Environment news

• 'We cannot make it without science': Greta Thunberg says climate experts are being ignored

  29-12-2020 16:42
  
  Climate scientists are not being listened to despite Covid showing importance of following science, activist saidClimate experts are not being listened to despite the coronavirus pandemic highlighting the importance of following science, the environmental activist Greta Thunberg has said.The Swedish teenager argued that the Covid-19 crisis had “shone a light” on how “we cannot make it without science”, but people were “only listening to one type of scientist”.
  
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• Fatal freshwater skin disease in dolphins linked to climate crisis

  29-12-2020 13:53
  
  Researchers report affected animals off the coasts of the US, South America and AustraliaDolphins are increasingly dying slow, painful deaths from skin lesions likened to severe burns as a result of exposure to fresh water, exacerbated by the climate crisis.Researchers in the US and Australia have defined for the first time an emerging “freshwater skin disease” reported in coastal dolphin populations in the US, South America and Australia. Continue reading...
  
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• Mother of girl who died from asthma urges mayor to rethink Silvertown tunnel

  29-12-2020 11:42
  
  Mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah who died from air pollution says road tunnel will drive up pollutionThe mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah has called on the mayor of London to rethink his plans for a new four-lane road tunnel under the Thames warning it will drive up pollution with a potentially devastating impact on young people’s health.Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, speaking after a coroner ruled that illegal levels of air pollution had caused the death of her nine-year-old daughter in 2013, said it was c
  
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• Fractures to Antarctic iceberg reduce risk to South Georgia wildlife

  29-12-2020 11:27
  
  Unclear if iceberg will hit small British territory but researchers more optimistic about threat to ecosystemA giant iceberg, heading for the island of South Georgia, is continuing to fracture into smaller pieces, meaning it poses less of a threat to the island’s wildlife and ecosystem.The Antarctic iceberg, which has been moving towards the island group, has fractured into four parts. Although it is still unclear if the iceberg will collide with the small British territory, researchers ar
  
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• Green body gives verdict on Boris Johnson carbon-cutting policies

  29-12-2020 09:39 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Green Alliance says there is gap between the PM's plans and what is needed to meet carbon targets.
  
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• Patti Smith: 'As a writer, you can be a pacifist or a murderer'

  29-12-2020 09:00
  
  As she prepares to ring in 2021 with a performance on screens at Piccadilly Circus, the punk poet explains why she’s optimistic amid the ‘debris’ of Trump’s years in officePatti Smith talks about her first poetry performance – in 1971 at St Mark’s Church in New York’s Bowery – as if it were yesterday. “I remember everything,” she says over the phone from her home in New York. Smith was in her early 20s, working at a bookshop and living
  
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• 'Miners out, Covid out': threats to indigenous reserve in Brazil grow

  29-12-2020 08:30
  
  Illegal goldminers supported by Bolsonaro bring environmental destruction and coronavirus to Yanomami communities‘Like a bomb going off’: why Brazil’s largest reserve is facing destructionRead more in our series Biodiversity: what happened next?A petition with 439,000 signatures demanding “miners out, Covid out” of the Yanomami reserve in Roraima state was handed to Brazil’s congress this month as shamanic images were projected on to the building’s exter
  
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• How we are changing the way we rate sustainability of consumer electronics

  29-12-2020 08:00
  
  Under the new criteria, products will lose marks if they do not meet a certain threshold for progressWhen we first started looking at the sustainability of consumer electronics at the beginning of 2019, we soon discovered that reliable information was very hard to find. It was difficult to establish which smartphones, tablets, headphones and other items were even capable of being repaired, let alone how long they might last or whether they contained recycled materials.The status quo was very muc
  
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• Could Covid lockdown have helped save the planet?

  29-12-2020 08:00
  
  Slowdown of human activity was too short to reverse years of destruction, but we saw a glimpse of post-fossil fuel worldWhen lockdown began, climate scientists were horrified at the unfolding tragedy, but also intrigued to observe what they called an “inadvertent experiment” on a global scale. To what extent, they asked, would the Earth system respond to the steepest slowdown in human activity since the second world war?Environmental activists put the question more succinctly: how mu
  
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• New rules to tackle ‘wild west’ of plastic waste dumped on poorer countries

  29-12-2020 07:30
  
  International convention to stop richer countries exporting contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five years
  New international rules to tackle the “wild west” global trade in plastic, which has seen wealthy nations dump contaminated plastic waste on to poorer ones, will result in a cleaner ocean within five years, according to a UN transboundary waste chief.The rules, which come into force on 1 January, aim to make the trade more transparent in order to al
  
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• Country diary: a walk before dawn on a moonless path

  29-12-2020 06:30
  
  Sandy, Bedfordshire: My feet swish through leaves and I’m conscious of many missteps, slight stumbles over roots and slides into dipsIn dark December, so many walks traverse the fold between night and day. A yearning for unpeopled landscapes sends me out before dawn, past houses of spent Christmas with winking fairy strings and tinselled porches, down to the water’s edge.Sometimes, I encounter moving lights, the bob-bob nod of a jogger’s head torch, or the zigzagging coloured c
  
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• Japan developing wooden satellites to cut space junk

  29-12-2020 02:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A Japanese forestry firm has partnered with Kyoto University in what would be a world first.
  
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• Space images: The best of 2020

  29-12-2020 01:48 via bbc.co.uk
  
  There was stunning cosmic imagery to feast on over the past year - here's our pick of the offerings.
  
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