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Climate change: global reshuffle of wildlife will have huge impacts on humanity
Mass migration of species to cooler climes has profound implications for society, pushing disease-carrying insects, crop pests and crucial pollinators into new areas, says international team of scientists
Global warming is reshuffling the ranges of animals and plants around the world with profound consequences for humanity, according to a major new analysis.
Rising temperatures on land and sea are increasingly forcing species to migrate to cooler climes, pushing disease-carrying insects into new areas, moving the pests that attack crops and shifting the pollinators that fertilise many of them, an international team of scientists has said.
Continue reading...James Webb telescope: Hubble successor set for yet more tests
West Mersea mammoth tusk found on beach
The curious disappearance of climate change, from Brexit to Berlin | Andrew Simms
The word climate does not appear once in the letter triggering the UK’s departure from Europe. But it’s not just in London that the issue seems to be slipping from the political stage
The word climate does not appear once in the letter triggering the UK’s departure from Europe. Despite the world experiencing a second, successive, record annual rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, on one level the omission is hardly surprising.
When the environment minister, George Eustice, revealed that the government had commissioned no research at all on the likely impact of Brexit on environmental policy it reflected how low green issues had fallen on the political agenda. Just how far is revealed by the fact that more than 1,100 EU environmental safeguards will need translating into UK law.
Continue reading...Good news for elephants: China's legal ivory trade is 'dying' as prices fall
Elephant conservationists hopeful that demand for ivory in China is falling amid government clampdown on ivory sellers, but experts remain wary of poaching
The wholesale price of raw legal ivory has dropped by almost two thirds since China, the world’s largest ivory importer and trader, announced plans to close down its domestic market, according to new research.
Researchers working for the conservation organisation Save the Elephants visited Beijing and Shanghai, as well as six cities whose markets had never been surveyed before: Changzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenyang, Suzhou and Tianjin. The researchers, Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin, concluded that the legal trade in ivory is dying.
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Call to extend funding for Indigenous rangers program
South Australia to get $1bn solar farm and world's biggest battery
System will include 3.4m solar panels and 1.1m batteries, with operations set to begin by end of 2017
A huge $1bn solar farm and battery project will be built and ready to operate in South Australia’s Riverland region by the end of the year.
Related: Elon Musk, meet Port Augusta: four renewable energy projects ready to go
Continue reading...Reusable incentives could slash disposable coffee cup waste
Free reusables, 25p charge on disposables and green slogans in cafes could cut some of 2.5bn cups thrown away each year, finds study
Incentives such as a tax on disposable coffee cups or free reuseable replacements could help cut the number thrown away in the UK every year by between 50m and 300m, according to new research.
An estimated 2.5bn throwaway coffee cups are used in the UK every year by consumers buying coffee from chains and cafes, creating approximately 25,000 tonnes of waste.
Cedar cuts a bold dash among the grey ranks
Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire Spring hasn’t ignited its neighbours but this red-barked giant is vibrant in the sunlight
A banner of red falls amid ranks of anaemic grey: if sentient, this tree would have to be either mortified or cocksure, cutting such a bold dash in demure company. I shamble through ankle-snagging greenery and brownery as if through stubborn snow. My steps are crisp and disturb a sweet smell.
I get to the tree. It’s magnificent: 40 metres at least. It seems all trunk, until odd, brief branches pop from its bark, lichen-greened serpents from a mythical head. Higher, and finally, the serpent branches thicken and burst with evergreen.
Continue reading...Wildlife activists discover pit full of native waterbirds 'dumped' by hunters – video
Video provided by Coalition Against Duck Shooting shows muddy pits full of dead birds they allege were shot and dumped by hunters who exceeded their bag limit on the opening weekend of Victoria’s duck hunting season
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