Exclusive: expert raises concerns over quantities allowed to be discharged from nuclear fuel factory near Preston

The Environment Agency has allowed a firm to dump three tonnes of uranium into one of England’s most protected sites over the past nine years, it can be revealed, with experts sounding alarm over the potential environmental impact of these discharges.

Documents obtained by the Guardian and the Ends Report through freedom of information requests show that a nuclear fuel factory near Preston discharged large quantities of uranium – legally, under its environmental permit conditions – into the River Ribble between 2015 and 2024. The discharges peaked in 2015 when 703kg of uranium was discharged, according to the documents.

Scientists warn of profound impacts as sea temperatures rise by up to 4C above average for springtime

The sea off the coast of the UK and Ireland is experiencing an unprecedented marine heatwave with temperatures increasing by as much as 4C above average for the spring in some areas.

Marine biologists say the intensity and unprecedented nature of the rise in water temperatures off the coasts of Devon, Cornwall and the west coast of Ireland are very concerning. As human-induced climate breakdown continues to raise global temperatures, the frequency of marine heatwaves is increasing.

Introduced from South America, mathenge was intended to halt desertification, but now three-quarters of the country is at risk of invasion by the invasive tree

For his entire life, John Lmakato has lived in Lerata, a village nestled at the foot of Mount Ololokwe in northern Kenya’s Samburu county. “This used to be a treeless land. Grass covered every inch of the rangelands, and livestock roamed freely,” he says.

Lmakato’s livestock used to roam freely in search of pasture, but three years ago he lost 193 cattle after they wandered into a conservation area in Laikipia – known for the fight over land access between Indigenous pastoralists and commercial ranchers.

A cooperative in Pune, India, is diverting waste from the landfill while also alleviating poverty

Three decades ago, Rajabai Sawant used to pick and sort waste on the streets of Pune with a sack on her back. The plastic she collected from a public waste site would be sold for some money that saved her children from begging.

Today, dressed in a dark green jacket monogrammed with the acronym Swach (solid waste collection and handling) over a colourful sari, the 53-year-old is one among an organised group of waste collectors and climate educators who teach residents in urban Pune how to segregate and manage waste, based on a PPPP – a pro-poor private public partnership.

This is an abridged version of a piece originally published by Mongabay.

Bill will unleash millions more tonnes of planet-heating pollution and couldn’t come at a worse time, say experts

A Republican push to dismantle clean energy incentives threatens to reverberate across the US by costing more than 830,000 jobs, raising energy bills for US households and threatening to unleash millions more tonnes of the planet-heating pollution that is causing the climate crisis, experts have warned.

A major tax bill passed by the Republican-held House of Representatives on Thursday morning will, as currently written, demolish key components of climate legislation signed by Joe Biden that has spurred a record torrent of renewable energy and electric vehicle investment in the US.

The Marches, Shropshire: The thunder over the hill is spectacular, reverberating in everything below it

Thunder and cuckoos on Stapeley Hill. Half the sky is blue and bright over hill country of the west. For a moment, a fierce light reflects back from the quartzite tor of the Devil’s Chair on the Stiperstones ridge. The other half of the sky, below white peaks of cumulus bergs slashed with mineral colours thickening to black with a wet mane that licks the hill’s edge towards the Severn Vale, is shuddering with thunder. A low frequency, not as loud as peals or claps, but a rumbling through the bones.

We have known since the last century that thunder is caused by lightning. Within clouds, friction between ice particles stimulates lightning, whose plasma reaches 10,000C and impacts the cooler air at supersonic speed, causing explosive shockwaves. There must be a swarm of lightning enclosed by these clouds to cause such constant rumbling. Maybe it’s only visible from weather satellites, but its sound and electrifying energy is shakingly eerie. The storm is a living thing, moving slowly and ominously across the sky.

Footage released by Durango police department shows officer Shane Garrison approaching Irwin, named after the 'Crocodile hunter' Steve Irwin, in a narrow corridor between a fence and home. Once the officer has the kangaroo in his arms, another can be heard saying 'we have the kangaroo detained.'

• Irwin the kangaroo gets the jump on police in Durango, Colorado – again

Newsom issues rallying cry as GOP-controlled Senate votes to reverse EPA waiver and prevent state setting own rules

California has long been one of the nation’s preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it.

But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies.

Revealed: an investigation shows how consumers buying fish in the UK are playing a role in food insecurity and unemployment in Senegal

Read more: Chris Packham calls sea bass labelling in UK supermarkets a ‘dereliction of duty’

At the entrance to the fish market in Joal-Fadiouth, a coastal town in central Senegal, a group of women have set up shop under the shade of a small pavilion. A few years ago, they say, the market would have been bustling with ice-cream sellers, salt vendors and horse-drawn carts delivering freshly caught fish to the women, who would set about sun-drying, salting and sorting the catch into affordable portions for local families to buy.

Today, trade is dead, says Aissatou Wade, one of the remaining small-scale fish processors left in the town. “Without fish [to sell], we have no money to send our children to school, buy food or get help if we fall ill,” she says.

In Brazil, the Chinese social media giant TikTok is said to be the latest company planning a supercomputer warehouse that will use vast amounts of water and energy

It is a warehouse the size of 12 football pitches that promises to create much-needed jobs and development​ in Caucaia city, north-east Brazil​. But it won’t have shelves stocked with products. This vast building will be a datacentre, believed to be earmarked for TikTok​, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app​, ​a​s part of a 55bn reais (£7.3bn) project​ to expand its global datacentre infrastructure​.

As the demand for supercomputer facilities rises, fuelled by the AI boom, Brazil is attracting more and more tech companies. The choice of Caucaia is no accident. Several undersea cables carry data from the nearby capital of Ceará state, Fortaleza, to other continents. The closer to the cables, the greater the traffic capacity and the lower the latency, or response time, between two points on the internet network.

Australia should also make moves to address the climate impact of its fossil fuel production and exports

Watching from the western Pacific, we saw many describe Australia’s recent election as a decisive moment for climate and energy policy. If that was the case, the people of Australia have spoken loud and clear.

Like many of us in the Pacific had hoped, most Australians wanted to throw off the shackles of the last decade’s “climate wars” and usher in a new era of responsible climate and energy policy, one that harnesses the limitless potential of Australia’s renewable energy superpowers and helps lead the Pacific region and the world to a safer and more prosperous climate future.

Dom Phillips’ posthumously published book is an urgent reminder of why this unique landscape matters so much

It doesn’t start for six months, but the build-up to the UN’s annual climate conference is already well under way in Brazil. Hosting the tens of thousands of delegates who make the trip is a big undertaking for any city. But the decision to host Cop30 in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon river, has multiplied the complications.

After three consecutive Cops in autocratic nations, the stated aim of Cop30’s chair, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, is to make this year’s event a showcase for civil society, including the Indigenous groups and forest defenders who play such a vital role in conservation. But the lack of affordable accommodation and other infrastructure, as well as the distance that must be travelled to reach the Amazon port, mean this commendable ideal will be hard to realise.

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How to Save the Amazon by Dom Phillips (Manilla, £22). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

The pandemic and harsh laws suffocated climate movements as we knew them. Get ready for a new kind of action

On 21 April 2019, I was on Waterloo Bridge in London with my younger siblings. Around us were planters full of flowers where there were once cars, and people singing. This was the spring iteration of Extinction Rebellion, when four bridges in London were held by protesters. My siblings, then 14, had been going out on school strike inspired by Greta Thunberg, and wanted to see her speak.

We were there for less than a day, but the occupations of bridges and other blockades lasted for 11 days. Tens of thousands of people mobilised in the UK that spring. An estimated 500,000 people were affected by the shutdowns the movement imposed on central London’s road networks, and more than 1,000 protesters were arrested in what was then an official part of XR’s strategy.

How fast we cut climate pollution will define how safe or scary the world becomes as our children grow up

At its core, the most fundamental duty of any government is to safeguard the security and wellbeing of its people. The climate crisis is hitting Australians hard.

Right now, farmers in South Australia and Victoria are battling drought, while Queensland farmers pick up the pieces after heartbreaking floods. Globally, 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first time average temperatures surged 1.5C above preindustrial levels. We are living through longer, deadlier heatwaves, devastating bushfires, more frequent and intense floods, and rising sea levels that threaten coastal communities.

Burning, worsened by global heating, overtook farming and logging as biggest cause of destruction of tropical forests

The destruction of the world’s forests reached the highest level ever recorded in 2024, driven by a surge in fires caused by global heating, according to “frightening” new data.

From the Brazilian Amazon to the Siberian taiga, Earth’s forests disappeared at a record rate last year, losing an area the size of Italy to agriculture, fires, logging and mining, according to analysis from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch.

More and more people are hooked on watching animals in real time. Now researchers say it could even improve your mood, help you relax and give you better sleep

In 2012 Dianne Hoffman, a retired consultant, became a peeping Tom. For five hours a day she watched the antics of a couple, Harriet and Ozzie, who lived on Dunrovin ranch in Montana.

The pair were nesting ospreys, being streamed live as they incubated their clutch of eggs. The eggs never hatched, but the ospreys sat on them for months before finally kicking them out of the nest.

Thousands have been displaced and conservation work halted as series of killings jeopardises decades of work in Niassa, one of Africa’s biggest protected areas

One of Africa’s largest protected areas has been shaken by a series of attacks by Islamic State-linked extremists, which have left at least 10 people dead.

Conservationists in Niassa reserve, Mozambique, say decades of work to rebuild populations of lions, elephants and other keystone species are being jeopardised, as conservation operations grind to a halt.

For 1,500 years, Mexico’s Mixtec people have extracted ink from the rare purpura snail to dye yarn. But they fear the species – and their rich tradition – may soon be lost for ever

• Photographs by Mauricio Palos

The site for the camp is well chosen. Mangrove trees provide shade from the sun; from their hammocks, the two men can look out over the yellow sand of Chachacual Bay. Rocks rise at both ends of the beach, breakers crashing against them. Next to the camp, turtles have left their tracks in the sand. “They often come at night and keep us company,” says Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, 81, known to everyone as Habacuc.

While Habacuc lights a campfire to make coffee, his son Rafael, 42, sets up a small tent for the night. Rain is forecast. “We’ve been camping in the same spot for many years,” says Habacuc. “From here, we roam the coast in search of the purpura snail.”

White cotton skeins dyed with snail ink turn from yellow to green and finally ‘tixinda’ purple in the sun

The TV naturalist’s comments come after a Guardian investigation into the complex supply chain behind the fish on sale on Britain’s high streets

Read more: The hidden cost of your supermarket sea bass

Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has condemned British supermarkets for a “dereliction of duty” over food labelling and sourcing, as a joint investigation by the Guardian and environmental website DeSmog reveals that the retailers are selling fish from farms that import large quantities of fishmeal from Africa.

Factories in Senegal grind down small, edible fish into meal that is then sold on to fish farms in Turkey, fuelling unemployment and food insecurity in the African country.

The craze for Korean culture has brought fame to the ‘women of the sea’, but not always to their benefit. Now they want to reclaim their stories to inspire a new generation

There is an episode in the Netflix drama When Life Gives You Tangerines where a woman dives into the sea and brings back a catch of abalone (sea snails), which she says will feed her family. The woman is a haenyeo. Haenyeo, or “women of the sea”, have been recorded as far back as the 17th century and are unique to the island of Jeju in South Korea, where they fish sustainably, diving time and again on a single breath to bring back shellfish and seaweed.

Yet the scene, set in the 1960s, simply wouldn’t happen today, says Myeonghyo Go, a haenyeo who lives in the village of Iho-dong on Jeju. “The seaweeds here are disappearing, and seaweed is the food for abalone. Because we don’t have the seaweeds, we don’t have abalone,” she says.

It broke my heart to see a seal so injured by a £1 plastic toy. Now I campaign to ban them – and it has changed my life

There was an incident seven years ago that changed my life. I saw an adult grey seal with a plastic pink flying ring toy so deeply embedded in her neck that she was practically dead. It was stopping her from feeding because it was digging into her and she couldn’t extend her neck – the wounds were horrific.

It broke my heart. From that moment on, I became obsessed with seals and protecting them from the dangers of plastic flying rings.

On average, five fatal whale strikes occur in the country’s waters each year, the highest in the world – and just a fraction of the total number killed, say researchers

• Photographs by Francis Pérez

The memory of a blue whale gliding past his small boat haunts Patricio Ortiz. A deep wound disfigured the cetacean’s giant body – a big chunk had been ripped from its dorsal fin. Cargo ships are the only adversary capable of inflicting such harm on a blue whale, he says.

“Nothing can be done when they’re up against those floating monsters.”

Taree resident Phill Smith captured the moment a woman was rescued from flood waters, declaring the crew involved in the rescue 'definitely deserve an Australia Day just for themselves'. Unprecedented flooding has hit the New South Wales mid-north coast, with further rain predicted to come

• NSW floods: one dead and ‘grave fears’ held for three missing people as crisis worsens

Scientists have spotted surprising evidence of what they describe as monkey kidnappings while reviewing video footage from a small Panamanian island. Capuchin monkeys were seen carrying at least 11 howler babies between 2022 and 2023. The footage showed the capuchins walking and pounding their stone tools with baby howlers on their backs. But cameras did not capture the moments of abduction, which scientists said likely happened up in the trees, where howlers spend most of their time

Clichy-Batignolles, in the city’s north-west, is emblematic of the ‘15-minute’ city approach to urban planning