The Guardian

The third edition of Yeast looks at how human food consumption and production affects the social sphere and contributes to climate catastrophe

• Yeast photo festival: From Planet to Plate, is in Matino and Salento, Italy, from 19 September to 3 November

Because bats feed on crop pests, their disappearance led to a surge in pesticide use. Research found a rise in infant mortality in areas where the bats had been wiped out

In 2006, a deadly fungus started killing bat colonies across the United States. Now, an environmental economist has linked their loss to the deaths of more than 1,300 children.

The study, published in Science on Thursday, found that farmers dramatically increased pesticide use after the bat die-offs, which was in turn linked to an average infant mortality increase of nearly 8%. Unusually, the research suggests a causative link between human and bat wellbeing.

Enthusiasts discovered Norfolk snout, thought to have died out in the UK in 1971, in their garden

The Norfolk snout was always a rare moth in Britain. By the late 1960s, populations of this small beige moth with a distinctive protuberant “nose” had dwindled to just one site – a working quarry in north-west Norfolk.

Bad weather or possibly over-collecting by a few zealots meant that the moth, which has a 20mm wingspan, became extinct in Britain in 1971.

Dusky sea snake was placed on threatened species list this week and is known only to exist on a small number of reefs off the Kimberley coastline

Conservation scientists advising the federal government have called for fossil fuel activity in the location of Woodside’s proposed multibillion gas project to be urgently reviewed to protect the stronghold of an endangered sea snake.

The dusky sea snake, Aipysurus fuscus, was placed on the country’s threatened species list this week and is known only to exist on a small number of reefs off the Western Australia Kimberley coastline.

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Experts urge Australia not to delay target too long as report by Climate Change Authority identifies six barriers to net zero

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The Australian government may delay the announcement of a 2035 climate target until after the February deadline and beyond the next election, in part due to uncertainty about the ramifications of the US presidential election.

Some big emitting countries are lagging in developing their 2035 emissions reduction targets, which under the Paris climate agreement are due before the UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil, in November next year.

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The Climate Change Authority’s sector pathways review says a huge national effort is needed and the net zero goal should become front of mind for business, investors and governments

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A zero-carbon mindset must “become the new normal” in Australia, according to a much-anticipated report from the federal government’s independent climate advisory body.

The report, released today by the Climate Change Authority, describes how Australia can meet the crucial target of net zero emissions by 2050.

CEOs in England and Wales could face two years in prison under proposals to force firms to supply data quickly

Water bosses in England and Wales could be jailed for up to two years if they cover up sewage dumping, under legislation proposed by the Labour government.

At the moment, CEOs of water companies face fines for failing to comply with investigations by the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), but there have been just three such fines since privatisation three decades ago.

Scheme helping people in England connect with nature led to better mental health, report finds

A major scheme helping people in England connect with nature led to big improvements in mental health, a report has found.

The prescribing of activities in nature to tackle mental ill health has benefited thousands of people across England, a government-backed project has shown.

Footage shows Danish police apprehending the activist Greta Thunberg at a Gaza war protest. Six demonstrators were detained at the scene, at the University of Copenhagen, after about 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson told Reuters

• Greta Thunberg arrested at Gaza war protest in Copenhagen

Dialogue with green groups results in agreement on ‘urgent, ambitious and feasible’ reforms in agriculture

Europe’s food and farming lobbies have recognised the need to eat less meat after hammering out a shared vision for the future of agriculture with green groups and other stakeholders.

The wide-ranging report calls for “urgent, ambitious and feasible” change in farm and food systems and acknowledges that Europeans eat more animal protein than scientists recommend. It says support is needed to rebalance diets toward plant-based proteins such as better education, stricter marketing and voluntary buyouts of farms in regions that intensively rear livestock.

In his new book, the professor says nuclear is costly, risky and takes too long to scale up. Can he win over converts?

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the debate on nuclear power is pretty much settled. Sure, there are still some naysayers, but most reasonable people have come to realise that in an age of climate crisis, we need low-carbon nuclear energy – alongside wind and solar power – to help us transition away from fossil fuels. In 2016, 400 reactors were operating across 31 countries, with one estimate suggesting roughly the same number in operation in mid-2023, accounting for 9.2% of global commercial gross electricity generation. But what if this optimism were in fact wrong, and nuclear power can never live up to its promise? That is the argument MV Ramana, a physicist, makes in his new book. He says nuclear is costly, dangerous and takes too long to scale up. Nuclear, the work’s title reads, is not the solution.

This wasn’t the book Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia, planned to write. The problems with nuclear are so “obvious”, he wagered, they don’t need to be spelled out. But with the guidance of his editor, he realised his mistake. Even in the contemporary environmental movement, which emerged alongside the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements, there are converts. Prominent environmentalists, understandably desperate about the climate crisis, believe it is rational and reasonable to support nuclear power as part of our energy mix.

Climate activist one of six detained by police after students block university building in Danish capital

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Danish police have arrested the environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Copenhagen at a protest against the war in Gaza, a spokesperson for the student group organising the demonstration has said.

Six people had been detained on Wednesday at the University of Copenhagen after 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson said.

Take renewable energy out of the equation and there isn’t much else expected to reduce fossil fuel use this side of 2030

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Australia has a problem with greenhouse gas emissions – a bigger problem than the political debate concedes.

Late last week, as Australians endured record August warmth and global heating-fuelled extreme rain, the federal government released data that suggest heat-trapping gases across most of the economy are currently headed in the wrong direction or yet to budge much from historic highs.

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Arithmetic over capacity does not add up, with supply chains a constraining factor

• Renewable energy auction secures enough power for 11m UK homes

It was a “record-setting auction” and “a significant step forward in our mission for clean power for 2030”, trumpeted the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, enjoying the contrast with last year’s auction flop under the Tories in which precisely zero bids were received to build offshore windfarms.

Miliband was claiming credit when it wasn’t entirely due, of course, because this year’s competition was designed well before the general election. Some version of success was guaranteed from the moment the last government said it was prepared to pay up to £73 a megawatt hour (in 2012 prices, confusingly) for offshore wind, a mighty leap from the £44 level that produced no takers in 2023. At the higher level of incentive, developers were bound to come out to play again.

Exclusive: Cut would mean at least 239,000 fewer hectares of nature-friendly farmland, according to RSPB

The government is to slash the nature-friendly farming budget in England by £100m in order to help fill what ministers say is a £22bn Treasury shortfall, the Guardian can reveal.

Nature groups and farmers have called this a “big mistake”, saying it jeopardised the government’s legally binding targets to improve nature.

Greenpeace urges Labour to ‘fulfil international obligations’ as critics question accuracy of official data

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The UK’s worst methane hotspots include the last coalmine, livestock farm clusters, landfills, power plants and North Sea oil and gas wells, according to an analysis.

The process has also thrown up serious doubts over the UK’s ability to calculate its methane emissions.

Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year ever

Japan has recorded its hottest summer on record after a sweltering three months marked by thousands of instances of “extreme heat”, with meteorologists warning that unseasonably high temperatures will continue through the autumn.

The average temperature in June, July and August was 1.76C higher than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, the Japan meteorological agency said, according to Kyodo news agency.

Friends of the Earth says pollution exceeds healthy levels for nature in 9,062 localities

More than a quarter of neighbourhoods in England have pollution levels that are highly harmful to wildlife, new data shows.

Friends of the Earth has named 27.5% of areas “nature pollution hotspots” in new research. These are defined as places where air, water, noise and light pollution all exceed levels that are damaging to nature.

Will its bark be worse than its bite?

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Seabirds are in a precarious position as their breeding areas are threatened by climate breakdown and overfishing

Five seabirds have been added to the UK’s conservation red list, meaning they are at dire risk of local extinction.

The government has been urged to act as the arctic tern, Leach’s storm petrel, common gull, great skua and great black-backed gull join other seabird species such as the puffin on the list after severe population declines.