Smog has become an unfortunate feature of Chinese city skylines. Air pollution has gotten so bad in recent years that citizens have rallied and the government has declared a war upon it. One weapon in…
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Environment – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 4151 - 4175 of 4510 articles
A great white shark is headed in the UK’s direction, but even better than that – according to the pundits it’s a great white mummy, in the family way. In fact the scientific value of this observation doesn’t…
The importance of clearly communicating science to the public should not be underestimated. Accurately understanding our natural environment and sharing that information can be a matter of life or death…
Two weeks of campaigning to raise awareness of Fairtrade products have come to a close. But coffee farmers around the world face an ongoing crisis that the Fairtrade Foundation has done little to mitigate…
Arguments surrounding the use of genetically modified crops and whether they are the solution to the world’s problems of food supply and public health are no nearer to resolution than when GM was introduced…
Scientists at the University of East Anglia have discovered new man-made gases that are contributing to the depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer. Three new Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which act to destroy…
After unifying the Mongols, Genghis Khan led his army from Northern Mongolia in 1211 to the Caspian Sea in 1224, forging the largest contiguous land empire in history. For centuries, common wisdom held…
Phytoplankton are the microscopic plant-like cells that float in the sea’s sunlit surface. They underpin the marine food chain and controversy over their stocks means it’s necessary to better understand…
This winter’s floods were amongst the most severe in living memory, with swathes of the country submerged. The loss of life has been much lower than for many disasters around the world, but many land owners…
A petition on the human right to water, signed by 1.8m people across Europe, was presented last month in Brussels. The petition called on the European Commission to recognise the UN resolution that water…
The uncertainty of the future is a universal concern. Humans have always tried to see into the future with the aid of specialist knowledge – from the days when rulers consulted haruspices and diviners…
Protests continue unabated in Venezuela over inequality and abuses of power, with even the anniversary of Hugo Chavez’s death unable to restore calm to the country. Despite sitting on the world’s largest…
Pollution has gotten so bad in China that Prime Minister Li Keqiang opened the annual meeting of parliament on Wednesday declaring a “war against pollution”. This followed the surge in smog over Chinese…
Currents of cautious optimism were flowing at the Wave and Tidal Energy conference in Belfast. Enthusiastic entrepreneurs and academics presented progress reports on the dazzling assortment of devices…
For many in the West, it might seem a marvel that slug-like sea cucumbers could be at risk of extinction from their popularity on dining tables. But to Asian consumers, this news should be no great surprise…
The Shale UK Summit conference is underway in London, bringing together geological, petroleum, engineering and energy economics experts. Despite all this expertise, and although much of the fracking technology…
If fracking is to be a viable option for energy production, the industry must find a way to deal with the naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) that are released as a byproduct of the process…
It is difficult to make a conclusive link between human-caused climate change and the record drought in California, record freezes in parts of Canada and the US, Britain’s wettest-ever winter and Australia’s…
Surfers and spectators gathered along the Severn Bore in Gloucestershire, England, in recent days to take advantage of the tidal wave that swept upstream. What’s known as a tidal bore – a wave of up to…
The theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has been generally accepted since the 1930s. But genetic…
Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest threat to the livestock industry in England and Wales. At present, bovine TB is still not under control in parts of these countries, and there is no single measure…
Despite the evidence that shows greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are leading to changes in the planet’s climate, the development of large scale technologies to slow or stop these effects has…
Following the wettest winter for 250 years, it would seem fair to assume that drought-induced food shortages are unlikely to be a problem for Britain. But in the near future we may find that water is a…
With the collapse of the line at Dawlish in Devon cutting off railway services to Plymouth and the southwest for months, Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin MP and Network Rail chiefs were…
With towns in the south and southwest flooded out, the government has offered £5,000 payments to help homeowners add flood protection to their homes, while small firms will enjoy a cut of a £10m fund to…