Tidal lagoon: £1.3bn Swansea Bay project to be backed. Block phone. School of Biological Sciences. UK urban meadows hope to help pollinators get buzzing. 12 August 2013Last updated at 20:24 ET By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News The UK has lost an estimated 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s Researchers have planted flower meadows in four UK cities as part of a study to improve understanding of urbanisation on insect pollinators.
Continuing development means that urban areas are growing, and researchers are gathering data to see if floral-rich city habitats would benefit wildlife. The Urban Pollinators Project is the first citywide survey of its kind to assess the role of all urban habitats. The team plan to share their findings at a conference next year. The UK's main pollinators are insects, such as bees, butterflies and hoverflies The three-year £1.3m project involves scientists from four UK universities - Bristol, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh - and is now in its final year. "The project is the largest UK study of urban habitats to date," said project co-ordinator Katherine Baldock, of the University of Bristol.
'Licence to trash' offsetting scheme set back until Autumn. 30 July 2013Last updated at 21:17 ET Government proposals would mean developers would have to pay compensation equal to any damage to habitats There's slightly less of a whiff of BO down at the Department of the Environment these days.
Nothing to do with sweltering civil servants; this BO is the nose wrinkling acronym for biodiversity offsetting - a concept that has been criticised by some environmentalists as a licence to "trash" the countryside. The government is very keen on the idea, the offsetting, that is, not the trashing. But despite their interest, new proposals on offsetting have now been kicked into the autumnal long grass. If we get it right it could benefit the economy and benefit wildlife” End QuoteNik SheltonRSPB The idea of biodiversity offsetting works like this : Developers who want to build houses in environmentally sensitive areas would be allowed to go ahead with their schemes if they could offset any damage by paying for conservation activities in other locations.
Overfilling kettles wastes £68m a year, says report. 3 July 2013Last updated at 23:06 ET Some 40% of people boiled water five times a day or more, the study found Three-quarters of British households overfill their kettles, wasting a total of £68m each year, an Energy Saving Trust (EST) report has suggested.
The study of 86,000 households also found the average shower lasted seven-and-a-half minutes. A minute less and £215m would be saved, the EST said. Washing clothes at 30C and filling kettles to the required amount were among ways to save money, it added. It said people must not think they were "powerless to control our water use". The EST found British homes collectively used nine billion litres of water a day with showers using a quarter of that and toilets using 22%. Kitchen appliances, such as kettles, dishwashers and washing machines - together with taps - also used 22% of household water, the report said. California Senate looks at statewide plastic bag ban. A sign outside a Hacienda Heights grocery store advises shoppers of the… (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles…) SACRAMENTO -- A drive to ban most stores from handing out single-use plastic bags got an important boost Monday when the California Grocers Assn. announced its support for a bill.
The measure by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) would prohibit the bags in grocery stores and pharmacies beginning on Jan. 1, 2015. Shoppers would be urged to bring their own reusable cloth or plastic bags or would have the option of paying the actual cost of a paper bag, estimated at 10 cents or less. Hot link: The 10 biggest beer brands Convenience and liquor stores would face the same requirements on Jan. 1, 2016. An initial hearing on SB 405 in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee is set for Wednesday. "It is time for a statewide single-use plastic bag ban in California," Padilla said at a Capitol news conference. California on the Verge of Banning Single Use Plastic Bags. California on the Verge of Banning Single Use Plastic Bags.