The Guardian

This weekend Brits will flock to our beaches. Thanks to EU pressure, visitors to more than 95% of our bathing beaches can paddle safe in the knowledge that nothing nasty lurks beneath the waves – a massive improvement since 1987, when it was judged safe to enter the water at just 55% of our favourite swimming spots. However, the European Environment Agency is right to raise a red flag (UK bathing water ranks next from last in EU beach table, 23 May). The UK continued to pump gallons of untreated effluent into some of our most beautiful seaside areas every year right up until 1998. Even today, only 65% of our beaches are rated as excellent by the Environment Agency, compared with 91% in Italy and 89% in Spain. And these are at risk if EU standards which guarantee clean bathing water are weakened or abandoned after Brexit.

No one wants to see Britain return to being seen as the dirty man of Europe. Let’s ensure this election doesn’t mark the end of our summer holidays by the sea and ask that all political parties commit to retaining EU bathing standards and ensure our future is safe from sewage.
Kierra Box
Land, food and water campaigner, Friends of the Earth

Thousands of photovoltaic panels across the UK generate 8.7GW, smashing previous high of 8.48GW earlier this month

Solar power has broken new records in the UK by providing nearly a quarter of the country’s electricity needs, thanks to sunny skies and relatively low summer demand.

National Grid said the thousands of photovoltaic panels on rooftops and in fields across the UK were generating 8.7GW, or 24.3% of demand at 1pm on Friday, smashing the previous high of 8.48GW earlier this month.

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

Herons in flight, an inquisitive marmot and a blue whale are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Cars that emit up to 18 times the official NOx limit in real-world conditions are still being sold, 20 months after the emissions scandal broke and amid an ongoing air pollution crisis

Diesel cars that emit up to 18 times the official limit for toxic pollution when taken on to the road are still being sold, 20 months after the emissions scandal erupted and amid an ongoing air pollution crisis.

In real world conditions, the Nissan Qashqai produces 18 times more nitrogen oxides than the official lab-based test allows under EU directives, while Nissan’s Juke pumps out 16 times more NOx pollution than the limit, according to data from vehicle testing company Emissions Analytics seen by the Guardian.

Bloody Oaks Quarry, Rutland Sitting on a salad burnet flower head is a dingy skipper, then I find the royal blue chalk milkwort

This tiny nature reserve, a long thin quarry, is no bigger than two football pitches, yet it is an essential home for many types of plants and animals. The colourful name apparently dates back to the Wars of the Roses and a 1470 battle between the Yorkist King Edward IV and the Lancastrian Welles family. The king opened by beheading Lord Welles, then launched a volley of new-fangled cannon fire, causing a rout, and concluded by slaughtering captured Lancastrians in the nearby wood.

Activist groups warn that swathes of farmland are at risk since the holiday would cover the Galilee basin and two other undeveloped mining regions

The Adani Carmichael project will reportedly receive a reduced royalty “holiday” offer from the Queensland government under a policy that activists say would subsidise other vast new coal projects that imperil swathes of farmland.

The state treasurer, Curtis Pitt, declined on Friday to confirm a report by the Australian that the Palaszczuk government had settled on a plan to give Adani a pause in royalties for up to six years.

Land Tawney, president of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, explains why the fight for national monuments is a battle sportsmen and women must win

Signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the Antiquities Act has been used by 16 presidents – eight Republicans and eight Democrats – to safeguard millions of acres of exceptional public lands and waters, including outstanding fish and wildlife habitat that provides some of the best hiking, camping, floating, hunting and fishing in the nation.

On 26 April, however, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the review of 27 national monuments nationwide, launching an unprecedented reassessment by the Interior Department.

We compare the manifesto pledges of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Ukip and the Greens to see who comes top on cycling policy

Amid fevered discussions of Brexit, the NHS and social care, not to mention the suddenly renewed importance of security and tackling terrorism, it might seem a bit niche – almost frivolous – to ask what the party manifestos are saying about cycling.

But I’d argue it’s interesting and worthwhile for a couple of reasons. To begin with, as I’ve endlessly argued on this blog, getting significantly more people on to two wheels can bring enormous benefits to the nation.

Martindale Hause A tug-of-war occurs as a rook grabs one end of a crooked stick and a jackdaw just half its size seizes the other

Bump. A stick bounces off my scalp. I touch it with a finger. Blood! More sticks rain down. On goes the beanie hat. A cacophony of harsh cawing ensues. Rooks are robbing their decrepit old nests of twigs to add to more recent homes they are refurbishing on adjacent treetops.

Related: Feathered blades and feathered wings

Documents suggest that a major spill from the Rover pipeline in Ohio described as 2m gallons of ‘drilling fluids’ might now be more than twice as large

The oil company behind the Dakota Access pipeline is facing intense scrutiny from regulators and activists for a series of recent leaks across the country, including a major spill now believed to be significantly bigger than initially reported.

Documents obtained by the Guardian suggest that a spill from the Rover pipeline that Ohio regulators originally described as 2m gallons might now be more than twice as large. The revelation was included in a legal challenge activists filed on Wednesday to block the natural gas pipeline run by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the corporation that operates the controversial Dakota Access pipeline and is now facing numerous government fines and violations.

A new study helps civil engineers account for ongoing climate change in infrastructure design

People who work on building infrastructure understand the risks of climate change. As the Earth warms, new stresses are applied to our buildings, bridges, roads, houses, and other structures. Some of the obvious threats to infrastructure are from extreme weather including heat waves, storms, and intense rainfalls. There are some other less obvious threats, and many of the threats vary by location.

Regardless, the planning for infrastructure relies upon a reasonable estimation of future climate changes. To help quantify such an estimate for the civil engineering community, a recent paper was published by the Institution of Civil Engineering Journal of Forensic Engineering (I was fortunate to be a coauthor). The article was prepared with the collaboration of Dr. Michael Mann from Penn State University and Dr. Lijing Cheng from the Chinese Institute of Atmospheric Physics.

59% give thumbs down to state or federal assistance for Carmichael mine as state government faces factional fight over whether to give project a royalties holiday

Queensland voters have given the thumbs down to taxpayer support for the controversial Adani coalmine, with 59% saying they were opposed to state or federal assistance.

A new poll of 1,618 Queenslanders taken by ReachTel indicates 57% of the sample objected to a loan for a rail link between the mine and Abbot point, which is championed by the federal resources minister Matt Canavan.

Europe by night, Canada’s vanishing river and the Netherland’s tulip fields are among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last month

From space, the strait of Gibraltar appears tiny compared to the continents it separates. At the strait’s narrowest point, Africa stands just 14km (nine miles) from Europe. But the narrow waterway is a complex environment that gives rise to striking phytoplankton blooms when conditions are right. The intricate swirls of phytoplankton trace the patterns of water flow, which in this region can become quite turbulent. For example, water moving east from the North Atlantic into the Mediterranean has created turbulence in the form of internal waves. These waves – sometimes with heights up to 100 metres – occur primarily deep within the ocean, with just a mere crest poking through the surface. At the same time, water flowing west helps stir up water in the North Atlantic, including the Gulf of Cádiz. While most of the swirls of colour are phytoplankton, the ocean scientist Norman Kuring of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center notes that some of the colour near coastal areas could be due to sediment suspended in the water, particularly near the mouths of rivers.

Sandy, Bedfordshire The jingle-jangle of a corn bunting rings out as skylarks criss-cross the path, chasing each other

The car door opened in a farm layby and the fat bird sang. Described in ornithology books as sounding like the jangling of keys, the two-second salvo always seems higher and looser to my ears, and is more of a jingle than song. I find I can reproduce it best with four 10p coins shaken in a half-closed fist.

The jingle-jangle rang again and I spied the corn bunting – the “fat bird of the barley” – near the crown of a blossoming hawthorn bush, perched between two thorny sprays. Its slack-jawed beak moved, the lower mandible oddly placed as if it had been unhinged then badly refitted.

Environmental lawyers say advice means reef might finally be listed as a ‘world heritage site in danger’

The central aim of the government’s plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef is no longer achievable due to the dramatic impacts of climate change, experts have told the government’s advisory committees for the plan.

Environmental lawyers said the revelation could mean the Great Barrier Reef might finally be listed as a “world heritage site in danger”, a move the federal and Queensland governments have strenuously fought.

Select Tesco stores will sell only reusable bags in a 10-week trial that could lead to the single-use bags being phased out in all of its stores

Shoppers at a handful of Tesco stores in the UK will no longer be able to buy 5p “single-use” plastic carrier bags, in the first such trial by a supermarket.

If successful, it could lead to the bags being phased out completely, less than two years after the law was changed in England to force larger stores to charge for them.

If you go down to Uffmoor Wood today, you’re sure of a big surprise – you won’t be able to get in. Has the Woodland Trust made the right decision to temporarily padlock the Worcestershire woodland?

It’s Britain’s baddest woodland. Two hundred acres of bluebell-infested forest so naughty that the Woodland Trust has taken the rare step of shutting it down until it improves.

Uffmoor Wood, near Halesowen in the West Midlands, is padlocked as of today, after becoming a focal point for sheep-worrying, dirt bike scrambling, dog fouling, drug peddling and sex dogging.

Exclusive: European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking glyphosate to cancer following counsel with an EPA official allegedly linked to the company and who figures in more than 20 lawsuits

The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsanto weedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental Protection Agency officer allegedly linked to the company.

Jess Rowlands, the former head of the EPA’s cancer assessment review committee (CARC), who figures in more than 20 lawsuits and had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a US government inquiry into the issue, according to court documents.

Cyclists hail experimental scheme – that sees the dangerous intersection closed to all but buses, cyclists and pedestrians – as a turning point

Bank junction, one of London’s most dangerous intersections, was closed this week to all but buses, and people on bikes and foot, from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, in an 18-month experimental scheme that could be as ground breaking as New York’s Times Square or Paris’s Left Bank.

In 2015 Ying Tao was hit from behind by a lorry and killed as she cycled across the six-armed crossroads. Cyclists make up to 50% of Bank traffic during peak times, and from 2010-14, 46 cyclists were injured at the junction, six seriously. There were also eight serious pedestrian casualties in that time.