The Guardian

Campaigners receive longest ever sentences for non-violent protest after being convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance

Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s orbital motorway have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

It’s July! It should be all about picnics and ice-creams, not plastic rain ponchos. I have officially lost my joie de vivre

That’s it, I’m calling it: this is the worst summer ever. Despite the fact we are currently seeing a fleeting glimpse of sun, the weather has been notably dismal. The Met Office says it could be the coldest summer of the past 24 years. Last week, it started raining inside our bedroom as well as outside, and, after days and days of cold and wet weather, that felt like the final straw. This is my Sad girl summer. Having never before suffered from seasonal affective disorder, I have officially lost my joie de vivre. And I know I’m not alone. Moaning about the weather may be an Olympic sport for the British, but this feels different. During social interactions people seem too listless and despondent to even have a proper whinge. They just shake their heads, sadly, while staring at their shoes. This can’t go on. Can it?

Well, apparently it can, with some predictions saying we will be enduring this autumnal chill until, well, actual autumn. The thought of entering winter without having fully charged up on sunshine fills me with a looming sense of horror. Having grown up in the mountains of north Wales, I have an abnormally high tolerance for rain. I’m basically a bog witch comprised of 60% water and 40% lichen. I can spend days indoors and not get cabin fever. Saying that, wet Welsh weather is partly why I moved south. My dad, who is visiting at the moment, treats London as if it’s the Costa del Sol. Look at everyone eating outdoors, like Spaniards! But though the sun may be shining as I write this, we know the drill by now: it peeks out for just long enough to remind us that it exists, before retreating behind another heavy, grey cloud fecund with rain. Emergency-poncho-clad tourists haunt the streets like plasticky ghosts.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

A sustainable project aims to repurpose encroacher bush to create building blocks to solve Namibia’s housing crisis

“People think the house would smell because the blocks are made of all-natural products, but it doesn’t smell,” says Kristine Haukongo. “Sometimes, there is a small touch of wood, but otherwise it’s completely odourless.”

Haukongo is the senior cultivator at the research group MycoHab and her job is pretty unusual. She grows oyster mushrooms on chopped-down invasive weeds before the waste is turned into large, solid brown slabs – mycoblocks – that will be used, it’s hoped, to build Namibian homes.

CCC says delays and reverses under Rishi Sunak have left UK drastically off track from Paris commitments

The new Labour government must oversee a massive ramping up of renewable energy generation in this parliament or the UK will breach its international obligations under the Paris agreement, the government’s climate watchdog has said.

The Conservative government left the country drastically off track to meet its international commitments, despite setting the carbon-cutting target before hosting the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, the Committee on Climate Change found in its most recent annual report.

Those pushing the nuclear option are making some questionable claims about the capacity of renewable energy

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Advocacy for the Coalition’s hopes to build nuclear power plants is increasingly coming with large side-orders of misinformation, not just on the speed or costs of nuclear but on renewables.

Dr Adi Paterson, the chair of the Nuclear for Australia advocacy group, has taken to attacking the credentials of CSIRO experts while going hyperbolic with his rhetoric.

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Snakebites, the ‘deadliest of neglected tropical diseases’ often impact rural communities the most, but a new study offers hope

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A commonly used blood thinner can be used as an antidote to cobra venom, an international study has found, research that a Queensland expert has called “really exciting”.

In the study, published in the Journal of Science Translational Medicine on Thursday, Prof Nicholas Casewell described snakebites as the “deadliest of neglected tropical diseases, with its burden landing overwhelmingly on rural communities in low and middle income countries”.

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Fourteen attorneys general petition federal emergency officials as millions in US under excessive heat advisories

Fourteen state attorneys general are urging the federal government to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke major disasters. The petition comes as millions of people in the south and north-east face excessive heat advisories, and large swaths of the western US and Canada battle ongoing wildfires.

“The likelihood of high-severity extreme heat and wildfire smoke events is increasing due in part to climate change,” wrote the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, in a letter submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday. “We urge Fema to update its regulations to prepare for this hotter, smokier future.”

The NHS, child poverty, defence: Labour is selling itself on its ability to get some big things done

Britain’s new government has just reached the point where things get serious. The king’s speech marks the ceremonial divide between Labour’s pinch-yourself fortnight following the 4 July election landslide and the start of the hard slog of delivery, by which Keir Starmer’s government will actually be judged next time. It’s the end of the overture and the start of the drama itself, the part that really matters.

Before the election there was a debate among those around Starmer about how to approach the opening days in government. Some wanted the new government to immediately trigger a blizzard of activity to show that Labour was active and a contrast to the Conservatives. In this view, promoted in particular by Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, the first 100 days were crucial, an agenda-driven opportunity to reignite confidence in government.

There are fewer than 400 of critically endangered species left and sighting gives ‘glimmer of hope’

A critically endangered North Atlantic right whale has been spotted off the coast of Ireland for the first time in more than a century.

Holidaymaker Adrian Maguire, from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, glimpsed the large, dark body of the whale on the surface of the water while out fishing for mackerel.

Regulators approve Meatly pet product, cultivated chicken made from growing cells

Lab-grown pet food is to hit UK shelves as Britain becomes the first country in Europe to approve cultivated meat.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have approved the product from the company Meatly.

Footage shows severe flooding across Toronto after the Canadian city was hit by three big storms in recent days. The Canadian rapper Drake shared a video on Instagram appearing to show parts of his home submerged in flood water. Authorities say the storm left 167,000 people without power and several flights were delayed or cancelled. At least 14 people were rescued

A fox in the sun, fireflies and a brush fire, and trees blanketed with butterflies are among the striking images caught by winners of the California Academy of Sciences’ annual contest. Now in its 11th year, it highlights biodiversity and the many threats our planet faces

Review says capital needs new reservoir, better flood defences and ‘heat plan’ for vulnerable people

Londoners who concrete over their gardens should be charged for doing so and given incentives to remove paving, a report to the mayor has recommended.

The city also needs a new reservoir, improved flood defences, and a “heat plan” to protect vulnerable residents from the increased risk of heatwaves, the report on the impact of the climate crisis has found.

Researchers from California Polytechnic State University have set up a webcam to observe a 'mega den' of as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes. Emily Taylor, the Cal Poly biology professor leading the Project RattleCam research, says the exact location in Colorado is being kept secret to keep snake lovers – or haters – away

Researchers say rattlesnakes have an undeservedly maligned reputation but are social creatures who make good mothers

A “mega den” with as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes isn’t top binge-watching for many people. But a round-the-clock webcam in Colorado is providing a viewing bonanza for scientists and other snake enthusiasts whose observations are helping to broaden understanding of these unusual – and undeservedly maligned – reptiles.

The remote site on private land in northern Colorado is on a hillside full of rock crevices where the snakes can keep warm and hide from predators.

Sustainable food experts want to revive fragile supply chains by using the games to ‘catalyse conservation’

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Sustainable food advocates are calling for the amount of locally grown produce supplied to Brisbane to increase by 30% by the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games to strengthen the city’s “fragile” supply chains.

But first, they have to figure out how much of Brisbane’s food is currently grown locally.

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Company insists project should go ahead despite new government saying it had been unlawfully approved

The company behind the first new coalmine in the UK for 30 years has argued in the high court on Tuesday that it would be a “unique net zero” mine.

West Cumbria Mining (WCM) continued to defend the legality of its mine, which will produce 60m tonnes of coking coal in its lifetime, in the court days after the government said its planning permission was unlawful because it had not taken into account downstream emissions from using the coal.

Scientists believe the world’s rarest whale may have washed up on a New Zealand beach. Spade-toothed beaked whales have never been seen alive; beaked whales are believed to be exceptionally deep divers, spending their time far below the surface hunting squid and small fish. The specimen has been transported to cold storage and is awaiting examination. If confirmed to be a spade-toothed whale, it will be the first ever to be dissected by scientists.

As part of the annual Beaker Street festival, a celebration of science and art in Tasmania, finalist images in the festival’s annual science photographic competition will be on show at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from 6 August to 23 August

When I was in school, for a few weeks every year, caterpillars were the most exciting thing happening

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On the trunks of small magnolia trees, in the corner where a table leg meets a table top, on a low damp wall in the shade – here the hairy caterpillars gather together. They travel in long lines, they sleep as close to each other as possible (displaying, it is called in science, a high level of “gregariousness”), as though the scariest thing a predator might see is a cat’s disembodied tail or retched-up fur ball, or a too-small itchy blanket.

If you take a picture of a hairy caterpillar and put it on the internet, a stranger will tell you that you can safely touch it, while another will say you can’t under any circumstances. “What about that says, ‘Touch me’?” one person will ask. “People really need to get a grip,” another will write. “The caterpillars which are hazardous to touch are the hairy Marys, which have hollow hairs with venom. The hairy Marys are very obviously hairy.” This person sounds exactly like an older kid talking to a younger one.

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