50,000 people sign petition against creation of channel for river water through Ferris Meadow Lake
A freshwater lake that attracts more than 30,000 swimmers a year is under threat of closure from an Environment Agency (EA) plan to reduce flooding that will channel in polluted river water, according to campaigners.
Almost 50,000 people have signed a petition calling on the EA and Surrey county council to reroute the flood channel away from the lake, which is a site of nature conservation. But the EA and Surrey council seem likely to press ahead with the 50-metre wide channel, bisecting the lake and feeding river floodwater into its centre.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/11/2024 - 07:18
10/11/2024 - 06:32
More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades
Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.
Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.
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10/11/2024 - 05:00
Storms Helene and Milton have triggered rise of misinformation stoked by Trump and fellow Republicans
Meteorologists tracking the advance of Hurricane Milton have been targeted by a deluge of conspiracy theories that they were controlling the weather, abuse and even death threats, amid what they say is an unprecedented surge in misinformation as two major hurricanes have hit the US.
A series of falsehoods and threats have swirled in the two weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through six states causing several hundred deaths, followed by Milton crashing into Florida on Wednesday.
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10/11/2024 - 02:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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10/11/2024 - 01:00
Piece that will premiere at book festival includes mine’s ‘cavernous’ effects, music by colliery bands and interviews
“It was odd, but really fun,” said Adam Cooper about his time spent helping to record the sound of an empty coalmine. “To put it in one word, I’d say it sounds cavernous. But it also has its own complexities and depth to it.”
Cooper and his colleagues spent time down an old drift mine to capture the “sound of carbon” for a new musical commission that will premiere this weekend.
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10/11/2024 - 00:00
The supposedly green project – brainchild of the previous Tory government – will increase emissions, not reduce them
This will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossil fuel-driven boondoggle that will accelerate climate breakdown. Its ticket price of £21.7bn is just the beginning of a phenomenal fiscal nightmare.
There might be a case for a CCS programme if the following conditions were met. First, that the money for cheaper and more effective projects had already been committed. The opposite has happened. Labour slashed its green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to £15bn, and with it a sensible and rational programme for insulating 19m homes.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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10/10/2024 - 22:07
Some Florida residents rode out Hurricane Milton despite evacuation orders, staying in their homes after the second major hurricane in two weeks. Milton slammed into Florida as a category 3 storm, killing at least 10 people, spawning tornadoes and leaving more than 3 million homes and businesses without power
All our Hurricane Milton coverage
A visual guide to Milton's damage
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10/10/2024 - 18:18
The man was aboard a fishing vessel that became disabled off Madeira Beach, Florida, hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall, a Coast Guard press officer says. The man was able to radio the Coast Guard in nearby St Petersburg before contact was lost
Deaths expected to rise as Florida begins to assess Hurricane Milton destruction
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10/10/2024 - 13:25
Biologists have curated the red milkweed beetle's genome and its arsenal of genes related to plant-feeding and other biological traits. They sequenced and assembled the entire genome of the host-specialist milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). They then compared aspects of genome biology to a relative, the host-generalist Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis), which is an invasive exotic species that feeds on a variety of trees important to forestry. Studying the secrets of how the common red milkweed beetle can safely feed on a toxic plant helps illuminate the ecological, evolutionary and economic impact of insect-plant interactions from a genomic perspective.
10/10/2024 - 13:25
The world's freshwater lakes are freezing over for shorter periods of time due to climate change. This shift has major implications for human safety, as well as water quality, biodiversity, and global nutrient cycles.
