Environment news

• Tackling the plastic bottle crisis and our wider disregard for nature | Letters

  30-06-2017 20:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Green co-leader Caroline Lucas says she hopes to build a cross-party coalition to stop bottle wastage, while other correspondents offer their thoughts on protecting the environmentThe Guardian’s coverage of the global plastic bottle crisis (Surge in plastic bottle use sparks global alert, 29 June) has been powerful and compelling. Like so many of the environmental challenges we face, this issue has been largely ignored in the mainstream, which has led us to the extraordinary situation wher
  
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• Europe's contribution to deforestation set to rise despite pledge to halt it

  30-06-2017 18:35 via theguardian.com
  
  Europe’s consumption of products such as beef, soy and palm oil could increase its contribution to global deforestation by more than a quarter by 2030, analysis showsEurope’s contribution to global deforestation may rise by more than a quarter by 2030, despite a pledge to halt such practices by the end of this decade, according to a leaked draft EU analysis.An estimated 13m hectares (Mha) of the world’s forestland is lost each year, a figure projected to spiral in the next 30 y
  
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• Trump called 'threat to every coastline' as he pushes ocean drilling plan

  30-06-2017 18:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Administration moves to ‘unleash’ US fossil fuels by rewriting Obama-era plan that banned drilling along Atlantic seaboard and large parts of the Arctic OceanEnvironmentalists have condemned Donald Trump as a “threat to every ocean and coastline in the country”, after the president pushed forward plans to expand oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as part of what he called a new era of “American energy dominance”.The Trump administration has
  
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• Plastic waste, bee-harming pesticides and tigers – green news roundup

  30-06-2017 17:42 via theguardian.com
  
  The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...
  
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• When deciding a nation’s future, politicians play with their food

  30-06-2017 16:57 via theguardian.com
  
  In the UK and abroad, the political events of the past year prove that politicians are willing to gamble with the health, prosperity, and fate of our food systems.One of the many things that the past year of political turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic has revealed, is that governments have a questionable relationship with food. As the UK inches towards the completion of Brexit negotiations, and the Trump administration in the US unleashes its budget proposal, a strange kind of disconnect has
  
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• Reptile Skin Grown in Lab for First Time, Helps Study Endangered Turtle Disease

  30-06-2017 15:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  Scientists recently reconstructed the skin of endangered green turtles, marking the first time that skin of a non-mammal was successfully engineered in a laboratory, according to a recently published U.S. Geological Survey study. In turn, the scientists were able to grow a tumor-associated virus to better understand certain tumor diseases.
  
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• Europe's extreme June heat clearly linked to climate change, research shows

  30-06-2017 15:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Heatwaves that saw deadly forest fires in Portugal and soaring temperatures in England were made up to 10 times more likely by global warming, say scientistsHuman-caused climate change dramatically increased the likelihood of the extreme heatwave that saw deadly forest fires blazing in Portugal and Spain, new research has shown.Much of western Europe sweltered earlier in June, and the severe heat in England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland was also made significantly more likely
  
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• Fukushima nuclear disaster: former Tepco executives go on trial

  30-06-2017 12:35 via theguardian.com
  
  Three men plead not guilty to professional negligence in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdownThree former executives with the operator of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have pleaded not guilty to charges of professional negligence, in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdown more than six years ago.In the first hearing of the trial at Tokyo district court on Friday, Tsunehisa Katsumata, who was chairman of Tokyo
  
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• Fukushima nuclear crisis: former Tepco executives go on trial

  30-06-2017 12:35 via theguardian.com
  
  Three men plead not guilty to professional negligence in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdownThree former executives with the operator of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have pleaded not guilty to charges of professional negligence, in the only criminal action targeting officials since the triple meltdown more than six years ago.In the first hearing of the trial at Tokyo district court on Friday, Tsunehisa Katsumata, who was chairman of Tokyo
  
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• Life along the vanishing shorelines of the Solomon Islands – in pictures

  30-06-2017 11:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Trees, graveyards and everyday life are being encroached upon by rising sea levels on the Solomon Islands. Local people are trying to adapt Continue reading...
  
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• The house that Tateh built ... out of sand-filled plastic bottles

  30-06-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In the Sahrawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert, Tateh Lehbib Braica – aka ‘the crazy bottle guy’ – has built circular houses from waste plastic that protect from wind and sun A group of women drink tea under the shade of a tent and cast an eye over the construction of an odd, circular house. The half-built dwelling is the brainchild of Tateh Lehbib Braica, 27, an engineer who wanders among the workers. On the ground lie hundreds of sand-filled, 1.5 litre plastic bott
  
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• Fine motorists idling outside schools to cut air pollution, say health watchdogs

  30-06-2017 07:30 via theguardian.com
  
  New official guidance also backs planting trees, supporting cycling and encouraging take-up of electric vehicles to tackle crisis that causes 40,000 early deaths a year Parents who leave their car engines running at the school gate should be fined in order to help tackle the air pollution crisis, according to England’s official health watchdogs.New guidance from Public Health England (PHE) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) sets out a wide range of measures to
  
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• Spiky stars of summer's golden gang

  30-06-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Airedale, West Yorkshire Goldfinches bicker among the chromium yellows of gorse and laburnumIt’s been a good year for gorse. Perhaps the dryish winter helped. All across the north of England I’ve seen the plant’s reckless spatters of chromium yellow bristling with the promise of stonechats and whitethroats.Some trace the origins of the word gorse to an Anglo-Saxon word for wasteland (this, Ulex europaeus, is a species of poor soil and open skies) but others relate it ultimately
  
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• No more business as usual: the corporates stepping up to save the planet

  30-06-2017 02:42 via theguardian.com
  
  As Trump reneges on climate change commitments, progressive businesses are implementing the measures themselves When the US president, Donald Trump, announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, one might have anticipated a hearty cheer from industry around the world relieved that business as usual could continue.
  Instead the opposite has happened. Across the United States, the business community is taking it upon itself to implement the measures needed to address climate
  
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• Wild ducks caught on camera snacking on small birds

  30-06-2017 02:23 via bbc.co.uk
  Wild mallard ducks have been spotted hunting and eating migratory birds to the surprise of scientists.
  
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• 'Very strong' climate change signal in record June heat

  30-06-2017 00:03 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Searing weather across the UK and Europe was made more likely by human-induced climate warming say scientists.
  
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