Feed aggregator

Soil carbon 'a saviour' in locking up carbon

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-04-22 12:05
Robin Batterham says soils offer huge potential as a carbon sink.
Categories: Around The Web

March for Science: Why did you march?

ABC Science - Sat, 2017-04-22 11:09
MARCH FOR SCIENCE: Thousands of people marched in support of science - but what does that mean? Why asked some of the people who marched in Sydney.
Categories: Around The Web

Tory failure to deliver pollution action plan angers environmentalists

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-04-22 06:19

Ministers submit court application to delay tackling illegal levels of toxic fumes, deemed by MPs to be a public health emergency

The government has made a last-minute application to the high court to delay the publication of its plan to tackle the air pollution crisis.

Ministers were under a court direction to produce tougher draft measures to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which is largely caused by diesel traffic, by 4pm on Monday. The government’s original plans had been dismissed by judges as so poor as to be unlawful.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Cassini probe sets up Saturn 'grand finale'

BBC - Sat, 2017-04-22 03:23
The Cassini satellite is about to put itself on a path that will take it to destruction in September.
Categories: Around The Web

'Uber for bikes' comes to Cambridge – if you can find it

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-04-22 02:21

China’s popular dockless cycle share schemes allow riders to drop their bike wherever they want. Ofo is the first to launch in the UK - but what will our rider make of it?

Ofo, one of a host of Chinese start-ups hoping to do for bikes what Uber did for taxis, has chosen Cambridge for its first foray into Europe, a trial of which launched without fanfare this week.

Chinese cities have seen hundreds of thousands of these ‘dockless’ bikes hit its streets, that now have tens of millions of regular users.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-04-21 23:03

Sharks at night, a feeding vampire bat and California’s wildflower super bloom are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Environmental charities allowed to challenge changes to court cost rules

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-04-21 22:57

High court judge has agreed to limit RSPB, ClientEarth and FoE’s costs liabilities to £10,000 in their action against the Ministry of Justice’s changes to costs cap

Three environmental charities have been given permission to challenge court regulations which they say make it too financially risky to bring cases over air pollution standards or the expansion of Heathrow airport.

A high court judge has agreed to limit costs liabilities of the RSPB, ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth to £10,000 in their action against the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which introduced the new rules earlier this year.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Britain set for first coal-free day since Industrial Revolution

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-04-21 21:11

National Grid expects the UK to reach coal energy ‘watershed’ on Friday in what will also be the country’s first 24-hour coal-free period

The UK is set to have its first ever working day without coal power generation since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid.

The control room tweeted the predicted milestone on Friday, adding that it is also set to be the first 24-hour coal-free period in Britain.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

David Attenborough’s ‘Guardian headline’ halts Borneo bridge

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-04-21 21:03

Conservationist denounced Sukau project as a threat to pygmy elephants and orangutans

Officials in Borneo have cancelled plans to build a bridge across the Kinabatangan river, after warnings from Sir David Attenborough and other conservationists that it would gravely endanger pygmy elephants, orangutans and many other jungle species. The news comes just weeks after the Guardian revealed Attenborough’s opposition to the project.

Attenborough originally sent a private letter to the chief minister of the state of Sabah, Musa Aman, in September 2016. Last month, with signs pointing to the bridge still going ahead, the Guardian published excerpts from the letter. The authorities in Borneo have described Attenborough’s now-public opposition as the final blow to the project.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Amur leopards will be off-show to visitors at Scottish park

BBC - Fri, 2017-04-21 20:36
The Amur leopards are to be kept off-show in the hope they raise cubs that can be released into the wild.
Categories: Around The Web

Plunged into a soundscape of rich noise

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-04-21 14:30

Stanage, Derbyshire Listening to moorland might illustrate its health just as well as looking at it does

The eastern horizon was a pale streak capped with pink, but it was still dark at Hollin Bank car park and I could barely make out Bill Gordon’s face as he waited. Bill is a volunteer for the Eastern Moors Partnership, monitoring ring ouzels, the mountain blackbird. To record their calls, he was carrying an impressive-looking microphone on a pole with a “dead-cat” windshield, rather cosy on a frosty April morning.

We had barely walked a few yards when, without a word, he pushed his headphones over my ears. It was a moment of complete transformation. From peering at the tenebrous moors, I was plunged suddenly into a soundscape at its zenith, its high noon, a matrix of rich, vital noise. To my right, I could hear a pair of snipe chipping away and, from all around, with a measure of distance between each, the looping voices of curlew. Just ahead of me, on steep scrubby ground, the wren that had sounded so thin and distant became gigantic, all lungs.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Substation works commence to help deliver one of Australia’s largest solar farms

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 14:10
Powerlink has commenced work to expand its Clare South substation to help deliver one of Australia’s largest solar farms.
Categories: Around The Web

Macquarie bets big on renewables with purchase of UK green bank

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 14:06
Australia's Macquarie Group wins bid to buy Britain’s Green Investment Bank, handing it more than $A6.8bn of green infrastructure assets and projects.
Categories: Around The Web

Torres Strait Beche De Mer, Finfish, Prawn, Trochus, and Tropical Rock Lobster Fisheries - Agency application 2017

Department of the Environment - Fri, 2017-04-21 13:26
Application for assessment under the EPBC Act – call for public comments open 26 April 2017 to 31 May 2017.
Categories: Around The Web

Industrial bulk-buy could open path for more wind and solar projects

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 13:23
A bulk-buy tender by big industrial users – fed up with soaring cost of electricity in South Australia, and the power of retailers – could open door to wind and solar and kick-start the corporate market for large-scale renewables in Australia.
Categories: Around The Web

Embarrassment for Japan as Indonesia court rejects coal plant’s permit

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 13:04
In an embarrassing rebuff to the JBIC, an Indonesian administrative court has ruled a key environmental permit for a huge coal plant expansion was issued illegally.
Categories: Around The Web

Impact Investment Group enters Sydney market, buying into Central Park

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 13:00
Impact Investment Group has entered the Sydney property market, securing options to buy into the iconic project, Central Park.
Categories: Around The Web

Trump’s Energy Dept reportedly denying funds for already-approved grants

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 12:56
The Trump administration, through the Department of Energy, has started withholding money for grants already approved by the agency.
Categories: Around The Web

Plunging battery costs raise doubts over Tasmania’s $3 billion hydro plans

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 12:41
Tasmania's grand plans to spend $3 billion on pumped hydro and new links to become the "renewable battery" of Australia may be undone by the plunging cost of battery storage.
Categories: Around The Web

We just reached the 410 parts per million Co2 threshold

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-04-21 12:37
The world just passed another round-numbered climate milestone. Scientists predicted it would happen this year and lo and behold, it has.
Categories: Around The Web

Pages

Subscribe to Sustainable Engineering Society aggregator