The Guardian

Minister in Twitter spat with Brussels after suggesting UK ban could be prevented by EU

Michael Gove has become embroiled in a Twitter row with the EU over his suggestion that Brussels could block the UK government from banning plastic straws.

The environment secretary and Frans Timmermans, a European commission vice-president, goaded each other on the social media platform over their rival claims to be the most advanced in clamping down on plastic waste.

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

White-tailed sea eagles, a rose-ringed parakeet and an Aldabra giant tortoise are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Subpoena could see the campaign group forced to release huge amounts of internal communications including the email addresses of four million people who have signed online petitions

A US court will today hear a request from Monsanto for access to a huge batch of internal communications by Avaaz, in a move that the campaign group says could have grave repercussions for online activism and data privacy.

Monsanto is seeking the release of all lobby documents, emails, correspondence and notes “without limitation”, where the firm or its herbicide ingredient glyphosate have been mentioned.

Tidal patterns made by ocean waves, sand and marine life are captured by the photographic process of Meghann Riepenhoff, a US artist fascinated by the nature of humans’ relationship to an impermanent landscape. She will be creating a site-specific work for Photofairs San Francisco by the shore at the city’s Fort Mason arts centre

• See more of the best from Photofairs San Francisco

Ashton, Northamptonshire: Woodland management changes did for this butterfly as the woods were drained, rides narrowed and glades shaded. But now it is to be reintroduced

This May the small brown and gold wings of the chequered skipper will once again beat in the woods of England. Susannah O’Riordan from Butterfly Conservation is here in the butterfly’s spiritual home, the Chequered Skipper pub in Ashton, to reveal the plot to an enthusiastic audience of 80 or so.

Related: 20 great UK walks with pubs, chosen by nature writers

Forest peoples affected by plantations urge EU to enact ban despite diplomatic opposition

If Britain and other European nations are to fulfil forest protection goals, they must ban the use of palm oil for biofuel and tighten oversight of supply chains, a delegation of forest peoples told parliamentarians this week.

The call for urgent, concrete action comes amid an increasingly heated diplomatic row over the issue between the EU and the governments of major palm-producing nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Costa Rica.

Data gathered from more than 70,000 vessels shows commercial fishing now covers a greater surface area than agriculture

More than half the world’s oceans are being fished by industrial vessels, new research reveals.

The maps based on feedback from more than 70,000 vessels show commercial fishing covers a greater surface area than agriculture, and will raise fresh questions about the health of oceans and sustainability of trawler fishing.

An innovative exchange of sovereign debt for marine conservation, backed by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, could pave the way to saving large swaths of the world’s oceans

The tropical island nation of Seychelles is to create two huge new marine parks in return for a large amount of its national debt being written off, in the first scheme of its kind in the world.

The novel financial engineering, effectively swapping debt for dolphins and other marine life, aims to throw a lifeline to corals, tuna and turtles being caught in a storm of overfishing and climate change. If it works, it will also secure the economic future of the nation, which depends entirely on tourism and fishing. With other ocean states lining up to follow, the approach could transform large swaths of the planet’s troubled seas.

A call for continued efforts to protect our water and our Earth

One year after the closing of the camp at the Standing Rock Reservation, Standing Rock is everywhere. Our collective water has been assaulted for many generations to the possible point of no return.

Our Elders foretold of a Black Snake and how the Water of Life — “Mni Woc’oni,” which is our first medicine — would be affected if we did not stop this oncoming disaster. Mni Woc’oni is part of our creation story, and the same story that exists in many creation stories around Mother Earth.

Sandy, Bedfordshire: These grit peckers are masters of last-minute escapology. But not always

Twice every day, soon after dawn and a little before dusk, wood pigeons come down on country roads to feed. Not for them the tyre-stamped carcasses that are peeled off the asphalt by crow beaks. Pigeons are grit peckers, heads down like chickens in a yard. They gobble up tiny stones to act as so many grinding pestles in the mortar of their digestive tract.

While crows have adapted to life in the fast lane with cunning and calculating judgment, wood pigeons are masters of last-minute escapology. But not always. Last autumn, I noticed one standing in the middle of a straight, wood-edged road, head lowered, picking away at the ground. I drove on, slowed and waited for it to fly. It flew all right: just a few metres in front of the car it gave a tiny hop that brought it just above the bumper. I heard a soft thud and then, through an explosion of down, a grey bundle smacked against the windscreen, after which I looked in the rear-view mirror to see the poor bird’s body cartwheeling off towards the verge. Weeks later, I was still picking out pale feathers that had wedged firmly on impact in the radiator grill.

Labor frontbencher says party must ‘get the policy mechanisms right’ over Carmichael coalmine

Anthony Albanese says Labor should not single out existing projects, like the Adani coalmine, that have already gone through approval processes “and then retrospectively change existing laws, which would have ramifications across the board”.

The Labor frontbencher has effectively ruled out Labor overhauling the Environmental Protection Biodiversity and Conversation Act as part of a strategy to boost legal options of killing the controversial Queensland coal project.

Traditional scale used goes only to five but strength and intensity of storms is increasing, says scientists

The increasing strength, intensity and duration of tropical cyclones has climate scientists questioning whether a new classification needs to be created: a category-six storm.

The Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale currently runs in severity from one to five, with five describing near-total destruction.

Multinational says deadline was predicated on a subsidised Australian government loan

Adani’s plan to build Australia’s largest coalmine has suffered another setback. The company has abandoned its March deadline for securing financing for the first stage of the Carmichael mine.

In October, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, the chief executive of Adani Australia, told Reuters it aimed to settle financing for the project by March 2018.

Potential for floating windfarms is huge, as many countries have windy sites close to shore

Floating windfarms are likely to be the next large-scale development in renewable energy. The first Hywind Scotland, developed by the Norwegian state oil giant, Statoil, has proved a greater success than its designers hoped. The five giant six-megawatt turbines, 25 miles east of Peterhead, produced more power than expected in the first three months and withstood hurricane-force winds and giant waves.

The potential for this technology is hard to overstate. Few countries have shallow continental shelves like the UK to build offshore windfarms on the sea bed, but many have windy sites close to shore where floating windfarms could be anchored to provide power for coastal cities.

The Australian white ibis, AKA the 'bin chicken', might not have won the title of Australia's favourite bird, but its next race might help scientists understand how dinosaurs walked and ran

These masters of disguise are some of the world’s oldest surviving mammals, but they are threatened by habitat loss, traffic and feral cats – and they need our help

They may be one of the world’s oldest surviving mammals – around for at least 25m years – but scientists don’t know much about echidnas. Now researchers believe the remaining Australian population may be threatened and they need citizen scientists’ help to save them.

Related: 'Fantasy documents': recovery plans failing Australia's endangered species

Minette Batters becomes first woman to hold top job since NFU was founded in 1908

The National Farmers’ Union has elected Minette Batters as the first female president in the organisation’s 110-year history.

Batters, a Wiltshire beef, sheep and arable farmer who has also diversified her business into weddings and catering, was previously the NFU’s deputy president.

Government loses third court case as judge says approach to tackling pollution in 45 local authority areas is ‘not sufficient’

The government will have to do more to tackle illegal levels of air pollution after a high court judge ruled its current plans are “unlawful”.

Mr Justice Garnham told the London court on Wednesday the approach to tackling pollution in 45 local authority areas was “not sufficient”.

Without regulations that scrutinise food standards and trade deals, we cannot trust the safety of the food on our plates

It should come as no surprise that the global meat industry is a major source of disease and crime. We are talking about a substance of animal origin, inherently alive with risky micro-organisms, necessitating expensive traceability and investment to make it safe, and worth hundreds of billions of dollars in global trade.

But in the UK, regulation is increasingly underfunded. Meat inspection services have been slashed over the past decade in favour of greater industry self-regulation, favouring private assurance schemes and meat companies being given fewer inspection if they can show general compliance. This might sound sensible until you look back over recent history and realise that it has been some highly reputable companies that have been the source of bad meat news, and that it was a spot-check random inspection that uncovered the Russell Hume case. Without robust regulation and independent checks, food scandals are too often the result. And the picture is the same all over the world, as the global demand for meat increases rapidly as wealth increases, government seeks to reduce ‘red tape’ and more people adopt western, meat-heavy diets.