Environment news

• Tory failure to deliver pollution action plan angers environmentalists

  21-04-2017 22:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Ministers submit court application to delay tackling illegal levels of toxic fumes, deemed by MPs to be a public health emergencyThe government has made a last-minute application to the high court to delay the publication of its plan to tackle the air pollution crisis.Ministers were under a court direction to produce tougher draft measures to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which is largely caused by diesel traffic, by 4pm on Monday. The government’s original plans had
  
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• Government tries to shelve pollution action plan until after election

  21-04-2017 22:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Ministers submit court application to delay tackling illegal levels of toxic fumes, deemed by MPs to be a public health emergencyThe government has made a last-minute application to the high court to delay the publication of its plan to tackle the air pollution crisis.Ministers were under a court direction to produce tougher draft measures to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which is largely caused by diesel traffic, by 4pm on Monday. The government’s original plans had
  
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• Cassini probe sets up Saturn 'grand finale'

  21-04-2017 19:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Cassini satellite is about to put itself on a path that will take it to destruction in September.
  
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• 'Uber for bikes' comes to Cambridge – if you can find it

  21-04-2017 18:21 via theguardian.com
  
  China’s popular dockless cycle share schemes allow riders to drop their bike wherever they want. Ofo is the first to launch in the UK - but what will our rider make of it? Ofo, one of a host of Chinese start-ups hoping to do for bikes what Uber did for taxis, has chosen Cambridge for its first foray into Europe, a trial of which launched without fanfare this week. Chinese cities have seen hundreds of thousands of these ‘dockless’ bikes hit its streets, that now have tens of mil
  
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• Britain set for first coal-free day since the industrial revolution

  21-04-2017 15:53
  
  The UK is set to have its first ever working day without coal power generation since the industrial revolution on Friday, according to the National Grid.
  
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• Reactor goes here ... the £18bn Hinkley Point C starts to take shape

  21-04-2017 15:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Adam Vaughan visits the nuclear site in Somerset, where EDF is pushing ahead despite challenges from unions and BrexitSurrounded by a sea of broken rock and mounds of earth on the Somerset coast stands a small, unassuming sign that states simply “R2”. It is here that the second of two nuclear reactors will switch on in the middle of the next decade if all goes according to EDF Energy’s plan for Hinkley Point C, proving that Britain can still build new nuclear power stations and
  
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• Environmental charities allowed to challenge changes to court cost rules

  21-04-2017 14:57 via theguardian.com
  
  High court judge has agreed to limit RSPB, ClientEarth and FoE’s costs liabilities to £10,000 in their action against the Ministry of Justice’s changes to costs capThree environmental charities have been given permission to challenge court regulations which they say make it too financially risky to bring cases over air pollution standards or the expansion of Heathrow airport.A high court judge has agreed to limit costs liabilities of the RSPB, ClientEarth and Friends of the Ear
  
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• AkzoNobel launches sustainable cities coalition to manage rapid urbanisation

  21-04-2017 14:57
  
  Dutch paints manufacturer AkzoNobel has brought together an alliance of major businesses, NGOs and government representatives to focus on building sustainable cities and communities across the world.
  
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• AkzoNobel launches sustainable cities coalition to cope with rapid urbanisation

  21-04-2017 14:57
  
  Dutch paints manufacturer AkzoNobel has brought together an alliance of major businesses, NGOs and government representatives to focus on building sustainable cities and communities across the world.
  
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• Apple vows to 'pioneer' closed-loop mining supply chain

  21-04-2017 14:27
  
  Tech giant Apple has pledged to "go deeper" in developing new products that promote the circular economy by using only renewable resources or recycled materials that negate the need to mine materials.
  
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• Britain set for first coal-free day since Industrial Revolution

  21-04-2017 13:11 via theguardian.com
  
  National Grid expects the UK to reach coal energy ‘watershed’ on Friday in what will also be the country’s first 24-hour coal-free periodThe UK is set to have its first ever working day without coal power generation since the Industrial Revolution, according to the National Grid.The control room tweeted the predicted milestone on Friday, adding that it is also set to be the first 24-hour coal-free period in Britain.Continue reading...
  
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• David Attenborough’s ‘Guardian headline’ halts Borneo bridge

  21-04-2017 13:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Conservationist denounced Sukau project as a threat to pygmy elephants and orangutansOfficials in Borneo have cancelled plans to build a bridge across the Kinabatangan river, after warnings from Sir David Attenborough and other conservationists that it would gravely endanger pygmy elephants, orangutans and many other jungle species. The news comes just weeks after the Guardian revealed Attenborough’s opposition to the project.
  Attenborough originally sent a private letter to the chief mini
  
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• Queen's Awards recognise UK business contribution to sustainable development

  21-04-2017 12:46
  
  Construction firm Carillion and beverage company Bettys & Taylors are among almost a dozen businesses to today (21 April) receive the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development.
  
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• Amur leopards will be off-show to visitors at Scottish park

  21-04-2017 12:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Amur leopards are to be kept off-show in the hope they raise cubs that can be released into the wild.
  
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• Now rivers have the same legal status as people, we must uphold their rights

  21-04-2017 11:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Rivers around the world have been desecrated in every way. Now the Ganges and New Zealand’s Whanganui have legal standing, how will we protect their rights?Leer este artículo en españolSeveral geographically-distant but related events signalled a dramatic mind shift in humanity’s troubled relationship with nature last month. First, the New Zealand parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua Act, giving the Whanganui River and ecosystem a legal standing in its own right, guarante
  
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• Learning from LightStay: How Hilton saved £600m through in-house sustainability

  21-04-2017 11:12
  
  EXCLUSIVE: Hilton Worldwide is continuing to achieve significant environmental and financial savings and driving behaviour change across the business through its state-of-the-art bespoke sustainability measurement platform, the hotel chain's energy and environment manager has told edie.
  
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• Learning from LightStay: How Hilton saved £400m through in-house sustainability

  21-04-2017 11:12
  
  EXCLUSIVE: Hilton Worldwide is continuing to achieve significant environmental and financial savings and driving behaviour change across the business through its state-of-the-art bespoke sustainability measurement platform, the hotel chain's energy and environment manager has told edie.
  
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• Rivers vanishing into thin air: this is what the climate crisis looks like | David Suzuki

  21-04-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A Canadian river was the first observed case of ‘river piracy.’ When nature’s thresholds are passed, landscapes can transform in the blink of an eye
  The Slims River in Northern Canada gained infamy, not for its fishing or pristine waters, but for vanishing in a matter of four days in May 2016. This week we learned that it fell victim to ‘river piracy’ – and climate change was almost certainly to blame.
  The river — which stretched up to 150 meters at its
  
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• Green Investment Bank sell-off: only time will tell how green it is | Nils Pratley

  21-04-2017 08:20 via theguardian.com
  
  The government has secured green ‘commitments’ after the £2.3bn sale. In reality it has secured only ‘good intentions’ The charge that Macquarie is a ruthless asset-stripper that, given half a chance, would dismember the Green Investment Bank clearly stung. As the government unveiled the inevitable sale, for £2.3bn, to a consortium led by the Australian finance house, all sides were anxious to emphasise the buyer’s long-term enthusiasm for its new purcha
  
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• Firefighting foam: minister considers 'transitional removal' of toxic chemicals

  21-04-2017 07:12 via theguardian.com
  
  Call for federal government to follow Queensland and ban PFOS and PFOA after spill from Qantas airport hangar in BrisbaneThe federal government is weighing up how to eliminate toxic chemicals from firefighting foam linked to high-profile contamination scares, including a spill from a Qantas airport hangar into Brisbane waterways last week.It comes after a call by the Queensland government for the commonwealth to follow its own ban on the chemicals PFOS and PFOA, which doesn’t apply to Qant
  
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• Could VAT on meat help us save the planet? | Simon Fairlie

  21-04-2017 06:50 via theguardian.com
  
  One of the best ways of tackling climate change and feeding the growing world population is also one of the simplestA day would come, Percy Shelley predicted in 1813, when “the monopolising eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by eating an acre at a meal”. He explained: “The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter consumed in fattening the carcass of an ox would afford 10 times the sustenance if gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth.”T
  
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• Plunged into a soundscape of rich noise

  21-04-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Stanage, Derbyshire Listening to moorland might illustrate its health just as well as looking at it doesThe eastern horizon was a pale streak capped with pink, but it was still dark at Hollin Bank car park and I could barely make out Bill Gordon’s face as he waited. Bill is a volunteer for the Eastern Moors Partnership, monitoring ring ouzels, the mountain blackbird. To record their calls, he was carrying an impressive-looking microphone on a pole with a “dead-cat” windshield,
  
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• Birth of last baby orca in captivity filmed at SeaWorld

  21-04-2017 01:43 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Killer whale Takara was already pregnant when the end of the breeding programme was announced.
  
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• Facts over feelings: Australians join global march for science

  21-04-2017 00:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Former science minister Barry Jones warns policy is increasingly divorced from evidence, as 12 Australian cities prepare for global marchBarry Jones, a Hawke government minister who held the science portfolio when the high court decided the Tasmanian dam case in 1983, despairs of an Australian government making the same decision in 2017.Instead of taking a principled opposition on the grounds of science, he said, the Labor party would probably do a photo opportunity pouring the concrete. Continu
  
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