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Margot Raggett, whose latest compilation shows animals scrubbed from natural habitats, calls for rethink on UK accelerated housebuilding
Margot Raggett has spent the past decade raising money for conservation efforts around the world but now she feels nervous about the future. “It does feel like we’ve taken a backward step,” she said.
The wildlife photographer has raised £1.2m for the cause in the past 10 years through her Remembering Wildlife series, an annual, not-for-profit picture book featuring images of animals from the world’s top nature photographers. The first edition was published in 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was being drafted but, in the years since, efforts to tackle the climate crisis have been rolled back.
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From Venice to the Iguazu Falls, an exhibition in London illustrates the hidden cost of our gadgets and devices
Artists have created visualisations of the impact of the climate crisis on some of the world’s most recognisable landscapes, in a project to highlight the environmental effects of tech consumption.
Venice in Italy, the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil, and the Seine River in Paris were among the locations used to explore to potential impacts of the climate crisis by the end of the century. The results are on display at an exhibition in London.
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Manningham, Bradford: Twenty-six years after this great industrial hub closed down, it still has resonances with the community via its thrilling wildlife
A peregrine comes bombing down from the ornamented parapet of the 76-metre mill chimney Lister’s Pride, and a hundred pigeons scatter. I’m on Patent Street, Bradford, by the west wall of what was once the biggest silk mill in Europe, called Lister’s Mill, or sometimes Manningham Mills. It was thrown up in the 1870s by Samuel Cunliffe Lister, and for more than a century was one of the great industrial palaces of the north. Since shutting in 1999, about half has been restored as offices and high-end flats; the other half is derelict. Forests of buddleia cover the concrete floors, and fox trails wind through the weeds.
Peer through steel grilles into the basements, and see hart’s-tongue ferns as thick and green as cabbages in a vegetable patch. Rust is everywhere (what John Ruskin called “living” iron: “It is not a fault in the iron, but a virtue, to be so fond of getting rusted”). On the stretch of grass across the street, gulls gather in great numbers. Today they’re mostly black-headed, with one hulking lesser black-back comically conspicuous in the middle of the throng. At the back I spot two first-year common gulls, paddling their feet in a hopeful worm dance.
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Ten platypuses were reintroduced into Sydney’s Royal national park in 2023. This week, two new juveniles were discovered, leading one researcher to cry ‘Oh, give me a hug’
Hunting platypuses takes patience. On Thursday afternoon, I headed into the Royal national park, south of Sydney, with researchers who had reintroduced a small population of the elusive monotremes two years ago.
There was a big net and torches – and our dinner. It could be a long wait.
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Researchers say decline in phytoplankton suggests weakened planetary capacity to absorb carbon dioxide
The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating, according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide could be weakening.
The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity.
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Stoats have been an existential threat to Orkney’s rare birds but technology is helping to eradicate them
At first, the stoat looks like a faint smudge in the distance. But, as it jumps closer, its sleek body is identified by a heat-detecting camera and, with it, an alert goes out to Orkney’s stoat hunters.
Aided by an artificial intelligence programme trained to detect a stoat’s sinuous shape and movement, trapping teams are dispatched with the explicit aim of finding and killing it. It is the most sophisticated technology deployed in one of the world’s largest mammal eradication projects, which has the aim of detecting the few stoats left on Orkney.
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In this week’s newsletter: from Google to Amazon to OpenAI, the economic and climate cost of datacenters continues to grow
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The headlong rush to build huge new datacenters, in order to support the growth of AI, is raising a number of concerns in the US – around the impact upon the climate crisis, water use and electricity bills. It’s also set to reshape American politics in potentially unusual ways.
Companies such as Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Amazon and Meta are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters that will form the backbone to the surging use of AI by businesses and the public.
Bird migration is changing. What does this reveal about our planet? – visualised
Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk
The plastic inside us: how microplastics may be reshaping our bodies and minds
Power struggle: will Brazil’s booming datacentre industry leave ordinary people in the dark?
Revealed: Trump’s fossil-fuel donors to profit from datacenter boom and green rollbacks
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With AI datacenters soaring power bills for households, a policy called ‘demand flexibility’ could help ease grid strain
A cheap, bipartisan tool could help the US meet increasing energy demand from AI datacenters while also easing soaring power bills for households, preventing deadly blackouts and helping the climate.
The policy solution, called “demand flexibility”, can be quickly deployed across the US. Demand flexibility essentially means rewarding customers for using less power during times of high demand, reducing strain on the grid or in some cases, selling energy they have captured by solar panels on their homes.
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As the US government shutdown enters its third week, concerns mount over how the nation’s public lands will fare
Cars and RVs surged into Yosemite national park throughout the weekend, as visitors from around the world came to enjoy the crisp autumn weather, undeterred by a lack of park services and the absence of rangers.
National parks have largely been kept open through the lapse in US federal funding that has left workers furloughed and resources for the parks system more scarce than usual. But as the US government shutdown enters its third week and legislators warn that their impasse could linger even longer than the one in Donald Trump’s first term – which currently holds the record at 35 days – concerns are mounting over how the nation’s treasured public lands will fare.
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Sabine’s gulls and phalaropes among species that found themselves venturing unexpectedly close to land
A warm, dry year, followed by what feels like a final hurrah of summer as September gives way to October, has become the norm in recent years, at least where I live in Somerset. That’s usually good news for migrating birds, as they can head south safely, without the risk of sudden storms derailing their journey.
But autumn can still have a bite, weather-wise. Strong westerly gales during late August and the first two weeks of September meant that several pelagic seabirds – those that usually spend the autumn and winter months well out to sea – found themselves venturing unexpectedly close to land.
Continue reading...The Galleri test looks for fragments of DNA that have broken off a tumour and are circulating in the blood.
The shot, given six times a year or every other month, is an alternative to taking daily pills to protect against ever catching the virus.
New research suggests singing can be clinically effective at treating the symptoms and cost effective for the NHS.
Elise Faragher is on placement in Worcester and lecturer Aaron Collins, and his wife, came in.
Rape Crisis Scotland argues Dr Andrew McFarlane has distressed his son's victim and may cause harm to other rape survivors.
An inquest into Maria Morris's death found it was accidental, but her family still have questions over what happened the night she died.
Mike Nesbitt said a plan has been developed, but not yet been finalised, and will be published on Thursday.
Failings in Colin Flatt's care in the final months of his life are laid bare in a new report.
BBC researchers caught pharmacists trying to sell Botox without assessing patients first.
New guidance for doctors says focusing on fruit in our diets can help with a really common complaint.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
In a fishing community in Peru, a small group of fishermen carry on a tradition that dates back to the Incas. But an environmental disaster and modern fishing practices threaten this way of life.
