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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
March for Science: Why did you march?
Tory failure to deliver pollution action plan angers environmentalists
Ministers submit court application to delay tackling illegal levels of toxic fumes, deemed by MPs to be a public health emergency
The government has made a last-minute application to the high court to delay the publication of its plan to tackle the air pollution crisis.
Ministers were under a court direction to produce tougher draft measures to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which is largely caused by diesel traffic, by 4pm on Monday. The government’s original plans had been dismissed by judges as so poor as to be unlawful.
Continue reading...Cassini probe sets up Saturn 'grand finale'
'Uber for bikes' comes to Cambridge – if you can find it
China’s popular dockless cycle share schemes allow riders to drop their bike wherever they want. Ofo is the first to launch in the UK - but what will our rider make of it?
Ofo, one of a host of Chinese start-ups hoping to do for bikes what Uber did for taxis, has chosen Cambridge for its first foray into Europe, a trial of which launched without fanfare this week.
Chinese cities have seen hundreds of thousands of these ‘dockless’ bikes hit its streets, that now have tens of millions of regular users.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Sharks at night, a feeding vampire bat and California’s wildflower super bloom are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Environmental charities allowed to challenge changes to court cost rules
High court judge has agreed to limit RSPB, ClientEarth and FoE’s costs liabilities to £10,000 in their action against the Ministry of Justice’s changes to costs cap
Three environmental charities have been given permission to challenge court regulations which they say make it too financially risky to bring cases over air pollution standards or the expansion of Heathrow airport.
A high court judge has agreed to limit costs liabilities of the RSPB, ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth to £10,000 in their action against the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which introduced the new rules earlier this year.
Continue reading...Britain set for first coal-free day since Industrial Revolution
National Grid expects the UK to reach coal energy ‘watershed’ on Friday in what will also be the country’s first 24-hour coal-free period
The UK is set to have its first ever working day without coal power generation since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid.
The control room tweeted the predicted milestone on Friday, adding that it is also set to be the first 24-hour coal-free period in Britain.
Continue reading...David Attenborough’s ‘Guardian headline’ halts Borneo bridge
Conservationist denounced Sukau project as a threat to pygmy elephants and orangutans
Officials in Borneo have cancelled plans to build a bridge across the Kinabatangan river, after warnings from Sir David Attenborough and other conservationists that it would gravely endanger pygmy elephants, orangutans and many other jungle species. The news comes just weeks after the Guardian revealed Attenborough’s opposition to the project.
Attenborough originally sent a private letter to the chief minister of the state of Sabah, Musa Aman, in September 2016. Last month, with signs pointing to the bridge still going ahead, the Guardian published excerpts from the letter. The authorities in Borneo have described Attenborough’s now-public opposition as the final blow to the project.
Continue reading...Amur leopards will be off-show to visitors at Scottish park
Plunged into a soundscape of rich noise
Stanage, Derbyshire Listening to moorland might illustrate its health just as well as looking at it does
The eastern horizon was a pale streak capped with pink, but it was still dark at Hollin Bank car park and I could barely make out Bill Gordon’s face as he waited. Bill is a volunteer for the Eastern Moors Partnership, monitoring ring ouzels, the mountain blackbird. To record their calls, he was carrying an impressive-looking microphone on a pole with a “dead-cat” windshield, rather cosy on a frosty April morning.
We had barely walked a few yards when, without a word, he pushed his headphones over my ears. It was a moment of complete transformation. From peering at the tenebrous moors, I was plunged suddenly into a soundscape at its zenith, its high noon, a matrix of rich, vital noise. To my right, I could hear a pair of snipe chipping away and, from all around, with a measure of distance between each, the looping voices of curlew. Just ahead of me, on steep scrubby ground, the wren that had sounded so thin and distant became gigantic, all lungs.
Substation works commence to help deliver one of Australia’s largest solar farms
Macquarie bets big on renewables with purchase of UK green bank
Torres Strait Beche De Mer, Finfish, Prawn, Trochus, and Tropical Rock Lobster Fisheries - Agency application 2017
Industrial bulk-buy could open path for more wind and solar projects
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