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British Veterinary Association president tells MPs surge in cases putting farmers under severe pressure and stress
The worst bluetongue season on record has been a major animal welfare crisis in Great Britain, MPs have been told, putting farmers under “severe emotional stress”.
Bluetongue, a viral disease that affects sheep, cattle and goats, can cause fever, lesions, stillbirths and death. The tongue may go blue and protrude from the mouth.
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Researchers find the birds’ guano feeds algal blooms that absorb significantly more solar energy
Penguin poo is making the Antarctic snow melt faster, a study shows. As temperatures rise, penguins are waddling closer to the south pole, with potential for this previously unrecognised phenomenon to affect a wider area.
Snow algae are tiny single-celled plants that make a home in some of the coldest places on Earth. When nutrients are scarce, the algae produces red pigments to protect itself from the sun and slow growth.
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Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing too
Hajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family’s field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.
“It should be perfect for planting,” she says. “If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year.”
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Frome, Somerset: Dippers and fritillaries and pink campion … there is a deep satisfaction in accumulating associations with a regular haunt
Enchantment surely fills the eyes of first-time visitors who come upon this little stone bridge over the stream. Do they marvel at the judgment of hands in building, wedding rock with rock, face against face? Do they arrive on a brighter morning than this, one on which sunbeams chase each other under the arch and cast sparkling reflections of water on the underside? Does their pulse quicken watching the brook breaking out of its tunnel and skittering over the pebbled bed, hastening through even in times of sluggish drought?
Me? I see a bird that isn’t there.
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Guardian and Mongabay reveal approaches to officials and MPs on behalf of Vantara zoo ahead of UK-chaired Cites meeting on endangered animal imports
British government ministers were told not to engage formally with Vantara, the controversial mega-zoo run by the Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, after lobbying efforts by the private animal sanctuary in the run-up to a UK-chaired meeting on the trade in endangered species, according to documents.
This week, the UK heads a 32-country committee meeting in Geneva of Cites, the United Nations body that regulates trade in endangered species. The meeting will examine how India has responded to compliance concerns about imports of endangered animals.
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Cop30 host sets out steps to break link with coal, oil and gas as it aims to move focus from negotiating to implementing
All countries can start to break their dependence on fossil fuels now without needing to wait for new technologies or economic changes, Brazil’s government has said ahead of a global climate summit.
Brazil, the host of last year’s UN climate conference, set out the world’s first global “roadmap” for phasing out fossil fuels on Tuesday, showing that countries could boost their economies and pull people out of poverty while breaking the link with coal, oil and gas.
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Garden Climate Assessment Tool will allow users to predict a plant’s response to the projected climate in a given location
“In the 20th century, we could pretty much grow the same things with confidence, we could learn from previous generations,” said Prof Sam Brockington, a curator at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
“But now we’re moving into climate scenarios that we just don’t have the traditions to understand fully.”
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We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors
This week, from 2023: A year ago, Germany’s vice-chancellor was one of the country’s best-liked public figures. Then came the tabloid-driven backlash. Now he has to win the argument all over again
By Philip Oltermann. Read by Sam Peter Jackson
Read the text version here
Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/longreadpod
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With globe-spanning artists – including Charlotte Church doing angry electropop – the Flow project is hoping to make an impact at this month’s Cop31
Amid tense and long-winded negotiations, and with the future of the planet at stake, emotions can often run high at Cop climate summits. But last year, when the annual conference arrived in Brazil, one UN official was unexpectedly moved to tears by five women singing about the power of water.
“She gave me a massive hug after the event and said, ‘We need to bring music into Cop,’” says Nikita Llerena, the project manager for Flow, a music collective that’s hoping to bring art to the centre of the climate movement. What started as a handful of musicians meeting over Zoom last year has grown into a full-length album that unites female artists from around the world, including Charlotte Church, Maxine Peake and Nadine Shah. This month, members of the collective will return for Cop31, in Turkey, where they have been promoted to a slot at Global Cultural Action’s opening event.
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Scientist Adalberto Luis Val’s pioneering research on the tambaqui fish is revealing the effect of climate disruption in Brazil, with global implications for biodiversity and food security
As a boy in rural São Paulo, Adalberto Luis Val used to stare into the lake where his father took him fishing and wonder how all those creatures swimming below stayed alive. One day, he netted a few, put them in a jar, and brought them home to observe. The next morning, they were all dead. Val was devastated but intrigued.
“I needed to know how fish are able to live,” he says.
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