Environment news

• Scottish Seabird Centre Nature Photography Awards

  25-02-2016 22:00
  
  The Scottish Seabird Centre announces winners in its annual photo competition
  
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• Environmentalists sue for more rules to protect sage grouse

  25-02-2016 21:45
  BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Environmental groups sued Thursday to force the Obama administration to impose more restrictions on oil and gas drilling, grazing and other activities blamed for the decline of greater sage grouse across the American West.
  
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• Oil up 3 percent on March producers meeting, U.S. project delays

  25-02-2016 21:39
  By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude oil futures jumped 3 percent on Thursday, reversing earlier loses after confirmation of a meeting of major producers and news of project delays and job cuts in the industry. Venezuela reaffirmed a mid-March meeting of oil producers that would include Saudi Arabia, Russia and Qatar, to stabilize prices that have slumped 70 percent in a 20-month rout. The four countries are involved in an effort to get oil producers in the Organization of the Petroleum
  
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• Tasmania's bushfires: a human-made calamity on par with the razing of Palmyra's temples

  25-02-2016 20:27
  
  As 1,000-year-old trees turn to ash and dried-out peat bogs burn, the devastation of these precious plains is a harbinger of a warmer, far less wonderful worldIt is a three-hour, thigh-torturing climb to reach Tasmania’s high central plateau. Ancient myrtle rainforests flank the slopes. In years gone by, springs and streams gushed from the soaked highlands above, feeding the ferns and tall, old trees. The track passes Norm’s spring, from which local legend holds it is good luck to dr
  
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• Australia's biggest banks pump billions into fossil fuels despite climate pledges

  25-02-2016 20:00
  
  Amid dire warnings for the future of coal, the lenders signed off on $5.5bn worth of deals for the sector in 2015, according to analysis by activist groupAustralia’s big four banks are continuing to finance fossil fuel projects despite embracing a 2C or better global warming target, according to figures from financial activists Market Forces.Related: AGL boss: regardless of climate science, it's time to drop the 'emissions business'Continue reading...
  
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• Britain heading for power cuts next winter, say 60 local authorities

  25-02-2016 19:42
  
  All-party alliance says National Grid needs to act now to fill supply gap, and wants ministers to look at level of carbon taxesA group representing 60 local authorities has warned that recent closures of large power stations have left Britain heading for power cuts next winter, despite assurances to the contrary from the government.The Industrial Communities Alliance (ICA), an all-party association of councils from across Britain, said National Grid needed to act immediately to fill the supply g
  
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• Rare 'superbloom' blankets Death Valley in millions of yellow wildflowers

  25-02-2016 19:14
  
  Heavy autumn rains have transformed the California park from salt flats and sand dunes to a colorful floral landscape not seen to this extent since 2005Parts of Death Valley, the driest place in North America, have exploded in a riot of color with a rare “superbloom” of millions of wildflowers.The flowers have blanketed the desert valley to an extent not seen since 2005. The bloom started in the southern part of the Californian wilderness and is now moving north, displaying colorful
  
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• Lab-grown sperm makes healthy offspring

  25-02-2016 18:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Sperm have been made in the laboratory and used to father healthy baby mice in a move that could lead to infertility treatments.
  
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• Poachers and wildlife traffickers to face prison sentences across Europe

  25-02-2016 17:38
  
  New sentencing policy would end legal loopholes that leave wildlife crimes in many central and eastern European countries punishable by non-custodial sentencesOrganised wildlife criminals will face prison sentences of at least four years in a crackdown on poachers, smugglers and illegal trophy hunters that the European commission is due to launch on Friday.An action plan seen by the Guardian would force all EU countries to consider major wildlife trafficking a grave offence under the UN’s
  
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• Blackout blues: the Lagos suburbs that have been in darkness for five years

  25-02-2016 17:28
  
  For Lagosians, electricity shortages can mean cooking by torchlight, or companies spending a shocking 70% of the budget on diesel ... and some neighbourhoods have spent half a decade with no power at allWhen the electric transformer in his neighbourhood was vandalised five years ago, Akinnuoye Olagunju, then 21, didn’t think they would never have power again.Officials from the energy utility demanded that his father, as well as each of the 2,000 or so people in Oreta, pay a communal bribe
  
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• Finland to provide $88 million investment aid to renewables projects

  25-02-2016 16:58
  Finland will provide 80 million euros ($88 million) in aid to biofuel and new energy technology projects to meet its climate goals by 2030, the government said on Thursday. The Nordic country wants to source more than half of its energy needs from renewables by the 2020s. "Finland will stop using coal in energy production and halve the use of imported oil for domestic needs during the 2020s," the Ministry of Employment and the Economy said in a statement.
  
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• No fin whales to be hunted in Iceland this summer

  25-02-2016 16:26
  
  Director of country’s biggest whaling company says his fleet will not be hunting this season because of problems exporting the meat to JapanConservationists are hopeful that an end to commercial whaling in Iceland has moved one step closer following media reports that no fin whales will be hunted there this summer.Kristjan Loftsson, the director of Iceland’s largest whaling company, told daily newspaper Morgunbladid on Wednesday that Hvalur HF would not be sending out vessels to slau
  
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• How European waters soak up CO2

  25-02-2016 16:09 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The seas around the UK and other parts of northern Europe take up about 24 million tonnes of carbon a year - the mass equivalent to two million double-decker buses.
  
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• France's oldest 'Muslim burials' found

  25-02-2016 14:44 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Researchers have identified what may be the earliest Muslim burials in France.
  
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• Russia says proposed oil output freeze should last at least a year

  25-02-2016 14:41
  A potential deal between leading oil producers to freeze output should last for at least a year, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday. Russia and OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela agreed last week to work on a global deal to freeze oil output at January levels if other producers follow suit in a bid to tackle the global crude glut and support prices. Novak told reporters in Minsk on Thursday it was unclear whether the proposed output freeze would be just a verbal
  
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• UK's low-carbon energy generation soars in 2015, but so does oil production

  25-02-2016 14:28
  
  Low-carbon energy sources rose to account for 43% of the UK's electricity supply in last year, but oil production saw its first significant increase this millennium, provisional figures released today (25 February) have revealed.
  
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• UK's low-carbon energy generation soared in 2015, but so did oil production

  25-02-2016 14:28
  
  Low-carbon energy sources rose to account for 43% of the UK's electricity supply last year, but oil production saw its first significant increase this millennium, provisional figures released today (25 February) have revealed.
  
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• Oil falls on oversupply, global economic growth concerns

  25-02-2016 14:25
  By Amanda Cooper LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Thursday on concerns about oversupply against a backdrop of a slowing global economy, although strong U.S. gasoline demand helped limit losses. Brent crude futures were down 12 cents at $34.29 a barrel at 1250 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 2 cents at $32.13 per barrel. "The basic overriding position in the oil market at the moment is that the global production exceeds global demand by quite a wide marg
  
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• Heathrow 13 climate change protesters: 'We'll be back' – video

  25-02-2016 13:54
  
  Before receiving suspended sentences on Thursday, the Heathrow 13 climate change activists explain why they they occupied the airport. They say direct action was their only option for fighting climate change. Will the fear of further punishment deter them from more law-breaking actions?Heathrow 13: climate change protesters avoid jail Continue reading...
  
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• Consumers have huge environmental impact

  25-02-2016 13:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  The world's workshop -- China -- surpassed the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases on Earth in 2007. But if you consider that nearly all of the products that China produces, from iPhones to tee-shirts, are exported to the rest of the world, the picture looks very different.
  
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• VW Emissions cheating scandal update

  25-02-2016 13:36 via feedproxy.google.com
  Volkswagen is still struggling to move past the emissions-software scandal that has plagued its reputation for the better part of a year. Ever since the news officially broke that an array of its diesel passenger cars were outfitted with deceptive software, VW’s reputation has been pretty much at bottom ratings.It’s not like the company hasn’t tried to regain public trust: To disgruntled consumers who bought one of the affected cars, it’s offered a&nbs
  
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• Greenland's glaciers through an artist's eyes - in pictures

  25-02-2016 13:00
  
  In September 2015, artist Mariele Neudecker and photographer Klaus Thymann embarked on a joint project to detail the glaciers of Narsarsuaq, south-west Greenland. The collaboration is part of a mission by UK charity Project Pressure to record the world’s vanishing and receding glaciers using art as inspiration Continue reading...
  
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• Honda to electrify two-thirds of its vehicle portfolio by 2030

  25-02-2016 12:32
  
  Honda has responded to increasingly rigid emissions regulations by pledging to make 'new-energy' and electric vehicles account for two-thirds of its portfolio by 2030.
  
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• Fossil fuel use must fall twice as fast as thought to contain global warming - study

  25-02-2016 12:06
  
  Available carbon budget is half as big as thought if global warming is to be kept within 2C limit agreed internationally as being the point of no return, researchers say. Climate News Network reportsClimate scientists have bad news for governments, energy companies, motorists, passengers and citizens everywhere in the world: to contain global warming to the limits agreed by 195 nations in Paris last December, they will have to cut fossil fuel combustion at an even faster rate than anybody had pr
  
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• 20 ways Scotland can ignite a solar revolution

  25-02-2016 11:29
  
  The Solar Trade Association (STA) has released a new document of 20 ways the Scottish Government can catalyse significant growth in the deployment of solar energy across the country.
  
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• Mansion sales and discount dining: oil rout hits Houston's rich

  25-02-2016 11:13
  By Terry Wade and Anna Driver HOUSTON (Reuters) - Prices for mansions in Houston's swankiest neighbourhood have tumbled in lock step with crude prices. The Houston Opera has offered free season tickets to patrons who lost their jobs in the oil bust. Twenty months into the worst oil price crash since the 1980s, well-heeled residents of the world's oil capital are among the hardest hit largely because tanking energy firm shares make up much of oil and gas executives' compensation.
  
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• Oil industry must thwart 'misguided' divestment campaign, says Saudi minister

  25-02-2016 11:00
  
  Fossil fuel industry must show it is a ‘force for good’ in face of campaign to blacklist polluting assets, Ali Al-Naimi tells oilmen. Climate Home reportsBig Oil must thwart the movement to leave fossil fuels in the ground, the world’s most powerful oilman said on Tuesday.Addressing executives in Texas, Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said the industry had to shed its “Dark Side” image and show it was a “force for good”. Continue reading...
  
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• Electric cars 'will be cheaper than conventional vehicles by 2022'

  25-02-2016 11:00
  
  Analysis predicts that the total cost of ownership of electric cars will dip below those with internal combustion engines in 2022 Electric cars will be cheaper to own than conventional cars by 2022, according to a new report. The plummeting cost of batteries is key in leading to the tipping point, which would kickstart a mass market for electric vehicles, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analysts predict. Continue reading...
  
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• Pictures of the day: 28 February 2016

  25-02-2016 10:48
  
  Today: Israel's Batwoman, snow in Spain and I Love Bob (Mugabe) T-shirts
  
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• Pictures of the day: 25 February 2016

  25-02-2016 10:23
  
  A mountain casts a shadow, the Flying Scotsman and a happy hippo
  
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• Palm oil giant completes extensive supplier maps for sustainable palm oil

  25-02-2016 09:45
  
  The world's second largest palm oil plantation company has today (25 February) completed the mapping and traceability of its supply chain through to each of its 489 mills in Indonesia.
  
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• Nuclear water: Fukushima still faces contamination crisis

  25-02-2016 09:13
  
  Fish market vendor Satoshi Nakano knows which fish caught in the radiation tainted sea off the Fukushima coast should be kept away from dinner tables.
  
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• Swindon welcomes first UK council solar bond

  25-02-2016 09:01
  
  The UK's first ever council solar bond has been launched in Swindon, offering councils and local authorities the chance to raise capital for a 5MW community solar farm.
  
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• AkzoNobel slashes shipping emissions through $500,000 carbon credit scheme

  25-02-2016 08:45
  
  Paint and coatings manufacturer AkzoNobel has issued more than 126,000 carbon credits - worth more than $500,000 - to 16 ships in a move that has reduced the emissions of each vessel by 4,000 tonnes annually.
  
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• 'We are on the verge of a litter crisis' - British 'grotspots' cleaned for the Queen

  25-02-2016 08:00
  
  Volunteers will tackle the country’s worst litter sites in March in what is being billed as the largest ever clean-up of the British environment ahead of the Queen’s 90th birthday in JuneThe canal bank beside Northbrook Street near Birmingham city centre looks and smells like a tip. The grass is strewn with plastic cups, fag packets, cans, tins, wraps, cloth, papers, peel, binliners, bags, butts and bottles. Builders have come in vans and flytipped waste, kids have graffitied the bri
  
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• UK households wasting 34,000 tonnes of beef each year

  25-02-2016 07:01
  
  Research shows £260m worth of raw and cooked beef items go to waste annually - equivalent to 300m beef burgers UK householders throw away 34,000 tonnes of beef every year - the equivalent of 300m beef burgers, according to new research.
  The national Love Food Hate Waste campaign has partnered with farmer and BBC Countryfile presenter, Adam Henson, to urge Britons to make the most of their meat. Continue reading...
  
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• Stakes raised for black-throated finch's largest remaining habitat on Adani mine site

  25-02-2016 06:52
  
  Bird whose fate forms a key plank of federal court challenge to approval of the Carmichael mine in Queensland was declared extinct in NSW last weekThe demise of the black-throated finch in New South Wales has added urgency to the need to protect the bird’s largest remaining habitat on the site of Adani’s proposed Queensland mine, conservationists have said.The finch – whose fate forms a key plank of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)’s federal court challenge to
  
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• A fast food joint for gulls

  25-02-2016 06:30
  
  Sandy, Bedfordshire Locals come down to throw out whole loaves of cheap sliced bread for the resident ducks and swansAt daybreak an uptown gull had made it into the market place, where it was fishing in last night’s chip wrapper. Here was a bird showing bold timidity: it had the determination to make it down into a soon to be crowded forum, but acted as if it were touching a hotplate.Its undercarriage came down, feet splayed out in a ready-to-land position, but its trailing legs would dab
  
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• BP buys 1.5 million barrels Qatari condensate for April in rare move

  25-02-2016 05:45
  BP PLC swept up 1.5 million barrels of Qatari condensate loading in April, a rare move for the oil major, three traders that participate in the market said on Thursday. The company bought two 500,000-barrel cargoes of deodorised field condensate (DFC) from Qatar's state oil marketer Tasweeq in a tender and another similar-sized cargo before that, they said. The cargoes were priced between $3.50 and $3.90 a barrel above Dubai quotes, the traders said.
  
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• SpaceX delays launch, ocean-landing due to technical issue

  25-02-2016 05:14
  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - SpaceX on Wednesday postponed for at least 24 hours the scheduled Florida launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on a satellite-delivery mission and attempted return-landing at sea to allow extra time to chill the rocket's propellant, the company said. Blast-off of the 23-story-tall booster and its payload, a SES SA communications satellite, was rescheduled for 6:46 p.m. EST (2346 GMT) on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, SpaceX said. ...
  
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• Aerial vision captures bushfire devastation of Tasmania's world heritage-listed forests – video

  25-02-2016 04:44
  
  Footage shows the extent of the destruction caused by bushfires in the Australian state’s world heritage-listed wilderness. Unlike the country’s eucalyptus forests, which use fire to regenerate, these plants have not evolved to live within the cycle of conflagration and renewal. If they are burned, they die Continue reading...
  
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• SpaceX delays launch, ocean-landing try due to technical issue

  25-02-2016 04:13
  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - SpaceX on Wednesday postponed for at least 24 hours the scheduled Florida launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on a satellite-delivery mission and attempted return-landing at sea to allow extra time to chill the rocket's propellant, the company said. Blast-off of the 23-story-tall booster and its payload, a SES SA communications satellite, was rescheduled for 6:46 p.m. EST (2346 GMT) on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, SpaceX said. Hours earl
  
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• VIDEO: Timelapse of icebreaker ship as storm moves in

  25-02-2016 04:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Footage from the Australian Antarctic Division shows the Aurora Australis at Mawson station before the ship broke free of its mooring
  
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• VIDEO: Footage of icebreaker as storm moves in

  25-02-2016 04:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Footage from the Australian Antarctic Division show the Aurora Australis at Mawson station before the ship broke free of it's mooring
  
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• Oil slips as oversupply, slowing growth outweigh strong gasoline demand

  25-02-2016 03:57
  By Henning Gloystein SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Crude prices dipped on Thursday as strong U.S. gasoline demand failed to counter downward pressure from global overproduction that has left storage facilities swelling with unsold oil. A slowing global economy, which Citi said would grow by just 2.5 percent this year compared to a previous forecast of 2.7 percent, also weighed on Brent, traders said. "Global growth prospects are worsening further, with deterioration across advanced economies alongside p
  
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• Watch this penguin walk on a treadmill in the name of science – video

  25-02-2016 03:14
  
  Researchers have placed king penguins on a treadmill to better understand their waddle and their gait. They found that while slimmer penguins were able to waddle better, having a high fat reserve helped them survive a long reproductive cycle of 14 to 18 months. Lead researcher Astrid Willener said the research was not all smooth sailing, ‘Sometimes the penguins were lazy and “water-skied” on the treadmill by leaning their back on the back wall of the treadmill. That is obviousl
  
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• Queensland solar homes are using more grid electricity than non-solar, says Energex boss

  25-02-2016 02:36
  
  Head of state-owned power distributor says solar households in the south-east previously cut grid consumption but ‘don’t worry so much about their bill now’Solar-powered homes in south-east Queensland, which boasts the world’s highest concentration of rooftop panels, have begun consuming on average more electricity from the grid than those without solar, the network operator has found. Terry Effeney, the chief executive of state-owned power distributor Energex, said the t
  
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• Beetle bumps inspire better droplets

  25-02-2016 02:15 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists have drawn inspiration from the bumpy shells of Namib desert beetles to improve the collection and transport of water droplets.
  
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