Environment news

• World's largest king penguin colony has declined by 90%

  30-07-2018 22:50 via theguardian.com
  Number of king penguins on the remote Île aux Cochons has fallen from 2m to 200,000, warn scientistsThe planet’s largest colony of king penguins has declined by nearly 90% in three decades, researchers have warned.The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Île aux Cochons – roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica – the island was blanketed by 2m of the penguins, which stand about a metre tall.Continue reading...
  
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• Butterflywatch: chilling impact of heatwaves on caterpillars

  30-07-2018 22:30 via theguardian.com
  Scientific study shows 54 of 207 species of butterfly and moth suffered a population crash after the parched summer of 1976 Can you guess the worst natural disaster for British butterflies in recent history? It was not the Beast from the East this February, nor the sunless summer of 2012, but actually the long hot summer of 1976. There may have been butterflies aplenty that year, but the drought caused the next generation of caterpillars’ food plants to shrivel with calamitous results. Rel
  
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• Victoria's ‘major’ concerns may prevent it signing national energy guarantee

  30-07-2018 22:00 via theguardian.com
  ‘Turnbull is trying to get us to sign something that hasn’t gone to his own party room – a place full of climate sceptics,’ says Victoria’s energy ministerVictoria is continuing to express “major” concerns about the federal government’s national energy guarantee before make-or-break discussions on the proposal in August.The state’s energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio argues it would be a leap of faith to sign up when the Coalition party roo
  
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• Kingfisher to install battery storage at B&Q distribution centre

  30-07-2018 17:50
  Home improvement retail giant Kingfisher has announced (30 July) that it will install energy storage facilities at one of its B&Q distribution centres as part of its overall goal to become a net-positive business by 2050.
  
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• Dirty fashion: Companies criticised over 'damaging' viscose use

  30-07-2018 16:38
  Luxury fashion brands and high-street retailers have again been linked with the damaging production of viscose textile fibres, despite some of last year's laggards making notable improvements to sourcing practices.
  
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• Forest Green Rovers certified as world's first carbon-neutral football club

  30-07-2018 13:47
  English Football League Two side Forest Green Rovers has become the world's first football club to achieve carbon-neutral certification from the United Nations (UN), after switching to renewable energy and sourcing vegan food for fans, players and staff.
  
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• Delta Air Lines to recycle 158 tonnes of old uniforms in textile diversion scheme

  30-07-2018 12:48
  Delta Air Lines has announced that it will send more than 158 tonnes of its old uniforms to be upcycled or recycled in what it claims will be one of the largest textile diversion schemes by a single US-based corporation.
  
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• Extreme weather could push UK food prices up this year, say farmers

  30-07-2018 12:24 via theguardian.com
  Crops are wilting in parched fields, lowering the yields of kitchen staples including meat, wheat, potatoes, onions and milk Staple foods from bread to potatoes, onions, milk and meat may be in shorter supply than usual this year and prices to consumers may have to rise, farmers have said, as they count the cost of the two-month drought and heatwave across the UK.There will be little respite from the hot weather in many areas of the country, even as thunderstorms and heavy rains spread from the
  
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• Songbird: a virtual moment of extinction in Hawaii - 360° video

  30-07-2018 12:13 via theguardian.com
  Hawaii is the extinct bird capital of the world. Many native birds are endangered, but for some it's too late. The fabled ʻōʻō (songbird) was last seen in 1985. Set amid the cloud forest of Kauai, Songbird takes you back in time to meet the legendary species and hear its last song.
  Songbird is available as a 360° interactive virtual reality experience for Daydream and HTC Vive, as a stereoscopic 360° film for Google Cardboard and as a 360° monoscopic film for YouT
  
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• 'This one has heat stress': the shocking reality of live animal exports

  30-07-2018 12:00 via theguardian.com
  The global demand for meat means more animals are moved around the world than ever before. Activists say the conditions they endure are intolerable – and we are all turning a blind eyeAt the Kapikule border crossing between Turkey and Bulgaria, Lesley Moffat charges forward, clipboard in hand, marching alongside the parked lorries loaded with live cows and sheep waiting in this no man’s land to be exported from the EU. Sometimes, the animals are left on the lorries for days, stuck in
  
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• America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies. Abolish them | Dana Nuccitelli

  30-07-2018 12:00 via theguardian.com
  While we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, America is giving the fossil fuel industry billions to extract more
  Imagine that instead of taxing cigarettes, America subsidized the tobacco industry in order to make each pack of smokes cheaper.
  A report from Oil Change International (OCI) investigated American energy industry subsidies and found that in 2015–2016, the federal government provided $14.7bn per year to the oil, gas, and coal industries, on top of $5.8bn of state-level incen
  
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• Forest Green Rovers named world's first UN certified carbon neutral football club

  30-07-2018 10:58 via theguardian.com
  Gloucestershire-based League Two club powered by renewable energy and endorsed by Vegan SocietyA British professional football club that is powered by renewable energy and serves vegan food to players, staff and fans has received a prestigious United Nations certification.Forest Green Rovers, which plays in League Two, announced on Monday that it has become the world’s first UN certified carbon neutral football club.Continue reading...
  
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• Origin of the species: where did Darwin's finches come from?

  30-07-2018 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Galápagos finches have been the subject of a plethora of evolutionary studies, but where did the first ones come from?When the first of the Galápagos Islands arose from the ocean floor around 3m years ago, they were naked, angry, lava-spewing cones devoid of life. Now, millions of years later, they are alive with some of the world’s most iconic animals. Giant tortoises. Sea iguanas. Flightless cormorants. And those finches equipped with Swiss army knife beaks.The Galáp
  
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• Big Butterfly Count 2018 – your best pictures

  30-07-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Naturalists including Sir David Attenborough have been encouraging the public to take part in the largest count of its kind. We asked to see some of the images you took while doing soContinue reading...
  
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• Dizzying array of recycling symbols 'is confusing consumers'

  30-07-2018 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Which? says people often don’t understand various symbols found on packagingA confusing array of symbols on household packaging is leaving consumers in the dark about what can be recycled, research reveals.Nearly half of respondents to a survey carried out in the UK by consumer group Which? thought that products stamped with the so-called green dot (a circle of two intertwined arrows) were recyclable, when in fact it means only that a manufacturer has paid into a scheme that supports recyc
  
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