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environment/2016/sep/20/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-documentary-charts-the-dangers-of-deforestation | Death By A Thousand Cuts: documentary charts the dangers of deforestation | In January 2012, park ranger Eligio Eloy Varga was hacked to death by a machete near the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This incident, still unsolved, kicks off the new documentary thriller, Death by A Thousand Cuts. Airing in the Raindance film festival in London on 1 October, the film explores how the fate of forests in two neighbouring countries has exacerbated social conflict, xenophobia, poverty, and even resulted in multiple murders. “[Haiti and the Dominican Republic] share the island of Hispaniola, but have starkly different trajectories, in large part, related to how they have managed their natural resources,” said Jake Kheel, co-director of the documentary, which won the Jury’s best documentary prize at the Seattle film festival. The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is visible from satellite: the Dominican side is covered in thick forest while the Haitian is largely bare hills. Over hundreds of years, Haiti has lost the vast majority of its forests to charcoal production, which even today remains the primary source for cooking fuel in the impoverished country. Meanwhile, “the Dominican Republic, with far greater forest cover and a functioning protected area system, has become one of the strongest and most stable economies in the region and is often held as a model for natural resource protection and conservation,” said Kheel. “This inequality of resources has often lead to violent conflicts.” Working in the Sierra de Bahoruco national park, murdered park ranger Varga was tasked with combatting an epidemic of illegal deforestation for the charcoal trade that has put pressure on the park’s forests and wildlife. Yolanda Leon, a Dominican biologist and president of local NGO, Grupo Jaragua, called Bahoruco “the jewel of the crown for Hispaniolan biodiversity.” A part of the Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Unesco biosphere reserve, the national park is one of the most important biodiversity sites in all of the Caribbean. It’s home to the Hispaniolan solendon, a bizarre mammal that lived with the dinosaurs, as well as six critically endangered amphibians. Experts have also documented 107 bird species, including many endemic species, and more than 1,500 plants in the reserve. Many of the animals and plants found here no longer survive on the ecologically devastated Haitian side. But the park has also become a flash point for Haitians desperate to make a living by producing charcoal and the Dominicans charged with protecting the forest. “The tragic irony, of course, is that along the border, working class Haitians and Dominicans work side-by-side and have rich and complex intermixing of language, cultural customs and traditions,” said Kheel, who directed the film with Juan Mejia Botero. Up to 1 million Haitians live and work in the Dominican Republic, but have recently become subject to new laws that have forced mass deportations. Tensions between Haitians and Dominicans are largely due to “racism,” according to Leon. She calls it a product of national “patriotic’ sentiment” that portrays Dominicans as Spanish, white, and Christian versus Haitians, who are consistently painted as other, ie black, French, and voodoo-practitioners. “This attitude has been enforced by ruling classes and elites who profit from the cheap labour provided by Haitians to many sectors of the Dominican Republic economy without regard for humane treatment,” she said. Kheel, who has recently screened the film for the Dominican Republic’s new environment minister, hopes his powerful documentary can create change at the top. But he said that he’s not only targeting the Dominican Republic’s government. “There is a tendency in the Dominican Republic, for example, to transfer all responsibility for environmental protection to the government and to simply retreat in frustration when the environment continues to be degraded. I think this is a grave mistake. The government, private sector, environmental groups, and society at large all have a responsibility in environmental stewardship.” To Kheel, the only way forward is for both countries to do something they are not known for: work together. “Until they begin to come up with an integrated, holistic, bi-national solution, it will be difficult to see great progress made,” he said. Shortly after Varga’s murder, two Haitian men had their throats slit and bodies dumped in a canal. Many suspect it was a revenge killing. | ['environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'world/haiti', 'world/dominicanrepublic', 'world/americas', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'profile/jeremy-hance', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-09-20T08:13:42Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2012/oct/11/disney-paper-indonesian-rainforest | Disney updates paper purchasing policy to protect Indonesian rainforest | Environmentalists campaigning to prevent the wholesale destruction of the Indonesian rainforest scored a major victory on Wednesday after coaxing the Walt Disney company, one of the world's largest publishers of children's books, to revamp its paper purchasing policies. After two years of occasionally testy exchanges and intense negotiation with the Rainforest Action Network (Ran), a San Francisco-based advocacy group, Disney agreed in a new written policy to do everything it could to safeguard endangered forests and their ecosystems, which support the sorts of animals celebrated in Disney feature films and their multimedia spinoffs. "Disney is adding its voice to the growing chorus of companies demonstrating that there's no need to sacrifice endangered forests in Indonesia or elsewhere for the paper we use every day," Ran's executive director Rebecca Tarbotton said in a statement. Or, as another activist for the organization put it: "The Jungle Book will no longer be destroying the jungle." Disney will now avoid the mixed tropical hardwoods typically harvested in the Indonesian rainforest and will seek alternative sources such as recycled paper and wood harvested according to the recommendations of the internationally recognized Forest Stewardship Council. The company said in a news release accompanying its new written policy that it would "work with non-governmental organizations to identify and prioritize regions with poor forest management and high rates of deforestation". It also pledged to issue annual reports on its progress. Disney is the ninth major US publisher to switch its paper purchasing policy in response to an alarming study published by the Rainforest Action Network in 2010, which offered scientific proof that pulp from endangered trees were turning up in the glossy colour pages of children's books, cookery books and coffee-table style art books. Unlike the other eight publishers, however, Disney initially held out, offering only token changes and dismissing calls from Ran for a broader policy review. Negotiations began in earnest only after Ran activists, dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse, chained themselves to the gates of Disney headquarters in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank in May 2011 and erected a huge banner reading "Disney: Destroying Indonesia's Rainforests". Within a week of that protest, initially dismissed by Disney as a "no more than publicity stunt", a delegation of senior executives had flown to Ran's offices in San Francisco and begun serious negotiations. The problem, according to Robin Averbeck, who has spearheaded Ran's Disney campaign, was that top management did not wake up to the reality of what was going on until the protest encouraged them to take a more careful look. "Transparency in the supply chain is very challenging. The pulp comes from a forest to a paper mill to a broker to a printer to a supplier to Disney," Averbeck said. "When a company has Disney's enormous global reach, its arms are so long they often don't know what their hands are doing." She and other negotiators for Ran said that it didn't take long for senior executives to understand how damaging it could be to Disney's brand to be associated with the destruction of ancient forests, the dwindling of Sumatran tigers and elephants, and a major contribution to global warming. Nailing down a new policy was highly intricate, because of the number of moving parts. Disney products are manufactured in close to 25,000 factories worldwide, about 10,000 of them in China. The new purchasing agreement does not just cover books – it applies to theme park brochures and cruise ship menus and corporate stationery. Ran has been remarkably successful in challenging big corporations on this issue, largely because of the startling analysis it conducted on a number of paper products in its 2010 study. It commissioned a specialist laboratory in Wisconsin to examine paper samples under a microscope and identify the wood types in the pulp – the paper industry equivalent of using DNA analysis to draw conclusions from a crime scene. Since then, numerous corporations in and out of publishing – they include Random House, Pierson/Penguin, Mattel and Tiffany – have changed their paper purchasing practices. The lone holdout among those identified in the 2010 report as a rainforest menace is HarperCollins, the book publishing division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire, which Ran continues to define as a "laggard". HarperCollins began negotiations with Ran, like the other companies, but pulled out for reasons that have never been spelled out publicly. HarperCollins, however, defended its policies, and contested Ran's right to decide whether they meet an appropriate standard. "We use only acceptable fibre sources, and have worked with printers to eliminate the use of Indonesian fibre," company spokeswoman Erin Crum said. Crum held up HarperCollins's UK division as a model for the industry, saying it was one of the first to seek certification from the Forest Stewardship Council and now uses FSC-certified paper in at least 60% of its products. • This article was amended on 31 October 2012, following a complaint from Asia Pacific Resources International Limited, to take out claims that Disney is severing its ties with two paper producers. | ['environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'media/disney-channel', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/indonesia', 'tone/news', 'books/publishing', 'us-news/california', 'books/books', 'type/article', 'profile/andrew-gumbel'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2012-10-11T16:30:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2023/oct/18/harmful-toxic-chemicals-eu-dropped-plans-block-them | We know how harmful toxic chemicals can be to people. So why has the EU dropped plans to block them? | Geoffrey Lean | Can there be a better example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? In a disclosure that threatens to go relatively unnoticed, it emerges that at the last minute, vital steps to protect Europeans from toxic chemicals have fallen foul of the growing political backlash against green measures. Continent-wide rules that would have banned the use of dangerous substances have been delayed and may now be abandoned altogether, with huge consequences for human health and the chemical industry. As exclusively reported by the Guardian, the European Commission has dropped plans to regulate chemicals from its latest work programme after lobbying by industry and opposition from rightwing politicians. The measures – whose details had been virtually finalised ready for publication – would, among other things, have outlawed all but essential use of thousands of hazardous substances believed to cause more than a quarter of a million cancers in Europe each year. The setback is the latest in a chain of events in Europe and the UK that threaten to develop into the biggest reversal of environmental progress in at least half a century. It follows the revision of net-zero targets in Britain after the revolt against Ulez in the Uxbridge byelection, European government measures to water down rules on vehicle emissions, an almost successful attempt to overturn the EU nature protection programme in July, and a crackdown in many countries against disruptive protests that have often antagonised public opinion. It means that Europeans will continue to be exposed to toxins that have already been found to contaminate their bodies and be passed to babies both in the womb and through breast milk. And it will even damage much of the chemical industry by maintaining uncertainty about its future regulation, penalising frontrunner companies that have already invested in developing safer substitutes, hampering innovation, and threatening to keep Europe behind the global market on sustainable substitutes. More than 350,000 human-made chemicals have been registered on the global market and the industry is booming: production doubled between 2000 and 2017 and is expected to double again by 2030. They are ubiquitous, from the poles and the deepest ocean to our own homes: we are all exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of them every day. They have brought great benefits, but no one knows how safe or harmful most of them are individually, let alone in the combinations we routinely encounter. Many thousands, however, have already been linked to cancer, neurological effects, reproductive damage and harm to immune systems. And studies have shown that every one of us – including babies – carries toxic chemicals in our blood. The EU itself recognises that the chemicals are both “a threat to human health” and “one of the key drivers putting the Earth at risk”. And the European Environment Agency identifies them as one reason why the continent, with 6% of the world’s people, reports nearly 23% of its new cancer cases: its figures suggest that the toxins account for at least 270,000 cancers every year. Unfortunately the chemicals are so widespread that there is virtually nothing that individual people can do to protect themselves. We have to rely on official regulations. Twenty years ago next week, the European Union published the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (Reach) law, its first comprehensive attempt at regulation, which came into effect in 2007. Though a huge step forward, it was found to have many deficiencies – for instance in getting industries to provide safety information and in regulating quickly enough. Everyone – from environmentalists to the industry – agreed that Reach needed reform, and this was announced in 2020. But parts of the industry quickly began lobbying against its tougher measures, including the ban. Its arguments are the same as those used to try to roll back other green measures: that the industry could not afford change in the economic climate after the invasion of Ukraine, and that the measures risked forfeiting public support. However, the EU chemical industry’s revenue soared by €232bn between 2011 and 2021, far above expectations, and polls show that 84% of Europeans are worried about the impact of chemicals on their health and 90% about their effect on the environment. Nevertheless, the opponents pressed ahead, slowly overcoming resistance from the European parliament, environmentalists and some governments as the backlash took hold. Last year the parliament’s centre-right EPP group called for a halt, and shortly afterwards the commission failed to include Reach reform in its work programme, delaying it for a year. EU vice-president Marŏs Šefčovič promised that he would not hesitate to bring forward the reform when it was ready, and it was therefore expected in the new work programme. That hope now seems forlorn. Fine aims underpin the EU, including the health of its people. It is time to live up to them. Geoffrey Lean is a specialist environment correspondent and author | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/pfas', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/geoffrey-lean', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-10-18T14:43:05Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2014/mar/20/how-to-build-table-budget-do-something-creative | How to build a table on a budget | I can pinpoint exactly when I decided to learn woodwork. I had gone on the website of a certain Scandi superstore and ordered far too many shelving units late at night, and then found myself surrounded by flatpacks for a month. Not that this had left me in flatpack hell - in fact it was flatpack heaven, digging my toolbox out and remembering the joy of making things. It's just that all you really do with those kits is shove some dowel into pre-formatted holes in fibreboard, bang about a bit, and curse the dude in the instructions who looks like Morph. I wondered why I was still buying furniture made this way. Especially given that it's no longer all that cheap. And so it was that I looked up woodwork courses and found the Goodlife Centre, which filled me with hope that an amateur like me could make something real – a long, wooden kitchen table where Jesus might host a few disciples, to be precise. They did not laugh at this dream – even when I explained that I really didn't know what I was doing but that I'd like to make it entirely from reclaimed wood, and for under 50 quid. (What I didn't explain was that this was motivated by the stunning dining table in a shop near my house that costs a grand and a half, which makes me want to weep every time I walk by.) Arriving at the centre, the furniture-maker Scott Stannard and the Goodlife founder Alison Winfield-Chislett got me to work cleaning down the planks that we had salvaged from a reclamation yard. Obviously, there were much more beautiful floorboards for sale, but the ruined ones were all we could get on my budget, all stained and rained on in the bargain bin outside. They looked so unconvincing that I wasn't sure why we didn't go and nick some timber out of a skip instead. So it was truly astonishing how nicely they came up after Scott showed me how to bring them back to life. We used pincers to pull out all the old nails and other bits stuck in them. (I thought I'd got them all until Scott pointed out wood has two sides, and I might want to turn them over. Ah.) Then I scrubbed at them with a dry wire brush until clouds of black dust came out, and sanded them, but not too much in case I ruined them. Scott kept talking about grain, not something I had ever thought much about, but the more it revealed its gorgeous self, the more keenly I felt the sadness of the flatpacks. This was such beautiful, used wood. Finally, I used a cloth to rub beeswax all over them – it dries quicker than varnish and I wanted my table done in a day. Thoroughly heartened by this resurrection, we cracked on with all the sawing, drilling and the trestle legs, which involved the use of Pythagoras. I must confess that I had a lot of help from my teachers and didn't do every bit myself, as my hand-sawing achieved in minutes what their scary machinery achieved in seconds. Top tip: hand sawing is actually quite a gentle movement. Don't overcompensate for your weakness by leaning in too hard. Ah, but sawing feels good, though – that little pile of sawdust emerging like a hamster's bedroom is such a cheering sight. When my table was finished, I felt amazing. It was such a rush to think I had done something that we tell ourselves only other people can do. Bringing it home and feeding my whole family dinner on it – well, I'm not sure when I last felt that proud. The next day I sat at my table and looked through a fashion magazine, in which a model was perched on an old school desk in a glorious multicoloured silk dress. It dawned on me after a while that I had ignored the dress completely and was just staring at the lovely desk, thinking how satisfying it would be to sand down that one conspicuously rough edge beside her leg and then varnish it again. Over to you: share your hand-made furniture Have you built furniture out of reclaimed material? Is it just the job or a work in progress? We'd love to see pictures of your efforts, and hear the stories behind them. The best contributions will feature in the April issue of Do Something, the Guardian's new monthly activities magazine. Please upload high-res images so that we can publish them in print. To take part, just click on the blue "contribute" button or download the free GuardianWitness app for your smartphone. | ['lifeandstyle/series/do-something-creative', 'lifeandstyle/craft', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'lifeandstyle/series/how-to', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'profile/sophieheawood', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/do-something', 'theguardian/do-something/do-something'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-03-20T12:02:54Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2018/jul/21/yes-plastic-is-an-eco-nightmare-but-its-also-tired-old-technology | Yes, plastic is an eco nightmare. But it’s also tired, old technology | Lucy Siegle | Everybody is moved by the plastic pandemic, but whenever I bring up the possibility of using something else a chorus of manufacturers and retailers tells me I must not demonise this “miracle material”. After all, it has been included in heart valves, the cockpits of Second World War allied bomber aircraft, bulletproof vests and enabled space travel. It is heroic by implication. To which I can only reply: “Yes, but what about the spork, a sort of spoon, fork and knife combo?” As I watched said sporks roll off the extruding machines at a Northampton factory I was struck by the enthusiasm of the factory boss. He talked of the lightning speed of production (although did not mention the lightning speed of disposal) and cutting-edge R&D. It was as if we were about to witness the next generation of Apple watch rather than a disposable, cutlery hybrid that facilitates the “lunchables” market. It’s pretty clear to everybody that plastic is a dumb material to pick for everyday use. First, it doesn’t go anywhere. Since plastic was commercialised and brought to market in the 50s, 8.3bn tonnes has been created. That’s the weight of one billion elephants. According to a groundbreaking study published last year, led by Prof Roland Geyer, just 9% has been recycled, 12% incinerated and 79% has accumulated in landfills or the wider environment. So that’s the “worthy” argument, if you like. But perhaps we should concentrate more on our lack of technological ambition. Is plastic really the best we can do? Once perhaps. In fact, the spork masks an epic story of discovery. The great-grandfathers of plastic – Alexander Parkes, John Wesley Wyatt and Leo Baekeland – undertook thousands of dangerous experiments with combustible ingredients in basements and lean-tos. This was breakthrough chemistry. They moved away from the confines of classic organic chemistry. For the first time, limits weren’t set by using wood from trees or ore dug up from the ground where the behaviour, amount and structure of the material was already dictated. Instead, chemists were able to alter the molecular chain of plastics, giving the material different properties. It could bend, stretch or become translucent or incredibly durable. It put the chemists in control. This must have really had the wow factor at the time, but now? Is this the extent of our vaulting ambition? Why aren’t we focused on the material that will define us, in a new, post-plastics era? This complacency is matched by a curious tolerance for really terrible design. We all have multiple examples. My standout this year was a BA short-haul flight to Zurich (yes, I know, carbon emissions). The coffee was poured in a giant sippy cup, made from multiple different polymers and featuring a “patent-pending” mesh spout. It was so counterintuitive and so fraught with possibilities of causing injury that each passenger had to be given an induction in how to use it by the aircrew. We landed before mine was complete. But my true nemesis is the shrink-wrapped coconut. Today, you’ll find a next-generation version in almost every supermarket in Britain. Not only are they shrink-wrapped, but they come on a special perch and fitted with a plastic ring pull. They are stamped “Genuine Coconut”. Why? This week, I am launching #FreeYourCoconuts, a viral campaign to shame British retailers into eliminating this ridiculous overpackaging once and for all. There is plenty to get to grips with. In the UK, we’re world leaders in consumption of wet wipes (10.8bn of these plastic-based drain-perils are used every year) and plastic-stemmed cotton buds (13.2bn). This all adds up to a giant plastic footprint. By my reckoning, we each plough through 139kg-140kg of plastic a year, three times as much as in the 1980s. Much of it can be deemed unnecessary; some will end up in the marine environment (about 50 items a year). Just a tiny proportion will be recycled. The injustice is not only to the planet. Ninety per cent of the cost of disposal of plastic is borne by consumers and just 10% by the manufacturers and retailers that impose it on us in the first place. And let’s face it, overengineered coffee cups and coconuts are not where human ingenuity should be utilised. We can do better. We must do it quickly. Last week, I spoke to fellow activist Emily Penn. Leading a voyage with an all-female crew as part of eXXpedition, she was calling from the North Pacific gyre, one of the five gyres where ocean plastic congregates. She might have been on a crackly satellite phone, but the downcast tone of her voice was unmistakable. “In 10 years, I have never seen the plastic pollution this bad,” she told me. We have to act now. “Plastic is a design failure,” says Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans, who created the Adidas ocean waste shoe. To get stuck with plastic for any longer will be a failure of imagination. Lucy Siegle is the author of Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/lucysiegle', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-comment'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-07-21T17:00:41Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
news/2023/jun/01/foggy-future-arctic-shipping-sea-ice-melts-global-warming-travel | Foggy future for Arctic shipping as sea ice melts | Rapid warming in the Arctic has opened up faster shipping channels through the fabled Northwest Passage in recent decades, but a study reveals that the reduction in ice is likely to lead to increased levels of fog, potentially removing the benefits of these high-latitude short cuts. As sea ice melts, more of the underlying warmer water comes into contact with cold air, increasing the chances of water vapour condensing into fog. Xianyao Chen from the Ocean University of China and colleagues plugged historical fog data into climate models to assess how much the fogginess along the Northwest Passage (through the Canadian archipelago) and the Northern Sea Route (along the Russian Arctic coast) is likely to increase. Their findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, show that fog is already slowing shipping along these routes, and by 2100 increased fogginess could add three days to the Northwest Passage route (under a moderate 3C warming scenario). Furthermore, the reduced visibility increases the risk of collision with icebergs. The results suggest that many of the current projections for Arctic shipping routes could be too optimistic in terms of the amount of time and money they can save, but adjusting shipping routes away from the sea ice edge (where the worst fog occurs) could lower risks and save time. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/environment', 'world/arctic', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/shipping-industry', 'world/water-transport', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-06-01T05:00:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2022/sep/16/rats-new-york-citys-rodent-problem-compost-initiative | Rats to the rescue: could pesky rodents finally get New Yorkers composting? | At an August rally on the steps of New York’s city hall, rats were in the crosshairs. “No to rats”, read one poster. “Starve a rat”, read another. On a third, a pink rodent in a crown lounged on a throne of black garbage bags. The demonstration wasn’t a generalized expression of anti-rat fervor. It was a gathering of sustainable waste activists. They had a proposition: composting could solve an escalating rodent problem that’s spreading across the city. “Our streets and sidewalks will be cleaner”, said New York City council member Carlina Rivera, “They’ll smell better and they’ll provide less food for rats, which is a public health crisis right now.” Rats have long been a scourge of New York City, but the pandemic made them public nuisance number one. A rise in outdoor dining and delivery, paired with reduced waste services, created unusually favorable conditions for them. “The rat population has exploded,” says Ushma Pandya Mehta, a zero waste activist and co-founder of Think Zero, a waste management consultancy. The total number of rat complaints since the pandemic began is close to 45,000. Some months, the city receives 60% more calls about rodents than it did before 2020. In response, New York City has declared a crusade against the rodents, unleashing an arsenal of anti-rat policies. It has expanded the availability of rat-proof waste containers, and proposed new rules limiting how early trash can hit the curb before pickup – reducing the amount of time rats have to tear into the ubiquitous black plastic trash bags. Now, the city’s rat problem could hasten a revolutionary change in waste management that advocates and city council members have been attempting to push through for years. Organic waste advocates are wielding the power of New Yorkers’ rat revulsion to advance a cluster of bills, known as the Zero Waste Legislative Package, that would expand composting services throughout the five boroughs. “It’s going to create the most tangible, actionable path towards achieving a very significant benchmark,” says Sandy Nurse, one of the three council members behind the suite of bills: “Capture a third of the waste stream and divert it from landfills or incineration.” Almost 40% of the city’s waste is organic – theoretically compostable. City compost advocates say that putting those materials, including food waste, into rat-proof compost bins would keep methane-producing waste from both landfills and the paws of rats. In addition to creating drop-off sites for organics across the city and compelling the sanitation department to send zero waste to landfills by 2030, the bills would establish curbside compost pick-up citywide – an addition to existing services for general waste and recycling. If passed, Nurse says the package would create “the largest, most robust organics diversion sets of operations in the country.” Simultaneously, the New York City department of sanitation (DSNY) revived enforcement of pre-pandemic rules around commercial composting. It’s also preparing to launch a borough-wide composting pilot program for Queens that will begin this October. “Rat mitigation is one factor we consider in every policy decision,” the DSNY press secretary, Vincent Gragnani, wrote in an email. The bills would fulfil long-held ambitions for zero waste advocates. “In the activist network I think we always have dreamed about getting there,” says Christine Datz-Romero, executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center. Several of the bills are reintroductions. Rat-proof bins were introduced years ago. And environmentalists say that composting has long been promoted as an anti-rat measure. Yet it was only after Nurse was appointed as the chair of the council’s committee on sanitation and solid waste management this year, amid the rodent population explosion, that the anti-rat strategy took center stage. Her conversations with colleagues revealed the extent of the rat problem, as well as the opportunity it provided. Nurse claims that the package currently has enough support to override the mayor if he opposes it. But without participation from the public, such an ambitious plan could fall flat. “With recycling, if it’s done right, you get a valuable product,” says Oliver Wright, chair of the Brooklyn Solid Waste Advisory Board (Swab). That product can be used to offset the costs of waste collection, in the form of saved landfill dumping costs. In 2021, the city’s independent budget office estimated that recycling 35% of organics would make processing prices comparable to how much it costs to process general waste. Large investments in composting infrastructure, on display in cities like San Francisco, could even drop costs below that of trash pickup. Here’s the rub: a large share of residents would need to participate in composting for what’s collected for the program to pay for itself. Otherwise, it becomes a budgetary burden, rather than a cost-saving measure. Former attempts, however, do not inspire confidence. Pandemic-related budget cuts suspended many of the city’s existing composting operations, including an opt-in system that covered much of the city. Gragnani concedes that even before the cuts participation rates were less than ideal. In 2018, less than 2% of New York City’s waste was composted. But the DSNY has tweaked the approach. Unlike pre-pandemic efforts, the city is automatically servicing an entire swath of the city, rather than implementing a sign-up process. All Queens residents who wish to opt in simply need to leave a marked compost bin on the street, and the city is also distributing brown rat-resistant capsules for free. According to Gragnani, rats also make an appearance in the marketing strategy. “It’s a great opportunity to interest people in sanitation issues who wouldn’t ordinarily be interested,” says Wright, the Brooklyn Swab chair. “People who don’t give a shit about recycling frankly give a shit about rats on their streets.” | ['us-news/new-york', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/compost', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-09-16T11:00:13Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2016/mar/23/european-clean-tech-industry-falls-into-rapid-decline | European clean tech industry falls into rapid decline | Europe’s once world-beating clean technology industry has fallen into a rapid decline, with investment in low-carbon energy last year plummeting to its lowest level in a decade. The plunge in European fortunes comes as renewable energy is burgeoning around the world, with China in particular investing heavily. As recently as 2010, Europe made up 45% of global clean energy investment, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), which examines the sector. But after peaking at $132bn in 2011, investment in the EU plunged by more than half, to 18% of the global total, or $58bn, in 2015. Michael Liebreich, chairman of the BNEF board, said the global financial crisis and its aftermath were to blame only in part. “Europe’s failure to respond [to the crisis was a factor and] global investors, scared about the survival of the euro, had plenty of reason to hesitate about putting money into euro-dominated clean energy projects,” he said. But he also pointed to mistakes made by policymakers in member states, which he said had created a “boom-bust” cycle by initially showing strong support for renewables then rapidly rowing back as they feared the expense of successful subsidies. Europe’s manufacturers have also suffered in the rapid fall. From being a world leader in solar panel manufacturing in the early and mid 2000s, the EU no longer has any companies in the global top 10. Last year, the Chinese company Goldwind took the crown as the world’s biggest wind turbine maker, leaving European companies in the shade. Jobs are being lost as a result. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, employment in solar photovoltaics in Europe fell by more than a third to 165,000 jobs in 2013, the last year for which it has yet collated figures. Jobs in wind energy rose slightly, by more than 5% in 2013, to nearly 320,000 across the bloc, with more than half of these in Germany. Investment is not uniform across the clean technology sector. Despite the poor showing overall, Europe’s wind generation industry had a bumper year in 2015, with €26.4bn invested. But this is not likely to last. Oliver Joy, spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association, told the Guardian: “The outlook for 2016 is not as rosy and we’re likely to see a dip in installations this year. Beyond this, the future for onshore wind is not clear as an uncoordinated patchwork of policies across Europe continues to stifle progress, not least in the UK and Spain. We need to see more political appetite at European and national level, which means putting in place a vision for renewables into the next decade.” Prospects for the struggling EU clean energy industry look poor overall, said analysts. The best hope of a revival is likely to be a return of political commitment to the sector, but that looks unlikely in the short term, even in the wake of the landmark climate change agreement signed in Paris last December. A major European commission announcement on the future of the bloc’s energy, published last month, was criticised by green groups for focusing on gas, rather than renewables or efficiency. Commission leaders and some member states are thought to take the view that as Europe is struggling with recession, unemployment and immigration, emphasising the security of gas supplies - despite the need to import the fuel expensively from outside the bloc, including from countries such as Russia with which Europe has a troubled relationship - is more reassuring to business. In a further blow, the looming UK referendum on EU membership is creating uncertainty for investors, while the Tory government has reined back sharply on support for renewables such as onshore wind and solar power, claiming cost reasons. Liebreich attacked this argument: “The tragedy is that Europe lost its renewable energy mojo just as costs were plummeting to the point where green power is fully competitive without subsidies in more and more parts of the world.” He pointed to costs of wind energy generation of $0.04 per kilowatt hour in the US, and said this should be possible in the UK, with the right support from government. “[Politicians and opponents of wind] have failed to grasp that one of the reasons why costs are higher in the UK is because of the policy uncertainty they helped to create.” As the EU has declined, clean energy in China is forging ahead. Last year, according to a new report from the climate change thinktank E3G, the Chinese invested two and a half times as much as the EU in clean tech. The irony is that investment in the EU has made the Asian clean powerhouse possible, as initial subsidised forays into clean technology have borne fruit in the form of slicker manufacturing processes and vastly reduced costs. On current showings, China is now poised to reap the economic benefits of Europe’s historic investments. Nick Mabey, chief executive of E3G, said: “Twenty years ago, Europeans were still teaching China how to draft environmental laws. Ten years ago, Europe saw China just as a market for its green exports. Today, China is on the verge of dominating the global clean energy economy. The EU must act decisively to stay in the race.” This article was amended to change the amount invested in wind power from €24.6bn to €26.4bn. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2016-03-23T15:48:12Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/article/2024/jun/29/arizona-wildfire-high-temperatures- | Firefighters near Phoenix battle wildfire as temperatures surpass 100F | A wildfire north-east of Phoenix has, as of Saturday, threatened scores of homes, forced dozens of residents to evacuate and required more than 200 firefighters to battle it. No structures have been damaged as the wildfire has traversed nearly 6 sq miles (15 sq km) on the cusp of the Boulder Heights subdivision of Scottsdale, said Matthew Wilcox, spokesperson for a multi-agency wildfire response team. There were 275 people combatting the fire Saturday as temperatures surpassed 100F (38C) before midday, with wind gusts expected in the afternoon. “We still have unseasonably high humidity, hot weather,” Wilcox said. “We have no wind right now, but gusts were predicted.” In an update released on Saturday morning, the multi-agency wildfire response team said that crews will “especially focus on the south-east part of the fire due to residences at risk and wind direction”. It also warned residents against flying drones, saying: “Firefighting aircraft and drones are a dangerous combination. Drones in the area could lead to accidents or slow down wildfire suppression operations. If you fly … we can’t.” Air tankers and helicopters have helped douse flames from the sky above the Boulder View fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation. It began about 5 miles (8km) east of Carefree, just outside northern Scottsdale on the edge of the Tonto National Forest. Sixty homes north of Dove Valley Road and east of 136th Street were placed into “GO, evacuate status”, authorities said. Meanwhile, the city of Scottsdale announced on Saturday that the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, a permanently protected desert habitat, would remain closed north of Dynamite Boulevard. The closure began on Friday “due to the unpredictability of the Boulder View fire”, officials said. The Red Cross set up an evacuation center at a high school in Scottsdale, and shelters for horses and other large animals were established at several locations, including the rodeo grounds at nearby Cave Creek. According to Sunny Parker, founder of the non-profit Arizona Foothills 911, who spoke to AZ Central, volunteers were helping transport goats, chickens, pigs and more than a dozen horses. Accompanying Parker are also several tortoises and a tarantula, AZ Central reported. She added that veterinarians are on call to help the animals and that the non-profit is prepared to shelter as many as 200 horses on rodeo grounds. In central California, increasing temperatures and low relative humidity this weekend could result in worsening wildfire conditions for the Fresno June lightning complex. The complex – made up of three large fires in eastern Fresno county as well as several smaller fires – was nearly 17 sq miles (44 sq km) and 42% contained by Saturday morning. One structure was confirmed destroyed, and evacuation orders remained in place. To the north, the Apache fire in Butte county had destroyed 14 structures and damaged two others since Monday. The blaze was 1 sq mile (2.8 sq km ) and 95% contained by Saturday morning. Crews were making good progress Saturday on the Darlene 3 fire in central Oregon. It was holding at 6 sq miles (15 sq kilometers) and was 50% contained Saturday morning. The weather has helped firefighting efforts. Low winds, cooler temperatures and high humidity at night all contributed to the firefighters’ progress. It also allowed the Deschutes county sheriff’s office to lower the evacuation level for Newberry Estates from level 3 to level 2. All other evacuation notices have been lifted for the area west of Highway 97. | ['us-news/arizona', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/west-coast', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/oregon', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maya-yang', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-06-29T22:03:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2024/mar/22/england-abbie-ward-womens-six-nations-rugby-union | England’s Abbie Ward takes ‘hardest road’ back to Women’s Six Nations | The lock Abbie Ward has played in two Rugby World Cup finals, won several Six Nations titles and was one of the first Red Roses players to be awarded a professional contract, but says returning to the pitch for her country after giving birth to her daughter Hallie will be one of her greatest achievements after “the hardest road” back. Ward, who turns 31 on Wednesday, gave birth last July and returned to play for her club, Bristol, in November. She scored in her first game back, a 48-5 win over Sale in the Premiership Women’s Rugby. After the match she said her next goal would be to get back into the England squad which she achieved when the new head coach, John Mitchell, named a training camp in January. She was then included in the team’s 2024 Women’s Six Nations squad and has been selected to start in England’s opening match against Italy on Sunday. “I have 61 caps but pulling on an England shirt this time will be one of my greatest rugby achievements,” Ward says. “Yes I have played in World Cup finals, I have captained, I have won grand slams but I think this has been the hardest road to wearing an England shirt. It makes you appreciate it even more. “After injuries and getting your first cap you appreciate it. But having to start at ground zero and work [my] way through a really, really tough squad where the rugby is now unbelievable – I definitely will not be taking it for granted.” Ward last played for England in the Rugby World Cup final in 2022 where the team lost 34-31 to New Zealand. She says it has been a long wait to “right some wrongs” from that result but says her daughter has been a good distraction. “I think having Hallie and that time away, it gives you perspective,” Ward says. Hallie has been in the England camp as Ward and the team prepare for the Six Nations. Ward has been able to introduce her daughter to her teammates and she has been the centre of attention. “She absolutely loves it,” Ward says of Hallie. The England camp is also a good experience for her daughter, Ward says. “I feel very privileged to bring Hallie into an environment that is full of so many strong women. For her to potentially grow up in that environment and around these girls is huge. They are all unbelievable role models as well. I feel very lucky to share that experience with Hallie.” Ward was the first contracted England player to give birth during her career and she felt passionately about sharing the journey publicly in order to raise awareness for current and future players. As part of that she is releasing a documentary with ITV called “Abbie Ward: A Bump in the Road”, airing next week, which shows her return to play. “I always thought it was important to vocalise the journey,” Ward says. “I don’t think there has been that awareness from certain sports or definitely [not] the men’s sports that this was a thing that was happening, that players weren’t able to have a family and play professional sport at the same time. A lot were retiring. “I wanted to put a spotlight on it to ask difficult questions and also answer questions for other players. I went into it, I guess, not really knowing what it would look like as there hasn’t been another player in England to go through it. I want to make sure the next girls who decide to start families understand what it could look like for them. One thing I have wanted to put out there as well is I have been very ambitious in terms of my return but I haven’t wanted to put pressure on anyone, not everyone has to do that. I think the great thing with the [Rugby Football Union maternity] policy is it is down to the individual.” Ward is now focused on the Six Nations and has re-entered the England camp to find the programme has improved since she last played. “There’s a lot of new staff, a lot more staff,” Ward says. “The programme as a whole has taken a noticeable leap forward in terms of how it is run. The players too, the squad and the depth and the talent, which is really exciting.” England are favourites and if they lift the trophy it will be for the sixth consecutive year with France again their main rivals for the title. The other nations will first be looking for progression in terms of performance and results. Wales have been closing the gap on France and England over the past few years but will want to reflect that on the scoreboard after losing 39-14 to France and 59-3 to England in the 2023 Six Nations. Scotland, meanwhile, recorded their first back-to-back wins in the tournament for 17 years last year and will aim to compound the progress. Italy took a slight back step, finishing fifth for the second successive year. The team will want to avoid the bottom two spots and add more wins to their tally. Finally, Ireland’s new head coach, Scott Bemand, said they are aiming for a top-three finish. The team picked up the wooden spoon in 2023 and Bemand’s ambition would require an incredible uptick in results. The curtain raiser will see France host Ireland on Saturday before Wales take on Scotland and the defending champions, England, travel to Italy. Ward is alongside other returning players in Zoe Harrison and Emily Scarratt for their opener and the captain, Marlie Packer, will win her 100th cap. The camp are blocking out the favourites’ tag: “It’s about keeping our eyes on ourselves, our processes and our gameplan, controlling what we can control,” Ward says. | ['sport/womens-six-nations', 'sport/womens-rugby-union', 'sport/england-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/france-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/scotland-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/ireland-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/italy-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/rugby-union', 'sport/sport', 'campaign/email/the-breakdown', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/sarah-rendell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2024-03-22T20:00:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2018/apr/11/worlds-largest-brewer-ab-inbev-develops-greener-bubbles-in-beer | World’s largest brewer develops greener way to put bubbles in beer | The world’s largest brewer is rolling out what it claims is a greener way to put bubbles in beer at a crucial early stage in its production, and reduce its CO2 emissions by 5%. The Belgium-based company AB InBev says it has developed a technique to generate the gas bubbles that remove unwanted aromas from the mix of grain and water, known as the wort, without resorting to the traditional method of boiling it. The company conducted four years of tests at an experimental brewery in Leuven, east of Brussels, and then on a larger scale in plants in the UK and elsewhere in Belgium. The method it has developed does not detract from the taste of the finished drink, it says, while using less heat and water. Bubbles are said to be crucial in determining the taste of a beer. Traditionally, gas bubbles in the early stages of brewing are generated through the natural cooking process, requiring bountiful levels of water and heat. AB InBev says, however, it is able to simulate the effects of boiling the brew. The new method involves heating the brew to below boiling point and then blowing nitrogen or CO2 into the tank to create bubbles without changing the taste. The company claims that because the beer is brewed at a lower temperature in the early phase, it can also stay fresh for longer. The bubbles found in the finished product are still to be produced in the normal way, typically by the yeast’s digestion of sugars or by pressurisation in the kegging process. David De Schutter, the company’s research director for Europe, said: “Boiling and these gas bubbles are the sacred formula in the brewing process. Each brewer goes through a boiling process. “Our innovation is to heat everything up to just below boiling point, which provides 80% energy savings at this point in time. There is a lot less steam released, which allows you to spend less on water. In our case, we managed to go from 5% evaporated water to less than 1%.” AB InBev claims that when it has adopted the technique in all its breweries around the world it will reduce its global CO2 emissions by 5% a year, equivalent to the energy consumption of 120,000 families. Studies suggest there will be 80% less evaporation as a result of a 0.5% reduction in water consumption, said to be “the equivalent of 1,200 Olympic swimming pools”. The company, which hopes all its breweries will adopt the technique within 10 years, is offering to share the patented technology free of charge with smaller brewers. A fee would be charged to the company’s larger rivals in the market. AB InBev has vowed to invest the money in further research to reduce its ecological footprint. | ['world/belgium', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'food/beer', 'business/anheuser-busch', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/daniel-boffey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2018-04-11T11:30:37Z | true | EMISSIONS |
music/2012/nov/11/yoko-ono-curating-meltdown-2013 | 'I'm a good arranger – according to me' | This week it was announced that artist, musician and activist Yoko Ono will be curating the Southbank's 2013 Meltdown festival – as well as, on 18 February, celebrating her 80th birthday Hi, Yoko! What do you have planned for Meltdown? I'm very excited. I was in Meltdown before, invited by Patti Smith, but that's very different from when you have to arrange things yourself. And I'm a good arranger – according to me. I would like to make it something refreshing, not about pursuing big names, more about a concept. A strong corner on women, feminism and the plight of women. I think all women are icons of feminism and we have responsibility for ourselves. But I'm happy to give one or two nights where I ask men to say something about themselves. As a US citizen, how were you affected by hurricane Sandy and the presidential election? Sandy was a kind of education for us, because we never thought a natural disaster would happen in New York – New Yorkers are a little bit proud about themselves. I was there; luckily my part of the town was not so damaged. I got a call from my son and he said, "It's not very good downtown, could we come and join you?" Of course, of course! There were many friends in trouble and so I tried to help them. And the election: it was very important but the result was predictable. I think Obama represents now and the opposition represented the past. You have a biennial peace award: this time round there were five recipients – including Christopher Hitchens, Pussy Riot and Lady Gaga. Surely they are provocateurs, rather than peaceniks? Activism has never been given accolades, and this award is doing that. I'm promoting people's energy in changing the world. I respect Lady Gaga a lot. She visited me at the Dakota building and she played the Imagine piano. How did you feel when Paul McCartney went on record recently to say you didn't break up the Beatles? I thought people knew that I was not responsible, but surprisingly, many people still felt that. He was very brave. So I'd like to say "Thank you, Paul. I love you, we love you." You're 80 next year – how will you celebrate? I'm celebrating every day, in a way. It's not very easy to be my age, but I'm not very concerned about age. After sexism and racism, which I fought, now there's ageism – something more to fight about. I don't do very much exercise, but I do like to walk. Food-wise, sometimes I'm very good and sometimes I'm very naughty – chocolate is what I like. Don't be discouraged by society saying, "Oh, you're going to be 40; that's too bad." We all carry our own age. I will put my feet up when I'm in a coffin, but until then I will do my best to have a full life. Meltdown 2013, Southbank Centre, London, 14-23 June; line-up to be announced early next year. The Observer is media partner | ['music/meltdown-festival-2013', 'music/meltdown-festival', 'culture/yoko-ono', 'artanddesign/art', 'music/paulmccartney', 'music/lady-gaga', 'books/christopher-hitchens', 'music/pussy-riot', 'us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'type/article', 'profile/mirandasawyer', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/agenda'] | us-news/hurricane-sandy | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-11-11T00:04:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/2012/may/09/wales-gets-tough-green-travel | Wales gets tough over green travel | Wales is set to become the first country in the world to make it compulsory for local authorities to provide safe and integrated routes for walking and cycling as part of an ambitious plan to boost green travel and end the hegemony of the car. A white paper launched on Wednesday morning by the Labour-led government in Cardiff will oblige Welsh councils and other authorities to identify, plan and implement walking and cycling routes, and how they can be integrated. The hope is that creating a network of safe routes will tempt people out of their vehicles. Councils will be obliged to consider how to improve walking and cycling when planning any new road schemes. Such greener travel options have for some time been the official ambition of ministers in Westminster and elsewhere, but campaigners say little has been achieved, in no small part because many councils show little enthusiasm for such projects, and sometimes downright hostility. The Welsh administration hopes the active travel (Wales) bill, if passed, will sweep aside such stagnation and deliver a change to the nation's entire transport culture. The bill is "aimed at tackling some of the major barriers that are preventing more people from walking and cycling", said the Welsh minister for local government, Carl Sargeant. He said the government's hoped to oversee a change in attitudes comparable to that seen with smoking over the past 40 or 50 years. "This bill is not a short-term quick fix," he said. "This is aiming to shift attitudes and change minds so that we all think about travel in a different way." Sustrans, the walking and cycling lobby group which has long campaigned for such a law, said the impact could be hugely significant. "This is a groundbreaking move by the Welsh government that will help people get around more safely, cheaply and healthily," said Malcolm Shepherd, the Sustrans chief executive. "People all over the UK want to cycle and walk more for everyday journeys but are held back by safety concerns. Walking and cycling are the answers to the UK's rocketing fuel bill and expanding waistline but getting around actively must be made safer and easier across the country." The UK government has contributed more than £500m towards cycling and walking through its Local Sustainable Transport Fund, but critics say this can be unfocused, especially since the abolition of quangos such as Cycling England. Despite such spending and a series of campaigns on the issue, travel in the UK remains dominated by the car, to the detriment of the nation's health and the environment. According to NHS figures just 40% of men and fewer than 30% of women meet the government target of being "moderately active" for at least 2.5 hours per week. Despite a recent increase in the popularity of cycling, only about 2% of journeys in the UK are made by bike, compared with 27% in the Netherlands. A long-term study by Lancaster University academics last year concluded that mass cycling in Britain was extremely unlikely without investment in a joined-up network of segregated bike paths, as most people see the pursuit as too dangerous. Government efforts to get people on bikes had so far had almost no impact, it found. National cycling campaign group the CTC said the idea of the Welsh bill was excellent but it did not guarantee a transport revolution. Chris Peck, the CTC's policy coordinator, said: "It will be great to have this legislative duty on the statute book but we have to make that any paths that get built are of a high quality, not just window dressing. The detailed design is critical in ensuring that the route is actually helpful to cyclists – and that sort of thing can't be dictated through legislation like this. However, the principle is excellent." | ['environment/green-politics', 'travel/travel', 'travel/green', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/wales', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/cycling', 'lifeandstyle/fitness', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'politics/wales', 'politics/welsh-assembly-government', 'travel/walkingholidays', 'type/article', 'profile/peterwalker'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-05-09T08:00:20Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
uk/2011/dec/28/scotts-last-expedition-south-pole | Scott's Last Expedition marks centenary of explorer reaching pole | One hundred years ago today, Captain Robert Falcon Scott was trudging through the endless snow on his epic journey to the south pole. "The marches are terribly monotonous," he wrote in his diary on Thursday 28 December 1911. "One's thoughts wander occasionally to pleasanter scenes and places, but the necessity to keep the course, or some hitch in the surface, quickly brings them back." On Christmas Eve, Scott's team had treated themselves to a special meal of horse meat flavoured with onion and curry powder. "Then an arrowroot, cocoa and biscuit hoosh sweetened; then a plum pudding; then cocoa with raisins, and finally a dessert of caramels and ginger," wrote Scott. "After the feast it was difficult to move. Wilson and I couldn't finish our share of plum pudding. We have all slept splendidly and feel thoroughly warm – such is the effect of full feeding." His crew would battle the terrain and the elements for three more weeks before reaching the South Pole. Their endeavour will be commemorated in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum (NHM) that opens on 20 January, three days after the 100th anniversary of the date they reached their goal. For the first time in a century, artefacts such as clothes, sledges and pickaxes used by the trekkers will be reunited with the scientific specimens they and their colleagues collected on the Terra Nova Expedition. The centrepiece of Scott's Last Expedition is a re-creation of the wooden hut at the base camp. Here, conditions were far more comfortable than the blizzards and crevasses endured by the team Scott was leading to the south pole. "They had china and metal forks and it was basically what you would expect on a ship," says Elin Simonsson of the NHM. "They were eating quite well. Every day their cook, Clissold, would cook them a three-course meal and often they had penguin or seal meat and they would make different stews." The base camp's stores were filled with tonnes of jams, cheeses and tinned vegetables. "They also had alcohol with them so they could have a glass of wine or champagne every now and then," says Simonsson. The NHM exhibition will highlight the untold stories of the Terra Nova expedition. "Until now, the whole story of Scott's last expedition has been overshadowed by the really gripping story of the south pole journey, which is a really fantastic story of human endeavour, but there was so much more going on and we're trying to show the expedition as a scientific expedition," says Simonsson. Scott had led an expedition to Antarctica a decade before, and wanted to go back. "He wanted to make sure he reached the south pole and was the first person to do it," says Simonsson. "He also wanted to continue his scientific programme and, to do that, he recruited quite a big team of scientists to go with him." Scientific expeditions to Antarctica were not new, but Scott's had the biggest scientific programme ever planned. His team of scientists would study weather, zoology and even conduct experiments in the relatively new discipline of glaciology. "They really made a great contribution to what was known about Antarctica," said Simonsson. At the NHM, visitors will walk through Scott's planning of the journey before entering a re-creation of the hut at base camp. "We tell the story of everyday life and activity around the hut, from what they ate to what they did in their spare time to their scientific work," says Simonsson. "When you leave this safe space of their home in the winter, and 25 men stayed in this relatively small hut in the first winter, then you start exploring the kind of work they did outside. That includes the pole journey too and we will show scientific specimens but also scientific notebooks alongside sledges, clothing and skis and different kinds of cookers they had with them." Samples of the crew's oilskin-covered trousers and coats will be on display – all designed and made by the top fashion houses of the day. "At the time, these items were made by Burberry," said Simonsson. "You also had other companies such as Jaeger and Wolseley providing clothing to expeditions." On their treks, the explorers used sleeping bags lined with reindeer fur. Though warm, these tended to trap moisture and, in the mornings, the bags would freeze solid. To get back into them at night, Scott and his crew would have to slowly thaw their bags out as they squeezed themselves back in, a process could take several hours. Scott wrote his last diary entry on 29 March 1912, on his way back from the South Pole after the crushing realisation that the rival team led by Roald Amundsen had reached the pole first. At that stage, his team was only 20km from a depot that contained the food and fuel they so desperately needed to survive. When Scott's party did not return to base camp by the time the Antarctic winter had set in, the remainder of the Terra Nova expedition knew that they must have perished. "When spring returned, they went out to look for them and in November 1912 found them alongside their letters and diaries, and they felt the best thing to do would be to leave them there in the Antarctic wilderness," said Simonsson. "And they're still there today, in the ice, slowly floating towards the sea." | ['uk/scott-of-the-antarctic', 'uk/uk', 'science/geography', 'science/zoology', 'science/people-in-science', 'culture/natural-history-museum', 'artanddesign/exhibition', 'culture/museums', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'world/antarctica', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-12-28T07:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/sep/11/impact-of-covid-slowdown-on-co2-in-the-atmosphere-not-even-a-blip-australian-scientist-says | Impact of Covid slowdown on CO2 in the atmosphere 'not even a blip', Australian scientist says | The Covid-19 pandemic will deliver an unprecedented annual drop in global greenhouse gas emissions of up to 7% by the end of 2020, but the slowdown’s impact on the atmosphere will be almost imperceptible, according to a major report led by the United Nations. Analysis of fossil fuel burning found emissions hit their lowest daily rate in April but by June – as economies began to open up again – emissions were returning to the same levels seen the previous year. Dr Pep Canadell, from Australia’s CSIRO climate science centre and one of the report’s authors, said by the close of 2020 the pandemic’s impact on slowing emissions would be at least twice that of the 2007 global financial crisis, when economic activity dropped. “For this year, what this means for the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere fundamentally, is nothing,” Canadell told Guardian Australia. “That’s because we put 42bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere last year so even three per cent less means we are still loading the atmosphere so heavily that this is not even a blip.” The United in Science report was launched Wednesday in Geneva by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who said recovery from the pandemic needed to be turned into an opportunity to tackle the climate crisis. Using analysis of global emissions up to June, the report found 2020 would see a drop of between 4% and 7% based on 2019 levels. The report, coordinated by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, said: “Although such a drop appears to be unprecedented, the amount emitted at peak confinement was still equivalent to emissions in 2006, just a decade and a half ago.” In early April, daily global emissions from fossil fuels were down 17% compared to the average for the previous year. By early June, the report said emissions had mostly returned to the levels of the same period in 2019, “showing the rapid return of emissions, as many countries loosened their confinement restrictions.” The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is growing at about three parts per million each year. The drop in emissions for 2020 would translate to a drop of 0.23 ppm at most, which the report said was well within the changes seen year to year from natural factors. In a statement, WMO secretary general Prof Petteri Taalas said: “Greenhouse gas concentrations - which are already at their highest levels in 3 million years - have continued to rise.” He said the years 2016 to 2020 was likely to be the warmest five-year period on record, adding: “This report shows that whilst many aspects of our lives have been disrupted in 2020, climate change has continued unabated.” Canadell, the executive director of the Global Carbon Project, told Guardian Australia the emissions fall would be unprecedented, even compared to a 1.5% drop experienced from the global financial crisis. But he said if the economic crisis sparked by the pandemic was to continue and more countries entered recession the world could see sustained falls of emissions for several years. He said: “We may have peaked with emissions last year, and then this year we have a decline. We could ride the wave all the way to zero over the next few decades.” Canadell said the fall in emissions in 2020 and further potential drops could prompt governments to react in two different ways. Some governments may become complacent, whereas others could see the economic recovery as a chance to further mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. If governments did not take active steps to build cleaner economies then greenhouse gas emissions could surge as economies emerged from recession. “There’s opportunity and risk as we go forward,” he said. The report also summarised the world’s changing climate and major impacts over recent years. Between 2020 and 2024, there was a one-in-four chance of the world experiencing a year when global average temperatures were 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The three biggest economic losses on record from wildfires had occurred in the last four years. The underlying heat that drove fires in the Arctic region in early 2020 was at least 600 times more likely because of caused climate change, the report said. Every year from 2016 to 2020 had seen the Arctic left with below-average levels of sea ice at the end of each summer. Arctic sea ice in July 2020 was the lowest on record for that month. Loss of ice from ice sheets connected to land in Antarctica and Greenland was continuing to push sea levels higher, the report said. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/environment', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2020-09-10T20:51:47Z | true | EMISSIONS |
global/commentisfree/2015/jan/05/gadgets-education-knowledge-technology-learning | Gadgets have their place in education, but they’re no substitute for knowledge | Daisy Christodoulou | The children returning to school this week with their new Christmas gadgets don’t remember a world without smartphones, tablets, e-readers and laptops. For some, this generation of digital natives are using technology in collaborative and social ways that will revolutionise learning. Others worry about the damage these devices are doing to their concentration spans and their ability to think deeply. So what is the truth about technology and education? Is it better to read War and Peace on a Kindle or on paper? Or should we forgo 19th-century novels completely in favour of co-creating our own stories on Facebook? As a recent New Scientist article acknowledged, the rapid pace of technological change means large-scale studies of many of these issues are lacking. However, there is some reliable research. For example, there’s good evidence that one of the most popular claims made for technology is false. It has been said by many – from headteachers to union reps to Today presenters – that the internet reduces the importance of knowing facts. However, research from cognitive science shows the vital importance of remembering facts. When we think, we use working memory and long-term memory. Long-term memory is vast, but working memory is limited to about four to seven items and is easily overloaded. By committing facts to long-term memory, we free up precious space in our working memory to manipulate those facts and combine them with new ones. That’s why it’s so important for pupils to learn their times tables: memorising them doesn’t stifle conceptual understanding but rather enables it. We also need a framework of facts in long-term memory to make sense of what we find on the internet; studies show that pupils frequently make errors when asked to look up unfamiliar knowledge. Long-term memory is not a bolted-on part of the mind that we can outsource to the cloud. It is integral to all our thinking processes; researchers even suggest it may be “the seat of human intellectual skill”. While technology won’t remove the need for us to remember facts, it may make it easier for us to learn them. Another big insight from cognitive psychology is that we remember what we think about. In the words of Prof Dan Willingham of the University of Virginia, memory is the residue of thought. At first sight, technology may not seem as though it will be very helpful here. Pop-up message alerts, ever-changing websites, and enticing hyperlinks make it very hard for us to think about what we are supposed to. North American studies show that university students frequently multitask on their laptops during lectures, and that those who do so understand less than students who concentrate solely on the lecture. Even if we switch off the internet, computers can still distract. Willingham gives an example of pupils working on a presentation about the causes of the Spanish civil war who spent most of their time experimenting with the different animations available in Powerpoint. However, while distraction may hinder learning, technology doesn’t always have to lead to distraction. The striking thing about many computer games is that while they often involve quite monotonous tasks, they still prove incredibly addictive. People playing Tetris don’t seem to struggle to ignore distractions. So one potential solution for the distraction problem is to design educational games that grab and hold attention in the same way that computer games do. Duolingo and Khan Academy, two popular learning apps, offer points and badges when pupils complete challenges. Bruno Reddy, a former head of maths at the highly successful King Solomon Academy, has developed Times Tables Rock Stars, a game where pupils become “rock gods” if they answer maths questions in under a second. Even in the case of such promising apps, we still have to put in time, effort and thought if we want to learn. Herbert Simon, a pioneer of cognitive psychology, wrote that “although we have a reasonable basis for hope that we may find ways to make learning processes more efficient, we should not expect to produce the miracle of effortless learning”. The immense computing power we possess definitely has the potential to make learning easier – but only if we acknowledge it will never make it effortless. | ['tone/comment', 'education/education', 'technology/technology', 'technology/laptops', 'technology/apps', 'science/psychology', 'science/science', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'profile/daisy-christodoulou'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-01-05T11:19:19Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/blog/2008/nov/21/forests-conservation | Duncan Clark on Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid to save the rainforest | Though it didn't seems to make an enormous splash in the press, the deal reached this week between three US states, Indonesia and Brazil seems like a fairly big deal in terms of rainforest protection. The agreement was brokered at the climate summit convened by California's ecosavvy governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Along with fellow governors from Illinois and Wisconsin, Schwarzenegger signed an agreement that could see carbon credits earned from forest protection in Indonesia or Brazil incorporated into US emissions trading schemes. Partly, this is significant simply because there haven't been very many large-scale international efforts to protect the world's dwindling rainforests – despite the huge climate change impact of tropical deforestation. The Brits and Norway have launched a big project in the Congo basin, but there are few other examples. (One looked promising last year when Guyana offered to hand over the protection of its forests to the British government, but that has so far come to nothing.) Mainly, though, this deal is significant because it's the first time – or at least the first I'm aware of – that carbon credits earned by protecting existing forests could be incorporated into large-scale emissions trading schemes. It means, in the simplest possible terms, that Indonesian or Brazilian forestry schemes will be able to get funded by American companies who want to produce carbon dioxide. This could be the first step towards forest-protection carbon credits – known as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) – becoming tradeable in forthcoming US-wide climate laws and even the follow-up to the Kyoto protocol. It's exactly the kind of thing envisaged in the UK government's recent Eliasch Review. Though everyone agrees that the world must find a way to save its rainforests, there is disagreement about whether it's wise to combine forestry and fossil fuels in the same carbon-trading system. Some experts are concerned that doing so could bring about a massive crash in the carbon price, while others are worried that any such scheme would provide a means for rich countries to buy their way out of climate trouble instead making cuts at home. As Bryony Worthington of Sandbag recently pointed out to me, there's also the fact that rainforests are due to be affected by the warming climate. It would be ironic if a company in Europe or America could increase emissions in return for protecting a forest that may itself disappear (thereby releasing even more emissions) due to global warming. Forests protection and fossil fuel emissions aren't "fungible", the argument goes. That is, they're not interchangeable. Those arguments aside, it's refreshing to see the US taking rainforest protection seriously. Something clearly needs to be done on a large-scale to protect tropical forests and even if they doesn't end up in the world's carbon trading systems, the new agreement could help develop valuable carbon accounting methodology in addition to protecting some of the world's most precious and endangered forests. A European-American strongman helps save a huge swath of exotic jungle. It could almost be the plot of a Schwarzenegger movie … | ['environment/blog', 'environment/forests', 'tone/blog', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'type/article', 'profile/duncanclark'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-11-21T14:30:20Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/article/2024/jun/06/california-bear-attack-kills-woman | California woman, 71, mauled to death in state’s first fatal black bear attack | A 71-year-old woman was mauled to death by a black bear in a Sierra Nevada community in 2023 in what is believed to be California’s first fatal black bear attack, the state department of fish and wildlife confirmed this week. Patrice Miller was found dead in her Downieville home in November by a Sierra county sheriff’s deputy who was called to the residence to check on the senior after she had not been seen for several days, KCRA3 reported. “Upon showing up, [they] immediately saw evidence of bear intrusion into the house,” Mike Fisher, the county sheriff, told the outlet. “The door was broken. There was bear scat on the porch.” Authorities initially believed Miller had died of natural causes before the bear entered her home and mauled her, but earlier this year a pathologist determined she had been fatally attacked by the animal. The California department of fish and wildlife confirmed the incident is the first known and documented fatal black bear attack in state history. The bear responsible for the attack in Downieville, a small mountain town near the Tahoe national forest, was later trapped and euthanized, the department said in a statement. Authorities used DNA testing to confirm that the bear was the same animal responsible for her death. The region has long had an issue with bears rummaging near homes and yards looking for food. Around the nearby Lake Tahoe, a popular designation for winter skiing and summer recreation, there has been an increase in bear break-ins in recent years. In Downieville, Miller’s daughter said that bears were frequently trying to get in “through broken windows, and that her mother had physically hit one to keep it from entering her residence”, KCRA reported. She had reportedly named one bear who was a regular visitor “big bastard”. The sheriff told the outlet that Miller’s home had a lot of “bear attractants”, and that she would feed her cats on the front porch of the house. Last month, a bear tried to break into several Downieville homes and was later shot by deputies as it attempted to gain access into a local school gym. “Since early May, the sheriff’s office has been inundated with daily reports from distressed homeowners and business owners regarding bears breaking into residences and vehicles, creating havoc and endangering local residents,” the sheriff’s office said of the most recent incident. “Given the escalating danger posed by the bear’s behavior and the imminent threat it presented to residents, deputies were left with no choice but to euthanize the bear in the interest of public safety.” The sheriff’s office advises residents in Downieville to take precautions to avoid encounters with bears and other wildlife, including closing doors and windows, locking vehicles and removing any outside food sources such as garbage. | ['us-news/california', 'us-news/west-coast', 'environment/wildlife', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dani-anguiano', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-06-06T19:05:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2016/jun/23/farmer-ian-turnbull-sentenced-to-35-years-for-of-nsw-environment-officer | Farmer Ian Turnbull sentenced to 35 years for murder of NSW environment officer | An 81-year-old farmer who callously gunned down NSW environment officer Glen Turner during a routine departmental visit has been sentenced to 35 years in jail – with a non-parole period of 24 years – after being convicted of murder. Ian Turnbull, now 81, used a hunting rifle to murder Glen Turner, 51, who was on public land with a colleague on 29 July 2014, near the farmer’s property at Croppa Creek in the state’s north. In the NSW supreme court on Thursday, Justice Peter Johnson jailed him for a maximum of 35 years for the murder and for detaining the colleague for advantage. The judge said Turnbull had built up a strong resentment, even hatred, for Turner and his employer, the Office of Environment and Heritage, over battles about alleged illegal land clearing. During the 20 minutes the farmer held both officers at gunpoint, he accused Mr Turner of persecuting the Turnbull family, saying “the only way you are going home is in a body bag”. He shot Turner twice, ignored Robert Strange’s pleas to stop, and fired the third and fatal shot as his victim made a desperate dash for safety. Turnbull was motivated by “retaliation and revenge” said Justice Johnson who rejected a claim that the farmer was now remorseful. Noting Turnbull was 79 at the time of the murder, the judge said “courts have made it clear, age is not a licence to commit an offence”. The fact that Turner was a public official gunned down in the course of his occupation made the murder particularly serious, he added. He set a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 32 years for the murder, but increased this to 24 and 35 after adding on a component of the term imposed for the offence relating to Strange. The judge acknowledged that the term most certainly could be considered a “de facto life sentence” given Turnbull’s age, but said the crimes warranted no less of a sentence. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/crime-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-06-23T01:34:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
lifeandstyle/2020/dec/20/celebrities-rooting-for-veganuary-in-uk-to-combat-new-rise-in-meat-sales | Celebrities rooting for ‘Veganuary’ in UK to combat new rise in meat sales | A host of musicians, actors and sports stars have joined up with businesses and environmental groups in what they hope will be a successful push to get more people to ditch meat, fish and dairy in the new year. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Sir Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais, Lily Cole and Alan Cumming have all signed a letter calling for people to change their diet for “Veganuary” next month. “We cannot tackle climate change while we farm and eat animals on an industrial scale”, the open letter written by the Veganuary association says. Other signatories include Chris Packham, the environmental campaigner and TV presenter, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, cricketer Jason Gillespie, businesswoman Deborah Meaden and comedians John Bishop, Sara Pascoe and Jon Richardson. Packham said there was a clear link between the climate crisis, large-scale meat-eating and coronavirus. “This virus leapt from animals into us as Sars, Ebola and HIV did – all because we were abusing the natural environment and the animals that live there,” he told the Observer. “So nature has taught us a very harsh and cold lesson. If we don’t start understanding that we are all connected implicitly to nature, and that what we eat impacts on nature, we’re in deep trouble. That’s why the environmental aspect of veganism or vegetarianism – or anyone changing their diet – has come to the forefront.” Veganuary’s organisers hope to persuade 500,000 people to try veganism in January. Some 350,000 took part last year. Global meat sales had begun to decline in 2019, after rising from around 71 million tonnes a year in 1961 to 340 million tonnes in 2018, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. In the UK, sales of beef, lamb and pork dropped by up to 4% last Christmas, and supermarkets cater for rising numbers of “flexitarians” – those who cut back on meat. However, lockdown has fuelled a boom in meat consumption. According to researcher Kantar, sales of turkeys were up 36% on last year, and sales of red meat and poultry grew by more than 10% each month until September. The Veganuary letter sets out the environmental arguments against meat. “Animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14.5% of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions,” it says. “In recent years, more than 80% of deforestation in Brazil was to graze farmed animals, and still more forests are destroyed to grow crops to feed animals on farms around the world. Deforestation is serious for lots of reasons. It pushes wild species to extinction. It displaces indigenous peoples. It drives climate change. And it brings us in ever closer contact with wild animals and any viruses they may harbour, raising the risk of another pandemic.” Packham said there was evidence that soya produced in felled Brazilian rainforest had been used to feed chickens sold in UK supermarkets and fast-food outlets: “If you put that chicken in your mouth, you’re connecting yourself very directly with deforestation in South America.” But ethical eating was difficult even for vegans, he added. “Palm oil has led to the deforestation of Indonesia and Malaysia, and it’s in biscuits, shampoo … it’s frankly everywhere. We each of us consume 8kg to 9kg every year.” He said the solution was not for the whole population to turn vegan. “The people I call ultra-vegans just want to stop all meat consumption overnight. But that would be no good for meat farmers. It would be no good for our landscapes, where low-intensity, good-quality animal husbandry and livestock farming are actually good for biodiversity. What we need is a transition where we eat less meat and pay more for it so we can put the profit in the farmer’s pocket.” Toni Vernelli of Veganuary said that while 2020 had brought hardship and heartbreak, it had also brought “an opportunity to change and build a better future”. “Our united message is one of hope, but we must all act now.” • This article was amended on 20 December 2020 because changes made during the editing process led an earlier version to say that Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth wrote the letter. Those organisations were among the letter’s signatories, however, the letter itself was written by the Veganuary association. | ['lifeandstyle/veganism', 'food/vegan', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'lifeandstyle/celebrity', 'environment/friends-of-the-earth', 'environment/greenpeace', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/activism', 'food/food', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/james-tapper', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-12-20T08:00:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
news/2024/nov/14/ghost-hunters-weather-meters-spectre-detectors | How ghost hunters turned weather meters into spectre detectors | Ghost hunting has become a television sensation, with help from an unexpected accessory: the portable weather meter. Years ago, weather stations were static installations, but these days all the necessary instrumentation can be packed into an electronic device no larger than a smartphone, providing a handy scientific device for meteorologists – and for spirit seekers. Paranormal investigators associate cold spots or sudden drops in temperature with the presence of ghosts, and have long used wind chimes to detect drafts supposedly generated by spirits. Modern ghost hunters use devices such as the handheld Kestrel 3500NV, which measures temperature, pressure, relative humidity and wind speed. There is even a backlight for night-time use. Tea Krulos, the author of a book called Monster Hunters, lists a portable weather meter as standard gear for paranormal investigators. Unlike dowsing rods or other traditional tools, these sensors provide objective, numerical evidence of what is happening at a supposedly haunted spot, rather than a vague, subjective sensation. Cynics may say that toting a scientific gadget allows the investigator to give their claims a gloss of scientific credibility, while their audience may be inclined to consider the device in their hands as a spectre detector rather than a mere weather meter. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'science/meteorology', 'science/science', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-11-14T06:00:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/ethicallivingblog/2008/feb/01/treadlightlyyourviews | Tread lightly - your views | Since we launched Tread lightly in October 2007, nearly 4,000 readers have helped us save over 40 tonnes of CO2 - that's the equivalent of turning off a coal-fired power station for 15 minutes. It shows that we can achieve big things through small actions, so a big thanks to everyone who has been taking part. You've been posting on our weekly blog and sending us feedback, so now we'd like to tell you about our plans for the site and ask you about what you'd like to see in future. Here's what some of you have been saying about Tread lightly ... Gareth Kane, who runs the website eco-living.blogspot.com, says: The pledges are all quite simple, achievable things: like changing your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, take showers not baths, recycle all of your newspapers this week, turn down your heating by one degree and recycle your glass this week. My greenweek writes: It's fascinating to see how the aggregated figures stack up in real terms - which is easy, as the website translates your savings into understandable equivalents. A debate on Talkclimatechange.com sees phil writing: I'd like to see how many people would pledge to do something that actually puts them out a bit. Like how many people would take a train instead of an airplane, or who is willing to leave their car at home for a week? - not really feasible in the UK. Probably what needs to happen is that a few politicians should be nailed to such pledges so that they can see how impossible it is to achieve some of these things before comitting the country to a 60% Co2 emissions cut. A common theme in our comments is about the futility of small actions like recycling and changing light bulbs when larger more fundamental changes are required by industry and government. Axle206 says: Why make my life difficult to save a few gramms of Co2 output when that is instantly cancelled out by poor transport infrastructure and thousands of other things? I'm fed up of being told what to do to reduce Co2 (assuming that Co2 is actually causing climate change) by people who have had the chances to make big and sensible changes, but have wasted them. And a few of you have been frustrated at being unable participate in the week's pledge. Beansprouts, which charts one family's endeavours to go green, linked to Tread lightly and linz commented: I haven't been able to complete any pledges yet. I can't. I already have a house full of eco-bulbs, I switch off at the wall everything I can, and I can't turn the thermostat down any more! A lot of users in the Tread lightly community have raised this issue. One of our plans with the ongoing work is to help these users to see how much carbon they have saved by already doing what they are doing, and perhaps including their carbon savings in the total amount saved by the community. Plans for future development are to enable you to send pledges to a friend, and create a working communities section - it would be great to get a group functionality going, so that schools, clubs and families can pledge together (until then, there is a Facebook group that you can join). We'd also like to find a way to make the pledges more interactive - you could vote on suggestions for next week's pledge, or suggest your own (if you do have a bright idea, you can post it on the weekly pledge blog). We'd also like to enable users to "ask an expert" online, and get more people sharing their expertise. We are planning to make the weekly emails more like a newsletter, and alert people who haven't pledged for a while to new pledges that have appeared since they last visited the website. So what do you think of Tread lightly so far? Which pledges would you suggest? What would you like to see more, or less of? Tell us your thoughts | ['environment/series/tread-lightly', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'type/article', 'environment/blog', 'profile/jessicaaldred'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2008-02-01T00:00:05Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/article/2024/jun/03/koala-thief-leaves-claude-eastern-forest-nursery-lismore-nsw | Leaf thief: viral sensation Claude the koala returns to nursery to munch on seedlings in broad daylight | Claude the koala became Australia’s cutest thief and a viral sensation when he was filmed munching on seedlings at a nursery near Lismore last September. But fame has only made him more brazen, with the hungry marsupial now helping himself to a weekday feed in front of staff at Eastern Forest Nursery. New photos show Claude making a meal of eucalyptus seedlings in broad daylight as a nursery worker looks on. He reached the plants after climbing a shade cloth and down a pole. Previously the koala would raid seedlings at night or on weekends when no one was around. “We had no idea that a koala would actually come into the nursery and feed directly on our plants. I would never have believed it until I saw Claude sitting there on the pole,” nursery manager Humphrey Herington said. “We all found it quite amusing, but at the same time, he has caused quite a lot of damage and continues to come back and visit the nursery.” Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Adorable though Claude may be, conservationists say his behaviour highlights a serious problem – there isn’t enough food in the heavily cleared local environment in the NSW northern rivers for koalas to eat. “Claude and his friends raiding the nursery to eat seedlings shows they’re desperate for food trees,” said Maria Borges from WWF Australia. “This area in the northern rivers, especially around Lismore, is heavily cleared and it’s really missing good quality habitat for them. “We need to plant more trees and urgently stop tree clearing especially around the northern rivers which is a stronghold for koala populations in New South Wales.” Five hundred seedlings that Claude had munched on have just been planted in the local area to help provide food for him and his friends. The seedlings were unsuitable for sale but still viable, so Herington donated them to WWF Australia, which is funding a larger community tree-planting project. Community groups have planted 400,000 seedlings in the region and are aiming to reach 500,000 by the end of the year. The property of NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson is one of the locations for the new tree plantings. She said it was wonderful Claude had brought so much attention to the area but said his story highlighted the need to take the plight of endangered koala populations in northern NSW seriously. In the Northern Rivers region, koala habitat has been cleared for activities including agriculture, predominantly for the creation of pasture. A 2020 NSW parliamentary inquiry found koalas would be extinct in the state by 2050 without urgent action. Governments continue to permit the clearing of koala habitat, including for native forest logging operations on the mid-north coast and in areas that have been promised for conservation in a proposed great koala national park. “We’re in one of the most biodiverse, rich areas on this continent, but historical clearing has seriously degraded the area,” Higginson said. “I’m privileged to be a custodian of this little patch of the northern rivers. My job, while I’m here, is to make this place better. “We’re doing this because we have an incredible koala population hanging on for dear survival right here.” | ['environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-06-03T02:30:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2013/sep/19/iran-rouhani-opportunity | Iran: an opportunity to be seized | Editorial | There are today more than enough signs to indicate that Iran wants to use its newly elected president, Hassan Rouhani, to break the stalemate over its nuclear programme and release the grip that sanctions are having on its economy. The recent exchange of letters between the two presidents; the decision to transfer the nuclear file from the Supreme National Security Council to the foreign ministry under the guidance of the respected diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif – both point in the same direction. At home, too, Mr Rouhani appears to be true to his word, releasing Iran's most prominent human rights activist, Nasrin Sotoudeh, and easing the conditions of house arrest of the two leaders of the 2009 opposition movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Mr Rouhani's licence to negotiate has, of course, to be scrutinised. One always has to be clear which factions in Iran are waving the olive branch. Mr Rouhani has prepared his trip next week to the UN by speaking first and foremost to the Revolutionary Guards. He told that bastion of conservatism to stay out of politics, although he was careful to soften the message by doffing the cap to their economic clout. The point was reinforced by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the next day. There were signs of a pushback: Fars News, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, reported only the positive part of Mr Rouhani's message. It could also be said that the power vested in Mr Rouhani personally may yet turn out to be a poisoned chalice if the negotiations on Iran's uranium enrichment hit a brick wall. But for now, the leadership of the guards, which scuttled the initiatives of Iran's previous reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, has been told to stay quiet. The initiative is not new. The supreme leader had already given his blessing for direct talks with the US before Mr Rouhani's election. The difference now is that pragmatists in Iran have a man to represent them, and he appears to enjoy political cover. Nor is there much secrecy about the sort of deal that could be struck, or at least its broad parameters. Iran agrees to enrich uranium to a maximum of 5%; it ships out the more dangerous material enriched to 20% (a short step away from bomb-grade levels); and rejoins the additional protocol which it left in 2005, granting inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency unannounced access. In return, Iran's right to enrich for civilian purposes is acknowledged and the sanctions start to be lifted. The path to a deal like this is pitted with elephant traps. Establishing mutual trust and credibility will not be easy after an impasse that has lasted for 11 years. Some sanctions, such as the disconnection of Iran's banks from the Swift payment system, are easier to lift than others. The US Congress remains hawkish and convinced that it alone brought Iran to the table again. Why take the foot off Iran's throat, just as the pressure appears to be working, so the argument goes? President Barack Obama could use his presidential waiver on Congress-mandated sanctions, but Iran would have to be convinced first that his successor would not reimpose them. For Iran to make significant concessions, it needs to be given a clear road map. Its reinclusion into the global trading system, while remaining conditional on progress, must not be made so distant as to be unachievable. Mr Rouhani has been on this merry-go-round before. In 2003 he took Iran into two years of negotiations during which Tehran suspended uranium enrichment before talks broke down. Today, Iran's nuclear enrichment programme is more advanced. It can regain lost ground faster. It has kept its medium-enriched uranium below the quantities needed to make a bomb, announcing recently a 42% cut in this stock. By the same token, its ability to regenerate those stocks is greater. The opportunity to take relations with Iran out of this death spiral patently exists. It should be seized by Mr Obama, even though he may not have the political capital needed to push this through. But the stakes are too high to do anything else. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/hassan-rouhani', 'world/iran', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/nuclear-weapons', 'world/middleeast', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'tone/comment', 'tone/editorials', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2013-09-19T22:21:15Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2012/apr/02/bhutan-world-suicidal-path | Bhutan rails against world's 'suicidal path' | The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, aghast at what it calls the world's "suicidal path", has called on heads of state and leading economists to come to the capital Thimphu for a global summit to reform the international financial system and the way countries measure progress. "We need to rethink our entire growth-based economy so that we can thrive more effectively on our own resources in harmony with nature. We do not need to accept as inevitable a world of impending climate chaos and financial collapse," prime minister Jigmi Thinley will tell the UN in New York on Monday. Bhutan – sandwiched between China and India with a population about the size of Birmingham – has avoided social and economic chaos, he says, because it is not hooked to the materialist bandwagon and because it measures progress by the level of happiness among its citizens and not by gross domestic production. It proposes that purely economic measures of growth which count resource depletion and pollution as gains lead to ecological destruction and over-consumption. "Economic growth is mistakenly seen as synonymous with wellbeing. The faster we cut down forests and haul in fish stocks to extinction, the more GDP grows. Even crime, war, sickness, and natural disasters make GDP grow, simply because these ills cause money to be spent", Thinley will say in Bhutan's submission to the UN ahead of the Rio +20 earth summit in June. "The [global] economic system is in rapid meltdown. It is based on the premise of limitless growth on a finite planet. It has produced ever-widening inequalities with 20% of the world now consuming 86% of its goods, while the poorest 20% consume 1% or less and emit 2% of the worlds greenhouse gases.". Bhutan's leaders argue that institutions like the World Bank and IMF, set up in 1944 to govern commercial and financial relations between the world's major states, are now perilously outdated and must be reformed to avoid catastrophe. In their place, they say, must come new systems of fair trade, rewards for good behaviour, prompt responses by countries to resource depletion and new ways to measure social, economic and ecological progress. "The world is in need of an international consensus for the creation of a new economic paradigm with well-being indicators, new national accounting systems that count natural and social capital, and incentives for sustainable production", Bhutan says. The clarion call for a new system of financial governance is supported by the UN and 68 countries so far. Last year the UN adopted Bhutan's call for a "holistic approach" to development, aimed at promoting wellbeing and happiness. Its adoption of a new type of economy has encouraged it to take a global lead. Four years ago it launched a gross national happiness index to guide all public policy. Its constitution now ensures that at least 60% of the country remains under forest cover in perpetuity and its aim is to be 100% organic in its agricultural production. Life expectancy has doubled in two generations, 99% of primary age children are in school, and the country has vowed to always be a carbon sink. However, it remains one of the "poorest" nations on earth, with 25% of its people living on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% without electricity. Until 1974, no tourists were allowed into the Buddhist nation. "[Our] measures of progress and GNH index clearly show that producing and consuming more stuff does not make people happier. On the contrary when they overwork and go into debt to buy ever more goods and pay the bills, they get more stressed. Working, producing and consuming less is not only good for nature but gives us more time to enjoy each others", says Thinley. "Instead of progress [the world] has perilously accelerated ecosystem decline. Humanity is now using up natural resources at a 35% faster rate than nature can regenerate. This ecological destruction is not separate from global economic realities that are dividing rich from poor", Bhutan will say in its submission. The New York meeting will lay the groundwork for countries to adopt new "sustainable development" goals at the Rio +20 meeting, the follow-up to the historic 1992 "Earth summit" which saw the introduction of global treaties to address climate change and biodiversity loss. | ['world/bhutan', 'world/world', 'business/economics', 'environment/rio-20-earth-summit', 'business/business', 'business/global-economy', 'tone/news', 'global-development/natural-resources-and-development', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-04-02T06:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2013/jan/08/australia-heatwave-wildfires-alert | Australian heatwave puts south-east on alert as wildfires burn out of control | A record-breaking heatwave and high winds across south-eastern Australia have produced some of the worst fire conditions seen in the country, with blazes destroying thousands of hectares of land (video) and threatening properties, but – so far – sparing lives. Emergency teams fought more than 130 fires across New South Wales, the country's most populous state, on Tuesday, with at least 40 burning out of control. Fires also continued to burn in Tasmania, after blazes at the weekend destroyed more than 20,000 hectares of land and dozens of properties. Temperatures in some areas surpassed 45C (113F), while Monday's average high temperature across the country set a record at 40.3C. Further record-breaking highs are expected in the coming days, with the heat so intense that Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has been forced to add new colours to its temperature map – deep purple and incandescent pink. The NSW rural fire service issued "catastrophic" fire warnings for four areas in the state – the most severe fire warning level. "The word catastrophic is being used for good reason," the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, said on morning television. "So it is very important that people keep themselves safe, that they listen to local authorities and local warnings. This is a very dangerous day." In the town of Tarcutta, 470km (290 miles) south-west of Sydney, designated as a "catastrophic" area, residents took refuge in the Returned & Services League – Australia's equivalent of the British Legion, a veterans' charity – as the blaze approached. Gwen Brown told ABC radio that people were extremely anxious. "I've lived through a few things, but this is probably the scariest I've seen. We are just covered in smoke. There's blue smoke and it is prominent. It would only be a couple hundred metres away," she said. By night, Tarcutta residents were able to return to their homes, but emergency services warned them to remain on the alert. Fires continued to burn in the area. South of Sydney, near the town of Cooma, the gateway to Australia's ski slopes, a huge cloud of black smoke rose above the mountains. Winds gusted at up to 70km an hour, driving out of control fires close to properties. Thousands of people had been warned via text message to evacuate. "I got a phone call at 7am to say the fire was going to impact [on] our property," Peter Evan told ABC. "We went straight out thinking that we'd mow around the house and make sure the tractor had fuel in it to make a fire break. Then we got the message to clear out. I've never been in a situation [like this], so it's frightening. The smoke, you couldn't believe the smoke." The rural fire service's commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said the state had faced some of the worst conditions on record. "We've had a horrible day," he said. "We've seen firefighters and fire-affected communities facing the worst imaginable conditions." He praised the "extraordinary" firefighting effort in "dirty, hot difficult conditions". In Sydney, temperatures soared to 42.3C by early afternoon. Thousands flocked to beaches and pools, and national parks around the city were closed. The blistering heat also caused a blaze at a nuclear research facility in southern Sydney after cabling overheated in a nearby electricity substation. Thousands of homes in the city's north experienced power outages due to soaring demand. In Tasmania, where dozens of homes were destroyed by fire in the south-east of the state (video), emergency crews continued to fight 40 blazes, several out of control. A hundred people were still unaccounted for, but many are thought to be tourists who may have left the area. In the hamlet of Boomer Bay near the town of Dunalley, which was devastated by fire last Friday, thick smoke and strong winds continued to hamper emergency crews putting out spot fires. Fifteen houses were destroyed and as residents returned, they told stories of narrow escapes. "It was like a firestorm," Merle Klug told ABC. "It came over the back. We just packed everything as quick as we could with the animals into the car and headed down to the boat ramp." With about 25 other people, Merle and her husband, Terry, sheltered by the water as the fire burned all around. "We couldn't go anywhere. The heat was horrendous," Klug said. The fire had approached with incredible speed and the burnt-out shells of cars used to get to the water's edge lay scattered across the boat ramp area, he said. "[The fire] just come over the hill like a bullet, crackin' in the air. And we didn't think we'd be here [now] ourselves for the terror down there on the jetty. We thought we was goners," he said. | ['australia-news/australia-news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'tone/news', 'world/wildfires', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'type/article', 'profile/alison-rourke', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-01-08T13:06:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/blog/2009/dec/04/debate-climate-sceptics | Pantomime season comes early to Canada in climate debate with sceptics | I've just returned from Canada, where I've been involved in efforts to stop the government's disastrous campaign of sabotage against the Copenhagen climate talks. I don't know whether or not I've helped to make a difference – you never do – but I did manage to get the message into most of the major media, and my attacks on Canada's record have kicked off a lot of discussion. Sometimes it helps to have a foreigner criticising your national policy, as it shows that your government's actions haven't gone unnoticed overseas. I got involved in quite a few talks and debates while I was there, culminating in a showdown with Lord Nigel Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg. On my side was Elizabeth May, leader of the Canadian Green party. You can watch it on the Munk Debates site. The motion was that "Climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response." Broadly speaking, the other side argued that our money would be better spent by other means. Lawson was relatively easy to handle, not least because he said some pretty daft things, such as: "There has been no further global warming this century." When I pressed him on this, he said his contention was supported by the HadCRUT3 temperature series. What it actually shows is that eight out of the 10 warmest years since records began have occurred since 2001. Lawson, of course, was deploying that tired old trick of cherry-picking his starting date. If you begin the series at 1998, you might indeed conclude that temperatures have fallen, since 1998 was the hottest year ever recorded. But if you begin with 1997 or 1999 or any other year in the 20th century, you discover that there has been plenty of global warming this century. That wasn't the most sophisticated ruse, was it? Lomborg was a tougher nut to crack. He was extremely skilled at framing the debate to keep the discussion on his territory: namely a rigid cost-benefit analysis, informed, in my view, by wildly inaccurate figures. He was helped by the wording of the motion, with which he made great play. Though Elizabeth and I kept trying to bring the debate back to what we wanted to talk about – the science and the human impacts – Lomborg ensured that much of it centred around discussing exactly how much climate change would cost to prevent and how much it would cost to live with. I talked about the Stern review, he talked about his Copenhagen consensus, but it meant that the discussion got stuck on the question of which figures the audience should believe rather than on the more important question of what climate change was likely to do, and how we could stop it. There was an "oh no it isn't, oh yes it is" quality to the debate, which doesn't exactly help to move the issues on. The result was that no one was able to deliver a knockdown blow. In the hall, the audience shifted a few percentage points in our opponents' direction; in the live webcast, a few percentage points towards us. It was a stalemate. That was quite a contrast to my debate with James Delingpole last night. Hosted by Index on Censorship, we were discussing "Saying the unsayable: Is climate scepticism the new Holocaust denial?". Index filmed it and will put it up on their site soon. Though James had begged his supporters "Please come and give your support. I'll be so much better if I'm playing to a friendly crowd," and plenty of them turned up, it was like shooting rats in a bucket, as poor James just seemed to make life harder for himself every time he opened his mouth. For instance, when I asked him for an example of the unacknowledged Einstein who could blow the entire science of climate change away, yet who has been suppressed by the peer review process, he proposed the retired geologist Nils-Axel Morner, who claims to have proved that sea levels are falling, not rising. As the scientist Tim Lambert points out, Morner, who has taken samples in the Maldives, "completely ignored all direct measurements of sea-level from tide gauges and satellites", using a series of indicators that were only indirectly related. The body he used to work for, the International Union for Quaternary Research, has asked that it be dissociated from his claims. It's as if James had cited the Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips as the genius who has proved that autism is, after all, caused by the MMR injection. So now I want some advice: with the benefit of hindsight, how could I have handled Bjorn Lomborg better? What arguments would you have used, and what would your debating strategy have been? Please watch the debate and let me know. monbiot.com | ['environment/blog', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'tone/comment', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'type/article', 'profile/georgemonbiot'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2009-12-04T16:12:39Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
business/2019/jul/09/eon-uk-to-supply-3m-customers-with-100-renewable-electricity | E.ON UK to supply 3.3m customers with 100% renewable electricity | More than 3m homes are to automatically receive renewable energy from E.ON UK at no extra cost in one of the UK’s biggest green energy switches to date. The big six supplier says it will respond to rising public concern over the climate crisis by supplying its 3.3 million customers with 100% renewable electricity as standard. E.ON is one of the UK’s largest renewable energy generators and plans to draw from its own windfarms, biomass plants and solar projects to power the switch. It will also need to top up its portfolio by buying renewable “guarantee certificates”, which are sold by renewable energy developers to guarantee that a set amount of electricity has been generated from a specific project. Michael Lewis, the chief executive of E.ON UK, said the supplier has secured enough renewable energy to confidently meet the demand of its customers, even as the company undergoes a major corporate overhaul. E.ON is preparing to hand over its renewable energy portfolio to RWE in exchange for its energy network assets and supply businesses in a mega deal that is expected to be concluded by the end of the year. Lewis said E.ON’s customers will continue to receive renewable energy from its UK projects even after the assets are given to RWE. He declined to comment on whether the deal would mean taking on the struggling supplier npower, which is owned by RWE through a subsidiary, or whether it has secured enough renewable energy for npower’s customers, too. He said the switch is “an investment in our customer relationship”, which would also help “drive the market” for clean energy. A survey undertaken by YouGov last month showed that more than three in five Britons currently on a standard electricity deal would switch to a renewable electricity supplier if the price was reasonable. | ['business/eon', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2019-07-08T23:01:41Z | true | ENERGY |
science/2017/jan/15/killer-whales-explain-meaning-of-the-menopause | Killer whales explain the mystery of the menopause | Killer whales and humans would seem to have little in common. We inhabit very different ecosystems, after all. Yet the two species share one unexpected biological attribute. Females of Orcinus orca and Homo sapiens both go through the menopause. It an extraordinary aspect of our development. In contrast to the vast majority of animals on our planet, women and female killer whales stop reproducing halfway through their lives. Only one other species – the short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) – behaves this way. The question is: why? For what reason do females of these three different species give up the critically important process of reproduction in middle age? According to Darren Croft of Exeter University, whose team has been studying killer whales for several years, there are many different theories. “Some have argued that it is an artefact that has appeared during our recent evolution and has simply persisted in our lineage,” he said. In other words, there is no specific reason for the menopause in humans. It is simply an evolutionary accident. However, Croft believes there is overwhelming evidence that the menopause is an evolved trait deep rooted in our past. One idea to account for the deep-rooted evolution of this trait uses the concept of the “granny effect”: older females are programmed to close down their reproduction so they can devote themselves exclusively to the rearing of grandchildren. In doing so, they lose the ability to pass on their genes directly to one generation but gain because they can help the following generation to reach adulthood, thus promoting their genotype for the future, it is argued. While not discounting the granny effect, Croft’s team – working with scientists at York University, Cambridge University, the US Center for Whale Research, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada – suggests the real explanation is more complex. “Our previous work shows older, post-reproductive females do help their offspring survive but that, on its own, does not explain why they stop reproducing,” said Croft. “Females of many species act as leaders in late life but still breed – elephants for example.” Croft and his colleagues – whose recent research has just been published in the journal Current Biology – have been studying two populations of killer whales, which live off the north-west Pacific coast of Canada and the US. The populations included several pods, made up a several family groups. One of these pods – known as J pod, which currently consists of more than 20 individuals – was led by J2, or Granny, the killer whale matriarch. Granny was thought to be more than 100 years old – until her death, reported a few days ago, made headlines across the world. She had stopped reproducing more than 40 years ago, it is thought. Killer whales normally start breeding around the age of 15 and then stop between the ages of 30 and 40 – although females often live until they are more than 80. In addition, it has been discovered that older female orcas play a particularly important leadership role in their family group. “They appear to be particularly good at pinpointing places to hunt salmon, the main source of food for the resident killer whales,” said Croft. This point was backed by Deborah Giles, of the Center for Whale Research, who has been observing Granny and the J2 pod for years. “Granny was the ‘wise elder’ of that killer whale clan. She had an amazing ability to call the other whales to her by vigorously slapping her tail on the water. Even from miles away the other whales would turn around and come immediately to J2’s side,” she said. However, it was the study’s observations of middle-aged orca mothers – those approaching menopause – that provided the real insights. It was found that these mother whales suffer much higher costs when competing to reproduce with younger mothers. These older mothers’ offspring were 1.7 times more likely to die than those of younger ones. “This new research shows that old females go through the menopause because they lose out in reproductive competition with their own daughters,” said Croft. This point was backed by Daniel Franks from the University of York, a co-author of the study. “It’s easy to think that an older female will pass on their genes better by continuing to give birth in late life but our new work shows that if an old female killer whale reproduces, her late-life offspring suffer from being out-competed by her grandchildren. This, together with her investment in helping her grandchildren, can explain the evolution of menopause.” This reproductive conflict hypothesis was originally proposed by Mike Cant of Exeter University and Rufus Johnstone of Cambridge University, who argued that conflict between generations was critical in explaining the appearance of the menopause in some species. The new study was the first test of this hypothesis in non-human animals, added Cant. “Our theoretical predictions have turned out to be correct. We have captured a key piece of the puzzle of postreproductive life. Now we can explain not just why older females live so long after reproduction, but why they stop breeding in the first place.” | ['science/science', 'society/menopause', 'environment/whales', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/cetaceans', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-01-15T07:00:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2014/nov/05/jawbones-up3-fitness-tracker-monitors-heart-rate-sleep-cycles | Jawbone’s Up3 fitness device monitors heart rate to track sleep cycles | Jawbone has unveiled a new small fitness band that is capable of recording three stages of sleep including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep associated with memory and high quality sleep. The new Jawbone Up3 features an accelerometer like most other fitness trackers for detecting steps, activity and calories burned, but also new sensors that track the conductivity of skin to measure heart rate and sweat, as well as ambient and skin temperature sensors. Other fitness trackers and smartwatches can detect heart rate using optical sensors that shine a light into the skin to detect the rushing of blood cells, but they require a larger device and demand a bigger battery. “With UP3, our mission was to create the world’s most powerful tracker in the smallest possible design” said Travis Bogard, vice-president of product management and strategy at Jawbone. “Our advanced, multi-sensor platform delivers a huge amount of new health data, backed by our smart algorithms and highly personalised Smart Coach system.” The Up3 is a slim strip of plastic with a flexible strap that adjusts to a reasonably tight fit to make sure the metal contacts within the strap make a decent contact with the skin. Jawbone will use resting heart rate, measured just before waking up and just after going to sleep, as a measure of overall health when it is not affected by caffeine or other things like stress that affect it through the day. The band can also automatically track different activities and sports, allowing the user to tag those active periods for better measurement of movements and the number of calories burned. It syncs the data via Bluetooth to iPhone or Android smartphones, uploading the data to Jawbone’s servers for analysis allowing the app to display sleep, activity and health measurements over minutes, hours, days, weeks and months. It will last approximately seven days on a charge, which is done with a small USB adapter that can be powered by any computer or standard USB power adapter. ‘Improve the quality of your sleep’ The biggest advantage the Up3 has over the previous generation Jawbone and most other fitness trackers is the ability to detect the different phases of sleep using the heart rate monitor. Activity trackers that use motion to infer sleep can only attempt to predict when a person falls asleep and not the important sleep cycles and quality of that sleep. “True sleep staging can only come from EEG with sensors on the head, which has been tried in the past with a wearable monitor ( i.e., the ZEO-which is no longer around),” Dr Michael Breus, sleep therapist and author based in Scottsdale, Arizona, explained to the Guardian. “But since each sleep stage has a signature heart rate, while not direct measurement of sleep cycle, I think that this is certainly something that will be much closer than accelerometry and the device has some serious merit.” “The more data we can collect about a person’s activities through new sensors, the better we can understand their sleep, fitness and health,” Jason Donahue project manager for data and insights at Jawbone explained to the Guardian. “The bioimpedance sensor allows the Up3 to detect light, deep and REM to measure the quality of your sleep not just the duration.” Sleep has always been considered scientifically important to all-round physical health. Studies have found that people who sleep for less than six hours a night have a risk of high blood pressure three times greater than those who get more than six hours, and that women who sleep less than four hours a night are twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who sleep longer. Other research suggests that a lack of quality sleep is linked to the onset of diabetes, obesity and cancer, not to mention deterioration of mental health and memory. Conversely, sleeping too long has also been shown to cause issues. The recommended amount is between seven and nine hours. “If, for instance, we notice that you sleep better after a certain amount of exercise or steps in a day, we can suggest hitting that amount of steps regularly will improve the quality of your sleep,” Donahue said. “But going further, if you get a bad night’s sleep with poor quality sleep we can detect this and knowing the hormones released after a bad night’s sleep that make you crave fatty foods, can suggest better alternatives and help make the next night’s sleep productive.” The Up3 will be available before Christmas costing £149.99 in two colours – black and silver. Jawbone Move Jawbone also unveiled a new, cheaper fitness tracker the Up Move, which is a small button similar to the Misfit Shine. The Move tracks steps and calories burned using an accelerometer and can be worn using a belt clip or an optional wrist strap. It lasts six months on a single replaceable coin cell battery and will be available for pre-order from 7 November costing £39.99 aimed at those looking to start tracking their daily activity. • Misfit Shine fitness tracker review: small and perfectly formed • Sleep sensors: waking up to the need to study our night’s rest • ‘Sleep trackers made me far more interested in my sleep’ | ['technology/wearable-technology', 'technology/gadgets', 'lifeandstyle/fitness', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-11-05T05:00:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
global-development-professionals-network/2015/oct/01/live-qa-what-will-be-the-next-big-discovery-in-the-energy-sector | Live Q&A: What will be the next big discovery in the energy sector? | “I was told it could be a little better than an incandescent bulb, but that was about it,” said General Electric engineer Ed Hammer, who invented the spiral compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) in the mid-70s. In fact, his invention uses just 25% of the power of an old-fashioned, incandescent bulb and lasts around ten times longer. Today CFLs are standard in homes and offices around the world and many countries have phased out incandescent bulbs, including an out-right legal ban in Argentina. If the electricity that lights the bulb is created from coal, then the invention has saved 500 pounds (227kg) of coal per bulb. Innovation is constantly improving the sustainability and the reach of the energy sector. Technological advances have brought the cost of solar panels down by 80% since 2008, meaning that this renewable energy source is now a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. And off-grid solutions are improving access to energy in remote parts of Africa with many NGOs offering solar-powered lamps and innovative financing methods. So what are the best ways to nurture and develop innovation in the sector? Should incentives be offered to encourage inventions that benefit developing countries? And is there a danger that too much focus on technology risks reliance “quick fixes,” rather than working on less exciting, more effective solutions, like energy-saving? Join a panel of experts to discuss these questions and more on Thursday 8 October 1-3pm BST. The live chat is not video or audio-enabled but will take place in the comments section (below). Get in touch via globaldevpros@theguardian.com or @GuardianGDP on Twitter to recommend someone for our expert panel. Follow the discussion using the hashtag #globaldevlive. The panel Marco Giani, head of project portfolio and new business models, innovation and sustainability department, Enel, Rome, Italy, @EnelGroup With a background in statistics and economics, Marco has an in depth knowledge of the energy sector. Meir Yaacoby, electrical engineer, Innovation Africa, Tel Aviv, Israel Meir has a background at Israel Electric Company. As well as working for Innovation Africa, he is the co-founder of Ulysses solution, a software company which develops platforms for developing countries. Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs and environmental studies, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA Gregory is the chair of the energy analysis and policy programme at University of Wisconsin. His research analyses technological change in energy and its interactions with public policy. Michael O. Oluwagbemi, co-founder/director, Wennovation Hub, Lagos, Nigeria, @busanga Serial entrepreneur and innovation champion, Michael co-founded Wennovation the pioneer private accelerator in Lagos Nigeria, as well as Lagos Angel Network. Klara Lindner, customer experience lead, Mobisol GmbH, Berlin, Germany, @klaralindner Klara joined Mobisol to lead the pilot phase in east Africa and developed its pioneering business model. John O’Brien, regional technical adviser on climate change, UNDP, Istanbul, Turkey, @johnobrien98 John has working on energy and climate change issues since 1994 with experience in the private sector, he co-founded a carbon trading company in London, and in the public sector, for the New Zealand government and UNDP. Ilmi Granoff, head of green growth, the Overseas Development Institute, London, UK, @theilmatic Ilmi is a clean energy and infrastructure attorney leading the Overseas Development Institute’s work on green growth. | ['global-development-professionals-network/series/energy-access', 'working-in-development/working-in-development', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'technology/technology', 'global-development-professionals-network/live-chats', 'type/article', 'profile/anna-veronica-leach'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2015-10-01T15:18:59Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/nov/08/toshiba-uk-nuclear-power-plant-project-nu-gen-cumbria | UK nuclear power station plans scrapped as Toshiba pulls out | Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria have been scrapped after the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba announced it was winding up the UK unit behind the project. Toshiba said it would take a 18.8bn Japanese yen (£125m) hit from closing its NuGeneration subsidiary, which had already been cut to a skeleton staff, after it failed to find a buyer for the scheme. The decision represents a major blow to the government’s ambitions for new nuclear and leaves a huge hole in energy policy. The plant would have provided about 7% of UK electricity. “This is a huge disappointment and a crushing blow to hopes of a revival of the UK nuclear energy industry,” said Tim Yeo, the chair of pro-nuclear lobby group New Nuclear Watch Institute and a former Tory MP. Greenpeace UK’s executive director, John Sauven, said: “The end of the Moorside plan represents a failure of the government’s nuclear gamble.” After a board meeting of Toshiba on Thursday, the company said it was winding up NuGeneration because of its inability to find a buyer and the ongoing costs it was incurring. The firm has already spent more than £400m on the project. “Toshiba recognises that the economically rational decision is to withdraw from the UK nuclear power plant construction project, and has resolved to take steps to wind-up NuGen,” the firm said in a statement. The plant first ran into trouble when Toshiba’s US nuclear unit, Westinghouse, was declared bankrupt last year, leading it to search for a buyer to take the scheme. Toshiba also said it would no longer take forward new nuclear projects overseas. South Korean energy firm Kepco initially appeared to ride to the rescue, but despite talks with the UK government it later rowed back due to a change of leadership at Kepco and new approach to financing nuclear power in the UK. Some industry watchers said the collapse of the scheme should be seen as an opportunity rather than a risk, for the UK to prioritise renewables instead. Jonathan Marshall, an analyst at the ECIU thinktank, said: “Shifting away from expensive, complicated technology towards cheaper and easier to build renewables gives the UK the opportunity to build an electricity system that will keep bills for homes and businesses down for years to come.” The government’s infrastructure advisers recently urged ministers to rethink their nuclear plans and focus on renewables instead. But unions decried the axing of the plant and accused the government of not doing enough to help it succeed. Justin Bowden, the GMB national secretary, said: “The British government has blood on its hands as the final sad but predictable nail is banged into the coffin of Toshiba’s jinxed jaunt into nuclear power.” Labour said the pullout was a result of government indecision and a refusal to step in. The only new nuclear power station to get the go-ahead so far is EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which started construction in 2016 and is expected to be operational between 2025 and 2027. As well as EDF, Chinese and Japanese firms hope to build further nuclear plants in the UK. Once NuGeneration is wound up at the end of January, the Moorside site in Cumbria will be handed back to government body the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We understand that Toshiba have faced a difficult decision in ending their involvement in new nuclear projects outside of Japan in light of their well-known financial challenges. “All proposed new nuclear projects in the UK are led by private sector developers and while the government has engaged regularly with the companies involved, this is entirely a commercial decision for Toshiba.” | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'business/toshiba', 'business/business', 'world/japan', 'world/asia-pacific', 'business/technology', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2018-11-08T10:22:55Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2020/jan/16/asda-trials-refill-points-and-bottle-recycling-in-sustainability-store | Asda trials refill points and bottle recycling in 'sustainability' store | The supermarket chain Asda is joining forces with some of the UK’s best-known food and drink brands to create a “sustainability” store, in the latest drive to find and test new ways to eliminate unnecessary plastic and packaging. From May, its store in Middleton, Leeds, will become the first Asda in the UK where shoppers can fill up their own containers with a range of products, from big brands to own-label coffee and pasta. Shoppers will be able to use refill points stocked with Kellogg’s cereals such as Rice Krispies and Unilever’s PG Tips tea. In addition to refill stations, the store will house a “naked florist’s shop” offering plastic-free flowers and loose produce with items such as cucumbers removed from their plastic packaging. A range of recycling facilities will include a reverse vending machine for plastic bottles and cans and clothes hanger recycling. The new-style store will be a “live” trial, monitored from its nearby head office. Customers will be asked to give feedback in different formats. Trials will last for at least three months before a decision is made whether to roll out, retrial or stop. Plastic waste has become a major environmental issue, with television programmes such as BBC One’s Blue Planet exposing its effects on the oceans, and media coverage highlighting the dangers of a global plastic binge. Roger Burnley, Asda’s chief executive, said: “This is a journey we can’t go alone, which is why we invited our suppliers to innovate with us. I’m delighted that household names like Kellogg’s and Unilever have joined us in testing new ideas and approaches to sustainability.” The “unpackaged” model relying on refills has to date been used predominantly by independent retailers, delicatessens and farm shops but is increasingly being tested by supermarkets in a quest to reduce single-use plastics. In June last year, Waitrose launched a trial at its Botley Road store in Oxford, offering refillable options for products including wine and beer (including Toast Ale), rice and cleaning materials, as well as packaging-free loose fruit and veg and a frozen “pick and mix” section. The “unpacked” refillable zones have since been added to its stores in Cheltenham, Wallingford and Abingdon. In September, Sainsbury’s said selling milk and fizzy drinks in returnable glass bottles was an option, while Tesco is banning brands that use excessive packaging from its stores. Daniel Webb, of the campaign group Everyday Plastic, said: “Offering less packaging through refill initiatives at major supermarkets presents a massive step towards reducing the amount of plastic being thrown away.” | ['money/consumer-affairs', 'business/asda', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'business/supermarkets', 'business/retail', 'business/packaging', 'money/money', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-01-16T00:01:17Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2022/nov/28/no-10-set-to-allow-new-onshore-wind-projects-in-england-in-u-turn | No 10 set to allow new onshore wind projects in England in U-turn | Downing Street appears likely to allow new onshore wind projects in England after years of an effective ban, Grant Shapps has indicated, with ministers giving way in the face of a growing backbench Conservative rebellion. Shapps, the business and energy secretary, said there would be more onshore wind projects “where communities are in favour of it”, which would mean the end of a de facto block on such projects since 2015 under planning rules. While Shapps sought to present the idea as already proposed by Rishi Sunak, this is not the case. The U-turn instead appears to be a direct response to an amendment to a bill tabled by Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, which Labour is also expected to support Clarke, one of a growing list of Tory MPs, including Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, to oppose a ban, has tabled an amendment to the levelling up bill to allow new onshore wind projects in England. Asked about the issue, Shapps told Sky News: “We already have quite a lot of onshore wind. There will be more, over time, particularly where communities are in favour of it. “That is, I think, the key test of onshore wind – is it of benefit to communities locally? That has always been the principle for us, for quite some time now.” Shapps denied the government was backing down over fears it would lose a vote on the Clarke amendment. He said: “I don’t recognise it in those terms at all. Simon Clarke has put in an amendment, which I haven’t studied all the ramifications of yet. “But it’s essentially saying what I just said to you, for local people to have a very, very keen say in this, which is indeed government policy. There are always different ways to skin a cat, as it were, but we will have a close look at what is being proposed.” Pushed again on whether this was an enforced change of stance, Shapps said: “No, it’s exactly what we’ve said all along. Rishi Sunak said the other week that where onshore happens it needs to have local agreement.” Shapps said incorrectly Sunak had “always” argued that onshore wind could happen with local consent, adding: “What is being proposed [in Clarke’s amendment] is something which would guarantee that. I haven’t studied all the ramifications of that in terms of the planning changes, but to present it as some sort of massive gulf is completely untrue.” During the summer campaign to become Tory leader, where he lost to Liz Truss, Sunak released what he termed an energy independence plan, which stated: “In recognition of the distress and disruption that onshore wind farms can often cause, Rishi has also promised to scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind farms in England, providing certainty to rural communities.” Clarke’s amendment would oblige the government to change planning rules within six months to allow new projects. It is not yet known when amendments to the bill will be voted on. Last week, No 10 pulled a scheduled vote after a rebellion over planning policy. An amendment led by the former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers and backed by more than 50 Tory MPs seeks to scrap mandatory local housing targets and make them advisory only. Asked whether the government was about to U-turn, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “You’ll know there are quite detailed rules around onshore wind and what is allowed - it requires developers to consult with communities in advance [of making] a planning application. So I’m not going to predict what might happen in the future. “The prime minister has talked at great length about his views on where the focus should be on renewables, where he is talking about building more wind turbines offshore in order to boost energy security and also the importance of ensuring communities support any action the government takes on renewables.” • This article was amended on 7 December 2022. It was new planning rules in 2015 that brought in a de facto block on onshore wind projects, not 2014 as an earlier version said. | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'politics/grant-shapps', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peterwalker', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2022-11-28T08:38:35Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2013/feb/04/police-ipcc | Police undercover work has gone badly wrong. We need a public inquiry | Ken Macdonald | Undercover policing is the lifeblood of many dangerous and sensitive investigations. The evidence that's obtained in these operations can bring intelligence of the highest quality – and it can lock up dangerous people. That's all to the good. But it also involves deceit and intrusion on a grand and perhaps growing scale, sometimes practised on those caught up in things they have no responsibility for and don't understand. So getting this balance right, between the effectiveness of undercover work, and its accompanying abuses of privacy and intimacy, must be the key to public confidence. But it seems things have gone badly wrong. From secret policemen having sex with their unknowing targets and fathering and abandoning undercover offspring, to sworn officers on duty harvesting the names of tragically lost children, we seem to be reaching the point where a collapse in public faith may be inevitable. There are all sorts of ways to create a false identity. You don't have to steal one from a dead child. It is a careless and bullying intrusion into the most shattering human grief. The crassness and cruelty of this quite unnecessary technique is beyond belief – and that undercover officers have employed it persistently, presumably at the behest of their commanders over many years, should be a matter of deep shame for British policing. It also raises the most serious questions about the planning and execution of undercover police work in this country. The response of the police establishment to all this has been contradictory and confused. It has ranged from a blanket denial that officers were "authorised" to have sex with their targets, to an indication that it might sometimes happen, to relieved reliance upon a bizarre recent finding by a high court judge that when it passed legislation regulating undercover police activity, that parliament must have anticipated officers having sex as part of their work, because MPs have all read James Bond. Setting aside the remarkable complacency of this weird trivialisation of the anxious debates that accompanied the parliamentary passage of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the reality is that the employment of calculated sexual intercourse as part of a policeman's armoury is bound to corrode and corrupt. This is because it represents the most jagged invasion of another person's privacy, the grossest attack on their autonomy, and it is bound to unhinge the relationship between officer and target and bystander in a manner, to put it mildly, unlikely to serve the cause of fair and objective policing. What, for example, are the possible impacts upon the officer? What if he, or she, falls in love? It is, in every way, inappropriate – and deliberate impregnation is surely to stoop even lower. What seems to link all these techniques is a failure on the part of the police to consider in any way the boundaries of intimacy, or even some evidence of a desire on their part to operate in a milieu where the recognition of those boundaries is barred. But this is a totalitarian way of looking at the world, in which the targets of investigation are stripped of the protections of humanity, and infants, if they are dead, are just objects for use in the face of grief. Of course undercover work is intrusive, that is its whole point. But the state is not entitled to assume ownership of people's souls, even in the face of grave crime. Clearly, the police service has not always understood this. It is, however, difficult to see where a change in culture will come from. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is reeling from cuts and questions about the effectiveness of its investigations, and the high court appears mired in (notoriously misogynist) fiction. It seems only a public inquiry, taking stock of the picture both nationally and locally, receiving evidence and advice, and setting standards and mechanisms of control, is capable of rescuing us, and necessary undercover policing, from a steady drip of exposure and seediness. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'uk/police', 'uk-news/-iopc', 'uk/uk', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'uk/london', 'uk/ukcrime', 'tone/comment', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'type/article', 'profile/ken-macdonald-qc', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-02-04T12:11:37Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2023/sep/12/hurricane-lee-tracker-forecast-landfall | Hurricane Lee heads north with landfall expected in Nova Scotia or Maine | Hurricane Lee continues to grow larger in size as it moves northward and threatens to affects parts of Bermuda, New England and Atlantic Canada. Moving at 7mph (11.3km/h) and packing winds of up to 115mph (185km/h), Lee was positioned 380 miles (612km) north of the northern Leeward Islands as well as 600 miles (965km) south of Bermuda, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday evening. That track triggered a tropical storm watch for Bermuda. Based on the path projected for the stormy Tuesday, Lee was expected to make landfall in either Nova Scotia or the coast of Maine. Intense rainfall has already hit parts of the US east coast. Just outside Boston, a flash flood emergency order went into effect. The NHC said to expect hazardous surf and rip current conditions at beaches along the Atlantic all week. On Tuesday morning, the northern Caribbean, the Bahamas, Florida and the Carolinas saw large waves. By Wednesday, those waves were expected to reach the shore of New Jersey as well as that of Long Island. Although Lee was a category 3 hurricane on Tuesday, its wind intensity was expected to weaken, causing it to lose its major hurricane status as it entered less favorable conditions for it to develop. Nonetheless, the NHC warned that Lee’s expanding wind field would “produce impacts well away from the storm center”. Hurricane intensity is categorized on an ascending scale of 1 to 5. Lee is the 12th named storm to form in the Atlantic in 2023. It formed as the climate crisis continued increasing the risk of extreme weather events like heatwaves, wildfires and floods, in addition to tropical storms and hurricanes. This year the planet has already registered the hottest summer on record. And abnormally warm ocean temperatures have served as a catalyst for increased tropical storm and hurricane activity, according to experts. | ['world/hurricanes', 'us-news/us-weather', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/canada', 'world/americas', 'campaign/email/us-morning-newsletter', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/erum-salam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-09-12T17:45:31Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sustainable-business/2017/feb/23/australian-consortium-launches-world-first-digital-energy-marketplace-for-rooftop-solar | Australian consortium launches world-first digital energy marketplace for rooftop solar | Australian homeowners with solar panels and batteries could soon trade their electricity in a digital marketplace developed by a consortium of electricity providers, energy tech startups, energy retailers and energy agencies. The Decentralised Energy Exchange – or deX – was launched on Thursday with the promise to “change the way energy is produced, traded and consumed at a local level in Australia”. Phil Blythe, founder and CEO of GreenSync – an energy tech startup and partner in deX – says the project reflects a shift in energy production from a centralised model of large-scale power plants to a decentralised model of rooftop solar. “The uptake of rooftop solar is one of the highest in the world per capita in Australia – around 1.6 million rooftops are fitted with solar – and it’s being rapidly followed by battery storage,” Blythe says. This has led to a shift away from thinking of households solely as energy consumers towards them being viewed as active participants in the grid. “If we’re going to have customers that can participate in a grid, then they need to get paid for their participation,” he says. “We needed … a new way of thinking about how these decentralised grids are going to work and fundamentally, how do we do that cost-efficiently.” With that challenge in mind, in 2016, GreenSync got together with electricity network operators United Energy and ActewAGL, energy tech startup Reposit Power, and energy retailer Mojo under the auspices of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s A-Lab; an initiative that the Arena chief executive, Ivor Frischknecht, describes as an “innovation sandbox”. Arena contributed $450,000 towards the total project cost of $930,000. What they came up with has yet to be done anywhere in the world: a network of “virtual” power stations made up smart grids of rooftop solar panels and batteries. The aim is to reduce energy costs, drive investment in renewable energy, stabilise the electricity grid and buffer it against surges in demand such as the recent heatwaves. With power now being generated not only at the centre of the grid but out at the fringes, deX acts like traffic lights controlling the flow of power in all directions according to where the need is, explains Frischknecht. “For example, a particular line is overloaded at a particular time of the day or it thinks it might be, what the deX exchange does is for the network to effectively post that problem in an automated fashion and for households with batteries and solar to say, yep I’ve got a solution for you,” he says. “DeX allows that exchange to happen in both a technical way and a financial way.” This communication will be enabled by a system developed by Reposit Power that controls the home-based battery and links it to the exchange. This smart system communicates with the marketplace in real time, looking for incentives that the household’s energy portfolio can participate in. An individual household’s solar panels and battery might seem like small fry but aggregated together, they became a significant electricity resource. Several thousand households, each with a battery holding around five kilowatts, can operate together as a virtual power plant with a capacity well into the megawatt range. These virtual power plants represent a huge untapped resource; not least because they require a minuscule fraction of the cost of building a new coal-fired power plant, but also because they can be far more responsive to surges in energy demand. “If we talk about the need for a blackout this year or next year, there’s no way we can go and build a power plant in that time,” Blythe says. “We need to think about how to use the smarts to harness those assets and bring them together and advertise these contracts that can be fulfilled in three to six months at the longest, and respond to heatwaves or sudden climate events.” But if so much of the load is being taken up by individual household solar systems, does this take the pressure off governments to invest in energy infrastructure? Are we at risk of decentralising too much? Frischknecht argues that if anything, we are still too reliant on centralised energy production. “All of the load is out at the periphery of the network; the load is where this generation and storage is,” he says. “It means that the network will be better supported and ultimately we could end up with cheaper networks, which are the majority of our electricity costs, so this is a pathway to lower electricity costs.” The federal minister for the environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, says the project is an important initiative that creates two-way interface between energy consumers and local network operators. “This holds the potential to deliver on the government’s commitment to increasing the reliability of Australia’s energy system, whilst supporting a more effective and cost-competitive rollout of renewable energy to households,” Frydenberg says. While rooftop solar currently represents around 16% of renewable energy generation in Australia, Frischknecht says it is estimated to increase its contribution to anywhere between 20 and 50% of all electricity generation. The consortium is launching two pilot projects in the ACT and on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, each involving around 5,000 households. The projects are also being overseen by a reference group that includes the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Market Commission and Energy Consumers Australia. | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/series/innovations-in-renewables', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'technology/technology', 'environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'profile/bianca-nogrady', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-gsb'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2017-02-22T23:47:19Z | true | ENERGY |
film/2023/jun/27/my-extinction-review-climate-crisis-extinction-rebellion-xr | My Extinction review – cheerfully dishevelled film-maker gets stuck into climate crisis | Josh Appignanesi is the director who has found a jaunty, funny film-making language in low-budget personal work – co-directed with his wife, Devorah Baum – about his crises with status and masculinity. The New Man, from 2016, was about impending fatherhood; Husband, from 2022, showed his complicated feelings about Baum’s career outpacing his. The second was a goofy performance in the autofictional-autofactual grey area; Appignanesi’s cheerfully dishevelled figure was at the centre of almost every shot, sometimes leaving us to wonder if and where he had staged or reconstructed certain important moments – a heightened video-diarising or guided reality. Now, he has taken what appears to be a quantum leap to a new level of seriousness. A professional setback just before lockdown (the sudden disappearance of funding for a projected feature) leaves him with time on his hands and Appignanesi takes an interest in Extinction Rebellion. He brings his camera to marches and meetings and is soon a deeply committed member, culminating in a triumphant speech at an XR protest outside 55 Tufton Street in central London, the notorious headquarters of climate-denying thinktanks, storming it in front of the crowd. Then his agent offers him a lucrative gig making a TV ad for Esso – and Appignanesi is tempted. It isn’t that you doubt Appignanesi’s sincerity, although his deadpan facial expression in some of the more emotional XR meetings is sometimes difficult to read. On one march, he finds himself alongside the comedy writer David Schneider; their banter seems to relax him and the film’s punning title demonstrates his comedy instinct. The question arises whether he has cultivated a kind of Louis Theroux ambiguity in talking to the long-term XR faithful to suppress a mickey-taking impulse, or to create the space for his audience to do the mickey-taking on his behalf. Actually, no; he later tells his wife that people’s testimonies at a certain XR meeting really had brought him close to tears. But there is a disconnect between the importance of what he is talking about and the self-deprecation and throwaway comedy that dominates his style; these worked better with smaller-scale confessionals. Much though I always enjoy Appignanesi’s performances, the contradiction is not entirely solved. His central message is clear enough: if his career in making heavyweight films is finished, well, what of it? (I don’t believe for a moment that it is; Appignanesi is surely going to make a witty metropolitan comedy in this same minimalist style.) The planet is in danger and that is what we should be thinking about and acting on, rather than worrying about our negligible careers. • My Extinction is released in UK cinemas on 30 June. | ['film/film', 'film/documentary', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'environment/environment', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'profile/peterbradshaw', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2023-06-27T12:00:34Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-smaller-carbon-footprints | City dwellers have smaller carbon footprints, study finds | The image of cities is often traffic-clogged, polluted and energy-guzzling, but a new study has shown that city dwellers have smaller carbon footprints than national averages. The report by London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looked at 11 major cities on four continents, including London, Tokyo, New York and Rio de Janeiro. It found per capita greenhouse gas emissions for a Londoner in 2004 were the equivalent of 6.2 tonnes of CO2, compared with 11.19 for the UK average. The rural northeast of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, were singled out for having the highest footprints per capita in the UK. In the US, New Yorkers register footprints of 7.1 tonnes each, less than a thrid of the US average of 23.92 tonnes. The use of public transport and denser housing are two of the reasons for urbanites' comparatively low carbon footprints, the authors said, adding that the design of cities significantly affects their residents' emissions. "Tokyo has considerably lower emissions per person than either Beijing or Shanghai and this shows clearly that prosperity does not lead inevitably to greater emissions," said report author David Dodman. "Well-designed and well-governed cities can combine high living standards with much lower greenhouse gas emissions." The report coincides with a study published today by the UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which called for more spending on parks and trees in cities to create jobs and cut climate change emissions. The IIED is not the first organisation to suggest city living is greener than living in the countryside: last summer the Brookings Institute said residents in US cities had 14% lower footprints than the US average. The authors of this new report, however, admit that assessing emissions is not an exact science because different countries and cities employ different methodologies for counting CO2 emissions, making a precise like-for-like comparison difficult. Most city dwellers' emissions are also still too high to curb climate change, despite being low compared with national averages. "With the exceptions of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, all of the cities surveyed already exceed the per capita figure" needed to keep CO2 levels below 450 parts per million, warned Dodman. | ['environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2009-03-23T13:12:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
politics/article/2024/jun/23/labours-housebuilding-plans-are-on-dubious-foundations | Labour’s housebuilding plans are on dubious foundations | Letters | I was dismayed to read your reports on Labour’s threadbare manifesto (Keir Starmer faces questions over cost of Labour manifesto, 13 June). The irony of Sir Keir Starmer standing on a podium with the legend “change” while offering so little substance could hardly be greater. Apparently, given the fiscal rules, any hope of real change must reside in Labour’s ability to stimulate economic growth and here the main lever proposed is reform of the planning system. This system, he tells us, acts as a “major brake on economic growth” and his manifesto promises to slash the red tape that is holding us back. This kind of tired old soundbite, based on anecdote rather than evidence, has been regurgitated at elections for the last 20 years. Several avidly pro-growth governments have already driven a coach and horses through planning guidance and legislation. It would be interesting to know exactly what regulations Starmer intends to ditch in his quest to unleash a tidal wave of housebuilding. Planning is about balancing, or ideally seeking synergy between economic, social and environmental concerns. To do this, careful and often complex consideration is required. So, unless Starmer wants planning by diktat, little will change. If Labour really wants to increase housebuilding, it should look at the suggestions made by the Lib Dems. These have a lot more to recommend them. Ian Collis Derby • It seems that the parties are all promising to overshoot carbon budgets by adopting policies of building houses to meet housing needs (What each party promises voters in its UK general election manifesto, 15 June). With just a low level of carbon literacy, they would know that the upfront carbon emitted in the building of 300,000 houses a year would exceed the carbon budget for the whole economy. Probably the only way of meeting housing needs within carbon budgets would be through concentrating on using the 1m empty homes and the 50% of unused space and fabric in existing housing stock. Daniel Scharf Abingdon, Oxfordshire | ['politics/labour', 'society/housing', 'politics/planning', 'society/communities', 'politics/politics', 'politics/keir-starmer', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'uk/uk', 'business/construction', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2024-06-23T16:17:09Z | true | EMISSIONS |
world/2005/sep/05/hurricanekatrina.usa3 | Disease warning as dysentery cases reported | Officials yesterday warned that those stranded by Hurricane Katrina face a serious risk of dysentery and other diseases from contaminated water. The US health and human services secretary, Michael Leavitt, said he had received a report of an outbreak of dysentery in Biloxi, Mississippi. The lack of clean drinking water in parts of the Gulf coast region and standing floodwaters with decomposing bodies and human waste in the streets of New Orleans could cause a rash of infectious diseases, including West Nile virus and the often fatal E coli bacterium, he warned. "All of the infectious diseases that occur when people are in large congregations of people can spread," Mr Leavitt said. It was reported that officials had closed a shelter in Biloxi on Saturday because more than 20 people had fallen ill. Doctors believe the patients may have contracted dysentery from tainted water. Another 20 people in the area were treated for vomiting and diarrhoea. The shelter at a Biloxi school had been without water and power since Katrina hit on Monday. About 400 people had been staying there, and doctors said some may have ignored warnings to stay away from water. Some running water came back late on Friday, but it was not safe to drink or even to use to brush teeth or wash, said Dr Jason Dees, a volunteer working at Biloxi regional medical centre. Most of the patients were treated with antibiotics. About 30 of the affected residents were taken to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, while the rest were taken by bus to a shelter in Thomasville, Georgia. Corporal Kayla Robert, of Biloxi police, said she had no idea what caused the illnesses. "Who knows what they swallowed before they got here," she said. "Half of them were swimming in stuff that we don't even know what it was." Harrison county's health director, Bob Trabnicek, said: "It's not a disaster, it's a catastrophe." Oliver Morgan, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Los Angeles Times that the threat of disease was not from the corpses but from those living in squalid conditions without clean water. "After these big events where there are large numbers of fatalities, there is a rush to dispose of the dead and a lot of scare stories about imminent epidemics," he said. "But the risk of disease transmission is really coming from the surviving population." | ['world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-04T23:00:56Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2016/nov/25/harland-and-wolff-wins-east-anglia-one-offshore-windfarm-contract | Harland and Wolff wins East Anglia One offshore windfarm contract | The Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic has won a contract believed to be worth £20m to expand a huge windfarm off the East Anglian coast. Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd has secured the manufacturing of 60 steel foundation jackets for the East Anglia One offshore windfarm, which will safeguard 200 jobs. At more than 65 metres high and weighing over 845 tonnes, the three-legged steel jackets will be almost as prominent on Belfast’s skyline as Samson and Goliath, Harland and Wolff’s giant yellow cranes. Work on the foundation jackets will start in the second quarter of 2017 and should be completed towards the end of 2018, Scottish Renewables said on Friday. The firm says East Anglia One, a £2.5bn North Sea windfarm, will generate 714 megawatts of electricity by 2020, enough to power 500,000 homes. Jonathan Guest, Harland and Wolff’s director of business development said: “In a global supply chain environment it is significant when a developer stands over its commitment to give opportunities to local fabricators, as Scottish Power Renewables have demonstrated for East Anglia One.” Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power Renewables said: “East Anglia One will be the best value offshore windfarm ever constructed, at the same time as delivering industry-leading levels of UK content. “We are pleased that Belfast will play important roles in delivering their project supporting hundreds of skilled jobs.” Formed in 1862, Harland and Wolff is based in the east inner city overlooking Belfast Lough. It built more than 70 ships for the White Star Line, including the Titanic. Between 1900 and 1930 it was Belfast’s biggest employer. By the second world war it employed 35,000 people, but from the 1950s onwards it went into decline with advent of the jet age and competition from yards in Japan and Korea. Although with a much reduced workforce, Harland and Wolff has survived by diversifying away from shipbuilding to the construction of oil and gas rights. It also recast Halfpenny Bridge over the river Liffey in Dublin. It began to exploit the boom in offshore windfarms in 2012, which at present constitutes 75% of the company’s work. | ['business/manufacturing-sector', 'uk/belfast', 'environment/windpower', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/northernireland', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/henrymcdonald', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-11-25T11:41:57Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2024/feb/02/london-could-introduce-suv-parking-charge-sadiq-khan-indicates | Sadiq Khan says he will monitor effectiveness of Paris plan to raise charges on SUVs | The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said he will monitor the effectiveness of Paris’s plan to increase parking charges for sports utility vehicles if it is approved in an upcoming referendum. Khan was speaking at an event at which he apologised on behalf of the Greater London Authority to the family of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who died in 2013, aged nine, as a result of London’s dirty air. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has said she wants to push SUVs out of the city and limit emissions and air pollution. Announcing the policy in December, she declared: “It is a form of social justice.” Paris will hold a referendum on Sunday asking residents to vote for or against a specific parking tariff for heavy, large and polluting SUVs. Khan welcomed Hidalgo’s plan and said he would watch it closely. He told the Guardian: “We always examine policies around the globe. I’m a firm believer in stealing good policies. Rather than inventing [new policies] badly, if other cities are doing stuff that works, we will copy them.” Khan said he knew SUVs were a particular problem that needed to be tackled: “SUVs take up more space and we know there’s issues around road safety, we know there’s issues around carbon emissions and so forth. We know some councils in London are taking bold policies in relation to parking fees, in relation to your tickets and so forth. It’s really good to work with those councils.” A spokesperson for Khan later told the Guardian that the mayor does not currently have the power to implement parking levies on SUVs and has no plans to do so. Large sport vehicles are a cause of rising transport pollution, according to research. While they are billed as vehicles designed to cover rough ground or tow heavy loads, research has shown that three-quarters of SUVs bought new in the UK are registered to people living in urban areas. A recent study found that the effect of rising sales of SUVs, and the fact they tend to be heavier than the traditional models previously bought, means the average conventional-engined car bought in 2023 had higher carbon emissions than its 2013 equivalent. Ella grew up near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, south-east London, and developed asthma just before her seventh birthday. The asthma attacks left her struggling to breathe and she required frequent hospital visits. A few weeks after her ninth birthday she suffered a fatal asthma attack. In December 2020 the coroner concluded that air pollution contributed to Ella’s death, and she became the first person in the world to have it recorded as a cause of death on her death certificate. Ella’s mother, Rosamund, said justice for her daughter would be served when the UK government passed strong air quality laws to prevent other children suffering a similar fate. She said: “I would like to thank the mayor for his apology on behalf of the city today. Nothing will ever make up for the pain and suffering that Ella went through, and nothing will ever make up for the pain and suffering my family has been through since losing her in such circumstances. “My goal has always been to stop other children from suffering like Ella did. My family and I will continue to fight for the health of all children and, with everyone’s support, one day we will get justice for Ella Roberta.” Adoo-Kissi-Debrah has been campaigning for “Ella’s law”, which would establish a right to clean air and set up a commission to oversee government actions and progress. It would also join policies on indoor and outdoor air pollution with actions to combat the climate emergency and include annual reviews of the latest science. Khan said a Labour government would put this legislation in place. “The Labour party supported the private member’s bill that started with the House of Lords with [the Green peer] Jenny Jones,” he said. “What the government’s done is remarkable in the sense they kick the can down the road and say: ‘Yeah, we agree with that. But we’ll do it in 18 years’ time’.” • This article was amended on 2 February 2024 to make clear that the mayor does not have the power to raise parking charges for SUVs. The headline and introduction were amended to remove the suggestion that he could introduce such levies. | ['uk/london', 'environment/air-pollution', 'uk-news/england', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'politics/sadiq-khan', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'politics/london-mayoral-election-2024', 'profile/helena-horton', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-02-02T12:28:24Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
global-development/2012/jun/15/rio20-voice-dhaka-bangladesh | Rio+20: A voice from Dhaka, Bangladesh | To meet the development goals, a human rights-based approach, gender equality, decent work, and environment and ecological protection should be at the heart. Since 1992, the global economy has become more accumulative and centralised, which goes against the principles of sustainable development goals. A series of crises such as climate, food, power, energy and financial emerged due to overexploitation of natural resources, overconsumption and the capitalist nature of the economy. Most of the world's resources are in the hands of around 5% of the richest people. Thus, in the past two decades, marginalisation – the rich and poor divide – has increased. So, the development goals must assert social and economic equality, and environmental protection. The green economy cannot solve the problem until the current architecture is changed. Bangladesh has made economic progress with constant GDP growth of 6% in the past few years, but the rich and poor divide has increased and climate change becomes an issue that makes life more vulnerable than before. Rio+20 must deal with how the international leadership comes to a consensus to resolve the crises and help the south, as they committed [to do] earlier, under the millennium development goals. A forward-looking vision for post-2015 should be at the core of discussions in Rio to deal with the unfinished business of commitments that global leaders made before. | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/rio-20-earth-summit', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'tone/interview', 'global-development/series/global-development-voices', 'type/article'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-06-15T09:21:12Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2021/nov/07/its-time-to-shift-from-the-war-on-terror-to-a-war-on-climate-change | It’s time to shift from the ‘war on terror’ to a war on climate change | Heidi Peltier | Large government bureaucracies are often slow to adapt to changing realities, such as the catastrophic threats we face in a warming world. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is no exception. New research from Brown University’s Costs of War Project shows that the DHS has been overly focused on foreign and foreign-inspired terrorism, while violent attacks in the US have more often come from domestic sources. A combination of willful ignorance and institutional inertia caused the agency to miss the rise in white supremacy and domestic terrorism that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. The new data from Dr Erik Dahl, Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, show that just one of the 46 failed terror plots in the US from 2018 through 2020 was directed by a foreign organization. In contrast, 29 plots were planned or carried out by domestic groups. In 2019, DHS finally acknowledged the growing threat of targeted violence and domestic terrorism borne mainly of far-right ideology and white supremacy and issued its first strategy document identifying these threats. While we know now that the threat of violent attacks from domestic sources outnumber those from foreign sources, a bigger source of insecurity still is that of climate change. On October 21, the DHS released its first-ever “Strategic Framework for Addressing Climate Change,” acknowledging the importance of climate as a source of disruption and threat to security. As the COP26 UN climate meetings start this week, it’s time for a recognition that climate change is in fact a more expensive, more deadly, and more real threat to lives and to the US economy than the threat of what we call terrorism. The “War on Terror” – a phrase born in the George W Bush administration – needs to be retired both as an action and a concept. The word “terrorism” instills a sense of fear and gives carte blanche for the US government to intervene around the globe. As a response to the 9/11 attacks, the US military has waged wars that have directly caused nearly 1 million deaths and indirectly caused many times that. The footprint of DHS itself has grown globally, as it is now the third largest US civilian agency overseas. Dahl’s data show that foreign interventions by the US keep the fear of Americans focused abroad, without any statistical evidence that groups in other countries pose a significant source of threat to American safety. The concept of “counterterrorism” has led the US into over 85 countries, including in the Middle East and Africa, with the US spending trillions of dollars fighting unwinnable wars. The US Department of Homeland Security has spent over $1tn since its creation in 2003, and the Department of Defense has spent trillions more fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere – wars that have made the globe no safer. Instead of wasting trillions of dollars and millions of lives fighting a war on terror, the US should be mobilizing to combat climate change. Federal spending should be channeled toward clean energy projects, other decarbonization efforts, and adaptation for a changing climate. The increase in extreme weather events has already cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars in weather-related damages and the frequency and severity of these types of events will only increase unless swift and sweeping actions are taken. Climate-related disasters have killed more Americans from flooding and wildfires than the 2,996 people who died in the 9/11 attacks. Wildfires have resulted in over 3,200 deaths in the U.S. since 2000, according to recent research in The Lancet. Hurricane Katrina alone killed over 1,800 people in 2005. The Atlas of Mortality from the World Meteorological Organization finds that the US accounts for 38% of global economic losses from caused by weather, climate, and water hazards. It’s time for the US to shift toward the biggest threat to our security, and to direct federal resources accordingly. Let’s retire the “War on Terror” and fight the battles that will more significantly save lives and livelihoods. Heidi Peltier is a senior researcher at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and director of programs for the Costs of War Project | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-aid', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | environment/climate-aid | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-07T11:24:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2012/feb/28/prince-charles-windfarm-funding | Prince Charles to get funding from 'blot on the landscape' windfarms | Prince Charles is set to benefit from the erection of onshore windfarms in England and Wales despite once declaring them a "horrendous blot on the landscape". Under a change in funding arrangements for the royal household due to come into effect next year, the upkeep of his London home, Clarence House, and the costs of his official trips on private charter jets and the royal train will be funded through income from the crown estate, which leases out land for the largest onshore windfarm in the south of England at Romney Marsh. It is also planning several more in Wales and Lincolnshire that could together deliver £1m a year in revenues. The prince is understood to be strongly opposed to onshore wind turbines that rise higher than 100 metres because of their visual impact, and none have been erected on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the £700m estate that provides him with a private income. He has lobbied government officials to subsidise other renewable energy sources and is reported to believe that if windfarms should be built at all, they should be far out at sea. The apparent clash between the prince's environmental principles and the crown estate's desire to invest in onshore wind power will be triggered by the Sovereign Grant Act, which means that from 2013 the royal family will receive 15% of profits from the crown estate, instead of direct government grants, to cover travel costs and maintenance of the royal palaces including Buckingham Palace. In the past few years, the crown estate has signed a 25-year lease with the renewable energy company RWE for turbines at Little Cheyne Court windfarm in Kent and has agreed lease options with Renewable Energy Systems, which wants to erect 15 turbines in Carmarthenshire, with RWE npower for four turbines in Powys, and with E.ON for 17 turbines on the Billingborough estate in Lincolnshire. The windfarms could produce revenues to the operators of around £20m a year and fees to the crown estate of around £1m, according to estimates from RenewableUK, the wind and marine energy industry group. "It is hypocrisy," said Leanne Wood, a candidate for the Plaid Cymru leadership who is campaigning for Welsh energy independence. "[The prince] stands to benefit from wind projects on land in Wales, but opposes them himself. If that is his position there shouldn't be windfarms on crown estate land." "They speak against them and they don't want the noise and ugliness near them but it seems they don't mind reaping the profits if they are near us," said Snowy Wilson, 66, a resident of Llanllwni Mountain, where the crown estate is considering erecting turbines. "My house will be devalued by 25%. The prince doesn't have those sorts of worries because he has houses all over the place." A spokesman for the prince denied he was acting in any way hypocritically and stressed that the royal family played no part in the running of the crown estate. "In the case of the Prince of Wales, the sovereign grant funding is mostly used to meet the costs of the official overseas tours which he and other members of the royal family undertake on behalf of the country, so the spending of that money is ultimately determined by the government," the spokesman said. "The vast majority of the prince's official costs are met out of his private income from the Duchy of Cornwall." The Duke of Edinburgh is also put in a difficult position because the crown estate is placing still greater emphasis on the development of offshore windfarms around the coast of Britain and the duke has attacked the technology as "absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace". Last year, the crown estate earned £3.5m from renewable energy on its marine estate, which comprises almost all of the seabed out to 12 nautical miles. But the offshore wind industry is only in its infancy and the estate is funding development work such as geo-technical surveys before leasing out rights to private companies to erect turbines. It has invested £100m in its offshore wind programme and its latest tranche of windfarm development alone could provide around 25% of the UK's total electricity needs by 2020, it claims. Profits of at least £100m a year could result, according to industry estimates, which would mean an income to the royals from offshore wind power alone of £15m. Over the past three years, the royal household has spent on average £35m a year. George Osborne has estimated the grant from crown estate profits would be £34m in 2013-14. | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/prince-charles', 'politics/plaid-cymru', 'uk/prince-philip', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/robertbooth', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2012-02-28T09:00:04Z | true | ENERGY |
sustainable-business/altruism-good-business-community | Can altruism be good for business? | For decades executives have been encouraged to view the world beyond their corporation as a field of competitors to be battled with, or consumers to be lured. If the 'outside' world of neighbourhoods, supply chains, or regions was to be considered, it was kept in the periphery of a corporate social responsibility function rather than seen as central to the strategy of the business. This passive view is changing fast. If corporations are to be sufficiently robust and successful over the coming decades, they need to ensure the resilience of the neighbourhoods in which they reside and in the extended supply chains that serve them. There are a number of different organisations that have successfully balanced the need for their business to be robust and profitable with a desire to improve conditions in the communities around them. Take the John Lewis Partnership, for example. For decades, it has bucked the corporate trends that discourage generosity. Instead of creating a way of working that squeezes out any nonproductive time that people have through a relentless focus on revenue-generating tasks, it follows its founder's vision to build resilient communities and neighbourhoods. All John Lewis Partnership partners are encouraged to offer their time to support local, regional, and national initiatives that help to build more vibrant, economically sustainable neighbourhoods. In 2012, this amounted to over 28,000 hours (pdf) in voluntary community activities. Is it good for business? The partnership is not only one of the country's most successful companies, it is also Britain's largest and oldest example of worker co-ownership, with 85,000 partners owning the retailer's 38 department stores and 285 Waitrose supermarkets. Interestingly, corporate altruism doesn't always have to be a question of simply giving – it can be a commercial exercise too. An example of this is the dairy and food producer Danone, which works with low-income areas to create community-led businesses based on a social business model. Launched by Danone CEO Franck Riboud and professor Muhummad Yunus, founder of microfinance organisation Grameen Bank, the projects are economically self-sustaining while creating wealth for customers, employees, and regions where the company operates. The company's first yoghurt plant in Bogra, Bangladesh now employs 177 full-time employees, drawn from local communities in a region of extreme unemployment. It also employs over 800 Danone sales representatives who take yoghurt to be sold individually to people in the neighbouring towns and uses milk from over 370 microfarmers from around the region. Without a dairy plant, the milk these farmers produce typically goes no further than the village and is the victim of unpredictable demand. The plant helps ensure their milk is sold every day, and the fixed price encourages them to make future investments in cattle. This social business model has been extended to other regions across the world, including Senegal and Algeria. This approach also works when applied to a corporation's target market. For Brazilian cosmetics firm Natura Cosméticos, investing in the community is a vital part of the company's business strategy. Since 2000, the company has worked with over 1,500 Amazon families that grow and harvest the tropical plants and fruits used in its products and has invested in research aimed at preserving local biodiversity. This has been a recipe for success: Natura group has a market share of 23% in Brazil, with revenues of $2.31 billion. Corporations have an extraordinary opportunity to bring resilience to a fragile world by ensuring that the communities of which they are members are themselves resilient. This is already in progress. Global challenges such as climate change, poverty, inequality, and youth unemployment each have their own trajectory of corporate impact, and corporate leaders are beginning to realise that when neighbourhoods and communities flourish, corporations flourish too. Lynda Gratton is professor of management practice at London Business School and author of The Key The social impact hub is funded by Business Call to Action. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'business/business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'tone/blog', 'business/johnlewis', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'sustainable-business/series/social-impact', 'type/article'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-06-06T15:16:33Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2010/may/18/bioblitz-wildlife-garden | A bioblitz of a London garden | Back garden Flower bed Digging up the flower bed reveals a handful of worms from the black-headed, grey, green, rosy-tipped and lobworm varieties. Lawn The team finds 27 species of moss alone, mostly common species such as Brachythecium rutabulum and Kindbergia praelonga – but, surprisingly, no liverworts. Log pile Usually a rich bug habitat, it proves most popular with spiders and springtails – tiny creatures that use their tails to spring away from predators. Different lichens reflect the air quality. Back patio Collecting a bag of dried leaves, Hine spots what looks like a big ant, but inside a test tube it "walks like a spider" – so is probably a Micaria pulicaria ground spider. In the air The sun brings out lots of flying insects – including the most glamorous catch of the day: a hawthorn shield bug (bright green with a black triangle on its back, and red stripes under the wings). Sky A bright green ring-necked parakeet fled when the team arrived. Later they spot feral and wood pigeons, chaffinch, starling, swift, a carrion crow and jackdaw flying overhead, a blackbird on the fence, and blue and great tits on the neighbour's overhanging silver birch. Climber Our experts get out a "beating tray" – a white sheet stretched over a collapsing wooden x-frame – and "agitate" the budding spindle tree (Euonymus japonicus) to see what falls out. Against the white cloth they can see "at least four spiders, some springtails and a tiny beetle". Behind fence Millimetres away from the garden, they find several new mosses in the alleyway, a lily of the valley – and the fused parallel bones of what might be a frog, probably from when the previous owners had a small rock fountain. Bird bath 10-15 species are unearthed under the birdbath and other pots, including a millipede, a hunting spider with stripy legs, a long skinny yellow centipede and four types of slug. Front garden Rosemary bush, under front window To my shame, I never noticed this untidy rosemary is studded with iridescent green-and-red-striped rosemary leaf beetles. Next to them, a small brown snail is the plain sister. Flowerbed to right The front boasts more flowers, including a profusion of three-cornered leeks (Allium triquetrum): a non-native "weed" that adds easy (free) colour. Hiding in this forest of white bulbs is a tiny young Daphne – the only plant I've never forgotten the name of, because it's my mother's name. Hidden in the corner, behind the bush in the foreground A hairy hoverfly turns up in the net, looking very like a wasp. It's a great pollinator, and is dyed yellow – probably from the nearby Kerria, whose puffball flowers are also known as Japanese roses (Japonica pleniflora). Under the hedge, foreground Fred Rumsey spots Dorycnium hirsutum self-sown under the front hedge; a short-lived garden plant from Mediterranean areas which hasn't been found often enough here to have made it into the British Flora. "On this evidence, it could start to." Lawn/above it A rather pale looking red mason bee is trapped in one of the many test tubes. Stuart Hines speculates it has been bleached by the sun – of which there has been a lot in April. These are miner bees which use mud to make nests in tiny cavities like door locks and even curtain folds. Path or front door A seven-spot ladybird – it looks quite like the non-native harlequin ladybird, but is helpfully identified by the unvarying pattern of seven black spots on its wings. Back in the lab the team expect to find tiny parasitic mites hitching a ride on its legs between feeding grounds. It's not uncommon to find new species among these mites, so little have they been studied. DIY: kit needed for a bioblitz • Jam jars and various pots/tubes • Sieve • Magnifying glass • Light coloured tray or casserole dish (to chuck leaf litter and samples onto) • A good UK field guide – eg Michael Chinnery's Field Guide to insects of western Europe, and his photographic guide to wildlife in your garden • A notebook • Some kind of net (make one from a net curtain and coat hanger) | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/juliettejowit', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-05-19T09:57:21Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sustainable-business/2015/feb/13/deforestation-free-forest-companies-palm-oil-soy | Going deforestation-free: can it protect our forests? | So here is the good news. Asia Pulp and Paper, one of the world’s largest pulp and paper producers, wants to go deforestation-free. For them that means stopping the conversion of natural forests, protecting high conservation value areas and good community relations, among other efforts. The company has worked with Greenpeace and TFT to develop its zero-deforestation programme, and invited Rainforest Alliance to evaluate progress thus far. That evaluation was just released, and the news is that APP suppliers have stopped destroying natural forests. Unfortunately, forest clearance by other third parties is still occurring. The reasons are complex, and include communities carving out space for homes and subsistence farming, overlapping tenures where natural forest might get replaced with oil palm, and selective illegal logging. Completely eliminating deforestation across APP’s huge supply chain will take time and collaboration with other players, including government. Between the New York Declaration on Forests, the Consumer Goods Forum and individual corporate announcements, hundreds of companies are committing to sourcing commodities from suppliers that don’t destroy forests to produce them – especially beef, pulp and paper, palm oil and soy, which collectively cause about half of global deforestation. That’s exciting because trees are critical for protecting water, soil and biodiversity, as well as creating resilience to extreme weather events and sequestering carbon. It is also a testament to constructive partnerships between corporate leaders and civil society groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, World Resources Institute and Rainforest Alliance. But the devil is in the detail. Zero deforestation policies don’t change the fact that sourcing forest products always involves cutting trees – it’s just a question of which trees where and how. And where there is a cultivated crop, most likely there once stood forests. Without a shared definition and approach, siloed deforestation-free commitments risk simply shifting forest destruction from one company or producer area to another, confusing consumers in the process. It’s well recognised that declaring logging off limits in a given area and throwing communities that depend on forest-based livelihoods out of work can be a recipe for illegal logging and net forest loss. Stopping deforestation requires carrots as well as sticks – deterring forest destruction as well as helping foresters and farmers make a living, protecting high-value areas and managing trees sustainably. In the case of agriculture, growing demand for food also requires sustainable intensification – in other words, producing more on less land, without unacceptable uses of chemicals and water to do so. Take Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, which has areas of government-run “strict-protection” forest that are theoretically deforestation-free, but in practice lose an average 1% of their forest to encroachment annually. Some of those protected areas have even higher rates of illegal forest conversion than areas outside the reserve. But adjacent to these areas, also inside the reserve, are forestry concessions where communities run sustainably managed working forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Here, net deforestation rates are near zero. In other words, those logging concessions are more deforestation-free than parts of the strict-protection zones. For North American paper company Domtar, which has been employing sustainable forest management practices for 10 years, not to mention thousands of other FSC certified companies, deforestation-free means harvesting trees in a way that protects water, soil, indigenous rights and wildlife, as well as ensuring reforestation and good community and labour relations. Currently, 20% of the paper Domtar sells is FSC certified, and it is also working to create transparency through its new Paper Trail® tool, which lets customers track environmental, social and economic impacts of their individual order. Since agriculture causes 70% of global deforestation, and rising population and food demand increase pressure to convert forests, pursuing deforestation-free goals must also mean finding sustainable ways of increasing yields on existing cropland and grazing land without cutting forests. To feed nine billion people by mid-century, developing countries must increase food production by over 50%. There’s evidence we can achieve that without cannibalising forests. In 2006, after Greenpeace published a report exposing deforestation from soy production in Brazil (pdf), major soy producers agreed to a moratorium on forest clearing. A new study confirms that since then, deforestation from soy fell to near zero, while soy production still doubled. For now, deforestation-free can mean anything from stopping conversion of natural forests to active stewardship of conserved forests to intensifying agricultural yields sustainably. To really stop deforestation, we need to get on the same page. Commodity production and supply chains should respect common, key criteria, starting with no conversion of natural forests. But they should also extend further: protecting non-forest ecosystems, preventing severe pollution or over-exploitation of water, upholding community and worker rights, and progressively improving farmers’ productivity, efficiency and livelihood benefits. The supply chain hub is sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “brought to you by”. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox. | ['sustainable-business/series/supply-chain', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'tone/blog', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'type/article'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-02-13T07:10:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
media/2017/sep/03/death-bangladesh-doesnt-draw-crowd-melania-trump-hurricane-harvey | Death in Bangladesh doesn’t draw a crowd like Melania | One foreign reporting job from long ago lives with me still. The great Bhola cyclone of 1970, pounding the shores of East Pakistan (soon to be Bangladesh) and West Bengal. Some 500,000 people reported dead. Delta islands swamped, desolate. And I was there, moving by rescue helicopter from one scene of horror to another across a vista of grey mud, flattened villages – and bodies, bodies everywhere. Bloated cows, huddled humans. It keeps happening. Only last week the monsoon rains – dumping walls of water on Nepal and east India – flooded one-third of Bangladesh. “Farmers are left with nothing, not even with clean drinking water,” said Red Cross and Crescent leaders on the sodden ground. Count more than 1,200 more dead. Perhaps, though, you didn’t quite register the full horror of that deluge. Perhaps you were more enthralled by Harvey and Houston, where the Red Cross reported 40,000 living in shelters and maybe four dozen dead in a landscape suddenly strewn with TV reporters. The waters rise; more houses and lives covered in filth and misery. But look! Here’s President Trump, citing “epic” challenges, and Melania, wearing her Disaster Barbie kit with four-inch heels for the cameras. And look again! Now she’s changed into a simple shirt and slacks. Of course the renewed misery of Bangladesh received more than fleeting coverage in the west, with solid reports from the BBC on Saturday. Of course Harvey’s havoc over Texas and Louisiana is a tragic story of natural devastation, with climate-change dimensions – and added Trump. Of course there are no glib equivalencies here. But there are fresh questions to pose in the continuing arguments about newsroom quotas, about the mechanics of fairness and balance. I got into trouble with readers here last week for maintaining that journalism – however much it needed diversity in recruitment – was an outward-looking job that demanded professional reporting from all concerned, whatever their backgrounds. No, critics said, the constructs of race, gender and class mattered much more. (Think BBC news divisions and the embrace of targets and sanctions.) But here’s a factor that debate leaves out: simply you, en masse; you the audience. This is the age of algorithms, an age where every flicker of reader interest tweaks news provision up and down the land. This is the era of supply and demand, the call of the Facebook wild. Which means that, together, we are wriggling on the same spot. We may want certain proportions of background and experience in our office environments. We may set ourselves ever tighter quotas. We want to do the right thing. But do we, in the coverage we embrace, reckon that one Texan flood victim is worth 12 Bangladesh dead? How do we equate the homeless of Houston with 5.7 million flood-blighted Bangladeshis? The answer is that we don’t and can’t. Our world isn’t some imposed newsroom structure. The answer lies in how easily humanity and human interest go their separate ways. I’ll never forget the bleakness of that swamped Ganges delta long ago, an abiding lesson in the awful destructiveness that comes from sea and sky. But see how quickly you forget such horrors, impaled on a four-inch heel. | ['media/us-press-publishing', 'us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'world/bangladesh', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'media/pressandpublishing', 'world/south-and-central-asia', 'us-news/melania-trump', 'media/media', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'media/series/peter-preston-on-press-and-broadcasting', 'media/television', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/peterpreston', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/business', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | us-news/hurricane-harvey | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-03T06:00:36Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2024/apr/17/healthier-ready-to-eat-meals-would-have-huge-eu-climate-benefits-report | Healthier ready-to-eat meals would have ‘huge’ EU climate benefits – report | Healthier ready-to-eat meals could cut EU emissions by 48m tonnes annually and save customers €2.8bn (£2.4bn) each year, as well as reducing disease, a report has found. Fast food and ready meals provide more than a sixth of the EU’s calories but contain far more salt and meat than doctors recommend, according to an analysis from the consultancy Systemiq commissioned by environmental nonprofit organisations Fern and Madre Brava. They found that placing minimum health and sustainability standards on the companies who sell most of them would yield “huge” benefits to society. “Making ready meals healthier and more sustainable is a no-regrets policy,” said Eduardo Montero Mansilla from the Spanish Consumers and Users’ Federation, one of 10 non-governmental organisations that co-authored the report. “We can improve the health of people and the planet at affordable prices.” The report explored the effects of making big food companies comply with diets from the World Health Organization, which aims to avoid malnutrition and non-communicable disease, and the EAT-Lancet Commission, which tries to reduce environmental as well as human harm. In both cases, they found that ready-to-eat meals would need to contain about half as many refined grains and two-thirds less meat, on average, as well as “significantly” more legumes. While the report found that would save consumers €2.8bn in cheaper food and cut emissions by 48m tonnes each year, it did not count the additional economic benefits of hospitals spending less money on treating patients and employers losing less money from workers taking sick days. “We are currently living in a diet-related health crisis,” said Alba Gil from the European Public Health Alliance, which co-authored the report. “Our dietary habits shape our health, and therefore our future. It makes only sense that policymakers regulate the environments where we consume food to make it healthy and affordable by design.” Livestock are responsible for 12-20% of planet-heating pollution and increase the levels of some heart diseases and cancers in rich countries where the average person eats more meat than doctors recommend. Climate scientists are clear that swapping from animal to plant-based proteins is a powerful step to keep the planet from heating, though doctors are unsure just how little meat is best for human health. The EAT-Lancet Commission, which is meeting this year to propose a wider range of diets and address concerns about micronutrient shortfalls in its planetary health diet, currently advises eating meat about once a week and fish twice a week. The NGOs called on the EU to require big food companies to comply with health and sustainability guidelines for ready-made meals sold in the EU. The report did not analyse how consumers would respond to such a proposal. Paul Behrens, an environmental change researcher at Leiden University who has studied food systems, who was not involved in the study, said: “This report is pragmatic in suggesting that not every meal has to be optimally healthy, but that the overall offering of caterers and retailers should meet dietary guidelines.” He added: “If policymakers followed this advice, it would create a far healthier food culture that would benefit the planet, our wellbeing, and our wallets.” | ['environment/carbon-emissions', 'food/fast-food', 'business/fooddrinks', 'world/eu', 'society/health', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'business/regulators', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'food/meat', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ajit-niranjan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2024-04-17T04:00:06Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2021/apr/22/biden-administration-says-australia-needs-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-sooner | Biden administration says Australia needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions sooner | The Biden administration says Australia needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions faster than planned and the US president hopes Scott Morrison will commit to doing more at a virtual summit on the climate crisis on Thursday night. Although the Morrison government has promoted a “technology not taxes” approach to emissions reduction to convince allies that Australia is serious about making the transition, a senior Biden administration official told reporters Australia could not rely on technology alone to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Joe Biden has promised to use the summit of 40 world leaders, which starts at 10pm eastern Australian time, to announce a short-term emissions reduction target, and called on other countries to do the same. The United States is expected to set a goal of cutting emissions roughly in half over the next 10 years. It follows the European Union confirming a goal of a 55% cut by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, and Britain planning a 78% cut by 2035. Japan and Canada are also expected to set new targets, but Australia is not expected to increase its target of a 26-28% cut. The Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, repeated an acknowledgment by its climate envoy, John Kerry, that the US and Australia have “differences” on climate policy. They said it was an “open question” for Australia how it could turn what has been “a very difficult political conversation in the country” to an approach consistent with the global agenda on the climate crisis. “I think our colleagues in Australia recognise that there’s going to have to be a shift,” the official said. “It’s insufficient to follow the existing trajectory and hope that they will be on a course to deep decarbonisation and getting to net zero emissions by mid-century.” The official said the differences between the two countries were mostly about emissions reduction trajectory and “how do you get on it”. Where Australia’s approach was “don’t worry, technology will solve the problem”, the others believed technology would contribute but was insufficient on its own. The official described the second view as “you have to have a set of policies; you have to have national intent; you have to follow up with actions and commitments”. “We are hopeful [Morrison] will come to the summit and make announcements around both and commit the country to next steps that we think would be critical,” the official said. “We certainly see them as a strong ally, an ally in technology development, but also an ally in the opportunities for policy development … We see enormous potential for joint work between our two countries and have a long history of cooperation.” Australia is not expected to make any new commitments about emissions reduction targets at the summit even though there is increasing pressure on the Coalition from business and investors to adopt a net zero target by 2050 and to beef up medium-term emissions reduction targets ahead of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow in November. Facing sustained diplomatic pressure from the US, Britain and the European Union to come to the table with significant new commitments, the Morrison government has promised $540m funding for “clean hydrogen” and carbon capture hubs and projects, and $566 to build international collaboration on developing low-emissions technology. Analysts say Australia’s spending on technology, particularly hydrogen, is dwarfed by other countries and it is increasingly out of step in lifting commitments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement, including pursuing efforts to limit global heating to as close as 1.5C as possible. The government has not set a zero emissions target, but the prime minister has said it would “preferably” reach it by 2050. This week former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull called Australia’s 2030 emissions target “woefully inadequate” and called on Morrison to pledge at least a 45% cut. The climate summit will be held over two days, starting with a meeting of leaders to discuss raising ambition. It will include sessions focused on investing in climate solutions, adaptation and resilience, climate security, unleashing climate innovation and the economic opportunities of acting. China has confirmed it will attend, and the UK – host of Cop26 – signalled on Wednesday it would boost its ambition for emissions reduction. After recommendations from the government’s statutory climate advisers, Britain will cut carbon dioxide by 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels – an increase from the current target of a 68% reduction by 2030. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'us-news/joebiden', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'profile/katharine-murphy', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2021-04-22T02:03:39Z | true | EMISSIONS |
news/2011/may/27/weather-drought | Cereal farmers are praying for rain | Records are tumbling across the east and south of the country for the driest spell since records began. Cambridge Botanical Gardens, for example, had the driest March (3mm) and April (1.7mm) since 1893, and had only recorded 3.5mm of rain in May until heavy showers yesterday. Cambridge's dire figures are typical of the main cereal growing regions of eastern and southern England, which is suffering a drought that, even if the weather changes, is going to severely affect yield. A drop of 10% to 30% of wheat tonnage per acre is expected even if it starts raining heavily this weekend. Even a lot farther west sheep and cattle farmers are short of grass and animals are struggling to find enough to eat. While some wildlife – butterflies, some birds and lizards – thrive in such conditions, pond life is badly affected. Many ponds have dried up before tadpoles could turn into frogs. Rivers in the south-east fed by springs from chalk aquifers still have relatively healthy flows, while those in the West Country and Midlands that rely on surface run-off are already very low. The Met Office expects some light rain in the worst affected regions over the next few days, but this will not enough to lift the drought. About 100mm of rain in a week is what cereal farmers are praying for (double the monthly average in Cambridge), while forecasters continue to predict less rain than average in the worst hit regions. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'environment/drought', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-05-26T23:05:11Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2014/dec/08/weatherwatch-slatters-stonesfield-slate-oxford-quarry | Weatherwatch: Why a chilly morning was good news for Oxfordshire slatters | Right now many of us feel like hibernating, but in the past people relished these dark days as a welcome break after the frenzy of gathering the harvest. And for one Oxfordshire village, this was the perfect time to descend underground. Writing in this month’s Geoscientist magazine, Nina Morgan describes how from the 17th century onwards, the men of Stonesfield looked forward to this time of year, when they went to quarry Stonesfield slate. Quarrying usually began at Michaelmas and continued until Christmas, and despite the tough nature of the job (which often involved crawling on hands and knees to reach the working face), this seasonal work was a good way to keep warm and dry, and earn a few bob. So why was it such a seasonal occupation? It turns out that these rather lovely limestone slates, which grace the roofs of many Oxford colleges, need a good frost. The freeze-thaw action prises the blocks of Stonesfield slate open, splitting them into easily worked thin slabs. One week of hard frost in January would provide the “slatters” (the men who shaped the roofing tiles) with enough work to keep them busy until the following Michaelmas. Indeed the frost was so important that the mine owners would summon villagers with a bell when a frost was likely, to ensure the stones were all spread out and exposed to the cold. Sometimes villagers would even be called from their beds at night, if a hard frost started unexpectedly. Meanwhile, a mild winter was bad news as far as the villagers of Stonesfield were concerned. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'environment/winter', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-12-08T21:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2015/aug/18/new-orleans-grocery-stores-food-race-katrina | Black residents gain increased access to grocery stores post-Katrina, study says | New research released 10 years after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans shows that more residents can access fresh, healthy food at grocery stores. Lead author Adrienne Mundorf of the Tulane Prevention Research Center has found not only that the absolute number of grocery stores in New Orleans has rebounded to pre-Katrina levels, but also that racial disparities in access to grocery stores have decreased. Nationwide, studies have found that race is a major factor in access to healthy food: for example, one study found that only 8% of African Americans live in a census tract with a grocery store (compared to 31% of white Americans). In New Orleans, racial disparities in food access worsened in the first years after the storm. But by 2014, more new supermarkets had moved into predominantly African American neighborhoods, the study published in the Journal of Urban Health found. There is no bright line of evidence that points from grocery stores to better health, but many studies, when considered together, link access and health. Americans who live near grocery stores eat more fruits and vegetables on average, and inserting grocery stores with culturally appropriate, affordable food options into struggling communities can cause measurable improvements in health. These improvements are particularly marked, Mundorf explained, when improved access to fresh food is accompanied by nutrition education. A major 2012 report by the Institute of Medicine focused on obesity as an environmental disease, arguing that policymakers can combat obesity most effectively by ensuring that low-income communities and communities of color have access to healthy foods, safe places to exercise, and evidence-based wellness education in schools and doctors’ offices. Mundorf’s findings suggest that policymakers in New Orleans are beginning to heed this research. Mundorf attributes the progress in New Orleans in part to a “feeling of rebuilding” in the city, and potentially also to the Fresh Food Retailer’s Initiative (FFRI), a cooperative venture between the city, the Food Trust, and the Hope Enterprise Corporation. The FFRI provides low-interest and forgivable loans to help grocers expand, rebuild, or start new grocery stores in vulnerable neighborhoods in New Orleans. Julia Koprak, senior associate at the Food Trust, explained that the upfront financing helps get new stores established. However, FFRI-funded projects are expected to be self-sustaining in the long run. “By reducing the cost gap to get started, we’ve been able to get grocers established in neighborhoods where they wouldn’t otherwise,” Koprak said. So far, the FFRI has contributed funding for four of the 17 supermarkets that have been founded or rebuilt in New Orleans since 2007. Koprak said the Food Trust hopes to announce new partnerships in New Orleans later this year. “Improving access to groceries is not just about health,” Koprak said. “It’s about economic development, community revitalization, and everyone deserving access to healthy fresh food no matter where they live.” And yet some New Orleans neighborhoods – including neighborhoods in New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward – still lack grocery stores. In the Lower Ninth Ward, a historically African American neighborhood devastated by Katrina, the Backyard Gardener’s Network has arisen in part to address the lack of access to healthy food. Volunteers from the neighborhood plant, grow and cook together, drawing on local food traditions and the knowledge of Lower Ninth Ward gardeners and cooks. Founder Jenga Mwenda has called the lack of access to grocery stores in her neighborhood “an injustice”. Many residents in the Lower Ninth Ward also lack cars, and damaged roads and sidewalks can be impossible to navigate – especially for people with limited mobility. Mundorf and Koprak both pointed to the damaged infrastructure and historical lack of investment in the Lower Ninth as factors that complicate access to food. “Ultimately we really support nutrition education, but until you have good access where you live, it’s hard to make use of that education,” Koprak said. “It’s hard to ask people to follow these nutrition guidelines and purchase and prepare healthy food if they have zero choices.” For Mundorf, the issue of food access is also personal. She survived cancer and the accompanying treatment in her twenties. “When I was done with treatment, my doctor said, ‘OK, you’re young, your cancer’s gone – stay healthy,’” she said. “Access to fresh fruits and vegetables was integral to my own recovery. Everyone deserves that.” | ['us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/new-orleans', 'us-news/series/hurricane-katrina-10-years-on', 'us-news/us-news', 'society/health', 'society/society', 'world/race', 'us-news/louisiana', 'type/article', 'tone/news'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-08-18T12:57:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
artanddesign/2024/nov/26/november-design-news-modernist-graphics-a-football-shirt-for-grenfell-and-tiles-made-of-corn-cobs | November design news: modernist graphics, a football shirt for Grenfell and tiles made of corn cobs | Recycling takes a starring role this month, with a clothing company using deadstock fabrics to make new jackets, a construction materials firm using waste to build and celebrities and locals donating fabric to Grenfell FC. Reworked classic The classic chore jacket can be traced back to the 19th century, when these durable button-fronted jackets with roomy pockets were first developed in France for agricultural and industrial workers. While different jobs called for slight alterations, it has remained pretty much unchanged for decades. Fashion, of course, is much more changeable and the chore or coverall jacket is very much on trend at the moment. If you’re looking for a version that has more heritage than the high street, look to Reworked 348. This Derbyshire company uses deadstock material and recycles workwear to make quality clothes that, as they say, are neither new nor second-hand. Their latest collaboration is with the Benromach Distillery, Speyside – a herringbone jacket with cuffs that can be buttoned or rolled. Sally Harnden, one of Reworked 348’s designers, says: “Our goal is to bring products to life in authentic ways, with great attention to detail. We are very proud of the end result and will now sit down for a well-earned dram with Benromach.” Reworked 348 x Benromach Distillery coverall jacket is now available. It’s handmade using fabric from workwear originally made in the 1990s Front and centre One company’s name cropped up five times on this year’s Dezeen Awards long lists. Dutch sustainable building materials manufacturer Front is nominated in sustainability, interiors and architecture categories for projects in the Netherlands and the UK. Their products include CornWall – a plant-based, moisture-resistant material used for chic wall finishes – and WasteBased bricks, sturdy building blocks made from waste, all using byproducts to make new construction materials. The company was started in 2009 by Tom van Soest when he was a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven and evolved into Front. (Van Soest has since set up his own studio, Blended Materials, but still works with Front on specific projects.) Their bricks made from building waste now meet technical requirements for new-build projects. As refuse from construction and demolition is one of the biggest waste streams in the world, the company’s research and products could make a genuine difference. As Van Soest says, one of the company’s missions is to “prove that waste can be beautiful”. With the tiles and bricks turning rubbish into quality construction materials, Front is heading in the right direction. Tailor made In some ways, Thom Browne is an unlikely fashion success story. Born in Pennsylvania, and with an economics degree rather than any formal fashion education, Browne produces fashion shows that look like performance art pieces, and has somehow turned a shrunken suit into a signature look. Documentary filmmaker Reiner Holzemer – a German director known for his films about Dries van Noten and Martin Margiela – brings this surprising story to the screen in Thom Browne – the Man Who Tailors Dreams, which just premiered at documentary festival DOC NYC, New York. From making skirts for men a reality and his oddly proportioned suits, to his extraordinary success with red-carpet fashion, Browne has dressed Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish and Jenna Ortega, to name but a few – this film brings insight into a true original. Thom Browne – the Man Who Tailors Dreams will be on wide release in 2025 Modern vision Graphic designers in Britain came into their own after the second world war. This was an intense period of rebuilding society and infrastructure – all under the cloud of austerity and in the shadow of nuclear war. A new book, Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945-1980, from The Modernist Society captures the design highlights of this period and honours the input from British artists. From the stark corporate logos created by June Fraser, a creative with the Design Research Unit agency, to the political and nuclear disarmament posters by designer Robin Fior, this meticulous book is a tribute to this era. Jack Hale, co-founder of The Modernist Society, says: “The influence of modernist graphic design on our visual culture and traditions is so often underappreciated. The contribution of many designers is diligently highlighted by Ian and Tony in this title, we are thrilled to be able to remind people of this through their work.” Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945-1980 by Ian McLaren and Tony Pritchard is out now Towering achievement Grenfell Athletic FC’s latest football kit drop is a very special project. The football club was set up after the 2017 fire in Grenfell Tower, which claimed 72 lives, and is a focus of camaraderie for the local community. The cloth for the new kit has been sourced through a project called Fabric of the Community, with locals and supporters donating fabric. There are celebrity gifts such as a match-worn shirt from Héctor Bellerín’s time at Arsenal and a Doncaster Rovers shirt from One Direction member Louis Tomlinson. But the donations from locals are most afffecting. Survivor Nick Burton has donated the shirt he wore the night of the fire. A local firefighter has given the shirt he wore on his first day of duty at North Kensington fire station. He joined the London Fire Brigade in 2019 after the events of June 2017 motivated him to help the community. The design will be worn by both the men’s and women’s teams during the 2024/25 season. Each has an embedded chip in the club badge which links to video telling the story of the shirt’s donated fabric. To support Grenfell Athletic’s journey and buy the new home shirt, go to Kitlocker | ['artanddesign/design', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'fashion/fashion', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'culture/culture', 'campaign/email/design-review', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'lifeandstyle/interiors', 'lifeandstyle/homes', 'type/article', 'profile/alicefisher', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-design-magazine'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-11-26T10:00:07Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2009/jan/13/heathrow-third-runway-greepeace-land | John Sauven: Land sold to Emma Thompson, Alistair McGowan, Zac Goldsmith and Greenpeace could stop the airport's expansion plans. | Given the dodgy state of the economy at the moment, some may question the wisdom of investing in a plot of land. But we exchanged contracts on a football-pitch sized field in a west London suburb just a few days ago. Emma Thompson, Alistair McGowan, Zac Goldsmith and Greenpeace are now joint owners of a grassy plot just behind a village pub. This is no ordinary plot of land though. It's slap bang in the middle of the proposed Heathrow third runway. Without this land, the runway can't be built. But we own it, and we're going to keep it in order to make sure the runway never gets built. We won't be keeping the land to ourselves though. Anyone who is against the third runway whether on noise, local pollution or climate change grounds (or just to protect the local village pub) can become what's known as a "beneficial owner". This means that your name will appear on the title deeds. You'll then be represented at inquires in the bid to stop the expansion of Heathrow. We're hoping thousands of people will take a stake in this land. So, if you agree with the Women's Institute, the National Trust, the RSPB, both opposition parties and a sizeable chunk of Brown's cabinet, and want to see plans for the runway ditched, then go to the Greenpeace website and become a beneficial owner. It's close to some good local amenities and currently undergoing a green refurbishment. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'commentisfree/runway3', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/greenpeace', 'politics/zac-goldsmith', 'type/article', 'profile/johnsauven'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2009-01-13T11:36:09Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2020/nov/10/cash-cow-could-carbon-credits-get-us-farmers-to-plant-trees | Cash cow: could carbon credits get US farmers to plant trees? | Frances Crowhill Sauder stands up to her knees in clover and jewelweed, gazing down at the nameless spring that originates up the wooded hillside from her 55-acre Fiddle Creek Dairy farm in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, which produces yoghurt and cheese from a small herd of grass-fed Jersey cows. The spring’s lower banks border the farm’s pastures; they were recently planted with 450 young paw paw, persimmon, and other crop-bearing trees which, when harvested, will bring extra income to this small family operation that Crowhill Sauders and her husband, Tim, run against precariously slim profit margins. The trees shimmer with insect visitors: praying mantids, small butterflies, bumblebees. In a field just behind this riparian buffer is another, slightly older, planting of 2,000 trees that plays host to tree swallows and bluebirds, and produces free forage for the cattle. “With this kind of farm, we’re strapped for money all the time,” says Frances. But as well as providing an additional source of income from these crop-bearing trees, “we also get a functioning, healthy ecosystem and [can] live in better relation with creation,” says Tim. Riparian buffers are trees, shrubs and other vegetation densely planted beside creeks, streams, and rivers. They’ve been used for decades on rangelands such as the Crowhill Sauders’s to restore waterways. They do this by preventing erosion, filtering out nitrogen and phosphorus from manure, cooling and feeding water-bound ecosystems. But their benefits go beyond detoxifying drinking water: they also mitigate floods and wildfires, improve fish and wildlife habitat, and sequester carbon – an important tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers’ distrust a barrier Conservation managers across the US would like to increase the number of riparian buffers on livestock farms. But to succeed, they need to incentivise cash-strapped farmers who may not realise that various grants exist to pay for them, and who may be sceptical of their usefulness. The Crowhill Sauders, for example, at first only agreed to their buffer because it provided a route to installing a much-needed culvert to keep the spring from flooding their property. Over on the west coast, researchers are looking into riparian buffers’ potential to yield farmer income from carbon credits. For small east coast farmers, multi-function buffers such as those the Crowhill Sauders have embraced represent a hopeful way forward. Some states, such as Minnesota, have legislatively mandated buffers of up to 50ft along lakes, rivers, and streams; in others, buffers are merely encouraged. Frances says she thinks fear of government interference makes some farmers resistant to them. Another factor, according to Lamonte Garber, watershed restoration coordinator for the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, PA, is management: “Farmers have to figure out how to pay for practices that might complicate their operation,” such as erecting fencing to keep cattle out of the water, and planting trees and shrubs that usurp land from pasture. The Crowhill Sauders already had a fence – their farm’s previous owners used it to keep cattle in the water on hot days. And they weren’t sure why they needed more trees along their already verdant streambank. But consultant Austin Unruh of Crow & Berry Land Management in Lancaster County explained that the new plantings would fill in critical gaps. And the Crowhill Sauders could choose any fruit- and nut-bearing trees and shrubs they wanted. Harvestable buffers are a niche interest, but research shows them to be potentially profitable. Carbon credits for tree-planting In ocean-adjacent Marin and Sonoma counties, part of the largest dairy state, California, riparian buffers have long been adopted by ranchers and dairy farmers to improve water quality – 70% of the state’s drinking water runs through rangeland. Riparian buffers can cool streams and otherwise improve habitat for the region’s endangered and threatened coho salmon and steelhead trout, as well as mitigate wildfires, which have been raging out of control in the state for months. Sonoma and Marin county dairy farmers, averaging around 700 acres and 300-plus head of cattle, tend toward organic grazing practices (unlike much larger confined feeding operations inland in the Central Valley). David Lewis, director of the University of California Cooperative Extension Marin County, points out that riparian buffers make pastures more efficient in these lands, because managing them requires farmers to figure out how to distribute cattle more uniformly, which improves grasses and soils. He says that’s one way to incentivise farmers to adopt measures that could result in an additional 5,400 acres of riparian restoration here: “Anything that can reduce off-farm feed purchases, which eats into the bottom line, is a win.” Another way might be through carbon credits. California counties are required to meet state greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. “People are looking at ways to connect the dots on what can happen on farms, and build momentum to carry out more riparian restoration,” says Lewis. California’s Department of Conservation is currently developing a “creek calculator” to “figure out how much carbon results from stream restoration,” says Lewis. Dairy cooperative Organic Valley recently launched a pilot program with two of its farmers – funded with private, state, and federal money – to get a baseline understanding of “what practices sequester carbon that are appropriate for our membership”, according to the company’s director of sustainability, Nicole Rakobitsch. Although there’s a lot of hype and no formal market for farm-generated carbon credits yet, Rajat Panwar, a business sustainability professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, expects it to quickly emerge as companies start to act on their carbon-neutral pledges. “If there ever gets to be a way to be paid for carbon credits that isn’t more trouble than it’s worth we will be interested,” says Tim Crowhill Sauders. Sign up for the Animals farmed monthly update to get a roundup of the best farming and food stories across the world and keep up with our investigations. You can send us your stories and thoughts at animalsfarmed@theguardian.com | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/forests', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'business/cattles', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-11-10T07:15:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-under-way-akademik | Antarctic rescue under way as helicopter lands next to trapped ship | A rescue mission is under way for scientists, tourists and journalists on a ship trapped in ice off Antarctica. A helicopter sent from the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long landed next to the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday afternoon and the first group of passengers was due to be evacuated shortly after 8pm local time (7am GMT). The passengers were due to be taken off in five groups, with two further flights to pick up their baggage. By 8.30am GMT, the second group of passengers had been successfully airlifted and the helicopter had returned to pick up the third. In a change of plan, the passengers would be taken not the Xue Long, but to an ice floe near the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which tried but failed to break through to the trapped ship earlier this week. The expedition leader, Chris Turney, tweeted on Thursday afternoon passengers were “100% off” on the helicopter, after the day’s rescue mission had earlier been called off. Pictures from the Guardian's Laurence Topham, who is on the Akademik Shokalskiy, showed the helicopter from the Chinese ship Xue Long touching down on a makeshift helipad marked out near the ship. Turney later sent another tweet thanking everyone for their assistance. A two-stage rescue had been planned for Thursday with a helicopter taking 52 of the passengers on Akademik Shokalskiy to the Xue Long before transferring them to another ship, Aurora Australis, on a barge in a 36-hour window of decent weather. But sea ice prevented the barge from the Aurora Australis, where the passengers would ultimately be transferred, being able to get close to Xue Long. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority released a statement at 12.45 pm on Thursday saying the safest option was to do the rescue mission in one operation. “AMSA understands that current sea ice conditions prevent the barge from Aurora Australis from reaching the Chinese vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) and a rescue may not be possible today,” a spokeswoman said. “The Xue Long’s helicopter is unable to land on the Aurora Australis due to load rating restrictions. It is not safe to land the helicopter next to Aurora Australis at this time. “The preferred and safest option at this stage is to ultimately transfer the passengers onto Aurora Australis.” Guardian journalist Alok Jha, who is on the Akademik Shokalskiy, earlier said the mood was subdued but optimistic and people had kept themselves busy. “If there is any anger/upset etc I haven't seen any,” he said in an email. “I imagine some people have had private moments of anxiety or frustration but there's no feeling of threat or any worry about danger. No one seems scared.” The Akademik Shokalskiy became stuck in thick pack ice on Christmas Eve and the Aurora Australis and Xue Long, which are both ice breakers, had to abandon attempts to reach the trapped ship. An attempt on New Year’s Day to evacuate the passengers by helicopter was also abandoned because of heavy rain, strong winds and cloud. | ['environment/poles', 'world/antarctica', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'science/antarctica-live', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/bridie-jabour'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-01-02T08:24:58Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/2018/oct/03/covert-spying-activists-personal-life-monitored-and-recorded-in-detail | Police spying: activist's personal life monitored and recorded in detail | British police secretly monitored and recorded the personal activities of an environmental activist while she was being deceived into a two-year intimate relationship by an undercover officer, a tribunal has heard. The files on the covert surveillance show how the activist, Kate Wilson, and the police spy, Mark Kennedy, frequently stayed together, visited her parents’ house, and went on holiday. They chronicle trips the couple made to the cinema, a museum and a concert, as well as a visit to the college where she had studied. They also disclose that the police authorised Kennedy to buy Wilson a mountain bike to help maintain contact with her, and signed off cash to help her socialise with activists he wanted to spy on. The disclosures were made on Wednesday at a hearing of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) where Wilson is taking a legal case against the Metropolitan police for violating her human rights. The police have admitted Kennedy’s managers knew he was having an intimate relationship with Wilson and allowed it to continue. It was the first such admission by police chiefs, who have claimed that their undercover officers were not allowed to have sexual relationships with campaigners they were spying on, under any circumstances. The police have been compelled to disclose a limited number of official files that were heavily censored. Drawing on these files Wilson submitted a statement outlining how she was subjected to “heavy and expensive surveillance” by the police. Entries in the files date from 2004 to 2006. For much of this time she was in a relationship with Kennedy, an undercover officer who spent seven years infiltrating the lives of environmental campaigners. Wilson discovered his true identity in 2010. In her statement, she records her “painful” discovery from the files that she was one of the named targets of a covert surveillance operation into leftwing activists known as Pegasus. The files, described in her statement, recorded how Kennedy stayed or visited her parents’ home on 11 occasions. Kennedy noted he had “fulfilled a promise to clean windows” at her parents’ home “as they were high up and Mrs W had a bad back”. The records show that on another occasion Kennedy went from her parents’ home to Gatwick airport to drop her off for a flight, and that on another occasion he was “met at Heathrow airport” by her. He noted that he was “on holiday in Lake District” with her and others, according to another entry. During their relationship Kennedy was given permission by his superiors to spend up to £80 on a secondhand mountain bike for her to “facilitate ease of travel around and also maintain contact”. Other entries recorded their campaigning activities around the country together. After a lengthy legal battle police previously paid compensation to Wilson and 11 other women after admitting they had been deceived into abusive intimate relationships by undercover officers. Wilson has taken her claim to the IPT as she wants to establish how she was deceived and which senior officers knew about it. “After years of being lied to by the [police] I have a deep and desperate need to know the truth,” she told the IPT. At the hearing on Wednesday the Met opposed an order to disclose more documents, arguing it would waste taxpayers’ money. It had argued the tribunal should adjudicate Wilson’s claim swiftly as it had already admitted her human rights had been violated. Wilson criticised the police’s “cruel, obstructive and aggressive” approach to her legal claim. At the hearing the Met disclosed that police have been conducting a criminal investigation, known as Operation Montrose, into Kennedy’s conduct when he was undercover. | ['uk/mark-kennedy', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'world/surveillance', 'environment/activism', 'uk/police', 'uk/london', 'world/protest', 'uk/uk', 'law/law', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/robevans', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2018-10-03T16:46:23Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
technology/2021/oct/15/google-warns-surge-activity-state-backed-hackers | Google warns of surge in activity by state-backed hackers | Google has warned of a surge in activity by government-backed hackers this year, including attacks from an Iranian group whose targets included a UK university. The search group said that so far in 2021 it had sent more than 50,000 warnings to account holders that they had been a target of government-backed phishing or malware attempts. This represents an increase of a third on the same period last year, Google said in a blogpost, with the rise attributed to an “unusually large campaign” by a Russian hacking group known as APT28, or Fancy Bear. However, the Google post focused on a group linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, known as APT35, or Charming Kitten, which regularly conducts phishing attacks – where, for instance, an email is used to trick someone into handing over sensitive information or to install malware. “This is one of the groups we disrupted during the 2020 US election cycle for its targeting of campaign staffers,” wrote Ajax Bash, from Google’s threat analysis group. “For years this group has hijacked accounts, deployed malware, and used novel techniques to conduct espionage aligned with the interests of the Iranian government.” In one attack in early 2021, APT35 attacked a website affiliated with a UK university using a tried and tested technique: directing users to a compromised webpage where they were encouraged to log in via their email service provider – Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo for instance – in order to view a webinar. Users were also asked for second-factor authentication codes, which go straight to APT35. Google did not name the UK university but in July it was reported that the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), University of London, had been targeted by APT35 in early 2021. The attack started with a fake email from a Soas academic inviting people to a webinar, starting a chain of interactions that led to a dummy page on the university’s radio website that tricked the phishing victims into handing over their email user names and passwords. Soas said in July the attack had not accessed personal information or data. “Once we became aware of the dummy site earlier this year, we immediately remedied and reported the breach in the normal way. We have reviewed how this took place and taken steps to further improve protection of these … peripheral systems,” Soas said. Referring to the UK university attack, Bash said: “APT35 has relied on this technique since 2017 – targeting high-value accounts in government, academia, journalism, NGOs, foreign policy and national security. Credential phishing through a compromised website demonstrates these attackers will go to great lengths to appear legitimate – as they know it’s difficult for users to detect this kind of attack.” The blogpost details other forms of attack by APT35. These include: attempting to upload spyware to the Google Play store, where Android phone users can buy apps; impersonating conference officials to conduct phishing attacks; and using a bot on the Telegram messaging service to notify when users have entered a phishing site, although Google said Telegram had since tackled that ruse. | ['technology/hacking', 'technology/google', 'technology/internet-safety', 'technology/alphabet', 'technology/technology', 'technology/cybercrime', 'technology/cyberwar', 'world/iran', 'world/russia', 'education/school-of-oriental-and-african-studies', 'world/europe-news', 'technology/internet', 'world/world', 'world/middleeast', 'world/espionage', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/danmilmo', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-10-15T12:00:33Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2014/dec/05/green-party-discover-dark-side-labour-voters | If the Green party wants to succeed, it needs to discover its dark side | Richard Seymour | The problem with the Green party is that it is too nice. They don’t hate, and if left-wing politics in this country needs anything it is a dose of rigorous hate. The Greens succeed despite this impediment. Their membership has doubled since January. They continue to rise in the polls, to 7% or 8%. And there has been plenty of opportunity for this success to be proved a fluke. After Caroline Lucas’s election victory in 2010 the party could have lost momentum. Instead, they won Brighton council. After the toxic fall-out from implementing austerity, however reluctantly, it would have been natural for them to be fatally tainted. Instead, they continue to grow in a terrain which is decidedly unfavourable to the left. What is remarkable about the Greens is that they manage to do this while maintaining some quite unfashionable stances. They won in Brighton despite distancing themselves from local bigotry against Travellers. They surge nationally now despite taking a relatively progressive stance on immigration. Somehow it never occurred to them that they had to start hyperventilating at the sight of a white van. What is even more remarkable is that the Greens are not, like Ukip, an “antipolitical” party. Nor are they total outsiders: they have exercised power at various local levels; they have worked with Labour in London; they are against austerity, but its elected representatives have shown that they will implement it rather than engage in a neo-Poplarist act of defiance – they are not pretending they are going to overthrow the political class. This could be both their strength and their weakness. As an electoral vehicle, they seem sane, realistic and progressive. They also don’t look like they’re about to collapse into a puddle of blood at any moment, like so many other organisations of the left. Yet, it is doubtful whether, on that basis alone, they can expand beyond a still relatively middle-class ghetto. The fine, humane social democratic bromides that the Green website extols – “the common good”, “fairness”, making politics work better – are congruent with their general good-humoured parliamentary politics. They play the ball, not the person, as it were. This might work in another time, another place. The problem is that Britain today is an angry country. It is filled with seething hatred, and justifiably so. There is no end of social misery and resentment caused, not just by the crash and the austerian aftermath, but by the insulting ease with which the financial masters got away with it and continue to accumulate gargantuan, metastasising bonuses. Those who talk of a “Ukip of the left” should learn from what that ruthless party of Poujadism does so well. Ukip succeeds because it canalises a great deal of this resentment and seething anger – the desire to cut the politicians and bankers off at the knees – into a political vehicle that speaks to the anger of abandoned Tory voters. What about abandoned Labour voters? How does one speak to their anger? It is excellent, but not enough, for the Greens to say they won’t scapegoat immigrants and other folk-devils. If immigrants aren’t to blame, then we need to know who is to blame. Left-populist movements in Europe that succeed tend to know who the enemy is, and name it. For Syriza it is the troika; for Podemos, it is la casta or the caste, their term for the parliamentary elites, businessmen, media elites and bankers who dominate Spanish society. These are simple, common sense terms designating the object of furious popular hatred. They are also concrete. Anyone could name prominent representatives of the troika or la casta, people whose mere appearance on a television screen is enough to set teeth grinding. The lack of such a popular idiom in England is hardly the fault of the Greens, but they have this problem more than anyone else. Even if they secretly yearned to see the bankers roughly expropriated, the rich sadistically taxed and the political class donated to a landfill, to say so would grate against their consensual ears. Not being prepared to get their hands dirty, too committed to the niceties of parliamentary politics, they risk looking as aloof and out of touch as the establishment they aim to upset. If they genuinely want to get ahead, they need to discover their dark side. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'politics/green-party', 'politics/politics', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'politics/caroline-lucas', 'politics/general-election-2015', 'politics/labour', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/richard-seymour'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-12-05T11:15:38Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/green-living-blog/2009/nov/02/shared-interest | You ask, they answer: Ethical investment lender Shared Interest | If you want to do more to financially help a Fairtrade fruit grower than just buying Fairtrade bananas down the shops, this week's You ask, they answer guest could offer some insight. Ahead of national Ethical investment week on 8 November, we're joined by Shared Interest, a cooperative lending society that loans vital cash to over 450 fair trade businesses across the world. Founded to provide credit for everything from fair trade food producers and craft shops as far afield as South America, Europe and Asia, the society's 8,700 members have invested a pool of £25m that "fair" businesses can call on. But it's worth knowing if you put money in as a customer, you do so as a social investment, not a financial one. The rate of return is 4% under the base rate, so with today's low base rate the current return is 0%. When rates were high enough to offer a return, some members actually ploughed the surplus interest back into their investment, or even donated it to the society. Here's your chance to quiz Shared Interest on its model of being "the world's only 100% Fairtrade lender." Want to hear stories of people and businesses they've helped? How they decide which organisations are deserving and 'fair' enough to lend to? Or interested in hearing more about what being an investor involves? Just post your questions below - Shared Interest will be online from Monday to Friday this week to answer your ethical investment queries. | ['environment/series/you-ask-they-answer', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'global-development/fair-trade', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'money/money', 'tone/blog', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'money/ethical-money', 'money/savings', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-11-02T11:35:33Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
us-news/2019/nov/26/santa-barbara-fire-california-los-padres | California: thousands flee from fire burning near Santa Barbara | Thousands of residents of southern California fled their homes on Tuesday because of a wind-driven wildfire burning in mountains near Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara county officials declared a “local emergency” early on Tuesday morning, as the Cave fire spread through the Los Padres national forest. The fire had erupted on Monday afternoon in the forest and quickly spread, raising fears for the town of Goleta, north of Santa Barbara. As many as 6,300 people were evacuated and about 2,400 structures were threatened early on Tuesday, the Santa Barbara county fire spokesman, Mike Eliason, told KEYT television. Residents of a local mobile home park evacuated in the middle of the night, but many residents had not left the area, authorities said. By Tuesday afternoon, about 4,000 people were allowed return to their homes. The cause of the blaze was unknown. It blackened more than 6.5 sq miles of the rugged Santa Ynez Mountains, but most of that acreage was scorched in its first hours Monday. Daniel Bertucelli, Santa Barbara county fire captain, told the Los Angeles Times that the area’s steep, rocky terrain was creating challenges for crews, and that firefighters were expecting increasing difficulties as winds picked up speed throughout the day. Rudy Gruber, 79, watched the smoke and flames from the top of a hill near his house in Santa Barbara. Despite orders to evacuate, he said he had decided not to leave because he didn’t think the fire would cross a canyon to his home. Plus, it would be tough to move his 50lb tortoise, Amstel. Even so, he has been prepared for about a year, packing photo albums, computers and a carrier for his cat, Scooter. Gruber, who has lived in the area since 1976, was facing his fifth fire but said he had only evacuated once, when he saw smoke in his neighborhood in 1978. He hadn’t seen any this time, so he had chosen to stay put. “We’re better prepared than we used to be,” Gruber said. “We’ve gone through it so many times now.” An incoming storm was expected to drop an inch of precipitation on the fire area later in the day, which could help stop the blaze. It could also create new challenges, with possible debris flow and roadways being washed out. Fire officials said the area had not received any rain in 180 days and that the vegetation was ready to burn, causing the exponential growth in early hours. There were also some rugged areas that were too narrow for firefighters’ engines. The threat of fires has long been a fact of life in the area – in 1990, a major wildfire in the area destroyed more than 400 homes. But the risk has recently become more intense and more frequent. After a fire in January 2018, devastating mudslides in the Santa Barbara region ravaged the town of Montecito, killing 23 people and destroying 130 homes. California as a whole has suffered from progressively worsening wildfire seasons in recent years, with the climate crisis exacerbating these threats and fires burning larger areas for longer periods and causing greater damage. The fires this year in northern and southern California were marked by unprecedented blackouts, with the state utility companies proactively shutting off the power for millions when the risks of fires burning and spreading were high. The overall damage this year, however, has been significantly less severe than the previous two years. | ['us-news/california', 'world/wildfires', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sam-levin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-11-26T22:10:37Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/feb/09/new-energy-europe-renewable-sources-2016 | Almost 90% of new power in Europe from renewable sources in 2016 | Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels. But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end. Of the 24.5GW of new capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21.1GW – or 86% – was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro, eclipsing the previous high-water mark of 79% in 2014. For the first time windfarms accounted for more than half of the capacity installed, the data from trade body WindEurope showed. Wind power overtook coal to become the EU’s second largest form of power capacity after gas, though due to the technology’s intermittent nature, coal still meets more of the bloc’s electricity demand. Germany installed the most new wind capacity in 2016, while France, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland and Lithuania all set new records for windfarm installations. The total capacity added was 3% down on 2015 but a surge in offshore windfarms – which are twice as expensive as those built on land – being connected in Britain saw total, Europe-wide investment hit a record €27.5bn (£23bn). The biggest project was the Gemini windfarm off the Netherlands’ coast, which was connected to the grid last February and will be the world’s second largest offshore windfarm when finished this year. Gemini was followed in size by two other offshore windfarms, Germany’s 582MW Gode Wind 1 and 2, and the Netherlands’ 144MW Westermeerwind project. “The installation numbers for now look OK, and the investment number is very good,” said Giles Dickson, chief executive of WindEurope. “But on the longer term outlook, only seven out of the EU’s 28 countries have clear policies and volumes [for wind power] in place for the period beyond 2020. “We today see less political and policy ambition for renewables than we did five or even three years ago, across the member states.” Despite Europe’s installed wind power capacity now standing at 153.7GW, it is still a relatively small fraction of the region’s 918.8GW of total power capacity. The industry is hoping much of its growth will come from filling the gap as governments force old coal power plants to close to meet climate change goals, as the UK has committed to doing by 2025. “The EU is not putting much pressure on countries to close down old coal power plants,” said Dickson. WindEurope’s new report, 2016 European Statistics, paints a picture of a Europe increasingly divided on wind power. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, which together drove much of the growth in new windfarms in the noughties, now amount to a tiny fraction of new installations. Poland last year passed a law limiting how close wind turbines can be to buildings, effectively stalling the industry there. The result is an increasingly small number of countries connecting serious amounts of new wind power. Germany, which already has three times as much wind power as any other EU country, installed 44% of Europe’s new wind capacity last year. Dickson said the wind power industry will be lobbying Europe’s capitals for more support in their national energy and climate plans, which member states, including the UK, have to submit to the European commission in draft form by the year’s end. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'world/europe-news', 'world/eu', 'world/world', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/biomass-and-bioenergy', 'environment/hydropower', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2017-02-09T05:00:13Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2017/feb/13/coalition-to-change-native-title-laws-to-protect-mining-and-agriculture-deals | Coalition to change native title laws to protect mining and agriculture deals | The Turnbull government will change native title laws to protect land use agreements thrown into doubt by a recent court ruling, including a controversial deal between Adani and traditional owners of its proposed Queensland mine site. The attorney general, George Brandis, told parliament on Monday the government would introduce an “urgent” bill to reverse the effect of a federal court decision regarding the Noongar people of Western Australia on 2 February. That decision by the full court of the federal court found that Indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) – which underpin mining, agriculture or infrastructure projects – were invalid unless endorsed by all representatives in a native title claim. It set a precedent that Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) opponents of the Carmichael mine in Queensland have used to further challenge a crucial deal that Adani signed with seven of 12 of the group’s native title claimants. Brandis said the decision regarding the Noongar had been “a very significant development in the law”. “It had not been anticipated,” he said. The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, had “called upon” her counterparts in the Labor federal opposition to back the amendments, Brandis said. Brandis had arranged the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfuss, to be briefed on the matter last week. The proposed laws come after the mining industry, some lawyers and Australia’s largest native title representative body expressed concerns that hundreds of projects providing income to traditional owners were in jeopardy. Brandis said the draft legislation would be ready by as early as Monday afternoon. The announcement came on the same day W&J opponents lodged a fresh federal court action to strike down the Adani deal. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had last week authorised the introduction of “urgent legislation to legislatively reverse the effect” of the WA decision, Brandis said. It would restore the previous legal “status quo” established by the Bygraves decision of 2010, that majority decisions by a claimant group guaranteed a deal, he said. Brandis said the laws would uphold not only 123 ILUAs currently registered with the National Native Title Tribunal, but also agreements that were not yet registered. Adani has applied to the tribunal to register its ILUA, which represents the traditional owner consent it needs to gain funding from most international financiers. The National Native Title Tribunal announced it was reviewing the impact of the ruling on existing ILUAs. | ['australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'australia-news/wangan-and-jagalingou', 'environment/carmichael-coalmine', 'business/adani-group', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'business/mining', 'environment/mining', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/coalition', 'law/law-australia', 'australia-news/george-brandis', 'australia-news/queensland-politics', 'world/indigenous-peoples', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joshua-robertson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2017-02-13T08:39:41Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2014/nov/20/whale-pod-essex-coast | Fears grow for whale pod off Essex coast | Essex police are investigating reports that local boat owners are offering trips to would-be sightseers wanting to catch a glimpse of a pod of 40 pilot whales spotted in the Blackwater estuary. Experts appealed to the public not to be tempted by the offers, saying that boats following the whales could stress the animals. There have been fears that the pod would become stranded in the shallows. Sally Hamilton, a marine biologist and director of Orca, a charity devoted to whale and dolphin protection, said: “Numerous boats wouldn’t be something they were used to. People just going out to have a look are not going to help the animals.” The news came as the body of a young, possibly newborn, pilot whale was discovered in the in the river. The body, “emaciated and in very bad condition”,was found near the village of Goldhanger on Thursday and marine specialists remain concerned there could be a mass stranding involving the highly social and inquisitive creatures. The 1.8m(6ft) female will be sent for a postmortem, said Julia Cable of British Divers Marine Life Rescue(BDMLR), the organisation monitoring the pod’s progress. “Its skin looks quite bad. It could have been in the water for a day or two.” The mammals, actually dolphins, should be in deeper water but are thought to have followed shoals of herring close to land. They have travelled up the river as well as shuttling towards the town of Brightlingsea since they arrived this week. Pilot whale strandings can involve all of a large tight-knit group because when one is sick or injured they tend to lead the pod. If this whale gets into trouble, other healthy ones often follow. The pod may be the same one seen off the Norfolk and Suffolk coast some days ago and off Belgium at the weekend. After appearing near Sheerness, Kent, on Sunday, it seems in no hurry to leave Essex, even after the use of a police helicopter on Wednesday to encourage their departure. A police marine unit was deployed on Thursday. “They are hanging around in really shallow water, which is really unusual for them,” said Cable at the Sussex-based BDMLR, which has a boat with the pod. “It is really difficult to know what they are doing. Everybody is guessing. There’s a lot a herring in the area at the moment so that is probably what they are feeding on.” On Thursday morning, the whales were in water no more than 5 metres deep, said Cable. “There are some large adults, four to six metres, in this group They are in too close, they should be further out. There was no question of boats, whether their’s or a police one also monitoring progress, being able to shepherd the pod out. “We are just keeping an eye on them. We can’t move them and they won’t be moved. We want them to move away slowly and under their own steam. We are there just to make sure nobody else goes in with them.” Cable said her charity was concerned that “irresponsible” people in boats would separate the pod. “People want to go out and see them. People are paying to go out there. There is one lady who is organising whale-watching trips. That is not great.” | ['environment/whales', 'uk/essex', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/jamesmeikle', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-11-20T17:52:21Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2019/oct/25/coral-cover-around-popular-great-barrier-reef-islands-has-almost-halved | Coral cover around popular Great Barrier Reef islands has almost halved | Coral coverage around some of the most popular tourist islands on the Great Barrier Reef has dropped by almost half in the last 18 years, according to a new study. Scientists said they were “shocked” after analysing data from monitoring dives between 1999 and 2017 at 100 different locations across the Whitsunday Islands, Magnetic Island, Keppel Islands and Palm Islands. The study looked at the coverage of hard corals – the rock-like structures that are the foundations for building reefs – and found they were being hit by multiple impacts, including heat stress causing bleaching, cyclones, flood plumes and poor water quality. Daniela Ceccarelli, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said: “The loss [of hard corals] was between 40 and 50% at each island group. We were pretty shocked actually.” She said that inshore reefs like the ones studied were more susceptible to impacts from sediments and nutrients running off the land, especially reefs that were less exposed to waves that could wash pollution away more quickly. Published in the Ecological Society of America’s Ecological Applications journal, the study found “persistent shifts from coral to macroalgal dominance” on some reefs in the central and southern parts of the system. The study aimed to tease apart the relative importance of different stressors on inshore island reefs, including the impacts of heat stress, flood plumes and exposure to cyclones. Co-author David Williamson, also from James Cook University, said: “The impacts of individual disturbance events were patchy. Some reefs avoided the worst effects –but the cumulative impacts of multiple, frequent events reduced coral cover and diversity.” On reefs around the Whitsunday Islands, one of the most popular destinations in the Great Barrier Reef marine park, coral cover had been relatively stable until 2016, after coral bleaching and then Cyclone Debbie saw a sharp drop in hard corals. Ceccarelli said that even though the findings were shocking, there were still many stunning areas for tourists and divers to visit around the islands, including the Whitsundays where some individual reefs were in excellent condition. She said some disturbances on reefs were natural and “important for maintaining diversity”, but she added: “We are seeing increased frequency of these disturbance events and we worry [reefs] won’t get enough time to recover between them.” She said that faster-growing corals could recover from major disturbances after about seven to 10 years, but for a whole coral community that included slower-growing corals, recovery times were between 15 and 20 years. Scientists are concerned that major coral bleaching and heat stress events caused by ocean heating will hit the Great Barrier Reef at intervals too short to let corals recover. The reef, the world’s biggest coral reef system, was hit by major bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, with impacts concentrated in the northern parts of the reef. The study also questioned a previous conclusion that corals on inshore reefs were more tolerant of higher temperatures. The study concluded that “although rapidly escalating climate change impacts are the largest threat to coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef” it was also important that localised impacts, including runoff from the land, was proactively managed. “It’s definitely not too late to save the reef,” she said. “It’s not dead, but it might be on intensive care.” In a major five-yearly report published in August, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority downgraded the reef’s long-term outlook to “very poor” for the first time since 2009 when the report was first published. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/coral', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-10-24T17:00:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2017/jan/25/northern-australia-beset-by-floods-but-indigenous-groups-warn-of-fire-risk | Northern Australia beset by floods but Indigenous groups warn of fire risk | Amid rising floodwaters across the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia, Indigenous environmental groups have issued a fire warning. Heavy rain across the region has sparked flash floods, cutting off communities and knocking out communication lines, and even pushing tropical weather into the normally arid desert region. A low-pressure system is expected to bring more heavy rain over the next week. Widespread falls of more than 100mm have been recorded across the Top End, including 275mm at Labelle, west of Litchfield national park. Darwin saw its wettest day in five years on Monday, with 145.6mm in 24 hours, and a number of roads around Katherine are under water. While the immediate responses concentrate on assisting those affected including food drops to some remote communities, the Indigenous Desert Alliance has also urged the immediate start of fire mitigation planning. The heavy rains have already led to rampant vegetation growth, which will become fire fuel in the dry season. “We’re jumping the gun a little bit I suppose but it’s one of those conversations that has to happen every time one of these rain events go on, because everyone gets to it a little too late,” said Gareth Catt, spokesman for the alliance of land management groups across the central desert. “If the weather continues it will be too wet to burn but previous experience is that after these big rain events you get big fire events.” The last major fire events were in 2011 and 2012 across parts of the central deserts and Catt said he saw “the worst of both”. “A fire burned something in the vicinity of 3m hectares in one hit,” he said. “If you drove from Perth to Margaret River you’d still be in the fire scar.” When the large fires burn they destroy vegetation, habitat and wildlife, and the group wants to make plans now to get on to the affected country as soon as it’s dry enough to begin the low-intensity mosaic burning commonly carried out by Indigenous rangers. However, not all Indigenous-owned land areas have ranger groups and the alliance is also continuing calls for more funding to expand the successful program that trains and employs Indigenous people to care for their country. Some areas have the capacity to implement fire management but others cover millions of hectares with just a handful of rangers. Burning on country requires the cooperation and knowledge of traditional owner groups, who have an understanding of the environment, both geographically and culturally. “But the specific issue we’re talking about is fire and we need to look at the this now because experience has told us if we don’t start thinking about this early, as we get down the track we start to see big fires emerge and a huge response effort is put in,” Catt said. “If we can get in early and burn country … we can reduce the need to respond so intensively, which is exhausting when it does happen, and produce a much better result for the country.” Patrick O’Leary, spokesman for Pew Charitable Trusts, said the flooding event and potential fire event came in the context of uncertainty around ranger groups and the Indigenous protected areas many work on. IPAs cover about 65m hectares of land, including about 43% of the national reserve system. “The future of IPAs in the longterm is really critical in terms of this kind of land management,” O’Leary told Guardian Australia. “It creates that strategic framework around which you prioritise things like fire management that you have to roll out throughout the year so you get good bang for your buck in terms of environmental outcomes, and Indigenous outcomes.” The current federal funding cycle for IPAs ends next financial year and O’Leary said it was a “big question” for the environment and Indigenous affairs portfolio in the next federal budget. | ['australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/northern-territory', 'australia-news/western-australia', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/bushfires', 'environment/flooding', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-01-24T19:58:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2022/nov/01/nothing-ear-stick-review-see-through-airpod-rivals-without-sound-isolation | Nothing Ear Stick review: see-through AirPod rivals without sound isolation | The British tech firm Nothing is back with some novel rivals to the AirPods: a set of fashion-forward Bluetooth earbuds with an open fit and see-through design. However, those hoping to be cut off from the world may be disappointed. They aren’t Nothing’s first earbuds. The £149 Ear 1 from last year landed with a buzz, introducing the firm’s semi-transparent styling and good sound with traditional silicone tips. Now the £99 Ear Stick offer a similarly interesting look in an open-fit design without silicone tips, which lets outside sound in for those who don’t want to be isolated. Like the traditional AirPods, the lozenge-shaped buds simply rest in the concha of your ears with a little grille at one end projecting the sound down your ear hole without blocking it. They certainly look cool, and are fairly comfortable and secure as open-fit earbuds go, staying in place when I shake my head about. However, the bud is large and, as with the AirPods, if they do not fit or stay put in your particular ear shape, there’s little you can do. The stalks have pressure-sensitive controls similar to newer AirPods, which work well. Squeeze once for pause/play, twice and thrice for track skip and squeeze and hold to adjust volume. Take out an earbud and music pauses. You can change the controls and other settings in the Nothing X app on an Android or iPhone. The earbuds clip into a cylindrical case for charging. It rotates to open and switch them on with an extremely satisfying action. The tube is a bit bulky compared with the best on the market, though, and certainly won’t fit in small pockets. The Ear Sticks last a good seven hours of music playback. The case’s battery has enough juice to fully recharge the earbuds just over three times, totalling about 29 hours, which compares well with rivals. Specifications Water resistance: IP54 (dust and sweat resistant) Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2, SBC, AAC Battery life: seven hours (29 hours with case) Earbud dimensions: 29.8 x 18.8 x 18.4mm Earbud weight: 4.4g each Driver size: 12.6mm Charging case dimensions: 87.1 x 29.8mm Charging case weight: 46.3g Case charging: USB-C Sustainability Nothing estimates that the batteries in the earbuds and case last for at least 500 cycles while maintaining at least 80% of their original capacity. However, they are not replaceable, ultimately making the earbuds disposable. Nothing does not offer trade-in or recycling schemes in the UK, nor does it use recycled material in the product or publish environmental impact assessments. Open sound good for everyday listening The Ear Stick have an open design that purposefully doesn’t block your ear canal and therefore lets all the noise of the outside world through – excellent for situational awareness but useless for blocking out distractions. Out of the box they accentuate the mid-tones too much for my liking, particularly at the higher volumes that are needed to drown out unwanted noise. Turning down the mids and turning up the bass a little in the equaliser in the Nothing app makes them sound much better. They sound good for everyday listening but won’t win any audio quality awards and do not sound as good as the Nothing’s Ear 1 with their traditional silicone tips. Still, they do a good job of producing rounded audio without a proper seal, which few but the AirPods 3 manage. They sound particularly good with rock and Britpop but struggle a little with bass-heavy tracks or classical music, coming across a bit flat. Like all open-ear buds, they leak sound at higher volumes. Call quality in noisy environments was excellent but my voice sounded a little processed in quieter settings. Price The Nothing Ear Stick cost £99 ($99/A$179). For comparison, the Ear 1 cost £149, Apple’s AirPods 3 cost £179 and Google’s Pixel Buds Series-A cost £100. Verdict The Ear Stick are a great-looking set of open-fit earbuds that stand out from the crowd. They last a long time, have a great set of controls, a decent app on Android and iOS and sound pretty good for their form, once you’ve tweaked their equaliser. They don’t block out any noise, so aren’t great for public transport or trying to concentrate in an office. The case is cool but harder to pocket than the best. There are few good open-fit earbuds available, putting the Ear Stick up there with Apple’s AirPods while costing about half as much. But the battery in the earbuds or case cannot be replaced, ultimately making them disposable and losing a star. Pros: look great, good sound, good value, open fit, good call quality, great controls, good app with equaliser, Bluetooth 5.2, Fast Pair and support seamless switching. Cons: no sound isolation at all, no noise cancelling, out-of-box sound needs tweaking, won’t fit everyone, cannot be repaired. | ['technology/headphones', 'technology/technology', 'technology/bluetooth', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/consumer-tech--commissioning-'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-11-01T07:00:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2013/jul/26/environmentalists-shark-nets-queensland-whale | Trapped whale fails to move Queensland to scrap shark nets | The Queensland government has rejected calls to scrap shark safety nets at beaches after a humpback whale was freed after becoming entangled within one of the nets on the Sunshine Coast. A large adult male humpback, estimated to be about nine metres long, became enmeshed within a shark net around 800 metres off the coast of Noosa on Friday morning. A team from the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol was able to cut the whale, which weighs around eight tonnes, free after the net wrapped around one pectoral fin and its tail. Rescuers said that the whale remained calm and sea conditions were good, aiding its release. The incident, the first entrapment of a whale in shark nets this migration season, prompted the Australian Marine Conservation Society to demand nets be removed from Queensland's coast. Nets and drumlines, situated near 85 beaches to protect swimmers, snared a total of 713 sharks last year, according to Queensland government data. Nets and drumlines were erected by the state government following a spate of shark attacks on humans prior to 1962. But the nets are blamed for unintentionally trapping other creatures, with the AMCS pointing to freedom of information-obtained analysis from 2009 that shows seven dugongs, 36 sea turtles, 90 dolphins and two humpback whales were caught and killed by shark nets in the prior five years. The state government said that 35 whales have been trapped in shark nets since 2000, with 32 freed and three dying. "These nets catch a whole range of life," said Darren Kindleysides, director of the AMCS. "Western Australia looked at a shark net program, but decided it wasn't the route to go down because of the environmental impact." "There are other alternatives to protect beachgoers. The state could increase beach surveillance and flyovers which are more environmentally friendly." "The bottom line is that these nets give a perceived sense of safety. The nets have big gaps where the sharks can swim through, so it's not really a barrier, it's just a large fishing net to kill sharks. There is little sense to them." The AMCS wants Queensland, at a minimum, to remove nets during the winter migration season, as NSW – the only other state to routinely use nets – does. However, Jeff Krause, manager of Queensland's shark control program, said that the nets would remain in place to ensure the safety of swimmers. "While shark control equipment does not provide an impenetrable barrier between swimmers and sharks, it is effective in reducing the overall number of sharks in the area, making it a safer place to swim. "Since the start of the program over 50 years ago, there has been one shark fatality at a shark control beach in Queensland. "Shark control equipment remains in place throughout the year as sharks are active along the Queensland coastline year round, and Queensland's beaches are also a regularly popular destination for swimmers even during winter. Human safety must come first and that's why we're committed to this program." Krause added that all nets are fitted with electronic devices to ward off whales and deploy bait that doesn't attract dolphins or turtles. Environmentalists consider humpback whales a conservation success story. The creatures were nearly hunted to extinction until a ban on killing them in 1963 allowed their numbers to rebound. There are now around 14,000 that undertake the annual winter migration from Antarctic waters to the warmer Coral Sea waters and then back again, in order to breed. | ['environment/whales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/sharks', 'type/article', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2013-07-26T08:40:33Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
science/2009/sep/07/papua-new-guinea-new-species | Undiscovered species: Expedition to extinct Papua New Guinea volcano unearths remarkable finds | The jungle crater of Mount Bosavi in Papua New Guinea teems with so much life that it took just 30 seconds for the scientists from the BBC Natural History Unit to discover a completely new species, and even then they almost squashed it. Dr George McGavin and his team of biologists stepped from a helicopter on to the mist-shrouded rim of the Papua New Guinea volcano and spotted a frog hitherto unknown to science. It was the kind of find that takes a lifetime for most biologists and was a taste of surprises to come once they had descended into the lost world of the extinct volcano. "It was mind-blowing," said McGavin. "Allen Allison, a specialist in amphibians from the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, said, 'I think that's one over there by your foot.' I nearly trod on it." By the time the biologists had reemerged from the crater, 16 more frogs, including one with fangs, had been catalogued for the first time. They saw vegetation laden with so much slimy green frogspawn it seemed to be "dripping with life", never-before-seen giant rats, a tree-dwelling marsupial that looked like a bear and several strange new fish. It was an adventure that could have been scripted by Arthur Conan Doyle, whose novel The Lost World chronicled the discovery of long-lost species including dinosaurs on an Amazonian plateau. Equally strange, but this time true, the jungle within the 1,000-metre high crater walls of Bosavi revealed stick insects the length of a human forearm, butterflies the size of a paperback book, a tree kangaroo and a fat-lipped tentacled fish that looked like it had swallowed an octopus. An extremely hairy caterpillar is now awaiting cataloguing in Oxford, where the team has the enviable task of assigning names to its finds. "We might name it Healeyi after Denis Healey's eyebrows," joked McGavin. The most exciting discovery came soon after the team climbed into the crater, when they came across a giant but friendly vegetarian rat, which may turn out to be the largest in the world. "This rat was incredibly tame," said McGavin, the head scientist of the BBC Natural History Unit. "It just sat next to me nibbling on a piece of leaf. It won't have seen a human before. The crater of Mount Bosavi really is the lost world." The Bosavi silky cuscus, a marsupial that lives up trees and feeds on fruits and leaves, climbed on to the shoulder of Steve Backshall, a climber and naturalist. "I can't begin to describe how it feels to have an animal in my hands that in all probability has never before been seen by science," he said. "Most biologists would consider it a great achievement to name one new species but at some points on this trip it seemed like everything we were looking at was new. The end of every day was like a massive party. It was very special." Working with the help of local trackers, the team descended into the volcano in January. "We spent a fortnight in the crater," said Steve Greenwood, the producer who managed the expedition. "On the first day Steve Backshall found a Doria's tree kangaroo, coming close to camp. These are extremely rare creatures. He concentrated on searching for creatures in and around the steep rainforest streams and found several species of frog never seen by science before." The jungle was so remote the expedition team had to organise the planting of fields of sweet potato and spinach in the jungle six months in advance to provide food. Weeks were spent seeking permissions to cross land owned by local clans in which long discussions in smoky huts had to be translated into the local language, Kasua, which is spoken by fewer than 1,000 people. | ['environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/wildlife', 'science/biology', 'science/science', 'world/papua-new-guinea', 'tone/news', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'world/volcanoes', 'type/article', 'profile/robertbooth', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-09-06T23:05:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
science/audio/2008/jul/14/science.weekly.podcast | Science Weekly: Science and the media | This week's special guest is Steve Miller, who's been looking at the often fractious relationship between scientists and journalists. He wanted to find out whether the stereotype – that scientists are unhappy with the way their research is presented in newspapers and on TV – was actually true. Award-winning novelist Ian McEwan mused on creativity at an event organised by the Medical Research Council last week and we were there, pod-recorders in hand, to ask him: do talented artists and scientists have different kinds of creativity? Listen to the full interview with McEwan in Science Extra, which also features poet Ruth Padel waxing lyrical about Charles Darwin. We also hear from Andrew Hodges of the University of Oxford about the life of expert mathematician, codebreaker and father of computing, Alan Turing. Last week Hodges gave a lecture at Bletchley Park – where Turing helped crack the Nazis' Enigma Code during the Second World War – about the mathematician's legacy. In the Newsjam, Nell Boase and James Randerson pick over tales of men's biological clocks, evidence for water on the moon, some more bad news for coral reefs and a woman who has given birth to her grandchild. Oh, and we're playing a bit of "spot-the-fake-story" too. | ['science/science', 'books/ianmcewan', 'media/media', 'science/controversiesinscience', 'science/charles-darwin', 'science/evolution', 'science/people-in-science', 'environment/biodiversity', 'technology/technology', 'technology/computing', 'science/series/science', 'type/audio'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-07-14T12:03:59Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/apr/12/queensland-advances-green-hydrogen-and-ammonia-project-to-be-powered-by-renewables | Queensland advances green hydrogen and ammonia project to be powered by renewables | The Queensland government has granted coordinated project status to a $4.7bn proposal to build a green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Gladstone, where climate transition plans are being pitched as saviour projects. The central Queensland city has endured a significant economic downturn since the end of an LNG construction boom about five years ago. But the deputy premier, Steven Miles, says Gladstone is on the way to becoming a “clean energy powerhouse” on the back of investment in new economy and climate transition projects. Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest is already building the world’s largest electrolyser factory in Gladstone. On Tuesday the Queensland government announced a streamlined approval process, overseen by the coordinator general, for the H2-Hub Gladstone project, which will produce green hydrogen and green ammonia. The green ammonia would be sold to mining explosives manufacturer Orica, which is working with the project proponent, H2U, on plans for an ammonia export terminal in Gladstone. Miles said the project could create more than 550 jobs during a phased construction and about 140 ongoing operational jobs. The project includes plans to build up to 3 gigawatts of electrolysis and produce up to 5,000 tonnes of green ammonia a day. It would be powered by 100% renewable energy, from new-build solar and wind in Queensland. State minister for regional development and Gladstone MP, Glenn Butcher, said central Queensland was becoming a significant site for renewables projects. “These partnerships are highlighting the benefits of investing into Queensland’s regions and creating jobs for the future,” Butcher said. Green hydrogen is made by running an electric current through water using an electrolyser powered by renewable energy such as wind or solar. Energy analysts have previously suggested green hydrogen was likely to leapfrog hydrogen made with gas and coal as the most cost-effective form of the energy before the end of the decade, and by the time an industry could be developed at scale. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Hydrogen has become central to the Australian government’s current proposal to reach net zero emissions. The government has nominated “clean hydrogen” as a priority low-emissions technology that could eventually help replace fossil fuels in transport, electricity and industrial processes as the world moves to cut greenhouse gas emissions. H2U is expected to make a final investment decision by mid-2023, with operations expected to begin in 2025 and an expansion toward the end of the decade. | ['australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/queensland-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/hydrogen-power', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-04-12T03:57:20Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2022/oct/13/green-energy-guardian-reader-growth-net-zero-liz-truss-jacob-rees-mogg | I’m maligned as a ‘green energy sceptic’. I’m not. Dear Guardian reader, here’s what I think | Jacob Rees-Mogg | It is always intriguing to see my own views through the lens of a newspaper refracted away from what I think. Although I am no admirer of Extinction Rebellion, I can assure Guardian readers that I am not a “green energy sceptic”. I am in favour of intelligent net zero in which green energy will play the biggest role. I’m proud to belong to a country that has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% since 1990, while growing the economy by over 70% in that time. It is in this light that we can achieve our commitments to net zero by 2050, as dark satanic mills are replaced by onshore and offshore windfarms. But if the green agenda does not provide economic growth, it will ultimately not have political support and it will be self-defeating. Getting the British people on board with net zero requires us to demonstrate that we can go green in a way that makes them better off, not worse off, that drives growth instead of hindering it and that stimulates investment and innovation rather than driving traditional industries to the brink of ruin. The effect we have had on energy-intensive industries increases carbon emissions as we import more from abroad while destroying high-paid jobs in the United Kingdom. There are ways to make this work which the country is adopting. Consider the Contracts for Difference scheme. This programme has grown to support a bountiful range of renewable energy sources, from onshore wind to offshore, solar power to tidal and from remote island wind to energy production from waste – all while bringing down costs and growing the economy. The drive to produce up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 means that this sector alone should grow to support 90,000 jobs. The scheme has successfully overcome demands for upfront capital and settled uncertainties for generators navigating volatile wholesale prices. It has spurred £90bn of investment in renewables since 2012 and contributed to a five-fold increase in electricity generation from renewable sources over the decade. The latest auction round last year secured 93 new contracts for 11GW of renewable generation capacity – enough to power 12m homes. In 2010, renewables accounted for a mere 7% of the UK’s electricity generation. Programmes such as Contracts for Difference mean that renewables now meet about 40% of our needs, reducing our reliance on authoritarian regimes such as Russia and strengthening our domestic energy sector. The war in Ukraine has thrown into sharp relief the need to rapidly increase our domestic energy supply and strengthen our energy security, from all forms of renewables to nuclear and our domestic oil and gas reserves, which are of course significantly greener than shipping liquefied natural gas from overseas. That is why our recently announced growth plan will accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects including onshore and offshore windfarms. This plan will also boost the UK’s nascent hydrogen industry, which will work in harmony with the renewables and gas sectors alike. The government will also align onshore wind planning policy with other infrastructure to allow it to be deployed more easily in England. We understand the strength of feeling that some people have about the impact of wind turbines in England. The plans will maintain local communities’ ability to contribute to proposals, including developing local partnerships for communities that wish to see new onshore wind infrastructure in return for benefits such as lower energy bills. We are exploring options to support low-cost finance to help householders with the upfront costs of solar installation, permitted development rights to support deployment of more small-scale solar in commercial settings and designing performance standards to further encourage renewables, including solar PV, in new homes and buildings. We also need to focus on another key part of our energy infrastructure, reinforcing the grid so that renewable electricity can be transported to homes and businesses all over the country. Grid connection can often be on the critical path for getting new renewable infrastructure online, which is why I am committed to significantly reducing timelines for building new network infrastructure. But in exchange for the unprecedented support that is being offered to renewable energy companies, they must charge consumers and taxpayers a fair price for the energy they produce. By separating the price of renewable energy from the most expensive form of production, which today is gas, and moving these companies on to Contracts for Difference, the government is providing the renewables sector with long-term stability and a sensible price that is fair to the industry and consumers alike. The energy prices bill, introduced this week, will strengthen energy security and stop Putin holding our energy policy to ransom. It also has the potential to save billions of pounds for British billpayers, without deterring essential investment in low-carbon generation as we progress towards net zero. Given the stakes, it’s important that the public debate on net zero and energy security is robust and lively, but I hope my commitment to making it a reality is clear. • Jacob Rees-Mogg is secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/jacob-rees-mogg', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2022-10-13T05:00:02Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2018/jul/09/hybrid-cars-to-be-exempt-from-2040-petrol-and-diesel-ban | Hybrid cars to be exempt from 2040 petrol and diesel ban | Petrol and diesel hybrid cars will still be permitted to be sold in 2040, the government has conceded, in a move that has angered environmental campaigners but was welcomed by the car industry. Ministers last year pledged to ban new cars powered by fossil fuels by 2040 but the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, confirmed on Monday that hybrid cars – powered by electricity and diesel or petrol – would be exempt. The government’s Road to Zero strategy to reduce car pollution now includes a further target for at least 50% of new cars to be ultra-low emission by 2030. However, it stops short of outright commitments for the decades ahead, saying it expects “all new cars and vans to have significant zero-emission capability” by 2040 and “almost every” car and van to be zero-emission by 2050. Grayling said he believed the best method was to influence car buyers: “I want it to be easier for electric vehicle drivers to recharge than for motorists to visit a filling station. I want them to choose electric cars because they are so convenient.” He said a delayed £400m charging fund would be launched this summer to help expand infrastructure across the country, with hundreds of thousands more charging points on streets, in new homes and in workplaces. He said that as well as reducing pollution, the strategy set out a clear path for Britain to be a world leader in zero-emission transport, which represented “a huge global opportunity for industry and business” worth £1tn a year by 2030. However, environmental groups accused the government of weakening its commitments. Greenpeace said the car industry was “yet again being given a free pass” and the targets were weak by international standards. The Campaign for Better Transport said it was disappointing, describing it as “a step backwards, giving concessions to keeping hybrids on the road, which will water down the already inadequate 2040 target”. But Grayling told the Guardian: “I don’t think it’s watered down at all … We want to get rid of classic petrol and diesel engines. It’s about supporting the industry to deliver it and encouraging changes to consumer behaviour. I expect by 2040 every vehicle to have substantial zero-emission capability and most to be 100% zero-emission.” The motor industry had argued that the 2040 targets were contributing to consumer fears over diesel cars, whose UK sales have slumped in the last 15 months. Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said the strategy recognised “the vital role conventional engines, including diesel, will continue to play in the transition to 2040 and beyond”. He said the industry welcomed the “technology neutral approach” and the news that hybrids would not be banned but remained concerned over 2030 targets for ultra-low emission vehicles. “We need realistic ambition levels and measures that support industry’s efforts, allow manufacturers time to invest, innovate and sell competitively, and provide the right incentives and infrastructure to take the consumer with us,” he said. | ['business/automotive-industry', 'environment/electric-cars', 'business/business', 'money/motoring', 'money/money', 'politics/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'type/article', 'profile/gwyntopham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-07-09T16:07:59Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/article/2024/aug/10/trump-campaign-claims-hacked | Donald Trump 2024 campaign says emails were hacked | Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday it had been hacked. Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement about the alleged hack, following reports from Politico that it had begun receiving emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the campaign. “These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Cheung said in a statement reported by Reuters. Cheung said: “On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high-ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee.” He added: “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House.” The campaign cited a Microsoft report released on Friday about alleged hackers with ties to the Iranian government who “sent a spear-phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser”. Microsoft did not disclose details on the official or senior adviser’s identities, or the hack’s origin. Trump’s campaign has not provided direct evidence of the alleged hack and the Guardian has contacted Trump’s campaign and Microsoft for comment. Following the assassination attempt on Trump last month, reports emerged that a threat from Iran prompted the Secret Service to increase protection around him prior to his assassination attempt, though it appears unrelated to the rally attack in Butler county, Pennsylvania. Earlier this week, the US justice department announced that a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran had been charged over a foiled conspiracy to carry out political assassinations on American soil. According to a criminal complaint, 46-year old Asif Merchant tried to recruit people in the US to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US’s 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander. FBI investigators believe that Trump, who approved the drone strike on Soleimani, was one of the intended targets, according to a US official, CNN reported at the time. | ['us-news/donaldtrump', 'us-news/us-elections-2024', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-politics', 'world/world', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maya-yang', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2024-08-10T21:33:04Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2016/nov/09/eu-plans-320m-funding-boost-for-budding-ocean-energy-industry | EU plans €320m funding boost for budding ocean energy industry | The EU is proposing to spend hundreds of millions of euros to help the budding ocean energy industry to provide a tenth of the bloc’s power by 2050. The boost would take the form of a €250m investment fund, with an additional €70m set aside for insurance, loans and guarantees, according to the roadmap for channelling the potential of wave and tidal energy. The money would be supplied by the EU and its member states and should work as a buffer for companies that are attempting to cross the “valley of death” between demonstration projects and the energy market. “It is a comprehensive, inclusive and ambitious plan for building up ocean energy in Europe – from the initial R&D all the way to the industrial roll-out,” said the EU’s environment commissioner, Karmenu Vella, at a launch meeting in Brussels. Rémi Gruet, the CEO of trade group Ocean Energy Europe, said: “Bridging the gap between risk-averse commercial lenders and public authorities with limited budgets requires rethinking project finance. The roadmap proposes just that, solutions fit for the purpose of reducing risk and unlocking capital: milestone-bound grant awards, guarantees and insurance.” In further good news for the sector, Carnegie Wave Energy in Cornwall announced that it had secured £9.6m of EU funding that would enable it to connect England’s first commercial-scale wave power project to the grid. A 15MW array at Cornwall’s wave hub centre should now be commissioned in 2018, before commercial deployment in 2021. The local MP and former environment minister George Eustice, who campaigned for Brexit, said that the news showed that Cornwall was “well positioned to play a significant role in securing the UK’s continued reputation as a market leader in offshore renewables.” Around half of the world’s wave and tidal energy companies are today based in Europe, and officials believe that the industry could generate up to €653bn by mid-century, with an annual market of €53bn. Four projects currently in the pipeline are slated to provide 1.5GW of energy capacity and industry spokespeople say that 400,000 jobs could be created. Later this year, Atlantis Resources will complete the first phase of a 6MW MeyGen project in Scotland, which will be ramped up to 86MW before reaching a full generating capacity of 398MW in 2025. Tim Cornelius, the company’s CEO said: “Atlantis has 640MW in our Scottish portfolio alone, the realisation of which represents nothing less than the creation of a new manufacturing sector for Europe based on predictable, reliable, renewable energy.” In Northern Ireland, DP Energy says it is in the advanced stages of developing a 10MW tidal farm in Fair Head as the first stage in a 100MW project. The firm’s wider ocean energy portfolio adds up to 330MW. A separate EU ocean governance package on Thursday will launch several programmes to protect the world’s water bodies, including a pilot project using satellite communications to track illegal fishing worldwide. | ['environment/wave-tidal-hydropower', 'world/eu', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-11-09T11:51:48Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/oct/17/global-warming-experiment-turns-up-the-heat-in-puerto-rican-artificial-forest | Global warming experiment turns up the heat in Puerto Rican forest | Mid-morning in the Luquillo experimental forest in north-west Puerto Rico, and the thermometer already reads 26C. Tana Wood, an ecologist employed by the US Forest Service, pulls on a pair of heavy gloves for insulating against electrical shock. Over two years, her team here has laid out hexagonal plots four metres across, each about the size of a backyard trampoline. Industrial-strength heaters suspended several metres above the ground from metal scaffolding on the perimeter of three plots will heat the soil and undergrowth to 4C above the forest’s ambient temperature. Wood is about to start up an experiment that may help climate scientists to figure out how jungles in the Amazon, the Congo and elsewhere will reacting to rising temperatures. Earth’s equatorial band of forests might either slow down or speed up global warming, scientists say, depending on how it responds to higher temperatures. Each year fossil fuel exhaust adds about 30bn tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Half of it remains aloft. The rest is absorbed quickly — in about equal parts — by ocean water and plants on land, buffering the rate at which the insulating gas builds up. “Nature has done us a fantastic favour,” says Scott Denning, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. But nature might not be so generous on a hotter planet, Denning says. While researchers expect little change in what the ocean does, vegetation on land, especially in the tropics, might soak up less or even convert into CO2 the vast stockpiles of carbon now locked up in their soils into CO2. Jerry Melillo, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, said that increased atmospheric warming caused by CO2 emanating from tropical soil could further raise soil temperatures. The warmer soil could, in turn, release even more carbon dioxide, heating up the atmosphere even further. “So that warming will beget more warming.” Some researchers say the mutually reinforcing feedback might be impossible to halt once set in motion. What happens in tropical jungles depends on how they respond to several anticipated changes: increased concentrations of CO2 in the air, warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation. Experiments have warmed up ecosystems elsewhere. Melillo has been heating a New England forest with buried cables since 1991. He says that for decades he’s urging other scientists to run a similar experiment in the tropics. Wood’s research in Puerto Rico will be world’s first attempt to do so. Palm, cedar and soaring teak trees cast deep shade in the Luquillo forest, which was once cleared for pasture. Little wind penetrates the dense foliage. A green frond flutters to the ground and settles alongside a leaf, and a lizard darts up a trunk Wood and Aura Alonso-Rodriguez, the experiment’s project manger, follow an elaborate protocol to avoid electrocution from the high-voltage cabling and equipment or a fire. In addition to shockproof gloves, they wear high-voltage boots. They sweep sticks and leaves that might burst into flames off the heaters, which will use as much electricity as 15 average US homes. Satisfied that the apparatus is ready, they turn to the last remaining detail: a finicky instrument for measuring CO2 released from soil has malfunctioned. The researchers had hoped to turn on the power over the summer but suffered a series of setbacks and delays. The custom circuit board that controls the heaters burned out. A fire in one of Puerto Rico’s power plants shut down most of the island’s grid. Now, in late September, the automated CO2 monitoring device is giving meaningless results. “I can take troubleshooting for a year, but not more than that,” says Alonso-Rodriguez. Following detailed instructions sent by email, Wood and Alonso-Rodriguez dismantle the broken instrument. To their amazement and delight they get it to work again by mid-afternoon. “Let’s start it up,” says Wood. They’ve set up a control room in an air conditioned closet. With the click of a mouse, Alonso-Rodriguez turns the heaters on. Wood slouches in an office chair and stares at the laptop screen. On a graph, a red line indicating temperature in the plots makes a slow, jagged ascent. The experiment has begun. The Guardian’s travel was paid for with assistance from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/geoengineering', 'us-news/puerto-rico', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/grossman-daniel', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-10-17T11:31:44Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2009/feb/15/green-energy-cutbacks | Terry Macalister: Clean energy at a crossroads | Green companies are in retreat, with a wave of staff layoffs and production cuts that could have dire consequences for government efforts to fight climate change by quickly bringing low-carbon power projects on stream. Siemens, Clipper Windpower and even BP are among the big names that say they are reacting to a slowdown in the clean energy sector, which had hitherto seen massive growth. The credit crunch is starving wind and solar developments of urgently needed cash and the situation is being exacerbated by prices crashing to record lows in the carbon trading market. New Energy Finance, a consultant in the field, says that the next six months are likely to be very difficult for a sector that saw 60% growth in 2007 over 2006, but then almost no further expansion in 2008. Siemens Wind Power plans to make 400 redundancies at three sites in Denmark and accepts that the 30% growth seen in the sector over recent years could be cut to 20% or even 10% this year. Clipper Windpower said that 90 staff would be laid off - 11% of its total workforce - and production levels cut by up to a fifth as it reacts to a downturn in demand for its equipment as developers struggle to raise cash. Vestas, the world's biggest turbine manufacturer, reported a strong set of financial results for 2008, but warned last week that unless demand for its equipment increased over the next three months there would be cutbacks in investment levels for the coming year. Chief executive Ditlev Engel said: "If the world does not improve, we will have to look to cut jobs at Vestas." The solar power side of the renewables sector is faring no better. According to some estimates, private equity and public market investment in the fourth quarter of 2008 was just 25% of that seen in the third quarter of 2008, and the lowest for three years. Meanwhile, investment in large solar projects slipped down to $3.8bn in the last three months of 2008 against $5bn for the previous three months. New Energy Finance concludes, however, that while times are "undoubtedly hard" for the solar sector and there will be more job losses in the coming period, "there is still a significant amount of investment activity going on". Last year, around $155bn ($108bn) of new money was raised from the public markets, venture capitalists and the banks to fund clean energy companies. But this figure was barely up from the $148bn raised in 2007. Angus McCrone, senior analyst at New Energy Finance, says: "It is going to be a difficult first half for the wind and solar sectors, but if the credit markets ease up in the summer we should see a stronger second half." The situation has not been helped by the carbon market, which in recent days has seen the price of allowances under the second phase of the European Union's emissions trading scheme hit new lows of less than €9 (£8) a tonne. This has been caused partly by industrial companies selling off credits that they think they will no longer need in an economic downturn, and partly because carbon prices are often linked by traders to oil prices. The value of crude has fallen from last summer's highs of $147 a barrel to little over $40. This makes it less attractive to proceed with offsetting projects under the Kyoto Treaty's Clean Development Mechanism and is hitting companies which operate in the sector. EcoSecurities, which specialises in carbon offsetting, is to close its US consultancy office in Oregon at the end of this month and reduce its staff numbers in America by a third as it responds to a decline in demand. Carbon broker CantorCO2e has made redundancies in response to slowing demand for credits. The company's chairman, Laurence Rose, says total staff numbers have been trimmed over the last quarter although he adds: "We are not massively cutting our business." Meanwhile, in the biofuels sector, BP has been looking at cutbacks in its joint venture with D1 Oils that aims to produce clean fuel from jatropha plants, which can grow in the poorest soil. "A new business plan for D1-BP Fuel Crops will tighten the businesses' geographic focus, reduce the overhead base and contain short-term cash requirements," says the company. The wider BP group has announced 5,000 redundancies, almost all in the oil and gas sector, but officials admit that a small number are going at the Alternative Energy arm run by Vivienne Cox. Meanwhile, arch-rival Shell has already pulled out of what should become the world's largest offshore wind farm - the London Array in the Thames estuary - and German partner E.ON has admitted the economics of it look fragile in a world of low oil and carbon prices. E.ON feels "still pretty buoyant" about green energy overall, but admits that high costs and relatively low subsidies in Britain leave markets such as Spain and the US looking more attractive. | ['business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/analysis', 'environment/solarpower', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/businessandmedia', 'theobserver/businessandmedia/news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2009-02-15T00:01:00Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2011/nov/30/yahoo-bid | Yahoo receives bid for 19.9% stake valuing it at $20.6bn | Yahoo has received bids for a stake in the company which value it at $20.6bn (£13bn), less than half the amount offered by Microsoft nearly four years ago. The US internet group's board, which recently parted company with its chief executive Carol Bartz, is looking to sell a 19.9% stake and was considering offers on Wednesday from private equity group Silver Lake Partners, which is working with Microsoft, and TPG Capital. Silver Lake is reportedly willing to pay $16.50 a share, and TPG a dollar more. The lower offer values Yahoo at $20.6bn, just 6% above yesterday's closing share price of $15.70, and well below the $44.6bn cash and stock bid made by Microsoft in February 2008. "The offer is disappointing," said Hamilton Faber, an analyst at Atlantic Equities. "Investors who've been buying Yahoo recently were hoping for a significant premium and a takeout of the full company, and this falls short on both counts." By keeping the sell-off to under 20% of its equity, Yahoo's board is able to avoid a shareholder vote on the issue. Silver Lake's proposal would give it four board seats including the choice of chief executive, according to the Wall Street Journal. The buyout group is said to be in talks with Silicon Valley software entrepreneur and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen about taking a role at Yahoo. Earlier this week the once mighty internet group announced profits down by 26% and revenues down 5% for the quarter to the end of September. Yahoo's share price had declined by more than 7% this year by Monday evening, the day before the bids were submitted. In the past five years, the shares have dropped 44% in value as rivals like Google and Facebook have stepped into the limelight. Microsoft is keen to acquire a minority shareholding to protect the 10-year agreement with Yahoo, announced in 2009. The two firms share search technology and advertising revenues in an alliance designed to give Microsoft's Bing search engine a fighting chance against Google, which controls 76% of US search advertising spend. Yahoo's board must now consider whether to sell a stake or invite offers for the company as a whole. Chinese internet trading site Alibaba, in which Yahoo has a 40% holding, is keen on buying back its shares. Alibaba chief executive Jack Ma has so far been rebuffed by the Yahoo board, and is now openly looking for partners to make a bid for the entire company. Private equity firms such as Blackstone and KKR are reported to be interested in teaming up with Alibaba or in making solo approaches. Yahoo also holds a 40% stake in Yahoo Japan, and the venture's majority owner, Softbank, is reported to be keen to take full control. Yahoo may consider selling a part of these stakes in order to return a cash dividend to disappointed shareholders. | ['technology/yahoo', 'technology/microsoft', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/technology', 'technology/internet', 'business/technology', 'media/digital-media', 'media/mediabusiness', 'media/media', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/juliette-garside'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2011-11-30T16:15:07Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2010/may/24/bp-admits-deepwater-rescue-less-oil | BP admits Deepwater rescue is capturing less oil | BP today admitted that is capturing less oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico than previously estimated, raising fresh questions over the success of its rescue operation. The oil giant told the City this morning that the mile-long siphon tube inserted into the damaged well has been capturing an average of 2,010 barrels a day. That is less than half the 5,000 barrels the company estimates is leaking into the sea every day following the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Last Thursday, BP told shareholders it was managing to siphon off around 3,000 barrels each day, while a BP spokesman in Houston told reporters that the siphon had actually been collecting 5,000 barrels of oil in a day. The news comes after President Barack Obama warned that he would remove the company from efforts to seal the well if it does not act quickly enough to stop the leak, although he also acknowledged only BP and the oil industry know how to halt the spill. Obama has now despatched two cabinet secretaries to the Gulf, keeping pressure on the company to plug the undersea oil leak which threatens to cause an environmental disaster. The oil has reached the delicate wetlands of Louisiana. The spill, which has seen oil spewing into the ocean for more than a month after the rig explosion in April, has cost BP $760m (£526m) so far, up from the $625m estimate it issued on 18 May. The US Coast Guard said more than 65 miles (110 km) of the Gulf coast has been hit by the oil spill, and less than half of it can be cleaned up quickly. The British oil giant said it continues to work on a "top kill" operation where heavy drilling fluids are injected into the well to stem the flow of oil and gas and ultimately kill the well. "Most of the equipment is on site and preparations continue for this operation, with a view to deployment in a few days," BP said. In today's statement, BP admitted that the oil captured by the "riser insertion tube tool", had fluctuated between 1,360 and 3,000 barrels of oil a day. It blamed the variable collection rate on "flow parameters and physical characteristics within the riser". Shares in BP fell 1.6% this morning to 498p, their lowest level since last August. The company has now lost almost a quarter of its value since the Deepwater Horizon exploded. | ['environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/bp', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'tone/news', 'business/tony-hayward', 'type/article', 'profile/juliakollewe'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-05-24T08:54:58Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2019/jan/08/caroline-lucas-calls-for-action-in-brighton-recycling-row | Caroline Lucas calls for action in Brighton recycling row | The recycling company Veolia has been accused of refusing to adapt a 30-year contract to allow Brighton and Hove council to collect more plastic waste as local authorities struggle to meet a national target of 50%. Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said the company had refused requests to change the contract. As a result, attempts by the city to increase the collection of plastic waste had failed. The UK has to meet an EU target of 50% recycling by 2020, but recycling rates across the country are collapsing. The latest figures from English councils published this month show recycling rates have fallen by 0.3 percentage points to the end of March 2018, and stand at 44.8%. The amount of all local authority waste sent for recycling fell in 2017-18 to 10.9m tonnes, a 3.5% decrease on the 11.3m tonnes in 2016-17. Rates among local authorities in England range from 14% to 64%. Brighton and Hove has a recycling rate of 30%. The council is restricted to collecting plastic bottles from householders for recycling as a result of its contract with Veolia; many other UK councils collect trays and other plastic recyclate along with bottles. Lucas said: “Brighton and Hove council have a 30-year PFI contract with Veolia. They are refusing to change the contract so that a wide range of plastics can be recycled. The council doesn’t have the £1m for the required machinery at the Veolia plant to enable a wide range of plastic to be recycled.” Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has said the council could write to him about the issue after questioning by Lucas. Simon Ellin, the chief executive of the Recycling Association, said the market for low-grade plastic, such as tubs and trays, had collapsed after China banned the importation of plastic recyclate. Countries which moved into the market for imported waste, such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Poland, were imposing their own restrictions and not taking low-grade plastic. Veolia said it was always open to discussions with the waste collection authorities about change and was at the forefront of plans in the government’s waste strategy, published in December, to harmonise local authority collections to a national standard. But the company said: “In relation to the viability of recycling pots, tubs and trays, and some other plastics such as film, it is a complex matter and we advocate collecting only what is readily recyclable, until products are better designed. “A priority is to increase the far higher tonnage of bottles, when we currently only get back around 57% of plastic bottles; we must encourage better separation at source. Without question, we would like to see all plastic manufactured so that it is recyclable, collected and then processed into mainstream feedstocks.” Ellin said as the market in low-grade plastics had collapsed, he had some sympathy for Veolia. “If Brighton wants to increase the amount of plastic it is collecting, it will take a huge investment to put the technology in place at a time when the material has a negative value,” he said. “There is no market for it. So you can’t expect a private company just to take that on the chin.” He suggested the council should pay for the technology. Brighton and Hove did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Lucas said she would continue to push the council and Veolia to look again at their restrictive recycling contract. “I’ll be encouraging the council to write to Michael Gove urgently so we can finally start recycling a wider range of plastics,” she said. | ['environment/recycling', 'uk/brighton', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'uk/uk', 'environment/waste', 'politics/caroline-lucas', 'politics/politics', 'politics/pfi', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-01-08T11:50:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
science/2018/feb/12/weatherwatch-extreme-flooding-on-rise-in-europe-over-past-20-years | Weatherwatch: Extreme flooding on rise in Europe over past 20 years | For the inhabitants of the Cumbrian village of Glenridding, the winter of 2015/16 was a miserable one. Storm Desmond brought the first deluge in December, turning the river into a raging torrent, sweeping through many properties, and cutting the village off from the outside world for a full two days. Storm Eva barrelled in a few weeks later, and Glenridding ended up awash three times in the space of four weeks. So what is going on? Are extreme climate events becoming more frequent, or were the residents of Glenridding suffering a series of unlucky rolls of the dice? To answer this question, Wouter Berghuijs, from ETH Zurich, and colleagues have been analysing streamflow statistics from all over the world, and totting up the number of extreme events in each catchment. They have found that European rivers have experienced a 44% increase in extreme floods since 1995, suggesting that global warming has played a role. Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists conclude that flood history is not a reliable predictor for future flood risk, and climate change needs to be taken into account too. | ['science/meteorology', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk-news/cumbria', 'uk/uk', 'uk-news/storm-desmond', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/environment', 'environment/rivers', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-02-12T21:30:25Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2010/feb/08/dongria-kondh-help-stop-vedanta | Indian tribe appeals for Avatar director's help to stop Vedanta | The Dongria Kondh tribe from eastern India today appealed to film director James Cameron to help them stop controversial mining company Vedanta from opening a bauxite mine on their sacred land as they believe that he will understand their plight better than most. Like the Na'vi tribe in Cameron's blockbuster Avatar, who are desperately trying to stop humans from mining under their sacred 'home tree' in Pandora, the Dongria Kondh are trying to stop Vedanta from opening its mine on the mountain they worship. Vedanta plans to construct an open-cast mine on Niyamgiri mountain in Orissa state which activists believe will destroy the area's ecosystem and threaten the future of the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe, who depend on the hills for their crops and water and who believe the mountain and surrounding forest to be a sacred place. Stephen Corry, director of the charity Survival, which campaigns on behalf of indigenous people, said: "Just as the Na'vi describe the forest of Pandora as 'their everything', for the Dongria Kondh, life and land have always been deeply connected. The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out today in the hills of Niyamgiri. "Like the Na'vi, the Dongria Kondh are also at risk, as their lands are set to be mined by Vedanta Resources who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims. The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area." In an advert in Hollywood entertainment magazine Variety, the Dongria Kondh said: "Appeal to James Cameron. Avatar is fantasy … and real. The Dongria Kondh tribe in India are struggling to defend their land against a mining company hell-bent on destroying their sacred mountain. Please help the Dongria." | ['business/vedantaresources', 'film/jamescameron', 'world/india', 'film/film-industry', 'film/film', 'environment/environment', 'business/mining', 'environment/mining', 'tone/news', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'film/avatar', 'type/article', 'profile/kathrynhopkins'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2010-02-08T16:56:24Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/mar/22/decline-of-more-than-500-species-of-marine-life-in-australian-reefs-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-study-finds | Decline of more than 500 species of marine life on Australian reefs ‘the tip of the iceberg’, study finds | More than 500 common species of fish, seaweed, coral and invertebrates that live on reefs around Australia have declined in the past decade, a study has found, as experts warn “not all is well in the ocean”. Global heating was likely the main driver of the falls, with marine heatwaves and a rise in ocean temperatures hitting species that live on rocky and coral reefs. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The study, published in the journal Nature, monitored 1,057 species and found 57% of them had declined, and almost 300 were declining at a rate that could qualify them as threatened species. About 28% of the species analysed had suffered drops of 30% or more in just a decade, with species that live in cooler waters particularly hard-hit. Prof Graham Edgar, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania and the study’s lead author, said the declines were most marked in the rocky kelp-dominated reefs in Australia’s cooler southern waters, known collectively as the Great Southern Reef. “These declines are happening out of sight and with very little public attention,” he said. Edgar said there were many more species in the waters that were not being monitored and were also very likely to be declining. “We’re really only looking at the tip of the iceberg here. Species could be going extinct now,” he said. “This is very concerning to me. I’ve been swimming up and down counting fish and seaweed for more than 30 years and I’ve seen first-hand the effect of warming on the system. “With the direction this is going, it’s a huge worry.” The loss of kelp was particularly important, Edgar said, because they were the cornerstone around which many habitats existed in the continent’s cooler waters. Larger fish were declining faster than smaller ones, the study found, probably because of pressure from fishing compounding the rising temperatures. About 35 researchers from multiple institutions came together for the study, which drew on existing data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science as well as monitoring from an army of volunteer divers. Only species that had been observed enough times to generate analysis were included. “Without the volunteer efforts of Reef Live Survey divers, we couldn’t have done this work,” Edgar said. For many reef species, increasing ocean temperatures were presenting an “existential threat” with knock-on effects for ecosystems and commercial fisheries, the authors wrote. Species in waters in Australia’s south that were closer to big urban centres such as Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, were being affected by not only warming oceans but also pollution, coastal development, fishing, aquaculture and land run-off. Although the study focused on species living on reefs, the authors said marine wildlife was probably also declining in other rapidly warming cool temperate waters. Dr John Turnbull, a marine ecologist at the University of Sydney and a study co-author, has witnessed declines while diving as a volunteer. He saw cool water corals near Sydney bleaching for the first time, and visible declines in the numbers of weedy sea dragons and urchins. “We’re seeing these declines first-hand. The losses in the south of Australia are not really known,” he said. The loss of urchins had a knock-on effect, he said, as they were food for larger fish, including blue gropers that can grow to a metre in length. There was evidence some species were moving towards the cool end of their ranges, Turnbull said, which was a problem in southern waters because species “run out of runway” with no available habitat farther south. Associate Prof Zoe Richards, a marine invertebrate expert at the Western Australian Museum and Curtin University, said the study “sends a clear message that not all is well in the ocean”. “This new study provides much-needed empirical evidence that population declines are occurring even among the most common marine taxa,” said Richards, who was not involved in the study. “These are common species and so are major players in the way these ecosystems function. It’s quite ominous if they are declining. “You have to ask what on earth is happening to everything else.” | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/fish', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-22T16:00:31Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2020/sep/17/coalition-to-divert-renewable-energy-funding-away-from-wind-and-solar | Coalition to divert renewable energy funding away from wind and solar | The Morrison government will continue to fund Australia’s renewable energy agency to the tune of $1.43bn over a decade but overhaul its mandate so there will be less investment in solar and wind, and more focus on investment in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, microgrids and energy efficiency. The baseline funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) will be supplemented by a transfer of funds from the government’s emissions reduction fund and a new grants program worth $193.4m – but that represents a funding cut to the agency which was established by the Gillard government in 2011. The significant overhaul will be unveiled by Scott Morrison on Thursday ahead of the government outlining its next steps in the technology roadmap, which is the government’s emissions reduction strategy. The energy minister, Angus Taylor, is expected to unveil the government’s inaugural low emissions technology statement during a speech at the National Press Club early next week. As part of executing a fundamental shift in Arena’s mandate – a pivot that will not be welcomed by environmentalists – the government plans to allocate $95.4m for a technology co-investment fund that was recommended during the King review of the Coalition’s heavily criticised climate policy mechanisms. The government will also continue to plough more taxpayer funds into carbon capture and storage through a $50m fund, while $70.2m will be allocated for an export hydrogen hub. Despite a fierce political assault on a Labor policy at the 2019 federal election designed to drive the take-up of electric vehicles – a package of measures that were characterised by the Coalition as a “war on the weekend” – Arena will be given $74.5m fund to support, as the government puts it, “businesses and regional communities [to] take advantage of opportunities offered by hydrogen, electric, and bio-fuelled vehicles”. There will also be $67m for microgrid initiatives in regional and remote communities, and $52.2m for an energy efficiency program for homes and hotels. The Coalition’s planned overhaul will require parliamentary support. Labor has recently rebuffed a complementary effort by the government to explicitly open up the taxpayer-owned green bank, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to fossil fuel investments. In a statement issued ahead of Thursday’s announcement, the prime minister said many renewable energy technologies were now mature. “Solar panels and wind farms are now clearly commercially viable and have graduated from the need for government subsidies and the market has stepped up to invest,” Morrison said. “The government will now focus its efforts on the next challenge: unlocking new technologies across the economy to help drive down costs, create jobs, improve reliability and reduce emissions.” Morrison said the objective was to provide support for “traditional” industries, which he identified as manufacturing, agriculture, transport, “while positioning our economy for the future”. He said investments bringing new technology into play would create jobs as well as cut emissions. Taylor said the government needed to pursue emerging technologies “to get the balance right”. He said Arena had played an important role in growing low emissions technologies “and as the cost of renewable technologies has fallen dramatically, the government is investing in the future of Arena to support the next generation of energy technologies”. The overhaul of Arena follows the government outlining first steps in its much vaunted “gas-led recovery” from the economic shock caused by the coronavirus. Morrison on Tuesday pointed to new commitments in the October budget, including funding of $52.9m to unlock more gas supply and boost transport infrastructure. As well as flagging that the government would back the construction of a new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley if the energy company AGL failed to replace Liddell, Morrison held open the option of taxpayer underwriting for priority gas projects, streamlining approvals or creating special purpose vehicles for new investment. While Morrison and Taylor have been muscling up about the importance of new generation to replace Liddell, the government’s proposition has not been backed by a taskforce report commissioned to assess the impact of its closure. Morrison said this week the government had estimated 1,000 megawatts of new dispatchable electricity generation capacity would be needed to replace Liddell, which owner AGL has announced will close in early 2023. But the taskforce does not find that 1,000MW of additional dispatchable electricity would be needed. It listed a range of energy committed and probable projects that it found would be “more than sufficient” to maintain a high level of power grid reliability as Liddell shut. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/coalition', 'environment/hydrogen-power', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'australia-news/angus-taylor', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/katharine-murphy', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2020-09-16T17:30:34Z | true | ENERGY |
society/2005/jan/04/internationalaidanddevelopment.indianoceantsunamidecember20042 | Germany set to boost aid funds | With more than 1,000 Germans still missing in the Indian Ocean region and 60 confirmed dead, Germany was today reportedly planning to offer €500m (£353m) in disaster relief funds, by far the largest contribution to victims of last week's tsunamis. The German embassy in London could not confirm the total, which was reported by the Reuters news agency. Reuters quoted an unnamed official as saying Germany would increase its planned aid from the current pledge of €20m to as much as €500m. If the figure is accurate, it would outstrip the $500m (£266m) offered by Japan, currently the biggest donation to disaster relief efforts. The US, the second largest donor, has offered $350m. The German cabinet is due to meet tomorrow to discuss increasing its contribution, and the German development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said today that the country planned a significant increase in its aid to the region. She told ZDF public television that the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, would make an announcement following tomorrow's cabinet meeting. In his new year speech to the nation last week, Mr Schröder called for European countries to form "partnerships" with nations affected by the tsunami, "so that every country in our wealthy continent can show responsibility, [and] be concrete evidence of humanity". Ms Wieczorek-Zeul said the disaster region required a "long-lasting and sustainable engagement as well as increased financial help", adding that Germany had in the past had the strongest relationship with Sri Lanka. She said further aid would depend on discussions with other European Union countries and the Group of Eight industrial nations. In addition to government and charity aid, a survey by the Forsa polling group released today by RTL television showed 52% of Germans planned on giving private donations to aid tsunami victims, and 16% said they already had. Some 30% said they did not plan on donating. Aside from generous donations from the public, which in the UK have already outstripped the government pledge of £50m, international governments have pledged $2bn in aid. Public outpourings of cash have caused several governments to increase initial aid packages. In China, where the average person lives on less than $1,000 a year, the public overcame its unfamiliarity with international charity appeals to surpass Beijing's initial offer of $2.5m. The Chinese government later increased its offer to $60m. The US government increased dramatically its initial donation of $15m. Yesterday the US president, George Bush, also drafted in two former presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr, to lead a nationwide drive for private donations. | ['global-development/global-development', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/germany', 'world/world', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/sarahleft'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-04T16:54:53Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/apr/03/minister-rules-out-energy-rationing-in-uk-despite-ukraine-crisis | Minister rules out energy rationing in UK despite Ukraine crisis | A cabinet minister has rejected calls for the UK to consider rationing energy, as a plan to drastically increase onshore wind power also appeared to be significantly scaled back. The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been a “massive wake-up call” for western nations about their dependence on imported oil and gas, which European countries are now trying to wean themselves off. However, Shapps said the UK would not follow the lead of other countries, such as Germany, that have put emergency measures in place to ration gas if Russia cuts off supplies to Europe. An international row is escalating over Russia’s demand that, from 1 April, all gas purchased by foreign countries must be paid for in roubles – a move that G7 countries have rejected. According to Reuters, the Dutch government said it would urge consumers to use less gas, Greece has called an emergency meeting of suppliers, and the French energy regulator urged consumers not to panic. Labour’s Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, said fuel rationing “should be an extreme option”. “We should be making those plans and the government should be preparing – not necessarily in public – for that situation,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show. After the prime minister, Boris Johnson, flew to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to urge oil-producing countries in the Middle East to turn on the taps, Reynolds said the government should not be “shopping from one authoritarian regime to the next for fossil fuels”. He called for the long-delayed energy security strategy to be published with a particular focus on generating more renewable and nuclear energy, as well as improving energy efficiency. Reynolds also said there was “a lot of complacency in this country about the relative lower exposure to Russian gas that we have”, warning that if European countries stopped importing it then they would turn to the same providers used by the UK, squeezing supplies further and keeping prices high. But asked if he could completely rule out energy rationing in the UK, Shapps said: “Yes I can … We don’t see rationing being part of our approach to this, and nor should it be.” Shapps instead raised the prospect of generating more offshore wind, though he appeared to walk back on plans to double the amount of onshore wind power by 2030. The Guardian reported last month that ministers were considering drastically increasing the amount of power generated by onshore wind turbines by the end of the decade from 14 gigawatts to 30. Johnson was headed for a showdown with his own cabinet and backbenchers, but Shapps’s public disapproval will be interpreted as a sign that the government is preparing to back down. Shapps said there “may be places where it’s appropriate”, but that he thought “by and large, I think it’s better to build significant wind power offshore”. Earlier, he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show: “I don’t favour a vast increase in onshore windfarms for pretty obvious reasons. They sit on the hills there and can create something of an eyesore for communities as well as actual problems of noise as well.” Instead, Shapps said he favoured nuclear modular reactors. This follows the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, telling the Sunday Telegraph that up to seven nuclear power stations could be built in Britain to radically expand homegrown energy. The UK’s new energy security strategy is expected to be published on Thursday. In a bid to smooth cabinet splits over the planned dramatic increase in onshore wind, No 10 said any decisions “will always be subject to consent from local communities”. However, a senior energy industry source told the Guardian they believed the antipathy to onshore wind came from “a small but determined group of backbench MPs and feels ideological rather than logical”. “Local MPs will justify house building, if they see it’s in the national interest, even in places they think there’s local opposition,” they said. “Often there are compromises made or locals get rewarded for having the infrastructure, but the homes get built. In contrast, onshore wind is treated by some MPs as something that isn’t valuable or vital - when it is.” | ['environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'politics/grant-shapps', 'world/russia', 'world/europe-news', 'politics/politics', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/aubrey-allegretti', 'profile/jasper-jolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-04-03T13:49:28Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2021/jun/02/brown-lawns-grass-should-not-always-be-greener | The brilliance of brown lawns: why your grass shouldn’t always be greener | Name: Brown lawns. Colour: Brown, obviously. Appearance: Much more lovely than you would imagine. I don’t think brown lawns are very lovely at all. Ah, I see. You seem to be someone who takes pride in their lawn. Uniform length, is it? Neat stripes? Well watered? Of course it’s well watered. Then you, my friend, are an enemy of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). What do they hate me for this time? You waste too much water on your lawn. The RHS is urging gardeners to stop using mains water to keep their lawns green, on the basis that it is tremendously bad for the environment. It is? Yes. Watering a lawn can use as much water in an hour as a person uses in a week. With the climate heating, England could face water shortages in as few as 25 years. Not spraying away hundreds of litres of the stuff on your lawn seems like a fantastic place to start. But my lovely grass! It will grow back. You could just wait for it to rain and it will be green again in no time. Or, better still, invest in a water butt. You don’t understand. My lawn is my life. Well-maintained lawns are terrible things. They don’t just suck up water; they are also ruinous for biodiversity. Really? Yes. In 2019, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report named biodiversity loss as one of the biggest threats to the future of humankind. OK, fine, what should I do? You could let your lawn grow out a little. Even slightly longer grass is terrific for pollinators, plant diversity and absorbing greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, if you disturb your grass by mowing it, you are wildly increasing the likelihood of pest and weed invasions. Long brown grass. My neighbours will be so jealous. Another plan would be to create a patchwork lawn. This is where you dig up your lawn entirely and replace it with beautifully coloured pockets of low-growing (and mowable) plants such as marjoram, clover, camomile, buttercups and fleabanes. Google them. They are stunning – and much better for the environment. That does actually sound quite nice. And it will massively reduce the amount of time you spend tending to your garden, leaving you with more time to be around your family. I’ve gone off the idea again. Fair. In that case, just buy a water butt. Do say: “Brown grass is a sign of a healthy garden.” Don’t say: “Are giant, knackered trampolines also a sign of a healthy garden?” | ['lifeandstyle/gardens', 'news/series/pass-notes', 'news/shortcuts', 'environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/access-to-green-space', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-production'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-06-02T13:18:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2015/oct/19/chinese-reactor-plan-fuels-british-security-fears | Chinese reactor plan fuels British security fears | Letters | A lesson learned from the otherwise successful UK gas-cooled reactor programmes was that excessive diversity of design prevents economies of scale during construction and is inefficient during the plant’s working life. A Chinese reactor at Bradwell would be the fourth different new power reactor design in England. Commercial and security issues may be soluble at nominal cost. But can the UK muster sufficient indigenous expertise to master the details of the technology and design of so many types in order to become an expert customer and subsequently operate the reactors safely and economically for their expected life? Even if the necessary expertise and industrial capacity were available it would represent a continuing cost throughout the life of the reactor and well into subsequent decommissioning. Some careful strategic thinking is needed before the government enters into an agreement with China in addition to current plans for Hinkley Point, Wylfa and Moorside. Tim Chittenden Workington, Cumbria • A few more questions for George Osborne about his French/Chinese nuclear reactor (Letters, 22 September). Why the constant references to hard-pressed bill payers when renewable energy is already cheaper and plummeting in price, and when the planned cuts to solar energy will save households no more than £1.20 a year (Report, 19 October)? Does he think “hard-pressed” people can’t afford to worry about safety? If it’s not to save money or carbon, then what is the huge nuclear subsidy for? The civil nuclear industry is known to provide key expertise and a skills pool for the UK to remain part of the military nuclear club; Sussex University’s science policy research unit suggests that this might explain the government’s unshakeable commitment to this form of energy (Report, 7 August). Consumers are entitled to a full accounting. Exactly what is it that we are expected to contribute to through our bills? Ruth London Fuel Poverty Action • Once the UK solar panel industry has gone the way of the steel industry (Solar subsidy cut attacked as obscene, 19 October), we shall presumably be buying our panels in the future from China, much to George Osborne’s satisfaction. Geoffrey Rider Ripon • Along with a lot of people, I do not hold much faith in our government, sadly. However, I hold even less faith in the governments of countries such as China. So, another nuclear power station is to be built in Suffolk. Did anybody ask local people how they felt about this and if they would be happy that its security would be in the hands of another country? How dare the government hand over things of such vital importance and concern to unknown entities. P Ward Saxmundham, Suffolk • Timothy Garton Ash (If US relations with China turn sour, there will probably be war, 16 October) echoes repeated predictions that, rather than implode politically, an expansionist China is destined to lock horns in war with the US for world superpower primacy. By then China will own the commanding heights of little Britain’s economy: nuclear power generation; water and sewerage; high-speed rail. Yet the prevailing Westminster view is that it is strategically desirable to renew “our own independent” Trident nuclear deterrent – which I understand is only usable with US assent. David Higdon Ryton, Tyne and Wear • Ma Jian (The howls of political prisoners, 19 October) asks whether the UK government would “have had the gall to invite President Botha on a state visit while the world was clamouring for Nelson Mandela’s release”. Mrs Thatcher had the gall, all right, and I have the “No to Botha” badge I wore to the Hyde Park protest rally of 50,000 people in June 1984 to prove it. Susan Seager London • As a member of the Christian Peoples’ Alliance I disagree with many of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies. However, as regards his concern about the poor human rights record of Saudi Arabia and China we are at one. He should take the opportunity of this week’s visit of President Xi Jinping to speak out about issues such as the occupation of Tibet, the discrimination against Christians in many regions, the denial of a free press, treatment of dissidents, and failing to take serious measures to stop the import of animal body parts from endangered species. John Wainwright Potters Bar, Hertfordshire • Ten years ago, when I last visited China, virtually everybody I met raised the issue of human rights. No, they didn’t want to talk about Tibet or political prisoners. They wanted to know how Britain could justify the invasion of Iraq and the abuse of human rights there. Henry Stewart London Join the debate at guardian.letters@theguardian.com | ['world/china', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'politics/economy', 'business/economics', 'business/global-economy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/nuclear-weapons', 'world/world', 'world/asia-pacific', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'tone/letters', 'world/xi-jinping', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2015-10-19T18:56:53Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/2015/sep/16/kitchen-gadgets-review-joie-citrus-squeeze-mist | Kitchen gadgets review: Joie citrus squeeze and mist – ‘I don’t know a more undignified way to prepare fish’ | What? The Joie citrus squeeze and mist juice vaporiser (£6, John Lewis) is a small, graded chamber with interchangeable heads. The reamer attachment funnels citrus juice into the vial, while the atomiser accelerates the liquid into a spray. Why? Molecular gastronomy is in, in case you mist it. Well? Confronted with a lemon mister, I’m struck by its charming personification. It reminds me of a character from some old jazz standard, perhaps sung by Billie Holiday. “Only me can sweeten he / Cos he’s my lemon mister.” Who is this Lemon Mister, I wonder. Is he Mr Lemon on official documents? Of course, that’s foolishness. It’s not that sort of mister! This is a gadget that allows you to juice a lemon, then spray it everywhere in a misguided citrus spritz. In which case, isn’t it too specific? If there is genuine demand for atmospheric foodplay, why limit things to mist? Why not rustle up a lime fog, or grapefruit gloaming? There surely aren’t many occasions that demand it – salad and fish is the consensus. I don’t know a more undignified way to prepare fish than pumping lemon vapour over it, as if I’m giving it a spray tan, so I go with salad; salad doesn’t have feelings. As a juicer it is good, worth the price of admission even, clipping on securely and catching pips, while the scale tells you how much you’ve extracted. I swap in the spray nozzle, which is fine too, coating my Greek salad evenly in the blandest vinaigrette ever tasted. But I don’t like it. The exclusive attachments mean the unit is never whole, and must be stored in bits. If there’s one thing I hate in the kitchen, it’s bits of things, cluttering, secretly breeding. More than that, using the tart little aerosol is such a parsimonious displeasure, such a sterile way to dress or marinate. Ultimately, there is already a good way to get lemon on food, and that is to squeeze one with your human hand. It’s so easy, it is literally easy peasy lemon squeezy. If you think assembling and disassembling this fussy gubbins is a good use of your time, then maybe you’re the aerosol. Redeeming features? I dumped out the mister’s contents and filled it with oil, which I used to grease a cake tin, and cake made everything better. Yes, it was a lemon drizzle. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Back of the cupboard. Or better yet, vaporised completely. 2/5 | ['lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'food/fruit', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-09-16T07:20:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2015/oct/28/new-legal-move-to-prevent-japan-from-whale-hunting-in-antarctic | New legal move to prevent Japan from whale hunting in the Antarctic | Environmental campaigners in Australia have mounted a fresh attempt to prevent Japan from killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic this winter, as officials in Tokyo indicated they would ignore an international ban on the country’s “scientific” expeditions imposed last year. The Australian branch of Humane Society International claims that Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese firm that conducts the controversial hunts, is in contempt of court after ignoring a 2008 federal court injunction not to slaughter the animals in a whale sanctuary declared by the Australian government. Japan, which does not recognise the sanctuary, has not sent a whaling fleet to the region since March last year when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered an immediate halt to the hunts after concluding that they were not, as Japan had claimed, conducted for scientific research. Japan initially said it would abide by the ruling in the Hague. In April it submitted a revised whaling plan under which 333 minke whales would be killed each year between 2015 and 2027, about one-third the haul it previously targeted. But experts at the IWC said the new program offered no scientific justification for the slaughter. In a special declaration, however, the Japanese government recently told the UN that the ICJ’s jurisdiction “does not apply to ... any dispute arising out of, concerning, or relating to research on, or conservation, management or exploitation of, living resources of the sea”. HSI Australia, whose request for Japan to be held in contempt will be heard in the federal court on 18 November, said it hoped a guilty verdict in the Australian whale sanctuary case would prompt authorities to take action if Japan goes ahead with this season’s hunt. The fleet usually leaves the south-western port of Shimonoseki in December and returns from the southern ocean in April the following year. “A guilty verdict would carry the political weight needed to embolden our own government to act,” Michael Kennedy, campaign director at HIS Australia, told the Guardian. “If the hunt goes ahead, we would expect our government to consider legal, trade and other options against Japan. The policy of the current government is the same as its predecessor – that whaling must end – but the issue is the degree to which it is prepared to put that into action.” The Australian government said it was examining its legal options after Japan’s decision to snub the ICJ ruling. “Australia has successfully brought action in the International Court of Justice to stop Japan’s whaling program,” the environment minister, Greg Hunt, said earlier this month. “Japan has previously said it would abide by the ruling. We are taking legal advice on the implications of Japan’s actions. “We are disappointed by Japan’s decision and we hope that Japan does not undertake so-called ‘scientific’ whaling this [southern] summer in the Southern Ocean.” Under the IWC’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling, Japan was permitted to kill a certain number of whales every year for what it called scientific research. | ['world/japan', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/whales', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/justinmccurry'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-10-28T04:45:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2010/jul/27/bp-oil-spill-taxpayers-clean-up-costs | BP oil spill: UK taxpayers face clean-up loss | BP is poised for fresh controversy after it emerged today that the UK Treasury will lose hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of the oil clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the clean-up has pushed BP into the red, meaning the oil company will be able to book a near-$10bn (£6.5bn) tax credit, slashing its tax bill in the US and Britain. The loss comes on top of a plunge in tax revenues after BP halted its dividend payouts to shareholders. The news will dismay politicians in Westminster, since the coalition government needs all the tax revenues it can get as it introduces austerity measures to deal with the deficit. The majority of the tax credit is likely to relate to the US, but the exchequer is also likely to lose out badly. BP paid $8.4bn of corporate taxes last year, with roughly £930m going to the UK government. Tax experts reckon it paid a similar amount in US taxes. While the spill will reduce the level of BP's corporate taxes, the news comes on top of the hundreds of millions lost to the exchequer in the form of lost dividend taxation. Under fierce political pressure from Washington, BP scrapped its lucrative payouts to shareholders this year and there is currently no plan to reinstate payments. BP announced today that it is making a $32.2bn provision for the cost of the spill caused by the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April. That pushed BP's second-quarter results into a record loss of $17bn, compared with a profit last year of $3.1bn. The company explained, however, that the net impact on BP's bottom line will only be $22bn because the company will be able to record a $9.9bn tax credit. BP's UK tax bill will also be reduced, the firm added. Both the US and UK governments receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in tax payments each year. News that BP will be able to write off against tax the cost of plugging the well, cleaning up the spill and compensating the thousands of people who have been affected is likely to anger politicians of all political hues. Only the fines that might be imposed by the US authorities would definitely not be tax-deductible, according to tax experts. Three years ago, aircraft manufacturer Boeing flew into a storm of protest when it sought to write off against tax a $615m fine levied by the department of justice that settled an investigation into the improper hiring of a Pentagon official and the theft of data from Lockheed Martin Corporation. The fine was levied in order for Boeing to avoid criminal charges. Three Republican senators wrote to the US attorney general at the time to say that allowing Boeing to deduct payments to the government "would be unacceptable". | ['business/bp', 'environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'environment/oil-spills', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'business/useconomy', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/richardwray'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-07-27T13:39:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2023/jul/28/misunderstood-red-bellied-piranhas-go-on-display-at-chester-zoo | ‘Misunderstood’ red-bellied piranhas go on display at Chester zoo | Forty red-bellied piranhas have made their debut at Chester zoo in a move aquarists say they hope will help to rehabilitate the fish's name away from its fearsome reputation. People associate piranhas with viciously attacking unsuspecting prey, as depicted in numerous blockbuster movies, but experts say they prefer to scavenge for food rather than hunt. It is the first time fish specialists have cared for the species at the zoo in more than 30 years. The aquarium team manager, Hannah Thomas, said piranhas were “very much misunderstood”. “They are meat-eaters with sharp teeth that sometimes nip the fins and tails of other fish,” she said. “But a good portion of their diet comes from hoovering up bits of dead flesh and dead fish found in rivers, as well as insects and various plant materials.” She said they played an important role in maintaining the balance of aquatic ecosystems and that other species would be unable to thrive without them. “Red-bellied piranhas can often be seen swimming in shoals, but this has little to do with coordinated hunting and is a lot more to do with self-defence. Piranhas often fall victim to larger fish, birds, caimans and Amazon river dolphins so, like many animals, they huddle together for protection,” Thomas said. The piranhas, which are native to South America, can now be found inside the zoo’s Spirit of the Jaguar habitat in a special Latin American tank, connecting visitors with the underwater world of the Amazon. The move is part of the zoo’s commitment to a 10-year conservation plan, which by 2031 aims to reverse the decline of 200 threatened populations of species in the wild. Chester zoo is home to 3,000 species globally, including 140 international animal conservation breeding programmes, which are ensuring the survival of species on the brink of extinction. It works with a range of partners in more than 20 countries to recover threatened wildlife and restore habitats, including orangutans in Bornean rainforests, elephants and tigers in Indian grasslands, lemurs and frogs in Malagasy forests, rare fish in Mexican lakes and a host of UK species. It is hoped that closer monitoring of the piranhas will sustain them in their role as natural balancers in the wild. “They’re a very special species and we as a team are feeling privileged to be able to start caring for them here in Chester and discovering more about them,” Thomas said. | ['world/zoos', 'uk/chester', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/fish', 'uk/uk', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk-news/england', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/morgan-ofori', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-28T12:25:47Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sport/2021/mar/31/world-rugby-announces-landmark-study-into-brain-injuries | World Rugby announces 'landmark' study into brain injuries | More than 700 male and female amateur rugby union players – from adults to under-13 level – will shortly take part in the largest study into what happens to the brain during head impacts, World Rugby has announced. The study, which will begin in New Zealand in mid-April, will require players to wear mouthguards in training and during matches which will then wirelessly transmit a series of metrics to researchers at the University of Otago in real time. Each match will also be recorded, allowing time-coded video analysis of every collision. World Rugby’s chief medical officer, Dr Éanna Falvey, said the scale of the “landmark” study would provide the largest set of data to compare the nature and frequency of head impacts in any sport. “Player welfare continues to be our top priority,” he said. “By continually commissioning and partnering in research, we can make evidence-based decisions that will advance our understanding of injuries in the sport and more importantly, inform the moves that we can make to reduce them.” The issue of brain injury in rugby has been brought centre-stage by a group of former players who are suing the game’s authorities after being diagnosed with early-onset dementia, which they believe was caused during their rugby careers. Earlier this month Dr Willie Stewart, a consultant neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow, also told parliament that women and girls face double the risk of concussion and developing brain injuries from playing sports such as rugby union, and warned the issue was largely being ignored. Stewart, who has previously sat on World Rugby’s independent concussion advisory group, also told MPs that there was “about one brain injury a match in professional men’s rugby” – a figure he called “unacceptably high”. The new study comes hot on the heels of another World Rugby announcement this week that it would be trialling eye-tracking technology which can help the detection and management of concussion. A separate study published last week, which used saliva samples to diagnose concussion at pitchside, was found to predict a head injury assessment with 94% accuracy. | ['sport/rugby-union', 'sport/world-rugby', 'sport/concussion-in-sport', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/seaningle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/concussion-in-sport | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-03-31T19:00:11Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
news/2021/jan/16/weatherwatch-rainmaking-ganlin-1-china-drone | China plays rainmaker with modified drone flights | While most countries have backed away from weather modification, China has embraced the concept and is stepping up efforts to create rain on demand. The China Meteorological Administration’s first purpose-built weather modification drone, the Ganlin-1, made its first flight last week. Ganlin, which means “sweet rain”, is part of a project launched in March 2019 to increase rain and snow in the Qilian mountains region, which has suffered from repeated droughts. Ganlin is a modified version of the Wing Loong II flown by China’s military and has a wingspan of about 20 metres and a flight endurance of more than 14 hours. Its 5,000-kilometre (3,000) range is enough to traverse the entire region and it is much less expensive to operate than crewed aircraft. Previously the Chinese have used aircraft and rockets to launch rainmaking payloads – usually powdered silver iodide – into the clouds. Ganlin carries a variety of weather sensors as well as a payload of rain-seeding catalyst. The developers claim it can identify the optimal area for cloud seeding, release the catalyst and measure the effects afterwards. Previous rain-making programmes have suffered from lack of statistical evidence: it is difficult to tell whether it would have rained anyway. China’s cloud seeding operations with Ganlin drones may provide more data and settle the debate for good. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/drought', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'technology/drones-non-military', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-01-16T06:00:24Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/jul/13/eu-calls-for-immediate-ban-on-logging-in-bialowieza-forest-poland | EU calls for immediate ban on logging in Poland's Białowieża forest | Europe’s last major parcel of primeval woodland could be set for a reprieve after the EU asked the European court to authorise an immediate ban on logging in Poland’s Białowieża forest. Around 80,000 cubic metres of forest have been cleared since the Polish government tripled logging operations around the Unesco world heritage site last year. The European commission said that it had acted because the increased logging of trees over a century-old “poses a major threat to the integrity of this ... site.” EU environment commissioner, Karmenu Vella told the Guardian: “We have asked that Polish authorities cease and desist operations immediately. These actions are clear, practical steps that the European commission has taken to protect one of the last remaining primeval forests in Europe.” Environmentalists applauded the move, with WWF Poland’s Dariusz Gatkowski calling for the commission “to quickly implement today’s positive decision and take Poland to court, fulfilling its role as guardian of Europe’s natural heritage and the laws that protect it.” Agata Szafraniuk of the ClientEarth legal firm, said: “Decisive and immediate action is the only way to avoid irreversible damage to this ancient forest. We hope that the court of justice will impose the ban on logging, as a matter of urgency, before breaking for the summer holiday, which starts on July 21st.” Last week, Unesco threatened to put Białowieża on its list of world heritage sites in danger unless Poland halted the deforestation, which has felled 30,000 cubic metres of coppice in just the first four months of 2017. But quick compliance from the Polish government is thought unlikely, after the country’s environment ministry tweeted that it was “delighted” at the prospect of a court case yesterday. A second tweet said: “We have hard data on the #Buszowska (Białowieża) forest and we will be pleased to present it before the tribunal.” Last month, Poland’s environment minister, Jan Szyszko, called for the site to be stripped of its Unesco status, despite fears of a collapse in its biodiversity, which includes wolves, lynx and Europe’s largest bison population. The Polish government argues that increased tree fells are needed to contain a bark beetle outbreak in Białowieża, although the science behind its case has been denounced by many of the world’s environmental scientists. Campaigners trying to block the Białowieża logging say that armed foresters in camouflage units are now routinely stopping and searching young people in the area after a spate of lock-ins around tree-clearing machines. Ariel Brunner, the senior policy chief for BirdLife Europe said: “The tragedy of Białowieża is more than just the devastation of nature, it is the spine-chilling destruction of memory and an affront to democracy and legality. In taking a clear and strong stance on the ecological destruction of Białowieża, the European commission has today shown its ‘heart of oak’.” | ['environment/forests', 'environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'environment/deforestation', 'world/unesco', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'world/poland', 'world/europe-news', 'world/european-commission', 'world/eu', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/logging-and-land-clearing | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-07-13T12:36:20Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/aug/27/albanese-outlines-plan-for-nature-restoration-market-prompting-calls-for-more-urgent-action | Albanese outlines plan for nature restoration market prompting calls for more urgent action | Conservation groups have called on the Albanese government to get on with strengthening the country’s environmental protections after it announced a plan to create a market for nature restoration. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the new scheme would recognise private landholders who restored and managed habitat by granting them biodiversity certificates that could then be sold to other parties. The biodiversity market would be underpinned by legislation and would function in a similar way to the carbon credit market, with the Clean Energy Regulator responsible for oversight of both schemes. Legislation for a similar land stewardship scheme was developed by the previous government, but a spokesperson for the Albanese government said its scheme was focused not just on farmers but all landholders, including First Nations people and conservation groups. The announcement has been cautiously welcomed by some environment groups, with WWF Australia stating it would help “recognise and measure the enormous economic value of nature”. The Australian Conservation Foundation said the government should be careful to ensure the scheme genuinely benefited nature and did not face the integrity issues that have plagued the carbon credit system. “A well-designed biodiversity certificates scheme could be good for nature, but a badly designed scheme could facilitate the destruction of more precious wildlife habitat,” the ACF’s nature campaigner, Basha Stasak, said. Stasak said private investment in nature was welcome, but there was an urgent need for significant public investment as well as reform of national environmental laws. But the Wilderness Society was scathing, saying the announcement was an “inexplicable” response to the crisis described in the recent State of the Environment Report and the Graeme Samuel review of environmental laws. “This is further evidence that the current Albanese government’s environmental agenda seems to be disconcertingly similar to the Morrison government environmental agenda,” its national campaigns director, Amelia Young, said. “This bill and the “regional plan” approach were both top of the Morrison government’s to-do list— yet were and are nowhere near the top of the to-do list to genuinely protect and restore nature.” The government has yet to set out key details of how the new market would work. For example, it has not made clear whether it would exclude the purchase of biodiversity certificates as offsets for habitat destruction caused by development elsewhere. A government spokesperson said protocols for the new market would be developed after a consultation process and an expert review. Andrew Macintosh, the Australian National University professor who blew the whistle on the deficiencies of the carbon offset market, said a national scheme to incentivise biodiversity stewardship was overdue. “It is important to stress that, to the best of our knowledge, this scheme is not intended to generate biodiversity offset credits that can be used to compensate for biodiversity losses associated with development proposals,” he said. He also cautioned that there was a belief in some quarters that the private sector was ready to fund large-scale nature restoration and would be the main buyer of certificates, but “we see very little evidence to support this”. Megan Evans, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW in Canberra, said the proposal was similar to the scheme put forward by the Morrison government and moves to support private landholders were positive. “But we still need strong improvements to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and I don’t think this market is going to be a cure-all to those problems,” she said. Albanese said on Friday the government was creating a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – not just to protect Australia’s natural environment but to kickstart a nationwide restoration”. The opposition agriculture spokesman, David Littleproud, said it could not be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because it had already been done by the previous government. “The concept, the trials with farmers, the trading platform were all funded and delivered by the Nationals in government,” he said. The government has said it plans to respond to the review of national environmental laws by the end of the year. | ['environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/biodiversity', 'australia-news/anthony-albanese', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-08-26T20:00:01Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2007/mar/19/cashinginontheenvironmentm | A profitable environment | Once they were the preserve of the Mohawk Indians. The early Dutch settlers named them the "Kaatskills", still later the federal government turned the whole stunning vista of lakes and mountains into the Catskill National Park. Once upon a time these mountains were covered in thick stands of Hemlock fir trees, then the tanning industry came and clear-felled whole mountainsides, turning the rivers and streams yellow and brown. And then there were the settlers who tried to farm this high land with its thin, stoney soils. They moved west when they could - leaving a patchwork quilt of Cotswold type stone walls, now only visible when the secondary growth forest is without leaves. And the losing of the leaves in this glorious part of North America is truly a wonder to behold; russets, scarlet reds, yellows, all the myriad colours of an autumn that Europe can never know. But there is the odd, quirky reminder of Europe. In the middle of a vast expanse of field near the delightful village of Andes - it's high in these parts - there is an old Gilbert Scott red telephone box. Perhaps, like Dr Who's Tardis, it moves from field to field. But enter the conservation lobby, or at least the industrial, profit-seeking vanguard of that lobby that can spot good tax breaks and pristine mountains to despoil. New York State legislators, bowing to the environmental lobbly, decreed that 25% of the state's power supplies should come from renewables. Was this figure plucked out of the air? No one seems to know. And why would anyone quibble either? For renewables mean less polluting oil and coal, surely. Well, up to a point. The Western Catskills, on the edge of the national park are being eyed up by the wind turbine industry. One of the companies, Invenergy, wants to build 34 of the monstrosities along the six-mile Moresville mountain range. In order for the turbines to be erected, roads have to be built and the tops of mountains have to be shaved of forest. At night, it is claimed, each turbine will have to send a lazer light skyward to warn passing air traffic. Locals who object to the march of the turbines find themselves isolated or bought off. Invenergy recently agreed to pay the Roxbury Association for Environmental Preservation for the development of a "conservation trust". In return, the association dropped its noisy opposition to the planned turbines in the Moresville mountains. Ludicrous claims are made by the industry for wind turbines. On average there is only 22% utilisation of a 100,000 kilowatt turbine, because unsurprisingly the wind doesn't blow all of the time. A coal fired plant generates 100% of the time - and now with clean coal technology, there is no excuse for not pushing ahead with more of the type of plants being pioneered by people such as Britain's own contemporary King Coal, Richard Budge. He has found investment, not only to access abandoned huge reserves at Hatfield Colliery in South Yorkshire, but plans to burn the coal cleanly and produce electricity at an inter-connected power station. The United States, in common with Britain, has vast reserves of coal that can now be tapped cleanly. So why, apart from the well-intentioned New York state legislators, who want renewable energy but don't understand the costs and inefficiencies, should the beautiful Catskills await the new industrial rapists? The claim of new jobs doesn't stand any scrutiny, since teams of contractors will be brought into the area and taken out again after the turbines have gone up. No, the real reason that Goldman Sachs and other big mecantile financiers are backing the giant windmills are good old-fashioned tax breaks. The US government permits a triple depreciation for tax purposes on wind turbines, and those with enough capital can invest in tax shelters that use these depreciations to remove the tax on profits for other ventures. In the words of one Catskills campaigner: "If I had the ability to invest $1 million in a wind farm, I could avoid paying taxes on another $2 million in profits from some other venture. Yup, that would save me half a million in taxes. Hmmmmm". Maybe, when it comes to some of the solutions offered by well-intentioned environmentalists, it would be wise to examine the motivation of some of the lobbyists who profess to support them. It's still not too late for the Catskill Mountains. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/windpower', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'type/article', 'profile/markseddon'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2007-03-19T18:30:00Z | true | ENERGY |
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