The Guardian

Prof John Underhill argues that geology is fundamental but has been forgotten in assessments of UK’s shale gas capability

Fracking for oil and gas in the UK may produce much less fuel – and profits – than has been mooted, according to research based on seismic imaging of the country’s underlying geology.

Most of the areas in which deposits of onshore “unconventional” gas and oil are likely to be found were affected by tectonic activity along the Atlantic plate about 55m years ago.

Daddry Shield, Weardale The architecture of the flower choreographs the insects’ movements, making pollination likely

The footpath to St John’s Chapel, through hay meadows long since cut, follows the south bank of the Wear. Today the water was shallow and clear. But after heavy rain in the upper dale the river becomes a torrent and it has eroded small terraces so stony and steep they are never cut at hay time. These places are refuges for a late-summer flora of Campanula rotundifolia, harebells as blue as the sky overhead.

It’s a place to sit among the flowers on an afternoon when summer seems to be slipping past too quickly.

The sudden collapse of a 200-year-old oak in Madeira, killing 13 and injuring many others (Report, 16 August), is a salutary warning to the tree protesters of Sheffield (Report, 16 August). Local authorities and other custodians of parklands and highways have a duty to ensure that trees do not endanger the public when they deteriorate through age or disease. Inspecting trees is a specialist task best carried out by trained professionals. Doubtless Sheffield city council has been doing just that. If a tree collapsed on the protesters or damaged their properties they would be protesting against the council, and more likely suing them, for failing to safeguard them. The hapless council is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t take action.
Paul Faupel
Somersham, Cambridgeshire

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Three wildlife rangers at DRC’s Virunga national park were killed this week in an ambush by Mai Mai rebels, bringing this year’s fatalities to eight

Three rangers have been killed and another is missing after an attack by violent militia in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bringing the number of fatalities in the park this year to eight.

The park rangers, Charles Paluku Syaira, Jonas Paluku Malyani and Pacifique Musubao Fikirini were murdered on the morning of Monday 14 August during a routine patrol around the park, which is home to critically endangered mountain gorilla.

Exclusive: Nearly 12m barbecues in the UK likely to over-cater with food ranging from salads to burger rolls ending up in bins

It’s symbolised by dismal burgers and carbonised sausages served on paper plates with a splatter of ketchup. Yet with the great British summer well under way, Britons are this month set to throw away a staggering £428m worth of barbecue food, research reveals.

In August the nation will brave the changeable weather to enjoy nearly 12m barbecues, with people on average either hosting or attending at least two of the seasonal gatherings. The new research from supermarket chain Sainsbury’s shows that hosts typically over-cater to impress friends and family, with more than half (49.2%) putting on a larger than necessary spread.

Behavioural evidence suggests marine organisms are not just ingesting microplastics by accident but actively seeking them out as food

Fish may be actively seeking out plastic debris in the oceans as the tiny pieces appear to smell similar to their natural prey, new research suggests.

The fish confuse plastic for an edible substance because microplastics in the oceans pick up a covering of biological material, such as algae, that mimics the smell of food, according to the study published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Kennards House, Cornwall At the agricultural show white-coated exhibitors vie for prizes as the heavy horses are hitched and cocks crow in the poultry tent

After noting the whereabouts of their parked cars relative to the windblown hedgerow trees, visitors converge on the entrance to Launceston’s one-day agricultural show.

Cloud shrouds Kit Hill to the south but Caradon, Kilmar Tor and Hawk’s Tor on Bodmin Moor, as well as nearby wind turbines, are silhouetted against an increasing expanse of blue sky.

Sierra Leonean emergency services and aid agencies are working to find victims of the heavy mudslides and flooding which devastated areas around the country’s capital Freetown on Monday. Thousands of people are still missing

• Sierra Leone’s deadly mudslide: thousands missing as search continues
  

Major 190-mile road will strip national park and home to thousands of indigenous people of its protected status, making it vulnerable to deforestation

Bolivia has given the go ahead to a controversial highway which would cut through an Amazon biodiversity hotspot almost the size of Jamaica and home to 14,000 mostly indigenous people.

President Evo Morales enacted the new law opening the way for the 190-mile (300km) road through the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park, known as Tipnis, its Spanish acronym. The road will divide the park in two and strip it of the protections won in 2011 when a national march by thousands of protesters ended in clashes with the police and forced the government to change its position.

Extreme weather across southern Europe has spawned and fanned numerous wildfires, including at the beach resort of Kalamos near Athens and in central Portugal

Dunwich Heath, Suffolk Brilliantly coloured jewel wasps use the living bodies of other insects to nourish their larvae

Much of the basic storybook that supplies the raw materials for horror films and novels seems to me to be derived from entomology. And here, at this place of autumn purple and gold, scattered thinly all along the sandy paths that bisect the billowing tides of flowering heather, was a particular inspiration.

It was a tiny 1cm-long creature that looked as brilliant an insect as I have seen in this country. The mid-thorax, hind legs and head were all glittering turquoise, while the abdomen and front thorax were shining burgundy. The unmistakable colours distinguish a small group that are known as jewel or ruby-tailed wasps (in German they are called Goldwespen, gold wasps), of which there are about 30 species in Britain. The commonest is one I see regularly even about our house, where they burrow into crevices among the loose masonry.

Environmental Justice Australia report says Australian coal-fired power plants regularly exceed lax limits imposed on them

Australian coal-fired power stations produce levels of toxic air pollution that would be illegal in the US, Europe and China, and regularly exceed even the lax limits imposed on them with few or no consequences, according to an investigation by Environmental Justice Australia.

The report reveals evidence that operators of coal power plants in Australia have been gaming the systems that monitor the deadly pollution, while others have reported figures the federal government says are not reliable.

Dutch advertising watchdog’s ruling prompts company to change line to ‘least polluting fossil fuel’ as campaigners welcome action over ‘misleading’ ad

The Dutch advertising watchdog will on Tuesday censure Shell and Exxon for claiming that natural gas was “the cleanest of all fossil fuels” in an advert earlier this year.

It will be the second time this summer that the Netherlands advertising standards board has ruled against the fossil fuels industry, after it slapped down Statoil in June for calling gas a “clean energy” and “low emissions fuel”.

Neonicotinoid drastically cuts egg-laying by queens, affecting their ability to start new colonies and increasing chances of local extinction, say scientists

A controversial pesticide can potentially wipe out common bumblebee populations by preventing the formation of new colonies, research has shown.

The neonicotinoid chemical thiamethoxam dramatically reduces egg-laying by queen bumblebees, say scientists.

Climate change, dams and diversion bring Iberian peninsula’s longest river, on which millions depend, to brink of collapse

The Tagus river, the longest in the Iberian peninsula, is in danger of drying up completely as Spain once again finds itself in the grip of drought.

Miguel Ángel Sánchez, spokesman of the Platform in Defence of the Tagus, says “the river has collapsed through a combination of climate change, water transfer and the waste Madrid produces.”

The Yale group led by Anthony Leiserowitz does some brilliant work

This is an unabashed endorsement of an important group. I have no affiliation with them or conflicts of interest. They aregreat, period.

The ability to convey complex climate science to a wide-ranging audience is a golden attribute, something very few can achieve. This characteristic makes the Yale Climate Connections group unique.

Rye Harbour, East Sussex The omens are bad for the whimbrel, a summer visitor that has all but disappeared from the estuary

Only a few years ago, they used to stage whimbrel walks at Rye Harbour nature reserve. In late summer, these birds, which look like small dark curlew, would stream from estuary to estuary in their thousands, on their way from breeding grounds on Orkney and Shetland to winter on the west African coast.

Now, you’re lucky to see a single one out on the salt marshes amid the wheeling terns and plover, and Rye Harbour has re-branded its walks.

Growth of intensive units has potential to increase antibiotic resistance and could result in spread of bird flu beyond region

The use of antibiotics in factory farms in Asia is set to more than double in just over a decade, with potentially damaging effects on antibiotic resistance around the world.

Factory farming of poultry in Asia is also increasing the threat of bird flu spreading beyond the region, with more deadly strains taking hold, according to a new report from a network of financial investors.

If we really want to tackle particle pollution we need carbon-free electricity and, even better, walk or cycle over short distances

Will our streets be pollution free when the last petrol and diesel cars are sold in the UK in just over two decades time? Sadly not. This is for two main reasons. First, we will still have diesel lorries and buses. Second, electric cars still release particle pollution into the air from wearing tyres, brakes and road surfaces. Already more particle pollution comes from wear than from the exhausts of modern vehicles.

Related: The polluting effect of wear and tear in brakes and tyres

Dong Energy boss says falling price of renewables means they must power the electric car revolution or the environment will gain only a pyrrhic victory

The rise of electric cars will be a pyrrhic victory for the environment if they are powered by fossil fuels instead of renewables, according to the UK boss of the world’s biggest offshore windfarm developer.

Matthew Wright, the new managing director of Dong Energy UK, said the cost of windfarms at sea had fallen so much that the big issue facing the industry was no longer levels of subsidies but how they integrated with the National Grid and emerging technologies.