In the news
Here are some news items on biodiversity, climate change, and other ecological topics which have caught our attention.
Note: we can only include links that can be viewed without a subscription.
July 29th, 2026: Half of England officially in ‘exceptionally serious’ drought
July 29th, 2026: Organic eggs have worse impact on climate than eggs from caged chickens, because more chickens are needed to produce the same number of eggs. This rather inconvenient truth comes from a study from Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. We may have to consider tradeoffs between bio-ethics and the climate crisis. However the study did admit that it was based on factory farming data from 2009-10 which may not include the latest developments. It also did not factor in other environmental impacts such as pesticides and biodiversity.
July 26th 2026. Ed Miliband indicates development and climate will be at heart of UK foreign policy
National Emergency Briefing Parliamentary Call for a Televised Emergency Briefing. This is an invitation for you to write to your MP, and also allows you to check on whether your MP has joined the call, and it guides you to ask your MP if not.
https://www.nebriefing.org/parliamentary-call
July 23rd, 2026: Besieged by lobbyists, will UK ministers protect our ecosystems? No, they’ll chicken out. This article by George Monbiot relates to intensive chicken farming and its effect on the environment. He says that intensive chicken farms create more dung than fields can absorb, and the runoff damages rivers and streams.
There was a contrary view in two letters on July 29th: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/28/chicken-farms-and-the-reality-of-food-production-in-britain . There must be some evidence somewhere about the effect of intensive chicken farms on nearby rivers. This debate may run on.
July 17th, 2026. Southern Water fined £7m after illegally dumping sewage off Kent coast. This relates to spills between 2019 and 2021. From the article: “The judge said Southern Water was a very large organisation with annual revenue over the last three years of between £800m and £1bn, and had 174 previous convictions, occurring every year from 1999 to 2016 and as recently as April this year.”.
July 16th, 2026: The ‘magic dust’ saving trees and reducing carbon emission. Basalt dust has been found to accelerate the growth of, and increase the carbon sequestered by, trees planted for carbon offsets.
https://www.channel4.com/news/the-magic-dust-saving-trees-and-reducing-carbon-emission
There are many other sources online describing the chemical reaction between basalt, one of the most common minerals in the earth’s crust, and carbon dioxide, such as this one: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/Stories/9-ways-to-remove-carbon-dioxide-from-the-air-7/ It has been proposed elsewhere as a simple way to remove carbon dioxide, although if it is mined and crushed specifically for that purpose, then the carbon cost of doing that must be factored in.
July 15th 2026: State of the UK Climate
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/about/state-of-climate
July 15th, 2026. The Ezra Klein show (podcast) with Bill McKibben: the very good and very bad news on climate
July 14th 2026: A parliamentary debate about extreme heat preparedness. Those who signed Chris Packham’s petition for a debate about alerting the public to the dangers caused by climate change were sent a link to this, although it is not clear that this debate was about that. It only focusses on heat. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-07-14/debates/B155CB0B-23CF-4EDD-8C08-DCCF330F7DFD/ExtremeHeatPreparedness
July 14th, 2026. Chichester District Council’s new biodiversity action plan.
https://chichester.gov.uk/biodiversity
July 13th, 2026: May and June heatwaves killed about 2,700 people in England and Wales, data suggests
July 11th, 2026: The 13 biggest myths about heatwaves – and how to bust them. Prof Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading responds to some common myths about climate change.
July 9th, 2026: ‘It makes your heart sing’: can a pioneering project show that rewilding really works?
June 30th, 2026: ‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?
June 12th, 2026: Growing anger on Isle of Wight over sewage releases
https://www.channel4.com/news/growing-anger-on-isle-of-wight-over-sewage-releases
June 9th, 2026: World’s largest banks pledged $906bn to fossil fuel companies in ‘unfathomable’ increase in 2025, report finds
June 6th, 2026: ‘Immediate national priority’: ministers accused of complacency over UK food supply. The cold storage and logistics body warns food supplies are at risk from fuel shortages, cyber attacks and extreme weather.
June 4th, 2026: An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival. A global report by the World Inequality Lab provides an alternative to climate breakdown, political extremism and economic tensions.
May 15th, 2026: 'Don't swim' at 12 of 14 river bathing sites, as more locations announced. Signs warning people not to swim are in place at almost all of England's official inland river bathing sites due to concerns the water could be unsafe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgzvqq9345o
May 8th, 2026: ‘A share in the delight’: the people investing in the UK’s first community-owned solar battery. Oxfordshire’s Ray Valley Solar already generates clean energy for 7,000 homes, and is now crowdfunding storage to marry daylight with evening demand.
30 April 2026: Santa Marta: Key outcomes from first summit on ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels. Santa Marta was an inaugural conference of the ‘coalition of the willing’ to make changes for climate change. This coalition (which includes the UK) is one of the brightest hopes yet for real change.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/santa-marta-key-outcomes-from-first-summit-on-transitioning-away-from-fossil-fuels/ This article was written before the conference on 7th April: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/07/iran-war-oil-phase-out-fossil-fuels
21st April 2026: Experts call for restrictions on pet flea treatments that harm UK songbirds
20th April 2026: How an activist changed UK climate law. Sarah Finch’s fight against drilling led to a landmark ruling on fossil fuel emissions – and a leading environmental prize
17th April 2026: A new Sussex Inshore Fisheries bye-law has been announced, excluding trawling from most of the Beachy Head East Marine Conservation Zone.
https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/good-reef
16th April 2026: Bad news about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which brings a huge amount of heat to the UK, and is responsible for our climate being much warmer than equivalent latitudes in North America.
https://www.channel4.com/news/collapse-of-critical-atlantic-current-more-likely-than-thought
10th April 2026: In a village in Norway, humans representing flora and fauna of all kinds meet to reimagine ‘nature-centric governance’
1st April,2026: ERA’s Veronica Carter is interviewed by Claire Fallon at Channel 4 News about our river monitoring work.
28th February 2026:Dirty water, death and decline: the inside story of a privatisation scandal
December 5th, 2025. A trial in Scotland combining tidal power, battery storage and clean hydrogen generation. https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/energy-storage/emec-demonstration-work-battery-storage-tidal-power-hydrogen-project-scotland
23rd November 2025: A lack of leadership proved to be the ultimate stumbling block for Cop30
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/cop30-brazil-climate-amazon-trump-b2870554.html
6th November 2025: Flooded UK coalmines could provide low-carbon cheap heat ‘for generations’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/06/flooded-uk-coalmines-low-carbon-cheap-heat
2025 Food waste statistics: we happened across this page with some staggering information colleced by Waste Managed, a commercial company..
This organisation works to reduce food waste. https://www.wrap.ngo/what-we-do/future-proof-food/reducing-food-waste
27th October 2025: Inventor up for the Earthshot prize for microplastic filters:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78z9j7kd4do
13th October 2025: Sewage in the Lymington river identified by E. coli testing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4pleje0dmo
8th October 2025: Water agreement to allow 21,000 new homes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2r8dr6y1yo
8th October 2025: River Wye: Thousands join UK’s biggest environmental lawsuit
https://www.channel4.com/news/river-wye-thousands-join-uks-biggest-environmental-lawsuit
27th September 2025: E. coli warning on the River Ouse:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c79vx0zd9ylo
24th September 2025: Almost 1.5m homes could be built on brownfield sites in England, report finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/24/almost-15m-homes-could-be-built-on-brownfield-sites-in-england-report-finds
23rd September 2025: A podcast showing the appalling conditions in Turkey’s waste treatment centres, where UK waste goes: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/23/boy-wasted-podcast-uk-rubbish-turkey-recycling-centres
12th September 2025: The ‘silent majority’ who care about the climate crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/24/climate-crisis-silent-majority-quotes
12th September 2025: Waterways failing to support wildlife
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c864321n155o?app-referrer=deep-link
12th September 2025: Thousands of tonnes of toxic landfill liquid added to sewage and spread on English farms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/12/toxic-landfill-liquid-sewage-spread-farms-england
15th August 2025: Petrostates blocked a global plastics deal, but we must not despair - Editorial
30th July 2025: Council recognises right of River Test to flow unimpeded and unpolluted