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19 House Republicans call on their party to do something about climate change | Dana Nuccitelli
With the Republican Climate Resolution, Climate Solutions Caucus, and Climate Leadership Council, Republicans are trying to end their party’s climate denial
While the Trump administration is veering sharply toward climate science denial, 19 House Republicans have taken steps to pull the party in the direction of reality, and the need to combat the threats posed by human-caused climate change.
Continue reading...Torrey Canyon oil spill 1967 - in pictures
Fifty years ago, the supertanker Torrey Canyon ran aground between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly, spilling more than 100,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Channel. The Observer photographer Jane Bown was sent to cover the cleanup operation across Cornwall’s beaches. These images are a small selection of the 270 photographs she took there, now housed in the GNM Archive.
Continue reading...Stephen Hawking: I may not be welcome in Trump’s America – video
Stephen Hawking says he fears he may not be welcome in the United States since the election of Donald Trump as president. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Monday, the eminent physicist says a hard Brexit would leave the UK isolated and inward–looking
Continue reading...Katter’s Australian party push to legalise crocodile hunting after Queensland attacks
Party to draft laws allowing a controlled cull of protected reptiles, including Indigenous-run safari hunts, after two suspected attacks in state’s far north
Two suspected crocodile attacks in the same north Queensland area within a day have prompted a bid by Katter’s Australian party to legalise hunting of the protected predators.
Wildlife officers and police believe Warren Hughes, 35, may have been killed by a 4m-plus crocodile that later “charged” a police boat searching for the Cairns man’s body on Sunday night.
Continue reading...Sea level rise: Miami and Atlantic city fight to stay above water – video
Sea levels are rising. For many cities on the the eastern shores of the United States, the problem is existential. We take a look at how Miami and Atlantic City are tackling climate change, and the challenges they face under a skeptical Trump administration that plans to cut funding for environmental programs
Continue reading...British tampons and nappies set to fuel power stations
New scheme aims to tackle one the UK’s trickiest disposal issues by turning thousands of tonnes of hygiene products into burnable bales
One of the UK’s trickiest waste problems is being tackled by turning the undesirable into the combustible – tampons and incontinence pads are being converted into dry, burnable bales. The new initiative, from a major waste company, compresses the waste into fuel for power stations.
Huge volumes of what are known in the trade as “absorbent hygiene products” are produced in the UK. But it is difficult to deal with as its dampness makes incineration expensive. Dumping the waste in landfill is the other current option, but the material takes decades to degrade and heavy and rising landfill taxes are aiming to end the practice.
Continue reading...Inside story of a thatched roof
Hope Cove, Devon I need to go into the attic to check the timbers – an awkward job, but a chance to get out of the wind
An experienced thatcher told me early on in my apprenticeship: “You’ll learn to hate the wind more than anything.” And after five years of working on Devon roofs I’m inclined to agree with him: rain is our more obvious enemy, but rain doesn’t blow the wheat out of your hand or bowl you sideways off your ladder.
On really windy days like this one, you can’t go on the roof. In spite of the warm spring sunshine, a howling south-westerly is whipping up white horses on the Atlantic and training the coastal trees into even more diagonal contortions.
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