-
Exclusive: Polluted water was released into loch near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes, says watchdog
Radioactive water from the base that holds the UK’s nuclear bombs was allowed to leak into the sea after old pipes repeatedly burst, official files have revealed.
The radioactive material was released into Loch Long, a sea loch near Glasgow in western Scotland, because the Royal Navy failed to properly maintain a network of 1,500 water pipes on the base, a regulator found.
Continue reading...
-
Conservationists say Canvey Wick in Essex shows potential for brownfield sites as havens for nature
“You must see this!” Marc Outten shoulders past tangles of blackthorn and shimmies around hummocks of blackberries the size of buses and glades filled with wildflowers. What beautiful wildlife spectacle awaits?
Weaving across carpets of bird’s foot trefoil, we reach our destination: a vast, barren circle of asphalt, 70 metres across – the ruins of an uncompleted oil refinery.
Continue reading...
-
Faded items dating back to 1950s have been found on Italian beaches, underscoring plastic’s problematic longevity
Enzo Suma, a naturalist guide, has always picked up rubbish during his walks along Carovigno beach, a stretch of coastline lapped by clear blue waters close to his home in Salento, an area of Puglia in the heel of Italy’s boot.
During one walk, Suma, 44, spotted a washed-up bottle of Ambre Solaire sunscreen. He was about to throw it away when he noticed something unusual: the price printed on the bottle was in lire, meaning it must have been produced before the euro replaced the lira in Italy.
Continue reading...
-
US Bureau of Land management is working to rapidly strip protections to largest tract of land in the US
The Trump administration’s plan to expand oil and gas drilling in a 23m acre reserve on the Arctic Ocean is sparking an impassioned response, amid fears it threatens Arctic wildlife, undermines the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives and imperils one of the fastest-warming ecosystems on Earth.
More than a quarter of a million people have responded to the 2 June proposal from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to roll back protections on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the largest tract of public land in the US.
Continue reading...
-
Prof Miles Richardson says people risk ‘extinction of experience’ in the natural world without new policies
People’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study.
Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions.
Continue reading...
-
Air-to-air systems can warm homes in winter and cool them in summer – and they’re now set to join the low-carbon grant scheme
When David Tester, 56, installed a heat pump in his home in the winter of 2022, freezing temperatures descended on the country alongside a series of named storms. It was a world away from this summer’s heatwaves, which have pushed Britain to the brink of drought.
But Tester’s choice of heat pump design has meant that his three-bedroom 1930s semi in West Sussex has remained at a comfortable temperature despite Britain’s increasingly volatile weather. The air-to-air heat pump provides heating in the winter but acts like an air conditioner in the summer months.
Continue reading...
-
Campaigners had urged Lula to veto the bill entirely, but many have welcomed his alterations
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has signed into law a controversial bill that scientists and environmentalists had dubbed the “devastation bill”, but vetoed key articles that would have in effect dismantled the country’s environmental licensing system.
On Friday, the final day to either sanction or veto the law, Lula struck down or amended 63 of the 398 provisions in a bill that, as approved by congress last month, had been regarded as the most significant setback to Brazil’s environmental protections in four decades.
Continue reading...
-
Scientists say lightning bugs are having a revival this year – but they’re concerned about the insects’ long-term viability
Max Vogel, a 29-year-old public defense attorney, was picnicking with friends in early August at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, when he noticed flashes of light appear in the air around him.
They were fireflies, bioluminescent insects that the Washington DC native had not seen while living in Oregon, where there are few, if any. For many Americans who live where fireflies do, their flashing lights at dusk are a tangible rite of summer – though one that may now be under threat.
Continue reading...
-
Australia’s future nuclear submarines will produce highly radioactive waste, and allies in the UK and the US still don’t have a safe place to store their own
In the cold deep waters of Rosyth Harbour lie the dormant hulks of Britain’s decommissioned nuclear submarines.
One of the shells lashed to the dock here is HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine. It was commissioned in 1963, retired in 1980, and has spent decades longer tied to a harbour than it ever did in service. The spent nuclear fuel removed from its reactor remains in temporary storage.
Continue reading...
-
Experts working to benchmark resource use of AI models say new version’s enhanced capabilities come at a steep cost
In mid-2023, if a user asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a recipe for artichoke pasta or instructions on how to make a ritual offering to the ancient Canaanite deity Moloch, its response might have taken – very roughly – 2 watt-hours, or about as much electricity as an incandescent bulb consumes in 2 minutes.
OpenAI released a model on Thursday that will underpin the popular chatbot – GPT-5. Ask that version of the AI for an artichoke recipe, and the same amount of pasta-related text could take several times – even 20 times – that amount of energy, experts say.
Continue reading...
