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Former government adviser Polly Billington urges bigger steps to shield people in UK from effects of Iran war
Keir Starmer should convene a global energy summit of the same order as Gordon Brown’s response to the 2008 financial crisis and put Britain on a “war footing” to reduce its exposure to fossil fuels, a Labour MP and former government adviser has said.
Polly Billington, who was an aide in Brown’s government, warned that economic pain was “hurtling down the tracks” and a bigger response was needed to protect the British people from the consequences of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
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Study shows reducing vulnerability to pollution, including by expanding healthcare access, saves millions of lives
Reductions in vulnerability to air pollution since 1990 saved the lives of about 1.7 million people in 2019, according to new research.
Particle pollution improved in 139 out of 193 countries. The greatest gains were achieved in Europe and North America, with smaller reductions across Africa and Asia.
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In this week’s newsletter: From pollution in the upper atmosphere to mounting debris, experts warn the rapid expansion in space could threaten our planet
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Our relationship with space is changing rapidly.
For almost all of human history, the space above us was an unreachable frontier. Yet in a single human lifetime, Earth’s orbit has gone from largely empty to congested with satellites.
Rubbish and recycling in England: what’s changing
Drive slower, work from home: the world responds to Iran war energy crisis
Exclusive: UK looks to relax planning rules for factory farms after lobbying
Lunar prospectors: the businesses looking to mine the moon
‘This feels fragile’: how a satellite-smashing chain reaction could spiral out of control
‘This was the real thing’: Meet the woman who alerts the world when an asteroid could hit
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Sensory organ in male cephalopod able to detect female hormone progesterone, even if male cannot see partner
Sex might seem an intimate act, but scientists have shed fresh light on how octopuses manage it at arm’s length.
Male octopuses use a specialised arm called the hectocotylus to place a package of sperm inside the female’s reproductive system.
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Document shows partial felling last year, which led to legal action against Toby Carvery, was done by Ground Control
A mystery contractor who chainsawed an ancient oak in north London for the Toby Carvery restaurant chain has been identified by the Guardian, prompting more questions about the incident.
The unauthorised partial felling of the 500-year-old oak a year ago on Friday in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, prompted widespread public outrage and questions in parliament.
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Texas power plant would emit 4.5m tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than that of the entire city of San Francisco
Google’s plan for a partnership with a natural gas power plant that could provide energy for one of its datacenters in Texas was unearthed by new research and confirmed by the company. The move is part of an ongoing about-face for the tech giant, which once pledged to be carbon neutral by 2030 and has long been seen as a pioneer in clean energy.
The gas power plant is slated to be built in Armstrong county, a sparsely populated area in the Texas panhandle. According to a report by the research organization Cleanview, the project is being led by Crusoe Energy, which partnered with Google to develop the datacenter campus known as “Goodnight”, named after a nearby town.
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Therfield Heath, Hertfordshire: Soft and felty beyond belief, these springtime tremblers are also highly scarce – yet here are tens of thousands of them
As spring days lengthen and “smale foweles maken melodye”, like Chaucer’s “sondry folk” I long to go on pilgrimage. So every Easter, following this vernal impulse, I walk up the north-eastern edge of the Chilterns. Here on the sunny slopes of Church Hill, I put my faith in an annual miracle.
Scattered along the chalky escarpment, about 60,000 pasqueflowers (from the Middle English “paschal” meaning “of Easter”) are surfacing and coming into bloom. Felty flower buds nose through the shallow soil, haloed in plumes of white-haired bracts. I can’t resist stopping to stroke them. The undersides of the petal-like sepals that form the buds feel warm and soft, with the irresistible downiness of a newborn’s cheek.
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It was a slow ascent: I needed to check for wasps, snakes and scorpions
I was born in Tawau, a Malaysian city on the island of Borneo, and grew up around logging camps – my dad worked in the industry. In the early 90s, a lot of the forest here started being cleared for commercial use. At the time, I just thought that was the way things were.
That changed when I began working in conservation as a teenager at the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership in the nearby Danum Valley. My job was to plant seedlings in places where the forest had been cut down. I began to learn about the importance of keeping the forest safe.
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US states from California to Georgia are promoting induction stoves for climate, health and cost benefits
Marcos Ramos hasn’t been able to cook a full meal at home in nearly four years, after a gas leak resulted in a lengthy supply cut off for his New York City apartment building.
Now, though, Ramos will be able to cook again thanks to a technology that is gradually advancing in the US after being embroiled in an unlikely culture war – the electric induction stove.
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Britain’s swift population fell by two-thirds between 1995 and 2023. Make their lives a little easier with a bit more food and more places to nest
Swifts are wheeling, screaming endurance athletes. They don’t touch the earth for nine months of the year and fly about 14,000 miles annually – travelling from sub-Saharan Africa to nest in the UK, then back again. In Britain, they’re the sign that summer is coming or taking its leave. In between, they provide a heart-soaring display of beauty. No wonder they’re beloved.
“Swifts spark joy,” says Hannah Bourne-Taylor, a passionate swift advocate and author of Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts.
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