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Toothless Environment Agency is allowing the living world to be wrecked with impunity | George Monbiot
The farcical investigation of the pollution case I exposed in a Devon river highlights how budget cuts have left the agency incapable of enforcement
It could scarcely have been a starker case. The river I came across in Devon six weeks ago, and described in the Guardian, was so polluted that I could smell it from 50 metres away. Farm slurry pouring into the water, from a pipe that I traced back to a dairy farm, had wiped out almost all the life in the stretch of River Culm I explored.
All that now grew on the riverbed were long, feathery growths of sewage fungus. An expert on freshwater pollution I consulted told me that the extent of these growths showed the poisoning of the river was “chronic and severe”.
Continue reading...Group test: children's bikes from Islabike, Frog, Hoy and Halfords
They’re cleverly designed for tiny riders. But our four- to six-year-old testers were also interested in doing skids and playing with toy traffic cones
Bike companies spend months finessing the details of their kids’ models – the scaled-down brake levers, mini cranks, a child-friendly low centre of gravity. And what are the children most impressed by? A set of toy plastic cones.
That, along with the apparently great significance of rear-wheel skids to the lives of six-year-olds, was among the lessons learned from a fun if exhausting morning trying out children’s bikes with a collection of fun-sized testers.
Continue reading...Britain 'must abandon Churchillian rhetoric' in face of rising seas
National Trust says central and local governments should plan ahead for increasing coastal erosion rather than talk of ‘holding the line’
Britain must abandon “Churchillian rhetoric” and claims it can “hold the line” against rising seas, and instead plan ahead for increasing coastal erosion, according to the National Trust.
UK becomes only G7 country to increase fossil fuel subsidies
Tory government is giving billions in ever increasing handouts to oil and gas majors at the same time as cutting support for clean energy, report reveals
The UK is alone among G7 nations in dramatically increasing its fossil fuel subsidies, despite an earlier pledge to phase them out, a new report has found.
The revelation will embarrass ministers who want to take a leading role at a crunch UN climate change summit in Paris in December, but who have been sharply cutting support for green energy at home.
How many cells in a person?
Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline and hails US as leader on climate change
President ends years of political drama and hands environmentalists a big victory with decision to turn down proposal to build 1,700-mile pipeline through US
Barack Obama ended seven years of high-wire political drama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, saying the decision reflected America’s determination to be a global leader in the fight against climate change.
The move, less than four weeks before more than 190 countries gather in Paris to try to reach a global deal to reduce carbon pollution, reinforces Obama’s commitment to making climate change the domestic and international legacy of his second term in the White House – even in the face of Republican hostility.
Continue reading...Conservation Management Zones of Australia dataset now available
Three species of bird retain current listing status on the list of threatened species under the EPBC Act after assessment
Purple-crowned fairy-wren (western) transferred categories on the list of threatened species under the EPBC Act
Three birds added to the list of threatened species under the EPBC Act
Scientists warned the President about global warming 50 years ago today | Dana Nuccitelli
On 5 November 1965 climate scientists summarized the risks associated with rising carbon pollution in a report for Lyndon Baines Johnson
Fifty years ago today, as the American Association for the Advancement of Science highlighted, US president Lyndon Johnson’s science advisory committee sent him a report entitled Restoring the Quality of Our Environment. The introduction to the report noted:
Pollutants have altered on a global scale the carbon dioxide content of the air and the lead concentrations in ocean waters and human populations.
Continue reading...Chairs' Update 3 November 2015 | Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review
Sydney Chapter SENG Newsletter - November 2015
Half of world's rare antelope population died within weeks
Scientists are struggling to explain the mass die-off of at least 150,000 endangered saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan earlier this year
More than half of the world’s population of an endangered antelope died within two weeks earlier this year, in a phenomenon that scientists are unable to explain.
Related: Kazakhstan's mass antelope deaths mystify conservationists
Continue reading...Delhi's air pollution is causing a health crisis. So, what can be done?
The city’s toxic air has been linked to allergies, respiratory conditions, birth malformations and increasing incidence of cancers. But as a recent car-free experiment showed, action to cut pollution can be effective
For a few hours one morning two weeks ago, private cars were banned from driving into the heart of old Delhi. It was hard to tell at the messy road junction in front of the historic Red Fort and the shopping street of Chandni Chowk, though, which was still crammed with auto-rickshaws and buses barrelling along the roads with seemingly little regard for any traffic rules.
But Delhi’s so-called “car-free day” experiment was nevertheless a success: scientists monitoring the air here, routinely one of Delhi’s most polluted areas, found a dramatic 60% drop in the amount of dangerous pollutants – the tiniest particles that come out of traffic exhausts and which can exacerbate health problems such as asthma, heart disease and stroke – compared to the previous day.
Continue reading...Victorian PQ Aquatics Fishery - application 2015
Commonwealth On-Farm Further Irrigation Efficiency Program
The beautiful act of vomiting
WME now online, conference review, SENG strategy
With 90% of the UK’s ash trees about to be wiped out, could GM be the answer?
Genetically modified ash trees could replace the 80 million expected to die in the next 20 years from a deadly fungus, scientists have proposed.
The radical solution to the greatest woodland disaster of the last 50 years is being explored by research teams at London and Oxford universities with backing from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, science bodies and the Forestry Commission.
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