The Guardian
Revealed: government spent £370,000 losing air pollution legal battles
Exclusive: Freedom of information request reveals ‘disgraceful’ amount of taxpayers’ money used to battle ClientEarth over illegally poor air pollution plans
The government spent £370,000 of taxpayers’ money unsuccessfully fighting court claims that its plans to tackle air pollution were illegally poor, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The money was spent battling two actions brought by environmental lawyers ClientEarth and included more than £90,000 in costs paid to the group after it won on both occasions. Critics said the government’s expenditure was “disgraceful” and should have been spent on cutting pollution.
Continue reading...Air pollution is killing us. As a GP I welcome this new charge on drivers | Chris Griffiths
A report released last week by international experts shows pollution to have caused more deaths in the UK than in many other countries in western Europe. Air pollution is largely invisible, so it is hard to grasp how much damage it is doing to our health. But studies like the Lancet commission on pollution make it clear that poor air quality increases not only the likelihood of developing a range of respiratory illnesses, but also the frequency and severity of bouts of those illnesses.
Like many GPs, I see this “double hit” in the children and adolescents who come to surgery every day. Preschool children who live near main roads have an increased risk of developing wheeze triggered by viral colds – a condition we call “preschool wheeze”. Exposure to traffic pollution also increases the chance of a child developing asthma. For preschool wheezers and children with asthma, high pollution days can then trigger episodes of severe wheezing, especially when pollution has not been dispersed by the wind.
Continue reading...'Steady decline' in honey crop raises concern for honeybees' future
British Beekeepers Association survey reveals worrying drop in honey yield, with 62% of beekeepers saying neonicotinoids are to blame
Beekeepers have raised concerns over the future of honeybees as an annual survey showed a “steady decline” in the honey crop.
The survey by the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) revealed beekeepers in England produced an average of 11.8kg (26 lb) of honey per hive this year, down 1kg on last year.
Continue reading...Americans want a tax on carbon pollution, but how to get one? | Dana Nuccitelli
A new study finds that Americans are willing to pay an extra $15 per month on energy bills to tackle climate change.
According to a new study published by Yale scientists in Environmental Research Letters, Americans are willing to pay a carbon tax that would increase their household energy bills by $15 per month, or about 15%, on average. This result is consistent with a survey from last year that also found Americans are willing to pay an average of $15 to $20 per month to combat climate change. Another recent Yale survey found that overall, 78% of registered American voters support taxing and/or regulating carbon pollution, including 67% of Republicans and 60% of conservative Republicans.
Continue reading...Captive wildlife footage in Blue Planet 2 'totally true to nature', say producers
Most filming was done in the wild – including armoured octopuses and hypnotic cuttlefish – but some crucial behaviour had to be captured in lab conditions
Footage of captive wildlife inserted into the BBC’s Blue Planet 2 series remains “totally true to nature”, according to the makers of the flagship show that reveals new insights into life in the oceans.
An octopus that armours itself with shells and rocks, fish that use sign language and tools and dazzling cuttlefish that appear to hypnotise their prey are among the new spectacles uncovered by the series, which starts later this week.
Continue reading...Country diary: Henry III’s charter helped this tree survive to a ripe old age
Epping Forest For centuries commoners were allowed to lop the beeches here for firewood. Now this ancient pollard is big enough to create its own microclimates
Centuries of sunlight have solidified into this beech’s massive presence, which creates its own woodland world. I stand beneath the grandeur of its shaded columns in veneration. But it was not always this way. This great beast was made to bend to the will of generations of commoners, lopped for the humblest of produce, a 10-yearly crop of firewood. It was a labourer, a working tree.
Until the mid 19th century, that is, when cropping ceased. Today, 20 poles, each the size of a mature tree, thrust skywards from the lumpen head of this ancient pollard. And around its great girth, in its crevices and creases, the microclimate changes with the compass. Dominating the trunk’s north-west curve, like a coral outcrop, the bracket fungus Perenniporia fraxinea fans out dramatically in three layers more than 120cm wide. For 20 years I’ve watched this veteran grow so large that its soft, skin-coloured underbelly is now punctured by a million tiny spore-producing pores.
Continue reading...World Pollutionwatch: evidence grows of lifelong harm from polluted air
Historical data from studies on museum bird specimens, combined with current research, gives us a picture of the long-term harm from air pollution
There is growing evidence about the lifelong harm from air pollution. The air that we breathe as children can stunt our lung growth, potentially causing problems later in adult life. Air pollution breathed decades ago has been shown to shorten lives in the UK today. However, investigating these lifelong impacts is hampered by a lack of historic measurements.
Can the natural environment help us? Starting with lichens in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris in 1886, biomonitoring has helped to track air pollution. In a new twist, researchers in the US have constructed a 135-year history of pollution in America’s rust belt by studying soot in the feathers of museum bird specimens. Tests on 1,347 birds showed that air pollution between 1880 and 1920 was worse than we thought. The birds also revealed useful data for climate modellers. It appears that soot pollution started to decrease around 1910, earlier than thought; with dips in the great depression and a rise for the second world war.
Continue reading...Specieswatch: efforts are being made to preserve the Arctic char in Britain
Some 10,000 young char have been released into Kielder Water with the aim of saving this ancient fish, an important relic of our past
The Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus, is a remarkable survivor from the ice age in Britain, having been trapped in various lakes and Scottish lochs for 10,000 years. As a result, if you manage to catch one, the fish may look considerably different from those in other lakes, because they have had many generations to evolve to survive in local conditions after being cut off from the oceans when the ice retreated.
Some scientists went to the trouble of designating each of these populations of Arctic char as separate species because of these different characteristics, but this idea has generally been dropped as too difficult, not least because there are dozens of cut-off populations, some yet to be described.
Continue reading...Call for vehicle testing overhaul as Australia's emissions fight moves to roads
AAA says motorists are being misled by lab tests of emissions and fuel efficiency but green groups accuse it of delaying tactic
Australia’s motoring lobby is launching a campaign for “real-world” vehicle emissions testing, arguing the current system needs an overhaul because it is misleading consumers and regulators.
The Australian Automobile Association will on Monday release results from emissions and fuel consumption tests on 30 passenger and light commercial vehicles showing discrepancies between real world and official fuel consumption established in laboratory testing.
Continue reading...Fracking protesters vow to 'put their lives on line' after scaling rig
Invasion of site in North Yorkshire comes as campaigners say they have seen letter stating exploration is due to start
Protesters in a tiny North Yorkshire village have vowed to put their lives on the line to prevent the first fracking operation in six years from taking place this week.
Two campaigners had to be rescued from an 18-metre (60ft) rig on Sunday after scaling the structure and waving flares – leading police to warn them of “the serious risk created by open flames and sparks on a live gas site”.
Continue reading...The eco guide to new mindful activism
Placard-bearing angry activists have their place, but their are other, gentler ways to make a difference
Activists are the vital foot soldiers of the environmental movement. But is the classic activist model – placard-bearing and angry – actually effective? There’s a suggestion that if you’re not shouting in the face of The Man 24 hours a day, do you actually care?
Sarah Corbett warns that angry activists are in danger of burning out
Continue reading...High court proves we have free speech against environmental wreckers | Bob Brown
Adani and the loggers should watch out – we have a right to peaceful protest to protect our environment
The high court has drawn a line in the sand against laws which burden the right of Australians to peaceful protest.
The court made no judgement on Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman’s decision to flatten the Lapoinya state forest in northwest Tasmania against the wishes of the local community. But it struck down his Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act 2014 aimed at stopping people from protesting effectively against such forests being logged.
Continue reading...Is Congress about to wreck the Grand Canyon and other national park treasures?
The Antiquities Act has been used to preserve some of America’s beloved lands and landmarks but it is facing assault from Trump and Congress
One-hundred-eleven years and a few months ago, Theodore Roosevelt signed the landmark law that helped cement his place as America’s conservation president.
Related: National park ban saved 2m plastic bottles – and still Trump reversed it
Continue reading...A giant insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It's a catastrophe
Insects have triumphed for hundreds of millions of years in every habitat but the ocean. Their success is unparalleled, which makes their disappearance all the more alarming
Thirty-five years ago an American biologist Terry Erwin conducted an experiment to count insect species. Using an insecticide “fog”, he managed to extract all the small living things in the canopies of 19 individuals of one species of tropical tree, Luehea seemannii, in the rainforest of Panama. He recorded about 1,200 separate species, nearly all of them coleoptera (beetles) and many new to science; and he estimated that 163 of these would be found on Luehea seemannii only.
He calculated that as there are about 50,000 species of tropical tree, if that figure of 163 was typical for all the other trees, there would be more than eight million species, just of beetles, in the tropical rainforest canopy; and as beetles make up about 40% of all the arthropods, the grouping that contains the insects and the other creepy-crawlies from spiders to millipedes, the total number of such species in the canopy might be 20 million; and as he estimated the canopy fauna to be separate from, and twice as rich as, the forest floor, for the tropical forest as a whole the number of species might be 30 million.
Continue reading...Country diary: the woodland is intoxicating at this time of year
Bramshaw Telegraph, New Forest The heather is fading but there are so many fallen trees to explore, each with its diverse community of fungi
Without doubt, 200 years ago our walk would have made a slow start. We would have been watching with fascination the sliding shutters of the new signalling station, constructed as part of the chain linking Plymouth with London and Portsmouth. Skilful combination of its six panels could transmit messages at astonishing speed. Today only the place name, Bramshaw Telegraph, is left to remind us what once stood here.
Patches of wire wool – actually the lichen Cladonia portentosa – lighten up the fading hues of the heathers as we cross Studley Head. A deeply rutted track forewarns of forestry work ahead. A notice as we enter the woodland confirms this and urges caution: thinning is under way again in the Island Thorns Inclosure.
Continue reading...Kea or Kākāriki? Bird of the Year contest gets New Zealand in a flap
Country’s treasured avian species puff up their plumage as nation votes on who rules the roost
Bird of the Year leaderboard – check the pecking order
First there was the “Jacinda effect” and a government to cobble together. Then came the mania for the jade Kākāriki, the shining cuckoo and the stern Ruru.
New Zealand’s Bird of the Year Competition has kicked off, and it has galvanised voters with the same intensity as the recent election. Now in its 13th year, the poll pits the country’s rare and endangered birds against one another: the cheeky Kea versus the shy Kiwi, the dowdy Bar Tailed Godwit against the alluring Hihi.
Continue reading...New Zealand Bird of the Year leaderboard: check the pecking order
It’s the final countdown to New Zealand’s Bird of the Year award, the annual contest for the most popular bird in Aotearoa. Here you can see the current leader in the contest, updated hourly
- Vote for your favourite bird here – voting finishes Monday 23 October, 5pm New Zealand time
- Bird photographs and descriptions courtesy Forest & Bird
National energy guarantee is ‘innovative’, says Bloomberg analysis
Bloomberg New Energy Finance says proposed guarantee could be ‘template for policy makers worldwide’
The Turnbull government’s proposed national energy guarantee has been given enthusiastic support by the renewable energy analysis firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which has described the concept as “innovative and elegant” and said it could be “a template for policy makers worldwide”.
Earlier this week Malcolm Turnbull persuaded the Coalition to support an energy policy that includes measures intended to drive down emissions (the “emissions guarantee”) and ensure reliability of the grid (the “reliability guarantee”).
Continue reading...Encouraging insects back into arable land | Letters
It is with great interest that we read about the long-term decline in the biomass of flying insects on German protected areas (Scientists tell of alarm at huge fall in flying insects, 19 October).
The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) carries out two long-term surveys of insects on farmland in England – the Sussex Study (1970 to present) and at our demonstration farm in Loddington (1992 to present).
Continue reading...Insectageddon, fatal pollution and 2017 Wildlife Photographer winners – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events
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