Environment news

• Who is wilt-free? Farmers with organic-rich, water-holding soils, that's who

  06-06-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  As climate change alters rainfall, UK farms with heavily irrigated crops on chemically fed soil may learn from organic growersLong-term success for farmers depends on how they treat their soil, especially as climate change is making rainfall patterns more unreliable.The make-up of soils varies enormously, sometimes from one field to another. Clay, which holds four times as much water as coarse light sand, can be a big advantage, but with too much rain can become waterlogged, leading to drowned c
  
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• Call of the wild? Proposal for cellphone service on Mount Rainier sparks debate

  06-06-2017 21:46 via theguardian.com
  
  The famous national park has prepared an environmental assessment to allow Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T to extend coverage, but some aren’t happy about itThey already paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Now the famous site on the south slope of Mount Rainier National Park’s 14,410ft-tall volcano could be wired for cellular service.The park, which encompasses 230,000 acres of the Cascades mountain range in Washington state, has prepared an environmental assessment for a propos
  
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• UK must use its trade policy to tackle climate change | Letters

  06-06-2017 20:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Members of environmental organisations state their case. Plus Sylvia Milner decries the Conservatives’ record on frackingAs the Trump administration prepares to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement, we believe the UK must use its trade policy to reaffirm and strengthen a globally coordinated response to climate change – one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. As such, we call on the next UK government to:• Require ratification of the Paris agreement and
  
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• European leaders urged to scale up efforts to tackle climate change

  06-06-2017 18:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners in call to action as it emerges EU does not intend to make extra cuts to account for US withdrawal from Paris dealEuropean leaders have been urged to scale up their efforts to tackle climate change as it emerged the EU does not intend to make extra emissions’ cuts to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement.
  At a summit with China in Brussels last week, the EU responded to the decision by Donald Trump to pull out of the historic 2015 pact by vowing
  
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• EU says no extra emission cuts to fill gap left by US after Paris withdrawal

  06-06-2017 18:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners in call to action as it emerges EU does not intend to make extra cuts to account for US withdrawal from Paris dealEuropean leaders have been urged to scale up their efforts to tackle climate change as it emerged the EU does not intend to make extra emissions’ cuts to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement.
  At a summit with China in Brussels last week, the EU responded to the decision by Donald Trump to pull out of the historic 2015 pact by vowing
  
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• Food waste charity may be prosecuted over out-of-date produce

  06-06-2017 17:55 via theguardian.com
  
  Real Junk Food Project co-founder summoned to formal hearing after trading standards inspection at Leeds premisesA charity that campaigns against food waste may face prosecution after a trading standards inspection found produce that was past its use-by date at one of its warehouses.The Real Junk Food Project, which has 127 affiliated cafes worldwid, aims to combat food waste by collecting produce that would otherwise be thrown away and preparing it for the general public. Continue reading...
  
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• Donald Trump promised to go after leakers. Now he's doing just that | Arjun Sethi

  06-06-2017 16:56 via theguardian.com
  
  Former NSA contractor Reality Winner is facing a decade behind bars. Are those who leak information to keep government accountable in more danger now?The Justice Department announced charges yesterday against a federal intelligence contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, for allegedly leaking classified information about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to an online media outlet, The Intercept. Her arrest and prosecution marks the first criminal leak case under President Trump.With Mon
  
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• Ranching life on the high plains of Montana – in pictures

  06-06-2017 16:23 via theguardian.com
  
  Elliott D Woods spent time in Phillips County in northern Montana, where public land is a source of life to which ranchers are intimately connected. If the plan to transfer lands to the states succeeds, it will mean a radical restructuring of the economy and the culture of the westIn Montana, land transfer threatens the rancher’s way of lifeContinue reading...
  
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• In Montana, land transfer threatens the American rancher's way of life

  06-06-2017 16:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Ranchers in the west have been struggling for decades. Now a new threat looms: public land might be taken away from themCows, corrals and community: ranching in Montana – in picturesIf you want to appreciate the prairie landscape that inspired President Theodore Roosevelt to set aside 230 million acres as national land, you have to pull off the interstate somewhere in the Dakotas, or in the eastern third of Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Follow a dirt road for a few miles, roll down your w
  
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• Climate change is real. So why won’t the right admit it? | Marcus Nield

  06-06-2017 16:13 via theguardian.com
  
  From hard Brexiters to Donald Trump, nationalists who deny the existence of manmade global warming will eventually have to face the factsAround 97% of climate scientists confirm the existence of manmade global warming, and public opinion is steadily catching up. In the UK, a recent poll suggested 84% of British people want Theresa May to “convince Trump not to quit” the Paris climate agreement. According to a survey spanning 40 nations, 78% of people support their country joining the
  
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• Five politicians determined to give away America's public lands

  06-06-2017 15:18 via theguardian.com
  
  A small but vocal cohort is leading efforts to transfer federal land to the states. Is your congressional representative on the list?The Trump administration has so far attempted to shrink the federal government’s role in healthcare, environmental protection – and even Meals on Wheels. Some Republicans now see another area ripe for giveaway: public lands.During the Obama administration, Republicans made numerous attempts to open up federal lands for development or cede control of are
  
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• Two rangers shot dead in Kenya’s Laikipia conservation area

  06-06-2017 15:09 via theguardian.com
  
  The rangers, who are police reservists, were killed while trying to recover cattle stolen by nomadic herdersTwo game rangers have been shot dead in Kenya’s restive north while on a mission to recover stolen cattle.For the last year, Laikipia, one of Kenya’s most important wildlife regions, has been the scene of vicious farm invasions and battles between private ranch owners and communities bordering them. Continue reading...
  
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• Climate change progress at Trump's EPA is grinding to a halt, workers reveal

  06-06-2017 14:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Current and former staff say projects that mention climate change have been ‘de-emphasized and halted’ as EPA tears up key planks of emissions-lowering agendaCurrent and former Environmental Protection Agency employees have described how work on climate change is grinding to a halt at the agency, with programs being scrapped and fears that staff may be reassigned away from climate-related tasks.The Trump administration is tearing up key planks of Barack Obama’s emissions-loweri
  
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• Liberals have a responsibility too: make climate change a top issue

  06-06-2017 14:37 via theguardian.com
  
  For too long, liberals have been treating climate change as a third or fourth tier issue. As the pulls exits the Paris Accord, it’s time for liberals to re-evaluate an issue that subsumes all others.On Thursday when the announcement hit that Trump was taking America out of the Paris Climate Accord, my social media feed predictably blew up. As an environmental journalist with a lot of left-leaning friends, you can imagine what it looked like: anger, frustration, shock, sadness, another outr
  
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• 'Chilling' Lobbying Act stifles democracy, charities tell party chiefs

  06-06-2017 13:05 via theguardian.com
  
  More than 50 charities say they have changed key messages during election campaign due to ‘unreasonable and unfair’ restrictions Charities have been forced to change their key messages to the public during the general election because of the “chilling” effect of the controversial Lobbying Act, a group of leading UK organisations has warned.Democratic debate on some of the biggest issues in the election campaign has been stifled by the law, a group of more than 50 charitie
  
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• The day after withdrawing from Paris, Trump declared a flooding disaster in Missouri | John Abraham

  06-06-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The state, hit hard by global warming-intensified flooding, has elected numerous climate-denying politicians
  I was debating this article. Should I write about the news that just occurred, or the news that will occur soon? I chose the past event – flooding in Missouri, USA. I will save the soon-to-collapse Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica for my next article. It’s sad, but true, that there are mounting ironies around Trump’s scientific ignorance on climate change and his ditchin
  
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• 'Cancer Alley' residents say industry is hurting town: 'We're collateral damage'

  06-06-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In Louisiana’s industrial heart, the shadow of Trump’s deregulation push looms as St James residents fight chemical plants, pipelines and laissez-faire policies“We’re sick of being sick, we’re tired of being tired,” said Pastor Harry Joseph of Mount Triumph Baptist Church, which serves this sleepy riverside town of about 1,000 residents, mostly poor and African American. Once a bucolic village of pasturelands and sugarcane fields on the banks of the Mississipp
  
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• Planet is 'hotter than most stars'

  06-06-2017 10:44 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Scientists spend decades hunting Earth's twin only to turn up the most inhospitable world imaginable.
  
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• Fraguas: the revitalised Spanish village officials now plan to demolish

  06-06-2017 09:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Young settlers are trying to rebuild houses and a community, but authorities want them to knock it all down – at their expenseA cuckoo calls in Fraguas, its two-note song echoing through the pines, around the village’s ruined church and along the weed-choked rockeries that once were streets.Until four years ago, there were only hunters and hikers to hear the birds sing. But today, almost five decades after the last inhabitants left, Fraguas is slowly and controversially stirring back
  
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• Close encounters of the furred kind: alien butt spider and friends – in pictures

  06-06-2017 08:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Funnel web, trapdoor and redback spiders: their names alone are enough to provoke a thigh-clenching chill in most of us. A new publication from the CSIRO, A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia, attempts to change this. ‘No one has actually died from a spider bite in Australia for more than 30 years, but plenty of people have been injured panicking at the sight of a huntsman.’Authors Robert Whyte and Greg Anderson have produced a comprehensive guide, introducing the reader to fabulous
  
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• 'Chilling' Lobbying Act stifles democracy, write charities to party chiefs

  06-06-2017 07:30 via theguardian.com
  
  More than 50 charities say they have changed key messages during election campaign due to ‘unreasonable and unfair’ restrictions Charities have been forced to change their key messages to the public during the general election because of the “chilling” effect of the controversial Lobbying Act, a group of leading UK organisations has warned.Democratic debate on some of the biggest issues in the election campaign has been stifled by the law, a group of more than 50 charitie
  
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• Return of the avian master builders

  06-06-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Claxton, Norfolk Every year the house martins check properties for suitable nest sites, even examining our nonexistent eavesAs if minted out of the soil that morning, suddenly house martins were around our garden a fortnight ago. Every year the pairs in the village perform an almost ritualised house inspection, when they check properties for suitable nest sites.
  Every time they tantalise me by swooping to examine even our nonexistent eaves. Then they fuss about the gable end to our neighbour&rsq
  
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• Public opinion is shifting the ground under Trump, Abbott and the coal club | Peter Lewis

  06-06-2017 04:51 via theguardian.com
  
  Trump’s rebuff of global climate action is right out of the coal club playbook, and reminds Australians of the ‘axe the tax’ Abbott campaignFor Australians, Donald Trump’s climate retreat is a case of “deja vu all over again”, a leader walking away from his responsibilities in a toxic cloud of self-serving populist fervour.Trump’s rebuff of global climate action is right out of the coal club’s playbook – dismiss the science, complain that oth
  
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• The Guardian Essential Report, 6 June results

  06-06-2017 04:46 via theguardian.com
  
  This report summarises the results of a weekly poll conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Your Source. Some questions are repeated regularly (such as political preference and leadership approval), while others are unique to each week and reflect current media and social issues Continue reading...
  
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• Adani gives 'green light' to $16bn Carmichael coal mine

  06-06-2017 04:25 via theguardian.com
  
  Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Adani officially announce the company’s intention to invest in the proposed Galilee basin mega-mine
  Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has given the “green light” to the Carmichael mine and rail project, but it will still hinge on its Australian arm, Adani Mining, gaining bank backing for the contentious venture.
  Adani’s top executive in Australia, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, took a dig at “activists who sit in creature comfort and
  
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• Labor could attach strings to support for low emissions target, Mark Butler says

  06-06-2017 01:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Alan Finkel is expected to recommend target that would require percentage of electricity be generated from ‘low-emissions’ sourcesLabor could support the government’s proposed low emissions target (LET), the party’s climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, has said, but wants conditions to achieve policy certainty and ensure it can be scaled up to meet more ambitious emissions targets.In an interview on Radio National on Tuesday, Butler reiterated comments to Guardian Austr
  
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• Medical experts say lending to Adani is the same as supporting big tobacco

  06-06-2017 00:13 via theguardian.com
  
  High-profile doctors say Carmichael coalmine poses a ‘grave danger to public health’, including from air pollution and black lung diseaseLending money to Indian mining giant Adani to build a rail line for the Carmichael coal project is akin to supporting big tobacco to transport hundreds of tonnes of tobacco to market, an eminent former surgeon and the chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia, Prof Kingsley Faulkner, said.
  Faulkner made the comment in a letter to the chair of t
  
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