The evidence against the Drax power station is damning, yet the government wants to continue its massive public funding
How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.
Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus going until at least 2031.
Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/21/2025 - 04:00
06/21/2025 - 02:00
Research suggests longest day is a cue for beeches and other species to launch their growth strategies
For millennia, the summer solstice has marked a pivotal moment in the human calendar – a turning point steeped in mythology, when the oak king is said to yield to the holly king, and the days begin to shorten.
Now, science is increasingly revealing that trees really do respond to this celestial shift, with changes in their growth and reproductive strategies occuring immediately after the calendar’s longest day. A study gives fresh insights into why this happens, with implications for how forests might adapt to changing climates.
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06/20/2025 - 23:00
Residents of a Portuguese rural idyll where four vast mines are planned are among those who feel they will pay too high a cost for the energy transition
Filipe Gomes had been craving fresh air and quiet routine when he and his partner quit the chaos of London’s catering industry for the fog-misted hills of Covas do Barroso, the sleepy Portuguese farming village in which he was raised.
But his rural idyll has been disturbed by miners drilling boreholes as they push to dig four vast lithium mines right beside the village. The prospecting has sparked resistance from residents who fear the mines will foul the soil, drain the water and fill the air with the rumbling thunder of heavy trucks.
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06/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00134-5
Improving detectability of illegal fishing activities across supply chains
06/20/2025 - 15:11
Temperatures at or above 100F expected as extreme hot air and humidity are trapped in atmosphere
Scores of millions of people across the central and eastern US will swelter under the summer’s first “heat dome” beginning this weekend and extending through the end of next week as extreme hot air and humidity get trapped in the atmosphere.
The arrival of the heatwave coincides with Friday’s first day of summer and will bring temperatures at or above 100F (37.7C) to numerous cities as it moves to the east of the US in the coming days, forecasters say.
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06/20/2025 - 11:59
A cinematic immersive experience and stampeding animal puppets are bringing the climate emergency into the city
As parts of the UK swelter, this week brought yet more alarming reports of increasing temperatures, extreme weather events and dwindling chances of meeting the global 1.5C target. It was the UK’s warmest spring on record and its driest in more than 50 years.
Communicating the urgency of our predicament without provoking despair and hopelessness is an intractable challenge, especially when it comes to children. But two trail-blazing theatre experiences are bringing the breakdown of the natural world into urban metropolises, and raising the alarm with such immediacy that even those of us fortunate enough to live in places that have so far been relatively unaffected by the climate crisis must pay attention.
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06/20/2025 - 09:36
Court votes to back challenge to state waiver that allows it to set tougher car emission standards than federal limits
Fossil fuel companies are able to challenge California’s ability to set stricter standards reducing the amount of polluting coming from cars, the US supreme court has ruled in a case that is set to unravel one of the key tools used to curb planet-heating emissions in recent years.
The conservative-dominated supreme court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver that California has received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars. The state has separately stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035.
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06/20/2025 - 09:06
Residents of Bille and Ogale in Niger delta are suing Shell and subsidiary, but company denies liability
Residents of two Nigerian communities who are taking legal action against Shell over oil pollution are set to take their cases to trial at the high court in 2027.
Members of the Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger delta, which have a combined population of about 50,000, are suing Shell and a Nigerian-based subsidiary of the company, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, which is now the Renaissance Africa Energy Company.
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06/20/2025 - 07:00
One plant produces more arsenic pollution than any other in US, and the other has been slated for closure since 2021
The Trump administration is moving to keep open two Michigan coal plants that emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse gas pollution, which opponents say is an indication of how the US president plans to wield his controversial national energy emergency executive order.
Already, the US Department of Energy (DoE) has ordered the JH Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan to remain open beyond its 31 May closure date, while the administration is expected to prolong the life of the Monroe power plant on Lake Erie, currently scheduled to begin closing in 2028.
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06/20/2025 - 06:23
Four ducklings add to safety-net population of African species that is estimated to be down to 5,000 in the wild
Chester zoo has successfully hatched one of Africa’s rarest species of duck for the first time.
It said the successful breeding of four maccoa ducklings formed part of growing efforts to safeguard Africa’s most threatened species.
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