Around The Web
How to make biodegradable 'plastic' from cactus juice
Inside Britain’s top secret research laboratory
REDD criticism should not affect California’s Tropical Forest Standard, advocates say
EPH gains more ground on RWE as EU’s top corporate emitter
Morrison Government under fire for not releasing emissions figures
Costco among six companies to make up OCFP credit shortfall this summer
EU spurns calls to use foreign carbon credits in its ETS, for now
Australian musicians band together to invest in solar farms
Exclusive: Midnight Oil, Cloud Control, Vance Joy and Regurgitator join FEAT., a new platform encouraging their industry to back sustainability
In the spring of 2017, immediately after the release of the Australian band Cloud Control’s third album, Zone, the band’s keyboard player, Heidi Lenffer, was contemplating what the their upcoming tour would cost. But this time she wasn’t just thinking about the money; she was thinking about emissions. Independent bands are used to running on a shoestring budget – a carbon-conscious Lenffer wanted Cloud Control to run a more environmentally efficient operation, too.
She began asking climate scientists in the field, and connected with Dr Chris Dey from Areté Sustainability. Dey crunched the numbers for Cloud Control’s two-week tour, playing 15 clubs and theatres from Byron Bay to Perth.
Continue reading...North American youth climate lawsuits facing critical juncture this week
Offset developer sees California auction results as positive for market
A deadly fungus threatens to wipe out 100 frog species – here's how it can be stopped
EU Market: EUAs tumble to 2-month low as bearish factors coalesce
Slow poison: how Queensland government workers paid the price for fruit fly eradication
During the 1990s, workers were told not to worry about breathing in the poison, but years later they suffer debilitating illnesses
Robert Paul Sharman remembers how the smell of the gas would linger.
Outside the fumigation chambers it hung around, bonded to the tropical North Queensland air, amid the hottest November on record. When Sharman went home, and nursed his baby son to sleep, the odour of the gas was still there.
Continue reading...Queensland government workers exposed to 'gene-altering' chemical
Medical experts say exposure to toxic fumigant EDB in fruit fly eradication program ‘likely’ to have caused illnesses
Queensland government biosecurity workers were exposed to a carcinogenic and gene-altering chemical for an extended period, including for six months after its use was banned amid health and safety concerns.
A leading occupational medical expert says that workers’ exposure to the highly toxic fumigant ethylene dibromide (EDB) in the mid-1990s was “more likely than not” the cause of debilitating and serious illnesses suffered over two decades.
Continue reading...Climate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds
National academies say effects include spread of diseases and worse mental health
A report by experts from 27 national science academies has set out the widespread damage global heating is already causing to people’s health and the increasingly serious impacts expected in future.
Scorching heatwaves and floods will claim more victims as extreme weather increases but there are serious indirect effects too, from spreading mosquito-borne diseases to worsening mental health.
Continue reading...Farmer Sutra! Are gay rams really a problem in the sheep industry?
One in 12 sheep shows same-sex preferences, according to a Channel 4 documentary. Unfortunately, there are commercial ramifications
A breeding ram has only one job. What if he can’t perform? “Unfortunately, he’ll have to go into the food chain,” said Dewi Jones, the chief executive of the sheep-breeding company Innovis, speaking on a Channel 4 documentary, My Gay Dog and Other Animals, which will be broadcast on Thursday. The show reports that one in 12 sheep is gay. “There is ram-on-ram behaviour going on over there,” Jones says, watching his rams. Putting three of the male-oriented rams into a pen with a ewe to see which are interested in her, one uninterested ram is classed as a “shy breeder”. “Commercially, it’s a big issue for us as a breeding company or as a ram breeder because we need our rams to cover lots of ewes.”
Many species – including sheep, penguins, monkeys and dolphins – have been shown to display same-sex preferences. Perhaps the most famous example came to light in 2014, when Benji, a Charolais bull in County Mayo, Ireland, was due to be slaughtered after showing no interest in the heifers he was bought to breed with. Campaigners raised money to send him to a sanctuary instead (although it emerged the following year that he may not be “gay” after all, “judging by what he was trying to do the other day with one of the cows,” said his new owner).
Continue reading...