Environment news

• Your electricity bill: what are you paying for and why is it skyrocketing?

  09-08-2017 22:04 via theguardian.com
  There’s been a lot of confusion – and disinformation – around power prices. We break down the hit to the average Australian household Electricity bills around the country are going up, by as much as 20% in some states, raising average bills by between $300 and $400. And this follows price rises of between 60% and 100% over the preceding half-decade, making energy prices the largest proportion of the household budget since the 1960s and 70s.With many Australians struggling to co
  
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• Incomplete Drought Recovery May Be The New Normal

  09-08-2017 21:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  The amount of time it takes for an ecosystem to recover from a drought is an important measure of a drought’s severity. During the 20th century, the total area of land affected by drought increased, and longer recovery times became more common, according to new research published by Nature by a group of scientists including Carnegie’s Anna Michalak and Yuanyuan Fang.
  
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• Super-heatwaves of 55°C to emerge if global warming continues

  09-08-2017 21:19 via feedproxy.google.com
  Heatwaves amplified by high humidity can reach above 40°C and may occur as often as every two years, leading to serious risks for human health. If global temperatures rise with 4°C, a new super heatwave of 55°C can hit regularly many parts of the world, including Europe.
  
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• Climate change may confuse plant dormancy cycles

  09-08-2017 21:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  Perennial plants in the Midwest are well attuned to their surroundings. They hunker down all winter in a dormant state, just waiting for a sign that it’s safe to unfurl their first tender leaves or flower buds. For many plants, the cue is a sustained warming trend, but day length also factors into the dormancy equation.
  
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• The right language to protect the natural world | Letters

  09-08-2017 20:50 via theguardian.com
  Readers respond to George Monbiot’s recent article and news that the US Department of Agriculture is censoring use of term ‘climate change’George Monbiot’s call to reconsider how we name things (Forget ‘the environment’. Fight for our living planet, 9 August) is a timely contribution to a confusing world. But one word that both he and the majority of online contributors have ignored is “prosperity”. That, after all, is why humans engage in eco
  
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• Pioneering type 1 diabetes therapy safe

  09-08-2017 20:00 via bbc.co.uk
  One day, the immunotherapy could free patients from daily insulin injections.
  
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• UK set for month's rainfall in a day as flooding threat persists

  09-08-2017 19:47 via theguardian.com
  East Riding of Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire among areas hardest hit, with severe downpours expectedA month’s worth of rain was set to fall on the UK on Wednesday as severe downpours brought flooding to large parts of the country. Flash flooding hit towns and villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire. There was a metre (3ft) of standing water in parts of Withernsea, and further flooding in the Grimsby and Immingham areas.The Humberside fire and rescue ser
  
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• RAVAN CubeSat Measures Earth's Outgoing Energy

  09-08-2017 19:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  An experimental small satellite has successfully collected and delivered data on a key measurement for predicting changes in Earth’s climate.
  
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• NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Takes a Double Look at Tropical Storm Franklin

  09-08-2017 19:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  When NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Franklin instruments aboard provided a night-time view of the storm’s clouds and measured their temperatures, revealing a strengthening storm.The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite captured infrared images of Franklin on August 8 at 3:58 a.m. EDT (0758 UTC). The Suomi NPP night-time image showed that Franklin’s northwestern edge had not yet reached
  
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• James Webb: Telescope's giant origami shield takes shape

  09-08-2017 18:53 via bbc.co.uk
  The size of a tennis court, it will shield the vision of the biggest space telescope ever built.
  
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• A year in ozone over the South Pole

  09-08-2017 18:22 via bbc.co.uk
  A video tracks the behaviour of the protective atmospheric layer over Antarctica across all of 2016.
  
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• 'Unusual' Greenland wildfires linked to peat

  09-08-2017 18:21 via bbc.co.uk
  New images have been released of wildfires that continue to burn close to the Greenland ice sheet.
  
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• NASA's Smartest Satellite Is Gone. Can Private Space Replace It?

  09-08-2017 16:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  Look down on Buenos Aires from the sky, and you can learn a fair bit about the city. It's got a lot of concrete. Also a lot of trees. There's a bright green river delta to the north, which probably explains the ruddy-brown bay to the east. But with the right camera—a hyperspectral one—you can pick up a whole lot more. New colors emerge, hidden hues your eyes and mine aren't wired to see. And these colors reflect even more detail about the scene: the gases coming out of the city,
  
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• Biochar shows benefits as manure lagoon cover

  09-08-2017 16:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  Manure is a reality in raising farm animals. Manure can be a useful fertilizer, returning valued nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to the soil for plant growth. But manure has problems. Odor offensiveness, gas emissions, nutrient runoff, and possible water pollution are just a few.
  
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• Can Poor Air Quality Mask Global Warming's Effects?

  09-08-2017 16:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  During the 20th century, the average temperature of the continental United States rose by almost 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree Celsius) -- everywhere, that is, except in the Southeast.
  
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• Exposure to toxins in e-cig vapor varies depending on scenario

  09-08-2017 16:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  E-cigarettes are often perceived to be less harmful than their traditional counterparts, but they could still expose the people who “vape” and those around them to harmful compounds. Researchers now report in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology that heavy use and secondhand emissions could lead to inhaled levels of toxins that exceed set exposure limits. But under typical use, secondhand exposure would have a lower impact on health than second- and thi
  
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• Power-to-Liquid: 200 Liters of Fuel from Solar Power and the Air's Carbon Dioxide

  09-08-2017 15:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  Production of liquid fuels from regenerative electric power is a major component of the energy turnaround. The first 200 l of synthetic fuel have now been produced from solar energy and the air’s carbon dioxide by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis under the SOLETAIR project. Here, INERATEC, a spinoff of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), cooperates with Finnish partners. The mobile chemical pilot plant that can be used decentrally produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hyd
  
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• Technology tracks bee talk to help improve honey bee health

  09-08-2017 15:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  Simon Fraser University graduate student Oldooz Pooyanfar is monitoring what more than 20,000 honeybees housed in hives in a Cloverdale field are “saying” to each other—looking for clues about their health. Pooyanfar’s technology is gleaning communication details from sound within the hives with her beehive monitoring system—technology she developed at SFU. She says improving knowledge about hone
  
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• Monsanto continued selling PCBs for years despite knowing health risks, archives reveal

  09-08-2017 13:14 via theguardian.com
  Company refutes legal analysis of documents suggesting it ignored risk to human health and environment long after pollutants’ lethal effects were knownMonsanto continued to produce and sell toxic industrial chemicals known as PCBs for eight years after learning that they posed hazards to public health and the environment, according to legal analysis of documents put online in a vast searchable archive. More than 20,000 internal memos, minuted meetings, letters and other documents have been
  
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• Marauding elephant could be shot after killing 15 people in India

  09-08-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Wildlife officials say something must be done to end animal’s months-long rampage that has left villagers living in fear An elephant that has killed 15 people in eastern India over a months-long rampage could be shot within days if it is not brought under control, an official has said.Wildlife rangers and hunters assembled in Jharkhand on Wednesday after another victim was trampled to death on Tuesday evening, said the state’s chief forest and wildlife conservator, LR Singh. Continue
  
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• GM salmon hits shelves in Canada – but people may not know they're buying it

  09-08-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  AquaBounty salmon was approved for sale in Canada in 2016, paving the way for it to become the first genetically engineered animal to enter the food supplyCanadian supermarkets have become the first in the world to stock genetically modified fish, and about five tonnes of GM salmon have been sold in the country in recent months. The sales figure was revealed in the most recent earnings report of the US-based AquaBounty Technologies, whose hybrid Atlantic salmon – which contains a gene from
  
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• Genetically modified salmon hits the shelves in Canada – and sells quickly

  09-08-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  AquaBounty salmon was approved for sale in Canada in 2016, paving the way for it to become the first genetically engineered animal to enter the food supplyCanadian supermarkets have become the first in the world to stock genetically modified fish, and around five tonnes of GM salmon have been sold in the country in recent months. The sales figure was revealed in the most recent earnings report of US-based AquaBounty Technologies, whose hybrid Atlantic salmon – which contains a gene from a
  
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• ‘Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of world's biodiversity’

  09-08-2017 10:36 via theguardian.com
  Interview with UN Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous PeoplesToday is the United Nations’ (UN) International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, numbering an estimated 370 million in 90 countries and speaking roughly 7,000 languages. To mark it, the Guardian interviews Kankanaey Igorot woman Victoria Tauli-Corpuz about the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which she calls “historic&r
  
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• Flash floods hit east coast of England

  09-08-2017 10:12 via theguardian.com
  East Riding of Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire among areas hardest-hit with severe downpours expected to slowly move southHeavy rain has brought flooding to a stretch of the east coast of England, and further severe downpours are expected.Flash flooding hit towns and villages in the East Riding of Yorkshire and north-east Lincolnshire. There was 3ft (1 metre) of standing water in parts of Withernsea and further flooding in the Grimsby and Immingham areas. Continue reading...
  
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• How can we get control over our electricity prices? | Christopher Zinn

  09-08-2017 09:15 via theguardian.com
  Turnbull has directed the power companies to help people lowering their bills. Only an empowered consumer is able to navigate market options effectivelyChristopher Zinn is a campaigner who founded and runs determinedconsumer.com.auThere are many reports and inquiries, both current and gathering dust, into the shameful state of our electricity market and its unprecedented and ruinous price rises.But there’s one belief they nearly all cling to, as does the prime minister from his meeting wit
  
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• Energy executives tell Turnbull they aren’t interested in prolonging life of coal plants

  09-08-2017 08:32 via theguardian.com
  Executives also tell prime minister that policy uncertainty is contributing to rise in power pricesSenior energy executives have taken the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting with Malcolm Turnbull to argue policy certainty is required to help lower power prices for consumers – and to signal they are not interested in prolonging the life of coal plants.
  With the government under acute political pressure over rising household power bills, Turnbull secured new undertakings from major energy
  
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• What would the perfect cycling city look like?

  09-08-2017 07:30 via theguardian.com
  If you were building a city for bicycles from scratch, what would you include and leave out? In an edited excerpt from his new book Velotopia, Steven Fleming imagines a pedallers’ paradiseVelotopia is as circular as the topography has allowed, for the usual reason that citizens are always clamouring to live near the civic centre. Development has been restricted to level ground and city limits have been restricted to a diameter of 15km. That ensures average commuting distances of less than
  
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• Forget ‘the environment’: we need new words to convey life’s wonders | George Monbiot

  09-08-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Language is crucial to how we perceive the natural world. Help me to find better ways of describing nature and our relationships with it so we can better defend itIf Moses had promised the Israelites a land flowing with mammary secretions and insect vomit, would they have followed him into Canaan? Though this means milk and honey, I doubt it would have inspired them. Related: The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscapeContinue reading...
  
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• Purple streaks of thistles garnish the sodden fields

  09-08-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Wenlock Edge Rain hardens summer’s lushness and the vivid knapweed seems loaded with the uncanniness of the seasonOn the windmill meadow, above a green rind of grasses and below their fidgety seedheads in the rain is the dotty purpling of knapweed. The jet stream divides August in Europe. As the south swelters in life-threatening temperatures, this side of the shower curtain is cool, wet and, after Lammas Day, thistly. Continue reading...
  
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• Glencore's Wandoan coalmine wins approval from Queensland government

  09-08-2017 05:02 via theguardian.com
  Decision enrages environmental groups, with Lock the Gate calling it a ‘very dark day for farming’ in the stateGlencore’s multibillion-dollar Wandoan coalmine proposal has been granted mining leases years after it was shelved amid falling commodity prices and a ramped-up global response to climate change. On Tuesday Queensland’s natural resources and mines minister, Dr Anthony Lynham, approved three 27-year leases covering 30,000 hectares for the first stage of its $7bn m
  
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• Penguin feathers record migration route

  09-08-2017 01:11 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists study the chemistry of penguin plumage to track the birds' movements.
  
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• Bristol zoo gives rare spiders a leg-up with breeding programme

  09-08-2017 01:11 via theguardian.com
  More than 1,000 of the endangered species, which come from one island off Portugal, have hatched in captivity in a world firstIn what is believed to be a world first, one of the rarest spiders has been bred in captivity at Bristol Zoo Gardens. More than 1,000 Desertas wolf spiderlings, classed as critically endangered, have hatched. Keepers hand-reared some from tiny eggs as they are so precious. At birth, they measure 4mm across, but they will grow to 12cm, with a 4cm body.The species is found
  
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