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Near-disaster in Paüls is latest incident to show Spain’s vulnerability to the effects of the climate emergency
On Saturday, the people of Paüls will celebrate the feast of their patron saint, Sant Roc, with a mass, followed by a communal meal eaten at stone tables, jotafolk dances and a profound and lingering sense of relief.
Last month’s wildfire – which turned the night skies a hellish orange, blackened the surrounding hills and devoured 3,300 hectares (8,154 acres) of land – was a near-disaster that stirred memories of the 2009 blaze in nearby Horta de Sant Joan that killed five firefighters.
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Conservationists flag dangers of human interaction after ‘Reggie’ filmed playing with family
The public has been warned to keep away from an injured dolphin that was filmed dancing and playing with swimmers off the coast of Dorset earlier this month.
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO), a government-backed agency responsible for England’s seas, said it was “increasingly concerned about a lone dolphin spotted in Lyme Bay, Dorset, following multiple potential marine wildlife disturbance offences observed online and shared on social media”.
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Healthy fungal networks help trees and plants grow, making them key to successful reforestation. The only problem? Almost nothing is known about this subterranean ecology
Even in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of “fairytale darkness”, says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
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Can fiction make us more optimistic about tackling Earth’s environmental emergency? These eco-focused books have hope at their core
‘Can literature be a tool to encourage something better – creating eco-topia on the page, so it might be imagined off it?” asks the novelist Sarah Hall in this weekend’s Guardian magazine. Climate fiction – or “cli-fi” – continues to grow as a genre in its own right; the first Climate fiction prize was awarded this year. And while the roots of environmental fiction are in apocalypse and despair, these five writers are moving beyond dystopia to hopeful possibilities.
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The failure of UN talks in Geneva should anger us all. The increasing threat to our health, our environments and wildlife must be addressed.
By ensuring the collapse of UN talks seeking the first legally binding agreement on tackling plastic pollution, blockers in Geneva have failed the next generation. Most states are willing, even determined, to act. But the US joined petrostates obstructing action. Their children too will live to regret that.
To say that plastics are part of our lives from cradle to grave is an understatement: microplastics have been found in placentas, as well as blood and breast milk. While we can’t yet be certain of the full impact of the substances, we know that many have been linked to health effects and that foetuses, infants and young children are highly vulnerable. Microplastics have been shown to damage human cells in laboratory experiments, and a review published this month documented how exposure is associated with increased risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects, impaired lung growth, childhood cancer and fertility problems as an adult.
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The Heart of Voh is a symbol of New Caledonia’s pristine environment but its outline is changing due to the climate crisis
On the west coast of New Caledonia, Isobelle Goa searches the thick, tangled mangrove roots for mudcrabs. Goa lives on the outskirts of the archipelago’s most famous mangrove formation: a light-green, heart-shaped patch of forest known as the Heart of Voh.
“It is grandiose. It’s what God has put on the land for us,” Goa says.
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Allendale, Northumberland: What a joy it is to see them back in the garden, speckled woods, commas and small heaths. According to the Big Butterfly Count, I’m not the only one revelling in the abundance
Two red admiral butterflies chase and spiral above the buddleia, flashing red and black wings against blue sky. Small tortoiseshells forage among the yellow radiating petals of Inula hookeri. Speckled wood and comma land beside them, two at once sharing a flower. A peacock flicks its large wings open and shut, each time revealing false eyes and sleek hairy body.
It’s a relief to see so many familiar butterflies feeding on familiar flowers. This time last year was very different. Then, I wrote in my Country Diary about their absence, despite the abundance of nectar plants here – the effect of a cold, wet winter and spring. When the results came in from the Big Butterfly Count (BBC), Butterfly Conservation declared a butterfly emergency.
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The Cooling Solution is a photographic and scientific project that aims to show how people are adapting to high temperatures and increasing humidity across different countries, cultures and socioeconomic conditions
As temperatures rise around the world, the inequality between those who can afford to stay cool and those forced to suffer is laid ever more bare. For some, air conditioning is a given; for others it is an unaffordable luxury.
The photographer Gaia Squarci and researcher Jacopo Crimi visited Brazil, India, Indonesia and Italy to photograph the stories of people in extreme heat and how they are learning to adapt to it.
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Photographer Jill Mead joins the crowds of people heading to the Kent seaside town in the summer heat
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While famously rainswept, climate crisis, population growth and profligacymean the once unthinkable could be possible
During the drought of 2022, London came perilously close to running out of water. Water companies and the government prayed desperately for rain as reservoirs ran low and the groundwater was slowly drained off.
Contingency plans were drafted to ban businesses from using water; hotel swimming pools would have been drained, ponds allowed to dry up, offices to go uncleaned. If the lack of rainfall had continued for another year, it was possible that taps could have run dry.
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