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Ministers hint at possible rethink of environmental 'lawfare' crackdown

George Brandis won’t rule out a review of the policy, saying he cannot ‘pre-empt what discussions may occur in the future’

Senior members of the federal government have indicated that a review of proposed laws that would restrict environmental groups’ ability to challenge development projects could be on the cards, in the leadup to a Senate inquiry issuing its findings on the controversial bill.

Related: Coalition MPs on ‘green lawfare’: mung bean soup to treasonous sabotage

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Source: Guardian Environment

The eco guide to plastic bags | Lucy Siegle

Here’s how to change your shopping habits when one-use disposable bags are taxed in England from 5 October

The disposable shopping bag’s moment has come – 5 October marks the introduction of a long-awaited bag tax in England, which should put a massive dent in the 8bn plastic bags a year dispensed by supermarkets. In Wales and Scotland, people have been living (in most cases very happily) without free plastic bags for some time.

To carry on polluting, it’ll cost you 5p per new bag, while online grocery delivery services will continue to infuriate by using loads of plastic bags and charging a flat fee.

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Source: Guardian Environment

An old broom sweeps clean

Stock Gaylard, Dorset The oak fair is for those interested in timber, woodcraft, the countryside and conservation

In the great gathering of craftsmen, artificers and artisans at the Stock Gaylard oak fair, the one who first caught our eye was Terry Heard, bent over his ingeniously fashioned wooden bench specially adapted to the broomsquire’s traditional craft of making besoms from bundles of twigs bound to a pole.

His twigs, he said, were of birch, though heather was often used, and his poles were of hazel, though any straight pole would do. A blacksmith friend had made his tools. He tightly bound and wired a bundle of twigs, trimmed them with a sharp hand-axe, inserted the sharpened end of the pole and hammered in pins to fix it all with the deft handiness of the expert.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Real-time shark tracking apps to be trialled at NSW beaches

Swimmers could soon use technology to monitor sharks in a bid to halt a wave of recent attacks at the state’s beaches this summer

Related: ‘Sharks don’t like to eat people’: attack statistics contradict untested theories

New South Wales swimmers could soon be able to monitor sharks with real-time tracking apps.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Driver tries to scare off spider using lighter, sets gas station on fire

Video footage shows driver’s panic as flames spread from his gas tank to the pump after ill-judged attempt to get rid of the arachnid

A motorist scared of spiders gave himself a double shock when he accidentally set a gas station on fire trying to get rid of one using a cigarette lighter.

The man told authorities he saw a spider on his gas tank as he went to fill up and unwisely decided to use a lighter to remove it.

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Source: Guardian Environment

The Observer view on corporate cheats | Observer editorial

We need tougher regulations to deal with global companies who dangerously go their own way

“If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen” ran the slogan of one of VW’s most iconic ad campaigns. Last week’s revelations that VW deliberately and illegally cheated emissions tests will rightly do irreparable damage to a global brand that has traded off its reputation for quality and reliability.

The way this has played out on both sides of the Atlantic raises two critical and related questions about corporate accountability. First, VW is only the latest in a series of global corporates to be caught breaking the law, a sure sign that, even where regulations exist, they are often not fit for purpose. Second, VW’s law-breaking has highlighted the extent to which powerful industry lobbying has watered down European testing to the extent it can be manipulated without illegal action, and at terrible cost. Air pollution accounts for some 50,000 premature deaths a year in the UK – three times as many as liver disease. But in the face of corporate lobbying, EU and government efforts to address it have been utterly inadequate.

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Source: Guardian Environment

As cobras and vipers spread their deadly venom, it’s getting harder to save lives

With a quarter of a million fatalities every year, health organisations are struggling to cope. Now antivenom supplies are also under threat

In the late 1970s, a 50-year-old farmer was working in his fields in the Hausa region of west Africa when was he was bitten on the ankle by a snake, probably a carpet viper. Within two hours his leg was badly swollen. The unnamed man, whose case is included in a report by a group of doctors led by Oxford University tropical medicine specialist David Warrell took herbal medicine but continued to sicken. Six days later he was taken to hospital, where doctors found that his urine was bloodstained and he had suffered intense internal haemorrhages. A day later, he died.

The farmer’s fate was grim, if not uncommon at the time, but now, decades later, deaths from snakebites are still on the rise. Recent evidence shows that hundreds of thousands of individuals are dying every year as a result of encounters with cobras, vipers or kraits.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Hopeful buyers think Volkswagen’s ocean of troubles might get them a showroom discount

Bargain hunters expect VW to do the right thing on emissions and cut prices at the dealerships

Warren Marvelley was in a hopeful mood on Saturday. He and his wife, Jane, have set their hearts on buying a new VW Golf and believe the time is ripe to buy one. The decision may seem odd, given the turmoil that now surrounds Volkswagen. Last week its share price plummeted after senior executives admitted that Volkswagen had disguised illegal levels of emissions produced by some diesel-engined cars.

Nevertheless, the Marvelleys, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, were buoyant during their visit to the Lookers showroom in Blackburn. “I’ve read all about the scandal, but it really doesn’t bother me that much,” said 51-year-old Warren. “Yes, a few of their people have cooked the figures, but I don’t think we’re talking drastic amounts, so I won’t be holding it against them.”

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Source: Guardian Environment

We’re all birders now: the joys of an encounter with a winged stranger

A birdwatcher and writer explains why the rare sighting of an American flycatcher species in Kent caused such excitement

Birds on passage beautifully stitch the world together. The swallows that bred yards from my front door in the Fens this summer may now be gracing a pond on a friend’s farm in southern Zambia – and not one of them carrying bags or passports.

It has been a busy few days for birds and birders. September is mega month and this year has delivered. More than half the birds in the northern hemisphere are migratory and are now on the move. Most of the birds leaving their summer homes head south, but some (often youngsters who haven’t made the journey before) go wrong and, through a fault in their own navigation or blasted by adverse weather, stray badly off course.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Take vehicles that fail diesel test off the streets to protect public health

Car industry and the government need to prove that cars can deliver clean emissions for the sake of public health

As the emissions cheating scandal runs into its second week, we could be witnessing the death throes of diesel in Europe.

The VW revelations will draw much-needed attention to the dreadful health impacts resulting from diesel traffic. Government figures published this month estimate that more than 50,000 people die early every year from air pollution. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands more who are made seriously ill through asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, strokes and other debilitating illnesses.

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Source: Guardian Environment