“Farmers have urged whoever succeeds Liz Truss as UK prime minister to abandon plans to ban solar energy from most of England’s farmland,” reports the Guardian, “arguing that it would hurt food security by cutting off a vital income stream.” Truss, who resigned on Thursday, and her environment secretary, Ranil Read more…
Bill Gates’s climate-oriented venture fund “is plowing more money into climate adaptation,” reports MIT Technology Review: To date, the fund has focused on “climate mitigation,” which largely concentrates on driving down climate pollution. Climate adaptation refers to developing ways of bolstering protections against the dangers of climate change, rather than Read more…
The Biden administration is exploring the possibility of new export controls that would limit China’s access to some of the most powerful emerging computing technologies, according to people familiar with the situation. The potential plans, which are in an early stage, are focused on the still-experimental field of quantum computing, Read more…
France has become the latest country to pull out of the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT), which protects fossil fuel investors from policy changes that might threaten their profits. The Guardian reports: Speaking after an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “France has decided to Read more…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape — the iconic Pillars of Creation — where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. From NASA: The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are far more permeable. These columns are made Read more…
With a few notable exceptions — such as during the 1918 influenza pandemic, World War II and the HIV crisis — life expectancy in the U.S. has had gradual upward trajectory over the past century. But that progress has steeply reversed in the past two years as COVID and other Read more…
Germany’s cybersecurity chief has been fired after allegations of being excessively close to Russia through an association he helped set up. Arne Schonbohm had led the Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI) — charged with protecting government communications — since 2016. German media have accused him of having had links with Read more…