The Guardian
Campaigners criticise UK government’s response to air pollution warning
Formal response rejects measures urged by MPs to tackle dangerously high levels of air pollution in British cities
Campaigners have attacked the government for rejecting calls by MPs for greater action on air pollution, as severe pollution episodes were predicted for parts of the UK this week.
MPs warned in April that dangerously high pollution in British cities was a “public health emergency”, and told ministers to take further measures, including more clean air zones and a diesel scrappage scheme.
Continue reading...Animal-free dairy products move a step closer to market
San Francisco startup says its products taste identical but tackle guilty conscience of consumers concerned about large environmental footprint
After lab-grown meat, get ready for animal-free cow’s milk. A San-Francisco startup believes it has found a solution for the guilty conscience of consumers who love eating dairy ice-cream, cheese and yoghurt, but oppose factory-style farming and its environmental footprint.
Through a combination of yeast, cow DNA and plant nutrients, Perfect Day claims to have created a product identical in taste and nutritional value to cow’s milk, but without any udders involved.
Electric cars could be charged at Shell service stations from 2017
Emails released under FoI suggest the company is in advanced preparations to introduce the chargers on its forecourts from next year
Electric car charging points could appear alongside petrol pumps at Shell’s UK service stations as soon as next year, the oil giant confirmed after emails between the company and government officials revealed discussions on introducing them.
The company also asked the government how serious it is about wireless charging roads which could top up an electric car without the need to plug in, as mooted by Conservative MP Oliver Letwin.
Continue reading...Brazil ratifies Paris agreement with pledge to sharply reduce emissions
Move by Latin America’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases is further boost to climate deal after ratification by US and China
The Brazilian government has ratified its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change, a significant step by Latin America’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases that could spur other countries to follow suit.
With a landmass larger than the continental US, Brazil emits about 2.5% of the world’s carbon dioxide and other polluting gases, according to United Nations data.
Continue reading...Fast and lethal, the hobby plucks a martin from the air
Waltham Brooks, West Sussex I’ve seen hobbies hunt smaller birds in fast, level flight, but not attack as a peregrine would
Golden grass heads nod up and down in flowing waves at the insistence of the breeze. Lapwing are collecting around the edges of the pools in greater numbers than before, and there are also more gadwall and mallard paddling on the water as autumn draws in.
Clouds of soft brown and cream sand martins and black and white swallows – hirundines – dance low over the water. They turn and turn, wings flickering, then suddenly still, as they stall, float, and snatch at the midges rising into the air among them.
Continue reading...'Trashion' designer Marina DeBris turns ocean rubbish into high-end outfits – in pictures
Sydney artist Marina DeBris transforms garbage found in the ocean or washed up on the beach into intricately constructed garments. She is a campaigner against ocean pollution and hopes through her art she can show how ‘the waste we create keeps coming back to haunt us’. DeBris’s photographs and collection of wearables, Beach Couture: A Haute Mess, is exhibiting at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery at Sydney’s Bondi beach until 17 September
Continue reading...The man who thinks trees talk to each other
Trees have friends, feel loneliness, scream with pain and communicate underground via the “woodwide web”. Some act as parents and good neighbours. Others do more than just throw shade – they’re brutal bullies to rival species. The young ones take risks with their drinking and leaf-dropping then remember the hard lessons from their mistakes. It’s a hard-knock life.
A book called The Hidden Life of Trees is not an obvious bestseller but it’s easy to see the popular appeal of German forester Peter Wohlleben’s claims – they are so anthropomorphic. Certainly, a walk in the park feels different when you imagine the network of roots crackling with sappy chat beneath your feet. We don’t know the half of what’s going on underground and beneath the bark, he says: “We have been looking at nature for the last 100 years like [it is] a machine.”
Continue reading...Just 10 new community energy schemes registered after Tories cut subsidies
Number of new local renewable energy schemes has crashed from 76 last year after government slashed support for wind and solar
The number of new community-owned renewable energy projects of the sort backed by Jeremy Corbyn this week has plummeted after a series of government decisions have made many proposals for wind and solar farms no longer viable.
Only 10 new community energy organisations have been registered so far this year, compared to 76 last year, according to new data from the trade body Co-operatives UK.
Continue reading...Pittsburgh water: expensive, rust-colored, corrosive
The city’s water agency fields mounting complaints and trades accusations with the French corporation that until recently ran the system, while prices rise
In many American cities, finding elevated lead levels in drinking water is enough to spark serious concern. But in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where many residents are delivered expensive, rust-colored and corrosive water, it’s just one of many of complaints.
On just one street, a pregnant 19-year-old and a Vietnam veteran said they no longer drink the tap water. A grandmother said she buys bottled water when she can, but other times boils the water, which can concentrate lead.
Continue reading...Legal rhino horn and ivory trade should benefit Africa, says Swaziland government
As talks about a complete ban on both the international and domestic markets heat up, the Swaziland government accuses western NGOs of being ‘armchair preservationists’
The government of Swaziland has called the destruction of rhino horn “extravagantly wasteful destruction” and accused western NGOs of compromising Africa’s wildlife by blocking the legalisation of the ivory and rhino horn trades.
In an official document sent to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) the government of the tiny African state claimed unnamed NGOs have become dominated by “activists who do not live with the day to day realities on the ground, who do not face the grave dangers of protecting rhinos [from poaching] in the bush, who do not cover the enormous costs necessary to protect them”.
Continue reading...BBC climate coverage is evolving, but too slowly | Geoffrey Supran
While the BBC no longer gives climate denial and science equal air time, it continues to struggle with creeping false balance
For years, the BBC has been criticised for the false balance of its climate change coverage. And for years, the BBC has apparently been doing “ongoing work” to fix it. So far, however, this ‘reform’ has been more like a triumph of the middling. Yes, the BBC may broadcast less outright misinformation, but as a scientist and a citizen, I still feel let down by its continually careless handling of climate denial - most recently two weeks ago. This nod to mediocrity is a disservice to science, to public trust, and to the biggest news story in the world. And it is a huge, missed opportunity.
As a young PhD graduate working on climate change solutions, I am confronted daily by a world where the warnings of science are undercut by Fox ‘News’ and its ilk. It is a very different world to the trustworthy BBC broadcasts of David Attenborough and the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures that I grew up with, which helped inspire me to become a scientist. But as a recent BBC News segment by Science Editor David Shukman sadly reminded me, those worlds can too easily collide.
Continue reading...Green-powered boat prepares for round-the-world voyage
Vessel aiming to be the ‘Solar Impulse of the seas’ will be powered solely by renewable energies and hydrogen during its six-year voyage
Dubbed the “Solar Impulse of the seas”, the first boat to be powered solely by renewable energies and hydrogen hopes to make its own historic trip around the world.
A water-borne answer to the Solar Impulse – the plane that completed its round-the-globe trip using only solar energy in July – the Energy Observer will be powered by the sun, the wind and self-generated hydrogen when it sets sail in February as scheduled.
Continue reading...UK must move now on carbon capture to save consumers billions, says report
Kickstarting the carbon capture and storage industry with a state-backed company will deliver the clean electricity needed to meet climate targets more cheaply than Hinkley Point C, says government advisory group
The UK must immediately kickstart an industry to capture and bury carbon emissions in order to save consumers billions a year from the cost of meeting climate change targets, according to a high-level advisory group appointed by ministers.
This requires the setting up of a new state-backed company to create the network needed to pipe the emissions into exhausted oil and gas fields under the North Sea, the group said.
Continue reading...The bats at home in our attic
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales Our loft has become a maternity roost from which the brown long-eared bats emerge at dusk to scour the surrounding area for incautious insects
Nearly a century ago, someone bought part of the pasture at the end of the lane and built the house we’ve lived in for about a quarter of its life. This quiet spot faces east into the Cambrian Mountains and the builder cleverly oriented the house to ensure the best view from the front windows.
Related: Bats at large, unseasonably, on a mild winter afternoon
Continue reading...人口70亿的世界，如何保护野生动植物?
关于如何保护濒危物种，世界正站在一个十字路口，9月份两次至关重要的全球性会议就这一紧迫问题展开讨论。翻译：奇芳(中外对话/chinadialogue)
消费者和收藏家们都想得到各种稀罕物：鲟鱼子、蛇皮手袋、鲨鱼肉和鱼翅、野生的雪莲球茎、珍贵的红木家具、质量上乘的沉香油，以及珍稀的鸟类、爬行动物、仙人掌和兰花这些动植物活体。但他们极少会停下来想想这些东西的来源。要知道，如今世界上有70多亿人每天都在通过药物、食品、衣服、家具、香料和奢侈品等各种方式消耗着生物多样性。人们对于取自自然的产品的需求不断增加，野生物种面临的压力也在不断增大。
人类从自然获取资源的能力是无限的，现代交通的范围更是无疆的。世界每年的国际旅客人数多达11亿人次，每天有10万个航班，每年的集装箱数量多达5亿个，合法的和非法的野生动植物产品可以被运到世界任何角落。扩大全球贸易、促进发展与保护野生动植物之间的矛盾愈演愈烈，有时他们的目标看起来甚至是南辕北辙。
Continue reading...Energy storage: how an abandoned goldmine will be converted into a world first
Australia has no plan for managing disused mines but a company has a novel solution for producing renewable energy
Gold was discovered on the Copperfield river in north-western Queensland in 1907. As men flocked to find their fortune, a small township was established and named for the state’s then premier, William Kidston. For close to 100 years, Kidston was a mining town.
But, in 2001, the largest operation – a Canadian-owned goldmine – shut down. The site became another of the roughly 50,000 “orphaned” mines littered across Australia.
Continue reading...Night owls start their call: Country diary 100 years ago:
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 16 September 1916
The wood is alive now in the evening, while the moon is still almost at its best. As night comes on and the west yellows among the clouds, brown owls begin to call. Everything else is very still; the cattle move noiselessly in the meadow yonder, the sheep lie together under the green oaks. Then a breeze comes, the boughs rustle, moving clouds obscure the light, and the owls start their call. One begins with “Hoo-hoo,” repeated several times, not a loud noise and yet wonderfully penetrating. Then another in the distance, and yet another, answer; they set the barn-owl screeching, in a shrill cry, across by the farm. The clouds pass, the moon shines out, the trees strike all sorts of shadows. The wood is quiet until another cloud and more wind come.
It is curious how the brown owls seem responsive to this waywardness of harvest evenings. On some still nights you may pass a long time in the wood and catch no sound at all. But nearly always, down by the hedge, the barn owl flits along, dropping now and then into the wide ditch, like a white stone tossed from above. He is so quiet in his flight that you would think there is no motion of his wings.
Continue reading...The polluting effect of wear and tear in brakes and tyres
Some wear-particles from brakes and tyres are small enough to be inhaled, and the increase in wear-particles can outweigh the benefits of improvements in exhaust emissions
One in six MOT failures is due to brake or tyre problems. These wear as we drive, as does the surface of roads. Most of the wear material ends up as dust at the kerb or gets washed into drains but some wear-particles are small enough to be inhaled, and contribute to our air pollution. These particles are rich in transition metals which add to the toxicity of our urban air.
Increasing amounts of wear-particles have been found in new research from King’s College London. Scientists tracked air pollution alongside 65 roads for ten years. The researchers found some roads where the air pollution benefits from improvements in diesel exhausts were outweighed by increases in particles that come from the wear of tyres, brakes and the road. This was mainly on outer London roads that had increasing numbers of heavy good vehicles.
Continue reading...Adani's Carmichael coalmine proves environment laws 'too weak' – report
No consequences for the company if its mine causes greater environmental damage to threatened habitats than expected, says study
Australia’s environmental laws are too weak, a new report argues, citing the Carmichael coalmine as an example. Even what the environment minister has described as the “strictest” environmental conditions on the development allow the destruction of endangered species habitats, the degradation of ecologically and culturally significant water bodies, as well as the production of fossil fuels for burning, it says.
When the federal environment minister gave the most recent approval for Adani’s huge coalmine in 2014, he said it was done on the basis of “36 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”.
Continue reading...Call to halt Great Australian Bight oil drilling amid faulty equipment fears
Exclusive: MPs and activists want BP’s exploration licences to be suspended over ‘very critical safety issue’ identified by US regulators
Oil rigs poised to begin drilling in the Great Australian Bight could use faulty equipment that US regulators say is very likely to cause a “catastrophic incident” like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
With no assurances the faulty equipment can be avoided in the Bight drilling, and safety plans that probably rely on faulty equipment already approved, parliamentarians and conservationists are calling for any approvals of BP’s pending environmental plans to be halted, and its exploration licences to be suspended, until the problem has been solved.
Continue reading...