Environment news

• The politics of harsh winters

  15-01-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  In the past, extreme weather and disastrous harvests have proved socially divisive. We have been warned, say climate researchersIn the winter of 1432-33 people in Scotland “had to use fire to melt the wine before drinking it” ran a line in the research about the coldest decade of winters in the last 1,000 years.
  Short of real temperature readings, descriptions of such incidents and records of rivers and lakes freezing over for months at a time, tree rings and ice cores are what clima
  
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• Venezuela will circulate new proposal next week to support oil prices

  15-01-2017 21:38
  Venezuela will next week circulate a new proposal to crude producers in a bid to support oil prices, President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday, without providing details. "Venezuela, as of next week, will circulate a letter with a new proposal, a new formula for the stability of real and just prices so that it can be studied and debated by all the governments that have signed this deal," Maduro said in a speech. Maduro repeated that leaders of OPEC and non-OPEC countries should hold a summit in th
  
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• E-Waste in East and South-East Asia Jumps 63% in Five Years

  15-01-2017 21:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  The volume of discarded electronics in East and South-East Asia jumped almost two-thirds between 2010 and 2015, and e-waste generation is growing fast in both total volume and per capita measures, new UNU research shows.Driven by rising incomes and high demand for new gadgets and appliances, the average increase in e-waste across all 12 countries and areas analysed — Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Province of China,
  
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• Cutest captain: Sea lion caught in fishing gear hops on boat

  15-01-2017 20:48
  
  NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Officials say a juvenile sea lion was so happy to be rescued after getting hooked by fishing gear off Southern California, it jumped into a Coast Guard boat.
  
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• Climate change: 90% of rural Australians say their lives are already affected

  15-01-2017 20:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Overwhelming majority believe they are living with the effects of warming and 46% say coal-fired power should be phased outNinety per cent of people living in rural and regional Australia believe they are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and 46% believe coal-fired power stations should be phased out, according to a new study.A poll of 2,000 people conducted by the Climate Institute found that 82% of respondents in rural and regional Australia and 81% of those in capital cities
  
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• Barrage of questions for Swansea Bay tidal lagoon | Letters

  15-01-2017 19:35 via theguardian.com
  
  You report (Tidal lagoon power is ‘reliable and affordable’, 13 January) that the Swansea Bay scheme “would be the first of its kind in the world”. In France, the Rance estuary plant has been operating since 1966. In Canada, in the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world, the plant at Annapolis Royal has been operating since being opened by Prince Charles in 1984. However, the French have no firm plans for more such plants and the Canadians have abandoned t
  
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• English green belt set to get 360,000 new homes

  15-01-2017 19:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Countryside campaigners fear ministers are set to weaken green belt protection in order to meet housebuilding targetsThe number of homes being planned on green belt land in England has increased to more than 360,000, according to countryside campaigners, who fear ministers are poised to weaken protections to meet ambitious building targets.The assessment by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) found that the number of homes planned on sites previously meant to block urban sprawl has rise
  
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• Oil prices will be much more volatile in 2017 - IEA

  15-01-2017 18:20
  By Nawied Jabarkhyl and Maha El Dahan ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Global oil prices will witness "much more volatility" in 2017 even though markets may rebalance in the first half of the year if output cuts pledged by producers are implemented, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Sunday. "I would expect that we will see a rebalancing of the markets within the first half of this year," said Fatih Birol, executive director of IEA, the Paris-based global energy watchdog. "But what I
  
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• Prince Charles pens Ladybird book on climate change

  15-01-2017 17:53 via theguardian.com
  
  Prince teams up with campaigners Tony Juniper and Emily Shuckburgh to create peer-reviewed ‘basic guide’ for adultsPrince Charles, a vocal critic of climate change sceptics, has penned a Ladybird book on the subject after lamenting with experts the lack of a basic guide to the subject.The prince has joined forces with two leading environmental campaigners to produce The Ladybird Book on Climate Change, the first in a new series aimed at adults, The Ladybird Expert, is to be published
  
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• Fischer Energy joins UK retail market with 100% renewable offer

  15-01-2017 17:49 via theguardian.com
  
  New supplier hopes to sign up 40,000 single variable tariff customers in first year, two months after collapse of GB Energy UKThe ranks of the 40-plus energy companies jostling for householders’ business will swell on Monday with the launch of a new supplier that delivers electricity from windfarms.Fischer Energy hopes to sign up 40,000 customers in the first year to its single variable tariff, with renewable power bought from Denmark’s Dong Energy. Continue reading...
  
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• Levels of e-waste soar in Asia as gadgets become affordable, UN says

  15-01-2017 17:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Amount of electronic waste up 63% in five years, with China’s more than doubling, United Nations University report findsLevels of electronic waste are rising sharply across Asia, as higher incomes mean hundreds of millions of people can afford smartphones and other gadgets, according to a UN study.The amount of e-waste in Asia has risen by 63% in five years, a report by United Nations University said, warning of the need to improve recycling and disposal methods across the region to preven
  
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• Japan's Small Experimental Rocket Fails to Launch Tiny Satellite

  15-01-2017 14:19
  
  The first flight of a tiny experimental Japanese rocket, touted as the world's smallest booster designed to launch a satellite in orbit, failed Sunday (Jan. 15), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials said. The three-stage rocket, called SS-520-4, was the size of a telephone pole and launched from Japan's Uchinoura Space Center at 8:33 a.m. Japan Time (6:33 p.m. EST or 2333 GMT on Saturday, Jan. 14), but a communications failure forced JAXA flight controllers to abort the ignition of the r
  
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• Prince Charles co-authors Ladybird climate change book

  15-01-2017 13:14 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Prince Charles co-authors a book for adults in the style of the well-known children's series.
  
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• Protests escalate over Louisiana pipeline by company behind Dakota Access

  15-01-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Louisiana residents are starting to get involved in environmental issues and are making themselves heard about the disputed Bayou Bridge pipelineScott Eustis did not stop smiling for hours. The coastal wetland specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network was attending a public hearing in Baton Rouge. Its subject was a pipeline extension that would run directly through the Atchafalaya Basin, the world’s largest natural swamp. Eustis was surprised to be joined by more than 400 others.“
  
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• Photos show Japanese whalers killing minke in sanctuary, says Sea Shepherd

  15-01-2017 11:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Anti-whaling campaign group alleges it photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuaryAnti-whaling campaign group Sea Shepherd says it has photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary, the same day the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was in Australia on a state visit.In the first documented killing since the international court of justice ruled Japan’s Antarctic whali
  
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• Killer whales explain the mystery of the menopause

  15-01-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A study of the whales, one of only three species whose older females stop reproducing, claims competition between offspring may be the causeKiller whales and humans would seem to have little in common. We inhabit very different ecosystems, after all. Yet the two species share one unexpected biological attribute. Females of Orcinus orca and Homo sapiens both go through the menopause.It an extraordinary aspect of our development. In contrast to the vast majority of animals on our planet, women and
  
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• Our next Scandi import: organic ‘folk food’ for all

  15-01-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  EU pledges £9m to help Britain turn niche market mainstreamNever mind hygge, the new Danish buzzword is folkeligt and it’s going to give Britain’s organic food industry a Scandi makeover.Organic supremos in both nations are drawing up plans for a charm offensive after securing €10.4m (£9m) from the EU to turbocharge industry growth. Britons spend only a tiny portion of their food budget on organics, and the marketing push aims to bring them into line with the Danes,
  
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• Call of the wild: can America’s national parks survive? | Lucy Rock

  15-01-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  America’s national parks are facing multiple threats, despite being central to the frontier nation’s sense of itselfAutumn in the North Cascades National Park and soggy clouds cling to the peaks of the mountains that inspired the musings of Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg 60 years ago. Sitting on a carpet of pine needles in the forest below, protected from the rain by a canopy of vine maple leaves, is a group of 10-year-olds listening to a naturalist hoping to spark
  
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• Two cheers for Swansea’s tidal lagoon

  15-01-2017 01:04 via theguardian.com
  
  The go-ahead for the Swansea Bay project could help end fossil fuel reliance. But ministers have pulled the plug on other inventive schemesBritain’s west coast is facing a revolutionary change. If renewable energy advocates get their way, swaths of shoreline will soon be peppered with giant barrages designed to turn the power of the sea into electricity for our homes and factories. These tidal lagoons could supply more than 10% of the nation’s electricity, it is claimed.Last week for
  
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• Emission probes could widen beyond Renault in France - Minister

  15-01-2017 00:04
  A judicial investigation into diesel emissions testing in France could widen beyond Renault after tests showed other carmakers had exceeded the authorised levels, the French environment minister said on Sunday, without elaborating. Shares in Renault fell more than 4 percent to their lowest level in around a month on Friday after a source at the Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched a judicial probe into possible cheating on exhaust emissions at the French carmaker. Volkswagen's admissio
  
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