The Guardian

Savings come largely from efficient electrical appliances and boilers but insulation could halve future bills

Energy efficiency measures have already saved the average British household about £1,000 a year in energy bills, and further insulation and home improvements could halve future bills, analysis has shown.

But the future savings are unlikely to be realised unless the government focuses swiftly on insulation, as the savings to date have come largely from efficiency improvements in electrical appliances and boilers, which will not be repeated.

North Yorkshire fishers found pots heavy not with brown crab but with prized invader

Invasive king crabs have made their way to British shores, sparking fears that local brown crab and scallop populations could be decimated.

This week, fishers in North Yorkshire found their pots heavy not with brown crab, but with the bright-red invader with long, spindly legs prized for their sweet flesh. London restaurants have already snapped up the haul, ready for weekend menus.

New restrictions on administering drugs to healthy animals come into force across EU to tackle critical overuse, but UK fails to follow suit

The reputation of British farming is at risk after its failure to follow the EU in curbing the overuse of antibiotics in healthy animals, say campaigners.

Antibiotic use is the main driver of antimicrobial resistance, one of the biggest threats to human and animal health. Reducing its use in farming is seen as critical, with about two-thirds of antibiotics globally given to animals.

From today [28 January], a ban on the administration of antibiotics to groups of healthy animals comes into force across the EU.

As a result, European farmers will be able to use antibiotics only as a preventive measure only in exceptional cases when there is a high risk of infectious disease, and then only with individual animals.

What is the cost to athletes and sports of accepting money from an influential denier of global warming? And what is the cost to our planet?

• Gina Rinehart’s company announced as sponsor of Australian Olympic Team
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Gina Rinehart, a global warming denier and the wealthiest person in Australia, cannot protect the sports she sponsors from the impact of the climate crisis. But should they be protecting Rinehart’s reputation from the condemnation that is increasingly directed at those who stand in the way of climate action?

That is the question on the lips of many Australian athletes following the announcement on Friday that Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting was becoming a major partner of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) in a four-year deal. Just days after being appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for, among other things, her distinguished service “to sport as a patron”, Rinehart has increased her already considerable involvement with Australian Olympic sport. But at a time of growing athlete activism around climate action, the appropriateness of the AOC lending its social licence to Rinehart and Hancock Prospecting is in doubt.

The last recorded sighting of a leafhopper from the same genus as Phlogis kibalensis was in 1969

A new species of insect has been found in the Ugandan rainforest that belongs to a group of insects so rare that its closest known relative was last seen more than 50 years ago.

The species of leafhopper, named Phlogis kibalensis, was discovered by a British scientist doing field work in a national park in western Uganda.

Footage from March 2019 shows killer whales hunting the planet’s largest creature.

This is the first time time killer whales, also known as orcas, have been recorded hunting the blue whale in coordinated and brutal attacks

• Orcas recorded killing and feeding on blue whales in brutal attacks

Coalition investment includes funding for water quality projects, pest management and reef science

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A re-elected Coalition would pour $1bn into Great Barrier Reef conservation projects over the next decade, the government says, just months after campaigning to prevent the reef being listed as “in danger” by the world heritage committee.

The announcement, to be made by the prime minister, Scott Morrison, in north Queensland on Friday, comes a fortnight after Labor pledged $163m to protect the natural wonder. It highlights the reef as a key election fight in the Cairns electorate of Leichhardt.

Tiny steps towards net zero are being undermined by new fossil fuel projects. An election year offers the chance to hold our politicians to account

Even during the summer holiday switch-off it was impossible to miss the takes about the Netflix satire Don’t Look Up.

Climate scientists related to the helplessness and panic felt by the astronomers in the movie who discovered a “planet killing” comet about to hit Earth, only to have their warnings mocked and ignored.

Findings are result of first major study into link between premature death in older people and unconventional drilling

Elderly people living near or downwind from unconventional oil and gas wells such as fracking sites are more likely to die prematurely, according to a major new US study.

Extracting oil and gas through newer or unconventional methods like fracking has expanded rapidly across America over the past two decades with at least 17.6 million people now living within one kilometer of an active well.

Research is first to document coordinated female-led pods ramming world’s largest animal and eating its tongue before it dies

From snatching sea lions off beaches to stunning fish with a strike of their tails, orcas are renowned for their highly specialised hunting techniques passed down over generations. Now, for the first time, killer whales have been recorded hunting the planet’s largest animal – the blue whale – in coordinated and brutal attacks.

Female-led pods of killer whales, also known as orcas, have been recorded killing and eating blue whales in three separate attacks off the coast of Australia since 2019, according to a paper published in Marine Mammal Science.

Speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Peterson claimed the climate was too complex to be modelled accurately, which was quickly shot down by scientists

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Leading climate scientists have ridiculed and criticised comments made by controversial Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson during an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

During a new four-hour interview on Spotify’s most popular podcast, Peterson – who is not an expert on climate change – claimed that models used to forecast the future state of the climate couldn’t be relied on.

Species that disappeared from Northants woods in 1977 is thriving four years after its reintroduction

Nature lovers will be able to enjoy the high-speed flight of the chequered skipper butterfly in an English woodland for the first time in more than 45 years this summer.

Such is the success of a four-year reintroduction programme to return the rare insect to the woods of Northamptonshire, where it fell extinct in 1977, that its secret site can be revealed to the public.

A primitive Australian fish living in a San Francisco museum is believed to be the oldest living aquarium fish in the world. Methuselah is a four-foot-long (1.2-meter) Australian lungfish, weighing around 40lb (18.1kg). The species has both lungs and gills and is believed to be the evolutionary link between fish and amphibians. The lungfish was brought to the San Francisco museum in 1938 from Australia and now lives at the California Academy of Sciences. The species is threatened and can no longer be exported from Australian waters so biologists at the academy say it's unlikely they'll get a replacement once Methuselah passes away

• Methuselah: oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs

Government’s cash injection is designed to ‘maximise investor confidence’ while the company courts private investors

Ministers have thrown further support behind EDF Energy’s £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk with a £100m investment to help develop the project while the company courts private investors.

The government’s cash injection is designed to “maximise investor confidence” in the project while French state-owned EDF works towards setting out a funding plan which satisfies investors and UK ministers.

Development money for nuclear power station is an attempt to draw in investors that could replace China’s CGN

A sum of £100m is peanuts in the expensive world of nuclear power stations, so regard the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s funding for a round of development work on Sizewell C as a form of advertising. The cash is intended to send a message that the government is serious about getting the plant built in Suffolk. And it is an appeal for outside investors to volunteer to sit alongside developer EDF, the French state-backed group.

There was also a definition of a desirable investor: “British pension funds, insurers and other institutional investors from like-minded countries”. Note the nationality test. It is the closest we have come to official confirmation that China General Nuclear (CGN), originally slated for a 20% stake in Sizewell, will be kicked off the project. It remains to be seen how, legally, the government will rip up the 2015 deal with CGN signed by David Cameron’s government, but the intention is clear.

Analysis finds many areas growing the crops may not be suitable by 2050, while others could benefit

Some regions that produce coffee, cashews and avocados may not be able to support the growing of these crops within decades as a result of global heating, a study has found.

Researchers combined climate change projections and soil factors to model how suitable various regions will be for growing crops in 2050. The analysis found that all major coffee-producing regions face a decline in suitability, including Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia.

Scientists at University of Sydney find that fish exposed to industrial chemical BPA in warmer waters need more food to reach a given size

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Fish grow slower when exposed to higher temperatures and a common chemical in plastic, according to new research. It suggests that a combination of plastic pollution and global heating could have concerning impacts on marine populations.

Scientists at the University of Sydney have found that fish exposed to the industrial chemical bisphenol A – commonly known as BPA – require more energy to grow in high-temperature waters.

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The ANU’s Dr Fiona Beck says turning fossil fuels into hydrogen is always going to be dirtier than using renewables

A world-first shipment of liquid hydrogen from Australia was declared momentous – a pivotal moment as the world clambers for clean liquid fuels to bring global greenhouse gas emissions to zero

Prime minister Scott Morrison said the consignment – loaded on to a purpose-built Japanese ship at the Port of Hastings in Victoria – marked the beginning of a new clean energy export industry for Australia.

Covid-19 is a sharp reminder that our species could do with a bit of humility about its place in the natural order

Coronavirus has stopped us in our tracks and forced us to rethink our position as the rulers of the world. You could say it has done us a favour. An invisible enemy has challenged our treatment of the non-human world and the planet we share.

For about 2,000 years most humans have imagined themselves to be the Earth’s “apex predators” – smarter, faster and more deadly than any other creature with which we share the planet. An article in a 2018 special issue of Scientific American praised our species for “the richness of our subjective experience” and “better cognitive skills and bigger brains” – although elephants have bigger brains and no one has worked out how to measure the “subjective experience” of non-human animals.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the founding editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

Wealthy companies are using the facade of ‘nature-based solutions’ to enact a great carbon land grab

There is nothing that cannot be corrupted, nothing good that cannot be transformed into something bad. And there is no clearer example than the great climate land grab.

We now know that it’s not enough to leave fossil fuels in the ground and decarbonise our economies. We’ve left it too late. To prevent no more than 1.5C of heating, we also need to draw down some of the carbon already in the atmosphere.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist