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Huge oil spill left after burning tanker sinks off China
Study finds that global warming exacerbates refugee crises | John Abraham
Higher temperatures increase the number of people seeking asylum in the EU
The refugee crisis – particularly in the Mediterranean area – has received large amounts of new attention in the past few years, with people fleeing from Syria and entering the European Union emblematic of the problem. There has been some research connecting this refugee problem with changes to the climate. In particular, the years preceding the Syrian refugee crisis were characterized by a severe drought that reduced farm output and led to economic and social strife there.
Separating out the influences of climate change from general social instability may be impossible, because they are intimately linked. But we do know that climate change can cause social and economic instability. We also know that these instabilities can boil over into larger problems that lead to mass exodus. The problem isn’t knowing the connection between climate and refugees exists – rather the problem is quantifying it.
Scotland's historic sites at high risk from climate change, report says
Exclusive: Many of the country’s most famous ancient sites, from Holyrood Park to the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, need urgent protection, say experts
Dozens of Scotland’s most famous historic sites are at very high risk of being badly damaged by climate change and need urgent protection, an expert survey has found.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the agency which oversees nearly 340 of the country’s most important castles, abbeys, Neolithic sites and ruins, has for the first time issued red warnings for nearly a fifth of its sites and put amber, high risk warnings against another 70%.
Continue reading...Country diary: pink-footed geese sing the wind’s own song
Claxton, Norfolk: It was as if the field had uprooted and their calls were the landscape itself in full clamour
On any walk to the marsh I’m always struck how, with a single click of the closing door, the entire audible routine of the house interior – the ticking clock, the even hum of the central heating and fridge, the slow breathing of all that other civilised stuff – is washed away instantly by the sound tide of the outdoors.
What we perhaps require as animals is release from that atmospheric certainty. Being outdoors permits an immersion in the unending and endlessly unpredictable music of nature, which the musician and naturalist Bernie Krause, in his book The Great Animal Orchestra, calls the “biophony”. Perhaps it is this that restores the default settings of our species. We have been attuned to the Earth’s wild song for 100,000 generations; why should we cease to want or need it after just 10 spent mainly indoors?
Continue reading...Ford to invest $11bn and have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles by 2022
The planned investment is significantly higher than the previously announced target of $4.5bn by 2020
Ford Motor Co will significantly increase its planned investments in electric vehicles to $11bn by 2022 and have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model line-up, the company’s chairman, Bill Ford, said on Sunday at the Detroit auto show.
The investment figure is sharply higher than a previously announced target of $4.5bn by 2020, Ford executives said, and includes the costs of developing dedicated electric vehicle architectures.
Continue reading...This is how coal dies — super cheap renewables plus battery storage
Maoneng inks major solar PPA with UNSW, via Origin
Know your NEM: What to expect in 2018
Northern Territory launches tender for up to 45MW grid-scale battery storage
2018: Can Australian PV keep up record-breaking pace set in 2017?
What we learned about climate in 2017 – and why it’s terrifying
“Einstein of the solar world”: Remembering UNSW professor Stuart Wenham
Second Tesla “big battery” to power Victorian agribusiness
Yallourn coal mine licence extension poses unacceptable risk to our climate
Eligibility of 10–100 kW solar PV systems under the Renewable Energy Target
'Floating on air' after surgeons remove 19kg tumour
'Pesky little birds': corella culls planned in Western Australia
Wild flocks bred from aviary escapees pose threat to local species and ‘don’t just eat, they destroy’, mayor says
Regional councils in Western Australia are using fireworks, lethal gas, nets, and mass shooting to reduce the number of corellas, which are reportedly damaging buildings and destroying infrastructure.
The culprits are primarily eastern long-billed corellas, Cacatua tenuirostris, which were introduced to WA as a popular aviary bird.
Continue reading...Citizens scientists look for mallee fowl and and kinder kids go bush
Householders could face fines for using fly-tippers
Action to combat unlicensed waste carriers to be taken after Environment Agency uncovers 850 illegal dumping sites in a year
Households whose rubbish ends up being dumped illegally by unauthorised disposal companies could face fines under plans being considered by the government.
Councils could be given the power to directly fine people caught using unlicensed waste carriers following a consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Continue reading...Country diary 1918: fowls fill dead air with an alive gurgling call
19 January 1918 Ducks waddled across to a narrow outlet, dabbled with their beaks, flopped in, and breasted away from the current, catching an odd flake as it fell
SURREY
Just after daybreak, while snow was falling, the fowls crept from their house, flew into the bare branches of apple trees, and filled the dead air with an alive gurgling call which tells that laying time has come. Ducks waddled across to a narrow outlet where a stream breaks quickly for the river, dabbled with their beaks, flopped in, and breasted away from the current, now and then catching an odd flake as it fell. Wood and field birds winged about aimlessly, larks and linnets going separately in small flocks, and one wagtail went to the margin of the water as if for company with the swimming birds. The snow turned to rain; the wood, clothed a minute ago in white, was now naked and cold. But a thrush came, trilled softly, then broke into almost full song; a starling perched on the farmhouse eaves shook the wet from his feathers, and tried to warble; rooks swung in their nest trees and called.
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