An anonymous $50,000 check marked the start of the notoriously private star’s donations to climate change and clean energy causes, reports Grist

In the outpouring of media coverage after Prince’s death at the age of 57 last week, fans around the globe began to learn more about the notoriously private star – including that he gave away a lot of money. Van Jones – the activist, author, former Obama administration official, and current CNN commentator – revealed that Prince had secretly funded causes from public radio to Black Lives Matter to the Harlem Children’s Zone. He also conceived of #YesWeCode, an initiative to train black kids for work in tech. And he supported Green For All, a group working to fight climate change and bring green jobs to underprivileged populations. Jones is in the leadership of the latter two organizations.

“I was an Oakland activist giving speeches about the need for green jobs,” Jones told me over the phone, recalling how he first came into contact with the musician 10 years ago. “Prince heard me in the media and sent a $50,000 check to support the work I was doing. But he did all his giving completely anonymously, so I sent the check back. You never know when someone is trying to set you up – it could have been from Chevron or from a drug dealer or whatever. So then he sent the check back and I sent it back again, and then he sent it back and then I sent it back, until finally a representative called and said, ‘Will you please accept this check? I won’t tell you who it is from, but the guy’s favorite color is purple.’ I said, ‘Well, now you have a different problem: I’m not gonna cash this check, I’m gonna frame it.’”

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Source: Guardian Environment

Conservationists pin hopes of the species’ survival on breeding the Caribbean island’s last known male and female in the wild

In what could be a fairytale ending, conservationists are hoping to reunite the last two remaining wild mountain chicken frogs living on Montserrat and help their species breed on the Caribbean island for the first time since 2009.

A project led by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust will next month take the last remaining female and “translocate” her into the territory of the last remaining male as part of a 20-year recovery plan for the species, one of the world’s largest and rarest frogs that exists on just two Caribbean islands, Montserrat and Dominica.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Malcolm Turnbull is attempting to discredit Labor’s new emissions plan. Here are six reasons the government’s campaign is wrong

1. The prime minister says that by promising to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, rather than 26% to 28% (as the government has pledged) Labor is “doubling the burden” on Australians. But modelling commissioned by the Coalition from leading economist and former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin showed that a 45% cut would shave between 0.5% and 0.7% from gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, whereas a 26% cut would shave between 0.2 and 0.3%. In other words the difference in the economic cost of the Coalition’s target and Labor’s target is about 0.3% of GDP in 2030. That’s 0.3% of an estimated GDP of over $3.5 trillion. It’s not hard to work out that is not doubling an economic burden.

Related: Labor proposes two emissions trading schemes costing $355.9m

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Source: Guardian Environment

Wenlock Edge Hawthorns push their little cheesy shuttlecocks, oaks are in their bronze

Cuckoo pint, lords and ladies, Jack-in-the-pulpit – these names are medieval nudges and winks about genitalia and sex. They belong to wild arum, a trick flower that jumps out of the earth with a bawdy country humour that mocks the righteous and revels instead in the rude phwoar! of April. The cruellest month, according to T S Eliot, and maybe we’ll pay for these few glorious sunny days, but we’ll make the most of them until then.

It’s getting steamy in the hedgerow. For months, trees stood in companionable silence throughout a blowy winter that leaked into a dour early spring; now they fizz with a green static as buds pop and a million leaves inflate. Hawthorns push their little cheesy shuttlecocks, oaks are in their bronze; blackthorn has been snowing for weeks, and the purple dangles of ash are out. Small birds, skirmishing through disputed branches, travel in song between trees in the neutral air.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Surprise praise from business lobby group centres on ALP climate policy’s potential to become bipartisan, despite Coalition criticism

Labor’s climate policy has won unexpected praise from the Business Council of Australia’s chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, who said the plan could provide a platform for bipartisanship and “build a bridge” for an emission trading scheme.

Related: Turnbull warns Labor’s emissions trading schemes will destroy jobs

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Source: Guardian Environment

Parts of India are being parched by a drought that means farmers are unable to irrigate their fields, with some areas even running out of drinking water

No one in the slum of Murtinagar wants to play with Temri and Chinna. The brother and sister don’t speak the local Hindi or Marathi languages – they came here, to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, 10 days ago from their village, Andhra, and grew up speaking the regional language of Telegu. Jaya Kummari, their mother, brought Chinna and Temri to Mumbai because of a drought that has left Andhra without water.

In the corner of the one-bedroom apartment that their parents are renting for 4,000 rupees (£40) a month, Temri and Chinna play board games. “We miss our friends,” Chinna says.

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Source: Guardian Environment

To be truly sustainable, companies must reconcile the different marketing messages they use around the world

You might not realise it when you walk along the aisles of your local supermarket, but you are surrounded by marketing messages. These differ in every country. Buying milk in the UK? You’ll probably see messages about climate change and the environment. Go to China and the packaging is more likely to emphasise its origins and address consumer concern about food safety.

These simple but fundamental differences, with in this case milk, illustrate how businesses adapt their marketing strategies depending on the market. They use whatever elements of sustainability consumers care most about in a given market.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Cross-party committee of MPs says the government needs to do much more to tackle the crisis, including a scrappage scheme for dirty old diesel cars

Air pollution in the UK is a “public health emergency”, according to a cross-party committee of MPs, who say the government needs to do much more including introducing a scrappage scheme for old, dirty diesel vehicles.

The government’s own data shows air pollution causes 40,000-50,000 early deaths a year and ministers were forced to produce a new action plan after losing a supreme court case in 2015.

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Source: Guardian Environment

LED lighting could play a key role in decarbonising the global economy because of its energy savings

An Australian semiconductor company believes it is finally getting closer to “pay day”, more than a quarter of a century after its breakthrough technology first began taking shape at Sydney’s Macquarie University.

Related: Mushrooms, whales and hurricanes: how bio-inspiration boosts energy efficiency

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Source: Guardian Environment