The Guardian

The Australian fairy wren can master the meaning of a few key ‘words’ by listening to other species

Birds can learn a second language by listening to the tweets and chirps of other birds, helping them to find out when a predator is approaching, scientists have found.

Wild animals are known to listen to each other for clues about lurking predators, effectively eavesdropping on other species’ chatter. Birds, for example, can learn to flee when neighbours cluck the equivalent of “hawk!” — or, more precisely, emit a distress call.

Churches estimated to have diverted £5m from fossil fuels to clean energy providers

More than 5,500 churches including some of the UK’s most famous cathedrals have converted to renewable power to help tackle climate change.

Church of England places of worship, along with Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker and Salvation Army congregations, have made the switch to 100% renewable electricity, and faith leaders are urging more to follow suit.

RSPB found urban sparrow colonies waning at fastest rate where traffic-borne nitrogen dioxide was worst

The cheeky house sparrow is the archetypal city bird. You can find them around the world, but they are in serious decline in cities in Italy, Canada, India and the UK. London’s house sparrow population fell by 60% between 1994 and 2006.

Scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds fed London sparrows in 33 colonies and compared them with birds at 33 other places where no extra food was offered. More food meant more fledglings, but it did not improve their wintertime survival.

Governor Jerry Brown calls administration’s proposal to weaken Obama-era emissions rules ‘reckless’ and a ‘betrayal’

The Trump administration has moved to weaken US vehicle emissions standards and has set up a major confrontation with California by scrapping its ability to enact stricter pollution standards and mandate the sale of electric cars.

Related: Elon Musk: the volatile visionary at risk of steering Tesla off the road

Report was with ministers in 2015 but only published three years later, days after a key fracking permit was awarded

A UK government report concluding that shale gas extraction increases air pollution was left unpublished for three years and only released four days after ministers approved fracking in Lancashire, it has emerged.

The report, written by the government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), was given to ministers in 2015, but was published quietly on 27 July. Fracking firm Cuadrilla was given the first permit under a new regulatory regime on 24 July, the final day of the parliamentary year.

United Utilities announces U-turn on controversial ban due to rainfall and cooler weather

A controversial hosepipe ban affecting millions of people in the north-west of England has been called off three days before it was to start because of the “recent deluge and a drop in temperatures”.

United Utilities had said on Tuesday that there would be no U-turn on the decision to start the ban on Sunday, but it has now announced that the demand for water has eased.

Environment minister says unsolicited grant complied with guidelines, and questions about it are a distraction

The environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, has dismissed concerns about the Turnbull government’s decision to hand an unsolicited grant of $444m to a small Great Barrier Reef not-for-profit without a tender process.

He has also rejected claims that the grant process lacked transparency, saying the process complied with governance guidelines on grants and the Australian Audit Office would be able to follow how the money was being spent.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

Crook, County Durham: A dozen green-veined and small white butterflies flit restlessly between flower heads, pausing just long enough to uncoil their tongues and probe a floret

Two o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest, drowsiest time of day, and the air is saturated with fragrance from a gnarled old lavender bush that sprawls over the garden wall. It carries more than 200 flower spikes, and every bumblebee and butterfly in the garden seems to have fallen for their charms.

Constant movement makes them hard to count but there must be at least 30 carder bumblebees (Bombus pascuorum). Stems flex under their weight like vaulters’ poles, as they explore each floret for a second, before moving to the next, and then flying to another inflorescence. They are possessed with relentless urgency, and lavender has them in its spell, offering easy-access nectar but only in tiny doses, compelling them to move from floret to floret to make their visits worthwhile. It’s an evolutionary trade-off between flower and pollinator workforce, a balance between floral energy reward and insect energy expenditure. This afternoon lavender offers the best deal in the garden.

Labor says there has been ‘no probity’ around awarding of grant to tiny charity

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is being pressed by Labor and the Greens to explain what was said in a private meeting that led to the awarding of a $443.8m grant to a small not-for-profit group for the Great Barrier Reef without a tender process.

It comes after new revelations that the environment and energy department secretary, Finn Pratt, was not present at an April meeting between Turnbull, the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation chairman, John Schubert.

State of the climate report found 2017 was the third warmest with a record high sea level and destructive coral bleaching

Last year was the warmest ever recorded on Earth that didn’t feature an El Niño, a periodic climatic event that warms the Pacific Ocean, according to the annual state of the climate report by 500 climate scientists from around the world, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and released by the American Meteorological Society.

Related: Rising temperatures linked to increased suicide rates

Findings come as part of a pledge by the owners of Canary Wharf in London to become world’s first plastic-free commercial centre

Retailers are likely to face a consumer backlash if they fail to take action to curb plastic use, according to a survey by the owners of Canary Wharf in London.

The operators of Canary Wharf are pledging to become the world’s first plastic-free commercial centre, in partnership with the campaign group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS).

Environment secretary holds drought summit with farmers to address series issues of crop failure and lack of fodder for animals

Farmers will be allowed to take up more groundwater to irrigate parched crops during the ongoing heatwave, after a “drought summit” between farming leaders and the environment secretary, Michael Gove.

Farmers have suffered in the heat, with crops wilting or failing to reach their full size, and livestock running short of grass and fodder. Prices on some foods are already increasing, and price rises may be necessary for some staple goods later in the year, with the next few months crucial for the harvest.

Adam Vaughn’s experience of driving an electric vehicle (One Man and his Tesla, 27 July) demonstrates the real need we have for a truly national, visible network in this country if drivers are to confidently switch from petrol or diesel, which is a key recommendation of the UK’s first-ever National Infrastructure Assessment.

We also make a key recommendation that government should place a requirement on local councils to work with charge point providers to allocate 5% of their parking spaces to electric vehicles by 2020, and 20% by 2025, which may be converted to electric vehicle charge points.

The most populous region of the biggest polluter on Earth – China’s northern plain – will become uninhabitable in places if climate change is not curbed

The deadliest place on the planet for extreme future heatwaves will be the north China plain, one of the most densely populated regions in the world and the most important food-producing area in the huge nation.

New scientific research shows that humid heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike the area repeatedly towards the end of the century thanks to climate change, unless there are heavy cuts in carbon emissions.

Miss Helen, a female grey horn shark, had been driven away from San Antonio aquarium in a pickup truck

A shark abducted from a petting tank at a Texas aquarium and smuggled out in a pram has been found and returned.

The female grey horn shark, known as Miss Helen, was grabbed from the open pool in San Antonio aquarium by two men and a woman, then wrapped in a wet blanket.

Video footage shows a 40cm horn shark being taken from San Antonio aquarium in Texas, before being wrapped in a towel and placed in a pram. Police returned the shark to the aquarium after two of the three suspects confessed. A horn shark is worth about $2,000 (£1,520)

Scientists have identified a creature that they believe to be a hybrid of a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin

Scientists are touting the first sighting of a hybrid between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin in the ocean off Hawaii. But don’t call it a “wholphin,” they say.

The melon-headed whale is one of the various species that’s called a whale but is technically a dolphin.

Safest site should be chosen regardless of location, committee says – but opponents call idea ‘outrageous’

Highly radioactive nuclear waste could be permanently buried under national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs), under government plans backed by a committee of MPs.

Deep geological burial is seen as the only permanent solution for nuclear waste that will remain radioactive for many thousands of years and is currently stored at surface sites across the UK. Ministers’ attempts to choose a site in Cumbria for the £12bn facility were foiled in 2013 when the county council rejected the proposal.

Average temperature in past decade is 0.8C hotter and ‘notably wetter’ than the 30 years leading up to 1990

Last year was the fifth warmest on record for the UK, showing a clear warming trend above the long-term average, despite a wet summer last year and cold winter.

The average temperature over the past decade, since 2008, was 0.8C above the 30 year average to 1990. Summers over that period have also been “notably wetter”, the Met Office said, in its fourth annual State of the UK Climate report on Tuesday.