Environment news

• Long spaceflights and endurance swimming can 'shrink the heart'

  29-03-2021 19:02 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Spaceflight and endurance swimming can both cause the heart to lose mass, say researchers.
  
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• Covid: Secret filming exposes contamination risk at test results lab

  29-03-2021 18:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A BBC undercover reporter saw practices that could mean people receiving a wrong test result.
  
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• 'It's hard, we're neighbours': the coalmine polluting friendships on Poland's borders

  29-03-2021 17:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Czechs and Germans who live in the shadow of the vast Turów mine claim it is an environmental menace. Some in Poland want to weaponise its defenceWhen the Czech government announced it was taking Poland to Europe’s highest court it came as a surprise to Warsaw. After all, EU countries rarely sue one another. Prague’s demand is a politically explosive one. Not only is it challenging the extension of mining activity at Turów, a vast lignite mine that has been in operation
  
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• Climate change: Consumer pose 'growing threat' to tropical forests

  29-03-2021 17:29 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Imports of coffee, cocoa and beef in rich countries cause the loss of almost four trees per person per year.
  
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• Average westerner's eating habits lead to loss of four trees every year

  29-03-2021 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Research links consumption of foods such as coffee and chocolate to global deforestationThe average western consumer of coffee, chocolate, beef, palm oil and other commodities is responsible for the felling of four trees every year, many in wildlife-rich tropical forests, research has calculated.Destruction of forests is a major cause of both the climate crisis and plunging wildlife populations, as natural ecosystems are razed for farming. The study is the first to fully link high-resolution map
  
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• Suez Canal: How did they move the Ever Given?

  29-03-2021 16:50 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The giant cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal has been successfully moved after nearly a week.
  
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• 'Spongy roads' to be Slough's new claim to fame

  29-03-2021 16:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Move over David Brent, settle down John Betjeman, the town is going to be an environmental pioneer.
  
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• Countdown to COP26: edie launches bumper virtual event ahead of climate talks

  29-03-2021 16:25
  
  Registration is now open for a brand-new virtual event which aims to seize the opportunity of the UN's COP26 climate summit later this year, with a stellar speaker line-up including representatives from BEIS, ClientEarth, Green Alliance, We Mean Business and the High-Level Champions for Climate Action.
  
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• Report: UK must halve resource consumption to tackle climate change and nature loss

  29-03-2021 15:00
  
  If the UK set a legally binding target to halve resource consumption by 2050, it could put itself on track to meet domestic nature and climate targets while also driving progress abroad.
  
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• UK hosting 30,000 fewer green jobs than in 2014, official figures show

  29-03-2021 13:30
  
  New data from the Office for National Statistics reveals that the UK hosted 202,100 low-carbon and renewable energy jobs in 2019 - 30,000 fewer than in 2014.
  
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• Bombay Sapphire set to meet sustainably sourced ingredients target four years early

  29-03-2021 13:08
  
  Gin brand Bombay Sapphire has announced that it is on track to certify all of its key ingredients as sustainable by the end of 2021. It had originally been striving to achieve this milestone in 2025.
  
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• Dozens of big-name investors including BlackRock join Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative

  29-03-2021 11:24
  
  The Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative now covers more than one-third of assets under management globally, after 43 big names, including BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, signed up.
  
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• UK urged to take lead in helping poor countries fund climate action

  29-03-2021 11:01 via theguardian.com
  
  UN development chief says access to finance is vital if upcoming Cop26 climate talks are to be a successBoris Johnson’s government must take the lead in giving poor countries access to the finance they need to tackle the climate crisis, to make vital climate talks a success, the UN’s development chief has said.Ministers from around the world will meet virtually this week at a conference hosted by the UK to discuss the needs of developing nations struggling to cut their greenhouse gas
  
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• Green Homes Grant scheme to officially close this week, UK Government confirms

  29-03-2021 10:59
  
  The UK Government has confirmed that it will axe its Green Homes Grant Scheme, which had £1.5bn of its £2bn funding pot withdrawn, on Wednesday (31 March).
  
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• Fancy a deep red? The rise of underwater wineries

  29-03-2021 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  After bottles were recovered in top shape from a world war one wreck, winemakers have started to exploit the sea’s cool, dark environmentSlipping into the chilly waters of the Baltic sea, the divers descended more than 60 metres to where the masts of the Jönköping lay strewn across the seabed. They glided past the wounds left when the Swedish schooner was sunk by a German U-boat in 1916 to home in on the rare treasure they had come for: thousands of bottles of 1907 Heidsieck cham
  
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• Last thing we need is a 'cosy consensus' on climate crisis, warns Ed Miliband

  29-03-2021 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Labour’s leader on climate says Boris Johnson must face up to ‘terrifying’ challenge of stopping global warmingThe UK must tell the truth about the “terrifying and exacting” scale of the challenge the world faces to avoid climate breakdown as it prepares to host a make or break summit of world leaders later this year, Ed Miliband has warned.“A cosy consensus” between politicians, policymakers and some NGOs, focusing on long-term net zero targets rather t
  
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• Environment minister pledges laws to cut dumping of sewage in English rivers

  29-03-2021 07:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Rebecca Pow says government will have to report on efforts to reduce discharge from storm overflowsThe environment minister, Rebecca Pow, has promised to bring in legislation to reduce discharge of raw sewage into rivers. Pow said that she would be placing a legal duty on government to come up with a plan to cut dumping by water companies by September 2022.Pressure has been growing on water companies and ministers as evidence grows of the scale of the issue and amid increasing evidence of the po
  
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• Starwatch: don't miss gossamer beauty of the zodiacal light

  29-03-2021 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Now is the best time of year to see glow caused by sunlight scattering off dust particles in spaceNow is the best time of the year to see the zodiacal light in the evening sky from the northern hemisphere. It’s a subtle glow that takes some effort to notice, but is always worth your time because of its gossamer beauty. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary 1921: mystery of sheep bones found high on Lakeland crag

  29-03-2021 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  31 March 1921 No Herdwick ever made its way up to the cave by the route which cragsmen followCumberland
  Forty or fifty feet up on the Mitre climb on High Side, the greatest of the heights of the Red Pike range overlooking Buttermere Lake, is a large cave. Among the boulders in the cave we found the bones of a sheep. No Herdwick ever made its way up to the cave by the route which cragsmen follow or traversed to it from the rocky ridge on either side. There is no grassy bink hereabouts which a Her
  
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• Country diary: the last farm in Britain to be worked by horses

  29-03-2021 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Sillywrea Farm, Northumberland: Two majestic horses are working a field – in 1900 there were a million working our farmsA large grey cat squats in the cobbled yard. Around him is a range of stone-built barns. Protruding from one is a blue and red painted cart. There’s no sign of mechanisation, just wisps of hay lying across the cobbles. This is Sillywrea, high above the Tyne Valley, and the last farm in Britain to be worked by horses.I walk along a track where the mud is studded with
  
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• Sandstorms turn sun blue and sky yellow in Beijing

  29-03-2021 04:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Thick dust carrying extremely high levels of hazardous particles blows in from drought-hit Mongolia The second sandstorm to hit China in less than a fortnight has reversed the colours of the sky, turning the sun blue and the heavens yellow.Beijing woke on Sunday morning shrouded in thick dust carrying extremely high levels of hazardous particles. Continue reading...
  
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• Glow-worms: as soon as you think you’ve seen them, they blink off | Helen Sullivan

  29-03-2021 02:15 via theguardian.com
  
  As soon as you’re sure you imagined them, on they go again“Thou aeronautical boll weevil / Illuminate yon woods primeval,” the Mills Brothers sang in 1952, imploring glow-worms to “Light the path below, above / And lead us on to love”. John Keats, comparing the fairness of goddess Psyche with the bright white moon and the evening star (spoiler: she is fairer than both), refers to the star as an “amorous glow-worm of the sky”. Seamus Heaney poked a glow-w
  
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• 'Astronauts aren't just men - we're astronauts too'

  29-03-2021 01:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Seven-year-old Elizabeth built her own rocket and launched it into the sky during lockdown.
  
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