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Europe's offshore wind industry booming as costs fall

The European Union’s push away from fossil fuels toward renewables, along with falling costs, has seen offshore wind thrive with turbines being installed from the Irish to the Baltic Seas, reports Environment 360

On a sunny October morning, our boat passes the run-down relicts of Liverpool’s maritime past and heads down the river Mersey and into the Irish Sea. As we steam offshore, I see in the distance a cluster of tall structures that soon reveal themselves to be towers of a wind turbine array. Arriving at the windfarm, six miles offshore, the turbines rise as high as 650ft, taller than the tallest church in the world. Each of the turbines’ three shiny metallic rotor blades is nearly 300ft long.

“A single rotation of an eight-megawatt turbine will cover the daily electricity consumption of an average British household,” says Benj Sykes, vice president of Dong Energy Wind Power, the company that is constructing and co-owns this wind project, as the boat rocks in five-foot swells.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Nigerian president leads tributes to oil activist Ken Wiwa

The Ogoni leader and son of renowned Niger delta environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa has died from a stroke in London, aged 47

The president of Nigeria has joined politicians, environmental activists and others to pay tribute to Ken Wiwa, the Ogoni leader and critic of Shell and other western oil companies in the Niger delta, who has died from a stroke in London.

Wiwa, the eldest son of Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 after leading a peaceful uprising by the Ogoni people to stop Shell from polluting their oil-rich area of the delta, was a journalist with the Guardian who later became an adviser to three Nigerian presidents.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Park ranger murdered while trying to protect Congo's rare gorillas

Munganga Nzonga Jacques died in a region of Kahuzi Biega national park previously believed to be safe for the gorillas, Mongabay reports

On October 4, a park ranger was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi Biega national park while trying to protect the park’s rare Grauer’s gorillas.

The ranger, Munganga Nzonga Jacques, died at the age of 26. He was killed in the Tshivanga region of the park — an area that was previously believed to be safe for the gorillas, according to a statement by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Global wine production falls by 5% due to 'climatic events'

South America, particularly Argentina and Chile, sees biggest decline, a potential worry for fans of wines such as malbec

Global wine production has fallen by 5% because of “climatic events” causing steep drops in production in most of the southern hemisphere, particularly Chile and Argentina.

While the amount of wine produced this year should meet estimated consumer demand, the figures from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), which show that 2016 was among the lowest production years in the past two decades, are a bleak reminder of how global warming and natural climate variability are having a profound effect on wine, and perhaps where it will be grown in future.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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The UK public love wind power and they don't even know it

A new poll suggests British people grossly underestimate public support for new energy technologies – is negative news reporting to blame?

Back in 2014, David Cameron told the House of Commons Liaison Committee that people are “basically fed up” with wind farms. In 2015, his government then went on to not only cut subsidies for onshore wind, but also make it harder and harder to get planning permission.

But politicians are wrong to think wind power is unpopular. Again and again, polls show the UK public are pretty supportive of onshore wind. Our ComRes poll out today, for example, shows 73% of the British public back onshore wind power. Politicians can only dream of such approval ratings.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Air pollution more deadly in Africa than malnutrition or dirty water, study warns

Annual human and economic cost of tainted air runs to 712,000 lost lives and £364bn, finds Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Africa’s air pollution is causing more premature deaths than unsafe water or childhood malnutrition, and could develop into a health and climate crisis reminiscent of those seen in China and India, a study by a global policy forum has found.

The first major attempt to calculate both the human and financial cost of the continent’s pollution suggests dirty air could be killing 712,000 people a year prematurely, compared with approximately 542,000 from unsafe water, 275,000 from malnutrition and 391,000 from unsafe sanitation.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Japan to face criticism at international summit for flouting whaling ruling

Japanese fleets have killed more than 300 minke whales in the Southern Ocean despite a court ruling and three-decade-old ban

Japan is likely to face international criticism at a whaling summit this week for killing whales in the Southern Ocean in defiance of a court ruling.

Japanese fleets killed more than 300 minke whales, many of them pregnant, when they resumed so-called scientific whaling in 2015-16 after a hiatus the year before because the international court of justice decided the hunts were not scientific and should cease.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Onshore windfarms more popular than thought, UK poll finds

Some 73% of the British public polled by ComRes support onshore windfarms in contrast with government decisions to block them

Public support for onshore windfarms is far higher than widely believed, according to a new opinion poll, even in rural areas.

Wind turbines are also far more popular than fracking or nuclear power, contrasting with the UK government’s decision to block onshore windfarms but back shale gas exploration and new nuclear power plants.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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EU leaders at loggerheads over nature laws review

In a letter seen by the Guardian, European parliament president, Martin Schulz, warns EU chief, Jean Claude-Juncker, that inaction over a stalled review of the EU’s nature directives is jeopardising EU biodiversity targets

An impasse in Brussels over changes to the EU’s pioneering nature laws has pitted the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, against the bloc’s chief, Jean Claude-Juncker, in private correspondence seen by the Guardian.

More than a thousand animal and plant species – and 500 types of wild bird – are protected by the EU’s nature laws.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Great Barrier Reef scores D for health for fifth year in a row

Results of annual report card based on data collected before bleaching killed a fifth of the reef’s coral, suggesting next year’s results will be even worse

The Great Barrier Reef has been given a D on a report card for its overall health by the federal and Queensland governments for the fifth year in a row.

The results of the annual report card were based on data collected before this year’s climate change-induced bleaching event that killed about a fifth of the reef’s coral, suggesting next year’s results will be even worse.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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