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Use of wood-burning stoves and fires in homes is mostly unnecessary and their toxic pollution costs the NHS millions
The burning of wood and coal in homes contributes to almost 2,500 deaths a year in the UK, analysis has found. Stopping unnecessary burning would save the NHS more than £54m a year, the experts concluded.
Wood-burning stoves and open fires are one the biggest sources of small pollution particles, which cause heart and lung disease, and their use has risen in recent years. The report also links this toxic air pollution to 3,700 cases of diabetes and 1,500 cases of asthma a year, although the health impacts are likely to be underestimated.
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Private member’s bill backed by Chris Packham and Natalie Bennett would impose a duty of care on government and business
A radical proposal to change the legal status of nature will be launched today in the House of Lords, with the unveiling of the UK nature’s rights bill initiative.
The private member’s bill aims to legally enshrine the idea that there can be no lasting economic progress or social justice without respect for the natural world, and to change the legal status of nature from objects, property and resources to a legal subject with inherent rights.
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Exclusive: Promise to remove almost all fossil fuels from UK’s electricity supply by 2030 may be quietly abandoned over cost
Ministers are considering dropping one of their central green pledges in an effort to keep energy bills down, sources have told the Guardian.
Government insiders say Keir Starmer is prepared to miss his own target of removing almost all fossil fuels from the UK’s electricity supply by 2030 if doing so proves much more expensive than building gas power instead.
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From a red-throated loon landing on water, to good and bad hair days and an airborne squirrel, here is a selection of the finalists in this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife awards. A winner will be announced on 9 December
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Transport secretary says updated airports national policy statement (ANPS) will be published by next summer
Heathrow’s third runway plans will be fast-tracked so Britain can “experience the benefits sooner”, ministers said as they launched a key part of the government process required for the airport’s expansion.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said work had started on a new airports national policy statement (ANPS), allowing a final decision by the end of this parliament to “realise the government’s ambition” of a runway by 2035.
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Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: In this moment of great seasonal change, I go looking for butterflies and find a ‘feathered’ fungus
The swallows lingered into mid‑October, the young hanging around in the stables, clumsily practising flight. I began to wonder if they would stay, if the system was somehow broken. Maybe I feel this way because the great oak of our family has fallen. My grandfather has died, just before turning 101, sharp of mind to the end. But order continues and the swallows too have now left, leaving the skies to the skeins of geese.
I muck out the stable and fill hay nets before heading out on a walk. The bale I break into has a dark singe mark within, as if a hot saucepan has burned all the way through. It was probably a bit damp when baled, which can cause fermentation and temperatures that can rise to combustion point at over 65C. Sometimes the whole stack might ignite. The hay harvest was poor this year, with low yields bringing scarcity and price rises.
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Boreas, whose icy winds herald winter, was regarded as saboteur of heroes and saviour of cities by ancient Greeks
The ancient Greeks personified the north wind as the god Boreas, and his chill breezes were a sign of the imminent arrival of winter. Boreas was depicted as a winged man in a billowing cloak holding a conch shell. He had a notoriously bad temper that produced violent storms, and he shipwrecked Odysseus and Hercules.
But in some cities, Boreas was a hero and saviour. When a Persian fleet threatened Athens in about 480BC, an oracle instructed the Athenians to pray to the winds. According to Herodotus, “from clear and windless weather” a storm blew up out of the north that lasted for three days. The storm was said to have destroyed virtually all the Persian ships, causing the invasion to fail.
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In 2005, the Guardian documented the births of 10 babies as a way to tell the story of millions across the continent. We caught up with three of them, finding hardship – and hope
Twenty years ago, the Guardian featured 10 newborn babies in countries across Africa, describing their births, their families and the environments they had been born into. We followed these babies at five-year intervals up to 2015 – the date the United Nations had set for achieving the millennium development goals – as a way to tell stories that might be those of millions of others across the continent as they worked to provide the best chance for their children.
Although some progress was made, the millennium development goals were not met by 2015 and that year UN member states adopted a new approach – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 goals for ending poverty and inequality, while also tackling the climate crisis. With five years to go, only 18% of those goalsare on track to be met.
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Data analysis found higher than average migration growth to the US from areas in Guatemala, Bangladesh and Senegal hit by repeated climate disasters
This article was produced in partnership between Columbia Journalism Investigations and Documented.
Mohamed* sat cross-legged on the carpet before Friday afternoon prayers at a mosque in the South Bronx in New York City and shared memories of his crops.
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Green groups defend ‘essential’ levy, but Gü desserts and Belvoir drinks among those who say shoppers pick up bill
A packaging tax designed to end our throwaway society is under fire for inadvertently adding to food price inflation as it pushes up the cost of everything from sausages to soft drinks.
“It’s about 3p on a pack of sausages,” says Andrew Keeble, the co-founder of Heck, of the new extended producer responsibility (EPR) tax.
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