In a new report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), it has been recommended that tree planting should double by 2020, with land currently used for meat and diary production being converted into woodland.
The report states that beef and lamb production in the UK should be reduced by 20-50%. This would free up between 3 and 7 million hectares of grassland, which could then be planted with trees. These newly-created forests could help to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere, reduce the impacts of flooding and provide a new source of biofuel.
The lexicographers from Collins Dictionary have examined 4.5 billion words of text in order to name 'single-use' as their word of the year for 2018. The word, which refers to items that are made to be used once then thrown away has seen a four-fold increase in its usage since 2013.
The European Parliament yesterday backed a proposed directive to ban single use plastics by 571 votes to 53. The proposal suggests banning single use items like plastic straws, cotton buds, straws, drink stirrers, disposable plates and cutlery by 2021, while enforcing the recycling of 90% of plastic bottles by 2025.
In the same week that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a key report giving the world 12 years to drastically reduce its carbon emissions, permission has been granted for fracking to go ahead in England for the first time since 2011.
On Monday, a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on the findings of more than 6,000 scientific studies has stated that we have just 12 years left in which to ensure that global temperature changes are limited to 1.5C above pre-Industrial levels.
British adventurer and extreme athlete Ash Dykes, from North Wales, has just arrived at his first major milestone during Mission Yangtze, his third world-first record attempt to walk the entire 4,000 mile length of the Yangtze river in China - one the world’s genuine and last remaining world-firsts.
A new report has pointed to a bleak future for many of the world’s killer whales (orcas). In fact, it says that at least half of the world’s population are likely to become extinct because polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are still leaking into the world’s oceans, despite having been banned by the US in 1978 and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.
Nearly 50 streets in London will be reclaimed for play and for encouraging stronger communities on World Car Free Day tomorrow. Air pollution is now a major problem in the world's cities. In the UK alone, poor air quality is a factor in over 40,000 premature deaths each year.
British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday proposed doubling the 5p charge on plastic bags to 10p. She also suggested that the charge should be extended to all shops, rather than just the larger stores (companies that have 250 or more employees) that currently have to charge for bags. Several of the large supermarket chains have already moved over to only offering 10p ‘bags for life’, rather than 5p single use bags.
