-
Pan Europe found several pesticide residues in 85% of apples, with some showing traces of up to seven chemicals
Environmental groups have raised the alarm after finding toxic “pesticide cocktails” in apples sold across Europe.
Pan Europe, a coalition of NGOs campaigning against pesticide use, had about 60 apples bought in 13 European countries – including France, Spain, Italy and Poland – analysed for chemical residues.
Continue reading...
-
Projects in development expected to grow global capacity by nearly 50% amid growing concern over impact on planet
The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast.
This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with projects in development expected to grow existing global gas capacity by nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found.
Continue reading...
-
Emergency pumps are deployed in attempt to stop water inundating homes around River Parrett
Since medieval monks started draining and managing the Somerset Levels, humans have struggled to live and work alongside water.
“At the moment it feels like a losing battle,” said Mike Stanton, the chair of the Somerset Rivers Authority.“Intense rainfall is hitting us more often because of climate change. It may be that in the next 50 years, perhaps in the next 20, some homes around here will have to be abandoned.”
Continue reading...
-
Despite no criminal charges being brought against them, four officers have been detained since the MV Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, killing six workers
Several crew members of a ship that collided with a bridge in Baltimore almost two years ago are still being held in the US by federal authorities despite the fact that no criminal charges have been brought against them.
In the early hours of 26 March 2024, the MV Dali departed the port of Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka. While navigating the Fort McHenry channel, the 1,000ft-long Singapore-flagged cargo vessel lost power before striking the bridge. The impact resulted in the deaths of six people who were working on the bridge at the time.
Continue reading...
-
Judgment in The Hague orders Netherlands to do more to protect Caribbean people in its territory from impacts of climate crisis
The Dutch government discriminated against people in one of its most vulnerable territories by not helping them adapt to climate change, a court has found.
The judgment, announced on Wednesday in The Hague, chastises the Netherlands for treating people on the island of Bonaire, in the Caribbean, differently to inhabitants of the European part of the country and for not doing its fair share to cut national emissions.
Continue reading...
-
Light scattering creates the shade we see when we look skyward, and studies show the process varies around the world
On holiday the sky may look a deeper shade of blue than even the clearest summer day at home. Some places, including Cape Town in South Africa and Briançon in France, pride themselves on the blueness of their skies. But is there really any difference?
The blue of the sky is the product of Rayleigh scattering, which affects light more at the blue end of the spectrum. The blue we see is just the blue component of scattered white sunlight.
Continue reading...
-
Wellington and Wiveliscombe, Somerset: This movable pagan feast can be celebrated very differently, but it’s all to thank the apple trees and fire up their sap
Old apple tree, we wassail thee,
And hope that thou wilt bear
Hatfuls, capfuls and three bushel bagfuls
And a little heap under the stairs!
We are standing around a little crab apple tree by the side of Wiveliscombe village hall, singing our hearts out between the car park and the high street. It’s Old Twelfth Night, and in the orchards and gardens of the West Country, people are banging pots, swilling cider, hanging bits of toast in trees and yelling “wassail!”.
Continue reading...
-
Minnesota housing project to draw energy from water stored deep underground, 45 years on from city’s initial research
Nearly half a century ago, the US Department of Energy launched a clean energy experiment beneath the University of Minnesota with a simple goal: storing hot water for months at a time in an aquifer more than 100 metres below ground.
The idea of the seasonal thermal energy storage was to tuck away excess heat produced in summer, then use it in the winter to warm buildings.
Continue reading...
-
Colombian city launched its first clean air zone in one of its poorest neighbourhoods and has plans for green spaces too
Every Sunday in Bogotá, streets across the city are closed to cars and transformed into urban parks. Shirtless rollerbladers with boomboxes drift leisurely in figures of eight, Lycra-clad cyclists zoom downhill and young children wobble nervously as they pedal on bikes for the first time.
This is perhaps the most visible component of a multipronged plan to clean up the Colombian capital’s air. At the turn of the century, Bogotá was one of Latin America’s most polluted cities, with concentrations of harmful particulates at seven times the World Health Organization’s limits. In the last decade the city of 8 million has started to turn that around, cutting air pollution by 24% between 2018 and 2024.
Continue reading...
-
Finding herself in charge of her sick husband’s clipper, a self-taught working-class teenager overcame storms, icebergs and a disloyal first mate to get her ship to safety
No one knows exactly what Mary Ann Patten said in September 1856 when she convinced a crew on the verge of mutiny to accept her command as captain. What is known is that Patten, who was 19 and pregnant, was a force to be reckoned with.
After taking the helm from her sick husband in the middle of a ferocious storm off the coast of Cape Horn, the notoriously hazardous tip of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago off southern Chile, she successfully put down the mutiny and navigated her way to safety through a sea of icebergs.
Continue reading...
