Environment news

• Primate speech: How some species are 'wired' for talk

  09-08-2018 23:17 via bbc.co.uk
  Primate brain study reveals a "wiring" key to our ability to talk.
  
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• EPA ordered to ban pesticide linked to learning disabilities

  09-08-2018 20:49 via theguardian.com
  A federal court said the agency must prohibit the use of chlorpyrifos after seven states and DC backed the case against itA federal court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban a widely used pesticide linked to learning disabilities in children.The decision said the EPA must prohibit the use of the pesticide, known as chlorpyrifos, within 60 days. Continue reading...
  
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• Organic solar cells set 'remarkable' energy record

  09-08-2018 20:02 via bbc.co.uk
  Cheap, flexible solar panels could become a reality as organics achieve the same power efficiency as silicon.
  
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• We're all going on a scat hunt: how citizen science can help save echidnas

  09-08-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Ordinary Australians are making a difference for teams that rely on raw data such as the University of Adelaide’s recent project on the monotremesNot everyone would be delighted to receive 150 echidna poo samples in the post but Tahlia Perry was thrilled.The PhD researcher is part of the University of Adelaide’s Grutzner Lab team studying the molecular biology of echidnas and the best way to collect the monotremes’ hormones is by testing their scats. In February, Guardian Austr
  
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• Commonwealth and state governments deadlocked before Coag energy meeting

  09-08-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  ‘We want to resolve the Neg but it can’t all be one way,’ Victorian energy minister says as Frydenberg stands groundThe commonwealth and the states remain deadlocked ahead of Friday’s first critical meeting on the national energy guarantee, with Victoria declaring the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, “will be confronted with a need to negotiate”.Ahead of Friday’s meeting of the Coag energy council in Sydney, Frydenberg has signalled he could compromise
  
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• Killer whale still carrying dead baby after 16 days

  09-08-2018 19:12 via bbc.co.uk
  A mother whale is still carrying her baby's body more than two weeks after it died.
  
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• To the ends of the Earth: the activists risking their lives to defend the environment

  09-08-2018 18:37 via theguardian.com
  The Guardian’s extraordinary Defenders project recorded the deaths of people around the world fighting to save the planet. Here, the series’ lead writer remembers their storiesEven before I knew who she was or what she had suffered, there was clearly something special about Marivic Danyan.The young T’boli woman was standing silently in a noisy crowd when we reached the village of Datal Bonglangon, deep within the conflict-riven island of Mindanao, in the Philippines. Continue r
  
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• How we can save some of the jobs destroyed by rise of the machines | Letters

  09-08-2018 18:21 via theguardian.com
  Malcolm Fowles on ‘super-efficient market gardening’, Colin Hines on infrastructure-building, and Susannah Everington on avoidance of self-service tillsYvette Cooper’s strategy to support workers to move to new, good-quality jobs from those destroyed by the coming technological revolution is commendable (Automation could destroy jobs. We must deal with it now, 7 August). However, it presupposes that such jobs will themselves be enabled by the new technology, and
  
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• The unpleasant reason men navigate better than women

  09-08-2018 18:20 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists show innate ability is not the explanation for men navigating better than women.
  
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• AccorHotels now using 600 onsite urban food gardens

  09-08-2018 15:26
  Hospitality giant AccorHotels has announced that it is on track to install urban fruit and vegetable gardens at 1,000 of its 4,500 global hotels by 2020, as part of its commitment to cut emissions from food transportation and reduce its food waste output.
  
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• Elusive nightjar back at RSPB Sandy reserve

  09-08-2018 15:21 via bbc.co.uk
  A pair have been spotted breeding at the Bedfordshire site for the first time in 45 years.
  
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• Wildfires rage in the Algarve - in pictures

  09-08-2018 14:38 via theguardian.com
  More than 1,000 firefighters are battling blazes for a seventh day in the popular tourist area in Portugal. Extremely high temperatures have been blamed for sparking the wildfiresContinue reading...
  
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• From greenhouse to hothouse: the language of climate change

  09-08-2018 13:58 via theguardian.com
  Feedback effects could spark irreversible global warming, says scientists. But what does the word ‘hothouse’ imply?Scientists warned this week that feedback effects in global warming might tip the Earth into a “hothouse state”, recovery from which could be impossible, even by reductions in CO2 emissions. How frightened should we be about moving from a greenhouse to a hothouse?The mechanism by which atmospheric gases warm the planet has been well understood since the 19th
  
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• How ING is avoiding greenwash in the new green finance era

  09-08-2018 13:47
  EXCLUSIVE: ING's global head of sustainable finance Leonie Schreve believes that stronger internal relations between the finance and sustainability departments within businesses will create more access to green loans and bonds to assist the low-carbon transition.
  
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• Whale sharks feeding in the western Indian Ocean - in pictures

  09-08-2018 13:23 via theguardian.com
  The world’s largest fish roams less than previously thought, new research has found. Using a ‘biological passport’, results show that whale sharks in the western Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf rarely swim more than a few hundred kilometres from their feeding grounds, making local action vital to their conservation Continue reading...
  
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• Blockchain start-up joins coalition of automakers to develop autonomous EVs

  09-08-2018 12:39
  A global consortium of automakers, including BMW, Ford and Renault, have announced that they will work with blockchain start-up The DAV Foundation in a bid to make networks of fully autonomous electric vehicles (EVs) commonplace by 2021.
  
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• Aldi on track to be carbon-neutral by 2019

  09-08-2018 11:58
  Discount supermarket chain Aldi has today (August 9) announced it is on track to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations in the UK and Ireland by the end of next year, following a string of multi-million-pound investments in renewable energy arrays and energy efficiency measures.
  
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• Will the national energy guarantee stall or speed up progress? – Australian politics live podcast

  09-08-2018 10:34 via theguardian.com
  With a make-or-break set of meetings on the Turnbull government’s national energy guarantee kicking off, Katharine Murphy talks to Ken Baldwin, the director of the energy change institute at the Australian National University. Will the Neg halt a transformation into renewables that is already being driven by the global energy market? Or will it set the future foundations for climate and energy policy across Australia? Continue reading...
  
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• Academics call on businesses to drop standalone sustainability reports

  09-08-2018 10:12
  A new report has urged corporates to drop standalone sustainability reports in favour of integrated reporting methods, to better showcase how sustainability can act as a holistic driver for growth and value across a business.
  
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• Great Barrier Reef: former board member describes $444m grant as 'unthinkable'

  09-08-2018 09:37 via theguardian.com
  Michael Myer says size of grant ‘unheard of’ as Josh Frydenberg refuses to say where idea originated
  The environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, would not say whose idea it was to award a $444m government grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, on the same day a former member of the foundation’s board described the allocation as “unthinkable”. Michael Myer, of the Myer family, was a member of the reef foundation’s board from 2001 to 2004 until he became con
  
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• Country diary: questions of survival in the heat

  09-08-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Flitwick, Bedfordshire: Why have garden ants taken to extreme excavation? What are we to do with the toad gulping on the path?In this lawnmower-less summer we have been inclined to point a parched finger at the weather for every absence, aberration and adaptation in nature. Since the beginning of June, I have not seen a slug, centipede, millipede, or earwig. Worms are unknown outside the compost heap, mosquitoes thankfully unheard. The sole snail of the season was summoned into the open last wee
  
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• Beastie joys: Photographer's love of Scottish bug life

  09-08-2018 02:20 via bbc.co.uk
  A woman passionate about insects and photography shares images of some of Scotland's colourful bug life.
  
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• Parker Solar Probe: How Nasa is trying to 'touch' the Sun

  09-08-2018 01:26 via bbc.co.uk
  Nasa's Parker Solar Probe will get closer to our star than any other in history.
  
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