The Guardian

Isle de Jean Charles has lost 98% of its land and most of its population to rising sea levels – but as remaining residents consider relocation, what happens next is a test case to address resettlement needs

Wenceslaus Billiot, an 88-year-old native of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, remembers growing up on a much different island than the two-mile sliver of his ancestral home that remains today.

“When I was a kid I used to do trapping in the back,” he said, gesturing towards the back of the small, one-story house that stands elevated on stilts to escape the floods that roll in from the bayou after nearly every storm. “You could walk for a long time. Now, nothing but water.”

Environment Agency says eight pumps capable of handling 30% more water to be installed along river as part of £13m project

The Environment Agency has said it intends to replace all water pumps around York months after the failure of one led to flooding in large swaths of the city.

Eight pumps capable of dealing with 30% more water are to be installed over the next 20 months, the agency said.

An £800 tax would fund old diesel scrappage, encourage move to low-emission vehicles and reduce air pollution, according to Policy Exchange thinktank

An £800 pollution tax should be put on sales of new diesel cars, with the proceeds used for a scrappage scheme for older diesels, according to the thinktank Policy Exchange.

The move, proposed ahead of George Osborne’s budget on 16 March, would encourage motorists to move towards lower emission vehicles and significantly reduce air pollution, according to the thinktank, which is close to Osborne. The idea is also backed by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and an influential committee of MPs.

Wildlife ‘firsts’ include Norfolk’s only sighting of a Balearic shearwater and a beetle not seen in Northern Ireland for more than 100 years

The biggest survey to date of nature along Britain’s coastline has uncovered a host of “wildlife firsts”.

More than 3,400 species were recorded at 25 National Trust locations along the coastline of England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the charity’s largest ever wildlife survey. A handful have either been seen in a new habitat for the first time or “rediscovered” after going unseen for many years.

Removal of nuclear fuel from power plant that suffered triple meltdown following 2011 tsunami could take 40 years or more

In the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant “resembled a field hospital”, according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the plant’s stricken reactors.

“Now it really does feel like the situation is settling down and we can look ahead,” said Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning at the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

Scientists have discovered a species of bacteria capable of breaking down commonly used PET plastic but remain unsure of its potential applications

Nature has begun to fight back against the vast piles of filth dumped into its soils, rivers and oceans by evolving a plastic-eating bacteria – the first known to science.

In a report published in the journal Science, a team of Japanese researchers described a species of bacteria that can break the molecular bonds of one of the world’s most-used plastics - polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or polyester.

On the anniversary of the 2011 disaster that killed 19,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, life and hope continue a steady resurgence, writes Justin McCurry

On 11 March 2011 a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the north-east coast of Japan and triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Related: Five years after Japan's tsunami, orphan victims lament their lost parents

The government claims the seal-fur industry is lucrative, but protesters argue it costs more to monitor the practice than the hunts generate in revenue

Justin Trudeau’s government has come under renewed pressure to ban seal hunting after it emerged that Canada is spending far more on monitoring seal hunts than it receives in the export value of seal products.

Documents obtained under freedom of access laws show that Canada spends around $2.5m a year to monitor seal hunts that occur in the remote north-east. By comparison, the 2014 export figure for seal products was just $500,000.

US and Canadian leaders expected to announce a series of common measures including methane emissions cuts and protections for rapidly warming Arctic

Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau will commit to work together to fight climate change and protect an Arctic experiencing the mildest winter ever recorded, sources familiar with the initiatives said.

The two leaders were expected to announce a number of common climate measures at a meeting at the White House this week, from a 45% cut in methane emissions from the oil and gas industry to protections for a rapidly warming Arctic.

Work will begin this year to shut down Fessenheim, which is at the centre of a row with Germany and Switzerland

The French environment minister, Ségolène Royal, said on Monday that work will begin this year to shut down the country’s oldest nuclear power plant, at the centre of a row with neighbouring Germany and Switzerland.

In doing so she implicitly contradicted a Green party minister who had said on Sunday that the process to close the Fessenheim plant in Alsace would be completed, rather than merely started, by the end of the year.

The two ministers spoke to the French media after a row sparked on Friday when Germany demanded that France close down Fessenheim following reports that a 2014 incident was worse than earlier portrayed.

Royal said on the TF1 television channel that shutting down a nuclear reactor “is not just turning off a tap” and involved not only time-consuming official paperwork but careful decommissioning under strict safety conditions, along with collateral issues such as the question of job losses.

“A nuclear plant like Fessenheim employs 2,000 people,” she explained, saying the site could eventually be converted for renewable energy, or maybe a car factory.

On Sunday France’s housing minister, Green party member Emmanuelle Cosse, had said that closing Fessenheim this year was “the timeline ... the president [François Hollande] has repeated to me several times”.

“The process of stopping a reactor is simple enough,” she added.

France’s Nuclear Safety Agency has said that safety at the plant was “overall satisfactory” but that the government’s energy policy “could lead to different choices” regarding the facility, which is near the German and Swiss borders.

It said there was “no need” to shut the plant from a nuclear safety point of view.

France has promised to cut reliance on nuclear energy from more than 75% to 50% by shutting 24 reactors by 2025, while stepping up reliance on renewable energy.

Fessenheim, located on a seismic fault line, has worried French, German and Swiss environmentalists for years.

In September, Hollande said the plant, in operation since 1977, would not be shut this year, contrary to a 2012 campaign promise, because of delays in completion of a new plant in northern Flamanville.

On Sunday, Cosse said that to reach its target, the government would have “to close other nuclear plants, other reactors, obviously, over several years.”

The first chunk of a $3bn commitment made at the Paris climate talks ‘shows the US stands squarely behind climate commitments’, the State Department said

The Obama administration has made a first installment on its $3bn pledge to help poor countries fight climate change – defying Republican opposition to the president’s environmental plan.

The $500m payment to the Green Climate Fund was seen as critical to shoring up international confidence in Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on the pledges made at the United Nations’ climate change conference in Paris in late 2015.

Successful trial at a pilot plant in China using bacteria to convert exhaust emissions to oil will now be tested at a larger scale

Turning the emissions of power stations, steel mills and garbage dumps into liquid fuels has been demonstrated by MIT researchers using engineered microbes.

The process has been successfully trialled at a pilot plant in China and a much bigger facility is now planned.

Small, ghostly-white octopus was found in the deep sea off Hawaii and has been likened to the beloved cartoon character

Scientists say they have discovered what might be a new species of octopus while searching the Pacific Ocean floor near the Hawaiian Islands.

On 27 February, a team found a small light-coloured octopus at a depth of about 2.5 miles.

High in the Cambrian mountains of mid Wales, perched on a slope above the chaotically youthful river Afon Tarenig, the bleak aspect of the Roman fort at Cae Gaer speaks of military expediency and urgent purpose.

In the sunshine of early spring it looks almost serene. But to a newly arrived legionary, in the depths of winter, immersed in an alien landscape still home to wolves and bears, it must have felt like the edge of the world.

• Coal currently provides a third of the state’s electricity supply
• State also aims to double amount of renewable energy produced by 2050

Oregon has become the first US state to pass laws to rid itself of coal, committing to eliminate the use of coal-fired power by 2035 and to double the amount of renewable energy in the state by 2040.

Legislation passed by the state’s assembly, which will need to be signed into law by Governor Kate Brown, will transition Oregon away from coal, which currently provides around a third of the state’s electricity supply.

US federal government says recovery of national park population to more than 700 is a ‘historic success’ but conservationists say move is premature

The federal government is proposing to strip endangered species protections from Yellowstone’s famed grizzly bears, with officials claiming a “historic success” in the recovery of the bear population.

Related: Rangers catch grizzly bear suspected in Yellowstone hiker death

Breakthrough in next generation of storage batteries could transform the US electrical grid within five to 10 years, says research agency, Arpa-E

A US government agency says it has attained the “holy grail” of energy – the next-generation system of battery storage, that has has been hotly pursued by the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (Arpa-E) – a branch of the Department of Energy – says it achieved its breakthrough technology in seven years.

System that provides hard evidence of logging crimes in almost real time gives new hope of combating tropical deforestation

Taken from outer space, the satellite images show illegal loggers cutting a road into a protected area in Peru, part of a criminal enterprise attempting to steal millions of dollars worth of ecological resources.

With the launch of a new satellite mapping system on Wednesday, governments and environmentalists will have access to hard evidence of these types of crimes almost in real time as part of a push by scientists to improve monitoring of tropical deforestation.

On Luzon Island, scientists have accidentally discovered the smallest of the giant Rafflesia flowers, a species that may be critically endangered, reports Mongabay

In the rainforests of southeastern Asia, a parasitic plant called Rafflesia produces the world’s largest flowers. Some Rafflesia flowers, for instance, can be a meter and a half in diameter, and can weigh up to 22 pounds (or 10 kilograms). These flowers, called “corpse flower” locally, often smell like rotting flesh.

Now, on Luzon Island in the Phillipines, a team of scientists have discovered the smallest of these giant flowers.

In the wake of the Flint water crisis several schools have shut off their drinking water due to high levels of lead, raising the question: ‘How big is this issue?’

Several schools across the US have either discovered or acted upon evidence of high levels of lead in their drinking water in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Michigan, with one leading expert warning the cases could mark “the tip of the iceberg”.

Related: 'It's all just poison now': Flint reels as families struggle through water crisis