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Northern Roots is launching Britain’s biggest urban farm and eco-park, in an effort to boost people’s health and wellbeing
Standing in the open green space of Northern Roots, it is hard to imagine the landscape as it once was.
Two cotton mills, two coalmines and an industrial railway once occupied this 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Later, about 24 hectares became a tip, with much of the space left to nature.
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From Sri Lanka to South Korea, governments are preparing for droughts, wildfires, typhoons and floods – with climate plans facing their biggest challenge to date
Asian governments are rushing preparations for the most severe El Niño weather event on record, with hundreds of millions of people bracing for multiple crises at once as extreme heat, heavy rain and food shortages hit the region.
Fuelled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific – and developing alongside the human-driven climate crisis – El Niño is virtually guaranteed to grow to a very strong intensity towards the end of this year and into 2027.
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Long-term research in New York shows efforts to reduce air pollution associated with higher cognitive test scores
Improvements in air pollution are leading to brighter, smarter toddlers, according to a new study from Columbia University in New York.
For more than two decades, Prof Frederica Perera and a team from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health measured the air pollution exposure of pregnant women and the development of their children in the disadvantaged communities of northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. More than 1,100 children were assessed when they were one, two and three years old.
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In this week’s newsletter: As the Guardian launches a year-long project, Our Rivers, we take stock of the issues facing waterways around the world
The nicknames of the world’s biggest rivers give a sense of how we feel about them: “the great river”, “the river that swallows all rivers”, “Mother Ganga” and “Old father Thames”. They feed and water us, and many other animal species. They carry our trade but also give us cool relief on a hot day. They’re nerve endings, elders and sources of comfort, but also of awe and respect.
And yet many of the world’s rivers are suffering, hit by multiple environmental challenges. A new report out today from the World Meteorological Organization finds that rivers across the world experienced one of the driest years in more than three decades during 2025.
Climate crisis probably weakened glacier that caused devastating Nepal-Tibet floods, first study finds
Who are the 514 people accused of starting French wildfires and what motivates them?
Benedict Cumberbatch on his Earth-saving eco film: ‘We are in the last grab of the extraction era’
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Efra committee calls for emergency legislation enabling government to take public control of the company
Andy Burnham is under further pressure to take control of ailing Thames Water from a cross-party group of MPs who are calling for ministers to break off talks with the US hedge funds who are effectively running the company.
Adding their voices to demands that the prime minister takes public control of the company, which has debts of £20bn and is being controlled by a group of 100 hedge funds and distressed-debt investors, the MPs said in a report that ministers should consider emergency legislation to take control of its financial affairs to stabilise the company.
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Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: We have three breeding pairs on the farm, and one in particular has been a source of fascination and amusement
I’m out on the farm most days, but I miss so much. It took a few days to notice a mother mallard with her late brood of 12 ducklings until they were all dabbling in a yard puddle. Dad sees more than me. He told me of the lazy adult buzzard that waited in a tree, then dive-bombed a peregrine that had caught a pigeon. The peregrine dropped its prey, which the buzzard then delivered to a hay bale already strewn with feathers. A pair of juvenile buzzards swiftly followed, ready for a meal.
Later, Dad placed the trail camera at the bale. The young buzzards were soon back in position with yet another dead pigeon. The footage tells a story that many parents will recognise after the long summer holidays.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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The world is suddenly full of webs and hairy legs. But why? And what do they belong to? Meet the spiders you’re most likely to encounter, from cardinals to false wolves
Summer is at an end, and suddenly spiders seem to be everywhere – in your house, in your garden, in your hair. Fresh webs hang from doorways, walls, shrubs and fence posts, creating invisible obstacle courses. Where do all these spiders come from, what kind are they and what, if anything, should we do about them?
The short answer to the question “Why are there so many more spiders at this time of year?” is: there aren’t. They are just more obvious. Dave Clarke, an ectotherm (“cold-blooded” animal) specialist at the Zoological Society of London, says: “There are more spiders around in the spring, because that’s when they hatch from their egg sacs, and there are hundreds of babies in each egg sac. But they’re small and not very obvious. They grow up during the summer and, at this time of year, they reach their maximum size.” Their webs are also correspondingly larger.
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After summer’s heatwaves, prepare for winter of storms and heavy rain, with millions of UK homes at risk of flooding
The accelerating climate crisis and this year’s record-breaking El Niño mean that, although the summer’s heatwaves are still fresh in the memory, households in the UK are already being told to prepare for a potentially destructive winter of storms and heavy rain – leaving millions of homes at risk of flooding.
Government action is needed to improve flood defences and build reliance on a national and regional level. But with the UK’s flood season just weeks away, the Guardian spoke to experts to find out what action communities and individuals can take to make their neighbourhoods and homes more resilient, from self-closing airbricks to deflated children’s footballs.
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Amid record-shattering heatwaves and popular demand for climate action, why are politicians often timid or in denial?
It was, according to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the “summer of truth”. Climate chaos ripped through Europe and the northern hemisphere, sending heat records tumbling, scorching crops in the fields, burning forests, emptying rivers and reservoirs, warping train tracks, melting roads and killing about 35,000 people in Europe alone.
The EU has estimated the damage at about €180bn, and the full bill is yet to arrive: harvests have been depleted, which will probably raise food price inflation, and expensive repairs to infrastructure have only just begun.
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