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A third of Brits throw away Christmas turkey and sprouts
New research finds householders more likely to bin food over festive season due to lack of culinary knowhow
One in three UK consumers admit to binning turkey and sprouts for their Christmas dinner before it even reaches the table because of their lack of culinary knowhow, a new report has revealed.
Official figures show that UK households throw away 7m tonnes of food every year, but the new research from supermarket chain Sainsbury’s shows householders are more likely to bin food over the festive season because they don’t know how to prepare and cook it.
Continue reading...This is the polar bear capital of the world, but the snow has gone
Canada’s Hudson Bay is as ice-free in November as on a summer’s day and polar bears could be extinct here by mid-century. If the bears are in trouble, so are we
Churchill, on the banks of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is known as the polar bear capital of the world. Hundreds of bears gather there each year before the sea freezes over in October and November so they can hunt seals again from the ice for the first time since the summer.
I first went there 12 years ago at this time of year. The place was white, the temperature was -20C, and the bears were out feeding.
Continue reading...Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain
The endless joy of logs
Claxton, Norfolk I recall the circumstances of the cut, how it was stored and then the moment it was sectioned to fit the fire
The garden task that gives me greatest satisfaction is the cutting of our winter wood stack. I like to joke that our logburner consumes only hand-prepared organic “food”, and there is even a sense in which each piece is an individual.
Over the years I’ve learned that the secret to preparing logs is not some fancy axe or equipment. It is time. I have thus worked out a four-stage process that spans two years, beginning with the moment when the live trees are felled.
Continue reading...You are 16, going on 17 – part 1
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Solar cooling systems take heat out of summer’s hottest days
A few Australian businesses are exploiting the searing heat of summer to create purpose-designed solar cooling systems whose benefits extend far beyond electricity savings
As Australia settles in for another long hot summer, the demand for air-conditioning is set to surge. In fact, with the World Meteorological Organisation stating that 2016 is likely to be the hottest year on record, it’s no surprise an estimated 1.6bn new air conditioners are likely to be installed globally by 2050.
Powering all these units will be a challenge, especially on summer’s hottest days. In Australia, peak demand days can drive electricity usage to almost double and upgrading infrastructure to meet the increased demand can cost more than four times what each additional air-conditioning unit costs.
Continue reading...Reasons to put insects on the Christmas menu
Rearing animals for meat is bad for the planet. Insects, on the other hand, are both nutritious and environmentally friendly
If you’re looking for a novelty Christmas dinner that will help curb greenhouse gases, why not try eating insects? Conventional meat farming produces massive amounts of greenhouse gases, especially from sheep and cattle belching methane – a gas roughly 20 times more powerful as a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide.
Add to that other culprits, such as nitrogen oxides given off from fertilisers and carbon dioxide created in transport and refrigeration. All told, the livestock industry gives off 18% of all manmade greenhouse gases. Insects, though, give off far less greenhouse pollutants for the same weight of food.
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