The Guardian
Hello, is this planet Earth? by Tim Peake - in pictures
Based on over 150 photographs taken by British astronaut Tim Peake, the book documents his six months on the International Space Station
Continue reading...Number of plastic bags found on UK beaches falls by nearly half
Conservationists say introduction of 5p levy on single-use carrier bags was instrumental in the reduction
The number of plastic carrier bags found on UK beaches has dropped by almost half, according to conservationists.
The Marine Conservation Society said the introduction of a 5p levy on single-use plastic bags in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the past five years was instrumental in the reduction.
Ants behave as mini farmers in Fiji – study
Ants on the Pacific islands observed carefully sowing and fertilising seeds of at least six types of plant as part of a relationship that reaches back 3m years
Ants found in the Pacific islands of Fiji behave as miniature farmers, carefully sowing and fertilising the seeds of at least six types of plant, a study has said.
Ants have previously been observed farming fungi for food, but this is the first study to show the insects cultivating plants, said researchers from the University of Munich who published their findings in the journal Nature Plants.
Continue reading...Australia must catch up with other countries on how it taxes gas | Diane Kraal
Australia should follow PNG’s lead in resource tax reform. As the budget deficit worsens, reintroducing royalties for LNG projects would provide much-needed revenue
Papua New Guinea’s 2017 budget takes big steps in resource tax reform. Following suggestions that I made together with former Labor minister Craig Emerson, starting next year resources companies operating in Papua New Guinea will pay a revamped resource rent tax, as well as the existing royalties and company taxes.
With Australia’s budget deficit worsening, following Papua New Guinea’s lead may help us bring in more revenue from natural gas, sooner.
Continue reading...Oil and gas companies in North America less green than those in EU
ExxonMobil and Chevron among worst in terms of CO2 emissions and investment in renewables, according to research
Oil and gas companies in North America are lagging behind their European counterparts in cleaning up their operations, new research has found, with higher greenhouse gas emissions and less investment in clean alternatives.
ExxonMobil and Chevron of the US, alongside Canada’s Suncor, ranked lowest in a review conducted by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) of 11 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. At the top of the table came Statoil of Norway, Italy’s Eni and the French company Total.
Continue reading...Police blast Standing Rock protesters with water cannon and rubber bullets – video
Morton County police use teargas, a water cannon and rubber bullets against demonstrators from Standing Rock in North Dakota on Sunday night. Protesters braved freezing conditions and percussion grenades as they resisted the controversial pipeline with chants of ‘water not oil’. The company working on the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, have almost completed the system, but lack the permission to drill under the river
- Standing Rock protest: hundreds clash with police over Dakota Access Pipeline
- Dakota Access pipeline: the who, what and why
Australia failing to protect Great Barrier Reef from shipping disasters, say lawyers
Recommendations made after Chinese coal carrier the Shen Neng 1 ran aground are yet to be implemented
The government is failing to protect the reef from the effects of shipping disasters, according to environmental lawyers, who say inaction to secure remediation funds will become a bigger problem as shipping traffic increases.
The issue could cause a problem for Australia when it reports to the Unesco world heritage committee within the next two weeks, on the state of the reef and how it is acting to protect it.
Continue reading...Only a third of UK consumers' plastic packaging is recycled
Two-thirds of such household waste is sent to landfill or incinerated each year, Recoup survey reveals
Only a third of plastic packaging used in consumer products is recycled each year, with almost two-thirds sent to landfill or incinerated, according to new research.
Of the 1.5m tonnes of recyclable plastic waste used by consumers in Britain in 2015 only 500,000 tonnes was recycled, according to the figures compiled by Co-op from the Recoup UK Household Plastics Collection survey.
Continue reading...High court gives ministers deadline for tougher air pollution plan
UK environment department must publish stronger air quality plan by April 2017, five months sooner than the deadline that government wanted
The government is being forced to deliver an effective plan to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis within eight months, after a high court judge rejected a longer timetable as “far too leisurely”.
Environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted a humiliating legal defeat on ministers earlier in November – its second in 18 months – when the high court ruled that ministers’ plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in many UK cities and towns were so poor they were unlawful.
Continue reading...Meet Cronus, the tarantula whipping the Tory party into line
Name: Cronus, or sometimes Kronos.
Age: One year.
Continue reading...Cars under flood water in Bristol – video
Amateur footage shows cars under flood water in Bristol. Facebook user Bobbie Massiah posted the video on Monday morning saying it was of Whitchurch Lane in Hartcliffe. A large swath of south-west Britain is coping with flooding and high winds as another block of torrential rain swept into Britain on the heels of Storm Angus
Continue reading...Beijing bans highly polluting cars during smog alerts
From next year, restrictions will be placed on older cars whenever air-quality warnings have been issued, say officials
Next year, Beijing will ban highly polluting old cars from being driven whenever air-quality alerts are issued in the city or neighbouring regions, according to its environmental protection bureau.
China has adopted various measures over the years to reduce the smog shrouding many of the country’s northern cities in winter, causing hazardous traffic conditions and disrupting daily life.
Continue reading...Groups working with Republicans on climate are discouraged, but see a glimmer of hope | Dana Nuccitelli
The 2016 US election was a bad sign for climate policy, but galvanized grassroots organizations
Because America is entirely governed by two political parties, passage of legislation usually requires bipartisan support in US Congress. However, the Republican Party is the only major political party in the world that denies the need to tackle climate change. Therefore, for several years any hope of passing climate legislation hinged upon breaking through the near-universal opposition among Republican legislators. A number of groups have focused on doing just that.
In the wake of the 2016 US election results, I contacted these groups to assess their feelings about the prospects of US government action on climate change in the near future. The general sentiment was understandably one of discouraged pessimism, but each group identified glimmers of hope.
Continue reading...Kuwait: A Desert on Fire, by Sebastião Salgado
As Iraq’s oilfields burn as retreating Isis forces set them on fire, Sebastião Salgado has published a book of his photographs taken in 1991 documenting a similar conflagration as Saddam Hussein’s forces set alight oil wells in Kuwait
Continue reading...No room for bikes: how one street shows the UK-wide failure over cycling
The fate of my small, south London road is a microcosm of the ways towns and cities are still planned around cars, not humans
This blog is sometimes criticised for focusing too much on events in London. At risk of seeming more parochial still, I’m about to write about my own London street. But stay with me: the failings in my part of SE5 contain lessons for the wider lack of safe cycling across the whole country.
Champion Hill, close to Camberwell in south-east London, is a classic rat run – a narrow and not-very-long residential street which has the misfortune to be on a shortcut between major routes, and is thus awash with traffic several times a day.
UK government not funding natural flood prevention methods
Despite government support for measures such as planting trees to stop floods, no funds have yet been been allocated
Natural ways of preventing flooding such as planting trees have no government funding despite ministers repeatedly backing the idea, according to a freedom of information request by Friends of the Earth.
Almost a year since devastating floods hits swathes of northern Britain, environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, and floods minister, Thérèse Coffey, have both recently supported the approach, which aims to slow the flow of water off hills and reduce peak levels.
Continue reading...High on a Dorset heath, where wind rattles the heather
Hardown Hill, Dorset I skirt the old quarry workings, swamped in spring with bluebells and now swathed with rusty bracken
Old Bottom, as the Marshwood Vale was once called, has filled with autumn rain. Walking means slogging, ankle deep or more, through cold, claggy clay, navigating puddles of yellow water overhung with dripping trees. Time to escape the woods for higher, drier ground.
Hardown Hill is one of a circle of hills and forts ringing the vale. Steep sides of deciduous woodland and gaps of rough pasture run up to a flat top of heath where nightjars call in summer. The summit is open, unfenced common land, home to sand lizards and occasionally Dartford warblers. Villagers used to cut the heath for fuel. Gorse was particularly prized in bread ovens because it burned quick and hot before disintegrating into an insignificant pile of fine ash. In Dorset dialect, gorse was furze, pronounced “vurze”, just as fox was “varx”.
Continue reading...Saving the pangolin: giant rats trained to sniff out world's most trafficked mammal
Rats’ agility and keen sense of smell will one day be used to reach parts of shipping containers that sniffer dogs cannot reach
The pangolin – the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal – might have a new champion: rats that will be trained to sniff out trafficked pangolin parts in shipments heading from Africa to Asia.
Ten to 15 African giant pouched rats are being reared in Tanzania to detect pungent pangolin remains as well as smuggled hardwood timber. They are just a few weeks old and most are still with their mothers.
Squeaking echidna puggles born at Taronga zoo – video
Two short-beaked echidna puggles hit the scales for the first time at Taronga zoo in Sydney – the first born at the zoo for 29 years. The pair were two of three puggles all hatched within a short period from 16-30 August. The youngest was born to mother Pitpa, the last echidna born at Taronga
Continue reading...Outcry over lack of cash for flood defences as storm hits south of UK
Environmental group Friends of the Earth reveals no funding earmarked for natural flood management despite ministerial pledge
The government has been accused of being “all talk and no action” on flood defences, as the first named storm of the season brought flooding and power cuts to the south of England.
Storm Angus saw gusts of up to 106mph recorded 23 miles off the coast of Margate, while gusts of 80mph hit Langdon Bay, also in Kent.
Continue reading...