Environment news

• Bottle and can deposit return scheme gets green light in England

  27-03-2018 23:05 via theguardian.com
  Consumers to receive small cash sum for returning plastic, glass and metal drinks containersAll drinks containers in England, whether plastic, glass or metal, will be covered by a deposit return scheme, the government has announced.The forthcoming scheme is intended to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans. Continue reading...
  
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• Specieswatch: spring ice has made life hard for the common frog

  27-03-2018 22:30 via theguardian.com
  Many common frogs were trapped under ice in early March and some inevitably diedThe common frog Rana temporaria is having a difficult spring. The extreme cold at the beginning of March trapped many under ice. A lot continued to breathe through their skin, but after several days some died from lack of oxygen. The survivors then got breeding under way in many ponds, only for another three-day cold snap to halt proceedings. Some ponds still have no spawn, while in others the adults have already lef
  
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• Shell opens first-of-its-kind hydrogen refuelling station

  27-03-2018 20:11
  Shell has unveiled a new hydrogen refuelling station at one of the UK's busiest service stations, in the same week as the Government delivered multi-million-pound funding for hydrogen refuelling infrastructure.
  
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• Keeping the collapse of civilisation at bay | Letters

  27-03-2018 19:37 via theguardian.com
  Readers respond to Damian Carrington’s interview with Paul Ehrlich whose book The Population Bomb was published 50 years agoI read Damian Carrington’s interview with Paul Ehrlich and found Paul’s analysis to ring frighteningly true (Scientist stands by warning that collapse of civilisation is coming, 23 March). His book The Population Bomb predicted starvation in the 1970s, something that was avoided by the “green revolution” in intensive agriculture. The green revo
  
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• Down with grassy urban wastelands | Letters

  27-03-2018 19:35 via theguardian.com
  Wiebena Heesterman turns down the offer of a perfect weed-free, insect-free lawnRecently, a lawn treatment firm dropped an offer through the letterbox to provide us with “a lawn to be proud of.” It would be lush and green, and without any weeds. This might be accomplished by means of a hefty dose of weedkiller and possibly a battery of pesticides. No, I would not be proud of a lifeless, boring expanse of green without any March violets, daisies or dandelions. I want to hear bees buzz
  
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• David Cobham obituary

  27-03-2018 18:45 via theguardian.com
  Wildlife film-maker, author and conservationist best known for Tarka the Otter, which was voted one of the greatest family films of all timeDavid Cobham is best remembered for his classic films on British wildlife, including the 1979 cinema feature Tarka the Otter and his 1972 TV programme The Vanishing Hedgerows, the first explicitly environmental film broadcast by the BBC.Cobham, who has died aged 87, made The Vanishing Hedgerows for the corporation’s prestigious strand The World About U
  
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• Gove confirms Defra set for 70 Brexit workstreams

  27-03-2018 17:50
  MPs have raised concerns about Defra's capability to deliver environmental protections amid an escalating amount of effort dedicated to Brexit-related tasks.
  
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• JWST: Hubble 'successor' faces new delay

  27-03-2018 17:40 via bbc.co.uk
  The James Webb Space Telescope will not now be launched until May 2020 at the earliest.
  
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• Campaigners call on UK retailers to stop stocking Antarctic krill products

  27-03-2018 17:30 via theguardian.com
  Greenpeace wants health shops like Boots to follow the lead of Holland & Barrett and ditch products that threaten the pristine waters home to penguins, seal and whales Campaigners are calling on high street retailers to stop stocking health products containing krill that have been caught in the pristine waters of the Antarctic.The Guardian reported earlier this month on the threat industrial krill fishing poses to animals like penguins, whales and seals.Continue reading...
  
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• Off the lamb: how to eat with a low carbon footprint

  27-03-2018 17:22 via theguardian.com
  A WWF report has named the British meals with the highest carbon footprints, with lamb cawl topping the list. So which foods are more sustainable?Hell hath no fury like a sheep farmer told that his favourite stew is killing the planet. There is a backlash in Wales after a World Wide Fund for Nature report placed lamb cawl top of a list of British dishes ranked by carbon footprint.A single bowl of the traditional meat and veg affair produces 5.9 kilos of CO2 emissions, equivalent to 71 plastic bo
  
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• Bear cubs spending longer with mothers

  27-03-2018 17:00 via bbc.co.uk
  Hunting pressures mean brown bear cubs now spend an extra year with their mothers, say scientists.
  
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• National Grid backs plan for earlier petrol and diesel ban

  27-03-2018 15:31 via theguardian.com
  Network thinks infrastructure and capacity can be in place a decade earlier in 2030 National Grid would support the government bringing forward its 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales by a decade.The company, which runs the UK’s national electricity network and wants to build superfast car charging points at motorway services, told MPs it could cope with the demands of an earlier surge in electric car numbers. Continue reading...
  
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• Yuri Gagarin: 1st man in space

  27-03-2018 14:20 via bbc.co.uk
  It's 50 years since the death of Yuri Gagarin, the Russian Cosmonaught who was the first man to travel into space.
  
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• Meat industry driving 'astounding' levels of deforestation, report finds

  27-03-2018 14:16
  Global agribusinesses have been implored to improve the traceability of their soy and soybean supply chains, after a new report linked food products sold in European supermarkets with severe deforestation cases in South America.
  
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• Texas sinkholes: oil and gas drilling increases threat, scientists warn

  27-03-2018 13:37 via theguardian.com
  Ground rising and falling in region that has been ‘punctured like a pin cushion’ since the 1940s, new study findsOil and gas activity is contributing to alarming land movements and a rising threat of sinkholes across a huge swath of west Texas, a new study suggests. Related: 'Like thunder in the ground': Texans fear link between quakes and fracking wasteContinue reading...
  
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• Elephant seen 'smoking' in southern India – video

  27-03-2018 12:44 via theguardian.com
  Footage of an elephant blowing ash has baffled wildlife experts, who say they've never seen behaviour like it before. The video released by the Wildlife Conservation Society may be an example of zoopharmacognosy, animal self-medicationElephant 'smoking' footage baffles experts Continue reading...
  
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• Business leaders call for net-zero carbon standards for buildings by 2030

  27-03-2018 12:08
  More than 50 business leaders from some of the UK's largest construction and property firms have called on ministers to implement policies that ensure all new buildings are built to net-zero carbon standards by 2030.
  
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• Elephant 'smoking' footage baffles experts

  27-03-2018 11:41 via theguardian.com
  Animal in India may have been trying to ingest wood charcoal and blowing away the ashFootage of an Asian elephant “smoking” in a south Indian forest has baffled wildlife experts, who say the behaviour has never before been observed.Vinay Kumar, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) India program, captured the puffing pachyderm while visiting camera traps in the Nagarahole national park in Karnataka state. Continue reading...
  
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• Labor and Greens fail in first attempt to disallow Coalition's marine park plans

  27-03-2018 11:02 via theguardian.com
  Parties have the option of redrafting the disallowance and resubmitting it as soon as WednesdayA first attempt by Labor and the Greens to disallow controversial new marine park management plans proposed by the Turnbull government last week has failed in the Senate after the government flipped the order of business and brought on the chamber debate.The Turnbull government on Tuesday night pulled its proposal to lower the tax rate for big business to 25% and abruptly changed the order of business
  
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• How clean indoor air is becoming China's latest luxury must-have

  27-03-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Shanghai’s latest upscale hotel boasts filtered air typically 10 times cleaner than that outside and in-room pollution monitors – but in this lucrative new market, not everyone can be trustedThe newly opened luxury Cordis hotel looks much like many other high-end hotels in Shanghai, with its glass-sided swimming pool, vast twin ballrooms and upscale spa. But the first Cordis hotel on mainland China boasts something that is genuinely rare in big Chinese cities: clean indoor air.Modest
  
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• Call for post-Brexit trade deals to safeguard against invasive species

  27-03-2018 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Conservation charities estimate cost of dealing with predators at £2bn a year, and warns this may spiral without strong prevention measuresInvasive species such as Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and New Zealand flatworms must be subject to stronger safeguards after Brexit, a group of conservation charities has urged, or the cost of dealing with them may spiral.They fear that future increased international trade outside EU rules could threaten further invasions, while the status of safe
  
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• Hotting up: how climate change could swallow Louisiana's Tabasco island

  27-03-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being maroonedAvery Island, a dome of salt fringed by marshes where Tabasco sauce has been made for the past 150 years, has been an outpost of stubborn consistency near the Louisiana coast. But the state is losing land to the seas at such a gallop that even its seemingly impregnable landmarks are now threatened.The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condimen
  
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• Country diary: conflicted by the regimented lines of coppicing

  27-03-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Barford Wood and Meadows, Northamptonshire: Yes, the trees have established beautifully, but a randomness to the planting pattern would be more aesthetically pleasingAgain the landscape is etched with snow. The footpath to Barford Wood and Meadows from Rushton village crosses first under the Midland mainline, emerging on to a wide and exposed field where the chilled wind bites, before passing over the Corby branch line and on to the nature reserve; a tapering wedge of land, bound on the west by
  
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• Victoria calls on federal government to fund fresh reviews of forestry agreements

  27-03-2018 05:03 via theguardian.com
  A row between state and federal ministers has thrown Victoria’s long-term native forest logging agreements into disarrayThe future of long-term native forest logging agreements in Victoria is uncertain because of a row with the federal government over the need to carry out fresh scientific assessments.Three of Victoria’s regional forest agreements (RFAs) – in east Gippsland, the central highlands and the north east regions – were extended on Monday on a short-term basis,
  
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• Plans to mine 6.2bn tonne Queensland coal deposit quietly revived

  27-03-2018 01:37 via theguardian.com
  Site owner appears to have no employees or premises and its phone is disconnectedPlans to mine a 6.2bn-tonne coal deposit in north Queensland have been quietly revived, despite the failed sale of the project last year and the collapse of an associated company. Guardian Australia understands that Wilton Coking Coal made two applications to the Queensland government for coal production permits in the Bowen basin in January. Continue reading...
  
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• Brazil senate considers lifting ban on sugarcane production in Amazon

  27-03-2018 01:21 via theguardian.com
  The bill condemned by environmentalists would allow ethanol production, driving more deforestation and unravel protectionsA bill being rushed through Brazil’s senate would lift a ban on the cultivation of sugarcane for ethanol fuel in the Amazon, driving more deforestation and making it harder for the country to meet its commitments under the Paris Climate Deal. The bill, which has been roundly condemned by environmentalists, companies and even Brazil’s union of sugarcane producers (
  
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• Yuri Gagarin: First man in space

  27-03-2018 00:34 via bbc.co.uk
  It's 50 years since the death of Yuri Gagarin, the Russian Cosmonaut who was the first man to travel into space.
  
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