Environment news

• Space junk demo mission launches

  02-04-2018 23:10 via bbc.co.uk
  A UK-led project heads to orbit to trial technologies for removing redundant space hardware.
  
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• Weatherwatch: storms can unlock pollution timebombs of landfill

  02-04-2018 22:30
  Coastal rubbish dumps dotted around Britain are at risk of erosion and nobody knows what exactly is inside themBritain’s coasts were battered in this winter’s storms. The Royal North Devon Golf Club, England’s oldest golf course, had a sizeable chunk of its eighth hole washed away during Storm Eleanor in January. Less well publicised were fears of flooding at a nearby landfill site, which was last used in 1995 and contains hospital waste and other toxic material. Related: Pollu
  
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• 20 years on from the Jabiluka mine protest, we can find hope in its success | Scott Ludlam

  02-04-2018 20:00
  Like anti-Adani protestors today, those who stood up at Jabiluka were attacked. It’s good to remember that people can prevail One of Australia’s proudest land rights struggles is passing an important anniversary: it is 20 years since the establishment of the blockade camp at Jabiluka in Kakadu national park. This was the moment at which push would come to shove at one of the world’s largest high-grade uranium deposits. The industry would push, and people power would shove right
  
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• Underwater melting of Antarctic ice far greater than thought, study finds

  02-04-2018 18:18
  The base of the ice around the south pole shrank by an area the size of Greater London between 2010 and 2016
  Hidden underwater melt-off in the Antarctic is doubling every 20 years and could soon contribute vast volumes to sea-level rise, according to the first complete underwater map of the world’s largest body of ice.
  Warming waters have caused the base of ice near the ocean floor around the south pole to shrink by 1,463 square kilometres – an area the size of Greater London –
  
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• Scottish gamekeeper banned over alleged goshawk persecution

  02-04-2018 18:00
  Three-year restriction on unnamed keeper on Philip Astor’s estate after incident with baited trapA head keeper employed on one of Scotland’s most illustrious grouse moors, Tillypronie in Royal Deeside, has been banned from controlling birds for three years over an alleged wildlife crime incident. Continue reading...
  
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• Planet of the apis: Nasa develops plan to launch 'Marsbees'

  02-04-2018 16:14
  A new breed of robotic bees co-created by Japanese scientists could be dispatched to the red planet to look for signs of life, or rather flatulenceName: MarsbeesAge: Embryonic. Continue reading...
  
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• Swansea tidal lagoon project faces job cuts and downsizing

  02-04-2018 14:10
  Government funding delay for £1.3bn scheme may force firm to lay off staff within weeks
  The £1.3bn Swansea tidal lagoon faces a major blow as the company behind the scheme braces for significant job cuts if UK and Welsh government talks on the project fail to yield a breakthrough.Tidal Lagoon Power has waited for 15 months since an independent review backed the scheme as a “no regrets” source of clean and reliable energy. Continue reading...
  
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• On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work | Joseph Robertson

  02-04-2018 12:00
  There are win-win solutions to this problem.
  Democracy is not a zero-sum game. Behaving as if it is degrades democratic process and our personal political sovereignty. A zero-sum game is a contest for control of finite resources. Whatever one gains, another must lose. When two or more candidates compete for a single public office, only one can win, so many people view politics as bloodsport, applying “winner takes all” thinking to everything political. But elected officials are not c
  
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• Country diary: a dissonant overlay of realities

  02-04-2018 06:30
  Valley of Desolation, Wharfedale, Yorkshire Dales: The snow revives innocence, but it’s from this winter’s dramatic destabilisation of the polar vortex and a reminder of climate changeSpring is held in a sort of suspense. The sun’s growing confidence brings hope, but the blizzards are back again, shutting out the light, clogging the floor of Strid Wood with snow, smothering the first leaves of dog’s mercury and ramsons. Around this date in previous years I have heard drum
  
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• Country diary 1918: cold winds fail to check spring flowers

  02-04-2018 06:30
  2 April 1918 Close at hand rise a group of single upright stalks, each topped by a small green knob, the inconspicuous flowers of the moschatel or adoxaThe golden kingcups light up the stagnant ditch which through the winter has been filmed with a yellowish scum. Their roots are deep in the ancient leaf-mould and decomposing twigs and branches, a rich, black ooze; this forcing-bed has sent up a thick cushion of leaves stretching from bank to bank, and now that the handsome flowers are out the di
  
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• Tiangong-1: Defunct China space lab comes down over South Pacific

  02-04-2018 04:22 via bbc.co.uk
  China's defunct Tiangong-1 space lab mostly burnt up on re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.
  
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• Mission to demonstrate space junk tech

  02-04-2018 02:12 via bbc.co.uk
  A UK-led project aims to showcase how space debris could be removed from orbit.
  
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• Dumping pesticides, using ducks instead

  02-04-2018 01:06 via bbc.co.uk
  Bernard Poujol believes ducks are the future for rice farms, but he hasn't quite perfected his technique.
  
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