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The Nene tributary without a name

Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire This trickle may be unmapped, but when the water rises, it delivers enough force to damage a bridge

It has no name, but it has torn a bridge apart. “The brook” rises west of Lower Benefield, near Spring Wood. There, a dendritic network of tiny streams converges and flows to Sheepwalk Spinney, after which, for much of the year, the water disappears underground leaving the valley floor dry. Further downstream, around Brook Farm on the eastern side of Lower Benefield, it re-emerges as a wriggly stream that runs all year round. After winding south of Glapthorn, the brook unites with the broad, slow-flowing river Nene near Cotterstock.

Thunderstorms with torrential rain formed flowing sheets of brown water on the roads and saturated the valley this week. Then another storm, and the brook springs into vigorous life, water erupting overground and rising rapidly. Quickly, the stretch upstream of Lower Benefield and the A427 transforms from a trickle between stickleback-occupied pools (we get the three-spined and the scarcer nine-spined) into a tumultuous force; pouring across fields and impelling through spinneys.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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It seems like a good time to ask: what are governments for? | Anne Coombs

Be it renewable energy, manufacturing or urban planning, our natural advantages are being squandered. But what influence do voters really have?

What are governments for? I don’t imagine I’m the only one asking myself that question. With political debate spiralling in ever-diminishing circles most intelligent people are left tearing their hair. How did politicians in this country become so timid? And so incapable of using power well?

It’s as if the very mechanism we’ve created to organise ourselves – government – has decided that the one thing it cannot do is organise us. Instead of planning for the future, protecting things of national importance, adapting to the many challenges facing the world, our politicians are burying their heads in the sand, still playing the old games and mouthing the same platitudes.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Beijing has fallen: China's capital sinking by 11cm a year, satellite study warns

Pumping of groundwater blamed for causing soil to collapse as development roars ahead above, with railways among infrastructure at risk, say scientists

China’s capital is known for its horrendous smog and occasional sandstorms. Yet one of its major environmental threats lies underground: Beijing is sinking.

Excessive pumping of groundwater is causing the geology under the city to collapse, according to a new study using satellite imagery that reveals parts of Beijing – particularly its central business district – are subsiding each year by as much as 11 centimetres, or more than four inches.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Mail-order wine pioneer becomes Australia's biggest environment donor

Bequest of $30m makes Cellarmasters founder David Thomas the country’s leading environmental philanthropist

David Thomas, who became wealthy by pioneering mail-order wine, has become Australia’s biggest philanthropist to the environment, announcing a bequest that takes his donations to about $60m.

“Barbara, my late wife, and I – it was always our intention that we’d give about 50% of our wealth away during our lifetime and then we’d give the other 50% away when we died,” Thomas told Guardian Australia.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Solar battery storage: bulk-buy promises Australians lower prices sooner

SunCrowd says its pioneering program, launched in Newcastle on Thursday, has attracted keen interest

Australia’s first bulk-buy program for solar battery storage has launched, with more than 1,000 people in Newcastle expressing interest and more than 500 attending a sign-up event on Thursday night to buy home battery systems. From Friday, the program is being opened to people all around Australia.

The cost and complexity of battery storage, and the expectation that prices will come down , has so far discouraged purchases.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Rare moth faces extinction at its last site in England

Dark bordered beauty moths have declined by over 90% at their last stronghold near York due to sheep grazing and habitat loss

The dark bordered beauty moth is heading towards extinction at its last site in England, new research has found.

The tiny, rare insect is now found only on Strensall Common, an area of protected lowland heath near York, having been lost from Newham Bog in Northumberland. But scientists have found that even in its last stronghold numbers have plunged by over 90% in the last seven years, with only 50-100 thought to remain.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Water protection laws won't change until 2017 despite Flint crisis

EPA has been reviewing lead and copper rule since 2010 but has yet to make changes even as its own scientists have criticized current regulations

Changes to laws that protect Americans’ drinking water are still at least six months away, the US Environmental Protection Agency has said, despite the ongoing lead crisis in Flint and calls for reform from lawmakers and public health groups.

The EPA has been reviewing the lead and copper rule, part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, since roughly 2010. The rule is supposed to ensure high levels of lead don’t seep into drinking water, but has been the subject of criticism for years by scientists who feel it has not adequately protected the public.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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97% global warming consensus paper surpasses half a million downloads | Dana Nuccitelli

Cook et al. (2013) has remained the most-read paper in Environmental Research Letters for most of the past 3 years

In 2013, a team of citizen science volunteers who collaborate on the climate myth debunking website SkepticalScience.com published a paper finding a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming in peer-reviewed research. Over the past 3 years, that paper has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. For perspective, that’s 4 times more than the second-most downloaded paper in the Institute of Physics journals (which includes Environmental Research Letters, where the 97% consensus paper was published).

The statistic reveals a remarkable level of interest for a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Over a three-year period, the study has been downloaded an average of 440 times per day, and the pace has hardly slowed. Over the past year, the download rate has remained high, at 415 per day.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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