The Guardian
This climate scientist has tried really hard to get a date | Howard Lee
A date for disaster: the end-Permian mass extinction event.
Seth Burgess has, literally, travelled to the ends of the Earth to find a date. Along the way he has endured attacks of giant flesh-eating bee-flies, paddled a raft 60 miles in driving Siberian rain, braved volcanoes in Alaska, and inhaled polluted air in China for weeks on end, all the while hauling pounds of rocks. And all in the name of Science.
The date he seeks plays extremely hard to get.
Continue reading...The world's most polluted cities
This month’s data set graphic by Pete Guest looks at the deaths attributable to air pollution as well as WHO guidelines
Continue reading...Six-year-old girl dies after bite from brown snake in northern NSW
Girl was bitten at property near Walgett on 5 February, taken to local hospital then airlifted to Sydney Children’s hospital before her condition deteriorated
A six-year-old girl has died after being bitten by a brown snake on a property in outback New South Wales.
The girl was bitten at a property near Walgett, in the state’s north, on the afternoon of 5 February and was transferred to the local hospital to receive anti-venom.
Continue reading...‘Phony peach’: the disease that threatens to devastate Britain’s trees and plants
Xylella fastidiosa has wreaked havoc in the US and Europe and could dwarf the impact of ash dieback in the UK
It has caused severe damage to plants and trees in the US and southern Europe and now there are fears it is heading this way. With experts warning that it could make the devastating ash dieback disease seem like “a walk in the park”, the UK is on red alert for signs that Xylella fastidiosa has entered the country.
First confirmed in Europe three years ago when it ran rampant across olive plantations in southern Italy, a subspecies of Xylella has since been detected in southern France, where it has destroyed vines and lavender plants, and in Corsica. Xylella fastidiosa has also been found in both South and North America where it is commonly referred to as “phony peach disease” and where it has caused severe damage to citrus and coffee plantations. In New Jersey it has attacked more than a third of the state’s urban trees.
Continue reading...China overtakes EU to become global wind power leader
Booming market grew 27% in 2015 edging past European Union for first time, says industry group. Climate Home reports
China installed half of all new wind capacity worldwide last year, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
The country added an “astonishing” 30.5 gigawatts (GW) to boost installations to 145.1GW, the Brussels-based industry group said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Female bamboo shark is due for 'virgin birth' at Sea Life centre
Female shark that has had no contact with males for more than two years produces two fertile eggs
A female shark that has had no contact with males of its species for more than two years is due to give birth to two babies. The white-spotted bamboo shark arrived at Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in 2013, having been evacuated from the badly flooded sister centre in Hunstanton, also in Norfolk.
She has been the only member of her species at the centre in that time and has had no contact with male sharks. But experts at the centre have revealed that she has produced two fertile eggs, which are due to hatch in nine months’ time.
Continue reading...Shark attacks hit record high in 2015, global tally shows
International Shark Attack File notes 98 unprovoked shark attacks – including six fatalities – with US, Australia and South Africa witnessing highest numbers
Sharks attacked people 98 times in 2015, a spike in unprovoked attacks that set a new record as human populations rise, researchers found in an annual global tally released on Monday.
Related: Shark nets used at most beaches do not protect swimmers, research suggests
Continue reading...Trouble in paradise: Lord Howe Island divided over plan to exterminate rats
Rodents are threatening the unique natural environment of Australia’s sparsely populated Lord Howe Island. But a plan to eradicate the pests by dropping 42 tonnes of poisoned cereal is splitting the close-knit community in half
Described by the UN as “an area of spectacular and scenic landscapes”, Lord Howe Island is nothing if not dramatic. Formed from an inferno of underwater volcanoes more than six million years ago, the 10km long crescent-shaped island sits in a bath of turquoise water, exactly where the warm East Australian Current meets the icy waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
Those ancient lava flows left a rugged landscape with steep cliffs, which drop off into an ocean which supports the world’s most southerly coral reef. Between those cliffs and the reef lies a calm blue lagoon that laps against a yellow-sand beach.
Continue reading...No climate conspiracy: NOAA temperature adjustments bring data closer to pristine | Dana Nuccitelli
A new study finds that NOAA temperature adjustments are doing exactly what they’re supposed to
Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has embarked upon a witch-hunt against climate scientists at NOAA, accusing them of conspiring to fudge global temperature data. However, a new study has found that the adjustments NOAA makes to the raw temperature data bring them closer to measurements from a reference network of pristinely-located temperature stations.
Continue reading...Bitter battle to save King Lear’s green valley from the developers
Conservationists and historians are digging in for a last-ditch defence of a sliver of “sacrosanct” ancient Kentish meadow and woods, protected in law but set to be the location for a large housing and leisure development.
The fight for the Farthingloe valley, a long, narrow green strip that extends to the western outskirts of Dover, has been especially bitter. The valley is within the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and makes up much of the rural hinterland behind the 300ft Shakespeare Cliff, the most westerly of the chalk cliffs at Dover. The cliff is owned by Dover district council and the National Trust owns a portion of land. The valley may have provided some inspiration for a scene in King Lear, which gave rise to the cliff’s name, coined in the 18th century.
Continue reading...The truth about London's air pollution
Invisible pollution kills up to 9,000 people a year in the capital. But under government plans, from school gates to shopping streets, Londoners will be breathing dangerous air until 2025. What more can be done?
“In the morning, this traffic island is packed with children and pushchairs and they are about a metre from all the exhausts,” says Shazia Ali-Webber. She is walking her three boys to school in Hackney, the eldest of whom, Zain, is eight and asthmatic.
Crossing choked Mare Street, where the heavy traffic grinds slowly past, is her biggest concern. “Children’s lung development is affected by air pollution: they have smaller lungs for life,” she says. “The government’s new plan says pollution will not fall to legal levels till 2025. But I don’t have time to wait: Zain will be 18 by then. They are condemning a generation of children to ill-health.”
Continue reading...Welsh home installs UK's first Tesla Powerwall storage battery
Battery could revolutionise UK energy market by enabling people to store excess energy generated from rooftop solar panels
The setting is decidedly modest: a utility room in a red-brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Wales. But if the hype turns out to be right, this may be the starting point for an energy revolution in the UK.
Householder Mark Kerr has become the first British owner of a Tesla Powerwall, a cutting-edge bit of kit that the makers say will provide a “missing link” in solar energy.
Continue reading...'Arachnophobic family' finds giant huntsman spider in Woolworths salad mix
Sydney woman posts video on Facebook of spider crawling through her Italian-style packaged salad greens bought at Woolworths
As meat production depletes the world’s resources and compounds the changing climate, eating insects and other creepy crawlies might well be in all our futures. But one Australian woman came closer than the rest of us when she brought home a sizeable spider in her bag of salad greens.
Zoe Perry posted the video of the huntsman shifting around within the “Italian style salad” bag – with the on-screen caption “Jesus” – to Woolworths’ Facebook page on Thursday night.
Why my cycling clothing company uses models without helmets
The debate about helmet use is too often toxic, puts off new riders and obscures more important issues, argues the founder of Vulpine
Let me begin with a story.
Last night I walked into a pub and spotted a guy with two empty pint glasses in front of him. He had a lovely fresh third pint poised at his trembling lips. Fantastic, just what I was looking for.
Continue reading...Crocodile turns up for a swim on Queensland beach near Cairns – video
Luke Downes captured this footage of ‘Snapper Jr’ casually floating towards swimmers at Kewarra beach near Cairns. While filming, Downes offered the crocodile a friendly greeting, but Snapper Jr didn’t stick around for long. Never fear, a wildlife expert has claimed that there are worse things in the water to worry about in that part of the world, like box jellyfish, which are capable of killing a person in under five minutes
Continue reading...AGL pulls out of coal seam gas across Australia, leaving farmers ‘ecstatic’
Energy company cites low oil prices for decision to cease exploration and wind down or sell its gas fields, with CSG opponents calling the move a well-earned victory
AGL is pulling out of coal seam gas in Australia, ceasing its exploration and winding down or selling its operational gas fields.
Plummeting oil and gas prices were cited by AGL as one of the main reasons for the decision in its announcement to the ASX on Thursday morning, as well as lower than expected production volumes from one of its fields in NSW.
Continue reading...Video shows only known wild jaguar in US at home in Arizona mountains
The big cat, known as ‘El Jefe’, has been living in 25 miles south of downtown Tucson – half a century after the last verified US jaguar was killed by a hunter
The only known wild jaguar in the United States is seen roaming around a creek and other parts of a mountain range just south of Tucson, Arizona in the first publicly released video of the big cat.
Related: Eastern Cougar extinct, no longer needs protection, says US conservation agency
Continue reading...Brexit would return Britain to being 'dirty man of Europe'
Leading group of environmentalists warns that leaving the European Union would mean a return to filthy beaches, foul air and weak conservation laws
Britain risks becoming the “dirty man of Europe” again with filthy beaches, foul air and weak conservation laws if it leaves the European Union, a group of leading environmentalists warned on Wednesday.
The steering committee of the new E4E (Environmentalists for Europe) group includes former ministers, a former EU commissioner and a former head of the Environment Agency. It will work with green groups to persuade people that leaving the EU could set back the UK’s nature protection and prevention of pollution many years. The UK’s referendum on EU membership may come as soon as June.
Continue reading...Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm
Spread says it will open the fully automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process
A Japanese company is to open the world’s first “robot farm”, as agriculture joins other sectors of the economy in attempting to fill labour shortages created by the country’s rapidly ageing population.
Spread, a vegetable producer, said industrial robots would carry out all but one of the tasks needed to grow the tens of thousands of lettuces it produces each day at its vast indoor farm in Kameoka, Kyoto prefecture, starting from mid-2017.
Continue reading...Lions rediscovered in Ethiopian national park
Local reports were confirmed when a population of previously unknown lions was caught on camera trap in the remote Alatash national park
Conservationists have announced the “amazing discovery” of a previously unknown lion population in a remote north-western region of Ethiopia, confirming local reports with camera trap photographs for the first time.
Lions were spotted in the Alatash national park on Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, lion conservation group Born Free said.
“The confirmation that lions persist in this area is exciting news,” Born Free Foundation said in a statement. “With lion numbers in steep decline across most of the African continent, the discovery of previously unconfirmed populations is hugely important.” Hans Bauer, a lion conservationist from Oxford University who led the tracking expedition in Ethiopia, said there could be up to 200 lions in the area. “Considering the relative ease with which lion signs were observed, it is likely that they are resident throughout Alatash and Dinder [in Sudan],” he said. “On a total surface area of about 10,000 square kilometres, this would mean a population of 100-200 lions for the entire ecosystem, of which 27-54 would be in Alatash,” he said.