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us-news/2021/aug/10/un-climate-report-joe-biden-us-response | UN climate report raises pressure on Biden to seize a rare moment | A stark UN report on how humanity has caused unprecedented, and in some cases “irreversible”, changes to the world’s climate has heaped further pressure on Joe Biden to deliver upon what may be his sole chance to pass significant legislation to confront the climate crisis and break a decade of American political inertia. The US president said the release on Monday of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showed that “we can’t wait to tackle the climate crisis. The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. And the cost of inaction keeps mounting.” The IPCC report, developed over the past eight years by scientists who combed over more than 14,000 studies, shows that the US, like the rest of the world, is running out of time to avoid disastrous climate impacts, with a critical global heating threshold of 1.5C to be breached far earlier than previously expected, potentially within a decade. “This is not a future problem, it’s a problem now. I’m literally seeing climate change out of my window, climate change is in my lungs,” said Linda Mearns, an IPCC report co-author located in Boulder, Colorado, which has been baked in extreme heat and wildfire smoke in recent weeks. Mearns, who has been involved in IPCC reports since 1990, said the latest iteration was “very through and disturbing” and demanded a strong response. “I’m not sure what will be required for people to get it, but my hope is that it will galvanize everyone in Glasgow to meet their agreements,” she added in reference to UN climate talks between world leaders in October. Much of that global action will hinge upon the response mustered by the US, the world’s second-largest carbon emitter. Biden’s narrow window of opportunity to drastically cut emissions is dependent upon the contents of a $3.5tn bill that Democrats hope to pass before midterm elections next year, when the party may well lose control of Congress. “Congress didn’t pass a climate bill in 2009 and it’s taken over a decade to get us back to serious climate legislation,” said Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This summer is the best chance we have ever had to pass a big climate bill. This is it. President Biden is poised to become the climate president we need. But there are no more decades left to waste.” Stokes said she was “very optimistic” the reconciliation bill would include two critical climate measures to help the US slash its emissions in half this decade – a scheme to help utilities to phase out fossil fuels from the electricity grid and tax credits to encourage renewable energy and electric cars. The measures will need the support of all Senate Democrats, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who have expressed doubts over the scope of the bill. Republicans, who have long allied with the fossil fuel industry to oppose any significant action to avert the climate emergency, are uniformly opposed to the bill. “If senators truly followed the science in this report, we’d have 100 votes for climate action,” said Ed Markey, a Democratic senator who help craft the Green New Deal proposal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Markey said the IPCC report “must be the final warning to the world that time has run out to save the planet from dangerous and irreversible climate change”. Climate campaigners have urged Biden to do more to match his rhetoric, pointing out that the IPCC report highlights the sharp increase in methane, a potent greenhouse gas produced from oil and gas drilling, as well as from animal agriculture. The federal government is mulling new restrictions on methane, although new leases for drilling are still being issued. “This latest IPCC report must be a wake up call for Biden and Congress that the half measures they’ve proposed are not nearly enough to end the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise Movement, who said she had woken up “enraged” at the IPCC’s findings. “Our politicians shouldn’t need a report to tell them how bad things are. We’re already living it.” Scientists, too, have called for their repeated warnings over the climate crisis, so often eclipsed by political intransigence or falsehoods spread by the fossil fuel industry, to finally be heeded by US lawmakers. “There’s really one key message that emerges from this report: we are out of time,” said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech. Several climate impacts are now locked in even if planet-heating emissions are severely cut, including global sea level rise of at least a foot and a half by the end of the century, imperiling coastal American cities already struggling with increasing flooding. The increase could even balloon to 7ft if the Antarctic ice sheet collapses more quickly than expected. The US west is now racked by prolonged drought, extraordinary record-breaking heat and enormous wildfires and the IPCC report warns all of these phenomena will get worse, with dangerous heatwaves that once would have occurred every 50 years already becoming more common and expected once every five years at 1.5C of warming. “The continued dithering is no longer about the lack of scientific evidence, but rather directly tied to a lack of political will and the overwhelming influence of the fossil fuel industry,” said Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The scientists keep showing up time and time again. Now it’s time for policymakers to do the same.” | ['us-news/joebiden', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/ipcc', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-08-10T06:00:12Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2023/sep/12/ministers-ignored-natural-england-advice-plans-rip-up-pollution-laws | Ministers ignored Natural England’s advice on plans to rip up pollution laws | The government ignored its nature watchdog’s advice in weakening rules on pollution from housebuilders in England, the Guardian can reveal. Michael Gove, the housing secretary, and Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, recently announced they would be ending what they termed “defective” EU laws, which require developers to offset any extra nutrient pollution they cause in sensitive areas, under the habitats directive. These areas include the Lake District and Norfolk Broads. Ministers are aiming to remove the legal requirement via an amendment in the House of Lords, which requires local authorities to ignore potential pollution risks when approving developments. It will be debated on Wednesday. Gove and Coffey’s amendment proposes that instead of forcing housebuilders to invest in local wetland sites to soak up any extra sewage pollution and mitigate damage, this legal requirement would be scrapped and taxpayer money would instead be used to double the funds for a scheme by Natural England to reduce nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates in waterways. These nutrients choke the life out of rivers and cause damaging algal blooms. Despite the increase in funding to Natural England, no officials from the quango came forward to endorse the announcement at the time. Now correspondence from the nature watchdog to Lady Barbara Young of Old Scone, a Scottish Labour member of the house, shows the watchdog said the rule changes were not necessary and that the current scheme was working to deliver homes and reduce nutrients. The advice from Natural England recommends making developers pay for the pollution: “Our experience in similar schemes suggests that upfront, fixed-rate contributions from developers could be faster and offer more certainty in enabling planning permissions to be granted and support emerging green finance markets.” It also said the European Union habitats regulations, which were carried over into UK law after Brexit, and which this amendment would undermine, had worked in delivering homes and reducing pollution. “There are a number of well-established schemes that implement the [habitats regulations] with regard to housing, where a case by case approach has been replaced by a more strategic scheme – familiar cases include the Thames Basin Heaths scheme, mitigating housing pressure operating across 13 local planning authorities, and the national district level licensing scheme which has replaced the need for individual newt licence solutions for great crested newts.” Natural England pointed out that its nutrient mitigation scheme had thus far offered credits to developers to enable more than 3,500 homes and two temporary prisons, with a pipeline of schemes for a further 4,500 homes in place for this financial year. It said that in total all providers across England had created sufficient mitigation for approximately 16,000 homes, with a well-advanced pipeline to enable an additional 35,000 new homes. Although the government said current rules choked small and medium housebuilders, Natural England said the scheme “has deliberately prioritised [small and medium-sized] housebuilders, so for example in the Tees catchment we were able to meet demand for credits for all small developments (50 homes or less)”. Despite this advice, the government went ahead with plans for the amendment. Wildlife groups have accused ministers of ignoring Natural England. Craig Bennett, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said: “The government brought forward outrageous plans to weaken environmental law in the final stages of the levelling up bill, without any public consultation. Now it is plain that they have ignored their own advisers as well. The result is poorly conceived plans that will not work, but will leave lasting damage to rivers and to UK environmental protection.” Dr Richard Benwell, the chief executive of the environmental coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link, added: “Natural England’s advice reveals that this regression – which would expose protected river habitats to more pollution, while letting polluters off the hook – is totally unwarranted. Environmental charities are united in opposition to these plans, and we hope all parliamentarians who care about rivers and nature will resist them.” Peers are trying to squash the bill. The Duke of Wellington, a crossbench peer, has laid an amendment that would nullify the government’s one, and he has support from other Tories. Lady Jenny Jones of the Green party is hoping to force a vote against Gove and Coffey’s amendment which would delete it from the bill. The Office for Environmental Protection has also written to the secretaries of state, calling the move a “regression” in environmental standards. Young added: “The government’s proposal would force local authorities to ignore pollution, even when it is plain to see. In the process, it would take a wrecking ball to the habitats regulations, the UK’s most important nature laws. The advice I have received from Natural England shows that both are unnecessary and that effective other measures are available to release much needed houses and protect their environment. I plan to oppose these provisions when they come to parliament tomorrow.” A government spokesperson acknowledged Natural England had suggested alternatives to ripping up the EU-derived law and said: “We believe the approach we are taking will best deliver our objectives of unlocking much needed homes, continuing to offset the small amount of additional nutrient pollution caused by new housing, and shifting our focus from mitigation to site restoration. Over 100,000 homes are held up due to retained EU laws and will be unblocked between now and 2030, delivering an estimated £18bn boost to the economy while protecting the environment.” | ['environment/pollution', 'society/housing', 'business/construction', 'politics/michaelgove', 'politics/therese-coffey', 'environment/rivers', 'uk-news/england', 'business/business', 'society/communities', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-09-12T11:00:28Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2021/dec/07/sse-may-not-need-to-split-now-but-it-does-need-more-clean-energy-expertise | SSE may not need to split now but it does need more clean energy expertise | Elliott Management’s open letters are improving. When the US activist hedge fund tried to take a pop at GlaxoSmithKline in the summer, it produced 17 pages of waffle that could have been condensed to a few sentences of substance. Tuesday’s 10-page blast at energy group SSE was tighter, scored a couple of solid hits and should make the newish chairman, Sir John Manzoni, realise the Perth-based firm is in a scrap. That is not to say Elliott is right on every score, or even on its main demand that SSE should be split in two. Indeed, one of the activist’s points was plainly exaggerated – the idea that an “unequivocal message” was sent by the 4% fall in SSE’s share price on the day last month when the company unveiled its energy transition strategy alongside a delayed dividend cut. Come on, the signal in the share price – now down just 1.8% – simply isn’t clear. Rather than being “thoroughly frustrated”, as Elliott claims, SSE’s investors merely seem uninspired. That, though, is hardly a triumph for a £17bn FTSE 100 company at the moment of its great strategic reset. Manzoni could start by addressing Elliott’s legitimate criticism that SSE didn’t show its arithmetic when it refused to split its renewables assets from its electricity transmission and distribution networks on grounds of cost. The financial detail was indeed missing. What are the £200m worth of separation costs and £95m of “quantifiable dis-synergies”? Both figures need explaining. The heart of SSE’s “better together” defence, though, was weightier: it was the argument that it’s cheaper to finance the construction of more renewables assets, primarily offshore windfarms, when the division is housed under the same roof as a networks and distribution division that throws off cash reliably. SSE’s argument feels intuitively correct since size and diversity of income tend to deliver lower funding costs over time. But it is not one that is universally accepted – three big continental European energy firms are contemplating doing the splits – so, again, the evidence needs to be displayed. In its absence, Elliott’s refrain that a standalone renewables division would be inundated with offers of cheap capital from ESG-friendly investors will sound beguiling. The hedge fund may be guilty of wishful thinking (Danish pin-up Orsted’s share price is down 35% this year, note) but SSE needs to slam its points home, which means showing you’ve engaged with the nitty-gritty. Then there’s the make-up of SSE’s board, which is where Elliott’s case is strongest. Look down the list of non-executive directors and it’s not obvious who the renewable specialists are supposed to be. There is big-project expertise aplenty from directors whose executive lives were spent at the likes of BP, Eon and National Grid, but out-and-out renewables experience is thin. That is a problem when you’re trying to bill yourself as the UK’s “clean energy champion”. The smart move by Manzoni would be to grant Elliott’s wish for two new non-executives. It might even take some heat off the chief executive, Alistair Phillips-Davies, who, after eight years in post, probably isn’t planning to stay forever anyway. In the end, SSE should win this tussle. It was supremely well-connected in Westminster and Edinburgh even before Manzoni, a former permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, arrived. It is not going to be bullied easily by an activist that, for all its noise and reputation, owns less than 5% of the share capital. But a point-by-point response to Elliott is required. The activist may be wrong about the immediate need for a split, but SSE needs to be seen to win its case convincingly. The company is planning to spend £12.5bn over five years on critical infrastructure. Non-Elliott investors need to be fully signed up. The long-term Train of thought It wasn’t a mea culpa from Nick Train of Lindsell Train, one of the very few fund managers who still enjoys (deservedly) star status among retail investors. Rather, it was an admission that current stock markets are tough. His funds are experiencing “arguably the worst period of relative investment performance in our 20-year history”. An underweight position in technology stocks – the likes of Tesla – is one main explanation, plus an absence of cyclical manufacturing stocks that have enjoyed the Covid recovery. Train promises to stick to his tried-and-tested long-term approach, which is exactly what his investors will want to hear. But the markets do increasingly feel erratic. The FTSE 100 index, up 100 points on Tuesday, seems to have decided that the Omicron variant is not much to worry about. A tad premature, surely. | ['business/nils-pratley-on-finance', 'business/scottishandsouthernenergy', 'business/corporate-governance', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'business/investing', 'business/stock-markets', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/nilspratley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2021-12-07T18:49:40Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2021/dec/09/coastal-ghana-hit-by-climate-crisis | ‘We have to use a boat to commute’: coastal Ghana hit by climate crisis | Waves have taken the landscape John Afedzie knew so well. “The waters came closer in the last few months, but now they have destroyed parts of schools and homes. The waves have taken the whole of the village. One needs to use a boat to commute now because of the rising sea levels,” he says. Afedzie lives in Keta, one of Ghana’s coastal towns, where a month ago high tide brought seawater flooding into 1,027 houses, according to the government, leaving him among about 3,000 people made homeless overnight. Keta has been slowly eroded by rising sea levels and storms for years. But before dawn on 7 November, people woke to walls of seawater surging through their properties, flooding homes, schools, businesses and churches. That morning Keta, and neighbouring Fuveme and Salakope joined Vodza, Adzido, Abutiakope and Kedzikope – villages and towns that once dotted the west African country’s shore but have all but disappeared under water. “It started Saturday evening. We saw that the water was getting closer, but we didn’t know it would flood this place. By Sunday at dawn, the water was everywhere. All our things were affected by the flood,” says Janet Nubueke, from Keta. The people, she says, will continue to move away from the water as long as the sea continues to be a threat. They are asking the government to relocate them. With a coastline spanning about 340 miles (550km) of the Gulf of Guinea and a quarter of its population living on the coast, Ghana is being permanently altered by coastal erosion. The country’s economic powerhouse is along the coast, including 80% of its industry, oil and gas production, thermal and hydroelectric power generation, as well as agriculture and fishing. A study by Unesco found that 37% of Ghana’s coastal land had been badly hit by erosion and flooding between 2005 and 2017. Construction of a sea-defence wall began in 1999 under the administration of the late President Jerry Rawlings but was not completed because of a change in government and subsequent neglect by political leaders. Several studies suggest that sea-defence walls could play an essential role in mitigating the erosion of sandy soil along the coast and that stabilising the shoreline to prevent inhabited areas being flooded is feasible. But many people, still living in makeshift shelters and waiting to find new homes, have no confidence that the political will is there to complete the project. With climate crisis experts warning that extreme weather and natural disasters will only become more frequent, the people left in what remains of Keta are living from day to day, fearing the next storm or higher than usual tide. Sign up for a different view with our Global Dispatch newsletter – a roundup of our top stories from around the world, recommended reads, and thoughts from our team on key development and human rights issues, delivered to your inbox every two weeks: | ['global-development/global-development', 'world/ghana', 'environment/coastlines', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/flooding', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/environment', 'inequality/inequality', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-12-09T07:30:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2023/aug/16/joe-jill-biden-visit-hawaii-wildfires | Joe and Jill Biden to visit fire-ravaged Hawaii as death toll hits 110 | Joe and Jill Biden will travel to Hawaii next week to witness the impact of wildfires that devastated the town of Lahaina, the White House said on Wednesday, as the death toll from disaster rose to 110. Announcing the visit, which will take place on Monday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: “In Maui, the president and first lady will be welcomed by state and local leaders to see first-hand the impacts of the wildfires and the devastating loss of life and land that has occurred on the island, as well as discuss the next steps in the recovery effort. “The president continues to marshal a whole-of-government response to the deadly Maui fires, and he has committed to delivering everything that the people of Hawaii need from the federal government as they recover from this disaster.” Biden has faced criticism for his response to the Maui fires from Republicans prominently including Donald Trump. In a video message, the former president and frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination criticized Biden, including when he said “no comment” to reporters last weekend when asked about the rising death toll. “To say ‘no comment’ is oftentimes fine but to be smiling when you say it, especially against such a tragedy as this, is absolutely horrible and unacceptable,” Trump said. White House officials have defended Biden, noting that he had been in touch consistently with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Hawaii leaders including the governor, Josh Green. Biden spoke publicly about the wildfires on Tuesday, after going four days without publicly addressing the disaster. But the president received further criticism for calling Maui the “Big Island”, another name for the island of Hawaii, the largest of the Hawaiian Islands. “The army helicopters helped fire suppression efforts on the Big Island because there’s still some burning on the Big Island – not the one that, not the one where you see on television all the time,” Biden said. Biden announced his intention to visit Hawaii but said he would wait to avoid getting in the way of disaster-relief efforts. On Wednesday, Governor Green said the death toll from the devastating fires was expected to rise but not catastrophically. Speaking to ABC News, the governor said search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing. Recorded fatalities, he said, were mainly near roads by the ocean. At a news conference, Green said that 110 people were confirmed dead and that 38% of the disaster area had been searched. He also said about 2,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity in the area. “It makes us heartbroken,” Green said. Crews with dogs are rushing to secure remains, Green said, ahead of possible storms forecast for the weekend. The wildfires are already the deadliest in the US in more than a century, and Green had previously warned that scores more bodies could be found. “I want the rain, ironically, but that’s why we’re racing right now to do all the recovery that we can, because winds or heavy rain in that disaster setting ... will make it even harder to get the final determination of who we lost,” he said. On Wednesday, Green said authorities had searched 27% of the area affected by the fires. The governor, a Democrat, also thanked Biden for quickly issuing an emergency declaration that provided state officials with more resources to respond to the raging blazes. Federal officials sent a mobile morgue unit with coroners, pathologists and technicians to Hawaii to help identify the dead, said Jonathan Greene, a deputy assistant secretary at the US Department of Health and Human Services. The morgue unit included 22 tons of supplies and equipment such as mortuary examination tables and X-ray units, Greene said. Green told Hawaii News Now that children were among the dead. “When the bodies are smaller, we know it’s a child,” he said, describing some of the sites being searched as “too much to share or see from just a human perspective”. | ['us-news/hawaii-fires', 'us-news/joebiden', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/hawaii', 'campaign/email/us-morning-newsletter', 'world/wildfires', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gloria-oladipo', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-08-17T01:06:27Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2014/mar/28/energy-companies-sign-deal-farmers-no-to-coal-seam-gas | Energy companies sign deal allowing NSW farmers to say no to coal seam gas | Energy companies Santos and AGL have signed an agreement with farmers in NSW that will allow landholders to refuse coal seam gas activities on their properties. The deal will allow a farmer to say no to coal seam gas and bar entry to gas companies if permission is explicitly refused. The agreement, the first of its kind between gas firms and landholders, also seems to indirectly reference environmental protesters by condemning “bullying, harassment and intimidation” of farmers who have agreed to coal seam gas on their properties. According to the text of the agreement, “the parties will uphold the landholder's decision to allow access for drilling operations and do not support attempts by third party groups to interfere with any agreed operations”. The deal, signed at the NSW parliament, involves Santos, AGL, NSW Farmers, Cotton Australia and the NSW Irrigators’ Council. The ability of coal seam gas companies to drill on farmers’ land without consent has become a contentious issue in many rural communities in NSW and Queensland. Santos has recently been targeted by a series of protests from people unhappy with its operations in the Pilliga rorest in NSW. Opponents of coal seam gas extraction claim that it endangers vital groundwater supplies, as well as violating the rights of landholders. Gas companies dispute both of these assertions, insisting that they never force their way on to properties. Santos said that the agreement “further recognises” its position that it does not drill without landholder consent. “In NSW, we already have more than 40 land access agreements,” said Peter Mitchley, Santos’s NSW general manager. “It is important that all members of the community also respect the rights of landowners to work with industry and have us on their land.” Michael Fraser, managing director of AGL, said the company had always “listened with respect” to farmers, adding “AGL is proud of our close relationships with farmers and signing the new agreed principles reflects that we will continue to respect their wishes”. Mitchell Clapham, of NSW Farmers, said the agreement was a “significant win” for farmers, establishing in writing how gas companies should operate. Earlier this week, the NSW government announced a six-month freeze on new applications for coal seam gas exploration licences, to allow an audit of existing licences. The fee for a licence will rise from $1,000 to $50,000. NSW farmer Phil Laird, part of the Lock the Gate coalition that has fought a bitter battle against the spread of coal seam gas extraction, said the deal was a “cautious step forward”. “This is an agreement between the management of two companies and we’d like to see actual root and branch reform,” he told Guardian Australia. “It’s a good start but we want to see actual legislation to allow farmers to lock their gates. This is what the companies have said has been their policy all along, so restating that is hardly an historical agreement. “I think they are trying to turn the tide of bad news flowing against them for the past week or so.” | ['environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'business/mining', 'environment/mining', 'environment/gas', 'world/gabon', 'environment/coal', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2014-03-28T06:56:39Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2011/may/02/parents-revolt-radiation-levels | Fukushima parents dish the dirt in protest over radiation levels | Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools. Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party. Ministers have defended the increase in the acceptable safety level from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year as a necessary measure to guarantee the education of hundreds of thousands of children in Fukushima prefecture, location of the nuclear plant that suffered a partial meltdown and several explosions after the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March. It is estimated that 75% of Fukushima's schools may have radiation levels above the old safety level of 1 millisievert. The local authorities in Koriyama have tried to ease the problem by digging up the top layer of soil in school and day centre playgrounds, but residents near the proposed dump site have objected. The new standard of 20 millisieverts a year – equivalent to the annual maximum dose for German nuclear workers – will mean those schools remain open, but parents and nuclear opponents are angry that safety concerns are being ignored. A group claiming to represent 250 parents in Fukushima visited the upper house of parliament and presented government officials with a bag of radioactive dirt from the playground of one of the affected schools. A geiger counter clicked over it with a reading of 38 microsieverts per hour. "How dare they tell us it is safe for our children," said Sachiko Satou of the Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation Association. "This is disgusting. They can't play outside with such risks. If the government won't remove the radioactive dirt then we'll do it ourselves and dump it outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric." Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other environment and anti-nuclear groups submitted a petition against the regulations. They accused the Nuclear Safety Commission of meekly accepting the new safety limit after just two hours of closed-door discussions with government officials. However, representatives of the commission denied agreeing that 20 millisieverts was safe. Education ministry officials fudged demands for an explanation. "I think 20 millisieverts is safe but I don't think it's good," said Itaru Watanabe of the education ministry, drawing howls of derision from the audience of participants. He promised the government would carefully monitor the situation and do all it could to get radioactivity down to 1 millisievert. The health impacts are disputed. Physicians for Social Responsibility – a US-based Nobel prize winning organisation that opposes nuclear power – said children were more vulnerable than adults. It said the new acceptable limit exposed children to a one in 200 risk of getting cancer, compared with a one in 500 risk for adults. "It is unconscionable to increase the allowable dose for children to 20 millisieverts," the group said in a statement. "There is no way this level of exposure can be considered safe." This is not the first time the government has shifted safety baselines since the start of the crisis. Permissible levels of radiation exposure for nuclear workers were amended soon after the disaster struck to allow emergency operations at the stricken Fukushima reactor. Several weeks later the cabinet allowed the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric, to violate regulations by dumping 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific. The radioactivity of the discharge was 100 times higher than the acceptable limit. The government says it has to take unprecedented measures to deal with an unprecedented disaster. Kan has lost one of his chief scientific advisers over the latest decision. Toshiso Kosako – a Tokyo University professor who was called in to help deal with the crisis – walked out on Friday and has since accused the government of ad hoc policy making and contravening internationally accepted norms for the sake of political expediency. Kan has also come under fire from lawmakers in his ruling Democratic party. Mori Yuko, an upper house member, said she was disgusted by the decision to loosen the safety limit. "Would politicians and bureaucrats allow their own children to go to a contaminated school," she said. "This makes me furious." She called for more rigorous and widespread health monitoring of children and criticised an earlier government policy to withhold data about radiation levels and wind direction. After a public outcry these figures are now published daily in newspapers, but the allegations of cover-ups and shifting safety baselines are taking a heavy political toll. A mere 1.3% of respondents in a weekend poll by the Kyodo news agency thought Kan was exercising sufficient leadership. But many people also criticise the main opposition Liberal Democratic party for lax nuclear regulation while it was in power. • This article was amended on 6 May 2011. In the original, the schoolyard soil sample collected by parent-protesters was said to give a reading of 38 millisieverts. This has been corrected. | ['world/japan', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'tone/news', 'world/world', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'environment/environment', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/fukushima', 'type/article', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-05-02T15:43:00Z | true | ENERGY |
sport/2020/oct/19/colin-graves-icc-cricket-ecb-international-cricket-council | Colin Graves ends bid to become next ICC chairman due to lack of support | Colin Graves has been thwarted in his bid to become the next chair of the International Cricket Council after failing to attract enough support. The 72-year-old, who ended five years as chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board last month, appeared favourite for the role when Shashank Manohar stepped down in July, and was said to have the all-important backing of India. But Graves was not among the nominees when the deadline passed over the weekend, with the position now set to be contested by Singapore’s Imran Khwaja, who is currently serving as the interim ICC chair, and Greg Barclay of New Zealand. A report by the Times of India suggests Barclay – an outsider up to now but a director of New Zealand Cricket since 2012 – has the backing of India, England and Australia but will require 11 votes out of the 16 ICC board members with voting rights to prevail. An election is slated for December but the process may yet see one candidate drop out beforehand should the other secure enough support in the interim, thus allowing the board to present its new chair as the unanimous choice. Not only must the new chair guide the sport through the challenges of Covid-19, they must also address a growing schism over how revenues are shared, as well as the frequency of global tournaments such as the 50-over and Twenty20 World Cups. There are moves within the ICC to increase the number of events, thus helping the so-called smaller nations who rely heavily on the central funding. Graves, when outlining his vision, said he intended to “recut the pot” to make it more equitable. However England, Australia and India still earn the bulk of their money through bilateral cricket – as well as the hugely profitable Indian Premier League in the case of the latter – and are thus reluctant to give up more space in an already packed calendar. | ['sport/international-cricket-council', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/ecb', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ali-martin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2020-10-19T19:45:13Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
lifeandstyle/2017/nov/11/tim-dowling-dolphin-in-river-thames | Tim Dowling: Can that really be a dolphin on the horizon? | I am on my hands and knees pulling everything out of the cupboard under the stairs. I’ve spread all the stuff – a tent, three sleeping bags, a skateboard, a bag of dusty computer cables, a single boxing glove – across the hall so that no one can pass without experiencing my frustration. “What are you doing?” my wife says. “We have to go.” “I can’t find my walking shoes,” I say. “It’s not that kind of walk,” she says. “I’m wearing trainers.” I am reminded that last week I could not find my trainers and was obliged to go to the gym in a sort of espadrille. “I own walking shoes,” I say. “I’ll look in the car,” she says. I jam everything back into the cupboard and go in search of my trainers, which I find under a dust sheet in the oldest one’s newly painted bedroom. I am lacing them up when my wife comes back in. “Did you find my walking shoes?” I say. “No,” she says. “But I found mine.” My wife and some friends have instituted an informal monthly Sunday walk. This one is not too arduous – five miles along the river, starting at Kew and heading east. If I had to, I could probably do it in espadrilles. There are about 10 of us, but as we process along the muddy path the group spreads out considerably. I start near the front with my wife, but she soon pulls ahead. I find that as I drop through the ranks I can reuse the same chat on different people, tweaking things as I go. At one point I find myself halfway back, safely out of my wife’s earshot, rehashing an anecdote about the early days of our relationship. “There did eventually come a point when it was either, you know, get married or break up,” I say to the person alongside me. “And you decided to get married,” the person says. “I voted get married, she voted break up,” I say. “We were hopelessly deadlocked.” “How did you win her round?” the person says. “He hasn’t,” says my wife, who, it transpires, has been waiting on the path for us to catch up. “In this case, deadlock led to wedlock,” I say. That’s good, I think. I can use that one again at the back. A woman walking the other way stops in front of us. “There’s a dolphin!” she says. “What?” my wife says. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just had to say it out loud,” the woman says. “What do you mean, a dolphin?” my wife says. “Just around that bend,” she says. It seems an unlikely assertion, especially when you’re standing in the shadow of a brewery in Mortlake. I resist the urge to look in the direction the woman is pointing, in case she means to push me in. “It’s in the news,” she says, carrying on down the path. As our group reassembles, I take a cautious step toward the edge and look upriver, across the expanse of swirling grey water, past a lone canoeist. Suddenly a dark fin rises out of the current. “There,” I say pointing. The fin disappears. “Where?” my wife shouts. “What are you looking at?” someone says. “I could swear that I just saw…” “There!” my wife shouts. The fin rises again, unmistakable: there is a dolphin in the river. On my phone I find several news reports about the Thames dolphin. As we head west, the path gets busier, and I begin to sense a certain animosity from oncoming cyclists, particularly toward walkers who are bent over their phones. I fall to the back of the pack as I read. “It was seen in Putney yesterday,” I say to my friend. “It’s going the wrong way.” “Can’t they turn it round somehow?” she says. I look up to see yet another bicycle bearing down on me, and step to one side. As it passes between us, I cannot help but notice that the rider is newsreader John Humphrys. “Did you see that?” I say to my friend. “John Humphrys, a dolphin,” she says. “What a day.” | ['lifeandstyle/series/timdowlingsweekendcolumn', 'lifeandstyle/family', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/features', 'environment/dolphins', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'profile/timdowling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/starters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/weekend'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-11-11T06:00:17Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/30/climate-change-cancun-optimism | The climate change wake-up call | The year 2010 started inauspiciously with the spectacular failure of the climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009. The recriminations continued well into 2010 and the failure was compounded by the mid-term elections in the US, where the victory of the more conservative Republicans who were against any action on climate change meant the loss of any domestic legislation from Washington. With the global recession adding to economic problems, for most of 2010 the tide of policy and public opinion in much of the rich world was against taking any actions on climate change. In much of the developing world, however, the picture was quite different. For many of the heads of state who had attended a climate change summit for the first time in Copenhagen, it was a wake-up call to the importance of the problem, which most of them had hitherto not fully appreciated. Thus, with greater public awareness of the climate change issue, together with increasing climatic events, such as the devastating floods in Pakistan, the issue has taken on an importance it did not have before Copenhagen. Many countries in the developing world have been implementing significant initiatives. Countries like China, India, Brazil and South Afrca have been taking strong actions on renewable energy, while the Maldives has committed itself to becoming carbon neutral in 10 years and Bangladesh has committed $200m from its national budget to implement its national climate change strategy and action plan. Thus the main impetus for action on climate change has shifted from global policy making through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to actions at national and local levels, and from the developed countries to the developing world. This change was reflected in the Cancún agreement, achieved this month at the 16th conference of parties (COP16) of the UNFCCC, taking action on adaptation, deforestation and technology transfer, while recognising that progress on global targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases through a legally binding treaty as a successor to the Kyoto protocol was not likely to be achieved anytime soon. The Cancún Adaptation Framework, with an adaptation committee able to support and undertake actions to support the most vulnerable developing countries, is one the most signficant outcomes from Cancún and will enable actions that are already being undertaken in many vulnerable developing countries to get further impetus and support. One area of progress is in community-based adaptation, where some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities are already taking action, which they share through periodic international conferences. The fourth international conference on community-based adaptation was held in February 2010 in Tanzania and the fifth and largest international conference is to be held in the last week of March 2011 in Bangladesh, where more than 250 participants from all over the world are expected to share their knowledge and experience around the theme of scaling up. So while 2010 has been a challenging year for global policy on climate change, it has ended in a more optimistic, but also more realistic note that the battle is not lost but it is going to be a long struggle that is fought by many different actors on many different fronts, from the local to the national to the global. Next year will see that struggle being taken up on many different fronts with renewed vigour. | ['global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/global-development', 'tone/blog', 'environment/cancun-climate-change-conference-2010', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/environment', 'environment/copenhagen', 'type/article', 'profile/saleemul-huq'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2010-12-30T09:00:03Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2016/apr/19/fracking-northern-territory-referendum-labor-delia-lawrie | Fracking: former Northern Territory opposition leader calls for referendum | A referendum on fracking should be held at one of the two elections scheduled in the Northern Territory for this year, the former NT opposition leader Delia Lawrie has said. On Tuesday, Helen Bender from Queensland’s Darling Downs and the US cattle rancher and anti-fracking activist John Fenton warned Territorians that “if you do not think this will impact you, you are very … wrong”. Bender’s father, the farmer and anti-coal seam gas activist George Bender, took his life last year after years battling gas companies. She said her property had lost two water bores to contamination. “I can’t ever get my father back but I can ensure that his legacy is one that continues to fight for landholders’ rights and the protection of land and water against greedy gas companies,” she said. Fenton, who travelled from his home in Pavillion, Wyoming, to meet landowners and pastoralists in Australia, said he had seen a 60% reduction in property value and reduction of cattle stock by 75% on his property. He said they had been warned to open windows and doors when having a shower “so our house doesn’t explode from methane”. “If you have a concern about this now is the time, now is the chance to get out in front of this,” he said. He pointed to a Stanford University study of his home town, which found evidence that common fracking practices might have widespread impacts on drinking water. The NT mining department says fracking has occurred in the NT for more than 20 years without environmental damage and the oil and gas industry has said shale gas extraction is less risky than the CSG extraction on the east coast. Fenton said it was not CSG on his land. “The United States has seen the biggest shale drilling operation on the planet and no matter where they’ve gone … there are proven cases of water contamination,” he said. The issue of hydraulic fracturing to access reserves of shale gas is shaping up to be a defining election issue in the territory. Labor has promised a moratorium should it win office. The government said that promise had hit investor confidence and blamed it for companies cutting back on projects and jobs. Several Australian jurisdictions have put a halt on fracking but a report by Allan Hawke last year said the practice could be done safely in the NT if the regulatory framework was tightened. Lawrie, who will stand as an independent at the next election having been disendorsed by Labor, called on both the government and the opposition “to agree to allowing Territorians to have their say on whether or not they want fracking here in the Northern Territory”. She dismissed suggestions an election would show where Territorians stood. “At this stage polling has given some indication that Territorians largely don’t want to see fracking,” she said. “Labor has said they’ll put in a moratorium. What does that actually mean? Does that mean at some stage they will ask Territorians whether they want fracking? A referendum would give whoever the government is post-August a clear, absolute say from Territorians whether they want fracking or not. “Most of the arguments about referendums are about the cost of establishing one. We’re walking into polling booths in July, we’re walking into polling booths again in August. What’s wrong with a piece of paper being added?” She said industries such as tourism, agriculture and service provision would provide local jobs and support the NT economy after the $34bn Inpex project completed its construction phase. A report by Deloitte on Monday warned the NT economy was at a turning point as Inpex construction wound down. Both Labor and the government rejected the idea. Chief minister Adam Giles said the election would serve as a referendum. He accused Lawrie of “having a bet each way” by being part of governments which had approved exploration and mining licences. “On 27 August there will be a referendum in the Northern Territory,” he told media in Darwin. “It will be an opportunity for Territorians to vote on whether they want jobs, industry development, diversification of our economy, or they want to see private sector jobs stopped,” he said. A spokesman for the Labor party said its position was clear. “Labor supports a moratorium on fracking,” he said. “Thorough community consultation will be part of our scientific evaluation process should Labor win government.” He said at the end of a moratorium fracking would either be banned or allowed “but only under highly regulated circumstances”. The referendum call comes a day after the mining magnate Gina Rinehart urged attendees at an invitation-only investors forum to look to the NT. “The territory has more than 200 trillion cubic feet of gas,” Rinehart said. “Potentially enough gas to power Australia for more than 200 years. Pretty special.” This story was amended on 19 April 2016 to correct Delia Lawrie’s status. She is standing as an independent at the next territory election, not standing down. | ['environment/fracking', 'travel/northern-territory-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/northern-territory', 'environment/energy', 'environment/coal-seam-gas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/fracking | ENERGY | 2016-04-19T03:34:35Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2017/oct/09/nsw-to-approve-coalmine-blocked-by-courts-for-polluting-sydneys-drinking-water | NSW to approve coalmine blocked by courts for polluting Sydney's drinking water | The New South Wales government will introduce legislation to approve an underground coalmine that was blocked by the courts because it was polluting Sydney’s drinking water. On Monday the state’s energy minister, Don Harwin, announced the government would overturn a decision by the NSW court of appeal to block the extension of the Springvale colliery. The mine, owned by Centennial Coal, is the sole supplier to Lithgow’s Mount Piper power station, which provides about 10% of NSW’s electricity. On Monday Harwin said the mine was “vital for energy security and affordability”. “My top priority as energy minister is to ensure NSW households and business have an affordable, secure and reliable energy supply – this decision supports that,” he said. The legislation, which is expected to be introduced to the parliament this week, will change the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act to “clarify” that “projects in the Sydney water catchment seeking to expand must maintain or improve water quality compared to their existing consent”. It will also specifically validate the Springvale mine’s state significant development consent. The government’s planning minister, Anthony Roberts, said the legislation would “support the construction of a water treatment plant” which he said would eliminate saline discharges. “This new treatment plant will see zero mine water discharge into the Coxs river, is supported by the EPA and WaterNSW and has separately been approved by the independent Planning Assessment Commission,” he said. In August the court of appeal determined that the mine was polluting Sydney’s drinking water and therefore operating on an invalid licence. After a challenge by environment group 4nature, the court found the commission had erred in approving the licence because it involved discharging polluted water into Sydney’s drinking catchment. The approval involved saline mine water being discharged into the Coxs river, which flows into Lake Burragorang, Sydney’s major drinking-water reservoir. The NSW Greens energy spokesman, Jeremy Buckingham, criticised the decision, calling it a “shonky way to govern”. “The proposed changes to the act means that an existing mine can be extended or modified just as long as it pollutes the water catchment just a little less that it currently does,” he said. “This is a significant weakening of protections for our drinking water quality and has significant implications for other areas, such as mining under the Illawarra escarpment.” Georgina Woods from Lock the Gate said introducing new legisalation to overturn the decsion was “reckless and unnecessary”. “There’s plenty of coal being mined in this state; we’re mining more coal than ever before,” she said. “The idea that a power station cannot secure alternative supplies if a polluting coalmine must be closed to protect the water that supplies Sydney is absurd.” Centennial Coal has previously denied claims of water contamination and said it faced a “rigorous” and “exhaustive” assessment process that lasted five years. State planning law requires that developments in the catchment must have a “neutral or beneficial” effect on water quality but the court found the mine’s discharge was having a negative effect. Energy Australia has argued that the Springvale mine is the only source of coal Mount Piper can use, and without it the power station will not be able to run to the end of its 50-year life in 2042. The approval will allow Centennial Coal to extract 4.5m tonnes of coal from the mine every year for a further 13 years. But Springvale’s coal will be depleted within a decade. The NSW government has characterised the legislation as a measure to protect energy security, as the federal government presses AGL to keep the Liddell power station in NSW’s Hunter Valley open beyond its slated closure date of 2022. At last week’s Council of Australian Governments meeting Turnbull also sought to put pressure on the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, to approve the controversial Narrabri gas project, declaring the Santos development would reduce domestic gas prices. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/coal', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-mcgowan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2017-10-08T23:33:22Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/apr/06/major-misjudgement-how-the-tories-got-their-energy-strategy-so-wrong | ‘Major misjudgment’: how the Tories got their energy strategy so wrong | Government industrial strategies are often derided as attempts to pick winners. The UK’s Conservative government has taken a different approach with its new energy strategy. In terms of dealing with the energy bill and climate crises, it’s picking losers. It is crystal clear that transforming the energy efficiency of the nation’s draughty homes should be the No 1 priority. After all, the cheapest, cleanest energy is the energy you no longer use and nothing can be installed faster than insulation. There are huge opportunities – for example, just 40% of UK homes have sufficient loft insulation. But there is nothing new in the strategy beyond an advice website. Former Tory energy minister Charles Hendry calls this a “major misjudgment” that will “force large numbers of very vulnerable people to be cold next winter when they need not be”. The next priority should be renewable electricity, now six times cheaper than that from gas-fired power stations. There are 649 wind and solar projects that already have planning permission. These would save more gas than the UK imports from Russia. But the strategy promises nothing to cut the planning regulations that David Cameron used to strangle onshore wind development and large-scale solar farms. The vast majority of people, including Tory voters, back more wind power in their areas, polling consistently shows. But your future energy bills now will be even higher than they need to be because ministers are worried a tiny minority of people can’t cope with looking at turbines. There is a boost to offshore wind, a genuine British success story, but it is unavoidably more expensive than onshore wind. The “big bet” Boris Johnson has chosen to take is on nuclear power. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said this week that “there is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK” by 2050. That world is never-never land. Nuclear power is the only major energy technology that has increased in cost in the last decade and routinely suffers from massive time and budget overruns. Even Kwarteng acknowledges that France’s large nuclear fleet “cost a fortune”. The gamble Johnson is making, with taxpayers’ money, is that nuclear power is a more reliable wager to secure clean future power than renewables and fast-developing energy storage technologies. It’s a long shot. Renewables and storage will develop much faster and get much cheaper due to the rapid learning that comes with small-scale technologies, unlike colossal projects like nuclear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report on Monday, produced by scientists from across the globe and signed off by 195 governments, mentions renewables, wind, solar and efficiency 67 times in its summary. It cites nuclear once (in brackets), as an example of a technology with high upfront costs. The UK energy strategy also backs more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea – which flies in the face of its own net-zero climate targets. Furthermore, the dwindling reserves that remain cannot lower the price of commodities, which is set by a global market. Don’t just take that from me; Kwarteng, energy minister Greg Hands and COP26 president Alok Sharma all agree. On Monday, after the IPCC report, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “The truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” That is the UK he is now talking about. The only good news is that shale gas has been sidelined, with a review of safety a sop to the small group of noisy frackheads on the Tory back benches. Another of Johnson’s “big bets” is on hydrogen, apparently in the hope that it can be used to heat a third of UK homes as an alternative to fossil gas by 2050. That is folly, not least as heat pumps will be much cheaper and less polluting. Using fossil fuels could produce lots of hydrogen, but also cement our dependence on oil and gas, while belching out CO2. Green hydrogen – produced from renewables – will be very expensive for years, and the limited supply should be reserved for sectors that are really hard to decarbonise. Why has the government got this so wrong? It’s partly short-term politics. An “ally” of the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is reported to have defended the refusal to fund more energy efficiency by saying: “We have to be scrutinising every extra penny of taxpayer money that is proposed for spending because ultimately we want to do the Conservative thing and cut taxes for people.” That is, just before the next election. It is also partly the adherence to the dogma that the only solution to problems is “our treasured free-market economy”, as Kwarteng described it on Tuesday. That is despite the warning in 2011 from the government’s own climate adviser that “leaving [energy efficiency] to the market has never worked anywhere in the world”. He was right. The first of two big failed efficiency schemes saw loft insulations plunge by 93%. Most depressingly, the energy strategy’s failings seem also partly due to Johnson’s penchant for big, shiny projects, rather than the hard graft of thousands of smaller ones. But the six or seven nuclear power plants he dreams of are likely to follow the same fate as his island airport, garden bridge, and tunnel to Northern Ireland. Helen Clarkson, at the business-focused Climate Group, said: “We have tools and technologies already available which can radically reduce our energy needs and our carbon emissions now. Energy efficiency measures can deliver immediately in cutting people’s fuel bills and get us on the path to net zero in the longer term. There’s a huge opportunity for a win-win here which the government is passing up.” | ['environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'money/energy', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'politics/kwasi-kwarteng', 'environment/hydrogen-power', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-04-06T21:30:35Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/apr/16/us-climate-change-floods-sea-level-rise | US to have major floods on daily basis unless sea-level rise is curbed – study | Flooding events that now occur in America once in a lifetime could become a daily occurrence along the vast majority of the US coastline if sea level rise is not curbed, according to a new study that warns the advancing tides will “radically redefine the coastline of the 21st century”. The research finds major cities such as Honolulu, New Orleans and Miami will become increasingly vulnerable to elevated high tides and stronger storms fueled by the global heating caused by human activity. Beach and cliff erosion will exacerbate this situation. The accelerating pace of sea level rise means that by the end of the century floods currently considered once in a lifetime, or once every 50 years or so, will become a daily high tide occurrence for more than 90% of the coastal locations assessed by researchers from the US government, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Hawaii. Within 30 years from now, these now-rare flooding events will become annual occurrences for more than 70% of the locations along the US coast according to the research published in Scientific Reports. This scenario threatens huge, multibillion-dollar damages and, potentially, the viability of some coastal communities. “If future sea-level rise causes once extreme but rare floods to occur frequently then … this may render some parts of the US coastline uninhabitable,” said Sean Vitousek, a scientist at the US Geological Survey. The disruption caused by frequent flooding will threaten the habitability of much of the US coastline as it is already widely projected to do to many low-lying islands in the Pacific, Vitousek added. The paper uses an analysis of extreme water levels across more than 200 tide gauges along the US coastline, along with models of future sea level rise that depend on the amount of heat-trapping gases countries pump into the atmosphere through power generation, transportation and other activities. While small changes in the level of the sea may seem inconsequential, the researchers found that 5-10cm of sea level rise can double the chances of flooding, with most coastal locations around the US experiencing a doubling of extreme flooding events every decade this century. Global sea levels have increased by about eight inches on average since 1880, although some places along the US coast have experienced higher rates than this. The seas are expected, on average, to rise by at least another foot by the end of the century even if emissions are constrained. This will be higher in some regions and much will depend on the pace of melting at the two great ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica. | ['environment/sea-level', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oceans', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-04-16T15:00:09Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2012/aug/31/international-undercover-work-still-secret | International undercover work still secret | Rob Evans | More light has been shed recently on a particularly hidden area of undercover policing. The Mark Kennedy controversy helped to provide a little glimpse of this, but much remains unknown. During his seven years infiltrating the environmental movement, Kennedy spent quite a lot of time spying on, and disrupting, activists in other countries. The Channel Four documentary on him called him 'the go-to cop for foreign governments who needed information about their own activists'. He was deployed in 11 countries on 40 occasions, according to one official report. These countries included Germany, Denmark and Iceland. In Denmark, for instance, he says that he infiltrated a Danish community centre that had housed progressive causes for more than a century, obtaining intelligence to help police storm it and close it down in violent raids. Mark Jacobs was another of the undercover officers who appears to have engaged in frequent Euro-travel to monitor campaigners. What has emerged is a highly secretive official apparatus among governments for organising and co-ordinating this cross-border espionage. There appears to be a network of clandestine bodies in which police and governments manage the infiltration and surveillance of political as well as criminal groups. We would of course be interested in any information on this subject. Statewatch, which monitors civil liberties in Europe, has recently published this here, noting :"Information currently in the public domain makes up only a small piece of a global puzzle of police working groups and networks dealing with infiltration, intrusion and surveillance not just of criminal groups, but political activists". One politician who has pursued this with some vigour is German MP Andrej Hunko. He has recently published a detailed document collating information about these official networks, mainly from official answers in the German Parliament. It can be found here at the end of this document. Hunko said :"When police forces and intelligence services engage in international cooperation, parliamentary oversight is the loser. The increasing significance of undercover police networks is making this situation far more critical." He added that Kennedy's "infiltration of European leftist movements exemplifies police cooperation conducted beyond the bounds of parliamentary oversight. It remains unclear under whose orders the undercover investigator was operating during the years of his activity." He added :"The Icelandic police are stubbornly rejecting requests from the Minister of Justice to release full details of his activity into the public domain, claiming that disclosure would prejudice British security interests. Even though Members of the Icelandic Parliament have a right to ask questions on police matters, they are not being given any information." The British government has not disclosed much about these confidential networks either. | ['uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans', 'tone/blog', 'uk/mark-kennedy', 'uk/ukcrime', 'uk/police', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'law/civil-liberties-international', 'law/uk-civil-liberties', 'world/surveillance', 'environment/activism', 'environment/climate-camp', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/protest', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'type/article', 'profile/robevans'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2012-08-31T14:33:53Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2019/aug/23/boris-johnson-deeply-concerned-by-fires-raging-in-the-amazon | Boris Johnson 'deeply concerned' by fires raging in the Amazon | Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the fires raging in the Amazon and called for international action to protect rainforests, as his government came under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn to take action against the Brazilian president. “The prime minister is deeply concerned by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest and the impact of the tragic loss of these precious habitats,” Johnson’s spokesperson said ahead of this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz, after a call to action from the French president, Emmanuel Macron. “The effect of these fires will be felt around the world which is why we need international action to protect the world’s rainforests. The UK will continue to support projects in Brazil to do this, and the prime minister will use the G7 to call for a renewed focus on protecting nature and tackling climate change.” Labour’s leader urged Johnson on Friday to coordinate international pressure against Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who he blamed for inspiring fires across primary rainforest. Corbyn said: “Bolsanaro has allowed and indeed encouraged these fires to take place, to clear the forest in order that the land can then be used for actually very short-term agriculture production and after that it becomes desert. “And so we, the Labour party, the shadow cabinet, have written to the prime minister to say: put all the pressure you can on President Bolsonaro to deal with this issue.” Labour had earlier criticised the international trade minister, Conor Burns, for “cosying up” to ministers in the government of Bolsonaro instead of raising the plight of the Amazon rainforest, which is being ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires. In a tweet posted on Thursday, the close ally of Johnson described the Brazilian trade minister, Marcos Troyjo, as “superb” during an official trade visit. He shook hands with counterparts in Brasilia on Wednesday and declared a desire to deepen relations. Asked about the wildfires, Burns reportedly said Bolsonaro’s government had “legitimate ambitions to bring prosperity to its people”. A spokesperson later claimed the quote had been taken out of context and that Burns did discuss the UK’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis in his interview. Burns’s Twitter feed did not mention international fears and conservationists’ concerns that Brazil’s government was tacitly allowing, and could be actively encouraging, the devastation of the country’s rainforest. Labour said Bolsonaro had encouraged the clearing of land by loggers and farmers and sped up deforestation. Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, said Burns should not be “cosying up” to Troyjo, since he has defended the Brazilian government’s deforestation policies. “While Bolsonaro lets agribusinesses burn the Amazon, this week a UK government minister has been busy cosying up to the Brazilian president’s officials,” he said. “Instead of posing for photographs with far-right Brazilian politicians, ministers should be calling on Brazil to do everything they can to protect the rainforest. The government must insist that Brazil honours environmental clauses in existing trade agreements and fulfils their commitments under the Paris agreement.” A spokesperson for the Department for International Trade said Burns had raised the environment in meetings in Brazil. “We are deeply saddened by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest,” the spokesperson said. “The UK remains committed to protecting the world’s rainforests and will continue to do so in Brazil through our international climate finance programmes.” Bolsonaro has been heavily criticised for attacking the country’s environment agencies and declaring plans to open up indigenous reserves, some of the best protected in the Amazon, to mining. The fires – started illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – have created giant clouds of smoke that have drifted hundreds of miles and prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency. In the five days to Wednesday, there were 7,746 fires in Brazil, according to data from the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This comes after a 278% rise in deforestation last month. Concerns about the deteriorating situation have prompted protests at Brazil’s embassies. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has also urged the country to take action. He tweeted: “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected.” “Our house is burning,” tweeted Macron, who called for emergency talks on the subject at the G7 summit in France. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'world/brazil', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'politics/politics', 'politics/labour', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rajeev-syal', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-08-23T15:20:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2019/may/16/labour-party-jeremy-corbyn-green-new-deal | At last, the Labour party is being led from the bottom up | Dan Hancox | Right from the beginning, the promise of Corbynism was that it would empower the grassroots. In his acceptance speech on becoming Labour leader in September 2015, the MP for Islington North spoke of enabling members to better influence party policy, of his desire to hear passionate debate, and to “make our party more inclusive, more democratic and the membership better listened to in the future”. Let the tail wag the dog. On that basis, we shouldn’t be surprised by today’s announcement that Momentum, the youthful, 40,000-strong membership organisation established as an outrider for Corbyn’s leadership, will be campaigning for a “radical and transformational” new policy agenda. It is nonetheless a desperately needed and inspirational injection of energy. Over the summer, the group will seek to organise Labour’s mass membership to get motions passed in local constituency party meetings backing a green new deal (including achieving zero carbon emissions by 2030), the introduction of a four-day week, and the abolition of all migrant detention centres. The aim, they say, is to get these CLP motions taken forward to conference in September and made into party policy. That’s something pro-remain campaigners in the party did very effectively ahead of last year’s Labour conference, shaping party’s current policy on Brexit. The idea is to create an election manifesto that builds on the widely praised 2017 equivalent – but takes it much further, and in doing so sees off Tom Watson’s more conservative Future Britain group, whom they see as “intent upon watering down and blocking Labour’s most transformational policies”. Interestingly, three other small grassroots organisations are in the mix here, prompting Momentum’s turn to policy campaigning: Labour for a Green New Deal, Labour Against Racism and Fascism, and Labour 4 Day Week – each of them less than a year old. After a year of (largely enforced) malaise in Westminster, these groups provide a welcome reminder of what the point of a leftwing Labour party ought to be. What is notable is how these three groups, and now Momentum, relate to a wider network of activist movements, thinktanks and campaigners. They are showing that they can be a conduit for existing political energy outside of the Labour party. This, again, is exactly what a leftwing party should look like: pluralistic, democratic and porous, rather than proprietorial. The school climate strike led by Greta Thunberg and the phenomenal campaign by Extinction Rebellion inspired millions to take the climate emergency seriously; the thinktanks Autonomy and New Economics Foundation who campaign for shorter working weeks have been gaining influence; while everyone from the hunger strikers inside Yarl’s Wood to the groups Sisters Uncut campaigning on the outside, have helped make the plight of migrants in detention centres a mainstream issue. Party politics shouldn’t exist in a vacuum, cut off from the political life, ideas and activity around it. And that doesn’t mean Labour should simply co-opt and dilute the demands of those extra-parliamentary activists, instead it should respond to them, work with them and be energised by them. There is a bizarre fallacy popular in the rightwing press and Westminster among critics of the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn: that it has become a “Stalinist”, “Leninist” and also – confoundingly – simultaneously “Trotskyist” organisation: that it is ferociously authoritarian in spirit and practice, and run with iron discipline from the centre. This line of attack displays not only a depressingly slight grasp of the basics taught in key stage 3 Russian history modules, but also a goldfish-like memory of even recent British politics. How easy it is to forget the macho culture at the heart of the New Labour project, the endless stories of bullying, abuse and “explosive clashes” in the heart of government, a party run by “the Burnley bruiser” Alastair Campbell, while former Blair adviser John McTernan wrote cheerfully about how great it was that Labour whips used to physically assault backbenchers, and the vital need to “crush” opponents. By contrast, the Labour party under Corbyn might be many things – tangled, messy, riven with factions and kvetching MPs – but an incarnation of Soviet democratic centralism it is not. For months now it has felt as though the Labour party has been stranded in the purgatory of Brexit, distractedly rubbernecking at the clown-car pile-up that is Change UK, while radical grassroots energy flared up outside the party hierarchy, as it always had done prior to 2015. The PLP has been right to respond to Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strike so swiftly – declaring the world’s first climate emergency, and announcing a plan for a massive investment in solar energy just yesterday. But more needs to be done. British society needs radical transformation to address the ever-worsening climate crisis, the way we work – for too little money, for too long, until it destroys our mental and physical health – and the way we treat migrants and refugees. It is right that Momentum is showing itself to be responsive to this. Above all, it is a reminder that Labour needs to be led from the bottom up. • Dan Hancox is a freelance journalist and author | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'politics/labour', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'politics/jeremy-corbyn', 'politics/politics', 'politics/momentum', 'type/article', 'profile/danhancox', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2019-05-16T15:14:33Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
uk/1999/feb/02/4 | Weatherwatch | Northern Scandinavia has been suffering its worst cold spell this century. At Kittilae, north-west Finland, a record low temperature of -51.5C was recorded on Thursday morning, which just beats the previous record cold temperature for Finland -51.3C in 1862 at Sodankylae. Extreme winter weather also penetrated southwards across more central parts of Europe, bringing a good top-up of snow for Alpine skiers. For example, at Saentis, a mountain weather station in the north of Switzerland, 85cm of fresh snow fell during the latter half of the week. In contrast, parts of southeastern Spain were enjoying a taste of spring during the latter part of the week. Malaga, on the Costa Del Sol, reached a maximum temperature of 24.2C on Friday. The average January maximum is 16.1C and the previous known record 22.8C. North America has also had a topsy-turvey week weather-wise. On Monday, Bakersfield, in California, received 40mm of rain, nearly double the monthly average of 22mm, whilst later in the week on Wednesday, on the opposite side of the US at Asheville, Carolina, temperatures rose to 26.7C. This smashed the previous record by two degrees and was 18C higher than the monthly average of 9C. However, the warm air on this side of the country triggered off some intense thunderstorms over the Deep South by Friday, with Shreveport, Louisiana, seeing 222mm of rain during Friday and Saturday. The monthly average there is 123mm. | ['uk/uk', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 1999-02-02T03:02:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
money/2003/mar/09/ethicalmoney.corporatesocialresponsibility | Doing the right thing can pay good dividends too | Over £7 million of new ethical money, most of it invested by individuals, is now at work helping two socially orientated businesses develop. Both the fair trade pioneer Traidcraft and the Ethical Property Company (which provides accommodation for campaigning groups and community businesses) have seen their recent 'fair share' issues fully subscribed. Traidcraft now has £3.25m more to invest in stock, warehousing and IT systems, while the Ethical Property Company has raised £4m towards new properties in Brighton, London, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. Ethical share issues, where investors are invited to consider the social benefits as much as (or more than) the financial returns, is not new. Traidcraft first turned to its supporters for share capital in 1984 and other successful share issues since then have helped provide capital for, among others, the mid-Wales based Centre for Alternative Technology and the Cumbrian windfarm venture Bay Wind. The Ethical Property Company also had an earlier successful share issue in 1999. With several new ethical share issues in preparation, there are signs of the trend accelerating. Triodos, the social and environmental bank, is working with Mencap to launch a 10-year bond later this spring. The bond, which will pay 1 per cent over RPI, will be used by Golden Lane Housing, a charity linked to Mencap, to purchase housing for adults with learning difficulties. Golden Lane hopes to raise up to £6m this way. Triodos is also involved with other prospective share issues, scheduled for later in the year. Increasingly, therefore, this activity can no longer be dismissed as a quirky little corner of the investment scene. Indeed ethical share issues now glory in a grand new name, Alternative Public Offerings (APOs), a take on the conventional stock market terminology of IPOs (initial public offerings). Significantly, institutional investors are beginning to get interested: for example, both Henderson and Morley bought shares in the recent Ethical Property Co issue on behalf of the socially responsible investment funds they manage. Nick Robins, head of SRI research at Henderson, says his firm is very keen to find more APOs to invest in, provided they meet investment as well as social criteria. 'The question is, where is the supply coming from? How do you generate a flow of credible and robust projects which are invest-able?' he says. Jamie Hartzell, director of the Ethical Property Co, is also eager to see more successful APO launches, but warns that, if they are to meet the needs of cautious institutional investors and of individuals who want to do more than make a donation in disguise, APOs will have to address three issues. 'Firstly, you've got to be paying some sort of dividend,' he said. 'Secondly, there has to be a market, to allow investors to sell when they need to. You've also got to be able to have a way of putting a value to the shares.' His own company tries to fulfil his first condition, having paid a 3 per cent dividend over the past two years. Traidcraft, by contrast, has been a dividend-free zone since 1987, although its current business plan aims to pay dividends again from next year. Andy Redfern, Traidcraft's international director, points out that in any case many Traidcraft shareholders offer to donate dividend payments to charity, but he reinforces Jamie Hartzell's point about the need for better mechanisms for buying and selling shares. 'The illiquidity of shares of this type is a fundamental problem for them,' he says. In this respect, things are about to get better. Triodos is set to launch an Ethical Exchange (Ethex) - a kind of alternative stock market for APO shares. Initially, the Ethex will cover four APO stocks - its own bank shares, that of the Wind Fund (another Triodos initiative), the Ethical Property Co, and the new Golden Lane bonds. To start with Triodos will only be offering a 'matched bargain' service - that is, it will provide a forum for would-be buyers and would-be sellers to get in contact with each other, and will then help in organising the mechanics of the share transaction. Triodos's head of finance Matthew Robinson says, however, that the bank wants to move on to play a much more active role as a market maker in these shares. This step, which requires approval from the FSA, would mean that shareholders could, if necessary, bail out, without having to wait for buyers to be found. The problem remains that many socially minded investors want to feel that they are contributing 'new' money, and not just picking up second-hand shares. The Ethical Property Co has devised an ingenious extra refinement to get around this difficulty and to give greater liquidity to the company's matched bar gain market. A separately constituted employee benefit trust has the ability to buy from existing shareholders or sell to new shareholders, as necessary to meet demand. The trust has also been given share option rights in the company which can be exercised, if required, to meet extra future demand from new investors - and thus effectively bring in new equity capital. Any profits made from the share trades made by the trust are reserved for the benefit of employees. | ['money/money', 'money/ethical-money', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'money/shares', 'type/article', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/businessandmedia', 'theobserver/businessandmedia/cash'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2003-03-09T12:15:28Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2012/mar/26/nature-woodlands-development-plan | Government plan to make developers consider financial value of nature | New homes, supermarkets and other developments will have to consider the financial value of nature such as woodlands and parks, under plans laid out by the environment secretary on Monday. Ministers, civil servants and local authorities will have access to a new range of tools to incorporate environmental factors into their decision-making, with a view to improving the protection of biodiversity and other "ecosystem services", Caroline Spelman said. She set out a roadmap for the UK's National Eco-System Assessment for the next two years which will for the first time set a value on natural ecosystems and the "services" they provide from clean water to leisure and recreation. The result should be advice that will allow decision-makers to include "natural capital" and its values into policy-making processes. The roadmap builds on the assessment that was completed last year to take a comprehensive view of the UK's natural ecosystems. The plan comes as the government is to announce the details of its reforms to planning policy on Tuesday, which chancellor, George Osborne, said in his budget statement last week would feature a "presumption in favour of sustainable development while protecting our most precious environments." But critics fear it will be a "developers' charter." Spelman said: "The National Ecosystem Assessment was a huge step forward in helping us understand the value of what we get from nature for free. Now we want to go even further so that the economic value of the natural world is fully understood, and also see how best to measure the cultural and emotional benefit we get from walks in the countryside or taking in views of our wonderful landscape. Of course, much of what we value in nature cannot be calculated in pounds and pence, but that's precisely why we should find other ways of measuring it so that local authorities and government can take it into account when making decisions." In the past, for instance, local authorities may not have needed to, or not been able, to consider the value of local woodland, waterway or park when making decisions about developments such as a new supermarket or industrial estate. At a national level, the value of protecting ecosystems may not have been adequately reflected in environmental regulations or planning policies, and when it has been valued, the ways of doing so have sometimes been opaque or ad hoc. This new phase of the assessment, which will take two years to complete at a cost of about £1.8m, will begin by developing existing economic analyses for ecosystem servcies. Robert Watson, chief scientist at the Deparment for Environment and Rural Affairs, said this would help to broaden the government's understanding of natural capital, from woodlands to rivers and coastlines. The aim will be to ensure that these values are represented in the UK's national accounts, as a first step to incorporating them in decision-making processes. As part of the work, academics and officials will also analyse how changing developments, such as infrastructure build-out, will increase or damage the value of these natural systems. Cultural values will also be important – officials will try to put a value on the amenities of parks, areas of natural beauty and leisure areas. When the work has been completed, the result should be a set of tools that will allow officials to draw up their own values of natural amenities in a given area, and add this to policy. Watson said this process would help to ensure that the UK's natural environment is properly valued and protected. | ['environment/conservation', 'politics/planning', 'politics/politics', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2012-03-26T16:28:42Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk/2013/mar/22/woman-feared-trapped-collapsed-house | Body found after house collapses in heavy rain | Rescuers searching for a woman who was trapped under a landslide at her property in Cornwall have found a body in the wreckage, Cornwall fire and rescue service has said. Part of Susan Norman's property collapsed in Looe as heavy rain and snow caused havoc in parts of the UK. Norman, in her 60s, had not been seen or heard from since 6pm on Thursday. Her house was hit by a landslide and floodwater on Friday morning. More than a dozen people living in the street have been evacuated. Police were using a sniffer dog to search the wreckage. In north Cornwall, another woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was thrown from a VW Polo and ended up under a van. The accident happened in driving rain on the A39 near Kilkhampton on Friday morning. Emergency services are already responding to a surge in weather-related call-outs around the country because of the flooding and blizzard conditions, with government agencies issuing a string of warnings urging the public to take care on the roads. More flooding is expected in the south-west as heavy rain continues to pour throughout the day and overnight. Snow is expected to blanket everywhere north of the M4 corridor, with up to 20cm (8in) hitting the worst-affected areas of north-west England, north Wales and south-west Scotland. Higher areas could even see a 40cm fall, while bitterly cold gale-force winds will sweep across Britain, creating blizzard-like conditions and plunging temperatures down to well below freezing. Heavy rain sweeping across Northern Ireland will turn increasingly to snow with up to 30cm across the hills of Down and Antrim, while on the east coast rain and sleet could cause localised flooding. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has already reported road closures because of stranded vehicles on the A8 near Newtownabbey. James Wilby, a forecaster for Meteogroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "It is really just nasty conditions across most of the UK. The snow will fall from the M4 northwards, quite lightly in the south but heavily in the north. "Along with the heavy rain and flooding in the south-west, there will no doubt be a lot of disruption for the UK today [Friday]. "The heavy rain, snow and strong winds will continue into the weekend, with the heavy snow spreading south to East Anglia and Bristol tomorrow. "And I'm sorry to say that there is no sign of things getting any better next week. It's going to remain cold and bleak." The Met Office has issued a number of severe weather warnings urging the public to be prepared for "severe disruption" to transport and energy services. The Environment Agency has 18 flood alerts in place along the south-west coast, warning of expected flooding, with a further 80 alerts issued to areas at risk. Between 4cm and 6cm is set to fall over southern Devon and Cornwall on Friday, and up to 10cm on exposed southern slopes. On Thursday night Cornwall council set up a designated control room to handle calls. A spokesman, Dave Owens, said the county's fire and rescue service had received more than 50 calls, and eight properties had been flooded. He said: "The main problem still appears to be surface water flooding, which is continuing to affect a number of areas across Cornwall." There were reports of flooding across the west of the county, including around Newlyn and Penzance, as well as in Mevagissey in mid-Cornwall – a community still recovering from the impact of last year's torrential downpours. Environment Agency spokesman Ben Johnstone said: "We strongly urge people to sign up to flood warnings on the Environment Agency website, keep a close eye on local weather forecasts and be prepared for possible flooding. We also ask that people stay safe and not try to wade or drive through any deep water." Darron Burness, the AA's head of special operations, said: "It's going to be a real witches' brew of driving wind, rain and snow, which will inevitably cause disruption on the roads. Drivers should be well prepared, as even short journeys can quickly turn bad." | ['uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'world/snow', 'world/world', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-03-22T16:46:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/jun/22/uk-arts-leading-figures-join-call-for-green-recovery-from-coronavirus-crisis | UK arts' leading figures join call for green recovery from coronavirus crisis | The chiefs of scores of the UK’s foremost arts and culture organisations have joined the call for a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis, even as their own sector faces the biggest threat to its existence in modern times. Sir Mark Rylance, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, Brian Eno and the leaders of the Tate and National Youth Theatre are among those signing a letter asking the government to adopt green and carbon-cutting targets alongside its economic rescue plans. Close to 400 arts leaders and prominent individuals have now signed the letter, which will be presented to the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, this week. “What we decide now will create the sustainable foundations for the future; we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a resilient recovery plan that is fair and tackles the climate and ecological crisis with urgency. We cannot let this opportunity pass us by,” they wrote. The collapse of the arts, with a £74bn drop in revenues and about 400,000 potential and actual job losses in the sector owing to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, has prompted calls for urgent government assistance, as there is little prospect of a swift return to full houses in theatres, or other live performance, and recording has been halted by social distancing restrictions. But many want the government to go further, and commit to an economic recovery that would prioritise green jobs and ensure that climate goals are taken into account in government spending. They want to avoid the rebound in carbon emissions that a return to business as usual would entail. “Things are very grim for the culture sector, and these are really catastrophic circumstances – that people are gathering round the call for a green recovery says a lot about the sector,” said Alison Tickell, founder of Julie’s Bicycle, a non-profit company helping the arts sector become more environmentally sustainable, and organiser of the letter. “Arts people feel a real responsibility to the public, with a strong sense of a social contract in the way the arts speak to people.” Before the coronavirus, many arts and cultural organisations were re-evaluating their sponsorship arrangements with fossil fuel companies, with the National Theatre ending its sponsorship deal with Shell, and the Royal Shakespeare Company giving up its backing from BP. Despite the immediate threat to the viability of the sector, which contributes about £112bn a year to the UK economy – more than the automotive and aerospace sectors – arts organisations have not abandoned their quest for sustainability. Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern, told the Guardian: “Government commitment to a long-lasting and inclusive green recovery programme is a crucial and urgently required step to creating a future in which we cannot just survive but thrive.” Arts organisations have been taking their own steps to green their operations, for instance through upgrading their energy systems, switching to electric vehicles, and cutting down on waste. The prime minister has made references to the need for a sustainable recovery, but so far there has been no concrete plan for ensuring that the hundreds of billions to be spent on the economic recovery will “build back better” instead of propping up the high-carbon economy. Much of the money spent so far has gone to heavy emitters such as airlines, carmakers and oil companies, with no green strings attached. The UK is seen as holding a particular responsibility because it will host the next vital UN summit on the climate, next year in Glasgow. Ministers will face a key test this week when its statutory advisers, the committee on climate change, are expected to warn that carbon reduction targets will be missed without swift action. | ['environment/green-economy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'uk/uk', 'stage/mark-rylance', 'music/brianeno', 'artanddesign/tate-modern', 'culture/culture', 'artanddesign/art', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2020-06-22T05:00:35Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2012/jun/26/david-king-quantitative-easing-green | Sir David King: quantitative easing should be aimed at green economy | The billions of pounds the Bank of England is pouring into banks in a bid to get lending flowing should have strings attached to ensure that much of the liquidity is directed towards greening the economy, the UK's former chief scientific adviser has urged. Sir David King attacked the current free market approach that dominates government thinking, arguing that leaving the market to its own devices does not produce good environmental outcomes, and leads not just to potentially disastrous climate change but also the profligate over-use of resources and despoliation of the natural world. "[Rescuing the climate and environment] all requires a much more hands-on approach than we're used to," said King, who was chief scientific adviser to the last government and now heads the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at Oxford University. "This laissez-faire attitude that is gospel at the Treasury is not the right one at the moment. We do not have time to play about with this – we need to move quickly to get out of the financial crisis and the resource crisis." By placing conditions on quantitative easing (QE), which give preference to lending that promotes more environmentally responsible development, the government could help to ensure that the economic recovery does not simply return the UK to its former high-carbon and resource-intensive path of economic growth. King argues that QE could provide a major spur to the greening of the UK's infrastructure, not just for renewable and nuclear energy but also a more efficient use of all resources, which would cut the environmental impact of the economy. "Quantitative easing has been relatively passive – why not use it in a way that can be directed?" King said. "Why not use it to take us to a sustainable economy and manage the release of private sector money? You could have a quite selective series of tests [to determine where the money should go]." He said this was a much better option than the current approach of using subsidies to favour low-carbon growth, which he said was not working well. King said trillions of pounds in investment would be needed around the world if the global economy is to be successfully shifted from a high- to a low-carbon footing. A great deal of investment in infrastructure and industry is already happening, he said, but is currently following the high-carbon path of the past. If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, and if the world is to cope with the major expansion of resource use that population growth and the lifting of people out of poverty entails, then this investment must instead be directed in a more environmentally responsible manner, according to King. He is particularly concerned over our profligate use of natural resources such as energy, water, agricultural land and minerals. Without more efficient use of such resources, the consequences could be severe, with rising food prices, a fast increasing risk from climate change and the degradation of the environment associated with resource extraction. King also warned that the UK was in danger of mishandling many key investments. He said he strongly favoured the high-speed rail lines that have been proposed, not just High Speed 2 to Birmingham, but also High Speed 3 linking the south of the country with the north at much higher speeds than are currently available by train. In that way, Birmingham could become a major rail hub, which would spur economic growth more evenly throughout the country, and vastly reduce air traffic. He also favours a major tidal scheme in the Severn Estuary, which he said could provide thousands of jobs as well as a permanent source of cheap and green energy. That would take government spending or guarantees, he said, because while the £20bn initial price tag would prove cheap in the long term, it was likely to be too steep for the private sector seeking shorter term returns. King is preparing a major environmental conference in Oxford in mid-July, called ReSource, that will bring together academics and experts from around the world and will include Bill Clinton, former president of the US. | ['environment/green-economy', 'environment/environment', 'business/quantitative-easing', 'business/economics', 'business/interest-rates', 'business/bankofenglandgovernor', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'type/article', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2012-06-26T07:00:01Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2016/feb/28/leap-day-traditions-superstions-brides-frogs | A special day for hopeful brides and agile frogs | Reluctant boyfriends beware – today marks a leap year, the one day every four years when women are traditionally able to propose marriage to their menfolk. Leap years have other folklore associated with them too: including the widely held belief that they are in some way unlucky – a superstition supposedly backed up by calamitous events in history, such as the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. But given that leap years occur every four years, it’s hardly surprising that some unfortunate events have taken place then. Leap years also feature in weather folklore, though not perhaps as prominently as you might expect. So according to one ancient belief, during the course of a leap year the weather always changes on a Friday. Hill farmers, too, are wary of these quadrennial events, for as the saying goes, “Leap year was ne’er a good sheep year”. A more positive weather-related event occurred in the leap year 1752, when US scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning is a form of electrical charge, using a kite to conduct the electricity. However, he carried out his experiment not on 29 February, but in June. 29 February – also known as “leap day” – is also associated with frogs – presumably because of their habit of leaping long distances using their powerful back legs. The association may also have come about because late February is also the time when frogs are at their most active and visible, as the males eagerly mate with the females and the first spawn is laid. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-02-28T21:30:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2019/apr/17/weatherwatch-easter-weather-as-variable-as-day-it-falls | Weatherwatch: Easter weather as variable as day it falls | The tabloids had a field day, with lurid headlines predicting a shockingly cold Easter. “UK set for COLDEST Easter in HISTORY as SNOW hits Bank Hols,” the Express proclaimed. This was based on forecasts made a week or so in advance, which showed plumes of freezing Arctic air heading down towards Britain, just in time for the Easter break. In the event, Easter 2018 was indeed a bit of a write-off, weather-wise. Daytime temperatures were especially low, while cool winds swept across the country, making it feel even colder. This raised the issue once again of the timing of Easter. Last year, Easter Sunday was on 1 April, just 11 days into the 35-day period in which it can occur. No matter how many times schools, tourist boards and seaside towns plead for the Easter weekend to be fixed on a date later in April, we persist in following this bizarre and disruptive timetable. The rest of April 2018 was not much to write home about, either, although in the middle of the month there was a brief warm spell, during which London’s St James’s Park recorded a high of 29.1C, the warmest April day since 1949. But this was a short-lived respite from the prevailing cool, wet and unsettled weather during the rest of the month. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'lifeandstyle/easter', 'environment/spring', 'uk/weather', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-04-17T20:30:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2014/dec/17/blackberry-classic-goes-back-to-the-old-way-of-doing-things | BlackBerry Classic goes back to the old way of doing things | BlackBerry dug out its Bold and give it a new lick of paint in the form of the new BlackBerry Classic. After lacklustre reception of its recent BlackBerry 10 devices, which was somewhat boosted by the square Passport that saw the physical keyboard stretched as wide as a small tablet, the Canadian company has decided to stick with what it knows its customers used to like. “We listened closely to our customers’ feedback to ensure we are delivering the technologies to power them through their day – and that feedback led directly to the development of BlackBerry Classic,” said John Chen, chief executive of BlackBerry. “BlackBerry Classic is the powerful communications tool that many BlackBerry Bold and Curve users have been waiting for. It’s the secure device that feels familiar in their hands, with the added performance and agility they need to be competitive in today’s busy world.” ‘No-nonsense smartphone’ BlackBerry describes the Classic as a “no-nonsense smartphone built to meet the needs of productive people who appreciate the speed and accuracy that can be found with a physical keyboard”. As such it is the spitting image of the BlackBerry Bold from 2011, which is still being used by businesses that haven’t yet dropped BlackBerrys as their prescribed work phone. “By bringing back the trusted functionalities, incorporating our latest operating system and building a speedier browser, our users can feel confident they are using the best communications tool out there,” said Chen. Unlike the Passport, the Classic has the the physical shortcut keys and optical navigation button that made the Bold popular, as well as the a 3.5in touchscreen. It promises 22 hours of battery life and a modern processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Like a lot of Android smartphones it also has a microSD card slot for adding more storage. Highlights include a web browser that is three times faster than the Bold, and access to Amazon’s app store for a limited number of Android applications. Security and privacy by default BlackBerry is pushing privacy and encryption by default with the Classic, as well as “built-in protection against viruses, tampering and data leaks.” Whether the Classic is enough to turn around BlackBerry’s continued slide in device marketshare remains to be seen. The Passport managed to buoy up BlackBerry’s share price along with its aggressive cost cutting. BlackBerry’s refocus on business users, in effect jettisoning its consumer offerings, has been seen as a positive move by some industry watchers, which the Classic is likely to feed directly into. BlackBerry’s biggest challenge, it seems, is the perceived instability of its future, which it has to overcome to satisfy concerns and attracted back big business. For BlackBerry die-hards, the Classic is likely to be the answer to their prayers – a tried and tested design with updated software – but it is unlikely to tempt anyone away from Apple’s iPhone or the many good options among the Android devices. • BlackBerry looks to long turnaround despite sliding sales | ['technology/blackberry-corporation', 'technology/blackberry', 'technology/smartphones', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/amazon', 'technology/mobilephones', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-12-17T15:01:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2014/oct/15/greenpeace-uk-co-founder-pete-wilkinson-autobiography-interview | Greenpeace UK co-founder, Pete Wilkinson: 'Some of the things we did made people’s jaws drop' | Pete Wilkinson has not mellowed. A single question about the same issues that made him a thorn in the side of the nuclear industry and the Thatcher government of the 1980s will still set him off with a stream of well-articulated argument about ethics and economics. The co-founder of Greenpeace UK and its director for the organisation’s early pioneering campaigns is now 67, but his zeal to change the world for the better is still strong. His autobiography, which receives an official launch on Thursday, is partly the story of his life but includes unabridged diaries from his most successful campaign, the battle to save Antarctica from mineral exploitation and turn the continent into a world park. The book is disarmingly honest about his own failings and equally frank about the shortcomings of some of his colleagues and friends, as well as the organisation he once helped to run, Greenpeace. “It is my story, warts and all,” he said. “I decided to write it after my mother died and I realised I did not have any sort of record of her life, so I thought I should put my diaries of the Antarctic voyages in a book. It was really so my two kids would have some idea what I had been up to.” As a journalist who wrote about these campaigns for the Guardian and who sailed with Pete on several occasions, including three months in Antarctica, the book, for me, is a fascinating insider’s look at an important period in the development of the green movement. The title, From Deptford to Antarctica, gives a flavour of Wilkinson’s astonishment that a misfit 16-year-old from a poor part of London could sail as leader of a campaign to the Antarctic. His series of voyages succeeded in saving the continent from minerals exploitation by rapacious governments, and changed the mind of Margaret Thatcher who had previously been in favour of mining there. There are well-written accounts of audacious campaigns, risks taken and abrasive encounters. Many of the latter were with officials, industry and governments but lots were with his friends and fellow campaigners, who were supposed to be on the same side. He writes too about David McTaggart, then chairman of Greenpeace International, who recruited him and persuaded him against “going straight” as a counter clerk at the Post Office and to run Greenpeace UK instead. McTaggart was an extraordinary man who took on the French nuclear tests in the Pacific and was the driving force behind the international organisation, although he always avoided the limelight. Wilkinson said: “He just came on the phone one day while I was working as a counter clerk and offered me a job. We had furious arguments over the years but he had trust in me and let me live a life of derring-do. We only got paid what we would have got on the dole. How we survived the first eight years on a diet of fags, beer and fish and chips I shall never know. But it was fun, a great time to be alive.” Wilkinson, a working class Millwall supporter, who had worked for Friends of the Earth before Greenpeace existed, left them because he fell out with the “toffs” who ran it. He is honest about this and the personal relationships that took second place to campaigning. Only when he met Gaye his present wife and had two daughters, Emily and Amy, did his chaotic personal life get the anchor it badly needed. Wilkinson’s great strengths as a campaigner remain unchanged. He always was a natural television and radio performer because he had no fear of the camera, a grasp of the facts and a healthy disrespect for authority. For him the public’s right to know is the cornerstone of democracy. “Given all the facts, people will be able to make the correct decisions,” he says. It is this belief in uncovering information and sharing it, so informed decisions can be made, that has kept him in employment since leaving Greenpeace in the 1990s after the Antarctic campaign. He has served on various government bodies trying to address the vexed question of dealing with nuclear waste. He has facilitated tortuous meetings between environment organisations, the nuclear industry and other industrial groups in order to find common ground. While he still works as a consultant, he also continues campaigning. He is director of the Nuclear Information Service, which works on disarmament, and describes the proposed new Trident fleet as a terrible waste of money and any intended use of it as a crime against humanity. He is working hard to stop the plan to build the Sizewell C nuclear plant near his home in Suffolk and at the same time trying to raise £300,000 for a ship to go to the vast floating island of plastic off Cape Verde and work out a way of cleaning it up. Typically, during our discussion he denounced the current Greenpeace board for spending £14 million on a new ship when they could have spent the money on useful campaigns. “I feel they are lacking imagination or a vision. Some of the things we did made people’s jaws drop in surprise, but they are still doing the same things. They should get more bang for our bucks,” he said. His autobiography pulls no punches and I wondered whether many long term and steadfast friends who figure in the book might be offended. He shrugs: “I never seem to have been able to keep my opinions to myself very much.” • From Deptford to Antarctica – the long way home, an autobiography by Pete Wilkinson is published by Fledgling Press Ltd. | ['environment/greenpeace', 'environment/environment', 'books/books', 'books/autobiography-and-memoir', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2014-10-15T14:09:57Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2019/aug/01/amazon-deforestation-bolsonaro-government-accused-doubt-data | Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data | The Amazon forest is being burned and chopped down at the most alarming rate in recent memory, but the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro is focused on reinterpreting the data rather than dealing with the culprits, monitoring groups have said. At a clearance rate equivalent to a Manhattan island every day, deforestation in July was almost twice as fast as the worst month ever recorded by the current satellite monitoring system, which is managed by the government’s National Institute for Space Research. Over the single month, the latest data shows destruction of more than 1,800 square kilometres, which is pushing the world’s biggest rainforest towards an irreversible tipping point and eroding a globally essential sink for carbon dioxide. After an international outcry, the Brazilian government – which is closely aligned with the loggers, miners and farmers responsible for most of the forest loss – held a special meeting on Wednesday of ministers and senior officials from the environment ministry, the science and technology ministry, and agencies responsible for satellites and forest protection. The primary topic, according to several sources, was a review of the data collection system, which has come under attack from Bolsonaro and other ministers who have been embarrassed by the evidence from their own government that Brazil is moving in the opposite direction from the deforestation control commitments it made as a signatory to the Paris climate treaty. The far-right government is investigating the possibility of an alternative monitoring scheme, but scientists defended the credibility of the existing system, which is recognised overseas as one of the best in the world. But the battle over the numbers looks set to continue. After the meeting, the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, admitted deforestation was rising, but he continued to criticise what he called “the lack of precision in the data” and the “wrong” interpretations of the journalists who reported on it. He said the government wanted to make greater use of private satellite data and strengthen the team of analysts working on it. This has prompted concerns in the science community and among climate activists that ministers may be preparing to twist or devalue the numbers to hide the true scale of deforestation. The Climate Observatory NGO said the government had failed to explain why deforestation has hit the worst monthly level since the Deter satellite system was established in 2004 and also failed to discredit the numbers. “What is even worse is that [Ricardo Salles] has reaffirmed the intention to use public money to contract yet another system of remote sensing, when what is missing in Amazonia at this time is supervision and investment in sustainable activities,” the climate group said in a statement. “Bolsonaro blamed the thermometer for the fever. Now the minister blames the thermometer reading. The disease, however, remains untreated.” Carlos Souza, of the independent monitoring group Imazon, said foreign satellites would still be able to track what was happening in the Amazon, but he was worried the introduction of yet another new system would confuse the data and make it hard to compare with the past and track historical trends. “I’m very concerned,” he said. “In the past it was very useful to respond to the trends and to show the world Brazil is keeping on track of deforestation. If you get rid of historical trend, you lose that reference and stop putting on pressure.” | ['world/brazil', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'world/americas', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-08-01T01:59:53Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
film/filmblog/2010/feb/08/rotterdam-film-festival-digital-video | Rotterdam film festival - a blueprint of the future | There have been times when this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has felt like glimpsing a blueprint for the future – or at least some provisional early sketches. The festival has offered ideas, experiments and proofs of how the digital cinema world might look, from pre-production to shooting to exhibition, as well as some playful reminders of past times when the movie industry has faced challenge and change. Cinema Reloaded, an experiment in raising production funds through crowd-sourcing, has been the festival's flagship online programme this year. The aim was to raise 30,000 euros for one of three proposed short films through virtual donations – an intriguing if somewhat gimmicky notion that does not seem to have caught fire in practice: at the time of writing, even the most popular project, from British director Alexis dos Santos, had not yet attracted a 10th of the total target. Nevertheless, it exemplified an approach being discussed elsewhere at the festival of "tribal" production, in which social networking is fundamental to a project's funding and development, ensuring a built-in audience for theatrical, retail or online exhibition. Meanwhile, several of the features on show demonstrated new modes of production made possible by digital technology. Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio's fiction-documentary hybrid Alamar deployed a small DV camera to enable its crew of two to live in a hut off the Mexican shore with its non-professional actors. Gonzalez-Rubio claimed this immersive, observational approach was an equivalent to Kerouac's writing style: "I slept the way [my subjects] slept, in a hammock. I fished with them. I became part of daily life and wrote it down with a camera." Even more basic was In the Woods, a heady chronicle of three youths' experiments with sexuality and identity against the backdrop of nature, which was filmed using the video function of a low-end consumer digital still camera. Considerations were less financial – director Angelos Frantzis says using a more professional DV camera wouldn't have been much more expensive – than aesthetic and practical. "There's a warm texture to the image that fit with the themes of the movie," Frantzis said. "The way you handle this tiny camera, it's as if you can fly, like an invisible Steadicam. I could be very intimate with the actors. That was very important, to catch all the moments, all the gazes, the little things that reveal the mechanisms of desire." It was also pragmatic for the small crew to have minimal apparatus on their long shoot moving around the Greek countryside. "We had more equipment for cooking than filming." Vedozero, meanwhile, was compiled from footage recorded by 70 Italian teenagers on mobile phone cameras – an experiment that calls to mind the Beastie Boys' 2006 fan-filmed concert movie Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! Vedozero screened as part of the Back to the Future strand, which showcased titles from the past 60 years where new technology offered fresh challenges to cinema: a 3D screening of Dial M for Murder and a drive-in show of The Raven harked back to the early TV era, for instance, while Michael Almereyda's Another Girl, Another Planet – shot in 1992 on PixelVision, a toy video camera made by Fisher-Price – was an early example of lo-fi digital production. Almereyda was at the festival with his new essay film, Paradise, composed from a decade's worth of DV footage shot in two dozen cities. The Back to the Future panel reported numerous areas of new digital development, from polymorphous narratives to the development of mobile phones with built-in projectors, a potential way of bringing DIY content to decent-sized informal audiences that could have especially exciting implications for local cinema culture in developing countries. There was also mourning at the panel for the cultural decline of celluloid, especially from Peter von Bagh of Finland's Midnight Sun festival, who provocatively claimed that none of the accomplishments of new media made up for the loss of the beauty of 35mm. There was serious evidence of an appreciation of film stock in Ben Russell's Let Each One Go Where He May, which comprises 13 10-minute-long 16mm takes. Their financial expense, the director argued, took on an ethical dimension in the context of its Surinam locations: each shot cost as much as one local actor earned in a month. A more blatant kind of nostalgia was on show in Trash Humpers, Harmony Korine's perverse ode to VHS, shot on the format, edited on two VCRs and playing out like a series of gags and doodles rather than a conventional feature. Ultimately, of course, a given technology will only ever be as culturally interesting as what artists do with it. "These days, anyone can make a movie for nothing but that doesn't mean anything," said Frantzis. "Paper and pencils have been around for a thousand years but that doesn't mean we are all poets. It all begins with the project. But each time you make a movie you need to invent a new method. This is a new road to follow." | ['film/rotterdamfilmfestival', 'film/documentary', 'film/world-cinema', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'film/film', 'film/filmblog', 'culture/culture', 'tone/blog', 'film/series/open-walters', 'type/article', 'profile/benwalters'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2010-02-08T15:00:44Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2023/jul/31/the-guardian-view-on-new-north-sea-drilling-misreading-the-mood | The Guardian view on new North Sea drilling: misreading the mood | Editorial | The hottest month in world history has just ended. It is only days since the United Nations general secretary, António Guterres, warned that the era of global warming has now become the era of global boiling. Climate crisis haunts all nations without exception. The case for a redoubling of efforts to curb greenhouse gases could hardly be more stark than today. So what kind of leadership does Britain’s prime minister offer in response to this crisis? Answer: he announces an expansion in drilling for the oil and gas that are driving the emissions that are transforming the world’s climate. In other words, while the planet burns, Rishi Sunak stands accused of pouring fuel on the flames. Mr Sunak confirmed on Monday that the UK is to press ahead with a new phase of North Sea oil and gas exploration and production. “Hundreds” of licences will be granted in September and in subsequent rounds of licensing. The aim is explicit. Rather than winding down the industry and keeping the resources in the ground as part of the transition to the net zero target, Mr Sunak wants to max out production of the North Sea’s remaining reserves. He claimed that the new drilling is needed because of the threat to energy supplies from Vladimir Putin and other tyrants. If so, that is an indictment of the shortsighted way in which the UK has managed its oil and gas, and the revenues from them, for decades. But the truth is also that Conservative governments have a history of casually reneging on climate commitments. “We’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business,” George Osborne sneered in 2011. Mr Sunak’s decision is in that vein. The new drilling is a mark of the low – not the high – priority that UK governments have given to Britain’s national needs. The prime minister coupled his new licensing opportunities for oil companies with announcements of two more carbon capture usage and storage centres. These are partly designed to show that the government continues to treat its clean technology and net zero targets seriously. But these are marginal initiatives compared with the extended dependence on fossil fuels. They amount to letting energy companies off the hook and refusing to implement difficult decisions. The bottom line message from Monday is straightforward. The Sunak government is easing up on its green commitments under pressure from the rightwing press and the party grassroots in the hope that this can revive Tory fortunes in the general election. It is part of the larger change in Conservative positioning since the party surprised itself by winning the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection after campaigning against London’s cleaner air measures. But it is not an impulse decision. The Tory party has been moving in an angrier and more libertarian direction for many years over many issues. The impatience with experts that Michael Gove expressed over Brexit was echoed during the Covid pandemic, and is recurring again over CO2 emissions. Mr Sunak may say that the party remains committed to its cleaner car and net zero targets, but the reality is that these are now being mothballed until after a general election that may still be 15 months away. It is a terrible look and it is a terrible approach – not least because it underestimates the public, whose attitudes on these issues are often wiser than those of politicians. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'politics/rishi-sunak', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'politics/politics', 'politics/conservatives', 'world/ukraine', 'business/oil', 'business/gas', 'politics/georgeosborne', 'politics/byelections', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2023-07-31T17:30:42Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2022/mar/09/ofwat-raises-serious-concerns-over-five-firms-sewage-treatment-works | Ofwat raises serious concerns over five water firms’ sewage treatment works | The water regulator Ofwat has serious concerns over the way sewage treatment works at five water companies have been operated, as it continues to investigate the industry. Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water, Thames Water, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water submitted reports in December that the regulator, Ofwat, said were worrying. It said on Wednesday it had started enforcement cases against all five companies. In 2020 the Guardian revealed that water firms had discharged raw sewage into England’s rivers 200,000 times the previous year. And last year Ofwat and the Environment Agency announced an investigation into potentially illegal dumping of raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters by water companies. The inquiry came after evidence that the scale of illegal discharges of raw sewage could be 10 times higher than disclosed by the firms. As part of the inquiry, water companies had to disclose information about the way they operated their treatment works, including details of potentially illegal discharges into waterways. “The data that emerged at the end of last year suggested widespread shortcomings in how water companies were running sewage treatment works. The first phase of our investigation suggests those concerns are credible,” said Ofwat’s interim head, David Black. “We have identified shortcomings in most water and wastewater companies and are continuing to investigate. But we have already seen enough in five companies to cause serious concern and warrant us taking further action.” Ofwat said companies either reported a large number of wastewater treatment works that may not be meeting environmental rules, or failed to show how they were operating their works, or it had concerns about how companies met environmental obligations. “We will now dig deeper into what these five companies have been doing, with the prospect of formal enforcement against them if we find they are failing on obligations Ofwat enforces,” Black said. “We will have further questions for all companies on this. In the meantime, we expect them to make quick progress in addressing any potential non-compliance they might have, whilst strengthening how they manage their environmental obligations as a whole.” Earlier this year MPs on the environmental audit committee called for more assertive regulation of water companies as they said England’s rivers had become a “chemical cocktail” of sewage, agricultural waste and plastics. MPs want to see an urgent review of the way water companies are allowed to self-report pollution, and are alarmed at the extent of sewage discharge, large spills by water companies and misreporting. Southern Water was given a record £90m fine last year for discharging billions of litres of raw sewage into coastal waters off Kent and Hampshire over a five-year period. | ['environment/water', 'business/northumbrianwatergroup', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'business/utilities', 'environment/rivers', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-03-09T12:22:46Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2015/nov/06/uns-climate-fund-release-183m-to-tackle-global-warming | UN climate fund releases $183m to tackle global warming | The head of the UN’s climate fund has hailed a “paradigm shift” as poor countries began receiving money to help them tackle global warming, weeks before climate talks take place in Paris. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is intended to be the major conduit for funding to flow from wealthy economies built on fossil fuels to those that will suffer most from climate change they did not cause. On Friday at its board meeting in Zambia, the fund released $183m (£122m) for eight projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The executive director, Hela Cheikhrouhou, said the symbolic significance of getting the fund up and running before the Paris talks outweighed the relatively tiny amount released. “It is a very important step forward in the global effort to fight climate change,” she said. Many developing countries have indicated that their commitments to cut emissions are conditional on support from wealthy nations. The developed world has agreed that poor countries should receive $100bn a year by 2020, but have so far pledged just $10.2bn to the GCF. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, said he was disappointed that when the climate finance floodgates had finally been thrown open, just a trickle had emerged. “At this pace it will take them years to disburse the funds they already have with them, let alone $100bn a year in five years from now,” he said. Cheikhrouhou said assessing projects took time and she was hopeful that significantly more funding would be released at the next board meeting in March. The successful projects had been chosen because they had the potential to be “truly transformational”, said the former investment banker. The awards include $23.6m to fight water shortages in the low-lying atolls of the Maldives and $217m of green bonds (not included in the $183m total) for energy efficiency projects in Latin America. Funding to cut energy use lags far behind clean energy investment, but Cheikhrouhou said the bonds could kick start an energy efficiency boom in Latin America. “That’s what we mean by paradigm shift. It’s something that has a good chance to change the picture of how we invest on a day-to-day basis,” she said. A key challenge confronting the fund is the refusal of the US Congress to release any of the $3bn promised last year by the Obama administration. But Cheikhrouhou said the US delegate to the GCF had said talks with congressional Republicans, whose colleagues have attacked the GCF as a “slush fund”, were progressing and some money could be released when the budget is finalised in December. The meeting also elected new co-chairs from South Africa and Australia. It is the second time the Australian delegate, Ewen McDonald, will co-chair the board, despite the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott previously deriding the fund. “This is a continuation of a good engagement by the Australian administration,” said Cheikhrouhou, who would not comment on the country’s widely maligned climate policies. A statement from the office of the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said: “Australia is seen as a pragmatic, constructive and results-focused member of the Green Climate Fund.” . | ['environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'world/unitednations', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/karl-mathiesen'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-11-06T18:23:41Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sport/2022/apr/02/wales-scotland-womens-six-nations-match-report | Late try from Ffion Lewis secures thrilling victory for Wales over Scotland | Wales’s decision to give their top dozen women professional contracts at the turn of the year is already bearing fruit. After their rousing comeback victory in Dublin last weekend Siwan Lillicrap’s rejuvenated side moved to second in the Six Nations table with a breathless win at Cardiff Arms Park over a Scotland side that simply refused to buckle. Wales know that the real test lies ahead when they face England at Kingsholm next Saturday but a first home Six Nations win for three years proves the revolution is up and running. The replacement scrum-half Ffion Lewis settled the game in the dying minutes and Lillicrap and Alisha Butchers were outstanding in the back row as Wales recovered from a nerve-shredding first half in which they were forced on the back foot against opponents humbled by England a week earlier. Scotland were the better side in the first half when Welsh ill-discipline threatened to hand them an unexpected victory in front of the biggest crowd to watch a women’s game in the Principality. Wales had to make more than a hundred tackles in a torrid first 40 minutes and by the end the main emotion was relief. Scotland drew first blood when hooker Lana Skeldon celebrated her 50th cap by burrowing over the line after Sarah Bonar won a lineout. All the early pressure came from the visitors, who were playing with plenty of ambition. Wales struggled for possession and territory in the first quarter but eventually got a foothold in the game. Hooker Carys Phillips forced her way over after a surge from a lineout. Scotland were playing most of the rugby and after a multiphase move scrum-half Jenny Maxwell hoisted a hopeful kick to the corner and Rhona Lloyd took advantage of a wicked bounce to outfox two defenders for Scotland’s second try. The visitors butchered a chance of a third try when they spurned a three-woman overlap but Wales continued to concede penalty after penalty and the first half finished with Kerin Lake shown a yellow card by referee Joy Neville for flopping over the ball to prevent quick release by the Scotland pack. A player short, things soon got worse for Wales after the break when Lloyd dived over in the corner for her second try. But Wales’s reaction was instant. The replacement Sioned Harries, on the field for only a couple of minutes, emerged from beneath a pile of bodies to claim the try and Wales were back in the match. Scotland, now facing 15 opponents again, began to make mistakes as Wales turned up the heat. The Welsh pack began to dominate and Scotland prop Leah Bartlett was shown a yellow card for collapsing the fourth in a series of scrums. Wales kicked to touch and from the lineout replacement Kelsey Jones was driven over to level the scores. Five minutes were left on the clock when Butchers broke off the back of a scrum to give Lewis the chance to run in the winning try. Even then Scotland refused to lie down. The game ended with them on the Wales line and Lillicrap was slightly fortunate to stay on the field when her left hand flailed at a Scottish pass. Wales clung on. These two teams will play each other in their World Cup pool later this year and Wales will not take Scotland lightly. | ['sport/womens-six-nations', 'sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/scotland-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/womens-rugby-union', 'sport/rugby-union', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/matchreports', 'profile/ianmalin', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/sport', 'theobserver/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-04-02T18:41:42Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2022/jun/05/tower-of-power-new-office-building-to-be-fully-clad-in-solar-panels-in-australian-first | Tower of power: new office building to be fully clad in solar panels in Australian first | Australia’s first office tower with a “solar skin” is expected to be built next year in a landmark moment for the construction industry and decarbonisation efforts. The eight-storey building at 550-558 Spencer Street in West Melbourne will cost $40m and has been designed by the architecture firm Kennon on behalf of Dr Bella Freeman. It will be covered by 1,182 solar panels the same thickness as a regular glass facade. The system – called Skala – is manufactured by the German company Avancis and relies on a “thin-film PV module” sitting atop a network that channels the electricity generated into the building’s main power supply. It is capable of producing 50 times the energy of the average rooftop photovoltaic solar array used in residential housing and will eliminate 70 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. When complete, the system will supply almost enough power to cover the building’s energy needs. With the addition of extra panels on the roof, the building is expected to have almost no ongoing power costs and will be carbon-neutral after a few years. The design beats out a similar project by the superannuation firm Cbus, which has plans for a 49-storey office tower at 435 Bourke Street in the Melbourne CBD, expected to cost $1bn. A solar panel facade will provide 20% of the building’s power when it is completed in 2026. As construction relies on heavy machinery, transport and manufacturing processes powered by fossil fuels, many buildings start with a significant carbon footprint, referred to as “embedded carbon”. The building sector accounts for 39% of CO2 emissions globally. According to the World Green Building Council, cement production contributes to 7% of all emissions globally, while steel production is responsible for between 7% and 9% of emissions. The architect, Pete Kennon, said the Spencer Street building would pay off its carbon debt and “actually be carbon neutral”, without relying on offsets and other accounting measures. “These things are possible and the fact a building can harness the sunlight from its own skin – it sounds like something you dreamed of, or you saw in a cartoon,” Kennon said. Kennon, 34, began researching solar skin products in 2019 when he learned about the German company. Though it had been involved in projects in Europe, there had been no work to bring the product to Australia. “Australia has one of the most, if not the most, strict building codes in the world,” he said. “And given all the recent history with flammable facades, it’s a – pardon the pun – very hot topic, so there’s a huge amount of due diligence that needs to go into proposing a product like this.” The solar skin is undergoing a final round of testing before it can be approved, at which point the technology would be available for use in other buildings. A decision of the building appeals board delivered on 7 April found construction of the building could go ahead and that “the use of PV panels on the building […] complies with performance requirements”. “We did not invent the product but we’ve invented the way it can come to our country, and our country is such an enormous market because of the access to sunlight,” Kennon said. “I can’t believe it hasn’t been done already.” | ['environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/melbourne', 'cities/cities', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'artanddesign/architecture', 'type/article', 'profile/royce-kurmelovs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2022-06-04T20:00:09Z | true | ENERGY |
food/2018/nov/03/fruit-juice-pulp-veggie-burger-recipe-waste-not-tom-hunt | Turn fruit juice pulp into a veggie burger | Waste Not | Homemade fresh juice is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. It has a truly remarkable flavour, one of life and vitality. But it can also be costly and wasteful, mainly because the bulk of the ingredients – all that nutritious fibre – usually ends up in the compost. But what if we ate that fibre by turning it into a new ingredient to use in other recipes? Every time I used to make juice, I’d cringe when I threw the pulp in the compost bin, so I devised a list of go-to dishes to use it up. Next time you make a juice, or are bold enough to ask your local cafe for a bag of spent pulp, try adding it to falafel mix, baking it into cakes, frying it in pancake batter, blending it into soups – or go to town and make this veggie burger. It’s a rather tasty bonus. The pulp fiction burger Serves 2 100g juice pulp (about 2 small juices’ worth, preferably containing red beetroot) 100g tempeh, shredded (or cooked beans, mashed) 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp vinegar 1 tsp smoked paprika ½ large onion, grated 1 clove garlic, peeled and grated 1 tbsp miso 1 tbsp wholemeal flour 25g crushed walnuts Oil, for frying Mix everything together in a bowl, then form into two firm round patties and refrigerate for at least two hours. Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas 7. Gently fry the patties in an oiled, ovenproof frying pan on a medium-low heat, ignoring the temptation to move them about. When the base starts to brown and form a crust (after about five minutes), carefully flip over the patties, then transfer the pan to the oven for five to 10 minutes. Serve as you like in a bun or lettuce leaf with your favourite sauces and garnishes. | ['food/series/waste-not', 'food/food', 'tone/recipes', 'tone/features', 'environment/food-waste', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'food/fruit', 'food/vegetables', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'food/burgers', 'type/article', 'profile/tom-hunt', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/feast', 'theguardian/feast/feast', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/feast'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-11-03T06:00:05Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2013/nov/22/greenpeace-activist-colin-russell-could-be-free-within-a-month | Greenpeace activist Colin Russell could be free within a month | Tasmanian Greenpeace activist Colin Russell could be freed from his Russian prison within a month after the Australian ambassador visited him in jail and spoke with Russian authorities. Australia’s ambassador to Russia, Paul Myler, visited Russell on Thursday local time and said the activist’s feeling was that prison officers “appeared to be bending over backwards to make things comfortable” for him. Russell is the only member of the so-called Arctic 30 who has faced court and not been granted bail but Myler was optimistic Russell would be freed on appeal. “He [Russell] is now reasonably confident that there has been a change in strategy by the prosecutors and he’ll be freed on bail,” Myler told the Guardian. “This is the feeling we got as well from our conversations across town with prosecutors and the Investigative Committee. All the signals we are getting are that Colin will get the same treatment as everyone else.” Myler said he expected Russell to be freed within a month and Russell was in a “pretty upbeat” mood when he visited him in his St Petersburg cell. Russell has been in jail for two months and was moved with the rest of the Arctic 30 from pre-detention in Murmansk a few weeks ago. Murmansk is about 27 hours by train from St Petersburg and Myler said the conditions in Russell’s current jail were much better than in Murmansk. Myler’s visit comes as three others of the Arctic 30 were granted bail, bringing the total to 23, with Russell the only one having his detention extended until February. He was arrested, along with 27 other Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists, after they tried to board the Prirazlomnaya offshore oil rig in the Pechora sea in a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic. Australian permanent resident Alexandra Harris, originally from the UK, and New Zealand-born Jonathan Beauchamp have been among the 23 granted bail. Russell’s wife Christine has said, in an email exchange with the sister of one of the crew granted bail, that she is rejoicing for the people who have been granted bail. She said when she watched Russell denied bail she thought it would be difficult for the next of kin of the freed crew as they would feel guilty about their happiness. “It is difficult for me to know my beautiful husband will possibly be detained without bail. However, I hold some hope [that] perhaps the bail appeal will be successful,” she wrote to Ivana d'Alessandro, the sister of Italian crew member Cristian D'Alessandro. “Thank you and your thoughts are greatly appreciated. “If by chance you should be in contact with any other NoK [next of kin] who have someone released on bail, please let them know my joy for their loved one. “Tell them not to feel guilty.” Ivana had written to Christine to express her sympathies over Russell’s bail being denied. Christine and her daughter travelled to Canberra this week to plead with prime minister Tony Abbott to intervene. | ['environment/arctic-30-protesters', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/greenpeace', 'world/russia', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/bridie-jabour', 'profile/shaun-walker'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-11-21T22:44:45Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
social-enterprise-network/2014/apr/14/indigenous-communities-social-enterprise | Indigenous leaders empowering communities through social enterprise | In the late 1960s, Tashka Yawanawá's father, from the Yawanawá Amazonian indigenous group, was in the first generation of his people to make contact with the outside world. They wanted to assert their rights to their land, prevent deforestation, and continue living ecologically. "Twenty years later my dad taught me English and sent me to university in America, so that I could be part of the next generation empowered to protect the forests," says Tashka. "We have now grown in number and have a variety of income streams which help to protect ourselves and the land." The indigenous chief spoke at the Skoll World Forum earlier this week, along with other indigenous leaders from Brazil, about their social entrepreneurship. His entrepreneurial spirit saw him link with natural toiletries company Aveda while in the US at university. The company still uses a natural dye from the forest in their products and buys rights to use the Yawanawá's image, providing a valuable income. A healing centre created in the forest for global visitors and other initiatives also provide a good income for the group of 800 people. There are more than 200 indigenous groups living in the Amazon forests, dealing with regular threats from companies trying to encroach. "We work with 25 indigenous groups, and some are very entrepreneurial and achieving a good income while preventing deforestation. We would like to see more companies working with them," says Vasco van Roosmalen, director of support organisation Equipe de Conservação da Amazônia, speaking at Skoll. Rosi Karirir, a teacher and film-maker from the Araujo tribe, told a small group at the event how she campaigned through education and political ranks to reach the education minister of Brazil and gained recognition for her group as indigenous so that they had some protection and rights. She also got officials to build a school and pay for teachers. "When the community saw we had the power to change and influence, it had an immediate effect on land rights, women's rights and children's rights," says Karirir, who studies at São Paulo university. "People have continued to organise, five women are going to university, and others are studying to be doctors or doing work in film and art." She tells how the area had been taken over by sugarcane farms for many years to produce gin and biodiesel, with an enormous negative social impact. "But, being organised, we managed to convince several farmers to donate land back." Chief Almir Surui, of the PaiterSurui people, has fought against illegal logging in his area since the mid-eighties, when he was just 10. Van Roosmalen told how the chief had been on a long journey to develop income sources that are both independent of charities and don't require destruction of trees. The group is now expected to bring in millions of dollars through selling carbon offsetting credits to natural toiletries company Natura, the second largest cosmetics company in Brazil. The money gained is for protecting land from logging and replanting trees under a new initiative created by Almir called the REDD+. It will be used for education and to continue protecting the forests. The initiative is an advance on the REDD that adds in a "plus sustainable forest management" clause into the "Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" requirements. Van Roosemalen and others will now continue to work with indigenous people who want to act within the REDD+ scheme or bring in other initiatives to ensure they continue to have the power to protect and manage their own land through socially entrepreneurial spirit, he says. For more on the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, have a read of our live blog. For more news, opinions and ideas about the social enterprise sector, join our community | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'society/society', 'society/socialenterprises', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/forests', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'sustainable-business/social-enterprise', 'sustainable-business/social-enterprise-blog', 'type/article', 'sustainable-business/series/international', 'profile/claudia-cahalane'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-04-14T07:54:52Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2014/sep/24/leaders-under-fire-for-failure-to-attend-post-un-climate-summit-meetings | Leaders under fire for failure to attend post-UN climate summit meetings | David Cameron’s former top climate change aide has lambasted world leaders for failing to show up to the crucial informal dialogue session following Tuesday’s climate summit at the UN in New York. After a day of set-piece speeches by leaders including Barack Obama that yielded little in the way of new commitments, world leaders were supposed to meet over dinner to discuss climate change, and engage in “soft diplomacy” to iron out differences ahead of crunch negotiations on a new global climate agreement. But many prominent heads of state and government stayed away from the summit altogether, or failed to show at the dinner. Greg Barker, former climate minister and the adviser who played a key role in Cameron interest in green issues, including orchestrating his famous trip to the Arctic, told an audience in New York: “President Obama is a few blocks away [from the dinner] at a party in the Waldorf-Astoria. China’s [premier Xi Jinping] is thousands of miles away. The prime minister of India [Narendra Modi] could not make time for it. The chancellor of Germany [Angela Merkel], the biggest economy in Europe, is in Berlin. We will never get a deal on climate change if leaders don’t turn up.” Russia’s Vladimir Putin also stayed put in Moscow, and the count of world leaders reached just above 120 out of a possible of more than 190. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, called the summit in an effort to make much-needed progress before crunch talks next December in Paris, at which world governments are supposed to forge a new global agreement on the climate, including national commitments on emissions curbs beyond 2020, when current targets run out. The last time that leaders met in such fashion was at Copenhagen in 2009. The decision by the Chinese, Indian and Russian premiers to snub Tuesday’s UN summit, held the day before the annual general assembly, was viewed with dismay by many. “This was supposed to be pivotal: Obama and Jinping in a room, eyeball to eyeball,” said a senior participant in the talks. “Everyone knows that the US and China [the world’s biggest emitters and economies] are the pivot. But it didn’t happen.” China’s vice premier Zhang Gaoli told the summit: “We will announce post-2020 actions on climate change as soon as we can, which will bring about marked progress in reducing carbon intensity, increasing the share of non-fossil fuels and raising the forest stock, as well as the peaking of total CO2 emissions as early as possible. “China will advance a revolution in energy production and consumption, cap total energy consumption, raise energy efficiency and vigorously develop non-fossil fuels. We will step up efforts against air pollution, promote ecological progress, establish a carbon trading market at a faster pace, intensify technological innovation and raise public awareness of green and low-carbon development. “By so doing, China will blaze a path of sustainable development that leads to both economic growth and effective tackling of climate change.” Foreign ministeri Xie Zhinhua made it clear in a press conference that engagement would be on China’s terms. “China is a developing country,” he said. “We have 18m people living in poverty. China has paid equal attention to growth, mitigation [of carbon dioxide emissions] and adaptation [to climate change]. We are similar to developing countries and the least developed countries, we are on the same page as these countries.” He emphasised China’s insistence on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, intended under the Kyoto protocol of 1997, when China’s economy was much smaller, to ensure that developing countries could continue to increase their emissions while developed countries had to reduce theirs. However, one new factor in the negotiations leading up to Paris is that China has just surpassed the European Union in annual greenhouse gas emissions per capita. Previously, along with other developing countries, China has argued that as its emissions per person were much lower than in the developed world, it should take on less responsibility for emissions cuts. Cameron attended Tuesday night’s dinner at UN headquarters in Manhattan, seated between South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil. He was also one of many world leaders present, including François Hollande of France and Hassan Rouhani of Iran, who had one-to-one meetings with Ban during the day, though the edited versions released publicly afterwards revealed little of note. Cameron did not attend the climate march on Sunday, when hundreds of thousands of people in New York, London and cities around the world urged leaders to take stronger action on global warming, but Barker took to the streets of New York with model Lily Cole. • Fiona Harvey’s travel to New York was paid for by Siemens. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'world/unitednations', 'us-news/us-news', 'politics/davidcameron', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-09-24T11:57:42Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2016/nov/09/cloud-tracking-cameras-to-tackle-dips-in-solar-power-output | Cloud-tracking cameras to tackle dips in solar power output | A new way to tackle the much-maligned unpredictability of solar energy is being deployed at a solar farm opening today in Western Australia – cloud-tracking cameras. The 1MW solar farm at Karratha airport, made possible by a $2.3m grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena), has been fitted with state-of-the-art CloudCAM cloud-tracking technology by Fulcrum3D – a technology also backed by a separate $545,000 Arena grant. Dips in power output from solar farms that occur when clouds pass over leads some solar farms to rely on backup energy storage to smooth out the output. The unpredictability of those dips in output also makes it difficult for the operators to predict prices and can hinder their ability to bid in electricity markets. According to the manufacturers, the cloud-tracking technology allows the solar operators to reliably predict the output of the solar farm 15 minutes ahead of time, meaning they can minimise the reliance on energy storage and can more effectively take part in market bidding. The chief executive of Arena, Ivor Frischknecht, said that the technology “makes solar cheaper and reduces intermittency by giving the operators a clearer picture of the solar resource they can expect in the immediate future”. “Cloud prediction makes solar cheaper and more reliable while reducing the need for batteries,” Frischknecht said. “That’s what makes this project so exciting.” The marriage of two separate Arena-funded projects demonstrated the effectiveness of Arena grants and how they were benefiting regional communities, Frischknecht said. Frischknecht said the Karratha airport solar plant would be a good example, demonstrating why more renewables should be connected to Western Australia’s North West Interconnected System (NWIS). The NWIS supplies electricity to Karratha, Port Headland and Goldsworth, as well as areas inland from there. “The NWIS is a smaller network that requires renewable energy to meet performance criteria that are geared towards maintaining network stability,” Frischknecht said. “Arena-supported projects like the Karratha airport solar farm and CloudCAM are important for demonstrating to network owner and operator Horizon Power that solar can provide sustainable, reliable power into the NWIS without the need for large amounts of expensive battery storage,” Frischknecht said. | ['environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-11-09T03:02:54Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/mar/02/overconsumption-by-rich-must-be-tackled-says-acting-un-biodiversity-chief-aoe | Overconsumption by the rich must be tackled, says acting UN biodiversity chief | Governments and businesses must start implementing this decade’s deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems as soon as possible, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, urging rich nations to tackle overconsumption of the planet’s resources. David Cooper, the new acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), said countries and corporations must immediately act on December’s historic agreement in Montreal, which includes targets to protect 30% of Earth, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and address and disclose the impact businesses have on biodiversity. Some scientists believe humans are causing Earth’s sixth mass extinction event due to overconsumption and pollution, driving the largest loss of life since the time of the dinosaurs. Despite the scientific warnings, governments have never met a UN biodiversity target they have set for themselves and there is a major effort to make sure this decade is different. “The results have to be achieved by 2030, meaning that action has to be taken now. That means we need money and plans from governments now,” said Cooper. “Countries should be working on national targets and agree a government-wide plan. The key thing at this stage is to ask what the agreement means for the agricultural sector, infrastructure, health, urban development and economic development. “There are various ways that countries can proceed. They could have outcome-oriented aims [that make an overall target the law], a bit like the UK has on the climate. When we look at successes in the past, like the previous Lula administration [in Brazil], which achieved an 80% drop in deforestation in the Amazon, that was achieved through a whole-of-government approach. It was a mixture of laws, incentives, investment in agricultural research and improving data,” he said. Cooper has taken over from Elizabeth Mrema, who has recently become deputy UN environment chief, while a successor is appointed. Cooper, who is British, had been deputy UN biodiversity chief since 2015 and played a key role in Cop15 negotiations in Montreal. After the agreement in Canada, the main UN fund for biodiversity – the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – has started the process of creating a new arm to channel money for conservation efforts around the world. China, Indonesia, Mexico, India and Brazil are now the top recipients of funding from the GEF. Smaller biodiverse countries, especially those from Africa, wanted a new fund to pay for targets on protecting and restoring nature. The design and aim of the new fund will be agreed later this year. Cooper said it was important that donor countries made good on their financial commitments agreed at Cop15 and said businesses should also begin adapting their practices. The final agreement signed in Montreal included a target for businesses to assess and disclose their impacts on nature. “Businesses, particularly large and transnational businesses, need to properly account for their impacts on biodiversity, as well as their dependency on it. Having to disclose those impacts obviously puts pressure internally and externally on them. It’s potentially really important,” said Cooper, who added that rich countries and wealthy people had a special responsibility to make the deal a success. “Those of us in richer countries, especially richer people in rich countries, need to be looking at their own footprint. On a planet with limited resources, excess overconsumption by the rich in particular has to be limited, otherwise it just doesn’t add up,” he said. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/cop15', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'world/unitednations', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-02T06:00:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2023/apr/13/eu-motorist-fined-almost-11000-after-visit-to-london-falls-foul-of-ulez-rule-french-hire-car | EU motorist fined almost £11,000 after falling foul of London Ulez rule | A motorist was fined nearly £11,000 for driving his French rental car in London’s ultra-low emission zone on a three-day trip to the UK, despite the fact the vehicle met the environmental standards to enter the Ulez for nothing. Christian Ducarre received four penalty charge notices (PCNs) after falling foul of a little-known requirement under which foreign vehicles must be registered with Transport for London (TfL) or else be deemed non-compliant by default. He is one of many EU drivers who have been sent PCNs, some of them totalling thousands of pounds, even though their vehicles comply with EU emissions standards. The Ulez requires drivers of older, more polluting vehicles to pay £12.50 a day to enter central London, or face a fine of £180, which is halved if paid within 14 days. Vehicles registered in the UK do not have to be separately enrolled in the scheme to prove they are compliant. In Ducarre’s case, his fines were higher because his hire car was also mistakenly classed as a heavy diesel vehicle and penalised under the separate low emissions zone (Lez) that covers lorries, vans, buses, coaches and minibuses travelling in most of Greater London. Lez fines are between £500 and £2,000 a day, depending on the vehicle’s weight, and rise if not paid within 28 days. The two TfL-administered emissions schemes are part of a drive to improve air quality in the capital, and Ulez is due to expand to all London boroughs in August, although on Wednesday a judge ruled five Tory-led councils could proceed with a challenge to the expansion in the high court later this year. The requirement to register vehicles also applies to British motorists planning to drive into any of the 200 European cities that operate similar low emissions schemes. The cost and process of registration varies between countries, some of which require all drivers to buy a coloured sticker showing their vehicle’s emissions standard. Fines for failure to follow the rules range from £38 in Madrid to £1,853 in Vienna. Ducarre incurred his charges after renting a car in France to attend his son’s wedding in London last May. “I checked that the car’s emissions standard was Euro 06 and so was not liable for the Ulez charge,” he said. “In February I received a fine for £3,598, followed by three further fines totalling £7,371.04. When I tried to challenge them online, I received an error message because I’d received the PCNs outside the 28-day appeals deadline. My trip to London will cost me around £11,000.” Ducarre is far from alone in his predicament. A group of drivers in France are planning legal class action against TfL after receiving four-figure fines without being given the option of proving compliance. A total of 18,962 Ulez PCNs were issued to owners of foreign-registered cars between January and September last year. The agency contracted by TfL to enforce the fines, Euro Parking Collection (EPC), has recently gained access to vehicle keeper records in France, Germany and the Netherlands, and has been issuing PCNs for alleged Ulez breaches committed months previously. Since the PCNs sent via vehicle leasing and rental companies can take weeks to reach the driver, the 28-day appeals deadline may have passed and the fine escalated. TfL told the Guardian those who could demonstrate that their vehicles were compliant would have their fines cancelled and that it expected EPC to “act reasonably” over payment and appeals deadlines if PCNs were delayed in the post. However, drivers who had approached the Guardian claimed they were ordered to pay escalated fines despite receiving them weeks after issue and submitting evidence that they were not liable. Adrian Low received six PCNs after driving his leased German-registered car into London in May last year. The fines were dated November 2022, but did not reach him until two months later, by which time the demands had risen from £90 to £270 each and he was out of time to appeal to TfL. “I sent evidence that the car was Ulez compliant to EPC and received a response stating that I had to pay up,” he said. His and Ducarre’s fines were cancelled after intervention from the Guardian. TfL said Ducarre’s car had been incorrectly classed as a heavy diesel vehicle by EPC and therefore incurred fines for entering the Lez as well as the Ulez. It stated that it was working to increase awareness of the Ulez before the planned expansion to the Greater London boundary on 29 August. This will include asking ferry companies to pass information to their customers. EPC was contacted for a comment. UK motorists heading to the rest of Europe should check the requirements in the region they plan to visit. The emissions rules across the EU are listed on the website Urban Access Regulations. | ['uk/london', 'money/motoring', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'environment/air-pollution', 'uk/uk', 'politics/transport', 'uk/transport', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/annatims', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-04-13T15:00:47Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/2024/mar/07/uk-green-power-industry-pledge-natpower-battery-storage | UK’s green power industry receives surprise £10bn pledge | Britain’s under-pressure green power industry has received a surprise fillip after a renewables developer pledged to plough £10bn into what would become the largest portfolio of battery storage projects in the country. NatPower, a UK startup that is part of a larger European energy group, is poised to submit planning applications for three “gigaparks”, with a further 10 to follow next year. Battery storage projects are seen as a key part of the jigsaw to decarbonise Britain’s power grid, allowing electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels to be stored for use when weather conditions are still or not sunny. The NatPower investment would lead to the construction of 60 gigawatt hours of battery storage, with solar and wind projects also in the pipeline. The two gigaparks would be located in the north of England, with a further site in the west of the country planned later this year. The projects would be built on industrial land, and also through leasing deals with farmers. The potential investment would mark a bright spot in a troubled landscape for the renewables industry. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exacerbated a squeeze in gas markets and accelerated countries’ drives towards renewable power. However, the resulting surge in demand and global inflation has put pressure on supply chains and forced companies to rein in their ambitions. In his budget speech on Wednesday, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced £120m to support the expansion of “low carbon manufacturing supply chains”. A record £1bn will be set aside for an upcoming auction to support offshore windfarm projects after an auction in September failed to attract any bidders. Hunt also said £160m would be paid to Japan’s Hitachi for two sites earmarked for nuclear power stations – the Wylfa facility on the island of Anglesey or Ynys Môn in north Wales, and the Oldbury site on the banks of the river Severn in South Gloucestershire. Efforts to decarbonise the electricity grid in Great Britain have also been undermined by waiting lists of up to 15 years for new projects, such as wind- and solar farms, to connect. Energy officials have embarked on a drive to kick out so-called zombie projects from a connections waiting list. NatPower, which plans to finance, own and in some cases operate its projects, said it had also set aside £600m to invest in new substations. Stefano Sommadossi, the chief executive of NatPower UK, said: “To solve the bottlenecks that are slowing the shift to clean energy, we will drive investment into the grid itself, collaborating with grid operators to deliver more than 20% of the new substations required. “By investing in substations and focusing on energy storage first, we will enable the next phase of the energy transition and bring down the cost of energy for consumers.” Battery storage projects could also help significantly reduce curtailment – a process in which wind and solar projects receive payments to stop generating power when supply exceeds demand. Without upgrades to the grid, these costs could reach £3.5bn a year by 2030, according to the thinktank Carbon Tracker. Britain’s battery storage industry remains fragmented but includes projects of all sizes, including a £750m development at the Trafford low carbon energy park in Greater Manchester and a string of projects devised by the co-founder of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb. NatPower UK, which launched in the UK in 2022, is part of a specialist Luxembourg-headquartered European energy group, which is backed by its management team and Tyrus Capital, a private equity firm. It scouts for land, obtains permits and typically sells projects on when they are ready to build. The group is raising the money to carry out its UK ambitions through private companies and pension funds. An announcement on securing further investment is expected within weeks. The government has set a target to generate power entirely from renewable sources by 2035, while Labour has pledged to achieve this by 2030. Industry sources believe this is ambitious, amid concerns that Britain could struggle to meet the increase in demand for electricity for everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps while efforts to build new power projects falter. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'business/business', 'uk-news/north-of-england', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alex-lawson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2024-03-07T06:00:04Z | true | ENERGY |
theguardian/2011/oct/04/why-dont-whales-hide | Notes and queries | If whales are so intelligent, why haven't they learned to keep out of the way of human predators? Perhaps the reason why the numbers of many species of whale appear to be in decline is that the poor animals are keeping out of the way of those who are trying to count them – I know I would. HeronsGreen From my houseboat on the Thames I regularly see huge fish in the water, but never on the days the fishermen are around. Perhaps we should study the ways of the carp and give the whales a rest? Graham Williams, Taggs Island, Hampton How do you know they haven't? After all, Captain Ahab had a whole lot of trouble catching Moby Dick. Many humans tend to lord it over other mammals, exulting in their superior intelligence. But essentially human and whale brains have the same structure, coming from a common ancestor, and those of whales are larger. Whale intelligence works in different ways, with different objectives; so they are just as clever in doing what they are good at. They can, for instance, navigate between the poles without GPS or any other artifact to help them. How many humans could do that? In evolutionary terms, humans have been around for an almost infinitesimally small period of time, and it has only for a few hundred years have they been capable of catching whales; so during the millions of years of whale existence, humans played no part. Now that there is interaction, we can imagine that those whales that avoid ships and thus escape the attentions of whalers will live to breed and thus perpetuate the species. Terence Hollingworth, Blagnac, France Where have all the atoms that constitute "me" been since the creation of the Earth? Have they been part of other people through the ages? All of the atoms that make up your body were once parts of stars – the phrase "we are stardust" is not just poetic fancy. After that, they were part of the sterile planet (later to be called Earth) for some billions of years, and when life appeared, bits that were later to become "us", began to be parts of the early forms of life on Earth – bacterial, plant, animal, fungal etc – all of it sharing atoms, especially carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms. By a statistical certainty, many of the 7 billion trillion atoms that make up your body will have formed parts of many other organisms in the far past. Some of them have formed parts of living beings (plant and animal) in the recent past – you ate them. But some of those beings will be humans, still alive and sharing the planet with you as you read this; if by no other route than by the fact that the air others breathe out is the air you breathe in. The blood in your veins is red because of oxygen that was someone else's last month, and will be someone else's again next. You may feel that your "self" is a solid, unchanging entity, but the matter which houses that self is a boiling mass, coming and going all the time. Francis Blake, London N17 In a similar way, it is said that water in the Thames has been drunk by up to seven different people before it finally reaches the sea. Oliver Sheppard Vincennes, France If Scotland's referendum on independence were to succeed, what would happen to the union flag? Orange Juice have the answer: "Rip it up and start again." Marion Hutt, Staines, Middx The blue St Andrew's cross would be removed, leaving an England and Northern Ireland flag. Wales has never been represented on the flag, and the Republic of Ireland left in the last century. Janet Davies, Abergavenny, Gwent There would be a chance, at last, to include some reference to Wales, representation of which is decidedly missing: maybe a rampant dragon in the centre of the St George and St Patrick's crosses. David Prothero, Harpenden, Herts Who cares what happens to the union jack? It is a failed attempt to combine three different flags and is an overcomplicated artistic mess unrivalled anywhere in the world. Ian Close, Paisley, Renfrews Are people who submit letters to newspapers more likely to be egotistical and/or mentally disturbed than the general population?" Yes, without a doubt. People who submit comments online, however, are more likely to be well-balanced and highly intelligent. notangry Any answers? One of the first things the Alma observatory spots in space is the collision of the Antennae galaxies. Do galaxies often collide? Should I be worried? Sarah Graham, Manchester It is remarkable how often Gravesend in Kent is the hottest place in the country. Why is it such a hot spot? Ralph Jones, Rochester, Kent Post your questions and answers below or email nq@theguardian.com (please include name, address and phone number). | ['lifeandstyle/series/notes-and-queries', 'tone/features', 'environment/whales', 'books/hermanmelville', 'science/science', 'science/physics', 'environment/cetaceans', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2011-10-04T20:30:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2015/sep/28/glacier-melt-climate-change-tipping-point | Glacier melt shows a climate change tipping point. We must pay attention | Wendell Tangborn | Mountain glaciers and humans have coexisted for roughly 200,000 years, but that long idyll appears to be ending. The earth’s 190,000 glaciers, sentinels of climate change that appear to be more sensitive to the climate than are humans, are disappearing at an unprecedented pace, the canaries in climate change’s coal mine. It is all being driven by human activities, and it has been happening for three decades. The fate of both humans and glaciers will depend on drastically reducing carbon dioxide emissions during the next decade. Most of the world’s glaciers began changing in the late 1980s from relative stability to negative mass balances. Mass balance is the difference between growth from snow accumulation and shrinkage from snow and ice melting. The relatively abrupt change to negative glacier mass balances strongly suggests a climate tipping point, when the climate changes from one stable state to another. There are other compelling signs that a climate tipping point has been reached. One of the most critical is the loss of the floating sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean. In 2014, the late-summer extent of sea ice in the north polar seas was the lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979. Before 1979, evidence based on shipping and whaling charts suggests it has not been this low for at least hundreds of years. Paleo climatologists believe that Arctic sea ice cover last melted completely during summers about 125,000 years ago, during a warm period between ice ages. Reduction of northern-hemisphere sea ice means that more incoming sunlight is absorbed into darker ocean water instead of being reflected by ice and then re-radiated into the atmosphere as heat. This, in turn, reduces the extent of the annual northern-hemisphere snow cover, which further accelerates global warming. A related effect that could be even more environmentally devastating is the release of methane from permafrost and seafloor hydrates as the ocean warms. Another tipping-point indicator is the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, which have shown signs of disintegrating during the past two decades. Just partial melting of these ice sheets will raise sea level several meters. If the warning glaciers gave us in the 1980s had been heeded and a crash program to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy had been initiated then, the climate-change crises we are facing now would be less acute. Transitions to alternative energy such as solar and wind are underway now, but they were late getting started and are not yet substantial enough to reduce the rate of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is approximately 400 parts per million, the highest it has been for at least 800,000 years and likely more than 20m years. It is increasing at about two parts per million annually, and it is accelerating. It should be declining if we want to avert a humanitarian crisis caused by food shortages in an out-of-control climate. The implications are stark. For civilization to survive, fossil fuel burning must taper off dramatically and be replaced with renewable sources of energy. The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) could provide guidance on how this might be accomplished. The panel, which holds expert meetings regularly to study climate issues and make recommendations, is composed of climatologists and other scientists from more than 100 member countries. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. The recent visit of President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to Alaska to observe glaciers and the effect of climate change symbolically emphasized the problem of global warming and its impact on the well-being of humans. The conference they attended was organized to increase awareness of the environmental problems that face Alaskans, such as coastal erosion, wildfires, sea level rise and permafrost thawing. These are problems that the much of the world will soon be facing. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/glaciers', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/ipcc', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/wendell-tangborn'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-09-28T10:45:20Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2010/jul/25/bob-dudley-profile-bp-ceo | Bob Dudley: Profile of the new BP chief executive | The American chosen to replace Tony Hayward as chief executive of BP is a soft-spoken southerner with a steely core who battled it out with Vladimir Putin in Russia before taking on the Gulf of Mexico cleanup job for BP. Bob Dudley has been in the oil industry most of his life but joined the BP board only 18 months ago – with the title of managing director and a salary of £1.5m. He was drafted in as a safe pair of hands to deal with the environmental mess triggered by the blowout on board the Deepwater Horizon on 20 April. Dudley, who worked for Amoco before it was swallowed by BP in a mega-merger, shot to prominence when he was at the centre of a huge row between BP and Russian shareholders inside their joint venture group, TNK-BP. An increasingly politicised dispute saw the modern version of the KGB raiding the TNK offices in Moscow and a Siberian court refusing visas to BP staff. In June 2008, Dudley left Russia in haste when his visa was not renewed, saying later he had faced "sustained harassment" from the Russian authorities. Dudley, who has been married to his wife Mary for 30 years and has two children,is a chemical engineering graduate from the University of Illinois and also holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University. Hayward previously described Dudley as "the management team's foreign secretary". He will need top diplomatic skills if he is to repair the damage done to BP's reputation. | ['business/bp', 'environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/tony-hayward', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'world/world', 'business/bob-dudley', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-07-25T18:48:12Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2008/jul/20/ethicalliving.carbonfootprints | Brian Morton: Living responsibly needn't mean leading a joyless existence | Thank God Dr Who has finished. No more - for the moment, at least - of the Bathgate-Cockney Time Lord and his tin-can adversaries. Back in the day, the Daleks referred contemptuously to Earthlings as 'carbon units', but isn't that precisely what we're in danger of becoming? Doesn't the current obsession with the carbon footprint as the only reliable index of environmental responsibility run that risk? One activist recently announced that she and her partner had just been sterilised - both of them? That's either belt-and-braces or overkill - and had turned vegan in order to indulge themselves in one long-haul holiday per year. There's something immensely desolate about that story, two weeks of sun being set against a childless future and tofu. It gained something in both poignancy and downright bleakness by appearing alongside the story of a young Chinese woman who'd been coerced into a final trimester abortion because she already had a child. In our rush to save the planet, we're in danger of systematically devaluing the only form of life over which we have some meaningful control - our own. It's probably fair to say that, in terms of ideas, if not by name, Thomas Malthus is currently cited more often than Charles Darwin, which is a fair indication of the moral pickle we're in. In a country as small as Scotland, and one that until recently was losing population on an annual basis, it's hard to get excited about overcrowding. Surrounded as we are by spectacular natural resources, albeit either neglected, poorly used or exported to Spain, it's difficult to get aerated about incipient global crisis. We are, on the other hand, the most light-polluted small country on the planet - the M8 corridor can probably be seen from deep space - so we mustn't be smug. But that balance sheet provides us with an ideal foundation to get a sensible handle on the whole carbon footprint issue and the demands of 'ethical' living. Many in the Roman Catholic church reacted strongly to that story of the couple balancing the high environmental impact of having weans and eating steak against an annual fortnight in Phuket or New York. Some of it was predictable pro-life stuff, but what came through even more strongly was the feeling that there is something intensely joyless about a life whose dominating principle is units of carbon. No implication that we should simply abandon all responsibility for the planet and live lives of unbridled hedonism, but it is interesting to hear believing Catholics advocating a measure of this-worldly (humanist!) pleasure as well as bliss in the hereafter when secular non-believers seem bent on denying themselves both. There is something of a logical quandary in working to preserve the planet for future generations when you are unable to pass on your own genes. This tends to divide the world into breeding and non-breeding classes, which is worrying, and it certainly misses the point that, along with clean air and unpolluted, fertile seas, easily the most important thing one generation can pass on to the next is delight in living. If, crudely, morality is about individual choices and positions, then ethics inevitably involves other people. Given how much emphasis is currently put on 'ethical' choices, the word seems curiously ill-used, since most of the choices advocated are essentially individualistic. They're also mostly negative: not driving a car, turning the house lights down to levels even the Brontë sisters would consider too murky to read by, never eating anything that grew any further away than Carlisle. This is a familiar liberal stance, equivalent to the kind of politics that regarded not eating Cape apples as a virtual guarantee that apartheid would come crashing down. (I did actually hear a woman say, in an Edinburgh cafe, on the day Nelson Mandela was released: 'At least we can eat South African fruit now.' I don't think she was joking.) Much as democracy is about rather more than voting once in a while, so 'ethics' surely involves something more than self-denial and something better than the rock-star gesturism of planting a whole forest in the Highlands in order to offset the carbon emissions from all those world tours. I don't want to disturb Joe Strummer's shade, but planting lots of trees actually increases carbon dioxide for a significant period. Living responsibly is also living responsively, with a proper awareness of planetary needs, political imperatives, national issues, local questions and both family and personal wants, not always in that order but always with each element in that chain entire. It's about evolution (Darwin) rather than intervention and control (Malthus). To ignore the last two elements in the chain is, some would argue, more damaging than eschewing responsibility for the planet. Our desires and our pleasures are as much, arguably more, definitive of who and what we are than our self-denials. I can't remember who said it - and hope it wasn't someone utterly disreputable - but I'd agree with the assertion: it may be distasteful to be niggardly toward our friends, but it's positively sinful to stint on ourselves. That kind of clanking morality might work for the Daleks, but it shouldn't be confused with being human or 'ethical'. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'type/article', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/comment'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2008-07-19T23:01:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2009/apr/26/fishing-stocks-protection-conservation | Scientists call for 20-year fishing ban in a third of the world's oceans | The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday 3 May 2009. Below Marine Protection Areas in South Africa and New Zealand were described as zones "where trawling is banned". It is only bottom trawling within 100m of the seabed that is banned. It is Benthic Protection Areas, not MPAs, that cover 30% of New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone. A third of the world's oceans must be closed to fishing if depleted stocks are to recover, scientists and conservation groups have warned. Such a measure could "set the clock back 200 years" and reverse the decline in fish populations, after which responsible fisheries management could regenerate the industry. Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, has reviewed 100 scientific papers identifying the scale of closure needed. "All are leaning in a similar direction," he says, "which is that 20 to 40% of the sea should be protected." Friends of the Earth, the Marine Conservation Society and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds all support the idea of a 30% closure. "What we would see is a flourishing of life," Roberts says. "In 20 years, we could get to a point where a lot of species are in a far more productive state." The proposal comes in the wake of a green paper calling for radical reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, which EU ministers admit has failed. It reveals that 88% of EU stocks are overfished (against a global average of 25%) while 30% are "outside safe biological limits" – meaning they cannot reproduce as normal because the parenting population is too depleted. In the North Sea, 93% of cod are fished before they have had a chance to breed. The European Commission suggests a reduction in fleet size and a dramatic cut in fishing effort among its raft of measures, but Roberts believes these will not work without the creation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). "Just cutting fishing effort is not enough," he says. "If we are ever going to have sustainable fisheries, MPA networks are an essential, indispensable part of any rational management package." In Iceland, Canada and the US, the creation of MPAs has "brought real increases in fish populations and real recovery of seabed habitats", Roberts says. "Populations of exploited species have increased five-, 10- or even 20-fold within five, 10 or 20 years." The most convincing example is New England, where stocks of ground fish were "in a dreadful state" in the 1990s. Off Georges Bank, an area of nearly 20,000 square kilometres – a quarter of the fishing grounds – was closed to vessels, and fishing effort was reduced by "a draconian 50 per cent". In the past 10 years, Roberts says, there has been "a spectacular recovery" of key economic species. As stocks within MPAs recover, the eggs and larvae of fish are carried on ocean currents to fishing grounds, Roberts explains. This helps replenish commercial fisheries. Fish also leave the protected areas, emigrating to places where they can be harvested legally. Off Lundy Island in Devon, one of only three No-Take Zones (similar to MPAs) in British waters, the lobster population is eight times higher within the reserve. "We have already seen benefits in the lobster fishery immediately outside it," says Giles Bartlett, fisheries policy officer at the environmental charity WWF. In the Isle of Man, where a No-Take Zone for scallops has been created, "there have been significant increases in catches on the boundary of the reserve", he adds. "There, a limited size of reserve is supporting the whole fishery. If you scale those reserves up, you are going to see similar results for demersal [bottom-dwelling] fish stocks. We feel European seas would benefit from this kind of management." The fishing industry is less convinced, saying pressure on stocks just outside a protected area can "mitigate against the impact" of the MPA. "It almost creates a bull's-eye for fishermen, who know the area on the periphery isn't protected," says Tom Rossiter, research and development manager at Seafish, the UK seafood industry body. "If you shut off an MPA, it will move the fishing effort somewhere else." Phil MacMullen, head of environment at Seafish, says a distinction must be made between MPAs created to conserve habitats and biodiversity, and those created for fisheries management purposes. "If you are very lucky, you may find an area designated for conservation also gives you fisheries benefits," he says, but the likelihood is low. Seasonal closures at spawning times, and around specific areas such as nursery grounds, are already used effectively by fishermen. Currently, there are 4,000 MPAs covering just 0.8% of the world's oceans. New Zealand has already closed 30 per cent of its Exclusive Economic Zone – offshore fishing grounds – to trawlers and Australia is considering a similar move. Under the Marine Bill, the UK Government has committed to designating a coherent network of new Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) by 2012, though there is no mention of a percentage target. | ['environment/fishing', 'environment/food', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/conservation', 'world/eu', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/biodiversity', 'profile/andrewpurvis', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-04-25T23:01:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2015/aug/29/new-orleans-hurricane-katrina-ten-year-annivesary | New Orleans reflects on lessons of hurricane Katrina, 10 years on | Saturday marked 10 years to the day since hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. Eighty percent of the city was flooded as the storm devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005. A slate of events was planned, including a morning wreath-laying ceremony with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and Mayor Mitch Landrieu to honor the more than 1,800 people who died. “We must recommit ourselves to the notion that no American should ever be left behind,” Landrieu said at the ceremony. “We can only move forward together.” The wreath-laying took place at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial, where 83 unclaimed or unidentified victims of the storm are interred. “Though unnamed, they are not unclaimed because we remember them,” Landrieu said. His office has also orchestrated a citywide day of service, to dispatch 10,000 volunteers to seven areas where recovery efforts continue to take place. Community members gathered in the Lower Ninth Ward, the area hardest hit by the storm, which has not been fully restored in the decade following Katrina. People laid memorials, and signs bearing the names of victims were erected at the spot where one of the levees was breached. A two-day “resilience festival” in the Lower Ninth was scheduled to conclude with a candlelight vigil. In the lead-up to the anniversary, urban planners, politicians and community leaders spoke at panels to discuss the storm, its aftermath and how it will impact the future of the city. On Thursday, Barack Obama spoke at a Lower Ninth Ward community center. The president acknowledged the federal government’s slow response to the storm. He said Katrina was a natural disaster that “became a manmade one – a failure of government to look out for its own citizens”. Obama also mentioned that cities need to prepare infrastructure for climate change and the more extreme weather events it is expected to bring. Governor Jindal, a Republican presidential hopeful, had written a letter to Obama ahead of the event asking him to not mention climate change in his remarks. “A lecture on climate change would do nothing to improve upon what we are already doing,” Jindal said in the letter. George W Bush, who faced intense criticism over his response to the storm as president in 2005, visited the city on Friday. He spoke at Warren Easton charter school, which was damaged in the storm and rebuilt with funds from a foundation started by his wife, Laura. A third president, Bill Clinton, was scheduled to speak later on Saturday at an event called the Power of Community, meant to commemorate the city’s resilience. In spite of the dozens of events planned for the weekend, local newspaper the Times-Picayune said that just after 11am, the most read story on its website was: “Things to do in New Orleans Saturday that have nothing to do with Katrina.” Church bells also rang out on Saturday morning across Mississippi, where the storm ravaged the coast. Former governor Haley Barbour, who was in office when Katrina struck, spoke at a prayer service in Gulfport. The Republican said that at least 954,000 people volunteered in Mississippi during the first five years after the storm. Many, he said, “thought it was God’s command to try to help people in need”. Earlier in the day, Barbour and current governor Phil Bryant spoke at a commemoration in Biloxi. | ['us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/series/hurricane-katrina-10-years-on', 'us-news/new-orleans', 'us-news/louisiana', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/world', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'us-news/george-bush', 'us-news/clinton', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/amanda-holpuch'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-08-29T17:58:34Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/aug/21/scottish-town-cuts-twinned-link-to-faroe-islands-over-whale-killings | Scottish town cuts twinned link to Faroe Islands over whale killings | A Scottish town has broken off its relations with the Faroe Islands in protest against this year’s “disgusting” killing of over 400 pilot whales. Wick, a coastal in the far north of Scotland closer to the Faroes than to London, has been twinned for 20 years with Klaksvík, the second-largest community in the Faroes. But the islanders’ traditional whale hunts have sickened civic leaders who fear that their association with the remote archipelago could also affect their own tourism. Caithness SNP civic leader councillor Gail Ross and two colleagues have written to Jógvan Skorheim, mayor of Klaksvík, to say the traditional whale hunts were not something that her town “should be associated with”. In an email, Ross said: “I and my two ward colleagues make reference to the recent slaughter of whales which took place in Bøur and Tórshavn, amongst other areas and whilst we note that this is not Klaksvík, I am afraid that the whole of the Faroe Islands has been tainted by these events. “We do not agree that these events and the apparent joy it gave the townspeople is in any way or should in any way be linked to tradition. There may have been reasons of culling for food in the past but in 2015 it is unnecessary and cruel.” She said that whales had feelings and emotions. “To drive them on to a beach and slaughter them in front of their family members is nothing short of barbaric,” she said. Skorheim has now replied to what he describes as the “ultimatum” from Wick. He said: “If you’re asking us to choose between being twinned with Wick and our Faroese right to conduct sustainable whaling, you should know that this choice is not hard for us to make. “However, it disappoints me to hear, that you are prepared to sever links with Klaksvík.” The move by Wick follows a decision by two German cruise line companies to suspend visits to the islands because of the hunts. Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA have said they are seeking alternative destinations and have urged the islanders to halt the practice. The Faroese have strongly defended this years’ hunts, saying the traditional practice of rounding up pods of pilot whales in the summer months and has been carried on for 1,000 years. They argue that the population lives closer to nature and that they eat the whales. “If the Faroese did not maintain these connections with their own food, much more would have to be imported,” it says on a website about the practice. “Faroese people from all walks of life also keep sheep, hunt birds and participate in whale hunts in their spare time. This would also have a significant extra impact on the environment, considering the fuel needed for transport.” | ['environment/whaling', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/scotland', 'world/denmark', 'uk/uk', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'world/faroe-islands', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-08-21T13:17:50Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/may/07/cyprus-australian-solar-thermal-technology-away-from-oil | Cyprus pins hopes on Australian solar technology to make shift away from oil | Australian scientists have designed and installed solar energy technology in Cyprus to help the island nation shift away from fossil fuels and also tackle its chronic water shortages. A team from the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, took five weeks to construct a “solar thermal field” containing 50 heliostats – large mirrors that reflect the power of the sun – at Pentakomo, located in the south of Cyprus. The CSIRO won an international tender to provide its technology to Cyprus for a trial that could lead to broad solar take-up in the country and elsewhere. It is understood that several other countries in Europe and the Middle East are interested in adopting CSIRO solar technology. Cyprus hopes to take on the technology so it can reform its oil-dependent economy and meet a European Union target of 13% of energy coming from renewable sources by 2020. The Mediterranean country is also plagued by water shortages and may use solar energy to power desalination plants. The CSIRO technology uses mirrors to track the sun and reflect it towards a single receiving point on top of a tower. This heat then warms a fluid, in this case molten salt. The molten salt, heated to 250C, is stored in a hot tank and the steam produced powers a turbine for electricity. Crucially, this storage method allows for energy to be produced long after the sun has disappeared. “The question about solar is always about storage at night-time,” said Wes Stein, solar research leader at CSIRO. “This liquid is cheaper and more efficient than batteries, such as those made by Elon Musk. We can generate steam for electricity on a cloudy day. “This is Cyprus’ first foray into real solar infrastructure and hopefully it’s replicated across the country. They are close to countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia who could translate this technology as well.” The Cyprus project provided $500,000 for the CSIRO but Stein said the returns could be in the “tens of millions” if other countries licensed the technology for larger scale developments. Stein added that Australia could theoretically provide all of its electricity via solar energy in this way, requiring a site measuring 50km by 50km, a third of it taken up by mirrors. CSIRO built the first version of the heliostats in 2006 and hopes to license its technology to manufacturers around the world. The science agency believes its heliostats are superior to those used elsewhere because their smaller mirrors provide a higher control over the reflected sunlight, while the infrastructure requires just two people to install it. An experimental heliostat facility in Newcastle, New South Wales, has 450 mirrors. But opportunities for deployment across Australia have been stymied over the past 12 months amid a quest by the federal government to slash Australia’s renewable energy target. Investment in large-scale renewable energy in Australia has slumped 90% in the past year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Just one large-scale renewables project, worth $6.6m, has been financed this year, due to uncertainty caused by political negotiations over the RET’s future. More than 2,300 jobs in the renewable energy sector have been lost in the past two years, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show. “Hopefully there will be an opportunity to use heliostats in Australian projects,” said Stein. “Australia has the best solar radiation of any continent in the world and we are looking for opportunities to deploy this technology here as well as overseas.” According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, building a 100% renewable energy system would cost the nation between $219 billion to $332 billion, depending upon the scenario. Proponents of a complete switch to renewable energy argue that this level of investment, over a 35-year period as coal is phased out, is reasonable and similar to current levels of spending upon fossil fuel development. | ['environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'science/science', 'world/cyprus', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2015-05-07T07:14:44Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2013/jun/30/weatherwatch-cricket-ball-swing | Weatherwatch: What gives a cricket ball its swing? | In first class cricket matches the fielding side industriously polishes one side of the ball on their trousers, and there have been recent accusations about whether some have also been surreptitiously roughing up the other. All this polishing is to allow air to flow more readily over the smooth surface on one side of the ball than on the rough surface on the other. The idea, if the bowler can keep the seam straight, is to make the ball swing in the air and so give the bowlers a decided advantage over the batsmen. But none of this works without the right weather conditions. The great mystery is why cricket balls swing in the air much more on some days than others. An example is the Test match in 1999 against New Zealand when 21 wickets fell on the second day of the match, 2 July, and the next day a normally unsuccessful batsman was able to get 99 not out. The weather, when the wickets of both sides tumbled, was heavy cloud with humid air and the next was bright and breezy. Folklore has it that the humidity is the key to the swing but wind tunnel tests show that this has little effect. It appears to be the stillness of the air as the ball whizzes through it that allows the swing effect to build up as the ball nears the bat. A breeze or air turbulence caused by the sun warming the pitch destroys the effect. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'sport/cricket', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-06-30T20:30:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2023/apr/26/drax-announces-150m-share-buyback-after-record-profits | Drax announces £150m share buyback after record profits | The owner of the Drax power plant will give its shareholders a £150m windfall after reporting its highest-ever annual profits, thanks in part to record electricity prices. The FTSE 250 company also said it was pausing investment in its controversial carbon capture project while it waited for more details from the government on a possible subsidy. Drax told investors it would buy back shares worth £150m – a move that could help inflate its share price – after the cost of electricity soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, helping the group make annual profits of £731m in 2022, up from £398m the year before. It added that it would defer plans to invest about £50m in carbon capture technology at its power plant’s biomass burning units this year while it waited for the government to include the project in its funding scheme. Will Gardiner, the chief executive of Drax, set out plans to pause the project before the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday as it emerged the energy regulator had opened an investigation into whether Drax’s activities were aligned with biomass sustainability rules. The meeting was disrupted by protest from campaigners opposed to the use of biomass. About 20 members of a group called Axe Drax who hold single shares in the company in order to access the meeting were removed by security. Stephanie Pride, who joined protesters in Yorkshire, said: “I’m taking this action today to let shareholders and the public know where their money is going when they invest in Drax. While energy prices go through the roof, as bill payers and tax payers we have no choice but to subsidise this ecocidal, climate-wrecking project, which hoovers up £1.7m in subsidies every day. “Shareholders have a choice. If they really care about sustainability and securing a liveable world for all, they would invest in proven clean technology and protecting the natural world, not destroying it for a quick profit. We cannot allow Drax’s greenwash to power a future which is no future I want to be part of.” Ofgem has launched its investigation, which will be undertaken by the US consulting group Black & Veatch, amid growing concerns over net zero claims around Drax’s bioenergy plant, according to documents released after a freedom of information request by the Financial Times. Drax’s own climate scientists advised the company in a report that it should stop saying its biomass power units were “carbon neutral”. The firm has faced fierce criticism from green groups for claiming renewable energy subsidies for burning wood pellets known as biomass, which are produced from forests in Canada and the US. There are also growing calls for UK ministers to scrap subsidies for the plant in its upcoming biomass strategy paper expected by the end of June. Drax claims the carbon emissions released from the plant are matched by the emissions absorbed by the trees as they grow, making the electricity generated carbon neutral. By adding carbon capture technology to the plant it could generate “carbon negative” power, according to Drax. These claims have been contested by scientists and campaign groups, who argue that importing wood pellets from North America is not sustainable and may be increasing carbon emissions. Drax’s subsidies are due to end in 2027 but the group – which generates about 6% of the UK’s electricity – is hoping to gain new ones through the government’s carbon capture programme. The plans were dealt a blow last month after the government’s long-awaited energy strategy appeared to rule out the project from the initial tranche of projects vying for subsidies. Gardiner said the company remained “excited about the opportunity” to pursue its biomass and carbon capture plans in the UK. He told investors on Wednesday, before the AGM, that it had “commenced formal discussions with the government” to facilitate the plans by 2030, three years later than planned. A spokesperson for Drax said: “The science that underpins our approach is complicated, nuanced and evolves, and we take our responsibility to continue to develop our explanation of it very seriously.” | ['business/draxgroup', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'environment/carbon-capture-and-storage', 'environment/environment', 'business/ofgem', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-capture-and-storage | EMISSIONS | 2023-04-26T10:34:21Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2019/sep/20/enough-biggest-ever-climate-protest-uk | 'Enough is enough’: biggest-ever climate protest sweeps UK | From the small sun-drenched Inner Hebridean island of Iona to the packed streets of central London, parents and grandparents, children and trade unionists have stepped out of their Friday routines to tell their political leaders time is running out to tackle the climate crisis. Organisers said it was the biggest-ever environmental protest the UK had seen, with 300,000-350,000 taking part, including more than 100,000 people in London and tens of thousands more in towns and cities from Edinburgh to Bristol, Leeds to Brighton, Bedford to Cambridge. There were more than 200 demonstrations across the UK. Jake Woodier, who campaigns for the Student Climate Network, which co-organised the event, said it marked a turning point in the fight to tackle the climate crisis. “Millions of people across the globe, and hundreds of thousands across the UK, have sent a clear message about the need for urgent climate action,” he said from the protest in central London. “The people have spoken and said enough is enough ... We need an ambitious Green New Deal to tackle the climate crisis head on and deliver a world that works for everyone.” In London, young people – who have been protesting in growing numbers on Fridays this year – were joined by trade unionists, politicians, and two generations of antecedents. Mariana Clayton, 41, was with her two-year-old daughter, Albe, in Parliament Square. She said: “I am so fearful for the future. I feel totally powerless – but here, together we have a chance to get our voice heard and force action.” Emma Beresford, 14, was with her younger brother, Archie, and their mother, Anna. She said: “I went on the march for a people’s vote for Brexit but climate change is an even more urgent and pressing issue than anything else.” Jeremy Corbyn and Green MP Caroline Lucas addressed the crowd in London, with the Labour leader promising a “green industrial revolution” – a version of the Green New Deal – to tackle the climate crisis and create hundreds of thousands of well paid unionised jobs. However, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, struck a different note earlier in the day when he said the cause – which he said he supported – did not warrant missing school. That advice was ignored by hundreds of thousands of people across the UK. In Edinburgh, a huge crowd marched from the Meadows, down the Royal Mile to the Scottish parliament. They were clapped and cheered by onlookers, saluted by a bagpiper and entertained by a percussion drummer and jazz bands. Chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go!” filled the streets of the Scottish capital along with tens of thousands of people, bearing banners that were both funny and dark: “33.2C in Scotland. Time to panic!”, “Sea levels are rising. So are we!”, “You’ll die of old age. I’ll die of climate change.” Ruby, 10, and Dougie, seven, have been ahead of the shift in public opinion. They were inspired by Greta Thunberg to start striking outside the Scottish parliament on a cold day in January. “There was only me and my brother there and the police. The next week there was one more, and eventually loads of people, and now there is this,” Ruby said, gesturing to the vast procession that stretched back as far as the eye could see. “I’m happy and proud.” Her younger brother said the demonstration was “absolutely amazing”. The seven-year-old was among those due to give a speech outside the Scottish legislature. His message to politicians was straightforward: “They are trying their hardest but they need to try lots harder.” In Manchester the square outside the city’s grand central library was taken over by a sea of people carrying homemade placards and demanding change. The city’s mayor, Andy Burnham, received a warm applause at the protest when he gave a speech pledging that “fracking is the past, it is not the future” – but by far the biggest cheers went to a 10-year-old girl called Lillia who took to the stage next. The local schoolgirl gave a rousing speech that took aim at politicians for their “lies”, before turning directly to Burnham. She said: “Lies, when you don’t count the airport in the emission figures! Lies, when we have 1,200 air pollution-related deaths in Manchester just last year – but they plan to build a huge car park right next door to a school in Ancoats.” Elsewhere, in Birmingham demonstrators staged a die-in outside the BBC offices in the city to protest at what they said was inadequate coverage of the climate crisis. Similar actions were staged at an Oxford University open day for prospective students and by 3,000 Cambridge residents in King’s Parade in the city. One of those taking part in the Oxford protest, Ell Ludlow, said: “We are doing this because we feel like a world leading university should lead on climate. Oxford is not doing that at the moment and so we want them to act now.” In Iona, a few dozen members of the island community supported local children from the primary school in a climate strike “in the centre of the island, near the jetty”. Sarah Macdonald, an island resident and member of the Oran Creative Crafts cooperative, said: “In our small island community, we see shorelines eroding and changing; the gales that hit our exposed wee island are growing more frequent. “Most importantly, we see that the island’s children care deeply about this issue. We have to support them, speak out with them for their future. And we have to do it now.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/activism', 'world/world', 'uk/edinburgh', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'uk/manchester', 'uk/greater-manchester', 'politics/andyburnham', 'politics/politics', 'society/youngpeople', 'world/protest', 'society/society', 'uk/wales', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/school-climate-strikes | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-09-20T16:50:36Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2008/feb/23/plasticbags.waste | Getting a handle on the plastic problem | There is an old Chinese expression: if you want to correct something that others do, you should first correct it yourself. It's an expression the Chinese government can claim it is following in its efforts to tackle one of the country's most significant litter problems: the plastic bag. The issue of flimsy plastic bags may seem trivial on the list of environmental challenges facing one of the world's emerging superpowers, but its ramifications are more than aesthetic. Discarded plastic bags disrupt waterways, clog sewers, and choke soil. So, as one of its new year's resolutions, China has pledged to put a stop to its 3bn-a-day habit, and ban the use of free and flimsy plastic bags by introducing levies. As of June this year, plastic bags must be paid for, and they will be banned from all public transport, airports and scenic places. Plastic is fantastic. It's versatile, durable, waterproof, convenient and very, very cheap. But with all benefits of plastic bags come a long list of nagging problems, and the most problematic of all is their sheer persistence. Depending on the thickness, plastic bags take between 20 and 1,000 years to break down in the environment. They release toxic gases when they burn; they create stagnant pools which can become a breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes; and they suffocate or disrupt the indigestion of animals that accidentally consume them. So, how easy is it to regulate a blanket ban on something so integral - yet so destructive - to modern living? And does it work? In Europe, good waste management has meant that the menace of the plastic bag has not been unleashed as it has in the developing world. China's situation is perhaps better reflected by experiences on the continent of Africa. In South Africa, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a ban is already working. Before action was taken to curb the problem, consumers in South Africa got through 8bn plastic bags a year. The problem was so bad that plastic bags became known as the "new national flower", competing with the protea - the true national flower - for the limelight. South Africa's answer was to ban the manufacture, trade and commercial distribution of plastic bags with a thickness of less than 30 microns (0.03mm). Anything below 30 microns can blow away in even a light wind, and cannot be easily recycled. Increasing the thickness of plastic bags has been found to have a positive impact on littering. A levy is in place, and the penalties for non-compliance are tough: fines and even imprisonment. Before regulation in South Africa, the cost of producing, delivering and distributing plastic bags was hidden in food prices, so even if customers did not want a bag, they would pay for it. Now they can make the choice - and UNEP reports that consumers have benefited from lower food prices as a result. But bans have not been so successful everywhere. In Bangladesh, serious and repeated flooding, which resulted in major loss of life, was reportedly linked to drain blockages caused by plastic bags. The floods prompted the government to impose a ban on the sale and use of polythene bags in the capital city, Dhaka, in 2002. But no results are available on its success, suggesting there has been little evidence of a positive outcome on the streets. In Kenya, roughly 82% of plastic bags used each year end up on the streets or in the sewage system. No outright ban has been considered, and even levies have been opposed by those who say it will kill an industry that supports thousands of people. In Somaliland, regardless of a ban prohibiting the importation, production and use of plastic bags since March 2005, a UNEP report suggests that both importation and local production continue. Yet even when there are alternatives such as paper bags or boxes available, consumers continue to opt for the plastic bag. It seems that we are addicted. It remains to be seen whether China can kick the habit, or find a truly fantastic - and biodegradable – plastic bag. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'world/southafrica', 'world/world', 'tone/features', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'profile/georgina-smith'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-02-23T00:05:19Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2007/apr/20/travelnews.uk | This sceptred isle, set in a sea of rubbish | Sand Bay in north Somerset is one of England's most beautiful beaches, but this 3km (1.9 miles) stretch of coastline may soon have to be renamed. A five-metres-wide tide of litter and consumer rubbish is swept on to it every day from the Bristol Channel, and apart from the sand, pebbles and tree trunks, just about everything these days is plastic. Yesterday a 100-metre stroll down the beach near the village of Kewstoke revealed seven empty plastic bottles; three fullish ones; six cotton buds; several yards of plastic wrapping; four Coke cans; several jam and sauce containers; numerous bottle tops and sweet wrappers; two broken and one whole plant pot; many yards of plastic rope and strapping; and a square metre of fishing net. There was also a plastic balloon attached to a plastic line, a Sainbury's plastic bag urging its owner to recycle it, a car wheel, myriad unidentifiable pieces of plastic, a shotgun cartridge and a shuttlecock. Bizarrely, there was also a fine pair of newish Clark's leather shoes, size 10, complete with black socks, but no sight of an owner. They were neatly arranged but half full of sand. Clearly they had been left on the beach several days ago. Unlike most beaches, Sand Bay is cleaned of litter every three months by a team of local volunteers, but they can barely keep up with the rising tide of rubbish. A report out today from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) shows that plastic debris is inexorably rising all round Britain's coast. In the society's latest annual survey 4,223 people combed 187km (116 miles) of British beach and on just one day found more than 373,048 items of litter - or 1,988 items per kilometre. That is almost double the scale of the waste found on our shores in the mid-1990s. It compares with 197,000 items of litter found on 204km in 1994 - a mere 1,045 pieces per kilometre. "Litter levels have increased by 90% since 1994. We found an average of nearly two items of litter for every metre stretch of beach surveyed. It is accumulating," said Sue Kinsey of the MCS. Top of the new national beach litter list were large pieces of plastic, followed by plastic cotton bud sticks - which escape from sewage works - and small pieces of plastic. Plastic, says the society, now accounts for more than 50% of all the litter found. Polystyrene, cigarette stubs and extruded foam also figured strongly. But this annual snapshot of the throwaway society included the bizarre. The volunteers who surveyed on a single day in September last year found a plastic toilet seat, several mattresses, some false teeth, a colostomy bag, plastic flowers, scaffolding pipes, a TV, fridges, a computer and a road sign. This year the MCS is already receiving reports of tens of thousands of toothbrushes being washed ashore from Southampton to Scotland. "They must have escaped from a container," said Dr Kinsey. Although more and more people use British beaches only a third of the rubbish found on them could be blamed on visitors. Much of the rest comes from sewers, fishing boats and shipping. Last year items were identified from at least 12 countries. While many were probably dumped overboard from boats, others made their way across the Atlantic. "We often get lobster tags from Canada," she said. The society will not reveal the best and worst beaches but its records show the south-west has most litter left by tourists, the north of Scotland the least, and the north-west the most from sewers. The problem, said Dr Kinsey, was that Shakespeare's "sceptred isle ... set in a silver sea" is now set in a sea of rubbish. "The litter is accumulating. Some of it is washed on and off beaches many times. What we see on our coastline at any time is just a fraction of the vast amount that is out to sea just waiting to come in. "We think that people are actually getting better, and littering beaches less. The trouble is that this sea of rubbish never goes away." What also worries her is that the plastic never breaks down. "It just becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes microscopic and then it is ingested by oysters and fish, which then get eaten by others, and then by us. It is a real hazard to marine life." Dr Kinsey patrols many of Britain's beaches but says she very seldom sees anyone littering. "I think they do it when I'm not looking. It just seems to appear." Yesterday everyone on Sand Bay said litter was a problem, but everyone spoken to said they carefully packed it away and put it in bins. "There used to be more down here," said Kelly Larkham-Hall. "But it would help if there were more litter bins closer to the beach." In the meantime, if anyone is missing a pair of Clark's size 10 black shoes, they have been recycled and are now walking around the Guardian office. · Where are Britain's best beaches? Share your tips with other readers on Been there, our guide to the world as travelled by you. | ['environment/environment', 'travel/travel', 'travel/uk', 'uk/uk', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews4'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-04-20T14:14:14Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
news/2014/jul/06/weatherwatch-thermals-gliders | Weatherwatch: Floating high on a rising thermal | The sight of gliders circling underneath a fluffy white cloud is common near Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire where the London Gliding Club has its aerodrome. On busy days gliders are launched every few minutes. Staying aloft without an engine involves finding thermals, rising warm air to lift the glider. A wisp of fine weather cloud forming is the best clue. On one day last week six gliders were gently circling beneath one small white blob. A glider pilot must understand clouds and their formation, and, where there are no clouds at all, spot areas on the ground like towns where heat from the sun will cause hot air to rise. Having mastered the art of staying afloat pilots can go for endurance and distance badges – five hours afloat and 300 kilometres distance are required for a gold badge. To the laymen the trickiest bit seems to be the height requirement – 3,000 metres for a gold and 5,000 for a diamond. Gliders steer clear of actually entering a cloud because of the risk of collision, and it is banned within five miles of a launch area and at all, unless you are wearing a parachute. But the bigger the cloud the bigger the lift and in going for gold there is a temptation to enter a thunder cloud, cumulonimbus. Peter Scott, the naturalist, and later British Gliding Champion, recalled doing this in July 1957, rising so high he iced up and was hit by hail before escaping. He got his gold badge but admitted being "seriously worried" in the process. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-07-06T20:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2016/oct/06/florida-evacuations-hurricane-matthew-briefing | Florida braces for direct hit from Hurricane Matthew | The daily briefing | Floridians prepare for Hurricane Matthew Hurricane Matthew was pounding portions of the Bahamas early this morning and is expected to intensify as it approaches Florida, potentially glancing the coastline at Cape Canaveral. More than 2 million people along the coastline as far north as Georgia have been advised to flee. The hurricane had strengthened to Category 4 by 6am. It will either hit Florida later today, pass alongside the coast, or move out to sea. At least 16 deaths have been blamed on the hurricane during its week-long march across the Caribbean. Hurricane Matthew hits Bahamas as Florida braces for arrival of storm NSA contractor charged with theft of computer ‘source code’ A National Security Agency contractor has been arrested and charged with the theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials. Harold “Hal” Martin, 51, of Glen Burnie, was detained last month over stolen documents that if disclosed “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the US”, the justice department claimed. According to the New York Times, Martin is suspected of taking the “source code” developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Martin’s lawyers said “there is no evidence that Hal Martin intended to betray his country.” NSA contractor arrested for alleged theft of top secret classified information Clinton and Trump get back to sparring Tuesday’s televised vice-presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence was quickly forgotten on Wednesday as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton got back to the business of criticizing each other. In Nevada, Trump claimed Pence’s success proved he has good taste in people. “I’m getting a lot of credit, because that’s really my first so-called choice, that’s really my first hire, and I tell you, he’s a good one,” said Trump. Clinton, meanwhile, said: “Pence just bobbed and weaved and tried to get out of the way because after all, trying to defend Donald Trump is an impossible task.” The presidential hopefuls will meet in their second debate on Sunday. Meanwhile two prominent Fox News hosts, Megyn Kelly and Sean Hannity, have locked horns over Donald Trump. Trump and Clinton return to center stage after lackluster VP debate Atlantic City may be forced into state takeover of water Atlantic City may be forced by New Jersey into an unprecedented state takeover of its water as the result of a bailout, something experts have warned has worrying echoes of the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and could result in price hikes. The near-bankruptcy of the financially ailing resort town was caused in part by the failures of casinos such as those previously owned by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Two casinos under Trump’s control stand accused of being more than $146,000 behind on their water bills. Flint warnings as Atlantic City may be forced into state takeover of water The leaning tower of San Francisco San Francisco’s Millennium Tower, the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the western US, has sunk 16 inches since its completion in 2008, and has tilted at least two inches toward the northwest. The severity of the decline has set off a round of lawsuits, government inquiries, and recriminations that could last for years. “The only thing that comes close is the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” says Steven Blum, one of the attorneys representing Millennium residents in a class action lawsuit. “But that’s a joke. There is nothing like this.” The curious case of San Francisco’s leaning tower: ‘There is nothing like this’ NRA faces defeat in Maine background check referendum As Hillary Clinton makes history while openly campaigning for gun law reform, the NRA faces possible defeat in a Maine referendum. In the latest installment of our Anywhere but Washington series, Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone travel to Maine, where a push for universal background checks is being bankrolled by former New York mayor and anti-gun advocate Michael Bloomberg. The creepy origins of the clown-sighting phenomenon The first person to spot a clown, the patient zero in the current epidemic of threatening clowns sightings spreading across the US, was a little boy at a low-income apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina. His mother, Donna Arnold, showed the Guardian’s Matthew Teague the overgrown woods where the clowns first appeared. “I saw them,” she says. “They’re trying to scare us.” From this patch of woods, the word of prowling clowns began to spread. On the other side of Greenville, first. Then down in South Carolina’s low country. Then North Carolina. Florida. Kentucky. Beyond the south to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New York ... Clown sightings: the day it all began NBA star Derrick Rose due in court on rape charges The 28-year-old New York Knicks point guard and two friends, Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen, are due to appear in US district court in downtown Los Angeles today to face civil rape charges. The men are accused of raping a 30-year-old woman while she was intoxicated in her LA apartment in the early hours of 27 August 2013. They admit taking turns having sex with her but say it was consensual. In a highly controversial order, presiding judge Michel Fitzgerald ruled the identity of the victim should be revealed once the trial began. NBA star Derrick Rose expected for rape trial as his accuser loses anonymity In case you missed it … Artemisia Gentileschi turned the horrors of her own life – repression, injustice, rape – into brutal biblical paintings that were also a war cry for oppressed women. Jonathan Jones celebrates the extraordinary story and genius of 16th century painter whose depictions were bloodier even than Caravaggio, who described her wedding ring as a thumb screw, and fought back against the male violence that dominated her world. More savage than Caravaggio: the woman who took revenge in oil | ['us-news/series/guardian-us-briefing', 'world/hurricane-matthew', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/edwardhelmore', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricane-matthew | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-10-06T12:01:40Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2016/nov/07/macbook-pro-usb-c-ports-spanish-apple-engineer | Why does the MacBook Pro only have USB-C ports? Spanish 'Apple engineer' explains | What is the real reason for Apple ditching everything but the USB-C ports on the new MacBook Pros? According to a Spanish “Apple engineer”: more dongles means more profit. Yes, El Risitas – the parody meme that first came to wide attention when lampooning the new MacBook last year – is back and this time it is explaining the reasoning behind the long-awaited MacBook Pro’s lack of ports. Apparently the chief executive, Tim Cook, was disappointed with the Apple laptop division, which was producing far less income than the iPhone division. Faster processors, more memory, better graphics and a thinner body can only do so much. What they really needed was another money spinner. One bright spark on the laptop engineering team, so says El Risitas, came up with the goods: “Remove the ports and sell them as dongles. “They’ll have to carry around a bag full of dongles. They’re all at least $25, some are $80!” Genius. Apple engineer spoof video: is Spanish Laughing Guy the new Downfall? | ['technology/apple', 'technology/computing', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/series/spam-filter-blog', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/hal-90210', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-technology'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-11-07T15:26:54Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2021/sep/21/energy-crisis-eu-ministers-debate-reliance-gas-russia | Energy crisis forces EU ministers to face up to reliance on natural gas | The UK is far from alone in its energy crisis. Across Europe, governments are acting to shield consumers from soaring bills, with nerves growing about the coming winter. EU energy ministers will meet this week at an Alpine castle in Slovenia, where they will discuss global gas shortages and the union’s energy policy. Since the start of the year, wholesale gas prices in Europe have risen by 250%, the result of a complex cocktail of economic, natural and political forces. Globally, demand for energy has shot up, as China and other major economies bounce back from the pandemic. In Europe, a cold winter and frigid spring depleted gas reserves, while a long spell of still days reduced wind power supply to the grid. Meanwhile, CO2 prices hit a record €62 this month and Russia, a big exporter, has declined to increase gas supplies. Now, across the continent, energy prices are only going in one direction: up. The first mover in Europe was Spain, whose government last week announced emergency measures to cap energy prices and profits. Responding to a tripling of electricity prices since last December, the socialist anti-austerity Unidas Podemos government said it had a moral duty to act and promised to bring down energy bills to 2018 levels, the year the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, came to power. The government expects consumers to benefit from €2.6bn (£2.2bn) that would have gone to energy companies. In France, the government has pledged one-off payments of €100 (£86) to 5.8m households struggling to pay their energy bills. Italy is expected to announce a €4.5bn support programme for consumers in the coming days. In Germany, wholesale power prices have risen by 50%, although some analysts say consumers have been insulated from bill shock, as suppliers have many long-term fixed price contracts. That could change over the autumn, however, just as negotiations on a new coalition government are taking place, with Germany’s energy future on the table. Ahead of this week’s EU energy meeting, Spain has called for a “policy menu” to help the bloc to react immediately to price surges. In a letter to the European Commission, the economy minister Nadia Calviño and her colleague in charge of ecological transition, Teresa Ribera, said “member states should not need to improvise ad hoc measures every time markets malfunction”. Spain wants measures to limit financial speculation on the EU carbon market and common action to buy gas reserves. The EU executive is also facing calls to investigate Russia’s state gas monopoly, Gazprom, after MEPs said they suspected the company of market manipulation. Russia provides 41% of EU gas, but for months Gazprom has refused to increase supply to the spot market, where trade is for short-term needs rather than long-term contracts. The move is interpreted as the Kremlin’s attempt to twist arms for speedy approval of Nord Stream 2, the controversial pipeline under the Baltic Sea that will double Russian gas exports to Germany. Completed earlier this month, the pipeline cannot start delivering gas until it clears regulatory hurdles in Germany. In a letter to the European Commission this month, 40 MEPs said they were suspicious of the company’s “effort to pressure” Europe to quick approval of the pipeline. Aside from geopolitical intrigue, the energy price increase is intensifying the conflict over the EU’s response to the climate emergency. Lawmakers have already blamed the spike in prices on high CO2 price, a product of EU regulation. Under the EU’s pioneering Emissions Trading System, electricity producers and energy intensive industries are required to buy pollution permits. Poland, which is already battling the EU over coal mining, has complained about the costs of buying ETS allowances, after CO2 prices hit a record level. Earlier this month the EU’s CO2 price hit €62; it was €30 at the start of the year. According to the EU’s top official in charge of the green deal, Frans Timmermans, only one-fifth of the current energy price rises can be attributed to CO2 prices. His analysis is backed up by the Ember, a thinktank aimed at promoting the transition away from coal: the group has found that fossil gas prices account for most EU electricity prices from combined cycle gas turbines. Timmermans told the European parliament last week that current energy prices showed the necessity of speeding up the shift to renewable energy. “The irony is if we had had the green deal five years earlier we would not be in this position because then we would have less dependency on fossil fuel natural gas.” | ['business/energy-industry', 'business/gas', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'business/commodities', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/jennifer-rankin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2021-09-21T14:02:19Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2021/feb/16/the-guardian-view-on-germanys-greens-opportunity-knocks | The Guardian view on Germany's Greens: opportunity knocks | Editorial | Pre-pandemic, Europe’s green parties were on a roll. In France last summer, supporters hailed a “green wave” after regional polls handed the Europe Ecology party control of showcase cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux. Austria’s Greens are the surprise junior partners in a conservative-led coalition government, delivering pioneering measures to curtail short-haul air travel. In the 27 EU member states, five governments now have Green members sitting at the cabinet table. If ambitious net zero targets are to amount to more than earnest virtue signalling, this infiltration of the political mainstream is both overdue and necessary. And now comes the biggest test – and the greatest opportunity – of all. Consistently running a comfortable second in the polls to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and already governing in coalition in 11 states, Germany’s Greens are well-placed to form part of the country’s first “black-green” coalition after September’s federal elections. The CDU’s recent endorsement of the centrist Armin Laschet as its new leader suggests it sees such an alliance as a likely route to staying in power, as Ms Merkel steps down after 16 years in office. The Greens will decide this spring which of its two co-leaders should be its candidate for the top job: the media-savvy and charismatic Annalena Baerbock, or the equally ambitious moderniser Robert Habeck, talked up in some quarters as Germany’s Emmanuel Macron. It is unlikely that either will end up succeeding Ms Merkel. Bolstered by the chancellor’s generally sure-footed handling of the pandemic, the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, have a stable and significant lead in the polls. But a sizeable ministerial presence for the Greens in Berlin would send a powerful signal throughout Europe, as vital decisions are taken about post-pandemic investment. Ms Baerbock and Mr Habeck want to introduce a carbon tax, phase out coal production in Germany far faster, invest more in green technologies, quintuple the use of wind energy and discontinue the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. In a 2016 book entitled Who Dares, Begins, Mr Habeck argues that a modernised green politics can seize the initiative in a political landscape that no longer conforms to a conventional left-right model. Both he and Ms Baerbock have been working overtime to distance the party from past associations with pacifism, and a sometimes censorious approach that earned it the nickname of Verbotspartei (prohibition party). An overtly capitalist, pro-Nato stance will not be to the taste of some of its hardcore supporters, but with poll ratings stable at around 20%, the realo (pragmatic) wing of the party is in charge. Given the electoral stagnation of the once-formidable Social Democrats, if they continue to play their cards skilfully, die Grünen have a good chance of becoming the number one progressive party in Germany. A note of caution should be sounded, however, as the party attempts, in the words of Mr Habeck, to “become the new playmakers” in Europe’s most powerful country. Green supporters in Germany remain largely middle class, city-based and youthful – much the same demographic that voted for the Europe Ecology party in French cities last year. If voters outside the prosperous cities continue to worry about the impact of a green transformation on their living standards and jobs, the journey to net zero will be both slower and painfully divisive. Addressing that mistrust, particularly in the east, will be a priority for the next German government, whatever its colour. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/germany', 'environment/green-politics', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'world/angela-merkel', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-02-16T18:52:36Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2020/nov/17/oil-gas-trump-election-climate-coup-republicans-fossil-fuel | Big oil and gas have a lot invested in Trump’s attack on the election system | Jonathan Watts | Calmer heads may yet talk Donald Trump down from caps-locked denial to lower-case concession, but the longer the defeated president flirts with a coup, the more the oil and gas industry must take a share of the blame. Fossil-fuel firms are among the biggest donors to the defeated US president and the Republican party leaders who have endorsed his legal challenge to overturn the election result. They also have the most to lose if Joe Biden carries out his campaign promise to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and enact a $2tn Green New Deal that would make wind, solar and other clean technologies far cheaper than petroleum. Trump’s refusal to concede can be dismissed as the tantrum of a sore loser. But his support from prominent Republicans resembles a more serious attempt to hold back history: in particular, the two intertwined trends – climate and race – that drove Biden to victory. The world is in the midst of an epochal shift as great as the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, which led to wider enfranchisement and condemned many feudal monarchies to the dustbin of history. Today the ancien regime is big carbon, predominantly run by white, male elites, which has dominated global politics ever since – largely through their funding of political parties, particularly but by no means exclusively the US Republicans. For decades, they were able to do this within a democratic system by offering improved standards of living to supporters while marginalising opponents. This was never purely a matter of universal, inalienable rights and values. Promises of freedom were selectively delivered, and mainly intended to maintain the pioneer’s illusion of an endlessly exploitable landscape. Democracy was fine as long as it served that purpose. In recent years, that constrained form of democracy has been hard to maintain. Millions of livelihoods have been threatened or ruined by the climate crisis. Demographic shifts have changed the electoral map. Minorities have become a powerful force. Not coincidentally they tend to be among the worst affected by air pollution and extreme weather. Climate campaigns are increasingly intertwined with social justice movements. The tighter they bind, the more powerful they become. This is the alliance that pushed Biden to victory. In the future it is likely to strengthen as demographic trends advance and fossil fuel dependency retreats. This may be why some Republicans are so spooked that they are toying with rejecting democracy outright. Lindsey Graham, the Senate Judiciary Committee chair who was re-elected as senator for South Carolina, has made little secret of why he believes Trump’s challenge is an existential political issue for his party. “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,” he told Fox News. In a subsequent interview, he clarified this. “If we don’t do something about voting by mail, we are going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country.” Of course, it is not the postal votes he fears, but who is making them and why. The massive Covid-driven increase in mail-in votes is likely to have helped to enfranchise many black and indigenous people who were previously excluded by voter-suppression tactics. This, and the dynamism of black women activists such as Stacey Abrams, appears to have been decisive in the democratic victory in Georgia and could yet end the Republicans long control of the Senate, depending on the result of a run-off vote in January. Trump’s presidency was made possible by the rise of a far-right wing in the Republican party characterised by white supremacist messaging and fossil-fuel funding. Oil and gas companies, led by Energy Transfer Equity, Koch Industries and Chevron, give about 80% of their political donations to Republican and conservative candidates. The biggest beneficiary by far is Donald Trump, who directly received more than $2m from this sector in the past year, not including money funnelled through secretive political action committees. High on the list are other supporters of his attempt to overturn the ballot box in the courtroom, such as Mitch McConnell, with $490,000, and Graham, with $143,000. The picture is by no means clear-cut. Some Republicans see the writing on the wall and want to modernise their party by embracing the energy transition and appealing more to black and Latino voters. Many Democrats are cautious about abandoning coal and oil, which powered the US economy to global dominance in the 20th century. Biden’s campaign received $1m from oil and gas firms: less than half the donation to Trump, but still a clear indication that the industry thinks it can work with him as it worked with Obama. Climate is a more urgent issue today, however, particularly among young Democrats. During the campaign, Joe Biden said his long-term goal was to “transition from the oil industry”. Whether he gets the chance to do that will depend on who controls the Senate and how disruptive the supreme court proves. First, though, is the little matter of the sulking president. Trump’s reluctance to accept that he will leave the White House in January is surely the cry of a fragile ego in fear of what might follow – ignominy, debt and perhaps prosecution. But it is not just a matter of mood. As someone who evidently sees the world in purely transactional terms, Trump may believe the stakes are higher than the value of the system itself. Among his oil-funded allies, he is not alone in this. To assume US democracy will prevail regardless would be an act of hubris and reckless complacency. It needs to be defended, and to do that it is necessary to consider how the climate crisis is distorting, amplifying and reinventing politics. • Jonathan Watts is the Guardian’s global environment editor | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/energy-industry', 'us-news/republicans', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2020-11-17T12:46:28Z | true | EMISSIONS |
australia-news/2020/dec/08/floodplain-harvesting-likely-under-nsw-water-management-act-crown-solicitor-warns | Floodplain harvesting likely illegal under NSW water management act, crown solicitor warns | The practice of capturing flood waters moving across plains using levees and dams is almost certainly illegal in New South Wales, the state government has been told. A large number of documents about floodplain harvesting have been released to the NSW upper house under a call for papers, including legal advice from the crown solicitor. These warn that floodplain harvesting, a common practice by irrigators throughout the state but particularly the north, is most likely illegal under the Water Management Act 2000, unless farmers have a development consent and a water access licence. Most do not. The crown solicitor’s advice was delivered last month and is a new twist in the saga of floodplain harvesting in NSW. The government is in the throes of trying to create a compensable water right for floodplain harvesting but an admission that the practice is illegal – and has been for years – could shift the dynamics of negotiations in the final months. It will add to pressure from the irrigation industry for the government to provide an interim solution to allow floodplain harvesting if there is another major rain event before July. By that time, the NSW government hopes to have a more permanent licensing arrangement. But the admission that floodplain harvesting has no legal basis will strengthen the case being put by Indigenous groups and environmentalists that floodplain harvesting needs to be curbed and that irrigators should not simply have their historical take licensed. They want any licensing regime to be based on a scientific appraisal of what the basin can sustain. This has made floodplain harvesting the new flashpoint in the debate about water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. Several studies have shown that inflows into the Darling River and its tributaries have been sharply reduced over the past decade. A study by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, found that 20% of the water expected to flow down the rivers from 2012-2019 was simply not there. It studied gauges at weirs throughout the basin over several years and concluded that expected flows based on rainfall just didn’t eventuate. There have been other studies as well by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and by Mick Keelty, the inspector general of the Murray-Darling system. “The past two decades or so have seen a marked change in the volume of water available in the system. Analysis shows that the median annual inflow over the past 20 years is approximately half that of the preceding century. More significantly, the frequency of drier years is also much greater,” Keelty found. One possible cause could be climate change. But the other culprit in NSW is likely a proliferation of on-farm storages that divert and capture flows before they reach the river system. Some of these structures, which include levees, raised roads and dams have been in place for a century. Under the 1912 Act, the practice was likely legal. But after 2000, when the Water Management Act came into force, the status of floodplain harvesting has become much more ambiguous, the advices say. Queensland has taken some steps to licensing floodplain harvesting. NSW is now in the middle of a consultation program over how to go about licensing farmers and arrive at allocations. The minister for water, Melinda Pavey, said the system proposed by NSW would provide “a transparent system of measurement we can all trust and will allow for fair and sustainable access to floodplain and water resources”. But the negotiations have brought to the surface the old tensions over water rights in NSW. “Conferring permanent property rights to irrigators is a windfall transfer of public wealth that should be considered only once public good outcomes can be guaranteed, including for Aboriginal Nations who are disproportionately disadvantaged under the current policy settings,” the Wentworth Group and the Environmental Defenders office argue. “The complexity of management of FPH events, combined with limited public information about the location and legal status of floodplain structures, lack of historically metered diversions, lack of independent expert review of the actual model … and different FPH take estimates in various reports, means there is much uncertainty and significant risks to water management outcomes,” they said. The government had tried to put in a temporary exemption for irrigators but it was disallowed by the upper house in September amid suspicions by the minor parties and Labor that the regulation was a backdoor way to give irrigators a more permanent right. Claire Miller, CEO of the NSW Irrigators Council, said the uncertainty is worrying her members. She said the Natural Resources Access Regulator had supported the temporary fix because it provided certainty to irrigators. “But in the face of continuing legal ambiguity, NRAR has said that if users can demonstrate they are on a pathway to licensing their floodplain harvesting, they will take that into account, and we support that,” she said. The documents show that NRAR held an extraordinary board meeting in October to try to resolve the problem. “NRAR is advising landholders to seek their own independent advice,” one advice to the minister says. Independent Justin Field, who asked for the papers to be produced, said they showed the government sought to put in place the exemption regulation, at least in part, to legalise some floodplain harvesting activities that would otherwise be seen by the regulator as illegal. “The minister has been caught out trying to gloss over these potential illegalities by not being completely transparent with the parliamentary inquiry or in the government’s response to the disallowance motion in the parliament.” “There are billions of dollars worth of water licences about to be handed out to irrigators, potentially on the basis of some water take that is likely illegal. This process is a mess.” | ['australia-news/murray-darling-basin', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/farming', 'australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/rivers', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/anne-davies', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-07T16:30:44Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/jun/30/peatlands-in-england-at-risk-amid-apparent-flouting-of-regulations | Burning ban failing to protect England’s peatlands, say conservation groups | The government is failing to protect peatlands in England, conservation groups have warned, with the country at risk of losing more of its most efficient carbon sinks. Figures obtained by Wildlife and Countryside Link suggest illegal burns of the areas, which are important for biodiversity and carbon sequestration, are likely to have taken place. Farmers and those who manage grouse moors burn the vegetation on peat in order to provide new shoots of heather or moor grass for sheep or grouse to eat. However, doing so releases carbon and animals that live there are roasted alive. Government figures for 2021, obtained through freedom of information requests, found that, in England, one large site of 50 hectares (123 acres) was licensed for burning, and there were no licences granted for sites under 10 hectares. Regulations brought in that year made it illegal to burn deep peat on a protected site without a licence. However, data from Wild Moors and Unearthed released earlier this year suggests that 51 burns took place on land protected by multiple conservation designations in the 2021-22 season. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) research estimated that 70 burns took place on protected sites. This is despite the fact that the government did not grant licences for at least the majority of these burns, which conservation groups say suggests the regulations were being breached on a significant scale. Dr Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “Peatlands ought to help the climate, water and wildlife. Instead, many of our peatlands have become heather monocultures that are releasing carbon, reducing water quality, and contributing to flooding. “Last year, the government insisted that its new regulations to limit burning heather on peatland would be effective, despite a series of loopholes in the legislation. This year, early evidence indicates that the burns continue at a significant scale, both on protected sites and outside them. It will be impossible to meet net zero while the land use sector remains a net emitter. Only by restoring peatland to retain and remove carbon from the atmosphere can we hope to curb our contribution to climate change. “The government should strengthen its partial burning ban to ensure that these globally important habitats are restored.” This week, the Climate Change Committee warned that peat restoration rates were well below the levels needed to achieve net zero by 2050, peatland under restoration management actually declined last year, and that damaged peat is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from land use. Patrick Thompson, a senior policy officer at RSPB, said: “It’s clear that the new peatland burning regulations in England are not working and that burning is still taking place at a massive scale on peatland vegetation and inside protected sites. We are in a nature and climate emergency. Intensive and damaging land management practices such as burning continue to harm and further threaten these vital carbon and nature-rich ecosystems. This is why the RSPB is calling for a blanket ban of burning on all peat.” | ['environment/conservation', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk-news/england', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2022-06-30T13:10:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2019/aug/29/pollutionwatch-why-efforts-to-tackle-air-pollution-can-backfire | Pollutionwatch: why efforts to tackle air pollution can backfire | In his final speech as UK environment secretary, Michael Gove promised to incorporate World Health Organization guidelines for air pollution into the environment bill. This would tighten laws for particle pollution that are currently far weaker than the WHO recommends. But working to meet limits can focus efforts (pdf) where the law is being breached and favour the construction of new pollution sources, such as factories and developments with large car parks, in places that already meet the law. Studies, including one on more than 61 million people in the US, show health effects wherever there is polluted air. It would be better to tackle the problem wherever people live. Across Europe, each country has targets to reduce the average particle pollution across its territory, but this does not mean improvement for everyone. For example, cleaning up London’s buses roughly halved nitrogen dioxide alongside many busy roads, including Oxford Street, but in some places, it got worse. In the first decade of this century, the gap between air pollution in the richest and poorest parts of the UK widened. Canada has a different approach (pdf) requiring continuous improvements, even in places that meet limits. Setting targets to reduce air pollution year on year, and tracking progress, would provide a clear link between controls and their health improvements. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-08-29T20:30:04Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
technology/askjack/2009/feb/19/windows-avi-codecs | Movies don't play on a different Windows PC | I took some video clips on my old Samsung Digimax L60 camera. These show as AVI files. They play back fine using Windows Media Player on XP, but will not play in Windows Media Player on my friend's newer Dell Inspiron running Vista. Bill Ashton AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a container file format, and it can be used with a very wide range of video-coding/decoding software, or codecs for short. A video player will not play an .avi file if you don't have the right codec installed. Windows Media Player will usually download codecs automatically when you need them, but unfortunately this does not include independent codecs such as DivX and Xvid. You can find out which codec a movie needs, and whether you have it installed, by using a small utility, the GSpot Codec Information Appliance. My quicker solution is to install the K-Lite Codec Pack 4.6.2. This includes most of the codecs and filters you are likely to need, useful tools such as GSpot, and Media Player Classic. This looks like an old copy of Windows Media Player but it has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's far less bloated than current versions of WMP and similar players. The minor drawback is that it's Windows only, but it works well in Vista. The cross-platform equivalent is VLC, which is also worth a look. Codecs.com is a reliable source of codecs, which is important now that on-the-fly fake codec downloads are being used to distribute malware. | ['technology/askjack', 'technology/windows', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/jackschofield'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-02-19T01:16:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2003/dec/04/australia.science | Great Barrier Reef protection to increase sevenfold | One-third of the Great Barrier Reef - an area almost the size of Japan - is to be turned into a protected area under conservation plans announced yesterday by the Australian government. The proposals will add nearly 100,000 sq km (40,000 sq miles), seven times the area currently protected, to the safeguarded region of the reef in which fishing is banned and only tourism is permitted. They are expected to come into force by the middle of next year. The plans were prompted by increasing concern about damage caused to the reef. "This will provide the largest network of protected marine areas in the world, and is the largest marine protection plan in the history of the Great Barrier Reef," said the environment minister, David Kemp. Strong opposition to the plans was expected when draft proposals were issued in June, in particular from Queensland's fishing industry, which claims the reforms could cost 250 jobs. But fishing on the reef generates only £46m for the local economy, while the tourist industry is worth £1.7bn, with 1.3m commercial dives made each year. A compensation package for the fishing industry was announced last month. Environmentalists welcomed the move, but said more needed to be done to protect the world heritage-listed ecosystem. A declaration signed bylead ing marine biologists last year said fishing should be banned in up to 50% of coral reef zones to preserve biodiversity. Don Henry, the executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the proposals would solve only some of the reef's problems. "This is obviously a great improvement but leaves unanswered key environmental issues facing the reef, such as land-based pollution, the effects of climate change and the threat of oil exploration offshore," he said. Experts said less dramatic proposals to end land clearing in Queensland by the timber industry would be just as important to the protection of the reef, since agricultural runoff is considered a major threat to marine ecosystems. Global warming is also thought to be a serious long-term risk. Coral bleaching, a fatal condition which can be triggered by ocean temperature rises of as little as 1C, has become increasingly common on the reef in recent years. The Greens senator Bob Brown said the plans would still not provide enough protection for endangered marine animals such as dugongs, an aquatic mammal living solely on seagrass, and turtles in crucial areas including Bowling Green bay, Princess Charlotte bay and Repulse bay. "Some key areas have been left out," he said. "That means protection for the magnificent and endangered dugong and the Irrawaddy porpoise is going to be reduced, because commercial netting is now allowed where is wasn't." The Great Barrier Reef marine park has 2,900 reefs which are home to 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 molluscs, 350 corals and 350 species of starfish, sea cucumbers and sea urchins. | ['environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'education/science', 'education/higher-education', 'environment/conservation', 'education/education', 'travel/greatbarrierreef', 'world/world', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'type/article', 'profile/davidfickling'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2003-12-04T17:44:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk/2011/mar/23/navy-submarines-nuclear-reactors | Navy to axe 'Fukushima type' nuclear reactors from submarines | The Royal Navy is to drop a dangerous type of reactor used in its existing nuclear submarines because it fails to meet modern safety standards, defence ministers have disclosed. A safer type of reactor is expected to be used in the submarines that will replace the Trident fleet, as the existing design shares very similar features to the nuclear reactors involved in the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, told MPs there was a "very clear-cut" case to use the new type of reactor because it has "improved nuclear safety" and would give "a better safety outlook". A heavily censored Ministry of Defence report disclosed earlier this month by the Guardian and Channel 4 News said the current reactors are "potentially vulnerable" to fatal accidents, which could cause "multiple fatalities" among submarine crews. The report, written by a senior MoD nuclear safety expert, Commodore Andrew McFarlane, said the existing type compared "poorly" with those in the most modern nuclear power stations because it relied on a vulnerable type of cooling system, falling "significantly short" of modern best practice for nuclear reactors. McFarlane warned that the naval reactors are "potentially vulnerable to a structural failure of the primary circuit". An accident could release "highly radioactive fission products", posing "a significant risk to life to those in close proximity and a public safety hazard out to 1.5km [1 mile] from the submarine". Known as the PWR2, this type is used in the four Trident submarines based at Faslane, near Glasgow, and six Trafalgar-class ones now being taken out of service. Like the Fukushima power station north of Tokyo, the PWR2 relies entirely on back-up power supplies to provide emergency cooling in the event of an accident. Despite the anxieties about its safety, PWR2s are also being fitted in the seven Astute-class submarines being built. These vessels will also be based at Faslane. There have been debates within the MoD and the navy about whether the PWR2 should be used if a replacement to Trident is finally approved – or if a safer type, PWR3, should replace it. The PWR3 uses "passive" cooling, which makes it far less reliant on back-up power, and has additional methods of injecting coolant into a reactor. The PWR3 is widely used in modern US nuclear submarines. The debate has delayed a decision on what type of reactor to install by 18 months, McFarlane's report disclosed, and has cost a further £261m. Fox was questioned in the Commons on the reactor's safety by Angus Robertson, the Scottish National party's defence spokesman, after the disclosure of the report. Fox said: "The government's view is that that is the preferred option, because those reactors give us a better safety outlook. That is a debate on both sides of the Atlantic, but we believe that in terms of safety, the case is very clear-cut." Robertson said: "This still raises concerns about the currently operational and incoming nuclear submarines, which don't satisfy acceptable safety standards. The UK should give up its nuclear obsession." John Ainslie, from the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, who uncovered the original McFarlane report, said the new reactor would push up costs for the Trident replacement fleet by billions of pounds, since it would need designing and testing. "There is another option: they should completely abandon their plan to squander billions on new nuclear submarines," he said. | ['uk/royal-navy', 'politics/defence', 'world/nuclear-weapons', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'politics/liamfox', 'uk/uk', 'world/japan', 'world/world', 'politics/politics', 'tone/news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'profile/severincarrell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-03-23T11:24:21Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2021/jan/03/uk-carmakers-have-three-years-to-source-local-electric-car-batteries | UK carmakers have three years to source local electric car batteries | UK carmakers face a three-year scramble to source electric car batteries locally or from the EU to avoid tariffs on exports following the Brexit free trade deal, according to industry analysts. The Christmas Eve deal means that all UK-EU trade in cars and parts will continue to be free of tariffs or quotas after the the Brexit transition period ended on Friday, as long as they contain enough content from either UK or EU factories. The deal came as a major relief to the embattled car industry. Batteries will at first be allowed to contain up to 70% of materials from countries outside the EU or the UK. However, from 1 January 2024 that requirement will tighten to 50%. This will mean that sourcing battery materials from within the UK or EU will be the only realistic option for UK carmakers to avoid EU tariffs from 2024 onwards, according to Alessandro Marongiu, a trade analyst at the lobby group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). The rules mean it will be vital for UK carmakers to secure a battery supply from the the EU or the UK, said Mike Hawes, the SMMT’s chief executive. The deal makes it “imperative that the UK secures at pace investment in battery gigafactories and electrified supply chains”, he said. Ian Henry, whose AutoAnalysis consultancy works with a number of major carmakers, said one key issue in preserving the UK car industry was creating an entire supply chain, including manufacturing important and chemically complicated parts such as the cathodes crucial to lithium-ion batteries. “By the mid-2020s, the UK has got to be doing a lot more than just assembling bits from a kit,” said Henry. “Several core processes in battery manufacturing will have to take place here in order for the UK to have a viable electric vehicle industry.” The vast majority of batteries used in UK and EU electric cars are sourced from east Asian companies such as China’s CATL, Korea’s LG Chem or Japan’s Panasonic. However, European carmakers and governments are pouring billions of euros into new battery plants, with at least 10 credible efforts under way from companies including Sweden’s Northvolt and the French oil major Total, according to data company LMC Automotive. The UK is lagging behind, with no fully funded plans to begin battery production in Britain, despite the promise of government funding and industry support for British “gigafactories” capable of large-scale battery production. The government-backed Faraday Institution this year said a failure to build a UK battery supply chain could cost more than 100,000 jobs by 2040. The Brexit deal was welcomed by the startup Britishvolt, which is the only company with public plans to build a gigafactory in the UK. Britishvolt last month bought rights to a site in Blyth, Northumberland, where it plans to build a factory, subject to fundraising. The Brexit deal’s provisions fit perfectly with Britishvolt’s ambitious plans to start battery production at scale by the end of 2023. It hopes to start building the plant in the summer. A spokesman said the deal would allow it to serve both the UK’s domestic automotive industry and carmakers in Europe. | ['politics/eu-referendum', 'business/business', 'business/automotive-industry', 'environment/electric-cars', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'technology/motoring', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jasper-jolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2021-01-03T13:59:44Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2020/mar/16/2019-was-bad-year-for-floods-and-drought-in-england-say-charities | 2019 was bad year for floods and drought in England, say charities | Last year was one of the worst in recent times for both flooding and drought in England, a study has found. There were more than 5,600 flood warnings in England in 2019, more than in any of the last 15 years except 2012. Groundwater levels were lower than normal in 25 areas, more than in any year since comparable records began in 2006. In 2012 there were only eight areas where groundwater levels were lower than normal. In 2014, another wet year, no areas recorded lower than normal levels. Having both very wet and very dry weather is unusual but is likely to become more common as weather becomes more extreme as a result of climate change. People may begin to experience both water shortages and flooding, putting infrastructure under unprecedented strain. Wildlife will also suffer, a group of conservation charities have said. They estimate that only 1% of current spending on flooding and drought goes to nature-based solutions such as restoring water meadows and wetlands, which can act like a sponge to store water under flooding and as natural reservoirs at times of drought. The charities are particularly concerned that staff cuts and stretched resources at the Environment Agency and Natural England and in local government and other government agencies charged with environmental protection mean years like 2019 will stretch England’s resilience to breaking point. Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “If funds for our water watchdogs dry up, the human and ecological effects of flooding and drought will grow every year. We need to get flood funds flowing to Natural England and the Environment Agency to ensure that good water management is part of the fabric of our landscape. “The government should devote new cash to the agencies for natural flood mitigation, urban resilience, habitat enhancement and sustainable farming, plus vital functions like regulatory enforcement and spatial planning.” This year has had one of the wettest starts on record, with rainfall in February in many areas breaking records after Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis. Benwell said more heavy rainfall this spring would be likely to lead to further widespread flooding and damage to wildlife in waters and wetlands. This is due to exceptionally high river flows and groundwater levels, and soil saturation. But if this summer is hot and dry, as in the drought of 2018, rivers would quickly cease to flow again in parts of the country. Britain’s chalk streams, a natural habitat under increasing threat from extremes of weather, are likely to be among the worst-hit areas, said Ian Hepburn, of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. “Exceptionally serious drought and floods created a perfect storm for our waters and wildlife last year, with our globally rare chalk streams particularly badly hit,” he said. “Climate change means that without radical action many more years of flood and drought crises lie ahead. We need substantial, consistent and urgent investment from the government in our water watchdogs and natural flood and drought defences or our rivers and lakes, and the wildlife that relies on them, will continue to deteriorate.” In the budget, the chancellor of the exchequer pledged to double capital spending on floods, from £2.6bn to £5.2bn, which the government said would protect an additional 330,000 homes. However, the new spending will not take account of ongoing maintenance and upkeep costs, and only a small proportion of the money is likely to be spent on the kind of natural flood management projects that conservationists say are necessary to protect wildlife and nature as well as homes. A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We will continue to work closely with [Natural England and the Environment Agency] to ensure they have the right resources to continue to not only protect our natural environment but also improve it for future generations.” Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, said: “Now more than ever, urgent action is needed to tackle the climate emergency and the government has been very clear about its ambition to tackle climate change and restore our natural environment. Nature-based solutions such as restoration of peat bogs and our marine sea grass beds will play a huge part in this and Natural England will be at the forefront of delivery. We are currently in discussion with Defra about next year’s budget for our existing statutory duties and for new work such as this.” | ['environment/flooding', 'environment/drought', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-03-16T06:00:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2018/feb/23/tesla-battery-taking-straw-off-camels-back-for-sa-energy-demand | Tesla battery 'taking straw off camel's back' for South Australia energy demand | The big Tesla battery in South Australia is consistently working to serve the peak energy demand each day, taking the “straw off the camel’s back,” according to the Australia Institute’s latest national energy emissions audit. The report also finds emissions from the National Electricity Market [NEM] continued to drop in January, falling to their lowest levels since 2004, driven by the federal large-scale renewable energy target. Energy expert Hugh Saddler examined the consumption and output of electricity of the Hornsdale Power Reserve, analysing the patterns of charging and discharging of the Tesla battery. He found a consistent pattern of the battery charging overnight when wind generation was abundant and cheap, and discharging into the grid during the late afternoon when demand and spot market prices reached peak levels. Only 30% of the battery’s 100MW capacity was devoted to this sort of trading, with the rest spent stabilising the energy system by maintaining the frequency of the grid at the required 50 Hz and240 volts. Even with the relatively small capacity devoted to smoothing demand – supplying only about 1% of peak demand in the state – Saddler said it is still providing a useful service and demonstrates the valuable role energy storage can play in thesystem. “While the watts may seem small in the context of the whole system, the SA battery is providing critical power at the critical moment – in effect taking the straw off the camel’s back.” He said it is effectively time-shifting wind generation, and exploiting the difference in wholesale energy prices throughout the day. “The world’s biggest battery, in SA, is working in smooth synergy with windfarms,” Saddler said. “Peak wind production is easily the cheapest way to charge the battery, and it stands ready to fill demand gaps if they emerge. The battery has been charging up overnight, when prices are very low and hitting the grid at the right time to keep price spikes lower than they would be otherwise.” The Australia Institute report also found emissions from the NEM had dropped to 152.8 Mt of CO2-equivalent in January – the lowest level since 2004. That happened despite relatively flat demand, driven by more large scale renewable energy projects coming online and the “decrepitude of Australia’s ageing fleet of coal fired power stations”.However Saddler warned that since the renewable energy target was now almost met, the country urgently needs a post-2021 energy policy to lower the NEM’s reliance on coal. | ['technology/tesla', 'technology/technology', 'australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/emissionstrading', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'technology/elon-musk', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2018-02-22T19:09:18Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/mar/14/chancellor-urged-spend-public-money-renewable-energy-green-alliance | Chancellor urged to invest public money in renewable energy | Building more renewable energy capacity with public money would cost less than the current subsidy regime in the UK, a new analysis has found, despite government claims that subsidies are too expensive. Ministers have justified the slashing of some incentives to install solar panels, and ending support for onshore wind, on the basis that subsidising the construction of green energy was adding too much to energy bills. The government does not subsidise renewable generation directly but allows for incentives to some technologies through additions to consumer bills. But a pre-budget analysis by the Green Alliance thinktank has found that the current system – under which fossil fuel generation also receives extra support – is more costly than a simplified system that would favour renewables. The analysis comes as the government’s energy policy has been thrown into disarray by the potential collapse of its deal with the French state nuclear company EDF to build two new nuclear reactors at Hinckley Point. EDF’s finance director resigned over the issue, and the company is now seeking extra support from the French government to go ahead with the construction. This is despite the UK government’s agreement to pay EDF about twice the usual electricity price for its power. The Green Alliance urged the chancellor, amidst the resulting turmoil and uncertainty in the electricity market, to lift restrictions on new renewable generation, arguing this would be cheaper for the UK’s future energy supply. Under the government’s flagship electricity market reforms, companies compete for contracts to supply electricity. These can include fossil fuel generators such as coal-fired power stations and gas plants. As a result, fossil fuel generators can receive bill-payer support far above the current wholesale electricity price. By the Green Alliance’s estimates, renewables receive an extra payment of £40 per MWh above the wholesale price, with gas at £32 per MWh. Onshore wind power has come down rapidly in price in the last five years, as have solar panels, and are close to being on a par with fossil fuel generation. However, as well as ending the bill-payer subsidy to onshore wind, the government has drastically altered the planning regime to make it extremely difficult to build any new wind farms. According to the Green Alliance, this means the UK will miss out on the economic benefits of the much lower cost of onshore wind, driving up the cost of electricity overall. Restricting the support available to other renewable forms of energy would also have a dampening effect, the report suggested, and end up more costly for the bill payer. Dustin Benton, lead author of the study, said: “Subsidy-free renewables are within sight, but their cost is exaggerated by current policy. To meet carbon targets and protect consumers from higher costs, we should focus on how to make all renewables cheaper than other forms of power. The chancellor should use the budget to correct this imbalance and so reduce the cost of low-carbon subsidy.” He said subsidies for renewables could be largely eliminated by 2025 if the policy were changed. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'money/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'uk-news/budget-2016', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'business/edf', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2016-03-14T06:30:09Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/2015/nov/04/kitchen-gadgets-review-herb-pod-rhik-samadder | Kitchen gadgets review: Herb Pod – the pornification of parsley | What? The Herb Pod (£14.95, Ethical Superstore) is a preserving locker with a hinged door and tethered stopper. Herbs placed inside are hydrated by a concealed basal pool. Why? Some kitchen aids just wanna get fresh with you. Well? The shape of these gadgets makes this column very hard. I don’t want to trawl the gutter, but they may as well have called it “Lovage Stick” or “Rosemary’s Thyme” or the “Knock, Knock, Hold on I’m Cumin”. Who decided that a smooth cylinder with a stubby appendage near the base of the shaft is best to keep herbs fresh? Come on, guys. Thankfully, the ludicrous name they chose saves us from investigating the pornification of parsley. “Prepara Savor Pod 2.0” is what they came up with. Not even a robot would name its child that. It makes me think of many things – cryogenics, headphones, an astronaut eating an anniversary meal for one. Unsure whether I should be preserving dill or attempting to break the land speed record, I try it out. Savor Pod offers you “optimum herb savings”. That’s actually what the box says. As if “herb savings” are an existing thing we’ve all been concerned about, and so serious that any advancement in the field has to be phrased like a mortgage pamphlet. And it does take itself seriously. “Basil. Cilantro. Mint. And … asparagus,” the box boasts above little pictures of them, like an A-list cast propping up a generic blockbuster. “Triple their life!” it says, suggesting the movie is an improbable sci-fi or the redemptive story of how elderly Coriander went skydiving, became a graffiti artist and learned to love again. Anyway, the herb storer’s secret is a little pool of fresh water in the bottom. Topped up every three days, this keeps the green stuff crisp in the plastic cocoon. And it works – after three weeks, my herbs are fresher than if they had been left to rot. But you know what topping up water every three days reminds me of? Watering a living plant. Such as herbs, grown in a pot. BOOYAH, Prepara! Hoisted by your own petard! (I know that’s not the correct use of that phrase.) As pointless as its rounded head. Redeeming features? Keeps produce fresh for “3 X Longer Plus.” Truly obscene, seemingly true. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Fridge drawer – or inside Savor Pod 3.0, like a matryoshka doll of herbal prophylactics. 2/5 | ['lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-11-04T12:50:34Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2009/feb/17/climate-change-ipcc | Björn Lomborg: World leaders meeting in Copenhagan need cool heads to combat global warming | A political circus is rolling into Copenhagen ahead of the meeting in December when world leaders will attempt to set new targets for carbon emission reductions. An "emergency summit" next month will put climate change science in the background and political arguments at the forefront. The summit has attracted such luminaries as Lord Stern, the leader of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change; José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission; and Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The conference organiser, Katherine Richardson, says: "This is not a regular scientific conference. This is a deliberate attempt to influence policy." While the motives of those gathering in Denmark are honorable, their move is deeply unfortunate at a time when the climate change debate could benefit from more regular science and less politics. Ostensibly, the summit aims to update the findings of the United Nations-convened group of climate change scientists, the IPCC. The IPCC's regular reports are the gold standard in climate change science. Each report – the latest was in 2007 – is the result of years of writing, reviewing and consensus-building among hundreds of scientists. This process is robust and custom-made to weather criticism. Its consensus findings are incredibly difficult to ignore, and have done more than anything to spread the vital message that climate change is real and it is caused by human impact. Many of the campaigners traveling to Copenhagen next month have taken issue with the careful work of the IPCC, and believe that politicians should be scared into bigger carbon emission reductions. Richardson calls some of the IPCC's core findings "wishy-washy". This is not a new tussle: even before the IPCC report went to the printing presses in 2007, there was fierce lobbying in the media for brasher conclusions. A member of the German advisory council on global change, Stefan Rahmstorf – who will speak at the Copenhagen summit – declared back in 2007 that the IPCC was not including "the full story". Based on his own projections, he believed that sea levels would rise by up to 1.4 metres this century. Studies such as Rahmstorf's gain a lot of publicity. However, most models find results within the IPCC range of a sea-level increase of 18cm to 59cm this century. Satellite measurements since 1992 have shown a stable global sea-level rise of 3.2mm per year: spot-on compared to the IPCC projection. A 38.5cm rise is a problem, but will not bring down civilisation. Last century, sea levels rose by half that amount without most of us even noticing. It is easy to zero in on findings that scare us. The emergency summit participants conjure scary sea-level rises – but fail to acknowledge that satellite measurements show the rise is actually getting smaller. Likewise, they highlight the fact that carbon emissions are higher than expected. It seems disingenuous to do so without noting a much more powerful fact: temperature rises are not only lower than predictions based on the IPCC's consensus view, but over this decade have actually been dropping. Those gathering in Copenhagen are "disturbed" by disappearing Arctic sea ice. But the science shows that global warming is only part of the cause: wind patterns are now in a state that does not allow build-up of old ice. And while the Arctic is doing worse than expected, it is surely important to note that the Antarctic sea ice is above average for the past year. That climate change stirs up fear in all of us is entirely understandable. But we need to take care to ensure that we are not panicked when we make crucial decisions about how to respond to global warming. To ensure that we make these decisions with clear heads, we need to get balanced natural science, and also balanced economic science. In 2008, Nobel laureate economists who gathered for Copenhagen Consensus 2008 found that even large-scale carbon cuts would make a very poor investment – and prove an ineffective, very expensive way to rein in temperatures. There is a smarter policy option that would actually do more to fight off global warming: ensuring that reasonably priced alternative energy technologies will be available within the next 20 to 40 years. We can achieve this if all countries committed themselves to spending 0.05% of GDP on research and development of non-carbon-emitting energy technologies. The cost – a relatively minor $25bn a year – would be much lower than the massive carbon emission reductions proposed by Copenhagen summit participants, yet it would do more to fight global warming. Before the world's leaders arrive in Copenhagen, all of us need to take a deep breath. Campaigners on all sides of the climate change debate have the same desire to ensure that we leave a worthy legacy to the future. Now, more than ever, is the time to allow balanced science to prevail. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/ipcc', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/comment', 'environment/copenhagen', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/rajendra-pachauri', 'type/article'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-02-18T16:30:01Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2023/jan/03/unlike-past-campaigns-todays-concern-for-the-great-barrier-reef-is-stuck-in-neutral | Unlike past campaigns, today’s concern for the Great Barrier Reef is stuck in neutral | Rohan Lloyd | As part of the coverage of Labor’s first budget, the ABC provided analysis of the nation’s winners and losers. In it, the Great Barrier Reef was listed as “neutral”. The reef received no additional funding beyond the commitments Labor had made during the election campaign. It is striking that an ecosystem – a more-than-human place – could be listed alongside major economic and social concerns such as families, the Pacific, NBN and the ABC itself. It is a testament to the importance of the reef to our national identity, but also how dire things have become for that environment in the last four decades. The state of the reef is a major concern. Almost yearly, Unesco approaches our governments to “do better” to avoid having the reef listed as “in danger”. Coral reefs are under threat globally, but the decline of corals on the Great Barrier Reef is a particular worry given its close management. Of course, the reef has faced perils before. A well-known story of the reef’s past is the Save the Reef campaign from 1967-1975. That campaign erupted in response to proposals to mine Ellison Reef (near Mission beach) for lime and develop the broader Great Barrier Reef for petroleum. It involved a popular campaign, issues of constitutional law, a trade union black ban, a royal commission, the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and ultimately the reef’s protection from oil and mineral exploitation. In my research, I have argued that this campaign has been remembered as a “David and Goliath” battle because characterising it as such establishes it as a source of hope for contemporary activists, but also because it conforms to our public memory of the anti-environmental and anti-intellectual Bjelke-Petersen government. However, while I accept that the activists felt as though they were fighting an unwinnable battle, the historical archives, including the records of conservationists of the time, shows that they enjoyed considerable support from parts of the Australian media, the trade union movement, the commonwealth government and the broader public. The eventual royal commission into petroleum drilling on the Great Barrier Reef made it clear that while many people were comfortable with exploiting the reef for fish, tourism and port development, the prospect of oil drilling was too much. Biblical metaphors of David and Goliath are helpful scaffolding for remembering past successes, but to me it is equally powerful to recognise that the reef was saved because people overwhelmingly supported its protection. Today, however, the circumstances are noticeably different. Unlike the campaign of the past, there is considerably more rejection of conservationist concerns for the reef, particularly within the media. Similarly, it is unlikely that the trade unions would initiate black bans on prospective mines in support of saving the reef initiatives. More perplexing, our governments have been slow, if not obstructionist, in creating meaningful policy change towards climate change (which is the biggest threat to the reef) while providing significant funding to reef research bodies like the Australian Institute for Marine Science, CSIRO, the marine park authority and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Science has gained from this investment, while governments have benefited from the research when the reef’s health and outlook have come into question, shielding themselves from greater international pressure to act on climate change. But of course, things are more complex than this, too. The huge amount of research into the reef since the establishment of marine park authority has laid bare the interconnectedness between the reef ecosystem and the people and industries that exist in its catchment. Furthermore, the pressures of climate change have also made the reef a national and international problem. We have all become linked to the reef’s health to different degrees. Despite being collectively entangled within this crisis, there seems to be little accord about what saving the reef means and how that is to be achieved. It feels like we are facing a goliath. The Save the Reef conservationists were successful because they tapped into the wide-held love, curiosity and admiration for the reef. They helped establish a chorus of concern for a future reef ruined by oil and mining, which led to the royal commission that ultimately recommended the creation of marine park authority. These accomplishments seem beyond our abilities at this stage. A sincere approach towards saving the reef could begin by building on our present and historic connection to it to confront climate change. At this stage, however, it seems our commonwealth government would prefer to stay in neutral. Rohan Lloyd is an environmental historian and high school teacher. His first book is Saving the Reef: the human story behind one of Australia’s most treasured environments (UQP) | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-01-03T02:12:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
society/2011/may/29/charities-clothing-banks-privatisation | Council sell-off of clothing banks 'threatens survival' of charity shops | High-street charity shops could be forced to close down after a decision by councils to charge ground rent for recycling banks and offer the space to profit-making companies. Donations to clothing banks sited at local authority refuse tips, schools and car parks are a crucial source of stock for many charities. But now leading organisations, including the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Scope, the charity for those with cerebral palsy, say that they have been told to move their banks to make way for ones owned by private, for-profit firms, willing to pay, a fee for the right to collect on prime local authority land. Hertfordshire and Northumberland county councils have pioneered the money-making scheme and it is feared more will follow. Recycling companies Nathans Wastesavers and Cookstown Textile Recycling plan to sell the clothes they collect in each county abroad. In return, Northumberland will receive about £300,000 a year in fees and Hertfordshire about £160,000. The move puts in peril a key revenue stream for the shops, a fixture on high streets for more than 70 years, and appears to fly in the face of David Cameron's "big society". There are more than 8,000 charity shops in the UK, but the economic downturn has already hit donations and the latest development is regarded as a significant threat to their future. BHF shops have more than 900 clothing banks which, when full, can be worth up to £1,000 each in sales. The charity said that it had been told last month by Northumberland council to remove its 30 banks. Mike Lucas, BHF's retail director, added that those banks alone last year raised £87,000 in sales, enough to fund the annual costs of a research project to help find a cure for heart disease. Lucas, whose charity has raised £25m through its shops over the past 12 months, added that he believed it could be "disastrous" if more councils were to put profits first. "We are very disappointed that we have had to remove our clothing and book banks from Northumberland council land," he said. "They were in prime positions that helped us raise thousands of pounds to fight heart disease in the UK, and as a charity we cannot afford to compete with commercial rates for these sites." Scope said that it had 17 textile banks in Northumberland and 29 in Hertfordshire before the changes. The banks had provided 250 tonnes of donated clothes each year, according to the charity, representing at least £150,000 worth of shop sales. Andrew Adair, Scope's director of retail, claimed the move was pure opportunism by the councils. "We understand that all councils have to make tough spending decisions, but asking charities to start paying for using textile banks is a worrying move. Charities are easy targets, but the consequences are serious. Putting the banks out to tender creates a lack of transparency when it comes to donations. "The public wants to know what happens to its donations. We don't think residents want councils to get a cut of their donations. If many more councils follow suit, this could seriously undermine a vital and popular source of fundraising for charities." The charities were allowed to put in a bid for the continued use of local authority land for their recycling banks, according to spokesmen at both county councils. But last night Adair said charities could not afford to pay for the privilege and he feared for the future of his network of shops. He added that the banks encouraged recycling, and ensured clothes did not end up in landfill. Both county councils said that they were helping the charities find new sites for their banks. | ['society/charities', 'society/voluntarysector', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/daniel-boffey', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2011-05-28T23:07:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
news/2021/jul/20/future-flooding-threat-could-overwhelm-complacent-uk-banks | Future flooding threat could overwhelm complacent UK banks | One criticism made of politicians is that their policy and vision for the future only extends as far as the next election. It is alarming to discover that banks have an equally short horizon – three to five years, according to the Bank of England. Across the North Sea in Denmark, Nationalbank has become so alarmed at this short-termism it has produced a series of warnings about the stability of its financial system. It says that long-term lending, 20 to 30 years, needs to take into account the climate crisis and the catastrophic write-down in the value of assets that may result from flooding. The bank’s fears stem mainly from sea level rise because Denmark has more than 8,000km (4,970 miles) of coastline and a lot of valuable installations close to the sea. Perhaps the Bank of England, behind London’s Thames Barrier, has got complacent. Along the east coast of England much coastal infrastructure and many homes are at least as vulnerable to storm surges as those on the other side of the North Sea. Maybe it will take a disaster on the scale of the east coast’s 1953 “Big Flood” to wake up UK banks to the potential financial danger of a changing climate. Let us hope their reserves can survive the shock. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/denmark', 'uk/uk', 'business/banking', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-07-20T05:00:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/feb/02/arctic-ice-forecasters-help-subs-come-up-for-air-weatherwatch | Arctic ice forecasters help subs come up for air | Diminishing ice cover has increased political and economic competition for resources inside the Arctic Circle. This means more submarine operations, which are doubly claustrophobia-inducing, as a sub can only surface where the ice is comparatively thin. In an emergency, finding the nearest hole in the ice is essential, and this has spurred the development of a new type of forecast. There are two types of hole in the ice, known as leads and polynyas. Leads are long fractures, gigantic cracks caused by ice sheets moving apart. Ultimately, they are due to wind or ocean currents pushing areas of ice in different directions. Leads are generally transient, as the seawater freezes over quickly when exposed to the cold air. Polynya is the Russian word for an ice hole, and it describes an area of open sea produced by an upwelling of warm water. This melts the ice cover above and creates a gap in the ice which typically remains in place for longer than a lead. As part of their Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System (ACNFS), the US National Ice Centre produces a Flap (Fractures Leads And Polynya) forecast for submarine operations, based on satellite imagery. This shows current conditions and predicts areas of open water five to seven days ahead; having a prediction before they sail is useful, as a submerged submarine cannot receive radio updates. The Flaps forecast has a claimed accuracy of around 88% and may prove vital for future Arctic operations. | ['environment/poles', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/arctic', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-02-02T21:30:41Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/blog/2012/oct/17/us-wind-power-mitt-romney-subsidy | Will US wind power splutter out if Mitt Romney cuts its subsidy? | Jacob Susman is frustrated again. Sitting in the bright green conference room of his company's trendy industrial office, overshadowed by the Brooklyn Bridge, he's a clean-cut poster child for the "green economy": Since 2007, Susman's OwnEnergy, which installs wind turbines, has grown to be one of the nation's most prominent wind installers. But he's plagued by a recurring nightmare: "Every few years the industry has to drop everything for six or nine months and focus exclusively on having the credit passed." He's talking about the Production Tax Credit, the federal subsidy for renewable energy that gives a 2.2-cent per kilowatt hour break to wind energy producers. Those pennies add up to about $1 billion per year, no chump change for the burgeoning industry. Proponents of wind energy say since its inception in 1992, the PTC has been a crucial driving force behind the industry's rapid growth; critics of the PTC (including the fossil-fuel funded American Energy Alliance) say the industry has had ample time to take off its training wheels (never mind that fossil fuel subsidies historically run about 13 times higher than renewables). The subsidy has become a touchstone issue in the presidential campaign for windy swing states like Iowa and Colorado: Mitt Romney has referred to the PTC as a "stimulus boondoggle" and vowed to kill it, while President Obama has promised to give the credit his support. Every one to three years, as the PTC reaches its expiration date, it must be taken up, re-debated, re-tweaked, and re-approved by Congress, exposing it to shifting political whims particularly in a general election year where the future party spread is far from certain. The PTC is set to expire at the end of this year, and uncertainty about whether Congress will extend it has led to layoffs and much anxiety in the industry. And while 2012 was a big year for wind, with 10 gigawatts installed nationwide by August and another gigawatt predicted by year's end (only 0.9 percent of total new power in the US, but nearly double the wind installed in 2011), projections for 2013 are grim: Estimates range from half to a tenth of that. "Next year is already going to be a crash year for the wind industry," said Michel DiCapua, an analyst with Bloomberg Energy Finance. But what happens next year is only the next iteration of a boom-bust cycle that has been the bane of the US wind industry for over a decade. The PTC has been allowed to expire three times in the past, and the industry has consistently tanked; even the possibility of expiration sends shivers up the spines of everyone from blue-collar factory workers to Manhattan investors. Breaking free of that cycle, Susman and other industry leaders interviewed by Climate Desk agree, is the industry's only hope for sustained long-term growth, and it starts with weaning the industry off the PTC once and for all. "The industry doesn't need the PTC forever," Susman said. "We're ready to start talking about how to phase it down." But they still have a ways to go. Thanks to fracking, natural gas prices are through the floor. Although the cost of power from wind has dropped 90 percent since 1980, some investors are still spooked by the upfront expenses. And aside from a few exceptions, the state-level standards that mandate how much renewable energy must be brought into the mix are too low and thus oversupplied, meaning there's little incentive for utilities to seek out new wind projects. For those reasons, a swath of groups including the American Wind Energy Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists have been pushing hard for Congress to extend the PTC once again. Still, said Andy Bowman of Austin-based wind installer Pioneer Green Energy, "I do think there's more speculation than there ever has been that this might be the last extension." Bowman agreed with Susman that even worse than competing on uneven ground with fossil fuels was being handcuffed to a mercurial legislative process whose sights rarely reach farther than a few years. "It's miserable," he said. "All the projects we've been working on for the last three years are hanging in the balance." Bowman is among the wind industry veterans who have worked through several boom-bust cycles in the past. With just 14 employees, his small company is at the mercy of venture capitalists who are loathe to back any enterprise that lacks long-term stability; the PTC, he said, has never been more than a piecemeal solution. "The expiration of the PTC casts a long shadow," he said. "Removing it would provide a great deal more certainty, since we wouldn't have this big question mark." Industry leaders are counting on a combination of rising natural gas prices, tightening coal regulations, and ever-cheaper and more efficient turbines to give wind the competitive edge it would need to kick the PTC. They're also lobbying for a far-sighted national energy policy that favors wind, and higher targets for states' renewables goals. But it's not clear how long those goals will really take to achieve. So for now, all they can do is cross their fingers for one more shot. "We're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," Susman said. "Wind should be able to stand on its own in a few years." • This article was first published by Guardian partner, Climate Desk | ['environment/blog', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/blog', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/mittromney', 'world/world', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'type/article'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2012-10-17T10:55:58Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/article/2024/aug/07/australia-sea-lions-cameras-ocean-floor | ‘Best slow TV ever’: scientists mount cameras on endangered sea lions to map Australia’s ocean floor | The Australian sea lions glide and dart through underwater tunnels, over seagrass beds and rocky reefs, searching for a meal and dancing with dolphins around a giant bait ball of fish – all the action captured by a camera stuck on their back. “I can watch this stuff for hours,” says Prof Simon Goldsworthy. “It’s like the best slow TV ever. You just don’t know what you’re going to see next.” The Australian sea lion is in trouble. They were hunted until the early 20th century. Commercial fishing nets and pots have proved to be a more modern threat. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Numbers have crashed by 60% in the past 40 years, leaving only about 10,000 of them mostly spread thinly across 80 breeding sites along Australia’s south and west coastline. Goldsworthy’s “slow TV” is the result of new efforts to employ the sea lions to map the ocean floor – and their own habitats – by sticking cameras with satellite tracking to their backs. So far, eight females from two seal colonies have filmed almost 90 hours of footage across more than 500km, helping scientists to map 5,000 sq km of habitat. The sea lions have mapped rocky reefs and seagrass meadows along the continental shelf, and shown humans the places that are important to them. With that information, conservationists will have much clearer ideas on how to protect the country’s only endemic seal. Goldsworthy, of the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), has been studying the fast-disappearing marine mammal for 25 years. But he says the cameras are a gamechanger. “Information has been so elusive, because they’re feeding at the bottom of the sea,” he said. “Now we get this amazing, exquisite detail. They’re giving us a window into their world that we haven’t had before. “Just like humans know our streets, the sea lions know the sea bed in intimate detail for hundreds of kilometres and they build up this knowledge over time. They have a mental map of their environment and they are leading you to places of profound significance for them.” Mapping and understanding the seabed habitat is an expensive and laborious business, often done by towing cameras behind boats, or by leaving baited cameras underwater. The sea lions are faster, cover more ground, are untroubled by the weather and do the work for free. So far, sea lions from colonies at Olive Island and Seal Bay in South Australia have been doing the work. Nathan Angelakis, a PhD student at the University of Adelaide and SADI, said the video was mapping critical habitats as well as previously unexplored areas of the seabed. He said: “We deployed the instruments on adult females so we could recover the equipment a few days later when they returned to land to nurse their pups.” To trial the cameras, scientists first had to attach them. After darting the sea lion with a sedative, researchers gave them a short-acting anaesthetic through a breathing mask while they stuck the camera on to a piece of fabric, which was then stuck with resin on to the sea lion’s fur. The fabric is left on the fur, to fall off at the next moult. One revelation from the footage, Goldsworthy said, came when one mum took her pup out to hunt while she had a camera attached. The female was showing the pup where to go and how to hunt. The team has also discovered that individual animals have different tastes – some like to eat lots of cod, others go for octopus, sting rays or cuttlefish, while others dig out prey by rolling over rocks with their noses and flippers. A study outlining the sea lions’ camera work, funded by the Australian government’s National Environmental Science Program and the Ecological Society of Australia, was published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. | ['environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-08-07T04:14:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2021/aug/24/blue-whales-returning-to-spains-atlantic-coast-after-40-year-absence | Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence | Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years. The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia. Another was spotted in 2018, another the following year, and then in 2020 they both returned. Just over a week ago a different specimen was sited off the Islas Cíes, near O Grove. Díaz said it was not yet clear whether the climate crisis was leading the creatures to change their habits and return to an area where they were hunted almost to extinction. “I believe the moratorium on whaling has been a key factor,” he said. “In the 1970s, just before the ban was introduced, an entire generation of blue whales disappeared. Now, more than 40 years later, we’re seeing the return of the descendants of the few that survived.” There was a centuries-old whaling industry and a dozen whaling ports in Galicia. Spain did not ban whaling until 1986, by which time the blue whale was all but extinct in the region. However, not everyone sees the whales’ return as good news. “I’m pessimistic because there’s a high possibility that climate change is having a major impact on the blue whale’s habitat,” Alfredo López, a marine biologist at a Galician NGO that studies marine mammals, told the newspaper La Voz de Galicia. “Firstly, because they never venture south of the equator, and if global warming pushes this line north, their habitat will be reduced. And secondly, if it means the food they normally eat is disappearing, then what we’re seeing is dramatic and not something to celebrate.” Díaz speculates that the creatures may also have returned to Galicia out of a form of homesickness, or ancestral memory. “In recent years it’s been discovered that the blue whale’s migration is driven by memory, not by environmental conditions,” he said. “This year there hasn’t been a notable increase in plankton, but here they are. Experiences are retained in the collective memory and drive the species to return.” Researchers believe this type of folk memory, or cultural knowledge, exists in many species and is key to their survival. A typical blue whale is 20-24 metres long and weighs 120 tonnes – equivalent to 16 elephants – but specimens of up to 30 metres and 170 tonnes have been found. | ['environment/whales', 'world/spain', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/cetaceans', 'world/world', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stephen-burgen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-08-24T14:33:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
society/2022/mar/16/ses-units-in-flood-hit-nsw-raised-alarm-in-2020-that-restructure-threatened-future-of-the-service | SES units in flood-hit NSW raised alarm in 2020 that restructure threatened ‘future of the service’ | State Emergency Service units in some of the hardest-hit flood areas in northern New South Wales had warned the closure of regional offices in 2020 would reduce their ability to respond to natural disasters. Communication between the SES units and senior levels of the organisation reveals tension about a restructure which was blamed on NSW government budget cuts. In November 2020, 12 SES units in the Northern Rivers and Richmond valley wrote to the commissioner warning that a restructure “threaten[ed] the continued existence of units … and the future of the service”. The complaint was spearheaded by the Kyogle SES unit and co-signed by unit commanders including in Ballina, Broadwater, Casino, Coraki, Lismore, Mullumbimby, Murwillumbah, and Richmond Tweed – some of the towns worst affected by the recent floods. In response, the SES commissioner, Carlene York, conceded that “transformation did result in a reduction in staff” and had harmed “connection and support to units”. “However this was necessary to meet government savings targets,” she said. In the 2018 budget, the then NSW treasurer and now premier, Dominic Perrottet, increased the “efficiency dividend” for government departments from 2% to 3%. Unions warned at the time the measure would cost jobs and hurt services, but the government justified it on the basis it would “reduce back-office costs and focus expenditure where it is needed most”. The response by the state SES and Australian Defence Force to what authorities describe as a one-in-500-year flood has been sluggish, prompting criticism that local communities were left to conduct their own rescues and clean-up. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Most SES units do not conduct rescues and SES members do not blame the quality of the flood response on the restructure, but say it has contributed to a long-term decline in capacity responding to natural disasters. In the complaint, the SES units said the “removal of regional offices” had “pushed significant new administrative burdens on to volunteers, frustrating and demoralising dedicated members”. “Very experienced and skilful members have withdrawn from active participation in several units as a result of recent developments,” it said. New procedures for community engagement during Covid-19 had left the SES “increasingly invisible”, making it more difficult to attract volunteers and donations. “All volunteer services have suffered in recent decades but ours is becoming increasingly difficult. “Our active members grow older and our capacity to work for our community diminishes.” The new training regime was too focused on “keyboard and screen-based courses”, while “region-based training seems to have disappeared”, replaced by courses “hundreds of kilometres away” in Sydney or Newcastle. “The changes we have referred to here are undermining morale, cutting unit membership numbers and throwing up barriers to what we see as our essential roles as emergency service volunteers within and for our communities. “These are not trivial problems. They are serious concerns.” The dire warnings proved true for the Tabulam SES unit, one signatory of the complaint, which currently has no members. York responded that it was “regretful the cluster feels undervalued and disappointed”, blaming the closure of regional offices on “government savings targets” but promising to “endeavour to seek additional resources”. York promised consultation to fix deficiencies in training and that community engagement could recommence. “I want to assure you the staff at [SES headquarters] and throughout the zones are not remote bureaucrats, noting approximately 50% of staff are volunteers as well, having a very good understanding of the needs of units. “From what I have seen they sincerely want to support the volunteers.” Bob Mills, a former SES member and Labor staffer, told Guardian Australia the restructure had caused issues with “training, administration and coordination with ambulance, police and fire [the rural fire service]”. “Coordination used to be handled by the regional head office, who had everyone’s number and knew how to contact everyone,” Mills said. “Now each unit is supposed to know how to do it – and they just don’t.” “The state government is now throwing equipment at the SES but they’re not being trained to use it. There’s nobody to do the training and assessment.” Mills, who left the SES in January, said there had been meetings to address training issues, but they were still unresolved and “up in the air”. Mills thinks the increasing professionalisation of the SES points towards having a civil natural disaster authority, which Labor has said it will consider if elected. “My personal view is they’re going to have to go semi-professional, like the army reserve, with people who are on standby. “They’ve been doing this on the cheap, on a volunteer basis, but they’re now demanding very professional standards.” The minister for emergency services, resilience and flood recovery, Steph Cooke, declined to answer questions about why the government had imposed savings targets on the SES. “Internal SES reporting lines and structures are a matter for the SES,” she said. “The overall response to the 2022 floods will be subject to a review.” A NSW SES spokesperson said it “values the local knowledge and experience of our volunteer membership” and acknowledged that “recent weather events have increased the demand on NSW SES resources”. The spokesperson said the organisation “strives for continuous improvement”. “The NSW SES relies on community members volunteering their services, and we always seek additional volunteers into any unit across the state.” | ['society/emergency-services', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'world/natural--disasters', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/dominic-perrottet', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/paul-karp', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-15T16:30:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2019/jun/25/peru-sea-giant-worth-far-more-alive-than-dead-giant-manta-ray | How Peru fell in love with a sea giant worth far more alive than dead | Dan Collyns | Fishermen heading out to sea off Peru’s northern coast keep a keen eye on the turquoise waters below them, hoping for a glimpse of the elusive giant manta ray gliding by. Nowadays the boats are taking tourists rather than nets. The fish they once caught are now in decline, and the fish the visitors want to see now are worth far more alive than dead. This wildlife-rich stretch of the eastern tropical Pacific shared with Ecuador is home to one of the largest populations of the world’s biggest ray – the giant manta – and the local community, led by marine scientist Kerstin Forsberg, is trying to conserve the creatures. These ocean-going giants are targeted for their gill plates, used in Chinese medicine, or, more commonly in Peruvian waters, they become entangled in fishing nets. With a wingspan that can measure as much as nine metres across, the giant manta rays have declined by up to a third globally and are classified as vulnerable on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “This species was really overlooked in my country,” says Forsberg, 34. But that is no longer the case in Zorritos, a village arranged along a stretch of Peru’s west-facing Pacific coastline. In eight years, Forsberg has changed the mentality here towards the mantas. She has helped create a fisherman’s association focused on ecotourism encouraging local and foreign visitors to observe or even swim with the rays. The Guardian spotted rays leaping out of the sea and swimming close to the boat on one of these trips. “People here now get excited about giant manta rays. Before, they didn’t even notice that they existed,” Forsberg says. “Now if the manta ray gets entangled in their nets, fishermen start releasing them and report on it excitedly. They’re happy to mention it to their peers.” Edgardo Cruz, 50, has been fishing these rich waters since he was 15. His diesel-engined wooden craft, christened Pollito, chugs through the opalescent waters as he scans the horizon for signs of fish. He once caught a giant manta ray weighing one-and-half tonnes, he says. It was so heavy a crane was needed to lift it on to the shore. Despite his efforts to land it, he was paid around 200 Peruvians soles (£47) for the meat, which is not highly prized. “Before, if one got stuck in the net, we’d grab it, stick a knife in it, then tie it on to the boat and take it to the shore,” he says, his hand on Pollito’s tiller. “Not any more – now we use the knife, not to kill it but to free it so it swims away alive. “We cut the net because we know it would be destroyed by such a large animal. But you do so knowing that this will be the future for we fishermen.” Sustainable ecotourism could bring in more income than small-scale fishing. As tourism focused on marine megafauna grows globally, the manta tourism model could be particularly lucrative. One estimate predicts a living ray, with its 40-year lifespan, could generate more than $1m (£790,000) in revenue. Dead, it is worth between $40-500, according to the same 2013 study. “We’re talking about a species which can’t reproduce quickly and is quickly jeopardised if we’re extracting too much of the population,” says Forsberg. Manta females reach sexual maturity at between seven and 10 years, and have only one live-born pup every two to seven years. In 2013, Forsberg and Planeta Océano, the organisation she founded in 2009, succeeded in securing legal protection for giant manta rays, winning a ministerial resolution that made it illegal to capture, sell or eat them in Peru. But the greater achievement, Forsberg says, is making the majestic fish part of the “culture and identity” in Zorritos, where they are painted on murals and children take part in “manta parades”. Planeta Océano partners with the Unesco global action programme on education for sustainable development in 50 local schools. “We want the children to appreciate the giant mantas but, even beyond that, we want them to appreciate their marine environment and the marine ecosystem,” Forsberg says. Forsberg tries out innovative game-based education techniques to engage children in the classroom. Many of them also belong to “manta clubs” and take part in beach clean-ups and field work to improve their ocean literacy. “We’re sensitising the children through our teaching so they take the message to their homes,” says teacher Luz Marina Agurto, part of a marine educators’ network set up by Planeta Océano. Foreign volunteers arrive too, helping with research such as collecting samples of zooplankton, which the mantas feed on. They also assist in getting tissue samples from the rays used by scientists to trace their population movements at a laboratory belonging to Peru’s sea institute, Imarpe. Veteran volunteer Ken Dubuque, a board member for Earthwatch, says: “What we’re really pushing is local community involvement and this project exemplifies that.” But the mantas face problems that community-based conservation may have little impact on. Ocean microplastics are a growing threat to these filter-feeding giants, says Forsberg. Scientists are studying how the climate emergency might affect ocean wildlife at this juncture between the cold-water, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current, which sweeps up from Antarctica, and warmer tropical waters. But in this region renowned for its sunny beaches and seafood, the ecotourism incentive is providing protection not just for the giant manta ray but also for five types of sea turtle, sea lions, whale sharks and breeding humpback whales. | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'world/peru', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/environment', 'environment/fish', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/dan-collyns', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-06-25T06:00:39Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
tv-and-radio/2018/nov/11/south-park-al-gore-apology-climate-change-manbearpig | South Park's Al Gore apology contains an inconvenient truth: it's funny | This week, South Park offered something it has rarely offered, much less given, in 21 years of mercilessly skewering public figures: an apology. It was offered to Al Gore, the former vice-president who first visited South Park 12 years ago – or at least a bearded, high-pitched 2D version of himself did, voiced by co-creator Trey Parker. In that episode, Gore tried to warn Kenny, Kyle and Stan about an imaginary monster called ManBearPig which roamed the earth, attacking humans. The kids agreed to help him find it but in the process of trying to kill it, they all nearly died. The monster was never found but a preening Gore became a star. As Stan put it: “You just use ManBearPig to get attention for yourself because you’re a loser!” Climate change is fiction, fighting it will cause more harm than good, Gore only keeps bringing it up because he wants the spotlight. The allegory has not dated well. It might be assumed that the episode was created at a time when we were less informed about the dangers of global warming. But Pew Research says that when the episode aired, in 2006, a marginally higher proportion of Americans, 77%, thought the Earth was definitely warmer than today, when 72% do. Still, South Park went out of its way to give Gore a hard time for trying to focus the world’s attention on climate issues, which the cartoon suggested were inherently uncooool. Gore never demanded an apology and only relatively dedicated students of the series have criticised the episode. One such critic, Deidre M Pike, is the author of a book, Enviro-Toons: Green Themes in Animated Cinema and Television. “Environmentalists,” Pike wrote, “might feel as threatened by this show as they were by various environmental resolutions enacted by the Bush administration.” This week, Parker and Matt Stone took action, with an episode that begins with the revelation that ManBearPig is actually real. The grotesque and murderous beast wreaks murderous havoc. Only Al Gore can stop it, of course, and so the children have to ask for his help. Gore is initially unwilling and demands grovelling, repeated apologies. It turns out the only way stop the terror is to continually tell Gore he was right. And thus, South Park manages to find a way to apologise repeatedly while still mocking Gore as a narcissist, who wears a Nobel medal and a cape. As this is South Park, there are lots of other zeitgeisty punchlines. The police believe the killings are school shootings and are therefore blase. Gore would rather be playing Red Dead Redemption. Many TV shows which felt groundbreaking even a decade ago now appear problematic. Friends, Seinfeld and Ally McBeal: all have been criticised for demeaning attitudes to women and a lack of minority characters. But they are still celebrated as products of their time. Shows which began in the 1990s and are still going to face a different, more complicated reckoning. The most high-profile example has been The Simpsons, in which the character of Apu has been severely criticised for stereotyping south-Asian Americans. The makers of the show have responded bitterly and a dispute continues. South Park has demonstrated more humility, while managing to stay funny. It acknowledged a major misstep without any pressure to do so and found a way to apologise while remaining on brand. And for good measure, it had an episode this season which mocked the Simpsons’ saga. Entitled A Problem With A Poo, it saw long-running character Mr Hanky The Christmas Poo run out of town because of political correctness. | ['tv-and-radio/south-park', 'us-news/algore', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'tone/features', 'tv-and-radio/us-television', 'culture/television', 'tv-and-radio/animation', 'tv-and-radio/tv-and-radio', 'type/article', 'profile/samwolfson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-social-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2018-11-11T11:00:08Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
science/2023/mar/22/sex-on-the-beach-pressures-of-extreme-polygamy-may-be-driving-southern-elephant-seals-to-early-death | Sex on the beach: pressures of extreme polygamy may be driving southern elephant seals to early death | Extreme polygamy may be driving male southern elephant seals to early deaths, new research suggests. A study of 14,000 southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) at Macquarie Island in the south-western Pacific, has found that while survival rates for males and females are roughly comparable for juveniles, male survival rapidly decreased after eight years of age, dropping to about a 50% annual survival rate, while female survival remained constant at 80%. Southern elephant seals differ significantly in size: adult males can weigh up to nearly five times that of adult females. The size differences typically begin to emerge between three and six years of age, when the animals undergo maturation. Sophia Volzke, the study’s first author and a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, said the largest and fattest male seals had a reproductive advantage. “They can only get food from the ocean,” she said. “When they come on land [to breed] they’re competing with other males for access to females. “They need to have fat resources stored to be able to fight other males and survive on land without eating anything for weeks or months at a time.” The species exhibits “extreme polygyny”, in which a small proportion of the largest and most dominant males – known as beachmasters – control harems of breeding females. “One huge beachmaster can have a harem of up to 100 females,” Volzke said. “Once the harems get that big they might allow for a younger male to be an assistant beachmaster. “It depends on how big the harem is and the geography of the beach – if you have a really long beach, you’re more likely to have a bunch of small harems,” she added. Only around 4% of males become beachmasters. The researchers believe the competitive pressures on maturing males drive them to gain weight as quickly as possible, resulting in lower survival rates because the males forage at sea in areas that may put them at higher risk of predation. “Adult males concentrate their foraging effort in shallower waters. These highly productive locations are frequented by other marine predators, such as orcas … and sleeper sharks,” they wrote. Although male seals become biologically capable of reproducing at around six years of age, they are rarely socially competitive enough to breed with females until nine to 12 years old, Volzke said. Southern elephant seals spend much of the year at sea. The males come ashore each August on Macquarie Island to try to establish dominance over beach areas, Volzke said. “The females arrive in September and aggregate in groups themselves … the males come and try to defend those groups. “We might see one male that isn’t a successful beachmaster … come ashore in August and try to challenge a beachmaster. If they lose a fight they will just go back to sea,” Volzke said. “Beachmasters have a really loud roar which deters other males, which means some might not even come to shore at that time.” The study took place between 1993 and 2015 was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. • This article was amended on 13 April 2023 to clarify that the seals’ survival rate was yearly. | ['science/animalbehaviour', 'environment/wildlife', 'science/science', 'environment/mammals', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/donna-lu', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-22T02:13:23Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/nov/20/half-tree-species-amazon-risk-extinction-study | Half of tree species in the Amazon at risk of extinction, say scientists | More than half the myriad tree species in the Amazon could be heading for extinction, according to a study that makes the first comprehensive estimate of threatened species in the world’s largest rainforest. Among the species expected to suffer significant falls in numbers are the Brazil nut, and wild cacao and açai trees, all important food sources. The world’s most diverse forest has endured decades of deforestation, with loggers, farmers and miners responsible for the removal of 12% of its area. If that continues in the decades ahead, 57% of the 15,000 tree species will be in danger, according to the researchers. However, if existing protected areas and indigenous territories across the vast area suffer no further damage, the number of species at risk would be restricted to a third of the total. “Forests in the Amazon have been declining since the 1950s, but [until now] there was a poor understanding of how this has affected populations of individual species,” said Prof Carlos Peres, at the University of East Anglia, one of the 158 scientists from 21 countries who worked together on the study. “Protected areas and indigenous territories now cover over half of the Amazon basin. But forests and reserves still face a barrage of threats, from dam construction and mining, to wildfires and droughts intensified by global warming.” Brazil, which holds 60% of the Amazon forest, has sharply cut its rates of deforestation in the last decade. But elsewhere the felling continues unchecked, and it is increasing in Bolivia and Peru. Overall, an area the size of about 4,500 football pitches is still being lost every day. If Brazil can restrict its deforestation to current levels and other countries improve to match that, protected areas could remain largely untouched. But Rafael Salomão, of Emílio Goeldi Museum in Belem, Brazil, and a member of the research team, said: “The vast majority of protected areas in the Amazon have no management plan or budget and few resident qualified personnel.” Furthermore, demand for beef, soy and palm oil, which drives much deforestation, is likely to rise rapidly as the global population grows, increasing the pressure to clear more forest. “It’s a battle we’re going to see play out in our lifetimes,” said William Laurance, of James Cook University in Australia, who was also part of the study. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, compared almost 1,500 forest surveys from across the Amazon with maps of current and projected deforestation. From this, the scientists could estimate how the overall populations of the different tree species have changed and how they may change in future. They used these population changes to work out how threatened the species were according to the criteria used by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) to draw up its “red lists” of endangered species. To be placed on the red list of species requires detailed analysis of past and projected population changes. In the last 10 years, scientists have had the resources to place 1,275 plant species from tropical South America on red lists. The much broader approach taken in the new research provides strong evidence that the number of red-listed Amazonian tree and plants should be 10 times higher. If the Amazon nations are unable to check deforestation between now and 2050, the scientists estimate that 63% of wild Brazil nut trees will be lost. But if protected areas are left intact, the loss falls to 32% – a major decline, nevertheless, which would still class the species as vulnerable to extinction. Similarly, continued deforestation would lead to the loss of 72% of wild açai palm and 50% of wild cacao trees. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/forests', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'world/brazil', 'world/peru', 'world/bolivia', 'world/americas', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-11-20T20:12:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2003/jun/28/conservationandendangeredspecies.internationalnews | Disappearance of Amazon rainforest brings pledge of emergency action | The deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon, the largest stretch of forest in the world, has increased by 40% in the past year, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the Brazilian government. Almost 10,000sq miles (24,000sq km) of virgin forest - an area the size of Albania - were lost, mainly to soya farming and logging. The figures do not include the destruction of the forest by fires which have been intense this year in some Amazonian states. "We are going to take emergency action to deal with this highly worrying rise in deforestation," said the environment minister, Marina Silva, a former Amazonian rubber tapper and environmental activist. She promised to announce new measures to protect the forest, but environment groups fear that there is little that can be done unless new threats like industrial scale farming can be brought under control. "These figures are the worst in many years. It is alarming how the agriculture frontier is growing", said a Greenpeace Brazil spokesman, Paulo Adario. "Almost 80% of the timber is illegally felled, but clearing land for industrial soya farming is now taking over from timber extraction as the major driver of forest loss in some regions". Most of the deforestation is taking place in the southern Amazon, where soya farming is rapidly moving in to Para and Matto Grosso states. "It was a long, dry season, but the deforestation figures are at least 30 or 40% higher than historical trends," said David Cleary, director of the Amazon programme at the US Nature Conservancy in Brazil. "If ways are not found to minimise the impact of the spread of soya farming, it is difficult to see these figures falling in coming years," he added. The soya boom has been fuelled by European consumers who have rejected GM soya from the US in favour of the conventionally-grown crop from Brazil. During the past three years, Brazil's share of the world soya market has risen from 24% to 34%, while the US share has declined from 57% to 43%. Brazil is expected to overtake US production within five years, but it may be at the expense of the Amazon forest. Destruction A series of scientific reports have suggested that the Amazon forests, which are still 86% intact, face rapid future destruction because of interlinked climatic and human forces. The previous Brazilian government planned to invest over $US40bn (£27bn) in new roads, railroads, reservoirs, power lines and gas lines in the Amazon over the next few years. This was expected to increase forest loss dramatically, and to make the forests more prone to destruction by fire. However, the present government has not yet committed itself fully to the plan. Rainforests cover less than 2% of the Earth's surface, yet they are home to some 40 to 50% of all life forms - as many as 30 million species of plants, animals and insects. Up to 30% of the world's animal and plant species are found nowhere but in the Amazon, an area of 1.54 million sq miles (4.1 million sq km) - larger than western Europe. Scientists issue a warning that its rate of destruction poses serious threats, not just in respect of lost species but by reducing production of oxygen and unpredictable consequences for global weather patterns. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'world/world', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/forests', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2003-06-28T09:35:54Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2020/jun/09/the-guardian-view-on-a-green-new-deal-save-jobs-and-the-planet | The Guardian view on a green new deal: to save jobs and the planet | Editorial | Britain needs a green job-filled recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Unlike Germany and South Korea, it is far from clear that we will get one. While Berlin and Seoul are retooling their fossil fuel-reliant economies to be greener and cleaner, the UK has yet to announce a policy that deals with the environmental emergency and the spectre of mass unemployment. Unless a vaccine for coronavirus is found soon, Britain faces a surge in joblessness at the end of October, when all forms of wage support stop. The size of this spike in unemployment will determine how long it is before we may return to normal. Currently, 12 million people are covered by the job retention scheme for furloughed workers and its equivalent for the self-employed. There are few takers for the idea that there will be a sharp bounce-back to business as usual. Torsten Bell, who worked in the Treasury when the financial crash struck in 2008 and now runs the Resolution Foundation thinktank, told MPs on the Treasury select committee that if unemployment hits 10%, which is about what the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates, it would take at least seven years to return to where we were before the pandemic struck. If none of the workers being supported by wage subsidies get their jobs back, it could take decades to return to normal. Sustained unemployment imposes significant economic, personal and social costs: joblessness leads to ill health and reduced life expectancy, and to the undermining of human relations and family life. The state has been playing the role of “insurer of last resort” to keep the economy running, so that it can be restarted once the emergency has passed. A physically distanced economy will be different to the carefree one we were used to. The furlough scheme has helped lower-paid and part-time staff, and it is hard to see all of these workers returning to their roles in the leisure, travel and hospitality sectors. Yet Boris Johnson was wrong to suggest earlier this month that “many, many job losses” were inevitable. This will only happen if policy choices do not change. The answer to large-scale layoffs is for the public sector to create jobs, especially in those regions where there will be no or few openings, and for such a scheme to be designed to recast the economy in an environmentally sustainable way. Large public spending could transform the economy with an industrial base that would be net zero in carbon emissions. The harm from climate change is not as immediately obvious as that of the pandemic, but it is bigger and longer-lasting. There are encouraging reports that the Treasury is looking at a “green industrial revolution” to create jobs for those made redundant through the economic fallout from the pandemic. But where’s the beef? Leaving lockdown will not be inherently climate-friendly. Mr Johnson must make it so by decoupling future economic activity from carbon emissions and ecological destruction. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/series/the-green-recovery', 'society/unemployment', 'environment/environment', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/greenbuilding', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'society/society', 'politics/politics', 'business/economic-recovery', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'business/economics', 'politics/economy', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2020-06-09T18:20:39Z | true | EMISSIONS |
world/2008/jul/30/russia | Russia's diving record attempt ends in farce | The plan was to boldly go where no man had been before. But Russia's latest patriotic mission to the bottom of the world's deepest lake ended in humiliation and confusion yesterday, after a group of scientists were forced to withdraw claims they had set a new underwater record. Russian explorers using two mini-submarines reached the bottom of Siberia's vast Lake Baikal - one of the last relatively unexplored frontiers on Earth. The team announced they had sunk to a record depth of 1,680 metres (5,512 ft). After returning to the surface, however, the scientists conceded that their twin submersibles - Mir1 and Mir2 - had not gone quite as deep as they had hoped. The submarines descended to a depth of 1,580 and 1,592 metres, they confirmed. The lake, which is 25m to 30m years old, and contains around 20% of the world's unfrozen freshwater, was measured at 1,637m deep by another research expedition back in the 1990s. Baikal enjoys a unique ecosystem. As well as fish and other freshwater life found nowhere else on the planet, it is home to the rare nerpa - one of only three known species of freshwater seals. But Russian experts said there was little possibility the scientists would find new or exotic life on the bottom of the lake, preferring instead to hail the dive as the latest example of Russia's resurgence. "We have gone to the depths of Lake Baikal to find out what the lake is," Dr Yulduz Khliullin, an assistant director of Moscow's Institute of Oceanography told the Guardian yesterday. "We are interested in its chemistry and biology." He added, however: "The dive is certainly also a kind of advertisement for the Russian government and for our science. We are trying also to draw attention to the lake and the need to preserve it." Asked whether the scientists might find a new species of fish, or interesting shrimp, Khliullin said: "I don't think they will discover anything extraordinary. But there are indications we may find hydrogen gas." The mini-submarines used in yesterday's non-record-breaking dive are the same submersible vehicles used by Russia last year to plant a flag on the bottom of the Arctic seabed. That expedition drew criticism from western nations, which accused Russia of trying to grab the Arctic for itself. The veteran explorer who led the north pole expedition, Artur Chilingarov, a pro-Kremlin MP, also led the Baikal dive. Chilingarov said last night that the subs had not been trying to break any records. He admitted they had sunk to a depth of 1,580m, not 1,680m as first reported. "They went along the bottom for 3.5 miles. It's very flat terrain. There are no depressions they could go into," he said. The mini-subs slipped into Baikal's choppy waters just after dawn yesterday. They then disappeared, as Chilingarov and other scientists watched from a mission-control point on a nearby platform, near the lake's rugged Olkhon island. The subs are expected to carry out 50-60 dives between now and the end of September. They will return to Baikal early next summer, once the ice that engulfs the crescent-shape lake - next to the city of Irkutsk, and not far from the border with Mongolia and China - melts. There was more dispiriting news yesterday for Russia. According to the US geological survey, Moscow placed its flag on the Arctic bottom last year in the wrong place. The strata underneath the north pole recently claimed by Russia appears to hold just 1.2% of the Arctic's crude - estimated at 90bn barrels of oil. | ['world/russia', 'environment/biodiversity', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'science/biology', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/lukeharding', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-07-29T23:01:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2007/jan/29/nuclearindustry.nuclearpower | Further setback for ailing Thorp plant | British Nuclear Group has run into new safety problems at the controversial Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) which have delayed its restart. The move threatens to undermine the precarious finances of the government's clean-up organisation, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which relies on Thorp for its income. Faults have been discovered on evaporators necessary for drying radioactive liquid produced by Thorp and the plant cannot operate until these are fixed. Thorp, which was about to begin operations again after a near two-year shutdown following an accident, plays an important role in the NDA because the income it earns is used to finance the agency's wider work decommissioning the UK's old reactors. The NDA said it was not prepared to give a date now for Thorp being brought back on stream. The breakdown comes at a difficult time for the NDA, which is understood to be £160m short for the year ending April and has called for cuts at Sellafield and elsewhere around the industry. The latest embarrassment comes as a group of Thorp customers issued a legal challenge to BNG Sellafield to court over an attempt to charge them for the cost of repairs. E.ON, one of the three, has argued that BNG has even tried to charge them for a £500,000 fine handed out last October for breaching three conditions of its safety licence following the accident at Thorp in April 2005. | ['business/business', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2007-01-29T00:08:44Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/apr/12/biden-electric-vehicles-pollution-auto-industry | Biden team proposes strict vehicle pollution limits to boost EV sales | The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed strict new automobile pollution limits that would require that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry. Under the proposed regulation, released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021. The EPA administrator, Michael Regan, insisted the targets were “readily achievable”, with EV sales tripling since Biden came to office, and despite the skepticism of some automakers about the pace of the transition needed for the plans. Regan said: “By proposing the most ambitious pollution standards ever for cars and trucks, we are delivering on the Biden-Harris administration’s promise to protect people and the planet, securing critical reductions in dangerous air and climate pollution and ensuring significant economic benefits like lower fuel and maintenance costs for families.” “A lot has to go right for this massive – and unprecedented – change in our automotive market and industrial base to succeed,” said John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation representing General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota and others. “Factors outside the vehicle, like charging infrastructure, supply chains, grid resiliency, the availability of low-carbon fuels and critical minerals will determine whether EPA standards at these levels are achievable.” The announcement comes nearly two years after carmakers pledged to make electric vehicles comprise half of US new car sales by 2030 as part of a history-making transition from gasoline-powered engines to battery-powered vehicles. Electric vehicles accounted for only 7.2% of US vehicle sales in the first quarter of the year, but the share of EV sales is on the rise – last year it was 5.8% of new vehicle sales. Environmental groups have applauded the ambitious limits proposed by the Biden administration. Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the EPA proposal should have been tougher. “Automakers talk out of both sides of their tailpipes, promising electric vehicles while delivering mostly the same old gas-guzzlers and lobbying for weak, loophole-riddled rules,” Becker said. The proposal, if finalized, represents the most aggressive US vehicle emissions reduction plan to date, requiring 13% annual average pollution cuts. The EPA is also proposing new stricter emissions standards for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks through 2032. EPA projects the 2027-2032 model year rules would cut more than 9bn tons of CO2 emissions through 2055 – equivalent to more than twice total US CO2 emissions last year. The president, who signed an executive order setting a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be zero-emissions vehicles, also wants automakers to raise gas mileage and cut tailpipe pollution between now and model year 2026, which would be a significant step toward his pledge to cut US planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The EPA estimates net benefits through 2055 from the proposal range from $850bn to $1.6tn. By 2032 the proposal would cost about $1,200 per vehicle per manufacturer, but save an owner more than $9,000 on average on fuel, maintenance and repair costs over an eight-year period. The proposed regulation is not expected to become final until next year. California in August moved to require all new vehicles sold in the state by 2035 be electric or plug-in electric hybrids, but must still seek an EPA waiver to proceed. Regan would not say how the EPA would react to a California request. “We’ll be on the lookout for that if it were to ever come,” he said. | ['environment/electric-cars', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'us-news/joebiden', 'us-news/biden-administration', 'technology/technology', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'us-news/us-politics', 'environment/epa', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dani-anguiano', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2023-04-12T13:12:44Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2014/feb/13/floods-david-cameron-spending-pledge-treasury-defra | How Cameron's flood spending pledge could swamp Treasury's targets | David Cameron has pledged to spend whatever it takes to bring relief to Britain's inundated villages, towns and fields. But with a backlog of hundreds of flood defence projects, which would protect nearly 100,000 homes, a similar open chequebook for flood prevention once the water subsides will entail a large bill. Earlier this week, the chairman of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, wrote in the Guardian that according to Treasury "rules", any project must save £8 for every £1 it costs. The bar is high compared with other large capital projects in the UK. HS2, the high speed railway that has trilateral support across government and opposition, has been estimated to have a cost-benefit ratio of between 1.5 and 2.5 for example. The flooding ratio is set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which sets the bar according to its available resources. Due to huge demand, and limited resources (the department has been hit particularly hard by austerity cuts) only the most effective schemes receive full funding. Smith is implying that good projects are going unfunded because the budget is too low. According to EA data, there are 477 projects, worth £2.2bn, that will not go ahead before 2019-20. These would offer increased protection for 97,000 homes. An EA spokesperson said it was normal to have a backlog to some degree. But Colin Green from the Flood Hazard Research Centre said the backlog and the requirements for efficiency had been increasing with development. "It used to be that a scheme would be undertaken if the ratio was six to one, with increasing pressure, particularly in terms of areas at risk of flooding, it's gone up to eight to one before it will get funded," he said. Defra says capital investment in new flood and coastal erosion defences in 2014-15 will rise by £50m to £343.8m. There are currently 490,000 properties at risk of flooding in the UK. The EA says the government spend must increase to £1bn per year by 2035 just to stop the number of threatened properties rising. Polling this week showed an increase in public pressure for the government to spend more in this area. Smith also spoke of making difficult choices in the future between homes and farmland, but limited funding may have already made that choice. In rural areas where there is less expensive infrastructure, the £8 limit is difficult to reach. Smith said rivers on the Somerset Levels had not been dredged because a cost-benefit analysis only allowed the EA to spend £400,000. This was not enough to make it viable because matched funding from private sources did not materialise. The government has now lifted these restrictions for the levels and budgeted £10m for additional flood defences in the area. Flood defence projects often fail to meet the cost/benefit ratio set by Defra. Sometimes partnership funding from local authorities and businesses makes up the shortfall, but often they languish in the pipeline. These are some of the projects on hold or rejected: • A £190m scheme to protect Leeds from an estimated £450m of damage in the event of a major flood event on the River Aire was deemed too expensive by the EA. • Tidal sluices proposed for the River Parrett in Somerset have had "significant uncertainty regarding funding" according to an EA report. Although this may change after Defra lifted the eight to one restrictions for the Somerset Levels. • During December, 300 homes were flooded in Boston, Lincolnshire. The £90.2m Boston Tidal Barrier has been awaiting approval from Defra, despite local authority partnership funding having been secured. Work is expected to begin on the project in 2017, subject to approval. • A £66m tidal barrier at Weymouth is stalled as the local authority tries to raise funding from businesses and developers in the town centre. • The proposed £100m Oxford Flood Risk Management Strategy was only partially implemented. "Inadequate central government funding is the main stumbling block to further implementation of sorely needed measures," said the Oxford Flood Alliance. • The British Isles are tilting towards the south-east corner as the land readjusts to the loss of ice during the ice age. That means the high tide in London is rising by 75cm per century. The Lower Thames Flood Alleviation Scheme is designed to build on the existing protection of the Thames Barrier and protect 1.25 million people and £200bn worth of property. The EA is seeking partners to help fund the proposal. | ['environment/flooding', 'uk/uk', 'tone/analysis', 'environment/environment', 'politics/davidcameron', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'profile/karl-mathiesen'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-13T11:24:37Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/feb/26/arctic-pen-hadow-climate | Pen Hadow and team prepare to set off for Arctic climate survey | Three British explorers hope to set off tomorrow to trek and swim more than 1,000 km across ice pans, frozen ridges and open ocean to help scientists discover how long it will be before the Arctic sea ice disappears due to climate change. Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels plan to fly six hours north from their base at Resolute in northern Canada to a point at the edge of the year-round sea ice and from there set off with sledges laden with measuring equipment to take at least 10m readings of the density and thickness of the frozen sea water beneath their feet. Speaking to the Guardian from Resolute today , on his 47th birthday, Hadow said: "We've been planning this for five years, so we're hugely excited, but equally we'd be mad to not be anxious. The first few weeks are so extreme. We're going into one of the most extreme environments on the planet with very little protection: we're just out there in the clothes we stand up in, we have barely got any supplies." In an exclusive video for the Guardian from a rehearsal expedition near the team's Canadian base, Pen Hadow said that preparations had gone well. "The weather's been pretty harsh until today and we've had some time out and about doing some final tests for our pioneering technology." The planned departure of the £3m Catlin Arctic Survey though is far from certain, because a storm is moving towards the team's drop off point on the sea ice. Hadow said it was "75% likely" they would set off tomorrow. The expedition was prompted by mounting concern over large declines in the Arctic sea ice area, which the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in the US calculates is, on average, declining by an area the size of Scotland every year, raising fears about a spiralling cycle of warming and melting as the darker exposed ocean heats up, exacerbating global climate change. The losses have prompted experts to bring forward forecasts for when the summer sea ice will disappear from a century to about 30 years, and in one case as little as four years. However experts at the UK's Met Office have cautioned against over-gloomy warnings, saying it is too soon to say how much of the recent more dramatic losses were due to natural variability. The survey will take automatic radar soundings of the depth and density of ice pans, and stop to make regular cores for more detailed measurements of the ice and sea water below, in an attempt to help experts be more certain of not just the area of ice but the total volume of frozen water, four fifths of which is below sea level, said Hadow. Hartley, an award-winning photographer, will take photographs and video, and the team will carry a voice recorder for their visual impressions of the landscape. The results, which will be fed back to scientists in the UK and US by satellite, will be used to test and improve models, and could also help calibrate satellite measurements which have been collected for 30 years. "At a global scale we need to understand how our planet works, particularly this early warning system which is the sea ice in the north pole region," said Hadow. "Never has that been more urgently needed, and the only people with the skills and experience and the commitment to the rigours are sea ice/polar explorers." During the up to three month expedition they will drag sleds weighing up to 120kg and endure temperatures that with the wind-chill factor could dip as low as -90C. There will be the constant threat of falling through the ice, polar bear attacks, sudden illness, accidents with the sleds on often rough and steep ground, and carbon monoxide poisoning from the small stoves they use to melt ice and heat food in their tent at night. They each expect to lose a significant amount of weight as they cannot carry enough food to compensate for the hard work. In 2003, Hadow became the first known human to trek solo and unaided by resupply planes from Canada to the north pole at 90 degrees north. This time the team will have resupplies, though these have had to be cut back because of difficulties raising the last bit of sponsorship and the falling value of the pound. As well as insurance giant Catlin, expedition supporters include the United Nations Environment Program, the Prince of Wales and conservation charity WWF. • You can follow Hadow and his team's expedition via the Guardian's environment website with regular pictures and video from the ice and blogs from the explorers. There is also more information on the Catlin Arctic Survey website | ['environment/catlin-arctic-survey', 'environment/poles', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'world/arctic', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'environment/sea-level', 'type/article', 'profile/juliettejowit'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-02-26T16:57:54Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2023/may/30/the-guardian-view-on-labours-green-plans-just-stop-oil-to-save-the-planet | The Guardian view on Labour’s green plans: just stop oil to save the planet | Editorial | Sir Keir Starmer has been admirably straightforward about his mission to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”. Blocking new oil and gas fields is a sine qua non to realise that ambition. The Labour leader even went to the lion’s den of Davos earlier this year to give business leaders that message. But judging from the headlines over the past few days, you might be forgiven for thinking that Sir Keir had never uttered a word about his plans. Or that Labour had not argued that a big public investment programme was needed to green the economy. The Conservative press instead said Labour’s ideas were a “gift to Putin”; raised a “£28bn question”; and were a sure sign that eco-friendly donors were being appeased. Such a tendentious reading of policy gives opportunistic bunkum a bad name. It is hard not to think that the reason for all the fuss is the imminent decision on the North Sea’s biggest undeveloped oil and gas field, Rosebank. Rishi Sunak has drawn a clear political dividing line with Labour by saying it makes “no sense” not to invest in it. Yet this is the economics of the madhouse. Equinor, the majority Norwegian state-owned company behind Rosebank, made £62bn last year. But it only has to lay out £350m to develop Rosebank because Mr Sunak will subsidise the venture to the tune of £3.75bn. The jobs created are those of a fading industry, not a future one. There are dozens more offshore fields coming up for approval over the next four years. None should go ahead – with or without government handouts – because the carbon extracted would contribute to wrecking the planet. This is not about energy security. Fossil fuel prices are set on international markets – and any piped from the UK’s continental shelf would not insulate the country from global shocks. Rather than attacking Labour, the current Tory party chair, Greg Hands, should remember he had made this very point last year. Neither would North Sea hydrocarbons reduce Britain’s exposure to fickle markets over which petrostates and dictatorships attempt to exert control. The opposition’s plans are more in tune with the government’s expert advisers on the climate change committee who said last year: “The best way of reducing the UK’s future exposure to these volatile prices is to cut fossil fuel consumption on the path to net zero – improving energy efficiency, shifting to a renewables-based power system and electrifying end uses in transport, industry and heating.” Labour’s “Green Prosperity Plan” needs sharpening, not discarding. As the thinktank Common Wealth has shown, every aspect of the UK’s energy system is privatised, which has led to structurally higher prices and a lack of state control over its development. Using public money to stoke a private investment boom won’t guarantee a green transition, let alone a just one. That is why it is heartening that Labour is looking at government solutions again. The opposition plans an £8bn green sovereign wealth fund that would take public stakes in clean investments as well as the creation of a publicly owned renewable energy producer called Great British Energy. Both see democratically controlled industrial policy, rather than a pro-corporate one, manage the transition from fossil fuels. There currently exists a chasm between the ecologically necessary and the politically possible. Sir Keir’s policies attempt to bridge the gap, while the Tories are merely content with letting delusions rush in to fill it. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oil', 'politics/politics', 'environment/energy', 'politics/keir-starmer', 'business/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/energy-industry', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-05-30T17:52:09Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/cif-green/2009/oct/06/turin-shroud-climate-change | A shroud over the truth | Leo Hickman | Next spring, from 10 April to 23 May, the Turin Shroud will be displayed in public for the first time in a decade. It will also be the first occasion the public have been able to see the shroud since its renovation in 2002. Alongside a mass of pilgrims and curious tourists, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Turin during the exhibition to see the famous linen shroud, which is said to bear a blood-stained image of Christ. The advice is to reserve your place early. The shroud's official website says it will soon be taking internet bookings. But, it stresses, "maximum attention will be devoted to meeting the needs of the sick, disabled, members of religious orders and diocesan pilgrims". We can predict with near certainty that all this will trigger a slew of stories and documentaries about the authenticity, or otherwise, of the shroud's provenance. In fact, it has already started, with the news this week that a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia called Luigi Garlaschelli is claiming that he has used materials and techniques available in the Middle Ages to create a copy of the shroud. It proves, he says, that the shroud is, indeed, a fake dating from the 13th-14th century – as was shown some 20 years ago by a team of scientists using carbon-dating technology. My own boyhood curiosity about the origins of the shroud largely ended when the results of the carbon dating came in. My only real interest in it today is that people's belief in its authenticity can be so strong and unswerving that the compelling evidence stacked up against it still fails to move them. The shroud is, literally, an article of faith. "If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me," says Professor Garlaschelli, acknowledging that his own studies into the origins of the shroud will have little, if any, impact on the relic's true believers. Anyone who regularly wrestles in the bear-pit that is the climate change "debate" will nod their head in recognition at Garlaschelli's frustrations. The parallels are clear. There is a section of society that stubbornly refuses to "believe" in anthropogenic climate change, despite a near avalanche of evidence urging them to "believe" otherwise. Their faith in the status quo of the fossil-fuelled economy is immovable, it seems. The evidence before them suggesting otherwise is a challenge to their own belief that a free-market, libertarian approach to life is the best way forward. And because they don't like the smell of the solutions being proposed (by all means, let's have that debate – urgently), climate science is, therefore, judged to be a fraud, a conspiracy, a big lie being perpetuated by a left-wing cabal led by a cackling Al Gore or malevolent James Hansen. It would be laughable, if it wasn't so serious an issue. It's a situation where an ideologically fuelled belief is allowed to trump an evidence-based belief. It's a world guided by empiricism versus a world prejudiced by emotion. And, personally, I know which world I "believe" in. | ['commentisfree/cif-green', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/catholicism', 'travel/turin', 'world/world', 'world/religion', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/leohickman'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2009-10-06T16:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
uk-news/2024/nov/28/use-robots-instead-of-hiring-low-paid-migrants-says-shadow-home-secretary | Use robots instead of hiring low-paid migrants, says shadow home secretary | Businesses should be using more robots instead of hiring low-paid migrants, the shadow home secretary has said. The Conservative MP Chris Philp says other countries “use a lot more automation” for tasks such as picking fruit and vegetables “rather than simply importing a lot of low-wage migrant labour”. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he called for more investment in technology to reduce the UK’s net migration figures. Philp said: “To give an example, in Australia and New Zealand, they are rolling out robotic and automated fruit- and vegetable-picking equipment, in South Korea they use nine times the number of robots in manufacturing processes compared to us, in America they use a lot more modular construction which is much faster and much more efficient. “There’s a lot of things British industry can do to grow without needing to import large numbers of low-wage migrants.” At an impromptu press conference on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said her party had got it wrong on immigration. She promised a review of “every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework” including the role of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act. She said her party still believed in a “deterrent” to irregular migration but did not commit to restoring the Rwanda scheme scrapped by Labour, even though Philp called for it to be reinstated two weeks ago. He said on Thursday that Labour had “cancelled the Rwanda scheme before it even started”. Philp was asked about reports that under the Conservatives, ministers had been examining using a giant wave machine to deter Channel crossings. He told the BBC: “I don’t recall ever having seriously looked at that idea. I can’t remember if someone else did.” Badenoch committed to a “strict numerical cap” on migration and said the Tories would “explain how you get to those numbers”. Philp declined to put a figure for this cap, but said net migration figures of 350,000 would be “much too high”. Philp told the BBC: “We do need to do the work properly to understand exactly how many high-skilled, high-wage people we need, how many people are coming here to do proper degree courses, not using degree courses as a sort of parallel migration system which has been happening to an extent so far. I’m not going to shoot from the hip.” He said the Tories would be examining migrants’ eligibility for benefits among other areas. | ['uk/immigration', 'world/migration', 'technology/robots', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'money/work-and-careers', 'technology/technology', 'politics/chris-philp', 'environment/farming', 'politics/conservatives', 'campaign/email/today-uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/eleni-courea', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-11-28T09:27:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/sep/24/jean-combes-obituary | Jean Combes obituary | Every year from the age of 20 my mother, Jean Combes, who has died aged 96, recorded the time of year that four tree species – oak, ash, horse chestnut and lime – came into leaf. What started in 1947 as a personal project, driven by a simple love of nature, turned out to demonstrate with textbook clarity that the long-term trend in Britain has been for spring to start much earlier than it used to. Her 76-year dataset has been used by scientists in climate change modelling, and earned her national recognition in 2009 with appointment as an OBE for services to phenology, the study of periodic events in biological life cycles. Jean’s data first came to the attention of scientists in 1995, when she read about the work of the climate expert Tim Sparks, and contacted him about what she had been doing. Tim later described her records as “probably unique in phenological recording and, as far as we know, the longest recording by a single person anywhere in the world”. Born in south London to Ernest Laney, an insurance salesman, and Dorothy (nee Martin), a seamstress, Jean acquired her interest in the natural world when she was evacuated to the countryside with her sister, Pauline, at the start of the second world war. First they lived in Hertfordshire and then in Sussex. After being educated at Chichester girls grammar school she went on to work as a housing manager at various local authorities in the London area. While at Merton council she met Reg Combes, a payroll clerk, and they married in 1951. After raising three daughters as a full-time mother, Jean completed a three-year field biology qualification at London University in 1977. This was the springboard for 25 years of teaching natural history adult education classes, first for the WEA in Surrey, then at Surrey University in Guildford and for the Field Studies Council. Jean also undertook survey work, including 20 years of the common bird census on Ashtead common in Surrey, and was commissioned by the Local Agenda 21 Committee for Surrey to carry out a study of a proposed oil pipeline route through Surrey and Sussex, which got the go-ahead only on the basis that hundreds of rare wild daffodils identified by her were first transplanted to safety. She was involved with a number of wildlife bodies, including on the committees of the Surrey Wildlife Trust and of the City of London body that manages Ashtead Common. After the award of her OBE there was considerable media interest in her exploits, and she appeared on The One Show in 2009 and Springwatch in 2010. Her fine pencil drawings of tree buds, catkins and leaves were exhibited annually for 10 years at the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. She also had a love for Scottish landscapes, literature, poetry and art, and remained interested in politics and the state of the world. Reg died in 2006. She is survived by her daughters, Sue and me, and four grandchildren, Alex, Lewis, Joe and Jenna. Another daughter, Jenny, died in 2018. | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'theguardian/series/otherlives', 'science/biology', 'tv-and-radio/springwatch', 'education/coventryuniversity', 'type/article', 'tone/obituaries', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/obituaries', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-obituaries'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-09-24T17:36:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/mar/28/man-and-dogs-die-in-queensland-floods-as-deluge-returns-to-eastern-australia | Flood evacuation orders issued for Lismore after man and dogs die in Queensland | Towns in northern New South Wales are bracing for another bout of possibly life-threatening flash floods, with the State Emergency Service ordering parts of flood-hit Lismore to move out of harm’s way. The NSW SES on Monday issued an evacuation order about 7.30pm for North Lismore stating “residents must evacuate by 9pm”. Residents of South Lismore were ordered to leave by 10pm. SES spokesperson Ashley Sullivan said the evacuation orders were for low-lying areas. “This is due to the increased risk from heavy rainfall overnight and the potential for moderate to major flooding early in the morning,” he said. “This is for the safety of yourself, the rest of the community and our emergency service partners.” An evacuation order was also issued on Monday night for low-lying parts of Kyogle, 30km north-west of Lismore. Earlier, Queensland police reported the death of a man at Kingsthorpe near Toowoomba after a vehicle with two people got trapped in flood waters. “A woman was rescued and taken to hospital in a stable condition for treatment, however, a man was located deceased in the ute,” police said, adding investigations were ongoing as they prepared a coronial report. “A number of dogs also died.” The focus of emergency services was shifting to south of the Queensland-NSW border as a deepening trough threatened to develop into a low, including widespread thunderstorms, as the Bureau of Meteorology updated its warnings. “Locally intense rainfall leading to dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding is possible, with thunderstorms with six-hourly rainfall totals in excess of 200mm, possibly reaching up to 300mm in six hours,” the BoM said. “Damaging wind gusts with peak gusts of around 90km/h are possible about coastal areas during Tuesday, most likely from Tuesday afternoon onwards.” In Lismore, the SES warned that low-lying properties, particularly in North Lismore, may experience impacts due to flash flooding and/or riverine flooding. “Storm and flood impacts may interrupt essential services such as electricity, phones, internet, water and sewerage,” the SES said. Another northern NSW town facing potentially “significant impact” was Bellingen, it said. A separate flood watch said moderate to major flooding was possible for the Richmond, Wilsons, Orara and Bellinger rivers in NSW from Tuesday. Minor flooding was possible for the Hawkesbury-Nepean River near Sydney. The harbour city was likely to collect 30 to 45mm of rain, the BoM said. Helen Reid, a bureau meteorologist, said it remained unclear whether the trough moving across Queensland and into NSW would develop into an east coast low and remain near the coast or move further off into the Tasman Sea. “It’s possible that the low would be farther offshore and not as problematic as a proper east coast low,” Reid said. East coast lows typically pack strong winds along with heavy rain which not what residents or authorities want as NSW is still recovering from two such lows in a week, which struck earlier this month. Overnight into Monday, rain totals topped 100mm in parts of the eastern darling downs and the Sunshine Coast hinterland, said Ben Domensino, a senior Weatherzone meteorologist. “Everything is wet,” Reid said. “Even 20mm is going to cause flooding in some places because there’s nowhere for the water to go.” The NSW SES said it was preparing “for significant impacts across the north coast from the Hunter to the Tweed”. It had set up two incident control centres at Metford and Grafton, according to an SES briefing. The SES said it would have a flood rescue cell at Metford and airbases at Ballina, Coffs Harbour and Cessnock. The Australian defence force would be among the support agencies. “Everyone needs to be on their guard the whole time,” Reid said. “It could well be in the early hours of tomorrow that is more problematic for NSW.” Reid said warm waters off eastern Australia were contributing to the series of rainfall events, including the latest one. “Combined with the surface trough, extra heat coming up from the oceans just enhances the lift of the moisture in the system,” she said. “It just all adds up to a recipe for a lot more rain and floods.” The larger anomalies for sea surface temperatures were off the south coast of NSW, Domensino said. But those off the northern half of the state were between 0.5C and 1C above normal. “Certainly this is the time of the year where we typically have the warmest sea surface temperatures anyway,” Domensino said. He said the additional warmth “would be helping to cause evaporation and putting a bit more moisture into the atmosphere to help fuel this event”. But he said the current rainfall would only last a couple of days. “The last system stuck around for more than a week in eastern NSW, but this one should move offshore a bit quicker.” In Lismore, shop owners in the town’s central business district who were only just reopening four weeks after initial flooding were weary of further flooding. The owner of the Floret florist on Woodlark Street in Lismore, Sue Cramp, said she was only just beginning to take orders again after weeks of intense repairs. She said she was praying that the fresh predictions of heavy rainfall did not cause flooding in Lismore again. “Well I won’t say I’m not worried but I just don’t really want to think about it, to be quite honest,” Cramp told ABC news. “Surely it’s not going to happen.” Lismore’s mayor, Steve Krieg, said between 2,000 and 4,000 people were still homeless in his region. He said his family, like many of those still homeless, was living in friends’ homes. Of the rain predicted in the coming days, Krieg said “preliminary plans” were being put in place. “The last thing we need at the moment is these rain bombs that are coming down,” he told the ABC. “Hopefully they’ll miss our catchment area and we’ll stay safe, but it doesn’t look good at the moment.” | ['australia-news/australia-weather', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/byron-bay', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'profile/elias-visontay', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-28T08:58:44Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2011/mar/15/bradley-manning-prison-treatment-wikileaks | Bradley Manning: Cruel and unusual | Editorial | It is now nearly a decade since 9/11, and in the aftermath of that atrocity the US "lost a little of its greatness", in the words of one courageous military lawyer, David Frakt. Mr Frakt was protesting to a military commission of "the pointless and sadistic treatment of … a suicidal teenager", a Guantanamo inmate put in solitary, then systematically sleep-deprived by being shifted from cell to cell every couple of hours. There was at least the ghost of an excuse for bullying and sometimes torturing Arab and Afghan "combatants". It was done in the name of saving American lives. There is no such need for the cruel mistreatment now reported as being practised on one of their own, the diminutive US private Bradley Manning. Yet when Hilary Clinton's spokesman, PJ Crowley, wisely pointed this out – calling the treatment "counterproductive and stupid" – he had to resign. Mr Manning is accused of giving Wikileaks the video of a helicopter killing civilians in Baghdad, the logs documenting disasters of war in Afghanistan, and the 250,000 diplomatic cables which have shed such a dramatic light on world affairs. As a result, Mr Manning is made to stand naked outside his cell this morning, and apparently on all future mornings. This is the culmination of a punitive regime which has gone on for 10 months under which, although untried and unconvicted, he is not allowed to sleep or exercise in his cell during the day, is denied any personal possessions and is barred from conversing with the guards. Every five minutes he is required to answer that he is fit and, if he turns his face away while asleep, he is immediately forcibly woken up. In an Orwellian trick, this is dubbed "prevention of injury" for his own protection. When Manning finally protested, sarcastically, that he could no doubt injure himself with the boxer shorts which are all that he is left with at night, the boxer shorts, too, were taken away. This regime of near-torture is perhaps designed to break him, in the hope he will incriminate WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange and other associates on some conspiracy charge. Yet is that sensible? So far, the reaction of the Obama administration to the leaks has been relatively measured. It is tacitly accepted that no lives have been lost, and US diplomacy has not collapsed in the sunlight. Perhaps these frank assessments of corruption even emboldened the uprising against tyranny in places such as Tunisia. It would send a dire message to other tyrannies if the US itself responds to a leak as if it were itself a tyranny. It was, after all, the US top brass who failed to look after their data. We have not seen any heads roll there yet. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/chelsea-manning', 'us-news/guantanamo-bay', 'us-news/obama-administration', 'us-news/the-us-embassy-cables', 'world/the-war-logs', 'world/iraq-war-logs', 'world/war-logs', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'media/wikileaks', 'media/julian-assange', 'media/media', 'tone/editorials', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | world/the-war-logs | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2011-03-15T00:05:12Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
sustainable-business/2014/sep/05/house-video-cassettes-jeans-toothbrushes-waste-brighton-circular-economy | The house made from 4,000 video cassettes and two tonnes of jeans | Remember video cassettes, those big black boxes that played pictures? Rendered useless by DVDs, they’ve found a new purpose. Some 4,000 of them have built a house, along with two tonnes of denim jeans, 2,000 used carpet tiles and 20,000 toothbrushes. The result is Britain’s first house made almost entirely from rubbish. Based at the University of Brighton, the house opened its doors in June and is a live research project, acting as a test-bed for new windows, solar panels, insulation and construction materials. The 20,000 toothbrushes were sourced from a company that cleans planes after long-haul flights and represent just four days worth of work. According to the 2006 Greenpeace report, Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans, plastic has been found floating in all the world’s oceans, from polar regions to the equator. Toothbrushes, lighters, bottle caps and syringes are among the ingredients making up the “plastic soup” floating in the Pacific Ocean. Toothbrushes, along with video cassettes are being tested for their insulation qualities. Chalk is also being tested after a lorry-load of it heading for landfill was rescued. The construction industry currently discards 20% of everything it uses, meaning that for every five houses built enough waste is generated to build one extra house. The aim of the project, led by University of Brighton senior lecturer Duncan Baker-Brown and endorsed by Grand Designs TV show presenter Kevin McCloud, is to show how low-carbon homes can be built cheaply and quickly using waste and surplus material. Students, apprentices, local builders, school children and volunteers were all involved in building the house using concrete blocks, timber, ply, vinyl banners, pieces of polystyrene and bicycle inner tubes. Its kitchen worktop is made from old coffee cups and grinds, its staircase from compressed thrown away paper and the lights were on board an old ship being sent to get scrapped in Bangladesh. As the cost of raw materials continues to rise, the UK’s first A rated energy-efficient building made from waste, may be the first of many. Read more like this: Chicken feathers and cigarette butts put to use in circular economy If waste is such a valuable resource, why is UK exporting so much of it? Advertisement feature: 10 things you need to know about the circular economy The circular economy hub is funded by Philips. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/waste-and-recycling', 'sustainable-business/hubs-energy-efficiency', 'environment/environment', 'artanddesign/architecture', 'uk/brighton', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/hannah-gould'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-09-05T13:24:46Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
books/article/2024/may/20/labour-mp-dawn-butler-withdraws-from-hay-festival-in-sponsorship-row-baillie-gifford | Labour MP Dawn Butler withdraws from Hay festival in sponsorship row | Labour MP Dawn Butler and author Grace Blakeley are among those who have withdrawn from scheduled appearances at Hay festival over its sponsorship by investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Butler said in a video posted to X that she was withdrawing from the literary festival because Baillie Gifford is “involved directly or indirectly in technology and arms in Israel”. Writers Noreen Masud and AK Blakemore, climate activist Tori Tsui and comedian Ania Magliano have also withdrawn from the festival, which begins on Thursday. Blakemore said that the publishing industry “shouldn’t be used to garner prestige by companies that profit from fossil fuels or the ongoing assault on Palestine”. More than 600 writers and publishing industry professionals have signed a statement by campaign group Fossil Free Books (FFB) which demands Baillie Gifford “divest from the fossil fuel industry and from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide”. FFB said that it fully supports authors who “wish to take action at Baillie Gifford-sponsored festivals, as well as those who withdraw or decline their invitations”. As well as Hay, the company also sponsors Edinburgh international book festival, Cheltenham literature festival and the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. Edinburgh book festival has confirmed that both Blakemore and Masud were invited but neither will be appearing. “Like so many charities, we are operating amongst huge financial uncertainty. Sponsorship is a complex ethical space to navigate,” said Hay CEO Julie Finch in a statement. “In all of our funding agreements, we maintain editorial independence.” According to FFB’s statement, Baillie Gifford has between £2.5bn and £5bn invested in the fossil fuel industry and nearly £10bn in companies with links to Israel’s defence, tech and cybersecurity industries, including Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet. Baillie Gifford said that it is a large investor in multinational technology companies such as Amazon, Nvidia and Meta “that have commercial dealings with the state of Israel that are tiny in the context of their overall business”. It also said that it is a small investor in three companies identified as having “connections to the Israeli state or activities in the occupied territories”, and that Baillie Gifford has been “engaging” with those companies. “We are not a significant fossil fuel investor,” the company added. “Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels. This compares to the market average of 11%”. Anna Frame, communications director at Canongate Books, who recently joined the Edinburgh festival’s board, said in a post on X that finding festival funding is “hard” and that the money “has to come from somewhere”. Baillie Gifford “are one of the relatively few companies with cash that are also at least trying to do better”. “We desperately need a broader discussion about the abysmal state of arts funding in this country,” she added. “If you feel the better option is for these festivals to close down than take money from BG, that’s a fair position to take, though I disagree.” | ['books/books', 'books/guardian-hay-festival', 'environment/fossil-fuel-divestment', 'environment/environment', 'world/israel-hamas-war', 'campaign/email/bookmarks', 'culture/culture', 'culture/festivals', 'politics/dawn-butler', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'books/fossil-free-books', 'profile/ella-creamer', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/fossil-fuel-divestment | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2024-05-20T15:20:44Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
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