Environment news

• Yosemite evacuates tourists as wildfires cut summer plans short

  25-07-2018 22:37 via theguardian.com
  Visitors express disappointment but park says choice to empty popular valley was tough but necessary
  The few remaining campers in Yosemite valley packed up gear Wednesday and cleared the area for firefighters battling a huge wildfire near Yosemite national park.The sun rose in a smoke-filled sky over the scenic valley, which normally bustles with summer tourists but has largely emptied out after authorities reluctantly ordered the closure a day earlier. Continue reading...
  
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• Life on Mars: What do we know?

  25-07-2018 20:25 via bbc.co.uk
  Victoria Gill takes a looks at four key moments in the search for life on the red planet.
  
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• Logging 'destroying' swift parrot habitat as government delays action

  25-07-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Researchers say failures allowed logging of 25% of old growth forest despite extinction threatHabitat for the critically endangered swift parrot is being “knowingly destroyed” by logging because of government failures to manage the species’ survival, according to research.Matthew Webb and Dejan Stojanovic, two of the Eureka prize finalists from the Australian National University’s difficult bird research group, say governments have stalled on management plans that would p
  
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• Cheap material could radically improve battery charging speed, say scientists

  25-07-2018 19:00 via theguardian.com
  Discovery could accelerate adoption of electric cars and solar energy, as well as helping to recharge your smartphone in minutesA newly identified group of materials could help recharge batteries faster, raising the possibility of smartphones that charge fully in minutes and accelerating the adoption of major clean technologies like electric cars and solar energy, say researchers.The speed at which a battery can be charged depends partly upon the rate at which positively charged particles, calle
  
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• Why can’t we just produce less waste? | Letters

  25-07-2018 18:52 via theguardian.com
  Samantha Harding says Coca-Cola’s rewards-based recycling initiative only fuels more consumption, and Jean Glasberg calls for more water fountainsAs Coca-Cola launches yet another heavily branded rewards-based initiative around recycling (Recyclers get half-price tickets for attractions, 25 July), it’s interesting to note that the global behemoth apparently still wonders whether deposit systems for bottles and cans increase recycling. Not only was it on a government working group tha
  
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• The facts about Powys game shoot | Letters

  25-07-2018 18:52 via theguardian.com
  Christopher Graffius of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation responds to a country diary about a Welsh game shootYour country diary (14 July) on the Llechweddygarth shoot in Powys is wrong. There are no grey partridge on the shoot. The game is not “tossed into the backs of Land Rovers” but hung properly in accordance with the Code of Good Shooting Practice on a purpose-built game cart. The game is not “sent for landfill” but respectfully processed and sol
  
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• Gene-edited plants and animals are GM foods, EU court rules

  25-07-2018 16:08 via theguardian.com
  Landmark decision means gene-edited plants and animals will be regulated under the same rules as genetically modified organismsPlants and animals created by innovative gene-editing technology have been genetically modified and should be regulated as such, the EU’s top court has ruled.
  The landmark decision ends 10 years of debate in Europe about what is – and is not – a GM food, with a victory for environmentalists, and a bitter blow to Europe’s biotech industry. Continue
  
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• Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

  25-07-2018 16:00 via bbc.co.uk
  Researchers believe they have found the first existing body of liquid water on the Red Planet.
  
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• British farmers fear fire as heatwave creates 'tinderbox'

  25-07-2018 15:35 via theguardian.com
  Wildfire is now an over-riding concern for many farmers, who are taking extra precautions to stop fires spreading as the hot spell continues“It’s like a tinderbox out here,” says Lesley Chandler, looking down at parched fields where bleached-out grass struggles through baked, stone-hard earth. “Just a spark could set it all alight.”Chandler farms 200 acres of arable land in Oxfordshire, where there has been virtually no rain for weeks. Pastures that would normally b
  
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• Gene editing is GM, says European Court

  25-07-2018 13:12 via bbc.co.uk
  The European Court of Justice has ruled that altering living things using the relatively new technique of genome editing counts as genetic engineering.
  
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• Facebook video spreads climate denial misinformation to 5 million users | Dana Nuccitelli

  25-07-2018 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Facebook is still struggling to contain its fake news problem
  Marc Morano is the real-world fossil fuel industry version of Nick Naylor. His career began working for Rush Limbaugh, followed by a job at Cybercast News Service where he launched the ‘Swift Boat’ attacks on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. In 2006, Morano became the director of communications for Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who is perhaps best known for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor and calling
  
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• Smart meter rollout costs £1bn higher than expected in 2016

  25-07-2018 11:49
  The costs of the smart meter rollout programme will rise "even further", a parliamentary report has recommended.
  
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• Coca-Cola offers 50% discounts at major UK theme parks in exchange for plastic bottles

  25-07-2018 09:18
  Coca-Cola Great Britain is offering 50% discounts to UK attractions such as Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Legoland in exchange for used plastic drinks bottles, in a bid to change consumer attitudes towards recycling.
  
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• On the Mission Possible sofa with Interface's Jon Khoo and Kingfisher's Caroline Laurie

  25-07-2018 09:12
  The eighth and final episode of our new sustainable business chat show sees Interface's innovation partner Jon Khoo joined by Kingfisher's head of sustainability Caroline Laurie to discuss how sustainability can be embedded across the business, including at boardroom level.
  
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• UK theme parks to offer half-price entry in exchange for used plastic bottles

  25-07-2018 08:01 via theguardian.com
  Legoland and Thorpe Park among the attractions that have joined Coca-Cola in a trial offering instant incentives for recyclingVisitors to some of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions are to be offered half-price entry in exchange for used plastic drinks bottles, as part of a trial starting on Wednesday which gives instant incentives for recycling.In a tie-up between theme park operator Merlin and drinks giant Coca-Cola, a series of so-called “reverse vending machines” will
  
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• It feels like 1976. And that long, hot summer didn’t end well | Andy Beckett

  25-07-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The sense of ease in Britain over those months was not a total delusion. Yet the year brought huge political upheavalJust like this year’s, the heatwave in 1976 arrived as Britain seemed to be approaching an economic and political abyss. During the spring and early summer, as the sun began to hammer down and the usual rain failed to fall, and the reservoirs began to shrink, the pound was lurching downwards on the markets. For almost three years, under Tory and Labour governments, the econo
  
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• Fool’s gold: what fish oil is doing to our health and the planet

  25-07-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Omega-3 is one of our favourite supplements – but a huge new study has found it has little or no benefit. How did it become a $30bn business?The omega-3 industry is in a twist. Again. Last week, Cochrane, an organisation that compiles and evaluates medical research for the general public, released a meta-analysis – a study of studies – to determine whether or not omega-3 pills, one of the world’s most popular dietary supplements, reduced the risk of coronary heart disease
  
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• Country diary: bandit birds keep these glorious gardens wild

  25-07-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Powis Castle, Welshpool, Powys: The crows live a parallel existence as shrine animals, stealing tributes from visitors, essential to the life of the place but overlookedTwo young crows, beaks agape, sat quietly on the stump of a beech tree I cut down on the eastern bank below the castle walls in the late 1970s. The crows waited for a parent to turn up with the remains of a sandwich nicked from the cafe down the garden. They were living a kind of parallel existence as shrine animals, dark creatur
  
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• Frydenberg offers olive branch over controversial emissions target

  25-07-2018 04:16 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Energy minister says targets can be reviewed in five years if states sign up to energy guaranteeJosh Frydenberg has offered an olive branch on the national energy guarantee, telling state energy ministers the emissions reduction target can be reviewed after five years – stepping back from an ambit claim that it be locked in for a decade.The concession is flagged in a commonwealth paper circulated to the states late on Tuesday night. It sets out the Turnbull’s government&rs
  
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• South Australia on track to meet 75% renewables target Liberals promised to scrap

  25-07-2018 03:38 via theguardian.com
  Liberal energy minister, who inherited policy criticised as a mix of ‘ideology and idiocy’, says he’ll ensure it does not come at too high a price South Australia’s energy minister says the state is on track to have 75% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 – the target set by the former Labor premier Jay Weatherill and once rejected by his Liberal government.And Dan van Holst Pellekaan pledged to ensure it does not come at too high a price. Continue rea
  
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• California wildfires partially shut down Yosemite at peak of tourist season

  25-07-2018 00:48 via theguardian.com
  National park, which gets more than half a million visitors in July alone, sees section closed amid dangerous air qualityYosemite national park has been partially closed as wildfires continue to sweep across California this week. Fueled by dry conditions and high temperatures, smoke has settled over the popular tourist destination, causing unsafe conditions for visitors and workers, prompting officials to issue a temporary closure and evacuate the remaining tourists beginning Wednesday at noon.N
  
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