Environment

Video footage of apparent attack on bicycle rider goes viral after incident in Hornchurch on the edge of London

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The annually-averaged temperature was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th century average, and easily broke the records set in 2005 and 2010.

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2014 was the hottest year on record, without assistance from El Niño

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Permits set out conditions that shale company Cuadrilla must follow to protect people and the environment if they get the go-ahead to start exploration at the proposed site

A proposed site for controversial fracking for shale gas has been granted environmental permits by regulators.

The permits set out the conditions that shale company Cuadrilla must follow to protect groundwater, surface water and air quality and safely manage and dispose of waste at Preston New Road, Plumpton, in Lancashire, the Environment Agency said.

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A ghost crab, ‘kissing’ seals and the return of Oregon’s wolves feature in this week’s round-up of images from the natural world

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The week's top environment news stories and green events

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• Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists
• Axa warns that companies linked to fossil fuels risk their reputations
• Pope Francis says climate change is mostly man's fault
• Harvard defies divestment campaigners and invests tens of millions of dollars in fossil fuels
• Companies will be legally required to reveal chemicals used for fracking
• High gold prices causing increased deforestation in South America, study finds
• 'Green' biomass boilers may waste billions in public money
• Ten Democratic senators vote with Republicans for Keystone XL pipeline
• Barack Obama moves to cut US methane emissions by almost half
• GM crops to be fast-tracked in UK following EU vote

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If you’ve run out of gears on a steep slope, surely it makes sense to hop off the bike and push? So why is it considered the ultimate cycling heresy by many?

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Federal court rules that size of Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 was smaller than the US government had claimed

BP will face a maximum fine of $13.7bn under the Clean Water Act for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, several billion less than feared.

Federal magistrate Carl Barbier ruled on Thursday that the size of the spill from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, the worst offshore spill in US history, was smaller than the government had claimed.

Related: 2014 officially the hottest year on record, US government scientists say

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West Dean Woods, West Sussex: It is a stouter, thicker-set bird than the chaffinches, with a disproportionately large head, a heavy, powerful bill and a short, stubby tail Continue reading...

The 17-year-old boy is in a stable condition after being bitten on the hand while spearfishing at Mollymook

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As 2014 is officially confirmed as the world’s hottest year on record, we take a look at some of the places the mercury peaked and the effects the heat had on people and the environment

• 2014 officially the hottest year on record, US government scientists say

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Man walking around Australia in costume to raise funds for children’s hospital says king brown struck his shin and it was only the plastic armour that saved him

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Humans are ‘eating away at our own life support systems’ at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years, two new research papers say

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Climate risk is becoming ‘synonymous with reputation risk’ as a growing fossil fuel divestment movement gains traction with investors around the world, says major European investor Axa IM

The reputations of companies linked to fossil fuels are at immediate risk from a fast-growing divestment campaign, one of Europe’s biggest asset managers has warned.

Only a quarter of existing, exploitable fossil fuel reserves are burnable if global warming is not to exceed dangerous levels, according to recent analyses. Campaigners have called for divestment on moral grounds but, if governments fulfil their pledges to curb climate change, trillions of dollars of coal, oil and gas held by investors would become worthless.

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Join us on 22 January, 1-3pm GMT to discuss how sport, film, music, art and fashion can influence climate action in the run-up to Cop 21 in Paris

Sponsored by Connect4Climate

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Leading UK environmentalist Jonathon Porritt calls his years working on green energy projects with Shell and BP a ‘painful journey’ that have led him to believe no major fossil fuel company will commit to renewables in the near future

• Engaging with oil companies on climate change is futile, admits leading UK environmentalist

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After years working on sustainability projects with BP and Shell, Jonathon Porritt says he came to the conclusion it was ‘impossible’ for today’s oil and gas companies to adapt to the need to exit fossil fuels

Jonathon Porritt: It is ‘impossible’ for today’s big oil companies to adapt to climate change

Engaging with major fossil fuel companies on climate change has become futile, according to one of the UK’s most esteemed environmentalists who spent years working on sustainability projects with BP and Shell.

Jonathon Porritt said “hydrocarbon supremacists” at the companies had successfully ousted reformers wanting to diversify into green energy.

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Lima climate summit result was disappointing, says Pope ahead of long-awaited encyclical on the environment

• Pope Francis’s visit to the Philippines: share your photos and stories
  

Pope Francis waded into the global debate about climate change on Thursday, saying that he believed that man was primarily responsible and that he hoped this year’s Paris conference would take a courageous stand to protect the environment.

The Pope said his long-awaited encyclical on the environment was almost finished and that he hoped it would be published in June, in time provide food for thought ahead of the UN climate meeting Paris in November.

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An amendent to the Keystone XL pipeline bill hopes to force Republican climate change deniers to state whether they agree with the science or not

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After seven years, UK high court is due to decide whether BP is responsible for £18m in lost production to Colombian farmers, who claim a pipeline caused severe environmental damage to their lands

A UK high court will shortly decide whether British oil giant BP was responsible for serious environmental damage in Colombia when a pipeline was laid across the land of over 100 small farmers.

The Ocensa pipeline, which takes 650,000 barrels of crude a day from the giant Cusiana-Cupiagua oilfield in central Colombia to the country’s Caribbean coast, was buried up to 1.8 metres deep along its 828km length in the mid-1990s. But the farmers say that the work done was unsatisfactory and the design was at fault. Working with London law firm Leigh Day, they are suing BP for around £18m in lost production.

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