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The unexpected decision by the Republican-controlled body is a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling US coal industry

An independent energy agency on Monday rejected a Trump administration plan to bolster coal-fired and nuclear power plants with subsidies, dealing a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling coal industry.

The decision by the Republican-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was unexpected and comes amid repeated promises by Trump to rejuvenate coal as the nation’s top power source. The industry has been besieged by multiple bankruptcies and a steady loss of market share as natural gas and renewable energy have flourished.

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Flow Power, has announced that it has entered into a large - scale Renewable Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Olam Orchards Australia Pty Ltd.

Scientists show how the floating fronts of Antarctic glaciers respond to events in the tropical Pacific.

Fires, hurricanes and other weather and climate disasters last year cost the US around $306bn in losses.

‘Complete feminisation’ of northern population is possible in near future, researchers find

Rising temperatures are turning almost all green sea turtles in a Great Barrier Reef population female, new research has found.

The scientific paper warned the skewed ratio could threaten the population’s future.

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Carlton Reid picks up burgers and pizzas, but he doesn’t eat them - he delivers them. In just a few months he has lost weight and saved cash for the Giro d’Italia

There’s a way to get healthy from fast food: the trick is to deliver it, not eat it. I’m 52, but am now fitter than I was at 22. As a gig-economy food delivery rider I’m getting paid to melt my middle-age spread. I started in November, but have lost 5kg. Although I only do a few evening hours per week, I have already banked enough cash to pay for a trip to see the Giro d’Italia in May.

I get paid £4.25 for every drop, and the faster I pedal, the more drops I can fit in. Students are the mainstay of the food delivery business, and on a good night – when the students are flush – I can pocket £20 an hour. Not bad for time I’d otherwise waste trawling Twitter.

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The frequency a dog raises it's 'inner eyebrow' influences how quickly it finds a new home

He opened the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, but lost the admiration of his people. Music: Bob the Bob by the Lounge Lizards

Campaigners say it causes unnecessary suffering but those in favour of method say it is less damaging than trawling

Groups representing small-scale fishing fleets across Europe have called on the European Union to reinstate a ban on fishing using electrical pulses, which they say is a destructive method.

However, others have called for the technique to continue, saying it causes less disturbance than methods such as trawling the bottom of the seabed.

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An Australian science breakthrough could solve the problem of e-waste recycling and create a network of small business opportunities.

Goblin Combe, Somerset This is one of those rare habitats where lime-hating and lime-loving plants suck together from the same earth, roots entangled

There is no doubt when you are on the carboniferous limestone. Crags jut out as if the rock is struggling to release itself from its turfy skin, shedding broken stones. Sheep’s fescue, rockrose, kidney vetch and many more lime-loving species form the distinctive close-knit grassland. The signature of this rock is written all over the hill.

At Goblin Combe we cross the limestone turf, heading for my favourite slope. Melted frost has touched every leaf with diamonds and pin-cushioned the anthills with rainbow spangles. And then – so suddenly – wine-dark mounds of bell heather. Lime-hating heather, among all those lime-lovers!

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8 January 1968 The fox was completely absorbed in its own affairs and very catlike in its stance, it stood motionless and its sharp nose pointed at a tuft of winter-pale grass

KESWICK: The first week of the new year often brings strange weather as if it is undecided as to which season it belongs to and one milder morning lately, with soft clouds resting on the snowy fells, there was a smell of growing things in the air. It was an indefinable smell – not the flowering witch hazel, the swelling daphne, or even the balsam poplar whose buds, though furled, can send out sweetness. It was, rather, the exhalation of the earth itself and a promise of growth to come. There were a few wintry daisies in the grass but they are as scentless as snow.

Related: 21st-century fox: how nature's favourite outsider seduced the suburbs

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We used to worry more about acid rain than about climate change. It took years but the agreements made in the Gothenburg Protocol have made a difference

Today we focus our concern on climate change, but 40 years ago it was acid rain and forest die-back that dominated our air and environment debate. In 1977, a new measurement programme showed that the sulphur landing in Scandinavia was far greater than the countries were producing. Industrial coal burning and westerly winds meant that the UK was Europe’s largest exporter of sulphur air pollution. Moving power generation to the countryside and building tall chimneys had reduced local air pollution but did not prevent sulphur being transported over thousands of kilometres.

This was at the height of the cold war. Warsaw Pact countries offered 30% reductions in their sulphur emissions and watched as the western allies were split. The UK was isolated and Canadian provinces were pitched against upwind industrial states in the US.

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Experts warn we will experience more heatwaves as we put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Allan Buckwell says British farmers are not ‘subsidised’, Jane Mardell and Richard Middleton fear that only the rich will be able to buy British-grown food, and Vanessa Griffiths and Kate Ashbrook see hope in public access to land

Please don’t use the word “subsidy” for payments to farmers who manage land for biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides (Report, 3 January). A subsidy is generally considered a temporary assistance and often comes with an undertone that is negative and undeserved. There is now a large body of analysis and evidence to support paying for services that the market cannot supply. We don’t talk about subsidising nurses for health services, or teachers for educational services. So let’s pay for environmental services on a similar basis.

It is good that Michael Gove is supportive of this approach, but there is no need to leave the EU to do it. With strong UK leadership, the common agricultural policy has been adapted for over 20 years to enable governments to pay farmers for environmental services, and to do this under their own locally devised schemes. The resources allocated for this purpose have been decided domestically, and we could have done much more of this had we chosen. Let’s hope Mr Gove now delivers on his rhetoric.
Allan Buckwell
Professor emeritus of agricultural policy, Imperial College, London

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A blackbird would stand beside it, taking the worms and insects dislodged, recalls Sallie Bedford

We had a mole a few years ago that made 17 molehills on our back lawn in as many days (Country diary, 4 January). I watched from the kitchen window each morning as the new hill was being excavated, the earth moving with clumps falling away. A blackbird would stand beside it, watching carefully and taking the worms and insects dislodged – fascinating! This was another wild creature to add to our garden list of frogs, grass snakes, lizards, slowworms and so on and we loved having it, though I must confess to trying to catch it by standing over it when the earth was moving one day and grabbing at the soil, without success. How did it move so quickly? Instead of collecting the soil we raked it back into the grass and eventually the mole departed (to the flower beds) and the area returned to its meadow-like state.
Sallie Bedford
Henfield, West Sussex

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Most modern offices contain a surprising amount of harsh chemicals. If you're heading back to work, check out our list of the best plants to clean the air (and reduce stress). Danica-Lea Larcombe, PhD Candidate in Biodiversity and Human Health, Edith Cowan University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Plan to plant 50m trees along 120-mile stretch of land next to M62 to provide new habitat for wildlife as well as manage flood risk

The government has pledged £5.7m to kickstart the creation of a new northern forest which would stretch from Liverpool to Hull.

The plans, which are being led by the Woodland Trust, include the planting of 50m new trees along a 120-mile stretch of land running next to the M62. The project is expected to cost £500m over 25 years, with the remaining money being raised by charity.

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'Ribbon of woodland' will be planted, but critics say other projects are destroying ancient forests.

Vast amounts are paid into Britain’s pensions schemes and, sadly, much of it still goes into supporting fossil fuels

I have great hopes for earth defending activism this year. And one of the most exciting opportunities involves pensions. Huh? OK, pension schemes and auto enrolment do not immediately shout “riveting”, but it is time to follow the money.

The lion’s share of that giant pot flows in the direction of oil and gas companies

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