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Silicone wristbands worn by volunteers in the Netherlands captured 173 substances in one week
For decades, Khoji Wesselius has noticed the oily scent of pesticides during spraying periods when the wind has blown through his tiny farming village in a rural corner of the Netherlands.
Now, after volunteering in an experiment to count how many such substances people are subjected to, Wesselius and his wife are one step closer to understanding the consequences of living among chemical-sprayed fields of seed potato, sugar beet, wheat, rye and onion.
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Former Paralympics champion says inaccessible charging points show government ‘has forgotten about us’
Campaigners including Tanni Grey-Thompson have warned that disabled drivers are at risk of being locked out of the electric car transition because of inaccessible chargers.
The former Paralympics champion and the Electric Vehicle Association England are pushing for the government to introduce standards to ensure chargers are easy to reach.
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London: In spring the family of foxes stared at us while we gardened. Now I’m watching them as the cubs have grown up, ready to leave
I have been watching a family of foxes through my bedroom window for a long time now. Today I decided to record 15 minutes of one of the fox’s days. It went like this: 12:30pm – the fox is asleep, 12:40pm – the fox is still asleep (foxes are mainly nocturnal animals and sleep up to 10 hours during the day), 12:52pm – the fox wakes up and walks out of sight, probably to go through some bins or steal our garden gloves, 12:54pm – the fox jumps on top of the shed, 12:54pm – the fox is asleep again.
Many urban foxes find shelter around people’s gardens. This can include under sheds, in bushes, behind bins or in their own burrows, called earths. In spring, baby foxes are born, and when we’re gardening they stare at us through the bushes, or quickly pass through when our backs are turned. I know I should clap and scare them away, but the cubs grow up bold, and it’s peaceful sometimes to pull up weeds and pretend you can’t see the amber eyes watching you.
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Committee urges ministers to set out measures to reduce carbon emissions before work starts on new runways
Airport expansion plans backed by the government are putting the UK’s net zero target in “serious jeopardy”, MPs have warned.
Without new safeguards, proposals to enlarge airports including Heathrow and Gatwick could push the UK over its carbon budgets, according to a report from the cross-party Commons environmental audit committee.
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There are three common types of turbulence – and our volatile atmosphere is making them worse
Turbulence has always been an inconvenience for airline passengers and can cause alarm for the already nervous. Part of the problem is that most of the time you cannot see it coming – pilots can run into severe clear-air turbulence in a perfect blue sky.
High in the atmosphere, where most intercontinental flights cruise to make maximum use of fuel, the jet stream can behave erratically, causing wind shear that can throw around an airliner in the sky.
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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire:They are shuttling between marshland every day, honking overhead, taking it in turns to take the strain
Right now, my terrace house sits directly under a flight path, belonging not to planes but to skeins and skeins of honking Canada geese. As reliable as the first misty mornings and the slow shedding of the trees, I hear that familiar harsh call as the geese pass overhead. My view of the V shapes is often cut short by the built-up limitations of my urban view, yet they are a wonder nonetheless, their shadows occasionally forming a shifting echo on the pavement below.
Most of the Canada geese here are happily resident in the UKand no longer migrate, but come autumn, with their babies big enough to fly now, an old restlessness seems to stir in them. My neighbourhood is sandwiched between areas of marshland, and the geese have begun to move more between the best roosting and feeding sites, back and forth each day, some venturing farther afield to look for new territory, honking their movement with eager, open mouths.
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For seven years Ian McMaster has been mothing on his painstakingly rehabilitated Queensland property. But only once has he encountered the elusive southern pink underwing
Dark descends upon a dead-end property atop a winding mountain road and Ian McMaster steps out into the forest.
Protective goggles perched atop his grey hair, torch in hand, McMaster is drawn into the gums that surround his rammed-earth home toward a white sheet shining in UV light like a stage prop moon.
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The Klamath River began rebounding almost immediately. Now, Indigenous youth are leading the next chapter of the recovery, inspiring tribes from Brazil to China
Ruby Williams’s pink kayak pierced the fog shrouding the mouth of the Klamath River, and she paddled harder. She was flanked on both sides by fellow Indigenous youth from across the basin, and their line of brightly colored boats would make history when they reached the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the sandy dunes – they were going to do it together.
The final of four hydroelectric dams were removed last year from the Klamath River, in the largest project of its kind in US history. The following July, 28 teenage tribal representatives completed a 30-day journey that spanned roughly 310 miles (500km) from the headwaters in the Cascades to the Pacific. They were the very first to kayak the entirety of the mighty river in more than a century.
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As the country’s metal mining ban is lifted, rural communities fear a return of the contamination, violence and water shortages that cost so many lives and livelihoods in the past
Set off the main road through San Isidro, El Salvador, an old gate sits locked by a chain. Across its rusted metal wire mesh are emblazoned the words: “Private property, entry forbidden.” A bus stop outside is covered with faded black and yellow posters. Though peeling with age, their message can still be read: “No to mining – yes to life.”
This is the site of what was once the El Dorado gold mining project. After the suspension of operations in 2009 amid community backlash, OceanaGold formally closed the project in 2017 following El Salvador’s historic prohibition of metal mining.
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