Thw municipality was fined $61,000, making it the only community not located in a desert singled out for penalties

Upscale Beverly Hills is among four California cities where water utilities have been fined for not forcing residents to conserve enough water during California’s unrelenting four-year drought, officials said on Friday.

Related: California city sends its water wasters back to school as drought deepens

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Source: Guardian Environment

Finalists in the Food Systems Design Challenge are creating cutting edge agriculture systems using some of the world’s oldest designs

From lab-grown burgers to farms monitored by sensors and drones, technology lies at the heart of many of today’s sustainable food solutions. Now, the Biomimicry Institute, a Montana-based nonprofit, is taking the trend a step further with its new Food Systems Design Challenge, encouraging a cadre of entrepreneurs to improve the food production system by emulating techniques and processes found in nature.

At the SXSW Eco conference earlier this month, the institute announced the eight finalists in the challenge. “We want to help foster bringing more biomimetic designs to market … to show that biomimicry is a viable and essential design methodology to create a more regenerative and sustainable world,” said Megan Schuknect, the institute’s director of design challenges.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Volkswagen expects to ride out the emissions scandal but what does the future hold for others caught in the fallout?

For the first time in 15 years, Volkswagen’s quarterly accounts have landed in the red. Results published by the German car giant on Wednesday showed a loss of €3.5bn (£2.5bn) for the three months until 30 September – the month when the emissions scandal erupted. VW set aside €6.7bn to deal with the fallout from the 11m vehicles worldwide whose diesel engines were secretly programmed to cheat tests and mask the pollution they caused, although the final bill could run into tens of billions.

Related: VW must consider compensating motorists for emissions scandal, transport secretary says

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Source: Guardian Environment

An Ohio startup is disrupting the clean cookstove industry with the introduction of a solar powered cookstove – but not everyone is convinced

Since Hillary Clinton announced the creation of a Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in 2010, the public-private partnership has helped raise more than $400m for cleaner stoves and cooking fuels, enlisted more than 1,300 partners and, by its own accounting, helped drive about 28m cookstoves into the world’s poorest countries.

The vast majority of those cleaner cooking devices are powered by biomass – wood, charcoal, dung and agricultural waste. Millions more are powered by cleaner fuels like liquid propane gas (LPG), ethanol and electricity. At most, the alliance reported, 2% of the stoves distributed in 2013 relied on solar power, the cleanest fuel of all.

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Source: Guardian Environment

In call for attorney general to investigate, top activists say company acted deceptively despite knowing about climate change ‘as early as the 1970s’

Leading US environmental campaigners have joined a diverse line-up of pressure groups to demand a federal investigation into allegations that the oil giant ExxonMobil illegally covered up the truth about climate change.

Related: Exxon’s climate change denial warrants federal inquiry, congressmen say

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Source: Guardian Environment

The Atacama desert is experiencing a rare springtime bloom of flowers after El Niño brought the heaviest rainfall in two decades earlier this year. The desert is usually one of the driest places on Earth. Flowers normally bloom every five to seven years but this year’s showing has been one of the most spectacular

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Source: Guardian Environment

City links: The MillionTreesNYC campaign has hit its target two years early, cash machines that dispense stories and the youngest cities in England and Wales feature in this week’s best city stories

The best city stories we’ve spotted around the web this week celebrate the tree-planting efforts of New York City, discover how Grenoble is bringing short stories to its streets and reveal which cities in England and Wales have the youngest populations. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories: just share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Officials say ever-increasing DIY cairns are ruining mountains in Highlands, as well as potentially misdirecting other walkers

Building “mini cairns” on Scottish mountains has become a popular way for walkers to leave a memorial, create a photo opportunity, or hide their rubbish. However, the ever-increasing piles of rocks are ruining Ben Nevis and other mountains in the Highlands, officials have warned.

Large navigational cairns are already in place on many Scottish mountains, built especially to stick above the snow and guide walkers along the right path to the summit.

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Source: Guardian Environment

A huge fire that has been burning for two months engulfs a swath of Brazilian forest, threatening the existence of remote indigenous tribes. According to Greenpeace, the fire is suspected to have been started by illegal loggers invading the territory. The local government has declared a state of emergency

Read: Vast Amazon wildfire destroys forest in Brazil and threatens uncontacted tribe

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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Source: Guardian Environment