The Guardian

Exclusive: 66% of people back nonviolent action and 75% support solar power being installed on farmland

A large majority of the UK public supports nonviolent direct action to protect the environment, according to an opinion poll. People also strongly backed solar power on farmland and opposed fracking.

The poll indicates the unpopularity of a recent swathe of government policies, with more than twice as many people saying they trusted Labour to protect the environment as said they trusted the Conservatives.

Two Just Stop Oil protesters have smeared cake on a Madame Tussauds waxwork of King Charles, quoting the monarch: 'In the words of the King, the science is clear.' They went on to say: 'The demand is simple, just stop new oil and gas, it's a piece of cake. The stunt was part of a series of protests organised by the environmental activist group

Up to 60% of country in designated drought zone, as jet stream heats up parts of Europe

The US drought monitor declared 60% of the country to be in a designated drought zone last Thursday, with 34% in a severe or deepening drought. Although such conditions are not unusual in the US, with approximately 14% of the country having experienced severe to extreme drought every year since 1895, the extent of the current situation certainly is.

Western states and parts of the Great Plains are experiencing the most severe droughts in the country. Some central states including Minnesota and Iowa have recorded less than 25mm of rain in the past month, compared with an average of 70-100mm in September.

Industry associations for sectors from oil to agriculture in the US and Europe found resisting wildlife-friendly laws, say researchers

Industry groups representing some of the world’s largest companies are “opposed to almost all major biodiversity-relevant policies” and are lobbying to block them, according to a new report.

Researchers found that 89% of engagement by leading industry associations in Europe and the US is designed to delay, dilute and block progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis, which scientists say is as serious as the climate emergency. Just 5% of support was positive and the remaining 6% was mixed or neutral, according to the climate thinktank InfluenceMap.

Allowing autumn leaves in parks and gardens to decompose boosts insect and soil health, says Eindhoven council

A municipality in the Netherlands has declared fallen autumn leaves to be worth their weight in gold – ecologically speaking.

Eindhoven, in North Brabant, is encouraging its citizens to abandon blowers and rakes and to let fallen leaves in gardens or parks lie.

Groups say cancellations could restrict debate as host country tightens security for opening days

Civil society organisations and governments may have to cancel events at the UN climate summit in November as the Egyptian hosts have tightened security for the opening days.

Cop27 will open on Sunday 6 November in Sharm el-Sheikh, and on the Monday and Tuesday world leaders are due to descend on the conference centre for talks to direct their negotiating teams.

Residents in one of the poorest slums of the Philippines – a country among the world’s biggest contributors to plastic pollution – earn money by picking through waste and selling what they find to the area’s recycling shops

• Words and photographs by James Whitlow Delano

The flood levee in the Victorian town of Echuca couldn't protect every home in town. Jemima Lewis and James Hayes are among the unlucky ones on the 'wet' side of the dirt wall. But Lewis – AKA DJ Jemima – has helped lift the spirits of her neighbours by spitting some tunes for the street, half of which is under water. 

DJ Jemima's husband Hayes posted on the community page for everyone to come down. 'She’s a weapon,' he says. 'She does some pretty good gigs actually. She was at [music festival] Groovin the Moo, now she’s at the floods.'

Destruction of forests slowed in 2021 but not enough to meet 2030 commitment made by 145 countries

The destruction of global forests slowed in 2021 but the vital climate goal of ending deforestation by 2030 will still be missed without urgent action, according to an assessment.

The area razed in 2021 fell by 6.3% after progress in some countries, notably Indonesia. But almost 7m hectares were lost and the destruction of the most carbon- and biodiversity-rich tropical rainforests fell by only 3%. The CO2 emissions resulting from the lost trees were equivalent to the emissions of the entire European Union plus Japan.

Residents of New South Wales are staring down more floods as two weather systems bring increased rainfall to the saturated state. Flooding has hit the town of Moree, with large parts of the farming region under water. Lismore residents in the state’s northern rivers region have been told to prepare to evacuate amid the prospect of a third major flood there this year.  Moderate rain is expected along the coast and ranges further south into the state’s mid-north coast but heavy rainfall is no longer expected in the area. Other towns at risk of flooding include Hay, Wentworth, Ballina, Yamba and Maclean

• Australia live flood updates
• NSW weather: almost entire state at flood risk as Lismore braces for third major event this year
  
• Flood warnings in place in Australia’s eastern states, with predictions the wet weather could persist until the middle of next week
  

Two protesters pelt painting with potatoes and glue their hands to wall at Museum Barberini in Potsdam

Claude Monet has become the latest artist to be the focus of food-related climate protests, after members of a German environmental group threw mashed potatoes over one of his paintings in a Potsdam museum on Sunday.

Nine days after Just Stop Oil emptied tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, two activists from Letzte Generation (Last Generation) entered the Museum Barberini and doused Monet’s Les Meules (Haystacks) with potato before glueing their hands to the wall.

Exclusive: Prof Dame Jenny Harries warns of dangers to food security, flooding and insect-borne diseases

The climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said there was a common misconception that a warmer climate would bring net health benefits due to milder winters. But the climate emergency would bring far wider-reaching health impacts, she said, with food security, flooding and mosquito-borne diseases posing threats.

Flood-affected communities are getting conflicting information, right when we need consistency to make crucial decisions which will save lives and properties

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Echuca is on edge. Our near neighbours, at Rochester, are bracing for a second peak.

We were awake as the rain pelted our roof at 4am on Saturday morning. We are tired, emotional and fragile. Processing information and making decisions is getting harder as the anticipation and preparation takes a mental and physical toll.

Police arrest 17 protesters after activists glued themselves to the road in Upper Street, Islington

Just Stop Oil activists have glued themselves to a road in north London on the 22nd day of the group’s campaign of civil unrest.

About 20 protesters stopped traffic in Upper Street in Islington, north London, on Saturday.

Farmers say having solar sites allows them to subsidise food production during less successful years

Farmers have urged whoever succeeds Liz Truss as UK prime minister to abandon plans to ban solar energy from most of England’s farmland, arguing that it would hurt food security by cutting off a vital income stream.

Truss, who resigned on Thursday, and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, hoped to ban solar from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land, the Guardian revealed last week.

The NSW town is in a hurry to transition from mining and power generation – but attracting new industries has its own pitfalls

Lithgow, with its coalmines, power stations and cauldron-like geography, used to be a lure for young public health officials, keen to study the effects of the heavy pollution. Nestled on the western edge of the Blue Mountains about two hours from Sydney, the gritty industrial town hosted Australia’s first steelworks. Residents were given coal for next to nothing to burn during the cold winters.

“The place was just full of smog,” says Chris Jonkers, now an activist with the Lithgow Environment Group, whose father worked in the nearby state coalmine for about nine years before its closure in 1964. “He’d come home black every day.”

Climate activists defiant as public order bill aims to curtail civil disobedience tactics

UK climate activists have vowed to continue their disruptive protests until the government imposes the death penalty for their actions, as they signalled their contempt for a new bill aimed at curtailing their civil disobedience tactics.

The public order bill, which passed through the Commons this week and is now before the House of Lords, takes aim at “criminal, disruptive and self-defeating guerrilla tactics” used by groups such as Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain.

Exclusive: Efficiency recommendations of experts rejected in European Commission ‘Euro 7’ proposals

Almost 100m highly polluting cars could appear on Europe’s roads over the next decade after the European Commission moved to disown its own experts efficiency recommendations in a leaked proposal seen by the Guardian.

About 70,000 premature deaths in 2018 were caused by road transport emissions, mostly nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM), and the commission had been expected to tighten pollution limits in the next “Euro 7” regulation, which takes effect in 2025.

When three bison were released in Kent in July in a pioneering rewilding project, one of the bison was pregnant, although the rangers were not aware of this. Bison are known to conceal their pregnancies to prevent predators targeting animals and their offspring. The female calf was discovered after a couple of days when rangers could not locate the mother, who had found a secluded site to give birth. The bison ranger Tom Gibbs said 'she has come on leaps and bounds, literally'

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a mud-covered kangaroo, a baby grey seal and rescued elephants