The Guardian

Artists teamed with photographer and volunteers to produce posters that will warn young people of air quality on some of the capital’s most polluted streets

Young Londoners concerned about air pollution from traffic have launched an independent billboard campaign to warn their peers of the dangers of diesel fumes.

Artists Vasilisa Forbes and Claire Matthews, together with photographer Terry Paul and a group of 16 to 25-year-old volunteers, have printed 12 large 20 x 12-foot posters which will appear for months on some of London’s most polluted streets.

Leaders of the Munduruku people will be shown the storeroom’s head-dresses and other objects made by their tribe more than 150 years ago

Amazonian leaders, in Britain to protest against the construction of several large dams which they say will destroy the lives of thousands of indigenous people, will on Tuesday be shown head-dresses and other objects made by their tribe more than 150 years ago.

The two chiefs of the Munduruku civilisation, which has flourished peacefully for centuries by fishing and farming along the banks of the great Tapajós river and its tributaries in the rainforests of central Brazil, will visit the massive storeroom of the British Museum in London, where a collection of 50 objects brought to Britain by a Victorian merchant are kept.

Leaked documents and sources show Natural England will use its legal powers less and seek funding from the private companies it is meant to keep in check

England’s nature watchdog is planning to use its legal powers less and risks becoming a weak regulator forced to raise funding from the private companies it is meant to keep in check, leaked documents and sources reveal.

Natural England is duty-bound to defend rare species and protected areas including national parks and England’s 4,000 sites of special scientific interest from potentially environmentally damaging developments.

Claxton, Norfolk Surely more than anything else in British nature, swifts symbolise all of life, and it is all here now in the line of that curve

My summer’s highlight, as we sit in the garden most evenings, has been to watch the pre-migration flocking behaviour of our village swifts. No one knows what purpose it serves, though it’s thought to play some role in flock cohesion. Up to 30 birds were involved, all crushed into a ravelling ball of anarchy burning across the heavens. I find it all the more magnificent to know that its whole ecology is based entirely on insects, but converted to swift speed and scream.

Like the flock itself I circle around and around, but no fishing net of words seems to catch it. Could one possibly express it better as a taste? It is like red chilli crushed in a gloop of honey; the essence of all the Americas mingled with that from all Africa and Eurasia; a taste, perhaps, of Pangaea.

Nasa’s results, which combine sea-surface temperature and air temperature on land, show July was 10th month in a row to break monthly temperature record

Last month was the hottest month in recorded history, beating the record set just 12 months before and continuing the long string of monthly records, according to the latest Nasa data.

The past nine months have set temperature records for their respective months and the trend continued this month to make 10 in a row, according to Nasa. July broke the absolute record for hottest month since records began in 1880.

The celebrity physicist Brian Cox holds up a graph to the One Nation senator-elect and climate change denier Malcolm Roberts on the ABC’s Q&A showing the rise in global temperature over time. Roberts had claimed: ‘We’ve had a pause in this so-called warming for now 21 years.’ He later says ‘the data has been corrupted’ and ‘manipulated by Nasa’ – prompting Cox to ask whether he believes ‘we landed men on the moon?’

New report finds ‘that the energy of 87% of vehicle-days could be met by an existing, affordable electric vehicle’ – but that’s not quite good enough

Electric cars could take over most driving necessities tomorrow, according to a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but they’ll need the help of internal combustion engines to do it.

Using travel surveys and global positioning data, the MIT team has evaluated the possible widespread use of electric cars, and has found that grids could easily support today’s cheap electric cars, and that the cars themselves can already meet drivers’ requirements almost nine times out of 10.

Today’s carbon pollution will have climate consequences for centuries to come. We’re in the midst of a critical decade

While most people accept the reality of human-caused global warming, we tend not to view it as an urgent issue or high priority. That lack of immediate concern may in part stem from a lack of understanding that today’s pollution will heat the planet for centuries to come, as explained in this Denial101x lecture:

BusinessGreen: Clean 200 list finds world’s greenest large companies are outperforming most polluting counterparts by three to one

Toyota, Tesla, Vestas, DONG Energy and Panasonic are among the top ranked companies in the first ever Carbon Clean 200 list, which claims the world’s greenest large companies are outperforming their more polluting counterparts by as much as three to one.

Published today, the inaugural Clean 200 ranks the largest publicly listed companies worldwide by their total clean energy revenues, as rated by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, with the list dominated by firms from China and the US.

Traditional owners say the Indigenous community has not been adequately consulted about Vimy Resources’ planned Mulga Rock open-pit mine

Traditional owners have vowed to fight a proposed uranium mine at Mulga Rock, about 240km west of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, which was given conditional environmental approval on Monday.

The Environmental Protection Authority of WA recommended the Barnett government approve construction of the open-pit mine and uranium processing plant, operated by Perth-based Vimy Resources Limited, after a three-month public environmental review.

Overgrazing is causing loss of woodland and wildlife as populations of the native breed have risen partly due to taxpayer subsidies, says the naturalist

The New Forest national park is being destroyed by overgrazing by its iconic ponies, driven in part by taxpayer subsidies, according to Chris Packham.

The naturalist and broadcaster claims that overgrazing by the ponies, as well as cattle and deer, is causing loss of woodland and threatening species in one of the UK’s most important biodiversity hotspots.

South Australian planning department says increased risk would come not only from oil rigs themselves but from subsequent increase in marine traffic

Plans to drill for oil in the pristine Great Australian Bight marine park will significantly increase the risk of oil spills, both from the oil rigs and the increased shipping traffic, according to a report by the South Australian planning department.

In an updated plan for how the government would handle an oil spill, the department included a specific note about increased risks posed by plans for extensive oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight.

Waberthwaite, Cumbria The dial’s brass plate is coated with verdigris, as green-blue as a blackbird’s egg. “Why did they build it over five feet high?” “So horseback riders can read it.”

The Esk tumbles down 16 mountainous miles from beneath the Scafells to meet its estuary near Waberthwaite church. High tides sometimes lap against the churchyard walls, but all is dry here today. I park nearby, and meet a couple of walkers who tell me they are heading along the shore that gives on to views of Waberthwaite marsh and Eskmeals Viaduct. But first they enter the churchyard, holding the gate open as I limp through with my trekking pole and camera.

God’s acre has been refreshingly fertiliser-free for centuries. Dog daisies are attracting bees to the tiny yellow disc florets in the eye of these flowers. Spineless thistle-lookalike purple knapweed draws a fast-fluttering cabbage white butterfly.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 15 August 1916

A dragon-fly of our largest species visited the “Manchester Guardian” office about a week ago, entering through an open window. I have seen a Manchester-captured dragon-fly before, but the occurrence of the insect is worth recording; it is a powerful aeronaut and carnivorous, but why it should attempt to hunt flies in the city when the supply is so much greater outside is hard to understand.

A Wilmslow correspondent has sent me the remains of a crimson geranium, for from each petal a neat semicircular portion has been removed. He watched a bee snipping the petals and bearing them away to a hole in the mortar on his house wall; he asks what the bee is and why it wanted the bits of flower. It is one of the leaf-cutter bees, a pollen-lover like our hive bee, and the cut bits were to build the cells in which its young would spend their early stages, as egg, grub, and nymph or pupa; they take the place of the wax cells in the hive bee’s comb. In the selected crack or tunnel the cells are placed in a long row, fitting neatly into one another; each oblong cell is formed of folds of cut leaves or petals, the insect cutely taking advantage of the inward curl of the drying vegetable tissues in the construction. The base of each cell is convex; in it an egg is placed and a supply of food, and then a concave door, usually formed of several layers of leaf, wonderfully rounded and out to size, closes the cell until the perfect bee is ready to push its way out. The convex base of the next cell fits into the concave door. The grub, when it leaves the egg, converts its well-filled storeroom into living-room to suit its growth, eating room for its enlarging body. Some leaf-cutters show aesthetic taste, selecting red or yellow petals, but the majority cut their cell material from the leaves of our garden roses. If my correspondent will excavate one or two of the cells I am sure he will be amazed at their beauty.

WaterAid shares the global concern for the world’s top athletes dealing with the sewage in Rio’s bays (Report, 4 August). But the heavily contaminated waters don’t only put at risk the health of Olympians, it’s clear they also adversely affect the millions of people facing this faecal nightmare, day-in and day-out. Despite Brazil being an upper-middle income country, nearly 2% of Brazilians, or 3.5 million people, have no access to clean water, and 17%, or 35 million people, live without good sanitation. In Rio alone, 30% of the population is not connected to a formal sewerage system. It is a travesty that anyone should have to live like this.

Sadly, Brazil is not alone in facing a water and sanitation crisis. One in three people globally live without decent toilets, and one in 10 are without clean water. These Olympic Games have put the spotlight on one of the most urgent yet beatable crises of our time. World leaders must address it. The UN global goals for sustainable development were agreed by these leaders last year. The challenge now is to put those promises into action, ensuring that everyone, everywhere has clean water and sanitation by 2030.
Margaret Batty
Director of global policy and campaigns, WaterAid

Body says, with government reviewing £18.5bn project, benefits of renewables such as offshore wind should be looked at

The crown estate has waded into the battle over Hinkley Point, pointing out that offshore windfarms are already being built at cheaper prices than the proposed atomic reactors for Somerset.

While not arguing the £18.5bn nuclear project should be scrapped, the organisation – still legally owned by the Queen – said that the government’s current Hinkley review makes it a good time to consider the advantages of other low carbon technologies.

Falling costs and increased reliability mean this clean power now offers a mature part of the solution for the UK’s energy mix

With the government re-examining the case for new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point, it’s a good time to reflect on recent breakthroughs in another low carbon technology: offshore wind.

Offshore wind is already meeting about 5% of the UK’s electricity demand, more than any other country globally, and is on course to meet 10% by 2020. The sector has undergone a sea change over the last few years, driven by rapid advances in technology, cost, and industry’s ability to deliver on time and to budget.

AeroFarms has put $30m into a green revolution that seeks to produce more crops in less space, but whether it’s economically viable is an open question

An ambitious, almost fantastical, manifestation of agricultural technology is expected to come to fruition this fall. From the remains of an abandoned steel mill in Newark, New Jersey, the creators of AeroFarms are building what they say will be the largest vertical farm, producing two million pounds of leafy greens a year.

Whether it even qualifies as a “farm” is a matter of taste. The greens will be manufactured using a technology called aeroponics, a technique in which crops are grown in vertical stacks of plant beds, without soil, sunlight or water.

A woman and her dog are rescued from a car in Baton Rouge on Saturday, as floodwaters swallowed the vehicle. Shot by local television station WAFB, three men are seen trying to break open the car that is almost submerged in the water. One of the rescuers, David Phung, jumps in and pulls the woman and her dog out

• Louisiana flooding cuts off roads and thousands of homes

Toxic bloom is terrible for acquatic life – the good news is, we may be able to harness the sludge as a carbon-neutral biofuel

Ideally, in these days of busy news cycles, an eco problem needs to be visible from space to gain traction. Algae has obliged again this summer.

At Florida’s largest freshwater lake, Okeechobee, the cyano-bacteria blue-green algae bloom, covering 33 miles, has been clearly captured in Nasa satellite imagery.