The Guardian

Research shows ‘forever chemicals’ increasingly found in products as agency claims the chemicals aren’t being used

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are widely added to pesticides, and are increasingly used in the products in recent years, new research finds, a practice that creates a health threat by spreading the dangerous compounds directly into the US’s food and water supply.

The analysis of active and inert ingredients that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in pesticides proves recent agency claims that the chemicals aren’t used in pesticides are false.

Report says new nuclear capacity will not be ready in time to provide required increase in baseload electricity

Labour is likely to have to approve new gas-fired power stations in its attempt to decarbonise the UK’s electricity systems by 2030, in what would be a tricky decision for the new government.

Keeping the lights on for the rest of the decade, and beyond, will require some additional baseload power, and new nuclear power stations will not be built in time, according to a report from the National Engineering Policy Centre.

Charged metallic lumps found to produce oxygen in total darkness in process akin to how plants use photosynthesis

In the total darkness of the depths of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have discovered oxygen being produced not by living organisms but by strange potato-shaped metallic lumps that give off almost as much electricity as AA batteries.

The surprise finding has many potential implications and could even require rethinking how life first began on Earth, the researchers behind a study said on Monday.

If approved, the region would become Scotland’s third national park and first to be made official in UK since South Downs in 2010

Galloway has been selected by the Scottish government as the preferred site for Scotland’s third national park.

The region, which came out top from a shortlist of five, will now be the subject of a consultation and an investigation into its suitability before potentially being made official by 2026. The unsuccessful candidate areas were Lochaber, Loch Awe, Scottish Borders and Tay Forest.

Hitting target for zero-carbon electricity system will require ‘step-change’, says analyst Cornwall Insight

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Solar and wind power generation will fall well below the target needed to decarbonise Great Britain’s electricity grid by 2030 without an injection of £48bn, according to a forecast from one of the UK’s leading energy analysis companies.

The government has promised to deliver a zero-carbon electricity system by 2030, requiring the doubling of onshore wind, tripling of solar power and quadrupling of offshore wind capacity.

Opposition in wealthier areas is likely and overcoming it is essential, says Resolution Foundation

The government will need to “take on net-zero nimbys” and ramp up public investment to decarbonise Britain’s homes, transport and electricity system, a leading thinktank has said.

With Keir Starmer promising a rapid transition to decarbonise the power system by 2030, a report by the Resolution Foundation said achieving the target would require more government spending and private investment.

Ed Miliband has won the argument that his party must go big to cut carbon emissions. But he will need to go bigger still

Sir Keir Starmer’s legislative plan to green Britain has arrived not a moment too soon. Last week, the government’s advisers warned that only a third of the carbon reductions required by law would be met under existing plans. The Climate Change Committee said that, for the first time since setting itself carbon-reduction targets, the UK is not on track to meet its goal. It is supposed to reduce emissions in 2030 by 68% compared with 1990 levels, to meet net zero by 2050.

The UK should, says the committee, now be in a phase of rapid investment and delivery. But the Tories’ turn against net zero policies has meant little progress on the rollout of low-carbon technology. That is why Labour’s king’s speech, which put the environment at the centre of policymaking, was so welcome. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, won the argument that the urgency of the climate emergency needed a bigger, more interventionist state.

AI-based system designed to help people assess immediate risk of getting ill from water polluted with bacteria

Real-time water quality monitors are being installed at wild swimming spots and beaches across southern England to help people assess their immediate risk of getting ill from polluted water.

Wessex Water is installing sensors at three freshwater sites in Dorset, Somerset and Hampshire, plus two coastal sites in Bournemouth, after a successful pilot study at Warleigh Weir near Bath. Here, the artificial intelligence-based system correctly predicted when bacteria in the water were high 87% of the time.

Sparrows were taken into captivity after numbers dwindled – and this week experts released 1,000th bird back into wild

Scientists in Florida are hailing the landmark release this week of a tiny bird only 5in tall as an oversized success in their fight to save a critically endangered species.

Numbers of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, seen only in prairies in central regions of the state, dwindled so severely by 2015, mostly through habitat loss, that authorities took the decision to remove remaining breeding pairs into captivity. Their wager was that a controlled repopulation program would be more successful than leaving the birds to their own devices.

The urgent needs of the road users they held up were ignored during this climate crusade

It was “a dark day”, according to a UN special rapporteur. Others lamented “a gross miscarriage of justice” and “a farce” marking “a low point in British justice”. Such language would not have been hyperbolic had they been talking about the review highlighting the failings that left Andrew Malkinson jailed for 17 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Or a recent travesty of the single justice procedure, the expedited closed-door process that saw a woman dying from stage 4 breast cancer convicted for non-payment of a TV licence. But it was actually referring to the handing down of five- and four-year prison sentences to five Just Stop Oil activists for their role in masterminding four days of serious motorway disruption: if we are to believe them, a grave affront to the right to protest.

There are certainly questions about whether the sentences for their offences are proportionate or appropriate in the context of the wider criminal justice system. But to suggest that freedom of conscience creates an unlimited right to cause other citizens harm is to fail to engage with the nature of their offence. And, more broadly, to misunderstand what it means to live in a democracy where we enjoy a right to noisy protest, but are also bound by obligations to each other that are framed by the rule of law that applies to us all equally.

Decline blamed on washout summer driving down population of insects, butterflies and moths they feed on

Conservation groups across England are seeing more malnourished bats, as wildlife experts warn the washout summer is driving down the insects, butterflies and moths they feed on.

Groups across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Worcestershire, Essex and South Lancashire said they are seeing an increase in the number of “starving” or “underweight” bats, often juveniles, who need to be rescued and cared for by volunteers. In some places, they are seeing fewer bats than they usually do in the summer.

The energy secretary’s plans to install thousands of pylons in unspoiled rural areas is facing a huge backlash

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has been warned he faces battlegrounds across the country over plans to install thousands of pylons in unspoiled rural areas to deliver a “clean power” revolution. Council leaders and communities oppose proposals for a vast new network of pylons across large parts of several counties, including Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

There are calls for community compensation of “hundreds of millions of pounds” if the schemes are pushed through.

Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur, joins growing chorus of voices criticising jail terms handed to five defendants

The lengthy multi-year sentences handed to Just Stop Oil activists are “not acceptable in a democracy”, a UN special rapporteur has said, as the government faced growing pressure to reverse the previous administration’s “hardline anti-protest” approach.

Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur for environmental defenders, joined a growing chorus of voices condemning the sentences handed down to the five defendants for planning non-violent protests on the M25.

These protesters are shouting ‘fire’ while the world burns. A society that locks them up cannot be called democratic

There’s a crisis in our prisons. Keir Starmer says it is “shocking”. Our jails are so full, police chiefs are warning it may soon be impossible to maintain even the most basic law and order. So here’s a radical proposal. Let’s stop locking up our truth tellers. The people who are shouting “fire” because there’s a fire. When they see we’re not moving fast enough and that the flames are getting higher, they know their responsibility is to shout out the message louder. Because they care. You probably know who we mean.

These people might be annoying. They might give you an earache. We might wish they would tone it down. But in a democratic society, they do not belong in prison. We need to be listening to them, not locking them up.

Chris Packham is a naturalist, environmental and animal welfare campaigner, author and television presenter on BBC Two’s Springwatch

Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner and a Labour party donor

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Den trees used by the endangered species are off-limits to loggers so campaigners – among them former Treasury head Ken Henry and MP Sophie Scamps – register them to save them

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Greater glider spotting is a meditative thing, says Bulga local Steve Fredericks.

“A bad night of glider spotting is better than a good night of television.

Chris Packham calls for meeting with attorney general as prominent figures condemn long jail terms for M25 activists

Chris Packham has called for a meeting with the attorney general for England and Wales as he joined a chorus of prominent voices condemning long jail terms for Just Stop Oil protesters.

Speaking after five activists were sentenced to up to five years for planning protests on the M25, the broadcaster and naturalist said: “Be clear, be very, very clear, this is not just about climate activism.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

From a Grand Designs-style property nestled underground to a remote timber-framed home on a hillside

Friends of the Earth says older people and young children are most at risk in heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods

Inadequate climate protections mean at least 6 million lives are at risk from extreme heat in England, an analysis has found.

A report by the campaign group Friends of the Earth found older people and young children were the most high-risk groups for heatwaves, with 1.7 million under-5s and 4.3 million people over 65 living in the most heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods in England.