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Orphaned dik-dik raised by keepers
EU must shut all coal plants by 2030 to meet Paris climate pledges, study says
Europe will vastly overshoot its carbon emissions target for coal unless it closes all 300 power stations, says thinktank Climate Analytics
The European Union will “vastly overshoot” its Paris climate pledges unless its coal emissions are completely phased out within 15 years, a stress test of the industry has found.
Coal’s use is falling by about 1% a year in Europe but still generates a quarter of the continent’s power – and a fifth of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Continue reading...'Dogs mirror owners' personalities'
Explosion at EDF's Flamanville nuclear plant in northern France
Authorities say no risk of contamination after blast in machine room at facility 15 miles west of Cherbourg
An explosion has occurred at EDF’s Flamanville nuclear plant in northern France, causing minor injuries but no risk of contamination, authorities have said.
The blast took place in the engine room at the plant, which is 15 miles west of the port of Cherbourg.
Continue reading...Game of Thrones star in Greenland for Google Street View
GoT’s Jaime Lannister has shown little love for the far north, unlike the man who plays him, Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who has been collecting street view imagery for Google in southern Greenland to highlight the impact of climate change
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Continue reading...New support for British spaceports
Whistleblower: ‘I knew people would misuse this.’ They did - to attack climate science | Dana Nuccitelli
Fake news propagates through the conservative media to the halls of Congress where science is under attack
This weekend, conservative media outlets launched an attack on climate scientists with a manufactured scandal. The fake news originated from an accusation made by former NOAA scientist John Bates about a 2015 paper by some of his NOAA colleagues. The technical term to describe the accusation is ‘a giant nothingburger,’ as Bates clarified in an interview with E&E News:
The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was.
Continue reading...Ivory is not beautiful, it’s barbaric | Nicky Campbell
I grew up with a piano in my bedroom, but now the thought of ivory fills me with revulsion. The UK needs to impose a total ban on the trade of elephant tusks
Growing up in our two up, two down terraced house on the Southside of Edinburgh, I shared my bedroom with a cherished family heirloom – my granny’s mini-grand. This beautiful piano had been to the other side of the world and back. It ended up taking up half my room and a whole lot of my life. I taught myself to play on it, bashing out the sevenths while pretending to be (pre-Wings) McCartney. Now I think of that piano with total revulsion. I believe anyone in the possession of ivory should feel the same. It is over. It has to be.
Look at the knife handles or antique toothpick and then think of the dead mother with her face hacked off as her tuskless, helpless one-year-old tries to nudge her back to life. Google image search is always a useful resource. I feel no differently about the thought of a gorilla-hand ashtray (yes, they are a thing in parts of the Far East) or a nice cool glass of lion bone wine (ditto). One more time: ivory is so over.
Get a job with Adani and infiltrate coal project, activists urge supporters
Galilee Blockade, which opposes the $16bn Carmichael mine, urges followers to apply for jobs with the Indian company
A civil disobedience campaign targeting Adani’s controversial Queensland coal project has asked almost 12,000 supporters to sign up for a job with the miner.
The Galilee Blockade is working on infiltrating Adani and related companies to gain sources of information to help its plans for “direct action”.
Continue reading...Dakota Access Pipeline: ETP firm to resume work immediately
The lapwing's unearthly sounds fill the fields
Sandy, Bedfordshire: Peewit, teeack, chewit … whatever you call it, it sounds like the Clangers
Unearthly sounds have filled the fields lately, breaking frosty silences or cocking a whooping snook at louring skies. The lapwing’s voice is the joker in the pack, shooting up and down the scales like a novice twiddling the knobs on a synthesiser. It does not feel grounded in this landscape of puddles, mud slaked over boots, ragged grass margins, finches giving out throwaway chirrups, and the dull ribbed skeleton leftovers of last year’s flowers.
Our field-working forebears must have listened daily and tried to capture the distinctive peculiarity of these sounds in words. So much so that Vanellus vanellus may well have more regional names than any other bird. Lancashire’s chewit calls to Orkney’s teeack, Norfolk’s pie-wipe answers Lothian’s peasiewheep. I’m a child of the TV generation, and I always think when I hear the birds that the Clangers have landed.
Continue reading...Almost 90% of new energy in Europe from renewable sources in 2016
Wind energy overtakes coal as the EU’s second largest form of power capacity but concerns remain over politicians’ enthusiasm for renewables
Renewable energy made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels.
But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.
Continue reading...Ecoult battery tapped for major India solar + storage trial
Sun Metals goes for bigger solar plant to hedge against energy costs
Snake regurgitates tennis ball after mistaking it for food – video
With the help of snake handlers and Trish Prendergast, a senior veterinary nurse at a clinic in Townsville, Queensland, the 1.5m-long carpet python manages to regurgitate an entire tennis ball after it was found swollen in a residential yard.
Continue reading...Greedy energy industry, too clever by half, kicks an own goal
AGL looks to large-scale battery storage as alternative to gas
Conservatives push carbon tax to address climate crisis
Orangutan squeaks reveal language evolution, says study
Bolivia declares emergency over locust plague
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