Environment news

• The California drought is officially over, but next could be 'around the corner'

  07-04-2017 21:56 via theguardian.com
  
  Governor announces end to the historic drought, yet water conservation is far from finished as state tries to build climate change resilience
  California’s governor, Jerry Brown, officially declared an end to the state’s historic drought Friday, but warned that it must be prepared for the future. “This drought emergency is over, but the next drought could be around the corner,” Brown said in a statement. “Conservation must remain a way of life.”Continue reading
  
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• As California drought declared officially over, state looks to the future

  07-04-2017 21:56 via theguardian.com
  
  Governor announces an end to the historic drought, but water conservation is far from finished as the state tries to build resilience to climate change
  California governor Jerry Brown officially declared an end to the state’s historic drought Friday, but warned that it must be prepared for the future.“This drought emergency is over, but the next drought could be around the corner,” Brown said in a statement. “Conservation must remain a way of life.”Continue reading.
  
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• Isotopes with ocean circulation information

  07-04-2017 21:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Thorium-230 isotope in the marine sediment is used for paleo researchers to calibrate and normalize particle fluxes of past times. The isotope is present both in the water column and in the ocean sediments, the latter being the item for marine paleo geologists to examine.
  
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• NASA Sees Tropical Cyclone Ernie Intensify

  07-04-2017 21:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  The storm formerly known as tropical cyclone 15S, now called Tropical Cyclone Ernie continued to strengthen as NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image that showed the storm developed an eye.
  
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• Improving air quality requires a little less conversation, a lot more action | Letters

  07-04-2017 19:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The findings in your article (Hundreds of thousands of children being exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution from diesel vehicles, 4 April) are scandalous. We are storing up huge unknowns in terms of the future of our children’s lung health. We need urgent action. The government must bring in a fair and ambitious Clean Air Act with targets to ensure pollution levels are monitored around every school and nursery located close to busy roads, arming parents and teachers with the
  
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• No conflict of interests on pesticide advice | Letters

  07-04-2017 19:29 via theguardian.com
  
  The assertion by Professor Dave Goulson (Farmers could slash pesticide use without losses, research reveals, 6 April) cannot go unchallenged. He says that pesticides are massively over-used because farmers are advised by agronomists working on commission to sell products.The Agricultural Industries Confederation represents the majority of businesses that supply both agronomy advice and crop protection products to UK farmers. Farmers can elect to pay separately for agronomy advice and crop protec
  
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• Record New Renewable Power Capacity Added at Lower Cost

  07-04-2017 18:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  As the cost of clean technology continues to fall, the world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016, at an investment level 23 per cent lower than the previous year, according to new research published today by UN Environment, the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2017 finds that wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-energy, geothermal, small hydro and marine sources added 13
  
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• Renewables revolution surges both at home and abroad

  07-04-2017 18:31
  
  The low-carbon and renewables revolution is in full swing, both domestically and on a global scale, as figures show the UK sector made a turnover of £43bn in 2015, and a UN-backed report highlights a record world renewable energy capacity at plummeting costs.
  
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• Oil giant inks carbon capture deal with Norwegian Government

  07-04-2017 18:17
  
  Multinational oil and gas company Total has today (7 April) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Norway's Energy Minister to join one of the world's largest facilities for testing carbon capture and storage (CCS).
  
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• Tropical lowland frogs at greater risk from climate warming than high-elevation species, study shows

  07-04-2017 16:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  A new study of Peruvian frogs living at a wide variety of elevations—from the Amazon floodplain to high Andes peaks—lends support to the idea that lowland amphibians are at higher risk from future climate warming.
  
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• How Changes in Rainfall Impact the World Economy

  07-04-2017 16:49 via feedproxy.google.com
  An afternoon rainstorm might seem like an inconvenience at times, but rainfall is an essential part of the world ecosystem. Most of us know this.
  
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• ALMA Captures Dramatic Stellar Fireworks

  07-04-2017 16:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  1350 light years away, in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter), lies a dense and active star formation factory called the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC-1), part of the same complex as the famous Orion Nebula. Stars are born when a cloud of gas hundreds of times more massive than our Sun begins to collapse under its own gravity. In the densest regions, protostars ignite and begin to drift about randomly. Over time, some stars begin to fall toward a common cent
  
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• Satellites map carbon sequestered by forests, with accuracy of up to ten metres

  07-04-2017 16:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  Led by VTT, the EU North State project has developed a new method of using satellite images to evaluate the forest carbon balance. The carbon balance indicates how much carbon is sequestered or released by forests each year. This enables the carbon balance to be displayed on digital maps, with an accuracy of up to ten metres.
  
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• Share your experiences of being a diesel car owner

  07-04-2017 16:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Experts have suggested car makers pay for the air pollution crisis rather than drivers. If you own a diesel car we’d like to hear what you think
  In an attempt to combat the amount of toxic pollution produced by diesel cars, the UK’s current plans are focused on making diesel drivers pay to enter cities and a possible taxpayer-funded scrappage scheme.However experts have suggested that motor companies should pay for the crisis rather than drivers. Both the German and French government
  
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• Scientists uncover isotopic fingerprint of N2O emissions from Arctic tundra

  07-04-2017 16:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  A new study from the University of Eastern Finland presents, for the first time, the isotopic fingerprint of nitrous oxide produced by Arctic soils. The finding opens new avenues for predicting future trends in atmospheric nitrous oxide as well as in identifying climate change mitigation actions in the Arctic, a region that is particularly sensitive to climate change.
  
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• Nine-year-old sues Indian government over climate change inaction

  07-04-2017 16:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Ridhima Pandey, daughter of green activist, urges ministers to reduce emissions to limit impact on younger generationsA nine-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to take action on climate change, warning that young people will pay the price for the country’s inaction. In the petition filed with the National Green Tribunal, a special court for environment-related cases, Ridhima Pandey said the government had failed to implement its environment laws.Con
  
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• Violent end as young stars dramatically collide

  07-04-2017 15:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists capture a dramatic collision between two young stars that tore apart their stellar nursery.
  
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• Belfast International Airport solar farm savings soar above £100,000

  07-04-2017 14:50
  
  Belfast International Airport has revealed it has achieved more than £100,000 in savings from a £5m off-site solar farm launched ten months ago.
  
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• Government awards £24m for district heating projects

  07-04-2017 14:08
  
  The Government has today (7 April) awarded £24m for nine district heat network infrastructure projects across the country to provide households and businesses with clean and efficient heating systems.
  
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• The conservationists, the butterfly hunter and the trade in mounted species

  07-04-2017 13:49 via theguardian.com
  
  He said he was looking for parasitic wasps but volunteers at Daneway Banks where the large blue is flourishing suspected Phillip Cullen had ulterior motives Mark Greaves, a butterfly enthusiast, points out the slope where he first spotted Phillip Cullen. “He and his mate parked in the layby, climbed over that locked gate, and he was down there running around with a little net.”Greaves asked Cullen what on earth he thought he was doing with a net on one of the most precious butterfly
  
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• Killer of rare butterfly given six-month suspended sentence

  07-04-2017 13:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Phillip Cullen ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work after illegally capturing and killing specimens of the large blueAn insect enthusiast who illegally captured and killed specimens of Britain’s rarest butterfly, the large blue, has been given a six-month suspended prison sentence. The amateur entomologist and former body builder Phillip Cullen, 57, was caught after being spotted by volunteers and wardens acting suspiciously at two nature reserves in the west of England. Continue
  
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• Polish law change unleashes 'massacre' of trees

  07-04-2017 13:28 via theguardian.com
  
  New law allows private landowners to cut down any number of trees without applying for permission or even informing authoritiesA controversial change to Polish environmental law has unleashed what campaigners describe as a “massacre” of trees across the country.
  The new amendment, commonly known as “Szyszko’s law”, after Jan Szyszko, Poland’s environment minister, removes the obligation for private landowners to apply for permission to cut down trees, pay comp
  
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• O2 becomes first company to receive highest Carbon Trust Standard for supply chains

  07-04-2017 12:58
  
  As the United Nations launches a framework to help businesses assess sustainability impacts, digital communications provider O2 has been named as the first organisation in the world to receive the highest Carbon Trust Standard for supply chains.
  
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• How conniving carmakers caused the diesel air pollution crisis

  07-04-2017 12:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Cheating, dodging rules and heavy lobbying by motor manufacturers fuelled the toxic air the UK is struggling with todayConniving car makers and their lobbying might, assisted by the 2008 financial crash, were the key factors in producing the diesel-fuelled air pollution crisis the UK is struggling with today, according to key observers of the disaster.
  Earlier government decisions to incentivise diesel vehicles, which produce less climate-warming carbon dioxide, sparked the problem but were made
  
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• New study links carbon pollution to extreme weather | John Abraham

  07-04-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Human activities are altering the jet stream, which leads to extreme weather patterns getting stuck in place
  It was only a few weeks ago that I wrote about changes to extreme weather in a warming world. That prior article dealt with the increase of extreme precipitation events as the Earth warms. I termed the relationship a thermodynamic one; it was driven by local thermodynamic processes. But extreme weather can also occur because of large-scale changes to the atmosphere and oceans. This issue
  
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• Rules of memory 'beautifully' rewritten

  07-04-2017 10:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Everything you know about memory may be wrong.
  
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• Wildlife Photographer of the Year: unforgettable animal behaviour

  07-04-2017 08:32 via theguardian.com
  
  From basking gharial to stampeding muskoxen, these images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition have been selected for a Natural History Museum book, Unforgettable Behaviour, and offer a unique glimpse into hidden worlds of animal survival and joy Continue reading...
  
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• Subsidised insurance for people in cyclone or flood-prone areas a bad idea, say experts

  07-04-2017 06:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Insurance bill for damage caused by Cyclone Debbie in Queensland and New South Wales is predicted to top $1bn
  Experts have argued against subsidising insurance premiums for people in cyclone or flood-prone areas as the multi-million dollar cleanup continues after Cyclone Debbie, saying that will only provide short-term relief.The insurance bill for damage caused by the cyclone, which struck near Airlie Beach on 28 March before causing widespread damage in northern Queensland and extensive and on
  
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• An adder stirs, a brawny cable charged by the sun

  07-04-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Dartmoor, Devon A thick cylindrical form, bent double like a trombone pipe, in a sheltered patch of grass, stops me shortBeneath the granite knuckles of this east Dartmoor tor the land spreads and softens high above the valley. Sheep-clipped grasses and scattered clumps of gorse cover the sides of the outcrop, punctuated by exposed boulders. After a lengthy spell of rain, morning sunshine makes a welcome change, and the temperature along this south-facing incline is climbing steadily. Continue r
  
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• It’s either Adani or the Great Barrier Reef. Are we willing to fight for a wonder of the world? | Jeff Sparrow

  07-04-2017 05:41 via theguardian.com
  
  Climate change has essentially become a class struggle. That’s why it now seems depressing likely we’ll see the reef slowly dying before our eyes
  Over the last years, as the slow motion catastrophe known as climate change gathered momentum, many have people consoled themselves by imagining a tipping point, a specific manifestation of the crisis so grotesque and so extreme as to force our leaders to respond.The damage now evident throughout the Great Barrier Reef should dispel any ill
  
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• Badly burned cockatoo given new feathers with superglue and matchsticks

  07-04-2017 04:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Endangered Carnaby’s cockatoo treated by vets at Perth Zoo after it was badly burnt on a power lineVets at Perth zoo have used matchsticks and glue to replace the flight feathers of a Carnaby’s cockatoo which was badly injured after it was burned on a power line.Using a syringe to coat the donor feathers with superglue and a matchstick to shape the quill, vets replaced the juvenile bird’s feathers and cut away the burnt remains in an effort to help it fly again. Continue readin
  
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• Farm of the future

  07-04-2017 01:31 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Could edible caterpillars help fight malnutrition and food security problems in West Africa?
  
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