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Fossil-fuel dependent country hopes to provide bridge between wealthy global north and poor south at November gathering
Oil is inescapable in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The smell of it greets the visitor on arrival and from the shores of the Caspian Sea on which the city is built the tankers are eternally visible. Flares from refineries near the centre light up the night sky, and you do not have to travel far to see fields of “nodding donkeys”, small piston pump oil wells about 6 metres (20ft) tall, that look almost festive in their bright red and green livery.
It will be an interesting setting for the gathering of the 29th UN climate conference of the parties, which will take place at the Olympic Stadium in November.
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PFAS chemicals present in air, rain, atmosphere and water in basin, which holds nearly 95% of US freshwater
Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes basin’s air, rain, atmosphere and water, new peer-reviewed research shows.
The first-of-its-kind, comprehensive picture of PFAS levels for the basin, which holds nearly 95% of the nation’s freshwater, also reveals that precipitation is probably a major contributor to the lakes’ contamination.
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Glyphosate found in samples from French infertility clinic raising questions about controversial chemical’s impact on fertility
More than 55% of sperm samples from a French infertility clinic contained high levels of glyphosate, the world’s most common weedkiller, raising further questions about the chemical’s impact on reproductive health and overall safety, a new study found.
The new research also found evidence of impacts on DNA and a correlation between glyphosate levels and oxidative stress on seminal plasma, suggesting significant impacts on fertility and reproductive health.
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Halewood Park Triangle, Liverpool: Formed by train lines past and present, this suburban spot is rich with nature
Early on a calm May morning I am in a triangle: an isosceles triangle to be precise, with two equal sides and a shorter base. This is Halewood Park Triangle, south Merseyside: a wedgeland. The Triangle was forged by 19th-century developments in the railways, its base marking the main Liverpool-Manchester line, while the east and west arms were branch lines carrying passengers and freight north to Aintree and Southport. Today those abandoned east and west lines have been replaced by pathways, enclosing mature woodland and linking to the Liverpool Loop Line and the Trans Pennine Trail.
At the southern end, braids of cow parsley border the main eastern track, interrupted by bursts of red campion, cerise commas in a long filigree sentence. Garlic mustard and greater stitchwort embroider the path margins. Soft, subtle scents of wild garlic, bluebells and hawthorn blossom are the essence of spring here.
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Unite launches bid to persuade Keir Starmer to invest more in north-east Scotland
The UK’s oil and gas workers risk becoming “the coal miners of our generation,” Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, has warned, urging Labour not to ban new North Sea licences without a clear plan to safeguard jobs.
Unite is launching a billboard campaign in six Scottish constituencies aimed at persuading Keir Starmer to commit more investment to north-east Scotland, the centre of the offshore oil and gas industry.
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In this week’s Down to Earth newsletter: what the Guardian’s Sirin Kale saw when reporting on environmental disasters in Germany, Belgium and the UK
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This is an extract of this week’s Down to Earth newsletter, to get more exclusive environmental journalism in your inbox every Thursday sign up here
It’s common to think about the climate crisis as something that will happen in the future, in the global south.
Brutal heatwaves and submerged cities: what a 3C world would look like
I understand climate scientists’ despair – but stubborn optimism may be our only hope | Christiana Figueres
What are the most powerful climate actions you can take? The expert view
Fast fashion is wasteful, and thrifting is flawed. The solution: swap!
Herd of 170 bison could help store CO2 equivalent of almost 2m cars, researchers say
‘It’s unbelievable the difference a path has made’: how volunteers are building a cycle network a yard at a time
‘The stakes could not be higher’: world is on edge of climate abyss, UN warns
Four kids left: The Thai school swallowed by the sea
‘It just didn’t work’: how businesses are struggling with reuseable packaging
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TV presenter and naturalist Steve Backshall finds a camper truck the ideal way to give children an outdoors experience in untamed parts of northern England
Camping trips with a young family can be thoroughly challenging, especially in the UK, when the weather often skips from sunshine to deluge in the blink of an eye. My extra challenge is that my wife, Helen, can’t join us for our Easter break (she’s away training for her fourth Olympic Games – reasonable excuse). My three kids (twins of four, and an older brother not quite six) are a tornado handful at the best of times. I definitely don’t want to be flying abroad with them, but I want to give them a memorable wild outdoors experience. So what to do?
Inspiration comes in the form of Wild Camper Trucks, a small enterprise set up by entrepreneur Andrew Clark, who rents out a fleet of four-wheel-drive campers from bases in Kendal and Inverness. The vans are go-anywhere robust and reliable, but kitted out with enough home comforts that they feel like glamping on the go. Thanks to the additional roof tent, they’re set up to sleep four, but with kids as young as ours we could definitely push it to five. There’s a bijou kitchen and eating area, plenty of lounging and kipping space, and a huge amount of storage, which allows us to take all the outdoor toys we want.
Andrew has teamed up with websites Off Grid Camp and Nearly Wild Camping, which connect 4x4, campervan and canvas wild campers with landowners. Campers subscribe to the websites, and pay their hosts as they would at any campsite.
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The invisible downside to our online lives is the data stored at giant energy-guzzling datacentres
It’s been called “the largest coal-powered machine on Earth” – and most of us use it countless times a day.
The internet and its associated digital industry are estimated to produce about the same emissions annually as aviation. But we barely think about pollution while snapping 16 duplicate photos of our pets, which are immediately uploaded to the cloud.
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Scientist discovers a cast of recurring characters using burrows in the aftermath of bushfire, after sifting through more than 700,000 images
First came a picture of an inquisitive red-necked wallaby, then an image of a bare-nosed wombat, followed by a couple of shots of the wombat’s burrow with nothing else in the frame.
By the time research scientist Grant Linley had looked through a further 746,670 images, he had seen 48 different species visiting the 28 wombat burrows that he had trained his cameras on.
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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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Don Jurica celebrating Mass in Pitve, 2014.
Photo: Vivian Grisogono
