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Solving a problem like waste recycling
Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn
Ryan Zinke has recommended three major marine monuments be reduced to allow greater commercial fishing, prompting anguish from environmental groups
The Trump administration’s plan to shrink four land-based national monuments has provoked howls of anguish from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some businesses, such as the outdoors company Patagonia.
Related: In America and beyond, the spirit behind public lands is at risk | Hansjörg Wyss
Continue reading...2017 was the hottest year on record without an El Niño, thanks to global warming | Dana Nuccitelli
Climate scientists predicted the rapid rise in global surface temperatures that we’re now seeing
2017 was the second-hottest year on record according to Nasa data, and was the hottest year without the short-term warming influence of an El Niño event:
Continue reading...The gene editing tech that uses 'molecular scissors'
Mussel power: Bid to save rare shellfish in Wales
Country diary: a visual rhyme of craftsmanship and nature
Grassington, Upper Wharfedale The stark geometry of the bone-white boundary walls complements the outcrops and escarpments around Grass Wood
The weakest of the year’s sunlight falls on the barn-studded latticework of dry stone walls just outside Grassington. I stop to admire the skill they must have required: the Great Scar Limestone that underlies much of Upper Wharfedale comes from the fields in big, irregular chunks, too dense for a chipping hammer, and the resulting walls are completed puzzles that testify to the creativity of the builder.
Continue reading...Dozens of snake eggs found in Australian school sandpit
Wildlife rescuers retrieve 43 eggs thought to be from of one of the world’s most poisonous snakes, the eastern brown
Students at a school on the New South Wales mid-north coast have learned a valuable lesson: sandpits make great snake nests.
Wildlife rescuers were shocked when a call to remove about a dozen eggs from a sandpit at a school near the coastal town of Laurieton, 350km north of Sydney, became rather more dramatic.
Continue reading...A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills
Large meteor spotted in skies across UK
On its hundredth birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming | Benjamin Franta
Somebody cut the cake – new documents reveal that American oil writ large was warned of global warming at its 100th birthday party.
It was a typical November day in New York City. The year: 1959. Robert Dunlop, 50 years old and photographed later as clean-shaven, hair carefully parted, his earnest face donning horn-rimmed glasses, passed under the Ionian columns of Columbia University’s iconic Low Library. He was a guest of honor for a grand occasion: the centennial of the American oil industry.
Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium – organized by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business – and Dunlop was to address the entire congregation on the “prime mover” of the last century – energy – and its major source: oil. As President of the Sun Oil Company, he new the business well, and as a director of the American Petroleum Institute – the industry’s largest and oldest trade association in the land of Uncle Sam – he was responsible for representing the interests of all those many oilmen gathered around him.
Continue reading...London air pollution live data – where will be first to break legal limits in 2018?
Toxic NO2 pollution affects most of urban areas of the UK, but London is worst hit. View live data from the capital to see which site is the first to break legal limits in 2018
In January 2017, Brixton Road in south London broke its annual legal limit for toxic nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in less than a fortnight, according to the final calibrated data. In 2016, Putney High Street was the first, in less than seven days.
The rapid breaching of the limits is a dramatic illustration of the illegal air pollution affecting most urban areas in the UK, which will see the government being sued in the high court for a third time early in 2018. High NO2 levels are estimated to cause about 23,500 early deaths a year.
From stools to fuels: the street lamp that runs on dog do
Turning turds into power is not new but most of this energy still goes to waste. A host of innovative projects aim to maximise poo’s full potential
A long winding road climbs into a gathering dusk, coming to an abrupt dead end in front of a house. Here, a solitary flickering flame casts out a warm glow, illuminating the nearby ridge line of the Malvern Hills.
Below the light sits a mysterious green contraption resembling a cross between a giant washing machine and a weather station. This is the UK’s first dog poo-powered street lamp, and it is generating light in more ways than one.
UK 'faces build-up of plastic waste'
The environmental impact of electric cars
Country diary: dancing and diving, a dipper braves the ice-cold river
Black Banks Plantation, Weardale, County Durham Maintenance of insulating plumage is vital for a bird whose survival depends on feeding underwater
It was a morning of brittle beauty, the best kind of winter day. Last night’s magical transformation remained intact; rusty-brown bracken fronds fringed with frost crystals and ice-encrusted leaves that crunched underfoot. No hint of a thaw yet; the low elevation of the sun had left this side of the riverbank in deep shadow. The cold air stung our cheeks.
In still pools beside the river, the 6mm-thick ice must have frozen gradually overnight, from the edges inwards as the water level dropped, creating concentric oval patterns with elegant art nouveau flourishes around their margins. In a few places, ice sheets remained suspended between the trunks of alders, creaking and groaning when the wind disturbed their branches.
Continue reading...Vehicles are now America's biggest CO2 source but EPA is tearing up regulations
Transport overtook power generation for climate-warming emissions in 2017 but the Trump administration is reversing curbs on auto industry pollution
Some of the most common avatars of climate change – hulking power stations and billowing smokestacks – may need a slight update. For the first time in more than 40 years, the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the US isn’t electricity production but transport – cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping.
Related: Fightback begins over Trump's 'illegal and irresponsible' clean power repeal
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