Environment news

• Pier pressure: more than 1,000 sea lions assemble at San Francisco dockside

  02-05-2024 22:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Tourists delighted as pinnipeds congregate at city’s Pier 39, apparently attracted by feast of anchoviesMore than 1,000 sea lions have gathered at San Francisco’s Pier 39 this spring, the largest herd in at least 15 years.Mounds of floppy, delightfully ungraceful marine mammals have plopped themselves on to rafts along the city’s pier, displaying themselves to the thousands of tourists who pass by the area each day. Continue reading...
  
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• Sunak to allow oil and gas exploration at sites intended for offshore wind

  02-05-2024 21:07 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: decision to grant licences condemned by critics as a stunt that shows Tories are ‘playing politics with climate’Fossil fuel companies will be allowed to explore for oil and gas under offshore wind-power sites for the first time, the government will announce on Friday, in a move that campaigners said is further proof that ministers are abandoning the climate agenda.The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates North Sea oil and gas production, will confirm that
  
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• How to have a sustainable wedding: six tips for a greener ‘I do’

  02-05-2024 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From excessive travel to food waste, weddings can have a huge carbon footprint. Here’s how to plan an eco-friendly celebrationA wedding is a couple’s big day. Unfortunately, it can also have a big carbon footprint.The average American wedding creates around 60 metric tons of CO2 – the carbon equivalent of 71 round-trip flights from New York to LA. You’d need to plant roughly 60 trees and let them grow for 100 years to sequester that amount of carbon dioxide from the atmos
  
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• Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine

  02-05-2024 17:00
  
  It is the first time a creature in the wild has been seen using a medicinal plant to treat a wound.
  
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• Big River Watch: public to monitor UK and Irish rivers for pollution

  02-05-2024 12:55 via theguardian.com
  
  Rivers Trust is asking citizen scientists to record observations of local waterways on free appPeople in Britain and Ireland are being asked to monitor their local rivers for pollution so a leading water charity can measure the scale of the sewage crisis.The Rivers Trust is this week launching the Big River Watch, asking people to record observations of their local rivers on a free app. The results will be made available through an interactive dashboard, and will help the organisation, as well a
  
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• ‘On every roof something is possible’: how sponge cities could change the way we handle rain

  02-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Amsterdam is home to 45,000 sq metres of ‘blue-green’ roofs, which absorb rainwater and allow it to be used by building residents to water plants and flush toiletsYou might visit Amsterdam for its canals, and who could blame you, really. But the truly interesting waterways aren’t under your feet – they’re above your head.Beautiful green roofs have popped up all over the world: specially selected plants growing on structures designed to manage the extra weight of bio
  
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• Methane emissions from gas flaring being hidden from satellite monitors

  02-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring dataOil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutan
  
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• Chimps are dying of the common cold. Is great ape tourism to blame?

  02-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Viruses that cause mild sniffles in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it’s a bigger killer than habitat loss or poachingThere was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but
  
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• Chimps are dying of human sniffles. Is great ape tourism to blame?

  02-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Viruses that cause the common cold in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it’s a bigger killer than habitat loss or poachingThere was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, b
  
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• Country diary: The beach tree yearns to be back on land | Sara Hudston

  02-05-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Porlock Weir, Somerset: Once part of a horse paddock, this sessile oak now has been left stranded by the retreating coast, and endures hard coastal wintersSessile oaks are emblematic of the south-west, where they grow mossed and twisted in the region’s acidic soil and plenteous rain. Their Latin name, Quercus petraea, means “oak of rocky places” and they thrive in the shallow clitter of Exmoor’s steep, misty hillsides.Sessile means immovably fixed in position, and refers
  
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• The vast new whaling ‘mother ship’ that Japan hopes will revive a shrinking industry

  02-05-2024 02:32 via theguardian.com
  
  A new $47m vessel is preparing for its maiden voyage in coastal waters, but there are fears the Kangei Maru could one day mean a return to hunting in the Southern OceanThe dish of the day has the appearance and consistency of steak. But the item on the menu at Nisshin Maru in Shimonoseki isn’t brisket or rib-eye – it is a prime cut of the restaurant’s speciality: whale meat.Every few minutes, chefs in the open kitchen produce another plate of cetacean delicacies – raw sas
  
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• Face of 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman revealed

  02-05-2024 01:09
  
  Scientists build a 3D model of one of our evolutionary cousins from the pieces of a shattered skull.
  
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