The Irish
Wildlife Trust says councillors objecting to the creation of special protection
areas (SPAs) have demonstrated a “staggering ignorance” of the issues involved.
To protect threatened bat species,
street lights out
Slow-flying, woodland
bats—which tend to be at greater risk from extinction than their speedier kin—really
don't like the light, according to a study published online on June 18th in Current
Biology
Discoveries that saved
the large blue butterfly detailed
On
the 25th anniversary of the project that brought the large blue butterfly back
from extinction in the United Kingdom, ecologists are for the first time publishing
the decades of research that helped them rescue this spectacular butterfly.
There is more to bees and wasps than meets the eye. Indeed, we
may come across more of them than we realise for the simple fact that we do not
recognise many of the solitary examples of these insects.
The old joke about newspapers used to go: what's black and white
and read all over? Now ornithologists are asking: what's black and white and surveyed
over a very long period of time?
Britain
is third from bottom in a league table on renewable energy across Europe, with
only Luxembourg and Malta sourcing less of its energy from clean sources such
as wind or sun.
Ministers accused
of trying to bring GM crops to Britain 'by the back door'
The Government has decided to support the cultivation of two
new types of genetically modified maize or sweetcorn which contain a toxin that
kills certain pests.
An internal survey for the State’s Sea Fisheries Protection Authority
(SFPA) has found the vast majority of its staff believe it is “divided, poorly
run, secretive, rumour-driven and fragmented”.
An area of Scotland the size of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National
Park will be covered in turbines if all wind farms in the pipeline are given the
go ahead ...
Approval
for new wind farms could become even harder to obtain, following the launch today
of a new national alliance of more than 30 anti-wind farm groups that is being
headed by an influential lobbyist and senior executive at one of the UK's top
PR firms.
Sea
water freezing onto the bottom of the massive Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic
Peninsula could be helping to stop it from collapsing, say researchers.
There's
a village in the Mediterranean where animals such as the sheep-like Mouflons are
never shooed out of the bar, herded out of a house, or prevented from having a
rummage among the clothes, shoes and books that lay scattered among the rooms.
Romanian authorities at the Sinaia mountain resort have launched
an operation to relocate around 25 brown bears, who have become a new and dangerous
tourist attraction, a local official said Wednesday.
In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a
moratorium on commercial whaling to allow stocks to replenish. However, this ongoing
ban allows member nations to grant themselves special permits to kill whales for
scientific research, with the proviso that the whale meat is utilised following
data collection.
800,000 homes
face flood risk, warns climate change report
Twice
as many British homes will be at risk of flooding than previously thought because
of the impact of climate change on sea levels, according to a report by government-appointed
experts.
A healthy natural environment is our safety net
for climate change
Today is a significant
one for our thinking about climate change, with the latest government projections
now suggesting that average summer temperatures will increase by up to 6C, with
peaks in London over 40C..
A leading sustainable transport group has accused the Scottish
Government of presiding over a "huge mismatch" between its spending priorities
and its commitments to tackle climate change.
The British Climate Act is flawed and comprised of unrealistic
and unobtainable targets, writes US academic Roger A Pielke Jr, in a journal paper
published today, 18 June, 2009, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research
Letters.
EU leaders discuss
climate change deal contribution
European
Union leaders will agree the basis of its financial contribution to a global climate
change deal by the end of Friday, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said.
Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has said he is "confident"
a deal will be struck in Copenhagen later this year on finding a successor to
the Kyoto protocol on tackling climate change.
Oceans rising faster than UN forecast, scientists say
Polar ice caps are melting faster and oceans are rising more
than the United Nations projected just two years ago, 10 universities said in
a report suggesting that climate change has been underestimated.
Rapid
rises in temperatures worldwide may overwhelm farmers' efforts to keep up, say
experts who want funds to breed new crops and freeze heat-resistant strains bred
over past centuries.
Air pollution, dust and other tiny particles that can bounce
sunlight back into space are braking global warming less than previously believed,
a Norwegian study said.
Government predicts UK can clean up with clean coal
The government has today released its long anticipated consultation
on the regulatory and financial framework to support a new generation of four
carbon capture and storage (CCS) plants, promising that the early adoption of
the technology will deliver a major boost to the economy.
