Feed aggregator

Curious Kids: How does an echidna breathe when digging through solid earth?

The Conversation - Wed, 2018-05-23 05:40
Echidnas can survive quite low levels of oxygen. Christine Cooper, Senior Lecturer, Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
Categories: Around The Web

Bunya pines are ancient, delicious and possibly deadly

The Conversation - Wed, 2018-05-23 05:38
The Bunya pine is a unique and majestic Australian tree that commands respect. Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
Categories: Around The Web

Welcome to Beating Around the Bush, wherein we yell about plants

The Conversation - Wed, 2018-05-23 05:37
Are you stressed? Of course you are. Read about awesome plants instead. Madeleine De Gabriele, Deputy Editor: Energy + Environment Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
Categories: Around The Web

Trump administration's bid to scrap hunting rules condemned as 'new low'

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-23 02:55

Proposal would repeal Obama-era rules that ban shooting of bear cubs and other controversial hunting practices in Alaska

The Trump administration is attempting to repeal a rule that bans the shooting of bear cubs, using dogs and bait to hunt bears, and killing caribou from motorboats in Alaska’s federal wildlife refuges.

The proposal would scrap a 2015 regulation by the National Park Service that restricts controversial hunting and trapping practices on around 20 million acres of federal land in Alaska.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

12 conservation success stories - in pictures

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-23 00:50

On international day for biological diversity, the IUCN celebrates successful conservation action with images and stories of 12 species and the efforts underway to improve their status

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Is Britain's fox population desperate for Chris Packham's roadkill?

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-05-23 00:48

The wildlife presenter has revealed he is storing roadkill in his freezer to feed foxes, as recent reports suggest their numbers are in sharp decline

The next time you’re at Chris Packham’s house, rifling through his kitchen looking for a snack, for God’s sake, don’t look in the freezer. That’s where Packham keeps his “enormous quantity” of roadkill.

What exactly is Packham doing with an enormous quantity of roadkill in his freezer? It’s a fair question. Should a nationally renowned wildlife presenter be running over wildlife in the first place?

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Inside the Tesla big battery: How it made money and cut prices

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-05-23 00:10
AEMO reports detail how Tesla big battery helped keep the lights on last summer, smashed prices in specialised markets, and made money for itself from price arbitrage.
Categories: Around The Web

Shell investors revolt over climate change and executive pay

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 23:54

Oil firm grilled over carbon emissions, but defeats motion calling for tougher targets

Shell investors have rebelled over the company’s executive pay, as the Anglo-Dutch oil company came under pressure to take stronger action on climate change.

While chief executive Ben van Beurden’s €8.9m (£7.79m) pay package for 2017 was approved, more than a quarter of shareholders voted against the firm’s remuneration report at its annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

'Rare' birth of live reindeer twins in Cairngorms

BBC - Tue, 2018-05-22 23:12
Previously twins born in the herd in the Cairngorms have been stillborn or died shortly after birth.
Categories: Around The Web

'Rare' birth of live reindeer twins in Cairngorms

BBC - Tue, 2018-05-22 23:12
Previously twins born in the herd in the Cairngorms have been stillborn or died shortly after birth.
Categories: Around The Web

Great British Bee Count 2018 - in pictures

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 20:54

As the fifth annual Great British Bee Count gets under way, wildlife and gardening experts are calling on the public to grow weeds to help Britain’s bees. The count, which will provide the first national health check for wild bees and other pollinators, runs until 30 June

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

EU nations’ CO2 price floor efforts win World Bank praise as global pricing revenues double in 2017

Carbon Pulse - Tue, 2018-05-22 19:00
EU nations such as France are moving in the right direction in their efforts to impose a carbon price floor in addition to the ETS because recent price rises still leave the market and other mechanisms insufficient for tackling climate change, according to World Bank climate chief John Roome.
Categories: Around The Web

Future of global carbon markets rests on China success -survey

Carbon Pulse - Tue, 2018-05-22 19:00
The future of emissions trading globally rests on whether China’s carbon market is deemed a success by the international community.
Categories: Around The Web

Air pollution plans to tackle wood burners

BBC - Tue, 2018-05-22 18:44
Critics of the government proposals say they put too much responsibility on local councils.
Categories: Around The Web

Carbon markets back from the brink of collapse, says World Bank

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 18:00

Development of major new markets in China and reforms in Europe have provided a crucial boost as countries look at tools to cut carbon and meet their Paris climate targets

Global carbon markets have been revived from the brink of collapse as, after years in the doldrums, recent developments have provided a much-needed boost, according to a new report from the World Bank.

China has made strong progress on its new carbon markets, which when complete will be the biggest in the world, while the EU initiated reforms of its carbon trading system which have already had an effect on prices.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Rangers find 109,217 snares in a single park in Cambodia

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 17:43

Snares – either metal or rope – are indiscriminately killing wildlife across Southeast Asia, from elephants to mouse deer. The problem has become so bad that scientists are referring to protected areas in the region as “empty forests.”

A simple break cable for motorbikes can kill a tiger, a bear, even a young elephant in Southeast Asia. Local hunters use these ubiquitous wires to create snares – indiscriminate forest bombs – that are crippling and killing Southeast Asia’s most charismatic species and many lesser-known animals as well. A fact from a new paper in Biodiversity Conservation highlights the scale of this epidemic: in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom National Park rangers with the Wildlife Alliance removed 109,217 snares over just six years.

“Some forests in Vietnam don’t have any mammals left larger than squirrels,” Thomas Gray, the lead author of the new paper and the Science Director for Wildlife Alliance, said. “Given how diverse these forests formally were this must be having substantial impacts on ecosystem services and the [forest’s] entire biodiversity.”

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Cheap condensers to displace gas as renewable energy back-up

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-05-22 15:12
South Australia transmission company ElectraNet says it has found a cheaper solution that using the state’s gas plants to provide system strength to the local grid.
Categories: Around The Web

What’s happened to South Australia’s biggest and most modern gas generators?

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-05-22 15:08
The biggest and most modern gas generation units in South Australia have been out of action for the past month.
Categories: Around The Web

UK’s new air pollution strategy ‘hugely disappointing’, says Labour

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 15:01

Consultation proposes reducing pollutants, including particulates from wood burners and ammonia from farms – but does little to tackle diesel emissions

A new clean air strategy published by the UK government has been criticised as “hugely disappointing” by the Labour party. Other groups said it did little to tackle the dirty diesel vehicles that are the main source of toxic air in urban areas.

The new strategy, announced on Tuesday by environment secretary, Michael Gove, aims to crack down on a wide range of pollutants. These include particulates from wet wood and coal burning in homes, ammonia emissions from farms and dust from vehicle tyres and brakes.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Country diary: the cuckoo in the mining bee's nest

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-05-22 14:30

Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire: When the two eggs hatch, the nomad bee larva’s sickle-shaped jaws make short work of the mining bee larva

Our delayed spring, when it arrived, came in a sudden burst. Each insect species has a calendar slot for emerging from hibernation. For many bees good timing ensures that they emerge when their favourite flowers are opening. For the chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotica), a large, shiny, dark bee that nests in Benefield lawns and banks, success is awaking when the blackthorn blossom bursts.

The thaw triggered an explosion of flowers and insects that in warmer years would have emerged in March and early April, all arrived at once. My car windscreen accrued a sparse smattering of ex-insect life, and others reported similar. It is odd to celebrate pointless high-speed fatalities, but they represent an echo of the richer aerial plankton of past decades, and thereby a flicker of hope for the future.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Pages

Subscribe to Sustainable Engineering Society aggregator