[posted by Holly Watt on The Guardian, December 21, 2017] Hinkley Point, on the Somerset coast, is the biggest building site in Europe. Here, on 430 acres of muddy fields scattered with towering cranes and bright yellow diggers, the first new nuclear power station in the UK since 1995 is slowly taking shape. When it is finally completed, Hinkley Point C will be the most expensive power station in the world. But to reach that stage, it...
[posted by Kim Martineau on The Guardian, December 21, 2017] New research predicts that migrants applying for asylum in the European Union will nearly triple over the average of the last 15 years by 2100 if carbon emissions continue on their current path. The study suggests that cutting emissions could partially stem the tide, but even under an optimistic scenario, Europe could see asylum applications rise by at least a quarter. The...
[posted on The Guardian, December 20th, 2017] France’s parliament has passed into law a ban on producing oil and gas by 2040, a largely symbolic gesture as the country is 99% dependent on hydrocarbon imports. In Tuesday’s vote by show of hands, only the rightwing Republicans party opposed, while leftwing lawmakers abstained. No new permits will be granted to extract fossil fuels and no existing licences will be renewed beyond 2040,...
[posted by Samudra Gupta Kashyap on The Indian Express, November 27th, 2017] Police on Monday here resorted to lathi-charge, tear-gas and firing of rubber bullets to disperse several hundred protestors in order to carry out an eviction drive in the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary that shares boundary with Guwahati city, and demolised over 400 houses illegally constructed inside it. The eviction drive, which was carried out following a...
[Posted on The Guardian, December 12, 2017] A deadly explosion and fire that ripped through Austria’s main gas pipeline hub has caused Italy to declare a state of emergency due to a lack of supplies. One person was killed and 18 injured in the blast on Tuesday in Baumgarten, eastern Austria. A police spokesman said: “There was an explosion around 8:45am (0745 GMT) and a fire. A wide area has been sealed off and there are expected to...
