Environment news

• How crows can use a vending machine

  28-06-2018 20:29 via bbc.co.uk
  Watch how Emma the crow creates the currency required to operate a vending machine.
  
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• The guinea pig at the Last Supper | Brief letters

  28-06-2018 19:07 via theguardian.com
  Animal iconography | Ladybirds’ absence | Measuring space gloop | Nat King Cole’s Route 66 | Morris mushrooms“I’m looking for the wombat in the altarpiece now,” says Heather Dalton, the historian who found a cockatoo in a 16th-century Italian altarpiece created long before Captain Cook washed up in Australia (Report, 27 June). She might enjoy the 17th-century painting of the Last Supper in Cuzco Cathedral in Peru, which shows a festive spread of wine, bread, fruit a
  
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• edie's Luke Nicholls named Publishing Innovator of the Year

  28-06-2018 18:10
  edie's content director Luke Nicholls was last night crowned Publishing Innovator of the Year at a glittering awards ceremony in London.
  
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• What the fire near Saddleworth Moor means for wildlife

  28-06-2018 18:03 via bbc.co.uk
  Experts warn it may take years for the wildlife to fully return to the burnt area near Saddleworth Moor.
  
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• Scientists call for a Paris-style agreement to save life on Earth

  28-06-2018 17:17 via theguardian.com
  Conservation scientists believe our current mass extinction crisis requires a far more ambitious agreement, in the style of the Paris Climate Accord. And they argue that the bill shouldn’t be handed just to nation states, but corporations too.Let’s be honest, the global community’s response to the rising evidence of mass extinction and ecological degradation has been largely to throw crumbs at it. Where we have acted it’s been in a mostly haphazard and modest way —
  
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• Biodiversity is the 'infrastructure that supports all life'

  28-06-2018 17:17 via theguardian.com
  Dr Cristiana Pașca Palmer, UN assistant secretary general and executive secretary of the convention on biological diversity, discusses Half Earth, a future biodiversity agreement and where to find the money to save life on EarthDr. Cristiana Pașca Palmer has a big job ahead of her: planning the 2020 UN Biodiversity Convention in Beijing. As the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Pașca Palmer is in charge of forming new goals with governments for t
  
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• Deepwater Horizon disaster altered building blocks of ocean life

  28-06-2018 16:03 via theguardian.com
  Oil spill disaster reduced biodiversity in sites closest to spill, report finds, as White House rolls back conservation measuresThe 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may have had a lasting impact upon even the smallest organisms in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have found – amid warnings that the oceans around America are also under fresh assault as a result of environmental policies under Donald Trump.Lingering oil residues have altered the basic building blocks of life in the oc
  
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• Reaction round-up: What does the green economy make of the Committee on Climate Change report?

  28-06-2018 14:10
  In the wake of a new Committee on Climate Change (CCC) report, which predicts that the UK will miss its future carbon budgets, the green economy is calling on the Government to take bolder actions to decarbonise the transport, heat and agriculture sectors.
  
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• JLL aiming for science-based target by 2020

  28-06-2018 13:55
  Real estate giant JLL has announced that it surpassed all three of its 2020 carbon emissions reduction targets last year, putting it on track to set a science-based target within the next two years.
  
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• BP buys UK's biggest electric car charger network for £130m

  28-06-2018 13:34 via theguardian.com
  Acquisition of Chargemaster, with 6,500 charging points, praised as milestone towards cleaner motoringBP has bought the UK’s biggest electric car charging network, in the latest sign of major oil producers addressing the threat that low-carbon vehicles pose to their core business.The acquisition of Chargemaster, which has more than 6,500 charging points across the country, will begin to result in the deployment of fast chargers at BP’s 1,200 forecourts over the next year. Continue re
  
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• Lord Deben: Housing and car industries should be 'ashamed' of climate record

  28-06-2018 12:37
  The homebuilding and carmaking industries "should be ashamed" of their efforts to tackle global warming, according to the UK government's official climate change adviser.
  
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• Wood Wide Web

  28-06-2018 12:07 via bbc.co.uk
  Plants share resources using an underground network called the "Wood Wide Web".
  
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• How trees secretly talk to each other

  28-06-2018 12:07 via bbc.co.uk
  Plants share resources using an underground network called the "Wood Wide Web".
  
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• Meet America's new climate normal: towns that flood when it isn't raining

  28-06-2018 12:00 via theguardian.com
  In this extract from Rising, Elizabeth Rush explains ‘sunny day flooding’ – when a high tide can cause streets to fill with waterRising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’I spend the afternoon in Shorecrest, a neighborhood a couple of miles north of downtown Miami. To get there I leave the beach behind and drive past Arky’s Live Bait & Tackle, Deal and Discounts II, Rafiul Food Store, Royal Budget Inn, Family Dollar and Goodwill. As I continue
  
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• Deluge of electronic waste turning Thailand into 'world's rubbish dump'

  28-06-2018 10:33 via theguardian.com
  Thailand has been swamped by waste from the west after Chinese ban on imports At a deserted factory outside Bangkok, skyscrapers made from vast blocks of crushed printers, Xbox components and TVs tower over black rivers of smashed-up computer screens. This is a tiny fragment of the estimated 50m tonnes of electronic waste created globally every year, a tide of toxic rubbish that is flooding into south-east Asia from the EU, US and Japan.Continue reading...
  
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• Report: Demand response will see EU meet 40% of its 2020 energy targets

  28-06-2018 10:15
  Despite slow adoption rates of demand-response measures in several member states, the service is on track to enable the EU to achieve 40% of its 2020 energy and carbon reduction targets.
  
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• United Utilities to reap rewards from AI-assisted energy efficiency tech

  28-06-2018 09:30
  Water company United Utilities is set to reduce its yearly electricity bills and energy intensity by 10% after installing an energy flexibility platform which incorporates artificial intelligence (AI).
  
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• Company that builds 'floating islands' offers $100,000 bounty to any takers

  28-06-2018 07:08 via theguardian.com
  After rejection by French Polynesia, company launches campaign to persuade governments around the world A company attempting to build floating man-made islands as a means of adapting to climate change have offered $100,000 to start-ups and entrepreneurs able to convince their government to host a floating island in their seas.Blue Frontiers had been in discussions with French Polynesia to build a prototype of a floating island in their territory. However, after protests and opposition the govern
  
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• Housing and car industries should be ‘ashamed’ of climate record

  28-06-2018 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Failure to build energy-efficient homes and clean cars risks UK missing its carbon targets, says government’s climate adviserThe homebuilding and carmaking industries “should be ashamed” of their efforts to tackle global warming, according to the UK government’s official climate change adviser.Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said housebuilders were “cheating” buyers with energy-inefficient homes and that motor companies were holding
  
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• MoD campaign to stop killing of songbirds on Cyprus hailed a success

  28-06-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Poachers killed 800,000 birds on UK base in 2016 but 72% drop was recorded in last yearWhen Britain’s armed forces minister, Mark Lancaster, assumed office he was surprised by the amount of letters in his mailbag regarding an issue the military would not ordinarily address. One after the other spoke of the killing of migratory songbirds on Cyprus. Hundreds of thousands of robins, blackcaps, thrushes and other much-loved garden species were being illegally slaughtered by trappers on Ministr
  
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• Brexit Britain’s dash for growth will be a disaster for the environment | Owen Jones

  28-06-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  MPs showed a Trumpian disregard for the planet by voting en masse for Heathrow expansionMany of those MPs who marched through the lobbies to vote in favour of expanding Heathrow this week – Labour parliamentarians among them – will speak eloquently, if pushed, about the threat of climate change. Unfortunately their words have been rendered meaningless by their vote. You cannot truly fear the impact of climate change and then opt to raise aviation emissions by 7.3m tonnes of carbon di
  
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• How do you catch the criminals behind the illegal trade?

  28-06-2018 03:17 via bbc.co.uk
  British scientists have come up with a way of taking human finger prints off seized pangolin scales that could help identify the criminals behind the illegal trade.
  
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• Fingerprint tech could help catch pangolin poachers

  28-06-2018 03:17 via bbc.co.uk
  British scientists discover a way of taking human fingerprints off seized pangolin scales.
  
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• Young will pick up climate change bill, advisers warn

  28-06-2018 02:02 via bbc.co.uk
  Without action on climate change, the coming generation will pay much more to curb emissions, a UK report says.
  
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