Environment news

• Peacock and red admiral butterflies out in abundance: Country diary 100 years ago

  10-09-2017 23:30 via theguardian.com
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 14 September 1917Already a peacock butterfly has selected our curtains for winter quarters, but it is early for this fly to be going into hibernation, and many are still on the wing, settling on the scabious and ragworts in the lanes or the flowers in our gardens. Perhaps the yellowing foliage of the sycamore and showers of curled, crisp beech leaves already down had given it a warning; it had a duty to fulfil: a long death-like slumber and a sh
  
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• UK flouting duty to cut air pollution deaths, says UN human rights report

  10-09-2017 23:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect life and health of citizensThe UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.
  Baskut Tuncak issued his warning after a fact-finding mission to the UK in January at the invitation of the government in a report that
  
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• Britain flouting duty to protect citizens from toxic air pollution – UN

  10-09-2017 23:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect people’s lives and health The UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.
  Baskut Tuncak issued his warning after a fact-finding mission to the UK in January at the invitation of the government in a report
  
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• What was in the air at Birling Gap? Investigations continue

  10-09-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  There is still no confirmed cause for the toxic haze that affected the Sussex coastline last monthItems from the shipping lanes frequently wash up on UK beaches. Occasionally hazardous chemical containers appear prompting local beach closures. The incident on the East Sussex coast on 27 August was on much larger scale. Although media reports focused on the beach at Birling Gap, air pollution monitors tell us that the affected area was much bigger. An apparent sharp rise in ozone was detected on
  
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• The Guardian view on climate change: see you in court | Editorial

  10-09-2017 21:12 via theguardian.com
  It is possible to determine which nations and companies are responsible for damaging the climate. It’s only a matter of time before courts decide they must pay for global warmingRecent days have seen Houston, Texas literally sunk under sheer weight of rain, Carribbean islands battered by powerful storms barrelling across the Gulf and now Florida homes blasted by Irma, the largest of three hurricanes churning in the Atlantic basin. It seems almost certain that man-made climate change has a
  
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• Energy committee head says Liddell station 'about stuffed' and loan mechanism needed

  10-09-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Nationals MP says policy certainty required for investment as Turnbull government meets with head of AGLThe chairman of federal parliament’s environment and energy committee says a fresh approach is needed on energy policy, including a new federal loan mechanism to upgrade the coal fleet and a “lock in” mechanism for the clean energy target.
  Ahead of a much telegraphed meeting in Canberra on Monday between the Turnbull government and the head of AGL, Andy Vesey, about extending
  
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• Keep peat – and our plants – safely in the ground

  10-09-2017 19:32 via theguardian.com
  Peatlands sequester carbon and support rare planets and wildlife. Letter from the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife and Friends of the EarthTomorrow, the horticultural industry gathers in Birmingham at the Glee international garden show, with the major high street retailers deciding how and what we will grow in our gardens next year. Yet among the commercial bustle, there remains a deafening silence that shames this £5bn business and our national passion – why is peat still being used
  
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• Company Town: 'quiet tragedy' of an Arkansas community vs the Kochs

  10-09-2017 15:03 via theguardian.com
  A new film tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas – a small town dominated by a Koch brothers-owned paper mill, blamed for dumping cancer-causing chemicalsThe documentary Company Town opened in New York City on Friday night, for a short run at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. Introducing a sold-out screening, New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman said co-directors Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian had captured one of the “quiet tragedies that are taking place a
  
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• UK windfarms cheaper than Hinkley Point, experts claim

  10-09-2017 13:16 via theguardian.com
  Analysts predict sea change in energy policy as falling costs for offshore power will charge UK taxpayer at least 10% less than deal handed to new nuclear plantWindfarms around Britain’s coast will beat the planned nuclear power station Hinkley Point on price when the winning bidders for a £290m-a-year pot of government subsidies are announced on Monday, experts predict.Such a milestone would mark a dramatic cost reduction for a technology that was once far more expensive than atomic
  
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• Company Town captures 'quiet tragedy' of community polluted by big business

  10-09-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  A new film tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas – a small town dominated by the Koch brothers’ paper mill, blamed for dumping cancer-causing chemicalsThe documentary Company Town opened in New York City on Friday night, for a short run at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. Introducing a sold-out screening, New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman said co-directors Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian had captured one of the “quiet tragedies that are taking plac
  
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• North West Cambridge: a model for affordable urban housing?

  10-09-2017 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Cambridge University has completed the first stage of its ambitious £1bn development of homes, shops and schools on the city’s outlying farmlandAt the centre of debates about green belts is the question of trust. In theory it should be possible to build on a very small proportion of the nation’s green belts in such a way that affordable housing and sustainable communities are created, and more people have more and better access to nature than before. In practice few people trus
  
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• Global shockwaves from electric cars will be here sooner rather than later

  10-09-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Governments, the oil industry and car makers are waking up to the profound changes battery-powered cars will bringWhen Jaguar Land Rover followed in the tracks of Volvo last week with its shift to an electric-powered future, the car maker didn’t just talk about hybrids and batteries.Its chief executive also showed that his company, like governments and oil firms, is finally waking up to the global shockwaves electric cars will bring about. They are far more profound than whether drivers to
  
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• Frydenberg hits back after Nationals describe renewables as 'short-term sugar hit'

  10-09-2017 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Energy minister says renewables an important long-term contributor to Australia’s energy mixThe energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, has stared down criticism of renewable energy from Nationals MPs as the Turnbull government continues to heap public pressure on AGL about the future of the Liddell power station.Frydenberg on Sunday used an interview on Sky News to smack down comments by the former resources minister Matt Canavan characterising renewables as a short-term sugar hit. Continue rea
  
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• The eco guide to healthy beaches

  10-09-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  It’s not about pristine sands – we need seaweed, coral and mangroves to sustain marine wildlife and protect the world’s coastsTo the untrained eye, all beaches can look healthy – the sea gives them a restorative glow. The Beach Ecology Coalition is based in California, but its indicators for a healthy beach broadly hold for Skegness as much as California’s Laguna. Don’t be fooled by pristine beaches. A healthy one should be strewn with wrack: organic litter in
  
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• ‘My job is to clean up the environment. China really wants to do that’

  10-09-2017 03:14 via theguardian.com
  Environmental lawyer James Thornton says China’s ‘ecological civilisation’ concept is the best response to the world’s environmental crisis James Thornton’s specialty is suing governments and corporations on behalf of his only client – the Earth – and he’s very good at it. In his four decades of legal practice across three continents, he’s never lost a case.Acknowledging this in 2009 the New Statesman named him one of the ten people likely to
  
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• Tackling the canine obesity crisis

  10-09-2017 01:54 via bbc.co.uk
  Why, in the mission to improve the health of man's best friend, scientists say greedy Labradors are at the head of the pack.
  
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• Land grab in Amazon jungle threatens dispossession, violence and murder

  10-09-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  President Temer is courting the mining companies and their political backers by breaking into pristine rainforestOn 23 August it emerged that the president of Brazil, Michel Temer, had issued a decree abolishing the protected status of an immense area of the Amazon forest. The area is in the north of the country, beyond the Amazon river, going up to the frontiers with French Guiana and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana). The estimated size is 4.5 million hectares, the size of Denmark or Switzerlan
  
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• Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door

  10-09-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  The president’s dismissal of scientific research is doing nothing to protect the livelihoods of ordinary AmericansAs the US comes to terms with its second major weather disaster within a month, an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change. Continue reading...
  
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• Deep divide over vote on use of National Trust land for trail hunting

  10-09-2017 01:05 via theguardian.com
  Animal rights campaigners claim strong support in the Midlands village that hosts a museum dedicated to the bloodsportThe fractious politics of hunting was far from the minds of Julian Smith and Becky Whitehead during a pleasant afternoon exploring Leicestershire’s only National Trust house – a 118-year-old cottage nestled in countryside just out of earshot of the M1.Nevertheless their views were clear, before a landmark vote next month that could prohibit trust land from being used
  
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