The Guardian

Tiny creature, half the size of a mallard, found in rocks dating back to dinosaur age

Experts have discovered a fossil of the world’s oldest known modern bird – a diminutive creature about half the size of a mallard duck.

Dubbed the Wonderchicken, the remains were found in rocks dating to about 66.8m to 66.7m years ago, revealing that the bird was active shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66m years ago.

Expert says early cancellation due to coronavirus would damage hopes of progress

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Nicholas Stern, one of the most prominent global experts on the climate crisis, has urged Boris Johnson to resist calls to postpone vital UN climate talks this year, despite the coronavirus outbreak.

Ministers and officials have privately discussed the possibility of postponing the Cop26 talks scheduled for Glasgow this November, but no decision has yet been taken. Travel bans and the shutdown imposed in many countries because of the virus have resulted in cancelled meetings and officials working remotely.

The AfD are using the climate crisis strategically to distance themselves from the established parties

A dead bird of prey lying in the grass near a windfarm is the stark image on the home page of a new German website. “Climate change – we have got a couple of questions” is the headline that greets visitors, but the questioners already seem to know the answers to their 16 questions. “Due to an alleged climate emergency, new laws are to be passed prescribing a new way of life for us, one that will have adverse environmental effects and could lead to the deindustrialisation of Germany.”

Klimafragen.org is the latest attempt to question the scientific and social consensus around the climate crisis in Germany. The authors, all from well-known climate-denier institutions and conservative political circles, list areas where they say Germany’s climate policy still has blindspots, notably over climate models, sea levels, energy conversion and counter-opinions. Parliamentary groups in the Bundestag, they argue, should provide answers to their questions, although some are based on outdated findings. According to the organisers, about 33,500 people have signed up, seeking answers.

Move will hopefully curb vast wildlife trade from farm, street markets, and online traders

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Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, has asked the country’s agriculture ministry to draft a directive to stop illegal trading and consumption of wildlife over fears it spreads disease.

The directive, seen as a victory for animal rights organisations, will lead to a clamping down on street-side markets dotted across the country, increase prosecutions of online traders and ideally put pressure on thousands of farms with known links to illegal wildlife trading.

Analysis of 35 leading investment banks shows financing of more than $2.66tn for fossil fuel industries since the Paris agreement

The world’s largest investment banks have funnelled more than £2.2tn ($2.66tn) into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement, new figures show, prompting warnings they are failing to respond to the climate crisis.

The US bank JP Morgan Chase, whose economists warned that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity last month, has been the largest financier of fossil fuels in the four years since the agreement, providing over £220bn of financial services to extract oil, gas and coal.

Measure to target items such as straws, cutlery and polystyrene food and drink containers

Plastic straws, cutlery and polystyrene food and drink containers look set to be banned in Wales under proposals from the Welsh government.

It said the ban would be part of wider measures to make Wales the world’s top recycling nation.

Parks have remained open amid the coronavirus and become a haven over the past week, prompting fears for staff and large crowds

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Even as Broadway shows were shuttered and Disneyland was closed due to the Covid-19, most US national parks were open for business on Tuesday, confounding public health officials and worrying park staff who did not want to be exposed to the virus.

National parks have become a haven over the past week as the public seeks places to go during spring break. One park employee reported on Facebook that a visitor center at Big Bend national park was full on Monday with hundreds of people. Another shared a photo of shoulder to shoulder crowds at Zion national park waiting to board shuttle buses. (The park closed its shuttle bus system later in the day.)

The Czech Republic’s Guardian of the Flooded Village pine is this year’s winner of the prestigious European Tree of the Year award, with Croatia’s Ginkgo from Daruvar securing the second and Russia’s Lonely Poplar the third place

Seven landowners join forces to create largest lowland heathland nature reserve in UK

It is a rich, complex landscape, a mosaic of heaths, woods, mires, reed beds, salt marsh and dunes that are home to a myriad of flora and fauna from rare birds, butterflies and bats to carnivorous plants.

Seven landowners have now joined forces to created what is being billed as the UK’s first “super national nature reserve” (NNR) on Purbeck Heaths in Dorset.

Winner beats stiff competition from Croatian gingko tree, Portuguese chestnut and English oak

A lonely pine tree believed by superstitious locals to act as sentinel over a flooded Czech village has been chosen as Europe’s tree of the year, beating stiff competition from a Croatian gingko tree, a Portuguese chestnut and an English oak.

The Guardian of the Flooded Village has grown for 350 years on a rocky height near the village of Chudobin, said locally to play host to a devil that sat under it at night, playing the violin and warding off intruders – though in reality the eerie sounds are more likely to have come from the strong winds blowing over the valley.

Lung damage from dirty air may worsen infections, but isolation measures improving air quality

The health damage inflicted on people by long-standing air pollution in cities is likely to increase the death rate from coronavirus infections, experts have said.

Dirty air is known to cause lung and heart damage and is responsible for at least 8m early deaths a year. This underlying health damage means respiratory infections, such as coronavirus, may well have a more serious impact on city dwellers and those exposed to toxic fumes, than on others.

Exclusive: conservation groups say weather extremes putting strain on resources and taking toll on wildlife

Last year was one of the worst in recent times for both flooding and drought in England, a study has found.

There were more than 5,600 flood warnings in England in 2019, more than in any of the last 15 years except 2012. Groundwater levels were lower than normal in 25 areas, more than in any year since comparable records began in 2006.

Our research into 45 years of print coverage of key initiatives for Indigenous self-determination reveals that black perspectives are rarely presented as legitimate

Ever since Captain James Cook evaded British instructions to take possession of the continent now known as Australia “with the consent of the natives”, the interests of settlers have dominated media reporting on Aboriginal people.

Our new research analysing 45 years of print media reporting of Aboriginal initiatives for self-determination has found that media have systematically and substantially failed – if not undermined and denied – Aboriginal aspirations for self-determination and for enduring political settlements.

Endangered species have lost up to 82% of their habitat but Environment Protection Authority says logging of unburnt forest is legal

The NSW Forestry Corporation has continued to log unburnt forest that is habitat for some of the most imperilled species in the aftermath of the state’s bushfire crisis.

Logging operations have continued in the Styx River state forest on the north coast that is now remnant habitat for endangered species including the greater glider and the Hastings River mouse.

Last week’s budget was a missed opportunity: we need to mobilise our attachment to country

When it comes to fighting climate change and its effects, both greens and conservatives pay far too much attention to localism, voluntarism, and corporate responsibility. All are valuable; none are adequate. If, as many environmentalists say, the struggle against global heating requires a sense of wartime emergency, then fighting it while chiefly relying on these assets is as if Britain fought the Second World War relying on the Home Guard.

Last week’s budget contained some useful steps to limit carbon emissions; but they are far too small, and offset by road construction and the failure to lift the freeze on fuel taxes brought in 10 years ago.

The former ‘dirty old town’ has more energy-efficient homes, more green spaces, more recycling and lowest CO2 emissions, according to a new study

Salford may have been fondly dubbed a “dirty old town” by folk singer Ewan MacColl and depicted as full of smoky chimneys by LS Lowry, but new research has crowned it the greenest place to live in England and Wales.

The Greater Manchester city is more sustainable than places such as Brighton, where Caroline Lucas is Britain’s only Green party MP, and Bristol, a former European Green Capital, according to a study to be released later this week by the Centre for Thriving Places.

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including the last female white giraffe and boxing hares

Fashion operates on desire. How we dress feeds off cravings to be different as well as part of a tribe; to be en vogue but ahead of the pack. The message from the high street is that such wishes can be fulfilled, and fast fashion plays on the idea that hunger can be sated immediately. But to overcome such urges we need to reflect on the fragility of our planet. This means accepting that there is a better way to keep the pleasures of fashion open to all parts of society than promoting disposable clothes as desirable. This is not just about the high cost of the £4 dress; luxury retailers such as Louis Vuitton have offered small collections every two weeks.

The fashion industry has benefited from globalisation to mass-produce goods by externalising the costs of production in the form of human and environmental damage. Every year, 100bn new garments are produced by one out of six people worldwide. Yet only 2% of them earn a living wage. In this country it is an open secret that some garment factories are not paying the minimum wage.

A large crowd of monkeys has been filmed brawling over a pot of yoghurt in a street in Thailand. A fall in tourist numbers amid the Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in far fewer people offering them food. The video was filmed in Lopburi, a city north-east of Bangkok that is famed for its monkey population

Data seen by the Guardian shows ‘extreme rainfall events’ have soared over past 30 years

About 150 people have been killed or are missing following record-breaking heavy rains, landslides and flooding in three Brazilian states this year.

Scientists say global heating is contributing to more “extreme rainfall” events in the country, and warned that such disasters could become “the new normal”.