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The agency's decision allows California — which has some of the nation's worst air pollution — to require truck manufacturers to sell more zero-emission trucks over the next couple of decades.

(Image credit: Noah Berger/AP)

Scientists responsible for monitoring the health of New Zealand's glaciers have revealed a trend of declining snow and ice. The 2023 survey was the 46th undertaken in a collaboration between the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), Victoria University of Wellington, and the Department of Conservation. The longstanding project captures an aerial portrait of more than 50 Southern Alps glaciers at a similar time each year to track how they change. The team spent nearly eight hours travelling back and forth over the alps, taking thousands of aerial photographs of glaciers of differing sizes and orientations to use in various national and international research projects, including one that builds 3D models used to compare snow and ice year-to-year

• Tess's story here

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The federal government is accusing Norfolk Southern of "unlawfully polluting" the country's waterways and violating the Clean Water Act in the accident near East Palestine.

(Image credit: Dustin Franz/AFP via Getty Images)

Lib Dems call for Thérèse Coffey to resign after raw discharges sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year

Keir Starmer has accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer”, as data showed raw discharges were sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year.

Private water companies have been consistently accused of failing to take action, and the Environment Agency admitted there were more than 300,000 spillages into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours.

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Men staged protest in City of London in October 2021, which included one gluing head to road to block traffic

Four climate protesters, including a man who glued his head to the road in order to block traffic in central London, have escaped jail terms.

Matthew Tulley, 44, Ben Taylor, 38, George Burrow, 68 and Anthony Hill, 72, staged a protest between Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street in the City of London on 25 October 2021. They were convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Inner London crown court. All four represented themselves.

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Julie Mecoli, 68, Stefania Morosi, 45, Louise Lancaster, 57, and Nicholas Till, 67, took part in London street blockade in 2021

Four climate protesters who stopped traffic on a central London road during rush hour have been convicted of causing a public nuisance.

Julie Mecoli, 68, Stefania Morosi, 45, Louise Lancaster, 57 and Nicholas Till, 67, were among a group of Insulate Britain supporters who walked into Upper Thames Street on 25 October 2021 while a separate group also blocked nearby roads on Bishopsgate, in the City of London financial district. All four denied the charges.

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The first outbreak this year was in Equatorial Guinea, which has seen 20 deaths already. Now there are cases reported in Tanzania as well for this infectious disease with a high fatality rate.

(Image credit: Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The 57-year-old orca was captured over 50 years ago at the age of 4 from the Pacific coast near Seattle. She retired last spring from performing in exhibition shows.

(Image credit: Nuri Vallbona/AP)

Scientists find that using oysters as water filters helps the bivalve and other species thrive – and could treble the amount of carbon going into the seabed

Good whisky needs pure clean water, which partly explains why distilleries in Scotland always seem to have such scenic, loch-side backdrops. And one of the best ways to filter that water is oysters. Indeed, the European native oyster was so plentiful in Scotland that 30 million a year were harvested from oyster beds outside Edinburgh in the 1800s.

But today the species is almost extinct: populations have dropped by 85% over the past century, most likely because of overfishing from bottom trawling.

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The Marine Mammal Protection Act was amended in 2021 to prohibit people from being within 50 feet of spinner dolphins in Hawaii.

(Image credit: Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP)

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a baby egret, a newborn shark and a zebra on the loose

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Took all day to program this ESP32 microcontroller with an onboard 135x240 resolution LCD screen.  It gets the correct date, time, and local weather conditions from the internet when it goes online briefly at startup.   Not sure how I feel about the illusion of gratification from completing this project.  Ideally, it should have taken less than an hour - so the real accomplishment was sticking with it and not the project itself.  This is what inspired it.  
In other news:  My Facebook account was magically restored this morning after being informed a week ago that it could not be.  (Wondering if the 10 emails I sent to Facebook had anything to do with that).  Having been "weened" from checking it several times a day, I've decided that I will keep it active but not actively use it anymore.  Now it is just a place to store the 1000's of photos I have posted over the past 10+ years.  78,83,52,0,B

Miami Seaquarium, where the whale performed, announced a ‘binding’ agreement to relocate her to her home – Puget Sound

More than five decades after being captured in the waters off the Pacific north-west, Tokitae the orca has a plan to return home, delivering a victory to animal rights advocates and Indigenous leaders who have long fought for her release.

On Thursday, the owners of the Miami Seaquarium where Tokitae lives announced a “formal and binding agreement” with a group called the Friends of Lolita to begin the process of returning Tokitae to Puget Sound. A news release indicates that the joint effort is “working toward and hope the relocation will be possible in the next 18 to 24 months”.

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Environmentalists question high grade given to JBS and accuse it of deforestation in the Amazon and under-reporting emissions

The award of an A-minus sustainability grade to the world’s biggest meat company has raised eyebrows and kicked off a debate about the rating system for environmental and social governance.

Brazilian meat company JBS has previously been linked to deforestation in the Amazon, where its slaughterhouses process beef from ranches carved out of the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes. But in the latest Climate Change Report by the influential rating organisation CDP, the multinational got a grade of A- for its efforts to tackle climate change – up from B in the previous assessment – and was given a “leadership” status award.

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Government admits its policies will achieve only 92% of cuts and experts think that is a ‘generous reading’

The UK government has said it is still on track to meet its international climate commitments under the Paris agreement, as analysis of its energy plans suggested more drastic policies would be needed to make the required carbon cuts.

Ministers announced the UK’s revamped net zero strategy on Thursday, with a raft of documents exceeding 1,000 pages, setting out policies on sectors from biomass to solar power, and from electric vehicles to nuclear reactors. It came as Rishi Sunak headed to Oxfordshire to visit a development facility for nuclear fusion, accompanied by Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary.

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Parts of the Himalayas in India are seeing people leave for cities that offer more jobs. Those left behind feel forgotten as the government looks to use the land for resources for the growing cities.

(Image credit: Raksha Kumar/NPR)

Therésè Coffey may bring Food Standards Agency, now overseen by health department, under remit of Defra

The UK government is considering tightening control over the Food Standards Agency (FSA) after news that allegedly fraudulent pork products found their way on to supermarket shelves.

Therésè Coffey, the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), told the House of Commons on Thursday that she would look at bringing the FSA under her department’s control.

This article was amended on 30 March 2022. An earlier version said that Robert Goodwill was Defra minister of state; in fact he is chair of the EFRA committee.

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Scottish first minister's questions was disrupted five times on Thursday as Yousaf took questions from MSPs. When FMQs eventually got going, Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, queried Yousaf's appointment of an independence minister, asking if it was a fair use of taxpayers' money. Yousaf hit back, telling MSPs that independence was a priority for the Scottish people. Yousaf said: 'I make no apology whatsoever for having a minister for independence because, my goodness, we need it more than ever before'

• Can Humza Yousaf unite the SNP? – Politics Weekly UK

• What challenges await the new SNP leader and first minister of Scotland?

• Postponing state pension age decision ‘not exactly a sign of strength’, Jacob Rees-Mogg tells Tories – UK politics live

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European Union states agreed to a plan after adding an exemption for cars that run on e-fuels. In the U.S., efforts to phase out gas-powered cars include future bans in several states.

(Image credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images)

At the Primal Gathering retreat, attendees seek new – and sometimes surreal – ways to connect with nature and take meaningful action on environmental destruction

The explorer and documentary maker Bruce Parry pushed his penis inside his body on his 2005 BBC show Tribe in an effort to be accepted by the Kombai people in New Guinea, before turning white and having to lie down. He would do whatever it took to assimilate, including taking hallucinogenic drugs, drinking blood and running naked across the backs of a row of cattle.

Now he is focusing his energies closer to home. He is using the knowledge he gained from Indigenous societies around the world to encourage people in the UK to form stronger communities that can take meaningful action to halt ecological destruction.

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