Environment news

• Colorado River's dead clams tell tales of carbon emission

  28-10-2016 23:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  Scientists have begun to account for the topsy-turvy carbon cycle of the Colorado River delta – once a massive green estuary of grassland, marshes and cottonwood, now desiccated dead land.“We’ve done a lot in the United States to alter water systems, to dam them. The river irrigates our crops and makes energy. What we really don’t understand is how our poor water management is affecting other natural systems – in this case, carbon cycling,” said Cornell’
  
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• Why the attack on 'foreign-funded' environment groups stinks of hypocrisy | Graham Readfearn

  28-10-2016 23:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Supporters of coal projects want transparency and proper use of charity status – but only when they support their argumentsYou might have noticed that all of a sudden, Australians are supposed to be appalled by foreign interests getting in the way of us digging up as much coal as we want, thanks very much.Last weekend the Australian newspaper started running stories based on a “revelation” from the inbox of John Podesta, the chairman of Democratic nominee for president Hillary
  
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• OPEC officials fail to agree on how to curb oil supplies

  28-10-2016 22:40
  By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal VIENNA/DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC officials meeting in Vienna to work out the details of their plan to reduce oil production failed to reach agreement after hours of talks on Friday, amid objections by Iran which has been reluctant to even freeze its output, OPEC sources said. The High Level Committee of experts will meet again in Vienna on Nov. 25 ahead of the next meeting of OPEC ministers on Nov. 30, to "finalise individual quotas", one source said. "Yes, we cont
  
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• See How Arctic Sea Ice Is Losing Its Bulwark Against Warming Summers

  28-10-2016 22:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Arctic sea ice, the vast sheath of frozen seawater floating on the Arctic Ocean and its neighboring seas, has been hit with a double whammy over the past decades: as its extent shrunk, the oldest and thickest ice has either thinned or melted away, leaving the sea ice cap more vulnerable to the warming ocean and atmosphere.“What we’ve seen over the years is that the older ice is disappearing,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in G
  
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• Oil ends week down on uncertainty over OPEC cuts

  28-10-2016 22:32
  By Ethan Lou NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices settled below $50 on Friday to mark their biggest weekly loss in six weeks, on concerns OPEC will not fully carry out a planned output cut, even as data showed U.S. oil drillers removed rigs from production for the first time since June. Oil services company Baker Hughes Inc said two rigs were cut this week, ending a 17-week recovery in the number supplying the market.
  
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• Super Emitters - are responsible for more than half of U.S. methane emissions

  28-10-2016 21:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  The bulk of methane emissions in the United States can be traced to a small number of “super emitting” natural gas wells, according to a new study.“We’re finding that when it comes to natural gas leaks, a 50/5 rule applies: That is, the largest 5 percent of leaks are typically responsible for more than 50 percent of the total volume of leakage,” said study co-author Adam Brandt, an assistant professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford’s School o
  
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• Shipping industry to introduce global emissions strategy in 2018

  28-10-2016 21:32
  
  The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has approved a roadmap through to 2023 on the global adoption on an emissions reduction strategy, scheduled to come into force in 2018; although the Organisation has been criticised over delaying action.
  
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• OPEC officials yet to agree on how to implement supply cut

  28-10-2016 21:17
  By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal VIENNA/DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC officials meeting in Vienna on Friday to work out the details of their plan to reduce oil production had yet to reach agreement after hours of talks, amid objections by Iran which has been reluctant to even freeze its output, OPEC sources said. The meeting of the High Level Committee is comprised mainly of OPEC governors and national representatives - officials who report to their respective ministers. Talks were continuing 11 hours
  
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• New biochar model scrubs CO2 from the atmosphere

  28-10-2016 21:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  New Cornell University research suggests an economically viable model to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to thwart global warming.The researchers propose using a “bioenergy-biochar system” that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an environmental pinch, until other removal methods become economically feasible and in regions where other methods are impractical. Their work appeared in the Oct. 21 edition of Nature Communications.
  
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• Oil prices slip, OPEC doubts offset U.S. rig count decline

  28-10-2016 20:19
  By Ethan Lou NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell below $50 on Friday and were poised for their biggest weekly loss in six weeks on doubts over OPEC's planned output cut, even as data showed U.S. oil drillers cut rigs for the first time since June. Data by oil services company Baker Hughes Inc showed U.S. oil drillers cut two rigs this week, ending a 17-week recovery in the rig count. "All of the focus prices-wise is on the OPEC meeting right now ... I don't think we're going to get any positive
  
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• Russia's Rosneft submits draft Bashneft buyout offer to regulator

  28-10-2016 19:26
  Russian energy major Rosneft has sent a draft mandatory offer to the central bank to buy the shares it does not already own in oil firm Bashneft , Rosneft said in a regulatory statement on Friday. A spokesman for Rosneft said the move was a step toward making a proper offer to Bashneft shareholders. Rosneft is seeking government approval to buy up to 100 percent of shares in Bashneft after acquiring a controlling stake earlier this month as part of a state privatisation drive.
  
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• Shipping industry criticised for failure to reach carbon emissions deal

  28-10-2016 19:18 via theguardian.com
  
  International Maritime Organisation agrees sulphur emissions cap but is condemned for delaying measures to cut greenhouse gasesThe world’s leading shipping organisation has been condemned by environmental campaigners and MEPs for its failure to urgently tackle the industry’s impact on climate change, after it agreed only to a partial reduction in harmful emissions from ships.The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), meeting in London, agreed to cap emissions of sulphur from ship
  
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• Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive review – the imperilled world of the bee

  28-10-2016 18:59 via theguardian.com
  
  A passionate celebration of bees combined with a calmly reasoned critique of industrialised farmingMark Winston has spent 30 years studying and working with bees. His book is a passionate celebration of bees, apiaries and honey, as well as a calmly reasoned critique of industrialised farming and a plea to halt the dramatic decline in bee numbers. Sixty five per cent of plant species depend on bees for pollination: “a world without bees would be almost impossible to contemplate”. And
  
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• Oil prices slip, OPEC doubts weigh ahead of U.S. rig count data

  28-10-2016 18:22
  By Ethan Lou NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell below $50 on Friday, on track for their biggest weekly loss in six weeks, on doubts about OPEC's planned output cut and ahead of U.S. rig count data that has steadily increased in the last few months. Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries experts and counterparts from non-member producers such as Russia started two-day negotiations on Friday in Vienna on limiting output to curb a global glut that has weighed on markets for two years.
  
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• Halloween: The living nightmare for the waste management industry

  28-10-2016 18:16
  
  It's the time of year where people dress up as vampires and werewolves - and probably Ken Bone this year - but for those who have to deal with the waste that Halloween generates, the real horrors rise up from the tombs of cheap costumes and plastic broomsticks.
  
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• EU lifts cap on Gazprom's use of Nord Stream pipeline link

  28-10-2016 18:11
  By Alissa de Carbonnel BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Friday lifted limits on Gazprom's use of a key link from its offshore Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, allowing Russia to pump more gas to Europe and bypass its usual routes via Ukraine. Together with a separate move to settle an antitrust case against Gazprom, the resolution of key disputes with Moscow angers some EU nations who want a tougher stance toward Russia over its military engagement in Ukraine and Syria. Under the decis
  
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• Russia to push ahead with asset sales, starting with Rosneft stake

  28-10-2016 18:09
  By Darya Korsunskaya and Katya Golubkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian government will sign off on the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in state oil firm Rosneft early next week, pushing ahead with a privatisation programme as it seeks to plug holes in the state budget. Moscow has said it aims to raise 700 billion roubles (£9.17 billion) by selling the Rosneft stake, although the company is under Western sanctions imposed over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis, which may limit interest by W
  
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• Russia's Putin to get oil firms together before OPEC meeting - sources

  28-10-2016 17:43
  President Vladimir Putin will organise a gathering of domestic oil producers a week before the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on November 30 to discuss possible output curbs, industry sources told Reuters on Friday. A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment and the Energy Ministry declined to discuss the matter. Earlier on Friday, the Interfax news agency cited Energy Ministry documents prepared for the commission as saying that the market impact of an
  
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• Mass extinction, whaling and a new marine park – green news roundup

  28-10-2016 17:33 via theguardian.com
  
  The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...
  
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• Oil prices slip below $50 a barrel on doubts over production cut deal

  28-10-2016 15:50
  By Karolin Schaps LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped below $50 a barrel on Friday and were set for the biggest weekly losses in six weeks over doubts about whether producers will be able to agree on an output cut big enough to curb a global glut that has weighed on markets for two years. Experts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and counterparts from other oil-producing nations such as Russia started two-day negotiations on Friday over an output-capping agreement expe
  
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• Prince Charles joins clean soil project to combat climate change

  28-10-2016 15:38 via theguardian.com
  
  Prince of Wales says soil health is of ‘critical importance’ as he joins initiative to keep carbon locked in the world’s soilsPrince Charles urged governments, individuals and businesses to take greater care of the world’s soils as part of an initiative aimed at keeping carbon locked in soil, rather than escaping into the atmosphere and causing global warming.The “4 per 1000” project is a pledge to reduce the amount of carbon leaked from soils by 0.4% a year,
  
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• Russian finance ministry confident to get proceeds from Rosneft sale in 2016

  28-10-2016 15:29
  By Andrey Ostroukh MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian Finance Ministry is confident that proceeds from the sale of a state stake in Rosneft will reach the federal budget this year, but doubts that further privatisation of the firm is needed, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday. The government wants to sell 19.5 percent in Rosneft, the country's largest oil producer, as it will allow it to keep a controlling stake in the company, Siluanov said. Should Russia sell another 10 percent in the
  
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• Ecotricity launches new 'Ecobond' amidst acquisition of Good Energy shares

  28-10-2016 15:25
  UK green energy supplier Ecotricity has continued to expand its influence in the renewable energy sector with the launch of its fourth "Ecobond", alongside news that it has acquired significant stakes in rival renewable energy supplier Good Energy.
  
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• Russia's Rosneft seeks to increase stake in Bashneft

  28-10-2016 15:15
  By Darya Korsunskaya and Oksana Kobzeva MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian energy major Rosneft is seeking government approval to buy up to 100 percent of oil firm Bashneft after acquiring a controlling stake earlier this month as a part of a state privatisation drive. State-controlled Rosneft paid 330 billion roubles (£4.32 billion) for a 50.1 percent stake in Bashneft, higher than other bidders offered, including privately-owned oil company Lukoil . The region of Bashkortostan owns about 25 perc
  
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• Russia says oil output freeze may be short-lived - Ifax

  28-10-2016 15:11
  MOSCOW (Reuters) - Global oil output freeze impact could be short-lived due to a quick recovery in shale oil production in the United States, Interfax news agency cited Russian Energy Ministry documents on Friday. The documents were prepared for a commission on the energy sector under the aegis of President Vladimir Putin. The commission is due to meet on Nov. 9. Russian energy ministry was not available for immediate comment. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Katya Golubkova)
  
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• North Dakota pipeline: 141 arrests as protesters pushed back from site

  28-10-2016 15:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Deploying pepper spray and armored vehicles marked beginning of new phase to thwart demonstrations to prevent construction of the controversial oil pipelineSupport the Guardian’s independent journalism by making a contribution or becoming a memberLaw enforcement officials arrested 141 people in North Dakota after police surrounded protesters, deploying pepper spray and armored vehicles in order to clear hundreds of Native American activists and supporters from land owned by an oil pipeline
  
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• Supply chain barriers stall business 'journey' to end modern slavery, report finds

  28-10-2016 15:01
  
  Almost exactly a year to the day since the Modern Slavery Act came into force in Britain, a new report has found that business efforts to address modern slavery face several risks and barriers such as supply chain complexity, commercial priorities and transparency dilemmas.
  
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• Food and Energy Demand Drives 58 Percent Decline in Global Wildlife Populations

  28-10-2016 14:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  Global populations of vertebrates -- mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish -- have declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012, states a new report from World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Animals living in the world’s lakes, rivers, and freshwater systems have experienced the most dramatic population declines, at 81 percent. Because of human activity, the report states that without immediate intervention global wildlife populations could drop two-thirds by 2020.
  
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• Shipping sector agrees new deal to cap sulphur levels

  28-10-2016 13:34
  
  The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is finally introducing steps - albeit small - to reduce the environmental impact of the shipping industry, after 170 countries agreed on a new global deal to introduce a cap on sulphur emissions in 2020.
  
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• 'Ghost Fishing' Kills Long After the Gear Is Lost

  28-10-2016 13:28
  
  Left-behind fishing gear that continues to catch — sometimes called ghost fishing — entraps sea life from the world's largest animal, the blue whale, to the critically endangered small tooth sawfish, according to a new study. "Entanglement is the likely cause of death for many marine organisms, particularly whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, sharks, turtles and rays," lead author Martin Stelfox told Seeker. Stelfox is the founder and director of the Oliver Ridley
  
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• Business sustainability integration hampered by short-termism, survey finds

  28-10-2016 13:13
  
  The progress of integrating sustainability within business operations is still being hindered by a focus on short-term results and a lack of management awareness, according to a new survey conducted by a global consultant in risk management.
  
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• Climate change is invisible, insidious and urgent. Can the arts help us see it?

  28-10-2016 13:12 via theguardian.com
  
  The fact of climate change is beyond serious dispute, but has yet to become part of mainstream discourse in the UK or indeed beyond. Arts and climate science collaboration can help change this Soaring mercury, sinking cities, mass extinctions. It is easy to catastrophise climate change: faced with the sheer enormity of the climate challenge, people can tend towards despair and nihilism. For others, its seeming distance (both chronologically and, for many of us in the global north in particular,
  
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• German constitutional court says nuclear exit ruling on Dec. 6

  28-10-2016 12:53
  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's constitutional court on Friday said it will rule on December 6 on claims brought by power producers that a government decision to end nuclear power earlier than planned amounted to expropriation. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March 2011, Germany announced plans to exit nuclear energy by 2022, effectively speeding up a plan first drawn up in 2002 to eventually shut all of the country's reactors. Three utilities - E.ON, RWE and Vattenfall [VATN.UL] se
  
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• Shipping industry agrees to cap sulphur emissions by 2020

  28-10-2016 12:52 via theguardian.com
  
  Cap on sulphur content of marine fuels worldwide will save millions of lives in the coming decades, say campaigners. BusinessGreen reportsThe International Maritime Organisation (IMO) agreed on Thursday to set a cap on the sulphur content of marine fuels, in a move that campaigners predict will save millions of lives in the coming decades.At a meeting of the IMO’s environment protection committee this week shipping officials agreed to cap the sulphur content of marine fuels sold around the
  
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• Russia to order 19.5 percent Rosneft stake sale next week - source

  28-10-2016 12:28
  By Darya Korsunskaya MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian government will order the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in state oil firm Rosneft early next week, a government source told reporters on Friday. The state this month sold a 50.1 percent stake in mid-sized oil firm Bashneft to Rosneft for 330 billion roubles. "In case we don't succeed in time, we will have to simply take the funds from Rosneft.
  
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• Oil prices edge lower on doubts over production cut deal

  28-10-2016 10:59
  By Karolin Schaps LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices edged lower on Friday and were set for the biggest weekly losses in six weeks over doubts about whether OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers will be able to agree on an output cut big enough to curb a global glut that has weighed on markets for two years. Weak prices have also hit Italian oil firm ENI, which reported a worse-than-expected quarterly loss on Friday.
  
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• Landmark agreement will create world’s largest marine park in Antarctica – video report

  28-10-2016 09:57 via theguardian.com
  
  A landmark international agreement will create the world’s largest marine park in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, an environment home to most of the world’s penguins and whales. More than 1.5m sq km of the Ross Sea around Antarctica will be protected under the deal which was brokered in Australia between 24 countries and the European Union Continue reading...
  
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• Landmark agreement will create world’s largest marine park in Antarctica – video

  28-10-2016 09:57 via theguardian.com
  
  A landmark international agreement will create the world’s largest marine park in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, an environment home to most of the world’s penguins and whales. More than 1.5m sq km of the Ross Sea around Antarctica will be protected under the deal which was brokered in Australia between 24 countries and the European Union Continue reading...
  
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• Italy's Eni confirms targets after worse than forecast loss

  28-10-2016 09:16
  By Stephen Jewkes MILAN (Reuters) - Italian oil major Eni stuck to its targets on Friday, despite reporting a worse-than-expected net loss in the third quarter as a result of lower oil prices and a domestic production shutdown. Commitments by OPEC last month to restrain output to boost prices have helped buoy sentiment in the industry but Eni, like other oil companies, is still feeling the impact of a fall in crude prices of more than 50 percent since mid-2014. Eni said in a statement that its a
  
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• Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?

  28-10-2016 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The climate crisis casts a much smaller shadow on literary fiction than it does on the world. We are living through a crisis of culture – and of the imaginationIt is a simple fact that climate change has a much smaller presence in contemporary literary fiction than it does even in public discussion. As proof of this, we need only glance through the pages of literary journals and book reviews. When the subject of climate change occurs, it is almost always in relation to nonfiction; novels a
  
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• Shippers brace for new rules to cut deadly sulphur emissions

  28-10-2016 08:53
  By Roslan Khasawneh and Keith Wallis SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The global shipping industry is bracing for a key regulatory decision that could mark a milestone in reducing maritime pollution, but which could nearly double fuel costs in a sector already reeling from its worst downturn in decades. The shipping industry is among the world's largest emitters of sulphur behind the energy industry, with the sulphur dioxide (SOx) content in heavy fuel oil up to 3,500 times higher than the latest European
  
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• Growing up - Rule changes help India's oil market act its size

  28-10-2016 08:23
  By Nidhi Verma and Promit Mukherjee NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Freed from a layer of fusty bureaucracy, India's state refiners are helping the country evolve an oil market that reflects its status as both the world's fastest growing major economy and oil consumer. Changes to import rules mean officials from India's state-owned oil refiners no longer have to stand in the corridors of the Oil Ministry waiting for government bureaucrats to approve their spot imports. This freedom allows state ref
  
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• Eni posts third-quarter net loss, misses expectations

  28-10-2016 08:21
  Italian oil major Eni posted an adjusted net loss in the third quarter worse than expected due to lower oil prices and a production shutdown at a key Italian field. In a statement Eni said its adjusted net loss in the quarter was 0.484 billion euros (434 million pounds), below an analyst consensus provided by the company for a loss of 0.07 billion euros. Eni, which confirmed it would cut investments this year by 20 percent, said it expected oil and gas output for the year to be substantially in
  
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• Total third-quarter beats forecast on increased output and cost savings

  28-10-2016 08:13
  French oil and gas major Total on Friday reported a better than expected third quarter net profit thanks to increased output from new projects and costs savings and despite a fall in refining margins in Europe and the prolonged downturn in a volatile oil market. * Total said third quarter adjusted net income was $2.1billion (1.72 billion pounds), down 25 percent compared with thesame quarter in 2015. * A Reuters average poll of analysts had pegged Total's Q3adjusted net profit at $1.880 billion.
  
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• Grouse shooting estates shored up by millions in subsidies

  28-10-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Common agricultural policy money given to estates in England, including one owned by the Duke of Westminster, Britain’s richest landownerEngland’s vast grouse shooting estates receive millions of pounds in public subsidies according to an investigation by Friends of the Earth.Thirty of the estates received £4m of taxpayer’s money between them in 2014, the year examined by the pressure group, including one owned by the Duke of Westminster, the richest landowner in Britain
  
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• Toadstools shine like cat's eyes in the wood

  28-10-2016 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Odell, Bedfordshire An ape-like shuffle brings me under coppiced hazel bushes to a string of pale, sunlit fungi, their fresh young caps wrinkled like old skinA thousand or more years ago there were blue harvests in the fields around Odell. The village was named after the plants that produced the vivid dye beloved of ancient Britons, though, over time, the Saxon’s Woad Hill contracted into its modern form. Today the fields grow no woad, but harvests of a different sort can be found on the c
  
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• Dakota Access pipeline protesters pepper sprayed by police – video

  28-10-2016 05:31 via theguardian.com
  
  Protests against the controversial Dakota Access pipeline move into a new phase when police in North Dakota make mass arrests and deploy pepper spray against protesters and the media. Activists say tear gas was also used, claims the county sheriff denies Continue reading...
  
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• Oil prices set for weekly drop on doubts OPEC can coordinate output cut

  28-10-2016 05:22
  By Henning Gloystein SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices were steady on Friday, but on track for a weekly loss of more than 2 percent on uncertainty over whether OPEC would be able to coordinate a production cut big enough to curb a global glut that has dogged markets for two years. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 4 cents at $49.76 a barrel. Traders said there was reluctance in the market to move prices too far in either direction given the uncertainty over a output cut by the Organ
  
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