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Panda cubs make public debut in China – video

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-10-01 01:33

23 panda cubs are collected in China ahead of the country’s national day on 1 October. The cubs were shown off at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base on Thursday. Aged between one and four months old, the cubs lay on their bellies, occasionally exerting just a little effort to crawl a few inches forward. This year, the team at the giant panda base reported double the number of newborn cubs, when compared with last year

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Wildlife trafficking, air pollution and farm subsidies – green news roundup

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-10-01 01:31

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

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EU gives green light to ratifying Paris climate deal

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-10-01 00:44

EU ministers are expected to ratify the agreement, along with India and Cananda, next week meaning enough countries will have signed up for the deal to come into legal force

EU ministers have agreed to ratify the landmark Paris climate agreement at an extraordinary summit in Brussels on Friday, all but guaranteeing that it will pass a legal threshold to take effect next week and sparing the bloc’s blushes in the process.

The European Parliament is expected to rubber stamp the decision in Strasbourg next Tuesday, allowing the EU to sign off on it as soon as the following day.

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Rosetta: Mission control confirms probe has 'crash landed'

BBC - Fri, 2016-09-30 23:25
Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, react to confirmation that the Rosetta probe has ended its mission to Comet 67P by crash-landing on to the icy object's surface.
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Rosetta mission: 'Really sad, but the legacy lives on'

BBC - Fri, 2016-09-30 23:15
Professor Monica Grady of the Open University gives her reaction to the Rosetta probe crash landing into the comet it has been studying for two years.
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Rosetta: British scientists and role of UK Space Agency

BBC - Fri, 2016-09-30 23:14
Where now for British scientists and plans to explore the galaxy?
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The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 23:00

A pair of parakeets, a baby tamarin and a lost species of frog are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Stolen African penguin's chicks die at South African marine park

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 22:10

Father of the two chicks was stolen from Port Elizabeth’s Bayworld marine park as a protest against animals being kept in captivity

The two chicks of an endangered African penguin that was stolen from a marine park in South Africa have died.

Buddy the penguin was taken from Bayworld in Port Elizabeth by two men in a protest against animals being kept in captivity, but staff warned he was ill-equipped to survive in the wild.

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James Lovelock: ‘Before the end of this century, robots will have taken over’

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 21:30

Fracking is great, the green movement is a religion, his dire predictions about climate change were nonsense – and robots don’t mind the heat, so what does it matter? At 97, the creator of Gaia theory is as mischievous and subversive as ever

James Lovelock’s parting words last time we met were: “Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky, it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.” It was early 2008, and the distinguished scientist was predicting imminent and irreversible global warming, which would soon make large parts of the planet uninhabitably hot or put them underwater. The fashionable hope that windfarms or recycling could prevent global famine and mass migration was, he assured me, a fantasy; it was too late for ethical consumption to save us. Before the end of this century, 80% of the world’s population would be wiped out.

His predictions were not easy to forget or dismiss. Sometimes described as a futurist, Lovelock has been Britain’s leading independent scientist for more than 50 years. His Gaia hypothesis, which contends that the earth is a single, self-regulating organism, is now accepted as the founding principle of most climate science, and his invention of a device to detect CFCs helped identify the hole in the ozone layer. A defiant generalist in an era of increasingly specialised study, and a mischievous provocateur, Lovelock is regarded by many as a scientific genius.

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Rosetta mission ends in comet collision

BBC - Fri, 2016-09-30 21:24
Europe’s Rosetta probe ends its mission to Comet 67P by crash-landing on to the icy object’s surface.
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Hinkley Point C developers face £7.2bn cleanup bill at end of nuclear plant's life

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 20:03

French and Chinese developers will be the first nuclear operators in the UK that will have to pay to decommission the site

The French and Chinese companies that are to build the £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station will have to pay up to £7.2bn to dismantle and clean it up.

Documents published yesterday reveal for the first time how much the developers, EDF and China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), will have to pay to decommission the plant, beginning in 2083.

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Amazon’s pink river dolphins reveal the bizarre impacts of seafood fraud

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 19:27

In recent years numbers of South America’s freshwater dolpins have fallen. But they’re not being caught to eat, but as bait for a common catfish being fraudulently sold under a different name

This month, marine conservation NGO Oceana released a major report on seafood fraud, which reviewed more than 200 scientific studies that had collectively examined over 25,000 fish samples from around the world. Through its analysis, Oceana was able to show that an astonishing one in five seafood samples globally is mislabelled to represent other species and mislead consumers. Nestled within that report was the case of the Amazon river dolphins – a peculiar testimony to the often bizarre, trickle-down effects of seafood fraud.

These freshwater dolphins occupy the Amazon and Orinoco river basins that stretch across the northern half of South America. They have historically been abundant across this vast watery network, and are protected by law, making it illegal to kill them. But for years, poachers have been targeting the dolphins and using them as bait to catch a much smaller type of catfish.

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Protect the Peel: one of America’s last wildernesses under threat – in pictures

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 18:50

The fate of the Peel watershed in northern Yukon is at the centre of an extended legal battle between the territorial government and First Nations. The case is one of many conflicts over natural resource development to test Canada’s commitment to reconciliation and indigenous rights

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The Wrap: Trump v Clinton, the Adelaide storm and Wyatt Roy

ABC Environment - Fri, 2016-09-30 18:35
The Wrap is RN Drive's summary of the biggest stories of the week, plus some you may have missed.
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From Patagonia to Purbeck: your wild camping photos

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 16:38

From isolated mountain ranges to a pitch under a road bridge, our readers shared their most enjoyable wild camping experiences

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England needs almost double the number of marine zones to ensure healthy seas

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 15:01

Conservationists say 48 new protected areas are needed to fill the gaps in the ‘blue belt’ coastal network to ensure wildlife can flourish

Conservationists have called for the creation of a further 48 protected areas in English waters that would “fill in the gaps” of a national network designed to ensure healthy and productive seas.

If designated, they would add to the 50 existing marine conservation zones (MCZs) and create an “ecologically coherent network” where habitats and wildlife could flourish, according to a report from the Wildlife Trusts.

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Reaction to SA storms shows why Aussies are switching off politics

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-09-30 14:39
Politicians and others were fast to use SA storms as an opportunity to pin the situation on renewable energy, before anyone even knew what had happened.
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Summer leaves await a glorious autumnal death

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-09-30 14:30

Symonds Yat Rock, Forest of Dean This is an old world forest; organic, unwieldly, fecund, oaky – forest as nature wanted

Summer’s end, and the forest is thick. Beneath the leaves, the sun creates puddles of bright and black, through a canopy still swollen enough to block most of its light. Roads are green tunnels. Paths are dark and have a warm smell, the dense flotilla-dust of bug, web and sap lit brilliantly in the air. Soon the forest leaves will burn, through every shade of russet, to glorious autumnal death.

The Forest of Dean is an old world forest; organic, unwieldy, fecund, oaky. Forest as nature wanted, not the sterile, shadowed ranks of spruce that too often masquerade as such. In high summer a walk under the canopy seduces, in autumn one through its fresh decay beguiles. But now the more subtle charms of September’s change-month call for a higher lookout.

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Dumb politics means we may be stuck with an even dumber grid

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-09-30 14:18
It's remarkable how quickly a national conversation can fall into the gutter of bipartisanship and ignorance. But the legacy could be damaging: dumb politics could leave Australia with an even dumber grid.
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13 projects from across the globe to be honoured at UN Climate Conference in Marrakech

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-09-30 13:22
13 game-changing initiatives from around the world were announced today as winners of the United Nations ‘Momentum for Change’ climate change award.
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