Tests conducted at 500 UK sites show particle pollution exceeded health guidelines on 6% of school days
Keeping the classroom window closed is not the answer to reduce the amount of pollution coming into schools, a recent study has found.
A project called SAMHE (Schools’ Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education) operated air pollution monitors in nearly 500 classrooms for an academic year and found that days with high outdoor pollution led to higher pollution inside the classrooms.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/24/2025 - 22:33
‘Lack of certainty’ and step back in green ambition has made it hard for previously feasible projects to proceed, mining company says
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The iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue company has cancelled two major green hydrogen projects, laying some of the blame on the Trump administration’s shift away from renewable energy.
Fortescue’s decision to cancel the two ventures in Queensland and Arizona are the latest in a run of canned hydrogen projects in Australia and elsewhere that will raise further questions about the future of the clean fuel.
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07/24/2025 - 17:30
Most comprehensive study of its kind highlights dangers of vehicle emissions and woodburning stoves
Exposure to certain forms of air pollution is linked to an increased risk of developing dementia, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.
The illness is estimated to affect about 57 million people worldwide, with the number expected to increase to at least 150m cases by 2050.
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07/24/2025 - 11:49
Deaths in Cyprus bring overall toll on the eastern Mediterranean island and neighbouring Turkey to 12
Two people have been killed in a huge blaze in Cyprus, bringing the death toll from a series of wildfires on the eastern Mediterranean island and in neighbouring Turkey to 12 amid a brutal heatwave that has pushed temperatures to more than 44C (111F).
Police said two charred bodies were found on Thursday in a burnt-out car that had been caught up in the Cyprus blaze, which began outside Limassol on Wednesday and, fanned by strong winds, rapidly engulfed a string of mountain villages north of the city.
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07/24/2025 - 09:00
Architect of landmark EPA ‘endangerment finding’ says repealing it will lead to more extreme weather in US
One of the architects of a landmark 16-year-old finding on pollution’s impact on health that the Trump administration now wants to eliminate says that doing so would ignore “clearcut” science that has only become clearer today because of extreme weather.
The Trump administration plans would sweep away the US government’s legal authority to limit greenhouse gases in order to address the climate crisis.
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07/24/2025 - 08:29
Centrica keen to stem losses from North Sea Rough storage after company profits halve
Britain may have lower gas stockpiles going into the winter after the owner of British Gas indicated it plans to sell its stored gas to help reduce losses at a North Sea gas storage facility.
Centrica said the financial losses from its Rough gas storage business were not sustainable, meaning it would aim to sell the existing gas at the site without restocking before winter.
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07/24/2025 - 07:40
Conservationists feared 10cm threadsnake as thin as a strand of spaghetti had become extinct
The world’s smallest snake has been rediscovered in Barbados, 20 years after its last sighting.
The Barbados threadsnake, which had been feared extinct, was rediscovered under a rock in the centre of the island during an ecological survey in March by the environment ministry and the conservation organisation Re:wild.
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07/24/2025 - 06:00
EPA said grant to provide clean water was a ‘wasteful DEI program’ as pesticide leaches into residents’ wells
For decades, thousands of residents in California’s agricultural heartland couldn’t use their wells because the water was too contaminated with pesticides. In December, the Biden administration stepped in with a long-awaited $20m grant to provide clean water, improve municipal sources and relieve the region’s financial and health burden.
The Trump administration just took the money away.
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07/24/2025 - 05:00
Electric carmaker struggles to emerge from sales rut on continent despite updating its bestselling Model Y
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Tesla sales in Europe have collapsed by one-third this year, data shows, after Elon Musk warned the electric carmaker faced “a few rough quarters” ahead.
According to the figures published on Thursday by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), sales of Tesla vehicles in Europe slumped by 33% to 110,000 in the first half of 2025, compared with 165,000 in the first half of 2024.
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07/24/2025 - 05:00
Throwing things away is bad. Buying them in the first place was probably bad, too. But the act of disposing of them at the rubbish tip is a glorious moment of relief and release
A friend of mine surprised me with the vehemence of his love for something. He’s about my age, a highly successful maker of important television and avid consumer of Radio 4 and the Guardian. A keen thinker about things, he likes books and podcasts that are a little too advanced for me. All in all, he didn’t seem the type to say what he said, over a pint in our local. Furthermore, there was even a slightly glazed, far-off look in his eye when he announced, with such great feeling rising from deep in his soul: “I really love going to the dump.” It was only then that I realised I was free to admit to sharing this love. It was a moving, bonding moment between us. One love. For the dump.
My dump visits had hitherto been shrouded in a mist of shame. Throwing things away is bad, not least because buying them in the first place was bad, or at least not entirely necessary, which may amount to the same thing. Also, isn’t it all an exercise in shifting the responsibility for your junk on to someone – everyone? – else? This notion that it is magically being recycled, repurposed, reused is surely a fantasy, not much more than a veneer of righteousness to help those of us who feel guilty about it to feel less guilty about it.
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