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‘You can't live in a museum’: the battle for Greenland's uranium

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-01-28 20:00

A tiny town in southern Greenland is fighting for its future. Behind it sits one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium. Should a controversial mine get the green light?

It is a beautiful morning on the southern tip of Greenland; the sun is high in a cloudless sky, but there is a tang of cold in the air. A crowd of Spanish tourists in red parkas has gathered at the small jetty in Narsaq, to watch boatmen who have just returned from hunting a minke whale in the open sea. From the shoreline, the Spaniards watch the men below busy themselves, slicing the whale meat into slippery rectangular chunks. They work swiftly, as if cleaning up the scene of an emergency, deferring to one young man in orange overalls. As word spreads that a catch has landed, local people arrive with carrier bags and choose from the cuts laid out on the bloodstained floor of the little boats bobbing in the water. The bags are slung on handheld scales; today, whale meat costs 80 Danish kroner a kilo, about £9. A woman pushes a wheelbarrow down the jetty, loaded with what looks like a ribcage.

The whale hunter is a symbolic figure in Greenland but the flurry the Spaniards are observing is humdrum, devoid of ceremony. Sebu Kaspersen, the hunter in orange overalls, explains that there was a calm sea and they could see a lot of whales; they shot one with a rifle and then fired a harpoon to finish it off. It is, he says, the second minke whale he has killed this year, the limit of his quota. His living largely comes from fishing halibut, and hunting seals for their skin; mostly, he works alone, without a crew.

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New mercury threat to oceans from climate change

BBC - Sat, 2017-01-28 15:34
Rising temperatures could boost mercury levels in fish by up to seven times the current rates, say Swedish researchers.
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Driven to distraction by wildlife

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-01-28 15:30

Strathnairn, Highlands Looking at siskins so close is a delight. I can never decide if their plumage is yellow-green or lime-green

My study is separate from the house, in the 0.4 hectare garden, and I find there are three main distractions when I try to write there during daylight. (Though not the Toad’s Hole engraving by the door, which so intrigues visitors – it’s a family joke, dating back to a time when I used to work away a lot and write home signing myself “Toad”).

The first is the large pond just below the window. We had the pond dug out 30 years ago, for the wildlife, and it has been a great success – you can even see it on the latest Ordnance Survey map.

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Seeds offer clue to domesticated plants' larger size

BBC - Sat, 2017-01-28 11:08
The seeds of domesticated plants could offer clues as to why cultivated crops are larger than their wild cousins, a study suggests.
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Fewer, less viable sperm follows inbreeding of NZ endangered birds

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-01-28 11:05
In New Zealand genetic diversity is proving a barrier for conservation measures aimed at boosting numbers of endangered birds.
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It's a mad fan's world

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-01-28 09:30
Australia's rufous fantails have managed to avoid extinction by snake, unlike their unfortunate cousins on the island of Guam. Lindsey Nietmann is trying to find out how these 'mad fans' do it.
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A Big Country

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-01-28 05:20
Crocs and cattle don't mix on a Northern Territory station; meet a specialist alpaca shearer; and a fish restocking program pays big dividends in the Kimberley.
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Westminster council to become first to charge extra to park diesel cars

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-01-28 03:06

In trial aimed at cutting air pollution, diesel motorists parking in Marylebone will pay an additional 50%, or £2.45 extra an hour

Westminster will become the first council in the UK to charge drivers of diesel cars extra money to park as town halls across London battle air pollution.

The charge will be introduced for a trial period from April. Drivers of diesel-powered cars and vans will pay an additional 50%, which at current rates would be an extra £2.45 an hour to park on the street in Marylebone, one of the most polluted areas of the borough.

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Australia's 'fairy possum' faces uncertain future

BBC - Sat, 2017-01-28 02:38
A tiny possum, an emblem of the state of Victoria in Australia, is rapidly heading towards extinction, say scientists.
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Toxic air, climate tweets and sharks – green news roundup

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-01-28 02:36

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-01-28 00:00

A baboon squaring up to a leopard, white-tailed eagles, and a cauliflower jellyfish are among this week’s pick of animals from the natural world

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Hotel collapses into river after torrential rain in Peru – video

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-01-27 21:46

The La Hacienda hotel collapses into the swollen waters of the Sicra river in the Peruvian town of Lircay on Thursday. The foundations of the three-storey tourist hotel, which is built on the river’s edge, eroded due to the constant rainfall over the past week and the rising waters. According to local media, no injuries were reported as all guests had been evacuated before it fell

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Claim made for hydrogen 'wonder material'

BBC - Fri, 2017-01-27 21:36
US scientists draw controversy as they claim to have fulfilled the decades-long quest to turn hydrogen into a state where it behaves like a metal.
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Big Garden Birdwatch: cold snap may bring unusual migrant birds to gardens

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-01-27 21:03

Participants in the world’s biggest wildlife survey this weekend could see droves of charismatic waxwings arriving from Scandinavia, says RSPB

Unusual migrant birds could be seen in UK gardens in the cold snap, experts said as they urged people to take part in the world’s biggest wildlife survey.

More than half a million people are expected to take part in this year’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which is taking place over three days for the first time.

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More funnel-web antivenom is needed on the East coast

ABC Environment - Fri, 2017-01-27 17:25
Would you be game enough to catch a funnel-web spider if it saved a life?
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Red in tooth and bored: unimpressed zoo animals – in pictures

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-01-27 17:00

Eric Pillot photographs animals in captivity, amid poorly approximated backdrops of their natural habitats, for his award-winning series In Situ

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Theresa May must challenge Trump's 'contempt' for climate change, say MPs

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-01-27 16:06

MPs from across the political spectrum say the UK prime minister must urge the US president to remain in the global Paris agreement

Prime minister Theresa May must challenge President Donald Trump’s “contempt” for environmental protection and urge him to remain in the global agreement to fight climate change, according to MPs from across the UK’s political parties.

May will meet Trump on Friday in Washington DC and has been warned by MPs that the US president’s approach to global warming could determine whether or not people around the world suffer the worst impacts of climate change, such as severe floods, storms and heatwaves.

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'Pink girly toys don't deter women from engineering'

BBC - Fri, 2017-01-27 16:05
Meet the Sellafield engineer who says playing with pink toys will not deter girls from science careers.
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The saltmarsh has its own rich tang of whisky, earth and algae

The Guardian - Fri, 2017-01-27 15:30

Old Hall Marshes, Essex: Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls

A tongue of land borrowed from the mouth of the Blackwater estuary. Inside the mile-long V of grassy banks that exclude the sea the tamed land is riven by the contorted veins of once-tidal channels, now filled with freshwater. Today they are frozen into wide, snaking sheets of white. The khaki reeds that fringe the ice blend into fields of dead grass dotted with the greener humps of ancient yellow meadow ant hills.

Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls by the dendritic tidal excavations. The higher areas are carpeted with a wiry mat of grey-leaved sea purslane, while the exposed mud in the channels is criss-crossed by probing redshank, grey plover and curlew. Between these two zones horizontal rims of salty ice mark the last two nights’ high tides. The air is largely still, under a blue sky, but bears the rich salty reek of saltmarsh, a mixture of whisky, earth and algae.

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QUT and Sumitomo open solar CPV test plant in Brisbane

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2017-01-27 13:28
QUT and Japan's Sumitomo open pilot plant for concentrating solar photovoltaic technology in Brisbane's southeast.
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