Feed aggregator

A lack of urgency and failure to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide is why ClientEarth is taking the UK government back to court this week

No less than 17 years have passed since new rules were approved in the UK to save thousands of lives by limiting deadly air pollution in our towns and cities.

Pollution is the “invisible killer” because, for the most part, it goes unseen. Its impact on human health and the planet is why those laws were necessary.

Continue reading...

A pioneering research project is aiming to determine how forests in the Amazon, the Congo and elsewhere in the tropics will reacting to rising temperatures

Mid-morning in the Luquillo experimental forest in north-west Puerto Rico, and the thermometer already reads 26C. Tana Wood, an ecologist employed by the US Forest Service, pulls on a pair of heavy gloves for insulating against electrical shock.

Over two years, her team here has laid out hexagonal plots four metres across, each about the size of a backyard trampoline. Industrial-strength heaters suspended several metres above the ground from metal scaffolding on the perimeter of three plots will heat the soil and undergrowth to 4C above the forest’s ambient temperature.

Continue reading...

We’re entering a new age for the Earth’s climate and for the way we conceive of finance

“Macrocritical resilience” may be the most mystifying two-word phrase you need to know. Though you may never have heard these two words before, what they describe affects everything you live and strive for. Wonky as it sounds, it is a common sense idea: what generates value is more valuable than what we count in dollars. And yet, it is only in the last few years that we are truly beginning to understand that macrocritical indicators—elements of human experience that shape the health and viability of the overall economy—really do describe how and where value and capability come into being.

On Christmas Eve, 2013, the small island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines experienced the most intense rainfall in its history. 15 percent of gross domestic product was wiped out in just a few hours. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan caused $900 million worth of damage in Grenada—more than twice the nation’s GDP. One of the executive directors of the International Monetary Fund noted that when so much value can be lost so suddenly, “you no longer know what the value of a dollar is.”

Continue reading...

Kendal, Lake District A skeleton unearthed by a Victorian archaeologist should give us clues as to when wolves last roamed the Lakeland fells

From my study window I watch jackdaws making their chattering sorties above the rooftops and over Kendal Fell. Across the road a footpath leads up the fell, less well known now as Helsfell, and on through two small areas of woodland. What I can’t see, and hadn’t known until recently, though I walk the area most days, is that deep in the far wood is a cave of significant archaeological importance.

In the 1880s an amateur archaeologist, John Beecham, spent five summers excavating it. He discovered the bones of bear, wild cat, polecat, wild boar and iron age oxen – Bos longifrons, the first domesticated cattle – and the complete skeleton of a wolf. All undated, the collection became dispersed, but the wolf still resides in Kendal Museum, which is having it restored with the help of Arts Council funding].

Continue reading...

The Kigali Amendment on hydrofluorocarbons tacitly recognises that the hippies were right all along, but lamentably none of the current players have been gracious enough to say so.

Federal resources minister Matt Canavan hoorays Adani job search for coal mine, although it it also looking for someone to further its solar plans.

Tesla and Panasonic have entered into a non-binding letter of intent under which they will begin collaborating on the manufacturing and production of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules in Buffalo, New York.

An Australian is to take charge of the troubled $100 billion Green Climate Fund, in a move that indicates Australia is not completely out of touch on climate change and renewable energy. But is it developing one language on climate for the international stage, and another for the toxic and partisan domestic market?

After five years of failed negotiations, conservations are hopeful Russia is prepared to make a deal to protect the Ross Sea and East Antarctica

An international agreement to protect some of Antarctica’s unique and pristine marine ecosystems could be reached within a fortnight, with scientists and conversationists hopeful of a breakthrough after five years of failed negotiations.

Delegates from 24 nations and the European Union gathered in Hobart on Monday to commence two weeks of talks at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Continue reading...

Big week for NEM as Hazelwood decision looms. Meanwhile, electricity prices in NSW jump as coal generator goes off-line.

Dan Hoey, an angler from Port Fairy, a coastal town in Victoria, Australia, was out fishing with his brother and a client when he noticed a great white shark circling his boat. Video captured by Hoey’s chartered fishing business, Salty Dog Charters, shows him fending off the shark with a household broom

Continue reading...

This week the Water Industry Operators Association of Australia (WIOA) stages the Best Tap Water in Australia competition in Marysville, Victoria. The winner could take out the global contest.

Tritium has announced it will showcase three new chargers on its stand (A5-309) at eCarTec in Munich (18-20 October).

For the first time, the public will be able to explore beneath the sails of the world’s most famous house to find out how this pioneering green building is making itself more environmentally friendly.

World Energy Council gives out clear message on move away from fossil fuels, but the fossil fuel industry wasn't listening.

Unpacking the unruly exchange between Elon Musk and the head of a struggling US coal company.

Tracey Lines has joined the CEFC to help accelerate the development of clean energy investment opportunities in north Queensland.

Neighbours building power stations together, renters having access to clean energy and families taking control of their electricity supply is the future of Australia’s power industry.

The first of the massive – biggest in Australia – wind turbine blades arrive for NSW 175MW White Rock wind farm.

Construction of the UK's new £200m polar research ship, the RRS Sir David Attenborough, formally begins on Monday at the Cammell Laird yard on Merseyside.