The Guardian

Remaining curbs on food imports imposed after 2011 nuclear disaster to be scrapped

Food from Fukushima will be freely available in the UK from Wednesday, weeks after Boris Johnson snacked on popcorn from the Japanese prefecture hit by a triple nuclear meltdown in March 2011.

Britain restricted Fukushima imports after the disaster, the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, but has gradually lifted them, even as other countries limit or ban produce from the region.

Philadelphia, where I live, is nicknamed Filthadelphia and I’m getting more disgusted by the day

I have been having some very dirty thoughts lately, and it’s been driving my wife bonkers. “Just look at all the litter!” I’ll exclaim numerous times a day. “Why is there so much rubbish on the street? Why aren’t there more bins in this city? Why does Philadelphia [where I live] have such a subpar municipal waste management system?” These are all valid questions (there is a reason Philly has the nickname Filthadelphia), but my wife doesn’t want to hear about city sanitation any more. “Please,” she keeps saying, “get over it!”

The thing is, I can’t get over it. Is it a function of middle age? Am I losing my mind? I don’t know what has precipitated it, but I am hung up on waste management. I have gone full disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells about it, as we all should, really. Litter isn’t just unsightly and unhygienic, it is associated with more crime and antisocial behaviour: cleaning up neighbourhoods makes them safer. Sanitation workers are the unsung heroes of the streets: the US should be diverting some of the money it gives to its bloated police departments to street cleaners. If I was going to run for mayor (I’m not), that would be at the top of my policy platform.

In our writer’s garden, and across the country, the scourge of Dutch elm disease has not been entirely eliminated

Look up. If you do, you’ll almost certainly see butterflies where you’ve never noticed them before.

The hairstreaks are hugely overlooked mostly treetop-dwelling butterflies. Two species are active now: the white-letter hairstreak and the purple hairstreak.

UK government put under ‘considerable pressure’, says chair of all-party parliamentary group on banning trophy hunting

The US hunting lobby has spent £1m putting pressure on the government to delay the trophy import ban, a new report by MPs has found.

Boris Johnson promised to ban the imports of these trophies three years ago, but the legislation has still not gone through parliament. Because of the delay, the Conservative MP and animal welfare campaigner Henry Smith has put forward his own private member’s bill to ban imports of hunting trophies.

Committee on Climate Change report paints a dire picture of Britain’s progress in reducing farm emissions and homes insulation

There are currently no credible plans to help the majority of households to improve their energy efficiency, the progress report from the Committee on Climate Change concludes: a gaping policy hole that is costing the UK dear, not just in climate terms but in unnecessarily high energy bills for our leaky homes. Insulating buildings would be the quickest and most effective way to counter soaring gas prices, but has been largely ignored by the government after the botched “green homes grant” was scrapped last year. Even our new homes are not efficient: at least 1.5m homes have been built in recent years that will require expensive retrofitting. “It’s a complete tale of woe,” said Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change.

Progress report from the Climate Change Committee suggests ministers could renege on greenhouse gas emissions commitment

• Five things we have learned about the UK’s path to net zero

The government is failing to enact the policies needed to reach the UK’s net zero targets, its statutory advisers have said, in a damning progress report to parliament.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) voiced fears that ministers may renege on the legally binding commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, noting “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery”.

With half the sector now in its sights Ofwat is right to start talking tough

Has Ofwat woken from its slumbers? There are encouraging signs. On the troubled issue of sewage – specifically, the vast quantities of the stuff pumped into rivers – the water regulator in England and Wales is suddenly talking as if it means business.

“From what we have seen so far, the scale of the issue here is shocking,” said David Black, chief executive, in unusually strong language as he added South West Water, owned by quoted group Pennon, to the list of firms targeted with enforcement cases connected to the management of treatment works.

Nairobi biodiversity talks end in stalemate, prompting open letter to world leaders calling for action before Montreal conference

UN biodiversity negotiations have reached crisis point due to a lack of engagement from governments, leading NGOs have warned, three years after experts revealed that Earth’s life-support systems are collapsing.

Last week, countries met in Nairobi for an extra round of talks on an agreement to halt the human-driven destruction of the natural world, with the final targets set to be agreed at Cop15 in Montreal. Governments have never met a target they have set for themselves on halting the destruction of nature despite scientists warning in 2019 that one million species face extinction, and that nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history.

Regulator expands investigation after suggestions water firm was not complying with legal obligations

The regulator Ofwat has expanded its investigation into the dumping of raw sewage to include South West Water after finding “shocking” failures in the way the majority of water companies run their waste treatment works.

Ofwat said on Tuesday it had extended its inquiry after heightened concerns about South West Water’s environmental performance and suggestions it was not complying with its legal obligations.

Exclusive: Campaigners say funding could provide incentive to restart fracking if moratorium is lifted

Fracking companies are likely to be eligible for tax breaks, potentially worth billions, that the government is extending to oil and gas companies to encourage new exploration of fossil fuel resources.

Combined with high gas prices, the extra funding – which amounts to a subsidy, according to campaigners – could provide a strong incentive to restart fracking operations if a moratorium in the UK is lifted, which could happen as early as this week.

Professor says link to extreme weather sometimes overestimated but climate costs underestimated

Climate change is to blame for the majority of the heatwaves being recorded around the planet but the relation to other extreme events impacts on society is less clear, according to a study.

“I think on the one hand we overestimate climate change because it’s now quite common that every time an extreme event happens, there is a big assumption that climate change is playing a big role, which is not always the case,” said Friederike Otto, a climate change and environment professor at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, who was one of the lead authors of the research.

Climate-friendly practices can increase yields while improving ecosystem of farms, scientists say

Farmers could continue to produce high crop yields with far less use of artificial fertilisers if they adopted environmentally sustainable practices, an academic study has shown for the first time.

Techniques such as adding manure and compost to soils, growing nitrogen-fixing plants between crops, and cultivating a wide range of produce instead of sticking to the same crops, can all increase yields while protecting and improving the natural ecosystems of farms.

António Guterres says the world must turn the tide of rising sea levels, ocean heating, acidification and plastics pollution

The UN secretary general has declared that the world is in the middle of an “ocean emergency”, and urged governments to do more to restore ocean health.

Speaking at the opening of the UN ocean conference in Lisbon, Portugal, attended by global leaders and heads of state from 20 countries, António Guterres said: “Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted and today we face what I would call an ocean emergency. We must turn the tide.”

Tim and Geli Harris to take agency to high court over groundwater removal for farming near protected wetlands

A couple are taking the Environment Agency to the high court in a landmark case to stop the abstraction of water damaging internationally important wetlands in the Norfolk Broads.

In a sign of the growing struggle over the allocation of scarce water resources in the dry south-east, Tim and Geli Harris are seeking to reduce the removal of groundwater to irrigate potatoes and other crops farmed next to three protected wetlands, including Hickling Broad national nature reserve.

After becoming extinct in the wild, European bison were reintroduced to Poland in 1954 and Romania in 2012. Photographer Alexander Turner went in search of Europe’s largest land mammal with rangers from Foundation Conservation Carpathia

Intestinal viruses such as rotavirus were found to be infectious for up to three days by attaching to microplastics, research shows

Dangerous viruses can remain infectious for up to three days in fresh water by hitchhiking on plastic, researchers have found.

Enteric viruses that cause diarrhoea and stomach upsets, such as rotavirus, were found to survive in water by attaching to microplastics, tiny particles less than 5mm long. They remain infectious, University of Stirling researchers found, posing a potential health risk.

New data shows carbon pollution rose 0.8% in 2021 as manufacturing, agriculture and gas bounced back from pandemic lockdowns

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Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2021 as the country wound back Covid-19 lockdowns without taking significant steps to maintain a fall in carbon pollution recorded during the pandemic.

National emissions rose 0.8% – 4.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide – in the final full year of the federal Coalition government, according to government data released on Monday.

Environment minister receives enthusiastic welcome in Lisbon and flags five blue carbon projects to safeguard ocean health

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Australia’s new environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has received an enthusiastic welcome in Lisbon at the UN ocean conference after flagging five new blue carbon projects and declaring that “under the new Australian government, the environment is back – front and centre”.

Plibersek opened her contribution at the conference by telling delegates: “For those of you who don’t follow Australian politics very closely, we’ve just had an election, there’s a new government, the whole world has changed.”

Penalties for peaceful action are now the same as for aggravated assault

Last Friday dozens of armed New South Wales police officers raided a camp near Sydney and arrested two environmentalists. One was Aunty Caroline Kirk, an Aboriginal elder. She was charged with “wilfully obstructing and intimidating police”.

“I can’t run, I can’t climb,” she said. “All I can do … is teach my culture. Why are they doing this?”

Games recognition could spur conservation action for the birds lovingly known as ‘rockatoos’ for their punk mohawks, vocal dexterity and percussive talents

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They have shaggy crests and bright scarlet cheeks. They bow, sway, stamp their feet and spread their wings in a Jesus Christ pose, justifying their status. They whistle and whoop. Males even use their enormous beaks to fashion tree branches into drumsticks, which they use to beat on tree hollows approaching the breeding season.

They are palm cockatoos: the largest cockatoo in the world, weighing in up to 1.2kg – lovingly known as “rockatoos” for their punk mohawks, vocal dexterity and percussive talents. And Birds Queensland has officially nominated them as the mascot of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games, pointing out that previous Australian Olympic mascots have mostly been mammals.