By Sarah Boseley, health editor 14 October 2013 (The Guardian) – Babies born to mothers who live in areas with air pollution and dense traffic are more likely to have a low birthweight and smaller head circumference, according to a large European study. The researchers, who included a team from the UK, found that babies […]
5 October 2013 (BBC News) – Actor Jude Law and musician Damon Albarn have joined hundreds demonstrating in London over piracy charges brought by Russia against 30 Greenpeace activists. Six Britons were among those arrested last month as they protested against oil drilling in the Arctic at a rig owned by Russian firm, Gazprom. Relatives […]
By Phil Plait26 September 2013 (Slate) – As I predicted, with the advent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report due tomorrow, the noise machine is out in full force. Still, when I saw that James Delingpole had written yet another climate change denial piece for The Telegraph, I dithered. After all, in my […]
By Damian Carrington 28 June 2013 (The Guardian) – The government has launched an “urgent” review of the crisis facing bees and other pollinators in the UK and pledged to introduce a national pollinator strategy. “As we all recognise, pollinators play a vital role in the security of our food supply and the quality of […]
The UK Farmland Bird Indicator, 1970-2011, showing differing trends for specialist and generalist species. Data are from the RSPB, BTO, JNCC, and Defra. The numbers in brackets refer to the number of species in each group. Specialist species have decline by over 60% in 40 years. Graphic: RSPB 22 May 2013 (RSPB) – Trends in […]
22 July 2013 (EEA) – The European Grassland Butterfly Indicator is built from European species trends. In this chapter, we give an overview of the trends of grassland butterflies in Europe and the EU. First, we calculate the trend in each country and for each species separately. Figure 3.1 shows four of the national trends […]
Watchlist Indicator showing the average population trend for 77 moths, 19 butterflies, 8 mammals and 51 birds listed as UK BAP priorities, 1968-2010. Species are weighted equally. The indicator starts at 100; a rise to 200 would show that, on average, the populations of indicator species have doubled, whereas if it dropped to 50 they […]
By Damian Carrington 28 July 2013 (The Guardian) – Extreme weather being driven by climate change is the biggest threat to British farming and its ability to feed the nation’s growing population, according to Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union. His comments, in an interview with the Guardian, come after a week of […]
By David J. Unger20 June 2013 (Christian Science Monitor) – No country emits more carbon dioxide than China, but at least some of that heat-trapping gas gets its start in Appalachian mines. With cleaner-burning natural gas cutting into the their market in the United States, coal companies have found eager customers in the East, fueling […]
By John Vidal, environment editor 12 June 2013 (The Guardian) – The wettest autumn since records began, followed by the coldest spring in 50 years, has devastated British wheat, forcing food manufacturers to import nearly 2.5m tonnes of the crop. “Normally we export around 2.5m tonnes of wheat but this year we expect to have […]
