The Guardian

Dan Brandon kept 10 snakes and 12 tarantulas in his bedroom and was said to be responsible owner

A lover of exotic animals died of asphyxia after his 8ft-long pet African rock python called Tiny wrapped itself around him, a coroner has ruled.

Dan Brandon was found dead by his mother, Babs, in his bedroom in Hampshire, with the python concealed close by.

Dubbed the ‘Tesla of the canals’, the unmanned vessels will operate on Dutch and Belgian waterways, vastly reducing diesel vehicles and emissions

The world’s first fully electric, emission-free and potentially crewless container barges are to operate from the ports of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam from this summer.

The vessels, designed to fit beneath bridges as they transport their goods around the inland waterways of Belgium and the Netherlands, are expected to vastly reduce the use of diesel-powered trucks for moving freight.

Peru’s Health Ministry found shocking contamination among the Nahua, but hasn’t published its full report

An indigenous people living in one of the remotest parts of the Peruvian Amazon has been struck by a mystery mercury epidemic, according to an unpublished Health Ministry report dated 2015 and 2017 seen by the Guardian.

The Nahua only entered into sustained contact with “outsiders” in the mid-1980s, which led to almost 50% of the population dying mainly from respiratory and infectious diseases. Today, numbering less than 500 people, the vast majority live in a village in the Kugapakori, Nahua, Nanti and Others Reserve established for indigenous peoples in “voluntary isolation” and “initial contact” in south-east Peru.

Team of divers spent two days searching a reef, and hope more red handfish will be found

Divers in Tasmania have discovered a new population of red handfish, doubling the known population of the elusive and extremely rare fish and raising hopes that more may be found.

Until last week the remaining population of red handfish, Thymichthys politus, was believed to be confined to one 50m long reef in Frederick Henry Bay near Hobart in south-east Tasmania.

Exclusive: government accused of hypocrisy as documents show opposition to urban waste plan

The UK government is opposing strong new recycling targets across the EU despite its recent pledge to develop “ambitious new future targets and milestones”, confidential documents have revealed.

A 25-year environment plan was launched earlier in January by the prime minister, Theresa May, who particularly focused on cutting plastic pollution. The plan, aimed partly at wooing younger voters, says “recycling plastics is critical”.

Deniers have found a platform in emerging publications that publish without rigorous review

There’s a new scientific journal you might not have heard of called the International Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences. It says it “supports scientist who sweats for the real innovation & discovery”.

If that’s a little too sweaty for you, then how about another new journal, also called the International Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences?

Heddon Valley in Devon to be haven for high brown fritillary, supported by lottery funding

A beautiful wooded valley on the Devon coast is to be the focus of a project to save the UK’s most endangered butterfly – the high brown fritillary.

Conservationists believe changes to woodland management, such as the abandonment of coppicing, and climate change have contributed to the steep decline of the large, powerful, fast-flying butterfly over the last 50 years.

The tall grass is perfect habitat for vulnerable aquatic species

As a child living deep in the country, the greater tussock sedge, Carex paniculata, provided me with both an adventure playground and a guarantee of getting muddy. This ancient grass, which grows in shallow bogs in pillars up to 1.5 metres high (4ft 11in) and about a metre (3ft 3in) across, often has colonies of 20 or 30 plants close together. The childhood game was to climb on top of one without getting your feet wet and jump from one to the next without falling off into the swamp. An added hazard was (and is) that the leaves are narrow and rough – sharp enough if they slip through your fingers to cut through the skin. So most adventures ended with getting muddy and bloody at the same time.

Public and private sector funds must increasingly pool resources to finance larger global sustainability and climate change projects, a new study shows

Tackling climate change and achieving the world’s sustainable development goals will require publicly funded and private sector banks and institutions to be far more willing to join forces to provide “blended” finance to projects, according to a new study.

Blended finance is the term given to the use of public or philanthropic capital to spur private sector investment in projects aimed at achieving the sustainable development goals. Already, this market is worth about $50bn globally, but experts said on Tuesday this sum could double within the next three to four years.

Trump’s decision to impose a 30% tariff will cost the US around 23,000 jobs and risks slowing the growth of clean energy, advocates warn

Donald Trump’s decision to impose a tariff on imported solar panels will cost the US solar industry about 23,000 jobs this year and risks slowing the growth of clean energy that would help address climate change, renewable energy advocates warned.

Trump has imposed a 30% tariff on foreign-made solar cells and modules, with the White House expressing alarm at a huge rise in imported components “spurred on by artificially low-priced solar cells and modules from China”.

Government tells 200 companies they have four years to stop sourcing gas from Groningen field after increasingly significant earthquakes

Two hundred of the Netherlands’ biggest companies have been told by their government to stop sourcing fuel from a major Dutch gas field within four years following a series of increasingly significant earthquakes.

Extraction from the Groningen field, one of Europe’s richest sources of gas, is operated in a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, but has been capped in recent years by ministers due to seismic activity in the area.

New catalogue is expected to stand alongside the red list as an international means to fight extinction, by helping to stop biological invasions

A world registry of invasive species has been launched amid concerns that governments are not doing enough to tackle the rising threat of globalisation to biodiversity.

The new catalogue – unveiled in the journal Scientific Data on Tuesday – is expected to become a pillar of international efforts to fight extinction alongside the “red list” of endangered species.

Restrictions aim to boost US manufacturing, but critics warn they will slow shift to renewable energy and increase consumer costs

The US president, Donald Trump, has announced steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, giving a boost to Whirlpool Corp and dealing a setback to the renewable energy industry in the first of several potential trade restrictions.

The decisions in the two “Section 201” safeguard cases followed findings by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that both imported products “are a substantial cause of serious injury to domestic manufacturers,” US trade representative Robert Lighthizer said.

A coalition of experts is asking the government to bring in a new Clean Air Act as ministers prepare to defend current plans in court this week

The government is coming under renewed pressure to introduce a new Clean Air Act to tackle the UK’s toxic levels of air pollution.

Ministers are due back in the high court later this week to defend their current plans which have previously been ruled so poor that they are illegal.

Officials say they need a faster ship to evade anti-whaling activists

Japan is to defy Australia and other nations with plans to replace its whaling fleet’s ageing mother ship, showing its determination to continue its annual expeditions to the Southern Ocean.

The country’s fisheries agency is planning to replace the 30-year-old Nisshin Maru with either a new ship or a refitted one bought overseas, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Exclusive: Mayor of London announces scheme to reduce packaging waste and improve access to tap water

A new network of drinking fountains and bottle-refill points is set to be rolled out across London this year as part of a plan to reduce the amount of waste created by single-use plastic, the Guardian has learned.

Twenty new drinking fountains will be installed across London in a pilot scheme starting this summer, while a bottle-refill initiative, in which businesses make tap water available to the public, will be set up across five areas of the capital over February and March. If successful, it will be rolled out to the rest of the city in the summer. Plastic cups, bottles and cutlery will also no longer be available at City Hall under the plans.

UK energy system can cope with rise of battery-powered vehicles if 4-6pm slot avoided, says report

The UK energy system will be able to cope with the extra demand caused by the uptake of millions of electric cars, provided drivers shift their charging to off-peak times, according to new research.

The number of battery-powered cars on Britain’s roads will grow from around 120,000 today to 10m by 2035 and pass the 17m mark five years later, predicted Aurora Energy Research.

Winter solstice, night lights and interesting islands are among the images captured by Nasa and the ESA last month

Dust blowing out of the Copper River valley on Alaska’s south coast. The dust plume was likely comprised of fine-grained loess, which was formed as glacial ice moved over the area and ground the underlying rock into a powder. Dust storms in southern Alaska generally occur in late autumn, when river levels are relatively low, snow has not yet fallen, and the layers of dried, loess-rich mud are exposed to the wind. The Copper River - named for ore deposits found upstream - drains an area of more than 24,000 square miles (62,000 square kilometres) and is, by volume of discharge, the 10th largest river in the United States. Its delta forms one of the largest and most productive wetlands on the Pacific Coast of North America.

Australian grocery giant will join Bunnings to withdraw Yates Confidor from sale

Woolworths in Australia has joined a growing list of companies to stop supplying a controversial pesticide linked to global declines in bee populations.

On Tuesday the grocery giant announced it would join Bunnings in pulling Yates Confidor, a class of pesticide which some international studies have found damage the survival of honeybee colonies.

MCA publicises report asking governments to commit similar resources to carbon capture and storage as to renewables

The Minerals Council of Australia has stepped up its advocacy for coal power in spite of its biggest member, BHP, saying it will leave the group unless it shifts its stance to become technology-neutral.

On Tuesday the MCA publicised a report by the Coal Industry Advisory Board that called for governments to commit similar resources to carbon capture and storage as they do to renewable energy.