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Christopher Graffius of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation responds to a country diary about a Welsh game shoot

Your country diary (14 July) on the Llechweddygarth shoot in Powys is wrong. There are no grey partridge on the shoot. The game is not “tossed into the backs of Land Rovers” but hung properly in accordance with the Code of Good Shooting Practice on a purpose-built game cart. The game is not “sent for landfill” but respectfully processed and sold by a local small food business.

There is no shooting in the churchyard of Pennant Melangell; the nearest gun is two football fields from the church and birds are driven away from the shrine.

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Spain-based utility Iberdrola reported a 5% rise in its ETS-regulated thermal output over H1 2018 as gas-fired output ramped up, the company said in its Q2 results on Wednesday.

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Landmark decision means gene-edited plants and animals will be regulated under rules governing genetically modified organisms

Plants and animals created by innovative gene-editing technology have been genetically modified and should be regulated as such, the EU’s top court has ruled.

The landmark decision ends 10 years of debate in Europe about what is – and is not – a GM food, with a victory for environmentalists, and a bitter blow to Europe’s biotech industry.

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Researchers believe they have found the first existing body of liquid water on the Red Planet.

Wildfire is now an over-riding concern for many farmers, who are taking extra precautions to stop fires spreading as the hot spell continues

“It’s like a tinderbox out here,” says Lesley Chandler, looking down at parched fields where bleached-out grass struggles through baked, stone-hard earth. “Just a spark could set it all alight.”

Chandler farms 200 acres of arable land in Oxfordshire, where there has been virtually no rain for weeks. Pastures that would normally boast grass nearly a foot tall have instead a thin cover of dried-out vegetation.

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The European Court of Justice has ruled that altering living things using the relatively new technique of genome editing counts as genetic engineering.

EU carbon allowances jumped back towards their seven-year high early on Wednesday as the market comfortably absorbed an exceptionally large UK auction.

Facebook is still struggling to contain its fake news problem

Marc Morano is the real-world fossil fuel industry version of Nick Naylor. His career began working for Rush Limbaugh, followed by a job at Cybercast News Service where he launched the ‘Swift Boat’ attacks on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. In 2006, Morano became the director of communications for Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who is perhaps best known for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor and calling human-caused global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Thus it’s unsurprising that in 2009, Morano began directing fossil fuel-funded think tanks designed to cast doubt on the reality of and dangers associated with human-caused global warming. As he admitted in Merchants of Doubt, Morano frequently embodies the strategy of climate denial known as ‘fake experts’:

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Australian Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg has told state premiers and ministers that the emissions target under the proposed National Energy Guarantee (NEG) could be open to review in 2024, a move that would allow a future Labor government to strengthen the scheme’s ambition.

New Zealand carbon allowances made another leap on Wednesday to hit NZ$23 ($15.64) for the first time as the supply shortage continued to push up prices.

An attack on a WA mine worker has highlighted the danger of wild dingoes, particularly when attracted by humans' food - one of the factors that can make an attack by wild predators much more likely. Bill Bateman, Senior Lecturer, Curtin University Trish Fleming, Associate Professor, Murdoch University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Legoland and Thorpe Park among the attractions that have joined Coca-Cola in a trial offering instant incentives for recycling

Visitors to some of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions are to be offered half-price entry in exchange for used plastic drinks bottles, as part of a trial starting on Wednesday which gives instant incentives for recycling.

In a tie-up between theme park operator Merlin and drinks giant Coca-Cola, a series of so-called “reverse vending machines” will be installed outside the entrances of Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures and Legoland.

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A bipartisan legislative committee designed to give Oregon lawmakers a chance to more fully understand and shape the future of the state’s climate policy revealed on Tuesday that a wide rift still exists between some members over what carbon pricing strategy Oregon should take, if at all.

Powis Castle, Welshpool, Powys: The crows live a parallel existence as shrine animals, stealing tributes from visitors, essential to the life of the place but overlooked

Two young crows, beaks agape, sat quietly on the stump of a beech tree I cut down on the eastern bank below the castle walls in the late 1970s. The crows waited for a parent to turn up with the remains of a sandwich nicked from the cafe down the garden. They were living a kind of parallel existence as shrine animals, dark creatures in the garden’s gloriously vivid displays of flower, stealing tributes from visitors, essential to the life of the place but overlooked.

Cultural places in the public view have a wild private life. Behind the care and hard work that sustains a garden like this and gives it aesthetic qualities that people from all over the world come to experience, there is a wild life that grounds it in place and provides an ecological context for the cultural. Much of this life, once persecuted for its wildness, is now celebrated as wildlife but crows retain that outsider, transgressive character. However beautiful the garden is, crows reveal a secret bandit territory. Common and dark, they are almost invisible and yet nonetheless tutelary.

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A new report issued by RACQ has revealed telling figures that could be holding back the adoption of EVs in Australia.

Western Sydney University's Unlimited 2.0 has put Australia on the solar car racing map, becoming first international team to win American Solar Challenge.

New Commonwealth document shows Coalition has not moved on emissions for National Energy Guarantee, and the use of offsets in such a weak target will mean retailers will not have to make any new investments in wind or solar.

Liberal energy minister, who inherited policy criticised as a mix of ‘ideology and idiocy’, says he’ll ensure it does not come at too high a price

South Australia’s energy minister says the state is on track to have 75% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 – the target set by the former Labor premier Jay Weatherill and once rejected by his Liberal government.

And Dan van Holst Pellekaan pledged to ensure it does not come at too high a price.

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National park, which gets more than half a million visitors in July alone, sees section closed amid dangerous air quality

Yosemite national park has been partially closed as wildfires continue to sweep across California this week. Fueled by dry conditions and high temperatures, smoke has settled over the popular tourist destination, causing unsafe conditions for visitors and workers, prompting officials to issue a temporary closure and evacuate the remaining tourists beginning Wednesday at noon.

National Park Service representatives announced at a public meeting Tuesday that the iconic Yosemite valley, as well as the Wawona area, would be closed temporarily until air quality conditions improve.

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