Environment news

• Winds and heavy showers take their toll of insect life: Country diary 100 years ago

  26-06-2016 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 1 July 1916Surrey, June 30
  The chill west winds and heavy showers take their toll of insect life. You miss the small blue butterflies on the downs, most delicate of the lesser things that fly in dozens, with slight wings that the sun shines through and tinges with all kinds of hues; two or three come carried along by the wind and escape the big drops for fifty yards or so. Then they are struck down on to the dripping bents and there is nothing l
  
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• Analysing the sound of thunderstorms

  26-06-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Weatherwatch: Meteorologists are counting ‘thunder days’ – and checking they’re not hearing jet planes or fireworksRumbles of thunder have been performing multiple symphonies in the skies recently. Already the UK has clocked up more than its average quota of thunderstorms for a whole year. Normally, the most thunder-prone region – London and the south-east – would expect to have 15 to 19 days when thunder is heard, but by mid-June that number had already been
  
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• Michael Eavis laments muddiest ever Glastonbury festival

  26-06-2016 20:44 via theguardian.com
  
  Founder says he hasn’t seen anything like it in the music feast’s 46-year history, and says it highlights climate changeGlastonbury has suffered the worst rain and mud since the festival began 46 years ago, consuming the region’s entire supply of woodchip in the process.Founder Michael Eavis said he will not consider moving the festival to later in the summer to avoid the wet, and blamed the torrential rain that hit the site in the weeks before the gates opened on global warmin
  
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• Rosatom's global nuclear ambition cramped by Kremlin politics

  26-06-2016 17:31
  By Geert De Clercq, Svetlana Burmistrova and Jack Stubbs PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The $100 billion (73 billion pounds) overseas order book of Russia's nuclear power plant builder Rosatom -- bigger than all its Western competitors combined -- makes it look like the giant in its field. Deal after deal has collapsed in Europe, where individual countries and the European Union as a whole consider it a priority to reduce dependency on Russian energy, and relations have deteriorated over Moscow's inte
  
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• UK food prices set to rise after Brexit vote

  26-06-2016 10:31 via theguardian.com
  
  Plunging pound and Britain’s reliance on imports will mean higher prices, says farmers’ leader
  Food prices are likely to go up as a short-term consequence of the British public voting to leave the EU, due to the UK’s dependence on food imports, according to the president of the National Farmers Union.Meurig Raymond said the EU referendum result had been a “political car crash” and that UK farmers who receive up to £3bn in subsidies from the EU each year were h
  
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• How the dormouse is returning to England’s hedgerows after 100 years

  26-06-2016 08:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Moves to save the tiny woodland mammal from extinction could herald the reintroduction of larger lost species such as the wolf and sea eagleMore than 100 years after they were last recorded by Victorian naturalists in Yorkshire’s Wensleydale valley, rare dormice have returned to a secret woodland location there.Last Thursday, 20 breeding pairs of rare hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) were reintroduced in the Yorkshire Dales national park as part of a national scheme to reverse the
  
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• Climate change: John Hewson accuses Coalition of 'national disgrace'

  26-06-2016 07:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Former Liberal leader says climate should be dominant issue of election campaign rather than ‘short-term politicking’ The former Liberal leader John Hewson addressed hundreds of people protesting in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay – minutes from Malcolm Turnbull’s harbourside mansion – calling on the prime minister to take stronger action on climate change.Speaking at the same time as Turnbull addressed the party faithful at the Coalition’s campaign launch, He
  
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• The eco guide to having a drink

  26-06-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Is having a pint ethically unconscientious? What’s the carbon footprint of getting drunk? Time to uncork the issuesAt the risk of channelling Al Murray’s Pub Landlord, the great British boozer is brilliantly ethical in some respects. In fact, the New Economics Foundation says your local is one of the top places in which to spend money on the high street if you want it to stay local. And now, in an effort to make watering holes ethical powerhouses, the Greener Retailing Publicans Guid
  
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• Great Barrier Reef: scientists ask Malcolm Turnbull to curb fossil fuel use

  26-06-2016 06:46 via theguardian.com
  
  International Society for Reef Studies presidents say prime minister should prioritise reef after ‘devastating’ damageAs the largest international gathering of coral reef experts comes to a close, scientists have written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, calling for action to save the world’s reefs.The letter was sent to Turnbull on Saturday imploring his government to do more to conserve the nation’s reefs and curb fossil fuel consumption. Continue read
  
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• Russia secures energy deals, talks security with China as Putin visits

  26-06-2016 03:08
  By Denis Dyomkin BEIJING (Reuters) - Russia and China sealed a raft of energy deals during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing on Saturday, strengthening economic ties while pledging to preserve the strategic balance of power among nations. The deals involve the sale of stakes in a number of Russian projects to Chinese firms, an oil supply contract and joint investments in petrochemical projects in Russia. Rosneft, Russia's top oil producer, agreed with China National Chemical Corporatio
  
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• Hardwood from illegal logging makes its way into UK stores

  26-06-2016 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Deforestation is rife in the Amazon, Colombia and the Philippines, say environmental groupsBritish shoppers could be unknowingly buying wooden furniture, flooring and even food items that are byproducts of destructive illegal logging in the Amazon, environmental campaigners are warning.Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to make companies reveal the source of their products in order to stop the black market trade. Last week human rights watchdog Global Witness revealed that 185 environm
  
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• Hebden Bridge flood victims finally get their Christmas dinner

  26-06-2016 00:41 via theguardian.com
  
  People in the Calder valley are picking up where they left off before their homes were inundated last DecemberPeople in West Yorkshire enjoyed their Christmas dinner yesterday, six months after floods inundated homes along the Calder valley.After unprecedented rainfall last December the river Calder burst its banks, flooding the market town of Hebden Bridge and the village of Mytholmroyd, forcing residents to abandon their Christmas festivities. Continue reading...
  
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