Environment news

• Feast leaves bees lethargic and sleepy: country diary 100 years ago

  07-05-2017 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 11 May 1917The bees are exceedingly busy amongst the flowers, the stocks and flowering currants perhaps getting most attention in the garden, but the gooseberry bushes and other blossoms on the fruit trees also prove attractive. Enjoying their feast of honey, these insects bustle from flower to flower, poking in their tongues and dusting their hairy heads and bodies with pollen; they comb it off with their legs until their “thighs” a
  
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• Are low emission zones the route to cleaner air?

  07-05-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Clean air and low emission zones, one proposal in the government’s new air pollution plan, are already in place across Europe. Do they work?Following a high court order the government have launched their new clean air plan. One proposal is for clean air or low emission zones in many UK towns and cities aiming to reduce traffic pollution by restricting vehicles with weaker exhaust controls.There are over 200 zones across Europe, but do they work? Europe’s largest is in London. Before
  
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• How to fix climate change: put cities, not countries, in charge | Benjamin Barber

  07-05-2017 20:18 via theguardian.com
  
  It can’t be left to dysfunctional nation states to tackle – but as Oslo and Seoul have shown, metropolitan centres can rise to the challenge of global warmingClimate change is the most urgent challenge facing humankind. Other issues make headlines: terrorism kills; inequality affects everyday life for billions around the globe. But climate is paramount, because in sustainability human survival itself is at stake. Why then have the nations governing the planet been so hopelessly ineff
  
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• I've created a monster! Shezad Dawood on his oceanic epic Leviathan

  07-05-2017 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Mass migration and climate change – not to mention a giant squid: Leviathan has it all. As his wildly ambitious new work opens in Venice, he reveals the story behind a strange odyssey that will take years to completeThe giant squid, democracy, mental health, migration – big beasts, one and all. And each plays a role in Leviathan, a cycle of 10 films by artist Shezad Dawood that traces links from human activity to marine ecology and back again. The fates of crayfish, phytoplankton and
  
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• Leviathan Episode 1: Ben trailer – video

  07-05-2017 15:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Artist Shezad Dawood’s multi-platform work, Leviathan, weaves a tale of oceanic ecology and migration in paintings, sculpture, fiction and a cycle of 10 films – to be released between now and 2020. Watch a trailer for the saga’s first episode, entitled Ben Continue reading...
  
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• Worried world urges Trump not to pull out of Paris climate agreement

  07-05-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Officials around the world warn president not to reverse climate effortsTrump has already begun to peel away pollution rules imposed by ObamaSupport the Guardian’s climate reporting: make a contribution nowDonald Trump’s scorched-earth approach to environmental protections has shocked current and former government officials overseas who are waiting nervously to see whether the US will destabilize the Paris climate agreement by pulling out of the deal.The Guardian has spoken to a numb
  
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• Air pollution: the battle to save Britain from suffocation

  07-05-2017 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  As environmentalists turn to the courts to make the government clean up its act, we survey a week of victories for ClientEarth and its founder, James ThorntonIt has been a richly satisfying week for James Thornton, founder and chief executive of the environmental law group ClientEarth. On Tuesday the government admitted defeat in its lengthy battle with the firm over atmospheric pollution and pledged that it would publish its strategy to improve air quality in Britain – which it did on Fri
  
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• Shark sighting forces Western Australian triathlon swimmers out of water

  07-05-2017 09:27 via theguardian.com
  
  Busselton Ironman 70.3 reduced to a duathlon after about 100 swimmers brought to shoreDozens of swimmers at a triathlon in Western Australia’s south had to be removed from the water after a shark was spotted.Most of the individual competitors in the Ironman 70.3 in Busselton on Sunday had already completed their 1.9km swim when the shark was seen, but those who remained in the water were removed by Surf Life Saving WA and the beach was closed. Continue reading...
  
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• The eco guide to laundry

  07-05-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Microfibres in synthetic clothing are one of the biggest menaces when washing your clothes, says Lucy Siegle. A mesh laundry bag is the best solutionI almost yearn for the days when 80% of a garment’s ecological impact was down to the phosphates and optical brighteners in detergent. Oh, and climate emissions from the energy used to heat the water.Cleaning up all that was straightforward: turn the machine down to 30C and use an eco detergent. Continue reading...
  
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• Closing Down: debut novelist Sally Abbott's haunting vision of Australia’s future

  07-05-2017 05:08 via theguardian.com
  
  The Richell prize winner, whose book is out this month, fears for a future blighted by environmental catastrophe
  Speculative fiction usually starts with a “what if”: what if there was an environmental reckoning? What if we didn’t have enough water? What if the world was running out of food? What if that was coupled with a catastrophic global financial crisis? What would Australia look like? And how would its citizens cope?Debut novelist Sally Abbott, 57, didn’t start with
  
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• Keep out

  07-05-2017 01:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The minefields laid in the Falkland Islands 35 years ago have been a blessing for penguins, which are not big enough to trigger explosions. But now the time has come for their home to be demined.
  
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• The world's largest artificial sun

  07-05-2017 01:18 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists in Germany have invented an indoor sun.
  
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• The Observer view on curbing air pollution | Observer editorial

  07-05-2017 01:14 via theguardian.com
  
  The government has been dilatory in the extreme in dealing with one of the most pernicious health hazards afflicting this countryPollution has long blighted the air that we breathe. Complaints about fumes generated by coal-burning in London were recorded as early at the 13th century. The heavy smogs that descended on the capital in the 1950s killed thousands. Governments have long attempted to regulate the pollution of our cities: in 1273, authorities introduced a prohibition on burning coal in
  
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