Environment news

• California becomes first US state to mandate solar on homes

  09-05-2018 23:06 via bbc.co.uk
  Officials say homeowners could see significantly lower utilities costs per month.
  
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• California poised to be first state to require solar panels on new homes

  09-05-2018 22:04 via theguardian.com
  State commission approves plan, saying consumer energy savings would outweigh higher building costsCalifornia is set to require solar panels on new homes and low-rise apartment buildings starting in 2020, the first such mandate in the country and the state’s latest step to curb greenhouse gas emissions. “Adoption of these standards represents a quantum leap in statewide building standards,” said Robert Raymer, technical director for the California Building Industry Association.
  
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• UK spearheads new £50m plastics innovation hub

  09-05-2018 18:16
  Unilever and Waitrose have backed a new UK-led research and innovation hub that aims to tackle plastic waste through innovative solutions.
  
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• English Heritage to deploy green energy champions across estate

  09-05-2018 18:16
  Charity English Heritage is set to appoint 20 green energy champions among its staff in a bid to improve energy efficiency and monitor energy consumption across its estate of more than 400 historic sites.
  
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• Cocaine breathalyser 'one step closer'

  09-05-2018 18:10 via bbc.co.uk
  Researchers plan to integrate their cocaine-detecting chip in a portable scanner.
  
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• Revealed: Network Rail's new £800m scheme to remove all 'leaf fall' trees

  09-05-2018 17:21 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: five-year ‘enhanced clearance’ programme targets trees along 20,000 miles of track to avoid delays, according to an internal document Network Rail is to target all “leaf fall” trees for removal alongside its tracks in a new £800m five-year programme of “enhanced clearance”, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.The policy document for 2019-24 emerged as the environment secretary, Michael Gove, summoned the chief executive of N
  
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• Lonely asteroid tells Solar System story

  09-05-2018 15:40 via bbc.co.uk
  An unusual object has been found lurking in the Kuiper Belt, and it may have a tale to tell.
  
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• Brexit to 'force work on Galileo sat-nav system out of UK'

  09-05-2018 15:31 via bbc.co.uk
  An Airbus executive says future UK work on the Galileo sat-nav system would have to be moved to the continent because of Brexit.
  
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• Audi aims for 800,000 electric and hybrid car sales in 2025

  09-05-2018 15:13
  German carmaker Audi has outlined plans to sell 800,000 fully electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids in 2025.
  
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• Fatal elephant attacks on Rohingya refugees push Bangladesh to act

  09-05-2018 15:07 via theguardian.com
  Young boy becomes latest in series of casualties at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, which lies on migration route long used by elephantsBangaldesh has pledged to step up its response to a series of deadly elephant attacks at a refugee camp housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees after a 12-year-old boy was trampled to death. Shamsu Uddin died instantly when an elephant attacked him after he had fallen asleep while guarding paddy fields with friends in Uttar Shilkhali village in
  
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• Sam Lee Singing With Nightingales review – joyous interspecies collaboration

  09-05-2018 13:30 via theguardian.com
  Norwich Arts Centre
  Folk singer Sam Lee was joined by human and avian collaborators for an evening of extraordinary music-making that also brought with it a sombre environmental messageIt takes a brave musician to play a gig with no guarantee that the lead vocalist will show up. But Sam Lee, the Mercury prize-nominated folk singer and song collector, reveals himself to be a master storyteller as we await his duet with a nocturnal wild bird.
  Lee tells of the first such human-nightingale duet, whe
  
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• Global renewable energy jobs exceed 10 million

  09-05-2018 12:51
  The number of people employed in the renewable energy industry globally has surpassed 10 million for the first time following the creation of 500,000 new roles in 2017, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
  
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• Carys Davies’ top 10 wilderness books

  09-05-2018 12:23 via theguardian.com
  From Eric Newby’s bliss in the Hindu Kush to Paul Bowles’s Saharan horrors, the novelist shares her favourite visions of unfathomable territorySometime towards the end of 2016, I heard on my kitchen radio that astronomers had just discovered there are two trillion galaxies in the universe – 10 times more than previously thought. I switched off the radio and sat down, practically dizzy – overwhelmed by the unfathomable vastness of it all. A single galaxy, remember, like ou
  
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• Global warming is melting Antarctic ice from below | John Abraham

  09-05-2018 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Warming oceans melting Antarctic ice shelves could accelerate sea level rise
  We all know intuitively that in a warmer world there will be less ice. And, since the North and South Pole regions contain lots of ice, anyone who wants to see evidence of climate change can look there.But beyond this simplistic view, things can get pretty complex. First, it’s important to recognize that the Arctic and the Antarctic are very different places. In the Arctic, almost all the ice is floating on water
  
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• A radical way to cut emissions – ration everyone’s flights | Sonia Sodha

  09-05-2018 10:00 via theguardian.com
  An individual cap on air travel, that people can trade with each other, would help to reduce the impact of flyingMaybe it’s just because I’m back from a bank holiday weekend in north Wales that was filled with glorious Mediterranean-style sunshine. But reading about a new study that says global tourism now accounts for 8% of carbon emissions, three times more than was previously thought made me think– surely we can do better?Whenever I hear about the impact global tourism has o
  
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• Incredible Edible: Yorkshire town's food-growing scheme takes root worldwide

  09-05-2018 09:00 via theguardian.com
  When two women began turning disused verges in the former mill town of Todmorden into free food plots, little did they realise they would inspire a global movement of growersA deep mist hangs over Todmorden on a chilly spring morning. Only the birdsong and a few daffodils give the sign of spring. This doesn’t seem to bother a group of 20 volunteers from the Yorkshire town who have gathered together armed with spades, trowels and litter pickers. Instructions of which patch to attack are dis
  
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• Rat-free: South Georgia's huge rodent eradication project – in pictures

  09-05-2018 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Millions of seabirds saved after remote island is officially declared rodent-free for the first time since humans arrived there more than 200 years ago Continue reading...
  
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• Secret UK push to weaken EU climate laws 'completely mad'

  09-05-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Plan to change timeline for energy use reduction puts Paris targets at risk, say MEPS A secret UK push to weaken key EU climate laws before Brexit risks scotching the bloc’s Paris commitments, MEPs say. The EU has committed to a 20% cut in its energy use by 2020 to be achieved by two directives, covering energy efficiency and buildings. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: forget-me-nots have a heart of gold

  09-05-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: These delicate flowers are the colour of the far blue yonder, blue remembered hills, into the blue, the beyond, a spiritual eternity“Is love so prone to change and rot/ We are fain to rear forget-me-not/ By measure in a garden plot?” asked Christina Rossetti (A Bed of Forget-Me-Nots, 1856). The flowers of forget-me-not, Myosotis, may have been reared by measure in a garden plot here, before it was abandoned a hundred years ago and a wood of change, rot and i
  
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• Waterwheel: Ten times faster than a Venus flytrap

  09-05-2018 04:01 via bbc.co.uk
  The hunting mechanism of the carnivorous waterwheel plant has been studied in detail for the first time.
  
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• Indonesian ecobricks: A new approach in its plastics 'war'

  09-05-2018 01:40 via bbc.co.uk
  The boss of an Indonesian food factory is encouraging his community to creatively reuse plastic waste.
  
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• Use excess wind and solar power to produce hydrogen – report

  09-05-2018 01:01 via theguardian.com
  With more electricity often generated than needed the excess could be utilised to generate the green power sourceGreen energy would be boosted if excess electricity from wind and solar farms was used to produce hydrogen for use in heating and other parts of the energy system, according to engineers.Renewables were the UK’s second biggest source of electricity in the last three months of 2017, and now provide about a third of the country’s power at certain times of day. Continue readi
  
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• South Georgia declared rat-free after centuries of rodent devastation

  09-05-2018 01:01 via theguardian.com
  World’s biggest project to kill off invasive species to protect native wildlife is hailed a successThe world’s biggest project to eradicate a dangerous invasive species has been declared a success, as the remote island of South Georgia is now clear of the rats and mice that had devastated its wildlife for nearly 250 years.Rats and mice were inadvertently introduced to the island, off the southern tip of South America and close to Antarctica, by ships that stopped there, usually on wh
  
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