Environment news

• Tesla battery 'taking straw off camel's back' for South Australia energy demand

  22-02-2018 20:09
  Expert finds pattern of battery charging up overnight to hit grid at peak timesThe big Tesla battery in South Australia is consistently working to serve the peak energy demand each day, taking the “straw off the camel’s back,” according to the Australia Institute’s latest national energy emissions audit.The report also finds emissions from the National Electricity Market [NEM] continued to drop in January, falling to their lowest levels since 2004, driven by the federal l
  
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• Neanderthals were capable of making art

  22-02-2018 20:01 via bbc.co.uk
  Contrary to the traditional view of them as brutes, it turns out that Neanderthals enjoyed making art.
  
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• Half of world's oceans now fished industrially, maps reveal

  22-02-2018 20:00
  Data gathered from more than 70,000 vessels shows commercial fishing now covers a greater surface area than agricultureMore than half the world’s oceans are being fished by industrial vessels, new research reveals.
  The maps based on feedback from more than 70,000 vessels show commercial fishing covers a greater surface area than agriculture, and will raise fresh questions about the health of oceans and sustainability of trawler fishing.Continue reading...
  
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• Mutation 'gives bats edge over deadly viruses'

  22-02-2018 19:13 via bbc.co.uk
  A single mutation in an immunity gene may explain why bats can carry deadly viruses and not get sick.
  
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• Paris: legal challenge to car-free promenade by Seine

  22-02-2018 18:14
  Court ruling raises possibility of traffic returning to popular pedestrianised right bankWhen pedestrians reclaimed a stretch of once traffic-clogged dual carriageway on Paris’s right bank a year-and-a-half ago, it was a symbol of the leftwing mayor’s anti-pollution fight to push cars out of the French capital. But a court ruling has raised the spectre of traffic potentially being forced back on to the newly popular, car-free promenade by the river Seine – the latest battle in
  
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• SpaceX launches broadband pathfinders

  22-02-2018 16:34 via bbc.co.uk
  The US rocket company puts up two satellites to test technologies for a broadband mega-constellation.
  
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• Seychelles protects an area 'as big as Britain' in Indian Ocean

  22-02-2018 15:49 via bbc.co.uk
  A novel deal with donors including Leonardo DiCaprio turned public debt into conservation funding.
  
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• MPs query Government's delay on plastics tax consultation

  22-02-2018 15:10
  MPs have questioned the whereabouts of a consultation on single-use plastics first proposed by the Chancellor in last year's Autumn Budget.
  
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• Earliest ever British strawberries arrive on supermarket shelves

  22-02-2018 13:57
  Welsh grower breaks record as fruit goes on sale at Tesco and Aldi stores in south WalesBritain may be in the grip of a cold snap but consumers can get a taste of the first UK strawberries of 2018, which went on sale on Thursday. A Welsh fruit grower has broken the record for picking the earliest ever British strawberries – grown in glasshouses – and getting them on to supermarket shelves. Continue reading...
  
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• Debt for dolphins: Seychelles creates huge marine parks in world-first finance scheme

  22-02-2018 13:00
  An innovative exchange of sovereign debt for marine conservation, backed by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, could pave the way to saving large swaths of the world’s oceansThe tropical island nation of Seychelles is to create two huge new marine parks in return for a large amount of its national debt being written off, in the first scheme of its kind in the world.The novel financial engineering, effectively swapping debt for dolphins and other marine life, aims to throw a lifeline to corals
  
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• Debt for dolphins: Seychelles create huge new marine parks in world-first finance scheme

  22-02-2018 13:00
  An innovative exchange of sovereign debt for marine conservation, backed by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, could pave the way to saving large swaths of the world’s oceansThe tropical island nation of Seychelles is to create two huge new marine parks in return for a large amount of its national debt being written off, in the first scheme of its kind in the world.The novel financial engineering, effectively swapping debt for dolphins and other marine life, aims to throw a lifeline to corals
  
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• A modest proposal for solving the air pollution crisis: a worker smog bonus

  22-02-2018 12:34
  The amount of the smog allowance should vary according to the city’s air quality – compensating workers and their families for living in a polluted environment while incentivising municipalities to clean up their actsIs your wood stove choking you? How indoor fires are suffocating cities
  We are all aware of the value of clean skies and the costs of pollution, so isn’t it time to put more economic pressure on governments and companies to clean up?
  I first considered the potentia
  
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• Standing Rock is everywhere: one year later | Chief Arvol Looking Horse

  22-02-2018 12:00
  A call for continued efforts to protect our water and our Earth
  One year after the closing of the camp at the Standing Rock Reservation, Standing Rock is everywhere. Our collective water has been assaulted for many generations to the possible point of no return. Our Elders foretold of a Black Snake and how the Water of Life — “Mni Woc’oni,” which is our first medicine — would be affected if we did not stop this oncoming disaster. Mni Woc’oni is part of our cre
  
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• Renault EVs and battery storage used for Portuguese 'smart island' project

  22-02-2018 10:31
  Automaker Renault has agreed to partner with a Portuguese utility company to transform the island of Porto Santo into a "Smart Fossil Free Island" that combines electric vehicles (EV) with renewable energy.
  
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• Renewable output rises by more than a quarter in the UK

  22-02-2018 09:42
  Renewable output rose by 27% over 2017 due to windier weather and new capacity coming online, according to the latest Electric Insights report from Imperial College London.
  
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• Is your wood stove choking you? How indoor fires are suffocating cities

  22-02-2018 08:30
  A wood stove emits more harmful air particulates than a diesel truck. Does their newfound popularity in cities threaten to wipe out progress in reducing air pollution?Emma Meaden loves to sit in her north-west London flat, her dogs napping at her feet, watching the flames dance in her new wood stove. When she first moved in, she lit a few fires in the old-fashioned fireplace – but it was a poor way to heat her sitting room and she was intrigued by the stoves she’d seen at friends&rsq
  
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• Ocean sanctuary: your Antarctic questions answered aboard Greenpeace expedition

  22-02-2018 08:00
  The Guardian has been putting your questions to experts aboard research ship Arctic SunriseWhat is life like for the experts on board a ship in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean? That’s one of the questions readers had for the Guardian’s Matthew Taylor, who has been travelling with Greenpeace as part of an expedition and campaign to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary. Related: First images of creatures from Antarctic depths revealedContinue reading...
  
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• Is southern-fried squirrel the answer to KFC's extraordinary chicken shortage?

  22-02-2018 08:00
  Some people in Britain hate grey squirrels enough to devour them. With the UK’s biggest purveyor of fried chicken in crisis, perhaps we should be cooking up our furry feral friendsOne cold Sunday morning last month, I visited Pow Hill, a glorious moorland thick with pine trees that overlooks the Derwent reservoir, north-west of Durham. In a clearing, three amateur wildlife photographers, in full camouflage gear, sat on plastic bags and watched a red squirrel race across the bracken.As I wa
  
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• Country diary: wood pigeons dice with death on the road

  22-02-2018 06:30
  Sandy, Bedfordshire: These grit peckers are masters of last-minute escapology. But not alwaysTwice every day, soon after dawn and a little before dusk, wood pigeons come down on country roads to feed. Not for them the tyre-stamped carcasses that are peeled off the asphalt by crow beaks. Pigeons are grit peckers, heads down like chickens in a yard. They gobble up tiny stones to act as so many grinding pestles in the mortar of their digestive tract.While crows have adapted to life in the fast lane
  
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• Anthony Albanese rules out retrospective legislation to fight Adani

  22-02-2018 06:14
  Labor frontbencher says party must ‘get the policy mechanisms right’ over Carmichael coalmineAnthony Albanese says Labor should not single out existing projects, like the Adani coalmine, that have already gone through approval processes “and then retrospectively change existing laws, which would have ramifications across the board”.The Labor frontbencher has effectively ruled out Labor overhauling the Environmental Protection Biodiversity and Conversation Act as part of a
  
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• German court to rule on city bans for heavily polluting diesel cars

  22-02-2018 06:00
  Federal court set to announce whether Stuttgart and Düsseldorf can use vehicle bans to try to improve air qualityOne of Germany’s top courts will rule on Thursday whether heavily polluting vehicles can be banned from the urban centres of Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, a landmark ruling which could cause traffic chaos and dramatically hit the value of diesel cars on the country’s roads. Related: First fall in car sales since 2011 blamed on fears over diesel banContinue reading...
  
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• German court delays ruling on city bans for heavily polluting diesel cars

  22-02-2018 06:00
  Federal court to announce next week whether Stuttgart and Düsseldorf can use vehicle bans to try to improve air qualityOne of Germany’s top courts will rule next week on whether heavily polluting vehicles can be banned from the urban centres of Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, a landmark ruling which could cause traffic chaos and dramatically hit the value of diesel cars on the country’s roads. Related: First fall in car sales since 2011 blamed on fears over diesel banContinue rea
  
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• Stronger storms mean new 'category six' scale may be needed

  22-02-2018 05:13
  Traditional scale used goes only to five but strength and intensity of storms is increasing, says scientistsThe increasing strength, intensity and duration of tropical cyclones has climate scientists questioning whether a new classification needs to be created: a category-six storm. The Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale currently runs in severity from one to five, with five describing near-total destruction.Continue reading...
  
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• Adani abandons March deadline to secure funding for Carmichael coalmine

  22-02-2018 01:27
  Multinational says deadline was predicated on a subsidised Australian government loanAdani’s plan to build Australia’s largest coalmine has suffered another setback. The company has abandoned its March deadline for securing financing for the first stage of the Carmichael mine.In October, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, the chief executive of Adani Australia, told Reuters it aimed to settle financing for the project by March 2018. Continue reading...
  
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• Blue-sky thinking: how China's crackdown on pollution is paying off

  22-02-2018 01:24
  Clear skies above Beijing again – but some fear the problem is just being pushed elsewhereThe photographs on display at Wu Di’s Beijing studio imagine China and Beijing at their dystopian worst.Naked, expectant mothers stare out from the walls, their bellies exposed but their faces hidden behind green gas masks. Continue reading...
  
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