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commentisfree/2009/may/17/economic-growth-green-agenda | Economy and the environment| Editorial | The next few days will bring yet more grim economic news. Figures are likely to show that Japan is in even deeper recession; that the UK's public finances continue to deteriorate; more companies will go bust and more workers will lose their jobs. Against that backdrop, the question that follows may seem so obtuse and ill-timed that to raise it at all may appear bone-headed. Still, here goes: should we – governments, economists, businesses and voters – stop worrying so much about economic growth? That is the big and controversial question posed in an excellent new report from one of the government's own advisory groups, the Sustainable Development Commission. For a bunch of Whitehall insiders even to title a report Prosperity Without Growth? is brave and possibly foolhardy – especially amid a bitter recession when growth is sorely needed. But by the same token, a crash this big must make us reflect on how we ended up in this mess – or else run the risk of repeating it. And in the UK, the obsession with growth shares the blame. As chancellor, Gordon Brown was proud of his economic record. In budget speeches he would rattle off GDP numbers, sounding like a rather smug road drill. Yet the sources of this British growth were dangerously narrow. In the dying days of the great boom, in early 2007, finance and business services accounted for almost half of it. The headline numbers were indeed splendid; but there was to be a terrible twist in the tale. To be fair, Mr Brown was only giving the voters what they apparently wanted. For decades, GDP growth has been associated with prosperity and national success. Yet GDP is merely a calculation of all the marketable goods and services an economy produces. It takes no account of where the income comes from or how it is shared out, rendering it a flawed yardstick of progress or wellbeing. Cleaning up another Exxon Valdez would increase GDP – but it is a boost we would be better off without. The environment is often the biggest casualty of our reckless pursuit of growth. Industrialising countries swap agrarian poverty for congestion, pollution and natural degradation so that, as the economist Jayati Ghosh notes, soil quality in India has dropped 30% in the last 10 years. Over in the rich world, we fret over carbon emissions and global warming. The solution, say optimists, is green growth; but that appears ever more optimistic. Rather than use this crisis to shift towards a low-carbon economy, politicians prefer safety-pin solutions: an auto bailout here, a VAT cut there. In any case, placing all our chips on decarbonisation is risky. To be in with a fighting chance of keeping global warming down to 2C – while still growing both population and GDP at current rates – there would need to be a 21-fold drop in the carbon content of a unit of economic output by 2050. To achieve that at the same time as allowing developing countries to get out of poverty would require a 130-fold improvement in carbon use. Technology and emissions trading on their own cannot pull that off in time. All of which could leave Europeans and Americans with little option but to ease off the economic accelerator, even while Africans and Asians keep developing. Instead of working feverishly while accumulating and consuming ever more, we could live at a slower pace and have more time for socialising and interests. Economists have touched on these ideas before, but never developed them. When greens talk approvingly about a "steady-state economy" they are swiping a phrase from John Stuart Mill. Even Keynes, back in fashion as the godfather of consumption policies, talked beguilingly of a go-slow future in which "we shall once more value ends above means". Such debates must be revisited while there is still time; or we may find ourselves staging them in the shadow of an ecological cataclysm. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'business/economicgrowth', 'politics/economy', 'environment/series/greenagenda', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'business/recession', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'tone/editorials', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-05-17T19:04:09Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/article/2024/aug/15/madrid-hottest-cities-earth-trees-chopped-down | Madrid’s summers can be brutally hot. So why are so many of our trees being chopped down? | Felicity Hughes | It’s 9pm on a blistering July night in Plaza de Santa Ana, a square at the heart of Madrid’s literary district. The thermometer has barely dropped below 39C, but despite the heat a 78-year-old woman climbs on to a bench to give an impassioned speech to a 200-strong crowd. “Did you think we weren’t going to be here, Señor Almeida?” She scans the crowd, searching for José Luis Martínez-Almeida, Madrid’s mayor, while anguished cries of “Arboricida!” (tree murder) punctuate the silence. Her face is immediately recognisable. She is movie star Marisa Paredes, an actor immortalised in Almodóvar classics such as High Heels – just one of many activists trying to stop what seems like a concerted campaign to strip central Madrid of its trees. Watching a recording of Paredes’s fiery speech, I tear up, amazed at her courage. Like many others, I’ve fled the city for the summer, unable to bear the extreme heat. Madrid is one of the worst heat islands in the world, and its foliage offers a welcome reprieve from unbearable temperatures. But in a move reminiscent of the recent decision in Sheffield to deploy chainsaw-wielding workers to remove trees in the early hours, Almeida’s administration seems to be banking on locals being away to strip Santa Ana of 85% of its tree coverage. The fight to preserve urban tree coverage is a story with increasingly high stakes being played out across the globe from Malta to Hyderabad as locals show extraordinary courage standing up against the interests of big business to demand livable cities. In Madrid, the burning issue has been its city squares, where remodelling work over the past few years has transformed once communal spaces into inhospitably hot concrete expanses that drive tourists straight into the next air-conditioned shop. The issue came to a head in 2023, when plans to build an extension to a metro train line were altered to require the removal of more than 1,000 trees, many in public parks near Madrid’s rewilded riverside. Tired of having their needs ignored by the council, locals came out in force to protest. And it worked: while many trees were lost, just under half those earmarked for removal were saved. But this time, despite opposition, the council hasn’t let up. When the €6.1m (£5.2m) deal to renovate the underground car park beneath Santa Ana went to private contractor Grupo Ortiz, it hastily earmarked trees for removal. The mayor justified this work as necessary due to localised damp problems in the car park – but that is flimsy at best. In a city centre where locals are priced out of the housing market by tourist apartments, who needs residential parking? Even more pressingly, we know tree coverage saves lives. EU research indicates that increasing the tree canopy in urban areas could save hundreds of lives each summer, especially in countries such as Italy, Croatia, Romania and Spain. It’s a relatively inexpensive but effective measure – and with heat deaths in Madrid having risen to 1,308 during the brutally hot summer of 2022, it feels particularly pertinent. There are, of course, other interests at work. Grupo Ortiz stands to make huge profits managing the car park, while the city council also saves itself some cash: it’s much cheaper to rip trees out of the urban fabric and plant saplings far out of town. “There’s money behind all this. The government in Madrid is doing everything it can to encourage more gentrification and more tourism, devastating absolutely everything,” as activist Dolores Méndez of No a la Tala (No to Felling) puts it. This might explain the administration’s heavy-handed approach to protesters in the city. Méndez was fined last year as police forcibly removed activists from trees to allow work on the new metro to start. In defiance of legislation against peaceful protest, she didn’t pay her fine, which has now doubled to €601. Meanwhile, total fines for activists in the city amount to more than €19,000. No a la Tala will be fighting the case in court. Its members will be hoping that not all justice systems are as harsh towards those fighting for the planet as the UK’s, which handed down chillingly harsh sentences to Just Stop Oil protesters in July. Madrid’s hellishly hot summer also sees a dangerous series of legislative changes being rushed through that could scrap a law demanding that trees that are cut down be replaced – a prelude for more unchecked construction work. Sure enough, upcoming plans to build a Formula One track in the city might well involve further destruction, as will plans to build a new transport interchange near the riverside. Back in Plaza de Santa Ana, protests have gathered momentum while rumours swirl that the trees could go at any point. When leafage started to brown, locals discovered that irrigation systems had been switched off and began lugging buckets of water out in the blistering heat to keep the trees alive. At the 11th hour, the incredible resilience of Paredes and activists such as Méndez won out. Two weeks ago, work was halted as the local government agreed to pause proceedings until September and hold talks with residents’ associations. As with the riverside protest, activists have vowed not to let up. While we still mourn the wholesale destruction, every tree saved provides hope to other people around the globe that these fights can be won. Felicity Hughes is a freelance journalist based in Madrid | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/spain', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/felicity-hughes', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-08-15T06:00:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2008/dec/29/recycling-companies-raw-materials-prices | Recycling firms backpedal after price crash | Recycling companies are beginning to stockpile raw materials as local councils struggle to off-load materials amid falling prices. Closed Loop, one of Britain's biggest plastics recycling firms, is planning to increase its stocks of unwanted bottles by at least 5,000 tonnes and has stepped up its operation to full capacity of 3,000 tonnes a month to prevent a collapse in the relatively new industry. The price of mixed plastics has nearly halved in the past year as some far eastern customers have stopped buying. But prices for glass and sorted plastic such as polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene have held up, according to the government-backed Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Falling prices have resulted in some councils having trouble selling their recyclable waste. The Local Government Association (LGA) said that three-quarters of its members had been affected by a fall in prices of recycled materials. A recent survey by the LGA found that 5% of local authorities were having to store recyclable materials for longer than usual. Closed Loop has leased four acres of land adjacent to its Dagenham factory, where it will store an additional 5,000 tonnes of plastic waste. The company is also considering storing a further 1,000 tonnes on the site of its second factory, which is under construction in Deeside. Chris Dow, the chief executive, insisted he was not capitalising on the collapse in prices to stockpile cheap raw materials but was just keen to keep the system rolling. Although the value of the kind of plastic he recycles had more than halved to about £50 a tonne, he insisted he would pay "a fair price". | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/ethical-living', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sarahbutler', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-12-29T00:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
society/2019/aug/20/growing-up-in-air-polluted-areas-linked-to-mental-health-issues | Growing up in air-polluted areas linked to mental health issues | People who spend their childhood in areas with high levels of air pollution may be more likely to later develop mental disorders, research suggests. Air pollution has become a matter of growing concern as an increasing number of studies have found links to conditions ranging from asthma to dementia and various types of cancer. There are also signs it may take a toll on mental health. Research published in January found that children growing up in the more polluted areas of London were more likely to have depression by the age of 18 than those growing up in areas with cleaner air. But a study by researchers in the US and Denmark has suggested a link between air pollution and an increased risk of mental health problems, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and personality disorders. Between 1% and 2% of the UK population have bipolar disorder in their lifetime, with similar figures for schizophrenia. It is estimated that about 5% of people in the UK have a personality disorder at any one time. Prof Andrey Rzhetsky, a co-author of the research at the University of Chicago, said the team carried out their work after finding that genetics did not fully explain why some people experienced these conditions and others do not. Writing in the journal PLOS Biology, Rzhetsky and colleagues explained how they used a rather crude approach when they first examined possible links to air pollution. Insurance data for 151 million individuals collected between 2003 and 2013 was used to explore the rates of particular mental disorders in counties across the US. This was then analysed alongside the average level of air pollution in each county. The team found the rate for bipolar disorder was 27% higher for counties in the bottom seventh for air quality compared with those in the top seventh (with the best air quality), once factors including age, sex, poverty levels in the county and average income were taken into account. A tentative link was also seen for depression and air pollution. However, this analysis was based on average air pollution levels over very large areas. What’s more, the rates of psychiatric conditions may not reflect the situation for low-income individuals who may be less likely to have insurance. The team then looked at air pollution data from Denmark, which was collected on a scale of 1 sq km. They looked at air pollution exposure for the first 10 years in the life of 1.4 million individuals born and living in the country between 1979 and the end of 2002, as calculated from their home addresses. Levels of 14 pollutants were considered – compared with the 87 considered in the US part of the study – and used to provide a measure of overall air pollution exposure over those years. The team then explored subsequent diagnoses for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorder and depression up to the end of 2016. Once factors including age, sex and socioeconomic status were considered, the team found that the rate of all four mental disorders were higher among people who had greater exposure to overall air pollution during their childhood. When participants were split into seven equal-sized groups, based on the air they were exposed to until the age of 10, the researchers found the bottom seventh (who experienced the worst air) had 29%, 148%, 51% and 162% higher rates for bipolar, schizophrenia, depression and personality disorder respectively than the top seventh (who had experienced the cleanest air). The team suggested a number of explanations for how mental health is affected by air pollution, pointing to animal studies that had proposed one route could be that it triggered inflammation in the respiratory tract that then led to inflammation across the body, including the brain. Another suggestion was that air pollutants travelled from the nose to the brain where they accumulated, causing inflammation and damage. If the links to mental health disorders are confirmed, they could – somewhat counterintuitively – offer some cause for hope. “Unlike genetic predisposition, environment is something we can change,” said Rzhetsky. However, the research has limitations: the findings do not prove that air pollution drives the development of these conditions, while the analyses do not take into account the influence of many factors known to affect mental health, including family history of psychiatric problems or bullying. Dr Ioannis Bakolis, an expert in biostatistics from King’s College London, said the study added to previous evidence of a possible link between air pollution and mental health disorders. “While causation cannot be proved, this work suggests substantial morbidity from mental disorders could be avoided with improved air quality,” he said. Bakolis added that there was already plenty of evidence that air pollution can hurt many other aspects of health, adding that measures such as car-free zones in cities should be given attention. A second study, published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine, has revealed a link between long-term exposure to traffic fumes and age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) – one of the leading causes of vision problems in older people. The researchers used national health insurance data from 2000 to 2010 for almost 40,000 people aged 50 or older in Taiwan, together with air quality data from 1998 to 2010 centred on the location of the health centre people visited for help with an illness like a cold. The team found that patients visiting centres in the highest 25% for nitrogen dioxide levels had almost twice the risk of developing ARMD than those who visited centres in the bottom quartile. A similar link was seen for carbon monoxide pollution. However, several other factors including family history of the condition were not considered in the work, while the data might be skewed by people having less chance of a respiratory infection in less polluted areas. | ['society/mental-health', 'environment/air-pollution', 'society/society', 'society/health', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/nicola-davis', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-science'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-08-20T22:41:42Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2013/sep/28/arizona-wildfires-report-radio-communication | Arizona wildfire report cites poor radio communication in 19 firefighter deaths | Communications problems caused confusion moments before 19 members of an elite firefighting unit were killed by a rapidly escalating wildfire, according to an official investigation released today. All but one member of Arizona's Granite Mountain Hotshots crew died on June 30 after they were overcome by a blaze that suddenly changed direction and grew in intensity. A report by the Arizona state forestry division found that a communications blackout of more than 30 minutes just before their deaths meant that colleagues were unaware of the team's location and intentions. As the men deployed emergency shelters in a last-ditch bid for survival, an aircraft containing fire retardant was hovering above, waiting for instructions. "Few people understood Granite Mountain's intentions, movements, and location, once they left the black [the burned, safer area]," the report states. "The [investigation] Team believes this is due to brief, informal, and vague radio transmissions and talkarounds that can occur during wildland fire communications." It adds: "Radio communications were challenging throughout the incident. Some radios were not programmed with appropriate tone guards. Crews identified the problem, engaged in troubleshooting, and developed workarounds so they could communicate using their radios. Radio traffic was heavy during critical times on the fire." The Hotshots were dispatched to protect the small town of Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, which was threatened by an unpredictable wildfire that had been sparked by lightning two days earlier. The 20-person team arrived early in the morning of June 30 and headed into the mountains. They left the relative sanctuary of a ridge top to head into a canyon surrounded on three sides by mountains. "No one realized that the crew left the black and headed southeast, sometime after 1604," the report said. The fire had not seemed especially dangerous at the time. But a sudden change in the weather, prompted by thunderstorms, brought strong winds that quickly whipped up the blaze and sent it towards the crew at a speed of between 10 and 12 mph. They sent a radio message reporting that they were trapped by flames and hurriedly deployed emergency shelters at about 4.42pm. "The fire overtook them. Temperatures exceeded 2,000 deg F and the deployment site was not survivable," the investigation said. The communications issues hampered attempts to help them."At the time of the shelter deployment, a VLAT [very large air tanker] was on station over the fire waiting to drop retardant as soon as the crew's location was determined," the report said. Only the look-out, who was stationed more than a mile away, survived. It was the worst loss of life in a single day for US firefighters since 9/11 and the deadliest wildfire for 80 years. The fire burned for nearly two weeks over 13 square miles, destroying more than 100 structures. The 122-page report did not apportion blame for the disaster. "The judgments and decisions of the incident management organizations managing this fire were reasonable. Firefighters performed within their scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The team found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol," it said. | ['us-news/arizona', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-weather', 'type/article', 'profile/tom-dart'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-09-28T19:48:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2017/apr/28/richard-browning-jet-powered-suit-iron-man-british-inventor | Britain's Iron Man: inventor takes flight in jet-powered suit | Richard Browning, the British inventor dubbed “Wiltshire’s Iron Man”, successfully demonstrated his personal flight suit on the shores of Vancouver harbour, with mini jet engines on his hands. Inspired by the Marvel comic superhero Iron Man, Browning flew in a circle and hovered a short distance from the ground using thrusters attached to his arms and back, captivating attendees at the Vancouver TED conference. “The hypothesis was that the human mind and body, if properly augmented, could achieve some pretty cool stuff,” said Browning, an extreme athlete and engineer, at the gathering where he was representing his flight-suit startup company, Gravity. The personal flight suit, called Daedalus, is capable of propelling wearers much higher and faster than demonstrated on the day, according to Browning. He said he had experimented with various numbers and arrays of the engines on his limbs, with some more successful than others. The current suit is capable of flying for around 10 minutes. “The whole journey was about trying and failing, and learning from that,” said Browning . “I don’t think anyone is going to be going down to Walmart with it or taking anybody to school for quite a while, but the team at his Gravity is moving it along.” A video of Browning’s first reasonably stable, six-second flight in Daedalus has logged more than million views since being posted on YouTube in March. The company has posted various videos showing flights and adjustments to the gear throughout the testing process. A flight suit that could carry a wearer from the beach along the coast and into a mid-air helicopter for further journeys are a while away, said Browning, but the firm has already received interest from investors including some from those in the British military. They told him they had given up on the flight feature of an Iron Man-style suit until seeing his human-propulsion gear. The world’s first commercial jetpack will cost $150,000 | ['technology/gadgets', 'technology/ted', 'technology/technology', 'world/canada', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'world/air-transport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-technology'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-04-28T12:14:34Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2020/sep/15/hitachi-to-pull-plug-on-north-wales-nuclear-power-station | Hitachi to pull plug on north Wales nuclear power station | The Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has conformed it is abandoning plans to build a new nuclear power station on Anglesey, off the coast of north Wales, dashing hopes for thousands of jobs involved in its construction and knocking the UK’s ambition to become a “net zero carbon” emission country by 2050 off course. The Tokyo-based multinational said Wednesday it was permanently scrapping plans for the £16bn Wylfa power station. “Hitachi made this decision given that 20 months have passed since the suspension, and the investment environment has become increasingly severe due to the impact of Covid-19,” it said in a statement. The company said it would coordinate with the British government and relevant organisations regarding the handling of the planned construction sites and other issues. The decision to scrap the project, which would have provided around 6% of Britain’s electricity, was not expected to have significant impact on Hitachi’s business results as the company has already written down most of the related assets, it added. Work on the Wylfa Newydd project, which is next door to an existing, decommissioned power plant, had already been suspended after Hitachi failed to reach a funding agreement with the UK government, but the planning process continued. Justin Bowden, national officer of the GMB union, said: “This utterly predictable announcement from Hitachi is the outcome of successive government failures to act decisively around new nuclear, and in particular how it is financed. New nuclear is vital in achieving decarbonisation, especially when teamed up with hydrogen. “It’s no coincidence that around the world – almost without exception – it’s governments who finance these projects, as they are the lender of last resort when it comes to keeping the lights on. The fanciful experiment of trying to get foreign companies or governments to fund our future energy needs leaves most ordinary citizens in this country bewildered.” A group of 100 organisations, including unions and businesses, backing plans to build a nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk, also voiced concern about the Wylfa decision. Cameron Gilmour, spokesman for the Sizewell C Consortium said: “This news will have serious ramifications for companies both in Wales and across the UK. The Wylfa nuclear project would have been another important milestone for the UK’s nuclear supply chain and would have created thousands of jobs. “Unless Sizewell C, a replica of the under-construction Hinkley Point C, is given the go-ahead, there is now a serious risk to the future of the UK’s civil nuclear construction capability and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with it.” Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “Nuclear power’s ever-rising costs overtook the ever-falling costs of renewables years ago, and a new reactor now supplies electricity at more than double the price of a new offshore windfarm. “Propping up this dying industry has become more and more difficult and expensive for the handful of governments still hoping for a nuclear renaissance. We’re hoping the UK government will take Hitachi‘s decision to abandon Wylfa as final confirmation of what the energy market has long been trying to tell them – Britain’s future is renewable.” | ['business/hitachi', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/business', 'business/technology', 'uk/wales', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'world/japan', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2020-09-16T09:46:38Z | true | ENERGY |
music/2010/may/07/amazonas-opera-world-premiere | Amazonas, the opera: a world premiere – and a world first | It has taken four years and more than £3m to produce a remarkable production called Amazonas, a multimedia, transcultural German-Brazilian tragic opera, developed in four languages, that will have its world premiere this weekend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of transatlantic to-ing and fro-ing was involved. Five shamans from the Amazonian Yanomami tribe took part in a workshop in Karlsruhe to explain their skills to composers Klaus Schedl, Ludger Brümmer and Tato Taborda. In turn, the composers made several trips to a Yanomami village to record the sounds of the forest. For Laymert Garcia dos Santos, the Brazilian philosopher and sociologist who masterminded the whole thing, this epically ambitious undertaking has been a nerve-wracking experience. But the politics have made it worth it. "It is an attempt to arouse a reaction to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest through emotion, rather than through the cold numbers of statistics," he says. "It's a scientifically established fact that the forest's destruction will have repercussions on the entire planet, but this still hasn't shocked people into stopping the process. So the idea is to immerse the spectator in the situation, so they can feel with their senses what is happening and be affected by it." One of the largest indigenous groups in the Amazon, the Yanomami have only recently had regular contact with outsiders, but they actively participated in the development of the opera. "They're not in the opera as exotic objects, or as an archaic group," says dos Santos, "but they possess ancestral knowledge which is at the same time completely relevant to the modern world." The libretto is based on the letter sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth I in 1595, written when he was attempting to find the mythical El Dorado. He ended travelling up the Orinoco river in present-day Venezuela, where many Yanomami now live, and described discovering the "large, rich and bewtiful empyre (sic) of Guiana". Despite being based on a historical source, the first act of Amazonas takes place in the future, after the rainforest has been destroyed, "in a time after the end of time". In the second act, the Yanomami shaman fails to prevent the triumph of the Xawara, the evil spirits, and is killed by them; the act ends with nothing less than the fall of the sky, the Yanomami's central myth, represented here by (lightweight) panels crashing down on the audience. The final act, created by multimedia artist Peter Weibel, takes place around a conference table where politicians, economists, scientists and missionaries argue about the future of the Amazon. The Yanomamis' own organisation, Hutukara, hopes the opera will draw attention to the constant threat against their territory from goldminers and farmers. After the Munich premiere, Yanomami teachers will visit German and Brazilian schools, hoping it will also help the younger generation of Yanomami – under growing siege from western culture – appreciate their own culture more by seeing it valued by others. From Munich, the opera goes on to Lisbon and Rotterdam. But Dos Santos has an even grander dream – to see it performed in the heart of the rainforest itself, at the opera house in the Amazon capital of Manaus. | ['music/opera', 'music/music', 'stage/stage', 'culture/culture', 'world/brazil', 'tone/features', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/americas', 'type/article'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-05-07T14:42:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2015/nov/30/vtech-toys-hack-private-data-parents-children | Toy firm VTech hack exposes private data of parents and children | Children’s technology and toy firm Vtech has suspended trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange after admitting a hack that allegedly saw 4.8 million customer details stolen, including sensitive information about children and their parents. A VTech spokesperson said an “unauthorised party” accessed VTech customer data housed on the company’s Learning Lodge app store database on 14 November. VTech said that its customer data included private profile information, including names, addresses, IP addresses, email addresses, download history and secret questions and answers. The company said that password information was also stolen, but that it was encrypted, and stressed that the data did not include credit card information. The breach was confirmed by security analyst Troy Hunt, who verified a sample of the stolen data dumped on to the internet, which contained a wealth of customer information including the names, genders, birth dates and addresses of children. Hunt found 4.8m unique customer email addresses indicating that 4.8m customer records were stolen, including over 227,000 children’s records, and said that the passwords were not encrypted as VTech claims. Hunt said: “Once the passwords hit the database ... they’re protected with nothing more than a straight MD5 hash, which is so close to useless for anything but very strong passwords (which people rarely create), they may as well have not even bothered. The kids’ passwords are just plain text. “The vast majority of these passwords would be cracked in next to no time; it’s about the next worst thing you do next to no cryptographic protection at all.” This is the latest in a long line of data breaches that includes the recent TalkTalk hacks, which saw a database of millions of customers being accessed by hackers, leading to phishing attacks and scams. But recently the privacy of children has been highlighted by alleged breaches of children’s connected toys, including the Wi-Fi connected Barbie doll, which security researchers claim can be hacked and turned into a surveillance device. Hunt said: “Despite the frequency of these incidents, companies are just not getting the message; taking security seriously is something you need to do before a data breach, not something you say afterwards to placate people.” Stolen credit card details available for £1 each online TalkTalk cyber-attack: third person arrested Hackers can hijack Wi-Fi Hello Barbie to spy on your children | ['technology/hacking', 'technology/data-computer-security', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'lifeandstyle/toys', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-11-30T10:26:44Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2024/jan/30/rapt-by-restoration-and-raptors-return-in-rochdale | Rapt by restoration and raptors’ return in Rochdale | Brief letters | While the interior of Rochdale’s town hall was being beautifully restored (The £20m renovation of Rochdale town hall – in pictures, 30 January), its resident pair of peregrine falcons were not forgotten. After waiting for two years during exterior work, with their nest site sheeted off, they have a nice new nest tray and the people of Rochdale will once again be able to follow their breeding cycle on the council’s website. Judith Smith Manchester Raptor Group • Your article on a reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry (29 January) should have mentioned the copy in Reading Museum, sewn by 35 women from Leek in the 19th century. It’s beautifully exhibited in the lovely town hall, with free entry. (Plus older Londoners can travel there on their Freedom Pass on the Elizabeth line.) A great day out. Rosie Boughton London • When even the Guardian describes the prospect of higher taxation to pay for better public services as a “raid”, the Tories truly have captured the narrative (Households in England face above-inflation £2bn council tax raid, 29 January). John Hambley Aldeburgh, Suffolk • If human wee can be litter (Wee won’t back down: English council stands by littering fines for wild peeing, 29 January), the same must apply to dog wee. So are people who let their dogs wee in public parks also littering? Nick Cox London • If there was no money left in 2010 when government debt was £890bn, how much money will be left in 2024, with debt at £2.6tn? Tom Johnston Wooler, Northumberland • Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays. | ['environment/birds', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/bayeux-tapestry', 'uk-news/reading', 'culture/museums', 'politics/taxandspending', 'lifeandstyle/dogs', 'society/society', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'business/government-borrowing', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-01-30T17:49:29Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2008/dec/11/carbonoffsetprojects-climatechange | Greenwash: Are carbon offsetters taking us for a ride? | Flying somewhere this Christmas, or planning a ski trip? Arguably, given the carbon emissions involved, you just shouldn't. But if you do, will you offset those flight emissions? Some people fuss that the offset companies are a green con. How do we know the trees we pay for won't die? Are we just subsidising renewable energy projects that were going to happen anyway? Fair questions. But questions for another day. I have another problem. Why does the price of offsetting vary so much? Are we being ripped off? Spend even a few minutes searching the internet offsetters and you will find two things. First, the prices charged for offsetting every tonne of CO2 you emit vary hugely. Second, the offsetters can't even agree on how great your emissions are for any particular flight. Let's start with ClimateCare, based in Oxford. I have offset with them before, because I like the people and the projects. For a return economy flight from Heathrow to JFK in New York, they reckon my emissions are 1.53 tonnes. Earlier this week they wanted to charge me nearly £9 a tonne, making a total of £13.22. Type in your credit card details and it's done. Your money goes to fund some cooking stoves in Cambodia or wind turbines in Inner Mongolia. But a more or less random sample of other offsetters this week provided me with some very different offers. The London-based CarbonNeutral company and Carbonpassport in Glasgow both say my New York return journey emits just over 1.3 tonnes. Terrapass in San Francisco puts it at just 0.84 tonnes. While Atmosfair in Berlin suggests I will be responsible for 3.48 tonnes. All are measuring the CO2 the same way; all are assuming a regular economy flight. The differences are baffling. Then there is the price charged per tonne, which ranges from £17.50 at Carbonpassport to only half that with CarbonNeutral. Put it all together, and Terrapass swears that I can offset my transatlantic hop with them for a measly $11.90 or £8.00. CarbonNeutral sound competitive at £11.90. But Atmosfairs wants €81, or £69.85. And my spot survey didn't find the full range. A couple of weeks ago, Paul Hooper of Manchester Metropolitan University's centre for air transport and the environment published his own study, conducted last winter, of more than 42 online offsetters. He found a sixfold difference in the price charged per tonne of carbon emitted. And, taking in the higher charges that some offsetting companies make for a bigger, business- or first-class seat, discovered price tags for a return trip from London to Sydney that ranged from £9.48 to a staggering £643.39, almost a 70-fold difference. Now, if I was buying a laptop or something similar and got offered such a range of prices, I'd probably just pay the least and send it back if it didn't work. But with offsets, there is nothing to take out of the box. At the end of the day, I have no real idea what exactly it is that I have bought. And maybe it is ethically better to pay more. The offsetters are all supposed to be good guys, doing their bit for the planet, after all. The more money they get, the more they can help. But maybe not. So what's going on? I'm still not quite sure why some companies reckon they can absorb a tonne of carbon so much more cheaply than others. I'd welcome inside information on this from any companies not delivering. But after a bit of pestering, I have established why they can't agree on the mileage. There are a few technical things like how full you assume the plane is. And maybe the odd discrepancy over flight routes and aircraft type. New planes generally emit less. But the big difference is a scientific disagreement. It turns out that the companies with low emission estimates simply calculate how much carbon dioxide planes kick out of their engines per passenger-kilometre. But the rest try to factor in other emissions from the engines that also add to the global warming. Things like the contrails and the nitrous oxide emissions that do a bunch of different things to atmospheric chemistry that I won't go into here. The problem is that factoring these in is complicated. There is no single answer. Some companies reckon these emissions double the global warming effect. Some triple it. Some go even higher. This is because the answer depends on timescales. If you mostly care about the short-term effects over the next decade or so, then these other gases are big players. But if you have your ambitions set on protecting the climate for your grandchildren, then they will have long since gone, while the CO2 will still be hanging round in the atmosphere. You would have thought the offsetting companies might have come up with some agreed rules about how to measure the overall global warming impact of greenhouse gases. But they haven't. Instead confusion reigns. Once, we might have shaken our heads indulgently, thinking that at least they are encouraging us to cough up our cash for good projects that somewhere along the line will help clean up the atmosphere. Maybe the details don't matter too much. After all, you wouldn't insist on personally checking the health of an Oxfam goat before giving that to your nearest and dearest for Christmas. But in recent months, there has been a shake-down in the carbon offsetting business. The start-ups are being taken over. The enthusiasts in cardigans and riding bicycles are giving way to money men in sharp suits driving limos. A few months ago my own favourite, ClimateCare, got gobbled up by Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan. Call me prejudiced, but suddenly I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt any more. | ['environment/series/greenwash', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'type/article', 'profile/fredpearce'] | environment/carbon-offset-projects | EMISSIONS | 2008-12-11T12:00:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
sustainable-business/2015/jan/15/spain-podemos-should-further | Podemos party's plan to 'stimulate consumption' needs more ambition | Austerity or stimulus? That is the question in the aftermath of the financial crisis – a question, however, that is past its expiry date. Relaunching growth, be it through austerity or stimulus, may no longer be possible and is definitely not sustainable. The core question of our era is how to secure prosperity without growth. Don’t expect much, though, from the conservatives or social liberals who rule. For them, abandoning the growth fetish is unthinkable. But will Europe’s rising new left be different? Spain’s Podemos, a political party of 30-somethings from universities and the occupied squares, recently released its economic programme. The draft document by Professors Navarro and Torres (pdf), does not call for prosperity without growth, but this may well be its outcome. Its aim, in fact, is to “stimulate consumption”. Yet, unlike Keynes, this is not any consumption. It is the basic consumption of those in need. Higher taxes await capital and top incomes, wage differences within companies are capped, and a minimum income is guaranteed for those without work. If growth ends, securing a basic living for all out of the – still substantial – common wealth is vital. Without growth, redistribution is indispensable as otherwise wealth accumulates to those who already have more. Prosperity requires what Naomi Klein calls the “selective degrowth” of dirty sectors and the flourishing of sustainable ones. Podemos’ programme calls for a moratorium on Spain’s notoriously corrupt mega-infrastructure projects and for a move to invest public funds in clean industries and renewable energy. It commits support to caring, education and co-operatives. Without growth, these sectors have an advantage: they do not require growing profits. The document seeks also to slow speculative capital and divert investments to small enterprises and the working classes with drastic banking reforms and a Tobin-like tax on financial transactions and short-hold stock exchange. The authors recognise that care or education might not increase GDP now. They are confident, though, that they will increase broadly-defined economic activity in the long run. I am skeptical of the prospects for such weightless growth. But the proposals are good, independent of their effect on growth. Yet if Podemos is to ignore GDP, as the report does, then it will need new prosperity metrics to evaluate its successes. And it should think more carefully about how it will maintain stability if economic activity refuses to increase. Without growth and with work increasingly computerised and automated, workers become redundant. Correctly, the document proposes a 35-hour working week: in an economy that does not grow, more jobs can be created if each of us works less. The support of caring and education is also right: these “less productive” activities are employment-intensive while providing higher social value. But Podemos is wrong to replace its commitment to a Basic Income with a minimum income guaranteed only for those who cannot find work. A Basic Income secures a dignified life for all. A citizens’ right, it removes the stigma of unemployment. It offers no disincentive against work as people receive it when they work too. But, unlike an unemployment benefit, you also get it if you want to work less, devoting more time to family, care, leisure, voluntary or political work. Studies show that a basic income of €400–€600 (£317–£475) per person is feasible in Spain without radical changes in taxes. Without growth, debts cannot be paid. An economy cannot be forced to grow unnaturally to pay debts incurred to fuel a fictitious growth in the past; some debt has to be cancelled. Whose debt will be forgiven is a democratic question. Losses should fall upon speculators, not small savers. Podemos’ policy does call for civic deliberation to restructure and cancel Spain’s debt, household and public, but it is mute on the specifics. Debt cancellation may relaunch unsustainable growth, as in Ecuador. Time liberated from work and a basic income could go on televisions, gadgets and weekend trips by plane. Instead, Navarro and Torres aspire to an “ecologically sustainable” consumption. Unfortunately it is not clear how or why this will be the outcome of their proposals. What will Podemos do if unsustainable growth recovers despite its intentions? Here Podemos should go further. First, it should set clear ecological limits, like caps on the carbon emitted and the raw materials used by Spain, including those embedded in imported consumer goods. Second, it should curtail advertising, banning it from public spaces, like the recent decision made by the city of Grenoble. Finally, to incentivise sustainable consumption, taxes should gradually shift from labour to resource use in ways that benefit those with lower incomes and consumption. A carbon tax could be linked to the financing of a Basic Income. Without growth, public revenues also stall. Podemos’ economic policy document may commit to an efficient public sector, but other than the goodwill of uncorrupted newcomers, it offers no alternative to cuts, privatisation and outsourcing. An opportunity is missed here to link to Spain’s flourishing co-operative economy, where groups organise affordable solutions for health, education, food, housing, or care themselves. These solutions could lower the costs of the welfare state and help reform it. All in all, Podemos’ policy takes us in the right direction. However, it could – and should – go further. Giorgos Kallis is professor of ecological economics at Barcelona and editor of a new book Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era. Read more like this: An economic system that supports people and planet is still possible Ebola’s catastrophic consequences on Sierra Leone’s small-scale mining sector Blueprint for Better Business gives companies a ‘get out of jail free card’ 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/rethinking-prosperity', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'world/spain', 'business/debt-crisis', 'business/austerity', 'business/business', 'business/economics', 'business/financial-crisis', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/carbon-tax', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/carbon-tax | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-01-15T17:00:03Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2021/jul/23/hitting-global-climate-target-could-create-8m-energy-jobs-study-says | Hitting global climate target could create 8m energy jobs, study says | If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for jobs in the energy sector. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050. The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met. Previous research suggests that pro-climate polices could increase net energy jobs by 20 million or more, but that work relied only on empirical data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and generalised the results for the rest of the world using a multiplier. But the data varies dramatically across regions, driven by differences in technology and rates of unionisation, among other factors. For instance, extracting 1m tonnes of coal in India takes 725 workers, versus 73 in the US. The latest analysis, published in the journal One Earth, combined such employment factors across a global dataset (including key fossil fuel, non-OECD economies such as Russia, India and China) with an integrated assessment model, which combines climate and economic estimates to predict the costs of climate change. “This dataset makes the analysis more grounded in … reality, rather than using a multiplier,” said one of the study’s authors, Dr Sandeep Pai, who led the analysis as part of his PhD at the institute for resources, environment and sustainability at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Under the target scenario of global temperatures being held well below 2C of pre-industrial levels, of the total jobs in the energy sector in 2050, 84% would be in the renewables sector, 11% in fossil fuels, and 5% in nuclear, the analysis found. Although fossil-fuel extraction jobs – which constitute the lion’s share (80%) of current fossil fuel jobs – will decline steeply, those losses should be offset by gains in solar and wind manufacturing jobs that countries could compete for, the researchers estimated. However, while most countries will experience a net job increase, China and fossil fuel-exporting countries such as Canada, Australia and Mexico could have net losses. Undoubtedly, there will be winners and losers. The winners will be people who take these jobs in the renewable sector, and there are the health benefits of fresh air and cleaner cities – but there will also be people, companies and governments who lose out, said Pai. “That’s why … we want to work towards a ‘just’ transition, make sure nobody’s left behind,” he said. “The point is that unless politics and social context of different countries align, I think this technological transition will not happen soon.” Johannes Emmerling, an environmental economist at the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment in Italy, another author of the study, acknowledged that the analysis did not account for the gaps in skills. People working in the fossil fuel industry do not necessarily have the expertise or the experience to carry out jobs in the renewable sector, but given that there are few estimates of jobs as the world aims to forge a greener future, the focus was on firming up estimates, he said, adding that skills were the next avenue of research. | ['environment/green-jobs', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/environment', 'environment/green-economy', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/natalie-grover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2021-07-23T15:00:57Z | true | ENERGY |
cities/2018/oct/25/goatlanta-why-so-many-goats-city-atlanta | Goatlanta: why exactly are there so many goats here anyway? | Romeo would not take his eyes off me. This was flattering to begin with but then he kept trying to rub his head against my leg. Which would also have been cute except for the fact he stank. “He’s in rut and wants to breed,” his owner informs me. “Don’t get too close. When goats are in rut they urinate all over themselves and you really don’t want to get that smell on you.” I hadn’t expected to meet a horny goat called Romeo during my visit to Atlanta. I hadn’t expect to meet any goats at all. Atlanta is, after all, famous for things like hip-hop and Coca-Cola, not cloven-hoofed mammals. But that may be changing. Atlanta is intent on transforming itself into a truly sustainable city and a rapidly growing city farms movement is afoot in the southern metropolis. “By 2025, we want to develop a resilient local food system and institutionalize urban agriculture,” says Amol Naik, Atlanta’s chief resilience officer. Goats, it turns out, are playing an important part in helping Atlanta achieve these goals. Romeo’s owner is Hayley Evans, a PhD student at Georgia Tech. When she and her husband moved to the Carver Hills neighborhood of Atlanta a couple of years ago they weren’t expecting to acquire a small herd of goats. However, as Evans explains, Carver Hills is a food desert. “Fresh food is hard to come by – especially if you don’t have a car or a lot of cash. We soon realized several of the kids in the neighborhood didn’t know the difference between a potato and a tomato.” There was a vacant, overgrown city-owned lot adjacent to Evans’ house and she decided to turn it into an urban farm. Evans contacted AgLanta, an urban agriculture resource that is part of the mayor’s Office of Resilience. AgLanta chose Evans’ urban farm to be a pilot site for the Grows-A-Lot program, a new City of Atlanta initiative that gives residents five-year licenses to turn vacant city-owned land into gardens or farms. Nine out of 10 of the pilot sites in the program are located in low-income food desert areas like Carver Hills. Grows-A-Lot is just the latest in a series of similar city-led initiatives. In 2014, for example, Atlanta adopted an urban agriculture ordinance which changed zoning to encourage urban farms and local food production. The following year, the city appointed an urban agriculture director, the first position of its kind in the United States. These programs seem to be working. “In 2010, 53% of Atlanta was considered a food desert area and in 2016 this was down to 39%”, Naik notes. It is hoped that the new Grows-A-Lot program will reduce this number further. In order to grow food you need to have clear land, of course. The plot Evans wanted to turn into a garden was overrun with impenetrable walls of kudzu, a fast-growing invasive plant species often known as “the vine that ate the South.’ AgLanta advised Evans to get goats to help clear it. Goats, which are great at eating up kudzu as well other troublesome plants like English ivy, are becoming an increasingly common way of reducing excessive vegetation in Atlanta. “We’ve really started to ramp up our goat use in the last few years,” says Kevin Mink, a forest restoration manager for Trees Atlanta, a nonprofit that helps protect the green life of the city. “It reduces the chemicals we put into the environment and puts a friendly face on what we do.” Thanks in part to some serious munching by Romeo and friends, the once overgrown lot next door to Evans in Carver Hills is now full of grapevines, tomatoes, and okra plants. A recent partnership with a local brewery means they’ve also started to grow hops, and free-range chickens deliver a steady supply of eggs. The local community pitch in to help maintain the garden and everyone shares the fruits of their labour. It’s brought the neighbours closer together. Since starting the community garden, Evans has also become something of a goatrepreneur and has launched a goat-rental company with her husband. “AgLanta recommended we get two goats to clear the lot for the garden,” she says. “But we got carried away because we adored the goats so much. So we multiplied and Herd Around Town was born.” The company rents out goats to people looking to clear their land and also runs goat yoga sessions. Romeo will not be participating in the next goat yoga session, Evans informs me, “because of his incredible stank”. As it happens, Herd Around Town is just one of a number of goat-rental businesses in the city. Goats, I kid you not, seem to be a growth industry in Atlanta. “We can barely keep up with demand,” says Megan Kibby, co-owner of Red Wagon Goats. Kibby started the company a year and a half ago and it has been rapidly expanding. In an age of Instagram it is, perhaps, no surprise that urban goats have grown in popularity. However, notes Kirby, there’s also something about Atlanta that makes it a particularly fertile ground for the animals. “Atlanta has a way of balancing urban life with a craving to be connected to the land,” Kirby explains. “We have a city where you can kayak and hike in the city limits. We have a farm-to-table food culture. Portland and Austin, of course, really have the whole urban homestead thing cornered, but Atlanta is right there behind it.” Guardian Cities is live in Atlanta for a special series of in-depth reporting. Share your experiences of the city in the comments below, on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using #GuardianATL, or via email to cities@theguardian.com | ['cities/series/guardian-atlanta-week', 'cities/cities', 'cities/series/resilient-cities', 'global-development/food-security', 'society/food-poverty', 'society/society', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'environment/farming', 'cities/urbanisation', 'environment/environment', 'society/poverty', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/arwa-mahdawi', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/cities', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-10-25T09:00:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2014/jan/17/csiro-scientists-say-warmer-world-wager-with-maurice-newman-a-safe-bet | CSIRO scientists say warmer world wager with Maurice Newman a safe bet | Some of Australia’s top climate scientists, including those from the CSIRO, have said they will be willing to bet Tony Abbott’s business adviser Maurice Newman $10,000 that the world will warm over the next 20 years. Newman, who is the head of the government’s business advisory council, wrote on Wednesday that “what we now see is the unraveling of years of shoddy science and sloppy journalism” over climate change, praising newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch for being the only ones not “captured” by the IPCC. Newman’s article, published in the Australian, quoted contrarian US physicist Richard Lindzen who said he would be willing to take bets that the average global temperature would be lower than today in 20 years’ time. Newman added “Any takers?” The challenge has already been taken up by Nobel prize-winning physicist Brian Schmidt, who said he would be willing to bet $10,000 that average temperatures would be higher in 20 years’ time, consistent with the predictions of mainstream science. “So Mr Newman – I am prepared to put $10,000 on the line that the average Earth surface air temperature in a three-year average (2013-2015 compared to 2033-2035) will be warmer 20 years from now,” Schmidt wrote in a blog, also published by the Australian. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to me, but since I am about 99% sure that the Earth is warming due to anthropogenic causes, it seems a deal too good to pass up.” Schmidt has been joined by eight other scientists, including from the government’s own science agency, the CSIRO, who confirmed to Guardian Australia they would be prepared to bet Newman money that temperatures would be higher in 20 years’ time, based on a three-year average. The CSIRO’s Dr John Church, who is also an IPCC lead author, said he would take up the $10,000 bet, while Dr Tony Hirst, deputy research program director, said he would bet $500 based on “clear terms” of a three or five-year temperature average. The other scientists include David Karoly of Melbourne University, Will Steffen of the Climate Council, and Dave Griggs, director of the Monash Sustainability Institute. Prof Andrew Blakers, director of the centre for sustainable energy systems at the Australian National University, said he would be willing to bet $10,000, placed into an escrow account along with a “legally binding agreement” over the payment of the funds. “Let’s put real money on the table and do this properly,” said Blakers. Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University, said only a “catastrophic meteorite impact” could avoid the “inevitability” of higher temperatures in 20 years’ time. Lowe said he would be willing to join Schmidt but questioned the viability of the wager. He said: “He [Newman] was born in April 1938, so he is nearly 76. “That means he will almost certainly not be around in 20 years time to acknowledge he is totally wrong and pay out on his ill-considered wager. For that matter, as I am now 71, I am equally unlikely to be here to collect.” Dr Alex Sen Gupta, of the University of NSW’s climate centre, said it was a “pretty safe bet” and that he would have “no chance” of losing his $10,000, based on his understanding of climate science. In addition to the scientists, economist John Quiggin said he’d be prepared to bet $10,000 to prove Newman wrong. Newman, who has worked in the financial sector and is a former chairman of the ABC, has regularly called climate science into question. The amount of warming by the end of the century has been projected between 1.5C to 4C or more, based on various carbon emissions scenarios. IPCC assessments predict warming of about 0.2C a decade in the next 20 years, again depending on emissions, meaning that exhaustive peer reviewed findings by the world’s leading climate scientists suggest the world will be about 0.4C warmer than today in 20 years’ time. Newman did not seem likely to take up the wager. His representative said he was “interested in empirical evidence, not gambling”. “He simply repeated a quote attributed to Prof Richard Lindzen and asked whether anyone wanted to take it up,” read a statement sent to Guardian Australia. “On the basis of this, Prof Schmidt decided to make a $10,000 bet with him, the outcome of which, Mr Newman says, he will be unlikely to see. “It is possible Prof Schmidt won’t either. However, he says someone younger may want to take the professor up on it.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/tony-abbott', 'australia-news/coalition', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2014-01-17T07:03:53Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
news/2015/oct/25/storm-names-met-office | A storm by any other name | Abigail, Nigel and Steve are some of the names chosen by popular vote for this winter’s storms, but they hardly conjure up the drama of what is, after all, violent weather. Far more imaginative were the names of storms chosen in olden days. For sheer drama it’s hard to beat the Grote Mandrenke, the Great Man Drowning, of 1362, that led to at least 25,000 deaths along the North Sea coastlines of England and Europe. In the nineteenth century, tropical storms were often given interesting names, including the Privy Hurricane of 1898 that battered Cuba and was named after an outdoor toilet swept away at a weather observation outpost. Perhaps the most imaginative names were thought up in Victorian times by a colourful character called Clement Wragge, the state meteorologist for Queensland. He named the worst storms after people he disliked, especially politicians – a particularly violent storm was called Conroy after a national politician, and Wragge’s naming system was dropped shortly afterwards. It’s taken much longer for storm names to catch on in Europe in modern times, and Britain has been particularly reluctant to join in with any naming scheme. But on 28 October 2013 a storm that battered southern Britain was dubbed St Jude’s Storm, after the patron saint of lost causes whose feast day happened to fall on that day. The Met Office claimed they had nothing to do with the name, even though it was adopted by the media and instantly caught everyone’s imagination. Perhaps this is the reason why the Met Office has finally got round to naming storms. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'tone/features', 'world/natural-disasters', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'profile/jeremy-plester', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-10-25T21:29:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/may/10/windpower-energy | Scottish villagers stun developers by demanding extra turbine | When residents of the village of Fintry in Stirlingshire first heard about plans for a wind farm in the hills above them, their reaction took the developer by surprise. Instead of opposing the scheme, the villagers asked the company to build an extra turbine and sell it to them to try to make the community one of the greenest in the UK. The Fintry turbine has now been operating for more than a year, and has already earned £140,000 for the villagers, money that has been put aside for energy efficiency schemes. Around half of the 300 households have already had roof and cavity wall insulation fitted, and some residents have seen their heating bills cut by hundreds of pounds a year. When the loan on the £2.5m turbine is paid off, Fintry could be making up to £500,000 a year from the electricity its turbine feeds into the National Grid. This weekend, the village has been holding an energy fair to showcase new renewable energy initiatives for the residents, and to try to persuade other communities in the UK to follow their lead. "As far as we are aware, we are the only community in the UK to have gone down this route," says Gordon Cowtan of the Fintry Development Trust, which manages the income from the turbine. "I think it's a great shame it has not happened more." Cowtan says the villagers had already started looking into ways of being more energy efficient when they heard about proposals for the Earlsburn wind farm in the Fintry Hills. "A couple of guys in the village had already been tasked by the community council to look at what opportunities there might be in doing something in the renewables area for the community," he says. "We were going through that process when the wind farm developer turned up and said, we're thinking about putting some turbines on the hill up there. "Rather than saying to the developer, we don't want these things; we said, can we have some more please? They were a little taken aback. We grabbed the agenda; we saw this was potentially a great thing for the village." Only one person objected, he says. The community worked out a loan deal with the wind farm developer, West Coast Energy, and an extra turbine was added to the 14-turbine project. The electricity it provides is sold to the National Grid and the profits go to the village, once the mortgage and maintenance payments have been made. The community decided from the start that any money raised would be used for energy improvements, but Gordon Cowtan acknowledges that there may come a day when they have addressed all the green issues that they can, and they will have to look at other ways of spending the cash. "If, a number of years down the line, we have solved all the energy issues of the village, then who knows what would happen then?" There is no mains gas in the village and many residents have to rely on oil or LGP, so the trust is looking into alternative and greener heating forms. They are also considering setting up an energy supply company which could purchase energy wholesale. Many people in the village commute to work in Glasgow or Stirling, so transport issues will also be looked at, as will issues around food production. Fintry is surrounded by farmland, and has one small shop in the sports centre. Most residents travel to Stirling to shop at the supermarkets. Tracey Tysvaer, of the Fintry Sports Club, said the turbine initiative had worked better than any of the villagers could have imagined. "From our point of view at the sports club, we have had a huge benefit from it," says Tysvaer, who has lived in Fintry since 1993. "It has paid for energy efficient lighting and we've been able to put light sensors in, so the lights go off when they are not being used. From a personal point of view, I have had my house insulated, which has been a great help." Bill Acton, one of the founder members of the Fintry project, says he gets dismayed when he sees developers and communities at loggerheads over wind farm projects. "One of the problems is the reluctance of developers to really engage a community," he says. Communities, too, he says, should make sure their voices are heard early on, and look to see if there is an opportunity for the community itself. "If the wind farm developer comes in and has got as far as the planning stage, and the community has not engaged, they have lost their case. There is no chance of any relationship other than one neither wants." Fintry does not look directly on to the Earlsburn site, which has helped, as has the almost blanket support from villagers, but Acton says there was no reason for other communities not to copy what the village has done. Some have already expressed an interest in setting up something similar and have sought advice from the Fintry residents. "We were very lucky," says Acton. "We have had clear passage from the community, but absolutely 100% this could work elsewhere." | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'money/energy', 'uk/scotland', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'profile/kirstyscott'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2009-05-09T23:05:04Z | true | ENERGY |
uk-news/2019/oct/25/uk-weather-flood-warning-wales-heavy-rain | UK weather: flood warning for Wales as heavy rain hits Britain | Forecasters have warned of potential widespread and dangerous flooding in south Wales as parts of the UK face heavy rain and a plunge in temperatures this weekend. Weather warnings are in place for “heavy and persistent” rain stretching from the south-west of Britain, across the whole of Wales and through much of the Midlands, to northern England. South Wales is likely to be worst affected. An amber warning was issued and the Met Office told residents to expect “fast-flowing or deep floodwater”. It said there was a strong chance some communities would be cut off and there was potential for power cuts. “We want people to be aware that flood water can be extremely dangerous, and people should not attempt to walk or drive through it unless instructed by the emergency services,” it said. A Met Office spokeswoman, Nicola Maxey, told PA Media that a low-pressure system over the Azores was expected to come across to the UK, bringing widespread rain with it. “The areas most at risk are the areas that are within the warning areas, so you’ve got parts of Cumbria and the Pennines,” she said. “We’re looking at 30mm to 50mm of rain quite widely, with perhaps 120mm over higher ground for the warning in south Wales.” The yellow warnings of rain covering northern and south western parts of the UK begin from 3pm on Friday and last for 24 hours. The amber warning for Wales begins from 6pm on Friday and lasts until 11am on Saturday. The first widespread frost of the season is also anticipated during the weekend, as a burst of polar maritime air brings colder temperatures to northern parts of Britain on Saturday and the rest of the country on Sunday and into next week. Maxey said areas where that cold air met the warmer air would receive the heaviest rainfall. “Because of the colder air, there’s a possibility that some of the rain may fall as snow, but only over very high ground in the north,” she said. “You might see a dusting on top of the Pennines, and you may see a centimetre or two over the mountains in Scotland.” The northern half of the country should expect temperatures in the high single figures at the weekend, with southern parts forecast to reach low double figures – temperatures that are typical for this time of year. Maxey said: “It’s been relatively mild, so this will be the first cold weather of the season.” | ['uk/weather', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk/wales', 'uk/scotland', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damien-gayle', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-10-25T13:29:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/2019/nov/13/does-the-government-spend-more-on-flood-defences-for-the-south | Does the government spend more on flood defences for the south? | Claim Jeremy Corbyn has said the government’s spending on flood defences until 2021 “heavily favours London and the south-east of England”. Background About 5.4m properties in England are at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea and surface water. Annual flood damage costs the country an estimated £1.1bn. The government earmarked £4.4bn for flood defence, with £2.6bn to be spent between 2015 and 2021 on 1,500 projects to protect 300,000 homes. Ministers say 195,000 homes have already been protected through 500 new schemes completed since 2015. Reality The government has ramped up spending on flood defences in England since 2010, rising in real terms from about £818m in 2009-10 to £888m in 2018-19. However, funding peaked in 2014-15 at about £950m after heavy winter flooding, and has been lower in every year since. In a regional spending breakdown, the website Carbon Brief found in 2017 that funding for flood defence per head is highest in London and the south-east, at £116 a head and £180 a head respectively. In contrast, funding in the West Midlands and north-east amounts to £14 and £33 a head. However, the figures are significantly influenced by long-term funding for Thames estuary projects running up to 2100. Once this is stripped out, Carbon Brief said spending per head up to 2021 was highest in Yorkshire and the Humber, at £54 a head, followed by the south-east at £38.20 a head. Staff numbers at the Environment Agency have fallen to approximately 10,700 from 13,000 in 2013. However, the agency recently said it had exceeded a target to have 6,500 people trained and ready to respond to incidents, including 700 flood support officers. The parties are correct to be talking about higher spending requirements because of fears over the climate emergency. Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the Environment Agency, said £1bn a year on average must be spent in future. Verdict In absolute terms Labour is right to say that spending is higher in London and the south-east. However, over this spending period to 2021, the party is wrong. | ['politics/series/fact-check', 'politics/general-election-2019', 'politics/politics', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'uk/uk', 'politics/labour', 'politics/conservatives', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'tone/news', 'profile/richard-partington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-11-13T13:07:47Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
media-network/2015/mar/12/big-data-media-agencies-consumer-insight | Does big data really matter for agencies? | Does it really matter when you’re driving a car on a long unfamiliar journey and the fog clears, the satnav kicks in and the street lights come on? Does it matter in game theory when you have a bit more knowledge than your opponent? Does it matter when you know someone well enough to do and say the right thing to build a really genuine relationship? I work with brands who seek growth in very competitive markets. Many of the target audiences that we’re trying to persuade to buy their brands are deluged with commercial messages. In addition, they have either no specific interest most of the time in the category (spend much time thinking about insurance?) or in categories they do like (music and film for instance ) they have the attention span of a sugar-high five-year-old. The traditional ways of measuring and understanding audiences were built on proxies. A panel of viewers to establish opportunities to see ads; a questionnaire to understand their personality and interests. We’ve built very robust ways of using this information to drive a very successful industry for advertising, media planning and buying. But we now have the chance to replace proxies with real data that tells millions of stories about what people are doing and thinking immediately in real-time. This has several consequences. Efficiency will improve exponentially. Early indications are of very significant reductions in the amount that really needs to be invested in order to reach a focused target audience. Does this mean media owners will see less of clients budgets (which some of them fear)? Or does it mean that with the growth that can be achieved with improved efficiency that we will see more brands advertising as the barrier to market reduces in size ? And in addition more repeat business from growing brands reinvesting in renewed success. For just as better data means less wastage so too it allows the right kind of message to be served to the audience based on everything the we know about them. For immediate response based clients where success is measured on metrics such as clickthroughs online this is immensely useful. Our systems allow one of our clients to rotate over 950,000 different variations of copy-based on exactly how the target audience has reacted to the brand in the past. Not all brands judge their success by immediate response and nor should they. There’s another side to what we do and that’s concerned with building desire for the brand over the long-term. As I believe Jeremy Bullmore once said, there’s no point in exclusively advertising a premium car only to people specifically in the market to buy one and who might book a test drive in the next four weeks. We might be able to pinpoint that audience very accurately in future. The problem is that eventually there would be barely anyone in that audience segment. This is because, in part, the reason people pay a premium for a luxury car is for the envy it will induce in their friends and neighbours. Well, if we only ever advertised to the core purchase prospect with zero “wastage” there would be no envy, no desire and no premium. Big data in this instance gives us a much clearer and specific understanding of the audience for long-term brand building. We can find out people’s likes, dislikes, understand what they’re searching for, what makes them laugh, what makes them cry and what they had for dinner last night. Not based on a diary from weeks ago, not based on claimed behaviour. Rooted in reality. There’s challenges to all of this. We need to stop thinking in silos of paid media and make sure that we understand the whole system of paid, owned and earned media. We need to adopt agile ways of working so that we can change the course of our communications plan in real-time. You can’t just fix it overnight. You, your clients, your partners and your systems all need to adapt. At MediaCom we’ve spent time re-engineering how we work as an agency, and we appointed a head of engineering whose whole job was to make sure we’re best placed in 2015 to get the most out of the changes. Big data matters to us. It shines a light on the truth of what our client’s target audiences are really up to. True competitive advantage comes to those who aren’t dazzled by it. Sue Unerman is the chief strategy officer at MediaCom To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership. All Guardian Media Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Brought to you by” – find out more here. | ['media-network/media-network', 'media-network/series/brand-marketing', 'media-network/changing-media-summit', 'media/marketingandpr', 'media/media', 'media/advertising', 'technology/big-data', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures'] | technology/big-data | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-03-12T07:30:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2021/apr/21/reduce-air-pollution-levels-uk-to-who-limits-says-coroner-ella-kissi-debrah | Lower UK air pollution limits to prevent deaths, says coroner | Legally binding maximum levels of particulate air pollution should be lowered in the UK to be in line with World Health Organization limits, a coroner has said. UK levels for two particularly harmful kinds of pollution are currently twice as high as the WHO recommends. Philip Barlow, coroner for inner south London, ruled earlier this year that air pollution from traffic was a cause of the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah in February 2013. It was the first time that toxic air had been given as a cause of death in the UK. Barlow said in his ruling in December that Ella had been exposed to nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter (PM) pollution in excess of WHO guidelines, the principal source of which was traffic emissions. On Wednesday Barlow, in a prevention of future deaths report, called for maximum levels of particulate air pollution (PMs) to be legally brought into line with WHO levels. The WHO says particulate pollution from fine particulate matter, PM2.5 should not exceed an annual mean of 10 μg/m3. For PM10 the limit is 20 µg/m3 annual mean. But the UK currently has higher limits for fine particulate matter: 40 µg/m3 annual mean for PM10 and 25 µg/m3 for PM2.5. The inquest heard that during Ella’s life, nitrogen dioxide emissions in Lewisham, south London, where she lived, exceeded legal limits, both EU and national levels. Particulate matter levels were above the WHO guidelines. In his prevention of future deaths report published on Wednesday, Barlow said: “The national limits for particulate matter are set at a level far higher than the WHO guidelines. “The evidence at the inquest was that there is no safe level for particulate matter and that the WHO guidelines should be seen as minimum requirements. Legally binding targets based on WHO guidelines would reduce the number of deaths from air pollution in the UK.” He also called for more and better information provided to the public about air pollution levels in their area. “Greater awareness would help individuals reduce their personal exposure to air pollution,” said Barlow. “It was clear from the evidence at the inquest that publicising this information is an issue that needs to be addressed by national as well as local government. The information must be sufficiently detailed and this is likely to require enlargement of the capacity to monitor air quality, for example by increasing the number of air quality sensors.” The coroner also highlighted that adverse effects of air pollution on health were not being sufficiently communicated to patients and their carers by medical and nursing professionals. He called on the medical professional bodies to address a gap in training. The inquest heard that despite Ella having very severe asthma, the cause of which was under investigation by medical specialists in several hospitals, air pollution was never considered and therefore her mother was not advised of steps that could have helped reduce Ella’s exposure. Barlow said: “Air pollution was not discussed as a possible causative factor [throughout Ella’s illness] even though Ella was seen by GPs and specialists in several specialist hospitals. It is an issue that needs to be raised with a large number of organisations responsible for medical education, which I have listed in the report.” Ella’s mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, called for the government to act swiftly to adopt the recommendations. “Children are dying unnecessarily because the government is not doing enough to combat air pollution,” she said. “In order to save lives the government must act now and take the three steps that the coroner has identified in his report. It’s crucial that the UK takes more forceful action to reduce pollution to safe levels – first and foremost, by complying with WHO air quality guidelines.” Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation said: “If the government follows the recommendations in this report, and commits to much bolder clean air laws in line with World Health Organization guidelines, this would be a game-changer.” Guy Mitchell of Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors, a member of the family’s legal team, said the government should put the new binding limits into the environment bill. “This report follows a groundbreaking finding that air pollution contributed to Ella’s death,” he said. “The coroner clearly expresses concern that further action is needed to prevent further deaths. It comes at a hugely significant moment, with the environment bill due to come back to parliament. “The bill is currently deficient in not including health-based air quality targets or requirements for provision of information to the public. The government should act to ensure the coroner’s concerns are addressed in the bill.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/world-health-organization', 'society/health', 'society/society', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-04-21T10:00:22Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2009/aug/13/us-marines-afghanistan-fuel-efficiency | US marines in Afghanistan launch first energy efficiency audit in war zone | The US Marines Corps ordered the first ever energy audit in a war zone todayto try to reduce the enormous fuel costs of keeping troops on the ground in Afghanistan. General James T Conway, the Marines Corps Commandant, said he wanted a team of energy experts in place in Afghanistan by the end of the month to find ways to cut back on the fuel bills for the 10,000 strong marine contingent. US marines in Afghanistan run through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. That's a higher burn rate than during an initial invasion, and reflects the logistical challenges of running counter-insurgency and other operations in the extreme weather conditions of Afghanistan. "We need to understand where the fuel goes," Conway told a Marines Corps energy summit today. "The largest growing demand on the battlefield today is for electricity and how we create that." He added: "We are going to more efficient. We have got to be." Conway's announcement — and the summit itself, which is the first of its kind — were seen yesterday as a dramatic shift in the US military's approach to energy consumption and climate change. The Pentagon began to acknowledge America's reliance on fossil fuels and climate change as a national security concern in 2002. A report from the Pentagon's military advisory board last May called on military bases to work to lower their carbon footprint. A number of bases inside the US have begun to tap into renewable fuel sources including wind and solar energy. But the Marine Corps are the first service to try to put those policies into action on the battlefield. Conway, who led the marine invasion of Iraq in 2003, said he was motivated by the high costs — as well as the risks to troops – of getting oil and water to combat zones. For land-locked Afghanistan, the nearest port at Karachi in Pakistan is more than 400 miles away from marine bases, and maintaining those long supply lines has become an increasingly dangerous proposition. Some 80% of US military casualties in Afghanistan are due to improvised explosive devices (IEDS), and many of those placed in the path of supply convoys. The costs of shipping water and fuel to the troops is also becoming unsustainable. The price of a gallon of petrol in a war zone can cost up to $100. "It is a shocking figure to compute what it costs by the time you pour that gallon of gas into a Humvee or an aircraft in the place you are operating," Conway said. He said he was looking to his energy auditors to find ways of cutting back energy consumption at operating bases, and also to pare down the equipment carried by each individual marine. An average marine carries about 9lbs of disposable batteries in their kit to power equipment such as night vision goggles and radios. One immediate target of the auditors is likely to be climate control. Some 448,000 gallons alone are used to keep tents cool in the Afghan summer, where temperatures reach well over 40C, and warm in the winter, said Michael Boyd, an energy adviser to the Marine Corps. The marines have been exploring ways to reduce that consumption by spraying tents with a foam coating. "That's a huge saving and you are no longer putting trucks on those roads, and tanker drivers in harm's way and everyone else involved on the way," Boyd said. | ['environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/environment', 'world/afghanistan', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/oil', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2009-08-13T17:07:31Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2014/jul/14/garmin-swim-watch-review | Garmin swim watch review: a gadget to motivate and measure | THE GOAL I wanted to improve on my front crawl in preparation for my first triathlon season. My aim was to get off to a speedy start with the swim portion in two sprint distance and one Olympic triathlon events. A gadget to motivate, measure and remember my swim sessions, in all their glory, would be ideal, as well as somewhere to store them all, online, for analysis later so that I could be sure just how speedily – or how slowly – I was improving. THE METHOD No more calculating distance by squinting at the clock: Garmin Swim took the pressure off and put it on in equal measure by doing all this for me. It let me programme the length of the pool I was swimming in, as well as allowing me to pre-set, and time, intervals, and recording my average stroke rate. It also measured something called "SWOLF" which, despite sounding a bit like an alarming water-borne predator, is an abbreviation for "swim golf", a metric referring to your combined strokes per length and time for that length. All of that data can be uploaded online via a nifty antennae USB, where swimmers are free to chew and curse over it, as well as share, via the website and forum, Garmin Connect, with like-minded, Garmin-owning friends. The downside, however, to Garmin Swim's accelerator technology (which essentially measures the movement of your hand), is that if you stop mid-length - which I often do – to splutter, fix goggles or avoid a full-on collision with another swimmer, the watch, understandably, thinks that you've reached the end of the length (just as you have to push off, hard, before it registers that you have started a new one, too). Oh, and bear in mind, open-water junkies, that because it's more of a calculator than a cartographer, Garmin Swim will never – neither does it market itself as ever doing so – work well in a lake, river or sea (which, as it happens, are the ideal locations of a triathlete's summer swim training). THE RESULT It took a while to master and was at times frustrating to be bound to "regular" swimming rather than able to include technique drills in my total distance measured. If I'd been a swim-medley kind of girl, I might also have worn my fingers down with button-pushing to change inputted stroke (but being an interval training type, I merely wore them down by pressing pause a lot instead). What's more, training "drills" (such as front crawl exercises where just one arm is used, or interval training where you might swim half a length fast, the pause, and slowly complete) will befuddle the watch beyond belief. "It's designed for the more professional swimmer, so as you get better, so too does the watch," says Garmin spokesman, Simon Gilbert. "The closer to 'Olympic' level you are, the better." For those like me on the beginner/intermediate cusp, that results in a rather epic Catch 22: you buy the watch to become a better swimmer, but have to become a better swimmer, before the watch really helps you become a better swimmer. That said, it has taught me the meaning of a steady length's swimming and consistent stroke rate, and, because digits on the screen don't lie, it has motivated me to swim longer each time. | ['lifeandstyle/watches', 'technology/technology', 'technology/gadgets', 'lifeandstyle/swimming', 'lifeandstyle/fitness', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/reviews', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/lucy-fry', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly/observer-tech-monthly'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-07-14T06:30:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2013/jul/21/banks-golden-toads-protest | Banks face invasion of golden toads in environmental protest | British bankers have been warned to expect an infestation of bright orange golden toads over the next 10 days. The tiny creatures that used to live in the cloud forests of central America but were made extinct 25 years ago when the trees were felled, are likely to burst into their lobbies, start singing and may also approach staff bearing small trees and pictures of other endangered species. But the troupe of 15 Broadway and other US actors, led by fire and brimstone gospel preacher the Reverend Billy, say their satirical choir of resurrected toads now in Britain intends the bankers no harm, and wanting only to remind them that decades of irresponsible lending have resulted in climate change, the death of nature and social disintegration. The toads are keeping their targets secret but can be expected as far afield as London, Liverpool and Colchester, says Bill Talen, aka the Rev Billy. "British banks should be very afraid. Two weeks ago we went into Chase bank in Manhattan and we set little trees on desks and gave staff pictures of the black rhino. We started pounding the ATMs like drums. People just did not know what to do. "The manager was very angry and increasingly hysterical and called the police. We were set to be [arrested] but the cops didn't come. "In fact we were very gentle. People don't feel threatened. There's no reason not to be gentle. Gentle is powerful". Judging by the "exorcisms" of bankers and the impromptu gospel services which Billy and the uninvited toads have performed inside the offices of JP Morgan, UBS, HSBC and Goldman Sachs, they expect the financiers to respond with anything from hysteria to beatific calm. "Something happens when you break into a bank. They are the like cathedrals, full of hushed voices and reverence for money. They are moving billions of dollars, funding industries that are causing climate change, deforestation, pollution and loss of diversity. "A quarter of all the wealth in Britain is said to be in the financial markets. The banks are more powerful than governments, yet they are financing the death of life. The big banks have taken over life itself," said Talen. Talen, who in 2009 ran for the US Green party in the New York mayoral race, mixes social activism with street theatre around the world. He founded the church of Earthallujah after BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and last year performed an 'exorcism' in Tate Modern, with his group anointing each other with crude oil as a commentary on the industry's growing sponsorship of the UK arts. In other "actions" they have scrubbed banks clean, and performed in malls, shopping centres and at St Paul's cathedral. But he says the global climate movement is in danger of being ignored by governments. "It needs to discover something new and non-violent. Scientists do not know how to talk to us. It's not enough to march and rally. We cannot just be protesters." In an age of increasing freak storms, heatwaves and melting icecaps, the arts and even the British police, he says, are needed to persuade governments and institutions that massive change is necessary to avoid apocalypse. "We have to have [an organisation called] Bobbies for the Biosphere. When the Bobbies take on the banks, then the bankers will go into hiding." | ['environment/activism', 'world/world', 'world/protest', 'environment/environment', 'business/banking', 'business/business', 'money/banks', 'money/money', 'stage/theatre', 'stage/stage', 'culture/culture', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-07-21T19:23:59Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
small-business-network/2014/feb/14/uk-floods-small-business-surviving | How is your small business surviving after the UK floods? | This winter's storms have wreaked havoc on many small businesses. From Cornwall to Manchester and the outskirts of London, hurricane winds and lashing rain have shut down companies and left SME owners fighting to keep the flood waters at bay. While David Cameron has said 'money is no object' to tackling the crisis, help has also been offered by banks and building societies which are offering offer payment holidays and extended credit to small businesses facing a sudden rise in expenses or drop in income. HM Revenue and Customs has also said there would be special treatment for those affected by the floods, including allowing struggling companies to pay in instalments, a suspension of debt and a cancellation of penalties for missed deadlines. Has your business been affected by the storms and floods? What damage has your company suffered? Are tax breaks and compensation enough to help entrepreneurs bounce back when the waters retreat? What more needs to be done? Share your thoughts about the storms in our comment thread below. Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox. | ['small-business-network/small-business-network', 'small-business-network/efficiency', 'tone/blog', 'environment/flooding', 'business/business', 'business/small-business', 'type/article', 'profile/matthew-jenkin'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-14T14:35:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jan/03/this-is-where-i-need-to-be-the-uk-women-defying-fishing-stereotypes | 'This is where I need to be': the UK women defying fishing stereotypes | Superstition among fishing crews has traditionally said that women on ships are bad luck – and it is among many of the reasons women in the fishing industry are in short supply. Now though, they are being urged to join Britain’s fishing fleet by the first UK organisation to emerge that is actively encouraging women to join the fishing industry. UK Women in Fisheries was set up last month to get more women involved as fleet managers, skippers, commercial fishers, fishmongers, processors or gutters, among other roles. It comes after the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme sparked a row for using the term “fisherpeople’” in a news report. The Europe editor Katya Adler’s gender-neutral description during a package on Brexit talks caused some listeners to note that women only fill a fraction of the jobs, pointing to a study finding only 2.7% are female. Fishing, and control of who fishes in UK waters, became a central part of the Brexit negotiations and some industry leaders claim the deal struck with Brussels will do long-term damage to their prospects. Laney Black, 48, one of the co-founders of UK Women in Fisheries who works on a trawler, says she would love to see more women involved. Black trawls for langoustines and works 18-hour shifts most days. “Our days are dependent on the tide and the moon and the weather but on an average day we would be leaving harbour around teatime, so 4 or 5pm, and by the time we return to land with langoustines cleaned up it is around an 18-hour shift. It’s mostly a night shift but can vary – sometimes a day shift dependent on tides,” she said. The aim of their new not-for-profit company is to bring women who fish together. “We are drawing the plans for it at the moment but the main goal is to mentor and support, and give training for women in all sectors of the fishing industry,” she said. The inspiration behind the project came to Black after she was involved in a government-funded study a year ago that meant she met more women who work on boats. “I found it inspiring to meet women who had up until now a very solitary career,” she said. Black added that it was hard to tell how many women fished but she did not know many others on trawlers. She said women “don’t realise it is something they can or want to do”. “It’s very male-dominated,” she said. “The old-fashioned views about women on boats is an issue. At careers day [in school] you never have anyone coming up telling you that you can work in fishing … It still seems to be a taboo but it does seem to be changing and we are trying to combat that kind of thinking.” Another woman who has been promoting fishing through her Instagram account is Ashley Mullenger, 33, who has been commercially fishing off Norfolk for more than two years. “About 11 years ago I booked an angling trip and I went out and had a light bulb moment and thought ‘this is where I need to be’. The skipper could not get rid of me after that till eventually he said just turn up when you want and jump on and have a go and asked me to work on a commercial boat, gutting fish.” Her work is very physical. “It’s a long day,” she said, which means it can be a hard industry for mothers. “If you’re at sea 12-16 hours that will make it hard [for women with children]. You need a good support network to help you.” “It is a very male-dominated industry and a lot of women may be intimidated by that but that may be their own preconceptions. Everyone I have met in the industry – mostly men – are really supportive.” Women who fish were “few and far between”, she said, but she would like to see more getting involved. Amy Isobel Rose, 31, works in Newlyn, a fishing town in south-west Cornwall, and said she had worked at sea on yachts since she was 21. “I came back to Penzance last year with the intention of having a year off at home then going back to yachting at the start of this year, which of course was ruined by Covid.” “Having grown up in Penzance, I went to school with most of the fishermen or their kids, so it was just a case of convincing one to take me to sea. Eventually, Danny, my current skipper, agreed to. “He thought I just wanted to go for a jolly, but as soon as I let the lines go from the quay he said he knew he could take me seriously and I’ve been fishing with him since.” Her duties involve line handling, net repairs, gear maintenance and wash-downs. “Physically, I’m finding it hard at the moment, but that’s more because I’ve done zero exercise for the past couple of years, whereas these guys have been fishing for years and are used to the physical demands,” she said. She added that fishing did not always appeal to women as it can be a very physically demanding, smelly, dirty job with erratic and unsociable hours. “None of my girlfriends has expressed an interest for giving it a go, but they’re all stoked on me being out here.” | ['environment/fishing', 'environment/marine-life', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'society/women', 'profile/sarah-marsh', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-01-03T15:33:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2012/mar/25/image-think-technology-idea-diagrams | SXSWi: pictures worth a thousand bytes | Two weeks ago, at the SXSWi technology festival in Austin, Texas, a huge crowd gathered in the Austin Convention Centre to hear a conversation between Sean Parker, Facebook's founding president, and former US vice-president Al Gore. For nearly an hour, the two men talked about internet activism and how it could be used to reboot the political process in America. As they spoke, to the right of the stage a young woman was sketching rapidly on a large white board. At the end of the talk, when the entire board had been filled with pictures and diagrams, people crowded around it and took photos. That woman was Nora Herting, one of the founding members of ImageThink, a company that specialises in turning discussions such as this – as well as speeches and private meetings – into visual stories. The initiative is based on the idea that people are more likely to understand and retain complex information if it is presented visually rather than in a purely verbal form. By the time Parker and Gore had left the stage, images of the whiteboard were already circulating online. Later on, audience members who wanted to recall the highlights of the session – just one among hundreds at the festival – could use the visualisation to refresh their memory, while anyone who had missed it could take in the flow of the conversation in a single glance. Compressing knotty discussions into easy-to-digest visual stories is hard work. Before they started Image Think in 2009, Herting and her co-founder, Heather Willems, spent four years at a consulting company in New York where part of the job involved what they call "graphic facilitation". They would turn up at private business meetings and engage the participants by sketching the discussion as it unfolded. Backgrounds in fine art helped, but getting their drawing up to speed took practice. "We had to very quickly develop a visual language," says Willems. "Now, if somebody talks about innovation and change, there are immediate icons that pop into my head. We're constantly trying to develop our skills: listening and synthesising as well as the more graphic components of the work." Now, the little start-up is working with some of the biggest organisations in the US, including Google, Disney, Microsoft and Nasa. The advertising and PR giant Ogilvy commissioned ImageThink – Herting, Willems and a small team of freelance illustrators – to sketch the talks at SXSW. Several things have contributed to their success. One, according to Herting, is the rise of information visualisation across the media and in business, born out of a fatigue of PowerPoint and the need to communicate clearly and succinctly in a time-starved digital world. Another is a current vogue for hand-drawn visuals, particularly in advertising. "There's a great strength in having a human connection – a hand-drawn image – when everything is so digital," says Willems. "It's a nice contrast." Without digital cameras and internet connections, of course, ImageThink wouldn't have nearly the same exposure. But at SXSWi, the largest technology festival in the US, where everyone is looking for the next high-tech solution, it's good to know that a lone person drawing on a white surface with a set of coloured marker pens can still hold a crowd in thrall. | ['technology/sxswi', 'technology/technology', 'tone/features', 'technology/startups', 'business/business', 'technology/internet', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'profile/killianfox', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2012-03-25T00:07:03Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2019/nov/05/coalition-warned-outlawing-climate-boycotts-could-breach-constitution | Coalition warned outlawing climate boycotts could breach constitution | Academics have warned that changes to competition law to shut down environmental boycotts could breach the constitution, as some Coalition MPs are expressing nervousness privately about Scott Morrison signalling a controversial crackdown last week. The attorney-general Christian Porter has nominated activist group Market Forces as the intended target of the Coalition’s efforts to temper activism, flagged by Morrison during a combative speech in Brisbane last Friday, but some government MPs are confused about precisely what is being proposed, and are concerned about the potentially negative implications for freedom of expression. The attorney general has accused Market Forces of trying to “impose their political will on companies across the country through widespread, coordinated harassment and threats of boycotts” and revealed that environmental litigation and litigation funders are also in the government’s sights. Porter’s comments clarify a speech given by Scott Morrison on Friday suggesting the government will apply penalties to secondary boycotts done for the dominant purpose of environmental protection, which are currently permitted. University of New South Wales law school dean Prof George Williams said the move would risk breaching the implied freedom of political communication in the constitution. “We would likely see a challenge mounted in the high court,” he told Guardian Australia. Prof Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland said it was “hard to be definitive” as the government was still at the stage of “flying kites” in its secondary boycott proposal. But he accused the government of “targeting protests under the guise of a law designed to combat misuse of market power or union power”. Orr said state governments – not the federal government – were responsible for general police powers and suggested that Morrison had “stitched together two separate issues” by linking protests he characterised as anarchistic with competition law powers. “It’s a constitutional, moral and political minefield in an age where people are more frequently sounding off on social media, encouraging others to put pressure on businesses as the primary or secondary target of a boycott.” Orr noted that Nationals MP George Christensen has previously advocated a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream over its stance in favour of same-sex marriage. Several government backbenchers contacted by Guardian Australia on Tuesday expressed confusion about precisely what the government was championing, but declined to express their concerns on the record given the government is yet to produce a concrete proposition. In a statement, Porter said the government was considering ways to target “boycotts or protests [that] are designed to deliberately inflict economic harm on Australian businesses that are doing nothing other than lawfully providing goods and services to mining projects”. Porter claimed that “radical activist groups like Market Forces … punish or threaten to punish hard-working businesses for any association or involvement they may have in mining projects as a deliberate and targeted means of trying to force their own radical political views on companies and workers”. The attorney general revealed the government was also considering reforms to prevent “the growing presence of litigation funders” in class actions targeting the mining sector and “other areas where activists exploit legal process in a concerted engagement in ‘lawfare’ designed to delay, frustrate and cause unnecessary expense to mining and other legitimate commercial projects and businesses in Australia”. The chief executive of Market Forces, Julien Vincent, told Guardian Australia it was now clear the government “wants to … stop us going about our work”, but that the work was an “entirely legitimate” means of encouraging companies to pursue better environmental outcomes. Vincent said the “big risk” was that the government would “impinge on the rights of individuals to use information to choose products and services on the basis of environmental outcomes”. “If you don’t have groups shine light on that, what you get is quiet Australians – people who don’t have a voice, or a mechanism to speak up.” In 2014, the Abbott government considered applying penalties to environmental secondary boycotts. In 2015, the Harper competition review said that in the absence of “compelling evidence” on the point, it saw no need for change, although the exception should be reassessed “if such evidence arises from future boycott activity”. Ian Harper, now dean of Melbourne Business School, said the review had sought to balance the “reasonable claims” of those protesting on environmental or consumer protection grounds with “the rights of businesses not directly involved with the issue to go about their affairs without disruption”. “Submissions to the review made it clear that, absent an exception on environmental and/or [consumer protection] grounds, an outright ban on secondary boycotts could set the [Competition and Consumer Act] in tension with common law rights to protest and perhaps contravene the broader public interest in doing so,” he told Guardian Australia. The review also distinguished public advocacy campaigns – which seek to influence consumer and business behaviour – from secondary boycotts which “aim not just to influence but also to hinder or prevent the supply or acquisition of goods or services”. “The panel considers that, although a public advocacy campaign may damage a business, it does so by attempting to influence the behaviour of businesses and consumers,” it said. “Businesses and consumers are free to make up their own minds about the merits of the campaign.” On Sunday, Anthony Albanese said it was “very difficult to see” how the government could “stop individuals campaigning about corporate behaviour”. Albanese described the right to protest as “an important part of freedom of expression” and said that “any Liberal, who is the leader of a Liberal party, seeking to expunge that, is, in my view, very dangerous indeed”. However, Albanese said protests should be peaceful and conducted “in a way that actually gets support for their cause”, adding that some protests had “alienated people”. | ['world/activism', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'environment/environment', 'environment/mining', 'business/mining', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/paul-karp', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-politics'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-11-05T03:58:08Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2019/aug/08/nuclear-waste-residents-near-proposed-dump-told-to-sign-draconian-code-of-conduct | Nuclear waste: residents near proposed dump told to sign draconian code of conduct | Residents in small South Australian communities shortlisted for a proposed nuclear waste storage facility have been told if they want to attend community consultation meetings they have to sign a code of conduct that bans them from taking notes. The shortlist for the proposed dump has been narrowed down to Lyndhurst or Napandee, in the Kimba shire area on the Eyre Peninsula, and Wallerberdina Station, which is near Barndioota in the southern Flinders Ranges. If approved, it would be a permanent storage facility for low-level nuclear waste and provide temporary storage for intermediate level waste, including waste temporarily stored near the research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. The process has been stalled for more than 12 months because of a federal court challenge by Barngarla traditional owners, who hold native title over land adjacent to the two proposed Eyre Peninsula sites. Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation last month lost a federal court case arguing that a decision not to include native title holders in a local government poll gauging community support for the dump was in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act, but have appealed that decision to the full court. A majority of Adnyamathanha traditional owners have also said they’re “totally opposed” to the facility being built at Barndioota. Meetings of two local consultative committees, appointed by the federal industry department’s National Radioactive Waste Management Facility Taskforce (NRWMFT) as its main platform for ongoing community consultation, were put on hold while the court case was underway but have been scheduled to resume next week. But locals have complained that a new code of conduct for people wishing to observe the Barndioota and Kimba consultative committee meetings is unnecessarily restrictive and makes it harder for the community to obtain up-to-date information and voice their concerns. The code, seen by Guardian Australia, states that “observers” must be approved and cannot “take any notes, or record any part of the meeting … except with the prior agreement of the department, the independent convenor and all representative members of the committee”. It also says they cannot “repeat or share the individual ideas or views of [committee] members,” and can’t repeat confidential information or try to interject in committee discussions. “This agreement does not prevent you from discussing information shared during a BCC meeting unless it has been identified as confidential or sensitive,” it says. “The [convenor] may ask you to leave the meeting if you do not comply with this Code of Conduct.” Grazier Dean Hooper, who has applied to attend the Barndioota meeting, said that restrictions on repeating confidential information and behaving respectfully were reasonable but other conditions placed on attending were “bullshit”. “They are trying to keep it low and quiet and get this dump to happen as easily and quickly and quietly as possible,” he said. Hooper opposes the dump and is a member of the Flinders local action group. The NRWMFT said that the code of conduct concerned behavioural standards and that information in the meeting was not confidential, unless stated otherwise, and that the minutes of all meetings had been published online. Committee members have also been restricted from discussing meetings with the media. Susan Andersson, a GP from Hawker who sits on the Bandioota committee, said the contract extension that committee members signed in March was “more restrictive” than the original contract and represented an apparent desire by the department to control public information. NRWMFT general manager Sam Chard said the facility “will only proceed near a community that broadly supports it and which could provide an ongoing workforce”. In a statement on Wednesday, she said that ballots of residents and ratepayers, like that attempted by Kimba before the federal court challenge, “remain one method that we intend to use to help inform if that necessary broad community support exists”. People living outside the local government areas can make a submission. | ['australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'environment/waste', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-08-08T00:53:08Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2023/mar/24/more-than-half-nsw-forests-lost-since-1750-and-logging-locking-in-species-extinction-study-finds | More than half NSW forests lost since 1750 and logging ‘locking in’ species extinction, study finds | More than half of the forests and woodland in New South Wales that existed before European invasion are now gone and more than a third of what’s left is degraded, according to new research. Despite the loss of 29m hectares of forest since 1750 – an area larger than New Zealand – continued logging since 2000 had likely affected about 244 threatened species. Many species that depended on forests were now being sucked into “an extinction vortex” because of logging, one of the study’s authors, the University of Queensland’s Prof James Watson, said. During the current state election campaign, neither of the two major parties has released plans to address rates of land clearing. Unlike in Western Australia and Victoria, there are no plans to end native forest logging in the state. The NSW Greens made ending native forest logging a key election issue and included it on a list of points it would pursue if it held the balance of power. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Authors of the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, said the state was “locking in extinction through legislative inadequacies” because regional forestry agreements were allowing critical habitat to be logged while being exempt from the main federal environmental protection law. A group of 14 scientists from six Australian universities and two conservation groups examined multiple state and federal data sets on the condition of vegetation, together with maps of the known locations of threatened species. About 29m hectares of pre-1750 forest and woodland had been cleared and of the remaining 25m hectares, 9m was degraded. Since 2000, 435,000 hectares had been degraded through logging operations, the study said, affecting 244 threatened species – 104 of which are federally listed as endangered or critically endangered. Long-footed potoroos (endangered), long-nosed potoroos (vulnerable) and southern brown bandicoots (endangered) had the highest proportion of the areas where they live affected by logging. Koalas (endangered), south-eastern glossy black-cockatoo (vulnerable) and the Australian painted snipe (endangered) had the greatest overall area where they live affected by logging. Threatened species were having to cope with the effects of logging on top of threats from land clearing, invasive species, disease, climate change, altered water flows and pollution. The study, which is currently being peer reviewed for a leading conservation journal, said while small impacts each year might seem insignificant “the combined deforestation and degradation of habitat over 250 years can lead to extinction via many small modifications of habitat”. Dr Michelle Ward, a conservation scientist at WWF-Australia who led the study, said: “When you look at these cumulative impacts on threatened species it’s clear to see why Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world.” She said it was often claimed that logging had minimal impact, but this didn’t account for the habitat already destroyed. NSW needed to stop logging native forests and move to sourcing wood from plantations, she said. Watson said species that depended on forests had “suffered terribly” from land clearing and fires. “They now remain in small parts of their natural range and for this habitat to be opened up to logging is forcing many of them into an extinction vortex. This study points to a disaster.” He said regional forest agreements – meant to strike a balance between conservation and extraction – had failed to put the effects of logging in the context of all the threats, both current and historical, faced by threatened species. In a statement, the NSW state government’s Forestry Corporation said regional forest agreements were agreed between state and federal governments. Most native forests were permanently protected, the statement said, “and timber harvesting operations take place in only around one per cent of state forests each year, which is around 0.1% of forested land in NSW.” The research had ignored multiple peer-reviewed papers over the past 20 years from government scientists examining threatened species, the statement claimed. Timber was only harvested from regrowth forests, with operations managed “in line with strict conditions developed with the input of expert scientific panels to protect and maintain wildlife habitat, forest flora, water quality and biodiversity across the landscape.” The statement said: “Every operation is carefully planned and ensures large areas are set aside for wildlife habitat, along riparian corridors, to protect environmental features, to maintain seed resources for regeneration and to maintain biodiversity, and all harvested areas are regrown.” The statement added research showed that “best-practice measures in place during timber harvesting are effective in protecting wildlife and habitat,” adding that expert panels at the state’s Natural Resources Commission had said regulated timber harvesting was low-risk. This story was amended on 24 March 2023 to replace the main image, which previously depicted a different animal that was not a long-nosed potoroo. | ['australia-news/nsw-election-2023', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/forests', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/deforestation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-23T23:00:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2023/oct/18/scottish-water-admits-solar-farms-could-use-parts-linked-to-chinas-forced-labour-camps | Scottish Water admits solar farms could use parts linked to China’s forced labour camps | Scottish Water has admitted that its solar farms could use components linked to forced labour camps in China, “in clear conflict” with its anti-slavery policies. Scottish Water, a state-owned monopoly, has installed tens of thousands of solar panels it suspects are linked to Chinese slave labour at 66 sites around the country, bought for tens of millions of pounds. They include a “super solar” scheme at its large water treatment works that supplies 565,000 people in the Glasgow area with drinking water. It said the 8,448 panels at Balmore in East Dunbartonshire, which treats water taken from Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, cost £5m. The company, which supplies nearly all Scotland’s drinking water, said it will ban Chinese-made solar panels from its future projects, and strengthen its modern slavery rules, but it admitted that additional projects using them which are already under way will go ahead. China has become the world’s largest supplier of photovoltaic solar panels, with about 40% of the global market, and its production has helped to dramatically drive down their cost. Yet a significant proportion of Chinese supplies use a key component called polysilicon which is processed at factories accused of using forced labour camps in Xinjiang province where up to 2.6million Muslim Uyghurs and Kazakhs are interned. China has been accused of the systemic oppression of the Uyghur minority, which human rights groups and MPs describe as genocidal ethnic cleansing – a charge the Chinese government denies. Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University said in 2021 they had identified 90 Chinese and international firms whose supply chains were affected, and calculated that 45% of the world’s supply of solar-grade polysilicon came from the Uyghur region. Chinese solar panel makers will use polysilicon from other sources but their customers are often unclear how much comes from forced labour sites. Scores of British public sector bodies which have built solar farms, including the Ministry of Defence, are thought to be affected. Scottish Water has not named the companies which supply its solar panels but acknowledged it became aware two years ago they could be linked to slave labour but it did not decide to find alternative suppliers until earlier this year. The political significance of the issue in Scotland grew in March when a Labour councillor in Glasgow, Soryia Siddique, challenged the city council to ensure its solar panels were not implicated in the forced labour controversy. “Publicity since 2021 has shown that many supplies of solar-grade polysilicon across the world have been found to have links to forced labour and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang province of China,” Scottish Water said. “As a result, global supply chains for solar panels have begun shifting away from a heavy reliance on products from this part of China. “This obviously represents a clear conflict with modern slavery policy for supply chains using solar panels sourced from that region, including at Scottish Water.” It admitted that it would continue installing panels it had already paid for. It said it had followed the prevailing government advice on ethical supply chains. “We will therefore build out projects already under way, and then move to an ethical supply chain which means our solar panel production lines will come from new sources that have no links to modern slavery,” it said. The UK’s solar industry is deeply embarrassed about the controversy, and will soon publish a new ethical supply chain strategy called the sustainable stewardship initiative with SolarPower Europe. Siddique who is the deputy leader of Glasgow’s Labour group, said public bodies had to take action. “It is often easier to simply complain about human rights abuses, than to take action to try to stop them,” she said. She added it was important to embed green and humanitarian clauses in procurement policies and “send a strong message of solidarity in action with workers and oppressed communities across the world”. | ['uk/scotland', 'world/china', 'world/uyghurs', 'world/xinjiang', 'global-development/forced-labour', 'environment/solarpower', 'uk/uk', 'business/water-industry', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/severincarrell', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2023-10-18T05:00:31Z | true | ENERGY |
global-development/2019/sep/26/leonardo-dicaprio-urged-to-end-support-for-indian-river-project | Leonardo DiCaprio urged to end support for Indian river project | Leonardo DiCaprio has been urged to withdraw support for a controversial tree-planting programme in India, which could result in catastrophic environmental damage. An open letter, signed by more than 90 Indian environmental and rights groups, warned that the Hollywood actor and activist’s endorsement of the Cauvery Calling campaign was ill-advised. The signatories said the campaign could lead to the “drying up of streams and rivulets, and destruction of wildlife habitats”. The Cauvery is an endangered river in southern India. The letter praised DiCaprio’s work in “promoting rights of indigenous communities, protecting wildlife, case sensitively promoting conservation strategies, and, needless to state, pushing for clear action to tackle global warming”. But the charities added: “It appears to us, the Coalition for Environmental Justice in India, however, that you may not have been appropriately advised in supporting the Cauvery Calling campaign.” The letter continued: “This is not a programme that will protect Cauvery, her forests, her biodiversity, her children, and her children’s children. It will certainly not save Cauvery.” The campaign was launched by the Isha Foundation, created by “Sadhguru” Jaggi Vasudev. Sadhguru is a celebrity mystic who tours the world attending Hollywood events, offering spiritual advice and meditation tips, and has endorsements from numerous Bollywood celebrities. The guru has made various controversial public statements, referring to one Muslim student as “Taliban” and calling liberals “fanatics.” The Cauvery Calling campaign collects donations online to plant 2.42bn trees along the banks of the Cauvery river. According to a ticker on its website, it has already collected enough funds to plant 40m trees. The Isha Foundation has released a detailed rebuttal of the main issues in the letter, calling it a “baseless opinion that contains blatant untruths and loose comments with no backing in facts”. “The main argument is that the Cauvery Calling movement is proposing simplistic solutions, such as planting monocultures of trees on riverbanks. That is factually incorrect: The Cauvery Calling campaign is a comprehensive plan to plant trees on a portion of private farm land in Cauvery basin districts,” a statement from the foundation said. But activists have said the tree-planting drive is too simplistic. “The river has 81,000 square kilometres of watershed shared between four states,” said Leo Saldanha, co-ordinator of the Bangalore-based Environment Support Group. Saldhana said that different stretches of land in the region had different requirements and that blanket tree-planting could cause enormous environmental degradation and a loss to farmer livelihoods. DiCaprio posted an endorsement of the Cauvery Calling campaign on his Facebook page on Saturday, and his environmental charity Earth Sense has previously hosted the spiritual leader at an event in Los Angeles. “Sadhguru has all kinds of endorsement from politicians to film stars and billionaires,” Saldahna said. “Environmental organisations are trying to develop proper, ground-up strategies to address these complex issues. They don’t work with us because we don’t use populism. We don’t use religion. This is an evangelical religious foundation. DiCaprio is a great actor and an intelligent conversationalist, but he is lending a hand and globally legitimising it.” DiCaprio and his foundation have previously come under scrutiny in Malaysia, after a Department of Justice probe into alleged links to a money laundering scheme that reportedly supported his environmental foundation and his film The Wolf of Wall Street. Sadhguru’s organisation has been criticised previously by India’s comptroller and auditor general for disregarding environmental and humanitarian laws and even building its Coimbatore headquarters on protected forest land known for its elephant corridor. The foundation has denied that it was built on an elephant corridor. Environmentalists have also filed a court case against the Isha Foundation, alleging that the project started collecting donations for the programme before receiving clearances from state governments to plant trees. DiCaprio’s publicists did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. The actor, who has repeatedly used his public prominence to decry the impact of climate change, is understood to have contributed at least $30m to environmental causes. An email to the Isha Foundation also went unanswered. • This article was amended on 26 September 2019. The Cauvery watershed covers about 81,000 square kilometres, rather than square metres. | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'film/leonardodicaprio', 'world/india', 'global-development/global-development', 'film/film', 'environment/environment', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/vidhi-doshi', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2019-09-26T06:01:09Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
politics/2021/nov/10/boris-johnson-drags-tories-ever-deeper-into-sleaze-bath-john-crace | Boris Johnson drags Tories ever deeper into sleaze bath | John Crace | If only it were that simple. In BorisWorld, all Boris Johnson has to do is turn up to sprinkle the stardust of mindless optimism and things fall into place. It worked for Brexit and it worked for his 2019 general election campaign. Bertie Booster ruled OK. But climate change is a rather tougher nut to crack. Other countries aren’t quite so susceptible to his charms and the Cop26 summit in Glasgow is in danger of ending in disappointment. Quite what Johnson expected to achieve by turning up to Cop26 for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon was anyone’s guess. Still, at least he travelled by train this time. Maybe he just couldn’t accept his powerlessness and that his presence was a total waste of time. That talk of banging negotiators’ heads together really wouldn’t cut it after all. Whatever it was, there was none of the Bertie Booster tub-thumping about the 25-minute press conference he gave shortly before he scuttled back to London. This was about as close as you’ll ever get to Johnson admitting defeat. He did go through the motions of saying “1.5 was still alive” but his body language rather suggested the opposite. His shoulders were stooped and his opening speech was delivered with little enthusiasm. We were into the hard yards, he said. Stuck in a rolling maul in the final furlong. Our children and grandchildren would not forgive us if we didn’t agree a deal. And right now he would settle for one that he could sell as significant even if it was effectively worthless. Just to save face. What was required was more ambition and implementation. It wasn’t clear who he expected to supply them. “When are leaders going to lead?” he asked. It’s a question some of us have been asking about him for a while now. There were a few token questions about the conference but most of the media seemed to have already made up their minds that Cop26 wasn’t going to be the gamechanger the government had tried to build it up to be before it started. Rather, they used the time to encourage the prime minister to break his omertà on Tory sleaze. For the last week or so, Bertie Booster has been uncharacteristically quiet. It soon became clear why. Because Johnson was about to rewrite history to suit himself. Even for such an accomplished liar, this was quite something. A deception on the grandest of scales. A self-deception on the most tawdry of scales. Here was Johnson, a man incapable of honesty and bereft of self-esteem, pulling out all the stops to distance himself from the scene of the crime. This is his special talent. Because he doesn’t just always betray his family, friends and colleagues. He also always betrays himself. The self-loathing must be intense. Boris began by saying that any MP who had been found to have broken the rules must be punished. Er … yes. Only he appeared to have totally forgotten that Owen Paterson had been found guilty of multiple egregious cases of paid advocacy. And that Johnson had imposed a three-line whip on his own MPs to get his suspension put on hold until the case had been re-examined by a new committee with a majority of well-disposed Tory members, who would now come to the right conclusion. It was about as sleazy as it gets. Yet here was a Bertie Booster, admittedly on worn-out Duracell batteries, trying to portray himself as a champion of natural justice. Boris Johnson is going to be very angry when he catches up with Boris Johnson who fucked up so badly. He could scarcely bring himself to mention Geoffrey Cox. There again, he must be sick with envy at the amount Geoff has raked in since becoming an MP. From there on in, it was something of a pile-on. Johnson was entirely unrepentant. Three times he was asked to apologise, and three times he said nothing. Not even an insincere expression of regret for impressions that might have been given. The Tory MPs whose second jobs have come under the microscope as a direct result of his own misjudgment might at least be hoping for a “sorry” in private. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he also declared that the UK was about as uncorrupt a country as you could find – £3m for a peerage, anyone? There again, he is a prime minister who once declared the £250k a year for his Telegraph column to be “chicken feed”, so no wonder he can’t see what all the fuss is about. Still, Boris wasn’t finished. He then said there was nothing wrong with second jobs provided MPs put their constituents first. Something he had failed to do when he had carried on as London mayor despite being elected to Westminster in 2015. And he insisted his own behaviour was beyond reproach. It was just nobody’s business who paid for the redecoration of his Downing Street flat. Or if he accepted a free holiday from someone he put in the House of Lords. Wrongdoing must be punished, he said repeatedly. Perhaps he has a subconscious desire to be found out. One for his therapist. None of this would have gone down well with Tories hoping to draw a line under the corruption scandal. Far from killing the story, Johnson had taken politics a step further into the sleaze bath by refusing to accept any responsibility. Par for the course for a self-destructive narcissist. He was asked why he didn’t stay up in Glasgow, even if the chances of a meaningful deal were minute. Just to show he cared. But then he doesn’t really. The only thing he really cares about is himself. A Farewell to Calm by John Crace (Guardian Faber, £9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | ['politics/series/the-politics-sketch', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'politics/conservatives', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/johncrace', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-10T20:37:24Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/blog/2009/nov/18/greg-clark-copenhagen-conversations | Copenhagen conversations: Post your questions for Greg Clark | You've heard what the government, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have to say about the Copenhagen climate summit. This week it's your chance to quiz shadow energy and climate change secretary Greg Clark, who will spell out the Conseratives' views on environment policy and the biggest climate talks of the decade. Clark will be joining us between 1-2pm on Thursday 19 November to talk about everything from his views of the Copenhagen treaty's chances of success to the UK's plans for a low carbon economy. Want to know what the Conseratives and David Cameron are doing behind the scenes to help push for a strong and fair deal at Copenhagen? How the party differs from the government on energy policy, from nuclear and wind to microgeneration and "clean coal"? Or would you like to hear what he thinks of reports that the top 10 Tory bloggers are climate change sceptics and Conservative councils are dragging their feet on the 10:10 climate campaign? Just post your questions below and Clark will be here on Thursday at 1pm to answer. Please note that we'll be treating anything that is not about environmental issues as off-topic. | ['environment/series/copenhagen-conversations', 'politics/conservatives', 'politics/politics', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/blog', 'environment/copenhagen', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'politics/greg-clark', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-11-18T11:16:30Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
lifeandstyle/2020/oct/12/tree-of-the-week-the-crab-apple-tree-that-makes-booze | Tree of the week: the crab apple tree that makes booze | Annie Frazer moved into her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a year ago and was immediately smitten with the crab apple tree that lives in her garden. “We’ve not been together that long, but we love her,” she says. “She’s gorgeous.” The former linguist, 52, who is originally from Sheffield, lives with her husband, Greg, and their teenage sons, Josh and Benjie. She loves how the tree blooms a deep pink for two weeks in May – a brief but impressive transformation. “It’s a stunner. Behind it is a very large cottonwood tree, so just after the crab apple has blossomed, there’s cotton that floats all around the place. It’s really lovely.” The crab apples are too small and sour to be used for cooking, but Frazer recently spent the weekend picking them to make a liqueur. “You have to get a large fermenting jar,” she says. “You just stew the apples for a few weeks. You keep turning them, then in goes the vodka and in goes the sugar. It ferments, and then you drink it. No idea what it’ll taste like, but we’re going to go for it.” The tree is the first thing Frazer sees when she opens her bedroom curtains and takes a look at the world outside. “She’s like an old lady who just hangs out in our back garden. It’s definitely a woman because she keeps changing clothes. No matter what the season is, she does her thing.” She enjoys seeing all the “different coats and dresses” it wears during the year. “The tree is draped in crystal-white snow for up to six months of the year. It is very beautiful and it hangs off the branches. Then suddenly you get pops of green. Spring can come as late as May.” After the tree blooms, the blossoms quickly drop off. “It’s very pretty, with them raining on to the grass. Now it’s very much getting that autumnal look where the leaves are going a bit orange. And you’ve got tons of the mini crab apples, so there’s red everywhere.” Frazer loves how the tree gives her a sense of perspective. “It helps you take that extra deep breath that probably everybody needs to take each day,” she says. “Trees definitely let you know that they’re older and wiser than you and you’re just a fleeting little dot in time.” Tell us about your favourite tree by filling in this form. | ['lifeandstyle/series/tree-of-the-week', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/ann-lee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-10-12T06:00:27Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2007/feb/16/whynuclearpowerwontsolveo | The best policy | The 1950s technology of nuclear power won't stop climate change, it will actually leave us more dependent on foreign fuel imports than the decentralised energy alternatives and is a scandalous waste of hot air - quite literally in fact. Like all old-fashioned centralised power stations, two-thirds of the energy these nuclear reactors could be using is thrown away in the form of heat into the cooling water; doing nothing but heating up the oceans. With coal and gas power stations most of the energy is wasted up the cooling towers. This wasted heat is equivalent to all the heating and hot water needs of every single building in Britain. Less than one-third of the gas we consume in this country is used for electricity generation, so if we are really concerned about importing our gas from Russia, nuclear power, which is only used to produce electricity, can't help much. The best way to reduce fuel dependence is to make the most efficient use possible of the gas we have left, or import. That means decentralising our energy system -generating heat and electricity next to where it is needed in combined heat and power stations that can be up to 95% efficient - more than doubling the energy we currently get from these fuels. Ten new nuclear power stations will only reduce UK CO2 emissions by 4%, and not until after 2020. To play our part in stopping climate change we in the UK need to cut emissions by at least 80% by 2050. The best way to achieve this is to capture all that wasted energy we currently throw away by decentralising our energy system, saving energy and in the home and harnessing clean, renewable energy as fast as possible. Or of course we could rely on nuclear, which even if we replace our existing fleet will only produce 3.5% of the UK's total energy, and it still leaves us dependent on gas for all our heating and most of our electricity. That's only if you can ignore the other threats of nuclear - waste, accident risk, terrorism etc. Perhaps if the government had been honest about all these facts in the first place they wouldn't have had to force through their sham energy review quite so bullishly. Perhaps we wouldn't have had to take them to court, and maybe the public wouldn't have lost total trust in yet another government stitch up unravelling before their eyes. We sincerely hope Gordon Brown will do a better job than his predecessor. Right now, the government's spin doctors might be wise to take note of that old saying - "when in a hole stop digging" ... | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'politics/tonyblair', 'politics/labour', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/russia', 'environment/energy', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnsauven'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2007-02-16T13:55:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/jan/19/government-major-environmental-assessment-uk-seas-defra-post-brexit-fisheries-plan-coldwater-reefs | Government to carry out major environmental assessment of UK seas | An assessment of the seas around the UK will carried out by the government and made available online, the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has promised, with a view to cleaning up and improving the inshore environment. Thérèse Coffey, a Defra minister, said that by the end of this year “a major assessment of how our seas have moved towards good environmental status” would be completed. This assessment, which would be accompanied by an online tool that the general public could use to examine progress on the marine environment and the pressures it is under, is expected to inform future marine policy. Licensing and planning systems for coastal and marine areas will also be overhauled. This could affect coastal developments, including those of potential offshore wind sites. She also said a full series of marine plans covering the whole of the UK’s coast would be completed by 2021, and said that the UK’s often-overlooked coldwater coral reefs would take precedence this year, which has been designated international year of the reef. With Brexit looming and little detail so far on what fishing policies might replace the EU’s common fisheries policy in UK waters, Coffey promised that long term sustainability would be paramount. However, she admitted that only 30% of the fisheries exploited by the UK were currently within sustainability limits. She gave no indication of what level of exploitation a post-Brexit fisheries plan would allow, and concentrated her comments instead on species that are not generally used for food. Coffey said: “The proportion of large fish in the North Sea has climbed steadily since 2010 to levels not seen since the 1980s. We must still seek to ease the impact of human activity, however, particularly on seabed habitats and fish populations. An ecosystems approach to fisheries management will account for, and seek to minimise, impacts on non-commercial species and the marine environment generally, including through technical conservation measures.” The minister also repeated plans, set out by the Commonwealth secretary general Patricia Scotland last year, for a “blue charter” for Commonwealth nations, to be adopted at their meeting in April. This will involve commitments on the reduction of plastic waste entering the seas from Commonwealth countries. Coffey was speaking at the Coastal Futures conference in London, a long-running annual event focusing on marine management. | ['environment/coastlines', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/fishing', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'politics/politics', 'environment/food', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-01-19T12:08:43Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/mar/31/justice-still-being-sought-for-murders-of-peruvian-forest-campaigners | Justice still being sought for murders of Peruvian forest campaigners | “I had hoped to see his body, but I haven’t been able to yet. I haven’t even been able to see his bones. Everything was destroyed by animals.” That’s Diana Rios Rengifo speaking about her father, Jorge Rios Perez, an Ashéninka man from the Peruvian Amazon who was assassinated last September after years opposing loggers in what the Ashéninkas consider to be their territories. Rios Perez was killed, along with three other men from his village, Alto Tamaya-Saweto, following several threats. Loggers – possibly connected to drug-trafficking – are believed to be responsible and two men, Adencio Mapes and his son, are in prison while investigations take place. According to the village’s lawyer, Margoth Quispe, two bodies have been identified and buried, and a third is in a morgue undergoing DNA tests. “They’ve found Edwin [Chota Valera] and Leoncio [Quinticima Melendez],” says Rios Rengifo. “That leaves my father and Francisco [Pinedo].” “It’s not clear who [the third body] is, but it’s presumed to be Jorge Rios,” says Quispe. “If it isn’t, it has to be Francisco.” Since the assassinations, Rios Rengifo – like her mother, Ergilia Rengifo López, and the three other widows – have been too afraid to live in Saweto and have based themselves days downriver in the nearest big town, Pucallpa. “The same thing that happened to my father could happen to us,” Rios Rengifo said. “We want to go back if it’s safe, but not if there’s no security. We’re scared to live there.” “Family members of the two men detained continue threatening us and keep logging,” says Rengifo López. Quinticima’s widow, Lita Rojas, is living in Pucallpa with Rengifo López under 24-hour police protection. She told the Guardian she would be scared to return to Saweto and hopes to move to an Ashéninka village along a different river. “My children have been abandoned,” she says. “Who’s going to help me now? My young boy can’t work.” Elsewhere in Pucallpa is Pinedo’s widow, Adelina Vargas Santillán, and her children and grand-children. They said they never want to return to Saweto. “That was where my father died,” says Lina Ruiz Santillán. “Why would I go? My mother doesn’t want to go either. If my father was still alive, she would be there.” Upriver in Saweto itself – which the Guardian visited with Rios Rengifo, Rainforest Foundation US, Global Witness and Alexander Soros, son of the businessman and investor George Soros – little has changed since September. Numerous Ashéninkas say that loggers, based in a settlement called Putaya just a few minutes boat ride away, continue to operate in their territories and threaten them. “Why do they come to this side [of the river]?” asks Karen Shawiri López. “They know very well this is our side. They say it’s to work to feed their children, but they can do that on the other side. Don’t we have children to feed too? Of course we do!” Fear in the village is palpable. Some people, says Jaime González García, are now afraid to fish in certain areas or walk alone in the forest. According to Quispe, the village lawyer, in December Rios Rengifo’s husband was beaten in Putaya by two men from the same family as those in prison and was told: “We’re going to kill you.” The Ashéninkas are particularly critical of the government’s response to the assassinations. Two logging concessions overlapping Saweto’s territories were annulled in October, but they say the loggers were not operating there anyway. And while two men are in prison, the “intellectual authors” remain free. Criticism of the police is also severe. Policemen arrived in the area following the assassinations, but they established a base immediately adjacent to Putaya and the Ashéninkas say that, instead of denouncing or stopping the logging, they are ignoring it and fraternising with the loggers. According to Quispe, when Rios Rengifo’s husband attempted to report being beaten and threatened, he was told to go to police in Pucallpa. “The loggers pay more than the police,” she says. “They’ve bought them off. It’d have been better not to send them at all.” Saweto has been trying to obtain legal title to its territories for more than 10 years, but despite important progress since the assassinations the process remains ongoing. Other demands made by Saweto include that the loggers stop operating in their territories, that the area is properly protected and that justice is done for the assassinations. Last week, the regional governor, Manuel Gambini Rupay, told Rengifo López, Rios Rengifo, Soros, Rainforest Foundation US and Global Witness that he intends to stop all illegal logging, but that he is restricted in what he can do. There is a serious lack of funds, he said, and the police adjacent to Putaya were sent there by the central government. “We have good ideas and we know the forest,” Gambini Rupay said. “But we don’t have the budget.” Global Witness’s Chris Moye describes Saweto as emblematic of the broader problem of illegal logging and the wider struggles facing indigenous communities in Peru and other countries. “There’s a contradiction between the public face [of Peru’s efforts to combat deforestation] and the reality on the ground,” he says. • Soros was invited to Saweto after Rios Rengifo received an award for environmental activism on behalf of her father and the three other assassinated men. The award was given by the recently founded Alexander Soros Foundation. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/environment', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'world/peru', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/david-hill'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-03-31T12:49:48Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/feb/27/california-plastic-pollution-lawsuit-coke-pepsi | Coke and Pepsi sued for creating a plastic pollution ‘nuisance’ | Coke, Pepsi, Nestlé and other large companies are being sued by a California environmental group for creating a plastic pollution “nuisance” and misleading consumers about the recyclability of plastic. The suit, filed in San Mateo county superior court on Wednesday, argues that companies that sell plastic bottles and bags that end up polluting the ocean should be held accountable for damaging the environment. Earth Island Institute, which filed the lawsuit, says a significant amount of the eight to 20m tons of plastic entering the Earth’s oceans annually can be traced back to a handful of companies, which rely heavily on single-use plastic packaging. The suit seeks to require these companies to pay to remediate the harm that plastic pollution has caused to the Earth and oceans. It also demands these companies stop advertising products as “recyclable”, when they are, in fact, largely not recycled. “These companies should bear the responsibility for choking our ecosystem with plastic,” said David Phillips, executive director of Earth Island Institute. “They know very well that this stuff is not being recycled, even though they are telling people on the labels that it is recyclable and making people feel like it’s being taken care of.” The suit names 10 companies found to be top producers of the plastic collected in beach cleanups in an international audit conducted last year by 72,000 volunteers working with the group Break Free From Plastic. The companies are Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé, Clorox, Crystal Geyser, Mars, Danone, Mondelēz International, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble. “Plastic waste is a worldwide problem that demands thoughtful solutions,” said William M Dermody Jr, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, which represents Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other makers of non-alcoholic beverages. “America’s beverage companies are already taking action to address the issue by reducing our use of new plastic, investing to increase the collection of our bottles so they can be remade into new bottles as intended, and collaborating with legislators and third-party experts to achieve meaningful policy resolutions.” Other companies, including Nestlé, said they were still reviewing the lawsuit’s allegations or they could not immediately be reached. Noting that, at the current rate of dumping, plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050, the suit charged that companies have engaged in a “decades-long campaign to deflect blame for the plastic pollution crisis to consumers”. Consumers are led to believe that the Earth would be healthy, if only they recycled properly, when, in reality, there is no market for most plastics to be recycled, the suit says. Past studies have shown only about 10% of plastic gets recycled, but Phillips said, once those numbers are updated to reflect the recent collapse of the recycling market, it will probably show that only about 5% is getting recycled. He said customers have received misinformation downplaying the harms caused by plastic in marketing campaigns similar to the disinformation promoted by tobacco companies downplaying the dangers of smoking. “This is the first suit of its kind,” Phillips said. “These companies are going to have to reveal how much they’ve known about how little of this stuff is being recycled.” Martin Bourque, who runs the Ecology Center, which handles recycling for the City of Berkeley, said he is tired of knowing that some portion of the plastic collected in his city’s recycling bins will eventually just be thrown away. “It’s about time these companies that have been telling people that this stuff is recyclable be held accountable for polluting our ecosystem,” he said. Phillips said the suit does not mean to dissuade customers from recycling, but it seeks to have companies take more responsibility for the waste their products create. “It’s not that we’re slamming recycling,” he said. “We’re totally in favor of recycling. We just want companies to take responsibility for what’s really happening to all this plastic they’re producing.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/pollution', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/us-news', 'law/law-us', 'business/cocacola', 'business/pepsico', 'business/nestle', 'business/mondelez', 'business/proctergamble', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/erin-mccormick', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-02-27T22:16:35Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk-news/2019/jul/07/court-challenge-homes-southall-london-gasworks-brownfield-development | Residents prepare court challenge over redevelopment of London gasworks site | Residents are preparing a legal challenge to the redevelopment of a former gasworks in Southall, west London. The move follows two years of complaints to Ealing council, developers the Berkeley Group and environmental regulators that a petrol-like odour from the site is making them ill and putting children’s lives at risk. “The campaign group has become increasingly frustrated by the abject failure of Berkeley adequately to respond to legitimate grievances,” said Jo Sidhu QC. “We now have no choice but to instigate legal action to hold them accountable for the damage they have done to the health of local residents. People are suffering serious and chronic illnesses relating to the toxic pollution released by the land being used by the developers.” He added: “This is an immediate and urgent public health crisis and we are determined to pursue every legal route to stop the building works and to seek substantial compensation for injury to those who continue to suffer. “Public nuisance is both a criminal offence and a civil action in tort. It also involves substantial breaches of environmental law.” Sidhu, who grew up in Southall, said that in preparation for legal proceedings campaigners who lived near the site were collecting data on respiratory problems, chest pains and other symptoms reported since work began on the Southall Waterside development in early 2017. The Observer has spoken to 50 residents who said their health had deteriorated since then. Soil on the 35-hectare site was found to contain hydrocarbons including benzene, a known carcinogen, and naphthalene, as well as asbestos and cyanide. Dr Onkar Sahota, a local GP and a member of the London assembly, said he had heard from many residents that their asthma and other symptoms had worsened since “being exposed to the offensive smell and debris in the air”, and that he was pressing Ealing council to gather health impact data. The site has multiple regulators: it is up to the Environment Agency to regulate the soil and advise Ealing council on management of land affected by contamination; the council is also responsible for investigating complaints of statutory nuisance; and Public Health England (PHE) and Public Health Ealing are tasked with protecting the health of the public. A PHE spokesperson said: “It would be difficult to establish that any health effects to the nearby population are due to the site works rather than other underlying factors. It is therefore considered that the most appropriate action is mitigating release of airborne chemicals at source, as recommended in the PHE report.” The PHE interim assessment of the available air quality data monitoring provided by the Atkins consultancy, hired by Berkeley, found the results for the air quality monitoring are “considered unlikely to pose a direct toxicological risk to the health of the nearby population”, but said levels of naphthalene on site “should urgently be reduced to prevent prolonged exposures”. On Wednesday residents will put their concerns to the Environment Agency, Ealing council, Berkeley and PHE at a public meeting. “We will demand that there is independent air quality monitoring of the site and steps to reduce naphthalene levels,” said Angela Fonso, from the local campaign group. She said they would also demand the removal of a Berkeley site construction manager as governor at a primary school on the edge of the site. A spokesperson for Berkeley said: “This is a highly regulated activity and all work has been closely monitored by the authorities including Ealing council and the Environment Agency. Any legal challenge will be vigorously opposed.” Controversy has dogged Southall Waterside, one of the most ambitious brownfield developments under way in the UK, since Boris Johnson as mayor of London in 2010 overturned Ealing’s refusal to grant planning permission, and allowed Berkeley to build 3,750 homes on the site, which is near the Grand Union Canal. Sidhu attended the hearing after Berkeley appealed. He presented findings to show potential damage to health: “Yet the then mayor simply smirked throughout the hearing with barely an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation.” | ['uk/london', 'environment/pollution', 'society/housing', 'environment/environment', 'business/berkeleygroupholdings', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'environment/environment-agency', 'society/society', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/jo-griffin', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-07-07T06:59:47Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2020/feb/06/electric-vehicle-sales-triple-in-australia-as-sales-of-combustion-engine-cars-fall-8 | Electric vehicle sales triple in Australia as sales of combustion engine cars fall 8% | Electric vehicle sales in Australia more than tripled last year but were still far lower than in a majority of developed countries, industry data shows. The Electric Vehicle Council says 6,718 full electric and hybrid plug-in vehicles were sold in 2019, up from 2,216 the year before. Sales of combustion engine cars fell 7.8% over that period. The release of the industry group data follows Britain this week announcing it would ban new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035. The Electric Vehicle Council said the spike in sales in Australia from a low base suggested consumers wanted the technology despite it being yet to receive the support offered elsewhere. “The good news is that the number of Australians buying EVs is surging despite a lack of government incentives or support,” the council’s chief executive, Beyhad Jafari, said. “The bad news is that even with this strong growth, EVs still only represent 0.6% of sales. That compares poorly with 3.8% of sales in Europe and 4.7% of sales in China.” Support for EVs was a significant point of difference between the major parties at last year’s federal election. Labor promised a target of 50% new car sales being electric by 2030. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, accused the opposition of wanting to “end the weekend” by forcing people out of four-wheel drives, while the minister for small business, Michaelia Cash, told tradies only the Coalition would “save their utes”. But the government has promised its own national EV strategy, to be finalised by the middle of the year, and government agency data has forecast that half the new cars sold will be electric by 2035 even if there is no policy to support their uptake. The Coalition considered introducing the vehicle emissions standards proposed by Labor, which would have required light cars to on average emit 105 grams of CO2 per kilometre, and received advice it would have a net economic benefit, but decided against it. Jafari estimated if Australia offered similar incentives as Europe and China there would be 50,000 new EVs on Australian roads. “Given that Australian decision makers at all levels are eager to start taking stronger action on climate change, transitioning away from combustion engine vehicles would be an excellent place to start,” he said. The British prime minister, the Conservatives’ Boris Johnson, announced on Tuesday a ban on selling cars that were not fully electric would be brought forward from 2040 to 2035. He said it would come even earlier if possible. Electric vehicles remain on average significantly more expensive than combustion engine cars, though the number of cheaper models is expanding. Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance have projected a rapid fall in the cost of lithium ion batteries will lead to EVs being as cheap as petrol equivalents by 2025. In August, a transport and infrastructure department spokeswoman acknowledged electric car uptake in Australia was slow compared with other countries and said there would be a rapid change in new car sales once the technology was price competitive. But the spokeswoman said it would take some time for that to be reflected on Australian roads. “EVs are not expected to be a significant part of the passenger vehicle fleet until well into the 2030s,” she said. | ['environment/electric-cars', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2020-02-06T02:20:41Z | true | EMISSIONS |
global-development/2014/dec/25/indian-ocean-tsunami-2004-family-reunited | Indian Ocean tsunami 2004: 'I really felt that both of my kids were still alive' | The last time Jamaliah saw her two children they were clinging to a thick plank of wood, being swept away by a tsunami wave that had descended upon Aceh, Indonesia. It was 26 December 2004. For most of the next decade Jamaliah refused to believe that Raudhatul, her daughter, and son, Arif Pratama, had really gone – two of the thousands who died as a consequence of that day. In August this year she was proved right. In one of the most remarkable stories to emerge after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, Jamaliah and her husband were reunited with Raudhatul after a relative spotted a teenage girl in an Aceh village who bore a striking family resemblance. “When I looked at her, I felt sure that she was my daughter,” Jamaliah says of the photo her brother sent from his phone. “I felt it inside, and also I felt pain in my stomach, like the pain when I gave birth to Raudhatul.” Their subsequent reunion saw their family photo broadcast on television screens across the country and fortuitously into one home in West Sumatra, where a woman recognised Arif Pratama as the boy who occasionally slept outside her internet cafe. Two miracles later, their father, Septi Rangkuti, 52, is counting his blessings but insists he always knew they were out there. “I really felt that both of my kids were still alive,” he says. “I knew someone must have saved them.” The 2004 tsunami devastated Indonesia’s Aceh province, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands, flattening entire towns along the west coast. Meulaboh, where Jamaliah and her family lived, was one of the worst hit. For days the town was cut off from help because the bridges to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, had been washed away. Those who survived – reportedly a quarter of the 40,000 people living there – went without water and food, forced to search for dirty rice among the corpses and debris. In the hours after the tsunami, Jamaliah waited anxiously at the hospital for bodies to arrive, checking to see if her children were among the dead. As the days and weeks passed she scoured the refugee camps, but there was no trace of them. The morning the tsunami struck they had all piled on to one motorbike to flee, but they barely had the chance. “The street was so jammed with cars and bikes and then the wave came, along with the debris and bits of houses and trash,” recalls Jamaliah. In the chaos, her husband had groped for a floating piece of wood, an unhinged door, managing to place Raudhatul and Arif on top before the water swept them apart. Neither of the children could swim, but as they drifted out to sea they clung to that door before they were eventually rescued. “All I can remember was being on that plank with my brother, I was only four and a half,” says Raudhatul, now 14. “I was on the plank and then suddenly we were on the island. Someone helped us, his name was Bustamir, but I don’t remember how we got there.” Bustamir, a fisherman, and his wife, Sari, took the two children into their home on the Banyak Islands, some 155 miles from Meulaboh. But a frightening and unpredictable nine years ensued. One day Sari threw boiling water at Arif’s face – he still has the scar on his forehead – and after that his sister recalls him being taken away. Raudhatul, who was renamed Wenni, stayed with the couple for two years during which time she was occasionally beaten by the fisherman’s wife. “I remembered my mother and I missed her,” says Raudhatul of that time. “But I was too scared to tell them.” Two years later the young girl was handed over to the fisherman’s sister. Then, age 10, she was passed on to their mother, Sarwani. Raudhatul spent her days collecting used water bottles to resell to make sure they had enough money for food, rarely going to school. It was her uncle Zainuddin, who happened to live in the same town just 1km away, who first spotted her on the street in June. “My brother has a picture of her when she was little, and he showed the picture to the people there,” says Jamaliah. “People were saying, ‘Yes, this is the kid, this is the kid.’” After Zainuddin sent a photo of the teenage girl to his sister, Jamaliah and Septi travelled to Blangpidie, West Aceh. “I knew it was her. When I saw her I hugged her and she cried with me,” says an emotional Jamaliah. “I always felt, in my heart, that one day my prayers would be answered and we would be united again.” At first, Sarwani refused to give the 14-year-old up, claiming the teenager was the child of a divorced couple. Word spread around the village that Jamaliah wanted to have a DNA test and by the next day Sarwani had changed her story. “They were just making excuses because they actually wanted money,” says Jamaliah. This first miracle led the couple to find their missing son, who had been living on the streets in a neighbouring province. The family moved to Medan, north Sumatra, last month. Jamaliah says she is lucky beyond belief but admits it is tough making up for lost time. Arif, a traumatised 17-year-old, can barely read and write after years of living on the street. Raudhatul, 14, is enrolled in year five at school, several years below her peers. But their mother has not given up hope. “Raudhatul, since she was a little girl, always said she wanted to be a teacher. Arif wanted to be in the armed forces,” says Jamaliah, “Hopefully, if God allows, I can help them achieve what they wanted.” | ['global-development/series/2004-indian-ocean-tsunami-10-years-on', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/indonesia', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-lamb'] | global-development/series/2004-indian-ocean-tsunami-10-years-on | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-12-25T23:30:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2014/feb/02/weatherwatch-lifeboats-floods-sailors-swimmers | Weatherwatch: For those in peril on the sea – and on the flooded land | The role of the lifeboat service has gradually been evolving, first as a result of changing human behaviour and then weather patterns. Once coastal traders came to grief regularly in storms around Britain and provided the spur for the original formation of the RNLI. Now giant cargo ships rarely need the help of a lifeboat. However, the number of people needing rescuing goes on rising. This is partly because of the increasing use of the coast for leisure. Unskilled amateur sailors and swimmers frequently underestimate the power of tides and currents and find themselves in trouble. An example was on 26 May last year when, on a calm day, 85 out of 133 swimmers who set off on a 1,200 metre race from Southwold Pier beach in Suffolk to a nearby pub had to be rescued when they were dragged out to sea after the tide changed. To cope with these new demands the size of lifeboats is shrinking. The D Class, the RNLI's smallest lifeboat, was first ordered as an experiment 50 years ago, but is now the organisation's busiest craft. There are 111 in service round the UK. They are dinghy sized with a shallow draft but tough enough to bounce off rocks and get close to cliffs, ride the surf and reach inaccessible places. The D Class is also the perfect craft for the RNLI's newest role as a rescuer of people trapped in their homes during inland flooding. A new force of 250 volunteers trained as inland flood rescue teams are having more opportunities to test their skills as the weather gets more extreme. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'environment/flooding', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-02T21:29:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
lifeandstyle/2022/nov/27/ragged-leaves-untidy-corners-and-no-pesticides-how-to-plant-a-butterfly-garden | Ragged leaves, untidy corners and no pesticides: how to plant a butterfly garden | The Richmond birdwing is a show-stopping butterfly. Males are black and dazzling green; females are black and white with a flashy gold trim. They are not easily overlooked as they flutter around subtropical rainforests between Ballina and the Sunshine Coast. For 80 years, the Richmond birdwing population declined precipitously as natural habitat was diced by farming, forestry and urban expansion. Then a concerted effort by community, scientists and government brought the species back from the edge. The Richmond birdwing is a conservation success story, and it was achieved in the gardens of south-east Queensland. “Back yards saved the butterfly 100%,” Matt Cecil, a project officer at the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, says. Cecil is part of the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network (RBCN), which is dedicated to restoring the butterfly across its former range. The project focuses on the caterpillars and their food plant, the native birdwing vines Pararistolochia praevenosa and P. laheyana. The rescue began with vines in back yards, filling the gaps between the forest patches. “There wasn’t enough subtropical rainforest habitat left in the landscape,” Cecil says. “What remained was weedy and dry, and vines planted there struggled and needed ongoing maintenance. Vines grown in back yards were nurtured and looked after.” Now seeds from those back yard vines are collected by RBCN and grown in nurseries for gardens and restoration programs. The process is slow – it can take between 18 months and two years before a vine is ready to go in the ground – but more than 2,000 are planted each year on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. With care from enthusiastic gardeners, the vines are thriving. So are the Richmond birdwings. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The principles behind the birdwing project also apply to butterfly gardening. Dr Jesse Kurylo studied butterfly populations in outer Melbourne, where urbanisation has had an effect on a range of native species. To make a garden more butterfly-friendly, Kurylo suggests finding out which species occur in nearby parks and bushland, then catering directly to those. “Keep it local,” she says. “Once you know what’s around, plant larval and adult food plants to encourage those species in.” While butterflies come for the nectar-rich flowers, “they aren’t fussy. They’re ‘I see food! Let’s go!’” Kurylo says. And they stay where they can lay. The key to a butterfly garden is providing food for the unfussy adults and their choosy caterpillars. Each species’ caterpillars survive only on a narrow range of plants. Growing these host species helps support a lively butterfly population. Caterpillars eat vast amounts of food, often reducing plants to leafless stems. This is where insects and fastidious gardeners are at odds. A flourishing butterfly garden is one with ragged leaves, untidy corners and no pesticides to keep things in line. This is the outlook adopted by Ruth Orchison and Carol Boland in their Sydney garden. When they bought their steep sandstone block more than 20 years ago, they planned to dig out the grass and geraniums and transform the garden into a mass of native heaths and flannel flowers. “We had a vision of colourful, sun-loving plants,” Orchison says. But meagre soil, too-rapid drainage and over-shading changed their strategy. Many of their plants are native species self-seeded from an adjacent bush corridor. “Now it’s just this side of a jungle.” Without pesticides, the garden is a haven for butterflies and other wildlife. Blue triangles and jezebels are regular visitors, Lomandra-loving skippers bask in tiles of sunlight, and the citrus trees produce more orchard swallowtails than fruit. “The garden welcomes them,” Boland says, “and it welcomes us.” A butterfly-friendly garden is not neat and regimented, but what is lost in nibbled leaves is made up for in fluttering colours and a sense of connection to nature. Find out more about butterflies Online resources such as Butterflies Australia, iNaturalist and the Atlas of Living Australia can help identify local species. The Butterflies Australia app started as a project to collect abundance and distribution records for conservation research. “There’s a real lack of long term data in Australia,” the database manager, Chris Sanderson, says. “The more data sent, the more complete the picture. Every record is important.” Since its release in October 2019, more than 22,000 verified records have been added to the database. In addition to a field guide covering species country-wide, the app provides the opportunity to submit sightings and upload photographs, which are then checked by an expert. The Atlas of Living Australia collates records from different sources, including museums, and allows users to create lists of species by location. One of the sources used by Atlas of Living Australia is iNaturalist – an app where users can upload their photos to share records and get identifications from other members of the community. For gardens in Melbourne, the city of Melbourne provides a searchable online resource to plant species suitable for butterflies and other animals. Information about all Australian species, including behaviour, habitat and caterpillar host plants, can be found in The Complete Field Guide to Butterflies of Australia by butterfly expert Dr Michael Braby, published by CSIRO. | ['lifeandstyle/gardeningadvice', 'lifeandstyle/australian-lifestyle', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/butterflies', 'environment/insects', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/melbourne', 'campaign/email/saved-for-later', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/bronwen-scott', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-lifestyle'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-11-26T19:00:34Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
music/2018/mar/30/signed-off-school-with-beatlemania | Signed off school with Beatlemania | Brief letters | If the government fails to intervene to prevent the acquisition of GKN by Melrose it will be further proof, if any is needed, that the UK is being run for the benefit of big business (Outcry as GKN falls to hostile takeover, 30 March). If the takeover is permitted, it is clear that shareholders will walk away with fat profits while employees will be flung on to the jobs market to scrabble for precarious work and zero-hours contracts. Jane Sutherland Reading, Berkshire • The Tory government claims that the UK economy is safe in its hands, yet the national debt has recently passed £2tn having been at £.75tn when it came to power. Why is this not discussed or commented on? Marilyn Hulbert Bath • Regarding memorable sick notes (Letters, 28 March), I cite the example of my wife’s school sick note, following a night queueing for tickets to a Beatles’ concert. Her stepfather wrote that she couldn’t attend school as she was suffering from Beatlemania. Roy Miller Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey • Perhaps Gill Glover could respond to the letter of Catherine Mallyon of the RSC (29 March) about the increased women’s toilet facilities at Stratford by quoting the sentry in the opening scene of Hamlet – “For this relief much thanks”. Cyril Duff London • Ironically, a return of a bottle and can deposit scheme (Report, 28 March) will give my favourite Ken Dodd joke a new lease of life “My Grandma died and left twenty pounds in her will – fifty six pounds ten after we returned the empties.” Ron Plasma Broadbottom, Cheshire • I’m guessing that their favourite composer (Mozart, warm beds, toys – it’s a Spanish police dog’s life, 29 March) will be Offenbach? Ian Garner Keighley, West Yorkshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['music/thebeatles', 'business/gkn', 'politics/economy', 'culture/shakespeare', 'stage/rsc', 'environment/recycling', 'music/mozart', 'business/business', 'politics/politics', 'business/economics', 'education/schools', 'education/education', 'education/secondary-schools', 'music/music', 'music/popandrock', 'culture/culture', 'stage/theatre', 'stage/stage', 'music/classical-music-and-opera', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'tone/letters', 'stage/ken-dodd', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-03-30T15:29:15Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2021/may/02/nearing-giant-leap-for-mankind-space-possibilities-are-transformational | Fifty years after Apollo, space is about to transform our life on Earth beyond recognition | Will Hutton | The Apollo 11 space mission captured our imaginations in 1969. And it was achingly evocative to hear the recordings of Michael Collins, who died last week, talk about how looking at Earth from space rammed home just how precious our planet is. Last week also marked three other milestones for space. A record $8.7bn has been raised by venture capitalists in the last year to support companies in commercial opportunities from space; France’s Eutelsat joined the UK as a shareholder in the satellite communications company OneWeb; and China launched the first part of its own space station to host three “taikonauts”. We are moving beyond the wonder of watching Collins’s colleagues, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walk on the moon to something transformational. Space is at an inflection point, about to join electricity, the computer and the railway as a great general purpose technology that will transform economies and societies. To those who dare, whose capitalism and governments have the right alchemy of entrepreneurial zest and public purpose, and who possess the sheer chutzpah to see the possibilities, will fall great prizes. Britain could be among them. Worried about the impact of nearly 10 billion people in 2050 burning fossil fuels that would lift the Earth’s temperature insupportably? Relax. Space is on hand. By then, power-station spaceships in fixed orbit with vast solar mirrors will capture the sun’s rays 24/7, turn them into microwaves and beam them to solar panels on Earth. Sci-fi romanticism? It’s already in the realms of possibility – and is one of the aims of the Chinese space station, with China promising to deliver space electricity as soon as 2030. It also informs the thinking behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX. His reusable rockets can carry material into space to build such power stations at a fraction of current costs. Musk is the man behind Tesla. The global car industry dismissed his vision of battery-operated cars as fanciful. Now Tesla is the coolest car range around, whose stock market value is worth more than the rest of the car industry combined. Getting material into space cheaply – satellites, spaceship power stations and factories – is one of the technologies accelerating the opening up of the territory. I’d back his vision a second time round. Factories? The only way to manufacture flawless fibreoptic cable, print exact copies of body parts such as hearts and lungs, create ultra-light metal alloys from materials such as magnesium that can be used in our bodies, and – more fancifully – reproduce an exact simulacrum of meat is to do it where there is no gravity. Within a generation, there could be space factories manufacturing all of this and more. Back on Earth, we will be transported in satellite-guided autonomous vehicles powered by satellite-generated electricity, eating meat manufactured in space. GPS navigation systems are already satellite-enabled, and that is only the beginning. Space imagery is getting clearer and more precise; satellite imaging identified the vast concentration camps used by China for its forced “rectification” programmes for Uyghurs. It is also possible from space to see who is illegally fishing and mining; which factories are using child labour; what infrastructure is reaching the end of its life; identify what rock formations might contain vital precious metals; anticipate droughts and floods; spot movements of troops and military hardware. Companies are proclaiming their commitment to the UN’s sustainability goals, but don’t, and can’t, fully audit more than a fraction of their global supply chains. The answer is simple: do it from space. Communications are being transformed. Air-traffic control systems for monitoring the whereabouts and the guidance of planes and drones will become wholly reliant on satellites. Universal 5G will best be delivered by the inclusion of constellations of low Earth-orbit satellites – like those to be provided later this year by OneWeb, the space company controversially bought off the receivers last year by the British government, which holds a golden share in the company. This was Dominic Cummings’ finest hour – even if he tried to justify it as a new freedom conferred by Brexit. So how come France can buy a stake, too – to join Japan and, it’s anticipated, Saudi Arabia? But without Cummings’ passionate conviction about Britain needing to have a space communication presence, a reluctant Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy would have killed the initiative. Next month the government is to publish its space strategy. It needs to be informed by the same daring that drove the OneWeb purchase. Britain is not China or the US, and leaving the EU has narrowed the possibilities of playing in the big league. But, nonetheless, Britain has assets. Alongside OneWeb are companies specialising in niches – manufacturing nano-satellites and antennae, and monitoring air quality. Leicester and its university is one of Europe’s leading centres for space exploration and manufacture, alongside Harwell in Oxford, and there are plans to make Fawley, Aylesbury, the north-east and Glasgow space innovation sites. The Satellite Applications Catapult (declaration: I am a non-executive director) is doing all it can to promote space-driven commercial activity, researching possibilities and brokering alliances. It has, for example, formed a consortium aiming to promote space-generated solar power, and, with Oxford University, is creating a centre to use satellite-gathered data not only to inform a green finance initiative but to create the AI for Planet Earth Institute, a kind of incipient Jenner Institute – not for frontier vaccines, but to promote sustainability. The public-private framework that worked so well in making Britain an international centre for vaccine manufacture in just 18 months should be applied for space as well. Britain needs to identify two or three areas in which it aims to be global number one – space-based solar power, Earth observation to mitigate climate change, and nano-satellite manufacture. Then we need to deliver on these goals with muscle and energy. We can’t pass this moment up. • Will Hutton is an Observer columnist | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'science/space', 'science/spacex', 'science/satellites', 'environment/solarpower', 'science/science', 'technology/technology', 'environment/energy', 'technology/elon-musk', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/willhutton', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-comment'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2021-05-02T06:45:25Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2022/apr/27/labor-defends-agricultural-visa-scheme-as-farmers-brace-for-minimum-wage-rise | Labor defends agricultural visa scheme as farmers brace for minimum wage rise | Labor has defended its plan to replace the agriculture visa announced by the federal government last year and offer more incentives to farm workers from the Pacific. Labor announced on Tuesday it would create a dedicated agriculture visa stream under the established Palm (Pacific Australia Labor Mobility) scheme, effectively replacing the Coalition’s new visa for forestry, fishery, and farm workers targeting workers from south-east Asia. The agriculture minister, David Littleproud, accused the opposition of scrapping the agricultural visa which Australian farmers needed to meet workforce shortages. “The Australian Workers’ Union have got their way and will kill the hopes of providing a long-term solution to the labour workforce issues in agriculture,” Littleproud said. “What Labor has announced today is what is already in place with some tinkering at the edges of the Pacific Labour Mobility Program.” The shadow minister for home affairs, Kristina Keneally, told ABC this was not the case as “the only thing that changes are the source countries, where the workers come from.” Labor’s would also publicly fund the initial travel costs of Pacific workers travelling to Australia rather than farmers, allow workers to bring their families and promote permanent residency on a new Pacific Engagement Visa. Keneally said the policy was developed after speaking to farmers who wanted long-term certainty, saying “not one worker has arrived” under the government’s agriculture visa. “The difference between Labor and the government – Labor’s ag visa has 55,000 workers ready to go,” Keneally said. However the CEO of AUSVEG, Michael Coote, the industry body for the vegetable and potato industry, said the proposed changes to the ag visa would restrict the number of partner countries and result in fewer workers on Australian farms. The Australian Workers Union said Labor’s policy would offer better conditions for workers. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter “Instead of begging the foreign minister to convince her Asian counterparts to accept a ‘trust us’ frankenstein visa with no safeguards, Labor’s plan would build on the success of the established Palm scheme, which would strengthen existing ties with our Pacific neighbours,” the secretary of the AWU, Daniel Walton said. Labor’s visa announcement comes as agricultural businesses prepare for the introduction of a guaranteed minimum wage for fruit pickers after the Fair Work’s Commission’s decision in response to the union’s application last year. Horticulture workers will no longer be dependent on the contentious piece rate payment, which pays the worker for the amount of fruit they pick as opposed to their time. From Thursday, employees can still be paid a piece rate, but they will be guaranteed a minimum wage for each day that they work. Walton said the change was a “momentous shift” for fruit pickers in Australia who he said have been routinely and systemically exploited and underpaid. “Too many farmers have been able to manipulate the piece rate system to establish pay and conditions far beneath Australian standards,” Walton said. However the president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, Emma Germano, said the changes will add extra pressure to the stretched agricultural workforce. The changes to the horticulture award also bring in a new definition of competency for pieceworkers who have at least 76 hours experience. As a result they will earn at least 15% more than the minimum hourly rate. Germano said that would make the hourly rate for competent casual workers nearly $30 an hour – the highest wages for fruit picking in the world. As a result, she said farmers will have to decide whether to let under average-competency workers stay picking fruit and vegetables, even if the efficiency doesn’t match the cost an hour, or let the fruit go unpicked. Germano said in the past, working groups such as grey nomads were happy to work for lower wages without the pressure to meet certain targets. She said the changes would increase the cost of production, which will be passed on to the consumer unless supermarkets absorb some of the cost increases. Abul Rizvi, an immigration adviser, said that while farmers might be able to show they are paying proper wages on paper, they could deduct costs such as accommodation, transport and visas at exorbitant rates. “Then the person ends up with close to nothing.” Both Germano and Rizvi want to see a strong compliance and enforcement regime from the Fair Work Ombudsmen to accompany the changes. “Or else the entire activity will have been in vain … because growers doing the right thing will be disadvantaged by unscrupulous operators who will have the capacity to undercut the market,” Germano said. Rizvi believed stronger legislative penalties against employers who fail to pay the minimum wage were needed. “In my view that should include criminal penalties, not just financial penalties,” Rizvi said. “Wage theft is stealing. It’s no different to going to the bank and stealing money.” 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/wages-growth', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'business/australia-economy', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'australia-news/industrial-relations', 'environment/farming', 'australia-news/australian-immigration-and-asylum', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/natasha-may', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-04-26T17:30:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/aug/05/flooding-could-occur-daily-in-sydney-by-the-end-of-this-century-because-of-climate-change | Flooding could occur daily in Sydney by the end of this century because of climate change | Flooding in localised areas around Sydney will happen almost every week by the middle of this century because of human-caused sea level rise, according to a study by scientists at the Bureau of Meteorology. The frequency of flooding around parks, gardens and footpaths had already gone up from less than two days per year in 1914 to a present day rate of about eight days per year, the study found. If greenhouse gas emissions remained high and no measures were taken to adapt to rising sea levels then flooding events caused simply by tides would be a daily occurrence in Sydney by the end of the century, the study found. Published in the journal Earth’s Future, the study concluded that between 1970 and 2015, human-caused sea level rise had likely been the cause of eight out of 10 flooding events in the Sydney region. Minor inundation had occurred on 248 days since 1970, the study found, but 203 of those days of minor flooding would not have happened without sea level rise. Human-caused global heating has caused sea levels to rise because as oceans warm up, they expand and take up more space. The melting of ice attached to the land – such as ice sheets and glaciers – also raises sea levels. Ben Hague, a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology who led the study, said: “What we are talking about here [is] the flooding of streets and car parks and gardens like December 2017 when parts of the Royal Botanic gardens were flooded.” Examples given in the study include the flooding of jetties and gardens at Browns Bay, Woolloomooloo and Elizabeth Bay in January 2014; flooded roads at Como in 2013 and major flooding of roads at Ku-ring-gai in January 2018. As well as analysing past minor flooding events, the study also looked at projections of sea level rise for the future to work out how often these flooding events would happen. The study, which included scientists from Monash University, did not account for flooding events exacerbated by storm surges coinciding with high tides. “All the estimates for 2050 are around weekly flooding with a low [greenhouse gas] emissions scenario, where we expect about 47 days per year and, for a higher emissions scenario, about 70 days per year.” By the end of the century, if emissions were reduced dramatically then flooding would occur “every second day”, Hague said, but if emissions were allowed to continue at current high rates then flooding would be a daily occurrence in the Sydney area. Hague said the results in the study presumed that no structural or engineering measures were taken to adapt to the flooding. “But we hope this study helps to improve risk assessments and forecasts and increases our resilience to coastal floods in the future,” he said. According to a 2019 United Nations report on climate change and the oceans, the world’s sea levels will be rising faster by the end of the century even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced quickly. Sea levels will rise by between 43cm and 84cm by the end of the century from their average levels between 1986 and 2005, depending on how much CO2 is emitted. A study in July found that combining rising sea levels with storm surges and high tides would likely expose an extra 23 million people around the world to coastal flooding in the next 30 years, even if greenhouse gas emissions were cut dramatically. Prof John Church, an expert on sea level rise at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said the findings of the study of Sydney flooding were broadly consistent with previous studies. He said: “The big uncertainties in future sea level rise are really the large-scale issues – climate sensitivity, the future of the ice sheets, and the regional distribution of sea level rise – rather than local issues. Of course local authorities need to be aware of the various local issues, including subsidence. “The general message here is absolutely correct – I have been stating for many years now that the historical one-in-100 year coastal flooding event will be occurring several times a year by 2100 in some locations for high emission scenarios. “This is clearly something we are going to have to deal with. This is the very important aspect of climate change and particularly sea level rise that I have argued for – while the impact today maybe moderate, if we take no action we are locking in very significant impacts in the future. And of course sea level rise does not stop in 2100.” Prof Matthew England, an oceanographer also at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, said the study was “credible”, adding that melting ice sheets could push sea levels even higher than current projections. “The numbers are already confronting and just with the thermal expansion of the oceans can make inundation a daily event.” Prof Kurt Lambeck, of the Australian National University, said the most serious issue related to sea level rise would be how it interacted with an increase in the magnitude of storms. “The underlying cause of the anthropogenic sea level change is the rising global temperature. Action on that is required to reduce the likelihood that current rates of sea level rise do not accelerate.” | ['environment/series/environmental-investigations', 'weather/sydney', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-08-04T17:30:09Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/may/29/great-barrier-reef-unesco-to-release-draft-ruling-on-in-danger-listing | Great Barrier Reef: Unesco to release draft ruling on 'in danger' listing | Unesco will release a draft ruling on whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger early on Saturday morning in a critical moment for Australia’s stewardship of the world’s largest coral reef. The recommendations will inform a final decision by the UN’s world heritage committee next month, which, if in favour of declaring the reef in danger, would herald a new era of outside scrutiny of its care. Federal and state ministers are reportedly confident that the scale of their investments and legislation to tackle reef threats – as well as an unprecedented lobbying effort by the Abbott government – will be enough to spare them the embarrassment of a listing. A listing, which would place the reef in the same category as the polluted Everglades national park in the US, would usher in yearly checks by the UN and would likely cause a jolt to a tourism industry worth $6bn. Environmentalists say that regardless of Australia’s ability to sway Unesco, the reef remains imperilled, with its health in long-term decline and threats increasing. Greenpeace political advisor Jessica Panegyres said that the decline meant Unesco was unlikely to give the reef the “clean bill of health” Australian governments were seeking. That scenario would see a listing ruled out and a UN check not due for another five years. Panegyres said another possible outcome was Unesco refraining from a listing this time but threatening to impose one if it found evidence of a decline in another two to five years. Australia’s Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan sets targets to cut pollution running on to the reef, including an 80% reduction in nitrogen and a 50% cut in sediment by 2025. The plan was updated months ago to include policies from the new Queensland Labor government which environmental groups welcomed, including a promise to ban the dumping of capital dredged sediment in the reef world heritage area and give $100m over five years to lift water quality. The federal government is banning dumping in the reef’s marine park and giving a further $100m in funding for the Reef Trust, a body that will work with landowners to stop chemicals flowing into the coral ecosystem. A new independent scientific panel, headed by the chief government scientist Ian Chubb, will oversee the trust’s work. Australia’s plan has been accompanied by a vigorous lobbying effort, including among the country’s Asian neighbours. The Queensland government will send its key political performer – deputy premier Jackie Trad – along with environment minister Steven Miles, to join the federal environment minister Greg Hunt in Bonn for the world heritage committee deliberations from 28 June. The draft decision, which Panegyres said would likely form the basis of the final ruling unless it was perceived as particularly “soft or controversial”, will be released in Paris at 1am AEST on Saturday. Panegyres said, regardless of the outcome, it was Greenpeace’s position that the reef was genuinely in danger, with a 50% loss of coral cover over 30 years among the key measures showing it was in continuous decline. The government’s own outlook report identified that half of the identified measures of world heritage values, from dugongs to threatened species habitats, were in decline. Meanwhile, the trajectory of the impacts was increasing, including the reef’s most serious long-term threat, climate change. Respected coral reef researchers Terry Hughes and Jon Day of James Cook university have said that the opening of new coal mines – a reference to plans for central Queensland’s Galilee basin – are “too risky” for the reef. However, both state and federal governments remain supportive of proposals by mining corporations to open massive new mines in the Galilee, which would increase shipping traffic through reef waters and industrial activity on the coast through port expansion. Panegyres said while the Queensland government gained kudos through some of its dredge-dumping bans and its water quality investments, it “wanted to have its cake and eat it too” through its support of new mines. Hughes and Day have also called for even tighter restrictions on dredging, with dumping of spoil still allowed in the reef’s world heritage area if it is from “maintenance” dredging. Panegyres said potentially “disastrous” dredging in existing port areas like Gladstone was still allowed. “The point is the reef is on a knife edge, it’s in a critical state, so why are we subjecting it to more harm, particularly when that exact harm will also drive climate change, which is the greatest long-term threat to the reef,” she said. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/coral', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'world/unesco', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joshua-robertson'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-05-28T22:40:30Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/jul/18/country-diary-the-exquisite-delicacy-of-little-terns | Country diary: The exquisite delicacy of little terns | Kate Blincoe | When I was eight, our family dog died and, for reasons best known to themselves, my parents decided to see how long it took us children to notice. It was three days. Sometimes an absence is overlooked, in the maelstrom of life, but only for so long. So it was that I sat on Winterton Beach, where the waves were choppy and a great mass of feeding seabirds gathered. Mediterranean gulls, a cormorant or two, some rowdy herring gulls. It was busy and active. I noted the common terns, diving into the water, and instinctively looked for the little tern, or “little pickies” to go by their Norfolk name. But there were none. Behind me, the fenced-off enclosure designed to protect them was empty. I felt that lurching sense of loss, especially as avian flu is wreaking devastating impacts on seabird colonies. I feared the worst – but there was no disaster. Little tern colonies often shift. According to the RSPB, the terns did attempt to nest here, but a couple of low-flying aircraft may have caused a “dread event”, where the birds abandon the site to find another. The species is so vulnerable. Their nests are mere scrapes on the beach, and their eggs, such speckled perfection, are nearly invisible on shingle and easily crushed underfoot on popular beaches. Little terns also face habitat loss, predation, food shortage and the risk of high spring tides washing nests away. After that, there’s the small matter of a perilous migration to west Africa. I head north along the coast to Eccles-on-Sea to find what I was missing. The colony is lively, noisy. I’m shocked afresh at how delicate little terns are. They flit over the sea with the grace of a swallow, then hover, briefly suspended, before slicing into the water, kingfisher-like. Many emerge with the glistening silver shock of a tiny fish, which they hurry back to a fluffy chick. All at once, the colony lifts into a raucous cloud. The RSPB warden scans the sky. Is this a kestrel attack? She is ready to sound the klaxon, but it’s a false alarm. Relative calm is restored. This is fragility, this is strength, this is life on the edge. • Country diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/birds', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/coastlines', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-blincoe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-18T04:30:45Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2011/feb/11/iran-nuclearpower | Iran claims to have built fusion reactor | While the world was watching Egypt tonight, Iran snuck out a claim that it has built a nuclear fusion device. Press TV reports that: The device uses Inertial Electrostatic Confinement method and can produce isotopes and radioisotopes used in diagnosing and curing cancer. The US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and France are the only countries which boast fusion technology. Press TV did not mention North Korea, which claimed to have mastered fusion technology last May. The Iranian boast is not so bold, though. Tehran is not saying it can generate energy through fusion, simply that it can manufacture medical isotopes. The political significance of the claim is clear. It suggests Iran would not need outside help for its Tehran Research Reactor - a need that was once seen as the basis for a short-term compromise on Iran's nuclear programme, or a confidence-building measure at least. But is the claim feasible? There are many bench-top experiments in fusion going on around the world, and at least one relatively low-tech design which seems to resemble the device Press TV is describing, and which has been shown to be a viable neutron source. But can one of these designs make medical isotopes, or is it a hoax? I would be interested to hear from experts. | ['world/julian-borger-global-security-blog', 'world/iran', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/julianborger'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-02-11T00:36:22Z | true | ENERGY |
global-development/2023/aug/21/rich-countries-trap-poor-nations-into-relying-on-fossil-fuels | Rich countries ‘trap’ poor nations into relying on fossil fuels | Richer countries and private lenders are trapping heavily indebted countries into reliance on fossil fuels, according to a new report. The pressure to repay debts is forcing poor nations to continue investing in fossil fuel projects to make their repayments on what are usually loans from richer nations and financial institutions, according to new analysis from the anti-debt campaigners Debt Justice and partners in affected countries. The group is calling for creditors to cancel all debts for countries facing crisis – and especially those linked to fossil fuel projects. “High debt levels are a major barrier to phasing out fossil fuels for many global south countries,” said Tess Woolfenden, a senior policy officer at Debt Justice. “Many countries are trapped exploiting fossil fuels to generate revenue to repay debt while, at the same time, fossil fuel projects often do not generate the revenues expected and can leave countries further indebted than when they started. This toxic trap must end.” According to the report, the debt owed by global south countries has increased by 150% since 2011 and 54 countries are in a debt crisis, having to spend five times more on repayments than on addressing the climate crisis. Daniel Ribeiro, a programme coordinator for the Mozambican environmental campaign Justiça Ambiental, said the country’s debt burden had been doubled by loans taken without parliament’s permission from London-based banks in 2013, based on projections of earnings from its gas field discoveries. Mozambique was plunged into a debt crisis when oil and gas prices fell in 2014-16, Ribeiro said, but the solutions from international lenders to bail out the country have relied on loans being repaid through future gas revenues. “The debt caused by fossil fuels are being structured to be paid back by fossil fuels, solidifying a vicious cycle of having to move forward and having very severe consequences of not wanting to continue with fossil fuels,” Ribeiro said. Suriname faced a similar situation after defaulting on its debt, when in 2020 it agreed a deal that would give creditors the right to almost 30% of Suriname’s oil revenue until 2050. Sharda Ganga, the director of the Surinamese civil society group Projekta, said they had hoped the deal would have remained within the country’s climate commitments. Ganga said: “As our debt has grown unsustainable, it dominates all policy decisions and impacts the lives of our citizens in every possible way. Earning money as quickly as possible in order to pay back the creditors is therefore priority number one. It means there is no more room for patience and such pesky things like sustainability or climate justice. “The reality is that this is the new form of colonialism – we have exchanged one ruler for the rule of our creditors who basically already own what is ours. The difference is this time we signed the deal ourselves.” Leandro Gómez, a campaigner on investment and rights at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Farn) in Argentina, said the country has been stripped of sovereignty to transition away from fossil fuels, and was having to subsidise fossil fuel companies, encourage fracking projects and cancel renewable energy projects. The report also said many climate-affected countries needed more access to grants to pay for the effects of changing climate, as many are forced further into debt to pay for repairs after cyclones and floods. Most of the $10bn (£7bn) in financial assistance provided to Pakistan after last year’s floods was in the form of loans, while the share of Dominica’s debt of its gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 68% to 78% after Hurricane Maria in 2017. Mae Buenaventura, from the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development, said: “The climate and debt crises emerged from the same system that is based on the global north’s relentless extraction of human, economic and environmental resources to feed the drive for profit and greed.” She said debt cancellation was the least that rich countries and lenders could do. | ['global-development/global-development', 'world/debt-relief', 'world/world', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/mozambique', 'world/suriname', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/kaamil-ahmed', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2023-08-21T05:00:07Z | true | EMISSIONS |
commentisfree/2023/jan/03/lula-protect-amazon-brazil-bolsonaro | Can Lula save the Amazon? His record shows he might just pull it off | Andre Pagliarini | This week, as Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was preparing to be sworn in for an unprecedented third term, a key concern was whether the weather would allow him to wave to assembled supporters in Brasília from an open-top convertible, as is customary. It certainly marked a departure from the more serious concerns that had haunted the transfer of power between him and his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, in previous weeks. Thousands of Bolsonaro followers, after all, had refused to accept the outcome of last year’s elections. Many camped outside military barracks urging the armed forces to intervene, committing serious acts of vandalism in the nation’s capital. Thankfully, their pleas came to nothing – Bolsonaro unceremoniously left for Florida on the last day of the year – and Lula is officially back. No president in Latin America’s largest nation has ever won three elections, a testament to the former metalworker’s enduring popularity and political relevance. Lula faces many challenges, particularly given the scorched-earth nature of Bolsonaro’s policies. In this context, his first measures after taking office assume special symbolic importance, setting the tone for what observers at home and abroad might expect from this new administration. This brings us to the fate of the Amazon rainforest. In his inaugural address to congress, Lula said, “Our goal is to achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon and zero greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity matrix, in addition to encouraging the revitalisation of degraded pastures.” Implicitly criticising Brazil’s major agricultural producers, which are overwhelmingly responsible for environmental degradation, Lula insisted: “Brazil does not need to deforest to maintain and expand its strategic agricultural frontier.” Among the first decrees he signed were measures strengthening environmental protections and fighting deforestation – one repealed a Bolsonaro initiative that effectively made illegal land-grabbing easier. During his time in office, Bolsonaro did almost nothing to enforce the country’s stringent environmental protection laws. This was in part because he had little incentive to – major agricultural interests formed a key part of his political constituency. Lula’s new measures also called on his environment minister Marina Silva, whose office was notably renamed Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, to present new guidelines for the National Environment Council, which had been undermined by Bolsonaro. A major challenge for Lula will be balancing Brazil’s economic interest in a vibrant agricultural sector, which has become key to the country’s foreign trade portfolio in recent decades, with the need to rein in the deforestation that has cleared thousands of acres of jungle to create new pastures for cattle. Agricultural interests are a major political force in Brazil. The fact that such interests so overwhelmingly supported Bolsonaro, a president who represented a direct threat to Brazil’s democratic order, will make threading this particular policy needle very difficult for Lula. How to deliver on environmental protections while not further alienating agricultural interests that already distrust him? At least for now, Lula shows no signs of giving ground to the actors driving so much of the country’s deforestation. On his first day in office he also signed a measure recreating the Amazon Fund, which works as a mechanism for foreign governments to help pay for preservation efforts. As the Guardian reported last November, the fund was effectively paralysed under the previous administration; some 3.2bn reais (£490m) that had already been donated were frozen. The devastation of the Amazon rainforest that Bolsonaro allowed to happen was perhaps the most critical development driving a wedge between Brazil and much of the world in recent years. While leaders in western Europe and the United States fretted about Bolsonaro’s disregard for the world’s largest tropical rainforest, Bolsonaro accused them of seeking to undermine Brazilian sovereignty. Lula’s new move has already garnered a pledge from German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who attended Lula’s inauguration, of €35m (£31m) for the Amazon Fund. More is likely to follow. The moves on the environmental front represent what is likely to be Lula’s strategy in his third term: marrying a commitment to strengthening democracy and easing inequality at home with a reassertion of Brazilian relevance in global affairs. During Lula’s previous stint in office, Brazil emerged as a world leader on matters of poverty reduction, wealth redistribution, and environmental protection. Under Lula, for instance, deforestation plummeted by a stunning 70%. The message of the incoming administration is clear: Brazil is back as a reasonable and effective player on the international stage. Lula’s return was celebrated – implicitly and sometimes explicitly – by various foreign leaders eager to see a Brazilian government committed to creative, bold and effective public policy and international engagement. But it won’t be easy. Lula must deliver on the immense promise represented by his third term in office. Brazil’s standing on the world stage and the continued vitality of Brazilian democracy might just depend on it. • This article was amended on 4 January 2023 to correct an error in a currency conversion. Andre Pagliarini is an assistant professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He is working on a book about the politics of nationalism in modern Brazilian history | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva', 'world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/andre-pagliarini'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-01-03T14:00:45Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2021/sep/14/weatherwatch-venezuelas-varied-climate | Weatherwatch: Venezuela’s varied climate | The most northerly country in South America, Venezuela is also the sixth largest – roughly one-and-a-half times the size of France or Texas. It is very varied topographically, from the northernmost part of the Andes mountains in the west, via the Orinoco River, which runs across the country towards its coastal delta, to the Guiana Highlands in the east. Being so close to the equator, there is very little variation in temperature from month to month: the capital, Caracas, has typical daily maxima in the mid-20s, and night-time temperatures in the mid-teens, throughout the year. It is noticeably cooler than coastal cities because of its higher altitude: roughly 1,050 metres (3,420ft) above sea level. What does vary is the rainfall: unusually for South America, the rainy season coincides with the summer months, from May through to November, making conditions very humid and unpleasant. The dry season runs from December to April, and is the best time to visit. However, the very varied topography of the country does mean that local variations in climate can be very pronounced. The climate along the coast also varies considerably. Maracaibo, in the west, is hot, sunny and fairly dry all year round; while the Orinoco Delta, to the east towards the border with Guyana, gets about 2,000mm (almost 80in) of rain a year, with no real “dry season”. | ['world/venezuela', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'weather/venezuela', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'weather/index/southamerica', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-09-14T05:00:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/aug/22/britain-first-commercial-refinery-extracting-precious-metals-e-waste-mint-innovation | Britain to get first commercial refinery for extracting precious metals from e-waste | The UK is to get its first commercial refinery for extracting precious metals from electronic waste, which will also be the world’s first to use bacteria rather than cyanide-based processes. A New Zealand startup, Mint Innovation, plans to open the facility within 12 months in Cheshire, in the north of England, after delays caused by the Covid-19 crisis. The UK’s impending exit from the EU has provided an urgent economic need for such a facility – a UN report last month found at least $10bn (£7.9bn) of gold, platinum and other precious metals were dumped every year in a growing mountain of e-waste. When the Commons environmental audit committee launched its inquiry into e-waste and the circular economy last year, its then chair, Mary Creagh, criticised the UK’s “unsustainable” approach to e-waste and called for radical action. The UK produced more e-waste than the EU average and was “one of the worst offenders for exporting e-waste to developing countries ill-equipped to dispose of it in a socially and environmentally responsible way”, she said. Recyclers in the UK have to send printed circuit boards to mainland Europe to have the precious metals they contain extracted. After Brexit, the costs of doing this are expected to rise. Rhys Charles, a researcher at Swansea University’s College of Engineering, said: “If we have to pay import and export duties to access processes it could be detrimental to recycling at a time when it is becoming more strategically important to build our own circular economy.” Mint was set up in 2016 to develop a bio-refinery that combines hydrometallurgy and biotechnology to safely extract metals – including gold, palladium, silver and copper – from e-waste. Ollie Crush, the company’s chief scientific officer, says the key features of its refineries are that they are low-cost, green, and local to where the waste is being created. “The plants are very agricultural, more like a small microbrewery. The regulatory tailwind is for western nations to handle their own waste stream. We offer the same yield as the big smelters, the same level of service and quicker,” he said. “But unlike the smelters, we do not use cyanide and we use less energy, less CO2, less water, less waste. A refinery can be popped into any nation, region or city.’ The Cheshire refinery – Mint has not revealed the plant’s exact location in the county – will initially be able to process 20 tonnes of e-waste per day and, if the demand is there, this can be scaled up. Another plant in the south of England is being considered and a refinery is planned for Sydney, Australia. Jason Love, a professor of molecular inorganic chemistry at Edinburgh University, says technical challenges need to be addressed if the mining of precious metals from electronic waste is to be truly sustainable and environmentally neutral. He said: “What Mint is doing seems very nice but I don’t think it is groundbreaking. The real sticking point is how do you dissolve the metals. The company’s selling point is its use of microbes but that is only one aspect of its process. It is using acids too.” Mint says it does not use cyanide but “common weak acids and a bit of tricky chemistry”. According to Crush: “From the start, it has been our intention to recycle as much of the chemicals we use as possible.” Charles says if Mint can deliver it will be a game-changer. “Localised, smaller scale recovery benefits local people, they see the value of it to their community and town and so are more likely to buy into it. This is how you start to build truly sustainable economic development.” • This article was amended on 25 August 2020 to clarify that Mint has not said where in Cheshire the plant will be located. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'technology/technology', 'environment/recycling', 'business/business', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-08-22T07:00:22Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
technology/2008/feb/02/microsoft.yahoo | Expert view: Microsoft tries to buy way into 21st century | Microsoft's bid for Yahoo is a public confession of failure: an admission that despite the company's resources Microsoft has failed to build up an effective presence on its own in key areas such as search, web advertising and services that Google has been so spectacularly successful at. Instead it is trying to buy its way into the 21st century. Microsoft has proved very successful at preserving its 90% plus monopoly of operating systems, spreadsheets and word processing but is much less successful where it faces stiff competition. Will it work? Academic studies indicates that most mergers fail because they are entered into for the wrong reasons (defence against a predator, buying market share or just management aggrandisement). It is not immediately obvious why this one will be any different. If this is a plan to use Yahoo's vast networks to protect Microsoft's monopoly base it will almost certainly fail. If it uses Yahoo as the vehicle to drive the combined company into hosting services - from photographs to documents - on the web rather than your hard disk (which is where Microsoft is powerful) then it could be a success. Microsoft was late to realise the importance of the web but when it did it acted ruthlessly to establish a strong presence. But to succeed this time it may need to make this a reverse take-over by letting Yahoo lead the way. That is not Microsoft's style. There are obvious benefits in merging their web advertising businesses but in other areas they will find that merging, say, web communities, such as Yahoo's Flickr photo site, with Microsoft's versions will be difficult technologically and culturally because they attract different kinds of people. The biggest argument in favour - and one that may tip the balance with the competition authorities - is that the combined company could provide much needed competition for Google which is in danger of becoming too dominant in the search market. So far, with some exceptions such as giving in over censorship to the Chinese authorities, Google has been a model corporation. But the stronger it gets, the greater will be the temptation to misuse its power. According to the latest figures from ComScore, Google currently has 62% of the global search market but the combined new company would only have a global share of 15.7%. But this doesn't adequately reflect their relative strengths in other areas. Anyone who believes in the widest possible competition and on the economic consequences of mergers must have reservations about this one but at least it might help Google to help itself. · Vic Keegan is the Guardian's technology columnist | ['technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/microsoft', 'media/digital-media', 'technology/yahoo', 'business/technology', 'business/useconomy', 'technology/google', 'technology/technology', 'media/mediabusiness', 'media/media', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-02-02T11:42:12Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/cif-green/2010/sep/03/rajendra-pachauri-ipcc | If Rajendra Pachauri goes, who on Earth would want to be IPCC chair? | John Vidal | When it first emerged in India that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had made a major blunder about the date the Himalayan glaciers were predicted to melt, the sceptics predictably called for the head of Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chair. There followed a series of malicious falsehoods and disinformation from journalists and bloggers about his business interests. Without waiting for retractions or the evidence of any inquiries or investigations, leading western environmentalists and other commentators shamefully rushed in to say he should resign. And now, following the InterAcademy Council (IAC) report into the IPCC's processes earlier this week (which also found Pachauri not guilty of any misconduct), commentators and editorials in the Times, Financial Times, Time, New Scientist and Telegraph have called for his resignation. The BBC's Roger Harrabin has also suggested that Pachauri's "time appears to be running out". The reason most given? That by staying, Pachauri would give the sceptics more ammunition. This is almost certainly sloppy group-think rather than a co-ordinated attack on Pachauri, but a pattern is emerging of IPCC chairs being shamefully hounded from office by powerful forces in rich countries. Back in 2002 the previous chair, Bob Watson, fell victim to the oil company Exxon and the Bush administration after just three years in office. Corporate America regarded the British-born scientist as far too outspoken and potentially too dangerous to industry, and a stitch-up by the US administration and a few friendly developing countries saw Pachauri replace Watson. Western environmentalists leapt to defend Watson, many implying in a disturbing way that the new chair was inferior. What Bush and his friends did not anticipate was that Pachauri would be just as outspoken about the perils of climate change, and was no patsy when it came to politics. If Pachauri goes – and the decision can only be taken by governments – two years into his second six-year term, then no future IPCC chair can ever feel safe. No decent candidate will ever be appointed again because the job – which involves no salary – will rightly be seen as impossible to do. The next IPCC report, the fifth assessment, will be finalised in 2014 and it can be guaranteed that the newly empowered sceptics will redouble their efforts to pick the most minute of holes in the vast swaths of scientific evidence that it will contain. If a chair must go every time the sceptics and the press attack, then every IPCC chairman will be mercilessly hounded on a personal and political level. Hunting the chair will become a destructive sport not unlike vilifying football managers, guaranteed to destroy continuity, undermine trust, and encourage uncontroversial science. Ousting the IPCC chairman mid-term again would be the ultimate victory for scepticism of the wildest kind. The absurdity of the latest attack is that Pachauri himself called on the IAC report specifically to improve IPCC procedures. If the plenary session of the IPCC does pass the recommendations made, then it will be up to Pachauri to implement them. The report suggested that in future one term only should be served, but it did not suggest that the man who implements reform should have to step down immediately. Pachauri, in fact, has been a rare find and a staunch defender of international science. As the first chair of the IPCC from a developing country he has not just succeeded in engaging Africa and the poorest countries in the climate debate, but has given them a voice. It is quite possible that it is exactly this loud, uncompromising voice from the south demanding justice and compensation from the polluters, that so offends the western press and its commentators. | ['environment/rajendra-pachauri', 'environment/ipcc', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'tone/comment', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2010-09-03T15:17:15Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2018/dec/17/climate-change-activists-vow-step-up-protests-around-world | Climate change activists vow to step up protests around world | Civil society groups have pledged growing international protests to drive rapid action on global warming after the UN climate summit in Poland. The summit agreed rules for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement, which aims to keep global warming as close to 1.5C (2.7F) as possible, but it made little progress in increasing governments’ commitments to cut emissions. The world remains on track for 3C of warming, which scientists says will bring catastrophic extreme weather. Many NGOs said national leaders at the summit had failed to address the urgency of climate change, which is already making heatwaves and storms more frequent and intense, harming millions of people. May Boeve, the executive director of the 350.org climate change campaign group, said: “Hope now rests on the shoulders of the many people who are rising to take action: the inspiring children who started an unprecedented wave of strikes in schools to support a fossil-free future; the 1,000-plus institutions that committed to pull their money out of coal, oil, and gas, and the many communities worldwide who keep resisting fossil fuel development.” The school strikes began in August as a solo protest by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg in Sweden. Addressing the summit in Poland, she said: “If children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes. We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.” Members of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement said there was a rising tide of protest. “We pay tribute to activists, students, civil society and the leaders of vulnerable countries who are rising up all over the world demanding more,” said Farhana Yamin, from XR UK. “We need now to work together to build an emergency coalition focused squarely on tackling climate devastation.” XR branches have been set up in 35 countries, organisers said. US protesters aim to organise a day of action on 26 January 2019, and international activists are planning a global week of action from 15 April 2019. XR protests took place in more than a dozen towns across the UK over the weekend, from chalk-spraying a government building in Bristol to holding a “die-in” demonstration in Cambridge and handing out trees in Glasgow. Patti Lynn, the executive director of the Corporate Accountability campaign group, said: “We will continue to build our movements at home and we will escalate global campaigns to hold big polluters accountable for their role in the climate crisis. The movement to demand climate justice has never been more united, organised or determined. Our day is coming and we will win.” Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, said: “People are fed up, outraged and are taking action to defend their homes and children and pushing their leaders to act These people are the hope of our generation and governments must finally stand with them and give us all reasons for hope.” In the US, Michael Brune, the head of the Sierra Club environmental campaign group, said: “The American people are joined by the rest of the world in signalling that they will not tolerate any more of Trump’s shameful blustering and inaction, and they have taken up the mantle of climate action while Trump abdicates any semblance of global leadership.” He said more than 100 US cities had committed to 100% clean energy, covering 15% of the US population. Stephan Singer, a chief adviser at Climate Action Network, an umbrella group for 1,300 NGOs in more than 120 countries, pointed to the wide range of people taking action and demanding more, including youth and faith groups, indigenous peoples, health authorities, farmers, trade unions, city authorities and some financial institutions. “All these actions and many more have to magnify and multiply in the next years,” he said. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/activism', 'environment/environment', 'world/protest', 'environment/conservation', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/greenpeace', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2018-12-17T14:30:38Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
science/audio/2011/apr/25/science-weekly-podcast-antibiotic-resistance | Science Weekly Podcast: Antibiotic resistance and the eater of time | This week on Science Weekly presented by Nell Boase, we hear from a leading member of the UK's science establishment Sir Richard Sykes. Sir Richard is chair of the Royal Institution and on 6 May will present a lecture on Darwinian evolution in microbes and the growing threat to human health from antibiotic resistance. Sir Richard also spoke about the role of the Royal Institution and his belief that we need radical reform of the way we teach science to the young. Nell is joined in the pod by Guardian science writer Ian Sample and environment correspondent Fiona Harvey to discuss the top science stories of the week, including the revelation that chimpanzees and humans give birth in exactly the same way, and the controversy surrounding shale gas extraction. Finally we hear a report from Rebecca Hill on the unveiling this week of Dr John Taylor's Chronophage, an innovative time-eating clock that will be on display at the Science Museum, London, alongside another of Britain's greatest clocks and the key to 18th century GPS, Harrison's clock. Subscribe for free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed). Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science. Email scienceweeklypodcast@gmail.com. Guardian Science is now on Facebook. You can also join our Science Weekly Facebook group. We're always here when you need us. Listen back through our archive. | ['science/science', 'science/series/science', 'environment/fracking', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oil', 'culture/museums', 'science/microbiology', 'science/drugs', 'science/evolution', 'science/biology', 'society/antibiotics', 'society/drug-resistance', 'type/audio'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2011-04-24T23:01:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2022/jun/14/nso-group-pegasus-us-l3harris | US defence contractor in talks to take over NSO Group’s hacking technology | The US defence contractor L3Harris is in talks to take over NSO Group’s surveillance technology, in a possible deal that would give an American company control over one of the world’s most sophisticated and controversial hacking tools. Multiple sources confirmed that discussions were centred on a sale of the Israeli company’s core technology – or code – as well as a possible transfer of NSO personnel to L3Harris. But any agreement still faces significant hurdles, including requiring the blessing of the US and Israeli governments, which have not yet given the green light to a deal. In a statement, a senior White House official said: “Such a transaction, if it were to take place, raises serious counterintelligence and security concerns for the US government.” This story was jointly reported by the Guardian, the Washington Post and Haaretz. If agreed, the deal would mark an astounding turnaround for NSO, less than a year after the Biden administration placed the company on a US blacklist and accused it of acting “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US”. NSO’s government clients are known to have used the surveillance technology to target journalists, human rights activists, senior government officials in US-allied countries, and lawyers around the world. The Guardian and other media outlets have also detailed how NSO’s surveillance technology, Pegasus, has been used by the company’s government clients to target American citizens, including Carine Kanimba, daughter of the Rwandan dissident Paul Rusesabagina, as well as journalists, activists and US state department officials working abroad. Asked to comment on the talks, an L3Harris spokesperson said: “We are aware of the capability and we are constantly evaluating our customers’ national security needs. At this point, anything beyond that is speculation.” The talks between L3 and NSO were first reported by Intelligence Online. The White House said that it had not been involved in “any way in this reported potential transaction”. The senior White House official also said the US government “opposes efforts by foreign companies to circumvent US export control measures or sanctions, including placement on the US Department of Commerce’s Entity List for malicious cyber activity”. The official said that any US company – particularly a cleared US defence contractor – should be aware that a transaction with a blacklisted company would “not automatically remove a designated entity from the Entity List, and would spur intensive review to examine whether the transaction poses a counterintelligence threat to the US Government and its systems and information, whether other US equities with the defense contractor may be at risk, to what extent a foreign entity or government retains a degree of access or control, and the broader human rights implications”. One person familiar with the talks said that if a deal were agreed, it would probably involve selling NSO’s capabilities to a drastically curtailed customer base that would include the US government, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada – which comprise the “five eyes” intelligence alliance – as well as some Nato allies. The person also said that the deal faced several unresolved issues, including whether the technology would be housed in Israel or the US and whether Israel would be allowed to continue to use the technology as a customer. The person said it was also too soon to confirm the price of any possible deal. The transaction would require US government approval since NSO is on the commerce department’s so-called entity list. Experts said that any such transaction would probably require the creation of a new entity in order to get US approval. Any deal would also face hurdles in Israel. One assumption in the Israeli cyber industry is that it would have to keep oversight of the Israeli-made technology in Israel, and keep all development of Pegasus and personnel in Israel. NSO is regulated by the Israeli ministry of defence, which has had ultimate say over the company’s government clients. Israel has faced intense criticism in the past for agreeing to sell the surveillance technology to countries with poor human rights records, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. NSO, which is being sued by Apple and WhatsApp in US courts, has in the past said it takes all allegations of abuse of its tools seriously, and that it investigates such claims. The Israeli ministry of defence and NSO declined to comment. Any takeover of NSO’s hacking technology would add to L3Harris’s current suite of surveillance tools, which are already sold to US government and law enforcement clients. The company, which is based in Florida and reports about $18bn in annual sales, includes the FBI and Nato as clients. Any potential deal faces stiff opposition from digital rights advocates and human rights groups. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab at the Munk School at the University of Toronto, said he was doubtful that US agencies, and the agencies of the US’s closest allies, would trust NSO technology for their most sensitive operations, and it would therefore more likely be sold to local authorities. “So where would the big market be? I fear the logical consumers would be US police departments. This would be an unprecedented threat to our civil liberties,” he said. The deal would also raise serious questions about the Biden administration’s commitment to holding “bad actors” accountable, Scott-Railton said. “All eyes are on NSO right now. If the White House doesn’t stop this deal, many will conclude that the administration is weak on enforcement, or that they’re cynical and helped a US company pick up NSO at fire-sale prices because it was sanctioned,” he said, adding that any such deal would show that US sanctions did not have teeth and would encourage more investment in the “mercenary hacking space”. Additional reporting by Omer Benjakob from Haaretz, Gur Megiddo from TheMarker, and Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg from the Washington Post | ['world/surveillance', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/israel', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/technology', 'world/middleeast', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stephanie-kirchgaessner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-06-14T20:25:48Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2018/jun/28/bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-report | Deepwater Horizon disaster altered building blocks of ocean life | The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster may have had a lasting impact upon even the smallest organisms in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have found – amid warnings that the oceans around America are also under fresh assault as a result of environmental policies under Donald Trump. Lingering oil residues have altered the basic building blocks of life in the ocean by reducing biodiversity in sites closest to the spill, which occurred when a BP drilling rig exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing about 4m barrels of oil into the Gulf. Researchers took sediment samples in 2014 from shipwrecks scattered up to 150km (93 miles) from the spill site to study how microbial communities on the wrecks have changed. On two shipwrecks close to the source of the outpouring of oil – a German U-Boat and a wooden 19th-century sailing vessel – scientists saw a visible oil residue. “At the sites closest to the spill, biodiversity was flattened,” said Leila Hamdan, a microbial ecologist at the University of Southern Mississippi and lead author of the study. “There were fewer types of microbes. This is a cold, dark environment and anything you put down there will be longer lasting than oil on a beach in Florida. It’s premature to imagine that all the effects of the spill are over and remediated.” The BP oil disaster fouled more than 1,300 miles of coastline, caking seabirds and killing sea creatures and other wildlife, leading to huge financial losses for the tourism and fishing industries. But Hamdan said the oil’s impact on microbes, each measuring just a fraction of a millimeter, could prove even more significant given their foundational role at the base of the ocean food chain. “We rely heavily on the ocean and we could be looking at potential effects to the food supply down the road,” she said. “Deep sea microbes regulate carbon in the atmosphere and recycle nutrients. I’m concerned there will be larger consequences from this sort of event.” The findings, published on Thursday, come as the Trump administration dismantles ocean conservation measures put in place by former president Barack Obama in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon calamity. Last week, Trump issued an executive order that essentially revoked an Obama directive that established the National Ocean Council to “ensure the protection, maintenance and restoration” of the oceans and the Great Lakes. Trump’s order, which does not mention the Deepwater Horizon spill, hands more responsibility to the states for drilling safety and frames environmental protections as a potential barrier to industries that “enhance America’s energy security”. The president said he was “rolling back excessive bureaucracy created by the previous administration” with his order. Congressional Republicans and industry groups cheered the move, which follows Trump’s sweeping expansion of offshore areas, including the Arctic, available for drilling. Jack Belcher, managing director of the pro-industry National Ocean Policy Coalition, said Trump’s order removes “a significant cloud of uncertainty” for businesses. But conservationists are appalled. Christy Goldfuss, a former environmental adviser to Obama, said Trump is waging an “all-out war on America’s oceans”. “Trump is trying to wash his hands of responsibility for the real and urgent threats facing America’s coastal communities – namely, the impacts of climate change,” said Goldfuss, who is now a senior vice-president at the Center for American Progress. “In the absence of a president who is willing to lead, it is now more important than ever that coastal governors, tribal leaders, state legislatures and local communities take up the mantle of leadership and work together to defend and restore the health of America’s oceans.” | ['environment/bp-oil-spill', 'environment/oil-spills', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-06-28T14:03:20Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2017/sep/04/eu-trade-deal-must-protect-the-amazon | EU trade deal must protect the Amazon | Letters | The proposal to open up the Renca reserve in the Amazon for exploitation by large mining companies would be catastrophic for the earth’s climate, for biodiversity and for local indigenous communities. At the same time, the European Union is negotiating a new trade agreement with Mercosur, the Latin America regional trade bloc, of which Brazil currently holds the presidency. This is a vital opportunity for the EU to use our trade muscle to make clear that the Amazon is not for sale and that minerals extracted from a protected reserve will never find their way onto European markets. World Trade Organisation rules also make clear that trading parties have a legitimate right to ban imports if it is “necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health”. I have written to trade commissioner Malmström stating my clear view that the Renca reserve is necessary to protect human life and demanding that she excludes its products from the free trade deal. I will be urging my MEP colleagues to vote against the deal if it does not include this guarantee. Molly Scott Cato MEP Green, South West England • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'world/brazil', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-09-04T18:16:39Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2014/aug/11/weatherwatch-storm-bertha-boomerang | Weatherwatch: Boomerang Bertha | On Sunday tropical storm Bertha provided a rude interruption to the UK's summer. A deluge of rain swept its way up the country, accompanied by strong winds, with gusts of over 50mph. Ferry services were cancelled, a yacht race had to be postponed, train services were disrupted, roads were flooded, and a "mini-tornado" brought down trees in Hull. Bertha started life on 1 August, spinning up over the warm waters of the tropical Atlantic. After swirling northwards she wound herself up to hurricane strength and battered islands in the Caribbean, before "boomeranging" back across the north Atlantic to pummel British shores. Currently Europe only sees a handful of these ex-tropical storms, like Bertha, but in future they are likely to become more common, particularly as summer draws to a close. Using a high resolution climate model, Reindert Haarsma from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and colleagues, found that the number of hurricane force storms whipping up the waves in early autumn (August to October) between Norway and the Bay of Biscay is likely to increase from an average of two per year to thirteen by the end of the 21st Century. Their findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The main reason for the increase in tropical storms is a rise in sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Atlantic ocean, enlarging the breeding ground of tropical storms. As this new breeding ground is closer to western Europe, any storm that does follow a boomerang shape won't have so far to travel, meaning there is more chance of them maintaining strength and causing more damage. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-08-11T20:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/mar/02/overconsumption-by-rich-must-be-tackled-says-acting-un-biodiversity-chief-aoe | Overconsumption by the rich must be tackled, says acting UN biodiversity chief | Governments and businesses must start implementing this decade’s deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems as soon as possible, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, urging rich nations to tackle overconsumption of the planet’s resources. David Cooper, the new acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), said countries and corporations must immediately act on December’s historic agreement in Montreal, which includes targets to protect 30% of Earth, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and address and disclose the impact businesses have on biodiversity. Some scientists believe humans are causing Earth’s sixth mass extinction event due to overconsumption and pollution, driving the largest loss of life since the time of the dinosaurs. Despite the scientific warnings, governments have never met a UN biodiversity target they have set for themselves and there is a major effort to make sure this decade is different. “The results have to be achieved by 2030, meaning that action has to be taken now. That means we need money and plans from governments now,” said Cooper. “Countries should be working on national targets and agree a government-wide plan. The key thing at this stage is to ask what the agreement means for the agricultural sector, infrastructure, health, urban development and economic development. “There are various ways that countries can proceed. They could have outcome-oriented aims [that make an overall target the law], a bit like the UK has on the climate. When we look at successes in the past, like the previous Lula administration [in Brazil], which achieved an 80% drop in deforestation in the Amazon, that was achieved through a whole-of-government approach. It was a mixture of laws, incentives, investment in agricultural research and improving data,” he said. Cooper has taken over from Elizabeth Mrema, who has recently become deputy UN environment chief, while a successor is appointed. Cooper, who is British, had been deputy UN biodiversity chief since 2015 and played a key role in Cop15 negotiations in Montreal. After the agreement in Canada, the main UN fund for biodiversity – the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – has started the process of creating a new arm to channel money for conservation efforts around the world. China, Indonesia, Mexico, India and Brazil are now the top recipients of funding from the GEF. Smaller biodiverse countries, especially those from Africa, wanted a new fund to pay for targets on protecting and restoring nature. The design and aim of the new fund will be agreed later this year. Cooper said it was important that donor countries made good on their financial commitments agreed at Cop15 and said businesses should also begin adapting their practices. The final agreement signed in Montreal included a target for businesses to assess and disclose their impacts on nature. “Businesses, particularly large and transnational businesses, need to properly account for their impacts on biodiversity, as well as their dependency on it. Having to disclose those impacts obviously puts pressure internally and externally on them. It’s potentially really important,” said Cooper, who added that rich countries and wealthy people had a special responsibility to make the deal a success. “Those of us in richer countries, especially richer people in rich countries, need to be looking at their own footprint. On a planet with limited resources, excess overconsumption by the rich in particular has to be limited, otherwise it just doesn’t add up,” he said. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/cop15', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'world/unitednations', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-03-02T06:00:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/oct/10/unacceptable-bacteria-levels-found-on-us-meat-may-fuel-fears-over-uk-trade-deal | ‘Unacceptable’ bacteria levels found on US meat may fuel fears over UK trade deal | Pork and poultry with “unacceptable” levels of salmonella and E coli are reaching supermarket shelves in the US, according to the preliminary findings of a study that may confirm the fears of campaigners currently fighting to ensure the UK’s agriculture bill will protect domestic food standards and consumers. The agriculture bill 2019–21 will return to the House of Commons on Monday, and will include an amendment from the House of Lords calling for all food imports to be produced to domestic standards. Campaigners fear that a failure to protect UK food standards in law means that a future trade deal with the US might allow more cheaply produced meat to flood the UK market. Downing Street has repeatedly refused to agree to any parliamentary restrictions or so-called “red lines” on its negotiating position in US trade talks. Trade secretary Liz Truss has argued that parliament would be able to block a trade deal if a majority of MPs wanted a vote on it, but only after the deal had been already been negotiated and signed. Campaigners may feel their arguments are bolstered by the preliminary findings of a five year study being carried out at George Washington University by Prof Lance Price, which tested meat from US shops and found that about 14% of the poultry samples and 13% of the pork had traces of salmonella. Testing also revealed that more than 60% of the pork products had E coli on them, as did around 70% of the beef products, 80% of the chicken products, and more than 90% of the turkey products. Price shared his findings with the team researching a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into American meat, which is due to air on Monday night, and commented: “It’s an unacceptable rate given that it is controllable, but the industry has been very successful in fighting any kind of regulations there.” Meanwhile a review of the impacts of Covid-19 on US livestock published last month looked at USDA data and found that in the months since several poultry plants were given government permission to increase the speeds of their production lines, the amount of chicken meat being condemned and discarded owing to suspected contamination fell 10% from the same period in 2019. Dr Laura Boyle, senior research officer at the Teagasc Animal and Grassland Research Centre in Ireland and one of the authors of the review, said she believed the food safety implications were pretty dramatic. A spokesperson for the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) – an arm of the US agriculture department that oversees the meat industry – attributed low condemnation numbers to an agency rule that requires some plants to pre-sort and discard birds before federal inspection. FSIS robustly defended the safety record of US meat. “FSIS employs more than 7,500 inspectors to ensure safe and wholesome products. In order to conduct the additional required offline food safety tasks, which have proven to have a greater impact on food safety, FSIS is increasing the number of higher-graded inspector positions in establishments that have converted to the modernised inspections system.” A spokesperson for the US National Chicken Council told the Guardian: “The US chicken industry works to eradicate all strains and products undergo microbiological testing to look for their presence. If you were to look at the US Department of Agriculture’s most recent posting of categories for large broiler establishments, you would see that more than 93% of the industry is meeting the FSIS performance standard for salmonella on whole broiler carcasses. Similarly, 95% of large broiler establishments are meeting the FSIS performance standard for salmonella on chicken parts.” He added that modernised plants with increased line speeds have been operating for over two decades and have food safety records that are as good or better than traditional plants. National Farmers’ Union president Minette Batters said: “A successful farming future rests on how the government shapes trade deals with countries around the world and supports farming in the months and years ahead.” The UK’s leading expert on food policy Professor Tim Lang said a US trade deal would open the floodgates to worsening standards. The UK’s Food Standards Agency advice is that if raw meat is handled correctly and the correct cooking procedures are followed, the risks to health from E coli and salmonella are eliminated. Dispatches: Dirty Secrets of American Food: Coming to a Supermarket Near You? is at 8pm, Channel 4 on 12 October | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'food/meat', 'environment/farming', 'food/food', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'politics/trade-policy', 'politics/politics', 'world/food-safety', 'uk/uk', 'tv-and-radio/tv-and-radio', 'culture/television', 'media/series/dispatches', 'media/channel4', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-levitt', 'profile/lewis-kendall', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-10-10T07:30:30Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2023/aug/22/bodies-found-in-wildfire-zone-in-north-east-greece | Eighteen bodies found in wildfire zone in north-east Greece | The bodies of 18 people have been found in an area of north-east Greece where firefighters are battling a major wildfire, authorities have said, as a record-breaking late summer heatwave continues to sear swathes of continental Europe. Hundreds of firefighters were struggling on Tuesday to contain dozens of outbreaks, including several that have burned out of control for days and forced widespread evacuations, in the second deadly wave of blazes in Greece in a month. The bodies were found near a shack in the Avanta area north of the city of Alexandroupolis near Greece’s borders with Turkey and Bulgaria, authorities said, and a disaster victim identification team was working to identify them. A fire service spokesperson, Ioannis Artopios, said that since no reports of missing people had been filed in the area, where a major forest fire has been burning for four days, it was possible the victims were migrants who had entered from Turkey. The discovery brings the overall toll from this week’s fires in Greece to 20, after the body of another person thought to be a migrant was found in the same area on Monday and an elderly shepherd was found dead at the site of a blaze north of Athens. Local media described a “massive wall of flames” racing through forests towards Alexandroupolis overnight, prompting authorities to evacuate another eight villages on top of the dozen whose inhabitants had already been ordered to leave. The port city’s hospital was also closed and its more than 100 patients evacuated to a ferry and other hospitals in northern Greece. The deputy health minister, Dimitris Vartzopoulos, said airborne smoke and ash were the main reason for the closure. Also in the north-east, fires were burning around the city of Kavala and in the Evros border region. The islands of Evia and Kythnos, and the Boeotia region north of Athens, were also ablaze, with gale-force winds and temperatures of up to 41C (106F) creating a fire risk that civil protection officials described as extreme. “It’s a similar situation to July,” a fire department spokesperson told Agence France-Presse, referring to a wave of forest fires in several parts of Greece last month that left five people dead. More than 60 fires had erupted in the last 24 hours, officials said. At least two of the new blazes – one at a landfill site in an industrial zone and another in the foothills of Mount Parnitha – were dangerously close to the capital, prompting authorities to close part of the Athens ring road and advise people to stay inside. Authorities have also banned public access to mountains and forests in fire-affected regions until at least Wednesday morning, and ordered regular military patrols. A fire last month destroyed almost 17,770 hectares (more than 43,000 acres) in 10 days in the south of Rhodes, a popular tourist island in the south-eastern Aegean. Cyprus, Romania, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany and Serbia had despatched about 120 firefighters via the EU’s civil protection mechanism to help battle the flames, the fire service said. Elsewhere in Europe, authorities evacuated 700 people from homes and a campsite on the Italian island of Elba after a fire broke out late on Monday. Two aircraft were helping to douse the blaze, which consumed five hectares on the holiday island. Firefighters in Spain were gaining the upper hand in their battle against a wildfire raging for a week on Tenerife that has forced 12,000 people to evacuate and burned through about 15,000 hectares – 7% of the popular Canary island’s surface area. Officials said cooler overnight temperatures and weaker winds were helping. “This has not ended, but we are starting to see the end of the tunnel,” the archipelago’s head of emergencies, Manuel Miranda, said on Tuesday. Local authorities in France have urged mountaineers preparing to tackle Mont Blanc to delay scaling the summit of western Europe’s highest mountain because of the heatwave, during which temperatures have climbed above 42C. Authorities in the Haute-Savoie region said there were higher-than-usual risks of rockfalls as new crevices opened up on the mountain’s glaciers. Four of the country’s 96 departments are under a maximum red extreme heat alert, with 15 more to follow on Wednesday. The French and Swiss Alps are at the epicentre of a late summer “heat dome”, a stable high-pressure weather system that has trapped warm air over a large area of southern Europe, producing all-time record temperatures in some areas. Scientists have said extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and floods will become more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting because of human-induced climate change. | ['world/greece', 'world/wildfires', 'world/extreme-weather', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonhenley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-08-22T14:18:12Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2018/sep/19/kampala-uganda-rooftop-farming-vertical-gardening-urbanisation | Rooftop farming: why vertical gardening is blooming in Kampala | When Martin Agaba realised his urban farm had run out of space, he decided the solution was not to expand outwards but upwards. “We realised we had to use the roof,” he says. Of all the innovations that have galvanised people in his district in the Ugandan capital Kampala to grow their own food, these vertical box plantations remain his favourite. Kwagala farm, located on half an acre of land, is the brainchild of Diana Nambatya, a professor in public health, who began growing vegetables to save money on food in 2010. After receiving two cows as a dowry, she decided to use their dung to generate biogas for her home. Her burgeoning urban farm soon attracted the attention of the neighbours, and in 2012 she started training women at a small demonstration centre. The urban farm is just one of many springing up in and around Kampala, a city of more than 1.5 million people, as residents find creative solutions to the challenges of urbanisation. Between 2002 and 2010, Uganda’s urban population grew by 5.6%. This process, Martin Agaba believes, is eroding young people’s interest in Uganda’s agricultural sector, which employs approximately 69% of the population. Agaba trains children that live around Kwagala farm in how to grow strawberries, yams and spring onions. “We are motivating children to not rely just on boda bodas (motorcycle taxis – a popular form of informal employment) or TV but to do something creative every day.” Brian Ndyaguma, an entrepreneur and restaurant owner, says: “Somehow the young generation deserted the way our parents’ generation did things, so if you are going to convince young people to jump into agriculture, it has to be made sexy – it has to be made appealing to them”. It was Kwagala farm’s creative reuse of old tyres that first attracted visitors. Then, as they began to experiment with using other materials, such as disused drainpipes and milk cartons, some of the local children began to create their own designs. “Now the children do not copy what we do,” says Agaba. “They do their own thing.” Harriet Nakabaale runs a small farm called Camp Green in the Kawaala area of Kampala. She collects the plastic bottles discarded by her neighbours. By cutting them, she can use them as flowerpots; by perforating them, they can become watering devices. Nothing goes to waste. Even the shells of the eggs produced by her chickens will be used to grow cress. Kwagala farm has three cows which they feed with banana peel and corn, which is grown using hydroponics, a method of growing plants using a water-based solution instead of soil. Agaba and his colleagues collect the cow dung, which they use to produce fertiliser. Despite the business potential, there are no plans to expand the farm. “We do not need more than three cows,” says Abaga. “We are teaching people to keep less but to do more with what they have.” An education programme at the farm has trained more than 700 women and young people in urban farming and how to make organic fertiliser and biofuel. Martin Agaba, who works at Kwagala urban farm, says: ‘We don’t keep more than three cows. We teach people to keep fewer and do more with what they have.’ Brian Ndyaguma relies on urban farms in Kampala for a large proportion of his restaurants’ vegetables, herbs and fruits. He sees a business opportunity not just for urban dwellers but rural farmers as well. “We still have a big advantage here in Uganda because we have good soil, so food is largely available. The challenge is the distribution.” Congestion, lack of refrigerated trucks and long hot days in the markets can make it difficult for the food grown outside of the city to stay fresh. “Urban farming gives rural farmers with more space the opportunity to concentrate on perennial crops, like corn or cereal,” he says. Agaba is an engineer and, like most of the people working on the farm, he has a day job, choosing to work at the farm as a pastime. Though he doesn’t sell much of what he grows, he still recognises there are financial benefits to his hobby. “Growing your own food makes you money by saving you money.” This article is part of a series on possible solutions to some of the world’s most stubborn problems. What else should we cover? Email us at theupside@theguardian.com | ['world/uganda', 'cities/cities', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'cities/urbanisation', 'world/series/the-upside', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-special-projects'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-09-19T04:28:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/jul/17/dramatic-footage-fuels-fears-amazon-fires-could-be-worse-than-last-year | Dramatic footage fuels fears Amazon fires could be worse than last year | Dramatic new images have shown fires raging over wide areas of the Brazilian Amazon nearly a year after blazes across the region sparked an international crisis for the far-right government of President Jair Bolsonaro. The video images and photographs were filmed during a flight by Greenpeace over a wide area of forest in Mato Grosso state in the south of the Amazon on 9 July. Filmed just as the Amazon dry season was beginning, they raise fears that this year’s fires could be as devastating and perhaps worse than 2019’s. “It was shocking to see the size of this deforestation and fires, at a time when the government is dismantling environment protection,” said Rômulo Batista, senior Amazon campaigner for Greenpeace, who spent days flying over a wide area. “It is the beginning of the dry season and we saw fires and areas being prepared for deforestation.” Some images showed hotspots in areas near the towns of Nova Canaã do Norte, Porto dos Gaúchos, Itanhangá and Nova Maringá as well as areas recently converted to pasture – the biggest cause of deforestation in the Amazon. Other photos showed felled trees piled up for burning and fires raging near Juara, known as the cattle capital. Farmers traditionally burn cleared areas in the Amazon during the dry season. The number of fires last year was the highest since 2010. “They fell the forest and let it dry under the sun. When it is dry they put it all together and set it on fire,” said Batista. The land is then turned over to cattle farming or agriculture. But Batista also saw signs that fire was being used to clear forest once valuable woods had been removed. Images show fires in intact forest near Alta Floresta. “We are seeing fire being used to deforest more and more,” said Batista. Bolsonaro’s government, meanwhile, has dismantled environmental protection agencies - sacking key officials, and reducing the amount of fines levied for environmental crimes by environment agency IBAMA last year to the lowest level in 24 years, the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reported. Last year he sacked the head of Brazil’s space research institute after calling official figures showing rising deforestation “lies”. However, he has promised to tackle the fires. On Thursday, Bolsonaro banned agricultural and forest fires for 120 days. His vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, is in charge of the country’s Amazon council and an army operation called Green Brazil launched on 11 May, which for the second year running is targeting illegal deforestation and fires. “We started combating these fires early and we are sure we will reduce this illicit activity by the second semester of the year,” Mourão told the Brazilian senate on Tuesday. The north of Mato Grosso state was one of four areas suffering high deforestation, he said, along with Pará and Rondônia states and the south of Amazonas state. Mourão’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Greenpeace revelations. But official data shows the Brazilian government’s efforts so far this year have failed to bring results. Brazil saw more fires in the Amazon this June than in any year since 2007. Brazil’s space research agency INPE spotted 2,248, compared with 1,880 in June last year. Preliminary data showed deforestation from January to June, at 3,069 sq km, was 25% up on the same period last year. The Brazilian government is coming under increasing pressure from international investors and Brazilian companies. On 23 June, international investors managing trillions of dollars in assets warned Brazil about escalating deforestation and the “dismantling” of policies to protect the environment and indigenous communities. On 7 July, CEOs of 39 companies including Microsoft, Ambev, Shell and leading banks like Santander expressed concerns over “the impact on business of the current negative perception Brazil has abroad in relation to socio-environmental issues in the Amazon”. But Mourão has said that to control deforestation Brazil needs to regulate chaotic land ownership in the Amazon. The government plans a decree to allow 97,000 land titles to be regularised remotely which environmentalists say means rewarding land grabbers with legal titles. In May, more than 40 British companies including leading supermarkets wrote to Brazilian lawmakers to express their concerns over fires and deforestation – and an earlier version of the same decree. Greenpeace said that British consumers need to show they do not agree with Amazon destruction. “Those supermarkets will be judged on how they respond to this unfolding crisis. They all sell high volumes of industrial meat, much of which is connected to deforestation in forests like the Amazon,” said Anna Jones, head of forests at Greenpeace UK. “It’s time supermarkets dropped forest destroyers and replaced industrial meat with plant-based options.” While Mourão has reached for a more moderate tone, Bolsonaro has doubled down on the same fiery rhetoric that last year saw him accuse the actor Leonardo DiCaprio of paying for fires without providing any evidence, and fall out publicly with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. During Thursday night’s weekly Facebook Live, he said attacks on Brazil’s crumbling Amazon protection were motivated by commercial rivalry. “Brazil is an agribusiness power and Europe is an environmental sect. They don’t preserve anything,” he said, “and they shoot at us the whole time unfairly. Why? It’s a commercial battle.” | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'world/brazil', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dom-phillips', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-07-17T17:19:53Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
politics/2020/jul/10/downing-street-seeks-data-expert-to-set-up-skunkworks-in-number-10 | Downing Street seeks data expert to set up 'skunkworks' in No 10 | Downing Street is seeking applications for a £135,000-a-year data expert to set up a “skunkworks” in No 10, in the latest evidence of Dominic Cummings’ Whitehall shake-up. Cummings’ preoccupation with big data is well known, and he has recently urged ministers’ special advisers to swot up on superforecasting, a way of predicting the future using statistical analysis. No 10 has posted a civil service job advertisement for the head of a new analytical unit, who, the job description said, will work inside Downing Street for two years. “The analytical unit, known as 10 ‘data science’ or ‘10ds’ is a pseudo startup within No 10 designed to drive forward the quantitative revolution. The current plan is to establish a data engineering team, data science team, a skunkworks and an analytical deep dive unit,” it said. The term “skunkworks” was coined by workers at the aircraft maker Lockheed Martin to cover a small, loosely organised group working on innovative projects and unencumbered by bureaucracy. One of the priority policy areas highlighted in the advert for which “analysis is critical”, is “how to optimally achieve net-zero”. It said outside applicants can expect to earn £135,000 – or perhaps more for an “outstanding candidate” – a salary level likely to raise eyebrows in Whitehall. “The unit will ensure that No 10 is an intelligent customer of analysis, providing challenge and feedback across government,” the advert said. It warned that this may require “storytelling”, and the ability to “look through a different lens”. Creating the new unit is part of a radical shake-up of government, foreshadowed in a blogpost by Cummings in January, in which he highlighted the importance of data analysis. He also claimed “some people in government are prepared to take risks to change things a lot”. Michael Gove used a recent lecture to bemoan the lack of “hard, testable data” to evaluate whether policies conceived in Whitehall have worked well on the ground. “Government needs to be rigorous and fearless in its evaluation of policy and projects,” he said. Gove also suggested more data should be made public. “If government ensures its departments and agencies share and publish data far more, then data analytics specialists can help us more rigorously to evaluate policy successes and delivery failures,” he argued. News of the creation of “10ds” follows the announcement that Whitehall communications are being centralised, with scores of press officers laid off from individual departments, and their reporting lines shifted from their home department to Downing Street. A string of senior Whitehall figures have left their posts in recent weeks, including cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill, whose resignation was followed by the announcement that he would receive a compensation payment of almost £250,000. | ['politics/civil-service', 'politics/politics', 'politics/dominic-cummings', 'technology/big-data', 'uk/london', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'profile/heatherstewart', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/big-data | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2020-07-10T17:42:30Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2008/may/14/endangeredhabitats.forests | Amazon defender quits Brazil environment post | Brazil's environment minister, hailed as a champion of the green movement but scorned by powerful farming groups, resigned yesterday after losing key battles in her efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. Marina Silva's resignation is likely to reinforce the view that the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is more concerned with economic development than conservation, as a commodities export boom fuels Brazil's growth. It could be a setback for Brazil's ambitions to become a major voice in global environmental debates. "Her resignation is a disaster for the Lula administration. If the government had any global credibility in environmental issues, it was because of minister Marina," said Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, vice-president of the South American division of the environmental group Conservation International. Silva said in her resignation letter that she had stepped down because of the "difficulty she had been having for some time in carrying out the national environment agenda," a presidential spokesman said. Farming leaders welcomed the resignation of the former rubber tapper and activist. "I hope the next minister is not as radical as Marina. She was an obstacle to economic development in Brazil," said Rui Prado, head of the agriculture federation of Mato Grosso, a big farming state. Silva unsuccessfully opposed several infrastructure projects in the rainforest, including two hydroelectric dams and a road that will link the western grain belt with the Amazon river. According to local media, among Silva's possible successors is Carlos Minc, Rio de Janeiro state's environment secretary and a founder of the Green Party in Brazil. The presidential spokesman could not confirm his appointment. The soft-spoken Silva has been ill for years suffering from tropical diseases and metal poisoning. She was frequently at odds with Lula and other cabinet ministers, who she felt were more concerned with job growth and conquering foreign markets than with protecting the environment. Amazon's destruction Growing global demand for Brazilian commodities such as soybeans has helped accelerate destruction of the world's largest rainforest, and Silva blamed cattle ranchers and farmers who have pushed deeper into the forest in search of land. Lula publicly rebuffed her and named Roberto Mangabeira Unger, minister for strategic issues, to oversee the implementation of a government white paper on the Amazon. At the presentation of the proposal last week, aides of Silva and Lula clashed and publicly accused each other of incompetence. Silva also lost out to big business interests when the government authorised genetically modified grains and the construction of a third nuclear power plant. Marcelo Furtado, the campaign director for Greenpeace Brazil, said the resignation was "disastrous" and blamed it on the government's Amazon policy, pressure to ease environmental regulations on factories and Unger's appointment. "Although Lula has adopted the environmental talk, the practice is development at whatever cost," Furtado said. The Amazon basin covers half of Brazil and holds a fifth of the world's fresh water, and 15% of all plant and animal species on earth. But illegal logging and mining are rife as well as legally sanctioned felling, and swaths of land the size of US states have been deforested in recent years. Between August and December 2007, an estimated 2,703 sq miles (7,000 sq km) were chopped down, equivalent to two-thirds of the total for the previous 12 months. Silva was an admired figure in the global environmental community and often wore ethnic-style clothing. Born to a humble family in the Amazon state of Acre, she worked as a rubber tapper and a maid before earning a university degree. She worked closely with renowned activist Chico Mendes supporting local communities against big farmers and loggers until his murder by ranchers in 1988. | ['environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'world/brazil', 'world/world', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/americas', 'type/article'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-05-14T09:37:58Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2007/may/28/recycling.waste | Letters: Recycled myths about rubbish | According to David Miliband, "Councils should be allowed to reward residents who recycle and charge those who produce large amounts of waste" (Miliband unveils plan to reward recyclers, May 25). The fact is that households process a great deal of waste but are not responsible for its production. And the claim that contemporary householders "throw away around a third of the food they buy" flies in the face of all the accumulated evidence. In reality, food waste makes up around a fifth of contemporary household waste, the same as it did at the end of the 60s. Even in the mid 30s, when there were still slop wagons and food waste went to feed pigs at local farms, this waste category made up around 15% of the dustbin's contents. The disappearance and potential reappearance of modern slop wagons in the urban landscape is an excellent demonstration of how organised waste management systems, rather than careless consumers, are the driving force behind changes in household waste contents. Instead of adopting the Tory "tax the individual" solution to all social problems, Miliband needs to think through workable means of assisting communities to reduce the amount of waste forced onto them by industry, business and media. The bulk of the "100m tonnes of waste" is generated by industrial and commercial producers - and total UK waste arisings are in reality much higher than this. We have a government initiative that demonises individual citizens, when the true villains are bureaucratic and industrial inertia, and the absence of imaginative thinking about how to reorganise the waste economy. Martin O'Brien Author of A Crisis of Waste? Understanding the Rubbish Society All the acres of paper used to describe possible new recycling and payment or reward schemes have missed out a significant factor: only a quarter of British people believe that everything their council collects for recycling is actually recycled. One in 10 people believe that the separated items their council collects aren't really recycled; they think they are simply thrown away with everything else. This is based on a survey of 1,000 adults conducted last month and reported in our "Basket of Goods" survey May 2007. As representatives of the metal packaging industry, we campaign vigorously to promote recycling because our product comes from abundant natural resources and, when collected and reprocessed, becomes prime new material. We know that consumers strongly support recycling, but consumers need to be convinced that their local council really is delivering - or recycling - the goods before they will support any new recycling schemes. Tony Woods Director, Metal Packaging Manufacturers Association The best example of effective recycling lies not in Europe, but in Brazil. Under the "participatory budgeting" system in Porto Alegre, the government gives grants to establish local recycling cooperatives. They are almost always formed by unemployed women, and create jobs for the poor. The co-ops are paid by the city for the amounts they recycle. They, in turn, pay freelance collectors to deliver recyclable materials to them. The result is that the city is filled with beneficial scavengers who search out every conceivable form of recyclable waste, from businesses as well as households, organic as well as packaging. The result is one of the cleanest cities in the world. David Miliband should stop being so focused on EU targets and practices. He should take a trip to Brazil - offsetting the carbon costs, of course. Prof J T Winkler Director, Nutrition Policy Unit, London Metropolitan University I would love to recycle more, but the majority of the rubbish in my bin is material I didn't want in the first place that the council won't recycle (Householders to face rubbish taxes, May 24). So penalise the council if it won't offer the proper facilities, then penalise supermarkets for using pointless packaging. Why not look back to when we had deposits on returnable glass bottles? Once more, "modern" ideas (such as tetrapak) are found to be behind the times. Dr M Grime Bristol | ['environment/environment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-05-28T22:54:55Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2017/sep/21/climate-optimism-disaster-extreme-weather-catastrophe | Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately | Ellie Mae O’Hagan | In 1988, when the scientist James Hansen told a senate committee that it was “time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here”, those who took him seriously assumed that if they just persisted with emphasising that this terrible fact would eventually destroy us, action would be taken. Instead, the opposite happened: when confronted with the awful reality of climate change, most people tended to retreat into a panglossian vision of the future, or simply didn’t want to hear about it. A lot of work has been done since to understand why climate change is so uniquely paralysing, most prominently by George Marshall, author of the book Don’t Even Think About It. Marshall describes climate change as “a perfect and undetectable crime everyone contributes to but for which no one has a motive”. Climate change is both too near and too far for us to be able to internalise: too near because we make it worse with every minute act of our daily lives; too far because until now it has been something that affects foreign people in foreign countries, or future versions of ourselves that we can only conceive of ephemerally. It is also too massive. The truth is if we don’t take action on climate change now, the food shortages, mass migration and political turmoil it will cause could see the collapse of civilisation in our lifetimes. Which of us can live with that knowledge? It’s not surprising, then, that some years ago climate activists switched to a message of optimism. They listened to studies that showed optimism was more galvanising than despair, and they began to talk about hope, empowerment, and success stories. They waited for some grand extreme weather event to make the final pieces fall into place. Maybe the submerging of New Orleans would be it; maybe some of the rich white people who were battered by Hurricane Sandy would use their privilege to demand action. Maybe Harvey or Irma – or now Maria – would cause us to snap out of our stupor. It hasn’t happened. Instead what I think a message of optimism has done is create a giant canyon between the reality of climate change and most people’s perception of it. An optimistic message has led to complacency – “people are saying it’s doable so it will probably be fine” – and championing success stories has convinced people that the pathetic, threadbare action taken by governments so far is sufficient. I’ve lost count of the sheer number of politically engaged, conscientious people I’ve met who have simply no idea how high the stakes are. The fact is, nobody knows how to solve the riddle of persuading the public to demand action on climate change. I certainly don’t have the answers. But I do think we need to contemplate that something is going disastrously wrong here – that perhaps it’s time to get back to the drawing board and rethink how we talk about climate change. Two significant things have happened since that senate committee hearing in 1988: the first is the Paris agreement in 2015 to try to limit warming to 1.5C – research out this week shows this is still possible. The second is that major parts of the dominant global superpower have been decimated by two Katrina-dwarfing storms in less than a month. Circumstances have changed in the past 30 years: climate change is a material fact now, and we have a specific target to aim for, to limit the damage it will cause. A new campaign could centre on the demand for governments to meet the 1.5C target, emphasising how dire the consequences will be if we don’t. People don’t need to imagine what climate change looks like any more: they can see it in the sea water that has enveloped the islands of the Caribbean, the drowning houses in Houston, the communiques from those who couldn’t escape, and prepared themselves to lose everything. In Britain we’ve seen floodwater inundate entire villages; a pub that became a thoroughfare for a swollen river. This is what catastrophe on our doorsteps looks like, and perhaps it’s time we link these images to climate change with as much gusto as the fossil fuel industry denies it. Could the language of emergency work? It has never been tried with as much meteorological evidence as we have now, and we’ve never had a target as clear and unanimous as the one agreed in Paris. The one thing I know is that the events of the last few months have changed the game, and this is the moment to start debating a new way to talk about climate change. It may be that if the time for a mass movement is not now, there won’t be one. • Ellie Mae O’Hagan is an editor at openDemocracy, and a freelance journalist | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'us-news/us-news', 'uk/uk', 'weather/index/northandcentralamerica', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'world/caribbean', 'profile/ellie-mae-o-hagan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | world/hurricane-irma | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-21T13:24:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2007/dec/09/windpower.renewableenergy | Pylon threat to mountain wilderness | Nigel Hawkins is standing on a bank of heather and shrub gazing towards the cloud-covered peak of Schiehallion in the distance. 'This is some of the most beautiful scenery in Scotland, yet it could soon be destroyed, covered by huge pylons carrying massive electricity cables,' says Hawkins, director of conservation group the John Muir Trust. The pylons would form part of the upgrading of the power link between north and south Scotland. Extra electricity from new wind farms being built in the Highlands must be transmitted to power users in cities in the south. Scottish and Southern Energy says the £320m upgrade - on the line between Beauly, near Inverness, and Denny, near Stirling - would consist of 600 pylons, 40 to 64 metres high, with a section going through Cairngorms National Park. The idea has horrified landowners, wildlife groups and walkers: 18,000 people have formally objected to the Beauly-Denny plan. A public inquiry, one of the biggest held in Scotland, is hearing evidence and is set to finish deliberations in a few weeks. A report is to be presented to the Scottish Executive next year. It also emerged last night that the government will shortly announce proposals to open up the sea to a major expansion of offshore wind energy. Energy Secretary John Hutton is setting up a panel of experts to advise him on renewable energy, because of pressures to meet the European Union target of having 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020. But in Scotland, it is wind farms on land that are causing the problem. The prospect of giant pylons crossing Schiehallion - 'the Fairy Hill of the Caledonians' - has become one of the inquiry's most sensitive aspects. The 3,500ft mountain is one of the country's favourite hill-walking destinations. It also has intriguing historical associations, having been used in the 18th century by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne to make the first accurate estimate of the Earth's density. The problem, according to experts, is that the issues raised by the Beauly-Denny inquiry go far beyond local concerns. They focus on a more general, national problem: should Britain's commitment to renewable energy take precedence over its need to preserve its wild places? Objectors say no, and in this case urge that the cable be built underground or rerouted to run on the seabed. But Scottish and Southern Energy says that would raise costs fivefold. 'This is a serious issue,' said Professor Nick Jenkins, a renewable energy expert based at Manchester University. 'We have built our cities in places that are not windy but now want to get more and more of our power from remote places that are swept by gales and high winds. 'There are a number of solutions: you can build lines on pylons - but they are controversial - or you could think of ways of converting electricity from alternating currents to direct currents.' It is a point backed by Hawkins. 'Carbon emissions are a real threat to the environment. We don't want climate change wrecking the hillsides of Britain. But at the same time we don't want action that could result in serious ecological damage. [The inquiry] is concerned only on the impact of the upgrade on one part of Scotland. We need to consider a range of other issues: the role of sub-sea cables, their costs and the impact of onshore wind farms.' | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'travel/travel', 'travel/scotland', 'environment/mountains', 'type/article', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2007-12-09T16:51:03Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2021/oct/26/joanna-lumley-wartime-rationing-solve-climate-crisis | Joanna Lumley says wartime-style rationing could help solve climate crisis | Joanna Lumley has suggested that a system of rationing similar to that seen during wartime, under which people would have a limited number of points to spend on holidays or lavish consumer goods, could eventually help to tackle the climate crisis. The Absolutely Fabulous actor, who has long campaigned against single-use plastic, said legislation could be the only way to curb the amount of waste produced by the public. “These are tough times, and I think there’s got to be legislation,” she told the Radio Times. “That was how the war was – stuff was rationed – and at some stage I think we might have to go back to some kind of system of rationing, where you’re given a certain number of points and it’s up to you how to spend them, whether it’s buying a bottle of whisky or flying in an aeroplane.” Lumley, who has been involved in conservation work, said that while many people remained poor, it was largely “the western world that stuffs its face and chucks stuff away”. “Perhaps people have got to think a bit harder,” she said. “Maybe more of our holidays should be at home or taking trains, and not hopping on a plane to Magaluf for the weekend … Every plastic bottle you don’t buy, every piece of litter you pick up, every piece of meat you don’t eat, every small thing counts.” Her comments come a week after Boris Johnson promised that transitioning to net zero could happen without sacrificing the things people love, claiming in a foreword to the government’s net zero strategy that technology would allow “guilt-free” flight by 2050. While green taxes risk hitting the least affluent the hardest, rationing is seen by some as a fair and universal way to limit consumption. Critics, however, say it sacrifices economic growth. As far back as 2006, the then environment secretary, David Miliband, argued that each citizen should be issued with a carbon “credit card” – to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked a plane ticket – under a nationwide rationing scheme. The historian Mark Roodhouse wrote in 2007 that rationing would be more effective than a carbon tax if governments needed “to reduce carbon emissions quickly and dramatically”. In a new documentary on ITV next week, Lumley travels around the UK following the adventurer Sacha Dench – known as “the human swan” – as she attempts an epic 3,000-mile journey around the British coast in an electric paramotor. According to ITV, the pair “meet environmental heroes along the way who show them surprising and fascinating ways to live more planet-friendly lives”. But in September, just days from her journey’s end, Dench and her support pilot and photographer Dan Burton, who was flying a conventional paramotor, collided in mid-air over the western Highlands. Burton, 54, a father of two from Devon, died, and Dench, 46, was seriously injured and remains in hospital. Lumley was not filming with them at the time. “The shock was so vivid because it seemed such a short time since I’d been with them both,” Lumley told the Radio Times, explaining that the news reached her while she was working on a separate project in Berlin. “I couldn’t believe Dan would be [with us] no more … Dan’s family bravely insisted we complete the film, and Sacha sent a message, despite her critical injuries, saying: ‘Get the film finished.’ I was terribly moved.” The resulting documentary, Joanna Lumley and the Human Swan, airs on ITV on 1 November and will be dedicated to Burton. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'culture/joanna-lumley', 'environment/environment', 'culture/culture', 'environment/plastic', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/nadia-khomami', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-10-25T23:01:51Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese | Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws | Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced. Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue. Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up". The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science. The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades. Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair. It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist. The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act. The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full. The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007. Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural. The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities. The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter. The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?" Jones said he was not able to comment on the story. Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more. "Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them." In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said. Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008. Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise. "Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same." The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange. • For regular email updates on climate change and the environment sign up for the Guardian and Observer's Green light newsletter | ['environment/hacked-climate-science-emails', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'politics/freedomofinformation', 'type/article', 'profile/fredpearce', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-02-01T21:00:01Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2010/jul/11/climategate-muir-russell-review | 'Climategate' shows the need for openness by scientists | "Like it or not, this [demand for openness] indicates a transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century." That, say many, will be the lasting legacy of the independent review published last week into the controversial emails between climate scientists that were stolen from the University of East Anglia and posted online. Scientists were cleared, as expected, of any fiddling of the figures to exaggerate the case for global warming. But the review heavily criticised them and the university for consistently blocking access to data and failing to recognise the risk such secrecy posed to the "credibility of UK climate science". It is now possible to assess the damage. The scientific evidence – showing that the world is warming fast due to human actions and presents a clear future danger – remains untarnished. However, the public's trust in that science has been scorched. Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and former head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he wanted the report to "draw a line under this episode so that the scientific community can begin to regain the trust of the public and continue to do its vital work on climate change". But if there was no great global warming conspiracy, why did the leaking of the emails last November become such a PR disaster? Climate scientists, such as Oxford University's Myles Allen, blame the media: "What everyone has lost sight of is the spectacular failure of mainstream journalism to keep the whole affair in perspective." The review, led by Sir Muir Russell, does not mention the media. Instead, it examines the reaction of the scientists at the UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to the pressure exerted by bloggers: "An important feature of the blogosphere is the extent to which it demands openness and access to data. A failure to recognise this and to act appropriately can lead to immense reputational damage by feeding allegations of cover-up." The review adds: "We found a lack of recognition… of the extent to which earlier action to release information… might have minimised the problems." Pressure on the scientists, whose once esoteric work creating records of past temperatures had gained global significance, was intense. In 2005, CRU head Phil Jones replied to a request: "We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" But, the review implies, the more they blocked, the more the Freedom of Information requests flooded in. On the same day the Russell review was published, the Information Commissioner's Office published a little-noticed notice stating that UEA had breached two FOI regulations in relation to requests made in 2008. Professor Geoffrey Boulton, an eminent earth scientist and Russell review panel member, said: "We have to move science from a private enterprise to a public enterprise." It was bad luck that the CRU scientists were singled out, said Dr James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, adding that the group was among the best in the world at climate science. But he said: "Science has to start examining the way it works. This report compares peer review, which is 'pure', with the blogosphere, which is 'impure' – and there's some truth in that, to be sure – but the peer-review process can be exceedingly prejudiced and exert censorship even." Russell found the CRU scientists were innocent of subverting the peer-review process, through which researchers recommend or reject work for publication in a journal. The review acknowledges the language in some emails could be thought to reflect "partial and aggressive" behaviour, such as this from CRU's Keith Briffa: "Confidentially I now need a hard and if required an extensive case for rejecting" a paper. But, said Russell, "we think it more plausible that it reflects the rough and tumble of interaction in an area of science that has become heavily contested". Arch-critic of CRU, blogger Steve McIntyre, was far from convinced. In his opinion, "the only reasonably objective inquiry to date", which criticised the behaviour of the CRU scientists, was that by Fred Pearce in The Guardian.The editor of the Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, gave evidence to the inquiry on peer review. What was at stake was far bigger than the climate change science being done at CRU, he said. "What Russell has identified is the beginning of a revolution in the way science is being done," he said. "If scientists don't adapt to this soon, the trust that the public and politicians put in science will be jeopardised. The credibility of science itself is at stake." | ['environment/hacked-climate-science-emails', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'environment/james-lovelock', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/seven-days'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-07-10T23:05:34Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2010/oct/26/scientists-open-letter-logging | Leading scientists accuse thinktanks of being logging lobbyists | Twelve leading scientists, including the former head of Kew Gardens and the biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank, have written an open letter accusing two international thinktanks of "distortions, misrepresentations, or misinterpretations of fact" in their analysis and writings about rainforests and logging. The unprecedented attack on the tactics and objectivity of the two groups who claim to be independent is contained in an open letter sent to the Guardian. It accuses the Washington-based World Growth International (WGI) and Melbourne-based International Trade Strategies Global (ITS) of having close associations with politically conservative US thinktanks and advancing "biased or distorted arguments" on palm oil plantations and logging. The scientists claim that ITS Global is "closely allied with", and "frequently funded by" multinational logging, wood pulp, and palm oil corporations and lobbies for one of the world's largest industrial logging corporations which has has been repeatedly criticised for its environmental and human-rights records. "WGI frequently lobbies public opinion on the behalf of Sinar Mas holdings, a conglomerate of mostly Indonesian logging, wood-pulp, and oil palm companies," added the scientists. "These organisations portray themselves as independent thinktanks or NGOs, but are actually lobby groups that are aggressively defending and funded by some of the world's largest logging, oil palm and pulp-plantation corporations. These corporations are playing a major role globally in the rapid destruction of tropical forests," said William Laurance, research professor at James Cook University in Cairns and Prince Bernhard chair of the International Nature Conservation at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. The scientists include Sir Ghillean Prance, former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Thomas Lovejoy, chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank; Prof Omar R. Masera, director of the bioenergy lab at the National University of Mexico and Nobel laureate on behalf of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others from Oxford, Stanford and Imperial College, London. Together, they accuse the two organisations of promulgating "serious misconceptions" about tropical forestry and reaching conslusions that are "strongly at variance with refereed scientific matrial." "WGI and ITS have failed adequately to recognise that many forests of high conservation value are being destroyed and fragmented by plantation development —a process that is mostly driven by corporations, not small holders. While routinely accusing several environmental organisations and the IPCC of bias and scientific misrepresentation, WGI and ITS have, in our opinion, advanced a range of biased or distorted arguments themselves," says the letter. WGI has in the past launched fierce attacks on Greenpeace, whom it has accused of "falsifying data", as well as Rainforest Action and WWF over their analysis of deforestation in Indonesia. Earlier this year WGI attacked the IPCC over "glaciergate", when a mistake was found in the panel's 2007 report about the date glaciers in the Himalayas would melt. Yesterday it accused WWF, the world's largest conservation group, of "deceiving business", saying that "working with WWF ultimately harms business and economic growth". Environment groups have long been at war with US conservative thinktanks, but this is one of the few times that leading scientists have become involved in the debate. Alan Oxley, chairman and director of both groups, is a former Australian diplomat and corporate lobbyist for free trade agreements. He is a prominent climate sceptic who set up the now defunct denial website Climatechangeissues.com and runs the Asia-Pacific pages of Tech Central Station – a conservative website funded by ExxonMobil. Along with other directors of World Growth, he has worked with DCI Group, a leading Republican political lobbying firm that had close ties to the George W Bush administration. DCI specialised in setting up third-party industry groups which lobbied as independent NGOs. Oxley and both groups were contacted by the Guardian but have so far failed to respond to the allegations by the scientists. | ['environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-10-26T11:43:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2019/jun/17/scotland-urged-to-invest-in-nuclear-to-hit-climate-goals | Scotland urged to invest in nuclear to hit climate goals | Scotland should consider new nuclear power stations, investing in hydrogen and installing many more windfarms to meet its climate goals, an expert inquiry has concluded. The inquiry by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s national academy, said a massive increase in low-carbon electricity production would be needed in order to reach the country’s new goal of net zero emissions by 2045. Prof Becky Lunn, a civil engineer who is deputy chair of the inquiry, said electricity production may need to increase fourfold to decarbonise the transport system and heating, with major implications for ministers and the public. “We have got difficult decisions to make and if we delay we will end up importing by default, which is not a place where in future I think we would wish to be,” she said. “We need to change. At the moment we have a totally unsustainable system.” Alongside a substantial increase in electricity production, Scotland would need: • A statutory commission to provide independent expert direction on energy policy and governance. • Much tougher energy efficiency regulations for homes and buildings. • Substantial investment in carbon capture and storage, so CO2 created during the production of hydrogen could be buried offshore. • Subsidies to ensure higher energy prices and upgrading costs did not increase fuel poverty. Lunn said this was increasingly urgent. Scotland’s two nuclear power stations at Hunterston and Torness, which provided 37% of the country’s electricity in 2017, are due to close by 2030, just as electricity demand is forecast to soar. The RSE report, Scotland’s Energy Future, was published as climate activists with the Extinction Rebellion protest group marched on the Scottish parliament to set up a week-long camp to put pressure on Holyrood to agree more ambitious CO2 reduction targets. Meanwhile Greenpeace continued its campaign against BP’s increased oil drilling by pursuing an oil rig its activists had occupied in the Cromarty Firth last week into the North Sea, using its protest ship, Arctic Sunrise. Greenpeace said its continued pursuit of the rig, the Paul B Loyd Jr, had prevented it from arriving in the Vorlich oilfield, where BP hopes to extract 30m barrels of oil. Extinction Rebellion is planning to block roads in Edinburgh this week, mirroring similar protests in London and other cities. The Scottish government has accepted a challenging target of achieving net zero emissions by 2045, five years earlier than the 2050 UK target agreed last week by Theresa May, the prime minister. In 2017, Scotland emitted 40.5 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent. Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion argue that continued drilling undermine those goals – a stance rejected by the UK and Scottish governments and the RSE. The net zero concept means continued use of oil, gas and potentially coal. But extra forests, carbon storage and other measures would be needed to soak up the CO2 that those released. The RSE inquiry was funded by four major energy firms, the oil company BP, the French nuclear and renewables firm EDF, the gas company Centrica and the renewables firm SSE. The RSE said they had no bearing or influence over the report’s conclusions but the report mirrored those companies’ arguments that nuclear energy, oil and gas would still be needed – conclusions many climate and environment activists reject. Lunn said ministers should eventually consider small modular nuclear reactors, an experimental technology which, its supporters argue, is safer and much easier to build than large-scale nuclear power stations. Methane would still be needed in large amounts to produce hydrogen: large-scale hydrogen plants would be connected to carbon storage sites in the bedrock offshore. Oil would still be needed to provide fuel for aviation and shipping, for medicines and materials such as plastics. It would be impossible, the RSE said, to equally meet the four key tests of tackling climate change, guaranteeing energy security, making it affordable and at the same time maximising the social acceptability and economic wellbeing of those energy choices. Lunn said the RSE’s conclusions were that meeting the country’s low-carbon energy challenges would require compromises. | ['uk/scotland', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/severincarrell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2019-06-17T15:02:46Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2022/jan/22/weatherwatch-lessons-from-a-late-friends-30-years-of-record-keeping | Weatherwatch: lessons from a late friend’s 30 years of record-keeping | A friend, Barry Horne, who kept meticulous weather records in his home village of Edlesborough in Buckinghamshire from 1969 until 1999, was not convinced about climate change. He contended that the weather varied too much even over a 30-year period. Just in case he was wrong, however, he printed off his entire records and presented them to me so that if either of us lived long enough, the statistics might help with the answer. He did concede that one set of figures, the number of days snow fell in a year, had shown a general downward trend over the period, despite sharp annual variations. By the 1990s it was down to 10 days of snowfall a year on average. With this winter halfway through, we have had one snowfall this year – 10 would be exceptional. Perhaps his record of air frosts is more remarkable. In the 1970s it was not unusual for the winter months to have more than 20 air frosts recorded, and in January and February 1979 there were only three nights without one. That year March had 22. Sadly Barry died before we could settle the argument but air frosts would have been the clincher. In his log they were often recorded in April, most years in May, twice in June. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/snow', 'uk/weather', 'uk-news/england', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-01-22T06:00:46Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2009/aug/26/marine-life-discover-species | Marine life: Illuminating the ocean | Twelve thousand feet below the ocean surface, biologists have discovered an entirely new family of sea creatures. Swima bombiviridis, the first to be named in the latest issue of Science, is a small swimming worm that can discard bits of its own tissue in a brilliant green, bioluminescent display. Six more species await description, and five have been equipped by evolution with detachable firework flesh. The discovery is a reminder that much of planet Earth is still unexplored, and most of its citizens are unknown. That is because 70% of it is covered by sea, the environment in which life began, the environment that controls most of the planet's weather, the environment humans have been systematically exploiting and casually polluting for centuries. It is a truism that scientists know more about the surface of Mars than they do about the surface of the Earth, but it is also true. A sustained endeavour called the Census of Marine Life is due to end in 2010: researchers from 80 nations have calculated that 230,000 marine creatures have already been collected and preserved, and have added thousands more in the last nine years. But researchers also know, as they complete their first comprehensive inventory of marine biology, that it will be far from comprehensive: there could be a million species lurking in the abyssal ooze, or hiding in subterranean mountain ranges, or migrating through the cold darkness of the deep currents. Microscopic marine creatures absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen for the rest of creation to breathe; they also release dimethyl sulphide in quantities sufficient to affect the physics of clouds far above the ocean; and they provide the primary food for all the fish that humans hunt. The oceans distribute tropical heat to the higher latitudes; generate the clouds that deliver rain to the continents; and then provide a repository for all the silt swept downstream by the swollen rivers. Systematic and detailed understanding of the chemistry, topography and flow of the waters that cover two-thirds of the planet would be costly, but it could be achieved. The real challenge is the recognition, description and understanding of the creatures in these waters. This is the science of taxonomy: unglamorous, detailed and requiring dedication, in the field and the museums. Sadly, taxonomy in the wealthy nations is so poorly funded that its practitioners themselves are a threatened species; and in the poorest countries – those with the richest variety of life – taxonomists barely exist. What an irony: that life is being extinguished everywhere, and we cannot even hope to name most of those creatures swimming towards oblivion. | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/editorials', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/conservation', 'science/science', 'science/microbiology', 'environment/biodiversity', 'science/taxonomy', 'science/biology', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-08-25T23:05:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2018/oct/21/climate-change-is-exacerbating-world-conflicts-says-red-cross-president | Climate change is exacerbating world conflicts, says Red Cross president | Climate change is already exacerbating domestic and international conflicts, and governments must take steps to ensure it does not get worse, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said. Peter Maurer told Guardian Australia it was already making an impact and humanitarian organisations were having to factor it into their work far earlier than they were expecting. “In many parts of the world where we work it’s not a distant engagement,” he said. “When I think about our engagement in sub-Saharan Africa, in Somalia, in other places of the world, I see that climate change has already had a massive impact on population movement, on fertility of land. It’s moving the border between pastoralist and agriculturalist.” Maurer, who was in Australia to speak about the changing nature of modern conflict, said concern about the impact of climate change in the Pacific was “enormous”. He said changing rainfall patterns change the fertility of land and push populations, who may have settled and subsisted in one area for centuries, to migrate. “It’s very obvious that some of the violence that we are observing … is directly linked to the impact of climate change and changing rainfall patterns.” Earlier this month the United Nation’s climate panel, the IPCC, gave the world just 12 years to make the drastic but necessary changes. Its report said emissions had to be cut by 45% before 2030 if warming was to be restricted to 1.5C. At 1.5C, 10 million fewer people would be affected by rising sea levels, and the proportion of the world’s population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower. A 2016 study, which examined three decades of data, determined that a 1C rise in temperatures in a country reliant on agriculture correlated with a 5% increase in migration to other countries. “When [populations] start to migrate in big numbers it leads to tensions between the migrating communities and the local communities. This is very visible in contexts like the Central African Republic, like Mali and other places,” said Maurer. He said it was up to governments, not humanitarians, to develop the policies needed to deal with the “root causes” of climate change. “As a humanitarian I am used to political decisions … never [being] as fast as we hope for them, or as generous or as big, but it’s encouraging an increasing number are recognising the importance of the issue and are taking steps to reduce the impact of climate change on our habitat – the Paris Agreement is an important step forward,” he said. “For us we hope the international community will soon enough take necessary steps, so at the end of the day they won’t have to pay by increasing humanitarian impacts which, again, we already see in other conflicts.” Donald Trump said little about the IPCC report, having already pledged to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement. This made things difficult for everyone else, Ola Elvestuen, Norway’s environment minister, said last month, but still called for countries to transition away from fossil fuels, embrace electric cars and halt deforestation. The Australian government largely dismissed the IPCC report and its recommendations – which included the rapid phase out of coal – as well as the pleas of Pacific Island nations. Australia has no formal energy or climate change policy, and the Coalition government at one point flagged pulling out of the Paris Agreement. MPs and ministers maintain that Australia is on track to meet emissions reductions targets, despite official government figures on emissions suggesting Australia will not, according to current projections. On Sunday Australia’s treasurer and former energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, rejected the suggestion it should get his government rethink its policies. He said the government did not intend to “reduce emissions at the expense of people’s power bills”. Anote Tong, the former president of Kiribati, was in Australia this week advocating for action. “It’s not about the marginal rise in price or reduction in price of energy, it’s about lives, it’s about the future,” he told Guardian Australia. Maurer said there were now more people displaced than ever before, approaching 70m across the globe. Two thirds are displaced internally, and most of those who fled would go to a neighbouring country. “At the end of the day there is no single policy that allows in any satisfactory way a response to these issues, but there are multiple things which can be done,” he said. | ['world/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-icrc', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coal', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2018-10-21T05:09:06Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/oct/09/freeze-frame-how-the-antarctics-hidden-jewel-box-of-creatures-was-captured | Freeze frame: how the Antarctic’s hidden jewel box of creatures was captured | Hanging from the underside of an Antarctic ice floe, a sea anemone’s delicate, glassy tentacles wave in the current. This is Edwardsiella andrillae, one of the planet’s most remarkable creatures. Unlike other sea anemones that dwell on the ocean floor, this recently discovered species thrives by embedding itself in ice – though how it penetrates the floe with its soft body or survives there remains a mystery. The photograph, taken by Laurent Ballesta, is the first detailed image of the species and is one of a series that has won the portfolio award at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which will be unveiled this week at the Natural History Museum in London. “Seldom has such a jewel box of images been collected together, and all from under the ice in Antarctica,” said Roz Kidman Cox, chair of the judging panel. “The richness, variety and technical prowess of this underwater portfolio is extraordinary.” An experienced underwater photographer and biologist, Ballesta, who is based in France, spent two years planning his expedition to Antarctica. In total, he made 32 dives in temperatures around minus 1.7C – including the deepest, longest dive ever made in the Antarctic – and describes the process of diving under the ice as “like diving into a cave but with a much better chance of getting lost”. The resulting portfolio, Under Antarctic Ice, reveals the incredible diversity of life that exists in the waters there. Ballesta’s photographs include one of a possible new species of dragonfish surrounded by a wide variety of underwater life forms including creatures called brittle stars, as well as Antarcturid isopods and orange sea squirts. Taking this image was not easy, however. “It was one of the most difficult dives I have ever done,” says Ballesta, who made his descent through a small opening in the ice off Adélie Land in eastern Antarctica. After taking his photographs, he had to suffer hours of decompression in the extreme cold before he could return to the surface. In the ferociously cold waters off Antarctica many species are affected by a phenomenon known as polar gigantism, which causes invertebrates to evolve much larger bodies than related species in warmer waters. One example is illustrated by Bellesta’s photograph of a creature known as a giant Antarctic sea spider – though technically it is a pycnogonid, not a spider. Pycnogonids are widespread across the globe but are usually very small. In the Antarctic they grow to the size of dinner plates. Their internal organs develop inside their legs and they feed by sucking the juices from soft-bodied invertebrates through a long proboscis. Other dramatic looking species photographed by Ballesta include a helmet jellyfish, whose bell-shaped dome trails tentacles that are used to grasp and reel in its prey, such as krill, and which can emit blue light flashes to warn off predators. However, it was the image of Edwardsiella andrillae that provided the biologist with the most satisfying image of his portfolio. As he ascended from a deep dive, Ballesta was exhausted, freezing and desperate for a distraction from the pain he was suffering – when he came across a field of the sea anemones dangling from an ice floe like Christmas decorations. Taking their photographs provided distraction from the discomfort he was experiencing while also illustrating the wonders that can be found in the seas around Antarctica. This latter point is stressed by the wildlife photographer Jen Guyton, one of the jury members who awarded this year’s portfolio prize to Ballesta: “These photographs are a reminder that our oceans are still full of discoveries to be made and surprises to be found and that they must be protected.” | ['environment/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year', 'environment/wildlife', 'artanddesign/photography', 'environment/environment', 'culture/culture', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'world/antarctica', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-10-09T10:00:54Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2016/dec/01/the-guardian-view-on-sheffields-trees-decline-and-fall | The Guardian view on Sheffield’s trees: decline and fall | Editorial | Residents of the city of Sheffield are at war with their council over the cutting down of trees. According to protesters, 4,000 have already succumbed since the council signed a contract with Amey, a private contractor commissioned to improve the city’s roads. The battle of Rustlings Road, on 17 November, was an inglorious affair: on the one hand, men wielding chainsaws against the street’s trees at 5am; on the other, three residents, including sociology professor emeritus Jenny Hockey and retired teacher Freda Brayshaw arrested and detained for staging a peaceful protest against the felling. Today two other opponents of the fellings in Sheffield pleaded not guilty to charges under the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which criminalises those who prevent a worker from carrying out a lawful task, in this case tree surgeons. Meanwhile, residents are rallying to protect the trees of Western Road, also threatened – and these venerable planes considerably raise the stakes in the dispute, since they were planted in 1919 to commemorate pupils from a nearby school who died in the first world war. The British like to romanticise trees: in our stories woods are places of mystery, escape and enchantment; sometimes of threat. Robin Hood’s Sherwood is a locus of freedom from tyranny. Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden, in As You Like It a (windy, rainy) asylum from the “painted pomp” of court, where the exiled Duke finds “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks/Sermons in stones, and good in everything”. In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the ancient Ents of the Forest of Fangorn – “tree shepherds” who have grown to be much like trees themselves – rise up to defeat the wizard Saruman; as in Macbeth, when a forest is on the move, it’s time to be alarmed. The children’s first glimpse of Narnia, as they tumble through the fur-coat-hung wardrobe in CS Lewis’s story, is a snow-muffled forest. Even the regimented, unromantic plantations of Scotland are capable of a certain mystery in British art: the final scenes of Jonathan Glazer’s cinematic masterpiece, Under the Skin, take place under the waterlogged, treacherous shadows of windswept pines. But the Sheffield dispute is not just about an atavistic affection for the forests of our imaginations: it is about a community deracinated from local decision-making processes by austerity. Sheffield’s agreement with a private contractor is a pragmatic measure in a city hit by appalling cuts to services. It is cheaper to fell trees, perhaps replacing them with younger specimens, than to maintain old ones; Amey has its bottom line to consider, and is not directly accountable to local voters. But the trees matter to people, and it is heartening to see Sheffield’s protesters come together in defence of the handsome, beloved planes that line its streets. It is not the first time in recent years that urban communities have rallied in defence of the precious green growing things in their midst: in Glasgow, residents have waged a fierce and long battle against the council’s plan to sell off the North Kelvin Meadow and Children’s Wood for housing, defending this patch of land, with its wild orchids and elegant birches, from a needless housing project. Just as Scottish ministers should now step in decisively to stop the Kelvinside development plans, so Sheffield should reconsider the fate of its trees – and save them from the axe. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/forests', 'uk/sheffield', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'uk/scotland', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'business/austerity', 'politics/privatisation', 'society/localgovernment', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-12-01T18:51:16Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2014/sep/12/marine-reserves-review-coalition-says-recreational-fishers-have-been-left-out | Marine reserves review: Coalition says recreational fishers have been left out | The Coalition has launched a review of the vast network of marine reserves set out by the previous Labor government, to deliver what it calls a more “sensible balance” between fishing and environmental concerns. In 2012 Labor formally protected more than 2.3 million square kilometres of ocean environment, creating the largest network of marine reserves in the world. The reserves are made up of five main zones surrounding every state and territory, banning fishing in some of these areas. The Coalition has suspended the usage plans for these zones pending a review, arguing that recreational fishers had been unfairly locked out of the process. An expert scientific panel and bioregional advisory panels have been set up to assess the commonwealth marine reserves. Bob Beeton, an associate professor of environment management at the University of Queensland, will chair the scientific panel. Other members of the panel include marine biologists Dr Julian Pepperell and Dr Sabine Dittmann. The bioregional advisory panels, which will assess protection requirements in different parts of Australia, are largely made up of fishing industry representatives. All of the panels will report back to the government by mid-2015. The environment minister, Greg Hunt, said the review would examine the management of the marine reserves “rushed through by the previous government”. “It is important that an independent review based on science is undertaken which reconsiders zoning boundaries to restore community confidence,” he said. “Unlike the previous government, we are committed to getting the management plans and the balance of zoning right, so we have asked the expert panels to consider what management arrangements will best protect our marine environment and accommodate the many activities that Australians love to enjoy in our oceans.” Senator Richard Colbeck, the parliamentary secretary for agriculture, added: “Our aim is to have a sensible balance, which protects the environment, supports a sustainable fishing industry, attracts tourism and provides cultural, recreational and economic benefits for coastal communities.” Environmental groups have criticised the review of the marine reserves, pointing out that consultation took place over a number of years, with around 80,000 submissions considered by the previous Labor government. “It’s unnecessary, it puts into question much needed protection of marine life, and it will cost a lot of money,” Michelle Grady, ocean campaigner at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told Guardian Australia. “There has been 10 years of science and consultation, in fact it started under the John Howard government. I’m perplexed why this is happening. “The vast majority of Australia’s marine environment remains open to recreational fishing. Most of the protected areas start hundreds of kilometres offshore. “The government has a responsibility to look after this ecosystem like we do on land. We never question national parks on land. These areas were put aside to give species a fighting chance, and the benefits that come from that include protecting fish stocks for everyone. It’s just common sense.” Grady said the marine reserves protect endangered sea lions, as well as key breeding ground for whales and dolphins. | ['environment/environment', 'australia-news/coalition', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-09-12T04:28:57Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2023/feb/28/scientists-uk-aviation-net-zero-ambitions-half-farmland-double-renewable-electricity | Scientists pour cold water on UK aviation’s net zero ambitions | The UK would have to devote half its farmland or more than double its total renewable electricity supply to make enough aviation fuel to meet its ambitions for “jet zero”, or net zero flying, scientists have said. A report published on Tuesday by the Royal Society argues there is no single, clear, sustainable alternative to jet fuel that could support the current level of flying. The scientists say that while the government and aviation industry have set a target of 2050 to balance out emissions, huge challenges remain around the availability, costs and impacts of alternative fuels, as well as the need for new types of planes and airport infrastructure around the world to allow the most probable long-term solutions. Significant further research and investment would be needed, the scientists say, to address questions across four fuel types – green hydrogen (made from water using renewable energy), biofuels (energy crops and waste), ammonia and synthetic fuels or e-fuels. Producing enough biofuels would require about half of UK agricultural land, while other feedstocks such as municipal waste could only contribute “a very small fraction” of the jet fuel requirements, they report. Making sufficient green hydrogen or ammonia to power future planes would require well over double today’s entire UK renewable electricity generation capacity. E-fuels or synthetic fuels – which are made by capturing and converting carbon dioxide from the air – would require five to eight times today’s UK capacity. The Royal Society said the findings underscored the challenges of decarbonising aviation, and much work remained to be done in how such fuels were stored and handled – as well as their actual environmental impacts in production and when used in flight. Aviation’s CO2 accounted for 2.4% of global emissions in 2019. UK aviation (both international and domestic) caused 8% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Graham Hutchings, the regius professor of chemistry at Cardiff University and chair of the report working group, said: “We need to be very clear about the strengths, limitations, and challenges that must be addressed and overcome if we are to scale up the required new technologies in a few short decades.” The report said more research was needed to understand how alternative fuels would impact contrails, which contributes significantly to aviation’s heating effect. Sustainability would depend on how fuel alternatives were produced, said Prof Marcelle McManus, a director of the Institute for Sustainability at University of Bath. “We need consistency, and we need to apply this globally, because adopting any of these new technologies will create demands and pressures for land, renewable energy or other products that may have knock on environmental or economic effects.” While airlines are looking to sustainable fuels to reduce CO2 emissions by 70-80%, McManus said that for a number of different fuels types labelled as sustainable that was “definitely not the case” that would result from a switch. Dr Guy Gratton, the associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University, said: “The term SAF [sustainable aviation fuel] is quite nebulous … they don’t all have the same environmental footprint.” The government has said it will mandate airlines to use SAFs for at least 10% of their fuel needs by 2030. Gratton said that while that target could be met, what the overall environmental benefits were would be “a more complex question”. He said creating new fleets of radically different planes to run on hydrogen airliners would be hugely expensive but achievable, adding: “It does seem reasonable to say if we do get the investment in research and infrastructure we could get close to a massive reduction in emissions by the 2050 target.” A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The UK’s sustainable aviation fuels programme is one of the most comprehensive in the world. “Our Jet Zero strategy sets out how we can achieve net zero emissions from UK aviation by 2050, without directly limiting demand for aviation. Sustainable aviation fuels and hydrogen are key elements of this, and we will ensure that there is no impact on food crops.” A spokesperson for the industry body Airlines UK said the sector was committed to achieving net zero by 2050. They said: “There is no magic bullet, but by modernising airspace to make flying more efficient, by introducing new zero emission technology like hydrogen aircraft and by upscaling the use of sustainable aviation fuels this decade, it can be achieved.” The spokesperson said the sector was working closely with government to “maximise both the environmental and huge economic opportunities from leading the jet zero transition”. A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 will fly from London to New York later this year powered entirely by fuel made primarily from waste oils and fats, in what is being billed as the first ever net zero transatlantic flight. | ['business/theairlineindustry', 'environment/airline-emissions', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gwyntopham', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2023-02-28T06:01:12Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2010/mar/11/extinct-species-england | More than two extinct species a year in England, report reveals | More than two animals and plants a year are becoming extinct in England and hundreds more are severely threatened, a report published today reveals. Natural England, the government's agency responsible for the countryside, said the biggest national study of threats to biodiversity found nearly 500 species that had died out in England, all but a dozen in the last two centuries. The losses recorded compare with a natural rate of about one extinction every 20 years before humans dominated the planet, but are almost certainly an underestimate because of poor records of any but the "biggest, scariest" creatures before the 1800s. The high rate at which species are being lost is set to continue. Almost 1,000 other species face "severe" threats from the same problems that drove their relatives extinct – hunting, pollution, development, poor land management, invasive species and, more recently, climate change – says the report, Lost life: England's lost and threatened species. This represents about a quarter of all species in the best-studied groups, including every reptile, dolphin and whale species, two-thirds of amphibians and one-third of butterflies and bumblebees. In total, the report records 55,000 known species in England. "Each species has a role and, like the rivets in an aeroplane, the overall structure of our environment is weakened each time a single species is lost," said Helen Phillips, the agency's chief executive. "We seem to have endless capacity to get engaged about rainforests but this reminds us conservation begins at home." Tom Tew, Natural England's chief scientist, called for a "step change" in conservation, including more "targeted" schemes to protect individual species, better safeguarding of protected areas and better management of land outside the protected areas, especially farmland. "This report is not all doom and gloom, but we're losing species at an alarming rate and many of our species are seriously threatened," he said. "These species could the tip of the iceberg unless we take action." Matt Shardlow, head of Buglife, said: "The report [confirms] we are in the midst of an extinction crisis and it is happening here in England under our very noses." Dozens of scientists trawled records going back to the first century AD from official lists and books. They identified 492 species recorded in England that could no longer be found, all but 12 of which disappeared after 1800. A further 943 species are listed under the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) as plants and animals under threat. These include a number of species now extinct in many counties or regions of England. One statistic that shocked the experts was a study of nearly half of English counties, which showed one plant species going locally extinct every two years. So widespread are the problems that some once prolific species are under threat, including the common toad, common frog, common skate and the corncrake. "They are not common any more," said Tew. "Our ancestors used to lie awake at night unable to sleep because of the noise of the corncrake." Four of the species extinct in England also became extinct globally: the penguin-like great auk; Mitten's beardless moss; York groundsel, a weed only discovered in the 1970s; and the Ivell's sea anemone, last seen in a lagoon near Chichester. Many more English animals and plants are also on the threatened list, including the whitebeam, a tree with young leaves like "white candles", said Tew: "That signals the start of spring; it can be found nowhere else in the world and has disappeared from much of England." The remaining extinct and threatened species exist in other countries, though the agency warned that reintroducing species was not reliable because the threats still remained, and national or regional extinctions led to the loss of genetic diversity. Last year Natural England also published a report highlighting the economic cost of not protecting natural ecosystem services such as clean air, clean water, productive soils for crops, carbon storage, flood defence and natural resilience to climate change. Other benefits were beyond value, said Tew: "Lots of you, like me, feel the worse for not hearing the corncrake in the country, or the flash of a red squirrel. When we lose wildlife we lose something priceless, and that effects our quality of life." The report calls for better conservation, especially following successful schemes to reintroduce or bolster populations such as the red kite and large blue butterfly. Of the hundreds of species on the BAP list in the 1990s, seven have since become extinct but 45% are now stable or recovering. The government has also ordered a review of protected areas. "Species loss is not inevitable; we can do something about it," added Tew. "But we need to think ambitiously if we're to meet the needs of this and future generations." This week, Simon Stuart, who oversees the team of experts that declare species globally threatened and extinct, said humans were causing extinctions faster than new species could evolve for the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared. Winners and losers Going: Species facing "severe" threats in England Red squirrel Northern bluefin tuna Natterjack toad Common skate Alpine foxtail Kittiwake Grey plover Shrill carder bumblebee Recovering: Recent conservation success stories Pole cat Large blue butterfly Red kite Ladybird spider Pink meadowcap Sand lizard Pool frog Bittern | ['environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/environment', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/plants', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/juliettejowit', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-03-11T00:05:04Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/german-elections-blog-2013/2013/sep/13/german-election-wurst-policy-veggie-day-greens | Wurst policy ever? 'Veggie Day' plan leaves Greens trailing | German election | A dramatic fall in the polls for the Green party has been blamed in no small part on their Veggie Day proposal, in which canteens would be obliged to offer only vegetarian food once a week, with Germans (among the most enthusiastic carnivores in Europe) encouraged to follow suit at home. In an election campaign that has thus far often been described as dull and detached, critics seized on Veggie Day, making it one of the most talked-about proposals from any party. It has so far received almost as much airtime in pre-election debates as Syria and the eurozone crisis combined. Opponents in the liberal Free Democratic party have been firing up the barbecues in protest. The Greens have fallen in the polls by between four and five percentage points since August – and a staggering 10 points since 2011. They are now predicted to get just 9%-10% on 22 September. The numbers make Green prospects of becoming the third strongest party in the next Bundestag ever less likely, causing hopes to fade on the left of a Green-Social Democrat coalition. The Greens' mistake? Manfred Güllner, one of Germany's foremost pollsters, put it down primarily to their decision to shift the focus away from their core issues – the environment, women and peace – and turn instead to social justice. "That was a strategic mistake, because it doesn't belong to their founding ideas," he said. "It's a topic that remains the preserve of the SPD." And Veggie Day? "Just another mistake among several," he told the foreign press, citing also Green calls for a minimum wage, which have done little to set it apart from the SPD or the Linke (Left) parties, as well as its calls to raise the top rate of tax to 49% for those earning more than €80,000 (£67,000). The Greens have not been helped by the fact that the wind has rather been taken out of their sails, as it were, by Merkel's decision, after the Fukushima disaster, to phase out nuclear power and thus remove a key concern on which Greens once built up a strong following. It has also fought an image problem over its tolerance of paedophilia, a 1980s shadow hanging over the party which it is still trying to tackle. Within the party itself criticism is rife that the once-towering force of the ecological movement in Europe has failed to connect with voters. Ruth Kastner, head of the Greens in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, has accused the party's leading candidates, Jürgen Trittin and Katrin Göring-Eckardt, of poor communication, bemoaning the fact that Veggie Day, more than any other Green policy, has left the party open to accusations of pushing for an "ecological dictatorship". | ['world/german-elections-blog-2013', 'world/germany', 'lifeandstyle/vegetarianism', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'food/food', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/kateconnolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-09-13T10:21:46Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sustainable-business/2014/sep/25/even-avid-recyclers-overlook-the-smallest-room-in-the-house | 'Even avid recyclers overlook the smallest room in the house' | Fast facts about Paulette Frank Current role: vice president of sustainability for Johnson & Johnson, the $71bn-a-year health care company. She is also a board member at Net Impact. Job history: Paulette has been with Johnson and Johnson (J&J) for 17 years. She worked in environmental health and safety before becoming leader of its sustainability work. Lives in: Tewksbury, New Jersey with her husband Scott and sons Zach and Luke. Education: bachelor of science in biology from Duke University. Master’s in environmental science from Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies First job: checking beach badges on the Jersey Shore! Great gig! Who or what inspires me: the beauty in nature awes me. Weekend passion: I love to get away to a quiet place. We have property in upstate New York that we dream of putting a cabin on. My ideal weekend would involve sitting on the porch of our cabin, preferably with a good glass of wine, and watching a stunning sunset. If I wasn’t doing this I would be… Coaching five year olds on how to ace their kindergarten graduation poem! What’s been your greatest accomplishment? As far as accomplishments go, reciting the poem “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer at my kindergarten graduation set the bar pretty high. Pulling off that poem without a hitch, and seeing the looks on my gramma and mom’s faces in the audience…well, let’s just say it was the best performance review of my life. Incidentally, it turns out that Joyce Kilmer was the son of Fred Kilmer, J&J’s first chief scientist. A more recent accomplishment is stewarding the company’s decision to join the Closed Loop Fund. Because the fund asks companies to contribute money to public recycling infrastructure, it required us to bring internal stakeholders together on a learning journey while driving toward a public commitment. The fund took me and J&J into uncharted territory, and I’m proud we held hands and jumped in! What’s your biggest frustration? Balancing focus and staying on strategy while still addressing the breadth of stakeholder interests. Financial and personnel resources, like natural resources, are finite and can become constrained when stretched too thin. When we have to address issues that our business isn’t well positioned to affect, it takes resources away from issues where we can make more of a difference. One item on my wish list is a desire for more coordination across businesses, industries and stakeholder groups on who, where, and how the most positive impact can be achieved. What’s your goal for the next year? I am obsessed with recycling. With consumption outpacing the planet’s ability to replenish, we can’t afford for anything to end up in a hole in the ground. I’d like to scale up our Care to Recycle program, which works to divert bathroom waste from landfills and into the recycling stream. When it comes to recycling, even the more avid recyclers tend to overlook the smallest room in the house. Tell us a story that conveys a lesson you’d like to share. I have two sons who love Legos. The lifecycle of a Lego in my house looks something like this: boxes of Legos in pre-assigned kits come into the house. The boxes get opened, the kits get built, and the kits gets disassembled. Instead of going back in the box, the Lego pieces get scattered into various buckets of Legos. For a time, I would compulsively attempt to intervene in this process and sort the pieces back into their original boxes. One day I broke down and asked my son the obvious question “Why don’t you ever put your Legos back into the right boxes?” My son replied, with the how-can-you-not-know-this look I have grown accustomed to, “Because when they are in the boxes, you know exactly what you’re going to build. When they are mixed up, you can build anything you want.” I’ve concluded that this must be where the phrase “out of the box” comes from. Away from work, what do you do to live more sustainability? When it comes to food in our house, “local” is really local. My family loves to fish and I have a garden that just broke even between feeding us and the critters that live in the neighborhood. I also got a book on how to raise chickens as a subtle hint to my husband that I want a chicken coop! More like this: Five questions for Amy Hargroves of Sprint’s sustainability program Five questions for Marcus Chung of The Children’s Place apparel The social impact hub is funded by Anglo American. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. | ['sustainable-business/behaviour', 'sustainable-business/business-case', 'sustainable-business/brand', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'sustainable-business/waste-and-recycling', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/interview', 'profile/marc-gunther'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-09-25T17:15:10Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2022/apr/27/droughts-somalia-migrants-global-heating-starvation-europe | Droughts in Somalia are partly our fault. We could at least let more migrants in | Sally Hayden | Somalis call the dangerous journey towards Europe “going on tahriib” a word mostly associated with illegal activities such as trafficking or smuggling. Those who attempt it travel by road through Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya, then by boat across the Mediterranean to Europe – if they’re lucky enough to make it that far. Their families often pay thousands of pounds to unscrupulous smugglers, who may break their initial promises, upping the prices or abandoning victims too early. Yet people still try. And increasingly, climate change is one of the reasons. Sitting under 40C sun in south-west Somalia, Abdirahman Nur Hassan, a local elder and member of the town of Dollow’s drought committee, told me illegal journeys to Europe used to be rare in this region, and were related to youth unemployment, “but now it is becoming common”. Drought is destroying people’s livelihoods and causing them to look for other options, he said. “If this drought continues, things will get worse, the remaining animals will die, and the majority of people living in this area will end up displaced.” The situation in Somalia is catastrophic. Six million people are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity following three failed rainy seasons, and 81,000 are believed to be in famine. The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of children could die if adequate assistance fails to materialise. 1.4 million children are expected to face acute malnutrition this year. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, 745,000 people have been displaced by the latest drought, the majority of them since January. Accurate figures on deaths are hard to gather, given that the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab controls large swaths of territory, making it dangerous for government officials or aid agencies to enter them. The climate crisis has played a significant role, making droughts more intense and rain less predictable. The Earth’s temperature has already risen by 1.1C, and Somalia – listed as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change – is a place where you can see the immediate impacts. In 2011, a famine there killed 250,000 people. Droughts are recurring, meaning victims don’t have a chance to recover in time to face the next one. By the end of this century, the temperature across Somalia is expected to rise by 3C. The climate crisis is largely the result of western emissions, but that has rarely resulted in increased help for developing countries grappling with its effects. The UK has a population just over four times the size of Somalia’s, but produced 520 times its emissions in 2018 – the last year that World Bank figures are available – down from 933 times Somalia’s emissions in 2006. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an average of more than 20 million people a year have been displaced by extreme weather events since 2008. Most stay within their own countries, and in Somalia I’ve seen them: tens of thousands of people in a makeshift camp, with no toilets, no water, children crying from hunger, now fearful of the rain, which will turn the area into an open sewer that spreads disease. Speaking to me on the phone this week, Dr Sukri Hussein Abdi, who works in a Somali stabilisation ward for malnourished children, where they have treated more than 400 children over the past few months, said the effects of the drought are “indescribable”. “People are dying from starvation, we need humanitarian assistance, food, shelter, water to help these people, to save lives, especially.” Last year, the UK cut its foreign aid budget by billions of pounds. In Somalia, a humanitarian response plan put together by the UN has been drastically underfunded. But allowing migration can be a more efficient form of foreign aid. Allowing people in developing countries to more easily travel by safe and legal routes to richer countries gives them a stable place to go, and means they can also get a job and send money back home. In 2020, the World Bank said Somalia received more than $1.7bn in remittances, equating to nearly 25% of its GDP. In a shop in Dollow, I met businessman Abdiweli Dirie Osman. Every five days he collects up to $300 from Somalis who have made it abroad, and uses it to buy bags of rice, sorghum, cooking oil and other essentials, which he distributes to families in need. “The diaspora collect what they can,” he said. This kind of charity is being repeated across the country. Osman’s sister has been in Germany for the past 10 years. “Every family has someone [in Europe],” he said. “Life is very difficult here, there are the cycles of drought. They want a change from the standard of living.” Osman had no idea how many people from this region have left for Europe. “They’ve been going for so long, it’s impossible to count them. It happens all the time,” he said. During the drought, he too hears that the numbers are increasing. When I asked him if he knew about the dangers involved, he laughed. “People are good at taking risks. That is the route. We’re hoping one day that there will be safer routes they can take. It helps society; in times of drought they can help the society.” With every degree that the temperature across Earth rises, experts say, roughly one billion people will either be displaced or forced to live in insufferable heat. We urgently need to ask how to improve the situation, for both those who leave and those who stay. Sally Hayden is a journalist and the author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/somalia', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'environment/drought', 'world/migration', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/sally-hayden', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-04-27T07:00:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2022/jan/07/hunterston-b-nuclear-power-station-retires-after-46-years-in-service | Hunterston B nuclear power station retires after 46 years in service | The Hunterston B nuclear power station will shut down for ever at noon on Friday after 46 years of service, reducing the UK’s nuclear capacity by one-eighth and prompting calls from the industry for greater government backing for the sector. The plant, on the west coast of Scotland, provided one gigawatt of the UK’s 7.9GW nuclear capacity, enough to power to 1.7m homes. But Hunterston B has lasted 20 years beyond its initial planned shutdown date and is one of several nuclear power plants being taken out of commission within several years of each other. The rapid pace of the decommissioning schedule has raised concerns about maintaining electricity generation. About 20% of Britain’s supply is provided by nuclear power from 15 reactors, which help provide a constant baseload to make up for shortfalls when electricity generation from renewables drops on windless days or when the sun is not shining. Almost half of the country’s nuclear capacity is scheduled for retirement by 2025 with the closure of Hunterston B, Hinkley Point B, Hartlepool 1 and Heysham 1. While more renewable energy will have been brought online by then and other fuel sources such as gas can fill in the gaps, the remaining 3.6GW of nuclear capacity would only be able to meet 6% of peak demand forecast for this winter. At its peak between 1995 and 1999, nuclear capacity hit nearly 13GW, about a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs. EDF is due to finish its 3.2GW plant Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power station in 20 years, by 2027. The first of its two reactors is scheduled to come online a year before that. The Nuclear Industry Association, which represents companies across the civil nuclear supply chain, estimates that the national capacity could reach 14.25GW by 2035, depending on whether £1.7bn in funding for the proposed Sizewell C plant is confirmed and the Wylfa Newydd project on Anglesey can attract investors. Development is likely to hinge upon government plans for a new financial framework, known as a regulated asset base (RAB) model, which would lock in higher returns for institutions funding nuclear plants and transfer risk to taxpayers. The NIA’s projection for the growth of nuclear also depends on the scale of the rollout of Rolls-Royce’s small modular reactors (SMRs), which have received £210m of government funds and £280m from private capital. The association criticised a decision by the Scottish government to bar new nuclear projects in Scotland, saying the gap left by Hunterston B would have to be filled in part with imported gas sourced from volatile global markets. This would drive up consumer bills, hamper emissions reduction plans and threaten Scotland’s energy security, it added. Tom Greatrex, the chief executive of the NIA, said: “Hunterston B has shown the best of what nuclear can provide for Scotland – clean, reliable power to keep the lights on and save our planet, and long-term, skilled jobs on which people can build a life and a family. “The dedicated staff who have helped keep Scottish homes warm and light for 46 years deserve our gratitude. As the current energy crisis demonstrates, without nuclear the cost of the electricity we rely on is higher, causes pollution and leaves us reliant on burning imported fossil fuels. That’s why we need new nuclear – to get to net zero and provide the reliable, secure and clean power to live our lives.” | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/scotland', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rob-davies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-01-07T06:00:32Z | true | ENERGY |
business/article/2024/jul/15/water-companies-sewage-discharges-information-commissioner-uk | Information commissioner urges water firms to ‘be open’ about sewage spills | Water companies must be transparent with the public about sewage spill data, the UK’s information commissioner has warned. John Edwards has written to the water companies calling on them to be as transparent as possible with their customers, and has asked them to disclose information related to sewage discharges every month. Water companies have recently been uncooperative with data requests, refusing to reveal memos and data about sewage discharges. The companies operate a monopoly, meaning customers cannot switch to another provider if they are unhappy with the service. One of the few powers the public has is to request data about sewage spills under freedom of information laws. The true scale of sewage spills into English rivers was first revealed under data transparency laws. In 2020, the Guardian reported that water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers on more than 200,000 occasions in 2019. The figures were obtained via environmental information requests, and traced releases of sewage from storm drains in rivers across England by all nine water companies. Last year, there was a record amount of human waste dumped in waterways. In 2023, raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas, in a 105% increase on the previous 12 months. Edwards said: “My message to water companies is simple – put transparency first. The public has no choice but to use our water companies, therefore these companies should ensure they have every confidence in doing so. The current concerns about sewage pollution have dented this confidence, so we’re calling on these companies to be open about their activities to help rebuild this trust. It’s both their responsibility and their legal obligation.” In May 2024, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued six water companies – Anglian Water, Severn Trent Water, South West Water, Northumbrian Water, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water – with decision notices requiring them to disclose the start and stop time of sewage discharges. David Black, the chief executive of the industry body Ofwat, said: “One of the prerequisites for building public trust is a culture of openness. As trust in the water sector is falling, that tells us companies have more to do. They should move to embrace open data as a matter of course, and they should be more open in sharing their plans and progress. And they should not wait to be pushed. Customers have paid companies to install monitors and collect their data. They have a right to see what it says.” Water companies have previously refused to release information about sewage spills when there are investigations ongoing into the leaks. Recently, a tribunal case found that a legal exception, which says releasing information would prejudice an investigation, did not apply to the requested information. Edwards said: “In the past, water companies have argued that disclosing information could prejudice ongoing investigations. It is now clear, following this tribunal ruling, that this defence should not stand in the way of transparency – just because information could be relevant to an ongoing investigation does not necessarily mean that it cannot or should not be released.” | ['business/water-industry', 'news/information-commissioner', 'environment/rivers', 'environment/pollution', 'business/utilities', 'uk/uk', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'business/severntrent', 'business/northumbrianwatergroup', 'business/unitedutilities', 'uk-news/england', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-07-15T11:14:15Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2011/aug/31/obama-irene-federal-disaster-funds | Obama declares Hurricane Irene a federal disaster to release repair money | Barack Obama has declared Hurricane Irene a "major federal disaster" in states across the eastern US, freeing relief funds for what is likely to be one of the costliest natural disasters in American history. Obama acted as people struggled with severe flooding in states along the east coast from North Carolina going north. The designation means government money can be used for temporary housing and home repairs. The president earlier signed emergency declarations for other states including Puerto Rico and Vermont, where heavy flooding has destroyed roads and left 13 towns surrounded by water. New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, called on the president to designate his heavily flooded state a disaster funds recipient. Thousands of people were evacuated in cities along the Passaic river, which has flooded towns along its banks. "I saw just extraordinary despair," Christie said after visiting some affected areas. The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, is visiting the state to survey the damage. The scale of the disaster is putting intense pressure on the resources of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and has led to a political row about whether the agency will have enough money to deal with Irene's aftermath. Fema's disaster relief fund has less than $800m (£490m) left and could run out before the end of the current fiscal year on 30 September. Eric Cantor, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, is pressing for budget cuts to cover the cost of cleaning up after Irene and other disasters, while Democrats argue that aid should not be delayed by political bickering. About 40 people are now believed to have been killed by the storm, which also caused damage to property estimated at more than $10bn and forced a shutdown of New York city. Insurance experts are still calculating the likely bill but Irene looks set to be one of the most costly disasters to hit the US. The most expensive disaster in US history was Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 1,836 people and caused $45bn in insured damages in 2005, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III). The second most costly – at $23bn – were the 9/11 attacks, which the institute counts as a single event. Hurricane Andrew, which hit southern Florida and Louisiana in 1992, is the third most costly at $22bn. On current estimates, Irene would rank seventh. Even before Irene, 2011 has already been one of the most costly disaster seasons in history. According to the institute, there were 43 "severe thunderstorms" in the first half of the year, causing 593 deaths and damage in excess of $23.5bn. AM Best in New Jersey, which rates the financial strength of insurers, calculates insurance losses topped $27bn in the first half of the year and have already exceeded the total for all of 2010. Jeff Mango of AM Best said 2011 was shaping up to be a year of record losses from storm damages. He said damage from tornadoes and hail in the midwest and storms in the north-east had taken a heavy toll in the first half of the year. Massive tornadoes in Alabama left almost 300 people dead and caused billions of dollars in damage earlier this year. Mango said it was the increased frequency of events rather than their scale that was leading to record damages. "It's hard to say yet what Irene will cost. It's more of a flooding event and a lot of it is uninsured risk, unfortunately," he said. US household insurance does not usually include flood damage. September is typically the biggest month for hurricanes, and forecasters have predicted an above-average hurricane season this year. "This could potentially be a record year," Mango said. | ['us-news/hurricane-irene', 'weather/usa', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'weather/index/northandcentralamerica', 'us-news/usdomesticpolicy', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/news', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/dominic-rushe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-08-31T19:21:48Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/article/2024/jun/10/claudia-sheinbaum-mexico-climate | Mexico’s new president ran on climate goals. Will she follow through? | The month before Mexico’s 2 June presidential vote the country was bedeviled by water cuts and blackouts as a record heatwave took the country beyond red and into an ominous purple on the weather map. As dehydrated monkeys dropped dead from trees, the landslide victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, might look like salvation. But her record paints a more complicated picture – one where climate convictions have often, and may still, come second to political pragmatism. Sheinbaum will inherit a country that has slipped from frontrunner to laggard on climate policy – in part due to the policies of her predecessor and ally, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which she has promised to continue. López Obrador, who comes from the oil-rich state of Tabasco, prioritised “energy sovereignty” by growing the role of state companies and striving for self-sufficiency. This was manifested in a $17bn oil refinery and colossal injections of cash and tax cuts for Pemex, the most indebted state oil company in the world, and one of the biggest historical polluters. One result was to entrench a dirty-energy matrix, with almost 80% coming from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, Mexico’s climate commitments were left to languish. It is one of just two G20 countries not to have a net-zero target, and it’s a long way from reducing emissions by 35% by 2030, under the Paris agreement. “Not only are we nowhere near it, but we don’t have any specific and detailed plans to achieve it, let alone financing and concrete infrastructure projects,” said Diego Rivera Rivota, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. This is despite the fact that Mexico is highly vulnerable to climate change – as was driven home by the extraordinary hurricane that hit Acapulco in October 2023, killing dozens and causing catastrophic damage. “Acapulco taught us a big lesson. We weren’t prepared for that,” said Gustavo Alanís, general director of CEMDA, an environmental NGO. “These floods, droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves aren’t just going to continue, but possibly get more severe and frequent.” Many hope Sheinbaum’s background as a climate scientist – one who contributed to the reports of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – will shine through once she takes office on 1 October, notwithstanding her reliance on López Obrador to win the presidency. When she was mayor of Mexico City, there were certain signs of the approach she might take as president, with an emphasis on solar energy, electrified public transport and a new cable car line. But then, the city saw no great improvement in either of its fundamental environmental problems: air pollution and water shortages. Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Sheinbaum promised all things to all people, saying she would both continue López Obrador’s policies but also do more for the environment. This means the Maya Train – one of López Obrador’s flagship infrastructure projects to develop historically poorer regions – will continue to cut through Latin America’s second-largest tropical forest. Sheinbaum has even suggested expanding it to neighbouring Belize and Guatemala. There will also be more backing for Sembrando Vida, López Obrador’s pet forestry and rural development initiative that has had money plowed into it as budgets for state environmental agencies have been slashed – even though its results are little understood, and there are reports it even promotes deforestation. And there will be more public money for Pemex as it staggers on under its debt burden and tries to increase its oil output. On the other hand, Sheinbaum has also suggested that Pemex expand its remit to include mining for lithium, a crucial element of electric batteries. And there was a campaign pledge to spend $14bn on clean-energy projects. That would mark a radical change from López Obrador’s government, which not only invested very little in renewables, but also revoked or blocked permits for private projects. Experts also expect to see more action on the demand side of the equation, with an emphasis on electrification of public transport and incentives for residential solar panels. “This is a country with 300 days plus of sun,” said Rivera Rivota. “It has massive potential for that.” Although Sheinbaum’s proposals lack detail at this stage, she has repeatedly emphasised the need for long-term planning for both energy and water – looking not just to 2030, but to 2050 and beyond. “[Long-term planning] was not guaranteed during the current administration. We had several legal and regulatory changes, and other attempts at change that led to battles in court,” said Rivera Rivota. “As long as it’s clear what the rules of the game are, what the legal framework is, I think Mexico has enormous potential for investment in renewable energy.” The scale of victory for Sheinbaum’s Morena party, which seems to have given it a supermajority in one and perhaps both houses of congress, as well as the governorships of 24 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities, has given Sheinbaum a huge mandate as president-elect. But whether she wants or will be able to move away from her predecessor’s policies is an unknown. López Obrador will remain a powerful figure – and his continued support may be needed to help hold together Morena, the party that he founded but has since expanded to house disparate ideologies, and fractious groups. “She was never going to contradict the president during the campaign,” said Rivera Rivota. “But who knows what will happen when she’s sitting in the Palacio Nacional and making the calls herself.” “There is hope, and there is a vote of confidence [in Sheinbaum],” said Alanís of CEMDA. “But here we will be vigilant, and we will be checking the actions of her administration every day. “And if necessary, we will raise our voice.” | ['world/mexico', 'world/claudia-sheinbaum', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador', 'environment/air-pollution', 'global-development/access-to-water', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/thomas-graham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-06-10T10:30:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2011/nov/02/morocco-solar-farm-renewables | Morocco to host first solar farm in €400bn renewables network | Morocco has been chosen as the first location for a German-led, €400bn project to build a vast network of solar and windfarms across North Africa and the Middle East to provide 15% of Europe's electricity supply by 2050. The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), a coalition of companies including E.ON, Siemens, Munich Re and Deutsche Bank, announced at its annual conference being held in Cairo on Wednesday that "all systems are go in Morocco", with construction of the first phase of a 500MW solar farm scheduled to start next year. The precise location of the €2bn plant is yet to be finalised, but it is expected to be built near the desert city of Ouarzazate. It will use parabolic mirrors to generate heat for conventional steam turbines, as opposed to the photovoltaic cells used in the UK. The 12 square kilometre Moroccan solar farm will, said Paul van Son, Dii's chief executive, be a "reference project" to prove to investors and policy makers in both Europe and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region that the Desertec vision is not a dream-like mirage, but one that can be a major source of renewable electricity in the decades ahead. Van Son described Desertec as a "win-win" for both Europe and MENA, adding that the Arab spring had created both opportunities and "questions" for the ambitious project. Discussions are already underway with the Tunisian government about building a solar farm, he said, and Algeria is the next "obvious" country, due to its close proximity to western Europe's grid. Countries such as Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia are predicted to start joining the network from 2020, as a network of high voltage direct current cables are built and extended across the wider region. German companies and policymakers have dominated the Dii conference, reflecting the nation's recent decision to totally phase out nuclear power by 2022 in reaction, in part, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March. By comparison, not a single representative from the UK was at the conference. Jochen Homann, the state secretary at Germany's Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, told the conference: "We undertook major reforms in German energy policy this summer and Desertec opens up an opportunity for us. We want to enter the age of renewables with sustainable sources of electricity supplying 80% of our power generation by 2050. As we accelerate our phase-out of nuclear power, we need to safeguard an affordable supply of electricity and we will be interested in importing renewables supplies in the future. Germany's government will continue to support Desertec. It is an inspiring vision which is good for foreign, climate and economic policies." But Homann stressed there would be "pre-conditions" for guaranteeing long-term support from the Germany government. He said there must be "liberalisation" of the energy markets across the MENA region: "North Africa still provides huge subsidies for fossil fuels. There will need to be regulatory improvements. Only then will renewables be able to compete and a common market created. And other European states must participate, too." Hassan Younes, Egypt's minister of electricity and energy, told the conference that Egypt was keen to participate and that it hoped to have a 1,000MW windfarm built by 2016 in the Gulf of Suez, adding to the 150MW "hybrid" gas-solar power plant that opened 100km south of Cairo earlier this year. The conference was told via a Dii promotional video that the network of solar and windfarms across the MENA region would help to "halt migration" into Europe, by fast-tracking the rise of the region's youthful population out of poverty and unemployment. The Desertec plan was welcomed by many in Germany, including chancellor Angela Merkel. However, some German critics argued that the concept of transmitting solar power from Africa to Europe was not proven and that a billion dollar project does not fit in to the country's green energy plan. German development NGO Germanwatch raised concerns that local people should benefit from the scheme, though Desertec representatives said the energy generated will first be used by the people of north Africa before being exported. Andree Böhling, energy expert at Greenpeace Germany, said: "We have to avoid European companies getting their hands on local resources, therefore we will follow the project carefully." • This article was amended on 3 November to remove an incorrect reference to Germanwatch and neocolonialism | ['environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'world/morocco', 'world/middleeast', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/leohickman', 'profile/hanna-gersmann', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2011-11-02T13:40:10Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2003/sep/18/science.climatechange | Will Venice really disappear within 100 years? | If nothing is done to stop the encroaching sea, then yes. The problem that Venice faces is familiar to anyone living along the Thames estuary - the land is sinking while, thanks to global climate change, the sea is rising. Flooding may well be a way of life for the Venetians but they do recognise that the situation is deteriorating. In 1900, the central area of the city around St Mark's square flooded around 10 times a year. Nowadays, that figure is closer to 100. Venice has sunk by around 20cm in the same time. And it's only going to get worse. Climatologists agree that global sea levels are likely to rise by up to 60cm by the end of the century, and this applies as much to the seas around Venice as to the big oceans. To try to address the problem, about 100 scientists met in Cambridge this week to work out what could be done to save the city. "It's a city that lies at sea level so it's very vulnerable to changes," says Caroline Fletcher, an environmental chemist and the Venice research fellow at Cambridge University, who is running the conference. Without any action, she warns, the city will be uninhabitable by 2100. Fortunately, the Italian government has marked Venice as a priority for action and is trialling one possible solution. The city is at one end of a lagoon with three openings to the Adriatic sea. The Italian scientists are testing a mobile barrier that could move into place in these openings at high tide, thereby blocking out any surges of water during storms. But predicting the tides over the next century is tricky. Fletcher says several groups are modelling the future weather patterns around the Mediterranean, but they know there is no guarantee of success. "There's definitely scientific uncertainty, but we're trying to synthesise a wealth of research that's gone on in Venice and come up with the state of knowledge because these systems are complex," she says. If Venice is to survive, Fletcher says, scientists must find a way to manage that uncertainty. And they'd better do it quickly. | ['environment/environment', 'science/science', 'science/series/behindthenews', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2003-09-18T11:21:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
lifeandstyle/2015/may/06/kitchen-gadgets-review-egg-cuber-square-eggs-medieval-torture-device | Kitchen gadgets review: the egg cuber – a medieval torture device to terrify hens | What? The Eddingtons Egg Cuber (£5.50, Amazon), a compressible, right-angled enclosure in which eggs may be compacted into cube shape. Why? So they fit better in sandwiches? I don’t know. Look, either the idea of a square egg excites you or it doesn’t. Like art or Disneyland or Calum Best, there is no practical reason for it. Well? “Consider God’s handiwork: who can make straight, what He hath made crooked?” These words, from Ecclesiastes, pose a pertinent question. With this week’s abomination, the answer is: anyone. “Put a round egg in … and get a square egg out!” boasts the box. Geometrically, this is wrong on both counts because we’re talking about ovoids and cubes, but there’s no point being pedantegg. A peeled, warm hard-boiled egg is a surprisingly malleable thing. Simply pop one in the plastic cage, place the pressing plate above it and turn the screw top to completion. The whole thing feels like a medieval torture device to terrify hens. The egg is squashed down, refrigerated for an hour to set the flesh, and lo! emerges tamed. Proud ovoid transmogrified to small, clammy cube. I can report that it works. It is harder to explain why you would want to do it in the first place (perhaps my more enthusiastic colleague can enlighten me). The packaging reminds us that square eggs are “more stable on the table” and “less common than round”, so at least they have a sense of humour. Perhaps the appeal is in the very unnaturalness? God does not want you to eat an equilateral egg, which makes it a forbidden fruit, and there is nothing sweeter. But the creamy, die-shaped monstrosity in my hand isn’t sweeter. It just tastes like an egg in a form that, had you eaten it a few hundred years ago, would have had you drowned as a witch. It is as much use as a coffee table for a puffin. Also, the portmanteau of square eggs is squeggs, and does that sound like something you should be eating? Consign Egg Cuber and its freakish progeny to hell. Redeeming features? Cheap, easy to wash, will probably win you some points with children. The chunky, see-through orange casing looks very much like a roadwork lamp, in case you are keen to recreate the “stolen traffic equipment” decor of your student days. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Back of the cupboard. Where it actually fits very nicely, right in the corner. 0/5 | ['food/eggs', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2015-05-06T11:57:32Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
australia-news/2023/oct/24/government-to-offer-homes-free-insulation-to-dull-western-sydney-airport-noise | New Sydney airport noise could impact thousands but about 90 homes eligible for free insulation | Noise from the new western Sydney airport won’t force the acquisition of nearby properties, but dozens will be eligible for free home insulation to dull sound. About 90 properties will be eligible for free insulation to dull the noise of 480 weekly flights out of western Sydney airport under a preliminary plan. The federal government on Tuesday released the draft environmental impact statement for Sydney’s second international airport, outlining how its planned flight trajectories will force planes using Sydney’s existing Kingsford Smith airport to tweak their paths over the city. The draft also included mitigation measures for sound. It says between 7,000 and 12,000 residents will experience five or more aircraft noises a day as loud as a washing machine once the airport reaches capacity. That level of noise is enough to interrupt indoor conversations if windows are open. Depending on the direction of travel, up to 84,500 people could be exposed to two events as loud as a conversation each night. But the report estimates that only 91 homes and other premises fall in the zone eligible to receive free insulation to abate noise. Insulation measures include installing thicker windows, sealing gaps, improving roof insulation and solidifying external doors. No properties will have to be acquired for being inside a noisier zone adjacent to the airport, although nearby residents can apply for consideration. While the number of those eligible appears low, the draft report says as few as five properties would have been eligible if the criteria used for Sydney airport was applied. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup It also reflected lower residential density and planning over many years in anticipation of the airport’s construction. Continuous descent approaches, which are GPS-guided approaches that allow aircraft to operate more efficiently and reduce noise, will also be available at western Sydney airport, but have not been implemented at the existing Sydney airport in Mascot. The transport minister, Catherine King, said people could have their say on the draft report and their feedback would be considered when finalising the flight path design. “Feedback has, and continues to be, a critical element to ensuring we deliver an airport which realises … lasting benefits, while balancing the needs of the community, environment, industry and users of the broader greater Sydney airspace,” she said. The single-runway facility will be the first airport in New South Wales to operate with no curfew, allowing flights to take off and land at all hours to cater for up to 10 million passengers a year at the time of its opening in 2026. Meanwhile, Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport said urgent reforms for noise mitigation were now required for its facility. While its flight paths will have to be changed to accommodate the new western Sydney airport, a Sydney airport spokesperson said the noise and emissions regulations governing it “remain frozen in time”. “We should consider further reforms that would allow our local residents to also benefit from the latest technology and make airspace across the entire Sydney basis much more efficient,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson also called for the implementation of the Harris Review as one key reform. The review examined the legislation that limits take off and landing slots at Sydney airport to reduce noise. The Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh said her electorate of Lindsay was now the most impacted by western Sydney airport’s flight paths, “which does not seem to be fair”. McIntosh accused King of releasing the flight path information to media on embargo “without adequate prior warning”. “This is purely about playing politics with the people of Western Sydney and I for one won’t be quiet about it. Getting a good run in the media without scrutiny should not be the minister’s top priority,” she said. McIntosh said the latest tranche of environmental impact documents “contain technical and complex information” and “will require time to go through” to understood the full impact. | ['australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/transport', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/elias-visontay', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-10-24T02:55:50Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2008/sep/01/republicans.hurricanegustav | Republican convention in tatters as Bush heads to hurricane zone | George Bush was today heading for Texas instead of the Republican party convention to inspect emergency efforts as hurricane Gustav raced towards the US Gulf coast. The president, who was pilloried for his tardy response to hurricane Katrina three years ago, was to visit Austin and San Antonio as the last residents in New Orleans prepared for Gustav to make landfall. He had been scheduled to appear before the Republican party in Minneapolis-St Paul to give his official blessing to Senator John McCain, the party's presidential candidate who faces Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, in the November election. But Gustav has thrown America's political agenda into chaos with the biggest casualty being the Republican convention, which was due to open today. McCain and his strategists announced yesterday they were cancelling almost all of today's programme. It is the first time in living memory that a Republican or Democratic convention has been disrupted by a natural disaster. In an interview broadcast yesterday, McCain said it would be inappropriate to have a "festive occasion" against the backdrop of a potential disaster. The Republicans are especially sensitive because of Bush's slow response to hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans almost three years ago. "It just wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster," McCain said in an interview recorded on Saturday with Fox News Sunday. If Gustav creates widespread devastation in the Gulf states, the Republicans will have to consider scaling back on the remaining three days of the convention. All the speeches could be ditched. But for legal reasons the convention has to find time to formally adopt McCain as the party nominee for the November 4 election. The disruption may work in his favour. He is not a good speaker and could be struggling to match Obama's speech in front of 80,000 supporters in Denver on Thursday. Gustav offers him a get-out: he could accept the nomination by video or another alternative to a speech from a podium. A truncated convention helps him in other ways too. His convention always threatened to be more fractious than the Democrats, with many Republicans prepared to voice unhappiness with him for not being conservative enough. Crucially, hurricane Gustav offers the Republicans a chance to make amends for Bush's failure three years ago. Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida, told CNN that the level of preparation had been "tremendous", showing lessons had been learned from Katrina. The speedy evacuation ordered yesterday contrasted with the lack of urgency in 2005. It was Bush's slow response to Katrina rather than the Iraq war that led to the public change in attitude to him and the resulting steady drop in polling ratings. Bush then stuck to a schedule that took him from his ranch in Texas and to California, happily strumming a guitar at one event. He only went to the New Orleans region five days after the hurricane struck. Obama is almost certain to modify his campaign plans for the week because, like McCain, partisan speeches would be regarded as insensitive. Obama, who won one of the biggest cheers of the night on Thursday when he told supporters that Bush had allowed a major US city, New Orleans, to drown, was more restrained yesterday: "Hopefully, we've learned from [hurricane Katrina's] tragedy," he said. He has to balance a willingness to help without being seen as opportunistic. He offered to call on his huge supporter base, built up over 20 months of campaigning, to provide funds for disaster relief and to act as volunteers in the coastal region. | ['us-news/republicans2008', 'us-news/hurricanegustav', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-elections-2008', 'us-news/johnmccain', 'us-news/george-bush', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'us-news/republicans', 'us-news/minnesota', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/ewenmacaskill', 'profile/marktran'] | us-news/hurricanegustav | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2008-09-01T13:55:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2009/mar/09/2010-commonwealth-games-security-terror-attacks | The organisers of 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi have invested $15m to enhance security in the wake of the terror attacks on the subcontinent | The organisers of 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi have invested $15million [£10.5m] to enhance security in the wake of the attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Pakistan last week. The Union Government of India has sanctioned the investment amid mounting concerns following last week's incident in Lahore. The Mumbai attacks had already prompted some athletes to call for the Games – scheduled to start on 3 October next year – to be moved. "The money has been sanctioned for the Delhi Police to procure additional security equipment like X-ray scanners, metal detectors and communication equipment, specifically for the Commonwealth Games 2010," a home ministry official said. Last week Indian Olympic Association chief Suresh Kalmadi said security was the top concern of the organising committee, an assurance echoed by Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna. "I assure you that the Commonwealth Games will be peaceful and secure," said Khanna. "Visitors have no need to be apprehensive about their safety." Meanwhile, secretary general for the 2010 Games, Lalit Bhanot, said that the venues would be ready well in advance of the Games, despite construction work being behind schedule. "We are moving in the right speed," he said. "Three or four stadiums will be delivered by September-October this year, while the rest will be ready by February next year." | ['sport/commonwealthgames2010', 'world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack', 'world/mumbai-terror-attacks', 'sport/sport', 'tone/news', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'type/article'] | world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-03-09T09:01:15Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2017/nov/14/britain-cycle-lanes-cities | Britain wants cycle-friendly cities. Here’s how we get them | Andrew Gilligan | Almost four-fifths of people in some of Britain’s largest cities want road space taken away from cars and given to bikes, according to a new poll from Sustrans. I’m not at all surprised. Whenever we proposed the same thing in London, where I was cycling commissioner until last year, we got the same response. Every single one of the cycle superhighway schemes now open in the capital got between 60% and 85% public support, in our own statutory consultations and in independent, professional opinion polls. Once the new routes opened, that support translated into astonishing levels of usage. In the first six months, the number of cyclists on the roads served by the new separated lanes went up by more than half. The bike lane on Blackfriars bridge, which takes up a fifth of the roadspace, now carries 70% of the bridge’s rush-hour traffic. There’s an Eiger of evidence that cycling improvements are popular. Why, then, do they so seldom happen? Partly it’s because politicians confuse noise with numbers. Cycling schemes create a lot of noise. Our opponents would spend busy weeks organising petitions, holding demonstrations and comparing bike lanes to the Luftwaffe in their effects on the capital. But almost every time the consultation results came back, the nimbies found that they lacked the numbers. In this year’s election, the MP who campaigned hardest against our cycling schemes, the Enfield Tory David Burrowes, lost his seat. In Walthamstow, where fire and brimstone was directed at our and the Labour council’s “mini-Holland” cycling project, Labour was re-elected with 80% of the vote. Partly it’s because the people making the decisions drive, or are driven, and imagine that everyone else must too. Our most strident opposition came from taxis and the people who use them: MPs, ministers, City grandees. But in London and several other inner cities, almost no one drives: only 5% of commuter journeys into central London are done by car, and only 7% of Londoners drive even once a week in the centre. It’s also partly because cyclists are seen as a separate species, unconnected to the rest of the transport system. But every new cyclist is freeing space on the roads or on public transport for others who do not cycle. Everyone who cycles improves not just their own health, but everybody else’s, by reducing pollution, traffic danger and noise. If bike lanes benefited only the relatively few who already cycled they would not, of course, win such wide support. Cycling schemes are not hard in engineering terms. They succeed or fail on the politics. For those places outside the capital now contemplating change, there are several things you can do to increase your chances of success, and reduce your opponents’ chances. Before you make any specific proposal, prepare the ground. Try to persuade people of the need for change: if the roads are full, what would you rather have, new roads cutting through your city, or better use of the roads you’ve already got? Lay out an attractive alternative to the status quo that people could support. Relate cycling and traffic reduction to things that touch people’s lives. We asked doctors and emergency staff – more trusted by the public than politicians – to talk about how cycling could make people healthier and help the NHS survive. Another city related it to pollution, putting air quality monitors outside schools to show parents how much danger their kids were in. We worked out every aspect of a proposal in detail before we presented it, anticipating and pre-empting likely objections. We looked at parking, for instance, in a very granular way, examining exactly who parked where, for how long and why. We thought how we could accommodate as many of those needs as possible – say, by moving a parking space round the corner, rather than just scrapping it – without compromising the essential principles of the scheme. We had data ready to counter fears and misrepresentations. We demonstrated through polling that our opponents were in the minority. Every time they produced a businessperson or a politician to counter the scheme, we produced three or four to back it. We ignored wrecking objections but accommodated reasonable ones, changing some of the schemes to reduce their impact. In the end, however, all this relies on having a political leader who is actually willing to lead. And that species is in disappointingly short supply. In my London experience, some were superb but most, Labour and Tory, wanted only to talk about promoting cycling. When it came to doing anything much, their resolve faltered. More than 18 months into his mayoralty of London, Sadiq Khan is still finding it hard to make even quite easy decisions about bikes and traffic. He’s still wringing his hands about whether to close Regent’s Park to rat-running cars – a cycling scheme with big non-cycling benefits and substantial majority support. Indeed, almost all the cycling projects Khan inherited from his predecessor – designed, consulted on and publicly approved by large margins – have spent the last year and a half on hold. No new schemes have yet been approved. The poor man even took nearly a year to scrap the almost friend-free Garden Bridge, which really should have been a day-one decision. Voters may support cycling, but on most polls it would be well below health, the economy, transport generally or the environment in most people’s priority lists. This, no doubt, is why Khan and other fence-sitters treat cycling as marginal, and not worth spending their political capital on. But that’s a mistake, because cycling isn’t just popular: it’s a key that unlocks all those other issues. • Andrew Gilligan is the former cycling commissioner for London | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'lifeandstyle/cycling', 'tone/comment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'cities/cities', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/road-safety', 'uk/london', 'cities/commuting', 'politics/localgovernment', 'society/localgovernment', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'profile/andrewgilligan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-11-14T14:55:10Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
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