Environment news

• Adani: director on board that will consider $900m loan says project is 'vital'

  30-05-2017 22:12 via theguardian.com
  
  Karla Way-McPhail, who runs mining labour and equipment companies, will not say whether she will recuse herself from Carmichael decisionA director of the independent board due to provide recommendations regarding a $900m taxpayer loan to Adani publicly declared she was “very supportive” of its “vital” coal project, a day after she was accused of allowing a perceived conflict of interest to develop.Karla Way-McPhail, who runs mining labour and equipment hire companies, las
  
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• ‘We have been poisoning ourselves’: has ice analysis revealed the truth about lead?

  30-05-2017 21:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: ice cores and records from the Black Death show lead entered the air from human activity – and scientists claim “natural background” levels are zeroAnalysis of an ice cores taken from the Swiss Alps together with records dating from the time of the Black Death have revealed that there is no “natural” level of lead in the air, researchers have claimed.Once in the body, lead is known to have harmful impacts on health, from behavioural to neurological, repro
  
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• Outsourcing IT poses risks in Britain and in India | Letters

  30-05-2017 20:31 via theguardian.com
  
  Sue Roaf says excessive electricity use is causing power cuts in India, Nigel Boddy worries that we’re overreliant on modern technology, and Richard Gilyead wonders whether there will be resignations at British AirwaysBritish Airways and many other businesses have offshored electricity-dependent functions like IT services and call centres to northern India (BA chief refuses to resign after ‘catastrophic’ IT failure, 30 May). Increasingly this is a region in the grip of extended
  
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• Three Mile Island faces shutdown without financial rescue from Pennsylvania

  30-05-2017 17:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Owner of plant – site of worst commercial nuclear power accident in US history – urges state to preserve ‘clean, reliable’ energy sourceThe owner of Three Mile Island, site of the worst commercial nuclear power accident in US history, will shut down the plant in 2019 unless it receives a financial rescue from the Pennsylvania state government.In March 1979, equipment failure and operator errors led to a partial core meltdown of one of Three Mile Island’s two reactor
  
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• Robert Llewellyn's quest to spur a green energy revolution in his village

  30-05-2017 16:55 via theguardian.com
  
  Actor’s efforts to persuade Temple Guiting to generate its own electricity captured in BBC4’s Great Village Green Crusade Robert Llewellyn is not a typical eco-activist. “Oh, I’m absolutely un-green,” says the actor and TV presenter. “I’m as un-green as a corporate exec. I fly a lot. Though I have hugged a tree. Actually, I’ve lent against one while I was having a wee in the woods, I’m not sure if that counts?”You don’t need to we
  
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• John McCain urges action on Great Barrier Reef and Paris climate deal

  30-05-2017 14:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Speaking in Sydney, US senator says he is ‘afraid about what the world is going to look like for our children’The death of the Great Barrier Reef is one of the “great tragedies of our lives”, US senator John McCain has said, arguing America should uphold its commitment to the Paris climate agreement, or accede to it with minor modifications.Speaking in Sydney on Tuesday night, the veteran politician and former Republican party presidential candidate said climate change wa
  
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• Ultra-tough antibiotic to fight superbugs

  30-05-2017 14:29 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The modified drug might help tackle resistant superbug infections, experts hope.
  
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• Southern lights dance across skies of Australia and New Zealand

  30-05-2017 14:06 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Pictures from across Australia and New Zealand show the Southern Lights in the night sky.
  
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• Barrier reef suffers huge coral loss

  30-05-2017 13:55 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Australia's Great Barrier Reef lost nearly a third of its corals in the past year, officials have said.
  
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• Scientists warn US coral reefs are on course to disappear within decades

  30-05-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  New Noaa research shows that strict conservation measures in Hawaii have not spared corals from a warming ocean in one of its most prized baysSome of America’s most protected corals have been blighted by bleaching, with scientists warning that US reefs are on course to largely disappear within just a few decades because of global warming. Related: Coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef worse than expected, surveys showContinue reading...
  
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• Nick Xenophon reluctant to back Coalition plan for CEFC to fund carbon capture

  30-05-2017 12:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Senate crossbencher says government should instead look to emissions intensity scheme for electricity generators, while Labor says plan is a ‘stunt’The key Senate powerbroker Nick Xenophon has warned the Turnbull government he has “real reservations” about allowing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in carbon capture and storage technology.
  Xenophon told Guardian Australia on Tuesday night the government should, instead of rewriting the rules of its so-called
  
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• Raw milk: a superfood or super risky?

  30-05-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  For health-conscious, organic-loving shoppers, unpasteurized milk is a growing food fad – but food safety officials warn it can be like ‘playing Russian roulette’How do you like your milk: cooked or raw? It may sound an odd question, but it’s being asked more often at kitchen tables, grocery stores and farmers’ markets across America.The vast majority of milk we drink is pasteurized – heat-treated to kill off harmful pathogens. Raw milk, on the other hand, goe
  
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• Endorsing the Paris Agreement is Trump’s best opportunity for a big win | Joseph Robertson

  30-05-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A 21st-century American infrastructure agenda depends on the Paris AgreementThere is only one part of President Trump’s agenda with real opportunity for a big win, right now, and that is infrastructure. And the Paris Agreement—the strongest ever signal pointing toward transformational infrastructure investment—is the only way to mobilize the capital necessary to get to that big win.The common misunderstanding about the Paris accord is its impact on business and investment. Oppo
  
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• Cambridgeshire zookeeper killed by tiger was a 'shining light'

  30-05-2017 11:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Rosa King is reunited with her beloved cheetahs, says local photographer, as Hamerton Zoo Park remains closedA zookeeper killed by a tiger on Monday has been described as the “shining light” of the Cambridgeshire zoo where she worked.Rosa King, 33, died at Hamerton Zoo Park near Huntingdon after a tiger entered the enclosure where she was working.Continue reading...
  
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• Earth-i plans space video network

  30-05-2017 09:02 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Earth-i promises daily, fast-turn-around pictures and colour video of the planet's surface.
  
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• How trees can teach us about our own lives | Patrick Barkham

  30-05-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Across the country, people are waking up to the importance to our very humanity of urban foliage – and taking on those who chop it downA Sheffield street is lined with plane trees planted in honour of pupils from the local school who died in the first world war. When you walk along this living memorial and touch each trunk, it sparks a strange feeling of intimacy with historic events. These trees help us to remember, creating a powerful sense of continuity with past lives.This avenue
  
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• US army veterans find peace in protecting rhinos from poaching

  30-05-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In northern South Africa, former soldiers are fighting both the illegal wildlife trade and the twin scourges of unemployment and PTSDThe sun has set over the scrubby savannah. The moon is full. It is time for Ryan Tate and his men to go to work. In camouflage fatigues, they check their weapons and head to the vehicles. Somewhere beyond the ring of light cast by the campfire, out in the vast dark expanse of thornbushes, baobab trees, rocks and grass, are the rhinos. Somewhere, too, may be the poa
  
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• Aurora Australis: Colourful show hits Australia and New Zealand

  30-05-2017 06:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Onlookers are treated to a spectacular display as the Southern Lights hit Australia and New Zealand.
  
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• In the rooftop realm of straw animals

  30-05-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Ford, Devon For some, the figures are the crowning glory of a roof – and a chance to show off a thatcher’s skill and imaginationAt the end of the roof I’m working on, the peacock sits, still as a bookend. Two pheasants eye each other coyly on the ridge of the thatched cottage opposite, while on a house further down the lane, a fox prowls between the chimneys. Up among the rooftops of this village near Plymouth, I am surrounded by a shadowy cast of creatures: straw animal finial
  
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• Climate change could make cities 8C hotter – scientists

  30-05-2017 05:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Combination of carbon emissions and ‘urban heat island’ effect of concrete and asphalt gives rise to worst-case scenario by end of 21st centuryUnder a dual onslaught of global warming and localised urban heating, some of the world’s cities may be as much as 8C (14.4F) warmer by 2100, researchers have warned.
  Such a temperature spike would have dire consequences for the health of city-dwellers, rob companies and industries of able workers, and put pressure on already strained na
  
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• Coalition votes to allow Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in carbon capture

  30-05-2017 04:55 via theguardian.com
  
  Josh Frydenberg says proposed change will demonstrate Turnbull government’s ‘non-ideological approach’ to energy policyThe Turnbull government will move to overhaul the rules governing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to allow the so-called “green” bank to invest in carbon capture and storage technology.
  After telegraphing its intention to overhaul the CEFC’s rules for some months, the government on Tuesday secured party room support for the change.
  
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• Bangalore water woes: India's Silicon Valley dries up

  30-05-2017 01:12 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Drought, excessive construction and a water cartel are all adding to Bangalore's woes.
  
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