Environment news

• Mars Ingenuity helicopter mission extended by Nasa

  30-04-2021 21:44 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Nasa is so pleased with the success of the Ingenuity helicopter, it is extending its mission.
  
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• Climate crisis: we must make sacrifices to avoid future wars, says EU deputy

  30-04-2021 17:38
  
  Exclusive: Frans Timmermans warns that the social issue is pivotal because of the need to move fast
  Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned.Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said social policy and climate policy must be combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low carbon economy, or the world woul
  
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• Climate crisis: our children face wars over food and water, EU deputy warns

  30-04-2021 17:38
  
  Exclusive: Frans Timmermans says older people need to make sacrifices to protect the future
  Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned.Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will fa
  
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• Dozens of Canada’s First Nations lack drinking water: ‘Unacceptable in a country so rich’

  30-04-2021 16:12
  
  Indigenous leaders are suing the Canadian government for not providing clean water – and ministers admit they have failedCurve Lake First Nation, a forested community in southern Canada, is surrounded on three sides by fresh water.But for decades, residents have been unable to safely make use of it. Wary of crumbling infrastructure and waterborne illness, the community instead relies on shipments of bottled water. The community’s newly elected chief, aged 34, has lived her whole life
  
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• Polar classification scheme sheds light on bold expeditions that never were

  30-04-2021 15:19
  
  System aims to uncover whether unsupported crossings had no human help and verify accuracy of record-breaking feats
  “Polar exploration,” said Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the companion of Capt Robert Falcon Scott, who later found the Antarctic explorer’s body, “is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has yet been devised.”But while previous generations of polar travellers devised their own rules for their gruelling journeys, a new certifica
  
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• Co-op to remove plastic bags for life from all stores

  30-04-2021 14:04
  
  Co-op will remove plastic bags for life from sale in all 2,600 stores, citing concerns that they are increasing the amount of plastic in circulation, instead choosing to offer customers 10p compostable bags.
  
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• Captured carbon shipping fuel and heat-reflecting paint: The best green innovations of April 2021

  30-04-2021 14:04
  
  Every month, numerous eye-catching and potentially transformational innovations are being developed to help businesses and nations turn their green ambitions into actions. Here, we round up six of the best from April 2021.
  
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• Co-op to remove bags for life from all stores

  30-04-2021 13:46
  
  Co-op will remove plastic bags for life from sale in all 2,600 stores, citing concerns that they are increasing the amount of plastic in circulation, instead choosing to offer customers 10p compostable bags.
  
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• The man on a mission to reveal the ‘souls’ of vanishing glaciers

  30-04-2021 13:00
  
  American adventurer Garrett Fisher flies in a ramshackle antique plane, dangling his camera out of the window to capture the beauty of glaciers before they disappearSatellite images and the latest scientific studies may accurately inform us how quickly the world’s glaciers are melting. But Garrett Fisher’s mission is different: to reveal the “souls” of vanishing glaciers.This, the American adventurer believes, is best achieved by flying solo over each glacier in a ramshac
  
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• Tesco links supplier financial support to environmental goals

  30-04-2021 12:56
  
  Tesco is offering preferential financing rates for suppliers that address their environmental impacts, under a new voluntary programme supported by Anthesis, KPMG and Santander.
  
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• Antarctic ‘doomsday glacier’ may be melting faster than was thought

  30-04-2021 12:40
  
  Study finds more relatively warm water is reaching Thwaites glacier than was previously understoodAn Antarctic glacier larger than the UK is at risk of breaking up after scientists discovered more warm water flowing underneath it than previously thought.The fate of Thwaites – nicknamed the doomsday glacier – and the massive west Antarctic ice sheet it supports are the biggest unknown factors in future global sea level rise. Continue reading...
  
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• Targets like 'net-zero' won't solve the climate crisis on their own | Mathew Lawrence

  30-04-2021 12:00
  
  There are ambitious new goals in the US and UK. But governments also need to decarbonise the economy and rethink how it’s plannedLast week was a critical time in the global response to the climate emergency: the US vowed to cut its emissions by at least 50% by 2030, while the UK government committed to reducing emissions by 78% by 2035, relative to a 1990 baseline. Both announcements were important steps that reflected the significance of one particular tool in climate governance: the targ
  
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• Dozens of First Nations communities still lack safe water despite Trudeau pledge

  30-04-2021 12:00
  
  Indigenous leaders are suing the Canadian government for not providing clean water – and ministers admit they have failedCurve Lake First Nation, a forested community in southern Canada, is surrounded on three sides by fresh water.But for decades, residents have been unable to safely make use of it. Wary of crumbling infrastructure and waterborne illness, the community instead relies on shipments of bottled water. The community’s newly elected chief, aged 34, has lived her whole life
  
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• Biden faces pressure to drive gasoline and diesel cars out of the US

  30-04-2021 12:00
  
  The president has touted the benefits of a boom in electric cars – but as states move to phase new polluting vehicles his administration is pressed to go furtherJoe Biden’s administration, seeking deep cuts to planet-heating emissions, is facing pressure to take a previously unthinkable step: declare the end of the internal combustion engine in the US.Washington state has moved to call time on the age of gasoline and diesel cars, with the legislature passing a goal that new car sales
  
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• UK Government 'unable to prove it will meet green R&D targets'

  30-04-2021 11:58
  
  The UK Government has not outlined how it will deliver on plans to ramp up green R&D funding in fields like construction, manufacturing, transport and plastics, MPs have claimed, as they call for an "overhaul" of the funding process.
  
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• UK students sue government over human rights impact of climate crisis

  30-04-2021 11:54
  
  Three claimants in their 20s say their rights to life have been breached because of inadequate roadmap to solve emergencyThe UK is being taken to court by three young people who claim their human rights are being breached by the government’s failure to act decisively on the climate crisis.Adetola Stephanie Onamade, Marina Tricks and Jerry Amokwandoh, all students in their early 20s, will on Saturday ask for a judicial review of government actions to cut national carbon emissions. Continue
  
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• Fast-food giants beef up climate commitments following investor pressure

  30-04-2021 11:30
  
  The likes of McDonald's, Domino's and Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, have all improved their climate commitments this year following pressure from an $11trn coalition of investors.
  
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• ‘Nature is hurting’: Gojira, the metal band confronting the climate crisis

  30-04-2021 10:00
  
  With stirring songwriting that considers grief, philosophy and ecological collapse, the French quartet have become one of the world’s greatest heavy bands. They discuss their journey so farJoe and Mario Duplantier grew up in a calm idyll – perhaps surprisingly for two of metal’s most forthright rabble-rousers. Born to a sketch-artist father and yoga teacher mother, the brothers were raised in Ondres, a remote commune on France’s western coast. Their house was so rural tha
  
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• Researchers find frogmouth is world’s most Instagrammable bird

  30-04-2021 08:30
  
  A study of likes on the photo-sharing app has (perhaps surprisingly) deemed the Australian and south-east Asian native ‘most aesthetically appealing’ If someone were to ask what the most “Instagrammable” bird in the world would be, it’s unlikely that the frogmouth – whose main aesthetic goal is to look like a jagged tree branch – would be front of mind.But it seems science says otherwise, the dishevelled looking Australian and south-east Asian native tak
  
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• The low-hanging fruit in the climate battle? Cutting down on meat | Gaby Hinsliff

  30-04-2021 08:00
  
  Eating fewer animal products and less dairy would make a huge difference to carbon emissionsSomething is cooking in the world of climate politics. Or, perhaps more accurately, something isn’t.This week, the American recipe website Epicurious announced that, for environmental reasons, it wouldn’t publish any new beef recipes. No more steaks, burgers or creative ways with mince; no more juicy rib. Since about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock farming, with beef
  
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• What’s the pull? Magnet fishing proves a catch in pandemic Scotland – a photo essay

  30-04-2021 07:00
  
  Part environmentalism, part treasure-hunting, magnet fishing has attracted a tight group of enthusiasts around Glasgow who cast their lines out for grenades, knives, cannon balls – and shopping trolleysIt doesn’t take long to see the appeal of casting a high-powered magnet into a canal to find anything from scrap metal and weaponry, to unexploded bombs and historical artefacts.For 13-year-old Cole Gartshore from Kirkintilloch, the mystery factor is so appealing that he has been out o
  
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• California’s legacy of DDT waste: underwater dump site uncovers a toxic history

  30-04-2021 07:00
  
  A team of scientists discovered tens of thousands of barrels containing what is believed to be chemical wasteThe discovery of tens of thousands of underwater barrels containing what scientists believe to be chemical waste has raised alarm and reopened scrutiny into a history of toxic dumping that persisted off the California coast into the 1970s.A team of scientists announced this week that they had found more than 25,000 containers, many of which they believe to be DDT waste, which has been lin
  
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• Country diary: there’s a ruckus in the rookery until school begins

  30-04-2021 06:30
  
  Hungerford, West Berkshire: When the bell goes, and the classrooms fill and fall quiet, the rooks quieten tooThe rookery by the old priory seems strangely subdued – until I remember it is a Saturday. Situated where the town gives way to farmland, between the common and the secondary school, it is a circus on school days.Then, the rooks sway on their piratical tree-top masts, cawing as the tree dips, with a forward bow, as if they were surfing a wave. They cheer me in to work and barrack me
  
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