Environment news

• Net-zero blockchain and hydrogen train milestones: The sustainability success stories of the week

  04-10-2020 23:41
  
  As part of our Mission Possible campaign, edie brings you this weekly round-up of five of the best sustainability success stories of the week from across the globe.
  
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• The Guardian view on houseplants: balm for troubled times | Editorial

  04-10-2020 19:35 via theguardian.com
  
  Pandemic stress can be relieved by cultivating greenery, which makes people happier and more relaxedThe essayist Jia Tolentino wrote last year about people being in the grip of “houseplant fever”; ads for houseplants called “Ken” or “Pippa” pop up on the internet; a Zoom call isn’t complete without a plant somewhere in evidence; and social media abounds with tips and pictures. It should surprise no one that greenery offers an antidote to pandemic anxiety
  
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• 'This is the Everest of zero carbon' – inside York's green home revolution

  04-10-2020 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The city plans to build Britain’s biggest zero-carbon housing project, boasting 600 homes in car-free cycling paradises full of fruit trees and allotments. When will the rest of the UK catch up?Joseph Rowntree, Yorkshire’s chocolatier-philanthropist, had a dream. He wanted to build “improved houses” for working people and, in 1902, revealed his plans for the experimental village of New Earswick, on the edge of York. The village would make the most of the existing natural
  
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• Mountain butterflies 'will have to be relocated as habitats get too hot'

  04-10-2020 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Populations of mountain ringlet in Lake District face being wiped out as cooler habitats disappearThe diversity and resilience of cold-loving butterfly species is threatened by global heating which will destroy genetically unique populations, according to a study.Native mountain-dwelling butterflies such as the mountain ringlet, the bright-eyed ringlet and the dewy ringlet will have to be translocated to higher altitudes as their cooler habitat disappears to avoid extinction. Continue reading...
  
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• The Ulez countdown: Londoners have a year to ditch old polluting cars

  04-10-2020 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A £12.50 a day charge will affect 350,000 motorists from next October when the Ultra Low Emission Zone is expanded The streets of London are set to become cleaner. And drivers who have cars that do not comply with new rules have just 12 months to ditch their old polluting vehicles – or face very hefty bills.Hundreds of thousands of Londoners – and many more who regularly drive into the capital – have a year to get rid of vehicles that do not adhere to new emissions standa
  
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• 'Rarest fern in Europe' discovered in Ireland

  04-10-2020 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Variety has only ever been found in Caribbean more than 4,000 miles across AtlanticEurope’s rarest fern has been discovered in Killarney, Ireland, leaving botanists baffled over how it remained undetected for so long.The neotropical fern, Stenogrammitis myosuroides, has only ever previously been found in the mountainous cloud forests of Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic – more than 4,000 miles across the Atlantic. Continue reading...
  
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• Protect the poor from being penalised by carbon taxes | Torsten Bell

  04-10-2020 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Green economists will never get the public on their side until they factor in the cost to lower-income householdsIn those glorious pre-pandemic days we only had climate change to worry about. Post-pandemic, we’ll need to get right back to worrying about it – and actually doing something about it.On the “doing” front, economists like the idea of carbon taxes to help reduce our emissions. And recent research shows that such taxes can work. Sweden was one of the first countr
  
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