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How humans are driving the sixth mass extinction
Scientists have been warning for decades that human actions are pushing life on our shared planet toward mass extinction. Such extinction events have occurred five times in the past, but a bold new paper finds that this time would be fundamentally different. Fortunately, there’s still time to stop it.
Periodically, in the vast spans of time that have preceded us, our planet’s living beings have been purged by planetary catastrophes so extreme they make your typical Ice Age look like the geological equivalent of a stroll in the park. Scientists count just five mass extinctions in an unimaginably long expanse of 450 million years, but they warn we may well be entering a sixth.
According to a bold new paper in The Anthropocene Review, this time would be different from past mass extinctions in four crucial ways – and all of these stem from the impact of a single species that arrived on the scene just 200,000 years ago: Homo sapiens.
Continue reading...Plastic bag charge cuts use 80% in Scotland
First year of Scotland’s 5p bag charge sees huge reduction in use and £6.7m raised for good causes in bid to cut waste and litter
The number of plastic carrier bags handed out in stores was slashed by at least 650 million in the first year of Scotland’s 5p charge.
New figures released on the anniversary of its introduction indicate the levy has cut usage by around 80%, equivalent to 650 million fewer bags than in previous years.
Continue reading...Hawaii shark attacks: one might have been an eel – officials
Bite by an eel would be the first recorded in waters of the surfing haven, say authorities
A surfer may have been bitten by an eel, rather than a shark, in an encounter off Hawaii’s popular Waikiki Beach, according to officials.
The surfer was hurt on Saturday within hours of a shark attack on a man off Oahu’s Lanikai Beach. Both men were taken to hospital.
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In each edition of Green light, our editors highlight the most important stories of the week and the data, opinion pieces and background guides that will help you put those stories in context. We’ll also flag up our best video, picture galleries, podcasts, blogs and green living guides.
Continue reading...Which countries are doing the most to stop dangerous global warming?
In November, nearly 200 countries meet in Paris for United Nations talks to agree a new climate deal. Find out below how their pledges - known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs - compare in our in-depth analysis of 14 key countries and blocs, in partnership with Climate Action Tracker
Continue reading...More WSUD, Future Transport Workshop, faith communities and climate change
Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Infrastructure project approved
Pacific nations beg for help for islanders when 'calamity' of climate change hits
Coalition of Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Tokelau ask wealthy nations to help their people migrate and find work if they have to flee because of rising sea levels
Pacific island nations have pleaded with wealthy countries to help their people migrate and find work if they are forced to flee their homelands because of the consequences of climate change.
Related: Besieged by the rising tides of climate change, Kiribati buys land in Fiji
Continue reading...Wildlife photographer of the year 2015 winners - in pictures
Canadian amateur photographer Don Gutoski has been named wildlife photographer of the year at London’s Natural History Museum for his image, Tale of two foxes. Here are the winning images in all categories
Continue reading...In 2050 there will be 9 billion people on earth. How to feed them
Have we reached ‘peak farmland’? Patrick Barkham digs into a new book about food and the future, while Chris Newell provides a graphic summary of the challenges ahead
’Tis the season of harvest festivals and farmers are celebrating another bumper crop. British farmers have this year twice smashed the record for the world’s highest-yielding wheat crop ever recorded, first in the Lincolnshire Wolds and then on a farm overlooking Holy Island in Northumberland.
Squeezing ever-higher yields from the same fields is one reason why the famous theories of Thomas Malthus, the cleric who predicted catastrophic famine and disease as population growth outstripped food production, haven’t come to pass. During the last 40 years of the 20th century, when the world’s population doubled from 3 to 6 billion, our annual production of grain rose even faster, nearly tripling over the same period.
Continue reading...Methane release from melting permafrost could trigger dangerous global warming | John Abraham
A policy briefing from the Woods Hole Research Center concludes that the IPCC doesn’t adequately account for a methane warming feedback
While most attention has been given to carbon dioxide, it isn’t the only greenhouse gas that scientists are worried about. Carbon dioxide is the most important human-emitted greenhouse gas, but methane has also increased in the atmosphere and it adds to our concerns.
While methane is not currently as important as carbon dioxide, it has a hidden danger. Molecule for molecule, methane traps more heat than carbon dioxide; approximately 30 times more, depending on the time frame under consideration. However, because methane is present in much smaller concentrations (compared to carbon dioxide), its aggregate effect is less.
Continue reading...Tetchy tweets suggest frayed tempers in UK energy department
Series of tweets from minister Andrea Leadsom accuse critics of lies, distortion and nonsense
Are those running the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) having a meltdown? The tweets sent by energy minister Andrea Leadsom certainly suggest tempers are running high: she accuses critics of lies, distortion and nonsense.
The ministerial seats at Decc must be getting hotter by the day. More than 1,000 jobs have gone in the solar power industry, with bosses blaming the government’s intention to slash solar subsidies by almost 90%. The statement by Leadsom’s predecessor, Greg Barker, that the evidence for cuts is “pretty poor” and will “kill the industry” can only have added to the heat. But should the response of a minister of state to such criticism be to let the red mist descend?
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef Report Card 2014
Water Sensitive Urban Design seminar tomorrow, consumption workshop, and have YourSay
Shell and Exxon's €5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
Groningen has been one of Europe’s richest gas fields for 30 years, and thousands of people say their homes have been damaged by the tremors that drilling sets off. Now a class action may finally bring them compensation – and force a rethink of European energy security
Five years ago, Annemarie Heite and her husband, Albert, bought their dream home; a traditional 19th-century farmhouse in Groningen province in the northern Netherlands. The couple planned to raise their two young daughters in this charming corner of the Dutch countryside. “Then, the living was still easy, and affordable,” Annemarie says, her tone bittersweet and nostalgic. Today, their house is scheduled for demolition.
Hundreds of earthquakes have wrecked the foundations of the Heites’ home and made it unsafe to live in. Annemarie’s biggest fear is the safety of her daughters. She points to a room. “This is where my children sleep,” she says, “and everyday I’m just picking up pieces of bricks and stuff from the ceiling.”
Continue reading...A special badger – with very special protectors
Edale, Derbyshire I could only stand and marvel: at the badger, but also at the dedication of those working on her behalf
Despite the whispering, our excitement was palpable. “There’s a white one,” one of the volunteers from the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said. Not white, as it turned out, although in the half-light of a misty pre-dawn it seemed that way.
Standing closer, the badger appeared more gingery brown, the head’s usual contrast of humbug stripes almost absent. The eyes were a marmalade colour, pretty and rather gentle. This wasn’t an albino but an erythristic badger, lacking black pigment in its fur through a genetic mutation. Their distribution in Britain is patchy; there are more in north Shropshire, for example, but very few in Derbyshire; this was the first badger experts in the county had heard about.
Continue reading...Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez: ‘Our greed is destroying the planet’
The teenage activist and musician who made headlines about climate change when he addressed the UN in June talks about what inspires him
Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez’s long hair marked him out from the middle-aged bureaucrats in the room. So did his age. After all, few 15-year-olds get to address the UN in New York, let alone speak with eloquence and passion on climate change. The speech, delivered in June, went round the world. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, and secured him press coverage in everything from Rolling Stone to the Guardian.
For Xiuhtezcatl (pronounced, roughly, shooTEZcat), however, addressing the UN was business as usual, or close to it. For most of his young life he has been working in climate activism, mainly with his group, Earth Guardians, which uses music and speech to engage young people around the world, and has more than 400 regional groups globally.
Continue reading...Chinese 'ivory queen' charged with smuggling 706 elephant tusks
Yang Feng Glan, kingpin between east African poaching syndicates and Chinese buyers, accused in Tanzania of smuggling ivory worth £1.62m
A Chinese woman dubbed the “ivory queen” for her alleged leadership of one of Africa’s biggest ivory smuggling rings has been captured and charged.
Yang Feng Glan is accused of smuggling 706 elephant tusks worth £1.62m from Tanzania to the far east. The Elephant Action League, a US-based campaign group, described her as “the most important ivory trafficker ever arrested in the country”.
Continue reading...Shark tooth left in victim's foot after attack in Western Australia
Eli Zawadzki bitten by what experts believe was normally-placid grey nurse shark while was surfing near Mandurah on Wednesday afternoon
Shark experts have identified the shark responsible for biting a man near Mandurah, Western Australia, as the usually “very, very placid” grey nurse shark, based on a fragment of tooth pulled from the teenager’s foot.
Eli Zawadzki, an apprentice electrician from Mandurah, was bitten on the lower leg and foot while surfing off Pyramids Beach, about 70km south of Perth, at 5pm on Wednesday.
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