Environment news

• Food and shelter at the sewage farm: Country diary 100 years ago

  24-04-2016 23:30
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 25 April 1916A solitary swallow, alternately beating seaward over the sand and drifting downwind above the dunes and golf links, passed me as it coasted along the Wirral shore towards the Lancashire side of the river, but beyond a small party of white wagtails on the shingle and a few silent willow wrens in the bushes inland it was the only summer bird I saw. Further inland, however, more migrants have appeared, for so long ago as Good Friday a
  
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• 100 years ago: Food and shelter at the sewage farm

  24-04-2016 23:30
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 25 April 1916A solitary swallow, alternately beating seaward over the sand and drifting downwind above the dunes and golf links, passed me as it coasted along the Wirral shore towards the Lancashire side of the river, but beyond a small party of white wagtails on the shingle and a few silent willow wrens in the bushes inland it was the only summer bird I saw. Further inland, however, more migrants have appeared, for so long ago as Good Friday a
  
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• VIDEO: 'Fat' gorilla surprises zoo with baby

  24-04-2016 21:20 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A gorilla has given birth at Prague Zoo, without keepers noticing she was pregnant.
  
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• The Guardian view on the UN climate change treaty: now for some action | Editorial

  24-04-2016 20:40
  
  It was a spectacular signal of global intent on Friday when more than 170 governments signed up to the Paris deal. But it’s just the start of a long, hard roadThe danger of gala events like the official signing of the climate change treaty at the UN in New York on Friday, crowned with a guest appearance from Leonardo DiCaprio and with 60 heads of state in attendance, is the impression they create that the job is done. It was certainly a spectacular demonstration of global intent to get mor
  
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• Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant decision delayed again by EDF

  24-04-2016 19:34
  
  French economy minister says the energy giant’s green light on the £18bn project is now not expected until SeptemberThe decision on whether to go ahead with the £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power project has been delayed again, after France’s economy minister said the country’s energy giant EDF may not give it the green light until September.Emmanuel Macron’s comments come a week after he said EDF would deliver its verdict on Hinkley Point, which is set to me
  
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• Peake 'runs' London Marathon in space

  24-04-2016 18:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  UK astronaut Tim Peake has run the distance of the London Marathon on a treadmill in the International Space Station (ISS).
  
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• Ceasefire in northern Iraq after Kurd-Shi'ite clashes kill 12

  24-04-2016 18:14
  By Isabel Coles and Ghazwan Hassan TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq (Reuters) - Clashes between Kurdish and Shi'ite Turkmen paramilitary forces in northern Iraq killed at least 12 fighters and cut off a key road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk for most of Sunday before community leaders reached a ceasefire agreement. Violence in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups - uncomfortable allies against Islamic State since driv
  
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• World heading for catastrophe over natural disasters, risk expert warns

  24-04-2016 18:02
  
  With cascading crises – where one event triggers another – set to rise, international disaster risk reduction efforts are woefully underfundedThe world’s failure to prepare for natural disasters will have “inconceivably bad” consequences as climate change fuels a huge increase in catastrophic droughts and floods and the humanitarian crises that follow, the UN’s head of disaster planning has warned.Last year, earthquakes, floods, heatwaves and landslides left 2
  
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• Solar-powered plane completes historic flight over Pacific – video

  24-04-2016 17:18
  
  The solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 accomplished a 56-hour, record-setting flight over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday night. Pilot Bertrand Piccard guided the plane from Hawaii to San Francisco. The solar aircraft began its journey in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It is the first aircraft to fly day and night without fuel Continue reading...
  
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• Mushrooms, whales and hurricanes: how bio-inspiration boosts energy efficiency

  24-04-2016 17:00
  
  As bio-inspired engineering comes into its own, we take a look at the innovative technologies using nature as a blueprintThis week, the Biomimicry Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to bio-inspired engineering, announced the seven finalists in its first Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. The competitors, who come from around the globe, sought to develop efficient, nature-inspired solutions to food shortages. Their solutions copy a wide array of organisms, including an agricultural drainage system
  
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• Test of Fiat diesel model shows irregular emissions - Bild am Sonntag

  24-04-2016 16:33
  A German emissions probe conducted following the Volkswagen scandal suggested that some Fiat vehicles showed irregular levels of diesel exhaust pollution if the cars ran for longer than 22 minutes, Bild am Sonntag said. A spokesman for Fiat in Italy declined to comment. The newspaper said the investigation by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) revealed that an emissions treatment system on an unspecified Fiat model was throttled back after 22 minutes, a sign that the producer may be emp
  
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• Solar Impulse 2 lands safely in San Francisco after historic flight over Pacific

  24-04-2016 15:40
  
  Plane powered only by sun flies over Golden Gate Bridge after spending 56 hours coming from Hawaii on riskiest leg of its journey around the worldA solar-powered plane accomplished a 56-hour, record-setting flight over the Pacific Ocean, flying by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and landing in Mountain View, California late Saturday night. Related: Solar Impulse: round-the-world flight to continue after raising €20mContinue reading...
  
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• Kurd-Shi'ite clashes in northern Iraq kill ten, key road cut

  24-04-2016 14:33
  By Isabel Coles TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq (Reuters) - Clashes between Kurdish and Shi'ite Turkmen paramilitary forces in northern Iraq have killed at least 10 fighters and cut a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security and medical sources said. Violence in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups - uncomfortable allies against Islamic State since driving the jihadist militants out of towns and village
  
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• Britain says can't rule out sending troops to Libya - newspaper

  24-04-2016 14:28
  Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he could not rule out sending troops to Libya if requested to do so by the Libyan government, but that any deployment would need to be approved by parliament. Western powers are backing a new Libyan unity government, hoping it will seek foreign support to confront Islamic State militants, deal with migrant flows from Libya to Europe and restore oil production to shore up Libya's economy. Last week Hammond told parliament there were no plans to
  
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• Is divesting from fossil fuels the best tactic for tackling climate change?

  24-04-2016 13:00
  
  Earth Day will see calls on college campuses to pull funds from carbon-producing fuels but activists should consider positive ways to change energy policyIt’s April; your taxes are filed (hopefully); the cherry blossoms are out (hopefully), and Earth Day has rolled around once more. And in what is becoming yet another April ritual, on a growing number of college campuses, students are staging protests demanding that their institutions divest themselves of any holdings in companies involved
  
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• Saudis await prince's vision of future with hope and concern

  24-04-2016 11:49
  By Marwa Rashad RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabians are anticipating with hope, doubt and worry the release this week of a government plan to liberate the kingdom from its reliance on oil, which could solve deep-rooted problems but bring economic pain. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old son of King Salman, is to announce on Monday his "Saudi Vision 2030", which is expected to set goals for the next 15 years and a broad policy agenda to reach them, official sources say. Reform
  
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• Jeremy Buckingham sets Condamine river on fire, blaming fracking – video

  24-04-2016 11:18
  
  New South Wales Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham posted a video to Facebook on Friday showing him lighting the surface of the Condamine river, causing flames to rise up around his boat. He says the flames are a result of methane gas buildup, linked to the coal seam gas industry and fracking operations nearby. The government-funded science body, the CSIRO, says it is unlikely that the gas seep is linked to fracking Continue reading...
  
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• Solar Impulse completes Pacific flight

  24-04-2016 11:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The zero-fuel aeroplane Solar Impulse completes a three-day flight from Hawaii across the Pacific Ocean, to land in California.
  
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• Kurd-Shi'ite clashes in northern Iraq kill eight - sources

  24-04-2016 10:43
  Clashes between Kurdish and Shi'ite Turkmen paramilitary forces broke out late on Saturday in northern Iraq, killing at least eight people and cutting a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security and medical sources said. Violence in Tuz Khurmatu, about 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups, uncomfortable allies against Islamic State since driving the jihadist militants out of towns and villages in the area
  
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• You can buy a cheap chicken today, but we all pay for it in the long run | Patrick Holden

  24-04-2016 10:00
  
  Industrial agriculture comes with a high cost to the environment and people’s health, says a leading sustainable farmerHave you ever asked yourself why an everyday “value” chicken can now be cheaper, pound for pound, than bread? Cheap chicken has become the “healthy” meat of choice for most shoppers and sales are booming, up 20% since 2000 in the UK. But is it really either cheap or healthy?Producers who use intensive methods are not financially accountable for the
  
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• If consumers knew how farmed chickens were raised, they might never eat their meat again

  24-04-2016 10:00
  
  The debate about animal welfare has intensifiedThe year 2012 marked a leap forward for animal welfare in the European Union. Farmers were no longer allowed to keep egg-laying hens in barren battery cages smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. Instead, the minimum requirement now is that hens are kept in a cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with an extra postcard-sized bit of shared space that allows them to scratch and nest. These are known as enriched cages.Animal welfare campaigners would like
  
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• Investors look beyond Big Oil's worst quarter yet

  24-04-2016 09:23
  By Karolin Schaps and Ron Bousso LONDON (Reuters) - The world's top oil companies are set to report their worst quarterly results yet in the current downturn but a recent recovery in crude prices is raising hopes the market has bottomed out. Oil companies have slashed spending budgets by more than 25 percent since 2014, scrapped dozens of multi-billion dollar projects, slashed tens of thousands of jobs and reduced costs by at least 20 percent in the face of the price slump. Some companies, such
  
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• Olafur Eliasson and the power of the sun

  24-04-2016 09:00
  
  First Olafur Eliasson invented the Little Sun solar-powered lamp for parts of the world without electricity (and Glastonbury). Now the artist has come up with a solar-powered phone chargerInstallation artist Olafur Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic parents. He is best known for creating a giant sun in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2003, viewed by more than 2 million people, and for making four dramatic waterfalls in New York harbour in 2008. In 2012, he launched Little S
  
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• River on fire in Greens MP's video is natural, not fracking, says CSIRO

  24-04-2016 08:40
  
  Jeremy Buckingham says scientists ‘making excuses’ for CSG industry after footage shows him touching off sheet of flame on the Condamine riverThe CSIRO has defended its independence after a Greens MP, whose footage of burning methane on a Queensland river went viral, accused the government-funded research body of “making excuses” for the coal seam gas industry. Jeremy Buckingham, a member of the New South Wales parliament’s upper house, posted the video, which showe
  
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• Solar Impulse 2 reaches San Francisco after flight across Pacific

  24-04-2016 08:24
  
  Plane powered only by sun flies over Golden Gate Bridge after spending 56 hours coming from Hawaii on riskiest leg of its journey around the worldThe sun-powered plane Solar Impulse 2 performed a flyby over San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday after a 56-hour flight over the Pacific Ocean. Related: Solar Impulse: round-the-world flight to continue after raising €20mContinue reading...
  
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• Death toll from Ecuador earthquake surpasses 650

  24-04-2016 02:51
  "These have been sad days for the homeland," President Rafael Correa said during his weekly television broadcast earlier on Saturday. Survivors in the quake zone were receiving food, water and medicine from the government and scores of foreign aid workers, although Correa has acknowledged that bad roads delayed aid reaching some communities. Correa's leftist government, facing mammoth rebuilding at a time of greatly reduced oil revenues for the OPEC country, has said it would temporarily increas
  
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• US moves to sell gene-edited mushrooms fuel doubts over British ban on GM imports

  24-04-2016 01:05
  
  Approval for modified crops in America adds to confusion in UK on new-tech foodstuffsAmerican regulators have allowed the cultivation and sale of two crops modified with the gene-editing technique known as Crispr. The crops – a white button mushroom and a form of corn – are the first Crispr plants to be permitted for commercial use in the US.The move is a boost for new technology in the creation of foodstuffs, but is expected to worsen the considerable confusion in Britain over the u
  
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• My beef is truly local. If only that were true of all meat

  24-04-2016 01:04
  
  A Gloucester farmer argues for an ethical food supply chain that will benefit consumers and producers alikeThe prime highs of any farmer’s year are the occasions when animal and farmer share the moment. The annual ritual of turning the cattle out from winter quarters to our ancient river meadows is one such moment for us all here at Willow Hill, Gloucestershire. It is their rollicking freedom and home until the late autumn rains. It is our freedom and joy too. Man or beast, you need to be
  
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