The Guardian

A fifth of Brazilian chicken exports are contaminated with the potentially life-threatening food poisoning bug salmonella

Brazil is the largest exporter of frozen chicken in the world, exporting $750m-worth of the meat to Europe last year. But about one in five of its birds are contaminated with the food poisoning bug salmonella.

An investigation by the Guardian, Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that thousands of tonnes of salmonella-contaminated chicken have been exported from Brazil during the past two years, including more than one million birds sent to the UK.

Government will spend £193m on directly tackling climate-related issues in first initiative

The UK will have an “ethical” development policy that puts the climate emergency and environmental protection at the heart of overseas aid, with more than £190m to be spent directly on climate-related issues in the first initiative, the government has announced.

Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, said he hoped this sum would soon be doubled and “run to billions rather than hundreds of millions” within a few years.

Russian school caretaker Nikoly Irgit got a nasty surprise when he went down to the woods – and ran into a bear. Somehow, he survived to tell the tale

Name: Nikolay Irgit.

Age: 35.

Trade group says change may have opposite intended effect towards low carbon future

Oil and gas companies listed on the London Stock Exchange have been reclassified under a non-renewable energy category in a move designed to distinguish between heavily polluting companies and greener producers.

The change has been made by the index provider FTSE Russell, which now groups companies such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Cairn Energy, Petrofac, Premier Oil and Tullow Oil, formerly labelled oil and gas producers, in the non-renewable energy index. Coal companies, previously classified under basic materials/mining, also now come under non-renewable energy.

Most common household cockroach able to develop ‘cross resistance’ to multiple types of chemicals, US study finds

Cockroaches have become harder to kill and could soon be “almost impossible” to control using pesticides alone, according to a study funded by the United States housing department.

Researchers from Purdue University in Indiana spent six months trying to eradicate German cockroaches (Blattella germanica L.), one of the most common species of household cockroach in the US, Australia and Europe, from three low-rise apartment buildings in Illinois and Indiana.

From congestion to cost, there are many entirely misguided arguments in circulation

Cycle lanes have been in the news recently, as have the many often entirely misguided arguments that opponents use against them.

For all the (slight) progress in some UK cities over mass cycling, we are still at a stage where a leaflet from a local branch of the party of government (see below) will state falsehoods about bike lanes as if they were the undoubted truth.

Greenpeace report reveals 29 floor-exploration licences have been granted worldwide

The world’s oceans are facing a “new industrial frontier” from a fledgling deep-sea mining industry as companies line up to extract metals and minerals from some of the most important ecosystems on the planet, a report has found.

The study by Greenpeace revealed that although no mining had started on the ocean floor, 29 exploration licences had been issued covering an area five times bigger than the UK. Environmentalists said the proposed mining would threaten not only crucial ecosystems but the global fight against climate breakdown.

A health check of the pristine ecosystem has found warming waters, more crocodiles and a ‘humpback highway’

In the turquoise waters off the Kimberley, where sheer cliffs peer down on isolated beaches, researchers are studying an underwater world – in the hope of saving it.

Formed millions of years ago, the waters off Western Australia’s rugged 12,000km northern-most coastline have remained a scientific mystery. But for the past five years, researchers guided by Indigenous Australians have tackled rutted dirt tracks to study an oceanic highway lying off the Kimberley’s shores.

Fracking ban and new environment act among influential group’s suggestions

Fracking should be banned, the UK must take global leadership on the climate emergency and a royal commission should decide how to build homes in an environmentally sustainable manner, an influential group of Conservative MPs has said.

The Conservative Environment Network (CEN) set out a manifesto on Tuesday that they said must govern the UK’s policies to prevent climate catastrophe and allow for greener economic growth. Among the 41 MPs who signed up to the pledges, which include a call for a new environment act, are senior figures such as Sir Nicholas Soames, Sir Oliver Letwin, Greg Hands, Caroline Spelman, Richard Benyon and Zac Goldsmith.

Liquefied natural gas developments on a collision course with Paris agreement, Global Energy Monitor says

The booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry will play at least as big a role as new coal investments in bringing on a climate crisis if all planned projects go ahead, US-based energy analysts and campaigners say.

The report by the Global Energy Monitor appears at odds with comments by Australia’s emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, who has said the country could be proud that the rapidly expanding LNG export industry was displacing coal power overseas.

Searing heat shows crisis is ‘here and now’, say scientists, and worse than predicted

The record-breaking heatwave that struck France and other European nations in June was made at least five – and possibly 100 – times more likely by climate change, scientists have calculated.

Such heatwaves are also about 4C hotter than a century ago, the researchers say. Furthermore, the heatwaves hitting Europe are more frequent and more severe than climate models have predicted.

Investigation exposes how Brazil’s huge beef sector continues to threaten health of world’s largest rainforest

The cows grazed under the midday Amazon sun, near a wooden bridge spanning a river. It was an idyllic scene of pastoral quiet, occasionally broken by a motorbike growling on the dirt road that cuts through part of the Lagoa do Triunfo cattle farm to a nearby community.

But this pasture is land that the farm has been forbidden to use for cattle since 2010, when it was embargoed by Brazil’s government environment agency Ibama for illegal deforestation. Nearby were more signs of fresh pasture: short grass, feeding troughs, and salt for cattle.

The EU-Mercosur trade deal is good news for Brazil’s huge beef industry but devastating for the rainforest and environment

European leaders have thrown the Amazon rainforest under a Volkswagen bus in a massive cows-for-cars trade deal with Brazil and three other South American nations.

The EU-Mercosur agreement – the largest in Europe’s history, according to officials – will make it cheaper for Brazilian farmers to export agricultural products, particularly beef, despite growing evidence that cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation.

How the strange case of a former president secretly taped by industry executives revealed where power lies in Brazil

In Brazilian financial circles 17 May 2017 is dubbed “Joesley Day”. It’s the date when the power and influence of Brazil’s meat industry was exposed in all its ugly glory and gave the stock market a sucker punch.

It was the date that Joesley Batista, at that point one of the controllers of the world’s biggest meat-packing company, family-run JBS, went to meet then-President Michel Temer, and secretly recorded him endorsing payments to a notoriously corrupt politician imprisoned for political corruption.

Organisers say Penpont project will create blueprint for how youth action and conservation can bring change

Twenty young people are embarking on an ambitious conservation project across 2,000 acres of the Brecon Beacons to help tackle the decline in British wildlife.

The volunteers are part of the Penpont project, which organisers say is the biggest youth conservation attempt in the world. They will work with tenant farmers, landowners and local people to enhance habitats in order to protect the local flora and fauna.

Four of the five new species, which are only a few millimetres in diameter, are from Queensland and one is from NSW

A Queensland Museum arachnologist has helped identify five new species of tiny brushed jumping spiders the size of a grain of rice.

The group includes a spider with large black eyes like sunglasses and black and white front legs, which led to it being named after late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Emissions from dead trees were eight times higher than those from the healthy trees

Mangrove forests that died along a 1,000km stretch of coastline in northern Australia have been emitting methane at rates eight times higher than live trees, according to new research.

Scientists from Southern Cross University have used the site of the mass dieback along the Gulf of Carpentaria to measure methane emissions from mangrove tree stems for the first time.

Northern beaches local was swimming with friends at Shelly beach about 6am when he thought he was bitten

Sydney’s famous Manly beach has been closed after a man was injured in a suspected shark attack during an early-morning swim.

The local – believed to be in his mid-50s – was swimming with friends at the adjoining Shelly Beach about 6am on Tuesday when he thought he was bitten. He managed to swim to nearby rocks and raise the alarm.

Call for ecological impact assessment of huge numbers of non-native gamebirds released in UK by shooting industry

Large-scale pheasant and partridge shoots are boosting the populations of avian predators including crows, jays, ravens and buzzards, which are feeding on millions of the non-native gamebirds, according to a new study.

Despite gamekeepers legally trapping and shooting many avian predators to protect pheasants and partridges, researchers found “multiple positive associations” between areas of lowland Britain with large numbers of reared pheasants and partridges and higher populations of avian predators.

Morrison government urged to address where greenhouse gas emissions are rising substantially

The challenge the Morrison government faces in meeting future climate targets without new policies is underlined by an analysis that breaks down how significantly greenhouse gas emissions are increasing from transport, natural gas and coalmining.

Since 2005, the year against which the government has chosen to benchmark its Paris target, Australia’s emissions from transport are up 23%.