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As wildfires rage in southern Europe and crop losses only set to increase in the coming years, producers are getting creative to beat the heat
“I’m not ready to change jobs,” says Stellios Boutaris, a wine producer with vineyards in Naoussa and Amyndeon in northern Greece, as well as on the island of Santorini. But, he adds, “we cannot do it the way our fathers did.”
Boutaris is determined to keep producing in the region and keep the family business going but says “the curve is not looking good” as the climate crisis puts pressure on producers across the Mediterranean.
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Since our early ancestors came down from the canopy, we may think we have learned how to live without trees. But our lives remain intertwined in incredible ways
Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a tree. She had deep-set brown eyes and brown hair. She ate fruit – orange mangosteen and black juniper berries – crunched on nuts, sucked on sweet grasses and chewed juicy leaves, and dug up tubers and roots, knowing which ones were good, and which were hard or poisonous.
Sometimes, she followed the trails that crisscrossed through the grass, but much of the time she clambered through the broad crowns of the trees, reaching up for branches and feeling the texture of the bark against her hands, balancing against the trunks and springing along boughs. At night she tucked herself into the fork of several branches and curled up to sleep, watching stars like diamonds and branches against the sky.
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Shoppers in England bought 437m carrier bags last year as online food shops replace supermarket trips
Plastic bag sales have risen for the first time in 10 years on the back of the so-called Ocado effect as online food shops and ultra-fast deliveries replace supermarket trips.
Shoppers in England bought 437m single-use plastic carrier bags last year, compared with 407m the year before, a rise of 7%, according to data from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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China’s Hainan province gets red alert while Hurricane Erin brings almost 50ft waves to the western Pacific
Vietnam has evacuated more than half a million people as it braces for Typhoon Kajiki which, at the time of writing, is forecast to make landfall near the city of Vinh on Monday. Boats and flights have been cancelled in preparation for the typhoon’s impact.
Kajiki developed into a typhoon on 23 August as it travelled across the South China Sea. It continued to strengthen, with sustained winds reaching more than 100mph (160km/h), as it travelled just to the south of Hainan, an island province in southern China. A red alert was issued for Hainan, which is the highest alert level in China’s warning system.
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Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Our new teasel maze is proving baffling for the ponies, but good for the goldfinches
Striding forward, a spring in his step, George the Connemara pony carries me into a labyrinth cut into a field of teasels. The path winds, branches and splits. I let him choose the route, wondering how innate his animal sense of direction might be.
We soon reach a dead end and must turn. After 10 minutes or so, he is less confident and rather slower. I intervene a little, suggesting a right turn, fearing we might otherwise be lost for ever. Again, we hit a dead end.
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Exclusive: Charity says footage shows fish being struck repeatedly and at least one child taking part in killing fish
Animal welfare campaigners allege that a “harrowing series of welfare abuses” have taken place at one of England’s oldest working trout farms in a tourist hotspot in the Cotswolds, including the participation of children in killing fish.
Animal Equality UK, a charity that works to end cruelty to farmed animals, has released video footage that it claims shows fish being repeatedly beaten with batons, mishandled and left to suffocate by untrained members of the public including a child at Bibury trout farm in Gloucestershire.
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The organic veg pioneer talks to the Guardian about being unemployable, his unconventional father and his recent autism diagnosis
“Cardoons are a perennial crop – they keep coming back every year,” says Guy Singh-Watson, as his dog, Artichoke, roots around for voles among the tall thistle-like plants. “They would be a dream crop – if only people liked eating them.”
Cardoons, which Singh-Watson learned to love while snowed in on a Sicilian mountain, are not your typical vegetable. But then the Riverford veg box founder is not your typical farmer, despite still living only a few miles from the farm where he was born.
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State considers its options to control Karenia mikimotoi, which has left beaches littered with dead seaweed and sealife
New satellite imagery of South Australia’s devastating algal bloom shows it shifting and surging around the coast, where it has killed tens of thousands of marine animals.
On the video, a light green smudge explodes into an angry, purplish red mass, indicating a high concentration of chlorophyll. It expands and contracts as the weather changes from January to August.
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Illegal immigration and the climate crisis were hotly debated by the novelist and the former tram driver. But did they end up on the same track?
Sunyi, 38, Wakefield
Occupation Novelist
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The close call in Tracy Arm 50 miles south of Juneau on 10 August is the latest sign that as glaciers melt, risks may rise
The landslide that triggered a powerful tsunami in Alaska’s Inside Passage early on 10 August was a close call, say scientists, tour operators and agency officials, with the risk of such events apparently increasing as glaciers retreat because of climate change.
“It’s a historic event,” said scientist Dennis Staley from the US Geological Survey of the slide, which occurred in the Tracy Arm fjord 50 miles (80km) south of Juneau.
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