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That won't fly: Venus flytrap thief snags prison sentence in North Carolina

  • Man who stole nearly 1,000 plants to get at least six months
  • State made law to protect the rare, carnivorous plant in 2014

A North Carolina man will spend at least six months in prison after he removed nearly 1,000 Venus flytrap plants from public game lands.

Media outlets reported that a jury found 23-year-old Paul Simmons Jr guilty. A judge sentenced him on Tuesday to six months to 17 months in prison.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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What's next for green chemistry? Join The Guardian for this one-day event

The Guardian’s Green Chemistry Conference will bring together voices and ideas from science and industry to explore a toxin-free future. Join us for this special one-day event in New York City on 2 November 2016

In a year punctuated by toxic chemistry crises – including the Flint River scandal and large-scale water pollution in upstate New York – green chemistry offers an increasingly relevant route toward a healthier, more sustainable society. The Guardian Green Chemistry Conference will explore the green chemistry advances that are improving our world, and the innovative partnerships and funding tools that are making them possible.

Click here to buy your tickets.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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George McRobie obituary

George McRobie, who has died aged 90, was the last surviving founding member of Practical Action, an international organisation harnessing technology to help developing countries. He was a close associate of the economist EF Schumacher (my late husband, known as Fritz, who was the author of the influential text Small Is Beautiful) and for many years they worked together, initially at the National Coal Board and then, in 1965, in setting up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), now known as Practical Action.

When Fritz died suddenly in 1977, George stepped in to become chairman of the organisation, and worked tirelessly to maintain the momentum they had generated. His contribution to both the green movement and the appropriate technology movement as a whole was immense. In 1981 George completed Small Is Possible, the last of Fritz’s trilogy of books, which laid out how the ideas and theories on sustainability in the first two books, Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed, could be applied to everyday life.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Mexican village uses fireflies to halt deforestation by local logging industry

Camp spaces in Piedra Canteada park, a rural cooperative near Nanacamilpa, sold out weeks in advance to see thousands of the fireflies light up the night

In the village of Nanacamilpa, tiny fireflies are helping save the towering pine and fir trees on the outskirts of the megalopolis of Mexico City.

Thousands of them light up a magical spectacle at dusk in the old-growth forests on reserves such as the Piedra Canteada park, about 45 miles (75km) east of Mexico’s sprawling capital city.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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World's largest carbon producers face landmark human rights case

Filipino government body gives 47 ‘carbon majors’ 45 days to respond to allegations of human rights violations resulting from climate change

The world’s largest oil, coal, cement and mining companies have been given 45 days to respond to a complaint that their greenhouse gas emissions have violated the human rights of millions of people living in the Phillippines.

In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Flamanville: France's beleaguered forerunner to Hinkley Point C

Over-budget and behind schedule, the €10.5bn nuclear reactor has faced problems that some say could be repeated in the UK

On granite cliffs overlooking the Channel is France’s most famous building site. If all goes to plan, by the end of the decade this rocky outcrop will house the biggest and most powerful nuclear reactor in the world.

The technology behind the European pressurised reactor (EPR) is meant to be safer than anything that has gone before. But the project is more than three times over budget and years behind schedule, and France’s nuclear safety authority has found weaknesses in the reactor’s steel.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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European offshore wind investment hits €14bn in 2016

BusinessGreen: Record six-month period sees UK secure €10.4bn (£8.7bn) of investment in offshore wind projects, but installation rate slows

The European offshore wind industry has enjoyed a record six months of investment, according to new figures released today by trade body WindEurope.

In the first six months of this year Europe’s offshore wind projects attracted €14bn of investment, split across seven projects and financing a total of 3.7GW of new clean energy capacity.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Flooding in India affects 1.6m people and submerges national park

Outlook grim for state of Assam, with heavy rain that has buried hundreds of villages and displaced wildlife set to continue for two days

Heavy rains and floods in India have affected more than 1.6 million people in the tea-growing north-eastern state of Assam, with officials scrambling to shift hundreds of thousands of people into 300 makeshift relief camps.

The death toll in Assam rose to at least 12 on Wednesday, according to police and rescue workers. Heavy monsoon rains are forecast for at least another 48 hours.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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US environmentalists take aim at second TransCanada pipeline

Campaigners say company behind Keystone XL plans to send hundreds of supertankers of crude oil down the Atlantic coast with fears for potential spills

Environmentalists are again taking aim at the company that proposed the Keystone XL pipeline this time for another of its projects they fear would send hundreds of supertankers laden with crude oil down the Atlantic coast to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

TransCanada is behind the Energy East pipeline project, a 4,600km pipeline, or nearly 3,000 miles, that would carry crude oil from tar sands in Western Canada to the East Coast, where it would then be shipped to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. When completed, the project would carry 1.1m barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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