Environment

This week warnings from climate change scientists this informed us that the world is halfway towards the threshold that could result in dangerous climate change, revealing that average global temperatures have recorded a rise of one degree Celsius for the first time. The met office informed us that record warm temperatures measured in the first nine months of this year mean that the world has already reached the halfway point towards the arbitrary “threshold” of a 2C increase on pre-industrial...

By Steve Taggart  Climate change has become one of the major issues facing the world in recent years. To this end, many businesses across the globe are now making a concerted effort to ensure that their main office buildings are as environmentally friendly as possible. To celebrate National Work Life Week this month, online furniture retailer, Clever Clicker have compiled a list of five of the most green offices from around the world. So here we go.. 1. The Bullitt Centre in...

By Dr Robin George Andrews @SquigglyVolcano & Dr Alfredo Carpineti  @DrCarpineti    The opposition to genetically modified food is irrational, and when governments who should know better ban it without cause, scientists must speak up. Scotland’s rural secretary has just announced that the growing of genetically modified crops will be banned in the fields of England’s feisty northern neighbour. Unfortunately, like many people on gluten-free diets who aren’t coeliacs, many who approve of this move simply do not understand what they’re eschewing even...

By James Rubin, CEO, www.envirowaste.co.uk UK recycling rates increased rapidly by 32% between 2000 and 2012 but recently this rate has flatlined. Only 33.9% of household waste in London was sent for recycling last year despite Boris Johnson suggesting an initial target of 45% and the EU setting a target of 50% recycling by 2020. As Europe’s greenest major city with 40% of surface area made up of public green spaces, we should be able to work towards these targets....

By Dr Stephanie Wilkie, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sunderland Ask people what ‘home’ means to them and there is no doubt you’ll get a variety of answers. Some people say it’s the bricks and mortar of their dream house, while others may talk about ‘home’ being where their family and loved ones are. The answer might relate to a particular town or district – perhaps where you were brought up. And there are even people who...

By Dr Robin Andrews The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is a chain of fifteen islands adrift in the Pacific Ocean owned and administered by the United States. Due to rising tensions between China and America in the Pacific, one of these small landmasses is suddenly facing two very different futures. On one hand, it could become the site of unique ecological haven; on the other, it could be bombed to oblivion by the U.S. military. This is quite...

By Dr Robin Andrews, TLE Science Editor Everyone’s heard of climate change, but have you ever actually heard climate change? Well thanks to an intrepid musician, now you can. What do you get when you cross a cellist with some scientific know-how? A symphony of the latitudes, of time and space, and of rising global temperatures, as it turns out. I have often thought that there are two distinct stages to humanity’s evolution. There’s the biological kind espoused so wonderfully...

Japan’s new volcanic islands provide scientists with an opportunity to study new life colonising untouched land By Dr. Robin George Andrews, TLE Science Editor  Have you ever heard of an island called Atarashii Shima, off the coast of Japan? I’m betting you haven’t, but to be fair, before November 2013, neither had anyone on the planet. This little island, not given an official name but which the Japanese media christened “new island”, formed close to Nishinoshima (meaning “western island”), a small...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Drawing on culture to promote well-being: communities united by their precarious circumstances Leading academic Matthew Johnson, Aboriginal community leader Mary Graham and Ashington community researcher Tony Bennett, examine how so-called ‘good culture’ can unite communities on opposite sides of the world. The Northumberland pit village of Ashington and Aboriginal settlements around Brisbane are communities united by their experience of relatively stable and long-established social systems being dismantled and replaced by apparently ‘precarious’ ‘circumstances’ including unemployment,...