Comprehensive review suggests that adding more parks, trees and greenery could improve public health
Green spaces in cities play a vital role in reducing illness and deaths caused by climate breakdown, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.
The findings of the review suggest that adding more parks, trees and greenery to urban areas could help countries tackle heat-related harms and improve public health.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/22/2024 - 17:30
10/22/2024 - 16:00
Defra body, created to overhaul system amid public fury, may force firms to be run for public good rather than shareholder returns
New water regulator must create environmental enforcer that is feared | Nils Pratley
Water companies in England could be banned from making a profit under plans for a complete overhaul of the system.
The idea is one of the options being considered by a new commission set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) amid public fury over the way firms have prioritised profit over the environment.
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10/22/2024 - 16:00
The division of responsibilities between Ofwat, the Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate hasn’t worked
New regulator may ban English water companies from making a profit
An independent commission into the English and Welsh water sector would have been an excellent idea about 20 years ago. It is hard to pinpoint precisely when the industry went seriously off the rails but Ofwat’s infamous price review of 2004 is one starting point. That is when the undoubted gains from higher investment in the decade after privatisation in 1989 started to evaporate and the story turned into one of financial engineering and grossly inadequate regulation.
The 2004 settlement was wildly generous to the companies and kickstarted the disastrous take-private buyout boom by private equity and global infrastructure funds. Dividend extraction and “whole business securitisations” followed, tolerated by an economic regulator that, absurdly, took the view that sky-high debt levels and Cayman Islands financing vehicles were not its job to worry about.
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10/22/2024 - 14:38
Flathead catfish -- native to the Mississippi River basin -- were first detected in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the two decades since then, the invasive species has spread throughout the river basin. The impact of the large predator on the waterway's food webs and ecology was unknown, but now a research team is beginning to understand what Susquehanna flatheads are eating and how their presence is affecting native aquatic species in the river.
10/22/2024 - 14:00
Report also finds at least 1,344 individual birds of prey were persecuted in the UK between 2009 and 2023
More hen harriers were killed in 2023 than in any other year on record, a report has found.
The RSPB’s Birdcrime report also found that at least 1,344 individual birds of prey were persecuted in the UK between 2009 and 2023, and that 75% of people convicted of offences related to the persecution of birds of prey in that period were connected to the gamebird shooting industry.
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10/22/2024 - 10:55
The combined impact of so-called 'forever chemicals' is more harmful to the environment than single chemicals in isolation, a new study shows.
10/22/2024 - 10:00
In the mountainous area near Asheville, affected growers must now replenish water-logged and often tainted land
Hurricane Helene took much from western North Carolina where I live, farm and raise my family. The stories are harrowing: houses obliterated by landslides, whole families washed away, corpses revealed as the waters receded.
Suddenly, there’s deep climate trauma here, in a place where we mistakenly thought hurricanes happened to Floridians and coastal communities, not us. Helene stole our sense of security: we now side-eye trees, which crushed homes, power lines, cars and people. And the rain, the farmer’s frequent wish, turned our rivers maniacal.
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10/22/2024 - 08:00
Energy secretary prepares new pledge for big UK carbon cuts in next decade amid potential cabinet division
Ed Miliband is facing his first key test on Labour’s ambitions for global climate leadership, with a crucial decision looming on how far and how fast to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The energy secretary is preparing a new international pledge for the UK to cut carbon sharply in the next decade, but could face opposition within the cabinet.
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10/22/2024 - 07:00
Critics say eels could be smuggled eastwards towards Asia but exporter says they are for ‘restocking’ project
Millions of critically endangered eels have been exported from the Severn estuary to Russia this year and conservationists fear export quotas will be increased next year.
A tonne of glass eels, the young elvers that swim into European estuaries from the Sargasso Sea each spring, was flown to Kaliningrad this year, double the amount exported to the Russian port the previous year.
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10/22/2024 - 06:00
Deforestation fell by a third when the guerrilla leader Ivan Mordisco violently enforced a logging ban, but now he has changed tack and is threatening Cop16 biodiversity talks
In the Amazon states of southern Colombia, uniform patches of cattle pasture suddenly give way to trees so numerous and densely packed that the blots of emerald, lime green and white overlap as vines, leaves and tree trunks merge into one.
According to official figures, this place is an international success story: the frontline of the country’s fight against deforestation, which it slashed last year by 36%.
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