The Guardian

Curtailing of shipping due to coronavirus allows scientists to study effects of quieter oceans on marine wildlife

In cities, human lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic have offered some respite to the natural world, with clear skies and the return of wildlife to waterways. Now evidence of a drop in underwater noise pollution has led experts to predict the crisis may also be good news for whales and other sea mammals.

Researchers examining real-time underwater sound signals from seabed observatories run by Ocean Networks Canada near the port of Vancouver found a significant drop in low-frequency sound associated with ships.

The climate emergency is unsettling our future, and erasing what we thought was certain about the past

In 2015, flooding exposed the frozen bodies of two cave lion cubs in the Yakutia region of Russia. Members of a species that vanished at the end of the last Ice Age, the pair were buried approximately 12,000 years ago when the roof of their den collapsed and trapped them in the frozen ground. In photos, their faces are so well-preserved one might almost believe they are only sleeping.

Yet despite their unusually perfect condition, the cubs are not the only such relics to have appeared in recent years. Throughout the Arctic and subarctic, animals and artefacts buried for thousands of years are reappearing, liberated from their frozen graves by the rapid warming in the region. In the Alps and elsewhere, bodies of people lost for decades in the mountains are emerging from the ice as glaciers melt. In Australia, towns submerged for generations are resurfacing as dam levels fall due to drought and heat.

Independent MP says scheme lacks transparency and government has no authority to introduce it

Independent MP Zali Steggall has asked the auditor general to investigate a Morrison government scheme to underwrite gas, hydro and coal power, saying it lacks transparency and citing legal advice that the Coalition had no constitutional or legislative authority to introduce it.

Announced in late 2018 after the government abandoned Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed national energy guarantee, the underwriting new generation investment (Ungi) scheme promises public support for new dispatchable power generation projects to increase competition in the electricity grid. Twelve projects have been shortlisted, including six pumped hydro plants, five gas generators and an upgrade to the Vales Point coal-fired power plant.

More than 100 birds have been living wild in England as part of conservation scheme

The first wild stork chicks to hatch in Britain for centuries are expected to emerge next month after three pairs of the huge white birds built nests in West Sussex.

Disdaining platforms constructed especially for them, the storks have created their stick nests in the heights of oak trees on the Knepp estate, the centre for a reintroduction project.

Tracking life in our garden or backyard is turning many of us into nature diarists

I heard the first cuckoo on Wednesday evening. I was outside the back door splitting logs when the song floated down from the copse on Bryn Arw, the hill behind our house in the Black Mountains. Cuckoos have been coming to the same copse for as long as we have lived here and I have always written down the date of their arrival from Africa. It is an important moment in the turning year, as the lyrics to the traditional medieval round attest: “Sumer is icumen in/ Lhude sing cuccu.”

My recordings of cuckoos have always been haphazard, though. Some years, because the weather is dreadful or I am working hard and chained to a desk, I fail to get outside. I might first hear the male’s distinctive song, which gives the bird its onomatopoeic name, days after his actual arrival.

With only one in 400 cups recycled, and even those barely ‘green’, the hunt is on for an alternative

Britain gets through 2.5 billion of them every year, and the number is set to increase. But despite a growing clamour for coffee chains to make their cups more environment-friendly, the vast majority are used only once, which critics say is a considerable waste of natural resources.

One company vying to produce a truly recyclable alternative claims that the UK’s caffeine addiction is responsible for the felling of a million trees a year. An independent study it commissioned suggests that almost 1.5 billion litres of water go into making the cups the UK uses annually.

The most severely affected invertebrates and plants lost at least 30% of habitat to the fires

More than 400 plants and nearly 200 invertebrates need urgent attention after the bushfire crisis, new analysis for the federal environment department has found.

Freshwater mussels, shrimps, burrowing crayfish, land snails, spiders, millipedes, bees, dragonflies and butterflies were among the invertebrates whose ranges have been severely affected by the unprecedented fires through spring and summer.

With Covid-19 keeping eastern Europeans away, furloughed British workers are signing up to fill seasonal vacancies – but will there be enough of them?

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Right now, Bruce Kerr is fretting about the shape of a certain curve – but not the one relating to the spread of Covid-19.

Kerr is an asparagus farmer in east Suffolk. In a good year he will harvest up to 500 tonnes of the highly prized vegetable, which requires urgent attention when the mercury rises.

The Living Archive aims to help people worldwide see the significance of species loss as it affects individual lives and places

The first time poet Craig Santos Perez encountered a bird native to his homeland of Guam it was in a cage at San Diego zoo.

Growing up on Guam in the 1980s and 90s, Perez, a native Chamorro, had learned about the island’s lost birds at school. Children studied pictures and listened to audio recordings of their calls – but by then, the island’s forests were silent.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including lockdown sea loin and IVF toad

Exclusive: Scientists examine whether this route enables infections at longer distances

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Coronavirus has been detected on particles of air pollution by scientists investigating whether this could enable it to be carried over longer distances and increase the number of people infected.

The work is preliminary and it is not yet known if the virus remains viable on pollution particles and in sufficient quantity to cause disease.

Study sheds light upon migratory cycle of bird to help understand alarming decline

When you’ve just braved sandstorms, thunderstorms and drought during a 4,000-mile solo flight in search of romance, what is your first priority?

For Carlton II the cuckoo, it appears to be a relaxing round of golf. The satellite-tagged bird became the first of a small flock of tracked cuckoos to return to his breeding grounds in record time, dashing from the Ivory Coast to southern England in seven days.

Degrowthers are susceptible to caricature – but their ideas raise important questions about how, how much, and why we work

Amid the misery and chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there are some short-term consolations. The precipitous drop in road and air traffic has left the air cleaner and the skies clearer. For advocates of a Green New Deal (GND) – a vast, state-funded green infrastructure project, including a total transition to renewable energy and the construction of mass transit systems – there are reasons to be optimistic. As the severity of the unfolding global recession becomes clear – the IMF predicts a 3% global contraction – the GND looks like the best route to recovery.

Related: Could Microsoft’s climate crisis ‘moonshot’ plan really work?

Wildlife Trusts warn of effects from neglected reserves and species loss, to fly-tipping and illegal shooting

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While lockdown has allowed some a greater appreciation of spring and the fun of seeing goats, sheep and deer foraying into urban landscapes, Covid-19 is wreaking havoc with UK biodiversity as vital conservation projects are put on hold.

On Friday conservationists warned of “desperate times” with an explosion in invasive non-native species during prolific spring growth and the deterioration of rare and historic wildlife meadows that could take years to restore.

Scientists say insects are vital and the losses worrying, with accelerating declines in Europe called ‘shocking’

The biggest assessment of global insect abundances to date shows a worrying drop of almost 25% in the last 30 years, with accelerating declines in Europe that shocked scientists.

The analysis combined 166 long-term surveys from almost 1,700 sites and found that some species were bucking the overall downward trend. In particular, freshwater insects have been increasing by 11% each decade following action to clean up polluted rivers and lakes. However, this group represent only about 10% of insect species and do not pollinate crops.

Lower pollution levels must persist after lockdown says capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan

London has had dramatic improvements in its air quality since the coronavirus lockdown, with dangerous emissions at some of the capital’s busiest roads and junctions falling by almost 50%.

Figures released by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, show that anti-pollution measures introduced from 2017 had already led to a 35% drop across the capital of the harmful gas nitrogen dioxide, NO2 – rising to a 44% reduction inside central London’s ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ).

Community-supported agriculture programs benefit at-risk farmers most as the pandemic underlines the value of local food systems

Fresh farm produce is healthy and delicious. Most of the time, that’s reason enough to sign up for a community-supported agriculture program (CSA), a system in which one pays to regularly receive goodie bags of whatever happens to be flourishing in nearby farmers’ fields, often along with optional local meat and dairy add-ons. Now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, bolstering local food systems is especially urgent – and there’s more at stake than just really good tomatoes.

Local farmers have proven more reliable in a crisis than the industrial food supply chain

New research finds 147 million will be hit by floods by the end of the decade – ‘the numbers will be catastrophic’

The number of people harmed by floods will double worldwide by 2030, according to a new analysis.

The World Resources Institute, a global research group, found that 147 million people will be hit by floods from rivers and coasts annually by the end of the decade, compared with 72 million people just 10 years ago.

Digital games make link with climate and conservation for global event’s 50th anniversary

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Earth Day demonstrations scrapped by the coronavirus pandemic are being replaced with digital activism via the online gaming community to exploit an as yet an untapped audience for action against climate change.

Earth Day 22 April 2020, had been years in the planning, but the global demonstrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the event were brought to a halt by the Covid-19 pandemic.

While some species have declined by more than a third overall, where conservation measures are in place they have increased by 46%

Populations of some Australian mammals declined by more than a third over two decades, but sites with clear conservation management saw improvements in their populations of 46%, according to new research.

The figures are the first tranche of data in Australia’s Threatened Species Index for mammals, which combines data from monitoring programs across the country to track trends in threatened species populations.