Blue & Green Daily: Tuesday 22 July headlines

Blue & Green Daily finds and summarises the top sustainability stories around the web every morning. We start with our own picks from Blue & Green Tomorrow.

Oxitec: the Oxford business genetically engineering a dead end of mosquitos

Sustainable investment is built on trust

Former environment secretary Owen Paterson claims he was sacked because of ‘green blob’

Co-op Group reforms remove ‘effective member control’, says former chairman

Crowdfunding services Trillion Fund and Buzzbnk announce merger

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22 July headlines

Giving up beef will reduce carbon footprint more than cars, says expert

Beef’s environmental impact dwarfs that of other meat including chicken and pork, new research reveals, with ones expert saying that eating less red meat would be a better way for people to cut carbon emissions than giving up their cars. The heavier impact on the environment of meat production was known but the research shows a new scale and scope of damage. Guardian.

Shale gas reserves in the North West ‘worth £10bn’

Shale gas reserves in part of the North West could be worth £10 billion to the economy and support 3,500 jobs, a report has claimed. The figures are based on extracting five trillion cubic feet of gas at 30 sites in Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire between 2017 and 2031. An anti-fracking group said benefits to the economy were exaggerated. BBC.

Chancellor backs down on cutting carbon targets

George Osborne has been forced to back down from an attempt to weaken measures to tackle global warming. The Tory chancellor had sought changes to Britain’s ‘fourth carbon budget’, which set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions through the 2020s, after claims it would make British businesses left competitive than EU rivals. Financial Times.

Genome editing of crops may be restricted by EU rules, warn scientists

A fledgling technology to manipulate the genes of crops in order to make them less susceptible to disease and more productive is at risk of falling foul of the European Union’s genetic modification rules, scientists have warned. Genome editing is different to genetic modification, because it does not usually involve transplanting genes from one plant to another. Guardian.

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Interesting picks

Paterson’s ‘green blob’ tirade reveals the right’s problem with climate change – Guardian

Climate change already having a profound impact on lakes in Europe – National Geographic

Investing in water – Wealth Management

Climate change is far from the only cause of a rapid rise in disasters – Guardian

Photo: Sanja gjenero via Freeimages