Environment news

• E. coli outbreak: Romaine lettuce probed in US and Canada

  20-11-2018 23:36 via bbc.co.uk
  At least 50 people in the US and Canada have been infected, health officials say.
  
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• UN environment chief Erik Solheim quits amid expenses row

  20-11-2018 21:44 via bbc.co.uk
  The official was criticised for risking the UN's reputation by extensive use of expensive travel.
  
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• Newfoundland oil spill: biologists fear scale of devastation may never be known

  20-11-2018 21:24
  Rough seas prevented crews from assessing damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by province’s largest-ever spill Biologists are attempting to assess damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by Newfoundland’s largest-ever oil spill, amid fears that the full scale of devastation may never be known.Intense storms battered offshore oil production areas late last week, with waves cresting as high as 28ft. On Friday, the SeaRose tanker attempted to restart production, but a faulty connection li
  
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• Proud to be called a champagne socialist | Brief letters

  20-11-2018 19:08
  Journal of Controversial Ideas | Cojones and nipples | Global warming | Co-op champagne | The TulipThe people who tell us “We are the editors of the Journal of Controversial Ideas” (Letters, 19 November) claim in the next paragraph that “At present there is no Journal of Controversial Ideas” – funny set of editors then. They also recoil at the idea that publishing in the Journal of Controversial Ideas might lead to anyone “deliberately branding ideas as contro
  
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• 'Genuinely bewildering': BEIS to allocate £60m for next CfD auction

  20-11-2018 18:43
  The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is set to finalise a draft allocation of £60m for the next Contract for Difference (CfD) auction, raising questions as to how the remaining £497m set aside for future auctions will be spent.
  
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• UN shipping agency accused of secrecy over maritime pollution

  20-11-2018 18:38
  IMO ‘susceptible to influence from private interests and certain states’ say campaigners The UN agency responsible for cutting shipping emissions to combat climate change has been accused of operating like a secretive closed shop.The charity Transparency International has condemned six countries, including the UK and the US, for opposing moves to open the International Maritime Organization to public scrutiny and hampering moves to combat climate change. Continue reading...
  
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• UN environment chief resigns after frequent flying revelations

  20-11-2018 18:22
  Erik Solheim resigns after audit found travel irregularities and internal rule breaking, leading nations to drop fundingThe UN’s environment chief Erik Solheim has resigned following severe criticism over his globetrotting travels and internal rule-breaking which led some nations to withhold their funding.The Guardian understands Solheim was asked to resign by the UN secretary general António Guterres. Sources at the UN Environment Programme (Unep) said that countries unhappy with S
  
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• The last Australian whale hunt – in pictures

  20-11-2018 18:00
  When anti-whaling activists arrived in Albany, they planned to convince the town that their future was in watching whales, not killing them. Forty years on, they remember the moment commercial whaling ended in AustraliaThe message came over the radio and was relayed into the engine room of the Cheynes IV whale chaser, where engineer Bob Reeby was at work.“That was it: ‘Home speed, we’re going home’. That was the end of an era. It was a pretty sad moment,” Reeby reca
  
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• 'An unpleasant business': the last Australian whale hunt

  20-11-2018 18:00
  When anti-whaling activists arrived in Albany, they planned to convince the town that their future was in watching whales, not killing them. Forty years on, they remember the moment commercial whaling ended in AustraliaThe message came over the radio and was relayed into the engine room of the Cheynes IV whale chaser, where engineer Bob Reeby was at work.“That was it: ‘Home speed, we’re going home’. That was the end of an era. It was a pretty sad moment,” Reeby reca
  
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• Report: Renewables could meet half of UK's electricity demands by 2030, at price parity with fossil fuels

  20-11-2018 17:32
  Wind and solar power - if distributed using smart, flexible power grids - could meet around 50% of the UK's electricity demands by 2030, at a price parity with coal, oil or gas generation.
  
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• Disruptive plastics firm Polymateria backed by £1m Innovate UK funding

  20-11-2018 16:58
  BT's former chief sustainability officer Niall Dunne's vision to create the "Tesla of plastics" has moved a step closer to reality, after securing more than £1m in Innovate UK grants to research and scale-up compostable plastics.
  
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• Air pollution cuts two years off global average lifespan, says study

  20-11-2018 16:32
  Analysis finds toxic air trims lifespans by 1.8 years, making it main threat to human healthAir pollution cuts the average lifespan of people around the globe by almost two years, analysis shows, making it the single greatest threat to human health.The research looked at the particulate pollution produced by the burning of fossil fuels by vehicles and industry. It found that in many parts of the worst-affected nations – India and China – lifespans were being shortened by six years. C
  
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• Air pollution cuts global average lifespan by nearly two years – study

  20-11-2018 16:32
  New analysis calls toxic air the greatest threat to human health, finding it shortens lives by up to six years in pollution hotspotsAir pollution cuts the average lifespan of people around the globe by almost two years, according to a new analysis, making it the single greatest threat to human health.The research looked at the particulate pollution produced by the burning of fossil fuel by vehicles and industry. It found that in many parts of the worst-affected nations – India and China &n
  
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• 'Greenwash': oil giant under fire over plan to protect tropical forests

  20-11-2018 16:31
  Campaigners say move by Norway’s Equinor is an excuse to keep drilling for fossil fuelsOne of the world’s biggest oil companies is set to join the fight against deforestation in the tropics as part of its climate change efforts – but the the move has been branded a “greenwash” by campaigners.State-owned Norwegian firm Equinor has written to the UN’s climate chief to tell her it wants to invest in the protection of tropical forests.Continue reading...
  
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• Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

  20-11-2018 14:43 via bbc.co.uk
  The dead sperm whale, which washed ashore in Indonesia, had ingested nearly 6kg of plastic waste.
  
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• Microsoft VP: IoT can prepare cities for natural disasters

  20-11-2018 13:39
  In a month when raging fires have caused unprecedented destruction across California, Microsoft's corporate VP has stressed the importance of using data across Internet of Things (IoT) platforms as a way of making cities better equipped to face natural disasters.
  
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• Report: Net-zero transport and heavy industry sectors 'possible by 2060'

  20-11-2018 12:57
  It will be "technically and financially" possible for the global transport and heavy industry sectors to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, new research from the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) has concluded.
  
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• 10 countries demand net-zero emission goal in new EU climate strategy

  20-11-2018 11:51
  Ministers from ten EU countries have urged the European Commission to chart a "credible and detailed" path towards net-zero emissions in 2050, ahead of the launch of a landmark climate strategy next week.
  
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• Nespresso pledges to use 100% sustainably sourced aluminium for coffee capsules

  20-11-2018 11:35
  Beverage giant Nespresso has unveiled a new commitment to use only sustainably sourced aluminium in its coffee capsules by 2020, after co-founding a new scheme to encourage the sustainable extraction of the metal.
  
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• Indonesia: dead whale had 1,000 pieces of plastic in stomach

  20-11-2018 11:27
  Sperm whale washed up in Sulawesi had flip-flops, bottles, bags and 115 drinking cups in its stomachA dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including flip-flops and 115 drinking cups, a park official has said, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries. Related: 'Sad surprise': Amazon fish contaminated by plastic particlesContinue reading...
  
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• Elon Musk renames his BFR spacecraft Starship

  20-11-2018 11:17 via bbc.co.uk
  The entrepreneur would not reveal why he had renamed the craft, which has still not yet been built.
  
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• Co-op commences plastic bag switch with compostable alternatives at 1,000 stores

  20-11-2018 10:45
  The Co-op has kickstarted a phase out single-use plastic bags from more than 1,000 of its UK stores, replacing them with compostable alternatives.
  
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• The arts have a leading role to play in tackling climate change | Nicholas Serota

  20-11-2018 09:00
  Cultural organisations are in a unique position to challenge, inform and engage audiences in conversations about the environmentIf we are to avoid irreversible global warming that will have devastating economic and social consequences for the world, “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” are required. This was the conclusion of a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in October. We – the collective
  
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• Crisis in our national parks: how tourists are loving nature to death

  20-11-2018 09:00
  As thrill seekers and Instagrammers swarm public lands, reporting from seven sites across America shows the scale of the threatJust before sunset near Page, Arizona, a parade of humanity marched up the sandy, half-mile trail toward Horseshoe Bend. They had come from all over the world. Some carried boxes of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, others cradled chihuahuas and a few men hid engagement rings in their pockets. But just about everyone had one thing at the ready: a cellphone to snap a pi
  
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• The physicist called Einstein - but not the one you think

  20-11-2018 07:32 via bbc.co.uk
  There is debate around how much Albert Einstein's first wife, Mileva, contributed to his discoveries.
  
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