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Farming Simulator lets customers test out new trailers, balers and other machinery before buying the real thing

Tractors are commonly sold to farmers at agricultural fairs and announced in the trade press. But machinery makers are falling over themselves to get a slice of a much more unlikely advertising vehicle: the Farming Simulator video game.

The developers, Giants Software, now receive hundreds of queries a year from manufacturers of equipment – from tractors and combine harvesters to trailers, balers and seed drills – about how they can feature in the game, where players create their own virtual farm.

After a long hiatus, the epic Ocean Race is back – but this year, as well as dodging icebergs, cracking masts and suffering the occasional ‘hull sandwich failure’, the teams are gathering crucial data from places even research vessels rarely reach

The Southern Ocean is not somewhere most people choose to spend an hour, let alone a month. Circling the icy continent of Antarctica, it is the planet’s wildest and most remote ocean. Point Nemo – just to the north in the South Pacific – is the farthest location from land on Earth, 1,670 miles (2,688km) away from the closest shore. The nearest humans are generally those in the International Space Station when it passes overhead.

But on 21 March, four sailing teams came through here – part of a marathon race round the bottom of the Earth, from Cape Town in South Africa to Itajaí in Brazil.

The Georgia activist on why she is leaving campaign politics behind to focus on weaning America off fossil fuels

Stacey Abrams has been hailed as a masterly community organizer, after she helped turn out the voters that secured two Senate seats for Democrats in once solidly red Georgia. She has also run twice – unsuccessfully – for state governor. For her next move, she’s not focusing on electoral power so much as power itself.

Recently she left the world of campaign politics and took a job as senior counsel for the non-profit Rewiring America. Her role will focus on helping thousands of people across America wean their homes and businesses off fossil fuels and on to electricity, at a moment when scientists have given a “final warning” about the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global catastrophe.

Non-binding commitments, paucity of scientific data and poor representation of global south left a lot to be desired at summit

The first global water conference in almost half a century has concluded with the creation of a new UN envoy for water and hundreds of non-binding pledges that if fulfilled would edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation.

The three-day summit in New York spurred almost 700 commitments from local and national governments, non-profits and some businesses to a new Water Action Agenda, and progress on the hotchpotch of voluntary pledges will be monitored at future UN gatherings. A new scientific panel on water will also be created by the UN.

Barrels of the toxic chemical were dumped along the Pacific coast decades ago. New research shows the material never broke down

For years industrial companies in southern California used the coast as a dumping ground for toxic chemical waste, including DDT. Decades later, scientists have found that the pesticide remains in high concentrations on the ocean floor and has never broken down.

Nearly two years after the discovery of tens of thousands of barrels of waste off the coast of Los Angeles, a scientist working on the issue shared this week that the chemical is still spread across a vast stretch of the seafloor, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Australia Museum says 20-year-old collection will help understand and conserve threatened animals, which are sensitive to climate change

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As floods devastated Lismore, a group of ecologists waited anxiously for a break in the weather so they could move an important scientific collection of “spectacular” spiny crayfish to a new home at the Australian Museum.

The samples of the crayfish were collected more than 20 years ago from deep within the rainforests of north-eastern NSW and southern Queensland by Dr Jason Coughran, a freshwater ecologist.

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Adult fall-run Chinook salmon returned to California’s rivers in near record low numbers in 2022

As drought dried up rivers that carry California’s newly hatched Chinook salmon to the ocean, state officials in recent years have resorted to loading up the fish by the millions on to trucks and barges to take them to the Pacific.

The surreal and desperate scramble boosted the survival rate of the hatchery-raised fish, but still it was not enough to reverse the declining stocks in the face of added challenges.

Exclusive: Labour decries ‘climate vandalism’ as launch plans signal intention to boost fossil fuel industry

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The government is planning to launch its revamped net zero strategy from the UK’s oil and gas capital, Aberdeen, in a clear signal of its intention to boost the fossil fuel industry while cutting key green measures, the Guardian has learned.

Next week’s launch was originally called “green day” in Whitehall, but has been rebranded as “energy security day” and will focus on infrastructure. Campaigners have called the move a travesty.

Ministers will refuse to force oil and gas companies to stop flaring by 2025, as recommended in the review of net zero by Chris Skidmore earlier this year.

Ofgem will not gain important powers to include the net zero target in its regulation of the energy sector, effectively defanging the regulator.

No overarching new office for net zero, as recommended in the Skidmore review.

No compulsion on housebuilders to fit rooftop solar to new housing.

No comprehensive nationwide programme for insulation of the UK’s draughty housing stock, as green groups have been calling for. Instead, the strongest insulation measure is likely to be a consultation on the private rented sector.

The Treasury, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Business and Trade are at war over whether to introduce carbon border taxes.

Major roles for carbon capture and storage technology and hydrogen, which could boost the oil and gas industry with questionable gains for the environment.

The potential licensing of a massive new oilfield, Rosebank, under cover of investing in carbon capture and storage technology, which campaigners warn is “greenwash”.

Crown estate leases seabed rights to new projects as oil firms look to replace gas and diesel generators

The Scottish government will earn more than £260m after agreeing to lease areas of its seabed to floating offshore wind projects that can power oil and gas rigs.

In a world first, Crown Estate Scotland gave the green light for companies to help trim the North Sea’s carbon emissions by developing floating windfarms that can directly supply oil and gas platforms with renewable electricity.

The owner of Paloma salon in Paddington has organised seminars for hairdressers across Sydney to instruct them on how to talk to their clients about climate action. Owner Paloma Rose Garcia started the A Brush with Climate workshops – navigating how to discuss science and solutions with clients – after she 'really understood that there is a unique opportunity that hairdressers have to hold meaningful conversation and assist the community with understanding more about climate and what they can do in their everyday life'

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• Wash, blow dry and 1.5 degrees please: hairdressers trained to talk about climate action

The owner of Paloma salon in Paddington has organised seminars for hairdressers across Sydney to instruct them on how to talk to their clients about climate action. Owner Paloma Rose Garcia started the A Brush with Climate workshops – navigating how to discuss science and solutions with clients – after she 'really understood that there is a unique opportunity that hairdressers have to hold meaningful conversation and assist the community with understanding more about climate and what they can do in their everyday life'

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Residents in several low-lying communities told to evacuate after flooding caused by rainfall and snowmelt

At least three people were found dead this week after their vehicles were swept away by floodwaters in Arizona, authorities said.

Gila county sheriff’s officials said the bodies of a couple missing after their vehicle was stuck in floodwaters in the Payson area were located on Thursday. They were identified as Phon Sutton, 85, and Dara Sutton, 72, both of Payson, Arizona.

Test relies on visual inspection of ash to then check soil for toxins, which is ‘unlikely to give a complete picture’ of contamination

A plan to test for toxic dioxins near the site of a February train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, is flawed and unlikely to find the dangerous substances, independent chemical pollution researchers in the US who reviewed the testing protocol told the Guardian.

Initial soil testing already revealed dioxin levels hundreds of times above the threshold that Environmental Protection Agency scientists have found poses a cancer risk, but that sampling was limited in scope.

Arcadis will largely rely on visual inspections of the ground to find evidence of dioxins, instead of systematically testing soil samples that may contain the compounds, which is standard protocol.

The plan does not say how low the levels of dioxin the company will check for will be.

Testing will only be conducted up to two miles from the accident site when ash has been found up to 20 miles away.

The testing is limited to soil and does not include food or water.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a rescued sloth, a baby nutria and a patient frog

Exclusive: Report says 435,000 hectares have been degraded through logging since 2000, affecting 244 threatened species

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More than half of the forests and woodland in New South Wales that existed before European invasion are now gone and more than a third of what’s left is degraded, according to new research.

Despite the loss of 29m hectares of forest since 1750 – an area larger than New Zealand – continued logging since 2000 had likely affected about 244 threatened species.

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Report also suggests migration could help ensure UK has necessary skills to meet government’s 2050 net zero target

New climate visas should be created to allow victims of natural disasters to come to the UK, and to bring in skilled workers needed for the transition to net zero, a Conservative thinktank has argued.

Onward, whose co-founder Will Tanner recently became Rishi Sunak’s deputy chief of staff, is urging the government to prepare for the likely increase in global migration as a result of the climate crisis.

Accounts of global impact of floods, droughts and storms at New York meeting add to pressure to make water central to Cop28

Water is at the heart of the climate crisis, with an increasingly dire carousel of droughts, floods and sea level rise felt “making our planet uninhabitable” the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, has warned.

On the second day of the first UN water conference in almost half a century, countries lined up to describe how they are suffering from water disasters linked to human-made global heating. “We seem to either have too much water, or too little,” said Senzo Mchunu, South Africa’s water minister. “We will fail on climate change if we fail on water.”

With the domestic market in long-term decline, whalers and restaurants are working with the Japan travel bureau in a bid to win over skeptical visitors

The anticipation is building in the private, tatami-mat room at Murasaki, a restaurant in Osaka. At one end sit a handful of Japanese journalists; on the other, executives from the country’s biggest whaling company and officials from the travel industry.

In the middle, six hand-picked social influencers from Thailand, France, Russia and South Korea take their places around a hori-zataku table and wait for the first of several courses devoted to Japan’s most controversial cuisine: whale meat.

Being part of the People’s Plan for Nature, it was illuminating to see how people could reach consensus

The People’s Plan for Nature, launched on Thursday, sets out the public’s recommendations for reversing massive declines in Britain’s nature. One hundred people were invited to come together, in a citizens’ assembly, to agree on a plan for how to renew and protect nature. Their recommendations include calls for access to nature to be a human right, the urgent restoration of rivers, transparency from supermarkets and a cross-party commitment to farming for nature. One of the assembly members, Sara Hudston, here shares her views on taking part in the process.

I first heard of the People’s Plan for Nature early last autumn, but I didn’t intend to take part because I thought it looked too simplistic. It began with a national callout for ideas about how nature might be renewed, which I felt lacked urgency and wasn’t enough given the scale of biodiversity loss in the UK.

Community members react after a town meeting at the Menindee civic hall which was held to address concerns relating to the cleanliness and security of the water of the town following the deaths of millions of fish in the Darling-Baaka river.  'A lot of the people who were here wanted answer to why another fish kill occurred. Why solutions weren't put in place after the last fish kill,' says the NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, who attended the meeting

• Menindee residents ask officials to drink town’s water as reassurance after massive fish kill
• Flood and heat: why millions of fish are dying in western NSW