Environment news

• Drugs, plastics and flea killer: the unseen threats to UK's rivers

  17-03-2018 23:31 via theguardian.com
  Waterways look cleaner but levels of new pollutants are not being monitoredBeer hasn’t been sold in steel cans for decades. The cans Keith Dopson found in Slough’s Salt Hill stream would be collectors’ items were they in good condition, but they had disintegrated into clumps of rust.“We filled seven bin bags with rubbish,” he says. “Just from the river, not the banks. Plastic bottles and cans, lots of cans. Those steel ones must have been there for ages.&rdquo
  
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• Fears for wildlife as migratory birds fly in to UK snowstorm

  17-03-2018 22:09 via theguardian.com
  Second unseasonal cold snap could also harm insect and amphibian populationsThe arrival of bitterly cold weather – only a few days before the vernal equinox, the official start of spring in Britain – could have serious consequences for wildlife, experts have warned.The snow and biting winds, which led to the cancellation of flights and disrupted road travel, will reduce the insect population, creating food shortages for birds and other creatures. Continue reading...
  
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• Turnbull's national energy guarantee a step closer after Jay Weatherill's exit

  17-03-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Departing South Australian premier led resistance to Coalition’s policyThe Turnbull government is one step closer to being able to implement its proposed national energy guarantee, courtesy of Jay Weatherill’s departure as the South Australian premier after Saturday’s state election.
  Weatherill led the resistance at the state level to the Turnbull proposal, which will impose new reliability and emissions reduction guarantees on energy retailers and large energy users from 2020.
  
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• Lead is even deadlier than we feared, but Brexit could put it back in our petrol | Geoffrey Lean

  17-03-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Decades after this newspaper won a ban on this poison in our fuel, there are still calls for more proofLooking back, it seems insane. Bluntly put, we took a known poison and – for three quarters of a century – used it in machines that puffed it out in breathable form. Then we drove them millions of miles a day, all over the world, regularly dosing billions of people with the toxin.Now the full effects of using lead in petrol – surely the greatest ever mass poisoning experiment
  
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• Country diary: life out of the freezer

  17-03-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Comins Coch, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion The thaw has set in, and starlings are busy amid the last of the melting snowBeing west of the mountains, we missed the worst of the recent bout of snow – but the gale force easterly wind had a significant impact. Our house, tucked under the shoulder of the hill, is well sheltered from the usual winter winds that roar out of the south-west but the wide, open view of the hills to the east comes at a price.A sudden ice-laden squall had driven me briefly o
  
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