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Europe backs lunar drilling technology
The Keartons: inventing nature photography – in pictures
Richard and Cherry Kearton, working in the 1890s, were possibly the world’s first professional wildlife photographers. The brothers’ pioneering photos include the first shot of a bird’s nest with eggs and the first Masai lion hunt.
- These images are taken from a new book published by Uniformbooks about their lives and work
Predatory dinosaur had tiny arms like Tyrannosaurus rex
Exploring nature
Brexit will force EU countries 'to make deeper, costlier carbon cuts'
Bloc will have to draw up new plan with higher cuts for remaining 27 states in order to meet its carbon reduction target, which could cost billions of euros
Brexit will force the European Union’s remaining 27 countries to spend billions of euros on cutting carbon emissions more deeply to compensate for the UK leaving, according to experts.
The UK will be included in a Brussels communique on 20 July, setting out individual targets for EU signatory states to meet a bloc goal of a 40% emissions cut by 2030, as pledged in Paris last year.
Continue reading...Pacific islands nations consider world's first treaty to ban fossil fuels
Treaty under consideration by 14 countries would ban new coalmines and embraces 1.5C target set at Paris climate talks
The world’s first international treaty that bans or phases out fossil fuels is being considered by leaders of developing Pacific islands nations after a summit in the Solomon Islands this week.
The leaders of 14 countries agreed to consider a proposed Pacific climate treaty, which would bind signatories to targets for renewable energy and ban new or the expansion of coalmines, at the annual leaders’ summit of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF).
Continue reading...From field to fork: the six stages of wasting food
Americans chuck out two tonnes of food a second – be it at the farm for being ‘ugly’ or at the table because we’re too finicky
Every second, an amount of food equal to the weight of a sedan car is thrown away in the US - about 60m tonnes a year. It starts at the farm. The potato that grew to the size of a brick. The watermelon with the brown slasher marks on the rind. The cauliflower stained yellow in the sun. The peach that lost its blush before harvest. Any of those minor imperfections - none of which affect taste or quality or shelf life - can doom a crop right there. If the grower decides the supermarkets - or ultimately the consumer - will reject it, those fruits and vegetables never make it off the farm.
Then there are the packing warehouses, where a specific count must be maintained for each plastic clamshell or box - and any strawberry or plum that does not make it is junked, if it can’t immediately be sold for juice or jam.
Continue reading...Solar Juice launches solar project finance division
Post-Brexit farming subsidies must protect nature, 84 groups say
Protection for birds, wildlife and waterways should come top of the list when any new payments for farmers are considered, NGOs tell new government
New subsidies paid to farmers under a post-Brexit government must be linked closely to environmental responsibilities, a large group of political and civil society organisations has urged.
Protection for birds, wildlife, waterways and other natural goods should come top of the list when any new payments are considered, wrote 84 food, farming and conservation specialists in a letter to Oliver Letwin and Theresa May on Thursday.
Continue reading...GPS tags reveal the secret life of urban seagulls
Pioneering study of four herring gulls nesting in St Ives, Cornwall, found they spent most of their time foraging for food outside of town
The summer holidays are nigh and with them, no doubt, will come stories of seagulls on the rampage, stealing ice cream and chips and launching attacks on people and pets.
But a ground-breaking study that tracked the movement of herring gulls nesting in the Cornish resort of St Ives suggested they spent little time scavenging for goodies or scraps on the streets.
Continue reading...Mystery as South Australia pleads with gas generator to switch back on
Regulator to push networks to consider alternatives to poles and wires
From nightfall to dawn, the garden is the snail's domain
Sandy, Bedfordshire What language did its tentacles speak? They appeared to be directionless conductors, randomly sampling the air
At nightfall, garden snails began to come out of the woodpile. I found one spiralling up a twig, stretching out its wet elephant skin. Another swung its body to the side, as if it was having a touch of slug envy, and was trying to dislodge its bulky encumbrance of a shell. One was sliding up the patio window and I went indoors to view it from beneath.
Pressed smooth against the glass, the muscles of its body (technically, its foot) rippled as waves might lap over a shallow, sandy beach, each wave a pulse of movement. Any slight change in direction caused the twisting part of the foot to crease, creating a filmy cellophane effect. What language did its tentacles speak? They appeared to be directionless conductors, randomly sampling the air, out of synch with each other, having no bearing on the animal’s purposeful course.
Continue reading...Solar Impulse: We’ll see solar-powered passenger planes within 10 years
ACT solar farm rejected by Uriarra begins construction in Williamsdale
Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder Portfolio Management Plans 2016-17
First Enphase battery storage system installed in Sydney house
Commercial energy storage economics will be attractive in 19 US State markets by 2021
Solar industry goes to war against entrenched interests
New Zealand Electricity Authority rules in favour of controversial solar ‘tax’
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