Bethany Beach firefly, found in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, faces dangers to habitat because of climate change
The US government is seeking to consider a firefly species as endangered for the first time, according to a proposal from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Bethany Beach firefly, found in coastal Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, is facing increasing dangers to its natural habitat because of climate change-related events. They include sea level rise, which is predicted to affect all sites within the known distribution by the end of the century, and the lowering of groundwater aquifers.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/30/2024 - 16:14
09/30/2024 - 12:53
Birds outnumber residents in Hilario Ascasubi, after deforestation leads them to seek food, shelter and water
The town of Hilario Ascasubi near Argentina’s eastern Atlantic coast has a parrot problem.
Thousands of the green, yellow and red birds have invaded, driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists. They bite on the town’s electric cables, causing outages, and are driving residents around the bend with their incessant screeching and deposits everywhere of parrot poo.
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09/30/2024 - 10:00
We learn about butterflies when we are small because it is foreshadowing: you too will change. But they are an imperfect metaphor for what it feels like to live
The very funny naturalist and writer Redmond O’Hanlon was on a sandbank on the edge of a river in Borneo when hundreds of butterflies started to fly towards him and his travel companion and landed on their boots, trousers, and shirts, and “sucked the sweat from our arms.”
He watched them for a while – “there were Whites, Yellows and Blues, Swallow-tails, black, banded, or spotted with blue-greens” – and then stood up and brushed them off gently.
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09/30/2024 - 10:00
Labor government has undermined case to co-host 2026 UN climate summit with island nations, Dr Maina Talia declares
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Tuvalu’s climate minister says Australia’s decision to approve three coalmine expansions calls into question the country’s claim to be a “member of the Pacific family” and undermines the Australian case to co-host the 2026 UN climate summit with island nations.
Dr Maina Talia said last week’s mine approvals, which analysts say could generate more than 1.3bn tonnes of carbon dioxide across their lifetime once the coal is shipped and burned overseas, was “a direct threat to our collective future”.
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09/30/2024 - 10:00
River erosion has pushed the mountain upwards and added an extra 15 to 50 metres over the past 89,000 years
Climbing Mount Everest has always been a feat, but it seems the task might be getting harder: researchers say Everest is having something of a growth spurt.
The Himalayas formed about 50m years ago, when the Indian subcontinent smashed into the Eurasian tectonic plate – although recent research has suggested the edges of these plates were already very high before the collision.
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09/30/2024 - 08:08
Calls grow for lifting of moratorium on onshore drilling in England to become policy under new leader
UK politics live – latest updates
Senior Conservatives are considering pushing for a lifting of the moratorium on fracking in England to become party policy.
At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, MPs are reflecting on the crushing blow they were dealt at this year’s general election and coming up with policies and ideas to rebuild the party so it can win in 2029. A leadership election is taking place and candidates are laying out their ideas to MPs.
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09/30/2024 - 07:11
Interstate highway shut down in both directions in the area, as residents urged to evacuate or shelter in place
Some residents east of Atlanta were evacuated while others were told to shelter in place on Sunday to avoid contaminants from a chemical plant fire that sent a huge tower of dark smoke into the air that could be seen from miles away.
Interstate 20 was shut down in both directions in the area, the Georgia department of transportation said in a post on X. Reports said traffic was snarled as vehicles backed up.
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09/30/2024 - 07:00
Lawmakers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties at odds regarding using former airport site to build ‘toxic’ facility
Residents of two south Florida counties are feuding over the proposed construction of a huge trash incineration plant that environmentalists say will subject thousands of people to toxic fumes and a risk of polluted drinking water.
The mayor of Miami-Dade county, Daniella Levine Cava, settled on a long-disused airport far from any of its own residential neighborhoods as the preferred site to build a $1.5bn replacement for a previous waste-to-energy facility that burned down last year.
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09/30/2024 - 05:00
The decision comes after a ProPublica and Guardian investigation revealed that the EPA had found that one of the fuels had a huge cancer risk
This article is co-published with ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom that investigates abuses of power
The US Environmental Protection Agency is planning to withdraw and reconsider its approval for Chevron to produce 18 plastic-based fuels, including some that an internal agency assessment found are highly likely to cause cancer.
In a recent court filing, the federal agency said it “has substantial concerns” that the approval order “may have been made in error”. The EPA gave a Chevron refinery in Mississippi the green light to make the chemicals in 2022 under a “climate-friendly” initiative intended to boost alternatives to petroleum, as ProPublica and the Guardian reported last year.
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09/30/2024 - 04:58
With the last coal-fired plant closing on Monday, we chart the rise and fall of the once-indispensable fuel that powered modern Britain
End of an era as Britain’s last coal-fired power plant shuts down
Britain’s transition to a low-carbon future has reached a milestone with the closure of its last remaining coal-fired power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire.
The shutdown of the 57-year-old power plant on Monday ends more than 140 years of coal power generation in the UK – an industrial story closely interwoven with Britain’s socioeconomic and political history.
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