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Households need a fair go on the grid for solar, batteries and EVs
The post Households need a fair go on the grid for solar, batteries and EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
England brings in biodiversity net gain rules to force builders to compensate for loss of nature
From this week, developments must result in more or better natural habitat than before, in a move hailed as one of the world’s most ambitious
England is launching a biodiversity credit scheme this week that attempts to force all new road and housebuilding projects to benefit nature, rather than damage it.
The “nature market”, called biodiversity net gain (BNG), means all new building projects must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity or habitat. If a woodland is destroyed by a road, for example, another needs to be recreated. This can happen either on site or elsewhere.
Continue reading...Heart attacks, cancer, dementia: Four essential reads on the health effects driving US EPA’s fine particle air pollution standard
The post Heart attacks, cancer, dementia: Four essential reads on the health effects driving US EPA’s fine particle air pollution standard appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Maritime emissions to surge as ships speed up to bypass Red Sea danger
Woodside dramatically expands oil and gas exploration spend despite net zero pledge
Australia’s largest oil and gas producer stands accused of distracting from credible action to cut emissions by greenwashing its fossil fuel plans
Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, Woodside Energy, has expanded its focus on fossil fuel exploration and increased its direct greenhouse gas pollution since announcing it had an “aspiration” of reaching net zero emissions.
Woodside’s spending on looking for new oil and gas reserves was $160m in 2019 and dipped to $96m in 2021 – a year affected by the Covid-19 pandemic – before rising to $418m in 2022, according to a report by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Continue reading...Permaculture showed us how to farm the land more gently. Can we do the same as we farm the sea?
EPA again OKs use of toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease
Agency’s draft report backs paraquat’s safety but lawsuit’s plaintiffs say EPA ignored evidence of Parkinson’s risk
The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease.
The agency in 2021 reapproved paraquat-based herbicides for use, but a coalition of agricultural and public health groups sued, charging that the EPA had ignored broad scientific consensus linking the substance to Parkinson’s.
Continue reading...Fluffy the alligator snapping turtle found in Cumbrian tarn – video
An alligator snapping turtle, with a jaw experts say can break through bone, was spotted living by a lake in Cumbria.
The animal is native to swamplands of the southern US such as Florida, has a hard and rugged shell as well as a sharp and wide jaw.
Vets said despite not being used to the cooler climate in the UK, the turtle, who has been named Fluffy, was relatively healthy, although a little lethargic when first brought in. The turtle will soon be moving to a specialist wildlife centre in Cornwall
Continue reading...Scuttling his flagship green policy, Sir Keir Starmer has imperilled his credibility | Andrew Rawnsley
This sorry saga is not encouraging if it is a precedent for how Labour will handle the hard choices that it will face in government
I know a dead pledge when I see one, and I’m looking at one now. Labour’s green prosperity plan is history. It’s kicked the bucket, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-pledge. It has suffered the same fate as the Norwegian Blue in Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch.
The abandonment of the commitment to invest £28bn a year to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy is not a routine political volte-face. This was Sir Keir Starmer’s signature pledge, one launched with tremendous fanfare as his flagship policy in 2021. There has not been a larger, more contentious or more excruciating U-turn during his time as Labour leader.
Continue reading...Pity SUV drivers, fast being priced out of their badges of contempt for the planet | Catherine Bennett
With the royals as ambassadors for these luxury cars, there’s little hope for the rest of us
If you have tears – that is, any not used up on MPs struggling to get by, parents forced to choose between skiing and private schools, second homeowners who feel unwelcome, Etonians shut out of Oxbridge, and people cut adrift with unusable city wood burners – prepare to shed them on the latest affluent but afflicted minority: Range Rover owners unable afford their car insurance.
Thanks in large part to the Daily Mail, which has been prioritising their plight, a series of distressing cases has recently come to light. One owner, it reports, gave up after being quoted £14,000 to insure his £100,000 Range Rover Sport, and instead “bought himself a new Mercedes GLE”. Insurers, who say the vehicles are too likely to be stolen, seem to be deaf to the suffering of owners whose only fault was to buy an obese status symbol coveted by many hard-working criminals, as well as by Prince Andrew.
Continue reading...Researchers enhance accuracy in EU carbon price forecasting
US Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax credits expected to increase budget deficits by $428 bln through 2033
Sydney’s 90m-year-old climbing galaxias fish may have been wiped out by school building works
The species can climb waterfalls and reaches back to Gondwanaland – but there are fears polluted runoff has proven fatal
A “miracle fish” may have been snuffed out in its Sydney habitat by bungled construction work at a nearby government high school, local environmentalists fear.
The climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis) belongs to a species line reaching back to Gondwanaland. It was only identified in the Manly Dam region in Sydney’s north – the fish’s most northerly known location in Australia – in 1998.
Continue reading...UK farmers vow to mount more blockades over cheap post-Brexit imports
Inspired by French action, British campaigners say they will continue slow tractor protests after Dover roads were blocked
Farmers say there will be further French-style blockades following a slow tractor protest at Dover against low supermarket prices and cheap food imports from post-Brexit trade deals.
Around 40 tractors and other farm vehicles blocked roads around the Kent port for several hours on Friday evening by driving slowly and carrying signs with slogans such as “No More Cheap Imports”.
Continue reading...Forget range anxiety: we should really worry about China’s global dominance in the electric car market | John Naughton
EVs heavily subsidised by Beijing are flooding Europe and the globe. If we don’t watch out, it could start a major trade war
Whenever people learn that I have an electric vehicle (EV) the conversation invariably turns to whether I suffer from “range anxiety” – the fear of running out of charge. The answer is that generally I don’t, though I might if I were contemplating a drive across the Highlands of Scotland to Aviemore, say. But otherwise, no. Why? Because I am able to charge the car overnight at home, and most of my trips are much much shorter than the vehicle’s 300-mile range.
In that sense I am statistically normal. Government estimates are that 99% of car journeys in England are of less than 100 miles. So if you can charge at home, then most of your problems are over, which probably explains when the last time the Department for Transport did a survey, 93% of the country’s EV owners had home charging.
Continue reading...Climate-crisis deniers sought for exclusive Florida residence. Private ark essential | Gaia Vince
Gordon Pointe is going for a snip at $295m – but set in a location particularly vulnerable to sea-level rises, buyers should beware
Reality deniers with big pockets are sought by a family of Floridian property developers hoping to sell the most expensive home in the US: a waterfront property on the market for $295m (£234m). The compound squats on Gordon Pointe peninsula, a spit of beachfront in south-west Florida, extending perilously into the Gulf of Mexico. The late financier John Donahue bought the land for $1m in 1985, when it was a beautiful remote nature spot, protected by mangroves, with a small fisherman’s cottage on it. He soon razed this and replaced it with McMansions with de rigueur swimming pools and lawns. Offered for your $295m are three houses with parking for yachts and other conveniences for the wealthy sea-level-rise gambler. The Donahue family is selling at the right time. This is one of the parts of the world most vulnerable to climate impacts, with sea levels rising three times faster than the global average, and increasing risk from hurricane damage. The whole neighbourhood, Port Royal, has been categorised as at “extreme risk of flooding” over the next 30 years, and is regularly hit by weather disasters, making it very expensive to get home insurance. Buyer beware, as Canute might say. Diminishing returns…
Continue reading...Dover tractor protester says farmers could launch more demonstrations
Organiser of go-slow protest says farmers in Europe have ‘shown us what can be accomplished’
The organiser of a protest in which tractor-driving farmers caused traffic jams around the Port of Dover has said there could be more demonstrations.
Road traffic in and out of the coastal town in Kent was disrupted by the go-slow demonstration on Friday night.
Continue reading...Labour’s reduced home insulation plans ‘simply not enough’
Housebuilders and campaigners warn of cold, damp homes and UK missing legally binding targets
Labour’s slashing of proposed spending on home insulation will leave millions of people on low incomes in cold, damp homes and could prevent the UK meeting its legally binding carbon targets, campaigners and housebuilders have warned.
The Federation of Master Builders criticised the drastic scaling back of Labour’s low-carbon policies, announced by Keir Starmer on Thursday after months of speculation.
Continue reading...Cyclone Tracy cleanup to Melbourne Cup upset: archive images of 20th century Australia – in pictures
The Focus exhibition at the National Archives of Australia contains pictures drawn from its collection of almost 11m images. Government photography is usually associated with politics but the photographers also documented the lives and work of well-known and everyday Australians
Continue reading...Is Iceland entering a new volcanic era?
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