Around The Web

US sceptics are questioning the science behind air pollution and mortality, a trend that is starting to appear in countries where the air is much more toxic

Despite report after report linking air pollution to deterioration of the lungs, heart and brain, Prof Robert Phalen believes the air is “too clean” for children.

After all, everybody needs a bit of immune-system-boosting dirt in their lungs.

Continue reading...

A significant group of nations take a stand against using coal for electricity generation at UN climate talks.

The procedure took 30 people three hours to complete. Tantor had been rescued from a ranch in Colombia.

New alliance launched at Bonn climate talks hopes to signal the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel that kills 800,000 people a year with air pollution

A new alliance of 19 nations committed to quickly phasing out coal has been launched at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany. It was greeted as a “political watershed”, signalling the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel that currently provides 40% of global electricity.

New pledges were made on Thursday by Mexico, New Zealand, Denmark and Angola for the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which is led by the UK and Canada.

Continue reading...

Campaigners fear move by Trump administration will damage global efforts to end the ivory trade

Donald Trump’s administration plans to allow imports of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe into the US – a move campaigners fear could damage global momentum on ending the ivory trade.

In 2014, US big game hunters killing elephants in Zimbabwe were banned from bringing their trophies home, on the basis that the country had failed to show that it was taking elephant management seriously.

Continue reading...

Laser labs sense black holes merging at a distance of about a billion light-years from Earth.

In a rare instance, Indian villagers and forest officers worked together for hours to save the animal

Gene-editing has been attempted on cells inside a patient, in a world first by doctors in California.

Leading climate economist says world leaders must move forward without the US on crucial issues in the closing days of the UN summit

Ministers from governments around the world meeting in Bonn for the final days of the UN climate talks must prove they can pass “the Trump test” by moving on without the US on issues crucial to combating global warming, a leading climate economist has said.

“It’s about getting on with it,” Lord Nicholas Stern told the Guardian. “They have to get on with it. But there are good signs.”

Continue reading...

RN Drive sifts fact from fiction with analysis of the week's science news.

Hamsterley, Weardale, Durham As the centuries passed, the memorials in the village churchyard became more formal and decorative, less idiosyncratic

There has been a place of worship on this spot since 1180 but no one seems to know why St James’ church was founded on this hillside half a mile from the village. “Man fleeth as it were a passing shadow,” cautions the sundial above the porch. Perhaps the grandeur of the rising sun, as I watched it lifting deep shadows from the valley cut by the river Wear, moved its founders to build here.

I wandered around the churchyard, reading names on tombstones carved by stonemasons whose own identities have long since been forgotten.

Continue reading...

Australia's "unambitious, uninspired" climate policyagain puts it near bottom of global rankings. States get a mention for taking "independent action."

Victoria will likely go without its much-vaunted battery storage installations this summer, following months of delays likely to be centred around finance and contracting.

Pilbara Solar seeks federal government funding for plan to export WA generated solar power to Indonesia, via a sub-sea cable.

Big gas generators in South Australia have combined again to create "scarcity" and push prices into orbit, pocketing windfall profits at the expense of consumers.

Hydro Tasmania’s Hybrid Energy Solutions team has installed a 600 kilowatt solar array to complement the island’s existing 600kW wind turbine.

Greenpeace welcomes the announcement today by the Commonwealth Bank that the bank would distance itself from coal projects.

Network operator Ausnet says consumers will provide nearly half of their electricity needs, surpassing fossil fuels as the biggest supplier to the grid.

Singapore and Brazil are working together to bring two blue macaw species back from near-extinction.

Analysts say a test of the bank’s withdrawal from coal will come when Adani’s Abbot Point terminal comes up for refinancing

The Commonwealth Bank has told its shareholders to expect its support of the coal industry to decline as it helps finance the transition to a low-carbon economy, indicating the bank is unlikely to lend to new large coal projects.

Ahead of its AGM on Thursday, the bank posted the speech of its chairwoman, Catherine Livingstone, to the ASX. In it she said climate change poses both a business risk and a responsibility for the bank.

Continue reading...