Environment news

• Specieswatch: black soldier fly the UK's newest farmed creature

  21-08-2018 22:30 via theguardian.com
  Maggots fed on waste food and larvae used as food on fish farms, promising revolutionary changesThe black soldier fly Hermetia illucens already numbers millions in Britain, but if you meet one in the wild it will have escaped. It is of the newest and most productive creatures farmed in these islands. So far it is being kept in controlled conditions so that its larvae can be fed to a large variety of pets – reptiles and birds, but mostly fish. The most ambitious projects involve feeding the
  
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• How the Trump administration is rolling back plans for clean power

  21-08-2018 19:43 via theguardian.com
  EPA proposals published on Tuesday have no national emissions reduction target and could result in 1,400 deaths per yearWhat has the Trump administration done?“Did you see what I did to that? Boom, gone,” Donald Trump said about the clean power plan last year. Trump has long targeted the plan – the cornerstone of Barack Obama’s climate change agenda – by portraying it as disastrous for coal-producing regions in particular and the US economy in general. Continue read
  
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• Activists publish list of badger cull farmers to 'sabotage' their time

  21-08-2018 18:44 via theguardian.com
  Stop the Cull group says it will not threaten cull organisers but rather disrupt themAnimal rights activists have published what they claim is a comprehensive list of farmers leading the badger cull complete with addresses, phone numbers and a map.The Stop the Cull group has suggested its supporters get in touch with the scores of cull organisers it says it has identified to express their opposition, “sabotage” their time by making misleading phone calls or arrange demonstrations out
  
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• Trump administration scraps Obama-era regulation on coal emissions

  21-08-2018 18:31 via theguardian.com
  Plan would boost output from coal-fired plants and lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths a yearThe Trump administration has put forward a greenhouse gas emissions plan that could boost output from coal-fired power plants rather than push them towards closure and result in as many as 1,400 premature deaths each year. Related: Andrew Wheeler: 'point man for Trump' focused on undoing Obama's EPA agendaContinue reading...
  
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• Golden eagle chicks released to boost south of Scotland population

  21-08-2018 18:00 via bbc.co.uk
  A project, more than a decade in the making, sees young eagles released in a bid to boost declining numbers.
  
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• How far will these eagles spread their wings?

  21-08-2018 17:56 via bbc.co.uk
  There's hopes that a new project in Scotland will re-introduce Golden Eagles in England and Wales.
  
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• New perspective on how lemurs got to Madagascar

  21-08-2018 17:09 via bbc.co.uk
  The history of the lemurs, the most endangered group of mammals, is more complex than we thought.
  
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• UK's largest recycling centre opens in Scotland

  21-08-2018 16:28
  The UK's largest recycling centre has officially opened in Livingston, Scotland, on the same day that waste experts called on the UK Government to scrap weight-based recycling targets post-Brexit.
  
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• Pebble plunderers in Cornwall warned as tourist faces £1,000 fine

  21-08-2018 16:19 via theguardian.com
  Councils remind public that taking pebbles risks floods, erosion and wildlife harmA holidaymaker who took pebbles from a Cornish beach was forced to travel hundreds of miles to return the souvenirs to avoid a hefty fine.The man was traced to his home after taking a carrier bag full of stones from a beach at Crackington Haven near Bude. Continue reading...
  
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• Google 'taking AI to the next level' to cut data centre energy use

  21-08-2018 14:25
  Google is now allowing its artificial intelligence (AI) system - rather than its staff - to directly control its data centre cooling system as a way of lowering emissions and energy consumption.
  
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• Water ice 'detected on Moon's surface'

  21-08-2018 14:05 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists say they have definitive evidence for water-ice on the surface of the Moon.
  
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• Battery site becomes first to supply electricity to UK's Balancing Mechanism

  21-08-2018 13:20
  A 10MW battery storage site in Derbyshire has become the first in the UK to deliver electricity to the National Grid's Balancing Mechanism (BM), in a move hailed as "ground-breaking" for the nation's renewable and battery storage industries.
  
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• Orkney tidal turbine generates record level of power

  21-08-2018 13:14
  A Scottish tidal turbine has generated more power over the past year than the entire wave and tidal energy sectors in Scotland in the 12 years prior to its launch in 2016.
  
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• Anglian Water to boost onsite generation with AI-powered energy storage technology

  21-08-2018 12:39
  Water utility Anglian Water is set to install an energy storage machine controlled by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology at one of its water treatment facilities, in a move it claims will increase the site's solar generation by 80%.
  
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• Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

  21-08-2018 10:35 via theguardian.com
  Usually frozen waters open up twice this year in phenomenon scientists described as scaryThe oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. Continue reading...
  
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• Report: EU carbon prices could hit €40 over next five years

  21-08-2018 09:12
  European Union (EU) carbon prices could more than double to €40 per tonne between 2019 and 2023, spurring the transition away from coal power across the bloc.
  
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• Australia's climate wars: a decade of dithering – video

  21-08-2018 08:19 via theguardian.com
  From John Howard’s promise to introduce an emissions trading system in October 2007 to Malcolm Turnbull’s dumping of the emissions reduction target from the national energy guarantee in August 2018, the past 11 years of Australian politics has been marked by a torturous series of backflips and U-turns on energy and climate change policy. The so-called ‘climate wars’ span the leadership of five Australian prime ministers – John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony
  
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• Trump set to roll back Obama-era regulation on coal emissions

  21-08-2018 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Plan would allow individual states should decide how, or even if, they should stem carbon dioxide emissions from coal plantsThe Trump administration is set to unveil a proposed replacement for Obama-era climate change rules that will impose looser, state-based regulations on coal-fired power plants rather than pushing them towards closure.The new plan is likely to escalate greenhouse gas emissions, compared with its predecessor, at a time when scientists have warned drastic cuts are required to
  
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• Country diary: hedgerow hide and seek with the young whitethroats

  21-08-2018 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Claxton, Norfolk: Suddenly a bird flickers outward, wings unfurled in clean lines, tail splayed split-second, before it dives for the latticed purdah of the bush interiorOn the elder bushes the particoloured fruits of burgundy-black and green are a perfect metaphor for this moment in our parish. So too the swags of great hairy willowherb, 3m tall and leaning sharply, which are netted round now with a mesh of dead goosegrass: these stands of green speak of a season that is full, but no longer fil
  
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• Australia has no climate policy: a quick response to a drawn-out farce | Graham Readfearn

  21-08-2018 04:17 via theguardian.com
  Climate change denial is at the root of the half-baked policies and outright wrecking that have blighted the past decadeI needed to write this column really quickly, otherwise we might have had a new prime minister before I’d finished, and the climate policy we don’t have might have changed several times.I gave myself 30 minutes because that reflects the fickle care and short-termism that has been afforded climate change in Australia in recent years.Continue reading...
  
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• My green idea: Recycling India's floral waste

  21-08-2018 01:18 via bbc.co.uk
  One woman's mission to turn the tide on India's polluted waterways by recycling leftover flowers.
  
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• Toxic 'red tide' blamed for rise of manatee deaths in Florida

  21-08-2018 01:01 via theguardian.com
  Experts blame a cold snap at the beginning of the year and algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico for the fatalitiesManatees are dying in alarming numbers in Florida this year – the toll significantly increased by the “red tide” toxic algae bloom blighting large areas of the coast and threatening wildlife and tourism.More of the large, slow-moving herbivores, also known as sea cows, have died so far in 2018 than all of last year, according to state wildlife statistics reported on Mo
  
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