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Green groups warn of 'race to the bottom'
The eco guide to bike-sharing
Cycling has the power to transform urban transport. But access to bikes is key to getting more of us on to two wheels
Imagine the huge improvement in air quality if we shifted to pedal power. In Groningen, in the Netherlands, almost two-thirds of trips are made by bike, making it one of the most cycle-friendly cities in the world. It’s no accident that the Dutch city also has great air quality. The UK manages a meagre 2% cycling rate overall. And we all know about the air quality here.
If, by the way, your wheels are redundant, please pass them on to the Bike Project to match with someone who desperately wants one.
Continue reading...Great moments from the ‘most exciting time in nature’s calendar’
Perched on the telegraph wires in my Somerset village, is a swallow – all the way back from its winter quarters in Africa. In my back garden, orange-tip and small tortoiseshell butterflies are searching for nectar. And everywhere I look, spring foliage is filling the countryside with green.
This has been a vintage spring for wildlife watchers. Thanks to a spell of fine, settled weather at the end of March and the beginning of April, bluebells carpet forest floors, the dawn chorus is reaching its peak, and living creatures – from natterjack toads to great crested newts, bumblebees to badgers – are out in force. What more could we wish for on Easter weekend?
Continue reading...The wildlife-friendly hedge: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 21 April 1917
Surrey, April 19
The bush harrow has been at work in the meadows, and light rain, dewing the grass tops, glistens even under the clouds along broad green paths which extend from end to end of the field. The blackbirds have been very active these past few days, scurrying noisily about the hedges and piping in regular notes up among the trees. There is a nest in a hollow of the hedge bottom, built where a thorn begins to branch out from the roots, plastered inside as if with a delicate tool and then lined with tops of dead grasses and a few driblets of wool which have clung to the hedge as the down sheep have straggled about near the thorns. Buds have begun to take the shape of leaves. There is just a glimpse of new colour along the top of the distant wood; a momentary glint of sun gives the impression and no more of pale golden green, which dies as the sky leadens again. Underfoot the most notable thing is the growth of small clover. Stalks have lengthened and leaves broadened out well above the ground.
One of our rivers, which takes a very winding course down to the Thames, runs through a thicket of willows, with older trees pollarded along each bank. This evening, when the clouds dispersed, a pair of kingfishers chased under the yet bare branches, going at regular intervals and returning, not together but one after the other in the same way. There is more life in the water and more insects were playing below the still boughs. A warbler was singing – just a few notes, and then a long silence before he broke it again.
Continue reading...Hanging on rather than flourishing … a rare flower
New Forest Clustered around two trees, and shaded by them, is a narrow-leaved lungwort, unreported in the area for nearly 20 years
We head into the forest in search of a scarce plant. Nine years ago almost to the day, I chanced upon a single stem of narrow-leaved lungwort (Pulmonaria longifolia), and I want to find out if it is still there. Then, it had been growing in the shelter of a young bramble, with primroses alongside.
Before setting out, I check with Martin Rand, the botanical recorder for south Hampshire. When he tells me that he hasn’t had a report of its presence in this area since the turn of the millennium, I regret not having given him a note of my find before.
Continue reading...The nuclear boy scouts: radioactive obsessions and genius unleashed
Hunting the Ghost Fungus: glowing mushrooms in Australia’s forests
Standing in a dark pine forest surrounded by bioluminescent mushrooms is as magical and mysterious as it sounds – and worth the midnight trek into the mountains three hours out of Sydney
It’s just before midnight and we’re in the middle of an eerie pine forest in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, dodging leeches and lugging heavy camera equipment.
Continue reading...Country Breakfast Features Saturday 15th April
New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice | John Abraham
Greenland ice is melting fast, and could potentially cause many meters of sea level rise
As humans put more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, ice around the planet melts. This melting can be a problem, particularly if the melting ice starts its life on land. That’s because the melt water flows into the oceans, contributing to rising sea levels. Right now there are three main reasons that sea levels are rising. First, as ocean waters heat, they expand. Second, melting of ice in Antarctica flows into the ocean. Third, melting of ice on Greenland flows into the ocean. There is other melting, like mountain glaciers, but they are minor factors.
Okay, so how much is melting of Greenland contributing to sea level rise? Estimates are that about 270 gigatons of water per year are melting. The melting of an ice sheet like that atop Greenland can occur from the surface as air temperatures and sunlight warm the upper layer of ice. It can also occur from the edges as ice shelves collapse and fall into the oceans in large chunks.
Continue reading...What ingredients are needed for life beyond Earth?
Key ingredient for life found spewing from Saturn's icy moon Enceladus
Quarantine alert might have prevented white spot disease outbreak, review finds
Federal authorities investigating prawn imports did not tell Biosecurity Queensland about breaches
The white spot virus outbreak that devastated prawn farms in south-east Queensland may have been avoided if federal authorities investigating quarantine failures had warned the state’s biosecurity agency, a review has found.
The damning assessment is contained in the report of a marine biologist, Ben Diggles, who was contracted to investigate the white spot outbreak by the Fisheries Development and Research Centre – a body jointly funded by government and industry.
Tumps of tunnelling moles reveal the past
The Trundle, West Sussex Ramparts’ busy archaeologists send forth iron age pottery, shells and bones as they excavate
As we walked the perimeter of the ramparts, we noticed that the cropped turf-covered contours below were heavily tracked with molehills. We came across an area of fresh tumps, the newly excavated soil still damp and dark like coffee grounds.
Related: Moles dig up buried treasure where human trowels are banned
Continue reading...Firefighting foam spilled at Brisbane airport enters river and kills fish
Anglers warned to avoid area as authorities and Qantas investigate leak of chemicals classified as an ‘emerging contaminant’
A significant spill of firefighting foam at Brisbane airport has contaminated nearby waterways, killing fish and prompting warnings to recreational anglers.
About 22,000 litres of the foam leaked in a Qantas hangar on Monday, the Queensland government confirmed.
Continue reading...Buddhists and climate change
Scott Pruitt hails era of environmental deregulation in speech at coal mine
EPA administrator declared an end to the government’s ‘war’ on coal in a speech to miners – an agenda that has been bitterly opposed by agency staff
Scott Pruitt, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, heralded a new era of environmental deregulation on Thursday, in a speech at a coal mine that was fined last year for contaminating local waterways with toxic materials.
Pruitt said the new “back to basics” agenda for the EPA would focus on devolving oversight of clean air and water to individual states, and bolstering jobs in industries such as coal, oil and gas.
Continue reading...Saturn moon 'able to support life'
The week in wildlife – in pictures
Ducks, red deer, cherry blossoms and leopards in the hill forests of Myanmar are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Scottish islands hold out for government U-turn on windfarm subsidies
Hopes that ministers will make special case for Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland after visit by business secretary
Ministers are believed to be on the verge of a U-turn on their manifesto pledge to halt the spread of subsidised onshore windfarms – on remote Scottish islands, at least.
The business secretary, Greg Clark, visited the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles on Monday to discuss the possibility of government support for turbines off the mainland.
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