The Guardian

The mining town has received a record 140mm of rain in one afternoon, with the State Emergency Service called to several flood rescues. Police say a 56-year-old man drowned after trying to help friends in flood waters on Menindee Road, 35km east of Broken Hill. He got out of his car and was swept into a concrete pipe. Mayor Tom Kennedy says the town regularly experiences flooding when hit by sudden storms: 'But this was probably twice what we’d get in a normal downpour'

• ‘Streets were flowing’: Broken Hill reeling after record rainfall and deadly flash flooding

Pro-leave MP is due to speak at event to launch Farage’s campaign for a referendum on net zero

A Labour MP is to appear on stage with Nigel Farage at the launch of an anti-net zero campaign for a referendum on policies to tackle climate change, amid anger from party colleagues.

Graham Stringer, a prominent Brexiter who has previously appeared with Farage at pro-leave events and on his GB News show, was billed as appearing alongside the former Brexit party leader as well as Reform UK leader Richard Tice and the broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer.

Levelling up secretary calls for more onshore wind as ministers explore case for reversing fracking ban

Michael Gove has said he is “not convinced” by the case for more fracking in the UK, opening up a cabinet split after Boris Johnson ordered a rethink and Jacob Rees-Mogg backed reversing the moratorium.

Gove, the levelling up secretary, made the comments at an environment reception, where he also spoke of the need for more onshore wind power.

Better waste management needed to protect Arctic ecosystem, say scientists

Microplastics from European rivers are finding their way to Arctic seas, research suggests.

These tiny plastic particles, which come from clothing fibres, car tyres, cosmetics and many more sources, have been found across the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans.

Farmers in Ukraine describe depleting potato stocks, slaughtering their own pigs, and Russian troops appearing at the gate

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has upended the farming industry, raising fears of disruption to domestic and international food supplies. The Guardian has spoken to three farmers about what life is like on the ground, with the Russian army hiding tanks in barns and stocks of potatoes expected to deplete within weeks.

Andrii Pastushenko, 39, is a dairy farmer who lives 12 miles from Kherson in the south of Ukraine, a city that has been under control of the Russian military.

Measures to reduce PM2.5 ‘fall a long way short’, say campaigners, as government publishes new targets under Environment Act

The government has proposed to set air quality limits that would allow twice as much small-particle pollution in England as the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends as an upper limit, and that would not be met for almost 20 years.

The new target is to reduce levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040, in contrast to WHO guidelines, updated last September, that say concentrations of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic metre on average over a year.

Reduce nutrient pollution in water in England, with phosphorus in treated sewage to be cut by 80% by 2037, and nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from agriculture to be reduced by 40% by 2037.

Halt the decline in species by 2030 and increase species abundance by 10% by 2042, creating or restoring more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected sites by 2042.

Halve residual waste produced by 2042, from 560kg per person in 2019;

Improve the marine environment by ensuring 70% of “designated features” in marine-protected areas are in favourable condition by 2042.

Increase tree canopy and woodland cover from 14% of England to 17.5% by 2050.

Unions and shipping bodies urge safe passage from Black Sea and Sea of Azov after missile strikes and at least one death reported

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

Hundreds of seafarers on more than 100 foreign-flagged cargo vessels are stranded in Ukrainian waters in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov “in the middle of the line of fire”.

The International Chamber of Shipping and unions are calling for the immediate creation of safe “blue corridors” to enable the ships and their crews to leave without risk of missile or mine strikes. The UN’s International Maritime Organization, which held an emergency meeting last week to address the situation, estimates that up to 2,000 men could be affected, although some may have been repatriated, it said.

Educating people about cutting energy use and investment in renewable power will be key, says E3G thinktank

The UK could eliminate all need for imports of Russian gas this year through a combination of energy efficiency, expanding renewable power generation and a campaign to help people change their behaviour, research has found.

Information campaigns played a strong role in changing people’s behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many people are unaware of the savings they could make in energy use through small changes that make no difference to their comfort but can cut bills substantially.

Though global prices are spiralling, fuelled by Russia’s war in Ukraine, this is no reason to drop rewilding

Should we plough up Britain? Many people seem to think so. Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, food prices were rocketing. Now they have reached an all-time record. The National Farmers’ Union of Scotland has called for Scotland’s feeble environmental measures – paying farmers to plant hedges, cover crops and introduce beetle banks – to be rescinded, so that food production can be maximised. Others insist that rewilding is a luxury we can no longer afford.

It is true that the world now faces a major food crisis. Climate breakdown has begun to bite. Heat domes and droughts in North America and storms and floods in Europe and China last year damaged harvests and drove up prices. By February, the cost of food was 20% higher than a year earlier.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Illnesses including rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s more likely after long-term exposure to particulates, study finds

Long-term exposure to air pollution can increase the risk of autoimmune disease, research has found.

Exposure to particulates has already been linked to strokes, brain cancer, miscarriage and mental health problems. A global review, published in 2019, concluded that almost every cell in the body could be affected by dirty air.

As floods follow fires, we need to hold our leaders’ feet to the flames – or, for that matter, to the water

Environmentalists once saw abstraction as the biggest obstacle to climate action. How, they wondered, could one focus the public on the distant future?

Today, we confront the opposite problem, with the very immediacy of the crisis generating a strange paralysis.

Rewilding programme marks the ‘most significant step’ in ensuring the critically endangered species’ survival

Five mountain bongos have been released into a sanctuary in Kenya, a milestone in the fight for the animals’ survival with fewer than 100 left in the wild

Considered critically endangered, the chestnut-coloured mountain bongo is one of the largest forest antelopes and native to the equatorial forests of Mount Kenya, Eburu, Mau and Aberdares. IUCN predicts their numbers will probably continue to decline without direct action. A recent wildlife census in Kenya counted just 96 mountain bongos in the wild.

Exclusive: Survey in constituencies with fracking potential show MPs against it or wary of commenting

• Tory MPs in north and south fear political impact

The prospect of fracking in England has been dealt another blow as only a handful of MPs for constituencies with exploration licences support the measure in their area, the Guardian can reveal.

When asked if they would support fracking in their constituencies, only five of the 138 MPs said they would. Forty one said they would be against it, while the rest did not reply, or declined to comment.

Analysis: Many potential sites are either in ‘red wall’ areas or former safe constituencies in the south

• Survey shows only five of 138 MPs in affected seats voice support

Look at the map of onshore exploration licences in the UK, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was an illustration of target seats for opposition parties in the next general election.

Ministers privately acknowledge that “rethinking” fracking would be politically very difficult. Those areas most ripe for the controversial oil and gas extraction method are marginals in the “red wall” of constituencies in the north that historically have tended to be Labour, many of which were won by the Tories in 2019. Many of the others are former safe Conservative seats in the south where the Liberal Democrats are limbering up to pick off disillusioned former Tory voters.

Trust creates refuge for white-clawed crayfish in old cattle drinking hole on Wallington estate near Morpeth

An “ark” refuge is being created by the National Trust to help save one of the UK’s most endangered native species from extinction.

The white-clawed crayfish is the UK’s only indigenous crayfish but the population has been almost wiped out because of the introduction of a bigger American species in the 1970s.

Food banks were inundated, restaurants folded, farmers had to dump produce – but the pandemic also created space for fresh thinking

In April 2020, while Covid-19 spread around the country, and millions of people were sheltering at home, Shay Meyers, the CEO of Owyhee Produce, one of the largest onion growers in the US, asked his workers to bury thousands of pounds of onions.

The restaurants, school dining halls, and event centers that normally bought his onions were all shuttered. His cold storage was full. Even though the demand for onions in American kitchens remained as high as – or even higher than – before the pandemic, there simply wasn’t a way to get the food into the hands of those who needed it. In April alone, Owyhee Produce buried four million onions.

Survey finds farm and food assurance scheme ineffective in helping farmers reduce harmful chemicals use

The Red Tractor scheme, used to mark food produced to a “high standard”, is failing to regulate the use of pesticides on farms, a report has found.

As the UK’s biggest farm and food assurance scheme, which certifies about 50,000 farmers, Red Tractor is relied upon to uphold environmental standards. The products are sold in all major UK supermarkets.

Since David Cameron’s 2013 U-turn, wind and solar power have been sidelined. Do you believe Boris Johnson will do better?

In the grip of the energy crisis, gas prices are already due to increase by 50% in April, and will spike higher later in the year, while the chancellor’s modest mitigations do little for unaffordable bills. Boris Johnson is about to produce an energy strategy to cut reliance on Russian imports and speed UK generation. He wobbles on fracking.

But before he boasts some “world-beating” plan, hold on to this salient fact. If the Tories had not blocked progress on renewables and insulation over the last decade, Britain would already be generating more clean energy than the amount provided by the fuels imported from Russia.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

With the growth of the ‘blue economy’, the UN must act decisively to protect our shared seas – or industry will decide their fate for us

The ocean is often seen as the last wild frontier: a vast and empty blue wilderness where waves, whales and albatrosses rule. This is no longer true. Unnoticed by many, a new industrial revolution is unfolding in our seas.

The last several decades have seen exponential growth in new marine industries. This includes expansion of offshore oil and gas, but also exponential growth of offshore renewables, such as wind and tidal energy.

Centrist Democrat, who holds key swing vote in US Senate, has poured scorn on the idea of phasing out gasoline and diesel cars

Faced with rising gasoline prices, many Americans are now looking to switch to an electric car. But the shift away from fossil fuel vehicles has been criticized by Senator Joe Manchin, who has said he is “very reluctant” to see the proliferation of battery-powered cars.

There has been a surge in interest in buying electric vehicles (EVs) in the wake of the war in Ukraine, analysts say, with drivers in the US unnerved by gasoline prices that have surpassed $4.30 a gallon as a result of the conflict and the supply chain issues from the pandemic.