The Guardian

Study finds protecting a single type of herbivorous fish could be crucial to the recovery of reefs from damage related to climate change

Limiting the take of just one type of fish could protect coral reefs around the world from the most serious immediate impacts of climate change, researchers have found.

Studying Caribbean coral reefs, Peter Mumby and colleagues from the University of Queensland found that enforcing a rule limiting the fishing of a single type of herbivorous fish – parrotfish – would allow coral reefs there to continue to grow, despite bleaching and other impacts associated with climate change.

Disposal and decommissioning of plants in EU’s 16 nuclear nations outstrips available funds by €120bn, European commission study reveals

Europe is facing a €253bn bill for nuclear waste management and plant decommissioning which outstrips available funds by €120bn, according to a major stock-take of the industry by the European commission.

The sum breaks down into €123bn for the decommissioning of old reactors and €130bn for the management of spent fuel, radioactive waste and deep geological disposal processes.

Leak in pipeline being built by energy giant Spectra could lead to shutdown – or worse – at the New York state power station, experts say

Across a narrow swath cut by bulldozers and chainsaws through the woods of Westchester County, New York, triangular yellow flags are clotheslined between pairs of trees. The flags trace the eventual path of the gas pipeline that the energy giant Spectra is building through the area, escorted at times by police and harried by local residents worried by its proximity to a decaying nuclear power plant.

If that pipeline leaks or breaks, say experts, its contents could detonate and destroy the switchyard that sits 400ft from the gas line. Entergy, which runs the Indian Point power station, said the plant could be quickly shut down in such an event. Nuclear engineer Paul Blanch is not so sure. Blanch, who has previously consulted for Entergy and now assists an organization calling for the pipeline to be stopped, said that assertion is a best-case scenario. In the worst case, he said, the reactors could melt down. And he believes Entergy and Spectra have not fully considered that worst-case scenario.

Long-tailed tit returns to the top 10 most commonly seen garden birds for the first time in seven years, results from the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch show

A mild winter has boosted the number of small birds visiting UK gardens, with the long-tailed tit returning to the top 10 most commonly seen species for the first time in seven years, according to results from the world’s largest garden wildlife survey.

Recorded sightings of the tiny, sociable tit rose by 44% on 2015 figures and the species was seen in more than a quarter of participants’ gardens. Other small garden bird species that are thought to have benefitted from the warmer weather include the great tit and coal tit.

With the ice cover down to 14.52m sq km, scientists now believe the Arctic is locked onto a course of continually shrinking sea ice

A record expanse of Arctic sea never froze over this winter and remained open water as a season of freakishly high temperatures produced deep – and likely irreversible – changes on the far north.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said on Monday that the sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 14.52m sq km (5.607m sq miles) on 24 March, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

Herd ‘coming home’ under treaty between North American tribes that seeks to return bison from Canada to Montana

Descendants of a bison herd captured and sent to Canada more than a century ago will be relocated to a Montana Native American reservation next month, in what tribal leaders bill as a homecoming for a species emblematic of their traditions.

The shipment of animals from Alberta’s Elk Island national park to the Blackfeet reservation follows a 2014 treaty among tribes in the US and Canada. That agreement aims to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions once roamed.

While the 21-year-old founder of the Ocean Cleanup Project has succeeded in raising over $2m for a device that would extract plastic from the ocean, critics say the high-cost initiative is misdirected

Last year, nonprofit foundation The Ocean Cleanup hit a milestone en route to its goal of deploying a large, floating structure to pull plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The organization issued a press release announcing it had completed a reconnaissance expedition that would pave the way for a June 2016 test of its prototype. With the help of $2.2m in crowdfunding, 21-year-old founder Boyan Slat announced his plans to deploy 100 kilometers of passive floating barriers in an effort to clean up 42% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s plastic pollution in 10 years.

Despite considerable online enthusiasm for the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They question whether the design will work as described and survive the natural forces of the open ocean, how it will affect sea life, and whether this is actually the best way to tackle the problem of ocean plastic – or merely a distraction from the bigger problem of pollution prevention. Many have also expressed concern about the lack of an environmental impact statement prior to such a large push for funding.

Time spent playing in parks, woods and fields has shrunk dramatically due to lack of green spaces, digital technology and parents’ fears

Three-quarters of UK children spend less time outside than prison inmates, according to a new survey revealing the extent to which time playing in parks, wood and fields has shrunk. A fifth of the children did not play outside at all on an average day, the poll found.

Experts warn that active play is essential to the health and development of children, but that parents’ fears, lack of green spaces and the lure of digital technology is leading youngsters to lead enclosed lives.

Former NASA climate director James Hansen and a team of scientists claim a mechanism in the climate could rapidly raise sea levels by metres

James Hansen’s name looms large over any history that will likely be written about climate change.

Whether you look at the hard science, the perils of political interference or modern day activism, Dr Hansen is there as a central character.

Started by John D Rockefeller – who made his fortune from oil – the fund singled out ExxonMobil, calling the world’s largest oil company ‘morally reprehensible’

A charitable fund of the Rockefeller family – who are sitting on a multibillion-dollar oil fortune – has said it will withdraw all its investments from fossil fuel companies.

The Rockefeller Family Fund, a charity set up in 1967 by descendants of John D Rockefeller, said on Wednesday that it would divest from all fossil fuel holdings “as quickly as possible”.

The company last year refused to confirm they were working on a green vehicle, but a government plan on infrastructure suggests they are

Dyson is developing an electric car at its headquarters in Wiltshire with help from public money, according to government documents.

The company, which makes a range of products that utilise the sort of highly efficient motors needed for an electric car such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and bladeless fans, last year refused to rule out rumours it was building one.

Welsh actor narrates A River documentary highlighting risk of river pollution from shale gas drilling in Pontrhydyfen village, Richard Burton’s birthplace

The actor Michael Sheen has given his support to an anti-fracking film opposing shale gas drilling in the Welsh village of Pontrhydyfen, Richard Burton’s birth place.

Sheen narrates the documentary A River, which is soundtracked by original music from Robert Del Naja and Euan Dickinson of Massive Attack, and warns of a pollution risk to the river Afan from potential fracking in the area.

The discovery of unique face markings on individual blennies enabled underwater photographer Paul Naylor to gain new insights into the secret world of these charismatic UK fish

Research led by Oxford Martin School finds widespread adoption of vegetarian diet would cut food-related emissions by 63% and make people healthier too

Growing food for the world’s burgeoning population is likely to send greenhouse gas emissions over the threshold of safety, unless more is done to cut meat consumption, a new report has found.

A widespread switch to vegetarianism would cut emissions by nearly two-thirds, it said.

Canada’s Lax Kw’alaams show us how we can be saved: by loving the natural world and local living economies more than mere money and profit

Everything has a price. Everyone can be bought. We assume this principle is endemic to modern life — and that accepting it is most obvious to the impoverished. Except all over the world, people are defying it for a greater cause. That courage may be even more contagious.

It has been in full supply in north-west Canada, where an oil giant is aiming to construct one of the country’s biggest fossil fuel developments: a pipeline to ship liquified natural gas (LNG) out of British Colombia. To export it overseas via tankers, Malaysian-owned Petronas must first win approval for a multi-billion dollar terminal on the coast.

New polling data shows that public concern about climate change is at a new high, as the US emerges from its warmest-ever winter

A record number of Americans believe global warming will pose a threat to their way of life, new polling data shows, amid strengthening public acceptance that rising temperatures are being driven by human activity.

Related: February breaks global temperature records by 'shocking' amount

These alternatives to the troubled planned nuclear plant will be faster to build and cheaper for energy consumers, say experts

The planned £18bn nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset are derided by critics as “one of the worst deals ever” for Britain, but defended as crucial to the UK’s energy policy by the government.

Recent resignations and financial warnings have knocked confidence in the Hinkley C deal, raising the question of whether clean energy alternatives could plug the gap. The fast-changing economics of the energy world, with renewables and other clean technologies falling in cost, indicate they can. The alternatives also look faster to build – it would take a decade to get Hinkley into operation – and cheaper for consumers, who ultimately foot the bills.

A new study shows that the current Mediterranean drought is likely the worst in 900 years, probably due to human-caused intensification

In a warming world, we expect to see increases in some extreme weather events. The science is pretty clear that in some parts of the world, drought and heat waves have and will continue to increase. In other areas, more severe storms along with precipitation and flooding have increased. Drought, heat waves, and floods are examples of changes to weather and climate patterns that will have costs for human society.

It’s tricky to discern not only whether past extreme weather have changed, but also whether human-caused global warming is a factor. Scientists need high-quality records that go back many decades to see if there is any trend towards increasing or decreasing extreme weather. But weather is quite variable. We can see a rise or fall in extreme weather events with no apparent cause, human or natural.

Communities and campaigners in Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg lobby for closure of two ageing 40-year old Belgian nuclear reactors close to borders

An unprecedented alliance of 30 major cities and districts from three countries has joined forces to try to shut down two ageing Belgian nuclear reactors close to their borders.

Cologne and Dusseldorf in Germany, Luxembourg City and Maastricht in the Netherlands are among the cities co-funding a lawsuit to close one reactor – Tihange 2 – and calling on the European commission to prepare a separate case at the European court of justice.

Fort Yukon has recorded Alaska’s coldest ever temperatures but this winter temperatures have been much warmer than usual, leading to dangerously thin ice

This year’s record-breaking temperatures have robbed the Arctic of its winter, sending snowmobilers plunging through thin ice into freezing rivers and forcing deliveries of snow to the starting line of Alaska’s legendary Iditarod dogsledding race.

Last month’s high temperatures – up to 16C (29F) above normal in some parts of the Arctic – flummoxed scientists, and are redefining life in the Arctic, especially for the indigenous people who live close to the land.