The Guardian

There can be around 100,000 of them in the average face wash, but now MPs are calling for a ban and manufacturers are swapping plastics for ground-up peach-pits in products

The late Dr John Ugelstad was a hero of Norwegian science. “Why go to space when you can go to Trondheim,” Newsweek crowed on a visit to his labs in the 80s. It had come to photograph him in the company of a few of the millions of tiny particles – microbeads – he had invented. Prior to Ugelstad, it had been assumed that the only way to make tiny plastic polymers spherical was to do it in the weightlessness of space – the ones made on Earth had come out as useless droopy plastic soufflés. But Ugelstad had found a way, and the results were revolutionary.

In medicine, they allowed the separation of bodily substances to make testing much easier, especially for Aids. And in cancer, his “paramagnetic” (magnetic only in a magnetic field) microbeads allowed new treatments that would pile into bone cancer patients’ bones and “scrub out” the old cancerous cells.

Environmental groups warn president’s climate legacy could be at risk over research showing areas cleared for oil and gas extraction contain marine life

Environmental groups have turned on the Obama administration over offshore oil and gas extraction, warning it puts whales and dolphins in peril and risks undermining the president’s commitment to putting the brakes on climate change.

Barack Obama, who recently called global warming an “genuine existential threat”, has enjoyed largely solid support from green groups that have praised his leadership on the issue. But Obama’s environmentalist allies are increasingly frustrated over federally approved fossil fuel drilling, just as the US president attempts to put the finishing touches on his climate legacy.

With limited resources, Yellowstone national park is trying to manage crushing tourism that tangles roadways, spawns traffic accidents and provokes clashes between humans and the park’s natural world

• Increase in Yellowstone visitors raises park’s concerns over wildlife and safety
  

Humanity’s environmental footprint has increased, but at a much slower rate compared to population and economic growth because of more efficient use of natural resources, reports Mongabay

Human activities have taken a heavy toll on our environment. But there may be some hope, researchers say.

Although human pressures continue to expand across our planet, their overall rate of increase is slower than the rates of population and economic growth, a new study published in Nature Communications has found.

Park rangers reassess how to manage tourist violations, staff burnout and ‘animal jam’ as number of national park guests peaked to four million last year

Yellowstone national park is finding new ways to manage tourism after visits jumped by almost 600,000 between 2014 and 2015. After 15 years of steady growth, last year’s 4m visits was a tipping point, says park ranger Charissa Reid.

The park expects the number to rise in 2016. July is likely to be the first million-visit month in the park’s 144-year history.

Previous investigations fail to reveal impact of ‘world’s largest human health threat’ because they do not account for people’s movement, researchers say

The true impact of air pollution has been obscured by the failure to consider people’s exposure as they move around during the day, according to a new study that has mapped the hotspots of New York’s air pollution based on where people gather for work or recreation.

The research cites air pollution as “the world’s single largest environment and human health threat” but laments that the problem has not previously been “considered spatially and temporally”, with most studies basing a person’s pollution exposure on where they live.

Trash activists from former war-torn countries formed some of the world’s largest cross-border civic movements against rubbish and pollution

Balkan countries once divided by war, nationalism and religion have been quietly uniting to confront a common foe: rubbish.

Under the rubric of the Let’s Do It campaign, Albanian and Kosovar activists jointly cleared their border area and the polluted Lake Vermica last April, in a Wombles-style campaign that has involved more than 5% of Albania’s population, and 7% of Kosovo’s.

Paula Kahumbu: When will we learn that wildlife conservation is part of wealth creation and not an obstacle to it?

Three days spent in Samburu Reserve to celebrate World Elephants Day with 91 children from Kenya’s poor neighbourhoods, slums and rural areas were probably the most moving experience of my life.

A team of staff, interns and volunteers from my NGO WildlifeDirect put on an ambitious three-day programme of discovery, play and learning for the children. The children experienced a real safari, in a four-wheeled-drive vehicle. They camped for the first time in their lives. They met wild animals in the wilderness of Samburu, and talked to rangers and scientists involved in wildlife conservation.

Wenlock Edge The rabbit we watched watching us was taking its sentry duty seriously, and had the makings of a dominant adult – if it survived long enough

All ear and eye, the rabbit was as alert as an exclamation mark. It remained still and watchful, as if it thought it was invisible when in fact its attention was so intense it seemed as obvious as a warning beacon in an otherwise languid August afternoon.

The young rabbit was assessing the distance of this particular threat – two people and a dog – the distance to the burrow in the hedge, an escape route across the field, the position of the other rabbits, other potential threats from land and sky.

In response to the increasing number of women and children fleeing the war in Syria, UNHCR has set up a number of special support centres, also known as “Blue Dot” hubs, along the route through Greece and the Western Balkans specifically catering to their needs.

Investors say countries that move first will attract investments and call for regulators to force disclosure of climate-related risks

A group of 130 institutions that control US$13tn of investments have called on G20 nations to ratify the Paris agreement this year and accelerate investment in clean energy and forced disclosure of climate-related financial risk.

Countries that ratified the Paris agreement early would benefit from better policy certainty and would attract investment in low-carbon technology, the signatories said in a letter before the G20 heads of government meeting in September.

Environmental audit committee calls for ban after hearing that microbeads harm marine life and enter the food chain

Cosmetics companies must be banned from using plastic microbeads in scrubs, toothpaste and beauty products because of the marine pollution they are causing, say a group of MPs.

Members of the environmental audit committee have called for a ban within 18 months after hearing that trillions of tiny pieces of plastic are accumulating in the world’s oceans, lakes and estuaries, harming marine life and entering the food chain. About 86 tonnes of microplastics are released into the environment every year in the UK from facial exfoliants alone, they were told.

In Hawaii, large numbers of tourists disturb nocturnal spinner dolphins, which continue moving while they snooze

The federal government is proposing a ban on swimming with dolphins in Hawaii – a move that may crush the dreams of many tourists, but will allow the marine mammals to finally get a good day’s sleep.

The proposed rule would bar people from swimming or approaching within 50 yards of the Hawaiian spinner dolphin. The dolphins are an increasingly popular attraction for tourists, who pay for chartered tours of the bays the dolphins frequent.

• Rain cold and high winds destroy 133 acres of trees west of Mexico City
• March storms killed 7% of monarchs and added to habit loss by tree-felling

Storms earlier this year blew down more than a hundred acres of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico, killing more than 7% of the monarchs, according to conservationists.

Rain, cold and high winds from the storms caused the loss of 133 acres (54 hectares) of pine and fir trees in the forests west of Mexico City, more than four times the amount lost to illegal logging this year. It was the biggest storm-related loss since the winter of 2009-10, when unusually heavy rainstorms and mudslides caused the destruction of 262 acres (106 hectares) of trees.

Barack Obama visits Baton Rouge on Tuesday, telling residents affected by historic flooding that the country will continue to support them and help them rebuild their lives. Obama also takes a dig at Donald Trump, saying ‘this is not a photo op issue’ . The floods have killed at least 13 people and damaged tens of thousands of homes

• Obama digs Trump in flood-damaged Louisiana: ‘not a photo-op’ – politics live

In honor of the National Park Service’s centennial this week, the Guardian has compiled scenes from around the country. President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service 100 years ago. From coast to coast, Hawaii to Maine, the beauty, nature and scope of US national parks are breathtaking

Hailed as ‘America’s best idea’, the parks are hugely popular with the public but face political efforts to lift federal protection and allow private development

“It’s easy to feel besieged here,” said Wendy Ross, superintendent of the Theodore Roosevelt national park. Ross’s park, named after the “conservationist president” who helped to keep America’s natural treasures unspoiled, is surrounded by oil and gas drilling that has transformed the landscape.

Related: 100 years of America’s national parks – in pictures

As part of a new series on elephant conservation we’d like to hear about your experiences with the world’s largest land mammal

Over the next year we’re going to be covering the plight of elephants around the world. The numbers of these beautiful animals – now our largest land mammal – have been in steep decline for a century and now face more serious challenges than ever, due to poaching, habitat destruction, and conflict with man.

Please help with our coverage by getting in touch and telling us your own stories, encounters and campaigns. Are you a wildlife campaigner in Asia? A grassroots activist in Africa? Whoever you are, we want to hear from you about your own encounters with elephants.

Demonstrators focus on driving up policing costs as anti-bovine TB programme expanded across south-west England

Protesters against the badger cull in England have said they plan to change tactics by undertaking direct action to drive up policing costs, following reports of an expansion of culling to new areas.

The BBC has reported that the cull will be extended to five new areas in south-west England – south Devon, north Devon, north Cornwall, west Dorset and south Herefordshire – where badger shooting will begin in early September as part of government efforts to eradicate bovine TB.

Climate Institute report says negative-emissions technology is imperative because risks of global temperature reaching 2C are ‘unmanageable’

Australia will blow its carbon budget with either the Coalition’s emissions reduction targets, or those suggested by the Labor opposition, highlighting the urgent need for negative-emissions technology, analysis commissioned by the Climate Institute shows.

“Everyone is just now beginning to work out the implications of the 1.5C goal, and how hard it is to get to it,” said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute.