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Trees transform a farm landscape and Alyssa's a champion dog trialler

ABC Environment - Mon, 2017-06-12 11:30
A tree planting project transforms a Bega Valley landscape; a young couple grinds out a living off just eight hectares; we turn unwanted fruit and veg into edible powder; and meet four-year-old dog trialler Alyssa Brown.
Categories: Around The Web

What do consumers get out of the Finkel blueprint?

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2017-06-12 11:07
The short answer is, not a lot. Finkel promises savings of $92 a year by 2030, but most customer bills are going to jump $300 a year next month. Nothing much will change until utilities can match the cost of new technologies, rather than hiding behind regulatory barriers.
Categories: Around The Web

Rehydrating the bodies

BBC - Mon, 2017-06-12 10:56
Dr Alejandro Hernández Cárdenas has developed a new technique to help identify corpses.
Categories: Around The Web

All Tesla Supercharger stations to be solar powered, says Musk

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2017-06-12 10:15
Elon Musk says all Tesla EV supercharging stations are being switched to solar and battery storage – "almost all" will disconnect from grid.
Categories: Around The Web

Frydenberg’s coal call to right wing: Trust me, this won’t hurt at all (honk!)

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2017-06-12 09:58
Frydenberg and Turnbull are trying to convince far right that coal will be OK under Clean Energy Target. But the reality is that wind and solar are cheaper, so any serious push to climate targets will spell doom for coal generation.
Categories: Around The Web

Trading tool

BBC - Mon, 2017-06-12 09:26
The earliest known script was a tool developed to help run the economy.
Categories: Around The Web

Finkel report falls short of Paris commitment: Di Natale

ABC Environment - Mon, 2017-06-12 07:37
Di Natale says the Finkel report gets Australia no where near the temperature target commitment made in Paris and provides a long term lifeline to coal and gas.
Categories: Around The Web

Across Dartmoor on horseback: Country diary 50 years ago

The Guardian - Mon, 2017-06-12 07:30

Originally published in the Guardian on 17 June 1967

DARTMOOR: The best way to see the country of the high moorland is, I am now convinced, from horseback. A docile eight-year-old mare carried me for three hours over Holne Moor and along the thickly wooded valley of the Dart and provided a morning of great delight. Early in the ride, descending from the moor to the river valley, we started a buzzard from the heather. The bird rose into the air and crossed the valley in gracious soaring and gliding. The silhouette of the buzzard is particularly appropriate to its function as a bird of prey – a menacing dark brown shape with broad wings upturned at the tips. Its loud mewing call which echoed in the confined valley was an eerie warning to small creatures on the ground.

Related: Dilemma on the moor: The truth about pony slaughter on Dartmoor

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Categories: Around The Web

With particles, size really matters

The Guardian - Mon, 2017-06-12 06:30

Engineers call them nano-particles, and close to congested roads and busy airports, we inhale them in astonishing numbers

In 1996, the Scottish scientist Anthony Seaton put forward a new theory about the health problems from modern air pollution. Throughout our evolution, we have always lived with dusts, but Seaton suggested that the problems from modern air pollution were due to the sheer number of tiny pollution particles that we are now exposed to.

Related: Time for the oil industry to snuff out its flares

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Categories: Around The Web

The eco guide to prison labour

The Guardian - Sun, 2017-06-11 15:00

The world’s biggest companies, from Starbucks to Victoria’s Secret, use prisoners to work on their products. Is it helpful work experience or sheer exploitation?

We are all, at heart, ethical consumers. I’ve never met anyone actively looking for a dose of slave labour with their teabags, window frames or underwear.

71% of companies surveyed in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery

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Categories: Around The Web

Salmon farmers ‘put wild fish at risk’ in fight to kill off sea lice

The Guardian - Sun, 2017-06-11 07:11
Use of wrasse to combat parasite threatens natural stocks, say experts

Salmon farmers have been accused of playing dirty by using fish caught in the wild to clean lice from Scottish fish farms. Marine conservation experts say that shipping tonnes of English-caught wrasse a year – to tackle lice infestations in salmon pens north of the border – is endangering natural stocks. English anglers have also warned wrasse is becoming harder and harder to find in local waters.

However, salmon farmers have rejected the charge. They say the use of wrasse as a “cleaner” fish is part of a long-term plan to replace chemicals – which are currently administered to pens to control lice infestations – with sustainable, biological controls.

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Categories: Around The Web

A goat's dream job?

BBC - Sat, 2017-06-10 16:36
Mangers of Prospect Park in New York are happy with their new employee.
Categories: Around The Web

All the colours of the machair

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-06-10 14:30

South Uist The dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another wildflower species comes to the fore on land left to lie fallow

The continuation of traditional crofting methods ensures that the island’s machair is still celebrated for the spectacular profusion of wildflowers that occurs in the summer. Yellows, whites, purples and blues are all present, though the dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another species comes to the fore on the land left to lie fallow. But where, after their period of rest, different areas are put back under cultivation, there are other changes in colour.

This spring the grassland down at the end of the track that reaches the sea came under the plough, its green replaced by an expanse of pale open ground. Stretches of machair ready for planting are nothing like prepared fields seen elsewhere in Britain.

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Categories: Around The Web

Beached whale on New South Wales coast to be euthanised

The Guardian - Sat, 2017-06-10 14:14

Marine mammal experts make ‘really tough decision’ after rough sea conditions hinder rescue attempts

• Australian volunteers help keep animal breathing – video

A juvenile humpback whale that has been beached on the New South Wales mid-north coast for more than a day will be euthanised.

Rough sea conditions had put a hold on attempts to rescue the whale on Sataurday.

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Categories: Around The Web

Finkel’s canny energy blueprint has a fundamental flaw

RenewEconomy - Sat, 2017-06-10 14:10
Finkel's proposed Clean Energy Target could solidify long-term investment in renewable energy, but investor certainty can only be delivered by taking into account the 2°C target.
Categories: Around The Web

Ominous signs for Larson C ice shelf

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-06-10 12:14
The fourth largest ice shelf in Antarctica, known as Larson C, has developed a crack 180km long. It is only a matter of time before a giant iceberg peels away and floats free in the Antarctic circumpolar current.
Categories: Around The Web

Vagrant, immigrant, stopover, stay

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-06-10 10:30
Sure, seabirds might've been flying past, but how did tiny forest birds make it all the way to Lord Howe Island in the middle of the sea?
Categories: Around The Web

Understory: a life with trees

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-06-10 09:22
Writer Inga Simpson recounts experiences of a tree change to the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Categories: Around The Web

The greening of Singapore

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-06-10 08:45
The transformation of Singapore into a garden city.
Categories: Around The Web

The greening of Singapore

ABC Environment - Sat, 2017-06-10 08:45
The transformation of Singapore into a garden city.
Categories: Around The Web

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