Environment news

• Canada fisherman killed by whale moments after rescuing it from net

  11-07-2017 23:13 via theguardian.com
  
  Joe Howlett helped to rescue a north Atlantic right whale that had become heavily tangled in rope and was struck by the mammal afterwardA Canadian lobster fisherman who saved dozens of endangered whales after they became tangled in fishing nets has been killed – moments after a last successful rescue.Joe Howlett, from Campobello Island, New Brunswick, boarded a vessel off the province’s eastern coast on Monday to help rescue a north Atlantic right whale that had become heavily tangle
  
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• These 100 Companies Are to Blame For 71% of The World's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

  11-07-2017 23:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  Since 1988, a mere 100 companies have been responsible for 71 percent of the entire world's industrial greenhouse gas emissions.This data comes from an inaugural report published by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an environmental non-profit. Charting the rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the last 28 years, they have now released some truly staggering numbers on the world's major carbon polluters.
  
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• Coca-Cola to radically increase amount of recycled plastic in its bottles

  11-07-2017 23:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: move to improve targets and increase support for recycling comes amid pressure from environmentalistsCoca-Cola is to radically increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles, the Guardian understands, amid pressure from environmentalists and new figures that show more than a million plastic bottles are bought globally every minute.The world’s biggest drinks brand is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will increase its target for recycled plastic in its bottles and
  
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• Coca-Cola to increase amount of recycled plastic in its bottles

  11-07-2017 23:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: move to improve targets and increase support for recycling comes amid pressure from environmentalistsCoca-Cola is to increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50% amid pressure from environmentalists over runaway use of the containers.The world’s biggest drinks brand says it will hit its new UK recycling target - up from a previous goal of 40% - by 2020. Continue reading...
  
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• Big cash boost for UK satellite sector

  11-07-2017 23:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The UK government formally announces a more-than-£100m investment in new satellite and rocket test facilities.
  
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• Ghost nets: the remote town turning death-trap debris into world-class art

  11-07-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Washed-up fishing nets plague a Cape York community – but locals are winning global acclaim for repurposing themOn the outskirts of the Aboriginal town of Pormpuraaw – beyond the scented frangipani trees, the rows of bungalows, and the lush tropical greenery – is a mountainous rubbish tip. Locals have their own name for it: Bunnings.As if browsing the Australian hardware store it’s named for, they pick through the tip for rubber, rope, bicycle rims. Detritus is then turne
  
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• Exclusive: government inaction leading to increased pollution on Barrier Reef, says WWF

  11-07-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Huge spike in Queensland land clearing destroys ecological communities and habitat of threatened species, according to analysis The federal government is allowing the huge spike in land clearing in Queensland to destroy threatened ecological communities, the habitat of threatened species and increase pollution on the Great Barrier Reef by failing to enforce environmental law, according to analysis by WWF.Following the weakening of land clearing laws in Queensland in 2013, the rate of clearing th
  
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• Energy economics group says export market for Australian coal will decline

  11-07-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Office of the chief economist projects market will grow by 8.7% by 2022, but Institute for Energy Economics says this is based on out of date analysisAs Australia mulls the building of its biggest-ever export thermal coal mine, its biggest foreign buyers look set to reduce their consumption, driving down the price of Australian coal, and the profitability of its mines.
  Japan, South Korea and Taiwan together buy about 30% of the world’s exported thermal coal, including 70% of Australia&rsqu
  
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• Boris Johnson backs 'all-out ban' on ivory sales

  11-07-2017 19:50 via theguardian.com
  
  Foreign secretary confirms government’s pledge, despite absence from manifestoA total ban on ivory sales in the UK could still be introduced by the British government, foreign secretary Boris Johnson has said, signalling a possible U-turn that has been welcomed by conservationists. In their 2015 manifesto the Conservatives promised to “press for a total ban on ivory sales”. But the pledge was quietly taken out of this year’s Tory manifesto, sparking anger among conservati
  
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• Spiky Ferrofluid Thrusters Can Move Satellites

  11-07-2017 19:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Brandon Jackson, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at Michigan Technological University, has created a new computational model of an electrospray thruster using ionic liquid ferrofluid—a promising technology for propelling small satellites through space. Specifically, Jackson looks at simulating the electrospray startup dynamics; in other words, what gives the ferrofluid its characteristic spikes.
  
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• The Lake District’s world heritage site status is a betrayal of the living world | George Monbiot

  11-07-2017 18:21 via theguardian.com
  
  The designation protects sheep farming, and nothing else. This blatant assault on nature turns the area into a Beatrix Potter-themed museum
  • George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistEverything that has gone wrong with conservation is exemplified by this decision: the cowardice, the grovelling, the blandishments, the falsehoods. The way conservation groups rolled over is shameful, but also familiar. They did nothing to prevent the Lake District, England’s largest and most spectacular nat
  
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• Marine Vessels are Unsuspecting Hosts of Invasive Species

  11-07-2017 18:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Invasive ascidians — sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders — are nuisance organisms that present a global threat. They contribute to biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and impairment of ecosystem services around the world.A new Tel Aviv University study finds that ships play an unknowing but dominant role in introducing and dispersing these tough-shelled non-indigenous organisms into new environments. The research showed that these marine invertebrates hitch a r
  
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• White whale Migaloo spotted off Australia’s Gold Coast – video

  11-07-2017 17:52 via theguardian.com
  
  A white humpback whale, known as Migaloo, was spotted swimming off Australia’s Gold Coast on Tuesday. The whale was making its annual migration towards the Great Barrier Reef. Up to 5,000 humpbacks migrate north up Australia’s east coast between April and August each year from waters in the Antarctic to feed and breed in warm tropical waters Humpback whales charge a pod of killer whales in Monterey Bay – video
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• You don’t need a scientist to know what’s causing the sixth mass extinction | Paul R Ehrlich

  11-07-2017 16:57 via theguardian.com
  
  It’s simple. It’s us. The more people there are, the more habitats we destroy. Human civilisation can only survive if the population begins to shrink
  • Paul R Ehrlich is a professor of population studies at Stanford University and the author of The Population Bomb (1968)One should not need to be a scientist to know that human population growth and the accompanying increase in human consumption are the root cause of the sixth mass extinction we’re currently seeing. All you
  
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• First teleportation to low-Earth orbit

  11-07-2017 16:28 via bbc.co.uk
  
  China teleports first object from the ground to satellite
  
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• Tesla shows us how to think big on renewables, but there’s a long road ahead | Sam Hardy

  11-07-2017 16:21 via theguardian.com
  
  Elon Musk’s company has rightly been praised for its proposed giant battery in South Australia, although some components will prove controversial• Sam Hardy is a specialist in the tech, sustainability and extractives sectorsTesla gave the world two glimpses of the future last week. First, the company confirmed its long-awaited Model 3 would hit the market this summer. Once it reaches the forecourts it will be the first genuinely affordable, fully electric vehicle (EV) on offer to cons
  
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• Prelude to global extinction: Stanford biologists say disappearance of species tells only part of the story of human impact on Earth's animals

  11-07-2017 16:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  No bells tolled when the last Catarina pupfish on Earth died. Newspapers didn’t carry the story when the Christmas Island pipistrelle vanished forever.
  
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• Protected wildlife allegedly killed on Peak District shooting estate

  11-07-2017 14:29 via theguardian.com
  
  Police investigate after animal rights group films badgers allegedly being caught in snares and shot on the Moscar estatePolice are investigating allegations that protected wildlife was killed on a shooting estate owned by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland.Footage filmed by an animal rights group allegedly showed badgers caught in snares and shot this year. Continue reading...
  
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• Earth already in midst of sixth mass extinction, scientists say – video report

  11-07-2017 14:27 via theguardian.com
  
  The scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reported that the Earth is already in the stages of the sixth mass extinction, which will see the world’s wildlife and plants die out. The research found that species, including those which are not endangered, had reduced in number due to habitation shrinkage, hunting, pollution and climate change
  Earth’s sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn
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• Fusion wait

  11-07-2017 11:50 via bbc.co.uk
  
  We will have to wait until the second half of the century for fusion reactors to start generating electricity, experts have announced.
  
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• Fusion energy pushed back beyond 2050

  11-07-2017 11:50 via bbc.co.uk
  
  We will have to wait until the second half of the century for fusion reactors to start generating electricity, experts have announced.
  
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• UK households binned 300,000 tonnes of clothing in 2016

  11-07-2017 11:38 via theguardian.com
  
  The good news is that we are using our tumble driers less, the bad news we are chucking our unwanted clothes in the bin rather than recycling themThe carbon footprint of the UK clothing sector is worsening, a new report reveals, driven by the ongoing popularity of cheap and cheerful “fast fashion” and a shortage of sustainable raw materials.Although the amount of clothing being sent to landfill has fallen by 14% from 350,000 tonnes in 2012 to 300,000 in 2016 a staggering one-quarter
  
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• Deforestation soars in Colombia after Farc rebels' demobilization

  11-07-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Area of deforestation climbed 44% in 2016 compared with year before, as criminal groups have swooped in promote illegal logging and miningColombia has seen an alarming surge in deforestation after the leftwing rebels relinquished control over vast areas of the country as a part of a historic peace deal.The area of deforestation jumped 44% in 2016 to 178,597 hectares (690 square miles) compared with the year before, according to official figures released this month – and most of the destruc
  
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• The Indigenous community making art from garbage – video

  11-07-2017 09:56 via theguardian.com
  
  On Pormpuraaw beach on the west coast of Cape York peninsula, plastic fishing nets have been washing up on shore – some kilometres long. Killing hundreds of species of marine life, the ‘ghost nets’ threaten a valuable food source for the local community. So Pormpuraaw artists are fighting back, gathering other refuse from a local tip dubbed ‘Bunnings’ and weaving it through the nets to create stunning large-scale sculptures of ocean-dwelling totems. The art, which c
  
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• ‘Guardian of the forest’ routinely culled in Madeira

  11-07-2017 09:49 via theguardian.com
  
  The Trocaz pigeon is a vital seed-disperser in one of the world’s rarest forest ecosystems, but its taste for cabbage has put it in direct competition with humans. Guess who wins? As we hike through the cool, low-canopied forest along a levada – a centuries-old water canal carved out of the mountainside – our guide talks effusively of a pigeon. It’s the “guardian of the forest” the guide with MB Tours tells me and the other hikers. Known as the Trocaz pigeon,
  
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• Push for new coal-fired power station in Queensland 'nonsense' – state minister

  11-07-2017 09:14 via theguardian.com
  
  Idea championed by federal Nationals ‘one of the most irresponsible policy propositions I’ve heard’, Mark Bailey saysQueensland’s energy minister, Mark Bailey, says the state does not need a new coal-fired power station, branding the idea championed by federal Nationals “one of the most irresponsible policy propositions I’ve heard”.
  Before new talks on Friday between energy ministers in the wake of the Finkel review of the national electricity market, Ba
  
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• Forget cats and dogs – caterpillars make the best pets | Patrick Barkham

  11-07-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  While butterflies are ubiquitous from stationery to fashion, we have forgotten how to appreciate these humble, hungry, miraculous creatures
  • Patrick Barkham is a Guardian writerButterflies are ubiquitous in our culture, via dresses, prints, cards and tattoos, but the humble caterpillar is surely overdue a revival. Whenever I’ve paused by a sizeable nettle patch this year, I’ve found them – writhing balls of black peacock caterpillars and black-and-fluorescent-lime small t
  
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• Shipping companies urged to stop using dirty fuels in the Arctic

  11-07-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Shipping companies are under pressure to phase out use of heavy fuels, as world’s first hybrid battery-powered cruise ship set for launch in 2018Shipping companies are under pressure to phase out use of heavy fuels ahead of a potential ban on their use in the Arctic in the coming years. The International Maritime Organisation has approved an environmental review of the use of heavy fuel oil (HFO) by ships in the Arctic. Already banned in Antarctica, HFO is a dense and viscous byproduct of
  
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• Mesmerising video of a whale playing with dolphins

  11-07-2017 07:14 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A whale appears to play with a pod of dolphins off the coast of Western Australia.
  
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• Young falcons graduate from flying school

  11-07-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  West Sussex Over a few short weeks the peregrine chicks have grown from ungainly youngsters into aerobats like their parentsThe piercing calls coming from above, high up on the chalk cliff, reveal that there are still peregrine falcons at home. Four chicks have fledged, and over the course of a few short weeks I’ve been watching them grow from ungainly youngsters, flapping in short, clumsy flights across the cliff face, to become stronger aerobats like their parents. The mother soars overh
  
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• Toxic firefighting foam class action begins as government accused of inaction

  11-07-2017 03:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Residents near Oakey army base in Queensland allege contamination has spread into groundwater and food, affecting health and making homes unsellable The federal government is in denial about the effects of toxic firefighting foam and has failed to help trapped residents move, one of the lawyers bringing a class action against the defence department has said.Hundreds of residents living near the Oakey army aviation centre allege toxic chemicals used in firefighting foam have spread on to their la
  
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• Countries with coral reefs must do more on climate change – Unesco

  11-07-2017 02:14 via theguardian.com
  
  Custodians of world heritage-listed sites should aim to keep global temperature increases to just 1.5C, UN agency saysCountries with responsibility over world heritage-listed coral reefs should adopt ambitious climate change targets, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions to levels that would keep global temperature increases to just 1.5C, the UN agency responsible for overseeing world heritage sites has said.At a meeting of Unesco’s world heritage committee in Krakow, Poland, a decision w
  
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• First vaccine shows gonorrhoea protection

  11-07-2017 01:27 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The World Health Organization sees developing a vaccine as vital in stopping "super-gonorrhoea".
  
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• Zoo keepers

  11-07-2017 01:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Galaxy Zoo is one of the most successful citizen science projects ever conceived. We look back at what it's achieved over 10 years.
  
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• Galaxy Zoo: Citizen science trailblazer marks tenth birthday

  11-07-2017 01:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Galaxy Zoo is one of the most successful citizen science projects ever conceived. We look back at what it's achieved over 10 years.
  
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• UK should stay in Euratom nuclear body, says Labour

  11-07-2017 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Keir Starmer pledges to work across parties to prevent ‘reckless’ plan as part of Brexit, as radiologists warn of effect on patientsLabour’s Keir Starmer has urged the government to keep Britain in the Euratom treaty that governs the movement of nuclear materials – and drop its red line on the future role of the European court of justice or risk defeat in the House of Commons.The shadow Brexit secretary vowed to work with MPs across the political spectrum, including a gro
  
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