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culture/charlottehigginsblog/2011/apr/15/polar-museum-cambridge | Cold comfort: the Polar Museum, Cambridge | The Polar Museum must be the smallest that we have visited as judges of the Art Fund museums prize. The lovely 1930s facade of the building in Cambridge conceals a museum barely two rooms big – but it is a part of the much larger Scott Polar Research Institute, which researches (inter alia) the history of polar exploration and climate change. Here also is the largest library in the world devoted to polar studies, and a mighty archive that contains papers relating to nearly all the important expeditions, including ships' logs, letters and diaries. I looked through a book of miscellaneous papers relating to the voyage of the Discovery, Scott's expedition of 1901-4, and read a copy of the Daily Blizzard, the ship's "newspaper", complete with humorous drawings and fabulously awful doggerel verse. The museum itself – which is longlisted for the Art Fund prize for its £1.75m renovation and redevelopment – tells the story of the attempts to conquer the poles by explorers from William Edwards Parry (1790-1855) who sailed forth three times in search of the north-west passage, to Wally Herbert, who was the first to walk to the north pole as late as 1969, just as a man stepped on the moon for the first time. Along the way there is John Franklin, whose 1819 expedition returned, half-starved, short of nine of its 20 crew amid rumours of cannibalism; and whose 1845 expedition never returned at all (though Franklin's monogrammed silver cutlery was eventually recovered – these early explorers certainly travelled in style). Then there is the "golden age" of Antarctic exploration, including Scott's expeditions. It was fascinating to see glimpses of the sheer boredom that must have been a necessary accompaniment to overwintering in the frozen south: the explorers brought with them equipment for illustrated lectures; created performances; had celebratory meals. (It was also fascinating to see early product placement in Herbert Ponting's photographs documenting the trips: boxes marked Colman's are prominently displayed piled up on the ice, acknowledging the mustard manufacturers, one of the trip's sponsors.) It's not often that one feels a tear brimming in a museum, but the final letters from Scott and his companions, as death approached, are absolutely heartbreaking. Here is Scott writing to the wife of Edward Wilson – one of the last three who remained on that fatal walk from the Pole in 1912. My dear Mrs Wilson, If this reaches you Bill and I have gone out together – we are very near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end – everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself to others, never a word of blame to me for landing him into this mess. Reading these pencilled words, written in Scott's clear hand into pages of his journal, is quite an experience. It is in telling the profoundly human stories of these often doomed quests that the small but richly evocative Polar Museum excels. | ['culture/charlottehigginsblog', 'artanddesign/series/museums-prize-diary', 'culture/museums', 'culture/culture', 'environment/poles', 'world/antarctica', 'world/arctic', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'artanddesign/jeremy-deller', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/charlottehiggins', 'profile/jeremy-deller'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-04-15T14:20:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2014/jul/18/australias-carbon-tax-betrayal-is-a-blow-but-theres-good-news-buried-there-too | Australia’s carbon tax betrayal is a blow, but there's good news buried there too | Dan Cass | Australia is earning global scorn this week, as the first nation to dismantle a well-functioning national policy for reducing greenhouse emissions. While this is a major step backward, and many Australians will consider it reckless, I believe that there is hope for the future, if we focus our efforts on renewable energy, rather than a price on carbon. Our Clean Energy Future package was the best carbon price scheme in the world. It included $13bn for clean energy plus independent, non-partisan processes for measuring progress, setting targets and evaluating the potential of renewable energy. Political journalists have rightly condemned the government for demolishing our climate policy. Bernard Keane at Crikey writes "It’s an attack ... on the future and on the young." He says it makes Australia "an international greenhouse vandal." Lenore Taylor at the Guardian Australia is equally scathing. But she also challenges us to rethink our strategy. She says “those concerned about climate change” now “need to regroup”. Taylor is right. She and I were at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the UN climate convention was created – and we have both followed the debate closely since then. At the time, the best scientific advice said humanity had to immediately cut emissions by 60%. What actually happened? We increased emissions by 40%. The old strategy of negotiating for a global agreement, around a price on carbon, has clearly failed. There are three main reasons why the carbon price negotiation strategy failed. The first reason is that the global climate negotiation process was powerless. It required a voluntary consensus of nations in order to cut pollution. There is simply not enough good will in the family of nations for that to be possible. Nations were allowed to sprint ahead of the pack on their own. Germany invested massively in solar, which brought down its price so solar is now competitive against fossil fuels. But leaders such as Germany were penalised by trade law, which prevented them from protecting their innovative, low carbon industries against cheaper imports from high-pollution countries. On one hand, international law rewarded polluters with a race to the bottom in the climate negotiations and on the other hand, it punished nations who invested in innovation. The second problem is that public opinion and conservative political parties, especially in the English-speaking world, turned significantly against climate science. Polluters, especially in the US, and Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire waged a war against climate action: promoting junk science, slandering climate scientists, vilifying renewable energy and rewarding climate denier politicians, such as Tony Abbott. The third problem is that global business became more powerful than national democracies. There is more power in the hands of global corporations than in democratically elected parliaments. Business-as-usual shaped politics, which determined policy. As ABC TV’s Four Corners programme said recently, "coal has defined Australia’s political economy". The good news in this dire scenario is that leaders such as Germany have made solar and other clean technology cheap enough to beat fossil fuels on price. This completely changes our strategic scenario. That fact needs to be fully appreciated by climate campaigners and political parties. The next, related piece of strategically good news is that renewables are naturally popular. Polls around the world show that solar especially, but also wind and other clean technology, enjoys a super-majority (70%+) of support. Public campaigns for climate action and most political party agendas have focused on a carbon price, which remains unpopular and difficult to communicate. They have largely ignored renewables, which enjoy a high level of public affection and are easy to promote. Carbon markets are only understood by a tiny, political elite and thus continue to lack the legitimacy of solar or wind energy. Green Banks, such as Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation or the New York Green Bank are a positive development and deserve more emphasis in climate campaigns. They harness the dynamism and power of financial markets, to fund renewable energy. This makes them more effective policies than any plausible carbon price. Once clean energy has displaced a substantial proportion of fossil fuel generation, this economic might will create the political momentum that is required before we can properly tackle emissions from the other areas: mining, manufacturing, agriculture, cement, forestry, aviation and design. The dynamism and realpolitik of clean energy make it a superior public policy to carbon pricing alone. We have a responsibility to turn the tactical failure of carbon pricing into a strategic win for the environment. Renewable energy is the key to changing the political game, so we can save our climate. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/carbon-tax', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/dan-cass'] | environment/carbon-tax | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-07-18T00:32:05Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2016/jun/21/coral-bleaching-event-now-biggest-in-history-and-about-to-get-worse | Coral bleaching event now biggest in history – and about to get worse | The coral bleaching event sweeping the globe and destroying vast tracts of valuable coral reef is now officially the most widespread in recorded history, and is likely to continue for an unprecedented third year, according to the US weather agency. For the coming four months, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration says its forecasts show warm ocean temperatures are expected to cause bleaching in the northern hemisphere, including around Hawaii, Micronesia, the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico. “All northern hemisphere US-coral reefs are on alert for coral bleaching this year,” said Mark Eakin, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at Noaa. “If we see bleaching in Florida or Hawaii this year it will be three years in a row.” Coral in every major reef region has already experienced severe bleaching. About 93% of the reefs on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have been affected, and almost a quarter of the reef on the 2,300km stretch is now dead. Hawaii and the Florida Keys, which will probably be hit by bleaching in the coming months, have been affected twice already, in mid-2014 and mid-2015. Reefs in the Indian Ocean around the Maldives and Western Australia have suffered severe bleaching, as have those in the rest of the Pacific, the Red Sea and the Caribbean. Although the bleaching event was already the longest in recorded history and was predicted to run past the middle of the year, Noaa’s latest climate model-based forecasts now suggest it will run at least through to the end of 2016. Coral bleaches when water temperatures are a couple of degrees above the normal summer maximum for longer than about two weeks. Climate change has caused global sea surface temperatures to rise by about 1C over the past century, pushing corals closer to their bleaching threshold. A strong El Niño, as well as other weather phenomena, raised the temperature further this year. “It’s time to shift this conversation to what we can and are doing to conserve these amazing organisms in the face of this unprecedented global bleaching event,” said the director of Noaa’s coral reef conservation program, Jennifer Koss. Coral reefs can often recover from bleaching when there is enough time between bleaching events, provided there aren’t too many other stressors, such as overfishing and water pollution. Relieving the local stressors was important, but not enough, Koss said. “Globally, we need to better understand what actions we all can take to combat the effects of climate change.” Noaa tracks the water temperature from satellite data and uses that to estimate the probable bleaching it will cause. Eakin said the information was then given to scientists and managers on the ground. “The biggest bleaching threat over the next six months is to the reefs in two US freely associated states: Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia,” he said. “Islanders there are very dependent on their coral reefs and diving tourism is a major contributor to their economies. This event may have major ecological and economic impacts on those islands.” He added: “It is crucial that scientists and the public continue in-water monitoring to track the actual extent and severity of the bleaching it causes.” | ['environment/coral', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'us-news/hawaii', 'world/micronesia', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/oceans', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-06-20T21:01:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2006/dec/26/tsunami2004 | Asia remembers tsunami victims | Thousands of people lit candles and observed two minutes' silence today to mark the second anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami which devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people. At a mosque in Ulee Lheue, Aceh, the Indonesian province hit hardest by the disaster, the imam Usman Dodi told worshippers the tsunami was a religious warning. "Please forgive the people who have left us for their wrongdoing," the imam prayed, returning to a theme taken up by some religious leaders after the disaster that killed or left missing 169,000 people in northern Sumatra. Half a million were made homeless. The seaside mosque in Ulee Lheue was the only building left standing after a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the tip of northern Sumatra caused gigantic waves that hit the coastlines of a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. At a mass grave in the Ulee Lheue area, one of many such sites in Aceh where the scope of the disaster made individual burials impractical, Muria Yahya, 68, who lost two children and five grandchildren, prayed. "I pray for my family, that they will be given the right place in the hereafter," Yahya told Reuters as she stood at the grave, where grass now covers the bare earth that was exposed by the tsunami. In contrast to Aceh, where the disaster led to a landmark peace settlement of a three-decade insurgency, commemorations in rebel-held areas of Sri Lanka were muted. A resurgence in Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war has forced thousands of Tamils, including tsunami survivors, to flee homes and camps for the second time in two years. "There isn't much to show for by way of reconstruction. There isn't much to commemorate when you have barely moved an inch," said a western aid official involved in the tsunami relief operation. "The tsunami could have been a turning point in the conflict, if both parties had agreed on an aid-sharing pact. Instead, it has now become another point of division." Church and temple bells rang across much of Sri Lanka's south, where reconstruction is almost complete. Like other tsunami-hit areas, Sri Lankans observed two minutes' silence and lit candles. Some 35,000 people died in Sri Lanka. The country also marked the anniversary of the tsunami by inaugurating the first of 100 coastal warning towers, in the southern town of Hikkaduwa, a centre of the country's beach tourism industry. In Khao Lak, the southern coastal resort where most of Thailand's 5,395 victims died, students and foreigners gathered near a police patrol boat swept ashore two years ago to remember loved ones. A huge relief effort followed the devastation of the 2004 tsunami. The charity Christian Aid, for example, has so far built more than 20,000 permanent homes and helped more than 185,000 people return to work. The agency helped 290,000 people this year and has spent more than £29m in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka on water, food, medicines, housing and training. Another £13m will be spent by the end of 2007. | ['world/world', 'world/tsunami2004', 'type/article'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2006-12-26T12:20:33Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2012/jun/27/arctic-sea-ice-melt-rate | Arctic sea-ice levels at record low for June | Sea ice in the Arctic has melted faster this year than ever recorded before, according to the US government's National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC). Satellite observations show the extent of the floating ice that melts and refreezes every year was 318,000 square miles less last week than the same day period in 2007, the year of record low extent, and the lowest observed at this time of year since records began in 1979. Separate observations by University of Washington researchers suggest that the volume of Arctic sea ice is also the smallest ever calculated for this time of year. Scientists cautioned that it is still early in the "melt season", but said that the latest observations suggest that the Arctic sea ice cover is continuing to shrink and thin and the pattern of record annual melts seen since 2000 is now well established. Last year saw the second greatest sea ice melt on record, 36% below the average minimum from 1979-2000. "Recent ice loss rates have been 100,000 to 150,000 square kilometres (38,600 to 57,900 square miles) per day, which is more than double the climatological rate. While the extent is at a record low for the date, it is still early in the melt season. Changing weather patterns throughout the summer will affect the exact trajectory of the sea ice extent through the rest of the melt season," said a spokesman for the NSIDC. The increased melting is believed to be a result of climate change. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Shipping companies said they would be able to send more ships to China and Japan through the previously impassable waters north of Russia if the ice continued to melt so fast. The "northern sea route", which normally requires ice breakers, cuts about 4,000 nautical miles off a journey from Europe to China and can save tens of thousands of pounds in fuel bills. "This year we expect to send six to eight vessels through the north-east passage, compared to none just a few years ago. There are advantages but there are extra costs and it needs special ships," said a spokesman for Copenhagen-based Nordic Bulk Carriers, the first company to use the northern sea route in 2010. More open water during the summer is expected to help Russian, US and European oil companies to move into the Arctic. This week Norway announced plans to issue oil and gas exploration permits for up to 86 offshore tracts, most of them in Arctic waters, by the end of 2013. Russian companies have already drilled exploratory wells and Shell is preparing to sink two exploration wells in US Arctic Ocean waters – one between Alaska and Siberia and north of the Bering Strait, the other in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. The record speed of ice melt in the Arctic this year coincides, but is not necessarily linked to heatwaves in Siberia, record temperatures in eastern US and some of the most extreme weather ever recorded in the UK and northern Europe. The link between melting Arctic ice and extreme weather in the northern hemisphere is not established, but the UK Met Office and recent scientific reports have suggested that declining sea ice is linked to colder winters. Marine biologists this month said that the warming Arctic could be having major ecological effects. Scientists funded by Nasa working 100km from the nearest unfrozen waters reported in the journal Science that they had last year unexpectedly found vast concentrations of microscopic phytoplankton – the foundation of the marine food chain – under the ice, which they described as like finding a rainforest in the desert. Until now, they had believed phytoplankton grew only in open water. The massive sub-glacial "algal bloom", they said, could be a sign that as the that the ice may now be thin enough to allow sunlight to catalyse algal blooms without it melting completely. "We were astonished. It was completely unexpected. It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I have ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research," said Prof Kevin Arrigo, a scientist at Stanford University in California. The findings, if confirmed, could affect the global carbon cycle because phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. | ['environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'world/arctic', 'world/world', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/news', 'environment/sea-ice', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-06-27T15:58:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2018/jul/08/plastic-packaging-pictures-send-us-your-best-worst-examples | Plastic packaging pictures – send us your best worst examples | Australia’s oceans, beaches and nature reserves are drowning in plastic pollution and excessive packaging is one of the culprits. While reducing our plastic consumption and recycling the waste will help, it won’t solve the problem. Corporations must take responsibility for the problem they are creating. So this weekend we want to invite readers to snap and send us pictures of excessive plastic packaging. Apples in tubes, bananas in bags, and plastic in plastic in plastic. Send it through and we’ll publish the worst examples next week. See the images readers have contributed so far. You can share your pictures, videos and stories by clicking on the “Contribute” button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for “GuardianWitness assignments”. GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others. Posts will be reviewed before publication on GuardianWitness, and the best pieces will feature on the Guardian site. | ['environment/series/our-wide-brown-land', 'environment/environment', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'type/article', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-features'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-07-08T00:08:14Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
money/2013/sep/28/solar-investment-high-dividend-yields | Investing: does solar offer a bright future … or burned fingers? | A major new fund is promising to pay a yearly dividend of 6%, tax-free if held in an Isa, from investing in eight of the biggest solar power farms across the UK. The days may be shortening after this year's long hot summer, but in the City of London interest in solar power has never been brighter. In the latest of a string of stock market funds investing in Britain's renewable power industry, asset manager Foresight is launching a £200m fund that says it will benefit from government subsidies and falling technology equipment costs. Foresight says solar power offers more predictable returns than wind farms, and will be buying the UK's largest solar park, built on a disused airfield at Wymeswold in Leicestershire. Others are in an earlier stage of development, but the plan is to have a total of eight farms, with a generating capacity of 146MW, or enough to power nearly 50,000 households. Around 40% of the revenue for the fund will come from the electricity produced by the solar panels and sold into the national grid, while the other 60% will come from payments linked to "Renewable Obligations Certificates" – green certificates used by electricity suppliers to demonstrate they have met their obligations to generate power from renewable resources. Britain's power companies have to meet a target of generating 15% of energy from renewable sources by 2020, and buy ROCs to meet that obligation. The price of the ROCs is fixed by the government and guaranteed for the next 20 years, rising in line with inflation. Earlier this year Bluefield Partners attracted £130m into its Solar Income Fund, while Renewables Infrastructure Group raised £300m for wind and solar farms. One of the changes that has spurred the sector has been the government decision to lift the cap on the size of projects eligible for subsidies via the feed-in tariff. The arrival in recent years of low-cost solar panels from China has also helped make Photovoltaic technology more competitive. The Foresight fund will float on the London Stock Exchange at 100p a share, and is targeting an initial dividend of 6p a share, which it then hopes to raise each year in line with the retail price index. Small investors can put as little as £1,000 into the fund, and can place their investment in a tax-free stock and shares Isa (maximum £11,520 in 2013-14) or a self-invested personal pension (SIPP). The dividend forecast is slightly lower than the Bluefield fund, which is targeting an initial 7p dividend per share. But there are clouds on the horizon, in the form of growing opposition to coating swaths of the British countryside in panels. A planning application for a £20m solar farm on a 38-hectare (94-acre) site in Tattingstone, Suffolk, was turned down in June , following a high-profile campaign by local opponents including the actor and comedian Griff Rhys Jones. There has been particular unease about new projects in Cornwall and the rest of the south-west. In August, Somerset MP and foreign minister Jeremy Browne described large-scale solar farms as a "monstrous desecration" of the countryside after plans for a 20-hectare site near Taunton were unveiled. But promoters of the funds say investors are protected because they are only buying existing schemes, or those that already have planning consent. In Spain, solar investors were burned after the government withdrew generous subsidies, and in Britain, financial advisers warn that investing in solar remains a risky prospect. Brian Dennehy of Dennehy Weller says: "The solar industry has been through some big ups and downs over the years. The current flurry of offers is based on subsidies, improving margins, and better results from R&D. Don't bet the house on this one, there are a lot of variables which can quickly undermine the improving outlook. Hopefully widows and orphans won't be sucked in by the headline dividend promise. It is this high to reflect the high risks." Justin Modray of Candid Money is also concerned about the withdrawal of subsidies. "The idea is certainly appealing, but it's important not to ignore the potential risks. Opposition to solar parks is growing as they blight the landscape, which may hinder development. Nevertheless, provided Foresight can get its fund up and running by investing in existing developments, this should prove less of an issue. Changing weather patterns could affect production for better or worse and overall energy demand and supply will obviously affect returns. Since this is also a relatively new investment area, longer term returns and management expertise are, as yet, unproven. Plus, of course, the government may decide to reduce the attractiveness of renewable energy incentives." Foresight is not a name familiar to small investors, but it does have experience of running specialist investment funds, albeit with mixed success to date. The company launched a venture capital trust investing in solar energy in August 2010 at 100p per share, aiming to pay 5p of dividends a year after two years. "So far it appears to meeting its goal, although the share price of around 103p is trading well below the net value of the fund's underlying assets of around 124p," says Modray. But at advisers BestInvest, Jason Hollands likes the Foresight fund –)) and recommends the Bluefield fund as well. "From an investment perspective, what underpins the attractions of these vehicles is that they offer investors high dividend yields which typically have policies to rise in line with inflation and a proportion of their revenues are de facto guaranteed by subsidies. "These should be seen as income investments which offer a high degree of predictability and some inflation proofing. Foresight is a well-respected venture capital house, which has established a strong presence in renewables. We feel this is an attractive launch." | ['money/investmentfunds', 'money/moneyinvestments', 'money/money', 'business/investing', 'business/financial-sector', 'business/business', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickcollinson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/money', 'theguardian/money/money'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2013-09-28T06:00:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/oct/26/scottish-whale-watchers-photos-used-to-gain-insights-into-animals-habits | Scottish whale watchers’ photos used to gain insights into animals’ habits | Snowy is the oldest known minke whale in Europe, while Knobble appears to adore attention – or, at least, the whale has been spotted more than 60 times since 2002, mostly close to the Isle of Mull. Photographic records of minke whales submitted by members of the public are being published in a digital catalogue, providing insights about the threatened species. The research, collated by the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, reveals that more than 300 individual minke whales have been identified in the Hebrides since 1990. A third (33%) have been seen more than once. “Photographs are a powerful tool for strengthening our understanding of whale movements and the threats they face – providing vital evidence for effective conservation,” said Dr Lauren Hartny-Mills, science and conservation manager for the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. Scotland’s west coast seas are an important area for minke whales, which migrate to feed in their rich waters each summer. Thousands of photographs each year are shared with the trust by the public and wildlife-watching crews through a community sightings website and the free Whale Track app. Photographs are also collected by volunteers during the trust’s research expeditions on its research yacht Silurian. Researchers then use the images to look for specific markings or features to identify and catalogue individual whales, dolphins, porpoises and basking sharks seen in the region. The new catalogue reveals that Snowy the minke whale has visited the Hebridean waters over a 27-year period – the longest known history of sightings for this species in Europe. Record-breaking Knobble – named after a distinctive small bump on its dorsal fin – has become a local celebrity, starring in a children’s book, a Facebook page and in a song on YouTube. But Knobble’s sex, or where the mammal goes in winter, are still unknown. Photos can shed more light on the seasonal feeding habits of the whales – and the pressures they face in increasingly anthropogenic seas. The catalogue shows scars and injuries on 22% of the photographed minke whales, suggesting that individuals have at some point been entangled in marine litter and fishing gear, which can cause mobility problems, injury and death. The minke whales seen in Scottish waters are also believed to be the same population that is hunted in more northerly waters by commercial whalers from Iceland and Norway. The trust is asking for members of the public to submit their photos – whether recent or historic – to help its scientists learn more about the whales’ movements, health and the threats they face. Andy Tait, a wildlife guide for Sea Life Mull, has submitted thousands of images over the past 30 years. “I get great pleasure in sending in my photos to the trust, knowing every photograph I send makes a real difference to our understanding of amazing whales like Snowy and Knobble,” he said. “By using the new online catalogue, anyone can match their sightings with known individual whales. They might even discover a new whale that can be added to the catalogue, which is really exciting. This is citizen science in action, and the great thing is that anyone can get involved.” | ['environment/whales', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrickbarkham', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-10-26T05:00:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2017/sep/10/hurricane-irma-harvey-climate-change-trump | Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door | As the US comes to terms with its second major weather disaster within a month, an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change. The president’s luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida may escape Irma’s wrath, but with the deaths of so many Americans, and billions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses, the costs of climate change denial are beginning to pile up at the door of the White House. Just days before Harvey formed in the Atlantic last month, Trump signed an executive order to overturn a policy, introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama, to help American communities and businesses become more resilient against the risks of flooding, which are rising because of climate change. But the merciless assault on the US mainland by Harvey and Irma should be forcing the president to recognise the consequences of his arrogance and complacency in dismissing the research and analysis carried out by scientists. The flooded streets of Houston and the wind-ravaged homes of south Florida bear the unmistakable fingerprint of extreme weather made worse by manmade greenhouse gas emissions. A hurricane is a huge, rotating cluster of thunderstorms that forms above a sea surface that has a temperature of at least 26.5C. It is like a giant engine, transferring heat from the sea surface up into the atmosphere and generating strong winds and heavy rain in the process. The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs from 1 June until 30 November, and typically produces 12 tropical storms, of which six reach hurricane strength – with sustained wind speeds of more than 73mph. There have been 11 storms so far this year, including six hurricanes. In early August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration raised its prediction for the season to “above normal”, suggesting that the final tally could be up to 19 storms, with nine of them hurricanes. But this season has already been remarkable in one respect because two major hurricanes, with sustained winds of more than 110mph, have hit the US mainland, after a period of 12 years when none of the strongest storms made American landfall. Hurricane Irma has also set records for being the strongest hurricane to have occurred in the open Atlantic, and for having sustained wind speeds of at least 185mph over the longest period. Climate change cannot be blamed for the hurricane count in any single season, nor for the occurrence of any single storm, but there are three ways in which it is making the consequences worse. First, although the intensity of a hurricane depends on many factors, warmer seawater tends to promote stronger storms. Average sea surface temperatures have been rising, and some parts of the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are warmer than average at the moment, which is a key reason why both Harvey and Irma became so strong so quickly. Second, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which can result in heavier rainfall. That is true not only for hurricanes but also for weaker storms across the world. Even relatively mild tropical storms can cause great damage by dropping huge volumes of rain over one area. Third, apart from strong winds and heavy rainfall, hurricanes cause damage through storm surges as their winds push seawater ahead of them. Storm surges can inundate extensive low-lying coastal areas, sweeping away everything in their path. Sea levels have been gradually rising globally, making storm surges bigger and deadlier. Scientists are still not sure about the other ways in which climate change may be impacting hurricanes. The main reason Harvey created such extreme flooding around Houston was that it stalled over the city and dumped rain for several days without moving on. We do not know if climate change played a role in creating the atmospheric conditions that made that happen. Nor can we yet predict whether climate change will affect the number of hurricanes that occur every year. Some studies have suggested that while numbers will drop, strengths will increase. Also uncertain is how natural climate variability affects hurricanes. Numbers have increased markedly in the North Atlantic since the 1990s, but this seems to be due, at least partly, to large-scale changes in ocean circulation that occur over many years or decades. However, it is clear that the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans will be at risk if Trump and his administration continue to deny the existence of climate change and its impact on the threat posed by hurricanes. Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science | ['world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'science/science', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/analysis', 'type/article', 'profile/bob-ward', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | world/hurricane-irma | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-09T23:05:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2019/may/14/mismanaged-waste-kills-up-to-a-million-people-a-year-globally | Mismanaged waste 'kills up to a million people a year globally' | Mismanaged waste is causing hundreds of thousands of people to die each year in the developing world from easily preventable causes, and plastic waste is adding a new and dangerous dimension to the problem, a report has found. Municipal waste frequently goes uncollected in poorer countries and its buildup fuels the spread of disease. Between 400,000 and 1 million people are dying as a result of such mismanaged waste, according to the charity Tearfund. While mismanaged waste has been a problem for decades, the growth of plastic pollution, , which does not break down in the environment, is adding a fresh set of problems to an already dire situation. Plastic waste is blocking waterways and causing flooding, which in turn spreads waterborne diseases. When people burn the waste to get rid of it, it releases harmful toxins and causes air pollution. Every second, a double-decker busload of plastic waste is burned or dumped in developing countries, the report found. When some plastics deteriorate, they can leach harmful chemicals into the environment and break down into microplastics, with effects that are still poorly understood and largely undocumented in poorer countries. Sir David Attenborough, whose Blue Planet II series drew global attention to the problem of plastic waste, called for urgent action from the companies responsible for producing plastic that then turns into waste, and for support to help countries struggling against the tide of pollution. “It’s high time we turned our attention fully to one of the most pressing problems of today – averting the plastic pollution crisis – not only for the health of our planet, but for the wellbeing of people around the world,” he said. “This report is one of the first to highlight the impacts of plastic pollution not just on wildlife but also on the world’s poorest people.” Among the other harmful impacts of plastic pollution in poorer countries are the loss of fishing, as marine animals ingest the plastic; damage to agriculture, as up to a third of cattle and half of goats in developing countries have consumed significant amounts of plastic, harming their health as it leads to potentially fatal bloating; and large amounts of plastic waste washing up on shorelines and coral reefs deterring tourists, on whom many poorer countries rely. While most attention has focused on the effects of marine plastic pollution in the natural world, its effects on people are equally problematic. About 8m tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the seas each year, according to the UN, and there are few ways of retrieving it. Last week countries around the world – but without the US – signed up through a UN to a plan to reduce the flow of plastic waste to developing countries. Although there have been signs of some companies making attempts to tackle the problem, these have been described by campaigners as a drop in the ocean. “We need leadership from those who are responsible for introducing plastic to countries where it cannot be adequately managed, and we need international action to support the communities and governments most acutely affected by this crisis,” said Attenborough, who is a vice-president of the conservation charity Fauna & Flora International, which collaborated on the report. At least 2 billion people around the world do not have their rubbish collected, and piles of it can build up in waterways, causing pollution, or rot in areas near where people live. Living near rubbish doubles the risk of contracting diarrhoea, the report found, which is a major cause of death in the developing world. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world make a living from collecting waste, in some cases by collecting cans or bottles that can be recycled or returned, or, more dangerously, as “waste pickers” who live on rubbish dumps and scavenge what they can. This is hazardous work, not only because of the pollution to which people are exposed but also because of the risk of physical injury, not least because poorly managed dumps are often affected by landslides and even explosions from the buildup of gases. Ruth Valerio, the global advocacy and influencing director of Tearfund, said the organisation was calling on four multinationals that produce huge amounts of plastic packaging – Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever – to take responsibility for their products throughout the supply chain, and provide ways for the waste to be managed. | ['environment/plastic', 'type/article', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'world/world', 'inequality/inequality', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-05-13T23:01:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/aug/28/mitsubishi-invests-in-uk-company-to-bring-off-grid-solar-to-asia | Mitsubishi invests in UK company to bring off-grid solar to Asia | A British energy firm lighting up homes in Africa with pay-as-you-go solar power has secured £40m to extend its reach to Asia with the help of Japan’s Mitsubishi. The conglomerate has taken a stake in off-grid solar company BBOXX through the start-up’s latest funding round, which will power the Africa-focused company deeper into Asia. The funds will also help BBOXX, which operates in Rwanda, Kenya, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to break into new African markets, where an estimated one in three people live without reliable access to electricity. BBOXX is one of a growing number of energy companies to plug into the demand for energy across Africa and south Asia. The falling cost of solar technology and the strength of mobile banking across Africa have encouraged major investments from global energy companies including US giant General Electric and France’s EDF and Engie. Mansoor Hamayun, BBOXX’s chief executive and co-founder, said Mitsubishi’s “extensive reach” and “technological expertise” would help the company to supply more people living without access to modern utilities and services. “The funding is further evidence of Japanese interest in Africa and in PAYG [pay as you go] solar energy globally,” he said. BBOXX and its rivals use mobile money to charge customers a monthly fee for the use of mini solar panels and ultra-efficient lighting strips. The fixed-period contracts usually run for about two years, until the equipment is paid off. Customers can then choose to keep their existing kit and use the electricity for free, or upgrade their system to include more panels and extra appliances under a new contract. Earlier this year, BBOXX sold a 50% stake in its Togo-based business to EDF Energy in return for funding to help grow the company. It operates about 270,000 solar systems, of which 200,000 are monitored remotely by software that uses machine learning to track customers’ energy use and payments. In time, BBOXX hopes to broaden its reach beyond energy to include gas, water, internet and loans. The company’s largest rival, Fenix International, supplies 500,000 homes and was snapped up by Engie in late 2017. Hamayun said: “We look forward to this next phase of growth that will help us to transform more lives, unlock potential and grow our already global footprint by opening up new markets, and develop our product range.” The funding round also included Bamboo Capital Partners, a Luxembourg-based impact investor; DOEN Participaties, a Dutch impact investment fund; and Canadian growth equity firm MacKinnon, Bennett & Company. | ['environment/solarpower', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/africa', 'world/south-and-central-asia', 'world/world', 'technology/energy', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2019-08-27T23:00:24Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/mar/06/collagen-linked-brazilian-deforestation | Global craze for collagen linked to Brazilian deforestation | Tens of thousands of cattle raised on farms that are damaging tropical forests in Brazil are being used to produce collagen – the active ingredient in health supplements at the centre of a global wellness craze. The links between beef and soya and deforestation in Brazil are well known, but little attention has been given to the booming collagen industry, worth an estimated $4bn (£3.32bn). Collagen can be extracted from fish, pigs and cattle. Its most evangelical users claim the protein can improve hair, skin, nails and joints, slowing the ageing process. As well as beauty and wellness brands, it is also used by pharmaceutical companies and those producing food ingredients. However, an investigation by the Guardian, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA), ITV and O Joio e O Trigo in Brazil has found cattle raised on farms causing deforestation were processed at abattoirs serving international collagen supply chains. Some of this collagen can be traced to Nestlé-owned Vital Proteins, a leading producer of bovine collagen supplements. Vital Proteins’ collagen range is sold globally, including in the US and UK. Jennifer Aniston, the actor and chief creative officer of Vital Proteins, has called collagen “the glue that holds everything together”. She claims to have been using it for years, adding it to her morning coffee. While there are studies suggesting taking collagen orally can improve joint and skin health, Harvard School of Public Health cautions potential conflicts of interest exist as most if not all of the research is either funded by the industry or carried out by scientists affiliated with it. Collagen companies have no obligation to track its environmental impacts. Unlike beef, soya, palm oil and other food commodities, collagen is also not covered by forthcoming due diligence legislation in the EU and UK designed to tackle deforestation. Nestlé said that the allegations raised are not in line with its commitment to responsible sourcing and that it has contacted its supplier to investigate. It added that it is taking steps to “ensure its products are deforestation-free by 2025”. Bovine collagen is described as a byproduct of the cattle industry, which in Brazil accounts for 80% of all Amazon forest loss. But “byproduct” is a misleading term, according to campaigners. Non-meat products, of which leather and collagen are the most valuable, account for just under half a slaughtered cow’s weight and can generate up to 20% of meatpackers’ incomes, according to the USDA. Demand for beef, leather and collagen has seen more and more forest has been cleared and replaced by pasture in recent years, with land often seized illegally. Most livestock-driven deforestation can be attributed to companies’ indirect suppliers, according to Ricardo Negrini, a federal prosecutor in Brazil’s Pará state who monitors beef processors’ climate commitments. Cattle are often moved from farm to farm for different stages of rearing, so a cow born on deforested land may be fattened for slaughter at a “clean” finishing ranch. But Negrini said that, today, all meat companies have the capacity to track the origins of the cattle they buy. This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforests Investigations Network | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'business/cattles', 'environment/deforestation', 'business/pharmaceuticals-industry', 'business/nestle', 'global-development/global-development', 'fashion/beauty', 'business/business', 'world/brazil', 'environment/environment', 'fashion/skincare', 'lifeandstyle/health-and-wellbeing', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/andrew-wasley', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-06T12:00:26Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2013/sep/20/arctic-sea-ice-decline-melting-summer | Arctic on course for ice-free summer 'within decades', scientists say | The Arctic is on course for an ice-free summer within the next few decades, as scientists on Friday declared that sea ice in the region had fallen to one of the lowest annual minimums on record. On 13 September, the expanse of frozen water in the Arctic fell to 5.10 million square kilometres (1.97 million square miles), the sixth-lowest such measurement on record, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said in a statement. The annual minimum was not as extreme as the collapse of sea ice last year, which smashed through all records. But it was still well below the average of the last three decades. "The overall trend is still decidedly downwards," the NSIDC director, Mark Serreze, said in a statement. "The pattern we've seen so far is an overall downward trend in summer ice extent, punctuated by ups and downs due to natural variability in weather patterns and ocean conditions." He went on: "We could be looking at summers with essentially no sea ice on the Arctic Ocean only a few decades from now." In the run-up to the release next week of the United Nations' blockbuster global warming report, climate doubters have seized on the apparent "recovery" of sea ice, compared to last year's death spiral, as evidence that there is no need for concern about the melting of the Arctic sea ice. But satellite images going back to 1980 and records compiled by scientists using ice cores and tree ring data going back as far as 1870 show a continued and dramatic long-term decline in summer sea ice. The so-called recovery of the sea ice this year does not even begin to reverse that decline, scientists said on Friday. "Last year was so outrageously below the trend line that it was really no surprise that it would not be quite so low this year," said Jennifer Francis, a research scientist at Rutgers University. "Clearly we are on this very definite downward trend." Julienne Stroeve, another NSIDC researcher, noted that this year's low minimum was reached amid cooler temperatures than the last several summers, which helped to slow melting. "We had a pretty cold summer in general for the time period we're looking at and yet the sea-ice cover didn't recover to the extent that we had in the 1970s and 1980s," she said. The annual sea-ice minimum, based on a five-day average, is seen as an important indicator of climate change. Overall, the Arctic has lost 40% of its sea-ice cover since 1980, and 75% of its volume. Most scientists believe the ocean at the north pole could be entirely ice-free in the summer by the middle of the century – if not sooner. "We really are heading towards an ice-free Arctic in the summer," said Andreas Münchow, a scientist at the University of Delaware who studies the Arctic. "It just takes a freak event eventually, in the next five or 10 or even 20 years. The next year there will be a huge Arctic cover, but it is all going to be thin on top, and the long-term trend is that the ice is disappearing in the summer in the Arctic." Jennifer Francis agreed. "People keep asking: 'When are we going to see the last of the summer sea ice? What year? But practically speaking it is not going to take that much more for it to be a seasonal ice, or ice-free in the summer." The loss of sea ice will be a key part of the findings released next week by the UN's climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The melting of the Arctic has wide-reaching effects on the climate system beyond the northern latitudes. The melting of the sea ice and the warming of waters around Greenland could accelerate the melting of that vast ice sheet, adding to sea-level rise. The prospect of an ice-free Arctic in the summer has spurred oil and gas exploration and shipping in the north, which threaten fragile ecosystems, and scientists are also beginning to tie the disappearing ice to extreme weather events in Europe. The ice cover looks likely to continue its rapid decline because of thinning of the ice, which makes it more vulnerable to melting, the scientists said. Observations from the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission, released last week, showed the volume of sea ice in the Arctic falling to a new low last winter. Münchow said: "There is very little thick multi-year ice left covering these great areas. It is really thin, so if you get a little weather the next year, it's all gone." | ['environment/sea-ice', 'world/arctic', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/sea-ice | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-09-20T20:22:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2010/feb/07/climate-change-science-public-trust | Public loses faith in climate change science after leaked emails scandal | The number of Britons who believe the science of climate change has fallen over the last 12 months, according to recent polls. Although the vast majority of people still believe the planet is heating up, there has been an increase in those who believe climate change claims are exaggerated. Public perception could have been influenced by the recent scandal of leaked emails between climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia. The emails, which appeared to encourage data to be kept from Freedom of Information requests, have been seized upon by climate change sceptics – although none of them dispute the science behind the "greenhouse effect" of gases such as carbon dioxide, which traps solar heat and warms the atmosphere. A BBC poll, which surveyed 1,000 people, revealed that 25% of adults did not believe in global warming – a rise of 8% since a similar poll in November – and the percentage of those who thought climate change was a reality fell to 75%. Of those who believed, one in three felt climate change had been exaggerated. Only 26% of people thought climate change was "established as largely manmade". Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said the results were "very disappointing". "The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told the BBC. According to an Ipsos poll of 1,048 people, the proportion of the public who believe in climate change has dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year. It has been claimed most Tory MPs are sceptical about the party's focus on climate change policy. Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website, said at least six shadow cabinet ministers were sceptical about the economic consequences of a low-carbon policy. The polls come as Professor Phil Jones, the director of climate research at the University of East Anglia who is at the centre of the leaked emails scandal, said he had received death threats since the correspondence was published online. He told the Sunday Times: "There were death threats. I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself." Allegations about the accuracy of a 2007 report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – including a claim that global warming could cut north African crop production by 50% by 2020 – could damage public perception further. The claim, used in a speech by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has since been questioned. | ['environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'environment/hacked-climate-science-emails', 'politics/freedomofinformation', 'type/article', 'profile/joadetunji', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-02-07T20:36:23Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2023/mar/28/the-maldives-are-99-water-so-why-can-almost-no-teenagers-swim | The Maldives are 99% water, so why can so few teenagers swim? | Azha Abdul Azeez lives in Malé, the capital of the Maldives archipelago, surrounded by the idyllic Indian Ocean. But she “grew up in the house” and the water that makes up so much of Abdul Azeez’s home – a rich habitat including coral reefs, turtles, manta rays and exotic fish – terrifies her because she never learned to swim. “[My parents] were worried that something might happen to me. I think that’s why they didn’t send me [swimming] when I was little,” she says. It wasn’t until last month that Abdul Azeez, 22, started taking lessons. Her boyfriend inspired her to take the plunge after describing the Maldives’ rich underwater life. “There’s so much more to see in the sea … I want to experience that.” Abdul Azeez is not alone in being unable to swim. The Maldives is 99% water and more than 80% of its 1,190 islands are just one metre above sea level. Yet many young Maldivians, particularly girls, do not know how to swim. The implications of this go far beyond basic life skills; it stops local people connecting with their local habitat, which needs their protection, and blocks women from accessing work in the two main industries: fishing and tourism. Research from 2012 suggested that only 10% of 15- and 16-year-olds living in the Maldives could swim. Women and girls are most affected; girls are three times more likely to feel unconfident swimming in the sea than boys, and 50% more likely to have never snorkelled, according to research among school students by the Ocean Women project. “We are surrounded by water and they [women] cannot enjoy the beauty,” says Aishath Rishma, the president of the Women Development Committee on Fonadho, the capital island of the Laamu atoll. A loss of the traditional lifestyle that’s more connected to the sea is partly to blame, says Flossy Barraud, the principal collaborator at conservation charity Manta Trust and a leader of its Ocean Women project, which aims to empower more females to access the water. “We heard that mothers used to go and wash the pots in the sea after they’d cooked on the fire. That would be when the kids would go down and all swim together, but now they don’t cook in that way so much,” she says. Other social trends contribute to a general lack of swimming skills among Maldivians. Today both parents often work, leaving them with less time to spend in the water with their children, says Aminath Zoona, the founder of Salted Ventures Swimmers, a swimming school in Malé. “Because most parents are too busy to be actively involved in teaching them [children] to swim, they choose not to send them and keep them home.” There are a number of social and cultural reasons why girls are deterred from swimming. “It’s mostly overprotection,” says Zoona, who is also the co-leader of the Ocean Women programme. But social stereotypes are also a factor. On some islands, girls who swim are considered tomboys, “and that’s not seen as a positive thing”, says Barraud. “It’s tying back to that belief – that’s stronger in some places than others – that girls should be home more, not outside hanging around like boys do.” Some families may also “tell their daughters not to go in the sea because they’ll be in the sun and their skin will get darker”, Barraud says. On island nations, being able to swim is a life skill. In 2019, there were 3.2 drowning deaths per 100,000 people in the Maldives. The lack of swimming skills also cuts off women from employment opportunities in a country where fishing and tourism are top employers. “People here think it [swimming] is more of a manly thing,” says Abdul Azeez. “If you look into swimming, things like snorkelling, diving … you see very few women in the industry.” Instead, women tend to work in the informal sector. There are also consequences for conservation work. A lot of marine conservation organisations struggle to find Maldivian staff, Barraud says, yet local people should be at the forefront of protecting biodiversity. “If you don’t know what’s in the ocean, if you don’t know what’s actually forming the foundation of your entire existence in the Maldives, why would you want to protect it?” says Sabra Ibrahim Noordeen, the special envoy for climate change at the President’s Office of the Maldives. Attitudes are changing, says Noordeen, and people are starting to see that women don’t have to be limited to caregiving roles. Today’s parents are increasingly sending their children to swimming lessons, says Abdul Azeez, although Zoona notes that some parents still need to be taught the benefits of learning to swim. More organisations are beginning to focus on swimming skills, too. The Women’s Development Committee on Fonadhoo sponsors local women to take swimming instructor courses, as part of a wider programme to boost female economic empowerment. The Moodhu Bulhaa Dive Centre on Villingili Island is run by the country’s first female Padi-certified course director and emphasises training and hiring women. In October an Ocean Women pilot project will offer swimming instructor training for 10 people from five islands, half of whom must be female. The hope is that they will then teach others in their local community to swim. “Some of those people, obviously not all of them, will want to pursue an environmental career, whether that’s marine conservation or another field, or they’ll go into diving or tour guiding,” says Barraud. Abdul Azeez is also hopeful about women breaking into swimming: “I feel like people should be more open-minded and not be so judgmental about the women in this industry. It’s not something only for men; both genders could equally enjoy it.” | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'world/maldives', 'lifeandstyle/swimming', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'society/women', 'environment/marine-life', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/root-rebecca', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-28T14:41:49Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
science/2022/mar/03/dont-blame-scientists-for-all-the-worlds-ills | Don’t blame scientists for all the world’s ills | Letter | Laurence Kenney (Letters, 1 March) points the finger at “engineers and scientists” for enabling both the climate emergency and armed conflicts across the globe. This is an unhelpful framing of the issue. Science and technology are tools that can be used for both good and bad ends. How we choose to use them is a matter for all of society, not just for scientists. Let’s remember that it was climate science that revealed to us (nearly 40 years ago) that our desire for plentiful energy and transportation based on fossil fuels would lead to catastrophe. And that it is low-carbon technologies that now offer us a pathway out of our climate predicament. More recently, it was biomedical science and technology that rendered Covid-19 less lethal for most of us, and allowed us to re-engage with friends and family. It is true that some scientists and engineers work for fossil fuel corporations and the military-industrial complex, but this accusation can also be levelled at lawyers, accountants and so on. We all need to consider the ends to which our time and our talents are used. Rob Driver Hexham, Northumberland • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['science/science', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2022-03-03T17:04:16Z | true | EMISSIONS |
us-news/2020/jun/25/louisiana-bucket-brigade-arrests-formosa-plastics-protest | US climate activists charged with 'terrorizing' lobbyist over plastic pollution stunt | Environmental activists opposing a plastics manufacturing facility in Louisiana have been booked with a felony for “terrorizing” an oil and gas lobbyist by delivering a box of plastic pellets found as pollution in bays on the Texas coast. Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh, with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, turned themselves into the Baton Rouge police department on Thursday, as first reported by the Times-Picayune. The charges stem from a plastic pollution awareness event in December called “Nurdlefest”, which focused on the impacts of an expansive petrochemical and plastics complex approved to be built by Formosa Plastics in St James Parish. Nurdles are the plastic pellets used to make plastic products. The Guardian has extensively covered the activism in its Cancer Town series from Reserve, Louisiana. The offenses are punishable with up to 15 years in prison. The advocates’ lawyer, Pam Spees, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the charges have no merit and seem to be meant to discourage protesters. The complaint against the two activists alleges they intended to cause fear in dropping off a package at the residence of an unnamed oil and gas lobbyist, Spees said. The file folder contained plastic pellets and information about the harm they inflict on the environment and human health. Spees said the activists also included a warning that the small plastic pellets could be a choking hazard for children. The Baton Rouge police department spokesman Don Coppola said “a note was observed on the top of the package indicating not to open the container as the contents could be hazardous”, and police requested Hazmat officials to be contacted. Spees argued the package was “obviously not intended to scare – it was intended to raise awareness and also show very tangible evidence, in the literal sense of the word, because it was evidence in Texas of the company’s track record”. Formosa has agreed to pay $50m to settle a lawsuit for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act by discharging plastic pellets into bays from its plant in Point Comfort, Texas. A spokesperson for the Formosa project, Janile Parks, said it was “unaware that this action was going to be taken by the Baton Rouge police department and had only heard second hand that deliveries of plastic pellets were made to several personal residences in the Baton Rouge area some months ago”. Sharon Lavigne, who cofounded the local group Rise St James to oppose the plant, said police also threatened her with arrest when she visited a Formosa property to lay flowers on grounds where slaves are likely buried. “They want to silence us, but it’s not going to happen,” Lavigne said. | ['us-news/series/cancer-town', 'us-news/louisiana', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/emily-holden', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-06-25T19:08:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/feb/27/pollution-map-reveals-unsafe-air-quality-at-almost-2000-uk-sites | Pollution map reveals unsafe air quality at almost 2,000 UK sites | Almost 2,000 locations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland have levels of air pollution that exceed safety limits, according to a pollution map released by campaigners. In 2017, the worst location for nitrogen dioxide pollution was Kensington and Chelsea, followed by Leeds and Doncaster. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is one of the most harmful pollutant gases, irritating the lungs and potentially causing breathing difficulties. Road traffic is a leading source. On Tuesday the mayor of London issued a high pollution alert for the capital as people across the UK basked in the unseasonably warm February weather. It was the first alert since last July, towards the end of a long heatwave and dry spell. Traffic and other emissions from local sources were mainly to blame for this week’s dirty air, with only light winds to disperse them and air from the continent bringing further pollutants. In April the first ultra-low emission zone will come into force in central London. The scheme is expected to cut harmful emissions by as much as 45%, according to the mayor’s office. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said high levels of particulate matter in the air were also recorded in the past few days in the East and West Midlands. Other regions were also expected to experience localised pollution in hotspots, carrying on at least into Wednesday. The new map of nitrogen dioxide pollution limit breaches for recent years shows that Earl’s Court station in London was worst overall, with a recording of 129.5 micrograms per cubic metre, compared with the 40μg/m3 limit set out in the government’s air quality objectives. A monitoring station near the Ikea store in Brent, north London, recorded levels slightly above 100μg/m3 in 2016, while Kensington High Street, Euston Road and Strand in central London were all above 90μg/m3 in 2017. Air near Neville Street in Leeds was found to be just under the 100μg/m3 level, closely followed by two locations in Hickleton, Doncaster. Other hotspots included Brighton, Sheffield and Coventry, where the levels on Holyhead Road were found to be near twice the advised limit, at about 76μg/m3 in 2016. Friends of the Earth, which mapped the sites and collated the data, said it was further evidence of the dire air quality across the country as a result of burgeoning traffic emissions and poor government controls on emissions sources. The group called for tougher action by ministers. Simon Bowens, a clean air campaigner at FoE, said: “It’s unforgivable that across the UK there are nearly 2,000 locations over air quality limits, leaving millions of us breathing dangerously polluted air. The government needs to step up and do more to help deal with this air pollution crisis. They can’t just carry on leaving the difficult decisions with local authorities, many of which are severely under-resourced.” He said the map showed that air pollution was not just a problem for big cities. “Unacceptably toxic air can be found across much of the UK, even in smaller towns,” he said. “It is harming the health of people across the country and is especially bad for young children whose lungs are still developing.” Air pollution is known to shorten lives and reduce the quality of life for tens of thousands of people, and in recent studies it has also been linked to health problems from dementia to heart disease and miscarriage. Children are most at risk: exposure to air pollution when young can have lifelong effects as it can stunt the lungs and affect intelligence. A fresh inquest into the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, a nine-year-old from south London, is expected to be asked to consider whether her death six years ago from an asthma-related seizure could have been linked to high levels of air pollution. The data used for the map was taken from the most recent annual air quality status reports that have been submitted to government, most of them from last year, with the results adjusted for distance and other factors. • This article was amended on 27 February 2019 to make it clear that the data in the analysis covered England, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than the entire UK. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/friends-of-the-earth', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk/london', 'uk/doncaster', 'uk/leeds', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'profile/niamh-mcintyre', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-data'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-02-27T06:00:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/article/2024/jul/16/water-suppliers-england-wales-investigated-sewage-severn-trent-bill-rises | Every water firm in England and Wales under investigation over sewage spills | The water regulator is taking action against four more water companies, including Severn Trent and United Utilities, meaning every wastewater company in England and Wales is under investigation over sewage spills. Ofwat said it had served formal notices on Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, Hafren Dyfrdwy, Severn Trent and United Utilities, asking them to provide evidence for its investigation into companies’ wastewater management in England and Wales. The regulator has looked at the companies’ environmental performance and data about how often they spill from storm overflows. It said this had heightened its “concerns that these companies may not be fulfilling their obligations to protect the environment and minimise pollution”. This means Ofwat is taking enforcement action against all 11 water and wastewater companies in England and Wales over sewage pollution. Once it has fully investigated, it will publish its findings and where appropriate take action over any breaches of legal obligations. Along with the Environment Agency, the regulator is investigating water companies over suspicions of widespread illegal sewage discharges across the network from thousands of treatment plants. The investigations have been going on for more than two years, with no findings published so far. In March, analysis of the latest data showed that more than 2,000 overflows owned by a number of companies were discharging raw sewage into rivers and seas. Ofwat’s investigations into Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Wessex Water, and Yorkshire Water are ongoing. Southern Water remains subject to enforcement monitoring after a record £126m fine in 2019 over “shocking” failures at the company’s sewage treatment sites that polluted rivers and beaches in southern England. David Black, the Ofwat chief executive, said: “The fact that Ofwat now has enforcement cases with all 11 of the wastewater companies in England and Wales demonstrates how concerned we are about the sector’s environmental performance. “Where we find that companies have breached their obligations, we will continue to act – over recent years, we have imposed penalties and payments of over £300m on water and wastewater companies. “This is the largest and most complex investigation Ofwat has undertaken. However, Ofwat is committed to concluding these cases as quickly as possible, so that the sector can focus on delivering the £88bn expenditure the 2024 price review will unlock to deliver cleaner rivers and seas. “As part of this package of investment, £10bn is earmarked to tackle storm overflows with a target to reduce spills from storm overflows by 44%.” Severn Trent recently announced a programme to significantly reduce use of storm overflow, which Ofwat welcomed. Shares for Severn Trent and United Utilities, which are listed on the stock market, fell by about 4% and 3%, respectively, after the regulator’s announcement. Last week, Ofwat was criticised for letting water companies put up bills by an average 21%, or £94, over five years to fund improvements in environmental standards, at a time when customers have endured poor service, sewage dumping and leaks. This was described as a “bitter pill” by the new chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Campaigners for clean water, including the former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, argue that customers are in effect paying twice, and that they should not be paying for infrastructure investment that should have already been carried out to comply with companies’ operational permits. Severn Trent, United Utilities and Hafren Dyfrdwy said they would work “constructively” with Ofwat. A spokesperson for Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water issued a similar statement, saying: “We have been working closely with our regulators on the monitoring of our wastewater treatment works and are investing at record levels to improve service.” | ['business/water-industry', 'business/severntrent', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk-news/england', 'uk/wales', 'environment/water', 'business/utilities', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/juliakollewe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-07-16T16:09:45Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2012/jan/06/marks-and-spencer-packaging-fruit | Marks & Spencer breaks mould with packaging for 'longer-living' fruit | Next week M&S will become the first major retailer to roll out ground-breaking new packaging which it claims will extend the life of fruit stored in the fridge by up to two days, helping to cut domestic food waste. The supermarket will add a small plaster-style strip at the bottom of punnets of strawberries, containing a patented mixture of clay and other minerals that absorb ethylene – the ripening hormone which causes fruit to ripen and then turn mouldy. The strip measures 8cm x 4.5cm and does not affect the recyclability of the packaging, and the retailer claims there is no extra cost to the consumer of the packaging. If successful, it will be added to all the supermarkets' berries. Trials carried out in M&S stores showed a minimum wastage saving of 4% – during the peak strawberry season this would equate to 40,000 packs, or about 800,000 strawberries. M&S says it is committed to reducing waste as part of its Plan A programme to be the world's most sustainable retailer. Hugh Mowat, M&S Agronomist, said: "This new technology is a win-win for our customers – not only will their strawberries taste better for longer, but we really hope it will help them to reduce their food waste as they no longer need to worry about eating their strawberries as soon as they buy them." The British strawberry season starts in April, so at this time of year M&S strawberries are currently imported from Egypt, Morocco, Spain and Israel. During the British season M&S sells about 1m punnets per week. Rival supermarket Asda, which trialled similar packaging for Spanish strawberries, abandoned a national launch on cost grounds. A spokeswoman for Asda said: "We didn't roll this out as our research didn't show a benefit in terms of longer life when looking at the additional cost per punnet." Josh Brooks, editor of trade journal Packaging News said: "This new launch from M&S is a great example of how innovative packaging helps to preserve and protect the food products it contains. The crucial role of packaging in delivering products to consumers and reducing food waste through the supply chain and in stores and homes cannot be overstated." The packaging of fruit has become a controversial issue. Retailers have faced strong criticism for excessive and unnecessary packaging, but insist that fruit has to be protected with plastic layers as shoppers do not want to buy bruised and damaged items. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'business/marksspencer', 'business/retail', 'business/business', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/money', 'food/fruit', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2012-01-06T13:16:34Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2024/oct/16/country-diary-live-fast-die-young-thats-the-weasel-way | Country diary: Live fast, die young – that’s the weasel way | Derek Niemann | If only the war poet Siegfried Sassoon could rise from the grave, he would be enjoying the little drama playing out in the churchyard just metres from where his body lies. Next to an avenue of clipped yews, a weasel is on the run. Does it run, or does it pour? This tiniest of mammal predators, more of a stretched mouse than a mustelid, is a slinky, straight-backed, mid-brown streak that flows over and under. We find ourselves murmuring “there it is”, “and there”, “now there”, as it slips repeatedly under the tussocky grass and into the open again. And no wonder it chooses evasion and concealment, for this is a hunter hunted, easy prey for every cat, fox, sparrowhawk and kestrel with a good eye. I cannot watch a weasel without dwelling on its transient existence. Probability says this animal will be dead by this time next year, necessity says it must eat a third of its own body weight every day to survive. And if this is a female, then she may still have young to feed. Life is one long and unforgiving binge. Today the weasel is relying on serendipity, racing from tombstone to tombstone, doubling back, sloping off. Maybe following a rodent trail, maybe covering all ground in hope or expectation. For just a few seconds – no more – it vanishes into a rougher patch of ground, and then it pops back up on its hind legs. A wood mouse is gripped between its jaws, light belly facing outwards, and limp. A bite to the back of the neck, no doubt, the weasel’s preferred execution modus operandi on animals that can be more than its own weight. For a long second the weasel sits on its haunches looking in our direction. And then it swivels and leaps away with its dead burden in a series of laboured bounds. We watch it until a dog with its walker enters the churchyard and the weasel disappears altogether. The walker smiles at us, and we smile back. A good morning and nothing to see in the quiet churchyard where a dead poet sleeps. • Country diary is on Twitter/X at @gdncountrydiary • Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; get a 15% discount when you order at guardianbookshop.com | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/mammals', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'uk-news/somerset', 'environment/wildlife', 'books/siegfried-sassoon', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/derek-niemann', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-10-16T04:30:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/mar/23/morrisons-green-light-for-queenslands-hells-gates-dam-threatens-great-barrier-reef-experts-warn | Morrison’s green light for Queensland’s Hells Gates Dam threatens Great Barrier Reef, experts warn | The federal government’s announcement of $5.4bn to build the Hells Gates Dam in north Queensland commits money to a project with no final business case, no environmental approvals, and which experts say could further threaten the long-term health of the Great Barrier Reef. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced on Wednesday that his government would build the 2,100 gigalitre dam – about four times the size of Sydney Harbour – that could potentially support 60,000ha of new land for irrigated agriculture. “We need to build more dams in Australia. Building dams makes our economy stronger by supporting our agricultural industries to realise their true potential,” Morrison said. A final business case is not expected to be completed until after the federal election. The government has said the funding is guaranteed, subject to the business case. Earlier feasibility studies have prompted serious questions about the project’s stated economic benefit. Hells Gates also has no environmental impact statement, and no environmental approvals – a process that could take several years on such a large and complex project. Some locals leaders, including the Burdekin mayor, Lyn McLaughlin, have expressed concern that dam proposals in the Burdekin River catchment – including the Urannah Dam that also has federal support – have been pushed without studies about their long-term impact on the river system. Jami Webster, a water quality expert from the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the announcement was “electioneering”. Webster said the notion that irrigated agriculture could be expanded in the Burdekin Basin was a “big problem” for the Great Barrier Reef, which is currently enduring a mass coral bleaching event. Last year, UN science advisors recommended the committee place the reef on a list of world heritage sites “in danger” because of the impacts of bleaching and a lack of progress in improving pollution levels. But fierce lobbying by the Australian government saw the 21-country committee ignore the recommendation. “If they were to build Hells Gates there would be a huge expansion of agriculture, which would likely result in a lot more sediment and nutrient pollution to the reef,” Webster said. Significant work has been done in the Burdekin Basin to assist farmers reduce pollution heading out to the reef from the catchment. They include best-practice management programs for farmers and regulations imposed by the Queensland government. A significant amount of federal funding for the reef, distributed by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, goes towards programs to reduce sediment and nutrient run-off. “[Expansion of agriculture] is a big problem,” Webster said. “That is going to very quickly reverse a lot of the progress made by farmers and industry to date. We’re still a long way to meeting our water quality targets and [Hells Gate] is only going to further hamper that progress.” Webster said planning for the dam showed it would divert water from downstream areas in the Burdekin Basin, which would in turn increase the build-up of sediment. The North Queensland Conservation Council said it had obtained full technical reports from a 2018 feasibility study into Hells Gates Dam. “Detailed reading strongly suggests that the dam is not economically feasible and would become an ongoing burden to taxpayers, with a negative or marginal projected return on investment on public funds,” the council’s analysis of the document said. It said the return on investment was negative for all but two of the crops investigated – capsicum and avocado. The organisation promoting the dam, Townsville Enterprise, says on its website that a detailed business case is due to be finalised in April. Morrison, in his press release on Wednesday, said the business case would not be ready until June. Independent MP for Kennedy, Bob Katter, has long called for the construction of the dam. But he said he opposed the prime minister’s plan, claiming the dam would be too small to irrigate a large enough area in inland Queensland. Katter was also critical that it would be built on “unreliable basalt rock country”, and claimed locals would oppose it. “The prime minister thinks he’s pushing a proposal that develops north Queensland when actually it destroys the future and potential of the region,” he said. Asked in a press conference about Katter’s concerns, Morrison said he had worked “constructively” with the veteran MP, but stood by his plan. “I love Bob, but it’s not about Bob. And Bob would agree it’s not about Bob,” Morrison said. Townsville Enterprise says its initial study into Hells Gates showed it “has the potential to redefine northern Queensland’s agriculture sector and underpin long-term export market growth and investment”. Morrison said the project would create 7,000 jobs during construction and 3,000 new jobs in agriculture. “Water is a precious resource and we need more dams to better use that resource,” Morrison said. “We’ve done the homework on Hells Gates Dam and it’s now time to get on and build it. We have put our money on the table, so let’s cut the green tape, get the approvals and get it done. “This dam will help turn the Burdekin region into an agricultural powerhouse, helping our farmers to stock supermarkets and feed Australia while also securing north Queensland’s water supply and security.” | ['australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland-politics', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'australia-news/barnaby-joyce', 'environment/water', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/coalition', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'profile/josh-butler', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-03-23T00:50:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/oct/01/country-diary-gates-northumberland-autumn-river-scabious-butterflies | Emissary arrives in fiery copper costume | Downstream from Blanchland bridge there were signs that the countryside was settling into autumn. In gardens on the edge of the village newly harvested onions had been left to dry in the early morning sun. A gentle rain of yellow birch leaves, spinning as they fell, settled on a footpath that was flanked by angelica umbels, and hogweed seeds festooned with dew-bedecked spider webs. Some stretches of the river, where the lowering arc of the sun fell below the crowns of pines on the far bank, would not be warmed again by direct sunlight until spring. It was here, in the deep shade, that we were reminded of one aspect of autumn; that lingering chill of a cold night which triggers involuntary shivers and turns exhaled breath to steam. We lengthened our stride, keeping pace with the river that slid along beside us with barely a ripple before finding its voice as it tumbled over rocks creating swirling vortices that swept piles of dead leaves into the tangled roots of bankside alders. Then, as we emerged into an area of grassy heath, with scattered birches, gorse, and willowherb releasing a blizzard of downy seed, we felt warmth on our faces again. At the top of a slope we sat in the sun, scattering meadow grasshoppers as we lowered ourselves on to the rabbit-grazed turf. Drifts of devil’s-bit scabious, whose tall powder-blue inflorescences studded with pink stamens were now the best available nectar source, attracted the last butterflies of summer. The plants’ clientele of peacocks settled almost within touching distance, but it was a fast moving scintilla of fiery orange, zigzagging up the slope towards us, that captured our attention. The small copper butterfly, carrying its colours like an emissary of autumn, flitted from flower to flower then settled in the grass almost at my elbow. I could see worn patches on the edge of its wings where it had shed scales. For a few moments it basked in the sun, then was gone, lost among trees whose leaves would soon switch to the colour of its wings. | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/butterflies', 'environment/insects', 'environment/autumn', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/forests', 'science/biology', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/philgates', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-10-01T04:29:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/oct/08/what-to-do-with-plastic-wrapping-on-the-guardians-weekend-magazine | What to do with plastic wrapping on the Guardian’s Weekend magazine? | Letters | Having just read “Crunch time for forests and plastic pollution” (Letters, 6 October), I wonder if anyone can help me? For about a year I’ve been collecting the plastic film wrappers from the Guardian’s Weekend magazine and other Saturday sections. I’ve now filled a very large sack. Does anyone know of a firm that will recycle this material? Our local authority waste collection does not. Mary Fawcett Bath • My wife is a Women’s Institute member and we were impressed to note that its magazine, WI Life, has switched from polythene wrapping to a compostable potato-starch alternative. It would be good to see the Guardian burnish its green credentials and adopt the same method for the Weekend magazine. Geoff Walmsley Wirral, Cheshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters • Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/recycling', 'media/theguardian', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'media/media', 'media/newspapers', 'media/national-newspapers', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-10-08T17:26:06Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/oct/24/offshore-windfarms-can-provide-more-electricity-than-the-world-needs | Offshore windfarms 'can provide more electricity than the world needs' | Erecting wind turbines on the world’s best offshore sites could provide more than enough clean energy to meet global electricity demand, according to a report. A detailed study of the world’s coastlines has found that offshore windfarms alone could provide more electricity than the world needs – even if they are only built in windy regions in shallow waters near the shore. Analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that if windfarms were built across all useable sites which are no further than 60km (37 miles) off the coast, and where coastal waters are no deeper than 60 metres, they could generate 36,000 terawatt hours of renewable electricity a year. This would easily meeting the current global demand for electricity of 23,000 terawatt hours. “Offshore wind currently provides just 0.3% of global power generation, but its potential is vast,” the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said. The study predicts offshore wind generation will grow 15-fold to emerge as a $1tn (£780bn) industry in the next 20 years and will prove to be the next great energy revolution. The IEA said earlier this week that global supplies of renewable electricity were growing faster than expected and could expand by 50% in the next five years, driven by a resurgence in solar energy. Offshore wind power would drive the world’s growth in clean power due to plummeting costs and new technological breakthroughs, including turbines close to the height of the Eiffel Tower and floating installations that can harness wind speeds further from the coast. The next generation of floating turbines capable of operating further from the shore could generate enough energy to meet the world’s total electricity demand 11 times over in 2040, according to IEA estimates. The report predicts that the EU’s offshore wind capacity will grow from almost 20 gigawatts today to nearly 130 gigawatts by 2040, and could reach 180 gigawatts with stronger climate commitments. In China, the growth of offshore wind generation is likely to be even more rapid, the IEA said. Its offshore wind capacity is forecast to grow from 4 gigawatts to 110 gigawatts by 2040 or 170 gigawatts if it adopts tougher climate targets. Birol said offshore wind would not only contribute to generating clean electricity, but could also offer a major opportunity in the production of hydrogen, which can be used instead of fossil fuel gas for heating and in heavy industry. The process of making hydrogen from water uses huge amounts of electricity but abundant, cheap offshore wind power could help produce a low-cost, zero-carbon alternative to gas. In the North Sea, energy companies are already planning to use the electricity generated by giant offshore windfarms to turn seawater into hydrogen on a floating “green hydrogen” project, backed by the UK government. The clean-burning gas could be pumped back to shore to heat millions of homes by the 2030s. The UK has committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The overlap between the UK’s declining oil and gas industry and the burgeoning offshore wind sector could offer major economic benefits for the UK, Birol said. “Offshore wind provides a huge new business portfolio for major engineering firms and established oil and gas companies which have a strong offshore production experience,” he said. “Our analysis shows that 40% of the work in offshore wind construction and maintenance has synergies with oil and gas practises.” | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/energy-industry', 'technology/energy', 'business/business', 'technology/technology', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2019-10-25T08:23:50Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2019/aug/14/thwart-facial-recognition-cameras-invisibility-cloak-3d-mask | Invisibility cloaks and 3D masks: how to thwart the facial recognition cameras | Stuart Jeffries | Picture the scene. You and your kids are sporting in the fountains in the square behind London’s King’s Cross station. Your phone beeps. A news alert tells you that the owners of this (pseudo-) public space, Argent, are using facial recognition software in security cameras. You look up from your phone and see a camera pointed right at you. It’s not just the police who are photographing and identifying you on the street now, but private security operatives too. Not only do you worry that your boss might thereby acquire data to undermine your claim to be “working from home”, but you are furious at this violation of your privacy, not to mention feeling quite stupid for forgetting a towel. Your fears are not allayed by this statement from Argent: “These cameras use a number of detection and tracking methods, including facial recognition, but also have sophisticated systems in place to protect the privacy of the general public,” particularly when they didn’t disclose what these systems are. What do you do? Unless you happen to work for Big Brother Watch or Liberty, both of which campaign against the use of biometric technology by public authorities or private security companies, and so might cut you some slack in the event that your facial data from chillaxing fountain-style proves you’ve been bunking off, the best thing to do is to hack your face, and possibly your children’s faces too. Do what now? One hack against facial recognition technology is to wear what is effectively a hi-tech witch’s hat. Devised by Project KOVR, this hood is part of an anti-surveillance coat that works on the same principle as Faraday bags, which can block electromagnetic signals to and from your phone or your car keys. The hood is constructed of layers of what the makers call “metalliferous fabrics” that block radiation and thwart facial recognition software too. Your data and face will remain private while you’re inside it. If you really want to protect your privacy while looking like a member of a KKK chapter from another galaxy, this is the way to go. There are less extreme hacks available. Scientists at China’s Fudan University are developing an invisibility mask that uses tiny infrared LEDs wired to the inside of a baseball cap to project dots of light on to the wearer’s face. The researchers found that they could trick facial recognition software into thinking they were Moby, which is the perfect disguise to baffle your boss – so long as you’re prepared to be mistaken for a musician who claimed to have dated Natalie Portman but was then obliged to retract and apologise for the suggestion. The cap is similar in principle to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. Earlier this summer, a commercial version of this cloak was launched at nearby King’s Cross’s Platform 9¾. Does it work? Sadly, this version only makes wearers invisible if they’re being viewed through a smartphone or tablet app that’s free to download upon purchase. That, plus the fact that the £59.99 invisibility cloak doesn’t come with a hood, still less one that blocks facial recognition software using metalliferous fabric, means it is functionally useless for our present purpose. More promising is Hyperface, a project being developed by Berlin-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey to overwhelm and confuse facial recognition software by printing patterns on to clothing that a computer can interpret as a face. Harvey earlier developed an open-source project called CV Dazzle that encouraged humans to camouflage themselves with make-up and crazy hair to create an unreadable “anti-face”. If your kids are set on going to the face painting booth after the fountains, maybe suggest to the makeup artist they go nuts with the paint – and restyle their hair while they’re about it. If none of these hacks works for you, take solace from the current hopelessness of facial recognition technology. University of Essex of researchers found that the Met’s trials of facial recognition technology to search for suspects had an 81% error rate. If you’re a person of colour you may not feel reassured, though, by research that suggests the darker your skin tone, the more likely you are to be misidentified by facial recognition software . To thwart such miscarriages of justice, privacy violations and algorithmically facilitated racism, my favourite hack is to wear is a 3D printed mask of someone else’s face. A 3D printed prosthetic image of artist Leo Selvaggio, the creator of the project URME Surveillance, is on sale for $200. If successful, this mask may make Selvaggio the most wanted – though ultimately wrongly accused – man on earth. Theoretically, you could print a mask of anyone, but one tip: unless you want to be chased through the fountains by mobs of angry Guardian readers, perhaps it’s best to avoid a Boris Johnson mask. • Stuart Jeffries is a feature writer | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/facial-recognition', 'technology/technology', 'world/surveillance', 'world/world', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'world/privacy', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/stuartjeffries', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2019-08-14T11:44:23Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2020/jul/30/air-pollution-worst-us-communities-of-color-study | Air pollution remains worst in US communities of color despite progress | Wealthy white Americans are still getting to breathe cleaner air than lower-income communities of color, despite significant nationwide reductions in pollution since the 1980s, according to a new study. Fine particle pollution – which is 2.5 micrometers or smaller – has fallen an average of about 70% since 1981. But air pollution is not equally distributed around America. In general, the gap between communities with the cleanest and dirtiest air has narrowed. Still, the already disadvantaged parts of the US continue to have the worst air. The most polluted census tracts in 1981 remained the most polluted in 2016, according to the peer-reviewed research in the journal Science. Southern California in particular struggles with dirtier air from highways, fossil fuel operations and industrial facilities. “If a child was born in Los Angeles county today, they would be exposed to the same amount of pollution the average child was exposed to in the early 1990s,” said Jonathan Colmer, a co-author and economics professor who directs the Environmental Inequality Lab at the University of Virginia. Reducing disparity has been a stated goal of US environmental policy for decades, Colmer said, but the country is falling short. Fine particle pollution is microscopic, about 40 times smaller than a grain of sand. It can travel deep into the lungs, bloodstream and brain and reduce life expectancy and contribute to lung cancer and heart disease. “Air pollution contributes to as many as 9 million premature deaths worldwide every year. This is twice as many as war, other violence, HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined,” Colmer said. The vast majority of US census tracts saw little change in their pollution levels in comparison with the national average, with a few exceptions. “Ohio, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky – the north-east corridor – all of those places became relatively less polluted. While California’s Central and Imperial valleys, south-western Arizona, southern Texas and portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma have become relatively more polluted. The changes are likely from environmental regulations, declines in manufacturing, a reduction in coal use in some parts of the country and a boom in natural gas fracking in others. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/emily-holden', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-07-30T18:27:33Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2021/oct/13/country-diary-eye-to-eye-with-a-shanny-in-the-rockpool | Country diary: Eye to eye with a shanny in the rockpool | It’s low tide on the rocky shore of Scarlett Point. A fissure in the limestone pavement guides me down to a collapsed kelp forest at the waterline. The sea’s retreat has caused the oarweed to lay down its arms and drape its fleshy paddles over claw-like holdfasts that anchor it to the rocks. Exuding a briny tang, this fearsome tangle of oil-dark rubbery hose and neoprene “oars” is a danger to unwary feet. I find some solidity on a limpet-mined boulder, and dunk my head towards the surface of the nearest rockpool. The still water under my chin has the pristine, algae-free serenity of a newly established fish tank, a multicoloured bed of shell fragments, and fish jinking through tufts of translucent seaweed. Or rather, one fish, a goggle-eyed shanny with an open-mouthed surprised look. It is a tiny tiger of sorts, its back striped with alternating bars the colour of wet and dry sand. A little while later I sit up and look out to sea. A female eider a couple of hundred metres offshore appears to sit in water that is higher than the rock on which I crouch. Closer to, the illusion is not exactly confounded by reality, for the barrier of oarweed has been breached by a dribble, a trickle, a gush of water. The incoming sea sighs in a succession of glugs, gurgles, farts and belches, slapping against the sides of the cracked rock, burping pockets of air out of crevices. My little pool, never more than a three-hour-long refuge or prison, is transmuting both shape and content for the second time today. It elongates into a lake and then becomes part of a tiny tidal estuary, the current stirring its serrated wrack seaweed, causing it to sway shorewards on the in-breath, and flap back seawards on the out. I have lost one fish and gained a multitude. A shoal of shannies ride the swell, slaloming through the seaweed. Are they chasing or being chased – racing to escape deeper water with bigger fish? • Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/fish', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/derek-niemann', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-13T04:30:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2017/aug/22/endangered-whales-wont-reach-half-of-pre-hunting-numbers-by-2011-study-says | Endangered whales won't reach half of pre-hunting numbers by 2100, study says | Populations of the endangered blue and fin whales, which were hunted nearly to extinction in the 20th century, will not have recovered to even half of their pre-whaling numbers by 2100, according to a new Australian study. The research, published in the Fish and Fisheries journal next month, analysed 122 years of whaling data from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and current population survey data to project future population growth, based on predicted food availability in the southern oceans. It found that three species – the Antarctic blue (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia), fin (Balaenoptera physalus) and southern right (Eubalaena australis) whales – will have recovered to less than half of their 19th-century numbers by the start of the 22nd century, despite bans on hunting those species being introduced in the 1960s, 1970s and 1930s respectively. Humpack whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), which are currently at 32% of their pre-whaling population, and Antarctic minke (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) are expected to return to pre-whaling levels by 2050, primarily because they breed more quickly. The study said numbers of minke were slightly more difficult to calculate because of a “data deficiency” around the “scientific” whaling undertaken by Japan. A Japanese whaling fleet that spent the Antarctic summer in the southern ocean this year killed more than 300 whales. It is the first time this kind of analysis, known as a model of intermediate complexity for ecosystem assessments, or Mice, has been used to predict future whale numbers. “What our study has shown from historical whaling is that there were many species that were vulnerable to significant impact from hunting,” said the study’s lead author, Viv Tulloch, a PhD student with the University of Queensland. “Even a couple of hundred individuals hunted a year over a number of years has been shown to significantly affect populations and significantly impact their numbers. “In the case of blue whales, they were really impacted quite significantly and because of that they created a small population bottleneck, and we’re just getting out of that now.” Tulloch said researchers used climate modelling to determine the productivity of the southern oceans, which determined the availability of krill and copepods, a type of zooplankton eaten by southern right whales. “We have tied the krill to primary productivity and we have tied the whales to the krill,” Tulloch said. Krill populations in the Southern Ocean are predicted to increase in the next 100 years, while krill numbers in the southern Indian and Pacific oceans are expected to decline “quite considerably”. Tulloch said the modelling did not consider other climate-related factors, like ocean acidity, declining sea ice and warming surface temperatures. The last two are predicted to have an impact on blue whale numbers in particular and will be looked at in a later study. The CSIRO principal research scientist Dr Eva Plaganyi, who supervised the study, said the information on historical whaling included recently released catch information for 100,000 whales illegally killed in the Southern Ocean by the Soviet Union between 1947 and 1973. The catch data ran from 1890 to 2012 and included more than two million records detailing the species and location of the catch. Tulloch said that of the species in the study, only the southern right whale was hunted extensively before 1900 and information about the numbers caught was scant. | ['environment/whales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/marine-life', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-08-22T08:32:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2019/dec/06/christmas-jumpers-add-to-plastic-pollution-crisis-says-charity | Christmas jumpers add to plastic pollution crisis, says charity | Britons’ love of novelty Christmas jumpers is helping to fuel the world’s plastic pollution crisis, a report has warned. Whether emblazoned with flashing lights or alpine motifs, 12m jumpers are set to be snapped up this year, despite 65m already languishing in UK wardrobes. But as well as triggering huge levels of waste, the research by the environmental charity Hubbub has shown that most new sweaters contain plastic. Its analysis of 108 garments on sale this year from 11 high street and online retailers – including Primark, George at Asda and Topshop/Topman – found that 95% of the jumpers were made wholly or partly of plastic materials. The charity said the garment had become one of the worst examples of fast fashion, now recognised as hugely damaging to the environment. With so-called Christmas jumper day – an annual publicity push by the charity Save the Children – looming on Friday 13 December, millions of consumers are expected to scour shops for eye-catching festive woollies. Hubbub’s research found that two out of five Christmas jumpers are only worn once over the festive period, and one in three adults under 35 buys a new Christmas jumper every year. The plastic fibre acrylic was found in three-quarters of the jumpers tested, with 44% made entirely from acrylic. However, only 29% of consumers realised that most Christmas jumpers contain plastic. A recent study by Plymouth University found that acrylic was responsible for releasing nearly 730,000 microfibres per wash, five times more than polyester-cotton blend fabric and nearly 1.5 times as many as pure polyester. Sarah Divall, the project coordinator at Hubbub, said: “We don’t want to stop people dressing up and having a great time at Christmas but there are so many ways to do this without buying new. Fast fashion is a major threat to the natural world and Christmas jumpers are problematic as so many contain plastic. We’d urge people to swap, buy secondhand or rewear, and remember a jumper is for life not just for Christmas.” Its tips for eco-friendly options include customising existing sweaters and hunting for charity shop and vintage bargains. On behalf of the retailers in the study, Leah Riley Brown, a sustainability policy adviser at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Consumers can be assured that, on average, the clothes they are purchasing have lower environmental impacts. Retailers are making strides to ensure old clothes can be turned into new ones for a more circular economy. They are creating more takeback schemes so clothes can be reused and recycled to divert them away from landfill.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'fashion/fashion', 'lifeandstyle/christmas', 'society/charities', 'environment/ethical-living', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'money/ethical-money', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'society/society', 'fashion/fashion-industry', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-12-06T06:30:34Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2014/apr/02/climate-change-terminate-market-madness-100-months | Climate change: we must terminate this market madness | Andrew Simms | "If climate change is a total downer … it's going to be really hard to take action," said one of the scientists behind the UN climate panel's recent report on climate-driven threats to food, health and infrastructure. One reaction is to talk up the business opportunities of doing things. Without doubt, there are many, and there is enormous scope for climate entrepreneurs. But there is a trap in hyping markets as the answer. Many governments would like nothing more than to believe they can leave global warming to the unchallenged market. That means they wouldn't have to do anything themselves except murmur something green occasionally. But if the market was going to solve the problem it would already be doing so, because the problem is decades old. Its price signal would already have reallocated resources to keep us living within planetary boundaries. Information would have flowed and risks been calculated in such a way that money retreated from activities damaging to a stable climate, and went into better alternatives. Some bizarre anomalies suggest a deep-rooted inability to question the economic structures that are pushing us over the edge. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former "green governor" of California, is soon to star in a ground-breaking environmental series on US TV called Years of Living Dangerously. Importantly for the American market, it tackles climate change head-on. It is made by the director James Cameron who made not only Schwarzenegger's defining film, Terminator, but also the epic Avatar, which told the story of humanity's assault on an alien race that lives at one with nature in a tropical, forest-like world. In this new series, Schwarzenegger fronts an episode on the problem of forest fires. Other Hollywood luminaries include Harrison Ford, Jessica Alba and Matt Damon. But, at least where Schwarzenegger is concerned, a laudable project is in danger of sending the message that we can have our planet and eat it, all due to a blind spot about financial markets. Research by Global Witness last week revealed record sums of money being invested in tropical deforestation with the largest investments coming from a US-based multibillion dollar investment company called Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). It turns out, thanks to declarations made during his time as governor of California, that Schwarzenegger has a major stake in DFA which, in turn, has shares in several of the world's most notorious logging companies, including a number of companies that have been implicated in illegal activities. Overall, since 2000 the world has lost the equivalent of 50 football pitches worth of forest every minute. DFA's sales pitch to clients is that it is a "pioneer in financial engineering", and uses the "science of capital markets". One of its directors is the Nobel prize-winning economist Eugene Fama, who was dubbed the father of the "efficient market hypothesis". Famously, he played down the risks posed by the housing market before the sub-prime mortgage crisis triggered the broader financial crash of 2007-08. Complex algorithms have long been a part of financial trading, but they've become ever more dominant as the speed of financial transactions makes individual human scrutiny impossible. But narrowly efficient markets have proved highly inefficient at spotting and avoiding systemic risks, whether to do with the housing market or, in this case, the preservation of a biosphere fit for human civilisation. Without in-built checks and balances, seemingly clever financial engineering can do terrible damage. Here, the immediate, obvious irony of the environmentalist profiting from deforestation deepens. Arguably Schwarzenegger is most famous for his role as the Terminator, a robo-killer who travels back from the future to assassinate humanity's last hope in a future war against machines. Now, the real-life actor is tied-up in robo-funds that really do pose a threat to our survival chances. Trusting that some vague notion of the market will come to save us is deeply misguided. That is partly why, perversely, the very industries that pose the greatest threat in terms of climate change would never rely on it. If the UN's estimate of $30bn a year sounds a lot to help protect tropical forests, it's worth remembering that an amount 63 times greater goes in subsidy alone to the fossil fuel sector globally. Already this year thick clouds of smoke from forest fires in Indonesia are filling the air of major cities. These add to a huge human death toll from pollution-linked respiratory problems just as they also signal how we are compromising tropical forests that are the lungs of the world. It's a problem pushed by market mechanisms. If Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to give advice on tackling fires at home, he could set an even better example by making sure his investments don't metaphorically pour petrol on them abroad. • One Hundred Months | ['environment/series/100-months-to-save-the-world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'film/arnold-schwarzenegger', 'film/film', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/andrewsimms'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-04-02T12:42:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2015/oct/19/drought-mexican-church-reservoir | Drought causes 450-year-old Mexican church to emerge from reservoir | The ruins of a 16th century church have emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico. The water level in the Nezahualcóyotl reservoir in Chiapas state has dropped by 25m (82ft) because of a drought in the area. The church, known as the Temple of Santiago or the Temple of Quechula, has been under nearly 100ft of water since 1966. The church, which is believed to have been built by Spanish colonists, is 183ft long and 42ft wide, with a bell tower that rises 48ft above the ground. It was built in 1564, the Associated Press reported, because of an expected surge in population, but abandoned after plague hit the area between 1773 and 1776. “It was a church built thinking that this could be a great population center, but it never achieved that,” architect Carlos Navarretes said. “It probably never even had a dedicated priest, only receiving visits from those from Tecpatán.” The church has reappeared above water once before, in 2002. Because of the low water levels, visitors were even able to walk inside it. “The people celebrated. They came to eat, to hang out, to do business. I sold them fried fish. They did processions around the church,” fisherman Leonel Mendoza said. Now, fishermen are ferrying passengers to the ruins, according to the Independent. Curious visitors have taken to exploring the ruins, and climbing its walls. | ['world/mexico', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'environment/drought', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ellen-brait', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-10-19T16:05:56Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/nov/02/nazca-peru-deforestation-research | Ancient Peruvian Nazca turned land to desert | The ancient Nazca civilisation of Peru, made famous by the giant geoglyphs it left etched in the soil, partly triggered its own downfall by chopping down forests and creating a desert, according to researchers. The society vanished 1,500 years ago after flourishing for centuries, during which it made sophisticated arts and crafts as well as the famous Nazca lines. A study published today suggests its collapse was caused by the clearing of huarango trees, which had maintained an ecological balance in that corner of South America. The Nazca wanted land for corn and other crops and did not realise the forests were crucial to soil fertility and moisture, said the Cambridge University-led report. "In time, gradual woodland clearance crossed an ecological threshold – sharply defined in such desert environments – exposing the landscape to the region's extraordinary desert winds and the effects of El Niño floods," said David Beresford-Jones, from the McDonald institute for archaeological research at Cambridge University. The findings contrast with the stereotype that Native Americans lived in harmony with nature until the voracious European conquest, and follows reports that other ancient cultures suffered similar fates: the Maya of central America abandoned their cities and pyramids after over-intensive use of water and land, while the tribes who erected giant stone statues on Easter Island all but died out after clearing too many trees. The Nazca – also spelt Nasca – thrived in arid valleys of what is now the southern coast of Peru between 300BC and AD800. In addition to the geoglyphs, which endure to this day and are visible from space, they built the ceremonial city of Cahuachi and underground aqueducts. Researchers found more than 60 huarango stumps preserved in the Samaca basin. Pollen samples indicated forests were replaced by fields of cotton and corn. The short-term agricultural gain came at a high price because the trees anchored the landscape. "It is the ecological 'keystone' species in this desert zone, enhancing soil fertility and moisture, ameliorating desert extremes in the microclimate beneath its canopy and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known," said Beresford-Jones. Clearances reached a tipping point at which the arid ecosystem was irreversibly damaged, leaving it vulnerable to a big El Niño-style event around AD600 which unleashed strong winds and catastrophic floods, rendering land unusable for agriculture and, eventually, creating a desert. Had the forests still stood they would have cushioned the impact, said the study. Instead, the Nazca endured resource wars and their civilisation eventually suffered a "catastrophic" collapse. The Nazca study's authors said their findings had contemporary resonance. There are now no undisturbed ecosystems in the region the Nazca used to call home. What remained of the old-growth huarango forests is being destroyed by illegal charcoal-burning operations. "The mistakes of prehistory offer us important lessons for our management of fragile, arid areas in the present," said Oliver Whaley, of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The Nazca The Nazca people carved out a civilisation in southern Peru's arid valleys long before the Inca empire. They are best known for the Nazca lines: vast, intricate drawings etched on the desert floor, possibly sacred pathways. In addition to sophisticated pottery and textiles, the Nazca amassed one of South America's biggest collection of human trophy heads. The skulls had a hole drilled into the forehead. Academics disagree over whether the heads were of distant enemies killed in battle or sacrificial victims from closer to home. | ['environment/deforestation', 'environment/elnino', 'world/peru', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'science/science', 'science/archaeology', 'science/agriculture', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/rorycarroll', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-11-02T00:05:15Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2022/apr/01/india-living-root-bridges-submitted-to-unesco | ‘The knowledge of our elders’: India’s living root bridges submitted to Unesco | India’s famous living bridges – the roots of trees coaxed and stretched into the form of a suspension bridge over a river – have been submitted to Unesco’s tentative list for the coveted world heritage site status. The mountainous state of Meghalaya in the north-east has more than 100 such bridges in 70 villages, unique structures created by a combination of nature and human ingenuity. Once a bamboo structure has been stretched across the river, the roots of the tree, usually the rubber tree (Ficus elastica), are teased and manipulated to become entwined with the bamboo until it becomes a strong mesh. The roots are allowed to grow gradually and strengthen over time. In the initial stages, only about 15-20 people can cross the bridge in a day. Much later, it can be as many as 50 or more, although it can take up to two decades for a living roots bridge to be finished. In a remote region such as Meghalaya, known as the “Abode of Clouds” and home to the “wettest place on earth” in Cherrapunji, building roads is not feasible. The topography is dense jungle dotted with waterfalls, steep slopes, lakes and streams. The living root bridges are the only way people in a village can cross a river to reach the other side to farm, sell produce, reach a doctor or send children to school. During general elections, officials on horseback carrying ballot boxes to remote villages have no other means of reaching voters but these natural bridges. Known locally as Jingkieng Jri, some bridges are doubledeckers. Some are high above a valley, while others are just a few metres above the surface of a river. A description on the Unesco website says: “Grown by indigenous Khasi tribal communities, these structural ecosystems have performed in extreme climatic conditions for centuries, and encapsulate a profound harmony between humans and nature … validating the resilience of an ancient culture, where collective cooperation and reciprocity were the fundamental building blocks of life. “Each living root structure reveals a distinct ethno-botanical journey rooted in profound culture-nature reciprocity and synthesis. The intergenerational growth process of nurturing a sapling into a robust load-bearing structure in extreme climate and geography reveals exceptional enterprise and skill, suggesting a masterpiece of human creative genius.” The root bridges are not yet afforded world heritage status. However, by placing them on Unesco’s “tentative list”, the Indian government is making a vital step needed to submit them for consideration by the World Heritage Committee. Morningstar Khongthaw, 23, is the founder of the Living Bridges Foundation, which builds new bridges and helps preserve old ones. His village, Rangthylling, has 20 living roots bridges. “I am very glad that the knowledge of our elders has been recognised by Unesco. We want to multiply this knowledge so that future generations also benefit,” said Khongthaw. Already popular with tourists, the state government has been pushing for the Unesco tag for years in the hope it will become easier to preserve the bridges while also boosting tourism. James Sangma, a cabinet minister in Meghalaya, expressed the state’s excitement in a tweet. He said: “The living root bridges not only stand out for their exemplary human-environment symbiotic relationship but also focus on their pioneering use for connectivity and resilience, and the need to adopt sustainable measures to balance economy and ecology.” | ['world/india', 'environment/forests', 'world/unesco', 'world/south-and-central-asia', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/amrit-dhillon', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-04-01T10:26:13Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/feb/02/australia-tells-un-it-is-acting-with-renewed-vigour-on-great-barrier-reef | Australia acting with 'renewed vigour' on Great Barrier Reef | The Australian government has told the UN it is acting with “renewed vigour” to halt the decline of the Great Barrier Reef in its official case arguing that the vast ecosystem should not be listed as “in danger” later this year. The world heritage committee meets in Germany in June to consider whether the reef, which has lost half its coral cover over the past 30 years, has deteriorated badly enough to justify the listing. In his letter to Unesco, the environment minister, Greg Hunt, said the government had acted with “renewed vigour” to safeguard the reef, stressing that Australia had heeded the alarm raised over its health. “Australia has heard the concerns of its people and the international community loud and clear and is working harder than ever to address those concerns so that the intrinsic value of the reef is maintained and future generations can experience this stunning coral reef ecosystem and create their own memories for years to come,” Hunt wrote. Hunt said the government’s report to Unesco “clearly demonstrates that the Great Barrier Reef does not warrant being listed as in danger. “We know the reef is facing challenges but we are making significant progress. There is strong evidence that our efforts are working.” Australia’s report addressed concerns raised by Unesco over the industrial dredging and dumping of sediment in the reef’s waters by stressing that five proposals to dump material had been shelved and that the practice would be banned within the Great Barrier Reef marine park – although not in its wider world heritage area. The report added that ports would not be developed outside designated areas until 2022, although existing ports such as Abbott Point could be enlarged. A “reef trust” would receive $40m to improve water quality and species protection, with $10.5m spent between 2012 and 2015 to tackle a plague of coral-eating starfish. A further $700,000 is being spent to remove marine debris such as plastic bags, bottles and nets. A recent analysis suggests much more will need to be spent to revive the reef. The government’s report to Unesco said some natural features of the reef remained “intact” and some, such as the humpback whale population and the nesting sites of marine turtles, had improved. But it admitted that “increasing infrastructure along the coastline and on islands and increased shipping traffic have degraded some of the attributes identified as contribution to top-rating views”. Hunt recently spent time in Europe as part of the government’s determined diplomatic effort to avoid the “in danger” listing. An adverse listing would potentially damage the reef’s $6bn tourism industry, as well as Australia’s international standing, given that most endangered world heritage sites are in developing countries. The reef was listed as a world heritage property in 1982, but has declined in recent years. A 2014 report by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said its overall outlook was “poor, has worsened since 2009 and is expected to further deteriorate in the future”. The report cited climate change as the reef’s leading threat, followed by pollution flowing onto the coral from farming land. The starfish plague and cyclones were also threats. A joint federal and Queensland plan to reverse the reef’s fortunes has been criticised by scientists due to its lack of focus on climate change. Warming, acidifying oceans are potentially highly damaging to coral. The report sent to Unesco hailed the Coalition’s Direct Action emissions plan as Australia’s contribution to tackling climate change, while pointing out the amount of sediment flowing onto the reef had fallen by 11% over the past five years. The Greens said the report would fail to allay the concerns of the world heritage committee, maintaining the government’s approach was “business as usual”. “It’s unbelievable that after the world heritage committee recommended no new damaging port expansions, the Abbott government went ahead and approved the world’s largest coal port at Abbot Point,” said Greens senator Larissa Waters. “The Abbott government also hasn’t ruled out dumping from projects that have already been applied for, such as the projects in Cairns, Townsville and Gladstone. With so many dredging and dumping projects on the books for our reef, a ban that doesn’t include them would be useless.” The World Wildlife Fund said the report was “inaccurate” and did not reflect the reef’s decline. “The state party report claims that Australian and Queensland government policies on the Great Barrier Reef are sufficient to avoid an ‘in danger’ listing by the world heritage committee but this claim is undermined by the clear picture provided by the science,” said Dermot O’Gorman, chief executive of WWF Australia. “The Australian government’s report to Unesco does not provide an accurate assessment of the Great Barrier Reef’s condition, nor does it provide a convincing explanation of how the outstanding universal values of the reef will be restored.” | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'world/unesco', 'world/unitednations', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-02-02T07:09:26Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
education/2008/mar/03/highereducation.conservation | University taking cash from whaling criticised | St Andrews University was criticised last night for accepting funds for whale research from the Japanese agency which directs the country's annual whale hunt. The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research is regarded internationally as a scientific fig leaf for the country's commercial whaling ambitions. Conservationists say that by taking money from ICR, scientists at St Andrews help to legitimise its activities. The university argues that the research was undertaken to improve scientific understanding of Antarctic whale populations. The university's Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment received £31,900 in 2002 and £5,000 in 2005 from the ICR. The work did not involve data from animals killed by Japanese vessels, the university has no current involvement with ICR and the project was commissioned by the International Whaling Commission, which regulates hunting. "It is vital to understand whale abundance in the Southern Ocean to ensure that decisions about conservation may be taken on the basis of the most accurate possible assessment of population data," said Professor Alan Miller, vice-principal for research at St Andrews. "The University of St Andrews abhors the practice of whaling under scientific permit, as it does not believe that there is a scientific case for the continued take of whales. We have a strong track record of producing research which consistently undermines the case for whaling." According to the IWC, the Japanese caught 1,078 minke whales, 50 brydes whales, 5 sperm whales, 100 sei whales and 10 fin whales in 2005/06. It says these catches are necessary for scientific research. It has previously announced extending the catch this season to include 50 fin and 50 humpback whales. "It's disgraceful that St Andrews is accepting cash from the sale of whale meat," said Willie Mackenzie of Greenpeace, which wants a ban on whaling. "By taking this money, they are helping to justify the Japanese whaling hunt." The university hinted it may not accept future funding from the ICR. "In view of legitimate public concerns around whaling and potentially misleading public comments made by Japanese authorities about St Andrews' involvement in research, the university is now carrying out a detailed review of its current policy for accepting research commissions to ensure no inconsistency with our commitment to conservation." | ['education/higher-education', 'education/education', 'uk/uk', 'science/science', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/whaling', 'environment/environment', 'world/japan', 'world/world', 'education/standrewsuniversity', 'environment/whales', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/cetaceans', 'type/article', 'profile/jamesranderson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-03-03T09:17:59Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/jun/28/adani-coal-port-under-threat-of-stop-order-amid-concern-for-sacred-sites | Adani coal port under threat of stop order amid concern for sacred sites | Indigenous traditional owners from north Queensland have threatened to try to pursue an order that could shut down Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal, amid concern that sacred sites in the area have not been properly protected. Guardian Australia can reveal Adani has ignored repeated demands by Juru traditional owners to inspect “unauthorised” cultural assessments conducted by former directors of the embattled Kyburra Munda Yalga Aboriginal Corporation. The Indian conglomerate believes it can still rely on those assessments, despite the federal court ruling that Kyburra was not the appropriate “nominated body” to represent the Juru people on a land-use agreement. Cultural heritage assessments are a significant requirement of any major development on Indigenous country in Queensland. Surveys are conducted to identify sacred sites, then recommendations made about how to best preserve them. Assessments for Adani’s Abbot Point port were conducted by former directors of Kyburra, who paid themselves up to $1000 a day cash-in-hand. Kyburra is accused of financial mismanagement. It is in significant debt, under special administration and likely to be dissolved. Federal court documents reveal Kyburra kept secret more than $2m in payments by Adani. Directors of Kyburra then funnelled that money to themselves through a series of “fees” and “loans”. The financial mismanagement of Kyburra was central to a recent federal court ruling that another Indigenous business, Juru Enterprises Limited, was the proper nominated body on a land-use agreement. Traditional owners believe that ruling effectively voids the cultural heritage assessments conducted for Adani by Kyburra. Andrew Morrell told Guardian Australia last week he was “hugely worried” that improper or conflicted advice could have resulted in damage to sacred sites. Lawyers for JEL have emailed Adani three times asking to review the cultural assessments. Adani has not yet responded. Agreements designed to protect Juru sites remain secret from Juru traditional owners. JEL’s position is the agreements “require urgent reassessment and renegotiation”. On 15 June, JEL gave Adani until Friday to “agree to commence re-looking at all unauthorised cultural heritage surveys in an effort to minimise delays in conducting authorised surveys”. “However if your client fails to respond positively ... we will request a stop order pursuant to section 32 of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 to protect and preserve their native title area”. A stop order – which can apply to any activity if there is reasonable grounds to conclude it would harm cultural heritage – would be at the discretion of Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad, who has responsibility for Indigenous partnerships. Given the concerns of traditional owners relate in part to the Abbot Point state development area, the request for a stop order could put at risk the ongoing operations of Adani’s only income-producing asset in Australia. The company’s $2bn investment in the port is believed to be a key reason why it has not yet walked away from plans for the Carmichael mine, in the face of an ongoing inability to gain finance. Adani has not yet responded to letters sent by JEL solicitor Mark Ascione on 6 June and 15 June. A third letter was sent by Ascione on Wednesday giving Adani seven days to arrange a meeting in Bowen “in order that [traditional owners] will be able to review all of Kyburra’s unauthorised cultural heritage surveys”. Adani said in a statement it would “continue to work collaboratively with all Juru traditional owners” under land-use agreements and cultural heritage management plans. “We fully support and accept the decision made by [the federal court], which only refers to the ancillary agreement of one of the [land-use agreements] and does not affect Kyburra’s role as an Aboriginal party for the cultural heritage management plans.” | ['environment/carmichael-coalmine', 'business/adani-group', 'australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'world/india', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'environment/coal', 'australia-news/queensland', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2018-06-27T18:00:45Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2013/mar/19/uk-recycling-rates-europe | UK increased recycling rates fastest in Europe over past decade | Recycling rates in the UK rose faster in the first decade of the millennium than any other country in Europe, according to official statistics published on Tuesday. Although the UK started from a low base in 2001 – recycling rates were just 12% for all municipal waste – it increased by the greatest amount by 2010, reaching 39%, on a par with the average for the EU. But the European Environment Agency, which released the figures, warned that many countries will fail to meet a European directive of recycling 50% of waste by 2020. Some countries, such as Germany, Austria and Belgium, already recycle more than half of their waste. Others, in particular those in south-eastern Europe, are straggling far behind: Greece only recycles 18%, up from 9% in 2001, while Romania recycles just 1%. In a few cases, countries have gone backwards, with Norway's rates falling from 44% to 42%, and Finland's dropping from 34% to 33%. Jacqueline McGlade, EEA executive director, said: "In a relatively short time, some countries have successfully encouraged a culture of recycling, with infrastructure, incentives and public awareness campaigns. But others are still lagging behind, wasting huge volumes of resources. The current intense demand for some materials should alert countries to the clear economic opportunities in recycling." The EEA said in a statement that "Europe is still wasting vast quantities of valuable resources by sending them to landfill", echoing earlier warnings from Janez Potočnik, the EU commissioner for the environment, that failure to use resources wisely could trigger a fresh economic crisis. Despite the UK's rapid improvement, the EEA's David Watson cautioned "that [its] growth in … recycling slowed down significantly towards the end of the last decade." The UK is expected to meet the EU target of recycling 50% of waste by around 2017, the EEA noted. Wales has pulled well ahead of England and Scotland on recycling in recent years, recording average rates of 54% last month. A Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said: "Household recycling has risen from just 11% in 2001 to 43% this year and over half of business waste is now recycled. Government, local authorities and businesses have all worked with the public to achieve this and will continue to do so to meet challenging new targets." | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2013-03-19T08:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sport/2018/apr/14/sound-and-vision-how-a-blind-photographer-shot-the-games | Sound and vision: how a blind photographer shot the Games | With Leo, his labrador, fast asleep on the pool deck, Andrew Follows focused his lens on the victorious swimmers parading around in front of him. For some of the athletes, the sight of a guide dog snoozing at poolside was incongruous – as was the realisation they were being snapped by a visually impaired photographer. “People see me with a dog and they see me with a big camera and they go, ‘Am I seeing this right?!’” says Follows, who has spent the past week shooting at the Commonwealth Games. “The medal winners were all looking down at Leo and he’s asleep; he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Shooting the Games has been epic, absolutely epic,” he adds. “From the opening ceremony to the end of the swimming finals, I’ve captured some really magic moments.” Main portrait of Andrew Follows and Leo by Carly Earl for the Guardian The 56-year-old from Melbourne was born with a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disorder in which the cells of the retina are unable to sufficiently process light. Blind in one eye, his vision in the other is so poor he cannot rely on it to compose or time his images. “I’ve had retinitis pigmentosa from birth so I’ve never had good eyesight,” he says. “I’ve got no vision in my left eye and in my right eye I’ve got tunnel vision with about three metres of clear vision – the average person has 70 metres – so it’s pretty crap. “Over the years I’ve developed techniques [for making photographs] and it works well for the swimming, especially. I’m using my hearing to follow the sound of the water splashing and the crowd. “You know that the end of the race is coming when the crowd gets louder and louder and louder. I just focus the camera on the end blocks and start pressing that shutter button. I’m not seeing the results until I see them on the computer but I get really excited when I see them.” Indeed, Follows credits digital photography as being a transformative influence in his life. “I’ve always been involved in photography, even back in the old film days,” he says, “but since I bought my first digital camera in 2006 it’s opened up a whole new world of vision because you take the photos, you put the card into the computer, and all of a sudden you can see a lot clearer the shapes and textures and expressions on people’s faces – everything – so the camera has really become my eyes and allowed me to see what everybody else can see. I deeply love photography. It’s my passion now.” Follows is one of a growing legion of visually impaired photographers around the world and it is thanks to his friend, the photographer Delly Carr, that he was granted a media pass for the Games. His guide dog is fairly new to the role of assistant photographer but it’s work to which he’s perfectly suited. Leo even has his own media credentials and the ID number 007. “I’ve only had him nine months but he’s totally, 100% devoted to me. He utterly adores me and he just goes with the flow. He nailed it around the Games” – even if he did spend half of it sleeping. All pictures below by Andrew Follows Swimmers dive into the pool at the start of a race. Bronte Campbell and Cate Campbell after they won gold and silver in the 100m freestyle. Sixteen-year-old Ellie Robinson who won gold in the women’s S7 50m butterfly. Leo, Andrew Follows’s guide dog, sits poolside. Blake Cochrane congratulates compatriot Jess Aungles after going one-two in the 200m individual medley SM8. A gymnast from New Zealand. A gymnast flies through the air during competition. Welsh weightlifter Gareth Evans who secured gold in the men’s 69kg category by lifting 299kg. Deb Lovely-Acason of Australia in action during the women’s +90kg weightlifting final. | ['sport/commonwealth-games-2018', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'sport/sport', 'society/blindness', 'society/health', 'world/disability', 'society/society', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'artanddesign/photography', 'sport/australia-sport', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/jonny-weeks', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-pictures-'] | sport/commonwealth-games-2018 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-04-13T22:16:36Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
sport/2022/oct/29/new-zealand-wales-womens-rugby-world-cup-match-report-rugby-union | Woodman blasts Black Ferns past Wales into Women’s Rugby World Cup semis | Wales’s World Cup dreams have been extinguished and the dying of the light, in the end, made for pretty tough viewing. Denying the Black Ferns a semi-final berth was always a fanciful notion and, for all the plentiful red-shirted spirit and heart, few teams in the world would have fancied shutting down the constant darting menace of New Zealand’s back three. With the dynamic duo of Portia Woodman and Ruby Tui contributing three of New Zealand’s nine tries, even the firm tournament favourites England will have looked on with a creeping sense of unease. The Black Ferns will now face France, convincing 39-3 winners over Italy in the day’s other quarter-final, in the last four and Woodman is now out on her own as the most prolific try-scorer in rugby union World Cup history. A France-New Zealand semi-final will certainly be well worth watching, with both sides capable of moving the ball effectively and attacking with relish. Under the tutelage of the former All Black coach Wayne Smith, the Black Ferns backs are starting to look particularly sharp and, as a consequence, confidence is starting to return to other parts of their game. In front of another excellent crowd on a mild Northland evening, Wales were frequently reminded that knockout rugby can be horribly unforgiving. Their only reward, in the end, was a first-half penalty goal for Keira Bevan, although the sight of the entire Welsh team defiantly advancing in a line towards the haka before kick-off will stick in the memory. Sadly they spent much of the subsequent game in reverse, with the Black Ferns scrum also wholly dominant by the end. With Theresa Fitzpatrick displaying plenty of midfield class and the captain, Ruahei Demant, in decent kicking form, it added up to a relentless test of character for a Welsh side still in the foothills of professionalism. Only 12 minutes had elapsed when Tui put Woodman over on the right for the Blacks Ferns’ first try and the quick-witted pair were also responsible for the second, Woodman collecting Demant’s cross-kick and sending the alert Tui over. The chorus of Kaiser Chiefs’ Ruby blasted out over the public address and the locals settled back in expectation of more of the same. Wales had one or two moments of promise but were powerless to prevent New Zealand adding a third try inside the first half-hour, this time courtesy of a stretching Sarah Hirini. With a further score for the prop Amy Rule making it 26-3 at the interval, it was already a case of damage limitation. The slickness of the midfield handling for Woodman’s second try three minutes after the restart, however, was outstanding and the replacement hooker Luka Connor also helped herself to a brace. The back-rower Alana Bremner and Demant also added further scores to intensify Welsh discomfort but Alex Callender, the tournament’s leading tackler, was encouraged by her side’s refusal to lie down. “We went out there and showed how much it means to us to play for our country,” the back-rower said. “I think we’ve grown since January and we’re only going to get better.” The Wales coach, Ioan Cunningham, also expressed pride in his team afterwards and making it to the last eight will be a source of some consolation. “I thought we fronted up physically in the first half,” he said. “We can take a lot of confidence from this. For periods we competed with [one of] the best teams in the world.” Defeat was certainly less painful than the fate suffered by the male streaker who made an exhibition of himself by running on to the pitch during the second half and ended up being brutally flattened by a posse of no-nonsense security staff. Whether anyone can flatten England is the next big question to be answered, with New Zealand now probably the narrow favourites to reach the final. France, though, are a more than capable side, with some strong-running forwards and no shortage of pace and skill behind, as Italy were frequently reminded. The smooth-running full-back Emilie Boulard was a deserved player of the match and the French scrum-half Pauline Bourdon is another consistent joy to watch. In addition, Scotland’s Hollie Davidson also had an authoritative game with the whistle and appears to be an increasingly strong contender to referee the final at Eden Park on Saturday week. It all added to a brilliantly staged event: thousands of happy fans of all ages perched on the vast grass bank opposite the main stand, humming along to blasts of Motown, reggae and Elvis Presley, enjoying two good games of rugby for the princely sum of £5 for an adult ground entry ticket. Keep it fun and affordable and people will want to come back. | ['sport/womens-rugby-world-cup-2021', 'sport/new-zealand-women-s-rugby-union-team', 'sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/womens-rugby-union', 'sport/rugby-union', 'sport/sport', 'campaign/email/the-breakdown', 'type/article', 'tone/matchreports', 'profile/robertkitson', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/sport', 'theobserver/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/wales-womens-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-10-29T08:52:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
media/pda/2008/aug/15/guardianvideoviralchart5 | Guardian Video Viral Chart | And good day to you! This week, I bring you the top twenty most blogged about tech videos of the week, for your viewing pleasure. This really is the viral video with everything; Quark, protons, dimensions, collisions, particles... it could only be a rap about the Hadron Collider, of course! It's 27 miles of sexy science. But it there gals can impart even a few nuggets of wisdom about dark matter, it'll all be worth the humiliation. Extra points if you can name the classic 'woo-yeah' sample throughout, and if you spot the salacious rubbing of a bumbag. It has been a while since we had a juicy bit of time lapse, and this does the job just too well; the slow-mo demolition of a skyscraper called Daruma-otoshi in Japan. It's about the most elegant demolition you'll ever see. Former astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell - the sixth man to walk on the moon - tells a Kerrang DJ that there is life beyond our planet and that he has been briefed on extra-terrestrial happenings on this planet. The poor Kerrang DJ can't quite take it all in as Mitchell explains that although there's a huge amount of misinformation out there, Roswell was real, we have been visited already and plenty of incidents have been covered up by governments for more than 60 years. He says there's a move towards disclosure - and we might get confirmation of that when all our UFO files area released in the next four years. But don't worry - he says the intent of aliens is not hostile. If it was, we'd be gone by now. Don't have nightmares... Guardian Viral Video Chart: compiled by viralvideochart.com 1 Large Hadron Rap Yes, that's what it is. 2 Microsoft Surface Sphere Preview of a prototype interactive touch screen on a sphere. 3 Web 2.0 ... The Machine Is Us/ing Us How to explain the new web to you Mum. 4 Daruma-otoshi skyscraper demolition Now that's clever. They should use it to inspire kids to study science and maths at school. 5 Lively by Google Demo of Google's virtual world toy. 6 Edgar Mitchell interview on Kerrang Radio 23 July 2008 Former astronaut tells a shocked Kerrang DJ that he knows there is life beyond Earth. 7 "I Am Rich" Guided Tour A tour of the $1000 iPhone app that was banned by Apple. 8 BMW GINA Light Visionary Model: Premiere Fascinator explainer about rethinking car design - why not give a car a skin? 9 WASP Injection Knife vs. Watermelon Don't tell the hoodies. 10 Boston Dynamics Big Dog (new video March 2008) One of the world's most advanced robots. Really, really clever. (If this is in public, imagine what the military is using...) 11 HTC Dream Sneak preview of the HTC mobile handset. 12 3G iPhone Ad vs Real World: A performance comparison Proving the point that the iPhone 3G is not as fast as the ad says. (Very impatient, these Mactards.) 13 The Moon transits the Earth as seen by EPOXI Footage of Earth spinning, as filed by Nasa - from 31m miles away. 14 The CERN black hole Someone wants us to think that the Hadron Collider will be the end of us all... 15 Dove Evolution Ad Woman gets Photoshopped. 16 Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 The Appley one speaks. 17 Kinetic sculpture at the BMW Museum (full length) Hypnotic footage of a 3D sculpture. 18 Creeping Oobleck Amazing with you can do with darn good speakers. 19 Tilted Twister - Lego NXT Rubik's Cube solver Is this genuine or not? I have no idea. I just used to move all the stickers on mine instead. 20 Louie Giglio - Laminin How a pastor wove the wonder of the cell-adhesion molecule into his sermon. Source:Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 16:40 on 14 August 2008. The Weekly Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately two million blogs. | ['media/pda', 'technology/series/viralvideochart', 'media/digital-media', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/internet', 'technology/technology', 'tone/blog', 'media/media', 'media/media-blog', 'type/article', 'profile/jemimakiss'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-08-15T06:00:19Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2021/sep/15/fire-shuts-one-of-uk-most-important-power-cables-in-midst-of-supply-crunch | Fire shuts one of UK’s most important power cables in midst of supply crunch | A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices. National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The fire has halted electricity imports via the 2,000 megawatt power cable until March next year and could not have come at a worse time for the UK’s squeezed markets, according to experts. The UK faces record energy prices after a global gas market surge raised the cost of running gas power plants, which has been compounded by a string of power plant outages and low wind speeds. The all-time energy price highs are expected to send bills soaring for the next year and cause a string of small energy companies to go bust. It has already forced some steelmakers to shut their factories during hours of peak electricity demand. The market price at one of the UK’s main electricity auctions cleared at a record price of £2,500 per megawatt-hour for the hours of peak demand on Wednesday, compared with a typical baseload price of about £40/MWh throughout 2019 and 2020. Phil Hewitt, a director of the market consultancy EnAppSys, said the fire was “a major event” because it could lead to an extended outage at the IFA cable. “It puts the GB market in a risky position for the winter and especially if we suffer from periods of low wind and cold temperatures,” he added. The electricity system operator, which is owned by National Grid, said there would be enough electricity to meet the UK’s peak demand on Wednesday evening. However, market experts fear the latest blow to the UK’s power system could cause prices to rise further and will increase the UK’s reliance on running its last remaining coal plants. Gareth Stace, the director general of trade group UK Steel, said the “extortionate prices” were forcing some steelmakers to suspend work during periods when electricity prices were at their highest. He called on the government and the industry regulator to “take action as this situation continues”. “Last year, prices were roughly £50 per megawatt hour. Even with the global steel market as buoyant as it is, these eye-watering prices are making it impossible to profitably make steel at certain times of the day and night,” he said. “Electricity prices increase in the winter months, therefore the situation gets more urgent each and every day,” Stace added. National Grid confirmed that the West Burton coal plant in Nottinghamshire and a coal unit at the Drax site in North Yorkshire were warming up in anticipation of generating electricity on Wednesday evening in exchange for eye-wateringly high payments. Last week the electricity system operator paid about £4,000/MWh to power plants that could generate electricity at short notice, and a total of more than £86m to keep the lights on. The Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant near Nottingham is also in line to benefit from record power prices this week. Kent fire and rescue service said on Wednesday afternoon that four fire engines, two height vehicles and its technical rescue unit remained in attendance at the IFA site. National Grid said it would provide an update on the incident in due course. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/coal', 'business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'money/household-bills', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/money', 'uk/uk', 'world/france', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-09-15T16:43:04Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2013/oct/18/fuel-poverty-driving-direct-action | Fuel price rises are sparking a new wave of direct action | Ewa Jasiewicz | It came as no surprise that British Gas, the latest of the Big Six energy companies to hike its prices, found itself the recipient of a furious backlash this week. There's plenty to be angry about: one in four households now regularly choose between heating and eating; 7,200 people died last year because they were unable to heat their homes; while energy minister Ed Davey's solution to fuel poverty is to advise people to "wear a jumper". Fuel poverty is mobilising people to seek alternatives to the corporate control of energy (the Big Six control 99% of our domestic gas and electricity supply). Following the latest round of price hikes, the announcement of mega-profits and eye-watering chief executive pay, the companies' claims that they have no obligation to keep the lights on is fertile ground for civil disobedience. Activism on climate change is back too, and this time it is thinking global but acting local. Government plans to allow 64% of England to be fracked for shale gas and coal bed methane are sowing the seeds of community-based opposition. Whether it's Balcombe telling Cuadrilla where to go, or East Kent and Salford rejecting I-Gas and Coastal Oil, these communities are united by a vital experience – a total lack of democracy when it comes to energy. The all-party narrative of re-powering the UK with local gas is profoundly disempowering for those who have to deal with it up close. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are backing these local campaigns, while No Dash for Gas, Disabled People Against Cuts, Occupy and UK Uncut were all part of the Reclaim the Power camp in Balcombe this summer, which shut down Cuadrilla for six days. We are witnessing a growing coalition of protest groups linking climate change to fuel poverty, democracy and social justice. Fuel Poverty Action and UK Uncut are planning actions against the Big Six, highlighting single mothers, disabled activists, pensioners and asylum seekers – those hardest hit by fuel poverty. Renewable energy co-operatives have grown by 24% since 2008, showing that alternative power is technically as well as politically possible. Progressive unions are also joining in with One Million Climate Jobs and National Climate Service vision to get us out of austerity and into co-operatively owned sustainable industries. Fuel poverty is a symptom of the free market. Neither the coalition policy of increasing competition nor Labour's plan to bring prices under government control are sufficient. Seventy percent of British people support public ownership of energy. Direct democratic control, with an emphasis on locally generated renewable energy, is what's needed. In Germany, where renewables account for 25% of the energy mix and are 65% publicly owned, the main four companies feel some energy insecurity. In Berlin, the Energeitisch initiative, started up by eight people, has mobilised 50,000 Berliners in just over two years to force a referendum on reclaiming the city's grid from the Swedish corporation Vattenfall (one of the UK's biggest windpower operators) and move it into 100% renewable, democratic control. The network, supported by unions, co-operatives and campaigners, operates a "no disconnections" policy – vital, given that 20,000 people in Berlin were cut off last year. In Greece, where fuel prices have risen 12 times over the past four years, amounting to a total increase of 50%, the leftwing party Syriza is seriously debating a radical energy policy. Local energy co-operatives could hold the key not just to local supplies but also to rebuilding communities after austerity, co-creating energy, climate and economic security for the majority. These discussions are happening all over the world. It is through the process of de-privatising energy that we can organise our societies along genuinely democratic lines and begin to reclaim our power, wherever we live. • This article was amended on 19 October 2013. It originally called Vattenfall a Norwegian, rather than Swedish, corporation. This has now been corrected. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'society/fuel-poverty', 'money/energy', 'society/poverty', 'society/society', 'business/centrica', 'business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/no-dash-for-gas', 'business/gas', 'environment/activism', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/ewajasiewicz', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-10-18T16:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2012/jun/28/colorado-wildfires-wreck-homes-weather | Colorado wildfires wreck homes but officials hope for break in weather | More than 340 homes in Colorado Springs have been destroyed by wildfires, the city's mayor said on Thursday, in the first official indication of the destructive fury unleashed by the flames. The full extent of the damage to Colorado's second largest city is bound to be higher, officials have said. With the losses to homes to date, the fire was already ranked the most destructive in the state's history. But wind and weather conditions on Thursday began to turn in the firefighters' favour. "We have had the first break in the weather in the days since we have been here," said Rich Harvey, the fire incident commander. "We are going to go after it today aggressively." In a further sign of confidence, the authorities lifted a number of evacuation orders on Thursday night, allowing residents to return home for the first time in days. As of Thursday night, 346 homes on 35 streets were known to be destroyed. City officials summoned residents to a meeting to offer further details. The Waldo Canyon wildfire, which started on Saturday, is the most serious of dozens of wildfires across the American west. President Barack Obama is due to tour the devastation and visit firefighters on Friday. For the 32,000 peopled ordered to leave their homes in the western neighbourhoods of the city threatened by the fire, the last hours and days have been a time of anxious waiting for news on the state of their neighbourhood. Over the last few days, residents from some of the most damaged areas have congregated at lookout points hoping to get a glimpse of their homes. Other evacuees have turned up at police roadblocks, trying to retrieve medicine or belongings or check on their homes. Officials had earlier refused to comment on the extent of the destruction, saying neighbourhoods were still too enshrouded by smoke, or too dangerous to approach. But among the thousands of evacuees there was anxiety, fuelled by aerial images of destroyed neighbourhoods broadcast by local news. On Thursday morning, the city's mayor, Steve Bach, confirmed for many what will be their worst fear: that their homes and everything in them had been lost. "We now know that hundreds of homes have been destroyed," he told a press conference. Officials have said about 21,000 homes and other buildings are within reach of the wildfire, which exploded past containment barriers on Tuesday night and rushed down from the hills towards populated areas. Steve Cox, a former fire chief who is advising the city's mayor, conceded that Bach had been speaking only of homes burnt to the ground. Many others could be partially damaged by flames or smoke. The picture emerging from the fire zone is mixed – thanks to the efforts of firefighters, Bach said. "Yes, there has been a lot of loss of property. But there has been a lot of property that was destroyed, homes destroyed, and right next to them are homes still standing," he said. Much of the destruction within the city limits occurred in the space of a few hours on Tuesday night when the wildfire exploded past containment barriers. Some people in areas in the path of the flames were given less than an hour to move out. Others, who were at work when the fire broke through, never got a chance to return home. By Thursday morning, the fire has expanded to some 26 sq miles, or more than 18,000 acres, but fire officials said no new homes were burnt overnight and that they had made "good progress" during the course of Thursday laying down defensive lines. The earlier losses had been unforseeable, Bach insisted. Firefighters had no way of anticipating such rapid changes in wind speed or direction. "This is a fire of epic proportions," he said. "It's an act of God." | ['us-news/colorado-wildfires', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/colorado', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/news', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | us-news/colorado-wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-06-28T16:42:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
books/2019/apr/26/extinction-rebellion-rushes-activists-handbook-this-is-not-a-drill-into-print | Extinction Rebellion rushes activists' handbook This Is Not a Drill into print | Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas are among the contributors to a forthcoming handbook about how to become an Extinction Rebellion activist, which will feature instructions on everything from organising roadblocks to dealing with arrest. As 65,000 copies of Swedish student Greta Thunberg’s manifesto Rejoignez-nous (Join Us) hit French bookshops this week – with British publishers also understood to be chasing English rights to the book by the teenager who has sparked a global youth movement – This Is Not a Drill by Extinction Rebellion went from manuscript to the printers in 10 days and is being rushed out by Penguin for 3 June. The book, which will also feature contributions from names including Susie Orbach, Kate Raworth and Clive Lewis, was originally planned for September. Penguin editor Tom Penn said: “We thought, ‘This is an emergency, and we have to react like it’s an emergency.’” The activists in the book write: “This is our last chance to do anything about the global climate and ecological emergency. Our last chance to save the world as we know it. Now or never, we need to be radical. We need to rise up. And we need to rebel. This is a book of truth and action.” Extinction Rebellion activist William Skeaping, who is also one of the book’s four editors, said it had originally been envisaged as a manifesto, “but we felt that didn’t really capture the movement, which is far more emotional and personal and still being developed”. “When we were giving advice, we wanted not just to be speaking in platitudes but to have lived the experience. We’ve had a good start, but there is so much more to be done,” Skeaping said. The book, said Penn, is in two parts – the first looking at how “we’re in denial, and need to understand what the climate emergency means”, as well as “delving into the psychological trauma of what it means to understand our world is changing irrevocably”. The second is a handbook for activists, with stories by people Skeaping described as being “on the front lines of climate emergencies”, from a Himalayan farmer to a firefighter in California and the president of the Maldives. “These are people who are literally about to die – they’re reminders of how close these front lines are,” said Skeaping. “This is not just about a climate emergency, it’s also ecological – habitat loss, the loss of biodiversity, that’s what’s going to kill us first. This book is about what we can all begin to do, and because it’s not by just one author, it’s the crowdsourced knowledge of our movement.” With activists fresh from gluing themselves to the London Stock Exchange and protesting semi-naked in the House of Commons, Extinction Rebellion is an international protest group that uses non-violent civil disobedience in its environmental campaigns. Penn admitted there were questions for an environmental group releasing a printed book. But This Is Not A Drill will be printed, he said, in a carbon-neutral paper mill that plants two trees for every one it uses, and it was felt the book needed to appear in print for maximum impact. “In an ideal world there would be an entirely non-impactful way of doing this, but this is a means to an end,” he said. | ['books/books', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'culture/culture', 'world/protest', 'books/publishing', 'uk/rowan-williams', 'politics/caroline-lucas', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alisonflood', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-04-26T11:01:13Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
technology/2008/jul/10/internet.digitalvideo | Content supplier admits to contract with popup biller Platte | Why has the Sheffield-based British Internet Broadcasting Company (BiBC) been repeatedly insisting it does not have a contract to supply films for Platte International's getfilmsnow.com website? The answer is that it has a contract with Platte International but not for getfilmsnow. If BiBC had given that complete answer before, Ashley Bateup, chief executive of Platte International, would not have had to insist to the Guardian last month, and on BBC Radio 4's You And Yours last week, that there is a contract. Platte International has garnered attention for having stills from mainstream films on the front of getfilmsnow, but inside offers thousands of pornographic films and freely available film trailers (Porn billing firm lures customers with promises of Hollywood movies, June 26). Now, through its division Platte Media, the company plans to offer ordinary films and music. BiBC's managing director Paul Hague previously told the Guardian: "BiBC does not have a contract with Platte International to provide film/video content for getfilmsnow.com." We repeatedly asked Hague and his PR company, Buffalo Communications, about any contracts with Platte. However, they repeatedly relied on his earlier response until now. Just minutes after a final "there is nothing further to say" message from Buffalo late on Monday afternoon, Hague emailed a different response to us: "There is a contract with Platte but NOT for GetFilmsNow, the nature of the content to be provided as part of any service is yet to be agreed but may contain some film and some music." Had Hague's confirmation come earlier, Platte International's chief executive Stanly Hiwat would not have needed to write suggesting that the Guardian has been "incorrect on the matter of Platte and BIBC Ltd". (Confusingly, there are two Platte International companies involved: one registered in the UK, the other registered in the British Virgin Islands.) Hiwat had insisted the contract for films and music was signed in April. It now seems that BiBC's Hague has decided to confirm there is a contract. Although the promised content isn't likely to end up on getfilmsnow, the film studios will be watching developments closely. Following a cease and desist letter, getfilmsnow is also no longer showing photographs of popular movies such as X-Men: The Last Stand - which is distributed and co-produced by 20th Century Fox. That may not be the end of it: 20th Century Fox told the Guardian that its legal team is investigating the matter. But what originally looked like Platte and BiBC squaring up for a legal Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) now seems more like a classic French farce. | ['technology/internet', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/digital-music-and-audio', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'profile/michaelpollitt', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/technologyguardian', 'theguardian/technologyguardian/technology'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-07-09T23:01:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/blog/2009/nov/19/manifesto-copenhagen-democracy | Is Decc's collaborative manifesto for Copenhagen web democracy in action? | James Randerson | The UN climate talks in Copenhagen have certainly caught the public imagination. On the environment desk here at the Guardian it has been a struggle to keep up with the different demands, manifestos, pamphlets and protests from charities, businesses, environmentalists and other civil society groups. But what if there was a way of somehow bringing those disparate voices together into a people's manifesto: a document that incorporates the important demands from folk who care about the outcome of this summit but one that filters out the peripheral noise? The UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) reckons they might have a way of doing that. Along with the National Union of Students, Decc has set up a living document using an online web-tool called mixedink. The tool is aimed at students to allow them to contribute to a collaborative manifesto that will be handed to Ed Miliband, the climate change minister, on 5 December in London – the day of the Wave protest which bills itself as the UK's biggest climate change march. Contributors will be able to add to the document's "general vision" plus sub-sections about adaptation, finance, forestry, governance, mitigation and technology. The tool allows you to mix and match bits of other submissions and combine them in new ways with your own text. Alternatively, you can scrap what is there already and write your own. You can also rate other peoples efforts by voting for what you like. There is a handy video on the site that explains how it all works. Here's the current working text for the finance section as an example: One of the highest priorities at Copenhagen is to find ways to pay for action to both reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we produce and to adapt to climate change. In the long-term most of the cash is likely to come from the private sector, and a deal must find ways to encourage this. However, public funding will also be needed to make sure the world acts fast enough. The UK wants to see extra money made available to tackle climate change, with measures in place to make sure it is spent effectively. The UK will be working with our international partners to develop our proposals in more detail and prepare for Copenhagen. But international agreements between governments are only part of the effort we need to be successful in tackling climate change. Action at all levels: international, national, in business, in local communities and in our homes, can make a difference. Ed Miliband said: "Young people and the generations that follow will be most affected if we don't avert the most dangerous impacts of climate change, and they will be instrumental in re-shaping the way we all live in the future. "There are only two and a half weeks to go before I join my counterparts from around the world in Copenhagen. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for students to contribute their shared vision for their shared future." Web democracy in action? The proof will be in what comes out of the exercise. There's a danger that it might be hijacked of course, and by its nature it will skim over the rich diversity of opinions on how to tackle climate change. At best it will produce a powerful consensus statement with contributions from hundreds or even thousands of people. At worse it will be a bland, uncontroversial treatise of familiar ideas that leaves out the difficult solutions. Perhaps getting involved is the only way to stop that happening. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/copenhagen', 'politics/edmiliband', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'politics/politics', 'education/students', 'education/education', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'profile/jamesranderson'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-11-19T13:37:33Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2006/dec/24/ipcc.climatechange | Observer writers review 2006: Robin McKie on global warming | This is the moment when the world seems to get the message at last: climate change is serious and unavoidable. A draft version of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is published, to worldwide consternation. It reveals that scientists are no longer able to put reliable upper limits on man-made heating of the atmosphere. Global warming - driven by industrial carbon emissions - could end up being far worse than previously predicted. It remains to be seen if this gloom is maintained in the final version of the IPCC report, which is due out early next year. Drawn together from research collated over the past five years, it promises to be a thorough affair, if nothing else. On the other hand, the original draft document has since been presented to national governments and is now being modified to accommodate individual views. What the Americans might add is intriguing, to say the least. Nevertheless, the report is still likely to contain enough to demonstrate just how worrying are our prospects for surviving the century. The collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and disruption of the Gulf Stream ocean current are two very real threats that could cause mayhem long before the year 2100. The fact that the world woke up to the threat of climate change in 2006 was not reflected in political action, of course. The Nairobi talks on implementing carbon emission controls after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires, were feeble, producing little that was encouraging. Nevertheless, there is now a palpable feeling that the world has got the message about climate change, a point hammered home over the autumn by Al Gore's surprising hit film, An Inconvenient Truth. Since then, the Stern Review and others have helped fuel the urgency of the situation, with the most recent reports indicating that the Arctic may become entirely free of sea ice within three decades; that melting Siberian permafrost is now pumping millions of extra tonnes of methane and carbon dioxide into the air; and that the rate of increase in carbon dioxide leaking into the atmosphere is accelerating. As Sir Crispin Tickell, the former diplomat turned environmental spokesman, recently put it, only 'nutcases' now deny the link between man's activities and the profound changes occurring in our climate. Five other climate changers 26 October: Ken Livingstone plans to replace all London buses by 2012 with vehicles powered by diesel hybrid motors, cutting carbon emissions by 40 per cent per year 26 October: Australia announces plans for one of the world's largest solar generator sites, providing enough power for 45,000 homes 29 November: Professor James Lovelock claims a hotter planet could only support a 10th of its global population. 'An awful lot of people will die,' he says, 'but I don't see the species dying out' 1 September: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's California vows to cut emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 6 December: Sales of 4x4 vehicles fall by 6 per cent in the UK in 2006, and by 28 per cent in the US | ['environment/ipcc', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/arctic', 'type/article', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/magazine', 'theobserver/magazine/features'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2006-12-24T13:11:13Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2022/sep/23/thousands-call-for-climate-reparations-and-justice-in-global-protests | Thousands call for ‘climate reparations and justice’ in global protests | Thousands of young people have staged a coordinated “global climate strike” across Asia, Africa and Europe in a call for reparations for those worst affected by climate breakdown. From New Zealand and Japan to Germany and the Democratic Republic of Congo, activists walked out of schools, universities and jobs to demand rich countries pay for the damage global heating is inflicting on the poor. In the latest day of action by the Fridays For Future movement, strikes “for climate reparations and justice” were planned in about 450 locations worldwide. The protests take place six weeks before the Cop27 climate summit, where developing countries plan to push for compensation for climate-related destruction to homes, infrastructure and livelihoods. Recent months have seen deadly floods engulfing large parts of Pakistan, wildfires ravaging north Africa, Europe and North America, and record-breaking heatwaves in Britain and India. “We’re striking all over the world because the governments in charge are still doing too little for climate justice,” said Darya Sotoodeh, a spokesperson for the group’s chapter in Germany. “One day, it could be my house that gets flooded,” said 15-year-old Park Chae-yun, one of about 200 protesting in Seoul, South Korea. “I’m living with a sense of crisis, so I think it is more important to deliver my concerns to the government to take preventive measures rather than going to school.” The biggest strike took place in Berlin, with police in the German capital estimating 20,000 took part in a rally calling on their government to set up a €100bn fund for tackling the climate crisis. About 400 young activists gathered in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, chanting “Act for Africa, protect our planet”. They marched on the shoulder of a busy thoroughfare carrying cardboard signs saying “Climate Justice” and “Climate SOS”. In Rome, 5,000 young people turned out for a march that ended near the Colosseum. One carried a placard saying: “The climate is changing. Why aren’t we?” Denmark is the only rich country that has so far stepped up with funding for the problem of “loss and damage” due to climate-related disasters, announcing at the UN assembly this week it would provide DKK 100m (£12m) to address it. A statement on the Fridays For Future website said: “Colonisers and capitalists are at the core of every system of oppression that has caused the climate crisis, and decolonisation, using the tool of climate reparations, is the best kind of climate action.” The Fridays For Future youth movement began in 2018, inspired by Greta Thunberg’s solitary protests outside the Swedish parliament. It reached a high point in November 2019, when 4 million people took part in 4,500 actions worldwide on one Friday. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/protest', 'world/world', 'environment/cop27', 'environment/climate-aid', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'world/reparations-and-reparative-justice', 'profile/damien-gayle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/climate-aid | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2022-09-23T17:23:10Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
us-news/article/2024/sep/09/us-voters-distrust-plastics-manufacturers-claims | Most US voters say plastics industry should be held responsible for recycling claims – report | Concern about the fossil fuel and plastics industries’ alleged deception about recycling is growing, with new polling showing a majority of American voters, including 54% of Republicans, support legal efforts to hold the sectors accountable. The industries have faced increasing scrutiny for their role in the global plastics pollution crisis, including an ongoing California investigation and dozens of suits filed over the last decade against consumer brands that sell plastics. Research published earlier this year found that plastic producers have known for decades that plastic recycling is too cumbersome and expensive to ever become a feasible waste management solution, but promoted it to the public anyway. The revelations from fossil fuel accountability advocacy group Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) sparked calls for legal action from advocates and officials. But no lawsuits have yet been filed about this alleged disinformation campaign. Now, new polling data shared with the Guardian shows that 70% of American voters would support such litigation, including a majority of Republicans. The results show that “regardless of your politics, no one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers”, said CCI investigative researcher Davis Allen, who led the organization’s report. The survey of 1,200 likely American voters was conducted in August by the CCI and the progressive polling firm Data for Progress. The polling sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography and voting history. Asked to gauge their level of worry about plastic waste in waterways, 63% said they were “very concerned”, including 73% of Democrats, 60% of independents and 53% of Republicans. A majority also indicated some level of worry about plastic litter in their communities, plastic waste in landfills and microplastics in their bodies. Participants were then informed that some officials, citing evidence of deception, have called for litigation against the plastics and fossil fuel industries for their role in plastic pollution. Majorities from every political affiliation said they would back the efforts, including not only 54% of Republicans but also 88% of Democrats and 66% of independents. The poll went on to ask respondents about the industry’s well-known “chasing arrows” symbol, which plastic producers have been using since the 1980s. Though it is widely recognized as a symbol for recyclable plastic, it is often used on products that are not recyclable at all, the poll explained. Most respondents, 62%, strongly agreed that putting the chasing arrows symbol on a non-recyclable plastic product is deceptive, including 57% of Republicans. Half of voters remained in strong agreement that the symbol would be deceptive if placed on plastic products that are technically recyclable but not usually recycled in practice. When the poll informed respondents that some advocates compare the plastics and fossil fuel industries’ promotion of plastics recycling to the opioid and tobacco industries’ efforts to downplay the harmful effects of their products, 68% of voters said they strongly believed that the plastics sector should be held responsible for the plastic waste crisis. Some 59% felt the same about the fossil fuel industry. When survey respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of plastic recycled nationwide, they initially guessed just under 45%. In fact, just 5% of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021 was recycled, one study found. Ross Eisenberg, the president of America’s Plastic Makers – a part of the American Chemistry Council lobbying group – said: “It is disappointing that misconceptions about the plastics industry are diverting attention from real solutions.” He said that to increase plastic recycling, the industry is advocating for effective policies, investing in new technologies and setting new internal goals. The Plastics Industry Association trade group did not respond to a request for comment. The American Petroleum Institute oil and gas lobbying group deferred to the American Chemistry Council. The poll comes amid increasing scrutiny of industry messaging about plastics’ recyclability. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency said that the chasing arrows symbol’s use on many plastic products was “deceptive”, and the Federal Trade Commission is now working to revise its Green Guide documents, which define how companies can use marketing terms like “recyclable” and “compostable”. Two years ago, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, publicly launched an investigation into fossil fuel and petrochemical producers “for their role in causing and exacerbating the global plastics pollution crisis”. As part of the investigation, he issued a subpoena to oil giant ExxonMobil, a major source of global plastics pollution. Advocates have long wondered whether the investigation will eventually lead to a lawsuit. ExxonMobil declined to comment. “California’s investigation is the first to focus on not only the fossil fuel and petrochemical companies that produce plastic, but also their deceptive and fraudulent conduct in promoting recycling as a false solution to the plastic waste crisis,” said Alyssa Johl, the CCI’s vice-president and general counsel. “If that investigation results in a lawsuit, it would be the first of its kind, and our findings show the public would support it.” Since 2015, US organizations and municipalities have also filed 60 lawsuits against consumer brands over plastic pollution, alleging breaches of environmental regulations, claiming that pollution is a public nuisance and accusing companies of greenwashing, among other allegations. Meanwhile, two dozen state and municipal lawsuits accusing the fossil fuel industry of climate deception are wending their way through the US courts. | ['us-news/series/big-oil-uncovered', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/pollution', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/waste', 'us-news/us-news', 'campaign/email/today-us', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dharna-noor', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-09-09T08:00:10Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/2018/jan/25/hurricane-harvey-costs-storms | Harvey was second-most expensive US hurricane on record, official report says | It was officially a monster year for deadly US storms in 2017 with Hurricane Harvey the second most expensive hurricane on record and the final costs of Irma and Maria, both human and financial, yet to be added, according to government figures released on Thursday. Hurricane Harvey was Texas’s most deadly in a century, killing 68, and two locations endured 5ft of rain when the tempest made landfall last August, flooding downtown Houston. All but three of the deaths were from freshwater flooding. The storm overall caused an estimated $125bn in damage. That makes it second only to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in financial cost. Katrina devastated New Orleans and vast areas of Louisiana and Mississippi and ended up costing $161m, when adjusted for inflation. Harvey was the first of three gigantic hurricane-strength storms to hit the United States in 2017. Official tallies on Irma, which hit Florida hard, and Maria, which decimated Puerto Rico, both in September, are still being compiled by the National Hurricane Center, which issued its latest report on Thursday. Hurricane Harvey spawned 57 tornadoes inland and 18 different parts of Texas were deluged with more than 4ft of rain. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime event for so many people,” said the center’s hurricane specialist Eric Blake, lead author of the report. “I think the flooding in the Houston metropolitan area is really unparalleled.” The government issued a range of estimates for the damage, from $90bn to $160bn, with a midpoint of $125bn. Harvey’s maximum winds on landfall were 133mph, making it a category 5 storm. But the really big numbers in the report were related to the torrential, relentless rain that battered the region. Government meteorologists calculated that much of the Houston metro area experienced a flood with “less than a 1-in-1000 (0.1%) chance of occurring in any given year”. “It is unlikely that the United States has ever seen such a sizeable area of excessive tropical cyclone rainfall totals as it did from Harvey,” the report said. The year was the hottest on record that did not include the El Niño weather pattern, and matched the record year for the most billion-dollar weather events, with climate experts saying global warming is intensifying disasters such as the triple series hurricanes. | ['us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joannawalters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricane-maria | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-01-25T22:53:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2024/apr/05/how-emma-transformed-a-dilapidated-shed-into-a-home-office-with-recycled-materials-and-biowaste | How Emma transformed a dilapidated shed into a home office with recycled materials and biowaste | Rachel Signer | Plant stylist Emma Sadie Thomson looked every day at the unused shed outside the entrance to the home where she lived with her partner and their two young daughters in the Adelaide Hills. Could it be a better place to work than the kitchen table, where her children and housework provided constant distractions? “It was just a junk heap,” says Thomson. “We never used it. I wanted somewhere to go, even if it’s taking 20 steps, rather than sitting on the kitchen table.” She decided to convert the shed into a studio. Aiming to spend no more than $10,000, Thomson opted for recycled materials for the windows, door, and wood exterior panelling. Working with plants has shaped Thomson’s worldview over the years, highlighting the need for sustainability in all aspects of life. Her instinct was to use salvaged materials when possible. The Australian construction industry generates more than 12m tonnes of waste a year. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the construction industry generated the second largest amount of solid waste in Australia in 2020, behind manufacturing. Thomson saw secondhand goods as a way to not only reduce building waste but eliminate excess packaging. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Thomson’s mother had the good fortune of finding some cedar panels in incredibly good condition in a skip. All they needed was a quick oiling and varnish. They didn’t quite cover the entire front of the shed, so Thomson used them on the section above the support beam. For the section below, which would frame the doors, Thomson ordered some new cedar panels, creating a flattering juxtaposition of the two woods. The doors and windows were also secondhand, from a salvage shop up the road. Inside, Thomson’s main concern was how to insulate. From a friend who was working for Joost Bakker’s Future Food System project in Melbourne, Thomson learned about Durra Panel, a wheat straw insulation, originally designed in Sweden and made in Bendigo, and decided to use it for the inside walls and ceiling. Wheat straw for Durra panels comes specifically from what is known as ‘stubble’ from food crops. This significant agricultural by-product – consider that the world produces around 680m tonnes of wheat annually – would typically be burned, contributing to carbon dioxide pollution. Durra sources its wheat straw from within 100 kilometres of its Victorian factory, which has the local effect of reducing this burning in the immediate area. Thomson was aware that straw was a waste material across the world.“[It] is a great building solution, which provides alternative incomes for farmers.” She liked the idea of using an underappreciated natural material that also has fire resistant properties. Using a process that activates the straw’s naturally high lignin content allows the straw to stick together in this way, earning a fire resistant level of one hour. With bushfires a seasonal threat in the Adelaide Hills, a structure’s fire resistance was always an important consideration. “Durra had been using [the panels] mostly for commercial projects, but they wanted people to take it up for residential,” says Thomson. Price-wise, running about $4,000 (nearly half her budget), Durra’s product was somewhat higher than other insulations, but the shed was small enough (about 48 sq m) that the difference wasn’t so significant, and the use of biowaste increased the product’s value in an ethical sense. Thomson worked with a local builder, Ben Turner, on the installation, which involved cutting the panels to size before mounting them, although in hindsight, Thomson says, it may have been worth it to have the panels pre-measured to size to save the work. She also says that she might have added an insulation gap to prevent moisture buildup – a constant concern in the rainy Adelaide Hills district. For finishing touches, she installed a split AC/heating system, and energy-efficient, unobtrusive LED downlights recessed into the ceiling. Nontoxic Porter’s Paints on the floors and doors finished off the job. The result is a cheerful, light-filled finished studio where Thomson can now answer emails and plan projects distraction-free. Do you have any waste-saving tips for renovations? Share them in the comments below | ['australia-news/series/change-by-degrees', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/rachel-signer', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-04-05T14:00:08Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2016/jan/13/coravin-wine-access-system-gadget-review-rhik-samadder | Kitchen gadgets review: Coravin wine access system – aimed at a classier market than me | What? The Coravin wine access system (£269, coravin.co.uk) is a sprung clamp with non-coring needle and spout. Used to extract bottled wine without disrupting its maturation. Why? You’d have to be a dipsomaniac not to get excited by this opportunity to control your drinking. Well? How do you open a bottle without opening a bottle? It sounds like something a goblin might ask before letting you cross his riddling bridge. Or, worse, a magic trick. (I bloody hate magicians, with their patter and facial hair and strange personalities that they’ve funnelled into dexterity with cards.) The Coravin wine access system has more than a touch of cup-and-sorcery to it. It actually lets you pour from a bottle without removing the cork first, so oxygen never touches what is left inside. This is game-changing. (It takes a messianic will to change water to wine, but oxidation will turn wine to vinegar in a day.) Black, zinc and packaged like a Bond villain’s torture kit, it is chilling to behold. In use, a surgical-grade steel needle, plunged through foil and cork, injects an inert gas via a trigger. Pressurised wine flows up the needle and out the spout. Once the needle is removed, the naturally expansive cork reseals itself. Voila! Inspired by the technology of spinal taps, this is engineering turned up to 11. I have a go, screwing in an argon canister and lumbar-puncturing a pudding wine. I’m no sommelier; my pour suggests something smellier, a frothy splash followed by incontinent dribbling at the spout. But it works! I invert the bottle afterwards – no leak. It’s incredible. Restaurants already use Coravin to sell good stuff by the glass, or offer tastings without wasting a whole bottle. It is clearly aimed at a classier market than me. The first time I saw the device’s strapline, I felt an urge to shout: “I got your wine access system RIGHT HERE, buddy,” while jabbing a thumb towards my mouth. My friends, similarly, are as likely to drink one glass of wine as they are to eat one nacho or wear one shoe. But assuming you have a cellar and/or some self-control, this gadget is revolutionary. Are you ready for the Coravin of Love? If you’re saving a bottle for a special occasion, sod that – have some now. After all, the magic is in the moment. Any downside? £269? Coravin’ a laugh. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Top of the cabinet, sauvignon. 4/5 | ['lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'food/wine', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-01-13T12:52:38Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2014/dec/14/united-nations--way-forward-on-climate-change | UN agrees way forward on climate change – but path is unclear | Governments took a step back from chaos in the climate change discussions in Lima and found a way forward on Sunday, albeit with some fudges and compromises, giving themselves just 12 months to finalise a crucial international agreement to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru’s environment minister, who had skilfully presided over more than two weeks of fraught negotiations, announced that a deal had been struck by more than 190 countries. The five pages of text, dubbed the Lima Call for Climate Action, outline a way forward on hotly contested issues, including the process for countries to set out their pledges to cut annual emissions of greenhouse gases after 2020. The overall aim remains the creation of an international agreement on climate change which is due to be settled at the next UN summit, COP21, to be held in Paris in December 2015. Without a successful outcome in Paris it is unlikely the world can avoid a rise in global average surface temperature of more than two degrees celsius, which is recognised as a threshold beyond which the risks of climate change are likely to become unacceptably large. Countries will be expected by spring 2015 to announce “intended nationally determined contributions”, including domestic targets for emissions reductions and plans to increase resilience against the impacts of climate change that cannot now be prevented. Four years ago in Cancún, Mexico, nations recognised the dangers of warming exceeding the 2C increase and more than 100 governments gave national pledges to reduce emissions, by 2020, accounting for more than 80% of the annual output of greenhouse gas pollution. Although the cuts, if delivered, would slow down the rate of increase in annual global emissions, the Cancún targets were not ambitious enough. Nevertheless they were still a significant step forward after the chaotic and inconclusive discussions in Copenhagen in 2009, which only produced an accord, though it did provide the basis for the Cancún agreements. The road to Lima began in Durban, South Africa, in December 2012, when governments decided to try again to hammer out an international deal, setting themselves a three-year deadline. Now, with just 12 months left, the talks in Lima mean that there is a draft negotiating text for the Paris summit. But there are still significant stumbling blocks on the road to success. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that governments are unlikely to outline cuts in annual emissions that will be collectively consistent with a path that gives a good chance of remaining below the 2C danger limit of two degrees. So countries must focus on increasing the ambition of their intended reductions, and show these are credible by setting out how they will be achieved through domestic policies and legislation. But they must also recognise that such increases may not be sufficient, and a mechanism must also be included in the Paris agreement which commits countries to continuous reviewing and strengthening of their emissions targets. One reason this is so difficult is the dispute over the concept of “common but differentiated responsibility” – which means each country’s action reflecting its historical contributions to raising cumulative levels of greenhouse gases, and also its wealth. Developing countries believe the rich countries have not shouldered a fair share of the burden and should lead by example, in terms of cutting emissions and also providing financial support to poorer nations. In Cancún the rich countries agreed that they should provide extra funds from public and private sources to help developing countries, a sum rising from about US$10bn to $100bn a year by 2020. But the rich countries have barely kept this promise, and have largely re-labelled parts of their overseas aid budgets to achieve progress. While the creation of the Green Climate Fund to administer parts of the funding has important symbolic value, it is in danger of distracting from the most important issue. Over the next 15 years as much as $4tn (£2.5tn) a year will be invested in the emerging and developing countries for infrastructure, such as roads and buildings. It is this investment that must be transformed. If it is, economic growth can be strong, cleaner, less congested, more efficient, more biodiverse – sustainable and much more attractive. If these investments lock countries into high-carbon economies with dirty growth, powered by fossil fuels, the world will not be able to reach its climate target of avoiding warming of more than two degrees. And the developing countries will also experience greater air pollution, which already takes millions of lives each year and damages the economies of many countries, including China and Germany. All this on top of waste, inefficiencies and energy insecurity. So while rich countries should honour the funding pledges they made in Cancún it is even more important they support and help transform the investment of that $4tn into clean, sustainable, infrastructure. The rich countries also have so much to gain domestically from such similar transformations, and in so doing will create powerful examples for themselves and others. Over the next 20 years the world has the chance to embark along a better path of economic growth that gives a much greater chance of managing climate change and overcoming poverty than the old high-carbon route. In this way, rich and developing countries can get equitable access to sustainable development, which should be the key aim that drives each country over the next 12 months on the road from Lima to Paris. Lord Stern is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE and president of the British Academy | ['environment/cop-20-un-climate-change-conference-lima', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'science/science', 'tone/news', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/nicholas-stern', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-12-14T20:37:57Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2019/oct/02/activists-set-sail-across-the-atlantic-to-chile-to-demand-curbs-on-flying | Activists set sail across the Atlantic to Chile to demand curbs on flying | A group of environmental activists have set sail from Amsterdam on a seven-week voyage to South America to attend the UN climate conference. It had been raining on the Amsterdam waterfront on Wednesday but the sun came out in the early afternoon as a small crowd waved farewell to the 36 activists and five crew on the boat. Over the next seven weeks, they will face long days on the churning Atlantic ocean with no land in sight. But their challenge on arrival is no less daunting: to convince the world’s governments meeting at COP25 in Chile that emissions from flying – the quickest, cheapest way from the Netherlands to Santiago – must be curbed urgently to prevent global heating reaching calamitous levels. “We really want to make a statement that we have to stop subsidising the aviation sector and we have to start investing in these alternatives,” said Anuna De Wever, a founder of Belgium’s school strike movement, who aged 18, is one of the youngest on board. As well as learning how to sail the Regina Maris, a three-mast schooner propelled by wind, activists will brainstorm on a plan for greener transport, which they plan to present to the world’s governments in Santiago. “We will mostly depart with a question, [which is] what can the sustainable and fair future of flying look like,” said Jeppe Bijker, one of four initiators of the Sail to the COP project. As well as asking government officials to tax aviation fuel, there is also a message to the public that chimes with the no-fly movement epitomised by Greta Thunberg, who recently completed her own transatlantic voyage to New York in a zero-carbon boat. The Swedish teenager, who inspired the global school strike movement, is due to meet the group in Santiago. But Bijker said he is not calling for people to give up flying completely: “But we do ask them to think about why are you flying. Where do you need to go? Do you really need to go? Maybe it’s a business flight … and there is an e-conference solution. Do you need to take short-haul trips four times a year or could you fly once for a longer trip?” The group are urging climate policymakers to take action following reports that emissions from aviation are rising even faster than predicted, prompting alarm that flying will derail meaningful action on the climate emergency. The plan to sail to the COP began life as a WhatsApp group between Bijker and three fellow Dutch climate activists, who got to know each other through the green transport cause. By the middle of this year the project had snowballed into a project uniting climate activists from nearly a dozen European countries, as well as NGOs and universities, which have offered financial and research support. Most were strangers to each other until a few days before leaving Amsterdam. Now they will be thrown together 24 hours a day on the 45 metre-long ship, sharing cramped four-person dorms and learning the ropes of sailing. Vegan meals will be prepared by one of the crew in the tiny kitchen and they will stop along the way at Casablanca, Tenerife, Cabo Verde and Recife to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables and touch dry land for a few hours. Unlike Thunberg’s zero-emissions boat, there is an engine to bring the boat into port and avoid days becalmed at sea. “We will try to use it as little as possible but we do want to arrive on time,” said Bijker. The Regina Maris is due to dock at Rio de Janeiro in mid November. From the Brazilian coastal city, they will take a bus through the Andes to complete their journey to Santiago, to attend the COP starting on 2 December. “We are a lot of people and it’s a small space,” said Adélaïde Charlier, another co-leader of Belgium’s school strike movement, who like De Wever and Thunberg has put her university studies on hold for climate activism. Drawing a parallel with the world’s limited resources, she said: “I think it’s part of the symbolic message to be on a small boat for this long with that many people.” As the wind whips over Amsterdam’s IJ river and the boat bobs in the sway, she admitted worries about sea sickness and the “scary and exciting” journey ahead. “I think it’s going to be a hard journey but it’s necessary for the message. We have this climate urgency and for almost a year we have been trying to find as many as possible actions that would bring back the topic on the table.” Participants do not know yet how or when they will return to Europe. Some are looking at a return journey on the Regina Maris next spring, while others are thinking of cargo ships. “That’s also part of the message,” Bijker said. “It’s more that we want to show how hard it is to get to the other side of the world without flying and basically how strange it is that it is this hard and why are there not more alternatives.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'world/netherlands', 'world/chile', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'world/protest', 'world/europe-news', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jennifer-rankin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2019-10-02T16:34:44Z | true | EMISSIONS |
global-development/2019/sep/06/amazon-fires-shameful-indictment-of-our-lust-for-excess | Amazon fires are a shameful indictment of our lust for excess | The scale of the devastation caused by the wildfires still raging in the Amazon is hard to comprehend. This is a rainforest that provides one-fifth of the world’s oxygen; it is hard not to feel powerless and despairing in the face of the disaster overtaking the region. But however strong – and bitter – the feeling about this as an environmental catastrophe, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is also a human tragedy. We need to listen with intensified attention to the voices of those who call the rainforest home, voices all too often sidelined or deliberately silenced, their stories a mere footnote in global news headlines. We have no excuse for not listening now. The survival and wellbeing of these communities should take precedence over the drive for “development” that serves only a lust for consumption and convenience. The fact that this does not seem to be an obvious moral priority should make us all ashamed. For generations, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin have been the stewards of the forests. Some have literally paid for this with their lives, long before this summer’s fires. These communities have for years been subject to attacks, illegal invasions and deforestation. Their rights have been overridden in the face of the greed of various powerful economic interests, and theirs is a story that speaks of the stark economic inequality blighting and corrupting so much of our world, including countries like Brazil. Latin America has the worst land concentration in the world. Just 1% of the land owners control half the arable land. In the Amazon, mining and oil extraction are pushing the communities out of the forest in which they have lived for centuries. There are roughly 3,000 Quilombola communities, descendants of escaped slaves, who are among those who have suffered most from the interests of big business. Fewof these communities have been able to acquire recognition of their clear legal title to the land on which they live. Those unable to do so face the full force of the present Brazilian government’s economic development policies, which actively encourage logging and mining on Quilombola land. This is not just Brazil’s problem – or indeed that of other Amazon countries like Bolivia and Colombia, which have also been impacted by fire and environmental devastation. All of us are implicated. The global patterns of economic growth, including the unprecedented levels of demand for meat in the developed world, account for much of the pressure on land use in the region. And widespread deforestation in other parts of the world means we are more reliant than ever on the region for our global ecological balance. The wildfires raging in the Amazon are a visible metaphor for the effect of our unrestrained passion for limitless economic growth. It is this passion that has led to so much deforestation in recent years. It is this that is responsible for the vast majority of the current fires in the region. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research has published data showing a 278% increase in deforestation this July compared with the same month last year. It looks increasingly likely that we are at, or very near, a tipping point in our global ecological crisis, a crisis generated by the desire to maximise indefinitely what we can extract from our environment, as if it were no more than a store cupboard to be raided. The Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst writes that “the wild”, the untamed, complex world around us, “is not a portfolio of resources for us or our species to buy and sell or manage or squander as we please. The wild is earth living its life to the full.” The compulsive acquisitiveness that causes the radical damage we see dehumanises us as well as ruining our environment. The fires are burning in the soul as well. The beauty of belonging in a world that nurtures us is the solidarity we can enjoy with living matter as well as with each other as humans. Out of this sense of solidarity, Christian Aid – the organisation I chair – has joined more than 100 other faith-based organisations in a declaration of support for the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, which is due to meet in Rome next month. This declaration, Somos la Amazonia (We are the Amazon), expresses support for the synod’s vision and outlines a pathway for action to protect both the rainforest and those indigenous communities and human rights activists who are risking their lives to preserve their habitat. The prime minister has lately called for “more ambition” in tackling the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. We take him at his word: Christian Aid has launched a petition calling on him and other global leaders to tackle the poverty and inequality which has fuelled the environmental crisis. It is time to stand in solidarity with the communities that live on the frontline of this crisis, in the Amazon and worldwide. Dr Rowan Williams is the former Archbishop of Canterbury and chair of Christian Aid | ['global-development/natural-resources-and-development', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/rowanwilliams', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-09-06T08:00:39Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
books/2019/apr/06/carys-davies-south-wales-newport-reading | Carys Davies on south Wales: ‘The valleys, the coast, gave me an abiding sense of where I come from’ | I was born in my parents’ bedroom in a red-brick house called Plas Ithel on the banks of the River Dee in Llangollen, north Wales. My memories of that faraway time are blurry and vague – an impressionistic collection of boisterous water crashing over rocks; the old stone bridge into town; the field behind our house where musicians and singers gathered every year for the international Eisteddfod; the soft hills nearby where my young parents took me and my brothers to scramble around the ruins of Dinas Brân castle. Much clearer in my mind is what came after, when we moved to my parents’ real home – to south Wales. They bought a house in Newport, and it seemed to me a grey place after the beauty of the north – a hard place to love. The silver lining was that we were now a short car ride away from the coast and valleys where my two grandmothers lived, and where my parents had themselves grown up. These places – Pontycymer and Ystalyfera in the valleys, Bridgend and Ogmore-by-Sea on the coast – gave me an abiding sense of where I come from, and of the people who made me. I got to know the steep, staggered streets of Pontycymer where my father’s father (dead of silicosis long before I was born) had worked at the pit, and whose formidable wife, my grandmother, decided no such fate was ever going to befall her son. I visited Ystalyfera where, after a single day down the mine, my other grandfather told his mother: “I cannot do this.” She put on her hat and went to the local doctor and borrowed the money to send him to university, and he, like my father, made good his escape. It’s only after years of writing that I’ve become aware of how often the characters in my books are making their escape from some sort of “here” to another kind of “there”, and of how complicated that journey is. In my own family, the shadow of the coal industry – its dangers and injustices and the sheer brutal hardship of the work – hovered permanently in the background while I was growing up. Successive anniversaries of Aberfan, and much later the treatment of the miners under Margaret Thatcher left my parents speechless with grief and fury. Meanwhile as a child at home in Newport, tired of “playing out” with my brothers, I was terminally bored, trailing my mother around the house asking her what I could do with myself. Her answer was to teach me to read. In the beginning there was Dr Seuss and František Hrubín’s Primrose and the Winter Witch. I hated Alice in Wonderland – its arch and chilly prose was alienating; I never believed in its world of white rabbits and Drink Me potions. I loved Meindert DeJong and E Nesbit and Anne Holm, and more than anything else, I loved Anne of Green Gables. For quite a few years (more than was probably healthy) I wanted to be Anne – to live on Prince Edward Island in the shy embrace of Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, to be encouraged and inspired by Miss Muriel Stacy, and adored by Gilbert Blythe. Eventually I found my own Miss Muriel Stacy, in the form of my French teacher, who would shape my life every bit as much as Miss Stacy shaped Anne’s, introducing me to Beckett and Flaubert and a nervy hypochondriac called Marcel Proust, opening the door into a “there” I didn’t know existed. • West by Carys Davies is published by Granta (£8.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. | ['books/series/made-in', 'books/books', 'culture/culture', 'society/society', 'tone/features', 'uk-news/newport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/mining', 'type/article', 'profile/carys-davies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/guardianreview', 'theguardian/guardianreview/saturdayreviewsfeatres', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/review'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-04-06T11:58:48Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2014/oct/19/california-drought-dust-bowl | Weatherwatch: The greatest droughts in a thousand years | This year the Halloween Jack-o’-lanterns on Californian doorsteps are likely to be considerably smaller than usual. Like many other crops, pumpkins are suffering from California’s crippling three-year drought, which has cost the state $2.2 billion in 2014 alone. Now a new study shows that it may have been caused by the same atmospheric phenomenon that triggered the devastating decade-long “Dust Bowl” drought of the 1930s. Starting in 1934, the dust bowl drought left nearly three-quarters of the western United States utterly parched and forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms. Using tree ring data, sea surface temperatures and rainfall records, Benjamin Cook from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and colleagues have reconstructed the last one thousand years of North American droughts, and shown that the dust bowl drought really was exceptional. The findings, which are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, reveal that the dust bowl was around seven times larger than other major North American droughts in the last millennium, and nearly 30 per cent worse than the continent’s next most severe drought, which occurred in 1580. But Cook and his colleagues also found that the trigger for the dust bowl – a high pressure ridge over the west coast during winter, which deflects rain-laden storms – is also responsible for the current Californian drought, and the 1976 drought (one of the most severe in the state’s history). However, the current drought is unlikely to turn into a repeat of the dust bowl, as better agricultural practices are helping to limit wind erosion and reducing the likelihood of dust storms. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/drought', 'us-news/california', 'world/natural-disasters', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-10-19T20:30:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jan/06/severe-climate-driven-loss-of-native-molluscs-reported-off-israels-coast | Severe climate-driven loss of native molluscs reported off Israel’s coast | The world’s most devastating climate-driven loss of ocean life has been reported in the eastern Mediterranean, one of the fastest warming places on Earth. Native mollusc populations along the coast of Israel have collapsed by about 90% in recent decades because they cannot tolerate the increasingly hot water, according to a new study, which raises concerns about the wider ecosystem and neighbouring regions. Scientists said the sharp decline of native cockles, whelks and other shallow subtidal invertebrates is likely to have spread to waters off other countries in the region and would continue to progress westward to Greece and beyond as global temperatures increased. The paper – published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal – estimates native mollusc populations have fallen to 12% of their historical species richness in shallow subtidal sedimentary substrates, and to 5% on rocky substrates. The authors of the paper expressed surprise at their findings. “The magnitude was totally unexpected,” said Paolo Albano, a marine biologist at the University of Vienna. “I expected a seascape that I was well accustomed to as a Mediterranean specialist but enriched with some interesting exotic species that had entered through the Suez canal. But what I found was a desert, totally devoid of even common Mediterranean species.” The murex, for example, is a gastropod that has been used throughout the Mediterranean since Roman times for the Tyrian purple clothing dye. Albano said he found no members of this species on the 200km of coastline in the four-year study. The research team took samples at multiple points, then compared living mollusc numbers with previous population sizes, which were estimated from empty shells found in sediment. The shortfall exceeded anything seen before. “This is the largest climate-driven regional-scale diversity loss in the oceans documented to date,” the paper says. The change is visible at scuba-diving depths of between 5 and 40 metres. In deeper waters the temperatures are lower. In intertidal areas, species have evolved to adapt to wider temperature ranges. In between, native molluscs are disappearing. As with the declines of pollinators and soil quality on land, this has wider consequences. Molluscs make up the largest marine phylum, accounting for 23% of all sea organisms. As well as providing meat for the seafood industry, they play an essential role in regulating the chemistry of the ocean by recycling nutrients and removing nitrogen and phosphorus. In part that role might be taken on by new invasive tropical species from the Red Sea, but preliminary results suggested they would not perform the same ecosystem role as the lost native ones. “The ecosystem will be different and it will function in a different way. This is very clear. But the situation is so dynamic it is hard to predict the consequences,” Albano said. The scientists believe the cause of the destruction is human-driven climate disruption. The Israeli coast – which is one of the hottest parts of the Mediterranean – experienced a temperature increase of 3C between 1980 and 2013. The average summer surface temperature is 32C. This is thought to have triggered the eradication of native mollusc populations – a phenomenon detected in previous studies elsewhere. Pollution and the arrival of tropical species through the Suez canal were deemed less significant factors. Pollution tended to be localised around ports such as Haifa, and the canal has existed for over 150 years. Studies of the coastline in the 1970s and 80s showed healthy waters. Albano said the collapse was likely to have occurred in the past 20 years and had affected the entire ecosystem: “The sea is completely changing from temperate Mediterranean to impoverished tropical. This turnover is rapid and in progress. It has not yet reached a stable state.” The few native mollusc species that remained were struggling. They were widely scattered and 60% failed to grow to reproductive size. Albano believed this was part of an irreversible trend as global warming made the relatively cool Mediterranean more like the tropical Red Sea. This echoes similar findings in the far north, where scientists say the cold Arctic Ocean increasingly resembles the warmer Atlantic in terms of biology, chemistry and temperature. As well as stepping up protections of the still relatively pristine deep waters and tackling localised problems like pollution, Albano said the only way to address this shift was to tackle climate change by reducing emissions as soon as possible. “In my opinion we have no choice. This should be first on the list of things to do when we consider how we are changing the planet. It is blind to think this should not be tackled immediately. Exactly like Covid, we need to treat this as an emergency.” | ['environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'world/israel', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-01-06T00:01:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
global-development/audio/2012/may/31/global-development-podcast-rio-20 | Global development podcast: what can Rio+20 achieve? | This month's Global development podcast looks ahead to the Rio+20 talks and asks what they may mean for sustainable development. The discussion looks back 20 years to see where this all began, explores arguments for a "green economy" (a key conference theme) and the role of business in sustainable development, and considers what is at stake for the People's summit. To debate these issues, John Vidal is joined in the studio by Claire Melamed, the head of the growth and equity programme at the ODI, a thinktank on international development and humanitarian issues; Hannah Stoddart, head of economic justice policy at NGO Oxfam and Andrew Raingold, executive director of the Aldersgate Group, an alliance of leaders from business, politics and society working for a sustainable economy. Joining the podcast on the telephone are Anil Naidoo from the council of Canadians and co-facilitator of the water thematic group at the People's summit, and Saleemul Huq, senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Join the debate: Rio+20. | ['global-development/series/global-development-podcast', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/rio-20-earth-summit', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'type/podcast', 'type/audio'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-05-31T11:47:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2023/jul/13/scottish-government-duty-to-protect-seabed-from-harmful-fishing-says-court-sessions | Scottish ministers have ‘duty’ to protect seabed from harmful fishing, says court | The Scottish government should stop approving licences for fishing vessels using methods believed to cause harm to habitats, a charity working to protect marine life has urged, after a court declared a routine licensing decision to be unlawful. Scotland’s highest court ruled that the Scottish government had failed to act in accordance with Scotland’s National Marine Plan (NMP) when varying fishing licences last December, after a judicial review by the conservation charity Open Seas. It is legally obliged to act in accordance with its environmental duties, as stated in the NMP, when making these decisions. The charity argued that the December decision on licences, involving vessels that drag weighted nets over the seabed to gather scallops and nephrops, better known as Norway lobster or Dublin Bay prawn, was not taken in accordance with the national plan, which classifies certain marine features and habitats as “priority marine features”. After a full hearing in May and an initial ruling a month later, the court of session’s Lord Braid issued a ruling on 7 July declaring the government’s decision unlawful because it had acted “in contravention” of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Scottish ministers would now be “grossly negligent” in their responsibilities if they continued to approve and vary scallop dredging and trawling licences in areas where they risked damaging marine habitats, Open Seas said. Phil Taylor, director of Open Seas, said: “We have had to go to court to establish there is a duty to act immediately to protect marine habitats. We know where these habitats are. The Scottish government knows where these habitats are. There is now no excuse to continue approving the harm being caused to them. “The Scottish government is not a bureaucratic bystander – it is actively licensing scallop dredging in areas that cause harm to the very marine habitats they are duty bound to protect. Business as usual is not an option. “It’s time the Scottish government took urgent action to stop scallop dredging damaging our seabeds.” Marine Scotland, the government department in charge of managing the country’s marine resources, routinely varies the licences it issues to fishers, for instance to limit catches or areas where fishing can take place. The judicial review brought by Open Seas concerned a decision made by the Scottish government to vary fishing licences on 30 December 2022. The charity argued that the Scottish government was failing to consider the effects of scallop dredging and bottom-trawling on known seabed habitats. It had corresponded with the government on the matter for years, it said, even providing video evidence of harm caused by scallop dredging to slow-growing maerl beds in coastal waters around Orkney. A Scottish government spokesperson said: “Ministers are considering the court’s decision and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.” | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'business/fishing-industry', 'food/shellfish', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'uk/scotland', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'law/law', 'environment/food', 'environment/conservation', 'food/food', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/coastlines', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/karenmcveigh', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-15T02:59:18Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2020/oct/22/rooftop-solar-and-covid-shutdown-lead-to-record-lows-in-australian-electricity-use | Rooftop solar and Covid shutdown lead to record lows in Australian electricity use | Australians’ embrace of rooftop solar panels and the Covid-19 shutdown in Victoria have combined to reduce the amount of power being drawn from the national grid, with several states setting record lows for daily large-scale electricity consumption. The drop in electricity use contributed to wholesale electricity prices being 45% to 48% lower than at the same time last year in all eastern states and territories except Tasmania. Similarly, wholesale gas prices were nearly 50% less than in the third quarter of 2019, largely due to demand for the fossil fuel falling about 5% due to a decline in both gas-fired power generation and demand for liquified natural gas exports. The drop in gas consumption coincided with the Morrison government arguing that Australia needs more gas to drive the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The Australian Energy Market Operator said wholesale electricity and gas prices were at their lowest for this time of the year since 2014 and 2015 respectively. Aemo’s chief executive, Audrey Zibelman, said the uptake of residential and commercial-scale solar had continued at record pace and was largely responsible for new minimum records for operational demand in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. Several new benchmarks were set for renewable energy generation. Rooftop solar met 71% of SA’s total energy needs on 13 September and 31% of Victoria’s on 6 September. Zibelman said electricity prices had fallen due to reduced demand for large-scale generation, improved reliability of coal plants in New South Wales and Victoria, a reduction in the price of black coal generation and increased competition from new wind and solar coming into the system. Demand for power from the grid fell by 1.4%, or 313 megawatts, compared with a year earlier. About 70% of the fall was due to the increase in rooftop solar and 30% due to a drop in underlying demand linked to Covid, mostly in Victoria. She said gas prices were down due to lower demand across all sectors and the slump in international prices, which fell before the pandemic and dropped further after it hit. While wholesale prices have fallen sharply, the reduction in household bills is likely to have been smaller – wholesale costs usually make up about a third of what consumers are charged. The energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, took credit for the reduction and said it would be welcome relief for households and small businesses. “Falling wholesale electricity prices must be passed on to consumers and the government’s big stick legislation will ensure this happens,” he said. Renewable energy investment has reached record levels over the past three years. In the case of large-scale generation, this has largely been driven by a rush to fill the national 2020 renewable energy target, and helped by a dramatic reduction in the cost of solar and wind energy. While installations of earlier commitments continue, Reserve Bank economists and the clean energy industry have reported a 50% fall in renewable energy investment last year after the target, which required retailers to make clean energy about 23% of what they sold, was not extended or replaced. The industry has also blamed delays in new plants getting grid connections. Meanwhile, the rate of rooftop solar installations has continued to increase, with the Clean Energy Regulator reporting the number of homes with a system is approaching 2.5m. Its rise has so far offset the fall in large-scale investments. An Aemo roadmap of what an optimal national electricity market would look like to 2040 if it were designed with a focus on security, reliability and the lowest cost for consumers found that renewable energy may at times provide nearly 90% of electricity by 2035, but would need to be supported by a range of “dispatchable” power sources that can be turned on and off when needed. The amount of gas-fired power would be likely to fall as pumped hydro and batteries come online, and there would be no place for new coal-fired generation. According to the website Open NEM, about 32% of electricity over the past month has come from wind, solar and hydro energy. Coal provided 62% of generation and gas nearly 6%. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2020-10-21T22:50:25Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/sep/19/long-hot-summer-means-we-should-enjoy-spectacular-autumn-colour | Long hot summer means we should enjoy spectacular autumn colour | Autumn colour is perhaps the most striking of nature’s seasonal displays, but the vividness of the annual spectacle is largely dependent on good environmental conditions. This year, following a fine summer and with an Indian summer predicted, we look to be on course for a dazzling display that could trump recent years and extend well into November. Shorter daylight hours and colder nights are what trigger leaf drop – or senescence – but frost, like rain, can damage leaves and cause early leaf fall. Plenty of sunshine is needed to encourage concentrations of colour pigments which help to intensify leaf colour. 2018’s cold spring and hot summer will have helped ready the leaves for a beautiful autumn display, but it also hinges on what the weather does now. If it cools and we get cold nights, that will contribute to good leaf colour. Autumn bulbs have also had a good baking in the sun and are giving a fine display this year. The cold spring also held back flowering which means fruit has set, so many hedges are looking colourful with berries. The long hot summer has also resulted in a “fake fall”, where plants such as elderberries yellow and drop because of extreme summer stress. But we’re unlikely to see a real flurry of colour before mid to late October, although the impact of climate change means it has happened later in recent years. The process of plants transitioning into shades of reds, yellows and oranges is hotly anticipated by gardeners and dedicated “leaf peepers” around the world. It’s said to be worth a staggering $1bn to the US state of Wisconsin alone. It might seem counterintuitive that while we prepare to reacquaint with jumpers, gloves and woolly hats, trees are preparing to shed this year’s leaves, something known as leaf senescence. Here’s why. Leaf senescence is an “altruistic death” allowing the degradation and redistribution of nutrients produced during growth back to other parts of the plant. This strategy evolved to maximise the fitness and survival of the plant. Leaf senescence is highly complex, involving multiple genes and numerous biological, chemical and physical processes. And at the heart of it all is a pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green colour, absorbing and reflecting different hues from the colour light spectrum, as seen in a rainbow. In leaves it absorbs mainly red and blue light, reflecting green, and it is this reflection that makes leaves appear green to the human eye. But as well as providing a lustrous green sheen, chlorophyll is also an essential component of photosynthesis, which is arguably the single most important chemical process on our planet. Using energy from sunlight, chlorophyll strips electrons from water molecules, which then convert carbon dioxide into carbon compounds and produce oxygen, which is essential for life on earth. In autumn, chlorophyll, mainly in deciduous plants, is slowly broken down and reabsorbed by the plant, diminishing the green colour of the leaves. It is this reabsorption that ensures they spring back to life the following year. As chlorophyll is broken down, pigments called carotenoids and flavonoids are revealed and it is these, again, through the absorption and reflection of different colours from the light spectrum, that are responsible for the yellow and orange hues of leaves. Sugar concentration in the leaves also increases anthocyanin production, which causes some leaves to turn a shade of red. Sweet gum and acers can almost always be relied upon for good colour but some trees, including alders, show little change. What tends to make the difference in gardens is the reaction of our more proliferate native trees, such as oak, and whether they take on stronger yellows or more placid browns. Back on ground level, late flowering bulbs like nerines and crocus are also giving a bold display having benefitted from a good baking this summer. Although autumn colour is largely beyond the control of gardeners, you can increase the probability of good results by maintaining healthy plants and buying cultivars well known for their hues and all-important pigments. • Prof Alistair Griffiths is director of science and collections at the Royal Horticultural Society | ['environment/autumn', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-09-19T06:00:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/sep/15/oil-companies-granted-licences-to-store-carbon-under-the-north-sea | Oil companies granted licences to store carbon under the North Sea | Oil companies have been granted licences by the government that it hopes will enable them to store up to 10% of the UK’s carbon emissions in old oil and gasfields beneath the seabed. The government awarded more than 20 North Sea licences covering an area the size of Yorkshire to 14 companies that plan to store carbon dioxide trapped from heavy industry in depleted oil and gasfields. The companies include the oil supermajor Shell, Italy’s state-owned oil company ENI, and Harbour Energy, the largest independent oil and gas company operating in the UK’s North Sea basin. The industry’s government-backed regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), claims the companies could help store up to 30m tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030, or approximately 10% of UK annual emissions. The plan to develop old oil and gasfields into vast repositories of CO2 is part of the government’s plan to develop a carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry to reduce emissions from heavy industry entering the atmosphere and contributing to global heating. Stuart Payne, the NSTA’s chief executive, said: “Carbon storage will play a crucial role in the energy transition, storing carbon dioxide deep under the seabed and playing a key role in hydrogen production and energy hubs.” “It is exciting to award these licences and our teams will support the licensees to bring about first injection of carbon dioxide as soon as possible,” he added. Mike Tholen, a policy director at industry group Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), said: “If we get this right, it could not only significantly reduce the UK’s carbon footprint, but position us as world leaders in the low carbon space – creating opportunities for UK people and businesses and playing on our industrial strengths.” The OEUK estimates that the UK would need 100 carbon storage sites or more to reach the government’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Some green groups have questioned the validity of the government’s focus on CCS, which they claim is an expensive distraction from investing in low-carbon forms of energy. But analysis from the UK’s independent climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, shows it would be difficult for the government to achieve its ambitions without it. | ['environment/carbon-capture-and-storage', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/business', 'global-development/climate-finance', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-capture-and-storage | EMISSIONS | 2023-09-15T11:32:15Z | true | EMISSIONS |
books/2019/oct/13/food-or-war-julian-cribb-review-famine-conflict-population | Food Or War by Julian Cribb review – a stark choice and a bleak outlook | Julian Cribb is a persistent man. The veteran Australian science writer specialises in “threats to humanity”: he is what you might call an extinctionologist. Since 2010 he has published books titled The Coming Famine, Poisoned Planet and How to Survive the 21st Century (not a hopeful read) and now this. Next, perhaps, a practical volume on the stocking of the Cribb cellar. I’ll bet there’s more in his Armageddon-prep stores than a catering tin of Nescafé and some bulk-buy loo roll. Inevitably, this latest doom-tome is a reiteration of themes Cribb – and many others in the field – have told us about before: today’s unsustainable food systems and the impossible job of feeding the estimated 10 billion people inhabiting the planet by 2050 encapsulates the multiheaded crisis humanity faces today. If you haven’t heard all this then Food Or War is a good primer, vivid and punchy. What is the most destructive implement on the planet? The human jawbone, writes Cribb. “Every year, in the course of wolfing through 8.5tn meals, it dislodges more than 75bn tonnes of topsoil, swallows 7bn tonnes of fresh water, generates 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions and distributes 5m tonnes of concentrated biocides.” But you suspect that people who have managed to avoid any knowledge of the curse of human overconsumption do not buy books like this one. Even Cribb must suspect – after all the output – that writing about the problem may be a delusion of solving it. Nonetheless, “food or war?” is a decent way of framing the argument. I’m not convinced that world peace will follow if we sort out the consumption and resources problem, but Cribb must be right that the threat of war and famine may be the way to make humans and governments behave better in resource use. The two are intimately related: hunger has been a cause of war, a weapon during it and its aftermath’s chief horror since the dawn of history. Fear of hunger concentrates minds: Cribb quotes a psychologist who observed rickets-riddled German children hiding their bread ration rather than eating it during the poverty of the 1920s, and said that dread of hunger is worse than hunger itself. We need the reminder that hungry humans do unthinkable things. The Soviet authorities put up posters during the Holodomor, the famine that killed millions in Ukraine in the 1930s: “To eat your own children is a barbarian act.” It is salutary for us Brits, most of whom have never experienced conflict or famine, to be reminded how fantastically unusual the comfortable life we have led is. Most of our ancestors, distant and recent, knew the misery of hunger intimately. So do 800 million people alive today. Cribb concludes with solutions, as a book of this sort should. All of them are naive, some are intriguing. Generating $340bn annually by cutting the world’s military expenditure by 20% and using the money for eco-agriculture, rewilding, children’s education and urban farming tech is, umm, a really cool idea. Even more so is Cribb’s call for the establishment of a reverse Gilead, with “women in charge of business, politics, government, religion and society for the sake of human civilisation and its survival”. Yes, nice, but. What of the current UK farming, food and environment secretary, Theresa Villiers, who has a long record of voting against pro-environment measures in the House of Commons? But if Cribb’s solutions are fanciful, that is a reflection of the impossible situation we find ourselves in, here on this exhausted planet. The awful thought that arises from reading this book and the like is that the most probable end of all this will be war and famine leading to massive depopulation, and that in that prospect lies the only hope of either of us – race or planet – surviving the Anthropocene. So, credit to Cribb for trying. If there is anyone with better answers, please speak up. • Food Or War by Julian Cribb is published by Cambridge University Press (£9.99) Alex Renton is author of Planet Carnivore: Why Cheap Meat Is Destroying the Planet (Guardian Books, £1.99) | ['books/scienceandnature', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'books/society', 'books/books', 'culture/culture', 'tone/reviews', 'type/article', 'profile/alexrenton', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/books', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-10-13T08:00:14Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/oct/22/daniel-andrews-plans-to-revive-the-state-electricity-commission-what-will-it-mean-for-victorias-power | Daniel Andrews plans to revive the State Electricity Commission. What will it mean for Victoria’s power? | The Victorian government has announced it will revive the publicly owned State Electricity Commission and bring forward its net zero emissions goals if it is re-elected in November. The premier, Daniel Andrews, described the move as Victoria’s “most significant energy announcement” for 30 years. It includes a $1bn investment to deliver 4.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, to be owned by the state and run by the rekindled SEC. “Those power stations won’t be for profit, they’ll be for people,” Andrews said. What is the SEC? First established in 1918, the SEC had by 1972 become Victoria’s sole provider of electricity generation, transmission and networks, and even ran shops selling appliances. The electricity sector was privatised in the 1990s by the Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, a decision Andrews said had failed consumers and driven up power bills. The Andrews Labor government plans to spend $20m to revive the commission and open an office in Morwell, in the Latrobe valley – the heart of Victoria’s shuttering coal industry. The state will keep a 51% stake in the agency and its wind and solar projects. “Like-minded entities”, such as industry super funds, would be the preferred investors for the remaining share. The SEC will “consider all options” to operate profitably, Andrews said, including becoming a retailer. What does this mean for the energy market? It’s “much more modest than the original SEC”, said Alan Pears, an energy expert at RMIT University who worked in government agencies in the 1980s. Its restoration shows governments are “no longer confident that the private sector can deliver” the scale and speed needed to decarbonise the power sector, Pears said. However, Tennant Reed, lead energy analyst for the AiGroup, said “SEC Mark II” was largely symbolic. While “not insignificant”, the $1bn investment was a “toe in the water” when compared with the forecast $180bn needed to be spent in coming decades across the industry, he said. “This is a new book, not just a new chapter,” said Bruce Mountain, head of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre. He said Victoria already faced “extremely tight timelines” to expand clean energy capacity to cover coal plants as they exited. What are the government’s new emissions targets? Victoria has brought forward its net zero target by five years to 2045, tugging it in line with the ACT. The state’s previous target was to reduce 2005-level emissions by 28%-33% by 2025, and 45%-50% by 2030. It will now seek to legislate the 2035 goal of a 75%-80% cut. Victoria also lifted its target for 95% of electricity to come from renewables by 2035, from a previous goal of 50-65% . Those higher goals were “a lot more significant” than the SEC revival, Reed said. “It’s well beyond business as usual.” How do the emissions goals stack up? New South Wales and South Australia both have targets to halve 2005 emissions by 2030, on the way to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. Queensland’s aim is for a 30% cut by 2030 and net zero 20 years later. The ACT’s aim is for a 65%-75% reduction by 2030 and 90% by 2040. International comparisons include California’s 47% emissions cut by 2030 and a similar 2045 net zero goal. The UK, one of the more ambitious nations, has a 2030 goal of cutting 1990-level emissions by 68%. Environment Victoria’s chief executive, Jono La Nauze, said Thursday’s announcement marked a “monumental shift” of “global significance”. Australia’s goal of a 43% cut from 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050 will also be aided by Victoria’s accelerated efforts. How will power bills be affected? Victoria is just one part of the National Electricity Market, so it depends how other states act. Queensland has previously said retaining state control over electricity assets gives it an edge in the shift to renewables, which allows it to offset the impact of higher energy prices. That’s because the generation costs of renewable energy, even adding the costs of firming the power supply in the form of storage, are increasingly competitive against ageing coal and gas-fired power plants that also face rising fuel costs However, Sarah McNamara, CEO of generator lobby group the Australian Energy Council, described Victoria’s move as a “retrograde step” that would “destabilise future investment plans”. Jeff Dimery, CEO of Alinta Energy, which owns the coal-fired Loy Yang B power station that now faces an exit by 2035, has raised concerns about how the state will support coal workers as the industry closes down. “We’ve taken strong steps to prepare for the transition, and have one of the most well-advanced renewables and storage project pipelines,” he said. “But we need to understand more about how the government intends to manage the cost of the expedited transition, [and] protect communities and workers.” Pears said the government had a big incentive to succeed. “If the lights go out, it’s the state government that loses power,” he said. What’s next? Victoria’s determination to intervene in the market may form part of a growing trend of market intervention to achieve emissions reductions targets, Reed said. Other interventions include the Turnbull-Morrison government’s wielding of the commonwealth-owned Snowy Hydro to build a massive pumped-hydro venture and a gas-fired power plant, and the NSW government’s energy roadmap which aims to attract investment in renewables. Mountain said governments should prepare for the transition by reviewing the role of overarching bodies – the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Market Commission and the Australian Energy Regulator – while putting the Energy Security Board “out to pasture”. “There’s a huge frustration with the way the NEM has moved,” Mountain said. “States are increasingly doing their own things.” | ['australia-news/victoria', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/daniel-andrews', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/explainers', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'profile/benita-kolovos', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-10-21T19:00:49Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/oct/08/sevilles-marmalade-oranges-under-threat-from-deadly-yellow-dragon-disease-aoe | Seville’s marmalade oranges under threat from deadly yellow dragon disease | Oranges are to Seville what cherry blossom is to Kyoto, but the city is having to take preventive measures to protect its 48,000 orange trees from deadly bacteria that have already devastated citrus crops in Asia, Latin America and the US. The EU’s Life for Citrus campaign, which includes Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, is developing strategies to stop the spread of huanglongbing (HLB), Mandarin for “citrus greening”, also known as yellow dragon disease. Caused by the bacteria Candidatus liberibacter, it is spread by insects and can completely destroy a citrus tree within five years. The infestation has already reached epidemic levels in 48 Asian countries and 53 African states, as well as Brazil and the US. It was detected in China in 1943, in Africa in 1947 and by 2005 had begun to devastate Florida’s orange groves. It has yet to arrive in Europe but the insect that carries it has. “One of the vectors, Trioza eryteae, has already been detected in the Canaries, Portugal and Galicia in north-west Spain, but not the bacteria,” says Francisco Arenas, head of Las Torres research institute in Andalucía, southern Spain. “The problem is that, once the vector arrives, sooner or later the disease comes too.” The first sign that a tree has been infected is yellowing and distorted leaves. Then the tree produces less fruit and, within five years, is dead. There is, as yet, no treatment available; the only answer is to dig up and replant the trees or take preventive measures. Seville city council and Life for Citrus have embarked on a pilot scheme to encourage the spread of insects and birds that prey on the pest that spreads the disease, as part of a trend of working with nature rather than against it. In Seville’s Buhaira park, an orange plantation covering 1,800 sq metres will be planted with various species of ground cover, and bug hotels and nest boxes installed to encourage the ecosystem to thrive. The insect Tamarixia dryi, which preys on the larvae of Trioza, will then be introduced to the area, says Arenas. Pedro Torrent Chocarro of the Seville parks and gardens department says that, while some native species prey on white fly and other species that damage the oranges, Trioza doesn’t have a native predator. “The predator for Trioza is imported, initially from the Canaries, but now it is being bred in Galicia as well,” Torrent says. “The insects have been released in Galicia with good results and the plan is to release them in Portugal and Andalucía in due course. “By optimising conditions for other predators, the orange trees are healthier and less susceptible to disease in general.” The scheme will also involve the creation of an environment favourable for birds that prey on the insects, such as great tits, robins and blackbirds. Since 2019, Seville’s parks and gardens staff have been trained to spot signs of Candidatus liberibacter infection. The city, which is investing €35,000 (£30,000) in the pilot, is also raising public awareness with screens containing QR codes providing information, as well as educational visits as part of the work to conserve “the city’s green heritage, culture and history”, says David Guevara, city councillor for the environment. Seville’s orange trees, which were introduced by Arabs more than a millennium ago and produce the characteristic bitter fruit favoured by marmalade makers, account for about 25% of the city’s trees. If the bacterium takes hold, it is estimated that destroying and replacing the affected trees would cost about €20m, while depriving Seville of its most magical moment, the sight and fragrance of orange blossom in early spring. 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', 'world/spain', 'environment/invasive-species', 'science/agriculture', 'environment/insects', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/forests', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephen-burgen', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-10-08T10:00:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2014/may/22/balkan-floods-social-disaster-former-yugoslavia | Under the surface of the Balkan floods lies a social disaster | Srecko Horvat | Imagine the following scenario. Catastrophic floods have hit your country. More than 100,000 houses are toppled or submerged in mud. Over a million people are affected by the disaster. At the same time, one of your country's richest businessmen decides to take his wife to London. But this was just to deceive her. In fact, the real destination was Copenhagen. When she arrived, she found 80 friends had come too, and French musicians Nouvelle Vague and the British band Suede were performing. No, they weren't fleeing the floods. It was her 50th birthday, and her husband, Emil Tedeschi, had decided to surprise her. When he returned, his company helped by donating some goods. That is what "social responsibility" means today: first you earn a lot of money, then you give away a small percentage and you can continue to party without remorse. During the first wave of floods in Serbia, I witnessed a similar situation. If you were in the centre of Belgrade, you could easily believe it was just another heavy rain. In fact, it was A Tale of Two Cities. It was, as Dickens succinctly put it, "the best of times, it was the worst of times". Biljana Srbljanović, a famous Serbian playwright and usually a voice of reason in the depressing Serbian political reality, made a not particularly funny or smart comment on her popular Twitter account: "Excuse me for not being compassionate, but you have 10 more minutes to swim to the gallery for the promotion of my book." This set off a wave of condemnation in Serbia. Although Andrej Nikolaidis is right to claim in a Comment is free article that floods have united the people of the Balkans, it is not only rediscovered solidarity that has surprised many of us who survived the wars of the 1990s – when instead of helping to save a house, neighbours were burning down buildings just because someone was Serb or Croat, Muslim or Christian. After the current mood of self-congratulation, we should ask some serious questions. It is not only the spring of solidarity, it is also the winter of despair in the Balkans. And if we had everything before, soon we will have nothing. What lies under the surface of the catastrophic floods is not only a natural disaster, but also a social disaster. It is as if the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, was right when last year he declared that "the welfare state of the 20th century is over". In a nationally televised annual address, the king said a new "participation society" would take its place, in which people must save and invest to create their own social safety net with less help from the government. The severe floods in the Balkans showed that the king was right. What we got here was a "participation society". People from across the former Yugoslavia were organising their own social safety nets, sending clothes, food and medicine to those in need. And, yes, we, the people of the Balkans, should be proud of that. On the other hand, as the water subsides, on the surface it becomes more evident how the Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian states failed not only to warn people or rescue them, but also were complicit in the tragedy. In these times, there is no such thing as a "natural disaster". The "natural disaster" is always enabled by social factors. In the past two decades, these Balkan states reduced investment in the construction and maintenance of dams and embankments. During the time of Yugoslavia, only in Serbia did the government plan to build 34 more dams to regulate the waterways of the Danube and Sava rivers. To date, only five dams have been built. Now the water management companies across the Balkans are gradually being privatised. We should resist the temptation to sink into self-congratulation because of renewed solidarity from Yugoslav times. What should worry us, instead, is that Willem-Alexander's proclamation is coming true. When the next catastrophe comes, we will be left to pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/flooding', 'world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/environment', 'world/serbia', 'world/europe-news', 'world/bosnia-and-herzegovina', 'world/croatia', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/sre-ko-horvat'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-05-22T13:38:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/2020/jan/07/banning-cars-alone-is-not-the-answer | Banning cars alone is not the answer | Letters | It makes for a dramatic headline, but it is unfortunate that the Guardian has produced such a partial report on what a council meeting in York decided (York to ban private city centre car journeys to cut air pollution, 1 January). The city tried to ban cars from crossing a single bridge in 2014 and it ended in failure – not because the idea of banning cars wasn’t a worthy one but because sticks have to be accompanied by carrots or they do not work. Banning cars is the easy bit. But what do you put in its place? Light rail? Biogas buses? A tram network? An electric car hire scheme? York declared a climate emergency in March 2019 and the cross-party climate change committee is charged with delivering a zero-carbon future. Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour councillors are working to transform our response to the climate emergency. The committee has recommended the council adopt a cumulative carbon budget for 2020-30 and a science-based approach to evaluating the carbon cost of our activities, projects, procurement and investment from here on in. The city’s Lib Dem-Green administration is considering introducing amendments to this year’s council budget to enable these proposed changes to be implemented. Turfing people out of cars without producing a viable and attractive alternative is a recipe doomed to failure. Major investment is required and we must take residents and businesses with us. I believe we can. There is no planet B. Cllr Christian Vassie Chair of climate change committee, City of York council • Your article on York highlights how important it is for both central and local government to take urgent action to reduce air pollution in our cities and tackle the climate crisis. Transport is the only sector where CO2 emissions are rising as our reliance on motor vehicles remains at an all-time high. If we are to reduce harmful emissions, we need to make walking and cycling the most attractive option for short journeys. Bike Life 2017 – the UK’s biggest assessment of cycling in cities – revealed that 53% of people would like to start cycling or cycle more, but its perceived danger is still a barrier. Initiatives to take more cars off the road would make people feel safer and more confident. However, this is only a first step. To see a significant reduction in air pollution and meet the target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, the government must commit greater funding to build dedicated walking and cycling infrastructure in our towns and cities. Until we end our reliance on motor vehicles, we will continue to live with dangerous levels of air pollution. The government must take action to ensure all cities can introduce changes such as this, and that streets are designed with people in mind, rather than motor vehicles. Rachel White Head of public affairs, Sustrans • Your editorial (27 December) says that “In the age of climate emergency the car is no longer the star”. The car has never been the star – more an asteroid that hurtles on our roads, too often out of control. A significant omission from your long editorial was the annual global strike rate: 1.35 million killed, countless millions suffering life-changing injuries, many of whom are pedestrians and cyclists. Any other machine with this killing record would not be tolerated by intelligent caring creatures. No mention was made of the behavioural changes that overcome some otherwise careful and considerate individuals. Once behind the wheel of their box, they are isolated, feel secure and, with terrifying power under their feet, become reckless toads of our roads. Phase out the car, run trains on our motorways, trams and buses on our A roads, walk and cycle shorter town and city distances. Learn to share again and liberate our urban centres from the tyranny of the private car with all its undeniable ills. Dick Follows Lancaster • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters • Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition | ['politics/transport', 'uk/york', 'uk/transport', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'business/automotive-industry', 'tone/letters', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'lifeandstyle/cycling', 'environment/air-pollution', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-01-07T18:22:35Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2022/mar/17/really-messed-this-up-government-mps-blast-flood-disaster-funding-as-one-prepares-to-quit | ‘Real venom’: federal government extends NSW flood relief after pressure from local MPs | The federal government has agreed to extend disaster funding to flood-hit parts of the New South Wales north coast after state government MPs and local mayors lined up to blast the commonwealth over its initial decision to exclude some areas from the extra payments. On Thursday the federal minister for emergency management, Bridget McKenzie, said the government would extend extra financial support to communities in Ballina, Byron and Tweed after the towns were initially excluded from the $2,000 payments. McKenzie said that after assessment by the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, the government had agreed to supply the payments. “As the full scale and impact to these areas in northern NSW is being realised, the Liberal and Nationals government is implementing this extra support as quickly as possible,” she said. The two additional disaster payments of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child would be automatically paid to people who had already claimed the original funds and will be available from 22 March, she said. The delay in extending the funding prompted an outpouring of criticism from Liberal and National MPs in NSW, with one upper house Liberal party MP, Catherine Cusack, announcing her intention to resign from politics altogether, telling Guardian Australia her decision was not a protest but “me not wanting to fight the machine any more”. Scott Morrison last week announced extra financial support would be available for people in Lismore, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley local areas. Those regions all sit in the federal seat of Page, held by the Nationals. But other local government areas including Ballina, Byron and Tweed – all located in the electorate of Richmond, held by Labor – were initially excluded from receiving the extra funds. That prompted outrage from Liberal and National MPs in the NSW government. Cusack, an outspoken upper house MP who represents the north coast, said she had informed the party’s state director of her intention to resign as soon as the party was able to hold a preselection for her position. “I am so tired of it,” she said. “I don’t want to spend all day attacking and sounding bitter. I am not bitter – I just don’t fit into the new Liberal party culture and it drained all my energy trying. “It’s an enormous relief to step away from it.” While initial reports suggested Cusack would immediately quit, she told Guardian Australia she would wait until local branch members were able to vote for her replacement, both out of respect for her colleagues and to ensure “a constitutional preselection”. “You may have noticed the Liberal Party finding it difficult to have a constitutional preselection even for federal seats,” she said. The NSW Nationals MP for Tweed, Geoff Provest, told local ABC radio he had lost faith in Morrison, saying he was “disgusted with the prime minister”. “I just think the federal government has really messed this up … I can put it no other way, they’ve lost the faith of the people,” he said. “Whether in the caravan parks or one of the little villages, there’s a real venom out there directed at the prime minister that he doesn’t understand what’s occurring on the ground. This is like a remake of the bushfires some two years ago.” He said the decision to exclude residents in his seat and neighbouring Ballina was “deplorable”. “You just have to drive around the area to talk to the people to see they’ve lost everything,” he said. “The federal government is disconnected with the good people of Australia and we’re paying the price for it here … I think they should hang their heads in shame.” There were also reports on Wednesday of frustration inside the NSW government over the delay in federal sign-off for an additional $1.4bn in flood support because of the prime minister’s campaigning trip to Western Australia. Morrison said the NSW flood package request was going through the “normal process” after the request had come to the federal government, and had been assessed by the national security committee of cabinet on Wednesday. Morrison said more than $1bn had already been paid to people in flood-affected areas of NSW and Queensland to more than a million people. On Thursday, the NSW treasurer, Matt Kean, Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning the “existing framework” for disaster relief needed to be worked around. “This is unique, this event, [because] some of the people that have been hit do not meet the existing criteria in place, which is why we need to tailor additional financial support packages to help those people that have been left out,” he said. | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'australia-news/coalition', 'australia-news/national-party', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-mcgowan', 'profile/sarah-martin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-17T05:09:34Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/commentisfree/2018/may/18/i-was-feeling-at-one-with-the-cosmos-then-the-first-plastic-bottle-washed-up | Why I filled a 50,000 litre aquarium with plastic debris | Douglas Coupland | In 1999, I was in a Tokyo department store walking down a household cleaning products aisle and had what you might call an ecstatic moment when the pastel-tinted plastic bottles on both sides of the aisle temporarily froze my reptile cortex: pink, yellow, baby blue, turquoise — so many cute-looking bottles filled with so many toxic substances, all labeled with bold katakana lettering. I bought 125 bottles and took them back to my hotel room where I emptied them down the toilet. Yes, I can hear you judging me as an ecological criminal, but then let me ask you this: if I’d added some dead skin flakes or some shit to these chemicals, would that then have made it OK to deliver them into the Tokyo harbour? Around 1999 is also when I began to visit Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) off the coast of British Columbia. Largely untouched by the ice ages, these difficult- and expensive-to-reach islands are, to me, the most enchanted place on the planet and afford a chance to experience nature in a meditative manner that borders on the religious. The raw sense of life and of living creatures can be overwhelming. Cut to the summer of 2013 when I was beachcombing on Rose Spit on the northernmost tip of Haida Gwaii’s north island. I stood there gazing at the waves and was feeling at one with the cosmos and pretty darned good about the world, when I looked down at my feet and there found a plastic bottle of the sort I once brought from Japan wash directly up to me. It was a chilling moment that made me feel as though I was on the receiving end of a medieval curse. The bottle was, of course, part of the first wave of debris from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami to begin washing up on North America’s west coast. Soon the wave became an avalanche, and quickly all I could see was the alien plastic marine debris that inundated my most sacred place on the planet. It collapsed any sense of geographical remoteness the islands once held for me, and it made me stop to think about this thing called the Pacific Trash Vortex — or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — or the Pacific Trash Gyres. What is it? Or what are they? A Texas-sized clump of a billion shampoo bottles somewhere along the equator? A floating garbage dump the size of California? The internet was surprisingly useless in providing images of what the Pacific Trash vortex might look like, so I decided that my job was to create an image of the trash gyres so that people could get a visual of something that most of us have thought about and been discussing these past years. Thus, here in 2018 we come to Vortex, on display at the Vancouver Aquarium for the next year. It features several tons of (non-radioactive) Haida Gwaii plastic debris sloshing around within a 50,000-litre pool. In the centre of this synthetic gyre bobs a Japanese day-fishing boat lost in the tsunami, but whose owner I went to meet last October in Ishinomaki, Japan. On this boat rests a small cosmology of entities that address the past, present, and future of humanity’s relationship to plastic. The more we look, the more we find plastic in our food and in our water. It’s now becoming harder to distinguish where our bodies end and where the synthetic world begins. I got to thinking of growing up in the 1960s, back when people still littered. Young people have trouble believing this but people just tossed stuff out the car window or on to the streets with no thought about it, and then, almost overnight in the early 1970s people stopped littering. Poof! No more litter. The lesson I take from this is that I’ve seen people change once, so I know they can change again. We seem to be going through some sort of collective darkness right now, but the Queen is discussing plastic drinking straws and the Pope is discussing synthetic agrotoxins. I stand firm that there is hope and change in the air. Vortex is at the Vancouver Aquarium from 18 May 2018 | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/plastic', 'artanddesign/art', 'artanddesign/exhibition', 'culture/culture', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'artanddesign/installation', 'books/douglascoupland', 'world/canada', 'books/books', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'environment/environment', 'world/japan', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/douglas-coupland', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-05-18T16:26:53Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2008/may/22/windpower.renewableenergy | Step up wind power to reach targets, UK urged | Britain must step up its construction of offshore wind farms if it is to meet its target of producing 15% of energy needs from renewable sources, the chief executive of a leading utility said yesterday. At the present rate, Britain is on course to produce between 5% and 7% of its energy from renewables, Scottish and Southern Energy's Ian Marchant said. "The solution is to explore offshore wind. To meet the target we are going to need 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power." Industry experts calculate that, to meet the 15% target, Britain would need to generate around 35% to 40% of its electricity from renewables, with much of that coming from wind farms. Last week, SSE signed a lease with the Crown Estate to build a £1.3bn wind farm at Greater Gabbard, 26 kilometres off the Suffolk coast, which will be the country's largest. It will have generating capacity of 504 megawatts - half the output of an average coal-fired station. Due to be operational by 2011, it will produce enough electricity to power 415,000 homes . Marchant said the UK needed to build four wind farms a year the size of Greater Gabbard to meet the renewables target. Yesterday, the Crown Estate announced the procedure for companies to apply for offshore wind farm development in Scotland. It is seeking applications for wind farms with at least 100 megawatts of capacity. Scotland's energy minister, Jim Mather, said: "We want to see more offshore turbines in appropriate locations around the Scottish coast." | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'business/utilities', 'type/article', 'profile/markmilner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2008-05-21T23:06:17Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2005/jul/27/water.weather | Drought order follows area's worst dry spell since 1970s | The government yesterday granted the first active drought order for eight years, after record dry weather in the south-east. The order allows Southern Water to reduce the flow from the depleted Weir Wood reservoir in West Sussex into the Medway. Although the move has dismayed some environmentalists, it was made in response to what officials claim is the area's worst drought since the late 1970s. Southern Water had wanted to cut the flow from 5.5m litres (1.2m gallons) to 2.5m litres a day, but after Environment Agency complaints that this could damage the river's wildlife habitats, the limit was set at 3.6m litres. Yesterday, the environment minister, Elliot Morley, granted the temporary order but called on water companies to make customers more aware of the drought and how to deal with it. The Weir Wood reservoir is 38% full at present, instead of its normal summer level of 74%. Southern Water said that the order followed a particularly dry winter. "We felt it was necessary because the reservoir is so low and it is key to supply for quite a few people," said a spokeswoman. "We're comparing the drought to the summer of 1976. It is eight consecutive months now of below-average rainfall. It would need a heck of a lot more than a couple of wet weekends to get us to a position where we are more comfortable." The Environment Agency said it welcomed the government's decision to limit the flow reduction to the Medway. Howard Davidson, its regional director, said: "It's a good thing that the environment is being put at the heart of decisions like this. Less water in the Medway would cause increased temperatures and lower oxygen levels in the river, which could lead to unnecessary suffering for fish and other wildlife. By keeping flows in the Medway as high as possible, we are minimising the stress on wildlife habitats." But a spokeswoman for the RSPB said that the order set a worrying precedent, particularly since a second order in West Sussex was in the offing. Greater efforts should have been made, she said, to reduce consumption elsewhere. "We feel it is using the environment as an easy target," she said. "All the hosepipe bans now came in too late." Brenda Pollack, for Friends of the Earth, said the order raised serious questions about the government's long-term plan to build hundreds of thousands of homes in the region. "It shows we need to reassess the growth plans," she said. "How much more can the south-east take? Not enough is being done to restrain water demand. If we can't cope now, how will we cope with these plans for the future? The last active drought order was issued in 1997 at Redgrave and Lopham Fen in Suffolk, one of Europe's most important wetlands. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'environment/drought', 'type/article', 'profile/kirstyscott'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-07-27T22:59:35Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/damian-carrington-blog/2016/jan/12/environment-agency-chairmans-pr-disaster-distracted-from-the-real-flooding-story | Environment Agency chairman's PR disaster distracted from the real flooding story | Damian Carrington | So Sir Philip Dilley is going to spend more time with his family, in whichever home he feels most comfortable. After misleading the public over his whereabouts over Christmas, as the north of England was awash with floods, he resigned as chair of the Environment Agency on Monday. As the rain fell on Boxing day, he said he was at home with his family. Then, having been tracked down to Barbados, he clarified that he was “at home with his family, who are from Barbados”. Now it appears his wife is actually from Jamaica, 1,200 miles away. It was a PR disaster, at precisely the wrong moment. The staff of the Environment Agency (EA) were working round the clock to protect lives and property, but Dilley’s disaster commanded headlines. The EA staff did a valiant job - they had to, being 800 less in number than in 2010 due to budget cuts - but found their organisation in the news for all the wrong reasons. Dilley’s main reason for resigning was, he said, that “the expectations of the role have expanded to require the chairman to be available at short notice throughout the year ... In my view this is inappropriate in a part-time non-executive position, and this is something I am unable to deliver”. This contrasts awkwardly with his statement when he was appointed to the £100,000-a-year job in 2014, that he would work six or seven days a week “if there is a crisis”. The presence of the EA chairman was never going to stop the waters rising, but the reassurance of seeing the boss in his wellies is necessary in a crisis. However the true damage caused by Dilley’s disaster runs deeper: the fuss distracted from holding the government to account for its repeated failings on flood defences. To summarise, in the first year of David Cameron’s coalition, he cut capital spending on flood defences by 27% year-on-year, ignoring the 2008 Pitt review that concluding rising funding was needed. Flood defence spending never recovered to the level inherited from Labour during the whole coalition parliament, if you exclude – as the National Audit Office deemed appropriate – the emergency funding delivered to patch up defences after the winter floods of 2013-14. In January 2012, the government’s own research showed increased flooding is the greatest threat posed by climate change in England. But when heavy flooding hit in the summer of 2012, I revealed that almost 300 proposed flood defences had not gone ahead as planned following the cuts. Winter floods hit in 2013-14 and Cameron promised to learn the lessons, but no review was ever published. Floods hit yet again this December and January. Leeds, Kendal, Croston, Dawlish, Yalding, the Somerset Levels and the Thames valley were the among the place lacking the defences planned in 2010. In the midst of the 2013-14 floods, the government’s own climate change advisers told ministers there was a £500m hole in their flood defence plans. The shortfall would result in £3bn of damages, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) warned. The National Audit Office added their warning, finding that the risk of flooding was indeed rising as a result of government funding cuts. In June 2015, the CCC recommended the government should “develop a strategy to address the increasing number of homes in areas of high flood risk”. But in October the government replied that such a strategy “would not be appropriate at this time”. In November 2015, the Association of Drainage Authorities warned that “the Environment Agency’s funding for maintaining flood assets has fallen by 14%”, increasing flood risk. Yet despite this catalogue of failure, the government has got off the hook once again. That, in no small part, is because a man with a tan put himself into very hot water. | ['environment/damian-carrington-blog', 'environment/environment', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment-agency', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-01-12T11:38:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/aug/10/abandoned-pits-former-mining-town-seaham-county-durham-fuel-green-revolution | Abandoned pits of former mining town fuel green revolution | Kevin Shaw remembers Seaham in its mining heyday, when the three pits in the town provided thousands of jobs and the network of red-brick terrace houses overlooking the sea were packed with miners and their families. “It was a totally different place then all right,” says the 63-year-old looking out from a seafront cafe across a shimmering North Sea. “It was a very strong community, everyone had a connection to the mines … coal wagons would rattle across this road and down to the docks.” But the last pit closed in the early 1990s. Now, in a nondescript warehouse on an industrial estate on the edge of Seaham a new chapter in the town’s industrial history is being written. A garden village with 1,500 homes, a primary school and shops is being planned on nearby fields: the heating and hot water for the entire development will come from water pumped from an abandoned mine shaft nearby. Chris Myers, the Durham county council regeneration officer, says: “It is really exciting to think that these are the coalmines which effectively powered the Industrial Revolution and now they are going to power the green revolution … it is a cracking thing to be involved in.” The idea is simple. Former coalmines get flooded and the water needs to be pumped out and cleaned to stop it contaminating drinking supplies. When it is brought to the surface it has been warmed by the Earth – in the case of the Dawdon pit at Seaham up to about 19-20C. Under the plans, heat pumps would increase the temperature to 55/60C – warm enough to piped into homes and provide a constant source of heat and hot water. The entire process would produce almost no carbon and a steady stream of cheap, reliable heating for homes and businesses. “It is a genuine win-win that could transform not just Seaham, not just County Durham, but huge parts of northern England,” says Myers. In the town’s pomp thousands of miners used to descend a kilometre underground into the mine shafts every day before working narrow seams stretching out under the North Sea. Now the water comes up into a warehouse on top of the old pit shaft. Here it is possible to feel the heat – and energy – coming from the water. “You can feel it,” says Myers as he comes out into the sunshine and removes his hard hat. “That is it, that is the energy we are harnessing.” The Coal Authority, which is responsible for the UK’s 23,000 abandoned deep coalmines, believes the potential of this geothermal heating is immense. It says 25% of people in the UK live on top of former coalmines and argues that refocusing the UK’s coalfields for a zero carbon, geothermal future could be transformative for energy and former mining communities. “It’s got huge potential, it is accessible and the technology already exists,” says Charlotte Adams, the manager of mine energy and innovation at the Coal Authority. “We have already got 80 sites where the water comes to the surface and that produces around 100 megawatts of heat that is currently not being used.” She said funding was available for local authorities to explore whether abandoned mines in their areas were suitable, with 40 projects already under way and more councils coming forward all the time. Advocates also say the plans would create an industry of technicians and engineers needed to build and service the new infrastructure. Prof Jon Gluyas, the executive director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, agrees it has huge potential. “This is a real opportunity and since we built our houses where we mined coal there is a good match between potential supply and demand. This could play a big role in zero carbon energy from Glasgow to the north-east, Nottingham to Kent.” Back on the seafront in Seaham, as children play among the rock pools on the beaches that stretch north from the town and the cafes on the redeveloped dockside bustle with holidaymakers and locals, Shaw reflects on how much has changed. “When we were kids the beaches around the pit were black with the coal, but just look at it now.” Shaw first went down Dawdon colliery on a school trip as a 16-year-old before going on to work as a firefighter in the town for more than 20 years. He is now a local councillor and says being in the vanguard of a new energy revolution would confirm Seaham’s fightback from the dark days after the pits closed. “This place was built on coal and mining and people were proud of that. What we are doing now means that the legacy of over 100 years of mining can be used again … and that will mean a lot to the town.” | ['environment/series/groundwork', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/geothermal', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/coal', 'uk/uk', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/green-jobs', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-08-10T06:00:11Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2021/jul/13/weatherwatch-fog-traps-capture-water-atacama-desert | Weatherwatch: fog traps capture water in Atacama desert | Chile’s Atacama desert is famously dry, with virtually no measurable rainfall. It is coastal though, with a sea breeze blowing inland. New technology could help draw precious water from the sea air. Fog traps are mesh screens that capture droplets of fog; when enough water accumulates it runs down into a collector. Fog traps have been used on a small scale since the 1960s, with a square metre of mesh collecting enough drinking water for one person. Dr Urszula Stachewicz and her team at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków have developed a fine electrospun fibre, drawn with electric force rather than being spun mechanically, which could catch fog better. Stachewicz says the material is inspired by spider webs that combine hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties, so droplets initially stick to the fibres and then run off. Adding a nanofiber mesh makes a fog trap more efficient at catching the tiny droplets that could otherwise pass through wide gaps between fibres. Electrospun fibres are already used in air filters and dust-cleaning cloths and can be mass-produced at low cost. This simple technology could help provide clean drinking water in many parts of the world that lack infrastructure and which increasingly suffer water stress, even ones as dry as the Atacama. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/chile', 'environment/water', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-07-13T05:00:35Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2018/sep/07/ba-says-hack-hit-only-those-buying-tickets-in-two-week-period | How did hackers manage to lift the details of BA customers? | As British Airways reels from yet another IT scandal, speculation about how the “world’s favourite airline” could allow the credit card details of 380,000 customers to be stolen from under its nose for two weeks swirls. Answers on exactly how the criminals were able to steal the credit card information are thin on the ground and will likely require BA or a third-party security contractor to divulge details. Data breaches can take many forms, from simply leaving sensitive security data on USB flash drives on west London streets, to blackmail, social engineering, disgruntled ex- or current employees and intrusion attempts exploiting one or multiple weaknesses in a company’s cybersecurity. However, statements so far point to point to a different scenario to that experienced by Dixons Carphone earlier this year. BA says only personal and financial data was taken, and only from those purchasing flights between 21 August and 5 September when the hack was active, not those with credit cards saved on their accounts. Where Dixons Carphone had historic data on 10 million customers stolen by cybercriminals gaining access to databases, this new “very sophisticated” hack – in the words of BA’s CEO – appears to have only taken data as it was entered into the system during the purchasing process. “One possibility is that hackers compromised a flaw in the software on British Airways’ website,” Richard Walters, the chief technology officer of the security firm CensorNet, said. “It is speculation until further details emerge but an attacker could then upload information stealing code to the website, which could intercept messages with backend systems, including financial data. “If this is the case, a copy of data would be sent to the criminals as it was relayed to the company’s main IT infrastructure. This kind of attack could also have affected the app if they use common systems.” The National Crime Agency said it is investigating the breach. A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office said it would also be making inquiries about the data theft. “Perhaps most significantly, this is one of the first major breaches since GDPR came into effect in May,” Walters said. “It appears that the company notified the Information Commissioner’s Office and customers within the GDPR’s mandatory 72 hours but the breach will now be investigated and the company could be penalised if it failed to take all the necessary measures to protect customer data.” Full details on precisely how this attack happened, and any possible punitive actions including fines for BA, may only be revealed months down the line. In the meantime, experts say the consequences for those affected by the theft are likely to roll out over time. “Once hackers have hold of high-value data like card details, the market in criminal networks for reselling is huge, meaning that we may not see the effects of this theft immediately until a buyer acts,” Leigh Anne Galloway, the cyber security resilience lead at Positive Technologies, said. “The best thing to do for anyone who thinks their details may have been involved, or who has been told so by BA, should keep an eye on their transactions. Consider cancelling the affected bank card and request a replacement for peace of mind.” | ['business/britishairways', 'technology/data-protection', 'technology/cybercrime', 'technology/hacking', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'business/travelleisure', 'world/privacy', 'business/business', 'technology/technology', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-09-07T11:53:10Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2018/jan/11/uk-retailers-see-rise-in-sales-of-reusable-coffee-cups | UK retailers see rise in sales of reusable coffee cups | Sales of reusable coffee cups are soaring in the UK, retailers are reporting, as the government hints at a tax on disposable cups. Argos, which is part of the Sainsbury’s Group, said it had sold 537% more portable cups in December 2017 than the same month the previous year. Meanwhile, kitchenware chain Lakeland reported an increase in sales of more than 100% month-on-month, homeware company Robert Dyas reported a 50% lift year-on-year. John Lewis said the week before Christmas was its biggest ever week for sales of travel cups, and Wilko said it sold 78% more in December than November. Last week MPs on the environmental audit committee called for a 25p “latte levy” to be charged on top of the price of a hot drink, amid growing worries about the overuse and waste of 2.5bn disposable coffee cups every year. Meanwhile, in the government’s 25-year environment plan released on Thursday, the prime minister, Theresa May, announced a call for evidence into charges for single-use items. Disposable cups cannot be recycled by normal systems because they are made from cardboard with a tightly bonded polyethylene liner, which is difficult to remove. As a result, just one in 400 cups are recycled – less than 0.25%. Half a million coffee cups are littered each day in the UK, the report said. “We saw a huge growth in the sales of travel mugs over the Christmas period,” said Dawn Ritchie, kitchen buying manager at Argos. “This was partly spurred on by the popularity of shows such as Blue Planet II, as well as some of the UK’s biggest coffee chains offering compelling discounts for customers with reusable cups. With the recently proposed ‘latte levy’, we expect this trend to only grow as awareness of disposable cup waste increases.” However, financial incentives by UK coffee chains to encourage consumers to use reusable coffee cups have had mixed results. In 1998 Starbucks was the first coffee chain in the UK to offer users of reusable cups a discount – 10p – before upping it to 25p in 2008. In 2016 it doubled this to 50p, but take-up remained low. In 2014 it launched a £1 reusable cup, but despite these efforts only 1.8% of its customers use reusable cups. Earlier this month Pret a Manger doubled its discount to 50p on all hot drinks bought by customers with reusable cups, and it is planning to launch its own reusable cup later in the year. Trewin Restorick, chief executive of environmental charity Hubbub, said: “It is really encouraging to see the increase in sales of reusable cups, which are the most environmentally friendly option for coffee on the go. We’d also like to see greater availability of recycling facilities for existing cups, as our Square Mile challenge campaign has demonstrated that the public are very willing to use these when they have the option.” • Follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk, or sign up to the daily Business Today email here. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'uk/uk', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'business/retail', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'money/money', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-01-11T16:22:52Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
education/2019/mar/14/youth-climate-strikes-to-take-place-in-almost-100-countries-greta-thunberg | Youth climate strikes to take place in more than 100 countries | Hundreds of thousands of children are expected to walk out of their classrooms on Friday for a global climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating ecological crisis. Children at tens of thousands of schools in more than 100 countries are due to take part in the walkouts which began last year when one teenager – Greta Thunberg – held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament. Since then the climate movement has snowballed with schoolchildren on every continent except Antarctica taking part. Friday’s strike is expected to be the biggest yet as evidence mounts of the climate emergency facing the planet. Amnesty International has warned that the failure of world governments to tackle the crisis could amount to “one of the greatest intergenerational human rights violations in history”. Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said: “It’s unfortunate that children have to sacrifice days of learning in school to demand that adults do the right thing. However, they know the consequences of the current shameful inaction both for themselves and future generations. This should be a moment for stark self-reflection by our political class.” Young people are expected to take to the streets in cities across Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa and the US on Friday. In the UK more than 10,000 children walked out of class last month and organisers expect Friday’s event to be even bigger with about 100 events taking place involving thousands of schools across the country. Anna Taylor, 17, who co-founded the UK student climate network, said: “Young people in the UK have shown that we’re angry at the lack of government leadership on climate change. “Those in power are not only betraying us, and taking away our future, but are responsible for the climate crisis that’s unfolding in horrendous ways around the world.” Taylor said the UK had been relatively shielded from the effects of the crisis so far, adding that “those least responsible for contributing to climate change are already suffering the worst effects”. She added: “It is our duty to not only act for those in the UK and our futures, but for everyone. That’s what climate justice means.” In Scotland, the Guardian is aware of strikes planned in 19 different locations, from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides to St Andrews on the east coast, with large gatherings expected in Glasgow’s George Square and outside the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. One of the UK’s most prominent school strikers, Holly Gillibrand, will be taking part, after staging a weekly action outside her school in Fort William, in the Scottish Highlands. “It’s going to be quite impressive,” said Gillibrand of the School Strike for Climate movement, “and it’s incredibly inspiring that it all started with Greta striking on her own”. Asked whether she feels optimistic about the potential of Friday’s protest, Gillibrand replied: “I wouldn’t say optimistic is quite the right word. It shows there are thousands of students out there who care very deeply about the environment and are willing to miss school to demand that politicians take this ecological crisis seriously.” World leaders may listen to the school pupils taking part in one of the largest global climate change protests ever, but the key test is whether they take action, said the 13-year-old. According to the Scottish Green party, nine councils – which cover 16 of the 21 Scottish locations understood to have schoolchildren involved in protests – have indicated in response to letters from their MSPs that they will not pursue punitive action against young people taking part. Méabh Mackenzie is organising a protest with about 30 fellow pupils from Daliburgh primary school on the island of South Uist, with the express purpose of standing in solidarity with other threatened island communities across the globe. The 11-year-old explained: “I just wanted to share what I believe in. Uist is really low lying and I really love the place and don’t want it to disappear.” Some friends are “not into it at all”, she suspects because they do not want to go out in the cold – the forecast is for hail on Friday. “I think all the striking around the world will let politicians and lawmakers know that they have to do something because it is falling down the list of priorities. They are arguing about things like Brexit but we need them to act now on climate change. because in 12 years we can’t turn anything back.” In Belgium, thousands of workers will be striking to join the school students’ protest in locations such as Antwerp, Bruges and Liège, before travelling to Brussels for a large demonstration. Blue- and white-collar workers are being mobilised across the Flemish-Francophone divide, after an appeal from the Youth For Climate campaign, which has organised weekly demonstrations of up to 35,000 youths since January. Gina Heyrman, a spokeswoman for the 1.6 million-strong socialist trades union ABVV-FGTB, noted “similarities” with the Paris protests of 1968. She said: “This is the first time we have had a political strike together with young people. Maybe we’re at the beginning of a new era. I hope so. Everyone talks about the climate now. Everyone is aware of it, thanks to the students.” The rival CSC Christian trade union is also planning a “massive mobilisation”, although some of its workers cannot strike because of a strike notification law. The CFDT union in France is also calling for every member to participate in Friday’s climate action. Earlier this year Thunberg, who started the movement, told a gathering of political leaders and billionaire entrepreneurs in Davos: “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'world/protest', 'education/schools', 'education/students', 'world/world', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'world/sweden', 'world/belgium', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'profile/libbybrooks', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/school-climate-strikes | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-03-14T14:00:42Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2011/oct/09/iaea-fukushima-inspectors-arrive | International nuclear inspectors arrive in Fukushima | Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency have arrived in Fukushima city to observe efforts to decontaminate the area following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The 12-member team arrived as Japan announced the launch of long-term checks for thyroid abnormalities in local children. The screenings will target 360,000 children who were aged up to 18 on 11 March, when a tsunami overwhelmed the plant, knocking out power to cooling systems and triggering meltdowns in three of its six reactors. The IAEA inspectors will visit the facility, operated by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), as well as farms and schools where decontamination efforts are under way. After the agency's first visit to the stricken plant in June, it criticised Tepco for failing to prepare for a large tsunami, but praised its post-disaster response. The inspectors will give a preliminary report to the Japanese government at the end of next week and present more detailed findings next month. The plant released large quantities of radioactive material over a wide area, including locations well outside the 20km (12-mile) evacuation zone imposed in the early days of the crisis. About 100,000 people in and around the evacuation zone were forced to leave their homes; some have no idea when, or if, they will be able to return. Health experts are particularly concerned about the possible health effects on children of long-term exposure to low levels of radiation in affected areas such as Minamisoma and Fukushima city, which has a population of almost 300,000. The government recently lifted an advisory warning for people living in five locations between 20 and 30km from the plant to evacuate should the situation at the plant worsen, but thousands still refuse to return. Health authorities refused to release the results of the first tests, conducted on 100 children at Fukushima Medical University. The children will continue to be tested every two years until they reach 20, and every five years thereafter. Those found to have suffered damage to their thyroids will undergo more detailed examinations. Children and adolescents are more at risk because their thyroids absorb radioactive iodine and other harmful substances more easily than those of adults. Sunday's examinees included a seven-year-old boy whose parents took him out of Fukushima after the accident. "My son hasn't shown any symptoms, but I'm worried about what might happen in four or five years from now," his mother, Kikue Komatsu, told Kyodo News. "I'm with Fukushima in spirit, but there is no way we can return while radiation levels are still high." Last week, a Japanese charity and hospital reported that they had found thyroid irregularities in 10 out of 130 children evacuated from Fukushima prefecture. Representatives from the Japan Chernobyl Foundation and Shinshu University hospital said they could not make a direct link between the accident and the findings, but called for children to undergo lifelong medical observations. Health authorities in the former Soviet Union identified about 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer among people who were adolescents or children at the time of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Towns outside the evacuation zone have sprayed streets with water and removed topsoil from school playgrounds in an attempt to make their communities safe. But cleaning up the towns and villages closest to Fukushima Daiichi could take decades, the government admitted recently. Older residents in those communities accept they may be dead by the time their old homes are safe to live in . Decontaminating areas outside the exclusion zone could take until March 2014, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said, citing government officials. | ['world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'world/japan', 'world/world', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/fukushima', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-10-09T12:24:09Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2024/nov/29/it-signifies-renewal-recipients-of-sycamore-gap-saplings-announced | ‘It signifies renewal’: recipients of Sycamore Gap saplings announced | Saplings from the felled Sycamore Gap tree are to be planted across the UK, including next to one of London’s most famous roads, at a rural category C prison and at a motor neurone disease centre opening in the name of the late rugby league star Rob Burrow. The National Trust on Friday announced the recipients of 49 saplings it has called “trees of hope”. Other recipients include a charity set up by the family of murdered Northumberland schoolgirl Holly Newton, who was killed by her jealous ex-boyfriend Logan MacPhail; and Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool. Nearly 500 applications were received after the Trust announced a scheme for the saplings to be gifted across the UK. There are 49 - one for each foot of the sycamore’s height – and all were grown from seeds recovered from the felled tree. The Sycamore Gap tree was planted as a landscape feature on Hadrian’s Wall 150 years ago, becoming one of the most photographable places in England and the site of countless marriage proposals, birthday celebrations and scatterings of ashes. Its illegal felling in September last year made headlines across the world, prompting feelings of sorrow, distress and anger. “The tree meant so much to so many,” said Catherine Nuttgens, a tree expert who led the panel of judges which sifted through the applications. “Its destruction felt utterly senseless.” Judging the applications had been a privilege and humbling, she said. “They were from across the whole country, from all walks of life, from pretty English villages to prisons. “Everyone had their individual story and honestly, I could only read so many at a time … it was really emotional. They were all deserving, it was really, really hard to choose.” All the saplings will be planted in publicly accessible places and will include the Rob Burrow centre for motor neurone disease due to open next summer at Seacroft hospital in Leeds. Burrow’s widow Lindsey said the centre would feature a garden at its core. “This ‘tree of hope’ perfectly reflects our struggles and will provide our families with a powerful reminder that it is possible to heal even after we have been cut down,” she said. “It signifies renewal, regeneration and the ability to evolve.” The sapling in memory of Holly Newton goes to the charity Holly’s Hope, set up by her mother and stepfather, Micala and Lee Trussler, to raise awareness of the warning signs young people should look for when experiencing their first relationships. Micala said getting a sapling meant a lot. “This tree of hope will be a symbol for everyone that knew Holly, to reflect and remember how amazing she was.” Another sapling will be planted at a community garden under the Westway, the dominating elevated dual carriageway that scythes through west London. The recipients are the not for profit Grow to Know which was born out of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. Tayshan Hayden-Smith, the founder and creative director, said: “Nature is at the heart of everything we do, and planting one of the Sycamore Gap tree saplings in North Kensington will be a symbol of seeds of change, hope and community.” Other recipients include: Morton Hall prison in Lincolnshire, a category C facility for foreign national offenders; The Tree Sanctuary in Coventry where teenagers known as the “Tree Amigos” replant trees damaged by vandalism; and the LGBTQI+ network at the Ministry of Defence. As well as the 49, the UK’s 15 national parks will receive a sapling. King Charles has received a seedling for planting in Windsor Great Park when it is a sapling. Nuttgens said not everyone is a sycamore tree fan – people who park their cars under a sycamore will know about the amount of sticky sap from them – but she adores them. Their dark green leaves in the summer create a canopy like broccoli, she said. “They have that lumpy, cloudy effect. They are very beautiful, architecturally fine trees.” | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk/national-trust', 'uk-news/northumberland', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/markbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-11-29T05:00:48Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/16/gulf-oil-spill-bp-rescue | BP will survive this | John Hofmeister | When the president calls your top executive "ridiculous" from the rose garden of the White House, it's a low point. When late-night TV hosts make demeaning jokes about your company, it's a bad day. When your industry distances itself, you are lonely. When the facts are awful (11 deaths, a lost rig, an open well flowing into the sea), it's a very bad time. Having sat in the US chair for Shell and knowing what America thinks of foreign-owned companies operating in its critical industries, here's my view. BP is, for now, Uncle Remus' Br'er Rabbit fighting the tar baby in the briar patch. In the background are unforgotten memories of legacy Amoco and Arco acquisition properties, which produced their own bad days. Nonetheless, BP must endure. Its board and executives must get past their fears. BP makes an important contribution to America. To keep up with demand the US needs to keep producing energy from every available source, despite the associated risks. There are more energy resources in the US than it needs, and plenty of room for many producers, domestic and foreign. It is a country where companies can profit while delivering sustainable solutions for US energy challenges. Producers are needed, but must learn their hosts' ways. BP must know that in the US politics and energy are conjoined twins. You can't succeed without your twin, no matter how difficult it is. The craving for energy means industry leads; risks gone wrong, or prices too high mean politicians lead. We walk back and forth most days, going nowhere. Yet you have to respect your twin, even if you can't bear him or her. Complicating BP's life is the US media and its craving for the headline news: full coverage of every descriptive detail so the tar baby can be tossed about until another one comes along. The ultimate business challenge is to appreciate the consuming public. It wants ever more inexpensive gasoline but won't stand to taste, touch, see or smell it or its production. It also chooses its elected officials, who want the same. Shell and the other US oil majors have known all this for a century. They're unlikely to share their knowledge. They'd face an anti-trust charge. Much of the US legal industry lives off the productive efforts of the energy industry. So BP must learn to operate invisibly, adjoin politicians as partners, engage media as witness, befriend needy, greedy consumers and accept legal costs as structural. When mistakes happen, it must soldier on. Time passes painfully but that's America, where we hate the oil companies. In the fullness of time the Gulf incident will be an anomaly: deadly, expensive and unfortunate, unprecedented in 40 years of offshore operations. The industry knows what it is doing. From what I see, BP's crisis response team is doing what it's designed to do: suspending corporate structures for chain of command control; creating a worldwide team of experts to design and implement every option to stop or channel the well flow; initiating the agonising process of drilling the relief well that will ultimately shut the flow; and organising an armada of ships to contain and capture the released oil. In addition they have recruited 13,000 people to clean up, opened their website and telephone lines to every offer of help and damning complaint from the public, kept the media well informed, met with sceptical federal officials from an array of agencies, organised for legal recriminations – and kept their head while running the rest of their company. This takes capacity and competence. • John Hofmeister is the former president of Shell Oil. His book Why We Hate the Oil Companies will be published in June. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'environment/oil-spills', 'tone/comment', 'environment/bp-oil-spill', 'type/article', 'profile/john-hofmeister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-05-16T20:30:01Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2019/jul/02/worlds-biggest-youth-led-conservation-scheme-begins-in-wales | 'World's biggest' youth-led conservation scheme begins in Wales | Twenty young people are embarking on an ambitious conservation project across 2,000 acres of the Brecon Beacons to help tackle the decline in British wildlife. The volunteers are part of the Penpont project, which organisers say is the biggest youth conservation attempt in the world. They will work with tenant farmers, landowners and local people to enhance habitats in order to protect the local flora and fauna. The organisers, Action for Conservation, say they are hoping to create a blueprint for how youth action and conservation can bring change. The charity gives young people from diverse backgrounds a chance to take part in environmental action. Hendrikus van Hensbergen, the chief executive of the charity, said he hoped the project would create a game-changing example of how young people can work in collaboration with locals to protect the natural world. “We are at a critical juncture when it comes to our environment,” said Van Hensbergen. “A recent UN report calls for transformative change to avert an extinction crisis. “Now is the time to take positive action to reverse ecological and climate breakdown and there is compelling evidence to show the value of restoring nature to halt biodiversity loss and act as a natural climate solution.” The initiative comes as young people have made their voices heard with school strikes and by taking part in direct action with Extinction Rebellion. “There is no better time to build on this energy with a transformative youth-led project here in the UK,” he said. “We hope the Penpont project acts as a beacon of hope and inspiration for like-minded initiatives the world over.” The project will be launched in the Brecon Beacons on Tuesday. Gareth Davies, a tenant farmer whose family have farmed the estate for three generations, said: “We are looking forward to working together with these passionate young people to show how nature restoration can go hand in hand with sustainable farming practices, to make sure we maintain healthy soils, clean water and vital wildlife species long into the future.” The youth leaders will start by undertaking ecological surveys of an initial 322-acre site alongside pupils from neighbouring schools. They plan to draw up restoration projects for the land, and hope to use the project to help educate children. Nature is faring worse in Britain than in many other countries. Populations of endangered animals have declined by two-thirds since 1970, according to a recent report. Deep Shah, a 16-year-old group member from London, said: “More people need to care about our environment in the UK and beyond, and our hope is that this pioneering project will inspire others to follow in our footsteps and spark a chain reaction of similar projects. If we can do it, then why can’t you?” | ['environment/conservation', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'uk/wales', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/school-climate-strikes | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-07-02T09:53:32Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
uk/2009/may/17/plants-garden-centres-nurseries-pond-weed-rhododendron-defra | The 15 plants killing our countryside | Garden centres and nurseries could be banned from selling several popular plants under new measures being considered by the government to control alien species invading the UK. Top of the list are a number of varieties of pond weed used as oxygenators in garden ponds. Having escaped into the wild, they are now overwhelming waterways throughout the country. Rhododendron ponticum, which has colonised woodlands since being introduced as an ornamental plant in 1793 to Kew Gardens, is also earmarked because of the potential impact it has on native flora and fauna, including the dormouse. In all, 15 species are named in a consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, despite protests that some of the plants are so widespread that stopping further sales will make no difference. Rhododendron growers and retailers are particularly concerned, saying it is not clear whether any ban would cover hybrids or variants of rhododendron ponticum, which would have a significant economic impact. While rhododendron ponticum is not commonly bought for gardens, it is abundant on large estates, being particularly useful for game cover. However, the plant is widely used as rootstock, for grafting many hundreds of hybrid varieties. If such hybrids were also to be banned, the law would have to be phased in over several years to allow growers to develop different methods of propagating popular ornamental varieties, say experts. The Horticultural Trade Association said one leading rhododendron grower was producing more than 1,000 plants of various cultivars which used ponticum as an understock. That business would lose £20,000 a year. Tony Dickerson, horticulture adviser at the Royal Horticultural Association, warned that one of the major problems in implementing any sales ban was that plants were often not correctly labelled in garden centres and nurseries. Keith Davenport, chief executive of the Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association (OATA) said that banning Canadian waterweed, a plant routinely found in garden and aquatic centres, was "not likely to have any impact". Brought in by the timber trade, it had since been spread by boats, currents, vehicles and anglers, and was now found almost everywhere. He said: "It's a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, run round the paddock five times and galloped off yonder." Davenport argued that banning Canadian waterweed, along with Nuttalls waterweed and curly waterweed, would cost the industry between £2m and £5m in annual sales. The water hyacinth, a showy plant with light blue to violet flowers, is also on the list. Annual sales are worth around £1m. But there is opposition to banning its sale, not least because experts say that as a tropical plant it is not hardy enough to survive in the UK and therefore cannot be considered invasive. "It would take phenomenal climate change for that to survive our winters," said Dickerson. The DIY and gardening chain B&Q said it did not stock any of the 15 listed plants and fully endorsed the proposal to ban them. But the Environment Agency has cautioned that publicity on any ban on sales would have to be handled extremely carefully as there was a risk it might exacerbate the problems. "In banning the sale of certain water plants for use in aquaria and garden ponds, alternative native plants will need to be promoted and marketed," it told Defra. "There is a danger that publicity will result in a sudden upsurge in problems caused by householders or businesses getting rid of these plants already in their aquaria, ponds or gardens. Care will be needed in managing this, particularly in relation to attractive or popular plants such as Canadian pond weed and parrot's feather." The government will make a decision on the future sales of these plants later this year. The National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens said it could mean barriers to conservation activities, and the National Farmers' Union said Defra should compensate growers for loss of the wholesale market value. Unwelcome intruders Carpobrotus edulis - Hottentot fig From South Africa, has large magenta or yellow flowers and spreads along cliffs. Allium paradoxum - Few-flowered leek Aromatic plant which has some culinary uses. Rhododendon ponticum Has colonised woodlands and is vulnerable to sudden oak death. Fallopia japonica - Japanese knotweed First introduced by Victorian collectors as desirable for its exotic appearance. Impatiens glandulifera - Himalayan balsam A relative of the busy Lizzie, introduced to the UK in 1839. Eichornia crassipes - Water hyacinth This popular plant is said not to be able to survive our climate. Azolla filiculoides - Water fern Native of the Americas. Introduced as a decorative ornamental plant in 1840. Myriophyllum aquaticum - Parrot's feather Widely grown in small garden ponds. First found in UK in 1960. Native to South America. Hydrocotyle ranunculoides - Floating pennywort Brought from New Zealand to stock aquariums and garden ponds. Gaultheria shallon - Shallon An attractive thicket-forming evergreen shrub from west coast of North America. Crassula helmsii - Australian swamp stonecrop Introduced to Britain in 1911 from Tasmania as an oxygenating plant. Ludwigia peploides - Water primrose Has caused major problems on the continent as well as areas of the UK. Elodea canadensis - Canadian waterweed Has become so naturalised that local species have adapted to feed on it. Elodea nuttallii - Nuttalls waterweed Popular and sold as an oxygenator. Lagarosiphon major - Curly waterweed Sold as an oxygenator for ponds. | ['uk/ruralaffairs', 'environment/plants', 'environment/biodiversity', 'lifeandstyle/gardens', 'business/retail', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/carolinedavies', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-05-16T23:01:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2009/dec/31/eugenie-harvey-10-10 | 10:10: Meet Eugenie Harvey, the woman behind the campaign | In a way, Eugenie Harvey wasn't an obvious choice to be director of the 10:10 campaign. "My initial reaction was: I'm not a climate change expert, I'm not a scientist, I'm not someone who has been campaigning in this area for 20 years," Harvey admits, "so do I have the credibility to take on this role?" Yet in another way, she is perfect. As co-founder of the movement We Are What We Do, which encourages people to take small actions to make positive changes in their communities, she has shown an instinctive understanding of how to engage people. "There are others at 10:10 who have the scientific expertise; I think what I bring is the perspective of ordinary people," Harvey says. "That's the big challenge. For a lot of people the science is very confusing, and the things we need to do to address climate change will threaten the way we live our lives. They are asking us to give up the things we have aspired to and built around ourselves." Harvey fizzes with enthusiasm, and there is a palpable sense of energy in the 10:10 headquarters that is at odds with its small office in a tired building in north London. She grew up in Australia and worked in PR, first for the Sydney Theatre Company, then for Rupert Murdoch's pay TV startup Foxtel. "I hit 30 and realised I wasn't on the right track," she explains. She moved to London, tried – and failed – to be a standup comedian, then worked in financial PR. This still didn't feel right, but when David Robinson, who runs the east London charity Community Links, came to give a talk, Harvey "was like a moth to a flame". Robinson's idea of creating a movement of people doing small actions really struck her, and when he talked about the need to harness the power of PR and advertising for positive social change, she realised this was what she wanted to do. She left her job to set up We Are What We Do with Robinson, producing a website and book, Change the World for a Fiver, to encourage people to take small actions – things that have now seeped into popular culture, like shopping locally and turning down the central heating. Harvey's "I am not a plastic bag" collaboration with the designer Anya Hindmarch, which highlighted the environmental impact of supermarket carriers, is another example of the success of her populist approach. "I hope with 10:10, these behaviours will become normal," Harvey says. "If you're not in a room, don't have the light on; don't go on unnecessary journeys on planes; if you buy a car, buy a small one. It won't of itself change the world, but it normalises those behaviours so that politicians feel they have the mandate to introduce legislation which reflects what people are doing. "With the success of We Are What We Do, I realised that people are good, they want to do the right thing – it's just that they haven't been talked to in the right way, they haven't been made to feel included. But when you get it right, it's like an avalanche, and I hope that's what we can achieve with 10:10." | ['environment/10-10', 'tone/features', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'profile/eminesaner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2009-12-31T12:31:14Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2022/nov/29/evidence-grows-of-forced-labour-and-slavery-in-production-of-solar-panels-wind-turbines | Evidence grows of forced labour and slavery in production of solar panels, wind turbines | The Australian clean energy industry has warned of growing evidence linking renewable energy supply chains to modern slavery, and urged companies and governments to act to eliminate it. A report by the Clean Energy Council, representing renewable energy companies and solar installers, has called for more local renewable energy production and manufacturing and a “certificate of origin” scheme to counter concerns about slave labour in mineral extraction and manufacturing in China, Africa and South America. Released on Tuesday, the paper said slavery in all supply chains was a global problem. But Australia is on a trajectory towards generating the vast majority of its electricity from solar, wind, hydro and batteries by 2030 and needs to play an active role in addressing it in renewable energy industries. “We’re at a moment in time when renewable energy supply chains are going to be scaling up significantly,” Dr Nick Aberle, the Clean Energy Council’s energy generation and storage policy director, said. “That means now is a critical opportunity to shape the future direction of those supply chains.” Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The report cited detailed allegations of forced labour and slavery in supply chains for solar and wind energy and battery storage. Examples included that: About 2.6 million Uyghur and Kazakh people have been subjected to coercion, “re-education programs” and internment in the Xinjiang region of north-west China, which is the source of 40-45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon. A report by the United Nations office of the high commissioner for human rights three months ago found Xinjiang was home to “serious human rights violations”, and the US has listed polysilicon from China as a material likely to have been produced by child or forced labour. On batteries, there were major issues with the mining of between 15% and 30% of the world’s cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Amnesty International found that children, some as young as seven, were working in artisanal cobalt mines, often for less than $2 a day. Mining conditions were reportedly hazardous, and workers often did not have adequate protective equipment and were exposed to toxic dust that contributed to hard metal lung disease. On wind energy, there had been rapid growth in demand for balsa wood used in turbine blades that had reportedly led to workers in Ecuador’s Amazon region being subject to substandard labour conditions, including payment being made with alcohol or drugs. The demand for balsa has also reportedly increased deforestation, and affected the land rights of Indigenous people in Peru. Some balsa wood suppliers have more recently provided Forest Stewardship Council certifications, which verifies responsible forest management and fair wages and work environments. NSW’s anti-slavery commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, said urgent action was needed to address “the severe modern slavery risks in Australian renewable energy supply chains and investments”. “We need to see industry, government, the financial sector and civil society working together to provide access to competitively costed, slavery-free renewable energy,” he said. “If we don’t, modern slavery risks significantly complicating the just transition to a decarbonised economy.” Aberle said the government should create a taskforce of government, industry and civil society representatives to develop a plan to ensure Australia’s clean energy supply chain was “reliable, cost effective and slavery free”. He said strategies that should be explored included whether to establish domestic supply chain capabilities and how to improve “traceability and detectability” within existing supply chains. The report, compiled with the consultants from Norton Rose Fulbright, cited the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which came into force earlier this year and created a presumption that any products made in Xinjiang were linked to modern slavery and could not be imported into the US unless an importer provided “clear and compelling evidence” that there was no slavery in a product’s supply chain. It said a globally recognised certificate of origin scheme would be complex but was “imperative to achieving landmark change”. Existing examples of work in this area included a solar stewardship initiative launched in September 2022 and a global battery alliance that was developing a “battery passport” system to improve traceability. The Australian and US governments earlier this year said they wanted to break their near-complete reliance on China for clean energy and critical mineral supply chains, citing evidence the country was responsible for about 80% of solar energy technology manufacturing. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'world/slavery', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/environment', 'world/uyghurs', 'world/china', 'world/xinjiang', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'world/modern-slavery', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-11-28T21:37:05Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2011/mar/11/tsunami-too-big-beat-japan | Is the tsunami too big to beat? | Bill McGuire | It was chilling to see the aerial footage of the debris-laden tsunami sweeping across the flat, featureless landscape of eastern Honshu. Its staggering power has done untold damage to lives and property. Natural hazards, which I study, take on a wide variety of forms, all of which have the potential to cause mayhem on a biblical scale. Generally, though, their impact affects a single city or region. But great underwater earthquakes are very different. When they are as big as the quake that struck off the northeast coast of Japan – at magnitude 8.9 the largest ever recorded there – and shallow, so that a large part of the energy released jolts the sea above, they are capable of transporting death and destruction to places far removed from the earthquake source. Just over six years ago, tsunamis transmitted the energy released in the Sumatran earthquake as far afield as Thailand, Sri Lanka and east Africa, killing tens of thousands too far away to have even felt the earth shake. As I write, waves of destruction are heading across the Pacific towards Hawaii and beyond. The sheer scale and extent of big tsunamis are sufficient to make even the most optimistic hazard scientist or emergency manager stop and think. Are some natural phenomena simply too big to plan for or cope with? There is always something we can do to mitigate or manage the impact of a natural hazard – be it an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood or tsunami. It is just that some are harder to tackle. For active volcanoes we can track the warning signs – such as ground swelling – that tell us that an eruption is on its way, and get people out of the area. Although we still cannot predict them, we can make earthquakes far less lethal by making buildings "life safe" – in other words, ensuring that they are engineered so as to remain reasonably intact during the strongest shaking. With floods we can build defences and make sure that homes and vital infrastructure are not built in the flood plains. With tsunamis, however, reducing their potential for serious damage and loss of life is a far harder challenge. Barriers can be constructed to protect critical facilities, such as refineries or nuclear power plants, but you can't surround entire ocean basins with concrete. Warning systems are fundamental, and the Pacific tsunami warning system, based in Hawaii, played a crucial role in alerting nations across the Pacific to the fact that yesterday's tsunami was on its way. But it is likely that any tsunami will reach those who live in coastal communities close to the earthquake source long before the warning does. Ultimately we are constantly engaged in asymmetric conflict with nature, where we will often be on the losing side. But thankfully we are never entirely powerless. In the case of the tsunami threat, we can save lives in future events through education of populations living close to submarine faults that have records of spawning big waves. One of these lies off the Sumatran coast, adjacent to the heavily populated city of Padang, where a timely self-evacuation when the ground shakes could save tens of thousands of lives at some point in the future. On the other hand, reducing the destructive power of tsunamis is close to being a lost cause. Mangroves and tree plantations can help to some degree by breaking up the incoming flood, but no one who has seen the immense power and momentum of the Japanese tsunami can be under any illusion that these would have made much of a difference. The reality is that we can only do so much, and sometimes that is simply not enough. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'world/japan', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/tsunamis', 'type/article', 'profile/billmcguire', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | world/tsunamis | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-03-11T21:00:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2016/jan/11/philips-hue-led-bulbs-proprietary-charles-arthur | How many tech firms does it take to change a light bulb for the worse? Only one: Philips | You know how frustrating it is when you put a cartridge in your printer, and it tuts at you about “not an approved part”, after which, printing becomes even more of a lottery than usual? Now you can get the same experience with light bulbs. In mid-December, Philips – best known for the fabulously popular compact cassette and then the fabulously unpopular digital compact cassette – released a firmware update for its Hue LED light bulbs and controllers. Apart from having a rather HAL-like appearance, with a glowing red centre surrounded by blackness, the Hue is meant to let you control the colour and brightness of your bulbs, all from the comfort of your smartphone. At this point I pause to wonder who feels an urgent need to change the colour and brightness of their lights from their phone. Do they also have black satin sheets, R Kelly playing on low volume and mirrors on the ceiling? Although apparently there are uses if you combine them with a Hue Disco app so you can synchronise light effects with music, which sounds much the same thing, but there are parents with excitable kids who love it. For everyone else, it seems like the latest example from the Internet of Useless Things; why can’t you just stand up and turn a couple of lights off? (Don’t bother with dimmers; they’re designed to waste electricity.) But anyway. Some people like Hue. The firmware update, however, had no particularly obvious benefits to you, the user. Instead, it was apparently devised solely to block the use of any “non-approved” bulbs in Hue sockets, thus boosting Philips’s profit by making you pay for pricier ones. This moves us into the Internet of Ridiculous Things. How exactly can Philips dictate that, after you’ve paid for the sockets, it gets to decide what you can do with them? But, as journalist Cory Doctorow pointed out, any Americans who tried to tweak the software would have faced a fine of up to $500,000 under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In an FAQ on its developer site, Philips said it “upgraded the software for Hue to ensure the best seamless connected lighting experience for our customers. This change was made in good faith.” But then it admitted to having “underestimated” the impact on the “small number” of people using third-party bulbs. The other wrinkle, though, is that all the bulbs were using the Zigbee protocol – an “open, global standard” – for their control. Yet Philips decided that it would close down its corner of that standard and henceforth make its device work only with approved bulbs. Companies build things around standards and insert their own proprietary elements all the time. That’s essential to most business models: some parts are built around open standards, some around your closed secret sauce. (Google, built on Linux, doesn’t open-source its search algorithms; Apple, famous for its app “walled garden”, uses BSD Unix and contributes to open-source projects.) But what’s different about this is that Philips shifted the ground. You started off being able to put in third-party bulbs, and then it decided you couldn’t, and enforced that through a software rollout you couldn’t avoid: the firmware update appeared as a menu item that wouldn’t go away. Unsurprisingly, the uproar forced the company to backtrack within 48 hours and promise even newer firmware that wouldn’t be so picky. (I paraphrase.) Watching Philips get this so wrong brings to mind its debacle with digital compact cassette (DCC), a format introduced in 1992 that offered the sound clarity of digital but also introduced digital copy protection that prevented you making copies. Customers didn’t see the point and stayed away. Yet 20 years later, Philips still hasn’t learned that lesson: in the digital age, you can flourish only by using openness and pairing it with a closed method, not by being closed all the time – and especially not by moving the digital goalposts to close formerly open areas. If the Hue, and other internet of things products, aren’t to go the way of the DCC, makers will have to consider carefully where they set the boundaries of open and closed. | ['technology/internet-of-things', 'technology/technology', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/smart-homes', 'technology/opensource', 'type/article', 'profile/charlesarthur', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly/observer-tech-monthly'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-01-11T07:30:09Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
edinburgh/2011/mar/15/edinburgh-japan-writers-books-cakes | Edinburgh reaches out to Japan crisis with buns and books | Some of Edinburgh's writers and cake makers have pledged books and buns to raise money for the Japanese Red Cross. In less than two days, more than 150 authors have signed up to Authors for Japan, donating signed books and one-offs, such as the chance to be a character in a novel. Author Keris Stainton came up with the idea at the weekend and items have been donated from writers all over the world. Edinburgh writer Sara Sheridan, who first told us about Authors for Japan, will donate a 30 minute career consultation for a fledgling writer, as well as signed copies of her books Secret of the Sands and Secret Mandarin. More details at this link. Edinburgh-based author Nicola Morgan will give her winning bidder a free critique of a covering letter and first chapter of a novel, as well as a signed copy of Write to be Published. More details here. Another writer living Edinburgh, Cat Clarke, has donated a signed copy of her book Entangled plus a jigsaw that features in the book' online trailer. See her auction here. All money raised by the writers is going to the Japanese Red Cross, which agreed to accept donations from the British Red Cross. Cakes for Japan Donna McGrory, a local writer and vegan food blogger who tweets @deeitsy, is organising Cakes for Japan Edinburgh. She will be baking Japanese inspired cakes and sushi style sweets. The fundraiser will be held at the Quaker Meeting House on Victoria Terrace - above Victoria Street - on 26 March from 11am. Thanks to Edinburgh Spotlight for letting us know about Cakes for Japan Edinburgh. Mariko Sumioka is a Japanese student currently studying jewellery at Edinburgh College of Art. In her latest post she says: "I cannot describe my feeling, just empty in front of the images on TV. Again, I have realised how much I love my country and miss my country. I love so much my country, nature and people. It is really far away here from Japan, but I can still pray for them." Do you have a fundraising event you would like to add to the list? Share it in the comment box below. | ['edinburgh/literary-edinburgh', 'edinburgh/edinburgh', 'tone/blog', 'world/tsunamis', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-macleod'] | world/tsunamis | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-03-15T11:04:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/jul/07/stephen-tindale-obituary | Stephen Tindale obituary | The environmentalist Stephen Tindale, who has taken his own life at the age of 54, was an influential backroom figure in the Labour party who became executive director of Greenpeace UK. His brand of environmentalism was driven by his socialist principles. He was international in outlook, pragmatic about what could be achieved politically, and technologically optimistic. He was successful as a leader, first in government and then outside it. Heading Greenpeace from 2001 until 2006 was Stephen’s most public-facing role, at a time when the organisation was at its noisiest. In 2005 he was arrested during direct action at Range Rover’s SUV plant in Solihull. Greenpeace planted a flag subverting the company’s logo and proclaiming “Land Rover: Climate Criminals”. Stephen was proud of this act of civil disobedience and a framed image of his arrest adorned his wall. But his strength as an environmentalist – his ability to question perceived wisdoms, his intellectual curiosity and his desire to come up with a nuanced solution – did not always sit well with Greenpeace’s opposition to entire sectors or technologies. Stephen was uncomfortable with the reliance on scare tactics used to gain attention, rather than putting forward a positive vision for sustainability. He was proud that during his tenure Greenpeace played a critical role in the birth of the offshore wind industry in the UK. In later years, he became best-known for breaking with positions he had held in Greenpeace. Stephen argued that since the principal problems with nuclear power were nuclear waste and weapons proliferation, the solution was advanced reactors that could mitigate these. In a similar spirit, he argued that genetically modified organisms should not be rejected en masse – some genetic alterations to crop or bacteria were benign and would lead to environmental improvement and better food security. These stances won Stephen many new supporters, but hurt relationships with some of his environmentalist peers and friends. He made these changes based on principles he always held dear, inspired by the urgent need to prevent climate change. He was born in Baghdad, the son of Sonia and Gordon Tindale. His father worked for the British Council and Stephen’s early childhood was spent in the Middle East and Africa. He went to the Leys school in Cambridge and studied philosophy, politics and economics at St Anne’s College, Oxford, then took a master’s in politics and administration at Birkbeck College London. He joined the Foreign Office in 1986, but gave up the security and prestige of this job to work on environmental issues. He worked for Friends of the Earth and at the Fabian Society, led the energy team at the Institute for Public Policy Research (1994-96), and was director of the Green Alliance (1996-97). Many of his colleagues went on to become government ministers in the Blair-Brown era. This creative period incubated much of the Labour party’s thinking on renewable energy, and on green taxation, such as carbon taxes, the escalation of fuel duty and landfill tax. Stephen worked for the party’s shadow environment secretary, Chris Smith, on the strategy In Trust for Tomorrow, published in 1994. This set the tone for Labour for the next decade, outlining the right to roam, justice for future generations and the creation of the environment audit committee. After the 1997 general election, environment was subsumed into a sprawling department that combined local and regional government, transport and environment. Stephen joined as adviser to the environment minister Michael Meacher. His role was to represent Meacher within the department, to be his “vicar on earth”. Meacher was not always on the same page as his civil servants and sometimes only accepted advice once Stephen had persuaded him about the idea’s merits from first (socialistic) principles. Over three fruitful years, Britain signed the Kyoto protocol, launched the climate change levy and passed right-to-roam legislation despite vociferous opposition from landowners. Stephen was invariably witty and charming in explaining and defending policy decisions. The climate change levy, a tax on energy rather than carbon, emerged as a political compromise between the ideals of environmental taxation and the realities of trying to get such a market-based approach to be adopted by a Labour party with deep political roots in the coal industry. Stephen left government in 2000 to join one of its staunchest critics – Greenpeace – and a year later he became executive director. But he found leading Greenpeace’s passionate but vociferous staff, and implementing its global campaign priorities, exhausting. Stephen suffered from depression all his adult life, and when, in 2006, he left Greenpeace, it was after an attempt to take his own life. His physical recovery took a year and his health was never fully restored. After Greenpeace, Stephen could voice his views more freely. He set up a website, climateanswers.info; he and I wrote a book, Repowering Communities (2011), advocating small-scale and local energy solutions; and he wrote on environmental issues for the Centre for European Reform. He also campaigned tirelessly for renewables, including novel technologies such as the Swansea tidal lagoon. Friends remember Stephen’s friendliness, his gentlemanly charm, his approachability, his warmth, his self-deprecating humour, his blokeish passion for Spurs and his love of debate, preferably over a pint of bitter, or better still while hiking on a Munro. Stephen was twice married and divorced. He is survived by the son and daughter of his first marriage, and by his sister, Helen, and his parents. • Stephen Christopher Tindale, environmentalist, born 29 March 1963; died 1 July 2017 | ['environment/environment', 'tone/obituaries', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'politics/labour', 'type/article', 'profile/prashant-vaze', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/obituaries', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-obituaries'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2017-07-07T16:53:35Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
edinburgh/2010/aug/23/edinburgh-climatecamp-environment-protest | Slideshow: Edinburgh Climate Camp | Disruption for Edinburgh residents has been minimal so far today following protests against the Royal Bank of Scotland. The flash-mob style demonstrations saw the bank's Nicolson Street branch shut temporarily. Twelve people had been arrested by police, who also criticised protesters who staged a spillage designed to look like oil on the road outside the bank's Gogarburn office. The activists are calling for a moratorium on all new investment and loan financing of fossil fuels projects. Daniel Balla, one of the activists involved, said "We feel compelled to take action against RBS as it is now 84 per cent owned by the UK taxpayer. People may be unaware that the institution using vast amounts of public money is investing in the most destructive carbon-emitting industries in the world. The future RBS is currently funding will be further polluted, oil-addicted and incur degradation of the environment." The arrests were spread across the city, with Lothian and Borders Police moving in to apprehend two people in Hunter Square, two at Gogar roundabout, five at the Port of Leith and three in Nicolson Street. The bank's spokesperson Linda Harper said: "Our main concern has been the safety of our workers so we have only minimum staffing levels in place at Gogarburn today. The children's nursery is closed for the same reason. The impact of this on our customers and operations is negligible to nil as we have a full contingency plan in place." Our pictures from various demonstrations across the city can be seen in this slideshow above. To submit your own click here. | ['edinburgh/edinburgh', 'tone/blog', 'environment/blog', 'environment/climate-camp', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-macleod'] | environment/climate-camp | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2010-08-23T15:04:28Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2005/jan/06/internationalaidanddevelopment.tsunami2004 | Cash and medicines - not food - the priority now, says Indonesia | Indonesia now has enough food and clothes to meet the needs of tsunami survivors but donations of money and medicines are still vital, its embassy in London said yesterday. The embassy, which has set up a taskforce to process donations and deal with enquiries about missing people, said gifts of food had been "more than sufficient". Deluged with offers of help, the affected countries face a battle to get the right kind of aid to the right places. In Medan, on the island of Sumatra, US marine helicopters worked yesterday to remove a glut of supplies that had been dumped near a warehouse at the airport. The supplies were loaded on to the USS Bonhomme Richard, a multipurpose assault ship, which will take them to the inaccessible west coast. There, they will be delivered to survivors by what General Christian Crowley, the head of the US military's relief mission in Indonesia, described as an "amphibious strike force". Indonesia yesterday turned down Britain's offer of support from 120 Gurkha troops but may accept two Bell helicopters that would have accompanied the soldiers from their base in Brunei. "They have accepted the idea of the two helicopters but, given the number of infantry soldiers already in the region, they felt further ground troops weren't required," an MoD spokesman said. In response to complaints that the huge flow of aid is not yet reaching the parts where it is most needed, the Indonesian government and United Nations are setting up a joint coordination centre, said Bo Asplund, the UN representative in Indonesia. A spokeswoman at the Indonesian embassy in London said the appeal for medicines was aimed mainly at preventing outbreaks of diarrhoea among the refugees - a fear that was echoed by the World Health Organisation. "If basic needs, particularly access to safe drinking water, are not urgently restored to all populations by the end of this week, WHO fears that outbreaks of infectious disease could result in a similar number of fatalities as occurred due to the direct impact of the tsunami," the UN health agency said in a statement. Many of the affected people in Indonesia's Aceh province and on Sri Lanka's eastern coast still lack safe drinking water and WHO estimates that 150,000 are "at extreme risk" if a major disease outbreak occurs. A lack of lighters and matches had caused illness in one village, Médecins sans Frontières said, because people were unable to light fires to cook meat properly. Camps for up to 500,000 people would be built on Sumatra, Michael Elmquist, the UN official heading the relief effort in Aceh, said yesterday. Conditions at existing camps that have sprung up in the region would also be improved to meet international standards, he added. The Indonesian government, anticipating a long reconstruction process, has begun to break ground on four camps around Banda Aceh, the devastated city in northern Sumatra. In eastern Sri Lanka, however, military officers have been visiting some of the makeshift camps and urging people to return to their villages. "How long can they stay here?" said a brigadier who had just spoken to the leaders of the camp housing the 438 people from Nasuvantivu and four other Tamil villages. "They have to start from somewhere." The officer, who was interviewed by the Associated Press and did not give his name, said the refugees should go home and assess their losses to prepare claims for reconstruction. "This is the government's strategy," he said. Aid agencies say accommodating refugees in camps can make relief efforts more organised provided they are set up in the right places with the right conditions, but the wishes of people who choose to return home also have to be respected. "If they return there is a need to make sure the places are safe and have adequate facilities, rather than just going back to chaos," said Sam Barratt of Oxfam. | ['world/world', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/tsunami2004', 'type/article', 'profile/brianwhitaker'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-06T00:44:30Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/jun/29/a-war-on-nature-rangers-build-mountain-out-of-wildlife-traps-found-in-uganda-park | ‘A war on nature’: rangers build mountain out of wildlife traps found in Ugandan park | “Over the past 10 years, we’ve removed about 47 tonnes of snares and bear traps,” says Michael Keigwin, the founder of Uganda Conservation Foundation (UCF), a charity that works with the country’s wildlife authorities. Speaking from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Keigwin is referring to a set of photographs showing a 12-tonne pile of tangled snares and metal traps. The images, showing Ugandan government rangers posing with the traps, illustrate an African success story and a world of pain, say those who helped create it. The pile, nicknamed “snare mountain”, was collected over 12 months as part of continuing conservation efforts at Uganda’s Murchison Falls national park. At the bottom are so-called bear traps, used by poachers to catch elephants, hippos and lions. At the top are wire snares used for smaller animals. The 5,000 sq km park and its famous Nile River waterfalls once lent cover to the Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of the world’s most notorious militant groups. By 2010, the LRA’s power had dwindled and almost as soon as the park was considered free of fighters, the Ugandan government’s wildlife authority began restoration work. For Jeff Morgan, the founder of Global Conservation, an NGO working with Keigwin and the rangers to restore and protect the park, the snare mountain photos show the risk of animals, rangers and villagers “being maimed and killed”. To put the reusable traps beyond the reach of poachers for good, the pile, like others before it, is being buried in the foundations of the park’s new buildings, which include ranger accommodation, an armoury, a veterinary lab and a police station. As well as funding trap collection, Global Conservation is providing Keigwin’s UCF team with close to $1m (£800,000) for park management, ranger and anti-poaching equipment, community development and “ecoguard” training. Ecoguards live in the surrounding communities and their jobs include snare collection and alerting rangers to wildlife that wander out of the park’s protected zone and need to be returned. Other charities funding UCF include Tusk Trust, the International Elephant Foundation and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. Over the past decade, the collective effort to protect the park’s wildlife has seen populations recover. Rothschild giraffe numbers are up from 400 to more than 2,000, and the Uganda kob (a type of antelope) herd has quadrupled from 40,000 to about 160,000, says Keigwin. But the twin problems of tourist income lost during the Covid pandemic and the damage done to agriculture and fisheries by floods last year have created what Keigwin calls “a poaching crisis”. The past 18 months, he says, have been brutal and the teams are collecting about 100 new traps and snares every day. “Economically, things are bad here for people. Covid was very bad for the tourist industry [which helps fund the park’s operations], and flooding from the Nile, which was well above record levels, has destroyed crops and harmed people and wildlife,” he says. The result is that even more people “want the animals to sell to organised crime networks who deal in bushmeat, ivory and wildlife smuggling”. Another looming problem is oil exploration in the area, an irony, Keigwin says, given that national ranger teams often lack fuel for their vehicles. For the poachers, hippos are a prime target. More than 60% of the park’s hippos have been taken in the past few years for the ivory in their teeth, and their meat, Keigwin says. To combat the losses, which Keigwin and Morgan describe as a war on nature, and prevent criminal networks preying on animals and encouraging local communities to do the same, they believe tourism must thrive, providing jobs and money. “The battle for wildlife is in full swing. To win it, we need to support wildlife tourism, Uganda’s largest foreign currency earner which employs over a million people, and we need to create more jobs and more wages. That’s the quickest way to stop people poaching animals to sell to criminal networks,” says Keigwin. 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', 'world/uganda', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/sophie-kevany', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-06-29T06:30:46Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2008/jun/12/computing.email | Ask Jack: June 12 | Looking for a lightweight I have been searching for a lightweight notebook but I have been unable to identify a machine which has a screen of over 180mm high. Computers such as the Sony VGN SZ, or the ThinkPad X300, appear to be designed for DVD watching rather than working on text, which is my main use for the machine. My present ThinkPad T60 has a 15.4in screen which is 230mm high, but it is too heavy to carry around. Adrian Zuckerman JS: I don't think such a thing exists. The "ultraportable" equivalent to the ThinkPad T60 is the Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad X61, which is almost half the weight (1.2kg against 2.3kg) but only has a 12.1in screen - around 180mm high. This is the standard screen size for ultraportables. For each inch of screen diagonal that you add, you can expect to add about a pound in weight (though you may also reduce the price). The latest generation of ultraportables, such as the ThinkPad X300, Dell XPS M1330 and MacBook Air, have 13in-wide screens that sound larger, but of course, they're only wider. They don't give you any more screen height than a traditional 4:3-format LCD, though they are bigger and heavier than old-style ultraportables. One drawback with current ultraportables is the limited native screen resolution, and the ThinkPad X61s only offers 1,024 x 768 pixels. Newer widescreen designs such as the Dell M1330 have 1,280 x 800 pixel screens, so you won't see less text, though it might be slightly smaller text. On the other hand, there is a flood of cheap ultraportables coming out, led now by the Asus Eee PC901, which puts 1,024 x 600 pixels on an 8.9in screen. I expect to see similar models with 10.2in screens and usable (90-95% size) keyboards later this year. It's not what you asked for, but if you try one, you might find it's a good compromise at the price. Gmail revisited Thanks for answering my query last week. However, I still can't open Gmail! Deborah Fox JS: I suggested using the ui=1 address (eg mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1) to get the Older Version of Gmail, which I assumed would work for people who had been using that quite happily until the Newer Version was imposed. Two alternatives are to attempt a secure connection by using https://mail.google.com (note the extra s), or by using https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ to get the simpler HTML version. I assume quite a few people are having problems because Google has a troubleshooting link on the mail page that says "I cannot access my account", and tackles a list of "known issues" at Gmail Help Center. There is also a trouble-shooter here. But remember that you can pick up your Gmail using a standard POP3 email client such as ThunderBird or Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express etc at no extra charge. Not only does this allow you to work offline, it means you have backup copies of emails even if you can never log on to Gmail again. Lost email links I have Windows XP SP2 and Firefox. A problem with email in Outlook Express is that I cannot access web links. Don Curtis JS: The Windows Live Mail. I'd upgrade to that before trying to fix Outlook Express. Mini-DVD longevity I use Sony DVD-R with my camcorder. What are the projected lives of these discs? Colin Jones JS: The 8cm (3in) mini DVD discs used in most camcorders are made in the same way as their larger siblings, so good ones should also last for 25-50 years or so. However, DVDs can be pressure sensitive so they may require more careful handling. The DVD Identifier and similar programs can usually identify the source. As always, avoid using DVD-RW (or CD-RW) for anything you want to keep. These "optical phase change media" were not designed to last. Backchat Malcolm Myles-Hook wanted faster Wi-Fi (and fewer dead spots) and asked about upgrading his network to the draft 802.11n version, which is still being standardised. Two of our most knowledgeable blog commenters promptly suggested using HomePlug equipment - which sends signals over the mains wiring - instead. HomePlug 1.0 has a theoretical speed of 14Mbps while HomePlug 1.0 Turbo offers 85Mbps and HomePlug AV gets close to 200Mbps. There are also HomePlugs with Wi-Fi that can put Wi-Fi into any room on the same mains ring as your ADSL router. · Get your questions answered by Jack Schofield, our computer editor at | ['technology/technology', 'technology/computing', 'technology/email', 'technology/internet', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/wifi', 'type/article', 'technology/askjack', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/technologyguardian', 'theguardian/technologyguardian/technology'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-06-11T23:01:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
society/2009/mar/25/eco-homes-waste-products | Waste not, want not - Some ground-breaking developers are exploring the properties of cheap - even waste - products | The waving green barley and golden ears of corn grown on the flat plains of Lincolnshire are harvested annually to make bread and beer. But this year they will have another use. Forward-looking North Kesteven district council will this spring become the first local authority in the UK to build homes from straw. The villages of Martin and Waddington have each been earmarked for two semi-detached homes designed by leading straw-bale specialists Amazonails. Each made of 480 bales, the homes' insulation will be three times better than a conventional build. The desired high level of insulation, coupled with the council's concern over its carbon footprint, means straw fits the bill as a construction material. "This is cereal-growing country so we have a lot of raw material available," says councillor Marion Brighton. The other advantage of using straw is the reduction in building costs. Brighton estimates this project, which won planning permission this month, will be at least £20,000 per home cheaper than a conventional one. High and dry Logic might suggest that straw would degrade over time. However, straw is becoming a popular choice for eco building. "The secret to maintaining the longevity of straw bale walls appears to be as simple as keeping the straw dry and away from any other harmful influences," says Steve Goodhew, Professor of Sustainable Technology at Nottingham Trent University. "If a building constructed from straw bales is detailed properly and the base of the wall kept above the exterior and interior floors, most moisture will be kept out and any that becomes trapped can exit." Inspired by a growing trend for ecologically conscious housing, Will and Tess Draper built their home out of straw bales on a plot of land in the Norfolk countryside two years ago. "We wanted to build an unusual house and we had seen pictures of other straw bale houses in coffee-table books," says Will Draper. "Our windows sit in the centre of the walls which are half a metre thick, with beautiful curved reveals. We have never been cold and never regretted our choice." Straw is not the only unusual building material eco-conscious builders are now using. In the heart of the Trinity Buoy Wharf regeneration project in London's Docklands, artist Ian Felton lives in a recycled shipping container, a colourful solution to the shortage of cheap housing and a green choice. "It's a warm, light and inspiring place to live and work," he says. Part of a complex called Container City, Felton's home is an inventive way of reusing prefabricated steel modules. Eric Reynolds, managing director of urban regeneration company Urban Space Management, says the modular system is both low-cost and green. "The Container City system is a fast, inexpensive method of creating funky, modern buildings in an environmentally friendly way," he says. More shipping container homes are on their way, including a project in progress in Leith, Edinburgh, to build an ecotown of 300 homes. Architect Nicholas Lacey, who worked on the Container City project, says: "They are a nice and stylish space and once you join two or three together you are not aware you are living in a container." Another waste product now being put to good use is car tyres. With the UK alone throwing away 48 million every year, earthships - homes with walls constructed out of earth-packed tyres - offer another option for the ecological builder. Already seen in France and Spain, the homes could be seen here if plans for 16 homes in Brighton, currently on hold because of the financial climate, get off the ground. "Earthship" homes have the advantage of very thick load-bearing walls that do not need foundations and have round forms that easily lend themselves to free-flowing organic shapes. Mischa Hewitt, project manager and advocate of earthships at the Low Carbon Trust, says: "The walls can significantly reduce the amount of heating needed in a house." Whether it is reinvented shipping containers and straw bales or recycled tyres, we could soon be seeing more unusual building materials, as the drive for affordable green homes gathers momentum. Weblinks Amazonails: strawbalefutures.org.uk Low Carbon Trust: lowcarbon.co.uk | ['society/housing', 'society/society', 'environment/greenbuilding', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/green-housing', 'theguardian/green-housing/progress-report-on-eco-friendly-home'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-03-25T00:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2011/mar/20/japan-tsunami-survivors-found | Japan tsunami survivors found | Nine days after they were believed killed by the tsunami, an elderly woman and her teenage grandson were found alive in the rubble of their home in north-east Japan on Sunday. The 80-year-old and the boy survived by eating yoghurt and other scraps of food salvaged from a refrigerator after being trapped in Ishinomaki, one of the worst-hit coastal cities. They were found by police when 16-year-old Jin Abe called for help from the roof of their residence. He had been trapped for a week and finally managed to pull himself through a hole in the debris and alert rescue workers. His grandmother, Sumi Abe, was unable to free herself because her legs were caught under furniture. When she was found, she was shaking and had a low temperature, but was conscious and able to answer questions coherently. Jin had lost feeling in one of his legs and showed symptoms of hypothermia. The survivors have endured a snowstorm and freezing temperatures without electricity or heating. Amid widespread jubilation, the national broadcaster NHK ran images of a helicopter winching the survivors out of danger in a yellow harness. They are both now receiving medical treatment in the Ishinomaki Red Cross hospital. "I always believed he was alive," Jin's father told reporters. The astonishing rescue has given a much-needed boost to emergency workers amid a grim and growing death toll from Japan's deadliest disaster since the second world war. The casualty list stands at 8,277 dead and 12,722 missing and the figures are rising daily. The situation at the evacuation shelters – where more than 400,000 homeless people have sought refuge – has improved, but it remains inadequate and vastly different from place to place. At Ishinomaki, the situation remains tough. "Some of us are still just eating one meal a day," said Yoshinori Sato, the secretary of the municipal press office. "Assistance is coming, but it is two or three days behind other areas." Further up the coast, however, the town of Onnagawa, which was flattened by the tsunami, is receiving more than adequate aid. 'We have enough food and blankets and a surplus of kerosene for heating," said Hironori Suzuki, the chief of the planning department. "The priority now is baths. People have been in shelters for 10 days without proper sanitation. Baths would make a big difference." Similar views were expressed at the local hospital, where the office manager Toshihiko Abe said the emergency medical needs have largely been met. "We probably have all we need in terms of material goods. Now the next stage is to rebuild infrastructure and to address the psychological needs of the displaced people, They have lost their homes and their histories, which leads to anxiety. This is something we need to address," he said. New elemental challenges continue to plague the recovery effort. The sea returned to the streets of northern Japan on Sunday, although this time it was a creeping high tide rather than a surging tsunami that caused the damage. Homes and roads were flooded by the rising waters, which bubbled up through sewers and drains. Cars and trucks had to turn back from inundated routes in Ishinomaki and Samada. Locals, whose homes had survived the seismic disaster, were faced with a fresh crisis as the waters flooded through their property. While the high tide posed no immediate threat to life, it could prove a longer term worry because it shows how the coastline has been permanently and dramatically shifted by last week's massive, magnitude nine earthquake. "It's just one thing after another, but there is nothing we can do. The earthquake drove the coastline down by 75 centimetres and today is the high tide so we cannot stop the water," said Yoshinori Abe as he splashed through the flooded streets. | ['world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'world/japan', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/tsunamis', 'world/ishinomaki', 'type/article', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | world/tsunamis | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-03-20T14:58:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2018/sep/19/energy-ministers-electorate-backs-higher-emissions-reduction-target-poll-shows | Energy minister's electorate backs higher emissions reduction target, poll shows | More voters in the electorate of the new energy minister, Angus Taylor, support an emissions reduction target for electricity and a higher national target than the Paris commitment than oppose those positions. A ReachTel poll of 690 residents across the federal electorate of Hume, which reaches from Boorowa in the southern tablelands of New South Wales to Camden on Sydney’s southern fringe, was commissioned by the Australia Institute. It found the sample was divided over a range of climate and energy questions, but more people supported stronger action on emissions reduction than opposed it. Asked whether the government’s Paris target of 26% to 28% should be increased “so Australia reduces emissions faster, decreased so Australia does less, or kept the same” – 42.3% said increased, 29.4% said kept the same, and 22.5% said reduced. Asked whether the now dumped national energy guarantee should include an emissions reduction target, 47.8% said yes, and 39.3% said no. There was also local opposition to coal, with 63.7% of the sample either supporting or strongly supporting a moratorium on building new coal mines, while 67.4% supported the Morrison government reviewing the Adani coal mine’s environmental approval. Ben Oquist, the executive director of the Australia Institute, said the poll results suggested voters in rural electorates, “just like the population overall, are not enamoured with coal and they want more action on climate change, not less”. Taylor confirmed in question time on Tuesday that the Morrison government would not replace the renewable energy target with an alternative policy after it wound down in 2020. Taylor confirmed there would be no policy to reduce emissions in the electricity sector during an answer to the Greens MP Adam Bandt in question time on Tuesday. Bandt asked whether the RET could be extended beyond 2020 given there was currently no policy mechanism to replace it, and the lack of settled policy could threaten investment in low-emissions technology. The energy minister flatly rejected the idea. “The truth of the matter is the renewable energy target is going to wind down from 2020, it reaches its peak in 2020, and we won’t be replacing that with anything.” Taylor said there was no need to focus on emissions reduction, because emissions in electricity would fall by 26% “without additional intervention” – a declaration that contradicts advice from the Energy Security Board. The Coalition’s plan to 2030 was to replace the RET with the national energy guarantee, which imposed an emissions reduction target for electricity. But Malcolm Turnbull abandoned the Neg as one of his last acts in the prime ministership, and the policy has now been junked officially by the cabinet under Scott Morrison’s leadership. Bandt later declared the Liberals were “openly boasting that they have no renewable energy policy”. He said the RET needed to be extended beyond 2020 “to avoid a valley of death for renewable energy”. “Over 2018 and 2019, new renewables are going up in Australia at record rates. This is in large part due to the RET, which even the Energy Security Board and Reserve Bank have said is a big driver of future power bill cuts,” Bandt said. “But the RET runs out in 2020 and now the minister has confirmed that there’s no renewables policy to take its place. If the RET isn’t extended, there’s a real risk that the next government will not be able to implement a new policy in time to avoid an investment drought.” Labor also jumped on Taylor’s declaration. The shadow climate change minister, Mark Butler, branded Taylor the minister “for higher power prices and anti-renewables”. | ['australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/angus-taylor', 'profile/katharine-murphy', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2018-09-18T18:00:06Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/jun/24/energy-treaty-update-fails-to-address-climate-crisis-activists-warn | Energy treaty update fails to address climate crisis, activists say | Climate activists have said a deal to update a “dangerous” energy treaty has failed to make the agreement compatible with the urgency of the climate crisis. After more than four years of talks, 52 countries and the EU on Friday struck a deal to “modernise” the energy charter treaty, a 1994 agreement that allows investors to sue governments for changes in energy policy that harm their profits. The treaty has been described by a former whistleblower as “a real threat” to the landmark Paris climate agreement, which aims to cap global heating at 1.5C, because it is feared that governments would blow their green transition budgets on compensating the owners of coalmines, oil wells and other fossil fuel projects. This week 76 climate scientists told EU leaders that even a modernised ECT would “jeopardise the EU climate neutrality target and the EU green deal”, referring to a swathe of policy proposals launched last year to tackle the climate crisis. The compromise agreement, which was largely designed by the EU, reduces the protection afforded to companies that have invested in oil and gas projects. But a fossil fuel exemption would not kick in until 2033 at the earliest. Under the deal, new fossil fuel investments will cease to be protected in the EU and UK from mid August 2023. Existing fossil fuel investments in the EU and UK would lose protection after 10 years. But the 10-year phase-out for oil and gas only comes into force once the treaty has been ratified by three-quarters of the ECT’s 53 signatories. Moreover, the fossil fuel carve-out does not bind countries. While the EU and UK have chosen to end protection for oil and gas investments, other ECT signatories, such as central Asian states, Switzerland and Japan, can maintain protection for fossil fuel investors. Member countries are expected to formally approve the deal in November, but it would still need to be ratified by each capital. “With a 10-year phase-out period for fossil fuel investments, EU countries could still be sued for putting in place progressive climate policies for at least another decade – the key window for action if humanity is to avoid climate catastrophe,” said Amandine Van Den Berghe, a lawyer at the NGO ClientEarth. “The new treaty will also open the door to a wave of financial compensation claims protecting investments in energy sources and technologies raising significant sustainability concerns, such as biomass, hydrogen and carbon capture storage,” she said, referring to the decision to extend treaty protection to these areas. “The bottom line is we are still left with a dangerous agreement that will obstruct urgent action to tackle the climate crisis for years to come. The EU must finally do what is necessary for climate and legally right: walk away.” France, Germany, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands have called on the European Commission to study withdrawing from the agreement. This week Spain’s deputy prime minister went public with her concerns. Speaking before the outcome of negotiations was confirmed, Teresa Ribera said 14 rounds of talks on reforming treaty had made clear it “will fail to ensure the alignment of the ECT with the Paris agreement and the objectives of the European green deal”. She told Politico it was time for the EU and its member states to “initiate a coordinated withdrawal”. Her intervention casts doubt over whether the EU can ratify the treaty, which also must be approved by the European parliament. EU officials say their negotiating position was endorsed by all 27 EU member states. Officials argue that withdrawing from the treaty does not protect EU interests, because investors would have a 20-year period to sue governments, because of a lengthy sunset clause. The commission said the modernised ECT preserved “the right of governments to pursue their public policy objectives, including for climate change mitigation and adaptation. This fully preserves the EU’s ability to develop our climate policies. We have thereby aligned the ECT with the Paris agreement and our environmental objectives.” Climate activists disagree, contending that countries could quit the treaty and agree to protect each other from ECT claims. “We are talking about timeframes that could protect the benefit of the fossil fuel industry well into 2030, and the thing is we don’t have time to wait until 2030 for climate action, we need it now,” said Chloé Mikolajczak, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Belgium. On Thursday Extinction Rebellion activists delayed the start of treaty negotiations by about an hour by gluing themselves to meeting tables, before their protest was broken up by police. Outside the Brussels headquarters of the ECT secretariat, a few dozen activists staged a “die in”, lying on the entrance steps amid fake oil, with a banner reading “stop protecting fossil fuel profits”. Mikolajczak said they would continue to target the treaty among “any policy that is harmful for the climate”. The British government welcomed the agreement, saying it would protect “the UK government’s sovereign right to change its own energy systems to reach emissions reductions targets in line with the Paris agreement”. Greg Hands, the energy minister, said: “The UK cannot support an outdated treaty which holds back investment in clean energy and puts British taxpayers at increased risk from costly legal challenges.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/energy', 'world/eu', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/paris-climate-agreement', 'world/european-commission', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jennifer-rankin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-06-24T16:01:39Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2010/jun/10/recycling-policies-doomed-to-failure | Letters: Recycling policies doomed to failure | James Garvey (Bin Pickles' waste carrot, 9 June) is right: both the stick and the carrot will not work if they target only the victim of the unsustainable and increasing use of packaging. Let us take the example of plastic, that despoiler of our beaches, countryside and urban areas. Nearly all solid plastic containers used today have a recycling logo embossed on them or a notice to say that they are not yet recyclable. Yet, up and down the country, different local authorities set up different regimes for which types of plastic, differentiated by an often near indecipherable number in the centre of the logo, they are willing to take, if any. This has to change. All plastic containers should be taxed, maybe differentially according to how easy it is for that type of plastic to be reused or recycled, and the revenue ringfenced to support reuse and recycling. The tax should fall on container producers and users in some suitable proportion. This should make supermarkets think twice before using them, and thus lead to reduction. All local authorities should be obliged to take and recycle all plastic containers with a recycling logo and employ people to separate and process them or support social enterprises set up for the purpose – this process to be paid for by the ringfenced tax. Paul Roberts Newcastle upon Tyne • I allowed myself to believe that there might be some new, original thinking from our new government. Then along came Eric Pickles and Caroline Spelman to announce a completely inane policy in which householders will be rewarded with vouchers for recycling more rubbish by weight. I have the image of people collecting vast quantities of free newspapers and putting them in the bin to earn vouchers which they can exchange for more rubbish. I really urge government to, er, bin this idea. Any policy which uses reward at its core is doomed. The only way to achieve success is by punishment. The vast majority of people are lazy when it comes to recycling (myself included) and they need to be shown, through their wallets, how to do it better. Council tax bills need to have the component for waste collection levied by a separate invoice issued to each householder. The householder can then vary the size of this invoice by choosing the size of bin, and the frequency of its collection. It works, believe me. Rob Jacques Freiburg, Germany • You don't have to support charges for domestic waste collection to question the government's decision to prohibit them (Report, 7 June). If this is an example of the new localism and its pledge to devolve powers to local government, can we assume that the proposed and much-vaunted power of general competence will be restricted to local policies of which the government approves? Cllr Jeremy Beecham Leader, LGA Labour Group | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2010-06-09T23:06:03Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2013/nov/16/david-cameron-climate-change-typhoon-haiyan | Cameron links typhoon Haiyan to climate change | There is growing evidence that climate change is causing more extreme weather disasters such as the Philippines typhoon, David Cameron said. In remarks likely to infuriate the green sceptics in his party, the prime minister gave his first acknowledgement that global warming may be linked to increasingly intense storms across the world. The remarks are Cameron's strongest defence of climate change science for a while, after repeated accusations that he has retreated from his pre-election pledge to run the greenest government ever. Despite urging people to "vote blue, go green" in 2010, he has not given a full speech on the issue nor attended a UN environment summit since becoming prime minister. Under pressure from many backbenchers, he has tightened planning controls on windfarms and pledged to "roll back" green subsidies on bills, leading to fears of dwindling support for the renewables industry. However, Cameron spoke out on the need to tackle global warming at the Commonwealth summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after typhoon Haiyan killed at least 4,000 people and caused devastation across the Philippines. Asked on Fridaywhether climate change was linked to the Philippines disaster, Cameron said: "I'll leave the scientists to speak for themselves about the link between severe weather events and climate change. But the evidence seems to me to be growing. As a practical politician, I think the sensible thing is to say let's take preventative and mitigating steps given the chances this might be the case." He added: "Scientists are giving us a very certain message. Even if you're less certain than the scientists, it makes sense to act both in terms of trying to prevent and mitigate." His comments also coincide with the United Nations talks on climate change in Warsaw, which has seen Japan slash its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions and Australia fail to send a minister to the conference for the first time in 16 years. The Philippines has made an impassioned plea at the talks for nations to cut their emissions and redouble their efforts to reach an international agreement on stopping temperatures rising. Yeb Sano, the country's lead negotiator, said Haiyan "was like nothing we have ever experienced before, or perhaps nothing that any country has ever experienced before". He told the conference how his brother "gathered bodies of the dead with his own two hands", adding: "To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of your armchair." Cameron's comments come after Ed Davey, energy secretary, said it was possible that rising sea levels caused by global warming may have made some islands more vulnerable and made storms more intense. However, Lord Lawson, a former Tory chancellor and leading figure in the party's climate sceptic lobby, claimed on Thursday that there was absolutely no link between Haiyan and global warming. "Typhoon Haiyan is terrible but I'm afraid these things happen in the tropics," he said on BBC1's Question Time. In comments appeared designed to appeal to sceptics in his party, Cameron made the case that Britain should tackle climate change as an "insurance policy". "There is no doubt there have been an increasing number of severe weather events in recent years," he said. "And I'm not a scientist but it's always seemed to me one of the strongest arguments about climate change is, even if you're only 90% certain or 80% certain or 70% certain, if I said to you there's a 60% chance your house might burn down, do you want to take out some insurance – you take out some insurance. I think we should think about climate change like that." Scientists have said it is too soon to say whether Haiyan is linked to climate change, but many have pointed to evidence that rising sea temperatures can increase the intensity of storms. Prof Myles Allen, of Oxford University, has said: "The current consensus is that climate change is not making the risk of hurricanes any greater, but there are physical arguments and evidence that there is a risk of more intense hurricanes." A Nature Geoscience research paper from 2010 found that global warming will increase the average intensity of the storms, while the total number of storms will fall, meaning fewer but more severe cyclones. It also found that rainfall in the heart of the storms will increase by 20%. Earlier this year, a study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Prof Kerry Emmanuel agreed that the most intense cyclones – category 3 to 5 – would increase, but the work suggested smaller cyclones would also increase. It also found that "increases in tropical cyclones are most prominent in the western north Pacific". And in 2011, a synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that the average wind speeds in cyclones were likely to increase, as was the frequency of heavy rainfall, but it noted the difficulty of linking changes in complex events such as cyclones to climate change. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'politics/davidcameron', 'environment/green-politics', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/typhoon-haiyan', 'politics/politics', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-11-16T00:01:04Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
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