An extensive aerial survey in South Sudan has revealed an enormous migration of 6 million antelope – the largest migration of land mammals anywhere on Earth. It is more than double the size of the celebrated annual “great migration” between Tanzania and Kenya, which involves about 2 million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle.

“The migration in South Sudan blows any other migration we know of out the water,” said David Simpson, wildlife NGO African Parks’ park manager for Boma and Badingilo national parks, which the migration moves between and around. “The estimates indicate the vast herds of antelope species … are almost three times larger than east Africa’s great migration. The scale is truly awe-inspiring.”

The animals across the region have endured despite decades of civil war and instability in South Sudan.

In 2007, a Wildlife Conservation Society survey suggested South Sudan’s migration involved about 1.3 million animals. But African Parks, which manages Boma and Badingilo national parks in the south-east of South Sudan on behalf of the government, has been able to provide a more accurate count using improved technology and assessing a more comprehensive area. Two planes were kitted out with cameras programmed to take a photo every two seconds. This produced 330,000 images, which were studied by University of Juba graduates using software to count the wildlife.

“Seeing these animals here at such scale is something I could have never fathomed still existed on the planet,” said Mike Fay, African Parks’ landscape coordinator for Boma and Badingilo. “From the air, it felt like I was watching what Earth might have been like millennia ago, when nature and humans still existed together in balance.”

South Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit said that the count made the country’s migration “number one in the world,” adding that “as South Sudan continues to develop we are committed to transforming the wildlife sector into a sustainable tourism industry.”

From 28 April to 15 May 2023, the pilots and observers flew over an area of 122,774 sq km – almost the size of Greece – taking in the entire known range of the antelope species in the Boma-Badingilo Jonglei landscape. They covered some areas that had never been surveyed. As well as antelope, the surveyors documented other species including lions, giraffes, buffalo and elephants.

“The most difficult challenge is setting up the aerial survey equipment on the planes, so the field of view is correct and the calibration is precise and accurate,” Fay said. “It’s extremely dangerous flying low-level with big birds, like vultures, in the air around the plane, and it’s intense flying for four hours and counting continuously every day for weeks.”

The estimates indicated 5 million white-eared kob, just under 300,000 tiang, 350,000 Mongalla gazelle, and 160,000 bohor reedbuck, the four species of antelope totalling just under 6 million. Fay said that figure means that “this great Nile migration of antelope is the largest on Earth, according to our data, dwarfing any other known land mammal migration on the planet”.

The great Nile migration is a year-round movement of animals from the south-west to the north-east, passing into Gambella in Ethiopia and back again. It is probably driven by the availability of good grazing conditions.

As part of the study, 126 animals across 12 species were collared to measure the distances they travelled: 11 collared white-eared kobs, the most numerous antelope in the landscape, were tracked covering approximately 2,000km (1,250 miles) each. South Sudan’s isn’t the longest land mammal migration on Earth – the caribou migration in Alaska, at 3,200km (2,000 miles), is longer – but it is a similar distance to the great migration between Tanzania and Kenya, which includes the renowned Mara River crossing. And, while South Sudan’s is the most numerous large mammal migration, its numbers are dwarfed by Zambia’s annual bat migration, in which 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats fly from west Africa to Kasanka national park.

The study’s findings are “a gamechanger for conservation efforts in South Sudan”, Simpson said, and could become “one of the greatest conservation opportunities on the planet”.

South Sudan isn’t considered safe for international tourism, but such a vast wildlife spectacle means “the potential for tourism is immense”, says Simpson. “Having the world’s largest land mammal migration could put South Sudan on the map as a must-visit ecotourism destination. But the migration’s current critical value is food security for local communities.”

The Boma-Badingilo Jonglei landscape is home to numerous people, many of whom live off the land. As well as revealing the scale of wildlife in the landscape, the survey revealed threats to the migratory animals and the human communities that rely on them, Simpson said, including “the expansion of roads, agriculture, charcoal production, commercialisation”. “These activities can lead to habitat loss, resource depletion and disruption of migration routes, ultimately threatening the survival of the migration and the livelihoods of local people,” he said.

“By ensuring the health of the ecosystems the migration depends on, the livelihoods of people across the migration landscape can be secured.”

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

A newly identified tipping point for the loss of ice sheets in Antarctica and elsewhere could mean future sea level rise is significantly higher than current projections.

A new study has examined how warming seawater intrudes between coastal ice sheets and the ground they rest on. The warm water melts cavities in the ice, allowing more water to flow in, expanding the cavities further in a feedback loop. This water then lubricates the collapse of ice into the ocean, pushing up sea levels.

The researchers used computer models to show that a “very small increase” in the temperature of the intruding water could lead to a “very big increase” in the loss of ice – ie, tipping point behaviour.

It is unknown how close the tipping point is, or whether it has even been crossed already. But the researchers said it could be triggered by temperature rises of just tenths of a degree, and very likely by the rises expected in the coming decades.

Sea level rise is the greatest long-term impact of the climate crisis and is set to redraw the world map in coming centuries. It has the potential to put scores of major cities, from New York City to Shanghai, below sea level and to affect billions of people.

The study addresses a key question of why current models underestimate the sea level seen in earlier periods between ice ages. Scientists think some ice sheet melting processes must not be yet included in the models.

“[Seawater intrusion] could basically be the missing piece,” said Dr Alexander Bradley of the British Antarctic Survey, who led the research. “We don’t really have many other good ideas. And there’s a lot of evidence that when you do include it, the amount of sea level rise the models predict could be much, much higher.”

Previous research has shown that seawater intrusion could double the rate of ice loss from some Antarctic ice shelves. There is also real-world evidence that seawater intrusion is causing melting today, including satellite data that shows drops in the height of ice sheets near grounding zones.

“With every tenth of a degree of ocean warming, we get closer and closer to passing this tipping point, and each tenth of a degree is linked to the amount of climate change that takes place,” Bradley said. “So we need very dramatic action to restrict the amount of warming that takes place and prevent this tipping point from being passed.”

The most important action is to cut the burning of fossil fuels to net zero by 2050.

Bradley said: “Now we want to put [seawater intrusion] into ice sheet models and see whether that two-times sea level rise plays out when you analyse the whole of Antarctica.”

Scientists warned in 2022 that the climate crisis had driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, including the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap and the collapse of a key current in the north Atlantic, disrupting rains upon which billions of people depend for food.

Research in 2023 found that accelerated ice melting in west Antarctica was inevitable for the rest of the century, no matter how much carbon emissions are cut, with “dire” implications for sea levels.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that some Antarctic ice sheets were more vulnerable to seawater intrusion than others. The Pine Island glacier, currently Antarctica’s largest contributor to sea level rise, is especially vulnerable, as the base of the glacier slopes down inland, meaning gravity helps the seawater penetrate. The large Larsen ice sheet is similarly at risk.

The so-called “Doomsday” glacier, Thwaites, was found to be among the least vulnerable to seawater intrusion. This is because the ice is flowing into the sea so fast already that any cavities in the ice melted by seawater intrusion are quickly filled with new ice.

Dr Tiago Segabinazzi Dotto, of the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, welcomed the new analysis of the ocean-ice feedback loop under ice sheets.

“The researchers’ simplified model is useful for showing this feedback, but a more realistic model is highly needed to evaluate both positive and negative feedbacks,” he said. “An enhancement of observations at the grounding zone is also essential to better understand the key processes associated with the instability of ice shelves.”

China has become the first country to gather samples from the far side of the moon and bring them back to Earth in a landmark achievement for the Beijing space programme.

A re-entry capsule containing the precious cargo parachuted into a landing zone in the rural Siziwang Banner region of Inner Mongolia on Tuesday after being released into Earth’s orbit by the uncrewed Chang’e-6 probe.

The return of the lunar material wraps up a highly successful mission for the China National Space Administration (CNSA) amid a wave of interest in which space agencies and private companies will build instruments and bases on the moon and exploit its resources.

The Chang’e-6 mission, named after the Chinese moon goddess, blasted off from Hainan province in south China on 3 May and touched down on 2 June on the side of the moon that is never seen from Earth. The moon shows only one face to the Earth because it is tidally locked and completes one full rotation in the time it takes to circle the planet.

The mission’s lander spent two days collecting rock and soil from one of the oldest and largest craters on the moon, the 1,600-mile-wide South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, using a robotic arm and drill. Its ascent module then lifted off from the moon’s surface and rendezvoused with the orbiter before embarking on its journey home.

“This is a great achievement by China,” said Martin Barstow, a professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester. “Recovering any samples from the moon is difficult, but doing so from the far side, where communications are particularly difficult is a step taken by no other agency. A real technological feat.”

The US, China and the former Soviet Union have gathered samples from the near side of the moon but China is the first to bring material home from the far side. The intention was to collect up to 2kg of moon rock and soil.

China previously collaborated with international scientists to study samples it brought back from the near side of the moon but it is unclear whether similar access will be granted to the new material from the far side.

The latest samples could shed light on longstanding mysteries in the early history of the moon and Earth. Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science at Birkbeck, University of London, said dating the SPA was a “key objective” of lunar science because it would pin down the timeframe for lunar cratering.

Understanding the rate at which large asteroids battered the moon in its early history would shed light on the impact history of Earth, he added, as our home planet would be struck by the same kinds of asteroids at the same time. “Constraining this is important for understanding the impact regime under which life first appeared on Earth,” he said.

The collision that created the SPA basin may have scooped out enough rock to expose areas of the lunar mantle, which researchers believe is crucial to understanding the history, and potentially the origins, of the moon.

“It is possible that the SPA has excavated deep enough to expose the lunar mantle, and possible that fragments might be found in the Chang’e-6 samples,” Crawford said. “It’s long shot but it’s worth looking.”

The far side of the moon has fewer ancient lava plains or maria, a thicker crust, and because it is not shielded by Earth, sports more craters from violent impacts.

“Recovering samples from the far side is tremendously exciting scientifically, as we only have very limited information on the geology there,” Barstow said. “It has been processed very differently to the side of the moon facing us, which has been extensively resurfaced by volcanic activity in the past, creating the maria from which most samples have been obtained.”

China has more lunar missions planned this decade. They are intended to pave the way for an International Lunar Research base, which it will co-lead with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, and the eventual landing of a Chinese astronaut on the moon.

Dr Simeon Barber, a senior research fellow at the Open University, said: “We’re entering a new era of discovery, and getting samples returned from the far side is a milestone achievement that will help us understand the geological history in that region, and why it differs so markedly from the more familiar near side.

“Specialised laboratories around the world have spent five decades finessing the analytical techniques to tease out the moon’s secrets from within near side samples returned by the Apollo and Luna missions. And now we are on the cusp of applying all that expertise to learn about the enigmatic far side of our nearest neighbour in space.”

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