The Guardian
Record 46% of UK's electricity generated by clean energy sources in 2015
Official figures show low-carbon sources accounted for almost half of national electricity supply last year - outstripping coal for the first time
Almost half the UK’s electricity came from clean energy sources such as wind and nuclear power last year, official figures have revealed.
Renewables accounted for a quarter of the country’s power supplies in 2015, outstripping coal power for the first time, the data published by the government revealed.
Continue reading...Scottish farms face losing millions in subsidy after Brexit
UK government would need to increase funding to match common agricultural policy levels, Holyrood committee hears
Scottish farmers face losing hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidy after Brexit unless the UK government increases funding for Holyrood, a Scottish parliament committee has been told.
A senior economist and the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) said the EU referendum vote raised significant doubts over the future of £452m in common agriculture programme spending in Scotland, because of the current Treasury deal to fund Holyrood.
Continue reading...The 'human sensor' making Manchester's air pollution visible
The hi-tech illuminated costumes worn by media artist Kasia Molga reveal changes in urban air pollution and bring together art and science
Heads turn when media artist Kasia Molga and her performers walk the streets of Manchester. When they near buses belching diesel fumes, their futuristic capes and masks turn a bright red. Near a park they go green. Depending on the traffic pollution levels in the northern industrial city, their clothing pulses, flashes and changes colour from purple through to white.
Molga calls herself a “human sensor”. She has linked with atmospheric scientists at King’s College London to develop clothing that reacts to the minute particles (PM2.5s) emitted mainly by diesel engines.
Continue reading...People run from floods in Nepal – video
Amateur video shot on Tuesday shows floods in Butwal, a village in the the Rupandehi district of Nepal, after flash floods and landslides swept through villages, killing at least 58 people over two days. In Butwal, local residents run away as torrential floodwaters overflow the riverbank and break a flood defence wall
Continue reading...Biodiversity greater inside Earth's protected areas, study finds
Scientists show for the first time that there are 15% more individual plants and animals and 11% more species inside terrestrial conservation zones
Biodiversity is greater inside the world’s protected areas, scientists have been able to show for the first time.
There are 15% more individual plants and animals and 11% more species inside than outside protected areas, according to the largest analysis of biodiversity in terrestrial globally protected areas to date.
Rhinoceros calf responds to his name – video
Warren, a rhinoceros calf, responds to being called while on a walk with his carers at the Meyersdal Nature Estate in South Africa on Monday. Warren comes running back after being called by name and also accompanies some dogs on a trip around the sanctuary. The Meyersdal Nature Estate is run by Working with Rhinos, a charity dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating rhinoceros and indigenous wildlife from the area
Continue reading...Butterflies: a feast for more than eyes
Sandy, Bedfordshire What are they tasting, and what makes them dab their egg on one particular leaf above all others?
Day by day, summer has been eating its way through the nasturtium at the back door. Over the past fortnight, I have conducted my own leafwatch. Victorian naturalists used systematic, meticulous, studies to gain insights: I’m looking in my lunch break. Even so, during these half-hour snatches, I’ve discovered a tiny something that contradicts an authoritative textbook.
We call them cabbage whites, the butterflies with a taste for brassicas, but these insects have a fondness for nasturtiums too. One flits over the fence and breaks its zigzag course through the garden to home in. It circles and lands on leaf after leaf, wings whipped into a frenzy at the point of exact touchdown.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef oil spill: foreign ship faces prosecution after 12-month hunt
Queensland authorities say they have identified the vessel that spilled up to 15 tonnes of oil off Cape Upstart in July 2015
An unnamed foreign ship faces prosecution over an oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef after a 12-month investigation by Queensland government agencies.
Maritime investigators claim they have identified the vessel that spilled up to 15 tonnes of oil in reef waters off Cape Upstart in July 2015, which washed up on mainland beaches and islands north of Townsville and triggered a response costing $1.5m.
Continue reading...Roundabout arguments can't disguise Sydney's cycling laws are taking the public for a ride
Massive increases in fines for riding without a helmet or running a red light are just the latest in the city’s ignoble history of deciding cyclists are a problem
It’s almost five months since fines for various cycling infractions, including riding without a helmet, cycling dangerously or jumping a red light were massively increased in New South Wales. Some fines went up from $71 to $425 (£40 to £240). Riders were also obliged to carry ID. At the same time, a new law spelled out minimum passing distances drivers should give riders when they overtake bikes.
Are cyclists feeling much safer? It’s fair to say the impact has been mixed. In May it turned out that while police had by then energetically handed out 1,500 of the new fines to cyclists, mainly over helmet use, just four motorists had felt the force of the law for close overtakes. There were also reports of overzealous enforcement of the rules, including a dangerous cycling citation for someone trackstanding at a red light.
Continue reading...George McRobie obituary
George McRobie, who has died aged 90, was the last surviving founding member of Practical Action, an international organisation harnessing technology to help developing countries. He was a close associate of the economist EF Schumacher (my late husband, known as Fritz, who was the author of the influential text Small Is Beautiful) and for many years they worked together, initially at the National Coal Board and then, in 1965, in setting up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), now known as Practical Action.
When Fritz died suddenly in 1977, George stepped in to become chairman of the organisation, and worked tirelessly to maintain the momentum they had generated. His contribution to both the green movement and the appropriate technology movement as a whole was immense. In 1981 George completed Small Is Possible, the last of Fritz’s trilogy of books, which laid out how the ideas and theories on sustainability in the first two books, Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed, could be applied to everyday life.
Continue reading...World's largest carbon producers face landmark human rights case
Filipino government body gives 47 ‘carbon majors’ 45 days to respond to allegations of human rights violations resulting from climate change
The world’s largest oil, coal, cement and mining companies have been given 45 days to respond to a complaint that their greenhouse gas emissions have violated the human rights of millions of people living in the Phillippines.
In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”.
Continue reading...Flamanville: France's beleaguered forerunner to Hinkley Point C
Over-budget and behind schedule, the €10.5bn nuclear reactor has faced problems that some say could be repeated in the UK
On granite cliffs overlooking the Channel is France’s most famous building site. If all goes to plan, by the end of the decade this rocky outcrop will house the biggest and most powerful nuclear reactor in the world.
The technology behind the European pressurised reactor (EPR) is meant to be safer than anything that has gone before. But the project is more than three times over budget and years behind schedule, and France’s nuclear safety authority has found weaknesses in the reactor’s steel.
Continue reading...European offshore wind investment hits €14bn in 2016
BusinessGreen: Record six-month period sees UK secure €10.4bn (£8.7bn) of investment in offshore wind projects, but installation rate slows
The European offshore wind industry has enjoyed a record six months of investment, according to new figures released today by trade body WindEurope.
In the first six months of this year Europe’s offshore wind projects attracted €14bn of investment, split across seven projects and financing a total of 3.7GW of new clean energy capacity.
Continue reading...US environmentalists take aim at second TransCanada pipeline
Campaigners say company behind Keystone XL plans to send hundreds of supertankers of crude oil down the Atlantic coast with fears for potential spills
Environmentalists are again taking aim at the company that proposed the Keystone XL pipeline this time for another of its projects they fear would send hundreds of supertankers laden with crude oil down the Atlantic coast to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
TransCanada is behind the Energy East pipeline project, a 4,600km pipeline, or nearly 3,000 miles, that would carry crude oil from tar sands in Western Canada to the East Coast, where it would then be shipped to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. When completed, the project would carry 1.1m barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada.
Continue reading...Eyewitness: Solar Impulse 2
Photographs from the Eyewitness series
Continue reading...Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming | John Abraham
A new study from my colleagues and I vindicates climate models, which are accurately predicting the rate of ocean heat accumulation
For those of us who are concerned about global warming, two of the most critical questions we ask are, “how fast is the Earth warming?” and “how much will it warm in the future?”.
The first question can be answered in a number of ways. For instance, we can actually measure the rate of energy increase in the Earth’s system (primarily through measuring changing ocean temperatures). Alternatively, we can measure changes in the net inflow of heat at the top of the atmosphere using satellites. We can also measure the rate of sea-level rise to get an estimate of the warming rate.
Is there any tuna that it’s OK to eat?
For those who want to shop responsibly, fish is the PhD. Ideally, we would rely on retailers to make the judgment. Just this week, Tesco decided to remove “a number of core John West lines” from its shelves after concluding that the company’s tuna does not meet its standards.
Continue reading...Hinkley Point C is no more than a doomed attempt at face-saving
With all the costs and risks involved, the spectre of George Osborne’s energy policy could haunt Britain for decades
George Osborne’s reputation as a master political tactician may have gone the way of Leave’s £350m a week for the NHS, but the spectre of his misguided energy policy could haunt Britain for decades, and at Hinkley in north Somerset, for millennia.
Theresa May’s government urgently need to seize the opportunity to minimise the damage, an opportunity which only lasts while her government can portray them as the last regime’s errors, and disown them.
Continue reading...Leading insecticide cuts bee sperm by almost 40%, study shows
Discovery provides possible explanation for increasing deaths of honeybees in recent years, according to scientists
The world’s most widely used insecticide is an inadvertent contraceptive for bees, cutting live sperm in males by almost 40%, according to research. The study also showed the neonicotinoid pesticides cut the lifespan of the drones by a third.
The scientists say the discovery provides one possible explanation for the increasing deaths of honeybees in recent years, as well as for the general decline of wild insect pollinators throughout the northern hemisphere.
Continue reading...Thistles: the darker side of summer
Wenlock Edge This time of year, summer throws up the surprising and dangerous, as if to show that beauty and pain are never far apart
Thistles are weeds of ill-repute. In these dog days they make their presence felt, springing like booby traps, their shaving-brush flowers oddly pinkish and purpley, a bit psychedelic for something so spiky. Edgy as the scream of swifts over rooftops, tough as old boots, thistles are the underestimated flowers of summer.
Throughout history they have represented the sharp end of Nature’s retaliation against human meddling. For farmers, the presence of thistles in the field was a sign of neglect and poor husbandry; this weed was synonymous with moral turpitude.
Continue reading...