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edinburgh/2010/aug/23/edinburgh-climate-camp-rbs-activists-employee | Edinburgh Climate Camp: View from the workforce | Friday morning started without the words camp climate or fossil fuels even entering my mind. That was until I arrived at work to countless policemen and a sea of tents outside the window. From that moment on, everyone knew the protesters were here. Both their actions and their message quickly became the hot topic of the whole building. The only event worth noting in the morning was that a woman who arrived to deliver a package, super glued her hand to a table in reception and shouted about the spending habits of the bank. It received nothing more than a crowd of puzzled faces and laughter. Initially the general mood felt welcoming toward the protest. RBS has let activists camp on their land and offered to speak with protest leaders. When the offer was declined, that's when I started wondering if they were really here to help make a change and when windows started getting smashed in the afternoon, the situation became frustrating. Outbursts like this don't help get the point across; they just divert attention to the petty crimes being committed and make the whole thing look mindless. The difference is the side of the glass On an educational level, it is a positive event. Employees of the bank should know more about who they work for and the public deserve to hear about how their money is being spent. It's also very impressive to see the lengths of organisation and preparation Climate Camp have went to in order to make their point. These protesters aren't the layabouts and unemployed stereotypes people think. With fully functioning eco friendly kitchens and bathrooms along with a large well-coordinated media tent, they are as hard working as any of us sitting in that building. The only difference is the side of the glass we are sitting on. As a cog in the wheel of a company with hundreds of thousands of employees it's difficult to personally relate to the fossil fuel spending or even be aware of it. As I left Gogarburn on Friday evening, rumblings of varied opinions rippled through the bus stop grapevine. Some workers disagreed with the protests, placing their undying loyalty into the hands of a bank which has done nothing but help them build a life and support their families and why shouldn't they? As front line staff of such a large business, financial decisions concerning who the company gives funding to are made by executives so high up in the food chain we would be none the wiser. Others however nodded in agreement and muttered their support. The question is whether they will show it for fear of losing their jobs. It's difficult being dragged into a situation out with our control but we should still be entitled to an opinion, which is the main reason I agreed to write this article. I've been following the protest closely over the weekend via Climate Camp's video streams and Tweets. Events staged by the camp have included dancing outside RBS at St Andrews Square, hijacking RBS sponsored festival events and a number of outings around Gogarburn resulting in multiple arrests. As the official day of action get underway, I can only hope that the protesters don't lose sight of the reason they are here. I agree they have the right to voice their opinion but so far, their message is continuing to be overshadowed by some of the mindless action being taken. I will continue to mumble my opinions inwardly until the dust settles on Tuesday morning. *We have used the name Jenni to protect the RBS employee's identity. | ['edinburgh/edinburgh', 'tone/blog', 'environment/climate-camp', 'environment/activism', 'type/article'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2010-08-23T08:36:44Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2010/jul/26/afghan-war-logs-kabul-pakistan | Afghan war logs: Karzai shocked at size of leak, but not its content | Hamid Karzai is said to be shocked by the massive leak of classified military documents, but to be hoping further allegations of links between Pakistan and the Taliban will support his claim that Islamabad is directly supporting the insurgency. Waheed Omar, the Afghan president's spokesman, told journalists the Afghan government would not seek to exploit revelations of previously unknown incidents in which Nato troops have killed Afghan civilians, even though in the past Karzai has publicly berated the US and its allies after high-profile tragedies. Omar said: "As far as the substance of these leaked documents, the president's reaction was that most of this is not new and has been discussed in the past, and has often been raised in the past with our international partners." Omar praised the "good progress" made over the last 18 months to lower the number of civilians accidentally killed. General Stanley McChrystal, the recently sacked US commander of Nato troops in Afghanistan, took the issue particularly seriously and introduced tough rules of engagement restricting the use of force by foreign soldiers. Meanwhile, William Hague, the foreign secretary, speaking in Brussels, said the leaks would not harm international efforts in Afghanistan. "A good deal of progress is being made, in building up the capacity of the Afghan state and in Afghanistan working together with so many nations in the world," he said. "So I hope any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere, and I don't think they will." But observers in Kabul warned that allegations of Pakistani involvement – while not new – could heighten tensions with Afghanistan's neighbour. . Haroun Mir, a political analyst, Karzai critic and parliamentary candidate, predicted that the intelligence documents alleging skulduggery by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) wwould make it harder for the coalition to tolerate anything less than full Pakistani support in fighting the Taliban. "For us, this is no secret – it is something we have been talking about since day one. But now there is no secret left. These are no longer allegations; these are facts," he said. "It is up to the US and the UK to do something about it. Every day we see Nato soldiers die and Pakistan is very clearly linked to these killings, but there is no reaction. The west just rewards bad behaviour by the Pakistanis." He said that when the details are re-reported by Afghan media, they will fuel popular conspiracy theories that the western powers are not serious about beating the Taliban and instead are looking for excuses for the permanent occupation of Afghanistan. Any anti-Pakistani uproar will probably disrupt the detente between Karzai and Pakistan's leadership. For months now Karzai has pointedly dropped his old anti-Pakistani rhetoric, and has held a series of meetings with Pakistan's army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of the ISI – the very organisation cited in the documents as being part of an alleged plot to assassinate the Afghan president. Mir said: "We have all been trying to warn President Karzai that you cannot trust the Pakistanis. They are not co-operating with the US and the UK, so why should they co-operate with Afghanistan?" | ['world/afghanistan', 'world/pakistan', 'us-news/us-military', 'media/wikileaks', 'us-news/us-foreign-policy', 'us-news/us-national-security', 'world/hamid-karzai', 'tone/news', 'world/world', 'world/the-war-logs', 'world/war-logs', 'type/article', 'profile/jon-boone'] | world/the-war-logs | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2010-07-26T10:08:50Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
australia-news/2016/oct/24/coalition-can-bring-back-green-lawfare-bill-if-senate-supports-it-says-turnbull | Coalition can bring back green 'lawfare' bill if Senate supports it, says Turnbull | The government plans to reintroduce controversial laws to limit the legal standing of conservation groups mounting court cases if it thinks the new Senate will support them, Malcolm Turnbull has revealed. At a press conference in Sydney on Monday Turnbull expressed concern that “systematic, well-funded” environmental campaigns were targeting major projects and flagged a renewed attempt to pass the law. In August 2015 the Abbott government announced it would remove the right of most environmental organisations to challenge developments under federal laws unless they could show they were “directly affected”. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act allows any Australian citizen or resident who has engaged in conservation activities in the previous two years to bring a legal challenge to government environmental decisions. The proposed changes followed a federal court decision that the then environment minister, Greg Hunt, had not properly considered all advice in his approval of Adani’s $16.6bn Carmichael coalmine. After becoming prime minister Turnbull unexpectedly retained plans to introduce the laws limiting legal standing. On Monday Turnbull said: “We have a robust democracy and people are entitled to bring their cases before the courts. “But there is no doubt there has been very systematic, very well-funded campaigns against major projects so it’s right to express concern about that. “We did present some legislation in the last parliament but it was unsuccessful and we’ll obviously reassess the tenor of the new Senate to see whether it would have the appetite for supporting it in the new environment.” The Greens environment spokeswoman, Senator Larissa Waters, said: “Stopping ordinary Australians from enforcing our environment laws would be a capitulation to the hard right inside the Coalition and yet another win for Tony Abbott.” She added: “Gutting public enforcement of environmental laws is an attack on democracy and the rule of law. “When governments fail to enforce or comply with their own laws, it falls to community groups to hold them to account.” Waters said there were already strict rules that limit which cases go to court and frivolous or vexatious claims could be struck out. On Tuesday a United Nations special rapporteur, Michel Forst, criticised the proposed law after a two-week visit to Australia investigating protections for human rights defenders, including environmentalists. Forst noted the push to limit access to courts by environmental organisations seeking to enforce the law and said it was “fortunate” it had been blocked. He said government officials had used “vitriolic language” to “unjustifiably” paint environmental organisations as “radical activists” engaged in “vigilante litigation”. The former prime minister Tony Abbott accused environmental groups of engaging in “sabotage” of investment and jobs and the government dubbed the use of the courts to challenge mining projects as “lawfare”. Forst said there were already significant obstacles to environmental litigation including complexity and the risk of a costs order if a case was unsuccessful. An Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner, Basha Stasak, welcomed the UN rapporteur’s findings that environmental campaigners had been “vilified” for legitimate legal action. She called on the government to “take on board the recommendations that environmental groups have a legitimate interest in decision making and in the courts” and withdraw amendments to deny them standing and deprive them of tax-deductible status. | ['australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'law/law-australia', 'environment/conservation', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/paul-karp', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2016-10-24T06:33:03Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2015/jun/16/queensland-land-clearing-project-halted-amid-concerns-over-threatened-species | Queensland land clearing project halted amid concerns over threatened species | Queensland’s largest tree clearing project, which was approved by the former Newman government without any assessment of environmental impact by the commonwealth, has ground to a halt. Bulldozers stopped work at Olive Vale in Cape York last Friday after the cattle operators who owned the property agreed to belatedly refer the project to the commonwealth for any impact on threatened species. It came after a campaign by environmental groups and an investigation by the Palaszcuk government that found its predecessor wrongly approved the project under its own relaxed clearing laws days before losing office. Conservationists said it was vindication of their efforts after a simple “desktop search” by computer found the property was likely to be habitat of national environmental significance. It also came after Warren Entsch, the federal Liberal national party member for Leichhardt, last week accused conservationists of feeding the state government “bullshit” and hyping the issue to raise funds. Olive Vale owner Ryan Global agreed to refer the property for assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act following visits by federal environmental compliance officers on 11 and 12 June. That department ran its own investigation after conservation groups including the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) warned the project would impact on 17 protected species. These included the red goshawk and arguably Australia’s rarest bird, the buff-breasted button-quail. Their warnings that the project also risked sending more run-off pollution into Great Barrier Reef catchments were echoed last week by a damning state auditor general report that raised concerns about the threat from increased tree clearing to reef water quality. The federal environment department said in a statement: “The owners are cooperating fully with the department in its enquiries and have undertaken to refer the balance of the clearing for a decision under national environmental law. A referral is expected within the next few weeks.” Ryan Global had approval to clear 330 sq km for what it said would be trials in growing sorghum, rice and chickpeas. But the cattle operator’s plan to boost the number of beasts on the property from 15,000 to 25,000 raised suspicions from conservationists that the clearing was a backdoor for more grazing. The former Newman government ruled out grazing as a purpose for liberalising the tree clearing laws, saying they were to enable “high value agriculture”. The Queensland environment minister, Steven Miles, said in a media statement that he welcomed the move to suspend clearing at Olive Vale. “I remain deeply concerned, based on the independent review tabled in parliament on 4 June, that the land in this area is not suitable for the agricultural purpose for which the land clearing approval was sought,” he said. “This scale of land clearing, in an ecologically sensitive area, must not be undertaken lightly.” Australian conservation foundation program officer Andrew Picone said the referral was an acknowledgement the proper process was not followed the first time around. He said the clearing at Olive Vale, backed by Entsch, “would have been an embarrassment” for prime minister Tony Abbott, who was set to launch his government’s white paper on northern Australia in Cairns on Friday. “It vindicates the role of the environment movement in protecting nature and ensuring best practice and environmental laws are followed in the first place,” he said. “It vindicates our call from the beginning that this process go through environmental agencies, which it hadn’t. “It vindicates what we were able to achieve from a simple desktop search, that the property is most likely habitat for matters of national environmental significance and that information is easily available to the public. “We welcome the news that clearing has stopped. We look forward to a proper investigation.” Picone said the ACF hoped the state government separately addressed environmentally significant matters not captured by federal law. This included the impact of Ryan Global’s “unacceptable” proposal to clear right to the edge of Lakefield national park and on other species. | ['environment/wildlife', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joshua-robertson'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-06-16T08:07:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2005/sep/24/hurricanes2005.weather1 | Coastal town boards up and bales out | Like a sickly old patient left out to die, the coastal town directly in the path of Hurricane Rita awaited the inevitable with exhausted resignation. Most of Port Arthur's shops looked as if they had closed down long ago when the shrimp industry took a dive. Their battered old signs dated back to the long-gone glory years of Port Arthur's most famous daughter, Janis Joplin. Yesterday they began creaking and swinging as the winds picked up and the rain came down. Everything else had been boarded up as all but the town's most stubborn residents drove north from the Gulf Coast towards Dallas or west to San Antonio. The remaining sign of American enterprise was to be found at a decrepit brick garage from which Buddy Hall was trying to liberate some precious plywood. He had had a rough night. His lip was split and his chin was caked in blood, apparently after a disagreement with another drifter over ownership of a can of petrol. "He knocks two teeth out," he said, showing the gap. "I said they were rotten anyway." The garage, he claimed, had once belonged to his girlfriend's aunt and he planned to sell the plywood or even give it away to "good Christians" who needed to protect their windows. But the plywood in question was already loaded on a trailer at the back of the garage and Mr Hall had thus far only managed to raise the door a few feet. The tanned, wiry 51-year-old was undeterred, saying he would at least take enough plywood for his wife and his girlfriend. "God told me my job is to set the captives free, to help good Christians and to resist the black-hearted," he said. He planned to sit the storm out in an abandoned post office, something he'd been doing on and off since 1997 when his petrol station business collapsed. "I'm going to stay three storeys up. It's brick but it's got steel girders inside. I can survive up there. I got coke, cigarettes, even liquor." As for food, he shrugged: "I am a survivor. I can eat out of a trashcan. I done it before." Few others were prepared to take such chances. Fernando and Irene Ramirez had nailed boards to their windows, packed up their two cars with belongings and pets, and were ready to leave. "We already resigned ourselves to the fact that there might not be anything to come back to," Mr Ramirez said. It was not so much pessimism as sober arithmetic. Port Arthur's levee is across the road from their house, the only barrier between them and the wide ship canal connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the oil refineries upstream. The dyke is 17ft (five metres) high. Rita's storm surges are predicted to be 20-25ft in the early hours of this morning. It could be enough to submerge Port Arthur altogether. The Ramirez family had left their escape until the last moment because they had heard horror stories about the roads going north, clogged with evacuees whose cars ran out of petrol and broke down in the heat. "There are people up there who've been stuck on the highway for 14 hours," Mrs Ramirez said. Their immediate goal was north Texas but the couple said they might decide to just keep driving and return to her native Canada. For 100 miles to the north, farms, towns and whole cities emptied yesterday along Hurricane Rita's path, leaving behind a lifeless coastal plain of deserted roads, shops and homes. Those leaving yesterday were taking no risks. Joseph Boone was filling every available container with petrol before heading north. He had just finished putting up boards at his body shop and car paint business but he was quite aware it was only a token effort. "It won't do no good. If we get hit by a 20ft surge, boards aren't gonna stop anything. You don't know what's going to come in - fish, snakes, 'gators, dead bodies," Mr Boone said. He had watched from afar as Katrina wrecked New Orleans but he knew that "you see things on TV but it can't compete with real life". "It's nothing close to what's fixing to happen," he added. "The only thing left now is God's will." | ['world/world', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/julianborger', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-23T23:03:22Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
science/2022/jan/29/nasa-asks-public-to-solve-waste-recycling-mars-trip | Nasa asks public to help solve waste recycling for Mars trip | Nasa wants help in proposing sustainable living techniques for a trip to Mars. On 18 January it launched the Waste to Base materials challenge: sustainable reprocessing in space on the crowdsourcing website HeroX. The challenge runs until 15 March, by which time entrants will have to submit their solution for how to turn waste materials into useful items for the mission. The four waste products Nasa is most keen for entrants to tackle are general trash, faecal matter, foam packaging and exhaled carbon dioxide. Nasa suggests that useful products could be propellants or feedstock for 3D printers. Any journey to Mars will last for at least two, maybe three years. As such, it will be economically impossible to keep resupplying the mission. Instead, astronauts will have to live in the most sustainable way possible. Nasa aims to develop a robust “materials ecosystem” so these missions can take less and recycle more. At the time of writing, 27 teams and 373 individuals have indicated an interest in pursuing the challenge. Judging the entries will take about a month, and the winners will be announced on 26 April. A total of $24,000 in prize money will be awarded across numerous entries. | ['science/series/marswatch', 'science/nasa', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'education/sustainability', 'science/science', 'science/space', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/dr-stuart-clark', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-01-29T06:00:45Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk-news/2019/aug/07/whaley-bridge-residents-allowed-home-as-dam-danger-recedes | Whaley Bridge residents allowed home as dam danger recedes | Around 1,100 residents of a Derbyshire town have been allowed to return home almost a week after they were evacuated when a nearby dam threatened to collapse. Parts of Whaley Bridge were evacuated on Thursday last week after heavy rain damaged the dam at Toddbrook reservoir, which sits high above the town. The deputy chief constable of Derbyshire police, Rachel Swann, said the decision had been taken because the immediate danger posed to Whaley Bridge and the areas downstream in the Goyt valley had now passed. She said: “The hard work and dedication to achieve this has been quite simply incredible and means that I am now able to lift the evacuation order placed on Whaley Bridge and the surrounding area. “At the forefront of our thoughts are the communities affected by this incident who have been steadfast in the face of the peril that lay behind that dam wall. The danger posed by the millions of tonnes of water, which would have destroyed homes and livelihoods, could not be underestimated.” Though heavy rain is forecast for the next few days, Swann said experts from the Environment Agency (EA) were confident that the reservoir would cope. She stressed that the dam was not yet fixed but said a 24-hour pumping operation had reduced water levels to below the damaged section. “Over the coming days and weeks further work will be completed to ascertain the damage caused to the dam wall and what actions are required for the future. We must not forget that the dam is broken,” she said. “The Environment Agency has confirmed that the measures remaining in place at the dam will be able to manage the levels of rain forecasted, modelling against a number of scenarios. With this, and confirmation of the effectiveness of the work to repair the damage done and reduce the water coming into the reservoir, I am able to confirm it is safe for people to go back to their homes.” Bill Derbyshire, from the EA, said: “The Toddbrook dam requires significant engineering works to bring it to a condition where its long-term safety can be assured. The Environment Agency expect the Canal and River Trust to do the necessary investigations and engineering work to make the dam safe and protect the community.” After seven nights away from home, residents will be allowed to return on Wednesday, with the help of police or partner agencies if necessary. The vast majority of people had sought sanctuary with friends or family living on higher ground. Derbyshire police said there would be a visible police presence in and around the area for the next seven days to help the community and address any concerns. They thanked residents for their patience with the emergency operation. “The resolve, community spirit, kindness and generosity to their fellow residents, businesses, friends and family shown in the face of such danger has been extraordinary,” said Swann. “That same kindness was given to the hundreds of multi-agency workers at the dam, whose sole focus has been to ensure the resolution to this unprecedented crisis.” The train line between Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly had reopened but trains were still not stopping at Whaley Bridge, following the suspension of the line between Hazel Grove and Buxton. Some roads remained closed, including the southern entrance to Whaley Bridge on the A5004 Buxton Road, just north of the junction of Macclesfield Road and Chapel Road. A multi-agency hub will open later on Wednesday at Whaley Bridge primary school for residents and businesses. It will stay open for the next seven days, staffed by representatives from High Peak borough council, Derbyshire police, Electricity North West, Cadent Gas, United Utilities, the EA, social care and mental health services. | ['uk/uk', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helenpidd', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-08-07T14:31:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2012/apr/18/fracking-and-wind-wrong-debates | On fracking and wind we are having the wrong debates | Zoe Williams | It's been a big week for alternative energy sources. On Tuesday, the British Geological Survey effectively greenlit fracking, with its conclusion that the earthquake risk was low. Tomorrow National Opposition to Windfarms launches its campaign in the House of Lords. My instincts are pro-wind and anti-fracking, from a straight climate change perspective: wind is renewable and not harmful, while shale gas is not renewable and contributes as much or more – much more, according to a study by Cornell University – to the greenhouse effect than either oil or coal. The anti-fracking lobby should just stick with this argument – that if you're serious about halting global warming you have to concentrate on energy sources that don't contribute to it. However they don't want to – believing, possibly correctly, that the political will to prevent irreparable climate change just isn't there. Instead, the anti-frackers range freely around in their opposition; some of it's grounded and some isn't. What strikes me is the similarity in approach from the anti-wind camp and the anti-frackers. First, they talk about the aesthetics of these energy sources – National Opposition to Windfarms talks about windfarms destroying tourism, and their opening gambit is that the area becomes so unspeakably unattractive that people will simply stop going there. In the Ribble Valley and across the areas affected by fracking, the sheer ugliness of industry is emphasised. There's a counter-argument in both cases. The aesthetics of windfarms are pretty subjective – some people like them. National Opposition to Windfarms quotes a survey from the Welsh Tourist Board in which 71% of respondents said turbines spoilt the environment; Renewables UK quotes a survey in which an almost identical proportion, 75%, finds the effect of turbines either positive or neutral. Fracking occurs predominantly underground, so while heavy machinery is rarely attractive, it's nothing like as ugly as a coal mine or a nuclear power station. But, more important, unless you're prepared to stop using energy or you have an alternative, "I don't like the look of it" isn't enough. "It's too expensive to produce" isn't enough, either – it will look a lot less expensive when the existing energy sources run out. Windfarms are ahead of frackers in the way they comprehend their obligations. They pay rent to landowners but also £1,000 per megawatt a year to the community – and this sector is also creating a new model for small-scale finance. You can, from Saturday, invest in a wind turbine in the Forest of Dean for as little as £5, with the expectation of a return. More on that another day; there are so far no small-scale investment plans for fracking the Bowland Basin in Lancashire. But there is a huge swath of shale gas in the north of England; the mineral rights are owned by the crown. That money could be sucked into the centre, or it could be kept in Lancashire, dispersed to local authorities. What would the north-south divide look like then? Is there any requirement to privilege local companies in the granting of contracts, either for wind energy or shale gas? Where there isn't, why isn't there? What would society look like if the shareholders in its major energy companies were regular people on median incomes? What would it look like if the people living above the gas supplies were its beneficiaries? These questions will affect the wealth distribution of this country for the next 200 years. And yet what does the debate concentrate on? How many jobs are created building a road to the well site? How much a unit of wind energy costs to produce? It's so narrow as to be a distraction. Finally, both the anti-winds and the anti-frackers are guilty of such overstatement as to collapse their arguments. Respectable anti-windfarmers generally don't make the case for adverse health effects, but on the ground protesters are still talking about infrasound and flicker, and how they cause suicide. National Opposition to Windfarms claims losses to bird life that are disputed by crowning bird fanciers the RSPB. Anti-frackers claim that France has a moratorium on fracking because it has learned and understood the lessons of the film Gasland. If this is true, it is remarkable: not just because France's geology is different to that of the film's US location, but also because the scientific arguments lodged in that film are nothing like a done deal. There's a scene in which someone turns on a tap, and gas comes out that you can light with a match. Scientists contest that this was localised methane in the aquifer and nothing to do with the fracking process. Thermogenic methane is associated with gas production, while biogenic methane isn't, and it's apparently easy to tell the difference. People counter with "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" – that point was made by the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission of Colorado – but you can't cherrypick the science that suits you and reject that which doesn't. Frackers, incidentally, believe France's moratorium is linked to lobbying by the nuclear industry. As enjoyable as it is to see big businesses eat each other for a change, it's not exactly the sight of everything working in the public interest. I remain pro-wind and anti-fracking; but my main worry is that both will go ahead, and the real concerns of energy users – proximal or not – won't be resolved or even discussed, just swamped under anxious misinformation. Twitter: @zoesqwilliams • This article was amended on 20 April. The original referred to the British Geological Society. This has been amended | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/fracking', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/gas', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/zoewilliams', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2012-04-18T19:29:00Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2017/mar/28/only-lower-speed-limits-will-solve-traffic-problems | Only lower speed limits will solve traffic problems | Letters | Lower, properly enforced speed limits are the key to tackling all the costs and nuisances of traffic (Letters, 25 March). A report from the Policy Studies Institute in 1996 concluded that speed limits on main roads should be reduced, with the speed limit on motorways certainly no higher than 60mph. The immediate consequence of strict enforcement of lower limits would be reductions in road crashes and casualties, fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and noise. Capacity would be increased. Traffic levels would be reduced by checking and then reversing the tendency for car journeys and lorry hauls to increase in length. The default speed limit in towns should be 20mph. Combined with bus priorities, measures to make walking and cycling safer and more agreeable, and planning policies to encourage smaller, local shops and other facilities, lower speeds in towns would have a profound influence on modal choice and journey length. The best way of enforcing speed limits is by variable speed limiters on the vehicle. They can either be operated by the driver or activated externally. Both types of speed limiter have been shown to be technically feasible and inexpensive. By far the biggest obstacle to more rapid progress in tackling all the adverse impacts of road traffic is the amazing cowardice of successive governments on anything to do with speed limits and their enforcement. Stephen Plowden London • Instead of inconveniencing driverless cars (Letters, 20 March) with largely one or two upscale individuals in them working while transiting in their mobile office, perhaps the flipside would be to give priority to the larger people flow made possible by pedestrians and bicycles not having to wait on idling automobiles going through their stop and go cycles. What law of nature requires that a machine-transported individual has innate priority over a pedestrian, or that the business or activity of a pedestrian is of less value than the time of a motorist? We might well discover an economic boost if large numbers of pedestrians did not have to waste time waiting on lights at intersections. John Hannah Columbus, Nebraska, USA • Zoe Williams gave a 9/10 rating to a diesel car (Weekend, 25 March). And she has form on this, regularly reviewing cars as eco-friendly merely because of the ludicrously inaccurate CO2 figures published by manufacturers. Please will a science journalist, or a journalist who cycles to work and knows how poisonous NOX and PM10 are, explain that there is nothing “eco” or atmosphere-friendly about a diesel car. It is bad enough that the government refuses to ban them. But that the Guardian regularly commends them to its readers, and carries adverts for them, adds insult to injury. Professor Michael Northcott Edinburgh • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['technology/motoring', 'technology/technology', 'money/motoring', 'money/money', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'technology/self-driving-cars', 'uk/ukcrime', 'uk/uk', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-03-28T17:14:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk-news/article/2024/jul/24/head-of-kings-property-portfolio-given-pay-rise | Head of king’s property portfolio given 20% pay rise to £1.9m | King Charles’s property management company has given its chief executive a pay increase of almost 20% after tripling his pay packet over the previous three years. The crown estate, the royals’ ancient portfolio of land and property across England and Wales that includes the seabed around its coasts, paid Dan Labbad almost £1.9m for the last financial year amid a rise in profits powered by offshore wind developments. As a result of that doubling of annual profits to £1.1bn over the year, the king is now in line for an increase of more than 50% in his official annual income to £132m in 2025-26, which will be used to support the official duties of the royal family. Labbad’s latest payday is more than three and a half times the £517,000 he earned in 2019 when he stepped into the role, and more than three times the £622,000 paid to his predecessor Alison Nimmo in her final year in the job. The 19.6% salary rise was revealed in the annual report of the crown estate, which has a mandate to return income to the Treasury “for the benefit of the nation”, alongside the doubling of annual profits. The crown estate has benefited from the success of Britain’s offshore wind industry after demanding hefty option fees from renewable energy developers to secure areas of the seabed to build their windfarms. The monarchy receives 12% of the crown estate profits to fund its work as well as to pay for the 10-year, £369m renovation of Buckingham Palace. The arrangement will be reviewed in 2026-27 to reassess the sum handed over to the palace and ensure it is an “appropriate level”. The crown estate said the pay given to Labbad, which was well above the remuneration typically awarded to those who manage taxpayer funds, was benchmarked against the “lower quartile” of pay offered to FTSE bosses. Its annual report said: “Our approach to chief executive pay and reward seeks to ensure that the crown estate can attract and retain a world-class leader from a diverse pool of eligible candidates, with the ability to lead an organisation that, in value terms, would rank in the top 50 companies of the FTSE 100 if it were publicly listed. “At the same time, it recognises that some form of remuneration discount is appropriate in leading an organisation that serves the nation.” | ['uk-news/crown-estate', 'uk/prince-charles', 'business/business', 'uk/monarchy', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/realestate', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-07-24T09:50:35Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2018/jun/17/hurricane-maria-death-toll-rossello-trump-harvard-study | Hurricane Maria would have killed my mother – as it did thousands like her | Hurricane Maria would have killed my mother. I know that for a fact. She was dependent on oxygen and on medications that would have run out. Her house would have flooded. With no way out, her heart would have succumbed to the stress. Gasping for air, she would have died. Maybe she would have died in my arms – if I was lucky enough to get there in time. Most probably, she would have died alone. The thought haunts my sister and I. It pains us both to admit we are grateful she died before Maria devastated Puerto Rico. My mother would have been one of Maria’s fatalities and as with so many others her death would have blamed on “natural causes”. This is how the true extent of Maria’s devastation has been hidden. A Harvard study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that at least 4,645 deaths are linked to Maria and its aftermath. According to the study, many people, probably thousands, died in the weeks and months after Maria, when the island struggled without electricity and the local government did next to nothing to fight the indifference and negligence of the Trump administration. Local officials initially estimated the number of dead at 16. Who can forget when Trump congratulated Governor Ricardo Rosselló for the “fact” so few had perished? Trump went on to rate himself a 10 out of 10, as is his fashion, for a job well done. He called it a good news story. (Although he did scold the Puerto Ricans for unbalancing his budget as he gifted us paper towels, lobbed high in the air.) After Trump’s plane took off, the death toll rose to 64. We knew the number was wrong. We heard stories about families burying their dead beneath patios, patients drawing last breaths because they had no more oxygen or access to dialysis machines, people who died from pneumonia, from respiratory or kidney failure, or who were just simply swept away by the flood waters. The infirm and the aged, those were the victims. Local journalists and those of us in the diaspora asked the question, again and again: how many died? We asked: how are you counting them? What is the methodology? Why do you continue to hide the truth? We were accused of being conspiracy theorists, of trying to discredit the Rosselló administration, of being “anti-American”. There was little, if any, transparency in the counting of the dead. Only vagueness and cliche and half-truths disguised as fact. There is one particular instance that sticks in my mind. A Puerto Rican journalist, Julio Ricardo Varela, of Latino Rebels, asked Puerto Rico’s commissioner of safety and public protection, Héctor Pesquera, if the death toll would rise. Pesquera’s answer? “In the land of possibilities, everything is possible.” We did more than scratch our heads. We kept on asking. Rosselló has welcomed the Harvard study and says he looks forward to studying it. How do you study the dead? How do you measure the desperation and the fear? How, governor, can someone have closure when they have every reason to believe their loved one did not die in peace? How many of the 4,645 died alone and scared? Can you count them now? Rosselló has failed his people. We want the truth, and have yet to receive it. San Juan’s major, Carmen Yulín Cruz, the lone voice demanding the truth, has called for the resignation of the officials in his government who wilfully peddled misleading numbers. I will go one step further. I believe Rosselló needs to go too. He is a cowardly accomplice to Trump’s false narrative. At least 4,645 souls died on his watch. They need justice to be served. Meanwhile, Trump, who tweets about everything, has been silent about our dead. In his eyes, Puerto Rican lives do not matter. They only drain a budget. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/puerto-rico', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-weather', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/susanne-ramirez-de-arellano', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | world/hurricane-maria | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-06-17T10:00:13Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/dec/23/chernobyl-fears-resurface-over-contract-to-dredge-river-in-exclusion-zone-aoe | Chernobyl fears resurface as river dredging begins in exclusion zone | The river running past the Chernobyl nuclear reactor is being dredged to create an inland shipping route, potentially resurfacing radioactive sludge from the 1986 disaster that could contaminate drinking water for 8 million people in Ukraine, scientists and conservationists have warned. The dredging of the Pripyat began in July and is part of an international project to create the 2,000km (1,240-mile) long E40 waterway linking the Baltic and Black seas, passing through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. The river – which snakes within 2.5km of the reactor responsible for the world’s worst nuclear disaster – has already been dredged in at least seven different places, five of which are within 10km of the reactor, according to the Save Polesia coalition. This goes against recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the Chernobyl exclusion zone should remain undisturbed due to long-lived contamination from the Soviet-era explosion. The tender to dig up 100,000 cubic metres of sediment was won by Ukrainian dredging company Sobi and work started in July this year, according to a post on the company’s Facebook page. The post says the waterway is important for improving river transport and trade with neighbouring countries, namely Belarus. The Ukrainian government commissioned the dredging work for around 12m Ukrainian hryvnia (£320,000). While a feasibility study was commissioned by a consortium of government ministries, companies and the EU, a number of NGOs, including Save Polesia, WWF and BirdLife, have warned that the government is breaking the law by not doing an environmental impact assessment (EIA), which is required under Ukrainian regulations. They say the E40 feasibility study in 2015 by the Maritime Institute of Gdansk failed to properly look at the implications of radioactive contamination from dredging inside the exclusion zone, which is 100km upstream from Kyiv. The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure, which is leading on the E40 project, did not return the Guardian’s request for comment in relation to the EIA. The French NGO Association pour le Contrôle de la Radioactivité dans l’Ouest (Acro), following research commissioned by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, warned: “Constructing the E40 will have a radiological impact on the construction workers and the population depending on the rivers … the IAEA recommends to leave the contaminated sediments in the Kyiv reservoir in place, to avoid exposure of the population downstream. In this context the construction of the E40 is not feasible.” Lead researcher Dr David Boilley, a nuclear physicist and chairman of Acro, told the Guardian: “The fact they want to build a dam and have boats going just by the bottom of the Chernobyl reactor – for me this is unbelievable. This is the most contaminated part of the exclusion zone.” Dmitrij Nadeev, a manager at Sobi, told the Guardian the company did commission research on radiation and took soil samples. “The safety of our workers is a top priority,” he said. “Analysis showed that the work can be done safely, but all workers were provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) and dosimeters. During the work, scientists took daily water samples downstream of the dredger.” Nadeev declined to share the radiation study with the Guardian or show evidence workers wore PPE. The Ukrainian ministry of infrastructure did not reply to a request for comment. Soviet scientists long maintained there was no need to study the impacts of long-term radiation on the population and the official death toll from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is just 54. However, some estimates suggest that lingering contamination from the explosion could mean one in five people in Belarus still lives on contaminated land. “The exclusion zone should be an exclusion zone for centuries – this means no people living in it and no activity on the river,” said Boilley. The E40 would stretch from Gdańsk in Poland, through southern Belarus to Kherson in Ukraine. It would be Europe’s longest waterway, 25 times the length of the Panama Canal. Government ministries and a coalition of organisations are pushing through the construction. Small vessels can already pass through but it will be deepened and widened to allow vessels up to 80 metres long to pass. A second feasibility study is currently being done in Poland to decide what route is best, with results expected in the next few months. The government appears to be proceeding with plans for the Siarzewo dam, one of 13 to 15 dams that would need to be built on the Vistula River. E40 construction costs are likely to be greater than €13bn (£11.7bn) – the majority of which will be spent in Poland. Conservationists are also concerned about loss of biodiversity. The waterway would cut through a region called Polesia, an area two-thirds the size of the UK, often referred to as the Amazon of Europe because of its incredible diversity of wildlife, including 1.5 million migratory birds as well as bison, wolves, lynx and bears. Sixty internationally important wildlife sites on the E40 route would be affected by its construction. 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/biodiversity--what-happened-next-', 'environment/environment', 'environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/water', 'environment/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster', 'world/ukraine', 'world/belarus', 'world/poland', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/phoebe-weston', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-23T07:30:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2013/nov/07/grand-canyon-uranium-mine-on-hold | Grand Canyon uranium mine placed on hold | A uranium-mining company that was due to open its mine on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon is suspending work, citing falling uranium prices and the expense of ongoing litigation. Energy Fuels Resources says its operation will be placed on standby until December 2014 or when a ruling is issued in a federal case challenging the US Forest Service's decision to allow the development to go ahead. US district court judge David Campbell in Phoenix, Arizona, approved an agreement on Wednesday to put the mine on standby and to stay proceedings in the case. In April, Energy Fuels Resources was given federal approval to reopen its old Canyon Mine six miles south of the popular South Rim entrance. It was granted approval – along with other so-called "zombie mines" – despite an Obama administration ban on new hard-rock mining in areas over 1m acres, because its rights dated from its closure more than 20 years ago. Grand Canyon park officials say uranium mining could affect scarce water sources in this desert area and "put blight on the land," according to Dave Uberuaga, the park's superintendent. The Havasupai Indian tribe and a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government in 2012 over what they argue is an outdated environmental review from 1986. Prices for uranium have dropped to the mid-$30s per pound, among the lowest in the last five years. The Canyon Mine is on standby status and could re-open with two weeks' notice. Uberuaga said there are dozens of other mines with existing claims that could potentially re-open near the canyon as well as new mining companies that are seeking out claims on state land to avoid the ban. "There are real threats every day and we're dealing with them," he said. | ['environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/national-parks', 'us-news/obama-administration', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2013-11-07T15:38:31Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2019/feb/07/ikea-to-sell-refurbished-furniture-in-bid-to-boost-culture-of-recycling | Ikea to sell refurbished furniture to boost culture of recycling | Ikea is trialling the sale of used, patched-up furniture in the UK as part of its efforts to become more environmentally friendly. An earlier trial in Edinburgh will be expanded to Glasgow in June. The Swedish retailer is also launching a textile recycling scheme across the UK. Ikea said the two schemes were a step towards creating a circular business model in which materials and products were reused or recycled. Customers in Edinburgh have been able to exchange used Ikea furniture for a reward voucher for more than a year. The items are refurbished and sold in the bargain area. The idea will be tested in Glasgow and the company is considering expanding the scheme elsewhere. Hege Sæbjørnsen, sustainability manager for Ikea in the UK, said the furniture and textile schemes were a step towards creating a greener operation. The company has launched a pilot scheme in Switzerland where it leases its products, although there are no immediate plans to bring it to the UK. “We are almost in startup mode, testing business models,” Sæbjørnsen said at the launch of Ikea’s greenest store yet in Greenwich, south London. As well as being run on 100% renewable energy including solar panels on its roof, the Greenwich store has space for workshops where locals can learn how to refurbish furniture. Sæbjørnsen said there was a lot of interest in learning how to fix items and developing these skills in the community was part of creating a culture around reusing and recycling. “We are building the foundations towards [leasing and reuse] so we can scale quickly,” she said. Ikea began testing textile recycling in Cardiff nearly two years ago Customers have been able to bring in old clothes, curtains or other furnishing fabrics to be repaired or cleaned and sent on to a homelessness project or recycled. Milton Keynes and Greenwich also offer the service, which will be extended to all UK stores over the next few months. | ['business/ikea', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'uk/edinburgh', 'business/retail', 'uk/glasgow', 'uk/cardiff', 'environment/recycling', 'uk/uk', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'uk/scotland', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sarahbutler', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-02-07T18:04:43Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2011/mar/22/japan-nuclear-power-plant-checks-missed | Japan nuclear firm admits missing safety checks at disaster-hit plant | The power plant at the centre of the biggest civilian nuclear crisis in Japan's history contained far more spent fuel rods than it was designed to store, while its technicians repeatedly failed to carry out mandatory safety checks, according to documents from the reactor's operator. The risk that used fuel rods present to efforts to avert disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was underlined on Tuesday when nuclear safety officials said the No 2 reactor's storage pool had heated to around boiling point, raising the risk of a leakage of radioactive steam. "We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," Hidehiko Nishiyama, of the nuclear and industrial safety agency, said. According to documents from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company repeatedly missed safety checks over a 10-year period up to two weeks before the 11 March disaster, and allowed uranium fuel rods to pile up inside the 40-year-old facility. When the plant was struck by a huge earthquake and tsunami, its reactors, designed by US scientists 50 years ago, contained the equivalent of almost six years of highly radioactive uranium fuel produced by the facility, according to a presentation Tepco gave to the International Atomic Energy Agency and later posted on the company's website. The revelations will add to pressure on Tepco to explain why, under its cost-cutting chief executive Masataka Shimizu, it opted to save money by storing the spent fuel on site rather than invest in safer storage options. The firm already faces scrutiny over why it waited so long to pump seawater into the stricken reactors and, according to a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper last week, turned down US offers of help to cool the reactors shortly after the disaster. Critics of Japan's nuclear power programme say the industry's patchy safety record and close ties to regulating authorities will have to change if it is to regain public trust. "I've long thought the whole system is a mess," Taro Kono, a Liberal Democratic party MP, told Reuters. "We have to go through our whole nuclear strategy after this. "Now, no one is going to accept nuclear waste in their backyards. You can have an earthquake and have radioactive material under your house. We're going to have a real debate on this." Kono wants to see the government lead a fundamental reform of the industry's structure, which he says has encouraged collusion between plant operators and the people who are supposed to regulate them. Reports said safety lapses at the plant continued up to two weeks before the tsunami disabled cooling systems in its reactors and sparked the biggest nuclear power emergency the world has seen since Chernobyl in 1986. One month before the tsunami, government regulators approved a Tepco request to prolong the life of one of its six reactors by another decade, despite warnings that its backup power generator contained stress cracks, making them more vulnerable to water damage. Weeks later, Tepco admitted it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment inside the plant's cooling systems, including water pumps, according to the nuclear safety agency's website. Regulators have been accused of uncritically backing industry moves to prolong the life of ageing nuclear power plants such as Fukushima Daiichi amid mounting local opposition to the construction of new facilities. A regulatory committee reviewing the reactor's stay of execution said maintenance management was "inadequate", and the quality of inspection "insufficient," according to reports. When disaster struck earlier this month, the plant contained almost 4,000 uranium fuel assemblies kept in pools of circulating water – the equivalent of more than three times the amount of radioactive material usually kept in the active cores of the plant's reactors. The drop-in water levels in some of those pools after the tsunami has caused fuel rods to overheat, raising the risk of a full meltdown and the release of dangerous levels of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Tepco workers, troops and firefighters have been working around the clock to keep the storage pools replenished by dumping water from helicopters and via high-pressure hoses from the ground. The No 4 reactor, which suffered two explosions last week, contained 548 fuel assemblies cooling in a water pool on its upper floor. Japanese plans to store radioactive nuclear fuel after it has been used have made little headway. A medium-term storage site in Mutsu, northern Japan, is not due to open until next year, and the construction of an enrichment and reprocessing plant in Rokkasho has been hit by technical glitches and other delays. | ['world/japan', 'world/world', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/fukushima', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-03-22T13:42:17Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/oct/24/australian-environment-group-wikileaks-democrat-email-release-responds-attacks | Environment group named in WikiLeaks email release responds to attacks | The head of a usually quiet environmental group in Australia has hit back against News Corp and coal lobby attacks after hacked emails revealed it was partly funded from overseas. Two emails forwarded to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta – and published by WikiLeaks – show that one of the funders of the Sunrise Project is a large US-based charitable trust, the Sandler Foundation. The Sunrise Project, headed by the former Greenpeace activist John Hepburn, works with other environmental non-governmental organisations, local communities and Indigenous groups, supporting and helping to coordinate their actions. It has campaigned to stop Adani’s huge Carmichael coalmine in Queensland. After revealing the emails, a report in the Australian newspaper said: “Australia is a key target in a global, no-holds-barred war against coal which has set a priority of shutting Adani out of Queensland.” The paper said in an editorial: “We should decide what mining projects are opened up in this country and the circumstances in which they open. “Such authority rests with Australia’s democratically elected representatives and established government processes. It does not belong with overseas governments (including prospective US presidents or their staff), self-appointed meddling international activists or local vigilante ‘lawfare’ litigants funded by activists.” The paper also published an opinion piece by Brendan Pearson, the chief executive of the main coal lobby group, the Minerals Council of Australia. “This episode should prompt a rethink of the oversight of environmental groups that operate as charities and that have tax-deductible recipient status,” Pearson said. Hepburn told Guardian Australia he was surprised the emails were considered newsworthy and said the Australian and the Minerals Council of Australia were acting hypocritically. “They’re saying that we need to guard our sovereignty from environmental organisations, when the mining in Australia is 80% foreign-owned,” he said. “They put tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars into a massive public relations machine that is sustained and ongoing over time. They have incredible influence and revolving doors between the highest levels of politics and their lobby groups. “And international foreign-owned mining companies dropped $20m into a campaign to prevent a new tax on their industry and, in doing so, destabilised a prime minister. And that is the big issue in terms of national sovereignty.” Hepburn said it should be no surprise that people around the world were interested in Adani’s proposed mine. He said: “It is no surprise that the ongoing expansion of coalmining in Australia is on the radar of Clinton’s most senior adviser. While the world is ratifying the Paris climate agreement in record time, Australia is becoming a global embarrassment for being the first developed country to go backwards on climate policy and fast-tracking the approval of new coalmines.” In May 2015 Hepburn sent an email to a director of the Sandler Foundation outlining attacks the then Abbott government was launching against the charitable status of environmental groups. The email was then forwarded by the founder of the Sandler Foundation, Herbert Sandler, to Podesta. Forwarding the message, Sandler said: “Astonishing and frightening actions by Australian government.” He then said: “Full disclosure. We are a funder of the Sunrise project as part of our work on climate change.” The only other published email relating to the Sunrise Project was one in which Hepburn was celebrating a federal court decision that overturned federal environmental approval for the Carmichael mine. The contents of the emails show the Sunrise Project was keen not to disclose who its funders were, or who it supported financially. Hepburn wrote: “We are seeking advice on steps we might take to avoid disclosure, challenge and limit disclosure, or to ensure that any disclosure is limited to the committee members and is not made public. “I have no concerns whatsoever about our compliance with our charitable obligations but I do have concerns about the potential PR impact of disclosure of both our funding and grantees – should that eventuate.” Hepburn told Guardian Australia the disclosure would make its donors targets of the mining industry. “The mining industry will use any possible excuse to attack the environmental movement,” he said. “We’ve seen the same thing play out in Canada and other countries too – mining industries will attack the charitable status, they will try and identify donors and publicly attack the donors, whether they are local or international philanthropists.” He said donors to any charity expect to be able to do so privately. “If you give a donation to the RSPCA or some other charity, you don’t expect them to disclose that to the media. That’s the same with us – we’re no different to any other charity. We need to protect the privacy of our members and supporters.” | ['environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/coal', 'business/mining', 'business/adani-group', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/energy', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2016-10-24T03:50:09Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2008/mar/23/news.solarpower | This week we want to know all about ... Solar-powered clothing | You are on a long walk listening to your iPod only for the battery to go flat. But now scientists are at work on a solution that would keep the music playing by effectively turning you into the battery: solar-powered clothing. Flexible solar cells, which can be incorporated into jackets, trousers and any other garments, are only a year away, says Fujitsu Siemens. The cells work like solar panels, converting light into energy. The wearer would plug in gadgets such as phones or MP3 players to a special pocket on the garment, which in turn connects to the solar cells. Sunlight permitting, the solar-cell garments could provide a much-needed boost to battery technology, which has struggled to keep up with power-hungry advances in mobile devices. Dave Pritchard at Fujitsu, said: 'Within a year it will be possible to design clothing with solar cells on the back or arms, so you can recharge wearable devices.' He said the clothing would be useful on the ski slopes, outdoor holidays and for the emergency services. It would also appeal to the environmentally conscious as a means of reducing power consumption. Hitachi is also working on flexible solar cells at its UK laboratory in Cambridge. Koichi Tsuzuki, head of research and development in Europe, said a full jacket of solar cells exposed to four hours of daylight could provide battery life for a typical day's use. | ['environment/solarpower', 'technology/technology', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/davidsmith', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2008-03-23T08:57:06Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2022/jul/01/the-guardian-view-on-bidens-risky-gamble-betting-on-lowering-oil-prices | The Guardian view on Biden’s risky gamble: betting on lowering oil prices | Editorial | Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia this month highlights the paradox of American power. The US has the economic heft to punish an opponent – but not enough to alter the behaviour of a determined adversary. Sanctions will see Russia’s economy contract by 9% next year. But Washington needs more nations to join its camp to halt Moscow’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Mr Biden has been forced to prioritise war objectives over ethics in meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA says ordered the barbaric murder of the prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The havoc that Russia’s war has caused on the world’s energy markets is contributing to an economic crisis that is playing into the hands of Mr Biden’s domestic opponents. This highlights the west’s failure to confront the climate emergency with a less carbon-intensive economic model. The green agenda risks being derailed by sky-high hydrocarbon prices. This scenario could have been averted if western nations had accelerated their net zero agendas by driving down energy demand – the lack of UK home insulation is one glaring failure – and spending on renewables to achieve energy security. Instead, this week the G7 watered down pledges to halt fossil fuel investment over fears of winter energy shortages as Moscow squeezes supplies. Boycotts and bans against Russia, even as they take a toll on the global economy, will cause ordinary Russians hardship. But this has not moved Vladimir Putin. Soaring crude prices fuel Moscow’s war machine. A price cap on Russia’s petroleum exports might choke off the cash. But a concern is that China and India will buy Mr Putin’s oil at a price that still lets the Kremlin profit. Clever technical solutions mask hard choices. Sanctions drive up energy prices for consumers unless there are alternative supplies available. Right now, to bring down oil prices means producing more planet-destroying energy. That requires US engagement with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which bear responsibility for the disastrous Yemen war. Washington might have to woo Venezuela and Iran, nations which will play Moscow off against the west. The US is pursuing a three-pronged strategy: increasing pressure on Russia; getting more oil into markets to bring prices down; and allowing central banks to raise interest rates to levels that look as if they might cause a recession. The latter is designed to signal to oil producers that energy prices will collapse. The painful recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s played a part in bringing down oil prices after energy shocks – and contributed to the Soviet Union’s disintegration. But this took 15 years. Mr Putin’s Russia may not be as powerful as its forerunner. It might be more brittle than the Soviet Union. But there are few signs of imminent collapse. As the west seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons, there seems to be a global “gold rush” for new fossil fuel projects defended as temporary supply measures. The risk, with the US as the largest hydrocarbon producer, is that the world becomes locked into an irreversible climate catastrophe. Europe might become as reliant on US gas as it once was on Russian gas. Donald Trump proved America could be an unreliable ally. Rightwing supreme court justices have hobbled Mr Biden’s power to limit harmful emissions. Meanwhile, China has emerged as a world leader in renewable energy as well as the metals on which it depends. Mr Biden had wanted to transition the US away from oil. Yet during his time in office the sector’s market value has doubled because prices have risen. Jarringly, as the climate emergency grows ever more urgent, fossil fuel appears the pivot on which the war in Ukraine will turn. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/ukraine', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/joebiden', 'us-news/us-politics', 'world/saudiarabia', 'world/mohammed-bin-salman', 'business/oil', 'world/russia', 'world/g7', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'world/united-arab-emirates', 'business/banking', 'money/money', 'business/commodities', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'world/yemen', 'world/china', '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 | 2022-07-01T17:05:32Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2020/jan/06/urgent-new-roadmap-to-recovery-could-reverse-insect-apocalypse-aoe | Urgent new ‘roadmap to recovery’ could reverse insect apocalypse | The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts. The call to action by more than 70 scientists from across the planet advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species. Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers used in industrial farming and aggressive greenhouse gas emission reductions are among a series of urgent “no-regret” solutions to reverse what conservationists have called the “unnoticed insect apocalypse”. Alongside these measures, scientists must urgently establish which herbivores, detritivores, parasitoids, predators and pollinators are priority species for conservation, according to a new paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The animals are crucial to the healthy functioning of ecosystems by recycling nutrients, serving as pollinators and acting as food for other wildlife. The paper comes amid repeated warnings about the threat of human-driven insect extinction causing a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, with more than 40% of insect species declining and a third endangered, according to the first worldwide scientific review, published in February 2019. In July 2017, researchers warned human overpopulation and overconsumption were driving the sixth mass extinction event in world history, pointing to the “biological annihilation” of wildlife. Lead author Prof Jeff Harvey of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said: “As scientists, we want to gather all available knowledge and put it to action together with land managers, policymakers and everyone else involved. “Essentially, we are thinking strategically and this is novel. Now and down the road, all to reverse insect declines. “Most importantly, we hope that end-users and land managers now can use this roadmap in, for instance, farming, habitat management and urban development as a template for true insect recovery.” The scientists have called on governments to follow the example of Germany, which announced a €100m action plan for insect protection in September 2019, adding that there is a strong consensus among experts that the decline of insects, other arthropods and global biodiversity is a serious threat that society must address. In the short term, the roadmap advocates immediate action on rewilding and conservation programmes, avoiding and mitigating the impact of alien species and prioritising imports that are not produced at the cost of species-rich ecosystems. Enhancing citizen science projects to improve data quality and inform academic study was also deemed a priority. “Most importantly, we should not wait to act until we have addressed every key knowledge gap. We currently have enough information on some key causes of insect decline to formulate no-regret solutions whilst more data are compiled for lesser known taxa and regions and long-term data are aggregated and assessed,” the roadmap states. “Implementation should be accompanied by research that examines impacts, the results of which can be used to modify and improve the implementation of effective measures. Furthermore, such a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach ensures that these conservation strategies are robust to newly emerging pressures and threats. We must act now.” In the long term, the scientists are calling for the establishment of an international body to document and monitor the effects of the roadmap on insect biodiversity under the auspices of existing bodies such as the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Public-private partnerships to restore, protect and create new insect habitats and manage threats are also advocated by the roadmap. Coauthors on the roadmap for insect conservation recovery originate from Europe, North America, South and Central America, Asia, Africa, Oceania and Asia. They include biology professor Dave Goulson, known for his books on the ecology of bees and other insects, and scientist Hans de Kroon, renowned for his work on insect biomass decline. In February 2019, analysis published in the journal Biological Conservation found that the total mass of insects had fallen by 2.5% a year for the last 25-30 years, with intensive agriculture the primary driver of falling populations. Light pollution has also emerged as an overlooked driver of plummeting insect populations by luring them to predators, affecting the development of juvenile insects and disrupting light and dark cycles, according to a study published in November 2019. Scientists said insect deaths could be reduced by switching off unnecessary lights. 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/insects', 'environment/environment', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-01-06T16:00:33Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2022/mar/07/looking-at-new-north-sea-gas-supplies-may-not-be-palatable-but-is-pragmatic | Looking at new North Sea gas supplies may not be palatable but is pragmatic | Nils Pratley | The first lesson of the gas crisis is old and boring: the UK should get serious about insulating its leaky properties. If all homes that have energy performance certificate band D were upgraded to band C, the UK’s total gas demand would fall by 7%, and imports by 15%, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit calculates. Given the UK’s wretched record in insulation versus European peers, that sounds a small but easy win. The second part – the supply side – is where the trickier stuff starts. The broad energy direction has been set towards nuclear and renewables, but there’s no getting away from the fact that gas will be in the mix for a long time yet. Virtually all transition scenarios imagine it, and you have to be an extreme optimist to believe UK consumers can quickly be converted to the joys of heat pumps. Thus, from one quarter, comes a call for a fracking revolution under Lancashire. Readers of the Mail on Sunday at the weekend were treated to a blast in the form of Nigel Farage’s refrain about how “net zero is net stupid” and that the answer to our energy woes is homegrown shale gas. Prepare to hear more in similar style. As UK wholesale gas prices reach unheard-of levels, a well-resourced fracking lobby has reassembled. It is therefore reassuring to know that the secretary of state for business and energy is having none of it. Kwasi Kwarteng wrote a sensible piece in the same paper that backed more homegrown nuclear and more renewables and pointed out the drawbacks with fracking. The gas would take a decade to arrive in volume even if the moratorium were lifted tomorrow. Local planning conditions in densely populated areas are severe; what works in Texas won’t do in Lancashire. One can add that the economics of UK shale are currently guesswork: having 50 years of theoretical reserves doesn’t mean it can all be recovered at commercially viable prices. But here’s the rub. “We also need to back North Sea oil and gas while we transition to cheap, clean power,” said Kwarteng. On that score he is surely also correct. There is “a certain hypocrisy”, as the independent energy analyst Peter Atherton puts it, on the part of the opponents of North Sea development “in being anti-UK production when they know that all their own scenarios see the need for substantial amounts of gas into the 2030s.” Quite: if the gas is going to arrive anyway, best to get it close to home where environmental standards can be controlled. It’s not a universally popular view, but it would be legitimate for Kwarteng to ask North Sea firms for projections of how much they could increase gas output over the next one, five and 10 years while we wait for extra renewables and nuclear capacity to arrive. Then it would be a matter of incentivising production (whether by contracts-for-difference or whatever) from a source that, unlike shale, offers certainty. Since gas projects work on long payback horizons, we might find ourselves paying extra to turn off supplies in the mid-2030s to hit carbon-reduction targets, but that, unfortunately is the current unattractive position. Simple solutions do not exist, but the need to retain secure supplies plus broad consumer support for net zero targets persists. Investing in North Sea gas, as a backup to the drive towards low-carbon tech, looks only pragmatic. Best optics? A clean break The Conservative peer Greg Barker was adamant last week. “Whatever the optics,” he would not “shirk responsibility” by resigning as executive chairman of EN+, the aluminium giant founded by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He was thinking only about the company’s employees. A few days’ reflection – or perhaps the sight of senior Conservative voices calling for his removal from the House of Lords – have prompted a rethink. Barker has tendered his resignation. One cannot yet call it a clean departure, though, because in the next breath, EN+ confirmed reports that it was considering spinning off a chunk of its business, including the non-Russian operations of the core Rusal subsidiary. Barker, it seems, could re-emerge as head of the carved-out operation. His high-profile resignation, in other words, could end up being more of a soft-shoe shuffle into a new role within a restructured entity. Maybe he wouldn’t be paid a salary of $4m a year in the new gig, as he was at EN+ in 2020, but we’re at the point in this saga where personal credibility demands a full exit. He should not have taken a job at a Deripaska-backed firm in the first place. Just get out altogether now. | ['business/nils-pratley-on-finance', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/business', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/energy-industry', 'politics/kwasi-kwarteng', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/nilspratley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-03-07T19:03:34Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2024/oct/10/harvest-in-england-the-second-worst-on-record-because-of-wet-weather | Harvest in England the second worst on record because of wet weather | England has suffered its second worst harvest on record – with fears growing for next year – after heavy rain last winter hit production of key crops including wheat and oats. The cold, damp weather, stretching from last autumn through this spring and early summer, has hit the rapidly developing UK wine industry particularly hard, with producers saying harvests are down by between 75% and a third, depending on the region. On staple crops, England’s wheat haul is estimated to be 10m tonnes, or 21%, down on 2023, according to analysis of the latest government data by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). Winter barley was 26% down on last year, and the winter oilseed rape harvest was down 32%, in data released by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on Thursday. The ECIU estimates that farmers could lose £600m on five key crops – wheat, winter and spring barley, oats and oilseed rape – where production was down 15% in total. Tom Lancaster, a land, food and farming analyst at the ECIU, said: “This year’s harvest was a shocker, and climate change is to blame. While shoppers have been partly insulated by imports picking up some of the slack, Britain’s farmers have borne the brunt of the second worst harvest on record. “It is clear that climate change is the biggest threat to UK food security. And these impacts are only going to get worse until we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.” He said record rains in September got the new season off to a poor start, forcing farmers to hold off on planting in some parts of the country and losing out on the more productive winter harvest by having to wait until the spring. Colin Chappell, an arable farmer in Lincolnshire, said: “We are now on a knife-edge. Last week we had almost two inches of rain within 36 hours here and we’re not the worst off. Some farms in southern England have lost their crops for the second year in a row. Many will now be relying on spring wheat once again this year, which only produces about half as much as winter wheat. “We’re getting into a situation where autumn planting is becoming unviable due to flooding and spring planting is risky because of drought.” Lancaster also called on the government to use this month’s budget to support more sustainable farming that would build resilience to the extreme weather the UK is now encountering. “The alternative is to allow the effects of these climate impacts to worsen in the years ahead,” he said. The concern for staple crops comes as it emerged the British wine harvest could slump from last year’s cork-popping bumper crop to a light tipple as the cold, wet summer has led to problems with mould, disease and fewer grapes on vines. Several independent growers told the Guardian it had been a “challenging season”, with vineyards in the south-west and north of England and parts of Wales particularly hard hit. Harvests have suffered from the cold and wet, while some suggested vines had been depleted after heavy production last year. Duncan Schwab, the head winemaker at Sandridge Barton, which has 16 hectares (40 acres) in south Devon, said he expected volumes to be 70% down on last year. He said many growers in the south-west had experienced similar problems. “It’s kind of hunt the grape out there,” he said. Plumpton Wine Estate in Sussex said it was picking only half the amount harvested last year as it was “facing challenges with disease pressure due to constant rain”. The mild, wet winter last year allowed diseases to thrive in vineyards and then heavy rains in April and May made it difficult to treat plants because equipment the boggy conditions limited use of heavy equipment. Schwab said the rain in early summer “caused havoc with flowering”. Despite the problems, Schwab said wine prices were unlikely to rise as many wine makers would have stocks held over from last year’s record harvest, which would help iron out the ups and downs in supply. | ['environment/farming', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'food/wine', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'environment/environment', 'food/food', 'uk/uk', 'uk-news/england', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sarahbutler', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-10-10T12:55:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/jan/12/country-diary-the-silently-screaming-ravine-is-now-filled-with-bird-chatter | Country diary: The silently screaming ravine is now filled with bird chatter | Ed Douglas | Winter has been unusually warm in Kyiv this year, but the day I visited the sprawling parkland at Babyn Yar the temperature was a biting -7C. Despite this, and the fact that it was midweek and mid-morning, the park was busy enough. Dog walkers hurried across the frozen ground. Mothers with pushchairs stopped periodically to check on their warmly bundled infants. An elderly couple marched along a broad path using walking poles to steady themselves where snow had warmed and refrozen into ice. The phrase babyn yar translates as “old woman’s ravine”, yar being of Turkic origin. In September 1941, when the Nazis and their collaborators began their murderous extermination of Kyiv’s Jews here, the ravine was set in open ground on the fringes of the city. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko discovered it had become a suburban waste tip in 1961, when he wrote his famous poem, later set to music by Shostakovich. “Here all things scream silently,” Yevtushenko wrote. Now the park is manicured and thronged with trees – two-tone poplars, monochrome against the snow, gnarled weeping willows and black locusts (or false acacias), their bark crevassed like glaciers. To Yevtushenko, the trees at Babyn Yar looked ominous, “like judges”. That much hasn’t changed. Despite the cold, these frozen trees were filled with chatter: the squeaky bark of a woodpecker, the rapid-fire piping of a nuthatch and the seesaw of great tits. Most obvious was a busy group of hooded crows. A pair broke off and flew overhead, one of them flipping on to its back momentarily, exposing a gap in its left wing where it had lost a couple of primary feathers. Two more were hopping towards a patch of grain spread on the path ahead of me. Each winter, flocks of these sharp-witted birds arrive from their breeding grounds in the countryside to gather in the city. It’s safer here and there’s more to eat. Research also suggests that these crows share knowledge about sources of food: a corvid information exchange. At Babyn Yar, you can’t help but wonder what the crows are telling each other about us. • Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'world/ukraine', 'environment/birds', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/eddouglas', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-01-12T05:30:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2024/nov/20/blackrock-climate-human-rights | BlackRock accused of contributing to climate and human rights abuses | BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset management company, faces a complaint at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for allegedly contributing to environmental and human rights abuses around the world through its investments in agribusiness. Friends of the Earth US and the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil accuse BlackRock of increasing investments in companies that have been implicated in the devastation of the Amazon and other major forests despite warnings that this is destabilising the global climate, damaging ecosystems and violating the rights of traditional communities. The complaint, revealed exclusively to the Guardian, was filed under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which are recommendations from governments to private companies on responsible business conduct. In the absence of legally binding international regulations, these are seen as a reference for corporate accountability. The influence of BlackRock is enormous. It manages more than $11tn in assets, more than the combined government spending of the world’s 10 wealthiest countries. Although investment decisions are the responsibility of its clients, this giant financial institution provides advice and facilitates investments. Two thirds of the assets BlackRock manages on behalf of clients relate to retirement. Highlighting the forward-looking nature of these pension funds, the company website notes: “BlackRock’s mission is to create a better financial future for our clients, by building the most respected investment and risk manager in the world.” That claim is countered by the new complaint, which states that pension funds and other assets managed by BlackRock are threatening a stable future because they provide capital for companies responsible for deforestation of tropical rainforests, which adds to global climate disruption. “We hope this complaint prompts BlackRock to fulfill its obligations under international frameworks and steer investment away from agribusinesses driving climate chaos and gross human rights abuses,” said Gaurav Madan, senior forest and land rights campaigner at Friends of the Earth US. BlackRock said the case was spurious. “This complaint is meritless. As a fiduciary, our focus is to help our clients achieve their selected investment goals. The overwhelming majority of holdings referenced are held in index funds chosen by our clients themselves, and we cannot selectively divest from them,” a spokesperson said in an email statement to the Guardian. At an industry level, asset management companies say they cannot use clients’ money for third-party objectives because it is up to individual investors to select funds and allocate money. Finance firms have also previously argued that they are not responsible for index funds, which are investments in a range of assets in a given industrial, national or regional sector. Friends of the Earth say the latter argument has been challenged in several international contexts, including an earlier OECD case against the Swiss Bank UBS over its use of index funds connected to a company allegedly involved in the Chinese government’s mass surveillance of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In 2021, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has also confirmed there is a business relationship between a financial institution and an investee company in the context of minority shareholdings and index fund investments. To support their complaint, Friends of the Earth investigated publicly available data on BlackRock’s shareholdings between January 2019 and June 2024 in 20 agribusiness companies that have been implicated in environmental and human rights abuses, operating in the palm oil, pulp/paper, soy, cattle, timber and biomass sectors. It found BlackRock has more than $5bn invested in these companies, an increase since 2019 of $519m. In each of the companies is it a top 10 shareholder. Conservation organisations and Indigenous peoples have repeatedly asked BlackRock to stop financing companies that deforest the Amazon and violate communities’ land rights, said Dinamam Tuxá, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). “BlackRock has failed to prevent its investments from endangering entire peoples’ way of life,” he said in a statement. “For the sake of our future, we call on BlackRock to stop making excuses and stop funding companies driving deforestation, biodiversity loss, and violence against our communities.” The need for stronger action was apparent in a recent report showing that destruction of global forests rose last year and is now higher than when 140 countries promised three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade. The combination of land clearance, forest fires and global heating has pushed the Amazon closer towards a point of no return. Many areas are currently experiencing the worst drought on record. More broadly, major US financial institutions have been accused of watering down public commitments on the climate and nature crises. Last month, Client Earth filed a complaint in France alleging BlackRock greenwashed investments in fossil fuel companies through “sustainable” funds. In July, JP Morgan Chase, the world’s biggest investor in fossil fuels, was warned by US senators that it may have misled investors and the public by backtracking on its already weak climate and environmental commitments. The watchdog NGO Stand.earth also condemned five of the world’s biggest banks, for having environmental and social guidelines that failed to cover more than 70% of the Amazon rainforest. On the streets, the climate finance movement has staged protests outside several Wall Street institutions, including Citi, Bank of America and major insurers. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/forests', 'world/world', 'environment/deforestation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-11-20T15:00:19Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk/2012/jul/15/uk-flood-alerts-miserable-summer | UK flood alerts abound as heavy rain continues | Britain's miserable summer continued on Saturday with flood warnings and alerts issued across England. Thundery showers hit many parts of the country, with the south-east the worst hit. The Environment Agency issued 15 flood warnings and 65 flood alerts on Saturday, coming amid claims that nearly 300 flood defence schemes have been left unbuilt because of government cuts. The government insisted its "absolute priority" was protecting homes and businesses from floods and the Environment Agency said 364 new flood-risk management schemes had been completed in the past three years. "There will always be more schemes than funds available and no one can prevent flooding entirely," said the agency's chief executive, Paul Leinster. The Met Office kept a yellow warning in place on Saturday, alerting the public to heavy rain and floods in parts of the south-east and the Midlands. An agency spokesman said: "We are urging people across central and eastern England to remain vigilant as heavy thunderstorms are forecast to affect large swaths of the country. Locally intense showers falling on already saturated ground could lead to surface water flooding and possible river flooding from fast responding rivers, particularly across parts of the Midlands and East Anglia." The wettest April-June quarter on record, and further heavy rain in July, has resulted in repeated flooding in many parts of Britain. | ['uk/weather', 'environment/flooding', 'uk/met-office', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/paul-gallagher', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-07-14T23:07:12Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2022/apr/18/us-people-of-color-pesticides-study | People of color more likely to be harmed by pesticides, study finds | People of color and low-income communities are at disproportionate risk of pesticide exposure, a new study has found. Roughly 90% of pesticide use in the US is in agriculture, making farmworkers – 83% of whom identify as Hispanic – more vulnerable to the synthetic chemicals intended to kill, repel or control pests. “These workers somehow are seen as expendable,” said Robert Bullard, a co-author of the report and the director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. “This study shows the systemic neglect that [led to] a whole workforce being an underclass and not given the same weight when it comes to health and safety.” The study reviewed CDC and EPA data, along with existing pesticide research, and found that structural injustices, gaps in regulation and weak farmworker protections have led to disproportionate exposure to pesticides among people of color. It was conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity; researchers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and advocates from farmworker, racial justice and conservation groups. Twelve out of 14 markers for harmful pesticides, tracked over the past 20 years, were found in the blood and urine of Black and Mexican Americans at levels up to five times higher than those found in white Americans. Pesticide safety laws in place today by the Environmental Protection Agency set standards for pesticide exposure among consumers through food, but they specifically exclude farmworker protection from occupational exposure. “Laws and regulatory practices that we have in place right now are really perpetuating this,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity and co-author of the report. Jeannie Economos, pesticide safety and environmental health project coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida, said: “We need to get rid of these pesticides and find alternatives. They’re not only poisoning farmworkers, they are in our groundwater, on our food, and depleting our soil.” Marginalized communities are at a higher rate of exposure both in the workplace and at home, whether due to proximity to a pesticide manufacturing plant or from use inside residences. In California, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri, people of color make up about 38% of the population. But that same group comprises 63% of the population living within a mile of one of 31 pesticide facilities that, as of November, the EPA deemed in “significant violation” of environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The study also shows that pesticide use against rodents and cockroaches is often high in lower-income housing, due to age of buildings, poor maintenance and often crowded living conditions. In New York state, according to a study from 2002, 80% of low-income public housing facilities regularly applied pesticide. In another study from that year, 30% of pregnant African American and Dominican women in New York City were found to have at least eight pesticides detected in a home air-monitoring study. Bullard said the problem extends to not only federally subsidized housing, but also rental units in large complexes occupied by “renters who have no control over how much pesticide is being used and the safety applied”. Exposure to pesticides has been shown to negatively affect children’s development, and can lead to learning disabilities and behavioral problems. In November, Senator Cory Booker introduced the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act, which would ban some of the most damaging pesticides, including neonicotinoids, which are banned in the European Union and significantly restricted in Canada. More than 350 organizations that use pesticides, including agricultural groups and golfing associations, sent a letter to Congress in opposition to the bill. | ['us-news/series/americas-dirty-divide', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/epa', 'world/world', 'environment/farming', 'type/article', 'profile/aliya-uteuova', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-04-19T00:01:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/dec/28/storm-bella-helps-uk-record-wind-power-generation-boxing-day | Storm Bella helps Great Britain set new record for wind power generation | More than half of Great Britain’s daily electricity came from wind turbines for the first time on Boxing Day, as the country headed for its “greenest year on record”, due in part to the coronavirus. As Storm Bella arrived, bringing gusts of up to 100mph, wind provided 50.7% of Great Britain’s electricity according to data charting the power generation mix. While wind briefly hit 60% in August, it had not previously sustained such levels for 24 hours. “Britain has experienced a renewables revolution over the last decade with the growth of biomass, wind and solar power,” said Drax Electric Insights, part of coal and biomass power company Drax, which tracks the data. The milestone follows a string of new low-carbon records set in 2020, as Covid-19 restrictions depressed power demand, helping wind and solar to claim a larger share of the mix. Fossil fuels have increasingly been edged out as a result, helping Great Britain enjoy its longest coal-free period since the Industrial Revolution. Gas and coal power plants made up 36% of the electricity generated in England, Scotland and Wales in the year up to 21 December 2020, according to data from National Grid’s electricity system operator (NGESO), down from 46% in 2019. Wind and solar farms delivered 29% of the electricity mix, rising from 23% of electricity generated in Great Britain last year, according to the early data report. While Boxing Day set a record for the highest share of power generated by windfarms, it was not a record for the most power they have ever supplied. That was set earlier this month, when windfarms delivered 17.3 gigawatts. Because overall demand was higher at the time, their percentage share of total power generation was lower than it was on Boxing Day, at 40%. The larger role for renewables has caused the “carbon intensity” of Great Britain’s electricity to fall to its lowest level on record of 181g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity, compared with an average of 215g last year and 248g in 2018. Rob Rome, NGESO’s head of national control, said: “2020 has been a record-breaking year for Great Britain’s electricity system. The grid continues to transform at an astonishing rate as we harness the growth of renewable power sources. “We saw the highest ever level of solar generation in April, the longest period of coal-free operation between April and June, and the greenest ever month in May,” and the wind record set earlier this month illustrated the “changing nature of electricity in Britain”. There was a blip during August and September, when the electricity system bucked the trend of declining carbon intensity as emissions rose despite lower demand for electricity, suggesting a higher use of fossil fuels. Tom Edwards, an analyst at the energy consulting group Cornwall Insight, said the electricity system operator increased its reliance on gas-fired power plants by 20% in September compared with the year before, amid a slump in renewable energy generation. “To compensate for the lower wind speeds and dunkelflautes – dark, still periods – we turned to gas and coal,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of relying more on weather driven capacity and interconnector exports, which makes us more reliant on the vagaries of the wind and sun.” Steve Jennings, a partner at the consulting firm PwC, said the “key challenge on our pathway to net zero” is what the electricity system does “when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine”. The falling cost of energy storage – such as batteries – is expected to play a major role in Great Britain’s ability to use more renewable energy, and less fossil fuel power, alongside a more flexible approach to when major energy users consume electricity. But Jennings said nuclear power and gas-fired power plants fitted with carbon capture technology would still be required if Great Britain hopes to avoid unabated fossil-fuel generation. “Everyone is very positive about the UK’s green energy records but I think the microscope will begin to turn to what is happening on a daily basis rather than simply a cumulative basis,” he said. The coronavirus pandemic reduced electricity usage overall in 2020 compared with a normal year, as large swathes of the economy have been forced to shut their doors for extended periods. Average power demand across the course of the year has dropped from 32.58GW in 2019 to 30.6GW so far in 2020. | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rob-davies', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2020-12-28T17:47:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2017/oct/02/donald-trump-puerto-rico-presidents-cup-golf-trophy-hurricane-victims | Donald Trump dedicates golf trophy to Puerto Rico amid disaster response criticism | The US president, Donald Trump, has dedicated a golf trophy to the hurricane victims of Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, amid a worsening war of words between him and the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan, over the US response to the disasters. Presenting the trophy to the US captain, Steve Stricker, at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in New Jersey, Trump said: “On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people – if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is, but we have it under really great control – Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them. “And we’re going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love, a part of our great state, really a part of our great nation.” Trump tweeted a video of him presenting the trophy later on Sunday. Earlier on Sunday Trump dismissed those who questioned his administration’s commitment to rebuilding Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria as “politically motivated ingrates”, alluding to San Juan’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz. The president spent much of the weekend at his New Jersey golf club and then attended the tournament. Trump was the first sitting president to present the tournament’s winning team with a trophy. The president said the players were “a tremendous group of folks” and called them “great champions”. His administration has been criticised for allegedly failing to do enough to help Puerto Rico as most of its 3.4 million residents struggle with a lack of power, shortages of water and collapsed infrastructure following Hurricane Maria. Trump and senior administration figures are set to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday, at which point they will come face to face with the ongoing hardship on an island that is home to 3.5 million American citizens. There have been some signs of tentative progress made. The Trump administration has been rattled by the criticism from Yulín Cruz, and by a growing theme on social media and cable news comparing the apparently sluggish response to the Puerto Rican disaster to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. Trump said in tweets that the federal government has done “a great job with the almost impossible situation”. But the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said Trump should stop wasting time attacking Puerto Rico officials who were seeking hurricane relief and “roll up his sleeves and get to work”. White House officials said the administration was doing all it could to help victims of Hurricane Maria. Budget director Mick Mulvaney said the public needed to “judge us by the actions, please” in terms of efforts to help Puerto Rico. He said Trump was responding after Yulín Cruz criticised him for not doing enough when, Mulvaney said, “the progress is there, and the effort is there”. The Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said Cruz’s comments were “unfair” and that “when the president gets attacked, he attacks back”. | ['us-news/puerto-rico', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'us-news/trump-administration', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | world/hurricane-maria | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-10-02T04:45:45Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2024/jan/10/port-of-hastings-wind-turbine-plant-blocked-tanya-plibersek-jacinta-allan | Offshore windfarm boss says Tanya Plibersek’s block on turbine plant at port won’t delay project | The boss of Australia’s most advanced offshore windfarm is confident the federal government’s rejection of a major port facility in Victoria will not delay his project delivering its first electricity by the end of this decade. The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, rejected a Victorian government plan to create a facility at Port of Hastings to serve the nascent industry because of “clearly unacceptable” impacts on internationally significant wetlands. On Tuesday Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, said the state government was reviewing the decision but believed there could be “appropriate mitigations” to reduce the project’s impact on the Ramsar-listed Western Port wetlands. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Star of the South is Australia’s most advanced offshore wind project, with plans to generate up to 2.2 gigawatts of electricity – about 20% of Victoria’s total – from between 120 and 150 turbines off the south coast of Gippsland. The Port of Hastings project was designed to serve multiple projects. Offshore windfarms need port facilities on land to handle and assemble turbines and foundations. “They’re absolutely critical for the delivery of an offshore wind industry,” said Charles Rattray, chief executive of Star of the South. He told Guardian Australia the company’s preferred option was a facility at Port of Hastings but contingency plans were in place. “We remain confident we can deliver first power around the end of this decade,” he said. “There is no doubt that a dedicated port would help but a lot of [offshore wind] projects globally are delivered through multiple ports.” Both Geelong’s port and Port of Bell Bay, on the north coast of Tasmania, were being considered as primary construction ports for the project. Operational bases were also being considered at Barry beach marine terminal and Port Anthony in south Gippsland. “These projects are really complex, big challenges and we will have good and bad news days all the way through,” Rattray said. Asked if he had anticipated the federal government might reject the Port of Hastings plan, Rattray said: “Environmental approvals for large-scale infrastructure projects are a critical risk that always needs to be assessed. We used multiple criteria assessments and we thought it was important, based on that, to keep multiple port options open.” He said the project – with an estimated $8bn capital cost – was in “constant dialogue” with the Victorian government. Allan said the state government would review the decision and remained confident the proposal could be approved. “Appropriate mitigations that manage and support environmental impacts can still see the project delivered and that’s our view on the Port of Hastings project,” she said. “We believe that with the right mitigations you can deliver a project like this successfully. We do it in transport projects – there’s a whole range of different projects that go through these assessment processes.” Speaking in flood-impacted Seymour, in central Victoria, Allan said a mix of renewable energy was vital to support climate action. “We are standing in a town that has had its second major flooding impact in 450 days,” she said. “We’ve got to take action and that is the action we have been taking for some time. Allan said offshore wind would help the Victorian government reach its targets to have 65% of electricity from renewable energy by 2030 and 95% by 2035. “It’s also part of the federal government’s priorities in terms of achieving their own federal renewable energy targets,” she said. Victoria has a target to generate at least 2GW of offshore wind by 2032, 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040. The state’s current generation capacity, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator, is 19.6GW, which includes 7.4GW of coal- and gas-fired power generation. Star of the South, together with Flotation Energy’s 1.5 GW Seadragon project, also off the Gippsland coast, have been granted major project status by the federal government. Carolyn Sanders, the head of operations at Flotation Energy, said: “The assessment [of the Port of Hastings project] is a matter for State and Federal Government to work through. “Flotation Energy will continue to work with all levels of government as well as key stakeholders and potential ports to ensure project readiness.” | ['australia-news/victoria', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/victorian-politics', 'australia-news/jacinta-allan', 'australia-news/tanya-plibersek', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/conservation', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'profile/adeshola-ore', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2024-01-09T14:00:03Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/2018/oct/09/hurricane-michael-rick-scott-climate-record-slammed | Rick Scott's climate record condemned as Hurricane Michael bears down on Florida | Wearing his signature baseball cap, Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, has been a highly visible fixture of every Sunshine State hurricane in the last eight years. On Monday, as Michael’s 120mph winds bore down on the Gulf coast, Scott was there again, warning of forecasts of “the most destructive storm to hit Florida’s Panhandle in decades”. But as the term-limited governor attempts to become a US senator, scrutiny is again falling upon his record in office and what his opponents claim are policies that support portrayals of him as a climate-change denier. “He stands up in front of Floridians and he says: ‘Time to abandon your homes, you better escape before the hurricane comes,’” said Frank Jackalone, Florida chapter director of the Sierra Club, which links rising sea temperatures to an increase in the frequency and ferocity of major hurricanes. “To me, that’s a metaphor for what he’s doing to the whole state. He’s allowing our environment to degrade and he’s setting the stage for somebody to say, ‘Time to leave Florida, your home.’ He looks like a leader when he does that but he’s addressing the crisis after it happens instead of working to prevent the crisis.” Scott was a strong supporter of Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. He was also reported to have banned the phrases “global warming” and “climate change” from state documents, websites and even office discussions, an allegation he has repeatedly denied. In 2017, he approved Florida’s so-called “anti-science law”, which critics say was aimed at allowing legal challenges to the teaching of the realities of climate change and global warming in the state’s classrooms. But to opponents such as Jackalone, it’s what Scott has not done that has caused lasting damage. “He’s acknowledging that we’re having sea level rise and stronger hurricanes but he’s just not willing to say what the cause of it is,” he said. “Florida is only just getting to 1% of our power generation from renewable energy, which means that 99% is dirty fuel. The little progress we’re making has little to do with Rick Scott, who has taken no leadership towards moving the state forward. “He could have been directing his public service commission to take a stronger stand, he could have created a blue ribbon commission to study the problem, he could have just said we need to move forward with renewable energy. The lack of any policies, any discussion, has been a major flaw. “We haven’t seen any movement towards electric vehicles and electrification of Florida’s transit system. And another example of his failure is his move towards building major road corridors across the state. Those cars would create sprawl and urban growth, which in turn means clear-cutting trees, adding cars that’ll be traveling greater distances. That just increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.” Last year, the Tampa Bay Times questioned whether Scott’s personal investments in the energy industry had helped shape the state’s lack of policies on climate change. The article claimed that chunks of the business-friendly governor’s $232m fortune were tied up with stock in petroleum and power-generating companies opposed to the restriction of greenhouse gases and other regulatory actions. In an email to the Associated Press this month, his spokeswoman, Lauren Schenone, denied any conflict of interest. “Governor Scott has never made a single decision as governor with any thought or consideration of his personal finances,” she wrote. “The governor’s blind trust is managed by an independent financial professional who decides what assets are bought, sold or changed.” In an email to the Guardian, Schenone fiercely defended Scott’s record on the environment. “Last year,” she said, “the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had a near-record high compliance rate, which means businesses and facilities are following the law and preventing environmental harm. [He] has also invested record amounts in Florida’s environment, including hundreds of millions of dollars to help local communities transition from septic to sewer.” Scott continues to avoid talking about climate change on the campaign trail, often using the explanation “I’m not a scientist” to dodge awkward questions. His stance on environmental issues is laid out on his campaign website, which claims he has secured millions of dollars in state funds for local governments to plan and enact coastal defence strategies and combat sea level rise. To Jackalone, such claims have no merit. “His lack of work on environmental protection has led to some major problems,” he said. “Our water quality continues to diminish, our algae blooms are becoming larger and more toxic and we’ve lost any semblance of growth management. He has been Florida’s worst governor in decades with a head in the sand attitude to sea level rise.” | ['us-news/florida', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'us-news/hurricane-michael', 'profile/richardluscombe', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-10-09T18:07:13Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2014/nov/03/apple-watch-christmas-google-android-smartwatch | Apple Watch to miss Christmas and will launch in spring | Apple’s first smartwatch, the Apple Watch, will not be available to buy until spring 2015, according to a leaked internal video from Apple’s head of retail, Angela Ahrendts. The Apple Watch was scheduled for early 2015, but a transcript of the video sent to technology site 9to5Mac states that the watch will not be available until spring, giving Google’s Android Wear smartwatches a nine-month head start. “We’re going into the holidays, we’ll go into Chinese New Year [on 19 February], and then we’ve got a new watch launch coming in the spring,” said Ahrendts in a video to Apple retail employees. At the Apple Watch’s unveiling in September, Apple said an early 2015 release for the watch scheduled, but spring could indicate any time from March until May. The Apple Watch will miss the crucial 2014 Christmas period, which analysts are expecting will see wearable technology including fitness trackers and smartwatches be the big gifts of the year. ‘Such a difficult and humbling program’ One of the reasons Apple Watch is taking so long to come to market is designing a smartwatch posed a greater challenge than designing the iPhone, Apple’s chief designer, Jony Ive, told an audience at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Thursday night. “Even though Apple Watch does so many things, there are cultural, historical implications and expectations,” Ive explained. “That’s why it’s been such a difficult and humbling program.” Ive said he believes with “every bone in his body” that the Apple Watch will define the new smartwatch category, which until now has seen Android and Samsung’s Tizen dominate with watches such as the Motorola Moto 360 and Samsung Gear line. Pebble’s high-profile and successful Kickstarter campaign for an e-ink smartwatch in April 2012 showed that there was appetite for a lightweight computing device on the wrist. ‘You’re going to end up charging it daily’ Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, previously admitted that the Apple Watch will suffer from poor battery life, something the company is working on to attempt to prolong and one of the reasons why Apple’s watch will require a Bluetooth connection to an iPhone, offloading processor-intensive actions and access the internet. “We think you’re going to end up charging it daily. Overnight, that’s what we think,” Cook told the audience at WSJD Live conference. “I think given my own experience, and others around it, that you’re going to wind up charging it every day. Because you’re going to use it so much.” ‘Haven’t quite hit the right formula yet’ Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame, who was previously chief creative officer at Beats Music, elaborated on his new role at Apple which will take him away from making music. “This is very creative work that’s not directly making music, but it’s around music, Reznor told Billboard. “It’s exciting to me, and I think it could have a big enough impact that it’s worth the effort. I’m fully in it right now, and it’s challenging, and it’s unfamiliar and it’s kind of everything I asked for — and the bad thing is it’s everything I asked for.” Apple is expected to integrate the Beats Music subscription service, which is only available in North America, into the iTunes brand next year seeing iTunes move into the streaming model shown popular by rivals Spotify and Deezer. “I think the right streaming service could solve everybody’s problems,” Reznor said. “I just think we haven’t quite hit the right formula yet.” • Tim Cook: ‘I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me’ • Apple iTunes music sales down, so what next for Beats Music? | ['technology/apple', 'technology/apple-watch', 'technology/smartwatches', 'technology/wearable-technology', 'technology/technology', 'technology/jonathan-ive', 'technology/tim-cook', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/iphone', 'technology/ios', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-11-03T11:59:53Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2013/nov/04/green-groups-legal-kevins-corner | Green groups explore legal action to halt massive Queensland coalmine | Environmentalists have threatened legal action to halt what is set to be Australia’s largest coalmine, claiming the federal government has overturned long-standing conservation principles by approving it. The Kevin’s Corner mine has been approved by Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, however, the approval is subject to more than 70 conditions. Some of these conditions are designed to protect threatened species such as the black-throated finch, red goshawk and yakka skink. Indian resources firm GVK, which will operate the mine, is also required to submit a water monitoring and management plan, which will help “establish baseline data for water quality”. This study will have to be peer reviewed and approved by Hunt. GVK said the mine, located near the Queensland town of Alpha, is expected to last for at least 30 years, producing up to 30m tonnes of thermal coal a year for export. Mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting sold its stake in the project in 2011. Carbon emissions from coal mined at Kevin’s Corner are estimated at 58m tonnes a year – more than the entire annual emissions of Denmark. Construction is set to start in 2015, with the first coal mined in 2018. GVK said in a statement: “In a timely and considered decision, the minister finely balanced the protection of environment with the need for economic investment and job creation.” But opponents of the mine claim Hunt’s approval fails to protect the region’s groundwater and may be challenged in the courts. Drew Hutton, president of anti-mining group Lock the Gate, told Guardian Australia: “We will certainly be reviewing our legal options on this. We are bitterly disappointed because this mine will have an enormous impact on the Great Artesian Basin. “This has stood the whole approval system on its head. Once upon the time you had to show the impacts in order to get approval, but now you get approval and then work out exactly what damage it’ll do to the environment. We no longer have the precautionary principle in place in the whole approvals process.” Hutton said Hunt’s decision showed that the government is disregarding the new “water trigger” provision in federal environment legislation, which demands that the environment minister assess any project that could impact water quality. A coalition of six environmental and community groups are already waging a legal battle against the Rinehart part-owned Alpha coalmine, which would adjoin Kevin’s Corner. Cassie McMahon, from one of the community groups, the Coast and Country Association of Queensland, told Guardian Australia that an objection to Kevin’s Corner has already been lodged. “We see these two as brother and sister mines, with the technical assessments done together,” she said. “We would urge the government to wait on this new mine until the Alpha court case is finished, otherwise they could be wasting everyone’s time. “We want the government to be provided with the best information to make the right decision and it’s clear the proponents haven’t done their homework, on groundwater and how they will mitigate the impact on climate change. “Similar to Alpha, we believe their modelling on several issues is incorrect. We want more assessment and for the concerns of the community and farmers to be recognised.” The Kevin’s Corner and Alpha coalmines are two of a series of developments planned for the coal-rich Galilee basin area of central Queensland. The mines will, if completed, transport coal to the coast, where they will be shipped for export markets, primarily in China and India. Several port expansions are planned to facilitate this, although BHP has pulled out of one project amid concerns that Queensland already has a surplus of port capacity. On Friday, a federal government strategic analysis of the Great Barrier Reef called for a more holistic approach to the health of the ecosystem by considering the overall impact of coastline development. The report also stated that climate change was “the most serious long-term risk” facing the reef. “Even a two-degree celsius rise would be a very dangerous level of warming for coral reef ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef, and the people who derive benefits them,” it stated. “To ensure the reef remains a coral-dominated system, the latest science indicates global average temperature rise would have to be limited to 1.2 degrees celsius” Lock the Gate’s Hutton said the government’s approach to approving massive coalmines runs contrary to this warning. “It’s bordering on hypocrisy, really,” he said. “The Abbott government says it still recognises the link to climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gases. They are prepared to make feel-good statements about the reef but not the hard decisions about resource development.” A spokesman for Hunt told Guardian Australia: "The impact of this project on water resources has been thoroughly assessed and conditions have been applied to protect water resources by both the Queensland and Australia Governments." "The Water Monitoring and Management Plan augments the conditions put in place by Queensland, and will draw on advice from the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development. "The final decision was made in line with the national environment law." | ['environment/coal', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/mining', 'business/mining', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2013-11-04T04:04:17Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/2021/nov/10/weve-made-history-flint-water-crisis-victims-to-receive-626m-settlement | ‘We’ve made history’: Flint water crisis victims to receive $626m settlement | A federal judge has approved a $626m settlement for victims of the lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan, in a case brought by tens of thousands of residents affected by the contaminated water. Announcing the settlement on Tuesday, district judge Judith Levy called it a “remarkable achievement” that “sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant”. Most of the money will come from the state of Michigan, which was accused of repeatedly overlooking the risks of using the Flint River without properly treating the water. “This is a historic and momentous day for the residents of Flint, who will finally begin to see justice served,” said Ted Leopold, one of the lead attorneys in the litigation. Earlier this year, the judge gave preliminary approval to a partial settlement of lawsuits filed by victims of the water crisis against the state. Flint’s troubles began in 2014 after the city switched its water supply to the Flint River from Lake Huron to cut costs. Corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes, contaminating the drinking water and causing an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. The Flint water crisis was one of the country’s worst public health crises in recent memory. The case became emblematic of racial inequality in the United States as it afflicted a city of about 100,000 people, more than half of whom are African-Americans. The contamination prompted several lawsuits from parents who said their children were showing dangerously high blood levels of lead, which can cause development disorders. Lead can be toxic and children are especially vulnerable. The former Michigan governor Rick Snyder was charged in January with two counts of willful neglect of duty over the lead-poisoning of Flint’s drinking water. Payouts from the settlement approved on Wednesday will be made based on a formula that directs more money to younger claimants and to those who can prove greater injury. Michigan’s attorney general has previously said that the settlement would rank as the largest in the state’s history. “Although this is a significant victory for Flint, we have a ways to go in stopping Americans from being systematically poisoned in their own homes, schools, and places of work,” said Corey Stern, a counsel for the plaintiffs, in a statement after the judge’s order on Wednesday. The judge said it was “remarkable” that more than half of Flint’s 81,000 residents have signed up for a share of the settlement. It’s not clear just how much each child will receive. Flint resident Melissa Mays, a 43-year-old social worker, said her three sons have had medical problems and learning challenges due to lead. “Hopefully it’ll be enough to help kids with tutors and getting the medical care they need to help them recover from this,” Mays said. “A lot of this isn’t covered by insurance. These additional needs, they cost money.” She considers the settlement a win. “We’ve made history,” Mays said, “and hopefully it sets a precedent to maybe don’t poison people. It costs more in the long run.” | ['us-news/flint-water-crisis', 'us-news/michigan', 'us-news/us-justice-system', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/water', 'environment/pollution', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-11-11T01:00:45Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sport/2018/apr/20/england-netball-commonwealth-games-uk-club-scene | England's netball success shines light on thriving UK club scene | It has often been dismissed as a schoolgirl’s sport, or basketball for women. Football fans scoff at its strict zones, which allow only one player to zip between each third and just two the opportunity to shoot. Others mock its rigid rules: no dribbling, no contact, and only taking two steps when in possession. But England’s nailbiting last-second victory at the Commonwealth Games last week proved that netball can be as thrilling as any Premier League match – even if the wingers aren’t allowed to score. Chris Evans set her alarm for 3.30am on Sunday, determined to watch the final live despite the punishing time difference with Australia. The 74-year-old has been a linchpin of Merseyside’s netball scene for 40 years. She still works part time as a PE teacher at Merchant Taylors’ school in Crosby and coaches two of the top local teams: Capricorn, who play in the regional league, and Greenbank, who on Sunday won Liverpool’s first division. Known as Purple Chris because of her violet hair, Evans sat alone in her living room screaming at the TV as the Roses claimed gold with a 52-51 victory against the hosts. “I was jumping up and down like a maniac,” she said. “I was elated, shouting ‘Woah! Yesssss! Come on!’” Then she had her breakfast and set off to support Greenbank as they took the league title. England’s coach, Tracey Neville, said this week that funding constraints were like “a noose” around the sport’s neck. But Evans is optimistic: “Hopefully the fact we have won that gold medal will attract more sponsors to come on board and help raise our profile,” she said, before setting off for a match on the Isle of Man on Friday. With little fanfare, netball has become the UK’s number one female participation sport. Approximately 1.4 million women and girls play netball at some point in a typical season, according to England Netball, compared with 8.2 million who play football. It is the only women’s sport that enjoys weekly television coverage – on Sky Sports – throughout the Superleague season. Next year Liverpool will host netball’s world cup, making it – temporarily, at least – the home of netball. The city may no longer have a team in the Superleague, after Northern Thunder moved along the M62 and became Manchester Thunder. But at the grassroots level, the city region has 54 teams playing across five divisions in the highly competitive Liverpool league, plus others in the commercial Simple Netball social league. On Friday, a group of women aged 50 to 73 gathered in a sports centre in Anfield to play walking netball, a slower-paced variant that is being pushed by health chiefs in an area where life expectancy is 10 years lower than in Liverpool’s wealthiest suburbs. The £3 sessions are subsidised by Red Neighbours, an initiative from Liverpool football club, and include a cup of tea. The games are run by England Netball’s Karen McVeigh, a former Northern Ireland national player, whose hardest task is making herself heard among the laughter and gossip. On Friday the women were keen to talk about the Commonwealth Games. “England were very lucky,” said Joan Leighton, referring to the last-minute penalty that bagged them the gold. On court, 64-year-old goal attack Ann Doyle was on fire, netting two goals in as many minutes. “When I was in school they wouldn’t even let me in the netball team,” she said. Maggie Thornley, 73, had come straight from tai chi. “Put it this way: it’s either come to this or watch Jeremy Kyle,” she said. One of the many joys of netball is its accessibility, according to Beth Munro, a community wellbeing officer with Macmillan cancer care. The 24-year-old, who has no left hand, plays in Liverpool’s first division with St Marys. “I catch just using my one hand and thankfully my right hand is quite big compared to normal so that gives me extra width to cushion the ball,” she said. England’s Roses have inspired women all over Merseyside to put on a bib again, according to business analyst Eni Ann Riley, 31. Four years ago she set up the Victorious Secrets, an all-abilities team who play in pink and grey dresses and pride themselves on turning no woman away. Since Team England’s triumph on Sunday, Riley has received a string of messages from women asking to join. “Just this week I’ve had five women get in touch saying they’d like to come to practice,” she said. Riley got the netball bug so badly she was still playing three days before she gave birth to her daughter. “The sport brings out a lot of passion and dedication,” she explains. | ['sport/netball', 'uk/liverpool', 'sport/sport', 'uk/uk', 'sport/commonwealth-games-2018', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'profile/helenpidd', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | sport/commonwealth-games-2018 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-04-20T17:45:19Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
tv-and-radio/2024/nov/20/our-oceans-review-barack-obama-nature-show-netflix | Our Oceans review – Barack Obama’s nature show might be the most beautiful thing you see all year | It hasn’t been a great month for the US, at least if you support the Democratic party. Donald Trump’s election victory has put a great big question mark over the entire country and collective anxiety has spiked. People desperately need to be soothed by something. I don’t know about you, but my go-to in times like these has always been sea-based wildlife documentaries. With their combination of wub-wub noises and near-ambient underwater photography, it’s the closest you can get to a brain massage. But Netflix knows that, this time, a beautifully shot deep-sea wildlife documentary just isn’t going to cut it. No, this is serious. And that is why it has launched Our Oceans: a beautifully shot deep-sea wildlife documentary narrated by Barack Obama. Superficially, the series is the latest offering from the Obamas’ growing content farm, which has already given us the delightful animated show Waffles + Mochi and the midlife-crisis nightmare fuel that was Renegades, the podcast Obama hosted with Bruce Springsteen. But if you voted for or supported the Democrats this month, Our Oceans basically qualifies as sensory therapy. With each episode dedicated to one of the planet’s five oceans, the series is first and foremost jaw-dropping. As much as its starry narrator will grab the headlines, the photography is the star here. It is crisp, intimate and shows you the familiar in unfamiliar ways. It’s especially good at demonstrating scale. When the focus shifts to a manta ray or a whale shark, it shoots the animal from below, making it look like a geometric monolith compared with the other creatures swimming around it. It deals in the sort of awestruck majesty James Cameron was aiming for with the last Avatar film, only this is real. It also succeeds at crafting narratives. We watch a pod of young orcas train to raid a beach and it feels like something from Top Gun. Whales plotting a raid on a salmon fishery? Ocean’s Eleven. Then there is the sequence of a bioluminescent feeding frenzy off the coast of Los Angeles, which might be the single most beautiful thing you will see all year. For the most part, Obama acquits himself well in his new role. His voice, which has always been steady and soothing, was made for this. (Can you imagine any other high-level US politician pulling it off? Would narration sustain George W Bush’s attention? Would Joe Biden’s narration sustain ours? Does Trump know what a fish is?) This doesn’t mean that Obama is the new David Attenborough, of course. Attenborough is a career naturalist who almost single-handedly created the genre of wildlife television. Barack Obama is here to emote about dolphins. He isn’t helped by the script, which sometimes seems to underestimate the intelligence of its audience. It’s too folksy, describing the clownfish as “the world’s most famous fish”, presumably because there is a film franchise that stars the species. During a sequence about cuttlefish, Obama growls: “Don’t make him angry; you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.” At one point, he namechecks Murder on the Dancefloor. At another, he uses the word “fishnado”. Attenborough would never. However, all this pandering is just sweetener to get you through the door. The reason the Obamas put their name to Our Ocean swims just below the surface. Every time we meet an exciting animal, we are told exactly how humankind threatens it. Humanity is largely an unseen force here, butchering and depleting, introducing invasive species and heating oceans to the point of death. This is an advocacy series in disguise – and a necessary one. But, for now, let’s just focus on what is right in front of us. Our Oceans is coming out right when half of the US needs it most. If anything is going to get these people through the next few weeks, it’s going to be Obama and whale song. • Our Oceans is on Netflix now | ['tv-and-radio/series/tv-review', 'tv-and-radio/tv-and-radio', 'culture/culture', 'culture/television', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'profile/stuart-heritage', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-production'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-11-20T05:00:29Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/nov/08/extreme-droughts-in-syria-iraq-and-iran-since-2020 | Human-caused heating behind extreme droughts in Syria, Iraq and Iran, study finds | Extreme droughts that have wrecked the lives of millions of people in Syria, Iraq and Iran since 2020 would not have happened without human-caused global heating, a study has found. The climate crisis means such long-lasting and severe droughts are no longer rare, the analysis showed. In the Tigris-Euphrates basin, which covers large parts of Syria and Iraq, droughts of this severity happened about once every 250 years before global heating – now they are expected once a decade. In Iran, extreme drought occurred once every 80 years in the past but now strikes every five years on average in today’s hotter world. Further global heating, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, will make these droughts even more common. The study also found that existing vulnerability from years of war and political instability had reduced people’s ability to cope with the drought, turning it into a humanitarian disaster. The researchers said it was vital to plan for more frequent droughts in the future. “Our study has shown that human-caused climate change is already making life considerably harder for tens of millions of people in west Asia,” said Prof Mohammad Rahimi, at Semnan University, Iran. “And with further warming, Syria, Iraq and Iran will become even harsher places to live.” Rana El Hajj, at the Red Cross Red Crescent climate centre, said: “While conflict itself increases vulnerability to drought by contributing to land degradation, weakened water management and deteriorating infrastructure, research also shows that climate change, in this region specifically, has acted as a threat multiplier [for conflict].” Dr Friederike Otto, at Imperial College London, UK, said: “Droughts like this will continue to intensify until we stop burning fossil fuels. If the world does not agree to phase out fossil fuels at [UN climate summit] Cop28, everyone loses: more people will suffer from water shortages, more farmers will be displaced and many people will pay more for food at supermarkets.” The Guardian revealed in 2022 how hundreds of scientific studies now show that human-caused global heating is driving more frequent and deadly disasters across the planet. Leading climate scientists warned in August that the “crazy” extreme weather of 2023 was just the “tip of the iceberg” compared with the even worse impacts to come. The study was conducted by the World Weather Attribution group. The researchers used weather data and climate models to compare how droughts have changed in the region since global heating has pushed up temperatures by about 1.2C. The scientists found that the high temperatures recorded since 2020 were “virtually impossible” without climate change and made the drought far more likely to happen. The searing temperatures increased the evaporation of the little rain that fell, resulting in the drought being classified as “extreme” on the US Drought Monitor scale. Without the climate crisis, the past three years would not have passed any threshold for drought. The affects of the drought have been wide-ranging, causing millions to flee rural areas, soaring food prices, wildfires and air pollution and fishing rivers and lakes to dry up. In Syria, 2 million rural people have been displaced and 12 million people – 60% of the population – were reportedly experiencing food insecurity. Almost every province of Iran has been severely affected by the drought and poor harvests have caused spikes in food prices. Otto said: “The threat of drought is rapidly increasing in a warming world, destroying livelihoods and disrupting global food systems. “While countries made extremely wealthy by fossil fuels can pay for adaptive measures to enjoy a comfortable standard of living in a hotter, harsher world, poorer countries reeling in the aftermath of war, cannot,. This is also true for poorer people in rich societies, highlighting again how the continued burning of fossil fuels increases inequality.” | ['environment/drought', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/environment', 'world/iran', 'world/iraq', 'world/syria', 'world/world', 'inequality/inequality', 'society/food-poverty', 'global-development/food-security', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-11-08T13:00:35Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/ng-interactive/2018/aug/07/mendocino-fire-california-biggest-state-history-mapped-explained | How the Mendocino Complex fire became the largest in California history – a visual guide | At 443.4 square miles and growing, the Mendocino Complex blaze is now California’s largest ever wildfire. It has forced thousands from their homes and destroyed over 80 residences, rapidly becoming the most pressing of the 18 wildfires raging across the state. The blaze is now larger than New York city and is approaching the size of Los Angeles. The Mendocino Complex fire is actually made up of two fires on either side of Clear Lake. Hot, windy weather and extremely dry vegetation has fuelled the fires, causing them to spread quickly since they started on 27 July. The gap between the two fires is now less than 3km. The 3,900 crews battling the Mendocino Complex on Monday were focusing on keeping flames from breaking through fire lines on a ridge above the foothill communities of Nice, Lucerne, Glen Haven, and Clearlake Oaks, said Tricia Austin, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency. The Mendocino Complex fire has surpassed the size of the Thomas fire to become the largest fire in Californian history. The Thomas fire broke out in December 2017 and scorched more than 440 square miles before it was fully contained more than a month later. Three of the largest wildfires in California’s history have occurred in the past 12 months. Sources: Satellite imagery from Copernicus (Sentinel-2), fire perimeters and largest wildfires data from CalFire, building footprint data from Microsoft. Photographs: AFP PHOTO / NOAH BERGERNOAH BERGER/AFP/Getty Images | ['us-news/california', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'type/interactive', 'profile/josh-holder', 'profile/cath-levett', 'profile/niko-kommenda', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-visuals'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-08-07T14:22:50Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development/2014/dec/15/sustainable-development-goals-compromised-cuts-mps-warn-uk-environmental-audit-committee | Sustainable development goals could be compromised by cuts, UK warned | Britain will undermine the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) by trying to reduce their numbers and continuing to give tax breaks and susbsidies to the fossil fuel industry, a powerful group of MPs has warned. The targets, which will be approved in September 2015, when the millennium development goals expire, will set all countries objectives for poverty reduction, social development and protection of the planet. But MPs on the House of Commons environmental audit committee said they feared that if the 17 goals proposed were reduced to 12, as Britain wants, environmental sustainability was likely to be sacrificed, with dangerous consequences. “The UK must not risk undermining the sustainable development goals. Any continued argument for a smaller number of goals, in the face of the secretary general’s recent guidance, risks creating unnecessary divisions between countries when it should be seeking to build support for ambitious action,” they said. “In some areas the UK government appears to be actively encouraging unsustainable development. It’s time we put the brake on tax breaks and subsidies for the fossil energy [that is] fuelling climate change and air pollution. The new goals will have to be met by all countries, not just developing countries. Our aim must be to de-couple economic growth from polluting and unsustainable resource use,” said the environment audit committee’s chairwoman, Joan Walley. The committee, which took evidence from civil servants, ministers, NGOs and Europe, criticised Britain for giving too much importance to economic development, which it too often viewed as a magic bullet in development. “We have seen time and time again that economic growth on its own is insufficient in improving the nutrition status of countries,” it said. “Inequality prevents sustainable development, not only because it can undermine social cohesion and a sense of shared wellbeing, but because some sections of societies may be excluded from the benefits of development and prosperity. “Britain [should] demand the highest standards of environmental protection in trade deals, and lead international efforts to improve air quality in cities in developing countries,” said the MPs. They urged government to push to keep the proposed separate climate change goal in the SDGs, and push back against member states wanting it removed or watered down, given the importance of reaching an ambitious global climate change agreement in Paris next year. | ['global-development/global-development', 'global-development/sustainable-development-goals', 'global-development/future-of-development', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'world/unitednations', 'uk/uk', 'global-development/millennium-development-goals', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-12-15T00:01:03Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
science/2004/jul/27/biodiversity.environment | Frozen ark to save rare species | A modern version of Noah's Ark, designed to save thousands of creatures from extinction, was launched yesterday by scientists at the Natural History Museum. The extraordinary project was set up to protect a vast array of animals, not from epic floods, but from the threat of imminent extinction thanks to humankind's actions. Thousands of species are expected to be wiped out within the next few decades because of pollution, war and the destruction of natural habitats. Rather than being offered refuge on a giant wooden boat, the threatened species face a more prosaic salvation at the bottom of a deep-freeze unit in one of the museum's laboratories in west London. While entire colonies of some creatures will be frozen, in most cases only DNA and tissue samples of endangered species will be stored. Scientists behind the project, dubbed the Frozen Ark, are keen to preserve the DNA of endangered animals so they can continue research into their evolutionary histories even if they become extinct. More ambitiously, scientists hope one day to be able to use cells from the frozen tissue samples to recreate extinct animals using advanced cloning techniques. "Because of man's actions, species are going extinct at an alarming rate. We're losing them now at a rate that's as serious as the great extinctions," said Philip Rainbow, of the Natural History Museum. "The ultimate desire is that if we keep tissue samples, we can one day implant these into surrogate parents and get them back. It may sound fanciful, but it'd be a great pity if in 40 years' time scientists are saying, 'look what we can do now, why didn't you keep tissue samples of these animals?'" Yesterday, DNA samples from the scimitar-horned oryx, which was declared extinct in the wild last year, became the first to be deposited, along with samples from the Socorro dove, a coral fish called the banggai cardinal, the yellow seahorse and the mountain chicken, which is actually a variety of Caribbean frog. Other species will follow shortly, including the Polynesian tree snail, the Fregate island beetle, which is considered critically endangered, and the British field cricket, of which fewer than 100 remain in the wild. In the next 30 years, scientists predict 1,130 species of mammals and 1,183 species of birds will die out. Not all the samples will be stored at the Natural History Museum. Part of the project will involve the creation of a database that holds worldwide information on DNA and tissue samples. As an insurance against damage or loss of the frozen samples, duplicates will be kept in chosen institutions around the world. Tentative attempts to use cloning to bring back extinct species are already under way. Scientists at the Australian Museum in Sydney are painstakingly trying to piece together fragments of Tasmanian tiger DNA from pickled pups in the hope of resurrecting the animal,which was hunted to extinction more than 60 years ago. Even if they are successful, they face another hurdle in identifying a suitable species to carry a cloned egg of the extinct animal without rejecting it. Last year, scientists in Japan announced ambitious plans to attempt to clone prehistoric woolly mammoths after extracting DNA samples from mammoths dug from the Russian permafrost. Their chances of success also rely largely on whether the DNAis in good enough condition, which many scientists think unlikely. According to Prof Rainbow, the Frozen Ark is possibly the best chance of being able to ensure that even if certain species are wiped out in the coming decades, they may not be lost for ever. "It may sound depressing that we feel we have to do this, but it would be even worse if we did nothing," he said. "We're not trying to play Frankenstein, we're just trying to preserve biological tissues in such a way that somebody someday might be able to do something useful with it. Fifty years ago we couldn't imagine doing the kinds of things we can do now." Two by two ... Who's first in Noah's new zoo The scimitar-horned oryx Named after its scimitar-shaped horns, the oryx (Oryx dammah) used to range throughout northern Africa. Overhunting, desertification and continuing wars in Africa have all contributed to its demise. Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, it exists now only in specialised breeding programmes in captivity. The Socorro dove Unique to Socorro, a remote island off the west coast of Mexico, the Socorro dove (Zenaida graysoni) has been in terminal decline since 1957 due to habit loss and latterly the introduction of domestic cats. The birds are now being bred in captivity and plans are in place to reintroduce them to the wild if their habitat can be made safe. The mountain chicken Curiously, not a chicken at all, but a Caribbean frog surviving only on the islands of Montserrat and Dominica. The remaining mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) population was hit badly by the Montserrat volcano eruption. On Dominica, it suffered from being a national dish, a misfortune compounded by a devastating skin fungus epidemic. Now being bred in captivity. The banggai cardinal Measuring just a few centimetres long, the banggai cardinal (Pterapogon kauderni) is a black and white fish living on coral reefs. The species is only found in a small region of reefs and is now threatened by over-collection by the pet trade. The yellow seahorse Endangered thanks to its appeal to aquarium owners and its use in Chinese medicine, the yellow seahorse (Hippocampus kuda) is now being bred in captivity in the hope of restoring its numbers in the wild. They have chameleon-like eyes that can swivel independently. Females lay their eggs in pouches on the male's belly, and the male later gives birth to live young. | ['environment/biodiversity', 'science/science', 'education/research', 'education/higher-education', 'environment/environment', 'education/science', 'education/education', 'society/society', 'environment/conservation', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/iansample'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2004-07-27T11:29:01Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
weather/2009/jan/22/1 | Weatherwatch | You might imagine that the coldest time of year should come with the shortest days of the year, around the winter solstice on 21 December, when the sun is in shortest supply and at its weakest. After that the daylight hours lengthen. But as we head into the depths of winter, the cold in January and February is usually worse, as an old saying goes, "As the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger." In December there is just enough warmth left in the seas around Britain to help insulate us from the worst of the cold, like a hot water radiator giving off the last of its warmth. By January and February, though, the seas are colder, and when biting winds sweep down from the Arctic or northern Europe there is little to warm the air, so we generally get the coldest temperatures of the year. This is why folklore marks the coldest day on St Hilary's Day. Based on the old Julian calendar the saint's feast day was on 13 January, but after England adopted the modern Gregorian calendar in 1752, St Hilary's Day moved to 24 January. St Hilary was a French bishop whose name became adopted for the Hilary term, used in law courts in England and Wales, and at Oxford and Dublin universities. But how St Hilary's Day gained its cold reputation is less certain, although possibly a particularly severe winter freeze began on this date in 1205, when the river Thames remained frozen over for two months. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article', 'profile/jeremy-plester', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-01-22T00:01:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2019/nov/05/no-fly-zone-i-didnt-catch-a-plane-for-a-year-and-saved-19-tonnes-of-co2 | No fly zone: I didn't catch a plane for a year and saved 19 tonnes of Co2 | What is the single thing that you could do that would most reduce your carbon footprint? Take your bike to work rather than your car? Dig up your lawn for a vegetable garden? For me, an academic scientist living and working in Auckland, New Zealand, I reasoned that the most significant thing I could do was to stop flying. In 2017 I flew 84,000km. I made twenty day trips to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. I travelled to the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to attend conferences and work on joint projects with other scientists. All of this made me accountable for around 19 tonnes of carbon dioxide that year, nearly three times that of the average Kiwi. I was flying as if I didn’t believe in climate change. Even though I am not a climate scientist this was not a good look, so I committed to not getting on a plane at all in 2018. Globally, aviation accounts for something like 2-3% of greenhouse gas emissions. While it is not our largest problem, it is one of the most carbon-unfriendly activities that we individually have control over. My pledge not to fly garnered a variety of reactions. Cynics would almost immediately point out that my plane would fly anyway and conclude that my gesture was just empty virtue signalling. This is a variant on the argument that New Zealand’s farming sector often falls back on: if we cut our dairy production, someone else will gratefully pick up the slack. This is only true if no one else follows your lead. For my year, if I could persuade 300 other people not to get on that plane, then it wouldn’t fly. Tonnes of carbon would stay in the ground. So as I criss-crossed my beautiful country by train, bus, and ferry, I shared #nofly2018 on social media. In most parts of the world, it has probably been a century or more since “man catches train” made headlines, but not so in New Zealand. The neo-liberal reforms of the 1980s saw our intercity rail network atrophy, and today, the passenger train from Auckland to Wellington runs only three times a week. When I arrived in Wellington that Easter by train, my trip made national news. There must have been something in the air. By the middle of the year, I had discovered a Facebook group that connected flightless Kiwis, and was watching the Swedish flygskam (flight shame) movement go global, led by the inspirational Greta Thunberg. By the end of 2018 it was clear that some planes had not flown. It also became apparent that it would have to be less about not flying and more about some of us choosing to flying less. According to Statistics New Zealand, the number one reason why Kiwis fly overseas is to visit friends and family. Like me, many New Zealanders weren’t born here. While some of us do fly for business or to get a winter tan in Bali, many of us travel for love and friendship. Love will always beat shame. It’s also important to realise that the costs of not flying are not equitably distributed. A decision not to fly earlier in my career would have hurt my international profile and my ability to attract research funding. Responsibilities for child-care still largely fall on women, which means they have less freedom to take the extra time away from home that travel by train or bus entails. The greatest responsibility to reduce air travel falls on a privileged few. Air travel is not going to disappear completely, but nor does there seem to be a technological fix on the horizon for aviation emissions. We may see electric air taxis in our skies soon, but the best we can hope for on longer-haul flights are incremental gains in fuel efficiency. This is a problem for a country like New Zealand that aspires to lead the world on climate, but which relies on tourism as its largest source of foreign exchange. This leaves carbon off-setting, where additional tree planting or forest regeneration is undertaken to absorb emissions. When it comes to off-setting, New Zealand has options. Pinus radiata, the mainstay of our forestry industry, grows rapidly here, gorging itself on carbon dioxide as it grows. To offset our current level of emissions from air travel, New Zealanders would need to plant around half a million hectares of pine forest. Massive new pine plantations strike many of us as a less than desirable trade-off. As an island nation, we have a unique natural heritage, already impoverished by large scale land clearance and facing new threats from climate change. Unfortunately regenerating native forest does not have the same appetite for carbon dioxide as exotic pine, at least in the short run. To offset with native forest, we would need to nearly double the size of our national park system. What’s not to like about new national parks? Plenty, if your livelihood depends on one of the many hundreds of farms that stand to be repurposed as a massive carbon sink. Even in New Zealand, a country with a national grid powered by more than 80% renewables, we face some hard choices. New Zealand is steeling itself to make these decisions with a commitment to a carbon neutrality by 2050 that will soon be embedded in legislation. There are those that argue that the decisions we make as a country will have no impact on the climate. It is true that we only account for 0.2% of global emissions, but if others follow our lead then our impact will be significant. My year of trains, no planes, and electric automobiles taught me that our path to carbon neutrality will not be easy. But I also learned that individual acts can inspire others. Fly if you have to, offset if you can, but fly less. | ['world/newzealand', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2019-11-04T19:01:36Z | true | EMISSIONS |
business/2009/nov/17/vedanta-inquiry-three-arrested | Vedanta employees arrested during India chimney collapse inquiry | Three officials at a subsidiary of the mining company Vedanta Resources have been arrested in India following the collapse of a chimney in one of its power stations which killed 41 people. The incident occurred in September at Vedanta's Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) power plant in Chhattisgarh, central India, during heavy storms. After a two-month investigation, local police have arrested Balco's vice-president, who was also the plant's project manager, its associate general manager and a graduate trainee engineer. The three men have all been charged with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder". The chimney that collapsed was being constructed for Balco by China's Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp (Sepco) as part of a 1,200 megawatt power plant. Chinese executives and engineers from Sepco were also questioned after the incident but none has been arrested. However, the police insisted that the investigation is ongoing and more arrests could be made. A Balco spokesman said the company was "surprised" by the arrests because it had cooperated fully with the police inquiry. "We are still in the process of finding out what happened. The investigation has not been completed," he said. This is another embarrassment for Vedanta, which is listed on the FTSE 100. Another of its subsidiaries, Sesa Goa, is being investigated over allegations of fraud and Vedanta has also faced criticism over its plans to open a bauxite mine in a sacred area of Orissa, eastern India. A UK government agency recently ruled that Vedanta "did not respect the rights" of Orissa's indigenous people, "did not consider the impact of the construction of the mine on the [tribe's] rights" and "failed to put in place an adequate and timely consultation mechanism". Vedanta defended its environmental and human rights record, insisting its work has had a positive impact on the lives of 2.5 million villagers in India and Zambia. Vedanta plans an open-cast mine on Orissa's Niyamgiri mountain. Activists believe the mine will destroy the area's ecosystem and threaten the future of the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe, who depend on the hills for their crops, water and livelihood. The tribe believes the mountain and the surrounding forest to be the sacred home of their god Niyam Raja. | ['business/vedantaresources', 'business/business', 'environment/mining', 'business/mining', 'law/human-rights', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'world/india', 'business/ftse', 'world/zambia', 'law/law', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'profile/kathrynhopkins', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2009-11-17T18:28:58Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2021/mar/17/ppe-use-in-england-generated-colossal-amount-of-carbon | PPE use in England generated 'colossal' amount of carbon | The considerable use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in health and social care services in England during the first six months of the pandemic added an additional 1% to the carbon burden, a new analysis suggests. Between February and August 2020, about 3bn items of PPE were utilised – generating over 106,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, according to research conducted at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. This equates to 591 tons a day, which works out to roughly 27,000 times the average individual’s daily carbon footprint, the authors estimated in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. “We could see on the ground that we were using a lot of PPE within healthcare and that the impact was likely to be large, but it was even bigger than we expected,” said lead author Chantelle Rizan, an NHS doctor and sustainable surgery fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare in Oxford. “It’s a colossal amount of greenhouse gases that were generated. We were able also to compare that to normal activity within the NHS over a normal six-month period, and we found that PPE was responsible for an additional 1% carbon burden,” she said. “And while the NHS in 2020 pledged to meet net zero carbon by 2040, this is moving us in the wrong direction.” In their analysis, the researchers included items such as gloves, aprons, face shields, gowns as well as respiratory and surgical masks. The environmental cost of the PPE was calculated on the basis of raw material extraction, manufacture, transport and under the assumption that each item was used only once, and – in accordance with UK guidance – disposed of by high-temperature hazardous incineration. “The NHS’s first priority had to be to protect patients and staff from the virus through the use of personal protective equipment (PPE),” said Prof Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. “However, we cannot ignore the damaging environmental impact of such vast use of disposable gloves and aprons … the findings of this new study are sobering” Study researchers modelled that while maintaining safe levels of protection for staff and patients, it was theoretically possible to reduce the environmental cost by 75% through a combination of strategies – including rationalising glove use, domestic manufacturing, using reusables where possible, and optimising waste management. “We’re not suggesting that we should do anything that puts health and social care staff or patients at risk … we are suggesting is that there might be strategies that we should be using, which enables us to continue to provide the same level of protection whilst actually reducing the environmental impact,” Rizan said. “For example, switching to reusable items and developing our capability to actually recycle these things. At the moment much of our PPE is disposed of as clinical waste and is sent for high-temperature incineration which has huge environmental impacts.” From the initial analysis, the researchers found that the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint was glove use – responsible for 1.8 billion items, or roughly 45% of the total PPE use, over the six-month period. “At the time … UK policy mandated that gloves were used for close patient contact, despite the fact that we knew the transmission of coronavirus is mainly through the air. The UK guidance has actually since changed,” said Rizan. “So, we do need to essentially be a little a bit more sensible in terms of our glove use and to reduce their use where it is safe to do so, for example, where there is minimal contact with low-risk patients.” The government has plans to expand domestic manufacturing with the ambition to meet about 70% of PPE demand, she noted, adding that the plans explicitly exclude gloves. “As gloves were responsible for almost half of the carbon footprint of PPE, perhaps the remit of this ambition should be expanded.” In the first six months of the pandemic, a lot of gear was shipped from countries such as China, Thailand and Malaysia. If that manufacturing had been done domestically, the researchers modelled a 12% reduction in the carbon footprint. “But importantly here, the reductions aren’t just because of reducing the overseas travel, it’s also because of the actual electricity mix. Because in the UK we’ve got a much higher proportion of renewables than some of these other countries, where we were originally getting our PPE supplies from,” said Rizan. This paper highlights the key message of reduce, reuse, recycle – this hierarchy suggests recycling, is “the least best thing that you could be doing,” noted Rachel Stancliffe, founder of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. “Reduce what we’re using in the first place, and that would be, for example, washing hands rather than gloves and where possible. Don’t use aprons unless it’s necessary to. And then, if you do have to use them, use ones that are reusable,” she said. “We can save money by doing the right thing.” | ['environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'science/infectiousdiseases', 'science/science', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'profile/natalie-grover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-03-17T10:13:59Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
global-development/2021/sep/20/meeting-cop26-finance-goals-going-to-be-tough-says-boris-johnson | Meeting Cop26 finance goals ‘going to be tough’, says Boris Johnson | Boris Johnson has said he fears there is only a 60% chance that the $100bn in climate finance viewed as key to securing an ambitious outcome to the Cop26 summit will be in place by the time world leaders meet in Glasgow in November. Speaking to journalists en route to New York at the start of a three-day visit to the US, in which he hopes to “galvanise” progress towards a new climate deal, the prime minister said he would be urging developed countries to come forward with additional funding. “There’s a roundtable with the climate-vulnerable countries [on Monday]: they need support from the rest of the world if they’re going to make the transition in the way that they must. And the developing world looks to us,” he said. “We began fossil fuel emissions, it was our country that had the first sustained Industrial Revolution. We began it, and they look to us to help them move beyond hydrocarbon technology.” Asked if he thought the $100bn total could be reached this week, he said: “Getting it all this week is going to be a stretch. Getting it all done by Cop, six out of 10. It’s going to be tough.” G7 countries promised more than a decade ago at the Copenhagen summit to make $100bn in private and public finance available to developing countries, to help them transition to low-carbon technologies and cope with extreme weather. Analysis from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published last week suggested that so far only $80bn has been raised, however. G7 leaders recommitted to the target at June’s summit in Cornwall, but Johnson was criticised for failing to secure concrete pledges. The UK is expected to publish a breakdown of individual countries’ commitments at the end of this week. Cop26 chair Alok Sharma travelled with Johnson to the US, as the UK steps up diplomatic efforts to secure a successful outcome to the summit. Johnson will hold a string of bilateral meetings with fellow leaders, and said he would be pressing them about “coal, cars, trees and cash”. “We’ll be pushing for everybody to step up to the plate on getting rid of coal-fired power-stations, in the way that we have in the UK – a massive reduction in our dependence on coal; getting rid of hydrocarbon internal combustion engine motor vehicles, so that we all move towards electric vehicles; and planting hundreds of millions of hectares of trees; and getting the finance that’s necessary to do this,” he said. The government has announced that £550m of the £11.6bn it had set aside for climate finance over the next five years will be allocated to developing countries, as part of the UK’s contribution to the $100bn target. There are growing concerns about China’s attitude to the talks, after Beijing was irked by the Aukus deal – the security and defence pact between Australia, the UK and the US. Speaking on Sunday, Sharma was unable to say whether President Xi would attend Cop26. Johnson lavished praise on China’s role in tackling the climate crisis, saying: “The Chinese actually have stepped up. They’ve gone a long way already and I congratulate President Xi on his vision.” He added, “Alok has had some great conversations already with his Chinese counterparts about the things they want to do. I think China is massively important on this but it shows real signs of making progress.” The prime minister will meet Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on the sidelines of UN general assembly this week. Asked whether he would challenge the avowed climate sceptic about the burning of the Amazon rainforest, Johnson said: “Yes. We want to stop and reverse the global loss of biodiversity, including in the rainforest. “I believe it is in the long-term economic interest of all rainforest countries to do that. We want to plant gazillions of trees, hundreds of millions of hectares. “We want a global process of reforestation. I think it is in the long-term interests of Brazil and the people of Brazil to recognise the spectacular natural endowment they have and to conserve it, and I am sure that President Bolsanaro agrees with that.” | ['environment/climate-aid', 'global-development/climate-finance', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/heatherstewart', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/climate-aid | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-09-20T05:00:04Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
us-news/2018/sep/13/donald-trump-says-hurricane-maria-death-toll-number-was-made-up-by-democrats | Trump falsely claims Hurricane Maria death toll was made up by Democrats | Donald Trump has falsely claimed that 3,000 people did not die in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, and said the number was made up by the Democratic party “to make me look as bad as possible”. Despite significant evidence showing nearly 3,000 people were killed in the devastating storm last year, Trump tweeted an extraordinary claim that the official death toll was a political scheme, two days after he was sharply criticised for saying the government had an “unsung success” in its response to Maria. Puerto Rico’s government raised the official death toll from 64 people to 2,975 late last month following the publication of new research by George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Though the official death toll was changed, reports by other academic institutions and newspapers estimated the death toll was in the thousands as early as December 2017. But Trump contested these findings on Thursday. A report published in May by the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health said up to 4,600 people were killed and an investigation published in December by the Center for Investigative Journalism found the actual death toll exceeded 1,000 people. The adjustment of the official death toll followed nearly a year of campaigning by journalists, activists and academics to get the government to officially acknowledge the scale of devastation because 64 people was always considered an underestimate. The George Washington University report said the actual number of excess deaths was estimated to be in the range of 2,658 to 3,290. On Thursday afternoon, the university issued a statement defending its research, saying, as reported by NBC: “We stand by the science underlying our study, which found there were an estimated 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.” Trump’s visit to Puerto Rico in October 2017 was defined by the moment he threw paper towels into a crowd of people as aid agencies and journalists warned of a major humanitarian crisis spanning the island of 3.3 million people. On his visit, he appeared to complain about the cost of the recovery effort. “I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack,” he said at a briefing shortly after arriving on the island. Maria, which made landfall as a category 4 storm, caused an island-wide power outage, almost completely knocked out communications including satellite phones and left 80% of the island without access to water in the days following the storm. The majority of the island’s 69 hospitals were without electricity or fuel for generators a week after Maria made landfall. The supply chain crumbled, preventing people across the island from getting food, water and fuel. Trump’s claim that when he left the island there had been “anywhere from six to 18 deaths” does not acknowledge that before he arrived, Puerto Rico’s health secretary said it was fair to assume the number would rise. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), a local investigative journalism project, also reported before Trump’s visit that hospital mortuaries were at capacity and people were not able to bury dead relatives because funeral homes were unable to operate. There is also no indication Trump raised “billions” to help rebuild the island and the government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has said its recovery efforts were strained after responding to two other major hurricanes weeks before Maria. The mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, responded to Trump on Twitter: “This is what denial following neglect looks like: Mr Pres in the real world people died on your watch. YOUR LACK OF RESPECT IS APPALLING! “Thousands of americans, our diaspora & latinos that came to PR to care for us and become advocates for our people deserve better than this,” she continued. “Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT.” Ricardo Roselló, Puerto Rico’s governor, said some parts of the government’s response to Maria were good and some were concerning, in response to Trump’s tweets. Roselló said it was important for elected officials to identify mistakes and not be afraid to address how things could have been done better. “The only way to make it better in the future is to recognize it in the first place so they can mitigate the next event,” Roselló said. “That is my commitment, I hope it is the same commitment with the federal government.” Paul Ryan contested Trump’s claim that the death toll numbers were fabricated by Democrats. “I have no reason to dispute those numbers,” the House speaker told reporters during a weekly leadership news conference on Thursday. “Those are just the facts when a horrible hurricane hits an isolated island.” Ryan sidestepped a question about whether he thought the president owed family members of the victims who died an apology. “This was a devastating storm that hit an isolated island. That is really no one’s fault,” he said. “That is what happened.” | ['us-news/donaldtrump', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'world/hurricanes', 'us-news/puerto-rico', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/amanda-holpuch', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricane-maria | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-09-13T19:38:53Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2012/jan/13/stuart-broad-umpire-terrorists | Stuart Broad's father saved my life, says umpire shot by terrorists | For Ahsan Raza, one of the umpires in England's match against the Pakistan Board XI who will also be involved in the internationals to come over the next few weeks, the sight of Stuart Broad in the pavilion had a special significance. "His father saved my life," Raza reflected matter of factly. The 37-year-old father of three had been travelling with Chris Broad, the former England opener who is now an International Cricket Council match referee, to officiate at his first Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in his home city of Lahore when their bus came under attack from terrorists in the 2009 incident that drove this series to the desert. "I was hit by two bullets, one in my lung," Raza said. "I was saved by two things. One, I put an ICC handbook, with all the rules and regulations, in front of my stomach." But one of the bullets still penetrated, as he shows by lifting his shirt to reveal a lengthy scar down his front. "I give credit to Chris Broad as well. He was crying at first, everybody in the bus was crying. But then there was a pin-drop silence everywhere, and he suddenly realised that someone – me – was lying dying and my blood was pumping full speed. He lay down on me to try to stop the flow. I just asked my Allah, please save my life for my kids, three small daughters – that was all." Raza was in a coma for three days, and remained in intensive care for 27. One of his lungs was damaged beyond repair. But within eight months he had been appointed television umpire for the final of Pakistan's domestic Twenty20 competition. Shortly after that he travelled to Dubai for a one-day international between Pakistan and New Zealand, one of the first games that was relocated to the United Arab Emirates as a result of the Lahore shooting. "My first day driving to the ground here in Dubai, I turned to my match referee Andy Pycroft, and said: 'Where is the security? There was fear in my mind," Raza said. "Andy said: 'There's nothing, everything is fine here.' And after that I didn't feel anything. I feel safe anywhere now." That includes Pakistan, Raza having refused the opportunity to move to the UK – where he had played for Kingstonians in Surrey and Motherwell in Scotland as a wicketkeeper-batsman. Broad had even offered to support his application for a visa. "But Pakistan is the land of my forefathers, I love it," he said. "And I tell you, it is fine now, things have changed. There are some places up in the hills, maybe, but in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, the cities, you can play cricket easy. They have played games with 20,000 crowds and no problem. I have always said it is my dream to umpire in international cricket, so now that dream is for international cricket to go back to Pakistan, where the people love cricket so much. I hope it can happen soon." Bangladesh are considering an offer to make a short tour in April and MCC is also planning to send a team of volunteers. As for Raza, he sees his appointment as fourth umpire for the first two Tests of England's series, then as one of the standing umpires for the first one-day international on 13 February, as a significant step towards his goal of joining his old friend Aleem Dar on the ICC's elite panel. "I achieved one dream in 2010 when I was at Lord's as the TV umpire for the Test between Pakistan and Australia," he said. "Chris Broad was my match referee that day too and he said to me: 'I don't want to see you in that chair here again, I want to see you out on the ground.' That was a wonderful thing to say, and I have remembered it." As for Broad Jr, who was rested from this match? "I did raise a hand to him when I saw him in the distance but I'm not sure he saw and maybe he doesn't know. That is good, because we know as an umpire, the cricketer cannot be our friend." So there will be no favours for Broad from Raza in the one‑day series, even if his father did save his life that terrifying morning in Lahore three years ago. | ['sport/pakistan-england-2011-12', 'sport/pakistancricketteam', 'sport/stuart-broad', 'sport/england-cricket-team', 'world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/andywilson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news'] | world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2012-01-13T23:01:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2021/apr/29/barcelona-installs-spains-first-solar-energy-pavement | Barcelona installs Spain’s first solar energy pavement | Barcelona city council has installed Spain’s first photovoltaic pavement as part of the city’s drive to become carbon neutral by 2050. The 50 sq metres of non-slip solar panels, installed in a small park in the Glòries area of the city, will generate 7,560kWh a year, enough to supply three households. The city has contributed €30,000 (£26,000) towards the cost, the remainder being met by the manufacturer, Platio Solar. The viability of the scheme will be assessed after six months. “We’ll have to assess the wear and tear because obviously it’s not the same as putting panels on a roof, although they are highly resistant,” says Eloi Badia, who is responsible for climate emergency and ecological transition at Barcelona city council. “As for cost benefits, with a pilot scheme like this it’s difficult to know yet how much cheaper it would be if it were scaled up. We’re keen to install more on roofs and, if this scheme is successful, on the ground, to power lighting and other public facilities.” However, he points out that Barcelona’s high population density means it would be difficult to generate enough electricity within the city limits to become self-sufficient. “If we’re going to reach a target of zero emissions, we’re going to have to think about supplying electricity to blocks of flats, but we’ll also have to think of using wind and solar parks outside the city,” Badia says. “But installations on the ground like this open up new possibilities, and not just for Barcelona.” The Barcelona scheme follows the installation of a 25-metre stretch of solar cycle lane in the Dutch city of Utrecht last year. The electricity generated is used to power lighting and also heat the path in winter to prevent it from icing over. Most of Spain’s solar power comes from large farms in remote areas where land is cheap but which are a long way from centres of population. The move now is to increase capacity close to where it’s most needed, in cities. “What we need to focus on is green policies to create employment, specifically to install solar panels on 1m rooftops,” says Fernando Prieto, executive director of the independent think tank Sustainability Observatory. “This would take five years, generate enough electricity for 7.5 million people, create over 15,000 jobs and cut CO2 emissions by 4.2m tonnes.” He adds that it would lower the price of electricity and help citizens to become independent of the few power companies that dominate the industry. “However, instead of this simple project, we are building installations of over 1,000 hectares on agricultural land and woodland, often with a negative impact on the environment,” Prieto says. Under the previous conservative government solar installation came to an abrupt halt after punitive taxes were introduced. In 2018, the incoming socialist coalition scrapped the tax, triggering a boom in solar, with Spain now ranked 11th in the world for solar power and eighth for renewables overall. Major retailers have got in on the act and now firms such as Ikea, electronics giant Media Markt and the department store El Corte Inglés are offering domestic solar installations at an average cost of €5,000 for a three-bedroom house. Meanwhile, the government has announced plans to invest €1.5bn of EU Covid-recovery funds in the production of “green” hydrogen, using renewable energy to break up water molecules and release the hydrogen. Spain’s energy companies have said they will raise this to €8.3bn by 2030. • This article was amended on 30 April 2021. An earlier version referred to 7,560kW a year, when kWh was intended. It was further amended on 7 May 2021 to include the name of the manufacturer of the solar panels. | ['environment/solarpower', 'environment/environment', 'world/spain', 'environment/energy', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stephen-burgen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2021-04-29T15:19:04Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2014/dec/12/guardian-view-on-taming-corporate-power | The Guardian view on taming corporate power | Editorial | In this early 21st century, we are bedevilled by size. Economies of scale have allowed firms to grow until they straddle the globe like colossi, beneficiaries of the last century’s turbocharged capitalism. But it is the sheer expanse of those companies, how they consequently behave and how that affects the countries and continents in which they trade that cause disquiet. Of the top 175 economic entities in the world in 2011, whole nations included, 111 were giant corporates. There has been diagnosis aplenty, but in the Taming corporate power series this week, the Guardian has sought to pinpoint potential remedies. The debate is often a despairing one. Giant firms, reluctant to have their territorial ambitions or profit potential curbed, will deploy lobbying and sharp PR to persuade lawmakers to think otherwise. They make menacing virtue of their multinational structures, threatening uncooperative states with taking their business elsewhere. The result is a source of power that has grown beyond democracy’s reach. At one level, transnational businesses are simply structures for organising economic activities. By dint of their border-straddling scale, they do much to foster world trade. But as Prem Sikka of Essex University observes: “Corporations have no loyalty to any place, people or community.” Rage about tax avoidance, predatory competition and environmental despoliation occasionally triggers calls for practical action to temper or even punish corporate irresponsibility. But always the disincentive is the scale of the task. In the real-life face-off between the democratic David and the corporate Goliath, David can look puny indeed. And yet – then as now – Goliath is not invincible. As our writers have searched for answers, some things have become clear. First, governments already possess many powers that they shrink from using. They could smash monopolies and force firms vying for public contracts to pay a living wage. They could, if they wanted, reform political funding and get a regulatory grip on the lobbying that leads to warped laws. Just as governments have imposed freedom of information on themselves, they could – in principle – shine a light behind the corporate veil. They could also, between them, agree that taxes will be calculated on where sales are made, not where profits are reported. Local authorities could reassert their territorial power too. This week we highlighted how Enfield council has been campaigning to force utilities to give work to local firms and for banks to lend more to local business, with the threat that those that do not comply will be named and shamed. Prof Sikka called for a rethink of company law, balancing the terrific legal privilege of limited liability with a removal of the duty to advance shareholder interest at the expense of all other stakeholders. That mirrors the line of thinking pursued by our economics editor Larry Elliott, on what he called “the nuclear option”. Namely, the withdrawal of this limit on liability – that’s the L in PLC – from those irresponsible corporates that show negligence to their workers, their customers or their supply chains. All of these would, of course, require great will from legislators. For all the scandals, they seem unlikely to find such resolve on their own. If there is to be a genuine effort to reshape the relationship between communities, nation states and multinationals, the pressure will have to start in communities themselves, instilling in our representatives the fear that there will be a price to pay for being in hock to corporate interests. The pressure is, perhaps, most likely to start at the grass roots – outside party structures, which are so often compromised by corporate funding. There is some early sign of that in the activities of the better trade unions, and in popular campaigning groups like UK Uncut. There is progress, too, in those parts of Europe where anti-austerity campaigns are increasingly pushing corporates centre-stage. The status quo endures because there is, at present, too little incentive to assault a system that allows companies unquestioned freedom and unfettered prospects for enrichment. And then we come back to the intimidating scale and the accompanying complexity. These forces for inaction may yet prevail, but let it no longer be said that alternatives do not exist. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'commentisfree/series/taming-corporate-powers', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'politics/economy', 'politics/politics', 'business/economics', 'business/business', 'business/corporate-governance', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/taxavoidance', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-12-12T15:27:16Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2017/sep/22/hurricane-irma-florida-caribbean-houston | A place in the sun, in Hurricane Alley: was this my worst investment ever? | David Blanchflower | After 28 winters in New England we decided it was time to become snowbirds, heading south in winter. I broke my ankle a couple of years ago on the ice and can no longer rush off to the ski slopes. Minus 40C looks singularly less attractive than heading south for the winter, so in June we finally bought ourselves a vacation home on Sanibel Island in Florida. It is a barrier island, with maximum elevation of about 6ft above sea level. Houses built in the last few decades, including ours, are on stilts. The plan was to spend a large part of my sabbatical there this year. We were all set to drive down to arrive on Sunday 13 September. Then Hurricane Irma appeared in the Caribbean and headed our way. Irma was the big sister of Harvey, the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005. Irma devastated Houston, Texas, a few weeks ago and killed scores of people in the US. Estimates are that it will have knocked half a percent from US GDP in 2017, although the economics of disasters means that rebuilding may boost GDP in 2018 and beyond. We put our plans on hold and watched as a category 5 hurricane headed our way. Our beautiful island, home to the “Ding” Darling Wildlife Refuge, was the subject of a mandatory evacuation order – and even the first responders fled. I woke on Sunday morning 13 September and looked at the Weather Channel app on my phone, which said we were forecast to get winds of 120mph-140mph and a 10ft to 15ft high storm surge. That would wipe out our house. At the very least the roof would sail away into the Gulf. We checked our insurance and worried that we hadn’t enough. This was starting to look like the worst investment of all time. But at the last minute, Irma took a hard-right turn after hitting the Florida Keys and we just got a sideswipe. It was bad enough. The storm had higher winds than the great Michael Fish one of 1987 that devastated the south-east of England and parts of France. Irma was the size of Florida, it caused floods, brought trees down and sliced roofs off homes. The first bit of good news for us was that the bridges leading to our island survived unscathed. Then they opened the island: Sanibel was saved. After a couple of days, the water came back with boil orders for drinking, as did the sewage, and the power crews showed up. At one point there were 25 electricity company crews working on our little island. Ten days later, 96% of the residents have power, including us, and the boil order was removed. We survived OK, but others weren’t so lucky. Hurricanes Irma and Maria didn’t turn away from them. If the US is looking vulnerable to hurricane damage in this stormy year, the situation in some of the neighbouring Caribbean islands is completely disastrous. Many of these islands are being smashed a second time by Irma’s big sister, Maria. In the US Virgin Islands St John is dirt brown, its vegetation gone, and St Thomas has been wrecked. The little island of Dominica was blasted as were St Croix and Guadeloupe. People have died. Livelihoods are lost; tourists surely aren’t coming back any time soon. This is a disaster that is going to take years to fix. At the time of writing, nobody on the US territory of heavily indebted Puerto Rico has power and it may be many months before they get it back. They can’t just bring in power crews with all the modern equipment and rebuild; they simply lack the resources. The French president, Emmanual Macron, has already promised help for the French territories of St Barts and the French portion of St Martin. The Dutch have sent help to the Dutch part of the same island where a third of buildings have been destroyed. These tropical holiday paradises have, in a matter of days, been turned into disaster zones. For independent islands such as Nevis and St Kitts, there is no big brother to come to the rescue. And don’t rely on the tax-dodging billionaires who have exiled themselves in the region to cough up and help. Many of the people who actually live on the islands have nowhere to go. Richard Branson is right when he says the British Virgin Islands need the equivalent of a Marshall Plan to rebuild, but so too do many of the other islands. No power, no water, no roof. No water is bad enough but that translates for many to no cash, no job and no economy. Irma and Harvey together are probably going to knock at least a percentage point off US GDP in 2017. Jobs have been lost and there has already been an uptick in initial claims for unemployment benefits in the Houston area. But at least Florida and Houston will get their US federal government aid, which has already been approved by Congress. The economic and humanitarian effects on the Caribbean islands that depend on tourism will be even greater. We got lucky; they didn’t. It’s time for the international community to step up and alleviate Harvey, Irma, Maria. Damn. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'us-news/us-news', 'weather/caribbean', 'us-news/florida', 'weather/index/northandcentralamerica', 'world/world', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/davidblanchflower', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | world/hurricane-irma | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-22T14:32:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
books/article/2024/may/30/edinburgh-international-book-festival-ends-baillie-gifford-partnership | Edinburgh international book festival ends Baillie Gifford partnership | The Edinburgh international book festival (EIBF) has announced the end of its 20-year partnership with Baillie Gifford. Last week the Hay literary festival also dropped its sponsorship from the investment management firm after a series of last-minute drop-outs. The singer Charlotte Church, the comedian Nish Kumar and the politician Dawn Butler were among those due to appear at Hay who decided to boycott the festival because of Baillie Gifford’s links to Israel and fossil fuel companies. By the end of the festival’s second day, Hay’s organisers announced the sponsorship has been “suspended” for 2024. According to a release from EIBF, the festival’s board and management “believe their ability to deliver an event this August that is safe and successful for audiences, authors and staff has been severely compromised, following the withdrawal of several authors and threats of disruption from activists.” Jenny Niven, the book festival’s director, said “it is with great regret” that the partnership has ended and that pressure on her team “has simply become intolerable”. She said she did not believe “undermining the long-term future of charitable organisations” is “the right way to bring about change”. She and her colleagues “continue to believe that Baillie Gifford is part of the solution in transitioning towards a more sustainable world and that the firm operates in line with our ethical fundraising policy”. The pressure for authors and speakers to drop out of festivals sponsored by Baillie Gifford came via the latest statement put out by campaign group Fossil Free Books this month, that has now been signed by more than 700 writers and publishing industry professionals. The statement reiterated the group’s previous demands that the company cease its investments in the fossil fuel industry, and also demanded that Baillie Gifford divest from companies linked to Israel, as it believes “solidarity with Palestine and climate justice are inextricably linked”. A spokesperson for Fossil Free Books said the group welcomed the news. “Over the last 18 months, research by multiple human rights NGOs has shown that Baillie Gifford holds investments worth billions in fossil fuel companies and companies with links to Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide,” the spokesperson said. “Our primary demand has always been for Baillie Gifford to divest, and for festivals to use their relationships with Baillie Gifford to call on the firm to divest. Nevertheless, we are grateful to EIBF for showing leadership and listening to its authors and workers.” Nick Thomas, a partner at Baillie Gifford, said the firm’s sponsorship of the festival, which had been in place since 2004, “was rooted in our shared interest in making Edinburgh a thriving and culturally vibrant place to live and work”. “We step back with the hope that the festival will thrive this year and into the future,” Thomas said. “We hold the activists squarely responsible for the inhibiting effect their action will have on funding for the arts in this country. “The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the occupied Palestinian territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, Nvidia and Meta. Demanding divestment from these global companies, used by millions of people around the world, is unreasonable and serves no purpose. Much as it would be unreasonable to demand authors boycott Instagram or stop selling books on Amazon.” Baillie Gifford is also not a “significant fossil fuel investor”, Thomas said. “Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels. We invest far more in companies helping drive the transition to clean energy.” This year, the book festival will take place from 10 to 25 August. The funding for this year has already been provided and deployed. Baillie Gifford remains the sponsor of several literary festivals, including the Cheltenham literature festival and the Cambridge literary festival, as well as the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction. Speaking at the Hay festival, last year’s Baillie Gifford prize winner, John Vaillant, said he there was “more value” in “staying in the room” and “staying engaged” with Baillie Gifford than in boycotting the firm. “If you want to parse their portfolio it’s really different from Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch or BlackRock,” said Vaillant, author of Fire Weather, a book about the blazes that ravaged Canada’s forests in 2016. “They don’t host prizes, they don’t invite conversation of this kind. I’m uneasy [about Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship] but my default mode when I’m uneasy is to try and keep in conversation.” | ['books/edinburgh-book-festival', 'books/books', 'books/fossil-free-books', 'campaign/email/bookmarks', 'culture/culture', 'culture/festivals', 'environment/fossil-fuel-divestment', 'environment/environment', 'world/israel-hamas-war', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lucy-knight', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/fossil-fuel-divestment | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2024-05-30T18:49:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
uk-news/2017/sep/01/shipwreck-investigated-as-potential-cause-of-sussex-coast-toxic-plume | Shipwreck investigated as potential cause of Sussex coast toxic plume | Investigators trying to find the source of last Sunday’s mysterious chemical plume on the Sussex coast say they are looking into possible emissions from disturbed shipwrecks in the Channel. Almost a week after the plume caused 150 people to seek medical treatment prompting the closure of Birling Gap beach, the source of the gas is still baffling experts. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which is leading the inquiry said it was considering theories, including possible emissions from disturbed wrecks on the seabed. One possible source is the wreck of SS Mira, a British oil tanker that hit a mine almost 100 years ago during the first world war. It went down in almost exactly the same spot where a possible plume was picked up in satellite imagery five miles (8km) off Birling Gap just hours before Sunday’s incident. Neodaas, a facility of the UK Natural Environment Research Council that works with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, published images of the possible plume picked up that morning. If the plume was in the water at the time it could have reached shore by about 4.30pm when beach-goers first reported streaming eyes. But if it was already in the air it is unlikely to have been the source, according to Met Office wind data. It advised the investigation that an easterly wind direction would have pushed any airborne plume at that point down the Channel. Ben Taylor, a remote sensing scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory who picked up the potential plume in the satellite image, said it could have been caused by a disturbance to the wreck. But he now thinks this is unlikely to be the source of the Sunday’s incident. He told the Guardian: “One remaining thin possibility ... is that a plume of something was released from the wreck, carried on the tide to the south-east of Beachy Head, then released into the air and was blown on-shore.” But he cautioned that such a scenario would have required a “massive release” of a substance from the wreck of the Mira – unlikely after almost 100 years at the bottom on the sea. Taylor said: “My current best guess is that the wreck of the SS Mira may have partly collapsed, and where it has settled differently on the sea bed the current is picking up sediment. This is what can be seen in the water – the plume is moving in the right direction for the tidal current. But to verify that we’d need someone who knew the wreck to go dive on it and see if it’s changed.” He stressed that it was probably a coincidence that the satellite picked up the possible disturbance to the wreck hours before the chemical plume. But the coastguard confirmed it was examining records of shipwrecks as part of the investigation into the incident, as well as the satellite images published by Neodaas. It said: “As part of our investigations we are considering a number of possibilities, such as discharges from a vessel, previously unreported lost cargo, and emissions from known shipwrecks.” The Mira, a 3,700-tonne armed tanker, was sunk by a mine from a German submarine on 11 October 1917, four miles off Beachy Head, according to the specialist website Wrecksite. Sussex police said a ship in the Channel was still considered the most likely source of the mystery plume. The MCA said it had identified about 180 vessels that passed through the Channel off the coast of Eastbourne on 27 Sunday August. “We are working with all relevant environmental and public health regulators to conclude these investigations,” it said. | ['uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewweaver', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-09-01T18:47:06Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/blog/2013/feb/08/natalie-bennett-green-party-chat | Natalie Bennett on the Green party's future – web chat | Just over five months ago, former Guardian journalist Natalie Bennett was elected the new leader of the Green party, replacing Caroline Lucas, the UK's first Green MP. This Monday, Bennett joins us here to answer your questions on her record so far, and her vision for the party's future. How much progress has she made on her "plan for leadership"? How realistic is her ambition to have a Green councillor in every major town and city in the UK within a decade? And what hope does the party have of creating a credible platform and policy beyond environmental issues? Just post your question below, and Bennett will do her best to answer at 1-2pm on Monday 11 February. Please note any off-topic comments will be removed. | ['environment/blog', 'tone/blog', 'politics/green-party', 'politics/politics', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/environmenteditor'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-02-08T15:50:02Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2016/may/26/statue-of-liberty-venice-climate-change-threat-un-report | Statue of Liberty and Venice among sites at risk from climate change, says UN | Climate change now poses the single biggest threat to the world’s most famous heritage sites – including the Galápagos islands, the Statue of Liberty, Easter Island and Venice – according to a UN sponsored report. The researchers looked at 31 natural and cultural world heritage sites in 29 countries that are vulnerable to increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, rising seas, more intense weather, worsening droughts and longer wildfire seasons. They believe this number is the tip of the iceberg. There is an urgent and clear need to limit temperature rises to protect key heritage, the study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the UN heritage body Unesco and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concludes. The Statue of Liberty in New York is one of the sites at risk from rising sea levels and storms, illustrated by the devastating Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Global warming is raising sea levels and increasing the risk of floods, droughts and potentially fiercer storms, all of which can cause severe damage. The Galápagos islands, where Charles Darwin gained insights into evolution, and monuments and natural wonders from the port of Cartagena in Colombia to the Shiretoko national park in Japan, were also named as being under threat. Other sites that bring in important tourism revenue could be particularly badly hit, such as Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable national park, where rising temperatures could affect the habitat of endangered mountain gorillas. Stonehenge, the 5,000-year-old stone circle whose original purpose remains mysterious, is another of more than 30 major world heritage sites under threat from local flooding linked to global warming and increased rainfall. “Climate change is affecting world heritage sites across the globe,” said Adam Markham, the lead author of the report. “Some Easter Island statues are at risk of being lost to the sea because of coastal erosion.” He also pointed to coral reefs, which have been bleached owing to higher temperatures, and the threat to wildlife living in the affected areas, as well as tourism, which is an important source of income helping to preserve many of the sites. Scientists involved in the report said it was vital to limit global warming to no more than 2C, regarded by experts as the limit of safety beyond which climate change is likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Governments agreed at a landmark climate conference last December that they would cut greenhouse gas emissions to the level needed to prevent temperatures rising that high. “Now, more than ever, we need countries to back up with action the promises they made in Paris,” said Markham, in a conference call with journalists on Thursday. Local economic development in the areas near world heritage sites – which UNESCO is charged with defining and helping to protect – would be damaged if the sites were affected by climate change, said Mechtild Roessler, director of UNESCO’s world heritage centre. That development is essential to protecting the sites, which include areas of natural beauty as well as monuments. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Roessler. There is a clear need for more monitoring of important sites, according to the scientists, and coral reefs in particular are at a tipping point. “There is no other threat [than climate change] that affects so many world heritage sites, and has so much potential to cause destruction,” said Markham. Other authors agreed that the report’s assessment was likely to be an underestimate. Without strong action, many areas are likely to face huge bills to protect their treasures. A sea defence being built in Venice is likely to end up costing more than $6bn, for instance. Other studies have also found world heritage areas at risk. Last month, the WWF found that half of the world’s most valued sites were at risk from encroaching development. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'world/unesco', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oceans', 'world/unitednations', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/drought', 'world/wildfires', 'environment/water', 'culture/heritage', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-05-26T17:14:52Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2019/aug/24/jair-bolsonaro-claims-profound-love-for-amazon-rainforest-as-criticism-fires-intensifies | Jair Bolsonaro claims 'profound love' for Amazon rainforest as criticism intensifies | Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has professed to feeling “profound love and respect” for the Amazon as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest tropical rainforest and criticism of his environmental policies intensified. In a televised address to the nation – met with pot-banging protests in several Brazilian cities – Bolsonaro said he was “not content” with the situation in the Amazon and was taking “firm action” to resolve it by deploying troops to the region. But the rightwing populist played down both the significance of the forest fires that have mushroomed into a major political and environmental crisis – as well as his administration’s responsibility for it. “Forest fires exist in the whole world and this cannot serve as a pretext for possible international sanctions,” Bolsonaro said in his brief, scripted address. Forest fires are an annual occurrence in the Amazon region – about 60% of which lies in Brazil. But experts and campaigners blame the scale of this year’s blaze on the green light they believe Bolsonaro has given to those who wish to destroy the rainforest. Bolsonaro hit back at such criticism in his Friday night address, claiming the spreading of “disinformation” – inside or outside Brazil – would do nothing to solve the Amazon crisis. “Brazil is an example of sustainability,” he claimed, as the Amazon state of Acre became the latest to declare a state of emergency because of the wildfires. “It is our duty to protect the forest. We are aware of this and we are taking action to fight illegal deforestation and any other criminal activities that put our Amazon at risk,” Bolsonaro added. “We are a government that shows zero tolerance to crime and it will not be different when it comes to the environment.” Marina Silva, Brazil’s former environment minister, told the Guardian it would take more than propaganda and “words in the wind” to solve the Amazonian “environmental emergency” caused by Bolsonaro’s policies. “Bolsonaro won the election with his anti-environment, anti-human rights and anti-indigenous discourse and on taking office he has transformed these words into deeds,” said Silva, who oversaw a significant reduction in deforestation while minister from 2003 until 2008. “These policies cannot be allowed to prosper.” Amid a growing chorus of international criticism, Donald Trump came to Bolsonaro’s defense on Friday. “I told him if the United States can help with the Amazon Rainforest fires, we stand ready to assist!” the US president tweeted. “Our future Trade prospects are very exciting and our relationship is strong, perhaps stronger than ever before,” Trump said. “Hugs from Brazil!” Bolsonaro’s son Carlos tweeted in response. Bolsonaro tweeted that he had discussed “a big trade negotiation” with Trump and that the US president “had also offered to help us protect Amazonia and fight the fires, if we wish, as well as to work together on environmental policies that respect the sovereignty of nations.” | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/brazil', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'world/americas', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tomphillips', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-08-24T01:03:46Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/jan/02/want-to-lose-weight-lose-the-car | Want to lose weight? Lose the car | Since 2011 Beijing has controlled traffic growth by allocating new licence plates in a bimonthly lottery. There is less than a one in 500 chance of getting a plate in each draw but winning might not be as wonderful as it first seems. The impact of increased motorised travel extend beyond air pollution. In the UK the total distance walked each year dropped by 30% between 1995 and 2013, and the distance cycled in England and Wales in 2012 was just 20% of that in 1952 – but these changes have been slow and are difficult to study. In Beijing, predictably, winners took fewer journeys on public transport and walked less than those that stayed on the waiting list. Overall there was no weight difference between the two groups, but this was not the case for the older people. After five years, winners over 50 had about 30 minutes less physical activity per day and were, on average, 10kg heavier. Elsewhere, Colombian men in households with motor vehicles weighed about 10kg more in those without, and Europeans who cycle daily weigh about 3.3kg less than those who drive. A long-term resolution to leave the car at home could help the environment, your wallet and your waistline. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'world/road-transport', 'environment/pollution', 'world/china', 'society/health', 'environment/environment', 'society/obesity', 'lifeandstyle/health-and-wellbeing', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'world/asia-pacific', 'society/society', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-01-02T21:30:44Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
weather/2009/feb/17/weatherwatch-weather | Weatherwatch: 17 February 2009 | Fierce winds across north-west France last Tuesday cut electricity to 600,000 homes as gusts approached 90mph. For the first time in 34 years, both Paris airports, Orly and Charles de Gaulle, were closed. On Wednesday, a lesser but still potent storm in the Middle East brought steady winds of 40mph across eastern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, closing ports and whipping up sandstorms that reduced visibility in Kuwait City almost to nothing. Japan gave the impression on Saturday of skipping an entire season. Winter felt more like summer as warm southerly winds caused temperatures to leap to levels that would usually be expected in July. More than 100 locations across Japan recorded their hottest St Valentine's day ever, and the city of Itoigawa broke its record for the whole of February, hitting 23.6C. The hottest spot was Shizuoka, which reached 26.8C. A storm that brought gales, heavy rain and snow to the Korean peninsula on Thursday and Friday, closing ports and airports, went on to dump heavy snow across northern Japan, particularly the island of Hokkaido, where there were also wind gusts over 80mph. In snowy areas the sudden thaw that followed on Saturday, allied with heavy rain, led to rivers flooding and a high risk of avalanches. The UK's wintry spell finally ended over the weekend, but not before more heavy snow hit eastern areas on Thursday, closing Stansted airport for a time. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-02-17T00:01:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
science/2020/jun/14/lords-seek-to-allow-gene-editing-in-uk-to-produce-healthy-hardier-crops | Lords seek to allow gene-editing in UK 'to produce healthy, hardier crops' | Peers are preparing plans to legalise the gene-editing of crops in England, a move that scientists say would offer the nation a chance to develop and grow hardier, more nutritious varieties. The legislation would also open the door to gene-editing of animals. The change will be proposed when the current Agriculture Bill reaches its committee stages in the House of Lords next month, and is supported by a wide number of peers who believe such a move is long overdue. At present, the practice is highly restricted by EU regulations. The plan would involve introducing an amendment to the bill to give the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs the power to make changes to the Environmental Protection Act, alterations that would no longer restrict gene-editing in England. The rest of the UK would need separate legislation. Gene-editing of plants and animals is controlled by the same strict European laws that govern genetically modified (GM) organisms. However, scientists say gene-editing is cheaper, faster, simpler, safer and more precise than GM technology. As they point out, GM technology involves the transfer of entire genes or groups of genes from one species to another while the more recently developed techniques of gene-editing merely involve making slight changes to existing genes in a plant or animal and are considered to be just as safe as traditional plant breeding techniques. “Early benefits for UK agriculture could include gluten-free wheat, disease-resistant sugar beet and potatoes that are even healthier than those that we have now,” said plant scientist Professor David Baulcombe of Cambridge University. This enthusiasm is also shared by peers who have argued that the wide use of gene editing of crops could give the nation a key advantage in agriculture and in the food industry after Brexit. “I would like [to send] a clear message in this bill that we will move forward to allow gene editing in our research programmes,” said Lord Cameron during last week’s reading of the bill. “This is a way of speeding up the natural methods of farm breeding to ensure that we can improve the environmental and nutritional outcomes of feeding our ever-expanding human population.” And there was clear evidence that the government would also be sympathetic to such a move. “On gene editing, the government agrees that the EU approach is unscientific,” said Lord Gardiner, who was responding for the government. By freeing gene-editing from the expensive restrictions imposed by the EU on the growing of GM plants it will also be possible for small and medium-sized enterprises to set up new projects, say supporters. At present only major corporations can pay the costs of the rigorous trials required when growing GM plants. “We are looking for a brighter, greener, more innovative future, and this bill helps farmers produce that,” said Conservative peer Lord Dobbs last week. | ['science/genetics', 'science/agriculture', 'environment/gm', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'type/article', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-06-14T07:11:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/may/29/weather-tracker-power-prices-dip-to-negative-in-europe-amid-clean-energy-boost | Weather tracker: power prices dip to negative in Europe amid clean energy boost | Over the last week, several European countries had power prices in the wholesale energy market dip into negative values during daylight hours. The decline in prices was mostly driven by the abundance of available energy generated by renewable sources, combined with the relatively low demand for energy for heating or cooling, caused by normal springtime temperatures. Negative prices often occur when there is an excess supply of electricity in the market. This can happen when renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, or hydro produce a large quantity of electricity that exceeds demand and cannot be stored for later use. In such cases, producers may offer negative prices to incentivise wholesale consumers to take the surplus electricity off the grid and avoid overloading the system. This situation occurred due to an area of high pressure dominating across much of central and north-west Europe, providing lots of solar power generation across the area. Meanwhile, Finland experienced an oversupply of hydroelectric power resulting from excessive springtime meltwater, which in turn led to negative prices here as well. High pressure will remain positioned over Britain and Ireland through the rest of this week and most of next week, leading to predominantly dry and settled conditions across much of the UK, central and northern Europe. Plenty of sunshine is expected, potentially leading to further opportunities for low or negative prices during the daylight hours. Spring-time school holidays including half-term in the UK and Whitsuntide in Germany have pushed many families to take their kids closer to the Mediterranean to enjoy some warmth and the seaside. Nevertheless, areas of low pressure will drive the development of showers and some thunderstorms across popular European resorts, some of these heavy with the risk of frequent lightning and surface flooding. Over in the western Pacific, Typhoon Mawar has reduced in strength to a category 3 typhoon. Now situated south-east of Taiwan in the Philippine Sea, Mawar’s current projections forecast the typhoon to continue to degrade while veering to the north-east before dissipating by the weekend. While unlikely, the greatest forecast error suggests Mawar could skim the north-east of Taiwan, bringing blustery conditions to the island. | ['environment/series/weather-tracker', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/hydropower', 'world/europe-news', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-05-29T09:08:59Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2024/dec/17/western-sydney-swelters-in-extreme-heatwave-temperatures-as-300-victorian-firefighters-battle-bushfires | Queensland braces for more flash flooding as Sydney swelters and Victoria battles bushfires | Flood releases at south-east Queensland’s biggest dam, Wivenhoe, have begun as the state braces for more severe thunderstorms after a 127mm overnight deluge. Brisbane, Mackay and Townsville are preparing for heavy rain and flash flooding, with isolated downpours of up to 250mm forecast. Water was released out of Wivenhoe Dam to run into the Brisbane River from about noon on Tuesday, according to Seqwater. Releases from Somerset Dam – which flows into Wivenhoe – were ongoing, and could cause water levels to rise by more than half a metre by Thursday. Meanwhile, ongoing heatwave conditions will extend from the tropics into central and parts of eastern Australia today, creating dangerous bushfire conditions, the Bureau of Meteorology has said, as south-east Queensland battles rain. Western Sydney will reach the low 40s, with temperatures hitting a maximum of 38C in Parramatta, 40C in Liverpool and 42C in Penrith. Temperatures along the coast will be “a touch milder”, said Angus Hines, senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology. Bondi will reach a maximum of 29C. Terrey Hills in northern Sydney will hit 33C. As of 10.30am AEDT, there were 12 active bushfires burning across New South Wales on Tuesday, five of which were not contained, with particular concern around the Hunter Valley area. On Tuesday, NSW rural fire commissioner Rob Rogers warned “elevated temperatures” across the state would continue, with a “danger period” when winds pick up before a cool change forecast for the afternoon. In Melbourne, temperatures were set to reach a high of 24C after yesterday’s heatwave in the city. Tullamarine and Watsonia were forecast to see a maximum of 26C. A southerly buster will push up the east coast, reaching the Illawarra, Sydney and Hunter districts on Tuesday afternoon and evening. This will see temperatures cool for NSW on Wednesday “but still several degrees above average for large parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, with heatwave conditions continuing through these areas”, Hines said. Damaging storms are also possible, with the southerly change moving up the NSW coast this afternoon, Hines said. It brings a risk of severe thunderstorms, damaging wind, large hail and heavy rainfall this afternoon to the central and southern ranges, as well as parts of the Illawarra. Overnight, showers and storms pummelled the east coast of Queensland, with South East Queensland Water confirming more than a dozen dams spilled over on Tuesday. In the 12 hours up to 6.30am, Cedar Creek Road in Brisbane received 127mm of rain, with other areas around both Brisbane and Maryborough getting about 100mm. There are more evening showers and storms on the way for the rain-soaked region, with widespread areas of rain expected south of Mackay, and a risk of severe thunderstorms that could lead to flash flooding between Yeppoon and Brisbane. This comes after temperatures reached into the 40s across large parts of the eastern states on Monday – “which is more than 10C above average for December for most areas”, the Bom said. Temperatures were “as high as 15 to 20C above average for parts of Victoria and South Australia”. “Crews will be working very hard. We’ve had helicopter winched-in crews yesterday in a number of fires. We’ll be doing that again this morning with large air tankers to try to get containment on these fires as quickly as we can.” In Victoria, Fire Management had a “really busy night” battling major blazes across the state, the chief fire officer, Chris Hardman, told the ABC on Tuesday morning. About 300 firefighters are still located at active blazes with “many days’ work ahead of them”, he said. Fires burning at Creswick and Candook have been downgraded and no lives or houses were lost, Hardman said. Australia’s land surface has warmed by 1.5C since 1910, according to the BoM, with the climate crisis making heatwaves longer and more intense and increasing the number of extremely hot days. | ['australia-news/australia-weather', 'australia-news/bushfires', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/victoria', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rafqa-touma', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-12-17T04:01:36Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/blog/2011/mar/04/sustainable-development-rip | Sustainable development, RIP | Jonathon Porritt | First they killed the SDC. Now they are trying to kill off sustainable development itself. The paper that Spelman put out on Monday, under the compelling title 'Mainstreaming sustainable development: The government's vision and what this means in practice', is without a doubt the most disgraceful government document relating to Sustainable Development that I have ever seen. Far from demonstrating how sustainable development will be mainstreamed across government (which was the commitment it made when it axed the SDC), it reveals that its clear intent is to marginalise SD over the next four years to the point where it will be all but invisible. Even I did not think the coalition government could sink this far. Historically, the Tories have been pretty sound on articulating what SD means, going right back to the UK's first sustainable development strategy in the 1990s. No one will be more distressed at this derisory 'vision' than Chris Patten who was responsible for the strategy. And as for the Lib Dems ... You probably ought to read it for yourself to see for yourself that I'm not exaggerating. Here are one or two highlights: 1. "Ministers have agreed an approach for mainstreaming SD which in broad terms consists of providing Ministerial leadership and oversight, leading by example, embedding SD into policy, and transparent and independent scrutiny." However, the government has rejected out of hand the recommendations from the Environmental Audit Committee that SD should become the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. It will therefore stay within Defra – the weakest department in Whitehall, with the weakest set of ministers anyone can remember. Does anyone suppose that any other departments will pay the slightest attention when Defra "reviews other departmental business plans in relation to SD principles". 2. Spelman will apparently exercise her mainstreaming role via her (newly announced) membership of the Economics Affairs Committee. One can only assume that Defra officials were having a laugh here as they crafted the words "to enforce the government's commitment to sustainability across policy-making". And they must have been in hysterics in penning this little gem: "HM Treasury will support green growth and build a fairer, more balanced economy." 3. As I've said all along, there will be no comprehensive, independent scrutiny of government performance on SD. Here's what it says: "Independent monitoring of sustainability in government operations, procurement and policies by the Environmental Audit Committee." Yesterday, at the SDC's valedictory event, Joan Walley, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, declared categorically that the EAC would not be able to carry out that function – especially as no additional resources had been made available. The EAC is a parliamentary committee. Ministers cannot instruct parliamentary committees as to what they should do. So, had officials checked with Joan Walley before issuing the 'vision'? Or was Spelman seeking to mislead or even deliberately deceive in allowing the document to go out with that wording? 4. Astonishingly, there is just one tokenistic reference to Scotland and Wales, where SD still has some traction: "We will continue to work closely with our neighbours in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, sharing approaches and best practice in SD." The reality is that there is now no UK-wide SD capability left. So who will represent the UK at the Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro next year? Will Spelman (or David Cameron himself, perhaps?) have the nerve to lay claim to that role? The rest of it is just guff. The role of the Lib Dems in this dismantling exercise remains startling. We already know that Nick Clegg literally couldn't care less about SD. Ditto Vince Cable. But what does this 'vision' tell us about Chris Huhne? About Norman Baker? About all those benighted and deluded Lib Dem MPs who always thought that SD was one of their greatest strengths – instead, now, of a source of enduring shame. And how, I wonder, will our environmental NGOs read this? "Just one of those things"? or definitive confirmation that the next four years are going to be bloody – and that they had better get themselves prepared for that reality. So, that's that. SD RIP. • This article first appeared on Jonathon Porritt's blog | ['environment/blog', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'environment/environment', 'environment/green-politics', 'politics/caroline-spelman', 'politics/politics', 'tone/blog', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'type/article', 'profile/jonathonporritt'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2011-03-04T17:00:17Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2013/jan/13/bin-fines-scrapped-eric-pickles | Bin fines will be scrapped, says Eric Pickles | The government is to introduce legislation to end "unreasonable" fines on people who place bins out on the wrong day, Eric Pickles has announced. The communities secretary also said a neighbourhood test would be introduced to end "ludicrous" fines on people who put rubbish in the wrong bin. Pickles told Sunday Politics on BBC1: "I'm delighted to make the announcement that, given the unreasonable nature of these charges, we're actually going to legislate ... in the next parliamentary session which is in this year. "We're going to have a test with regard to the neighbourhood. So if you put the wrong yoghurt pot into the wrong bin it is ludicrous to fine people. It is ludicrous to fine that woman who is I think a few inches out of a drive with regard to things. But what it would be reasonable is if people scattered their litter about then of course." | ['environment/waste', 'politics/eric-pickles', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/nicholaswatt'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2013-01-13T19:58:30Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk-news/article/2024/aug/01/just-stop-oil-protesters-jailed-climbing-gantries-block-m25 | Five Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for climbing gantries to block M25 | Five supporters of the climate activist group Just Stop Oil have been jailed for climbing gantries over the M25 in an attempt to cause gridlock on the motorway. George Simonson and Theresa Higginson were sentenced to two years each, Paul Bell was sentenced to 22 months, and Gaie Delap and Paul Sousek were sentenced to 20 months for their part in the protests in November 2022. A sixth defendant, Daniel Johnson, was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service. All six had pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance for their part in the four days of disruption on the M25 when supporters of Just Stop Oil had climbed multiple gantries over the M25, which encircles London. They sought to cause maximum disruption in an effort to force the government into a ban on new fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea – a demand that has become policy under the new Labour administration. Before the sentencing, Sousek said: “‘No New Oil’ was the demand from Just Stop Oil right from the start. Now most political parties agree and it has become government policy. How come we are being jailed for pushing for, what is now, government policy? Kafka couldn’t make it up!” Delap said: “I’ve had to read the evidence of people who were stuck in our traffic, it hurts me. I’m sorry I had to do this. But we really have no other option. They didn’t listen to the scientists, they didn’t listen to their constituents, so we had to cause disruption in order to communicate the seriousness of humanity’s predicament.” The jailings come weeks after five Just Stop Oil activists were handed record sentences for peaceful protesters after a jury found them guilty of planning the direct actions, which caused thousands of hours of delays to drivers and hundreds of thousands of pounds of costs to the economy and the police. Roger Hallam, a founder of the group, was handed a five-year sentence, while four others were handed four-year sentences by a judge who told them they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”. On Wednesday, two others – including one awaiting sentence for throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery – were remanded to prison for taking part in protests at Heathrow airport in a call for an international treaty to phase out fossil fuels altogether. | ['uk/uk', 'environment/just-stop-oil', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'uk/ukcrime', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damien-gayle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2024-08-01T18:22:09Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
technology/2008/nov/18/yahoo-jerry-yang-successor | Yahoo job search: Top contenders to replace Yang | With Jerry Yang stepping down at Yahoo, the company's board now has the task of finding his successor. It will be looking for someone who can offer the leadership and vision that Yang struggled to articulate, and a steady pair of hands to calm the jittery investors who have watched the company dump 60% of its share value in the past year. Jonathan Miller Miller spent four years running AOL, starting in 2002, and during that period masterminded the company's attempt to reinvent its business – moving it away from the closed-off internet provider model in favour of creating a new web media company along the same lines as Yahoo. In doing so he embellished his reputation as a strategic thinker – but still failed to avoid being replaced in 2006. His involvement could help tie up Yahoo's much-mentioned, never-finished takeover of AOL – which he advocated during his time at the company – and with good links in the advertising industry he could be a serious contender. It remains to be seen, however, whether his vision for Yahoo would be a little out of date in 2008. Meg Whitman The former CEO of eBay – who quit the auction website earlier this year – had been hoping to score a cabinet position if her friend and supporter John McCain had won the US presidential election. With Barack Obama preparing to take office, however, she is looking at her options once again (her retinue has been touting the idea of a run for the governor of California in 2010, when Arnold Schwarzenegger's term expires). But since leaving eBay, Whitman's reputation has plunged. At eBay she presided over a number of debatable acquisitions, leaving the company struggling to meet its targets, on the brink of widespread layoffs and – crucially – short of ideas. With Yahoo suffering from exactly the same malaise, the company's board may find it hard to warm to her. Sue Decker Currently Yahoo's president, Decker is probably the leading inside contender to take up the mantle of CEO. An eight-year veteran of the company, she is largely credited with helping oust former Yahoo boss Terry Semel, and last year looked a likely candidate for the CEO herself. Instead her coup ushered in Yang's reign, and her reputation became intimately connected with his. As one of the company's major power brokers, Decker has seemed helpless as a host of top executives have quit the company in the past year, and her political capital has waned accordingly. While her previous tactics have helped a company in a tight spot find some wriggle room, it now seems she has helped it to wedge itself even further down a hole. Peter Chernin As Rupert Murdoch's second-in-command at News Corporation, Chernin has built a formidable reputation – and yet seems unlikely ever to take the top job as Murdoch's son James continues his rise up the corporate ladder. The New Yorker's contract comes up for renewal next year, however, and rumours abound that he is paving the way to take up a high-profile job running another major media company. His influence and connections are second to none, but even though Yang's run at the top of Yahoo has been ignominious, board members may remember former CEO Terry Semel: another Hollywood-style businessman with limited internet experience. Steve Ballmer There are no suggestions that Microsoft's bullish chief executive would quit to lead a rival company, but the longer Yahoo goes without finding a viable replacement for Yang, the more tempted Ballmer could be to step in once more and try to buy his Californian competitor. Although he said recently that he was no longer interested in the deal, Yahoo's perilously low share price – just a quarter of that offered by Microsoft in February – could prove too enticing. With the company's leadership in crisis, and Yang out of the way, Ballmer could be ready to seize the moment. | ['technology/technology', 'technology/yahoo', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/internet', 'business/business', 'media/digital-media', 'media/media', 'type/article', 'profile/bobbiejohnson'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-11-18T10:30:39Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2011/apr/06/no-definitive-answers-nuclear-debate | Letters: No definitive answers in the nuclear debate | George Monbiot is, at best, confused about debates over nuclear power (The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all, 5 April). The real issue is not which individual "foremost campaigner" wins some polemical skirmish. Those with greatest interest in portraying the issues this way are the PR companies which strive to influence wider public debate through manipulating such "opinion leaders". The issues themselves remain unaffected by noisy media personalities conspicuously recanting professed earlier "mistaken" beliefs – often disingenuously and repeatedly over many years. There have always been leading protagonists on all sides who preferred self-referential rhetorical gymnastics to substantiated evidence. Whether on issues around radiation and health or alternative energy futures, the truth is that "evidence-based" "sound science" does not definitively compel any single interpretation. Peer-reviewed data, rigorous analysis and reasoned scepticism are all essential. But the cause of science is actually undermined by presenting it – without any mention of uncertainty – as if it offers some final incontestable solution. Complexities, uncertainties, ambiguities and legitimate differences of perspective all admit equally valid interpretations of the relevant "best available" knowledge. The point is that both nuclear-based or fully renewable global futures are each physically possible, technologically feasible, and potentially economically viable. Despite the constraints, our societies face real – and potentially irreversible – choices. The real "fairytale" is to treat this as simplistic contention between scientifically "right" and "wrong". In the end, the crucial issues include contending social values, political interests and future visions. To deny this and seek instead to assert ostensibly definitive technical answers is undermining equally of science and democracy. Professor Andy Stirling University of Sussex | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-04-05T23:05:05Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/dec/01/walking-sharks-at-greater-risk-of-extinction-than-previously-thought | 'Walking sharks' at greater risk of extinction than previously thought | Bizarre “walking sharks” are at a greater risk of extinction than previously thought, with new information about their distribution leading researchers to expect greater efforts to protect them from human threats such as fishing and climate change. Bamboo sharks include nine species of sharks that swim and “walk” in shallow waters around northern Australia, Papua New Guinea and parts of Indonesia. In 2013 a new species of the genus was found in Indonesia. They are harmless to humans and are only active at night, when they start to “walk” around shallow reefs, feeding on crustaceans – even sometimes walking out of the water. Now a review of the nine species of bamboo sharks has shown their habitats are much more restricted than previously thought. The researchers expect the findings will trigger an increase in the conservation status of at least some of the unusual creatures. “Each of the nine species are small – less than one metre – charismatic sharks with unique and quite beautiful colour patterns,” says Mark Erdmann from Conservation International and the California Academy of Sciences. “Their walking behaviour makes them a favourite with divers, who will frequently request night dives with the explicit goal of finding a walking shark.” Until now, it was thought that the various species had large overlapping distributions stretching all the way from northern Australia and Papua New Guinea to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. Erdmann says the new analysis shows conclusively the sharks have a smaller overall range and that the ranges of the nine species don’t overlap. “This obviously has huge conservation implications for the walking sharks,” Erdmann says. “Anytime that a marine species is only found in a relatively tiny area, it means it is significantly more vulnerable to extinction than wide-ranging species. Any local threat – whether from fishing, from an oil spill, from rising temperatures, or even from physical destruction from a cyclone or tsunami – has the potential to wipe out the entire population.” Gerald Allen from the Western Australian Museum says the sharks have an unusual breeding strategy that further limits their range, at least for a while after they hatch. “The female lays a few eggs amongst marine vegetation and these hatch into miniature adults that must forage for themselves and because of their limited swimming ability they are ‘tied’ to the immediate [area] in which they are born without the dispersal capability of most sharks.” Erdmann says the new information is likely to prompt a reassessment of the sharks’ conservation status. He says the International Union for the Conservation of Nature could reassess their status in its Red List, with some of the species likely to gain a more threatened status. The Red List status doesn’t confer any direct protection to animals listed as threatened, but countries and international conventions use it in considering whether to implement greater protections. Erdmann says the researchers are planning on communicating their findings to the Indonesian government and urging it to list the species found there as protected. Allen says the team will be working with communities that depend on the sharks to encourage greater protection too. “Increased dive tourism is one avenue for their protection and we are personally trying to spread the word about these sharks and their need for protection in the dive industry. Successful dive tourism depends on healthy reefs and if there is economic benefit to local communities via dive tourism, there is often increased awareness and measures put in place to sustain healthy reefs.” He says the fish evolved their ability to walk because of their feeding habits. “Their mode of locomotion is intimately tied to the exploitation of their food resources and has led to the evolution of walking rather than swimming,” he says. “They feed mainly on small, cryptic invertebrates that hide in the reef. Walking enables them to methodically search for food in a slow and purposeful manner.” | ['environment/sharks', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/oceans', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'world/indonesia', 'world/papua-new-guinea', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-11-30T19:05:28Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
lifeandstyle/2016/oct/05/uks-billions-of-takeaway-cups-could-each-take-30-years-to-break-down | UK's billions of takeaway cups could each take '30 years' to break down | Coffee-addicted Britain is leaving a mountain of toxic waste for the next generation as scientists warn it could take decades for paper cups from Starbucks, Pret a Manger and other chains to decompose. The environmental cost of the coffee-to-go culture has been highlighted amid growing concerns that much of the public wrongly believe the cups are recycled, when in fact they are dumped in the green bin in the office or the recycling bin on the street. While the paper can be recycled, the problem arises because recycling plants do not have the facility to remove the plastic lining which makes the cups impermeable. Chris Cheeseman, a professor of materials resources engineering at Imperial College London, says the polyethylene is resistant to degradation and could take around 30 years to break down. “Even then we don’t know for sure, because nobody has looked at the cup specifically,” added Cheeseman. Even if there were no plastic lining, the cup could take at least two years to start breaking down because of the high quality paper. “In terms of environmental impact the cellulose fibre is potentially more of an issue than the plastic,” he said. “This could take 18 months to two years to start to break down and then it produces methane gas which is probably not collected.” For health and safety reasons the paper must be virgin, prompting claims that it takes at least 100,000 trees to fuel Britain’s coffee habit a year. Last week the Liberal Democrats called for a 5p tax on coffee cups following the success of the plastic bag tax in a bid to change consumer behaviour. “The coffee cup is clearly another icon of the throw-away society,” said the party’s environment spokeswoman Kate Parminter. She said that unless the government formulated a strategy to grab “the low hanging fruit”, they would never tackle the issue of greenhouse gases. Parminter is planning to call all the main coffee chains to talks to discuss the issue of recycling and pressure them into doing more. The recycling issue only recently came to light after chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s BBC programme War on Waste, which exposed the fact that few of the cups were recycled. Frugalpac, a company which featured on the showand has developed a 100% recyclable eco-cup, has been contacted by 25 companies since the show aired in July. “We were going round for a couple of years talking to coffee shops and the general reaction was it wasn’t an issue for customers and when we said if customers knew it would be an issue, they were quite laid back. Then Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got his megaphone out and now they are beating a path to our door,” Martin Myerscough, founder of Frugalpac. Among those in touch were executives from Starbucks in Seattle who have now agreed to trial the cup. There has also been a heightened interest in finding ways of recycling the plastic in the cup. Simply Cups, a company that collects cups from businesses and event organisers for specialist recycling has launched a plastic product developed from the cups. It estimates the number of cups in circulation could be as high as 5bn when caterers, hotels, restaurants such as McDonald and shops such as Waitrose and Greggs are taken into account. Efforts to fight paper cup waste will be centre stage in Manchester city centre next week when a series of giant cup-shaped bins will appear on pavements. Charity Hubbub has launched the scheme with the city council and high street coffee retailers in a bid to change coffee-drinker habits. It says the cups collected will be taken to a specialist recycling centre and turned into plastic pellets which can then be used in products such as garden furniture. Jason Cotta, managing director of Costa, said the company was hugely concerned with this important issue and it had partnered with a university to understand the lifecycle of a cup once it left its stores. It was also trialling in-store waste disposal and since April has been donating 25p to anti-litter charities every time a customer uses a disposal cup. A spokeswoman for Pret A Manger said it had signed the Paper Cup Manifesto, an industry-wide initiative to improve collection and recycling of paper cups. She said: “Pret’s take away cups are recyclable, however very few paper mills will currently recycle paper coffee cups.” She said the company removed the recyclable symbol “well over a year ago to avoid misleading customers”. Starbucks, which offers a 25p discount to anyone who brings in a reusable cup, said it was working with waste company Veolia to trial eco-options. | ['food/coffee', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisaocarroll', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-10-05T06:00:56Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
news/2020/jun/29/weatherwatch-air-conditioning-not-only-solution-to-dangerous-heatwaves | Weatherwatch: air conditioning not only solution to dangerous heatwaves | Last week’s heatwave left many UK city dwellers struggling to sleep. These conditions also increasingly threaten lives because such high night temperatures can make it impossible for the body to cool down. Air conditioning solves individual problems but, apart from the cost of electricity, it worsens the climate crisis and makes future heatwaves even worse. Researchers studying the Paris region, where the problem is already acute, compared various methods of cooling the city and combined them with minimal air conditioning to see how much they could reduce dangerous night temperatures. They tested their ideas against the real heatwave of 2003, when thousands died in France. After nine days of intense heat, the temperature at 4am in Paris had been lethal for many older people. The results of the research are impressive. A combination of urban greening – replacing as much tarmac and concrete with as many trees, shrubs and grass as possible – thermal insulation of buildings to keep the heat out, and reflective walls and roofs, made a big difference. Reflective exteriors, at their simplest, use white paint instead of dark colours. Heat reflective paints in many shades are also coming on the market. These measures, combined with using moderate air conditioning, reduced inside temperatures by as much as 4.2C – enough to ensure comfort and save many lives. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-06-29T20:30:47Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2009/may/21/scottish-southern-energy-wind-funds | Scottish & Southern Energy seeks wind farm funding | Scottish & Southern Energy is in talks with the European Bank of Investment to raise funds for new wind projects in Britain while also admitting it might make a bid for parts of the electricity distribution network and is still interested in possible nuclear sites. "We need to finance some of our future capital expenditure. We are in discussions with the EIB on that and are hopeful to reach a successful conclusion," said the chief executive, Ian Marchant. He added that it was hard to predict whether household gas and electricity bills would rise or fall over the longer term, but pledged not to raise prices for 18 months. "We are seeing quite low spot prices [of wholesale gas], which could imply retail prices should come down, but we are also seeing high forward prices – suggesting bills could go up," he said. Marchant was speaking as SSE announced a massive drop in pre-tax profits to £53.3m from £1.08bn last year due to a range of one-off items and accounting changes. Profit before exceptional items and certain re-measurements grew to £1.21bn, up from £1.18bn in the previous year. | ['business/scottishandsouthernenergy', 'money/energy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'tone/news', 'money/household-bills', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/money', 'business/energy-industry', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-05-21T17:19:12Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2014/jun/17/coca-cola-will-i-am-ekocycle-3d-printer | Will.i.am aims to shake up 3D printing with Coca-Cola branded Ekocycle Cube | Will.i.am's iPhone camera accessory may not have taken the gadget world by storm, but his next technology product could make more of an impact: a 3D printer that sources its materials partly from recycled plastic bottles. The Ekocycle Cube printer is being made by 3D Systems, the US-based manufacturer that announced Will.i.am as its chief creative officer in January this year. Coca-Cola is also a partner in the project, which is an offshoot from its existing Ekocycle venture with the Black Eyed Peas star. 3D Systems will start selling the device in the second half of 2014 with a launch price of $1,199 (£706). Its cartridges will include filament – 3D printing's equivalent of ink for traditional printers – partly made from used plastic bottles. The company says each cartridge will contain 25% of "post-consumer recycled materials", using an average of three bottles. The Ekocycle Cube is very on-brand, printing objects of up to six inches cubed in red, black, white or "natural" colours. Will.i.am is designing 25 "fashion, music and tech minded accessories" for buyers of the device, which will also use the Cubify smartphone app to browse and print designs. "We will make it cool to recycle, and we will make it cool to make products using recycled materials," said Will.i.am in a statement. "This is the beginning of a more sustainable 3D-printed lifestyle. Waste is only waste if we waste it." It's the star's latest technology venture, following on from his "director of creative innovation" role with Intel, announced in January 2011. Will.i.am also had a minority stake in Beats Electronics, the headphones brand recently bought by Apple for $3bn. His other tech projects include building social media site Dipdive in 2008; launching apps developer Will.i.apps in 2011 to make a music video app for the Black Eyed Peas; and producing a range of i.am+ iPhone accessories in 2013. In April this year, he showed off a prototype smartwatch during an appearance on British comedian Alan Carr's chat show, telling the audience: "I started the company myself. I funded it, used my own money to develop it." In an appearance (via Skype) at music industry conference Midem in February, Will.i.am said that more musicians should be following the lead of Beats founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre in getting into hardware. "It’s sad that as a collective industry, we don’t do our own hardware. It’s only three people: Jim, Dre and myself – that’s Beats – that have hardware," he said. "I surround myself with megasupergeeks, so we can make and market hardware and things like that. Maybe I’m chasing something I would probably never catch, but I’ve been here before when I was in the ghetto chasing the dream of starting a band." • 30 things being 3D-printed right now (that aren't guns) • Will.i.am: 'I want to write code!' | ['technology/3d-printing', 'music/will-i-am', 'business/cocacola', 'environment/recycling', 'technology/technology', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'technology/startups', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stuart-dredge'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-06-17T07:58:06Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2016/jun/30/wildfires-california-fueled-by-climate-change | Wildfires engulfing the west coast are fueled by climate change, experts warn | Scorching wildfires that are raging throughout the American south-west are being fueled by climate change and require new strategies from states to prevent ever-greater destruction of people’s lives and property, a group of experts have warned. High temperatures, drought and wind have combined to create a number of fires that have caused at least two deaths in California. The first large wildfire of the summer has this week broken out in northern California, burning through more than 1,200 acres and threatening thousands of homes in an area around 50 miles north-east of Sacramento. Wildfire experts said there are numerous indicators that warming temperatures have contributed to the fires by drying out vegetation and soils and causing an earlier spring melt of snow. Trees are also less resilient to fire due to infestations of beetles, which thrive in warmer weather. Over the past 30 years there has been a fourfold increase in the number of large forest fires in the American west, while the fire season has grown by 84 days to 220 days in this time. The amount of area burned has ballooned by 1,200%, with areas such as the northern Rockies and the north-west particularly badly hit. “Wildfire in forested areas is increasing dramatically, there are more opportunities for large fires,” said Dr LeRoy Westerling, associate professor at the University of California-Merced. “In a lot of places the climate restricted fires, but now it’s all about fuel availability and we are seeing very large burned patches in areas that aren’t used to it. Each decade since the 1980s has seen a big increase in fire activity, and we don’t expect that trend to stop any time soon.” The fire now raging in northern California follows several outbreaks in the south of the state, including blazes on the outskirts of Los Angeles, which were battled by more than 600 firefighters and causing smoke to billow across the city. A state of emergency has been declared in both California and New Mexico to deal with blazes that have consumed tens of thousands of acres and hundreds of homes. A fire near Santa Barbara jumped Route 101 so quickly that fire department helicopters had to dump water directly onto cars on the road. Similarly dramatic scenes have unfolded in Arizona, where a fire that has burned more than 12,000 acres has rained ash upon residents in the Show Low area. Huge plumes of smoke from the various fires are clearly visible from space. Westerling and several other experts have called for a change in strategy to deal with the increasing wildfire risk. States, they argue, should be using controlled burns and chemical treatments to make forests less like a tinderbox and more predictable during wildfire season. “We need to be better prepared and restore the landscape to a more resilient condition,” said Susan Jane Brown, an attorney and director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “We would like our forests to withstand wildfire and come back as ponderosa pine forests, not grand fir forests. We need to reduce the fuel load. “There is still a lot of concern among communities about fire and states such as Oregon are worried about the health impacts of smoke, which is certainly something to be aware of. “But the thing is we will get the smoke one way or the other. We either get it through controlled burns, where we know where and when it will happen, or big doses of smoke through uncontrolled wildfires that occur at the height of summer.” Dr Keith Gilless, chair of the California board of forestry and fire protection, said that public attention on fire has “never been higher” than it is now but that more attention needed to be paid by policymakers upon the social cost paid by disadvantaged people. “One of the tragedies is the lack of social resilience when the flames come,” he said. “Often, fires burn through low-income areas and the loss of an uninsured home is an overwhelming one for people there. Communities like that need to be very engaged with fire services to plan evacuation routes. “I don’t ever envision the fire season ever shutting down again. In areas like southern California, the deployment of staff and resources to deal with wildfire is going to become a permanent feature rather than a seasonal one.” | ['world/wildfires', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/arizona', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-06-30T17:30:08Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2023/jul/18/aboriginal-owners-and-energy-investors-team-up-in-plan-for-3bn-green-hydrogen-plant-in-wa | Aboriginal owners and energy investors team up in plan for $3bn green hydrogen plant in WA | A unique partnership between three traditional owner groups and a major clean energy investor is promising to establish a $3bn green hydrogen project in the far north of Western Australia. In what could be one of Australia’s biggest clean energy projects, more than a million solar panels will power electrolysers to produce 50,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year. The East Kimberley Clean Energy project will be unveiled at the Australian renewable energy industry’s annual summit in Sydney on Tuesday. A new company – Aboriginal Clean Energy – will develop the ambitious project near the town of Kununurra. Three Indigenous groups will each have an initial 25% share in the company alongside climate crisis investment and advisory firm Pollination. The head of projects at Pollination, Rob Grant, said the company structure engages traditional owners as true collaborators, developers and beneficiaries, and represented a “just, ambitious and achievable vision” for clean energy projects in Australia. The feasibility and capital raising for the project is still to be completed, but Grant said the partnership was hoping to start construction in late 2025, with the first hydrogen produced by late 2028. The project will look to use renewable energy from an existing hydroelectric facility near the Ord River to turn all the green hydrogen into 250,000 tonnes of green ammonia each year for agricultural fertilisers to be sold in Australia and for export. The plan includes a new 120km pipeline to store and transport green ammonia to the “export ready” port of Wyndham. Grant said the region provides sunlight, clean water and renewable energy – the main components needed for green hydrogen, which is extracted from water by electrolysis. Ammonia production is currently heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Producing green ammonia from green hydrogen would be a major step to decarbonising the food supply chain. Traditional owner groups MG Corporation, the Kimberley Land Council and Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation will each own 25% of the company. The conventional model for major projects on Indigenous land in Australia sees developers seeking permission from native title holders with the payment of royalties. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “Those agreements usually come at the end of projects and historically they have been distributive, rather than inclusive,” Grant said. Grant said the new project’s ownership structure turned that old approach on its head and represented a “just, ambitious and achievable vision for Australia’s clean energy future”. Aboriginal Clean Energy’s share in the project will probably dilute once agreements are reached with investors and industrial partners. But having a partnership approach with traditional owners would be an attractive prospect for investors, Grant said, as it reduced the risk of future problems with land use agreements and other approvals. This would reduce the risk for investors and shorten the development schedule. The chief executive of Kimberley Land Council, Tyronne Garstone, said for Australia to meet its international cilmate commitments, “a lot of the projects will have to happen on Indigenous land”. He said at the heart of the Aboriginal Clean Energy partnership is that traditional owners will have the opportunity to have equity in the company to ensure there are “flow-on benefits”. Garstone pointed to the “tragedy” of Jukkan Gorge where Rio Tinto blew up a 46,000-year-old cave site as they expanded an iron ore mine. “We can’t just keep going along with the same processes that we have followed through the dirty energy revolution that have delivered a pittance to traditional owners. We need something radically different.” The planned 900MW solar farm – which if built today would be the biggest in Australia – and the hydrogen production facility, will be built on MG Corporation freehold land. The executive chair of MG Corporation, Lawford Benning, said all of the company’s activities must be “sustainable, intergenerational” and aim to “connect culture and land”. “A focus on First Nations economic empowerment has led groups like ours to reject the historic passive engagement model of receiving royalties for agreeing to give up control of our lands.” | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/hydrogen-power', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/western-australia', 'environment/solarpower', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2023-07-17T15:00:31Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2013/oct/20/weatherwatch-sunrise-cold | Weatherwatch: The coldest hour | Hands up if you don't like getting out of bed before sunrise? For many of us the rapidly lengthening nights at this time of year force a pre-dawn rise, though the changing clocks later this week may give us a short respite. One reason for wanting to stay under the duvet is because it feels so cold at this hour, but is it really the coldest time of day? There is something about the sight of those first rays of light that give a feeling of warmth, but it is an illusion. In fact the mercury is usually still falling, and the coldest point in the day is shortly after daybreak. That's because those first sunbeams are so shallow that most of the energy is absorbed by the atmosphere before they reach solid ground. As the Sun climbs higher, more of its energy reaches Earth, until eventually the incoming solar radiation balances out the outgoing radiation given off by the Earth's surface: this balancing point is when temperatures trough, and in winter (when the Sun is low in the sky) it can be as much as one hour after sunrise. After that, incoming radiation exceeds outgoing, and temperatures start to climb. At least that is the theory. Passing cold fronts and storms can disrupt this pattern and make temperatures plummet at any time of day. But waiting until radiation has balanced and the coldest point has passed sounds like a good excuse for an extra forty winks in the morning. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-10-20T20:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development/poverty-matters/2013/nov/19/yeb-sano-hunger-strike-un-climate-talks-warsaw | Yeb Sano surfaces at UN climate talks and thanks supporters of fast | It might have been Robert Lewandowski, or any other high-profile footballer. But the shy, bespectacled young man blinking in the spotlights and surrounded by 100 TV cameras, journalists and gawpers in the bowels of Poland's national football stadium was a Filipino civil servant more used to negotiating the finer points of verifiable emission reductions, or loss and damage than meeting the world's media. Yeb Sano, leader of the 50-strong Philippines delegation at the UN climate talks, shot to carbon stardom last week when he made an emotional speech in front of 190 countries. Linking manmade climate change to typhoon Haiyan, which had just obliterated his hometown, he broke down in tears and declared he would fast until the UN talks produced results. Having asked people to sign a petition demanding progress, he disappeared into the talks. About 200 people subsequently joined him on his fast. On Tuesday, after seven days without food, he surfaced from the negotiations for a photocall to find that – boosted by calls to action from organisations including 350.org, MoveOn, Friends of the Earth, Credo Action and 18 Million Rising – the petition he authored on Avaaz now bears more than 600,000 signatures. Sano's words, a mix of the personal and political, were difficult to catch over cameras: "It's a difficult time for the planet … we are deeply moved … I am standing here with hundreds if not millions of people … we are heartened … thank you … I am feeling well … I never used the word hunger … I don't think we should wait for the politicians … we need [to do] something urgently." Members of his delegation stood on the sidelines, protectively. "He is always in high spirits, and energetic," said one. "We are 100% behind him. He has helped put the issue on to the world stage. The fact that so many young people support him is good." Yano does not expect to eat at least until the talks finish in the early hours of Saturday. "He will take a few days to recover," said his chief of staff, Desiree Dee. Whether that will be from the ordeal of the climate talks or his newfound celebrity status, she did not say. | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/future-of-development', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/cop-19-un-climate-change-conference-warsaw', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-11-19T15:59:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
society/article/2024/jun/11/cyber-attack-on-london-hospitals-to-take-many-months-to-resolve | Cyber-attack on London hospitals to take ‘many months’ to resolve | The cyber-attack that is causing serious disruption for hospitals and GP surgeries in London will take “many months” to resolve, a senior NHS source has warned. “It is unclear how long it will take for the services to get back to normal, but it is likely to take many months,” the well placed official said. “Key to a return to normal will be clarity about how the hackers gained access to the system, how many records have been affected and whether these records are retrievable,” they added. Six NHS trusts and scores of GP practices in south-east London, which serve 2 million patients, have been struggling to deliver many types of care normally to patients since Russian hackers infiltrated and rendered unusable the IT system of Synnovis, a private firm which analyses blood tests. The ransomware attack, believed to be by the Russian Qilin criminal gang, caused such chaos that the NHS had to declare a “critical incident” when it occurred last Monday. Quilin’s modus operandi is to demand money from victims in return for giving them back access to their systems. Trusts including Guy’s and St Thomas’ (GSTT) and King’s College have had to cancel large numbers of non-urgent operations, including procedures for cancer, and also planned caesarean-section births, because they are being forced to ration the number of blood tests they do. The NHS has not given any indication publicly about how long it will take for Synnovis to regain control of its system, from which they have been blocked by software inserted by the hackers. But the remarks by the senior source represent NHS leaders’ latest thinking about the likely timescale. Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, concurred with the NHS’s thinking that it could be facing a prolonged period of disruption. “We should not be surprised that the time it takes to completely recover services is in the weeks or even months. That’s fairly typical for these types of disruptive ransomware attacks,” he said. It would be “highly unusual” if the NHS trusts could get back to their normal ways of working over a short timescale, added Martin, who is now a professor at Oxford university’s Blavatnik School of Government. “The analogy with the physical world is, it’s not so much locking you out of the house as kicking down the door, boarding it up again and then putting on a padlock,” he said of the NHS attack. In such an attack, IT systems are encrypted by the attacker and the victim is forced to rebuild their infrastructure if they don’t pay to access a decryption key. Even if the computers are decrypted, the damage can still be extensive. NHS England’s London region is trying to mitigate the attack’s impact on the delivery of care by ramping up “mutual aid” arrangements, under which other trusts in the capital take on some of the work that the affected hospitals cannot do. For example, some people with heart problems who were inpatients at GSTT or King’s have been moved to St George’s hospital in south-west London. There are plans for organ transplant operations that are usually done at King’s to be performed elsewhere too. GPs across the six south-east London boroughs in which the trusts are based have also had to scale back dramatically the number of blood tests they can order and focus on urgent cases only. In her regular weekly message to health service leaders on Monday, NHS England’s chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said that despite being a national health service “that doesn’t mean that we are insulated from international events and actors – whether pandemics, supply chains, politics or criminals”. She added that the hack shows “how easy it is to take things for granted until they’re gone, or severely constrained”, referencing pathology services, which “play an unseen but incredibly important role in the modern NHS”. Typically, Qilin attacks also involve the theft of data from a victim’s IT systems, alongside the encryption. The data is then posted on an extortion site on the dark web if a ransom is not paid. However, as of Monday no data had been posted on Qilin’s extortion site. NHS England has been approached for comment. | ['society/nhs', 'society/health', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/morning-briefing', 'technology/hacking', 'uk-news/england', 'society/hospitals', 'society/gps', 'technology/cybercrime', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/deniscampbell', 'profile/danmilmo', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2024-06-11T11:27:21Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2021/sep/24/sun-cables-huge-solar-project-in-northern-territory-a-step-closer-after-support-from-indonesia | Sun Cable’s huge solar project in Northern Territory a step closer after support from Indonesia | A multi-billion dollar plan to supply electricity to Singapore from a giant solar farm in the Northern Territory has cleared a key regulatory hurdle after winning support from the Indonesian government for a subsea cable route through the archipelago. The Sun Cable project, backed by billionaires Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes and now expected to cost more than $30bn, also announced it was expanding its proposal by up to 40%, lifting its potential capacity from 14 gigawatts to between 17 and 20 gigawatts. It said the solar farm, planned for the Newcastle Waters cattle station about 750km south of Darwin, would be backed by between 36 and 42 gigawatt-hours of storage from the world’s largest battery. The company said in a statement that Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, had confirmed his government had recommended the route of the transmission cables through Indonesian waters and granted a subsea survey permit. Sun Cable’s chief executive, David Griffin, said Indonesian support was a significant milestone that brought the company closer to generating and transmitting “affordable, dispatchable renewable energy to Darwin and Singapore”. “We are developing the technology that integrates solar, storage and high voltage direct current transmission technologies to meet the large-scale demand for renewable energy,” he said. “We want this world-leading project to create a step-change in the Indo-Pacific’s capability to achieve net zero ambitions and economic growth sustained by renewable energy.” The company said the project would be capable of supplying up to 15% of Singapore’s electricity needs, starting from 2028, via the “world’s largest renewable energy transmission network”. It would create 350 ongoing and more than construction 1,500 jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8.6m tonnes a year, it said. Cannon-Brookes said the announcement was “a big step towards realising our potential of becoming one of the world’s largest energy exporters”. “Australia can become a renewable energy superpower. We can and should tap into our solar resources that could power the world five times over,” he said. The announcement coincided with EnergyAustralia telling workers at the Mount Piper coal-fired power plant it would close by 2040, two years earlier than scheduled, as the company committed to exit coal power by that date. Analysts and climate activists said 2040 was too late, citing a United Nations call based on scientific evidence that developing companies needed to stop burning coal by 2030. The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, planned to tell business leaders on Friday that Australia had a lot to lose if others believed it was not transitioning to a clean economy along with the rest of the world. Making the case for Australia adopting a net zero target by 2050, Frydenberg said trillions of dollars were being mobilised globally in support of the transition, and 129 countries had already set the mid-century goal. It comes amid ongoing debate within the Morrison government over what new commitments, if any, it would make before Cop26, a major climate conference in Glasgow in November. Some Nationals MPs oppose Australia making any new commitments. The conference hosts, Britain, and the US and European Union are focused on extracting greater commitments to reduce emissions this decade. All G7 members have substantially lifted their 2030 emissions reduction commitments over the past year. Jonathan Pershing, deputy to the US presidential climate envoy, John Kerry, last month told Guardian Australia that Australia’s targets were “not sufficient” and the country should be considering a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 given the urgency of the threat outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several European representatives – including on Friday Italy’s top diplomat in Canberra – have made similar arguments. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, this week told the UN general assembly China would stop paying for new coal-fired power projects abroad – a step that analysts said could significantly limit the expansion of the fossil fuel in the developing world. China has made no new commitment on domestic emissions reductions since Xi pledged a year ago that it would reach net zero emissions no later than 2060. | ['environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/northern-territory', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'world/singapore', 'world/indonesia', 'world/asia-pacific', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2021-09-23T23:45:47Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/feb/03/boris-johnson-must-examine-the-science-of-cheap-food-imports | Boris Johnson must examine the science of cheap food imports | British farmers are not often called hysterical. For Boris Johnson to dismiss their concerns over food imports post-Brexit seems to show he is willing to see an influx of cheap, low-quality food that British farmers will not be able to compete with. That would hasten the decline of family-run farms, and open up the countryside further to the sort of “megafarms” common in the US. Cheap food sounds good, but Johnson has glossed over the dangers. Chlorine-washing chicken is partly an issue of animal welfare – poultry in the US are kept in filthy conditions that would be illegal here, then the carcasses are dipped in bleach. But it is one of food safety too, contrary to Johnson’s claims. If the UK’s food standards are to be science-based, as he claims, they will have to account for science that shows the washing of chicken in chlorine only masks the presence of pathogens, rather than eliminating them. That leaves the harmful germs able to carry on infecting humans after the bleach treatment. Johnson’s scientists will also have to explain why serious food poisoning is a greater problem in the US than the UK. For instance, the US reports about 420 deaths each year from salmonella, while Public Health England found none in its most recent labs data. “We would like some clarity from the prime minister about how exactly he intends to keep the UK population safe from food imported from countries with lower standards than our own,” said Kath Dalmeny, the chief executive of Sustain, the food and farming alliance. Then there are the indirect impacts on human health, arguably much more alarming than food poisoning. Though the coronavirus may have come from wild animals, others such as swine flu and bird flu were associated with intensive livestock rearing. Intensive farming also requires huge inputs of antibiotics, which are leading to the rapid evolution of antibiotic-resistant superbugs of the kind that may soon make even routine operations life-threatening. Let the prime minister examine the science of intensive farming and food production: he will find little mumbo-jumbo and a lot to be worried about. | ['environment/farming', 'environment/food', 'business/fooddrinks', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'environment/environment', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-02-03T17:17:51Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2020/feb/07/weatherwatch-no-show-for-winter-snow | Weatherwatch: no-show for winter snow | The long-term averages for days with “snow cover” everywhere in the British Isles, even places as far south as Bournemouth, register at least one day of significant snowfall in each of the three winter months. Towards the end of the last century the number of snow days per year begins to drop, but everywhere at least one period of snowy weather was expected each winter. This winter in Bedfordshire – 45 miles north of London – where snow was once a regular occurrence, not even a snowflake has been spotted. In the last ten weeks there has been only a handful of frosts and there is nothing in the forecast to suggest that the rest of February will be any different. The long-term trend, even in Scotland, has been for Februaries to warm up the fastest of the three winter months. In middle England most spring flowers seem to think the winter is already over. All this will be good news for one veteran forecaster at the Met Office who once confided that his most difficult decisions involved advising local authorities when to deploy gritting lorries. A calculation half a degree out and expected rain turned into a heavy snow and disruption. Over-caution meant blame for copious amounts of salt and grit washed down the drains. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/winter', 'world/snow', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-02-07T21:30:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2018/aug/03/air-pollution-linked-to-changes-in-heart-structure | Air pollution linked to changes in heart structure | Air pollution is linked to changes in the structure of the heart of the sort seen in early stages of heart failure, say researchers. The finding could help explain the increased number of deaths seen in areas with high levels of dirty air. For example, a report last year revealed that people in the UK are 64 times more likely to die from the effect of air pollution than people living in Sweden. Such premature deaths can be linked to a number of causes including respiratory problems, stroke and coronary artery disease. “What we don’t know is what is the mechanism behind it, why is air pollution leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke?” said Dr Nay Aung, a cardiologist at Queen Mary University of London and first author of the research. The latest study helps to unpick the conundrum. Writing in the journal Circulation, Aung and colleagues report that they found exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5 and PM10 particles, is linked to an increase in the size of two of the chambers of the heart, the left and right ventricle. PM particles are commonly emitted by motor vehicles, among other sources. The authors add that similar changes can affect the performance of the heart and are often seen before heart failure takes hold. The team used data from almost 4,000 volunteers who were part of a wider research effort known as the UK Biobank. These participants were aged between 40 and 69 years old, had been at the same address for the whole study, and were free from cardiovascular disease at the outset. Crucially, their data included cardiac MRI scans, which offer detailed images of the structure and function of the heart. The study also involved estimates of the outdoor concentrations of different pollutants at participants’ home addresses at about five years prior to the scan. After controlling for factors including age, sex, income and smoking history, the team found that higher exposure to PM2.5 particles, PM10 particles and nitrogen dioxide were each linked to a greater volume of both the right and left ventricles after they had filled with blood. Aung said the size of the effect identified was small, but important. “This effect size is comparable to other well known cardiac risk factors such as hypertension,” he said, noting that as blood pressure rises the heart size increases. “Although the increase in heart chamber size is small in this study, it is an early warning sign, which may explain the increased risk of heart failure in individuals exposed to higher level of pollution.” “We know that people with heart failure or people who are developing heart failure, their heart will undergo changes, and one of the changes is they become larger,” said Aung. “When they become larger, that means that the heart is under stress, so the only way to accommodate this increased pressure and volume is to become larger. If you don’t treat or reverse that change, in the long run the heart may fail.” Aung said the study found that an increase in exposure to PM2.5 of 1µg/m3 was linked to an increase in the size of each ventricle of just under 1%. He stressed that the findings were of particular concern because most of the participants lived in areas with relatively low exposure to air pollution. On average, the participants were exposed to average PM2.5 concentrations of 8-12µg per cubic metre, close to the WHO recommended limit of 10µg/m3, but well within the UK guidelines of 25µg/m3. Research last year found that in some polluted areas such as central London, average levels of PM2.5 were above 18µg/ m3, with even higher levels seen on bad pollution days. Previous work has also shown that mice exposed to high concentrations of PM2.5 develop larger left ventricles, the authors note. Chris Gale, professor of cardiovascular medicine at University of Leeds who was not involved in the study, said that since people travel for work and other purposes, the home addresses of the participants might not represent the main location where they encountered air pollution. What’s more, he said the study looks at a snapshot in time, rather than recruiting and following individuals over years. Nonetheless, he said the study was important: “[It] offers a possible mechanistic clinical pathway between the detrimental effects of air pollution and cardiovascular disease,” he said. Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of Applied Statistics at the Open University, welcomed the study. “I think the study provides pretty convincing evidence of a correlation between levels of two air pollutants – fine particulates in the air and nitrogen dioxide – and measurable changes in the heart,” he said. But, he added, the study only shows a link, rather than showing that it is air pollution that is driving the heart changes. “In this study the researchers did adjust their results carefully to allow for possible effects of many factors to do with lifestyle,” he said. “Such statistical adjustments can never be perfect, though, so some doubt must remain about whether the heart changes are actually caused by the pollution.” Aung said that while the government’s recent consultation on clear air is a step in the right direction, avoiding air pollution can be difficult and individuals should also improve their health through other measures including tackling issues such as obesity, high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Katie Nield of environmental legal group ClientEarth said: “This study is particularly worrying as it shows the serious health effects of air pollution at levels well below the current legal limits. We need a new Clean Air Act with stricter, binding air quality standards that reflect the latest science and help protect people from the serious damage that air pollution does to their health.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'society/heart-disease', 'environment/environment', 'society/society', 'society/health', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/nicola-davis', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-science'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-08-03T04:15:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2013/may/20/oklahoma-tornadoes-moore-flattened | Oklahoma tornado: multiple people killed as mile-wide storm hits Moore | A devastating mile-wide tornado hit the US state of Oklahoma on Monday, flattening neigbourhoods, causing widespread fires and landing a direct hit on an elementary school. Homes and buildings were reduced to rubble in Moore, south of Oklahoma City. Cars were strewn across roadways and entire blocks were flattened. The local medical examiner's office said 51 people had died, including seven children. The National Weather Service said the storm measured an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of tornado. President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in Oklahoma. The state governor, Mary Fallin, deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with recovery operations as fears grew that many children would be among the dead. "Hearts are broken," Fallin told a news conference. Hospitals were treating more than 120 people, including 70 children. Some were in a critical condition. The storm struck in a part of the US known as Tornado Alley. Amateur video footage showed a dark funnel of cloud snaking across the landscape, flattening buildings in its path and scattering debris over the streets. Winds reached speeds of 200mph. Authorities said that Plaza Towers elementary school in Moore took a direct hit from the tornado. The winds whipped off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal. Rescue workers passed surviving children down a human chain to a triage center in the parking lot. James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching tornado and ran to the school, where his five-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. "About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart," he told the Associated Press. A man with a megaphone stood near a Catholic church Monday evening and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons' and daughters' names. Local reports said 75 children and staff were in the school at the time, some of whom were feared trapped in the rubble. KFOR reporter Lance West, who was on the scene, said he saw 30 children being pulled out alive. Emergency services struggled to get to the badly hit areas because of damage to infrastructure and debris on roads. TV footage showed volunteers helping first responders search rubble for survivors in Moore. Sporadic fires broke out in the aftermath of the storm and thousands of properties were without power. Oklahoma City police captain Dexter Nelson said downed power lines and open gas lines posed a risk in the aftermath of the tornado. It was the second day that tornadoes had hit the area. On Sunday, tornadoes and baseball-sized hail brought destruction to a mobile home park in Shawnee, a suburb of Oklahoma City. By Monday afternoon, two people were known to have died as a result of the severe weather at the weekend – 79-year-old Glen Irish and 76-year-old Billy Hutchinson. Both were killed as tornadoes flattened homes in Shawnee. Governor Fallin declared an emergency in 16 counties as a result of severe weather and flooding. Residents had been urged to stay inside and take shelter before Monday's tornado. Moore was struck by a severe tornado in 1999 that resulted in widespread destruction and resulted in the deaths of dozens of residents. On that occasion winds hit 302mph, registering F5 on the Fujita scale – the highest level. Brian Edwards, meteorologist at Accuweather.com, told the Guardian that the storm was likely to spread out across a large part of the Great Plains and midwest into Monday evening. "We are in for a long night. It is a very, very large area covered and a very large storm. Some of this storm will hit as far north as Chicago and Milwaukee." The National Weather Service said Monday afternoon that an area covering population of almost 62 million was at risk of storms. • The Associated Press in Moore, Oklahoma, contributed to this report | ['us-news/oklahoma-city-tornado', 'us-news/oklahoma', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-weather', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'world/tornadoes', 'us-news/oklahoma-city', 'type/article', 'profile/matt-williams', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | world/tornadoes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-05-21T06:53:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2020/jul/31/texas-coronavirus-pandemic-hurricane-covid-19 | 'You need to pay attention': virus-hit Texas readies for hurricane threat | On a recent weekend in Houston hundreds of people thronged a local Home Depot, buying plywood, bags of sand and gallons of water. They were getting supplies – not for a quarantine DIY project – but rather purchasing materials to protect their homes during hurricane season. It is a yearly ritual in Texas, but 2020 is different. Not only is America facing an unusually active hurricane season – Texas has been hit once already – but the coronavirus pandemic looms over the state’s preparations, and effectively means its citizens are preparing for one natural disaster in the middle of another. The Texas state climatologist, Dr John Nielsen-Gammon, says the 2020 hurricane season is expected to be more active than normal. Hurricane Hanna has already hit South Padre island, and Gonzalo threatened its shores before unexpectedly breaking up. Nielsen-Gammon said: “The main problem with Hanna is going to be inland flooding from heavy rainfall. There’s lots of places in the lower Rio Grande Valley that have already received a foot of precipitation and that’s expected to continue for several more hours. This is a place where millions of people live.” The threat of a hurricane in the area is now compounded by Covid-19, which has had a disproportionate impact on Texas’s communities of color. Corpus Christi, a coastal city, saw the worst effects of Hanna, as well as the worst effects from the coronavirus in the state. In mid-July, it was confirmed that 85 infants had tested positive for the virus since March. Nielsen-Gammon said: “Covid-19 definitely presents a challenge. You can still take people into shelters but you need good ventilation and to enforce social distancing.” In a press conference addressing Hanna, Governor Greg Abbott said: “It is sweeping through an area that is the most challenged area in the state for Covid-19.” In 2017, Houston was affected worst by Hurricane Harvey. The massive storm left many Houstonians dead, stranded, or forced to rebuild their homes. If an event like that were to happen again, the virus could make it much worse. Large, populous cities like Houston, whose greater metro area has a population of about 7 million, could find it more difficult to enforce social distancing once shelters become crowded. “The only saving grace of the pandemic is that people are traveling less than normal so there are a greater number of open rooms in hotels and motels,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “That allows public officials to allocate rooms and lodging to people who don’t have the means, so it increases our shelter capacity.” Beyond evacuation and sheltering during a natural disaster, Texans also have to prepare for what a hurricane leaves behind. Paulo Pires is an insurance agent in Houston and works with the National Flood Insurance Program under Fema. He is encouraging Texas homeowners to purchase flood insurance. In a video for Fema, Pires said: “Just one inch of water can cause up to $25,000 of damage to your home.” While Pires is a fervent supporter of flood insurance, he understands it’s an added cost many people cannot justify, especially since 3 million Texans have filed for unemployment relief since mid-March as the pandemic has cratered the economy. “Millions of people are on furlough and have been let go, so people are trying to save money. We see lots of people reducing coverage as a cost-saving measure. Clearly there is a financial stress,” Pires said. “My worry during hurricane season is contacting the customers over and over and over to make sure they don’t have a lapse in coverage during this time.” He added: “Covid makes everything a little more challenging, but it doesn’t mean it’s OK to not prepare as much.” Fatme Woheidy’s Houston home flooded during Harvey after a reservoir behind her neighborhood opened. She and her family are now considering flood insurance for the first time. “I was prepared last time. I got food. I got water. We were prepared for everything, but we lost everything,” Woheidy said. “I lost my wedding album and the photos of my kids. I was sad and knew I was going to be tired and work a lot.” Because of coronavirus, Woheidy said she would rather stay on the second floor of her house than go to a potentially crowded shelter where the risk of catching the virus could be high. “Covid is dangerous. It’s not a joke,” Woheidy said. “I have Lysol wipes, masks and sanitizers. A shelter is my last resort if I have no other place to stay.” Many border-town neighborhoods, or colonias, in the Rio Grande Valley don’t have reliable tap water. At a time when hygiene and hand-washing is essential, this will present challenges if already scarce water supplies become even scarcer in the wake of a hurricane. But even during a pandemic some advice remains the same. “You need to pay attention to your evacuation routes. If you’ve got a clear inland evacuation route, you might have a little more time. If your route is vulnerable to storm surges, you can’t wait,” Nielsen-Gammon said. | ['us-news/texas', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/erum-salam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-07-31T10:00:11Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/sep/15/kitchen-caddy-recycle | 'Kitchen caddies' considered to cut down on compostable food waste | Householders who regularly waste food could be fined by their local council if the government goes ahead with new proposals designed to slash the amount of food that is sent to landfill. Environment secretary Hilary Benn is considering the introduction of "kitchen caddies" so that households recycle their food waste, or face a fine if they throw it away with the main rubbish. Food would then be sent to specialist recycling plants rather than be dumped in landfill. It is estimated that British households throw away 4.1m tonnes of food each year — the equivalent of £420 for every home. The bulk of food waste is currently not recycled but is part of the 18m tonnes of household waste sent to landfill each year. According to one estimate, 1bn people could be lifted out of hunger if food waste in the US and UK could be eliminated, because of the knock on effect that extra food has on global food prices. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said that it had been studying the results of a study which looked at other countries that had banned certain items from landfill to boost recycling rates. It has launched a consultation to explore the next steps. The research on bans in other countries was carried out by Green Alliance and looked at how similar bans have worked in Austria, Flanders, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Massachusetts in the USA. It showed, for example, that the amount of waste sent to landfill in Germany reduced from 27% to 1% after a landfill ban was introduced for some materials, such as paper and card. This was alongside a range of other measures to boost recycling. A Defra spokesman said: "In light of this research a public consultation will be held in the next few months on banning certain materials from landfill in England. The timing of any bans will be an important part of this consultation and has not yet been decided." He said that it would be up to individual councils to determine the equipment needed and to supervise fines in their area. A spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents local authorities, said: "Recycling food waste is not something that can be done on the cheap. Specialist equipment is required to collect and dispose of it, which can be very expensive." The Conservatives said the proposed new food waste scheme was being used by the government to justify the spread of less regular, fortnightly collections. Benn said in June: "Take food, glass, aluminium or wood – why would you put any of them into landfill when they can be recycled, or used to make energy? What sort of a society would throw away aluminium cans worth £550 a tonne when aluminium producers are crying out for the raw material?" | ['environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'tone/news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/food', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-09-15T16:05:26Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2023/may/25/nsw-renewable-energy-zones-up-to-two-years-behind-schedule | NSW renewable energy zones up to two years behind schedule | New South Wales’ two main renewable energy zones will be delayed for as long as two years and cost more to build with landholder opposition to new transmission lines partly to blame, the energy minister, Penny Sharpe, has said. The Minns government briefed journalists about its network infrastructure strategy on Wednesday, revealing that the central-west Orana zone would not hit its “energisation date” until 2027-28, compared with an initial 2025 target. Similarly, the New England zone will now start in 2029 compared with an initial 2027 goal. The two zones account for the bulk of the new generation capacity laid out in the renewable energy roadmap, drawn up by the previous Coalition government. The central-west Orana area covers almost 21,000 square km, with the new network able to accommodate 4.5 gigawatts of capacity for new wind and solar farms at a cost of $3.2bn. The New England zone, covering almost 15,500 square km, will provide an initial network capacity of 2.4GW and cost $4.2bn. Initial costings in 2020 had put the cost of $400m-$800m for the central-west Orana alone, Sharpe said, adding “there was not a lot of information” about the network details before she took over the portfolio. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “This is the detailed work for the first time that’s been done, rather than what I would call a bit of a ‘back of the envelope’ and a bit of guessing that went on in 2020,” she said. The delays add to other hurdles in the race to build sufficient new generation capacity and storage in NSW and others states to replace coal-fired power stations as they close. This month Snowy Hydro admitted its giant pumped hydro plant would be delayed until as late as 2029 compared with a 2025 initial target. Sharpe, though, said the snags would not put the state at risk of power outages. “It’s very challenging as the incoming minister to be told that things are going to cost more and take longer,” she said. There’s “the need for us to look and squeeze the entire planning around this” and to ensure the plans won’t slip further. “We are not going to allow the lights to go off,” Sharpe said, “We are not going to be turning off [coal-fired] generation that needs to be made if this other stuff’s not in place.” Origin Energy’s plan to close its 2800-megawatt Eraring power station in August 2025 remains an issue for the government. Sharpe said delays in the renewable zones were because the previous government’s timetables “didn’t include the need to work with communities, and to do that properly”. Matt Kean, Sharpe’s predecessor and chief architect of the state’s renewables road map, said since the plan had been legislated in 2020, Covid triggered “huge labour shortages and massive supply chain cost escalations and capacity constraints in the broader market”. “This has been seen around the world on major infrastructure projects,” Kean said. The Coalition government had also increased the payments to landholders affected by new transmission lines, raising the fees from $5,000 a kilometre to $200,000, he said. The costs of the new transmission will be picked up by the network operators who will pass them to consumers. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'australia-news/matt-kean', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2023-05-24T15:00:13Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2018/apr/13/jaguar-land-rover-to-announce-1000-job-cuts-next-week | Jaguar Land Rover to cut 1,000 jobs after 'slump due to Brexit' | Jaguar Land Rover is to cut 1,000 jobs in the West Midlands, blaming a slump in car sales due to uncertainty over Brexit and the future of diesel vehicles. Britain’s biggest carmaker will cut 1,000 temporary contract workers at its plant in Solihull, which builds Range Rovers and the Land Rover Discovery SUV. The factory employs 10,000 workers, including 2,000 contract staff. The company, which employs 40,000 people in the UK, will move some workers from its factory at nearby Castle Bromwich to fill gaps left by the cuts at Solihull. It is due to confirm the cuts, first reported by ITV News, and a reduction in output at Solihull as part of an update on production plans for its workforce on Monday. The cuts are understood to have been triggered by a 26% drop in JLR sales in the UK in the first three months of 2018. Sales in Germany, Europe’s biggest car market, also slumped, dropping 32% in the same period. JLR sold a record 621,109 vehicles worldwide in 2017, up 6.5% from a year earlier. But while international sales boomed, UK sales fell 15.8% because of weakening consumer confidence. The company is expected to say on Monday that customers are delaying buying new cars because of concerns about government policies on diesel cars. Consumer confidence in the UK had also been hit by uncertainty over Brexit. In a statement, JLR referred to Brexit and diesel taxes obliquely as “headwinds”. It said: “In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff. We are however continuing to recruit large numbers of highly skilled engineers, graduates and apprentices as we over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies.” JLR’s decision reflects a wider malaise for the UK car industry as consumers put off big purchases amid squeezed household budgets and doubts about the economy. Sales of new cars in the UK plunged in March as uncertainty weighed on demand and buyers turned their backs on diesel, extending the run of falling sales to 12 months. JLR warned in January that hostility towards diesel vehicles and uncertainty over Brexit were affecting its business. The company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, cut production at its Halewood plant in Liverpool, blaming faltering sales, and warned that tough conditions would continue. JLR said it was fully committed to its UK factories after investing £4bn in them since 2010. Brexit has added to consumer concerns, prompting potential customers to delay new car purchases, but JLR will stress that its long-term production plans remain unchanged. Britain has increased the amount of vehicle excise duty paid by almost everyone buying a new diesel car from this month. Diesel accounts for around 90% of JLR’s UK sales. The UK car industry, which employs 169,000 people, has warned that thousands of UK jobs are at risk because of the tax increase and a backlash against diesel vehicles on environmental grounds. Sales of diesel-powered vehicles dropped by 17% in 2017 but still represented almost 38% of car sales. The UK government has said it will ban sales of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040 to improve air quality and public health. The Royal College of Physicians has warned bad air quality could be responsible for 40,000 premature deaths a year. Campaigners have called for the government to bring the ban forward to 2030. Scotland is aiming for 2032 as its cutoff date. A German court ruled in February that cities have the right to ban diesel motors to improve air-quality levels. The ruling left millions of drivers questioning how they would travel to work and school if there was a ban and wondering what to do with vehicles likely to plunge in value. Car buyers in the UK are also shunning diesel vehicles after the Volkswagen emissions scandal of 2015. The German carmaker was found to have cheated regulators and misled customers by using software to suppress emissions of nitrogen oxide during vehicle tests. | ['business/jaguar-land-rover', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'business/job-losses', 'business/automotive-industry', 'money/redundancy', 'business/business', 'money/money', 'uk/uk', 'money/work-and-careers', 'world/eu', 'politics/fuel-duty', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sean-farrell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-04-13T13:28:54Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk-news/2016/may/27/hinkley-point-c-french-union-opposition-casts-fresh-doubt-on-project | Hinkley Point C: French union opposition casts fresh doubt on project | Opposition from French unions has cast fresh doubt over the future of the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset. Key French workers’ unions continue to oppose the £18bn project despite repeated attempts by EDF, which would build the reactors, to win their backing. The French state-owned company has delayed the decision on whether to go ahead until the summer while it consults the unions. Union representatives hold six of the 18 seats on its board. Hinkley Point C is a key plank of the UK’s energy policy and would provide 7% of Britain’s electricity. It was meant to open next year, but has been delayed to 2025. EDF is seeking support from a committee of workplace representatives after a package of measures from the French government to shore up the company’s financial future had been put in place. But the committee raised serious concerns over cost and demanded more information. Jean-Luc Magnaval, secretary of the central works committee, told BBC Newsnight that staff feared the high cost of Hinkley Point could cripple EDF, which is heavily indebted and recently had its credit rating cut by Moody’s. Other nuclear plants being built by EDF in France and Finland are years behind schedule and billions over budget. Magnaval said: “We have reservations about several aspects of the project: organisation, supply chain, installation and procurement. The trade unions are unlikely to give their blessing to the project in its current state. “We are not reassured by the documents we have received. We have been given a marketing folder, not the full information we require. We got the documents on 9 May – we are sending EDF a request for more explanations.” Earlier this week, the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, wrote to MPs on Westminster’s energy and climate change committee (pdf) to reassure them of the French government’s commitment to the project. He added, however: “It is also necessary, in the interests of all, that EDF follows due process before committing itself to an investment of this magnitude. The consultation of the central works committee brings legal robustness on the decision.” EDF’s chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, told MPs that he did not know when a final decision on Hinkley Point would be made. Once the unions had been consulted, the board would decide on Hinkley, he said, but stressed the opinion of the trade unions would be “advisory”. The Hinkley project has been criticised for “colossal” costs by the French energy minister, who suggested it should be delayed by several years, and EDF’s finance director resigned over the issue, but president François Hollande has fully backed the project. | ['uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'world/unions', 'world/france', 'business/edf', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/juliakollewe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2016-05-27T08:09:09Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2017/apr/05/make-car-makers-not-drivers-pay-for-the-diesel-crisis-experts-say | Make car makers, not drivers, pay for the diesel crisis, experts say | The diesel-fuelled air pollution crisis should be solved by making motor companies recall and upgrade the dirty cars they sold, experts said on Wednesday. Current UK plans are focused on making diesel drivers pay to enter cities and a possible taxpayer-funded scrappage scheme. But both the German and French governments have already required that manufacturers including Volkswagen, Opel, Audi, Mercedes and Renault fix over a million diesel vehicles which were spewing far higher levels of toxic pollution on the road than in official tests. “The polluter should be paying, not the consumer and not the taxpayer. But the UK is doing nothing,” said Greg Archer, at NGO Transport & Environment and a former UK government air pollution expert. “If the car industry was required to recall those vehicles and upgrade the after-treatment system that would make a sizeable difference to the air pollution problems in our cities.” “We wouldn’t need to pay for a scrappage scheme,” he added. “It is time for the [manufacturers] who caused the problem to pay for the problem.” This solution is also backed by ClientEarth, the environmental law firm that has twice defeated ministers at the high court over the government’s illegally poor air pollution plans. “The prime minister must get on the side of ordinary car drivers and stand up to the car industry by committing to a programme of mandatory vehicle recall, compensation, random on-road testing and a clean-car label based on real-world emissions,” said ClientEarth chief executive James Thornton. More than 35,000 VW owners have joined a class action lawsuit for compensation VW, following the lack of government action. Air pollution causes 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK and the courts have forced the government to come up with a new plan, which is expected in the next fortnight. The likelihood of charges being levied on diesel drivers entering cities and towns around the country has led to concerns that owners, encouraged by past tax breaks to buy diesel cars, will now be penalised. Theresa May said on Tuesday: “I’m very conscious of the fact that past governments have encouraged people to buy diesel cars and we need to take that into account when we’re looking at what we do in the future.” However, the government faces difficult choices. “Toxin charges” on dirty diesels entering cities, such as the £10 fee being levied in central London from October, would be highly effective in cutting pollution but are politically sensitive. A scrappage scheme has significant support but would be expensive for taxpayers and might actually cut very little pollution. “Scrappage schemes don’t work, because the people that can afford to buy brand new cars are not the ones driving about in [polluting] ones more than 10 years old,” said Archer. “Also, we should not be rewarding the car industry by boosting sales.” A scrappage scheme, where owners of older, dirtier diesels would get a few thousand pounds to scrap their car and buy a newer, cleaner one, is supported by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, MP’s select committees, environmental groups and some business and motoring organisations. “Whilst it makes sense to steer car owners away from diesel, it currently seems all about putting cost on them rather than accepting some of the financial burden centrally,” said Steve Nash, CEO of the Institute of the Motor Industry. “A scrappage scheme, or some other form of incentive to soften the cost of change, would be fairer and help to accelerate the process.” But other motoring organisations are deeply sceptical, noting that a nationwide scrappage scheme would not target the urban areas where air pollution is a problem and that many polluting diesel cars are relatively new, and so very expensive to scrap. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation said: “Our analysis shows that it is much easier to call for a diesel scrappage scheme than it is to design one that delivers a good air quality outcome for a sensible cost.” Tamzen Isacsson, at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which represents the UK motor industry said: “While the SMMT supports fleet renewal in principle, any scheme would have to deliver value for money for the public and must therefore be developed carefully.” The government itself ruled out a diesel scrappage scheme in September, responding to a call from the environment select committee of MPs: “There is no proportionate way to appropriately target such a measure to the areas where it would be most needed and, as such, it would not be an effective use of significant resources.” Government sources suggest a nationwide diesel scrappage scheme could cost billions of pounds. On Tuesday, the European parliament backed tougher rules for regulating vehicle emissions, including €30,000 per vehicle fines for manufacturers that flout rules. It stopped short of supporting an independent, EU-wide regulator to replace the national ones that failed to prevent the “dieselgate”’ scandal prompted by VW’s cheating of the tests. But Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the European Union’s industry commissioner, said: “Diesel will not disappear from one day to another. But I am quite sure they will disappear much faster than we can imagine.” The mayors of Paris, Madrid and Athens have already signalled a future ban on diesel vehicles. In February, the UK’s transport secretary warned that drivers considering buying a diesel vehicle “should take a long, hard think”. | ['environment/pollution', 'business/automotive-industry', 'business/car-scrappage', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/air-pollution', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-04-05T15:40:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/2015/may/12/child-labour-wont-stop-with-conflict-free-labels-and-voluntary-codes | Child labour won't stop with conflict-free labels and voluntary codes | A fight is brewing in Europe over new rules for companies to report on so-called “conflict minerals”, which are commonly found in mobile phones, laptops, lightbulbs and jewellery. The minerals at stake are gold, tantalum, tungsten and tin, which are mined in conflict or high-risk areas, such as parts of Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Zimbabwe. Trade in these minerals can fund armed groups and fuel human rights abuses, in particular for children. Armed groups in the DRC are widely condemned for their use of child soldiers. Extraction of the minerals is predominantly done at small-scale mines, where forced labour, often by children, is endemic. Given the hazardous working conditions, child labour in mines is categorized as one of the worst forms of child labour. This month, the European parliament will discuss proposals for a new regulatory system for companies involved in the trade of these minerals. This largely conserves the existing system, which relies on self-certification. Only the EU’s smelters and refiners will be forced to use responsibly sourced minerals; other companies in the supply chain will not be required to comply with binding transparency standards. Mandatory scheme too costly Campaigners say the proposals do not go far enough and the European parliament has missed an opportunity to tackle the issue of minerals sourced from conflict zones. OECD guidance, which sets out international standards for mineral sourcing, has been around since 2010. Emily Norton of NGO Global Witness says: “It is voluntary, and unfortunately what studies are showing is that companies in Europe are not implementing those international standards. Another voluntary scheme isn’t going to add anything to the status quo.” On the other side of the debate, industry insiders say a mandatory reporting scheme would be costly and would harm the competitiveness of EU products. Under current proposals, the legislation would cover the import of raw materials into the EU but not finished goods. Ian Weekes, a partner at Crowe Clark Whitehill, says: “So if you’re a Chinese manufacturer and you have acquired metal from wherever because your rules don’t require you to ensure your metal is conflict-free, you can bring in a product that is going to be cheaper, which undermines European manufacturing.” One way of tackling that issue would be to make reporting mandatory for all European companies trading in these minerals, not just the smelters. Norton says: “That would force change along the supply chain and encourage responsible sourcing by smelters [around the world]. The pressure has to come from the downstream in Europe to have that knock-on effect.” Can conflict-free work? She cites the example of the US, which compels publicly listed companies to audit their supply chains to ensure they are not using conflict minerals. This, says Norton, has been a game-changer. “We’ve seen companies start to put in place responsible sourcing programmes, we’ve seen industry get together to start checking down their supply chain, to understand if there is a risk they are supporting child labour in mines and then to report publicly on that. We’ve seen a huge change in awareness levels: the awareness around what responsible sourcing means, that the army should not be in the mines, children should not be forced into working in the mines.” Apple is one high-profile company that has published a conflict minerals report under the new rules. In its 2015 Supplier Responsibility report, it says: “The simplest path to calling Apple products conflict-free would be to redirect our demand through a small subset of smelters that are either conflict-free verified, or aren’t sourcing from central Africa. But this approach would do little to influence the situation on the ground.” It says it has, therefore, been working to expand the number of verified sources in this region. Reports suggest there have, however, been dire, unintended consequences of what is known in the DRC as “Obama’s law”. A letter signed by a group of academics, politicians and civil society professionals says the law has encouraged buyers to pull out of the region altogether and source their minerals elsewhere. Instead of crippling armed groups, it has encouraged cross-border smuggling and forced rebels to diversify how they make money. Norton says the problem lies with the focus on the label “conflict-free”. “This is about companies dealing with risk and sourcing responsibly. There’s always a risk that a company will have child labour in a mine down the supply chain, or a risk that an armed group will come and tax the road, but it’s about how the company deals with that. They should not be saying: ‘This is conflict-free, I don’t source from Congo’; they should be saying: ‘This is sourced responsibly. I deal with risk when it comes up’.” The child rights and business hub is sponsored by Unicef. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled ‘brought to you by’. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox. | ['sustainable-business/series/child-rights-and-business', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'society/child-rights', 'business/mining', 'global-development/conflict-and-development', 'business/business', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'type/article', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'profile/josephine-moulds'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-05-12T13:48:08Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
australia-news/2022/oct/31/renewable-energy-contributes-record-687-of-power-to-australias-main-grid-for-brief-period | Renewable energy contributes record 68.7% of power to Australia’s main grid for brief period | Renewable energy generation hit a new record on Friday, briefly contributing more than two-thirds of the power in Australia’s main grid. According to the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo), the milestone was set at 12.30pm, with a contribution of 68.7%, or 18,882MW, from renewable sources. The figure is 4.6 percentage points higher than the previous record, which was set on 18 September. Of total power in the grid on Friday, 34% came from distributed solar, which outstripped black coal’s contribution of 22%. Renewable penetration rates are measured in 30-minute intervals, and illustrate contributions to the grid within a short period of time. “It’s very different to 100% renewables 24/7,” said Alison Reeve, climate change and energy deputy program director at the Grattan Institute. “Nevertheless, it does show how much the grid is changing.” “Five years ago the maximum that we’d managed to get to was 30%, and five years before that, I don’t know that anyone was even measuring [renewables], it was so small.” Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup One challenge of the energy transition was managing fluctuating contributions from renewable sources, Reeve said. “Once the solar has dropped out [at night], the percentage that you need to ramp up your non-renewables up to is a lot higher,” she said. “One of the things that is gradually driving particularly coal-fired power plants out of the market at the moment is that they can’t ramp up and down that quickly … they’re not good at switching on and off over a couple of hour periods.” Gas and hydro generators are more responsive at short timescales. Because of high gas prices currently, “when those gas generators come on they set quite a high price in the electricity market,” Reeve said. Hydro generators have recently been limited in their operation because of the wet weather on the east coast of Australia, she added. “They can’t send too much water down the river because they don’t want to make any flooding worse,” she said. Another challenge was replacing the “system’s stability” that coal and gas provide to the electricity grid – the ability to drop and raise generation slightly in order to “keep the voltage in the grid balanced”, Reeve said, which will require more long-duration storage infrastructure such as batteries. “Until we figure out a way to get that balancing role done by other things like pumped hydro and batteries, and we have enough of those in the system, there will be a natural upper limit on how much renewables penetration we have, particularly once you move beyond the instantaneous … and start to talk about what we can sustain over four or eight hours.” Reeve described these as “solvable problems”, but which required ironing out of details including costs, storage location and how the services would be valued. A July report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) found Australia was now among the world leaders in cheap solar energy. Behind China and India, in 2021 Australia had the third-lowest utility-scale solar cost in the world, of $0.042 USD/kWh (AU$0.065). This represented a 21% year-on-year drop in price. According to Irena data, the average cost of electricity from utility-scale solar has dropped by 90% in Australia since 2010. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/donna-lu', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2022-10-31T06:27:12Z | true | ENERGY |
world/shortcuts/2015/jun/10/earthquakes-caused-by-nudity-short-skirts-gay-marriage-and-other-scapegoats | Earthquakes caused by nudity, short skirts, gay marriage and other scapegoats | Natural disasters are, by definition, natural. Which might lead you to assume they are one of the few areas of life in which no one is at fault. Not so, according to some in Malaysia who blamed last week’s earthquake – in which 16 climbers died – on a British woman posing naked for pictures at the top of the country’s highest mountain. The peak is sacred, and the spirits were supposedly angered enough to unleash tremors of a 6.0 magnitude. The woman has been arrested along with three men and her lawyer has requested they are held separately amid fears for their safety. It’s not the first time that women – who, along with children, are more likely to die as a result of natural disasters than men – have been blamed for earthquakes. In 2010, a prayer leader in Tehran put Iran’s seismic activity down to the way women dress. “When promiscuity spreads, earthquakes increase,” he warned. It is worth noting that, to date, no straight white man has ever been blamed for a natural disaster. Apart from God. In the aftermath of a disaster, it can sometimes seem as if the hunt for a culprit is happening at the same time as the hunt for survivors. And way ahead of the cleanup. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans – killing 1,800 people and submerging 80% of the city – it wasn’t long before political and religious leaders started finger-pointing. An ultra-orthodox rabbi called it “God’s punishment for Bush’s support of the 2005 withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip”. Rightwing pastor Pat Robertson held legalised abortion to blame for Katrina, others said the same because the swirls on the satellite map of the hurricane resembled an image of a foetus. Meanwhile, a Northen Irish DUP politician put one of America’s five worst hurricanes in history down to a gay street festival due to take place in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Despite being deemed “unnatural” by those who hold them responsible, in the blame game otherwise known as divine retribution, it’s gay people who seem to wield the most power over natural disasters. Indeed, it’s hard to find a natural disaster that hasn’t been attributed to the LGBT community and, increasingly, their right to marry each other. Last year, Ukip councillor David Silvester (not Sylvester, sadly) said David Cameron had acted “arrogantly against the Gospel” in supporting same-sex unions and that “it is his fault that large swaths of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods”. Fortunately, the aftermath of this manmade disaster was a deluge of mockery, with Nicholas Pegg’s spoof Radio 4 Ukip shipping forecast warning of “rain, moderate, or gay” and “homophobic outburst, back-pedalling westerly and becoming untenable”. Which you might call the most fitting example of divine retribution of all. | ['world/natural-disasters', 'world/earthquakes', 'environment/flooding', 'world/hurricanes', 'tone/features', 'news/shortcuts', 'type/article', 'profile/chitra-ramaswamy', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-06-10T15:54:53Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/sep/19/sir-gordon-conway-obituary | Sir Gordon Conway obituary | In his book The Doubly Green Revolution (1997), Gordon Conway, who has died aged 85, describes visiting a tiny farm in Kakamega, in western Kenya. On only a quarter of a hectare – 50 metres square – he counted 30 different species of useful plant, plus a calf and a cow: maize, beans, cassava, bananas, vegetables, grasses, different trees and even an area of weeds. Population pressure had forced the subdivision of land, but Gordon argued that this had fostered intensification and innovation, resulting in a rich, ecologically diverse and sustainable farming system. Innovation, intensification and sustainability were themes that inspired Gordon’s work on agricultural development for more than half a century. As an agricultural ecologist, he was primarily interested in the physical aspects of sustainability: in the ability of diverse cropping systems to maximise output, but also sustain soil fertility and resist shocks such as drought. Equipped with a diploma in tropical agriculture from the University College of the West Indies, Trinidad (1961), he spent the next five years undertaking entomological research in North Borneo, which in 1963 became the Malaysian state of Sabah. His work there helped cocoa farmers reduce dependence on harmful and expensive pesticides: when the spraying stopped, the natural predators re-asserted themselves, and the young trees prospered. Humanist in outlook, Gordon was an early advocate of thinking about sustainable livelihoods, building on ideas developed by Robert Chambers at the Institute of Development Studies, based at the University of Sussex. In their much-cited paper for the IDS, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century (1992), Robert and Gordon built a model that emphasised the capabilities of rural people and the need for equity, alongside both physical and social sustainability. They came up with themes that are easily recognisable today: the importance of resilience, the need to think about future generations and the challenge to the rich to reduce their consumption of the world’s natural resources. “For the richer,” they wrote, “the priority is to make lower demands on the environment. If the rich make lower demands, more is left for the poor and for future generations.” Born in Birmingham, Gordon was the elder of two sons of Thelma (nee Goodwin), a geography teacher, and Cyril Conway, an engineer. The family moved to Richmond, south-west London, and Gordon went to Kingston grammar school. His first passion was entomology, and his bedroom was full of specimen boxes containing moths, butterflies and beetles. From Kingston Polytechnic (now Kingston University) he went to the University College of North Wales, Bangor (now Bangor University), where he gained a BSc in ecology (1959), followed by a diploma in agricultural science (1960) at Cambridge. After Trinidad and Sabah he took a PhD (1969) at the University of California, Davis. In 1970 he joined Imperial College London, then part of the University of London. In 1977 he became director of the Centre for Environmental Technology, based at Imperial, and from 1980 its chairman and professor of environmental technology. He directed the sustainable agriculture programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (1986-88) in London, and then went to New Delhi for the Ford Foundation (1989-92) to promote its human welfare objectives by managing programmes in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. As vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex (1992-98) he helped establish the Brighton and Sussex medical school; he also chaired the IDS. The first non-American to serve as president of the Rockefeller Foundation (1998-2004), then with an endowment of more than $3bn, he led its programme and helped launch work on HIV/Aids. He had advisory roles with international organisations including the Agriculture for Impact programme funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an international umbrella organisation whose research centres in different countries pioneer new varieties and agricultural techniques in wheat, maize, rice and other crops. He continued this work into his 80s, and helped shape policy on agricultural development in a world with growing population and increasing environmental stress. He also served as president of the Royal Geographical Society (2006-09), was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2004 and was knighted in 2005. That year, too, he returned to Imperial as professor of international development, and joined DfID as chief scientific adviser, supporting its work towards the UN’s millennium development goals. He also chaired the Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, whose report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All was published in 1997. Gordon was a kind friend and colleague, an inspiring speaker and a good teacher. He loved travel, films and music, and the roses in his Sussex garden. In 1965 he married Susan Mumford, a scholar of culture, arts and crafts in Thailand and Myanmar. She survives him, along with their children, Simon, Zoe and Kate. • Gordon Richard Conway, agricultural ecologist, born 6 July 1938; died 30 July 2023 | ['environment/environment', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'tone/obituaries', 'science/agriculture', 'education/imperialcollegelondon', 'education/universityofsussex', 'society/aids-and-hiv', 'type/article', 'profile/simon-maxwell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/obituaries', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-obituaries'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2023-09-19T16:40:39Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
theobserver/2018/nov/25/the-big-picture-reconstructed-drift-mine-county-durham | The big picture: an afternoon out at a ‘mine’ in Durham | At the end of the 1980s, Paul Reas found himself photographing the only growth industry in northern England: heritage. Pictures such as this one, taken in the reconstructed drift mine at the Beamish open-air museum in County Durham, were part of a project he called Flogging a Dead Horse. There was anger in these photographs. They were intended, Reas said, to be a “bitter and ironic rebuke to those who were appropriating working-class history, with all its hardships, and making it into entertainment”. Fables of Faubus, a new book that includes four decades of Reas’s pictures of Britain, puts that rebuke into context. Reas grew up on the Buttershaw council estate in Bradford, made infamous by the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too. He was apprenticed as a bricklayer in the late 1970s before, inspired by the northern soul club scene and the excitement of seeing American documentary photography, he picked up a camera and headed to art college. The first subjects he was drawn to were working men, the characters he recognised from his years on building sites. In 1983, he produced a series of remarkable black-and-white portraits of miners in south Wales, not realising that within two years the world he had witnessed would be largely shut down and dismantled. Almost immediately, sanitised versions of that world were being reconstructed and sold as Sunday afternoon days out. The Big Pit National Coal Museum in south Wales, where Reas also photographed, opened as local collieries were being closed. The drift mine at Beamish, staffed partly by redundant miners, invited visitors to “experience the reality of life underground”. It was not a reality that Reas recognised, but his pictures capture that pivotal moment, when, in a few short years, two centuries of industry became history. Fables of Faubus by Paul Reas is published next month (Gost, £35) | ['theobserver/series/the-big-picture', 'artanddesign/photography', 'society/society', 'books/books', 'culture/culture', 'environment/mining', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/timadams', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/agenda', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2018-11-25T07:00:02Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/oct/19/going-dutch-on-recycling-pays-off | Going Dutch on recycling pays off | Letter | Michael Marks (Letters, 17 October) said that the plastic bag charge needs to be followed by one for plastic bottles in order to cut the huge number not recycled. We lived for six years in the Netherlands, where people are much more oriented towards recycling. Plastic drinks bottles had a tax on them which was refunded when they were returned to the store. This was on soft drinks as well as alcohol bottles. Every household had a dustbin with a microchip. You paid only for rubbish that you couldn’t recycle. You could have your bin emptied as often as you liked but you paid for it each time. Our bin was only emptied once a month as everything else – paper, metal, plastic – was collected free. This system worked really well. Jasmine Eaton Banbury, Oxfordshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'world/netherlands', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-10-19T18:28:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2009/sep/08/mount-bosavi-creatures-discovery-scientists | How scientists found their way to Mount Bosavi in Papua New Guinea | Patrick Barkham | One name has always been on the lips of scientists who have spent their careers studying the tropical jungles of Papua New Guinea: Mount Bosavi. Biologists had long harboured a hunch that this extinct volcano, its enormous crater filled with rainforest, could contain a treasure trove of undiscovered species. Animals unable to move beyond the 1,000-metre crater walls were thought likely to have evolved in distinct ways after thousands of years in isolation. Western scientists, however, had been unable to get inside the volcano in the inaccessible Southern Highlands – until this year, when an expedition led by Dr George McGavin from Oxford University's Museum of Natural History was filmed by the BBC. "Imagine the Swiss Alps covered in jungle," says the series' producer Steve Greenwood, who was charged with sorting the formidable logistics of their mission. He and a researcher first flew by helicopter to the nearest village, Fogomaya, 15 miles or a four-day trek from the crater. The villagers first encountered westerners in the 1950s but were still cut off from television and the cash economy; elders could recall a childhood of stone tools and the arrival of the first metal axe in the village. With the help of a translator (the local language, Kasua, is spoken by fewer than 1,000 people), Greenwood asked tribal elders permission to explore the volcano. They also had to explain to local hunter-gatherers the concept of paying them to help establish a base camp near the village. Elders, trackers and boatmen were among 25 local people employed by the international team of 25 scientists and filmmakers, who also required a cook, a medic and a climbing expert to help them scale trees. Concerned not to eat the village out of food, the scientists employed local people to plant sweet potatoes and a spinach-like crop in preparation for their expedition in January, reducing the amount of corned beef and rice flown in via helicopters, the only means of transport to the village. The Kasua hunters had some knowledge of the crater – although even they judged it too inaccessible to visit regularly – and they helped guide an advance party, including the climbing expert, up the mountain and into the crater. The forward team found a recent landslip that could be flattened out, where they could land a helicopter from base camp. Even though they chose the dry season (wet, rather than very wet, says Greenwood), conditions often prevented the helicopter's entry into the crater. Scientists and crew would spend two weeks in the crater before being taken back to base camp. "You are hot, sweaty and stinking pretty much all the time," says Greenwood. "It's challenging, but we all realised we were so lucky to be in a place before the impact of humans became obvious." And the results were as spectacular as all those scientists had predicted, with more than 40 previously unidentified species discovered in just five weeks of exploration, including 16 new kinds of frog, three new fish and a giant rat. | ['environment/wildlife', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickbarkham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-09-07T23:05:30Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2023/oct/26/australias-kangaroo-island-karta-pintingga-named-no-2-must-visit-region-for-2024-by-lonely-planet | Australia’s Kangaroo Island named No 2 must-visit region for 2024 by Lonely Planet | Lonely Planet has named South Australia’s Kangaroo Island the No 2 must-visit region for 2024 – pipped only by the western Balkans’ Trans Dinarica cycle route. Kangaroo Island/Karta Pintingga, which is still recovering from bushfires that burned through 38% of the island in 2020, was picked for its food, wine, wildlife and beaches. “It’s blessed with amazing beaches, offers delicious food, wine, and spirits experiences, and delivers on the drama when it comes to outdoor adventures,” said Lonely Planet’s Chris Zeiher, who wrote the Kangaroo Island entry. “And then there’s the wildlife!” KI is Australia’s third biggest island, accessible by a 45-minute ferry ride across Backstairs Passage, which lies between Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide on the Australian mainland, and Dudley Peninsula. Last year Lonely Planet picked KI as one of Australia’s top 20 travel experiences and this year Tourism Australia named Stokes Bay the nation’s best beach. The state Labor MP Leon Bignell’s kelpie, Dusty, was just five weeks old when he rescued him from the 2020 fires. The former tourism minister said his favourite spot on Kangaroo Island was Stokes Bay. “There are these signs saying ‘to the beach’ … it doesn’t look that promising but then you emerge through these little gaps in the rocks,” he said. “You come out the other side and there’s the most amazing beach.” Bignell said the agricultural sector had picked up since the fires and the island’s economy had also been helped by a surge of domestic and intrastate visitors during the pandemic. “Five hundred kilometres of coastline, and even at the height of summer you can find a spot where you are totally on your own or have hardly any people around you,” he said. The endangered Kangaroo Island dunnarts appear to be making a comeback despite their habitat being ravaged by the bushfires, while the Ligurian honeybee is still struggling. There is a plan to eradicate feral cats on the island by 2030, to help the dunnarts along with native birds, the Kangaroo Island echidna, and the southern brown bandicoot. There are, of course, plenty of kangaroos, along with wallabies, sea lions and platypuses. Scientists are in the process of luring the endangered glossy black cockatoo over to the South Australian mainland, where it has been extinct for decades. Koalas are plentiful – too plentiful for the available vegetation, meaning the state government is considering sterilisation, contraception and relocation. The local federal MP, Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie, holidayed on KI as a child. “I think people really appreciate the untouched beauty that KI has,” she says. “It’s the same size as the mainland part of my electorate but it’s only 4,500 people (although a lot more with tourists). “You can just be walking down the road and an echidna crosses in front of you. And the pristine beaches … I can’t pick a favourite spot. It’s just a glorious place. “There’s something that happens when you cross water, you feel like you’re getting away from it all.” Zeiher said the reopening of the luxe Southern Ocean Lodge and the opening of a new visitor centre for Flinders Chase national park meant 2024 was KI’s year. Mongolia was chosen as the best country to visit in 2024; Nairobi in Kenya as the best city; Spain as the most sustainable destination, and the US midwest as the best value. New Zealand’s Southern Lakes and Central Otago came in at No 9 on the best value list. The 2,000km Trans Dinarica cycle route opens next year and will link Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Albania and Kosovo. | ['business/tourism-australia', 'australia-news/kangaroo-island', 'australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/rebekha-sharkie', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tory-shepherd', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-lifestyle'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-10-25T14:00:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sustainable-business/2015/oct/19/cut-plastic-waste-oceans-south-east-asia-fish-birds | Four ways Asia can cut the amount of plastic waste it dumps in the ocean | Photos of birds with their stomachs full of plastics. A recent study of fish markets around the world finding 28% of individual fish in Indonesia contained plastics (the figure was 25% in the US). The tragic and damaging consequences of our failure to deal with plastic waste are becoming ever more visible. An estimated 95% of plastic in oceans is under the surface, and if current trends continue, there could be one ton of plastic in the sea for every three tons of fish. A recent study we did for Ocean Conservancy found that one of the regions that suffers most is south-east Asia. On average, only around 40% of all waste is collected in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The good news, according to our report, is that because we know the biggest sources of plastic pollution, it is a relatively straightforward problem to get to grips with it. Were those five countries to take the four policy responses listed below, they could reduce their leakage of plastic by two-thirds, and cut global inputs by almost half. Improve the transportation of waste Across all areas, there is a need to plug the gaps in the collection and transportation of waste. The data we analysed indicated that as much as 10% of waste disappears between the points of collection and final disposal. his is the result of adverse incentives that encourage transporters to abandon waste before completing their route - such as load-lightening to reduce fuel consumption, for example. The transport of waste can itself become a contributor to plastic debris, especially in archipelagic locations where waterways are convenient disposal grounds for this unwanted burden. Better performance management is required to ensure that transporters complete their designated route with a full load of waste. This could include introducing waste-container tracking via GPS, performance-based payments, and the enforcement of more aggressive and consistent fines for dumping. Improve dump sites The Philippines has a high rate of collection, at roughly 85% on average nationwide, but many dump sites are located near rivers. The challenge is that only about 20% of the municipal plastic waste stream has enough value to incentivise waste pickers to remove it from dump sites, and too often the lower-grade, less-valuable plastics, are washed out into waterways after heavy rains. While massive dump sites cannot be wished away, they can be improved. With a relatively modest investment a perimeter can be enforced and simple waste-covering practices can be employed. We estimate that better and more secure dump sites could reduce plastics leakage by 26% in the Philippines. A perimeter would also make dump sites safer for waste pickers, making it possible to put in place rules and penalties for the setting of fires, a technique that waste pickers sometimes use to uncover new layers of trash. Get value from waste Instead of piling waste up in dump sites, put it to work, either through recycling or conversion to oil, gas, or power. In rural areas with a low waste density, for example, low-value plastic can be turned into refuse-derived fuel for use in the cement industry. China is in the process of expanding its capacity for incineration with energy recovery, and in the Philippines, where incineration is banned, a few gasification projects are currently being developed. Of course, these waste-to-energy technologies are often environmentally controversial (they can be energy intensive and release large amounts of carbon dioxide) and must be approached with caution. While they may help solve the pollution problem associated with today’s plastics, they may also hinder further innovation in recovery and treatment technologies, along with the development of new materials and product designs that better facilitate reuse or recycling. Cross-sector collaboration Global interest in tackling ocean waste is growing among NGOs, governments and businesses, and nothing the report suggests is implausible or new; all these practices and technologies already exist. The required expenditures for waste-system improvements in Asia could largely be met through typical project-financing mechanisms involving the public, private, and non-governmental sectors. Private industry, in particular, can play an important role in catalysing investment by strategically reducing capital costs and investment risk. We recognise that at least 40% of the plastics that enter the oceans come from outside the five countries identified and that even the most sophisticated waste-management systems leak, but it makes sense to break down a big problem into components and take aim at the biggest targets. It buys us time to rethink packaging more broadly and reduce the flow of plastic altogether. | ['sustainable-business/series/circular-economy', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/philippines', 'type/article', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'tone/blog'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2015-10-19T15:36:23Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2014/feb/07/north-south-divide-threatens-germany-renewable-energy | North-south divide threatens Germany's renewable energy highway | It was conceived as a plan to draw Germany together, a 500-mile (800km) energy highway that would link the gale-beaten windfarms of the north with the energy-hungry south. But with resistance growing in Bavaria, the project looks more likely to divide the country that unite it. Renewables produced almost 25% of Germany's energy in 2013. But production is uneven and expected to get even more so: while windfarms in the northern flatlands are forecast to eventually outstrip the area's power needs, the highly industrialised south is still heavily reliant on nuclear energy. Solar power, though more prevalent in the south, is still too unreliable to compensate for the planned phasing out of five nuclear power stations in the southern half of the country. The new energy highway is meant to even out this imbalance. Hailed as the "aorta of the energy revolution" by the companies behind the plans, the new high-voltage power line would start in Wilster in Schleswig-Holstein and end in Grafenrheinfeld in Bavaria. Currently, most of the line will be carried on masts up to 70 metres high, but TransnetBW said parts of the line may run underground near built-up areas. In addition to the main energy highway, there are also plans for corridors branching out east and west, totalling 1,700 miles (2,800km) in length. Energy companies hope the project, which they say will cost under €10bn (£8.3bn), will be green-lighted in 2015 and finished by 2022. But particularly in the south of the country, a protest movement is forming in opposition to the plans. In Franconia in northern Bavaria, an initiative against the south-east energy corridor called Citizens against Monster Pylons has already amassed over 1,000 members. As well as voicing concerns about health risks and dropping property values for those living near high-voltage lines, they argue that the south's energy needs would be more easily met through new gas power stations, or even wind farms, in southern Bavaria. Last summer, the German parliament passed a law that paved the way for the new energy highway. But in the light of the current protests, a number of local politicians are making objections to the project. Horst Seehofer, the head of the Bavarian CSU – sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats – has already called for a freeze on plans for further energy lines. "It is possible to both be massively in support of the nuclear phaseout and put up a massive fight if we are going about the wrong way of achieving it," Seehofer said. But politicians in the north are accusing the CSU of trying to sabotage the entire Energiewende (energy transition). "When we switch off the last nuclear power station, we also need renewable energy in Bavaria," said Robert Habeck, Schleswig-Holstein's energy minister. "That was the decision we made after Fukushima. Those who now attack plans for extending the energy network are in fact dismissing the entire phaseout." Currently, public support for Energiewende is still high: a survey in October last year showed 84% of Germans back the nuclear phaseout. But the rising cost has become a growing concern, and last month the new energy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, vowed to cut subsidies for wind, solar and other renewables – a move criticised in the north and cheered in the south. Unless the new government manages to reconcile national priorities with the dynamics of its federal system, the mood could quickly turn against Germany's green revolution. | ['world/germany', 'environment/windpower', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/philip-oltermann'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2014-02-07T13:18:52Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/dec/31/weatherwatch-conjuring-up-snow-to-protect-glaciers | Weatherwatch: conjuring up snow to protect glaciers | During the summer of 2019, tourists were stopped in their tracks by a haunting melody ringing out across the Swiss Alps. Performed by two glaciologists, Hans Oerlemans and Felix Keller, the Requiem for the Glaciers of Switzerland mourns the disappearance of glaciers around the world. Glaciers are retreating fast. A report by the European Geosciences Union suggests that 90% of the glacier volume in the Alps, an essential source of drinking and irrigation water, could be lost by the end of the century. But Oerlemans and Keller are not simply standing by and watching it happen. They have patented a method that uses artificial snow to blanket glaciers and protect them from the sun during the spring and summer. Preliminary results suggest this technique can even lead to glacier growth. Similarly, high in the Sawir mountains on the border between China and Kazakhstan, Feiteng Wang and colleagues have been experimenting with silver iodide smog generators to induce snowfall and protect Asian glaciers. The scientists all agree that ultimately stopping global heating is the only way to preserve mountain glaciers, but in the interim they hope that efforts to conjure up snow will allow some glaciers to cling on. | ['environment/glaciers', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/snow', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-12-31T06:00:32Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2007/apr/21/practicaladvice.homesandgardens | Free to good home | Our houses are full of them: old computers, fax machines, video players, fridges in the garage, vinyl records, unwanted armchairs - things we don't want but still work. Research by gumtree.com reveals we dispose of over £5.6bn worth of usable household items a year, including 1.35m working fridges and freezers, and 2.6m sofas. People out there want our redundant stuff - but how do we find them? A few weeks ago, I tried to shift a 10-year-old Apple Power Mac and a similarly ancient (in computer terms) Mac laptop. Both worked, so to throw them in a skip would have been wasteful and created toxic waste (computers can contain heavy metals and chemicals). I'd checked the likes of Computer Aid International (computeraid.org) and the Community Recycling Network (crn.org.uk). Both accepted PCs, but the words "10-year-old Apple Mac" resulted in polite rejection. So I tried Freecycle (uk.freecycle.org), an online forum where people give away and pick up unwanted stuff, free of charge. It has 4,009 communities worldwide and, according to its online counter, 3,401,532 users. I joined my local group and tentatively posted my message: "Offered: Power Mac with printer and Powerbook laptop, bought in 1997 but working fine, need to be collected." Within three hours I'd had 30 replies. Suddenly my Macs were seen as a valuable resource. Jenny wanted the laptop for her 11-year-old son who was "a Mac fanatic", while Julie wanted it for her soon-to-be daughter-in-law; Ben needed computers for his charity in Zimbabwe. It wasn't easy to decide whom to give them to. Freecycle etiquette dictates that you don't necessarily give things to the first emailer - and you must reject anyone you suspect wants to sell the goods. I opted for friendly sounding people who could collect immediately: Andy, who'd been on disability benefit for three years, and Ruth, a cash-starved student in Holloway. Since then I've used Freecycle to shift two fax machines, a Zip drive, an office desk, a child's desk, a malfunctioning Hoover, some kitchen shelves, a washing machine and my local vicar's sofa bed. Our fridge-freezer went to a woman with cancer who was on a special diet and needed it for her store of juices. Our rubbish was helping someone fight for life. Then I visited SwapXchange, which offers items to swap from all over the country via its website (swapxchange.org). I exchanged a juicer and a Kenwood mixer for a bottle of organic wine apiece. The site offers anything from a therapy couch in Kenilworth to a garden shed in Bath; items wanted include a tumble dryer in south London and a garden bench in exchange for a piece of commissioned pottery in Wiltshire. SwapXchange started life as Swap It, a site set up in 2001 by community development worker Ellie Dale. Originally it covered just Bath and north-east Somerset, but it became SwapXchange and went national in 2004. "We were the first swapping site in the UK," says Dale. "Our aim is to have a SwapXchange for every area. It's ideal for house clearances - one man had a huge collection of radios and we found a home for them all." My local SwapXchange has shifted more than 14 tonnes of items, says Islington council's Charles Dent. "In fact, we've just had two houses swapped on the site; at the other end of the scale we've had a toaster swapped for a bottle of real ale." Another way of getting rid of belongings is via Gumtree (gumtree.com) - a popular online classified website which is free to use. Owned by eBay, it has sites in most major UK cities, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, even Poland. It claims to have 100,000 new ads each week. I could put most of my household junk up for sale here, swap it or even give it away. User Claire Crutchley had two fridges she didn't want: "I posted a listing and another family collected them within 25 minutes of it going live." Then, of course, there's eBay - the auction site and grandaddy of them all. However, there are some things even these online exchanges can't shift, including our old kitchen sink, left rusting in the garden. Luckily I found a scrap-metal trader on the street taking stuff from skips and persuaded him to have it. A battered BMX bike with deflated tyres and shot gears proved equally problematic. Finally, I left it on the street corner with a note saying "Take if wanted": it went after two days. Charity shops are grateful for cast-offs (most don't take furniture or electrical goods) or try car-boot sales: there's a definite frisson in getting 50p for your old X-Files videos. If you're still unsure about how to declutter, try national charity Waste Watch (wastewatch.org.uk), which will provide details of organisations in your area that can recycle both home and workplace waste, including computers, electrical goods, metals, paper and glass. Spokeswoman Tina Gillies says: "It doesn't matter how you declutter, as long as you avoid adding to our waste mountain. Giving stuff away or swapping it can feel great, but if you make a bit of money out of it, that's fine, too." And if nothing else, our front gardens will all look better without rusting vacuum cleaners, sodden sofas and bits of discarded kitchen. | ['lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/environment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'lifeandstyle/homes', 'type/article', 'profile/pete-may', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/space1'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-04-21T17:00:41Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2024/nov/12/it-should-not-taste-marine-like-would-you-eat-a-burger-made-from-processed-sea-squirts | ‘It should not taste marine-like’: Would you eat a burger made from processed sea squirts? | At a seaside restaurant near the docks in Fredrikstad, Norway, there’s a selection of delicious looking entrees sitting in front of me. There is a cheesy lasagne, a savoury Mexican casserole, and a spicy chilli con carne. Biting in to each one in turn, I savour the familiar taste of ground beef. Or is it? The dishes come from Pronofa Asa, a Scandinavian company whose purpose is to make new and sustainable protein sources. In 2022, it acquired the Swedish research company Marine Taste and expanded on its work turning ciona – or “sea squirts” to you and me – into mincemeat. The dishes in Fredrikstad were prototypes, but Pronofa plans to have its mincemeat on supermarket shelves in Norway and Sweden before the end of the year, it says, and will aim to expand throughout Europe in the coming years. Ciona is naturally rich in proteins, and can be used as an alternative feed for fish or animals as well as people. “The sea squirt is the only organism that produces 100% pure cellulose,” says Hans Petter Olsen, the CEO of Pronofa. “So there are some fibres in the meat and we had to work on how to process them so the mouthfeel would be similar to meat.” Pronofa, and a number of companies like it, are developing alternative protein sources for kitchen tables around the world, which have a minimal carbon footprint but that taste like family favourites. The Food Standards Agency said in October that cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years. Cultivated chicken was approved for sale to consumers in Singapore in 2020 and in the US in 2023 and cultivated steak was approved in Israel in 2024. Scores of companies around the world are developing similar products, including using pork and fish. Ciona are umami flavoured, but naturally have a slight seafood taste and a texture reminiscent of calamari. There are no additives – this transformation to “fake meat” is accomplished simply by the way that the company processes the sea squirt, says Olsen. Changing the sea squirt into something that looks enticing is important as ciona does not look appetising. Burping and bubbling in the freezing waters of the North Sea, sea squirts are translucent tubes that resemble gelatinous sacs. They will grow on almost any solid surface in the sea, from rocks and driftwood to deliberately placed ropes. They have two siphons on the top of their tubular bodies: one for pulling in nutrient-rich sea water, the other for expelling filtered water. Yet, once processed, ciona can be consumed in surprisingly traditional recipes. “We had to work on how to eliminate the marine taste,” says Olsen. “Because it should not taste marine or fish-like at all. It is going to taste like meat.” But sea squirts are more than just another alternative protein source. Farming ciona is “super-sustainable”, according to Olsen, in part because they require almost no input from the farmer. Ropes are seeded with ciona larvae, similar to farming oysters or mussels. The farmer’s labour is required at harvest time, when the long ropes covered in sea squirts are hauled from the ocean, the ciona removed, and then processed. Often considered a highly invasive species, varieties of tunicates (of which ciona are just one) appear uninvited on ropes, buoys, bowlines and docks around the world. Most have potential for culinary uses, but Pronofa’s recipes are specially formulated for the ciona that thrive in the North Sea. In spite of being an invasive species, ciona and other tunicates can be of tremendous value to the environments they grow in, filtering out nitrogen from the ocean waters. “One of the side effects of agriculture is the nitrogen surplus,” says Olsen, “Surplus that is running into the rivers and causing the algae to grow too much. But if you drive close to one of our tunicate farms, the ocean will be like the Mediterranean – crystal clear waters, and visibility of 30 metres.” However, sea squirt farming is not without its difficulties. A venture to farm the variety haloceynthia roretzi, or sea pineapple, for human consumption in Korea has struggled to have any impact due to continued events of mass mortality. Scientists in Korea believe the die-offs are caused by a parasite whose destructive capabilities may be increased by the monoculture nature of tunicate farms. Nevertheless, Pronofa hopes that its work with the invertebrates will turn it into a food staple rather than just another fashionable and short-lived meat alternative. “For us, it is very important not to be put on the same shelf as Beyond Meat and all those other meat replacements,” says Olsen. “Eventually, we want to compete on scale with the salmon industry in Norway, and we want to deliver millions of tonnes of our products.” The Norwegian salmon industry makes up 2% of Norway’s GDP and is worth more than $10bn (£7.7bn) annually, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council. Olsen’s bold vision starts with a plate of convincingly meat-like ciona mince, drenched in tomato sauce, cheese and sandwiched between sheets of pasta. It looks like meat, and one forkful confirms, it tastes like meat. Ciona mincemeat could be the next ground beef – without the environmentally destructive processes associated with cattle farming. But for now, it’s a case of watch this space. | ['environment/series/on-our-plate', 'environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'food/meat-free', 'food/food', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-11-12T07:00:50Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2010/nov/30/cancun-climate-talks-pablo-salon | Climate talks: We must not allow Cancún to turn into Can'tCun | As climate talks start this week in Cancún, the common refrain that pervades the media and some negotiators is of "low expectations." I wonder whose expectations they are talking about. Do they think the one million people in the Bolivian city El Alto, who face increasingly chronic water shortages from the disappearance of glaciers, have low expectations? Do they think Pacific islanders whose homelands will soon disappear beneath the rising sea have low expectations? I believe that the majority of humanity demands and has high expectations that our political leaders should act to stop runaway climate change. The reality is that the talk of "low expectations" is a ploy by a small group of industrialised countries to obscure their obligations to act. They are playing politics with the planet's future. If the Cancún talks set sail with no wind, then no-one will be angered when they stall. Sadly, rather than express moral outrage, much of the media and even some environmental organisations have subscribed to this cynicism of the powerful. Last year we had Hopenhagen and worldwide public outrage when the richest nations failed to act. This year will it be Can'tCun and a whimper? Visible evidence of climate change is all around us.It can be found almost daily on the TV screens of people in rich countries – Pakistan's floods, Russia's heatwave, the unprecedented Arctic snow melt – in Bolivia, we are struggling to cope everyday with limited resources and ever more unstable weather. This year a drought throughout Bolivia meant we had to provide emergency food aid to hundreds of thousands of people. As we see our high Andean mountains, revered as apus or spirits by our indigenous peoples, lose their white peaks, we feel a visceral loss of our culture and our history. Every year we fail to act will only worsen an already serious crisis – and mean any measures we have to take must be even more radical. Yet in looking at how to break the logjam in Cancún, one constantly comes up against the US. Not only does the US have the largest historical responsibility for carbon emissions, its political leaders are also the least prepared to act. While developing countries like China are imposing electricity blackouts to meet climate targets, many in the US are still debating whether climate change exists. Unfortunately the US responsibility goes further than just inaction; it effectively sabotaged international progress on climate change. At Copenhagen and in the year since, the US has been the prime instigator behind attempts to end the Kyoto protocol, the only binding mechanism on climate change. Instead they harangue, bully, and insist that any climate negotiations must be based on the non-binding Copenhagen accord which would take us backwards in the fight against climate change. Analysis by the UN of the pledges made so far under the Copenhagen accord show that temperatures would rise by four degrees – a level that many scientists consider disastrous for human life and our ecosystems. Countries like mine that have refused to accept this death wish have had our climate funding withdrawn by the US. It is important to remember that we have been in a similar situation before. In the negotiations for the Kyoto protocol in the 1990s, the EU proposed relatively ambitious targets of 15% emissions reductions by 2010, and argued rightly then that domestic action should be the main means of achieving emissions targets. The US at first opposed any targets or timetables, then pushed for lowering overall targets for developed countries to 5% cuts by 2012, and insisted on allowing fraudulent carbon trading mechanisms to meet the targets. Their bullying prevailed, but it was all for nought, as the US Senate failed to ratify the protocol and in 2001 President Bush formally withdrew. The rest of the world bent over backwards to involve the US, and even then they failed to act. We can't allow this to happen again. It is wrong for a small handful of US senators to hold the rest of humanity hostage. If the US cannot do what is right, it must step aside. Meanwhile, developed country blocks, such as the EU, must stop hiding behind US intransigence. They must commit urgently to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% before 2017. Earlier this year, Bolivia held a Peoples' Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which brought together more than 30,000 people from 140 countries to advance effective proposals on climate change in the wake of the Copenhagen fiasco. It was inspiring because of the passion and commitment of the delegates, and because it was completely focused on tackling climate change and its root causes. Too often, subjected to intense lobbying by big corporations, the UN conferences on climate change are more preoccupied with inventing new market mechanisms to make money rather than stopping climate change. Against these powerful interests, Bolivia believes the only way forward for saving the Earth and its people is mass popular pressure. We must insist to our political leaders that we have the highest expectations from Cancún, because nothing less than the future of our grandchildren and our planet depends on it. • Pablo Solon is the Bolivian ambassador to the UN | ['environment/cancun-climate-change-conference-2010', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/mexico', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'world/bolivia', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2010-11-30T08:00:09Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2024/oct/22/meteorologists-climate-change-hurricane-extreme-weather | Meteorologists could be climate change heroes by relaying its urgency to the public | Katrina vanden Heuvel | Some have called Hurricanes Helene and Milton an October surprise. Yet such disasters are now dispiritingly predictable. In their wake, pundits have asked whether and how the storms – which happened to hit some key swing states – could impact a presidential election shaping up to be decided by razor-thin margins. There’s practical concerns, like whether some affected voters will physically be able to cast their ballots. And then there’s a political question: Will the fact that the climate crisis, which is exacerbated these hurricanes, raise the importance of that issue? Or will that be counterbalanced by those who have become convinced the government engineered these disasters to suppress electoral power? Believe it or not, the answer could rest on the shoulders of your local weather reporter. Such an unlikely hero went viral earlier this month when John Morales, a venerable meteorologist in Miami, became visibly emotional on air during one of his reports on Milton. His voice choking, he offered an ominous assessment of the hurricane’s strength: “This is just horrific.” That sincerity and urgency garnered the clip nearly 2m views. The resonance of Morales’s appearance proves that combining deep expertise, hard-earned credibility and a willingness to be vulnerable could provide a roadmap – or a forecast – for climate reporting to remain relevant and impactful despite the headwinds. Climate change presents the classic political conundrum of a (literally) glacial catastrophe demanding swift action. To avert the worst effects, the investments required – from clean energy to flood-proof infrastructure – would total in the trillions, but voters tend to be wary of making such outlays until the worst has already happened. Polling bears out this “short-termism.” Americans have gone from climate skeptics to climate curious, with 54% saying they consider it a major threat. And yet when it comes time to rank their top issues heading into election day, the public demurs, placing climate change second to last on their list of priorities. Of course, the repeat champion remains the economy – never mind that with smart policies, combating the climate crisis could be a lifesaver and a job creator. Despite the popular narrative, global heating does have short-term consequences, namely extreme weather events like Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Over the past three decades, extreme weather has caused $48bn in crop damage, $339bn in property damage and killed nearly 14,000 people. And the intensity of that damage has been exacerbated by rising temperatures. Amid these catastrophes, reeling residents turn to local news broadcasts for live updates, with ratings sometimes spiking by 80% during hurricanes. In such moments, meteorologists are perfectly positioned to help viewers connect short-term extreme weather with long-term climate change – having forged a deep connection with a wide audience all year round. Republicans and Democrats alike rank the Weather Channel as their most trusted news source. And meteorologists remain among the most trusted sources regarding global heating in communities nationwide, even though trust in the media generally continues to plummet. To be sure, weathercasters haven’t been completely unscathed by today’s hyper-fragmented, ultra-polarized media landscape; they, along with Fema workers, have had to endure harassment and death threats directly tied to inflammatory disinformation. But such encounters, while serious, remain exceptional. Local meteorologists are still the most effective and credible mass communicators we have – better positioned than almost anyone to persuade on climate, if armed with the right message. Enter Climate Central, a nonprofit which creates weekly climate content for meteorologists and weather reporters tailored to their specific communities. The organization empowers local journalists to make climate change personal, equipping partners in 95% of American media markets with the science, big data and targeted graphics they need to help audiences understand what’s happening in their own backyards – and, critically, what can be done about it. Covering Climate Now has taken this approach globally. Co-founded by the Nation, the Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review, CCN provides local journalists worldwide with climate reporting resources, from training to targeted investigations of issues like extreme drought or big oil. The journalists they support have a collective audience of 2 billion people in 60 countries. But the basic strategy remains the same no matter the continent, as described in a recent column in the Nation by CCN co-founder Mark Hertsgaard: “Weathercasters talk their viewers through scary times by calmly providing practical, life-saving information.” If you want proof of its efficacy, look no further than John Morales, a longtime CCN colleague. These efforts bring the media closer to treating climate change like it does every other issue, providing macro context for micro events in the simplest terms possible. The Dow Jones industrial average offers readers a digestible daily snapshot of the American stock market. Its ticker tape runs endlessly on CNBC and in Times Square. Why not cover extreme weather with the same unswerving attention? At the very least, why not dedicate 30 seconds of every evening newscast to the latest movement on the US climate extremes index? If we want to curb climate change’s effect on our planet, it might just start with weather reporters bringing the issue down to earth. Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has contributed to the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/extreme-weather', 'us-news/hurricane-helene', 'us-news/hurricane-milton', 'type/article', 'profile/katrinavandenheuvel', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-22T10:00:14Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/jun/16/roger-payne-60-years-discovery-of-whale-song-their-haunting-sounds-reveal-new-secrets | Almost 60 years after the discovery of whale song, their haunting sounds reveal new secrets | The idea that whales “sing”, commonly accepted today, is relatively recent. Until the late 1960s it was thought that whale noises were nothing more than expressive sounds or calls. But in 1967, a discovery by the marine biologist Roger Payne, who died last Saturday, changed our understanding – ushering in a new way of looking at the world’s largest mammals. As the young Payne listened on repeat for days to recordings made of humpback sounds captured underwater off the coast of Bermuda, he noticed the calls were organised in repeating patterns. Speaking to Guardian Seascape in 2020, he described it as his “wow” moment, spurring on the discovery – made alongside other researchers – that all whale species “sing” in some rhythmic form, even in the “clicks” of toothed whales, such as sperm whales. Some whales even use the sonata form, common to human music: a theme, followed by a variation, then a return to the theme. The zoologist Katy Payne – Roger’s collaborator (and former wife) – would go on to prove that whales use what can be described as rhyme, a technique whales seem to use to remember long and complex sections of repeating patterns, topped and tailed with “end phrases”. Katy Payne showed humpback whales in a given area sing different versions of the same song – essentially a “hit” – that changes slightly throughout the course of the season. Indeed, it was the humpback – toothless baleen whales, with fleshy, concertina-like jaws – that quickly stood out as the most prolific cetacean singer, creating songs that are also emotionally affecting to human beings. Why whales sing is still not comprehensively clear, but Roger Payne soon observed differences between their songs and their other social sounds: for example, between the “almost whispering” tone of mothers communicating to calves, and the long, loud broadcasts of males seeking a mate. It is primarily males that sing songs, though there are some recordings of females singing, too. The role of whale song in mating is still not fully understood. In 2020 Stanford University researchers found that blue whales sing at different times of day and night as their migration behaviour changes – though, again, precisely why is unclear. What is known is that, given the distances whales travel in deep ocean, the volume and “broadcast” quality of song is key. Roger Payne’s assertion, early in his career, that a blue whale, in deep ocean free from human noise pollution, could transmit a song that might be heard by another whale as far as 13,000 miles away, was so controversial among biologists that he described the reaction as almost “career-ending”. Another theory of his was that music might predate human life, given that whales predate humans in evolutionary terms. In his later years, Payne became interested in how technology might help to decipher a vocabulary of “whale speak”, if enough samples could be gathered – though he stopped short of using the term “language” as it was too open to being misconstrued. | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/whales', 'environment/cetaceans', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-06-16T05:00:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
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