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Food producers are adding their voices to the chorus of warnings about the vulnerability of British supply chains
“There are so many decent, capable, productive, efficient arable farmers out there, asking how they are supposed to finance the crop they are meant to be putting in the ground,” Jamie Burrows says.
Sitting in his tractor at his arable farm in Norfolk, Burrows is listing the multiple challenges facing him and other food producers.
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In the Atacama desert, the extraction of lithium – so crucial to addressing the climate crisis – comes with escalating social and environmental costs
A high-altitude desert plateau traverses Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. I am on the Chilean side, sitting in a Jeep along with two other researchers. The afternoon air is thin and brisk but the sun is piercing – a combination I am familiar with from years of living and travelling in South America’s Andean range.
The landscape is a study in contrasts and contours: broad basins suddenly cut off by sweeping curves; flat expanses sliced by near vertical ascents. The Licancabur volcano looms large above us. Vegetation and humidity levels change rapidly with the rising altitude, bringing cooler temperatures, wetter air and denser plant life.
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John Mitani spent years studying a huge community of chimpanzees in Uganda. But then things took a dark turn – and his findings stunned the scientific world
John Mitani can still remember the first time he set foot in Uganda’s Kibale national park. The old-growth east African rainforest enveloped him, its canopy stretching to heights of 40 metres. Fruit trees bowed under the weight of African star apples and bountiful Ficus mucuso figs. And then there were the chimpanzees. Furry black blobs darted through the jungle, their raucous calls often deafening.
It was the summer of 1995, and Mitani, a primatologist from northern California, had just come from working with the chimps living in the Mahale mountains of Tanzania. At the time, Mahale was home to the largest known population of chimps, with about 100 individuals. But there were rumours that this section of Kibale – only accessible via a 12-hour drive from the capital, Kampala – might host an even more unusual abundance of apes.
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Some of deaths came from falling trees as half a million people without power and rain and flooding still a concern
At least four people were reported dead on Saturday amid Isaias after it made landfall late on Friday on Florida’s panhandle as a category 2 hurricane, according to authorities.
The storm also took down trees, knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands and flooded highways – but as Saturday evening approached, the region was reopening.
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Protesters spent months occupying an ancient cottonwood. Then a tense standoff with US border patrol came to a head
A 200-year-old cottonwood tree near the US-Mexico border, known as the “grandmother”, has been destroyed to make way for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, despite a months-long effort by protesters trying to save it.
In late July, land defenders began a tree-sit in the ghost town of Lochiel, Arizona, taking turns occupying a platform high in the tree’s canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.
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Changing tide levels, shifting sands and hardened shorelines put waves at risk, affecting more than just surfers
The climate crisis is coming for some of the world’s greatest surf breaks, submerging some as sea level rises and wiping out others as classic breaks get crushed against coastal developments.
Analysis of dozens of famous waves in world surfing reserves (WSR) found more than three-quarters were at high risk because of changing tide levels, hardened shorelines and shifting sands.
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NEU’s Daniel Kebede says earlier start times and longer summer breaks may be needed to help pupils and teachers
Schools should consider changing start and finish times, reordering holidays and moving exams from the summer months in an effort to adapt to the UK’s increasingly severe heatwaves, according to the leader of the country’s biggest education union.
Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said this summer’s repeated bouts of extreme heat had a devastating impact on teachers and pupils, as classroom temperatures topped 40C and hundreds of thousands of young people were sent home.
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A dry summer has left the Bristol Channel island critically short of water, forcing visitor caps and talk of evacuating its 28 residents
Tom Carr was peering up at the clouds scudding around the island of Lundy, 10 miles off the coast of north Devon. “That one’s definitely got rain in it,” he said. “The mainland will be wet at the moment. And look over at Wales – it’s getting a real soaking just now.”
But above Lundy the sky was, stubbornly, blue. No significant rain has fallen here since the start of May, leading to perilously low water levels. Restrictions have been put in place, visitor numbers limited and there has been talk of the island – home to 28 people – being evacuated.
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Heat and humidity have led to one of the worst mosquito years in recent history, with West Nile virus at a decade high
Los Angeles might be best known for blue skies, beaches and film premiers — but for the last several years it’s held another, unenviable distinction: the most mosquito-infested city in America.
And this year has been especially nightmarish, thanks to a series of heatwaves and an extra-powerful El Niño. Locals have called it a summer of “living hell” as clouds of mosquitoes swarm backyards and leave diners at open air patios scratching their ankles.
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For a growing band of older Australians, retirement has become an unlikely second act, spent rewilding mountains, counting sea slugs and coaxing damaged country back to life
When Susan Downes stepped into the hallway of an old farmhouse for sale in York, Western Australia, she felt an oddly certain sense of knowing. “Oh, this is my house,” the retired GP remembers thinking. There was just one problem: it came with 200 hectares.
Widowed and with her children grown, Downes, then in her 60s, was finally able to act on a long-held wish to move to the countryside. She had imagined something modest: an old house with “a little bit of garden and stuff”. Two hundred hectares was rather more than she had in mind, no matter how charming she found the high ceilings. “I thought, the house is lovely, but I can’t possibly do that.”
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