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A slew of global leaders met in the south of France to discuss the future of the oceans. There was ‘momentum’ and ‘enthusiasm’, but there were critical voices too
The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope … and we are all in the same boat.” So said Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer, oceanographer and pioneering film-maker, who notably pivoted from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm over its destruction.
Half a century later, David Attenborough, a year shy of his 100th birthday, followed Cousteau’s trajectory. In the naturalist’s acclaimed new film, Ocean, which highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling, he says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”.
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Among other concerns, the US military parade will produce as much pollution as created to heat 300 homes for a year
Donald Trump’s military parade this weekend will bring thousands of troops out to march, while dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers roll down the streets and fighter jets hum overhead.
The event has prompted concern about rising autocracy in the US. It will also produce more than 2m kilograms of planet-heating pollution – equivalent to the amount created by producing of 67m plastic bags or by the energy used to power about 300 homes in one year, according to a review by the progressive thinktank Institute for Policy Studies and the Guardian.
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Welfare of sows confined to farrowing crates was compromised and they displayed signs of extreme stress, experts say
The use of restrictive pens to temporarily house pregnant pigs in the UK severely compromises their welfare, can traumatise them and should be banned, experts have said.
Analysis by Animal Equality UK of footage collected from a farm in Devon showed that three pregnant sows in farrowing crates spent more than 90% of their time lying down, with one not standing up at all for a day. On average, between them they bit the bars (a sign of extreme stress) more than once an hour.
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When historian Galo Ramón uncovered a long-forgotten pre-Incan water system in Ecuador, he set about restoring it, and helped transform the landscape and livelihoods
One day in 1983, while studying a hand-drawn map from 1792 of his home town in Ecuador, Galo Ramón, a historian, came across a dispute between a landowner and two local Indigenous communities, the Coyana and the Catacocha. The boundary conflict involved an ancient lagoon, depicted on the map.
“The drawing depicted a lagoon brimming with rainwater,” says Ramón. Ravines were depicted forming below the high-altitude lagoon, indicating that it supplied watersheds further down – contrary to the typical flow where a watershed feeds into the lagoon.
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Burbage, Derbyshire:National parks and the countless marvels they contain should be as they were originally intended – free to all
There’s a tiger burning brightly in front of me – not in the forests of the night, but on a Derbyshire moor, among the heather and bilberry, and in warm sunshine. It isn’t orange and black, but an iridescent green, and I need to hunker down to reach its level.
The green tiger beetle is widespread in Britain, and at least to the ants and caterpillars that it predates, it is every bit as threatening as the big cat immortalised by William Blake. Magnified, its fearful symmetry becomes more apparent, its mouth parts ferocious, the dandyish purple of its elegant legs more richly obvious.
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Sale covering 56,000 square miles set to go ahead despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups
The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.
Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.
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Intensive livestock farms such as those found across the US are spreading across the continent, according to new data
American-style intensive livestock farms are spreading across Europe, with new data revealing more than 24,000 megafarms across the continent.
In the UK alone, there are now 1,824 industrial-scale pig and poultry farms, according to the data obtained by AGtivist that relates to 2023.
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From fungi-based wall panels to 3D printed bricks made of seaweed, biomaterials are increasingly being used in construction. But how close are they to a home near you?
The average person might simply see green goop, but when Ben Hankamer looks at microalgae, he sees the building blocks of the future.
Prof Hankamer, from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, is one of a growing number of people around the world exploring ways living organisms and their products can be integrated into our built environment – from algae-based bricks to straw or fungi wall panels, and render made from oyster shells.
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Already controversial because of extra fixtures and Fifa involvement, the new tournament in the US is likely to be played in temperatures above 30C
Across this weekend, the US National Weather Service is predicting “moderate” heat risk for Miami and Los Angeles. With temperatures likely to exceed 30C, the agency warns “most individuals sensitive to heat” will be affected, a group that contains those “exercising or doing strenuous activity outdoors during the heat of the day”. This weekend is also when the Club World Cup begins.
When Lionel Messi and Inter Miami kick off the tournament on Saturday night against Al Ahly of Egypt it will be 8pm in Miami and, although the humidity is predicted to be high, the day’s peak temperatures will have passed. Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, however, will play under the full height of the California sun on Sunday, with their Group B fixture a midday kick-off at the famously uncovered Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
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Research looked at records of 14,800 people in Bradford to see what happened after they moved to more polluted area
What happens to your mental and physical health when you move to an area with worse air pollution? That’s the subject of a fascinating new UK-based study.
Prof Rosie McEachan, the director of NHS Born in Bradford, asked: “Do already unhealthy communities, who are often poorer members of our society, end up in unhealthier environments because no one else wants to live there; or is it the places themselves that are making people ill?”
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