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Frontrunner Zack Polanski has dismissed claims of a ‘hostile takeover’ but contest has been unusually fractious
The Green party will name its next leader on Tuesday after a fiercely fought leadership contest that has exposed tensions over tone, strategy and the party’s ambitions on the national stage.
The frontrunner, Zack Polanski, has pitched himself as a bold communicator able to turn rising support into a mass movement. He is facing the joint candidates Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay, two impactful Green MPs elected last year who are seen as offering a steadier, more targeted route to growth.
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Weather services of UK, Ireland and Netherlands chose list of 21 names from 50,000 suggestions by the public
Meteorologists in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands have announced this year’s north Atlantic winter storm names, chosen after 50,000 suggestions were submitted by the public.
Amy, Bram and Chandra will be the first named storms of winter 2025-2026, the Met Office said on Monday.
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Cadair Idris, Gwynedd: The heather is dominant on the slopes today, as I embark on a steep climb in the heavy heat
As I head over the top of the pass from Corris, the great mass of Cadair Idris emerges against a leaden sky. The steep crags that stand above the thickly wooded slopes are coloured a deep purple by the flowering heather, but the usual vibrancy is subdued by the flat, almost sullen, light.
Getting off the bus at Minffordd, I wander up the avenue of chestnut trees that form such an impressive welcome to the mountain. A drift of dry, discoloured leaves stands at the edge of the path, something I wouldn’t expect to see for another month or so, suggesting that the trees are suffering water-stress after the dry summer.
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Unspecified number of vessels due to depart Barcelona on Sunday, with dozens more expected to leave other Mediterranean ports on 4 September
A flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, is due to leave from Barcelona on Sunday to try to “break the illegal siege of Gaza”, organisers said.
The vessels will set off from the Spanish port city to “open a humanitarian corridor and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people”, said the Global Sumud Flotilla.
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The political pushback against positive green progress has been shocking. But as corporations and those in power turn away, the overwhelming majority of people in the world want more ambitious climate action
Support independent environment journalism today
Extreme politics and extreme weather go hand in hand, and both have to be confronted if we are to understand and overcome the polycrisis we are living through.
Yet few media organisations are examining why the climate emergency is creating a new era of demagogues. Even fewer are scrutinising how those authoritarian leaders are trying to misdirect public attention away from the root cause of our current global malaise.
Join George Monbiot and special guests on 16 September for a special climate assembly to discuss the growing and dramatic political and corporate threats to the planet. Book tickets – in person or livestream
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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, 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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Across the world, women at the heart of their communities are leading the struggle to protect their culture, land and way of life
“We, the daughters of mother earth … have come together to collectively decide what we can do to bring about a world which we would like our children and our children’s children to live in,” so states the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women.
Adopted in 1995, the document outlined the oppression of women around the world and demanded governments recognise “the social, cultural, economic, and religious rights of the Indigenous peoples in their constitutions and legal systems”.
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Most of these little-known but already endangered fish have never been seen alive in their natural habitat, but are under threat from bottom trawling and deep-sea mining
Three years ago I was running a research project from a bottom trawler off Namibia about deep-sea sharks – all of which live under enormous water pressure, close to the seafloor and are rarely seen by humans.
These sharks were being brought up in the trawler’s nets. By the time they were brought to the surface, they had experienced such a dramatic change in pressure that they had undergone barotrauma, so they were internally damaged and unlikely to survive.
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Ditching sanitary towels and tampons has made my period much less stressful. Crucially, it’s better for the environment too
I was 18 when I tried a menstrual cup for the first time. I was studying at the University of Edinburgh and Scotland had just become the first country in the world to make period products free to those who need them. The university health service was offering menstrual cups alongside the usual sanitary pads and tampons. I picked one up out of curiosity and because I just couldn’t resist a freebie.
I was used to spending £10 to £15 a month on period products, more if I was caught short and had to do a panicked dash to an overpriced off-licence. As an eco-conscious teenager I already bought non-applicator tampons but often wore a security sanitary liner underneath. It was an attempt to keep the endless worry of heavy periods at bay: will I leak, run out of supplies, or find a clean loo in time? Even so, I leaked more often than I cared to admit.
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