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A draft Motion prepared for the EU Parliamentary Committe for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in March 2016.
Draft Motion prepared by Rapporteur Mireille d'Ornano on behalf of the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group.
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Holkham, Norfolk: It occurs to me that every shell is an exact analogue of its wider environment
The storms in September have dredged from the sea bottom and then flung millions of razor shells across the immense space of this beach. As I kneeled to examine a cluster, half-buried in sand by continued westerlies, I noticed that every shell was an exact analogue of its wider environment. Because each blade bore wavering bands of variant colour crosswise through its length.
The same pattern was manifest not only in the sand ribs that continued across these vast flats, it was there also at the tide edge, where a broad curve of foam, which was turned to tin by the dazzling light, was smeared inexorably eastwards in the breeze and the froth was itself banded into the same highly transient design.
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Exposure is far higher than previously thought and also affects plastic food containers
Bottle-fed babies are swallowing millions of microplastic particles a day, according to research described as a “milestone” in the understanding of human exposure to tiny plastics.
Scientists found that the recommended high-temperature process for sterilising plastic bottles and preparing formula milk caused bottles to shed millions of microplastics and trillions of even smaller nanoplastics.
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State of Nature in the EU survey finds only a quarter of species have good conservation status
The vast majority of protected landscapes across Europe are rated as in poor or bad condition and vital species and their habitats continue to decline despite targets aimed at protecting them, according to a report.
Only a quarter of Europe’s species are rated as having a good conservation status, while 80% of key habitats are rated as being in poor or bad condition across the continent, in the State of Nature in the EU 2013-2018 assessment by the European Environment Agency.
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Technology is keeping patches of Alaska permafrost frozen to preserve energy infrastructure even as indigenous residents’ world is transformed by the climate crisis
The oil company ConocoPhillips had a problem.
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Group urges UK regulators to impose measure on premium-listed companies
An influential group of investors is urging UK regulators to make climate risk reporting mandatory for nearly 500 FTSE-listed firms.
The Investment Association (IA), which represents 250 members with £8.5tn in assets, has thrown its weight behind calls for compulsory environmental disclosures, amid concerns that listed companies are not being transparent about how climate risks are influencing the way they invest and spend.
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The bulbous-nosed reptiles were in critical decline until conservationists stepped in
As the sunlight pierces the fog, a fisherman on a boat floating along the Gandak River in Bihar, India, spots a magnificent reptile basking on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Most people would mistake it for a crocodile but its distinctive snout tipped with a bulbous mass and elongated jaw tell him it is a gharial.
Gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) are often mistaken for crocodiles or alligators. They are the only species in the Gavialidaefamily: river-dwellers that eat only fish and some crustaceans, and which split from all other crocodilians perhaps more than 65m years ago.
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From coral farming to 3D printing, scientists are using novel methods to save a vital part of our ecosystem
For most of us, the colourful, otherworldly marinescapes of coral reefs are as remote as the alien landscapes of the moon. We rarely, if ever, experience these underwater wonderlands for ourselves – we are, after all, air-breathing, terrestrial creatures mostly cocooned in cities. It is easy, therefore, not to notice the perilous state they’re in: we’ve lost 50% of coral reefs in the past 20 years; more than 90% are expected to die by 2050 according to a presentation at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Diego, California earlier this year. As the oceans heat further and turn more acidic, owing to rising carbon dioxide emissions, coral reefs are tipped to become the world’s first ecosystems to become extinct because of us.
Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean we won’t miss them. For, as we are belatedly discovering, the nice, dry human world that we’ve made for ourselves is dependent on the planet’s natural systems and coral reefs are no exception. They protect our coastlands from erosion, they are the nurseries for the fish we eat and they harbour the plankton that produce the oxygen we breathe. Globally, coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life and the livelihoods of a billion people.
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Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey discusses why the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change and why that should give campaigners optimism for the future
Faced with multiplying and interlinked environmental crises in the 2020s – the climate emergency, the sixth extinction stalking the natural world, the plastic scourge in our oceans – it is easy to feel overwhelmed, Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey tells Rachel Humphreys. But it’s also easy to forget that environmentalism is arguably the most successful citizens’ mass movement there has been. Working sometimes globally, at other times staying intensely local, activists have transformed the modern world in ways we now take for granted.
Campaigner Janet Alty tells Rachel about how her local campaign to ban lead in petrol became part of a much bigger movement called CLEAR – the Campaign For Lead-Free Air. Their campaign took years. But in 1983, a damning verdict from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution prompted the UK government to decree that both petrol stations and manufacturers must offer lead-free alternatives. Leaded fuel was finally removed from the last petrol pumps in the UK in 1999.
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Nobody knows precisely how wildfire smoke affects birds’ health and migratory patterns. Now, citizen birdwatchers are stepping in
The yellow Townsend Warbler lay lifeless on the gravel ground near Grant county, New Mexico, the eyes in its yellow-striped head closed, its black feathery underbelly exposed.
Just days before, the migrating bird –weighing 10 grams, or the equivalent of two nickels – might have been as far north as Alaska. But it met an untimely demisein theAmerican south-west, with thousands of miles still to go before reaching Central America, its destination for the winter.
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Scientists are warning of a link between rapid warming and landslides that could threaten towns and tourist attractions
In Alaska and other high, cold places around the world, new research shows that mountains are collapsing as the permafrost that holds them together melts, threatening tsunamis if they fall into the sea.
Scientists are warning that populated areas and major tourist attractions are at risk.
Continue reading...One family in London say they received scores of long, repetitive calls from contact tracers.
If agreement on new restrictions is not reached, the PM could impose tier three rules.
The aim is to help people travelling to destinations where a negative result is required on arrival.
People in Wales told to stay home from Friday, with pubs and restaurants ordered to close.
Fourteen new donation centres are to open around the country in November and December.
A decision on local rules and financial support must be made "one way or another", a minister says.
Far more people are dying at home in England and Wales than normal from heart disease and dementia.
Why does the divergence between science and politics appear to be wider than it has ever been?
The figures come as NI's schools face a two-week closure aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus.
The condition, which causes severe pain and heavy periods, takes eight years on average to be diagnosed.
