Minister says UK government 'fully backs' microbeads ban
Environment minister George Eustice tells MPs’ committee that the government supports a ban on polluting plastic microbeads in cosmetics The UK government now fully backs a legal ban on polluting plastic microbeads in cosmetics and toiletries, environment minister George Eustice said on Tuesday. A ban across the EU could be passed as early as 2017, […]
Weaving the future of textiles with spider silk
Earlier this month, Patagonia announced that it will make its next jacket out of “spider silk”, or at least a laboratory based copy. For the company behind that innovation, California’s Bolt Threads, the jacket is only the beginning and could be the start of a material transition in the fibre industry more broadly. After studying […]
It's the economy that needs to be integrated into the environment – not the other way around | Andrew Simms
BP’s call for a ‘meaningful carbon price’ is the latest example of wrongly trying to apply economic theories and tools to the environment BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy is a standard industry reference document. It’s a useful indicator of trends, if occasionally the victim of politics. Continue reading… Source: Guardian Environment
Pressure mounts over 'suppression' of UK fracking impacts report
Campaigners accuse the government of sitting on a potentially explosive report from its official advisers on the impact of fracking for shale gas Pressure is growing on the UK government to release a report into the impacts of shale gas fracking, which campaigners have accused ministers of suppressing. The Committee on Climate Change, which advises […]
'It's so beautiful': Indigenous rangers spot rare golden-coloured mole in desert
Rarely seen and barely studied, the kakarratul, or northern marsupial mole, spends most of its life burrowing through sand dunes A little golden creature darted across a dirt track in the Gibson desert, just in front of the four-wheel drive. Pintupi woman Yalti Napaltjari, travelling with a group of Aboriginal rangers from the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous […]
Hedgehogs continue to disappear from British gardens, wildlife survey shows
RSPB campaign urges gardeners to do one thing to help wildlife this summer after survey reveals rise and fall of familiar species Gardeners are being urged to do more to help hedgehogs this summer after new figures showed that fewer people than ever are seeing the once-familiar species. Results from the from the RSPB’s citizen […]
Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change
Exclusive: scientists find no trace of the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that was the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny […]
How swifts survive a wet British June
Long-distance flights enable aerial hunters to feed their young whatever the weather For Britain’s breeding birds – especially those migrants that spend only a short time here before heading back to their winter home in Africa – June is a crucial month. Plentiful sunshine – June is usually the sunniest month of the year in […]
Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere forecast to shatter milestone
Scientists warn that global warming target will be overshot within two decades, as annual concentrations of CO2 set to pass 400 parts per million in 2016 Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will shatter the symbolic barrier of 400 parts per million (ppm) this year and will not fall below it our in our lifetimes, according to […]
Legal ivory sale drove dramatic increase in elephant poaching, study shows
Research shows the legal sale in 2008 catastrophically backfired – but two African nations want to repeat the stockpile sell-off A huge legal sale of ivory intended to cut elephant poaching instead catastrophically backfired by dramatically increasing elephant deaths, according to new research. The revelation comes just months before a decision on whether to permit […]