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Transforming bare and compacted soil in vineyards can boost numbers of important invertebrate, say advocates
Vineyards are generally the most inhospitable of landscapes for the humble earthworm; the soil beneath vines is usually kept bare and compacted by machinery.
But scientists and winemakers have been exploring ways to turn vineyards into havens for worms.
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Climate.gov, which went dark this summer, set to be revived by volunteers as climate.us with expanded mission
Earlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process.
The website offered years’ worth of accessibly written material on climate science. The site is technically still online but has been intentionally buried by the team of political appointees who now run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Toxic algae cases in Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh have tripled since last year, as local fishers’ incomes plummet
The UK’s largest lake, Lough Neagh, is on course to record its worst year of potentially toxic algal blooms to date, as rescue plans remain deadlocked.
As a ban on eel-fishing in the lake is extended yet again, with local fishers’ incomes falling by 60% since 2023, there have so far this year been 139 detections of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) growths recorded at the lough and its surrounding watercourses, according to a government pollution tracker. This is more than treble the number for the same point in 2024 (45). The data covers the 400 sq km freshwater lough, its tributaries, and smaller peripheral bodies of water, including Portmore Lough and Lough Gullion.
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Inkpen, Berkshire:It’s been an awful year for their breeding numbers, yet here we are, at our back garden gate, watching two young adults that feel like our own
Most evenings at dusk, we take a last cup of tea out to watch the barn owls from the back garden gate. A pair has used the box in our neighbour’s field ever since we put it up five years ago, and for the first time, they have raised two chicks. This is heartening enough, but it feels almost miraculous considering 2025 has been so bad for barn owls. It’s thought poor grass growth in a hot, dry year has suppressed numbers of their main prey, voles and mice, which were already low from natural fluctuations.
And so, over spring and summer, we have watched as each fluffy owlet emerged from the box and tiptoed along the oak branches like ghouls. We’ve watched their parents sweep in to feed them – sometimes at worryingly long intervals – the siblings waiting on the nestbox platform, turning their heads upside down, snapping at flies. We have seen them fledge, bouncing from tree to tree above the old paddock, then out to measure and survey Home Field.
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Nurturing everything from bacteria and fungi to worms is seen as essential to helping minimise use of chemicals and machinery
Nick Padwick hunches over a microscope, examining a sample of compost he has made on his Norfolk farm. “Look at that bad boy! That’s a bacteria-feeding nematode!” he exclaims. “Stunning fungal hyphae.”
Padwick, the farm manager at Wild Ken Hill since 2018, is part of a growing movement of farmers taking a deep interest in the microscopic life forms upon which their livelihoods depend. Under this approach to regenerative farming, nurturing diverse soil communities – from bacteria and fungi to microscopic animals and worms – is seen as an essential prerequisite for growing healthy foods with minimal or no use of agrochemicals or soil-damaging machinery.
Use microscopy to identify missing or imbalanced soil organisms.
Create nutrient-rich compost from farm waste, such as straw and wood chips.
Put this compost in mesh bags and steep them in water, like giant teabags, to make extracts that can reintroduce beneficial microbes to depleted soils.
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Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
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With rising temperatures causing chaos worldwide, what does it mean to be a tourist in a world on fire?
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“Where shall we go on holiday?” would not, ideally, be a stressful question.
But the world in 2025 is far from ideal, and summer breaks in Europe and North America are no exception. Holiday hotspots are being ravaged by heat, fire, floods and drought as fossil fuel pollution warps the climate – and travelling to reach them in planes or on cruise ships spews far more planet-heating gas than anything else you and I are likely to do. (Rocket enthusiasts such as Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos, I assume, have not yet subscribed to Down to Earth.)
‘We cannot do it the way our fathers did’: farmers across Europe struggle to adapt to the climate crisis
‘Unlike any other kind of fear’: wildfires leave their mark across Spain
Europe scorched by wildfires – pictures from space
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Fears of disease as more than 1,400 villages under water after three large rivers overflow their banks
Iman Salim is used to seeing flood waters in the field of lush lilypads next to her home in the village of Kamanwala. But nothing prepared her for this week, when torrential monsoon rains that broke a 49-year record lashed the area, flooding her house with water that rose above her chest.
“The whole house has drowned. The water left nothing,” the 24-year-old said.
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About half of new toys sold are thrown away within a year. Here’s how families and communities are tackling toy waste
Australians throw away about 27m toys each year. It’s not just a niche issue – about 87,000 tonnes are sent to landfill every year.
About half (51%) of new toys sold become waste within a year, according to research commissioned by the Australian Toy Association and Sustainability Victoria.
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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Feargal Sharkey back campaign to save the animal, which once inspired placenames, songs and stories
When the Somerset Levels flood in winter, their reed-fringed waterways swell into a glinting inland sea – haunting and half forgotten.
Generations ago, these wetlands pulsed with the seasonal arrival of eels: twisting through rhynes – human-made water channels – and ditches in their thousands, caught in baskets, sung about in pubs and paid as rent to Glastonbury Abbey. Today those same waters flow more slowly, more sparsely: once-teeming channels now show only the barest traces of what was here.
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