Some Canary Island ants have picked up an unwelcome stowaway — plastic waste.
Plastic entanglement is commonly associated with aquatic and ocean life. Finding plastic-wrapped ants suggests that humankind’s pernicious polymer pollution affects a wider range of wildlife than previously thought, researchers report September 18 in Ecological Entomology.
Scientists noticed the tangled insects while studying 113 ants they’d collected from the volcanic island of La Palma. One Lasius grandis ant was ensnared in a thin, red fiber, while a
When they write the book on the downfall of liberal democracy, will it begin with the heat pumps?
Immediately outside the main train station in the German city of Wiesbaden, an election poster has been tied high up on a lamppost, out of reach of those who would tear it down in the belief that it’s a harbinger of fascism once again spreading across the country. The subject? Not scary depictions of migrants. Nor the overreach of the European Union.
Antibiotic resistance – one of the biggest threats to global health – could be on the rise in part because of increased air pollution, a new study has warned.
Researchers in China have found a global correlation between the a pollutant called PM2.5 in the air and cases of bacteria becoming immune to antibiotic drugs.
Although they’re not certain what’s causing the link, they speculate that antibiotic resistant bacteria are being transported on PM2.5 carried by the air.
PM2.5 are
LONDON — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been under pressure ever since he watered down government rhetoric on net zero targets — from campaigners, industry leaders, and his own warring MPs. Now he faces a challenge on another front: his own voters.
Even as the Tories prevaricate on key climate policies, new polling shows that voters planning to support the Conservative Party at the next election overwhelmingly back the government’s target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Around
As if air pollution wasn’t deadly enough.
Now new research suggests tiny airborne pollutants may be linked to higher rates of drug-resistant lethal bacteria.
In the study, researchers from Zhejiang University, China and the University of Cambridge, England, concluded that air pollution is one of the leading factors driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR) after compiling data from 116 countries between 2000 and 2018, with more than 11.5 million lab test results covering nine bacterial pathogens and 43 types of antibiotics.
The
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It’s hard to punch above your weight if you’re handcuffed.
In Brussels, the Netherlands is known for its assertive positioning in EU legislation in a wide range of policy files. Despite its relatively small size, the Netherlands has a tendency to get involved, even on files that are not at the core of the Dutch domestic debate.
Its prime minister, Mark Rutte, is the second-longest serving European Union leader
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The EU’s pollution problem child is throwing a tantrum.
Italy, one of the bloc’s most polluted countries, has repeatedly failed to meet the EU’s air quality guidelines, prompting the European Commission to take it to court more than once.
Now Rome is lobbying hard to stop Brussels from tightening those guidelines further, arguing that specific geographic and climate conditions — particularly in its northern, industrial regions — prevent it
LONDON — Sadiq Khan is under pressure to ditch a controversial plan to clean up London’s air after a bruising by-election for the mayor’s Labour colleagues. But scrapping the plan is no panacea — and critics will have to explain what replaces it.
London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) aims to reduce the U.K. capital’s emissions of nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide (referred to together as NOx) by imposing a charge on polluting vehicles when they enter the zone. It’s
LONDON — Mayor of London Sadiq Khan moved to soften the impact of a city-wide emissions reduction scheme after a voter backlash saw the Labour Party fail to make a gain at a crucial by-election.
The Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) — which costs drivers of polluting vehicles £12.50 a day to enter — is set to expand to cover the whole of London from 29 August in a bid to tackle the city’s air pollution problem.
Khan, Labour’s London
This article is part of POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Sign up here.
The old adage is that all politics are local — and in Europe’s cities, that’s reflected in municipal policies that mirror the major issues dominating the global conversation.
In an informal survey, seven mayors from cities across the bloc — Athens, Brussels, Bucharest, Mannheim, Rennes, Umeå and Vienna— told POLITICO that the threat posed by climate change
