Environment news

• The Paris climate agreement, Nicaragua and Donald Trump | Letters

  08-06-2017 19:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Nicaragua wants a tougher deal, writes Helen Yuill; and Dorothy Starr wants her president’s state visit to the UK called offWe welcome your excellent coverage of President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement (Anger at US as Trump rejects climate accord, 2 June). However, there are references to the US joining Syria and Nicaragua in rejecting the agreement. Presented out of context, this comparison is flawed. Syria didn’t sign because of the catastrophic
  
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• A promise on Paris agreement emerges as world 'wavers' on climate action

  08-06-2017 17:36 via theguardian.com
  
  EU’s new consensus sets out vision for European development policy, reinforcing the global goals, but critics say commitments do not go far enoughMajor European countries have pledged to keep the Paris climate agreement on track amid “wavering” world commitment in a new development consensus agreed between the EU’s member states and signed in Brussels on Wednesday. “These are challenging times,” said Neven Mimica, European commissioner for international cooper
  
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• Brazilian tribal leader tours Europe to plead for help to stop killings and land grabs

  08-06-2017 17:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Guarani-Kaiowá leader Ladio Veron is seeking international support to end violence against indigenous people and environmental destruction under the Temer administration, reports MongabayLadio Veron, leader of Brazil’s indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá people, is touring Europe and making a desperate international appeal to halt attacks and killings, land theft and environmental destruction that his people say have become a hallmark of Brazil’s Temer administration.The Guarani-
  
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• Therapy could stop superbugs on farms

  08-06-2017 16:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Researchers show that it might be possible to develop an alternative to antibiotics for treating diseases in pigs and humans
  
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• Quack science

  08-06-2017 16:51 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The biological trick that allows a female mandarin duck to become a male.
  
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• Americans 'under siege' from climate disinformation – former Nasa chief scientist

  08-06-2017 16:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, says former head of US space agency Americans are “under siege” from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa’s former chief scientist has said.Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially
  
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• #WorldOceansDay: vaquita porpoises are fast dying out - can a radical rescue plan save them?

  08-06-2017 14:39 via theguardian.com
  
  It’s World Ocean Day, so spare a thought for the vaquita – by the end of 2017, there could be just 15 of these small porpoises left In a few months, conservationists will converge on the Gulf of California in a last-ditch effort to save the vaquita from extinction, a species of tiny porpoise. The scientists face an unprecedented challenge: to bring as many vaquita into captivity as possible. When the Vaquita CPR rescue plan was announced back in April, I interviewed several scientist
  
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• Trump's pitch for making the Mexico border wall 'beautiful': add solar panels

  08-06-2017 14:13 via theguardian.com
  
  The president’s ‘put a solar panel on it’ policy to fund the wall may be expensive, impossible to build – and it’s unclear what the energy would be used forThe president this week proposed a radical way to fund his proposed Mexican border wall: covering it in solar panels.The same Donald Trump who has spent years criticizing renewable energy as uneconomical and who has pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement has now floated the idea of adding solar panels t
  
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• Pittsburgh and Paris join over 200 cities and states rejecting Trump on climate | Dana Nuccitelli

  08-06-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Local and international efforts might be enough to limit the damage Trump’s scorched Earth approachI was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not ParisSo said Donald Trump in a speech justifying his irrational, historically irresponsible decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris international climate treaty. Of course, 75% of Pittsburgh residents voted for Hillary Clinton, and many city residents have since written about the outdatedness and absurdity of Trump&rsquo
  
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• Shark bites teacher in Devon surfing incident

  08-06-2017 11:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Rich Thomson was surfing off Bantham beach in south Devon when a metre-long shark bit his handIt won’t go down as a great tale of derring-do on the high seas and it is very unlikely that a film or book deal will follow. But a teacher from Devon has a salty story to tell after an episode in which a “small shark” drew blood while he was surfing in south-west England.Rich Thomson, 30, a chemistry teacher at Kingsbridge community college, was off Bantham beach in south Devon when h
  
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• Objective truth ‘only hope' of democracy

  08-06-2017 10:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Neil deGrasse Tyson challenges the treatment of science in the Trump administration
  
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• Renewables provide more than half UK electricity for first time

  08-06-2017 10:55 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The National Grid says alternative fuel generated more electricity than coal and gas in the UK on Wednesday.
  
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• Three things to watch out for in the Finkel review | Tristan Edis

  08-06-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Alan Finkel can’t be expected to solve the problem of Australia’s electricity supply in a single report. But he should be able to sort out these three issuesAustralia’s electricity supply has become an incredible mess. We now face some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world. Yet for all this money we pay it is also one of the most polluting (second only in the developed world to Estonia).One can hardly expect the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, to manage to reso
  
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• New Danish triennial looks at nature throughout history – in pictures

  08-06-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Large-scale installations across Aarhus city depict nature, and man’s relationship with it, in three categories: the past, present and future – from a structure highlighting bee decline to a reflection on light pollution• ARoS Art Museum’s triennial The Garden – End of Times, Beginning of Times runs until 30 July; The Past section runs until 10 Sept Continue reading...
  
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• ‘There is so much out there’: Kenya’s plastic bag battle – in pictures

  08-06-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Plastic bags are an infamous problem in Nairobi. They clog its waterways and litter its streets. The Kenyan government is attempting to ban their use from August – with implications for businesses from supermarkets to recyclers. Continue reading...
  
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• 'Monster' rocket 'selfie' delights India

  08-06-2017 06:43 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Onboard footage from the Indian space agency's 640-tonne rocket has been widely shared on Twitter.
  
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• Barefoot among the barrel-rolling damselflies

  08-06-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Sandy Bedfordshire As the damsels flew upstream I began to wade with the fishes, it felt like a release, liberation evenWalking barefoot through a field of long grass, I poked into a molehill with my big toe. Its summit was like toasted breadcrumbs and the dislodged granules rolled down the slopes as loose scree. My rotating foot waggled deeper, finding darker, damp, earth that held firm. The moisture suggested that this molehill was an eruption from the night before; the toes told what the eyes
  
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• Stormy waters: the salmon farmer trying to limit fishing and save the ocean

  08-06-2017 02:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Unlikely environmentalist Frances Bender is taking legal action against Tasmanian government for failing to protect the environment There’s trouble brewing in Tasmania’s waterways once again. In the 1980s, protests over the proposed Franklin River hydroelectric dam threw the Apple Isle’s conservation plight onto the national stage. This time, it is the state’s salmon farming industry that is under a cloud. The relatively young industry is worth over $700m a year and now o
  
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• BlueScope Steel backs low emissions target as way to achieve energy balance

  08-06-2017 01:43 via theguardian.com
  
  Intervention ahead of Finkel review by CEO of one of Australia’s largest manufacturers comes as Tony Abbott warns an LET would be a ‘big mistake’One of Australia’s largest manufacturers, BlueScope Steel, has backed a proposal for a low emissions target (LET) as the best way to balance the objectives of affordable and reliable energy that meets emissions reduction targets.BlueScope chief executive, Paul O’Malley, said the LET was a better option than an emissions int
  
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• 'Oldest Homo sapiens' found

  08-06-2017 01:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Fossils of five early humans have been found in North Africa that show Homo sapiens emerged at least 100,000 years earlier than previously recognised.
  
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• Wingsuit pilot Fraser Corsan 'breaks speed record'

  08-06-2017 01:33 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A British man is thought to have broken the World Record for greatest peak speed flown in a wingsuit.
  
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• Asian nations make plastic oceans promise

  08-06-2017 01:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  China, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines say they will act to stop plastic polluting the oceans.
  
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