Environment news

• Will Great British Energy herald UK’s green revolution?

  17-10-2024 17:23
  
  National energy company, which launched this week, is Labour’s strategy to end dependence on fossil fuelsAberdeen, the centre of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas industry for the past six decades, witnessed the launch of a new company this week that aims to sweep away Britain’s dependence on fossil fuels for ever.Great British Energy is at the heart of the recently elected Labour government’s pitch to decarbonise the UK’s power sector by 2030. Ed Miliband, the energy
  
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• Protesters voice fears over waterfall electricity project in north Wales

  17-10-2024 16:50
  
  Plan for Rhaeadr y Cwm receives 1,000 objections, with many worried about impact on habitats and natural beautyIt is considered one of the most majestic waterfalls in north Wales, a mist-shrouded torrent that has inspired storytellers and artists for centuries.But a fierce row has broken out over a scheme to harness the force of Rhaeadr y Cwm to generate electricity, with one of Wales’s foremost naturalists, Iolo Williams, the latest to step into a growing row over the project. Continue re
  
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• Under the microscope: Nikon Small World photomicrography 2024 – in pictures

  17-10-2024 16:01
  Spider eyes, butterfly wing scales, truffle spores and slime mould come under the spotlight in the 50th anniversary of the Nikon Small World photomicrography competition. The award celebrates photography through the light microscope, capturing the breathtaking beauty of a world hidden from the naked eyeA year in focus: Walkley award photographic finalists 2024 – in pictures Continue reading...
  
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• New York officials call for big oil to be prosecuted for fueling climate disasters

  17-10-2024 12:00
  
  Oil majors’ conduct can constitute reckless endangerment due to fossil fuels’ effect on global heating, advocates claimNew York state prosecutors could press criminal charges against big oil for its role in fueling hurricanes and other climate disasters, lawyers wrote in a new prosecution memorandum that has been endorsed by elected officials across the state.The 50-page document, published by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and the progressive prosecutors network Fair and
  
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• ‘I’ve seen the dark, fat grease stuck to the leaves’: oil and gas encroach on Peru’s uncontacted peoples

  17-10-2024 12:00
  
  The government is auctioning off plots of pristine Indigenous reserves for fossil fuel projects, with campaigners warning of a ‘silent genocide’Above the canopy of the tallest trees that vie for sunlight in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, gas flares shoot into the sky. Below, Julio Cusurichi, 53, can see the thick, dark grease that clings to the leaves and the toxins leaking into the streams.“Oil and gas projects are coming closer and closer. They are expanding into new land
  
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• ‘Scramble for the oceans’: how countries are racing to name and claim remote parts of the seabed

  17-10-2024 08:00
  Newly ‘discovered’ underwater topographical features are paving the way for nation states to exploit previously untouched marine resources“The sea does not belong to despots,” Jules Verne wrote in 1869 in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. “Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at 30 feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their
  
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• ‘It’s shameful and I won’t pay it’: flood-hit Italians rage against insurance call

  17-10-2024 08:00
  
  The destruction in northern Italy has ignited debate in a country where just 6% of homes are insured against natural disasterIt was 2am when the parish priest, Giovanni Samorì, was woken by a phone call from the mayor of Traversara ordering him to start ringing the church bells. The traditional call now forms part of the civil protection procedure deployed by many Italian towns. Its aim: to warn residents of impending calamity.As torrential rain pounded the village, Samorì sprang i
  
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• Sydney beaches to remain closed, Randwick mayor says – video

  17-10-2024 07:23
  
  Some of Sydney's most popular swimming spots including Coogee and Gordons Bay beaches will remain closed after thousands of mysterious balls washed ashore. Preliminary test results identified the dark spheres as 'tar balls' – which are formed when oil comes into contact with debris and water, usually as a result of oil spills or seepage. Addressing reporters on Thursday, Randwick council mayor Dylan Parker said the beaches will stay closed while further investigations are carried out by go
  
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• Tesco signs deal to buy enough solar energy to power 144 large stores

  17-10-2024 07:00
  
  Supermarket will buy almost two-thirds of the energy generated by the new £450m Cleve Hill solar park in KentTesco has struck a deal to buy enough solar power to run 144 of its large supermarkets, buying almost two-thirds of the entire electricity output from the Cleve Hill solar park in Kent.The £450m solar park is being built on farmland near Faversham by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a London-based firm that invests in renewable and low-carbon energy in the US, UK and Austral
  
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• Tax on Europe’s frequent flyers could raise €64bn a year – study

  17-10-2024 07:00
  
  Levy rising by €100 for each return flight after the first in a year could cutemissions by 21%, report saysA “jet-setter” tax on Europe’s frequent flyers could slow global heating and raise €64bn (£54bn) a year at no extra cost to most people, a report has found.Carbon pollution pumped out of planes could fall by 21% if people were made to pay more for each extra flight they take beyond the first return trip, according to analysis from the New Economics Foundati
  
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• Europe’s first live pale-legged leaf warbler recorded in East Yorkshire

  17-10-2024 07:00
  Off-course bird that breeds in China and North Korea and winters in the Malay peninsula was seen at Bempton CliffsIn September in the UK, rare birds often come from the west, swept over the Atlantic from North America on the tail end of tropical storms and the fast-flowing jet stream. But from the end of that month and well into October, birders look eastwards, hoping for visitors from Siberia. These have usually taken a wrong turn on their own migratory journey and have been brought across the
  
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• Sewage illegally dumped into Windermere repeatedly over 3 years, BBC finds

  17-10-2024 06:49 via bbc.com
  
  United Utilities failed to report 100 million litres of illegal discharges, analysis of its data shows.
  
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• How a ‘putrid’ find in a museum cupboard could be the key to bringing the Tasmanian tiger back to life

  17-10-2024 04:06
  A well-preserved thylacine head was a gruesome sight – but it also contained RNA molecules crucial to reconstructing the extinct animal’s genomeBreakthroughs sometimes turn up in unexpected places. The researchers working on the international push to bring back the thylacine say theirs turned up in a long-ignored bucket in the back of a cupboard at a Melbourne museum.It contained an astonishingly well-preserved head of the extinct marsupial, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. Continu
  
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• Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years

  17-10-2024 00:01
  
  Landmark review says urgent action needed to conserve resources and save ecosystems that supply fresh waterMore than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources and end the destruction of the ecosystems on which our fresh water depends, experts have warned in a landmark review.Half the world’s population already faces water scarci
  
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