Environment news

• Dead bat found in bagged salad sold at Florida Walmart prompts investigation

  09-04-2017 23:45
  
  CDC tests for rabies and regional recall follow discovery of deceased chiropteran in partially eaten packet of Fresh Express Organic Marketside Spring Mix A dead bat found inside a bagged salad sold at a Florida Walmart has prompted a regional recall and an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has warned Americans not to eat salad from such packages.Two people discovered the bat after they had already eaten some of the salad in a bag of “Organic Mark
  
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• Beachcombing yields surprises: Country diary 50 years ago

  09-04-2017 23:30
  
  Originally published in the Guardian on 13 April 1967NORTH DEVON: At the time of writing no oil from the Torrey Canyon has reached local beaches. On the other hand one has never had to look very far for oil waste in its coagulated state during recent years. It occurs in tiny pulverised fragments, indistinguishable from some of the constituents of shingle till it adheres to one’s foot, and in lumps up to the size of a football. The oiled carcass of a gannet or an auk is an only too familiar
  
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• Australia's politicians have betrayed the Great Barrier Reef and only the people can save it | David Ritter

  09-04-2017 23:02
  
  The big lie propagated by government and big business is that it is possible to turn things around for the reef without tackling global warming• Great Barrier Reef at ‘terminal stage’: scientists despair at bleaching data Once upon a time, in the distant 60s and 70s, the Great Barrier Reef faced imminent destruction. Tenement applications for drilling and mining covered vast swathes of the reef, with both government and industry enthusiastically backing the plans for mass exploi
  
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• This mortal coral: new bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef – in pictures

  09-04-2017 23:01
  
  Aerial surveys of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef conducted in late 2016 and early 2017 show the Unesco world heritage site has suffered severe coral bleaching for the second year in a row. According to Prof Terry Hughes, who conducted the surveys, the bleaching is caused by ‘record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming’Continue reading...
  
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• Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage': scientists despair at latest coral bleaching data

  09-04-2017 23:01
  
  ‘Last year was bad enough, this is a disaster,’ says one expert as Australia Research Council finds fresh damage across 8,000km • ‘Australia’s politicians have betrayed the reef and only the people can save it’Back-to-back severe bleaching events have affected two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found.The findings have caused alarm among scientists, who say the proximity of the 2016 and 2017 bleaching events is unpreceden
  
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• Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage': scientists despair at latest bleaching data

  09-04-2017 23:01
  
  ‘Last year was bad enough, this is a disaster,’ says one expert as Australia Research Council finds fresh damage across 8,000km • ‘Australia’s politicians have betrayed the reef and only the people can save it’Back-to-back severe bleaching events have affected two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found.The findings have caused alarm among scientists, who say the proximity of the 2016 and 2017 bleaching events is unpreceden
  
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• Two-thirds of Great Barrier Reef hit by back-to-back mass coral bleaching – video

  09-04-2017 22:59
  
  ‘The combined impact of this bleaching stretches for 1,500km, leaving only the southern third unscathed,’ says Prof Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, who undertook aerial surveys in 2016 and 2017. He has warned Australia faces a closing window to take action on climate change in time to save the reef • Great Barrier Reef at ‘terminal stage’: scientists despair at bleaching data Continue reading...
  
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• Spring is not the only thing in the air

  09-04-2017 22:30
  
  Warmer days are welcome, but this is often our most polluted time of year, with agriculture one of the biggest culpritsLonger days are here at last, but in terms of air quality, spring is often our most polluted time of year. Pollutants left over from the northern hemisphere winter cause increased ozone at ground level. Coastal areas are most vulnerable and the problem tends to move south through spring. During March, ozone on Shetland reached four on the UK’s 10-point warning scale. Heavy
  
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• Max Hooper obituary

  09-04-2017 19:07
  
  Biologist and historian best known for Hooper’s Law, used to estimate the age of a hedgerowMax Hooper, who has died aged 82, was a biologist and historian who pioneered the ecological study of hedges. His best remembered discovery was what became known as Hooper’s Hedgerow Hypothesis, or more simply as Hooper’s Law. By examining the composition of a large number of hedges across Britain, he realised that there was a strong connection between age and diversity.As hedges grew old
  
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• How to move an elephant to Europe post-Brexit

  09-04-2017 18:00
  
  Leaving the EU could make moving animals abroad for breeding programmes a lot harder. But how easy is it to transport zoo inhabitants across the continent anyway?In the latest warnings about the effects of a post-Brexit future, it isn’t just humans who could be affected. The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums has said that leaving the EU without a deal could threaten already endangered species, whose survival depends on easy access to Europe-wide breeding programmes.At the
  
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• Climate change action is good for the economy – and Britain is the proof | Michael Howard

  09-04-2017 17:32
  
  When John Major set up our global warming strategy, the doom-mongers said it would ruin living standards. New research shows how wrong they wereJust before the Rio Earth summit 25 years ago, John Major, in whose cabinet I then served as environment secretary, made a bold prediction: reducing Britain’s carbon emissions in line with recommendations of climate science would not, he said, harm our economy: “Our initial measures ... will bring a worthwhile economic payoff to the country,
  
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• New litter strategy could see fly-tippers given community service

  09-04-2017 16:54
  
  Government will also instruct councils to end charging at tips, and issue on-the-spot fines for motorists caught throwing rubbishFly-tippers could be forced to pick up litter as part of community service, the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has said. The government will also instruct councils to end the “unfair” practice of charging people to use tips, which Leadsom said could be a lead factor in the rise of fly-tipping.Continue reading...
  
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• 21st-century fox: how nature's favourite outsider seduced the suburbs

  09-04-2017 16:00
  
  Not so long ago, they were the pests that made a mess on the lawn. But now they have crept into our homes – their images on mugs, cushions and tea towels – into TV adverts, fashion and literatureBritish cities are full of foxes. Within a mile of my home in east London, there is one with an organic gastro menu, one stuffed with feathers that, when plumped, makes my desk chair more comfortable, and another, in pen and ink, on the masthead of the Hackney Citizen. There is one on a mug,
  
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• 'See you in court': activists ready for Trump to relax smog and drilling rules

  09-04-2017 13:58
  
  With the Trump administration poised to roll back rules on smog and drilling off Alaska and the east coast, environmental campaigners are ready for legal actionEnvironmental campaigners promised on Saturday to wage fierce and protracted legal battles against “outrageous and wrong-headed” Trump administration moves to open Atlantic and Arctic waters for drilling and loosen smog limits.Related: Environmentalists sue EPA for reversing Obama-era move to ban pesticideContinue reading...
  
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• Life on the ice: one last hunt for Norway's sealers

  09-04-2017 10:00
  
  Campaigners believed they’d ended the Norwegian seal hunt. But then two young filmmakers reignited a nation’s interest in the traditionThere’s not a lot of poetry in killing seals – not in the rifle shot, nor in the swing of the infamous sealer’s club, the hakapik, not in the blood on the ice. But there’s poetry in the ocean. In Sealers: One Last Hunt, a Norwegian documentary film about the end of a way of life that is anathema to most of us in Europe, a group
  
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• Bee Quest review – the plight of the bumblebee

  09-04-2017 10:00
  
  Dave Goulson’s journey through the insect world is warmly entertaining while sounding the alarm over encroaching environmental disasterThe first thing to know about reading Bee Quest is that it’s a fun adventure to several countries, including this one, made new again through Dave Goulson’s eyes. You’ll learn all sorts of interesting things without effort because he’s a natural storyteller with a particular gift of understatement that is often laugh-o
  
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• 20 apps to get you out and about

  09-04-2017 07:59
  
  Your smartphone needn’t keep you sedentary: these apps will soon have you cycling, exploring forests or gazing at night skiesWhy don’t you just switch off your smartphone and go out and do something less boring instead? Although with all due respect to the famous intro for children’s TV show Why Don’t You?, perhaps better advice for 2017 would be to keep your smartphone on – but seek out some apps that will get you out into the world.Whether you’re spotting wi
  
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• The eco guide to global goals | Lucy Siegle

  09-04-2017 07:00
  
  The UN’s 17-point plan to save the planet is ambitious but will keep humanity on trackIt’s important to have goals (I’m sure that’s what life coaches say). But even if you’re laidback about your own prospects there is no reason to lack ambition for the planet and humanity.On the face of it the 17 Global Goals (also called Sustainable Development Goals) ratified by the UN and adopted by all countries in 2015 are moon-shootingly ambitious. They aim to “end pover
  
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• Climate Turning Point: 2020 identified as 'game-changing' year for global action

  09-04-2017 03:00
  
  A new report has highlighted 2020 as the year to "bend the curve" on global emissions that can set into a motion a series of transitions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and reach net zero carbon by 2050.
  
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• Now the swallows are here, the year throws off its cloak | Alex Preston

  09-04-2017 01:04
  
  The arrival of the first swallows is cause for celebration, but we should also think of others making the perilous journey to reach usLast Wednesday, early evening, the Kent-Sussex border north of Rye. I was driving home under an immoderate sky, the hawthorn around me frothy with blossom, when I saw them. Coming up the slope of the hill in front, they flashed past like thoughts and were gone, but I knew that the year wouldn’t be the same again. As usual, Ted Hughes put it best. “What
  
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• Delivery delay

  09-04-2017 00:45 via bbc.co.uk
  
  See the animals born since the world's been watching for April the giraffe to give birth
  
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