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Austrian capital mulls expanding tram network and park-and-ride car parks in effort to reduce private vehicle use
When Leonore Gewessler hops on the underground trains and street-level trams that run like clockwork across the breadth of Vienna, she appreciates the ease, affordability and time she “gets as a present” instead of idling in traffic. But Austria’s former climate and transport minister is also aware that cars still dominate the capital’s streets. She says good public transport is just the “precondition” to changing how people move around the city.
Vienna’s network of trains, trams and buses have long been the envy of other European cities – let alone car-centric North American ones – but automobiles are still used for a quarter of journeys. In other capitals famed for world-class public transport, such as London, Paris and Prague, even higher use of cars has frustrated doctors and campaigners demanding cleaner air and safer streets.
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In the UK capital, Bomb Crater Pond is full of wildlife, while scientists studying land obliterated by recent Russian blasts 1,500 miles away have seen ‘how quickly nature begins to heal itself’
In February 1945, towards the end of the second world war, a German V2 rocket struck Walthamstow Marshes in east London. The explosion tore a crater into the marshland. Left untouched, it slowly filled with water, sediment … and life. Today, this wartime scar has become a thriving pond.
“It’s small but it really punches above its weight,” says Luke Boyle, a ranger for the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, as he kneels at the edge to examine aquatic plants sprouting their early spring shoots. “We can’t manage the hydrology here, so it is actually a vital part of the ecosystem – it supports a range of plants, insects and amphibians, more than you might expect,” he says.
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Researchers say 481-metre wave in fjord was triggered by rockslide linked to climate crisis
A mega tsunami in Alaska last year in a fjord visited by cruise ships is a stark warning of the risks of coastal rockslides and glacier retreat fueled by the climate crisis, a new study warns.
Scientists recorded the world’s second-tallest tsunami after it struck the Tracy Arm fjord in south-east Alaska last August after a massive rockslide around the toe of a glacier. The tsunami reached 481 metres (1,578ft) in height; by comparison the Eiffel Tower is 330 metres (1082ft).
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Glyphosate is currently sprayed on cereal and pulse crops to dessicate them and make them easier to harvest
A new trade deal with the EU could lead to restrictions on the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate on UK food crops.
The full-spectrum herbicide, which kills almost every plant it touches, is often sprayed on wheat, oats and other cereal and pulse crops shortly before harvest to desiccate them and make them easier to handle.
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Wastewater from nearly 40,000 people and businesses pumped straight into sea as territory still has no treatment plant
Raw sewage from nearly 40,000 people and businesses is being pumped straight into the sea because the British overseas territory of Gibraltar does not have, and has never had, a wastewater treatment plant.
For decades, untreated sewage has poured into the Mediterranean from the southern tip of the peninsula at Europa Point, where the government of Gibraltar says there are “high levels of natural dispersion”.
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Powerstock Common, Dorset: I’m hopeful that the mixed habitats here and bright weather will bring them out in their droves – and I’m not disappointed
The recent pulse of warm, sunny weather has encouraged butterflies to fly in large numbers in Dorset. They were everywhere when I visited Powerstock Common: the moment I opened the car door, a brimstone fluttered sulphur-yellow over the parking area, lifted on a stream of blackcap song.
Bright as butter in the sunshine, it’s possible that brimstones are the species that inspired the word “butterfly”. When this one settled on a hazel, its underwings merged green among the new leaves, the colours indicating it was a male. Females are much paler, sometimes almost white. Both sexes have a pair of browny-orange spots on their wings, which are foxed like the page edges of an old book.
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Exclusive: ‘Fish sludge’ in coastal waters now has nutrient levels equivalent to those in untreated effluent of country the size of Australia, report finds
Norwegian fish farms are filling fjords and other coastal waters with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people each year, a report has found.
Norway is the largest farmed salmon producer in the world, and nutrients in fish feed are excreted directly into coastal waters. Analysis from the Sunstone Institute found that Norwegian aquaculture released 75,000 tonnes of nitrogen, 13,000 tonnes of phosphorus and 360,000 tonnes of organic carbon in 2025.
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Julie, once a circus elephant, and Kariba, from a Belgian zoo, are to be moved to a former ranch in Portugal
Europe’s first large-scale elephant sanctuary, which is opening to offer a more natural environment for some of the 600 animals still held in captivity across the continent, is to receive its first arrivals.
Julie, Portugal’s last circus elephant, will be moved next month to the animal charity Pangea’s multimillion pound sanctuary in the Alentejo, 200km (124 miles) east of Lisbon, close to the border with Spain.
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To celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s centenary, Madeleine Finlay catches up with natural history writer Patrick Barkham, who has met the celebrated presenter. They explore how the natural world has changed in the century that Attenborough has been on Earth, and how his programming has reflected his growing commitment to highlighting the devastating impacts of the climate crisis on nature and biodiversity
Clips: BBC, PBS
Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod
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Intervention for farming and flood risk change the unique systems as communities grapple with how to live alongside the vital waterways
When British settlers started building Christchurch city 170 years ago, they largely ignored the nearby Waimakariri River, which twists from the South Island’s alps towards the eastern shore.
But rain and glacial shifts compelled the braided river – a globally rare form of river with many woven channels – to take on a new shape, occasionally flooding land and depositing tonnes of shingle in its wake.
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