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In the Sahrawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert, Tateh Lehbib Braica – aka ‘the crazy bottle guy’ – has built circular houses from waste plastic that protect from wind and sun

A group of women drink tea under the shade of a tent and cast an eye over the construction of an odd, circular house. The half-built dwelling is the brainchild of Tateh Lehbib Braica, 27, an engineer who wanders among the workers.

On the ground lie hundreds of sand-filled, 1.5 litre plastic bottles that serve as bricks. With them, Tateh has found a way to fight back against the harshness of the Algerian desert that is home to 90,000 long-term refugees from western Sahara. It’s not yet that hot, but in summer, when the temperature rises above 50C, it will be impossible to venture out of doors.

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New official guidance also backs planting trees, supporting cycling and encouraging take-up of electric vehicles to tackle crisis that causes 40,000 early deaths a year

Parents who leave their car engines running at the school gate should be fined in order to help tackle the air pollution crisis, according to England’s official health watchdogs.

New guidance from Public Health England (PHE) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) sets out a wide range of measures to cut air pollution, which is at illegal levels in almost 90% of urban areas.

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GMA Garnet in WA becomes latest Australian big energy user to turn to renewables and battery storage for a cheaper, more reliable power supply.

Airedale, West Yorkshire Goldfinches bicker among the chromium yellows of gorse and laburnum

It’s been a good year for gorse. Perhaps the dryish winter helped. All across the north of England I’ve seen the plant’s reckless spatters of chromium yellow bristling with the promise of stonechats and whitethroats.

Some trace the origins of the word gorse to an Anglo-Saxon word for wasteland (this, Ulex europaeus, is a species of poor soil and open skies) but others relate it ultimately to the Greek for hedgehog, which is much more satisfying.

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The 2017 Melbourne event was held on Sunday 25 June at Victoria Park, Abbotsford with sell-out crowds. Powershop is excited to support Reclink Australia and make this year's Reclink Community Cup - Melbourne, Australia’s first carbon neutral grass...

The Carbon Marketplace was developed with support from the Carbon Neutral Program.

European power giants Engie and Uniper pull out of major Dutch carbon capture and storage project in same week as US project abandoned.

Australia's two biggest states are rolling out extensive electric vehicle charging networks, to cater for soon to be "ubiquitous" EVs.

Cheaper battery prices sees storage playing a broader role in energy markets, particularly for commercial customers seeking to reduce peak consumption, research from McKinsey shows.

Solar electricity production + blockchain = a currency based on sunshine

A Coalition energy minister who talks sense! Don Harwin says time to let go of notion of "baseload" and embrace cheaper wind, solar and storage. He rubbishes ideas of new coal generation, and talks of two new "renewable energy spines" in NSW. Hoted that in heatwave: "Clean energy performed as forecast. Thermal generation did not."

US president's “dirty energy week” measures decried as gifts to corporate polluters that will harm both the climate and the clean energy sector.

Wild mallard ducks have been spotted hunting and eating migratory birds to the surprise of scientists.

Searing weather across the UK and Europe was made more likely by human-induced climate warming say scientists.

Two papers published today report that neonicotinoids have negative effects on honey bees and wild bees in realistic field experiments. from www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

Some of the world’s most widely used pesticides can be harmful to bees, according to the first large-scale studies aimed at measuring the impact of compounds called neonicotinoids on bees’ health. But the effects vary widely between different compounds and different countries, suggesting that more regional research will be needed to clarify the exact scale of the problem.

Neonicotinoids, which are typically coated onto seeds before planting rather than being sprayed onto crop plants, were developed with the aim of harming only those animals that eat the plants. But they are also found in the pollen and nectar of treated plants, potentially affecting beneficial organisms like bees.

Two papers published today in the journal Science report that neonicotinoids have negative effects on honey bees and wild bees in realistic field experiments. But the results are mixed and far from conclusive.

The concern about neonicotinoids prompted the European Union to impose a temporary moratorium in 2013 on the use of three key pesticides. In contrast, New Zealand’s government has joined with Australia in not imposing a ban. I think our governments have made exactly the right decision at this time.

Study confirms negative effects

One of the studies, led by Nadejda Tsvetkov at York University, Canada, indicates that chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honey bees’ health near Canadian corn fields.

This is consistent with many previous research findings showing that feeding on large amounts of neonicotinoids can be fatal to honey bee workers and queens.

For bees given a smaller dose, their foraging becomes less efficient. They undertake reduced hygienic behaviour in the hive and their immune system seems to be impaired. And their tolerance of other stressors bees experience in their environment, in this case a fungicide, is reduced.

The new Canadian study shows that field-realistic exposure to neonicotinoids can substantially reduce honey bees’ health.

Other results mixed

The other study, led by Ben Woodcock of Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council, describes research done on three different bee species in three different countries. It also attempted to use field-realistic exposure to neonicotinoids. Populations of honey bees, bumble bees and a solitary bee were followed in the United Kingdom, Hungary and Germany.

The team examined two neonicotinoid pesticides, and found a fascinatingly mixed bag of results. Both pesticides resulted in significantly reduced numbers of honey bee eggs being produced in Hungary. But exposure to both pesticides in Germany resulted in significantly more eggs being produced. Neonicotinoids also seemed to result in higher numbers of workers surviving winter in Germany.

In Hungary, fewer worker bees survived winter after exposure to one pesticide, but not the other. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, there were mostly negative but some positive effects of exposure to the different neonicotinoid pesticides.

The take-home message is that different neonicotinoids can have different effects, which can be very specific to the country of use. After reading these results, if I were a grower in Germany, I might start to question the European Union’s temporary moratorium.

Country-specific data needed

These studies highlight the need for data to allow countries like New Zealand and Australia to effectively manage the use of neonicotinoid pesticides. We need to know the effects of neonicotinoids in our specific environmental conditions and in the way we use them.

We also need to know what the effects would be if we took this group of pesticides away. I’ve read reports that growers in the UK have had to revert to broad-spectrum pesticides that are considered worse for the environment and mean they cannot grow certain crops.

In 2013, the Australian government undertook a review of neonicotinoids and the health of honey bees. This concluded that “the introduction of the neonicotinoids has led to an overall reduction in the risks to the agricultural environment from the application of insecticides”.

The review found little scientific evidence to show that the current use of neonicotinoids in Australia causes widespread harm to honey bees. The review stated that “the introduction of the neonicotinoid insecticides has brought a number of benefits, including that they are considerably less toxic to humans (and other mammals) than the organophosphorus and carbamate insecticides they have significantly replaced”.

Bees are up against it

Honey bees in New Zealand have a plethora of known and scientifically demonstrated threats. These include invasive blood-sucking mites, and the deformed wing virus, which has been described as a key contributor to the collapse of bee colonies around the world.

New Zealand’s bees have bacterial pathogens like American foulbrood that results in beekeepers having to burn their bees and hives. Fungal diseases are widespread. We also have management issues with the higher-than-ever numbers of managed hives, which are often managed poorly and often overstocked. These are real and known issues affecting our honey bees now. We have data on these problems that can guide their management.

The new research will doubtless lead to calls from some quarters for Australia and New Zealand to ban neonicotinoid pesticides. I hope that the New Zealand and Australian governments act on studies like those published today, but I would be disappointed if that action was anything other than evidence- and science-based. Let’s gather the data specifically for each country, and then make a decision on whether and how to use these pesticides.

Phil Lester has not received funding from pesticide companies. His work is funded from a number of government sources, including the Royal Society Te Aparangi and the National Science Challenge in New Zealand.

the pesticides we use are harming these guys.

The largest study to-date on neonicotinoid pesticides concludes they harm honeybees and wild bees.

More than 2,000 farmers and agriculture leaders express concern proposed Carmichael coalmine could affect groundwater, biodiversity and climate change

A group of Australian farmers have joined the large coalition of groups fighting against Adani’s giant Carmichael coalmine, after they became concerned about the affects the mine would have on groundwater, biodiversity, rural communities and climate change.

Farmers for Climate Action – a group of more than 2,000 farmers and agriculture leaders concerned about climate change – became the newest group to join the Stop Adani alliance last week, at the same time as one of its members attracted more than 30,000 signatures to a petition calling on the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, to rescind her commitment to give Adani unlimited free access to groundwater used by farmers in the region.

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Conservationists say threatened seabird is vulnerable to the environmental effects of rising air temperatures and warming oceans caused by climate change

Tasmanian scientists will trial a new tactic this spring to help the shy albatross fight extinction: constructing artificial nests.

Conservationists hope the nests will boost the population of the threatened seabird, which they believe is vulnerable to the environmental effects of climate change.

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The world’s largest ever field trial demonstrates widely used insecticides harm both honeybees and wild bees, increasing calls for a ban

Widely used insecticides damage the survival of honeybee colonies, the world’s largest ever field trial has shown for the first time, as well as harming wild bees.

The farm-based research, along with a second new study, also suggests widespread contamination of entire landscapes and a toxic “cocktail effect” from multiple pesticides.

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