The Guardian
Latest legal challenge to Tory air pollution plans fails
High court instructs ministers to publish full proposals by the end of July
The government has won the latest court challenge over the UK’s air pollution crisis.
Environmental lawyers ClientEarth had argued that ministers’ draft proposals to improve air quality – which contributes to tens of thousands of deaths each year – were unlawful.
Continue reading...Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible | Dana Nuccitelli
It’s unscientific, fails basic risk management, is bad for the economy, and immoral
Two weeks ago, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) had an exchange with Trump’s Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry about climate change.
Inquiry into effects of fracking launched after Blackpool tremors
Investigation is part of an £8m research project examining impacts on land, water and air of the extraction technique
Scientists will investigate how fracking can affect drinking water and its role in earthquake tremors of the kind caused by shale gas operations near Blackpool, as part of a taxpayer-funded £8m research project.
The programme, backed by the Natural Environment Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council, will examine hydraulic fracturing’s environmental impacts on land, water and air, as well as public attitudes to the controversial extraction technique.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan pledged to help cyclists – so why is he such a stick in the wheel?
Subverting superhighways with sorry quietways; preserving motor vehicle capacity even if it brings conflict with cyclists – the mayor must do better
Do you remember that Blackadder scene where General Melchett proudly unveils a map representing the territory gained by his troops? Dimensions: 17 sq ft. Scale: actual size. London mayor Sadiq Khan’s cycling programme – formerly Britain’s bike flagship – is starting to feel a bit like that.
More than a year since he took office pledging to “make London a byword for cycling”, “accelerate” the existing programme and “triple” to 36 miles the length of segregated cycle superhighways, the mayor has by my count opened 80m (260 ft) of new segregated lane. Work is progressing, extremely slowly, on another half-mile or so. And that is about it.
Continue reading...Exotic paradox in the herbaceous borders
Powis Castle, Wales A dangerous beauty stolen by European adventurers and hinting of vast plains a world way
The anchor plant, Colletia paradoxa, with its geometric architecture, looks like trouble among the summer flowers in the herbaceous borders on the terrace gardens. And yet its very oddness makes it fit with an assembly of plants few, if any, of which would grow together in the wild. A paradox indeed.
Plants from the Americas, the far east and Europe grow cheek by jowl according to an aesthetic based on colour and form rather than geography. Although many do share similar ecological characteristics, some appear suited for other planets.
Continue reading...Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist | Planet Oz
David Karoly says without an expert to replace him, the CCA will struggle to fulfil its legal mandate
Imagine, if you will, a government board to champion Australian arts without any artists on it, or an agency to advise on medical research without any medical researchers.
Or perhaps even, imagine a government authority set up to provide expertise on climate policy without any actual climate scientists.
Continue reading...Misunderstood molluscs: five reasons to love slugs
Slugs are much maligned. Having the temerity to wear their slime on the outside of their bodies, they are about as far removed from our notion of cute and cuddly as is possible without being tapeworms. But they are misunderstood and persecuted beyond necessity – with ecological knock-on effects for the slow-worms, thrushes, hedgehogs, badgers and other animals further up the food chain. True, some slugs will eat your plants, but naturalist Chris Packham recently made a plea for greater tolerance for the mollusc: with that in mind, here are five reasons to admire slugs:
1. Most slugs are scavengers, but that can be handy. They eat that catch-all substrate, “decaying organic matter”, which includes dead and rotting plants; leaf litter; fungoid wood; fallen fruit; animal droppings; carrion; deliquescent toadstools; and mouldering compost. If they sometimes nibble idly at a leaf, it is probably because the leaf is already damaged or diseased.
Continue reading...中国禁售令造成亚洲市场象牙价格暴跌
最新调查显示，中国的象牙交易禁令的效果初步显现：越南象牙价格暴跌，而一些象牙贸易商也被迫退出。(翻译：子明/chinadialogue)
《卫报》拿到的一份最新研究显示，自从中国政府宣布计划取缔国内象牙交易之后，亚洲的象牙原料价格大幅走低。但是，偷猎现象目前并未因此减少。
过去三年，野生动植物正义委员会（WJC）的卧底调查员一直在走访河内的象牙贩子。2015年，他们了解到的象牙原料平均价格是每公斤1322美元，2016年10月降到了750美元，而到今年2月份价格再次下跌到660美元，比两年前降了一半。
Continue reading...I pick up plastic waste to save it from landfill. It's lonely but worth it
In my single-handed fight I have collected 180,000 items – 50 pieces of litter a day for 10 years. If only the world didn’t find this weird
Who’s that weirdo? Sadly, the answer is me. I can feel the question following me as I dive into the gutter or duck around the feet of my fellow Londoners to sweep up the bottles and cans and newspapers they have abandoned.
The question hasn’t changed in the the decade or so that I’ve been waging what seems a lone fight against the plastic tide threatening to engulf us. And I doubt it will change now, even as the Guardian reports that a million plastic bottles around the world are bought every minute – that’s a staggering 20,000 every second.
Continue reading...Trump's alarming environmental rollback: what's been scrapped so far
Since January, the White House, Congress and EPA have engineered a dizzying reversal of regulations designed to protect the environment and public health
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate deal may have followed months of anguished division amongst his closest advisers, but his administration has proceeded with quiet efficiency in its dismantling of other major environmental policies.
The White House, Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency have dovetailed to engineer a dizzying reversal of clean air and water regulations implemented by Barack Obama’s administration.
Continue reading...Extreme ice on Canada's east coast – in pictures
Warming temperatures caused perilous ice up to eight metres thick to drift south from the Arctic to clog the coasts of Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec. It trapped boats and ferries as late as June, with Canadian scientists blaming climate change. These dramatic photos capture the rare event.
All photographs by Louis Helbig unless otherwise credited
Continue reading...Amazon coral reef at risk of damage if oil spills near Amazon river
Oil companies planning to drill near mouth of the river have calculated that the unique ecosystem has a 30% chance of being affected in the event of a spill
Oil companies planning to drill near a vast coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon river have calculated that the unique ecosystem has a 30% chance of being affected in the event of an oil spill.
Related: 'We are rewriting the textbooks': first dives to Amazon coral reef stun scientists
Continue reading...Tackle UK's plastic bottle problem with money-back scheme, ministers told
Opposition parties increase pressure for deposit return initiative to boost recycling and keep litter off streets and beaches
The UK government is under growing pressure to introduce a money-back return scheme for plastic bottles, in order to tackle huge volumes of waste in a country where 400 bottles are sold every second.
Opposition parties have called on ministers to introduce a deposit return scheme that experts say would drastically reduce the number of plastic bottles littering streets and seas around the UK. Similar schemes have been successfully introduced in at least a dozen countries.
Stream of consciousness in a marshy wonderland
Buxton, Derbyshire One summer we dammed the brook by the bridge where the dippers bred and swam with the tiddler trout
Hogshaw Brook, which runs below my late mother’s house, is part of the very first landscape in my story as a naturalist. Every night when I went to bed, I’d hear its ceaseless journey to join the river Wye. I remember one year how we dammed it by the bridge where the dippers bred, and its four-inch flow rose eventually up to the heaving chest of my nine-year-old self. We swam in it that summer, along with its tiddler brown trout and the caddis fly larvae that we loved to uncover beneath the cold stones.
Continue reading...Clean energy target 'best deal that coal will get', says NSW energy minister
Don Harwin tells Committee for Economic Development of Australia the ‘self-indulgent climate culture war’ should end
The Liberal New South Wales energy minister has delivered a speech marking a sharp departure from his federal colleagues saying the coal-fired power industry should accept the clean energy target that will see the industry close in the coming decades as “the best deal that coal will get”.
He also ridiculed claims that expanding gas exploration in NSW was the key to fixing Australia’s gas crisis, saying such an idea was “curious”, and pointedly called for an end to the “self-indulgent climate culture war”.
Continue reading...Chris Packham: learning to love slugs will help garden wildlife bloom
BBC Springwatch host urges gardeners to manage molluscs without killing them or risk losing hedgehogs and song thrushes
The naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has advised the nation to encourage the ecosystem of their gardens by ceasing to kill slugs.
Extolling the virtues of tolerance, Packham said “draconian choices” like “I don’t want slugs and snails to eat my plants” puts the gardener at risk of losing other wildlife such as hedgehogs, slowworms and song thrushes.
Continue reading...Court rejects EPA's attempt to halt Obama-era methane rule
Environmental Protection Agency had announced stay in rule that would require oil and gas companies to fix methane leaks in equipment
The Environmental Protection Agency cannot freeze the implementation of a rule requiring oil and gas companies to fix methane leaks in their equipment, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday in a setback for Donald Trump’s push to cut environmental regulations.
Related: Trump's planned EPA cuts will hit America's most vulnerable | Mustafa Santiago Ali
Continue reading...Admiral calls Britain's plan to control fishing waters ‘amazingly complacent’
Lord Alan West says vessels involved in fisheries enforcement are ‘very, very few’, with one recently diverted on long Caribbean tour
Britain’s plan to enforce its new control of fishing waters is “amazingly complacent”, according to a former first sea lord and Royal Navy admiral, who said the three vessels used were far too few.
The government announced on Sunday that it was “taking back control” of the waters between six and 12 nautical miles from the British coast, by leaving a treaty called the London Convention. But Admiral Lord Alan West said on Monday that Britain would be a “laughing stock” if it was unable to enforce the new rules.
Continue reading...Hamming it up? Supermarket label changes colour to help cure food waste
Sainsbury’s launches packaging that shows how long its own-brand ham has been open to stop slices being thrown away
A major UK supermarket is launching a new “smart” label on packets of its own-brand ham in a bid to reduce waste by telling consumers how fresh it is.
Ham is Sainsbury’s top-selling cooked meat product, but many buyers find it difficult to remember how long it has been open. Figures from Wrap, the government’s waste advisory body, reveal that British households throw away 1.9 million slices of ham a day – equivalent to 32,500kg – at a cost of more than £170m a year.
Wildlife on your doorstep: share your July photos
Whether basking in sunshine in the northern hemisphere or fighting cooler temperatures in the south, we’d like to see the wildlife you discover
After the June heatwaves in the northern hemisphere, July has got off to a slightly more uneven start, but there will still be plenty of sun rays around. As winter takes hold of the southern hemisphere, the temperatures will get even cooler. So what sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps? We’d love to see your photos of the July wildlife near you.
You can share your July wildlife photos, videos and stories with us by clicking on the blue ‘Contribute’ buttons. Or if you’re out and about you can look for our assignments in the new Guardian app.
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