A third runway would fly in the face of reason. If we are to prioritise human life over short-term ‘growth’, we need to use planes less, not more
If a third runway is built at Heathrow, what will be the impact on the wealth of the nation? It will cost us somewhere between £23.4bn and £62.5bn. These are not my figures; they weren’t calculated by environmental groups, but by the Department for Transport.
For decades, government ministers have told us that airport expansion is essential for “growth”. As chancellor, Rachel Reeves claimed that a third runway at Heathrow would add 0.43% to GDP, figures we later discovered came from a report commissioned by the airport. The transport department’s own analysis concluded that the real addition to GDP would be between 0.03% and 0.05%: eight to 14 times less. Against this, it weighed the social and environmental costs of the project, to reveal a massive net loss. It found that a third runway would cause major harm to the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million local people.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/03/2026 - 02:00
10/03/2026 - 01:00
Citizen environmentalists create online platform that flags spills in real time and highlights repeatedly polluted spots
The easy thing for the people who live on the banks of the River Dart in Devon might have been to grumble and groan about the sewage spills that blight their beloved waterway.
Instead, citizen environmentalists in the area have created a unique online platform that flags up spills in real time, highlights spots that are repeatedly polluted, and sets out where improvement work is planned – and where it isn’t.
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10/03/2026 - 00:00
Climate crisis blamed as virus that originated in Africa spreads to livestock as far north as Aberdeenshire
British farmers are experiencing the worst bluetongue season on record, with the number of cases surpassing the past three years combined.
The viral disease, which affects sheep and cattle among other animals, can cause fevers, ulcers, a swollen head and lameness. The tongue may go blue and even protrude from the mouth. In the most severe cases, the animal can die.
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10/03/2026 - 00:00
A caiman wearing a wig, two brown bears laughing and a leopard doing a handstand feature in the selection of finalists from this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife awards. Winners will be announced on 8 December
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10/02/2026 - 21:00
With 40 dead and a disaster declared across all 50 city districts, experts warn extreme flooding will only worsen across south-east Asia
Bangkok is used to absorbing the sudden afternoon downpours that inundate the city during the rainy season. Even streets in many central high-rise districts can briefly turn into rivers, with rats and cockroaches racing out of sewers and taking temporary refuge on trees and buildings as the subterranean world is flushed out.
But every city has a breaking point, and this year rain fell so fast and so hard that whole neighbourhoods of the Thai capital have been transformed, not into rivers, but stagnant lakes. In parts of the city, roughly 300mm of rain – the equivalent of half a year of average rainfall in London – fell in about two days.
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10/02/2026 - 08:01
Imagine the UK with a 20-year investment plan, with green homes and fast transport. We already have the tools to make it happen
You’ve just left school. What’s your future?
I know a physics graduate making flat whites; a 30-year-old living in his childhood bedroom who feels like a failure; a lad in Blyth who turned down a job 15 miles away because there’s no bus, and for young people his age car insurance is almost £2,000 a year. Britain’s young people are our greatest resource, and we are failing them because capital markets won’t allocate investment where it is needed. Saying “hope” in a conference speech sounds warm. But people need a plan.
Jamie Driscoll is a Green party councillor on Newcastle city council and former North of Tyne mayor
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10/02/2026 - 03:58
Up to 300mm of rain could fall in places, while extreme downpours bring landslides and deaths in Nepal
Torrential rain and potentially damaging flooding are forecast in eastern Spain over the coming days, as cold upper air moves over the warm, humid surface air of the Mediterranean Sea, fuelling violent, slow-moving thunderstorms near Spain’s east coast. The weather pattern, known as a Dana, occurs most often in autumn.
Models show more than 100mm of rain could fall across the region on Friday, with 200-300mm possible in some areas. Cities including Valencia and Castelló de la Plana, are most at risk. Valencia has experienced several damaging floods in recent years. Catalonia has now put three towns under lockdown and Valencia has shut schools for nearly half a million children.
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10/02/2026 - 02:00
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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10/02/2026 - 00:00
‘Day-to-day’ symptom of harmful emissions, which in turn can disrupt sleep, can be overlooked, say researchers
New research has found that increased air pollution is associated with more night-time coughing, leading to disturbed sleep.
Most air pollution research looks at symptoms that are severe enough for people to seek medical help, but day-to-day symptoms can be overlooked. Prof Cecilia Mascolo, who led the study from the University of Cambridge, said: “I come from an area in Italy with very high pollution and I am very aware of its not-talked-about effects.”
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10/01/2026 - 21:00
EU Copernicus report shows surface air temperatures from June to August were 2.5C above decadal average
The scorching heat that persistently baked western Europe this summer was the worst on record, a report has found, with more than half the continent seared by “very strong” heat stress that felt hotter than 38C.
Surface air temperatures in western Europe from June to August were 2.5C above the recent decadal average, according to an update from the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service on Friday, while milder but still deadly heat across the rest of the continent made the summer Europe’s third hottest on record.
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