Around The Web

Volunteers and military personnel worked together to help return the killer whale to the ocean.

One army veteran suffering from PTSD says Forest Bathing is helping him sleep.

Study also finds that converting conventionally farmed land would not overly harm crop yields or require huge amounts of additional land to feed rising populations

Converting land from conventional agriculture to organic production could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the run-off of excess nitrogen from fertilisers, and cut pesticide use. It would also, according to a new report, be feasible to convert large amounts of currently conventionally farmed land without catastrophic harm to crop yields and without needing huge amounts of new land.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that by combining organic production with an increasingly vegetarian diet, ways of cutting food waste, and a return to traditional methods of fixing nitrogen in the soil instead of using fertiliser, the world’s projected 2050 population of more than 9 billion could be fed without vastly increasing the current amount of land under agricultural production.

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A scheme unveiled at the UN climate summit aims to help protect 400 million poor people from extreme weather by 2020 - but not everyone is convinced

“I was wondering if it was a dream,” said Walter Edwin, who sells honey from more than 50 beehives in Dennery on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. He had just received a phone call telling him to go to the bank for an automatic insurance payout following the major hurricane that struck in 2014.

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In 1975 two conservationists discovered a gorgeous salamander in the rainforests of Guatemala. No one ever saw it again – and Jackson’s climbing salamander was feared extinct – until last month when local forest guard, Ramos León-Tomás, sat down in the forest for lunch.

The last time anyone saw Jackson’s climbing salamander – I didn’t yet exist. It was 1975: Margaret Thatcher took over leadership of the Tories, Saigon fell to Communist forces, the USSR was still a thing, and everyone was listening to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. And in Guatemala, reeling from over a decade of civil war, two American conservationists found a little treasure of black and gold: they named it Jackson’s climbing salamander. Then it vanished as if it had never been.

Forty-two years later a lot has changed. The world is hotter than it has been in over 100,000 years and species are vanishing at rates that portend mass extinction. Yet, miracles can still happen.

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Robots could also reduce food waste and help harvest crops, but they may not be commercially available for some years to come, say experts

Miniature robot farmers may be the answer to concerns over chemical use on farms and cutting down on food waste, as well as easing labour shortages, academic farming experts have said.

The drawback is that the machines in question, while developed in laboratories to an advanced stage, are not yet commercially available in the UK. In an optimistic scenario, they could become available in as little as three years, but that would be likely to take large investment and a high degree of entrepreneurialism in the private sector, the experts said on Monday.

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The case, led by Greenpeace, claims Norwegian government has violated constitutional right to a healthy environment and contravenes Paris agreement

The Norwegian government is being sued by climate activists over a decision to open up areas of the Arctic Ocean for oil exploration, a move they say endangers the lives of existing and future generations.

The plaintiffs, led by environmental organisations Greenpeace and Youth and Nature, will on Tuesday claim that the Norwegian government has violated a constitutional environmental law which guarantees citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.

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A new assessment of cycling in UK cities shows people are far more supportive of bold plans than political decision makers often think

It may not be clear from the persistent bikelash in many sections of the media, but in fact there is huge public support for increased government investment in cycling and especially for building segregated bike routes.

Of 7,700 people surveyed in seven major UK cities for a new study published on Tuesday, 78% of people support the creation of more protected bike routes on roads, even when this could mean less space for other road traffic, with the majority of people saying this would encourage them to cycle more.

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The Paradise Papers have exposed the hypocrisy of universities that teach sustainability while financing climate destruction offshore. We’re calling on them to come clean

Students at Oxford and Cambridge are taught about the dangers of economic inequality, climate change, and the limits of burnable carbon. But the Paradise Papers have revealed that behind the scenes, the universities are investing tens of millions in projects that systematically exacerbate inequality and climate disaster.

The scandal is not simply tax avoidance. It is the hypocrisy of universities that espouse their commitment to sustainability while financing environmental destruction offshore.

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Most hunts happen in the early morning or just before dusk – except in winter during the short days

Skylarks are chasing each other over the fields, their sharp calls piercing the air. Two of the birds climb overhead. The second, having seen off the first, circles back, and begins to hover, singing snatches of its bright, vigorous territorial song. The brown, falling leaves are a reminder that it’s November.

Shadows drift across the hillside. The evening sun, reaching between the breaks in the moving cloud, lights up patches of undulating ground so they glow golden brown and yellow-green before falling into darkness again. A group of white gulls is heading back from the coast to the open fields to find somewhere to roost for the night. The sun catches each one as they pass, and they shine brightly like silvered pearls.

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A new book about what we consume and what it is doing to us raises lots of good points, but lacks a little on the ‘what is to be done’ question. Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Synergy's new "green fund" will cement its near monopoly powers, and put up to $1bn of wind and solar developments at risk, industry warns.

Confusion over RET regulation changes has revealed large cracks in the faith of the renewable energy industry, which – still recovering from the Abbott years – is spooked by the National Energy Guarantee, and possible future policy changes, just as the market is hitting its stride.

Elon Musk tweets that the Tesla Semi Truck unveiling will “blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension.” Let's see.

Carnegie boosts nominal capacity of CETO unit from 1GW to 1.5MW, in bid to make wave power cost competitive with mainstream renewables.

RCR is pleased to announce that it has been selected as the Preferred EPC Contractor for two major contracts, totalling approximately $260 million.

The rate of change of progress is rapid and to stay current with the latest in technology developments and deployment, each year, Australia's leading solar researchers get together in an annual conference, with international and regional colleagues.

US officials were arguing for the continued use of coal at a UN meeting in Bonn, Germany.

Cooling off this summer will be more expensive than ever, putting at risk the very young, the elderly and people with health conditions. Larissa Nicholls, Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Halley McCann, Researcher at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Karyn Bosomworth, Vice-Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Yolande Strengers, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

This social media community has come together for the first time in North Carolina to discuss their shared belief.