The Guardian

It’s lost 73% of its water and is unable to sustain some wildlife – and could soon negatively affect human health

Emergency measures are required to avert a catastrophe in Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which has been drying up due to excessive water use, a new report warns. Within years, the lake’s ecosystems could collapse and millions will be exposed to toxic dust contained within the drying lakebed, unless drastic steps are taken to cut water use.

A team of 32 scientists and conservationists caution that the lake could decline beyond recognition in just five years. Their warning is especially urgent amid a historic western megadrought fueled by global heating. To save the lake, the report suggests 30-50% reductions in water use may be required, to allow 2.5m acre-feet of water to flow from streams and rivers directly into the lake over the next two years.

Members who set up group say past policies have been ‘trite’ and social justice case needs to be clearly made

Labour MPs have joined a lobby group in an attempt to push Keir Starmer into making nature and climate a key part of his election manifesto.

Previous Labour nature policies have been “trite”, MPs have said, arguing that the social justice case for climate and nature needs to be made more clearly by the party.

Plan that is key to Albanese government’s 2030 target will focus on emissions intensity to encourage cleaner practices rather than cutting production

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Australia’s big polluting sites will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 5% a year but will face no limits on the use of carbon offsets under the Albanese government’s plan to deal with industrial emitters.

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, on Tuesday released the government’s plan to revamp the safeguard mechanism, a Coalition policy that was promised to limit emissions from more than 200 industrial facilities, but in practice has failed.

Scientists describe as ‘very alarming’ research that shows severe weather events were made more likely by climate change

Relentless drought in California, extreme rainfall in the UK, record heat in China – some of the most severe weather events that have occurred around the world in the past few years were made far more likely due to the climate crisis, new research has found.

The analysis of extreme events in 2021 and 2022 found that many of these extremes were worsened by global heating, and in some cases would have been almost impossible in terms of their severity if humans had not altered the climate through the burning of fossil fuels.

Thérèse Coffey’s weak plans will have minimal impact on one of the biggest problems threatening our environment

Two years after the government banned plastic straws, cotton buds and microbeads in some beauty products in England, Thérèse Coffey is set to ban single-use plastic plates, cutlery and polystyrene cups. That means possibly 1.1bn plates and 4.25bn items of cutlery in England will no longer be made each year.

That sounds impressive, as if the environment secretary is getting on top of the plastics that are used only once but last for centuries, breaking down into innumerable tiny pieces and polluting rivers and seas in the process. But the new ban barely scratches the surface of a problem that has been known about for decades and is now out of control.

John Vidal is a former Guardian environment editor

Most of atmospheric layer that protects planet from ultraviolet radiation likely to be fully recovered for most of world by 2040

The hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, once the most feared environmental peril facing humanity, is set to be completely healed over most of the world within two decades following decisive action by governments to phase out ozone-depleting substances, a new UN assessment has found.

The loss of the ozone layer, which risked exposing people to harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, is on track to be completely recovered by 2040 across the world, aside from the polar regions, according to the report. The poles will take a little longer – the ozone layer will fully bounce back by 2045 over the Arctic and by 2066 over the Antarctic.

Hazelnut and walnut trees among cultivars becoming commercially viable

Nuts are being grown more than ever by English farmers as the climate heats, making the products more economically viable, growers have said.

Nut trees are also helpful for biodiversity on farms, improving soil health as their roots improve the ability and capacity of soil to absorb water, reducing the risk of wind erosion.

Insect declines mean reduced yields of healthy foods like fruit and vegetables and increased disease in people

The global loss of pollinators is already causing about 500,000 early deaths a year by reducing the supply of healthy foods, a study has estimated.

Three-quarters of crops require pollination but the populations of many insects are in sharp decline. The inadequate pollination that results has caused a 3%-5% loss of fruit, vegetable and nut production, the research found. The lower consumption of these foods means about 1% of all deaths can now be attributed to pollinator loss, the scientists said.

Review dismissed claims the current system lacks integrity and is not delivering real cuts in emissions

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A review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system has recommended significant changes to how it is managed, but dismissed claims the scheme lacks integrity and is not delivering real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The review panel, led by the former national chief scientist Prof Ian Chubb, found government agency the Clean Energy Regulator should be stripped of some of its roles running and overseeing the system to “enhance confidence and transparency”.

While candles, diffusers and air fresheners are designed to give off fragrant smells, research shows they can emit chemicals that are far less pleasing

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There’s nothing wrong with wanting your home to smell nice and fresh – and from candles to diffusers, there’s no shortage of home scent products to help you achieve that.

But having rampant fragrances in our indoor air can dramatically impact air quality, coming with a host of potential problems.

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Midlands and north-east of England also show strong demand, says supplier Octopus Energy

Households in Yorkshire, the Midlands and the north-east of England are most willing to live near a windfarm in return for cheaper power, Octopus Energy has said.

The energy supplier has said the public are increasingly open to windfarms being built near them, as the government appears set to lift a seven-year ban on new onshore wind developments in England.

With net zero technologies for long-haul flights still far in the future, opportunities may lie with smaller operators flying shorter distances

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In late September the first fixed-wing passenger electric passenger aircraft took off from Grant County international airport in the US state of Washington. The nine-seater charter plane – known as Alice – soared to 3,500 feet for eight minutes.

Less than two months later, Northern Territory Air Services, a scheduled airline and charter operator, put in an order to bring 20 of the aircraft to Australia with plans to fly passengers from Darwin to Uluru and Mount Isa.

Research charity’s bid to raise money through a scheme that goes against its own principles sparks wrath of clean air campaigners

The British Heart Foundation (BHF), which has campaigned on the pollution risks of burning wood at home, is being urged to review a charity draw for a £3m London townhouse, with a fire pit on the garden terrace and open fires in the property.

A promotional video shows wood being burned in the metal fire pit at the property in north London and an open fire next to a bath. “Take a soak in your sumptuous stone tub and relax to the crackling sounds of the roaring fireplace,” says the promotion.

Warming seas almost certainly prompted the huge mammal’s wanderings, even if deniers claim all is well in the Arctic

As migrant arrivals go, the appearance of Thor the Walrus in British waters last week was encouraging. Thousands flocked to greet the huge mammal as he meandered up England’s east coast after his arrival in Hampshire in December.

Subsequent stopovers included Scarborough, where the local council cancelled New Year’s Eve celebrations so they did not frighten Thor, who gratefully responded by masturbating. Then he moved on to Blyth, in Northumberland, before heading home to the Arctic.

Vessel that sank with more than 200 transported people onboard is being used to humanise the story of slavery

In 2015, a delegation from the Smithsonian Institution travelled to Mozambique to inform the Makua people of a singular and long-overdue discovery. Two hundred and twenty-one years after it sank in treacherous waters off Cape Town, claiming the lives of 212 enslaved people, the wreck of the Portuguese slave ship the São José Paquete D’Africa had been found. When told the news, a Makua leader responded with a gesture that no one on the delegation will ever forget.

“One of the chiefs took a vessel we had, filled it with soil and asked us to bring that vessel back to the site of the slave ship so that, for the first time since the 18th century, his people could sleep in their own land,” says Lonnie Bunch, now the secretary of the Smithsonian.

Sightings are so rare that no one has recorded the call of these elusive waders, but a mission has begun to finally learn where they go when they disappear

“Near-mythical” is how the ecologist Matthew Herring describes the Australian painted-snipe – one of this continent’s rarest birds.

“Some of these terms get thrown around,” Herring says, “but they really are.”

Harvests that form a vital element of the diets of 4.5 billion people are being devastated by global heating. Now research has found a key to create a heat-resistant variety

It is the plant that changed humanity. Thanks to the cultivation of wheat, homo sapiens was able to feed itself in ever-increasing numbers, transforming groups of hunter-gatherers struggling to survive in a hostile world into rulers of the planet.

In the process, a species of wild grass that was once confined to a small part of the Middle East now covers vast stretches of the Earth. As the historian Yuval Noah Harari has observed: “In the great plains of North America, where not a single wheat stalk grew 10,000 years ago, you can today walk for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres without encountering any other plant.”

Police have never taken cycle theft seriously – and the worst effects of this crime are felt by young and disadvantaged people

• Adam Becket is a senior writer for Cycling Weekly

For most cyclists, bike theft feels like an inevitability. It’s just one of those risks that you are doomed to face any day you take your bike out. Such is the fear I have of my pride and joy being stolen – yes, I am one of those people who consider my bike to be my most important possession – that I rarely, if ever, lock it up outside. At home, it stays inside. At work, I take it into the building. If the bike is outside, I’m either on it or in close proximity to it.

It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of lock or preventive measure you use, or where you leave them, bikes – from a cheap, secondhand cycle to a top-of-the-range racer – can just go missing in an instant, with little recourse apart from claiming on insurance.

Adam Becket is a senior writer for Cycling Weekly

Proposal sets out lower limits for soot, which is estimated to cause early deaths of thousands of Americans each year

The Biden administration is proposing lower limits for a deadly air pollutant, saying tougher standards for soot from tailpipes, smokestacks and wildfires could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year.

A proposal released on Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency would set maximum levels of nine to 10 micrograms of fine particle pollution per cubic meter of air, down from 12 micrograms set a decade ago under the Obama administration. The standard for particle pollution, more commonly known as soot, was left unchanged by then president Donald Trump, who overrode a scientific recommendation for a lower standard in his final days in office.

Wind-powered electricity rose to 26.8% of 2022 usage while gas-fired power, at 38.5%, continued growth as largest single source

Windfarms produced a record amount of Great Britain’s electricity last year, although gas-fired generation also increased, National Grid has said.

Figures from the company’s electricity system operator (ESO) showed that wind-powered electricity accounted for 26.8% of generation in 2022, up from 21.9% the year before.