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Exclusive: Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at recent ICAO meeting, thinktank says
The UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.
Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at the recent “environmental protection” meeting of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the report found. The ICAO is the forum where nations agree the rules governing international aviation.
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Network Rail says train named after public vote will join fleet of ‘unsung hero’ leaf-busters this autumn
If Boaty McBoatface taught us one thing, it’s that the public do not take a naming ceremony particularly seriously.
Cue the newly named leaf-removal train: Ctrl Alt Deleaf.
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In this week’s newsletter: a conservation success story has a sting in its tail as wild pollinators pay the price
Everyone wants to save the bees.
Angelina Jolie put on a beekeeping suit for Guerlain and David Beckham proudly presented the King with a pot of honey from his bees in Oxfordshire. So many people wanting to do good have set up hives in their gardens or on roofs that they have become a symbol of sustainability. Of course, farming honeybees is a great way to make delicious honey, but there is a sting in the tail – keeping hives doesn’t help wild pollinators.
Human-made global warming ‘caused two in three heat deaths in Europe this summer’
A tiny town in Idaho dodged incineration in 2024. Will the next wildfire take it out?
‘You’re going about your day and suddenly see a little Godzilla’: Bangkok reckons with a giant lizard boom
Wild bees visit different flowers to balance diet, study shows
The best way to help bees? Don’t become a beekeeper like I did | Alison Benjamin
I was terrified of bees – until the day 30,000 of them moved into my house | Pip Harry
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London assembly committee says move will increase cleanliness of waterways and offer more access to outdoors
Ten new wild swimming locations should be created in London, a report from the London assembly has said, to boost cleanliness of the capital’s waterways and increase access to the outdoors.
Other cities are cleaning up their rivers for swimming: Paris has openeda swimming site in the Seine in the city centre and Chicago is running its first river swim in almost a century.
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Swaddywell, Cambridgeshire: This common plant is surprisingly varied. Late in the season, I venture out to pick what I can
A warm autumn afternoon: blue sky scattered with cumulus, three red kites wheeling above. I’ve come to gather blackberries – an age-old pursuit, gentle in rhythm, quietly absorbing.
At the scrub’s edge, I meet a formidable bramble. Its stems are red, grooved, thicker than my thumb, and arch outwards for 10 metres or more with fearsome spines. This is giant blackberry, introduced from eastern Europe for its large, plentiful berries, though not today – its fruit have gone over already. An aggressive coloniser, it sprawls into dense, impassable thickets, seemingly intent on swallowing whole patches of land.
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Much like Albanese’s own style, the 62% to 70% target range reflects a calculated approach designed to offend as few people as possible
Buried in the small library of documents released alongside the Albanese government’s new 2035 emissions reduction target on Thursday was a stark illustration of the challenge ahead.
As part of its advice recommending a target of 62% to 70% reductions from 2005 levels, the Climate Change Authority gave a speedometer of progress on decarbonisation to date. It showed in the five years to 2023-24, Australia reduced emissions by an average of 9 megatonnes (Mt). Last financial year, emissions reduced by 7Mt.
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On a tiny Italian island, scientists conducted a radical experiment to see if the bees were causing their wild cousins to decline
Off the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.
“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.
Giannutri island’s remote location made it a perfect open-air laboratory for the bee experiments. Photographs: Giuseppe Nucci
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A project in Brighton to stop harmful chemicals from seeping into a chalk aquifer could set an example for managing such pollution
“The designer claims that you could drink the water from there,” says Nick Bean, an engineer for the local council, at a large shallow basin in a nature reserve in Brighton. It is a blazing summer day and a group of researchers, engineers, students and a city councillor, dressed in hi-vis clothing and safety goggles, are gathered at the site of the city’s new and ambitious project to help manage the toxic problem of road runoff.
After six years, the Wild Park rainscape, formed of a vegetated swale linked to four planted basins, is at the tail end of development. Dry and golden beneath the sun, the landscape, if all goes well, will soon teem with lush greenery and wildlife. But it will also be performing a much more critical function: filtering pollutants from runoff to prevent them from seeping into the precious chalk aquifer that lies beneath the city.
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Global metastudy finds long-term exposure to pollutants is linked to shorter or lower-quality rest
Air pollution is affecting how well we sleep, according to the findings of an international evidence review. Dr Junxin Li, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, who led the review, said: “For years our team has been studying sleep in older adults living in the Baltimore area. Outdoor air quality may change block-by-block and, in some residences, we noticed exhaust fumes from nearby traffic. This led us to a simple but critical question: could the air older adults breathe indoors – as well as just outside their front door – be influencing how well they sleep?”
Li’s team searched for studies from around the globe. Focusing on people over 45 years old, they found 25 high quality studies since 2015. These looked at 1.2 million people in six countries including China, India, the US and Germany.
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With sea levels rising, much of the nation’s population is confronting the prospect that their home may soon cease to exist. Where are they going to go?
By Atul Dev. Read by Mikhail Sen
Check out Between Moon Tides documentary at theguardian.com
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