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Do former transport ministers dream of electric buses?
Ex Lib Dem MP Norman Baker has swapped the ‘constant battle’ of working with Theresa May for running a Brighton eco-firm that’s launching a green bus route
Vince Cable and Ed Davey, the former business and energy secretaries respectively, are among the Liberal Democrats that lost their seats in 2015 who are plotting their way back to parliament in this general election.
But an erstwhile colleague has rejected the opportunity to regain his seat in Lewes in East Sussex. Norman Baker, the former transport minister who later quit the Home Office in 2014 after finding working with Theresa May a “constant battle”, sighs: “I don’t need to do the same thing over and over again, that’s the definition of madness.
Continue reading...Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them Steve
Kuki Gallmann shot and wounded at Kenya conservation park
Shipping container architecture – in pictures
Designers and architects are exploring the potential of repurposed shipping containers, but critics say they are not necessarily sustainable or cost-effective
Continue reading...Sharks: deter rather than cull, says Western Australia premier
Laeticia Brouwer, 17, was killed by a shark in Esperance on Easter Monday but Mark McGowan waited to comment as he did not want to politicise the issue
The premier of Western Australia remains in favour of personal devices to deter sharks instead of culling, nets and drumlines following the death of a 17-year-old girl.
Continue reading...The eco guide to fast fashion | Lucy Siegle
Reforms are under way but not enough has been done to end poverty wages in the garment industry
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 2013 Rana Plaza catastrophe, in which 1,134 garment workers in Bangladesh were killed when their factory collapsed. The workers died in the overcrowded and poorly constructed building while working to meet our demands for fast fashion.
Across the world conscious consumers will join fashionrevolution.org – a vibrant global civil movement focused on cleaning up the $3trn fashion industry, based primarily in low-wage economies.
Continue reading...After the mining - what's the clean-up plan?
Canadian oil firm pulls out of national park in Peru's Amazon
Pacific abandons one million hectare concession including indigenous peoples’ territories along Brazil border
A Canadian-headquartered company, Pacific Exploration and Production, has pulled out of a huge oil and gas concession overlapping a new national park in the Peruvian Amazon. The concession, Lot 135, includes approximately 40% of the Sierra del Divisor national park established in 2015.
The concession has provoked opposition in Peru and just across the border in Brazil for many years, including regular statements since 2009 from indigenous Matsés people in both countries and a lawsuit recently filed by regional indigenous federation ORPIO. Both Lot 135 and the park overlap territory used by the Matsés and a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in “isolation.”
Hundreds of thousands join March for Science rallies across the world
More than 600 marches took place around the world in events that coincided with Earth Day, with organizers saying science is ‘under attack’ from Trump
Hundreds of thousands of climate researchers, oceanographers, bird watchers and other supporters of science rallied in marches around the world on Saturday, in an attempt to bolster scientists’ increasingly precarious status with politicians.
The main March for Science event was held in Washington DC, where organizers made plans for up to 150,000 people to flock to the national mall. Marchers held a range of signs, some of them attacking Donald Trump, depicting the president as an ostrich with his head in the sand or bearing the words “What do Trump and atoms have in common? They make up everything.”
Continue reading...Thousands rally around the world for ‘March for Science’ – video
Thousands of people gathered in demonstrations across the globe for the ‘March for Science’ on Saturday, in a rebuke of Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate science and his attempts to cut large areas of scientific research. People congregated in cities such as London, Sydney and Berlin, with more than 600 marches planned across the US, Europe, South America and Australia
Continue reading...Government has failed to act on air pollution, says Labour
March for Science: Rallies worldwide to protest against political interference
Christian Earth Day lessons: worship by protectiong creation | Paul Douglas
Climate change is a global pro-life issue
Readers of this column know that I tend to focus on breaking science in the climate and energy areas. Sometimes, I stray into politics and other times, I venture further afield. Today, on Earth Day, I was reflecting on best ways to move real action forward and it is clear to me, and almost everyone in this industry, that building bridges between like-minded groups is key.
Frankly, it isn’t just scientists that are concerned about climate change. Our concerns are shared by business leaders, the insurance industry, defense industries, people who enjoy the outdoors, farmers, and many more. Recently, there has been a movement amongst persons of faith as well. In fact, for some people of faith, taking care of the Earth is a mandate from a higher authority. In this light, and to celebrate a very different voice form my own, the following is a guest post by a well-known meteorologist in the USA, Paul Douglas. It turns out he is also a man of faith as well as a business leader. Thanks Paul.
Continue reading...The village that made itself hedgehog friendly
The ice stupas of Ladakh: solving water crisis in the high desert of Himalaya
An ingenious idea to build artificial glaciers at lower altitudes using pipes, gravity and night temperatures could transform an arid landscape into an oasis
The idea crystallised in his mind one morning as Sonam Wangchuk was crossing a bridge in the Indian Himalayas.
The engineer from Ladakh, in the Jammu region of north India, was already a famous problem solver: a Bollywood film loosely based on his life had grossed a billion rupees in its first four days.
Continue reading...Nearly 40 million people live in UK areas with illegal air pollution
Exclusive: analysis commissioned by Labour reveals 59% of Britons live in areas where diesel pollution threatens health
Nearly 40 million people in the UK are living in areas where illegal levels of air pollution from diesel vehicles risk damaging their health, according to analysis commissioned by the Labour party.
The extent of the air pollution crisis nationally is exposed in the data which shows 59% of the population are living in towns and cities where nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution breaches the lawful level of 40 microgrammes per cubic metre of air.
Continue reading...Earth Day 2017: ‘The experts are fighting back’
‘An exuberant rite of spring” is how the New York Times described 22 April, 1970. In Manhattan, and across America, “huge, light-hearted throngs ambled down autoless streets.” Earth Day had been born, an outburst of protest – and revelry – that involved everyone from save-the-whales activists to opponents of new freeways. Denis Hayes, now 72, was the man tasked with organising it. “What we did was pull together an event that told all of those people, ‘You know you’ve really got something in common and this should be one big movement where we’re supportive of one another’.”
It sparked, he tells me, the most profound change in American society since the New Deal. “We now have different kinds of buildings, different kinds of automobiles, different planes, different lighting, different land use. People are choosing to have diets for environmental reasons, choosing to have one child for environmental reasons.” And all that, he says, “didn’t come from political leadership at the top, it came from a bunch of demands down at the grassroots”.
Continue reading...Chris Packham: ‘Sometimes the best way to make a change is to make trouble’
The TV presenter accused of assaulting hunters killing migratory birds in Malta says it’s time for committed environmental activism
We decided to go to Malta because we were fed up with the inactivity from NGOs about the endless trapping and killing of migratory birds there.
We first went four years ago, then started to go annually to liaise with the Committee Against Bird Slaughter. It is an incredible organisation that attracts volunteers from all over Europe. When we first went, we put a video report online every evening showing what was happening – a daily diary detailing the killing of birds – and we got an enormous amount of press for this.
Continue reading...Three glorious hours cut off by the tide
Foulney Island, Morecambe Bay This shingle spit provides winter quarters for thousands of eider ducks
The rising tide fetched with it slews of blue sky. As I walked the causeway jumble of rocks, the sea slopped gently below. I was about to be cut off for three glorious hours on Foulney Island.
Saltmarsh metamorphosed into momentary lagoons. Dozens of curlew settled, probed, then lifted at the water’s ingress. Due west could be seen Piel Island, its castle all turrets and crumbling towers like an old battleship, halfway to the flattened sliver of Walney Island. Beyond that, windfarms.
Continue reading...Soil carbon 'a saviour' in locking up carbon
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