The Guardian

Defra consultation on proposals received more than 70,000 responses, 88% in favour

A UK ban on ivory sales, which the government claims will be the toughest in Europe and one of the strictest in the world, is to be introduced after the proposals were overwhelmingly backed in a public consultation.

The ban makes exemptions only for musical instruments containing a small percentage of ivory, some antiques, and museum objects.

Agency says Barack Obama’s timeline set standards ‘too high’ in move that could lead to legal showdown with California

US environmental regulators announced on Monday they would ease emissions standards for cars and trucks, saying that a timeline put in place by Barack Obama was not appropriate and set standards “too high”.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it had completed a review that would affect vehicles for model years 2022-25 but it did not provide details on new standards, which it said would be forthcoming. Current regulations from the EPA require the fleet of new vehicles to get 36 miles per gallon in real-world driving by 2025. That’s about 10 miles per gallon over the existing standard.

Coastal rubbish dumps dotted around Britain are at risk of erosion and nobody knows what exactly is inside them

Britain’s coasts were battered in this winter’s storms. The Royal North Devon Golf Club, England’s oldest golf course, had a sizeable chunk of its eighth hole washed away during Storm Eleanor in January. Less well publicised were fears of flooding at a nearby landfill site, which was last used in 1995 and contains hospital waste and other toxic material.

Related: Pollution risk from over 1,000 old UK landfill sites due to coastal erosion

The base of the ice around the south pole shrank by 1,463 square kilometres between 2010 and 2016

Hidden underwater melt-off in the Antarctic is doubling every 20 years and could soon overtake Greenland to become the biggest source of sea-level rise, according to the first complete underwater map of the world’s largest body of ice.

Warming waters have caused the base of ice near the ocean floor around the south pole to shrink by 1,463 square kilometres – an area the size of Greater London – between 2010 and 2016, according to the new study published in Nature Geoscience.

Government funding delay for £1.3bn scheme may force firm to lay off staff within weeks

The £1.3bn Swansea tidal lagoon faces a major blow as the company behind the scheme braces for significant job cuts if UK and Welsh government talks on the project fail to yield a breakthrough.

Tidal Lagoon Power has waited for 15 months since an independent review backed the scheme as a “no regrets” source of clean and reliable energy.

There are win-win solutions to this problem.

Democracy is not a zero-sum game. Behaving as if it is degrades democratic process and our personal political sovereignty.

A zero-sum game is a contest for control of finite resources. Whatever one gains, another must lose. When two or more candidates compete for a single public office, only one can win, so many people view politics as bloodsport, applying “winner takes all” thinking to everything political. But elected officials are not conquerors; they are sworn servants to all their constituents.

2 April 1918 Close at hand rise a group of single upright stalks, each topped by a small green knob, the inconspicuous flowers of the moschatel or adoxa

The golden kingcups light up the stagnant ditch which through the winter has been filmed with a yellowish scum. Their roots are deep in the ancient leaf-mould and decomposing twigs and branches, a rich, black ooze; this forcing-bed has sent up a thick cushion of leaves stretching from bank to bank, and now that the handsome flowers are out the ditch is transformed. On the steep bank below the now green
hedge the silver stitchwort is out; beside it is a bed of the trefoil leaves of the wood-sorrel, so acceptable in a salad, pleasantly acid; and amongst them the delicate lilac-veined flowers.

Valley of Desolation, Wharfedale, Yorkshire Dales: The snow revives innocence, but it’s from this winter’s dramatic destabilisation of the polar vortex and a reminder of climate change

Spring is held in a sort of suspense. The sun’s growing confidence brings hope, but the blizzards are back again, shutting out the light, clogging the floor of Strid Wood with snow, smothering the first leaves of dog’s mercury and ramsons. Around this date in previous years I have heard drumming snipe on the moors or found breeding frogs in the ponds around here, but there will be few such mood-lifting discoveries today.

Doug Jones, Bernie Sanders and Chris Christie add to pressure over $50-a-night deal linked to chief executive of energy lobbying firm

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is under increasing pressure over a rental arrangement he had with a leading energy sector lobbyist.

Related: Veterans affairs chief David Shulkin says he was fired: 'I did not resign'

The Río Nuevo, which now stretches across 16 miles of San Luis province, is believed to be the product of deforestation, changes in farming practices and climate change. Now as its changing course threatens farmland, roads and even a city, the government is struggling to contain it

As the price of pods has soared so has violence – and forest defenders are increasingly risking their lives to protect precious wildlife habitat from being felled for profit

The vanilla thieves of Anjahana were so confident of their power to intimidate farmers they provided advance warning of raids. “We are coming tonight,” they would write in a note pushed under doors in this remote coastal village in Madagascar. “Prepare what we want.”

But they either undervalued their target commodity or overestimated the meekness of their victims. After one assault too many at the turn of the year, a crowd rounded up five alleged gangsters, dragged them into the village square and then set about the bloody task of mob justice.

Cwmystradllyn, Gwynedd: By 1871 the village was deserted, its consumptive and dispirited inhabitants dispersed. But much architectural beauty remains

The wave-like wall at Gorseddau slate quarry was running through my mind. I needed to go back and see if it was as I remembered. On a bitter March afternoon I set off along the old tramway that curves in from Cwm Pennant to the north.

Parma ham industry accuses animal welfare groups of a smear campaign following the release of ‘grim’ images of pigs kept in filthy and barren conditions

Images of pigs in filthy pens and barren conditions have sparked a row between animal welfare activists and the makers of Italy’s Parma ham.

The campaigners have released footage that they claim exposes barren living conditions with no stimulation, and injured animals with abscesses and hernias being left without adequate treatment. Their expose of the farms that produce meat for Parma and a small proportion of other hams follows a series of investigations over the last few years that have repeatedly appeared to reveal concerning conditions, such as pigs being treated roughly, and sick pigs being left to die in the corridors between their pens.

A family of brown bears, a whale shark and a new species of frog are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Brands including Patagonia and the North Face have presented a unified front in fighting for America’s public lands

Allendale, Northumberland: Our neighbouring farmer has a mixture of stock. What’s good for keeping cows away from our property, won’t deter the sheep

As the noise begins, a curlew flies off, calling in alarm. Deep thuds resonate through the earth and I can feel them through my feet as I stand on the gravel path. A fencing machine with a hydraulic hammer is ramming a heavy-duty post into the field just outside my garden. These “strainers” will have wire strung between them and need to be strong enough to carry its tension.

The old posts, being rotten, needed replacing to prevent the cows from pushing down the drystone walls. Curious youngsters, full of joie-de-vivre and energy, they like to rub and nudge the rough stones. Last year, two black bullocks enjoyed leaning over to tug at a climbing rose which I pruned back hard to take away the temptation.

A decline in the number of diesel cars would not jeopardise CO2 targets – in fact it would make them cheaper to achieve

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers blamed February’s rise in the average new-car CO2 emissions on an “anti-diesel agenda [that] has set back progress on climate change”. Petrol v diesel cars is often presented as a trade-off between health-harming air pollution and climate-harmful CO2. Diesel cars do more miles to the litre than petrol, but this exaggerates the difference in CO2 emissions since one litre of diesel contains more energy and more carbon than one litre of petrol. If fuel were taxed on energy and carbon, rather than volume, then the tax on diesel would be 10 to 14% greater than that on petrol.

The International Council on Clean Transportation points out that petrol engines and petrol-hybrids have improved faster than diesel and will continue to do so. They conclude that a decline in diesel cars from around 56% to 15% would not jeopardise EU CO2 targets. Instead, it would make the targets cheaper to achieve since petrol engines cost less to make and have simpler exhaust clean-up. The future might be electric cars (or better yet for public health: cycling, walking and public transport), but in the short term new petrol cars, instead of diesel, might help both climate change and air pollution.

One-third of species are vulnerable to extinction, a crisis ravaging swaths of creatures, conservationists say in call to fund recovery plans

An extinction crisis is rippling though America’s wildlife, with scores of species at risk of being wiped out unless recovery plans start to receive sufficient funding, conservationists have warned.

He blames green campaigners for delays, but believes industry will eventually take off in UK

David Cameron has told US oil executives of his frustration that the UK has failed to embrace fracking despite his best efforts, and hit out at green groups for being “absolutely obsessed” with blocking new fossil fuel extraction.

His bullish pro-fracking comments at a US oil industry event this week came almost 12 years since Britain’s former prime minister hugged a husky to burnish his green credentials.

Every spring, ponds around the UK start stirring and frogs come out of their winter slumber to mate. Here’s a unique perspective on an event that’s been happening since the age of the dinosaurs

Click here to view the 360° video.

If you’re viewing on mobile you’ll need to download the YouTube app for the full 360° experience.