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Commons committee heard from residents of Yorkshire town with the highest levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in UK
On 15 January, members of the House of Commons environmental audit committee (EAC) visited Bentham, the North Yorkshire town that has the highest levels of Pfas contamination in the UK.
Colloquially known as “forever chemicals”, Pfas (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) do not naturally degrade or decompose. This persistence gives them special properties with useful applications in both industrial and consumer products.
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A series of stunning findings about great apes’ mental capabilities in recent years has transformed how we see our closest relatives
Clear plastic cups and pitchers adorned the wooden table in Des Moines, Iowa. Invisible juice was poured and presented to Kanzi, who enthusiastically chose the fake filled cup, playing along with the man who had come to visit. In many ways, it was the quintessential scene of a children’s imaginary tea party. Only Kanzi, at 44 years old, was a bonobo.
The experiment, carried out at the Ape Initiative facility in 2024, was the first to empirically test and document pretend play in a great ape species, with the results published in the journal Science in February. The study adds to an expansive repertoire of research over the past decade that has uncovered robust similarities between ape and human behaviours, upending long-held beliefs about how we distinguish ourselves from our closest kin.
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After his project got rejected in Sydney, a rubbish disposal magnate now hopes to build a $630m port and waste incinerator near a tourist gateway city
An Australian billionaire’s plan to burn rubbish for energy in Fiji amounts to “waste colonialism” and risks spoiling a “beach paradise”, villagers and the Pacific country’s UN ambassador have said.
Traditional landowner Inoke Tora boarded a bus to the capital, Suva, on Tuesday with a petition from villagers opposing the $630m waste-to-energy incinerator, which is forecast to consume 900,000 tonnes of non-recyclable rubbish each year.
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The injunction pauses policy giving senior Trump official direct sign-off on federal clean energy projects
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday struck down several Trump administration actions slowing down development of clean energy, including a requirement that all solar and wind energy projects on federal lands and waters be personally approved by the interior secretary, Doug Burgum.
Denise J Casper, chief judge of the US district court for Massachusetts, ruled that a coalition of plaintiffs representing wind and solar developers were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the administration’s actions violate federal statute and would cause irreparable harm if the court did not intervene.
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The Marches, Shropshire: Recently I had wondered how long this great lime would stay standing. The next day, I had my answer
How quickly something that defines a landscape for centuries becomes the absence that redefines it – so it is with ancient trees. The trunk snapped like a carrot at the roots and crashed, its bony branches splintered. Now it lies like a shipwreck stranded in an open field, its hulk of twigs an animal pelt stilled.
A day before, looking at its 300-year-old architecture of mostly dead wood yet so vividly alive, admiring its form and persistence through years and trouble, standing alone with spring coursing through the land and its timbers, I wondered how long, in tree time, it had left.
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Campaigners in Henley say insufficient number of bathers to qualify for status is result of poor water quality
Bathing water rules in England should be improved to help drive a clean-up of pollution at a spot on the River Thames in Henley, campaigners say.
In a letter to the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, businesses, river users, community groups and civic leaders said poor water quality had been damaging the town and had put public health at risk.
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Brussels will relax state aid rules to allow member countries to offer ‘targeted and temporary’ support
The EU will cut electricity taxes and provide consumers with fresh incentives to ditch fuel-burning cars and boilers, the European Commission has announced, as the energy crisis from the Iran war speeds a shift to a clean economy.
The plan, which foresees tweaking rules so that electricity is taxed less than oil and gas, aims to bring down bills while encouraging the move away from polluting devices that prolong reliance on foreign fuels.
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Donald Trump’s conflict with Iran could speed the EU’s green revolution – if panicking governments can hold their nerve on clean energy
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A surge in demand for electric vehicles across Europe may be evidence of what George Monbiot greeted as the silver lining of the Iran war. Sales of electric cars in continental Europe rose by 51% in March.
The International Energy Agency has called the disruption in the strait of Hormuz the “biggest energy crisis in history”, but it appears, on one level, to be accelerating Europe’s green revolution. Yet, even if car-owners are rushing to the EV showrooms, some European governments, facing a groundswell of anger over soaring petrol and gas prices, are at risk of sending the clean energy transition into reverse.
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As rising gold prices fuel environmental destruction, communities in the country’s biodiverse heartland are passing laws against mining
Mahogany trees tower above Herminio Mamani as he tends his cacao farm in Bolivia’s biodiverse north-west. A former president of El Ceibo, the country’s largest organic cacao co-operative, he says the agroforestry model used by its 1,300 members is vital not only to maintain the quality of the cacao they grow, which is used for chocolate and other products, but also for keeping gold mining at bay.
“We cacao producers would never kill an animal here,” he says, parrots squawking nearby. “The parcels [of land] can never be monocultures – all the crops grow together.”
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Unwanted vessels left to decay release fibreglass shards into the water, harming marine life. Steve Green – with his trusty van Cecil – is determined to clean things up
Steve Green, a boat engineer from Cornwall, was pulled over by the police just before Christmas. He was driving a decrepit-looking VW campervan and towing an even more dilapidated yacht up to Truro. He hadn’t broken any laws, but he admits that Cecil the campervan, which runs on donated chip oil from local pubs and has a crane and a winch on the front, “wasn’t quite what VW intended”.
Green (and Cecil) are on a mission to rid the beautiful hidden creeks of Cornwall’s Helford and Fal rivers of 166 abandoned fibreglass yachts, which are leaking plastic and toxins into the predominantly marine waters. Marine biologists have likened the thousands of shards of fibreglass they have found embedded in the flesh of sea-creatures in areas with wrecks such as these to asbestos, a substance known to have a noxious effect on humans.
Green uses a detachable crane system at the front of his van to move around bags of plastic after they have been weighed. Cecil is upholstered in recycled denim
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pub. Bowtie Press, UK, 2005
pub. Souvenir Press, London, 2002
First published by Henston Ltd, 1988, new edition 1994. Later edition published by Interpret Publishing, Dorking, Surrey UK.
pub. Henston, Guildford UK, 1985, revised 1987, 1988, 1994.
pub. Crossing Press CA 1994
