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Shas Sheehan challenges refusal to remove 25,000 tonnes of waste causing ‘grave environmental hazard’ near school
A 25,000-tonne illegal waste dump next to a primary school in Wigan presents “a grave environmental hazard” and should be cleared, the chair of the Lords environment committee has told the government.
Shas Sheehan challenged the refusal of the Environment Agency to clean up an illegal waste dump in Bolton House Road in the Greater Manchester town, given the agency was spending millions clearing up illegal waste deposited in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.
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Charity praises effort to stop Ramsgate’s Pie Factory Music closing but calls for more youth services in coastal towns
The last remaining youth centre in one of England’s most deprived coastal places has been saved from being sold after a long campaign by the charity that has for 13 years called it home.
In November the Guardian revealed how the centre in Ramsgate on the Kent coast was facing being auctioned off by Kent county council, despite an independent report that estimated the centre was saving the council more than £500,000 a year in costs, including for services in mental health, youth justice and social care.
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States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points
Flawed economic models mean the accelerating impact of the climate crisis could lead to a global financial crash, experts warn.
Recovery would be far harder than after the 2008 financial crash, they said, as “we can’t bail out the Earth like we did the banks”.
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At a party event in a school hall in Lewisham, people told me how disillusionment with Labour has led to this moment
“How many?”
On the end of the phone is a nice press officer for the Greens, head full from a long day in Gorton, Manchester, showing off their would-be MP. And now, as Friday’s sky turns indigo, I’m calling about reports from Lewisham, south London, that tomorrow they’re expecting a flood of 500 Green activists. This comes as a surprise to the party’s own news machine.
Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist
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Rammed earth sourced from, or near, the grounds of a proposed building site is attracting attention as an eco-friendly construction material
From afar, the low-rise homestead perched in the Wiltshire countryside may look like any other rural outpost, but step closer and the texture of the walls reveal something distinct from the usual facade of cement, brick and steel.
The Rammed Earth House in the Cranborne Chase is one of the few projects in the UK that has been made by unstabilised rammed earth – a building material that consists entirely of compacted earth, and which has been used as far back as the Neolithic period.
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Industry bigger than all but seven world economies, and accounts for more than third of China’s economic growth
China’s clean energy industries drove more than 90% of the country’s investment growth last year, making the sectors bigger than all but seven of the world’s economies, a new analysis has shown.
For the second time in three years, the report showed the manufacture, installation and export of batteries, electric cars, solar, wind and related technologies accounted for more than a third of China’s economic growth.
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Castletown Bay, Isle of Man: The smell is unpleasant, but these slimy mounds are full of flies, molluscs and sand hoppers – all vital winter food
My British Trust for Ornithology wetland bird survey includes patrolling a storm beach, which, at this time of year, has huge piles of rotting wrack thrown up by the gales. They’re made up of hand-like fronds of laminaria, bladderwrack with its buoyant bubble vesicles, sugar kelp and the long “washing line” strands of non-native sargassum seaweed that arrived from Japan on Pacific oysters and ships’ hulls in recent years.
These slimy, smelly heaps are generally unpopular with passersby – some even call for their removal – but for wildlife they are a food source of the highest quality.
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Paying attention to the calls of our avian neighbours can reduce stress, find scientists in Germany
Feeling stressed? Try a dose of birdsong to lift the spirits. A new study shows that paying attention to the treetop melodies of our feathered friends can boost wellbeing and bring down stress levels.
Previous research has shown that people feel better in bird-rich environments, but Christoph Randler, from the University of Tübingen, and colleagues wanted to see if that warm fuzzy feeling translated into measurable physiological changes. They rigged up a park with loudspeakers playing the songs of rare birds and measured the blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels (a marker of stress) of volunteers before and after taking a 30-minute walk through the park. Some volunteers experienced the birdsong-enriched environment, some heard just natural birdsong, and some wore noise-cancelling headphones and heard no birdsong. Half of the recruits were asked to pay attention to the birdsong.
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With government action stalled and living in ‘inhumane’ conditions, families in San José are making plans to relocate
In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.
Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.
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Support from more than 20 countries propels National Trust to its target to protect chalk figure and local wildlife
It feels like a very British monument: a huge chalk figure carved into a steep Dorset hillside that for centuries has intrigued lovers of English folklore and legend. But an appeal to raise money to help protect the Cerne giant – and the wildlife that shares the landscape it towers over – has shown that its allure stretches far beyond the UK.
Donations have flooded in from more than 20 countries including Australia, Japan and Iceland, and on Tuesday, the National Trust confirmed it had reached its fundraising target to buy land around the giant.
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