Environment news

• Country diary 1917: holly saves us from the monotony of a leafless winter

  17-12-2017 23:30 via theguardian.com
  18 December 1917 Their greens may be dark or even dingy, but when the rains sweep over or the snow melts upon them they shine as if polishedThe sombre firs standing black against the leaden sky and the snow-sprinkled ground, the ivy clinging to the ancient bole, the big-leaved laurels and rhododendrons, and the hardy wayside hollies save the country from the monotony of leafless winter. Their greens may be dark or even dingy compared with those of spring, but they are really greens; when the rai
  
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• Newcastle: world's biggest coal export port announces shift away from coal

  17-12-2017 22:51 via theguardian.com
  The new chair of Newcastle Ports in Australia says there’s an urgent need to diversify the regional economy and the port’s businessNewcastle, the world’s largest coal export port, must “urgently” diversify its traffic, the port’s incoming chairman has said, warning that the “long-term outlook for coal is a threat to the port”.The move has been received as a significant sign of the transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading...
  
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• Plantwatch: Wildflowers lose out twice from nitrogen pollution

  17-12-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  Unclean air and run-off from agricultural fertilisers alter habitats while competitors threaten to overwhelm sensitive speciesNitrogen pollution in the air is devastating for many sensitive wild plants, which is why so much of the countryside is becoming a vast carpet of nettles, hogweed, hemlock and other rampant vegetation that feasts on nitrogen. In many places, these are running out of control.Much has been written about the damage to human health from nitrogen oxides given off by traffic, b
  
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• Debts add to disaster for climate-hit nations | Letters

  17-12-2017 19:44 via theguardian.com
  Sarah-Jayne Clifton says countries such as Antigua and Barbuda need debt cancellation, and assistance to help them rebuild should be grants, not loans, while Ian Tysh tears into Theresa May’s domestic climate change policiesFor many countries impacted by the negative impacts of climate change, much more money is leaving in debt payments than they receive in grants to cope with climate impacts (Theresa May: It’s Britain’s duty to help nations hit by climate change, 12 December).
  
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• Power prices forecast to fall over next two years but AEMC warns they won't last

  17-12-2017 18:01 via theguardian.com
  Entry of new renewable capacity will send bills lower but this is unlikely to last without the right energy policyPower prices in Australia rose almost 11% during 2017 but a new forecast says they will fall over the next two years because of the entry of 5,300 MW of new generation capacity into the national electricity market – most of it renewable.
  A new assessment from the Australian Energy Market Commission predicts power prices will fall over the next two years, beginning in mid-2018.
  
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• Playing God: should we revive extinct species?

  17-12-2017 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Scientists have sequenced the DNA of the Tasmanian tiger, which died out in the 1930s, bringing them closer to recreating the animal – and there are plans to do the same with the woolly mammoth. But is it ethical to do so?
  It sounds like something from a sci-fi B-Movie: scientists have moved a step closer to bringing the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction.Also known as the thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial died out in its native land sometime d
  
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• Trump EPA rule change exploits taxpayers for mine cleanup, critics say

  17-12-2017 13:00 via theguardian.com
  Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has scrapped an Obama-era rule requiring mining operations to prove they can clean up future pollutionWhen the Zortman Landusky gold and silver mine, located upstream from Montana’s enormous Fort Belknap reservation, went bankrupt in 1998, the cost of the cleanup fell on the US taxpayer. The costs keep growing.
  “Toxic pollution from the Zortman Landusky mine has contaminated nearly a dozen streams in the Little Rocky mountains and ha
  
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• Waitrose urged to stop selling Shetland scallops over dredging concerns

  17-12-2017 12:29 via theguardian.com
  Waitrose and MSC defend eco credentials of Shetland king scallops as conservation group calls for sales to be suspendedWaitrose has been urged to suspend sales of one of its premium products, an eco-certified king scallop from Shetland, which can sell heavily at Christmas.The marine conservation campaign Open Seas challenged Waitrose after it raised concerns that the scallop fishery causes unjustifiable ecological damage because the shellfish are dredged from the seabed. Continue reading...
  
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• The year is 2037. This is what happens when the hurricane hits Miami

  17-12-2017 11:00 via theguardian.com
  The climate is warming and the water is rising. In his new book, Jeff Goodell argues that sea-level rise will reshape our world in ways we can only begin to imagineAfter the hurricane hit Miami in 2037, a foot of sand covered the famous bow-tie floor in the lobby of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. A dead manatee floated in the pool where Elvis had once swum. Most of the damage came not from the hurricane’s 175-mile-an-hour winds, but from the twenty-foot storm surge that overwhelme
  
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• Venue of last resort: the climate lawsuits threatening the future of big oil

  17-12-2017 10:00 via theguardian.com
  In an era of environmental deregulation, groups like the American Petroleum Institute are focusing resources on the courts – and ‘time is on industry’s side’In early October, 22 state and federal judges hailing from Honolulu to Albany got a crash course in scientific literacy and economics. The three-day symposium was billed as a way to help the judges better scrutinize evidence used to defend government regulations.But the all-expenses-paid event hosted by George Mason U
  
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• The eco guide to not buying stuff

  17-12-2017 07:00 via theguardian.com
  What do you give to the person who has everything? How about nothing?At the risk of undermining the work of a certain Mr S Claus, here’s a sobering thought: while the US contains just 3.1% of the world’s children, its citizens buy in excess of 40% of the world’s toys.Kids are effectively regarded as consumers in training and we know where that leads. According to US studies the average American home contains more than 300,000 items. Continue reading...
  
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• Africa’s new elite force: women gunning for poachers and fighting for a better life

  17-12-2017 01:03 via theguardian.com
  Abused and disadvantaged mothers and daughters are being honed into a squad of sharpshooters to save wildlife in the Zambezi valleyThe black metal of the AR-15 rifle has worn silvery and shiny in parts after years of use. More manageable than an AK-47 in close-quarter combat, the weapon is precise enough to bring down an enemy target at 500 metres. Used for decades by anti-poaching units throughout Africa, today this gun is not carried by a typical swaggering male field ranger; this one is cradl
  
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• All female anti-poaching combat unit - in pictures

  17-12-2017 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Zimbabwe’s Anti-Poaching Success: In between nursing, women hold the front line. Continue reading...
  
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