The Guardian Environment

• Discarded clothes from UK brands dumped in protected Ghana wetlands

  Garments thrown out by consumers from Next, George, M&S and others found in or near conservation areas

  Clothes discarded by UK consumers and shipped to Ghana have been found in a huge rubbish dump in protected wetlands, an investigation has found.

  Reporters for Unearthed working with Greenpeace Africa found garments from Next in the dump and other sites, and items from George at Asda and Marks & Spencer washed up nearby.

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• Climate crisis could hit yields of key crops even if farmers adapt, study finds

  Production of staple crops projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C of heating

  Some of our critical staple crops could suffer “substantial” production losses due to climate breakdown, a study has found, even if farmers adapt to worsening weather.

  Maize, soy, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum yields are projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C the planet heats up, according to new research in Nature, with average daily losses that could add up to the equivalent of not having breakfast.

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• Spy ships, cyber-attacks and shadow fleets: the crack security team braced for trouble at sea

  As international tensions mount and hackers grow more sophisticated and audacious, the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre is constantly monitoring the global threat of war, terror and piracy

  Ships being taken over remotely by hackers and made to crash is a scenario made in Hollywood. But in a security operations room in Oslo, just a few metres from the sparkling fjord and its tourist boats, floating saunas and plucky bathers, maritime cyber experts say not only is it technically possible, but they are poised for it to happen.

  “We are pretty sure that it will happen sooner or later, so that is what we are looking for,” saysØystein Brekke-Sanderud, a senior analyst at the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre (Norma Cyber). On the wall behind him is a live map of the ships they monitor and screens full of graphs and code. Two little rubber ducks watch over proceedings from above.

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• Antarctic seal numbers falling drastically due to melting sea ice, research shows

  British Antarctic Survey finds one breed of seal has declined by 54% since 1977

  Antarctic seal populations are drastically declining as the sea ice melts around them, new research has shown.

  Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have been monitoring the seal population in the sub-Antarctic since the 1970s, looking in particular at three different seal species in the sub-Antarctic on Signy Island: Weddell seals, Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals.

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• Country diary: Into the twilight zone with horseshoe bats | Derek Niemann

  Frome, Somerset: When they finally join the party, their calls are a messy symphony better suited to an old sci-fi movie

  A little before nightfall, we enter the river gorge equipped with fast-failing eyes and a box that will let us listen to what we cannot hear. As long as the backdrop to the crescent moon is still blue, we can almost outperform this bat detector. We start to see shapes flittering around the treetops on the opposite side of the gorge, but it’s not until they draw nearer and swoop directly overhead that the machine buzzes and spits at around 55kHz. That means these are soprano pipistrelles.

  Our aural targets tonight are the lesser and greater horseshoe bats that hang up by day in the limestone caves and the tunnels and flues of the long-abandoned ironworks. Rather tidily, horseshoes’ echo-locating calls register at between 80kHz and 110kHz, far higher than other species. They also have a sonic signature that is worth waiting for.

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