Environment news

• Impressionist view of midsummer flowers: Country diary 100 years ago

  09-07-2017 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 12 July 1917Along the grassy cuttings of the railway line between Carlisle and Kilmarnock the midsummer flowers are rampant. One would like to have a free pass to investigate the flora of railway cuttings. Many are the tales one hears of the uncommon plants which turn up in such situations, but, in whirling past, one can get only an impressionist view. To-day the prevailing colour was a brilliant and beautiful lilac-blue, that of the tufted vetc
  
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• The downside of summer sunshine

  09-07-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The June heatwave brought dangerously high ozone levels and caused serious summer smogThe hottest June day in the UK since 1976 caused widespread summertime smog across southern England and the Midlands. Sevenoaks in Kent and Lullington Heath, East Sussex, measured the greatest ozone level for 11 years; reaching eight on the UK government’s ten-point scale for the first time. The winds then turned westerly and carried our polluted air eastwards to create problems over Germany. Ozone can ta
  
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• Environmentalists in Brazil blame government for Amazon land violence

  09-07-2017 21:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Plans to reduce forest protections linked to attacks on inspectors and campaigners, environmental groups said after two land rights activists murderedEnvironmental campaigners have blamed the Brazilian government for intensifying violence in the lawless Amazon after two land activists were murdered and a transporter carrying vehicles for Brazil’s environment agency was torched last week.Related: Brazil's archaeologists join fight to preserve country's ancient landsContinue reading...
  
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• Ambitious clean energy target will mean lower electricity prices, modelling says

  09-07-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Energy analysis firm RepuTex finds clean energy target going beyond that advocated by Finkel Review would keep prices down for longerThe more ambitious a clean energy target is, the lower Australian wholesale electricity prices will be, according to new modelling by energy analysis firm RepuTex.The Finkel review, released last month recommended the government introduce a clean energy target (CET), which it found would cut emissions from the national electricity market and put downward pressure o
  
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• Heathrow hotel operator drafts £6.7bn cheaper third runway plan

  09-07-2017 16:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Surinder Arora publishes ‘cheaper and less disruptive’ plan to expand airport including shifting new runway away from M25 and reducing site area by 25%A wealthy hotel operator has submitted plans for a third runway at Heathrow which he claims would be £6.7bn cheaper than the airport’s current scheme.Surinder Arora, founder and chairman of the Arora Group, said there were “cheaper and better ways” to expand Britain’s biggest airport in proposals sent to t
  
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• Gig economy: now is the time to ease the burden for workers

  09-07-2017 09:51 via theguardian.com
  
  The Taylor review of employment practices, set up by Theresa May, is due to be published. It must promise radical reformWhen Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, was appointed last year by Theresa May to lead a review of modern employment practices, he said it would be “really important to get out and listen to people”, as opposed to merely crunching data and numbers.Let us hope he has listened to some of the same people as Frank Field, the former chair of th
  
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• The end of parklife as we know it? The battle for Britain’s green spaces

  09-07-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Britain’s parks are in crisis. With councils such as Bristol cutting spending to zero, and land being lost to developers, what’s happening to our public gardens?We can expect, now that cracks are appearing in the government’s commitment to austerity, calls for many deserving causes to be released from their starvation diets. Of these, Britain’s parks and green spaces have been among the most viciously cut. They cost little in relation to their benefits. They are also asse
  
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• Now is the time to ease the burden for those in the gig economy

  09-07-2017 08:56 via theguardian.com
  
  The Taylor review of employment practices, set up by Theresa May, is due to be published. It must promise radical reformWhen Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, was appointed last year by Theresa May to lead a review of modern employment practices, he said it would be “really important to get out and listen to people”, as opposed to merely crunching data and numbers.Let us hope he has listened to some of the same people as Frank Field, the former chair of th
  
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• Shark Drunk by Morten Strøksnes review – fishy tales from two men in a boat

  09-07-2017 08:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The pursuit of a truly elusive creature makes a delightful diversionThree-quarters of the way up Norway’s west coast, the islands of the Lofoten archipelago rear out of the Atlantic, towering mightily from the deep sea. They are the spectacular setting for Shark Drunk, in which Morten Strøksnes, a journalist, and his friend Hugo Aasjord, an artist, set out to catch a Greenland shark.This singular fish lives for centuries. It grows to more than 20 feet long, passing hundreds of years
  
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• Grapes shrivel as Spanish farmers lament a relentless drought

  09-07-2017 01:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Animals and plants struggle to survive as severe heat dries up the landA taunting peal of thunder rings out overhead as Diego García de la Peña studies one of his ponds and wonders whether its water will see his cattle through until October.The 65-year-old farmer – a former bullfighter who quotes Federico García Lorca and whose ancestors were among the legions of steely Extremadurans who bent the New World to their will – is a worried man. Continue reading...
  
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