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Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This shrub and its toxic fruit have a minor but magical part in ancient woodland

Shocking pink in a winter hedge, as if blown from some forever summer place, it is a colour out of season. And yet the spindle berries are perfectly at home in wood margins and hedges on the limestone of Wenlock Edge. It seems the spindle tree – which can grow six metres (20ft) tall but is usually a shrub – has a minor but magical part in ancient woodland and here associates with ash, field maple and dogwood. It has waxy, serrated-edge leaves, greeny-white four-petalled flowers and these extraordinary lipstick berries, each a four- or five-valved pod holding orange fruits that ripen in November-December.

Spindle is a square peg in a round hole, or vice-versa: its green stems begin round, develop a corky bark to become four-cornered, then turn rounder with age. It is named after the stick used to spin and wind thread from wool. In the psycho-mytho-panto of Sleeping Beauty, the goddess is deceived, pricks her finger on the spindle of human ambition, and sleeps until she is woken up by the god of rebirth. It is a winter story.

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Price jump in the VEEC market across the last 5 months has been massive, with speculation and then confirmation scheme administrator will reduce the attractiveness of some commercial lighting products.

Australian solar plant innovators 5B have announced plans to set up a production facility in Adelaide, and potentially a "gigawatt" production line in Asia.

Burning coal to generate electricity in era of solar at 1c/kWh makes as about as much economic sense as “burning dollar notes”, says leading researcher Martin Green.

AER report absolves big generators of predatory bidding during demand peaks, but they hardly need to: The cost of "baseload" coal supply in NSW has jumped so high that there is no such thing as "cheap" coal generation.

The new foreign donations laws announced this week will potentially stifle the work of foreign funded charities and environment groups working in Australia. Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Held at UTS, the hackathon brought together some of the best and brightest from the fields of sustainability, design and technology, the corporate and academic world, and the start-up community.

WOMADelaide today announced the full program of speakers and presenters for The Planet Talks, its renowned series of political, social and planetary discussions hosted as part of the festival from March 10 – 12.

Occupying 67,000 square feet over six rooftops in multiple orientations, the landmark installation overcomes shading challenges to power a large, fast-moving consumer goods company.

Groundbreaking study reinforces urgent need to reduce emissions, and advises over-60s to avoid polluted air by walking in parks and green spaces

The over-60s should stick to green spaces and parks when they go for a walk and avoid the city streets, according to a groundbreaking study that says air pollution from traffic fumes largely wipes out the health benefit from the exercise.

Walking is often recommended for older people, but the study from Imperial College London and Duke University in the USA suggests that the over-60s and those with lung and heart problems should steer clear of urban areas with heavy traffic. The negative effect may well be the same in younger people, say the authors, and it reinforces the urgency of reducing emissions in city streets.

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New UK research links toxic air to low birth weight that can cause lifelong damage to health, raising fears that millions of babies worldwide are being harmed

Air pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study.

The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are “something approaching a public health catastrophe”, the doctors involved said.

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We cannot see the tiny deadly particles that are killing people – but new digital advances are about to change that, which may spark action

In the days of London smogs it was possible to both see pollution and smell it. Now the deadliest particles are so small that it is hard for human senses to detect them, yet they are killing people just the same.

Health professionals and environmental groups may complain, but the general public seems oblivious to the danger that is damaging the health of children and adults alike in many towns and cities across the country. Perhaps it is our inability to see the cocktail of chemicals and particulates we are breathing in that has allowed successive governments to get away with doing so little about it for so long.

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Bob Carr says decision could be the end for controversial Carmichael project, adding: ‘It couldn’t have been more emphatic’

Adani’s Carmichael coalmine project will not be funded by Chinese banks, the Chinese embassy has said, in a move some see as dooming the project, and potentially Adani’s operations in Australia.

Bob Carr, the former New South Wales premier and former foreign minister, told the Guardian he had been lobbying Chinese businesses and government for three weeks before receiving confirmation from the Chinese embassy in Australia that no Chinese bank would be financing the controversial project.

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• Interior secretary aims to reduce Cascade-Siskiyou and Gold Butte monuments
• Zinke hits back at Patagonia after ad said ‘the president stole your land’

Interior secretary Ryan Zinke has announced recommendations to shrink two more national monuments in the western US – Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon and California, and Gold Butte in Nevada.

Related: Trump slashes size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments in Utah

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A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities, writes Graeme Willis

Your article (Clean, green New Zealand is a lie – and a warning for Britain’s countryside, 4 December) highlights the huge opportunity Brexit has presented us to create a new agriculture policy that will restore the natural environment, as well as help the farming industry to become more financially resilient and environmentally sustainable. The removal of “subsidies” following the New Zealand model is not the route to achieving this. Public funding is critical to farmers’ livelihoods – without it, roughly half of farming is uneconomic. Those likely to suffer the most are small- to medium-sized farms already struggling in very tough markets. A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years, and the rate is fastest amongst the smallest. Almost a third of farms under 50 hectares vanished between 2005 and 2015. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities through jobs as well as protecting distinctive local character. It is also crucial to maintaining England’s world-renowned landscapes and diversity of food. We are presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a farming policy framework and new funding model that will support all farmers, rural communities and economies if we are to create the diverse, thriving countryside most of us want to see.
Graeme Willis
Senior Rural Policy Campaigner, Campaign to Protect Rural England

• It is unfair of you to reduce Michael Gove’s record as environment secretary to “presentational gimmicks” (Editorial, 5 December). Few environmentalists regarded Mr Gove as a natural soulmate when he was appointed, but his short time in office has been, on the whole, hugely impressive. The UK stands to lose vital environmental protections when we leave the EU. These must be replaced. We need to carry into UK law the environmental principles (polluter pays, the precautionary principle etc) that underpin policy; and we need a strong, independent watchdog to replicate the beneficial role now played by the European Court of Justice and the European Commission in holding governments to account for their environmental practice. There is a long way to go, but Michael Gove gets this, as he gets the need to address the rising tide of plastic pollution and the alarming erosion of soil quality. What we now need is a much stronger green narrative from other parts of government, not least on housing and transport, and an unequivocal commitment to match and then exceed current EU environmental standards.
Shaun Spiers
Executive director, Green Alliance 

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Chinese investment is driving an unprecedented investment boom in global infrastructure. But despite its claims to be pursuing green development, China's building bonanza is harming the planet. Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

‘Wall to Wall’ project will see heritage experts from the UK and China work together to increase understanding of both sites and boost tourism

One is 13,171 miles long and, contrary to popular belief, cannot actually be seen from space. The other is 73 miles long and cannot be seen from Sunderland.

But now the Great Wall of China is joining up with its much tinier British counterpart, Hadrian’s Wall, to encourage more tourism and increase the historical and cultural understanding of both great barriers.

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Morrisons supermarket says the apples will be the biggest sold in living memory

A British supermarket is selling supersized Braeburn apples after unusual weather conditions in the spring produced a crop of giants.

The latest frost for nearly 20 years in April meant fewer apples grew, with as much as 10% of the country’s Braeburn crop affected. However, farmers were surprised to find that the reduced crop had grown to more than twice the normal size and weight.

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Nations will resolve to end plastic pollution in our seas, but their agreement has no timetable.

300,000 tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point C is due to be dumped in the sea off Cardiff Bay.