UK’s 142-year history of coal-fired electricity ends as turbines at Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant in Nottinghamshire stop for good
A deep history of British coal – from the Romans to the Ratcliffe shutdown
Britain’s only remaining coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire will generate electricity for the last time on Monday after powering the UK for 57 years.
The power plant will come to the end of its life in line with the government’s world-leading policy to phase out coal power which was first signalled almost a decade ago.
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09/29/2024 - 10:00
The lassitude that distinguishes our moment is born of sorrow and buried rage. We act like colonial subjects because, in effect, that’s what we are
“Kids these days are such snowflakes! So flaccid and self-involved, so doomy and anxious. If it’s not the drugs, it’s the screen time, right? I mean, what’s their problem?”
I try to sidestep conversations like these. Engaging saps so much time and energy. But avoiding them leaves me feeling dirty. Not because I’ve forgone an opportunity to win an argument, but because I know I’ve failed to defend those who need and deserve my solidarity.
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09/29/2024 - 09:28
Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits
Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border that traverses an Alpine peak as melting glaciers shift the historically defined frontier.
The two countries agreed to the modifications beneath the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, which straddles Switzerland’s Zermatt region and Italy’s Aosta valley.
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09/29/2024 - 08:00
‘The Grapevine’, which connects the metropolis to the state’s agricultural hub, now serves as a window to the effects of climate crisis
Wildfires. Snowstorms. Falling boulders. DC Williams has long given up on predicting what the day will bring on Interstate 5 near Tejon Pass, an eight-lane stretch of highway that winds through the steep mountains north of Los Angeles.
Williams has been an officer with the California Highway Patrol and worked in this area for 11 years. On a chilly day this spring, he wore a thick black jacket even as he sat inside his Ford Explorer on a bridge overlooking the highway.
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09/29/2024 - 07:00
Rightwing US thinktank claimed in report that non-profit holding trainings is ‘corruptly influencing the courts’
A rightwing organization is attacking efforts to educate judges about the climate crisis. The group appears to be connected to Leonard Leo, the architect of the rightwing takeover of the American judiciary who helped select Trump’s supreme court nominees, the Guardian has learned.
The Washington DC-based non-profit Environmental Law Institute (ELI)’s Climate Judiciary Project holds seminars for lawyers and judges about the climate crisis. It aims to “provide neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation”, according to ELI’s website.
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09/29/2024 - 03:00
More than 30 businesses have written to the environment secretary calling for mandatory reporting of wasted food
Food companies should have to report how much they throw away as a first step towards reducing the vast amounts of edible food squandered in the UK, a group of prominent businesses have said.
About a third of the food produced globally every year is binned, much of it before it reaches the consumer at a cost of almost £22bn annually to the UK economy.
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09/29/2024 - 02:26
Two weather warnings for wind and rain, with river levels already high and ground saturated in some places
England and Wales are braced for heavy rain and strong winds just days after homes and businesses were flooded.
Two fresh weather warnings come into force on Sunday for wind and rain which will hit areas already saturated by downpours earlier in the week.
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09/29/2024 - 01:00
Thanks to the city’s famously rainy climate, trees suffering in the south can be moved, says the Royal Horticultural Society
The climate is changing British gardens everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. The Royal Horticultural Society has modelled how global heating will affect its property until 2075 and discovered that summers will be hotter and drier in all its gardens – except in Manchester.
Greater Manchester’s renown as a rain trap – there is even a website tracking rainfall, called Rainchester – means that the RHS Bridgewater garden in Salford is being earmarked for species that thrive in a cooler, wetter climate.
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09/29/2024 - 01:00
‘Economically illiterate’ Defra letter sent to anti-sewage groups cites 2018 report commissioned by water companies
Labour used “economically illiterate” analysis paid for by water companies in order to argue against the nationalisation of the sector, the Guardian can reveal.
In an official letter recently sent to anti-sewage groups, civil servants cited a paper by the Social Market Foundation as a reason to avoid nationalisation as part of its review of the sector. The report from 2018 was commissioned by United Utilities, Anglian Water, Severn Trent and South West Water.
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09/28/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 29 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00086-2
Risks of competing discourses of scientific responsibility in global ocean futures