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China withdraws intention to participate in ICAO’s CORSIA aviation offset scheme
Pesticides are good for profits, not for people | Letters
So the head of Syngenta, the world’s biggest pesticide maker, urges the continued use of pesticides in agriculture (Pesticide maker says curbs would lead to food crisis in 10 years, 18 June). This is hardly breaking news. Can anybody really be surprised at such a stance from any of the companies that produce these chemicals when their primary concern is to protect profits and to keep pesticides being used.
Considering sales of pesticides in the UK each year are worth about £627m and the world pesticides industry has been valued at $58bn, this is very big business with powerful, vested interests.
Continue reading...California power emissions rise over the first third of 2018, but fuel consumption down
China outlines 2020 air-pollution control targets
US offset developer combines two tree plantings with CO2 sequestration in new premium offering
Court action to save young from climate bill
Australia needs tighter ivory sale laws to protect elephants, parliamentary committee hears
Parliament looking at whether Australia’s regulations allow poached ivory and horns to be passed off as antiques
Australia’s failure to regulate the sale of elephant ivory and rhino horns could be contributing to the demise of the animals, a parliamentary committee has heard.
The committee is looking into the country’s regulations and whether they allow newly-poached ivory and horns to be passed off as antiques.
Continue reading...Large chicken mega-farms are how we'll feed the UK, says poultry industry head
British consumers eat chicken twice a week. Are large farms the only way forward?
Britain will need to build more mega-farms to keep it supplied with chicken, according to the head of the UK’s influential poultry lobby.
But the biggest threat to UK consumers, he believes, comes from cheap imported meat – “chlorinated chicken” – produced to lower standards as a result of post-Brexit trade deals.
Continue reading...Faraday Future leaps forward with $US2B foreign funding
Most of Europe's rivers and lakes fail water quality tests – report
Only 40% of waterways surveyed were in a good ecological state – with England one of the worst offenders
The vast majority of Europe’s rivers, lakes and estuaries have failed to meet minimum ecological standards for habitat degradation and pollution, according to a damning new report.
Only 40% of surface water bodies surveyed by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) were found to be in a good ecological state, despite EU laws and biodiversity protocols.
Continue reading...Turnbull’s fine line on climate: Capitulation or denial?
juwi Australia accelerates entry into utility scale solar PV projects
Finnish passengers to sing for their shuttle in electric taxi service
Know your NEM: NEG supporters talk their book, ignore climate
Country diary: a swift blast of beetle mania
Raveningham, Norfolk: Soon my yellow shirt is smothered in tiny black dots, and across the field there must be millions of pollen beetles
“Just passionate about life” is how Jake Fiennes, manager at this Yare valley estate, defines his approach to his job. It is also the phrase he uses to dodge my question about whether he’s a farmer or an environmentalist. For him the two are inextricably fused.
After haring across the valley on his tipoff, I find him combining both roles as he contemplates a field of rape. The 10-hectare plot looks commonplace until I log into the cloud of birds swirling overhead. Had I been here earlier I’d have seen 500 but, as it is, many scores of swifts and house martins swarm above the field. Together they cruise down and spire through the top of the crop, threading and rethreading it in an orgy of hunting.
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