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Hélène Duguy is taking on companies accused of failing to stop Pfas pollution in the area of France she calls home
The factories were just part of the landscape for Hélène Duguy growing up in the heart of an area known as France’s “Chemical Valley”.
“Those factories are visible from my mother’s apartment,” says Duguy, 34, whose mother still lives in St-Genis-Laval, south of Lyon.
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Poll also finds sizeable majorities who believe it should be easier to install air con in homes
Given the choice, more people across six major European nations including the UK favour encouraging the adoption of air conditioning over keeping carbon emissions down, a survey has found.
After four extreme heatwaves that have caused thousands of excess deaths across the continent, the survey showed between 30% and 52% of people in six countries had feared for their household’s health in temperatures close to or above 40C (104F).
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Phillip Island’s ‘iconic’ little penguins get first bird flu vaccinations in what is thought to be largest program of its kind
More than 1,000 little penguins have received their first dose of bird flu vaccine in Victoria, in what is believed to be the world’s largest vaccination program involving wild birds.
Catherine Basterfield, the chief executive of Phillip Island Nature Parks, said vaccinations began early last week and were ramping up.
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Pair are offspring of two beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December
Wild beaver kits have been born in Norfolk for the first time in more than 500 years.
The pair of newborns are the offspring of two free-living beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December.
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Tylorstown, Rhondda Valley: These coal areas are shaped by fire and ash. I find a high point to try and survey the damage
My friend John and I are climbing Tylorstown Tip – a summit also known as Old Smokey, named after the hot ash it was partly made with. We want to see how much of south Wales has burned.
The tip towers over the surrounding hills, a perfect crow’s nest from which to witness the blackening of the region. From the summit, with its sitka spruce and flowering heather, the expanse of St Gwynno’s forest spreads out before us, all 6,533 acres of it. Browned, dead plantation forestry gives way to grassland burned to cinder. A veil of smoke lies above the forest for miles.
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Farmer Derek Sayer let a boggy field run wild and just one annual hay-cut has led to remarkable biodiversity
Tucked away on a country lane, a small field bursts with yellow and pink flowers. Quail and whitethroats call from the thick hedges and the plants, including common centaury, yellow rattle and marsh and common spotted orchids, bounce with hoverflies and butterflies.
More than 150 plant species have been recorded on Sayer’s Old Meadow, in north Norfolk, England, which is remarkable when there was just one – oilseed rape – growing there 21 years ago.
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Similar initiatives have been launched from Barcelona to Bogotá, but they have misinformation, political pressure and vested interests stacked against them
Ten years ago, Alastair Harper was an advocate for young people’s health sitting in a stuffy meeting room in London planning an air pollution campaign. “My phone started buzzing,” he said. “I took the call, and then told the room I needed to leave immediately.
“I had to get to UCLH [one of London’s major hospitals]. My own child was headed there in a blue-lit ambulance because she was struggling to breathe London’s toxic air.”
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The Democratic and the Republican candidate each blame the other for the bungled recovery effort after storm struck region
Two years after North Carolina suffered the worst natural disaster in its history when Hurricane Helene struck the state’s western half, life in the hardest-hit areas appears back to normal. Downtowns are lively, blocked roads have been reopened and rivers are flowing below their banks.
But the telltale evidence of the disaster’s expensive impacts can still be seen – from “for rent” signs in storefronts whose businesses never came back to debris from the storm still lurking in some waterways. And in the race for North Carolina’s US Senate seat, it’s almost as if the hurricane never left.
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With limited electricity and poor ventilation, many families in Nasirabad have little to shield them from temperatures of up to 50C
As the first light reaches Nasirabad, a queue of men, women and children has already formed outside the town’s ice factory, with their buckets, sacks and plastic containers. Among those hoping to buy some ice to help their families endure another scorching day is 12-year-old Taimoor, in his school uniform. He says it is his most important task of the day.
“If I do not bring the ice, how will we endure the heat at home?” he says. “And how will we drink water that feels as though it is boiling?”
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The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions probes an intriguing scientific question in relation to the climate emergency
Readers reply: Is it inevitable that consumerism will literally fill up the planet?
If all the vehicles on the planet had their tyres pumped up with CO2, would this lock up enough carbon to lower the amount in the air significantly? Would there be other issues, such as the carbon cost of trapping it all into the tyres? Chris Coldwell, Lancaster
Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to[email protected]. A selection will be published next Sunday.
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