The Guardian

Documents suggest an aggressive response to possible protests against the oil pipeline amid fears of another Standing Rock

Angeline Cheek is preparing for disaster. The indigenous organizer from the Fort Peck reservation in Montana fears that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could break and spill, destroy her tribe’s water, and desecrate sacred Native American sites.

But environmental catastrophe is not the most immediate threat.

Automotive industry risks blowing its carbon budget within 10 years without drastic change, analysis shows

New petrol and diesel car sales in Europe must be phased out before 2030 if the auto sector is to play its part in holding global warming to the Paris agreement’s 1.5C goal, a new analysis has found.

Forecourt plug-in hybrids will also have to disappear by 2035 at the latest, according to analysis by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).

Yoko Ikeda and Toshio Shibata both photograph nature – but from very different viewpoints. Their striking, breathtaking landscapes collide in the new exhibition Treescapes

Walkers and KP Snacks are among those failing to address consumer concerns over recyclability, say green campaigners

Major UK crisp brands are failing to address consumer concerns about their unrecyclable plastic packets, new research claims, with many relying on pledges that won’t come into effect for years.

The latest findings from campaign group 38 Degrees come after more than 310,000 signed its petition demanding that brand leader, Walkers, take the initiative and ditch plastic packaging in favour of amore sustainable alternative. Recent polling has found that plastic waste will soon leapfrog price as shoppers’ top concern.

Doctor on nearby boat stopped bleeding before tourist airlifted to Mackay

A Tasmanian tourist bitten by a shark in the Whitsunday Islands of north Queensland has been saved by the actions of an emergency department doctor.

Dr John Hadok from Mackay base hospital was on a nearby boat when the 46-year-old woman was attacked while swimming at Cid Harbour off Whitsunday Island about 5pm on Wednesday.

Tests at meat packing plants show no reduction in drugs, a year after new rules to clamp down on overuse

Antibiotics crucial to human medicine are still being used in “unacceptable” quantities on US livestock farms, despite rules brought in last year to curb their use and combat the spread of deadly superbugs.

Tests on thousands of meat samples by the US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) show that powerful antibiotics classified as “critically important” to human health are still being used. The widespread use of such drugs on livestock is one of the key drivers of antibiotic resistance, a growing public health crisis.

Newly found documents from the 1980s show that fossil fuel companies privately predicted the global damage that would be caused by their products.

One day in 1961, an American economist named Daniel Ellsberg stumbled across a piece of paper with apocalyptic implications. Ellsberg, who was advising the US government on its secret nuclear war plans, had discovered a document that contained an official estimate of the death toll in a preemptive “first strike” on China and the Soviet Union: 300 million in those countries, and double that globally.

Ellsberg was troubled that such a plan existed; years later, he tried to leak the details of nuclear annihilation to the public. Although his attempt failed, Ellsberg would become famous instead for leaking what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers – the US government’s secret history of its military intervention in Vietnam.

Senator who kicked off inquiry says Australia contributes to rhinoceros and elephant poaching by providing a market

A bipartisan parliamentary committee has recommended a national ban on the domestic trade of elephant ivory and rhino horn.

Australia’s environment minister, Melissa Price, is considering the recommendations from a Senate inquiry examining the trade before she attends an international wildlife trade conference in London next month.

Plenty of sunshine is needed to bring out the intense reds and yellows from the leaves, and this year we’re set for a dazzling display

Autumn colour is perhaps the most striking of nature’s seasonal displays, but the vividness of the annual spectacle is largely dependent on good environmental conditions. This year, following a fine summer and with an Indian summer predicted, we look to be on course for a dazzling display that could trump recent years and extend well into November.

Shorter daylight hours and colder nights are what trigger leaf drop – or senescence – but frost, like rain, can damage leaves and cause early leaf fall. Plenty of sunshine is needed to encourage concentrations of colour pigments which help to intensify leaf colour.

Initiative lays out practical steps we can all take to help halt destruction of species and habitats in Britain

Replanting hedgerows, including birdboxes on all new-build homes, rewilding uplands and an end to seal culling: these are among demands of the People’s Manifesto for Wildlife, a new initiative aimed at halting the drastic decline in British wildlife.

The manifesto has been drawn up by the naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham, with the aid of 17 independent experts and scientists. They warned that people are sleepwalking into an “ecological apocalypse”, but said everyone could take practical steps themselves, and campaign for broader measures that could yet avert the wholesale destruction of species and habitats.

‘Shocking’ study reveals plastic contaminates our skies as well as the oceans, say scientists

Microplastic can escape from polluted waters via flying insects, new research has revealed, contaminating new environments and threatening birds and other creatures that eat the insects.

Scientists fed microplastics to mosquito larvae, which live in water, but found that the particles remained inside the animals as they transformed into flying adults. Other recent research found that half of the mayfly and caddisfly larvae in rivers in Wales contained microplastics.

Hot weather and conservation drive help once-extinct insect make dramatic comeback

A previously extinct butterfly, the large blue, has enjoyed its best UK summer on record thanks to the lovely weather and a determined conservation effort on hills in the West Country of England.

The large blue, a popular specimen among Victorian collectors, was declared extinct in Britain in the 1970s but has since made a dramatic comeback.

Documents show Margie McKenzie failed to declare her interest in Gempearl for her first two years on board

A board director for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been accused of a potential conflict of interest over public funding directed to companies working on crown-of-thorns starfish culling.

Margie McKenzie sits on the board of the authority and also owns a company called Gempearl with her husband, Col McKenzie.

Leaked document shows BusinessEurope group would oppose more ambitious goals

Companies including Facebook, Google and Microsoft have failed to distance themselves from a lobby group’s proposal to fight any effort by the EU to set more ambitious climate change goals.

A leaked document shows that BusinessEurope, Europe’s biggest business lobbying group, will urge members to oppose any moves by the European Commission to ratchet up the bloc’s 2030 targets for clean energy, carbon cuts and energy efficiency.

Risk in over-50s increases by 40% where highest nitrogen oxide levels exist, study shows

Air pollution may increase the chance of developing dementia, a study has suggested, in fresh evidence that the health of people of all ages is at risk from breathing dirty air.

People over 50 in areas with the highest levels of nitrogen oxide in the air showed a 40% greater risk of developing dementia than those with the least NOx pollution, according to the research, based on data from London.

Advocates said retracting the regulation would cause more smog-forming pollution that can cause heart and lung illnesses

The Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era standards to limit planet-warming methane pollution from oil and gas operations on federal lands.

Environmental advocates said retracting the regulation would contribute to global warming and cause more smog-forming pollution that can cause heart and lung illnesses.

The seafood industry in Tasmania and Victoria is worried about seismic testing and point to research backing their concerns

There are calls for a moratorium on seismic surveys by the oil and gas industry from members of the fishing industry after new Australian research shows it has serious impacts on invertebrates such as lobster, scallop, abalone and crab.

The calls come as three different oil and gas companies have told industry bodies they want to carry out seismic explorations inthe Otway basin this summer.

Experts believe that action is urgently needed to expose horrifying labour conditions across Paraguay’s Chaco region

“For me, there are two very important anthropological concepts,” says Patrick Friesen, speaking Spanish with a thick accent. He is a descendant of protestant Mennonites who left Europe to found agricultural colonies in the arid region of the Paraguayan Chaco; he is also the communication manager of Chortitzer, one of the three large Mennonite cooperatives that dominate the economy of this inhospitable part of the country.

“The first [concept] is that people from the north[ern hemisphere] need to stockpile. They work from sunrise to sunset, investing, so they can survive the winter. But a person from the south, to put it crudely, can sit under a mango tree and wait for a mango to fall on his head. Nature provides security,” he says, differentiating what he believes to be the mental maps of the Mennonites and the indigenous peoples who have been living together in the Chaco for a century.

Uncertainty around Third Energy’s North Yorkshire project blamed for resignations

Third Energy, one of the firms at the frontline of the UK’s fracking drive, has been hit by the departure of two of its directors due to delays over its flagship project in North Yorkshire. Campaigners said the resignations were a sign of a company “in meltdown”.

The Barclays-backed company had looked likely to be the first shale explorer to frack in the UK for years, but its plans for the KM8 well have been pushed back by government checks over its financial health.

John Schubert appears before Senate inquiry into the grant awarded to his small non-profit without tender

The chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, John Schubert, has told a Senate inquiry he did not know the government was going to offer a $444m grant when he agreed to meet with the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg.

In the hearing on Tuesday, Schubert said the prime minister’s office called with an invitation two days before the 9 April meeting but gave no information on what was to be discussed.