EU Recovery Fund Has Costly Green Strings Attached
The European Union’s proposed €750 billion ($829B) fund to help the bloc recover from the coronavirus crisis will have green strings attached, with 25% of all funding set aside for climate action, the European Commission has said. It’s now official:…
Polizei Goes Electric — Hyundai Kona EV Popular With Police Fleets Around Europe
I believe there are police officers everywhere who want to switch to electric cars — or are at least interested in finding out more about them. In Europe, the Hyundai Kona EV is a particularly popular model with the police
Coastal engineers: ‘Thinkers’ facing rising seas
(World Scientific) This timely book offers a compendium of design alternatives to reduce coastal flood and wave damage, erosion, and loss of ecosystems resulting from rising seas. A design ‘philosophy’ for water levels to year 2050 and to 2100 is included. Today’s designs must mitigate today’s storm damages and be adaptable for the unpredictable water levels and storms of the future. Online students and engineers working from home can opt for the e-book edition.
Plant-Based Bottles Could Degrade In One Year
Avantium, a company based in the Netherlands, is experimenting with biodegradable plant-based plastics that could replace the single-use plastic bottles used by soda and beer manufacturers.
COVID-19 lockdowns significantly impacting global air quality
(American Geophysical Union) Levels of two major air pollutants have been drastically reduced since lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a secondary pollutant — ground-level ozone — has increased in China, according to new research.
Transporting energy through a single molecular nanowire
(University of Groningen) Photosynthetic systems in nature transport energy very efficiently towards a reaction center, where it is converted into a useful form for the organism. Scientists have been using this as inspiration to learn how to transport energy efficiently in, for example, molecular electronics. Physicist Richard Hildner from the University of Groningen and colleagues have investigated energy transport in an artificial system made from nanofibres. The results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns – USA TODAY
By 2070, up to 3 billion people are likely to live in climate conditions ‘deemed unsuitable for human life to flourish.’ Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could halve the number of people exposed to such hot conditions. The study…
Yellow-legged gull adapts its annual lifecycle to human activities to get food
(University of Barcelona) The yellow-legged gull has a high ability to adapt to human activities and benefit from these as a food resource during all year. This is stated in a scientific article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution whose first author is the researcher Francisco Ramírez, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.
Dutch officials reveal measures to cut emissions after court ruling
The Dutch government has announced measures including huge cuts to coal use, garden greening and limits on livestock herds as part of its plan to lower emissions to comply with a supreme court ruling. Climate litigation activists described the move…
The secret life of godwits
To find out more about birds such as the black-tailed godwit, ecologists have been conducting long-term population studies using standardized information on reproductive behavior — such as dates of egg-laying or hatching and levels of chick survival. New information gathered using geolocators on godwits in the Netherlands shows that traditional observation methods can lead to inaccurate data.
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