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If 80% of Australians care about climate action, why don't they vote like it?
Pair of eager beavers released in South Downs to help boost valley wildlife
Rangers hope reintroduction of once eradicated species will help manage habitat and improve biodiversity
The beaver needed no encouragement. After a 500-mile road trip from the banks of a Scottish river to a hidden valley on the edge of England’s rolling South Downs, the sights and smells of a woodland pond were all it took.
As soon as his straw-lined travel crate was opened, the creature padded out, glided smoothly into the water and began a careful examination of his new home.
Continue reading...Scottish government set for windfarm windfall of up to £860m
Government of Scotland in line for windfall after lifting cap on maximum bids
The Scottish government is in line for a windfall of up to £860m from a forthcoming auction of Scottish seabed plots for windfarms, after lifting a cap on maximum bids following a runaway auction in England and Wales.
Crown Estate Scotland had planned to cap the amount developers could offer for a seabed lease at £10,000 per square kilometre, but under new rules the bidding will be allowed to swell to a maximum £100,000 per sq km.
Continue reading...No bottle deposit return scheme for most of UK until 2024 at earliest
Scheme will not come into effect in England, Wales and Northern Ireland until at least six years after it was announced
A promised deposit return scheme for plastic bottles to cut marine pollution will not be in place in England, Wales and Northern Ireland until late 2024 at the earliest – six years after it was announced by the government as a key environmental policy.
Critics said the delay was “embarrassing” and not the sign of a government committed to tackling plastic pollution.
Continue reading...Lord Howe Island: Saving an Australian paradise's 'cloud forest'
One of Earth’s giant carbon sinks may have been overestimated - study
The potential of soils to slow climate change by soaking up carbon may be less than previously thought
The storage potential of one of the Earth’s biggest carbon sinks – soils – may have been overestimated, research shows. This could mean ecosystems on land soaking up less of humanity’s emissions than expected, and more rapid global heating.
Soils and the plants that grow in them absorb about a third of the carbon emissions that drive the climate crisis, partly limiting the impact of fossil-fuel burning. Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere can increase plant growth and, until now, it was assumed carbon storage in soils would increase too.
Continue reading...LCFS Market: California prices slide on reports of Brazilian ethanol shipments
UK firm to stop using British pork after post-Brexit border problems
Helen Browning’s Organic says it is switching to Danish suppliers owing to bureaucracy, delays and costs
A UK food company whose products appear on the shelves of the country’s largest supermarkets has decided to stop using British pork in its sausages because of the post-Brexit complications of moving meat across borders.
After two disastrous attempts since January to send British pork to Germany, where it is made into 75 tonnes of organic sausages annually, the firm behind Helen Browning’s Organic says it has been forced to drop its support for UK farmers and switch to Danish suppliers.
Continue reading...RGGI may struggle to hold bankrupt entities accountable for CO2 obligations, sources say
EU Midday Market Brief
Planet and plastic: End of the love story?
North-south divide on air pollution 'a threat to economies and health'
Thinktank reports that northern UK cities are lagging behind on development of clean air zones
The delayed introduction of measures to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis will exacerbate the glaring health inequalities and entrench the north-south divide, according to a report.
Several local authorities in the north have scrapped or deferred plans to introduce clean air zones, regarded as the best way to tackle toxic air, while cities in other parts of the UK are pressing ahead with the schemes to limit dirty vehicles.
Continue reading...Beijing positions itself as hub for China’s voluntary carbon trade
Rising risk of wildfires across UK from climate crisis, scientists warn
Once-in-a-century weather extremes could become commonplace by 2080 unless carbon emissions are curbed
Once-in-a-century weather extremes that pose the highest danger of wildfires could occur every year in parts of the UK as the climate changes, scientists warn.
A study led by the University of Reading aimed to predict how the danger of blazes taking hold would increase as a result of rising temperatures and less summer rainfall in the UK in the coming decades.
Continue reading...Scientists need to face both facts and feelings when dealing with the climate crisis | Kimberly Nicholas
I was taught to use my head, not my heart. But acknowledging sadness at what is lost can help us safeguard the future
Over the course of my career, the climate crisis has changed from something only experts could see – reading clues trapped in frozen air bubbles or statistical patterns in long-term data sets – to something that everyone on Earth is living through. For me, it has gone from being something I study to a way that I see the world and experience my life. It’s one thing to publish a study on the hypothetical impact of increasing temperature on California’s people and ecosystems; it’s another to feel my stomach gripped by fear as my parents flee a catastrophic California wildfire cranked up by longer, hotter, drier summers.
Bearing witness to the demise or death of what we love has started to look an awful lot like the job description for an environmental scientist these days. Over dinner, my colleague Ola Olsson matter‑of‑factly summed up his career: “Half the wildlife in Africa has died on my watch.” He studied biodiversity because he loved animals and wanted to understand and protect them. Instead his career has turned into a decades-long funeral.
As a scientist, I was trained to be calm, rational, and objective, to focus on the facts, supporting my claims with evidence and showing my reasoning to colleagues to tear apart in peer review. I was trained to use my brain but not my heart; to report methods and statistics and findings but not how I felt about them. In graduate school, I was surrounded by brilliant, serious men who spoke in even, measured tones about the loss of California snowpack and crop yields; I tried to do the same.
I felt my credibility as a scientist was on the line, as was the respect of those who would sit on my future hiring committee and determine whether I would get a tenure- track job. I internalised the idea that scientists should be “policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.” I was not supposed to have a preference, much less an emotional attachment, to one outcome or another, even on matters of life and death; that was for “policymakers” to decide. (This reticence goes against the wishes of 60% of Americans, as expressed in Pew Research polling, that scientists take an active role in policy debates about scientific issues.)
My dispassionate training has not prepared me for the increasingly frequent emotional crises of climate change. What do I tell the student who chokes up in my office when she reads that 90% of the seagrasses she’s trying to design policies to protect are slated to be killed by warming before she retires? In such cases, facts are cold comfort. The skill I’ve had to cultivate on my own is to find the appropriate bedside manner as a doctor to a feverish planet; to try to go beyond probabilities and scenarios, to acknowledge what is important and grieve for what is being lost.
Uluru waterfalls: Rain brings 'unique' sight to Australian landmark
Disease outbreaks more likely in deforestation areas, study finds
Tree-planting can also increase health risks if it focuses too narrowly on small number of species, paper says
Outbreaks of infectious diseases are more likely in areas of deforestation and monoculture plantations, according to a study that suggests epidemics are likely to increase as biodiversity declines.
Land use change is a significant factor in the emergence of zoonotic viruses such as Covid-19 and vector-borne ailments such as malaria, says the paper, published on Wednesday in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Continue reading...Angus Taylor has never asked Climate Change Authority to model zero carbon pathway
Climate Change Authority tells inquiry that it has not been asked to model a zero emissions pathway for Australia.
The post Angus Taylor has never asked Climate Change Authority to model zero carbon pathway appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Sunseap completes offshore floating solar farm in Straits of Johor
Singapore now host to one of the world's biggest floating solar farms.
The post Sunseap completes offshore floating solar farm in Straits of Johor appeared first on RenewEconomy.
NZ utility Contact Energy planning pipeline of large-scale wind farms
Contact Energy hires consultants Roaring40s to help develop a pipeline of large-scale wind farms in New Zealand over the next six years.
The post NZ utility Contact Energy planning pipeline of large-scale wind farms appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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