Environment news

• Great Barrier Reef 2050 plan no longer achievable due to climate change, experts say

  24-05-2017 22:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Environmental lawyers say advice means reef might finally be listed as a ‘world heritage site in danger’The central aim of the government’s plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef is no longer achievable due to the dramatic impacts of climate change, experts have told the government’s advisory committees for the plan.Environmental lawyers said the revelation could mean the Great Barrier Reef might finally be listed as a “world heritage site in danger”, a move t
  
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• Endangered turtle set free in Florida

  24-05-2017 19:33 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Antibiotics and vitamins helped the injured loggerhead sea turtle back to health in Marathon, in the Florida Keys.
  
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• Schiaparelli: Crashed lander was ill-prepared for Mars

  24-05-2017 18:55 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The crashed European spacecraft Schiaparelli was ill-prepared for its attempt at landing on the surface of Mars, a report suggests.
  
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• Ineos buys Dong Energy's oil and gas business

  24-05-2017 18:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Anglo-Swiss chemicals firm hails £1bn acquisition as ‘very logical’ as Danish firm makes progress in switch to renewablesAnglo-Swiss chemicals firm Ineos has bought the oil and gas business of Dong Energy for £1bn, a major milestone in the Danish company’s switch from hydrocarbons to renewable energy.The acquisition is the latest in a buying spree by Ineos, which recently bought a significant North Sea oil pipeline for £200m from BP, and takes it from 28th big
  
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• Tesco to trial a phase-out of single-use 5p plastic bags

  24-05-2017 17:20 via theguardian.com
  
  Select Tesco stores will sell only reusable bags in a 10-week trial that could lead to the single-use bags being phased out in all of its storesShoppers at a handful of Tesco stores in the UK will no longer be able to buy 5p “single-use” plastic carrier bags, in the first such trial by a supermarket. If successful, it could lead to the bags being phased out completely, less than two years after the law was changed in England to force larger stores to charge for them.Continue reading.
  
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• Doggers, drugs and sheep attacks – why Britain’s naughtiest wood is closed

  24-05-2017 14:16 via theguardian.com
  
  If you go down to Uffmoor Wood today, you’re sure for a big surprise – you won’t be able to get in. Have the Woodland Trust made the right decision to temporarily padlock the Worcestershire woodland?It’s Britain’s baddest woodland. Two hundred acres of bluebell-infested forest so naughty that the Woodland Trust has taken the rare step of shutting down until it improves.Uffmoor Wood, near Halesowen in the West Midlands, is padlocked as of today, after becoming a foca
  
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• EU declared Monsanto weedkiller safe after intervention from controversial US official

  24-05-2017 14:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking glyphosate to cancer following counsel with an EPA official allegedly linked to the company and who figures in more than 20 lawsuits The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsanto weedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental Protection Agency officer allegedly linked to the company.Jess Rowlands, the former head of the EPA’s cancer assessment review committee (CARC), who figures in mo
  
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• We all love bagged salads – but they’re the tip of the food waste iceberg | Aine Carlin

  24-05-2017 13:24 via theguardian.com
  
  Each year in the UK we throw away 178m bags of these prepared salads. Consumers and retailers must rethink shopping to stop unnecessary wasteI can’t deny I continue to give in to the lure of the humble bagged salad. Shameful as it is for a two-time cookbook author to admit, I do genuinely find them rather handy … even if all that plastic does make me cringe. Luckily for me, my husband is a bit gung ho when it comes to his greens, so nothing ever gets tossed, but I do often wonder ab
  
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• London's Bank junction closed to most traffic as part of new safety scheme

  24-05-2017 13:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Cyclists hail experimental scheme – that sees the dangerous intersection closed to all but buses, cyclists and pedestrians – as a turning point Bank junction, one of London’s most dangerous intersections, was closed this week to all but buses, and people on bikes and foot, from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, in an 18-month experimental scheme that could be as ground breaking as New York’s Times Square or Paris’s Left Bank.In 2015 Ying Tao was hit from behind by a lorry and
  
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• Honey, I love you: our 40,000-year relationship with the humble bee

  24-05-2017 12:28 via theguardian.com
  
  Humans have always had a special relationship with bees. And while the archaeological evidence is sparse, what does exist shows the richness of ancient human activitiesEarlier this month I received my first package of bees. A package refers to a box containing 3 pounds of bees, or roughly 12 thousand Apis Melliforia. And while introducing a new species of animal to your home seems like a hugely cathartic event, there was no ceremonious exchange of insect between myself and the store from which I
  
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• Why do animals go extinct? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Jules Howard

  24-05-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queriesA man pulls from his pocket a futuristic, streamlined flat metallic box that has been constructed in China but filled with chemical components dug from great underground mines in what was once a vast, unspoilt South American wilderness. Looking through a glass screen, forged with heat produced from the burning of 400m-year-old fossil swampbeds, the
  
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• Calls to reform food system: 'Factory farming belongs in a museum'

  24-05-2017 08:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Stop the Machine aims to put an end to methods of farming that are endangering biodiversity and wildlife the world over
  We can feed an extra 4 billion people a year if we reject the bloated and wasteful factory farming systems that are endangering our planet’s biodiversity and wildlife, said farming campaigner Philip Lymbery on Monday night, launching a global campaign to Stop the Machine.
  At present, 35% of the world’s cereal harvest and most of its soya meal is fed to industrially
  
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• How did whales become so large? Scientists dive into marine mystery

  24-05-2017 07:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Changes in food distribution and not falling ocean temperatures could hold key to shift towards giant lengthsThe blue whale has a body the length of a jet airliner, a heart the size of a car, and a tongue the same weight as an elephant.Now researchers say they might have solved the mystery of why baleen whales – a group that includes these blue beasts, the largest animals on the planet – became so large. Continue reading...
  
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• Salad days soon over: consumers throw away 40% of bagged leaves

  24-05-2017 07:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Britons fail to eat 178m bags of salad every year, say Tesco and government waste body Wrap, in study highlighting food wasteBritons throw away 40% of the bagged salad they buy every year, according to the latest data, with 37,000 tonnes – the equivalent of 178m bags – going uneaten every year.The figures from the government’s waste advisory body Wrap are being published on Wednesday by the supermarket giant Tesco to highlight that prepared salads are still among the
  
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• Meet 'Big Don', the 90kg rescue turtle released on World Turtle Day – video

  24-05-2017 06:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Crowds cheer as ‘Big Don’, a massive sea turtle, is released off the Florida Keys on World Turtle Day after being rehabilitated from injuries from an encounter with a fishing line. The 200-pound (91 kilogram) loggerhead turtle was nursed back to health with antibiotics, vitamins and a healthy diet of squid and fish Continue reading...
  
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• The white pulse of May illuminates the lanes

  24-05-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This is the cow parsley moment, its blossom making foamy bow waves against hawthorn hedges along the roadThe lanes are luminous with the white pulse of May: cow parsley, hawthorn, hogweed, garlic, stitchwort. In fields there are pale lambs and dandelion clocks and stands of horse chestnut in candle. White on green. Green on white.
  It is evening and the birds are fractious. I am listening to an old story so nearly forgotten that its retelling sounds strange and new.Contin
  
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• The cuckoo is back and all's right with the world

  24-05-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This is the cow parsley moment, its blossom making foamy bow waves against hawthorn hedges along the roadThe lanes are luminous with the white pulse of May: cow parsley, hawthorn, hogweed, garlic, stichwort. In fields there are pale lambs and dandelion clocks and stands of horse chestnut in candle. White on green. Green on white.
  It is evening and the birds are fractious. I am listening to an old story so nearly forgotten that its retelling sounds strange and new.Continu
  
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• Flamingo balancing act saves energy

  24-05-2017 03:28 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Flamingos expend less energy standing on one leg than in a two-legged stance, scientists confirm.
  
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