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Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring data
Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.
Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.
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Rivers Trust is asking citizen scientists to record observations of local waterways on free app
People in Britain and Ireland are being asked to monitor their local rivers for pollution so a leading water charity can measure the scale of the sewage crisis.
The Rivers Trust is this week launching the Big River Watch, asking people to record observations of their local rivers on a free app. The results will be made available through an interactive dashboard, and will help the organisation, as well as individuals and communities who can all access the data, to take action to improve rivers.
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Susan Hall became member a day after an exposé about its contents – much of which is directed at Sadiq Khan
Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined a Facebook group which contains Islamophobic hate speech and abusive comments about her opponent Sadiq Khan, the day after an exposé about its contents.
Khan told the Guardian these revelations “could have a direct impact on not just my safety but the safety of my family and staff”.
A YouTube video alleging that “Islamists” were “taking over Britain”.
Abuse towards Khan, including a post that read: “Seriously can’t believe Khan hasn’t been taken out yet … if dark forces can take out Princess Diana I’m sure they can take out this money grabbing little parasite”.
Examples of vandalism: one user shared a photo of an enforcement van with its tyres slashed, noting “two flat tyres and sprayed camera”. Another user responded: “Well done to whoever that was”.
Numerous Islamophobic comments, including one commenter calling Khan a “terrorist sympathiser”, and another saying that the London mayor “will see a big upsurge in public feelings and possibly major riots, mosques burnt down and innocent Muslims unable to walk the streets”.
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Viruses that cause mild sniffles in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it’s a bigger killer than habitat loss or poaching
There was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.
Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but normally, the bodies of chimps are found long after decomposition has set in, if at all. So when Tony Goldberg, a US wildlife epidemiologist visiting Kibale, got word that an adult female named Stella had been found freshly dead, he knew this was a rare opportunity to look for an answer.
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Porlock Weir, Somerset: Once part of a horse paddock, this sessile oak now has been left stranded by the retreating coast, and endures hard coastal winters
Sessile oaks are emblematic of the south-west, where they grow mossed and twisted in the region’s acidic soil and plenteous rain. Their Latin name, Quercus petraea, means “oak of rocky places” and they thrive in the shallow clitter of Exmoor’s steep, misty hillsides.
Sessile means immovably fixed in position, and refers to the way the acorns grow attached directly to the twigs. This differs from pedunculate oaks (Quercus robur), which dangle their acorns on pendular stems.
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Rishi Sunak claimed to have farmers’ backs but their union’s president is far from convinced, as he spars with the government over floods, falling markets and fraught retailer relations
‘This is the first time I’ve had my lawn cut by somebody else,” says Tom Bradshaw, the new president of the National Farmers’ Union. Just over a month after being voted into the role, he admits life has become “hectic”.
He is standing outside the idyllic farmhouse in rural Essex where he has lived since he was six, and the garden is all perfect flower beds and newly manicured grass. Nothing here looks hectic, but Bradshaw really is a busy man.
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As the climate crisis forces people to abandon their land in Rajasthan, a new industry has sprung up in the desert state, with thousands of gaily decorated vans setting off to sell ice-cream across the country
The parched villages of Gangapur in the desert state of Rajasthan have a new season in their calendar. Between November and February, car workshops along the town’s dusty mile-long market open before sunrise, cylindrical stainless-steel food containers are put on display, and traders stock up on chocolate and strawberry syrups.
Come March, the villagers start preparing to migrate. In the workshops, thousands of vehicles are converted into vans for selling a variety of ice-cream, from plain condensed milk flavoured with cardamom to chocolate, vanilla and pistachio, while local farmers turned dessert makers have their old mini-trucks serviced in readiness for the drive to distant towns and cities, where they will sell the sweet treat for the next nine months.
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Mutualités Libres among 140 health and environment experts calling for more clean air measures
One of Belgium’s mutual health insurers has been taking a closer look at the country’s three low emission zones.
Dr Luk Bruyneel, a health and economics expert at Mutualités Libres, explained: “As a health insurance fund, we have to protect the health of our members. As air pollution is a major health risk, we want to contribute evidenceto the debate. Health insurance data for our 2.3 million members allows us to produce high-quality studies on health risks from air pollution.”
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From excessive travel to food waste, weddings can have a huge carbon footprint. Here’s how to plan an eco-friendly celebration
A wedding is a couple’s big day. Unfortunately, it can also have a big carbon footprint.
The average American wedding creates around 60 metric tons of CO2 – the carbon equivalent of 71 round-trip flights from New York to LA. You’d need to plant roughly 60 trees and let them grow for 100 years to sequester that amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And with more than 2m marriages taking place in the US alone in 2022, the wedding industry’s environmental impact adds up.
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Amsterdam is home to 45,000 sq metres of ‘blue-green’ roofs, which absorb rainwater and allow it to be used by building residents to water plants and flush toilets
You might visit Amsterdam for its canals, and who could blame you, really. But the truly interesting waterways aren’t under your feet – they’re above your head.
Beautiful green roofs have popped up all over the world: specially selected plants growing on structures designed to manage the extra weight of biomass. Amsterdam has taken that one step further with blue-green roofs, specially designed to capture rainwater. One project, the resilience network of smart, innovative, climate-adaptive rooftops (Resilio), has covered more than 9,000 sq metres (100,000 sq ft) of Amsterdam’s roofs, including 8,000 sq metres on social housing complexes. Citywide, the blue-green roof coverage is even bigger, estimated at more than 45,000 sq metres.
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