The Guardian

Fast new patrol vessel built with Dutch, British and Swedish lottery funds aims to challenge Japan’s defiance of international court ruling on whaling

Two ships have left Australia bound for the freezing Southern Ocean to confront the Japanese whaling fleet in an annual high-seas battle, the environmental activist group Sea Shepherd has said.

The organisation’s flagship, Steve Irwin, departed for Antarctic waters on Monday along with a fast new patrol vessel, Ocean Warrior, built with financial support from the Dutch, British and Swedish lotteries.

Sacha Dench is first woman to cross the Channel in a motorised paraglider, as part of her journey following migrating birds from Russia to Britain

The conservationist and “human swan” Sacha Dench has become the first woman to cross the English Channel in a motorised paraglider during her epic 4,500-mile journey following migrating birds from the Russian tundra to Britain.

The 41-year-old made history crossing the Channel on her paramotor after an eventful 10-week flight accompanying the annual migration of Bewick swans to better understand the reasons for their declining numbers.

Climate scientists and real science journalists pushed back, holding the post-truth crowd accountable

Human carbon pollution is heating the Earth incredibly fast. On top of that long-term human-caused global warming trend, there are fluctuations caused by various natural factors. One of these is the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The combination of human-caused warming and a strong El Niño event are on the verge of causing an unprecedented three consecutive record-breaking hot years.

Simply put, without global warming we would not be seeing record-breaking heat year after year. In fact, 2014 broke the temperature record without an El Niño assist, and then El Niño helped push 2015 over 2014, and 2016 over 2015.

Highest ever rainfall recorded in UK was in December 2015 at Honister Pass in Lake District with 341.4mm falling in 24 hours

An appraisal of the winter floods of 2015-2016, published on the first anniversary of Storm Desmond, reveals it ranks alongside the devastating flooding of March 1947 as the largest event of at least the last century.

November 2015 to January 2016 was the wettest three-month period in records dating back to 1910, while December was both the wettest and, on average, the warmest on record for the UK.

Mayor’s proposed investment gets near levels seen in cycle-friendly nations such as Netherlands and Denmark

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has promised to spend £770m on cycling initiatives over the course of his term, saying he wants to make riding a bike the “safe and obvious” transport choice for all Londoners.

Following criticism that Khan has not been as bold as his predecessor, Boris Johnson, in committing to new bike routes, and amid increasing worries about air quality in London, Khan’s office has set out what is described as a hugely ambitious programme to boost cyclist numbers.

But an analyst warns that it is not clear which part of the sprawling Indian conglomerate would receive the money

The conservative backbencher George Christensen has backed the idea of the controversial mining company Adani getting a $1bn loan from the Turnbull government for a rail line in his Queensland electorate.

But an analyst has warned the government would have to conduct strict due diligence to ensure the loan was not funnelled through the Cayman Islands tax haven.

Protesters at Standing Rock respond to news that the Army Corps of Engineers will not grant the permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the Missouri river. Environmental activists gathered to celebrate their win after a months long campaign to block the pipeline

• Standing Rock: US denies key permit for Dakota Access pipeline, in win for tribe

Llanberis, Snowdonia In a clearing, a black-headed beast with horns as magnificent as any fairytale faun, is munching grass next to an old red-painted winding house

The glug-glug of bubbles on the surface is a sign of divers in the depths. I watch their dark shapes rippling slowly in the emerald water for a while, before taking a slippery slate staircase winding up through the still autumnal oak woodland surrounding the flooded Vivian quarry.

In a clearing lit briefly by November sun, a brown-coated, blacked-headed beast with horns as magnificent as any fairytale faun, is munching grass next to an old red-painted winding house. It is a scene of storybook strangeness. The horned head turns slowly, fixing me briefly with a pair of yellow eyes, then returns indifferently to its business.

Environmentalists say mandatory labelling on food would limit demand for palm oil products and reduce destructive impact of plantations

Environmentalists are warning that Australia’s repeated delays on mandatory palm oil labelling are allowing deforestation and the destruction of orangutan habitats to continue unabated.

A proposal requiring palm oils to be specifically listed on food labels has now been under consideration by Australian and New Zealand ministers for more than five years.

As prime minister Malcolm Turnbull plans to meet the boss of Indian company Adani in Melbourne, anti-fossil fuel campaigners rally against the federal government proposal to lend $1bn to the company to build a rail line from the planned Carmichael coalmine to the sea

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 December 1916

Surrey, December 7
Cattle coming back slowly to the homestead in the mist of early afternoon pause to browse among the clumps of furze which stud the heath all over the top of the down. These furze bushes are well out in yellow bloom; it makes almost the only charm of colour left us here. The younger cows, nosing about, tear off the budding shoots, taking little account of the prickly stems, which are not very stiff as yet. Cattle feeding in this way can, as it were, lick up whole mouthfuls at a time or select only the smaller dainties with that wonderful instrument their tongue. Reaching the stable they are more disdainful, tossing out the sour hay from the manger, sniffing over the mangold, and trampling couch grass bedding underfoot. But, dark as it may be, they recognise you when you approach with a handful of new bran.

The frost has been hard enough to make the higher land fit for carting manure over, and not too hard to stop the plough where hands have been available to drive a furrow on our stiff marl clays. These cut now almost like a cheese, hard at the outer rind and mellow where the point of the share drives in. Withal, there is more company in the birds. They are tame while the frost pinches, and are busy in their separate, small parties about the barns. A pair of blackbirds run, flirting their tails and pecking almost everywhere, seemingly regardless of whether there is anything to pick up or not. But it is very difficult to tell what is in the mind – or the eye – of a bird.

In response to Dr Robin Shipp’s letter about the unfair requirements for charging electric cars (3 December), I’d like to point out one more: that you can’t pay cash for a charge. Whether you pay with a smartphone (that tracks you whenever it is operating), or with a proposed swipecard (that would track you whenever you use it), it does you wrong by tracking your movements. You can fill your car with gasoline anonymously, paying cash; electric cars should offer the same.

Related: Business secretary says electric vehicles at heart of industrial strategy

Guardian Australia has partnered with NDEVR Environmental to produce a quarterly report calculating progress towards keeping global warming below 2C

Australia is blowing its carbon budget, projections reveal

by Nick Evershed and Michael Slezak

Exclusive: In less than four years the country has ‘spent’ almost 20% of its greenhouse gas allowance to 2050, analysis shows

• Climate countdown: is Australia on track to avoid catastrophe?

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising despite global reduction efforts, according to detailed projections made by the consultants NDEVR Environmental.

Australia’s emissions jumped by 2.56m tonnes in the three months to September, putting them 1.55m tonnes off-track compared with commitments made in Paris, and 4.06m tonnes over levels demanded by scientifically based targets set by the government’s Climate Change Authority. Emissions for the year to September are above those for the year to September 2015.

The distribution of surplus food in Ireland is being transformed by FoodCloud. Killian Fox meets the duo behind the venture

“Within one community, there can be a business that’s throwing away perfectly good food and just around the corner there’s a charity that’s struggling to feed people in need,” says Iseult Ward of FoodCloud, a remarkable social enterprise which she co-founded with Aoibheann O’Brien in 2012. “We wanted to connect the two.”

Ward, who is 26, was studying business and economics at Trinity College, Dublin, where O’Brien, 31, was completing a masters in environmental science. Neither were particularly tech-savvy – they bonded over “a love for food and a distaste for waste” – but that didn’t deter them from using technology to address the problem. “We developed an app that would help businesses notify charities when they had surplus food available,” says Ward.

The official start of winter was heralded by days of sharp sunshine. Country Life’s editor at large celebrates the season’s natural beauty

Windscreens frozen, ground like iron, a vichyssoise of fog in the valleys – we’ve had the first intimations of a proper winter, and my friend’s blood is coursing. “Isn’t it the most exciting time of year?” he mumbled, from the depths of many layers of warm clothing. “I love the sharpness of the air, the crunch of frost underfoot.”

I’m with him. A lucky chum who has a house in the Caribbean told me about the temperature variance on Nevis; it will be 30C at Christmas, just as it was 30C in July. A superficially seductive prospect, I admit, but who wouldn’t rather have the drama of the changing year? Icicles hanging from the eaves, mulled wine simmering on the stove. As the 18th-century nature poet James Thomson put it, “Welcome kindred glooms!”

A Republican-led panel promoted a misleading tabloid story alleging earth may not be warming, relying on data that leaves out important points of context

Climate scientists have denounced the House committee on science, space and technology after the Republican-held panel promoted a misleading story expressing skepticism that the earth is dangerously warming.

On Thursday afternoon, the committee tweeted a Breitbart article alleging: “Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists”. The story linked to a British tabloid, the Daily Mail, which claimed that global land temperatures were plummeting, and that humans were not responsible for years of steadily increasing heat.

Safety issues force many reactors offline prompting warnings of power cuts across France, higher energy prices and a rise in emissions

The company building the UK’s first new nuclear power station for decades is facing questions over the health of its fleet of French nuclear plants after an investigation which has left the country with the lowest level of nuclear power for 10 years and the prospect of power cuts during a cold snap.

Thirteen of Électricité de France’s (EDF) 58 atomic plants are offline, some due to planned maintenance, but most for safety checks ordered by the regulator over anomalies discovered in reactor parts.

As a relatively new owner of a Nissan Leaf, I support entirely the need for adequate provision of charge points (Letters, 29 November). The ecotricity charging points at motorway services are great, even if they are now not free. But you can now only pay using a mobile phone app – not much use for my wife whose phone is too old to run the app, and not much use for anyone if their phone is lost or broken. What is wrong with a swipe card, as offered by Charge your Car at other charging points? But the biggest absurdity, as employed by all charging points, is that you pay by charging session, not by the amount of electricity you use. In a petrol or diesel car in an area with few fuel stations, you will top up whenever you have the opportunity even if it means putting in only, say, a quarter of a tank. Electric car users may need to follow that routine, but will have to pay the same however much electricity they need.
Dr Robin Shipp
Bristol

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