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sustainable-business/coffee-fairtrade-not-fair-enough | Why Fairtrade isn't fair enough | Coffee drinkers want great tasting coffee and coffee farmers need reliable and consistent demand for their crop. Roasters and distributors are seeking dependable producers of high-quality coffee, grown under sustainable environmental and social conditions. Fairtrade certification set the tone to fulfill the need for socially sustainable coffee production by providing a price safety net to coffee producing cooperatives. However, the output of Fairtrade certified production is mostly mass market commodity grade coffee which doesn't deliver the impact to really change producers' lives in a significant way. There is little freedom for the individual farmer and no incentive to focus on quality or innovation. A more sustainable approach would reward excellence. It would be based on quality, innovation, growth and economic progress. It would be accessible to all farmers, not restricted to just co-operatives. In 2012, 430,000 metric tons of Fairtrade certified coffee was produced but only 30% was sold under Fairtrade conditions. Despite investment in certification, farmers would only receive commodity prices for the remaining 70% of their crop. Positive social impact from the coffee value chain founded on the basis of Fairtrade certification is limited by world markets. In 2013 the average world market price for Colombian Mild Arabica was $1.48/lb, (£0.89/lb) which is eight cents/lb greater than the Fairtrade minimum price (not including the optional 20c social premium). Those roasters and importers who seek high quality, speciality coffee do not rely solely on certification. An alternative trading model focuses on the prices that customers are willing to pay, rather than the market basic or even average price; if it tastes delicious, we want that coffee. For some coffees, this approach can achieve 10 times above the Fairtrade price. Teaching producers how to evaluate and grade their own coffee helps farmers to understand what buyers might be looking for, and puts them in a stronger negotiating position. It also encourages continued improvement. Farmers, distributors and consumers should be able to answer questions such as, who roasts my coffee? who drinks it? what price does it fetch in the UK? Many coffee roasters - let alone coffee drinkers - don't know which country their coffee comes from, let alone which farm. No farmer wants you to buy their coffee because they're labelled as 'poor'. A sustainable long-term relationship, season after season, works both ways between buyer and producer. Consumers may buy cause-related products once or twice, but life's too short to drink bad coffee – or, arguably, simply waste money on it. Focusing on high quality and sustainable production of coffee is the only fair way to manage the coffee supply chain. This approach is not easy and introduces complexity in explaining trading models. These initiatives may require extra effort from consumers compared with buying a pack of coffee with a succinct logo, but it's more effective for the farmer and more pleasurable for the customer. Steven Macatonia is co-founder of Union Hand-Roasted Coffee Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/blog', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'food/coffee', 'environment/environment', 'environment/food', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'tone/blog', 'type/article'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-03-05T07:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2017/aug/27/renewable-energy-generates-enough-power-to-run-70-of-australian-homes | Renewable energy generates enough power to run 70% of Australian homes | Australia’s renewable energy sector is within striking distance of matching national household power consumption, cranking out enough electricity to run 70% of homes last financial year, new figures show. The first Australian Renewable Energy Index, produced by Green Energy Markets, finds the sector will generate enough power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects under construction in 2016-17 are completed. The index, funded by GetUp through supporter donations, underlines the advance of renewables, despite Australia’s electricity markets still leaning heavily on carbon-emitting coal and gas-fired generation. Renewables, which made up just 7% of national electricity output a decade ago, accounted for 17.2% last financial year. This jumped to 18.8% last month. This is saving the power sector from carbon pollution equivalent to taking more than half of all cars in Australia off the road, according to Green Energy Markets. The biggest single source of renewable power remained hydro-electricity (40%), followed by wind (31%) and rooftop solar (18%), the index found. Less than 2% came from large solar farms, suggesting the best is yet to come from this arm of the renewables industry which has an array of large-scale projects underway. Green Energy Markets analyst Tristan Edis said the emergence of renewables, in particular wind and solar, as a “significant source of power” had ushered in a “construction jobs and investment boom”. “The renewable energy sector has staged a remarkable recovery, after investment completely dried-up under former prime minister Tony Abbott,” Edis said. He said investors had “recovered their confidence under Malcolm Turnbull”, with help also from “a range of state government initiatives”. Edis said the renewables sector was on track to meet the federal government’s renewable energy target of 20% of total generation by 2020 over a year early, by the end of 2018. However, the renewable jobs boom underpinned by the RET could “soon turn to bust”, he said. Renewable investment beyond the RET risked collapsing without the Turnbull government moving forward on chief scientist Alan Finkel’s recommendation for a future “clean energy target”, he said. At least 46 large-scale energy projects under construction by the end of June were providing enough work to employ 8,868 people full-time for a year. This figure had surged to 10,000 by July. Most jobs were in NSW (3,018), thanks largely to wind farms, while Queensland (2,625) was next, with 70% of its jobs coming from solar farms. Rooftop solar installations supported a further 3,769 full-time jobs across Australia in 2016-17. With most projects underway in Queensland, large solar farms still generated less than 2% of renewable energy in 2016-17, the index found. Generation from rooftop solar, which was “back in 2008 little more than a rounding error”, had “grown spectacularly”, Edis said. More than 150,000 systems installed in the last year alone would produce enough energy for 226,000 homes, he said. “Meanwhile these solar systems will also save consumers $1.5 billion off their electricity bills over the next 10 years.” Miriam Lyons, GetUp’s energy campaigns director, said that “everyday Australians are voting with their rooftops” in a move that “heralds the end of the era of big polluting energy companies dominating the market and manipulating prices to fill their own pockets”. “Who do we have to thank for the renewables boom? Certainly not the federal government,” she said. “Instead we can thank the thousands of everyday Australians who stood up and defended the national [RET] from Tony Abbott’s attacks, who saved [the Australian Renewable Energy Agency] from federal government budget cuts, and who pushed their state governments into showing some leadership on clean energy.” The Australian Renewable Energy Index will be published monthly. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/hydropower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/malcolm-turnbull', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/joshua-robertson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2017-08-27T18:09:47Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/blog/2009/dec/10/copenhagen-diary-day-four | Copenhagen diary: Mystery guests, taxpayer travel, and cheering up Yvo | Who - or what - are TheCompensators? The UN has just released the list of people accredited to the official conference so it is possible to see for the first time exactly who is here or is due to come. Actually it's quite difficult. The list extends to three volumes and more than 300 pages. But just dipping in, we find that an organisation called TheCompensators has brought nearly 150 people, including the likes of her excellency Ms Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain of Jordan, Prince Albert of Monaco, as well as George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones, Sir David Attenborough, Werner Herzog, the head of US chemical company DuPont, the Bishop of London and someone called "Mr Richard Benson, the "founder of Virgin Unite". That could be Mr Branson, but no one will confirm it. But who - or what - are TheCompensators? They might sound like a rock band but their their website is vague: "TheCompensators collects money to buy and then delete emission allowances from the European Union emission trading scheme. By doing this we decrease the number of emission allowances available on the markets". Hmm. To keep 150 of the great and the good in the style to which they are accustomed in Copenhagen - the most expensive city in Europe - suggests they have been doing rather well. Taxpayer travel The multitudes at Copenhagen, or on their way here, include two ministers and 36 officials from the UK's very own Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc). When Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes asked about their travel arrangements in November, the department said that all 19 that had thus far arranged their travel were planning to fly. Decc estimated the total bill to the taxpayer at £17,500. Still, at least they gave an answer. The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for International Development both dodged the question by saying they hadn't decided yet (or could it be they preferred not to let on). No 10 said it would reveal the information later. When Hughes travels to the conference at the weekend he will be taking the train. Day four rumours Wild and substantiated rumours swirling around the conference: • The giant business lobby is being briefed every evening by European negotiators off the premises in a quiet Copenhagen bar. • The US is going to offer a paltry $800m as its contribution to the $10bn a year quick-start fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change • Much of the text of the Mexican, British and Norwegian proposal for a green fund came from Climate Change Capital, (CCC) a London-based investment and consultancy firm specialising in the low-carbon industry. Just about everything that the British are pushing seems to have been proposed at some point by CCC. Earlier this year CCC said the government should issue "carbon bonds". Cheer up, Yvo Will someone please hug Yvo de Boer, the head of the talks. He always looks a bit stressed at these meetings but this year he has a particularly gloomy air. "It's like moving into a new house. You do not know where the books are, you can't find anything in the kitchen, you haven't put the curtains up. There is a lot of nervousness and uncertainty," he said today. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/copenhagen', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'environment/series/ecosoundings', 'tone/blog', 'tone/comment', 'environment/yvo-de-boer', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-12-10T16:16:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2012/aug/23/arctic-sea-ice-record-low | Arctic sea ice levels to reach record low within days | Arctic sea ice is set to reach its lowest ever recorded extent as early as this weekend, in "dramatic changes" signalling that man-made global warming is having a major impact on the polar region. With the melt happening at an unprecedented rate of more than 100,000 sq km a day, and at least a week of further melt expected before ice begins to reform ahead of the northern winter, satellites are expected to confirm the record – currently set in 2007 – within days. "Unless something really unusual happens we will see the record broken in the next few days. It might happen this weekend, almost certainly next week," Julienne Stroeve, a scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, told the Guardian. "In the last few days it has been losing 100,000 sq km a day, a record in itself for August. A storm has spread the ice pack out, opening up water, bringing up warmer water. Things are definitely changing quickly." Because ice thickness, volume, extent and area are all measured differently, it may be a week before there is unanimous agreement among the world's cryologists (ice experts) that 2012 is a record year. Four out of the nine daily sea ice extent and area graphs kept by scientists in the US, Europe and Asia suggest that records have already been broken. "The whole energy balance of the Arctic is changing. There's more heat up there. There's been a change of climate and we are losing more seasonal ice. The rate of ice loss is faster than the models can capture [but] we can expect the Arctic to be ice-free in summer by 2050," said Stroeve. "Only 15 years ago I didn't expect to see such dramatic changes – no one did. The ice-free season is far longer now. Twenty years ago it was about a month. Now it's three months. Temperatures last week in the Arctic were 14C, which is pretty warm." Scientists at the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System in Norway and others in Japan have said the ice is very close to its minimum recorded in 2007. The University of Bremen, whose data does not take into account ice along a 30km coastal zone, says it sees ice extent below the all-time record low of 4.33m sq km recorded in September 2007. Ice volume in the Arctic has declined dramatically over the past decade. The 2011 minimum was more than 50% below that of 2005. According to the Polar Science Centre at the University of Washington it now stands at around 5,770 cubic kilometres, compared with 12,433 cu km during the 2000s and 6,494 cu km in 2011. The ice volume for 31 July 2012 was roughly 10% below the value for the same day in 2011. A new study by UK scientists suggests that 900 cu km of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic ocean over the past year. The consequences of losing the Arctic's ice coverage for the summer months are expected to be immense. If the white sea ice no longer reflects sunlight back into space, the region can be expected to heat up even more than at present. This could lead to an increase in ocean temperatures with unknown effects on weather systems in northern latitudes. In a statement, a Greenpeace spokesman said: "The disappearing Arctic still serves as a stark warning to us all. Data shows us that the frozen north is teetering on the brink. The level of ice 'has remained far below average' and appears to be getting thinner, leaving it more vulnerable to future melting. The consequences of further rapid ice loss at the top of the world are of profound importance to the whole planet. This is not a warning we can afford to ignore." Longer ice-free summers are expected to open up the Arctic ocean to oil and mining as well as to more trade. This year at least 20 vessels are expected to travel north of Russia between northern Europe and the Bering straits. Last week a Chinese icebreaker made the first voyage in the opposite direction. "Every one of the 56,000 Inuits in Greenland have had to adapt to the retreat of the ice," said Carl-Christian Olsen, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Nuuk, Greenland. "The permafrost is melting and this is jeopardising roads and buildings. The coastline is changing, there is more erosion and storms, and there are fewer mammals like polar bears. It means there can be more mining, which is good for the economy, but it will have unpredictable effects on social change". Research published in Nature today said that warming in the Antarctic peninsula, where temperatures have risen about 1.5C over the past 50 years, is "unusual" but not unprecedented relative to natural variation. The research by Robert Mulvaney of the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, based on an ice-core record, showed that the warming of the north-eastern Antarctic peninsula began about 600 years ago. Temperature increases were said to be within the bounds of natural climate variability. The difference between the rate of warming at the two poles is attributed to geographical differences. "Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water, while the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. Wind and ocean currents around Antarctica isolate the continent from global weather patterns, keeping it cold. In contrast, the Arctic Ocean is intimately linked with the climate systems around it, making it more sensitive to changes in climate," said a spokesman for the NSIDC. • This article was amended on 24 August 2012 to restore to the start of the penultimate paragraph the words "Research published in Nature today", which had been lost in the editing process, and to clarify that the research was about temperatures in the Antarctic peninsula. | ['environment/sea-ice', 'world/arctic', 'world/world', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/sea-ice | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-08-23T13:11:39Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2018/jun/06/flooding-from-high-tides-has-doubled-in-the-us-in-just-30-years | Flooding from high tides has doubled in the US in just 30 years | The frequency of coastal flooding from high tides has doubled in the US in just 30 years, with communities near shorelines warned that the next two years are set to be punctuated by particularly severe inundations, as ocean levels continue to rise amid serious global climate change concerns. Last year there was an average of six flooding days per area across 98 coastal areas monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) – an all-time record. More than a quarter of these locations tied or broke their records for high tide flood days, the federal agency states in a new report. Known as “sunny day flooding”, these events swamp streets and homes with water simply from the incoming tide, without the aid of a storm. Noaa said that in 2017 areas across the US north-east and Gulf of Mexico were worst hit, with Boston, Massachusetts, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, both experiencing 22 days of flooding, while Galveston, in Texas, was soaked on 18 different days. Noaa warned that cyclical climatic conditions during 2018 and 2019 “may result in higher than expected flood frequencies” in around half of the coastal sites it measures. The longer-term trend is even more certain, Noaa said, with melting glaciers, thermal expansion of sea water and altered ocean currents pushing the sea level steadily higher and causing further floods. “Breaking of annual flood records is to be expected next year and for decades to come as sea levels rise, and likely at an accelerated rate,” the report states. “Though year-to-year and regional variability exists, the underlying trend is quite clear: due to sea level rise, the national average frequency of high tide flooding is double what it was 30 years ago.” The Noaa report is “comprehensive” and “clearly illustrates the increasing problems along our coastlines”, said Ben Horton, a sea level rise expert at Rutgers University. “There is flooding on all our coastlines, places where people live and work. There needs to be a national response to that.” Last year was marked by three high-profile hurricanes that pummelled the US, triggering flooding that resulted in dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. Scientists have found that warming temperatures, driven by human activity, is making hurricanes stronger, but it is also exacerbating more chronic nuisance flooding events by pushing up the level of the ocean. “There’s a clear upwards trend of this type of flooding,” said Andrea Dutton, a geologist at the University of Florida. “Extreme events like hurricanes may be the breaking point but this sort of frequent flooding is the taste of what is coming in the future on a permanent basis. We need to rethink our relationship with the coastline because it’s going to be retreating for the foreseeable future.” Dutton said that south Florida, where weather forecasts in some places now come with tidal warnings, and fish are a regular sight on flooded roads, is particularly vulnerable. The low-lying region sits on porous limestone, which pushes up floodwater from underground, and many communities are unable to easily retreat because they back on to the Everglades wetlands. “They used to get just one day a year of tidal flooding, now it’s two months of it in the fall,” she said. “Engineering can help delay things but ultimately the oceans will win. We are going to have to live with the water.” Globally, the seas have risen by an average of nearly three inches since 1992. Parts of the US coastline are unusually prone, with Noaa forecasting last year that the oceans could swell by more than eight feet by 2100. Despite the risk posed to the US by sea level rise and flooding events, there is no national plan to deal with the issue, with much of the adaption work left to states and counties. The Trump administration has rescinded previous rules to build federally funded infrastructure with climate change in mind and has sought to reverse various measures aimed at taming global warming. “We need to take this report as a warning to prepare ourselves, or we will just sit around and wait for disaster to happen,” Dutton said. | ['us-news/us-news', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-06-06T15:44:12Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2023/jul/05/west-virginia-coal-miners-tourism | From coal to kayaking: West Virginia’s miners turn to tourism to pay the bills | Rick Johnson’s introduction to the world of coal began as a teenager more than 40 years ago in rural western Virginia. For a decade and a half, he worked for extraction and chemical production companies across Appalachia. “I was fed on coal,” he said recently. But his work kept him away from home for long periods. And by the mid-1990s he and his wife, Heather, saw another major resource staring them in the face: the region’s natural beauty. As the once-profitable local mining and extraction industry suffered a downturn, leading company after company to board up, the Johnsons decided to buy a rafting business in Oak Hill, West Virginia. “We built a campground, put in some showers, ran running water,” he says. “It was a way to stay in West Virginia – and make a living.” Today, Johnson employs 110 people at River Expeditions, a company that takes people on guided rafting trips down the whitewater rapids of the Gauley and New rivers. Their sprawling resort also has zip-lining, horse riding and cabins, serving as an important source of jobs for locals in a region grappling with high unemployment. “It’s hard for people to stay [in West Virginia] and make a living. There’s just not that much to offer,” he says. “I wanted to see this area grow to where kids didn’t have to leave here to get a job.” His experience reflects that of many in recent years in southern West Virginia, a state of about 1.8 million people. As the number of jobs in the state’s energy sector from about 30,000 in the 1990s to roughly 12,000 now, locals who once worked in mining or its ancillary industries are now employed by a growing number of tourism businesses in this stunning corner of Appalachia. In 2021, 1.7 million visitors to the New River national park spent about $82m in local communities. The number of jobs in the region rose to 1,090 in 2021 compared to an annual average of 705 over the previous nine years, according to the National Parks Service. Among those to adjust to the change is Aaron Beam. Like many West Virginians, coal runs in the 30-year-old Beam’s blood. “My uncle and grandfather worked in coal,” he says. “I spent a summer working in a mine myself.” The main goal for Beam, a Summersville resident, was to find a job that kept him close to his family. That prompted him to get degrees in mining, engineering and geology when coming out of high school 12 years ago. But after several years working on permitting and design projects in the coal industry, he said he felt trapped. “I kept thinking to myself: If this job goes away, what am I going to do?” he said. “The [coal] industry goes in and out of production and people get laid off all the time.” The uncertainty prompted him to shift gears. Today, Beam works as an accountant at Adventures on the Gorge, an outdoor adventure resort situated a short distance from the picturesque New River Gorge bridge. His office is situated about 100ft from the New River Gorge, which was redesignated a national park and preserve in 2020. “How can you beat that, right?” he said, nodding towards the vast, forested canyon spanning out into the distance. “My job is confined to my office, but it’s really nice to step outside and go for a walk and see the bridge. It’s just beautiful.” These changes mark a stark departure from the region’s history. At its most prosperous a century ago, Fayette county and surrounding areas were home to tens of thousands of acres of iron and coalmines, employing thousands of people, many who were immigrant miners from Europe, including Britain. In recent decades, mining activity in West Virginia declined significantly as energy providers moved to cleaner resources. McDowell county, once a mining powerhouse south of Fayette, had a population in the 1950s of about 100,000 people. Now, it’s home to fewer than 20,000. The state as a whole is believed to have experienced a net loss of 6,000 direct mining jobs since 2010, a trend which seems set to continue for years. Still, the shift from extraction to tourism hasn’t been linear. Work in the outdoor industry is seasonal, meaning it’s not always a reliable source of employment for locals hired directly or indirectly for the industry. “Tourism and recreation have been growing in southern West Virginia, but they don’t always pay as much as the mines,” Christy Laxton of the Wyoming county Economic Development Authority said. “They don’t employ as many people either. “There’s (also) a family history. Coal mining is generational. It’s not just a job … it’s a family tradition, a family heritage.” Nor is that link with mining completely broken today: last June, an Indian company that makes mining equipment announced it would move its headquarters to Fayette, promising to bring with it dozens of jobs. Local media hailed the move as “momentous”, despite scientists’ knowledge that the coal mining industry has contributed to climate change. Meanwhile, the number of people hitting local rivers for whitewater activities is way down from decades past. Twenty years ago, about 250,000 people rafted the New and Gauley rivers a year – today, roughly 100,000 do so, though those numbers have rebounded since the Covid pandemic. “People don’t know we’ve got two of the top 10 [rafting] rivers in the world in West Virginia,” Johnson said. But the future looks bright. For six weekends every fall, authorities draw down Summersville Lake in Nicholas county, creating heart-pumping whitewater conditions on the Gauley river that attract more than 40,000 thrill-seekers globally. With the new national park status attracting more eyes to the region, businesses such as Johnson’s are set to benefit. “Tourism is the only thing we’ve ever had in central Appalachia that the resource renews itself every day and the money stays here,” Johnson said. “That’s what’s so beautiful about it.” | ['us-news/us-news', 'us-news/west-virginia', 'world/world', 'environment/coal', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephen-starr', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2023-07-05T10:00:30Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/article/2024/may/02/sea-lions-san-francisco-pier-39 | Pier pressure: more than 1,000 sea lions assemble at San Francisco dockside | More than 1,000 sea lions have gathered at San Francisco’s Pier 39 this spring, the largest herd in at least 15 years. Mounds of floppy, delightfully ungraceful marine mammals have plopped themselves on to rafts along the city’s pier, displaying themselves to the thousands of tourists who pass by the area each day. According to the staff at the pier, the gathering has been attracted to a feast of anchovies in the bay. “With a steady food supply from a large school of anchovy, the sea lions are extra active!” the pier tweeted from its official account this week. The charming pinnipeds have become a major attraction in the city since they first arrived at the pier about 35 years ago. The first – a big guy that staff had nicknamed Flea Collar because he had a piece of fishing net stuck around his neck – arrived in 1989. And then several hundred of his friends followed. Some years, as many as 1,700 sea lions at a time have stopped over at the pier. At other times, there have been just a few hundred. For those who are unable to visit in person, the pier provides a daily live stream of seal activity. Many of the males at Pier 39 may be stopping there on their way south, to the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California, where they will meet up with females to mate, according to Dan Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz who specialises in marine mammals. “These are wandering, nomadic critters who tend to work their way north and work their way south throughout the year,” Costa said. But researchers still don’t fully understand the movement and migration patterns of sea lions along the western coast. Costa’s lab has recently begun tracking female and juvenile sea lions along the California coast, both to better understand the animals’ migration patterns and to see how their movement and foraging might vary according to ocean conditions. Over time, researchers could also glean insights about how the climate crisis and warming ocean temperatures will affect the species. In recent years, including during a marine heatwave off the US west coast that caused the formation of a warm “blob”, the fish that sea lions prey on became concentrated in pockets, rather than across a broader range, Costa said. That may be one of the reasons why there are more sea lions at spots like Pier 39 in some years than in others. “But I bet a number of these guys are frequent visitors to Pier 39. Probably it’s one of their favourite places, and they keep coming back for the good food,” said Costa, not unlike visitors who stop by for a view of the bay and clam chowder in a bread bowl. “And these sea lions are probably thinking, ‘Oh, look at all those tourists!’” he said. | ['us-news/san-francisco', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/california', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'us-news/west-coast', 'profile/maanvi-singh', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-05-02T20:57:44Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
global-development/poverty-matters/2012/aug/07/development-community-beware-corporates-bearing-gifts | Should the development community beware corporates bearing gifts? | Development conferences are smart-suited affairs these days. At the recent Earth summit in Rio, dozens of chief executives jetted in to voice their thoughts and "showcase" their commitments to sustainability. Twenty years ago, corporate representatives were almost entirely absent. In a curious twist of roles, it was business leaders – not policymakers – who trumpeted progressive ideas like "natural capital", "green industry", mandatory sustainability reporting, and so on. Last week's appointment of Unilever CEO Paul Polman to a high-level UN panel signals a formal acceptance of corporations in the development debate. The UN has been reaching out to business for some time. Its flagship set of business principles, the UN Global Compact, now has 6,000 company signatories. Companies have deep pockets, knowhow and technical capacity – assets aid agencies frequently lack – so it makes rational sense for the UN to embrace the private sector. But should the development community be concerned about businesses sharing their patch? First, some perspective. This isn't a Wall Street invasion. Polman is the only corporate boss on the 26-member panel. In fact, most come from the same cadre of summit-weary diplomatic types who so unsurprisingly failed at the Earth summit. UK prime minister David Cameron, who didn't even manage to attend the Rio jamboree, is co-chair. Then there's Polman himself. Most chief execs can spout the "sustainable business" chat these days, but along with Puma's Jochen Zeitz and Kingfisher's Ian Cheshire, Netherlands-born Polman is one of the few who genuinely knows his stuff. Nor is he afraid to stick his neck out. He's previously urged governments to impose a moratorium on the deforestation of tropical forests, and to make sustainable reporting mandatory. He is also on record as telling Unilever shareholders not on board with his sustainability objectives to "get out". Even so, the idea of business meddling in development still discomfits many. After all, large, publicly-owned corporations are unapologetically profit-driven; they're about making money and increasing dividends, not reducing poverty. Nonetheless, if meeting development needs can help the bottom line, companies have every reason to get involved. Unilever is an arch proponent of the so-called "business case" for development. On the supply side, it sources thousands of tons of agricultural raw materials every year, much of which comes from African and other developing countries. If farmers can't make a viable living, then supplies of sugar, soy, tea and so forth will dwindle and Unilever's procurement bill will spike. Other companies understand this, too. US confectionery giant Mars works with cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana to improve their skills and increase their incomes. It pitches its Vision for Change programme as a corporate responsibility project. Far more importantly, however, it's a way of keeping Snickers bars on the shelves. Similarly significant is the demand side. Consumer goods firms need customers. Two billion times a day, someone, somewhere uses a Unilever product. The company needs to increase that figure if it's to double its business by 2020 under its sustainable living plan. Turning the world's poor into consumers is a logical way to achieve that. In rural India, Unilever is marketing its shampoos and washing powders in affordable, sachet-sized units. It presents this exercise as responsible business, since getting soap into the hands of the poor is shown to cut disease. The development community is right to be wary, however. Just because there's a business case for development doesn't necessarily mean there is a development case for business. For starters, the business case isn't flawless. When companies talk of the "bottom of the pyramid", it's the so-called "productive poor" they have in mind, not the poorest of the poor. Even then, the high penetration rates required make profits hard to come by. Moreover, the private sector's solution to development evolves from capitalist orthodoxy. Developing countries, the argument runs, need more consumer-driven capitalism, not less. With the world's natural resources depleting fast, a rethink here can justifiably be demanded. Polman talks of "decoupling" economic growth from environmental impacts. It's a nice idea, of course, but hugely difficult in practice. Only one fifth of Unilever's energy is renewable, for example – and that's from a market leader. Lastly, there's the very real danger of tokenism. While Unilever has done more than most to integrate sustainability principles into core business operations, Polman's decoupled dream remains a long way off. Most other companies are miles behind. Of course, innovative business solutions that tackle poverty are highly attractive. But not if they're tacked on to the main job of making widgets, as most still are. A company's primary development contribution derives from its everyday activities: the people it employs, the materials it sources, the products it sells, and the taxes it contributes. Ask any developing world policymaker if they'd rather have a free school or a fat royalty cheque, and the response should go without saying. | ['global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/private-sector', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/corporate-governance', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/oliver-balch'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-08-07T06:00:01Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2008/jun/08/britishenergygroupbusiness.utilities | British Energy to agree £10bn EDF takeover | The board of nuclear generator British Energy is expected to recommend a £10bn takeover bid by French giant EDF within a fortnight. An announcement could be made as early as this week. The remaining rival bidders - German group RWE and Spanish utility Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power - have not formally withdrawn from the auction. But banking sources said this weekend that it was unlikely that either would now table a firm offer for British Energy, the UK's largest power generator. This weekend, EDF was talking to banks about raising an estimated £10bn loan to finance its bid. Last month the company, whose nuclear reactors provide most of France's electricity, made an indicative bid valuing the company at about 680p a share. It is understood that EDF's formal bid, which has not been submitted, will be pitched at a similar level. EDF could be ready to table its final, fully financed bid towards the end of this week. Other sources said the deal may not be disclosed until later in the month. Shares in British Energy closed at 735p on Friday, well above the level of EDF's bid. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, is keen to strike a side deal once the identity of the new owner of British Energy is confirmed. Centrica only has enough of its own plants to provide power to about a third of its customers. The government, which owns a 35 per cent stake in British Energy, is keen to see a speedy conclusion to the protracted takeover talks. It kicked off the auction by putting its stake up for sale. This week, Secretary of State for Business John Hutton will host a summit in London to encourage players to become involved in the programme to build a new fleet of nuclear reactors. Those attending will include leading energy and engineering companies. The government will also reveal the results of a survey asking companies what it is like to be a nuclear operator in this country. The top complaint is thought to be the difficulty and length of time needed to get planning permission, an issue Hutton will raise this week. The new owner of British Energy will play a key role in the new-build programme. It owns the best sites, with the best connections to the national grid, for the new reactors. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority also owns sites that can used for reactors, and is running its own separate process to sell land surrounding these sites. | ['business/britishenergygroup', 'business/utilities', 'business/mergers-and-acquisitions', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'world/france', 'world/world', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'business/edf', 'business/energy-industry', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/businessandmedia', 'theobserver/businessandmedia/news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2008-06-07T23:01:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2012/oct/04/ceres-power-shares-solar-panel-sharp-wrexham | UK green energy sector suffers double blow | Britain's nascent "green" business sector has hit trouble with a warning about the future of a pioneering fuel cell developer and of a solar panel factory in Wales. Shares in Ceres Power, which employs 160 staff in Horsham and Crawley in West Sussex, dived 76% after it told the London stock exchange that it may have to wind down or sell off the business. Ceres has been hit by a series of delays on the launch of its combined heat and power (CHP) energy efficient boiler as a result of technical issues with a product designed for homes in Britain and further afield. The company has been in talks with potential lenders but in a statement it said "despite extensive efforts it has been unsuccessful in securing sufficient funding for the business going forward". Ceres said at the end of June that it had £10.2m worth of cash but had since admitted it needed to raise more by the end of September. The shares plunged to a 52-week low of 2.05p before recovering a little to 2.6p. Less than a year ago the company was trading above 30p a share. Meanwhile in Wrexham there are mounting worries that Japanese electronics group Sharp could make further cutbacks at, or even close, a solar panel manufacturing site. A spokesman at the Sharp site admitted there was intense speculation locally about what was happening following reports from Tokyo that the company, which had global losses of $4.8bn (£2.9bn) last year, might decide to withdraw from production of photovoltaic modules in the US and Europe. Around 300 temporary jobs were axed last month at the Wrexham facility and local MP Ian Lucas said he was trying to clarify with Sharp what was going on while admitting he was very concerned. Lucas said the Sharp group had its own difficulties but the local solar panel plant was also being hit by the coalition government's decision to make sweeping cuts in the feed-in tariff which provides subsidies to householders to fit panels to their roofs. He added: "Sharp is a massively important employer in this area and any suggestion of closure would be absolutely dreadful. I am very concerned and angry with the way Greg Barker [the energy minister] has undermined the industry. I have had a good relationship with Sharp and am trying to get information from them but that is never easy even when the news is good." | ['environment/green-economy', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/energy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/combined-heat-and-power-chp', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2012-10-04T14:03:57Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2023/aug/07/ideal-heating-to-kickstart-electric-heat-pump-production-in-hull | Major UK gas boiler maker to start electric heat pump production in Hull | One of Britain’s biggest boiler makers is to start manufacturing electric heat pumps to keep pace with what it describes as the biggest transformation since the switch from coal to gas devices in the 1930s. Ideal Heating has invested £50m in transforming the manufacturing facilities at its Hull headquarters, which have produced fossil fuel boilers for more than a century. As well as making about 500,000 gas boilers a year, the company will begin making thousands of heat pumps and invest in a “state-of-the-art” centre to train up to 5,000 staff a year to install and service them. The boilermaker expects to manufacture up to 60,000 heat pumps a year from the factory’s new production line, which could rise as forecast demand for heat pumps grows in the coming decades. Shaun Edwards, the chief executive of Ideal Heating’s parent company, Groupe Atlantic, said the investments sent “a clear signal” about the company’s commitment to “remodelling our business to meet the needs of our customers today and into the future”. “With the start of heat pump production and the many other investments we’re making, we’re now pushing strongly forward with renewable technologies that will play an ever-growing role in heating the UK’s homes and commercial premises,” Edwards said. “The transition to low-carbon heating solutions including heat pumps is the biggest transformation in the business since we moved from coal to gas-fired boilers in the 1930s,” he added. The company’s support for heat pumps puts it at odds with many boilermakers who back an industry lobby group accused of trying to delay the take-up of heat pumps. Lord Callanan, the minister for energy efficiency and green finance, visited the Hull factory on Friday to mark the start of Ideal Heating’s heat pump production. The government has set an ambitious target for 600,000 heat pumps to be installed in the UK every year by 2028, which will require thousands more skilled and qualified engineers. However, public take-up of a government grant worth £5,000 towards the cost of a new heat pump has been “disappointingly low” to date. In a letter to ministers, the House of Lords environment and climate change committee said a shortage of installers and “insufficient independent advice” had contributed to slow take-up of heat pumps. The committee also warned that public awareness of low-carbon heating systems was “very limited” and promotion of the scheme had been “inadequate”. Climate campaigners claim that public perception of heat pumps has been damaged by a media campaign undertaken by a lobby group representing boiler makers. The group has also piled pressure on the government to scrap new measures to speed up the rollout of heat pumps. The Guardian revealed last month that the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), an industry association that represents boiler manufacturers and other gas companies, including some that have branched out into heat pumps, made a submission to a government consultation calling for measures forcing the industry to install more heat pumps to be delayed to 2026. Ideal Heating, which is a member of the EUA, declined to comment on its lobbying activities. | ['business/manufacturing-sector', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'technology/energy', 'technology/technology', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2023-08-07T08:30:16Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2019/oct/18/queensland-claims-cabinet-confidentiality-to-block-release-of-climate-protest-details | Queensland claims cabinet confidentiality to block release of climate protest details | The Palaszczuk government has blocked the release of basic information about climate protests – including dates and locations of photographs used to justify controversial proposed laws – by claiming the details are subject to cabinet confidentiality. At an inquiry hearing last week, the Queensland police tabled photographs of “locking devices” that are proposed to be banned by the new legislation. When asked on notice to clarify details about the images, the police responded a week later to say: “the time, date and place of each of the events depicted in the tendered photographs are subject to cabinet in confidence”. The government has attempted to sell its crackdown on climate protesters by making arguments that activists are “extremists” and using “sinister tactics”, including lacing locking devices with booby traps. No evidence has ever been released to back those claims. In parliament, the premier, Annastacia Palaszuczk, claimed activists had put butane canisters in locking devices. Police told the inquiry last week the only similar incident occurred more than 14 years ago. After heightened Extinction Rebellion protests this month, the government is now rushing to get its laws through committee scrutiny and before parliament. But civil libertarians and human rights advocates have considerable concern the proposals, which they say will restrict basic liberties and have been justified by claims which the government cannot back up. Last week the state’s human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, questioned the justification for the laws and said there had not been an opportunity to “publicly scrutinise evidence ... to assess the necessity”. Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning “It would appear that the proposed laws targeting devices that are not inherently dangerous are actually directed at avoiding the disruption caused by peaceful acts of civil disobedience rather than addressing public safety,” McDougall said. Guardian Australia has confirmed that photographs posted on social media by Palaszczuk when announcing the laws were from a protest that occurred more than 18 months ago in north Queensland, although her public commentary has made it clear the laws have been prompted by disruptive Extinction Rebellion protests in Brisbane. Images tabled by police – whose dates cabinet wants to keep secret – were from the same incident in January, 2018. The Greens MP Michael Berkman said use of cabinet confidentiality was “pure cynicism”. “These laws were always designed as a distraction from Labor’s support for new thermal coalmines and failure to commit to 100% clean energy. Now it’s clear how little evidence they actually have,” Berkman said. “It’s pure cynicism to use an image as a political tool, then claim that its date and location are state secrets. This wouldn’t fly in a grade-10 science project, and it’s not good enough for the Queensland parliament. “Under scrutiny the premier’s favourite talking point about aerosol canisters turned out to be an unsubstantiated rumour from 2005, so I’m not surprised Labor refuse to release the details.” The laws will go before the state parliament next week. | ['australia-news/queensland-politics', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/annastacia-palaszczuk', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'type/article', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'world/protest', 'world/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-10-18T01:14:21Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2014/dec/16/jeb-bush-climate-denier-republican-presidential-candidate-2016 | Jeb Bush may be 'the smart brother' – but he's as much of a climate denier as any conservative | Suzanne Goldenberg | In Bush family lore, Jeb was always supposed to be the smarter, more level-headed one. As with many media constructs, of course, that’s just not true. When it comes to climate change, Jeb Bush is a lot more radical than his brother. Jeb doesn’t just want to keep burning fossil fuels while the planet burns. He’s an out-and-out flat-earther – just like the other Republicans seen as leading contenders in the 2016 presidential race – and he’s been on the record denying climate science for years. “I think global warming may be real,” Jeb Bush said in 2011, in what seemed like a promising start to the subject in a Fox interview. But he followed it up with the false statement that there is some kind of dispute among scientists about the causes of climate change – which there is not: It is not unanimous among scientists that it is disproportionately manmade. What I get a little tired of on the left is this idea that somehow science has decided all this so you can’t have a view. Those comments put Jeb Bush in lock-step with the other climate deniers in the Republican party – and now that he has become the party’s first (almost) declared candidate, they should help set early battle lines for climate change as a major campaign issue. Democrats say they are convinced climate change can be a winning issue – or at least a convenient form of political shorthand for defining even the least conservative GOP candidates as extreme, anti-science or just plain old. Now we’ll get a first look at how the other other Bush chooses to define himself. But there are clear signs Jeb Bush feels most comfortable in the dubious territory between denial and doubt. In 2009, Jeb was even an early adopter of the “I am not a scientist” line – which gained traction among some Republicans this year as a way of ducking the denier label. It’s hard to see how those extreme views on climate will go down with corporations – and potential donors – that have been distancing themselves from outright denier positions, such as those promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Among Republican primary voters, however, climate denial still holds sway. Reports do surface now and then of an underground cell among Republicans who do accept the science of climate change. But Jeb Bush, for now, clearly wants no part of that. Brother George – or 43, as he is apparently known at family get-togthers – never went as far as outright climate denial, but he was certainly no friend of the environmental movement. As president, 43 had a Texas oil man’s approach to global warming. He pulled the US out of the Kyoto protocol, let oil companies dictate energy policy, and installed other oil men in environmental posts who censored government scientists’ warnings about climate change. But George W Bush did make a half-hearted pitch for renewable energy – dropping a mention of switch grass into his 2006 State of the Union address – and he declared what was then the world’s largest marine reserve on his way out of the White House. And on climate change (as opposed to stem cell research and the morning after pill), 43 did not go out of his way to try to undermine science. That was certainly a kinder, gentler time for Republicans. Back in the day, even John McCain, Barack Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race, supported curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. But over the last five years, climate change has turned into a big floating iceberg of an issue for presidential politics – a defining line between Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats’ initial response to that was to duck and run. Obama barely mentioned climate change in his first term or in his 2012 re-election campaign. Then the green billionaire mega-donor Tom Steyer began backing climate-friendly candidates, though he didn’t have a lot to show after spending $74m on pro-climate candidates in the midterm elections. But 2016 promises to be different. By the time the primary campaigns heat up, Obama will be winding down his presidency – the greatest legacy of which may be his decision to defy Congress and use government agencies to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Republicans, under the incoming majority leader Mitch McConnell, will have spent nearly two years trying to block those efforts. International negotiators from more than 190 countries will have gathered in Paris to try to put together a global climate deal. And Jeb Bush will be just another stumbling, mumbling Republican candidate for president who is not a scientist, doesn’t want to listen to scientists, and may spend as much time undoing years of progress on the environment as the GOP will have spent trying to undo Obama’s healthcare law. At a League of Conservation Voters dinner in New York earlier this month, Hillary Clinton said she would defend climate rules. “The unprecedented action that President Obama has taken must be defended at all costs,” she said. Now with Jeb Bush’s declaration, we know where the likely Republican frontrunner stands, too: on the wrong side. He’s on the wrong side of those climate rules, and on the wrong side of reality. If things go according to the Democratic plan, that could put him on the wrong side of history, too. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/jeb-bush', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'us-news/republicans', 'us-news/us-elections-2016', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2014-12-16T19:06:17Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2017/may/17/mersey-wind-turbines-liverpool-uk-wind-technology | Mersey feat: world's biggest wind turbines go online near Liverpool | The planet’s biggest and most powerful wind turbines have begun generating electricity off the Liverpool coast, cementing Britain’s reputation as a world leader in the technology. Danish company Dong Energy has just finished installing 32 turbines in Liverpool Bay that are taller than the Gherkin skyscraper, with blades longer than nine London buses. Dong Energy, the windfarm’s developer, believes these machines herald the future for offshore wind power: bigger, better and, most importantly, cheaper. Each of the 195m-tall turbines in the Burbo Bank extension has more than twice the power capacity of those in the neighbouring Burbo Bank windfarm completed a decade ago. “That shows you something about the scale-up of the industry, the scale-up of the technology,” said Benjamin Sykes, the country manager for Dong Energy UK. The project is the first time the 8MW turbines have been commercially used anywhere in the world, which Sykes hailed as a “very important milestone” for the sector. Subsidies, friendly regulation and a maritime past have helped the UK install more offshore wind power than any other country in the world. Collectively they now have a capacity of 5.3GW, generating enough electricity to power 4.3m homes. Eight further projects already under construction will add more than half that capacity again. But ministers have made it clear that the industry must keep cutting costs if the technology, the only large renewable energy source backed by the Conservatives, is to continue earning taxpayer support. While a recent study showed the cost of offshore wind has fallen a third since 2012, a key litmus test will be the results of a government auction this summer for £290m of renewable energy subsidies. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it comes in below Hinkley,” said Sykes of the prices offshore windfarms might reach, compared to £92.50 per megawatt hour that France’s EDF has been guaranteed for electricity generated by the nuclear power station it is building in Somerset. Previous offshore windfarm subsidy deals have cost well above £100 per megawatt hour. “This and other projects have been crucial for driving costs down for the whole industry,” said Skyes, pointing to the Burbo Bank extension. Building fewer but more powerful turbines like these is cheaper because each tower and its blades need a foundation, the “transition piece” that goes atop that, plus the cables to connect it to a nearby substation, and ongoing maintenance. In Germany, Dong recently made waves when the electricity grid regulator approved its bid to build the world’s first subsidy-free offshore windfarm. While Skyes will not be drawn on when UK windfarms might do the same, he describes this one off Liverpool as “part of the journey to a zero-subsidy windfarm”. Dong thinks that by the time that German windfarm begins construction, there will be turbines as powerful as 13MW or 15MW. “There’s every reason to think they will arrive,” said Sykes, although he acknowledged eventually they will hit a theoretical limit. The majority of turbines in UK waters today are between 3.0MW and 3.6MW, with a smattering at 5MW to 7MW, but the Burbo Bank extension is a herald of things to come. Most of the 16 projects which have a planning green light but have not started construction yet will use turbines of at least 8MW. While the UK benefits from the power from those windfarms, the industry has been criticised in the past for not ensuring enough parts are made in Britain. Dong does not put a figure on what percentage of the Burbo Bank extension is UK built but half the blades are made at MHI Vesta’s Isle of Wight factory; the bits that sit on top of the foundation are built at Teesside. For people such as Justin Donaghan, the industry also means skilled jobs and a long-term career. The 34-year-old former Royal Navy engineer never saw himself working in green energy before he started working on the original Burbo Bank windfarm seven years ago. He is now a turbine supervisor, looking after the small teams that service the turbines. “I don’t even think there was a renewable energy sector when I was younger,” he said. | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'uk/liverpool', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2017-05-17T05:30:46Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/article/2024/sep/04/us-west-heatwave-summer | ‘Dangerously hot’ weather roasts US west as brutal summer continues | Searing temperatures are roasting the US west once again this week, as a brutal heatwave could bring some of the highest temperatures of the summer so far. Excessive heat warnings were in effect across parts of southern California, Arizona and Nevada, affecting tens of millions of people. The harsh weather was predicted to peak beginning on Wednesday and last into the weekend. The city of Los Angeles could see temperatures approaching 100F (37.7C), with locations further inland hitting nearly 110F (43.3C) or higher, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service (NWS). “Dangerously hot conditions with peak temperatures of 95 to 110 possible, hottest Thursday and Friday. Warm overnight low temperatures will bring little relief from the heat,” the NWS warned in an advisory. Desert cities such as Palm Springs were expected to see multiple days over 110F, while highs in Death Valley national park, which is experiencing its hottest summer on record, were expected to soar up to 118F (47.7C) on Friday. In Santa Barbara county, officials issued a health alert due to spiking inland temperatures. Unusually high temperatures were also predicted across the Bay Area and Central valley. Even normally temperate San Francisco was predicted to be at least 13 degrees above average. It was so out of character for San Francisco that the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory. “We’re talking about a solid four days of heat,” the meteorologist Mike Wofford told the Los Angeles Times. “We’ve had three or four days of hot weather before but this one is hotter and longer than most of the other heat waves we’ve had.” The heatwave will add to the pain of what has already been a devastating summer across the region. Californians have just experienced their hottest July of all time, with the state’s average temperature for the month recorded at 81.7F (27.6C). Many cities have endured multiple days of temperatures greater than 100F (about 38C), and several cities broke temperature records during a remarkable July heatwave. There has been little relief for residents in other states, particularly across the US south-west. Las Vegas, Nevada, also saw its hottest-ever July, and broke an all-time daily temperature record when the city hit 120F (48.8C). Meanwhile in Phoenix, Arizona, the city marked its 100th consecutive day of temperatures above 100F on Monday, surpassing a streak set in the 1990s. The baking heat primed the west for an explosive fire season, after a wet winter covered landscapes in grasses and vegetation that quickly dried out into readymade tinder. The fire season is still in full swing and the September heatwave could make things even worse. Oregon has seen more fire this year than any other, with almost 1.5m acres (607,028 hectares) scorched by mid-August. The state is expected to see triple-digit temperatures this week and then thunderstorms, which authorities advise will bring “significant ignition potential”. Dozens of wildfires continue to burn from Washington to Idaho to Arizona, while California has been battling its fourth largest wildfire in state history, the Park fire, since mid-July – although that fire is now nearly fully contained. A growing wildfire near the remote northern California mountain community of Sierra Brooks, near Lake Tahoe, forced hundreds of people to evacuate on Wednesday as the searing temperatures threatened to make fire conditions worse. Recent weeks have brought some relief from the most extreme heat, but fire officials are nonetheless worried that the west will face significant fire potential into the fall. “We’re about halfway through our season and it’s real busy and [we’re] getting the crew in that mental and physical mindset that we still have three months to go,” Dan Mallia, a firefighter who works with a special US Forest Service “hotshot” crew, told the Guardian last month. “We have just been doing back-to-back assignments. It’s been challenging.” Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human activities is dialing up the thermostat around the world and increasing the odds of dangerous temperatures. That is because the driver of global warming – the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fuels such as oil, gas and coal – continues all but unabated. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, wildfires, intense storms and prolonged droughts will continue, according to researchers. Further south, cooling centers were set up across Los Angeles county, where officials urged residents to check on neighbors who are elderly, unwell or otherwise vulnerable amid soaring temperatures. “Hot days aren’t just uncomfortable – they can be dangerous,” said the Los Angeles county health officer Muntu Davis. | ['us-news/west-coast', 'environment/extreme-heat', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-wildfires', 'us-news/california', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/arizona', 'us-news/nevada', 'us-news/us-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dani-anguiano', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | us-news/us-wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-09-04T22:23:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2024/oct/02/natural-disasters-storms-impact-mortality-study | Major storms contribute to thousands of deaths up to 15 years later, study finds | Major storms such as Hurricane Helene, which obliterated towns and turned roads into rivers after surging inland from Florida last week, have a far longer and more devastating impact upon lives than previously thought, contributing to thousands of deaths up to 15 years after they have swept through, a new study has found. In terms of lives lost, hurricanes are generally thought to be short, sharp events. More than 150 people are thought to have died across five states after Helene tore across the southern US as a category 4 storm, with fatalities caused by rising floodwaters, car crashes or falling trees and debris. But new research has found that big storms have an impact upon mortality that lingers much longer – for up to 15 years, ultimately causing far more deaths than first apparent. Each tropical cyclone hitting the US causes an average 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths in total, it calculates, a death toll so vast that as much as 5% of all deaths along the eastern coast of the US since the 1930s have been the result of such storms. “We looked at the data months and then years after a storm and we were very surprised to see that people kept on dying,” said Solomon Hsiang, a climate and public policy expert at Stanford University who co-authored the research with Rachel Young, a scientist at Berkeley. “There is lot longer shadow than anybody expected. The impact of storms upon society is so much bigger than we realized, it’s more of a public health issue than anyone really thought before.” The study, published on Wednesday in the Nature journal, analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data for states hit by hurricanes between 1930 and 2015. The researchers were able to calculate “pre-storm” norms for states and then track the death totals once a hurricane hit, with the echo of these storms often overlapping with the next big storm event. What they found, according to Hsiang, was surprising – rather than a single spike in deaths from high winds and floodwater, hurricanes cause a persistent trickle of deaths for years afterwards. Certain groups suffer relatively high risks of post-hurricane deaths, the research found, such as infants and the Black population. “When people are hit with the same amount of environmental shock, the outcomes are different for different groups which we can now see very clearly in the data,” said Hsiang. “We have this view of storms as something we muscle through and then shake off afterwards, but what we haven’t fully realized is that once the storm has gone the impacts reverberate through communities for years. They need services, help and support that they are not getting currently.” The new study does not provide a definitive answer as to the exact cause of these extra deaths but comes up with potential factors, such as the fallout from resulting economic and job losses after storms, suddenly overstretched local government budgets that underfund health providers, the release of environmental toxins as storms hit industrialized areas and the unhealthy impact of stress upon those who have to endure hurricanes. “All of these feel plausible and people might be affected by a combination of them,” said Hsiang. “If we can figure out what is happening on the ground, we can design interventions and policies to eliminate this scourge of death.” The finding that hurricanes can cause deaths 15 years after their winds dissipate “will prove controversial and will be followed up by many other studies of long-term mortality from natural disasters, said Kerry Emanuel, a scientist who specializes in hurricanes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was not involved in the new paper. But Emanuel said that he found the results of the study “persuasive, given how well the model explains the excess deaths” and that the thousands of extra deaths per hurricane were “truly astounding”. “If they stand the test of time, these conclusions imply that climate change effects on natural hazards like hurricanes are far more debilitating than we have heretofore estimated,” he added. The burden of extra deaths is likely to mount further as hurricane-prone states such as Florida see their populations grow while the world continues to heat up due to the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists have found that hurricanes are, on average, becoming stronger and intensifying more rapidly due to the warming atmosphere and oceans. The climate crisis probably had a turbocharging effect upon Hurricane Helene, with the storm gathering pace over an unusually hot Gulf of Mexico. “This storm took a while to develop, but once it did it intensified very rapidly – and that’s because of the warm waters in the Gulf that’s creating more storms that are reaching this major category level,” said Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). “In the past, damage from hurricanes was primarily wind damage, but now we’re seeing so much more water damage and that is a result of the warm waters, which is a result of climate change.” | ['us-news/us-news', 'us-news/hurricane-helene', 'world/extreme-weather', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | us-news/hurricane-helene | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-02T15:00:33Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2013/may/23/noaa-forecast-active-hurricane-season | Noaa predicts wildly active hurricane season out of Atlantic and Caribbean | Americans were warned on Thursday to brace for an extremely active hurricane season – less than a year after the devastation of Sandy, which hit the east coast in October 2012 – with 13 to 20 named storms, including seven to 11 hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, releasing its annual forecast, said 2013 would be prolific in raising storms out of the Atlantic and Caribbean. Of the predicted hurricanes, Noaa predicted that three to six could be major hurricanes, rated category three and packing winds of 111mph or higher. Thursday's forecast was well above the average of 12 named storms, eight hurricanes and three major hurricanes. Administration officials also warned that the impacts of those storms – as with Sandy and Irene in 2011 – could be felt in areas far beyond those typically associated with hurricanes and tropical storms. Sandy killed scores as it made its way across the Caribbean to the north-east US. While it was only a category two storm when it made landfall near Atlantic City in New Jersey, Sandy caused more than $75bn in damage. Lower Manhattan was knocked off the electrical grid for days because of storm surges and coastal communities have yet to recover. "As we saw first-hand with Sandy, it's important to remember that tropical storm and hurricane impacts are not limited to the coastline. Strong winds, torrential rain, flooding, and tornadoes often threaten inland areas far from where the storm first makes landfall," said Kathryn Sullivan, the acting Noaa administrator. Noaa scientists said there were three main causes behind the forecast of an extremely active season. They included a continuation of an atmospheric climate pattern, which includes a strong west African monsoon, that has been contributing to high activity during Atlantic hurricane season since the 1990s. Warmer ocean temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean oceans, where many storms originate, are also making for stronger storms. Officials said temperatures were on average about 0.8 of one degree fahrenheit above average. El Niño, which can inhibit storm systems, was not expected to develop during this year's hurricane season. The season runs from 1 June to 1 November. "There are no mitigating factors that we can see that will suppress the activity," said Gerry Bell, Noaa's lead Atlantic hurricane forecaster. "The computer models all point to an active, or very active, hurricane season." Thursday's forecast was released at a time when Republicans in Congress are sharply scrutinising Noaa's role in forecasting. Earlier in the day, a house committee held a hearing to discuss privatising some of the forecasting functions that are overseen by the premier scientific agency. There has also been criticism of Noaa's messaging in advance of Hurricane Sandy, and whether its decision to officially downgrade the storm when it made landfall in New Jersey induced a false sense of security among some coastal communities. Noaa officials, in unveiling their 2013 forecast, noted improvements to computer models that would allow better far-range prediction of storms. New Doppler radar data, to be introduced in July, will allow forecasters to better analyse rapidly changing storm conditions, officials said. However, the officials said it was impossible at this juncture to predict which coastal communities along the Atlantic coast are most likely to be hit this year. It is also not yet clear when the storms will hit. As Sullivan noted, Sandy struck in the waning days of the hurricane season. "Hurricane Sandy was at the very end of the hurricane season and yet was one of the most devastating storms that we have ever seen," she said. But officials said repeatedly that residents the length of the coast – and beyond – needed to prepare in advance, in order to be able to ride out storms in their homes or, if needed, have an exit plan in place. Such preparations should include putting aside a 72-hour supply of food and water at home, or having an evacuation plan in case of storm damage or flooding. "This is a very dangerous hurricane season," said Joe Nimmich, who directs disaster response and recovery for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "If you are not prepared you may become one of the statistics we don't care to have." | ['us-news/us-weather', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/elnino', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | us-news/hurricane-sandy | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-05-23T18:54:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2014/jan/24/sandy-bedfordshire-creaking-trees-walker | Country diary: Sandy, Bedfordshire: When creaking trees cause the walker to tread warily | The path near the bottom of the trail slipped into a steep gully, sheltered from the breeze. But trees on the slopes had their needle-packed crowns up, tuned to movement in the air. As I passed, the creaking firs were an audible wind vane. The branches of near neighbours caressed each other. The wood-on-wood sound stirred trepidation, a nervous association that, I think, must be hard-wired into the human brain. A creaking door opens, then shuts on a predetermined path, but a keening tree sighs as the prelude to a heavy fall with an unpredictable landing. I looked up through the trees on the east-facing slope and saw one of the trailside firs leaning alarmingly towards me. It caused a start, but only a slight one, for that same tree had been on the tilt for three or four years. Above the gully, where the ground flattened into open heath, a silver birch by the side of the path had, finally, really fallen. I came upon it one morning after a storm-battered night five years ago and rang the warden to advise him that it was firmly snagged. The twin-stemmed trunk had come to rest at twenty-five to ten, the lower trunk tickled by bracken, the hour-hand trunk wedged into the fork of a sturdier birch. Gales from the west had uncorked the tree, pulling it out by its root plate. But birch roots go deep and narrow; half the plate was still buried and the lower trunk grew leaves last year. The peeled-back part of the plate had left a cavern of tangled roots and soil-lined tunnels, worn smooth by rodents or rabbits. Brambles were beginning to intertwine over its mouth, concealing the interior. The upper trunk was dead, its crown broken off, like the broken stub of a pencil waiting to be sharpened. Over the past few months, hoof fungi had sprouted along its length, cantering over the toppling body of their lifeless host. | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/derek-niemann', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-01-24T21:00:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2022/jun/04/why-your-ability-to-repair-a-tractor-could-also-be-a-matter-of-life-and-death | Why your ability to repair a tractor could also be a matter of life and death | John Naughton | It was one of the few pieces of cheery news to emerge from the war in Ukraine. Russian looters, no doubt with the assistance of Russian troops, stole 27 pieces of John Deere farm equipment, worth about $5m, from a dealership in Melitopol. The kit was shipped to Chechnya, where a nasty surprise awaited the crooks. Their shiny new vehicles had, overnight, become the world’s heaviest paperweights: the dealership from which they had been stolen had “bricked” them remotely, using an inbuilt “kill-switch”. This news item no doubt warmed the cockles of many a western heart. But it would have raised only hollow laughs from farmers in US states who are customers of John Deere and are mightily pissed off, because although they have paid small fortunes (up to $800,000 apparently) for the firm’s machinery, they are unable to service or repair them when they go wrong. These gigantic vehicles are no longer purely mechanical devices, but depend on lots of electronic control units (ECUs) to operate everything from the air conditioning to the driver’s seat to the engine. The ICUs run software that is essential to the operation, maintenance and repair of the machine. But only John Deere has access to that computer code and without employing a company technician the tractor’s software won’t even recognise (let alone allow) replacement parts from another manufacturer. So what happens when your tractor develops a fault? You can’t go to your local garage, so you have to call on a John Deere dealership and wait for it to send a technician – at its convenience, not yours. Vice’s Motherboard column has an interesting story about how that can play out. A Missouri farmer named Jared Wilson discovered that the air conditioning in the cab of his tractor was kaput just when he was about to plant his soya bean crop. The tractor would run, but it would be baking hot in the cab, a closed glass sauna atop a huge hot engine in the heat of the Missouri spring. So he called the local John Deere dealership and asked for an appointment. The manager told him he wasn’t a “profitable customer”, he says, which he took as a veiled threat. Now why might that be? Turns out that Wilson is both a highly articulate critic of John Deere and a vigorous campaigner for a legal “right to repair”. His evidence to the Missouri House of Representatives when it was considering a bill to provide that right was a sight to behold. Wilson eventually filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the dispute, which may explain why his local dealership then discovered that it did want his business after all. The last thing a giant US corporation needs at the moment is to have an FTC chaired by Lina Khan taking a close interest in its business practices. It is right to be concerned. Last July, the FTC voted unanimously to pursue policies that will make it easier for people to repair their own things. The kinds of restrictions imposed by John Deere, said Khan, could “significantly raise costs for consumers, stifle innovation, close off business opportunities for independent repair shops, create unnecessary electronic waste, delay timely repairs and undermine resiliency”. And she vowed to move forward on the issue “with renewed vigour”. That vigour will be needed because there’s a huge industrial lobby devoting to resisting – or slowing – legislation to provide a right to repair. The weapons of choice for lobbyists include intellectual property law, trade secrets, consumer safety and competition issues. What they gloss over is the inconvenient truth that planned obsolescence is a bedrock of the consumer electronics industry. Apple has to release a new iPhone every year (we’re now up to No 13, even though the iPhone 6 is still a perfectly functional device). And modern design aesthetics in that marketplace put a very low priority on recycling or sustainability. This isn’t just about consumer electronics or even farmers’ rights by the way, as we discovered during the early, panic-stricken months of the pandemic. Then, hospitals urgently needed to repair or service critical medical equipment, but found that sometimes manufacturers wouldn’t provide proprietary repair manuals or supply replacement parts. In March 2020, for example, an Italian hospital was unable to obtain valves for its ventilators from their manufacturer. Volunteers designed and 3D-printed 100 replacements at a cost of a dollar each. In normal times, those engineers might well have been prosecuted by the manufacturer for infringing its intellectual property rights. So sometimes the right to repair isn’t just a geeky obsession but a matter of life or death. What I’ve been reading Feline philosophy Infirmity is a touching blogpost by Venkatesh Rao on what he’s learned about ageing from his elderly cat. Difficult chapters The Fiction That Dare Not Speak its Name is a long, interesting essay by Morten Høi Jensen on the travails of those who write biographies of writers. Give us a minute The Billable Hour Is a Trap Into Which More and More of us Are Falling is a thoughtful blogpost by Tim Harford on the consequences of believing that time is money. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/technology', 'business/fooddrinks', 'type/article', 'technology/series/networker', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'technology/apple', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'profile/johnnaughton', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-06-04T15:00:01Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2014/dec/18/climate-change-droughts-flash-floods-mudslides-normal-california | We can't let climate change turn droughts, flash floods and mudslides into the new normal | Rep Michael Honda and Michael Shank | Between power outages, deluging rains, flash floods, mudslides and record droughts, California is quickly becoming unrecognizable – all the bellwethers of an ecosystem out of whack. Thanks to a rapidly changing climate making wet regions wetter and dry regions drier, 2014 will be the hottest year on record – and, if we’re not careful, the Bay Area’s recent #HellaStorm will soon become the norm. Everyone in the state knows the severity of the problem: we’re in the midst of our worst drought in 1,200 years; our winter snow pack, which provides approximately one-third of the state’s water supply, was at record lows in 2014; last winter’s weather was the warmest in the last 119 years; and ocean surface temperatures off the coast of California are at record highs. The wrath of a warming planet is being felt more powerfully than ever before. Unfortunately, within the halls of Congress and across California, there remains a misguided belief that we can legislate our way out of this drought. But short-term fixes like piping enough water from one locale to another or conservation and efficiency measures, won’t be sufficient to address urban and rural water shortages – and no amount of Pineapple Express rapid rainfall will fix the over-tapped and exhausted water supply. Both will be a mere drop in California’s near empty bucket. Furthermore, short-term fixes for this water crisis don’t address the long-term problem of climate change, which is causing this crisis and will undoubtedly cause more. This is not simply a California problem. California supplies nearly half of all U.S. fruits, vegetables, and nuts, so any drought directly impacts the diets of all Americans. And the state is not solely culpable for its own climate disaster, nor can it fix them by itself: heavy carbon dioxide emissions, whether from the East Coast or East Asia, are contributing to the extreme weather that California is now experiencing. The good news is that 2014, while being the hottest year on record, also saw unprecedented public and political support for action on climate change. Most Americans now recognize that climate change is happening, are willing to pay more for cleaner and greener energy, and are keen to vote for candidates who will take action on our climate. The 400,000-person People’s Climate March in New York, timed with the UN Climate Summit in September, illustrates the public’s appetite for aggressive action. Meanwhile, the historic US-China climate deal and the commitment by the European Union to reduce their emissions 40% by 2030, are excellent examples of worldwide leadership. Even in the halls of Congress – traditionally not the friendliest space for environmental policy – climate change is now a bipartisan, and both Republicans and Democrats are speaking out and taking action. There’s even a conservation-minded group of members of the Tea Party movement called the Green Tea Coalition pushing for more investment in solar power. The critical next steps to save California – and every other state of the union that will witness extreme weather in the coming years – from the effects of climate change requires work by federal, state, and local governments – and close coordination with the private sector. Achieving the US government’s goal of reducing emissions 80 percent by 2050 – which is necessary for us to survive this century – requires: a steady transition to renewable energy; a phase-out of dirty fossil fuels and the subsidies that support them; the pursuit of low-hanging conservation and efficiency initiatives in transportation, infrastructure, and utility sectors; and a national campaign to get the public thoroughly on board. There is no more patriotic pursuit than reversing climate change and its effects. Our national security depends on it, since climate change is a threat multiplier, making unstable regions even more insecure and potentially violent. Our health depends on it, as extreme weather is already killing thousands of Americans each year. Our economy depends on it, as myriad billion-dollar natural disasters are destroying our economic infrastructure and devastating industries. The time to act on climate is now – before another #HellaStorm becomes #HellaCommon. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/california', 'environment/drought', 'environment/flooding', 'us-news/us-congress', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/michael-honda', 'profile/michael-shank'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-12-18T18:39:48Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2014/mar/14/morally-questionable | Morally questionable - is anaerobic digestion really working? | As a wise man once said: “Turning food waste into energy is alchemy, but putting perfectly good food into anaerobic digesters is morally questionable”. The wise man was Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the food distribution charity FareShare, and he was raising an issue that is increasingly worrying everyone who campaigns on food waste. As more local authorities offer food waste caddies and collections, and as commercial waste contractors offer ‘zero to landfill’ separated waste collections, it’s easy to assume we’re all doing our bit by putting the food we throw away into separate bins and leaving it to the professionals to ensure it is responsibly dealt with. But it can’t really be as simple as that, can it? Of course it can’t. What lies at the heart of the matter is the distinction between food waste and food surplus. If we can accept the definition of food waste as ‘food, produced for human consumption, that never makes it to a human stomach’, then plenty of the 4.2 million tonnes of food we throw away each year, whether it ends up in landfill or AD, is surplus well before it becomes waste. And with nearly 6 million people living in ‘deep poverty’ in the UK, and 3 million suffering from malnutrition, we clearly need a different approach. The question of food waste has had something of a high profile of late, culminating late last year with Tesco publishing figures on the amount of food it throws away. The Sustainable Restaurant Association commissioned consumer research in 2013, and we were a little surprised to find that food waste was the joint top sustainability concern of diners (along with health and nutrition). No one likes to admit they throw food away, and most will tell you they don’t. It is not just a social issue though, it is an economic one costing consumers and businesses £12bn each year. It also has a huge environmental impact on the planet, not just in terms of disposal, but because of the vast amounts of water and energy expended in the production, processing, transportation, storage and preparation of food that gets thrown away. It has been estimated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation that the CO2 emissions from global food waste exceed the total emissions of every country in the world, with the exception of China and the US. There is, no doubt, some genuinely unavoidable food waste. And as a disposal method for this type of waste, anaerobic digestion was undoubtedly a good idea. AD, it is true, generates energy and produces fertilizer as a by-product. But the energy available at the end of the AD process is dwarfed by the energy required to produce the wasted food it uses. To that extent, it is incredibly inefficient and to refer to it as a ‘renewable’ source of energy, as many do, is stretching the definition to breaking point. AD is now growing into a hungry beast with an insatiable appetite. Surely you wouldn’t set aside land specifically to grow food to feed AD plants? The UK has a growing network of such plants, funded by investment, government incentives (although these are expected to fall by 20% from April) and green energy tariffs, all hungry for food to generate the electricity to sell into the national grid to repay the capital investment. This is at a time when business is waking up to the problem of food waste, evidenced by the major food retailers committing, through the British Retail Consortium, to reporting on the levels of food they throw away each year. Something is going to have to give. In fact if we had to choose between a restaurant that made strenuous efforts to reduce the amount it was wasting and sent unavoidable waste to landfill and one that failed to address its waste at source but sent the consequent waste mountain to for AD, then we’d go for the former every time. If we take the food waste hierarchy developed by Tristram Stuart as a starting point, there is plenty we should be doing before we send food off to AD. The projected global population growth, to 9 billion by 2050, is well documented, with many people estimating that feeding this population will require a 70% increase in global agricultural production. This is set against a picture of water scarcity and increasing energy prices. Yet we also know that the food we produce today would be sufficient to feed that growing population, if we didn’t waste between 30 and 50% of it, as estimated by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. So the challenge to governments and business is to find new and innovative ways to prevent this loss of perfectly good food at every stage of the production and supply chain. And the implications for us as consumers is that we will perhaps have to have different expectations about the food we can buy and eat. With an estimated 1.1m tones of food waste going to AD plants, you may feel a warm glow when disposing of ‘waste’ in your home caddy. In fact, perhaps now is the time to think harder about whether it really needed to go in the bin at all. Mark Linehan is managing director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association; for more information about their work visit their website here. Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here. The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. | ['lifeandstyle/live-better', 'lifeandstyle/series/live-better-food-waste-issues-series', 'environment/environment', 'environment/food', 'environment/waste', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'food/food', 'type/article'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-03-14T12:18:54Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
science/2017/dec/04/us-military-agency-invests-100m-in-genetic-extinction-technologies | US military agency invests $100m in genetic extinction technologies | A US military agency is investing $100m in genetic extinction technologies that could wipe out malarial mosquitoes, invasive rodents or other species, emails released under freedom of information rules show. The documents suggest that the US’s secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has become the world’s largest funder of “gene drive” research and will raise tensions ahead of a UN expert committee meeting in Montreal beginning on Tuesday. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is debating whether to impose a moratorium on the gene research next year and several southern countries fear a possible military application. UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the “bad name” of gene drives in some circles. “Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from Darpa, a US military science agency,” one said. The use of genetic extinction technologies in bioweapons is the stuff of nightmares, but known research is focused entirely on pest control and eradication. Cutting-edge gene editing tools such as Crispr-Cas9 work by using a synthetic ribonucleic acid (RNA) to cut into DNA strands and then insert, alter or remove targeted traits. These might, for example, distort the sex-ratio of mosquitoes to effectively wipe out malarial populations. Some UN experts, though, worry about unintended consequences. One told the Guardian: “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them.” “My main worry,” he added, “is that we do something irreversible to the environment, despite our good intentions, before we fully appreciate the way that this technology will work.” Jim Thomas, a co-director of the ETC group which obtained the emails, said the US military influence they revealed would strengthen the case for a ban. “The dual use nature of altering and eradicating entire populations is as much a threat to peace and food security as it is a threat to ecosystems,” he said. “Militarisation of gene drive funding may even contravene the Enmod convention against hostile uses of environmental modification technologies.” Todd Kuiken, who has worked with the GBIRd programme, which receives $6.4m from Darpa, said that the US military’s centrality to gene tech funding meant that “researchers who depend on grants for their research may reorient their projects to fit the narrow aims of these military agencies”. Between 2008 and 2014, the US government spent about $820m on synthetic biology. Since 2012, most of this has come from Darpa and other military agencies, Kuiken says. In an email reporting a US military-organised conference in June, a US government biologist noted that Darpa’s biotechnology program manager Renee Wegrzynhad said “the safe genes projects account [was] for $65m, but then mentioned with all other support in the room, it was $100m”. A Darpa spokesman said that the figure was “a liberal, notional estimate” that included researchers at the meeting funded by Darpa under related efforts. “Darpa is not and should not be the only funder of gene-editing research but it is critical for the Department of Defense to defend its personnel and preserve military readiness,” he said. Darpa believes that a steep fall in the costs of gene-editing toolkits has created a greater opportunity for hostile or rogue actors to experiment with the technology. “This convergence of low cost and high availability means that applications for gene editing – both positive and negative – could arise from people or states operating outside of the traditional scientific community and international norms,” the official said. “It is incumbent on Darpa to perform this research and develop technologies that can protect against accidental and intentional misuse.” Gene-drive research has been pioneered by an Imperial College London professor, Andrea Crisanti, who confirmed he has been hired by Darpa on a $2.5m contract to identify and disable such drives. Fears that the research could be channeled towards bioweapons were “all fantasy”, he said. “There is no way this technology could be used for any military purpose. The general interest is in developing systems to contain the undesired effects of gene drives. We have never been asked to consider any application not for the good of eliminating plagues.” Interest in the technology among US army bureaus has shot up since a secret report by the elite Jason group of military scientists last year “received considerable attention among various agencies of the US government”, according to an email by Gerald Joyce, who co-chaired a Jason study group in June. A second Jason report was commissioned in 2017 assessing “potential threats this technology might pose in the hands of an adversary, technical obstacles that must be overcome to develop gene drive technology and employ it ‘in the wild’,” Joyce wrote. The paper would not be publicly disclosed but “widely circulated within the US intelligence and broader national security community”, his email said. | ['science/genetics', 'science/medical-research', 'science/science', 'science/biology', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-12-04T11:10:13Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2007/aug/27/threateningtheamazon | Threatening the Amazon | Greenpeace Brazil has called for an investigation into the activities of politicians and ranchers in the western province of Mato Grosso who effectively kidnapped a delegation of journalists, environmentalists and representatives of a group of indigenous people last week. The delegation had travelled to the town of Juína to film the extent of deforestation in the area and to also gain more information about the plight of a group of indigenous people, the Enawene Nawe, who have been resisting invasions of their land for the last few decades. This has led to growing tensions in an area called Rio Preto, which is of particular importance to the tribe and where the invasions are fast destroying the forest and polluting the land and rivers. Greenpeace and Survival International have been campaigning for Rio Preto to be recognised as Enawene Nawe land and placed under official protection. They are also supporting a local non-government organisation, OPAN (Operação Amazônia Nativa) and representatives of this group accompanied the delegation to Juina. According to Greenpeace, shortly after their arrival in the town they were confronted by a hostile mob, which included the Mayor and other local political leaders, ranchers and businessmen. One of the indigenous leaders was told that he would be killed and dragged around the town by a truck to serve as an example. The group were prevented from leaving their hotel by the police and then summoned to an extraordinary meeting of the local town council, the next day, which demanded to know the purpose of their visit. The session lasted six hours during which the group were repeatedly told that it would be 'too dangerous' for them to carry out their visit. The meeting was also attended by many of the same ranchers who had previously surrounded their hotel. As a compromise the group agreed not to carry out the original mission and instead met with a local representatives of the Enawene Nawe nearby. They were taken under police escort to the meeting and followed by lorry loads of ranchers who continued to threaten them during the journey. The meeting took place under armed guard and they were then driven to the airport where they were advised to take-off immediately before their plane was set on fire. Paulo Adário, the coordinator of Greenpeace's Amazonia campaign, who led the mission subsequently complained that 'We heard from the Mayor and all of the others that the Constitution does not exist in Juína, there is no right to go and see, no freedom of the press. It is completely unacceptable that ranchers, with the support of the local authorities, can violate our freedom of movement and freedom of expression in this way.' Unfortunately such threats are both very real and very common in Brazil today. Over the past 30 years, 1,237 rural workers, union leaders and activist have been killed in Brazilian land disputes and only a tiny handful people have ever been convicted as a result. The national government has made increasing efforts to tackle the problem and the recent conviction of a rancher who masterminded the murder of the American nun, Sister Dorothy Stang, was rightly hailed as a breakthrough. The environmental activist Chico Mendes, who was murdered in similar circumstances in 1988 is now regarded as a national hero. He was a member of President Lula's Brazilian Workers Party (PT) and protection of the environment is one of the most sensitive issues in Brazilian politics. However, declarations of political intent at the national level are frequently frustrated by the corrupt, and often semi-feudal, local political structures in some of Brazil's states. It is for this reason that external pressure is so important and Survival International are asking people to support a letter writing campaign calling on the Brazilian Government to designate Rio Preto as indigenous land and place it under official protection. If you click on this link it will take you to their website where you can obtain more information about the Enawene Nawe and do something positive to show your support. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'world/brazil', 'environment/environment', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/conorfoley'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2007-08-27T14:00:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
media/greenslade/2015/nov/18/why-the-paris-attacks-got-larger-uk-coverage-than-similar-tragedies | Why the Paris attacks got larger UK coverage than other tragedies | Plenty of people have been asking why a massacre in France should get greater media coverage in Britain than massacres in the Lebanon, Iraq and Kenya. They have pointed to the fact that last Thursday, 44 people died in suicide bombings in Beirut. In August, 67 people were killed by a truck bomb in Sadr City in north-eastern Iraq. In April, 147 people, most of them students, were shot dead at Garissa University in north-eastern Kenya. All of these horrific incidents were reported by the British media. But they didn’t get much more than a newspaper headline and a couple of minutes on TV and radio bulletins. Although the downing of the Russian plane in Sinai, in which 224 people perished, got a reasonable show in papers and on TV, neither it nor the other tragedies received the wall-to-wall coverage granted to the Paris attacks. So why was that? Here’s what I wrote in my London Evening Standard column. One obvious reason is proximity. France is close to home. It is not only our closest continental neighbour but we are also linked through our membership of the European Union. Long ago, our former enemy from across the Channel became our ally and despite not sharing a common language, we do share a political and social culture born in the age of enlightenment. It is also undeniable, if somewhat unpalatable to many sensitive people, that mass deaths in faraway places, whether due to terrorism or natural disaster, rarely engender big UK media interest. There are odd exceptions, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. But its effect was unprecedented, with more than 300,000 deaths, including - it should ne noted - several British victims. Some large-scale earthquakes do grab attention, including those in Chile and Haiti in 2010 and Japan in 2011. But the cliché cannot be denied: all news is local. And it is audience interest (or lack of interest) that dictates decisions made by editors. In pre-internet days, it could be argued that journalists made their calls based on hunches about their readers’ and viewers’ appetites. Now, with the availability of web metrics, it is possible for them to gauge exactly the level of audience engagement with any given story. It is true that media coverage helps to stimulate interest, but only up to a point. People will not click on to a story unless they really want to - a point made by Folker Hanusch in a piece for The Conversation, following newsroom research in Australia. Nor should we overlook the truth, which some find distressing and unacceptable, that we tend to identify more closely with “people like us” - people who share our western culture. And, I am sure, that facet of human nature holds fast elsewhere in the world. People in other cultures are also more interested in what happens to those who are closest to them. I recall that many commentators pointed to what they regarded as disproportionate coverage, in both the United States and Britain, of the 71 Americans who died during hurricane Sandy in 2012. The 162 who died elsewhere, in seven other countries, were overlooked. There were two other aspects to the French carnage that we shouldn’t overlook. First, there was the indiscriminate nature of the murders in places where people congregate for leisure. On everyone’s lips surely was the thought that it could have been me. Second, Britain has had its share of outrages perpetrated by Islamic extemists. That would have stimulated another thought - it could happen here. In a sense, the French victims, as distinct from those in the atrocities in the Lebanon, Iraq and Kenya, were “our” victims. | ['media/greenslade', 'media/media', 'world/paris-attacks', 'media/newspapers', 'media/national-newspapers', 'world/france', 'world/lebanon', 'world/iraq', 'world/kenya', 'world/egypt', 'media/london-evening-standard', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/earthquakes', 'us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'world/eu', 'world/world', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'tone/comment', 'profile/roygreenslade'] | us-news/hurricane-sandy | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-11-18T23:09:41Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2014/feb/01/arctic-city-new-route-china | Russian Arctic city hopes to cash in as melting ice opens new sea route to China | The city of Nadym, in the extreme north of Siberia, is one of the Earth's least hospitable places, shrouded in darkness for half of the year, with temperatures plunging below -30C and the nearby Kara Sea semi-permanently frozen. But things are looking up for this Arctic conurbation halfway between Europe and China. Over the next 30 years climate change is likely to open up a polar shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, cutting travel time to Asia by 40% and allowing Russia's vast oil and gas resources to be exported to China, Japan and south Asia much faster. Nadym stands to benefit from a warmer climate more than any other Arctic city – the Russian government plans to connect it by road and rail to other oil and gas centres; Gazprom, the world's largest gas company, is building a port nearby with French oil major Total; and if the new northern sea route is open for even six months of the year, Nadym will find itself on the 21st-century equivalent of the ancient silk route. "The entire centre of gravity of the world economy is shifting to Nadym," said the mayor, Stanislav Shegurov, a former gas worker, at a recent meeting of Arctic leaders in Norway. Expectations are high that the route will complement the Suez canal as a key waterway for trade to and from Asia. "The Arctic is our home and our future. We will make full use of the northern sea route. We are building infrastructure, we are making history. We have ambitious plans," said Anton Vasiliev, Russian ambassador for the Arctic. Only 71 large ships, working mostly with Russian icebreakers, navigated the route in 2013, but Russia expects a 30-fold increase in shipping by 2020 and ice-free water over most of its length by 2050. The summer ice has declined by nearly 50% in 40 years and by 2050, say Laurence Smith and Scott Stephenson of the University of California, ordinary vessels should be able to travel easily along the northern sea route and ice-strengthened ships should be able to pass over the pole itself. Confidence that the Arctic will become economically important is seen in the rush of countries and companies to claim a stake. Eleven countries, including Poland and Singapore, have appointed Arctic ambassadors to promote their national interests. Gazprom last week launched in South Korea the first of four giant "ice-class" natural gas carriers for the sea route. The Russian government plans to spend more than $3bn reopening a military base on the Novosibirsk Islands and is building new icebreakers and navigational centres. Oil giant Rosneft and ExxonMobile will start drilling for oil in the Kara Sea this year. Norway and the other Nordic countries have all made Arctic development a priority. "The Arctic is changing rapidly. It will be our most important foreign policy area. Climate change is putting Norway under pressure," said its prime minister, Erna Solberg. Finland, which has no access to the northern sea route, has proposed a railway linking its mines to the Russian coast. "Finland needs a new Nokia. The Arctic could be it," said its Arctic affairs ambassador, Hannu Halinen. American, Canadian, Japanese, South Korean and British companies all intend to use the sea route to mine across the region, but no country hopes to gain more than China, according to Wang Chuanxing, polar researcher at Tongji University, Shanghai. "China's economy is 50% dependent on trade. The development of the northern sea route would have a major impact on its economy. One-third of China's trade is with the EU and the US. The opening of the northern sea route is vital for China," he said. Japan also hopes to benefit. "Ten per cent of the world's unexploited crude oil and 20% of its natural gas is said to be in the Arctic. Recent changes because of climate change are attracting people in Japan. We want to actively participate. We are researching the Arctic sea route," said Toshio Kunikata, the Japanese ambassador in charge of Arctic affairs. "A great chess game is being played with countries staking claims to the Arctic to make sure they are not left out. Climate change is taking place at twice the global average speed in the Arctic. Some countries, like China, are looking 50 years ahead," said Malte Humpert, director of the Washington-based thinktank the Arctic Institute. "The polar research institute of China said that Arctic shipping would play a major role in the country's future trade, and suggested that, by the year 2020, 5%-15% of China's trade value – about $500bn – could pass through the Arctic. But that may be too hasty. We think the route will mostly benefit China's trade with Europe, but this is not likely to be because its priority is to build closer ties with Latin America and Africa. "We think future shipping in the polar region will mostly consist of seasonal activity and transporting the region's natural resources to markets in east Asia. Climate change will transform the frozen north into a seasonally navigable ocean, but Arctic shipping routes will not become a new silk road for China." says Humpert. Norwegian shippers are cautious, too. "Sailing trans-arctic from Yokohama to Hamburg would shave 40% off the distance compared to the Suez Canal. Yet our own predictions have been modest. In 2013 there were 71 commercial transits through the polar sea, compared with 18,000 and 14,000 through the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal," said Sturla Henriksen, head of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association. "In 30 years, more than two-thirds of the volume of Arctic summer ice has disappeared. Our children will be the first generation in modern history to experience an entirely new ocean opening up. The Arctic has now become a true strategic hot spot at the centre of global interest. The high north embodies high stakes. A paradigm shift in international politics is taking place," said Henriksen. | ['world/arctic', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/russia', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-01T12:24:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/2016/jan/01/after-storm-frank-scotland-rallies-to-fix-itself-amid-the-chaos | After Storm Frank, Scotland rallies to fix itself amid the chaos | The red roller doors of Ballater fire station are splayed apart like a broken umbrella, the metal buckled by tonnes of flood water from the river Dee. On New Year’s Day, members of the stricken community on Royal Deeside appeared dazed at the scale of the devastation wrought by Storm Frank, swapping stories of personal losses on street corners, amid fears that some residents may be unable to return to their waterlogged homes for up to a year. The volunteer-led clean-up operation in Scotland’s worst-affected areas of Dumfries and Aberdeenshire began early on New Year’s morning, as the Met Office upgraded weather warnings for north-east and central Scotland to amber over the weekend. Early on Friday morning, police confirmed that a man had died as a result of the heavy flooding after he fell from a canoe into a rapid-flowing river bringing the storm’s death toll to two. The 36-year-old fell into the river Garry in the Highlands on Thursday afternoon and was swept downstream before a Royal Navy helicopter was able to airlift him to Raigmore hospital in Inverness, where he died. Meanwhile, 14 flood warnings and more than 60 flood alerts remain in place across England and Wales, with embattled regions continuing to face high river levels, particularly the Severn in parts of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire and the Ouse near York. The Environment Agency warned that there was potential for localised flooding in Devon and Cornwall for the next three days, and in south Wales on Sunday. The agency’s teams remain in affected areas to help to pump away flood water, repair damaged defences and clear river blockages. With Scotland still reeling from the battering it received during Wednesday’s storms, steady and persistent rainfall was forecast to begin on Friday night and last for another three days, with Tayside, Angus and Aberdeenshire – where the ground is already saturated – at risk of further flooding. The Met Office warned of gale or severe gale-force south-easterly winds, which are likely to result in stormy seas and high waves along the east coast and in the Northern Isles. In Ballater, the parish minister, the Rev David Barr, spent “Ne’er’s Day” organising door-to-door visits by volunteers to find out what help was needed. He said: “I chanced my arm and went into the bar and said, ‘Listen boys I need volunteers’. I never got my sentence finished – there was about 30 folk came out and just started clearing it away.” On Hogmanay, Barr said that emotions ran high as evacuees shared a drink at the Victoria barracks, usually home to royal protection officers for nearby Balmoral, the Queen’s Highland residence, but now a makeshift rest centre and kitchen. “It’s trying to get that normality in this mist of chaos that they’ve got,” he said. “I got a bit emotional when I went down to the no-go area. It’s the personal things – the things that have been swept away as 6ft waves rolled down the street.” Around Ballater, motorcycle clubs have joined the volunteering effort. A convoy carrying fresh food headed west on Thursday after being given clearance to drive through the Balmoral estate to reach communities cut off by road closures. Neil Henderson, owner of the Glenaden hotel and Barrel Lounge was on the bar serving pints, New Year drams and bowls of hot soup. Two days earlier, he had 10 tonnes of flood water pumped out of his cellar. He said: “The amount of water that came through here was phenomenal. I’ve lived in the village for 50 years and I’ve never seen anything like it. This is a tiny little place that thrives on community spirit. It’s unbelievable how people have just mucked in.” Further south, volunteers worked alongside council and emergency service staff in the chilly but bright morning weather. In Dumfries, the recovery work focused on the Whitesands area by the river Nith, where one of the country’s two severe flood warnings was issued on Wednesday evening. Teams of council workers were removing branches and other debris from the riverbank, while volunteers helped clear thick mud from a row of business premises. When the Nith overflowed on Wednesday, flood waters rose several feet into shops and cafes along the riverside. Kaseem Saleem said he had planned to open his newly renovated coffee shop three days ago but delayed it because of the floods. On Friday, he was stripping out £2,000 worth of new flooring that had been ruined. “It’s sad, but I’m happy at the same time because people have been so good and helpful,” he said. “It would have taken me weeks to clear this all on my own. My spirits have really been lifted.” As flood responders across the country prepare to deal with the impact of the amber warning, the Scottish government’s environment minister, Aileen McLeod, thanked them, saying: “Local councils, emergency services and other responders have been working tirelessly over this festive period to minimise the impact on communities, ensure the safety of people and help local areas recover.” McLeod visited Newton Stewart, in Dumfries and Galloway, on Thursday, with the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. Residents were the first in Scotland to be evacuated after the river Cree burst its banks on Wednesday morning. She insisted that the situation was being “closely monitored 24/7” by the Scottish government, and encouraged members of the public to monitor Sepa’s Floodline website for the latest flood information. | ['uk-news/storm-frank', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'uk/weather', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/libbybrooks', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-01-01T18:46:58Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2015/jun/29/weatherwatch-memoir-drowned-city | Memoir from a drowned city | In June 1427, the Seine started to rise. “This was not surprising, for it never left off raining from the middle of April until the Monday after Pentecost, which was the 9th of June,” says the unknown author of Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, translated in 1968 by Janet Shirley as A Parisian Journal 1405-1449 (Oxford). The water covered the island of Notre Dame, to such a height people could have sailed along in their boats. “All the houses had their low-lying storerooms and ground floors flooded; in some storerooms the water was deeper than two men’s height – a great pity, for the wines were on top of the water. “In some places where there were stables three or four steps down, the water rose so much that the horses, which were tied fast inside, could not all be rescued but were drowned, some of them, because the water rose within two hours, there and in other places, by more than a man’s height,” the memoirist reports. “In short, the Seine rose almost two feet higher than it had done the year before, and wherever it spread to, as for instance over the corn and oats in the Marais, it utterly spoiled and withered everything.” To make things worse, tax was mercilessly collected. The fruit crop, however, was excellent. “Almonds especially were so heavy on the trees they broke the branches. It was the finest August anyone could remember, though there had been such dreadful cold and rain earlier on. But God can work in a moment, as this year shows, for the corn was plentiful and good.” | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'profile/timradford', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-06-29T20:30:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2024/oct/08/go-ahead-transport-group-orders-1200-green-buses-from-wrightbus | Go-Ahead transport group orders 1,200 ‘green buses’ from Wrightbus | Transport group Go-Ahead has announced a £500m investment in up to 1,200 UK-built electric buses from Northern Ireland-based Wrightbus. The order is expected to support about 500 manufacturing jobs and create a new line at Wrightbus, based in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. The zero-emissions buses are expected to be deployed in Go-Ahead’s operations around the UK over the next three years, including in London, Plymouth, Gloucestershire, East Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight. The Department for Transport said the investment would also support an extra 2,000 jobs across the wider UK supply chain by 2026. The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, was due to meet Wrightbus executives and other industry leaders on Tuesday, with plans to create a new UK bus manufacturing expert panel to discuss how councils can step up services while reducing carbon emissions. Haigh said: “The No 1 mission of this government is growing the economy. The £500m Go-Ahead is announcing today shows the confidence industry has in investing in the UK. “This announcement will see communities across the country benefit from brand new, state-of-the-art green buses – which will deliver cleaner air and better journeys. We’re creating the right conditions for businesses to flourish, so we can support jobs and accelerate towards decarbonising the transport sector.” Matt Carney, the chief executive of Go-Ahead Bus, said: “This multimillion-pound investment and partnership with Wrightbus will accelerate the transition to a zero-emission fleet across the UK. “We are proud to be working in partnership with the UK government and local authorities to deliver transformational environmental change for communities, while supporting UK jobs and the growth of the country’s supply chain.” Labour has pledged to prioritise better bus services with a buses bill coming to parliament. The government will extend franchising powers, now being used in Greater Manchester’s Bee Network, to any local transport authority that wishes to bring bus services under local control. Wrightbus – the maker of the revived London Routemaster – went into administration in 2019 leading to 1,200 redundancies. It was later rescued by Bamford Bus Company owned by Jo Bamford, son of Lord Bamford, the Tory donor and chair of the British digger manufacturer JCB. | ['business/goaheadgroup', 'politics/transport', 'uk/transport', 'environment/electric-cars', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk/northernireland', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'business/business', 'politics/politics', 'cities/city-transport', 'business/manufacturing-sector', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gwyntopham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2024-10-08T12:34:07Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2019/nov/08/greta-thunberg-mural-san-francisco | Giant Greta Thunberg mural to watch over San Francisco's downtown | San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its eco-consciousness, will soon have a giant likeness of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg gazing upon its downtown, reminding residents to respect the planet. The Argentinian muralist Andres Iglesias, who signs his art with the pseudonym Cobre, is expected to complete the project in the central Union Square neighborhood by next week, SFGate reported. Cobre also painted a revered mural of the comedian Robin Williams that has since been demolished. “Climate change is real,” Cobre told SFGate. “This girl Greta is awesome and she knows what she’s doing. I hope with this mural people will realize we have to take care of the world.” The environmental not-for-profit group One Atmosphere reportedly reached out to Cobre after the mural of Williams was slated to come down and just as Cobre was searching for a building for his next project. The organization is said to be supplying all the paint for the project. It’s not the first time Thunberg has been immortalized in street art. Earlier this year, the UK-based aerosol artist Jody Thomas painted a 50ft portrait of the teenager on the face of the historic Tobacco Factory in Bristol. “She’s very much in the limelight, very current, very contemporary and she’s obviously clearly leading a very, very important issue which affects all of us on the planet,” Thomas told the Huffington Post. At 16, Thunberg has already reached the exalted status of Nobel peace prize nominee, leader of a movement to reclaim the planet for future generations, focus of Donald Trump’s mockery, and hero among progressives and young people. In September, Thunberg became the face of a vast, coordinated strike to protest against government inaction on the climate crisis. Demonstrations spanned an estimated 185 countries in one of the largest environmental protests in history. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” Thunberg said, addressing the United Nations Climate Action Summit. “My message is that we’ll be watching you,” she said. | ['environment/greta-thunberg', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/san-francisco', 'artanddesign/art', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/mario-koran', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-11-09T02:41:58Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2009/mar/27/put-people-first-march | Jesse Griffiths: Thousands will march through London calling for a fairer world today | The financial crisis has exposed the mess created by blind faith in the virtues of markets and lack of public control, regulation and accountability of finance. Few would disagree that our broken financial system needs a radical overhaul. In fact, our whole economic system is in need of fundamental change. It is time to recognise that existing policies and institutions have failed: they have created an economic system scarred by enormous levels of poverty and inequality. Unemployment is rising rapidly in the UK. The World Bank estimates that 53 million more will join the billion already scraping a living on less than one dollar a day across the globe. Our economy is driving us towards environmental catastrophe, with drastic cuts in greenhouse gases urgently needed to avert climate chaos. This is why thousands will march through central London this Saturday under the banner of "Put People First" – an unprecedented alliance of more than 160 unions, development, faith and environment groups. The marchers recognise that rebuilding our economy is a task that must engage us all: we can afford no more to leave power in the hands of unelected and unaccountable institutions. Their message to the world leaders who will meet in London on 2 April will be clear: there can be no return to business as usual. Fundamental change is needed. Finance must become the servant of the real economy, not its master. All financial institutions must be properly regulated and held publicly accountable, and rogue tax havens that undermine international efforts to control finance compelled to adhere to strict international rules. In the short term, all countries must get the emergency funding they need, without damaging conditions attached. This is not only a matter of justice for the poorest countries who had nothing to do with creating the crisis; it is in our own self-interest that they restart their economies and rebuild them in a sustainable way. Already we have seen alarming signals that the body tasked with this job – the IMF – is pursuing the same failed policies of the past, with countries asked to raise interest rates and cut public spending in order to receive emergency cash. The massive investments governments will be making through "stimulus packages" also present an unmissable opportunity to invest in a "Green New Deal" to create a low-carbon economy and thousands of new green jobs at the same time. Later in the year, in Copenhagen, governments will have the chance to agree the binding emissions cuts needed to prevent disastrous climate change. The institutions that govern the global economy, including the IMF and the World Bank, must be made fit for purpose in the 21st century. Crucial to this will be ensuring that they are subject to the same democratic standards of accountability, transparency and representation we expect at home. The situation where tiny Belgium has more IMF votes than India cannot be allowed to continue. A transparent and accountable process to reform the international financial system and the institutions that govern it is needed, with the consultation of all governments and civil society. In March, Put People First launched an integrated package of proposals to help chart a path out of recession. The organisations backing these proposals represent millions across Britain who believe that the overlapping crises of massive private debt, banking meltdown, rising poverty and unemployment and looming climate chaos require new, bold thinking and action. It is time to reassert democratic control over our economy. Only through fundamental change will we really be able to put people first and make sure the world emerges from recession a fairer and greener place. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'world/protest', 'world/g20', 'politics/gordon-brown', 'business/financial-crisis', 'business/recession', 'business/globalrecession', 'business/global-economy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'uk/london', 'environment/activism', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/jesse-griffiths'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2009-03-28T09:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2001/jul/24/whaling.internationalnews | Iceland held at bay in whaling policy vote | Iceland, determined to resume commercial whaling, was yesterday refused permission to rejoin the International Whaling Commission as a full member and denied voting rights at the organisation's annual meeting in London. The row over Reykjavik's application to rejoin almost split the international body in half and highlighted growing pressure to end the worldwide moratorium on killing whales. Allegations that Japan is buying pro-whaling votes from smaller nations, particularly in the Caribbean, further embittered the conference in Hammersmith, west London. Iceland resigned from the IWC in 1992 in protest at it becoming a "non-whaling commission". It has not, however, restarted catches. Reykjavic now wishes to rejoin and immediately adopt a position, like Norway, where it enters a reservation to the moratorium - in effect, committing it to conduct limited commercial whaling. Despite the ruling by the Swedish chairman, Bo Fernholm, that Iceland would only be given observer status, its delegation said it would not recognise the decision. "We have paid our dues," said Stefan Asmundsson, Iceland's commissioner for whaling. "We would like the same status as Norway. In the long run we want to resume whaling in a sustainable way." The vote to deny Iceland voting rights was narrowly upheld by 18 to 16. Japan, Norway and a number of Caribbean states vigorously supported Iceland's applica tion. Russia, which is behind in its membership payments, was refused voting rights. Away from the conference floor, the dispute over Japan's attempts to encourage poorer countries to join the IWC and vote to end the moratorium intensified. Earlier this month, Masayuki Komatsu, international director of Japan's fisheries agency, went on Australian radio and declared that there was "nothing wrong" with using development aid to buy votes at the IWC. That admission appeared to confirm claims that Japan has been pumping tens of millions of dollars in aid into countries such as Dominica, Antigua, and the Solomon Islands. Animal rights organisations fear that recent decisions by Guinea, Panama and Morocco to join the IWC are intended to build up a pro-whaling lobby. Atherton Martin, environment minister in Dominica until he resigned last year in protest at his country's support for whaling, said yesterday: "There's a tendency by Japan to exploit a desperate situation in the Caribbean by purchasing support for voting at the IWC." Mr Martin is now on the board of the anti-whaling International Fund for Animal Welfare. He said whale-watching tourism was now bringing far more money into his island's economy. Despite Mr Komatsu's comments, Japan denies vote buying. But the British government does not believe Japan's denials. "It is deplorable that a big country should use its economic influence to buy votes from smaller nations," said Elliot Morley, minister leading the UK delegation. The vote, anticipated later this week, on lifting the moratorium, agreed in 1986, was "looking very tight," he warned. The UK supports the moratorium. At present, Japan kills 600 whales, mainly minke, a year. Norway catches a similar number. Nearly 370 other whales are killed yearly under a clause allowing indigenous groups in Greenland, the US, Russia and St Vincent to pursue traditional hunting rights. Useful links Japan whaling association Norwegian fisheries ministry Iceland government whaling information Whale and dolphin conservation society International Whaling Commission Greenpeace whales site | ['environment/whaling', 'world/world', 'environment/whales', 'environment/cetaceans', 'type/article', 'profile/owenbowcott'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2001-07-24T01:32:18Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2024/dec/10/not-a-drop-of-common-sense-on-bottled-water | Not a drop of common sense on bottled water | Brief letters | You report (9 December) that Harrogate Spring Water – owned by the multinational Danone, the world’s second-largest producer of bottled water – is planning to cut down a wood planted by schoolchildren in order to expand its bottling factory. Net result: more plastic bottles, fewer mature trees to extract carbon from the atmosphere. Bottled water is unnecessary when tap water is available. Environmental crisis, what environmental crisis? Julia Wood Duns, Berwickshire • How sad – but how telling – that one of the first uses thought up for Google’s new quantum computing chip should be “the creation of new drugs” (Report, 9 December), rather than, say, how to abolish poverty and homelessness. Pete Lavender Nottingham • Re your article (‘Busybody’ fines up 42% in 2023 in England and Wales, report shows, 6 December), while some of the reasons cited for these fines are unreasonable, I’d be delighted if more councils penalised people who litter, spit and leave dog mess. I’d actually encourage my council to report on “busybody” fine statistics publicly as evidence of their effectiveness. Naomi Bowler Bristol • It seems that Justin Welby, in his self-pitying farewell in the Lords, forgot that it is not the shepherd of the flock who is meant to do the bleating (Report, 6 December). Tom Stubbs Surbiton, London • Re Justin Welby’s farewell speech in the House of Lords, why is it that so many Old Etonians seem unable to read the room? Nigel Gann Lichfield, Staffordshire • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'technology/google', 'society/localgovernment', 'uk/justin-welby', 'politics/lords', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'business/fooddrinks', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-12-10T17:45:51Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/jan/04/james-dyson-eu-common-agricultural-policy-subsidies | James Dyson: our £120m farm investment dwarfs the CAP payments we’ve had | Letter | Your article (‘We’re only seeing the negative’: UK farmers on Brexit and losing the common agricultural policy, 29 December) fails to point out that the common agricultural policy (CAP) payments received by Dyson Farming are dwarfed by the investment that my family and I have ploughed into British agriculture. I have never supported the basis of CAP and view Brexit as an opportunity for Britain to replace those ill-conceived subsidies, devised in Brussels, with a regime which supports Britain’s priorities. Food security – like energy security – is vital to any country’s interests. My family and I are farmers, not landowners. We have invested £120m, in addition to the cost of land, bringing long-term capital, technology and employment into British farming. Dyson Farming produced 70,000 tonnes of cereals and 16,000 tonnes of potatoes in 2022, plus out-of-season strawberries which avoid the food miles associated with imported alternatives. Our anaerobic digesters generate electricity for 10,000 homes, and the farms sequester more carbon than they emit. British farmers need to be able to compete on a level playing field with those in Europe and further afield. Brexit provides the freedom to devise a subsidy regime which replaces the EU’s flawed CAP payments, and the government must now grasp that opportunity. Sir James Dyson Malmesbury, Wiltshire | ['environment/farming', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'technology/james-dyson', 'politics/politics', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'world/eu', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-01-04T18:37:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/jan/30/the-environment-agency-plays-a-robust-role-in-combating-pollution | The Environment Agency plays a robust role in combating pollution | Letters | The Environment Agency has not moved away from its frontline monitoring and enforcement role (‘It is desperate’: how Environment Agency staff were silenced as pollution worsened, 29 January). We monitor the state of our rivers ourselves, and now also require water companies to do the same and make the results public. We monitor the country’s coastal bathing waters, which, thanks to the EA’s robust regulatory work, are in the best state ever: in 2021, 99% of them met at least the minimum standards, the highest result since we introduced tighter standards in 2015. We take robust enforcement action against those who break the law, as Southern Water found out last year when it received a record £90m fine in a prosecution we brought. And we respond to hundreds of environmental incidents every year. Last year, more than 76,000 were reported to us, including flood, drought, fires, fish kills and pollution incidents. The reality is that every day our fantastic staff create better places for people and wildlife. Last year we enhanced water quality in over 4,500km of our rivers by tackling pollution, unsustainable abstraction and invasive species; improved the nation’s air quality by regulating down emissions; cut the number of illegal waste sites; and completed our latest flood defence building programme, better protecting over 300,000 homes. Like the rest of the public sector, we operate within a tight budget and must prioritise what we do. But we will always do the best we can with the money we have for the people and places we serve. Emma Howard Boyd Chair, Environment Agency • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['environment/environment-agency', 'environment/environment', 'environment/rivers', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/water', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-01-30T18:27:59Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/2015/dec/23/2016-predictions-csr-cop21-donald-trump-isis-vw-dieselgate-climate-change | 2016: the year consumers stop caring about sustainability - and business starts | When it comes to sustainability, 2016 will be a year of distraction, fear and disruption. Around the world, a host of economic and political threats – including the refugee crisis, terrorism and teetering markets in Europe and China – will continue to crowd headlines. In the US, the presidential election season will push fights over domestic security, guns, race and immigration to the forefront. In the midst of this noisy climate, long term environmental destruction is likely to get pushed to the back burner of global consciousness. When people feel threatened and insecure, they generally turn to shorter term thinking and deprioritize pro-social behavior. For consumers, this means corporate social responsibility (CSR) will simply not continue to drive buying decisions at the same level that it has in previous years. That’s bad news for businesses whose marketers rely on sustainability claims. We’re coming off a golden era for CSR. For the past decade, consumers have become increasingly concerned about environmental threats. This has led to a massive shift in consumer spending and the direction of investment dollars. Sustainable businesses – and those who have just claimed to be sustainable – have been able to cash in, and thousands of players have come to the market. This new, more cynical environment will test the resolve of all but the most committed sustainable businesses. If you work in a CSR department, lead a purpose-driven enterprise or are encouraging higher sustainability performance through your operations, now is a good time to ask how deeply sustainability runs in your company’s DNA. If the answer is “not very”, you might want to shore up your company’s commitments now or begin looking for another gig. Companies with weak or nascent commitments will likely put them on hold or shut them down altogether. It doesn’t help that sustainability itself took a beating in 2015. VW’s sensational Dieselgate scandal set back public trust immeasurably. Its sustainability commitments were not only widely declared, but were rigorously tested and confirmed by federal agencies. If we can’t trust claims like these – consumers and investors will reason – how can we trust any corporate sustainability commitment? And in the absence of trust, why would anyone reward sustainable behavior? Even 2015’s biggest bright spot, the Paris COP21 agreements, poses a threat to consumer concern about corporate sustainability. In an effort to generate hope and commitment, governments, journalists and NGOs declared the talks a major victory against climate change. While it is possible that the news from Paris will generate deeper public support for carbon reductions and personal responsibility, this type of progress can have unintended, negative consequences. Hearing vague pronouncements about how major progress has been made, consumers often decrease their concern and commitment, reasoning that everything will be ok regardless of what they do. This has certainly been shown to be the case with recycling. Researchers have shown that the presence of recycling receptacles actually encourages people to waste. Believing that trash will find a new life, people consider the problem solved and reduce their vigilance. With a dropoff in positive feedback, direct from the market, corporate sustainability commitments will be much harder to justify in the short term, especially if – as many have predicted – the global economy slows down. The sustainability bandwagon that’s been building for the last decade will begin to fall apart. Of course, the fundamental advantages of sustainable business operations will remain. The truly committed will continue to reap the benefits of lower resource use, higher employee engagement and health, a drive for operational excellence, and less exposure to risk as carbon becomes more expensive. As businesses that were faking it to begin with leave the scene, the space will become less crowded and more authentic. Only the leaders and innovators will be left standing. Admittedly, it won’t feel that safe to remain somewhat alone in the field, but saving the future has never been about playing it safe. 2016 may be a year dominated by Donald Trump, Isis and pessimistic pundits. But the future of business still belongs to those able to see and build for the long term. The best businesses will ride this one out and emerge stronger on the other side. | ['sustainable-business/series/values-business', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/environment', 'sustainable-business/strategy', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'business/business', 'sustainable-business/series/reflections-and-predictions-2016', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-12-23T17:30:47Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2014/jul/09/bbc-rejects-climate-sceptic-lord-lawson-global-warming | BBC rejects claim that climate sceptic Lord Lawson is being silenced | The BBC has rejected claims by the former UK chancellor, Lord Lawson, that debate on global warming has been silenced by the corporation. In an article for the Daily Mail headlined 'I've been banned by the BBC!': Ex-Chancellor Lord Lawson, a passionate climate change sceptic, accuses BBC bosses of silencing debate on global warming, the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a thinktank that is sceptical of climate science, wrote that the BBC had displayed "outrageous behaviour" towards dissenting voices on climate change. Leaked reports suggest the BBC's editorial complaints unit will rule shortly that the broadcaster broke its guidelines on due accuracy in a Today programme interview with Lawson and Prof Sir Brian Hoskins on climate change and floods in February. Last week, the BBC Trust said that nearly 200 journalists have taken part in workshops training them on not introducing "false balance" to science coverage, particularly on non-contentious issues such as man's role in climate change. In his article, Lawson wrote: "If there is to be a ban on non-scientists discussing climate change issues (which I do not, of course, support), this should in the best BBC tradition be an even-handed one. That is to say, they should also ban non-scientists such as energy secretary Ed Davey, Ed Miliband, Lord Deben (chairman of the government’s climate advisory committee), Lord Stern (former adviser to the government on the economics of climate change and development) and all the others who are regularly invited to appear." He added: "The truth is that the BBC’s outrageous behaviour is nothing whatever to do with whether I am a climate scientist or not. Indeed, it is not about me at all." He also accused the head of the BBC’s editorial complaints unit, Fraser Steel, of writing to promise a complainant that Lawson could never appear on Today programme again, and suggests the BBC apologised to the complainant for allowing Lawson on the show. Steel says this is not the case and he has the correspondence to prove it. In a statement, the BBC said: "Nigel Lawson has not been banned and nor is there a ban on non-scientists discussing climate change. We have also not apologised for putting him on air. The BBC is absolutely committed to impartial and balanced coverage, whatever the subject, and would not bow to pressure from any quarter whatever the story. This ruling found a false balance was created in that the item implied Lord Lawson’s views on climate science were on the same footing as those of Sir Brian Hoskins. "Our position continues to be that we accept that there is broad scientific agreement on climate change and we reflect this accordingly. We do however on occasion offer space to dissenting voices where appropriate as part of the BBC’s overall commitment to impartiality." | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'media/bbc', 'media/media', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2014-07-09T13:21:12Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
commentisfree/2023/mar/28/the-us-is-the-worlds-richest-country-so-why-cant-i-get-a-glass-of-clean-drinking-water | The US is the world’s richest country. So why can’t I get a glass of clean drinking water? | Arwa Mahdawi | My wife is wonderful in every way, but I realised over the weekend that she is simply not built for the apocalypse. On Sunday, I was scrolling through Twitter and having a nice cup of tea when I saw a tweet from a guy called Ya Fav Trashman about a chemical spill that might affect Philadelphia drinking water. “Equipment failure” at a Trinseo chemical facility had dumped more than 8,000 gallons (about 30,000 litres) of “latex emulsion product” into the Delaware river. You can’t just boil or filter these chemicals out of your water. I immediately spat out my Delaware River tea. (Perhaps the latex was why it was going down so smoothly?) “Yikes,” I said. “We’d better get some bottled water.” My wife volunteered to go to the nearest shop. She came back with … two bottles. A human prune, I live in a permanently dehydrated state, but my wife chugs water like her life depends on it. “That’s going to last you half an hour,” I said. “I hope this crisis only lasts half an hour.” Reader, it did not. At that moment, everyone in Philadelphia, about 1.5 million people, got an emergency phone alert. It told us that, starting an hour later, at 2pm, we should use bottled water for drinking and cooking, out of an “abundance of caution”. I grabbed a bag and ran to Rite Aid, the nearest purveyor of bottled water. It was crammed and the atmosphere was very jolly. There was still plenty of water available and nobody was buying ridiculous amounts, so there was a general feeling of: “Ha ha, we’re all going through dystopia together!” After every single bottle of water in Philadelphia had been bought and panic had escalated, the city put out an update. The gist of it was: “Whoops! Looks like you didn’t need to buy all that bottled water after all, because the tap water is fine until 11.59pm on Monday.” What might happen then? Good question. Presumably, tap-drinkers would turn into toxin-laced pumpkins. I say “presumably” because details of what these chemicals might do to your innards is still scarce. City officials have said that “people who ingest [contaminated] water will not suffer any near-term symptoms”, which begs the question about long-term issues. Meanwhile, a Trinseo executive told local media that the chemicals his firm had spilled into the drinking-water supply were no big deal. “It’s like the material you find in paint,” he said. “It’s your typical acrylic paint you have in your house; that’s what, really, this material is, in a water base.” This is not particularly reassuring, seeing as not many of us go around drinking paint. Maybe this is the sort of corporate statement you come up with when you work with toxic chemicals all day. The cherry on this dystopian cake? Not even the bottles of water that people were snapping up were guaranteed to be safe. Some Philadelphians discovered that the jugs of water they had bought because of the chemical spill were being recalled because they might be tainted by chemicals released by the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Accidents happen, of course. But there is a difference between an unavoidable accident and a series of public health disasters caused by corporate greed, deteriorating infrastructure and a lack of regulation. The US is the richest country in the world. Clean water shouldn’t be a luxury – and, yet, that is increasingly what it is becoming. The most high-profile example of dirty water in the US was in Flint, Michigan, which had lead-poisoned tap water for years. But tap water across the US is laced with disturbing amounts of “forever chemicals”: a 2021 investigation by the Guardian and Consumer Reports found that millions of people across the country are exposed to potentially toxic chemicals in their drinking water – disproportionately people in poorer regions. It is starting to look like the water in Philadelphia will probably be OK. But this episode has served as a disturbing reminder that clean drinking water may not be something we can take for granted much longer. Investors already know this, of course. In 2021, the owner of one hedge fund called water in the US “a trillion-dollar market opportunity”. Meanwhile, other investors have been snapping up rights to the Colorado River. Capitalism is going to poison us all. • Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/water', 'us-news/philadelphia', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/arwa-mahdawi', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-production'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-03-28T12:50:48Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
food/2020/jun/19/wildlife-conservation-societys-stance-on-meat-clarified | Wildlife Conservation Society’s stance on meat clarified | Letter | John Vidal’s story (‘Ban on bushmeat’ after Covid-19 but what if alternative is factory farming?, 26 May) suggests that calls by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other conservation organisations to halt the risky commercial trade of wildlife for human consumption somehow prefer a transition to intensive livestock production. That is wrong. Our concern is preventing the next wildlife disease spillover and subsequent human-to-human pandemic spread across the planet. Such spillover is much more likely to occur in urban markets that sell live or fresh wildlife sourced hundreds or thousands of miles away from where indigenous peoples and local communities need to feed their families. For two decades, WCS has helped over 200 indigenous groups exercise their rights to manage their natural resources and protect their food sovereignty. Concern for the health of indigenous peoples and local communities and their families motivated us to establish wildlife disease surveillance and public health awareness systems to detect disease outbreaks and enable governments to respond. In many rural towns, wildlife remains important to people’s diets. Other alternatives to intensive livestock production are available. For example, promoting backyard poultry production by women can provide much-needed high-quality meat and eggs. This approach makes far more sense than centralised, industrial-scale animal farming, which wreaks ecological havoc and does not contribute to rural household income, and is not something that I would ever promote. Susan Lieberman Vice president, international policy, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY | ['food/meat', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/farming', 'environment/meat-industry', 'environment/environment', 'food/food', 'environment/food', 'world/native-americans', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-06-19T10:31:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/jan/16/ban-heavy-fuel-use-in-sensitive-waters | Ban heavy fuel use in sensitive waters | Letters | The stricken tanker now sunk offshore of Shanghai should give pause to all with concern for the ocean, especially those who depend on sensitive, remote waters such as the Arctic. The tanker’s cargo of light fuel burned for a week, but response crews have voiced concerns about the heavy fuel oil or bunker fuel that powered the tanker. Heavy fuel is the dirtiest oil and highly persistent if spilled. A large heavy fuel spill into the waters of China’s largest fishery would compound the tragedy of the tanker’s missing crew. High seas, poisonous fumes, explosions, and winds have hampered rescue and response efforts this week. China’s calamity highlights efforts to prevent heavy fuel oil spills in other sensitive, but more challenging waters. International consideration is being given to phase out the use of heavy fuel oil in the Arctic where communities depend on marine life and spill response is negligible. If spilled, heavy fuel oil would remain for long periods and could spread widely if entrained in moving ice. This dangerous fuel is already banned under international rules for Antarctic waters. The Arctic deserves the same international precautions. Sue Libenson Senior Arctic program officer, Pacific Environment, Haines, Alaska • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['environment/oil-spills', 'business/oil', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'world/arctic', 'world/antarctica', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-01-16T17:15:17Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/mar/07/mp-calls-for-green-investment-bank-safeguards-before-privatisation | Ministers urge safeguards for Green Bank to retain low-carbon mandate | The head of a parliamentary committee is to demand ministers introduce tougher safeguards to ensure the Green Investment Bank continues with its low-carbon mandate following a controversial privatisation. Mary Creagh MP, who chairs the environmental audit committee (EAC), also expressed concern that the bank could in future put more effort into overseas projects than in supporting the domestic sector for which it was set up. The government has said it will retain a special share in the lending institution. It insists this will prevent new owners deviating from the core task of funding renewable energy projects that are deemed at risk by traditional lenders. But in a letter to the Guardian before the debate on the sale of the bank in the House of Commons, Creagh writes: “I welcome the secretary of state’s pledge to protect the bank’s green status with a special share, as my committee recommended, but I am concerned that without locking this in legislation it may not be secure. “I will be supporting amendments to that effect when the sale is debated in the Commons this week. If the government cannot guarantee that the Green Investment Bank will continue to invest in smart, energy-efficient, low-carbon projects, then the sale should not go ahead.” The Labour MP added that she would also be demanding that the government write in a requirement to the sale document that the senior executives continue to give details of their pay and conditions to parliament. “Too often in the past we have seen privatised companies bumping up executive bonuses and incentives on the back of better financial results produced by stripping out the head count,” she writes. Concern has been raised by the green lender admitting it has already been approached by potential buyers from the private equity, sovereign wealth and private investment bank sectors. Creagh also said she was alarmed that Shaun Kingsbury, the chief executive of the bank, had already indicated he wanted to expand into places such as Germany, the Netherlands and India. This would take the bank away from its original purpose, to accelerate a move towards a low carbon economy, she added. The bank has so far put £2.6bn of public money into British low-carbon projects, although it is involved in £200m international joint venture with the Department of Energy & Climate Change. Lord Smith of Kelvin, who chairs the bank, has argued that privatising the group would allow it to raise money from other investors and widen the scope of its investments in the UK. | ['environment/green-investment-bank', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/banking', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'politics/mary-creagh', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-03-07T00:01:48Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2022/dec/20/tortoise-albanian-border-humanity-children | Here’s a tortoise I found crossing the Albanian border. It should be that easy for all of us | Lea Ypi | This undocumented tortoise was spotted crossing the land border between Albania and Greece one early morning in August, shortly after we had emerged from a long queue to have our passports stamped. “Here,” I had been telling my children, “where you see the red flag with the eagle, is Albania. And over there,” I added, pointing at the other flag, blue with white stripes, a few hundred metres in the distance, “is Greece.” “But where are we now?”, the six-year-old asked. The tortoise was slowly trailing behind us, through what is sometimes referred to as terra nullius, a portion of territory that does not belong to any state and that usually demarcates two bordering jurisdictions. During Albania’s 45 years of communist rule, any citizen caught imitating the actions of this tortoise would have been shot. The stretch of dividing land was guarded by soldiers on both sides, while vehicles crossing the border were few and far between. Now, the landscape offers a strange mix of wildlife and civilisation, a synthesis of nature and artifice. The chirping sound of crickets is interrupted by cars braking suddenly at the respective checkpoints. Outside the marked paths, the land is barren and the vegetation unattended. We were surrounded by mountains, the same ones having different names on the different sides of the border. In modern political thought, the concept of terra nullius, ie a piece of land that does not have a legal owner, was crucial to the defence of colonialism. Territorial sovereignty was justified by invoking the need for the efficient use of land to which it was presumed that nobody had previously laid a claim. “If within a territory of a people there is any deserted or unproductive soil,” Hugo Grotius, the 17th-century Dutch founding father of international law, wrote, “it is a right of foreigners to take possession of such land.” Reflecting on the origins of private property, the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that the first person who enclosed a plot of land and said “this is mine” – and found people “simple” enough to believe this account – was the true founder of civil society. Something similar could be said for state territory. “But where is the tortoise from?,” my six-year-old asked. “Where is she going? Is she Greek or Albanian?” “Tortoises don’t have countries,” I replied. “They live in the state of nature.” The justification for political authority, including the right of states to police their borders, lies in its presumed superiority over the animal kingdom. In the state of nature, Thomas Hobbes explained, competition for scarce resources, and the war of all against all, makes even the strongest fear for their life. The state, and only the state, is capable of guaranteeing true rights-based freedom, as opposed to the anarchy of nature. I used to find this argument plausible but have become increasingly sceptical of it. A few weeks after this photo was taken, 92 migrants were rescued on the northern border between Greece and Turkey. They were all naked and many bore bodily injuries. It is not clear how they lost their clothes, but Greece blamed the Turkish authorities. The UN called for a “full investigation” and decried “such cruel and degrading treatment”. Suddenly, the rules made up by states seemed even crueller than the so-called laws of nature. Around the same time, undocumented Albanians travelling to Britain were the subject of a vicious verbal attack by the home secretary, Suella Braverman. They were labelled as invaders, even though what they had done was ultimately no different from the tortoise: crossing a border. But we have been taught to consider the mere act of movement over an artificial boundary some kind of crime because we have accepted as natural deeply unnatural political conventions. And so I have kept returning to this photo, of a tortoise who seemed so at home in a world without passports. Lea Ypi is a professor in political theory at the London School of Economics, and the author of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, published by Allen Lane 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/series/snapshot-of-2022', 'world/migration', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/greece', 'world/albania', 'world/turkey', 'politics/suella-braverman', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/cold-war', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/lea-ypi', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-12-20T07:00:41Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2011/sep/15/greenpeace-40-years-activism | Greenpeace's 40 years of activism prepare us for our greatest threat | Kumi Naidoo | Forty years ago today a small band of activists who had hired a fishing boat in Vancouver set sail for a small island off the coast of Alaska. Their aim was to halt a planned underground nuclear test by the Nixon administration, and although the attempt to prevent the explosion was thwarted by the US coastguard, something else was detonated as the crew of pacifist ecologists captured the imagination of people across the world and Greenpeace was born. Over four subsequent decades Greenpeace has deployed a mix of non-violent direct action, investigations and mobilisation to highlight environmental threats and offer imaginative and effective solutions to protect the planet. We've been on the oceans putting our bodies between harpoons and whales, our campaigns against the dumping of toxic waste at sea have seen the introduction of international laws that now prevent it, and our rainforest campaigns have slowed the mass commercial exploitation of forests across the globe. More recently we were central to the successful campaign to block a third runway at Heathrow. Our campaign against new coal-fired power stations saw six activists who climbed the smokestack at Kingsnorth in Kent acquitted in court after they convinced a jury that their attempt to block carbon emissions were justified. Soon afterwards the UK government announced an end to new unabated coal plants in Britain. But while we're happy to mark our successes on today's anniversary, this is no time to celebrate. We've done much, but sometimes it feels like the past 40 years have been a preparation for the greatest environmental challenge we humans have yet faced, the one that will define success or failure for our movement: climate change. This week scientists from several leading institutes are reporting on the state of the Arctic sea ice – that white cap at the top of the world that acts as a global air conditioner by reflecting most of the solar radiation that hits it, keeping the planet cooler than it otherwise would be. In the lifetime of Greenpeace the summer volume of that vital sheet of floating ice has fallen from around 17,000 cubic kilometres to just 4,000. If Greenpeace exists four decades from now it is likely we will be campaigning for a planet that looks radically different from space, one with open ocean surrounding the north pole in the summer months. I was in the Arctic this year. I was jailed for climbing on to an oil rig off the coast of Greenland and demanding an end to the drilling of exploratory wells by UK-based Cairn Energy, which is hoping to hit some of the billions of barrels said to lay untapped under the Arctic. It is a sign of how far we environmentalists still have to go that governments and businesses see the disappearance of the sea ice not as a grave warning to humanity, but as an opportunity to extract more of the very fuels that got us into this mess in the first place. My climb on to that rig, with 20 other men and women from around the world, forced Cairn to publish its deeply flawed plan for cleaning up an Arctic oil spill, but with Shell preparing to send its rigs to the same region next year we have on our hands one of the great environmental battles of our age. By scaling that Arctic rig I wanted to make an important point. I am an African, my hometown of Durban could not be much further from Greenland, but the warming at the top of the world is of as much relevance to the lives of my countrymen and women as it is to the people of Scandinavia. The same can be said of deforestation in the Amazon, coal-burning in India or industrial overfishing in Europe. The consequences of our exploitation of the Earth's limited resources do not respect borders. Our world is now interconnected, but our biosphere always has been. When it comes to protecting the global environment for the next generation we really are all in it together, so unless we act together in places where Greenpeace has not long existed, this battle will be lost. That means changing the way we operate, it means shifting our resources southwards so we're no longer so heavily represented in North America, where we began, and in Europe where we came of age when the French government sunk our flagship Rainbow Warrior, when our colleague Fernando Pereira drowned. Today we have expanded our campaign teams to China, Senegal and South Africa which is helping us co-ordinate our work so we can pressure the same targets across several continents at the same time. The threats we face are global, our opponents are often global corporations, the media that carries our message is changing rapidly and no longer marries up to the lines on a map. So we too need to be truly global. But ultimate success will be achieved when we are no longer necessary. I have no more idea of what we will look like in 40 years than did our founders in 1971. But I fear the fight to defend the Earth and its inhabitants against mindless exploitation will be as relevant and necessary as it is now. • Kumi Naidoo is the executive director of Greenpeace International | ['environment/series/birth-of-a-green-movement', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/kumi-naidoo'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-09-15T06:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2018/sep/05/reef-foundation-told-to-prepare-to-return-4438m-grant-if-labor-wins-next-election | Reef foundation told to prepare to return $443.8m grant if Labor wins next election | Labor has warned the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to prepare to return a $443.8m grant in the event of change of government. In a letter to the foundation’s chair, John Schubert, the opposition’s environment spokesman, Tony Burke, said a Labor government would use a clause of the grant agreement to force the return of any unspent funds if it wins the next election. Burke said Labor will use clause 25.1.1. of the agreement by changing government policy on the spending of the grant. The agreement states the department can terminate the agreement with the foundation or reduce its scope if there is “a material change in Australian government policy that is inconsistent with the continued operation of this agreement”. “The effect of this would be that in the event of a change of government, all unspent money would be expected to be returned to the commonwealth in accordance with the grant agreement, this includes sub-contracts made by the foundation,” Burke’s letter states. He advised Schubert that because an election could be called at any time the foundation should be mindful of Labor’s commitment when making decisions on how to spend the money. “It would be grossly inappropriate for the foundation to be making spending decisions which will affect future financial years, given the appropriateness of this grant will be determined by the Australian people at the election”. Schubert and fellow board members Stephen Fitzgerald and Grant King will give evidence at a public hearing on 18 September that is part of a Senate inquiry examining the controversial grant. The government has defended its process as transparent, despite awarding the funds without a tender process after the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the then environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, met with Schubert on 9 April. The Guardian revealed last month that the government was warned by the department that there was a “significant” risk that on-the-ground projects would be delayed because of the grant. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws also showed that, up until the 9 April meeting, Frydenberg’s office and the department had been discussing a smaller grant of $5m that was awarded to the foundation for a reef islands project. In his letter to Schubert, Burke says Labor had made its concerns about the probity of the grant and lack of process clear and “it would be grossly inappropriate for a large portion of a six year grant to be committed in the period before the election that will most certainly be in less than twelve months”. He said Labor would give any recovered funds to government agencies that work on the Great Barrier Reef. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/labor-party', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-09-04T18:01:35Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2020/sep/08/california-wildfires-torch-2m-acres-blazes-force-evacuations | California wildfires torch record 2m acres as new blazes force evacuations | Wildfires have burned a record 2m acres of California, with fresh conflagrations prompting dramatic rescue missions and shrouding much of the US west in smoke that has caused some of the worst air quality in the world. The area burned this year is now larger than the state of Delaware, surpassing the annual state record of 1.96m acres that went up in flames throughout 2018, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire. Two of the most fierce blazes, the Creek fire near Fresno in central California, and the Bobcat fire near Los Angeles were still out of control on Wednesday morning, several days after igniting. The Bobcat fire is estimated to be consuming 1,000 acres every 30 minutes, doubled in size on Tuesday and is burning land that has not had a wildfire in 60 years. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said on Tuesday that the state was facing an “extraordinary” challenge this wildfire season. “The word ‘historic’ is a term we use often in the state of California, but these numbers bear fruit,” he told reporters at a press conference. The scale and intensity of the fires, which have arrived before seasonal winds that typically spread flames throughout forests, have stunned firefighters hardened to huge blazes. “It’s a little unnerving because September and October are historically our worst months for fires,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire. More than 150 people trapped in remote locations were rescued by helicopter on Tuesday as one of the largest wildfires, the Creek fire, spread rapidly across more than 140,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Tweets from the California national guard showed dozens of people and several dogs disembarking in an airport in Fresno, with the national guard saying it was still attempting to rescue others. Pilots wearing night-vision goggles to find a place to land before dawn pulled 164 people from the Sierra national forest and were working to rescue 17 others on Tuesday, Newsom said. “It’s where training meets the moment, but it always takes the courage, the conviction and the grit of real people doing real work.” The latest rescue missions follow dramatic scenes over the weekend, including a group of more than 200 people, mostly campers and hikers, airlifted from a popular lake on Saturday by the national guard, which used helicopters to hoist the imperiled people to safety. About 20 people had injuries ranging from broken bones to burns. Scientists say the climate crisis is causing larger fires and an elongated fire season in the US west, by spurring extreme heat and the drying out of fire-prone vegetation. “California has always been the canary in the coalmine for climate change, and this weekend’s events only underscore that reality,” said Newsom. “I have no patience for climate change deniers,” he added. “That view is completely inconsistent with the reality on the ground, and the facts of our experiences. You may not believe it, but our own experiences tell a different story here in the state of California.” More than 14,000 firefighters are struggling to contain dozens of fires across the state, which is in the grip of a record heatwave and is forecast to experience potentially calamitous windy conditions in the coming days. The US Forest Service said 14 firefighters and bulldozer operators had been injured on Tuesday while battling the Dolan fire in Monterey county, with injuries including burns and smoke inhalation. Three were airlifted to a hospital, including one in critical condition. Newsom has declared a state of emergency, with complete evacuations ordered for several remote communities in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Forests have been shut off to the public due to a “monumental fire threat” that has caused firefighting resources to be “stretched to the limit”, the US Forest Service said. Firefighters working in steep terrain saved the tiny town of Shaver Lake from flames that raced down hillsides towards a marina. About 30 houses were destroyed in the remote hamlet of Big Creek, according to a resident, Toby Wait. “About half the private homes in town burned down,” he said. “Words cannot even begin to describe the devastation of this community.” A total of eight people have died in the fires, Cal Fire said, but more widespread health problems are likely to be triggered by the pall of smoke that has engulfed much of the west coast. Dangerously unhealthy smoke pollution has been recorded throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Doctors have warned the choking haze is dangerous to vulnerable people, such as those with respiratory problems. Fires have roared to life amid scorching temperatures, with Los Angeles county reporting its highest ever temperature, 49.4C (121F), on Sunday, just a few weeks after California’s Death Valley recorded what may be the hottest ambient temperature captured on Earth: 54.4C (129F). This heat is causing cascading crises, including its power supply. PG&E, the largest utility in the state, has shut down the electricity supply to parts of northern California to reduce the chance of igniting more wildfires. Power blackouts, caused by surging energy use, have blighted many Californians, with people in Los Angeles advised to limit their electricity consumption. Newsom said a weekend heatwave was putting extraordinary pressure on California’s utilities. Usually the state averages 38,000 daily megawatts of energy use at its peak, but over the weekend it reached more than 47,000 megawatts. Agencies contributed reporting | ['us-news/california', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural--disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'profile/kari-paul', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-09-09T12:00:56Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/sep/28/country-diary-an-island-of-wild-life-among-the-empty-pastures | Country diary: An island of wild life among the empty pastures | Paul Evans | Below the Old Oswestry hillfort, people dressed in black stand silently on the street to watch a hearse set off. Sixteen swallows do the crotchet and quaver thing on telephone wires, while three others zip through a hopeful sky. Walking clockwise up there, the earthworks are bright with hips and haws. Elderberries bear a glint of the reflected world, upside down. Each berry holds a purple stain, waiting to splat like wine-spit from a bird. Beyond the wilder circles of the fort’s embankments, and under the same clear, early autumn sky, the world is dulled. A few rooks visit the expanse of stubble fields and the pastures have an empty green, not at all like the rough, rude, rangy verdure up here. Down below, a man in a tractor is meticulously flailing all the berries from the hedges. Despite passionate and persistent local resistance, the council has caved in and will build on land adjacent to the hillfort; after all, there’s a housing crisis. Soon, much of the view from here will be full of wind turbines owned by large private companies; after all, there’s an energy crisis. I suppose the reason why the hillfort is here at all is due to security crises in the distant past, when this land was contested by rival warlords. Today, a wake of buzzards owns the sky, six strong. They soar, wheel and mew. The swallows fly up to skim across the turf before they take off to wherever they’re going. A couple of crows and a raven pass over, then back. Small white butterflies, small tortoiseshells, red admirals and bandit-striped hoverflies shimmer around the yellow snaps of hawkbit flowers. All this concentration of life around a unique history makes this place an island of enchantment in a land that continues to haemorrhage wildness in an ecological crisis. And who am I to parade my privileges up here, as if my maleness, whiteness, ableness and education entitles me to comment on a world being destroyed by me and people like me? It’s about time these privileges were spent and our diversities and divergences celebrated as kin to this wild life. • Country diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/birds', 'environment/plants', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulevans', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-09-28T04:30:17Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2020/jun/06/weatherwatch-flaming-june-a-painting-not-a-forecast | Weatherwatch: Flaming June – a painting not a forecast | The expression “Flaming June” is beloved by headline writers, implying that the month traditionally brings tropical warmth. However, the phrase is not directly connected with the weather. Flaming June is the title of Sir Frederic Leighton’s 1895 painting of a woman in an orange dress sleeping under a canopy in the summer heat. Leighton was thoroughly ambiguous: the woman has flame-red hair, and it is unclear whether June is her name, or if the scene takes place during June, or whether she is the personification of the month. The painting was popular, with reproductions given away with The Graphic magazine. Victorian art fell out of fashion, and Flaming June allegedly wound up in a secondhand shop. When it was acquired for £2,000 by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico in 1963 it soon became the most popular painting in their collection, and was reproduced worldwide. The expression “Flaming June” entered the popular consciousness after the painting’s success. However, it does not describe the weather. In Britain, this month is often unsettled as a series of fronts roll in from the Atlantic, sometimes called the European Monsoon. June is generally cooler and wetter than July and August. Thanks to Leighton though, June will always be associated with drowsy summer heat. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/summer', 'artanddesign/art', 'artanddesign/painting', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-06-06T08:13:35Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2008/jun/18/georgebush.oil | Bush proposes end to offshore drilling ban in US | President George Bush, responding to US public alarm over soaring petrol prices, today proposed overturning decades-old bans on drilling for oil off the US coast and in the pristine Alaskan wilderness. Bush told a press conference at the White House: "There's no excuse for delay." He said the US was too dependent on countries abroad, many of them in unstable regions. "Congress must face a hard reality: unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today's painful levels - or even higher - our nation must produce more oil. And we must start now." Expanding oil extraction off the US coast would provide 18bn barrels, enough to supply the country for more than two years. As for Alaska, he said advances in technology meant that oil could be extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with "virtually no impact" to the land or wildlife. His other proposals included extraction of oil from shale in the Green River basin that lies in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, a move opposed by environmentalists. The final part of his plan is for more oil refineries in the US to reduce imported refined oil. The plan has almost no chance of being adopted. Congress, which is Democrat-controlled, has consistently blocked exploration for environmental reasons. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, accused Bush of cynicism, saying the US could not drill its way out of the problem. "The math is simple: America has just 3% of the world's oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil," Reid said. The Bush proposals are primarily political during a presidential election year in which petrol prices are one of the top issues. Bush was echoing a call by the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, who told oil executives in Houston yesterday he favoured lifting the ban on oil drilling in coastal waters. This is the first major example of McCain and the White House working in tandem. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, opposes the plan, saying it would take a decade before the predicted oil flow would begin. "This is not something that's going to give consumers short-term relief and it is not a long-term solution to our problems with fossil fuels generally and oil in particular," Obama said. The issue is unpredictable and politically risky for both Obama and McCain. A Reuters/Zogby poll released today showed 60% of Americans support more oil drilling and refinery construction but the same percentage also say they favour conservation. In states such as California, where oil companies would like to drill offshore, polls in the past suggest more than 60% are opposed to drilling, with a serious oil spillage in 1969 still remembered. California is a banker for the Democrats in the November 4 election but Florida is one of the key swing states and oil drilling is a sensitive issue there too. A poll published today put Obama ahead in the state for the first time, on 47% to McCain's 43%. Speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, Bush, who has close family and business links with the oil industry, said: "Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response." He blamed Democratic opposition for the high petrol prices. "I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions." Obama is scheduled to hold his first meeting later today in Washington with a working group on national security, a group of advisers that will meet regularly until the election and will form a pool from which he can pick foreign specialists for his administration. He said: "Several have been advising my campaign for some time. We're also honoured to be joined by some of Senator (Hillary) Clinton's senior advisers." The group includes the former secretary of state and Clinton supporter, Madeleine Albright, and Obama's two main foreign affairs advisers, Tony Lake and Susan Rice. He is to hold a meeting afterwards with about 40 former admirals and generals to discuss Iraq, Afghanistan and other potential conflicts. | ['us-news/george-bush', 'business/oil', 'us-news/johnmccain', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'us-news/us-elections-2008', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'environment/oil', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/ewenmacaskill'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2008-06-18T15:04:22Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/dec/20/risks-of-domino-effect-of-tipping-points-greater-than-thought-study-says | Risks of 'domino effect' of tipping points greater than thought, study says | Policymakers have severely underestimated the risks of ecological tipping points, according to a study that shows 45% of all potential environmental collapses are interrelated and could amplify one another. The authors said their paper, published in the journal Science, highlights how overstressed and overlapping natural systems are combining to throw up a growing number of unwelcome surprises. “The risks are greater than assumed because the interactions are more dynamic,” said Juan Rocha of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “The important message is to recognise the wickedness of the problem that humanity faces.” The study collated existing research on ecosystem transitions that can irreversibly tip to another state, such as coral reefs bleaching and being overrun by algae, forests becoming savannahs and ice sheets melting into oceans. It then cross-referenced the 30 types of shift to examine the impacts they might have on one another and human society. Only 19% were entirely isolated. Another 36% shared a common cause, but were not likely to interact. The remaining 45% had the potential to create either a one-way domino effect or mutually reinforcing feedbacks. Among the latter pairings were Arctic ice sheets and boreal forests. When the former melt, there is less ice to reflect the sun’s heat so the temperature of the planet rises. This increases the risks of forest fires, which discharge carbon into the air that adds to the greenhouse effect, which melts more ice. Although geographically distant, each amplifies the other. By contrast, a one-way domino-type impact is that between coral reefs and mangrove forests. When the former are destroyed, it weakens coastal defences and exposes mangroves to storms and ocean surges. The deforestation of the Amazon is responsible for multiple “cascading effects” – weakening rain systems, forests becoming savannah, and reduced water supplies for cities like São Paulo and crops in the foothills of the Andes. This, in turn, increases the pressure for more land clearance. Until recently, the study of tipping points was controversial, but it is increasingly accepted as an explanation for climate changes that are happening with more speed and ferocity than earlier computer models predicted. The loss of coral reefs and Arctic sea ice may already be past the point of no return. There are signs the Antarctic is heading the same way faster than thought. Co-author Garry Peterson said the tipping of the west Antarctic ice shelf was not on the radar of many scientists 10 years ago, but now there was overwhelming evidence of the risks – including losses of chunks of ice the size of New York – and some studies now suggest the tipping point may have already been passed by the southern ice sheet, which may now be releasing carbon into the atmosphere. “We’re surprised at the rate of change in the Earth system. So much is happening at the same time and at a faster speed than we would have thought 20 years ago. That’s a real concern,” said Peterson. “We’re heading ever faster towards the edge of a cliff.” The fourth most downloaded academic research of 2018 was the Hothouse Earth paper, which considered how tipping points could combine to push the global climate into an uninhabitable state. The authors of the new paper say their work goes beyond climate studies by mapping a wider range of ecological stress points, such as biodiversity loss, agricultural expansion, urbanisation and soil erosion. It also focuses more on what is happening at the local level now, rather than projecting geo-planetary trends into the future. “We’re looking at things that affect people in their daily lives. They’re things that are happening today,” said Peterson. “There is a positive message as it expands the range of options for action. It is not just at an international level. Mayors can also make a difference by addressing soil erosion, or putting in place social policies that place less stress on the environment, or building up natural coastal defences.” Rocha has spent 10 years building a database of tipping points, or “regime shifts” as he calls them. He urges policymakers to adopt a similar interdisciplinary approach so they can better grasp what is happening. “We’re trying to connect the dots between different research communities,” said Rocha. “Governments also need to look more at interactions. They should stop compartmentalising ministries like agriculture, fisheries and international relations and try to manage environmental problems by embracing the diversity of causes and mechanisms underlying them. Policies need to match the scale of the problem. “It’s a little depressing knowing we are not on a trajectory to keep our ecosystem in a functional state, but these connections are also a reason for hope; good management in one place can prevent severe environmental degradation elsewhere. Every action counts.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'environment/deforestation', 'world/world', 'education/research', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-12-20T19:00:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/mar/04/its-the-eurovision-for-trees-which-one-will-you-root-for | It’s the Eurovision for trees! Which one will you root for? | On Thursday, the most popular tree in Europe will be unveiled in a contest that has pitted the Czech Republic’s Dragon pine against France’s Bread tree and an ancient oak reputed to have sheltered Robin Hood. It’s the Eurovision of trees, says the self-styled treehunter Rob McBride. McBride has just finished an odyssey to visit 11 of the 14 finalists of the European Tree of the Year, clocking up thousands of miles by train to pay homage to these ancient and distinctive trees and the communities that love them. He has admired Spain’s black poplar, stood beneath Slovakia’s white mulberry – which locals call “the lighthouse of history” – and tracked down Italy’s magnificent silvery olive tree, which is 2,000 years old. So, which is his favourite? “I started out liking the Lonely tree in Wales, because that’s the one closest to my home, but the people of Wales don’t seem to have got behind it, voting-wise,” says McBride. “Obviously the Major oak, with its Robin Hood connection, has done well, but my favourite would be the Football tree in Estonia.” This is an old oak in the middle of a football pitch; footballers play around it, and even use it for one-twos. “I said that the tree was passing the ball more accurately than 90% of the England team – the Estonians liked that,” says McBride. McBride’s tree odyssey showed him just how much ancient trees are cherished in communities across much of Europe – his pilgrimage saw him treated like a celebrity in many places – but he’s disappointed that so few British people have voted for their own trees in the first year that trees from England, Scotland and Wales have entered the contest. “It’s a cultural difference,” he thinks. “In eastern Europe they are still more connected to the soil.” He tips the great plane of Tata in Hungary to win, not least because the Hungarians have entered the competition for many years and cannily choose a tree guaranteed to garner lots of local votes. “It’s going to be very, very tight, and Poland are coming up on the rails,” he says. McBride hopes the competition will bolster the Woodland Trust’s Very Important Tree campaign, with the charity urging the government to create a national register of ancient and special trees. “It’s about cultural connection with communities and raising the profile of special trees across Europe. Lots of trees across Europe are on a government register,” says McBride. “We really need a national register of VITs.” | ['environment/forests', 'tone/blog', 'tone/features', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'news/shortcuts', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickbarkham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-03-04T14:50:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2023/jul/14/us-west-extreme-temperatures-heatwave-weather | US west braces for fiercest temperatures yet as ‘supercharged’ heatwave arrives | After days of unrelenting temperatures across much of the region, the American west is bracing for even more intense heat this weekend with more than a third of Americans under extreme heat alerts. California is facing a powerful heat dome, bringing sweltering conditions expected to build on Friday and through the weekend, in central and southern parts of the state. The National Weather Service warned many residents they should prepare for the hottest weather of the year as desert area highs could exceed 120F (48.8C). Death Valley national park was expected to equal or surpass its heat record of 130F (54.4C). Las Vegas could see three consecutive days with a high of 115F (46C), which has happened just once before, the NWS reported. Phoenix, which has endured a two-week stretch of temperatures above 110F (43C) with little relief in the evening hours, is expecting its hottest weekend of the year. “We’ve been talking about this building heatwave for a week now, and now the most intense period is beginning,” the National Weather Service wrote on Friday. The brutal heat comes as the US grapples with extreme weather across the country from the unforgiving temperatures of the west to tornadoes in Chicago and historic flooding in Vermont. Joe Biden has pledged to help communities prepare as Americans experience “the devastating impacts of the climate crisis”. The heat could carry on into next week as a high pressure dome moves west from Texas. Forecasters warned that the long heatwave is extremely dangerous, particularly for older people, unhoused residents and other vulnerable populations. Officials across the west have repurposed public libraries, senior centers and police department lobbies as cooling centers, especially in desert areas. “This weekend there will be some of the most serious and hot conditions we’ve ever seen,” said David Hondula, Phoenix’s chief heat officer. “I think that it’s a time for maximum community vigilance.” The heatwave is already sending people to the hospital in Las Vegas – emergency room doctors reported treating dehydrated construction workers and passed-out elderly residents. “This heatwave is not typical desert heat due to its long duration, extreme daytime temperatures and warm nights. Everyone needs to take this heat seriously, including those who live in the desert,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said. In Palm Springs, where temperatures could climb to 120F (48.8C) this weekend, many homeless people in the desert city were left to contend with the heat on their own, with just 20 indoor beds at the lone overnight shelter. John Summers, a homeless resident, climbed through a dry riverbed Thursday to seek shade at an encampment: “I basically just use water as much as I can. And hit shade. And, you know, the mall, wherever they’ll let you in,” he said. Roman Ruiz, the city’s homeless services coordinator, said homeless residents struggle daily just to find a place with enough shade. “I don’t know how anyone can do it really,” he said. “I feel so bad and yet there’s not much I can do.” Meanwhile in northern California, cooling centers in and around Sacramento planned to offer some extended evening hours. In the small Central Valley city of Galt, about 25 miles south of the state capital, the police department planned to open its air-conditioned lobby through the warmest hours of the weekend. Pet owners were urged to keep their animals mostly inside. “Dogs are more susceptible to heat stroke and can literally die within minutes. Please leave them at home in the air conditioning,” David Szymanski, park superintendent for Santa Monica mountains national recreation area, said in a statement. Meanwhile the wildfire season is ramping up amid the hot, dry conditions with a series of blazes erupting across the state this week, Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said at a media briefing this week. The climate emergency is “supercharging” heat waves, Crowfoot added. California has instituted a $400m extreme heat action plan to protect workers, help vulnerable communities and assist local communities in opening cooling centers. People looking to cool down in California’s many rivers should be wary, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said, noting that waterways swollen from the epic Sierra Nevada snowpack remain dangerous as there is still snow left to melt. “Be aware that the water will still be icy cold despite how hot the air will be and could be flowing very fast, much faster than usual for mid-July,” he said. | ['us-news/us-news', 'world/extreme-weather', 'us-news/california', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/climate-crisis-in-the-american-west', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | us-news/climate-crisis-in-the-american-west | GLOBAL_CRISIS | 2023-07-15T01:09:55Z | true | GLOBAL_CRISIS |
environment/2015/jul/28/humpback-whales-comeback-australia-numbers-rebound | Humpback whales make a comeback in Australian waters as numbers rebound | Humpback whale populations have rebounded to up to 90% of pre-whaling numbers in Australian waters, and should no longer be officially considered a threatened species, new research has found. The review of scientific research found humpback numbers off the west coast of Australia had increased at a rate of about 9% a year since 2012, and by about 10% a year on the east coast. The increase is among the highest documented in the world, the paper said, and shows no indication of diminishing. “The west coast population has recovered to approximately 90% of their known pre-whaling numbers,” said corresponding author on the paper, Professor Lars Bejder from Murdoch University. “Similarly the east coast population recovered to 63% of its known pre-whaling population.” “Our point here was [that] we are really keen to bring out a successful story,” Bejder told Guardian Australia. “It’s usually all doom and gloom in marine conservation. And it’s very depressing and demoralising for managers, politicians, NGOs and the general public, so what we wanted to do here was say there are rare occasions where it works, so don’t give up.” Many decades of legal and illegal whaling, beginning in the 19th century, and increasing as whaling technology modernised, saw populations severely diminished among what are now recognised as seven major breeding populations in the southern hemisphere. In one example given, the paper detailed one Australian breeding stock group which was estimated to have been reduced to about 500 whales. Since 1986 continual yearly increases have brought it up to an estimated 14,552. The review, conducted by an international team of collaborators and published in the Marine Policy journal, examined the case for downgrading the species’s conservation status due to observed population rebound. It found the Australian humpback whales to be “an exemplary model of recovery, especially within a marine environment experiencing rapid and concurrent expansion in industrial and exploration activities”. Because of this dramatic recovery the humpback whale no longer requires protection under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), as the risk of extinction was extremely unlikely. “If humpback whales were removed from the Australian threatened species list, the EPBC Act would still protect them from significant impacts as a matter of national environmental significance, as these whales are a migratory species,” Bejder said in a statement. “Beyond Australia, the International Whaling Committee manages the global moratorium on commercial whaling, which is essential for the humpback whales’ continued success.” By removing humpback whales from the act, conservation funding could be reprioritised, she said. While the recovery demonstrates the success of conservation science and management in restoring the “severely overexploited” species, “this success rests ultimately upon the ongoing moratorium on commercial whaling and the limited expansion of special permit whaling”. The paper also warned that increased numbers would mean increased interaction with humans and maritime traffic, such as vessel collisions and entanglement with fishing gear. Habitat destruction and “cumulative interactions” with the whale-watching industry were also risks that would grow with the numbers. Ronny Ling, president of the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia, said he would “probably debate” that the increase is as large as the paper suggested and called for the species to remain on the conservation list. “All whale species should still be on the threatened species list,” Ling said. “The whole thing is, once we take something off the threatened species list we tend to neglect them. Ever since European settlement of Australia we’ve neglected a lot of our wildlife.” Ling said there was not enough known about the southern hemisphere waters and what peaks and troughs exist in populations. “Once the population stabilises then we’ll get more an in idea of what’s actually happening to them,” he said. “We see it with kangaroos and other terrestrial species – they have booms and busts in their cycles.” Ling said he was also concerned that delisting the animal could open up potential loopholes in legislation, allowing actions which could threaten the species. The humpback whale has been downlisted as a “threatened” species in conservation listings in other regions. Last year the Canadian government reclassified the north Pacific population to “species of special concern”. In 2010 a global review by the US National Marine Fisheries Service identified distinct population segments of humpback whales and determined nine – including the east and west coasts of Australia – were not at risk of extinction. | ['environment/whales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-07-27T21:30:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
science/blog/2017/mar/06/what-happens-when-the-research-underpinning-conservation-is-wrong-cownose-ray | What happens when the research underpinning conservation is wrong? | Effective conservation management is something that every biologist wants to see. This is especially true for shark biologists like me, because one in four cartilaginous species are currently estimated to be threatened with extinction (Dulvy et al 2014). But while it’s easy to cheer conservation efforts, what happens when the research underpinning the strategy is wrong? I’ve been thinking about this since listening to a talk by Dr Dean Grubbs at the European Elasmobranch Association Conference last year. Grubbs provided a timely reminder of the disastrous consequences that can happen when the research which informs and underpins the conservation strategies executed is not objective and, crucially, isn’t subjected to rigorous peer review. Since the late 1990s declines in shark populations have led to a surge in research seeking to understand cascading effects of predator removals on lower trophic levels. For example, a highly cited paper (Myers et al 2007) published in the journal Science, claimed dramatic increases in Atlantic Cownose Ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) populations in the north-west Atlantic Ocean, which led to collapses of commercial bivalve stocks due to ray predation. The results published in this paper were then used to justify a cownose ray fishery in Chesapeake Bay under the slogan “Save the Bay, Eat a Ray”. Under this initiative the cownose ray was branded an invasive species by media outlets (it’s not, it’s native) and was described as depleting the bay’s population of clams, oysters, scallops, lobsters and crabs. In fact, an initiative by the state of Virginia even went as far as providing restaurants with free ray meat in order to encourage its use. Consumption of the rays and killing them for sport were also touted as environmentally responsible mechanisms to promote recovery of estuaries and shellfish stocks, and were seen as active ways to engage the public in worthwhile conservation. This may seem contrary to usual conservation practices – encouraging the depletion of species numbers by humans is not the norm. It’s comparable, however, to events such as the lionfish derbies held in the Caribbean for instance. Lionfish are native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans and yet are found in vast numbers in the waters of the Caribbean and the US. Thought to have been introduced by aquarium owners in the 1990s they have since thrived feeding upon juvenile shrimps, crabs, spiny lobsters as well as young reef fish including grunts, snapper and grouper. Large grouper have occasionally been observed predating on lionfish, but overall, with no natural predators lionfish population numbers have exploded. Some marine biologists have teamed up with dive operators to try to give resident Caribbean reef sharks a taste for the fish by feeding freshly speared lionfish to the sharks. However, competitive lionfish catch and kill derbies and tournaments are seen as the most effective management of this species. Participants are even shown how to prepare and cook the fish post-competition. This sort of active, hands-on approach to conservation generates high engagement with the public and community groups, as was also the case with the “Save the Bay, Eat a Ray” campaign. The fundamental difference is that the lionfish populations were definitely invasive and what they were predating on was well documented. This simply wasn’t the case for the cownose rays. A re-examination of the data which underpinned the ray campaign showed that there was not enough evidence in support of a trophic cascade, meaning that declines in large coastal sharks did not coincide with rapid increases in cownose rays and likewise this did not coincide with declines in commercial bivalve stocks. In fact bivalve populations were thought to have undergone dramatic declines due to other causes including overfishing, disease and habitat loss. Of course, this is in no way the fault of the public, who believed they were actively supporting conservation efforts by increasing the demand for the Atlantic cownose ray. The result, however, was an unregulated commercial fishery with reported annual landings in the Chesapeake Bay alone as high as 186 metric tons. As a way of comparison the current US federal quota for aggregated large coastal sharks in the Atlantic is 168.9 metric tons. Cownose rays take eight years to mature and produce only one embryo per female with a gestation period of 11-12 months. They are therefore highly susceptible to over-exploitation – unregulated fisheries must not continue. To limit the potential of a collapse of the cownose ray population, precautionary science-based catch quotas now need to be established. How then do we prevent this type of situation occurring again in the future? After all, the research on which the “Save the Bay, Eat a Ray” campaign was based was published in a highly respected journal. The claims were scientifically sensational and therefore garnered a high level of media attention, which alongside state initiatives filtered down to the general public. Scientific research must be open to objectivity, scepticism and acknowledgement of uncertainty – not to mention subject to robust peer review and rebuttals. A failure on these counts not only damages scientific credibility but may also promote misguided conservation measures that have unforeseen negative consequences. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough when considering the conservation and management policies of slow-growing species such as the cownose ray. We know that public awareness and engagement are effective in driving policies that support elasmobranch conservation. It’s essential that scientists and the research they produce both reliably inform the media and are accessible to the public through well-informed mainstream press. Otherwise we potentially doom future conservation initiatives to failure. References Myers, Ransom A., et al. “Cascading effects of the loss of apex predatory sharks from a coastal ocean.” Science 315.5820 (2007): 1846-1850. Grubbs, R. Dean, et al. “Critical assessment and ramifications of a purported marine trophic cascade.” Scientific reports 6 (2016). | ['science/blog', 'science/series/science-blog-network', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/conservation', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'science/biology', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/dr-lauren-smith'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-03-06T16:42:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
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/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-07-21T17:00:41Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2000/apr/19/gmcrops.gm | Jury discharged as Greenpeace GM trial stalls | The jury considering charges of criminal damage against Lord Peter Melchett, executive director of Greenpeace, and 27 other environmental protesters was discharged today after failing to reach a verdict. The Crown Prosecution Service has two weeks to decide if there should be a retrial. In the first case to bring the issue of GM crops before a jury, the protesters had earlier been cleared of stealing genetically modified crops. Lord Melchett told Norwich crown court that he felt a "strong moral obligation" to villagers living in Lyng, Norfolk, to destroy £750-worth of experimental GM maize at Walnut Tree Farm. All the defendants denied both charges and argue that they had a lawful excuse to destroy the crop because they genuinely believed that neighbouring organic crops were in immediate need of protection. The 52-year-old hereditary peer, a former Labour minister, said he had decided to act after the crop's owners, the German based agro-chemical firm AgrEvo (now known as Aventis) failed to respond to his requests for the crop to be destroyed. "I don't normally get involved in this action," he told the court. "I felt if anyone was going to stop the crop flowering I should get involved." Farmer William Brigham, the leader of the local parish council, spotted the protesters in white Greenpeace overalls as they ripped out the crop, attacked it with strimmers and a tractor and placed it, bagged up, in a truck, he told the court. After clambering over a gate they had locked and telling activists to stop, Mr Brigham approached Lord Melchett. "I said he should be ashamed of himself, and told him to stop and stop his fellow conspirators from carrying out what appeared to be a giant publicity stunt. "He said I only had myself to blame because I didn't attend [a parish meeting] in Lyng." | ['environment/gm', 'environment/activism', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'politics/politics', 'environment/greenpeace', 'type/article'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2000-04-19T15:58:49Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
news/2024/oct/31/weatherwatch-caribbean-hurricane-1924 | ‘The sea was a boiling, seething mass’: the Caribbean hurricane of 1924 | The “unprecedented hurricane” that struck the Caribbean in October 1924 was the most powerful anyone could remember. A hurricane is really defined as a violent storm with wind speeds exceeding 74mph (119km/h). When the Saffir-Simpson scale was devised in 1971 to grade the destructive potential of storms, the 1924 event was the first on record to have made the top classification, category 5. The storm clipped the western tip of Cuba, killing about a dozen people before heading across the Caribbean. “The whole sea was a boiling, seething mass,” reported the captain of a steamship transporting fruit. “It appeared as if the surface were covered with a mass of turbulent steam. The sea was breaking in such manner as it was impossible to tell whether the water in the air was rain or sea water.” The waves were mountainous and the storm had overturned several small fishing boats, but while the fruit ship took on a considerable quantity of water, it managed to stay afloat. After leaving Cuba, the hurricane did not make landfall again until it reached Florida. By then it had weakened and householders had battened down in response to warnings issued by the US Weather Bureau. The result was that one of the most powerful hurricanes on record did relatively little damage. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/extreme-weather', 'world/caribbean', 'world/cuba', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/us-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-31T06:00:11Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
travel/2000/nov/30/netjetters2000sam.netjetters1 | Week -1: the final countdown | Five days and counting. I still have a ridiculous amount to do. I haven't bought a sleeping bag yet. Or a rucksack. Or even some walking boots (yes I know I won't have time to wear them in, and will end up with swollen, blistered feet). I have however, got the apparently one essential item - a large plug so I can still have a bath wherever I am. And I've got a very stylish watch (birthday present from my girlfriend - she has impeccable taste!) which means I can swim 50m underwater, should the need arise. The last few days have been an exhausting, emotional rollercoaster. An endless rush of leaving parties (I need more hellos not goodbyes) and packing. I've shipped all my stuff back to my parent's house and my room is empty now. I've bought presents for my family as, for the first time ever, I will be away from home on Christmas Day - in San Franciso with my mate Roy. I finished work last week. They gave me a good send-off with a nice card and lots of presents (including a book with useful tips on how to hotwire a car or what to do if your parachute doesn't open). Travelling in on the tube on my last day was strange - I realised it might be the last time I ever have to do a straight 9-5 office job. The whole reason I'm doing this trip is to sort out in my head what I want to do with my life. Who knows what answers I'll come up with when I'm sitting on the beach in Fiji or hiking up a mountain in New Zealand? I picked up my air tickets yesterday and got very excited. When you see them in your hand and realise that they are going to take you to all these fantastic places that you've only ever read about or seen on the TV, then it suddenly becomes real. This is all I've thought about these last few weeks. I seem to have spent so long planning and thinking about what I need to take - I just want to get on with it now. Having said that, I don't think I'll feel the same way when I'm standing in the airport. I've told my friends and family that I don't want anyone to come and see me off - I'll turn into a sobbing mess. Well, I'd better get back to the packing. Next time I write I'll be in New York. | ['travel/netjetters2000sam', 'travel/netjetters', 'travel/travel', 'travel/netjettersblog', 'type/article'] | travel/netjetters2000sam | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2000-11-30T18:08:42Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2020/oct/14/high-number-of-fatal-australian-shark-attacks-prompts-concern-hunting-grounds-are-shifting | High number of fatal Australian shark attacks prompts concern hunting grounds are shifting | More Australians have been killed in unprovoked shark attacks this year than in any year since 1934. But the total number of shark bites is in line with the annual average over the past decade. It is prompting experts to consider whether the La Niña weather event, associated with cooler sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific, may be affecting where sharks search for prey. On Sunday, police in Western Australia called off their search for the body of Andrew Sharpe after pieces of the 52-year-old father’s wetsuit and surfboard had washed up on the beach near Esperance. Friends saw a shark bite him two days earlier. His death was the seventh from a shark bite in Australia in 2020 and the sixth from an unprovoked attack. According to the Australian Shark Attack File, it has been 86 years since six people last died from unprovoked shark bites in a single year. In 1929, nine people died from unprovoked shark bites in Australia – a record that preceded debate about introducing the first shark nets at Australian beaches several years later. Dr Phoebe Meagher, the wildlife conservation officer with the Taronga Conservation Society Australia who manages the Australian Shark Attack File, said the six deaths from unprovoked bites this year was well above Australia’s 50-year average of 1.02 deaths a year, but the general shark bite numbers were looking “smack bang on average”. There have been 17 unprovoked shark bites so far in 2020, the same as last year and one fewer than in 2018. In 2015, there were 22. Dr Blake Chapman, a marine biologist who examined shark neuroscience for her PhD, told Guardian Australia that understanding how a shark behaved when attacking was important in determining its intent. She said repeated bites suggested the shark was treating a human as prey. “In some of the cases this year it sounds like the shark hung around and bit more than once, which is unusual behaviour for great white sharks,” she said. “When they bite more than once it’s more likely to be fatal as there’s more blood loss.” However, she noted some fatal attacks had been single bites on the upper part of the leg, groin or near the abdomen, leading to greater blood loss from key arteries and vital organs. She said great white sharks, which have killed several of this year’s victims, “tend to follow migrations of prey”, such as salmon, which can be influenced by a La Niña event. “We do tend to see little spikes in shark bites in La Niña ,” she said. “For great white sharks, if we see them bite someone once and then leave, it suggests they were maybe curious and weren’t in the area for prey, because there is nothing stopping a shark from eating a person.” Chapman said different Australian jurisdictions investigated and recorded varying levels of detail about an attack. Combined with the relatively small number of deaths, it made it hard to definitively understand the causes behind the increased death toll this year. Prof Robert Harcourt, the director of Macquarie University’s marine mammal research group and a researcher of shark behaviour, said that in addition to cooler water temperatures being favourable to great white sharks, increased rains during a La Niña could reduce salinity and attract bull sharks to waters where more people swim. He said currents and winds could also lead to salmon and other fish clustering closer to the shore than under other conditions. “The sharks are responding to where their prey will most likely be,” Harcourt said. In January, a 57-year-old experienced diver, Gary Johnson, was killed by a shark near Esperance in Western Australia, and in April, a 23-year-old wildlife ranger, Zachary Robba, was killed by a shark off the Great Barrier Reef. In June, Rob Pedretti, 60, died after he was bitten by a shark while surfing in northern NSW, and in July, a teenager died from a shark bite while surfing at another beach in the region. In September, 46-year-old Nick Slater died after being bitten while surfing near the Gold Coast. While surfing is not considered provoking a shark, the death of a 36-year-old while spearfishing off Queensland’s Fraser Island in July is considered to be the result of a provoked bite, as the release of fish blood attracts sharks. | ['environment/sharks', 'environment/series/environmental-investigations', 'environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/elias-visontay', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-10-13T16:30:26Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2022/sep/29/amazon-launches-the-kindle-scribe-alongside-raft-of-smart-home-products | Amazon launches Kindle Scribe alongside raft of smart home products | Amazon has unveiled the Kindle Scribe, a new E Ink Kindle that aims to be the e-reader’s first writing-friendly device. The Scribe is designed for use as a more general-purpose tablet than Amazon’s other E Ink Kindles. Where those intended to do away with traditional paper books, the Scribe’s goal is bigger: it aims to replace paper entirely. “Kindle Scribe is perfect for reading and writing, even in direct sunlight,” Amazon said. “The large display gives you room to take notes and [keep a] journal, and makes it easy to adjust font size and margin width for improved reading comfort. “Writing on Kindle Scribe feels like writing on paper. From the natural grip of the pen in your hand, to the sound you hear when you write, Kindle Scribe’s surface is crafted for the best possible reading and writing experience.” Users will be able to add handwritten notes to books, scribble on pdf files, and make notes in their own documents, Amazon said. But one key functionality is absent: Scribe owners will not be able to write directly on to ebooks bought from Kindle publishers. They can make attach notes to a specific point in a book, but are unable to, for instance, underline a sentence or write in the margin next to it. Like other E Ink Kindles, the Scribe will feature a “warm light” for the screen, and Amazon advertises a battery life of “months for reading and weeks for writing.” The Scribe is available for preorder from Thursday for £329.99, and will be released on 30 November, Amazon says. The Scribe is by no means the first device of its sort. Competitors including Kobo, with its £349 elipsa tablet, and the £279 reMarkable 2, already have equivalents on the market. The Kobo elipsa even offers the ebook annotation features the Amazon Stylus lacks. But neither company has a fraction of the market share of Amazon’s e-readers, and the difficulty of transferring large collections of bought books means switching devices is a hurdle for many. Alongside the Kindle, Amazon announced a raft of products for its smart home platform, led by the Halo Rise, a bedside light that can track breathing rates to offer analysis of its owners’ sleep patterns. The company promises that it can do so without needing any cameras or microphones in the bedroom, and that it can even separate your breathing from your partner’s (provided you are closer to the Rise). The Rise can then use that data to wake you up slowly and peacefully, “simulating the colours and gradual brightening of sunrise” and pairing it with analysis of sleep cycles. The Rise launches in the US only, starting at $139.99, with no shipping date confirmed. | ['technology/amazon', 'technology/technology', 'technology/efinance', 'technology/kindle', 'technology/ereaders', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alex-hern', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-09-29T17:20:11Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
science/2006/sep/05/gm.food | Untested GM rice found in food, says Greenpeace | Traces of genetically modified rice from China have been found in products on sale in the UK, green groups claimed today. Three packets of noodles bought from two stores tested positive for genetically modified content, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace said. The campaign groups warn that experimental GM rice has not been cleared for human consumption and could spark allergic reactions. Researchers found traces of insect-resistant rice in two brands of vermicelli and one packet of rice sticks brought from two stores in London's Chinatown. They were tested at an unnamed laboratory in Germany, where they showed positive for GM content, along with other rice products bought in France and Germany. The green groups blame the contamination on Chinese field trials of GM crops not currently approved for commercial growing. They want the EU to bring in urgent measures to prevent GM products going on sale. Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "This latest illegal GM contamination scandal shows that the biotech industry cannot be trusted. How many more foods around the world have been contaminated by unlicensed GM crops?" The US government last month confirmed a GM strain of long-grain rice not approved for human consumption was present in samples there. The EU responded with emergency measures requiring all rice imported from the US to be tested and certified to prove it doesn't contain unauthorised GM strains. A spokesman for the European Commission in London said he was aware of the green groups' reports. "We cannot confirm the presence of illegal rice. What we are saying to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth is to send the samples to the relevant authorities for verification," he said. "We are going to write to the Chinese authorities asking for further information about these reported cases." The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it had been notified by the groups and had asked them to provide further details of what had been tested and what had been found. A spokeswoman for the FSA said: "No GM rice has been authorised in the EU. If unauthorised GM material is present in these products they cannot legally be sold in the UK or elsewhere in the EU. "If this is the case, the agency would take appropriate action." | ['environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'politics/politics', 'environment/gm', 'environment/greenpeace', 'type/article'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2006-09-05T13:55:45Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2023/oct/13/uk-foreign-aid-climate-through-private-consultancies | More than £2bn of UK foreign climate aid channelled through consultancies since 2010 | More than £2bn of UK foreign aid aimed at helping poorer countries cope with the escalating climate crisis has been channelled through private consultancies since 2010, according to an analysis. The investigation by Carbon Brief found that more than 10% of UK foreign aid spent on climate-related projects had gone through consultants like KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Adam Smith International. The findings have raised concerns among those on the frontline of the climate crisis who say climate funding works best when it is invested directly in local communities rather than through international corporations. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, said: “There is a long history of sending international consultants to developing countries to assist in tackling climate change, which have not resulted in any real benefits after the international consultants leave the country.” The analysis found that at least £2.11bn had been handed to dozens of management consultancies such as KPMG, PwC and Adam Smith International since 2010. They have provided guidance on everything from hydropower dam construction in Nepal to farm diversification in Ethiopia. Alongside private consultancies, the UK’s climate finance is also spent via large international bodies such as the World Bank, UN agencies, development banks and NGOs. Much of the money administered by these groups goes directly to projects, although all of them take cuts along the way to pay for staff and other expenses. Nevertheless, experts say the large scale involvement of private consultancies can lead to the money being used less effectively, adding there is growing opposition to climate aid being funnelled through these companies rather than groups with local contacts and expertise. Clare Shakya, a climate finance expert at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the least developed countries and small-island states in particular had pushed for funding for more long-term climate action rather than the project-based activities consultancies often supported. She said: “The poorest and most climate-impacted countries are clear that business as usual in climate finance is not working for them. Short-term projects driven by external experts are failing to provide the support they need to transform to low-carbon development and greater climate resilience.” The UK government has scaled up its spending on consultants and made it easier for public sector bodies to hire them in recent years. At the same time, their role in public life has been under growing scrutiny. Academics, politicians and officials have criticised the outsourcing of responsibilities to expensive private contractors. Responding to these concerns during her speech at the Labour party conference this week, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, vowed to slash consultancy spending by half if her party won the next election. Carbon Brief’s analysis looked at more than 25,000 transactions listed on the government’s development tracker website from projects that contribute to the UK’s International Climate Finance. Both KPMG and PwC declined to comment on Carbon Brief’s findings or the criticism of consultancies running climate-finance projects. They also declined to share information on how much money they retained as fees for their services on these projects. The UK government declined to comment on its use of consultancies to administer climate-finance projects. A spokesperson for Adam Smith International said it did not recognise the figures in the Carbon Brief analysis. They added the consultancy “ardently ensures optimal value for money in [its] projects”, with “competitively and responsibly structured” fees and “transparency in [its] financial dealings, including profitability and expenditure”. They also said the organisation “places a paramount emphasis on both leveraging and strengthening local capacities in all our projects”, with the “majority” of ASI funds being used to engage national consultants and partnering with local groups. | ['environment/climate-aid', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'politics/politics', 'global-development/global-development', 'society/society', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/environmentnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/climate-aid | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2023-10-13T06:00:31Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2022/jun/02/current-policies-will-bring-catastrophic-climate-breakdown-warn-former-un-leaders | Current policies will bring ‘catastrophic’ climate breakdown, warn former UN leaders | The policies currently in place to tackle the climate crisis around the world will lead to “catastrophic” climate breakdown, as governments have failed to take the actions needed to fulfil their promises, three former UN climate leaders have warned. There is a stark gap between what governments have promised to do to protect the climate, and the measures and policies needed to achieve the targets. At the Cop26 summit last November, countries agreed to bring forward plans to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – the limit of safety, according to scientists. They have so far submitted pledges that would limit temperatures to under 2C. But the policies and measures passed and implemented by governments would lead to far greater temperature rises, of at least 2.7C, well beyond the threshold of relative safety, and potentially as much as 3.6C. That would have “catastrophic” impacts, in the form of extreme weather, sea-level rises and irreversible changes to the global climate. The three living former directors of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have written together in Wednesday’s Guardian – the first time they have written jointly in a newspaper – of the disastrous consequences of failing to match national pledges on the climate with concrete actions and policies to follow them through. They write: “In the 2015 Paris agreement, all governments agreed to ‘pursue efforts’ to limit global warming to 1.5C (2.7F). We are entitled now to ask where their efforts have reached, where they are heading and how genuine they are. Science shows action this decade to reduce all greenhouse gases is critical.” They point to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published earlier this year, described as an “atlas of suffering” that showed the widespread devastation likely to ensue if we fail to tackle greenhouse gas emissions urgently. “The myriad reports of extreme weather we have witnessed in 2022 suggest there is no time to waste,” they write. “The further climate change progresses, the more we lock in a future featuring more ruined harvests, and more food insecurity, along with a host of other problems including rises in sea level, threats to water security, drought and desertification. Governments must act against climate change while also dealing with other pressing crises.” Actions by developed countries have so far been “disappointing”, in their failure to reduce emissions fast enough, and in not making finance available to poorer countries to help them cope with the impacts of climate breakdown, they add. The former UN top officials – Michael Zammit Cutajar, Yvo de Boer and Christiana Figueres – each successively held the post of executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, parent treaty to the Paris agreement, which was signed 30 years ago this week at the landmark Rio Earth Summit. This month also marks the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm conference, when representatives from around the world first resolved that the global state of the environment was a cause for concern, and concerted international action was needed to solve problems such as pollution, species loss, land degradation and resource depletion. The anniversary should prompt governments to renew their resolve, despite “frosty” geopolitics, before it is too late, the UN ex-officials write. “Rapidly changing economics mean that a climate-safe future is also a more prosperous one. The public’s will – especially among young people – to see climate change constrained is clear. As we recall the Stockholm conference, we need national leaders to recall what it demonstrated about the potential of cooperative action even in disturbed times. We need to see leaders delivering on their climate change promises, in the interests of people, prosperity and the planet.” As governments grapple with high energy prices, and rising food prices, the former UN climate heads argue for a swift move to clean energy, which is now economically competitive with fossil fuels. “Unless one is invested in fossil fuels, there is now no reason not to take the clean energy path. Many corporate actors understand the need for early action on this front. But governments still need to incentivise the transition,” they write. • This article was amended on 2 June 2022. A temperature change of 1.5C is equivalent to a change of 2.7F, not 34F as an earlier version said; that is the equivalent of the temperature of 1.5C. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/environment', 'environment/christiana-figueres', 'environment/yvo-de-boer', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2022-06-02T08:00:33Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2021/jun/07/great-apes-predicted-to-lose-90-of-homelands-in-africa-study-finds | Great apes predicted to lose 90% of homelands in Africa, study finds | Great apes – humanity’s closest relatives, are predicted to lose a “devastating” 90% of their homelands in Africa in coming decades, according to a study. All gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are already endangered or critically endangered. But a combination of the climate crisis, the destruction of wild areas for minerals, timber and food, and human population growth is on track to decimate their ranges by 2050, the scientists said. Half of the projected lost territory will be in national parks and other protected areas. Some new areas will become climatically suitable for the apes, but the researchers doubt they will be able to migrate into these regions in time. The estimated range loss is stark, but today’s ranges in central and western Africa are already much smaller than in the past. “It’s a perfect storm for many of our closest genetic relatives, many of which are flagship species for conservation efforts within Africa and worldwide,” said Joana Carvalho, a biologist and computer modeller at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and who led the study. “If we add climate change to the current causes of territory loss, the picture looks devastating.” The analysis used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s apes database on species populations, threats and conservation action at hundreds of sites over 20 years. It then modelled the combined future impacts of global heating, habitat destruction and human population growth. There are uncertainties in the data and model results, said Carvalho: “But there is going to be change and not for the best. Even the ranges we see at the moment are much smaller than they have been.” Most great ape species prefer lowland habitats, but the climate crisis will make some lowlands hotter, drier and much less suitable. Uplands will become more attractive, assuming the apes can get there, but where there is no high ground, the apes will be left with nowhere to go. “As climate change forces the different types of vegetation to essentially shift uphill, it means that all animals – not only great apes – that depend on particular habitat types will be forced to move uphill or become locally extinct,” said Fiona Maisels, at the Wildlife Conservation Society and part of the research team. “But when the hills are low, many species will not be able to go higher than the land allows, and huge numbers of animals and plants will simply vanish.” The research, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions, was conducted by scientists from almost 50 universities, research institutes and conservation organisations. It analysed two scenarios, one where action is taken to curb the climate risis, habitat loss and human population growth, and one where little is done. But the researchers found relatively little difference in the projected range losses, with 85% loss in 2050 in the first scenario and 94% in the second. “What is predicted is really bad,” said Carvalho. Some new areas will become suitable for the great apes as the climate changes, but the animals are poor at migrating compared with many species because they reproduce slowly and have low population densities and specific diets. “The timeframe of 30 years [until 2050] is not enough,” Carvalho said. Nonetheless, some migration could occur and a key action to avert some range losses is ensuring connectivity between the places where apes live, she said, by creating new protected areas. There is good conservation work being done in some places the scientists said with, for example, Gabon’s development of farming, mining and road and rail links being focused on areas that are already degraded, avoiding intact forests. However, the biggest protection for great apes could come from consumers in rich nations demanding sustainably produced goods. Currently the export of minerals for mobile phones, timber, and palm oil are major drivers of great ape population falls. “There must be global responsibility for stopping the decline of great apes,” said Hjalmar Kühl, from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig. “All nations benefiting from these resources have a responsibility to ensure a better future for great apes, their habitats and the people living there.” | ['environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-06-07T05:00:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
politics/2017/jul/12/may-warned-not-to-cut-off-nose-to-spite-face-as-tories-revolt-over-euratom | May warned not to 'cut off nose to spite face' as Tories revolt over Euratom | The Conservative revolt over Theresa May’s plan to withdraw from the Euratom nuclear treaty has grown, with one former minister accusing the government of cutting off its nose to spite its face. A string of Tory MPs opposed leaving the body for nuclear cooperation during a Westminster Hall debate called by Labour’s Albert Owen, suggesting May has no Commons majority for the move. The government insists that leaving Euratom is an inevitable consequence of triggering article 50 and proceeding to Brexit – a position shared by the European negotiators. However, around a dozen Conservative MPs are pushing for the government to fight harder for the UK to stay in Euratom, which oversees the movement of nuclear materials across Europe. Bob Neill, a former Tory housing minister, warned the government against “cutting off your economic and scientific nose to spite your political face”. “We should do all that is possible legally to maintain those benefits, by whatever means it takes. We should not allow any thoughts of ideological purity to get in the way of achieving that,” he said. “My judgment is that if we can legally remain within Euratom, we should do so.” Trudy Harrison, a Tory MP representing Copeland, the constituency of the Sellafield nuclear site, said leaving the Euratom treaty without quickly replicating its benefits could risk jobs and safety. “Without an approved safeguards regime, as well as new bilateral cooperation agreements, nuclear trade to and from the UK would stop or at least slow down, which would be economically crushing for my constituency – a community which is hope to thousands of nuclear workers and is a centre of nuclear excellence,” she said. Other Conservatives to speak of their worries about leaving Euratom included Ed Vaizey, a former culture minister, who said he was concerned about the lack of impact assessment on the consequences. He claimed the government had conceded the point on leaving the nuclear treaty on a “technicality” and urged it to allow a working group on Euratom to see the legal advice. Another Tory, Antoinette Sandbach, said the UK had been awarded £500m of contracts in the nuclear fusion supply chain, adding: “All of that is put at risk, is it not, if we leave Euratom?” Several Labour MPs accused May of having an inflexible approach to leaving Euratom because of her red line on not allowing membership of any body overseen legally by the European court of justice. Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge, accused her of having a “fetish” about it. Paul Blomfield, a shadow Brexit minister, urged the government to note the “clear consensus” in the debate, adding: “If [May] doesn’t shift her position on Euratom, parliament will shift it for her.” A paper from the government on Britain’s position on Euratom is due imminently, possibly as soon as Thursday, when the government will publish its EU repeal bill. The Guardian reported on Monday that the government was considering some kind of affiliate membership of Euratom, similar to that held by Switzerland, in order to head off the revolt, or paying money to an international agency to set up an independent arrangement. This follows a warning that cancer patients could be at risk if the government fails to stay part of the group and the European atomic energy community. Dr Nicola Strickland, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, told the Evening Standard she feared the risk of “Brexatom” could threaten the supply of radioactive isotopes, used in scans and treatment. Responding to the Westminster Hall debate, Richard Harrington, a business and energy minister, insisted that warnings about nuclear safety and the consequences for cancer treatment were “alarmist”. He said the UK would “avoid the cliff edge”, adding: “We’re ready and we’re confident that we can find common ground.” Harrington also promised the UK government was keen to ensure minimal disruption to civil nuclear trade and cooperation with non-European partners. He said the UK was negotiating with the US, Canada, Australia and Japan to have the “appropriate cooperation agreements” in place. “The government is determined that the nuclear industry in this country should continue to flourish in trade, regulation and innovative nuclear research, and we’re determined to have a constructive, collaborative relationship with Euratom. The UK is a great supporter of it and will continue to be so,” he added. | ['politics/eu-referendum', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/eu', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'politics/conservatives', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2017-07-12T12:18:16Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2023/dec/15/aemo-warns-coal-fired-power-plants-could-drop-off-before-replacements-are-ready | Aemo warns coal-fired power plants could drop off before replacements are ready | Australia’s main power grid faces the “real” possibility ageing coal-fired power plants will drop out before sufficient generation capacity and transmission lines are in place, the Australian Energy Market Operator has said. The comments, contained in a draft report on Aemo’s main blueprint for the national electricity market, come a day after New South Wales faced its first grid strains of the summer. Authorities called on consumers to reduce non-essential power use as temperatures hovered in the high-30s across much of Sydney. Aemo’s report, known as the integrated system plan, noted that 10 big coal-fired power plants had shut in the national electricity market since 2012. The remaining coal fleet may shut as much as three times faster than companies have flagged in their own public announcements. Aemo said in the mostly likely scenario about 90% of the current 21 gigawatts of coal capacity would retire by 2034-35 and all by 2038. Even in its “progressive change” path, only 4GW of coal generation would remain in 2034-35. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The scale of the replacement capacity needed is huge. Solar and windfarms will need to triple by 2030 to 57GW and expand seven-fold by 2050 to 126GW. To support the variable renewables, new storage, hydro- and gas-powered generation will need to increase four-fold to 74GW by 2050. Roof-top solar, already installed on a higher percentage of houses, will also need to expand four times by mid-century to 72W, Aemo said. “While significant progress [in the transition off fossil fuels] is being made, challenges and risks are already being experienced,” Aemo’s report said. “Planned projects are not progressing as expected, due to approval processes, investment decision uncertainty, cost pressures, social licence issues, supply chain issues and workforce shortages.” Under two of the three main scenarios examined, the grid will also need an extra 10,000km of transmission by 2050. The report said if Australia pursues a policy of developing so-called green energy exports, such as hydrogen, more than twice the transmission construction will be needed. The energy industry itself has been calling for an acceleration of new investments if Australia is to meet its 2030 decarbonisation goals – but also to ensure power supplies can meet demand. New investment decisions have been dwindling, despite the urgency, with some firms complaining of changing rules in states such as NSW. The federal government’s plan for a capacity investment scheme to provide minimum prices for as much as 32GW of new renewables and storage was aimed to accelerate new projects but has raised concerns by some private companies of excessive state involvement in the market. The draft integrated system plan may be at odds with some firms’ plans. Victoria, for instance, may have closed coal plants entirely by 2033, Aemo predicts, while AGL Energy says its Loy Yang A power station will shut by the end of the 2035 financial year. “To identify the optimal development path to 2050, we used Australia’s most comprehensive set of power system and market models to assess the benefits and risks of more than 1,000 potential pathways,” Aemo’s chief executive, Daniel Westerman, said. “Delivering the transmission projects identified in this plan is expected to avoid $17bn in additional costs to consumers if those projects were not delivered,” he said. Separately, the NSW government on Friday released the design of a proposed new plan that aims to bolster energy reliability as coal-fired plants close. If applied, the national orderly exit management framework would provide “a clear process for governments to manage situations where owners of a coal-fired power station seek to bring forward its retirement date”, the government said. “If required, it also enables a government to temporarily extend the operation of the power station while new renewable infrastructure comes online, through a voluntary agreement or a direction,” it said. NSW’s energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the government was “committed to getting as much renewable energy into our grid as quickly as possible to meet our emissions reduction targets and provide a reliable supply of clean, affordable electricity”. “We don’t want coal-fired power stations open a minute longer than needed,” Sharpe said. “This framework provides a back-up for the energy transition, to be used only as a last resort where we don’t have enough time to feasibly get new renewables or storage into the system.” | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/coal', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2023-12-14T14:00:02Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2007/mar/21/water.climatechange | Dams, farms, shipping and climate threaten to dry up world's greatest rivers | The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday March 22 2007 The list following our report below included the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo as a South American river. In fact, the Rio Grande, in the US, or Rio Bravo, its title in Mexico, forms part of the border between those two countries and is therefore a North American river. This has been amended. Many of the world's biggest rivers, including the Nile, Ganges, Yangtze and Danube, are facing catastrophic collapse due to man-made problems, according to a leading conservation group. A wasteful attitude to water use and inadequate protection of rivers has destroyed ecosystems while threatening the livelihoods of people living in river basins. "We're talking about a complete collapse of the system - they're so polluted, so over-extracted or so cut up by dams that it's really not functioning as a river any more," said Tom Le Quesne, freshwater policy officer at WWF-UK, the conservation charity that published a report yesterday on the threats to the world's rivers. "It's a challenge that humanity faces not far off the scale of climate change." The report, launched ahead of tomorrow's World Water Day, highlighted problems facing Asia, where five of the 10 rivers listed in the report are found - the Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Ganges and Indus. "If these rivers die, millions will lose their livelihoods, biodiversity will be destroyed on a massive scale, there will be less fresh water and agriculture, resulting in less food security," said Ravi Singh, secretary-general of WWF-India at a briefing in Delhi yesterday to mark the launch of the report. Rivers are the world's main source of fresh water and, according to the WWF, almost half of the world's supply is currently being tapped. Dams cut off rivers from flood plains, which dry up and destroy habitats. The WWF said that fish populations are being affected in areas where fish provides the main source of protein for hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide. The report added that the Danube, which runs from Germany through south-eastern Europe to the Black Sea and contains more than half of all fish species in Europe, has lost 80% of its wetlands and flood plains as a result of too many dams and projects to make the river more navigable. The world's longest river, the Nile, has served as a source of drinking water for thousands of years but, according to the WWF, it will face scarcity by 2025. The Yangtze basin is one of the most polluted rivers in the world because of China's rapid industrialisation. The WWF highlighted how, at the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, "garbage heaps, boat effluent, pig and animal waste, factories, hospitals and mines containing hazardous and possibly radioactive waste on the bottom of the reservoir are creating serious pollution". The Rio Grande, which flows along the US-Mexican border and contains 69 fish species found nowhere else in the world, is threatened by excessive extraction of water, mainly for agriculture. "If you stand on the banks of the Rio Grande, which is the second longest river in the US, it's got no water in it, it's almost unbelievable," said Mr Le Quesne. "That has pervasive effects on people who depend on the water to grow their crops and it destroys ecosystems." In India, the Ganges plain makes up one-third of the country's land area and one in 12 people depend on the water for fishing and farming. According to the WWF, the tributaries flowing into the Ganges are beginning to dry up as barrages divert water for irrigation. Mr Le Quesne said that problems highlighted by the WWF report have been man-made. Impending climate change will just make things worse. Up to 40% of the water in the Ganges comes from glaciers in the Himalayas, which could retreat if the world warms up. "We've all been used to taking water for granted. We've assumed that water is a limitless resource. It's not any more," said Mr Le Quesne. "It's a question of using water wisely and managing it. It's a question of political will." Top 10 Ebbing away Salween China Damaged by infrastructure, dams Danube central Europe Damaged by infrastructure, navigation La Plata South America Damaged by infrastructure, dams and navigation Rio Grande-Rio Bravo North America Damaged by over-extraction of water Ganges India Damaged by over-extraction of water Indus Pakistan Damaged by climate change Nile-Lake Victoria north Africa Damaged by climate change Murray-Darling Australia Damaged by invasive species Mekong-Lancang South-East Asia Damaged by over-fishing Yangtze China Damaged by pollution | ['environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'science/science', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'environment/drought', 'tone/news', 'world/water-transport', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2007-03-21T11:27:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
theguardian/2010/aug/30/archive-katrina-batters-new-orleans-2005 | From the archive, 30 August 2005: Katrina batters New Orleans | Large areas of New Orleans were last night under water after Hurricane Katrina pummelled the city with winds of more than 100mph, causing damage to property and catastrophic flooding. There were reports of people climbing into attics to escape rising water in the low-lying city, and witnesses described walls of water running down skyscrapers like waterfalls. Local radio reported multiple bodies floating in the water in one area of the city. Many were feared dead in flooded neighbourhoods, but the extent of casualties remained unclear as it was still too dangerous for rescue teams to enter affected areas. "Some of them, it was their last night on Earth," Terry Ebbert, chief of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored evacuation orders. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson." Winds of more than 100mph punched holes in the metal roof of the Superdome Arena, peeling away aluminium sheets while more than 9,000 people who had been unable to leave the city watched helplessly. The hurricane also battered large swaths of the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines, leaving two oil rigs adrift in the Gulf of Mexico and causing damage estimated by insurers to be worth up to $26bn (£14.4bn). Initial reports suggested storm surges had not significantly breached the levees protecting New Orleans, that in places lies up to three metres below sea level. But experts warned that heavy rainfall over the Mississippi delta in the next few days could cause catastrophic flash flooding. In the western New Orleans suburb of Kenner, roofs had been torn from houses while floodwaters lapped at the windows of bungalows. Large areas of the city resembled boating lakes, with much of the airport under water, sugar-cane crops blown flat by the winds, and trees and power lines brought down. But rumours of looting had brought a trickle of cars and SUVs struggling back to the city centre alongside emergency vehicles from the relief operation. Hundreds of thousands of people had fled New Orleans or took shelter on higher ground after authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning. Some of those who were unable or unwilling to go appeared to be paying the price. "I'm not doing too good right now," Chris Robinson told Associated Press via a mobile phone from his home. "The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an axe and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live." Jamie Wilson and Julian Borger | ['theguardian/series/from-the-archive', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/jamiewilson', 'profile/julianborger', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2010-08-30T11:06:57Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
books/2015/jan/22/give-children-free-books-environment-re-read | How to give children free books and help the environment | Jim McLaughlin measures books in tons, not pages. It was the sight of a skip filled with 10 tons of books which set the self-described environmental bibliophile on a path which has now seen his social enterprise Re-Read process more than 1,000 tons of books - and give tens of thousands away to children. “I couldn’t sleep after I saw it, really,” he says today of the book dealer he saw filling a huge skip with books destined for incineration, back in 2012. McLaughlin was working for the South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau, with a background in developing community recycling projects. He took redundancy, and set up what he believes is the first “book bank”, the Doncaster-based Re-Read, which has given away 54,000 books to children since it was established in September 2012. With actor Brian Blessed and bestselling author Joanne Harris as patrons, Re-Read works with books that would otherwise have been burned or gone to landfill. It buys titles by the ton from charity-shop chains, as well as taking donations from locals. Its team of seven staff and 30 volunteers then sorts through the titles, keeping the children’s books to give away, and selling the remaining titles on online retail sites, with the profits ploughed back into keeping the social enterprise going. Books which are too worn out to be re-used are recycled, rather than being put into landfill. McLaughlin says that when he started researching his idea, it was “clear low-income households weren’t buying books and children in low-income families have low literacy rates”. “The cost of a basket of food essentials has gone up by 28% since 2008 but the average wage has only gone up by 9%. In addition, benefits for low-earning and workless households have been cut,” he says. “We have all witnessed the rise of food banks in our communities. Now, there is a crisis of poor literacy rates for our children. When food takes precedence, often books and learning fall off the priority list.” According to the National Literacy Trust, 3.8 million children in the UK do not own a book – one in three. The Reading Agency says that 14% of children in lower-income homes rarely or never read books for pleasure, while only one in five parents easily find the opportunity to read to their children. “We get about three tons of books a week,” says McLaughlin. “We have listed about 60-70,000 online now. The essence of Re-Read is this. We take books so we can give kids books for free. So the more books we can get in and get online, the more we can get to kids – it’s the old philanthropic model.” Re-Read, which says that 22% of Doncaster children currently live below the breadline, has given books away at children’s centres and playgroups, to schools and at local events. Last week, a woman from the Association of Foster Parents took away over 700. One grandparent, who found a free copy of The Hobbit at a Re-Read event, said: “I can’t afford to buy books, even from a charity shop. I remember reading this book to my son. Now, I’m going to read it to my grandson.” “It’s about getting books into kids’ hands. There are no hurdles to jump over – we just give them out willy nilly,” said McLaughlin. “If you adopt such a broad, scattergun approach, then the kids who really need them will benefit. And reading, and having a book in your bedroom, has a demonstrated link to the development of confidence and self-worth.” Blessed, a patron of the social enterprise, has called its work in getting books into the hands of children in disadvantaged communities “remarkable”. “One of the biggest crimes of deprivation is illiteracy,” said the actor. “It was unheard-of that a coalminer’s son should go to drama school, but I got the scholarship. I am a living example that with the right encouragement and access to inspired minds, children can achieve anything. If Re-Read can reach out to just one child that is something to celebrate; the fact they’ve given tens of thousands of books to children is a joy.” | ['books/booksforchildrenandteenagers', 'books/books', 'environment/environment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'stage/brian-blessed', 'tone/features', 'society/socialenterprises', 'society/society', 'type/article', 'profile/alisonflood'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2015-01-22T17:15:38Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
law/2023/mar/29/simple-rules-of-engagement-for-barristers | Simple rules of engagement for barristers | Letter | You suggest that barristers refusing to prosecute climate protesters may be in breach of the “cab rank” rule (Top lawyers defy bar to declare they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters, 24 March). Observance of this rule has always been optional. All a barrister need say to evade it is that they are too busy. In fact, it is a myth peddled by the bar to suggest that they have higher standards than solicitors and to frustrate reforms that might benefit solicitors. When I was in private practice, one of my partners explained how the rule works: if a barrister does not want to do a case they will not do it, but if you pay them enough they will want to do it. Alasdair Darroch Retired circuit judge and former solicitor advocate • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['law/barristers', 'law/law', 'law/judiciary', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2023-03-29T16:30:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
sport/2018/apr/11/unexpected-high-jump-and-javelin-successes-boost-golden-day-for-australia | Unexpected high jump and javelin successes boost golden day for Australia | Australian field athletes have rarely been the nation’s sporting standard bearers but unexpected Commonwealth Games gold medals in the high jump and javelin at Carrara Stadium helped Australia’s athletics team pick up where the record-breaking swimmers left off. Brandon Starc, the younger brother of cricketer Mitchell, cleared 2.32m to snatch victory in the men’s high jump. In recording a personal best, Starc became the first Australian to win a major high jump competition in 24 years. “This is just unreal. The whole stadium, I could not thank them enough. I have no words,” Starc said. “I knew I was in good form, I just had to back myself and believe in myself.” Kathryn Mitchell broke her personal best, the Commonwealth Games record and the Australian record with her opening throw in the women’s javelin. Mitchell’s effort of 68.92m was a mark no other competitor came close to beating, and would have comfortably won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she finished sixth. Fellow Australian Kelsey-Lee Roberts saved her best effort until last, moving into the silver medal position at the death. Remarkably, it was a first ever podium finish for Mitchell, a 35-year-old veteran of four Commonwealth Games and two Olympics. “I’ve opened before with my biggest throw, I’ve also thrown my biggest throw in the last round,” Mitchell said. “I just tried to concentrate on what I was doing in that moment, and I did that on the first throw. “The less I focus on results, the more the results come. I tried to put all thought of results out of my mind. I knew I could throw the Australian record eventually, so I just said to myself, ‘allow it to come’.” Henry Frame fell just short of making it a triple treat for Australia in Wednesday night’s field events, finishing with silver in the men’s long jump. Frame led for most of the competition, but was out-jumped at the death by South African world champion Luvo Manyonga. Cameron Crombie, a volunteer firefighter from Canberra, won the gold medal in the men’s F38 shot put final with a throw of 15.74 metres, a whisker short of the world record. In the women’s T35 100 metres, 16-year-old Isis Holt also fell just shy of a world-best time, providing her nation’s highlight on the track at Carrara Stadium. The Australian medal tally kept climbing, even after the conclusion of the swimming program, the country’s best ever result in the pool. Australia’s first gold medal of the day - and 51st for these Games – came from on-target shooter Daniel Repacholi, who took out the men’s 50-metre pistol event. Repacholi, 35, now a three-time gold medallist from four Commonwealth Games, had before the event announced it would be his last international shoot. His score of 227.2 was a Games record. “It’s amazing,” he said straight after the victory. “To win gold in front of my beautiful wife, my two beautiful kids and all our family it’s fantastic. It was great, [the crowd] were behind me the whole way. I don’t know if the same result would have happened if they weren’t here or if it was in another country.” Australian pair Georgia Sheehan and Esther Qin won the first diving gold medal on offer, jumping from fourth to first with their final dive in the women’s 3m springboard synchronised diving competition. Strong winds and technical problems with the scoring system overshadowed the remarkable come-from-behind victory. Fellow Australians Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith, bronze medallists at the 2016 Rio Olympics, had led the competition until the last round but appeared to be affected by the long delays and recorded a no-dive. They finished seventh. The outdoor conditions will likely prove challenging for the remainder of the diving program. “At the end of the day everyone’s in the same boat, everyone’s up,” Sheehan said. “They’e the same conditions [for all] so it’s really just who can deal with it the best today and that just happened to be us, which is really exciting.” On the Gold Coast’s iconic beachfront, Australian pairs won through to the women’s and men’s finals of the beach volleyball. Chris McHugh and Damien Schumann comfortably beat English opponents Chris Gregory and Jake Sheaf. McHugh and Schumann are strong favourites to win Thursday’s gold medal match and showed their strong credentials with a cultured display against the 210cm Gregory, who posed a unique challenge at Coolangatta Beach. “Gregory is a big, strong blocker so it was important to move him around,” Schumann said. “There’s been a lot of nervous, sleepless nights, and tonight will be no different. We’ll give it our best crack tomorrow. Whoever we play is going to be world class. Their win was matched by women’s pair Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar, who will also play for gold tomorrow. Both pairs will face Canadian opponents. | ['sport/commonwealth-games-2018', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'sport/australia-sport', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-sport'] | sport/commonwealth-games-2018 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-04-11T12:30:14Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2020/dec/02/canada-forests-clearcutting-ecosystem | Photography campaign shows the grim aftermath of logging in Canada's fragile forests | When TJ Watt first stood at the base of a towering western red cedar on Canada’s Pacific coast, the ancient giant was surrounded by thick moss and ferns, and the sounds of a vibrant forest ecosystem. When he returned a few months later, all that remained was a massive stump, set against a landscape that was unrecognizable. “To come back and see a place that was so magnificent and complex just completely and utterly destroyed is just gut-wrenching,” he said. Watt’s photographs of the forest – and the grim aftermath of logging – are now the centrepiece of a campaign by the Ancient Forest Alliance to capture the impact of clearcutting old growth trees in British Columbia. Despite recent efforts by the province to protect these fragile forests, conservationists say far more is needed to prevent the collapse of ecosystems. Watt has photographed clearcuts in the province for more than a decade with the AFA, but said the “graveyard of stumps” in the Caycuse watershed remains a jarring sight. “We’re in the midst of a global climate environmental crisis yet here in Canada, a first world country, we’re allowing the destruction of some of the most highly endangered old growth forests on the planet,” he said. “A lot of people are shocked that that’s still happening here. It’s not illegal. The government sanctions it.” The AFA estimates that most of the original old-growth forests along the province’s southern coast have been logged commercially. Less than 10% of Vancouver Island’s original old growth forests – where Watt shot his before-and-after series – are protected. Conservation groups have fought for decades to protect some of the oldest trees in the country. Campaigners won a major victory in September, after the province of British Columbia agreed to implement 14 recommendations from the Old Growth Strategic Review over the next three years. The panel called on the province to defer logging old-growth forests in nine areas throughout the province, protecting 352,739 hectares (871,600 acres) until a formal plan is developed. But as critics point out, only 3,800 hectares (9,400 acres) – or about 1% of the deferred areas – is previously unprotected old-growth forest. “There’s a huge gap between the quality of the recommendations and initial steps the government took,” said Jens Wieting of the Sierra Club of BC, pointing out that deferral areas contain only 1% of the most at-risk ecosystems. “That means that 99% of the work still remains to be done.” Both Watt and Wieting have called on the government to both protect the remaining old growth forests and to help forestry-dependent communities so they can transition away from old growth logging. They also say Indigenous peoples must have a role in protecting and managing the forest. “I’m going to keep taking these ‘before’ photos,” said Watt. “And it’s up to politicians if there’s going to be an ‘after’ shot.” | ['world/canada', 'environment/forests', 'environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'environment/environment', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/leyland-cecco', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-02T10:00:26Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2016/sep/29/south-australia-blackout-explained-renewables-not-to-blame | South Australia's blackout explained (and no, renewables aren't to blame) | On Wednesday, something very unusual happened: the entire state of South Australia lost power. Known as a “system black,” it’s something the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) had only prepared for in theory – never having the unfortunate opportunity to put “black start” procedures into place. What caused the blackout? The cause was very clear. And it was not due to renewable energy (see next section). One of the worst storms to hit South Australia in 50 years knocked out 22 high-voltage power pylons. The lines on those pylons carry electricity generated near Port Augusta to the rest of the state. When they went down, a cascade of automatic safety switches appear to have been flipped, in order to protect the rest of the SA power network – and indeed the rest of the National Electricity Market. Besides creating power, generators also affect the voltage and the frequency of the electricity network, which need to be carefully maintained to protect everything that’s connected to it. Aemo carefully models how that is likely to change in the short, medium and long-term, so that the networks can then make sure it’s sitting at the right values. When the 22 high-voltage power pylons were blown over, a huge chunk of power generation was cut off from the rest of the network. Dylan McConnell from the Melbourne Energy Institute says the market operator can’t prepare for very rare events like this. “They’re black swan events,” he says. “If they did plan for this, then there still might be something else that could happen, like an earthquake. A system capable of dealing with this would be very expensive.” To protect generators and equipment in SA, the whole high-voltage power system was cut, which in turn removed supply from the local distribution networks. In addition, to stop the voltage and frequency fluctuations affecting Victoria, the lines connecting SA to Victoria (the “interconnectors”) were also shut down. The result was that at about 4.20pm, the entire state of South Australia lost power. What did wind power have to do with it? Nothing. Nick Xenophon, Barnaby Joyce and others have been out blaming wind power for the blackout. But it is simply not true. Just before the blackout occurred, windfarms were producing about half the state’s electricity demand – they were not shut down as a result of the high winds. And ElectraNet, the owner of the downed high-voltage lines, made clear the blackout was caused by the storm damage to their network. If the recently closed Port Augusta coal power station was still operating, it would have been cut off by the downed distribution lines too. And that would have likely made the disruption worse, since it would have created an even bigger sudden change to the network. But that didn’t stop politicians and most media outlets reporting the false information. The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, said on Sydney radio station 2GB this morning: “Obviously we know that South Australia has had a strong desire to become basically all renewable energy and the question has to be asked does this make them more vulnerable to an issue such as what happened last night.” “If you turn power into just a complete social policy and say well we are going to save the planet one state at a time and in so doing you create vulnerability to your state, so that if it comes under stress with a severe lightning storm, as they did, that this makes it more likely that you will have a total blackout,” Joyce said. South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, who has often expressed anti-wind sentiments, also jumped on the bandwagon. “We have relied too much on wind rather than baseload renewables, rather than baseload power, including gas which is a fossil fuel but it is 50% cleaner than coal and a good transitional fuel,” he said. The irony is that if anything, more wind energy might have actually made the system more robust against this sort of rare event. The disruption occurred because of a sudden change to the network’s generation. And that happened because so much power was cut off at once. If there was more generation distributed around the state, it might have limited the impact of the loss of the transmission lines. How did the system cope with the outage? Remarkably well, it seems. While smaller blackouts occur reasonably frequently around the country, this appears to be the first time that any state has experienced a complete blackout. Since the National Electricity Market was first established, it’s had procedures for how to turn a system on from a complete “system black” but it has never done it before. That plan was put into action quickly and as of 11:42am this morning, about 80,000 South Australians were still without power. Aemo and the network operators were moving to progressively and safely restore power everywhere. Below is a map of which areas were experiencing blackouts at 11am. McConnell says doing that is no simple matter, and the fact Aemo started to get power generation back into the network within hours was a great feat. Map: number of people affected by power outages in SA | ['australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/windpower', 'weather/index/australasia', 'environment/energy', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2016-09-29T03:47:04Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2009/mar/07/cricket-terror-attack-pakistan | As human victims of terror attack are buried, nation mourns the other casualty - cricket | There were two sets of mourners in Pakistan this week. Friends and relatives of those caught up in Tuesday's brazen attack on a convoy of visiting Sri Lankan cricketers in the heart of Lahore buried their dead and lamented the cost of a nation's slide into violence and terrorism. Then there was the rest of the nation, mourning the death of international cricket in Pakistan. In a country where governance, economic development and security have gone backwards with each passing year, the Pakistan cricket team was a national mania, providing hope and vicarious glory to 160 million people. The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team has ended all that for now. From the children who improvise games using tennis balls wrapped in thick black tape, bricks as wickets, barefoot in the back streets of the big cities, to the businessmen who stop working for an entire Test match, the significance was clear: foreign players will shun Pakistan. The 2011 World Cup, due to be co-hosted here, will be taken away. Such is the obsession for the game that after the attack all that many Pakistanis could immediately think was that it was a "conspiracy to take away the World Cup". "This is a Muslim country. There are no night clubs here. For entertainment there is cricket or you can go to a restaurant with your family. But the first priority is cricket," said Shahzad Mehmood, a 28-year-old accounts clerk who had come to the site of the terror attack to lay flowers. "When we play cricket, or watch cricket, we feel so happy." Pakistan's stultified development, with religious conservatism getting an ever tighter grip, means leisure pursuits are few. With unemployment high, there are few options to divert youthful minds from boredom and disenchantment. Cricket goes a long way to filling the entertainment gap. Not domestic cricket, which is woefully organised and watched by hardly anyone, but the national team. The current captain, Younis Khan, put it bluntly: "If cricket is snatched away, doesn't it look like more people like the ones who attacked Sri Lanka will be produced?" Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain, now a politician, said it was cricket that helped Pakistan and other commonwealth countries achieve dignity in tumultuous post-independence years. "The colonial hangover was removed by the cricket team," he said. "When I started we were the generation that couldn't possibly think of beating England. Then we began beating England. Much more important than beating other teams was to beat England because they were considered the master, the ex-colonialists. It was a country regaining its honour and pride through cricket, getting that self-esteem that colonialism destroys." On match days the nation huddles around televisions. At the weekend, and on weekday afternoons, every scrap of waste ground, every park and yard is filled with boys and young men playing cricket. The big entertainment for a Saturday night is to rig up some lights in the street and play right through until dawn, all the kids in the neighbourhood joining in. During Ramadan, the month of fasting when people can only eat after dark, night cricket on the streets takes over. People play all night, sleep all day. Special leagues for Ramadan are set up in some places. The head of the Pakistan cricket board is appointed by the president of the country and is answerable only to him. When there's a change in head of state, the chairman of the PCB always follows. Pakistan once led the world at hockey and squash. But that is long past. It is Pakistan's international cricket stars on billboards and in television adverts, selling shampoo and mobile phones. An artificially created country when the British left India, Pakistan is made up of four provinces, three of which have breakaway movements. Those regional rivalries are forgotten when cheering for the national cricket team. "It [cricket] is integral to the federation. It connects the people," said Irshad Niaz, a 53-year-old businessman, also standing at the site of the terror attack. Niaz remembers fondly how he once saw Viv Richards, the celebrated West Indies batsman, in Lahore, in the 1980s. "It was inspiring for me just to see him." Now a generation may grow up without seeing foreign stars - and their own heroes. The progress of Pakistani players will suffer too - promising youngsters tend to be tried out in home series. "Terrorism has won," said Imtiaz Hussain, an insurance worker in Lahore. "We will get to the point when we are on our knees and have to invite in America, or some other country, to take us over. This is a plot against Pakistan." Among militant groups, though, cricket is considered an imperial throwback. The banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected of involvement in the recent Mumbai and Lahore attacks, called upon Pakistanis to give up the sport. "The British gave Muslims the bat, snatched the sword and said to them: 'You take this bat and play cricket. Give us your sword. With its help we will kill you and rape your women,'" the LeT said in its magazine. But most Pakistanis disagree. "The game of cricket is next to religion in Pakistan," said Waseem Bari, a former Pakistani wicket-keeper. "Of course there's been a tragedy but the solution is not to isolate Pakistan. When a person is down, one way is to put him down further, the other thing is to give a hand of support." | ['world/pakistan', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'tone/news', 'world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack', 'profile/saeedshah', 'profile/maseehrahman', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-03-07T00:01:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
society/2022/oct/05/pfas-sperm-count-mobility-testicle-development | Study links in utero ‘forever chemical’ exposure to low sperm count and mobility | A new peer-reviewed Danish study finds that a mother’s exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” during early pregnancy can lead to lower sperm count and quality later in her child’s life. PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are known to disrupt hormones and fetal development, and future “reproductive capacity” is largely defined as testicles develop in utero during the first trimester of a pregnancy, said study co-author Sandra Søgaard Tøttenborg of the Copenhagen University hospital. “It makes sense that exposure to substances that mimic and interfere with the hormones involved in this delicate process can have consequences for semen quality later in life,” Søgaard Tøttenborg said. PFAS are a class of about 12,000 chemicals typically used to make thousands of products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they accumulate in humans and the environment and do not naturally break down. A growing body of evidence links them to serious health problems such as cancer, birth defects, liver disease, kidney disease and decreased immunity. The study, published on Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, examined semen characteristics and reproductive hormones in 864 young Danish men born to women who provided blood samples during their pregnancies’ first trimesters between 1996 and 2002. The study builds on others that found similar issues, but it is the first to look for exposure to more than two PFAS compounds and to assess exposure during early pregnancy, which is the male reproductive organ’s “primary developmental period”. Researchers checked the mothers’ blood for 15 PFAS compounds, and found seven in large enough concentrations to include in the study. Those mothers with higher levels of exposure more frequently raised adult men with lower sperm counts, as well as elevated immotile sperm levels, meaning their sperm did not swim. This exposure also increased the amount of non-progressive sperm – sperm that do not swim straight or swim in circles. Both issues can lead to infertility. The ubiquitous chemicals are estimated to be in 98% of Americans’ blood, and they can cross the placental barrier and accumulate in the growing fetus. A recent analysis of 40 studies of umbilical cord blood from around the world found that PFAS were detected in all 30,000 samples collectively examined. Infertility rates are on the rise worldwide, often for unclear reasons, Søgaard Tøttenborg said. “The results of our studies are an important piece in that puzzle,” she added. “Equally important: the more we know, the more we can prevent.” | ['society/fertility-problems', 'society/society', 'society/health', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/plastic', 'society/mens-health', 'lifeandstyle/pregnancy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-perkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-10-05T04:01:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2011/aug/04/oil-nigeria-spills-fines-fights | Oil in Nigeria: a history of spills, fines and fights for rights | Oil was first found in Nigeria in 1956, then a British protectorate, by a joint operation between Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum. The two begun production in 1958, and were soon joined by a host of other foreign oil companies in the 1960s after the country gained independence and, shortly after, fell into civil war. The rapidly expanding oil industry was dogged in controversy from early on, with criticism that its financial proceeds were being exported or lost in corruption rather than used to help the millions living on $1 a day in the Niger delta or reduce its impact on the local environment. A major 1970 oil spill in Ogoniland in the south-east of Nigeria led to thousands of gallons being spilt on farmland and rivers, ultimately leading to a £26m fine for Shell in Nigerian courts 30 years later. According to the Nigerian government, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000. In 1990, the government announced a new round of oil field licensing, the largest since the 1960s. Non-violent opposition to the oil companies by the Ogoni people in the early 1990s over the contamination of their land and lack of financial benefit from the oil revenues attracted international attention. Then, in 1995, Ogoni author and campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa was charged with incitement to murder and executed by Nigeria's military government. In 2009, Shell agreed to pay £9.6m out of court, in a settlement of a legal action which accused it of collaborating in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight other tribal leaders. In an escalation of opposition to the environmental degradation and underdevelopment, armed groups began sabotaging pipelines and kidnapping oil company staff from 2006, with a ceasefire called in 2009 by one group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. A year later it announced an "all-out oil war" after a crackdown by the Nigerian military. Hundreds of minor court cases are brought each year in Nigeria over oil spills and pollution. Last year, Shell admitted spilling 14,000 tonnes of crude oil in the creeks of the Niger delta in 2009, double the year before and quadruple that of 2007. | ['environment/oil-spills', 'environment/oil', 'environment/environment', 'world/nigeria', 'world/world', 'tone/resource', 'environment/energy', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/natural-resources-and-development', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2011-08-04T08:22:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/us-embassy-cables-documents/200080 | US embassy cables: UAE presses to host renewable energy headquarters | Wednesday, 01 April 2009, 12:35 C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABU DHABI 000329 SIPDIS FOR S/SECC TODD STERN AND DSECC JONATHAN PERSHING ALSO FOR NEA/ARP AND EEB/ESC/IEC/ENR (MONOSSON, SECOR, THOMPSON), AND S/SRAP HOLBROOKE AMMAN FOR ESTH HUB OFFICER (BHALLA) EO 12958 03/24/2019 TAGS SENV, ECON, PREL, PGOV, AE SUBJECT: (U) WHY THE UAE IS PRESSING FOR IRENA HQ CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR RICHARD G. OLSON FOR REASONS 1.4 B AND D REFS: A) ABU DHABI 301 B) ABU DHABI 199 C) ABU DHABI 170 D) STATE 27497 1. (C) Summary. The UAE's push (refs A-C) to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) complements its political and financial commitment to encouraging renewable energy production and consumption. Although the fourth largest oil producer in the world, the UAE is expanding its commitment to environmental protection, and more importantly, positioning itself for what it sees as a post-hydrocarbon based future. The UAE has launched a major effort to promote renewables by encouraging research, development and innovation in the UAE and abroad. This includes an ambitious effort to build the first zero-carbon, zero-waste city, Masdar City. The UAE has serious resources to put into the international search for alternative energy sources, and as such, UAE interest in these issues should be seen as an opportunity for the USG. Moreover, the UAE is clearly signaling that it wants United States to support its IRENA bid, given UAE support for many of our political, security and financial priorities and the Administration's focus on environmental issues. End Summary. 2. (SBU) Since the creation of IRENA in January, the UAE has actively campaigned to host the headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Though the argument that an oil producer should host a renewable energy agency may seem counter-intuitive, Emiratis view IRENA as a natural complement to their efforts to protect the environment and reduce UAE dependence on fossil fuels. The founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed is widely known in the UAE as one of the Arab world's first environmentalists, and the new generation of leaders is advancing his efforts through the application of modern environmental technology, policies and practices. 3. (SBU) The most prominent example of UAE commitment is Masdar (www.masdar.ae), the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, which was launched in 2006 as part of Abu Dhabi's efforts to diversify its economy away from petroleum, while leveraging its historic expertise in global energy markets. Masdar has established the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology (MIST), in collaboration with MIT, to support graduate level research on advanced energy and sustainability, begun construction on the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city (Masdar City), and launched the World Future Energy Summit and the Zayed Future Energy Prize. Putting UAE money where its mouth is, Masdar has also invested over USD 1 billion in foreign wind and solar technology projects, including Torresol Energy (Spain), WinWinD (Finland) and the London Array offshore wind farm (UK), among others. Domestically, Masdar is developing solar production capacity and working with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) on carbon capture and reinjection into oil fields. Masdar's efforts will help the Emirate of Abu Dhabi reach a target of 7 percent power generation from renewables by 2020. 4. (SBU) The UAEG wants Masdar City to be the host of IRENA, but its argument is based on more than just Masdar's credentials. Officials note the important symbolism of putting an international renewable agency in an oil-producing country. They also highlight that no other international organizations are headquartered in the Arab World, with the exception of UNRWA, which they view as an aid organization more than a policy body (and one that they hope can eventually disappear as a two-state solution materializes). Further, the UAE is centrally located between developed and developing nations and bridges north-south, east-west divides. 5. (C) COMMENT: Whether the USG can support the IRENA candidacy of the UAE ultimately depends on USG policy toward IRENA itself, and we do not have the overall context for a policy recommendation on that issue. However, several points about the UAE position need to be factored into such a policy decision: -- First: The UAE, unlike many supporters of renewables, has serious resources to put into the development of technology. This is a point that has not been lost on the US and other countries private sectors who have worn a deep path to Masdar's door seeking participation in its projects. -- Second: The UAE has been one of our most helpful security partners in the Middle East. UAE troops are in the fight in Afghanistan (in greater numbers and more dangerous places than many NATO Allies); the UAE has cancelled Saddam era debt in Iraq and opened an Embassy; it is perhaps the only Arab country to have fully paid up its dues to the Palestinian Authority; and it has taken a leading role in the Friends of Pakistan initiative. While the UAE ABU DHABI 00000329 002 OF 002 has not expressed any direct linkage between any of these initiatives and IRENA, it has clearly signaled that, having been helpful to the USG on a number of issues important to us, it expects the USG to be helpful on an issue of importance to the UAE. 6. (C) UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayid Al-Nahyan (AbZ) will raise this issue with Secretary Clinton during their 7 April meeting. OLSON | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'world/united-arab-emirates', 'us-news/series/us-embassy-cables-the-documents', 'us-news/the-us-embassy-cables', 'us-news/us-foreign-policy', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/oil', 'type/document', 'type/article'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-12-03T21:30:18Z | true | ENERGY |
money/2017/feb/09/our-dream-home-has-been-extended-near-trees-is-subsidence-a-risk | Our dream home has been extended near trees – is subsidence a risk? | Q My husband and I are looking to move into a bigger house as our current two-bed, one-bath house has become too small for us. We have found our dream home. It is a semi-detached property with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, which was rebuilt out of a rundown two-bed house in 2015. The previous owner extended the house to the side all the way up to the neighbour’s boundary wall. What worries me is that the neighbour has a line of very tall conifer trees running along this wall. I am afraid these trees could cause us a great deal of subsidence trouble in future – although there don’t currently seem to be any signs of subsidence in the house. Would the construction company that did the work have had to account for these trees in some way – for example by building the foundations deep enough not to be affected by them? How can we find this out and should we even bother pursuing the purchase – or just walk away? NS A If it makes you feel any better, the proximity of trees to the new building may be no cause for concern. According to the Royal Horticultural Society “most trees growing near buildings cause no damage” and “even where conditions mean the risk [of damage] is high, only a very small proportion of trees will go on to cause subsidence”. Indeed, the RHS seems so relaxed about the problem that it suggests you don’t really need to take action “until a tree becomes a real risk and causes damage”. The key issue isn’t necessarily the tree – or trees – but rather the soil that it is planted in. Whether there are trees or not, subsidence is what can happen to buildings on soils, such as clay, that shrink and expand in response to their moisture content. In times of drought – typically in the summer, and made worse by the presence of thirsty tree roots – clay soils shrink, and during periods of prolonged rain they expand. This shrinkage and expansion may cause movement, which in turn can cause subsidence and cracks in the fabric of a property – normally around windows and doors. However, subsidence is likely to be a lot less of a problem if the soil in which trees are planted is relatively free-draining. The main reason not to worry is that current building regulations mean that builders and developers have to take account of nearby trees when drawing up plans. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, modern buildings are seldom affected because foundations have to be sufficiently deep to counteract the potential damage caused by tree roots. If you want to check that building work conforms to building regulations, you can check with the local planning department. You can also arrange for a survey by a tree specialist if you want to put your mind at rest. Another thing to bear in mind is that, if the neighbour’s trees did cause damage, it is the responsibility of the owner of the tree to pay the full cost of repairs. In the case of the property you are looking at, it’s likely that the neighbour’s wall will suffer before any damage is done to your potential new home. | ['money/series/expertsproperty', 'money/property', 'environment/forests', 'money/money', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/virginiawallis', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-money'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-02-09T07:00:16Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2013/may/10/amazon-clearance-agriculture-economic-own-goal | Amazon clearance for agriculture is 'economic own goal' for Brazil | Brazil is at risk of scoring an economic own goal if it continues clearing Amazon forest for herding and soya production, according to a new study that has potential implications for global food security. In recent decades, the conversion of vast tracts of the Amazon into pastures and farm fields has boosted the national economy and played a major role in meeting rising world demand for beef and grain, particularly soyabeans – for which Brazil overtook the US this year as the number one supplier. But researchers say the economic and agricultural gains are in danger of slipping into reverse because the loss of forest is reducing rainfall, raising temperatures and causing other malign feedbacks on the regional climate. "The more agriculture expands in the Amazon, the less productive it will become … In this situation, we all lose," warns the paper by Brazilian and US scientists that is published on Friday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Based on existing trends of deforestation, loss of carbon sequestration and related feedbacks on rainfall, temperature and biomass, the researchers project a 34% fall in pasture productivity and a 28% decline in soyabean yields by 2050. "We now have a very strong economic argument (against deforestation of the Amazon), in addition to the environmental ones," said one of the authors, Marcos Heil Costa at Federal University of Viçosa. He said the findings would be presented to the Brazilian government. In the past eight years, Brazil has slowed the pace of forest clearance by 80%, but roughly 6,000 sq km – an area bigger than Brunei – is still converted every year. The global climate change impacts of the canopy loss have been widely studied, but the new paper focuses more on the regional implications of a diminished ecosystem and all the services it provides, particularly to farmers. "We expected to see some kind of compensation or off put, but it was a surprise to us that high levels of deforestation could be a no-win scenario – the loss of environmental services provided by the deforestation may not be offset by an increase in agriculture production," noted the lead author of the study, Leydimere Oliveira, in a statement. "There may be a limit for expansion of agriculture in Amazonia. Below this limit, there are not important economic consequences of this expansion. Beyond this limit, the feedbacks that we demonstrated start to introduce significant losses in the agriculture production." Exactly where that limit lies will be the subject of further study, but the prospect of more forest clearance resulting in less food should alarm policymakers. But the researchers said there were alternatives – including more efficient and sustainable use of previously cleared land – that needed to be pursued with greater urgency. "The consequences for global food security are, at first thought, worrisome. However, many scientists, including myself, believe it is possible to increase agriculture productivity in the Amazon (and in Brazil in general) through increases in productivity, without increasing planted area or additional deforestation," said Costa. "Demonstrating how this can be done and actually implementing it is the biggest challenge of agricultural science in Brazil for the next 40 years." • This article was changed on 14 May 2013 to change a reference from Bahrain to Brunei | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/farming', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'environment/food', 'business/economics', 'business/business', 'global-development/food-security', 'global-development/global-development', 'type/article', 'profile/jonathanwatts'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2013-05-10T05:29:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2016/mar/07/edfs-hinkley-point-dilemma-adds-to-project-woes | EDF's Hinkley Point nuclear nightmare adds to company's woes | Building an £18bn nuclear power station such as Hinkley Point C would be a huge financial commitment for any energy company – even one that is mainly state-owned. EDF, the company at the heart of the Somerset project that is 85% owned by the French government, has brought in Chinese state-owned firms as partners and negotiated generous subsidies with the UK government. However, the resignation of EDF’s finance director, Thomas Piquemal, shows nervousness at the top of the group about the dangers of a project of this magnitude, even though chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy insisted on Monday that he still wanted to reach a final decision on the Hinkley investment soon. EDF is under tremendous pressurefrom inside the company to stop but also to proceed, with the British government desperate to avoid a flagship energy project being abandoned at a time when few other schemes seem to be going right. The French president, François Hollande, told UK PM David Cameron last week that he wanted to see Hinkley go ahead, but he has loaded EDF with added financial responsibilities at a time when it could least manage them. Hinkley Point in 2012 might have looked like just another ambitious but doable scheme. But the intervening years have brought trouble – a lot of it – to the French company. Flamanville EDF has been building a European pressurised reactor (EPR) plant in Normandy, France. The latest EPR has been dreamed up by EDF in conjunction with its engineering partner Areva. It was meant to be a showcase to the world, allowing EDF and Areva to market and build these plants globally, not least at Hinkley in Somerset. But Flamanville has turned into a nightmare project with endless delays, regulatory problems and cost overruns. The situation has been made worse by another scheme involving EPRs at Olkiluoto in Finland. This too has turned into a huge public relations embarrassment. It has been plagued with contract disputes, broken budgets and is 10 years behind schedule. Fukushima The Japanese nuclear disaster that occurred five years ago this Saturday has badly dented confidence in nuclear power, the technology that EDF specialises in. Germany has decided to abandon atomic power in the aftermath of Fukushima. France relies on it for almost all of its electricity and will continue to do so. But the Paris government has insisted EDF must introduce new safety mechanisms on its reactors in France. The cost of these changes have been estimated by some experts at up to €50bn (£38.7bn). Energy prices The wholesale cost of electricity has been tumbling in Britain and the rest of Europe, making it harder for relatively higher-cost nuclear to compete. Some of this is temporary, due to falling oil and gas prices, and some is more permanent because of subsidised renewable power. Wind and solar technologies are developing fast and reducing in price, which puts more pressure on rival energy sources. EDF, which has already large debts, has already been forced to borrow money to pay for dividends to shareholders, notably the French government. The share price has been hammered by these financial stresses and is now almost 90% lower than it was in 2007. News of the finance director’s resignation led EDF shares to plunge 10% in early trading on Monday. Even many financial analysts in the City of London have concluded that Hinkley would be a step too far. RBC Capital Markets said: “To proceed with Hinkley Point C at this juncture would be verging on insanity.” EDF has in turn said it is willing to sell a bundle of €6bn worth of assets to raise cash in the meantime. Among the stakes that could be sold is a 30% holding in EDF Energy in Britain, the formal developer of Hinkley. It is not clear at this time who would want to buy these assets and what price they would pay. Areva A lot of EDF’s problems have been caused by the near financial collapse at its nuclear engineering partner, Areva. This company designed the EPR and has been at the heart of the Olkiluoto plant delays. It is said to need a €7bn cash injection over the next couple of years to keep going. The French government has in effect demanded that EDF take over Areva – putting even more pressure on EDF’s finances. Areva has designed the proposed new Hinkley reactors and was meant to be lined up to win some of the biggest contracts there much to the frustration of British engineering firms. Board warfare The financial pressures on EDF have led to the company announcing in January a 5% reduction to its workforce. The French unions, who have places on the group board, are furious and blame Hinkley for some of the problems. They want the Somerset project ditched to avoid further difficulties. They are accused by some nuclear industry experts of leaking negative information from board meetings to try to undermine the Hinkley plans further. The resignation of Piquemal, which apparently happened last week but was only confirmed on Monday, suggests even he believes Hinkley could break the EDF camel’s back. For such a senior executive to walk out at such a crucial point puts enormous pressure on Levy not to proceed too quickly. Piquemal is believed to have wanted to delay the decision on Hinkley until new money was successfully raised from the proposed asset sales. Levy may yet get his way over the dissenters inside the board but the stakes are now very, very high. | ['business/edf', 'business/business', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/france', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/terrymacalister'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2016-03-07T11:40:19Z | true | ENERGY |
sustainable-business/2015/feb/20/trafficking-labour-corporations-compliance-human-rights | What are multinationals doing to champion rights of millions trapped in modern-day slavery? | In a world of complex supply chains, migrant workers, sub-suppliers and a constant squeeze on costs, corporate leaders and their stakeholders are keenly aware of the risk of labour exploitation. And for good reason. No industry or region is fully insulated from the social deficit which has emerged from the rise of the modern global economy. The figures are astounding. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that almost 21 million people are currently working in some form of forced labour, with 14.2 million in economic activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work or manufacturing (pdf). What’s more, many of these victims have been trafficked across national borders in the process. As campaign coalition Stop The Traffik points out, the hidden and illegal nature of human trafficking makes gathering statistics on this difficult. However, the ILO estimates that 44% of those working in forced labour are also victims of trafficking (pdf). The rise of compulsory transparency The fight to eradicate the scourge of forced and child labour, sometimes referred to as modern-day slavery, has re-emerged as a defining issue in this century and cannot be left to any one stakeholder alone. Given the influence and impact that multinational corporations have, there is significant scope for corporate leaders to champion reform and action in this area. While voluntary corporate initiatives to combat forced labour and trafficking in corporate supply chains have been the prevailing model for the past two decades, the landscape of social responsibility is quickly shifting. Beginning in California in 2012, following effective campaigning and lobbying to then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, mandatory corporate disclosure of a company’s non-financial activities has been on the rise. From US President Obama’s executive order on trafficking and federal procurement, to the UK Modern Slavery Bill’s recent amendment to include supply chain disclosure provisions, to the EU’s adoption of a non-financial reporting directive, compulsory transparency around global corporate practices – including human rights, labour and social impacts and policies – is the latest tool being employed by legislators to place social expectations on corporations. Over the past few decades, multinational corporations have grown significantly in terms of size, assets, resource control and revenue, not to mention societal influence. In fact, the largest among them have become equivalent to national governments in terms of economic power. This growth has been accompanied by growing expectations by society and government. While many leading companies recognise both the importance of embracing the expectations that come with this and the economic rationale underlying their social license to operate, others have been slow to rise to this challenge. Weighing up the value of global supply chains It is, of course, critical to recognise that the global corporate supply chain can be a force for good. Among other things, they provide a wide range of low-cost products to consumers, an influx of capital to developing nations, a living wage for those in parts of the world with few economic opportunities, and higher profits and returns to corporate investors and employees. In the modern global labour market, there is a continuous supply of workers in foreign jurisdictions ready to produce goods at lower cost than the domestic labour market. In many instances this is a positive development for workers in communities overseas and for the corporations at the top of the supply chain. However, with their multiple levels of subcontracting, particularly throughout impoverished regions where labour laws are non-existent or not enforced, global labour and product supply chains also provide fertile ground for inhumane practices and working conditions. The United States Department of Labor, for example, has produced a list of 136 goods produced in 74 countries using forced labour, child labour, or both. These goods include everything from strawberries, coffee, chocolate and palm oil to footballs, bricks, rubber and cotton. Responsible business practices benefit companies Many leading companies already understand that their strategies shape the lives of millions. The most forward-thinking believe that business is an integral pillar of society and recognise that the people they rely on at home and abroad are central to building sustainable and lasting businesses. Responsible corporations know that sustainable practices and robust compliance programs are not only good for the communities in which they operate, but also for longer term business prospects. And since mandatory disclosure requires all multinationals to take notice and action rather than just the industry leaders, this ultimately helps level the playing field. The recent movement toward mandatory reporting and disclosure in the non-financial realm is not without its critics. Some believe supply chain transparency laws do not constitute any real change from the prevailing corporate-driven model for CSR, while others oppose increased regulation and oversight as unnecessary state intervention, believing that industry led efforts have the best chance of success. In reality, it is a combination of corporate leadership and regulation in this area which will help ensure all market participants rise to acceptable standards. One thing is clear. The trend away from voluntary reports towards mandatory social reporting for global corporations is here to stay and may represent a first step towards increased legislative requirements, ultimately backed up by government enforcement and serious liability for corporate wrong-doers. No matter where one believes the solutions lie, the ultimate goal is a global economy free from forced labour, trafficking and other abuses. For the millions of victims who go out into the world seeking work in the hope of building better lives, we must commit to seeking the best path forward. 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/comment', 'law/human-rights', 'law/law', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'law/child-labour', 'type/article'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-02-20T11:17:58Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
us-news/2024/oct/03/flooding-us-cities-2100 | How bad will flooding get by 2100? These AI images show US destinations underwater | Floods affecting much of the south-east US show the destructive force of higher sea levels and warmer temperatures. Now, researchers at the non-profit Climate Central are using artificial intelligence to predict how climate-related flooding will affect US communities into the next 75 years if warming continues at its current pace. Previous research has shown that by 2050, sea levels along the US coastline could rise as much as 12in (30cm) from 2020 levels. High-tide flooding, which can occur even in sunny weather, is projected to triple by 2050, and so-called 100-year floods may soon become annual occurrences in New England. The scale of the threat is difficult to fathom, said Ben Strauss, CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central. He hopes new AI imagery will help. “We want to change how flood risk is communicated in this country,” Strauss said. “When the picture [is] of a local site that you know and are familiar with, that’s when the stakes really make themselves apparent.” Climate Central sent camera-equipped trucks along the eastern and Gulf coasts to capture images and videos of flood-prone areas. Researchers overlaid the images with elevation data to create a real-time flood map that they say paints a clearer picture of current and future flood risks. “Some people use AI to make deepfakes, but we use AI in a very controlled way to illustrate science projects,” said Strauss. “When we take a photograph, we analyze the position and the elevation of every single pixel in that image, and we force the AI to put water only up to the flood level.” Climate Central shared images of iconic vacation destinations along the east coast – including Cape Cod and the Jersey shore – with the Guardian, visualizing how they will be dramatically altered by sea level rise and flooding. The images depict water levels associated with 100-year floods, called that because there is a 1% likelihood of them occurring in a given year. However, these floods are increasing in frequency. Earlier this year, Maine experienced three 100-year-storms in the span of three months. Melting ice caps are the main driver of sea level rise, which has gone up 4in in the last 30 years alone, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Sea level rise raises the launch pad for coastal floods,” Strauss said. “So 1ft of sea level rise turns a 3ft flood into a 4ft flood. It also makes 3ft floods much more frequent than they used to be.” Researchers used the Interagency Sea Level Task Force’s intermediate predictions for sea level rise, which project a rise of10 to 12in by 2050 and roughly 3ft by 2100 in the north-east. “Part of the future of sea level rise is all of the ice sheets and glaciers of the world catching up with the amount of warming that we’ve already caused, and a lot of that is what we see by 2050,” Strauss said. “Whereas up to 2100 you see a really big difference, depending on whether we heat up the planet more, or stabilize to near where we are.” Researchers found one of the places that will be most affected by sea-level rise is Cape Cod in Massachusetts. “On the Cape, all of our towns focus on flooding as the biggest risk – everything is at stake,” said Shannon Hulst, a floodplain specialist for Barnstable county in Cape Cod. “We’re both affected by the ocean, and the ocean drives our economy.” An estimated 5.5 million people visit Cape Cod each year, bringing in some $730m to the local economy. But rising waters are eroding the cape’s famous beaches. Hulst said: “If we don’t have beaches that draw in visitors any more, then our economy is going to look very different.” Low-lying coastal areas like Cape Cod are at risk from tides, waves and storm surges. Some are adapting by relocating inland; restoring coastal ecosystems like wetlands, beaches, dunes and oyster beds; elevating buildings and roads; and constructing sea walls. Residents are also flood-proofing their homes by raising their foundations or building on stilts, for example. But while higher elevation can protect a property, that alone is not enough. “Maybe your home won’t get destroyed,” said Nick Angarone, New Jersey’s chief resilience officer. “But if you can’t get out to get food and water, or if you lose power and you can’t get medical assistance and the rescuers can’t get to you, are you really resilient?” Some residents in the flood-prone areas will eventually have little choice but to accept government buyouts of their homes, experts said. Strauss said he hoped imagery like Climate Central’s will get people thinking about local resilience planning and their own emergency preparations. “Even at the level of an inbound hurricane, we think that an image showing how deep the flood waters could be will be much more powerful in persuading people to evacuate and protect their lives than an emergency alert message in all caps,” said Strauss. “If they see that their house would be halfway underwater, that’s a different story.” | ['us-news/series/americas-dirty-divide', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'technology/artificialintelligenceai', 'technology/deepfake', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/aliya-uteuova', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-03T15:00:27Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2010/mar/29/falkland-island-drilling-disappoints-desire | Falkland Islands drilling disappoints for Desire | The prospect of a new oil boom off the coast of the Falklands Islands has been dealt a heavy blow after the first well yielded disappointing results. Desire Petroleum told the stock market this morning that exploratory drilling beneath the seabed surrounding the South Atlantic territory had found oil deposits, but warned that early evidence suggests they may not be commercially viable. The bad news sent its shares tumbling more than 50%, and hit other companies in the sector. A handful of explorers, including Desire, are hoping to discover large quantities of oil in the North Falklands basin. Earlier this year a drilling rig called Ocean Guardian was shipped out from Scotland to dig a series of exploratory wells. Desire was the first company to put Ocean Guardian to use. It dug more than 3,500 metres, and hit hydrocarbon deposits around 2,550 metres. However, early analysis showed "that oil may be present in thin intervals but that reservoir quality is poor". It warned that until it has analysed the data further it will not know whether the well needs to be "drilled deeper, suspended for testing or plugged and abandoned". Shares in Desire plunged by nearly 60% when trading began, down 58p at 41p. Rockhopper Exploration, which owned 7% of Desire's well, tumbled 35%. The offshore drilling had sparked a diplomatic spat between the UK and Argentina, reviving memories of the conflict over the islands in 1982. Last month the Argentinian government issued a decree obliging ships using Argentinian ports to seek a permit if they enter or leave British-controlled waters. Desire is expected to announce further results from the well, called Liz 14/19-1, later this week. Alan Sinclair, analyst at stockbrokers Seymour Pierce, argued that all may not be lost. "On balance, whilst the market may have been looking for seagull-scorching test results from Liz, it should be borne in mind that this is the first of a potential six-well programme by Desire. It is encouraging that initial indications suggest that potentially all the ingredients – reservoir, trap and hydrocarbons – are present in the general area," he wrote in a research note. If subsequent drilling yields the same disappointing results as Desire's first well, then this will be the second time in 13 years that a Falklands oil boom has ended in tears. In May 1998, Desire's shares crashed by 30% after a drilling operation in the North Falklands basin found that hydrocarbons were present, but not in commercial quantities. | ['business/oilandgascompanies', 'uk/falklands', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'world/argentina', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'business/stock-markets', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/graemewearden', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-03-29T08:46:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/dec/16/ella-kissi-debrah-mother-fight-justice-air-pollution-death | Ella Kissi-Debrah: how a mother’s fight for justice may help prevent other air pollution deaths | Until now, the statistics on air pollution deaths have been presented in black and white – numbers on a page that estimate between 28,000 and 36,000 people will die as a result of toxic air pollution every year in the UK. But the life and death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah is in full colour: from the pictures of her wearing her gymnastics leotard hung with medals, to the image of her mother and siblings holding aloft her photograph, when they no longer had her to hold on to, as they campaigned for the truth. As Prof Sir Stephen Holgate told the coroner, behind the often-quoted statistics lie individuals whose lives have been cut short. “Every single number that goes into these studies is a single person dying,” he said. Holgate paid tribute to the resilience of Ella’s mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, for her tenacity, which on Wednesday helped to make legal history when for the first time air pollution was recorded as a cause in an individual death in the UK. The last two years of Ella’s life were punctuated by severe asthma attacks that led to her collapse and admission to hospital almost 30 times. Her lungs collapsed, or partially collapsed, on five occasions, as she struggled to survive what the coroner heard was a form of asthma that flooded her lungs with fluid. It was Holgate’s examination of these years, recorded in medical notes from a range of experts whom Kissi-Debrah turned to for help, that led to a pattern emerging. Unlike most people with asthma, Ella’s attacks were not triggered by pollen or respiratory infections but something else. Holgate’s work exposed that pattern as a seasonal one: it was in winter when air pollution levels spiked that Ella was brought down with coughing fits, which triggered secretions in her lungs that in turn triggered her collapses. Ella and her family lived just 25 metres from South Circular Road in Lewisham, south-east London, where levels of nitrogen dioxide air pollution from traffic constantly exceeded the annual legal limit of 40µg/m3 between 2006 and 2010. The scale of the crisis was a public health emergency, the hearing was told, and the efforts of the authorities to tackle it were glacial. But as she walked to school along the main road and sometimes the back streets, Ella and her mother were in ignorance of the damage the toxic air was causing. No one had told them. Kissi-Debrah said she knew almost nothing about air pollution or nitrogen dioxide while her daughter was alive. “I knew about car fumes, the phrase, but nothing else.” The first inquest into her daughter’s death in 2014 recorded that Ella had died in Februrary 2013 of acute respiratory failure. There was no mention of any environmental factors causing the fatal collapse. It was only when Kissi-Debrah launched a charity in her daughter’s name to improve the lives of children with asthma in south-east London that she started to make connections. “I got a call from someone who told me [that] in the two days around Ella’s death there were big spikes in air pollution locally,” Kissi-Debrah said. From there the evidence grew, and the case was taken up by the human rights lawyer Jocelyn Cockburn. When Holgate produced a report for the family last year linking air pollution levels to Ella’s death, the attorney general quashed the first inquest. Over the past two weeks a very different inquiry into what took the nine-year-old’s life has been played out in the coroner’s court. This time government departments, officials from the local authority and the mayor of London were questioned about what they did – or did not do – to reduce illegal air pollution levels around the area Ella lived. Crucially, they were interrogated about whether they informed the public of the risk to their lives from the air they were breathing, and whether their failings might have breached Ella’s right to life. In heartrending evidence, Kissi-Debrah, a former teacher, told the coroner that had she known the air her daughter was breathing was killing her, she would have moved house immediately. “We were desperate for anything to help her. I would have moved straight away, I would have found another hospital for her and moved. I cannot say it enough. I was desperate, she was desperate,” she said. The impact of leaving the toxic surroundings could have led to a different outcome for Ella, Holgate told the hearing. He referred to a case in France last year, where a mother successfully sued the French state over the impact of living near Paris’s traffic-choked ringroad in Saint-Ouen. The mother and daughter moved to Orléans on doctors’ advice and their health improved considerably. For Ella, that did not happen. But the finding this week by a London coroner that air pollution was to blame for her death, after her mother’s long fight for the truth may help to prevent other children in her daughter’s situation from suffering as she did. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'uk/london', 'society/asthma', 'society/society', 'uk/uk', 'society/health', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/sandralaville', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-12-16T12:03:16Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2022/aug/31/barreleye-incredible-fish-with-a-transparent-head | Discovered in the deep: the incredible fish with a transparent head | In the ocean’s shadowy twilight zone, between 600 and 800 metres beneath the surface, there are fish that gaze upwards through their transparent heads with eyes like mesmerising emerald orbs. These domes are huge spherical lenses that sit on a pair of long, silvery eye tubes – hence its common name, the barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma). The green tint (which actually comes from a yellow pigment) acts as sunglasses, of a sort, to help them track down their prey. There’s nowhere to hide in the open waters of the deep ocean and many animals living here have glowing bellies that disguise their silhouette and protect them – bioluminescent prey is hard to spot against the dim blue sunlight trickling down. But barreleyes are one step ahead. Their eye pigment allows the fish to distinguish between sunlight and bioluminescence, says Bruce Robison, deep-sea biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. It helps barreleyes to get a clear view of the animals trying to erase their shadows. The barreleye’s tubular eyes are extremely sensitive and take in a lot of light, which is useful in the inky depths of the twilight zone. But Robison was initially mystified that their eyes seemed fixed upwards on the small spot of water, right above their heads. “It always puzzled me that their eyes aimed upward, but the field of view did not include their mouths,” says Robison. Imagine trying to eat scraps of food floating in front of you, while fixing your eyes on the ceiling. But, after years of only seeing dead, net-caught specimens, Robison and colleagues finally got a good look at a living barreleye through the high-definition cameras of a remotely operated vehicle. “Suddenly the lightbulb lit and I thought ‘A-ha, that’s what’s going on!’,” he says. “They can rotate their eyes.” This means the fish can track prey drifting down through the water until it is right in front of their mouth. Seeing a barreleye alive in the deep, Robison saw something else that scientists had previously missed. “It had this canopy over its eyes like on a jet fighter,” he says, referring to the transparent front part of the barreleye’s body, which had been torn off all the specimens he had previously brought to the surface. He thinks this canopy probably helps protect their eyes as they steal food from among the stinging tentacles of siphonophores – animals that float through the deep sea in long, deadly strings, like drift nets. Barreleyes have been found with a mix of food in their stomachs, including siphonophores’ tentacles, as well as animals that siphonophores feed on, including small crustaceans called copepods. Their tactic may be to swim up to siphonophores and nibble on the small prey snagged in their tentacles, using the transparent shield to protect their green eyes from stings. But encountering barreleyes in the wild is not easy. In his 30-year career, Robison says he has only seen these 15cm-long fish alive maybe eight times. “We do spend a lot of time exploring down there, so I can say with some confidence that they’re quite rare,” he says. | ['environment/series/discovered-in-the-deep', 'environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/fish', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/helen-scales', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-08-31T05:00:20Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/jun/22/dutch-prototype-clean-up-boom-brings-pacific-plastics-solution-a-step-closer | Dutch prototype clean-up boom brings Pacific plastics solution a step closer | A bid to clear the Pacific of its plastic debris has moved a step closer with the launch of the biggest prototype clean-up boom yet by the Dutch environment minister at a port in The Hague. On Thursday the 100 metre-long barrier will be towed 12 miles (20km) out to sea for a year of sensor-monitored tests, before being scaled up for real-life trials off the Japanese coast at the end of next year. If all goes well, full-scale deployment of a 100km-long version will take place in the “great Pacific garbage patch” between California and Hawaii in 2020. The Dutch environment minister, Sharon Dijksma, told the Guardian that her government, which part-funded the test, was fully backing the project, which will eventually cost about £230m (€300m). “We can use our political pressure with other governments, businesses and the international institutions to fund this on an even bigger scale,” she said. “We are used to fronting public-private [partnerships] like this. It is not new for us. When it is a success, philanthropists will be standing in line asking to join us.” The snake-like ocean barrier is made out of vulcanised rubber and works by harnessing sea currents to passively funnel floating rubbish – often just millimetres wide – into a cone. A cable sub-system will anchor the structure at depths of up to 4,500 metres – almost twice as far down as has even been done before – keeping it in place so it can trap the rubbish for periodic collection by boats. A fully scaled-up barrier would be the most ambitious ocean-cleansing project yet, capturing about half of the plastic soup that circles the north Pacific gyre – one of several large systems of rotating ocean currents – within a decade. That at least is the plan. The largely crowd-funded project has caught the imagination of a new generation in the Netherlands. In no small part this is down to the unaffected charisma of its 21-year-old founder, Boyan Slat, a student dropout who has become an environmental entrepreneur. “The key objective of these tests is to see if we can build something that can survive at sea for years if not decades,” he said. “We want to test the efficiency of the system, understand its behaviour, and see what damage it suffers over time from abrasion or fatigue.” After promising tests at the Marin research institute in Wageningen earlier this year, the prototype was developed with a renowned dredging and marine contractor, Royal Boskalis Westminster. Peter Berdowski, the firm’s CEO, described it as “a wonderful concept” and “very inspiring”. The Dutch government is so convinced of its feasibility that it is taking Slat to Indonesia in November, as part of a high-level climate and trade mission, led by the prime minister, Mark Rutte. Discussions are likely to focus on the possibility of attaching the barrier to the mouths of rivers as a way of staunching the 800 tonnes of plastic that flow into the Pacific and Indian oceans every year. Dijksma said: “We will try to see if there is a possibility to put this project in place with the Indonesian government too. We have not done the deal yet. But the fact that Boyan will be in the delegation is important because we only take people with us when we think they offer solutions that could be interesting for other governments.” With up to 29.1 items of rubbish per square metre, the Indonesian archipelago has the world’s second-highest concentration of shoreline marine debris after Sicily, which has 231 items per square metre. In 2014, 311m tonnes of plastic were produced around the world, a 20-fold increase since 1964. It is expected to quadruple again by mid-century. A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation earlier this year predicted that there would be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050 unless urgent action was taken. | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'world/netherlands', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/series/half-full-solutions-innovations-answers', 'world/indonesia', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'world/mark-rutte', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-06-22T15:44:31Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
society/2005/jan/07/internationalaidanddevelopment.indianoceantsunamidecember20041 | Agencies warn on adopting orphans | Britain's leading adoption charity yesterday warned people wanting to adopt children orphaned by the Asian tsunami that their humanitarian instincts are misplaced. Felicity Collier, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), said she was concerned about UN reports of unscrupulous middlemen advertising hundreds of children for adoption as part of a child trafficking operation in south-east Asia. She said it would be wrong to remove orphans from their home country for a "better life" abroad when their blood relatives might be looking for them. The association's intervention followed a warning by a senior UN official on Wednesday of reports that criminal gangs in Indonesia are offering children for adoption or exploitation. Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, said organised syndicates were exploiting the crisis in Aceh province to offer children for adoption, sometimes using text messages. She said her information came from reports from Unicef's partner agencies in Indonesia, where 35,000 children are thought to have lost one or both parents in the disaster. Adoption agencies in Europe and the US have reported a surge of offers to place orphans with western families, but the authorities have rejected the requests as premature. In Britain, Ms Collier said adoption agencies were get ting many calls and emails from people offering to adopt the tsunami orphans. "We must remember that many children will have become separated from their parents in the confusion following the disaster. There may well be relatives and friends elsewhere in the country who will be seeking to trace them. It would be very wrong, and against internationally agreed standards for adoption, to remove these children overseas and arrange for their adoption at this very difficult and chaotic time," Ms Collier said. Amid long-standing concerns over child trafficking, Indonesia and Thailand already have tight restrictions over adoption. Sri Lanka has banned the adoption of children orphaned by the tsunami until further notice after receiving unconfirmed reports that some children were snatched in the wake of the disaster. A Unicef spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday that one of its staff in Kuala Lumpur had received an unsolicited mobile text message offering to sell children according to buyers' wishes. The message said: "Three hundred orphans aged three to 10 years from Aceh for adoption. All paperwork will be taken care of. No fee. Please state age and sex of child required." Ms Collier said: "BAAF is very concerned to learn that child traffickers appear to be operating in south-east Asia and some unscrupulous people have advertised children for adoption. I know that if people are really concerned about the welfare of these children, the last thing they would want to do is to fuel a potential market in child adoption or to deprive children of the opportunity to be reunited with grieving members of their own family. "No one in Britain is able to bring a child into this country if they have not been approved as suitable by a British adoption agency and the same standards of approval apply for inter-country and domestic adoption." The Department for Education and Skills, responsible for adoption in England, said there were few applications to adopt children from south and south-east Asia last year. They included 18 from India, seven from Thailand and three from Sri Lanka. The international aid agency World Vision called on the UK government to boost enforcement of the Sexual Offences Act to track the movements of convicted sex offenders. It was likely that child predators could be travelling to countries affected by the tsunami disaster to exploit the vulnerability of children. | ['global-development/global-development', 'world/tsunami2004', 'society/society', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/johncarvel'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-07T09:08:03Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/article/2024/aug/12/successful-environmental-projects-benefit-nature-and-people-study-finds | Successful environmental projects benefit nature and people, study finds | Restoring and protecting the world’s forests is crucial if humanity is to stop the worst effects of climate breakdown and halt the extinction of rare species. Researchers have been concerned, however, that actions to capture carbon, restore biodiversity and find ways to support the livelihoods of the people who live near and in the forests might be at odds. This is a particular issue in many parts of the globe that have important forests, as the people living nearby often have precarious livelihoods that can be negatively affected if the land they use to survive is encroached on. Now a new work led by Dr Trisha Gopalakrishna, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that, with careful thought, all three important outcomes can be delivered by setting up “integrated” plans, where all three goals are combined. The research finds that the plans could deliver more than 80% of the benefits in all three areas at once and that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups would benefit disproportionately from this approach. Gopalakrishna and her fellow researchers used a framework called Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) to show how restoring nature and biodiversity can help communities to thrive if it is done carefully. They said it shows that there can be a holistic relationship between restoration and benefits to humanity that can include reducing socioeconomic inequality. In India, where the mapping took place, 38%-41% of the people affected by integrated spatial plans for these forests belong to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. The researchers generated maps of 3.88m hectares of possible forest restoration area, and found that integrated plans aimed at multiple goals rather than just one delivered on average 83.3% of climate crisis mitigation NCP, 89.9% of biodiversity value NCP and 93.9% of societal NCP compared with those delivered by single-objective plans. It is vital to keep humanity in mind when designing conservation projects, said Gopalakrishna, and it can make the work more efficient. “In my opinion, environment/biodiversity and the requirements of local communities are compatible and there are many examples of both thriving in many different regions of the world, including India, and through time. “However, environmental projects that disregard or undermine the needs of local communities can be harmful and are often unsuccessful in meeting their environmental objectives. “Restoration projects sometimes have a narrow focus, which can lead to trade-offs. “For example, if you focus on carbon storage, you might plant particular tree species and fence the forests off to protect them. If you focus on biodiversity, you might manage forests for particular species, like the emblematic Bengal tiger or Asiatic elephant. If you focus on human livelihoods, you might plant species that provide housing materials and fuelwood for cooking. “Unsurprisingly, our study shows that plans with one NCP in mind tend not to deliver the others. However, we were surprised and pleased to find that an ‘integrated’ plan can deliver all three remarkably efficiently.” She said it was important to create a “multifunctional landscape” with trees that can store carbon, plants that can help human survival, and space for wildlife, so that “people and animals can thrive”. The method has been adopted by the UN Development Programme, which has written a report on how integrated spatial planning is important. European conservationists INSPIRE are also using the method to understand protected area networks in Europe. The researcher added that equality needs to be taken more into account when planning conservation projects and that the next frontier should be considering gender outcomes: “Generally, I do think societal needs and especially equity needs to be accounted for in all conservation and development projects, which is the biggest leap that this study makes. “We actually show that integrated spatial plans provide societal benefits to a greater number of Indians who are socioeconomically challenged than the plans focused only on biodiversity or carbon. Also, all plans including the integrated spatial plan we examined provided almost the same benefits to Indian men and women. “Understanding who gains and loses (ie equity and gender) should be the next frontier of policy and decision-making and project development, which I would say is a main takeaway from this study.” | ['environment/forests', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/india', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-08-12T19:00:49Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2016/may/08/hinkley-point-united-nations-says-uk-failed-to-consult-over-risks | Hinkley Point: UN report says UK failed to consult over risks | The British government has run into a major new problem with the Hinkley Point C nuclear project, with a United Nations committee ruling that the UK failed to consult European countries properly over potential environmental risks. Documents seen by the Guardian show Britain “is in non-compliance with its obligations” (page 21) to discuss the possible impact of any accident or other event that could affect those nations in proximity to Hinkley. This is just the latest in a string of problems connected with the planned £18bn project to construct new reactors in Somerset, with the developer EDF of France recently delaying a final investment decision until September. Paul Dorfman, a senior researcher at UCL’s energy institute, said the ruling from the UN Economic and Social Council throws great uncertainty over Hinkley. “This is a huge blow to the government and introduces a whole new element of doubt over the scheme. It is hard to see how EDF can sign off any final investment decision whilst the government has yet to resolve this important issue.” But the Department of Energy and Climate Change said it was convinced that the government had done all it had to do. “Compliance with international obligations is something we take very seriously,” said a spokesman. “We are confident that we have met the relevant international requirements in relation to Hinkley Point C. We have world-leading nuclear safety regulations in the UK, which Hinkley Point C would have to comply with.” The British courts have in the past ruled against An Taisce (the Irish National Trust) which tried to block Hinkley on the grounds of insufficient consultation over the same safety issues. Dorfman said he expected a new legal challenge using the UN ruling. The British government has been arguing for some years with continental countries inside the committee, saying in the past that it did not have to consult them because there was little or no likelihood of “significant transboundary environmental impacts”. But Austria in particular has said that there should have been consultation because of the possibility of a severe accident that could lead to radioactive materials being spread by wind across Europe. The Netherlands, Norway and Ireland have also argued they should have been consulted about Hinkley; the committee has finally agreed with them. It recommends the UK “enter into discussions with possibly affected parties, including parties that cannot exclude a significant adverse transboundary impact from the activity at HPC, in order to agree on whether notification is useful at the current stage.” Nuclear safety has been back in the public eye with the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident last month and the recent fifth anniversary of the Fukushima crisis in March remembered. Hinkley is the first new atomic plant planned in the UK for two decades and is a flagship project promoted at the very highest level of government. But confidence has been undermined by a range of problems. Last week former EDF finance director Thomas Piquemal told a French parliamentary hearing that he had resigned in March because he believed Hinkley threatened the financial health of the energy company. “Who would bet 60 to 70% of his equity on a (European pressurised reactor) technology that has not yet proven that it can work and which takes 10 years to build,” he said. “In January 2015, I proposed to negotiate a three-year delay with our client because we reasoned that it would weigh too heavily on EDF’s balance sheet,” Piquemal said. Since Piquemal’s resignation, EDF has announced a €4bn (£3.2bn) capital increase and the government has agreed to forego cash dividends for two years, generating an estimated €7bn in extra capital. But while EDF has been coming up with plans to strengthen its capital, its even more financially troubled engineering partner, Areva, has run into deeper problems and its share price is now nearly 50% below where it was 12 months ago. The French nuclear regulator, ASN, said it had been informed by Areva that its investigation had found evidence of irregularities in about 400 components produced since 1965, of which some 50 are believed to be in use in French nuclear plants. Areva, which is in the middle of a merger with EDF, has already found faults at a new reactor it is constructing at Flamanville in Normandy. That scheme, like another at Olkiluoto in Finland, is using an EPR like the one planned for Hinkley and is both massively delayed and over budget. | ['uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'business/edf', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/energy', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2016-05-08T15:49:24Z | true | ENERGY |
media-network/2016/jan/28/ai-developers-think-smart-to-boost-cybersecurity | AI developers think smart to boost cybersecurity | Today is Data Protection Day 2016, an educational global event aimed at raising awareness of data privacy and security protection and promoting best practice. The event will see countless debates and conversations around what it means to keep both personal and business data private and secure, but one of the key discussions will centre around the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning techniques and their application in this space. Cybercriminals have been using automation to take down networks for years. In what’s known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, servers can be transformed into “bots” to flood recipients with unwanted traffic. This gives perpetrators the ability to cause substantial damage to a big organisation. Sony and the BBC are examples of large groups that have recently been hit. In response, businesses and cybersecurity professionals are tightening up their defences through machine learning techniques – the advantage being that they’re able to find patterns in malware behaviour more quickly, accurately and efficiently than humans (and at scale). Among their uses, machine learning solutions can be applied to specific enterprise applications – in the financial sector, for example, where intelligent software is used to spot anomalies that might identify insider trading. More widely, machine learning can be used to scan incoming email for malicious programmes. Turning problems around AI is an approach that turns problem-solving around, says Duncan Hodges, lecturer at the Centre for Cyber Security and Information Systems at Cranfield University. “Rather than creating something to solve a problem, we create something that learns how to [solve a problem].” Outside of the security space, AI is common in systems that try to get a rich understanding of their surroundings. Driverless cars are already using machine learning techniques, while deep learning models have the ability to label pictures and films with rich, detailed descriptions about their content. But as the technology becomes more sophisticated, there is a move towards full AI: systems that are entirely self-learning. It’s still early days, but potential use cases are emerging. Some modern systems are already surprisingly intelligent. Take, for example, the security cameras using AI to identify and detect unusual behaviour. An automated camera called AISight by BRS Labs works by monitoring feeds in real-time, alerting authorities if it spots any abnormal activity. Moving even closer to the realms of science fiction, manufacturer Hitachi has developed crime-predicting technology. The brand claims that the system is capable of accurately predicting crime by collating data such as weather patterns, public transit movements, social media activity and gun-shot sensors. Devices learning for themselves The increasing power of mobile devices is also enabling AI capabilities to be added to much smaller hardware. Qualcomm said its latest Snapdragon processor, the 820, can run machine learning algorithms that could previously only be used on computers with huge processing capability. “The machine learning market is evolving towards deep learning, which is more sophisticated,” says Gary Brotman, the company’s director of product management. “The actions and datasets are far more robust and complicated. This is where you teach devices to learn for themselves over time.” Developed using Qualcomm’s Zeroth machine learning platform on the 820, the company’s Snapdragon Smart Protect software is an AI-based approach to identify zero-day malware (previously unknown viruses that have no available antivirus software signatures) more quickly. It does this via around 350 different trigger points. The AI challenge These intelligent techniques have great potential, but there are challenges. The huge amount of data needed to accurately perform AI poses privacy issues if businesses don’t comply with regulation – specifically, the update to EU data protection laws coming in over the next two years. There’s also the question of how intelligent a machine is allowed to be. “Whenever a computer takes over from human decision-making, you need to question what values on which they’re based,” says Olaf Groth, global professor of strategy, innovation and economics at Hult International Business School. “If they are human, then whose values are you using?” At the same time, AI is continuing to evolve on the attack side. It’s being used more by organised criminals and nation states. The future could give way to systems able to produce tailored attack software, or ways of quickly identifying and determining vulnerabilities. There’s also the risk of criminals deploying intelligent botnets that are resistant to attempts to shut them down. In the end, protecting data is all about keeping up with the attackers, so it makes sense that AI will feature heavily in the fight back. However, as Data Protection Day will surely highlight, businesses need to keep on top of protecting all information, including that which AI systems themselves draw in. As David Ferbrache, technical director at KPMG’s cybersecurity practice, warns: “As these systems become more sophisticated, they will draw in increasing amounts of data in a faster way that’s less easy to scrutinise and monitor.” To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Guardian Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here. | ['media-network/media-network', 'media-network/series/the-power-of-privacy', 'technology/cybercrime', 'technology/artificialintelligenceai', 'technology/computing', 'type/article', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-o-flaherty'] | media-network/series/the-power-of-privacy | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-01-28T10:42:33Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2010/oct/07/china-global-race-green-jobs | China winning global race for green jobs | China is prevailing in the global race for green jobs in sectors from solar panels to advanced lighting, and appears to be on an unstoppable upward path, an annual report by cleantech research firm Clean Edge said on Wednesday. The Chinese government spent $34.6 billion last year to propel its low-carbon economy, more than any other nation and almost double what the U.S. invested. The country is now headquarters for six of the biggest renewable energy employers—up from three in 2008—according to Clean Tech Job Trends 2009. Ron Pernick, managing director of Clean Edge and a report author, called the economic giant's "meteoric" surge "very striking." But, he said, it is "not a fait accompli that China will dominate" across the entire industry. There is "serious competition on the global playing field," Pernick told SolveClimate News. The report said clean energy is spawning millions of high-paying green jobs worldwide, even as the global economy continues to sputter. Total jobs surpassed three million in 2009, recent data from global research group REN 21 finds. China accounted for 700,000 of that amount, due in large part to measures that promote solar heating. But Brazil, South Korea, Germany, Japan, the U.S. and other nations are still very much in the game, as clean-energy manufacturing grows and becomes more complex. Clean Edge identified more than two dozen top cleantech job sectors, including solar energy storage, green building materials and smart-grid devices. The authors said the findings should dispel naysayers' claims that green jobs merely displace employment in other sectors and add no new net jobs. "Clean-tech jobs are not amorphous as these critics claim, and instead represent some of the most dynamic sectors in the technology landscape," the report said. "There's no way that any country is going to dominate in every one of those," Pernick said, adding, "The cleantech revolution is going to be a highly dispersed one, and highly distributed." "Wake-Up Call" for U.S. Still, Pernick called China's emerging dominance a "wake-up call" for U.S. lawmakers. "Time is running out for us to take a more serious, concerted approach...at the national level," he said. The U.S. government devoted $50 billion of the $800 billion federal stimulus package to develop cleantech factory jobs. "But results of this attempted manufacturing revival in the U.S. are decidedly mixed," the report said. Some 70 percent of the parts in renewable energy installations are manufactured overseas, according to estimates from the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, labor unions and politicians. Part of the reason is cheap labor costs in Asia. But Clean Edge also faults the lack of a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that would require more use of solar, wind and other sources, and provide a long-term market signal to manufacturers. Around 30 countries have such policies in place, including China, which has targeted 15 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. "We believe that the lack of a strong and robust RPS puts countries like the U.S. at a significant disadvantage," the report said. Another policy absent in America is a national feed-in tariff program like the one that made Germany the world's largest market for solar power. The U.S. also needs significant regulatory and financial support, including "billions in loan guarantees," the report said. "There are no subsidy-free or regulatory-free energy sources on the planet—whether it's oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind or solar," Pernick said. Silicon Valley Leads, Houston Surprises In the U.S., solar power continues to create the most green jobs, followed by biofuels, smart grid, energy efficiency, wind power and clean vehicles, the report said. California is the national leader, with four of its cities in the top 15 metro areas for cleantech jobs. San Francisco and Silicon Valley ranked first, with Los Angeles coming in second, San Diego seventh and Sacramento fifteenth. But the report warns of an "uncertain future" for the Golden State if Proposition 23 passes in November. The ballot measure would suspend the state's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act. If it passes, "it would reduce the leadership of California and set up a roadblock on their ability to mandate emissions standards and a regulatory framework," Pernick said. However, he noted that it would not be "the end of the world," especially given the state's new 33 percent renewable energy goal by 2020. New polling data by Reuters indicates the measure is headed for defeat by a margin of 49 percent to 37 percent. After California, Boston, New York and Denver are the next hottest spots for green jobs. Houston was the biggest surprise, the study said, leaping from 15th to eighth place in one year, driven by the city government's commitment to buy wind power and a local biofuels boom. Is Mexico the Next China? Even if the U.S. could shrink China's green jobs lead, it would still have to contend with a rising Mexico, the report suggested. "With a combination of cheap labor and geographic proximity, the United States' third-largest trading partner is attracting attention from those looking for low-cost access to the North American clean-tech market," the authors said. So far, Japan-based Sanyo has established a factory in Mexico to churn out solar photovoltaic panels. BP Solar and Michigan-based thin-film maker Energy Conversion Devices recently revealed plans to do the same. In the wind sector, German equipment manufacturer Liebher has constructed a facility in Monterrey to make parts for the American market. Pernick predicts battery manufacturing plants could be next. "It's not just low-cost manufacturing in China" that the U.S. has to watch out for, Pernick said: "It could be low-cost manufacturing south of the border." | ['environment/series/guardian-environment-network', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2010-10-07T10:20:58Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2016/jul/28/the-africans-buying-sunshine-with-their-smartphones | The Africans buying sunshine with their phones | Julie Njeri did not believe her son when he declared he no longer needed spectacles to read his books and complete his homework. She took him to the doctor and was told young Peter Mwangi no longer suffered the sharp irritation and redness in his eyes that had resulted in him being given glasses. Peter’s mum exclaimed: “It’s a miracle!” The explanation was somewhat more tangible. In late 2013, Julie and her husband bought an M-Kopa solar power kit – something 4,000 east Africans now do every week. The $200 (£150) device comes with two LED bulbs, an LED flashlight, a rechargeable battery, adaptors for charging phones, and it is all charged by a small solar panel that is propped on the roof. More than 300,000 families in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania who are not connected to the electricity grid have purchased the unit which is linked to the mobile money transfer system M-Pesa. After paying a deposit of $35 or $25, depending on their M-Pesa credit history, customers are then able to settle the balance through daily mobile phone payments of 50 cents for a year until they own the device outright. It has brought clean energy to many homes and powers thousands of businesses ranging from small greengrocers in heavily populated low-income settlements to restaurants that can now stay open longer. More importantly, children like Peter no longer have to use kerosene-powered paraffin lamps to do their studies in dimly lit houses, and their parents enjoy saving the money that was spent on unclean sources of energy. Chad Larson, one of the co-founders of M-Kopa, said the idea sprung from a talk that the Vodafone executive Nick Hughes gave at Oxford’s business school in 2007. Hughes, who is credited with the early research work that led to the introduction of M-Pesa in Kenya, told the audience that mobile phones could replace banks in much of the developing world. “The light bulb went on as we listened to Nick explain how mobile phones had an almost insurmountable advantage over banks,” said Larson. “The sim in the mobile was basically like an ID card and mobiles were much easier to access than opening a bank account, a process that had far more formidable barriers to entry.” A few years after finishing his studies, Larson and a fellow student, Jesse Moore, quit their jobs and moved to Nairobi with Hughes to join the mobile revolution that was taking hold in east Africa. After dabbling in a number of ventures including a mobile savings account product and a medical helpline where patients could consult doctors via mobile phone, they turned their attention to solar. Although it has a heavy tech component, M-Kopa is at root a finance business. Kopa means borrow in Swahili and the rapid takeup of the loan product rested on the phenomenal success of the M-Pesa platform run by the Kenyan technology company Safaricom, part-owned by Vodafone. M-Pesa, through which customers settle their payments, serves as a virtual wallet on mobile phones into which subscribers deposit cash at an M-Pesa agent. They can then use it to pay bills or transfer the money to another customer. Kenya now has more mobile money accounts than any other country, 31.6m in a nation with a population of 44 million. Eight out of 10 Kenyans operate a bank or mobile account, up from 26.1% in 2009. Companies such as M-Kopa are riding that wave. It had projected it would be selling 1,000 units a week within two years, but it met that target in half the time and its 1,000-strong sales force in the three east African countries shifts 4,000 units a week. It hopes to have sold 1m units by the end of 2017. Investors have piled in – a recent $19m investment round was joined by a number of big names including Generation Investment Management, a fund co-founded by the former US vice-president Al Gore, Virgin’s Richard Branson and the AOL co-founder Steve Case. Larson says the firm plans to expand to up to 15 countries in Africa and Asia in the next five years, tracking the development of mobile money, but says there is still considerable growth potential in east Africa. M-Kopa’s most potent advertising appears to be the word-of-mouth testimonials of neighbours revealing how they have cut back on expensive and dangerous kerosene lamps thanks to the solar device. This was underlined during a recent trip accompanying a sales team to install a unit at a home in the peri-urban farming settlement of Juja, 30 miles (50km) from Nairobi. Mary Wanjiku, 23, opened her gate to reveal a typical smallholder farming household including a couple of lively chickens, three goats and a sleepy guard dog lying next to its scrawny brown puppy. Why was she buying the device? Her motivations were strikingly similar to those of Julie Njeri, who lives across the ridge in the Kamiti neighbourhood. “I am tired of walking long distances to charge my phone and I heard from others that this will help me save on the amount of money I spend on kerosene,” she said. “But the most important thing is that my daughter and son will be able to do their homework under these lights instead of waking up at 5am to study using sunlight.” | ['world/series/the-tech-continent-africas-digital-renaissance', 'technology/energy', 'environment/solarpower', 'world/kenya', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/energy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'science/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'technology/technology', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/uganda', 'world/tanzania', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/murithimutiga', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-special-projects'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2016-07-28T06:00:27Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/oct/21/police-infiltrate-protest-groups | Real democracies don't infiltrate legitimate protest groups | Annie Machon | Fresh revelations in the Guardian have delayed the publication of an official report into the work of undercover policemen in the UK. The report was ordered after Metropolitan police officer Mark Kennedy earlier this year exposed the widespread police penetration of legitimate protest groups. His evidence revealed miscarriages of justice when evidence was suppressed. But it now gets worse, as it appears that false evidence was used in trials and police officers have perjured themselves to maintain their cover. The latest piece revealed that in 1997 Jim Boyling, posing as Jim Sutton, a committed member of the Reclaim the Streets campaign, was arrested and prosecuted for his part in the protests. He allegedly maintained his cover even when questioned in a court of law under oath. Other former secret policemen have approvingly said that this was a normal procedure to build up the credibility of an undercover agent. Boyling's double life began in 1995, and the timing is interesting. Until 1994, MI5's F2 section had played the leading role in investigating UK political "subversives", those citizens deemed to be a threat to national security. The original justification for this work came after the exposure of the notorious Cambridge spy ring in the 50s and 60s, when MI5 was tasked to identify Soviet moles within the British establishment. However, this justification was pretty threadbare by the late 80s when the Communist party in Britain became largely defunct. At that point MI5 decided that Trotskyists could also a big threat, despite the fact that there was zero likelihood of any Trotskyist group being backed by the USSR. But why let the facts get in the way of a good spy investigation? After the Berlin Wall had been down for a few years, MI5 finally threw in the subversive towel and closed down F2. Any residual responsibility for monitoring such groups was passed on to the police special branches. And this is where the current scandal begins. The police also faced a massive reduction in their role, as a large part of the work of special branch sections across the country had involved reporting on local "subversive" groups. The Metropolitan police SB also had a dedicated unit, the special duties section (SDS), which ran police officers into political groups. Top brass were in a quandary: what to do with all this specialist knowledge and expertise? Well, it appears that work was made for idle SDS hands, and the unit began to infiltrate single-issue protest groups. It appears to have been around this time that the control of the SDS, which morphed into Mark Kennedy's now-notorious national public order investigation unit (NPOIU), was transferred from the notionally accountable MPSB to the wholly unaccountable private limited company that is the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). So, let's get this straight. We had a bunch of secret policemen running around the country spying on their fellow citizens with no legal justification and absolutely no political oversight or public accountability. This would be difficult to justify even if our national security were under direct threat, but how precisely was the Reclaim the Streets campaign an existential threat to our nation? If the investigation ever resumes, it needs to ask some hard-hitting questions: when did Acpo take over command of the undercover cops, what was the legal justification for this work and will there be a review of all cases involving such agents provocateurs? Crucially, how on earth is it justifiable in a democracy for secret police to work undercover, gather intelligence on political campaigners exercising their democratic rights, act as agents provocateurs, and perjure themselves in court? The last time I checked, perjury carried a seven-year prison sentence, but I'm willing to bet Jim Boyling will not be back in the dock. The UK likes to think of itself as a functioning democracy, but any country that condones spies infiltrating legitimate political protest groups is closer to a Stasi-style police state. | ['commentisfree/libertycentral', 'uk/police', 'uk/mi5', 'law/law', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/machon-annie'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-10-21T18:30:01Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/16/climate-change-lessons-past-50-years | Climate change: learning the lessons of the past 50 years | Stephen P Groff | Few would dispute the need to mobilise funds to support developing countries in dealing with the effects of climate change. At last year's UN climate change conference (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico, world leaders agreed to a set of "new and additional" pledges amounting to $30bn in fast-start finance between 2010 and 2012. An additional long-term goal of $100bn a year by 2020 was also agreed. This is good, but not good enough. The past 50 years of experience with development co-operation have shown that finance alone is not sufficient. Ensuring funds are used as cost effectively as possible is essential for both providers and recipients. Of course, there are differences between climate change finance and development co-operation (or "aid"). Without a doubt, external finance for climate change is unique in terms of scale, given the size and complexity of the challenge. Dealing with this will call for the transfer of an unprecedented volume of resources. The projected $100bn a year, while intended to be from both private and public sources, comes near to matching the record level of annual official development assistance (ODA) flows: $129bn in 2010. Differences aside, however, the task of financing climate change action is ultimately about transferring large volumes of finance for specific development objectives across national boundaries – something we have been doing since the Marshall Fund was established to help rebuild Europe after the second world war. What should we be thinking about in the runup to COP17 in Durban, South Africa? One of the first lessons we draw from the past 50 years is that greater volumes of development finance do not automatically translate into better development results. Externally-led activities that do not build national capacity have proved unsustainable and ineffective. Over the past decade, the principle of locally led development has been confirmed and endorsed as the linchpin for improving impact from aid resources. In 2005, the Paris Declaration secured commitment from developed and developing countries on a country's control over its aid programme, as well as four more basic principles central to better results. The Accra Agenda for Action (2008) reaffirmed this. It also confirmed the value of different development partnerships, and the need to assess whether development funds achieve their objectives. The fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea (29 November – 1 December 2011) will close a cycle that has largely focused on aid, and mark a transition to addressing the challenge of how we apply our knowledge to make development – not just development assistance – work better. These lessons must inform our efforts as we design instruments for climate change finance. In preparation for COP17, negotiations are under way on a "green climate fund" and other global instruments. They should ensure that external finance is driven by national strategies, and channelled through recipient countries' institutions and authorities. Keeping in mind other development principles endorsed in Paris – such as alignment and harmonisation – that also offer a real opportunity to avoid reinventing the wheel. Climate change financing is provided to address a fairly narrowly defined purpose. As negotiators look to strengthen and support nationally owned strategies, they should seek to avoid the undesirable characteristics of narrowly targeted funds. Making harmonisation of external flows a pre-condition and avoiding proliferation of sources of climate funding can radically reduce transaction costs. That said, a national strategy is not enough. Strategies need to be supported by legislation and action plans that make them real. A recent study in south-east Asia (pdf) shows that even where national climate change strategies are in place, the necessary frameworks are often missing. Weak domestic policy can lead to incoherent outcomes and fragmentation of funding channels. Flexibility will be key to institutional development at the country level. The aid effectiveness principles set out in the Paris Declaration can help us retain this flexibility, while ensuring that the design of new instruments is informed by the lessons we have learned from the past 50 years of development co-operation. • Stephen P Groff is the deputy director for development co-operation at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris | ['global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/cancun-climate-change-conference-2010', 'environment/durban-climate-change-conference-2011', 'environment/environment', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/natural-resources-and-development', 'world/unitednations', 'global-development/aid', 'tone/blog', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/stephen-p-groff'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2011-08-16T06:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2014/nov/24/atlantic-mackerel-catch-limits-slashed-by-25 | Atlantic mackerel catch limits slashed by 25% | Quotas for mackerel catches in the north and west Atlantic have been cut by a quarter in a deal between the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands that conservationists welcomed as “a positive step in the right direction”. The annual catch limit was reduced from 1.4m tonnes to 1.05m tonnes under the EU’s precautionary principle, which errs towards caution when dealing with unknown risks. “We are relieved that this is a good reduction and a positive step in the right direction,” Javier Lopez, a marine scientist for Oceana told the Guardian. “It is not as ambitious as the EU’s management plan suggested it would be, but is at least in accordance with the precautionary approach and we consider that it is sustainable.” Mackerel are one of the Atlantic’s five most commercial species but their populations were decimated by over-fishing between the 1960s and mid-80s and remain at what the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) describes as “very low levels”. How to share the remaining stocks while populations continue to recover remains a divisive issue among the countries of northern Europe. In the Shetlands, resentment is rife at a perceived tilt from Brussels towards the Faroe Islands, due in part to a shift in stocks towards the Atlantic’s north and west. “We have a significant number of Faroese boats fishing around the Shetlands right now and it is fuelling anger here that they can catch more fish than us,” Simon Collins the chief executive of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association told the Guardian. “A deal has been struck and we will abide by it – we always do – but we would like it revisited as soon as possible. It does not meet our concerns.” Collins accepted the need to preserve fish stocks through catch limits but argued that there had been a “dramatic recovery” of cod and other fish species around the Shetlands, which local people could not exploit. The issue of catch allocations may be even more slippery where non-EU counties such as Greenland and Iceland are concerned. These have been allocated 15% of the total catch amount, although neither has yet signed up to the current deal. Between 2007 and 2011, Iceland increased its mackerel quota from 37,000 to 146,000. “If they again decide unilaterally how much to fish it could be much higher than is sustainable, and that could put the apparent recovery of mackerel at serious risk,” Lopez said. The EU’s new environment commissioner Karmenu Vella though welcomed the new agreement, in advance of an anticipated long-term management strategy. “The proper management of mackerel resources is vital for our coastal communities, and for our fishing and processing industries in particular,” he said. “It is our joint responsibility to manage this resource in a sustainable manner.” | ['environment/fishing', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/food', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/uk', 'uk/scotland', 'world/europe-news', 'world/norway', 'type/article', 'profile/arthurneslen'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-11-24T16:35:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/sep/28/coalition-calls-for-new-laws-to-end-sewage-discharges-into-uk-waters | Coalition calls for new laws to end sewage discharges into UK waters | A coalition of river and sea organisations is calling for targets for water companies to reduce sewage discharges to be included in the upcoming environment bill. The groups, which include surfers, canoeists and environmental activists, have joined forces in a campaign called #EndSewagePollution. They intend to deliver a petition calling for an end to sewage discharges into rivers and coastal waters to George Eustice, the environment secretary, next month. All English rivers failed to meet quality tests for pollution under the EU’s water framework directive in results published this month. There has been no improvement in the state of English rivers since 2016, when the last data was published, despite government promises that 75% of English rivers would be rated as good by 2027. The data showed only 16% of waterways – rivers, lakes and streams – were classed as being in ecological good health, the same as 2016. Hugo Tagholm, the chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, said: “This is simply unacceptable and it’s time for the continued pollution of rivers and the ocean to stop. We demand government set legally binding targets for an end to sewage discharges which will see a strong framework set to hold water companies to account. We need polluters to pay with fines that reflect the scale of damage pollution causes to both fragile inland and coastal ecosystems and human health.” The coalition, which includes the Rivers Trust, London Waterkeeper, British Canoeing and the Angling Trust, wants to see sewage discharges reduced to zero by 2030. This echoes a demand for a law change by the Conservative chair of the environmental audit committee, Philip Dunne. He has created a private member’s bill aiming to place a duty on water companies to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and inland waterways. The coalition has so far attracted the support of 30,000 members of the public who have signed the #EndSewagePollution petition. Mark Lloyd, the CEO of the Rivers Trust, said: “Sewage pollution is extremely damaging to the health of our rivers and we need an honest conversation at a national scale about how significant change can be enacted – about whether we are prepared to invest HS2-equivalent sums to modernise our drainage and sewerage system, and how regulations on pollution from all sectors will be properly enforced so that the rest of society doesn’t pay the price for polluters’ actions.” Theo Thomas, from London Waterkeeper, said: “There’s an increasing awareness what’s happening to our rivers. This must lead to a rejuvenation of these precious habitats. With people at the heart of it we can hold the authorities to account and achieve real change.” The Guardian revealed this summer that water companies discharged raw sewage into English rivers more than 200,000 times in 2019 from storm overflows. The discharges are permitted by the Environment Agency but are supposed to take place only after extreme weather. Sewage wastewater discharges by water companies into rivers account for damage to 36% of waterways, and run-off from agricultural industries is responsible for 40% of damage to waterways, according to the EA. | ['environment/rivers', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/coastlines', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-09-28T10:11:52Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2017/aug/16/kitchen-gadgets-review-salthouse-himalayan-salt-block | Kitchen gadgets review: a salt block for cooking eggs at the heat of the sun | What? Salthouse Himalayan salt block (Whole Foods Market, £34.99). Aggregate mass of halite, arranged in rectangular cuboid and employed as a cooking surface. Why? Salt licks are used by horses to prevent colic. And you’re not better than them. Well? Salmon-pink opacity, glinting veins and huge density make this week’s offering feel like a primeval object. Which it is: according to the Prose Edda, the universal cow Auðumbla lapped at a salt block to uncover the first Norse god. (Elves, giants and a cosmology story based on a Kinder egg? I guess that’s why Mum’s gone to Iceland.) But can a massive block of natural Himalayan salt do anything for my food other than over-season it? Well, salt melts at 800C, and has a huge thermal mass. This means a block of it can get extremely hot, three times hotter than a pizza stone, and hold that heat for ages, making it an ideal grilling surface. You can buy one in – where else – Whole Foods, but that’s just the beginning. You will also have to buy special gloves that can withstand hundreds of degrees of heat and temper the block, which takes three hours of heating, six of cooling. When blisteringly hot, it does a fine job. Pork loin and tuna steak sear quickly, with a savoury crust, while burgers sizzle through at lower temperature, and cookie dough picks up a tangy saltiness. Salt-block cooking would make a great talking point at parties; transferred to a ceramic trivet, you could finish food at the table. Yet I feel there’s something affected, even needy about its performative flair; you might as well be wearing a name tag that says: “Please ask me about my salt block.” The surface discolours quickly, and scraping it clean is also a headache, while grilled eggs and cheese drip off the sides. Devotees claim all foods benefit from the flavour, but I served fruit salad on a cold block and it tasted like it had been kicked into the sea. It’s also like having a nuclear rod in the house, and scorched my counter. It’s fun, but I’m not sure I can justify the fun. Lot’s wife sits on the counter, giving me salty looks. She’s a hotty, but a high-maintenance one. I turn around and keep walking. Any downside? Also makes a great talking point for anyone who hates you. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Salt Lick City. 3/5 | ['lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'food/food', 'technology/gadgets', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-08-16T08:00:34Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
global-development/2022/feb/22/kenya-to-use-solar-panels-to-boost-crops-by-harvesting-the-sun-twice | Kenya to use solar panels to boost crops by ‘harvesting the sun twice’ | Solar panels are not a new way of providing cheap power across much of the African continent, where there is rarely a shortage of sunshine. But growing crops underneath the panels is, and the process has had such promising trials in Kenya that it will be deployed this week in open-field farms. Known as agrivoltaics, the technique harvests solar energy twice: where panels have traditionally been used to harness the sun’s rays to generate energy, they are also utilised to provide shade for growing crops, helping to retain moisture in the soil and boosting growth. An initial year-long research collaboration between the University of Sheffield, World Agroforestry and the Kajiado-based Latia Agripreneurship Institute has shown promising results in the semi-arid Kajiado county, a 90-minute drive from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and this week the full project will be officially launched. For example, cabbages grown under the 180, 345-watt solar panels have been a third bigger, and healthier, than those grown in control plots with the same amount of fertiliser and water. Other crops such as aubergine and lettuce have shown similar results. Maize grown under the panels was taller and healthier, according to Judy Wairimu, an agronomist at the institute. “We wanted to see how crops would perform if grown under these panels,” said Wairimu. But there is another pragmatic reason behind the technology: doubling up the output of the same patch of earth to generate power and cultivate food can go a long way towards helping people with limited land resources, she said. According to Dr Richard Randle-Boggis, a researcher at the University of Sheffield’s Harvesting the Sun Twice project, the trial initiative will determine the potential of agrivoltaic systems in east Africa. “We needed to build a test system to see if this technology will be suitable for the region,” Randle-Boggis said, reiterating that, unlike conventional solar mini-grid systems, agrivoltaics have the additional benefits of improving food and water security, while strengthening people’s resilience against the climate crisis, as well as providing low-carbon electricity. The solar panels do not just reduce water loss from plants and the soil – their shade mitigates some of the stress experienced by plants due to high day temperatures and UV damage, Randle-Boggis said. Agrivoltaics can have a notable impact on household income in remote locations such as Kajiado. “Women here can spend up to 300 Kenyan shillings (£2) on a bodaboda (motorcycle taxi) fare to the market just to buy vegetables worth 100 Kenyan shillings,” said Anne Macharia, head of training at Latia Agripreneurship Institute. The solar panels can be placed three metres from the ground, providing ample room for a farmer to work below, or higher in bigger systems to allow access for agricultural machinary. Randle-Boggis acknowledged the technology has limitations, but says that in “areas of Kenya which are not currently suitable for horticulture, it may be possible to grow other crops under the improved environmental conditions under the panels”. In other countries including France, the US and Germany, the technology has been employed successfully. | ['global-development/global-development', 'environment/solarpower', 'world/kenya', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'science/agriculture', 'world/africa', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2022-02-22T09:51:26Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2021/jan/31/rex-patrick-says-he-wont-support-coalition-plan-on-environmental-powers-before-it-responds-to-scathing-review | Rex Patrick says he may not support Coalition plan on environment law | A key independent senator says he will not support a government plan to shift environmental approval powers to the states before the Coalition responds to a “scathing” review of conservation laws. Rex Patrick said the final report of the review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act was damning about the state of systems meant to protect Australia’s wildlife. “I’m not going to agree to blindly passing pieces of legislation,” Patrick said. “I want to see a plan for how the review recommendations are going to be implemented, including timeframes.” The Morrison government released the final report from the once-in-a-decade review of the laws on Thursday, three months after receiving it from the review’s chair, the former competition watchdog head Graeme Samuel. The government is yet to release its response to the report. Samuel included several recommendations that he said should be implemented immediately. The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has indicated the government will continue to try to pass legislation that would clear the way for the transfer of environmental approval powers to state and territory governments. A majority of senators signalled they would block the bill last year and Patrick was among a crossbench group that tabled a dissenting report to an inquiry examining the legislation. Patrick said on Friday that the government still had not addressed key concerns outlined in that dissenting report, which called for documents detailing the agreements between the states and the commonwealth as well as how state authorities would be accredited with the commonwealth to make decisions on its behalf. He added that Samuel’s final report made clear there were multiple recommendations – including legislated national environmental standards and the creation of an office of compliance to enforce the law – that should be a priority alongside the proposal for environmental deregulation. “The minister would have to put up a very good case as to why she would take a different approach to that recommended by Samuel,” Patrick said. Eighteen of the review’s 38 recommendations contained items Samuel deemed to be urgent. Those include adopting the set of legally-binding national environmental standards written by Samuel and a committee working with the review, the creation of an office for environmental compliance and enforcement, amendments to address inconsistencies within Australia’s environmental laws, reforms to give Indigenous Australians a greater say in environmental decision-making, and immediate changes to national policy on the use of environmental offsets. Samuel concluded that successive governments had failed for 20 years to properly implement environmental laws and the country’s wildlife was suffering because of it. Guardian Australia put a series of questions to Ley on Friday. These included whether the government would commit to adopting the recommendations Samuel said required immediate action, whether it would put legislation to parliament for the creation of national standards, when it intended to release its response to the report, and whether it would adopt the same standards as proposed by Samuel in the report. Ley answered none of these questions. In a statement, a spokesperson said the report had been released ahead of the statutory deadline and the minister had committed to working through “the detail of the report with stakeholders and has begun that process”. “In line with the position of all state and territory leaders expressed at national cabinet, the minister will continue to move to a single-touch approval process with bilateral agreements, consistent national standards and assurance functions,” the spokesperson said. “These will create a necessary framework identified in the report and will, in the first instance, reflect the current EPBC Act. Consistent with Professor Samuel’s report, these will be further developed in the future.” Nicola Beynon, of the Humane Society International (HSI), said Samuel had recommended a balanced set of standards following a year of consultation with scientists, environment and business groups. “While HSI has been calling for stronger standards, anything less than the standards Professor Samuel proposes will take environmental protection backwards in this country,” she said. Suzanne Milthorpe, the environmental laws campaigner at the Wilderness Society, said the organisation had been looking “for a sign, any sign” that the government was serious about addressing the decline of Australia’s plants and animals and was still waiting. “The Samuel report makes it unequivocally clear that if we don’t change direction, the current decline and deterioration of Australia’s national icons will continue,” she said. “The Morrison government has had this warning for three months. How much longer will we have to wait for a serious response?” WWF-Australia’s chief conservation officer, Rachel Lowry, said the government should deal with Samuel’s recommendations as a complete package. “We’re concerned that if the government gets a win on its streamlining bill in February or March, then we won’t see progress on other essential reforms. A piecemeal approach is risky and a potentially damaging way forward,” she said. “Their reluctance to strengthen standards and ensure independent enforcement as the first step of reform is worrying.” | ['environment/series/environmental-investigations', 'environment/conservation', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/coalition', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-01-30T19:00:18Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/jul/22/labour-promises-reinstate-agricultural-wages-board | Labour pledges to reinstate Agricultural Wages Board | Labour has pledged to improve the pay and conditions of rural workers in England by reinstating the Agricultural Wages Board, which was abolished five years ago. Jeremy Corbyn will announce the policy on Sunday at the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset, which commemorates the history of trade unionism and agricultural workers’ struggle for fair pay. Labour says the move will tackle inequality in areas where average wages are among the lowest in the country. The new board would ensure that rural workers in England were entitled to minimum rates of pay, which may be higher than the national minimum wage, and to paid holiday, sick pay and rest breaks. Mr Corbyn will say: “Almost 200 years after the Tolpuddle Martyrs bravely stood against the exploitation of employers paying poverty wages, Labour is committed to reintroducing the Agricultural Wages Board and increasing pay and fundamental rights for all agricultural workers. “This decision will bring back millions of pounds to workers across the English countryside, in addition to guaranteed paid holiday, sick pay, and rest breaks. “Rural workers have been consistently ignored by the Tories. The south-west is the low pay capital of the UK. Here, and across the English countryside, agricultural workers have been abandoned by the shameful decision to scrap the Agricultural Wages Board. “The struggle of the Tolpuddle Martyrs sowed the seed for the modern trade union movement and the Labour Party itself. The best way to honour that noble struggle is not just to remember why it took place, but to secure in our time what those workers fought for: the right to fair pay and decent working conditions.” Agriculture minister George Eustice said: “The Agricultural Wages Board became redundant after this Conservative government increased the minimum wage and then introduced the new national living wage. Labour have never supported the rural economy and their policies would threaten jobs in rural areas.” Northern Ireland and Wales still set rates for farm workers. For 2016/17, the Northern Ireland department of agriculture introduced a rise of 1.9% taking the basic rate to £6.76 an hour, and the craftsman’s rate for better qualified rural workers to £8.31. In Wales this was increased to £8.72. The Labour Party introduced the Agricultural Wages Board in 1948. The coalition scrapped it in 2013. | ['environment/farming', 'society/minimum-wage', 'money/pay', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/lin-jenkins', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-07-21T23:04:48Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/may/12/you-ask-they-answer-good-energy | You ask, they answer: Good Energy | Following this week's news that every UK home is to get a smart meter, we thought we'd put a utility company in our regular You ask, they answer spotlight. Good Energy, which bills itself as the UK's "only dedicated 100% renewable electricity supplier", took up the challenge. Post your questions to Good Energy in the comments below and it'll do its best to answer every day this week. Want to know more about getting paid for generating electricity through your own solar panels or wind turbine? Wondering how you can distinguish one "green electricity" tariff from another? Or whether the whole idea of a green tariff is just greenwash? Whatever you want to know, get writing below and kick off the debate. | ['environment/series/you-ask-they-answer', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/blog', 'environment/energy', 'money/energy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'environment/energy-monitoring', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2009-05-12T11:24:21Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/sep/26/air-pollution-fears-fuel-fight-against-huge-new-london-cruise-ship-terminal-river-thames | Air pollution fears fuel fight against new London cruise ship terminal | A huge new cruise ship terminal planned for the river Thames would lead to a surge in dangerous levels of air pollution in the heart of the capital with unknown health consequences for hundreds of thousands of people, campaigners have warned. Under the proposals, which have been given planning permission, up to 55 giant cruise ships would dock in London every year. Each ship would need to run its diesel engines round the clock to power onboard facilities, generating the same amount of toxic NO2 emissions as almost 700 continuously running lorries. “As we find out more about the damage air pollution is doing to people’s health it is unthinkable that something like this can go ahead,” said local resident Laura Eyres, who is one of those leading the fight against the development. “There is simply no justification for having these huge ships sitting here right next to busy residential areas and schools, belching out this level of pollution with all the associated damage to people’s health that have now been proven.” There has been growing concern about the scale of the air pollution crisis in recent months. A slew of new research has highlighted the health risks associated with toxic air – from reduced intelligence to a rise in asthma deaths; heart disease to spikes in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. In London, the mayor, Sadiq Khan, has announced a range of measures including plans to introduce a low emissions zone banning the most polluting road vehicles from a large swath of the city from 2021. However, the Thames does not fall under his jurisdiction and campaigners fear it has become a “wild west” in terms of air pollution. “The fumes that are emitted on the river simply would not be allowed if they were coming from a road in London,” said Eyres. “It is really worrying to think what damage these fumes are causing local residents, and if the new terminal goes ahead that is only going to get a lot worse.” The Port of London Authority (PLA) controls traffic on the Thames and admits the “marine sector” has lagged behind in terms of tackling air pollution. However, it says it is catching up and earlier this year it produced its first air quality strategy. It points out that the Thames is only responsible for 1% of London’s air pollution and says emission levels will improve in the years ahead as clean marine technology comes into force. Martin Garside from the PLA said it was working with the the mayor and local authorities “to secure strong environmental standards”. He added: “With a single barge carrying the loads of 50 lorries – the Thames helps reduce traffic and pollution on London’s congested roads. Over four million tonnes of cargo is transported between river terminals – removing about 300,000 lorry movements from the roads.” The proposed new cruise terminal at Enderby Wharf in Greenwich is owned by Morgan Stanley, which was given planning permission for the terminal and wider residential development by Greenwich council in 2012 and updated permission in 2015. Now the council has changed its mind and is backing campaigners’ calls for Morgan Stanley to come up with a greener alternative for the cruise terminal. Residents want it to be “zero emissions”, only allowing ships that can plug into an onshore power point so they can turn off their polluting diesel engines. Eyres said: “With 55 cruise ships planned annually and each staying for three days we face huge amounts of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter being released into our homes every day of the summer with potentially devastating health implications.” One of the big cruise ship companies, Viking, said its ships were already fitted with the “latest technology that meets the strictest environmental regulations”. A spokesman added: “If shore side power were available then we would consider using it. In fact, we are already prepared to use shore power. Our newest ship, launched this year, has a built-in connection, and we are updating our other four ships to use shore power in order to have the capability fleetwide.” Campaigners wrote to Morgan Stanley earlier this month raising their concerns again and arguing the current plans were at odds with the company’s stated commitment on environmental sustainability. A spokesperson for the company said it had received the letter and was working on revised plans for the development. “We acknowledge East Greenwich Residents Association’s concerns and can assure [them] that our new proposals will take these concerns into account.” However, Eyres said local residents needed more than encouraging words. “We can’t rest until we see a concrete commitment from Morgan Stanley that their plans for a polluting cruise port are dead in the water.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'uk/london', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'business/morganstanley', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-09-26T10:30:35Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
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