Environment news

• Jenrick criticised over decision not to block new Cumbria coal mine

  06-01-2021 21:09
  
  Environmental campaigners say failure to call in West Cumbria Mining planning application ‘jaw-dropping’Environmental campaigners and a local MP have criticised the government’s “jaw-dropping” decision not to block the building of a “climate-wrecking coal mine”.The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, decided on Wednesday not to challenge the planning application for a new coal mine in Cumbria, despite opposition from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth,
  
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• Whitehaven coal mine: Government refuses to call in plans

  06-01-2021 19:18 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The government rejects holding an inquiry into plans for a coal mine, meaning it can progress.
  
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• Climate change: Alaskan wilderness opens up for oil exploration

  06-01-2021 14:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Trump administration pushes ahead with first oil lease sales in an Arctic wildlife refuge.
  
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• Alaska: Trump opens wilderness up for oil drilling

  06-01-2021 14:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Trump administration pushes ahead with first oil lease sales in an Arctic wildlife refuge.
  
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• Brazilian beef farms ‘used workers kept in conditions similar to slavery’

  06-01-2021 14:08
  
  Workers on farms supplying world’s biggest meat firms allegedly paid £8 a day and housed in shacks with no toilets or running water Brazilian companies and slaughterhouses including the world’s largest meat producer, JBS, sourced cattle from supplier farms that made use of workers kept in slavery-like conditions, according to a new report.
  Workers on cattle farms supplying slaughterhouses earned as little as £8 a day and lived in improvised shacks with no bathrooms, toile
  
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• Curiosity rover: Watching an eclipse from Mars

  06-01-2021 13:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  What do eclipses look like on Mars? Nasa rovers see the planet's moons pass in front of the Sun.
  
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• Islanders help rescue orca stranded on Orkney beach

  06-01-2021 13:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Volunteers led the rescue effort to save the young 11ft-long stranded orca in Orkney.
  
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• Start the New Year with celebrations at edie's Sustainability Leaders Awards

  06-01-2021 13:20
  
  edie's award-winning Sustainability Leaders Forum and Sustainability Leaders Awards are to recognise excellence in corporate sustainability, with organisations still able to book tickets to the prestigious virtual ceremony.
  
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• UK EV registrations up 185% in 2020, despite impact of Covid-19

  06-01-2021 12:58
  
  Despite new car registrations falling to their lowest in nearly 30 years in 2020, the proportion of the market accounted for by electric vehicles (EVs) grew significantly, according to new figures from the automotive industry's trade body.
  
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• Government commits £200m innovation fund to tackle Covid-19 and climate crisis

  06-01-2021 12:03
  
  Computers capable of tracking diseases and a floating offshore wind test lab are just two of the technologies to benefit from a new £213m government investment pot that aims to upgrade scientific approaches to combatting Covid-19 and the climate crisis.
  
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• Veganuary: Asda unveils plant-based 'butcher' as campaign gets record 440,000 sign-ups

  06-01-2021 11:22
  
  The Veganuary campaign has received a record 440,000 sign-ups to its 31-day challenge - and, keen to grab a piece of the plant-based action, the UK's biggest supermarkets and food-to-go chains are debuting new products.
  
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• Lenovo to deliver global rollout of customer offset scheme

  06-01-2021 11:17
  
  Computer manufacturer Lenovo has unveiled plans to rollout a carbon offsetting scheme for customer purchases across the globe, following a trial run in the Nordics that saw 26,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide offset.
  
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• Recall of the wild: South America's new era of nature-led tourism

  06-01-2021 07:30
  
  Macaws, jaguars, tapirs and woolly monkeys are just a few of the critically endangered species being reintroduced as part of Latin America’s rewilding driveIn 1947, Christopher Isherwood undertook a six-month tour of South America, concentrating on cultural sites, large cities and hobnobbing with local grandees. The title of the travelogue he wrote about the trip, The Condor and the Cows, sums up how most Europeans felt about South America. While the condor has since been pushed to near-ex
  
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• Country diary: worms lose their grip in a deadly tug-of-war

  06-01-2021 06:30
  
  Bishop Auckland, County Durham: The earthworms have little defence against marauding birds in this uneven struggle amid the mud Mud: boot-sucking liquid earth, the winter hazard that country walk footpath guides never mention. And it looks like horses have welcomed every rambler who crossed this stile, surrounding it with a morass of water-filled hoof-holes.Too far from home now to turn back, so I press on, sticking close to the hedge. And while I unburden my muddy boots on grass tussocks, a son
  
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• Who should pick up the tab for the costs of climate change in north Queensland? | Richard Denniss

  06-01-2021 04:13
  
  As climate risks continue to rise, the government is considering the idea of subsidising north Queensland homeowners
  Is it fair that young men pay more for car insurance than older women, or that we make young healthy people buy private health insurance to keep the price of health insurance low for older customers? How about the fact that those who live in far-north Queensland are paying far more for home and contents insurance than those in the southern states?While there’s no right answe
  
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• Palm cockatoo: Why a unique ‘drumming’ bird is in peril

  06-01-2021 01:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The palm cockatoo is thought to be the only bird to use tools musically to attract a mate.
  
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• Severe climate-driven loss of native molluscs reported off Israel’s coast

  06-01-2021 01:01
  
  Mediterranean study finds subtidal populations of cockles, whelks and other species have collapsed by 90%The world’s most devastating climate-driven loss of ocean life has been reported in the eastern Mediterranean, one of the fastest warming places on Earth.Native mollusc populations along the coast of Israel have collapsed by about 90% in recent decades because they cannot tolerate the increasingly hot water, according to a new study, which raises concerns about the wider ecosystem and n
  
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