Environment news

• Going plastics-free is as easy as calico bags and reusable coffee cups

  23-03-2018 22:51 via theguardian.com
  Australians throw away a lot of plastic, often after only one use. Here’s how to give it upIt’s almost everywhere you look – and it’s undeniably destroying our planet. Over the past half a century, plastic has infiltrated modern life to such an extent that our oceans may have more of the stuff than fish by 2050.Continue reading...
  
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• The government's marine park plans are diabolical for ocean protection | Jessica Meeuwig

  23-03-2018 22:27 via theguardian.com
  It is tempting to accept a poor outcome rather than nothing, but the proposed plans are neither evidence-based nor balanced • Graham Readfearn: The ‘best’ outcome? How the marine park plans divided scientists and conservationistsOn 20 March, the environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, released the management plans for Australian Marine Parks “for all Australians”, indicating that these plans demonstrate a “balanced and scientific evidence-based approach to ocean
  
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• The 'best' outcome? How the marine park plans divided scientists and conservationists

  23-03-2018 22:27 via theguardian.com
  Some say the Coalition’s marine management plans are too compromised; others say some protection is better than none. But how did it come to this? • Jessica Meeuwig: The government’s marine park plans are diabolical for ocean protectionFor those in Australia’s marine science and conservation community, a dream of having a network of marine parks around the continent has been 20 years in the making.
  The story is one of heartbreak, near misses and painful compromise and, in
  
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• New Green List highlights the positives in nature conservation

  23-03-2018 22:26 via theguardian.com
  IUCN says the measure is a bit like the flipside to the World Heritage In Danger listNews about conservation often seems like an endless battle to merely slow the decline of nature.Continue reading...
  
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• Mass stranding in Australia claims more than 130 whales – video

  23-03-2018 18:55 via theguardian.com
  More than 130 whales have died after being washed up on a beach in Western Australia. Veterinarians and volunteers are racing to save more than a dozen other short-finned pilot whales. Authorities have warned people to stay away from the beach in Hamelin Bay as the dead and dying animals could attract sharks More than 130 whales die in mass stranding in Western Australia Continue reading...
  
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• Beastly weather and climate catastrophe | Letters

  23-03-2018 17:34 via theguardian.com
  Tim Megarry on recent freak weather in the UK and fears of worse to comeMichael Dukes’ Weatherwatch report at the back of Tuesday’s Guardian (20 March) is far too important to be relegated to such a minor position. He is giving us what should be considered front-page news and his few column inches must be expanded into a longer article that fully explains the science and mechanism behind the two unprecedented weather events of the past three weeks, when London was colder than th
  
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• Keep off our land, indigenous women tell Ecuador's president

  23-03-2018 17:11 via theguardian.com
  Women’s movement demand an end to unrestricted oil drilling and mining on indigenous lands and action on violence against land defenders in first meeting with president Lenin MoranoAmazon indigenous women leaders have told Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno to limit oil drilling and mining in their territories and combat the sexual violence and death threats they claim accompany the industries.The delegation of women dressed in traditional tunics and with intricately painted faces were
  
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• 'It's more than just turning off the lights': what else to do for Earth Hour

  23-03-2018 16:44 via theguardian.com
  Readers share their plans and inspirational messages for others planning to get involved in Earth Hour, a major electricity switch off on 24 March
  For one hour every March since 2007, darkness has swept the globe as grassroots environmentalists, schools, offices and those responsible for some of the world’s most iconic landmarks switch off lights in a symbolic call for more action on climate change.
  This year, the WWF, which manages the initiative, hopes to build on its growing success and
  
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• Behaviour change: Tesco and RBS to discuss engagement strategies in edie's next webinar

  23-03-2018 16:27
  Individuals and organisations looking to drive staff engagement on energy and sustainability are encouraged to tune into a free webinar next month, featuring expert insight from the likes of Tesco, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and EDF Energy.
  
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• 'It's priceless': how a store of rhino semen could save the species

  23-03-2018 15:57 via theguardian.com
  Prof Thomas Hildebrandt has been collecting the samples with colleagues for about 15 yearsFor over 20 years, Thomas Hildebrandt has harboured a dream: to save the northern white rhinoceros, the world’s rarest large mammal.
  On Monday the scientist received the devastating news that Sudan, the last male of the species, had been put down in his northern Kenyan home, aged 45. Hildebrandt’s office is full of pictures of him, on which he points out the species’ unique pearl-like skin
  
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• The radical otherness of birds: Jonathan Franzen on why they matter

  23-03-2018 14:25 via theguardian.com
  Birds are not just diverse, vivid and extraordinary. They can also save our souls – let’s protect themFor most of my life, I didn’t pay attention to birds. Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that’s been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it’s a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska. When someone
  
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• Leeds cuts ribbon on 'revolutionary' £35m heat network

  23-03-2018 14:15
  One of the UK's largest heat networks has been officially launched by Leeds City Council, in a development which will deliver low-carbon heat and water to thousands of homes and businesses.
  
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• Destruction of nature as dangerous as climate change, scientists warn

  23-03-2018 14:07 via theguardian.com
  Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study revealsHuman destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted
  
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• Minister cites climate change in rejection of opencast coal mine

  23-03-2018 13:22 via theguardian.com
  Sajid Javid says environmental impact of Northumberland plan outweighs economic benefitsThe government has rejected plans for an opencast coal mine in Northumberland on the grounds that it would exacerbate climate change.Eighteen months after Sajid Javid first took responsibility for a planning decision for a new coal mine at Highthorn, the communities secretary said he had concluded the project should not go ahead. Continue reading...
  
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• AB InBev places climate-science into communities with new 2025 goals

  23-03-2018 12:50
  EXCLUSIVE: Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) is linking science-based climate goals with a "moral" belief that it should be influencing the communities it operates in, after announcing new climate, water and supply chain goals for 2025.
  
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• EU in 'state of denial' over destructive impact of farming on wildlife

  23-03-2018 12:14 via theguardian.com
  EU’s subsidy system, that benefits big farming rather than sustainability, needs to change to prevent ongoing collapse in birds and insect numbers, warn green groupsEurope’s crisis of collapsing bird and insect numbers will worsen further over the next decade because the EU is in a “state of denial” over destructive farming practices, environmental groups are warning. Continue reading...
  
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• Plastic packaging a 'policy failure', claims Sainsbury's boss

  23-03-2018 11:13
  Sainsbury's chief executive Mike Coupe says Britain's plastic waste crisis has been exacerbated by a "failure of public policy" and is calling for a more unified approach to recycling.
  
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• Plastic packaging a 'failure of policy' claims Sainsbury's boss

  23-03-2018 11:13
  Sainsbury's chief executive Mike Coupe has labelled the current state of the plastics packaging debate a "failure of public policy", despite noting the need for business to adopt a leadership role in reducing use of certain types of plastic.
  
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• In court, Big Oil rejected climate denial | Dana Nuccitelli

  23-03-2018 11:00 via theguardian.com
  If even oil companies accept human-caused global warming, why doesn’t everybody?In a California court case this week, Judge William Alsup asked the two sides to provide him a climate science tutorial.The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland. They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming. Chevron’s lawyer presented the
  
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• Wheat in heat: the 'crazy idea' that could combat food insecurity

  23-03-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Durum wheat varieties can withstand 40C heat along the Senegal River basin, and could produce 600,000 tonnes of food
  In the northern Senegalese village of Ndiayene Pendao, close to the border with Mauritania, Fatouma Sow is pulling weeds. Her team of female farmers tread carefully among the tall, ripening plants as they prepare to harvest the country’s first ever crop of durum wheat.
  They had grown onions and tomatoes on the one-hectare plot (2.47 acres), Sow explains, but the crops took t
  
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• Scientists witness first reported case of killer-whale infanticide

  23-03-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  ‘His blubber shook like Jell-o,’ says researcher of the attack on newborn orca by unrelated 32-year-old maleScientists in the Canadian province of British Columbia have documented what is believed to be the first reported case of an orca whale killing an infant of the same species.“We knew right away that this was a remarkable event,” said Jared Towers, a Cetacean researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, of the encounter he and two colleagues witnessed in December 201
  
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• Mumbai's leopards have killed humans – but could they also be saving lives?

  23-03-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Leopards roaming the Sanjay Gandhi National Park could be helping to control the city’s dangerous stray dog population, study suggestsA fleeting glimpse of the black spots and gold fur of a leopard is not an uncommon sight at Sanjay Gandhi National Park in the Indian city of Mumbai.
  Leopards are often thought of as a threat to humans, but rather than being a problem in Mumbai, they may actually be helping their human neighbours – even saving their lives – as we argue in our pap
  
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• Lignite mining: Greece’s dirty secret - in pictures

  23-03-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Mining for lignite - or brown coal - in Greece is a huge industry. Together with Germany and Poland, the country accounts for more than one-third of the world’s coal production. But for residents of villages in the extraction areas of West Macedonia, it has many impacts, from displacement to health problems. Photographs and research by Anna Pantelia Thick dust suspended in the atmosphere makes it hard to see the sun over Ptolemaida, a city 500 kilometres north-west of Athens in the West Ma
  
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• Whales in mass stranding on Western Australia beach

  23-03-2018 06:26 via bbc.co.uk
  About 150 animals wash up on a beach south of Perth, prompting a major rescue effort.
  
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• More than 130 whales die in mass stranding in Western Australia

  23-03-2018 05:34 via theguardian.com
  Rescue operation under way to save 15 beached whales in Hamelin Bay near Augusta on state’s south-west coastOne hundred and thirty-five whales have died after being washed ashore in Western Australia. A rescue operation began on Friday morning in Hamelin Bay, on the state’s south-western tip, to save the remaining 15, with volunteers and vets trying to keep the surviving short-finned pilot whales alive before deciding when to herd them out to sea.Continue reading...
  
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• Labor attacks Greens for dithering over marine park plan

  23-03-2018 04:36 via theguardian.com
  Tony Burke says if the Greens back the plan, the ‘largest removal’ of a conservation area will be locked in for a decadeLabor has blasted the Greens for not lining up immediately behind their commitment to disallow controversial new marine park management plans proposed by the Turnbull government this week.
  The shadow environment minister, Tony Burke, told Guardian Australia the government had been intent for four years “on the largest removal of area from conservation in histo
  
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• More than 70 whales die as 150 trapped in mass stranding in Western Australia

  23-03-2018 03:27 via theguardian.com
  Rescue operation under way to save beached whales in Hamelin Bay near Augusta on state’s south-west coastMore than 150 whales have washed ashore in Western Australia, of which at least 70 have died.Volunteers and vets in Hamelin Bay, near the town of Augusta on the state’s south-western tip, tried to keep the short-finned pilot whales alive before beginning an operation to herd them out to sea. Continue reading...
  
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• How science GCSEs in England are changing

  23-03-2018 01:37 via bbc.co.uk
  Students will be graded numerically on a scale from 9 to 1.
  
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• How DNA can be used to store computer data

  23-03-2018 01:28 via bbc.co.uk
  British scientists think DNA could be used to solve a global problem - where to store all our data.
  
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• Engineering giant

  23-03-2018 01:28 via bbc.co.uk
  A new museum dedicated to IK Brunel reveals the man behind the carefully cultivated public image.
  
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• Human-eye VR

  23-03-2018 01:16 via bbc.co.uk
  VR has suffered from an image problem, so could very high resolution headsets be the answer?
  
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• Apple-based leather and seawater greenhouses: the best green innovations of the week

  23-03-2018 01:01
  This week's green innovations round-up focuses on select winners and finalists from innovation fund competitions hosted by the likes of Shell, Adidas and Kering.
  
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