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Five ways UK farmers are tackling climate change
With nature against climate change
World’s nations gather to tackle wildlife extinction crisis
Giraffes, sharks, glass frogs - and the woolly mammoth - may get boosted protection at summit
From giraffes to sharks, the world’s endangered species could gain better protection at an international wildlife conference.
The triennial summit of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), that began on Saturday, will tackle disputes over the conservation of great beasts such as elephants and rhinos, as well as cracking down on the exploitation of unheralded but vital species such as sea cucumbers, which clean ocean floors.
Continue reading...'No sea sickness so far': Greta Thunberg posts update four days into Atlantic crossing
Climate activist is undertaking two-week journey on solar-powered yacht
Four days into its two-week Atlantic crossing, the solar-powered yacht carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg is becalmed in the ocean after a choppy start to the trip, still 2,500 nautical miles from New York.
In an update posted to Twitter around midday on Saturday, the 16-year-old said she was eating and sleeping well and had no sea sickness so far.
Continue reading...Nasa picks headquarters for Moon lander
'Plastic recycling is a myth': what really happens to your rubbish?
You sort your recycling, leave it to be collected – and then what? From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis
An alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green Recycling in Maldon, Essex, rumbles back into life. A momentous river of garbage rolls down the conveyor: cardboard boxes, splintered skirting board, plastic bottles, crisp packets, DVD cases, printer cartridges, countless newspapers, including this one. Odd bits of junk catch the eye, conjuring little vignettes: a single discarded glove. A crushed Tupperware container, the meal inside uneaten. A photograph of a smiling child on an adult’s shoulders. But they are gone in a moment. The line at Green Recycling handles up to 12 tonnes of waste an hour.
“We produce 200 to 300 tonnes a day,” says Jamie Smith, Green Recycling’s general manager, above the din. We are standing three storeys up on the green health-and-safety gangway, looking down the line. On the tipping floor, an excavator is grabbing clawfuls of trash from heaps and piling it into a spinning drum, which spreads it evenly across the conveyor. Along the belt, human workers pick and channel what is valuable (bottles, cardboard, aluminium cans) into sorting chutes.
Continue reading...How to build a climate-proof home that never floods
The Netherlands has found an ingenious way to combat rising water – build housing that does the same
Could climate change-resistant homes help solve the housing crisis? The Met Office’s conclusion was unequivocal. There is “no doubt” climate change played a role in the record-breaking temperatures that fried the UK and northern Europe last month.
But there was an irony in this year’s latest heatwave too. The scorching heat that sparked fears of buckled train tracks and made many of us yearn for rain was a symptom of a gradual shift that isn’t just raising temperatures but is making flooding more likely too.
Continue reading...Thailand's 'sweetheart' dugong dies with plastic in stomach
Vets say plastic caused orphan mammal’s infection and should serve as warning about pollution
An orphaned dugong named Marium, who became an internet star after being rescued in Thailand in April, has died.
Veterinarians caring for the dugong off the island of Koh Libong, in south Thailand’s Trang province, said an infection caused by ingesting plastic contributed to her death. They added that the loss of the animal, named “the nation’s sweetheart” by Thailand’s department of marine and coastal resources (DMCR), should serve as a warning about the effects of plastic waste on wildlife.
Continue reading...Elephant protection debate to dominate conservation meeting
CP Daily: Friday August 16, 2019
Higher CO2 price should be focus of California allowance oversupply talks -experts
Scott Morrison blasted by Pacific heat while trying to project calm on climate | Katharine Murphy
Things are not under control when it comes to Australia meeting our Paris target, even if Scott Morrison wants us to believe that
We’ll get to climate, and the rumble in the Pacific, but I want to begin closer to home. It’s been a busy news week, so you might have missed an excellent story from my colleague Adam Morton on Tuesday revealing that a coalmine in Queensland has nearly doubled its greenhouse gas emissions in two years without penalty under a Morrison government mechanism that is supposed to impose limits on industrial pollution.
According to documents released under freedom of information laws, mining company Anglo American was given the green light under the safeguards mechanism to increase its emissions by about 1m tonnes at its Moranbah North mine, in central Queensland. The case study matters, because it helps us separate spin from substance.
Continue reading...Edinburgh limits pupil climate strike approval to once a year
Activists vow to keep on after council votes to authorise only one day’s school absence
Young activists have vowed to keep protesting in Edinburgh despite the city council saying it will only authorise pupils to miss school once a year to attend climate strikes.
Pupils have been attending protests on Fridays outside the Scottish parliament on an ad hoc basis after the council granted permission in March.
Continue reading...Animal Rebellion activists to blockade UK's biggest meat market
London’s Smithfield Market part of next wave of Extinction Rebellion climate protests
Thousands of animal rights and environment activists are planning to blockade Smithfield Market – the largest wholesale meat market in the UK – in the next wave of Extinction Rebellion climate protests.
A new group calling itself Animal Rebellion says it has almost 2,000 volunteers signed up to take part in a two-week blockade of the central London market from 7 October.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Endangered bonobo, migrating storks and one of the world’s biggest raptors