The Guardian
Krill found to break down microplastics – but it won't save the oceans
Digestion of plastic into much smaller fragments ‘doesn’t necessarily help pollution’, Australian researchers say
A world-first study by Australian researchers has found that krill can digest certain forms of microplastic into smaller – but no less pervasive – fragments.
The study, published in Nature Communications journal on Friday, found that Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, can break down 31.5 micron polyethylene balls into fragments less than one micron in diameter.
Continue reading...Fukushima 360: walk through a ghost town in the nuclear disaster zone – video
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What happens to a town that has been abandoned for seven years after a nuclear meltdown? Greenpeace took former residents and a 360-degree camera into the radiation zone north of Fukushima to mark the anniversary of the disaster. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011. The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to go back.
Continue reading...Can Queensland Labor end broadscale land clearing, as promised?
Green groups welcome proposed changes to land-clearing law but there are still reasons to doubt they are enough to halt the crisis
Last week, the Queensland government tabled a highly anticipated bill seeking to implement its promise to “end broadscale clearing in Queensland”.
Queensland is responsible for more tree clearing than the rest of the country combined, so making good on that promise would go a long way to halting Australia’s growing land clearing crisis.
Continue reading...Will Labrador make you switch energy suppliers?
Startup claims to automatically switch smart-meter users three times a year and save them £300
A device that plugs into a home broadband router and automatically switches supplier when cheaper deals become available is set to revolutionise the home energy market.
The launch of Labrador comes as more and more people are changing their energy companies.
Continue reading...Fukushima 360: walk through a ghost town in the nuclear disaster zone – video
What happens to a town that has been abandoned for seven years after a nuclear meltdown? Greenpeace took former residents and a 360-degree camera into the radiation zone north of Fukushima to mark the anniversary of the disaster. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011. The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and forced more than 150,000 others living near the plant to flee radiation. Some of the evacuated neighbourhoods are still deemed too dangerous for former residents to go back.
Continue reading...Big firms push to overturn uranium mining ban near Grand Canyon
Companies say mining poses scant threat but conservation groups say ban should remain until environmental risks have been fully explored
The US mining industry has asked the supreme court to overturn an Obama-era rule prohibiting the mining of uranium on public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon.
Related: Trump official under fire after granting broad access to mining and oil firms
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: how to maximise the power from mighty blades
Engineers are working on turbine blades that automatically adjust to high wind pressure and will stand up to strong winds and turbulent gusts
Wind turbine blades are getting ever larger and producing more power, but fluctuations in wind speed mean they are not always efficient. Blades can now be 85m long (and will be longer in the future) and they swing through an area the size of four football pitches. The wind speed will vary at the top and bottom of each rotation. The blades also have to be robust to withstand the pressure of high winds. Even so, in the worst weather operators sometimes need to angle the blades away from the wind and turn the turbines off to avoid damage. Then they lose production altogether.
Related: Mersey feat: world's biggest wind turbines go online near Liverpool
Continue reading...UK defies EU over Indonesian palm oil trade, leaked papers show
UK is pushing for a deal that would boost imports linked to deforestation despite EU moves to ban unsustainable palm oil, diplomatic papers reveal
The UK is defying EU institutions to push for a hike in nominally “sustainable” Indonesian palm oil imports which have nonetheless been linked to deforestation, leaked documents show.
The European parliament is currently trying to force a ban on EU biofuels using palm oil, which have driven deforestation and contributed to the loss of 150,000 orangutans in Indonesia since 2002.
Continue reading...Fracking, nuclear fusion and hope for red squirrels – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife - in pictures
Spinner dolphins and a rehabilitated owl are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Trump official under fire after granting broad access to mining and oil firms
Exclusive: extractive industry companies who met with Kathleen Benedetto later saw direct benefits from administration decisions
A key Trump administration official scheduled roughly twice as many meetings with mining and fossil-fuel representatives as with environmental groups, public records requests have revealed.
Further investigation shows that some of the firms she met with later benefited directly from administration decisions that weakened wilderness and wildlife protections.
Philippine president Duterte needs psychiatric evaluation, says UN chief
United Nations hits back after Philippines lists special rapporteur on terrorist ‘hit list’
The United Nations and the Philippine government have come to blows over the treatment of human rights investigators, with a UN chief saying the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte, needs a psychiatric evaluation.
The Philippine government angered the UN after one of its human rights investigators was included on a list of 600 people declared to be communist terrorists.
UN moves towards recognising human right to a healthy environment
Formal recognition would help protect those who increasingly risk their lives to defend the land, water, forests and wildlife, says the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment
It is time for the United Nations to formally recognise the right to a healthy environment, according to the world body’s chief investigator of murders, beatings and intimidation of environmental defenders.
John Knox, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said the momentum for such a move – which would significantly raise the global prominence of the issue – was growing along with an awareness of the heavy toll being paid by those fighting against deforestation, pollution, land grabs and poaching.
Bike safety consultation shows someone in government might understand cycling
Amid plans for an unnecessary law change targeting cyclists, a parallel government consultation on safety makes some unexpectedly sensible points
For those interested in the many benefits that come from getting more people cycling, there’s some bad news and good news today – and in another minor compensation, at least the bad news was widely expected.
This is the confirmation from the Department for Transport (DfT) that, as widely trailed at the weekend, a review it commissioned has recommended there should be a new law about causing death or injury by dangerous cycling, as for driving.
Continue reading...Tories lambasted for rejecting 'latte levy' on takeaway coffee cups
Government accused of frothy talk on reducing throwaway packaging waste
Ministers have rejected calls for a “latte levy” on takeaway coffee cups to reduce the amount of waste they create.
Mary Creagh, the chair of the environmental audit committee, accused the government of talking warm words but taking no action after ministers refused to adopt a charge on throwaway coffee cups similar to the plastic bag levy.
Continue reading...Scientists seek public's help to map plastic on UK beaches
Project hopes to get more than 250,000 drone images tagged to record type and extent of plastic pollution
Food wrappers, fishing nets, bottles, straws and carrier bags are among the top 10 plastic items littering British beaches, according to new research.
Related: Is there life after plastic? The new inventions promising a cleaner world
Continue reading...Country diary: it feels like the trees could start lumbering forwards
Hulne Park, Alnwick, Northumberland The dawn redwood is unchanged since the Cretaceous era. No wonder they have a Lord of the Rings quality
Contorted and deeply furrowed, the flared bole of this tree has a Lord of the Rings quality. I almost expect it to start moving and lumber towards me like an Ent. Beneath the point where each branch leaves the trunk there are shadowy elbow-deep clefts. Its muscular ridges are a rich burnt orange, and ripple down to the ground like anchoring roots, making the twisted trunk look like it is screwing itself down into the earth. This is a dawn redwood, Metasequoia glypstostroboides, one of an avenue either side of Farm Drive in Hulne Park.
A medieval hunting ground of thousands of acres that provided food and wood for Alnwick Castle, Hulne Park is entirely enclosed in a 3m high perimeter wall. Deep in its heart are the ivy-draped ruins of a 13th-century Carmelite monastery, built on a steep grassy mound. We enter the demesne through the arched gateway of Forest Lodge, where early periwinkles bloom beneath walls covered in leafless vines of Virginia creeper. A woodpecker drums on a reverberating branch and the sound of a crowing cockerel echoes through the woods.
Continue reading...Nuclear fusion on brink of being realised, say MIT scientists
Carbon-free fusion power could be ‘on the grid in 15 years’
The dream of nuclear fusion is on the brink of being realised, according to a major new US initiative that says it will put fusion power on the grid within 15 years.
The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. The team intend to use a new class of high-temperature superconductors they predict will allow them to create the world’s first fusion reactor that produces more energy than needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction going.
Continue reading...Town where nobody's home: Fukushima communities struggling to survive
Seven years after the nuclear disaster, 50,000 people have yet to return to their homes, but the dream of going back endures
Okuma, on Japan’s east coast, used to host a busy community of 10,500 people. But today the houses stand empty.
The town is empty because it is one of the closest to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and – seven years after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a triple meltdown – it remains under evacuation orders with decontamination still not finished.
Continue reading...Rising threat of transport emissions | Letters
Your article on carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles (Fall in CO2 output from new cars goes into reverse, 27 February) makes no mention of the eight-year freeze on fuel duty, which has contributed to UK fuel prices being 4% below their 2000 levels in real terms and 21% below the 2013 peak. The relative price of things is an enormously powerful driver of human choices and behaviour.
Dumping the economic assumption that nature is a limitless source of materials and services that can be considered to come for free would be the single biggest leap that humanity could make in securing its future. At present we have few monetary incentives to avoid excess greenhouse gas emissions, single-use plastics or even excess animal manure. In fact, the economy encourages us believe it is “cheaper” to do such things.
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