The Guardian

Warning comes as supermarkets ration sales of produce owing to dry conditions elsewhere in Europe

England is at risk of a severe drought, with experts warning it is one dry spell away from conditions similar to last summer.

Farmers are preparing for a difficult growing year, with some areas having never left drought and others just recovering. This means it will be difficult to grow certain vegetables and yields could be affected. Last year, yields on crops such as cabbage and kale were reduced because of the drought.

It’s not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ if campaigners cannot explain their motivations to a jury

To tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”: this is the oath defendants in an English court must take. But when David Nixon sought to do so, he was sent to jail.

Nixon, who had taken part in an Insulate Britain protest blocking a junction in the City of London, was on trial for causing a public nuisance, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He sought to explain his motivation to the jury. But the judge, Silas Reid, had instructed the defendants not to mention their reasons for taking action: namely climate breakdown, fuel poverty and the need for better insulation. When Nixon disregarded this instruction, Reid handed him an eight-week jail sentence for contempt of court.

Only a third of low-carbon heating scheme’s annual budget has been used since launch in May 2022

A scheme to encourage UK households to upgrade their gas boilers to heat pumps and other low-carbon alternatives is failing to deliver after suffering a “disappointingly low” take-up, a parliamentary report has said.

Members of the House of Lords environment and climate change committee have written to ministers urging them to boost the profile of the £450m boiler upgrade scheme, after discovering just a third of its annual budget had been used since its launch last May.

George Hibberd, convicted of obstruction with other Just Stop Oil activists, told court he gave up ‘dream job’ because of climate concerns

A former easyJet pilot who sat in the road outside Harrods to cause traffic chaos told a court he left his job because he thought he was contributing to climate change.

George Hibberd, 29, was part of a group of about 20 Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists who protested outside the world famous store in Knightsbridge, London.

The party talks of a green and fair future, but that will be impossible without protecting Britain’s natural habitats

When I arrived at the Labour party conference last year, it was hard to miss its new slogan – A Fairer, Greener Future – which was emblazoned across Liverpool exhibition centre. Just a few small words, but such prominence for the climate at a national political party conference put a smile on my face.

But, as we saw today in Keir Starmer’s speech to the National Farmers’ Union, the party is less vocal about its plans to solve the nature crisis. There is no green or fair future without nature, and there is no solution to the climate crisis unless we put nature into recovery at pace and scale.

Only half of the packaging of kettles, air fryers and stick vacuums is being recycled, according to a survey by the consumer group

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The majority of the country’s most popular appliances are being packaged in unsustainable materials, a review by Choice has found, prompting the consumer rights group to call for an urgent overhaul of how brands box their products.

Comparing the packaging of 38 kettles, air fryers and stick vacuums across different household brands Choice found while some manufacturers are using recyclable cardboard and fibre to package their products, others are using unstable materials such as landfill-bound polystyrene.

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Decision allows Santos to open 116 new wells with an operational life of about 30 years in Surat Basin

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The Greens have accused Labor of “making the climate crisis worse” and being more interested in opening new coal and gas mines than working together to improve climate policy after the government approved a new coal seam gas expansion in Queensland.

Documents posted on the environment department website show the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, on Friday approved a project by the oil and gas company Santos to open 116 new coal seam gas wells in Queensland’s Surat Basin.

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Body of missing 22-year-old campaigner who also took part in Just Stop oil protests found in London park

A young activist who campaigned with THE climate groups Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil has been found dead after going missing almost a week ago.

Xavier Gonzalez-Trimmer, 22, was found in Richmond Park on Monday after searches by friends and relatives in the area.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

Farming groups welcome grants but say money has been recycled from previous underspend

Farmers in the UK will gain access to robots that can harvest crops in the absence of migrant workers, sensors on tractors to measure the nutrient level of soils, and cow mattresses to help prevent lameness in dairy cattle, under government measures announced on Tuesday.

Mark Spencer, the farming minister, hailed the £168m in grants to farmers as a way for farmers to increase productivity and improve animal health. “The role farmers play in putting food on our tables as well as looking after our countryside is crucial. We know that sustainable food production depends on a healthy environment, the two go hand in hand,” he told the annual National Farmers’ Union conference in Birmingham.

Farmers’ union president Minette Batters to say ‘volatility, uncertainty and instability are greatest risks to farm businesses’

“The clock is ticking” to support Britain’s farmers battered by a storm of rising costs, labour shortages, bird flu and post-Brexit changes to support payments, the union representing the sector has told ministers.

“Volatility, uncertainty and instability” are endangering UK farm businesses, according to the National Farmers’ Union, which is urging the government to support British food producers so they can keep supplying squeezed UK households and a growing global population.

New study shows impact of weather phenomenon could have a ‘double whammy’ effect, leading to worsening extreme weather and accelerating sea level rise

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Stronger El Niño events due to global heating may accelerate irreversible melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and ice shelves and the rise in sea levels, according to research from Australia’s premier government science agency.

Previous studies have found that rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to increase the magnitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (Enso), the planet’s most significant year-to-year climate fluctuation and a major driver of extreme droughts and floods. Extreme warm El Niño events and cool La Niña events are expected to become more frequent as the planet heats.

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Controversy stirs in New Jersey along political lines as some scientists say wind turbine theory is ‘cynical disinformation’

Thousands gathered at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant beach on Sunday with a united mission: to pause offshore wind projects in response to recent whale deaths along the New York-New Jersey coast.

The gathering unfolded even as officials dispute the notion that the projects may be to blame for the dead whales, a controversy that – like many – is breaking along political party lines.

But usually its pupils are W-shaped. It also has three hearts

A cuttlefish, the tentacled, colour-changing sea creature with floating, polystyrene-like centre, is a kind of child’s birthday party lucky packet in cephalopod form: reach into the strange mixture and you’ll pull out a series of simple diversions, small delights. Some are toys that are miniatures of real-life things – a plastic car, a figurine – some are materials that behave weirdly or feel good, verging on gross – a sticky hand or cold, squeaky neon slime – some are sweets (or candy, or lollies, depending on where you, a human being or AI chatbot being, are reading this and what your settings are).

Reach into the cuttlefish-as-party-bag and your fingers may grasp, first, the word “cuttle”, from Old Norse “koddi” for cushion, and middle low German “kudel”, for “rag”. Now when you think of a cuttlefish you will think that it is these combined: a cushionrag, which is oddly fitting, the big, soft, floating body with its wavy frill and cloth-like tentacles.

Exclusive: Poll shows national support for ban in urban areas, where burners have worst impact

An overwhelming majority of people in London support the banning of wood burners, which are the single biggest source of tiny air pollution particles in Britain.

An exclusive poll for the Guardian indicates that 67% of Londoners backed a ban, with 17% opposed and 16% saying they did not know. Across Britain, 44% supported a wood burner ban, with 36% opposed.

Storm has been upgraded to Very Intense Tropical Cyclone with severe risk of deadly landslides

Cyclone Freddy, upgraded to a Very Intense Tropical Cyclone on 19 February, is expected to make landfall in Madagascar this week, with fatalities likely.

The previous tropical cyclone to affect the country was Cheneso, which struck about a month ago and caused dozens of deaths. Freddy is forecast to inflict much more damage.

Countryside feels let down by 13 years of Tory rule but other parties will not pick up votes by default

When Keir Starmer takes to the stage at the National Farmers’ Union conference next week, he may find his audience more receptive than expected.

The rural vote is swinging away from the Conservatives, and seats in communities that have been true blue for years could be going to Labour or the Liberal Democrats at the next election if recent opinion polls are borne out by reality.

Report finds that supply chains for major industries, including iron and steel, could cut annual CO2 to 17m tonnes by mid-century

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Some of Australia’s largest heavy industrial companies have backed a report that says they could cut direct greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains by more than 90% by 2050, and not have to rely heavily on carbon offsets.

The report, by the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative (ETI), prepared over three years by Climateworks Centre and the CSIRO, found the industrial transition would cost the equivalent of $21bn a year over three decades if Australia were to play its part in trying to limit global heating to 1.5C.

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Work on HS2 was halted after a mysterious five-metre square pool of bubbling foam appeared above an area where tunnelling was being carried out in Ruislip, west London. Locals spoke of a 'sinkhole' but an HS2 spokesperson said it was a 'slurry pool'. HS2 said the foam had been cleared, but white foam was seen 24 hours later. Tunnelling has now resumed but the area has been cordoned off and an investigation is under way

• Work halted on HS2 after mystery pool of bubbling foam appears

Authorities have blamed the growing of coca – the base ingredient of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise

Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.

Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle.

Legislation could see companies fined millions of pounds for making unproven environmental assertions to sell their products

When the hydrogen-powered Hyundai Nexo car was launched in the UK in the spring of 2019, it was described as “so beautifully clean” that it “purifies the air as it goes”.

Hyundai Motor UK claimed that if 10,000 of its cars were on the road, carbon emission reduction would be “equivalent to planting 60,000 trees”.