The Guardian
Maasai cricketers and lion cubs with piñatas: today's unmissable photos
A selection of the day’s best images, including kite-flying in Moscow, a sea of red umbrellas in China and a Valentine’s Day group wedding in China
Continue reading...Chemical ‘haze’ prompts evacuation on East Sussex coastline – video report
Birling Gap, a popular tourist spot close to Eastbourne, was evacuated on Sunday after a ‘chemical haze’ descended on the area. People complained of breathing difficulties and irritation in their eyes and throats, and over 100 people were treated at the local hospital overnight. The cause of the incident is still unknown
Continue reading...Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change | Dana Nuccitelli
A new study finds that a lecture from evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe successfully educates evangelical college students, validating the “trusted sources” approach
Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:
a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).
Continue reading...Bike helmets by Grayson Perry, Stephen Jones and more – in pictures
An exhibition of cycling helmets designed by artists will be on show at London bike shop and cafe Look Mum No Hands! from 1 September. Helmets will be auctioned online to raise money for the brain injury charity Headway
Continue reading...Tropical storm Harvey: 'There's water up to your shoulder'– video
The storm has hurled record rainfall at Houston, forcing thousands to flee their homes and testing flood-control systems to their limits. Parts of the city area saw more than 22in (55cm) of rain in a 24-hour period to Sunday evening; too much for the bayous to handle, too much for roads to remain passable and threatening to overwhelm emergency teams
Continue reading...An idyllic spot under siege by the A1
Wothorpe-on-the-Hill, Cambridgeshire The air is awash with noise, a roar that wavers only slightly, and never below uncomfortable
The road climbs and thins with each turn. Where it reaches a little fist of cottages it doesn’t stop but instead, strangely, has its way blocked from waist height up by low branches. A dead road, leading to the old reservoir. I walk a footpath bordered by stone walls, then over a stile and here it is, a sweep of miniature country. A rumpled slope, trees fat with summer, a little pond catching the sky. August dew sits on everything, and early sun lights every drop to a shimmer. I see rabbits, molehills, every bush twitching with life.
I live less than a mile from here and would come to this meadow more, but for one thing. The air is awash with it, a roar that wavers only slightly, and never below uncomfortable. It’s rush hour now, so maybe this is as bad as it gets. But it never goes away.
Continue reading...The scent of privet: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 31 August 1917
When the heavy showers had passed, the sun burst out from behind drifting clouds, and studded the dripping hedges with diamonds. For ten yards or more privet, in full flower broke the monotony of thorn and bramble, and here fifteen or twenty red admiral butterflies fanned their gorgeous wings as they sipped the sweets. The air was heavy with the scent of privet. Golden–rod, a blaze beneath the hedge, attracted other red admirals, and amongst them were small tortoiseshells and a few peacocks. True to its name, the wall butterfly was more plentiful where rugged stone walls replaced the hedgerows, but it abounded alike in all the lanes and on the rocky outcrops, covered with ragwort, scabious, and eyebright, which are so noticeable a feature of North Wales.
Privet, by the way, is troubling one of my correspondents. He finds his hedge attacked by small white grubs, which shelter in the curled and shrivelled leaves. I do not find my privets badly damaged, though a few shoots have been attacked. It is the caterpillar of one of the small leaf-mining moths, for the grubs in their earlier stages, at any rate, feed within the two layers of leaf-skin. I can only advise that he cuts off the damaged shoots and burns them so as to diminish the numbers of the moths.
Continue reading...Renewable energy generates enough power to run 70% of Australian homes
Renewable Energy Index shows sector will generate power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects being built in 2016-17 are completed
Australia’s renewable energy sector is within striking distance of matching national household power consumption, cranking out enough electricity to run 70% of homes last financial year, new figures show.
The first Australian Renewable Energy Index, produced by Green Energy Markets, finds the sector will generate enough power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects under construction in 2016-17 are completed.
Continue reading...Houston faces ‘historic’ flooding from Hurricane Harvey – video
Houston, Texas, is facing rising floodwaters after intense rainfall from Hurricane Harvey. More than 60cm (2ft) of rain has fallen on the city in 24 hours and the already ‘catastrophic’ flooding is expected to worsen as the bad weather lingers for several days. People in some communities have been advised to climb to their roofs to escape the rising waters
Continue reading...Snow-go: why Ben Nevis is frost-free for the first time in 11 years
Ain’t no mountain dry enough? Ben Nevis may well have grown by a metre last year but now it is also nude from basecamp up for the first time in 11 years.
You would expect snow under foot atop the summit’s stone cairn at the lofty height of 1,345m, not a blunt, barren crown. So what on earth happened to the formerly covered peak?
Continue reading...How to offset Trump's climate science ignorance – plant 10bn trees
An ambitious tree-planting campaign aims to counteract the CO2 released by Donald Trump’s climate policies
A campaign to plant enough trees to offset Donald Trump’s climate policies is under way. Organisers hope to plant 10bn trees by 24 December 2017, with the last one being a Christmas tree planted in front of the White House.
The organisers of Trump Forest are asking people to donate trees to make up for the 650m tonnes of CO2 that will be released into the atmosphere by 2025 if the president’s plans to backtrack on US climate commitments go ahead.
Continue reading...How Slovenia is helping its ‘baby dragons’
Postojna Cave in Slovenia is one of Europe’s longest cave networks and one of the world’s most spectacular subterranean tourist sites. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come here every year to gaze at its wonders: its huge stalactites and stalagmites, its curtains of coloured rock and bridges that have been carved out of the local limestone by the river Pivka over millions of years.
Given such glories, it is not surprising that few tourists take note of the two concrete huts draped with black polythene that have been erected in a shadowy alcove in one obscure part of the 24km-long labyrinth. But the huts contain wonders of their own. In racks of trays of water, scientists have placed specimens of one of the world’s strangest creatures: the blind aquatic salamander Proteus anguinus – or olm, as it is known locally. It constitutes a project that could have profound implications for the future of these remarkable creatures.
Continue reading...The eco guide to zero wasters
The zero-waste revolution has been postponed, except on Instagram. But there are some constructive steps to be taken
I’ve been hearing about a “zero waste” world for half my life. What would it look like? It would be rubbish-free for starters, no more single-use plastic being shovelled into landfill. Shelves would be full of intelligent products designed to have a second useful life. Materials that couldn’t be reused would gently turn into compost, nourishing the earth as they broke down.
The high priestess of waste-free living is Californian Bea Johnson, whose home produces remarkably little waste
Continue reading...Bee inspired: why Oslo has put cological riches at the heart of the city
Norway wants urban gardeners to cultivate wildflowers and keep hives to reverse a decline in biodiversity
On a sloping meadow near the centre of Oslo, red-tailed bumblebees gather pollen from hairy violets, spiders spin webs between maiden’s tears while hoverflies buzz between yellow daisies and white yarrow.
Such a bucolic scene might normally be associated more with a rural past than an urban future, but it is part of a thoroughly modern attempt to reverse the decline of bee populations and put biodiversity at the heart of city planning in Norway’s capital.
Continue reading...Patagonia joins forces with activists to protect public lands from Trump
Native Americans and environmental advocates get help from outdoor retailers as they battle proposal to change monuments’ boundaries
Environmental activists, Native American groups and a coalition of outdoor retailers have vowed to redouble their efforts to protect public lands, after the US interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, recommended on Thursday that Donald Trump change the boundaries of a “handful” of national monuments.
Related: US public lands: Trump official recommends shrinking national monuments
Continue reading...The bees are already sealing their hives for the winter ahead
Ryall, Dorset The wax cells are studded with pollen gems in carnelian, citrine, garnet – an almanac of the seasons
The bees think it’s autumn. Since mid-July they have been reducing their numbers and sealing up the hives with propolis. Dark brown, sticky when fresh, brittle as cinder toffee when dry, propolis is a glue bees make from tree sap. It’s antimicrobial and despite its bitter taste some beekeepers chew it as a remedy for a sore throat.
Bees use propolis to fill small gaps in the hive and to mummify any invaders that are too big for them to carry outside. Occasionally, you find a dead mouse inside a hive its body shrouded in propolis, pieces of varnished bone showing through as if fossilised. The ancient Egyptians revered bees and it is thought they might have learned the principle of mummification from them.
Continue reading...Why the IPA's claim global warming is natural is 'junk science' | Graham Readfearn
An Institute of Public Affairs-sponsored journal article has been seized on by conservative media outlets. But there are a few problems
People who work for climate science denial thinktanks tend not to spend all that much time worrying about getting stuff into scientific journals.
Perhaps because it’s easier, people who are paid to tell the public and policy makers that human-caused climate change is overblown bunk would rather pump out newspaper columns, do softball interviews or push out their own self-published reports. There’s a lot less scrutiny in that kind of public relations.
Continue reading...London zoo weigh-in – in pictures
Each year the keepers at the zoo record the animals’ vital statistics to monitor their health and general wellbeing
Continue reading...Taxpayers spend £500,000 on radios for badger cull marksmen
Police call for cull shooters to be given same hi-tech system they use – but activists buy counter-devices to disrupt shooting
Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ pounds have been spent on equipping badger cull marksmen with radios that link them directly to police, the Guardian has learned.
Police have advised the government to invest in the same communications system they use to make it easier for officers to get to conflicts with cull saboteurs in remote areas where the mobile phone signal is poor.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A shag in the Farne Islands, coral reefs in recovery in Belize, and a fox near Chernobyl are among this week’s images from the natural world
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