Environment news

• Diverse coastal wildlife out on display: Country diary 100 years ago

  19-06-2016 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 20 June 1916June 19.
  Deep purple marsh orchids pushed their sturdy, densely-packed heads through the damp turf, and graceful white flowers hung from the upright stalks of the wintergreens. These were in the level spaces between the dunes, but on the sand itself the pink-flowered bindweeds were out, trailing up the slopes and striving to hold the shifting grains. Good as the bindweed is, it is less effective than the restharrow, whose sticky leav
  
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• Willow warbler: our commonest, and most inconspicuous, summer migrant

  19-06-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The willow warbler, easily confused with other visitors, breeds throughout Britain, from Cornwall to ShetlandWhat’s the commonest summer visitor to our shores? The swallow perhaps, or the swift? The house martin, or the blackcap?Actually it’s the willow warbler – a bird not all that many people have heard of, let alone heard. Yet the silvery, shivery song of this tiny, leaf-like sprite is the accompaniment to the burgeoning of spring – from the Isles of Scilly in the sout
  
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• Bear attacks woman running marathon in New Mexico

  19-06-2016 21:30
  VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE, N.M. (AP) — Wildlife officials say a bear attacked a woman running a marathon in a national preserve in northern New Mexico.
  
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• Top Peruvian Amazon tourist destination invaded by gold-miners

  19-06-2016 19:53 via theguardian.com
  
  Interview with environmental activist Victor Zambrano on his work protecting the Tambopata National Reserve in Madre de DiosThe World Travel and Tourism Council predicts that travel and tourism’s “total contribution” to Peru’s GDP will exceed 11% by 2026, but how well, in the long-term, is Peru protecting its best tourist assets? Among foreign tourists easily the most popular destination in the country’s lowland Amazon region is the 274,000 hectare Tambopata Nationa
  
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• Pedestrianisation of Oxford Street: pledges, trade and trade-offs

  19-06-2016 19:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Major changes to the capital’s most famous shopping street look to be on their way, though how closely they match Sadiq Khan’s manifesto promise remains to be seen Sadiq Khan is not the first London mayor to pledge to transform Oxford Street from a clogged, smogged motor highway lined with shops into a clean, green avenue of retail walking therapy, but he just might be the last. That is because he just might do it - or, at least, provide the political drive to help others to take big
  
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• Fundraising drive aims to save seabird paradise off Scotland

  19-06-2016 19:36 via theguardian.com
  
  World heritage site of St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, is suffering a dramatic fall in species due to warming seasA fundraising appeal to help preserve St Kilda, the acclaimed world heritage site off the west coast of Scotland, has begun after research showed catastrophic crashes in seabird numbers linked to climate change.The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) is asking for donations to help fund the £270,000-a-year costs of conserving the once-populated archipelago, which s
  
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• French workers suspend strike at Fos-Lavera oil port - union official

  19-06-2016 19:02
  PARIS (Reuters) - French CGT union workers have suspended a four-week strike at the Fos-Lavera oil terminal in southern France, a union official told Reuters on Sunday. Hardline CGT members at France's biggest oil port terminal joined nationwide rolling protests against government labour reforms on May 23, disrupting the loading and unloading of vessels including oil, LNG and chemical tankers. CGT Union representative Pascal Galeote said workers at the port terminal would now join national days
  
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• UK government needs a nuclear plan B, says Tim Yeo

  19-06-2016 17:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Hinkley Point delays mean projects such as Bradwell in Essex should be fast-tracked, says former energy select committee chairMinisters need to talk to the Chinese about fast-tracking the planned reactor at Bradwell in Essex because the future of the £18bn Hinkley Point project is so uncertain, according to a leading pro-nuclear campaigner.Tim Yeo, a former chair of the energy and climate change committee, said the government should also consider whether the Russian state operator, Rosatom
  
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• Trees of life: tiny beetles turn Californian forests into tinder for energy

  19-06-2016 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Dry weather in California and growing fire risks are prompting a new effort to cull dead trees affected by bark beetles and use them to make electricityCalifornia’s record four-year drought has primed its coastal forests for a bug invasion. Millions of native bark beetles, which thrive in warm conditions, are burrowing into trees weakened by a lack of water, leaving in their wake dry, dead wood that becomes natural tinder. The beetles and drought have already killed off 29m trees, with ten
  
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• Carbon capture: UK pays firms £30m despite scrapping projects

  19-06-2016 15:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Government is accused of pouring money away with payments to companies including Shell and DraxThe government has handed out almost £30m to Shell and other companies for work on carbon capture and storage (CCS) despite scrapping their projects that could have played a role in beating climate change.The payments, revealed in a written parliamentary answer, come as the UK government is about to host the international Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum even though it has just mothballed a
  
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• Libyan unity government condemns attack near eastern oil terminals

  19-06-2016 14:47
  By Ayman al-Warfalli BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libya's U.N.-backed unity government condemned an attack by a newly-formed militia group on eastern military forces close to key oil facilities, as clashes resumed on Sunday for a second day. Fighting erupted south of the coastal town of Ajdabiya on Saturday between military units loyal to Libya's eastern government and a group calling itself the Benghazi Defence Forces. The Benghazi Defence Forces is largely composed of fighters pushed back earli
  
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• British astronaut Tim Peake's 'incredible experience'

  19-06-2016 11:56 via bbc.co.uk
  
  British astronaut Tim Peake has said he is elated to be back on earth after six months onboard the international space station.
  
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• Wentworth activists GetUp to mischief with Malcolm Turnbull's election posters

  19-06-2016 10:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Lobby group says ‘guerilla street nannas’ are out in the PM’s electorate hanging climate change posters below Turnbull’s ownWhile the ordinary voters of Wentworth sheltered from the rain on Sunday afternoon, a small group of activists set out on a stealthy campaign against their local member, the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.Dubbed the “guerilla street nannas” by GetUp climate campaign director, Sam Regester, the group, mostly comprised of women in their 60
  
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• Jay Rayner: thou shalt eat veg!

  19-06-2016 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In an extract from his new book The Ten (Food) Commandments, the restaurant critic and confirmed carnivore explains how he learned to love vegetablesA weekday lunchtime and I am standing by my stove doing something appalling. I have done bad things with food before, of course. I once ate two Pot Noodles for dinner, and didn’t even feel guilty. I am a man of appetites and sometimes those appetites make me do things. You cannot have one part of me without the other.What I am doing now is not
  
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• The lifeboat rescue teams hanging by a thread

  19-06-2016 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As one of our best-loved charities, the RNLI attracts enormous public support. But is it making life difficult for Britain’s independent lifeboat crews?It’s a sunny day on the Isle of Wight. Mark Birch is building an extension for a local shop when his pager goes off. He scans the device briefly then turns and starts running. His colleagues are not surprised. They’re used to it. Within minutes he arrives at the local lifeboat station in Sandown on the southeast coast. Soon he a
  
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• The eco guide to reusables

  19-06-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Single-use packaging is still normal practice, but every reusable receptacle saves about 100 disposable versionsI recently bought a set of top-of-the-range reusables. For coffee I got a KeepCup (keepcup.com), which fits neatly under any coffee machine, ensuring baristas don’t hate you during the morning rush. For water, famously available for free from a tap, I bought a Jerry Bottle (jerrybottle.com) and to add bubbles, a SodaStream (sodastream.co.uk) – each carbonator displaces 40 b
  
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• President Obama in Yosemite: 'Climate change is a reality'

  19-06-2016 04:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  President Barack Obama draws attention to the dangers of climate change while on a visit to Yosemite National Park in California.
  
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• The Barrier Reef is in danger – but it’s still one of the world’s great sights

  19-06-2016 01:04 via theguardian.com
  
  In Cairns, north Queensland, coral bleaching isn’t the real worry – it’s the fear that tourists won’t come because they think the reef is already deadAnyone in the Cairns tourism industry who might be feeling a sense of panic about the largest destruction of coral on the Great Barrier Reef since divers first strapped on snorkels is not letting it show.The north-eastern Australian city – a global holiday destination where the natural wonder’s name festoons ever
  
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