Feed aggregator
This boy's backpack could change you
Trump golf resort and Scottish planners clash over the environment
US president’s Scotland development is under fire as it seeks to expand its boutique hotel and ditch its ecological monitoring group
The Trump Organization is facing a new battle with Scottish planners and conservationists over the protection of rare dunes and wildlife at its Aberdeenshire golf resort.
Trump International Golf Course Scotland has challenged a key part of the planning permission it won for the resort in 2008 as it pushes ahead with plans for a second 18-hole golf course and an extension to its boutique hotel.
Continue reading...The eco guide to female-friendly shopping
Choose the right brands if you want to promote women’s rights
Ethical shoppers like me want to think that they always have the sisterhood top of their list when they shop. But in practice I find most can rattle off the five freedoms of animal welfare, but are pretty hazy on enshrined women’s rights, like the right to hold elected and appointed government positions.
Even ethical shoppers are often pretty hazy on women's rights
Continue reading...How bad is air pollution for our health?
Controversial gas from Peruvian Amazon arrives in UK
Song for a dead swan
Painscastle, Powys Over the past few years, to my delight, a pair of swans had made this sky-reflecting pool their home
We all have our touchstone places. One of mine is the Monk’s Pond on the Begwns – a little group of bracken hills north of the river Wye as it heads eastwards out of Wales. For more than half a century I’ve made regular pilgrimages to this pool, the southern Welsh uplands wrapped round it like a protective barrier. The view takes in the Black Mountains to the south, the Brecon Beacons in the west, and those smooth, heathery highlands of Radnorshire to the north.
There’s a stand of drowned Scots pine at the pool’s western end. Their roots were submerged when it was enlarged for a local farm’s water supply. The pines are sibilant with goldcrests. Buzzards that range this wide country perch here and watch for prey.
Continue reading...Holidays in space
All that lives beneath the sand
Tales of love, lust, death and dark webs
How did the 20th century fur and skin trade impact Brazil's Amazon?
Scientists find that commercial hunting caused “basin-wide collapse” among aquatic species
Scientists have conducted what they call the first systematic, historical account of the impacts on the Amazon basin of the 20th century international trade in furs and skins. The conclusion: “basin-wide population collapse” for aquatic species, but much greater resilience shown by terrestrial species.
The study focuses on four states in Brazil - Acre, Amazonas, Rondonia and Roraima - and draws on a wide range of historical records including those belonging to the Amazonas state government and the concession owner of the Manaus port. It was published in Science Advances in late 2016, but is reported now to mark UN World Wildlife Day. Here are 10 of the most fascinating - and sometimes horrifying - take-aways:
Continue reading...A Big Country
'Just racist': EPA cuts will hit black and Hispanic communities the hardest
Proposal would remove environmental justice office, tasked with bridging gap in pollution in black, Hispanic and low-income areas and wealthier white ones
Planned cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency are set to fall heaviest upon communities of color across the US that already suffer disproportionately from toxic pollution, green groups have warned.
Related: New EPA head Scott Pruitt's emails reveal close ties with fossil fuel interests
Continue reading...Shell's climate film, air pollution and hedgehogs – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...Maldives plan to embrace mass tourism sparks criticism and outrage
The new government plans to relocate residents to larger atolls – leaving small islands ripe for development. It says these super resorts, not solar power, will create the money needed to adapt to climate change
When Mohamed Nasheed, the young, first democratically elected president of the Maldives, said in 2008 that he was seeking to buy a new homeland to save his people from being inundated by rising sea levels, it made the country of 1,200 coral islands the moral leader in the UN climate talks and helped persuade rich countries to act.
This week the Maldives, under new president Abdulla Yameen, apparently changed environmental tack, saying that mass tourism and mega-developments rather than solar power and carbon neutrality would enable it to adapt itself to climate change and give its young population hope for the future.
The week in wildlife – in pictures
Poison arrow frogs, a Steller sea lion and a chameleon are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Ancient skulls give clues to China human history
Can trees cut air pollution?
What's lurking in the pool?
Omega-3 oils could tackle damage caused by air pollution, research shows
Exclusive New research indicates the benefits of eating omega-3 fatty acids, but also that pollution particles can penetrate the lungs into many organs, including testicles
Supplements of healthy fats could be an immediate way of cutting the harm caused to billions around the world by air pollution, according to emerging research.
However, the research also shows air pollution particles can penetrate through the lungs of lab animals into many major organs, including the brain and testicles. This raises the possibility that the health damage caused by toxic air is even greater than currently known.
Continue reading...Send us your tips for reducing food packaging waste
Guardian Cook is looking to source tips on keeping food packaging waste to a minimum. Share yours via GuardianWitness
For Cook’s green issue next week, we’re asking: how do you keep your use of food packaging to a minimum?
Related: Modern life is rubbish: we don't need all this packaging
Continue reading...