Feed aggregator
Cassini ran through the 'big empty'
Fossil sheds light on 'Jurassic Park' dinosaurs
Climate contrarians want to endanger the EPA climate endangerment finding | Dana Nuccitelli
A terrible new white paper tries to make the case that carbon pollution isn’t dangerous
Although Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has been among the biggest proponents of withdrawing America from the Paris climate agreement (using bogus ‘blame China’ arguments to make his case), climate deniers have been unhappy with him. That’s because Pruitt doesn’t want to challenge EPA’s carbon pollution endangerment finding – he thinks it would be a lost cause. A group of contrarian scientists released a white paper trying to pressure him to attack the finding anyway.
Continue reading...Keystone XL: fear and enthusiasm fill the plains of eastern Montana – video
After Trump’s revival of the pipeline project, some communities along its route are preparing to fight back while others see a promise kept by the US president to ‘make America great again’. The Guardian drove along the proposed route of the pipeline through three red states – Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska – to hear what those who will be affected have to say about it
Continue reading...Rhône glacier installation by Noémie Goudal – in pictures
The Rhône glacier in the Swiss Alps is shrinking due to climate change. Artist Noémie Goudal produced and photographed an installation of the changing landscape for Project Pressure
Continue reading...Exotic pet therapy?
India to tank petrol cars by 2030, with new EV incentives
Friends of the Earth budget response
Corvids build castles in the sky
Claxton, Norfolk Once the nest building instinct has been unleashed it is remarkable how lavish their designs can be
It is wonderful to walk down the lane on to the marsh and see how, despite April’s refrigerated interlude, spring is building still. In some cases, this is literally true, not just the hawthorn hedges, which are fattening up with fresh leaves and blossom, but also the jackdaws, whichjourney back and forth with great gobbets of moss and cattle hair in their beaks. Some are so front-loaded with construction materials that one wonders how they see to navigate.
Corvids are generally great architects, and once the instinct has been unleashed it is remarkable how lavish their designs can be. The standard rook nest is a rough 15cm-deep stick platform, but recently I have come across some where the foundations are in a deeply forked situation. They have gone on until these twisting columns of sticks, which are known as “castles”’, are more than a metre tall.