The Guardian

Experts predict there will be fewer than 100 individuals of the species by 2031 as the rate of decline in population grows faster

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“They’re really cute. They are very chatty. When they’re around you know they’re around,” says conservation scientist Giselle Owens. “They make this little flying call – it goes ‘pip, pip, pip, pip’.”

So fascinated was Owens by the critically endangered swift parrot, she is writing a PhD on the bird, which is one of just two migratory parrot species in the world, and the farthest flying.

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William became largest private landholder in the national park when he inherited Duchy of Cornwall

Campaigners are urging Prince William to invest in significant rewilding across swathes of Dartmoor’s predominantly farmed land.

The land became William’s after he inherited the Duchy of Cornwall, an extensive landholding including the largest privately owned area of Dartmoor national park, from his father, King Charles, when he succeeded to the throne.

Countries including France, Germany and Poland all had their hottest Septembers on record

Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland have all experienced their hottest Septembers on record, with unseasonably high temperatures set to continue into October, in a year likely to be the warmest in human history.

As 31C (88F) was forecast in south-west France on Sunday and 28C in Paris, the French weather authority, Météo-France, said September’s average temperature was 21.5C, between 3.5C and 3.6C above the norm for the 1991-2020 reference period.

Survey shows nearly 90% of 2019 Conservative voters say green industry is vital to UK’s economic growth

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Almost nine in 10 voters who intend to switch their support from Conservative to Labour candidates in the next general election believe that “green growth” is important for the future of Britain’s economy, according to a poll.

Carried out by pollsters Opinium, the survey found that 82% of all respondents backed the growth of Britain’s green industry to boost the economy, in the same week that the prime minister announced a series of U-turns on the government’s green commitments in a bid to create a dividing line with Labour ahead of the election.

Investigation begins as people complain of diarrhoea and vomiting after swimming in Hever Castle’s lake

The organisers of a triathlon on a lake fed by the River Eden in Kent have launched an investigation after a number of competitors fell ill with diarrhoea and vomiting.

The Castle Race Series, organisers of the triathlon and other competitions at Hever Castle last weekend, said rigorous tests in the days and weeks leading up to the event had indicated the water was safe to swim in.

Arrival result of Enfield reintroduction scheme, started last year as part of natural flood defence project

A baby beaver has been photographed in London for the first time in 400 years, 18 months after an initiative began to reintroduce the species to the capital.

Enfield council began London’s beaver reintroduction programme last year as part of a wider rewilding and natural flood-management project.

UK-based charter firm launches ‘ludicrous’ £8,166 Dubai-London route for clients who want to fly with pets

Environmentalists have condemned a “ludicrous” private jet service that transports wealthy people’s dogs, which this week ran its first flight from Dubai to London.

For £8,166, one way, customers were able to sit with their dogs on their laps and sip champagne as they travelled from Al Maktoum international airport to Farnborough in a Gulfstream IV-SP jet.

Perhaps it’s naive not to imagine that all of life itself is about accepting the fragility of how easily things break

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We turned off the highway, headed down the road which leads to the pub and saw the pink little fellow hovering near his mate, who was dead by the side of the road.

Having moved to the country a little over a month ago, I was still getting used to the frequency of spotting creatures on the shoulders of western New South Wales’s arteries.

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Rising temperatures could be passing tolerance threshold for endangered animals as Lake Tefé reaches 39C

The sudden die-off of more than a hundred Amazonian river dolphins in recent days has prompted fears that rising global heat could be passing the tolerance threshold of species in vulnerable areas.

The floating corpses of the endangered mammals, along with thousands of dead fish, have appeared at Lake Tefé where the temperature is now like a hot bath after a protracted drought has dried up most of the water.

Party urged to commit to revoking licence for site in North Sea and back comprehensive Green New Deal

Young climate activists staged sit-down protests outside the offices of every member of Labour’s shadow cabinet on Friday, calling on the party to take a tougher line on the proposed new Rosebank oilfield and back a comprehensive Green New Deal.

This week the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield was given the go-ahead despite widespread opposition from scientists, poverty campaigners and climate and energy experts.

Fish Legal win permission to summon firm to face allegations linked to diesel pollution of River Test

A judge has given permission for a private prosecution to go ahead against a water company accused over the pollution of one of the UK’s most cherished fishing rivers.

Southern Water will appear in court in February to face allegations linked to diesel pollution in the River Test in Hampshire.

After ditching central heating and focusing on power efficiency, we’ve cut our gas usage by 83% and are well on the way to paying off our new appliances

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Come winter, there’s one three-letter subject that really dominates the outer suburbs of Melbourne, and if you guessed AFL, I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark.

I live in the quiet, leafy west, where houses were built cheaply and quickly, which leaves us all groaning about one thing: gas. These big spacious houses cost an absolute bomb to heat in winter.

Administration releases plan, which represents lowest number of lease sales since 1980, but is still set to increase oil production

The Biden administration on Friday released a plan to sell as many as three offshore oil and gas leases over the next five years, garnering criticism from some climate advocates.

Set to govern potential sales through late 2028, the hotly anticipated plan from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a part of the interior department, includes no auctions for next year, and represents the lowest number of lease sales since the program began in 1980.

Civitas’s deeply flawed report was timed to follow the PM’s speech in which he called for an honest approach to the issue

Imagine demanding an “honest” debate over the cost of net zero in a report full of errors that even a schoolboy would be embarrassed about. Then imagine getting coverage of your report in the Sun, Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Spectator.

Sound impossible? Well, let me tell you how Civitas, one of the thinktanks housed at 55 Tufton Street in London, did exactly that, and nearly got away with it.

Competition aimed at encouraging Swedish island residents to save water is being copied elsewhere

Dry, brown grass is no longer a source of shame on one Swedish island where residents have been competing over the “ugliest lawn” in an attempt to save water – and it seems the trend is spreading.

“It was the easiest competition to win, I didn’t have to do anything,” said this year’s winner Stina Östman, a resident of Sweden’s largest island of Gotland, who has mixed feelings about her victory. “It’s always nice to win, even if you are the worst,” she said.

The president has a golden opportunity to prove that green jobs will bear dividends for the working class

Joe Biden had to choose a side in the United Auto Workers’ contract fight with the “big three” American automakers, and he did. This week, he became the first US president to walk a picket line while in office when he joined strikers in Belleville, Michigan, offering enthusiastic support for their demands. Biden should be thanking the UAW for handing him a golden opportunity: to prove that the green jobs his administration is creating will be good, union jobs, too, and that climate policy will bear dividends for the working class.

Republicans cosplaying solidarity have tried to exploit the strike to score cheap political points. As Republican presidential hopefuls debated this week, Donald Trump told a rally at a non-union plant in Michigan that the strike wouldn’t “make a damn bit of difference” because the car industry was “being assassinated” by “EV mandates”. (Whether there were any union members or even autoworkers in the room isn’t clear.) Ohio senator JD Vance has similarly blamed autoworkers’ plight on “the premature transition to electric vehicles” and “Biden’s war on American cars”.

Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at the New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back

Cape Town mayor declares major incident as roads closed and 80,000 people left without electricity

Extreme rain and strong winds across South Africa’s Western Cape province have caused flooding, torn off roofs, destroyed crops and damaged roads this week. It is estimated that the 48-hour rainfall totals between Sunday and Monday were between 100mm to 200mm (4-8in) in this region.

According to the Cape Town Disaster Risk Management Centre, 12,000 people were affected, but a further 80,000 people were left without electricity, according to the national power utility. The mayor of Cape Town signed a major incident declaration for additional resources and relief measures as 80 roads have been closed, 200 farm workers have been stranded and rail services have been suspended in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a hummingbird hawk moth, capybaras and a newly discovered tarantula

I shall lay my eggs here on this beach where they have been safe for thousands of years

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The humble creatures – which break down organic matter and aerate soils – contribute to as much as 6.5% of the world’s grain harvests

Earthworms’ contribution to the world’s grain harvest matches that of Russia, according to a study documenting their enormous role in food production.

This amounts to 140 millions of tonnes of food a year, researchers said, which would make earthworms the fourth largest global producer if they were a country. Russia produced 150m tonnes in 2022 and expects to produce 120m tonnes this year.