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Research show flood victims in UK nine times more likely to experience long-term mental health issues

When Julie Blackburn was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2016 she was told to avoid her triggers, scenarios which cause upsetting flashbacks. “But when your trigger is rain, there is no getting over it,” she said. “My husband and I don’t sleep when it’s raining, we take it in turns to stand at the window watching the rain – it’s just living in constant fear.”

Blackburn’s house in Old Coulsdon, Croydon, has been flooded several times, first in 2000 when heavy rain overwhelmed the Victorian sewer system and filled her home with toxic waste. Rapid development and poor infrastructure led the south London borough to be rated the fourth worst area in England and Wales for surface water flooding in 2011.

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A selection of the best science and environment features published this year.

Spectacular discovery of monkey in Myanmar among new species described this year by Natural History Museum scientists

Scarab beetles from New Guinea, seaweed from the Falklands and a new species of monkey found on an extinct volcano in Myanmar are among 503 species newly identified by scientists at the Natural History Museum.

The museum’s work in 2020 describing species previously unknown to science includes naming new lichens, wasps, barnacles, miniature tarantulas and a lungless worm salamander.

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Isolated and challenged by a harsh climate and battered by the financial crisis of 2008, Iceland has successfully moved away from fossil fuels and shifted to 100% electricity production from renewable sources. The island nation has developed high-tech greenhouses to grow organic vegetables and embraced sustainable fish farming, ecotourism, breakthrough processes for carbon capture and disposal, and efforts to restore the forests that were lost in earlier centuries

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Modules deployed by JinkoSolar for utility scale solar farms in Australia are currently generating almost 550 MW AC, more than one third of the combined capacity of solar PV installations in the Australian utility sector.

The post JinkoSolar modules power more than one third of the capacity generated by utility-scale PV projects in Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

FRV lands finance for new NSW solar farm.

The post FRV lands green loan finance for new 115MW solar farm in NSW appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Indigenous languages around the world are declining at a rapid rate, but linguists can help language revival by working with communities of native speakers. Julie Barbour, Senior Lecturer, Linguistics, University of Waikato Nicola Daly, Senior lecturer in children's literature and language teaching., University of Waikato Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Once thought to occur only in birds and mammals in the Northern Hemisphere, due to the more pronounced winters, we now know torpor is widespread in small Australian mammals. Chris Wacker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow - School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

• Félix Vásquez, 60, shot in own home in front of family
• Killing followed death threats linked to work on environment

Another indigenous environmentalist has been killed in Honduras, cementing the country’s inglorious ranking as the deadliest place in the world to defend land and natural resources from exploitation.

Félix Vásquez, 60, a veteran leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was shot dead at home in the Santiago de Puringla, a rural community in the department of La Paz, western Honduras on the night of 26 December – just weeks after reporting death threats linked to his work. His adult children were beaten and threatened by the four armed assailants in balaclavas, but survived the ordeal.

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Researchers report affected animals off the coasts of the US, South America and Australia

Dolphins are increasingly dying slow, painful deaths from skin lesions likened to severe burns as a result of exposure to fresh water, exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Researchers in the US and Australia have defined for the first time an emerging “freshwater skin disease” reported in coastal dolphin populations in the US, South America and Australia.

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Mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah who died from air pollution says road tunnel will drive up pollution

The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah has called on the mayor of London to rethink his plans for a new four-lane road tunnel under the Thames warning it will drive up pollution with a potentially devastating impact on young people’s health.

Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, speaking after a coroner ruled that illegal levels of air pollution had caused the death of her nine-year-old daughter in 2013, said it was critical Sadiq reconsider the £2bn scheme.

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The Green Alliance says there is gap between the PM's plans and what is needed to meet carbon targets.

International convention to stop richer countries exporting contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five years

New international rules to tackle the “wild west” global trade in plastic, which has seen wealthy nations dump contaminated plastic waste on to poorer ones, will result in a cleaner ocean within five years, according to a UN transboundary waste chief.

The rules, which come into force on 1 January, aim to make the trade more transparent in order to allow developing nations such as Vietnam and Malaysia to refuse low-quality, difficult-to-recycle waste before it is even shipped.

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A Japanese forestry firm has partnered with Kyoto University in what would be a world first.

There was stunning cosmic imagery to feast on over the past year - here's our pick of the offerings.

What blooms underground and smells like vanilla? The answer is an underground orchid, and I never expected to see one, let alone have the privilege of working on them. Mark Clements, Botanist, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) asked an appeals court to overturn rulings earlier this year that concluded California’s linkage with Quebec does not violate the Constitution, according to a brief filed by the agency.

European carbon prices rose to a new all-time high on Monday after the EU and UK reached a post-Brexit trade deal late last week, and as colder weather and limited allowance supply provided support.

On Boxing Day more than half the country’s daily electricity came from wind turbines

More than half the UK’s daily electricity came from wind turbines for the first time on Boxing Day, in a performance achieved on gusts of up to 100mph (160 km/h) from Storm Bella.

Data charting the proportion of power generated from different sources, including fossil fuel and nuclear plants, show that on 26 December wind provided 50.7% of UK electricity.

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A surge in outdoor activity in the UK has exposed how vital it is to balance human needs with those of the natural world

It has been a year of extremes for nature. Under the first lockdown in spring, wildlife was suddenly left to its own devices. There were wild goats in the streets of Llandudno, peacocks in Bangor, sheep cavorting on playground roundabouts in Raglan in Monmouthshire. With verges left unmown by councils, roadsides erupted with wildflowers. There was respite for the estimated 100,000 hedgehogs, 50,000 deer, 50,000 badgers and 100,000 foxes that end up as roadkill every year. With no boats, jetskis, people or dogs, a friend living on the cliffs above Seaford Head Nature Reserve, in East Sussex – a popular walking destination and normally home to just five occasional curlews – showed me from her balcony on Zoom a flock of 36 curlews, hundreds of oystercatchers, ducks, merlins and peregrines. Everyone seemed to notice the birdsong. Without planes competing overhead, the dawn chorus of songbirds at Knepp, our 1,400-hectares (3,500-acres) rewilding project in West Sussex, was cacophonous and, after dusk, nightingales and woodlarks took centre stage. In May, in the crowns of our oak trees, white storks hatched their chicks for the first time in Britain since 1416.

During lockdown, with life on pause and in need of solace, we tuned in to nature as never before. The Wildlife Trusts told me its website recorded a 2,000% increase in live webcam views. Unsurprisingly, when restrictions on travel were relaxed in mid-May, people flocked to the countryside like birds let out of a cage. At Knepp, we received 30,000 visitors in three months, a 10-fold increase compared with the same period in 2019. The atmosphere was of unadulterated relief as families spilled into the sunshine to soak up the pleasures of walking and relaxing in nature.

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