The Guardian

Extremes consistent with theories about how emissions could affect weather patterns

Hundreds of thousands of fish have choked during Australia’s hottest month since records began, swathes of the United States is colder than the north pole, new ruptures have been found in one of the Antarctic’s biggest glaciers and there are growing signs the Arctic is warming so fast that it could soon be just another stretch of the Atlantic.

And so the new year is carrying on where the old one left off, with growing signs climate disruption is accelerating at a more destructive rate than many scientists predicted.

Macaques adapt to city life, Andean condors are released back into the wild, and a lion catches a seal in this week’s gallery

After secret footage of animals raises health fears across Europe, reporter says tip-offs suggest scandal was not isolated incident

The practice of smuggling sick cows into the meat chain is feared to be more widespread in Poland than previously believed, according to the investigative reporter who captured footage of ill cows being dragged to slaughter with a winch.

After Patryk Szczepaniak’s undercover footage aired, the EU’s rapid alert system for food and feed was triggered, and it has since been confirmed that meat from this particular abattoir was exported to 12 other EU countries (not including the UK).

Many cruise ships use seawater to ‘wash’ dirty fuel to meet targets but dump washwater back in ocean

A boom in cruise liner holidays is raising concerns over the widespread use of “emissions dodging” by global shipping to meet tough new dirty fuel rules next year.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd revealed this week it had received record bookings for 2019, with the boom sparked in part by a rise in Chinese passengers.

Campaigners argue that the business case for the project was a ‘no-brainer’

A scrapped “emerald necklace” cycleway up the spine of the country alongside HS2 would have delivered a return on investment of up to five times greater than the rail project itself, an FoI request has revealed – but neither the government nor HS2 Ltd will fund it.

A 50-page report outlining the business case for the national cycleway, obtained by the Guardian, reveals health, congestion and economic benefits of between £3 and £8 per £1 spent. The return on investment of HS2 itself, meanwhile, is just £1.5-£1.7 per £1, according to the National Audit Office. Campaigners say completing the cycleway should have been a “no-brainer”.

Participants will observe then record their findings to tackle environmental concerns

Thousands of people across England will be gazing hopefully up at the stars this weekend – not in an attempt to forecast the next twist of Brexit, but to map out areas of light pollution and genuine darkness.

Clear skies are expected over much of the country for the start of the Star Count, which kicks off on Saturday and will run for three weeks, to 23 February. Participants are being asked to concentrate on the constellation of Orion, which graces the UK’s skies in winter and is easily identifiable.

Photographer Matthew Newtown travelled alongside the Tasmania fire service as its crews went into the exclusion zone near the town of Geeveston to inspect the damage. About 520 crews have worked on more than 50 fires, and 173,000 hectares have already been burnt across Tasmania

Scientists test new alerts that focus on helping people to prepare for bad air and avoid it

The UK measures the effects of daily air pollution, like sunburn risk, on a one to 10 index. As the air quality index increases, official advice tells vulnerable people to avoid outdoor exercise and reminds asthmatics to use their inhalers more often. This index is used in national forecasts and alert systems in southern England and Scotland and in the warnings that appear at London bus stops when high air pollution is forecast.

Scientists at King’s College London tested different types of messages with volunteers who used the CityAir app. Rather than telling people to make changes only when air pollution was bad, the scientists focused on helping people to know how to prepare and protect themselves, and overcome perceived barriers stopping them from changing how they travel. For instance, a message targeting asthmatics encouraged them to take their preventative medication, rather than simply warning them to carry their inhalers. Other messages included pollution maps to help people to find clean places to exercise and to find routes away from the worst roads. Anticipating that people might be reluctant to change, the messages pointed out that low pollution routes need not make their journeys any longer.

Research finds killing of native people indirectly contributed to a colder period by causing deaths of around 56 million by 1600

European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.

Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90% in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.

Peak policy group on electric vehicles and fuel emissions met only 12 times in four years

The federal Coalition’s peak policy body for deciding issues relating to fuel emissions and electric cars has met 12 times in its four-year existence but minutes for five of these meetings cannot be found.

The revelations emerged during a public hearing of the Senate select committee on electric vehicles held last year when a member of the department of infrastructure, regional development and cities struggled to name the chair of the ministerial forum on vehicles emissions.

Satellite data suggests protection measures are being ignored as huge fishing lines snare endangered seabirds

Industrial fishing vessels that accidentally kill tens of thousands of albatrosses each year routinely ignore regulations designed to save the birds from extinction, according to research.

Using satellite data, investigators found that vessels employing longline fishing techniques showed a “low level of compliance” with measures to reduce albatross deaths.

Stranded porpoises, dolphins and seals had average of 5.5 particles in their guts

Microplastics are being widely ingested by Britain’s marine mammals, scientists say, with samples found in every animal examined in a study.

The research on 50 stranded creatures including porpoises, dolphins, grey seals and a pygmy sperm whale is the most comprehensive analysis of microplastics in the digestive tracts of both wild cetaceans and seals.

People buying generic fish such as rock could in fact be eating a range of shark species

Fish and chip shops and fishmongers are selling endangered sharks to an unwitting public, according to researchers who used DNA barcoding to identify species on sale.

Most chip shop fish sold under generic names such as huss, rock, flake and rock salmon turned out to be spiny dogfish, a shark species classified as endangered in Europe by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list.

Bird poaching – for meat or for the pet trade – has become a silent epidemic across China, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of migratory birds each year. Gu Xuan, a young conservationist, is determined to break this cycle of death and destruction, and set the birds free

Report recognises urgent need for national plan, as the rest of the world powers ahead

When the Senate select committee on electric cars released its long-awaited report on Wednesday, it announced Australia was “on the cusp” of a change not seen since the advent of the internal combustion engine.

It’s not the first time public figures have claimed an electric car revolution is imminent and while the report did not recommend brash action, it offered a moment of bipartisan recognition that a lack of government action to date has left Australia lagging behind the rest of the world.

Monarch production will not be replicated next year, experts warn, as above average temperatures will cause problems

The population of monarch butterflies wintering in central Mexico is up 144% over last year, according to new research.

Related: 'It's a sad reality': a troubling trend sees a 97% decline in monarch butterflies

Virus outbreak among sea stars coincided with warm waters, researchers found after sixth graders held fundraiser for survey

Five years ago, a sixth grade class in land-locked Arkansas heard about a mass die-off of starfish on the west coast and felt compelled to help.

Related: Mussels lose grip when exposed to microplastics – study

Once a year in freezing cold winter waters, a gathering happens off the coast of South Australia. Hundreds of thousands of giant cuttlefish come to mate but this natural wonder comes at a great cost. In this episode of Guardian Australia’s new podcast we learn a lesson on life and death from these amazing cephalopods.

Australian Photography magazine has named Brisbane ecologist Jasmine Vink as the overall winner in its 2018 Photographer of the Year awards – the largest amateur photography competition in the southern hemisphere

A farmer recently took his lambs to a sanctuary instead of the slaughter – and these sudden turnarounds are not uncommon

A farmer was recently on the road to the abattoir when he changed direction and drove his trailer full of lambs 200 miles to an animal sanctuary instead. Sivalingam Vasanthakumar, 60, from Devon, now plans to grow vegetables.

Vasanthakumar is not the only farmer to perform this kind of reversal. In 2017, Jay Wilde, of Bradley Nook farm in Derbyshire, took his cattle to a sanctuary and decided to become a vegan farmer (the film telling this story, 73 Cows, has been nominated for a Bafta). In the US, the Illinois-based charity Free From Harm has gathered tales of many farmers who have had epiphanies and switched to veganism.