Sea level rise driven by global heating will disrupt the daily life of millions of Americans, as hundreds of homes, schools and government buildings face frequent and repeated flooding by 2050, a new study has found.

Almost 1,100 critical infrastructure assets that sustain coastal communities will be at risk of monthly flooding by 2050, according to the new research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The vast majority of the assets – 934 of them – face the risk of flood disruption every other week, which could make some coastal neighborhoods unlivable within two to three decades.

Almost 3 million people currently live in the 703 US coastal communities with critical infrastructure at risk of monthly disruptive flooding by 2050, including affordable and subsidized housing, wastewater treatment facilities, toxic industrial sites, power plants, fire stations, schools, kindergartens and hospitals.

The number of critical infrastructure assets at risk of disruptive flooding is expected to nearly double compared to 2020, even when assuming a medium rate of climate-driven sea level rise (rather than the worst case scenario).

California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey have the most critical infrastructure that needs to be made more flood resilient – or be relocated to safer ground.

Within states, the burden of coastal flooding will not be equal: more than half the critical assets facing frequent flooding by 2050 are located in communities already disadvantaged by historic and current structural racism, discrimination and pollution, the UCS analysis found.

Disadvantaged coastal communities with infrastructure at risk of flooding have higher proportions of Black, Latino and Native American residents. Public and affordable housing represents the single most at-risk infrastructure in these communities.

Routine flooding of critical infrastructure could lead to some of the most vulnerable and underserved children being forced to travel further for school and medical appointments, as well as the contamination of local water supplies by the flooding of polluted soil, according to Juan Declet-Barreto, a report author and senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at UCS.

“Failing to prioritize resilience solutions in these communities risks reinforcing the harmful legacy of environmental racism and colonialism in places already grossly underserved and overlooked,” said Declet-Barreto.

The report, Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience, comes at a critical juncture for the climate emergency amid spiraling fossil fuel production in countries like the US, UK, Norway, Canada, China and Brazil – and deadly heat, floods and drought striking communities across the world with increased frequency and intensity. Meanwhile, the devastating consequences of slow-onset climate disasters such as desertification, melting glaciers and sea level rise are also driving rising costs, the loss of homes and livelihoods, as well as forced displacement for communities across the world.

The world’s oceans are rising, and every year seawater reaches farther inland, which poses an ever-increasing threat to homes, businesses and critical infrastructure. By 2030, the number of critical buildings and facilities at risk of routine and repeat flooding along US coastlines is expected to grow by 20% compared to 2020 conditions.

In Charleston, South Carolina, more than 20 high-tide floods were recorded in 2023, sending seawater into the streets and submerging low-lying areas. By 2050, at least 23 essential pieces of infrastructure in Charleston are expected to flood at least twice annually, assuming a medium sea level rise scenario. This includes 17 public housing buildings, which would exacerbate the state’s affordable housing crisis.

UCS researchers identified the critical infrastructure along the entire contiguous US, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, which face risk of routine flooding, using data including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tide gauges and three sea level rise scenarios developed by a US Interagency Task Force.

Critical infrastructure includes buildings and facilities that provide functions necessary to sustain daily life – or that if flooded, could unleash environmental hazards. The full impact of coastal flooding is likely to be significantly worse, as drinking water facilities, bus and metro stations, and retirement and care facilities for older adults were not included in the UCS study.

The analysis looks at flooding driven solely by sea level rise and tidal heights. Other climate-related drivers including storm surge, and heavy rainfall which can – and do – increase the risk of disruptive flooding were not included in the study.

The risk of coastal flooding is rising every year. The amount of sea level rise by century’s end will ultimately depend on the world’s willingness to curtail or continue releasing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. But without urgent action to reinforce critical infrastructure, the number of schools, apartment blocks, energy facilities and government buildings at risk of disruptive flooding is expected to rise by at least sevenfold by 2100, according to the UCS analysis.

Almost 7.5 million people currently live in the 1,758 coastal communities with critical infrastructure at risk of frequent and repeated flooding by the turn of the century. Assuming a medium-case scenario, around 4,800 buildings and facilities on US coastlines face the threat of disruptive fooding every fortnight by 2100.

“Even if their homes stay dry, disruptive flooding of vital infrastructure could leave people essentially stranded within their communities or enduring intolerable and even unlivable conditions,” said Erika Spanger, a co-author and director of strategic climate analytics at UCS. “There’s a rapidly approaching deadline for many coastal communities that demands urgent attention.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the far right National Rally (RN) party and the leftwing New Popular Front coalition – both of which are frontrunners in the parliamentary election – risked bringing “civil war” to France.

Macron told the podcast Generation Do It Yourself that the manifesto of the RN party – which election pollsters put in first place – and their solutions to deal with fears over crime and immigration were based upon “stigmatisation or division”.

“I think that the solutions given by the far right are out of the question, because it is categorising people in terms of their religion or origins and that is why it leads to division and to civil war,” he told the podcast.

Macron made the same criticism of the extreme leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI) party, which forms part of the New Popular Front coalition.

“But that one as well, there is a civil war behind that because you are solely categorising people in terms of their religious outlook or the community they belong to, which in a way is a means of justifying isolating them from the broader national community, and in this case, you would have a civil war with those who do not share those same values,” said Macron.

Asked to respond to Macron’s comments, RN president Jordan Bardella – seen as a possible prime minister if the RN wins the most votes in the election – replied to M6 TV: “A president should not say that.“

France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon also condemned Macron’s comments in an interview with France 2 TV, saying it was Macron’s own policies that were bringing about civil unrest, for example in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

Macron’s comments were broadcast hours after the RN released its election manifesto, which promises to limit immigration and scrap nationality rights for children born and raised in France by foreign parents.

At the manifesto launch in Paris, Bardella said the party’s long-term priority was to “put France back on its feet” by introducing what he called “a necessary law against Islamist ideologies”. The details of this project were not spelled out.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law, in a deal that could end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia.

US prosecutors said in court papers that Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Assange is due to be sentenced at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9am local time on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday). Under the deal, which must be approved by a judge, he is likely to be credited for the five years he has already served and face no new jail time.

WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history – along with swaths of diplomatic cables.

An Australian government spokesperson did not confirm or deny the plea deal but said Canberra was “aware” of the legal proceedings, adding: “prime minister [Anthony] Albanese has been clear – Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.”

The plea agreement comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the US push to prosecute Assange.

Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump’s administration over WikiLeaks’ mass release of secret US documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts such as a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters news staff. That video was released in 2010.

The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of WikiLeaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech.

Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex-crime allegations that were later dropped.

He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden.

He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in London’s Belmarsh top security jail ever since, from where he has for almost five years been fighting extradition to the US. The hearing is taking place in the Mariana Islands because of Assange’s opposition to travelling to the continental US and the court’s proximity to Australia.

While in Belmarsh, Assange married his partner Stella with whom he had two children while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offences for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks.

President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven years behind bars.

Reuters contributed to this report

Just when Luka Modric and Croatia looked ready for one last dance, the rug was pulled away. A beautifully curled equaliser from the Italy substitute Mattia Zaccagni, with virtually the last kick of eight minutes added time, sent Luciano Spalletti’s holders through and surely means Croatia are out. They seemed to have just written a stunning new chapter when Modric blasted in 33 seconds after missing a penalty. Italy barely came close after that until Zaccagni sparked scenes of disbelief in a stadium packed with Croatia supporters who had been ready to party into the Saxon night.

The cruellest of endings looked likely for Modric when, early in the second half, he fired a penalty too close to Gianluigi Donnarumma. Within 33 seconds, though, he had wrought a moment for the record books. In the next attack he thrashed in a rebound to become, two and a half months shy of his 39th birthday, the European Championships’ oldest goalscorer.

If nothing else, the mathematics behind Croatia’s task were uncomplicated at the outset. This was essentially a straight knockout, unless an improbable set of results came to pass elsewhere, and not one they could take to extra time or penalties. Their ability to go the distance is legendary but only a shorter, sharper shock to a similarly nervy Italy would do here. Zlatko Dalic needed to freshen up a team that had struggled against Albania’s energy so it was little surprise that he rotated in four positions, the forwards Mario Pasalic and Luka Sucic given their first starts of the tournament.

The margin between success and failure for Italy was blurrier. A point would do; anything less would at best consign them to 48 hours chewing on the third-place lottery. Spalletti bore out his promise to shake things up: they had been outplayed by Spain but the intention behind three changes here and a switch to 3-5-2, Giacomo Raspadori and Mateo Retegui deployed as strike partners, was that they asserted themselves.

It was Croatia, though, who began on the front foot. Their support, numerically dominant by a distance, had lit up Leipzig in the previous 24 hours and in the fifth minute Sucic lined up a firecracker of his own. The Red Bull Salzburg player, who at 21 is chief among the prospects Croatia hope will take the baton from their celebrated old guard, cut inside and demanded a flying tip-over from Donnarumma with a rising 25-yard drive.

Spalletti had admitted, in previewing the match, that in some aspects Croatia were a more skilful and technical side than his own. It appeared that way early on, Dalic’s players evidently the more practised at working the ball in tight spaces. Josko Gvardiol earned approval from the chequered throngs with smart footwork in his own half; an incisive move at the other end resulted in Matteo Darmian stretching to stop Pasalic converting an Andrej Kramaric centre.

Italy were finding space with the occasional quick switch out wide and, as the 20-minute mark passed, claimed a foothold. A towering Retegui headed wide, via a snick off Gvardiol, having seemingly done the hard work in meeting Riccardo Calafiori’s delicious left-sided cross. It sparked a prolonged period of pressure that brought three corners and, from the last of them, an even better opportunity to score. Alessandro Bastoni had nobody near him at the far post when Nicolò Barella chipped the ball back across but his header was marginally too close to Dominik Livakovic, whose reflex stop was nonetheless mightily sharp.

Now it became a genuine knife-edge affair. Both teams were snapping, hustling, prowling with intent. Smoke drifted through the air from a series of fireworks set off behind Livakovic’s goal; Donnarumma beat away a driven cross from Modric and, shortly afterwards, his counterpart did well to hold a low effort from Lorenzo Pellegrini. For all the questions asked, no resolution lay in sight when the interval arrived.

Nine minutes into the second half, Croatia had one in view. What a staggering sequence of play it was, and what testament to Modric’s career. Who would have bet on him failing to score from the spot when the referee, Danny Makkelie, awarded a penalty after Kramaric’s shot flicked the arm of the substitute Davide Frattesi?

It took a VAR check but Croatia’s vehement appeals were grounded in reality: Frattesi’s limb was outstretched and Modric had a chance to make history. The look of anguish that crossed his face when Donnarumma dived left to parry resembled, for the briefest moment, that of a man crushed. That was deceptive; of course it was.

Within a minute Croatia roared straight back. A deep Sucic cross from the inside right was guided towards goal by Ante Budimir, introduced by Dalic at the break, and Donnarumma again saved brilliantly. But there was Modric, running around the ball and hammering in emphatically, to offer one of the summer’s most thrilling moments so far.

The stands shook, blazing red. This was now an atmosphere to rival any but Croatia needed to stand firm. Italy embarked upon a kitchen sink job and Bastoni, thudding onto a right-sided corner, missed the target when given a fine opportunity to make amends. Spalletti called upon Enrico Chiesa and Gianluca Scamacca. Croatia were defending for their lives now, although Italy had to be mindful of not conceding again and Bastoni took a Marcelo Brozovic cross away from the lurking Budimir’s head. A frantic Italy seemed to have run out of time before Zaccagni, open on the left flank and given space to size up his finish, applied the late twist.

A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic “forever chemicals”, including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax – unless they can be made safer.

Under the legislation, which takes effect on 1 July, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances – or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays – will be prohibited starting in 2026.

By 2028, Colorado will also ban the sale of all PFAS-treated clothes, backpacks and waterproof outdoor apparel. The law will also require companies selling PFAS-coated clothing to attach disclosure labels.

The initial draft of state senate bill 81, introduced in 2022, included a full ban on PFAS beginning in 2032. But that measure was written out after facing opposition.

Colorado has already passed a measure requiring companies to phase out PFAS in carpets, furniture, cosmetics, juvenile products, some food packaging and those used in oil and gas production.

The incoming law’s diluted version illustrates the challenges lawmakers have in regulating chemicals that are used to make products waterproof, nonstick or resistant to staining. Manufacturers say the products, at best, will take time to make with a safer replacement – or at worst, are not yet possible to get made in such fashion.

The American Chemistry Council said the bill before its dilution would have created “severe disruption for Coloradoans” as well as undercut “the compromises that were reached in 2022 PFAS legislation”. The council said the original bill would have created “broad, sweeping bans before that law [had] even been implemented”.

But the trade group later said that it appreciated “the efforts of Colorado lawmakers to take a more focused approach to the issue”, adding: “Policymakers at both the state and federal levels seem to be recognizing that it is not scientifically accurate to group all fluoro chemistry together and that there are critical, safe uses of this chemistry.”

Gretchen Salter – an adviser with Safer States, a group that says Colorado is one of 28 states to adopt policies on PFAS – told the Denver Post in March: “The more we look for PFAS, the more we find. That makes regulating PFAS really tricky because it is in so many things.”

But the new law does not account for PFAS that are already in the environment. Colorado recently found that 29 of more than 2,000 water treatment facilities in the state do not meet new federal limits on PFAS levels of four parts per trillion.

The ubiquity of “forever chemicals” was illustrated recently by a study that found microplastics in penises for the first time, raising questions about a potential role in erectile dysfunction. The revelation comes after the pollutants were recently found in every human placenta tested in a study, leaving the researchers worried about the potential health impacts on developing foetuses.

In Colorado, state senator Lisa Cutter, one of the sponsors of the new law there, has said she still wants a complete ban on PFAS but acknowledges the problems. “As much as I want PFAS to go away forever and forever, there are going to be some difficult pivots,” she told the outlet.

They include balancing the potential cost to consumers in making products PFAS-free. Cutter told CBS News that it was “really hard” challenging lobbying groups that “spent a lot of money ensuring that these chemicals can continue being put into our products and make profits”.

Cutter said had been accused of stifling innovation and industry. She said she believed companies could be successful while also looking out for the communities they serve.

“Certainly, there are cases where it’s not plausible right away to gravitate away from them, but we need to be moving in that direction,” Cutter said. “Our community shouldn’t have to pay the price for their health.”

George Monbiot, whom I generally greatly respect, sounds more outraged by the RSPCA than by the factory farms, or the supermarkets that support them, or the legislation that allows people to torture birds and animals on a mass scale (How Britain’s oldest animal welfare charity became a byword for cruelty on an industrial scale, 18 June). He tries and finds guilty a charity that raises its funds through small shops and donations, and is dependent on volunteers, for not standing up to big business interests. Instead of criticising the RSPCA, dare I suggest that those of us who care about this could join those volunteers, and help support their aims for a cruelty-free country from a place of solidarity?
Sushila Dhall
Oxford

Thanks to George Monbiot for highlighting this iniquitous RSPCA Assured scheme for animal-rearing. It makes me so angry when I see this displayed in places like Marks & Spencer. Chris Packham should condemn the misuse of animals very publicly and resign as its president.
Molly Sendall
Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

A former employee of Donald Trump’s pre-presidency organization has publicly claimed that he once made jokes about Nazi “ovens” while Jewish executives were in the same room.

Barbara Res – a lead engineer on the construction of Trump Tower and author of a memoir, Tower of Lies, about her almost two decades working for the former president – told MSNBC on Sunday that her erstwhile boss would make “ridiculous remarks”.

“We had just hired a residential manager, a German guy,” Res said. “And Donald [Trump] was bragging among – to us executives, there were four of us – about how great the guy was and he was a real gentleman, and he was so neat and clean. And he looked at a couple of our executives who happen to be Jewish, and he said, ‘Watch out for this guy – he sort of remembers the ovens,’ you know, and then smiled.

“Everybody was shocked,” she continued. “I couldn’t believe he said that. But he was making a joke about the Nazi ovens and killing people, and that’s the way he was.”

The Nazis in Germany systematically murdered more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and the second world war, and burned the bodies of many in ovens at concentration camps.

Res’s story on Sunday came as both parties are attempting to court the Jewish vote in November’s election, which is expected to be a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. That vote may be in play over the Biden White House’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Trump has argued that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats hate both Israel and Judaism, saying that he and his Republican party are better placed to help end the Gaza war.

Res, who has been critical of Trump’s treatment of women in the past, said the former president’s “embrace of religion” is “absolute nonsense”. She didn’t elaborate, but at the center of the criminal prosecution which recently led to Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies was hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor who alleged an adulterous affair with Trump early into his marriage with Melania Trump.

Res offered advice to Biden ahead of his televised debate with Trump, scheduled for Thursday.

“I wish [Biden] would goad him and make him go nuts, because when he goes nuts, he’s really crazy,” Res said.

Res’s MSNBC appearance came after Trump held a weekend campaign rally in Philadelphia. She recalled the Nazi joke Trump once told in part because of his choosing to repeat at the rally a hypothetical situation involving an electric boat that sinks under the weight of its batteries and electrocutes the passengers, who are then circled by a shark.

An opera-loving member of high society turned eco-activist who was forced into police protection with a panic button round his neck. A Hollywood actor who recorded said activist’s life story as he was dying from exposure to the very chemicals he was investigating. Throw in two investigative journalists who realise not everything is as it seems, then uncover some startling truths, and you have “podcasting’s strangest team” on Buried: The Last Witness.

On their award-winning 2023 podcast Buried, the husband and wife duo Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor dug into illegal toxic waste dumping in the UK and its links to organised crime. This time, they focus on “forever chemicals”, specifically polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and set out to discover whether one whistleblower may have been decades ahead of his time in reporting on their harmful impact.

“It’s amazing how big the scale of this story is,” says Ashby, as we sit backstage at the Crucible theatre, where they are doing a live discussion as part of Sheffield DocFest. “With this series, we don’t just want it to make your blood turn cold, we want it to make you question your own blood itself.”

It all started when Taylor and Ashby were sent a lead about the work of former farmer’s representative Douglas Gowan. In 1967, he discovered a deformed calf in a field and began to investigate strange goings on with animals close to the Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in south Wales. He linked them to the dumping of waste by companies including the nearby Monsanto chemical plant, which was producing PCBs.

PCBs were used in products such as paint and paper to act as a fire retardant, but they were discovered to be harmful and have been banned since 1981 in the UK. However, due to their inability to break down – hence the term forever chemical – Gowan predicted their legacy would be a troubling one. “I expect there to be a raft of chronic illness,” he said. He even claimed that his own exposure to PCBs (a result of years of testing polluted grounds) led his pancreas and immune system to stop working. “I’m a mess and I think it can all be attributed to PCBs,” he said.

However, Gowan wasn’t a typical environmentalist. “A blue-blood high-society Tory and a trained lawyer who could out-Mozart anyone,” is how Taylor describes him in the series. He would even borrow helicopters from friends in high places to travel to investigate farmers’ fields. Gowan died in 2018 but the pair managed to get hold of his life’s work – confidential reports, testing and years of evidence. “I’m interested in environmental heroes that aren’t cliche,” says Ashby. “So I was fascinated by him. But then we started to see his flaws and really had to weigh them up. My goodness it’s a murky world we went into.”

The reason they were able to delve even deeper into this murky world is because of the award-winning actor Michael Sheen who, in 2017, came across Gowan’s work in a story he read. He was so blown away by it, and the lack of broader coverage, that he tracked him down. “I got a message back from him saying: ‘Please come and see me because I’ll be dead soon,’” says Sheen. “I took a camera with me and spent a couple of days with him and just heard this extraordinary story.”

What Gowan had been trying to prove for years gained some traction in 2007, with pieces in the Ecologist and a Guardian article exploring how “Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britain”. One was described as smelling “of sick when it rains and the small brook that flows from it gushes a vivid orange.” But then momentum stalled.

Years later, in 2023, Ashby and Taylor stumbled on a recording of Sheen giving the 2017 Raymond Williams memorial lecture, which referenced Gowan and his work. Before they knew it, they were in the actor’s kitchen drinking tea and learning he had conducted a life-spanning seven-hour interview with Gowan before his death. So they joined forces. Sheen isn’t just a token celebrity name added for clout on this podcast; he is invested. For him, it’s personal as well as political. “Once you dig into it, you realise there’s a pattern,” he says. “All the places where this seems to have happened are poor working-class areas. There’s a sense that areas like the one I come from are being exploited.”

Sheen even goes to visit some contaminated sites in the series, coming away from one feeling sick. “That made it very real,” he says. “To be looking into a field and going: ‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s toxic waste.’” Sheen was living a double life of sorts. “I went to rehearsals for a play on Monday and people were like, ‘What did you do this weekend?’” he says. “‘Oh, I went to the most contaminated area in the UK and I think I may be poisoned.’ People thought I was joking.” Sheen ended up being OK, but did have some temporary headaches and nausea, which was a worry. “We literally had to work out if we had poisoned Michael Sheen,” says Ashby, who also ponders in the series: “Have I just killed a national treasure?”

The story gets even knottier. Gowan’s findings turn out to be accurate and prescient, but the narrative around his journey gets muddy. As a character with a flair for drama, he turned his investigation into a juicy, riveting story filled with action, which could not always be corroborated. “If he hadn’t done that, and if he’d been a nerdy, analytical, detail-oriented person who just presented the scientific reports and kept them neatly filed, would we have made this podcast?” asks Taylor, which is a fascinating question that runs through this excellent and gripping series.

Ashby feels that Gowan understood how vital storytelling is when it comes to cutting through the noise. “We have so much science proving the scale of these problems we face and yet we don’t seem to have the stories,” he says. “I think Douglas got that. Fundamentally, he understood that stories motivate human beings to act. But then he went too far.”

However, this is not purely about Gowan’s story – it’s about evidence. The Last Witness doubles up as a groundbreaking investigation into the long-lasting impact of PCBs. “We threw the kitchen sink at this,” says Ashby. “The breakthrough for us is that the Royal Society of Chemistry came on board and funded incredibly expensive testing. So we have this commitment to go after the truth in a way that is hardly ever done.”

From shop-bought fish so toxic that it breaches official health advice to off-the-scale levels of banned chemicals found in British soil, the results are staggering. “The scientist almost fell off his chair,” says Ashby. “That reading is the highest he has ever recorded in soil – in the world. That was the moment we knew Douglas was right and we are now realising the scale of this problem. The public doesn’t realise that even a chemical that has been banned for 40 years is still really present in our environment.”

To go even deeper into just how far PCBs have got into our environment and food chain, Ashby and Taylor had their own blood tested. When Taylor found 80 different types of toxic PCB chemicals in her blood it was a sobering moment. “I was genuinely emotional because it’s so personal,” she says. “It was the thought of this thing being in me that was banned before I was even born and the thought of passing that on to my children.” Ashby adds: “We’ve managed physical risk in our life as journalists in Tanzania and with organised crime, but more scary than a gangster is this invisible threat to our health.”

In order to gauge the magnitude of what overexposure to PCBs can do, they headed to Anniston, Alabama, once home to a Monsanto factory. “As a journalist, you have an inbuilt scepticism and think it can’t be that bad,” says Ashby. “But when I got there I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I hate to use words like dystopian, but it was. There is a whole massive school that can’t be used. There’s illnesses in children and cancers. It truly was the most powerful vignette of the worst-case example of these chemicals.”

It’s bleak stuff but instilling fear and panic is not the intention. “Obviously, we’re really concerned about it,” says Ashby. “And although the environmental crises we face do feel overwhelming, it is incredible how a movement has formed and how individuals are taking action in communities. The lesson to take from Douglas is that the response doesn’t have to be resignation. It can be agency.”

Find a project …

Get stuck into some slimy stuff with the year-long Big Seaweed Search and help to monitor seaweed biodiversity along UK coastlines, a key indicator of ocean health. Just download the seaweed guide and recording forms and submit your results to
bigseaweedsearch.org.

If tackling plastic pollution is your thing, you can join beach cleaners worldwide to collect and record plastic particles with the Great Nurdle Hunt (nurdlehunt.org.uk); or help the University of Portsmouth gather pollution data in its Big Microplastic Survey (microplasticsurvey.org); alternatively, find a coastal clean-up near you through the Marine Conservation Society database (mcsuk.org).

For keen divers and snorkellers alike, citizen science project Seasearch offers free training to help divers identify and record what they spot underwater, contributing to a national effort to track the UK’s marine biodiversity at seasearch.org.uk.

Seagrass meadows themselves are powerhouses of biodiversity and sequester tons of carbon, too; you can join the movement to help restore the UK’s wild meadows with Seawildling Scotland, which welcomes volunteers to help plant and survey wild meadows at Loch Craignish (seawilding.org).

The Wild Oyster Project is trying to bring back the UK’s once vast oyster reefs, and invites volunteering, school and family groups to visit its restoration sites in England, Scotland and Wales, where you can pitch in to help conserve the fledgling reefs
(wild-oysters.org).

Keen rock poolers, take a look at the Rockpool Project, choose one of three survey guides, and record your finds at more than 70 coastal sites across the UK (therockpoolproject.co.uk).

Surfers Against Sewage has created the Ocean School, aimed at young nature-lovers, with a trove of free resources, classes and activities to get kids engaged with the sea
(sas.org.uk).

Turn your coastal sightings into citizen science by helping to monitor seabirds with the British Trust for Ornithology (bto.org), seals with the Dorset Wildlife Trust (seals.dorsetwildlifetrust.net), cuttlefish with the Cuttlefish Conservation Initiative (cuttlefishconservation.com), seahorses with the Seahorse Trust (theseahorsetrust.org), and even turtles with the Marine Conservation Society (mcsuk.org).

Where to visit …

With a recent £11.6m injection from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Plymouth will soon be home to the UK’s first national marine park, focused on connecting people with nature, restoring local salt marsh and seagrass habitat, and rehabilitating coastal landmarks such as Plymouth’s art deco seaside lido (plymouthsoundnationalmarinepark.com). The project is still in the early phases, but for the time being you can visit the local National Aquarium, the UK’s largest charitable aquarium, run by the Ocean Conversation Trust and focused on marine education (national-aquarium.co.uk).

Down in Devon, catch a wave or just enjoy the view at the UK’s first surfing reserve, established by Save the Waves, a nonprofit that works to protect places where wave ecosystems overlap with hotspots of marine biodiversity (savethewaves.org).

Head to the protected waters of Portelet and Bouley Bay around the island of Jersey, home to rare cold-water corals and kelp forests, and follow self-guided snorkel trails provided by the Blue Marine Foundation (bluemarinefoundation.com). Or scope out the self-guided trails on offer from the Scottish Wildlife Trust (scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk).

A bit farther afield, this year the Outer Hebrides wildlife festival returns between 22 and 29 June, with a fringe festival running throughout July, a celebration of coastal ecosystems with guided beach walks, wildlife surveys, exhibitions, and boat, surfing and snorkelling trips (outerhebrideswildlifefestival.co.uk).

Head to the Norfolk seaside towns of Horsey and Winterton to see one of the largest grey seal colonies in the UK: thousands of baby seals are born here during pupping season from November to January, a spectacle that you can observe from a safe distance on the surrounding dunes. The animals are protected by Friends of Horsey Seals, which can also arrange guided walks (friendsofhorseyseals.co.uk).