Environment news

• Tax Day: Treasury will review controversial proposals for aviation duties

  23-03-2021 17:34
  
  The Treasury has provided more than 30 updates to tax rules in the UK, but has stopped short of providing VAT breaks for energy-efficient and resource-efficient materials and business models that many had hoped for.
  
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• ‘You can smell if something’s going wrong’: life in an eco-friendly goldfish bowl

  23-03-2021 17:30
  
  Greenhouse in Melbourne’s Federation Square is forging new ground in low-waste living. But what’s it actually like to live in? We’re accustomed to living our lives publicly, but chefs Jo Barrett and Matt Stone have gone all in. They are living centre stage, in full public view, in Greenhouse by Joost, an 87sqm, zero-waste “future home” in Melbourne’s Federation Square. Goldfish Bowl by Joost could be more apt.“Every time you walk out of the building, the
  
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• Australia's floods: what the disaster tells us about a climate crisis future

  23-03-2021 17:30
  
  Days of heavy rain and flooding along Australia’s east coast have caused widespread damage and triggered the evacuation of thousands of residents – from western Sydney to the mid-north coast.
  With the weather finally easing and the recovery set to begin, reporter Graham Readfearn explores what may have caused the disaster – and what that might tell us about life in a climate crisis futureTo learn more: Continue reading...
  
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• How a 10-year-old from Wales scored a big win in the war on plastic waste

  23-03-2021 17:24
  
  Skye Neville’s campaign against throwaway toys spurs Waitrose into action
  Some campaigns take years, even decades to achieve change. Not for Skye Neville, a 10-year-old from a Welsh seaside town who in November became outraged at the cheap plastic toys that came attached to her favourite magazines.Four months on, her campaign against throwaway toys has won plaudits from politicians, environmental activists and children’s champions – and has now prompted action from Waitrose, wh
  
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• Recycling gap: Most Brits claim they recycle plastic at home, so why aren't rates improving?

  23-03-2021 16:57
  
  A new survey of 5,000 adults has revealed that eight in ten UK adults recycle at least three-quarters of the plastics waste produced in their homes. So why is the UK's domestic plastics recycling rate stagnating?
  
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• New edie report launched to help businesses create sustainable offices post-lockdown

  23-03-2021 15:58
  
  Organisations looking to make their offices more sustainable across the axes of environment, society and financials now have access to a free new downloadable guide on the topic.
  
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• The climate crisis and football – Football Weekly special

  23-03-2021 13:43
  
  Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning are joined for a football and climate crisis special edition by David Goldblatt – author of The Age of Football – the global game in the 21st century, Ollie Hayes of the Sustainababble podcast, and Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity and chairman of Forest Green Rovers, recognised by Fifa and the UN as the world’s greenest clubRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on
  
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• Football and the climate crisis – Football Weekly special

  23-03-2021 13:43
  
  Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning are joined for a football and climate crisis special edition by David Goldblatt – author of The Age of Football – the global game in the 21st century, Ollie Hayes of the Sustainababble podcast and Global Action Plan, and Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity and chairman of Forest Green Rovers, recognised by Fifa and the UN as the world’s greenest clubRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and j
  
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• Covid-19 has shown humanity how close we are to the edge | Toby Ord

  23-03-2021 12:33
  
  To prevent catastrophe, governments must transform our resilience to climate breakdown, AI and engineered pandemicsIt is profoundly difficult to grapple with risks whose stakes may include the global collapse of civilisation, or even the extinction of humanity. The pandemic has shattered our illusions of safety and reminded us that despite all the progress made in science and technology, we remain vulnerable to catastrophes that can overturn our entire way of life. These are live possibilities,
  
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• Covid vaccine used on apes at San Diego zoo trialled on mink

  23-03-2021 12:30
  
  Experimental animal jabs could stop spillover back to humans, says firm behind vaccines for primatesAt the start of 2021, four orangutans and five bonobos became the first great apes at a US zoo to receive Covid-19 vaccinations. An outbreak in San Diego zoo’s western lowland gorilla troop had caused panic among staff after the virus spread to the animals, probably from an asymptomatic zookeeper. Eight gorillas tested positive – with symptoms such as runny noses, lethargy and coughs &
  
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• Just 1% of businesses taking strong action on deforestation, despite risks totalling $53bn

  23-03-2021 11:50
  
  An analysis of the anti-deforestation work of 553 of the world's largest businesses has found that just 1% are taking 'best practice' action. This is despite the multi-billion-dollar risks associated with inaction.
  
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• Carbon-neutral coffee and water-efficient farms: Starbucks plots path to 'resource positivity'

  23-03-2021 11:01
  
  Starbucks has announced new measures to deliver carbon-neutrality across parts of its coffee supply chains and to boost water stewardship in coffee-growing communities, as part of its vision to become 'resource positive' by 2030.
  
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• A successful Cop26 is essential for Britain and the world. Here's how it can happen | Simon Lewis

  23-03-2021 10:24
  
  Without a clear plan for what he wants to achieve, Boris Johnson risks becoming a bystander at a crucial world summitIn November Boris Johnson will host the most important global meeting ever to take place on UK soil. The outcomes of this UN summit on climate change, known as Cop26, will help shape the fates of billions of people for decades to come. For the UK it is also the first big stress-test of its new role in the world after leaving the EU.Superficially the chances of success appear high.
  
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• Machine finds tantalising hints of new physics

  23-03-2021 09:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A team working at the Large Hadron Collider finds signs of new physical laws.
  
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• Chariots of steel: Barcelona's hidden army of scrap recyclers

  23-03-2021 09:00
  
  Thousands of migrants play a key role in collecting Catalonia’s waste but must live on the marginsThey are everywhere and yet they are almost invisible, living below the social radar as they crisscross the city pushing supermarket trolleys piled with metal tubing, old microwaves and empty beer cans.The chatarreros are Barcelona’s itinerant scrap-metal collectors, and there are thousands of them. Most are undocumented migrants and so there is no official census, but Federico Demaria,
  
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• Weatherwatch: dark curtains of rain fall on GK Chesterton

  23-03-2021 07:00
  The writer describes a walk in the ‘ghostly and colourless’ countryside around OxfordGilbert Keith Chesterton marches through the “ghostly and colourless” countryside around Oxford. “The fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as cloudy,” he wrote in The Secret of a Train, for his Daily News column, collected in Tremendous Trifles (1909).“And when I had walked
  
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• Country diary: the strange beauty of water caught between frost and thaw

  23-03-2021 06:30
  
  Cairngorms, Highlands: Author Nan Shepherd walked these hills and wrote about the ice patterns in The Living MountainIt’s a mid-March day, and though the upper Spey valley has undergone a dramatic thaw, swinging from frozen lochs to flooding in the space of a week, there is still plenty of snow and ice high up on the Cairngorms. When the author Nan Shepherd was walking these hills in the 1940s, she once dedicated an entire day to studying the ice patterns in the burns, writing about them i
  
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• Coronavirus: How the common cold can boot out Covid

  23-03-2021 03:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  It looks like the viruses that cause colds wins in the battle to infect our cells.
  
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• One-fifth of world's largest corporates have set net-zero targets

  23-03-2021 01:04
  
  More than 20% of the world's largest corporates, worth sales of more than $14trn, have now committed to net-zero targets, but more transparency and short-term targets are required to navigate potential greenwash issues.
  
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• Government commits £560m to decarbonise housing

  23-03-2021 01:02
  
  The Government has issued £500m from the Green Homes Grant and £62m from a Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to improve the energy efficiency of 50,000 UK households.
  
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