The Guardian

Coignafearn, Highlands There is something about wild goats that appeals to me – perhaps their look of superiority?

Standing on the side of the burn, I watched the water flow past my feet, gurgling and murmuring as it continued on its way to the river Findhorn below. After the cold spring, the spring and early summer plants were all flowering together. The yellow carpets of bird’s foot-trefoil, or “eggs and bacon” as I prefer to call it, dominated the scene. On the drier areas were small groups of mountain pansies whose flowers varied from red to intense violet.

The butterworts in the splash zone of the burn were such an outstanding purple that their tiny flowers looked much larger than they actually were. Lady’s smock plants – also known as cuckooflowers, because they bloom when the first cuckoo begins calling – stood out above the others. Their slender stems topped with tiny pale lilac flower heads looked as if they were just waiting for an orange tip butterfly to lay its tiny orange eggs on them.

Tina Louise Rothery was part of a group that occupied field near Blackpool being considered for shale gas exploration

An anti-fracking campaigner has appeared in court faced with a legal bill of more than £55,000 and a potential custodial sentence after being sued for trespass.

Tina Louise Rotheryrefused to answer questions about her financial affairs at Blackpool district registry and said she would not pay the bill. She said afterwards she had been told she could face up to two weeks in prison.

Coalition government revived proposals after companies said they would push ahead with projects

German politicians have approved a law that bans fracking, ending years of dispute over the controversial technology to release oil and gas locked deep underground.

The law does not outlaw conventional drilling for oil and gas, leaving it to state governments to decide on individual cases.

Feasting jackals, Yellowstone’s grizzly bears and delicate pick roseate spoonbills are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

From the ‘red-tape’ slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of green professionals, all indications are for weaker environmental protections

Despite being an issue that knows no borders, affects all and is of vital interest to future generations, the environment was low on the agenda ahead of the UK’s historic vote to leave the European Union.

The short answer to what happens next with pollution, wildlife, farming, green energy, climate change and more is we don’t know – we are in uncharted territory. But all the indications – from the “red-tape” slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of environmental professionals – are that the protections for our environment will get weaker.

The Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi, renowned for his career composing scores for television and movies, gives a haunting performance among the icebergs of the Arctic in conjunction with Greenpeace in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the region. The concert was planned to tie in with a meeting of the Ospar Commission, which will decide on a proposal to safeguard 10% of the Arctic Ocean this week

Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire This trickle may be unmapped, but when the water rises, it delivers enough force to damage a bridge

It has no name, but it has torn a bridge apart. “The brook” rises west of Lower Benefield, near Spring Wood. There, a dendritic network of tiny streams converges and flows to Sheepwalk Spinney, after which, for much of the year, the water disappears underground leaving the valley floor dry. Further downstream, around Brook Farm on the eastern side of Lower Benefield, it re-emerges as a wriggly stream that runs all year round. After winding south of Glapthorn, the brook unites with the broad, slow-flowing river Nene near Cotterstock.

Thunderstorms with torrential rain formed flowing sheets of brown water on the roads and saturated the valley this week. Then another storm, and the brook springs into vigorous life, water erupting overground and rising rapidly. Quickly, the stretch upstream of Lower Benefield and the A427 transforms from a trickle between stickleback-occupied pools (we get the three-spined and the scarcer nine-spined) into a tumultuous force; pouring across fields and impelling through spinneys.

Bequest of $35m makes Cellarmasters founder David Thomas the country’s leading environmental philanthropist

David Thomas, who became wealthy by pioneering mail-order wine, has become Australia’s biggest philanthropist to the environment, announcing a bequest that takes his donations to about $70m.

“Barbara, my late wife, and I – it was always our intention that we’d give about 50% of our wealth away during our lifetime and then we’d give the other 50% away when we died,” Thomas told Guardian Australia.

SunCrowd says its pioneering program, launched in Newcastle on Thursday, has attracted keen interest

Australia’s first bulk-buy program for solar battery storage has launched, with more than 1,000 people in Newcastle expressing interest and more than 500 attending a sign-up event on Thursday night to buy home battery systems. From Friday, the program is being opened to people all around Australia.

The cost and complexity of battery storage, and the expectation that prices will come down , has so far discouraged purchases.

Dark bordered beauty moths have declined by over 90% at their last stronghold near York due to sheep grazing and habitat loss

The dark bordered beauty moth is heading towards extinction at its last site in England, new research has found.

The tiny, rare insect is now found only on Strensall Common, an area of protected lowland heath near York, having been lost from Newham Bog in Northumberland. But scientists have found that even in its last stronghold numbers have plunged by over 90% in the last seven years, with only 50-100 thought to remain.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard has just completed the first ever Atlantic crossing by solar plane, from New York to Seville, in the latest leg of the first solar flight around the world. We look back at some highlights so far

Cook et al. (2013) has remained the most-read paper in Environmental Research Letters for most of the past 3 years

In 2013, a team of citizen science volunteers who collaborate on the climate myth debunking website SkepticalScience.com published a paper finding a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming in peer-reviewed research. Over the past 3 years, that paper has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. For perspective, that’s 4 times more than the second-most downloaded paper in the Institute of Physics journals (which includes Environmental Research Letters, where the 97% consensus paper was published).

The statistic reveals a remarkable level of interest for a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Over a three-year period, the study has been downloaded an average of 440 times per day, and the pace has hardly slowed. Over the past year, the download rate has remained high, at 415 per day.

EPA has been reviewing lead and copper rule since 2010 but has yet to make changes even as its own scientists have criticized current regulations

Changes to laws that protect Americans’ drinking water are still at least six months away, the US Environmental Protection Agency has said, despite the ongoing lead crisis in Flint and calls for reform from lawmakers and public health groups.

The EPA has been reviewing the lead and copper rule, part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, since roughly 2010. The rule is supposed to ensure high levels of lead don’t seep into drinking water, but has been the subject of criticism for years by scientists who feel it has not adequately protected the public.

Heavy rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday causes flooding in parts of London and the surrounding area as the polls open on EU referendum day. Red flood warnings have been issued for parts of south-east London as a month’s rainfall is expected on Thursday. Footage posted on social media shows disruption to commuters and travel across the city

• Torrential rain and flooding in London and south-east on referendum day

A six-month-old male Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo hides in its mother’s pouch at Perth zoo. The joey is the first of the endangered species – which originates from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea – to be born at the zoo in 36 years and is one of only 15 male tree kangaroos in the breeding program globally

Solar Impulse 2 lands in Seville, four days after setting off New York, using solar panels and batteries to finish latest leg of its round-the-world journey

Solar Impulse 2 has completed the first ever crossing of the Atlantic by a solar-powered aeroplane, landing in Spain early on Thursday morning.

The four-day trip, which started in New York, was the latest leg of a round-the-world journey due to end in Abu Dhabi.

Sandy, Bedfordshire A queen hit the bullseye – a 2.8cm hole in our nestbox – and there is a clearly active colony of tree bumblebees in residence

Since the start of the millennium, a new tune for summer has been spreading north. It was first picked up in Wiltshire; within a decade, it had reached southern Scotland. I can hear it from the bathroom, the bedroom, or standing under the eaves at the back door. The sound is not discernibly different from that made by the maker’s nearest relatives, though the animal’s habits certainly are.

We know this newbie as the tree bumblebee. Common on the continent, it flew the Channel, as wild creatures are apt to do, though we rarely understand why they choose a certain time to move. Most bumblebees nest underground. The tree bumblebee, with a taste for high living, has taken to birdboxes.

Wherever you are in the world, if you are running or participating in food waste projects we’d like to hear from you

Almost $1 trillion in food is thrown away, lost or wasted every year worldwide - roughly one third of all food produced for human consumption. Food such as fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food.

Around half of us go by the date label printed on the packaging of food and will often throw away food that is safe to eat. According to the Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap), an organisation that promotes sustainability, we throw away 4.2m tonnes of food every year in the UK, which, aside from the financial costs, has a huge impact on the environment.

If tests of the 100m-long barrier that collects rubbish on the sea’s surface are successful, it could be deployed at a larger scale in the ‘great Pacific garbage patch’

A bid to clear the Pacific of its plastic debris has moved a step closer with the launch of the biggest prototype clean-up boom yet by the Dutch environment minister at a port in The Hague.

On Thursday the 100m-long barrier will be towed 20km out to sea for a year of sensor-monitored tests, before being scaled up for real-life trials off the Japanese coast at the end of next year.

Some conservationists say endangered birds at the South African reserve take priority, but others argue that locally the big cat is rarer

A leopard killed dozens of endangered penguins at a nature reserve outside Cape Town earlier this month, prompting a renewed debate about how best to protect South Africa’s threatened species.

Ranger Cuan McGeorge found the bloodied, lifeless bodies of 33 African penguins on 11 June scattered across Stony Point, a reserve at the sleepy holiday town of Betty’s Bay that protects one of just four mainland breeding sites.