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Less than £2 per person was spent on trees and forestry in 2017-18, Defra figures show
Spending on trees and forestry fell by nearly £20m a year between 2015 and 2018, when a purely Conservative government had taken over from the coalition, despite pledges to plant more trees.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said £132m was spent across the UK on trees in 2017-18, down from £151m in 2014-15. The more recent total included £32m in England, with most of the rest spent in Scotland.
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Windfarms could be able to generate more energy due to phenomenon, says report
The global climate crisis could lead to more renewable electricity being generated by spurring faster wind speeds for the world’s growing number of windfarms, according to research.
Scientists have discovered that the world’s shifting ocean circulation patterns may have triggered a rapid increase in wind speeds over the last 10 years.
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EasyJet is the latest firm to adopt offsetting – but is it a solution to the climate crisis?
Global carbon emissions from the aviation industry are growing faster than expected, and pose a serious risk to the world’s climate efforts if left to grow unchecked. The rise of flygskam, or “flight-shame”, has spurred airlines and travel companies to offer customers the option of offsetting the carbon emissions of their flights. But not everyone is convinced that climate sins can be absolved through projects based on simple carbon accounting.
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Heliogen uses mirrors to concentrate solar energy that can power heavy industry
Bill Gates is backing a new venture which aims to turn sunlight into a source of heat exceeding 1,000C that could help replace fossil fuels.
The world’s richest man is joining investors behind Heliogen, the first company to concentrate sunlight to reach temperatures that are high enough to power heavy industry without carbon emissions.
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Almost 10,000 sq kms lost in year to August, according to Brazilian government data
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to new government data which highlights the impact the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made on the world’s biggest rainforest.
The new numbers, showing almost 10,000 sq kms were lost in the year to August, were released as emboldened farm owners scuffled with forest defenders in Altamira, the Amazonian city at the heart of the recent devastation.
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The viral spread of misinformation, widening news deserts and the proliferation of fake news will threaten life as we know it
For the last few years, scientists have argued that we’re living through a distinctly new geological age. They call it the Anthropocene: a new age characterized by humanity’s profound impact on Earth itself as evidenced by pollution, mass extinction and climate change.
We are currently facing a new systemic collapse, one that has built far more swiftly but poses potent risks for all of humanity: the collapse of the information ecosystem. We see it play out every day with the viral spread of misinformation, widening news deserts and the proliferation of fake news. This collapse has much in common with the environmental collapse of the planet that we’re only now beginning to grasp, and its consequences for life as we know it are shaping up to be just as profound.
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Activists stage protests at party HQs to push climate emergency on to general election agenda
Extinction Rebellion activists have begun hunger strikes outside a number of UK political party headquarters to push for more robust policies on tackling the climate emergency in the general election.
The action, in which one group of demonstators has occupied a lobby at the Labour party’s London headquarters, is part of a wider global Extinction Rebellion protest centred on a week-long hunger strike.
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Toxic air contributes to health conditions such as asthma, cancer and stroke, say experts
Five people die each week in Bristol as a result of high levels of air pollution, a study has revealed.
Researchers at King’s College London examined the combined impact of PM2.5, which is mainly from domestic wood and coal burning and industrial combustion and nitrogen dioxide, which mainly comes from older polluting vehicles.
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Party under pressure on climate crisis as Corbyn says Johnson can not be trusted
The Conservative party’s record on tackling the climate crisis has been condemned by leading scientists and former government advisers, as the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, warned that the forthcoming election was the last chance to halt the escalating emergency.
Experts accused the Conservatives of copying rightwing politicians in the US by deliberately weakening environmental protections. Meanwhile, analysis by Labour reveals that environmental policies put forward since 2017 and opposed by the Tories would have led to emissions reductions of over 70m tonnes a year by 2030 – more than the annual emissions of Portugal.
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A diverse band of river communities, activists and academics are meeting in the heart of the rainforest to fight for the planet’s future
On the six-hour boat ride down the Iriri river to Manolito, there is almost no other traffic and only a handful of small homes. At its widest and calmest, the vast expanse of water is a flawless mirror of blue sky and green canopy. At its narrowest and roughest, the water churns around boulders eroded into the shapes of battlements and breaching whales. Parrots fly above the treetops. Fish feast on fallen blossoms. Kingfishers perch on riverside branches while herons await their prey on midstream rocks with their wings outstretched. White and yellow butterflies stumble across the river at remarkable speeds.
It is in this idyllic setting, deep inside the Amazon rainforest, that a nascent alliance of traditional communities, climate activists and academics is re-imagining what the world’s greatest forest was, what it can be and who can best defend it.
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