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Struggling fishers in Hastings say the industry is dying after a deal giving away access to its waters made a tough job impossible
A small flotilla of gaily coloured fishing boats line the shingle beach at Hastings, East Sussex. Behind them are the bulldozers that shunt them into the waves and beyond, in neat rows, are black wooden fishermen’s huts and fish stalls, where on a good day teenage daughters, wives and retired skippers sell some of the day’s catch.
This is the Stade, a Saxon word for “landing place” from where wooden boats have set off since before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066.
Peter White outside his shed. He has been fishing for 52 years
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Exclusive: Government failure to close loophole allows 600,000 tonnes to be shipped abroad each year
A plastic recycling industry potentially worth £2bn and 5,000 jobs is dying in the UK because of government failure to close a loophole that allows 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to be exported each year.
The Guardian can reveal that in the past two years 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down due to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap plastic from Asia, according to data gathered by industry insiders.
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Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be published
The UK’s national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK’s intelligence chiefs is due to warn.
However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10.
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Official reports are likely to overlook heat’s role in a death. As US temperatures rise, experts say the true toll needs to be counted
Among the autopsy reports that made my heart skip a beat was Hannah Rose Moody.
One morning last May, the 31-year-old set out on a favourite desert hike near her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was already 91F (33C) when she set off. On Instagram, she told her 50,000 followers: “Conquering this trail as a last hurrah before summer hits ☀️… I have like 5 gallons of water with me don’t worry .”
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Hitchin, Hertfordshire: Some insects have evolved a long proboscis to reach the nectar of salvias and fuschias. Some take a cheeky shortcut
Pandemonium in the kitchen: “Hummingbird hawk moth on the salvia!” And there it is, that unmistakable shimmering flight above the patio; the moth’s wingbeats so rapid it appears motionless as it sips from the tubular blooms of Salvia Amethyst Lips.
It’s only the second time I’ve seen a hummingbird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) in our suburban garden. I spotted the first last year, darting from flower to flower in the honeysuckle – another species with long corolla tubes made up of fused petals. The hawk moth’s choice of tubular flowers is unsurprising, given that Macroglossum means long-tongued. Using its 25-28mm-long proboscis, this formidable day-flying moth can take refreshment from the parts other pollinators cannot reach.
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Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadows
For two years, a team of Swiss researchers crossed the country by train, car and foot, carrying with them a red frame measuring 30 by 30 centimetres. At 277 sites they placed the frame in the grass and counted all of the plant species within it.
The scientists were retracing a path set more than 100 years earlier, when two botanists had done the same thing in exactly the same meadows, long before such plant inventories became common.
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Environmental group seeks damages from Welsh Water and two chicken producers, alleging responsibility for pollution in Wye, Lugg and Usk
Almost 4,000 people in England and Wales are taking legal action over what they allege is six years of sewage pollution that has devastated three rivers, including the Wye.
In the largest environmental group action of recent times, 3,943 residents and business owners are seeking substantial damages from Welsh Water and the leading chicken producers Avara Foods Ltd and Freemans of Newent Ltd, alleging they are responsible for “extensive and widespread pollution” in the Wye, Lugg and Usk.
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Only 15 of 100 MPs surveyed knew of IPCC report that CO2 needs to peak this year to keep global heating to 1.5C
The people you hope would be best informed about the imminent threat of climate breakdown would be members of parliament. After all, droughts and storms affecting their constituents have been a recurring news item. The need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires an informed debate among parties.
The key question on which the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, in 2022, reached hard-won scientific consensus was when CO2 emissions need to peak for a realistic chance of keeping global temperature increases below 1.5C, the target set by the 2015 Paris agreement as too dangerous to exceed. The answer, given great prominence in the report and the media coverage of it, was this year, 2025.
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A project to restore coastal wetland leads to astonishing discoveries of a host of life: seeds and plant scraps, as well as water fleas, worms, larvae and plankton
When Shelby Riskin was handed disk-shaped samples of century-old soil from Toronto’s waterfront, the ecosystem ecologist was hopeful she might find trace evidence of plants – cattails, bulrushes, water lilies and irises – that had once populated a long-destroyed wetland.
But when she and a graduate student peered through a microscope, they watched in astonishment as a brown wormlike creature greedily munching through green clumps of algae as if more than 130 years hadn’t passed since its last meal.
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Test pulses from lightning impulse generators can be used to ensure lightning protection is functioning properly
Lightning protection is mandatory for schools, high-rise blocks of flats, churches and factories in the UK. It is also essential for electrical equipment, the testing of which may involve using a portable lightning generator.
A lightning inspector’s annual check is mainly visual confirmation that lightning rods are intact, the necessary connections are in place and nothing has been damaged by lightning in the previous year. Inspectors check that surge protectors, which prevent lightning from overloading a building’s electrical circuits, are in place and working. Inspection may also involve physical testing, such as measuring the conductivity of lightning rods.
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