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A new mini power station and lithium extraction facility near Redruth are set to bolster green energy and create jobs
Just outside the perimeter fence stand the hulking remains of grand stone engine houses, a testament to Cornwall’s proud tin and copper mining history.
But inside is a shiny new mini power station and lithium extraction plant that is once again accessing rich underground resources in the far south-west of Britain.
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Changes threaten ecosystems as flowering falls out of sync with fruit-eating, seed-dispersing animals and pollinators
Tropical flowers are blooming months earlier or later than they used to because of climate breakdown, with potentially “cascading impacts across ecosystems”, according to a study of 8,000 plants dating back 200 years.
Researchers looked at flowers from a range of countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana and Thailand, home to the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, but also the most understudied.
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The Marches, Shropshire: Our ancestors were captivated by how browsing by elk and bison affected tree growth. Now I am too by the human version – coppicing
On the lane that runs below Old Oswestry hillfort, an old oak draws me up a rise with a gate-leaning view across the Shropshire plain. Under the dark, kinked boughs of this English oak, Quercus robur, through a clearing sky, the Wrekin floats above mist on the far horizon. And floaty seems to capture the mood of this world, lifted from the weight of interminable rain – its air damp and vague, hazy around the earthworks of the hillfort that’s echoed uncannily by its neighbouring iron-age settlement on the Wrekin far away; weirdly mysterious hidden histories of fields and woods are wrapped in the leaf buds overhead.
Around this oak tree is a world that is as familiar as skin and, to use a phrase that is already overused these days, “uncharted territory”. Next to this tree, poised above the steep holloway bank above the lane, is a coppiced oak. It’s the same species and may be the same age or even older, but it has six trunks only half the size of its neighbour. These coppice stools, where the central trunk was cut down long ago, are places of wonder. This one has the decaying remains of a trunk cut centuries ago with dendrothelmata – water-filled cavities, a rare habitat now.
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Since the 1960s, global GDP has been rapidly rising and living standards have reached record highs. But something else has been rocketing up too – carbon emissions. For years, scientists and economists have been asking: is it possible to grow without heating and polluting the Earth? And as the climate becomes more unstable, the issue is only becoming more urgent. Madeleine Finlay hears from two economists arguing for a change in how we measure a country’s success. Nick Stern is professor of economics and government at the London School of Economics and an advocate of green growth, an approach to growth that prioritises green industry. Jason Hickel is a political economist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who advocates degrowth, shrinking parts of the economy that do not advance our social and ecological goals.
Catch up with all the pieces in the Beyond Growth series
Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod
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Fines for illegal dumping decreased over past year with only 0.2% of incidents resulting in court action
Fly-tipping incidents across England have reached the highest level since current records began, with most offences continuing to involve household waste.
In 2024-25, 1.26m fly-tipping incidents were recorded by local authorities, an increase of 9% on the 1.15m reported in the year before, according to data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Wednesday.
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Push for good nature news before polls with reintroduction of white-tailed eagles, pine martens and beavers in England
White-tailed eagles, pine martens and beavers will be released across England before the May elections as the Labour government attempts to staunch the flow of nature-loving voters to the Green party.
Plans to reintroduce these lost species to the country have been mooted for years, but the previous Conservative government failed to get them over the line after opposition from landowners and its own MPs.
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Fish levels fall by 7.2% with as little as 0.1C of warming per decade, northern hemisphere research shows
Chronic ocean heating is fuelling a “staggering and deeply concerning” loss of marine life, a study has found, with fish levels falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade.
Researchers examined the year-to-year change of 33,000 populations in the northern hemisphere between 1993 and 2021, and isolated the effect of the decadal rate of seabed warming from short shifts such as marine heatwaves. They found the drop in biomass from chronic heating to be as high as 19.8% in a single year.
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Sunrise is a majestic spectacle – but we should be grateful for the miles of vacuum between us and the star
Dawn on a still morning is a majestic spectacle, as sunlight spills silently across the landscape and the Earth gradually emerges from darkness. Sunrise has inspired countless pieces of music striving to express this soundless experience in audible form. But if we could actually hear the sun, it would be deafening.
The sun is a giant nuclear fusion reactor, converting hydrogen into helium and releasing massive amounts of energy in the form of heat – and sound. Sound is essentially vibration and needs a medium to travel through.
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Atmospheric machine-gun has fired storm after deadly storm at the region this year, leaving a trail of widespread destruction
For Andrés Sánchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.
Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber with bigger bullets.
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Centuries-old wells restored to provide drinking water as parts of the country head towards “day zero” when no water will be available
A loud cheer and sounds of clapping reverberated around Bansilalpet, a neighbourhood in Hyderabad, when the first trickle of clean water dribbled out of the ground. After an 18-month effort to clear out 3,000 tonnes of rubbish and restore the stone walls and adjacent area, the 17th-century Bansilalpet stepwell had become a source of clean drinking water for the first time in four decades.
“It was such a joyous moment to see water collecting into the stepwell after clearing 40 years of garbage,” says Hajira Adeeb, a 45-year-old resident of Bansilalpet, who grew up seeing the well become transformed from the community’s water source to a dumping ground. “I visit almost every day. The area is clean and lit up in the evenings. I enjoy sitting there.”
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