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Time to face up to the electric car revolution | Letters
Your editorial perpetuates a number of myths about electric vehicles (Car drivers are heading into a future far from their dreams, 7 August). You say “Tesla has just started selling its first electric car aimed squarely at the middle classes”, reinforcing the views recently posted online by fossil fuel lobby groups that EVs are only for the rich while being subsidised by the poorer. The Tesla 3 is directly cost competitive with similar cars with internal combustion engines and cheaper when including running costs, and there is now a growing second-hand market.
You say Tesla sales are “a remarkable figure for a machine with a fairly short range and a very limited number of specialised charging stations”. The Tesla 3 has an EPA rated range of 310 miles – this is not a “fairly short range”.
Continue reading...It’s not just the ‘sea lice’ – other flesh-eating sea creatures lurk in the deep
Carnivorous amphipods feasted on the legs of one unlucky Australian teenager, but they are not the only watery beasts with a taste for human flesh. Which ones should we really be afraid of?
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, some mystery lice chow down on a boy’s legs in Australia. Sam Kanizay had been paddling at a Melbourne beach. Half an hour later, the 16-year-old reeled when the sand he thought was covering his legs turned out to be eating his flesh, leading to unstoppable bleeding.
Related: Tiny 'meat-loving' marine creatures 'eat' teenager's legs at Melbourne beach
Continue reading...RSPB hails natterjack toad 'baby boom' at Lodge reserve
USDA has begun censoring use of the term 'climate change', emails reveal
Exclusive: series of emails show staff at Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service advised to reference ‘weather extremes’ instead
Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.
A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.
Continue reading...New grass snake discovered in the UK
Emojis help software spot emotion and sarcasm
Rare pine marten captured on camera in North Yorkshire
Tesco to end sales of 5p carrier bags
Supermarket to stop selling ‘single-use’ bags but will offer customers ‘bags for life’ costing 10p
The UK’s largest retailer is to stop selling “single use” 5p carrier bags in its UK stores from the end of the month, instead offering shoppers reusable “bags for life” costing 10p.
The move by Tesco follows a 10-week trial in Aberdeen, Dundee and Norwich, which led to a 25% cut in bag sales as shoppers either brought their own or switched to the bags for life.
Continue reading...Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year | John Abraham
A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels
Fossil fuels have two major problems that paint a dim picture for their future energy dominance. These problems are inter-related but still should be discussed separately. First, they cause climate change. We know that, we’ve known it for decades, and we know that continued use of fossil fuels will cause enormous worldwide economic and social consequences.
Second, fossil fuels are expensive. Much of their costs are hidden, however, as subsidies. If people knew how large their subsidies were, there would be a backlash against them from so-called financial conservatives.
Continue reading...From Baidoa, Somalia: 'We have no hope'
The worst drought in 40 years has a cruel grip on Somalia. A struggling young government and militant violence have compounded to bring crisis to 6.7 million lives. The town of Baidoa is facing some of the harshest conditions. Surrounded by territory controlled by al-Shabaab militants and amid ongoing attacks, 160,000 people have had to leave their farms and are surviving in camps where hunger, thirst and cholera await them
All photographs by Peter Caton/Mercy Corps
Continue reading...Renewables Forum, Castlemaine
Diesel has to die – there is no reverse gear on this
Daimler says diesel is worth fighting for but there is no comeback for the toxic technology and the fight must now be to save lives
When the story of Volkswagen’s cheating on diesel emissions tests broke nearly two years ago, a number of reporters asked me if this spelled the end for diesel cars. My response was a confident, dismissive “no”. While dieselgate would cast a long shadow, there was no reason to write off diesel cars, at least in the short term. After all, the technology does exist to make clean diesel cars. It’s just a question of improving the existing regulations and enforcing them better.
I was wrong.
Moreland Council launches hydrogen-powered garbage truck scheme
Queensland opens registrations for 100MW energy storage auction
New coal plant may be Coalition price for clean energy target
Burning policy puts pressure on recycling targets
WA leads the world in embracing electric vehicles
Making the energy transition more equitable and inclusive
SA’s energy policy: five steps forward, two steps back
Queenslanders blame something they don’t have – renewables – for rising energy bills
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