The Guardian

‘Potato Plastic’ and a river-cleaning robot are among 20 contenders for this year’s prestigious global prize

Cutlery made from potato peelings and a robotic cleaner that can tackle pollution in rivers, lakes and canals are among the groundbreaking international designs shortlisted for the prestigious annual James Dyson award.

Over half the world’s population currently live in cities, according to the United Nations – a proportion expected to rise to seven in 10 people by 2050 – and the projects share a common theme of aiming to redefine urban living through technology to create a more sustainable future.

Nellie’s Tree - entwined by her husband to form her initial – is among the four winners of this year’s Woodland Trust prize

Lovers in Paris have caused havoc and serious damage in recent years by commemorating their relationships with padlocks attached to the city’s famous Pont Neuf bridge.

But those seeking a more lasting – and environmentally friendly – symbol might instead consider planting a tree. It worked for a romantic young man from Leeds a century ago, whose tree has just been voted the UK’s favourite.

The EPA isn’t rescinding the standard as of yet but has finished deciding to reconsider the analysis for the Obama-era rule

The US Environmental Protection Agency next month will unveil plans to start weakening the economic justification for a rule limiting toxic mercury pollution from coal plants.

The EPA isn’t rescinding the standard as of yet but has finished deciding to reconsider the underlying analysis for the 2011 rule, according to the government’s newly published agenda.

Three protesters jailed for blocking access to a fracking site walked free on Wednesday after the court of appeal quashed their sentences, calling them manifestly excessive. Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, and Rich Loizou, 31, were greeted by cheering supporters after judges ruled that they should be freed immediately

• Fracking protesters walk free after court quashes 'excessive' sentences

Court of appeal gives Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, Rich Loizou, 31, conditional discharge

Three protesters jailed for blocking access to a fracking site have had their sentences quashed by the court of appeal, which called them “manifestly excessive”.

Related: I was arrested for direct action against fracking. This is too important to stand aside | Esme North

Reserve to cover 1.8m km will protect penguins, leopard seals, orca and blue whales

The UK government has thrown its weight behind the creation of the world’s biggest environmental sanctuary, covering a huge swathe of the Antarctic ocean.

The massive 1.8m sq km reserve – five times the size of Germany – would ban all fishing in a vast area of the Weddell Sea and parts of the Antarctic peninsula, safeguarding species including penguins, killer whales, leopard seals and blue whales.

Few companies specialize in carbon removal and the tools they produce are currently still expensive

Peter Fiekowsky, a physicist and entrepreneur, hates silver bullets.

But at a climate summit in California last month he found himself pitching one. In partnership with the company Blue Planet, he was demonstrating a low-tech-looking machine that can pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it in construction materials.

Journalists grilled GOP politicians on climate change. It didn’t go well

Major climate science reports usually pass by largely unnoticed, but in the wake of the latest IPCC report a number of journalists laudably grilled Republican lawmakers about its findings. While their responses were predictably terrible, it’s nevertheless crucial for journalists to hold GOP politicians accountable for their climate denial and policy inaction. Donald Trump’s answers were particularly ignorant and nonsensical in his 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl.

Hundreds gather outside high court in London as jailed trio challenge sentences

Several hundred supporters of the three protesters jailed for blocking access to the Preston New Road fracking site have gathered outside the high court in London before their appeal against their sentences.

Simon Blevins, 26, and Richard Roberts, 36, were jailed for 16 months, and Rich Loizou, 31, was jailed for 15 months, after a four-week trial last month led to their convictions for causing a public nuisance.

Oil-rich kingdom says money is needed to protect against water scarcity but request sparks strong criticism and fears over the fitness of the public fund

Bahrain – one of the world’s most oil-rich nations – has applied to the international Green Climate Fund for $9.8m for its National Oil and Gas Authority, raising questions over whether taxpayer-funded assistance for poor countries is reaching its intended targets.

The kingdom has requested the funding to clean up wastewater from the oil and gas industry, which it says is necessary to protect against water scarcity in future – a problem that is likely to grow worse around the world as a consequence of climate change.

Lee Berger wins Frank Fenner prize for life scientist of the year while ANU emeritus professor Kurt Lambeck wins prime minister’s prize for science

The sudden crash of several frog species in Australia and central America between the late 1970s and 1990s was a global mystery. Six species were lost in Queensland alone. The prevailing wisdom was environmental factors must be to blame for their extinction. Could it be rising pollution? Or ultraviolet radiation from the growing hole in the ozone layer?

It turned out it was neither. A group of Australian scientists showed environmental change was not responsible, and in the process upended conventional thinking about what can trigger species loss. It started as a theory from Rick Speare, a Townsville-based doctor and vet: that an infectious disease was spreading north through Queensland, wiping out frog species as it went. He invited Lee Berger, a veterinary science graduate from the University of Melbourne, to join the investigation as a PhD candidate.

Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten’s stunning portrait of two endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys in China’s Qinling mountains has won this year’s prestigious prize. The winners were announced on Tuesday at London’s Natural History Museum.

Opponents of the 160-mile Bayou Bridge pipeline, which will cross Native American land and 700 bodies of water, have chained themselves to machinery

As the flat-bottom fishing boat speeds through waterways deep inside Louisiana’s Atchafalaya basin, the largest river swamp in the US, the landscape suddenly shifts from high banks of sediment and oil pipeline markers on either side to an open grove of cypress trees towering above the water. Flocks of white ibis appear, seemingly out of nowhere, to nest and hunt amid the moss-dripped, century-old wetland forest.

“This is what the entire basin is supposed to look like,” explained Jody Meche, president of a local crawfishermen alliance and a lifelong resident with a thick Cajun accent.

New independent panel may allocate funding based on more varied factors than EU CAP

Farming conditions across the UK’s regions are to be assessed for the first time with a view to allocating financial assistance after EU subsidies are withdrawn, the government has said.

A new independent advisory panel will consider what factors should determine how future funding is divided among England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a remit to look at farm sizes and farm numbers, as well as environmental and socio-economic issues.

Leaked letter shows advisory council recommended the Lake Malbena project not be approved

One of the first acts of the Morrison government was to greenlight a private tourism development with helicopter access in Tasmanian world heritage wilderness against the recommendation of an expert advisory body.

The decision, signed by an environment department assistant secretary on 31 August on behalf of the environment minister, Melissa Price, signalled the luxury camp on remote Halls Island in Lake Malbena was not a threat to matters of national environmental significance and did not need approval under federal laws.

Ministers of island states call for help in tackling organised crime in the fishing industry, which they say is harming both the environment and human rights

Ministers from tiny island states including Palau, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati are calling for help over the “devastating” impacts of criminal networks in the fishing industry.

Fishermen, unable to work because stocks are so low, are being lured into gun-running and drug trafficking by international organised crime, the nations’ officials told an industry conference in Copenhagen this week.

Far more must be invested in adapting to warming, says new global commission that aims to rebuild political will after US withdrawal from Paris agreement

Far too little is being done to protect people from the heatwaves, storms and floods being supercharged by climate change, according to a high-level international commission. It aims to rebuild the political will to act that was damaged when US president, Donald Trump, rejected the global Paris agreement.

The Global Commission on Adaptation is being led by Ban Ki-Moon, Bill Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank. It involves 17 countries including China, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Canada and the UK.

Almost 900,000 unsold meals are chucked out a day, according to food waste app Too Good To Go

Almost 900,000 perfectly edible, freshly prepared meals end up in the bin in the UK every day, new figures reveal, because they haven’t been sold in time by restaurants and cafes.

This means that more than 320m meals are thrown away by British food establishments every year – enough meals for everyone in the UK five times over, according to food waste app Too Good To Go.

Beekeepers are sounding the alarm about the latest developments in genetically modified pollinators. By Bernhard Warner

The spring of 2008 was brutal for Europe’s honeybees. In late April and early May, during the corn-planting season, dismayed beekeepers in Germany’s upper Rhine valley looked on as whole colonies perished. Millions of bees died. France, the Netherlands and Italy reported big losses, but in Germany the incident took on the urgency of a national crisis. “It was a disaster,” recalled Walter Haefeker, German president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. “The government had to set up containers along the autobahn where beekeepers could dump their hives.”

An investigation in July of that year concluded that the bees in Germany died of mass poisoning by the pesticide clothianidin, which can be 10,000 times more potent than DDT. In the months leading up to the bee crisis, clothianidin, developed by Bayer Crop Science from a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, had been used up and down the Rhine following an outbreak of corn rootworm. The pesticide is designed to attack the nervous system of crop-munching pests, but studies have shown it can be harmful to insects such as the European honeybee. It muddles the bees’ super-acute sense of direction and upsets their feeding habits, while it can also alter the queen’s reproductive anatomy and sterilise males. As contaminated beehives piled up, Bayer paid €2m (£1.76m) into a compensation fund for beekeepers in the affected area, but offered no admission of guilt.

More than 300 mammal species have been eradicated by human activities, say researchers

Humanity’s ongoing annihilation of wildlife is cutting down the tree of life, including the branch we are sitting on, according to a stark new analysis.

More than 300 different mammal species have been eradicated by human activities. The new research calculates the total unique evolutionary history that has been lost as a result at a startling 2.5bn years.