The Guardian

It is no coincidence that ever more extreme politics has come at a time of ever more extreme weather

A disrupted climate and diminished natural world are widening the dividing lines of ideological debate. Left unchecked, this will undermine democracy.

That may not be the first thing on the minds of British voters as they go to the polls on Thursday. It is probably also a minority view in the rest of Europe or the US, where people are too much in the thick of a polycrisis to consider anything outside politics and economics as usual. But from a distance, in my case from the Amazon rainforest, there is a very different explanation for the tremors being witnessed in the old world and the new.

Company blames delay on weak demand and confusion over government policies on ‘tariffs, timings, and taxation’

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos has delayed the launch of its Fusilier electric SUV, blaming weak consumer demand and uncertainty about government policies.

Ratcliffe only unveiled plans to produce the low-emission vehicles in February, with production expected to begin in 2027.

We’ve been back twice a week since that first morning. It’s still freezing and we’re still slow, but the shock of it has gone

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When my mum died in 2012, I found a box of her old life-saving medals that she’d been awarded as a teenager. She grew up in public housing in Williamstown, with a full-time working mother and a father who never really returned postwar. She used to say swimming saved her. It gave her a purpose, a sense of place, somewhere to belong when life at home was hard. Later she taught my brother and me to swim, and then my children, instilling in each of us a love of the water that has never gone.

My grandmother stayed in her one-bedroom high-rise tower flat facing the Williamstown beach until she had to move into an aged care home. For her, the smell of the salty sea drifting across land to her window on the fifth floor made her feel home. Gran wasn’t a swimmer, but she was a great supporter of the life saving club, earning lifetime membership in 1961. And when I checked, her name is still on the honour roll.

The entrepreneur claims agency exaggerated the costs of the Coalition plan despite it using best-case scenario South Korea as the benchmark

High-profile entrepreneur Dick Smith entered the ongoing radioactive debate on nuclear energy this week, accusing government agencies of misleading ministers over the costs of reactors and the practicalities of renewables.

But Smith’s complaints about what the Australian Energy Market Operator’s plan for the future of the grid says, or how CSIRO calculated the costs of nuclear, are themselves misleading.

Light pollution acts as ‘midnight fridge’, drawing in young fish, then predators, according to tests in French Polynesia

Artificial light shining from coastlines around the world is acting like “a midnight fridge” full of tasty snacks, threatening young fish who can be drawn to it and who are then eaten by predators also attracted by the brightness, according to a study.

It has long been established that light pollution hampers people’s ability to see the night sky and harms migrating birds, insects and other animals. But its impact on marine ecosystems has rarely been taken into account, said Jules Schligler, the lead author of the study at the international coral ecosystem research centre in Mo’orea, French Polynesia.

Voters and politicians now know slow, incremental change just won’t cut it. The next government must be bold and brave

• Caroline Lucas is a former Green MP

When I entered parliament back in 2010 as the first Green MP, I used every possible trick in the book to push the environment up the UK’s political agenda. In the early days, progress was agonisingly slow. Simply making the case that Britain should be powered by renewables, not fossil fuels, was a daily battle. Every single budget, I would stand up and ask the same question: what about the climate? And then, quite quickly, things finally began to change.

I’ll never forget the moment I realised the environment movement had finally entered the political mainstream. The shift dawned on me during the school strikes five years ago, which brought over a million people worldwide out on to the streets in protest. I stood on top of a makeshift platform on a fire engine outside parliament and saw a vast crowd of young people, stretching as far as the eye could see, demanding climate justice and action.

Caroline Lucas is an environmental activist and former Green MP

Next government urged to have a proper plan for food security, as UK’s climate becomes more unpredictable

UK fruit and vegetable production has plummeted as farms have been hit by extreme weather.

The country suffered the wettest 18 months since records began across the 2023-24 growing year, leaving soil waterlogged and some farms totally underwater. The impact on harvests has been disastrous. Data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that year-on-year vegetable yields decreased by 4.9% to 2.2m tonnes in 2023, and the production volumes of fruit decreased by 12% to 585,000 tonnes.

Experts believe songbird is suffering from Usutu virus, first detected in UK in 2020

Beloved by Shakespeare and the Beatles, the blackbird and its sweet song have captured the imagination of Britons for centuries.

But now the songbird is facing decline, and the British public has been asked to contribute to a survey by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) to find out why.

The climate emergency should have been a more prominent theme during an underwhelming election campaign

For all the many televised encounters between party leaders, one huge subject has largely flown under the radar during this underwhelming election campaign. In 2019, at a time when the Brexit crisis had overwhelmed national politics, Channel 4 nevertheless devoted an entire pre-election debate to the climate emergency. Boris Johnson didn’t turn up. But, sensing the mood of the times, as prime minister he was soon committing to a “green industrial revolution”. Climate action was high-profile and it mattered.

Contrast that with last week’s final leaders’ debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. None of the questions selected from the audience addressed the environment. Aside from one attempt by Mr Sunak to suggest that Labour’s green plans will lead to higher taxes – feeding into the Conservative party’s wider attack strategy – both leaders focused their energy and political capital elsewhere. It has been much the same throughout the campaign. Economists, industrial leaders and environmental campaigners are united in their desire for more proactive green government. But the politics has become difficult.

Handing vital infrastructure to private investment companies will generate windfalls for investors and leave the rest of us worse off. We need a better plan

• Daniela Gabor is professor of economics and macrofinance at UWE Bristol

The Labour party has a plan for returning to power: it will get BlackRock to rebuild Britain. Its reasoning is straightforward. A cash-strapped government that wants to avoid tax increases or austerity has no choice but to partner with big finance, attracting private investment to rebuild the infrastructure that is crumbling after years of Tory underinvestment. Labour has already done the arithmetic: to mobilise £3 of private capital from institutional investors, you need to offer them £1 in public subsidies. But every time you hear Labour announce such an infrastructure partnership, think of the hidden politics. BlackRock will privatise Britain – our housing, education, health, nature and green energy – with our taxpayer money as sweetener.

BlackRock has long peddled the idea of public-private partnerships for infrastructure, climate and development. Yet its political momentum has recently accelerated. When its chair, Larry Fink, the world’s most powerful financier, sat with world leaders at the G7 summit last month, he promised the following: rich countries need growth, infrastructure investment can deliver that growth, but public debt is too high for the state alone to invest the estimated $75tn (£59tn) necessary by 2040. Trillions, however, are available to asset managers who look after our pensions and insurance contributions (BlackRock, the largest of these firms, manages about $10tn, as a shrinking welfare state pushes us – future pensioners – into its arms).

Daniela Gabor is professor of economics and macrofinance at UWE Bristol

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Decision by supreme court means water companies could be sued for damage caused by dumping of human waste

Water companies could face a spate of legal challenges by people and businesses affected by sewage pollution after a ruling that United Utilities could be sued by a private company for damage caused by the dumping of human waste.

Lawyers said it was a “watershed moment” as the courts had previously ruled that penalties for water companies were a matter for the regulator, and companies could not sue firms for damage caused to their property by sewage pollution.

Dropoff in government approvals put billions of investment in offshore wind schemes at risk, ports bodies warn

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The UK’s transition to net zero is under threat as delays in approving new infrastructure put billions of pounds of investment in offshore wind schemes and other vital upgrades at risk, big ports have said.

The British Ports Association (BPA) has written to the government and Labour calling for action to clear the backlog of harbour orders, the legislation needed for ports to make infrastructure changes to support offshore wind projects.

Proposal would create first federal standard for workplace exposure to extreme heat, which kills hundreds each year

The Biden administration has unveiled a long-awaited proposal to protect workers from extreme temperatures. If finalized, the rule will establish the nation’s first-ever federal safety standard for excessive heat exposure in the workplace and protect as many as 36 million indoor and outdoor workers.

Announced on Tuesday amid temperature warnings across the country, the rule would require employers to establish a heat safety coordinators, undergo extreme heat safety training, create and regularly update emergency heat response plans, and provide workers with shade and water.

A moth garden at Hampton Court Palace shows off plants that can be grown to help the insects, which are threatened by habitat loss

Everyone loves bees and butterflies, but now moths are coming into the spotlight (as long as they don’t fly around it).

The moth expert Charles Waters has seen a surprisingly rapid increase in interest in moths from the younger generation as, he believes, people become more aware of their beauty and diversity, as well as their importance as pollinators.

Economic growth allows the few to grow ever-wealthier. Ending poverty and environmental catastrophe demands fresh thinking

Economic growth will bring prosperity to all. This is the mantra that guides the decision-making of the vast majority of politicians, economists and even human rights bodies.

Yet the reality – as detailed in a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council this month – shows that while poverty eradication has historically been promised through the “trickling down” or “redistribution” of wealth, economic growth largely “gushes up” to a privileged few.

Dutton’s policy latches on to genuine concerns about power prices and disruption evident in the latest Guardian Essential report, but what are its real motivations?

In 1959 the US government hatched a covert scheme to replace every single bird with a replicant surveillance drone to spy on its own citizens. This is only the second silliest theory flying around the internet right now.

Peter Dutton’s make-believe nuclear plan bears some of the hallmarks of Peter McIndoe’s actual piss-take, “Birds Aren’t Real”, which became so real he wound up doing interviews with Fox News and running large-scale community rallies where only some of the participants were chanting his nonsense slogan ironically.

Sweltering conditions and power shutoffs may overlap with errant fireworks or badly tended campfires

A brutal and long-lasting heatwave is threatening to wreak havoc across California this week, as sweltering conditions, power shutoffs and a severe uptick in wildfire risks coincide with 4th of July celebrations.

The dangerous weather event is expected to stretch for days with little reprieve. Starting Wednesday, parts of the state will be subject to “extreme” levels of heat risk – reaching the highest level on the National Weather Service’s index – that will last until Sunday or longer. In some areas, life-threatening triple-digit temperatures could linger for longer than a week.

Exclusive: shadow energy security secretary vows to fill ‘vacuum’ left by Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on net zero

Labour will promise to take the lead on global efforts to tackle the climate crisis, filling a “vacuum of leadership” on the world stage and proving Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on net zero has been a “historic mistake”, Ed Miliband has said.

The shadow energy security and net zero secretary said the UK needed to change course and was “off track”.

The spectre of a $100 lamb roast helped the Coalition win the 2013 election. Will ‘foreign-owned swindle factories’ have a similar effect in 2025?

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Tongue twisters were a staple in my childhood home. Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss was a favourite. My grandmother taught us “she sells seashells by the seashore” and “around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran”.

It was probably too early when she recited “I’m not a pheasant plucker but a pheasant plucker’s son”. She delivered it anyway, much to our delight.

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Most rats, like most people, try to distinguish themselves

“You must go to the rats,” the Great Owl tells Mrs Frisby in the Rats of Nimh.

Mrs Frisby, a mouse, needs help: her son is sick and she has to move out of her house at the edge of a field, because the field will soon be ploughed.