Environment news

• Essex county council sends 95% of non-recycled waste to landfill, data reveals

  30-12-2024 19:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Seven local authorities in England have waste figures highlighted as government launches circular economy measuresNew government data published on Monday showed that 95% of non-recycled waste in Essex is sent to landfill, as ministers launched their plans for a circular economy.The data revealed that seven local authorities in England reported sending more than 40% of their residual waste to landfill in 2022 to 2023, with Essex county council at the top of the list. Continue reading...
  
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• A cicada: ‘What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallised memory’ | Helen Sullivan

  30-12-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Part of their body is hollow, this amplifies the sound. The longer you listen to their sound, the more they seem to sync upOf all the languages’ words for cicada, Croatian’s might be the best: cvrčak, pronounced: tvr-chak. The sound it makes is tvr-chi tvr-chi. I have a Croatian friend who taught me part of a poem – Cicada – when we were in high school. It is by Vladimir Nazor, who was Croatia’s first head of state. The first stanza includes the satisfyingly lo
  
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• Bleak outlook for US farmers – and Trump tariffs could make it worse

  30-12-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Bumper grain crop set to weigh heavily as farmers count costs of seed, fertilizer – and effects of possible trade warMany US midwestern grain farmers will lose money this year after reaping a bumper crop, and the outlook for their future income is bleak.US farmers harvested some of the largest corn and soybean crops in history this year. Big harvests traditionally weigh on crop prices because of plentiful supply. And those price pressures comes at a time when costs remain persistently high
  
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• World endures 'decade of deadly heat' as 2024 caps hottest years on record

  30-12-2024 10:35 via theguardian.com
  
  UN secretary general, António Guterres, says ‘we must exit this road to ruin’ in annual new year messageThe world has endured a “decade of deadly heat”, with 2024 capping 10 years of unprecedented temperatures, the UN has said.Delivering his annual new year message, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the 10 hottest years on record had happened in the past decade, including 2024. Continue reading...
  
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• As the Grampians fires approached, 20 kangaroo joeys took shelter in a living room. Experts say others aren’t so lucky

  30-12-2024 07:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Wildlife Victoria expects ‘catastrophic and long-term impacts’ for wildlife, including substantial loss of life, burns, blindness and starvationGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAs fires headed toward her Grampians property on Boxing Day, wildlife carer Pam Turner sheltered 20 joeys in her living room.The animals gathered inside – standing alert from the noise of the sprinklers – are all hand-reared by her after being orphaned through car accident
  
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• I’m obsessed with broken shells: they are marked by life, like our skin

  30-12-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  I wind my thread around their holes to create sculptures that connect with ageing and timeI have collected hundreds and hundreds of broken shells. I select them by holding them up to the sea, looking at the shape of them and deciding whether I want to work with them – and whether they will work with my thread.To me, a shell that is broken is more interesting than a shell that is perfect. A broken shell has lived a life. I can see what the sea has done to it, what has happened to it on the
  
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• Country diary: The ravens here are heard but not seen | Derek Niemann

  30-12-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Frome, Somerset: Driven out from here centuries ago, they are a presence once more – just don’t expect an easy sightingLost in a Glen Coe blizzard, I met ravens for the first time at close quarters when I was not that long out of college. Back then, these vultures of the northern hemisphere were fixed on distribution maps exclusively as birds of the mountainous north and west, hatched in ice, feathers stiffened with granite. Ravens were indubitably tough birds of hard places –
  
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• Astronomers ready for dazzling but brief celestial show after 80-year wait

  30-12-2024 06:08 via bbc.com
  
  Astronomers are poised to see a star system about 3,000 light years away explode into brightness.
  
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• Police seize 6,000 illegal wild birds’ eggs as raids net largest haul in UK history

  30-12-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Part of an international initiative to combat organised wildlife crime, similarseizures in Australia and Norway have recovered more than 50,000 eggsMore than 6,000 eggs have been seized in the biggest haul of its kind in UK history, after police carried out raids in Scotland, South Yorkshire, Essex, Wales and Gloucester. Thousands of eggs were found secreted in attics, offices and drawers.The UK raids took place in November as part of Operation Pulka, an international effort to tackle organised
  
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