Environment news

• Coral reefs ‘will be overwhelmed by rising oceans’

  23-06-2018 23:21
  Study finds fragile marine ecosystems cannot grow fast enough to keep pace with sea levelsScientists have uncovered a new threat to the world’s endangered coral reefs. They have found that most are incapable of growing quickly enough to compensate for rising sea levels triggered by global warming.The study suggests that reefs – which are already suffering serious degradation because the world’s seas are warming and becoming more acidic – could also become overwhelmed by r
  
  Read more

• Green energy feels the heat as subsidies go to fossil fuels

  23-06-2018 13:34
  Community projects can slash household bills but the sector has ground to a halt in Britain – in contrast with schemes in EuropeThe number of people generating their own power has almost flatlined, with only one new group formed in the UK last year, according to the body representing grassroots energy organisations.Cuts to subsidies for homeowners to install solar panels and a “hostile planning approach” that has in effect banned new wind turbines are behind the “wholesal
  
  Read more

• Living next door to 17 million chickens: 'We want a normal life'

  23-06-2018 09:00
  Ukrainian villagers living in the shadow of Europe’s biggest chicken farm are fighting back – not just against the company but the development banks funding itThe locals call this area the Ryaba-land. That’s the name of the chicken brand Nasha Ryaba under which MHP – the largest poultry company in Ukraine and the owners of Vinnytsia farm - sells poultry meat in supermarkets. There are more chicken sheds than houses here. Even the village signs bear the MHP brand. There ar
  
  Read more

• Are some landlords bending energy efficiency rules?

  23-06-2018 08:00
  Renting out properties with bad insulation and heating has been prohibited since AprilAre some landlords and agents fiddling new rules that ban them from letting out properties that are poorly insulated and inefficiently heated?Since the start of April, landlords have been prohibited from renting out “sub-standard” houses and flats, which, in this context, means those that don’t meet minimum energy-efficiency requirements. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Country diary: they look like a crowd of skinheads frowning in long grass

  23-06-2018 06:30
  Kirkham Abbey, North Yorkshire: If the residents of these anthills object to me perching on their home like some mammal Godzilla, they don’t show itI wonder if they’re aware of the colossal creature approaching. Do they sense its lumbering footfalls? Do the walls tremble, or the avenues and galleries of their metropolis deform perceptibly under its weight? Can they sense its extravagant metabolic heat?The mounds that pimple this sloping pasture are silent. The sheep were taken off a
  
  Read more

• Marine plastic: Hundreds of fragments in dead seabirds

  23-06-2018 05:06 via bbc.co.uk
  Flesh-footed shearwater chicks are starving to death because of plastic, a BBC documentary reveals.
  
  Read more

• The birds filling up with plastic

  23-06-2018 01:34 via bbc.co.uk
  On a remote island in the Tasman Sea scientists are battling to save flesh-footed Shearwater chicks.
  
  Read more

• You don't use so much plastic, do you? How to ditch plastics for July – and beyond

  23-06-2018 00:19
  Cutting single-use plastics can be surprisingly challenging but there are easy alternatives My first Plastic Free July was in 2013. At the time most of my friends were signing up for Dry July, the month where participants go alcohol free and raise funds for cancer support organisations across Australia. Instead, I decided to participate in what was then a relatively unknown challenge to reduce my single-use plastics over a month after watching the eco-documentary The Clean Bin Project.Continue r
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!