Environment news

• Ageing royal fern increases in beauty: Country diary 100 years ago

  13-11-2016 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 17 November 1916The bracken is past its best, withered to a dull, uninteresting brown; its crippled stems, stiff and splintering, prick painfully as we wade through the wood where so short a time ago the fronds were breast-high. The ferns vary in autumn beauty according to their kind, some remaining dark green when their tips are curled and dead, grey or almost black; the osmunda, however, rightly named royal, increases in beauty as it ages. It
  
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• An inconvenient truth about Bonfire Night pollution

  13-11-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Substances released during Guy Fawkes celebrations are often the very pollutants that industry goes to great lengths to filter outGuy Fawkes is often the most polluted evening of the year. Smoke from bonfires and fireworks can build up in our towns and cities. This smoke contains a unique mixture of metal particles that are used to propel and colour fireworks. These include red (strontium or lithium), blue (copper) and bright green and white (barium). Lead, titanium and antimony produce crackles
  
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• Coyote Peterson's 'Brave Wilderness': a one-man quest to be attacked by insects

  13-11-2016 21:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Host of Brave Wilderness YouTube channel travels around world trying to get animals and insects to bite him – and give viewers a ‘vicarious experience’One of Coyote Peterson’s most popular YouTube videos shows him writhing around in agony on the ground. He’s just been stung by a tarantula hawk, a giant wasp that is considered to have the second most painful sting of any insect.For the first 15 seconds Peterson is unable to speak. He just screams and grabs at the dir
  
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• The Guardian view on climate change: Trump spells disaster | Editorial

  13-11-2016 19:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Delegates have gathered in Marrakech to celebrate ratification of the Paris deal on climate change. But the US elections risk turning it into a wakeReaching a global agreement on climate change took more than 20 years of tortuous negotiations. Signed just under a year ago, the insufficient but workable Paris agreement at last constructed a legally binding framework for the principle of cutting carbon emissions. It was to be the foundation of a sustained ratcheting up of ambition that would hold
  
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• Former air force commander wins Bulgaria presidential election - exit polls

  13-11-2016 19:38
  By Tsvetelia Tsolova and Angel Krasimirov SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarian Socialist ally Rumen Radev, a Russia-friendly newcomer to politics, won Sunday's presidential election by a large margin, exit polls showed, possibly paving the way for months of political instability in the small Black Sea state. A former air force commander, Radev campaigned on strong anti-migrant rhetoric and an argument that it was in the country's interest to find a balance between the requirements of its European Union m
  
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• Audi software can distort emissions in tests, VW says

  13-11-2016 19:21
  Audi cars with automatic transmissions have technology capable of distorting emissions when they are tested, Volkswagen said, as its luxury flagship is battling allegations over a reported discovery of a new cheat software device. Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper said a week ago that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had this summer discovered cheating software in an older Audi model, which is unrelated to the device that triggered last year's diesel emissions test-cheating scandal at
  
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• Nigerian militants say army presence prompts Niger Delta attacks

  13-11-2016 18:05
  A Nigerian militant group said on Sunday the continued presence of the army in the southern Niger Delta energy hub has undermined peace talks and prompted attacks on oil and gas facilities in the region. The Niger Delta Avengers spoke out days after the oil minister urged militants to stop attacks following strikes on the Trans Forcados Pipeline, main contributor to the Forcados crude stream, the most recent of which was claimed by the NDA. Most groups have adhered to a ceasefire in the last few
  
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• 'Enter the sting zone': Coyote Peterson is on a mission to be attacked by insects

  13-11-2016 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Host of Brave Wilderness YouTube channel travels around world trying to get animals and insects to bite him – and give viewers a ‘vicarious experience’One of Coyote Peterson’s most popular YouTube videos shows him writhing around in agony on the ground. He’s just been stung by a tarantula hawk, a giant wasp that is considered to have the second most painful sting of any insect.For the first 15 seconds Peterson is unable to speak. He just screams and grabs at the dir
  
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• Why the media must make climate change a vital issue for President Trump

  13-11-2016 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The absence of climate change as a leading topic in the election was a failure of the media – and it’s now their responsibility to get Americans talking about itImagine the world was facing upheaval on a scale not seen during modern civilization, a change that would imperil the world’s great cities by the rising seas and snuff out species at at the fastest rate since the dinosaurs disappeared. Then imagine you were a journalist, had repeated chances to ask the next president of
  
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• Trump seeking quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report

  13-11-2016 10:02 via theguardian.com
  
  The president-elect wants to bypass the theoretical four-year procedure to exit the accord, according to a Reuters sourceDonald Trump is looking at quick ways of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement in defiance of widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters has reported.Since the US president-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement at 200-nation climate talks runn
  
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• ‘The challenge is to provide for everyone’: the National Trust under fire

  13-11-2016 09:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The conservation organisation is increasingly focused on reaching a wider range of people. But recent controversies highlight deep divisions over its purposeThe Vyne in Hampshire, in the care of the National Trust since 1956, has something of a split personality, comprising as it does the remains of a Tudor mansion, built for Henry VIII’s Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sandys, and an 18th century country pile, once the home of the vividly named Chaloner Chute, speaker of the House of Commons in th
  
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• Dirty Danube: looming pollution threats to the world’s most international river

  13-11-2016 09:08 via theguardian.com
  
  After barely surviving decades of pollution during the communist era, the Danube is facing new threats from microplastics, pesticides and pharma wasteLooking out over the Danube river as it passes through central Budapest, Gabor Farkass, director of Hungarian Plastics Association, bemoans his local authority’s careless attitude to recycling . “There are some sad pictures coming out in the media, because [scientists] check the riverbed, they check inside fish and birds, and they find
  
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• Scientists step into dance world at The Royal Ballet

  13-11-2016 05:24 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Royal Ballet and the School of Sport, Health and Applied Science (SHAS) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham have joined forces to deliver sports science support to dancers.
  
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• Trump looking at quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report

  13-11-2016 03:09 via theguardian.com
  
  The president-elect wants to bypass the theoretical four-year procedure to exit the accord, according to a Reuters sourceDonald Trump is seeking quick ways of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement in defiance of widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters has reported.Since the US president-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement at 200-nation climate talks running
  
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• Adani Carmichael mine opponents join Indigenous climate change project

  13-11-2016 01:58 via theguardian.com
  
  The Wangan and Jagalingou are divided over allowing Adani to exploit Galilee basin homelands for Carmichael coalmineTraditional owners fighting to stop Australia’s largest proposed coalmine are at the centre of a new University of Queensland project exploring worldwide Indigenous rights movements in the era of climate upheaval.Leaders from the Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners council, who are enmeshed in a legal and lobbying effort to head off Adani’s Carmichael mine, will co
  
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