With forests under pressure from drought, heat, disease and deer, a study has found fewer trees across a range of species surviving to maturity. But scientists say there is still hope
To the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.
But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/09/2025 - 23:09
People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists measure.
07/09/2025 - 09:06
Record temperatures and seasonal downpours raise fears of a repeat of the devastating flooding in 2022
Glaciers across northern Pakistan have been melting at an accelerated pace as a result of record-breaking summer temperatures, leading to deadly flash flooding and landslides.
The floods and heavy monsoon rains have caused devastation across the country this summer, killing at least 72 people and injuring more than 130 since the rains began in late June.
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07/09/2025 - 07:07
Mayor urges people to exercise utmost caution as weather service says situation around Mediterranean is critical
More than 15,000 residents of Marseille confined to their homes have been allowed out after a wildfire on the outskirts of France’s second city was brought under control, but officials have warned the country faces an exceptionally high-risk summer.
Fanned by gale-force winds and kindled by parched vegetation, several fires have burned swathes of southern France in recent days, including Tuesday’s just north of the port city. The weather service has said the weeks ahead could be critical.
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07/09/2025 - 07:00
Greenery, shade and swimming spots won’t solve the climate crisis, but they’re becoming ever more critical
Three years ago, in Zurich for the first time, I crossed a bridge over the Limmat River and saw people floating down it in rubber rings on their way home from work, some casually holding beers. The Limmat is so clear that it almost begs you not only to jump in, but to drink it.
Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin has never produced either desire in me – but sweltering in last week’s 38C heat, I wanted to close my eyes, pretend it was the Limmat, and leap. Others weren’t so hesitant; there was a line of people going up one of the footbridges over the canal waiting for their turn to jump, dive, backflip or just belly-flop into the water.
Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist
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07/09/2025 - 05:13
Regulator and government accused of colluding with water industry to dump potentially toxic waste without oversight
Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year
‘A Trojan horse’: how toxic sewage sludge became a threat to the future of British farming
An Environment Agency (EA) insider has broken ranks to expose what they describe as a “deliberate and ongoing cover-up” of the public health and environmental dangers of spreading sewage sludge on farmland.
They accuse the regulator and government of colluding with water companies for years to facilitate the dumping of waste under the guise of soil enrichment – without oversight, transparency or testing.
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07/09/2025 - 05:00
With less congestion, less carbon pollution, less accidents, could it be a model for other US cities? Six months in, environmentalists say yes
It has faced threats and lawsuits and even had its death proclaimed by Donald Trump as he startlingly depicted himself as a king in a social media post. But New York City’s congestion charge scheme for cars has now survived its first six months, producing perhaps the fastest ever environmental improvement from any policy in US history.
New York vaulted into a global group of cities – such as London, Singapore and Stockholm – that charge cars for entering their traffic-clogged metropolitan hearts but also ushered in a measure that was unknown to Americans and initially unpopular with commuters, and was confronted by a new Trump administration determined to tear it down.
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07/09/2025 - 00:00
Mass lobby in Westminster is kicked off with giant image on cliffs of Dover stating ‘89% of people want climate action’
More than 5,000 people from across the UK arrived in Westminster on Wednesday to meet their MPs and demand urgent climate action to protect their communities.
The mass lobby is one of the largest to date. The constituents, including parents and pensioners, doctors, teachers, farmers and youth campaigners, have arranged to lobby at least 500 MPs, about 80% of the total.
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07/08/2025 - 23:00
Heat caused 2,300 deaths across 12 cities, of which 1,500 were down to climate crisis, scientists say
Planet-heating pollution tripled the death toll from the “quietly devastating” heatwave that seared Europe at the end of June, early analysis covering a dozen cities has found, as experts warned of a worsening health crisis that is being overlooked.
Scientists estimate that high heat killed 2,300 people across 12 major cities as temperatures soared across Europe between 23 June and 2 July. They attributed 1,500 of the deaths to climate breakdown, which has heated the planet and made the worst extremes even hotter.
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07/08/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 09 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00139-0
Human-wildlife coexistence through the lens of fishermen’s knowledge and lived experience
