Environment news

• Murray-Darling basin plan fails environment and wastes money – experts

  04-02-2018 18:00 via theguardian.com
  Scientists and economists issue urgent warning that $4bn plan is not improving basin healthA group of prominent scientists and economists has issued a stark warning to the nation’s politicians: the Murray-Darling basin plan is failing to achieve environmental goals and is a “gross waste” of money. The group of seven economists and five scientists with deep expertise in the river are meeting on Monday morning in Adelaide to issue what they are calling the Murray-Darling declarat
  
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• Crofters on Lewis fight EDF and Wood Group's windfarm proposal

  04-02-2018 15:09 via theguardian.com
  Energy giants hope Scottish court will permit development of 36 turbines on moorlandHundreds of crofters are fighting an attempt by the energy giants EDF and Wood Group to build a windfarm on the island of Lewis.
  More than 200 crofters have objected to proposals to build on communal land close to Stornoway, the biggest town in the Outer Hebrides. The crofters want to build their own development, with the profits going to the local community. Continue reading...
  
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• London’s fatberg on show: ‘We thought of pickling it’

  04-02-2018 10:30 via theguardian.com
  The Whitechapel Monster, a giant block of grease from the sewers, comes to the Museum of London. Is it a monument to the age of waste?Nobody remembers exactly who coined the word, but it started off as a bit of slang used by the Thames Water “flushers” who work to keep the sewers flowing freely beneath London. Their word first surfaced from those Victorian tunnels and into the newspapers in August 2013, when a bus-sized “fatberg” – a solid mass of oil and grease and
  
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• How Bill Gates aims to clean up the planet

  04-02-2018 10:00 via theguardian.com
  It’s a simple idea: strip CO2 from the air and use it to produce carbon-neutral fuel. But can it work on an industrial scale?It’s nothing much to look at, but the tangle of pipes, pumps, tanks, reactors, chimneys and ducts on a messy industrial estate outside the logging town of Squamish in western Canada could just provide the fix to stop the world tipping into runaway climate change and substitute dwindling supplies of conventional fuel.It could also make Harvard superstar physicis
  
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• If governments will not punish VW’s shocking behaviour, consumers must

  04-02-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The company is mired in scandals of pollution and animal cruelty. Does it deserve to be rewarded with electric car sales?It is hard to think how Volkswagen could top a scandal involving it selling drivers 11 million cars that produced more pollution than advertised, harming human health and shamefully cheating regulators’ tests in the process. But the past fortnight’s mind-boggling revelations about research at the world’s biggest carmaker have come close.First, it emerged the
  
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• Climate change sceptic Kathleen Hartnett White ditched as Trump environmental adviser

  04-02-2018 05:23 via theguardian.com
  White House to withdraw nomination of controversial figure to chair Council on Environmental QualityThe nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White, a climate change sceptic, to serve as Donald Trump’s top environmental adviser is to be withdrawn, the White House has confirmed.White was announced in October last year as Trump’s choice to chair the Council on Environmental Quality.Continue reading...
  
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• Labor offers solar panels and Tesla batteries for 50,000 South Australia homes

  04-02-2018 04:39 via theguardian.com
  ‘Virtual’ power plant will cut bills, premier says, as Turnbull attacks renewable policy at Liberal campaign launchA network of at least 50,000 home solar systems backed up by battery storage will create the world’s largest “virtual” power plant to cut energy bills, Jay Weatherill has said.The South Australian premier said a trial was already under way to install solar panels and Tesla batteries on 1,100 Housing Trust homes. The cost would be financed by the sale of
  
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• Adani coalmine won't get federal rail funding, Liberal minister says

  04-02-2018 00:17 via theguardian.com
  Concessional $900m loan cannot proceed without Queensland government approval, Karen Andrews saysThe Adani Carmichael coalmine will not receive federal funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for a vital rail line, a Turnbull government minister has said.The announcement by Karen Andrews on Sunday is a major blow to Adani, which has sought a $900m concessional loan for rail to link the Carmichael mine to port – and could spell the end of the project entirely if it can&r
  
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