Manufacturers and politicians embroiled in the dispute between China and the EU are closely watching the looming deadline of June 5th. By then the European Commission must conclude its provisional anti-dumping…
Without energy storage technology we’re leaving good energy blowing in the wind.
Danny Lawson/PA
The handling of Britain’s energy strategy leaves much to be desired, subject as it is to short term politics over long term planning. We face a trilemma that stems from the opposing tension of climate…
Extinctions: happening since before we were around, but happening a lot more now.
Andrew Milligan/PA
The State of Nature report published this month showed that of more than 3,100 British species surveyed, 60% are in decline, and one in 10 of those species on the Red List are under threat of extinction…
Britain’s best loved mammal, but no friend to cattle farmers.
Ben Birchall/PA
What do the pilot badger culls due to start this weekend in Gloucester and West Somerset hope to achieve? The official line is a 16% reduction of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle herds over the next…
Want to be happy? It’s all about the green.
epSos.de/Flickr
Spending time with nature in our cities’ parks and gardens can improve individual satisfaction in life and make us less aggressive, anxious and stressed. So isn’t it time we placed access to nature alongside…
Sustainable living: it’s more difficult than just hugging trees.
William Conran/PA
In the financial crisis and long global recession, millions have been forced to change their lifestyles to get by. When jobs, homes or businesses have been lost, many have had to change habits, hobbies…
In the hold, but for how long? Wasting millions of tonnes of seafood is a tragedy.
Maurice McDonald/PA Archive
In European waters controlled by the EU Common Fisheries Policy, the discarding of fish overboard has long been condemned by environmentalists and regretted by fishers. According to the UN Food and Agriculture…
Cut from the sea bed this 20m long core contains 100,000 years of climate history.
Ian Hall
Responding to a crisis often brings out the best in people. Certainly it has in the past, when sudden changes in climate during the Middle Stone Age sparked off surges of cultural evolution and innovation…
The larval caterpillar of the oak processionary moth: I love the smell of pesticide in the morning.
Forestry Commission/Crown Copyright
As thousands of people have descended on the Chelsea Flower Show this week, one exhibit has startled visitors by contrasting its beautiful sunken garden with a sinister avenue of dead trees. Designed by…
You can blink, you won’t miss it. Climate change is here for good.
rudecactus
Has global warming stalled? This question is increasingly being asked because the local weather seems cool and wet, or because the global mean temperature is not increasing at its earlier rate or the long-term…
Some of us learned to stop worrying and love the bomb; some of us didn’t.
Tim Ireland/PA Wire
Radioactivity is dramatic. You can’t smell it, taste it, or see it. You may be powerless to avoid it. Nuclear history is a story of dramatic contrasts, of hope and tragedy. Worldwide excitement over Marie…
Sunrise at Sellafield: could thorium-powered reactors be a new dawn for nuclear energy?
Phil Noble/PA Archive/Press Association Images
The only source of energy that can meet global demand while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions is nuclear power. But our perception of nuclear power is coloured by issues of safety, radiotoxic waste, and…
Speedy and decisive action is needed from the government to ensure our future energy security.
Flickr/Cayusa
Our nuclear reactors have reached the end of their lives, North Sea oil is running out, coal is dirty: Britain faces an energy crisis of rising demand and falling supply. In our Nuclear Futures series…
Sometimes even the clearest signs of change are ignored.
Flickr/baldeaglebluff
When President Obama last week tweeted that “97% of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made, and dangerous” it drew the attention of his 31 million followers to the most recent study pointing…
From the plate to the power station.
Flickr/tomylees
The amount of scrap food thrown away worldwide is staggering. WRAP, a government-funded non-profit set up to encourage recycling and clamp down on waste, reports that in the UK we discard more than 7.2m…
And you think your neighbours are bad: millions live alongside active volcanoes.
Smithsonian Institute Global Volcanism Program
The Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico is throwing out plumes of smoke and ash, an eruption that threatens the one million inhabitants of the towns and villages nearby. Mexico City, the world’s third largest…
Chapelcross, Scotland: decisions over our future sources of energy won’t wait until the cows come home.
Magnox Sites Ltd
Providing power to the nation is no small task. It requires considerable forward planning, involves huge costs and considerable risks. More risk and cost, in fact, than most energy providers can stomach…
Britain’s woeful road infrastructure for cyclists is dragging us down.
Tim Ireland/PA
Making a city more bicycle-friendly is not simply a matter of painting a few lines and installing parking spaces. It requires cities to work with cyclists as participants in redesigning the city. Ensuring…
Many of us love helium balloons but we need to find and conserve more for use in MRI scanners.
PA/Matthew Fearn
Helium is God’s gift to humankind. It’s particularly fantastic for science and medicine and has allowed us to make an enormous number of fundamental advances. We use it for a whole vast array of things…
An estimated 30-50% of food produced worldwide is wasted, and ends up only fit for the birds.
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
The food system is perhaps the most vital component of our modern industrialised world. Without food in shops, it’s fair to say society would unravel in a matter of days. The food industry is in many ways…
Making power-hungry datacentres like these more energy efficient is vital.
Schlüsselbein2007/Flickr
Do you have a computer on a desk somewhere? Fans whirring, screensaver flickering, left on for days. Would you leave your washing machine running for days? Because over time, a desktop computer draws on…
Medicine residues that we flush down the toilet can affect fish and other wildlife.
Chris Ison/PA
It’s not a thought that occurs to most of us, but flushing the toilet doesn’t just mean disposing of our bodily waste. We’re also flushing away some of the medicine we take down with it. Our contraceptive…
Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station: carbon markets are supposed to be effective, not just hot air.
PA/David Davies
Cameron Hepburn, London School of Economics and Political Science
Just as scientists almost universally agree greenhouse gases contribute to the planet’s changing climate, economists almost universally agree the problem is made worse because polluters don’t pay for the…