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Woman, 79, supplying tea to anti-fracking protesters forcibly removed by police

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-10-11 02:16

Jackie Brookes, who had been providing refreshments at Kirby Misperton camp for past month, accuses officers of bullying

A 79-year-old woman who set up a tea and cake stall at the site of an anti-fracking protest in North Yorkshire has been forcibly removed by police.

Related: Slinging mud: inside (and outside) the UK's biggest fracking site

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Tony de Brum obituary

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-10-11 01:17
Climate change campaigner and Marshall Islands politician who was instrumental in securing the Paris agreement

To live on one of the Pacific atolls is to come face to face with climate change on a daily basis. Few people in the world had such personal experience as Tony de Brum of the realities of sea level rises and storm surges, of warmer seas, receding beaches and abandoned land. Fewer still have been able to turn that experience into international action to save the islands, and the rest of the planet with them.

De Brum, who has died aged 72, acted as ambassador on climate change for the Marshall Islands, a sparsely populated group of more than 1,000 tiny islands spread out over nearly 30 coral atolls. In 2015, he was instrumental in securing the Paris agreement on climate change, by which the world’s governments collectively agreed, for the first time, to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is the limit of safety, and with an aspiration to ensure warming does not exceed 1.5C.

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Can we make fashion greener?

BBC - Wed, 2017-10-11 01:05
We continue to buy new clothes at an incredible rate. How can manufacturers reduce fashion's environmental footprint?
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Coffee shops not doing enough to combat huge increase in wasted cups

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-10-11 00:59

Just 1% of the 2.5bn disposable cups thrown away each year in the UK are recycled, committee of MPs is told


Coffee shops are not doing enough to deal with the billions of disposable cups that are thrown away in the UK each year, an influential committee of MPs has been told.

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Ineos compelled to disclose document it used to justify fracking protest injunction

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 22:57

Petrochemical company backs down after earlier refusal to the Guardian’s request to hand over the legal document

A multinational firm has backed down and disclosed a legal document that it used to justify a controversial sweeping injunction against anti-fracking protesters.

Ineos, which aspires to become one of the UK’s major frackers, had refused to disclose the document after it had been requested by the Guardian under open justice guidelines. However the petrochemical giant has reversed its stance and handed it over to the newspaper.

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Siberian blue robin excites bird watchers in Orkney

BBC - Tue, 2017-10-10 20:27
The sighting in North Ronaldsay is believed to be the first time an adult male Siberian blue robin has been seen in the UK.
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Fukushima residents win 500m yen payout over nuclear disaster

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 20:14

Court rules that Japanese government could have done more to prevent meltdown at plant caused by tsunami

A court in Japan has ordered the government and the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to pay 500m yen (£3.37m) in damages to residents affected by the March 2011 triple meltdown.

The ruling by the Fukushima district court follows an earlier decision that also found the government accountable for the disaster, in which large quantities of radiation was released and tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes.

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Liberal MP Craig Kelly defends Abbott climate speech

ABC Environment - Tue, 2017-10-10 17:06
In a speech to a climate sceptic think tank in London, Mr Abbott repeated his claim that climate science was 'absolute crap'.
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Mine to maker: the journey of the world's first Fairtrade African gold – in pictures

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 16:00

Photographer Ian Berry takes us from Uganda’s makeshift goldmines to a London jeweller’s, documenting how a Fairtrade programme is helping to end the exploitation, mercury poisoning and treacherous conditions faced by Africa’s small-scale miners

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Into the ice: humans get closer to nature – in pictures

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 16:00

From log trails to lava houses, from mud baths to melting glaciers, US photographer Lucas Foglia explores our relationship with the natural world. In his new book Human Nature, he has captured off-grid families, climate scientists at work, and a hotel over-run with greenery

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Despite the charged atmosphere, Frydenberg and Finkel have the same goal for electricity

The Conversation - Tue, 2017-10-10 15:29
Talk of the government preparing to 'walk away' from the Clean Energy Target proposal is unnecessarily cynical. Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Sadiq Khan must do more to tackle London's air pollution, say health experts

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 15:01

Mayor must do more to reduce car use and promote public transport, walking and cycling, says report

London mayor Sadiq Khan has been urged to do more to tackle the capital’s air pollution crisis by leading health experts and academics.

In a new report published on Tuesday, the group, including the chair of the NHS Sir Malcolm Grant, said the mayor must go further to reduce car use across the capital and harness new technology to create a system based around “public transport, walking and cycling”.

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Lusius malfoyi wasp: New Zealand insect named after Harry Potter villain

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 14:55

Entomologist names parasitoid wasp after ‘redeemed’ character Lucius Malfoy in hope of showing not all wasps are bad

A Harry Potter fan turned entomologist has named a wasp after a redeemed villain in the series in the hope of drawing attention to the much maligned insect.

Tom Saunders named and described a New Zealand parasitoid wasp as part of his masters study at Auckland University.

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Policy will be a mess until Turnbull sacrifices Coalition’s climate goat

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 14:31
Is this really what Malcolm Turnbull signed up for? Short of sacrificing this particular climate goat, he will be obliged to defend the indefensible, the outright rejection of climate science. And Australia will remain a laughing stock.
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Country diary: dark trees guard even darker mysteries

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-10-10 14:30

Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex Jackdaws, ravens and hobbies dance in the sky, oblivious to tales of fairies and ghosts and ritual sacrifice

The morning sun shines through the canopy of the wood at the bottom of the hill, making the fallen leaves on the ground glow rust-red. The steep chalk and grey mud track is greasy from last night’s rain. Either side, flocks of tits – blue, great, coal and long-tailed – flit about, and wrens heckle my laboured climb with loud alarm calls.

At the top of the hill, the strong, cold wind is shaking the trees, some already stripped skeletal-bare. Emerging into the open, I turn on to the South Downs Way and follow the path through a gate, over a cattle grid. The soft contour of the hilltop sweeps up to the early iron age fort, hidden by a cap of dark trees.

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SA Libs promise $100m for home battery subsidy scheme

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 14:20
South Australia opposition promises $100m in grants to help homes to buy and install battery storage in lead-up to state election.
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AEMO: Shift to renewables is going to happen anyway

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 12:44
AEMO says shift to renewables is going to happen anyway, particularly as consumers turn to solar and storage. Might as well get some policies to deal with it.
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“Slush fund for fossil fuels”: First NAIF loan deal slammed by green groups

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 12:28
Green groups slam NAIF approval of $16.8m loan for oil and gas port facility in Onslow WA – say it show's fund's true colours (hint: not green).
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EPA head announces plan to eliminate Obama’s signature climate policy

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 12:25
Scott Pruitt's decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan would make it tough for U.S. to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Carnegie secures debt finance for 10MW Northam solar farm in WA

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-10-10 10:48
Carnegie Clean Energy secures $7.5m construction debt finance facility for 10MW Northam solar farm in WA.
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