Environment news

• Bright sparks

  21-09-2017 22:52 via bbc.co.uk
  The fast-growing US solar industry is at odds with itself - and the decision may be left to Trump.
  
  Read more

• Sir David Attenborough on his hunt for the Kimodo Dragon

  21-09-2017 22:12 via bbc.co.uk
  Sir David Attenborough spoke to the BBC about Zoo Quest, the environment and the planet's future.
  
  Read more

• Study Shows Diet and Exercise Improve Treatment Outcomes for Obese Pediatric Cancer Patients

  21-09-2017 20:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  Diet and exercise may improve treatment outcomes in pediatric cancer patients, according to a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital.
  
  Read more

• Drug Combination May Improve Impact of Immunotherapy in Head and Neck Cancer

  21-09-2017 20:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  Checkpoint inhibitor-based immunotherapy has been shown to be very effective in recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer but only in a minority of patients. University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers may have found a way to double down on immunotherapy’s effectiveness.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Green Algae Could Hold Clues for Engineering Faster-Growing Crops

  21-09-2017 20:39 via feedproxy.google.com
  Two new studies of green algae — the scourge of swimming pool owners and freshwater ponds — have revealed new insights into how these organisms siphon carbon dioxide from the air for use in photosynthesis, a key factor in their ability to grow so quickly. Understanding this process may someday help researchers improve the growth rate of crops such as wheat and rice.
  
  Read more

• Going Diving in the Tropics? Don't Eat the Reef Fish!

  21-09-2017 20:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  Reducing tourist consumption of reef fish is critical for Palau’s ocean sustainability, finds a new Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program study published today in Marine Policy.
  
  Read more

• NASA Sees Large Tropical Storm Jose Doing a "Sit and Spin" off the Massachusetts Coast

  21-09-2017 20:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  Tropical Storm Jose continued to spin south of Massachusetts when NASA's Aqua satellite flew overhead from space and captured an image of the large storm that hasn't moved much.
  
  Read more

• Assumed safety of widespread pesticide use is false, says top government scientist

  21-09-2017 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Damning assessment by one of the UK’s chief scientific advisers says global regulations have ignored the impacts of ‘dosing whole landscapes’ and must changeThe assumption by regulators around the world that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes is false, according to a chief scientific adviser to the UK government.
  The lack of any limit on the total amount of pesticides used and the virtual absence of monitoring of their effects in the environment
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• David Shepherd obituary

  21-09-2017 19:42 via theguardian.com
  Artist and conservationist whose popular wildlife paintings helped raise millions for charityFresh out of school, with no scholastic achievements to recommend him, David Shepherd applied for a place at the Slade School of Art in London. The Slade did him the biggest favour of his life by telling him that he had no talent for art. Instead, Shepherd, the artist and conservationist, who has died aged 86, took to painting meticulous pictures of railway engines, aircraft and – the real breakthr
  
  Read more

• Hinkley Point C: fresh strike threat over pay dispute

  21-09-2017 19:29 via theguardian.com
  Nuclear plant construction facing further delays as unions declare plans to ballot civil engineers in row over bonusesThe UK’s first new nuclear power plant for 20 years could be delayed again, after trade unions for construction staff working on the £20bn Hinkley Point C project announced a ballot for strike action in a dispute over pay.More than 95% of members balloted by GMB and Unite rejected a pay increase offered by the French energy company EDF and its contractor Bylor after m
  
  Read more

• Ancient DNA sheds light on African history

  21-09-2017 18:08 via bbc.co.uk
  DNA from ancient remains is used to reconstruct thousands of years of population history in Africa.
  
  Read more

• Plant-eating dinosaurs 'strayed from veggie diet'

  21-09-2017 17:12 via bbc.co.uk
  The idea of plant-eating dinosaurs having a strict vegetarian diet is called into question.
  
  Read more

• A new cycling law won't make roads safer and could postpone laws that could | Peter Walker

  21-09-2017 16:35 via theguardian.com
  Of the about 400 pedestrians killed a year in the UK an average of just two are hit by a bike. Enforcing speeding limits on the other hand could help prevent 250 deathsSo there is to be an “urgent” review into whether the law should be changed to target dangerous cycling. This follows a campaign by Matt Briggs, whose wife, Kim, was killed when she was struck by a bike ridden by the now-jailed Charlie Alliston.The first thing to stress is that I understand completely why Matt Briggs f
  
  Read more

• Controlling problem ice — by cracking it

  21-09-2017 16:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Scientists and engineers have been waging a quiet but determined battle against an unlikely problem: the build-up of ice on different structures.
  
  Read more

• Drax boss Dorothy Thompson to step down after 12 years

  21-09-2017 16:08 via theguardian.com
  Will Gardiner, the group’s chief financial officer, will take over in January as company focuses on gas, biomass and battery powerThe long-serving chief executive of the UK’s biggest power station is stepping down, as the North Yorkshire-based business continues its pursuit of a future beyond coal.Drax Group’s Dorothy Thompson will be succeeded by Will Gardiner, currently the chief financial officer, who will take over in January at a time when the company is eyeing a mix of ga
  
  Read more

• Behold, the latest must-have wedding accessory: dead butterflies | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

  21-09-2017 16:04 via theguardian.com
  Releasing soon-to-be-dead insects as the knot is tied is the latest witless idea from an industry that churns out identikit ceremonies for exorbitant feesThere are many things to find distasteful about the wedding-industrial complex, but the fact that it is now causing the deaths of butterflies surely takes the (naked) cake. According to Butterfly Conservation, the trend for releasing butterflies from a box during wedding ceremonies, known as “butterfly confetti” (me neither), could
  
  Read more

• Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately | Ellie Mae O’Hagan

  21-09-2017 15:24 via theguardian.com
  The extreme weather of the past months is a game-changer: surely now the world is ready to talk about climate change as a civilisation-collapsing catastropheIn 1988, when the scientist James Hansen told a senate committee that it was “time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here”, those who took him seriously assumed that if they just persisted with emphasising that this terrible fact would eventually destroy us, action w
  
  Read more

• When media sceptics misrepresent our climate research we must speak out

  21-09-2017 15:09 via theguardian.com
  Our climate paper underlined that strong action towards the 1.5C Paris goal is perhaps more valid than ever, but reading some of the media coverage you might think the opposite was trueOn Monday, we published a paper in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience that re-evaluated how much carbon dioxide we can still afford, collectively, to emit into the atmosphere and still retain some hope of achieving the ambitious goals of the Paris climate agreement to “pursue efforts” to keep glo
  
  Read more

• 'We are planning weekly rocket launches'

  21-09-2017 13:30 via bbc.co.uk
  The small satellite industry is the fastest growing part of the space sector "and they all require launch" says Rocket Lab boss Peter Beck.
  
  Read more

• Land defenders call on UN to act against violence by state-funded and corporate groups

  21-09-2017 12:12 via theguardian.com
  Fight to protect natural resources has become too dangerous in the face of violence from state forces, private security groups and state-sponsored vigilantes, say groups from 29 countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia Land rights defenders from 29 countries have written to the UN asking it to act against violent corporate and state-sponsored groups which they say are threatening their lives and trashing the environment.Thirty nine grassroots groups from Africa, Latin America and Asia, ma
  
  Read more

• Far away from any witnesses, my small town is being poisoned by fracking waste

  21-09-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  In a tiny south-eastern Ohio town in the Appalachian foothills, the Hazel Ginsburg Well is holding waste from out-of-state fracking operations – a sludge of toxic chemicals and undrinkable waterSome days, the air would smell acrid, sharp like bleach, and I would hurry from the car into the house. Other days, the wind seemed normal, unremarkable. I didn’t know why.My south-eastern Ohio town in the Appalachian foothills is a small, rural place where the demolition derby at the county f
  
  Read more

• DNA dogma

  21-09-2017 11:59 via bbc.co.uk
  Evolutionary biologist Matthew Cobb unpicks a lecture that, sixty years ago, set the course for the genetic revolution.
  
  Read more

• Scientists discover unique Brazilian frogs that are deaf to their own mating calls

  21-09-2017 11:07 via theguardian.com
  Pumpkin toadlet frogs are only known case of an animal that continues to make a communication signal even after the target audience has lost the ability to hear itHumans trying to chat each other up in a noisy nightclub may find verbal communication futile. But it appears even more pointless for pumpkin toadlets after scientists discovered that females have lost the ability to hear the sound of male mating calls. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Pumped hydro project that reuses old goldmine expected to win federal funding

  21-09-2017 09:42 via theguardian.com
  Combined solar and pumped hydro generator set to provide quarter of shortfall from Liddell power station’s closure• How an abandoned goldmine will be converted into pumped hydro storage A pumped hydro project that reuses an old goldmine in north Queensland is close to securing federal funding.The combined solar and pumped hydro generator is set to provide a quarter of the power needed to cover the shortfall from the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power station in New South Wales an
  
  Read more

• Commonwealth Bank shareholders drop suit over nondisclosure of climate risks

  21-09-2017 06:45 via theguardian.com
  Guy and Kim Abrahams say case does not need to proceed after changes in bank’s 2017 annual reportCommonwealth Bank shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams have dropped their world-first court proceedings against the bank for failing to disclose climate change risks in annual reports.They said CBA’s 2017 annual report, which was published last month, included an acknowledgement for the first time from CBA directors that climate change posed a significant risk to the bank’s operations,
  
  Read more

• Commonwealth Bank shareholders drop suit over non-disclosure of climate risks

  21-09-2017 06:45 via theguardian.com
  Guy and Kim Abrahams say case does not need to proceed after changes in bank’s 2017 annual reportCommonwealth Bank shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams have dropped their world-first court proceedings against the bank for failing to disclose climate change risks in annual reports.They say CBA’s 2017 annual report, which was published last month, included an acknowledgement for the first time from CBA directors that climate change posed a significant risk to the bank’s operations,
  
  Read more

• Turnbull rejects efforts to ‘dumb down’ energy debate into renewables v coal

  21-09-2017 06:35 via theguardian.com
  A day after Tony Abbott’s call for coal to be prioritised, the prime minister says the debate has seen too much ideology and ‘not enough competence’Malcolm Turnbull has rejected efforts to “dumb down” the energy debate into renewables versus coal, and says the government’s new investment framework will encourage “all of the above”.A day after a significant incursion by Tony Abbott into the energy debate – with the former prime minister arguin
  
  Read more

• Country diary: Slowworm's escape from jaws of disaster

  21-09-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Blanchland, North Pennines Seemingly in a trance, the reptile lay outstretched on the road with predator bites near its headWhen I was a child there was a sheet of rusting corrugated iron lying on the sunny bank of my grandmother’s allotment. If I lifted it quickly I could often find a slowworm resting underneath. It would lie there, startled by the sunlight for a moment, then glide away, like a flowing column of mercury, into the hedge.I have been an inveterate lifter of rusty corrugated
  
  Read more

• Bureau of Meteorology attacks pushed by 'fever swamp' of climate denial | Graham Readfearn

  21-09-2017 06:19 via theguardian.com
  Rob Vertessy, who retired as the BOM’s director in 2016, has hit back at ‘time wasters’ and ‘amateurs’ who are given a forum by the AustralianFor Rob Vertessy, the attacks on his government agency became tedious and time-consuming and no less irritating because they were coming from a motivated group of “amateurs”.Vertessy spent a decade at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. He retired in April 2016 after five years as the agency’s director.C
  
  Read more

• Former weather bureau chief says agency debilitated by climate deniers' attacks

  21-09-2017 06:18 via theguardian.com
  Rob Vertessy says attacks such as the claim the bureau was ‘fabricating temperature records’ are dangerous and wrongMisleading attacks on Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology by climate deniers in the Australian are “debilitating” to the agency and limiting its ability to predict risks and protect the community, the former head of the bureau has told the Guardian.Rob Vertessy, who retired as director of the BoM in April 2016, said climate deniers’ attempts to con
  
  Read more

• Queensland is leading source of renewable energy jobs, report says

  21-09-2017 02:00 via theguardian.com
  Australian Renewable Energy Index says state had almost 6,500 people working in renewables in August, ending NSW’s dominance of sectorQueensland has emerged for the first time as the nation’s leading source of renewable energy jobs, according to figures suggesting the Palaszczuk government’s policy push away from coal-fired power has gained momentum.
  The state had almost 6,500 people working in renewables in August, ending New South Wales’ long-standing dominance of emplo
  
  Read more

• Moving on up

  21-09-2017 01:27 via bbc.co.uk
  The people of the Guna Yala archipelago, off the Panama coast, may be among the first island communities to leave their homes and move onshore.
  
  Read more

• 'What I saw'

  21-09-2017 01:19 via bbc.co.uk
  In this photo essay, photographer Clayton Conn shares his experience of the Mexico City earthquake.
  
  Read more

• 70% of brands in Malaysia and Singapore don't disclose palm oil use

  21-09-2017 01:01 via theguardian.com
  WWF rated 47 regional companies and found the majority have no public policies or commitments on sustainable palm oil sourcing A new scorecard rating companies headquartered in Singapore and Malaysia on their palm oil sustainability commitments has found that the majority do not disclose any information on their sourcing practices.The WWF Palm Oil Buyers’ Scorecard surveyed 47 companies, all household brands in Malaysia and Singapore, asking how far along the path they were to sourcing 100
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!