Environment news

• New life seen in everything after heavy rain: Country diary 100 years ago

  22-05-2016 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 27 May 1916Surrey
  In one of our valleys, where a narrow river eats its way through rich, deep soil and yet runs over a gravel bed, the heavy rain this morning sent down small cascades from the extended boughs of trees that are all in full leaf: elms, chestnuts, lime, sycamore, and, in the middle of the meadows, beeches and oaks. The big tassels of the sycamores, green and gold, held the water almost like a sponge. Along the banks the nettles, th
  
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• France has reserves to cope with oil refinery blockades, PM says

  22-05-2016 22:45
  Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday France had enough fuel reserves to tackle shortages at hundreds of gas stations caused by workers blocking oil refineries and depots in protest against reforms to labour laws. France has been hit by a wave of strikes over the past week aimed at pressuring the socialist government of President Francois Hollande to withdraw labour reforms that unions consider unfavourable to workers. One out of five gas stations in the country were facing fuel shortages,
  
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• The long-distance migrants are back in force

  22-05-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  After a slow spring, Stephen Moss’s favourite summer visitors have all returned to Somerset – cuckoo, swift, hobby and a surprise redstartSometimes birds appear when you least expect them. One evening towards the end of April I was driving my son to football training when the first swifts of the year zoomed past – low as fighter jets, heading due north.On the way back, I thought I’d stop to see if there were any more. No swifts, but a real surprise, heralded by a flash of
  
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• Militants attack Agip pipeline in Nigeria's Bayelsa state

  22-05-2016 18:09
  By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A crude oil pipeline in Nigeria's southern state of Bayelsa operated by the local subsidiary of Italy's Eni was attacked on Sunday, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSDC) said. The attack comes just days after President Muhammadu Buhari said he had heightened the military presence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, where attacks in the last few weeks have driven the country's oil output to a more than 20-year low. Desmond Agu, a spokesma
  
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• U.N. says Sudan refuses to renew permit of senior humanitarian official

  22-05-2016 17:57
  The United Nations said on Sunday that Sudanese authorities had declined to renew a permit for the head of its humanitarian coordination office in Khartoum, Ivo Freijsen, saying he was being effectively expelled from the country. A statement from the UN humanitarian country team in Sudan expressed "shock and disappointment at the de facto expulsion by the Government of Sudan of one of its senior UN officials." It said Freijsen was the fourth UN official to be expelled by Sudan in the last two ye
  
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• French gas stations hit by blockades, PM says reserves enough to cope

  22-05-2016 16:59
  Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday France had enough fuel reserves to tackle shortages at hundreds of gas stations caused by workers blocking oil refineries and depots in protest at an unpopular labour reform. About 820 stations out of a total of 11,500 petrol stations in France were out of all fuel on Sunday and another 800 were lacking at least one type of fuel, Transport Minister Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio. France has been hit by strikes after President Francois Hollande's Soc
  
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• It's our duty as Americans to protect our national parks for the next hundred years —Alex Honnold

  22-05-2016 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Rock climber Alex Honnold argues we must do more to defend US national parks from a slew of imminent environmental threatsJust over eight years ago, I completed a free solo ascent – unroped – of the one of the most beautiful and challenging climbs in the world: a 350 metre crack called Moonlight Buttress in southwestern Utah’s Zion national park. At the time, Alpinist magazine called it “one of the most impressive free solos ever achieved.”While I find it hard to ar
  
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• It's our duty as Americans to protect our national parks for the next hundred years | Alex Honnold

  22-05-2016 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Rock climber Alex Honnold argues we must do more to defend US national parks from a slew of imminent environmental threatsJust over eight years ago, I completed a free solo ascent – unroped – of the one of the most beautiful and challenging climbs in the world: a 350 metre crack called Moonlight Buttress in southwestern Utah’s Zion national park. At the time, Alpinist magazine called it “one of the most impressive free solos ever achieved.”While I find it hard to ar
  
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• The eco guide to geodesic domes

  22-05-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Take a leaf from the designs of Buckminster Fuller and redefine the space you live in with a freedomeMost of us are trapped in rectangular living, trying to retrofit eco-efficiency, but we could be enjoying life in a geodesic freedome. For starters, freedomes are inherently efficient: they need no intermediate columns or supporting walls. After all, a geodesic line is the shortest line between two points on the surface of a spheroid, and the sphere is nature’s most efficient shape.Buckmins
  
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• Solar Impulse aeroplane reaches Ohio

  22-05-2016 05:46 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The zero-fuel aeroplane, Solar Impulse, has landed in Dayton, Ohio, after flying from Oklahoma on the latest leg of its round-the-world journey.
  
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• The Observer view on the GM crops debate

  22-05-2016 01:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Europe can no longer turn its back on the benefits of genetically modified cropsFor a generation, a campaign by the green movement against the growing of genetically modified crops has held sway across Europe. These foodstuffs are a threat to health, the environment and the small independent farmer, NGOs have argued. As result, virtually no GM crops have been grown on Europe’s farms for the past 25 years. Yet hard evidence to support what is, in all but name, a ban on these vilified forms
  
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