Environment news

• How does plastic move around the oceans?

  05-06-2018 22:11 via bbc.co.uk
  BBC Science Editor David Shukman explains what happens to plastic once it gets into the sea.
  
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• Iran launches plan to bolster uranium enrichment

  05-06-2018 21:12 via theguardian.com
  Move piles pressure on European states scrambling to salvage nuclear dealIran has launched a plan to increase its uranium enrichment capacity with new centrifuges, raising the pressure on European diplomats scrambling to rescue the crumbling nuclear deal after the US pulled out.“If conditions allow, maybe tomorrow night at Natanz [plant], we can announce the opening of the centre for production of new centrifuges,” said the vice-president, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy
  
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• Heathrow's third runway: the crucial battlegrounds

  05-06-2018 19:19 via theguardian.com
  The plan to expand Heathrow still faces hurdles, including environmental impacts and whether the sums add upHeathrow has long argued it is in effect full, with the number of flights capped on its two runways. Its contention is that only a major hub airport, with connecting flights adding passengers from around Britain, can sustain the long-haul route network that an island nation requires, particularly in regards to trade with emerging markets and the post-Brexit environment. It is a point of vi
  
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• The Guardian view on Heathrow expansion: better never than so late | Editorial

  05-06-2018 19:07 via theguardian.com
  A third runway at Heathrow airport is ultimately indefensible on environmental groundsThe decision to go ahead with the third runway at Heathrow was taken two years ago; Chris Grayling’s confirmation yesterday marked the point when it seemed to its promoters that enough of the opposition on the ground had been defeated, so it was safe to proceed with a final vote in three weeks’ time. If that is won, and all goes according to plan, the bulldozers will go in around 2021, when the inev
  
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• India will abolish all single-use plastic by 2022, vows Narendra Modi

  05-06-2018 18:57 via theguardian.com
  Country will also introduce a campaign against marine litter and a pledge to make 100 national monuments litter-freeIndia will eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022, prime minister Narendra Modi has announced. The pledge is the most ambitious yet of the global actions to combat plastic pollution that are taking place in 60 nations around the world. Modi’s move aims to drastically stem the flow of plastic from the 1.3 billion people living in the fastest growing economy in
  
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• Is Heathrow's third runway really going to happen?

  05-06-2018 14:55 via theguardian.com
  Government has given the green light, but there are still many more potential obstaclesThe cabinet has endorsed as official policy a revised national policy statement on aviation, whose key point is to enable Heathrow expansion, specifically a third runway to the north-west of the existing airport. A wider vote will now take place within 21 sitting days in parliament, or by 10 July. Continue reading...
  
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• Heathrow Airport: Cabinet approves new runway plan

  05-06-2018 14:51 via bbc.co.uk
  Ministers say "the time for action is now" with MPs set to vote on expansion in the coming weeks.
  
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• Sheffield council leader backs case against tree protesters, court told

  05-06-2018 14:45 via theguardian.com
  Judge seeks assurances that legal action was brought at behest of elected councillorsTree protesters in Sheffield are being taken to court on the orders of the council leader, a judge has heard.Labour’s Julie Dore, the leader since 2011, “positively agreed” with legal action against four Sheffield residents who were charged after demonstrating against plans to fell up to 17,000 trees, Sheffield high court heard. Continue reading...
  
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• Heathrow's third runway gets go-ahead from Chris Grayling

  05-06-2018 14:34 via theguardian.com
  Tory splits mean government may have to rely on Labour and SNP to win parliamentary voteThe government has finally given the green light to the controversial plan to build a third runway at Heathrow airport following years of delays and opposition from campaigners.
  The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said the announcement represented a “historic moment” that showed the government had a clear vision to build “a Britain fit for the future”. Critics claim it will damage
  
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• Day Zero: how Cape Town stopped the taps running dry – video

  05-06-2018 14:28 via theguardian.com
  Early this year, the South African government announced that Day Zero was looming - a moment, after three years of unprecedented drought, when dam levels would be so low that taps would be turned off and people would have to fetch water at communal collection points.After taking remedial measures, Capetonians managed to push back the date of Day Zero until next year. We went to find out how the threat of an apocalyptic disaster has changed lives across the city Continue reading...
  
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• Network Rail targets plastics, cups and coffee grounds in latest waste drive

  05-06-2018 13:20
  Network Rail has unveiled sweeping plans to reduce waste across the country's busiest rail stations, by implementing a ban on plastic cutlery and expanding recycling schemes for disposable cups and waste coffee grounds.
  
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• Report: Circular economy a 'powerful force' to meeting Paris Agreement goals

  05-06-2018 13:13
  Circular business models and greater material efficiency of products in the transport and built environment sectors could reduce emissions by 3.6 billion tonnes annually - putting the globe on course to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.
  
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• Families around the world join war on plastic - in pictures

  05-06-2018 12:24 via theguardian.com
  To celebrate World Environment day, Reuters photographers met people from Athens to Singapore trying to play their part as the war on plastics becomes a key political topic
  Eight million tonnes of plastic - bottles, packaging and other waste - are dumped into the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, the United Nations Environment Program said in December.
  While governments and retailers started clamping down on plastic bags through bans and small fees more tha
  
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• Sales of hybrid cars soar as diesels plunge by nearly a quarter

  05-06-2018 11:37 via theguardian.com
  Drivers continue to shun diesel in the face of environmental and tax concernsSales of plug-in hybrid cars soared by nearly three-quarters year on year in May, dramatically outstripping the 3.4% overall growth in new car registrations.Nearly 4,000 plug-in hybrids, which typically run for about 50 miles on a battery before a combustion engine kicks in, were bought last month, up from 2,301 in May 2017.Continue reading...
  
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• Give MPs a free vote on Heathrow expansion, says Justine Greening

  05-06-2018 10:29 via theguardian.com
  Ex-minister says opponents of third runway should be allowed to have their sayThe government must allow a free vote on Heathrow expansion plans to allow ministers and MPs to represent their constituents, the former education secretary Justine Greening has said.Greening, a fierce critic of the plans, said ministers such as Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, should be allowed to register their long-held opposition to a third runway without breaking collective cabinet responsibility. Continue re
  
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• MPs and peers push for 'net zero' emissions by 2050

  05-06-2018 10:28
  A cross-party group of senior MPs and peers have urged the government to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to "net zero" by 2050.
  
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• Australia's large fish species declined 30% in past decade, study says

  05-06-2018 09:26 via theguardian.com
  Call for fisheries changes after study says excessive fishing mostly to blameThe number of large fish species in Australian waters has declined by 30% in the past decade, mostly due to excessive fishing, a new study says.Marine ecology experts are calling for changes to fisheries management after publication of the study by scientists from the University of Tasmania and the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney.Continue reading...
  
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• Coral decline in Great Barrier Reef 'unprecedented'

  05-06-2018 08:08 via theguardian.com
  Reef monitoring program shows northern section has lost half of its coral coverA steep decline in coral cover right across the Great Barrier Reef is a phenomenon that “has not been observed in the historical record”, a new report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science says.The institute, Australia’s government-backed marine research agency, periodically releases results of a long-term reef monitoring program. Each reef along the Queensland coast is visited by researchers
  
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• From Brentford to Brooklyn, cycling improvements are clear votewinners | Andrew Gilligan

  05-06-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Sadiq Khan should take heed of the evidence and push on with the changes needed to keep cyclists safe on London’s roadsThe decay of London’s cycling programme is starting to cost lives. In the last three and a half weeks, three cyclists have been killed at locations where schemes to make the road safe, or provide a safe alternative route, have been watered down or stopped under the mayoralty of Sadiq Khan.On 11 May, Oliver Speke died after a collision two days earlier with a lorry at
  
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• Guatemala volcano: Search after deadly eruption

  05-06-2018 07:30 via bbc.co.uk
  The most violent eruption to hit the country in more than a century is over for now, say volcanologists.
  
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• The planet is on edge of a global plastic calamity | Erik Solheim

  05-06-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  We urgently need consumers, business and governments to cut consumption of single-use, throwaway plastics, writes the UN Environment chiefPlastic pollution has grabbed the world’s attention, and with good cause.More than 100 years after its invention, we’re addicted. To pass a day without encountering some form of plastic is nearly impossible. We’ve always been eager to embrace the promise of a product that could make life cheaper, faster, easier. Now, after a century of unchec
  
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• Pioneering 'liquid air' project can help store excess electricity

  05-06-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Scheme in north-west England could aid grids as wind and solar power growsA pioneering project in north-west England will turn air into liquid for energy storage to help electricity grids cope with a growing amount of wind and solar power.The world’s first full-scale “liquid air” plant is based on a technology that advocates say is cheaper and able to provide power for longer periods than lithium-ion batteries. Continue reading...
  
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• Man begins six-month swim through 'Great Pacific garbage patch'

  05-06-2018 06:45 via theguardian.com
  Ben Lecomte hopes to make it from Japan to San Francisco in 180 days while raising awareness of plastic pollutionA French anti-plastic campaigner has begun a six-month journey to swim through the giant floating rubbish mass known as the Great Pacific garbage patch.
  Ben Lecomte, who has previously swum across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998, left the shores of Choshi in Japan on Tuesday morning, heading east.Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: herring gulls vomit up their huge sea sound

  05-06-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Garron Point, Aberdeenshire: The wailing of the birds created a wraparound atmosphere of such density and chaos that I was almost unbalanced by itBeyond Sandend village and the slow white waves running into its sunlit bay, there was this wilderness of guano-nourished grass and three northward-facing ribs of metamorphosed sedimentary rock. The latter were tilted on end and weathered along their joints, and the gulls on the raised slabs of ancient stone were spaced in heraldic assembly.Through the
  
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• Australia's largest windfarm wins planning approval

  05-06-2018 04:07 via theguardian.com
  $1bn project in Queensland’s Bowen basin to consist of almost 200 turbinesThe Queensland government has approved the country’s largest windfarm, a $1bn project to build almost 200 turbines in the shadow of the Bowen basin’s coalmines.The 800-megawatt Clarke Creek project, in cattle country north-west of Rockhampton, received planning approval on Tuesday morning. The company behind the project, Lacour Energy, says it will create about 350 jobs during three years of construction
  
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• 50 nations 'curbing plastic pollution'

  05-06-2018 02:45 via bbc.co.uk
  Levies and bans have been among the most effective strategies to curb plastic waste, a UN report says.
  
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• What do slugs hate? Home remedies put to the test

  05-06-2018 02:33 via bbc.co.uk
  Traditional remedies used by gardeners to deter slugs and snails are to be tested scientifically for the first time.
  
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• World Environment Day: Seven countries leading the charge on plastics pollution

  05-06-2018 02:01
  Today (5 June) marks World Environment Day, the UN's global vehicle to inspire action on a plethora of pressing environmental issues, notably plastics pollution. Here, edie scans the globe to see how nations are putting an end to certain types of plastic.
  
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• Why do we love to dance with each other?

  05-06-2018 01:04 via bbc.co.uk
  Dancing makes us feel good...but dancing together is even better
  
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• Heathrow: Grayling to confirm final plan for third runway

  05-06-2018 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Transport secretary will set out proposals amid growing rift over expansion schemeChris Grayling is to confirm the government’s final plans for a third runway at Heathrow as the Tories prepare to impose a three-line whip in favour and Labour consider whether to remove its backing for the project.
  The transport secretary will set out his proposals for the expansion to senior colleagues on the cabinet’s economic subcommittee on Tuesday morning, before the decision goes to the full cabi
  
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