block new homes in sensitive areas, such as the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, if they add to nutrient pollution in rivers.

One thing the Conservatives have achieved: the comprehensive choking to death of our waterways

Last Monday, the Conservative government announced plans to scrap the water pollution rules that protect rivers from environmental damage caused by nearby housebuilding. Some people accuse Sunak’s government of being a zombie government, trapped by infighting and incompetence in legislative inertia, incapable of seeing any task through. This is unfair on zombies who, given enough time, often overwhelm shopping malls, eat people’s brains, or fight sharks underwater. If a barely sentient zombie can do all this, it makes the Conservative’s failure to Stop the Boats ™ ® and Get Brexit Done ™ ® seem even less impressive.

But during their time in office the Conservatives will at least have achieved the comprehensive choking to death of our pesky seas and rivers, once teeming with unruly life, providing leisure opportunities to ungrateful peasants, and offering employment opportunities to the ne’er-do-wells who don’t vote Conservative – surfboard hire operators, conservationists, and a Spanish hippy who sits at the prow of the boat on a cruise round Camden Lock, serenading you relentlessly with detumescent Neil Young covers on a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar.

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Return to the wild will boost biodiversity, but government accused of backing out of scheme

They were some of the country’s most resilient residents, creatures that shaped and nurtured our environment for millennia. Few animals could beat the beaver as a restorer of blighted landscapes, say scientists.

This ecological prowess means Castor fiber has a crucial role to play in helping the nation to revitalise its biodiversity and find solutions to the impacts of climate change, these researchers argue. However, they have become alarmed that a government scheme to reintroduce beavers across England is being held back by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

I welcome robust discussion, but this obsession with Ulez is an attempt to sow discord and division

London’s ultra-low emission zone expanded to the Greater London boundary on 29 August – making it the largest clean air zone in the world. Five million more Londoners will now breathe cleaner air – helping to prevent early deaths, protect children growing up with stunted lungs and reduce serious health issues such as asthma, cancer and dementia.

Nine out of 10 cars seen driving in outer London on an average day already meet the strict emissions standards and their drivers will not have to pay the charge, but will see the benefits of cleaner air. The Ulez will also help to tackle climate change and congestion.

Mayor of London defends scheme and accuses Tories of trying to sow ‘division and discord’

• Bogus war on the motorist is sign of Tory desperation | Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan has hit back at criticism of the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) and accused the Conservatives of creating a “bogus war on the motorist”.

The scheme, which was expanded to cover all of Greater London on Tuesday, charges older, more polluting vehicles £12.50 a day and is the largest clean air zone in the world. However, the strategy aimed at improving air quality has been divisive.

Paintings from a climb that retraced an 1800s route on western Europe’s highest mountain reveals the extent of the peak’s melting ice

A British landscape artist who recreated a climb made 150 years ago to document the impact of the climate crisis on western Europe’s highest mountain says what he found was so grim it reminded him of the “dark paintings” of Francisco de Goya.

James Hart Dyke ascended Mont Blanc’s ancien passage north face, the route taken in 1786 by the first climbers to reach the summit. It was also the same one taken in August 1873 by French painter Gabriel Loppé, whose climb inspired Hart Dyke’s own.

Typhoon Saola has made landfall in southern China after leaving a trail of destruction in Hong Kong. Thousands of trees were felled and boats sank in the city's harbour. Nearly 900,000 people had been evacuated in Hong Kong and China while business, transport and schools were suspended in advance of the typhoon making landfall

• Typhoon Saola makes landfall in southern China as nearly 900,000 evacuated

From clean water activists to Nessie hunters and Chrissie Hynde to Phoebe Bridgers: the best original photographs from the Observer commissioned in August 2023

Community around Juniper Hill Field wants to stop wildflower-rich land being divided into small plots

A hilltop meadow of flower-rich limestone grassland in the Cotswolds is under threat, according to residents, after it was divided into four-acre plots for people seeking to buy “leisure land” in the countryside.

The Save Juniper Hill Field campaign wants to list the eight-hectare (20-acre) field close to the poet Laurie Lee’s childhood home as “an asset of community value” to stop it being parcelled up by Woodlands.co.uk, which specialises in buying tracts of land and reselling it in relatively small plots.

New campaign supported by Greenpeace urges Surf Life Saving WA to scrap $5m naming rights deal

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Parents say they don’t want their children to be walking billboards for Woodside, the naming rights sponsor for Nippers in Western Australia.

They want the deal between the fossil fuel company and Surf Life Saving WA (SLSWA) scrapped.

Expansion of metallurgical coalmine in Queensland will add 31m tonnes alone with activists accusing Albanese government of being reckless

Coalmine expansions and developments approved in Australia so far this year are expected to add nearly 150m tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over their lifetimes – equivalent to nearly a third of the country’s annual climate pollution.

The Albanese government this week gave the greenlight to an expansion of the Gregory Crinum coalmine in central Queensland. It produces metallurgical coal, used in steelmaking.

Approving a nine-year extension of the Ensham thermal coalmine, creating fuel for power plants. The Australia Institute’s coalmine tracker found it was likely to lead to 106m tonnes of additional emissions over its life.

Approving the creation of a small new mine, the Isaac River metallurgical coalmine, also in Queensland. It is expected to produce almost entirely metallurgical coal and lead to about 7m tonnes of emissions across its seven-year life.

Ruling a proposed extraction of a large sample, known as a “bulk sample”, of coal at the proposed Star coalmine site did not need formal assessment under federal environment law to go ahead. The proponent can dig up 1.5m tonnes of coal before applying to develop the full mine. It is expected to lead to about 3m tonnes of emissions.

Extending the life of the Lake Vermont open cut coalmine until 2063. This decision did not increase the total amount of coal that could be mined, just its potential lifespan.

Over centuries lawn has come to dominate not just Australian cities, but cities around the world. Might we be ready for something else?

I am standing in a street not far from my home in Sydney. It is mostly unexceptional – a mix of redbrick detached and semi-detached houses, plantings of melaleucas and scrubby, dark-barked callistemons. Indeed, the only unusual thing is that whereas in most streets around it verges are grass, here there is a small stencil reading “no mow” on the footpath, and, behind it the verge is given over to an assortment of native grasses and low groundcovers instead of lawn.

This verge and others like it are the result of a program initiated by the local council, under which residents are able to ask to have the grass in front of their houses left uncut. That may seem a small change, but it is also symbolic of a larger shift with the place of lawn in Australian cities, and, just possibly, a deeper renegotiation with the relationship the landscape more generally.

Graham Stuart says if reforms to energy charter treaty not passed by November, UK would consider exit

The UK could pull out of the international energy charter treaty if attempts to reform it fail, the energy minister, Graham Stuart, has said.

The energy charter treaty (ECT) is a system of secret courts that enables companies to sue governments over policies that would cut their future profits. Companies have sued over phasing out coal-fired power stations, ending offshore oil drilling and banning fracking, with some receiving large taxpayer-funded payouts.

Experts warn that global heating is exacerbating inherent dangers of high altitude mountaineering

Avalanches in the Himalayas are causing an increasing number of deaths and threatening the safety of climbers, research suggests.

While high-altitude mountaineering comes with an inherent avalanche risk, global heating is exacerbating the danger during the climbing season in the Himalayan mountain range, experts warn.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including hungry puffins, arctic rabbits and curious bears