Steve Brace of the Geographical Association on how young people can be supported to get into nature at a local level The director general of the National Trust, Hilary McGrady, is correct when she says that “the benefit of ensuring access to nature is plain to see but there is unequal access to it” (Three-quarters of children want more time in nature, says National Trust, 1 April). Sadly, evidence shows that this situation is also reflected in our schools. Over the last 20 years, Ofsted reports have shown that school fieldwork has been declining. And a survey of geography teachers in 2023 indi ..read more

Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible The circulation of the Atlantic Ocean is heading towards a tipping point that is “bad news for the climate system and humanity”, a study has found. The scientists behind the research said they were shocked at the forecast speed of collapse once the point is reached, although they said it was not yet possible to predict how soon that would happen ..read more

Eruption comes a month after nearly 4,000 inhabitants of the fishing town of Grindavik were evacuated when the area was hit by a 'seismic swarm' of more than 1,000 earthquakes in 24 hours. The Reykjanes peninsula in recent years has seen several eruptions in unpopulated areas, but the latest outbreak could pose a risk to Grindavik, authorities say. Iceland declares state of emergency over volcanic eruption threat Iceland volcano: eruption begins on Reykjanes peninsula after weeks of activity ..read more

Japan has gained another island after an undersea volcanic eruption 1,200 km south of Tokyo created a new landmass. The tiny island emerged following a series of eruptions that began last month near Iwoto island, part of the Ogasawara island chain in the western Pacific, according to experts Euclid telescope sends back first images from ‘dark universe’ mission ..read more

My father John Bale, who has died aged 83, was a pioneer in the study of geography and sport. From the 1970s, he published many articles and books. In Sport and Place (1982), he explored the reasons why place had become the main means of identifying, and identifying with, sports teams. He showed the extent to which sport affects and is affected by the physical environment in features such as pitches and stadiums ..read more

Tired of stereotypesPeter Bottomley on MPs’ payMillionaire boatsBrexit brain drain One innocent minority group that the Guardian is always ready to have a pop at is geography teachers – often, in your fevered imagination, clad in elbow-patched tweed jackets. Now you’re at it again (‘I was an absolute maniac’: punk legend Wreckless Eric on storming Spotify despite sounding like Mickey Mouse, 23 August). I would remind you that these are the people who first taught you about global inequalities and climate change. Martin Brayne (retired geography teacher) Whitehough, Derbyshire • Your correspond ..read more

My PhD supervisor, Dick Grove, who has died aged 99, was a physical geographer whose research on long-term environmental change in Africa helped shape understanding of past climate change. At the time of his death Dick was the most senior of the Royal Geographical Society’s 16,000 fellows. His research between the 1950s and 70s on field expeditions in the Sahel, Tibesti, the Kalahari and the Ethiopian Rift established the scale of climate change on African desert margins. He and his students made cutting-edge use of air photographs to map ancient sand seas around the Sahara and the Kalahari, s ..read more

My friend and former colleague Janet Townsend, who has died aged 79, was a pioneer in gender and development who achieved many firsts in her career. She initiated the first course on geography and gender to be taught in the UK, at Durham University in 1986; co-edited Geography of Gender in the Third World, the first book on the subject, in 1987; and was a member of the steering committee of the geography and gender commission of the International Geographical Union from 2004 to 2008. Janet’s postdoctoral research in the 1970s was with pioneers seeking to settle the rainforests, and utilised qu ..read more

Geographer who championed the idea of ‘defensible space’ in order to improve on the problematic designs of some high-rise estates The geographer Alice Coleman, who has died aged 99, set out to prove that British modernist high-rise council estates were failing because their layout lacked “defensible space”, and that their problematic design reduced social interaction while encouraging crime and anti-social behaviour. In her book Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing (1985) Alice condemned such estates as failed idylls, criticising authoritarian and paternalistic planners withi ..read more

Innovation in agricultural sector is needed if cities are to solve air pollution problems, say scientists A study reveals that farming is responsible for more than a quarter of the particle pollution in UK cities. UK agriculture created 38% of the particle pollution in Leicester, 32% in Birmingham and 25% in London in 2019, according to the study. In each case the contribution from rural agriculture was greater than all of the sources within the cities themselves ..read more