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'Antarctica is my office'
'Antarctica is my office'
ACT government to install 50 EV charging stations
Snowy Hydro seeks 800MW of wind and solar capacity
Land-clearing wipes out $1bn taxpayer-funded emissions gains
Official data shows forest-clearing released 160m tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2015
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More than $1bn of public money being spent on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees and restoring habitat under the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy will have effectively been wiped out by little more than two years of forest-clearing elsewhere in the country, official government data suggests.
The $2.55bn emissions reduction fund pays landowners and companies to avoid emissions or store carbon dioxide using a reverse auction – the cheapest credible bids win. The government says it has signed contracts to prevent 124m tonnes of emissions through vegetation projects – mostly repairing degraded habitat, planting trees and ensuring existing forest on private land is not cleared.
Continue reading...Dutch government appeals against court ruling over emissions cuts
Judges ordered a 25% carbon emissions cut by 2020 in the first successful lawsuit against a government’s climate policy
The Dutch government has launched a bid to overturn a landmark climate ruling, arguing that judges in The Hague “sidelined democracy” when they ordered a 25% cut in carbon emissions by 2020.
Government plans for a lesser 17% cut in CO2 pollution were deemed unlawful three years ago, in the first successful lawsuit against a government’s climate policy.
Continue reading...National parks are more than natural | Letters
Michael Gove needs to be careful in his choice of vocabulary about national parks (England may get more national parks after Gove announces review, 28 May). His review suggests that it is part of a process to enhance protection of “natural” landscapes and habitats. But our English national parks and all areas being considered for designation are equally cultural landscapes created by some 10,000 years of human presence, also needing protection. He should beware the fashionable concept of “natural capital” without balancing it with one of “cultural capital”. And he should be aware that our existing parks are the least democratic part of the English local government system, having no directly elected members. New designations balancing nature and culture, and with direct elections, might be welcomed – otherwise our special landscapes will be no better off.
Tom Greeves
Chairman, The Dartmoor Society
• Michael Gove should develop and support the people who live and work in areas with poor-quality green infrastructure. While supporting and developing statutory designated sites is laudable, it is unlikely to offer direct positive benefits for urban and suburban dwellers not within easy access of such sites. Biodiverse habitats are not restricted to statutory designated sites and should be developed and nurtured as community assets providing recreation, education, physical and mental health benefits, and climate regulation. Failure to develop and set aside green spaces in our towns and cities shows the unwillingness of public authorities to invest in spaces which do not give an easily quantifiable cash return, despite progress in including natural capital assets in an economic framework.
Ann Sharrock
Stockport
Invisible scum on sea cuts CO2 exchange with air 'by up to 50%'
Scientists say the findings have major implications for predicting our future climate
An invisible layer of scum on the sea surface can reduce carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and the oceans by up to 50%, scientists have discovered.
Researchers from Heriot-Watt, Newcastle and Exeter universities say the findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, have major implications for predicting our future climate.
Continue reading...EU challenges UK to 'race to the top' on plastics reduction
Brussels proposes ban on plastic straws and cutlery and calls out Brexiter Michael Gove
Brussels has challenged the UK’s environment secretary, Michael Gove, to try to outdo it in an environmental “race to the top” as it proposed a ban on plastic straws, cutlery, plates, cotton buds and balloon sticks.
Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, directly addressed Gove, a fervent Brexiter, as he unveiled details of the planned prohibition, along with measures designed to reduce the use of plastic takeaway containers and drinking cups.
Continue reading...SK Market: KAUs extend gains even as volumes drop
Huge rise in food redistribution to people in need across UK
Charity FareShare is feeding almost a quarter of a million people a week with food that would otherwise go to waste – a 60% rise since last year
The UK’s largest food redistribution charity is helping to feed a record 772,000 people a week – 60% more than the previous year – with food that would otherwise be wasted, new figures reveal.
One in eight people in the UK go hungry every day – with the most needy increasingly dependent on food banks – yet perfectly good food is wasted every day through the food production supply chain.
Continue reading...Hold your horses – brumby fertility control isn't that easy
Hand mowing begins as mist still hangs above the meadow – Country Diary, 1 June 1918
1 June 1918: It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn
Surrey
The morning sun was yet red on the horizon and mist hung above the lower meadows when the first mowing of grass began. Scent came across the lane fresher and sweeter than the odour from the thorns. It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn, and thicker fescue all lay low, while the larks went up singing. In the wood hard by other birds started together, finches on the lower branches, throstles on the high boughs; a jay cluttered where the grove is thick, a cuckoo called, then, showing as big as a hawk, flew to the other side. The air was so slight as not to sway even the light stems of birch trees; when a bird settled after flying the bough was set in motion like a swing, and there was so much flitting to and fro that the trees everywhere, even oaks in full leaf, were visibly alive.
Related: Scythe talking: The tool that could revolutionise your garden
Continue reading...Honduran villagers take legal action to stop mining firm digging up graves for gold
Families face pressure to decide the fate of their relatives’ grave, dividing the community of Azacualpa where as many as 350 bodies have already been exhumed
Nothing is sacred in the path of gold miners in northwestern Honduras – not even the dead.
A transnational mining company, Aura Minerals, has been digging up graves in the 200-year-old cemetery near the community of Azacualpa, La Union, to clear the way to dig for gold.
Continue reading...Energy “reliability” obsession could lead to more gold plating, warns ACCC
Know your NEM: Wind versus solar
Flash floods in Maryland leaves main street underwater – video
Flood waters and heavy rain has completely submerged the main street of the historic Ellicott City in Maryland. Authorities were assessing the damage after the flood waters swept away parked cars on Sunday.
Continue reading...Return of the bison: herd makes surprising comeback on Dutch coast
Endangered species can thrive in habitats other than forests, paving way for their return
Eighty years after they were hunted to extinction, the successful reintroduction of a herd of wild European bison onto the dunes of the Dutch coast is paving the way for their return across the continent.
The largest land-living animal in Europe was last seen in the Netherlands centuries ago, and was wiped out on the continent by 1927. Despite successful efforts to breed the species again in the wilds of Poland in the 1950s, and renewed efforts in the last decade in western Europe, the European bison remains as endangered as the black rhino.
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