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commentisfree/2015/dec/11/enron-business-behaving-badly-volkswagen-sports-direct | Years after Enron, business is still behaving badly | Stefan Stern | Respect, integrity, communication and excellence. Those were Enron’s core values, which, the energy company said, guided its behaviour as a “global corporate citizen”. We know how that story ended: bankruptcy, court cases and (unusually for the business world) custodial sentences. The once-mighty accountancy firm of Arthur Andersen was also brought down. Over a decade later bad corporate behaviour – the stuff we find out about, anyway – continues to make front page news. That dependable, “clean diesel” Volkswagen turns out not to be so clean after all. Thomas Cook takes an age to come up with a decent and civilised response to human tragedy. And now Sports Direct is revealed to be conducting business in a brutal fashion. Boardroom practices at the company may be comically bizarre, but life in their Shirebrook warehouse is not funny at all. The public have noticed. A survey this week for the Institute of Business Ethics found that 39% of people think business is behaving unethically. The three biggest causes for concern are tax avoidance, executive pay and exploitative labour practices. Two-fifths of the public have given a vote of no confidence in British business. That is, potentially at least, a lot of customers. Why, apart from the headline-grabbing scandals, is business seen in such a poor light? To some extent this represents a failure of the “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) movement. Bad CSR deserves to fail and be seen for what it is – a flimsy public relations exercise. Good companies don’t need CSR programmes. They think hard about their activities and the impact they have on the world. They worry about how they make their money. Good companies make sustainable profits, and don’t externalise the costs of doing business on to the world around them. But why does bad corporate behaviour still exist? The chances of getting found out are much higher than in the past. Everyone carrying a smartphone is equipped with a vital tool of investigative journalism. Fearlessness, or shamelessness, may have something to do with the “risk/reward relationship”, as it is called in the financial world. The rewards for breaking the rules can be high. But the punishments are often feeble – fines (merely another cost of doing business) and loss of reputation (cushioned by a healthy bank balance and lifetime financial security). Very few business leaders have ended up behind bars on account of their actions. “You’re going to jail!” screamed angry protesters at Dick Fuld, the former chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, in 2008. But he isn’t going to jail. He is going to his midtown Manhattan office to work for his new business, Matrix Advisors. Perhaps bad corporate behaviour is explained by the fact that, whether they realise it or not, some senior executives are still coming to terms with the post-financial-crisis world. Deep down they fear it could all go wrong again, any time. They are in a hurry and are cutting corners. They also seek extravagant pay packages to cushion their ultimate, inevitable fall. So, yes, sanctions have to get tougher, and the fear of punishment for wrongdoing has to increase sharply. One encouraging sign is that some responsible business leaders have had enough of the opprobrium brought on their heads by others. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said this week: “IoD members share the public’s outrage… I urge people to remember that Sports Direct is categorically not a representative of British business.” He is right about that. And we as customers cannot complain if we continue to shop with businesses that at other times we might denounce loudly as unethical. We are all in this together. My friend Steven Gauge has written a lovely play about taking up rugby again in middle age, called (perhaps inevitably) My Life as a Hooker. In one scene he is nervously running out on to the pitch for the first time in decades, and confesses to a team-mate that he is probably a bit rusty about the rules. Don’t worry, his fellow paunchy sportsman tells him: “Just cheat until you get caught.” This would have made a more accurate mission statement for Enron. Sadly, it appears to be the guiding ethos for too many people in business today. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'business/corporate-governance', 'tone/comment', 'business/business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/enron', 'business/financial-crisis', 'business/vw-volkswagen', 'business/frasers-group', 'business/retail', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/stefan-stern'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-12-11T17:36:48Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2010/jan/24/sheffield-forgemasters-reactor-funding | Sheffield Forgemasters moves closer to nuclear reactor deal | Sheffield Forgemasters is closing in on a £170m financing package which will enable British manufacturers to supply new nuclear reactors built in the UK and overseas. The government, European Investment Bank and nuclear group Westinghouse have offered about £150m of the sum required to build a new 15,000-tonne press to make large forgings used in new reactors. The company, whose origins go back to the 1750s, is trying to raise the remaining £20m from other companies involved in the nuclear industry. About £65m in cheap loans has been offered by the government, whose efforts have been led by business secretary Lord Mandelson, but it is pressing for the remaining funds to be secured soon, otherwise it will find another use for the cash. Industry sources said that the financing could be completed within days but negotiations have been going on for months and they stressed this weekend that there was still some uncertainty over the outcome. Concerns that government support could fall foul of European state aid rules have also complicated efforts. Westinghouse has offered to pay £50m upfront for its order of reactor forgings. The European Investment Bank will provide about £35m in loans, which the government has agreed to underwrite. It would also create 150 jobs. If the fundraising efforts come off, it would mark a much-needed boost for the government's policy of "industrial activism". This took a blow last week when US foods giant Kraft increased its bid for Cadbury, threatening the future of some of Cadbury's 5,000 workforce in the Midlands. The Sheffield firm is one of only a handful around the world that can make the special forgings, which would otherwise have to be imported for up to 10 reactors being built in the UK. There is increasing political pressure on nuclear companies in Britain to source as many components as possible from the UK. Dougie Rooney, national officer for the union Unite, said: "The government is putting its money where its mouth is. This would be a clear signal from government they will support British engineering and manufacturing industry." The French firm Areva, which wants to build dozens of reactors in the UK in coming decades, has admitted that only half the components from the first couple of reactors could be sourced from the UK. It has set a target to award 70% of the contracts to UK firms. Jean-Jacques Gautrot, head of Areva's UK division, told the Observer: "What we mean when we say we'd have up to 70% of the work available to British suppliers is saying we are willing to go as far as possible from the beginning. It could be 50, 60 or 70% for the first two reactors. But in 10 years, we could source 80% or close to 100% from British companies." | ['business/manufacturing-sector', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/businessandmedia', 'theobserver/businessandmedia/news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2010-01-24T00:07:29Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2013/aug/14/wind-turbine-firm-donation-conservative-party | Tory party receives donation from firm that got wind turbine grant | The Conservatives have been given almost £140,000 by a company that last year won a government grant to help it build a wind turbine part factory. Offshore Group Newcastle, a major supplier to the offshore energy industry, handed donations to the Tories after being awarded a £4.5m subsidy towards making steel foundations for wind turbines. The company, whose ultimate owners are based in the British Virgin Islands, announced it had won the grant from the regional growth fund in mid-October. It subsequently started donating to the Conservatives, with the party recording £139,655 of donations between November and August this year. It is understood a board member of the company also had the opportunity to meet Tory ministers when the company paid to attend a business event at the Conservative party conference that autumn. In addition to the donations from Offshore Group Newcastle, one of its executives, Alexander Temerko, has separately given more than £200,000 to the party in cash and auction prizes since February 2012. Temerko is the former number two at oil company Yukos and successfully won the right to stay in the UK in 2005 after a judge found Russia's attempt to extradite him on fraud charges was politically motivated. Offshore Group Newcastle received the grant from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills's regional growth fund as part of a total £50m investment in its new plant. It is planning to produce steel foundations for offshore wind turbine generators at its Hadrian's Yard in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear – a historic former shipbuilding site. At the time, it described the grant as a "vote of confidence from theDepartment of Business, Innovation and Skills" that would allow the North East to "share in the benefit with the creation of 1,000 long-term local jobs". Last night the company told the Telegraph the grant is "totally independent" from any political activities. It added: "OGN operates as a UK company and pays taxes in accordance with UK taxation legislation." A spokesman for BIS said bids to the Regional Growth Fund, which awarded the funding, are assessed by a separate advisory panel. "All bids to the regional growth fund are stringently evaluated against the objectives of creating sustainable employment, rebalancing the economy and delivering value for money, and are independently assessed by an advisory panel headed by Lord Heseltine," he said. "BIS is absolutely committed to transparency and adherence to due process in every application for public funding." A Conservative party spokesman said all its donations are "fully and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission and published on their website." | ['politics/conservatives', 'politics/partyfunding', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'politics/politics', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2013-08-14T00:06:32Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2016/oct/07/florida-hurricane-matthew-storm-damage | Florida spared worst of Hurricane Matthew but deadly menace still looms | Hurricane Matthew lost some of its might early on Friday after a long and punishing overnight crawl up Florida’s eastern coast, but authorities warned the deadly storm was still capable of causing destruction and loss of life as it continued to menace central and northern parts of the state and set its sights on Georgia. “We’re only halfway through,” the Florida governor, Rick Scott, said at a morning briefing, as Matthew, now a category 3 storm with wind gusts of 150mph, edged closer to Jacksonville. “We still have a long way to go. It could be the worst part of this is still to come. The eye has not made direct landfall, [but] it still has time to make a direct hit.” Scott said assessments from more southerly parts of Florida, which were battered overnight by tropical storm force winds, were just beginning to come in, but earlier fears of potentially catastrophic damage appeared to be unfounded. More than 600,000 houses were without power, he said, and 22,000 people remained in 145 shelters across the state. The NHC acknowledged that Matthew’s failure to make landfall in Florida, and its position farther out to sea than initially predicted, had spared the state the kind of damage a direct hit would have wrought. “We have been very fortunate that Matthew’s category 3 winds have remained a short distance offshore of the Florida coast so far, but this should not be a reason to let down our guard,” senior hurricane specialist Lixion Avila wrote in his advisory. He reported that Matthew’s central eye was no longer very distinct and that the storm would continue to weaken at a faster pace within 24 hours as wind shear increased. Over the next day and a half, he added, Matthew would begin to move more to the north and north-east. “The weather is just starting to go downhill in northern Florida and the Georgia coastline,” said Dr Rick Knabb, the NHC director. “If you are in an area that’s been told to evacuate and your authorities are telling you that you still have time to evacuate, I want to personally plead with you to get out right now. Don’t wait one more moment, save yourself, save your family, save your friends. Don’t be part of the history of this hurricane that might include a long list of fatalities in the US due to water.” Significantly, the NHC is predicting for the first time that the storm will degenerate into a tropical depression at the end of its five-day forecast period, reversing earlier projections that Matthew would loop back on itself and line up a second assault on the south Florida coast as a weak hurricane or tropical storm early next week. As the death toll from Matthew’s journey across Haiti earlier in the week continued to grow close to 500, the first storm-related fatality in Florida was reported in St Lucie county, a 58-year-old woman dying from a suspected heart attack when fire rescue service was suspended at the height of the storm. Late on Thursday and early Friday, Matthew continued to lash Volusia and Brevard counties in Florida, including the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, with torrential rain and sustained winds as the storm’s outer eyewall nudged parallel to the coast. Nasa reported limited roof damage from 107mph gusts, but no effect to its launchpads, which are constructed to withstand 125mph winds. Downed power lines and fallen trees appeared to be the worst of the damage in Martin and St Lucie counties to the south. Bill Snyder, the Martin County sheriff, said he believed his county had “dodged a bullet”. “This could have been much worse,” he said. “It’s going to be a busy day but we are in good shape and God has truly blessed our area.” Scott, however, said he was alarmed by the storm moving closer to Jacksonville, where the National Weather Service had warned of a “worst-case” flooding scenario. “I’m really concerned about Jacksonville, I’m really concerned about Nassau [county],” he said. “Jacksonville has a lot of low-lying areas and there is concern of significant flooding there.” More than 2 million people living in coastal and flood-prone areas of Florida, Georgia and South and North Carolina were urged to evacuate as the storm approached on Thursday, and the governors of all four states declared states of emergency. Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Georgia on Friday, the day after doing the same for 28 coastal Florida counties, freeing up federal resources for recovery efforts. Officials were preparing for a storm surge of 6-10ft in South Carolina and were continuing evacuations from coastal communities ahead of the storm’s arrival. In its morning advisory, the NHC said Matthew would have weakened to a minor hurricane strength by then, with its shrinking wind field The Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, issued a statement urging residents to stay safe during and after the storm. “My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the path of Hurricane Matthew, and my heart is broken for the victims and their families in Haiti, Cuba, the Caribbean and Florida,” she said. “Stay safe and know that America is with you. In times of disaster we pull together.” The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, tweeted: “Thoughts & prayers with the millions of people in the path of Hurricane Matthew. Look out for neighbors, and listen to your local officials.” In Orlando, where hotel rooms were scarce following the evacuation of thousands from coastal areas 60 miles east, theme parks were preparing to reopen on Saturday . Disney World closed on Friday due to weather for only the fourth time in its 45-year history. | ['world/hurricane-matthew', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/richardluscombe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-10-07T15:15:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/article/2024/may/09/third-pilot-of-household-hydrogen-heating-shelved-by-uk-government | Third pilot of household hydrogen heating shelved by UK government | A third pilot project to test the use of hydrogen heating in homes has been shelved by the UK government in the clearest sign to date that households will rely on electricity for low-carbon heating in the coming decades. The government said it would shelve plans to develop a “hydrogen town” to test whether hydrogen could help to heat homes at scale before taking a final decision after 2026. The decision comes after the government abandoned plans for two smaller “hydrogen village” trials – in Redcar, on Teesside, and at a village near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire – after months of strong opposition from concerned residents who feared they may become unwilling “lab rats” for a technology that would never take off in the UK. The government said in a statement that it still believed that low-carbon hydrogen “may have a role to play” in cutting emissions from the UK’s heating sector, alongside heat pumps and low-carbon heat networks, “but in slower time in some locations”. “We plan to take a decision in 2026 on whether, and if so how, hydrogen will contribute to heating decarbonisation,” it said. The government is due to make a decision about whether its net zero climate plans will include replacing household gas with hydrogen by 2026. It will assess evidence from a pilot in Fife in Scotland, and similar schemes in Europe. Many experts, including the government’s infrastructure tsars, believe that the UK should focus its efforts on electric heating options, such as heat pumps, while hydrogen should be reserved for use in heavy industry, which is not always able to use electricity. Juliet Phillips, the head of UK energy at E3G, an independent climate change thinktank, said the government’s decision had made clear “that all attention and investment should be focused on readily available clean heat solutions, like heat pumps and heat networks. “Discussions on hydrogen for heating are an unhelpful distraction that muddy the waters on the future of how we heat our homes,” she said. “Widespread use of hydrogen for heating is widely understood to be an extremely expensive and inefficient way to meet net zero targets, which could exacerbate fuel poverty.” Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit , said the decision would pave the way for more investment into heat pumps, which boost energy security by lowering the amount of gas the UK needs to import, as output from the North Sea continues to decline. “The US and Europe are already installing heat pumps in their millions in response to the gas crisis that has already cost the UK over £100bn, and it looks like we might be starting to catch up,” she said. | ['environment/hydrogen-power', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/heat-pumps', 'money/money', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-05-09T16:19:48Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2021/sep/16/australian-bushfire-smoke-caused-massive-phytoplankton-bloom-in-southern-ocean | Australian bushfire smoke caused massive phytoplankton bloom in Southern Ocean | Smoke from the 2019-20 bushfires in Australia caused a bloom of phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean larger than the entire Australian continent, according to new research. An international team of scientists discovered via satellite data that the bloom of phytoplankton – microscopic marine algae – occurred in the ocean between South America and New Zealand beginning in October 2019 and lasting about four months. Smoke clouds from the Australian Black Summer bushfires travelled into the stratosphere and circumnavigated the globe, depositing aerosol particles thousands of kilometres away from Australia. The study, published in the journal Nature, found the blooms were the result of iron particles in the smoke aerosols. The study’s co-author Prof Peter Strutton, of the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, likened the phytoplankton bloom to “the entire Sahara desert turning into a moderately productive grassland for a couple of months”. Phytoplankton requires iron for photosynthesis. “The entire Southern Ocean is basically low in iron because it’s a long way from dust sources, so any small amount of iron that gets deposited there can cause a strong response,” Strutton said. Phytoplankton blooms are visible from space and occur when there is abundant sunlight and nutrients, leading to an explosion in population. The massive Southern Ocean bloom occurred at a time of year when phytoplankton activity is usually at a minimum. The researchers estimate the amount of carbon taken up by phytoplankton cells as a result of the bloom was equivalent to around 95% of the emissions generated by the 2019-20 bushfires. For that carbon to be permanently removed from the atmosphere, however, the phytoplankton cells would have to sink into the deep ocean and be stored there, Strutton said. “There’s a lot of recycling of energy and biomass that happens in the surface waters. It’s likely that a lot of that carbon that was initially taken up might have been re-released to the atmosphere when those phytoplankton cells started to break down or were eaten.” Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning The team did not look specifically at the wider marine ecosystem effects of the large Southern Ocean bloom, but the moderate increase in phytoplankton activity over several months could also have had an impact on fish populations, Strutton said. Prof Martina Doblin, the director of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science at the University of Technology Sydney, who was not involved in the research, said analysis her team conducted during the fires confirmed there were higher concentrations of iron and other nutrients in the bushfire smoke compared to normal air pollution. “The nutrient content will have come from the plant and soil material that has been burnt. Those nutrients, normally in a terrestrial system, have ended up in the ocean,” she said. Preliminary data from Doblin’s own research in estuaries is “aligned with this notion that the aerosols can have impacts on phytoplankton growth”. The findings come as a separate study, also published in Nature, estimated more precisely the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the 2019-20 bushfire season. Using satellite data, an international group of researchers found the fires emitted 715m tonnes of carbon dioxide between November 2019 and January 2020, exceeding Australia’s usual annual fire and fossil fuel emissions by 80%. One previous estimate had put the figure at about 830m tonnes. | ['australia-news/bushfires', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/donna-lu', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-09-15T15:00:50Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/jun/12/sea-of-glass-leopold-blaschka-marine-life-sculptures-drew-harvell | Sea of glass: the underwater world of Leopold Blaschka | In the 1860s, when the Bohemian glassblower Leopold Blaschka began sculpting models of underwater creatures, the Industrial Revolution, population growth and climate change had yet to take their toll on marine biodiversity. Over three decades, using techniques that still baffle experts, Leopold and his son, Rudolf, handmade about 10,000 marine sculptures, each one rendered in minute detail: impossibly delicate anemones, livid orange cuttlefish – creatures at once alien and unnervingly lifelike. In a world before scuba diving, underwater photography or ocean life surveys, the Blaschkas’ models proved an invaluable educational resource, with universities worldwide purchasing collections of glass specimens. One of the largest, with 570 models, belongs to Cornell University in the US, where until recently it was all but forgotten, stowed in a warehouse in a state of disrepair. As a young professor in the 1990s, Dr Drew Harvell began cataloguing the collection, discovering a “time capsule” of 19th-century marine biology. “There’s value in the entire collection,” she says. “It’s what you could see 150 years ago, frozen in time.” Harvell’s 25-year love affair with the Blaschka models has led her from Italy to Indonesia, resulting in her book, A Sea of Glass. Part natural history, part memoir, it recounts her attempt to assess the glass creatures in the collection and determine, as she puts it, “which of those are still present in our oceans, and how abundant they are”. The Blaschkas worked largely from real specimens, shipped live and packed in algae from a laboratory in Naples, so Harvell focused much of her search in that corner of the Mediterranean. “Those were amazing dives,” she says, “seeing the slugs, anemones, jellyfish – all these exact Blaschka matches.” The outlook for other species, however, is bleak. Many of the Blaschka invertebrates have declined and some, especially deep-water species of octopus and squid, may even be extinct. Equally troubling is the state of several Mediterranean corals and sponges that have suffered “massive mortality” from climate change-related warming and acidification. “Corallium rubrum, Balanophyllia europaea, Asteroides calycularis” says Harvell, listing species under threat. When asked to repeat the Latin she apologises: “They’re like my friends, I just rattle off their names.” Aside from being a scientific study, A Sea of Glass is also an artistic monograph; an appreciation of the unique “gestalt” created by the Blaschkas. “No one on the planet can produce glass like that today,” says Harvell, “and it wasn’t just the glass, it was the living animals they cared so much about capturing.” She compares the Blaschkas to the great ornithological artist John James Audubon, with the important difference that the glass models retain their scientific function today. “I use them in my teaching”, she says. “My students could never see this range of live invertebrates”. Harvell seems to channel the devotion that motivated the Blaschkas, describing with particular passion the glass octopus vulgaris in the Cornell collection, carefully restored from its shattered former state. “Masterpieces of art can translate nature for us,” she says. “There’s something about the way it passes through human hands; they’re bringing this magic undersea world to life.” A Sea of Glass by Drew Harvell is published by University of California Press (£22.95). | ['environment/marine-life', 'tone/features', 'books/books', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'artanddesign/sculpture', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'type/article', 'profile/kit-buchan', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-06-12T08:00:17Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/cif-green/2010/sep/17/edward-norton-biodiversity | The US must show leadership on biodiversity | Edward Norton | If the world has been reminded of anything through the tragedy of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, it is that biodiversity and the health of ecosystems is neither an abstract scientific concept nor the pet project of a green elite. Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems are the vital underpinnings of human society. Food and energy production on land and from the sea; medicine; tourism, and real estate: these industries and many others have been shown to be starkly vulnerable to the destruction of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. And yet, while the link between biodiversity and human well-being is better understood now than ever before, the news from the frontlines of the global effort to preserve the world's biodiversity is bleak. The web of life that we all rely on for our very survival is being torn apart at an increasingly alarming rate and action to address this global crisis is still distressingly lacking and slow. Our failure to act might be attributed, in part, to the misperception that preserving the world's biodiversity is a legacy issue, one to be addressed in the future. But the conclusions of the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO3), a major assessment report issued this May under the Convention of Biological Diversity, put that misapprehension to rest. Drawing on 120 national reports from parties to this unique legal treaty aimed at protecting life on earth, it soberly warns that without collective action, our ecosystems will approach tipping-points, putting human lives and livelihoods, as well as such irreplaceable services as air and water purification, the renewal of soil fertility, and climate stabilisation at risk of irreversible degradation and collapse. While the poor are particularly vulnerable, no one on earth is immune from the negative impacts of deforestation, species extinction, the collapse of coral reefs, loss of fresh water lakes, and ocean acidification. An estimated 1 billion people in developing countries depend upon fish as their primary source of food. However, 80% of the world's fisheries are fully or over-exploited. As biologists from Stanford University, California, have said: "The idea that economic growth is independent of environmental health, and that humanity can therefore indefinitely expand its physical economy, is a dangerous delusion." Therefore, only through sustained conservation will future generations of the developed and developing worlds meet their food, health, energy and security needs. We have identified the principal, ever-increasing pressures driving biodiversity loss: habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species, and climate change. Engagement and education are strong allies against these threats. But only a deeper global commitment and concerted action from a state level to protect marine and terrestrial habitats will help stop, and possibly even reverse these forbidding trends. This autumn, there are two important moments in our attempt to create a new paradigm for a global response to the world's biodiversity challenges. On 22 September, in observance of the International Year of Biodiversity, world leaders will call for the introduction of sustainable practices in land and resource use, an increase in protected areas around the world, and for plans to reconcile development with conservation. For the first time at the UN, heads of state and government and officials from its 192-member states will hold a meeting exclusively devoted to the biodiversity crisis. In October, the Nagoya biodiversity summit will take place in Aichi prefecture, Japan. There, the 193 parties to the convention on biological diversity will adopt a new strategic plan for 2011-2020, containing new targets for 2020 and a new biodiversity vision for 2050. Meaningful success in this effort will require the full commitment of all nations, and here, the US falls sadly short of the mark. The US is, inexcusably, one of only three countries that have not ratified full acceptance of the convention. President Obama has forcefully expressed his commitment to addressing the world's environmental crisis. At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of last year, the president referred to, "our responsibilities to leave our children and grandchildren a cleaner and safer planet". As the most comprehensive biodiversity treaty to date, the convention will provide a unique opportunity for the president to fulfil these responsibilities and inspire the renewed dedication of the global community. We urge him to aggressively pursue the process of US ratification. Let's all look forward to the moment that the US rejoins the champions of biodiversity and formally dedicates itself as a nation to preserving and protecting life on earth. • Edward Norton is an actor and UN goodwill ambassador for biodiversity, appointed by secretary-general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon. Copyright: IPS | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'science/science', 'us-news/us-politics', 'us-news/obama-administration', 'environment/nagoya', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'type/article'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-09-17T14:29:55Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2021/jul/01/calls-to-stop-nsw-police-trial-of-national-facial-recognition-system-over-lack-of-legal-safeguards | Calls to stop NSW police trial of national facial recognition system over lack of legal safeguards | New South Wales police officers are testing out the federal government’s controversial facial recognition system to access passport photos as part of criminal investigations, despite legislation governing its use not yet passing parliament. The Australian Human Rights Commission has said that facial recognition technology should not be used for law enforcement in Australia, unless there are effective legal safeguards are in place. State and territory police have been seeking access to millions of photos that they can then use facial recognition technology to compare to still CCTV shots and other photos as part of criminal investigations. The federal government has been pursuing the introduction of a centralised database, known as “the Capability”, which would bring together photos collected by a range of state and federal agencies, including police charge photos, passport photos, immigration documents, and driver’s licences from across the country. Legislation to allow the photos to be shared was rejected by the federal parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence and security in 2019 for failing to adequately protect citizens’ rights with proper safeguards. The legislation has yet to be reintroduced. Despite the legislation not yet passing parliament, NSW police states on its website that it is participating in “a limited (low volume) trial” of the federal government’s facial matching service, accessing photos held by the commonwealth. Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania supply driver’s licence photos to the system, but NSW police is not able to access those at this stage. Other states and territories also plan to unlock access to their photos under an agreement reached in 2017. NSW police states that photos from NSW driver’s licences aren’t yet available in the system and will not be “until the NSW government is satisfied that appropriate privacy and security safeguards are in place”. The federal government has stressed the facial identification service – where one photo is compared to many – can only be used by national security, law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies, and cannot be used to investigate minor offences, or live facial recognition. Guardian Australia understands NSW police has not yet had a match identified through the trial. Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning The Australian Human Rights commissioner, Ed Santow, said such a trial was “deeply concerning”. “We at the Human Rights Commission find that deeply concerning. It is deeply concerning for the government – for any government – to proceed without a legal framework at all, in the absence of [the legislation] being reintroduced and passed.” It comes just weeks after the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended in its landmark report on artificial intelligence and human rights that there be a ban on the use of facial recognition until there is legislation outlining what police can and cannot do, with a strong focus on protecting human rights. “The problem with proceeding without any legislative framework at all, is that you’re left with wholly inadequate protections in a very high-risk area of use, mainly policing,” Santow said. It comes after News Corp tabloid the Daily Telegraph published on Saturday an interview with the head of the NSW police’s facial recognition unit, assistant commissioner Tony Crandell, who stated police wanted to be “as transparent as possible” about its use of the technology, which they realise “people are not going to agree about”. Crandell said NSW police use PhotoTrac, a system that has been in place since 2004. The system has access to more than 1m charge photos, which police can then run comparisons against CCTV still photos. One still can bring up 100 different potential options, and officers need to examine each one closely. The report also revealed NSW police trialled the technology on live CCTV footage at a gun show in order to identify people banned from buying guns, but it was decided pursuing the use of facial recognition on live footage was not worthwhile. Guardian Australia requested an interview with Crandell, but it was refused by NSW police. Samantha Floreani, the program lead at Digital Rights Watch, told Guardian Australia if police knew the public was not on board with facial recognition yet, it should not be used until there is a robust public debate and strong legal safeguards. “We need more transparency around the kinds of technology – including facial recognition – that law enforcement are using, so that they can be held accountable, and so that the we can have a genuine public debate as to whether the use of these tools aligns with the kind of society we want to live in,” she said. “As we saw with police use of Clearview AI, a lack of transparency of the tools the police are using or trialling erodes public trust, makes it hard to understand if the technology is being used in a fair and reasonable way, and throws accountability to the wind.” In a statement, a spokesperson for NSW police defended the agency’s use of the technology, stating it wasn’t the only piece of evidence police use. “Traditional facial recognition technology has been used by the NSWPF since 2004 to establish and verify the identities of persons of interest for investigative purposes,” the spokesperson said. “While fingerprints and DNA remain the primary biometric source for identification, facial recognition can be used to corroborate other evidence or as a lead generator.” Guardian Australia understands the legislation for the facial recognition technology has been finalised by the home affairs department, and could soon be reintroduced into parliament. The department has been approached for comment. • This article was amended on 1 July 2021 because an earlier version suggested the Human Rights Commission had expressly called for the NSW trial to stop. In fact, the commission has called for all law enforcement in Australia to not use facial recognition technology without legal safeguards. | ['australia-news/police-policing-australia', 'technology/facial-recognition', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/josh-taylor', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-06-30T17:30:45Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
uk-news/2024/feb/28/cornwall-alarmed-by-seaweed-farm-plans-close-to-padstow-coast | Cornwall alarmed by seaweed farm plans close to Padstow coast | People who live, work and surf on one of Cornwall’s most famous stretches of coastline have reacted with consternation to plans to create a large seaweed farm 600 metres from the shore. Two companies, Biome Algae and Camel Fish, are applying to build the farm in a 1 sq km zoned-off area just off the north coast, not far from Padstow, known for being the home of the celebrity chef Rick Stein’s seafood empire. It is also close to Port Isaac, where the comedy drama Doc Martin is filmed, and the popular surfing beach at Polzeath. The plan is to farm up to 4,000 tonnes of seaweed between October and May off Port Quin, to be used in animal feed, fertiliser and as an oil-free alternative in some textiles and plastics. Residents were given an opportunity to grill the applicants about the plans on Tuesday evening but the meeting descended into farce as about 300 people tried to cram into a small village hall in St Minver with many shut outside and forced to listen through open windows. The audience was given just 35 minutes to ask questions of the applicants, with most people clearly opposing the plan. Requests from the audience to extend the meeting were denied. Among people’s concerns was a lack of scientific evidence that Port Quin is a suitable location, worries about the impact on tourism and the area of outstanding natural beauty, and how local wildlife will be affected. Earlier this year, a similar plan proposed by Biome Algae at Gerrans Bay on Cornwall’s south coast was withdrawn due to local opposition. Speaking after the meeting, Luke Bassett, a builder from Port Isaac, said: “I wasn’t reassured at all by what I heard. I just think it’s not appropriate. That area has an abundance of sea life – we get all sorts going through there. “We go surfing and are concerned about it being detrimental to the swell. As somebody who grew up along this stretch of coastline, we were always in the water swimming and fishing and I want my children to be able to enjoy that too.” Luke’s brother Jason Bassett added: “What if a big storm comes and rips the whole thing out? We support seaweed farming but there are plenty of other places which would make more sense to do this.” Oliver Blount, who lives in Camelford, said: “There is nobody here who’s not willing to engage with something like farming seaweed. There is nobody here that doesn’t want it to work, but it’s a question of where. What we are all talking about, and what isn’t being properly addressed, is why Port Quin?” The Save Port Quin Facebook group, set up to coordinate opposition to the plans, has more than 1,800 members. Michael Truelove, a member of the group, said: “In the last few years this specific area of our coastline has seen a positive surge in its abundant sealife. I have personally witnessed the presence of humpback whales, fin whales and minke whales, Risso’s dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoise and large family groups of common dolphins. Entanglement issues concern me deeply.” Setting out the plans for Port Quin, Angela Mead from Biome Algae, said: “My heart and passion is looking at sustainability and climate. We are a small but experienced and passionate team and we all believe in what we do. We want to create opportunities for residents, we want to attract and retain talent in this region through this type of work.” People have until 14 March to represent their views to the Marine Management Organisation. | ['uk-news/cornwall', 'environment/farming', 'environment/coastlines', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-02-28T12:25:42Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2019/aug/26/g7-leaders-agree-plan-to-help-amazon-countries-fight-wildfires | G7 leaders agree plan to help Amazon countries fight wildfires | The G7 countries have agreed to an immediate $20m (£16m) aid package to help Amazon countries fight wildfires and launch a longer-term global initiative to protect the rainforest. The assistance plan, announced by the French and Chilean presidents on Monday, would involve a programme of reforestation, to be unveiled at the UN general assembly meeting next month. “We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon,” said Emmanuel Macron of France, after a meeting of the G7 major industrialised democracies on the climate emergency near the end of a three-day summit in Biarritz. However, it was unclear on Monday evening whether the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, would cooperate with the plan. He sent out a string of tweets within minutes of the G7 announcement, criticising Macron for treating Brazil as if was “a colony or a no-man’s land”. Macron conceded that Donald Trump had not attended the G7 session on climate change, biodiversity and the oceans, but he said that “his team was there”, and that the US supported the initiative. Environmental experts say the policies of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, reducing environmental protections, have fuelled accelerating deforestation and contributed to the intensity of the wildfires. France and Ireland have threatened to block a EU trade deal with Brazil and three other Latin American countries if Bolsonaro does not change course. Macron’s criticism sparked an angry response from Bolsonaro, who accused him of colonialism. Under international pressure, however, Bolsonaro finally deployed two C-130 Hercules aircraft on Sunday to douse the fires. The reforestation plan, to be discussed at the UN next year, would require the consent of Bolsonaro and local communities. The Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, a Bolsonaro ally on the political right, said he was in constant touch with the Brazilian president and the two leaders spoke as recently as Sunday. He said he was confident he would be able to convince him about the need for reforestation of the Amazon. “I will discuss that with him. But I think that it is absolutely necessary. And I tend to think that he will agree,” Piñera told the Guardian in an interview at the summit. “In the last 20 years, almost 10% of the use of the surface of the Amazon has been destroyed. We can recover that. It will take time. It will take money. It will take effort but we can do it,” the Chilean president said. Piñera suggested that Macron and other world leaders had set about trying to make Bolsonaro change course in the wrong way, criticising him rather than cooperating with him. He argued that one of the achievements of the Biarritz summit was to establish a more collaborative process that respected the sovereignty of Amazonian countries. “At the beginning, there was a kind of collision between the president of France or the president of Brazil. Now they are working together,” Piñera said. x “The Amazon is in South America, and the countries there have sovereignty over that territory they want to protect,” Piñera said. “At the same time the Amazon is part of the health of the whole planet. And therefore it is reasonable that everybody is concerned about that. We have to find a compromise between those two. And that was the problem between Macron and Bolsonaro at the beginning, but it has already been solved because now both the G7 and the Amazon countries, with the collaboration of Chile are pushing in the same direction.” The Chilean president was speaking before Bolsonaro unleashed his tweetstorm against Macron. “We can’t accept that a president – Macron – fires off improper and gratuitous attacks on Amazonia,” Bolsonaro wrote. “Nor that he hides his intentions behind the idea of an ‘alliance’ of G7 countries to ‘save’ Amazonia, as if we were a colony or no man’s land.” Under the umbrella of the G7 summit, a coalition of more than 50 indigenous groups and environmental organisations issued their own statement, adding to the political pressure on the Brazilian government. With the support of Macron, they directly blamed Bolsonaro for accelerating the clearance of the rainforest by “systematically dismantling” environmental protection agencies, halting the demarcation of indigenous land, and verbally attacking anyone who opposes forest clearance. “Problems of deforestation and burning in the Amazon have a long history; however, the worsening of this situation in 2019 is a direct result of the behaviour of the government of President Jair Bolsonaro,” said the statement, which was read out by leaders of the Raoni indigenous community. “President Bolsonaro has encouraged the criminalisation of social movements and NGOs, reaching the absurdity of blaming them for increased burning in the Amazon.” The declaration urged the G7 to strengthen import restrictions on beef, soy, minerals and other products that originate from areas affected by deforestation, enhance due diligence for investments in the Amazon to ensure they do not violate human rights and environmental controls, and to support Brazil to achieve the Paris climate targets. | ['world/g7', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'world/world', 'world/emmanuel-macron', 'world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/julianborger', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-08-26T14:32:56Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/jun/18/pollutionwatch-air-quality-benefits-of-lockdown-continue | Pollutionwatch: air quality benefits of lockdown continue | The start of the UK lockdown brought news of reduced air pollution. Did it last? Measurements from London show that initial improvements in nitrogen dioxide from traffic continued into April and May. Compared with the first 11 weeks of 2020 before lockdown, there was an average decrease of 31% on the capital’s roads. Greatest reductions were in central and inner London and followed improvements from the Ultra-Low Emission Zone. Spring is often the worst season for particle pollution across western Europe. Just six years ago Paris banned half of traffic to control a springtime smog. These are caused by air pollution from traffic and industry mixing with ammonia from farm fertilizer. This year was no different. London had five springtime smogs between the start of UK lockdown and mid-May, but reduced traffic and industry across the UK and Europe meant that maximum concentrations were around two-thirds of those in previous springs. Spring and summer are peak periods for ground level ozone; a pollutant synonymous with Los Angeles smogs. Nowadays, many of the pollutants that cause summer smogs come from solvents, inks and cleaning materials that we use in our homes. Unsurprisingly, the UK had several smog events in the sunny lockdown weather. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/air-pollution', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-06-18T20:30:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
technology/2019/may/29/facial-recognition-must-not-introduce-gender-or-racial-bias-police-told | Facial recognition must not introduce gender or racial bias, police told | Facial recognition software should only be used by police if they can prove it will not introduce gender or racial bias to operations, an ethics panel has said. A report by the London policing ethics panel, which was set up to advise City Hall, concluded that while there were “important ethical issues to be addressed” in the use of the controversial technology, they did not justify not using it at all. Live facial recognition (LFR) technology is designed to check people passing a camera in a public place against images on police databases, which can include suspects, missing people or persons of interest to the police. The technology has been used to scan faces in large crowds in public places such as streets and shopping centres, and in football crowds and at events such as the Notting Hill carnival. The Metropolitan police have carried out 10 trials using the technology across London, the most recent being in Romford town centre in mid-February. In these trials the watchlist only contained images of individuals wanted by the Met and the courts for “violent-related offences”. Police said the trials led to a number of arrests based on positive identifications. In a report following a review of the Met’s use of the software, the panel said it should only be used if the overall benefit to public safety was “great enough to outweigh any potential public distrust in the technology”. Concerns have been raised by scientific and civic groups that there are possible intrinsic biases in facial recognition technology, which may mean it is less effective at identifying BAME and female faces. The panel said the Met’s trials with the software were “a source of insight into any intrinsic bias, and should help to indicate how such bias would or would not feed forward into policing operations”. “We argue it is in the public interest to publish the trial data and evaluations, to address these concerns,” the panel concluded. “Additionally, because the actions of human operators affect the technology’s functioning in the field and therefore the public’s experience of automated recognition, appropriate LFR operating procedures and practices need to be developed.” As part of their research the panel conducted a survey of a weighted sample of 1,092 Londoners into the police’s use of LFR. More than 57% felt its use by police was acceptable. This figure increased to 83% when respondents were asked whether the technology should be used to search for serious offenders. Half of respondents thought the use of the software would make them feel safer, but more than a third said they were concerned about its impact on their privacy and that police would collect data on people who had not committed crimes. Only 56% of those surveyed thought that police would use their personal data in accordance with the law. Almost half of respondents thought the technology would lead to personal information being collected about some groups more than others. Younger people were less accepting of police use of facial recognition technology than older people, and Asian and black people were less accepting of it than white respondents. The report comes after the information commissioner expressed concern last week over the lack of a formal legal framework for the use of facial recognition cameras by police. The comments were made during a court hearing in the landmark case of Ed Bridges, an office worker from Cardiff who claims South Wales police violated his privacy and data protection rights by using the technology on him when he went to buy a sandwich during his lunch break and when he attended a peaceful anti-arms demonstration. The Metropolitan police welcomed the report. DCS Ivan Balhatchet, who has led the force’s trials, said: “We want the public to have trust and confidence in the way we operate as a police service and we take the report’s findings seriously. The MPS will carefully consider the contents of the report before coming to any decision on the future use of this technology.” | ['technology/facial-recognition', 'technology/technology', 'uk/police', 'world/privacy', 'uk/uk', 'uk/london', 'world/ethics', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'world/race', 'world/gender', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/frances-perraudin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2019-05-29T12:42:33Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2015/mar/12/seaside-snail-most-misidentified-creature-in-the-world | Seaside snail most misidentified creature in the world | A seaside snail found in rock pools on almost every stretch of coast around the UK has been named as the most misidentified creature in the world. Rough periwinkles are commonly seen on shorelines around the North Atlantic but come with so many colour and shape variations that they have confused scientists for centuries. Researchers cataloguing the world’s marine life have found that scientists claimed to have discovered the molluscs as different species and sub-species at least 113 times, more than any other animal or plant. Rough periwinkles have now been crowned the “champion of taxonomic redundancy” by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Their accepted scientific name is Littorina saxatilis, which comes from their first description in 1792 by naturalist Giuseppe Olivi. Misidentifying animals and plants as new to science has hugely inflated the number of species recorded around the world in the scientific literature. A reassessment has led to 190,400 marine species being deleted from the record books since 2008 because they had already been named and described. It leaves 228,450 accepted species. Among the duplications is an octopus, Octopus rooseveltii, named in 1941 after US President Franklin D Roosevelt, which researchers now realise had originally been identified in 1904 as Octopus oculifer. Jan Mees, co-chair of WoRMS, said the register provides “for the first time in history” a one-stop resource for researchers to check if specimens are new to science or if they have been beaten to them. He said difficulty in getting access to scientific literature in previous decades was the main reason why so many discoveries have been repeated. But other factors, he said, were more reprehensible, including “lack of scientific rigour”, while “commercial interests” could also play a role, such as when more money could be made selling specimens of several “species” to collectors. However, new species are being added to the pared-down list at a rate of one every four days. Several thousand have been discovered since 2008 – including dolphins, sharks, whales, squids, kelp and fungi. A further 10,000 new marine specimens are estimated to be held in laboratory jars worldwide waiting to be analysed before being named and described in scientific papers, the standard method of announcing the discovery of a previously unknown species. “It is humbling to realise that humankind has encountered and described only a fraction of our oceanic kin, perhaps as little as 11%,” said Dr Mees. | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'science/taxonomy', 'science/biology', 'type/article', 'tone/news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-03-12T06:01:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/dec/26/alarm-over-amazon-road-project-brazil-bolsonaro-biodoverse-indigenous-communities | 'It's as if we've learned nothing': alarm over Amazon road project | Brazilian activists have voiced alarm over their government’s plans to bulldoze a 94-mile highway through a biodiverse corner of the Amazon along the border with Peru that is home to at least three indigenous communities. The planned road is an extension of the BR-364, a 2,700-mile highway that links São Paulo with the Amazon state of Acre, and would connect the town of Cruzeiro do Sul with the Peruvian border town of Pucallpa. Backers of the “transoceanic” project, who include Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, argue it will boost the economy of this remote region by creating a transport hub through which agricultural products can be shipped to Pacific ports in Peru and on to China. “This project won’t destroy the forest, it will bring sustainable development to the region by heating up commercial and cultural relations [with Peru],” said Mara Rocha, a centre-right congresswoman from Acre who supports the idea. Rocha said the project was critical to a region that felt “forgotten and invisible to the rest of the country”. Opponents, however, fear it could have catastrophic consequences for Brazil’s environment, which is already reeling under Bolsonaro as the rate of Amazon deforestation soars to its highest level in more than a decade. A report in the Estado de São Paulo newspaper said an 80-mile (130km) stretch of pristine forest would need to be felled to build the road, which would cut through the centre of the protected Serra do Divisor national park. Experts call the park one of the Amazon’s most biodiverse regions, hosting at least 130 species of mammal and more than 400 species of bird. Brazilian lawmakers are considering plans to water down its protections in an apparent attempt to accelerate the road’s construction. Luís Puwe Puyanawa, a local indigenous leader who opposes the project, said: “The truth is that nobody in Acre needs this transoceanic route – there’s already a road linking us to Peru. What we need is to leave the forest standing.” Miguel Scarcello, the head of SOS Amazônia, an environmental group based in the state capital, Rio Branco, described the project as “irresponsible” and a throwback to Brazil’s military dictatorship when roads where bulldozed through the Amazon in an attempt to populate and develop the region. “It’s such an old-fashioned, backwards vision … that pays absolutely no attention to conservation. It will cut through an untouched area of forest and affect the headwaters of really important tributaries of the Juruá River,” Scarcello said. He described how during the 1964-85 dictatorship such roads “decimated” indigenous communities and inflicted “immense destruction” on the rainforest, as loggers used them to access previously inaccessible areas. “We’re not in the 1960s any more,” Scarcello said. “It’s as if we’ve learned nothing from the effects that this could cause and how much destruction could be caused.” He added: “They say it will bring development but, as always, it will be development for half a dozen people,” and he warned of a “carnival of land grabbing” that would accompany the planned road. If the project is approved, three indigenous communities near the road will reportedly be affected: Nukini, Jaminawa and Poyanawa. Scarcello said it was possible the national park was also home to isolated tribes with whom contact had not been made. Puyanawa, 41, said he feared his community would be worst hit. “The road is expected to pass within about a kilometre of our lands. One of my biggest concerns is that this stretch is home to some of the most important water sources of the Amazon basin. The Alto Juruá provides all the waters that flow into the Rio Solimões and then Rio Negro, until they reach the sea,” he said. “All of these rivers could be really affected and this could cause the disappearance of important headwaters in the Amazon. With that, many species could disappear.” Puyanawa said plans for such a route had been touted by politicians for decades but appeared to have accelerated since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. “Nobody has wanted it as much as Bolsonaro,” he said. Bolsonaro has overseen a highly controversial dismantling of Brazil’s environmental protection system, causing Amazon deforestation to skyrocket, critics say. Last month government figures showed Amazon destruction had surged to a 12-year high, with an area seven times larger than Greater London lost between August 2019 and July 2020. That increase has been blamed on the feeling of impunity that Bolsonaro’s presidency has brought illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and miners seeking to cash in. “They feel completely at ease,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany. “We are being governed by people whose motto for the environment is: destruction.” The BR-364 extension, which Bolsonaro has publicly backed as a means to give Brazil “a passage to the Pacific”, is not the only Amazon road project worrying environmentalists and climate campaigners. Last week his administration said it would begin repaving the BR-319, a decaying dictatorship-era highway that cuts north to south through the Amazon from Manaus to Porto Velho. “A historic day for the north!” Bolsonaro wrote on Facebook, announcing the news. But in a recent essay, Prof Philip Fearnside, an ecologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research, said reviving the BR-319, which has been abandoned since late 1980s, “would give deforesters access to about half of what remains of the country’s Amazon forest” and was “certainly among the most consequential decisions facing Brazil today”. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/brazil', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'profile/tomphillips', 'profile/caio-barretto-briso', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-26T06:00:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2017/feb/01/weatherwatch-hot-dry-conditions-fan-wildfires-in-chile | Hot, dry conditions fan wildfires in Chile | Raging wildfires have swept across central and southern Chile, claiming at least 11 lives and destroying more than 400,000 acres of forest over the past week. Reported as the worst disaster in Chilean history, the fires were aggravated by a combination of strong winds, historically high temperatures and almost a decade of drought. In the presently arid and water-scarce environment of Chile, the relative humidity of the atmosphere (the ratio of the amount of moisture present in the air to the amount needed for saturation at the same temperature) is extremely low. This, together with extreme summer temperatures and gusty winds, ignites the flames, and drives the rapid, widespread burning. In Australia, parts of New South Wales and Victoria have been placed on a total fire ban as winds gust over 40mph and daytime temperatures exceed 40C. Sydney has had nine days hotter than 35C, with night-time temperatures not budging below a relentless 30C. Meanwhile, the Midwest of the US has been engulfed in a blanket of cloud, from sunrise to sunset, for more than a week. Many places have had average cloud cover of 100%, or eight oktas, for eight days straight. This is because of the jet stream plunging southward, allowing warmer, moist air from the southern states to glide over the colder, snow-covered Midwest, creating a temperature inversion within the atmosphere. Thus, air becomes saturated, and condenses to form banks of thick, low-lying cloud and advection fog, which is not likely to disperse until the wind direction changes. | ['news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/chile', 'weather/chile', 'world/wildfires', 'weather/index/southamerica', 'environment/summer', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-02-01T21:30:12Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2018/jul/28/greece-wildfires-firefighters-attack-government-response | Greek firefighters join public outcry at ‘woeful’ response to lethal wildfires | Fury over the Greek government’s handling of forest fires that saw scores of people burn to death barely 15 miles from Athens has escalated. As the death toll rose to 88, firefighters joined the public outcry with an excoriating indictment of the rescue operation. Authorities had not only been woefully ill prepared to deal with the wind-driven wildfire, but had failed to apologise for the tragedy, said Dimitris Stathopoulos, who heads the 12,500-strong Federation of Firefighters. “The government might be saying there were no grave operational mistakes, but what it isn’t saying is that there were thousands of small mistakes,” he told the Observer. “All those mistakes make the big mistake and that is why we had such an unprecedented number of deaths.” The fire brigade recommended the evacuation of the area but had not been listened to, he said. Moreover, the meteorological service had failed to predict winds of up to 124km/h. This resulted in firefighting aircraft being grounded. “They simply couldn’t take off in such winds. If the meteorological service had raised the danger level and issued a warning, the planes could have gone to a different airport,” he insisted. “And because they weren’t foreseen our resources were scattered.” The leftist-led government has been left reeling from the disaster. In what has become one of the worst natural disasters in living memory, many victims were children and rescue crews are still combing the land and sea for missing people. From the outset authorities appear to have underestimated the scale and speed of the fires along the Attica coast. When the blazes had already obliterated the seaside resort of Mati, where the death toll was highest, prime minister Alexis Tsipras appeared ill-informed of the magnitude of the calamity, telling Greeks after a meeting at the emergency services operational command centre: “Our fellow citizens are in danger … some are trapped on the beaches. We should all be vigilant. This is an extremely difficult situation for Attica and the country.” On Friday the leader assumed political responsibility for the tragedy but stopped short of satisfying calls for the resignation of Nikos Toskas, the civil protection minister and other officials. Addressing his cabinet he repeated Toskas’s assertion that evidence seemed to point to arson. But on Saturday the fire service’s arson crime unit rejected that theory, claiming it had very likely been sparked by someone burning wood in the area of Daou Penteli, where the wildfire is now known to have started. The Greek daily Kathimerini said the culprit’s identity was already known. “Greek governments have traditionally found it convenient to blame profiteers, arsonists, terrorists, and even foreign agents,” Tsipras’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, averred. “With such incendiary claims … officials avoid having to admit their lack of preparedness and their failure to adopt and enforce appropriate laws and safety regulations.” As the fallout intensified, two deputy mayors in Marathon, the area worst hit by the fires, resigned, saying their conscience did not allow them to remain in their posts. Echoing Varoufakis’s argument that austerity inflicted on Greece had also played a role in the inability of authorities to respond effectively to the disaster, Stathopoulos admitted that budget cuts had rendered at least 30% of the service’s fire engines useless. The debt-stricken country has applied the tough measures in return for bailout loans to keep bankruptcy at bay. “About 15% of our fleet of 1,750 trucks are off the roads because they have chronic problems and are old,” he said. “Another 15% are in need of spare parts which we can’t afford. As firefighters we take an oath to protect people and their properties. We know when to recommend that areas be evacuated, but for some reason our recommendation was not heard. This is a huge tragedy for our country and apologies are owed.” | ['world/greece', 'world/wildfires', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/helenasmith', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-07-28T15:21:54Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2020/jul/23/sydney-auditors-still-licensed-in-australia-after-being-banned-in-us-over-work-on-renewables-firm | Sydney auditors still licensed in Australia after being banned in US over work on renewables firm | Two Sydney auditors who US authorities banned over their work on a renewable energy company have retained their licences to practise in Australia. The US public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB) last month banned Darryl Swindells, Aidan Smith and the firm they work for, HLB Mann Judd, over audits of BlueNRGY Group covering the years 2012 to 2017. BlueNRGY was a solar power business that at one point held the franchise to use the Westinghouse brand. The former deputy prime minister and National party leader Mark Vaile was chairman of the company, under its old name of CBD Energy, between 2008 and January 2013. There is no suggestion Vaile has done anything wrong and he could not be reached for comment. Swindells and HLB Mann Judd may reapply for registration after three years and Smith after one, but a spokeswoman for the firm said it had no intention of doing any more work in the US. The board handed out its bans on 29 June but on Wednesday afternoon Swindells and Smith were still listed as registered auditors by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. “We’re aware of the PCAOB findings and the penalties imposed,” an Asic spokesman said. “We are still reviewing the matter and cannot comment further at this time.” Swindells and Smith did not respond to Guardian Australia’s detailed questions about the case. However, a spokeswoman for HLB Mann Judd confirmed the board’s ruling related to the firm’s audits of BlueNRGY. She said that the board inspected the firm in 2018 as part of a “routine review of audits”. “HLB Mann Judd cooperated fully with this inspection and was disappointed that the PCAOB decided to take further action,” she said. “HLB Mann Judd has a team of experienced and highly qualified auditors and takes its responsibilities, both to clients and to the appropriate regulatory authorities, very seriously. “Whilst the firm had a defence against the allegations made by the PCAOB, HLB Mann Judd chose to reach a settlement on a ‘no admit/no deny’ basis.” She said the firm had paid fines totalling US$75,000 imposed on it by the board and had “no intention of carrying out any further US audit work”. “The firm has made Asic aware of the order issued by the PCAOB.” HLB was required to be registered with US authorities because BlueNRGY was at one time listed on the American Nasdaq exchange. The firm re-audited BlueNRGY’s 2012 and 2013 accounts after the previous auditors, PwC, resigned. The PCAOB alleged Swindells failed to properly consider the differences between Australian and US audit standards. Other failures include not properly assessing the risk of fraud in the 2015 and 2017 audits and failure to properly test revenue in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, the board said. It alleged Smith failed to properly assess the value of goodwill in the business in the 2017 audit. | ['australia-news/business-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-butler', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2020-07-23T07:01:17Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/sep/28/edf-considers-extending-life-of-two-uk-nuclear-plants-due-to-energy-crisis-hartlepool-heysham | EDF considers extending life of two UK nuclear plants due to energy crisis | France’s EDF is considering extending the life of two British nuclear power plants due to the severity of the energy crisis. EDF said on Wednesday that it would review whether there was a case to keep open the Hartlepool nuclear power plant in County Durham and Heysham 1 on the north-west coast of England near Lancaster. Both plants had been scheduled to close in March 2024. EDF operates all of Britain’s eight nuclear power plants, five of which are still providing power to the grid, about 13% of the UK’s electricity. The entire fleet is due to shut by 2028 apart from Sizewell B, which will close in 2035. When EDF took over the nuclear fleet in 2009, Heysham 1 and Hartlepool were due to run until 2014. After technical reviews, that was extended to 2019 and then, in 2016, a further five-year extension was approved after further reviews. Sources said any extra lifespan for the stations was likely to be far shorter than previous extensions. The stations – which produce 2.2 gigawatts of power, enough to power 3.5m homes – have been operational for four decades. EDF said it had decided to launch the review “in light of the severity of the energy crisis and the results of recent graphite inspections” and said an extension would “depend on the results of graphite inspections over the coming months”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked turmoil in energy markets and sent gas and electricity prices soaring. It has also caused an international dash for gas supplies and raised concerns over potential blackouts this winter. The government has moved to shore up winter energy supplies, signing deals to keep coal-fired power stations in Yorkshire and the east Midlands on standby including EDF’s West Burton A plant in Nottinghamshire. Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, said: “The government has had no option but to keep these plants on longer term. It underlines that we need a long-term plan for energy generation. We’re a decade late on nuclear and if we don’t move fast enough we will miss the boat on other fuels, like hydrogen. The government needs to give people the confidence to invest.” Some power-generation companies, including those on nuclear, old solar and windfarm contracts have landed an unexpected windfall from the jump in electricity prices while their costs have not risen, triggering calls for a windfall tax. EDF said its nuclear fleet would generate 42 terawatt hours of power in 2022. It said that, because it had sold its output in advance, it had delivered at “well below current wholesale prices”. The Guardian revealed earlier this month that Centrica, which owns a 20% stake in the nuclear fleet alongside EDF, wants to renegotiate its electricity-generation contracts. Tom Burke, co-founder of the green thinktank E3G, said: “In the current climate it makes a lot of sense [to extend the plants’ lifespans]. The question is mainly about the cost: is the extra time you’re buying worth the cost of keeping it safe? The Office for Nuclear Regulation are not going to play fast and loose with safety so then it depends on the spend. With electricity prices where they are now it probably does make sense.” EDF said it plans to invest £1bn in the nuclear fleet from 2023 to 2025. The debt-laden company, which is being fully nationalised by the French government, is developing the delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point C project in Somerset. It is also behind plans for a sister station, Sizewell C, in Suffolk, which was given the green light in the final days of Boris Johnson’s premiership. Tom Greatrex, the chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said: “Getting the most out of our existing nuclear stations is vital to ensuring Britain has a secure supply of power going forward.” The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, on Tuesday pledged to launch Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company run on clean UK power, if elected. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'business/edf', 'environment/energy', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'business/energy-industry', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'uk-news/lancashire', 'travel/county-durham', 'business/cost-of-living-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alex-lawson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2022-09-28T17:35:06Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2007/dec/13/climatechange.bali1 | US told to 'wake up' over climate change | The war of words between the US and the EU over climate change policy escalated today as the EU threatened to boycott US-led talks on the environment if it continued to block emissions targets. As the deadlocked UN climate change conference in Bali entered its final days, delegates had still not agreed on a deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a UN pact which caps greenhouse gas emissions of all industrial nations except the US until 2012. The US is opposing plans to make industrialised countries reduce emissions by between 25% and 40% by 2020. Next month it is hosting a meeting of 17 of the world's top-emitting nations, including China, Russia and India, to discuss long-term curbs on greenhouse gases. However Humberto Rosa, the environment secretary of Portugal, which currently holds the EU presidency, said today: 'If we [were to] have a failure in Bali it would be meaningless to have a Major Economies' Meeting (MEM) in the United States. "We are not blackmailing," he said at the 190-nation meeting. "If no Bali, no MEM." White House spokeswoman Kristin Hellmer responded by saying: "We don't feel that comments like that are very constructive when we are working so hard to find common ground." Delegates in Bali are seeking to agree on a new climate treaty to tackle the effects of global warming once Kyoto expires. No agreement has yet been reached, and the EU is blaming Washington for obstructing the process, with officials demanding that the US "wake up". It is supported by the former US vice president and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who accused the US of being "principally responsible" for blocking progress on climate change prevention. At a conference speech earlier today, Gore urged delegates at the conference to take urgent action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali," he said. But he said the US was not the only one which could take steps against climate change, and urged that the conference leave a "blank space" in their negioations for a new treaty, to be filled in by a new US administration in 2008. "Over the next two years, the US is going to be somewhere it's not now – you must accept that," he said. He also called for implementing the new global warming treaty two years earlier than planned - in 2010 - because "we can't afford to wait another five years to replace the provisions of Kyoto". Stavros Dimas, the European commissioner for the environment, said that the 25-40% cut in emissions for rich countries was an "indispensable" part of a text that must be agreed in Bali tomorrow night if nations are to join together to fight climate change. The US wants the figures removed from the document, which will provide the foundation for a new global treaty on global warming after Kyoto expires. EU officials argue the targets are crucial because the world needs an idea of where it is heading, whereas Washington argues nations have been quick to agree to targets and then have failed to meet them. The disagreement threatens the prospect of the talks in Bali ending in failure. The UN climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said he was worried the US-EU impasse could derail the process and said a final "Bali roadmap" would contain an agreement to negotiate a new climate deal by 2009, but may not include specific targets for emission reductions. The United States delegation said while it continued to reject the inclusion of specific emission cuts, it hopes to eventually reach an agreement that is "environmentally effective" and "economically sustainable". Haggling over numbers now was counterproductive, said Jim Connaughton, the chairman of the White House council on environmental quality. The United States is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. and the only major industrial country to have rejected the Kyoto protocol. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/bali', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'profile/davidadam'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2007-12-13T16:30:37Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
science/2003/sep/03/biodiversity.research | Alarm at decline in familiar bird species | The cuckoo, starling and skylark are becoming increasingly rare sights in Britain, and the willow tit could soon disappear altogether. Some of Britain's best-loved birds have seen their population plummet in recent years, according to a new study. In total, 29 of the 105 main UK bird species monitored by the British Trust for Ornithology in the study are in decline. Scientists think that changes in land use, farming practices and house design as well as rising pollution have contributed to the fall. "There are some worrying declines in certain species," said Mike Raven of the trust. "The willow tit has seen the population crash by 72% in the last eight years. It's getting so rare now that it will be very hard to observe and track in future surveys." It is unclear why the bird is doing so badly, particularly in the south of England. "Competition from other species is always possible but it could also be a loss of habitat," Mr Raven said. Willow tits are unusual in that they dig out their own nest hole, so they favour damp woodlands with lots of rotting wood. "They are certainly doing better in the north, particularly Yorkshire, than in the south but extinction is a possibility," he said. The redback shrike used to be a common sight in the UK, but was declared extinct in Britain in 1989. The survey also raises alarm bells over the turtle dove, which features in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas and has suffered a 42% decline. It also confirms that house sparrows are on the wane in England: despite population increases in Scotland and Wales, numbers in England are down 13%, with pollution in London contributing to the most startling population decline of 71%. "The house sparrows have suffered from a lack of winter feeding areas, changes in the roof design of houses, which affects their nesting, and of course London's pollution levels," Mr Raven said. "They are dying out and it's been going on for longer than the eight years of the survey." Other endangered birds are the spotted flycatcher, once a relatively common sight in the garden but now down 42%, the bullfinch (down 26%), the kestrel (down 30%) and the starling (down 13%). The breeding birds survey was started in 1994, and is carried out each year by British Trust for Ornithology and RSPB volunteers. During each breeding season, volunteers make three dawn visits to an area to record the birds they see and hear. Some 52 of the 105 species increased between 1994 and 2002, with 12 of them soaring by more than 50%. These include the kingfisher (up 76%), the goldcrest (up 65%) and the greater spotted woodpecker (up 72%). Robin populations rose by 16%. "Many of the larger fluctuations in species can be accounted for by a mild or hard winter," Mr Raven explained. With an increase of 153%, stonechats have clearly thrived in recent mild winters, yet this could change with a cold snap. | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'education/research', 'education/higher-education', 'education/science', 'environment/conservation', 'education/education', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/davidadam', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/life', 'theguardian/life/features'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2003-09-03T11:19:19Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2024/oct/23/asheville-north-carolina-cookouts-hurricane-helene | Disaster dining: cookouts became a lifeline in a hurricane-ravaged North Carolina city | Erin Kellem’s Asheville, North Carolina neighborhood is a short drive from the city center, but feels remote. The Haw Creek area’s culs-de-sac are fronted by spacious yards and surrounded by thick woods that give the illusion of isolation. Hurricane Helene changed that, dropping an ocean of rain on the southern Appalachian mountains. Floods of biblical proportions killed dozens. Power outages left thousands without electricity for at least two weeks in most places. There was no gas or cellphone service for days following the storm, and most of the city is still without potable water. Roads disappeared under rushing water and mud. The help that was on its way had no way in, and those stranded in their homes had no way of checking on loved ones. “Anyone in the neighborhood with a chainsaw came out to help clear the roads,” said Kellem, whose family has lived in Haw Creek for 22 years. “When it became obvious that we weren’t getting power back any time soon and our freezers were beginning to thaw, we collectively said: ‘Well, what do we have in our freezers? And what can we all make with it?’” Like so many around town, Kellem and her neighbors dug through their fridges and freezers, pooled their wilting veggies and thawed meats to feed one another. “Our neighbors told us they were also planning what they called a ‘freezer burn’, and told us to bring a grill or camp stove if we had one,” said Taylor Aurilio, who lives near the Smith Mill Creek neighborhood, on the western side of the city. “I think they were expecting maybe a dozen people, but it ended up being about 30 people. Neighbors were wheeling their grills down from their houses, bringing all the meat from their freezers. And the next thing you know you’ve got a grill doing Mexican food, one doing Asian food, another doing barbecue. We all ate and brought things back to put on the ice in our coolers. It was awesome.” Rachel Wingo is a social worker who lives in West Asheville, on a small block between the interstate and the Pisgah View public housing community. She proudly said, “We are a super diverse neighborhood. We are a community of Russian-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and English-speaking families,” and some neighbors had a history of exceptional potlucks even before the storm. “We were all checking in on each other, seeing what everyone needed,” said Wingo. “We all had to clean out our freezers and refrigerators pretty quickly.” They picked the vegetables from their gardens as there was a cold snap just around the corner in the forecast. “We had some tomatoes, I had some garlic, a few onions … My garden washed away in the rains, so I could only gather what was left. But that turned into our first meal.” She’s not a big meat eater, but had bought a food subscription box from a local farmer. She didn’t really know how to cook the meat that came with the groceries. So all that beef was in her freezer and in danger of going bad. She walked the meat across the street to Salvadoran neighbors. “And they made carne asada with it. They explained to me that they cooked it very dry … and it didn’t have to be refrigerated. And you could still eat it for a couple of days. So I had multiple days of carne asada.” In some neighborhoods, there were multiple days of community meals. While Aurilio’s area enjoyed one big bonfire, Kellem’s family attended a cookout every night for a week. For Wingo and her neighbors, it has been three weeks and counting. The power is back on, but many challenges remain and multiple sources of food have been disrupted. So they’re still cooking for each other. She marveled: “We did all of this with no money. We just used whatever we already had.” Her favorite meal of the whole affair was one evening at the home of Marty Gutierrez and her family. Gutierrez runs a home-based custom cake shop, Marty’s Cakes & Desserts. She served banana bread, grilled meats and veggies for tacos. Someone else fried nopales, a kind of edible cactus. The owner of a local natural wine shop called Crocodile Wines showed up with a case of wine. “That one was at the center of the neighborhood, and everyone showed up. Adults, kids, older folks, people I’d never met, people who didn’t speak the same languages but just showed up anyway!” Wingo remembered. It was a moment. Generosity won. And a community bonded over the shared distress of living in a city where wrecked infrastructure means you can’t drink from the tap, cook with its water or just pop out to the grocery store due to road closures or power outages. How long the recovery will take, no one knows. “None of us are hoarding supplies. None of us are being weird about it,” said Wingo. “We’re all prepared for the worst. We all had pantries, but we shared what we had. Over that grill, wine and banana bread, I realized we’re all going to be okay. “Before this, I probably knew the names of the dogs in our neighborhood more than I did their parents,” she said with a laugh. It took a catastrophic hurricane and weeks of power and water outages to turn those neighbors into friends – at least for a short time. Wingo’s Buttonwood Court is slated for demolition due to a massive interstate expansion that will gut the neighborhood like a knife. | ['environment/series/our-unequal-earth', 'us-news/hurricane-helene', 'food/food', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-special-projects'] | us-news/hurricane-helene | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-23T17:00:31Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/nov/20/sand-dams-water-crisis | Sand dams voted best solution in water crisis debate | An ancient water-saving technique thousands of years old that could save millions of people from drought last night won the ringing endorsement of an audience at the Geographical Society in London. Sand dams, which are constructed out of concrete barriers 1-5m high and backfilled with sand, were voted as the best idea from five different proposals. Each idea had a champion who argued how they would use the virtual prize of $1bn at the Earthwatch debate entitled From tsunami to drought to solve the world's water crisis. When seasonal rains fall, water collects behind the dam. The sand acts like a sponge and filters the water and slows evaporation. Clean water can be drawn for up to several months after the rains have fallen through pipes underneath the dams or by digging a hole in the sand. Simon Maddrell, the executive director of Excellent Development, won the prize after pitching his idea to three experts - John Burton from the World Land Trust, Mark Shearer from Project Dirt, and Rick Bauer, a water expert from Oxfam - who quizzed each of the presenters in a "Dragons' Den" style panel. Maddrell said that the technique was developed by the Romans in 400BC but was proving very effective today. The charity has built 250 sand dams in Africa already, providing water for 250,000 people. Maddrell said the sand dams had the potential to give up to 3 million people access to clean water in the drylands of Africa, and would be of particular benefit to women. "Women in Africa do most of the farming. Sometimes they have to spend up to 5-6 hours a day just collecting water. Sand dams near to their village would reduce this to an hour a day. They are quite simply a miracle." Other ideas competing for the notional prize were a Global Water Partnership Fund to measure and monitor water use around the world presented by Tom Le Quesne from WWF-UK; a demonstration project to build a waterway between Milton Keynes and Bedford presented by Professor Paul Leonard; a technical strategy presented by Professor Howard Wheater of Imperial College, and a plan to scrap subsidies to water companies from Robert Pendray, a 20-year-old student at Merton College, Oxford. | ['environment/water', 'environment/drought', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'science/science', 'katine/katine', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/felicitycarus'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-11-20T12:33:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2021/may/05/romanias-extreme-conditions-from-danube-freezing-winters-to-42c-summers | Romania’s extreme conditions: from Danube-freezing winters to 42C summers | Like other countries in south-east Europe, Romania has a temperate continental climate, with very warm summers and cold, snowy winters. In the capital, Bucharest, summer temperatures regularly reach the mid-30s, while in winter they drop well below zero. Springs are short – the shift between winter and summer taking place rapidly between mid-April and mid-May. Winters are often cold enough to freeze many of the country’s smaller rivers. The largest, the Danube, also freezes occasionally – most recently in 2012, a very cold winter, when temperatures plummeted as low as -32.5C. In January 2014, severe blizzards shut down the south-east of the country. Summer heatwaves can also be extreme: in 2012, temperatures rose to 42C, causing a number of excess deaths. Precipitation is fairly low away from the mountain ranges such as the Carpathians, and occurs mostly during spring and summer, sometimes accompanied by thunderstorms. Winds often blow from the Russian steppes to the north and east; they can be bone-chillingly cold in winter but very hot and dry in summer. Romania’s only coastline is a stretch running for 141 miles (225km) along the western shores of the Black Sea. Here, conditions are less extreme than elsewhere in the country, with considerably less rainfall, making resorts such as Constanta a popular holiday destination. • This article was amended on 7 May 2021. The Black Sea is not landlocked as stated in an earlier version. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/environment', 'world/romania', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-05-05T05:00:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2021/apr/19/cricket-england-logistical-headaches-india-placed-on-covid-red-list | Cricket in England faces logistical headaches after India placed on ‘red list’ | Cricket faces another summer of logistical headaches after India was placed on the so-called “red list” for travel to the UK – a decision which could have knock-on effects for England’s international fixtures and the World Test Championship final. Elite sportspeople and support staff have an exemption that allows them to travel to the UK from an otherwise banned red-list country. However, this still requires a 10-day stay in a government-approved quarantine hotel upon arrival, with no special dispensation to leave for training or to compete. Both the England and Wales Cricket Board and International Cricket Council have been braced for the possibility of India being added to the red list – something confirmed on Monday – with the country experiencing a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that has seen it record more than 200,000 cases daily since Thursday 15 April. The question now is how this affects the England and New Zealand cricketers who are currently at the Indian Premier League and intend to fly in for the two-match Test series that starts at Lord’s on 2 June, as well as India’s arrival for the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton later that month. Steve Elworthy, the ECB director of events who led last year’s “biosecure” summer, is currently liaising with the UK government on the matter, with an ICC source saying the inaugural World Test Championship final could potentially receive an exemption as an “event of national significance” that would allow some flexibility over logistics. Chiefly this would mean the Rose Bowl and its on-site hotel being cleared for red list arrivals by reverting to the full biosecure setup that enabled it to successfully stage international fixtures last season, along with Old Trafford and Derby. The ECB’s track record here – no positive cases recorded in any of those 2020 bubbles – certainly helps its case, and the Rose Bowl was chosen ahead of Lord’s as the host venue for the showpiece match in the event of a contingency plan being required. However, the England v New Zealand Test series that comes first at Lord’s and then Edgbaston – where teams will stay in hotels off-site – could well lead to players on both sides being ruled out unless additional exemptions are granted. Elite sportspeople travelling from countries not on the red list can undergo their 10-day isolation anywhere and train or compete off-site during this time. Those from red list countries must stay in a government-approved hotel at a cost of £1,750 per person and cannot leave, with PCR tests on day two and day eight. Test and release, the fast-track scheme for overseas arrivals, does not apply here either. England were already planning to be without those players who reach the IPL knockout stages but with the group stage ending on 23 May – 10 days before the first Test – India being on the red list could rule out Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran and Moeen Ali either way. The bulk of New Zealand’s 20-man squad will be travelling from their home country – neither on the red list or expected to be – but their captain, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson and Mitchell Santner are similarly at the IPL and so could face an initial 10-day hotel isolation away from their teammates. An ECB spokesperson told the Guardian: “We are currently discussing with Government the impact of countries being on the ‘red list’. By working collaboratively, we demonstrated how we can stage international cricket safely in the middle of a pandemic and hope to be able to do so again this year.” India’s smooth arrival may well hinge on the Rose Bowl’s status – an ICC spokesperson has said the global governing body is “monitoring the situation” – but further arrangements would then need to be made for when Virat Kohli’s players return in July before the five-Test series against England that starts the following month. The India women’s team is also due in the UK for a multi-format series against Heather Knight’s side that begins on 16 June. Pakistan, already on the red list, are also sending over their men’s team for six white-ball matches against England in July. An ICC spokesperson said: “We are currently discussing with the UK Government the impact of countries being on the ‘red list’. The ECB and other Members have demonstrated how we can stage international cricket safely in the middle of a pandemic and we are confident that we can continue to do that and that the World Test Championship Final will go ahead as planned in June in the UK.” | ['sport/england-cricket-team', 'sport/ecb', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ali-martin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-04-19T16:17:43Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
australia-news/article/2024/jul/08/every-step-of-the-way-no-one-cared-queensland-pensioner-says-solar-farm-next-door-has-left-her-unable-to-sell-her-property | ‘Every step of the way, no one cared’: Queensland pensioner says solar farm next door has left her unable to sell her property | Properties like Karen Mansbridge’s usually sell within 30 days but her home has been on the market for eight months. The two-hectare hobby farm in the South Burnett region, 160km north-west of Brisbane, was receiving so few inquiries the real estate agent decided to remove the address from the listing. Interest picked up – until buyers were reluctantly given the address. “They’d fly over it on Google Maps and go ‘nup’,” her real estate agent says. Mansbridge purchased the house three years ago. It’s 300 metres from the newly constructed Kingaroy solar farm. No one wants to live so close. “I really feel for her, it’s the only place that’s been on the market for that long,” the agent tells Guardian Australia. It’s an example of one of the concerns most frequently raised by communities near renewable energy developments: that it could hit their property prices. The former national energy infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer says there’s no credible evidence that suggests property values are systemically affected. But he added there “may be particular examples where it may have an impact”. Mansbridge, sobbing in her living room as she speaks to Guardian Australia, is one of those examples. The pensioner has spent years battling cancer. Every month she fails to sell is one less month spent living closer to her children. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Mansbridge and her neighbours hired lawyers and wrote to government officials to try to stop the project, but she says: “Every step of the way, no one cared, every government office, no one gave a shit.” The solar farm was built by Metlen Energy & Metals (formerly known as Mytilineos), a Greek renewable energy developer. To compensate for disruptions during construction, they provided Mansbridge with a $110 voucher to spend at the local RSL in town, a new water filter to combat construction dust and dug a few holes on her property for trees to eventually block views of solar panels creeping up a distant hill. They also washed the dust off her house once construction was complete. A neighbour received a voucher for a massage to deal with the stress. In a statement, a Metlen Energy & Metals spokesperson said the company was committed to working with the Kingaroy community to address social and environmental issues and was prioritising complaints with the “utmost care and attention”. “We strictly adhere to all regulations and standards set by all relevant authorities and levels of governance,” they said. Another landowner whose property backs the solar farm, who did not wish to be named, says the proponent’s lawyers “flat out refused” any form of significant compensation. They feel helpless. And this, compounded by a sense that rural Australia is carrying an unfair burden for the country’s energy transition, is feeding growing animosity towards the renewable energy rollout in regional areas. Poor community engagement by some developers contributes to that animosity. It’s then layered over mis- and disinformation spreading online to create a febrile environment which has been stoked for political gain. Lacklustre community consultation was one reason behind the South Burnett regional council’s decision to call for a moratorium on renewable energy projects unless strict conditions were met. “It’s about allowing time to get the planning guidelines right,” says the mayor, Kathy Duff. The original proponent of the solar farm, Terrain Solar, took the council to the Queensland planning and environment court after it knocked back the development application in 2018. After slight adjustments were made to the plans, the project was approved. “If we go against a development application, the planning court just overrules it … we have no say where these are going to end up,” Duff says. The solar farm was approved by state and local governments in early 2020. Mansbridge bought her property in January 2021 but says that because of the change in developers she didn’t know at the time that the project was still going ahead. Damien Martoo, the president of the Kingaroy chamber of commerce, says there is more to be gained by working with renewable developers than trying to use roadblocks that “open the door for these developers to go elsewhere or through the back door”. “If [the proposed development] is ticking all their boxes by law, then it’s going to happen anyway. You might as well build the relationships and make sure we are entitled to every cent, every piece of compensation we can get,” he says. Martoo says the consultation methods used by some developers have left communities feeling cold. The failure to compensate neighbouring landholders for direct impacts or loss of property values has also further soured the relationship. “People want to sit down with a real person and have their concerns heard,” Martoo says. “It’s coffee and cake or beer and a steak.” Locals in Kingaroy tell Guardian Australia they are concerned about inappropriate development and loss of local amenity. Abating global heating is rarely listed as a consideration. “I’m a strong Christian and I believe that God controls the weather,” Duff says. Suzanne Mungall, the organiser of a local environmental group, South Burnett Sustainable Future Network, says that regardless of views on the climate crisis, the region should welcome economic development. “Economically this is a very sensible move for our region … if we don’t do this we will have void of economic opportunity,” she says. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community • This story was amended on 8 July 2024 to clarify that Karen Mansbridge bought her property after the solar farm was approved. | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/aston-brown', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-07-07T15:00:11Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/mar/10/uk-lost-sea-meadows-to-be-resurrected-in-climate-emergency-fight | UK's lost sea meadows to be resurrected in climate fight | “We think this whole bay was once carpeted with seagrass,” says Evie Furness, waving across the sparkling, sunlit waters of Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The underwater meadow is long gone though, a victim of past pollution and shipping. So from a boat half a mile from shore, Furness is feeding a long rope into the water, which carries a little hessian bag of seagrass seeds every metre. “We’ve passed the 800,000 seed mark now,” she says. The Seagrass Ocean Rescue project will ultimately place 20km of rope and a million seeds on the shallow seafloor, where they will sprout through the bags and restore the habitat. Seagrass meadows were once common around the UK coast, but more than 90% have been lost as a result of algae-boosting pollution, anchor damage and port and marina building. The meadows, however, store carbon 35 times faster than tropical rainforests and harbour up to 40 times more marine life than seabeds without grass, facts that are driving the effort to bring them back. “We face a growing climate emergency and a biodiversity emergency, and we have to make rapid steps to fight those,” says Richard Unsworth at Swansea University and lead biologist on the £400,000 project, which is supported by WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue. Seagrass covers just 0.2% of the ocean but provides an estimated 10% of its carbon storage. It is in trouble around the world, and Unsworth hopes the first project of its kind in the UK may help boost take-up of this nature-based solution to the climate crisis. Seagrass can grow up to 1 metre long. Its flowers are pollinated by shrimps and other creatures, as well as water currents. The seeds are like small pine nuts and many have been placed in their growbags by volunteer schoolchildren. The first green shoots should appear by October. The huge past losses of seagrass means allowing nature to recolonise the bay in its own time is not an option. “It’s hard for people to understand how screwed the ocean is. It’s out of sight and out of mind,” says Unsworth. “The environment here has got stuck in an anoxic, algae-rich, muddy state. You have to intervene.” The project is the culmination of eight years of laboratory and sea trials and extensive discussions with the local community. “This is perfect habitat, really sheltered, and it’s all coming together here,” he says. The seeds were collected over 300 hours of diving at the few remaining seagrass meadows at theLlŷn peninsula in north Wales and on the coasts of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. “It’s like underwater blackberry picking,” says Unsworth, describing plucking the “spades” that contain the seeds. The seeds harvested at Llŷn were about 0.05% of the total, so the meadow there was not damaged. Seagrass has a high turnover of leaves and the dead ones fall into oxygen-poor sediments below where they trap carbon. The meadows also slow currents, allowing other organic material to drift down and be trapped, potentially for thousands of years. The meadows are also a rich habitat, providing shelter and food for juvenile cod, plaice and other species. The 20,000 square metres being restored in Dale Bay could also support cuttlefish, pipefish and seahorses, and 200 million invertebrates such as the snakelocks anemone, stalked jellyfish and colourful snails. Seagrass meadows around the world also provide nurseries for a fifth of the world’s biggest fishing species, including pollock, herring and whiting, meaning their restoration can improve catches. Unsworth says the process of gathering seeds and planting them could be made less expensive in future with mechanisation. A large restoration project in Chesapeake Bay in the US used underwater equipment akin to combine harvesters to collect seeds and where the currents were favourable, they were able to simply scatter the seeds. UK waters are cleaner now following EU water directives in recent decades, Unsworth says: “We want thousands of hectares of seagrass restored and the opportunity exists in this country now. The Stour, Orwell and Humber estuaries, for example. These places are ripe for it.” Next in the team’s sights are locations in North Wales, if funding can be obtained. Seagrass can store about half a tonne of carbon per hectare per year, and more when it is mature,” he says. “It could be part of nature-based solutions [to climate change], and a significant part of it.” Alec Taylor, WWF’s head of marine policy says: “Seagrass restoration ticks so many boxes: climate, fisheries, water quality, biodiversity. But we will only get the benefits if we act now and at scale.” We want the oceans to play a hero’s role” in the fight against global heating, he says. “And we want the UK government to play a hero’s role too.” The UK hosts a crucial UN climate summit in November. One government action would be to make it easier to get permits for restoration. “Officials say it’s a wonderful idea, but when you apply for licensing you are treated as the criminal until you are proven innocent,” says Unsworth. “It’s almost like we are a problem, rather than a solution” Looking across Dale Bay, Unsworth concludes: “As a scientist, and as a father, I could spend the next 20 years writing awesome academic papers about seagrass decline, or spend the 20 years doing something about it. We have a responsibility as scientists to act, as well as report.” | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-03-10T06:00:24Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
cities/2021/nov/19/us-cities-working-reduce-emissions | US cities working to reduce emissions in the absence of bold action in Washington | After the Cop26 conference ended in Glasgow, many activists and climate scientists felt the agreement didn’t go far enough and that the US government was among those who had not backed strong words with enough actual deeds. But action on a smaller level in the US – in cities and states – is gaining traction and beginning to make a significant difference. Smaller-scale initiatives to cut emissions have been the significant way that America has made climate progress in the last few years, in the absence of stronger federal leadership. Researchers at the Brookings Institution calculated that in 2018, these climate action plans generated 6% emissions savings for the country – the equivalent of removing 79m cars from the road that year. “These are significant benefits,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow and policy director at Brookings Metro. “None of this is large enough, but they add up to a meaningful trend of emissions reductions. Those are real contributions.” Even at the climate meeting there was an increased appreciation of city-based climate action plans – Cop26 featured a whole day focused on what regions and cities can do, Muro points out. In the US, 45 of the 100 biggest metro areas have pledged to cut carbon emissions. “There is no doubt that cities are crucial places where emissions can be curtailed and better solutions worked out.” Cities are on the frontlines of action plans, but also of the direct effects of the climate crisis, including power outages, fires and floods. That makes them more likely to take quick action. People moving due to climate change will also primarily be moving to cities, putting extra importance on their ability to plan for the future. Joe Biden’s new infrastructure bill will pour tens of billions of dollars into funding for climate-related projects. For example, San Diego recently created a plan to become more climate resilient – one that prioritizes the needs of the most climate-vulnerable. It would plant more trees, expand parks in low-income areas and update public transit. “As our country has witnessed in recent months, extreme weather driven by a changing climate can have devastating effects,” Todd Gloria, San Diego’s mayor, wrote in the plan. “While these threats aren’t new to San Diego, science tells us that climate change is making these events more frequent and intense. The cost of inaction would be far greater than investing in our future.” In Austin, Texas, the city successfully decreased its building emissions by 20% despite a booming population, but experienced an increase in transportation emissions between 2010 and 2018. The city hopes to electrify their municipal vehicle fleet in the near future. Pittsburgh finalized a plan this week to increase energy efficiency across the city and reduce emissions by 50% by 2030, pushed forward by the Glasgow conference, which the mayor attended. Ambitious climate action plans are crucial roadmaps, but they can be based on faulty assumptions. Muro’s research shows such plans have been a mixed bag in terms of actually delivering emissions reductions. “They make large promises that aren’t necessarily backed up by hard work of delivery,” he says. “It’s a good time to refocus and really think about how to make these work better.” For one thing, more cities need plans: in 2018, Muro and his colleagues tallied that only 45 of the largest 100 cities in the US had such plans. Smaller metros often don’t have any plans in place. Some regions of the redder states may struggle to implement climate strategies – though Muro says that when they package climate strategies as part of a data-driven good government effort, it is less fraught with politics. Also, the quality of the pledges is questionable – they can sometimes be infeasible if they don’t have control over a power plant that produces emissions in their region, or if they aren’t able to enforce rules that they propose due to other laws. Also, with the exception of cities in California, city action plans’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are mostly non-binding. Cities and states can learn from each other, rather than reinventing the wheel each time. Groups like C40 cities – a global network of mayors taking action on the climate crisis – can make it easier to share data and strategies. Pooling data can also lower the cost of accountability. Coming out of Cop26, there is a recognition of the extreme urgency of the moment and the importance of cities as one source of progress, Muro says. “Cities need to couple their large aspirations with grittier implementation now.” | ['cities/cities', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/katharine-gammon', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-19T10:00:32Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
politics/2019/nov/28/is-labours-plan-to-plant-2-billion-trees-realistic | Is Labour's plan to plant 2bn trees realistic? | Claim Jeremy Corbyn has promised to plant 2 billion trees by 2040 to help arrest the climate crisis. Background Planting billions of trees across the world is one of the most effective and cheapest ways of taking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere. Through the process of photosynthesis, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating, making them natural carbon sinks. Reality The government has officially committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The official adviser the Committee on Climate Change says the UK must plant 1.5 billion new trees by 2050 to meet that target, or 50 million a year. Planting 2 billion trees in the next 20 years would be the equivalent of sowing 100 million a year, so Corbyn’s promise to plant more than that 10 years ahead of the target effectively doubles the requirement. That is the equivalent of three trees planted every second, day and night. While this sounds incredible, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. One man in Northumberland who has launched a private woodland has planted more than 2 million trees in 12 years. Experts at the Woodland Trust say overshooting the planting target will be necessary given annual losses and threats to existing woodland and hedgerows – including everything from Network Rail clearing trees from sidelines, or the removal of around 5,500 trees from Sheffield by the council. But, they say, planting trees is not the only requirement. “On one side, you need expansion, but you also need to protect the natural regeneration of trees and woodlands, to stop inappropriate development and to understand more about pests and diseases,” such as the devastating ash dieback which is a danger to 120m trees, said a spokesman for the trust. It is currently fighting around 1,000 cases of threats to ancient woodland, 108 of these from HS2. So, it says, expansion must happen not just to increase the number of trees, but also to mitigate losses. Verdict The Labour plan is ambitious but not out of sync with expert thinking. | ['politics/series/fact-check', 'politics/politics', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'politics/labour', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisaocarroll', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-11-28T17:09:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2024/sep/29/hurricane-helene-historic-flooding-global-heating-fema | Hurricane Helene’s ‘historic flooding’ made worse by global heating, Fema says | The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating. The storm killed at least 91 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared more bodies would be discovered. “This is going to be a really complicated recovery in each of the five states” of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) administrator, Deanne Criswell. She noted that a 15ft storm surge hit Florida’s Taylor county, where Helene came ashore as a category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140mph (225km/h), and pointed out that areas of western North Carolina, where search and rescue operations are continuing, recorded 29in (74cm) of rain when the storm stalled over the region. “This is historic flooding up in North Carolina,” Criswell told the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday. “I don’t know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides they are having right now.” Kamala Harris said the Joe Biden administration had approved emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, “making resources and funding available to maximize our coordinated response efforts at the local, state and federal levels”. The White House said on Sunday that Biden intended to travel this week to communities affected by Hurricane Helene as soon as it would not disrupt the emergency response. Biden spoke with Georgia governor Brian Kemp and North Carolina governor Roy Cooper on Sunday evening to get updates on response and recovery efforts, and to promise continued support to affected communities. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed due to the storm. As many as 1,000 people remain unaccounted for in Buncombe county in the Appalachian mountains, where the hurricane caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides in the Asheville region, cutting off most communication and making the roads impassable. Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city. Buncombe county’s manager, Avril Pinder, pledged that she would have food and water into Asheville – known for its arts, culture and natural attractions – by Monday. More than 150 search and rescue operations were under way in the state. Cooper’s office said on Sunday that “people are desperate for help”. “Even as the rain and winds have subsided, the challenge for people there increases.” Quentin Miller, the Buncombe county sheriff, said: “To say this caught us off-guard would be an understatement.” Pinder called the storm “Buncombe county’s own Hurricane Katrina”, and officials said communication systems had been disrupted, with no cellphone service expected in the region for at least “several days”. At least 23 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Kemp. Kemp said on Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Heavy rain nearly collapsed the Nolichucky Dam in Greeneville, Tennessee, which the National Weather Service called a “particularly dangerous situation”, as it urged at least 100,000 residents in the area to “seek higher ground now!”. In rural Unicoi county in east Tennessee, dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop on Friday. At least 11 people have died in Florida, according to governor Ron DeSantis. “If you had told me there was going to be 15ft to 18ft of storm surge, even with the best efforts, I would have assumed we would have had multiple fatalities,” DeSantis said. Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf coast in Pinellas county, where St Petersburg is located, sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. One person died in Virginia, in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse. In North Carolina, the emergency center in McDowell county was inundated with 911 calls, many of which involved patients “entrapped with severe trauma, running out of oxygen or essential medical supplies”. Nearly 400 roads are closed in the state and access to clean drinking water has been limited. Fifty boil water advisories are in effect across western communities. “Water is a big concern,” Criswell said, saying Fema had sent in bottled supplies, dispatched the army corps of engineers to get water treatment plants functioning and sent Starlink satellite receivers to help restore communications. The devastation, Criswell said, was linked to the climate emergency. “This storm took a while to develop, but once it did it intensified very rapidly – and that’s because of the warm waters in the Gulf that’s creating more storms that are reaching this major category level.” The conditions, she said, were creating greater amounts of storm surge in the coastal areas and increased rainfall as the storms moved north. “In the past, damage from hurricanes was primarily wind damage, but now we’re seeing so much more water damage and that is a result of the warm waters which is a result of climate change,” Criswell told CBS. Additional reporting by the Associated Press | ['us-news/hurricane-helene', 'world/hurricanes', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'us-news/south-carolina', 'us-news/tennessee', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/extreme-weather', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/edwardhelmore', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | us-news/hurricane-helene | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-09-29T23:58:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/sep/21/country-diary-septembers-hazy-warmth-has-cheered-the-local-farmers | Country diary: September’s hazy warmth has cheered the local farmers | Virginia Spiers | Harvest in this predominantly pastoral area entails a frenetic succession of grass cutting, spreading to wilt, rowing-up, baling, and wrapping in plastic as silage or haylage. The onset of hot dry weather, after weeks of rainy gloom, enables second cuts and cheers farmers who now anticipate sufficient winter fodder for their animals. The few crops of cereals have not thrived – moulds flourished in the damp summer, spoiling grain, reducing yields and providing sparse straw. To avoid complete loss, a field near home was “cut whole” one night in late August, carted back to base and packed into the silage clamp. Fields on Viverdon Down, the highest land in this riverside parish, used to be regularly cultivated with cereals, providing grain for cattle feed and straw for bedding; today’s high cost of fertiliser and sprays now make it more economical to buy in straw from specialist growers upcountry. Today, more of those higher fields are sown with nitrogenous clover that increases the yield of grasses for hay and silage. Pastures vacated by grazing sheep and cattle are regularly topped to allow cuttings to be drawn back into the ground, improving fertility and soil structure; no artificial fertiliser, just home-produced farmyard manure. Fodder beet is grown by some, but the leafy, bulked-up roots have to be mechanically dug in late autumn and winter months when the ground is usually wet and muddy. This year an expanse of maize curves towards the tidal river at Halton Quay. Set above Hornifast Marsh and opposite the woods of Mount Ararat, the thick crop “grows high as an elephant’s eye”, each leafy stem carrying at least two cobs. Planted in mid-May, the deep-rooted plants continue to grow in September’s hazy warmth; it will be cut and chopped next month to provide some 200 tons of protein-rich winter feed for the farmer’s pedigree suckler herd of South Devon cattle. Wandering poults, bought in as chicks and reared for nearby Pentillie’s pheasant shoots, seem content for now to avoid this dense crop, and return regularly to familiar fenced feeding runs, protected by sunflowers and other seeding plants. • Country diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/virginiaspiers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-09-21T04:30:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/jun/24/government-extends-45m-of-funding-to-australian-solar-scientists-over-next-8-years | Silver lining: Australian researchers given $45m to study alternative solar panel materials | The Albanese government has extended funding for Australia’s world-leading solar energy scientists as they race to increase panel efficiency and shift to more abundant materials, before constraints on silver and other metals hobble the industry’s growth. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will announce on Friday it will grant $45m over the next eight years to the University of NSW-based Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. Most of the money will be spent within the first five years. The money will ensure as many as 60 scientists will retain funding, although the annual funding is at about the rate of the previous 10-year grant. It will involve two additional partners, the University of Sydney and CSIRO’s Newcastle energy group, and will seek to foster further growth by drawing in commercial partners. “Australia has all the ingredients to become a renewable energy superpower with this Government working collaboratively to ensure secure, affordable and reliable energy that drives down emissions,” the energy minister, Chris Bowen, said. “It’s a global race [and] we’ve for a long time we’ve been at the front of that, and been able to attract people internationally … and that’s still the case,” said Prof Renate Egan, who is UNSW’s lead at the centre. Australian researchers have pioneered a range of solar technologies with as much as 90% of the world’s annual panel production drawing on that pedigree. The Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, University of Queensland, and CSIRO’s Clayton unit in Melbourne are partners of the centre. Martin Green, the UNSW professor who has long led the centre’s research, developed cells with a 20% efficiency of converting sunlight to electricity in 1989 and doubled that rate for lab cells by 2014, among a long list of achievements. Centre graduates also pepper many of the world’s big solar firms. “The next decade promises to be the most exciting and important in solar photovoltaics, ever, with massively increased uptake and technological change,” Green said. Egan said solar energy now provides only 3-4% of global electricity and about 15% in Australia. “We need to take that to over 50% here and internationally,” to enable the transition of fossil fuels and limit the impacts of heating climate, she said. “We’re really only just beginning on the solar technology development.” The extended research would help Arena meet its goals of mass production of solar cells with a 30% efficiency at a cost of 30 cents a watt by 2030. Panels on the market now can operate with 23-24% efficiency, at the cost of about 70 cent/watt. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Achieving those goals will not be easy. The new funding will work on so-called tandem cells that stack two or more layers of materials to capture more energy of the spectrum of light, and operate more durably, particularly under higher temperatures. “We know it’s possible, but we’re going to end up with a completely different material set, and a different structure,” Egan said. The need to identify new minerals is driven in part because the present use of silver in particular will soon be challenging for the solar industry globally. With production doubling every three years for the past three decades, the solar PV industry consumes about 10% of the world’s silver in its 200 gigawatts of capacity added yearly. “So we can’t double and double it, otherwise we’re using 50% of the world’s silver, and that would clearly create a supply bottleneck and a price challenge,” Egan said, adding several alternative materials are being worked on but more research is needed. The centre will also look to collaborate more to develop manufacturing capacity in Australia. At 4GW of panels being installed annually, the local market is nearing the volumes necessary to justify onshore production, particularly if plans by Sun Cable and other firms for giant solar farms of 20GW each or larger proceed, she said. Australia’s best prospects might be in silicon refining, with wafer and cell processing done elsewhere and final module work done locally, she said. Richard Corkish, another UNSW professor and the centre’s chief operating officer, said the funding extension will be critical because there are only a few ways the world can reduce emissions from energy use at a pace fast enough to head off the climate crisis. “The big two are solar PV and wind” along with improved energy efficiency, Corkish said. “And in the long term, solar PV will be the one.” | ['australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-06-23T17:30:05Z | true | ENERGY |
world/ng-interactive/2018/sep/11/florence-hurricane-path-where-is-storm-surge-heading-latest-maps | Florence tracker: latest maps show hurricane path and rainfall | Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina on Friday. The speed of Florence has slowed down dramatically, meaning life-threatening amounts of rainfall will continue to flood large parts of North Carolina and South Carolina. Parts of North and South Carolina are expected to get up to 40 inches of rain, with dangerous levels of flooding already causing large areas to lose power. Florence is now due to track inland, before heading further up the US east coast. The NHC track forecast cone, or “cone of uncertainty”, is the probable path of the centre of a tropical cyclone. The cone increases in size over time to indicate the greater areas of uncertainty about its path. The majority of flooding from a storm surge is caused by a phenomenon known as the Coriolis effect. The Earth’s rotation causes storms in the northern hemisphere to rotate anticlockwise, meaning a hurricane’s winds are deflected toward the right of the storm’s centre. Storms in the southern hemisphere behave the opposite way. Path across the Atlantic The 300 mile-wide storm was seen from space as it moved over the Atlantic Ocean. Florence has taken an unusual path from Africa to North Carolina over the course of 16 days. Video source: GOES-16 | ['world/hurricane-florence', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'us-news/south-carolina', 'us-news/virginia', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/interactive', 'tone/explainers', 'profile/niko-kommenda', 'profile/levitt-daniel', 'profile/pablo-gutierrez', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-visuals'] | world/hurricane-florence | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-09-17T10:55:11Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/blog/2009/jan/29/digital-switchover-television | Obama's plan to delay digital switchover scuppered | There's been so much written about Obama's relationship with technology that it's easy to think he's some sort of half-man, half-BlackBerry political cyborg... Robama, if you will. The geekgasm surrounding his use of the internet, stance on net neutrality and noises about open government mean he is almost ready to assume the role of a hi-tech prophet who can lead the geeks to the promised land. But, it turns out, Robama isn't some tech-crazed fiend. One of the first steps he took after winning the election was to attempt to delay America's switch to digital TV - an attempt which has just been defeated by Congress. In Britain, digital-only TV has been around for a while and it's slowly being phased in as the replacement for analogue. We should all be fully digital by 2012. Americans, however, don't like hanging around. The first parts of the US started going totally digital last year and the whole country is supposed to switch in three weeks. At that speed, not everybody feels ready for the change - apparently 6.5m people would be left without their telly. The Republicans say it's too confusing to change now (and the delay was only going to push things to June). The Democrats' reasoning was that poor, rural Americans - who can't get cable and can't afford satellite - are going to be the ones left without TV. Hey, if they've got the right to bear arms, I wouldn't argue with them either. | ['technology/blog', 'media/digital-switchover', 'technology/television', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/technology', 'us-news/barack-obama', 'us-news/obama-administration', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/blog', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/bobbiejohnson'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-01-29T07:20:42Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
australia-news/2024/nov/27/western-sydney-heatwave-hotter-than-east-penrith-weather | Why is western Sydney so much hotter than the eastern suburbs and what can be done to make summer more bearable? | A severe heatwave baking parts of eastern Australia was expected to peak on Wednesday, affecting parts of western Sydney including Campbelltown, Liverpool, Parramatta and Penrith. Wednesday was forecast to be Penrith’s fifth consecutive day above 35C, a new record for spring since records began in 1995. The mercury there hit 48.9C in January 2020, the highest temperature ever recorded in the Sydney basin. During extreme heat events, western Sydney is typically 6C to 10C hotter than the rest of the city. Why is that, and can anything be done to make hot summers more bearable for western Sydney’s 2.7 million residents? Why are temperatures so different between west and east? There are several features that make western Sydney warmer than other parts of the city. Geographically, it sits in a flood plain, with the lowest point of a bowl being the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers, according to Sebastian Pfautsch, a professor of urban planning and management at Western Sydney University. Heat moving south-east from inland Australia gets trapped in the bowl, Pfautsch says. “It doesn’t really get pushed [east] over a ridge line that you can see from about the Hills shire all the way down to Campbelltown.” Western Sydney also does not receive the cooling sea breezes that reach the eastern suburbs. Dr Gloria Pignatta, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales school of built environment, says winds from the desert bring hot and dry air to western Sydney during summer. “On still nights, temperature inversions can trap warm air in the western Sydney area, preventing overnight cooling. This increases the heat load for the following day,” she adds. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Urban design also plays a huge role. The urban heat island effect, in which urban centres are significantly warmer than rural areas (estimates vary from 1C to 13C), occurs because hard surfaces such as concrete and asphalt retain more heat than green areas. “Urban expansion, urban densification, loss of green infrastructure, expansion of hard infrastructure, lots of black roofs, lots of black roads, all unshaded, lots more human activity, transport, but also manufacturing” – all these worsen the natural temperature discrepancy between eastern and western Sydney, Pfautsch says. While western Sydney has abundant green cover compared to the eastern suburbs, in the form of native bush and farmland, Pfautsch notes the critical factor of rainfall in the east. “[It] gets up to 1,200mm to 1,300mm of rainfall each year, which means that green infrastructure has quite a bit of water that it can transpire, and therefore make the green spaces cool the area,” he says. “You don’t have that in western Sydney, where we have more green cover, but we only get about 700mm of rain annually. That means the whole system is … much drier.” Less water for trees to transpire – to draw through their roots and evaporate through leaves – means more heat. Will the extreme heat get worse? The frequency and severity of extreme heatwaves are predicted to worsen due to the climate crisis. 2021 modelling projected that western Sydney and the Hawkesbury would experience an additional 10 to 20 days hotter than 35C annually by 2070. In a study submitted for publication to the peer-reviewed journal Weather and Climate Extremes, Pfautsch’s analysis of western Sydney climate records between 2000 and 2020 suggests that in a worst-case scenario, western Sydney could have 160 days of temperatures exceeding 35C. “By 2060, you could have four months of consecutive day after day at or above 35C,” he says. “It’s just really scary. That’s only 35 years away.” The analysis also showed that the likelihood of 40C days increased exponentially as the number of 35C days rose. “That’s why it’s so important we try everything in our arsenal to build cooler cities,” he says. Is anything being done to adapt to the extreme heat? The window of opportunity to take action to prevent extreme heat events has long passed, Pfautsch says. “It should have happened 20 years ago. Now all we can do to really keep people safe – because they die from heat – is to adapt.” Increasing canopy cover from trees and good irrigation plays a role, Pignatta says, as does improving energy efficiency in buildings. “More greening is not a ‘nice to have’ any more, it’s a must have,” Pfautsch says. “You can’t survive without it.” Increasingly, councils and developers are also turning to climate-responsive urban design. Actions include intentionally creating shade using buildings, changing surfaces to lighter colours and more reflective materials, putting green roofs on high rise apartments, and orienting buildings and streets so they can be passively ventilated by wind. “We see developers starting to take up the construction of [new suburbs] … where wind direction is taken into account to help blow the hot air out of these settlements as quickly as possible,” Pfautsch says. In 2022, the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils launched Cool Suburbs, an evidence-backed tool for design that takes heat resilience into account. It has already been used to assess planning projects in the City of Sydney and City of Blacktown, Pfautsch says. | ['australia-news/australia-weather', 'australia-news/urban-planning', 'environment/extreme-heat', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/breaking-news-australia', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/explainers', 'profile/donna-lu', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/extreme-heat | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-11-26T14:00:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/audio/2008/jun/10/tech.weekly.podcast | Tech Weekly podcast: Peter Gabriel's Filter and the 3G iPhone | This week in Tech Weekly we talk to Peter Gabriel about his new web recommendation service, The Filter. It's a kind of last.fm for the whole of your cultural life - and he explains how he got involved. We couldn't pass up Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, so we dissect the latest on the big 3G iPhone announcement. Was it as big as was expected? And is this a sign that Apple is changing its business approach? Also in this week's show, more news of Microsoft's Yahoo takeover, the BBC's moves to stream its archive live online, and the phenomenon of advertising within Playstation 3 games. We'll also have your words of wisdom with comments from the blogs and our inbox too. Get in touch using any of the methods below, and don't forget to Skype us and join our new Twitter feed. • Tell us what you think by calling our Skype voicemail or mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk • Post a message on the blog about this week's programme • Get our Twitter feed for updates on the programme across the week • Join our Facebook group | ['technology/technology', 'business/technology', 'technology/apple', 'technology/mobilephones', 'business/telecoms', 'technology/telecoms', 'technology/internet', 'money/internetphonesbroadband', 'technology/ipod', 'technology/iphone', 'media/ofcom', 'technology/microsoft', 'technology/yahoo', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'media/bbc', 'media/digital-media', 'games/games', 'games/playstation', 'technology/series/techweekly', 'technology/startups', 'business/business', 'tone/interview', 'tone/news', 'media/media', 'technology/blog', 'type/podcast', 'type/audio'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-06-10T17:37:57Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2019/feb/19/adanis-legal-intimidation-tactics-against-community-groups-a-threat-to-democracy | Adani's 'legal intimidation' tactics against community groups a 'threat to democracy' | The Adani mining company’s “legal intimidation” tactics against community groups are a “threat to democracy” and “gravely concerning”, say eminent members of the legal profession, including a former supreme court judge and an expert on corporate lawfare. The ABC reported on Tuesday that a law firm hired by Adani, AJ & Co, wrote a strategy document urging the Indian miner to “play the man” and adopt an aggressive legal posture against opponents. The documents suggested Adani should trawl social media for evidence of bias among activists and decision makers. It recommended using the legal system to bankrupt poorly resourced opponents, silence commentators and put pressure on government. Adani released a statement that said it made no apology for pursuing the company’s legal rights, but declined to say whether it endorsed or enacted the AJ & Co proposal. Guardian Australia has confirmed Adani engaged AJ & Co for the purposes of conducting commercial litigation after the strategy was pitched. Community groups, Indigenous traditional owners and journalists have all confirmed recent interactions with AJ & Co, acting on behalf of Adani, in a manner consistent with the strategy document. Brian Walters, a Melbourne-based QC and human rights advocate, is an expert on so-called Slapp suits – strategic lawsuits against public participation. He wrote the 2005 book Slapping on the Writs and said using the law to silence community groups undermined the democratic process. “It is a fundamental feature of free speech that people should be allowed to comment on the way that corporations and other powerful people are using their power,” Walters said. “What appears to have happened here is a large corporation has agreed to use, or has tried to use, threats of legal intimidation to silence the public in speaking out about its proposals. “When corporations attempt to use the law not to achieve a legitimate forensic outcome but to intimidate those who criticise them, they are abusing the process of the law. They are bringing the law and indeed their own corporation into disrepute.” His comments were echoed by another QC, retired Queensland supreme court judge Alan Wilson, who is also the patron of the Environmental Defender’s Office in Queensland. Wilson rarely makes public comment. “The strategy outlined in media reports is both extraordinary and gravely concerning,” Wilson said. “It is profoundly disturbing that lawyers working within our system of justice would believe, or represent, that their job is to be ‘trained attack dogs’ and that their client should regard itself as ‘involved in a war’ that might require ‘all out attack’. “It shows a fundamental misconception of the lawyer’s role, which is to advance the interests of justice.” Walters said that Slapp cases were not as common in Australia as the US, but many were dealt with quietly and “people often fold”. Adani has previously labelled legal action seeking to stop the Carmichael mine frivolous and attacked the tactics of anti-coal activists. The strategy document described the situation as a “war”. Walters said these were not justifications for a lawfare retaliation. “If lawsuits are frivolous, let them be defended on that basis,” he said. “That doesn’t justify you in threatening to bring lawsuits for an improper collateral purpose, namely to silence people. “For [community groups], any legal action is threatening of their financial viability. It’s just small change for a corporation like Adani. “I think no lawyer should propose using the law in a way that intimidates members of the public from exercising their democratic right to speak out about abuse of power. If that has happened, that should be contrary to the whole purpose of having lawyers.” AJ & Co did not return calls from Guardian Australia. The firm told the ABC it would not comment on matters related to clients. Adani said it had accounts with a panel of law firms for various purposes. “We will not comment in detail on the legal firms we use, their marketing material, and any matters where they may represent us or advice we may receive,” the company said in a statement. The Environmental Defender’s Office Queensland said on Tuesday it had received a legal letter sent on behalf of Adani on 12 September “clearly designed to intimidate us”. “Instead of spending its legal energy on complying with Queensland’s laws, Adani is hiring lawyers to silence its critics in a well-funded campaign of intimidation, EDO Queensland’s chief executive and solicitor Jo-Anne Bragg said. A faction of Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners, who have been fighting a long-running native title case against Adani in relation to the Carmichael mine, said they had been targeted by the “malicious” tactics. AJ & Co represented Adani as it pursued bankruptcy proceedings against the W&J man Adrian Burragubba over unpaid court costs. “Adani’s attempt to bankrupt me is clearly guided by this litigation strategy and is an abuse of the legal process,” Burragubba said. “We can reveal we have previously received threats of massive economic torts and damages from AJ & Co unless we stop speaking out. We will not be silenced.” The ABC reporter Mark Willacy said on Twitter that AJ & Co, acting on behalf of Adani, had lodged freedom of information requests to access his expenses and documents related to a story on the company. | ['business/adani-group', 'environment/carmichael-coalmine', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-02-19T08:13:33Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/dec/05/beef-eating-must-fall-drastically-as-world-population-grows-report | Beef-eating 'must fall drastically' as world population grows | People in rich nations will have to make big cuts to the amount of beef and lamb they eat if the world is to be able to feed 10 billion people, according to a new report. These cuts and a series of other measures are also needed to prevent catastrophic climate change, it says. More than 50% more food will be needed by 2050, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI) report, but greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture will have to fall by two-thirds at the same time. The extra food will have to be produced without creating new farmland, it says, otherwise the world’s remaining forests face destruction. Meat and dairy production use 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s emissions. Increasing the amount of food produced per hectare was the most critical step, the experts said, followed by cutting meat-eating and putting a stop to the wasting of one-third of food produced. “We have to change how we produce and consume food, not just for environmental reasons, but because this is an existential issue for humans,” said Janet Ranganathan, vice-president for science and research at the WRI. Tim Searchinger, of the WRI and Princeton University, said: “If we tried to produce all the food needed in 2050 using today’s production systems, the world would have to convert most of its remaining forest, and agriculture alone would produce almost twice the emissions allowable from all human activities.” The new report, launched at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, follows other major scientific analyses showing that huge reductions in meat-eating are “essential” to avoid dangerous climate change. Another found that avoiding meat and dairy products was the single biggest way to reduce an individual’s environmental impact on the planet, from slowing the annihilation of wildlife to healing dead zones in the oceans. The world’s science academies concluded last week that the global food system was “broken”, leaving billions of people either underfed or overweight and driving dangerous global warming. Another new report concluded that the global food system required “radical transformation” if climate change and development goals were to be met, including “widespread dietary change”. After increased productivity, the WRI report focuses on meat from ruminant animals. The digestion of cattle and sheep produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Beef provided 3% of the calories in the diet of US citizens but was responsible for half the emissions, the WRI said. The report recommends that 2 billion people across countries including the US, Russia and Brazil cut their beef and lamb consumption by 40%, limiting it to 1.5 servings a week on average. Most of the world’s citizens would continue to eat relatively little beef in the WRI scenario. But Searchinger said: “The world’s poor people are entitled to consume at least a little more.” The 40% reduction is a smaller cut than in other studies. “We think that is a realistic goal,” he said. “In the US and Europe, beef consumption has already reduced by one-third from the 1960s until today.” Tobias Baedeker, of the World Bank, said farmers would require a lot of support to make the changes required but that redirecting the world’s huge subsidies could be a “game-changer”. Subsidies of more than $590bn (£460bn) a year are given to farmers in 51 nations, representing two-thirds of global food output, according to the OECD. In the US, these subsidies halve the current price of beef, the WRI says. The sophisticated marketing and behaviour-change strategies that food companies already used to influence customers could help shift diets, said Ranganathan, as could governments encouraging less meat in schools, hospitals and other public institutions. Other changes to farming that are needed, according to the WRI, include better feed to reduce methane production from cows, limiting biofuels made from food crops, managing manure and fertiliser better and cutting energy use by farm machinery. It also said the overall demand for food could be cut, with policies to curb population growth such as “improving women’s access to education and healthcare in Africa to accelerate voluntary reductions in fertility levels”. The WRI report was launched at the UN climate summit in Poland where almost 200 nations are aiming to turn the carbon-cutting vision set out in Paris in 2015 into reality. The rapid ramping up of action is another key goal. Climate action must be increased fivefold to limit warming to the 1.5C scientists advise, according to the UN. | ['environment/food', 'environment/meat-industry', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'world/unitednations', 'world/world', 'food/beef', 'food/lamb', 'food/food', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-12-05T10:29:38Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/article/2024/jul/22/renewable-energy-transition-rural-australia-councils | ‘No one understands local issues better’: rural councils call for greater role in renewable energy transition | Rural councils should be “deeply engaged” with the planning of renewable energy projects in their back yards to keep communities on side and streamline the energy transition, local government advocates have said. But not all renewable projects require local government approval, meaning developers are left to deal directly with local residents – to mixed results. In New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, local councils generally have the power to approve solar farms, but not wind developments which lie with the state government. Linda Scott, the president of the Australian Local Government Association, said approval powers aside, local governments should be central in planning because it results in “better community acceptance” and “speedier approvals”. “Where local governments don’t have planning approvals for any major infrastructure project, proponents often forget to speak to local government,” Scott said. “This is almost always a mistake.” Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Most of the footprint of the MacIntyre windfarm, the largest in the southern hemisphere, falls within the borders of Goondiwindi regional council in southern Queensland. The Goondiwindi mayor, Lawrence Springborg, said local councils want a greater say in renewable energy projects. “We’re not talking about being frustrating and just saying no for the sake of it,” he said. “We understand state priorities and prerogatives, we’re not arguing against that. But in many ways that just sees things being waved through, often without consideration [for local communities].” Springborg said localised economic benefits of the windfarm are not yet commensurate to the project’s scale. “If we are hosting this for the benefit of our state or our nation or our planet, surely those hosting should be able to be a major beneficiary of economic opportunity,” he said. The former energy infrastructure commissioner, Andrew Dyer, said while local councils can play an “integral part” in the development of renewable projects, final planning approvals should remain with state and territory governments. He added that regional councils can face a conflict of interest if a councillor is a potential neighbour or host of a project, which he said is often the case. “The planning processes for wind, solar and storage systems are very complex,” Dyer said. “By centralising planning, you centralise expertise.” MacIntyre’s footprint also partly extends into Southern Downs regional council. The mayor, Melissa Hamilton, said local government should have greater agency over how community benefit funds, established by most energy developers to build social licence, are distributed in regional communities. “We don’t want to be at the whim of the proponent deciding to do a few community charity items that they choose,” Hamilton said. “No one understands your local issues better than people on the ground.” The president of Local Government NSW, Darriea Turley, said the energy transition must be carefully managed to reduce pressure on housing and infrastructure in regional communities. She said local government should be entrusted with community benefit funds to manage on behalf of the community, which could allow them to bring together the funding of multiple projects to pay for legacy community projects, like swimming pools and road upgrades. “Collectively managed, the funds can put larger community needs within reach that may not have been possible using the benefit payment from one project alone,” Turley said. There are 37 renewable energy projects planned, proposed or under construction in the NSW central-west Orana renewable energy zone, many of which lie within Dubbo regional council. The mayor, Mathew Dickerson, said one of local governments’ “greatest frustrations” is a void of policy to guide negotiations between councils and energy developers. “You want to get as much money as you can for your community, but how much is the right amount? What’s fair and reasonable?” Dickerson said. “I feel like we would have failed as a council if we look back in 10 years’ time and we don’t think ‘wow’ we’ve made the community a better place,” he said. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'campaign/email/the-rural-network', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/aston-brown', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-07-21T15:00:08Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2024/sep/27/north-sea-oil-and-gas-firms-in-uk-failing-to-invest-in-renewable-energy | North Sea oil and gas firms in UK ‘failing to invest in renewable energy’ | North Sea oil and gas companies are failing to switch their investments to renewable energy, research has shown. Three-quarters of the offshore oil and gas companies operating in the UK plan to invest solely in continued fossil fuel production between now and the end of the decade, according to data compiled by the analyst company Rystad. Only seven out of 87 companies will spend anything at all on renewable energy projects in the UK before then, despite claims from the industry that they need to be allowed to keep extracting fossil fuels in order to provide funding for their switch to clean energy. Of those seven, only two plan to ensure that a majority of their investment portfolios will be in renewables by 2030, according to analysis of the data carried out by the campaigning organisation Uplift. The Labour government has banned new licensing of oil and gas fields in the North Sea, though existing fields will be allowed to continue to operate, and no licences now in the pipeline will be revoked, so several potential fields that are in the early stages of licensing could still go ahead. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, announced plans for the new nationally owned Great British Energy company, which will boost renewable projects in the UK, to be headquartered in Aberdeen, the home of the North Sea oil and gas industry, to emphasise the government’s commitment to a “just transition” to clean energy, which would ensure that new jobs are created as old ones in fossil fuels decline. Labour’s ban on North Sea licences has been fiercely resisted by the industry, and was the subject of virulent attacks by the Conservatives during the general election campaign. Separate research by Carbon Brief has shown that the ban will only slightly accelerate the decline of the North Sea, as most of the fields are severely depleted already. Campaigners said that the new data, seen by the Guardian, showed that oil and gas companies had little intention of changing their business models. Tessa Khan, the executive director of Uplift, said: “The oil and gas industry is clearly failing to deliver on its promises. The overwhelming majority of North Sea operators have no intention of investing in clean energy and are solely interested in profiting from oil and gas for as long as the North Sea’s dwindling resources allow.” She warned that the failure by oil and gas companies to invest in a transition to clean energy would not only hold back the UK’s efforts to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but would hamper the ability of oil and gas workers to find new jobs. “This pretence [of investing in renewables] is leading to real-world consequences for supply-chain firms, oil and gas workers, and the communities they support,” she said. “Over the past decade, as the basin has declined, the number of jobs supported by the industry has more than halved, and opportunities from the transition for supply chain companies have failed to materialise.” She called on Labour to resist calls from the industry for favourable treatment, and focus its efforts for a just transition on genuinely greener companies. “This is an industry clearly on a very different path to the one it advertises. [Labour must] come up with a genuine transition plan that has the needs of supply-chain businesses, workers and their communities at its heart.” A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “We are engaging with industry, workers and trade unions to provide certainty through a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea. “In addition, our national wealth fund, backed by over £7bn, will work with industry to make the UK a world-leader in green technologies, bringing jobs and investment across the country.” Michael Tholen, policy and sustainability director of Offshore Energies UK, the trade body representing the North Sea oil and gas industry, said: “This research takes a narrow snapshot and misses the bigger picture. Companies operating in the North Sea are actively engaged in delivery of the energy transition as well as seeking to meet the energy needs of the UK today. These projects include investing in all the major carbon storage hubs across the UK helping to decarbonise heavy industry and support the drive to clean electricity, investing in Scotwind and the Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas wind round [intended to spur the development of wind to power fossil fuel operations] which will unlock floating projects and develop a new hydrogen market. “These investments are on the go now and will take time to come into operation. Taxing existing oil and gas operations yet harder over the next five years with the proposed intensified windfall tax diverts capital that could be better invested to accelerate the transition.” | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/business', 'business/energy-industry', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/environmentnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-09-27T09:00:06Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2010/may/18/financialtimes-pressandpublishing | Why did the FT pull Amnesty's Shell ad? | Naomi McAuliffe | Just why did the Financial Times pull our Shell advert so late? I'd find it hard to believe that Shell lent on them. Did the Financial Times get cold feet about upsetting this British blue-chip company? Who knows, but there are many out there who are suggesting something stinks about this – and it is not just the air that the people of the Niger Delta are forced to breathe. Certainly, by pulling the ad at 4.58pm on Monday, with Shell's AGM taking place at the Barbican in central London on Tuesday, the timing was awkward for Amnesty. Of course, newspapers are free to turn away any ads they chose. But in this case, and by leaving the decision to the last minute, the FT must have known that there would be speculation about the reasons behind their move. Their official statement, quoted in the Press Gazette, is as follows: "Editorially, the FT was more than willing to run the advertisement for Amnesty. Unfortunately, whilst Amnesty gave us written assurances that they would take full responsibility for the comments and opinions stated in the advertisement, it became apparent that Amnesty's lawyers had not had a proper opportunity to advise Amnesty on those opinions. As a result, from a legal perspective we were unable to rely on Amnesty's assurances." In Amnesty's view, we gave the FT plenty of opportunity to come back to us beforehand: a final version of the ad was submitted to the paper last Friday – well within normal advertising copy deadlines. We also gave the FT written reassurances that we would take full responsibility for the comments and opinions stated in the advertisement. Now, we will be writing back to everyone who contributed to explain what happened, and of course, anyone who asks for their donation to be refunded will get their money back. Happily, we were able to get the ad into the Metro – and doesn't that make it even more puzzling that it was happy to take it at such short notice, while the FT, with days to consider the advert, were not? The ad itself compares the company's profits with the consequences of the pollution Shell has caused for the people of the Niger Delta. Local communities claim that the numerous oil spills, which have not been adequately cleaned up, have left them with little option but to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land and breathe in air that stinks of oil and gas. That's what is really important here: the future for the people of the Niger Delta. The fact that 2,000 individuals eagerly accepted the opportunity to pay for this ad shows that many people share our concern. The irony of this row over the ad is that it will make even more people aware of these vital issues and, we hope, force Shell – quite literally – to clean up its act. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'media/financialtimes', 'commentisfree/libertycentral', 'media/media', 'media/pressandpublishing', 'media/newspapers', 'media/advertising', 'world/amnesty-international', 'business/royaldutchshell', 'business/business', 'tone/comment', 'world/nigeria', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'environment/environment', 'business/financial-sector', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'profile/naomi-mcauliffe'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-05-18T15:17:50Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2023/feb/23/miners-killed-in-open-pit-coalmine-collapse-in-north-china | At least six killed in open-pit coalmine collapse in north China | At least six people have died and dozens more are missing after an open-pit coalmine collapsed in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in north China. One of the walls of the mine caved in at about 1pm local time on Wednesday, burying workers in tonnes of rocks and sand. Another collapse occurred five hours later, forcing the rescue operation to halt. The search resumed on Thursday morning, with fireengines, SUVs, bulldozers and rescue dogs being mobilised from across the province. About 900 government-approved rescue workers were at the scene, and residents in the area had been sent to a neighbouring town. President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts in search and rescue” and the maintenance of “social stability”. An investigation into the cause of the disaster was under way. Drone footage suggested the pile of debris left by the collapse was about 500 metres long. The mine is operated by Inner Mongolia Xinjing Coal Industry. Last year the company was fined for several safety violations, including insecure routes in and out of the mine and unsafe storage of volatile materials. In June 2022, two workers were found to be working in the mine without the correct certification. The company has also been involved in hundreds of lawsuits relating to unpaid debts between 2014 and 2022, according to state media. It has yet to issue a statement about the disaster. Inner Mongolia is one of China’s top three coal-producing regions. Along with Shanxi and Shaanxi, it produces 90% of the country’s coal. In recent years the government has pushed for more output from the industry in an effort to boost GDP and stockpile fuel reserves. Last year China produced a record 4.5bn tonnes of coal, a 9% increase on 2021. As companies seek to boost productivity and cut costs, accidents remain common. In July a coalmine in neighbouring Gansu province collapsed, killing 10 people and injuring six others. In recent years the government has put a greater emphasis on the enforcement of safety regulations and forced some smaller mines that lack appropriate safety equipment to close. There were 356 mining accidents in 2021, down from 434 in 2020, according to official statistics. | ['world/china', 'environment/coal', 'environment/mining', 'world/world', 'world/asia-pacific', 'business/mining', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/amy-hawkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2023-02-23T13:42:48Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2009/apr/08/gordon-brown-green-budget | Gordon Brown announces green budget plans | Gordon Brown said today that measures to promote electric cars and other green innovations would be a "major part" of the government's plans for recovery being unveiled in the budget later this month. In an interview with the Independent, the prime minister said the government would announce incentives intended to enable Britain to become a market leader across the world for electric and hybrid cars. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, is expected to say that trials for electric cars will begin in two or three cities next year. The government will also open negotiations with power companies to ensure that vehicles can be recharged at the roadside. However, after the warning by the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, that the country could not afford another big "stimulus" package to boost the economy, Brown also acknowledged in the interview that his room for manoeuvre was limited. "It is not just what we do to give real help to people and business now, but about setting a path for the future as well. We always take into account both what we need to do now and what is best future for the fiscal position," he said. In a reference to green initiatives in the budget, which will be on Wednesday 22 April, Brown said: "This is a major part of our plan for recovery in the budget. We will set our proposals for greener economy." He went on: "This is a job creator, a quality of life improver, and an environment-enhancing measure. We want to harness a general desire among people to be part of this. A better Britain means building a greener Britain." The government is also expected to announce a relaxation of the planning rules to enable the building of more wind farms to ensure the UK meets its target of getting 15% its energy from renewable sources by 2020. | ['environment/green-politics', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'environment/environment', 'politics/economy', 'business/automotive-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/budget', 'uk/budget-2009', 'type/article', 'profile/andrewsparrow'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-04-08T08:29:36Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
australia-news/2017/nov/23/melbourne-consortium-underwrites-windfarm-in-australian-first-deal | Melbourne consortium underwrites windfarm in Australian-first deal | Three Melbourne councils, two universities, Zoos Victoria, and half a dozen corporations have banded together to underwrite a windfarm in western Victoria that will power some of the city’s most recognisable buildings. The group of 14 organisations, led by the City of Melbourne, has agreed to purchase half the power produced by a new 39-turbine, 80MW windfarm near Ararat, about 200km west of Melbourne. It is the first time a group long-term power purchase arrangement has been used to fund a renewable energy development in Australia, and the City of Melbourne’s deputy mayor, Arron Wood, said he hoped other local governments would adopt the model. “This is the first group procurement of its kind in Australia and we think one of the first globally,” Wood told Guardian Australia. “We have really ground-truthed a new way of buying renewable energy. The true win is if this model is then replicated again and again.” The group, which includes Australia Post, the National Australia Bank, Federation Square, Melbourne University, RMIT, and the Yarra, Port Phillip, and Moreland councils, put the idea to the energy market last year during the review of the national renewable energy target. The winning tenderer was Pacific Hydro, which is currently finalising construction contracts for its Crowlands windfarm and aims to have it online by June 2019. The project is in addition to the 650MW of large-scale renewable energy developments to be funded through the Victorian government’s reverse auction process. Under the Melbourne renewable energy project agreement, announced on Thursday, the group will purchase 88 gigawatt hours of power a year, the amount needed powering 17,000 homes. It will set a fixed price for 40% of the power, with the price for the remaining 60% to be reviewed every two years, to hedge against a dramatic change in power prices. Buy-in differed between organisations but the agreement will see the City of Melbourne, City of Yarra, and Healesville Sanctuary switch to 100% renewable power. Wood said the growth of long-term power purchase agreements as a means to fund renewable energy in Australia was the product of a “policy vacuum” on a national transition away from carbon-based electricity generation. “The transition is where people could experience pain or not, so we can either take on the challenge and see this as a huge opportunity, or we can keep on reviewing things and sort of keep on bumbling along and we’ll have more and more projects which will essentially find their own way to get this done, but without that oversight and integration that’s critical for a smart grid,” Wood said. The Andrews government, which has set a 25% renewable energy target by 2020 and a 40% target by 2025, welcomed the announcement. “It’s clear the community backs our vision to diversify the state’s energy supply,” a spokesman for the environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said. “This kind of forward-thinking will create jobs of the future, bring more renewable energy online and put downward pressure on prices for Victorian households and businesses.” The Ararat windfarm is just 50km from the 530MW, 149-turbine Stockyard Hill windfarm, which was underwritten in May by a 100% long-term power purchase agreement from Origin Energy. In June, Telstra announced it would enter into a long-term power purchase agreement to develop a solar farm at Emerald in Queensland. The Climate Council’s Greg Bourne said market-based solutions to increasing renewable energy production were a positive step but Australia also needed to do “some form of planning.” “If the commonwealth were to step away from it, the market will deliver but it will deliver jerky outcomes with some surprises,” Bourne told Guardian Australia. The Turnbull government will push the states to adopt its new energy policy, the national energy guarantee, at the Coag energy council meeting in Hobart on Friday. | ['australia-news/victoria', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/victorian-politics', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'business/australia-post', 'australia-news/melbourne', 'business/business', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2017-11-22T17:00:06Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/aug/15/look-to-nature-based-solutions-to-prevent-drought | Look to nature-based solutions to prevent drought | Letter | Tony Juniper quite rightly flagged up the need for more nature-based solutions to help prevent future droughts (Britain’s wetlands are the key to saving us from drought, wildfires and even floods, 12 August). The Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Trust acts as an advocate for one such potential solution. By linking the Grand Union Canal in Milton Keynes with the River Great Ouse in Bedford, the proposed new waterway park could have the potential to take water out of the system in times of flood and transfer it to the east of England in times of drought. It would bring many more benefits, such as increases in biodiversity, new accessible parkland, a new navigable route and opportunities for cycling and walking. Climate change needs solutions that are cross-cutting, innovative and transformational. For too long, the need for significant investment in nature-based green and blue infrastructure has been ignored. Investing in projects such as the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Park would be a start. Jane Hamilton Chair, Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Trust • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['environment/drought', 'environment/rivers', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'uk/weather', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'uk/milton-keynes', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-08-15T16:22:25Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sustainable-business/2015/feb/20/burmas-human-rights-abuses-highlight-alarming-corporate-corruption | Burma's human rights abuses highlight alarming corporate failure | When Business & Human Rights Resource Centre wrote to over 100 foreign companies investing or operating in Myanmar last year to ask them to publicly disclose details about their activities and human rights commitments, the result was indicative of how the issue of human rights is valued among the companies approached. To date about a quarter has provided relevant information on their human rights policies and due diligence efforts in Myanmar; another quarter is less engaged, providing only general statements about minimum legal or social responsibility requirements. Almost half has yet to respond at all. We started the project with the idea that Myanmar’s foreign investors would be well attuned to the business risks of their potential human rights impacts, and thus would readily engage on these issues, at least on paper. There is no shortage of reports on how business activities in Myanmar have been linked to serious rights abuses – including restrictions on freedom of expression, violence, as well as land and labour-related abuses. Amnesty International, for example, recently issued a report (pdf) alleging that foreign mining companies have profited from – and in some cases colluded with – authorities in serious human rights abuses and illegal activity around the Monywa copper mine complex, formerly operated by Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (now Turquoise Hill Resources), and now operated by Wanbao, a subsidiary of Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco. Community and nationwide protests in Myanmar sparked by allegations of land confiscations and environmental harm in connection with the mine led to suspension of operations, violence, and costly and significant reputational harms for the companies involved. Also recently, around 200 workers protested against a local subsidiary of Total over significant job losses and low compensation in an offshore gas project that has been in operation for more than a decade. Similar reports come out on a regular basis. Aside from the business risks attached to these allegations, they paint an alarming pattern of businesses harming communities and, in the process, failing to generate the local prosperity the Myanmar government claims to aspire for. Myanmar was recently named one of the five top countries in the world for cheap labour by the Labor Costs Index, raising alarm among foreign investors about their vulnerability to accusations of exploitative labour practices. As Myanmar opens to the world and foreign companies rush into the largely untapped consumer and labour market, investors need to act responsibly for the benefit of local communities as well as their businesses. The Myanmar Investment Commission reported a total of $6.62bn (£4.31bn) in foreign direct investment from April to December 2014, almost doubling the total inflows from the previous fiscal year. We designed our Foreign Investment Tracking Project to create a public database on the human rights commitments of the foreign companies pouring in these billions and reaping profits therefrom. We wanted to encourage Myanmar’s foreign investors to publicly engage on rights issues in order to help ensure that stakeholders, especially local people, have access to the information they need to engage companies and, where necessary, hold them to account for their impacts in communities in which they invest or operate. The 57 responses we’ve received so far are a step forward in corporate human rights transparency in Myanmar and around the world. The responding companies, by what they say or don’t say, open themselves to heightened public scrutiny and open avenues for constructive discussion. There are also responses that set standards and provide useful guidance, such as adidas Group’s discussion of its extensive stakeholder engagement prior to sourcing from Myanmar and Telenor’s policies on privacy rights and responsible supply chain management. These provide an example for advocates and other businesses to initiate similar efforts, raising the global bar on corporate transparency and disclosure on human rights issues. But there are hundreds more companies — big and small — that need to be engaged, and the more important work of checking policies against actual practice remains. Along with civil society allies, we intend to keep pushing human rights issues higher in Myanmar foreign investors’ list of priorities. We plan to do this by persistently confronting these companies with human rights questions until their concerned personnel actually get their heads together to come up with answers. Understanding that these questions are key business concerns and, more importantly, that their answers could have profound effects on the lives of all men, women and children in communities that they harness or exploit for profit. The supply chain hub is sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “brought to you by”. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox. | ['sustainable-business/series/supply-chain', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'environment/environment', 'law/human-rights', 'law/law', 'tone/comment', 'type/article'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-02-20T14:57:21Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2017/oct/10/sadiq-khan-must-do-more-to-tackle-londons-air-pollution-say-health-experts | Sadiq Khan must do more to tackle London's air pollution, say health experts | London mayor Sadiq Khan has been urged to do more to tackle the capital’s air pollution crisis by leading health experts and academics. In a new report published on Tuesday, the group, including the chair of the NHS Sir Malcolm Grant, said the mayor must go further to reduce car use across the capital and harness new technology to create a system based around “public transport, walking and cycling”. The findings come amid mounting evidence of the health threat posed by the UK’s air pollution crisis. Last week it emerged that as well as illegal levels of NO2 pollution, every person in the capital is breathing air that exceeds global guidelines for dangerous PM2.5 particles. The scale of the situation was highlighted this week when MPs from four Commons committees decided to relaunch their “super inquiry” into the UK’s toxic air, warning that the health implications were increasingly serious. Launching the inquiry, Lilian Greenwood MP, chair of the transport select committee, said: “Real change is possible if government leads from the front to coordinate an effective response to one of the biggest issues of our time.” Khan has set out a range of plans to tackle pollution from diesel cars in the capital. The first stage, the new T-Charge, which will charge older, more polluting vehicles entering central London, starts later this month. Next year, the roll-out of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) begins, which will impose an additional charge on the most polluting vehicles. But the report, titled the Commission on the Future of London’s Roads and Streets, commissioned by the Centre for London thinktank, said he must go further. It suggests the low emissions zone should be used to identify the dirtiest vehicles and offer them “mobility tokens” to spend on public transport or other green alternatives in exchange for taking their vehicles off the road. It also suggests: Ending subsidised residential parking permits and introducing incentives, including public transport credits, for residents to give up their existing permits Extending payment systems such as the Oyster card to include new greener services such as car clubs, cycle hire, taxis and cabs Replacing the existing congestion charge with a pan-London, pre-pay smart road user pricing scheme, which reflects the environmental impacts of journeys Green groups and clean air campaigners have welcomed the mayor’s plans on air pollution but agree he must go further. Rosie Rogers, Greenpeace UK’s senior clean air campaigner, said the report was “absolutely right to call on the London mayor to be bold in reshaping the capital’s transport system”. “Tackling the air pollution crisis that’s threatening the health of so many Londoners, especially children, will require a far-reaching and ambitious strategy,” she said, adding that the mayor had “already taken some welcome steps … but much more needs to be done”. “With diesel being a major contributor to illegal air pollution, Sadiq Khan’s plan will need to include tough action on all diesel cars, old and new, if it is to succeed.” ClientEarth spokesperson Simon Alcock said: “The mayor has shown leadership on air quality since he came to office, with the proposed extension of the ULEZ, for example, but he can and should go much further. “There is a whole range of technologies that can be used to help people move to cleaner transport and reduce the number of vehicles on London’s streets. The UK government, which has failed to tackle illegal pollution levels all over the UK, should be working with the mayor to speed up these policies – not holding him back.” The Green party has accused Khan of compromising his air quality plans by pushing ahead with proposals for the Silvertown Tunnel, a proposed huge new urban motorway in east London. Caroline Russell, Green party member of the London Assembly, said that while Khan’s “vision for healthy streets” was “really encouraging” it was undermined by proposals for the new road tunnel. “By inexplicably pushing for a giant road tunnel that would swamp what is already one of the most polluted parts of the capital with even more cars, he threatens to undermine his promising vision for more walking and cycling.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/london', 'politics/sadiq-khan', 'society/health', 'cities/cities', 'environment/environment', 'society/society', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'politics/transport', 'uk/transport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-10-10T05:01:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2013/sep/30/owen-paterson-minister-climate-change-advantages | Global warming can have a positive side, says Owen Paterson | The cabinet minister responsible for fighting the effects of climate change claimed there would be advantages to an increase in temperature predicted by the United Nations including fewer people dying of cold in winter and the growth of certain crops further north. Owen Paterson told a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference on Sunday night that predictions by scientists – that there could be major increases in temperature resulting in melting ice caps and worldwide flooding – should not be seen as entirely negative. His comments came after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found last week that within two or three decades the world will face nearly inevitable warming of more than 2 degrees, resulting in rising sea levels, heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather. Asked at a fringe meeting organised by the RSPB if the report proved that the climate is "broken", Paterson said: "People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries. "I think the relief of this latest report is that it shows a really quite modest increase, half of which has already happened. They are talking one to two and a half degrees. "Remember that for humans, the biggest cause of death is cold in winter, far bigger than heat in summer. It would also lead to longer growing seasons and you could extend growing a little further north into some of the colder areas. "I actually see this report as something we need to take seriously but I am rather relieved that it is not as catastrophic in its forecast as we had been led to believe early on and what it is saying is something we can adapt to over time and we are very good as a race at adapting," he said. Paterson's views were taken to task by Guy Newey, head of environment and energy at the Policy Exchange thinktank. "The point that the climate has been changing for centuries understates the size of the problem that we are facing and the size of the action we need to overcome it. We really have no idea of knowing what is going to happen in terms of temperature. The risk is really very scary … I worry that some of the language that Owen uses - that we can actually wait and see what happens - is a big risk," he replied, to applause from the audience. Paterson has long been suspected of being a climate change sceptic. He has previously called for a reduction in the subsidies given to wind farms and other green energy initiatives. He also defended the government's plans for a badger cull, revealing that he had two pet badgers when he was a child. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/green-politics', 'politics/owen-paterson', 'environment/environment', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'science/science', 'environment/ipcc', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'tone/news', 'politics/conservatives', 'type/article', 'profile/rajeev-syal'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-09-30T11:51:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2007/apr/25/trashtalk | Trash talk | Wheelie bins. Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images A load of rubbish. That's what the Daily Mail clearly thinks of the prospect of fortnightly refuse collection. The Local Government Association (LGA) on the other hand, thinks that alternate weekly collections actually reduce rubbish by encouraging us all to recycle. It released figures showing that, where councils offer weekly collections the average recycling rate is 7% lower, at 23%, than those areas with fortnightly pick ups. The Daily Mail calls weekly rubbish collection "one of the state's most fundamental obligations", one which improves sanitation and keeps vermin populations at bay. The Telegraph has also highlighted public health concerns about the rising levels of bacteria and fungal spores in the air around decaying refuse. The LGA has emphasised the financial and environmental benefits of fortnightly pick-ups: if recycling rates reached 30% across the country taxpayers would save around £22m annually and landfill would be reduced by 1.2m tonnes. Many think this could be a major issue in next week's local elections. So, what do you think? Is weekly rubbish collection a basic right for taxpayers, or are there benefits to fortnightly pick-ups? | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'politics/politics', 'world/italy', 'commentisfree/series/openthread', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-04-25T12:30:01Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/nov/07/drought-to-become-more-frequent-severe-and-longer-due-to-climate-change-government-reports | Drought to become more frequent and severe due to climate change – government report | Drought is not a natural disaster and must be accepted as an enduring feature of the Australian landscape which climate change is only going to make worse, the drought coordinator has reported, warning the nation may see some areas become “more marginal and unproductive” as a result. The Morrison government released the drought strategy report by Maj Gen Stephen Day at the same time it announced its latest drought support measures, having struck a deal with the South Australian government for another 100GL of water from the Murray River. In return for the additional water flow, which the government anticipates will help between 4,000 and 6,000 farmers grow 120,000 tonnes of fodder and cost the budget $100m, the Morrison government will help the South Australian government turn on its Adelaide desalination plant. The water release, which will be reviewed in April, with the Snowy as a contingency plan, was a cornerstone of the latest drought measures announcement, which also included concessional loans of up to $2m for farmers and $500,000 for small businesses, and a boost to the drought communities program. The government also announced $5m to assist child care centres with increased demand and $10m for schools suffering hardship because of the drought’s impact. Another $200m from the Building Better Regions fund will be quarantined for drought-stricken regions, with a $139m top up for road projects. The government rejected part of the National Farmers’ Federation drought strategy call for exit packages, with Scott Morrison pointing to the land having held its value, despite the drought. “If they make their own decisions about what they want to do with their properties, their properties are valued at strong levels at present, and that actually assists them, if that’s the decision they want to take,” Morrison said. “But where those sorts of things have been applied in the past, that has been when you’re going through industry restructuring arrangements, and where there has been a decision to facilitate people off the land. “We’re not seeking to facilitate people off the land. We’re trying to assist them to stay on. And those who know that they have a future in the sector, then these measures will greatly assist them.” Morrison said the government would continue to react to the drought as it went on, with drought-stricken councils eligible for another $1m in payments to boost local spending. But in his report to the government, the recommendations of which the cabinet has had since April but only released on Thursday, Day highlighted the role climate change would have in extending and worsening Australia’s droughts. “As a consequence of climate change, drought is likely to be more regular, longer in duration and broader in area,” Day reported. “It means that farmers and communities who rarely see drought are likely to see it more often. And those that have been managing drought for many years may now see it intensify beyond their lived experience. “Ultimately, the nation could see some areas of Australia become more marginal and unproductive.” Day made 18 recommendations to the government in terms of enacting a long-term drought strategy, to which the government has responded to 14 already. The remaining four have been noted but drought minister David Littleproud said the long-term nature of the recommendations meant they would take a little longer to act on. They included leadership programs for regional and rural communities and developing better drought indicators, in lieu of a new definition of drought. Day also wants regular assessments of the nation’s natural resources to better inform long-term use and management, and an assessment of available surface and groundwater, so the government knows what each area is working with, as populations and uses ebb and flow. The report advises Australia to maintain drought preparations, even in times of normal rainfall, with a focus on inevitable future dry spells. “While droughts are normal for Australia, drought conditions are likely to become more frequent, severe and longer due to climate change,” Day advised. “Farming is a business and drought is one of the many business risks that should be managed.” Day laid out a long-term strategy which included better stewardship of the nation’s resources, incentives for good practices, improved planning and decision making, focusing on community resilience and better information flow across all sectors of government, into communities. The latest announcement came as the government continued to defend its response to the dry so far, which it says included at least $7bn in funding, counting the $5bn future drought fund, which will begin making payments in 2020. Littleproud also vigorously defended the government’s drought communities program, after a Victorian council rejected a $1m grant, as it was not in drought, with reports a South Australian council was also considering forgoing the funds for the same reason. Littleproud said the council grants would continue to be assessed as information, including rainfall, was updated, but lashed out at critics of grants that had been spent on local projects not directly connected to the drought, including public toilets, cemetery upgrades, music festivals and a virtual gym. “Let me say, with respect to the programs … a toilet in a cemetery [is beneficial] and you know why? “Because you know who built that? A local tradie. You know where he got his goods from? A local hardware store. That’s new money into that economy. “I’m sorry, with all due respect, you may want to belittle something like a toilet block, but to those people, to those economies, that is new money that keeps that tradie going, keeps his apprentice going. And to not understand the ... intricacies shows ignorance.” | ['environment/drought', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'profile/amy-remeikis', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-politics'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-11-07T07:16:03Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development-professionals-network/2017/may/03/international-development-is-a-loaded-term-its-time-for-a-rethink | 'International development' is a loaded term. It's time for a rethink | Jennifer Lentfer | People would always give me a quizzical look. “And what is that, exactly?” they would ask, if brave enough to reveal their naiveté about what was to become the next decades of my life. “Well, it’s the study of how to help poor countries become richer,” I would explain of my choice to study international development. “Oh that’s very good,” my friends and family would invariably reply, my obvious altruism shining through. (Cough.) And that’s where it would end. The next part of the conversation about macroeconomics and international trade policy is rarely the stuff of great chit chat or dinner conversation outside of our specific professional bubble. So what does international development really mean? And why is my organisation now dropping it from our name, changing it to Thousand Currents? Making people richer by promoting economic growth has been the assumption at the centre of international aid and philanthropy since it began. Early modernist theory taught us that if “traditional” societies could be helped to develop in the same manner as more “developed” countries, there would be prosperity for everyone. But this ignored the colonial roots of the sector and the inequities that existed in so-called rich countries. Today, more and more people are recognising that neoliberal models of development belie the ecological realities of the earth’s capacity, as well as basic human rights. In 1985, when the founders of my organisation came together with like-minded people – those who wanted to build on local wisdom and create an alternative to top-down development – the name International Development Exchange (Idex) seemed right. The organisation strove to ignite cultural exchange and also change how US citizens related to the global south. They were not united around raising GDP, but around improving people’s economic opportunities, working conditions, health, education, and overall wellbeing. Since I finished graduate school and since Idex began its work over 30 years ago, the international development field has changed. It is now a loaded term, carrying the weight of parachuted-in “expertise” and resources perhaps best described by Ross Coggin’s 1976 poem, The Development Set: We bring in consultants whose circumlocution Raises difficulties for every solution – Thus guaranteeing continued good eating By showing the need for another meeting. I was focused on HIV as my career began. The premise was that more information would result in changed behaviour. I was trained to be a technical expert, flying across oceans to share my knowledge with villagers about how to develop a project budget and obtain funding. Wouldn’t well-planned projects deliver just that? I quickly realised that my fancy education did not teach me about crucial contextual knowledge that creates space for dialogue, critical thinking, collective decision-making, mobilising networks, and holding powerful external actors accountable. The limitations of thinking of development purely from a western-defined, economic growth-fuelled perspective are hard to ignore. Neoliberal development policies and approaches have resulted in economic, social, and environmental failures. Our global food system is broken, dominated by corporate-driven agricultural policies that push out small-scale farmers. The world’s richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Unchecked natural resource consumption has led to a climate crisis that threatens our planet and our collective futures. And that is why last year, after 30 years, Idex decided to change its name. We wanted a powerful concept from the natural world to express the positive, transformational changes emanating from women, young people, and indigenous leadership in the global south. Though we suffer setbacks – such as the jailing of Stella Nyanzi in Uganda, the death of Sheila Abdus-Salaam in New York City, or the murder of natural resources defenders in Honduras – grassroots organisations and movements on all continents are bucking the “old school” paradigm of development. What hasn’t changed in 30 years is that the people living and working closest to these problems are the source of the solutions. Currents, like visionary grassroots leaders and locally-led solutions, have force and direction and are part of a moving, interdependent global picture. Today, Thousand Currents is focused on addressing our shared global challenges, not just the issues faced by a marginalised community or a poor country. That requires new approaches from donors in acknowledgement of this complexity – unrestricted financial support, multi-year timeframes, and new skills and personnel that reflect the world we want to see. We dropped “international development” from our name, because when small, yet formidable pockets of people power come together, that’s when Thousand Currents sees results. Old notions of development no longer serve us, and neither do rote bureaucratic responses to our urgent problems. We must move faster, think more creatively, build stronger relationships, and engender more effective collective action. Currents affect every single person on the planet every single day. And all of us – donors, grassroots activists, UN employees – are currents of change. Jennifer Lentfer is the director of communications of Thousand Currents. Follow @intldogooder and @1000Currents on Twitter. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter. | ['working-in-development/working-in-development', 'global-development-professionals-network/policy-advocacy', 'global-development-professionals-network/communications', 'global-development/inequality', 'global-development/trade-and-development', 'global-development/food-security', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/food', 'politics/economy', 'society/poverty', 'inequality/inequality', 'society/philanthropy', 'law/human-rights', 'environment/environment', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-professional-networks'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2017-05-03T13:48:25Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2009/apr/23/recycling-council-tax-which | Recycle better and save on bills, councils and consumers told | Council tax bills could be slashed by millions of pounds if local authorities and consumers improve recycling, a report claims today. Some people persist in putting food waste, dirty nappies and, in some cases, even dead cats in their recycling bin, which risks contaminating other material. Figures obtained by the consumer group Which? reveal that nearly 230,000 tonnes of recycling and composting material put out by households in England last year was rejected and sent to landfill at a cost to taxpayers of £12m. About 5% of items collected from households for recycling, such as paper and glass, are rejected, but some councils rejected more than twice that amount. Which? says that if consumers recycled more effectively, council tax bills would be lower, as it costs councils more to send rubbish to landfill than it does to recycle. Sending rubbish to landfill will cost England £620m this year. Jess Ross, editor of which.co.uk, said: "Recycling our household waste has never been easier, but more could be done by councils and by consumers to ensure that we recycle more waste more effectively. Not only will it reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, but it could even save us money on our council tax bills." Materials for recycling are rejected when they are contaminated - for example if people put the wrong materials in the wrong bin. Which? says that improved collection systems, clearer information for consumers and more careful recycling by householders could reduce the amount that ends up in landfill. | ['environment/recycling', 'society/localgovernment', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/counciltax', 'money/money', 'society/society', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'money/household-bills', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-04-22T23:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sport/2023/feb/06/rugby-union-andy-farrell-guarantees-johnny-sexton-will-be-fit-and-ready-for-trip-to-paris | Andy Farrell guarantees Johnny Sexton will be fit and ready for France clash | Andy Farrell has allayed any concerns that Johnny Sexton might miss Ireland’s pivotal match against France in Dublin next weekend. Ireland’s captain was nursing a dead leg after a collision with Liam Williams, for which the Wales full-back was shown a yellow card, but the injury is not serious. Williams went to the sin-bin for making contact with Sexton’s head. When the latter received treatment after the collision, the referee insisted he leave for a head injury assessment. Sexton protested that he was being treated for a leg injury. He consequently passed the HIA. Sexton was playing for the first time since New Year’s Day, when he sustained a cheekbone injury that required surgery. The 37-year-old seemed to return with ease, scoring 12 points against Wales with five kicks from five. Farrell hailed his character and rejected any suggestion he might be getting too old for all this. “There are no doubts about his age in our mind,” he said. “I spoke to him constantly over the last two weeks. I told him there’s no excuses. He said he’d never been so nervous before a game. How he handles that and runs the team, making it feel right, and then goes out and performs at the same time is testament to his character.” There will be no room for doubts in Dublin next weekend. Ireland have lost their past three matches against France, who rushed off to an early lead in Paris last year. “Not being ourselves was the main thing,” Farrell said. “We didn’t attack the game how we can do in the first 15, 20 minutes. We got ourselves back into the game and had a chance of winning. So being ourselves from the start would help.” Ireland showed themselves how in Cardiff. They burst into a 14-0 lead in the first 10 minutes with tries from Caelan Doris and James Ryan, before James Lowe intercepted on his own 22 to score a third at the end of the first quarter. Ireland led 27-3 at the break. Some sort of response from Wales was inevitable. They replied with a slick try from Williams a few minutes into the second half but never looked likely to threaten Ireland’s lead. When Williams was in the sin-bin, Ireland raised their game again to score a bonus-point try through Josh van der Flier in the last 10 minutes. They are looking regal at the top of the world rankings, but Farrell is braced for the arrival of France. “I think everyone realises what’s coming next week, but there’s one thing about an Irish crowd. When there’s a big game and they know they have to get behind the team, they are the best in the world. There’s no doubt about that.” The best crowd in the world cheering on the best team. The stage is set. • This article was amended on 6 February 2023. An earlier headline wrongly implied that Ireland’s match with France would be played in Paris, rather than Dublin. | ['sport/six-nations-2023', 'sport/ireland-rugby-union-team', 'sport/wales-rugby-union-team', 'sport/france-rugby-union-team', 'sport/sixnations', 'sport/rugby-union', 'sport/sport', 'campaign/email/the-breakdown', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michaelaylwin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/wales-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-02-06T01:01:36Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
science/2016/jul/08/theres-expertise-and-misuse-of-expertise | There’s expertise, and misuse of expertise | Letters | Professor Brian Cox disdains the rejection of expertise (Opinion, 2 July). But he conflates rejection of expertise with rejection of the misuse of expertise. When experts fail to predict catastrophic events like the financial crisis, and when experts extract the costs of their mistakes from non-experts, like the austerity after the financial crisis, and when experts don’t seem to have the best interests of the electorate at the heart of their advice, then the rejection of their advice is rational, isn’t it? Perhaps even scientific? Dr Jon Dickson Sheffield • An interesting report on how much of the nation’s tax London pays (7 July), but it would have been more useful if it had also mentioned what the expenditure on the capital was. Martin Cooper Bromley, Kent • How many homes could be insulated; how many solar panels, heat pumps could £37bn buy (Alarm as Hinkley Point cost estimate rises , 7 July)? Lorrie Marchington High Peak, Derbyshire • Andrea Leadsom really is living in the past if she thinks that foxes still prefer the countryside to the rich pickings of city life (Report, 8 July). Geoff Reid Bradford • My then three-year old granddaughter, sitting on my lap listening to me reading a story – from an actual book – decided that she wanted to do something else and said “Pause it, grandpa” (My disc drive is full, Lucy Mangan, 8 July). I suppose I should be grateful that she didn’t say “Fast forward”... Steven Burkeman York • The president of the organisation that has built a full-sized replica of Noah’s Ark is called Ken Ham (Report, 7 July). Does he by any chance have colleagues named Shem and Japheth? Simon Bennett Truro, Cornwall • How long before we get a female commentator in a men’s match from Wimbledon? Andreas Klatt Long Compton, Warwickshire | ['science/brian-cox', 'science/people-in-science', 'science/science', 'politics/taxandspending', 'politics/politics', 'uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'uk/uk', 'environment/solarpower', 'sport/wimbledon', 'sport/wimbledon-2016', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2016-07-08T17:42:21Z | true | ENERGY |
science/2002/oct/12/gm.food | Dry weather waters down Monsanto profits | Monsanto, the agrochemical business that has become synonymous with genetically modified foods, yesterday warned that profits this year would be lower than forecast. The controversial company blamed a fall in sales of its core herbicide product Roundup in the US and lower than expected sales in Argentina. Unusually dry weather in the agricultural belt of the Midwest in the US and drought conditions in the plains blunted the growth of weeds and reduced the need for its herbicide, the company said. Roundup accounts for 45% of Monsanto revenues and is already under pressure from the expiration of its patent. But the company, which will ship up to 6m fewer gallons of the herbicide this year, said there had been no loss of market share. Yesterday's warning followed an earlier one in June when Monsanto reduced its outlook for 2002 and 2003 because of the turbulence in Latin American markets. At the time it said it would restructure its business practices in Argentina to operate under cash-only terms with customers instead of extending credit. The effect has been to reduce sales more sharply than the company had expected. Shares in the St Louis-based business fell by more than 11% in early trading on Wall Street but later recovered some of those losses to change hands 38 cents lower at $15.21. John Roberts, a research analyst at Buckingham, the US brokerage, said investors' nerves had been eased by the fact that the warning appeared to have been caused by one-off external events rather than any fundamental issues. "There is nothing about their competitive position that has changed here," he said. "Investors are somewhat more forgiving on issues of weather and Latin America since they don't have high predictability and are really outside factors." Monsanto conceded in August that widespread opposition to its genetically modified agricultural products meant it would be at least another three years before they won approval for sale in Europe. There has been a moratorium imposed on the approval of new GM crops since 1998 because of public anxiety about the potential risks to health and the environment. The company also said it expected to make no progress in Brazil, a key producer of soya beans, in the same time frame. Brazil has resisted strong pres sure from the US to accept GM seed. "We are assuming no progress in Europe until 2005. We are trying to be conservative," Hendrik Verfaillie, the Belgian chief executive of Monsanto said at the time. Monsanto has made inroads into India, the world's largest cotton producer, and is trying to break into the Pakistan market to sell GM seeds. The company is arguing that its bioinsecticide cotton needs less water than the staple food crop of rice. | ['business/business', 'environment/food', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'environment/drought', 'environment/gm', 'type/article', 'profile/davidteather'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2002-10-12T01:14:08Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2005/sep/05/hurricanekatrina.usa9 | Bush back as search for dead begins | George Bush today returned to the states devastated by Hurricane Katrina for the second time in three days. The US president arrived in Baton Rouge, in Louisiana, this afternoon to visit survivors of the disaster, which officials fear killed as many as 10,000 people. Mr Bush, speaking from Bethany World Prayer Centre, praised Americans for the "amazing" response to the disaster. "All levels of the government are doing the best they can," he told reporters. "So long as any life is in danger, we've got work to do. Where it's not going right," he promised, "we're going to make it right." Emergency workers were continuing to search house-to-house for survivors of the hurricane but were also beginning the grim task of recovering the bodies of its victims. In the early stages of the recovery operation, floating bodies were simply pushed aside by rescue workers, with the hunt for the living the only priority. But now, one week after the storm hit and with New Orleans mostly emptied of all but the most vulnerable of its population, the huge clean-up operation was slowly progressing. Three body recovery teams of about 30 people each were in the disaster area, according to Todd Ellis, incident commander of the mortuary operation in Louisiana, CNN reported. Also today, former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush launched the Bush-Clinton Katrina fund. Mr Clinton told a news conference in Houston, Texas, that the fund was needed to "fill in the gaps" in government aid. Helicopters and boat crews from various agencies searched flooded neighborhoods and the Coast Guard requested that anyone stranded hang out brightly coloured or white sheets or towels. The blog on the New Orleans community website Nola carried reports today of people still stranded and needing aid. Some progress had reportedly been made by engineers working to repair the damaged levees or embankments. It was through the storm-damaged levees that floodwaters from Lake Pontchartrain flowed, putting some 80% of the city below water. "The water is receding now. We just have a long ways to go," Mike Rogers, a disaster relief coordinator with the US army corps of engineers said yesterday. Army Lieutenant General Russel Honore said today that fewer than 10,000 people remained in New Orleans. Speaking after police shot dead five gunmen who had attacked engineers yesterday, he denied that authorities were struggling to contain outbreaks of lawlessness. "This is not a city under siege," he told NBC television "This city needs help from the big people in America and its technology to get back on its feet." There was also a sign of hope today in one western New Orleans suburb, the Jefferson parish, where residents were being allowed to return briefly to view what was left of their homes. It is the first time they have been allowed back since a mandatory evacuation was ordered just before Katrina hit. Vehicles began moving into the suburb at 6am and officials planned to allow traffic in for 12 hours, encouraging people to inspect their property, pick up personal items and leave quickly. The parish president, Aaron Broussard, warned the 460,000 residents that they would find all traffic signals destroyed, no shops open and a dusk-to-dawn curfew. He recommended that women did not return alone. People were only allowed access if they showed a valid ID proving residency, brought food, had a full tank of fuel and agreed not to drink the water. Most of the single-storey bungalow homes in the neighbourhood had water nearly to the rooflines. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from New Orleans and other affected areas, seeking safety in Texas, Tennessee and other states. With more than 230,000 already in Texas, the state's governor Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin preparations to airlift some of them to other states that had offered help. Meanwhile, the row about the inadequacy of the official response to the disaster continued. The New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper attacked the federal government's response in an open letter to Mr Bush. The paper called for the firing of every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying they had failed to rescue thousands of citizens stranded by Katrina. "We're angry, Mr President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry," the editorial said. "Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame." Federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety. Large-scale evacuations were completed at the Superdome and the city's convention centre over the weekend. The death toll across the Gulf of Mexico coast area was unknown. But bodies were everywhere: floating in canals, slumped in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways and median strips and hidden in attics. It was also reported today that two New Orleans police officers had committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head. "I've got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much traumatised," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said. Amid the chaos, about two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter today for the Decadence Parade, an annual Labour Day gay celebration. | ['world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'profile/markoliver'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-05T17:28:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2008/aug/28/usa.hurricanekatrina | Anna Hartnell: The Disneyfication of New Orleans | Three years after Hurricane Katrina, a more glamorous image of black America is presenting itself to the world in the person of Barack Obama. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, America's story of black urban poverty is still unfolding, largely beneath the radar of the global media. In August and September 2005, areas like the largely black Lower Ninth ward, almost entirely invisible to the hordes of tourists who flock to New Orleans every year, attracted worldwide sympathy as the levees broke. Now they have been all but forgotten. While tourists long ago repopulated the French Quarter, 57% of New Orleans' black population – against 36% of whites – have yet to return to the city. Many never will. This is because since Katrina, developers have clubbed together with the authorities to complete New Orleans' makeover into a playground for wealthy tourists. As house prices soar and homelessness rises, the authorities are quietly doing away with the city's remaining stocks of affordable housing in moves that the UN has recently claimed constitute human rights violations. The fact that these demolitions will overwhelmingly affect black people has led some to call this ethnic cleansing. Looking back, these developments should come as no surprise. The sympathy that met Katrina's immediate aftermath was short-lived. In August 2005 it was poor African-American residents, statistically the least likely to have the means to evacuate the stricken city, who bore the brunt of the storm damage. Viewers all round the world watched in horrified fascination as conditions in the convention centre and Superbowl deteriorated. News reports did focus on the government's apparent abandonment of its own people, but a hysterical and arguably racist undercurrent was almost compulsively drawn to rumours of rape and murder – nearly all of which turned out to be untrue. As residents evacuated the city, and before the floodwaters had even receded, the future of New Orleans and its residents was being spoken about in no uncertain terms. "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans", declared Republican congressman Richard Baker soon after the storm. "We couldn't do it. But God did." Alphonso Jackson, the then US secretary of housing and urban development, made the racial implications of the gentrification process perfectly clear when he predicted that the reconstructed New Orleans would be a whiter city. In the three years since, race and class stereotypes have paved the way for New Orleans' so-called "revitalisation". "We don't need soap opera-watchers right now", claimed the city council president, Oliver Thomas – perpetuating the view that New Orleans' high unemployment rate can be tracked to individual laziness as opposed to the systemic discrimination affecting most of America's inner cities. At the same time, those same forces that demonise poor and particularly black families – for their apparent "dysfunction" – are actively preventing the regrouping of some of the most close-knit black communities in the US. The city is now in the process of phasing out the low-cost housing, public transportation system, and public health facilities that have supported the existence of low-income residents in New Orleans for decades. The US department of housing and urban development and the housing authority of New Orleans say that they wish to de-concentrate poverty in areas that were previously hotbeds for crime and drug abuse. Currently though, there are only plans to replace one-third of the units available for low-income renters. And as Audrey Stewart of the Loyola Law Clinic explains, the result is: ... thousands and thousands of homeless people camping out, under bridges, we have folks staying with relatives and friends – I see that all over my neighbourhood, five, six, seven, eight people living in these tiny houses. We have people getting kicked out of Fema [Federal Emergency Management Agency] trailers with nowhere to go. Many displaced New Orleans residents, black and white, are now calling for the "right of return" – and are in the process creating a dynamic grassroots movement that threatens to disrupt the relative calm that has eased the passage of the city's controversial reconstruction programme. This is just the kind of movement that Barack Obama spent the first part of his career organising for South Side Chicago, and it may turn out that his ability as president to respond to this call proves decisive. Obama has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration's recovery and reconstruction programme, and his restoration plan for the region includes housing displaced residents who wish to return to the city. This time last year, Obama expressed concern that New Orleans would once again become the scene of the nation's broken promises, and told residents, "I can promise you this: I will be a president who wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night with the future of this city on my mind." He said: ... racial discord, poverty, the old divisions of black and white, rich and poor, it's time to leave that to yesterday. But as the presidential campaign intensifies, Obama is increasingly under pressure to "transcend race". If this insidious demand should persist into an Obama presidency, it could seriously hinder a sustained focus on so racially charged an event as Katrina and its disastrous aftermath. What's certain is that the longer the world looks away, the more likely it is that a Disneyfied "new" New Orleans will mean the loss of a city that boasts one of the most complex cultural heritages in the world. Three years on from the storm, during an election year that has focused attention on a spectacular symbol of African American success, it seems that once again, no one is looking in the direction of a black America that has experienced only the rough end of the American dream. Anna Hartnell is lecturer in American literature & culture at the University of Birmingham, a.hartnell@bham.ac.uk | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'world/world', 'world/race', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/annahartnell'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2008-08-28T13:00:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2014/apr/30/climate-change-extreme-rainfall-england-flooding | Climate change 'making extreme rainfall in England more likely' | Climate change caused by humans has made the likelihood of extreme rainfall similar to that seen in England this winter significantly higher, according to analysis seen by the Guardian. Rainfall events that would previously have occurred only once in a century are now likely to be witnessed once every eighty years in the south of England, the Oxford University work shows. That will mean far more frequent severe floods for residents of the crowded region, with what were once extremely rare events now happening much more often than the infrastructure of the region is equipped for. The research shows an increase in the rate of such events of about 20 to 25%, which significantly alters the number of homes likely to be vulnerable to flooding. Friederike Otto, from the university’s school of geography and the environment, said: “It will never be possible to say that any specific flood was caused by human-induced climate change. We have shown, however, that the odds of getting an extremely wet winter [in the UK] are changing due to man-made climate change. Past greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution have loaded the weather dice so the probability of the south of England experiencing extremely wet winters has increased.” The scientists who conducted the study warned that this estimate of the frequency of extreme rainfall was based solely on current levels of observed rainfall in the recent past, compared with historical levels and those predicted for the future under a wide variety of possible scenarios under climate change. This method means that if global warming leads, as expected in the future, to higher rainfall in already wet areas of the globe, including the UK, then this frequency could rise much further still. If that were the case, many more thousands of homes in the UK could be vulnerable to flooding, or to worse extremes of weather. The analysis was arrived at by one of the most significant examples to date of scientists using the power of home computers to crunch vast amounts of data. The weather@home project drew on the power of more than 60,000 volunteers who allowed their personal computers to be used to process raw data gathered from observations of weather patterns. Specialised software allowed the computers to be used to safely to process the figures, and return them to the scientists, from which the climate change experts were able to deduce key findings such as the increased likelihood of extreme weather events in the south of England. Under the programmes, the scientists used the spare capacity on home computers to compare tens of thousands of simulations of possible weather in our present-day climate with tens of thousands of simulations of a hypothetical world without the influence of past greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, using the same climate model. However, the scientists now want to refine the data still further, to include elements reflecting the UK’s individual geography and hydrology –such as river locations, underlying rock formations, lowlying flood plains, and the flow of water from upland areas to lowlands. That should enable a much more detailed picture to be drawn up of the likelihood of floods across the region. At present, the scientists are only able to say that high levels of rainfall are much more likely than in the past, whereas with a greater refinement they may be able to say with precision how much more likely flooding events are in particular localities. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/weather', 'environment/environment', 'environment/flooding', 'technology/technology', 'technology/computing', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-04-29T23:00:32Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
film/2011/jan/13/gasland-review | GasLand – review | It hardly seems possible that former US vice-president Dick Cheney could be made to seem any more of a villain that he already is. But documentary-maker Josh Fox manages it with his film GasLand, executive-produced by Debra Winger. It is a grim study of how the current new push to drill for natural gas in the United States – to avoid what one legislator calls "being dependent on foreign oil and terrorism" – is turning vast swathes of beautiful American country into dangerous sludge dumps. At the beginning of George W Bush's second term, Dick Cheney steered through legislation which exempted the gas companies from the Clean Water Act of the early 1970s. Gas prospecting requires something called "fracking", or hydraulic fracturing: pumping down millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to crack open the rock and release the precious gas. But these chemicals have awful effects on domestic water supply. The bespectacled Fox, resembling a young Arthur Miller, tours around talking to those affected – one local applies a cigarette-lighter to his running kitchen tap, which goes up in a terrifying ball of flame. Fox challenges those responsible, but there is one curious omission. A prominent supporter of the gas companies turns out to be actor Tommy Lee Jones: Fox's camera at one stage lingers on a poster with his face, sponsored by the gas company Chesapeake. Shouldn't Fox have tried to contact Jones? Well, he doesn't – he doesn't even mention his name. Would having a sympathetic movie star on the wrong side confuse the issue? This odd lapse aside, it's a powerful film. | ['film/documentary', 'us-news/dick-cheney', 'us-news/richard-nixon', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'film/film', 'culture/culture', 'tone/reviews', 'type/article', 'profile/peterbradshaw', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/filmandmusic', 'theguardian/filmandmusic/filmandmusic1'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2011-01-13T22:12:00Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2011/jun/14/solar-revolution-government-cuts | Response: It is shameful that this government is resisting a solar revolution | You report that "subsidies for large-scale photovoltaic installations are to be cut drastically" (Solar power industry dismayed as subsidy for large plants cut, 10 June). However, the most devastating impact of the government's actions will be on "community-scale" solar – which is poorly understood but crucial to building a modern green electricity infrastructure. As you state: "The government said its review of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewable energy would divert funds from field-sized ... solar power plants to panels on house roofs." The Renewable Energy Association campaigned alongside Friends of the Earth for the FIT legislation to ensure that diverse people and groups can invest easily in renewable power, including solar. Solar projects in schools, farms, businesses and local councils were beginning to flourish. Overseas, FITs have proven incredibly successful at driving renewables forward and opening up the electricity sector to millions of new investors. Solar is hugely popular, attractive and long-lasting. The UK has around 4,000 square kilometres of roof space. Solar on south-facing roofs and facades alone would meet a third of our electricity needs. If we invest today, by 2020 a typical domestic solar roof should cost around £3,000, supplying around half the occupants' power needs, carbon-free, for 40 years. But instead of embracing the future, the coalition government is locking the UK industry out of vital manufacturing and global share prospects. You report: "The government's reform will favour domestic and other small-scale installations of solar electric power – up to 50kw ... which would not be enough for some community-scale installations." The industry was shocked that no assessment of economic and jobs benefits was undertaken by the government before, in effect, it killed off community and large-scale solar. Britain came late to solar and was clearly taken aback by the sheer dynamism of this global industry. More solar capacity was installed across Europe last year than any other renewable energy technology. Germany, China and Japan have scaled back on nuclear and invested heavily in both solar and wind. The UK solar industry is asking for as little as £3 per household per annum during the lifetime of this parliament to start a solar revolution in Britain. Minister Greg Barker says: "I want to drive an ambitious roll-out of new green energy technologies in homes, communities and small businesses." I can't support his very limited domestic plans. He has been boxed in by the Treasury (no experts on energy), and let down by his own department's shockingly poor understanding of solar: the latest report by its "expert" consultants anticipates a 37% drop in solar costs between 2010 and 2020. Prices dropped around 25% last year alone. The government needs a fresh approach to this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise the way we own and generate electricity. Solar energy has to be allowed to compete directly with fossil fuels and new nuclear. It empowers millions of people, not a handful of energy companies. Could that explain the resistance? | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/feed-in-tariffs', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/series/response', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'politics/liberal-conservative-coalition', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'profile/leonie-greene', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2011-06-14T07:00:03Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2011/oct/27/weatherwatch-ploughing-st-jude-oxen | Weatherwatch: The end of the ploughing season | St Jude's day is celebrated on 28 October, and "On St Jude's Day, the oxen may play," according to an old English weather proverb. Playful oxen might seem like welcome levity for an apostle who suffers the handicap of having the same first name as Judas Iscariot, and who is traditionally associated with lost causes. However, the saying is not quite as cheerful as it seems. In medieval times there were three periods of ploughing in the year, with a team of oxen pulling a heavy iron plough. The first was in April, when the ground was soft enough after the winter, and the second in June. The third ploughing was in October for the winter wheat and rye, taking advantage of the fine weather that often prevails during the first part of the month, which is known as the St Luke's Little Summer. However, the last week of October is one of the wettest in the year, and tradition says that it always rains on St Jude's day. The saying that oxen may play is a warning to farmers to complete their work on time, as St Jude signals the end of the ploughing season. At least it's a well-earned respite for their oxen, though possibly a short one as the slaughtering of old or surplus animals for winter started soon afterwards. St Jude shares his feast day with the even more obscure St Simon. But getting him to share the blame for rain is probably a lost cause. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'science/agriculture', 'uk/weather', 'type/article', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-10-27T22:05:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/article/2024/aug/10/endangered-greater-glider-australia-queensland-conservation | It looks like a cross between a koala and a possum – and it’s in big trouble, Australian conservationists say | There is “damning evidence” of logging occurring close to endangered greater glider populations, conservationists say as they call on the Queensland government to urgently act on a promise to create a park to protect the species. Volunteers used drones in July to film logging in St Mary state forest near Maryborough, about three km from where gliders had been seen. It came after the Miles government in June promised to turn 50,000–60,000 hectares of “high-value ecosystems” in the region into a Greater Glider Forest park. The commitment was detailed in the terms of reference for a new timber industry framework, but it did not include maps of the area that would be protected. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Nicky Moffat, a campaigner with the Queensland Conservation Council, said the government should act urgently to stop logging in the area. “These areas actually have to come off the logging schedules. You can’t log them and then put them in a conservation park,” she said. Moffat said the greater gliders were “captivating” and considered a “keystone species” – meaning when gliders were thriving, it was considered an indicator of a healthy ecosystem. “It’s the biggest gliding possum in the world. It’s up to a metre long … It’s got this massive floppy tail. It’s got big floppy ears. It looks like a cross between a koala and a possum,” she said. Moffat said St Mary state forest was a priority area for the park, particularly given volunteers spotted seven greater gliders within the forest on a single night. The council is calling for protection of all glider habitat on state-owned land and a commitment to fund new national parks and protected areas dedicated to the species’ recovery. While not responding directly to the claims, a Queensland government spokesperson said the commitment to establish a greater glider park was based on a conservation council proposal and experts were identifying the highest priority habitat for protection. “This is a huge contribution to helping to save greater gliders and so many other species in these areas,” they said. “That’s in addition to the 20,000 hectares of state forest in [south-east Queensland] that is in the process of being dedicated as national and conservation park.” Announcing the greater glider forest park in June, the premier, Steven Miles, said Queensland’s timber industry was “the backbone of the housing and building sectors and that he was “doing what matters to support timber workers and the industry to continue building our state, while also increasing our protected area estate”. The national greater glider population is estimated to have halved in little more than 20 years, and it was listed under national environmental laws as endangered in 2022. It was particularly affected by the catastrophic black summer bushfires of 2019-20. The species is the largest gliding possum in eastern Australia. Matt Cecil, a project manager with the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, said greater gliders “don’t cope well with habitat disturbances like human-caused logging”. “They are not inclined to travel far across open ground to move between trees. They require connected, mature eucalypt forest with a high proportion of large tree hollows, and feed almost exclusively on eucalypt leaves.” | ['environment/series/australian-climate-and-environment-in-focus', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/wildlife', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/petra-stock', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-08-10T00:00:28Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2021/dec/08/the-guardian-view-on-green-finance-doing-business-as-if-the-planet-mattered | The Guardian view on green finance: doing business as if the planet mattered | Editorial | Last week, Shell walked away from 170 million barrels of oil off the coast of Shetland, declaring the “economic case for investment” too weak. As might be expected with such a politically sensitive venture, there has been much speculation about what other factors might have been at play, whether pressure from Nicola Sturgeon or from Whitehall. But let’s try another question: how did Shell ever decide that there was an economic case? After all, the energy giant does not deny that its entire business will have to change. It advertises its “target to become a net zero emissions” company by 2050, publishes a “sustainability report” and partners with environmental organisations around the world. Yet little of this environmental awareness shows up in the hard numbers. The company’s latest accounts features this disclaimer: “Shell’s operating plans, outlooks, budgets and pricing assumptions do not reflect our net zero emissions target.” In other words: whatever the oil giant says is not what it thinks. This is not an accusation of corporate hypocrisy, of saying one thing and doing quite another. Here is something far more troubling: the multinational is openly admitting that its core assumptions have not changed to reflect the greatest single threat to our planet, our economy – and its business model. It operates on the premise that oil prices will remain high at $60 a barrel, even though working towards net zero would force them to drop, as industries and consumers shift to alternative sources of energy. The International Energy Agency has issued a net zero scenario that projects the price of a barrel of oil will slump to $36 by the end of this decade and $24 by 2050. Prices so low might deter Shell from all kinds of exploration and drilling projects. It might also wipe millions off the value of the firm. Company reports are audited and Shell’s auditor is another giant, EY. Yet EY does not quibble with Shell’s assumptions – it simply says “it is neither possible nor appropriate” for it to challenge them. This is, frankly, nonsense. EY is one of the biggest financial firms on the planet and is as capable as the Guardian of looking at the independent forecasts for what green transition means for oil prices. Moreover, the regulator for auditors has demanded they “address, and where relevant report” on climate change. This isn’t to single out Shell; it is just one obvious example. In a recent review, the thinktank Carbon Tracker recently found that 70% of companies and 80% of auditors failed to disclose climate risk in their financial reports. The government is consulting on reforms to the often scandal-hit audit industry. This would seem an obvious issue for Kwasi Kwarteng to take up. Let’s value companies according to hard limits being imposed on us by the planet, rather than according to the fictions dreamed up by fossil fuel industries. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/environment', 'business/royaldutchshell', 'business/business', 'business/oil', 'business/commodities', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/energy-industry', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'environment/green-economy', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2021-12-08T18:58:38Z | true | EMISSIONS |
lifeandstyle/2019/nov/05/country-diary-snowdonias-folklore-river-still-invites-a-poetic-pilgrimage | Country diary: Snowdonia's folklore river still invites a poetic pilgrimage | A path descends from the hilltop village, its route following cloddiau (turf and stone field dykes), bright even this late in the year with mats of trailing tormentil. It arrives at a wood, water loud in the ravine below, and a viewing spot for Rhaeadr Cynfal – an exquisitely lacey fall on the Afon Cynfal. This is Snowdonia’s great folklore river, replete with connections to the fourth branch of The Mabinogion. A little further along the now-vertiginous path is a belvedere, below which is a rock stack four or five metres high, known as Huw Llwyd’s Pulpit. From this Huw Llwyd (1568-1630) sermonised on magic and morality to congregations gathered on the bank above (although he must have possessed a mighty voice to be heard above the noise of the river). Huw lived at Cynfal Fawr, high on the opposite bank and features in Thomas Love Peacock’s Headlong Hall. He was a soldier, sorcerer, poet, huntsman, friend and correspondent with John Dee, the Elizabethan mage. In Victorian times the Cynfal gorge was a favourite on the romantic Wales itinerary. Postcards in becoming sepia of the striking and mysterious “pulpit” were sold in Betws y Coed. It is less popular now, but the atmospherics still thrum. Huw’s grandson, Morgan Llwyd (1619-59), also came here as a child. He was author of a Welsh religious prose classic, Llyfr y Tri Aderyn (Book of the Three Birds) of 1653, a fascinating tract influenced by the German mystic Jakob Boehme. The path above the plunging gorge continues to a footbridge, from which an easier route takes you back to Llan Ffestiniog’s Pengwern Arms, a welcoming community-run pub with accommodation for walkers. The English writer George Borrow stayed here on his 1854 walking tour of Wales. He had come looking for a stone bench said to have been frequented by the 15th-century bard Rhys Goch Eryri (such poets’ “chairs” were an obsession of Borrow’s) but it was never here. He had passed it unawares the day before, near Pont Aberglaslyn. My suspicion is that, brains scrambled by the over-proof poitín he’d sampled at Tan Lan, Borrow had confused his stories. He would have loved Morgan Llwyd. | ['lifeandstyle/walking', 'books/poetry', 'environment/rivers', 'travel/snowdonia', 'travel/literary-trips', 'environment/series/country-diary', 'uk/wales', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'uk/uk', 'travel/travel', 'books/books', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/jim-perrin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-11-05T05:30:45Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/blog/audio/2009/jul/28/tech-weekly-podcast-flip-video | Tech Weekly podcast: Interviews with Flip Video and Atomic Floyd | Technology editor Charles Arthur is in the driving seat for this week's programme – everyone else on the Tech Weekly team is either living it up, having babies, or studying. Someone has to do all the work … In this podcast, Charles meets Ray Sangster, the Europe, Middle East and Africa chief of Flip Video – the company that makes the iPod-sized video cameras. Ray discusses why Cisco Systems wanted to buy the company, and the competition Flip has from video-enabled mobile phones such as the iPhone 3GS. We also hear from James Strong, the founder of Atomic Floyd – maker of high-specification headphones. Charles hears how headphones are often the forgotten element when people buy expensive gadgets, and why their precision earpieces are stainless steel (to do with sound leakage and size, apparently). All this, and Bobbie Johnson brings us this week's tech news from his holiday lilo. Possibly. Don't forget to... • Comment below... • Mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk • Get our Twitter feed for programme updates • Join our Facebook group • See our pics on Flickr/Post your tech pics | ['technology/series/techweekly', 'technology/gadgets', 'media/digital-media', 'technology/technology', 'technology/blog', 'tone/interview', 'technology/cisco', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'type/podcast', 'type/audio'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-07-29T09:28:42Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2011/mar/11/government-sabotaging-attempts-green-economy | The government is sabotaging British attempts to forge a green economy | Luciana Berger | After a flurry of environment announcements this week, how are Department of Energy and Climate Change ministers turning their talk into action? The answer is a sorry tale of legislative delays, policy confusion, ministerial splits and missed opportunities, at the exact time British firms are straining at the leash to build green business. There are delays to the green investment bank, which looks unlikely to be a proper bank capable of making long-term investments in green businesses, but instead end up as just another government grant. There are cuts in grants to develop alternative fuels, such as the Algae Biofuels Challenge run by the Carbon Trust, which are essential to many sectors, including aviation. And the uncertainty over the green deal, whereby households can borrow cash to insulate their homes, and pay it back through energy savings, all add to a picture of dithering and delay. This sclerosis at the heart of government is a product of clashes between Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers. It's a story of a weak secretary of state unable to shift an adamantine Treasury. The tragedy is that the opportunity is being squandered for some of Britain's most innovative companies to grow and become world-beating firms. The Aldersgate Group, an alliance of business leaders driving action for a sustainable economy, suggests that "the UK is losing momentum in the green economy race and there is only a small window of opportunity to assert leadership in the years ahead." The group's report, Greening the Economy, released last week, warns ministers that "just incremental greening will not do. A re-packaging of existing measures or reluctance for bold action excused by current financial constraints will spectacularly miss the point". But instead of ministers helping Britain's green firms to global dominance, they are skewing the market in favour of their overseas competitors. A firm like Eco Environments Ltd, which has its base on Merseyside, supplies domestic and small-scale solar panels and wind turbines, and needs a stable platform for growth. Or OVESCo, an industrial and provident society in East Sussex which provides sun, sea, wind, water and biomass energy to local schemes that rely on feed-in tariffs to survive as a business. Uncertainty over the "feed-in tariffs", currently being reviewed by DECC, is paralysing for such firms. Take the wind sector. The UK has been overtaken by countries such as Denmark, which has won half of the global market in wind turbines, worth annual revenues to the Danish exchequer of £2.7bn. Danish citizens are encouraged to invest in wind turbine co-operatives. No such level of support exists in the UK, which is why we lag behind. Only active government can shape markets, create new ones, and create green growth. Individuals and businesses cannot do it alone: they need a government by their side. That's why the Labour government introduced the Climate Change Act in 2008 to enshrine carbon targets in law, and to move Britain from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy. We planned to achieve 40% low-carbon electricity by 2020, and to create 400,000 new jobs in green businesses. This government inherited a range of green initiatives, such as the green investment bank, which they've watered-down, or punted into the long grass. The Tory-led government's blinkered focus on the deficit means they are not making the right strategic decisions for now or for the next generation. Their promised green economy road map will appear many months after the publication of their energy bill. They've pulled the funding for the Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) scheme, which helps industrial firms green their processes and cut energy use. The cross-government carbon plan, as Michael Jacobs, the former adviser to Gordon Brown, pointed out this week, contains little that is new. Nearly all of the 130 actions are things the government was doing already. The renewable heat incentive is a welcome scheme as far as it goes. But why will householders have to wait until October 2012 to receive the subsidy? Business leaders tell me again and again that they have the products and potential markets, that they can often attract high levels of private investment, but that government policy is strangling their growth. Ten months into their jobs, and ministers are displaying a tragic lack of ambition. They cannot afford to take their foot off the gas. • Luciana Berger is shadow climate change minister | ['environment/green-economy', 'environment/green-jobs', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/wave-tidal-hydropower', 'environment/biomass-and-bioenergy', 'politics/labour', 'politics/liberaldemocrats', 'politics/conservatives', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'tone/comment', 'environment/green-investment-bank', 'type/article'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2011-03-11T16:40:21Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2008/may/20/yahoo.yahootakeover | Merger hopes revived after Microsoft and Yahoo resume talks | A resumption of talks between Yahoo and Microsoft caused relief among investors and advertisers yesterday as hopes rose that negotiations on an internet search tie-up could lead to a full takeover. The two US technology firms confirmed late on Sunday that they were back at the table, prompting Yahoo's shares to jump by 1% in early Wall Street trading to $27.95 - their highest level since talks collapsed two weeks ago over a $47.5bn (£24.4bn) buyout by Microsoft at $31 a share. This time, discussions are understood to focus on combining their search-related advertising to create a viable competitor to Google, through either a joint venture or a partial buyout by Microsoft. "We remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interests of our stockholders," Yahoo said. Experts believe that discussing a tie-up could be a face-saving route to a return to full takeover talks. In a research note, analysts at UBS wrote: "A near-term deal could act as an intermediate step that would go a long way toward testing the waters." Yahoo is under pressure to act quickly. The billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn is rallying disgruntled fellow investors to mount a boardroom putsch at the company's annual meeting in early July by putting forward a slate of dissident nominees to replace existing directors. The advertising industry is keen to see a deal to dislodge Google's dominant position. In Britain, Google generates more ad revenue than ITV by controlling 85% of the online search market. Nigel Gwilliam, of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, said his members wanted a swift deal: "The longer they go through this protracted process, the better it is for Google because Yahoo aren't really focusing on their core business." Advertisers fear that without stiff competition, Google could extend its search dominance in the next phase of digital media, including mobile phone adverts, video-style display ads on the web and even sales of off-line adverts in newspapers and television. "Google's leadership is even more acute in the UK than in the US," said Gwilliam. "We very much want to see a viable competitor to Google." Sources say the latest talks began when Yahoo contacted Microsoft last week to see if it was still interested in a deal. Microsoft suggested a tie-up short of a takeover. Some are sceptical of such an arrangement. Henry Blodget, a former Wall Street analyst turned technology commentator, said in his blog: "Joint ventures in technology almost never work: too many cooks in [the] kitchen, too many competing goals/incentives, uncertain future ownership and strategic direction - the fatal flaw is different in each case." | ['technology/yahoo', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/microsoft', 'business/business', 'media/mediabusiness', 'media/digital-media', 'media/media', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'profile/andrewclark', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-05-20T06:06:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2015/feb/26/australia-lobbying-to-stop-great-barrier-reef-making-in-danger-list | Australia lobbying to stop Great Barrier Reef making 'in danger' list | Australia has embarked on a “whole of government” diplomatic and ministerial lobbying campaign to correct “misinformation” and prevent the Great Barrier Reef from being placed on the Unesco world heritage committee’s “in danger” list, a Senate committee has been told. The environment minister Greg Hunt visited German environment minister and world heritage committee chair Maria Boehmer in January and Senate estimates heard on Thursday that ambassadors in all of the 21 countries on the committee had been enlisted in the lobbying effort, as well as consuls general and other staff. “We have asked our ambassadors in countries that are on the world heritage committee, this is a whole of government effort, we will use our diplomatic resources to best effect,” said the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Varghese in response to questions from the Greens senator for Queensland and environment spokeswoman, Larissa Waters. “There is currently a campaign to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger; we are doing all that we can to ensure the campaign does not succeed,” he said. “In the course of that campaign we think there are a number of assertions about the management of the Great Barrier Reef and its vulnerability which are not grounded in fact and which need to be rebutted. “We have tasked several of our heads of mission and in the case of [New York consul general and former Howard government minister, Nick] Minchin, heads of post to make that clear to the investment community.” Guardian Australia reported last month that Minchin has been lobbying foreign banks reported to have ruled out financing the Abbot Point coal export terminal, adjacent to the reef. “Those representations are not asking banks to endorse any particular project, they are setting out the views of the Australian government on the question of whether the Great Barrier Reef is in danger and ... the government’s approach to ... the effective management of the Great Barrier Reef.” “Mr Minchin was not lobbying for any particular project ... he was meeting with investment bankers to make the point that the misinformation being circulated was inaccurate ... to the extent that investors are taking that into account to make judgements about projects they ought to be aware of it,” he said. The attorney general, George Brandis, who was representing the foreign minister at the estimates committee hearing, was incredulous at the Green senator’s line of questioning. “Surely you are not suggesting that it is not the role of Australian consuls general or department of foreign affairs employees generally to promote the interests of Australian business,” he asked Waters. “I understand you have a particular view about this development that is not widely shared and certainly not shared by the Queensland public ... but it is the core role of our representatives overseas to promote the interests of Australian business,” he said. “I see no reason at all why ... that might not extent to assisting them securing project financing ... for businesses that bring jobs and employment to the Queenslanders you are meant to be representing.” Minchin’s meeting requests came shortly after Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and other US financial institutions confirmed to a US environmental group, in letters cited in the Wall Street Journal, that they would avoid investments in Abbot Point. This followed Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank ruling out investments earlier last year. “Instead of lobbying its way out of embarrassment, the Abbott government should actually do what the World Heritage Committee has asked to save the Reef from an ‘in danger’ listing,” Waters said. “I’ve had a bill before the federal Parliament to adopt Unesco’s clear recommendations since they first expressed concern about the Great Barrier Reef’s future. To keep the Reef on the World Heritage list, the Government should simply pass my bill to adopt Unesco’s recommendations on restricting ports, dredging and dumping in the Great Barrier Reef.” Guardian Australia reported last year that government efforts to ensure the reef’s world heritage status is not downgraded are being coordinated by a special unit called the Great Barrier Reef taskforce. A total of 21 countries provide representatives to Unesco’s World Heritage committee, and the group is set to gather in the German city of Bonn in June to decide, among other things, whether the reef should be put on the endangered list. The 21 countries include India, Jamaica, Japan, Portugal and Germany. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/greg-hunt', 'australia-news/george-brandis', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lenore-taylor'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-02-26T07:48:41Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sport/2020/oct/15/england-in-talks-about-first-pakistan-tour-since-2005 | England in talks about first Pakistan tour since 2005 | England are in discussions over a short tour of Pakistan in January – their first visit to the country since 2005 – as a show of gratitude for helping to rescue the recent international summer. Pakistan were one of four boards that sent teams to the UK this year in a feat that helped the England and Wales Cricket Board to keep its losses to around £100m, rather than the £380m doomsday scenario forecast in the event of a fully wiped out season. And now talks are under way for a possible three-match Twenty20 series in mid-January that would go some way towards repaying the Pakistan Cricket Board’s show of solidarity during a time of crisis. The proposed trip would likely clash with England’s Test series in Sri Lanka – provided issues over a 14-day quarantine for that rearranged tour are overcome in the meantime – and thus require two national sides to be playing overseas at the same time. Though perhaps unpalatable for some, this was effectively the case during the summer when restricted movement between biosecure bubbles meant Eoin Morgan led a weakened 50-over side against Ireland in between Test series against West Indies and Pakistan. England’s 15-year absence from Pakistan has been driven by security concerns following the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore, with the United Arab Emirates having acted as a neutral venue in the intervening period. International teams have begun to return to the country in recent times, however, while the Pakistan Super League– which began life in the UAE in 2016 but has since returned home – featured 10 English players during its most recent edition. A statement from the ECB read: “We welcome the fact that international cricket is returning to Pakistan and are committed to doing what we can to help this develop further. “As with any proposed tour that takes place at this time, the safety and welfare of our players and staff is paramount. As such, there are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration, including the proposed protocols in relation to Covid‑19 biosecure bubbles, the proposed levels of security around the team, as well as the feasibility of undertaking this tour against the backdrop of an already busy schedule for the England men’s team. “We will be liaising with the PCB, and as well as other partners over the coming weeks to work through these considerations, before a final decision will be taken in due course.” | ['sport/england-cricket-team', 'sport/pakistancricketteam', 'sport/ecb', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ali-martin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2020-10-15T19:29:36Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
uk-news/2019/jul/15/giant-jellyfish-cornwall-coast-divers | 1.5-metre jellyfish spotted off coast of Cornwall | A giant barrel jellyfish has been spotted off the coast of Cornwall by divers. “I’ve never seen one that big,” said Lizzie Daly, a biologist who saw the creature near Falmouth. “We had seen a few smaller jellyfish at a beautiful reef nearby, and then out of the murk came this huge, beautiful jelly fish. You just take a double look and ask yourself if it’s actually a metre and a half long.” She said swimming alongside the “gentle giant” was “such a serene, grounding experience”. Thousands of the creatures, the largest jellyfish found in British coastal waters, flock through the Atlantic Ocean towards warm coastal waters in the west of the UK each year and are often found washed up on beaches across May and June. Owing to the late summer, the animals, which normally measure up to about a metre with their tentacles, were still being spotted in south-west England, south Wales and elsewhere. This was not unusual, Daly said, and the sightings were not part of a “freak jellyfish wash-up”. Daly and an underwater camera operator, Dan Abbott, were diving in Falmouth as part of the online series Wild Ocean Week and stayed with the abnormally large, translucent bell-mushroom-shaped animal for about an hour before it swam away. The pair said they were not surprised by the animal’s behaviour. “It has got a very mild sting and poses no threat to humans – some people don’t even feel it,” Daly said. “Many people would be immediately worried, but it is not dangerous. Its a majestic creature.” However, she said her response may have differed if it was a Portuguese man o’ war, which carries a potentially deadly sting. Dr Michele Kiernan from the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth said little was known about the lifestyles of barrel jellyfish, including where their young live, and that their movements were at the mercy of winds and currents. “As we’ve had a long spell of no rain in the south-west, people can see them more easily because of the clarity in the water,” she said. Their predators could also be reducing in number, she continued. Barrel jellyfish are the favourite prey of leatherback turtles, while they are also eaten by other animals which are increasingly “getting caught in entanglements and waste in the water.” In 2015, flocks of barrel jellyfish, which each have eight frilly tentacles, were seen gliding through the sea off the Cornwall coast. The animals, nicknamed dustbin lid jellyfish because of their shape and size, are attracted inshore by plankton blooms. | ['uk-news/cornwall', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/uk', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/mattha-busby', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-07-15T10:58:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2019/dec/20/uk-weather-rail-roads-flooded-heavy-rain | Heavy rain and flooding frustrate pre-Christmas travellers in UK | Heavy rain and flooding have wreaked havoc on railways and roads in parts of the UK as pre-Christmas travel is expected to peak. Journeys were disrupted in southern and eastern England on one of the busiest travel days of the year, combining many commuters’ last working day before Christmas with a surge in getaway traffic. About 17 million drivers were expected to travel on Britain’s main roads and motorways on Friday. Some areas of southern England and Wales recorded around 5cm of rain in 36 hours, and the Met Office issued dozens of flood warnings across England, with rain forecast to persist in some areas until Sunday. Flooding in Sussex put part of the railway line between Brighton and London underwater, causing all northbound trains from the coastal city to be cancelled on Friday morning. The rail and road problems meant travellers struggled to reach Gatwick airport. Rail passengers were advised to make alternative arrangements while Network Rail worked to restore services on the Thameslink route, with some express trains from the capital also affected. The motorway serving the airport, the M23, was also shut after a nearby river burst its banks. Landslips closed rail lines near Maidstone, in Kent, and Guildford, in Surrey, affecting trains on the South Western and Southeastern franchises. In Devon and Cornwall, police said flooding in the region had made a number of roads impassable, while Norfolk and Suffolk police said roads in both counties were affected by flood water. The Met Office said localised flooding was likely to cause delays in some areas through the weekend. Festive travel congestion was expected to peak on Friday afternoon, although motoring organisations said drivers could face lighter traffic than usual because of staggered holidays and a midweek Christmas. The AA said polling of its members showed traffic would decline after Friday night, but indicated potential last-minute shopping jams on Saturday. The worst traffic was expected on stretches of the M40 approaching Bicester village, with delays forecast on Saturday afternoon by the RAC breakdown service. The worst hotspots for traffic delays were expected on motorways, including the north-western M25, the M5 between Bristol and Weston-super-Mare and the M6 around Birmingham, the AA said. The RAC said there could also be long queues on the northbound M1 on Sunday afternoon, according to data from the traffic analysts Inrix. However, it said people driving home for Christmas early next week could expect a quieter journey, with work and business traffic falling away. Weather conditions should also be much drier from Sunday night onwards, according to Met Office forecasts. Highways England said 98% of England’s motorways and major A-roads would be clear of roadworks between Friday and 2 January. And Network Rail said the vast majority of the UK’s railways would be open, apart from a two-day closure of the entire network on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when more than 20,000 staff will be involved in £100m of engineering projects. Work on the Great Western railway means there will be no trains from London Paddington between 24-27 December, and a reduced timetable between 28-31 December. And engineering works at London King’s Cross will affect services running north until late on Friday 27 December, while work near Liverpool Street station will affect Greater Anglia services over the holidays. The busiest day at Heathrow airport is expected to be on Saturday, when 255,133 passengers are due to fly in or out. For those tempted to make their flights more festive, the UK aviation industry relaunched its “One Too Many” campaign to warn passengers of the potential consequences, including £80,000 fines for drunken passengers who disrupt flights. | ['uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'uk/rail-transport', 'uk/transport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gwyntopham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-12-20T10:38:57Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2013/dec/13/rio-tinto-nsw-deny-abusing-planning-process | Rio Tinto and NSW deny abusing planning process to expedite coal mine | Mining giant Rio Tinto and the NSW government have flatly denied claims they are abusing the planning process to expedite a coal mine expansion approval, and have rejected suggestions they coerced workers into submitting positive submissions to the state government. On Thursday the Newcastle Herald reported that employees of the Rio Tinto-managed Coal & Allied Warkworth mine in the Hunter Valley were “effectively forced” to write submissions to the state government supporting Rio Tinto’s application to expand the mine. The vast majority of the 1,300 submissions received were positive. The district president of the construction, forestry, mining and energy union, Peter Jordan, said employees were “pulled off their shift to fill out submissions”. A spokesman for Coal & Allied told Guardian Australia that while employees were invited to make submissions, none were forced to and none were told it must be positive. “It is entirely appropriate to keep our workforce, whose livelihoods depend on the future of the operation, informed about the Warkworth modification application process and to provide them with the opportunity and guidance to voice their opinions and have their say in a public process that directly affects them, should they choose to do so,” he said. “Our employees have a vested interest in the future of the mining industry. At all times correspondence with employees has been clear that if they choose to make a submission in relation to the Warkworth modification, that it would be entirely voluntary and confidential.” The spokesman also denied allegations that the company had held back Christmas payments from union members while giving payments to non-union employees, saying the different payments related to different workplace agreements. “A new enterprise agreement was not accepted earlier this year at Mount Thorley Warkworth and the current enterprise agreement at Mount Thorley Warkworth has a business performance payment (BPP) entitlement for employees up to 2012,” he said. While the NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure conceded it did "expedite" its assessment of Rio Tinto's application to extend a Hunter Valley mine, it said all community rights were retained. The Lock the Gate Alliance and Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association (BMPA) wrote to planning minister Brad Hazzard on Thursday, accusing the state government of colluding with Rio Tinto to bypass due process. Rio Tinto has applied to extend its Warkworth mine operation and the planning department has recommended it be approved. The department says the modification sought would increase the mining footprint by 1%. But Lock The Gate Alliance's Steve Phillips questioned the level of scrutiny given to Rio Tinto. He said it took 21 days from the time the miner submitted its application until the department recommended the approval. "It is patently impossible that the mining giant gave any consideration to community attitudes or expert advice in that time," he said. In a statement on Friday, the department said it was acutely aware of the concerns raised about the mine. "We are also conscious that the mine employs some 1,300 people and the constraints on the existing operations put these jobs at risk," the statement read. The department said in "consideration of the important local factors at play" it decided to expedite the assessment. "However, all existing legal and community rights have been retained throughout, including the right for the community to have its say," the statement read. Rio Tinto gained approval from the NSW government for a larger extension of the same mine this year, but the land and environment court overturned the approval following a challenge from BMPA. Rio Tinto and the O'Farrell government have launched action in the court of appeal to appeal the land and environment court ruling. Lock the Gate and BPMA argue Rio's most recent application is in the same area the land and environment court ruled mining should not take place. A Rio Tinto spokesman said the Warkworth application was for a minor modification that would help protect 1,300 jobs for the next two years. He said, after four years of consultation around the mine, it was "disingenuous" to claim the current application needed to be further delayed. "Rio Tinto has a dedicated and highly experienced team who worked around the clock to assess and respond appropriately to all objections once the public exhibition period closed," he said in a statement. "The implications of the minor modification now being sought are extremely well understood, thereby allowing the company to respond to submissions in a timely manner." Premier Barry O'Farrell told ABC radio he was confident the planning department operated with openness and transparency. Rio Tinto's application now rests with the Planning Assessment Commission. | ['environment/mining', 'business/mining', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coal', 'australia-news/coalition', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2013-12-13T07:05:11Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2021/jun/05/education-for-girls-and-vaccines-can-save-africa-from-disaster | Education for girls and vaccines can save Africa from disaster | Phillip Inman | There are so many good causes in the world it is often difficult to know where aid money should go. As leaders line up to attend the G7 summit in Cornwall, the most effective destinations for aid money have become clearer – a global vaccination programme and improving girls’ education. This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa, where so much can go wrong over the next 10 years – a population explosion, massive biodiversity loss, desertification, famine and mass migration to mention just a few – that unless we focus our efforts on vaccines and girls’ education, whatever is done to alleviate poverty or tackle the climate emergency will be threatened or even sabotaged in almost every other region of the world. As leaders arrive in Carbis Bay, they may still be involved in an unseemly fight over vaccine patents that could stymie any hopes of a global vaccination programme. In the blue corner is Germany, which has found itself the proud parent to the most successful anti-Covid drug – the BioNTech vaccine licensed by Pfizer, and what is expected to be the next big thing, the CureVac vaccine, which could be only days away from gaining European approval. Like BioNTech, CureVac’s version is based on messenger RNA (mRNA), a technology that has so far proved more effective and more stable than the one championed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. US president Joe Biden is in the red corner, calling for patents to be waived in the fight against the disease. Germany says no, seeing a cynical plot by the US to undermine its first major success in an industry previously dominated by US pharma. There is right on both sides, but the broader picture is that the shareholders and bosses of many pharma companies have become obscenely rich on the back of terrible suffering and should give up their patents for the greater good. It may be upsetting for the Germans to be asked to make a sacrifice when US pharma businesses have ignored vaccines for decades and fought viciously to maintain patents on antiretroviral HIV therapies, but there is a higher calling. On Monday Tomorrow, the government’s foreign aid cuts come under scrutiny after Tory MP Andrew Mitchell succeeded in forcing a Commons vote. Last year, foreign secretary Dominic Raab announced that the UK would cut aid spending from 0.7% of national income to 0.5% – a reduction of more than £4bn. The newly integrated Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office stands accused of reducing the funding for some programmes by 85% or more. Earlier this year Raab indicated that bilateral aid for Africa would be £764m, which critics denounced after government statistics showed that in 2019 Africa received £2.4bn in bilateral aid. Lady Sugg accused Raab of cutting girls’ education funding by more than 40%. The former Tory foreign office minister also claimed the government was planning to close its flagship women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme and cut spending on the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition by up to 80%. FCDO officials are piecing together new targets for funding girls’ education and sexual health, and say close to half of the UK’s bilateral aid is destined for Africa, but probably know they don’t have the funds to carry out a fraction of what is needed. And that’s a big blow to African governments, all of which are struggling to get girls back into education after the pandemic. Without an education, girls will be unable to get paid work and be independent. All the studies show that when women gain control of their lives they also gain control of their bodies and have fewer children. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is expected to rise from 1.1 billion to nearer 2 billion by 2050 and is one of the main drivers of global population growth towards 10 billion. Julia Gillard, the former prime minister of Australia, champions the education of girls as patron of the international education non-profit Camfed (the campaign for girls’ education), possibly the most important aid agency at the moment. African leaders are well aware of the benefits that flow from educating girls, from the immediate economic income to the wider gains for the planet. What they lack is the resources, and the pandemic will prove a huge setback, making it more difficult to lure girls back to school, especially when their families find it difficult to make ends meet without more help at home. It must be hoped that more than 30 Tory rebels join Labour, Liberal Democrats and other right-minded MPs to defeat the government’s aid cuts, and that world leaders drop their animus over vaccines. There is a catastrophe to be avoided. | ['business/economics', 'world/africa', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'science/infectiousdiseases', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'education/education', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/phillipinman', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/business', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-06-05T16:00:14Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2022/feb/10/german-foreign-minister-faces-criticism-after-appointing-ex-greenpeace-chief | German foreign minister faces criticism after appointing ex-Greenpeace chief | Germany’s foreign minister is facing domestic criticism over her surprise decision to recruit the head of Greenpeace as an international environmental envoy, including accusations she bent the rules to create the post and had obscured the divide between governing and lobbying. Annalena Baerbock described Jennifer Morgan, the outgoing head of Greenpeace International, as “the new navigator at the helm of our international climate policy” when she announced her appointment this week. As a future state secretary under Baerbock, Morgan will coordinate Germany’s €6bn (£5bn) international climate initiative across all the government ministries. The includes supporting projects in newly industrialised countries. She will also represent Germany at international climate conferences, the next being the UN’s meeting in Sharm el-Sheik in November. Morgan, who starts the role on 1 March, will work across the government but is expected to have particularly close contact with Baerbock’s fellow Green party member, Robert Habeck, who is the minister for economics and climate protection, and Steffi Lemke, the environment minister, whose role includes conservation, consumer protection and nuclear safety. The appointment of Morgan will help broaden the remit of her own ministry, Baerbock said on Wednesday. She added that Germany’s 226 diplomatic missions abroad were, by extension, “climate ambassadors” and would be included in her effort to place climate politics at the heart of German foreign policy. But Morgan must first become a German citizen in order to become a state secretary. This, Baerbock said, was in the process of happening, but has prompted stiff opposition in conservative circles amid fears that a US citizen is not capable of representing German interests. She will reportedly receive a salary in line with that earned by bureaucrats of a similar rank, of almost €15,000 a month. Morgan will have to also undergo a security check by Germany’s intelligence services, with some critics suggesting it may be difficult for her to distance herself from Greenpeace protest initiatives where its activists have clashed with the law. Politicians from the opposition conservative alliance have led the condemnation. Thorsten Frei, a member of the Christian Social Union, called the decision hypocritical. He said: “To make a Greenpeace activist state secretary with the wink of an eye does not tally with the recent standards announced by parliament to more clearly identify the influence of interest groups. To grant citizenship and the status of civil servant to a prominent American lobbyist on the quick is a highly idiosyncratic event.” Alexander Dobrindt, the head of the parliamentary group of the Christian Social Union, said the government was opening itself up to manipulation. “That international lobbyists regardless of the topic, are allowed to take over the leadership of government ministries I find surprising, even for this government,” he said. Lukas Köhler, vice-chair of the parliamentary group of the pro-business FDP, part of the three-way coalition government alongside the Greens and the Social Democrats, told Handelsblatt that the general public had reacted “with a degree of astonishment” because of what he called Greenpeace’s “radical views” and its involvement in some activist events in Germany in recent years that had been seen to backfire. Transparency International, the anti-corruption organisation which is based in Berlin, said it saw the appointment as largely unproblematic as the goal behind it was a transparent one, to advance climate protection in the foreign ministry. “For that you clearly need experts,” its chair, Hartmut Bäumer, told the news network RND. “This isn’t about financial advantages for Greenpeace, rather about moral concerns. That is the difference from other organisations for whom financial lobbyism is the priority.” But TI’s managing director, Anna-Maija Mertens, said the organisation would monitor the way in which Morgan carried out her role. “Of course Jennifer Morgan has to ensure she maintains a broad, balanced weighing up of interests,” Mertens said. Ever since her appointment two months ago, Baerbock, who has been mainly focused on tackling high-level crises such as the standoff between Russia and the west over Ukraine, has stressed the importance of broadening the remit of her ministry to include environmental affairs. She has quashed the expectation that she would be forced against her will to water down her commitment to green issues in order to concentrate on the wide range of pressing diplomatic concerns. There had been speculation she had in effect been sidelined in the role of foreign minister because of a worse-than-predicted performance in September’s election over negative publicity stemming from plagiarism allegations. While she has earned a mixed response for her diplomatic efforts to tackle tensions over the Ukraine border, the role has caused her international profile to soar. Speaking in fluent German, Morgan said at a press briefing in Berlin on Wednesday morning that she had lived in the city since 2003 and that her “heart beats for Germany”. Greenpeace’s reputation in Germany was damaged when a protest by one of its activists went spectacularly wrong before Germany’s Euro 2020 match against France. A man lost control of his paraglider as he attempted to fly over the Allianz Arena in Munich. Two people were injured. Officials said the paraglider narrowly escaped getting shot down by marksmen. The stunt was widely condemned as reckless, including by the Green party, and Greenpeace later apologised. Jan-Marco Luczak of the FDP said that, as head of Greenpeace, Morgan should be “held responsible for such life-threatening and punishable initiatives”. | ['world/germany', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'world/europe-news', 'world/protest', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/kateconnolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2022-02-10T16:32:58Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2021/oct/24/the-guardian-view-on-coral-sea-creatures-with-charisma | The Guardian view on coral: sea creatures with charisma | Editorial | Coral reefs, like tropical rainforests, have a special place in natural history. Covering just 0.2% of the ocean floor, they are home to around a quarter of all sea species. Because of this fecundity, and their flamboyant array of colours, shapes and sizes, reefs are rightly understood as wonders of the world. Reports of their destruction carry a painful sting. Like images of the burning Amazon, pictures of bleached coral are disturbing – their whitened, empty forms a warning of nature’s wider decline. There is now around half the amount of coral that there was in the 1950s, and the outlook is not good. Rising sea temperatures, coastal and marine developments, overfishing and pollution all expose these highly sensitive environments to acute stress. While a bleached reef can seem permanently lost, if conditions are right it can recover naturally. If the cause of bleaching (usually unnaturally high sea temperatures) stops, the corals are able to recapture the symbiotic algae that are released during bleaching and can make a full recovery. If the stress lasts for longer and the coral dies, it is possible for reefs to be recolonised by the planktonic young of healthy corals nearby. However, the overgrowth of reef algae can prevent this from happening and this is exacerbated by overfishing. After the disastrous bleaching event of 1998, which destroyed 8% of all coral, there have been subsequent losses of 14% between 2009 and 2018. Whether it is a better strategy to shock people, or to try to stimulate conservation efforts by encouraging them to value nature more, is among the vexed questions of environmental communication. Sometimes the problem of the enormous demands placed on the Earth by nearly 8 billion people can seem overwhelming. Images of devastated landscapes, and warnings of tipping points, can induce feelings of despair. Coral’s uniqueness and fragility make it a case in point. It is no wonder that some scientists, fearful of the impact of reef loss on tourism and livelihoods as well as for its own sake, are recreating coral habitats in laboratories. One such project, the Bahamas-based Coral Vita, was among the winners of the inaugural Earthshot prizes launched by Prince William. It is far-fetched to imagine that whole reef systems could be rebuilt by humans. But marine biology has taught us that reef-building corals, of which there are an estimated 800 species (along with thousands of other types), are more resilient than we thought. The biodiversity of reefs is their strength, as multiple species have evolved together to occupy different niches. If global heating can be halted, there is reason to hope that some of the creatures that inhabit these ecosystems will adapt to survive. We should also look beyond the brightly coloured, sunlit reefs of the tropics, to other marine landscapes. One of the reasons coral is studied and admired is that it is more accessible – to scientists as well as tourists and film-makers – than ecosystems such as offshore mud habitats, or the horse mussel reefs in deep water around the British Isles. Tropical coral reefs deserve their status as charismatic habitats. But as awareness grows of the role that oceans can play in sequestering carbon, and marine conservation efforts ramp up as part of global efforts to limit warming and biodiversity losses, we should cultivate our appreciation for other ecosystems too. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/coral', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-24T17:25:16Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2012/oct/30/manhattan-building-winds-sandy | Manhattan building partially collapses amid winds from Sandy | Winds from hurricane Sandy have seriously damaged a building in Manhattan as the centre of the storm heads towards land. Part of the facade of a four story building in the West Village collapsed at about 6.30pm, leaving rooms open to the elements but no one injured. Elsewhere parts of midtown Manhattan were evacuated when a crane on top of a skyscraper partially collapsed. The Fire Department of New York initially reported a "multi-dwelling building collapse" on Twitter, although pictures quickly emerged showing that the front wall of the top two floors of the building was missing, rather than the entire structure collapsing. Images showed a fire truck at the scene, with a writer from the Huffington Post reporting that firefighters had to enter the building to help people out. The fire department later said that no one had been hurt. "There are no injuries or people trapped at 92 8th Ave building collapse, which involved the facade of the structure," it said in a tweet. "Firefighters went in and rescued the residents. Some residents said same thing happened to same building 20 years ago," said Meg Robertson, a reporter at HuffPost Live. She posted several pictures of the scene on her Twitter account. The building, 92 8th Avenue, is located between 14th and 15th streets in Manhattan. The main threat to buildings in New York City had been expected to come from flooding, with a mandatory evacuation order in place in many places along Manhattan's coastline. Earlier a crane on top of the One 57 building, which is under construction on west 57th street further north in Manhattan, appeared to come loose from its bearings in high winds. Pictures showed the crane hanging upside down from the top of the building, which is set to be luxury flats. Police and the fire department evacuated all buildings north and south of 57th street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, CNN reported. The Le Parker Meridien hotel on West 56th Street was also evacuated, according to reports, with guests being transferred to a different hotel. In New York bridges across the East River have been closed, including the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, with people warned to stay inside. Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on Monday evening. The system was downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm just after 7pm but was still expected to cause widespread damage. Some 2.2m people around north east America were without power at about 7.30pm as the storm affected 12 states. | ['us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'us-news/new-york', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-gabbatt'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-10-30T00:18:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/nov/23/how-africas-fastest-solar-power-project-is-lighting-up-rwanda | How Africa's fastest solar power project is lighting up Rwanda | “Arise, shine for your light has come,” reads a sign at the entrance to the first major solar power farm in east Africa. The 8.5 megawatt (MW) power plant in Rwanda is designed so that, from a bird’s-eye view, it resembles the shape of the African continent. “Right now we’re in Somalia,” jokes Twaha Twagirimana, the plant supervisor, during a walkabout of the 17-hectare site. The plant is also evidence, not only of renewable energy’s increasing affordability, but how nimble it can be. The $23.7m (£15.6m) solar field went from contract signing to construction to connection in just a year, defying sceptics of Africa’s ability to realise projects fast. The setting is magnificent amid Rwanda’s famed green hills, within view of Lake Mugesera, 60km east of the capital, Kigali. Some 28,360 solar panels sit in neat rows above wild grass where inhabitants include puff adders. Tony Blair and Bono have recently taken the tour. From dawn till dusk the computer-controlled photovoltaic panels, each 1.9 sq metres, tilt to track the sun from east to west, improving efficiency by 20% compared to stationary panels. The panels are from China while the inverters and transformers are from Germany. The plant’s construction has created 350 local jobs and increased Rwanda’s generation capacity by 6%, powering more than 15,000 homes. All this is crucial in an economy that, 21 years after the genocide, is expanding fast and aims to give half its population access to electricity by 2017. Twagirimana, one of five full-time staff on-site, said: “The Rwandan government is in desperate need of energy. In 2013 they only had 110 megawatts. They wanted solar to increase capacity.” The government agreed to a joint bid by Gigawatt Global, Norfund and Scatec Solar, backed by Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative. Construction began in February 2014 and was finished by July. “It’s the fastest project in Africa.” Its first year produced an estimated 15 million kilowatt hours, sending power to a substation 9km away, which has prompted mixed views in local communities. Twagirimana, 32, explained: “The neighbours say they want energy direct from here because they think it would be cheaper. It’s not true. We sell to the utility. Even our building gets power from the grid.” The solar field is linked to a central server in Oslo and can be monitored remotely via the internet. Twagirimana believes it could be a template for the continent. “We have plenty of sun. Some are living in remote areas where there is no energy. Solar will be the way forward for African countries.” The project is built on land owned by the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, whose mission is to care for Rwanda’s most vulnerable children orphaned before and after the genocide. This lease provides the biggest source of income to the six-year-old village, currently home to 512 young people who are offered schooling and extracurricular activities. Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura, director of the village, said: “The project is probably the fastest: in less than a year it was up and going. It’s bringing a lot of visits from anyone interested in project development, and it brings some visibility for us. It’s something quite unique and we’re proud to be partners in it.” Some of the village’s young people have received training at the solar site and one worked on the project. Other spin-offs have included a partnership to make solar panels for 250,000 homes. Nkulikiyimfura, 40, added: “Renewable energy is the way to go and we’re really proud to have it here. It shows what’s really possible when government works with the public and private sectors.” One village member, 18-year-old Bella Kabatesi, who lost her parents to illness when she was four, has used solar power to design a night light at a memorial to the village’s late founder. “The big solar plant is going to help the people and the country because it’s cheaper than main electrical power,” she said. Rwanda has been both criticised for trampling on human rights and praised for its unswerving focus on development and getting things done. Chaim Motzen, Gigawatt Global’s co-founder and managing director, and a solar industry pioneer in Israel, said: “Rwanda had 110 megawatts on the grid for a population of 12 million people; Israel has 13,000 megawatts for 8 million people. There was a desperate need for more energy. “Rwanda has an excellent business environment – no corruption – and that played a role. I also think they were serious about wanting to move quickly. We had good partners on the ground. It’s now being used as a model: you can do energy deals quickly and get things done. It’s a catalyst for future projects in Rwanda and hopefully not just in Rwanda to inspire others to do what we’re doing.” Solar energy is a key element in Africa’s future, Motzen believes. “Is it the only solution? No, because solar is intermittent. But will it be a major part of the solution? I believe it will.” Yosef Abramowitz, president of Gigawatt Global, told a US government delegation and Bono at a site visit in August: “We have decoupled GDP growth from emissions growth. What you have heard is that we are 6% of a country’s generation capacity without adding any emissions. It is a false choice in Paris [the climate summit] and this is the proof test to be able to break that deadlock so that the world can go solar.” | ['environment/series/keep-it-in-the-ground', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'world/rwanda', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidsmith', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2015-11-23T10:20:33Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/mar/09/nuclear-fusion-on-brink-of-being-realised-say-mit-scientists | Nuclear fusion on brink of being realised, say MIT scientists | The dream of nuclear fusion is on the brink of being realised, according to a major new US initiative that says it will put fusion power on the grid within 15 years. The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. The team intend to use a new class of high-temperature superconductors they predict will allow them to create the world’s first fusion reactor that produces more energy than needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction going. Bob Mumgaard, CEO of the private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which has attracted $50 million in support of this effort from the Italian energy company Eni, said: “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.” The promise of fusion is huge: it represents a zero-carbon, combustion-free source of energy. The problem is that until now every fusion experiment has operated on an energy deficit, making it useless as a form of electricity generation. Decades of disappointment in the field has led to the joke that fusion is the energy of the future – and always will be. The just-over-the-horizon timeframe normally cited is 30 years, but the MIT team believe they can halve this by using new superconducting materials to produce ultra-powerful magnets, one of the main components of a fusion reactor. Prof Howard Wilson, a plasma physicist at York University who works on different fusion projects, said: “The exciting part of this is the high-field magnets.” Fusion works on the basic concept of forging lighter elements together to form heavier ones. When hydrogen atoms are squeezed hard enough, they fuse together to make helium, liberating vast amounts of energy in the process. However, this process produces net energy only at extreme temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees celsius – hotter than the centre of the sun and far too hot for any solid material to withstand. To get around this, scientists use powerful magnetic fields to hold in place the hot plasma – a gaseous soup of subatomic particles – to stop it from coming into contact with any part of the doughnut-shaped chamber. A newly available superconducting material – a steel tape coated with a compound called yttrium-barium-copper oxide, or YBCO – has allowed scientists to produce smaller, more powerful magnets. And this potentially reduces the amount of energy that needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction off the ground. “The higher the magnetic field, the more compactly you can squeeze that fuel,” said Wilson. The planned fusion experiment, called Sparc, is set to be far smaller – about 1/65th of the volume – than that of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, an international collaboration currently being constructed in France. The experimental reactor is designed to produce about 100MW of heat. While it will not turn that heat into electricity, it will produce, in pulses of about 10 seconds, as much power as is used by a small city. The scientists anticipate the output would be more than twice the power used to heat the plasma, achieving the ultimate technical milestone: positive net energy from fusion. Prof Wilson was also cautious about the timeframe, saying that while the project was exciting he couldn’t see how it would achieve its goal of putting energy on the grid within 15 years.Unlike with fossil fuels, or nuclear fuel like uranium used in fission reactions, there will never be a shortage of hydrogen. The reaction also does not create greenhouse gases or produce hazardous radioactive waste of the sort made by conventional nuclear fission reactors. Prof Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice-president for research, said that the development could represent a major advance in tackling climate change. “At the heart of today’s news is a big idea - a credible, viable plan to achieve net positive energy for fusion,” she said. “If we succeed, the world’s energy systems will be transformed. We’re extremely excited about this.” | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'education/mit-massachusetts-institute-of-technology', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/hannah-devlin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-science'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2018-03-09T05:01:26Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2019/apr/30/beluga-whale-military-marine-mammal | Humanity has truly lost its way if we’re weaponising beluga whales | Jules Howard | Last week, a curious scene played out in the small Norwegian fishing village of Inga. Here, a mysterious white beluga whale appeared from out of the water and proceeded to behave very strangely. Upon the body of this whale there was a strap. Upon the fabric of this strap was written a long chain of human hieroglyphs – “Equipment of St Petersburg”, the writing said. And then – almost as if it were all a dream – the whale disappeared. Although it sounds like something Douglas Adams could have written, I want to welcome you to the dizzying age of weaponised whales. Because as well as poisoning oceans, we humans are also capable of poisoning the minds of the animals that live there. First, some background. If the idea of the Russians using such a beautiful and intelligent organism to further their military aims disgusts you, I should tell you that many countries, particularly the US, have programmes that train dolphins and other species, including sea lions, for military exercises. These marine mammals can be trained to detect mines or assist in object recoveries. They can be trained to do search-and-rescue missions, too. In fact, as of 2007, the US navy was spending $14m a year on its marine programme, involving 75 mine-sweeping dolphins. People who justify the existence of such programmes argue that the military sea lions and dolphins are well-trained and cared for and perform the same role as other service animals such as police dogs or horses. This argument is a good one, but it would hold more weight if in real life police officers trained wild-caught wolves or rode around on plains zebras. They do not do this. Still, the good news is that the US navy denies ever having used marine mammals to harm or injure or kill humans, which definitely makes the whole endeavour legit. Russia, on the other hand, is a little more secretive about its military marine mammals, hence the worldwide interest in the strange, indoctrinated beluga whale. As you can probably tell by now, I find there is something deeply unnerving about the whole spectacle of military dolphins and whales. I’d almost say I’m disgusted by it. In fact, yes, it’s disgusting. But there’s something else … I just can’t stop thinking about that Russian strap the beluga whale was wearing. I can’t get it out of my head. And here’s why. You have to possess a dramatically impoverished sense of pathos to look at a dolphin or a whale and completely fail to notice its singular beauty, its powerful mind, complex communication and feats of cultural brilliance. It takes a certain sort of odious human sensibility to fail to see these attributes and instead wonder at how and where some artificial straps might fit best. “Should they be Velcro?” wonder these faceless military entities in their laboratories. “Maybe a leather kind of harness would work,” they posit, staring at an animal in a tank with one of the biggest brains in nature and, hell, possibly the universe. I used to think that the most far-fetched theme of the Alien movie franchise was that a grotesquely unscrupulous weapons company would really fly across galaxies to try to collect acid-spitting xenomorphs in order to monetise them as weapons. I was clearly wrong. The films are a fair observation of the human species. If we are happy to capture and indoctrinate whales for military aims, there’s no bar we won’t scrape beneath. And what were the beluga’s straps for exactly? Commentators have speculated they may have been used to hold a camera. Others have speculated that it could be used to house a weapon. Even if it’s the former, what a sad indictment of humanity that we are using a whale to spy on our enemies. And what a demeaning thing it must be for a whale to be paid in fish by one set of people for taking photos of other people somewhere else. And so we humans find ourselves in an unsettling situation akin to that famous Mitchell and Webb sketch. “Wait, are we the baddies?” says Military Veterinarian #1 to Military Veterinarian #2 while testing the strapping on an indoctrinated whale in a glass tank. Veterinarian #2 catches his reflection in the tank and ponders for a moment whether somewhere along the line he really did lose his way. Let me say this. We all have. We really have lost our way. We really are the baddies. So swim, my indoctrinated beluga. Swim for your life, you beautiful white whale. Escape the horrors of human wars before our blood is on your fins. Or, worse, your blood is on our straps. • Jules Howard is a zoologist and the author of Sex on Earth and Death on Earth | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/whales', 'science/weaponstechnology', 'world/norway', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/cetaceans', 'world/russia', 'tone/comment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/jules-howard', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-04-30T08:00:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2009/jul/17/microsoft-yahoo | Microsoft and Yahoo rumoured to be closing in on deal | After almost 18 months of increasingly bitter negotiations, Microsoft is said to be closing in on a deal to buy technology rival Yahoo's web search business. Several reports emerged late on Thursday suggesting that late-stage talks were under way between the two companies, opening up the distinct possibility that Microsoft could finally take control of Yahoo's search engine division. An analyst with institutional investor ThinkEquity was quoted by investment website 24/7 Wall Street as saying a deal was "imminent", while sources told influential Silicon Valley blog All Things Digital that an agreement was close to being completed. It is not clear what the precise terms of the deal on offer are, but according to 24/7 Wall Street, it could see Microsoft shell out around $3bn (£1.8bn) to take over Yahoo's search advertising operation. The deal, it suggests, would also see Microsoft agree to share revenue from the search business with Yahoo for several years. Such a pact would bring to an end the tortured negotiations between the two companies, but it would be an incredible climbdown for Yahoo – which turned down the possibility of far more money when Microsoft launched an unsolicited $45bn bid to buy Yahoo in its entirety last February. That offer was largely seen as an attempt by Microsoft to gain control of its rival's search business, since the Seattle software giant has been desperate to increase its share of the lucrative search advertising market for several years. But Yahoo rejected it, saying that it believed it was worth far more money. In the interim, relations between the two companies have been cool – and both sides have rejected rumours of reported negotiations. However, with the two companies' chief rival, Google, appearing not only increasingly powerful but also apparently immune to the worst effects of the recession, things could be changing once again. Microsoft's attempt to claw back market share with its relaunched search engine – now called Bing – has failed to make immediate inroads, leaving the Windows giant still looking for a way to make its mark in the industry. Taking control of Yahoo's search business would give Microsoft almost 30% of the American market, more than trebling its sphere of influence. According to figures from ComScore, Google controls around 65% of the search market in the US, with Yahoo 19.5% and Microsoft trailing in third with a little over 8%. Internationally, Google is even stronger. Such a deal would be a further hammer blow to the reputation of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who led the charge against Microsoft and sparked a war of words with rival CEO Steve Ballmer. Since the negotiations between the two collapsed late last year, however, Yahoo has brought in a new CEO, Carol Bartz – who may take a more pragmatic view of the situation given Yahoo's financial struggles. The company is due to release its latest quarterly results next week, and may be hoping that any agreement with Microsoft could take the edge off a disappointing fiscal period. | ['technology/microsoft', 'technology/yahoo', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/mergers-acquisitions', 'business/mergers-and-acquisitions', 'technology/technology', 'business/technology', 'business/business', 'media/digital-media', 'media/mediabusiness', 'media/media', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/bobbiejohnson'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-07-17T07:31:17Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
global-development/2015/feb/10/malawi-floods-devastation-far-worse-than-first-thought | Malawi floods devastation far worse than first thought | Nearly a quarter of a million people, more than originally thought, have been affected by the devastating floods that ripped through Malawi a month ago, and with rains still falling, many of the 230,000 who were forced to flee their homes have been unable to return and rebuild their lives, the UN said. The UN children’s agency, Unicef, said new figures from the UN and the government of Malawi showed the number of people displaced stood at 230,000, compared with an original estimate of 174,000. About 64,000 hectares (158,147 acres) of land were damaged, it added. The scale of the disaster has wreaked havoc on the densely populated country, where most people survive from subsistence farming. Crops of maize have been destroyed, villages obliterated, homes swept away and livestock killed. In mid-January, President Peter Mutharika declared half the country a disaster zone and estimated it would cost 23.9bn kwacha ($51m) to repair the damage. Unicef said 276 people had been killed or were missing, while 645 people had been injured. “With these new numbers, and while prioritising additional severely affected districts, we need to take stock of our response to ensure all children and families have access to emergency services and supplies,” said Mahimbo Mdoe, Unicef’s representative in Malawi. “We are carefully monitoring how displaced children are faring, as we know, after one month in crowded camps, disease outbreaks and increased malnutrition can occur,” he said. About 47% of Malawi’s children are already stunted, which is caused by undernutrition, so they are particularly vulnerable. Unicef has launched a $9.3m appeal to cover its emergency response for three months. The agency is concerned about possible outbreaks of cholera, dysentery and malaria as well as the risk of malnutrition. About 56,000 women and children have received healthcare in the camps, and at Unicef-supported government clinics. A total of 287 children have been admitted for treatment for severe malnutrition. “Unicef is working closely with the government and NGO partners to install enough water and sanitation facilities to keep waterborne diseases at bay, critical for the survival of young children,” said Mdoe. “One month in, we are on target, but with these new numbers we need to look at scaling up services again to cover these additional prioritised districts. We already have a $3.8m funding gap, and that’s likely to increase as we move into recovery phase,” Mdoe added. With support from Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID), the EU and USAid, Unicef is working to provide sanitation and clean water, as many water sources have been contaminated. Many of those forced from their homes have taken refuge in schools, disrupting education for around 350,000 pupils. Unicef is providing tents so that the schools can set up temporary learning spaces while still offering accommodation to families at night. Last week, the UN’s food agency said it was scaling up its food distribution in Malawi, adding that more resources were urgently required to fill a funding gap. The World Food Programme is delivering maize, beans, vegetable oil and super cereal, a flour fortified with vitamins and minerals. It has also provided 28 tonnes of high-energy biscuits to people in the hard-hit and remote Chikwawa and Nsanje districts. It requires about $19m for its operations in Malawi. By the end of January, the agency had been able to reach nearly 210,000 people with more than 1,500 tonnes of food assistance in eight districts. At the UN, member states were urged not to allow other global humanitarian crises to prevent them from supporting a full recovery in Malawi. “While we may not be able to prevent disasters from taking place, we can do much more to mitigate their impact on people and economies,” Denis Antoine, vice-president of the general assembly, told members last week. Northern and central regions of neighbouring Mozambique have also been hit by flooding that has affected around 160,000 people and entire communities. Unicef said the flooding had cut off roads, disrupted power supply and destroyed bridges, houses and schools. The Indian Ocean island of Madagascar has also been affected. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said in an update last week that Madagascar had received double its average rainfall since early January. This, coupled with the effects of tropical storm Chedza on 16 January, had left 74 people dead and displaced 20,000 people. Ocha said that pre-positioned relief supplies were almost exhausted, and this was a concern as there were reports of drought in the south of the island. The peak of the cyclone season is expected in February and March. | ['global-development/humanitarian-response', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/malawi', 'world/africa', 'environment/flooding', 'global-development/malnutrition', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/clar-ni-chonghaile'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-02-10T11:33:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development/2020/may/26/mary-tiffen-obituary | Mary Tiffen obituary | My colleague Mary Tiffen, the distinguished economic historian, who has died aged 88 from Covid-19, will best be remembered for the groundbreaking African drylands research she conducted from the 1970s to 2000, successfully demonstrating how much farmers’ own skills and capacity to innovate had been undervalued. Her 1976 monograph on Northern Nigeria, The Enterprising Peasant, the work she led on Kenya in 1994 (More People Less Erosion) and the final comparative studies she undertook around 2000 comparing dryland areas of Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria and Niger, all focused on the ingenuity of the farmers who made a living from these difficult environments. Her research challenged, and continues to challenge, careless assumptions about the causes of desertification and appropriate policy responses. Mary’s arguments were always derived from the analysis of many decades’ worth of data. She was thus able to show how population growth turned labour constraints into land constraints, and gradually made land investment and conservation more economic. Particularly in the Kenya study, photographs from the 30s to 1990 vividly show the same locations turning from arid degraded landscapes into fertile, tree-covered, terraced farms, as that balance changed. Her work also demonstrated how vital to wealth generation improved road networks and market access have been. These open the door not only to greater income, but also to education and to better intelligence about new crops and techniques. The capital investment increasingly needed for farming innovation would earlier be derived from cattle sales, and later from the urban employment of some household members. Mary’s work made an impeccable policy case for the most successful government interventions often being those which simply remove barriers to trade, and which trust and support the capacities of local resource managers to respond. Top-down schemes have usually failed. The daughter of Gwendolen (nee Carrall) and Horace Steele-Perkins, Mary was born in Farnborough, Hampshire. Her father was an RAF officer and worked during the second world war in Hong Kong in air raid precautions (ARP). After the war, Mary and her mother moved to India, then Mary finished her schooling in Devon, and took a history degree at Girton College, Cambridge, in 1952. After a period of teaching and NGO work, she met and married Brian Tiffen in 1960. He worked for the British Council and Mary began her research career as she accompanied him to Nigeria, Malawi, Iraq and elsewhere. Her doctorate (from the LSE in 1974) and first book were based on her northern Nigeria research. In Iraq, Mary became interested in ancient irrigation systems, and this was the experience that led to her taking a post running the Irrigation Management Network at the Overseas Development Institute in London, where she worked from 1983 until 1994. In retirement she produced two self-published family histories, Friends of Sir Robert Hart (2012) and Testimony to Love (2017), and had recently begun a memoir for her children about her own life. Brian died in 2014. Mary is survived by their children, Martin and Jenny, grandchildren, Lucy, Hannah, Rachel, Finlay and Jake, and by her half-brother, Chris . | ['global-development/global-development', 'type/article', 'education/historyandhistoryofart', 'theguardian/series/otherlives', 'environment/farming', 'tone/obituaries', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-obituaries'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-05-26T13:23:16Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2017/sep/11/hurricane-irma-florida-family-home-storm | My family and I survived Hurricane Irma. The fear was real – but we were lucky | When we woke up, the house was still standing. The cars were still parked in the grass. The baby was still crying. None of those things had been guaranteed. Hurricane Irma delivered a “glancing blow” to Tampa Bay, in the words of Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn. Not all of Florida was so lucky. The storm was a category 2 hurricane when it hit our little peninsula, Pinellas, a jut of land just west of Tampa. The area is frequently described as one of the world’s most vulnerable to flooding and disasters related to climate change. Irma had threatened worse. At one point on Saturday, meteorologists believed the eye wall of a category 4 hurricane could hit us, a blow that would have turned our peninsula into an island anthill. Irma was the most powerful storm to hit our part of Florida since 1921, when a category 3 wrought destruction on an area that was then sparsely populated. “The unknown is the most scary thing,” said my mother, Virginia, a 60-year-old pre-K teacher. She appeared visibly relieved, if also amused that her daughter was interviewing her. She said the storm brought “so much anxiety and work, it’s just a big relief off my shoulders”. We live in Lealman, a working-class neighborhood on high ground just north of St Petersburg city limits. If Irma had visited as a category 4 storm, Lealman would have been one of the only parts of Pinellas above water. “We have dodged a bullet so many times here in St Pete,” my mother said. “I feel like there’s a whole weight off my shoulders from this being over.” Before the storm, our area did not feel ready. Many people fled, but many others were forced to weather the storm in homes without boarded windows and in trailers. Some were undoubtedly in flood zones. Sunday was filled with foreboding. Residents huddled in shelters and block houses – buildings that felt strong. Friends convinced their parents to flee from flood zones. Curfews were issued. I bolted boards on to my mother’s sunroom, through a downpour. And we waited. On Sunday night, as the wind whipped and whirred, the forecast changed for the better. But the scare didn’t let up until the wind and rain did. Michael, my father, is a 59-year-old disabled tow truck driver. Government assistance is barely enough to keep the lights on, let alone buy lumber for an encroaching storm. Had he the money to buy plywood, all the stores were sold out. To board up his windows, we used an old fence and a sheet metal towing sign that bore his company’s name. Where I sheltered, at my mother’s, there were seven people: my aunt and uncle, my sister and her two-week-old baby, her boyfriend, my mother, and me. The house is normally cluttered but the storm brought accoutrements of dread: stacks of bottled water, piles of paper towels and toilet paper, canned food, batteries and flashlights. As the storm set in, sheets of rain spun off the roof of a nearby church, illuminated by a single street light that flickered in and out. The cable died. Then cell service. We never fully lost power, but not all were so lucky. Most of the state is still without power and I’m writing this tale from my rental car, parked in a part of the city where I have cell service. Most of the traffic lights in town are out, which makes driving something like playing chicken in a rocket. Make no mistake, the storm pummeled this state. Families in counties around us lost homes, belongings and lives. The Florida Keys was hit by Irma when she was a 4. It was severely flooded, lashed by the brunt of the storm. Workers stood by with body bags. One Monroe County official said conditions there amounted to a “humanitarian crisis”. A tree perhaps 60ft tall, with a trunk the size of three men, fell in my father’s backyard, just missing his truck. Another tree of the same size loomed over his bedroom, a reminder of how lucky we are. My mother’s lemon tree was sliced in two through the trunk. As in many such circumstances, the poor and the vulnerable suffered. A half-mile from my parents’ houses are several trailer parks. The one I visited sits next door to Oley’s, a squat convenience store that was once rumored to sell baloney, white bread and cheese by the slice, so its customers could afford it. Diana Hornton, a 54-year-old two-time cancer survivor and a former nurse, weathered the storm in her trailer. It was “nerve-racking”, she said. The storm was not as bad as expected, but it was still powerful enough to gut two units. On Monday, a cat perched comfortably in one. “At least six units in this park are disabled vets,” Hornton said. “My husband’s disabled, I’m disabled, we’re both cancer patients. Right now, I’m worried about getting people out of their houses.” Why weather the storm here? Hornton has five sons and an eight-month-old granddaughter. “We didn’t have the vehicle or the money to move them,” she said. More than 6 million people now need to make their way home. As one one Punta Gorda evacuee told me at the height of terror: “People are driving all over the state to get away from it, and it just follows them.” The preparation, the waiting, the watching, the praying. It all felt like someone threatening to drown your childhood memories in a bathtub. I learned to surf and swim out to buoys in the Gulf; to wait tables in Tampa Bay’s restaurants; to love rock’n’roll from her venues; to smell bullshit from her con men; how to be tough and why one should seek justice. I would have walked here from my last assignment if I had to. | ['world/hurricane-irma', 'us-news/tampa', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/environment', 'environment/flooding', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/jessica-glenza', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-11T20:11:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2023/nov/16/uk-energy-secretary-grid-connections-ofgem-tata | UK energy secretary could get power to fast-track vital grid connections | The UK energy secretary could be handed powers to fast-track connecting electricity-hungry projects, such as Jaguar Land Rover’s owner Tata’s planned electric battery factory, to the grid, under plans being discussed between government and regulators. Amid concerns about delays of up to 15 years in hooking up large schemes, the Guardian understands the move would allow Claire Coutinho to request that energy network companies accelerate upgrades to substations and power lines to connect specific new developments. It is understood that the government and the regulator Ofgem have told National Grid’s electricity systems operator that they are “minded” to adopt its proposals to change the model for connections, which now moves at a pace set by each network operator. A source said: “Foreign investors need assurances that, if these things are going to be built, then they can be hooked up quickly. There are physical assets, like substations, which transmission companies will need to build or upgrade.” The government is belatedly attempting to tackle a logjam that has resulted in some developments facing a 10- to 15-year wait for a connection to the grid. Ofgem announced on Monday plans to remove “zombie” projects from the queue to connect up to speed up those ready to produce renewable power for the grid. Although no equivalent queue exists for those looking to take power from the grid, ministers and officials are concerned that large projects could struggle to secure final investment and proceed without guarantees over their connection to the electricity supply. Sources said changes to the rules had been proposed with several big projects in mind: Tata’s new £4bn electric battery factory, expected to be built in Somerset; and the switch to electric arc furnaces at Britain’s biggest steelworks at Port Talbot in south Wales, also owned by the Indian group. The £1.25bn plan from British Steel, which is owned by China’s Jingye, to replace two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe steelworks, with an electric arc furnace at the north Lincolnshire plant and another at a site in Teesside, North Yorkshire, has also formed part of the proposals. Negotiations over the closure of blast furnaces at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe are expected to lead to thousands of job losses. All three projects are likely to involve significant investment from the UK government, alongside the companies’ overseas owners. Britain has 10 distribution network operators, including National Grid and Northern Powergrid, which operate monopolies in their regions and handle transmission of power from the grid to end users. Sources said the move could be announced as soon as this month, and may be included within the “connections action plan”, a broader overhaul of Britain’s network connections. The plan, which is expected to be announced alongside the chancellor’s autumn statement next week, will rebalance the planning system to help speed up the connection of new solar and windfarms to the grid. On Wednesday, Ofgem said it planned to create a network of 13 “regional energy strategic planners” to work with organisations, including local government and gas and electricity networks, to analyse what infrastructure was needed in different parts of the country and how to attract investment for projects. Their efforts will be coordinated by the Future Systems Operator, the new authority that will be created when the ESO is nationalised. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “We want to go further and faster on grid connections – bringing even more capacity online, reducing timescales, and ensuring clean, affordable and secure energy sources reach more homes. “Alongside Ofgem we will be publishing a joint action plan shortly, setting out how we will accelerate connections.” National Grid ESO and Ofgem declined to comment. | ['business/energy-industry', 'business/automotive-industry', 'business/tata', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alex-lawson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-11-16T11:06:44Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2007/mar/11/ethicalliving.observermagazine | Lucy Siegle: What should I do with excess packaging? | Until recently, ripping off your packaging and leaving it at the checkout was the ultimate stand of consumer defiance. However, since government minister Ben Bradshaw also exhorted shoppers to leave it all behind (the packaging waste, that is), the practice has lost its subversive edge. German and Austrian hausfrauen began this anarchy in the Eighties; more recently the Women's Institute urged members to create some checkout drama of their own. But there is no denying it spells out to the big retailers that the increase in packaging waste (which grew by 12 per cent between 1999 and 2005) is environmentally unacceptable. Legally, you do have another recourse: report the offending item to Trading Standards. Yet packaging legislation is open to interpretation, and it is easy to argue that packaging is necessary or beloved by consumers for its convenience. Packaging's panacea has long been recycling - now even the most preposterous examples sport a recyclable symbol. But, to cut a long story short, the more plastic packaging we buy, the more is exported 8,000 miles to be 'recycled' in China. Proponents argue that it would be a 'waste of resources' to send container ships back to China empty handed, and that the country gratefully receives 1.9m tonnes a year of our waste (mostly non-biodegradable). This system is built on cheap labour and low standards: recycling plastic releases POPs (persistent organic pollutants) that linger in the environment and have extremely detrimental effects on thousands of rural migrant workers paid far below a living wage. It is only easier to avoid becoming part of this system, and buy fewer packaged goods, in some parts of the UK. In Exeter, Martin Blunos, the double-Michelin-starred chef, recently opened the Foodeaze food market (www.foodeaze.co.uk). 'We've gone for basic reusable packaging, or corn-starch trays that will biodegrade on the compost heap,' he says. Marks & Spencer is venturing into compostables, too, as part of its Plan A eco programme, eventually making all readymeal packaging biodegradable, while for Catherine Conway of Be Unpackaged (www.beunpackaged.com), it's all about creating a refillable culture. At her stalls at Exmouth and Broadway markets in London, she sells a variety of consumables from cumin seeds to detergent - and zip-top, reusable plastic wallets for her goods at 50p each. 'If you give people things for free, they don't value them and won't bring them back for refilling,' she explains. There's another lesson for the nation's supermarkets, which give away 260 bags per person per year (this adds up to 17.5bn). In a new agreement they say they'll 'try' to reduce carrier-bag consumption by 25 per cent by 2010. Sadly, yet another rather unimpressive commitment once you unwrap it. · lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk | ['environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/comment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'environment/series/ask-leo-lucy', 'profile/lucysiegle', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/magazine', 'theobserver/magazine/features'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-03-11T10:16:22Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/article/2024/may/29/csiro-nuclear-power-plant-australia-cost-peter-dutton-liberal-coalition | CSIRO stands by nuclear power costings that contradict Coalition claims | The CSIRO says it stands by its analysis on the costs of future nuclear power plants in Australia after the Coalition attacked the work, which contradicted its claims reactors would provide cheap electricity and be available within a decade. The opposition’s energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, claimed on Tuesday in the Australian newspaper that the CSIRO should re-run its modelling to account for longer life-spans and running times of nuclear generators in other countries with nuclear programs. Last week the CSIRO released its GenCost report on the costs of different generation technologies, saying nuclear would be at least 50% more expensive than solar and wind and would not be available any sooner than 2040. The Coalition has yet to reveal any detail on its nuclear plan, including what type of reactors it would build, how large they would be and where they would put them. A CSIRO spokesperson told Guardian Australia: “CSIRO provides impartial and independent advice and does not undertake modelling for specific policy directions. “While we stand by the data provided, any alternative scenarios assessed by others would not carry CSIRO’s endorsement.” Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup O’Brien pointed to an assumption used in the GenCost report that nuclear plants would have a “capacity factor” – how often they are generating electricity relative to their maximum capacity – of between 53% and 89%. O’Brien wanted the CSIRO to use a higher figure of 92.7% for nuclear based on the performance of plants in the US. But the GenCost report discusses the reasons for setting capacity factors, saying new baseload generators such as nuclear “are expected to struggle to present the lowest cost bids to the dispatch market” and would, therefore, likely be generating less often. O’Brien also wanted the CSIRO to model the full lifespan of nuclear plants – which could be as long as 80 years – and to add a start date of 2035 to its modelling. The report provides cost estimates for power from different generation technologies, including both large and small reactors, for the years 2023, 2030 and 2040. The CSIRO spokesperson said: “Specific issues in regard to economic life of generation assets and capacity utilisation, including large scale nuclear, have been assessed by the GenCost team as part of the consultation process for the 2023-24 report.” Australia has never built a nuclear reactor for electricity and the technology has been banned since 1998. The CSIRO report said if a decision was made in 2025 to adopt nuclear power, it would be at least 15 years until a reactor was producing power. The report said: “Nuclear technologies need to undergo more extensive safety and security permitting, nuclear prohibitions need to be removed at the state and commonwealth level and the safety authorities need to be established.” The report estimated if Australia could establish a nuclear industry, then a 1,000MW plant would cost $8.6bn, but the first reactors could cost double that amount – more than $17bn. The report said: “Given the lack of a development pipeline and the additional legal and safety and security steps required, the first nuclear plant in Australia will be significantly delayed. Subsequent nuclear plant could be built more quickly as part of a pipeline of plants.” | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/csiro', 'australia-news/coalition', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2024-05-29T01:54:07Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2021/nov/03/those-most-vulnerable-to-the-climate-crisis-must-be-at-the-heart-of-solutions | Those most vulnerable to the climate crisis must be at the heart of solutions | Letters | The climate crisis is a humanitarian crisis (Europe’s record summer ‘impossible’ without global heating, 3 November). More frequent and intense extreme weather events, driven by our greenhouse gas emissions, mean more disasters for the world’s most vulnerable people, especially those already facing conflict, displacement and hunger. Children, women, older people and people with disabilities are always the worst affected. The recent IPCC report warns that without immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5C degrees will not be achieved. Every fraction of a degree will threaten more lives and livelihoods. As agencies dealing with humanitarian crises, we – the 15 charities that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee – stand ready to respond to these disasters alongside our local partners, and are helping people to adapt. However, we urge governments meeting at Cop26 to urgently reduce global emissions, meet their commitments to finance mitigation and adaptation measures to protect at-risk communities, and to address loss and damage that has already occurred or is unavoidable. As president of the summit, the UK government must ensure those most vulnerable to the climate crisis are at the heart of solutions and policies agreed. The risks of disaster must be lessened by increasing the resilience of these communities. But if we fail to prevent runaway global heating, the increasing number and severity of cyclones, droughts, floods and heatwaves could overwhelm our ability to respond, putting millions more lives in danger. Jean-Michel Grand Executive director, Action Against Hunger UK Frances Longley Chief executive officer, ActionAid UK Chris Roles Managing director, Age International Mike Adamson Chief executive officer, British Red Cross Christine Allen Director, Cafod Laurie Lee Chief executive, Care International UK Amanda Khozi Mukwashi Chief executive officer, Christian Aid Danny Harvey Executive director, Concern Worldwide (UK) Laura Kyrke-Smith Executive director, International Rescue Committee UK Tufail Hussain Executive director, Islamic Relief Danny Sriskandarajah Chief executive officer, Oxfam GB Rose Caldwell Chief executive officer, Plan International UK Gwen Hines Chief executive officer, Save the Children UK Nigel Harris Chief executive officer, Tearfund Mark Sheard Chief executive officer, World Vision UK • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-aid', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'society/charities', 'society/society', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-03T15:26:10Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
global-development/2012/jun/15/rio-20-voice-brazil | Rio+20: A voice from Brazil | Sustainable development should mean good development. Simple as that. But it has proven to be quite a challenging task to ensure development that is empowering and inclusive of those most marginalised – especially girls and boys, and women – and development that places all [on a] level playing field: those in the "north" and those in the "south", those with economic interest and those with life-saving interest, men and women, children and adults. The reality is that the complexities of political economy and vested interests are huge barriers to sustainable development. As is the growing rate of disasters, and its [attendant] consequences – being increasingly aggravated by climate change, environmental degradation, migration, population growth, urbanisation and the other perils of our modern times. But if we aim to ensure future generations have the skills, knowledge and resources to live in what is predicted to be a future of scarcity – scarcity of water, land, energy, food, jobs, housing – we need to empower them now and allow them to contribute to today's decisionmaking, which will affect them most in the future. Prioritising inter-generational justice would go a long way towards achieving sustainable development. And the right strategy to achieve this, one which meets the requirements of value for money, impact, sustainability, inclusion and all the development jargons you need, is that of supporting greater access to quality education for girls and boys living in the most vulnerable circumstances. At the 1992 Earth summit, I joined my classmates in singing We Are the World at a stage set up for civil society in the Aterro in Rio. Twenty years later, not only is the king of pop no longer with us, the call for action by then 12-year-old Severn Suzuki to the then global decisionmakers attending the Earth summit remains unmet. But on the other hand, we now have a much more aware world, where technology and access to information has led the greatest advances towards making us equal and interested in "making a better world" as carolled by Michael Jackson. And we now have a world where our self-imposed borders of north-south and rich-poor divides are being dismantled by the non-discriminatory nature of disasters and climate change, and Twitter and Facebook youth activism. These waves of change are pushing us to come together, and have at last challenged the powers-that-be to rethink the prevailing "business as usual" modus operando. Rio provides us with the opportunity to start laying the foundations for our post-2015 world, when both the millennium development goals and the Hyogo Framework for Action's due dates expire. So Rio 2012 should not make the same mistake as Rio 1992; [it should] make sure that, this time round, risk management becomes a central thread which will weave together all other priority areas to be agreed in numerous negotiations to come. Without risk management, we will never achieve sustainable development. [Risk management] should include managing disasters and climate risks, risks of conflict, economic shocks, food security and political crises. This can all be achieved through a resilience framework which tackles changing risks and uncertainties, enhances adaptive capacity, and addresses [the] root causes of vulnerability by promoting the active participation of children and women in decisionmaking and local action. Investing in knowledge and education – through formal and informal learning mechanisms – for girls and boys exposed to disaster and climate risks is the most cost-effective way for securing a more resilient and sustainable future. Despite all the negative press on Rio+20 being yet another UN-led jamboree in the appropriate carnival capital of the world, Rio will make a difference. This is the opportunity for us to pull forces together and call for change. Governments were never so much in need of suggestions and advice on how to navigate past the 2015 milepost; rather than give up, we should come together and help them map out the pathway to the future we, and future generations, want. | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/rio-20-earth-summit', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'tone/interview', 'global-development/series/global-development-voices', 'type/article'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-06-15T09:21:44Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
news/datablog/2014/aug/04/john-venns-180th-birthday-how-to-do-a-venn-wrong-and-how-to-do-one-right | John Venn Google doodle: the right way to do a Venn diagram | Hull-born John Venn, creator of the eponymous diagram, was born 180 years ago today and to celebrate Google have created an interactive doodle of the famous data visualisation. The concept of the Venn is simple. In each section (in most cases represented as a circle) you have one limited collection of things. In the Google example above one of those is vegetation so all trees, plants, flowers etc. and the other is mythical. The overlapping section can contain all the logical relations between those two sets. An ash tree would belong just in the left circle because it is just vegetation and not fictional. A dragon would sit in the right circle because it is mythical but not a plant. However, because an ent, like Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings, is both mythical and a plant he belongs in the intersection between the two circles. That’s a pretty simple example but they can get a lot more complicated. Yeah, we won’t dwell on that one. We’ve established that Google have done their Venn right. With that in mind, here are three Venns that do it wrong followed up by our site’s own go at the diagram. Mitt Romney + Venns = bad news for campaigning Poor Mitt Romney, not only did the Republican candidate for the US presidency in 2012 inspire mockery with such talk of car elevators and “binders full of women” he also managed to trip up with the simple Venn format. The Romney campaign treated the Venn more like a sort of sum, with the first circle as the promise, the intersection as the subtraction and the third circle as the result. It is almost endearing how someone could have got this so wrong in such a unique way. Given the nature of Romney’s 2012 campaign included him changing his mind on a lot of previous positions, it turned out that the former Massachusetts governor was eminently Vennable himself. Upworthy created the Mitt, Venn and Now Tumblr to make the most of this fact. People who can’t do what this diagram says These Venns in New York City by smartphone case manufacturer Speck were not a shining moment for commercial data visualisation. People who check the slot for quarters and people who don’t are mutually exclusive so nothing exists in the gap between the two. Other Venn fails included mixing people who live in the city and people who live in the suburbs. Just, uh, no. As Buzzfeed’s Copyranter reported at the time, Speck pretty much shrugged off the inaccuracy of their Venns tweeting in reply to a complaint “We’re just trying to have a little fun ;)”. Prostitutes, Doctors and TSA agents: more in common than you think This Venn visualisation purporting to show the overlaps between medical professionals, sex workers and airport security - i.e they all get paid to touch your genitals, was big on Reddit a couple of years ago. Except this great blog post by Andrew Plotkin shows how this is just not a Venn at all. In the “Make more per hour than you do all day” section all the properties of prostitutes and doctors have to overlap, which means that overlap is referring to sex workers with medical degrees. If any of these unique hybrids exist they will probably earn more than most of us but it seems a pretty niche field. While it cannot be denied that a transport agent trained as a doctor and doing some side work as a prostitute would undoubtedly be paid to touch your junk, not so many of those exist and that fact also kills the visual joke a bit - sorry. Our go at a Venn: Hull: the ultimate Venn Diagram Late last year it was announced that Hull, the home of John Venn, was to be the next UK city of culture. At the time, we thought what better tribute to the northern city than using the famous visualisation technique. This visualisation by Emily Wilson and Mona Chalabi gets the format right, does not use mutually exclusive categories and does not confuse traits with properties. It’s also about Hull, which is the city that most deserves to get a Venn in the world. | ['news/datablog', 'technology/data-visualisation', 'technology/google', 'technology/google-doodle', 'technology/internet', 'technology/searchengines', 'type/article', 'profile/george-arnett'] | technology/data-visualisation | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-08-04T19:13:11Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
technology/2012/sep/21/win-hackathon-tickets | Win tickets to the Digital Sizzle hackathon gallery show | A machine that recreates the weather in Jakarta, an iPad app showing you what's on the opposite side of the world and a blow-football game where you scream rather than puff were some of the audacious projects created at Digital Sizzle, the recent "art meets tech" 48-hour hackathon at in Mozilla's London HQ, in association with the Observer. These and other results involving anything from lasers to goldfish will be exhibited for one night only at the Whitechapel Gallery on 26 September 2012. The organisers 3Beards have five pairs of tickets to give away to the party at the event. To enter, answer this question: which band released their new album by inviting one fan to share it on the internet? Email answers to new.review@observer.co.uk, with the subject 'Hackathon'. | ['technology/hacking', 'technology/data-visualisation', 'technology/internet', 'technology/apps', 'technology/research', 'technology/technology', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover'] | technology/data-visualisation | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2012-09-21T16:40:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
sustainable-business/2015/aug/03/south-africa-circular-economy-unemployment-lifeline | South Africa's circular economy could be lifeline for its 25% unemployed | South Africa’s economy is having a tough time. The country is struggling to escape the effects of the global financial crisis and mining companies – one of South Africa’s key economic sectors – are laying off workers in response to falling commodity prices. While the country has invested R1tn (£507m) in new infrastructure to deliver better public services, latest figures show a 25% unemployment rate, with significant job losses in the manufacturing, finance and utilities industries. Those finding it hardest to secure jobs are young people (more than half of 15 to 24-year-olds were unemployed in 2014), black Africans, women, the less educated and those with no prior work experience. “Unemployment remains our single greatest economic and social challenge,” says Hermann Erdmann, CEO of REDISA (the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa). He believes the creation of green enterprise linked to the circular economy offers a real opportunity to help reverse this. “South Africans are an entrepreneurial nation and it is only through developing this spirit and growing sustainable SMMEs (small, medium and micro-sized enterprises) that the economy and job creation targets will be met,” says Erdmann. “It is essential for incubation-style initiatives to lead the way.” Recycling tyres Since its inception in 2012, REDISA’s government-backed national waste tyre project has diverted more than 125,000 tonnes of used tyres from landfill into new supply chains by subsidising the collection and recycling process. The initiative is supporting 190 SMMEs and says it has created 2,505 new jobs across South Africa – mainly for individuals and small entrepreneurs. “Before REDISA existed, South Africa had a [waste tyre] recycling rate of 4%. We have been able to increase that to 19% by the end of 2014 and are well on our way to increase that [further] by the end of 2015,” says Erdmann. The model works on the basis of producer responsibility. A weight-based levy is charged on tyres manufactured in or imported into the country – this funds the necessary infrastructure to recover waste tyres and further research and development for innovation. REDISA is currently working with two universities to explore new technologies for waste tyres and is assessing the potential to extend tyre life through the use of an environmental rating system. But the real success story has been the scheme’s ability to economically empower poorer South Africans. According to company statistics, 98% of the 2,505 jobs created by REDISA have benefited previously disadvantaged individuals. In addition, 41% of workers are 18-35 year olds and 37% are women. “[We] have been able to put 80% of revenue collected from the waste management fee back into local communities by creating a market for the handling of waste,” says Erdmann. Recycling bottles A new bottle-to-bottle plastic recycling plant, officially unveiled in Johannesburg earlier this year, is also set to deliver social benefits. The facility, which will eventually divert an additional 22,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET bottles from landfill, is helping Coca-Cola to close the loop on its drinks packaging. According to PETCO, the industry body for PET recycling in South Africa, the new facility will benefit the local value chain. Some 1.5bn post-consumer PET bottles were recovered in 2014 – equating to a national 49% recycling rate – supporting 44,000 informal income opportunities. Casper Durandt, Coca-Cola South Africa’s senior technical operations manager and chairman of PETCO, says when the plant is running at full capacity over the next two years it will generate thousands of new income opportunities at the collector level. “We have been actively promoting jobs for women in this sector together with Coca-Cola’s 5by20 initiative,” he says. “We have to collect an additional 14,000 tonnes of PET bottles per year. As this is done by hand, we need approximately 15,000 people to collect an average of 930kg per year. These jobs by default will go to jobless male and female workers that migrate to become waste harvesters.” He adds that while the company’s main focus has been to develop formal collection systems through co-operatives, this has also resulted in the emergence of a large, successful informal collector base. “Collection and sorting of recyclables in South Africa offers a fairly unique opportunity for a labour-intense solution which does not require a high level of skills.” Social enterprise It’s early days for South Africa’s emerging circular economy and, according to Alex Lemille, founder of Cape Town-based sustainability consultancy Wizeimpact, the process of starting a new venture is still seen as challenging among South Africans and is very much dependent on cultural background and skills level. “From an African viewpoint, the shift towards a sharing economy is a western world dilemma. Here, it is part of people’s way of life. Seeing waste as a resource that can be sold or reused, shared transportation or goods ‘as a service’ for subsistence has always been around here.” He suggests one way forward is to start giving circular economy startups a strong sense of social purpose – something he feels is currently lacking. “An economy based on a more collaborative, caring and human approach could well benefit South Africa,” he says. “We want to create value-centred circular ventures that truly benefit people. Where, for instance, social enterprises are the norm not the exception.” Lemille is encouraged by what he calls “a new kind of gold” – the “born free” generation who have grown up in a post-apartheid South Africa. “Talking to these young people is a real breath of fresh air,” he says. “They are dynamic, hopeful in their common future, technology-savvy and problem-solvers. They believe in changing their country for good. They could really make the difference and cement the rise of the entrepreneurial spirit here.” | ['sustainable-business/series/circular-economy', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'world/southafrica', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'business/cocacola', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'tone/blog', 'profile/maxine-perella'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2015-08-03T06:10:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2022/mar/04/heartbreaking-australias-east-coast-reels-from-worst-floods-in-living-memory | ‘Heartbreaking’: Australia’s east coast reels from worst floods in living memory | When Jenni Metcalfe returned to her Brisbane home to survey the damage as the nearby river peaked, water had already risen a metre up the back wall. There was nothing she could do. “I sat in the gutter and watched it and cried,” she said. The east coast of Australia has been battered by more than a week of torrential rain, as communities begin to survey the wreckage of fatal flash flooding that has left townships looking like war zones. South-east Queensland and the north coast of New South Wales have borne the brunt of the “one in-1,000 year” catastrophic weather conditions, which have claimed at least 17 lives. Residents in the regional city of Lismore in north-eastern NSW are still reeling from the worst flooding in its history, which sent huge areas of the regional city underwater with the cleanup likely to last months, if not years. More than 700mm of rain fell in just 30 hours during the worst of the floods on Monday, forcing hundreds of the town’s 43,000 residents to scramble onto their rooftops and wait to be rescued by emergency services crews. Four of the dead were in Lismore, people who were trapped in flooded homes or swept away while trying to escape. A number of the city’s residents remained missing. Among the devastation have been stories of heroism and kinship. World championship surfers Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson spent Tuesday ferrying stranded residents and distributing supplies on their jet skis at badly hit Tumbulgum on the north coast of NSW. Emergency services volunteers saved dozens of elderly trapped in their homes and facilities, using boogie boards and dinghies to pull residents through windows and ferry them to safety. Others spent hours locating and mustering hundreds of livestock that were swept away in flood waters causing devastating losses for farmers already hit by drought and past flooding events. If lucky, the occasional cow turned up on beaches or rooftops. As the cleanup in Lismore began on Thursday, a harsh sun strengthened the stench of mud and sewage on the main street as business owners returned to their ruined shops where flood waters had crept up to the ceiling. Mark Bailey was one of them, forced to wade through a pile of ruined goods and furniture he estimated was worth $5m amassed at the front of his collectibles store, The Penny Man. “Everything in there’s fucked,” he told Guardian Australia, holding an album of vintage East German stamps that were dripping brown and unsalvageable. “I’m not mad at anyone in particular, every shop has a different story along here,” he said. “We won’t be reopening here, and I would be surprised if half of the street ever does.” Many businesses that went underwater, including Bailey’s, were uninsurable given their proximity to riverbanks and flood-prone areas. The cleanup had barely begun in large parts of south-east Queensland when residents were again forced to take cover due to more storms. The “rain bomb” that battered the capital city of Brisbane and surrounds until Monday killed 10 people and damaged more than 17,000 homes and businesses. Some 739mm of rain fell in just four days – nearly 75% of the annual average. On Friday, all schools in south-east Queensland closed except for children of essential workers in anticipation of further “extremely unstable” storms. That the floods hit the same week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on the climate crisis, warning extreme weather events including floods were wreaking increasing damage, did not go unnoticed. The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, warned Queenslanders were living through “unprecedented times”, a sentiment echoed by the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet. “I’ve lived in Brisbane essentially all my life and I haven’t seen storms and floods like this all being thrown at us at once,” she said. While flood waters in some parts of the country begin to recede, many Australians brace for another wave of water as the storm regroups and moves south towards Sydney. A sense of frustration and fatigue has set in. Some, like property owners in the lowlands of Richmond, north-west of Sydney, are still rebuilding from the last catastrophic floods that struck in March 2021. Many have yet to received promised government assistance. Pharmacist Skye Swift, who made headlines when Fanning ferried her to her chemist shop to distribute essential medicines to her community, is exhausted reflecting on the road to come. Telecommunications outages were hampering the recovery effort, and supermarkets were grappling with potential weeks-long shortages of fresh produce amid a burgeoning supply crisis. Swift told Guardian Australia the good news stories, the solidarity, was “beautiful, but not enough at the end of the day”. “We’ve now got weeks and months of rebuilding,” she said. “And how do you rebuild when you don’t have any money, a job? “It’s the aftermath that gets missed, that’s the heartbreaking part … it’s going to be a long road.” | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/caitlin-cassidy', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-04T06:28:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/2017/dec/12/theresa-may-puts-tackling-climate-change-back-on-tory-agenda | Theresa May puts tackling climate change back on Tory agenda | Theresa May has declared that tackling climate change and reducing its effects on poorer countries is a “moral imperative”, as the Conservative party renewed its push to portray itself as environmentally friendly. The prime minister set out her commitment to dealing with climate change in an article for the Guardian, echoing David Cameron’s 2005 efforts to show the Tories cared about global warming. Ahead of this week’s climate change summit in Paris, May said: “There is a clear moral imperative for developed economies like the UK to help those around the world who stand to lose most from the consequences of manmade climate change.” She described coal as “one of the dirtiest and most destructive ways of generating power” and hailed the “enormous commercial opportunity which the shift to cleaner forms of energy represents”. May’s commitment to the issue of climate change was questioned when she abolished the Department for Energy and Climate Change shortly after taking office last year. Later, her appointee as environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, had to ask officials whether climate change was real. However, the prime minister insists “tackling climate change and mitigating its effects for the world’s poorest are amongst the most critical challenges the world faces”. At the summit she will announce a £140m boost to funding for poorer communities affected by climate change through deforestation or vulnerability to natural disasters and extreme weather, plus £15m of additional support for reconstruction on Dominica in the Caribbean, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in September. It comes at a time when Conservative MPs are being asked by party officials to show off their green credentials after internal polling showed the level of concern among younger voters about environmental issues. The party has been alarmed by the backlash against May’s support for a free vote on foxhunting, the omission of a ban on the ivory trade from the manifesto and its lack of support for an amendment that would have recognised in UK law that animals feel pain. They have since backtracked on all three issues. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, will publish a draft bill on Tuesday that explicitly enshrines animal sentience in domestic law. It will also increase the maximum prison sentence in England and Wales for animal cruelty from six months to five years. “Animals are sentient beings who feel pain and suffering, so we are writing that principle into law and ensuring that we protect their welfare,” Gove said. “We are a nation of animal lovers so we will make Brexit work not just for citizens but for the animals we love and cherish too.” Gove is also said to be pressing for more of the UK’s overseas aid budget to be spent on cutting plastic pollution after it emerged that 90% of the waste in the ocean came from 10 rivers in Africa and Asia, according to a report in the Times. The Guardian revealed this month that Conservative MPs had been hauled in by No 10 to be briefed on seven new policy principles underpinned by a focus on the environment in an attempt to turn the situation around. As the final episode of the BBC’s Blue Planet II finished on Sunday evening, many Tory MPs published messages on Twitter to push the government’s environmental policies, accompanied by Conservative-branded graphics. The change in strategy comes a decade after Cameron tried to make the party focus on green issues, changing the Conservative logo to a tree, installing a wind turbine on his roof and visiting the Arctic to learn about global warming – where he was mocked for metaphorically trying to “hug a husky”. However, he moved away from this agenda over the course of his premiership and reportedly ordered officials to “cut the green crap” from energy bills and ban the expansion of onshore windfarms as he came under pressure from rightwingers in the party. May still has a number of senior MPs in the Conservative ranks who have expressed scepticism about green policies, including the Brexit secretary, David Davis, who once argued against the “ferocious determination to impose hairshirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds”. | ['politics/conservatives', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'politics/theresamay', 'environment/climate-aid', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2017-12-12T00:16:51Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
lifeandstyle/2016/feb/17/kitchen-gadgets-review-sandwich-maker-muffin-rhik-samadder | Kitchen gadgets review: sandwich maker – the Egg McNuffin | What? Hamilton Beach Sandwich Maker, £29.99. Hinged tier of hot plates. Cooks an assembly of sandwich bread and trimmings, while the revolving middle plate deposits an egg within. Why? There’s nothing like a good breakfast; and this is nothing like a good breakfast. Well? Do you know the Muffin Man, who lives on Drury Lane? He sounds dodgy, doesn’t he? And I bet he owns one of these. This multi-compartment, muffin-cooking monstrosity does it all. It toasts bread, grills cheese and cooks egg. (As an aside, Hamilton Beach legally own the phrase “Good Thinking” as a registered trademark; yet their best idea is a device to build your own Egg McMuffin. I feel like someone owes somebody a refund.) The machine has three plates, separated by cooking rings, all of which are hotter than Venus. You add bread, cheese and precooked meats (ugh) to the upper and lower trays, while the middle section … well. “Add the egg right to the egg plate,” the guide urges, so you know we’re not in Michelin territory. Then it gets bizarre. “Use a large egg, or smaller,” it says – a piece of advice which means absolutely nothing – and “pierce with a fork or toothpick”. Probably a fork, right? Or do they mean a used toothpick, for extra flavour? Why bring dental aids into this? After five minutes I’m instructed to rotate the egg plate by its handle: the tray slides out, empty. Its contents have been incorporated into the meal stack. Woooah. That’s some weird juju. I lift the cooking rings, avoiding the burning steam. Out flops a puck of oil-red bread and perfectly circular egg solids. The two halves are differently disgusting, and so slick with grease they slide off each other. I feel sick. This hot mess might work as part of a controlled diet; let’s call it The Fatkins, in which you only eat foods fried in cheese fat. Impregnating a sandwich with an egg, a breakfast in vitro invertus, may have medical significance. As a meal, it’s so depressing it should come with medication included, and numbers you can call. Hamilton Beach sounds like an upscale neighbourhood in a US soap opera; but it doesn’t get more low-rent than this. Redeeming features? They could have called it Tower of Wrong, or Tiers for Fears. Now that’s good thinking. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Egg McNothing. 1/5 | ['lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'food/breakfast', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'society/health', 'lifeandstyle/nutrition', 'food/food', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-02-17T13:06:33Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2023/jun/28/australia-risks-failing-on-renewable-energy-but-two-steps-could-help-fix-that | Australia risks failing on renewable energy – but two steps could help fix that | Adam Morton | Labor’s claim that Australia’s national electricity grid would be running on 82% renewable energy by 2030 started as a projection, but at some point it effectively became a target. The Albanese government is as responsible for this as anyone, having implied it’s where the country is inevitably headed. Depending on what happens at the next couple of elections, the government will be seen to have failed if the country doesn’t get there. Among other things, it is a necessary step for Australia to reach its minimum 2030 emissions reduction goal and make deeper cuts in line with scientific advice. But things have changed since the pseudo-target was announced in late 2021. Unless there is a significant change in direction, the view from regulators and the energy industry is that the grid won’t get to 82% green power by the end of the decade. Renewable energy has surged in recent years to now provide about 36% of generation, but estimates suggest the pace of construction still needs to at least double. There is no shortage of development proposals, but the head of the Australian energy market operator (Aemo), Daniel Westerman, used a major speech last week to warn investment was “just not happening fast enough”. What’s changed? For one, the lost decade on the climate crisis under the federal Coalition had a greater toll than some realised. It took steps to slow the rise of renewable energy and pressured companies to keep ageing coal plants running. Its attitude was encapsulated in the moment the then treasurer, Scott Morrison, brandished a lump of coal in parliament and taunted “it won’t hurt you”. The country was left way behind. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The current federal and state governments have discovered that constructing the huge amounts of transmission infrastructure needed to connect what is basically a new, clean electricity grid is a laborious and complex task. It’s not helped by an investment test before major new connection lines can be built that many consider not fit-for-purpose. Labor has promised $20bn to “rewire the nation”, but each transmission connection is a multibillion-dollar project, and it takes seven years on average to get one approved and built. In part, this is because proponents need a social licence for connections that are proposed across farms and public land – a challenging issue in some places. Most of these issues were foreseeable. Others were a bit less easy to predict. Cost is a major one. For some projects, the price for getting a development in the ground has blown out by 30-40% due to inflation and supply chain constraints. Global competition for equipment and parts is escalating. The change agent was the $A557bn support for clean energy projects in last year’s US Inflation Reduction Act. Some other countries are responding with their own climate-focused packages. Many energy companies are global players. If it is more attractive to build solar and windfarms elsewhere, that’s what some will do. The challenge this poses for Australia is greater than just whether the government can reach 82% renewable energy by 2030. The real target is much greater. In its blueprint for a future grid, Aemo suggested Australia would need nine times today’s level of large-scale renewable energy capacity to meet future demand. So how do we get there? The short answer is the country needs a national policy that drives investment in renewable energy. The current approach – relying on solar and wind being so cheap that it will be financially attractive enough for companies to spend up big as coal plants die – won’t be enough. Neither will the underwriting schemes introduced in some of the large states. Two steps could help address the problem. The first is to expand and extend the national renewable energy target. The target was filled in 2019 and will stop offering support for existing solar and windfarms by 2030. Solar and wind can compete and will continue to be built without it, just not fast enough. It would be relatively uncomplicated to reset it to give the system the big push that it needs. The second is to announce closure dates for coal plants to give investors a clear picture of what the future looks like. The Queensland government, for example, has implied closure dates for its coal plants by announcing ramped up renewable energy targets, but hasn’t taken the next step of telling Aemo when all its fossil fuel generators will stop running. The second half of this year is an opportunity for major change. The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has promised a federal underwriting program to ensure there is enough “firm” renewable energy and storage capacity that can be called on at any time to fill gaps around variable generation. On Thursday, he announced the commonwealth would underwrite 550MW of new firmed generation in NSW – the first commitment from a new capacity investment scheme. Perhaps just as importantly, the government has allocated $5.6m to develop a plan to “catalyse clean energy industries, ensure Australian manufacturing competitiveness and attract capital investment”. In other words, to respond to the massive influx of clean investment elsewhere, building on $2bn for green hydrogen in last month’s budget. Whatever form that response takes, it will need to be substantial. If there’s a message from recent renewable energy investment trends, it’s that Australia’s natural advantage in sun and wind energy won’t be enough on its own. • Adam Morton is Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor | ['environment/series/clear-air', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/coal', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2023-06-28T15:00:30Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2015/oct/12/octobers-we-have-known | Unreliable October | Snow and sunshine, gales and rain, frosts and heatwaves – in weather terms, October is one of the most fickle of all the months. In October 2008, London saw below zero temperatures and a heavy fall of snow – the first recorded for the capital in October since 1934, three-quarters of a century before. Yet seven years earlier, in October 2001, southern Britain had sweltered in unseasonably warm weather. And that was repeated in October 2005, one of the warmest on record. Two years later, in October 2007, Scotland enjoyed balmy weather, with temperatures reaching 21C in the Scottish Highlands as late as the 27th of the month – a UK record for that date. The period around 18 October, St Luke’s Day, is reputed to coincide with a spell of fine weather known as “St Luke’s little summer” or, in more recent times, an “Indian summer”. As with much weather folklore, the accuracy of this is easily disputed. And that’s also the case for predictions that suggest the weather in October helps us forecast the conditions for the coming winter. “Warm October, cold February” is one such saying, along with “much rain in October, much wind in December”. As with the widespread belief that the early arrival of wintering wildfowl from the north is a sign of harsh winter weather to come, these predictions have no basis in reality. So if you see flocks of geese passing overhead this month, enjoy the spectacle but don’t rely on it as a long-term weather forecast. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-10-12T20:29:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jun/16/poorer-households-in-uk-should-get-free-heat-pumps-say-experts | Poorer households in UK should get free heat pumps, say experts | Households on low incomes should be supplied with free heat pumps in order to kickstart the market for low-carbon heating equipment and meet the UK’s climate targets, experts have told the government. Heat pumps can currently cost thousands of pounds to install, but the more that are installed, the faster that cost is likely to come down. They are widely regarded as the best way to replace the UK’s gas boilers and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from homes. More than 20 organisations representing builders and construction businesses, energy companies and civil society groups have signed an open letter calling for a “fair heat deal” that would ensure people on low incomes can gain access to heat pumps. About 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating the UK’s poor housing stock, most of which is also draughty and energy inefficient. The group also called for insulation to be made available to people on low incomes. The government scrapped its programme to install insulation and low-carbon heating, called the green homes grant, after only six months, during which a fraction of the homes targeted were insulated, and there were widespread complaints of poor service. Ministers are now working on a new heat and buildings strategy, which has not yet been published. The Climate Change Committee, the government’s statutory advisers, has warned that bringing down emissions from the domestic housing sector will be essential to meeting the UK’s target of net zero emissions by 2050. Juliet Phillips, a senior policy adviser at the E3G thinktank, one of the organisations behind the call, said: “Moving from a gas boiler to a heat pump is one of the biggest carbon savings a household can make. But it must be affordable and we urge the government to support our fair heat deal to ensure no one is left behind in the green industrial revolution. If done right, the UK can lead the world in reducing carbon emissions from heat while slashing energy bills, boosting the economy and protecting the fuel poor.” The letter also called on ministers to remove environmental levies from energy bills, to ensure it is always cheaper to run a heat pump than a boiler, and for grants to all households not on low incomes, to ensure that the cost of a new heat pump is competitive with the cost of installing a new gas boiler. The signatories also called for the removal of VAT on green home products and servicers, and for changes to stamp duty to reduce the cost of homes that have been fitted with low-carbon technology. The signatories include the Federation of Master Builders, Energy UK, Friends of the Earth, the UK Green Building Council, the thinktank E3G and the CPRE countryside charity. Mike Thornton, the chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said: “For the UK to reach its net zero targets, we need real pace and scale in rolling out heat pumps. A fair heat deal will provide the confidence, clarity and certainty which will unlock the investment required for this.” A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We are already leading the way to ensure affordability and fairness are at the heart of clean heating reforms, and more detail on our approach will be provided in the upcoming heat and buildings strategy. “We are supporting lower income households and vulnerable people to make homes greener and cut energy bills, and will continue to do so through schemes such as the home upgrade grant and the new clean heat grant from April next year.” | ['environment/energy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2021-06-16T06:00:21Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2018/oct/25/flash-flood-in-jordan-sweeps-away-school-bus-killing-children | Flash flood in Jordan sweeps away school bus, killing at least 18 | At least 18 people, most of them children, have been killed after raging floodwaters swept away a school bus near the Dead Sea. Jordan launched a major operation on Thursday to search for survivors involving army divers, and neighbouring Israel said it was assisting with search-and-rescue helicopters. Search teams had rescued 34 people, some of whom were in a serious condition, Jordanian civil defence sources said. The bus had been carrying about 40 children and their teachers. Many of those killed were children under 14. A number of families picnicking in the popular destination were also among the dead and injured, rescuers said, without giving a breakdown of numbers. Hospitals in the area were put on high alert. A civil defence official was quoted on state television as saying that the number of casualties was expected to rise. Israel’s police and military said their forces were sent at the request of the Jordanian government. “The soldiers … are assisting in locating the missing in spite of the adverse weather conditions,” the Israeli Defence Forces said. The region was bracing on Thursday for the first winter storms after the summer, with heavy rainfall and high winds expected. In a separate incident a four-year-old was killed in southern Israel when he was swept away by flooding, local media reported. In April, nine Israeli teenagers hiking south of the Dead Sea were killed in a similar flood. The arid region, the world’s lowest point at about 1,400ft (430m) below sea level, is often hit by flash floods. They occur when heavy rains hit higher ground, even while the local area is dry, with torrents rushing down steep cliffs and cutting across roads. Reuters contributed to this report | ['world/jordan', 'environment/flooding', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/middleeast', 'world/israel', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/oliver-holmes', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-10-25T19:12:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/jan/31/global-count-estimates-earth-has-73000-tree-species-bletchley-park-good-turing-frequency-estimation | Global count estimates Earth has 73,000 tree species – 14% more than reported | There are an estimated 73,300 species of tree on Earth, 9,000 of which have yet to be discovered, according to a global count of tree species by thousands of researchers who used second world war codebreaking techniques created at Bletchley Park to evaluate the number of unknown species. Researchers working on the ground in 90 countries collected information on 38 million trees, sometimes walking for days and camping in remote places to reach them. The study found there are about 14% more tree species than previously reported and that a third of undiscovered tree species are rare, meaning they could be vulnerable to extinction by human-driven changes in land use and the climate crisis. “It is a massive effort for the whole world to document our forests,” said Jingjing Liang, a lead author of the paper and professor of quantitative forest ecology at Purdue University in Indiana, US. “Counting the number of tree species worldwide is like a puzzle with pieces spreading all over the world. We solved it together as a team, each sharing our own piece.” Despite being among the largest and most widespread organisms, there are still thousands of trees to be discovered, with 40% of unknown species believed to be in South America, according to the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Some of these undocumented species would probably have been known to indigenous communities but some, in the most inaccessible regions, may have never been found before. The Amazon basin appears to have the highest diversity of tree species at local level, with 200 tree species a hectare. Researchers believe this could be because it is a warm, wet environment suited to supporting a wider range of species. To estimate the number of unknown species, scientists used the Good-Turing frequency estimation, which was created by the codebreaker Alan Turing and his assistant Irving Good when trying to crack German codes for the Enigma machine during the second world war. The theory, which was developed by the Taiwanese statistician Anne Chao to be applied to the study of undetected species, helped researchers work out the occurrence of rare events – in this case unknown species of trees – using data on observed rare species. Essentially, the code uses information on species that are only detected once or twice in data to estimate the number of undetected species. The idea to do an inventory of the planet’s trees came 10 years ago when Liang found data on Alaska’s trees sitting in a drawer. He was impressed by the findings and made it his personal mission to get the data online. He then wrote a proposal to do an inventory of the whole world. “People initially laughed at me,” he said. There is no data on how the number of tree species may have changed over time, although many species are thought to be threatened with extinction due to deforestation and the climate crisis. Scientists are worried many will disappear before they have been documented. Liang said: “We hope this paper will provide us with benchmark data so that we can know if the total number of tree species in the world has been declining, especially during our mass extinction event. “We need to look at the forest as not just a carbon reservoir, or a resource for extraction; we should look at our forests as a habitat that contains tens of thousands of species of trees, and even a much higher number of flora and fauna – we need to pay attention to this biodiversity.” Dr Ruth Mitchell, a plant-soil ecologist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, who was not involved in the research, said it showed that even for organisms as large as trees, new species were still being discovered. “It is very exciting, yet at the same time concerning that we are losing so much biodiversity so rapidly that we don’t even know about,” she said. “This study highlights the incredible diversity within our forests, much of which is still out there waiting for us to discover.” Martin Lukac, professor of ecosystem science at Reading University, who was also not involved in the paper, said: “The paper shows that almost half of the world’s tree species are in South America – this is a diamond-hard proof that we must not destroy the tropical forests there. “The tree-species diversity took billions of years to accumulate in the Amazon,” he said. “It would be beyond reckless to destroy it inside a century.” Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/forests', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/phoebe-weston', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-01-31T20:00:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2019/sep/05/amazon-fires-are-true-apocalypse-says-brazilian-archbishop | Amazon fires are 'true apocalypse', says Brazilian archbishop | The fires in the Amazon are a “true apocalypse”, according to a Brazilian archbishop who expects next month’s papal synod at the Vatican to strongly denounce the destruction of the rainforest. The comments by Erwin Kräutler will put fresh pressure on the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, following criticism from G7 leaders last month over the surge of deforestation in the world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink. The archbishop’s words also highlight a widening division between the Catholic church and the Pentecostal movement. Pope Francis has championed a more harmonious relationship with the natural world for the sake of future generations, in contrast to the fast-growing new-world Pentecostalists who form the support base for the ramped-up resource exploitation advocated by Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. The gathering of bishops would condemn all forms of Amazon destruction and advocate a new view of ecology based on Christian faith in God as the creator of a “common home”, Kräutler said in an email exchange with the Guardian. Although retired as a bishop of Xingu, he is one of 18 members of the preparatory council appointed by Francis ahead of next month’s papal synod on the Amazon. Following the meeting, Francis is expected to reinforce this message with an “apostolic exhortation”. It is likely to build on his influential 180-page encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si’, published four years ago, which called for concrete steps to tackle the environmental crisis. Preparations for an Amazon synod have been under way since 2016, but the issue has become more urgent in recent months due to fires, threats and a hostile government, Kräutler said. “There have always been fires in the Amazon. When they are smaller, nature rebuilds itself within a few years. But what you are seeing now is a true apocalypse,” said the archbishop, who has spent 54 years in the region. “The fires this year surpass anything you can imagine. Undoubtedly, it is the consequence of comments by [Bolsonaro] about the opening of the Amazon to national and multinational companies. He understands ‘opening the Amazon’ as a licence to clear a rainforest and gain space for cattle to graze and plant monocultures such as soybeans and sugar cane.” Earlier this week, Catholic clergy in the Amazon released an open letter condemning violence and intimidation they say they are experiencing as a result of efforts to protect the forest, indigenous people and poor communities from miners and farmers. “We are deeply disappointed that today, instead of being supported and encouraged, our leaders are criminalised as enemies of the fatherland,” they wrote. “Together with Pope Francis, we are uncompromisingly defending the Amazon and demanding urgent measures from governments in the face of violent and irrational aggression against nature and the destruction of the forest that kills ancient flora and fauna with criminal fires.” Kräutler said the letter was necessary because the government had spread false rumours that the Catholic church was undermining Brazilian sovereignty. Priests and nuns have a long history of working with poor communities in the Amazon, which has often put them at odds with powerful business interests and the authorities. During the 1970s, the Liberation theology movement was closely aligned with leftwing resistance to the military dictatorship of the time. In 2005, the America nun Dorothy Stang was murdered by landowners. One of her followers, Father Amaro Lopes, was arrested last year in the Xingu River basin. Kräutler had so many death threats he needed police protection for more than 10 years. Tensions have risen further since Bolsonaro – a former military officer who has defended the use of torture and killings during the 20-year dictatorship that ended in 1985 – became president. He has weakened government protections of the rainforest, verbally attacked indigenous groups, accused environmental NGOs of starting fires and broken ties with foreign donors to the Amazon Fund. In July – when deforestation alerts jumped by 278% compared with the same month last year – he fired the head of the space agency that provided the data. On Saturday, Bolsonaro confirmed that he wanted the Brazilian intelligence agency to conduct surveillance on the Amazon synod. “There is a lot of political influence there,” the president reportedly told journalists. Although nominally a Catholic, Bolsonaro was baptised a few years ago by evangelical pastors in Israel. His rise to power has depended heavily on support from the Pentecostal movement, which is growing far more rapidly than the Catholic church. A primary goal of the synod is to increase the ability of the Catholic church to evangelise in the Amazon and – although unstated – to counter the rise of Pentecostalism, which tends to support resource exploitation and has made inroads among indigenous and riverine communities. But bishops have been hamstrung by the difficulty of finding priests willing to work in the remote region. One of the more radical ideas in a preparatory document for the synod, Instrumentum Laboris, is to allow older married men to be ordained – a move which would end a centuries-old requirement that priests are celibate. Francis has previously said he would be open to allowing married men to be ordained in areas where there is a scarcity of priests, but the idea is highly controversial among Vatican conservatives, with cardinals having described it as “heretical” and “apostasy”. Instrumentum Laboris also laments the crisis in the Amazon, which it attributes to “secularisation, the throwaway culture and the idolatry of money”. “Today the Amazon is wounded, its beauty deformed, a place of pain and violence,” it continues. “The manifold destruction of human and environmental life, the diseases and pollution of rivers and lands, the felling and burning of trees, the massive loss of biodiversity, the disappearance of species (more than 1m of the 8m animals and plants are at risk), constitute a brutal reality that challenges us all. “Violence, chaos and corruption are rampant. The territory has become a space of discord and of extermination of peoples, cultures and generations.” | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/catholicism', 'world/pope-francis', 'world/brazil', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'environment/deforestation', 'world/christianity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'world/religion', 'environment/forests', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'profile/harrietsherwood', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-09-05T14:05:48Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
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