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Transforming a former industrial area in Sweden will bring psychological benefits for future residents and reduce construction’s climate impact
Although activity is high, it is surprisingly quiet inside the construction site of a high school extension in Sickla, a former industrial area in south Stockholm that is set to become part of the “largest mass timber project in the world” according to the Swedish urban property developer Atrium Ljungberg.
Just a few months remain until students enter the premises, but there is no sound of drilling or pounding against concrete walls. The scent of wood is unmistakable, and signs of the material can be spotted everywhere – from glulam (glued laminated timber) columns and beams in the building’s frame to cross-laminated timber (CLT) slabs in the floors, ceilings and staircases. CLT, made by gluing together layers of planed wood into panels, offers strength and rigidity comparable to concrete but is significantly lighter and quicker to build with.
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Employees of water firms who obstruct investigations into spills could face jail under new rules that come into force on Friday
Water company bosses have entirely escaped punishment for covering up illegal sewage spills, government figures show, as ministers prepare to bring in a new law threatening them with up to two years in prison for doing so.
Only three people have ever been prosecuted for obstructing the Environment Agency in its investigations into sewage spills, officials said, and none received even a fine.
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Authorities warn of mudslides during intense rainfall, as Kenya is hit by deadly flash flooding
After Storm Hans battered northern Italy in the runup to Easter, severe weather continued to lash much of the country this week. Since Tuesday, the conditions have triggered potent showers and thunderstorms, and yellow and orange weather warnings have been issued.
With winds generally remaining light this week, the greatest concerns surround the risks from intense rainfall, as slow-moving heavy showers can deliver a prolonged downpour to a fairly localised area. The authorities have warned people to avoid high-risk areas such as roads with steep embankments amid a threat of flash flooding and mudslides.
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UK prime minister tells energy summit his government is determined to transition energy system from fossil fuels to renewables
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About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority
- The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89% Project – and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more
A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world – between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies – want their governments to take stronger climate action.
As co-founders of a non-profit that studies news coverage of climate change, those findings surprised even us. And they are a sharp rebuttal to the Trump administration’s efforts to attack anyone who does care about the climate crisis.
Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are the co-founders of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now
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Discovery could provide valuable clues as to how the climate crisis might affect Antarctica, says study
Giant, flat-topped icebergs the size of the city of Cambridge drifted off the coast of Britain during the last ice age, according to a study that has uncovered evidence of their existence for the first time.
A series of distinctive, comb-like grooves found preserved in sediment near Aberdeen in Scotland were left behind by the underside of huge “tabular” icebergs that dragged across the North Sea floor between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.
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Belém prepares for an international conference on a far greater scale than anything previously seen in the Amazon
Fake metal trees have been set into the concrete ground of the Amazonian host city of this year’s climate summit, prompting scandalised contrasts with the once-living vegetation that has been cleared in preparation for Cop30 in Brazil.
But in an unlikely convergence of views, both the centre-right state governor and leftwing social movements insist this is a storm in a plant pot compared with the darkening geopolitical threats to the world’s biggest diplomatic gathering, which will take place in November in Belém.
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Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump
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The UN has called the detention of Pablo López Alavez ‘arbitrary’, while human rights organisations say his sentence is part of a systematic and alarming pattern of criminalisation of Mexico’s environmental activists
The meeting room in the prison of Villa de Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, doubles as a classroom with school desks and a small library. The walls feature motivational phrases such as “First things first”, “Live and let live” and “Little by little, you’ll go far”.
Pablo López Alavez, a 56-year-old environmental defender, has had nearly 15 years to contemplate these sentiments – and faces 15 more, after being imprisoned for murders he says he did not commit.
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The Wildlife Trusts are in shock after acquiring 4,000 sheep in Rothbury estate deal as part of land restoration project
Woolly maggots, nature-destroyers – sheep are criticised by many conservationists for denuding Britain’s uplands of rare plants and trees.
So The Wildlife Trusts were shocked when they were compelled to buy 4,000 sheep as part of the biggest land restoration project in England.
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