Plans announced by environment secretary mean many upland farmers could be incentivised to stop farming
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Some farms in England could be taken entirely out of food production under plans to make more space for nature, the environment secretary has said.
Speaking at the Groundswell farming festival in Hertfordshire, Steve Reed said a revamp of post-Brexit farming subsidies and a new land use plan would be aimed at increasing food production in the most productive areas and decreasing or completely removing it in the least productive. In reality, this means many upland farmers may be incentivised to stop farming.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/03/2025 - 09:11
07/03/2025 - 08:07
When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ rocketed, and a five-million-year heatwave followed. Fossils from China and clever climate models now link that botanical wipe-out to runaway warming, hinting that losing today’s tropical forests could lock us in a furnace we can’t easily cool.
07/03/2025 - 06:50
More people reporting problems as climate crisis means plants and trees flower earlier, extending the pollen season
Pollen levels were so extreme in parts of Europe during spring that even people not known to suffer allergies felt the effects of hay fever, data has shown.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) observed a seasonal rise in grass and olive pollen release and transport across southern Europe and “extreme levels” of birch pollen in north-eastern regions, it said on Thursday.
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07/03/2025 - 06:00
Document detailing the new program says zebrafish and rats from a North Carolina lab will be up for adoption
The US Environmental Protection Agency is launching a new program to adopt some of its 20,000 lab animals in the wake of Trump administration plans to dramatically cut the regulator’s research arm.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) nonprofit obtained and revealed an EPA document announcing the adoption program. The document announced adoptions for zebrafish and rats from an EPA lab in North Carolina.
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07/03/2025 - 06:00
Political interference and chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants at the National Science Foundation are producing ‘devastating consequences’
A generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Science Foundation (NSF), with unprecedented political interference at the agency jeopardizing the future of US industries and economic growth, according to a Guardian investigation.
The gold standard peer-reviewed process used by the NSF to support cutting-edge, high-impact science is being undermined by the chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants, as well as meddling by the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), according to multiple current and former NSF employees who spoke with the Guardian.
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07/03/2025 - 05:00
Holloman Lake was a haven for wildlife and seemed an ideal campsite. But strange foam around the shoreline turned out to be more than just an oddity – and reveals the alarming way forever chemicals move through ecosystems
For years, Christopher Witt took birdwatchers to Holloman Lake in the Chihuahuan desert off the route 70 highway in New Mexico. By mid-morning the sun would beat down as they huddled in the scant shade of the van. There were no trees other than a collection of salt cedars on the lake’s north shore. But the discomfort didn’t matter when the peregrine falcons appeared, slicing through the sky. “It was hard to leave that place,” says Witt.
The lake – created in 1965 as part of a system of wastewater catchment ponds for Holloman air force base – is an unlikely oasis. Other than small ponds created for livestock it is the only body of water for thousands of square kilometres in an otherwise stark landscape. However, Witt says there was always something slightly weird about the foam that would form around the edge. “But I only saw that stuff once I knew.”
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07/03/2025 - 03:15
Dry and sunny Friday forecast gives residents and SES volunteers chance to assess damage after vigorous coastal low wreaks havoc on east coast
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After days of torrential rain and damaging winds, a break in the wild weather has provided a much-needed reprieve for residents of New South Wales.
A “vigorous coastal low” wreaked havoc on Australia’s east coast this week, drenching catchments, leaving thousands without power, causing flight cancellations and fuelling dangerous ocean swells with waves as high as 13 metres.
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07/03/2025 - 02:48
Call comes as US president is also due to speak to Ukraine’s Zelenskyy this week
in Italy
Due to the climate emergency, Italian seas have reached temperatures above 20C even at depths of 40 metres, according to a report released on Wednesday by Greenpeace.
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07/03/2025 - 01:00
Last year, a single female was recorded returning to one tributary of a river usually celebrated for its fish. Now a plan is in place to change things – but it’s proving controversial
On an unusually hot May day in Aberdeenshire, Edwin Third stands on the bank of the River Muick, a tributary of the UK’s highest river, the Dee, talking us through the rising threats to one of Scotland’s most celebrated species, the Atlantic salmon. Against the hills of the Cairngorms national park, a herd of stags on the moorland bask in the sun.
It is a spectacular landscape, attracting hikers, mountain-bikers and salmon fishers, the latter contributing an estimated £15m to Aberdeenshire’s economy.
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07/03/2025 - 00:00
Amendments to children’s wellbeing and schools bill call for ban on Pfas and synthetic fibres over health concerns
The volume of microplastics and potentially harmful “forever chemicals” in school uniforms should be restricted, experts have said, as they urge peers to back two amendments to a crucial bill.
The children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which applies mainly to England and Wales and is at committee stage in the House of Lords, is poised to introduce new regulation on the cost of school uniform items, as well as the number of branded uniform items schools can require pupils to wear.
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