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A window into the life of the wood
New Forest To some, fallen timber makes for an untidy forest. There was a time when the woodsmen would have cleared much of it away. Not now
We’re standing deep into the trees, looking through an oval porthole constructed from the boughs of a toppled oak. The sun is filtering through the still bare canopy to light up the story of this wood. As we look through the window, we are taken into its past, present and future.
The brown of autumn’s leaf drop mingles with the emerald-green of mosses. To one side, dark-green stems of butchers’ broom promise flashes of ripened scarlet berries in months to come. The stiletto blades of bluebells are just breaking free of the blanket of fallen leaves that has protected their bulbs through the winter months. Already they suggest a scene transformed, as yesterday’s base-brown becomes a wash of blue. Tall, erect trunks stand like sentinels in a painted backdrop, and mid-stage lies a tangle of branches, looking as though some huge beast has shed its antlers.
Continue reading...Stripping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Mission to observe Arctic climate from 2019
Two-thirds of northern Great Barrier Reef coral killed by intense heat
Pythons are forever
Australia's energy debate shifts
Birds, fluorescent frogs and Tasmania's glowing sea – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...CO2 emissions stay same for third year in row – despite global economy growing
International Energy Agency report puts halt in emissions from energy down to growth in renewable power
Carbon dioxide emissions from energy have not increased for three years in a row even as the global economy grew, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
Global emissions from the energy sector were 32.1bn tonnes in 2016, the same as the previous two years, while the economy grew 3.1%, the organisation said.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Nesting bald eagles, Adélie penguins and a newly hatched Komodo dragon are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Baby pygmy hippo in debut splash
Can dolphins reveal why whales strand?
Etna escape: 'Pelted with the deadly, hot debris'
Device promises injections without needles
'Narcissistic' bird wins internet fans in Australia
Rare plant sparks legal action against Sydney development
Hibbertia fumana, thought to have been extinct for 200 years, has been rediscovered in Sydney’s west
A newly rediscovered rare plant – thought to have become extinct almost 200 years ago – has sparked a legal action in Sydney’s west against a development that threatens the flower’s only known location.
About 370 specimens of Hibbertia fumana – a small flowering shrub endemic to Sydney – were found on the grounds of the proposed 83-hectare Simta Moorebank transport hub late last year.
Claws! The underwater world of Jean Painlevé – in pictures
The nose of a shrimp, the spines of a seahorse, the claws of a crab: Jean Painlevé’s camera captured them all – and turned them into massive, monstrous, mysterious works that caused a sensation in the 1930s. Now the aquatic explorer, famed for his films of copulating seahorses and dancing snails, is receiving his first solo UK show, at Birmingham’s Ikon gallery
Continue reading...Dabchick antics enliven a futile vole quest
Cromford, Derbyshire The towpath is popular with Derbyshire folk making their version of the passeggiata, often with dogs, and the water vole is easily spooked
William Jessop was a generous man, always ready to give a fellow engineer a leg up. Building the Cromford canal, in the Derbyshire Dales, he hired Benjamin Outram, the son of a local investor, as his assistant. Their great work terminates at Cromford Wharf, once a harbinger of the industrial revolution, now dozing in the evening sunshine, its crumbling stonework the colour of honey.
The northern section of the canal, five miles from the wharf to Ambergate, is a site of special scientific interest, noted for being a last redoubt for water voles, a change of use I doubt Jessop could have foreseen.
Continue reading...Ian Chappell stands by Adani mine letter despite being called 'elitist' by Coalition MP
Adani ‘categorically’ rejects letter signed by 91 prominent Australians as protesters confront Queensland premier during tour of Adani’s Indian HQ
Cricket great Ian Chappell has stood by his opposition to the Adani mine proposal as part of a group of prominent Australians branded “elitist wankers” by a federal government MP and “a very small group of misled people” by the Indian miner.
Chappell said it was “worthwhile” if joining his brother Greg in an open letter calling on the Indian miner to abandon its coal plan thrust the issue into the public spotlight in its cricket-loving homeland.
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