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Public consultation on the Minamata Convention on Mercury has now commenced
Jane Goodall blames 'chaotic note taking' for plagiarism controversy
Leading primatologist Jane Goodall has blamed a "hectic work schedule" and her "chaotic method of note taking" for a plagarism controversy surrounding her reissued book.
Speaking ahead of the publication of a revised edition of Seeds of Hope, first published in August 2013, Goodall, said she had learned lessons following reports in the Washington Post last year that at least 12 sections of the book were lifted from other websites including Wikipedia.
Continue reading...'We expect catastrophe' – Manila, the megacity on the climate frontline
Joshua Alvarez and his family fear for their lives when the monsoon rains come. Last August their two-bedroom flat in Manila was flooded when severe tropical storm Trami dumped 15 inches of rain (380mm) in a few hours and the local reservoir overflowed. They fled to a flyover with thousands of others as five large areas of the capital were inundated with muddy waters up to three metres deep and a state of calamity was declared in three Philippine provinces.
In 2012, typhoon Haikui battered the megacity of 12 million people for eight days, but when tropical storm Ondoy hit Manila in 2009 and a month's worth of rain fell in a few hours, the city came close to catastrophe. Nearly 80% was flooded, 246 people died and hundreds of thousands had to be evacuated.
Continue reading...Green Army Request for Tender Now Open
Australia’s fifth national report to the Convention on Biological Diversity
James Lovelock: environmentalism has become a religion
Scientist behind the Gaia hypothesis says environment movement does not pay enough attention to facts and he was too certain in the past about rising temperatures
Environmentalism has "become a religion" and does not pay enough attention to facts, according to James Lovelock.
The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms.
Continue reading...Management Program for the Saltwater Crocodile in the Northern Territory
Public consultation: draft assessment bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and the Australian Capital Territory
New Carbon Farming Initiative methodology proposal
Threatened Species Commissioner - Draft Terms of Reference announced
Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria Inshore Fin Fish Fishery
Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria Inshore Fin Fish Fishery
Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria Inshore Fin Fish Fishery
Groundwater Purchase Tender in the Central Condamine Alluvium – Round 2 now open
Iraq invasion was about oil | Nafeez Ahmed
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War - yet to this day, few media reflections on the conflict accurately explore the extent to which opening up Persian Gulf energy resources to the world economy was a prime driver behind the Anglo-American invasion.
The overwhelming narrative has been one of incompetence and failure in an otherwise noble, if ill-conceived and badly managed endeavour to free Iraqis from tyranny. To be sure, the conduct of the war was indeed replete with incompetence at a colossal scale - but this doesn't erase the very real mendacity of the cold, strategic logic that motivated the war's US and British planners in the first place.
Continue reading...Torres Strait Tropical Rock Lobster Fishery
Does Paris have worse air pollution than Beijing?
On Friday, levels of pollution in Paris were higher than in many of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities. With your help, Karl Mathiesen, investigates how the City of Light became the City of Smog.
Join the debate. Post your views in the comments below, email karl.mathiesen.freelance@guardian.co.uk or tweet @karlmathiesen
6.32pm GMT
Why is there so much attention in UK media to Paris air quality, and not our own? @guardianeco @GeorgeMonbiot @DefraGovUK @MayorofLondon
When I go to eastern China, I expect air pollution, but Paris? Was not expecting to see hazy orange skies and feel the particulates.
@KarlMathiesen Check out the UKs high level of air pollution last Friday. Yet no mention in weather reports or news pic.twitter.com/jvWGKsUhmV
6.32pm GMT
Since it adopted ecologist anti-car policies, Paris tend to be more and more polluted. Cars are losing spaces of circulation for the profit of other transports and stay stuck in endless jams with their motor running, which make pollution worse. One more proof of how ideology is hell.
Dirty diesel needs to be banned in cities like London and Paris. It kills thousands every year.
Some very modern diesels engines are not too bad but most over 5 years old are positively dangerous.
I get the feeling Paris is the victim of its own success in this case, since the roads network to get into and out of town is so brilliant that I really enjoy driving there - albeit only during the holidays.
The problem is that the system is so well designed, with loads of great underground parking provision that everyone drives in.
Continue reading...Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? | Nafeez Ahmed
A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."
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