bemoreeco

Woolly mammoths died out because of dwindling grasslands – rather than being hunted to extinction by humans, according to a Durham University study.

After the coldest phase of the last ice age 21,000 years ago, the research revealed, there was a dramatic decline in pasture on which the mammoths fed.

The woolly mammoth was once commonplace across many parts of Europe.

It retreated to northern Siberia about 14,000 years ago, where it finally died out approximately 4,000 years ago.

The reasons for its extinction are unclear and have been a matter of heated scientific debate.

Some scientists have argued that it was principally the result of climate change while others say that it was driven by pressures of a growing human population, or even a cataclysmic meteor strike.

Now, according to Professor Brian Huntley of Durham University, that debate has been settled.

“What our results have suggested is that the changing climate, through the effect it had on vegetation, was the key thing that caused the reduction in the population and ultimate extinction of mammoths and many other large herbivores,” he said.

Professor Huntley and his colleagues created a computer simulation of vegetation in Europe, Asia and North America over the last 42,000 years.

They did this by combining estimates of what the climate was like during this period with models of how various plants grow under different conditions.

They found that the cold and dry conditions during the ice age, with reduced concentrations of carbon dioxide, didn’t favour the growth of trees.

So instead of forests there were vast areas of pasture, which was ideal for large herbivores, such as woolly mammoths. But as a result of a warmer, wetter climate and rising concentrations of carbon dioxide at the end of the ice age, trees emerged at the expense of the grasslands.

“During the height of the ice age, mammoths and other large herbivores would have had more food to eat,” said Professor Huntley.

“But as we shifted into the post-glacial stage, trees gradually displaced those herbaceous ecosystems and that much reduced their grazing area.”

>>> Please read the full article here

Volvo have launched a campaign to make people more aware of the dangers that car emissions pose to our health.

Did you know that as many as 50,000 people a year are dying prematurely due to toxic air emissions, linked to fossil fuel combustion? That’s more than 20 times the number that die in road accidents in the UK each year! [source: Environmental Audit Select Committee]

The most dangerous of these emissions NOx, Hydrocarbons and Particulates. But together, we’ll call them “Nasties”. Watch this animation to see the Nasties in action.

Find out more about the Fight for Your Right To Clean Air at www.facebook.com/insidevolvouk and join the debate at www.twitter.com/insidevolvouk

Wind turbines and solar panels will be popping up on schools across the country as part of a Government drive to educate children about climate change.

From today every school in the country will be offered a hi-tech smart meter that shows pupils and staff how much energy is being used at any one time.

Ultimately schools will be expected to go carbon neutral by improving energy efficiency through insulation, double glazing, using low energy equipment and encouraging children to turn off appliances. Schools will also be expected to generate their own heat and power where appropriate by installing solar panels, wood chip boilers and wind turbines.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said it was important people learn about cutting carbon at a young age.
“As parents know, their children have a real desire to become the environmental champions of the future and help save the planet for future generations – and we need to harness this interest and do even more,” he said.
The £12 million initiative to provide smart meters to every school will help monitor energy use. It can also be used as a teaching tool by demonstrating how different appliances and lifestyle changes can cut energy use.

See full article at telegraph.co.uk

Fruit and vegetables help set you up for a healthier lifestyle. Best of all, there is so much variety to choose from, all year long, there’s enough to keep even the fussiest eaters happy.

To get the best health benefits, your 5 A DAY portions should include a combination of a variety of fruit and vegetables. That’s 5 portions altogether, not 5 portions of fruit and 5 portions of veg.

Here are 5 great reasons to eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables A DAY

• They’re packed with vitamins and minerals.
• They can help you to maintain a healthy weight.
• They’re an excellent source of fibre and antioxidants.
• They help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and some cancers.
• They taste delicious and there’s so much variety to choose from.

In the first-ever green think tank for children in the UK, manufacturers and retailers have been urged to do away with unnecessary packaging on games and toys.

The message came the youngsters attending the summit sponsored by British Gas, called Our Planet, Our Say. The event saw the launch of a new schoolchildren’s eco-group that represents more than 9,500 schools.

The think tank, made up of 20 of the schoolchildren chosen as the “greenest”, spent a day at Closed Loop Recycling plant in East London. Members discussed recycling issues and the part recycling plays in climate change and energy usage.

By the time the group concluded its discussions, it identified three policies to tackle energy wastage that it felt should be supported by the UK government.

All of the children involved agreed that new games and toys should be sold either with no packaging materials or have packaging significantly reduced. In addition, they urged soft drink companies to begin using only clear plastic bottles, which would reduce the energy required in bottle manufacturing and recycling.

The government was also advised to introduce more recycling bins and facilities in city centre, parks and other public spaces.

For more information on this article please visit www.clickgreen.org.uk.

Campaigns have done little to reduce the dirt and litter on our streets. So Flemmich Webb of the Guardian ask’s what will it take for people put their rubbish in a bin?

It has happened to most of us at one time or another. You’re strolling along the pavement, when suddenly one shoe gets stuck to the ground. With a sinking feeling, you realise you’ve stepped in chewing gum – or worse.

Walking through British towns and cities, it’s often hard to avoid the litter strewn across the pavements, roads and green spaces – anything from food wrappers, cigarette butts and dog mess to bottles, cans and plastic bags. A staggering 30m tonnes of litter are removed from our streets every day.

Despite numerous anti-litter campaigns over the last decade, the amount of litter being dropped is not decreasing. The latest data, from the Encams (Keep Britain Tidy) local environmental quality survey of England for 2007/08, shows that while there has been a modest reduction of 3% in the amount of litter compared to the previous year, levels have risen since 2004/05.

Since the 1960s, littering has increased by 500%, according to Litterbugs, a recent Policy Exchange and Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) report. It is an unwelcome consequence of the increasingly throwaway society we now live in.

The problem is not just an aesthetic one. Litter is expensive – it costs local authorities in the UK about pounds 500m a year to clean up our rubbish, money that could be better spent on more critical services.

Applying the law can be a problem, too. Councils don’t have the resources to fine everyone who commits an offence. And dishing out fixed penalty notices can backfire, with local people seeing it as yet another ruse by officious councils to squeeze more money out of them.

“Enforcement is important as it helps people understand that littering is illegal but it could never in a million years solve the problem on its own,” says Peter Ramage, the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s director for waste management, culture and leisure.

Source & Full Article – The Guardian 

The team at MoreEco have decided to support a student at London Metropolitan University with their dissertation on ethical consumers. Their research is focussed on a new bottled water product from Iceland called Icelandic Glacial which is carbon neutral. This is, they say, the first bottled water in the world to be given a carbon neutral label. 

For each completed questionnaire we will add 100 FREE MoreEco points to your account. If you wish to receive this please send an email to ’support  at moreeco.com’ or download a copy from here.

All responses need to be sent to ’support at moreeco.com’ by Friday 24th April. 

When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or, even worse, “going green”) falls squarely into the first category. But “sustainable,” which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that’s because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more.

Despite its simplicity, however, sustainability is a concept people have a hard time wrapping their minds around. To help, Scientific American Earth 3.0has consulted with several experts on the topic to find out what kinds of misconceptions they most often encounter. The result is this take on the top 10 myths about sustainability. And after this introduction, it’s clear which myth has to come first….

• Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.
• Myth 2: Sustainability is all about the environment.
• Myth 3: “Sustainable” is a synonym for “green.”
• Myth 4: It’s all about recycling.
• Myth 5: Sustainability is too expensive.
• Myth 6: Sustainability means lowering our standard of living.
• Myth 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention, offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability.
• Myth 8: New technology is always the answer.
• Myth 9: Sustainability is ultimately a population problem.
• Myth 10: Once you understand the concept, living sustainably is a breeze to figure out.

Source & Full Article: Scientific American

You should this foodie quiz at Planet Green to see if you are an “Eco eater’. 

How green are you when it comes to your food? Don’t worry, it won’t taste bad!

Finally you be surprised to find out what a ‘locavore’ is.

At denialism blog we have identified five routine tactics that should set your pseudo-science alarm bells ringing. Spotting them doesn’t guarantee an argument is incorrect – you can argue for true things badly – but when these are the arguments you hear, be on your guard.

• First is the assertion of a conspiracy to suppress the truth. This conspiracy invariably fails to address or explain the data or observation but only generates more unexplained questions.
• The second tactic is selectivity, or cherry-picking the data. Creationists classically would quote scientists out of context to suggest they disagreed with evolution. Global warming denialists similarly engage in this tactic, harping on about long discredited theories and the medieval warming period ad nauseum. But these instances are too numerous and tedious to go into in depth.
• Instead, let’s talk about the third tactic, the use of fake experts, where both creationists and global warming denialists truly shine. Creationists have their Dissent from Darwin list of questionable provenance. Similarly, global warming denialist extraordinaire has his list of climate scientists who disagree with global warming.
• The fourth tactic – moving goalposts or impossible expectations – is the tendency to refuse to accept when denialists’ challenges to the science have been addressed. Instead, they just come up with new challenges for you to prove before they say they’ll believe the theory. Worse, they just repeat their challenges over and over again ad nauseum.
• Finally, the fifth tactic is the catch-all of logical fallacies. You know you’ve heard them. Al Gore is fat! His house uses lots of energy! Evolutionary biologists are mean! God of the gaps, reasoning by analogy, ad hominem, you name it, these arguments, while emotionally appealing, have no impact on the validity of the science.

Source & full article ; The Guardian