The Guardian

Modern trophy hunters can shoot animals via the internet - but they argue that it is all conservation. The killing of Xanda - Cecil the Lion’s son - has sparked debate about what hunting really means

They’re known as canned hunts; captive mammal hunting ranches in the US which offer the chance to shoot a zebra or antelope or even a lion for several thousand dollars. The animals are fenced in and often unafraid of humans so the kills are easy, to the extent that some venues even provide the option of shooting them via the internet, with the use of a camera and a gun on a mount.

It’s estimated that there are more than 1,000 of them - completely legal. But many US hunters consider them a betrayal of every belief they hold dear. “I don’t consider that hunting,” said John Rogalo, a New Jersey hunter who has been stalking bears, deer and turkeys for nearly 50 years. “It’s a weird culture that has developed in this country in the past few years. I joke that you may as well ask the farmer if you could shoot his black Angus because at least you’d get more meat for it.”

Patagonia’s icefields, Australia’s changing tides, and volcanic activity in Alaska are among the images captured by Nasa and the ESA last month

Alaska’s remote Bogoslof Island volcano erupted in a series of explosions starting in December 2016, triggering the highest aviation alert as it shot ash plumes at least 35,000ft into the atmosphere. By monitoring the volcano via satellite and seismologic data, scientists can provide a warning of when further eruptions could pose a risk to aircraft. This image shows just a small puff of smoke rising from the volcano, while a sediment plume drifts towards the top left of the image, turning the Bering Sea a bright blue-green.

Met Office figures for 2016 also show long-term decrease in amount of frost, while last winter was the second wettest on record across the country

The winter of 2016 was the warmest for England and Wales in records that stretch back to 1910, the Met Office’s annual State of the UK Climate report revealed on Thursday.

The average temperature from December 2015 to February 2016 was more than 2C above the long-term average across the southern half of the UK. The report also found that, over the last decade, the number of air frosts has dropped by 7% and the number of ground frosts by 9%, compared with the average between 1981-2010.

Kevin Trenberth - recent award winner - is one of the world’s foremost climate scientists

The American Geophysical Union - the pre-eminent organization of Earth scientists - presents annual awards to celebrate the achievements of scientists. The awards, which are often named after famous historical scientists, reflect the contributions to science in the area of the award namesake. With the 2017 award winners just announced, it’s appropriate to showcase one of the winners here.

The 2017 winner of the Roger Revelle medal is Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth. One of the most well-known scientists in the world, he is certainly the person most knowledgeable about climate change that I know.

Here’s how to prepare for the 100-mile cycling event ...

Shortly before 6am on Sunday, the first of about 25,000 intrepid cyclists will set off from the Olympic Park in east London on a 100-mile trip through the capital and into the hills of Surrey, finishing on the Mall.

It is the fifth year of an event which has so far lived up to its billing of a London marathon for two wheels, part of a wider and much-enjoyed weekend of cycling activities in the capital, which has now spawned similar events elsewhere in Britain.

For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care? By Avi Steinberg

From the window of a Nasa aircraft flying over the Arctic, looking down on the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, it’s easy to see why it is so hard to describe climate change. The scale of polar ice, so dramatic and so clear from a plane flying at 450 metres (1,500ft) – high enough to appreciate the scope of the ice and low enough to sense its mass – is nearly impossible to fathom when you aren’t sitting at that particular vantage point.

But it’s different when you are there, cruising over the ice for hours, with Nasa’s monitors all over the cabin streaming data output, documenting in real time – dramatising, in a sense – the depth of the ice beneath. You get it, because you can see it all there in front of you, in three dimensions.

Sandy, Bedfordshire The Airlander 10 is a 92-metre hybrid airship-plane, full of helium and personality

Half an hour after appearing high over our washing line a giant followed us down to the pub. The church bells next door rang eight, the air was mosquito-still and then an all-consuming bass rumble filled the sky.

A puffed up grey cloud three times the length of a blue whale came overhead. People sitting at the neighbouring table glanced up, then went back to their drinks.

With the UK planning to ban petrol and diesel cars and vans in 2040 we asked you what it’s like to drive the vehicle of the future

Amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxides pose a major risk to public health, Britain plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040. As part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan it has said the move is needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.

With the inevitable demise of diesel and petrol vehicles we asked electric car drivers to tell us what it’s like to drive one, and why they are the future.

Second-biggest biosecurity operation in nation’s history sees $411m committed to eradicating invasive species that threatens agriculture, wildlife, tourism and outdoor lifestyle

They are one of the world’s worst invasive species, and now, more than two decades after they are believed to have arrived in Australia, the country is launching the second-biggest biosecurity operation in its history to eradicate red imported fire ants.

State, territory and federal agricultural ministers met in Melbourne on Wednesday and agreed to spend $411.4m over the next 10 years, endorsing a biosecurity operation second only in size and ambition to the country’s successful eradication of bovine tuberculosis, which started in the 1970 and took nearly three decades.

From how to charge them to whether they are really better for the environment

The first generation of electric-car buyers have been people with homes where it is easy to plug one in. “The vast majority of Nissan Leaf customers are [families with] 2.4 children, mums and dads, with off-street parking,” said Gareth Dunsmore of Nissan Europe. “Tomorrow that won’t be the case.”

A ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040 is a great vision for the future but does nothing to address a public health emergency happening right now

What a beautiful smokescreen. A UK ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040 conjures up the clean, green vision of an all-electric future and is absolutely the right thing to tackle climate change – emissions from transport are high and not falling.

But for the public health emergency of today, with most urban areas already having suffered illegal levels of air pollution for years, it does nothing at all.

Travellers are left to buy expensive and wasteful plastic bottles of water after passing through security, says consumer website MoneySavingExpert.com

More than half of the UK’s international airports do not have free drinking water fountains installed in their departure lounges, a leading consumer website has revealed.

Experts recently gathered in Bali to develop regulations that will help small-scale fishing operations and their sustainable methods thrive in our overfished seas. In this series of images, photojournalist Paul Hilton visits fishing communities in Asia where locals work in harmony with their environment

Chlorinated chicken is the tip of the iceberg. Current EU standards cover everything from conditions for battery hens to antibiotics use in farms, and they are all up for negotiation

The international trade secretary Liam Fox has been in the US for the preliminary stages of thrashing out a trade deal to take effect after the UK leaves the EU. He was asked about the trade in food and agricultural products, which is likely to form a key plank of any deal. Fox on Monday refused to rule out allowing imports of chlorinated chicken, which is banned under EU regulations. Then Michael Gove, secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs stepped in on Wednesday morning to say that the UK would not permit imports of chlorinated chicken under any new trade rules.

Michael Gove’s pledge to ban new petrol and diesel cars in 23 years is not enough to tackle health crisis now, say campaigners

Michael Gove’s new air quality plan has been criticised for failing to take enough immediate action to stop people dying from pollution, while promising to ban petrol and diesel cars in 23 years’ time.

The long-awaited document contains a pledge to stop new petrol and diesel cars being sold after 2040, as well as measures to encourage councils to tackle pollution hotspots and a limited scrappage scheme for the most polluting older vehicles.

The UK plans to ban diesel and petrol vehicles from 2040. With the future looking electric we’d like to hear your driving experiences

From 2040, Britain plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans as part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan.

Amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health, the government said the move is needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.

Valuable fungus, prized as a reputed aphrodisiac, is disappearing due to warming temperatures, reports Climate Home

A Himalayan fungus used in Chinese medicine, which underpins the livelihoods of communities of harvesters in Nepal, is under the threat due to climate change.

Harvesting the Cordyceps sinensis fungus, called ‘yarsha gumba’ in Nepal, provides a livelihood for Himalayan dwellers. The fungus fetches up to Rs 2,800,000 (£20,000) per kg in raw form. During the peak season of yarsha collection, locals drop everything to pursue fungus hunting, including their usual profession. Even schools remain closed during yarsha collecting seasons.

The fossil fuel industry used the same arguments, and even the same people, to block climate policies in the 1990s. We must not let this happen again.

Since President Trump announced on June 1 that the U.S. would cease implementation of the Paris Agreement, pundits have argued about whether the American pullout will truly affect greenhouse gas pollution one way or another, since, after all, the Paris Agreement was not legally binding to begin with.

We don’t know the future, but we do know the past, and here’s something we shouldn’t miss: we’ve seen this before. The same arguments used by President Trump - and even the same people he cited - were used by the oil and gas industry to block climate policies throughout the 1990s, including the United States’ implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The playbook from twenty years ago is back, and this time we must be ready for it.

A group of horses caught in a flooded river make a run for it after heavy rains in New Zealand’s South Island over the weekend. Three wild rabbits also managed to escape floods by hopping on to the backs of some sheep. Videos courtesy of fergs3374 and Kyla Jasperse

• Woolly jumpers: rabbits ride on sheep to stay dry in flood
  

As the Trump administration continues to roll back protections on public lands, timber industry advocates are pushing to reduce federal defenses for California’s giant trees

For the largest living things standing on the planet, California’s giant sequoias have an unassuming, almost gentle, aura to them. The recognizable cinnamon-colored bark is soft and fibrous. Its cones are modest. When cut down, the trees tend to shatter and won’t produce reliably sturdy timber.

These majestic plants have a lineage stretching back to the Jurassic period but fears over their future have prompted a somewhat counterintuitive plan presented to the Trump administration – in order to save the giant sequoias, some say, their surrounding area must be stripped of protected status.