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UK given days to show it will comply with EU air quality laws
UK and eight other states will need to take drastic measures on illegal air pollution to avoid court referrals next week, says EU
The EU has given Britain and eight other states until next Friday to show how they will comply with EU air pollution laws or face the European Court of Justice.
The ultimatum came as London reached its legal air pollution limit for 2018 in just the year’s first month, and could lead to heavy fines being imposed on the UK even after Brexit.
Continue reading...BP to install charging points for electric cars at UK petrol stations
Further indication that oil firms are planning for growth of battery-powered vehicle market
BP will add rapid charging points for electric cars at its UK petrol stations within the next two months, in the latest sign of an oil giant adapting to the rapid growth of battery-powered cars.
The British oil firm’s venture arm has invested $5m (£3.5m) in the US firm Freewire Technologies, which will provide motorbike-sized charging units at forecourts to top up cars in half an hour.
Continue reading...Scrutiny over wood and coal fires in UK homes
Gove criticised for lack of post-Brexit fishing industry plans
UK environment secretary urged to set out proposals by Dutch counterpart
The Dutch government has called on Michael Gove to provide a clear vision for the European fishing industry for when the UK leaves the EU’s common fisheries policy, amid growing insecurity in communities on both sides of the Channel.
Carola Schouten, the Netherlands’ fisheries minister, said her country’s fleet, one of the largest in the EU, needed certainty about the future, but that she had yet to see any template from the British environment secretary for how a new arrangement would work.
Continue reading...Communicating the science is the next step in the evolution of the UN climate panel | Adam Corner
The IPCC is taking guidance on how to communicate its crucial findings beyond speciality scientific and policy circles
The remit of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of the more complicated jigsaw puzzles in the world.
Since 1988, it has overseen thousands of scientists pulling together tens of thousands of academic papers on atmospheric physics, meteorology, geography, marine science, economics, land-use and much more. A multi-layered process of expert assessment takes place every six or seven years where a set of carefully worded statements is approved by representatives of 120 of the world’s governments, specifying what we know about the defining challenge of the 21st century: climate change.
Continue reading...How Trump's cuts to public lands threaten future dinosaur discoveries
Researchers have made remarkable finds at sites such as Grand Staircase-Escalante, which the administration has shrunk
The paleontologist Rob Gay wasn’t expecting to find anything significant that day. He and a few of his students were scouting in the southeast Utah badlands in summer 2016 when they came across a hillside littered with hundreds of bones. Scattered haphazardly and protruding from the earth, they were the remains of of prehistoric reptiles that lived 220m years ago, at the same time as the earliest dinosaurs.
Continue reading...Is the simple life the good life?
Single-use plastic bags ban under scrutiny as shoppers switch and ditch reusables
Australian states with bans in place see rise in consumers and retailers resorting to thicker bags to escape the rule
Shoppers in states that have banned single-use shopping bags are reportedly buying reusable plastic bags then throwing them away.
The Australian Capital Territory requested an investigation into the use of thicker plastic bags last month, after reports that retailers and consumers had simply switched their plastic bag consumption to thicker bags to escape the ban.
Continue reading...London schools to be alerted on high air pollution days
Schools will receive an alert every time air pollution is high enough to pose an acute health risk, under new plans announced by Sadiq Khan
Schools in London will receive an alert every time air pollution in the capital is set to pose an acute risk to health as part of a renewed push to highlight the scale of the capital’s toxic pollution crisis.
Air pollution causes 40,000-50,000 early deaths a year in the UK – more than 9,000 in London – and the young are particularly vulnerable.
Continue reading...Can Sri Lanka's elephants and humans learn to live together? – in pictures
On this small, densely populated island, clashes between elephants and humans are rapidly increasing. Rangers and villagers are working to find ways to avoid the conflict and the devastating, at times deadly, impacts on both sides
Continue reading...Qantas uses mustard seeds in first ever biofuel flight between Australia and US
Blended fuel powers 15-hour Boeing Dreamliner 787-9 flight between LA and Melbourne, reducing carbon emissions by 7%
A Qantas plane powered partly by mustard seeds has become the world’s first biofuel flight between Australia and the United States, after landing in Melbourne on Tuesday.
The 15-hour flight used a blended fuel that was 10% derived from the brassica carinata, an industrial type of mustard seed that functions as a fallow crop – meaning it can be grown by farmers in between regular crop cycles.
Continue reading...Pollution in London higher than during the Great Smog – archive, 30 January 1959
30 January 1959: Conditions described as “very grim” by the AA, with visibility in south-east London varying between nil and ten yards
Fog stretched last night from the Home Counties westwards into Devon and South Wales and northwards through the Midlands and East Anglia up to Yorkshire. It is expected to persist to-day.
Related: How the Guardian reported on London's Great Smog of 1952
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