Coronavirus-hit Lombardy city will turn 35km of streets over to cyclists and pedestrians
Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis.
The northern Italian city and surrounding Lombardy region are among Europe’s most polluted, and have also been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Continue reading...Ships able to carry 2m barrels chartered for $335,000 a day to store oil unwanted during the Covid-19 pandemic
Giant oil tankers are being used to hold record amounts of crude at sea due to a global oversupply that threatens to overwhelm the world’s storage facilities.
A record 160m barrels of oil has been stored in “supergiant” oil tankers outside the world’s largest shipping ports following the deepest fall in oil demand in 25 years because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...When a bear starts feeding off garbage and loses its fear of humans it is quickly shot but an unlikely conservation partnership may be setting a different path
In early April, a young grizzly bear swam through the chilly waters off the western coast of Canada in search of food.
Related: Groggy grizzly bear caught emerging from hibernation in viral video
Continue reading...Chevron’s treatment of Steven Donziger branded ‘an exceptionally bad case of intimidation’
Twenty-nine Nobel laureates have condemned alleged “judicial harassment” by Chevron and urged the release of a US environmental lawyer who was put under house arrest for pursuing oil-spill compensation claims on behalf of indigenous tribes in the Amazon.
The open letter signed by scientists, authors, environmentalists and human rights activists said the treatment of lawyer Steven Donziger, whose movements have been restricted for more than 250 days, was one of the world’s most egregious cases of judicial harassment and defamation.
Continue reading...With pest controllers in lockdown and a population surge last year, the vermin are free to wreak havoc in populated areas, and on native wildlife
Surrounded by ancient rimu trees and the sound of chirping pīwakawaka, Tame Malcolm brings in his second rat of the day from the dense undergrowth of his Auckland backyard. That’s four pests for his tally today – with only a few hundred thousand or so to go.
“It’s the first time my whānau [family] have got to see me doing pest control. I’ve been teaching the whānau that we do this to protect the birds,” says Malcolm, director of Māori-oriented biosecurity business Puna Consultants.
Continue reading...Contract length, farm location and caring duties cited as reasons for turning down work
Thousands of British workers who responded to a nationwide appeal to help pick fruit and vegetables on farms have rejected job offers, it has emerged.
As hundreds of workers are being flown in from Romania to pick lettuce and asparagus, specialist recruitment firms revealed that fewer than 20% of the applicants were either willing or able to take up roles on the farms.
Continue reading...Exclusive: experiment uses a modified turbine to spray trillions of nano-sized salt crystals into the air from a barge
Scientists have carried out a trial of prototype cloud brightening equipment on the Great Barrier Reef they hope could be scaled up to shade and cool corals and protect them from bleaching caused by rising global temperatures.
The experiment used a modified turbine with 100 high-pressure nozzles to spray trillions of nano-sized ocean salt crystals into the air from the back of a barge.
Continue reading...Firm to cut carbon intensity by selling more green energy but critics say first step must be to stop new drilling
Royal Dutch Shell plans to become a net zero-carbon company by 2050 or sooner by selling more green energy to help reduce the carbon intensity of its business.
Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, said the company must focus on the long-term “even at this time of immediate challenge” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading...Ethiopian paper bag firm employs 18 deaf workers who use sign language to persuade clients to choose greener alternative
What do you say to a business owner who has heard it all before? Answer: Don’t speak, use sign language.
At least that’s the novel approach taken by Teki Paper bags, an Ethiopian enterprise developed by deaf women.
Continue reading...Discoveries exposed by retreating ice include snowshoe for horses and bronze age ski
The retreat of a Norwegian mountain ice patch, which is melting because of climate change, has revealed a lost Viking-era mountain pass scattered with “spectacular” and perfectly preserved artefacts that had been dropped by the side of the road.
The pass, at Lendbreen in Norway’s mountainous central region, first came to the attention of local archaeologists in 2011, after a woollen tunic was discovered that was later dated to the third or fourth century AD. The ice has retreated significantly in the years since, exposing a wealth of artefacts including knitted mittens, leather shoes and arrows still with their feathers attached.
Continue reading...Katharine, a 14ft great white shark with a worldwide fan base, has re-emerged on a satellite tracking system researchers used to follow her movements.
The rediscovery comes as surprise to the team, as Katharine disappeared from radar more than a year ago, causing alarm among her many followers.
Continue reading...WWF has compiled a list of animal species whose social behaviours make them self-isolation experts. Humans are social beings: we rarely go a day without some form of interaction – either in the workplace, at the shops or at home. The coronavirus crisis is forcing people around the world to spend more time than ever alone, prompting many to rely on digital communication to connect to loved ones.
For many species in the animal kingdom, however, self-isolation is not a new concept. It’s in their instinct. From land mammals to ocean species, many choose to live in solitude outside of essential activity: to eat and to breed
Continue reading...Along with up to 30 new marine species, scientists have found a 150-ft example of a siphonophore, a string-like deep-sea predator
Scientists exploring the deep sea off Australia’s coast have discovered as many as 30 new marine species – and what may be the longest animal ever seen.
The discoveries were the result of expeditions into Western Australia’s underwater canyons. One of the biggest discoveries was a siphonophore measuring an estimated 150 feet (46 metres). Siphonophores are deep-sea predators made up of many small clones that act together as one and spread out like a single long string in the water. Researchers think this particular siphonophore may be the longest yet found.
Continue reading...Dame Jane Goodall also reveals Duke of Sussex is finding departure from UK ‘a bit challenging’
The British primatologist Dame Jane Goodall believes the Duke of Sussex will give up hunting because of his wife’s dislike for the sport, and thinks he has been finding life “a bit challenging” since the couple moved to North America.
Goodall, 86, a friend of the pair who has been a guest at their Frogmore Cottage home in Windsor, said in an interview with the Radio Times that Harry and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, were champions of the natural world – “except they hunt and shoot”.
Continue reading...Witnesses accuse government of covering up severity of blaze near site of nuclear disaster
Wildfires in Ukraine have spread to just over a mile from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a disposal site for radioactive waste, according to activists, as more than 300 firefighters work to contain the blaze.
A video posted by a Chernobyl tour operator showed flames and a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective shelter over the carcass of Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Continue reading...From the final verdict on George Pell to devastating Great Barrier Reef bleaching, here’s our roundup of important stories
As Australia’s coronavirus outbreak continues, a lot of important news has slipped under the radar.
Here are the most important stories you may have missed over the past week. From the statement of George Pell’s accuser to the worst coral bleaching the Great Barrier Reef has ever seen.
Continue reading...Swallows and swifts on their annual flight from Africa to Europe have been found dead across Greece
Thousands of swallows and swifts migrating from Africa to Europe have been left dead by high winds battering Greece, bird watchers say.
The birds have been found in the streets of Athens, on apartment balconies in the capital, in the north, on Aegean islands and around a lake close to the seaport of Nauplia in the Peloponnese.
Continue reading...Study highlights importance of biodiversity as part of strategy to stop planet overheating
Scientists have shown to be true what JRR Tolkien only imagined in the Lord of the Rings: giant, slow-reproducing trees play an outsized role in the growth and health of old forests.
In the 1930s, the writer gave his towering trees the name Ents. Today, a paper in the journal Science says these “long-lived pioneers” contribute more than previously believed to carbon sequestration and biomass increase.
Continue reading...Draft policy released by agriculture ministry cites concern over animal welfare and prevention of disease transmission as factors behind move
The Chinese government has signalled an end to the human consumption of dogs, with the agriculture ministry today releasing a draft policy that would forbid canine meat.
Citing the “progress of human civilisation” as well as growing public concern over animal welfare and prevention of disease transmission from animals to humans, China’s Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs singled out canines as forbidden in a draft “white list” of animals allowed to be raised for meat.
Continue reading...Farms forced to shut down operations as search continues for source of Covid-19 amid uncertainty over new industry rules
Just a few months ago Cheng Yongcai ran a thriving farm that produced 20,000 bamboo rats a year in Qingyuan in northern Guangdong province.
It was an operation that his local government actively encouraged with loans and other support, he says.
Continue reading...