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business/2021/mar/30/years-of-litigation-could-lie-ahead-as-insurers-eye-cost-of-ever-given-grounding | Who pays for Suez blockage? Ever Given grounding could spark years of litigation | After hauling its 220,000-ton bulk down the Suez canal a week after blocking the essential waterway, the Ever Given container ship is likely to become the centre of a protracted battle over who will pay for its rescue. The 400-metre-long vessel was aground on the banks of the Suez canal for a week, causing an estimated £7bn loss each day in trade owing to ships stuck on either side, and up to £10.9m a day for the canal. “We managed to refloat the ship in record time. If such a crisis had occurred anywhere else in the world, it would have taken three months to be solved,” said Osama Rabie, the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA). But questions about who will walk the plank financially are likely to entangle insurers and investigators, possibly for years. Investigators boarded the ship, now at anchor in the nearby Great Bitter Lake, on Tuesday, to find answers on what caused the grounding and who is ultimately responsible. The Ever Given’s technical operator, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), has repeatedly blamed strong winds. “Initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding,” it said. Observers pointed to the “sail effect”, when containers piled high on top of a large vessel are more susceptible to strong winds. Others have disagreed, with reports including that the Ever Given lost power. The SCA said initially the ship lost the ability to be steered in high winds and a dust storm, although Rabie later added that “technical or human errors” may be to blame. The Japanese firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha, which owns the Ever Given, apologised for the “tremendous worry” caused to other vessels stuck in the canal. Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner, a maritime historian and associate professor at Campbell University in North Carolina, said conflicting reports about the reasons behind the grounding were related to who was ultimately held responsible. “If it was a mechanical or a human error, then all of a sudden BSM and [the Taiwanese operator] Evergreen Marine become responsible,” he said. But, he added, “if there was a danger of wind, the [canal] pilots shouldn’t have brought the Ever Given into the canal. That’s on the pilots to bring her in. Remember, she was only in the canal for about five miles when this happened. She had just started her voyage.” The SCA’s rules, however, state that the vessel is “wholly responsible” for any damage, unless the ship’s operators can prove it occurred by accident. James Davey, of Southampton University’s Institute of Maritime Law, categorised five potential areas of litigation: damage to the vessel; damage to its cargo; the cost of the refloating and salvage operation; the SCA’s financial losses including damage to the canal itself; and losses to the other delayed vessels. “The cost of refloating and salvage is likely to be enormous,” he said, adding it would probably be shared between the insurers of the ship and of the cargo. There was also the extremely expensive question of who would foot the bill for damage to the canal itself. “Because there are hundreds of millions of pounds involved, this will take a long time,” he said. The law firm Clyde & Co estimated that the Ever Given may be worth up to $110m, while the value of the cargo could stretch to another $500m. “This case may well involve the largest salved fund of any container ship casualty to date,” it said. Capt Jamil Sayegh, a former master mariner now with the Lloyd’s agency in Beirut, said the ship’s captain was unlikely to face criminal responsibility, but could be liable if he were found to have been negligent. He said the future of the Ever Given would be one of complicated overlapping legal battles, where each of the 20,000 containers on board the ship could have eight or nine different interests, in addition to the $9.6bn (£6.994bn) of cargo on the 300 waiting vessels. Fitch Ratings called it a “large loss event for the reinsurance industry”. Sayegh said the grounding would be a case study – “a lot of litigation will follow”. Most third-party claims were expected to fall to the Ever Given’s insurer, the UK Protection and Indemnity Club, which said this week that “all valid claims will be considered by the vessel owner, the UK Club and its legal advisers in due course”. The result could mean tens of billions of dollars and years of litigation. Sayegh said the firm “has busy years ahead, and so do maritime lawyers”. | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'business/shipping-industry', 'business/insurance', 'world/egypt', 'world/water-transport', 'world/africa', 'business/business', 'world/middleeast', 'world/world', 'law/law', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/ruth-michaelson', 'profile/michael-safi', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-03-30T16:06:28Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/jun/20/rewilding-not-just-for-toffs-as-one-in-five-councils-in-great-britain-gets-onboard-aoe | Rewilding ‘not just for toffs’ as one in five councils in Great Britain get onboard | One in five county councils have embraced rewilding on public land in Great Britain, with a growing number setting aside former golf courses, post-industrial scrubland and recovering waterways for nature. From Rhondda Cynon Taf to Brighton, 43 councils in England, Wales and Scotland have launched rewilding schemes or are planning to do so in rural and urban areas, a joint investigation by the Guardian and the wildlife magazine Inkcap Journal found. Councils, among the largest landowners in the country, have not usually been viewed as part of the rewilding movement, which is dominated by high-profile examples such as the Knepp estate in West Sussex and large-scale projects in Scotland. In the face of overwhelming public support for a wilder country, the Guardian and Inkcap Journal asked 206 county councils and single tier authorities in Great Britain for information on their municipal rewilding efforts. The findings show that many are adapting the concept to suit the local area, and launching new projects in consultation with the public. Examples include North Somerset council, which has decided to rewild “as much land as possible” after it declared a nature emergency in 2019. It is focusing its efforts on parks, agricultural land, waterways and coastal areas to improve biodiversity by 2030. In East Renfrewshire, a stretch of industrialised river channel on the Levern Water is being reconnected to its natural floodplain and two 18th century weirs are being modified to allow salmon to travel upstream for the first time since the Victorian period. Last year, Derby announced the largest urban rewilding project in the UK, at Allestree Park, under which 130 hectares (320 acres) in the city – including parts of a former golf course – will be converted into a mosaic habitat of woodland, scrub and wildflower meadows, with the reintroduction of red kites and dormice. Many councils have chosen to use alternative terms to “rewilding”, a word that has sometimes proved controversial. For example, Birmingham city council said the term was problematic and could be understood as the total restoration of ecosystems, meaning that wolves, lynx, bison and beavers would need to be reintroduced. However, the authority said it had delivered a number of landscape-scale conservation projects, including the improvement of water quality and connectivity in the city’s rivers to support returning otter populations, which were recently detected near the Mailbox shopping centre. All the councils approached in England, Wales and Scotland were asked the following questions: how were they defining rewilding; did they have any current or planned rewilding initiatives; and, if so, how much funding had been dedicated to the projects. In response, 28 councils said they had embarked on rewilding projects and a further 15 said they planned to do so. The responses were dominated by councils in England and Scotland, with three local authorities in Wales launching or planning projects. Alastair Driver, head of the NGO Rewilding Britain, said all councils could make a significant contribution to the group’s aim to rewild 5% of Great Britain. “There’s no doubt that local authorities can directly and indirectly contribute significantly to rewilding, particularly around urban fringes where people can walk out into truly wild or wilding countryside,” he said. “We have got to find large sites of at least 250 acres where we can move significantly up the rewilding spectrum. That also usually means, in the absence of native herbivores like bison and elk, we are probably going to need small numbers of rare-breed cattle while allowing natural regeneration to take its course.” Ben Goldsmith, an environment campaigner who is on the board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said the figures for the councils’ plans showed rewilding was not the preserve of “toffs” and wealthy landowners, a recent criticism by the gardening writer and broadcaster Monty Don. “The idea that rewilding is a niche interest for those that can afford it is nonsense,” Goldsmith said. “It is something that we need to pursue big and small in as many places as possible. In an urban context, that means creating some big areas where nature is allowed to function: pockets of wildness in our parks, on rooftops, along riverbanks. I think rewilding is a mass movement.” The figures are based on self-identification. If a council endorsed rewilding or said they were undertaking rewilding activities, they were included as a yes. Councils that rejected the term, even if they were undertaking activities that could be considered rewilding, were included as a no. The exception to this was when “rewilding” actions clearly did not extend beyond reduced mowing of grassy areas. While there have been several attempts to define rewilding, there is no uniform approach, although scientists are increasingly describing the term along a spectrum from total human modification to wilderness, with activities that make an area more natural described as rewilding. 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/wild-world', 'environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/environment', 'environment/rewilding', 'society/localgovernment', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/plants', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-06-20T05:00:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sport/2022/mar/06/county-chairs-england-and-wales-cricket-board-power-struggle-blueprint | County chairs renew ECB power struggle with fresh blueprint for cricket | England’s county cricket club chairs have launched a blueprint for the game that would boost their power and influence at the England and Wales Cricket Board, four years after the governing body’s restructure replaced them to improve diversity. In a thinly veiled continuation of the power struggle between the sport’s governing body and its first–class counties, documents seen by the Guardian show the chairs are calling for an overhaul which would give them two seats on the ECB management board and bring them closer to the centre of the decision-making process. Their proposals also include the creation of a stakeholders’ board to oversee the performance of the ECB, which would include representatives from the management board, fans, player and sponsors’ bodies and would have powers to sack any director on the ECB board. The Middlesex chair, Mike O’Farrell, emailed the interim ECB chair, Barry O’Brien, on Monday on behalf of the 18 county chairs plus the MCC, conceding that the clubs had not always “spoken with one voice”. He said: “We have challenged ourselves as to what we can do to be better partners with the ECB for the good of the game we all love.” The chairs want to change the name of the first-class counties to professional counties, create a chairs association to meet at least three times a year and a six-strong subcommittee chosen from the 19 chairs to represent the county game in all key ECB discussions and negotiations. The move comes four years after the ECB put into action its own governance improvement programme, which removed county chairs from its board and replaced them with directors from diverse backgrounds and with specific skill sets. The chairs’ plans to recover day-to-day influence at the ECB are being put forward at a time when the counties’ governance is under scrutiny with serious issues around racism at Yorkshire, Essex and other clubs, and while the governing body deals with the continuing inquest into the men’s disastrous Ashes tour and a series of high-profile departures at the top of the game. The selection of O’Farrell to lead the representation comes six weeks after he was forced to apologise for making comments deemed outmoded and offensive when called to defend the counties’ record on diversity at the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) select committee hearing into racism. He provoked outrage when he appeared to pass the blame for the drop-off of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) players at professional level – from 30% at grassroots to just 3-4% at elite level – to those of Asian heritage for preferring education and to those with West Indian roots for choosing football. Azeem Rafiq, whose explosive testimony about his time as a player at Yorkshire at an earlier DCMS select committee hearing exposed “endemic” racism in cricket, said: “The chairs could at least have the decency to get their own counties in order before making an obvious power grab. This comes only weeks after the deplorable words we heard from O’Farrell and co at the select committee. “I fear they will resist rather than assist change. I urge Sport England, MPs and ministers to look into this situation before making any decisions about the future of the sport.” The chairs’ proposal does not address the issues around diversity which the creation of its suggested 19-member board and six-member subcommittee would throw up. Sport England’s code for governance sets a target of 30% female representation and proportional BAME representation at board level, which the ECB achieved last year. However, of the 19 first-class and MCC chairs, all are male, only two have BAME heritage and their average age is 64. While the proposal documents highlight the need to ensure a balance in representation on the recommended subcommittee between north and south, and the clubs that do and do not have international hosting rights, no mention is made of the need for diversity. An ECB spokesperson said: “The ECB’s game-wide plan committed to a review of governance and regulation. This work is ongoing, supported by Portas Consulting, who are consulting both the professional and recreational game. All options will be considered.” | ['sport/county-championship', 'sport/ecb', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'sport/sport-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-03-06T21:00:25Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
commentisfree/2017/aug/08/mess-with-britain-bins-strike-birmingham | You can slash the social care budget, but don’t mess with Britain’s bins | Helen Pidd | It has been described as “a buffet for rats”. Since the end of June, Birmingham’s bins have gone uncollected because of a dispute between the unions and the council over changes to pay and working practices. Brummies have been forced to clear bags of maggot-ridden rubbish from their own streets and sluice out the bin juice from their gutters as a city-wide strike enters a fifth week. With industrial action promised until 1 September, the Labour-run council knows it must act fast. Wisely, it has hired private refuse collectors to do the rounds and pledged to get to every road by the end of the week. The British do not easily forget anyone who messes with their bins. Voters in the country’s second biggest city recently elected a Tory mayor: Labour can take no chances. Cut the social care budget to shreds, close the Sure Start centres. But interrupt waste disposal arrangements at your peril. I will never forgive Trafford council for introducing a weekly surcharge for collecting my garden waste, and if I find out which of my neighbours has pinched my grey bin (the best one! It’s for all the non-recyclables!) I cannot be held responsible for my own actions. In September 2015, Hounslow council leader Steve Curran called in police after demonstrators piled wheelie bins outside his house in west London in protest at a decision to introduce them (because they don’t roll properly on gravel paths, apparently). Some years ago I spent a few days in Sheffield’s Page Hall after the then local MP, ex-home secretary David Blunkett, warned there could be riots if integration did not improve between the local population and Slovakian Roma incomers. It quickly became clear that at least half of the locals’ beef was about rubbish, and the fact the new arrivals did not come from a culture of bin use, let alone an accepted recycling etiquette. I went back two years later to much cleaner scenes and have no doubt that the Roma would be on the frontline with everybody else now if Sheffield followed Birmingham with a bin war. Kinema paradiso I have a few firm rules when I go to the pictures: nothing over two hours, please, and do not make me suffer a film about war. The fact I willingly agreed to go and watch Dunkirk was testament not so much to Christopher Nolan’s reputation but because it meant a trip to Britain’s most charming cinema. The Kinema in the Woods in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, has been in business since 1922 and is one of the very few picture houses left to still use rear projection. The roof trusses in the former sports pavilion are too low for an image to be projected from the back of the auditorium, so films are projected from behind the screen and on to a mirror to flip the image. I thought Dunkirk was a snooze – flimsy characters and a curious failure to present the truly epic scale of the rescue operation – but I adored the Kinema. A silky curtain rose to signal the start of the main feature and during the interval an organist rose from the stage to serenade us, joined in a duet by a self-playing piano, stage right. Tickets are just £6.80 a pop. The art of bike maintenance I remain obsessed with Manchester’s dockless bike hire scheme, Mobike , which had a rocky start when much of the fleet ended up in the canal. I was delighted, then, to hear about the mother who dobbed in her son when she saw him on the front page of the Manchester Evening News trashing one of the Chinese rental bikes. She was so ashamed of her boy that she rang the police, who prescribed a dose of restorative justice: a bicycle maintenance course, to teach him how to fix the bike he broke. • Helen Pidd is north of England editor of the Guardian | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'uk/birmingham', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/helenpidd', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-08-08T14:55:24Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/2019/sep/07/sharpiegate-trump-alabama-hurricane-dorian | 'Sharpiegate': meteorologists upset as weather agency defends Trump's Alabama claim | A federal agency has reversed course on the question of whether Donald Trump tweeted stale information about Hurricane Dorian potentially hitting Alabama, upsetting meteorologists around the country. On Sunday, Trump had warned that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, was “most likely to be hit (much) harder than anticipated”. The National Weather Service (NWS) in Birmingham, Alabama, tweeted later: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.” But the president has been adamant throughout the week that he was correct, and the White House has deployed government resources and staff to back him. The latest defense came out on Friday evening, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a statement from an unidentified spokesman stating that information provided by Noaa and the National Hurricane Center to the president had demonstrated that “tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama”. The advisories were dated from last Wednesday, 28 August, through Monday, the statement read. The statement also said the Birmingham NWS tweet on Sunday morning “spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time”. The statement from Noaa contrasts with comments the agency’s spokesman, Chris Vaccaro, made last Sunday. “The current forecast path of Dorian does not include Alabama,” Vaccaro said at the time. Friday’s Noaa statement, released just before 5pm, points to a few graphics issued by the National Hurricane Center to support Trump’s claims. The maps show percentage possibility of tropical storm force winds in the United States. Parts of Alabama were covered, usually with 5% to 10% chances, between 27 August and 3 September. Maps on 30 August grew to cover far more of Alabama, but for only 12 hours, and the highest percentage hit 20% to 30% before quickly shrinking back down. Alabama was not mentioned in any of the 75 forecast advisories the hurricane center sent out between 27 August and 2 September. From 28 August to 31 August, a handful of locations in Alabama were mentioned in charts that listed percentage chance of tropical storm force winds or hurricane winds, maxing out at about an 11% chance that Montgomery would get tropical storm force winds. ‘So disappointing’ The former National Hurricane Center director Bill Read blasted Noaa leadership on Friday night on his Facebook page calling the situation “so disappointing” and saying he would comment because Noaa employees were ordered to be quiet. “Either NOAA Leadership truly agrees with what they posted or they were ordered to do it. If it is the former, the statement shows a lack of understanding of how to use probabilistic forecasts in conjunction with other forecast information. Embarrassing. If it is the latter, the statement shows a lack of courage on their part by not supporting the people in the field who are actually doing the work. Heartbreaking,” Read wrote. Dan Sobien, president of the union representing weather service employees, tweeted on Friday: “Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight.” In a phone interview with the Guardian, he explained his deep concern over Noaa’s statement, which he said was unprecedented in his decades with the NWS. (Sobien stressed that he was speaking in his capacity as president of the union and not for the NWS, which is overseen by Noaa.) “It’s unheard of that [Noaa] would – with no scientific basis whatsoever – undermine their own employees for political reasons. That’s never happened before under any administration ... This doesn’t happen. This is a scientific agency. People gather data and they make the best decisions they can make form that data.” Sobien’s union represents about 4,000 employees of the NWS, including meteorologists, flight engineers, technicians and others. “The NWS’s job is to save people’s lives, and if you undermine that authority, you’re going to cost people’s lives,” he said. “If they don’t believe hurricane warnings or tornado warnings, it will cost lives. That’s what Noaa’s doing. It’s irresponsible, managerial malpractice, and frankly someone should look into them. They have no right to be running an organization if that’s what they’re going to do.” He said NWS employees were expressing displeasure on social media. “I’ve seen from our own members that they’re up in arms. People are asking us to do something and I don’t know what to do. It’s just disgusting. The whole thing is just ridiculous.” Other meteorologists also voiced concerns about Noaa’s actions on Friday. “I am very disappointed to see this statement come out from Noaa,” the Oklahoma University meteorology professor Jason Furtado told the Associated Press. “I am thankful for the folks at NWS Birmingham for their work in keeping the citizens of Alabama informed and up to date on weather hazards.” Julia Carrie Wong contributed reporting | ['us-news/donaldtrump', 'world/hurricane-dorian', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/alabama', 'us-news/us-weather', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/hurricane-dorian | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-07T16:34:23Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2021/dec/13/kentucky-tornadoes-hopes-rise-that-candle-factory-death-toll-could-be-lower-than-feared | Kentucky tornadoes: Hopes rise that death toll could be lower than feared | US president Joe Biden declared a major federal disaster in Kentucky after a swarm of deadly tornadoes hit the state on Friday, as representatives of a candle factory destroyed by a twister said far fewer people may have died than previously feared. Biden had previously declared the storms a federal emergency and the move to designate the storms a federal disaster paves the way for additional aid, as thousands face housing, food, water and power shortages. It follows a formal request from Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, who said the tornadoes were the most destructive in the state’s history. Beshear had said on Sunday morning that the death toll was expected to exceed 100 after twisters tore through the US midwest and south on Friday night but later that figure had been revised down, although amid power cuts and disrupted phone services across many communities, there was not yet certainty over numbers. Dozens of people in several counties in the state are still believed to have died in the storms, but Beshear said later on Sunday that the death toll might be as low as 50, according to the Associated Press. “We are praying that maybe original estimates of those we have lost were wrong. If so, it’s going to be pretty wonderful,” the governor said. Among the 110 people who were at the candle factory, eight have been confirmed dead and eight others remained missing, said Bob Ferguson, a spokesperson for Mayfield Consumer Products, which owns the factory. He said 90 people had been located, a figure that authorities were still trying to confirm on Monday morning. “There were some early reports that as many as 70 could be dead in the factory. One is too many, but we thank God that the number is turning out to be far, far fewer,” Ferguson said, adding that rescue teams were still searching for the eight who remained unaccounted for. It was unclear how many factory workers Beshear was counting in his latest death toll estimates. By Monday morning, weather experts had estimated that more than 40 tornadoes hit parts of nine states. Rescue workers continued to scour debris for survivors and many people without power, water or even a roof over their heads salvaged what they could two days after disaster struck. While Kentucky was hardest hit, six workers were killed at an Amazonwarehouse in Illinois after the plant buckled under the force of the tornado, including one cargo driver who died in the bathroom, where many workers said they had been directed to shelter. A nursing home was struck in Arkansas, causing one of that state’s two deaths. Four were reported dead in Tennessee and two in Missouri. Nowhere suffered as much as Mayfield, a community of about 10,000 in the south-western corner of Kentucky, where the large twisters also destroyed the fire and police stations. The governor said the tornadoes were the most destructive in the state’s history. “The very first thing that we have to do is grieve together and we’re going to do that before we rebuild together,” Beshear said, noting that one tornado tore across 227 miles (365 km) of terrain, almost all of that in Kentucky. A vast storm front moved across the Mississippi basin and parts of the US south-east and midwest on Friday night, spawning more than 30 tornadoes. Spring is the main season for tornadoes and this latest event was very unusual coming in December, when colder weather normally limits tornadoes, said Victor Gensini, an extreme weather researcher at Northern Illinois University. Asked if he thought the intensity of the storms was related to climate crisis, president Biden said: “All I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impact as a consequence of the warming of the planet. The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point.” Illinois was hit, too, and six people were killed in the collapse of an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, with another injured worker airlifted to a hospital, fire chief James Whiteford said. In addition, so far four people have been reported killed in Tennessee, two in Arkansas and two in Missouri as well as the high toll in Kentucky. Kyanna Parsons-Perez, who was at the candle factory in Mayfield, said she felt the building was making her and her co-workers “rock from one side to the other” right before it collapsed. Parsons-Perez was stuck for three hours in the rubble, and documented part of it in a livestream on Facebook in which her co-workers can be heard crying in fear. Sitting in the hospital, she told the Guardian how a gust of wind suddenly changed everything. “My ears started popping and I felt my body swaying,” she said of the moments right before the building collapsed. She became very scared upon learning that she was buried under. “When I found out it was an air conditioner on me and five people on the debris on top of me is when I got scared,” she said. The storm was so powerful that a photograph from a tornado-damaged home in Kentucky was found almost 130 miles away in Indiana. The US uniquely experiences more than 1,200 tornadoes annually, more than four times the number in other countries around the world where they occur, combined, according to experts. With Reuters and the Associated Press | ['us-news/kentucky', 'world/tornadoes', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/richardluscombe', 'profile/samira-sadeque', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | world/tornadoes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-12-13T12:31:07Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2010/jun/22/deepwater-horizon-bp-oil-spill-relief-telethon | Star-spangled mission to raise funds for victims of Gulf oil spill | With more than 6,000 boats and almost 35,000 people already deployed in the Gulf of Mexico, an army of celebrity reinforcements last night hurled themselves at the rescue mission surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Household names ranging from elder statesmen of film and pop – Robert Redford and Sting – to teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber sprinkled their stardust over an otherwise relentlessly grim unfolding of the environmental tragedy in the gulf. They appeared in a two-hour telethon on the CNN show Larry King Live. King said the aim was to raise money and awareness for the Gulf coast people and wildlife worst hit by the disaster. "For those who have lost their livelihoods, for those who can't wait but need help right now." Among those who answered his call to arms were Cameron Diaz, who has previously volunteered on behalf of military veterans and fellow actor Alyssa Milano; the property tycoon Donald Trump's wife and daughter Melania and Ivanka; American Idol figureheads Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson; and musicians Lenny Kravitz, Tim McGraw and Pete Wentz. Underlining the multi-generational line-up, they ranged in ages from Redford, 73, and Ted Danson, the former Cheers star, 62, to Bieber, who at 16 is a pop and Twitter sensation. There will also be a social networking channel for donations, hosted by Seacrest, and dubbed the Social Suite. It will use Facebook and Twitter as fundraising tools under the Twitter hash-tag £CNNHelpGulf. The involvement of American celebrities in disaster relief via telethon is a well-worn pattern. America: A Tribute to Heroes, held in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, attracted 60 million viewers and raised $150m (£101m) for victims' families. This was the second celebrity fund-raiser dedicated to helping the people of the gulf region in the wake of disaster, whether natural or, as in this case, man-made. In 2005 Shelter for the Storm, broadcast across 29 channels, raised $30m for recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. That was topped by George Clooney's Hope for Haiti Now, which reached $66m for the earthquake-stricken people of Port-au-Prince. While celebrities taking part in disaster Telethons can easily be criticised for being as motivated by desire for public exposure and ratings as by concern for the cause in hand, that cannot be said of some of last night's headliners who have already demonstrated their commitment to the Gulf. Robert Redford has produced his own video on YouTube in which he expresses his disgust over the oil spill, and laments the "collusion" between Washington politicians and the oil companies who fund them. "It's time to cut that out, because we're the ones who pay for it. We pay the cost, not them." He adds: "When I hear some of the energy companies advertising themselves as conservation, when I hear Chevron saying we are in the 'human energy' business, I want to throw up." As the Telethon form has developed in sophistication, so has its ability to put the money raised to good use. Clooney boasted that within a month of the fundraiser, some $35m, more than half of the total, was paid out to the beneficiary groups including Oxfam America and the American Red Cross. Proceeds from the event will go to three organisations: United Way, a coalition of charities, to help Gulf coast families with emergency and long-term aid; the National Wildlife Federation, which is cleaning birds and protecting breeding grounds, and the Nature Conservancy, for the recovery of sensitive ecosystems such as salt marshes and oyster reefs. | ['environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'environment/environment', 'film/robertredford', 'film/georgeclooney', 'film/camerondiaz', 'music/justin-bieber', 'music/sting', 'media/cnn', 'media/media', 'culture/television', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'world/haiti', 'tone/news', 'tv-and-radio/larry-king', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/edpilkington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2010-06-22T02:00:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2017/sep/14/scaling-up-our-response-to-super-hurricanes | Scaling up our response to super-hurricanes | Hurricane Irma has unleashed her fury across the Caribbean and the south-eastern US. She’s been the second major hurricane to barrel into the US mainland in recent weeks, and with Hurricane Jose following hot on her heels, 2017 is shaping up to be one of the busiest hurricane seasons for at least a decade. The strength and intensity of Irma – she sustained wind speeds of 185mph for a record breaking 35 hours – has taken everyone by surprise, and some have raised the question of whether a new category is needed, to describe “super-hurricanes” like Irma. The Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale is based on hurricane wind-speed, with anything over 157mph being given a category 5 – the highest rank on the scale. When it was developed, more than four decades ago, super-hurricanes like Irma were exceedingly rare. But since then oceans have warmed, and models suggest that the probability of more intense hurricanes is likely to rise (for every degree of warming in tropical seas hurricane wind-speeds increase by an average of 10mph), though the overall number of tropical storms is expected to fall. So from a measurements perspective adding a category 6 (winds over 175mph) seems reasonable, though this extra category tells us little about the risk associated with these winds; any hurricane of category 5 and over is going to flatten most things. Instead, a revamp of the hurricane rating system might make more sense. The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s hurricane severity scale includes such risk factors as whether the hurricane is likely to stall in one place (as Harvey did to devastating effect). Kate Ravilious @katerav | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'science/meteorology', 'world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'world/hurricane-jose', 'weather/caribbean', 'weather/usa', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/hurricane-irma | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-14T20:30:14Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
media/2009/jan/12/bskyb-energy-saving-scheme | Alok Jha on Sky's plans to save tonnes of CO2 | It was the first UK broadcaster to go carbon neutral and now Sky wants to do more. The company's latest plans, announced today, include energy-efficient studios, upgrading set-top boxes to automatically go into standby mode, and encouraging production companies to develop more sustainable ways to make programmes. "The starting point is absolutely to reduce our carbon impact in any year," says Ben Stimson, Sky's director of responsibility and reputation. To offset a total carbon footprint of just over 52,000 tones, the company, chaired by James Murdoch, has invested in wind and hydro energy schemes in China and India. Sky's main priority is getting practical environmental messages into their subscribers' homes, Stimson says. Set-top boxes need to be kept switched on so they can receive regular software updates, which means they use a constant trickle of power. Over the coming months, one of those updates will make the box go to automatic standby if it isn't used for two hours at night or four hours in daytime. Sky reckons the move will save around 90,000 tonnes of CO2 - although it is unlikely to satisfy those who believe standby should be banished entirely from electronics, and devices should have to be switched off. Sky says it is working on ways to reduce the energy used during standby even further. Back at Sky HQ, in Osterley in west London, a new 233m production facility is under construction, which will use a third less energy than a typical building of equivalent size. When it opens in 2011, instead of having energy-intensive air-conditioning systems, the building will cool itself by channelling the heat of the studio lights along chimneys using natural ventilation methods. In addition, the company is applying for planning permission to install two wind turbines and a combined cooling, heating and power plant to provide a proportion of the buildings energy needs. Sky is also working with the people making its programmes. The broadcaster has set up a forum of more than 30 independent production companies to look at everything from energy-efficient lighting and sustainable materials on set to reducing the use of tapes. At this stage, the forum is only for sharing advice, but Sky says it may consider setting environmental standards in future. There have already been some early gains: the next season of Gladiators, for example, will use 35% less energy than the last. Which is a worthy start. But the issue of taking flights around the world to cover sports or news stories is left untackled - although admittedly this is also the case for much of the rest of the media sector. | ['media/bskyb', 'media/television', 'media/media', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mediaguardian', 'theguardian/mediaguardian/mediaguardian1'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2009-01-12T00:01:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2014/jun/27/recyclable-coffee-cup-uk-landfill-breakthrough | World's first fully recyclable paper cup to hit UK high streets | The world's first fully recyclable paper cup will soon make its debut on the UK high street, in a packaging breakthrough that could eventually divert millions of cups away from landfill. More than 2.5bn cups are thrown away in the UK every year – enough to go round the world five and a half times. But few are recycled and nearly all end up in landfill, creating 25,000 tonnes of waste – enough to fill London's Royal Albert Hall. Conventional paper cups are made from paper laminated with plastic, making them difficult to recycle. Under EU health and safety regulations, coffee cups cannot be made from 100% paper or cardboard alone. A thin layer of plastic is bonded on to the cup to keep the drink warm and stop the paper from getting soggy. But it is attached so tightly that those cups need special facilities to separate the linings, with almost all recycling plants rejecting the cups and sending them straight to landfill. The British entrepreneur and engineer Martin Myerscough, founder of the 'cardboard' bottle now being used for milk and wine, has devised an alternative to make recycling easier. The Green Your Cup has a thin film liner that is designed to separate easily from the paper in the recycling process, leaving 100% paper which can then be recycled. The cups can be thrown into paper recycling bins, which will help consumers who are confused about which bins to use. The company is currently in talks with coffee shop chains and supermarkets in the hope that the product can be rolled out nationally before the end of the year. The consumer group Which? has criticised retailers' use of "mixed materials" in coffee cups, and urged providers to take more environmental responsibility by giving consumers clearer information about recycling. The world's largest coffee chain, Starbucks, which hands out 4bn disposable cups worldwide, recently admitted the scale of the recycling challenge, after failing to meet some key targets, including getting customers to start using personal reusable cups. The company set a seven-year goal of serving 25% of drinks in reusable cups by 2015. In 2011, they were being used for just 1.9% of beverages. Myerscough said: "I always thought it was such a waste that disposable coffee cups couldn't be easily recycled. In these times of limited resources and diminishing landfill space, a single-use cup that can't be recycled is an indulgence we just cannot afford. I hope Green Your Cup will make a difference to how people think about the wastefulness of some of our everyday habits. "You can recycle Green Your Cup with your paper and cardboard and it comes back as a newspaper several times, extending the life of such high quality paper well beyond the half an hour it takes to drink a coffee." Stuart Singleton-White, of the environmental charity Rainforest Alliance, said the product was "a major innovation in the beverage industry and we look forward to seeing it become the standard cup that coffee shops and cafes use for those takeaway drinks we all love. This goes to the heart of sustainable business practice and gives us all the chance to make better choices when we buy our favourite drink". • This article was amended on 1 July 2014. Stuart Singleton-White is from the Rainforest Alliance, not the Rainbow Alliance as an earlier version said. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-06-27T08:46:09Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/cop15-negotiators-china-canada-montreal-agreement | Cop15 negotiators have left their homework to the last minute – can they scrape a pass? | Patrick Greenfield | All procrastinators know the feeling: an enormous task is not close to being finished, time is slipping away and the pressure to act has become impossible to ignore. But despite the mounting unease, there is still not yet enough pressure to take action, and it is unclear if there ever will be. At the Palais des congrès de Montréal convention centre at Cop15, after more than two years of delays, there is a sense that governments tasked with agreeing this decade’s targets for protecting life on Earth are in just such a situation. These summits are rare events. The last meeting of this kind took place 12 years ago in Japan, a few months into David Cameron’s first term as the UK’s prime minister, the same year One Direction was formed, Spain celebrated its first World Cup victory and an Icelandic volcano disrupted air traffic in Europe. The nature summit is a long way from the sunshine, coral reefs and intermittent food and water supplies of Cop27 in Egypt just two weeks ago, the quirks of an authoritarian dictatorship replaced by the bite of a Canadian winter and poutine. There are good reasons for optimism: nature has shot up the international agenda during the pandemic. From Emmanuel Macron to Xi Jinping, world leaders say they want an ambitious deal to stop the loss of biodiversity. Montreal produced one of the most successful environmental agreements in history on the ozone layer in 1987, which continues to recover slowly. Cop15 could be a punctuation point in history where everything finally starts to change and humanity plots a path to living in harmony with nature – if the tendency toward procrastination can be overcome. One million species are at risk of extinction and limiting global heating to 1.5C is on the line, but many negotiators have the look of a university student who has left their dissertation to the final few days of their course. Next week, ministers will arrive in Canada to inspect what the negotiators have been doing for the past two years at meetings in Rome, Geneva, Nairobi and countless Zoom calls. In all UN environment talks, ministers arrive at the point when most of the agreement is finished and the difficult bits need to be sorted out. Unless something changes radically, an awesome pile of documents awaits Thérèse Coffey, the UK secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, and her fellow environment ministers: a Frankenstein’s monster of ideas and suggestions from 196 countries on the 22 draft targets and four goals the world should agree to protect its biodiversity that they will have a just few days to bring into coherent life. At the time of writing, negotiators have a week to work through more than 1,400 brackets – which reflect disagreement in a UN negotiation. “I think the ministers are going to sack us all,” says one negotiator in the halls of the convention centre. “At the moment, it’s a horror show.” Most university students who have left it late do not run the risk of embarrassing a superpower. But in Montreal, negotiators have no such luck. China is in charge of this Cop, which was meant to be held in Kunming in 2020, but was finally moved because of the country’s zero- Covid policy. Before the pandemic, the Chinese government had been sounding out the French on how to capture the magic that led to the Paris climate agreement. This side of the pandemic, they are having to work with Canada – a few weeks after Xi and Justin Trudeau clashed after months of bilateral tensions – to get the bare minimum over the line. As Denmark learned at the climate Cop15 in 2009, it will be seen as the hosts’ fault if they do not succeed. Publicly, the UN, NGOs and governments are quick to say that everything is fine: China is doing a great job and has shown fantastic leadership throughout the process. Part one of Cop15, which took place last year in Kunming last year, was entirely ceremonial, and they have been good enough to move the summit. Privately, it is a different story. There is sympathy for Chinese organisers who have endured several three-week quarantines and little time with their families. But many are not convinced by the political buy-in. “China is absent, has already de facto checked out and will play an irrelevant and ceremonial role. I was told by my friends in Beijing that the Communist party leaders are not interested in this conference: ‘We had our photo opportunity last year, now we leave the Canadians to wash the dishes’,” says one observer. It is hard to know the full truth. China is playing a noticeably withdrawn and limited role, even by its own standards. At Cop27, their negotiators would speak with the international media. This time, their environment minister Huang Runqiu – the Cop15 president in the Alok Sharma role who is meant to cajole countries into agreement – does not go beyond selected questions and lengthy statements about how much China has done for Cop15. It does not bode well for the difficult decisions that await negotiators and ministers in the coming days. But it appears that Canada is aware of this, working away to guide the agreement. Everything and nothing are still possible. 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/cop15', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/china', 'world/canada', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-12-07T12:00:23Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2021/jun/21/new-eu-rules-would-permit-use-of-most-polymers-without-checks-experts-warn | New EU rules would permit use of most polymers without checks, experts warn | New rules on chemicals to be debated by the EU this week would allow most polymers to be used without further checks, according to a group of scientists. Only about 6% out of about 200,000 polymers would require extensive safety checks under proposals being discussed as part of Europe’s Reach chemicals regulations. This is too little, and would allow many common plastics to be used despite valid concerns about their possible future harms, according to a group of 19 scientists who have written to the European Commission. The European Environmental Bureau, an NGO, says exceptions to the safety checks include polystyrenes, which have been linked to lung inflammation in rats; polyacrylamides used in the treatment of wastewater, adhesives and food packaging, which can degrade to the monomer acrylamide, a neurotoxin; polyesters used in textiles, which are sources of microplastics; and polyolefins, also a source of microplastics. A report for the European Commission concluded that some plastics could have harmful impacts if unchecked. The commission said the proposals were at an early stage, and further discussion would take place on Tuesday. A spokesperson said: “This meeting will discuss some technical aspects of how to register polymers, but not yet discuss the final outcome of how polymers shall be registered, and there is no draft regulation available yet. “We have seen the IPCP publication [the letter signed by 19 scientists] and we will, to the extent possible, take the concerns raised into consideration while advancing our proposal. As the commission proposal for the registration of polymers is not yet finalised, we cannot disclose further information or comment on the estimated number of polymers that need to be registered.” Bethanie Carney Almroth, an associate professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a signatory to the letter, said: “The main goal of the [EU] process should be to ensure a high level or protection of people and environmental health. But our main concern is regarding the lack of data and lack of transparency. There is not enough data to ensure the safety of thousands of polymers in production, even if toxicity has not been demonstrated yet.” She said regulators should abide by the precautionary principle, by which new substances should not be assumed to be harmless, but the onus should be on the producers to demonstrate that they are safe. She added: “Plastic use is pervasive, and [the term] polymers goes beyond plastics to include many more types of products used in numerous applications throughout society. So the question of exposure is significant, and not negligible. There are studies indicating some polymers or their monomers/oligomers can cause negative impacts for human health, including hormone disruption and canerogenicity. There are data showing that these effects can occur in organisms in the environment.” Ksenia Groh, another signatory, who is group leader of bioanalytics for Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, said: “Data about the risks of specific polymers are scarce to nonexistent. Up to now, a transparent, comprehensive data collection on the safety of all polymers has not been carried out. Absence of data does not equal absence of harm. It just means that we don’t know … It’s not the public, government, consumers or scientists who should provide this data, but the producer themselves.” Dolores Romano, chemicals policy acting manager at the European Environmental Bureau, said the increasing pervasiveness of microplastics in the environment showed that polymers could now be finding their way into our bodies in ways that are more harmful than regulators have anticipated. She called on the European Commission to act. Romano said: “Polymer pollution is out of control. We are exposed to it daily, as they are used in plastic, textiles, cleaning products and even cosmetics. We used to think of plastic pollution as bulky junk massing in the environment. Now we know that it breaks up into a vast cloud of micro- and nanoplastics contaminating the land, water and air, as well as showing up in our bodies. We know already that dozens of polymers are toxic, so officials must be allowed to check the safety of the rest.” She accused the plastics industry of seeking to block more comprehensive rules from the EU. “Industry is hijacking a once-in-a-decade opportunity to probe polymers and share this information. We can’t afford to have them close our eyes to a growing problem for another decade.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/pollution', 'world/eu', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/european-commission', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-06-21T05:00:43Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/ukraine-crisis-supply-chains-uk-economy | Ukraine crisis: how supply chains have become a global battleground | As the Ukraine crisis escalates, concern is growing over the potential fallout for the UK economy. Further Russian trade sanctions could cause the price of vital supplies of grain and natural gas to rocket, or even cut off supplies at short notice. This would leave Europe, the UK and other areas of the world potentially experiencing power shortages and rising energy and food prices. British businesses that source raw materials from Ukraine or Russia – or those reliant on products comprising one of these components – should take action now to minimise risk and protect their business. As political change is likely, businesses need to be aware there is a high risk that environmental and other ethical requirements linked to a specific supply contracts could be overlooked. In 2013, Europe sourced 40% of its natural gas from Russia, along with significant volumes of oil and coal. Germany is by far the largest recipient of Russia's natural gas and the UK imports considerably less, but the impact of any break in supply would have a major impact across the EU. Ukraine is a leading global exporter of finished iron products and iron ore, as well as grain such as wheat, corn and barley, and seed oils. A significant proportion of these goods are exported to European countries, including the UK. Given Europe's dependency on these supplies, sanctions such as trade embargos or retaliation would be an extreme course of action for the EU or Russian government. Nevertheless, mounting concern about the potential impact of the crisis could lead to a rise in prices, including hikes in the cost of products from areas that might be able to provide a more stable source. The global nature of modern supply chains means UK businesses cannot assume they are immune to the Ukraine crisis, regardless of what they make or do. The reality is that some companies may only find out that their supply chain is vulnerable to events in Ukraine when suppliers try to pass on a price increase or warn of supply issues. Until then they might not have realised that the seed oil contained in their product was from Ukraine or linked to it. Breaks in supply are not the only risk; even if supplies appear not to have been affected, it is possible that other factors linked to the delivery of the contract have changed, which could become a reputational issue. Close scrutiny is needed to ensure workers' rights are protected and environmental criteria are being followed. As a precautionary step, businesses should audit their supply chain to assess its exposure to the Ukraine crisis. They should also closely monitor global supplies of key products, which is likely to involve tracking commodity exchanges and mapping their supply chains in order to get early warning of market changes. They could consider increasing stock levels of supplies or approving alternative sources early, to give them an extra cushion and enough time to get assurance that new suppliers meet their ethical standards or required commitment to sustainability. Businesses may be able to locate "hidden" supplies that exist within the global marketplace: supplies that have been stockpiled in the past, for example, and are no longer needed. This strategy proved successful for some electronics manufacturers in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, which knocked out global supplies of some silicon chips when plants were forced to shut down. Some producers were able to keep making goods that required these components because they could locate a source of supply that competitors were not aware of. Other businesses may prefer to design their way around the problem by swapping one component for another or using less of it. Roy Williams is managing director at Vendigital supply chain consultancy The supply chain hub is funded by the Fairtrade Foundation. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'world/ukraine', 'world/russia', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'world/eu', 'tone/blog', 'business/corporate-governance', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'sustainable-business/series/supply-chain'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-05-20T11:30:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sustainable-business/2015/apr/23/corruption-indonesia-palm-oil-industry-communities | Local and national interests clash in Indonesia's palm oil industry | The industry of palm oil, the product found in everything from chocolate to lipstick that is habitually reviled by environmentalists, is facing new challenges due to unrest in key producing regions. It was reported by the Cameroonian Association of Oil Refineries this month that the export of refined products including palm oil from several African nations, including Nigeria and Cameroon, has been “virtually at a standstill” for several months due to a spate of murders and kidnappings committed by Islamic militant group Boko Haram. The unexpected slowdown in palm oil production in Africa, seen as a key growth area for the product, comes as political tensions are heightening in Indonesia, the world’s leading producer of palm oil. According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Indonesia produces around 30m tonnes of crude palm oil a year and, along with Malaysia, accounts for nearly 90% of the world’s supply. Proponents of palm oil point out that it’s cheap and efficient to grow and use, although critics point out that huge tracts of rainforest have been cleared – at a rate of around 690,000 hectares a year between 2006 and 2010 – to make way for the crop, putting engendered species such as the orangutan under severe threat. Corruption claims The rampant, and often illegal, clearing of land has also affected small landholders and is increasingly causing tension between the Indonesian government and the administrations that run the country’s provinces. Following the end of Suharto’s 31-year dictatorship in 1998, Indonesia went through a process of decentralising power. Much of the power over land allocation flowed to bupatis (little kings) who preside over districts and have been accused of widespread corruption in the way they hand out logging concessions. “They take decisions in best interest of companies, often from Singapore or Jakarta, rather than communities,” said Tomasz Johnson, forests campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The EIA conducted an in-depth investigation into the palm oil industry last year and found multiple instances of corruption and lax law enforcement. Violations included the flouting of plantation licensing laws, attempts by a palm oil firm to bribe police to drop an investigation into its activities and regional governments transferring community resources to private firms. “When companies come up against opposition from communities, bupatis will mobilise state forces against them,” says Johnson, whose research has focused on the central Kalimantan area. “There is low level oppression and sometimes violence. In Kalimantan it’s rare that you go into community where there’s not conflict. Often, communities have given up hope of holding onto their land. “We went to see one concession where the community believes someone was killed by security forces that were employed by a palm oil company. These people just can’t win, it’s a simmering human rights issue.” Local land grabs The situation appears like it may come to a head over a contentious plan by the largely autonomous government of Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, to open up the pristine Leuser ecosystem to development. Aceh gained greater autonomy in return for an end to the armed struggle waged by separatists that largely faded following the 2004 tsunami. The road expansion and deforestation plan, which conservationists fear would threaten two of the three largest remaining Sumatran orangutan populations and increase instances of disastrous landslides, has yet to be ratified by the Indonesian government. There are indications that the central Jakarta administration isn’t entirely happy with the pro-palm oil development decisions taken by Aceh governor Zaini Abdullah, whose predecessor Irwandi Yusuf was seen as sympathetic to environmental concerns and enthusiastically embraced the REDD+ scheme, whereby wealthy nations paid Indonesia to preserve its rainforests. President Joko Widodo has warned: “We mustn’t allow our tropical rainforest to disappear because of monoculture plantations like oil palm.” David Gaveau, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, said: “The central government is now trying to pull back that power and recentralise things. They realised it all went too far. It’s uncertain which way things will go, but there’s certainly a lot of tension around it. “Members of the local governments are actually encouraging people to grab land that’s under control of central government. The central government is then trying to enforce the law and arresting people. It’s a cat and mouse game.” The result of a shift back to centralised government could impact the growing number of small palm oil operators who largely conduct their business free of any regulatory interference, at a time when many of the major palm oil players have committed to more sustainable practices and to reduce deforestation. “There are rogue operators who are playing the corruption game with the local authorities,” said Gaveau. “They get land through dodgy deals and they are totally under the radar, they basically do what they want while the big companies are trying to clean up their acts. “A big problem is the overlapping land rights, which causes a lot of conflict. When you don’t have any power, someone can come in and clear your land, even though that goes against the country’s constitution. While Indonesia is largely an agrarian society, there is an increasingly wealthy middle class who see land as an investment for the future.” The palm oil debate is funded by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox. • This article was amended on on 24 April 2015. An earlier version omitted the word “not” in a quote from Tomasz Johnson. | ['sustainable-business/series/palm-oil-debate', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/palm-oil', 'environment/environment', 'global-development/conflict-and-development', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/world', 'business/commodities', 'business/business', 'environment/deforestation', 'law/human-rights', 'law/law', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-04-23T14:43:37Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2017/apr/06/britons-expected-to-send-235m-items-of-clothing-to-landfill-this-spring | Britons expected to send 235m items of clothing to landfill this spring | A predicted 235m items of Britons’ unwanted clothing are expected to end up in landfill unnecessarily this spring, according to new research. Three-quarters of consumers admit to binning their discarded garments, usually because they do not realise that worn-out or dirty clothes can be recycled or accepted by charities, a survey of 2,000 people commissioned by the supermarket Sainsbury’s has found. Consumers are expected to get rid of 680m pieces of clothing as they spring-clean their wardrobes, the survey shows. However, the annual fashion detox will be damaging for the environment, with a staggering 235m of the garments expected to end up in landfill. People will dispose of an average of 19 items, with seven going straight in the bin. Over the past 10 years, clothing has been the fastest growing waste stream in the UK. In partnership with the charity Oxfam, Sainsbury’s is urging consumers to donate unwanted clothes to its collection points alongside the traditional recycling bins in its store car parks. The study also uncovered the reasons people do not donate or recycle clothing, with 49% saying they did not think they could because the clothes were worn out or dirty. A further 16% said they did not have time to visit a charity shop, or could not be bothered to sort items, while 6% did not realise clothing could be recycled. Men are more likely to send clothes to landfill, with 82% saying they would bin items this spring compared with 69% of women. “If clothes go out with the rubbish, they’ll end up in landfill, so we’ve teamed up with Oxfam to help Britons become more charitable and environmentally savvy this spring,” said Paul Crewe, head of sustainability at Sainsbury’s. “No matter if they’re worn out or grubby, we’re calling on shoppers to donate their unwanted clothes at recycling points in our stores across the UK.” Fee Gilfeather, head of retail brand for Oxfam, added: “At Oxfam we can reuse or recycle almost anything. The items donated through Sainsbury’s raise millions, helping us continue our vital work to end extreme poverty around the world.” Marks & Spencer also has a partnership with Oxfam, which began in January 2008. Donors handing old M&S clothing in to Oxfam stores receive a £5 M&S voucher, while its “shwopping” scheme encourages customers to hand over an old or unwanted garment whenever they buy a new one. Figures show that 27m garments have been “shwopped” since 2008. Separately, the retailer TK Maxx and Cancer Research UK are urging people to “give up clothes for good” in a bid to raise money to help beat children’s cancer. The government’s waste advisory body Wrap has set up the Love Your Clothes website to give advice on choosing clothing designed to last longer, buying second-hand clothes, using energy-efficient laundry methods that keep clothes looking good, as well as donating, swapping or selling unwanted items. The site also shows how clothes too damaged to be worn can still be donated for recycling instead of ending up in the bin. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/landfill', 'fashion/fashion', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-04-06T05:30:32Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2012/may/01/hosepipe-ban-stay-despite-rain | Hosepipe ban to stay despite record April rain | Millions of water customers are likely to face hosepipe bans until the end of the year, despite the wettest April in at least 100 years. Thames Water, one of seven companies in southern and eastern England that introduced restrictions on water use on 5 April, said the recent downpours may have staved off further curbs against drought but did not amount to "a long-term fix". Richard Aylard, the company's director of sustainability and external affairs, said April's rainfall would only wipe out shortfalls for the previous couple of months. It had not "got us out of jail", only "loosened the locks slightly". It had taken the two driest years since records began to get into the drought and even one month as wet as April would not be enough to get areas with water shortages to get out of it, said Aylard, even as Thames Water's specialist flood teams were in action. River flows had however been boosted temporarily – the Pang in Berkshire, which had been completely dry, was flowing again thanks to runoffs from drenched fields. But groundwater levels were still exceptionally low. "The recent rain is a temporary and welcome boost for the environment and wildlife, not a long-term fix for water supply," Aylard said. "It's been so dry for so long that the soil is acting is like a hard, old sponge right now. First of all, rain just runs off it, then it takes time to get damp and then fully wet, and only after that does any water seep down to boost the natural underground reserves. "And as soon as the weather warms up, the dampness will disappear due to evaporation and rapidly growing plants. "Until groundwater levels are restored to normal, which is unlikely to happen until we have sustained winter rainfall, we remain susceptible to further periods of prolonged dry weather, so we have to be cautious." | ['environment/drought', 'uk/weather', 'environment/water', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/jamesmeikle'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-05-01T10:18:14Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2024/feb/27/train-travel-generates-less-carbon-than-battery-ev-says-rail-group-data | Electric cars produce twice as much CO₂ as trains, says rail group data | Travelling by train on Britain’s busiest business routes generates less than half the carbon emissions of a battery electric car, according to detailed analysis from the rail industry. Certain journeys on the greenest, fullest electric trains produce as little as one-fifteenth of the CO2 per person compared with the footprint of a sole occupancy petrol or diesel car, the data shows. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) claimed the data is the industry’s most accurate and granular yet, incorporating train types and occupancy, and said it hopes it will allow businesses to make the greenest travel choices. However, campaigners pointed out that fares on some of the comparatively greenest rail routes were not cheaper than cars, and the cost of rail travel needed to be addressed. The RDG said that on average across the top 100 business travel routes, using a diesel or petrol car produced nine times more carbon than going by train. The figure was four times more polluting than a train if driving a plug-in hybrid electric car, or almost two-and-a-half times more if using a battery electric car. The comparison uses the government’s official figures for average executive car emissions by distance. Battery EV emissions largely depend on the source of electricity, and should decrease with the uptake of renewable energy. Going from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross would emit 116kg of CO2 in a diesel car, 31.8kg in a battery car and 12.7kg per person by train, according to the RDG data. However, single fares on the main operator on that route, LNER, are now £183 without pre-booking, although much cheaper advance fares are available. Average fuel costs would be roughly £50 for a small petrol car to travel the 400 miles, and significantly less again for an electric car, even after recent energy price rises. Jacqueline Starr, chief executive of the RDG, said the data would allow businesses to have the most accurate measure of emissions for the 100 most popular business rail journeys. She said: “We all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint, and the data that we have published reveals that rail is the green choice for travel between our towns and cities.” Business travel on rail has slipped substantially since the pandemic, accelerating moves towards online meetings and video conferencing. Rail fares are due to rise by 4.9% across England from Sunday. Michael Solomon Williams, from charity Campaign for Better Transport, said: “Travelling by train is always greener than driving, and it’s getting even greener as more rail routes are electrified. “It is often quicker too, but what we now need to do is to ensure it is also cheaper. Next week’s rail fare rise will do little to address the rising cost of rail travel. He added: “Businesses can also do their bit to reduce transport emissions by having a ‘rail first’ travel policy and encouraging employees to take the train when travelling with work.” | ['business/rail-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/electric-cars', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'technology/motoring', 'technology/technology', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gwyntopham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2024-02-27T20:49:53Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2012/jun/13/hosepipe-ban-uk-water-companies | End of hosepipe ban to benefit 15 million people | More than 15 million people in the south and east of England will be able to fill paddling pools and water lawns again when hosepipe bans are lifted on Thursday. Three of the UK's biggest water companies – Anglian Water, Southern Water and Thames Water – announced the end of the restriction on Wednesday. The restrictions were introduced in early April, but were immediately followed by record rainfall across the UK that month, more rain in May and "monsoons" at the beginning of June, which is on track to break another record. The rain has recharged rivers and reservoirs and the downpours have also cut the demand from gardeners. However, four companies – South East Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Veolia Water Central and Veolia Water Southeast – are keeping their hosepipe bans in place, as they are much more dependent on groundwater for their supplies, rather than reservoirs. Two very dry winters have left many underground aquifers severely depleted, with some areas needing a very wet winter – 40% above the long-term average – to recover fully. "We have had two-and-a-half times the average rainfall for April, we have had steady showers in May and then monsoon downpours in June," said a spokesman for Thames Water, the UK's largest water company with 8.8 million customers in London and the Thames Valley area. "That's changed things." A spokesman for Anglian Water added that demand had been "suppressed" by the cold, wet weather. The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, said: "We've always been clear that temporary restrictions should only be in place for as long as necessary." In its latest drought briefing, the Environment Agency said almost all reservoirs are now at least 75% full and river flows have returned to normal for the time of year. But it warned that the risk of serious drought remained. "The situation could deteriorate again next year if there is not enough rain this winter," said Trevor Bishop, head of Water Resources. "We are still working with partners, planning for the impacts that a third dry winter could have on next year's water supplies." Labour's Mary Creagh, the shadow secretary of state for the environment, said: "Customers who have seen their bills rise on average by 6% will be pleased that water companies are lifting the hosepipe ban. But this drought has shone a light on how this out-of-touch government is delaying on action to protect our water supply. They should set water companies tougher targets to fix leaks, insist they provide help to keep bills affordable and stop the over-abstraction of our rivers and ground water." The Guardian revealed in May that more than half of water companies in England and Wales are not required to reduce their leakages by a single drop before 2015. Data obtained from the regulator Ofwat showed the entire water industry will cut leaks by only 1.5% in that time. Water companies, including Thames Water on Wednesday, insist that using water more efficiently is the key to dealing with rising demand. But Tony Smith, the chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said: "Ofwat's approach to setting leakage targets needs to recognise customers' perception that water companies are not doing enough about their leaky pipes. It's not just about economics. The negative perception of leakage is the biggest barrier to customers doing more to save water." The Institution of Civil Engineers has called on ministers to introduce compulsory water meters with differential pricing. This would mean that everyone could have a certain amount of water provided cheaply, but would have to pay much more for anything above that amount. | ['environment/water', 'environment/drought', 'environment/environment', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-06-13T09:46:08Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2016/sep/10/cuttlefish-number-sense-better-than-a-one-year-old-human-research-shows | Cuttlefish number sense better than a one-year-old human, research shows | New research suggests cuttlefish can not only count better than a one-year-old human, but they also prefer quality over quantity when it comes to food. A study of 54 one-month-old cuttlefish hatched in captivity was carried out by Tsang-I Yang and Chuan-Chin Chiao, researchers at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Their findings suggest that cephalopods count potential prey such as shrimps, crab and fishes, and make several judgment calls in deciding whether or not to strike. Presented with different numbers of live shrimp, the cuttlefish showed consistent preference for the larger quantities, suggesting they had “number sense”. The researchers also found that the density of the group of the shrimp did not affect their decision, and that cuttlefish took longer to decide when the numbers were higher. This indicated that the cephalopods were taking time to count the individual shrimp of each option, rather than making an assessment at a glance. They pointed to similar studies of one-year-old humans, which found that babies could distinguish between one and two items, and two and three items, but no higher. Rhesus macaque monkeys could judge quantities of only up to four. With cuttlefish able to distinguish between one and five and four and five, the researchers concluded that they “are at least equivalent to infants and primates in terms of number sense”. Given the choice between one live shrimp and two dead shrimp, the cuttlefish also opted for the smaller quantity. The researchers were particularly struck by their response to the choice between one large live shrimp and two small live shrimps, which depended on the state of their appetite. If the cuttlefish was hungry, it chose the single shrimp; if it was not hungry, it chose the two smaller shrimps. The researchers concluded that this was a strategy of risk minimisation, with one shrimp in a group posing less of a threat than targeting one lone prey, and “probably an ecologically rational solution to the widespread problem of choice”: “For example, humans become more risk tolerant in their monetary decisions, as they get hungry.” The study on “number sense and state-dependent valuation in cuttlefish” was published by the Royal Society in late August. With the most complex brains of any invertebrate, cephalopods – a family that includes octopus and squid – are known for their sophisticated cognitive behaviours, including the ability to change colour in milliseconds. Earlier this year, Australian researchers found that cephalopod numbers the world over were steadily increasing, potentially as a result of warmer ocean temperatures and reduced fish populations. | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/elle-hunt', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-09-09T20:00:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2019/nov/13/climate-change-makes-bushfires-worse-denying-the-truth-doesnt-change-the-facts | Climate change makes bushfires worse. Denying the truth doesn't change the facts | Richard Denniss | It’s not just climate protesters who powerful voices are trying to silence in Australia, it’s anyone who wants to talk about the bigger-picture causes to the problems Australia is facing. In modern Australia it has become “inappropriate” to talk about why our rivers are running out of water, why our aged care centres are running out of food and nappies, and why our fire brigades are running out of firetrucks. But it’s impossible to solve problems when you can’t talk about the underlying causes. When people crash their car going around a tight bend we can sympathise with their families while discussing whether speed, fatigue, alcohol or poor road design were to blame. It’s not impossible to be sensitive to victims and serious about the cause at the same time. Climate change makes bushfires worse. Even if we catch an arsonist who lights a fire, the fact is the fires they light will burn further and faster than they would have if the world had burned less coal, and the temperature was lower than we have made it. With the same amount of effort into managing fuel loads and cutting firebreaks, a fire lit by an arsonist will spread further today than it would have in past decades. The embers from hotter fires, moving across drier ground, can spark new fires further away from the firefront than they once did. And as climate change ramps up the intensity of bushfires in Australia, we will need to put in a lot more resources simply to hold the amount of fire damage constant over time. Experienced firefighters have tried to tell the prime minister, but he literally will not listen. If we can’t talk about the underlying reasons why bushfires are becoming more frequent, we can’t possibly talk about how to manage either the fires Australia is experiencing today or the far worse ones we will experience in the decades to come. Plenty of sick people refuse to go to the doctor for fear of hearing they need to change their lifestyle. Such denial is understandable for individuals but it is inexcusable for those elected to protect us. The evidence that climate change makes bushfires worse is as clear as the evidence that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. The Australia Institute summarised the science in 2006. But in Australia powerful people don’t need evidence to get in their way. They have the right to block their ears and the right to shout down their critics. In turn, it comes as no surprise that many of the loudest voices denying the link between climate change and catastrophic bushfires are the same voices that deny, or diminish, the link between burning coal and climate change. Barnaby Joyce isn’t shy about politicising bushfires. He has been quick to blame those who would do more to reduce emissions for causing the current fires. After blaming non-existent Green governments for everything from a lack of dams to blocked roads, Joyce declared: “So many of the practicalities of fighting a fire and managing it have been stymied by the Greens.” In a democracy, power is the ability to talk crap and get away with it. Baseless attacks on climate science by conservative politicians and commentators make clear where the power lies in Australia. Messenger shooting is so widespread, and the shots fly overwhelmingly in the one direction, that when Jo Evans, a deputy secretary of the Department of Environment, tiptoed around whether climate trends were getting better or worse to a Senate committee, there was no outrage and virtually no coverage. But when Adam Bandt dared to mention the link between climate change and catastrophic bushfires, the full weight of the conservative commentariat moved rapidly to attack him and others who dared link cause with effect. Australia is one of the richest countries in the world and, if we wanted to put more resources into reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the number of firefighting vehicles or even paying volunteers to fight our fires, there is nothing to stop us doing that. Except that we have repeatedly elected governments with a preference for cutting taxes over investing in solutions. But just as we can’t talk about how climate change makes bushfires worse, we aren’t supposed to talk about how Australia’s choice to be one of the lower-taxed developed countries in the world comes at the cost of us having some of the most poorly funded public services in the developed world. Similarly, while it’s considered responsible to have royal commissions into the failure of the “markets” we have created for water, aged care and financial services, it is crazy talk to suggest we need to have a royal commission into the complex mess that is the last 20 years of privatisation and deregulation of government services. There aren’t always simple answers to complex problems, and it’s not just OK, but essential, that we vigorously debate the veracity of evidence, ideas and priorities. But Australia isn’t having vigorous debates, it’s not even having vicious debates. On the big issues there is plenty of vicious but absolutely no debate. Australia is governed by people who refuse to listen to inconvenient evidence and who attack their opponents instead of debating them with opposing ideas. The last election suggests such a combination of apathy and confidence is a successful electoral strategy. But, as this week’s fires show, denial is no substitute for preparation when it comes to natural disasters. Denying the truth doesn’t change the facts. • Richard Denniss is chief economist at the Australia Institute | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'australia-news/bushfires', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/barnaby-joyce', 'australia-news/adam-bandt', 'australia-news/coalition', 'australia-news/australian-greens', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'media/australia-media', 'world/wildfires', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/richard-denniss', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-11-12T23:50:36Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
lifeandstyle/2016/jul/27/kitchen-gadgets-review-milk-maker-non-dairy-coconuts-soybeans-almonds | Kitchen gadgets review: Milk Maker – go nuts with this non-dairy ‘mylk’ machine | What? The Milk Maker (hoppsandwoolf.com, £72.99) has a motored blade in steel a chamber, and a heating element. It pulverises and pasteurises nuts and water to emulsion. Why? Because I have no clue how you milk an oat. How hard are people squeezing their nuts, exactly? Well? We need to talk about milk alternatives (God knows, I wish we didn’t). Healthy stuff derived from soya beans, rice, coconut, owl pellets, packing chips, old Blu-Tack etc has been around for years – dairy-swerving options for vampiric executives or stringy hippies drying out in Goa. But now it’s the de facto choice of a younger, clean-eating crowd. Marketing-wise, there are cunning linguistics at play, too. “Milk alternative”, like milk substitute, sounds prosaic, limiting, second best; the new vogue is for “alternative milk”, suggesting a cooler, more rebellious aspect. Picture this drink in winged eyeliner and a heavy fringe, wearing an ironic “milk monitor” badge while Snapchatting. And it wants you to call it “mylk” now, FYI. But let’s leave all that aside and try the Milk Maker by Hopps & Woolf. It’s a high-powered blender that grinds raw ingredients and water into a paste, heating the mixture to pasteurise it. Some problems: first I need nuts – and not ones jimmied out of a Snickers or bag of KP. No matter how loudly Mr T shouts, it’s actually quite difficult to get some nuts. My part of town isn’t dripping with soya beans. Fresh walnuts are available only in October. (That children’s song about gathering nuts in May? Typical BS.) For optimal creaminess, you should soak your nuts overnight – a monumental pain in the beans for anyone aspirational but unorganised. Eventually I throw in soaked almonds, cinnamon and honey. With one button, the machine begins, emitting more heat than a Venusian sauna and an odd, screeching grind. In 20 minutes, it yields a steaming bounty of puritan juice. The included sieve is quickly overwhelmed by almond meal – invest in a nut bag (what? That’s what they’re called!) for smoothest-sippin’ mylk. But I’m highly impressed with the fresh taste. Naturally sweet, nutritious – it makes me want to play tennis. Does this make me a clean eater? I actually ended up on the sofa, guzzling a huge chocolate mylkshake, so let’s not go nuts. Redeeming features? Coconut, cashew, soya bean – you can use any nuts you like. I liked – yes! – doughnuts best. Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard? Counter. Alternatively, under a goth cow (black on black spots, nose ring). 4/5 | ['food/milk--drink-', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'lifeandstyle/homes', 'food/food', 'tone/features', 'lifeandstyle/series/inspect-a-gadget', 'food/softdrinks', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'profile/rhik-samadder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-07-27T11:22:19Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2023/oct/20/why-health-wellbeing-should-centre-urban-planning | Why health and wellbeing should be at centre of urban planning | Epidemics of cholera and other infectious diseases in the 19th century taught us that clean drinking water, sewage and waste collection were essential for healthy cities. Now scientists around the world are thinking about how the way we build and operate modern infrastructure relates to the everyday burden of illness. According to Dr Haneen Khreis from the University of Cambridge, a co-author of a review looking at the topic: “There is a large and preventable burden of respiratory health due to current urban and transport planning. Our health and wellbeing should be the core of planning and policymaking.” Her review, published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine,highlights evidence of improvements in air pollution from many low emission zone (LEZ) schemes. More than 320 LEZs now operate across the UK and Europe to curb the use of the most polluting vehicles. It also reports a 6-9% reduction in the traffic pollution in and around a low traffic neighbourhood in London and up to 25% decreases from Barcelona’s “super blocks”, where accessibility and pedestrians are prioritised over cars. Separate research by Imperial College London also found clear reduction in heart and circulatory problems in five out of eight LEZ studies. These included fewer admissions to hospital, fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes, and fewer people with blood pressure problems. Out of five studies that looked at lung health, two found improvements and the remainder showed no definite result. None showed a clear deterioration. Prof Mark Nieuwenhuijsen from the research institute ISGlobal, who led the new policy review, said: “Air pollution policies often focus on legal compliance and forget that the primary aim is to prevent disease and maintain health. They rely too much on technical solutions and miss the additional health benefits from shifting private car use to public transport, cycling and walking.” A five-year study of 260,000 working people in the UK has found that people who cycled to work were healthier and living longer than those who commuted by car. Along with people who walked to work, cycling commuters also had lower rates of heart disease. Putting public money into local amenities such as shops, schools, healthcare and social spaces such as parks, pubs and restaurants can create opportunities to walk, cycle or use public transport for the things we do every day. This is at the heart of the modern 15-minute city concept. It was also the pattern for villages, towns and cities before the second half of the 20th century. “Creating environments where every essential is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride fosters consistent physical activity. This diminishes risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle and elevates air quality,” according to Prof Carlos Moreno of Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, who was not involved in the new review. It is not just health that is improved, according to Moreno, who says the low-traffic designs also amplify quality of life and wellbeing. “They champion green spaces and shared communal areas, nurturing the mental health of residents and strengthening communal ties.” Despite the evidence of their benefits, these projects can get caught up in political controversy. Nieuwenhuijsen said: “Often the problem is the absence of a shared vision of a better city, no clear rational such as better respiratory health, and pathways to get there. Too often citizens think that restrictions and costs are imposed by a city council to pester them. We need more co-creation and engagement to create and implement a vision of a sustainable, livable and healthy city.” • This article was amended on 20 October 2023. An earlier version misspelled Dr Haneen Khreis’s surname and misgendered her. Also due to an editing error research into LEZ by Imperial College London was wrongly credited to ISGlobal. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'cities/cities', 'society/communities', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/pollution', 'society/health', 'environment/environment', 'society/heart-disease', 'society/society', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-10-20T05:00:08Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2023/jun/12/canada-fires-quebec-western-evacuations | Quebec fires weakened by rain as blazes in western Canada force many to flee | Overdue rains and cooler temperatures have given Quebec fire crews a chance to launch their assault on dozens of wildfires, but the reprieve for one part of Canada comes as fires in the west of the country have once again forced residents to flee their homes. The country has been struggling with an “unprecedented” wildfire season, with nearly 450 forest fires across the country on Sunday, 220 of which were burning out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. In Quebec, crews are hoping to attack dozens of blazes that have been temporarily weakened by favourable weather. “We went from a reactive mode to an offensive mode,” Quebec’s forestry minister, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, said in a weekend news conference. But more than 14,000 residents remain under evacuation as the mix of domestic and foreign firefighters and Canadian armed forces members tackle the blazes. The 117 wildfires across Quebec underscore the record-breaking nature of the spring fire season that has displaced tens of thousands and choked the air of more than 100 million people in eastern North America. Quebec wildfires have already scorched 740,000 hectares of boreal forest, more than 300 times the average during the spring season over the past decade. In the coming days, nearly 350 firefighters from the EU will join nearly 1,000 personnel already on the frontlines. Nearly 100 firefighters from Spain and 140 from Portugal will arrive in Quebec City on Wednesday. “There is this solidarity,” Claire Kowalewski, the European Union Emergency Response Coordination Centre’s liaison officer, told the Canadian Press. “Today, unfortunately, it’s Canada that is facing these terrible fires. But last year in Spain, it was also a terrible year.” Despite progress in Quebec, officials in western Canada have watched as new blazes crop up and move dangerously close to populated areas. The Alberta town of Edson was evacuated on Friday for the second time this year after a nearby fire crossed fireguards and moved perilously close to the community. “We’re in a little bit of a lull right now but we do expect things to progress if the temperatures come up and the winds come up, so we’re not out of the woods yet,” Edson’s mayor, Wade Williams, said in an update on Sunday, telling residents they could not yet return to their homes. Neighbouring British Columbia is also dealing with new fires that have pushed residents from their homes. In the north-eastern pocket of the province, officials warned of “immediate danger to life safety” and ordered evacuations of the Peace River regional district and the district of Tumbler Ridge. Officials issued new evacuation orders linked to the Donnie Creek fire, which has grown to more than 350,000 hectares in size and broached containment lines constructed by fire crews. On Vancouver Island, a region of the province that typically sees high levels of spring rainfall, a wildfire has severed access to Tofino, a popular beachfront community. The main highway that serves the communities has been closed down for more than a week. The province has created a temporary detour, but the journey adds four hours of travel and traverses forestry service roads. About 4.8 million hectares have burned this year across Canada, the most active start to a wildfire season on record. | ['world/canada', 'world/wildfires', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'world/canada-wildfires', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/leyland-cecco', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | world/canada-wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-06-12T15:02:30Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2018/nov/03/horseshoe-crab-population-at-risk-blood-big-pharma | This crab could save your life - if humans don't wipe it out first | Few people in the world are aware their wellbeing may one day depend on a blue-blooded crab that looks like a cross between the facehugger from Alien and a gigantic louse. Fewer still realise this ancient creature now faces its greatest threat in more than 450m years. The American horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs and has survived four previous mass extinctions, but is now menaced by the pharmaceutical industry, fishing communities, habitat loss, climate change and, most recently, choking tides of red algae off the east coast of the United States. Abundant three decades ago, this living fossil, which is actually more closely related to spiders than crabs, was put on the vulnerable list by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 2016. Scientists say the crab’s decline symbolises the huge economic and health costs of biodiversity loss worldwide. This will be underscored by a UN report this month that will show humanity is running down the natural capital of the Earth at a “startling” rate. Since 1992, more than 30% of the planet’s ecological wealth – the estimated value of species, forests, rivers and soil – has been lost, with profound consequences not just for conservation but for the health and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people. To address this, many wildlife campaigns focus on pandas, tigers and other cute megafauna, but the biggest economic damage is being done to less charismatic species such as insects, worms, plants, fish and crabs. The copper-based blood of the horseshoe crab is used to make the most sensitive indicator of bacteria ever discovered, limulus amoebocyte lysate. The lysate is vital to identifying contaminants in medical equipment before surgical operations, pacemaker fittings and many vaccinations. Such is the demand that processed lysate from the crab’s blood is now, gram for gram, one of the most valuable liquids on Earth, with a reported price between $35,000 and $60,000 per gallon. US pharmaceutical companies catch more than 430,000 of these creatures each year, puncture the shell near the heart, harvest 30% of the blood, and then return them to the wild. Studies show that between 5% and 20% die in this process and surviving females find it more difficult to breed. Far more are killed by bait collection, and the population has also declined as a result of coastal development and global warming. The creation of protected areas and the introduction of bait harvesting limits has helped populations partially recover in Delaware Bay, but the harvesting has moved to other areas such as New England. Scientists predict horseshoe crab numbers off the east coast of the US will decrease by 30% over the coming decades. The fall of its three Asian subspecies is forecast to be even more rapid, because the crabs there are sold for food after the blood is harvested. Mike Schmidtke of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said the main problem for the crabs was the decline in the quality or availability of the beaches they use for spawning. Critics say regulatory bodies are too closely connected to the pharmaceutical industry, which is hampering efforts to limit catches. Biomedical companies are also trying captive breeding and the development of a synthetic substitute for lysate, but they are yet to win approval for these tests from the US Food and Drug Administration. Thomas Novitsky of the Horseshoe Crab Conservation Association said lab alternatives would have a negligible impact. Better, he said, was an improvement in harvesting practices, stronger habitat protection and tighter restrictions on the use of the crab as bait. The biomedical industry, he said, overstated the importance of the lysate, which exploits the horseshoe crabs to monitor drug quality and production cleanliness. “Their profits are enormous and they support little or no conservation efforts,” he said. “Economic growth, profit and immediate ‘benefit’ for humankind always seem to win out over sustainability and environmental protection, which is the insurance for our future.” New threats continue to emerge. For much of this year, fertiliser run-off along the coast of Miami has created vast carpets of algae that suffocate or poison marine life. During these prolonged red tides, biologists, volunteers and fishing captains have reported many dead crabs, including horseshoe crabs of all sizes. “Presumably the toxins cause stress, and the extremely low levels of oxygen in the water cause the mortality,” said Claire Crowley of the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. “We have seen this in stone crab population within this area. While stone and horseshoe crabs have the capacity to move, it is likely not fast enough to escape these conditions.” A detailed survey will be completed in spring 2019. But the fate of the horseshoe crab is part of a wider picture of natural decline of most wild species across the world. The upcoming UN report says 30% of the world’s natural capital has been lost since 1972, which is a source of economic as well as environmental concern. “The report has startling findings with strong implication for conservation and development policies,” wrote Pushpam Kumar, the UN chief environmental economist, ahead of the report’s publication. The danger, he said, is that the world is now destroying natural wealth created over millions of years to generate short-term income. Despite such warnings, species such as the horseshoe crab are coming under ever-greater pressure. Human longevity is increasingly reliant on medical implants and the risks of septicaemia is growing as microbes become more resistant to antibiotics. That will mean more contamination tests and consequently, more harvesting of blood from horseshoe crabs. • This article was amended on 5 and 8 November 2018. The copper-based blood of the horseshoe crab does not contain limulus amoebocyte lysate as stated in an earlier version. It is used to make it. The article was further amended to note that the horseshoe crab is more closely related to spiders than crabs. | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-11-03T06:00:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/apr/26/eu-environmental-watchdog-criticises-calls-to-stall-pesticides-cut | EU environmental watchdog criticises calls to stall pesticides cut | The EU’s environmental watchdog has hit back at calls to stall a 50% cut in the use and risks of synthetic pesticides and a 20% cut in fertiliser use by 2030, arguing that the Ukraine crisis provides scant justification for delay. EU states with the backing of powerful farm unions and centre-right parties have blocked the proposed pesticide reform unless the European Commission completes a second impact study by 28 June to assuage food security fears. Among campaigners and scientists, anxieties are rife that the bloc’s flagship green farming pledge could be unceremoniously buried. Dario Piselli, a European Environment Agency (EEA) expert and author of a new analysis published on Wednesday, said there were “compelling” reasons not to hesitate further with the draft law. “There’s limited justification to use the war as a reason for postponing action,” he told the Guardian. “Food security as an issue is not only to do with immediate food supply – and a lot of the concerns there have subsided a bit compared to the beginning of the war – but with medium-long term security which is influenced by other things [like] climate change and the impact of a loss of biodiversity on food production.” Since 1990, farmland bird and grassland butterfly populations have plunged by more than 30% in Europe, while almost one in 10 of the continent’s bees face extinction, mainly because of habitat loss caused by intensified agriculture. In 2020, pesticide thresholds for human safety were breached at more than one in five rivers and lakes across Europe, the EEA paper says and 83% of agricultural soils tested in 2019 were also found to contain pesticide residues. Almost the same percentage – 84% – of people tested across five European countries in 2021 were found to contain at least two pesticides in their bloodstreams, according to a large human biomonitoring study cited by the paper. Environmentalists say this is partly down to increased pesticide sales volumes in the EU, which remained stable between 2011 and 2020 at about 350,000 tonnes a year, compared with annual averages closer to 220,000 tonnes between 1992 and 2003. One EU country, Denmark, has cut sales by using pesticide taxes linked to product toxicity, but the commission does not expect the present modest rises in pesticide prices to affect demand. By contrast, fertiliser sales in countries such as Germany have fallen by up to 40% after prices doubled between May 2020 and the end of 2022, owing to high gas costs and war-related supply disruptions. One EU diplomat said this had caused “mixed feelings” in Europe’s capitals about the commission’s green farming reform. “Last year the Germans were desperate to push the proposal forward but how this will end up I don’t know,” the official said. Another EU diplomat added: “If the pesticides regulation is dead, there is no one to blame but the commission itself. The moment it stepped away from a scientific and evidence-based approach in favour of ideology and dogmatic solutions, it condemned its flagship legal proposal.” The commission’s targets for EU nations, which take into account actions already taken, would force Italy to cut its pesticide use and risks by 62%, Germany by 55% and France and Spain by 54%, according to a report in Politico. Hostility to the measures is strong among Europe’s agricultural business class and in several governments, where the EU’s green deal commissioner, Frans Timmermans, is viewed darkly. “Unless EU citizens suffer from hunger and protest in the streets, he does not care,” the first diplomat said. In a concession to such sentiments, Brussels last year shelved a proposed ban on pesticide use in ecologically sensitive areas – so long as low-risk pesticides were used instead. But it will not abandon the goal of a less chemically drenched countryside, despite the “complex” impacts of the Ukraine conflict on food security, said Stefan De Keersmaecker, a commission spokesperson. “We must continue making progress in the discussions so that the proposal can become a reality to protect farmers, pesticide users, citizens, vulnerable populations, and the environment,” he said. “European citizens have a clear desire to reduce the use and risk of pesticides.” | ['environment/pesticides', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/butterflies', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arthurneslen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-04-26T06:00:55Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/mar/18/cop26-boris-johnson-urged-resist-calls-postpone-climate-talks-coronavirus | Cop26: Boris Johnson urged to resist calls to postpone climate talks | Nicholas Stern, one of the most prominent global experts on the climate crisis, has urged Boris Johnson to resist calls to postpone vital UN climate talks this year, despite the coronavirus outbreak. Ministers and officials have privately discussed the possibility of postponing the Cop26 talks scheduled for Glasgow this November, but no decision has yet been taken. Travel bans and the shutdown imposed in many countries because of the virus have resulted in cancelled meetings and officials working remotely. Lord Stern believes any move to postpone the talks would put paid to any hope of making real progress. “At the moment we must just get on with the preparation,” he said. “This is such an urgent challenge and there is so much to do, and so much valuable work that is being done, that we can’t afford to lose the momentum.” At Cop26 – the 26th conference of the parties – countries are supposed to come up with more stringent plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, because current plans under the Paris agreement are inadequate. The UK was hoping to bring many countries to the table with pledges to hit net zero carbon by 2050, a target that the UK has already enshrined in law. Stern said work had become more difficult because of the virus, but not impossible. Postponing the summit now would effectively put the brakes on at a time when acceleration is needed, he said, and if needs be then a postponement could be discussed after the summer, depending on the situation then. Stern is backed by other former high-ranking diplomats. Yvo de Boer, a former chief of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), who led talks in Copenhagen in 2009 that ended in acrimony, said it was vital to keep working towards a November Cop26. “If it is going to be cancelled, that should only be done at the last possible minute – in October,” he said. One former high-ranking official who helped put together the Paris agreement said: “Cancelling now might look like the UK was grasping too soon for a way out of an important meeting.” Some NGOs and developing country experts also view talk of postponement as counterproductive. Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa and a close observer of the talks for many years, said: “We would rather not see it cancelled until we know more about the spread of the virus. Cancelling it immediately might mean action on climate change gets ignored this year and people on the frontlines in poorer countries can’t afford that.” Janine Felson, the deputy chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “We cannot afford to lose any momentum. We should all focus our energies on ensuring that we can support each other through this trying time and continue to push for ambition.” But some experts contacted by the Guardian believe postponing the talks would provide more time for diplomacy. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, has written to Alok Sharma, the business secretary and president of Cop26, urging him to delay. He said: “Postponement is very different to cancellation. It would be the same president, the same venue, the same two countries co-hosting, so all you are doing is having a slight delay. The UK got off to a slow start [in launching its strategy for hosting Cop26] so postponement would give more time for the work that is needed.” One key issue is that the US presidential election is due to take place a week before Cop26 begins. Donald Trump is strongly opposed to the Paris agreement and his withdrawal from it will take effect the day after the election. A new president, if there is one, could be more amenable to climate action but would not take office until January, so a postponement could allow the US to participate. Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute in the US, said: “One distinct advantage of delay until spring 2021 is the growing prospect that US voters will turn Trump’s climate nihilism out of office in favour of Joe Biden’s robust climate ambition, infusing global negotiations with far greater importance and momentum.” Some pre-Cop meetings are already in doubt. The UNFCCC has cancelled all meetings for the next month but a decision will have to be taken soon on an intermediate meeting set for Bonn in June. Italy is due to co-host Cop26 with the UK but its plans have been thrown into disarray by the coronavirus pandemic. The UK government has said there are no plans for a change. A spokesperson said: “We continue to work towards hosting the event in Glasgow in November, which is eight months away. Given this is an evolving situation we are keeping the situation under careful review.” The UNFCCC also said there was no immediate move to postpone the talks. Any decision would have to be taken by the Cop Bureau, made up of elected representatives from various countries, and would also involve the Chilean government, which technically will preside over the process until the UK officially takes on the presidency in November. | ['environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2020-03-18T14:31:02Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2022/may/31/wrap-up-in-wool-and-save-sheep-farmers-from-falling-fleece-prices | Wrap up in wool and save sheep farmers from falling fleece prices | Brief letters | It is disturbing that sheep farmers have no market for their fleeces (Shear desperation: low price of wool pushes farmers to opt for moulting sheep, 26 May) when, with the huge rise in heating costs, we will all need to dress more warmly. Wool offers warmth with breathability and is a sustainable fibre. Now that we know of the environmental damage caused by synthetics, a return to more natural fibres ought to be encouraged. Marianne Pincombe Cumwhinton, Cumbria • Just as I’m becoming ever more despondent at the state of the world, along comes the beautiful country diary from the Inner Farne, Northumberland (31 May). I am immediately transported back to my 1950s childhood and being dropped off at the island by fishermen to explore it before being collected later in the day. Jean Jackson Seer Green, Buckinghamshire • The Oxford Mail liked to prepare for the worst. So, before a 1959 visit to Oxfordshire by the Queen and Prince Philip, I was instructed to update her obituary. “During her brief reign,” I began, tongue in cheek. It amused my colleagues then. Now the laugh is on me. Don Chapman Eynsham, Oxfordshire • Even if 54 Tory MPs do send their letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady (Report, 30 May), can anyone be sure that Boris Johnson won’t then change the rules governing a confidence vote? Matthew Taylor Hove, East Sussex • When I had a colostomy after bowel cancer, I named my bag Donald – because of what it was full of (Letters, 30 May). Colin Reed Salisbury, Wiltshire • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['environment/farm-animals', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'fashion/fashion', 'uk/queen', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-05-31T16:59:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2019/oct/01/greta-thunberg-teenage-girls-donald-trump-opinion | Strong, smart teen girls have had enough. No wonder men like Trump are rattled | Sasha Brown-Worsham | The president of the United States openly mocked a teenage girl. After dismissing the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg in person and earning her ire, he tweeted to his 65 million followers: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Dismissive. Sarcastic. Mocking. Utterly typical. Is anyone surprised? The Republican party has a teenage girl problem. And Thunberg knows what’s up. On Monday, she gave an impassioned and emotional speech at the climate summit in New York. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.” Trump took it personally – hence, his tweet. On Tuesday, Thunberg fought back, changing her Twitter bio to read “a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future”. She’s fierce. And she’s not the only one. Just last year, a 13-year old Canadian water activist named Autumn Peltier told the United Nations it was time to “warrior up” on World Water Day. “Our water deserves to be treated as human with human rights. We need to acknowledge our waters with personhood so we can protect our waters,” the Anishinaabe girl from Wikwemikoong First Nation told the diplomats gathered in New York City. Greta Thunberg and Autumn Peltier will join the pantheon of teenage girls who changed everything. Girls like Anne Frank, a young teen when she wrote her diary. Or Joan of Arc, who led an army. Or Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel peace prize for her work securing education for girls in Pakistan and around the world at the age of 17. It’s no wonder men like Donald Trump are shaking in their boots. Because hell hath no fury like a teenage girl who is awake and aware and done with your bullshit. The fears of men like Trump have made mocking teenage girls a favorite American pastime. We mock their trends. In the 1980s, it was the Valley Girls. Their big hair. The way they spoke. The way they pegged their jeans and chewed their gum. The accessories they carried. Today, newspapers and parenting magazines are full of hand wringing over “VSCO girls”, the modern day Valley Girl, most of whom are in their early teens and some even younger. All the things they enjoy – Fjällräven backpacks, HydroFlasks, Birkenstocks, scrunchies. It’s all fodder for their elders’ mocking. We dismiss their water bottles, their fashion choices, the words they use. We mock their selfies (narcissists!), their clothing (cheap and too much skin!), their makeup (too much in general! Be natural!). What would happen if teenage girls were actually allowed to feel good about themselves? What if we allowed them to have their interests with no shame? They might rise up and change everything. And that scares a certain kind of man. The Fox commentator Michael Knowles called Thunberg a “mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left”. Knowles issued an apology. But he wasn’t the only one. The conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza compared Thunberg’s image to ones used in Nazi propaganda. He posted a photo on Twitter of Thunberg, with her long braids, next to an illustration of a young woman with a similar hairstyle standing in front of a swastika flag. As the mother of a teenage girl myself, I know how hard they are to manipulate. They are strong and smart and know themselves in ways big and small. They can’t be forced by anyone – not teachers or parents – to say things they don’t mean at a school assembly, let alone on world stage. Thunberg doesn’t need anyone to push her. She pushes herself. She’s well-informed, brilliant, and unafraid to take on all the leaders in the world. Like so many other teenage girls. Like Anne Frank. Like Peltier. Like Joan of Arc. Republicans are due a reckoning. Where do they really stand on 16-year-old girls? Are they children, manipulated by George Soros and their parents, when they are saying intelligent things? Or are they women? They certainly seem to be treated as “women” when it’s time to hang with the likes of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women and girls and still had many Republican supporters. It’s no wonder so many Republicans are scared of teenage girls. If teenage girls can accomplish so much and live so powerfully even as they are mocked, condescended, demeaned and shamed, imagine what they could do if we just shut up and got the hell out of their way. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/trump-administration', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/sasha-brown-worsham', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-10-01T13:09:18Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2018/jun/27/britain-betrayed-heathrow-humanity-survival | Wake up, Britain. We’ve been betrayed over Heathrow | Roger Hallam | Some things are, to use Caroline Lucas’s word, “unforgivable”. The decision by MPs to put commercial interests ahead of the needs of our planet when it came to vote on the third runway at Heathrow represents a final, catastrophic betrayal. I had just finished a 14-day hunger strike, along with other Vote No Heathrow campaigners, to try to get across our objection to the idea. We are committed. Boris Johnson – supposedly an avowed critic of the plan – couldn’t even be bothered to turn up. For 30 years scientists have been making clear the catastrophic and inevitable consequences of climate change. CO2 emissions are altering our planet, and it will lead to humanity’s destruction unless we do something about it. It’s real, it’s happening – our politicians must face facts. At present temperatures have risen 1.2C. Another 0.6C of warming is locked in from already emitted carbon which has yet to increase temperatures. The arctic will likely be ice-free in the summer within the next decade and ice-free all the year round within 10 years after that. The resultant dark earth and water that will replace the reflective ice and snow will create an estimated additional half a degree of warming. These precise numbers are important, because death is not linear but binary. At a certain point you cross from life to death. So where is the line? Two degrees is the answer. As we pass this point, it is no longer possible to grow grains at scale in the centre of Russia and North America, where temperatures will increase twice as fast as the global average. Millions will starve, tens of millions of climate refugees will be heading in our direction, and the world economic system will collapse. We are hurtling towards this moment of truth. We were told by scientists not so long ago that we should not go over 350 parts per million of C02 in the atmosphere. We are now on 403.3 parts per million. Only a few years ago it was increasing by 2ppm a year. Now it is 3ppm. The rate is increasing exponentially. Never before in its four billion-year history has the Earth experienced such a massive rate of increase. The level of 450ppm is the equivalent of a 2C increase in temperature. We are set to pass this in about 10 years’ time – a blink in geological time. Shortly afterwards we are set to pass 500ppm, after which, in the words of Professor Peter Ward, “all bets are off”. He can say that because the science is now done on the fundamentally unstable dynamics of the Earth’s geophysical system. CO2 release brings on rapid mass extinction. It has happened 15 times in the geological record. The gas warms the Earth and melts the ice caps. The resultant loss of temperature difference between the poles and the equator leads to loss of wind and ocean currents. The seas become stagnant. They stop producing oxygen and emit hydrogen sulphide instead. The latter is a poisonous gas, and kills all living creatures at 200ppm in the atmosphere. Scientists have been telling politicians this information for three decades. It is clearly laid out in thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers. Continue to emit CO2 poison, and the world will become toxic. There is no planet B. When the British public wake up to the fact that all that they cherish and love will soon be destroyed, they will turn on the politicians that allowed this to happen. In the meantime some of us have been working for some time on saving our society. We are preparing to rebel. The Heathrow vote demonstrates that our political system is in the grip of short-term commercial interest, even though it will lead to devastating results. It cannot be reformed from within. John Locke, our greatest political philosopher, laid down a clear response – in such circumstances citizens have a right and indeed the duty to rebel. We have done it before in our history and we are going to do it again. • Rising Up is coordinating a rebellion against the UK government for this November • Roger Hallam is a PhD researcher on effective radical campaign design at King’s College London | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/heathrow-third-runway', 'tone/comment', 'uk-news/heathrow-airport', 'uk/transport', 'environment/environment', 'environment/air-pollution', 'uk/uk', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'world/air-transport', 'type/article', 'profile/roger-hallam', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-06-27T10:15:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2021/may/19/food-giants-accused-of-links-to-amazon-deforestation | Food giants accused of links to illegal Amazon deforestation | Three of the world’s biggest food businesses have been accused of buying soya from a farmer linked to illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Cargill, Bunge and Cofco sourced soya beans from the Chinese-owned Fiagril and the multinational Aliança Agrícola do Cerrado, both of which have allegedly been supplied by a farmer fined and sanctioned multiple times after destroying swathes of rainforest, according to a new investigation. Soya beans are a key ingredient in poultry, pig and cattle feed, particularly for animals reared on intensive farms. The fate of the Amazon is the subject of intense focus as world leaders scramble to agree on how to tackle the climate emergency. Research published in the academic journal Nature Climate Change last month found the area deforested in the Amazon almost quadrupled in 2019 – President Bolsonaro’s first year in power – compared with the year before. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Unearthed and Repórter Brasil used satellite images and enforcement records to uncover how soya was planted on land that had previously been placed under embargo – a form of government ban that stops farmers found to have breached deforestation rules or caused other environmental damage using parts of their land. At least 15 sq km of forest registered to a farmer supplying soya to Aliança and Fiagril was embargoed in 2019 by Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama after being deforested. A separate embargo, issued by Mato Grosso’s state environment agency in 2016, names the same farmer in relation to further illegal deforestation. Using satellite analysis from MapBiomas, Repórter Brasil established that soya was illegally grown on this land in 2018 and 2019, despite the embargo. Public records show that the farmer has been fined a total of R$12m (£1.3m) for breaches of forest protection rules – the fines were in 2013 and 2019. The farmer, based in the remote Marcelândia region of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, allegedly sold soya to Fiagril and Aliança in 2019 after the government embargo on the land. Bunge bought soya from Fiagril, and Cargill and Cofco purchased soya from Aliança, after the two companies had been supplied by the farm in 2019, according to records seen by TBIJ. Fiagril and Aliança, as well as Cargill, Bunge and Cofco, are signatories to the soya moratorium. Signatories commit to not “sell, purchase and finance soya from areas deforested in the Amazon biome after July 2008”. However, the companies can legitimately buy soya from the farm because it is the land that is embargoed rather than the entire farm or farmer. It is not known if the soya bought by Fiagril and Aliança came from prohibited land. The moratorium’s monitoring system is understood to usually only prohibit the land where the breaches occurred, excluding other properties owned by the same farmer. “Allowing different properties operated by the same person or group to follow different rules opens a loophole that farmers can use to circumvent the soy moratorium,” said Lisa Rausch, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin. Fiagril told TBIJ that it condemns illegal activity and is “committed to the legal enforcement of sustainability in agriculture with our clients and suppliers”. The company denied sourcing soya from the embargoed farm. Aliança said it was regularly audited and in compliance with all regulations and that “there are no facts or official rulings that mention, connect or in any other way refer to Aliança in any environmental violations”. The company said it deals with “countless farmers and producers in Brazil” and “businesses outside of Aliança’s control remain within the sole responsibility of a particular farmer/producer”. Cargill said it did not source soya “directly” from the farm. It added: “We have firmly upheld the Brazilian soy moratorium in the Amazon since 2006 … We will investigate Fiagril and Aliança do Cerrado in accordance with our soy grievance process.” Bunge said it has not bought soya beans from Aliança since 2017, and that Fiagril had not supplied them with soya beans from the Marcelândia region. “As a signatory of the Amazon soy moratorium, purchases made by Fiagril are audited by independent entities. In addition, Bunge’s contracts with suppliers have clauses in which the supplier expressly commits to supply grains in accordance with the applicable legislation, including environmental laws,” the company said. Cofco said: “We conduct monthly internal audits, as well as annual external audits, on suppliers’ compliance with the moratorium. The 2019 audit confirmed that all our suppliers complied with moratorium requirements in the past season.” Sign up here for the Animals farmed monthly update to get a roundup of the best farming and food stories across the world and keep up with our investigations. And you can send us your stories and thoughts at animalsfarmed@theguardian.com | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/food', 'world/brazil', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/andrew-wasley', 'profile/alexandra-heal', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-05-19T05:00:19Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2015/apr/25/australia-public-enemy-number-one-of-un-climate-talks-says-nobel-laureate | Australia 'public enemy number one' of UN climate talks, says Nobel laureate | Australia is emerging as “public enemy number one” of the United Nations climate change negotiations to be held in Paris in December, according to a Nobel laureate of medicine speaking from a sustainability symposium in Hong Kong. Prof Peter Doherty is representing Australia at the symposium, held every three years and which is being attended by 11 other laureates from around the world, who will sign a memorandum detailing their recommendations for making major cities sustainable. The four-day symposium ends on Saturday afternoon, and Doherty said a clear message had emerged from his peers, who hold expertise across specialities including climate, economics and business. “People are saying informally that Australia and Canada are emerging as public enemy number one for the Paris talks on climate,” Doherty said. “No other names are being mentioned. Australia is seen as very much out of touch and out of sync with what’s happening globally.” On Tuesday, the independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) recommended Australia increase its commitment to cut 2000-level emissions by 2020 from 5% to 19% if it wanted to be taken seriously at the Paris climate change talks, a suggestion the environment minister, Greg Hunt, described as “onerous”. Meanwhile the prime minister, Tony Abbott, has directed $4m to start a climate consensus centre fronted by political scientist and climate change contrarian Bjørn Lomborg. Canada has also been criticised for climate change inaction, and for failing to mention climate change in its economic action plan. But it was clear that many countries, particularly in Asia, where 21 of a forecast 37 megacities are expected to be within 30 years, were “ambitiously and aggressively” taking steps to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels, Doherty said. Large cities contributed disproportionally to climate change, he said, with roughly 75% of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels coming from cities. It meant designing new buildings to be energy efficient, and focusing on public transport rather than building new roads, would be key measures for major cities in trying to curb global warming, he said, with up to 80% of the population expected to be living in large cities by 2050. “Too often the focus is on mining and other big polluters, which is important, but so is rapid urbanisation,” Doherty said. But he said it may be tough to get the Australian government to endorse and adopt the symposium memorandum, which will urge governments to make climate change mitigation in major cities a focus of climate change policy. “I don’t think we’re going to get far with the present government leadership, but when [communications minister] Malcolm Turnbull was leading the party he was quite willing to sign on to a carbon trading scheme, so there are those people open to the evidence,” Doherty said. “There’s been a lot of discussion here about how science has to operate more effectively in the political sphere than it’s doing currently, and that’s been a challenge globally. “It’s cut through in Europe because they’ve had major, catastrophic climate events such as flooding, while in Britain, better relationships have been established between science and government, and I think that’s to do with London being the major political and economic centre, and there being senior scientists within the House of Lords, so all the people who need to be talking to each other are in one place.” Doherty said he became interested in climate change science because of the direct impact on health, such as increased heat stress from heatwaves, and indirect effects, such as hunger due to unpredictable severe weather patterns, or the spreading of insect-borne diseases such as malaria from the tropics to other regions. While he believes these were risks the government were failing to address, he did not believe the scientific community, especially in Australia, was deterred by its evidence being rejected. “They know if they put their head up, they’ll be attacked, and they’re used to being slammed” he said. “These are robust, tough people. The difference between people like me and the person running the government is I’m interested in evidence, insights, solutions and solving problems, and he is interested in ideology and looking backwards. But we won’t be deterred.” | ['environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/unitednations', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/environment', 'world/hong-kong', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'world/canada', 'world/asia-pacific', 'australia-news/greg-hunt', 'australia-news/tony-abbott', 'australia-news/coalition', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'cities/urbanisation', 'australia-news/malcolm-turnbull', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/melissa-davey'] | environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-04-24T22:41:44Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/article/2024/aug/21/sweden-to-kill-20-per-cent-of-its-brown-bears-in-annual-hunt-aoe | Sweden to kill 20% of its brown bears in annual hunt | Sweden has issued licences to kill 20% of its brown bear population in the country’s annual bear hunt, which begins today, despite concerns from conservationists. Officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008. The high number of licences issued has alarmed conservationists, who say large predator populations in Europe could face collapse in some countries without proper protection. “It is a pure trophy hunt,” said Magnus Orrebrant, chair of the Swedish Carnivore Association. “Wildlife management in Sweden is about killing animals instead of preserving them to the best of our ability.” Brown bears were hunted almost to extinction in Sweden in the 1920s, but thanks to careful management the population recovered to a peak of about 3,300 in 2008. Over the past five years, however, increasing numbers of bears have been hunted, culminating in a record 722 killed last year. This year, licences to shoot 486 bears have been issued, and a further indeterminate number could be shot where bears are assessed to be a threat to farm animals. In November 2022, a new law gave local hunting associations more power to oversee the management of large predators, including bears. In recent years, hundreds of wolves and lynx have also been culled, fuelling ecologists’ concerns. Magnus Rydholm, communications director for the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management, said: “We are only following the directive of the Swedish government’s wildlife policy. It is all about a balance between humans and the large predators. That’s why the bear hunt starts tomorrow.” But some hunters have expressed concerns over the declining number of brown bears. Anders Nilsson, a hunter in Norrland, in north Sweden, said: “There are those within the hunting community that are concerned about too many bears being killed off.” If hunters continue to kill bears at a similar rate next year, the country will be only one annual hunt away from the minimum number of 1,400, considered necessary by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to maintain a viable population. Brown bears are a “strictly protected species” in Europe, and conservationists argue that the high hunting quotas are in breach of the EU habitat directive, which says “deliberate hunting or killing of strictly protected species is prohibited”. Under EU rules, this prohibition can be lifted as a “last resort” to protect public safety, crops or natural flora and fauna. Researchers are concerned that the brown bear is heading the same way as the moose population in Sweden, Orrebrant says, which has declined by 60% since the end of the last century. Conservationists argue that a larger bear population would make Sweden a more attractive destination for ecological tourism, which would bring in more revenue than selling hunting licences. Orrebrant said: “Because the hunters killed off too many moose, the bear is now suffering for it.” | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'world/sweden', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/mammals', 'environment/hunting', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-08-21T04:00:49Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/sep/02/ground-zero-of-lies-on-climate-artists-protest-at-london-thinktanks | 'Culture of misinformation': artists protest against London thinktanks | A group of artists and writers including Zadie Smith and Sir Mark Rylance have spoken out against the thinktanks and lobbyists at the heart of Westminster, gathering with hundreds of protesters near their offices on Wednesday night. Speakers from Writers Rebel, a group formed in support of the aims of Extinction Rebellion, blocked Tufton Street in London amid a noticeable police presence. Offices on the street include that of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which states on its website “while [it is] open-minded on the contested science of global warming, [it] is deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated”. Four people, including author and XR member Rupert Read and Writers Rebel co-founder Jessica Townsend, were later arrested after spraying stencils reading “Lies, Lies, Economics and Lies” on the entrances to 55 Tufton Street. The group also occupied the street on large tripod constructions, and Read poured paint representing blood down the steps of the building. Speaking earlier, Smith, author of the novels White Teeth and On Beauty, said she had come to realise that her previous belief, that climate change denial was rooted in a genuine fear, was “naive”. “Now we know better. Now we know the outsized, unruly emotions that surround the scientific fact of climate change are fuelled by something far more calculated and external than species shame. They are not organic, natural or unavoidable, but rather feelings manufactured, targeted, organised, and paid for, largely by oil companies and other vested economic interests who are prepared to sacrifice your long-term future for their short-term profit. “There are people whose business it is to make science look like opinion. Who aim to transform genuine feelings of climate grief and guilt into defended ignorance and positive denial,” Smith said. “This is no longer, if it ever was, a question of personal morality. This is a structural question of corrupt politics, of lobbying at the highest level of our government. It involves the economic exploitation of the greatest existential challenge the human race has ever known, the survival of the planet. The fate of this planet cannot be decided by well-remunerated men and women in shadowy offices. This planet belongs to the people. More accurately, we all belong to it.” The protest was compered by the actors Juliet Stevenson and Rylance, who resigned from his role at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2019, after 30 years, over the company’s ties to British Petroleum (BP). “It is a great comfort for me to be out here among people who I feel share my sense of confusion,” said Rylance, to applause. “There is a culture of misinformation and lying that surrounds us. And it is only getting worse.” Other speakers included Dame Carmen Callil, founder of the publisher Virago, and the MP Caroline Lucas, who came from tabling the climate and ecological emergency bill. “It is a fundamental proponent of democracy that we should know who is speaking,” said the environmentalist George Monbiot. “And what is speaking here is the power of money. And the power of money is the greatest threat to democracy and the greatest threat to life as we know it.” Margaret Atwood, author of books including The Handmaid’s Tale, lent her support via video message. “Climate change due to human activity is not a theory, it is not an opinion, it is a fact,” she said. “Denial of this fact in the interests of big money will lead to our extinction as a species.” Writers Rebel has previously been supported by the novelists Ali Smith, Naomi Alderman and Irenosen Okojie, the historian Simon Schama and the environmental writers Robert Macfarlane and Philip Hoare. At the launch of the Writers Rebel campaign last week, the writer and actor Stephen Fry said people had a duty to “expose the lies” of climate change denial. The demonstration was organised in conjunction with the nascent Extinction Rebellion group Money Rebellion, which will target the finance industry for its inaction on the climate emergency. The event took place as part of XR’s 10-day protest to demand government action on the climate crisis. The Metropolitan police said more than 230 people involved had so far been arrested. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'politics/thinktanks', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'politics/lobbying', 'uk/uk', 'books/zadiesmith', 'stage/mark-rylance', 'books/margaretatwood', 'culture/stephen-fry', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sian-cain', 'profile/jessica-murray', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-09-02T20:25:06Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
uk-news/2023/jun/21/britain-is-embracing-switch-to-refillable-water-bottles-say-campaigners | Britain is embracing switch to refillable water bottles, say campaigners | Passengers on London Underground and Manchester’s Metrolink are urged to do it. Councils from Sunderland to Norfolk, Cardiff to Hounslow want their residents to do it. Many primary schools have been asking students to do it for ages. And now a growing number of high street outlets, including Greggs, Costa Coffee and Neal’s Yard Remedies, want to make it easy to do it, wherever you are. Happily, lots of people in Britain are way ahead of them and are doing it already – carrying a refillable water bottle, that is. Whether for reasons of economy, hygiene, an urge to keep hydrated or a concern for the environment, for many people filling up a water bottle before they step out the door is now as habitual as picking up their keys or wallet. In 2015, just 20% of people in the UK used a refillable water bottle, according to the anti-disposables campaign Refill. That figure is now almost 60%, they say. Topping up a bottle from a tap, once seen as the preserve of the stingy or abstemious, is also big business, with the refillable bottle market in Europe worth £1.5bn a year, a figure expected to grow by almost 40% by 2028. The challenge, say activists, is to encourage people to do so, and cut down on the 10m single use water bottles bought every day in the UK, 700,000 of which are discarded as litter. Working alongside more than 80 councils, and with a growing network of high street chains onboard, the Refill app showcases a network of 32,000 places across the UK – from municipal fountains to big chains to pubs to independent shops or businesses – where people can top up their bottles for free, no questions asked. “We did some initial consumer research to understand why we were buying so much bottled water in Britain, especially given that we have some of the best-quality tap water in the world,” says Jo Morley, the head of campaigns at environmental group City to Sea, which runs the Refill campaign. “And we found out that back then [in 2015], it just was not possible to fill a bottle. “I remember commuting to London and filling up my bottle in pub toilets. It just wasn’t the done thing to ask. And actually, that’s what came out in our research, that we Brits were just too polite. We didn’t like to ask for something for free.” Their push to destigmatise and raise awareness is being embraced by a growing number of local authorities. Last Friday, Manchester city council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority pledged to become “refill destinations”, opening up their buildings to provide more places where people can fill up water bottles for free. Sunderland, Southend, Norfolk, Waltham Forest, Hounslow and Cardiff have also signed up, says the organisation. It is not just about litter, although Bournemouth city council has said its introduction of 150 free refill taps last year reduced waste on its beach by 19,000 bottles in July alone. In a warming British climate, easy access to clean, free water is also an issue of social justice and public health. The mayor of London, too, has installed 110 new water fountains across the City and an additional 28 at ZSL London zoo. Some find the habit of carrying water easier than others, according to Jo Travers, a nutritionist based in London, who says younger generations are more attuned to the need to keep hydrated, and potentially attracted by the wide variety of designs now available. “A water bottle is as an accessory, you can customise them and have whatever colour you like – these things do make a big difference to whether people want to carry a bottle of water around. But I definitely think that more of my younger clients understand about hydration – elderly people are often chronically dehydrated. There is definitely a bit of a generational divide.” While the advice to drink two litres a day has been somewhat debunked, she acknowledges – it depends on body type and what else you are eating, for example – not drinking enough water can lead to sluggishness, constipation and difficulty regulating temperature. “So my general advice is to keep drinking. It’s very, very rare, almost nonexistent, to feel worse after having a drink of water.” For the manufacturer of Chilly’s insulated bottles, however, the popularity of its collaborations with Liberty and Emma Bridgewater – not brands conspicuously targeted at Gen Z – shows that refillable bottles are not only for younger people, according to co-founder Tim Bouscarle. The brand, founded in 2010, was at one point the fastest-growing private company in Britain, with sales tripling over the three years to 2018; Bouscarle says it now sells “millions” every year. “Our company mission is to accelerate the adoption and everyday use of reusable products – and I do think that we have encouraged millions of people over the years in the UK to make a change to their daily habits.” For Morley, the scale of behaviour change in Britain has been “really phenomenal”, though there is much further to go. “It used to be totally normal to carry a plastic water bottle around. Now there’s a bit of a social stigma. For us, that was what we set out to do, to create that cultural shift.” | ['uk/uk', 'campaign/email/today-uk', 'environment/plastic', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/estheraddley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-06-21T10:00:37Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/aug/23/boris-johnson-deeply-concerned-by-fires-raging-in-the-amazon | Boris Johnson 'deeply concerned' by fires raging in the Amazon | Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the fires raging in the Amazon and called for international action to protect rainforests, as his government came under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn to take action against the Brazilian president. “The prime minister is deeply concerned by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest and the impact of the tragic loss of these precious habitats,” Johnson’s spokesperson said ahead of this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz, after a call to action from the French president, Emmanuel Macron. “The effect of these fires will be felt around the world which is why we need international action to protect the world’s rainforests. The UK will continue to support projects in Brazil to do this, and the prime minister will use the G7 to call for a renewed focus on protecting nature and tackling climate change.” Labour’s leader urged Johnson on Friday to coordinate international pressure against Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, who he blamed for inspiring fires across primary rainforest. Corbyn said: “Bolsanaro has allowed and indeed encouraged these fires to take place, to clear the forest in order that the land can then be used for actually very short-term agriculture production and after that it becomes desert. “And so we, the Labour party, the shadow cabinet, have written to the prime minister to say: put all the pressure you can on President Bolsonaro to deal with this issue.” Labour had earlier criticised the international trade minister, Conor Burns, for “cosying up” to ministers in the government of Bolsonaro instead of raising the plight of the Amazon rainforest, which is being ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires. In a tweet posted on Thursday, the close ally of Johnson described the Brazilian trade minister, Marcos Troyjo, as “superb” during an official trade visit. He shook hands with counterparts in Brasilia on Wednesday and declared a desire to deepen relations. Asked about the wildfires, Burns reportedly said Bolsonaro’s government had “legitimate ambitions to bring prosperity to its people”. A spokesperson later claimed the quote had been taken out of context and that Burns did discuss the UK’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis in his interview. Burns’s Twitter feed did not mention international fears and conservationists’ concerns that Brazil’s government was tacitly allowing, and could be actively encouraging, the devastation of the country’s rainforest. Labour said Bolsonaro had encouraged the clearing of land by loggers and farmers and sped up deforestation. Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, said Burns should not be “cosying up” to Troyjo, since he has defended the Brazilian government’s deforestation policies. “While Bolsonaro lets agribusinesses burn the Amazon, this week a UK government minister has been busy cosying up to the Brazilian president’s officials,” he said. “Instead of posing for photographs with far-right Brazilian politicians, ministers should be calling on Brazil to do everything they can to protect the rainforest. The government must insist that Brazil honours environmental clauses in existing trade agreements and fulfils their commitments under the Paris agreement.” A spokesperson for the Department for International Trade said Burns had raised the environment in meetings in Brazil. “We are deeply saddened by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest,” the spokesperson said. “The UK remains committed to protecting the world’s rainforests and will continue to do so in Brazil through our international climate finance programmes.” Bolsonaro has been heavily criticised for attacking the country’s environment agencies and declaring plans to open up indigenous reserves, some of the best protected in the Amazon, to mining. The fires – started illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – have created giant clouds of smoke that have drifted hundreds of miles and prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency. In the five days to Wednesday, there were 7,746 fires in Brazil, according to data from the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This comes after a 278% rise in deforestation last month. Concerns about the deteriorating situation have prompted protests at Brazil’s embassies. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has also urged the country to take action. He tweeted: “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected.” “Our house is burning,” tweeted Macron, who called for emergency talks on the subject at the G7 summit in France. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'world/brazil', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'politics/politics', 'politics/labour', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rajeev-syal', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-08-23T15:20:32Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/feb/14/tanya-plibersek-urged-to-intervene-to-stop-stockpiled-soft-plastics-from-being-dumped | Tanya Plibersek urged to intervene to stop stockpiled soft plastics from being dumped | Environment groups are urging federal and state governments to ensure thousands of tonnes of soft plastic that could end up in landfill are safely warehoused by supermarket chains until recycling facilities become available, even if that takes years. The Boomerang Alliance – a coalition of 55 conservation groups – has accused the packaging industry of using a failed scheme run by REDcycle, which led to more than 12,000 tonnes of plastic collected by the public being stockpiled since 2018, as a marketing ploy to mask how little was being done to improve recycling rates. It has urged the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, to regulate to stop the stockpiled waste being dumped, arguing it was possible to do it while reducing fire risk. In letters sent last week, the coalition called on Plibersek and state ministers to also use the crisis to back a tougher national plan to properly deal with Australia’s languishing recycling rates by 2025. The Nine newspapers revealed that plastic collected and dropped off by supermarket customers had been secretly stored for at least four years while the company contracted to run the scheme, REDcycle, claimed it was being distributed for reuse and recycling. The NSW Environment Protection Authority this month issued clean-up orders to Coles and Woolworths for 15 warehouses and storage depots after finding plastic “from the floor to the ceiling, blocking entry ways and preventing adequate ventilation”. Tony Chappel, the EPA’s chief executive, said it was a fire hazard and the plastic may “unfortunately end up in landfill”. The Victorian EPA has said it was aware of 14 warehouses in suburban Melbourne where plastic was being stockpiled and had taken action to ensure the immediate fire risk was controlled and laws were complied with. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Boomerang Alliance’s director, Jeff Angel, said Plibersek and the NSW environment minister, James Griffin, should intervene to ensure supermarkets were required to maintain safe storage facilities, including installing fire warning and suppression systems and employing around-the-clock security guards. “There are ways of doing it, but the issue is at the moment no one is required to,” Angel said. “In 2025, when we’re supposed to meet national packaging targets, all the stuff that’s stockpiled should then be used to plug into new plants.” Plibersek said the federal government would not directly intervene. She said the government had been supporting the supermarkets to resolve the problems, but safety must be the first priority. “I support any action state and territory governments need to take to get this sorted out. They have the regulatory powers to do this, and EPAs need to be able to do their jobs without political interference,” she said. A spokesperson for Griffin said the NSW EPA had an obligation to protect human health and the environment and would continue to engage on options for dealing with the stockpiles, “which include reprocessing, export or landfill”. Ambitious solution needed The Boomerang Alliance said Australia used about 449,000 tonnes of soft plastic each year, about a third of which came from households. It said REDcycle was collecting a “very small amount” – less than 1% of the problem – and a more ambitious solution was needed. Angel said Plibersek should strengthen product stewardship laws to ensure the use of plastic packaging started to fall and voluntary recycling targets set for 2025 – including 70% of plastics being recycled or composted and packaging having 20% recycled content – were met. He said that would require kerbside collection for soft plastic, a step proposed by the Victorian government, as well as new sorting facilities and making the targets mandatory. “We have no confidence that the current taskforce comprised of the big supermarkets can move substantially at a sufficient pace to avoid many millions more tonnes of soft plastics being landfilled or littered,” Angel said. “We commend the federal environment minister for threatening to regulate, but frankly the packaging sector ran out of time years ago and the REDcycle catastrophe was the nail in the coffin of more voluntary efforts.’’ Federal and state environment ministers last year pledged to reform the regulation of packaging by 2025 and the Albanese government in November joined a global “high ambition” coalition to end plastic pollution by 2040. Plibersek has announced $250m in funding for recycling infrastructure. Coles said it had contributed $12.5m over a decade to recycling soft plastic, and was working to help find solutions to the immediate and long-term problem. They included “exploring initiatives like a product stewardship scheme”. Woolworths said the suspension of the REDcycle program showed a new model that could collect and recycle more plastic waste was needed. “The supermarkets in the soft plastic taskforce are currently working together on a short-term solution to restore household access to soft plastic recycling,” a spokesperson said. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/ethical-living', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'weather/victoria', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-02-13T14:00:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2005/sep/05/hurricanekatrina.usa7 | Empty, ruined and desperate | New Orleans was finally emptied of all but the most desperate remnants of its population yesterday, leaving behind a ghost town under military occupation as troops fanned out through the city streets. Police shot dead at least five people who apparently opened fire on contractors on a city bridge, in a clear demonstration of the resolve to deal with the lawlessness that has beset New Orleans. In belated recognition of the depth of the crisis, Washington swallowed its pride and asked for blankets, food and water trucks from the EU and Nato, and beds and medical supplies from Canada. As relief workers, national guardsmen and soldiers went door to door looking for bodies, the US health secretary, Michael Leavitt, confirmed the worst fears over the death toll, saying it was "evident it's in the thousands". Federal officials said the next threat was of an epidemic caused by floodwater contaminated by dead bodies, sewage and toxic waste. The first case of dysentery was reported yesterday, and a relief shelter was closed following fears of disease in Mississippi, where rescue workers were also looking for victims of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, the tumult and anguish of the past week were replaced by a haunting calm, as the last survivors were lifted out by helicopter. The streets were deserted apart from the soldiers, and the cats and dogs rooting through rubbish. In districts where the national guard and police were not out in force, there was still a sense of nervousness. One spray-painted sign on a building warned: "Drunks with guns - you loot, we shoot." Local officials warned that law enforcement officers and their armed deputies were "highly strung" and anyone thinking of entering to loot might not make it out alive. Warren Riley, the deputy police chief, said that officers shot eight people, killing five or six of them, after the gunmen fired on a group of contractors working for the Army Corps of Engineers. The contractors were shot at on their way to repair the breached 17th Street canal dyke, a spokesman said. By an official count, more than 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city over the weekend although an occasional dazed survivor emerged from a house yesterday for the first time since the hurricane hit struck on Monday. Zachary Edwards, who was waiting to be evacuated with his family, and planned to go to Chicago, said: "It was hell, that's the only way I can describe it. We ain't talked to nobody in six days." Mr Edwards was one of the the tens of thousands of evacuees who have recognised that they may never be able to return to their homes or can no longer risk the possibility of another hurricane. The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, said that stragglers would also have to be evacuated despite protests from some wanting to stay. "That is not a reasonable alternative," he said. He told Fox News: "We are not going to be able to have people sitting in houses in New Orleans ... while we de-water and clean this city. When we remove the water from New Orleans, we're going to uncover people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood, people whose remains will be found in the street. There'll be pollution. It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you can imagine." The mass evacuation has imposed a severe burden on neighbouring states. Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, which has accepted more than 220,000 people - around 1% of its total population - called it the biggest influx of refugees in the history of the US. Evacuees have also been moved, by train, bus and air, to Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Arizona and South Carolina. Many refugees have vowed to start new lives in cities far away rather than wait for months for New Orleans to become habitable again. After five days of hesitation, the national guard and troops were staging what amounted to an invasion of the abandoned city with 4,000 soldiers searching house-to-house for survivors and another 7,200 airborne combat troops and marines on the way. Lieutenant General Russel Honore, the commander of relief operations and in effect the New Orleans military governor, yesterday briefed the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers. Mr Rumsfeld visited a field hospital but according to Reuters "walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped". As they pressed ahead with the relief effort, administration officials denied allegations that they had dithered for four days before intervening decisively, by which time many thousands of poor, mostly black New Orleans residents had suffered torment with some dying. Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson parish, south of New Orleans, cried as he told the story of a colleague who had reassured his trapped mother every day that help was on the way and she would be rescued. On Friday night, with no help in sight, the elderly woman drowned. "We have been abandoned by our own country," Mr Broussard told NBC's Meet the Press programme. "It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now." As the political storm gained momentum, the White House reacted. Federal officials blamed the Louisiana state government of Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, for waiting too long to call for outside help. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, toured her home state, Alabama. She had been criticised for watching the Broadway musical Spamalot as New Orleans flooded. On returning to Washington, she denied the delay in sending help had anything to do with most of the stranded survivors being black. "I don't believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans," she said. | ['world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'world/natural-disasters', 'profile/duncancampbell', 'profile/garyyounge', 'profile/julianborger'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-05T01:37:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2017/sep/11/hurricane-irma-destruction-mapped-storm-surges-florida | Storm surges and record winds: Hurricane Irma's destruction mapped | Florida is today dealing with storm surges and swollen rivers whilst surveying the damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Irma, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the north Atlantic. After leaving a trail of destruction across the islands of the northern Caribbean, the storm finally reached Florida on Sunday, moving up the peninsula’s west coast, where the cities of Naples and Tampa bore the brunt. Irma maintained category 5 winds (over 157mph) longer than any other recorded Atlantic hurricane. Florida’s most immediate threat is the possibility of storm surges In addition to heavy rains, the winds drove tides and river waters before them, prompting storm surge warnings across large parts of the state. In some places these storm surges were expected to be more than 9 feet (2.7m) high. Even in areas which didn’t suffer flooding, electricity lines are down across large parts of the state. And while Florida’s infrastructure may have fared better than that in other parts of the Caribbean, where there are serious shortages of drinkable water, there are still hundreds of thousands of homes without power. Irma grew to 500 miles wide before making landfall Satellite imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed the gigantic whirl of clouds set in motion by Irma. | ['world/hurricane-irma', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-weather', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/florida', 'world/cuba', 'world/americas', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/josh-holder', 'profile/niko-kommenda', 'profile/monica-ulmanu', 'profile/seanclarke', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-visuals'] | world/hurricane-irma | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-13T14:17:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/aug/08/discovered-in-the-deep-meet-casper-the-ghostly-octopus | Discovered in the deep: meet Casper the ghostly octopus | A white octopus sat on the seabed, gently waggling its short, stubby arms and peering with beady eyes into the camera of a deep-diving robot. It was 2016, in waters off Hawaii, at a depth of 4,290 metres (2.6 miles). No one had ever seen an octopus like it, and certainly not so deep. Based on its ghostly appearance, it was nicknamed Casper. Until then, the only cephalopods filmed at such depths were Dumbo octopuses, named after another cartoon character, seen swimming around as deep as 6,957 metres, with elegant, ear-like flaps on either side of their heads. The sighting of Casper was a striking moment for Janet Voight, associate curator of invertebrate zoology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. “This is totally new and different,” she says, recalling the discovery. That first glimpse of Casper threw up many tantalising mysteries. Why is it so pale? Most other octopuses have colourful chromatophores in their skin which change their appearance in an instant and act as camouflage to confuse predators. Even in the deep sea, octopuses can be colourful, like the purple, warty Graneledone. Some use a cloak of dark skin pigments, seemingly to hide glowing, bioluminescent prey they grab in their arms and thus avoid alerting other predators. Voight guesses that Casper’s pallor may come down to a lack of pigments in its food. Another puzzle is the short arms, although Casper is not alone in having a limited reach. “The shallower and more tropical you are, the longer and thinner your arms,” says Voight. This trend towards shorter arms in deep-dwelling octopuses doesn’t have a definite explanation. Voight thinks that, rather than stretching out to grab food, they evolved an alternative tactic of twisting their bodies around so that their mouths, on the underside of their bodies, are directly over their food. Scientists have learned more about Casper by scouring five years of archived footage gathered on deep-sea surveys across the Pacific. They spotted dozens more like Casper perched on the seabed, from two distinct species. “It could be that they’re fairly common,” says Voight. “It’s just an indicator of how little we know about what’s down there.” For Voight, especially exciting were the Caspers with their arms wrapped around clutches of eggs stuck to tall sponges. Previously, she had theorised that seabed-dwelling octopuses need hard rocks to lay their eggs on. Further down, there could be fewer exposed rocks, limiting how deep they can go. “Casper showed there are ways around that by finding a sponge stalk,” she says. “Is this a breakthrough in octopus evolution?” The sponges themselves are attached to rocky nodules that lie scattered across swaths of abyssal plains and take millions of years to form. If other deep-sea octopuses are anything to go by, the female Caspers probably spend a long time guarding their eggs. An octopus from another species (Graneledone boreopacifica) was seen off the coast of California, on a steep escarpment in Monterey Canyon, brooding her single clutch in the exact same spot for more than four years. For now, the pale and mysterious Casper octopuses have not yet been officially named, because all we know of them comes from imagery; no one has been able to collect a specimen to study in detail. “With an octopus, you really need it in your hand,” says Voight. | ['environment/series/discovered-in-the-deep', 'environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/helen-scales', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-08-08T05:00:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2018/jul/24/greek-wildfires-dry-winter-and-strong-winds-led-to-tinderbox-conditions | Greek wildfires: dry winter and strong winds led to tinderbox conditions | An unusually dry winter, with less than average rainfall interspersed with localised flooding in some areas, is emerging as a major contributing factor to the wildfires that are ravaging the mainland of Greece. Lack of the expected steady rainfall in the winter months meant groundwater sources failed to recharge and left vegetation unable to recover fully from the high temperatures of the 2017 summer. As a result, when temperatures topping 40C hit some areas during this summer’s heatwave and drought, the conditions were already in place for wildfires to take hold. Strong winds then fanned the flames and spread the fires widely before stretched fire-fighting teams could gain control. The fact that the fires took hold on land close to densely inhabited and resort areas was largely a matter of chance, but one that led to a death toll of more than 70 people and wrought devastation on homes. These are widely regarded as the short-term causes of the fires, but experts are also concerned that the conditions experienced in Greece in the last two years are likely to be replicated more often in future, owing to the changing climate. Nikos Charalambides, executive director of Greenpeace Greece, said: “As the death toll rises and the full size of the disaster is still to be recorded, it would be premature to attribute these [fires] to either climate change or the failures of the fire prevention and fire-fighting mechanisms.” However, he said the contributing factors included drought, strong winds and unusually high temperatures, all of which are likely to be aggravated by climate change. The current heatwave across Europe and much of the northern hemisphere could be seen as “a foretaste of what weather extremes we are threatened by as the climate crisis progresses”, said Charalambides. Growing more trees and managing forests properly would help to make the land more resilient to droughts, heatwaves and fires, he added. Forests also act as a cooling factor on the local climate and support a range of biodiversity. Charalambides also called for a greater focus on the prevention of fires in Greece in place of a traditional focus on boosting firefighting capacity. Alongside this, there should be more emphasis on drawing up plans for evacuation in the case of disaster, particularly in areas where pine forests are near to human habitation. Rachel Kennerley, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The immediate priority must be to tackle the terrible fires, and to support the people whose homes, lives and livelihoods have been put at risk or devastated.” But she said the longer-term impacts must also be taken into account when the immediate danger has passed: “Extreme heatwaves are predicted to become more frequent as climate change takes hold, meaning drier forests and countryside, and a greater risk of fire. Politicians must wake up to the extreme weather battering the planet and take tough and urgent steps to slash the climate-wrecking pollution being pumped into our atmosphere.” Ray Rasker of Headwaters Economics, an expert on wildfires and the built environment in California, said buildings in high-risk areas could be made more resistant to fires in future, often through relatively simple measures. He cited nonflammable roofing material and siding for houses, not using wooden decks, installing fine mesh screens on roof vents, and planting fire-resistant vegetation close to houses. He also warned that in the aftermath of large fires there is often a temptation to waive or loosen high building standards in order to rebuild as quickly as possible, which he said would be a mistake. The short-term Met Office forecast for Greece is for temperatures from around 26C to around 30C, with some localised thunderstorms and a small amount of rainfall in a few areas. | ['world/greece', 'world/wildfires', 'world/europe-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-07-24T16:35:08Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2013/jun/25/arctic-expedition-climate-change-northwest-passage | A rowboat expedition to the Arctic made possible by climate change | The Irish-Canadian team setting out next week to cross the Northwest Passage by row boat knows full well the hazards of the fabled journey through the Arctic: the unpredictable storms, the ice jams, the prospect of becoming prey for a polar bear. "They are the only animal out there that will actively hunt down a human being," said Kevin Vallely, a veteran adventurer who is part of the expedition. The four-man crew are due to set off in their 8-metre rowboat from Inuvik on 1 July, on a journey meant to showcase the extreme effects of climate change on the Arctic. The journey itself is one of those consequences. The team hopes to be the first expedition to complete the route in a single season – an ambition only made possible because of the dramatic melting of summer sea ice in recent years. "This expedition has never been done before, and could not be done before," said Vallely, a Vancouver-based architect and adventurer. "It is being brought about because of climate change. There just is less and less ice." Such changes are all too real to the small communities along the 3,000km route who have reported changes in the migration patterns of the animals they depend on for survival, such as muskox and Arctic char [fish]. After departing Inuvik, in Canada's Northwest Territories, the team will row their way through Tuktoyaktuk, to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. They hope to break their journey for a few days at the hunting camp of Cambridge Bay. "The way of life for people who live up there is already changing very, very fast," said Paul Gleeson, an Irish rower and cyclist. "This gives us an opportunity to make a wider audience aware of how it will actively affect them." The journey in the customised rowboat, the Arctic Joule, will take about 80 days – a fraction of the time it took the first European explorers who tried for years to find a route through the ice-locked waters of the Arctic to the fabled richest of the Orient. Those early journeys in the days before steel-hulled ice breakers left behind a trail of shipwrecks and horrifying records of suffering, including slow starvation, frostbite, food poisoning, and mass cannibalism when the explorers became trapped by the Arctic winters. The first successful crossing from east to west was completed in 1906, only after Roald Amundsen anchored his boat and skied the last 800km to a telegraph office in Alaska. Even those crossings in the modern era – including a number over the past few years by kayak – have occurred over multiple seasons. But with the rapid melting of the Arctic under climate change, and the prospect of new shipping routes across the region, Vallely said his crew hoped to make the crossing entirely under human power, without resort to sails or engines. The boat, which was more than a year in the making, was built for self-sufficiency. It was designed so that all four men could live and sleep on board, and that it could be hauled up on land quickly, in the event of a sudden storm. The four-man crew will complete the crossing in shifts, with each pair taking a four-hour turn at the oars. The non-rowing pair will blog, take videos, or gather data on Arctic char under climate change for a study for the Canadian fisheries department. Their trip is sponsored by clean energy firm Mainstream Renewable Power. Unlike the earliest explorers, Vallely and his crew had the relative luxury of studying those first attempts to find a way through the ice-locked Arctic. Between the four of them they have a half-century of expedition experience. The crew can also rely on modern technology, including weather forecasts from Environment Canada. But there will still be plenty of hazards en route. Without engine or sail power, the crew have little chance of rowing their way out of an ice jam, and those great violent swirls of ice could easily wreck their boat. "We have to make sure we don't get caught in a soup of ice, which could be catastrophic and really dangerous." If the boat were to capsize, survival time in the icy waters of the Canadian Arctic would be in the order of minutes, not hours. Then there are the polar bears. On a route so laden down by its history of loss and heroic endeavours, the team are clear they will not attempt any extraordinary interventions – should their journey take them into close proximity to a polar bear. The crew will carry sound as well as rubber bullets to try to scare the bears off – with a shotgun as the last order of defence – in the event they are forced to beach and encounter an animal on land. But said Gleeson: "Obviously our main strategy is going to be to avoid the polar bear." | ['environment/sea-ice', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/sea-ice | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-06-25T12:00:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
money/2007/jun/25/careers.environment | The green worker | One of the best things we green, mean, working machines can do for mother earth is to shun the office and work from home. More than 3.4 million people regulary toil from the comfort of the spare bedroom, cutting their transport carbon emissions by avoiding the daily commute - and raising their productivity by avoiding chattering colleagues. But homeworkers can reduce their carbon footprint further. Let's start with your attire. Offices demand a clean, white shirt every day, which means regular hot cycles on your washing machine (and the use of associated bleaches). Ditching the uniform means less laundry and less dry cleaning. Who's to know what you're wearing? Save energy and water by staying in your jim-jams. Personal hygiene matters less too. Obviously, your partner will be less than impressed if you just give up washing altogether - but avoiding the sweat and dirt of the commute, not to mention the actual office, means those long, hot showers are less of a necessity. In fact, working from home can save heaps of energy. Your office tends to be constantly lit; your home doesn't have to be. Keep your working day during daylight hours and place your desk in front of the window, ensuring maximum natural light. Make sure you fit energy-efficient bulbs, turning them on only in the room you are using. It's when things come to heating - both keeping warm and staying cool - that homeworking starts to look like less of a good green idea. The extra carbon emissions from heating and powering your home office may outweigh the C02 savings you make by not commuting. Unless you have air-con at home, you should be able to keep your cool without denting your green credentials. But don't reach for the electric fan. Instead open the windows at the front of your home slightly and windows at the back widely to create a good flow of air. If it gets too hot, strip off - who's to know? The main problem comes in winter, where homeworkers turn up the radiators in their individual houses, instead of snuggling in together at the office. The green-minded should avoid having the heating on and instead reach for the hideous jumper knitted by a crazed relative. Wear fingerless cloves too, for the total Bob Cratchit look. Think that sounds a bit extreme? While the average office worker pumps out 1.68 tons of CO2 a year, a full-time homeworker emits 2.38 tonnes of CO2 annually, say green consultants WSP Environmental, partly because heating and electricity is shared between staff in an office. The answer may be to work in the office during the winter and at home the rest of the year. | ['money/work-and-careers', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/series/greenworker', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/mattkeating', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/officehours', 'theguardian/officehours/features'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2007-06-25T11:13:18Z | true | EMISSIONS |
commentisfree/2017/aug/25/not-crap-turn-faeces-urine-treasure-astronauts-recycle-bodily-waste | It’s not a load of crap: turn your urine and faeces into treasure | Zoe Cormier | Scientists in South Carolina have this week described how astronauts of the future could recycle their own urine, breath and other forms of waste into useful products, such as fuel, nutrients, clean drinking water, and even polymer plastics. In space, this makes perfect sense – there’s only so much room on a rocket to pack everything you need, so why not use genetically modified yeast to manufacture things on the fly? Urine contains useful nitrogen, and faeces is chock full of practical materials. But why let interstellar flyboys have all the fun? If you want to follow Nasa and upcycle your waste, here are some of the treasures that could be uncovered from bodily trash. Legal and illegal drugs Synthetic biologists for years have used yeast and other microbes to produce vaccines and medicines such as insulin and penicillin. This means it could be possible to produce new drugs by feeding yeast with nutrients from urine, but hey, why stick to utilitarian drugs? In 2015 Canadian scientists unveiled genetically modified yeast strains that can convert simple sugars into opiates. Uppers and hallucinogens could be right around the corner. And why not? Life could get mighty boring on a Martian base, but it’s often a drag here on Earth. Gold and other precious metals Believe it or not, sewage is teeming with gold, silver, platinum, titanium and copper. It’s hard to know where exactly these precious metals are coming from – cosmetics and personal care products often carry them, but our food can as well: titanium dioxide is often added to junk food such as doughnuts. Scientists at the University of Arizona estimate that the annual waste from a million Americans contains $13m worth of metals. And given how our voracious appetite for metals is causing environmental and social disaster, the least we could do is reduce the impact of our smartphone addiction by shifting through our own shit for the metals to make them. Carbon-neutral bricks In 2011 researchers at Yorkshire Water and Leeds University unveiled a method for combining incinerated sewage with ash to produce carbon-neutral bricks. So there, the answer to all our green construction needs: set your faeces on fire. Transport fuel For years scientists have proposed using anaerobic digesters on spacecraft or lunar bases to produce methane – a potent fuel – from astronaut’s faeces and urine. The future is finally here as Bristol’s GENeco Bio-Bus makes sure “waste isn’t wasted” by using biogas produced from domestic waste. Why not scale up across the UK? To be frank, at this point even a river of sewage couldn’t worsen conditions on beleaguered Southern rail … Livestock feed Researchers at the Sanitation Ventures group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have been developing ways for the 2.5 billion people globally who lack proper latrines to put their waste to good (and safe) use. One of the best ideas: feeding faeces to black soldier fly larvae, which can then ground into feed for chickens or fish. If eating chickens fed on what started as your own excrement might sound revolting, spare a thought for those American astronauts whose drinking water is purified urine. Electricity Microbial fuel cells already exist that can easily generate electricity by using urea as fuel. The largest “Pee Power” urinal built was on show next to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, to showcase a technology intended for disaster areas and refugee camps. No reason it couldn’t be part of the greater urban infrastructure though – researchers at Caltech are creating solar-powered urinals to generate hydrogen fuel. Whatever way we choose to upcycle our waste, one thing is clear: the absolute stupidest thing we could do with our excrement is to use clean water to flush it away, and then spend a fortune to treat it all over again. • Zoe Cormier is the author of Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'science/science', 'science/space', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'business/mining', 'business/business', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/zoe-cormier', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-08-25T10:23:32Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2014/apr/01/climate-change-food-issue-ipcc-report | Frame climate change as a food issue, experts say | Reframing climate change as a food issue as the world's leading scientists did this week could provide an opportunity to mobilise people, experts say. Academics and campaigners were already looking at food as a way to better connect with public on climate change when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its finding on declining crop yields. The report warned: "All aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change." It said negative impacts on yields would become more likely in the 2030s. The definitive report arrives at a time when researchers are actively looking at whether talking about climate change through the prism of food would help break through US political deadlock. Food offers an immediate and personal connection, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank vice-president for climate change, said in an interview before the IPCC report's release. "The public connects with these issues through food better than through any other issue in a way that we haven't been able to mobilise people by just telling them to drive a hybrid or switch the light off," she said. "There is a way to talk about what you eat that will bring a conversation around climate change." To start with, food is a universal concern, Kyte went on. "You want to be able to sustain your children. It a concern whether you are rich or poor," Kyte said. "I don't think we have put a huge focus on food and it's time we did." There is evidence that those charged with producing food are already growing more concerned about climate change. A long-running poll of farmers in the Iowa corn belt last year found a sharp rise in concern about climate change, following a drought that devastated harvests. The farmers also expressed concerns that drought, flooding and other weather events would continue to drag on production, Dr Gordon Arbuckle, the Iowa State University sociologist who runs the poll, said at the time of its release. "Scientists and other stakeholders in the agricultural community believe that our agricultural systems must become more resilient to ensure long-term food security," he said. "Many farmers are concerned and support taking action to meet that goal." The report from the IPCC said food production on land and on sea had already been hit by drought, flooding and changing rainfall patterns, and would be further threatened as the world continues to warm. "Climate change has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions and in the global aggregate," the report said, warning that even warming of 1C above recent temperatures would hurt yields for corn, wheat and rice. By 2030, those crops could see yields decline by 2% a decade – at a time when demand from growing population is projected to grow by 2% every year. Warming of 4C would widen those gaps dramatically, the report said. "For local warming of about 4C or more, differences between crop production and population driven demand will become increasingly large in many regions posing significant risks to food security even with adaptation." Some fisheries could also go into decline. Some species of fish could become extinct, and some are migrating to the poles because ocean chemistry is out of balance. Fish yields in the tropics are already showing declines. The stark language marked a departure from the last IPCC report in 2007 when the picture on food crops was more mixed, said Tim Gore, head of policy for food and climate change at Oxfam. "This is no longer a picture about poor farmers in some regions being hit by climate change. This is a picture about global agriculture being hit – US, Russia, and Australia – with global implications for food prices." And that, he said, would make people sit up and take notice. | ['environment/food', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ipcc', 'world/world', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'tone/news', 'us-news/us-news', 'science/agriculture', 'science/science', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-04-01T14:50:30Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2005/apr/11/environment.society | Recycling under threat, waste firm claims | Much of the glass, paper, cardboard and plastic put out for collection each week for recycling will have to be dumped in landfills unless the government makes clear what can be exported free to developing countries, the head of Britain's largest waste recycling operation has warned. In an escalating row between the Environment Agency (EA) and the recycling industry, John Viviani, head of Grosvenor Waste, has accused the government of frustrating exports by insisting on over-zealous environmental standards. "Millions of tonnes of recycling activities across the UK are at serious threat of stopping because the Environment Agency is branding all household recycling material as hazardous waste," he said in a statement to the Guardian. Last week it was revealed that officials in the Netherlands had rejected 2,000 tonnes of paper being sent to China by Grosvenor, which handles more than 400,000 tonnes of waste a year, mainly from London and south-east England. A further 4,000 tonnes was stopped from leaving Britain. It is believed that, in both cases, the paper was mixed with plastic and other waste. The company, which has been subsidised with £750,000 of government cash to invest in machinery to improve recycling rates, has been forced to close down part of its operation in Kent. Grosvenor is being investigated by the EA for potentially illegally exporting waste. Mr Viviani claimed that the industry no longer knew how much contamination of waste was allowed in its exports and that EA inspectors were interpreting the law subjectively. "In all the years of Grosvenor's recycling operations we have never experienced anything like this before. "Grosvenor and others in the industry are desperate _ to move away from the current method [of inspection], based on a personal subjective as sessment by EA officers," he said. Under international law, separated waste can be exported free, but mixed rubbish is classed as hazardous waste, and attracts heavy export licence and inspection fees. Grosvenor claims that a certain amount of contamination of waste streams is inevitable and that waste will not be exported if the government insists on the highest standards. "There is significant disagreement within the Environment Agency as to what is, or is not, acceptable. This has left the industry second-guessing what individual EA field officers are expecting, adding to the confusion and inconsis tency. Frustrating exports would once again place Britain bear the bottom of the European recycling league," said Mr Viviani. Britain depends on developing countries to recycle its rubbish. More than 7.2m tonnes of waste paper a year are collected for recycling, but because of insufficient capacity at home, more than 4m tonnes of that are exported. Up to 1m tonnes of plastic, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of electronic waste and large amounts of steel, aluminium and glass are also exported. It is cheaper to send most waste to China than to Scotland. "Stopping exports to countries like China would have an immediate and catastrophic effect on recycling schemes across the country and damage public confidence in the value of recycling as material would go to landfill," said Mr Viviani. The EA, which is working with other European countries to reduce illegal exports, yesterday vigorously denied that it was frustrating waste exports, or targeting Grosvenor. "British recycling is not under threat and we are not targeting any company. I am unaware of any company having to landfill because of the Environment Agency. We are quite clear about what is legitimate. Companies can comply with international law without difficulty," said David Jordan, the EA's deputy director of operations. Claire Wilton, a waste campaigner for Friends of the Earth, yesterday supported the government. "The Environment Agency must crack down on illegal exports of recycling to stop poor communities in other countries suffering the brunt of our pollution. "UK companies should stop grumbling about meeting environmental standards. Recycling in other EU countries hasn't suffered because of these laws. The solution is more home-grown recycling facilities that will create jobs and shift us out of the recycling relegation zone." | ['environment/environment', 'society/society', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment-agency', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2005-04-11T11:36:20Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/2021/apr/06/florida-wastewater-reservoir-second-leak-unsubstantiated | Reports of second breach at Florida wastewater reservoir ‘unsubstantiated’ | Reports of a second breach at a wastewater reservoir in central Florida are “unsubstantiated”, a state agency said, as workers nonetheless battled to prevent hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated water causing a catastrophic flood. On Monday, officials warned there could be a second leak in the pool at the abandoned Piney Point phosphate plant, south of Tampa, which has been gushing wastewater from a breached wall for a week, at a rate of 2m to 3m gallons a day. The Florida department of environmental protection subsequently said engineers had found no evidence of another breach. But fears continue over the ecological impact of pumping the leaking wastewater into the Tampa Bay. The water has elevated levels of nitrogen and is acidic, which can kill fish and cause algal blooms. The state DEP said dozens of pumps and 10 vacuum trucks had been deployed to pump up to 100m gallons of the toxic water a day into the Tampa Bay estuary, in an attempt to prevent a reservoir collapse officials said could send a “20ft wall of water” into the surrounding area. Fears of a complete breach led authorities to evacuate more than 300 homes, close portions of a major highway and move several hundred jail inmates to a second floor. Melissa Fitzsimmons lives with her husband and 19-month-old daughter in Palmetto, on the edge of the evacuation zone. She told the Associated Press that for the past four days she had been terrified. While her house is on a hill and may not be directly affected if a flood occurs, Fitzsimmons said her family was preparing for the worst. “Within 24 hours it escalated to like a catastrophic evacuation, and we really didn’t know anything until we saw that there was an evacuation and then suddenly an evacuation within the block of our house,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’re not in the full on evacuation zone so we didn’t make the decision to leave, but we are certainly ready to go, I would say within like a 10-second notice, we can be out the door.” A series of sampling operations are monitoring water quality in the Tampa Bay, the state DEP said, and officials are working on ways to minimize algal blooms that kill marine life and could make beaches hazardous to humans in the tourism-dependent state. The pond sits in stacks of phosphogypsum, a solid radioactive byproduct from making fertilizer. State authorities say the water in the breached pond is not radioactive. Vern Buchanan, a congressman, said federal resources were committed to assisting the effort to control the 77-acre reservoir. Among those are the Environmental Protection Agency and the army corps of engineers, Buchanan told reporters. “I think we are making some progress,” he said. “This is something that has been going on too long. Now, I think everybody is focused on this.” The Piney Point reservoir and others like it have been left unaddressed for far too long, environmental groups say. “This environmental disaster is made worse by the fact it was entirely foreseeable and preventable,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With 24 more phosphogypsum stacks storing more than 1bn tons of this dangerous, radioactive waste in Florida, the EPA needs to step in right now.” Dale Rucker, a hydrologist and former editor of the Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, said the leak is a reminder governments need to pay attention to ageing infrastructure. “Continued neglect can have serious environmental consequences like we are seeing,” Rucker said. “These environmental catastrophes are going to happen with higher probability.” | ['us-news/florida', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-gabbatt', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-04-06T16:31:13Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/may/23/i-feel-empowered-and-scared-pupils-speak-before-climate-strike | 'I feel empowered and scared': pupils speak before climate strike | ‘Our future is in danger’ I’m taking part on Friday because adults, and especially politicians, have not done enough to save our future. We have to get them to listen to us and believe what scientists have to say. I’m participating in a strike located in Tampere. We will get together on Sori Square (Sorin Aukio) and march to the central marketplace (Keskustori). I think the earth needs this climate strike movement. And we need it too, because it’s our future that is in danger. I’m so happy to see the youth rise and demand back a planet where we can live. Elina, 14, Finland ‘I feel responsible to do something because I love animals’ I don’t want to see the world struggle; the world dying because we are not doing anything about it. We are making more disaster by not changing bad habits to help the climate crisis such as fossil fuels, cars, palm oil, plastic and ruining animal habitats. I feel responsible to do something and take action especially as I love animals and according to the science many can disappear in my lifetime. I am half Balinese and the climate crisis affects places like Bali and it mainly hurts the poor people there as they don’t live in houses that can stand the dramatic changes in the weather. So I want to try to help the world become a better place. How can we stop climate change if we don’t know what to do? I feel that we should learn more about this at school and specialised people should come and talk to us. We need more people’s ideas about what to do and how they think we should help. Nia, nine, Kent, England ‘There are no more excuses’ I find the movement inspiring, powerful and making change. In Iowa, I’ve been on strike for the past 10 weeks. In those weeks, there has been historic flooding in western and eastern Iowa. But this flooding is nothing compared to the cyclones that hit Mozambique. We must act now. I believe there is a climate emergency, so we are marching to the city hall to call on our council to declare a climate emergency and update their climate action plan to meet IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] standards. There are no more excuses. Massimo, 14, Iowa, US ‘The crisis is more important than fear’ I’ve always been somewhat aware of the climate crisis but until recently I didn’t realise how bad it actually was, and I didn’t feel like there was much I could do about it anyway. I thought I was the only young person who actually cared about this, and all I could do was recycle. Then, last November, I found out about Greta Thunberg and the school strike movement and I thought: “Wow, this is something I can do!” At first I was hesitant about starting my own strike; as I am home-educated the idea of asking other young people to strike sounded a bit odd. But on 15 March I went to the Cambridge strike and I was absolutely astounded by the amount of other kids there! It was amazing when I realised that so many other people care about this. After that I decided to stop messing around and decided that the climate crisis was more important than a fear of whether other kids would listen. Eva, 12, Suffolk, England ‘Our planet was handed to us broken and destroyed’ I will be taking part on Friday because I am scared for mine and other children’s futures. Our planet was handed to us broken and destroyed from previous generations and it is seriously unfair that we should be hit with its full effects. There was Hurricane Sandy and there were floods but I moved to New York in 2014 and live pretty high up so I don’t get hit as hard as people in Redhook or the Rockaways might. I feel both empowered and scared. It is awesome that we have come this far and that kids have taken notice of our world’s faults but it’s frightening that we have to. If adults had taken action before it escalated to this point, we would have had a lot more time to help piece Earth back together. To the kids, keep working hard and we will eventually force adults to take action, this is our future we are protesting for, they can’t take it away. To the adults who aren’t doing anything, you have let it get this far, when will climate change have killed enough people for you to take notice? To adults who are trying to help, thank you. We need more people like you to get this job done. Every person counts. To everyone, think when you go to a cafe, do I really need this plastic bag or straw? Remember to refuse. Zola, 11, New York, US | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'education/schools', 'education/secondary-schools', 'education/primary-schools', 'education/education', 'world/protest', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/guardian-readers', 'profile/rachel-obordo', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-communities-and-social'] | environment/school-climate-strikes | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-05-23T12:58:38Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2020/dec/04/global-soils-underpin-life-but-future-looks-bleak-warns-un-report | Global soils underpin life but future looks ‘bleak’, warns UN report | Global soils are the source of all life on land but their future looks “bleak” without action to halt degradation, according to the authors of a UN report. A quarter of all the animal species on Earth live beneath our feet and provide the nutrients for all food. Soils also store as much carbon as all plants above ground and are therefore critical in tackling the climate emergency. But there also are major gaps in knowledge, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report, which is the first on the global state of biodiversity in soils. The report was compiled by 300 scientists, who describe the worsening state of soils as at least as important as the climate crisis and destruction of the natural world above ground. Crucially, it takes thousands of years for soils to form, meaning urgent protection and restoration of the soils that remain is needed. The scientists describe soils as like the skin of the living world, vital but thin and fragile, and easily damaged by intensive farming, forest destruction, pollution and global heating. “Soil organisms play a crucial role in our everyday life by working to sustain life on Earth,” said Ronald Vargas, of the FAO and the secretary of the Global Soil Partnership. Prof Richard Bardgett, of the University of Manchester, who was a lead author of the report, said: “There is a vast reservoir of biodiversity living in the soil that is out of sight and is generally out of mind. But few things matter more to humans because we rely on the soil to produce food. There’s now pretty strong evidence that a large proportion of the Earth’s surface has been degraded as a result of human activities.” Since the Industrial Revolution, about 135bn tonnes of soil has been lost from farmland, according to Prof Rattan Lal, the 2020 winner of the World Food prize. People should be worried, said Bardgett. “If things carry on as they are, the outlook is bleak, unquestionably. But I think it’s not too late to introduce measures now.” Prof Nico Eisenhauer, of Leipzig University, another lead author of the report, said: “It is a major issue that we are dependent on this thin layer that is sometimes just a couple of centimetres, sometimes several metres, but a very vulnerable, living skin.” Soils simultaneously produce food, store carbon and purify water, he said, so they are “at least as important” as the climate and above-ground biodiversity crises. “If you’re losing the top soil through bad treatment and then erosion, then it takes thousands of years until the soil is produced again.” Microbial species are essential for turning waste into nutrients, but Eisenhauer said an estimated 99% of them had yet to be studied by scientists. He also said that, by number, four out of every five animals on Earth are tiny soil worms called nematodes, yet only a tiny fraction of these species have been recorded. In a foreword to the report, Qu Dongyu, the FAO head, and Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the head of the UN convention on biological diversity, said: “Our wellbeing and the livelihoods of human societies are highly dependent on biodiversity [but while] there is increasing attention on the importance of above-ground biodiversity, less attention is being paid to the biodiversity beneath our feet.” The main causes of damage to soils are intensive agriculture, with excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics killing soil organisms and leaving it prone to erosion. The destruction of forests and natural habitats to create farmland also degrades soil, particularly affecting the symbiotic fungi that are important in helping trees and plants grow. Rising global temperatures, with increasing droughts and wildfires, are another factor, but scientists remain uncertain about how all the different drivers interact. The most important action is to protect existing healthy soils from damage, the scientists said, while degraded soils can be restored by growing a diverse range of plants. Inoculating barren soil with healthy earth may also help it recover. “Certainly there’s hope that we can make soils healthy again,” said Eisenhauer. “I think a lot depends on what we eat. Do we need to eat these massive amounts of cheap meat, for example? Can we rely more on plant-derived calories? I think this is a massive factor.” More than 80% of the world’s farmland is used to raise and feed cattle and other livestock, but these provide only 18% of all calories consumed. In 2014 the FAO’s Maria-Helena Semedo said that if the rate of degradation continued then all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years, but more recent research suggests a much lower rate of loss. While much remains to be discovered about soil biodiversity and how to help it thrive, Eisenhauer said the new report collating for the first time what is known was important. “Raising awareness is a first critical step, bringing soil more into the public and political discussions. Most of the decisions about, for example, protected areas are not based on soils.” • This article was amended on 14 December 2020 because an earlier version omitted to note that more recent research disputes the findings referred to by the FAO’s Maria-Helena Semedo in 2014. | ['environment/soil', 'environment/farming', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-04T09:00:55Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2018/aug/06/nsw-prosecutions-for-land-clearing-fall-from-10-to-two-report-card-shows | NSW prosecutions for land-clearing fall from 10 to two, report card shows | Only two prosecutions for illegal land-clearing were launched in New South Wales in 2015-16, down from 10 the previous year, the long-awaited report card on the state of land-clearing shows. However, the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) appears to have had more success with cases already under way the year before, with four convictions secured, up from just one in 2014-15. A combined native vegetation report for 2014-2016 was released by the OEH late Friday, after an eight-month battle by Guardian Australia using freedom of information laws to secure its release. It was almost two years overdue. It shows a sharp spike in native vegetation cleared legally in NSW during 2015-16, with 7,390 hectares cleared, double the 10-year average and eight times the area cleared in 2013-14. There were also big losses in woody vegetation in 2014-15, the latest data for this part of the report. This was mainly due to major bushfires in 2014 but there was also a 23% rise in loss of bushland due to major infrastructure projects, such as roads, pipelines, electricity infrastructure and mines. There was also a modest increase in clearing bushland on agricultural land. The most recent report, for 2016-17, has still not been released. Environmental groups and the OEH itself fear clearing will increase sharply in coming years, under the new Biodiversity Conservation Act, which came into force in August 2017. It allows landholders to self-assess whether they need to seek a permit. In many cases they do not require one. Land clearing has a direct relationship to the severity of droughts and climate change, according to work by the University of Queensland’s climate change centre of excellence in 2009. The rate of clearing, particularly in Queensland, threatens to wipe out emissisons reductions made through the government’s Direct Action fund. The Greens NSW environment spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, said the state government had made changes to native vegetation laws that they knew would accelerate land-clearing. “Even worse, they did so while withholding from the public how much native vegetation is left in NSW. There is absolutely no transparency in environmental decision making,” she said. The enforcement of land-clearing laws has been highly contentious in NSW. In 2014, a farmer in Coppa Creek, Ian Turnbull, used a hunting rifle to shoot dead native vegetation officer Glen Turner who was on public land with a colleague. Turner had been investigating land-clearing activities on the Turnbull farm. Turnbull, 79, was sentenced to 35 years jail and died soon after. The report card on compliance reveals significant fluctuations since 2009 in the compliance activity of OEH and will raise concerns about how diligently the Berejiklian government is pursuing compliance with land-clearing laws. For instance, in 2010-11 and 2011-12, there were more than 235 warning letters issued each year. In 2015-16 the figure had fallen to 164. Remediation directions fell from 39 in 2009-10 to just six in 2015-16. But the report shows that the public remain concerned about illegal land-clearing. There were 466 reports to the OEH hotline during 2015-16 to report suspected illegal land-clearing. Additional figures obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show that the number of monthly calls to the OEH hotline has jumped by about 25% since the new Biodiversity Conservation Act was introduced in August 2017 – a possible pointer to increased land-clearing. The Nature Conservation Council’s campaigns manager, Daisy Barham, said the latest figures for NSW were “shocking”. While NSW’s rate of clearing is not as high as Queensland, she said the state had far less to lose. “Only 9% of NSW is in a healthy and intact condition and in some areas like the north-west around Moree that figure is even less because pressures from agriculture have been the greatest,” she said. While NSW’s losses are not on the same scale as Queensland, which lost 395,000 hectares to land-clearing in 2015-16, environmental groups have warned that the latest data on land-clearing in NSW almost certainly understates the amount of vegetation loss occurring. The reports use higher resolution Spot-5 satellite imagery which the department says is generally more accurate than those from Landsat. But WWF’s land-clearing expert, Martin Taylor, said the higher resolution meant “you literally can’t see the wood for the trees” and that Spot-5 higher resolution pictures did not pick up on thinning of forests. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'law/law-australia', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/anne-davies', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-08-06T02:01:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/dec/11/moon-humpback-whale-journey-british-columbia-hawaii | Moon the humpback whale completes 5,000km journey – with a broken back | Over the course of nearly three months, navigating ocean swells and currents, vast expanses of flat water and immense pain, Moon the humpback whale completed a journey of 5,000km (3,100 miles) from the waters of British Columbia to Hawaii – all with a broken back. Her crossing of the Pacific – and the likelihood that she will soon die – is a stark reminder of the growing dangers for whales along Canada’s west coast, as marine traffic clashes with the gentle marine giants. “Without the use of her tail, she was literally doing the breaststroke to make that migration. It’s absolutely amazing,” said Janie Wray, CEO and lead researcher for BC Whales, a non-profit that studies cetaceans off the province’s west coast. “But also it just breaks your heart.” Every September for the past decade, researchers at Fin Island research station in Gitga’at First Nations territory have spotted Moon when she appears in the coastal waters to gorge on nutrient-rich krill. Two years ago, researchers were overjoyed when she appeared with a calf. But in September, a drone photographed a humpback whale with a grievous injury to its lower back: the entire lower portion of its trunk bent into an unnatural “S” shape – likely the result of a strike from a boat. “It was one of those ‘oh my God’ moments when we learned it was Moon. It’s not like she has scoliosis or something that just came out of the blue – she was struck by something pretty hard,” said Wray. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my lifetime as a researcher.” Despite the severe injury, on 1 December, Moon was spotted off the coast of Maui, more than 4,800km from where the researchers first took note of her injury. Humpback whales reach nearly 50ft long, weigh almost 90,000lb and are known for the immense journeys they undertake each year, travelling from frigid waters near Alaska all the way down to the lukewarm waters of Mexico and Hawaii, where they breed and give birth. “This migration is part of their culture, their tradition. Moon was probably born in Hawaii. And she just goes back every single year, because that’s what her mother taught her to do,” said Wray. “It’s been passed down from mother to calf. That’s likely what drove her to travel all that way with her injury.” Images of Moon in Hawaiian waters, emaciated and covered in whale lice, highlight the extent to which she used up her fat stores to make the journey, and is left with no food source in the tropical waters. But Wray said that there is little be done for the whale. “She’s suffering and yet she’s still alive. We know she’s not coming back to see us again. She is going to pass soon and we all feel: the sooner, the better,” said Wray. Attempts to euthanize Moon would require a cocktail of toxic substances – and risk poisoning the marine life that would feed off her remains. “If she was on land, we could intervene. But because she’s in the ocean, and because of her size, there is nothing that we can do. And that just breaks your heart even further into pieces.” Wray hopes that Moon’s story can serve as a cautionary tale for the devastating effects collisions can have on whales. In recent months, humpbacks have washed ashore along the British Columbia coast from boat strikes. The deaths reflect both the success of a recovering population – and the reality that marine traffic hasn’t adjusted to a surge in whale numbers. “Even if you’re really a focused boat driver, you could accidentally hit a humpback whale because they will just come up in front of your boat. The most important thing to do is everybody needs to slow down, especially in areas where we know there are whales. It’s easy – just slow down. We have school zones. We need whale zones.” But she recognized the whale’s plight and unlikely journey speaks to a deeper connection that humpback whales have to their habitat, their culture and tradition. “Something deep within her drove her to just swim across the ocean, using just her pectoral fins,” said Wray. “Moon will never know how many people are thinking about her. And how many people I can guarantee you have been crying over her. I can’t even find the words to express the amount of honour – and respect – that I have for her.” • This article was amended on 11 December 2022. An earlier version said that Moon had travelled along Canada’s east coast instead of the west coast. | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/whales', 'world/canada', 'environment/environment', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/leyland-cecco', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-12-11T11:00:31Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk/audio/2009/apr/24/police-surveillance-intelligence-2 | 'UK plc can afford more than twenty quid' | Note: poor quality recording Morrisons supermarket car park, Anniesland, Glasgow, 21 April 2009 Tilly: "I suppose before even like considering meeting you again, I would really like to have an idea of what - if it does mean, you know, twenty quid? Officer 1: "Rather than discuss an actual figure, can I say to you ..." Tilly: "Tell me what's happened in the past?" [...] Officer 2: "UK plc can afford more than twenty quid." Tilly: "What is UK plc?" [...] Tilly: "I suppose to me it's quite a kind of multiple personalities [inaudible] exercise – I'd be meeting you guys, I'd be involved in my activities and I think [...]" Tilly: "To get an idea of whether I would want to meet with you again, it would be really useful to know in the past what's happened." Officer 1: "We have men, women, who are now, yeah – right now – doing their work, their daily work. They go about their work day in day out. They then go home to their families. They go home to husbands, wives, children. We are way, way down. That would be exactly the same with you. You would still have your life, Tilly. You go about your life as you do every day - we would be sitting somewhere way down here. But when you would be going to the meetings that you would be going to anyway, we would maybe be meeting you about once every two weeks, once every three weeks, once every week maybe. [Inaudible.] That's the type of thing. Likewise, the thousands of other people that work with us [inaudible] they're at their works now, be it joiners ..." [...] Tilly: "I see that, yeah." [...] Officer 2: "It's none of this cloak-and-dagger stuff. The simple fact is you can say it's not for you. You walk away, we walk away. You'll never see us again." Tilly: "I suppose gauging [...] what kind of money we might be speaking [...] loan and back at school [...] Officer 1: "Can I say something to you? You see exactly what you've said there? At least you're thinking logically. If you're going back you school you're going to have loans to pay off. So you're going to need money, you'll still be out probably working doing bits but wouldn't it also be nice to have tax-free - money you'd be getting. You wouldn't pay any tax on it. So you could do with it what you want." Tilly: "And how would it be paid - directly into a bank account?" Officer 2: "You can get it however you want. Cash in hand. Whatever you want." Officer 1: "What you choose to do with that ... Can I tell you Tilly, we actually have people working, who actually take the money and they give it to charity, because what they're doing is moral, they're doing it for a moral reason. So they give the money to, maybe Cancer Research, Save the Whale, whatever. Other people use it because believe it or not they actually need it. Because their own jobs aren't well paid." Officer 2: "Don't pay it into a bank account Tilly, because that leaves an audit trail - and an audit trail can compromise you. You just get it in your hand. You don't want to take cash in hand?" Tilly: "And what kind of figures are you paying other people?" Officer 1: "Oh you'd be surprised Tilly." Officer 2: "Years gone by people have been paid tens of thousands of pounds." Tilly: "Yeah that's not anything I think Plane Stupid is worth. That's not what we're talking is it? Obviously." Officer 2: "You've got to justify it in your own mind. We can't make that decision for you." [...] Officer 1: "Can I – we're coming near to where we need to drop you off Tilly. Can we give you a week to just get your head together so this hasn't freaked you out too much?" Officer 1: "I'd like to sit down and discuss it with you, if you want, we'll go through the contractual obligations if you want to, the work. And, yeah financially – yeah why not." Tilly: "Yeah and just having a ballpark figure would influence my decision within a week." Officer 1: "Can I ask you, Tilly then – just to bounce it back to you. Give me the ballpark figure you would consider." Tilly: "I've got no idea what ..." Officer 1: "You don't have an idea? Say on a monthly basis. On a monthly basis what would you be prepared [...] to – at least help me out." Tilly: "I don't know, I really don't know. I don't know what this kind of thing is worth." Officer 1: "OK so let us go away and make a few [inaudible] and we can both sit down maybe in a week or so – and you can maybe have an idea of a ballpark figure." Tilly: [...] "I'm going back to France to see my parents." Officer 1: "When do you go back? When do you go?" Tilly: "Probably going to head off next Wednesday." [...] Officer 1: "Can we meet up before you go?" [...] [They talk about when to meet] Tilly: "At the moment it would be really interesting knowing what kind of money we're talking. At the moment you haven't ... We've gone from 'not twenty quid' to some people get ten thousand." Officer 1: "A lot of people edge around about that, but that's what they mean. So you're quite right to come and ask that question. We don't feel any less, or think any less of you for asking that. Because if I'm doing a job of work, I expect to be paid. And likewise." Tilly: "And even just knowing what, monetarily, what this information is kind of worth ..." Officer 2: "It depends on the information." [...] Listen to tape 1 Listen to tape 3 | ['world/surveillance', 'uk/police', 'environment/activism', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/audio'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2009-04-24T17:30:33Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
football/blog/2022/sep/03/mission-accomplished-englands-thoughts-turn-to-world-cup | Mission accomplished: England can begin planning for 2023 World Cup | Louise Taylor | The fallout of a failed crusade led to Wiener Neustadt’s creation in 1194 but England will remember it as the place where their World Cup qualifying mission was accomplished. Although the city’s 3,000-capacity stadium, an hour’s drive south of Vienna, seemed a slightly underwhelming setting for the Lionesses’ first match since winning Euro 2022 in front of nearly 90,000 fans at Wembley in July, it was perhaps a fitting venue. A settlement built with the ransom money paid by the English to secure King Richard I’s release after his capture by Duke Leopold of Austria as the Lionheart returned from a failed attempt to take Jerusalem certainly seemed an appropriate springboard for an impending attempt at global domination. Winning next year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand will not be easy but there is now a sense that, with Alessia Russo around to lead the attack, anything is possible. Russo’s seventh-minute volley – her ninth goal in 14 senior appearances – swiftly blew a gaping hole through Austria’s carefully constructed rearguard. Although they subsequently gave England a few frights, the defence held firm. The somewhat strange presence of a giant pink water slide behind one of the stands – the stadium is situated next to an aqua park – lent a pre-season feel to the occasion, and the understandable lack of on‑pitch sharpness during the first half in particular made it seem more like a friendly than a key qualifier. Granted, Sarina Wiegman’s decision to start Lauren Hemp on the right wing and Beth Mead on the left rather than in their customary positions on the opposite sides was arguably misguided, but England could not have been expected to be at their best 34 days after beating Germany in the Euro 2022 final and with the Women’s Super League not starting until next week. Austria were losing quarter-finalists to Germany in that tournament but they too are in their domestic pre-season and did not resemble the cohesive counterattacking unit that suffered two narrow 1-0 defeats to England in the past 10 months, in this qualifying group and at the Euros. Even so, they very nearly equalised at the outset of the second half when Julia Hickelsberger was inches away from capitalising on Mary Earps’s rare loss of concentration. Heeding that warning, England finally began forcing the tempo and rediscovering a menacing one- and two-touch passing rhythm. Those children who deliberately halted their descent through the water slide in order to take in the action were treated to the sight of the Austria goalkeeper, Manuela Zinsberger, saving smartly with her legs from Georgia Stanway after Russo’s adroit chesting down of a high ball. In between increased England pressure Earps atoned for her earlier lapse in concentration by showing off tremendous footwork as she seamlessly changed direction to divert Laura Feiersinger’s dangerously curving shot to safety. By now there was no suspicion England had overindulged on the beautifully iced cake rather touchingly presented to their manager by Austrian officials before kick-off. Indeed, the only shame was that only 2,600 fans – including 28 who had travelled from the UK – were present to watch Nikita Parris lash a second goal into the roof of the net eight minutes after she and England replaced Russo and Mead. Once a mainstay of England’s attack, Parris rather lost her way during recent stints with Lyon and Arsenal. Happily, her latest move, to Russo’s Manchester United, promises to revive a forward who could yet benefit from the retirement of the Lionesses’ record goalscorer, Ellen White. Whatever the future holds, Parris’s timely reminder of her latterly hibernating talent made it a perfect anniversary for Wiegman, ensuring that, almost a year to the week since taking charge of England, the Dutchwoman presided over a 19th win in 21 games. Given the Lionesses are yet to lose on her watch and have scored 108 goals while conceding five, no team will want to be placed in their group when October’s World Cup draw in Auckland serves as the starting gun for England’s next campaign. | ['football/england-womens-football-team', 'football/womens-world-cup-2023', 'sport/blog', 'football/womensfootball', 'football/womens-world-cup', 'sport/sport', 'football/football', 'sport/austria-womens-football-team', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/louisetaylor', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/sport', 'theobserver/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/austria-womens-football-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-09-03T20:02:23Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2020/jul/10/iran-denies-latest-blast-reports-and-accuses-west-of-misinformation | Iran denies latest blast reports and accuses west of disinformation | Iran has denied reports that fresh mysterious explosions have rocked two towns close to Tehran, accusing the west of waging psychological warfare by spreading false messages on social media. Reports suggested that the blasts had occurred in the early hours of Friday in Gamdareh, a residential town that houses a number of military garrisons, including bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and in Shahr-e Qods. Officials insisted the reports were false but accepted there had been a power outage. Iran has acknowledged there have been a number of explosions over the past three weeks at key sites including nuclear facilities and oil refineries, but it has not yet conceded that the incidents could be deliberate attacks. The series of incidents at sensitive locations, the most high-profile being a fire at the Natanz nuclear site, have led to speculation that Israel may have launched a covert sabotage campaign. Rejecting claims that there had been a fresh attack on Friday, Iranian news agencies quoted Leila Vaseghi, the governor of Shahr-e Qods, a town west of Tehran, as denying an explosion had taken place and saying only that there had been a power outage. She said: “The power outage also occurred in a limited area for five or six minutes, and power outages did not occur extensively.” Rumours of the latest incident began circulating online at about midnight on Thursday, according to reports by the state-run Irib news agency. Locals reported hearing three or four mortar-like sounds similar to anti-aircraft weapons, government-run news agencies said. A small number of social media accounts claiming to be from Garmdareh reported hearing sounds, but the images posted of a giant fire and damaged buildings were found to be old. The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, also dampened speculation about the cause of a recent incident in Natanz nuclear site, rejecting claims that it was the work of Israel. “It is still too early to make any judgment on the main cause of the blast [in Natanz], and relevant security bodies are probing into every detail of the incident,” Mousavi said on Friday. If Iran concludes that foreign elements were involved, it will be announced and there would be repercussions, he added. Speaking on Saturday, Israel’s foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, said his government’s long-term policy was not to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. “It is better not to mention our actions in Iran,” he said. In an effort to avoid prompting retaliation, Israel rarely acknowledges attacks on foreign soil. However, it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in neighbouring Syria, including on Iranian forces stationed there that Israel sees as a threat. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has also previously lauded what he said were intelligence operations that acquired tens of thousands of documents on Iran’s nuclear ambitions from a warehouse in Tehran. Following the Natanz incident, Iran’s government spokesman, Ali Rabiei, said Iran’s nuclear activities, which he insisted were peaceful, could not be stopped “despite the hostilities of enemies”. “The Israeli regime should be aware that creating of norm-breaking narrative on any attack against our nuclear facilities, even if it only propaganda, is considered as stepping in the path of violating redlines of global peace and security,” Rabiei said on Tuesday, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency. Israel and Iran have also accused each other of launching cyber-attacks in recent years. Ronen Bergman, a senior political and military analyst for Israel’s top-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote this week that if the country was responsible for what happened in Natanz, it would qualify “as a new stage in the secret war that isn’t quite so secret any more”. He added: “The objectives, presumably, were to make it clear to Iran that Israel would not allow it to move forward with its nuclear programme, and to delay that plan by several months.” | ['world/iran', 'world/irans-nuclear-programme', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/middleeast', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'world/israel', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrickwintour', 'profile/oliver-holmes', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2020-07-10T15:42:57Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/2017/oct/12/trump-criticises-puerto-rico-hurricane-aid-cannot-go-on-forever | Trump hints at ending aid as Puerto Ricans forced to drink polluted water | Donald Trump has seemingly threatened to pull federal emergency support from Puerto Rico a day after his administration reported that desperate people in the US territory have been drinking from contaminated wells due to a lack of water. In a series of tweets sent on Thursday morning, Trump said: “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. Forever!” The president preceded this with tweets that stated “Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes” in Puerto Rico and quoted a TV host who said of the territory that “a financial crisis looms largely of their own making”. There are currently more than 1,400 Fema personnel in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands responding to the humanitarian crisis that has erupted following hurricanes Maria and Irma. On Thursday, Fema said it had expanded its leadership team in Puerto Rico following the “unprecedented destruction” from the hurricanes. Sufficient aid has yet to reach many people in Puerto Rico, three weeks after much of the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. More than 80% of the island is without electricity and nearly half of all people are still cut off from communication. The water situation has become particularly dire, with the state department estimating that about a third of Puerto Ricans are without potable water. This has led to some people attempting to access wells that have been sealed due to toxic pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. On Wednesday, the EPA said it has “reports of residents obtaining, or trying to obtain, drinking water from wells at hazardous waste superfund sites in Puerto Rico”. Superfund sites are heavily polluted areas that have been designated for federal cleanup. The environmental regulator said it was working with Fema to get drinking wells functioning and urged people to not tamper with locked wells or drink their contents. The EPA added that Puerto Ricans should not use water from rivers or streams for drinking or bathing without boiling it first because “raw sewage continues to be released into waterways and is expected to continue until repairs can be made and power is restored.” The death toll from Hurricane Maria jumped to 45 people this week, and 113 people remain unaccounted for. The Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, a local investigative journalism project has estimated that the real total is likely to be much higher. Trump’s comments prompted a furious reaction from Puerto Rican leaders. New York congresswoman Nydia Velásquez said on Twitter that the president’s comments were “outrageous, indefensible and irresponsible. We will not allow our gov’t to abandon our fellow citizens.” “America does not abandon fellow citizens during crises!!” she wrote. Governor Ricardo Rossello followed suit, saying that the US territory, home to 3.4 million US citizens, was “requesting the support that any of our fellow citizens would receive across our Nation”. Carmen Yulín Cruz, mayor of San Juan – an outspoken critic of Trump’s response to the disaster – said in a statement addressed to the president that Trump’s tweets and comments about Puerto Rico “underscore the inadequacy of your government’s response to this humanitarian crisis.” “It is not that you do not get it, it is that you are incapable of empathy and frankly simply cannot get the job done,” she wrote. “Puerto Ricans have suffered greatly in the past month. Two hurricanes devastated our homes and our electrical infrastructure leaving us without the essentials to survive: drinkable water, food and medicine. “But perhaps more frustrating has been the devastating actions, time after time, by a president whose tweets, comments and actions seem to be taken out of a book on ‘how to add insult to injury’ rather than a book on ‘how to help during a humanitarian crisis’.” Amid the furore, Trump had an ally in the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who acknowledged that Puerto Rico was facing a “humanitarian crisis”, but went on to echo Trump’s emphatic declaration that the island would not always have access to federal resources. “Yes, we need to make sure that Puerto Rico can begin to stand on its own two feet,” Ryan told reporters Thursday. “They’ve already had tough fiscal problems to begin with ... We’ve got to do more to help Puerto Rico rebuild its own economy so that it can be self-sufficient.” • This article was amended on 13 October 2017 because Puerto Rico is a US territory, not a state as an earlier version said. | ['us-news/donaldtrump', 'us-news/puerto-rico', 'world/world', 'world/hurricane-maria', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'profile/amanda-holpuch', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricane-maria | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-10-12T15:02:49Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/sep/30/how-the-humble-hedgerow-can-help-us-breathe | How the humble hedgerow can help us breathe | Letters | A major omission from proposals to increase the number of trees to meet the UK’s climate targets is the hedgerow, a characteristic but woefully underappreciated feature of the British landscape (Support UK farmers to meet climate targets, ministers told, 28 September) Our hedgerows are amazing – England alone has 400,000km of them. Sadly, the predominant form of “management”, annual mechanical flailing by tractor (which discharges huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere), suppresses the growth of millions of potential trees already in the hedgerow. So millions of trees, such as ashes and oaks, do not need to be planted – they just need to be allowed to grow. Why can’t we manage our hedgerows more permissively, allowing trees to mature at regular intervals? If trees were allowed to grow at intervals of 20 metres, yielding 50 trees/km, we could gain 20m trees in England alone. This is a conservative figure, and we could easily grow one tree every 10 metres. This would yield 40m new trees, with no need for planting and no cost. The big mystery is: why are we so neglecting the potential of that quintessential feature of our rural landscape – the humble hedgerow? Dr Mark Tilzey Routenbeck, Cumbria • Joe Brindle’s founding of Teach the Future highlights the appetite of young people to better understand climate change (‘We deserve to be taught about it’: why students want climate crisis classes, 28 September). Schools have responsibilities to teach about climate change and much of this is provided through geography lessons. The geography national curriculum requires the study of change in the climate from the last ice age (2.6m years ago) to the present. GCSE pupils also cover the characteristics of climate change and evidence for different causes, including human activity, while A-level geographers must study the interconnected carbon cycle, including how humans move more carbon into the atmosphere than plants can store when we burn fossil fuels. In fact, when the Royal Geographical Society conducted a YouGov poll last year asking the public to identify which subjects might help teach children about climate change, geography was the most frequently selected choice at GCSE (74%). Geography plays a central role in climate change education, so I urge students with a desire to address the climate emergency to choose geography when selecting their course options. Steve Brace Head of education and outdoor learning, Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'education/schools', 'education/education', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/science', 'science/geography', 'education/geographyandenvironmentstudies', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-09-30T17:38:33Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2019/sep/11/world-weatherwatch-typhoons-raged-as-attention-focused-on-hurricane-dorian | World weatherwatch: typhoons raged as attention focused on Hurricane Dorian | While Hurricane Dorian was grabbing attention last week, a powerful typhoon, Lingling, was strengthening over the South China Sea, becoming a super typhoon with sustained winds of nearly 140mph on Friday. It made landfall on the Japanese Miyako islands, before weakening as it crossed the Korean peninsula at the weekend. Gusts reached 120mph on South Korea’s Heuksando island, and three people were reported to have been killed. Hundreds of square kilometres of farmland in North Korea were flooded by Lingling’s heavy rain, generating fears of failed crops and food shortages. Days later Typhoon Faxai made landfall close to Tokyo. It affected the Chiba and Kanto regions of Japan last Sunday and Monday, bringing torrential rain and gusts of more than 120mph. More than 100 flights were cancelled, including that of the Australian rugby team arriving in preparation for the Rugby World Cup. Meanwhile in Australia, dry conditions have sparked widespread bushfires that continued through the weekend. Across several regions of New South Wales and Queensland, dozens of homes and properties were destroyed. A firefighter was badly burned after his fire truck was engulfed by flames. | ['news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'world/natural-disasters', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/south-china-sea', 'australia-news/bushfires', 'world/world', 'world/japan', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/brendan-jones', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-11T20:30:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
books/2022/mar/31/greta-thunberg-the-climate-book-crisis | Greta Thunberg to publish a ‘go-to source’ book on the climate crisis | Greta Thunberg is releasing a new book this autumn, which aims to offer a “global overview of how the planet’s many crises connect”. “I have decided to use my platform to create a book based on the current best available science – a book that covers the climate, ecological and sustainability crises holistically”, Thunberg said in a statement. “Because the climate crisis is, of course, only a symptom of a much larger sustainability crisis. My hope is that this book might be some kind of go-to source for understanding these different, closely interconnected crises.” In The Climate Book, which is due to be published by Penguin this autumn, Thunberg has assembled more than 100 contributors, from scientists Johan Rockström and Katharine Hayhoe to economist Thomas Piketty and novelist Margaret Atwood. The 19-year-old also shares what she has learned from her own experiences of climate activism. In particular, she discusses the prevalence of greenwashing, revealing the extent to which we have been kept in the dark about the issue. She names this as one of our biggest problems, but also our greatest source of hope – because, she believes, once we are all given the full picture, we will be able to act. “Right now, we are in desperate need of hope”, Thunberg said. “But hope is not about pretending that everything will be fine.” She added: “To me, hope is not something that is given to you, it is something you have to earn, to create. It cannot be gained passively, through standing by and waiting for someone else to do something. Hope is taking action. It is stepping outside your comfort zone. And if a bunch of weird schoolkids were able to get millions of people to start changing their lives, just imagine what we could all do together if we really tried.” Since 2018, when Thunberg, then 15, started her now famous school strike, the Swedish teenager has been calling for stronger action to be taken against the climate crisis. She has become a worldwide celebrity and figurehead of the environmental activist community, becoming the youngest Time Person of the Year in 2019 and being nominated three times for a Nobel peace prize. She has previously published three books, two co-authored by her parents and sister: Scenes from the Heart and Our House Is on Fire, and one collection of speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. This new book is set to be her most comprehensive work yet, pulling together ideas and knowledge from experts with a view to “equip us all” to make positive change. “Greta has proven herself to be one of our finest and most galvanising new writers”, said Chloe Currens, Thunberg’s editor at Penguin. “In a series of sharp, insightful and impassioned chapters, which knit the book’s different parts together, she shares her own experiences and responds to what she’s learned.” Currens went on to call The Climate Book “unique” and “alive with moral purpose”. It “aims to change the climate conversation forever” she said. The Climate Book is due to be published in the UK on 27 October 2022, with a US release planned for early 2023. The full list of contributors can be found here. | ['books/books', 'culture/culture', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'environment/environment', 'books/publishing', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lucy-knight', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2022-03-31T16:00:03Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
uk-news/2024/apr/12/rare-truffle-find-scottish-spruce-forest-sends-fungus-experts-alien-species-hunt | Rare truffle find in Scottish spruce forest sends fungi experts on alien species hunt | Naturalists have found a very rare type of truffle living in a Scottish forestry plantation which is being cut down so a natural Atlantic rainforest can grow in its place. The discovery of the globally rare fungus near Creagan in the west Highlands has thrown up a paradox: the work to remove the non-native Sitka spruce, to allow rewilding by native trees, means the truffle will be lost. Chamonixia caespitosa, a type of truffle normally found in the Alps and Scandinavia, has only been recorded once before in the UK, in north Wales, seven years ago. Inedible to humans, it has a symbiotic relationship specific to this species of spruce. When it ripens, its white fruit turns a mottled blue in contact with the air. The naturalists involved are puzzled about how it arrived in Scotland; it is very unusual for fungus spores to travel to the UK on the wind, and the UK’s Sitka plantations were grown from seeds originally imported from Canada. But the discovery of the truffle and the imminent destruction of its home has sparked a hunt by other fungus experts to see if its DNA or fully formed truffles can be found elsewhere in Scotland. Dr Andy Taylor, a molecular fungal ecologist at the James Hutton Institute who detected the truffle, thinks it probably is more widespread. “It’s fascinating as we’ve found an alien species of fungus growing in an alien tree. “The real crux of it is that the fungus is incredibly rare globally, so it does raise the question: do we have some responsibility to make sure it survives because we don’t know its distribution? I suspect, because where it is growing is a relatively common habitat, it might be elsewhere.” Finding the truffle’s DNA enabled Taylor to persuade Forestry and Land Scotland, the state-owned forestry agency that owns the site, to support an innovative new project to properly study soil species in other plantations. Sitka spruce plantations are notorious among conservationists because, as densely packed non-native monocultures, they support few other species. Many critics regard them as ecologically dead. Taylor said the soils in these plantations could be richer than realised. He believes he is the only mycologist to ever study the species that populate Sitka forests below ground. The truffles have a reciprocal relationship with their host trees: they provide nutrients to the spruce and draw sugars from the tree in return. “We know so little about the soil biodiversity in these old systems that we could find all sorts of new things,” he said. | ['uk/scotland', 'science/fungi', 'environment/forests', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/soil', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/rewilding', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/severincarrell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-04-12T11:00:54Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2017/jul/03/hinkley-point-c-is-22bn-over-budget-and-a-year-behind-schedule-edf-admits | Hinkley Point C is £1.5bn over budget and a year behind schedule, EDF admits | The UK’s first nuclear power station for more than two decades is at least £1.5bn over budget and could be completed 15 months behind schedule, its developer has admitted. French state-owned EDF said the cost overrun for two new reactors at Hinkley in Somerset could hit £2.2bn, taking the total spend to £20.3bn, up from £18bn previously. EDF confirmed the first reactor – originally due to become operational by the end of 2025 – risked being 15 months late and might not start generating electricity until 2027. The second unit is estimated to face a nine-month delay. Experts said the UK faced significant challenges to electricity supply and the prospect of further delay at Hinkley meant ageing power stations may need to be kept open longer. In a review of costs for Hinkley, EDF said £1.5bn of the increase was due to a “better understanding” of the construction work needed and UK regulatory requirements. The estimated delay on completing the reactors – which are meant to set a new standard for nuclear safety – would add a further £0.7bn in cost. But the company insisted it was still aiming for a delivery date of the end of 2025, and said it was on track to pour the concrete for the first reactor in 2019. “We are very clear that the team must remain mobilised on the initial objective of 2025,” said Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy. “We have in our hands what we need to deliver [the project on time].” The two other major nuclear power stations using the same design, in France and Finland, are years behind schedule and significantly over budget. De Rivaz told the House of Lords last year that the company had “dramatically” changed its approach for Hinkley, compared with Flamanville 3 in north-west France, which was originally due to be finished in 2012 but was not expected to be complete until late 2018. The chief executive, who is stepping down in October, told the Guardian the very existence of this review was an example that lessons had been learned. Asked if he could guarantee that the UK taxpayer would not be on the hook if costs continued to escalate in the future, he said: “Absolutely. Definitely. Totally.” In 2007, De Rivaz predicted that by Christmas in 2017, turkeys would be cooked using atomic power from new reactors at Hinkley. The latest bad news about the plant came just over a week after the public spending watchdog condemned the government for locking consumers into an “expensive and risky” project by signing a subsidy deal guaranteeing a set price for power from the reactors. The Green party said EDF’s review of costs should be the “final nail in the coffin” for Hinkley, a third of which is financed by the Chinese General Nuclear Power Group. “Hardly a week passes at the moment without new evidence that Hinkley is a terrible deal,” said the party’s co-leader, Jonathan Bartley. John Sauven, executive director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Hinkley is already over time and over budget after just a few months of building work. Today’s news is yet another damning indictment of the government’s agreement to go ahead with this project.” EDF said if the £2.2bn cost increase came to pass, its rate of return on the project would drop from 9% to 8.2%. The company’s share price fell 0.3% to €9.45 on Monday after the announcement. Some analysts have factored in a delay to the plant. Dr Paul Dorfan, a vocal Hinkley critic at University College London’s Energy Institute, said the admission showed that lessons had not been learned from the same reactor design being built at Flamanville in France and Olkiluoto in Finland. “On top of the National Audit Office [report], on top of the fiasco of Flamanville and Olkiluoto, on top of the [UK subsidy] deal itself, which has been universally slated by every financial expert, now we see another £2bn on the top,” he said. Dorfman said the estimated delay also called into question new-build nuclear’s ability to keep the lights on during the next decade. Jenifer Baxter, head of energy at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said any delay to Hinkley “means that it’s possible that some existing power stations will require further life extensions”. Any gap in electricity generation would need to be filled with gas and other technologies, she said. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “As the developer has made clear the project remains on track to meet its first major milestone in 2019. “The UK government negotiated a competitive deal which protects consumers and ensures that all of the cost of construction, including any overruns, sits with the contractor.” | ['uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'business/edf', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2017-07-03T14:25:41Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2021/nov/06/cop26-protesters-politicians-action-not-words | At Cop26, I’ve found I have more in common with protesters than politicians | The civil servant | Say what you like about how dismally difficult it is to get a ticket, but “global Britain” still knows how to put on a show. Cop26 has now finished its first act – the world leaders’ summit – starring more than 120 heads of state, thousands of their aides and hangers-on, and the city of Glasgow. I’m one of the hundreds from the British civil service working with the UN to stage-manage by far the most ambitious summit in either’s history. There was no shortage of volunteers – thousands of us applied, and for all the reasons you’d expect: idealism, ambition and simply to be present at a critical moment in modern world history. The world leaders’ summit was a two-day blizzard of high-level speeches, bilaterals, “family photos” and declarations. The basic idea? That an outpouring of presidential pageantry at the start of Cop26 provides political sustenance for the far trickier 10 days of negotiations ahead. We’ll see: I’m not a negotiator. But I can tell you what it feels like to be at the heart of the storm. The sheer scale of Cop26 impresses, long before you step inside; the police presence, the protesters, and the myriad cordons, diversions and temporary structures are all visible for miles around. Less impressive are the daily queueing and access problems generated by security and Covid apparatus struggling to cope with numbers some Premier League clubs would bite your arm off for. But once you’re in, there’s lots to see. Especially for lucky backstage grunts like us, who can access the two behemoth restricted plenary spaces (named Cairn Gorm and Pen Y Fan, after the mountains), as well as the maze of the pavilion, where gimlet-eyed government and NGO reps lure in delegates with Ted-style talks, free food and sustainably made merchandise. Behold too the giant globe beneath which every self-respecting delegate flocks to get that vital selfie. This isn’t a natural habitat for civil servants, unused as we are to the commercial whiff of fresh paint, glue and chipboard that emanates from the newly finished exhibition space, or to the acres of Cop26 “partner” branding that festoons every inch of wall space. You’re never more than 10 metres from armed UN security guards, though they never seem to lift a finger to prevent unwary delegates being barged by phalanxes of journalists and photographers stalking a celebrity or “marquee” politician through the main drag. There’s a distinct airport vibe, including in the uber-VIP world leaders’ lounge, whose soft furnishings and ethereal beings I caught a glimpse of between the praetorian guards who prowl its interior. UN officials are reportedly bemoaning a “business-class mentality” among delegates. Such a contrast with what’s going on outside – the protesters, bin collection strikes and travel disruptions, and the “large, naked Scottish man” who flashed Joe Biden. As a whole, the Cop process seems, according to civil society groups, to have become even more exclusive – and Covid restrictions don’t explain this. I saw it myself walking through the plenary zones, and Monday’s VIP reception photo demonstrates the shameful and persistent absence from the main leadership rostrum of women, people with disabilities and the young who – most of all – will face the consequences of the magical thinking that all homogenised elite groups seem to specialise in. Speaking of which, do civil servants working at Cop26 share the “cautious optimism” touted by Britain’s prime minister? My guess is no, we don’t. Some are veterans of previous Cop events, G7s and other diplomatic conclaves, but almost all of us carry scars from Covid and Brexit which remind us that, while good intentions are necessary, they are also woefully insufficient. Is “optimism” even an appropriate response to the climate emergency? It may be the closest thing to genuine hope that our showman prime minister is capable of mustering, but it’s not enough, as his speech at the Cop26 opening ceremony amply demonstrated. I listened to it in the company of some youthful delegates from several continents – their reaction to Boris Johnson’s remarks was one of muted, fascinated disgust. Civil servants, like the public, prefer urgent action to fatuous words. After all, we’re the ones who’ll wrestle with the implementation of climate action plans, financing and legislation, long after the politicians have scuttled off into gilded obscurity. This is what we share with the activists and the protesters outside Cop26: an instinctive understanding of what real change requires, and an acceptance of the inescapable fact that keeping the planet within anything like 2C of warming means leaving fossil fuels in the ground. All else is theatre – which is why, on Saturday, many of us will be joining the global day of action. The civil servant is a serving member of the UK civil service | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'politics/civil-service', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'uk/glasgow', 'uk/scotland', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/the-civil-servant', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-06T06:00:26Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sport/2022/mar/08/winter-paralympics-ukraine-pull-off-double-biathlon-podium-sweep | Winter Paralympics: Ukraine complete double biathlon podium sweep | There were emotional scenes on day four of the Winter Paralympics in Beijing as Ukrainian athletes completed two podium sweeps at the National Biathlon Centre in Zhangjiakou and one revealed that his house had been destroyed on Monday in the Russian invasion. Iryna Bui won the women’s standing 10km race nearly 13 seconds ahead of her compatriot Oleksandra Kononova in silver. Liudmyla Liashenko took bronze. In the men’s middle distance vision impaired biathlon, Vitaliy Lukyanenko came out on top by nearly 45 seconds as Ukrainian para biathletes finished in the top five places in the race. Anatolii Kovalevskyi and Dmytro Suiarko won the silver and bronze. Afterwards, Suiarko spoke powerfully: “I am happy, but you know the situation in Ukraine. Very hard concentration is needed in biathlon and I missed twice because yesterday my house where I live, it was bombed and destroyed.” Ukraine’s Oksana Shyshkova nearly added her third gold of these Games in the middle-distance vision impaired category biathlon, but with two misses in the shooting she fell agonisingly short, finishing 3.7 seconds behind Germany’s 18-year-old Leonie Maria Walter, who added gold to her previous two bronze medals. There was a US one-two in the women’s sitting middle-distance biathlon when Ukraine-born Oksana Masters picked up a 13th combined career medal at the Winter and Summer Paralympics with a silver behind team-mate Kendall Gretsch. Masters led for two-thirds of the 10km course, but despite picking up one shooting penalty, Gretsch finished 8.7 seconds ahead in the end. Liu Mengtao won China’s eighth gold medal of the Games in the men’s sitting event. China lead the way in the medal table, with eight golds and 27 medals in total. Ukraine are second with six golds, and Canada third with five golds after Mark Arendz won the men’s 10km standing biathlon. Great Britain’s wheelchair curlers are at risk of not reaching the semi-finals after playing six of their 10 round robin matches. The quartet of Gregor Ewan, Hugh Nibloe, Meggan Dawson-Farrell and David Melrose defeated Estonia 10-5 in the early morning session in a match which swung in the fifth end when four points for the British team stretched their lead to 9-4, and Estonia could not recover. However a 6-4 defeat to Sweden later in the day left the British team with only a 50% win ratio, and down in joint-seventh place in the rankings. They face Canada and South Korea on Wednesday in matches that will prove pivotal. Sweden lead the rankings, with defending champions and hosts China in second place. In the para ice hockey contest Canada secured their spot in the semi-finals with a comprehensive 6-0 victory over South Korea at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium. James Dunn scored a hat-trick for the 2018 silver-medallists. South Korea now face a play-off on Wednesday against Italy. The play-off for the last semi-final spot will pitch China against the Czech Republic. The hosts won the group match between the pair 5-2 on Sunday. Defending champions the US are seeking their fifth Paralympic title, and have already progressed through to the semi-finals, which take place on Friday. Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic organising committee for the Olympics and Paralympics, has supported the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes competing in the Beijing Paralympics. He told French newspaper Midi Libre: “The sports world has always tried to keep athletes away from politics. Given the gravity of the situation, it required going a step further, including making decisions that may impact athlete participation. Everything you normally want to avoid. But in a serious and exceptional situation, serious and exceptional measure. I understand that and I support it.” He also offered direct support for Ukrainian athletes, saying that the Paris 2024 team had already made donations to relief efforts, and had been asked to help athletes who had been training in France to return home. Of those currently in China he said: “I have a special thought of support for the Ukrainian athletes who will compete in extremely difficult conditions, but who will be keen to defend the colours of their country.” The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced the winners of its 2022 International Women’s Day Recognition Awards. New Zealand’s Paralympics Committee was rewarded for its effort to strive for gender equality, while Zimbabwe’s coach Oripa Mubika and Singapore’s Paralympic champion Yip Pin Xiu were also recognised. The awards are for those who inspire and serve as positive role models. | ['sport/winter-paralympics-2022', 'sport/sport', 'sport/disability-sport', 'sport/paralympics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/martin-belam', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/winter-paralympics-2022 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-03-08T09:44:49Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2022/jun/14/air-pollution-got-worse-during-lockdown-in-many-countries-study-finds | Air pollution got worse during lockdown in many countries, study finds | Lockdowns imposed to stop the spread of Covid led to “virtually no change” in global average particulate pollution levels during 2020, and in some of the most populous countries pollution increased, according to a study. Analysis of revised satellite-derived data on PM2.5 levels, which measure minuscule and dangerous airborne particles, suggests that the economic lockdowns imposed across many parts of the world brought clear skies to some areas only temporarily. According to the research by the Air Quality Life Index, based at the University of Chicago, the global population weighted-average PM2.5 level declined from 27.7 to just 27.5 μg/m3 between 2019 and 2020, remaining more than five times the WHO’s guideline, which was revised last year to 5 μg/m 3. Pollution levels increased across south Asia – the world’s most polluted region, where residents are predicted to lose about five years off their life expectancy if conditions are not improved. Increases were also recorded in parts of south-east Asia, where pollution levels rose by as much as 25% in some areas. Christa Hasenkopf, AQLI’s director, said the brief “blue skies” periods during lockdowns gave a glimpse of what the air could look like, but added: “Their relatively minor effects on the long-term quality of the air we breathe underscores that pollution is a stubborn problem.” Some countries did register large decreases in pollution in 2020, including Indonesia where year-on-year particulate pollution levels declined more than 20% because of a reduction in fire-related haze. Pollution also decreased significantly in Russia, China, Germany, and Japan in 2020 relative to 2019. Variations were also observed within countries, said Hasenkopf: “While India’s year-on-year average particulate pollution levels increased by 2.9%, Delhi experienced a roughly 6% decrease in particulate pollution from 2019 to 2020.” Other populous countries where the levels of pollution worsened included Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan and the US. The revision of the WHO’s guidelines on what level of particulate pollution can be breathed by people means 97.3% of the world’s population now live in areas where PM2.5 levels are unsafe, the report said. According to AQLI analysis, permanently reducing global air pollution to meet the WHO guideline of 5 μg/m3 would add 2.2 years to average life expectancy, from roughly 72 to 74.2 years. The research did not address the reasons why some areas saw rises and falls in pollution, Hasenkopf said, but she cited possible causes: “We know that in some places, economies were playing catch-up after lockdown periods and in others, 2020 was a bad year for wildfires.” Haze caused by thousands of fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and Borneo had a drastic impact on air quality in 2019. In 2020, pollution in Singapore and Indonesia fell 38.3 and 20.3%, respectively. Elsewhere in south-east Asia, however, PM2.5 increased, including in Cambodia (25.9%) and Thailand (10.8%), with researchers pointing to biomass, forest and peatland fires, lax fuel emissions standards, and coal-fired power plants as key drivers of pollution. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'world/world', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebecca-ratcliffe', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-06-14T14:20:56Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/2015/nov/10/renewable-energy-investment-predicted-to-surge | Renewable energy investment predicted to surge | Between the tropics and probably as far as the 33rd parallel, the sun could soon be a major source of energy for households and businesses alike. Countries such as Mexico and Indonesia, long dependent on cheap home-produced oil and coal, are realising that a solar panel on every roof can reduce poverty by lowering energy costs as well as minimising the destabilising weather effects from higher CO2 emissions. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its World Energy Outlook 2015, the tumbling cost of installing photovoltaics, as much as a commitment to limiting climate change, is persuading these populous countries to switch to renewables. It predicts a cumulative $7.4trn global investment in renewable energy by 2040. Indonesia has forged ahead by limiting investment subsidies that have underpinned coal, oil and gas production for decades. China is also beginning to make the switch to renewables while moving away from dirty, energy-intensive industries. The result, says the IEA, could limit the demand for oil and keep the price relatively low for the rest of the decade. By 2030, the share of low-carbon power generation could grow to almost 45%, putting a lid on power emissions and containing a 40% rise in energy demand. But global investment in renewable energy may not be as large as it seems. The IEA’s $7.4trn figure represents only 15% of the total investment in global energy supply by 2040. So oil, coal and gas are still a major part of the energy mix 25 years from now. And predictions of a low oil price – possibly no more than $80 a barrel stretching beyond 2020 – could be upset by India. By 2040, the IEA says, the country’s energy demand will almost match that of the US, even though demand per head will remain 40% below the world average. Without a push to adopt renewables, India’s galloping demand for energy could send oil and gas prices spiralling up and scupper any hopes of limiting CO2 emissions. Should it invest in solar farms, India must persuade hundreds of millions of car drivers to ditch their petrol vehicles and thousands of road hauliers their diesel trucks, a stumbling block that could be beyond its democratically elected leaders. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/energy', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'business/oil', 'business/gas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/phillipinman', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2015-11-10T18:59:12Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2009/nov/08/nuclear-sites-edf-miliband-energy | UK's nuclear future is mapped out as race to tackle climate change hots up | The government identified 10 suitable sites for the next generation of nuclear power plants yesterday, including two new locations, as part of a plan to overhaul Britain's ageing energy infrastructure. The energy and climate secretary, Ed Miliband, said nuclear power was essential to combat climate change and to ensure energy security for Britain in the decades ahead, describing it as a "proven, reliable source of low carbon energy". But he drew immediate criticism from environmentalists who warned of the "deadly legacy" of radioactive waste and argued that investment should be focused on renewables instead. The 10 sites had been nominated by energy firms hoping to build reactors. Most are on or adjacent to existing plants, but two identified as suitable are on new sites, Braystones and Kirksanton, both in Cumbria and on the "nuclear coast". One of the oldest and most efficient windfarms in Britain will be dismantled at Kirksanton to make way for the nuclear plant, to the dismay of some locals. Miliband said the first new plants could be up and running by 2018. The names of the sites were contained in one of six draft national policy statements designed to fasttrack the planning process for strategically important infrastructure projects. The statements cover nuclear energy, renewables, fossil fuels, oil and gas pipelines and storage and the electricity grid, as well as an overarching statement on infrastructure. Further statements are to follow on areas including airports. The statements will establish national policy and act as guidelines for the recently established Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), a central planning authority, to be run at arm's length from the government, which aims to give developers decisions on schemes within a year of submission. The policy statements, which will go out to consultation until February, also underlined the government's commitment to "clean coal" technology. It is pressing ahead with four trials of carbon capture and storage technology, which aims to bury emissions underground, and reiterated that no coal plants would be built without it. The government also reaffirmed its target of 30% of electricity generation from renewables by 2020. "We think renewables, nuclear and clean fossil fuels are the trinity of low carbon fuels of the future, all of them have their role to play," Miliband said. "We need all of them because the challenge of the low-carbon future is so significant." Any projects with proposed capacity of more than 50MW will be decided by the IPC. Miliband said the streamlined planning authority would avoid tortuous decisions. The current system, he said, was characterised by "duplication and delay". But critics raised fears that local concerns would be brushed aside by the IPC. Miliband argued there would still be opportunities to object to new developments. "But while, of course, we need a process that can turn down specific applications, saying 'no' everywhere would not be in the national interest," he said. The other sites identified as suitable for new reactors are Bradwell, Hartlepool, Heysham, Hinkley Point, Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell and Wylfa. The only site rejected in the draft document was Dungeness, chiefly because of its "unique ecosystem". EDF Energy, which plans to build four plants, described yesterday's statement as a "defining moment". A further three sites were examined, at Druridge Bay in Northumberland, Kingsnorth in Kent and Owston Ferry in South Yorkshire, and although "worthy of consideration", have been rejected for now. Scottish National Party has refused to join the rush for new nuclear power plants, and plans to replace Hunterston and Torness with coal-fired stations. Ben Aycliffe at Greenpeace said: "You can't justify building more nuclear power stations when there is no solution to radioactive waste and when international regulators are saying there are huge uncertainties surrounding the safety of designs." The shadow energy secretary, Greg Clark, acknowledged the need for urgent action, but said the government was riding roughshod over the democratic process. "It is a national emergency and it's been left far too late," he told Radio 4. The targets Overarching energy policy Sets out core objectives - reduced emissions, security of supply, expanding grid capacity, keeping costs down and sustainable development. To meet demand in 2025, a third of the enlarged energy generating capacity needs to be built in the next 15 years. Fossil fuels Reaffirms commitment to 'clean coal' and trials of carbon capture and storage technology, without which there will be no new coal-fired plants. Nuclear power Of 10 sites identified to build plants, only one, at Dungeness, considered unsuitable. Up to 40% of new energy provision could come from nuclear by 2025. Planning commission will focus on location only. Renewable energy Reaffirmed 30% of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020, chiefly from wind with smaller amounts of 'bioenergy'. Gas supply and storage Imported gas will become increasingly important as production in the North Sea declines. Electricity transmission and grid Sets out need for a 'smarter' electricity grid to support a more complex system. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'business/business', 'business/edf', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'politics/edmiliband', 'politics/politics', 'tone/news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'type/article', 'profile/davidteather', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-11-10T00:42:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/feb/27/climate-emergency-a-national-security-concern-says-red-cross | Climate emergency a ‘national security’ concern, says Red Cross | Governments must start treating the climate crisis as a national security concern on a par with war as climate breakdown threatens countries’ stability and safety, the global chief of the Red Cross has warned. Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said: “People should be seeing the climate as a national security issue, as it is having an impact on national security. We need to see that the climate crisis is not only having an environmental impact, but a very significant security impact.” Chapagain was speaking before the publication of a scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday, which is expected to show that the impacts of the climate crisis are greater than feared, and that governments must act rapidly to prepare for extreme weather and its consequences. The Red Cross has warned that at least 1.7 billion people already face serious problems, including food and water shortages, arising from or made worse by the climate crisis. Before the outbreak of Covid-19, the organisation – which works in conflict zones and with those affected by disasters – found that 2 million people a week needed humanitarian assistance owing to the impacts of climate breakdown. Chapagain said: “Every inhabited part of the world is affected. Through our work in responding to disasters, we can see this is clearly having an effect – you can see it now, with the naked eye, that this is happening. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are as prepared as we should be.” More people are facing hunger, water shortages and the prospect of having to move to avoid natural disasters such as floods, droughts and extreme temperatures, he said. “There are impacts on displacement; we did a study last year that found more displacement from the climate than from conflict,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. Most of that displacement is currently happening within national borders, but that can still have an impact on national security and the potential for conflict, he added. Governments are not used to thinking of the climate in terms of national security, said Chapagain. National security concerns are obvious in conflicts such as that in Ukraine, but he said the problems of the climate crisis were unfolding in ways not yet widely acknowledged. “We must take a holistic view. The climate crisis affects national security, and this must take much greater priority for governments than it has done,” he added. “If we respond in a piecemeal fashion, we will underestimate the enormity of the climate crisis.” All government departments must be included in the response to climate breakdown, Chapagain said. “There is a complete disconnect at the moment,” he added. The IPCC, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists, will publish its report on Monday on the impacts of the climate crisis, covering which areas are most vulnerable, and advising on how countries must adapt to the impacts of extreme weather that are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This is the second of four parts of its “sixth assessment report”, the latest in a series of comprehensive summaries of the world’s knowledge of the climate, stretching back to 1988. The first part was published last August, while a third part, to be published in April, will set out the means of dealing with the crisis, such as investing in renewable energy and novel technologies such as carbon capture. As IPCC reports take between five and seven years to compile, the current assessment is likely to be the last while there is still time to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown. Global greenhouse gas emissions must halve by 2030, to stay within 1.5C, the IPCC has previously warned, but after the plunge caused by the lockdowns, global carbon dioxide emissions have bounced back and are set to rise strongly again this year. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'world/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-icrc', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ipcc', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2022-02-27T18:17:29Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
uk-news/2019/sep/09/disaster-tourism-arrives-in-whaley-bridge-after-dam-incident | Disaster tourism arrives in Whaley Bridge after dam incident | Six weeks ago, Whaley Bridge was on few tourism itineraries. The pleasant small Derbyshire town tended to be overlooked by its more famous neighbours: the spa town of Buxton over the hill and the Peak District national park on its doorstep. What a difference near-obliteration makes. Since making headlines around the world when a reservoir dam threatened to collapse and engulf half of the community on 1 August, residents have been astonished by an influx of disaster tourists. As soon as the town reopened following a mass evacuation, visitors swarmed in to take pictures of the damaged dam and support the local businesses. Camilla Dignan, who owns the Bridge Bakehouse, says she was stunned when she saw the first busload of Chinese tourists pull up outside her bakery. “To start with it was all the locals coming back in and everyone was just so happy to see each other, and everyone was crying, and really emotional. And then all the tourists started coming in, especially in the weekends. Everyone was asking where the reservoir is, they wanted to go and have a look because they’ve seen it on the telly … They’re coming from everywhere – I’ve seen buses of Chinese tourists honestly – [from] all over the UK. It’s bizarre, it’s really weird.” Ever since, she has been baking around the clock. “Since the day we reopened after the evacuation we have been flat out busy, [it’s been] completely unprecedented, we used to be busy but never like this, we have been struggling to keep up in the bakery,” she says. Some call it the Chernobyl effect, drawing parallels to the popularity of tourism near the site of the Soviet nuclear reactor meltdown. Others point to a renewed community spirit, with more residents using local shops and cafes. When the Guardian visited on a very gloomy Monday, the businesses were bustling. Several mentioned that the previous Saturday the town was “absolutely heaving” with crowds visiting markets at the canal basin, as well as food stalls and art exhibitions showcasing poems and short stories about last month’s emergency. There has always been a large number of visitors in the town during periodic market days, but locals said this was exceptional. Footsteps, a local community cafe run by Whaley Bridge Community Trust, has seen its takings go up 140% compared with this time last year. Martin Thomas, the chair of Whaley Bridge Town Council and director of the cafe, which provides food and drink, sells books, and rents out rooms, says people certainly haven’t forgotten about the town. While broadcasting vans are no longer queuing down the road, there is still occasional media interest, and everybody has a story to tell. Referring to the huge boost in takings, Thomas says: “I think it’s partly because we fulfil the need of bringing people together, and after being separated for so long, there was a great need to catch up.” A commemorative booklet, Whaley Bridge: Lost & Saved, has been pulled together featuring photos of the extraordinary rescue effort. Thomas says they had to order more to be printed thanks to the high demand, partly because visitors want a souvenir celebrating the way locals came together and continue to do so. “Our resident photographer, Terry O’Malley, he did this little booklet, and this was on sale two days after we reopened, it’s part of the reason our takings are up,” said Thomas. Before last month’s dramatic scenes – when extreme rainfall caused water to rush down a spillway, rip away its concrete facing and threaten to release the reservoir’s 1.2m tonnes of water on to the houses below – the town of 6,000 people was best known for its walking hotspots. The river Goyt, which runs throughout the town, has long been a favourite among seasoned hikers and those who just enjoy a leisurely stroll. John Wakeham, whose Springbank Guest House has also reported a surge in guests, said: “It certainly feels a lot busier, people from [further afield] are coming to see Whaley Bridge, not necessarily because of the dam but it’s made people aware Whaley Bridge is here.” He explains how his wife, a local, was no longer met with blank looks when she described where she was from. “I think the [emergency] has made people aware, but Whaley is a charming place, it’s a lovely town that’s got lots to offer and I think it’s brought people here for that.” | ['uk-news/north-of-england', 'uk/uk', 'environment/flooding', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/josh-sandiford', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-09T18:00:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
science/2005/jun/09/thisweekssciencequestions.drought | How much rain do we need to avoid a drought? | There is already a drought in the south-east of England, and even if it rained continuously from now for a month, the hosepipe bans that have been imposed by two water companies would have to continue. Since last October, the home counties have had less than two thirds of the average rainfall. Reservoirs in some areas are down to about half their normal levels, with the chalk areas worst hit. So far, at least 10 water companies are telling customers about the need to save water. River levels and bore holes are also significantly below the long-term average for this time of year in some areas. The Thames region, which wants permission to build a big new reservoir and a desalination plant to cope with soaring household demand, a rising population and increasingly unpredictable rainfall, is the most severely affected. The south-east of England has both the highest population density and the lowest rainfall in the British Isles. According to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, the November to April (ie, the latest) rainfall totals for the south and east were the lowest since 1953/54. The late April rains modestly boosted reservoir stocks, but many are still appreciably below average. Groundwater levels in some areas are the lowest for the month since 1976, and the eighth lowest in 170 years. There is little prospect, moreover, that the groundwater aquifers and reservoirs in the south and east will fully recharge until the seasonal autumn rains. Summer downpours are common, but the water mostly rushes off the land, frequently causing flash floods. According to the Environment Agency, there has been a change in weather patterns over the past 30 years which has meant that more rain tends to fall in winter compared to summer. There are also signs that winter rain is falling in more intense downpours which are less useful in terms of replenishing aquifers. Britain's problems are as nothing, however, compared to parts of Portugal, Spain and southern France where the 2004/05 drought is already one of the worst recorded. | ['science/science', 'science/series/behindthenews', 'environment/drought', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-06-09T11:21:40Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2023/sep/18/hwl-ebsworth-hack-65-australian-government-agencies-affected-by-cyber-attack | HWL Ebsworth hack: 65 Australian government agencies affected by cyber-attack | Sixty-five Australian government departments and agencies were victims of the cyber-attack on legal firm HWL Ebsworth, the national cybersecurity coordinator has revealed. In a speech on Monday, Air Marshal Darren Goldie also revealed that some people and clients with personal information exposed in the hack have yet to be informed. The Russian-linked ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group hacked the law firm in April. Earlier this month, the group published 1.1TB of the data it claimed to have stolen, later established to be 3.6TB worth of data. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup In June, an analysis by Guardian Australia of more than 1,000 contracts with HWL Ebsworth published on AusTender over the past decade suggested that at least 60 departments or government agencies that used the firm’s services could have been caught up in the hack. On Monday, Goldie confirmed 65 agencies had been caught up in the incident. “As of 18 September 2023, a total of 65 Australian government entities have been impacted, as direct clients of the firm through its legal and consulting services. A large number of private sector clients were also affected,” he said. “I stress that these agencies were clients of HWL Ebsworth and did not suffer a cyber incident themselves.” Goldie said after 16 weeks of support, it was “an appropriate juncture” for the Australian government’s formal coordinated response to the incident to end, “with HWL Ebsworth now able to manage its response without formal assistance from the Australian government”. He said individual agencies would continue to assist affected clients and the investigations under way by the Australian federal police and Victoria police would continue. Goldie said he would now lead a review with HWL Ebsworth and stakeholders from federal, state and territory governments on lessons learned from the incident that would inform the way governments respond to future attacks. Guardian Australia reported in June that the National Disability Insurance Agency was scrambling to determine whether its sensitive client information had been caught up in the hack, given that HWL Ebsworth represented the NDIA in appeals cases. In a speech at a summit hosted by the Australian Financial Review on Monday, Goldie confirmed clients were caught up but revealed he held off informing the public quickly to avoid sparking anxiety in those potentially affected. “While there is some benefit in getting that information into the public domain early on, I made the decision to allow HWL Ebsworth to notify individuals through NDIS providers and caregivers first before making the information public,” he said. He also confirmed the Australian federal police and the Department of Home Affairs were victims of the hack, while also being agencies responsible for investigating it. A spokesperson for HWL Ebsworth said the firm was nearing the completion of its review of the information in the hack, and has been attempting to inform those affected as swiftly as possible. “This has not been a simple or quick task as the data set is large and unstructured and includes a complex mix of different types of documents and information,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to be cognisant, however, that clients and other potentially impacted individuals and parties will be concerned to understand what data of theirs is impacted. We are nearing completion of that process.” Goldie said in total around 2.5m documents were taken, with about 1m posted on the dark web. The firm obtained a non-publication order in the New South Wales supreme court in an attempt to prevent dissemination of the data posted on the dark web. The case against the unidentified hackers is due to return to court in early November. BlackCat was one of the top three ransomware groups targeting Australia, according to a recent study by cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. The group is paid to hack others and has been active since late 2021. Cybersecurity company Sophos said the group has consistently targeted large organisations. | ['australia-news/crime-australia', 'technology/cybercrime', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/morning-mail', 'technology/technology', 'technology/hacking', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/josh-taylor', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-09-18T07:51:03Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2019/oct/03/country-diary-little-fruits-that-are-rich-in-history | Country diary: little fruits that are rich in history | Who upset the apple cart? This track through the woods is covered with windfall crab apples. More than a hundred years ago, this path was a narrow-gauge railway that lugged trucks full of lime from kilns and quarries on the Edge down to the River Severn, to be taken by barge to the iron foundries of Coalbrookdale. Today, between showery verses, fiercely bright choruses of autumn sunlight pour through ash and hawthorn trees. The thorns are craggy old buggers, twisted mossy trunks, spiky branches with dense brows of leaves tipped with bloody haws, and the ash trees are thin, rattly masts that are making a high canopy under which the hawthorns will, within a couple of years, collapse from lack of light. The little fruits have fallen from a group of trees that may owe their origins to apple pips that passed through horses that worked in the quarries. These trees, squat, twisted, lopsided, may not be the truly native Malus sylvestris, the woodland apple. Although the hard fruits are the right size, 2.5cm x 2.8cm with flat ends, they are not glossy green with white spots and a red autumn flush, but a rather dodgy-looking, liverish yellow. Telling them apart becomes symbolic. The poet and dramatist John Lyly once said: “The sowre crab hath the shewe of an apple as well as the sweet pyppin”, but things may not be what they seem. Crabs and pippins separate the wild from cultivated: proper (pippin) apples were tended in orchards, and crabs ignored in hedges and rough scrub. Now most of the orchards have been uprooted and the wild ones have outlived them. The golden light seems to be illuminating an act of sabotage, as if a cartload of crab apples had been upturned on to this path. These fruits, the way they look and taste, belong to a time lost to local memory, in a place that bears almost no resemblance to where a lime burner gave a horse his apple core. Here are the fruits of that fruit: a spilled, neglected history, where all that was once certain has been upset and abandoned in the woods. • Red squirrels and pine martens are the subject of the annual lecture in honour of the late country diarist William Condry on Saturday 5 October. Full details at www.thecondrylecture.co.uk | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/walking', 'environment/series/country-diary', 'uk/uk', 'environment/autumn', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulevans', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-10-03T04:30:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
lifeandstyle/2011/feb/14/tommy-hilfiger-new-york-fashion | Tommy Hilfiger goes back to the days when supergroups ruled | In fashion week, it isn't always the blockbuster names that define the latest trends. Despite being worth about $3bn (£1.9bn), the Tommy Hilfiger brand has not set the style agenda in recent years. But after the label's well-received show at New York's Lincoln Centre on Sunday night, the Hilfiger style credentials look promising again. The brand has always defined itself as a "preppy" label. It trades on an idealised version of American style which fuses athleticism with clean lines – the clothes are sporty, classic and easy to wear. The new collection is entitled Bohemian Prep and is meant as a riff on the Tommy aesthetic: the collection could be summed up as a 1970s rock star's girlfriend who favours a borrowed-from-the boys look. Admittedly, the delivery was heavy-handed – a thumping Rolling Stones soundtrack accompanied the show and the audience was left in no doubt about the Anita Pallenberg references. But subtlety did not make this designer a phenomenally wealthy man and the clothes themselves were a real triumph. Flawless double-breasted menswear suiting looked cool, worn with loose Britt Ekland hair and floppy, felted hats. Fisherman's sweaters were worn with leather wrap skirts and suede-pocketed parkas, and sleeveless grey shearling coats managed to combine luxury with insouciant cool. The American designer Peter Som must take some of the credit for the changes. He is now employed as a consultant on the line while Tommy Hilfiger himself remains as a figurehead in the role of global brand ambassador. Hilfiger has not owned the company since 2006: the label is now in the financial hands of Phillips-Van Heusen, the company which also owns Calvin Klein. This is the third collection Som has worked on and his influence is starting to show. Known for his effortless, flattering cuts, He is proving a perfect fit for the brand and his continued involvement looks likely to up Tommy Hilfiger's kudos as well as its balance sheets. | ['fashion/new-york-fashion-week', 'fashion/fashion-weeks', 'fashion/fashion', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/news', 'fashion/new-york-fashion-week-autumn-winter-2011', 'type/article', 'profile/imogenfox', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | fashion/new-york-fashion-week-autumn-winter-2011 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2011-02-14T18:42:14Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2010/mar/21/peak-oil-summit | Energy minister will hold summit to calm rising fears over peak oil | Lord Hunt, the energy minister, is to meet industrialists in London tomorrow in a bid to calm mounting fears about the disruption that could follow a sudden shortage of oil supplies. In a significant policy shift, the government has agreed to undertake more work on whether the UK needs to take action to avoid the massive dislocation that could be caused by the early onset of "peak oil" – the point that marks the start of terminal decline in global oil production. Jeremy Leggett, the executive chairman of the renewable power company Solar Century and a leading figure in the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, said the meeting, to be held at the Energy Institute, showed a welcome new sense of urgency. "Government has gone from the BP position – '40 years of supply left, the price mechanism works, no need to worry' – to 'crikey'," he said. "BP and others are telling us that, but you lot, Virgin, Scottish and Southern, and others are telling us something completely different. We do not know who to believe. Let's do a proper risk assessment with industry," he said. The meeting is expected to include executives from the taskforce members including Virgin, Arup, Stagecoach, Scottish and Southern Energy, and Solar Century as well as other industrialists. The decision to hold the talks came after the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security last month issued a provocative report, The Oil Crunch: a Wake-up Call for the UK Economy, in which it warned of the dangers of complacency. Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, warned then that the coming crisis could surpass the credit crunch. "The next five years will see us face another crunch: the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," he said. The government had previously played down the risks arising from peak oil after the Wicks review in the summer in effect dismissed the idea that global demand for oil could soon outstrip supply. A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change confirmed last night that Hunt and a range of energy-policy civil servants would be holding "private and behind-doors" talks at the Energy Institute. But she played down the significance of the session, saying the government had always taken supply issues seriously and met different parts of industry on a regular basis. "We do this all the time; it is just a normal stakeholder meeting," she insisted, adding that there was no "marked" change in ministerial policy. The issue of peak oil arose last November when whistleblowers inside the International Energy Agency alleged the problem had been deliberately downplayed over a long period. BP and other oil companies insist that there is little danger of the world running out of oil because new areas such as Brazil, and more recently Uganda, are always opening up to development. BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, believes demand will fall as prices move up., pushing back any major peak-oil dislocation. But booming demand in China, India and the Middle East has pushed up the price of crude to more than $80 a barrel and UK petrol prices are close to record levels. Amrita Sen, an oil analyst at Barclays Capital, believes the price of crude could pass $100 this year and reach nearly $140 by 2015. Francisco Blanch, of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has speculated it could hit $150 within four years. Leggett says all these scenarios could be much too optimistic. He is convinced that Britain must prepare as quickly as possible for a situation when oil becomes so expensive that international trade is hampered and globalisation breaks down. Peak oil used to be the preoccupation of a small minority, but a parliamentary group has been set up to follow the issue and an increasing number of industrialists have begun to worry about it. Ian Marchant, Scottish and Southern Energy's chief executive, is one who now believes global demand for oil is on the brink of outstripping the ability to produce it. At the launch of the Oil Crunch report, he said: "The west has been far too profligate in its use of oil and the price is going to say: stop it now and start using your oil as a scarce commodity." | ['environment/peak-oil', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/commodities', 'environment/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/business'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-03-21T19:36:13Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/sep/21/farmers-like-me-can-contribute-to-a-hedge-fund-for-nature-at-little-cost-to-themselves | Farmers like me can contribute to a hedge fund for nature at little cost to themselves | Letter | I’m a Sussex farmer and have sold my hedge cutter (Letters, 14 September). My only regret is that I didn’t scrap it, as it will continue to do damage, just not on my farm. Our hedges are now billowing with life, the sliver of loss for food production is tiny in the grand scheme of things, and the effect on nature recovery has been astonishing, instant and long overdue. I’m no fan of the lawn initiative No Mow May; it leaves me wondering what the bugs do in June or February to survive. With hedgerows there’s an ecological knowledge gap. Farmers know about growing food, but can be poorly informed about the needs of the wildlife. Using gut instinct alone, I might have refrained from cutting until September to avoid late nesters, or November to keep berries for birds, then wham, the annual short back and sides would smarten up the place and my mother would breathe a sigh of relief; her generation does like to see a “tidy” farm. It helps to view this from the standpoint of a moth. We’re all aware of their dramatic declines; when I was a child, our porch light would be heaving with them, but sadly it’s rare to see any today. Our clean car windscreens are a testament to this declining trend. The life cycle of these heroes of pollination includes winter dormancy – and it’s no surprise that this takes place in hedges. I wholeheartedly support considerate hedgerow management for road safety and in livestock areas; some rural counties would be impassable if it wasn’t for the skilled trim work of the dedicated farmers who maintain those iconic topiaries. But across great swathes of our green and pleasant land, farmers could give a little back to nature by doing nothing – enjoy a well-earned day off, save some diesel and marvel at the wonders throughout the year. James Dunlop Baird Littlehampton, West Sussex | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-09-21T17:02:34Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2020/aug/28/california-wildfires-progress-evacuation-lnu-scu | California wildfires: firefighters make progress as evacuation orders are lifted | A thick layer of smoke-laced fog that blanketed swaths of the San Francisco Bay area on Friday was a sign of respite for firefighters, who, aided by cool and humid weather, are making progress in taming the massive blazes that are raging across the region. A heatwave and rare lightning storm had unleashed a barrage of flames across California earlier this month, leading to a series of wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands and killed at least seven. But firefighters have made progress in their battle against the disasters in recent days. Evacuation orders were lifted for at least 50,000 people in the Bay Area and wine country, officials with the state fire agency, Cal Fire, said on Thursday evening. In heavily damaged areas, crews were working to restore electricity and water to enable more people to return to their homes. “The risk to life and structures will go down rapidly as firefighters are able to contain the fires,” said Chris Field, who directs the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. But crews will likely be working to suppress the flames for weeks to come, he noted. “They’ll have to keep gradually tamping down the fires to nothing, even as the clean up continues.” The fires have come weeks before what is traditionally peak fire season in the state – and Californians can still expect to see more wildfires in the autumn, when gusty offshore winds tend to fan huge flames, Field said. The coming months could prove tricky for California, whose firefighting resources have already been stretched by the ongoing fires. Personnel, aircraft and bulldozers have been arriving from other states and California national guard troops joined the efforts to corral the flames over the past two weeks. Because hundreds of fires were burning concurrently, officials said they were not able to deploy as many firefighters as they normally would have to fight the largest conflagrations. By Friday, crews had contained the largest and most destructive of fires – the LNU Lightning Complex fire searing through California’s wine country – by 35%, officials said. Evacuation orders in Napa and Sonoma counties were lifted on Wednesday for about 35,000 people. But the fire complex, the site of five deaths, still threatened 30,500 homes and other buildings after destroying more than 1,000. Cal Fire said there still was “extreme fire behavior” and portions of the three-pronged fire continued to advance in several directions. In Napa county, Marcia Ritz was among about 10 people that fled flames by taking a pontoon boat to the middle of Lake Berryessa on 18 August and waiting there for hours. She returned to find her country store in Napa standing but much of the surrounding neighborhood, including the mobile home park where Ritz lived, was burned, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Ritz may have to shut down her store. “There is no customer base. There are maybe two houses remaining on the hill,” she said. Evacuation orders for more than 20,000 people were lifted over the past 24 hours in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, where another massive blaze caused by lightning was 24% surrounded, fire officials announced. That fire has burned at least 516 homes but the tally could rise. Inspection teams were struggling to get into remote areas because bridges were damaged and roads blocked by fallen trees and power lines, fire officials said. In the eastern San Francisco Bay area, the SCU Lightning Complex fire that has burned in seven counties gained a relatively modest amount of ground – less than 1.6 square miles (4.1 sq km) – and was 35% surrounded. Parts of Solano county and Lake county, north of San Francisco, began allowing people back home on Thursday. | ['us-news/california', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/san-francisco', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maanvi-singh', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-08-28T19:00:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2010/may/07/bp-bid-contain-oil-disaster-100-ton-box | BP to lower 100-ton chamber to stop oil flow from ruptured well | The 100-ton concrete and steel box that remains BP's best hope of containing the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was lowered towards the ocean floor today amid acrid fumes from thick layers of crude oil. As submersible robots swept the ocean floor for debris, a crane slowly lowered the box 5,000ft to the blown-out well that has been spewing 210,000 gallons of crude oil into the gulf each day for more than a fortnight. The first orange-coloured tendrils of oil were reaching both sides of an uninhabited chain of barrier islands designated as a wildlife refuge by Theodore Roosevelt. But BP officials said they needed time to get the box safely into position over the leaking pipe. Work was interrupted overnight because of the fumes and fears of triggering an explosion. The marshes of the Chandeleur Islands, about 60 miles east of New Orleans, are an important nesting ground for pelicans and other birds. Coastguard officials said flotillas of shrimp boats had been sent to reposition protective booms to stop the oil getting to land. But environmental scientists also warned the efforts to hold back the oil could be undermined by BP's decision to break up the spill with dispersants. The resulting thinner oil was proving much harder to contain. "There is as much oil behind the booms as in the booms," said Rick Steiner, a conservation professor at the University of Alaska. "It's an exercise in futility." If all goes to plan, the box will hoover up 85% of the oil gushing from the ocean floor and pipe it into a waiting tanker. But BP admits it is unclear whether its efforts will work. No containment box, or coffer dam, has ever been deployed at such depths, and the operation is threatened by frigid ocean temperatures and the immense pressures. The company said today it was also exploring the possibility of injecting heavy fluids into the blowout preventer that sits at the top of the well, and whose failure two weeks ago led to the disaster. Meanwhile, crews have begun to drill a relief well, but that could take months. The outcome of BP's efforts to contain the oil with the gigantic contraption could be critical to the future of offshore drilling in America. The Obama administration yesterday suspended new offshore drilling in Alaska and Virginia. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, warned that BP's very survival could depend on its response effort. "Its life is very much on the line here," Salazar told reporters after meeting BP officials in Houston. "Are they doing everything that they can possibly do? I hope that they are."The spill could also kickstart stalled energy and climate legislation in the Senate. John Kerry, the Democratic Senator, said today he would formally roll-out his proposals on Wednesday even though a key Republican ally, Lindsey Graham, has withdrawn support for the measures. | ['environment/bp-oil-spill', 'us-news/us-news', 'uk/uk', 'environment/oil', 'environment/environment', 'business/bp', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-05-07T17:48:36Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2018/jun/26/toxic-garbage-will-be-sold-here-outcry-as-brazil-moves-to-loosen-pesticide-laws | 'Toxic garbage will be sold here': Outcry as Brazil moves to loosen pesticide laws | A Brazilian Congress commission has approved a controversial bill to lift restrictions on pesticides despite fierce opposition from environmentalists, prosecutors, health and environment ministry bodies, and even United Nations special rapporteurs. Driven by a powerful agribusiness lobby, the bill now needs to be voted on in both houses of Congress and sanctioned by President Michel Temer before becoming law. Its proponents say it will free up bureaucracy and modernise dated legislation. But the bill has generated fierce opposition in Brazil, one of the world’s biggest food producers and biggest consumers of pesticides, even those banned in other countries. Opponents dubbed it the “poison package” and said it would lead to the indiscriminate use of dangerous pesticides, while 250,000 signed an online petition against it. “The law will make us more permissive than we already are,” said Larissa Bombardi, a professor of geography and pesticides specialist at the University of São Paulo. “The economic interest will prevail over human and environmental health.” Of 121 pesticides permitted in Brazil for coffee production, 30 are already banned in the European Union, including the toxic herbicide paraquat, Bombardi reported in an extensive 2017 study. The bill overhauls existing legislation, allowing for pesticides to be given temporary register if the approval process has taken over two years and three countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) have already approved it. It puts the Ministry of Agriculture in charge of approving new products, removing the Health and Environment Ministries from decision-making and making their roles advisory and it stops towns and states from introducing their own restrictions on pesticides. “It is clear there is opposition, there is passion. There are people who think you do agriculture organically. People use pesticides like medicine,” said the Congress committee president Tereza Cristina Dias, a lawmaker who also presides over the parliamentary farming front. Dias said the controversial ‘temporary register’ of products was only in the case of a new threat to crops from pests and that product approval would become more organised. “The Ministry of Agriculture will do the coordinating, the governance and the transparency,” she said. A long list of organisations and specialist bodies disagreed. The project will bring “serious losses to the protection of human health,” wrote Ronald dos Santos, president of the National Health Council, part of the Ministry of Health. Federal Prosecutors said much of it was unconstitutional and popular TV chef Bela Gil turned up to a commission session to protest, waving a “poison package” placard. In a letter to Brazil’s Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes, United Nations Special Rapporteurs John H. Knox, Hilal Elver, Baskut Tuncak, Dainius Puras and Léo Heller described Brazil as “reportedly the largest consumer and importer of pesticides in the world”. The country already lets foreign companies exploit its lower standards of protection, they said, “exporting hazardous pesticides prohibited from use in their domestic markets to be used in Brazil.” Under Brazil’s current legislation, pesticides with elements considered teratogenic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, endocrine disruptive, or posing risks to the reproductive system can’t be registered, they said. But under the bill, hazardous pesticides will only be prohibited when there is a “scientifically established unacceptable risk” – a definition too vague to be effective. Greenpeace attacked lawmakers for approving the bill in the face of such wide opposition. “They want a toxic product to look less threatening,” said Marcio Astrini, Greenpeace Brazil’s public policy coordinator. “The toxic garbage being banned in the rest of the planet will be sold here.” | ['world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'environment/pesticides', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dom-phillips', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-06-26T03:07:42Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2009/nov/22/britain-loses-jobs-as-nuclear-building-programme-contract-goes-to-america | Britain poised to lose jobs as £10bn nuclear power plant contract goes to US | Thousands of jobs that were to have been created in Britain to build the next generation of nuclear power plants could be heading overseas instead, after Westinghouse, the nuclear company sold by the government three years ago to Toshiba, chose one of its largest shareholders as the lead contractor to build reactors. Westinghouse is expected to confirm this week that it has appointed US-based Shaw Group to head up its £10bn nuclear programme, passing over the favourite for the contract, rival engineering group Fluor. Industry sources said that Shaw is likely to source far more reactor components from overseas than Fluor, which has close relationships with British manufacturers. The Unite union claimed that 10,000 new jobs in the UK would not be created as a result of Shaw being selected. Shaw was one of the main contractors to build Total's controversial Lindsey refinery and made 51 workers there redundant this year, which sparked a series of wildcat walk-outs around the country over the use of foreign labour. British-based manufacturers such as BAE Systems and Rolls Royce are also understood to be concerned that lucrative contracts to make reactor modules could be lost to Shaw's manufacturing bases in the US and Belgium. A spokesman for Westinghouse in the US confirmed that Shaw had been appointed but claimed that "up to 80%" of the components would be sourced from the UK. He admitted that this was not finalised as none of the supplier contracts had been signed. He added that Shaw had teamed up with British construction firm Laing O'Rourke for the bid, but the firm will not be involved in providing any of the high specification reactor components. Japanese firm Toshiba owns 77% of Westinghouse, with 20% owned by Shaw Group. Westinghouse is hoping to secure contracts to build at least four of its AP1000 reactors with E.ON and RWE npower, who have formed a nuclear joint venture in the UK, soon after Christmas. Dougie Rooney, Unite's national energy officer, said: "The implications are massive. With Fluor, there is a far greater opportunity to get UK companies involved. Shaw has no allegiance to the UK and it's wrong that a company with an equity share should be involved in the competition." It was also claimed by several industry sources that Westinghouse had initially recommended to Toshiba that Fluor be appointed, but that the parent company insisted that Shaw be chosen instead. A Westinghouse spokesman in the US said that Shaw and Westinghouse already had a partnership to build reactors in the Middle East and the US. "It was a decision made in conjunction with a number of parties, including our parent company Toshiba," he said. "It's our intention to use British labour as much as possible." Rival French reactor firm Areva is building the rest of the UK's reactors, on behalf of EDF Energy, and has only promised to allow British firms to bid for up to 70% of the supply contracts. Business secretary Lord Mandelson has drawn up a "low-carbon industrial strategy" to enable British manufacturers and workers to benefit from the country's huge construction programme of less polluting power plants such as wind farms and nuclear reactors. Mandelson has also repeatedly spoken of the need for the government to demonstrate "industrial activism", or a willingness to intervene on behalf of key sectors of the economy. But British manufacturers in the power sector have so far yet to benefit. The closure of the Vestas wind turbine plant in the Isle of Wight became totemic of the UK's inability to develop its own renewables industry. Unions are now anxious that manufacturers could similarly miss out on the opportunities from plans to build at least 10 new reactors in the UK. | ['business/construction', 'business/manufacturing-sector', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'politics/tradeunions', 'business/baesystems', 'business/rollsroycegroup', 'tone/news', 'politics/peter-mandelson', 'business/energy-industry', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-11-22T15:19:00Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2019/oct/22/exxonmobil-trial-climate-crisis-allegations-misleading-investors- | ExxonMobil faces trial over allegations of misleading investors on climate crisis | ExxonMobil is to face trial in New York City on Tuesday, accused of misleading investors over the business risks caused by regulations aimed at addressing the climate crisis. The oil and gas giant has been taken to court by New York’s attorney general for allegedly covering up the costs it will incur from government rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This represents just the second time a climate case has gone to trial in the US. Exxon has long been a target for environmentalists, not only for being a major contributor to the climate crisis but also over revelations that it knew for decades that burning oil and gas would dangerously heat up the planet, only to obfuscate and even deny this to the public. A slew of lawsuits across the US have sought to hold major oil companies to account over the climate crisis. The New York case is different in nature as it essentially revolves around investor fraud. From 2010, Exxon told the public it had assigned a price to carbon to account for how government regulation would affect its business. However, it privately used a much lower figure, allowing it to make carbon-heavy investments such as in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, that would appear much less profitable otherwise. The lawsuit, now led by the New York attorney general, Leticia James, alleges Exxon ran a “longstanding fraudulent scheme”. “Exxon in effect erected a Potemkin village to create the illusion that it had fully considered the risks of future climate change regulation and had factored those risks into its business operations,” the lawsuit states. “As a result of Exxon’s fraud, the company was exposed to far greater risk from climate change regulations than investors were led to believe.” Exxon has said the allegations are false and it expects to be exonerated in court. An Exxon spokesman said that it properly applies two different metrics – a “proxy cost”, intended to reflect the impact of all climate policies on global demand, and a greenhouse gas cost which relates to actual levies placed on fossil fuel projects in a certain jurisdiction. “The New York attorney general’s case is misleading and deliberately misrepresents a process we use to ensure company investments take into account the impact of current and potential climate-related regulations,” the spokesman said. “ExxonMobil applies proxy costs and GHG costs precisely as disclosed and takes both into account to help make sound business decisions and meet its fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders.” James declined the opportunity to comment further, although her office wrote to the court in August to complain that Exxon was trying to discourage potential witnesses by swamping them with demands for documents. “I do think this is an extremely important case in that it focuses on the climate risks posed to Exxon through its own accounting processes,” said Michael Burger, a climate law expert at Columbia University. “The lawsuit is seeking to ensure this company and others are on notice that climate change matters materially for business purposes, as it should.” Exxon is one of just 20 fossil fuel companies responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era, Guardian-commissioned data has found. The Texas-based company has contributed nearly 42bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since 1965. | ['business/exxonmobil', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/oil', 'environment/energy', 'business/oil', 'business/business', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2019-10-22T16:02:07Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2019/sep/20/enough-biggest-ever-climate-protest-uk | 'Enough is enough’: biggest-ever climate protest sweeps UK | From the small sun-drenched Inner Hebridean island of Iona to the packed streets of central London, parents and grandparents, children and trade unionists have stepped out of their Friday routines to tell their political leaders time is running out to tackle the climate crisis. Organisers said it was the biggest-ever environmental protest the UK had seen, with 300,000-350,000 taking part, including more than 100,000 people in London and tens of thousands more in towns and cities from Edinburgh to Bristol, Leeds to Brighton, Bedford to Cambridge. There were more than 200 demonstrations across the UK. Jake Woodier, who campaigns for the Student Climate Network, which co-organised the event, said it marked a turning point in the fight to tackle the climate crisis. “Millions of people across the globe, and hundreds of thousands across the UK, have sent a clear message about the need for urgent climate action,” he said from the protest in central London. “The people have spoken and said enough is enough ... We need an ambitious Green New Deal to tackle the climate crisis head on and deliver a world that works for everyone.” In London, young people – who have been protesting in growing numbers on Fridays this year – were joined by trade unionists, politicians, and two generations of antecedents. Mariana Clayton, 41, was with her two-year-old daughter, Albe, in Parliament Square. She said: “I am so fearful for the future. I feel totally powerless – but here, together we have a chance to get our voice heard and force action.” Emma Beresford, 14, was with her younger brother, Archie, and their mother, Anna. She said: “I went on the march for a people’s vote for Brexit but climate change is an even more urgent and pressing issue than anything else.” Jeremy Corbyn and Green MP Caroline Lucas addressed the crowd in London, with the Labour leader promising a “green industrial revolution” – a version of the Green New Deal – to tackle the climate crisis and create hundreds of thousands of well paid unionised jobs. However, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, struck a different note earlier in the day when he said the cause – which he said he supported – did not warrant missing school. That advice was ignored by hundreds of thousands of people across the UK. In Edinburgh, a huge crowd marched from the Meadows, down the Royal Mile to the Scottish parliament. They were clapped and cheered by onlookers, saluted by a bagpiper and entertained by a percussion drummer and jazz bands. Chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go!” filled the streets of the Scottish capital along with tens of thousands of people, bearing banners that were both funny and dark: “33.2C in Scotland. Time to panic!”, “Sea levels are rising. So are we!”, “You’ll die of old age. I’ll die of climate change.” Ruby, 10, and Dougie, seven, have been ahead of the shift in public opinion. They were inspired by Greta Thunberg to start striking outside the Scottish parliament on a cold day in January. “There was only me and my brother there and the police. The next week there was one more, and eventually loads of people, and now there is this,” Ruby said, gesturing to the vast procession that stretched back as far as the eye could see. “I’m happy and proud.” Her younger brother said the demonstration was “absolutely amazing”. The seven-year-old was among those due to give a speech outside the Scottish legislature. His message to politicians was straightforward: “They are trying their hardest but they need to try lots harder.” In Manchester the square outside the city’s grand central library was taken over by a sea of people carrying homemade placards and demanding change. The city’s mayor, Andy Burnham, received a warm applause at the protest when he gave a speech pledging that “fracking is the past, it is not the future” – but by far the biggest cheers went to a 10-year-old girl called Lillia who took to the stage next. The local schoolgirl gave a rousing speech that took aim at politicians for their “lies”, before turning directly to Burnham. She said: “Lies, when you don’t count the airport in the emission figures! Lies, when we have 1,200 air pollution-related deaths in Manchester just last year – but they plan to build a huge car park right next door to a school in Ancoats.” Elsewhere, in Birmingham demonstrators staged a die-in outside the BBC offices in the city to protest at what they said was inadequate coverage of the climate crisis. Similar actions were staged at an Oxford University open day for prospective students and by 3,000 Cambridge residents in King’s Parade in the city. One of those taking part in the Oxford protest, Ell Ludlow, said: “We are doing this because we feel like a world leading university should lead on climate. Oxford is not doing that at the moment and so we want them to act now.” In Iona, a few dozen members of the island community supported local children from the primary school in a climate strike “in the centre of the island, near the jetty”. Sarah Macdonald, an island resident and member of the Oran Creative Crafts cooperative, said: “In our small island community, we see shorelines eroding and changing; the gales that hit our exposed wee island are growing more frequent. “Most importantly, we see that the island’s children care deeply about this issue. We have to support them, speak out with them for their future. And we have to do it now.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/activism', 'world/world', 'uk/edinburgh', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'uk/manchester', 'uk/greater-manchester', 'politics/andyburnham', 'politics/politics', 'society/youngpeople', 'world/protest', 'society/society', 'uk/wales', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-09-20T16:50:36Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
sport/2023/jun/12/ecb-cricket-colin-graves-yorkshire-azeem-rafiq-racism | ECB criticises Colin Graves for calling racism at Yorkshire ‘banter’ | The England and Wales Cricket board has criticised comments from the former Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves in which he referred to incidents of racism at the club as “banter”. The club has admitted four charges issued by the ECB in relation to their handling of allegations of racism and bullying made by their former player Azeem Rafiq and faces a sanctions hearing on 27 June. One of the charges the club admitted is a failure to address a systemic use of racist and or discriminatory language over a prolonged period. In an interview, however, Graves said no racism allegations were raised to him when he was chairman between 2012 and 2015. The ECB said it was disappointed by the remarks, adding: “We must never again hear the accounts like Azeem Rafiq’s, where racist slurs are used as part of normalised language. “These events, along with many issues experienced by Azeem and others during their time at Yorkshire, have been upheld more than once, including during proceedings overseen by the Cricket Discipline Committee (CDC). “We vehemently disagree that this is ‘just banter’ and believe any debate in regard should stop immediately. Racism isn’t banter.” On Sky Sports News on Monday, Graves said: “I think there have been odd occasions where words have been said that people may regret afterwards. “I don’t think it was done on a racist, savage basis. I think there was a lot of – I know people don’t like the word banter – but I think there could have been a lot of banter in there about it, and I know people don’t like that. “But when you play cricket and you’re part of cricket teams, and you’re in cricket dressing rooms, that’s what happened in the past. But the world has changed, society has changed, it’s not acceptable. I understand that, I accept it, full stop.” On the allegations of racism, Graves, who withdrew his application to return as Yorkshire chairman last week, said: “When I was chairman of the club, when some of these allegations were made, I can tell you now, nothing was brought up within the club.” Six former Yorkshire players were sanctioned last month over the use of racist and or discriminatory language. A seventh – the former England captain Michael Vaughan – was cleared of using such language. | ['sport/yorkshire', 'sport/ecb', 'sport/azeem-rafiq', 'world/race', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/guardian-sport', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-06-12T16:34:49Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2010/jun/25/name-a-species-philorhizus-quadrisignatus | Philorhizus quadrisignatus, a four-spotted ground beetle | Description Small, brown, with a distinctive four-spotted pattern on the wing cases, as reflected in its Latin name. Habitat Philorhizus quadrisignatus is found very locally in broad-leafed and pasture woodland. It occurs either on trees, under bark, or among dead twigs, branches and litter on slightly damp ground. Ecology A predatory beetle that lives among dead branches and twigs and also under bark. Status The species is considered to have experienced a 63% decline over 40 years. The detailed picture is even worse with single records in 1978, 1986 and 1987 and no recordings since. Despite this there is optimism that the species still survives in British woodlands and parklands but targeted survey work is required to establish its current status. Wider countryside measures to conserve functional broadleaved woodlands and pasture woodlands should benefit this species. Distribution Sherwood forest and Bushey park, London have records from the late 1970s to mid 1980s. • Name the other species by clicking on the links on the right-hand side or the previous and next buttons at the top of the page | ['environment/series/name-a-species', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/insects', 'environment/environment', 'science/taxonomy', 'science/zoology', 'science/science', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/environmenteditor'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-06-25T08:00:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2024/feb/22/bleaching-fears-along-1000km-stretch-of-the-great-barrier-reef | Bleaching fears along 1,000km stretch of the Great Barrier Reef | Scientists are reporting corals are bleaching white and dying from rising ocean temperatures across a more than 1,000km stretch of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science were preparing on Thursday to carry out surveys from a helicopter across the southern section of the reef. Guardian Australia heard reports of bleaching at Lizard Island in the north and at Heron Island in the south – a distance of more than 1,100km (740 miles) along the Queensland coast. The reef has been through six previous mass bleaching events caused by global heating where rising ocean heat has turned corals white across large sections of the reef. The latest event, in 2022, was the first to occur in a usually cooler La Niña year. The authority has not declared a mass bleaching event for 2024 and said it would wait for further monitoring and the helicopter survey before deciding if reef-wide surveys were needed. Global heating is the biggest threat to the world’s coral reefs, including the health of the world’s biggest coral reef system. Corals lose the algae that give them their colour and much of their nutrients if water temperatures climb too high. In extreme cases, bleaching can kill corals. Scientists say corals that survive bleaching and regain their colour tend to be more susceptible to disease and do not reproduce as well. Dr Maya Srinivasan, a scientist at James Cook University’s centre for tropical water and aquatic ecosystem research, surveyed 27 sites with colleagues at the Keppel islands off Rockhampton in the past two weeks. Most sites had bleached corals. “I saw some dead and some dying corals that were starting to become overgrown by algae,” she said. “But the majority are still alive so there’s still a chance they will recover.” Dr Anne Hoggett is director of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island research station off far north Queensland – an area badly hit by bleaching in 2016. She said over the last four years corals had regularly bleached but cooler weather conditions had come along “in the nick of time”. “It’s happening again, but now it has progressed further than it has in the last few years,” she said. “We have a lot of corals that are flourescing [another sign of heat stress in some corals] and some are pure white. Today we noticed some coral death. They’re now beginning to die. “We are desperately hoping for a change [in the weather] but the forecast is not looking good.” Hillary Smith, a senior research scientist at James Cook University, is monitoring areas of Magnetic Island, off Townsville, where researchers are seeing if the removal of seaweed can help reefs rebound. At one site at Arthur Bay, she said Cyclone Kirrily that struck this year had destroyed most of the corals “and close to 90% of the survivors are bleached or diseased”, she said. Another nearby site at Florence Bay had fared much better. The Guardian also heard reports of bleaching at the University of Queensland’s Heron Island research station near Gladstone. Corals across the reef flat and to a depth of five metres on the reef slope were bleaching. A spokesperson for Aims said scientists from the institute and the park authority would carry out helicopter surveys across the southern region in the next two days. “This information will help inform our decision on whether to conduct large scale aerial surveys across the reef.” Aims was monitoring temperatures from satellites, underwater gliders, marine weather stations and sensors on research vessels. The spokesperson added: “Aims teams have spent substantial time in the water since the beginning of the year conducting routine and additional field surveys. We have reports of bleaching, ranging in severity, across a range of reefs. “These observations align with patterns we’d expect to see from the accumulation of heat stress over the past couple of months.” The marine park authority said it would take time to assess how reefs and corals were responding to heat stress and how prevalent bleaching was. Its statement said: “While we have preliminary reports of coral bleaching from all regions of the marine park of varying severity, a more comprehensive assessment needs to take place before we categorise what is occurring.” | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/coral', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'environment/oceans', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-02-22T14:00:23Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2014/mar/24/little-britain-heart-peak-district | Country diary: Little Britain in the Peak District | Fed up with a near gale on Burbage Edge, I dropped into the shelter of the valley below and on a whim decided to explore the coniferous plantation that fills it. This is the dead heart of Burbage, a dull green plaque on the ever-changing face of heather and bracken moor. The trees, a mixture of Scots and lodge-pole pine and larch, cover 83 acres and were planted in the late 60s. No one quite knows why, not even Sheffield city council, which paid the bill, but there was no money to thin the saplings and so the under-storey became a gloomy mass of rotting timber and pine needles. Nor is anyone sure why the plantation was laid out in the shape of Britain. You can see it easily on a map or satellite photos. Cornwall and Devon, intended to fill the hillside under the stumpy summit of Carl Wark, a rocky promontory, soon died off, leaving England somewhat truncated. Soon the whole island will be cut down and replanted with oak and birch. I entered from the north, near "Thurso". The packed lodge-poles were shivery and wretched, as you might expect for trees native to California; many, torn from the thin soil by the wind, lay propped against neighbours, allowing sunlight to conjure patches of vibrant moss from dead ground. Charred remains of fires and broken bottles littered clearings. There were shelters, mostly half collapsed, but one quite grand, with green boughs for a roof and a neat fireplace out front, a bendy for a postmodern Robin Hood. Nearby, a dragon's head was carved into a boulder. Moving south into "England", progress slowed. The fallen trees were more numerous and larger. Apart from a single chaffinch, the only chirrups and squeaks came from trees rubbing against each other. I was relieved to reach the south coast and the moor beyond, where a wren greeted my success and two pipits took to the air. | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/forests', 'travel/peakdistrict', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/eddouglas', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-03-24T21:00:01Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2007/aug/20/climatechange.activists | Last climate activists quit Heathrow camp | The last remaining climate change activists left Heathrow airport today claiming victory at the end of a six-day demonstration, while campaigners took action at other sites across the country. The final, defiant 50 protesters were escorted away from their camp by police to the beat of drums. A spokesman said: "We have accomplished what we wanted to accomplish and now we're leaving." As the Heathrow protest wound down, campaigners linked to the climate camp blockaded the main entrance to Sizewell B nuclear power station in Suffolk this morning. BP and a carbon offsetting company were also targeted. Outside the headquarters of Heathrow operator BAA, staff arriving for work were handed fliers in a largely good-natured protest. However, riot police were called in when several campaigners tried to bar one employee, believed to be a senior executive, from entering the building. Legal observers for the campaigners took notes and at least one man was pushed to the ground in the scuffles. A group of protesters lined up against riot officers for 10 minutes, demanding to speak to BAA about its role in "devastating climate change". The police line was later ordered to stand down amid chants of "power to the people". One of the protesters, Isabelle Michel, said the past 24 hours had been "a great victory". She said: "The main thing is that we've done everything that we said we would. I think there is a real sense of joy and pride that we have done that and that none of us have become what some people were trying to make us. "There has been no disruption to passengers and the BAA offices are blockaded and we have done that peacefully." Another campaigner stressed the solidarity shown by local residents, some of whom are threatened by the airport's proposed expansion. "The support we have had from local people in Sipson has been fantastic – they've been bringing us cups of tea and food - and that felt amazing to have that solidarity," he said. A spokeswoman for BAA said employees had been getting to work as normal this morning, with some using other offices and others walking past protest lines. Elsewhere, five people blockaded the main gate at Sizewell B nuclear power station just before 8am by locking their arms inside concrete barrels. At the central London headquarters of BP, seven protesters superglued themselves to the building in an attempt to block two entrances. Six police officers backed up paramedics as they used solvents to free the glued hands of the protesters, who were then arrested. A spokesman for the Heathrow protest said: "This is not just about Heathrow, and this week there will be other direct action events about climate change. "BP supplies a lot of the fuel used at Heathrow and nuclear power is not the way forward - we have to cut back on energy consumption." BP claimed the action had not disrupted the headquarters, and declined to comment on the company's position on climate change. In Oxford, campaigners from the Plane Stupid group handed over a parcel of herring - to symbolise a red herring - to senior staff at the carbon offset company Climate Care. Joss Garman, from Plane Stupid, said: "We're doing it because Climate Care are misleading the public, making them believe that carbon offsetting does some good. It's like being a member of the RSPCA then going home and kicking a dog." The offices of the CarbonNeutral company in King's Cross, London, were surrounded by protesters handing out leaflets while dressed as red herrings. One of the campaigners, Sophie Nathan, said they wanted to spread the message that carbon emissons needed to be cut rather than offset by projects that might "make a fast buck out of the ethical consumer". "We deeply believe you should be getting on a bike instead of getting in a car and thinking about whether you need a foreign holiday," she said. A CarbonNeutral spokeswoman said the company was on the "same side" as the protesters. "We do understand why they're protesting, we just think they picked the wrong people to protest against," the spokeswoman said. | ['environment/climate-camp', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/activism', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'travel/heathrow', 'world/protest', 'uk/transport', 'type/article', 'profile/fredattewill'] | environment/climate-camp | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2007-08-20T16:52:06Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/blog/2010/jan/20/lord-hunt-nuclear | Live Q&A: Lord Hunt on nuclear power | What does a new generation of nuclear reactors mean for Britain? That's the question we'll be asking on Thursday 21 January when Lord Philip Hunt, minister of state at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, joins us from 12-1pm to answer your questions on new nuclear power. Writing in the Guardian last October, Hunt said: "A nuclear renaissance in the UK presents a tremendous opportunity. It has the potential to supply us with substantial amounts of home-grown, low-carbon, reliable and relatively cheap energy." But how just how much new nuclear power does the UK need, where should the reactors be built, and how should we deal with problems of waste and public subsidy? Ten sites have been chosen for new reactors: Sizewell, Suffolk; Hartlepool, Cleveland; Heysham, Lancashire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Braystones, Cumbria; Kirksanton, Cumbria; Wylfa Peninsula, Anglesey; Oldbury, Gloucestershire; Hinkley Point, Somerset, and Bradwell, Essex. And the government wants to hear what you think about those sites - it's undertaking a consultation on nuclear sites that closes on 22 February. Whatever you want to ask about nuclear power in the UK, just post your question below and Hunt will be here between 12 and 1pm on 21 January to answer as many of your questions as possible. Please note anything not about nuclear power in the UK will be marked as off-topic. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'environment/energy', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'tone/blog', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2010-01-20T17:09:27Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2023/aug/20/canada-wildfires-thousands-told-to-flee-in-british-columbia-as-drone-flying-tourists-criticised | Canada wildfires: thousands told to flee in British Columbia, as drone-flying tourists criticised | Officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia have implored tens of thousands of residents to heed warnings and evacuate from areas threatened by “severe and fast-changing” wildfires, and urged “irresponsible” wildfire tourists to stop flying drones in the area. “We cannot stress strongly enough how critical it is to follow evacuation orders when they are issued,” Bowinn Ma, the province’s minister of emergency management, said on Saturday. “They are a matter of life and death not only for the people in those properties, but also for the first responders who will often go back to try to implore people to leave.” The situation in large parts of the scenic Okanagan Valley, including the city of Kelowna, was “highly dynamic”, Ma said. About 30,000 people were under evacuation orders while another 36,000 were under alert to be ready to flee, she said. Wildfire tourists and drone operators were urged to stay away to allow emergency crews to operate safely. “Drones are a significant hazard to our air crews fighting fires,” British Columbia’s minister of forests, Bruce Ralston, said on Saturday. “Now is not the time to take the footage of photos of active wildfires. Not only is it irresponsible, but it is illegal to fly them in fire areas.” Some tourists have posted their wildfires experiences on social media and there are images of people lining up to see forest fires. Ralston also asked people to stay clear of lakes that water bombers are using to refill water to douse fires. When asked about her concerns about “fire sighting”, Ma said: “I don’t know if that’s actually a real term … but what we absolutely cannot have on our roads is people ... take photographs, getting out of their cars, visiting communities where there is high wildfires activities, getting in the way of crews.” Drones could ground aircraft involved in crucial firefighting missions, Ma said. Kelowna, a city of 150,000, was choked with thick smoke as it became the latest population center hit in a summer of dramatic wildfires across Canada that has left millions of acres scorched. Some 3,400 workers are involved in firefighting in British Columbia, western Canada. “The current situation is grim,” the premier, David Eby, told reporters on Saturday. Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season, with official estimates of more than 14m hectares (34.6m acres) already burned – roughly the size of Greece and almost twice the area of the last record of 7.3m hectares. Four people have died so far. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said he had spoken to Eby about the “rapidly evolving and incredibly devastating wildfire situation” and pledged federal resources in responding to the disaster. Blazes further north in the Northwest Territories, meanwhile, have prompted the evacuation of regional capital Yellowknife, leaving the remote city of some 20,000 largely a ghost town. Its health minister, Julie Green, said on Saturday one of 39 hospital patients evacuated from Stanton territorial hospital had died during the journey on Friday. The death had been “expected”, she said. Winds have been fanning the wildfires towards Yellowknife, but Saturday saw some relief after overnight rain brought a sharp dip in temperatures. However, city officials warned the warmer temperatures would return on Sunday. Shane Thompson, the province’s environment minister, said on Saturday evening it was not safe to return to Yellowknife yet because the fires were burning deep in the forest and were still active and huge. Since the evacuation was ordered on Wednesday, more than 19,000 people have fled by road or air, with about 1,000 essential staff remaining in the area. Firefighting crews were remaining to erect defenses from the flames, while water bombers have been seen flying low over the city, with the Canadian military also helping out. Tony Whitford, a former commissioner for the Northwest Territories and a longtime resident of Yellowknife, arrived in the city of Calgary on one of the first flights out and gave the evacuation high marks. “My compliments to them all,” Whitford, who is 82 and wheelchair-bound, said of the organizers. “It’s so complex – 20,000 people – it’s incredible. It went smoothly.” Several towns and Indigenous communities were evacuated earlier. The exodus from Yellowknife means half the population of the near-Arctic territory has been displaced. The ongoing fires had caused “terrible loss”, Trudeau told reporters after meeting Yellowknife evacuees on Friday as they arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, with no idea when they may return home. Martha Kanatsiak, who has lived in Yellowknife for 28 years, arrived late on Friday in Calgary. “I’m OK, but I feel sad and depressed and worried. I never saw something like this,” the 59-year-old Inuit retiree told AFP. Some 40 flights carrying about 3,500 passengers from Yellowknife have arrived in Calgary, said officials in the city, which has made nearly 500 hotel rooms available. In British Columbia, blazes have already destroyed several properties in West Kelowna. Among them is the Lake Okanagan Resort, according to local media, which is known for having hosted high-profile politicians such as British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Eby on Saturday announced an emergency order halting non-essential visits to the area. The order, which bans visitors from checking in at hotels and other temporary accommodation, covers Kelowna and the nearby towns of Kamloops, Oliver, Penticton and Vernon as well as Osoyoos near the US border. Ma added: “If you are currently in accommodations in these areas, we are asking you to voluntarily check out early and free up those spaces for evacuees and responders.” With Agence France-Presse and Reuters • This article was amended on 20 August 2023 to correct the first name of British Columbia’s premier; he is David Eby, not Daniel as an earlier version said. | ['world/canada-wildfires', 'world/canada', 'world/wildfires', 'world/americas', 'world/natural--disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-08-20T02:38:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/2018/jun/29/sheffield-council-reliant-on-police-for-tree-felling-report-finds | Sheffield council reliant on police for tree felling, report finds | A council involved in a controversial street tree-felling programme has become reliant on the police “to secure the performance of a commercial contract”, according to an independent report on the policing of protests surrounding the scheme. The report questioned why the cost of policing the programme could not be passed on to Sheffield city council (SCC) and its contractor Amey – accusing the local authority of “washing its hands of the issue”. The council, which paused the programme in April following a series of high-profile arrests involving middle aged women with recorders and plastic trumpets, said it welcomed the report and hoped to reach a compromise with protesters before work restarted. The report was commissioned by South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner, Alan Billings, to examine one criticism – “namely, the reliance of SCC on policing to secure the performance of a commercial contract” . Its author, Andrew Lockley, found the criticism to be “well founded”. Referring to one protest observed by his panel, he said: “It will have appeared to those attending that SCC had simply washed its hands of the issue and left Amey to it.” Among a series of recommendations, Lockley called for a review into why the law forbids the police from passing on its costs when operating on public land. “It may be asked why the cost of policing the protests is not re-charged to SCC and Amey. The answer is that the law does not allow it,” he wrote, adding: “In an age in which private organisations carry out public functions for commercial gain, it is unclear in policy terms why the cost of policing, which facilitates the performance of a commercial contract, should come at nil cost to the contractor.” The long-running Sheffield trees dispute surrounds a 25-year, £2.2bn private finance initiative agreement the council signed with Amey in 2012 for road maintenance, which includes responsibility for maintaining the city’s 36,000 street trees. Around 6,000 trees have been felled so far and campaigners say the contract threatens a total of 17,500 – a figure disputed by the council. The felling is currently paused after a series of incidents saw 25 protesters arrested between January and March. The report documents how police activity increased in February following an incident in Meersbrook Park Road in January during which a security guard’s wrist was broken. The policing of the tree-felling first hit the national headlines in November 2016 when residents of a suburban street were woken by officers at 5am and two pensioners were arrested in an operation described by former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg as being more like a well-planned anti-terror raid than a morning of tree maintenance. The report, published on Thursday, called this “a poor judgment call” which the force has learned from. Lewis Dagnall, the council’s new lead for environment, said: “As we’re currently reconsidering how to move forward with tree replacement work, we welcome today’s report as an opportunity to reflect and learn lessons from previous experience. “It’s our sincere hope that achieving a compromise will mean further police involvement proves unnecessary when work recommences.” | ['uk/police', 'uk/uk', 'uk/sheffield', 'society/localgovernment', 'politics/politics', 'society/society', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/helenpidd', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-06-29T11:21:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/aug/13/moderate-tories-join-greens-to-call-for-fossil-fuel-car-ban-by-2030 | Moderate Tories join greens to call for fossil fuel car ban by 2030 | A group of moderate Conservative MPs has joined green groups in calling for the government’s ban on new fossil fuel vehicles to be brought forward by five years to 2030 as part of a plan to ignite a green economic recovery. The recently reformed caucus of centrist Conservatives has called on ministers to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles as part of a comprehensive green policy report aimed at bringing the UK in line with the official advice of the government’s climate tsars. The One Nation group of about 100 Conservative MPs, or a third of the parliamentary party, formed in opposition to a hardline no-deal Brexit under Theresa May and relaunched late last month in a bid to steer Boris Johnson away from the hard right of the party. Jerome Mayhew MP, the lead author of the report, said the caucus supports the prime minister’s ambition to “build back greener” in the wake of pandemic and rejects “the anti-capitalist assertion” that economic growth is incompatible with tackling the climate crisis. “Offshore wind, electric vehicles, carbon capture and other clean technologies have the potential to create millions of jobs, attract private investment and grow UK exports,” he said. “Economic growth and innovation go hand in hand, and by investing in green skills, jobs, and technologies we can support an accelerated recovery of our economy and our environment,” he added. The rollout of electric vehicles is a key pillar of the government’s plans for cutting carbon emissions to virtually zero by 2050 to end the UK’s contribution to the climate crisis. Sales of electric vehicles are climbing quickly but official figures show they still accounted for only 2% of new car registrations last year. In February the government launched a consultation on whether to ban all cars with internal combustion engines by 2035. The group’s 25-point plan to kickstart a green economic recovery calls for the government to mandate electric vehicle charging points as standard in new homes, and help support greater private investment in electric vehicle supply chains. The report from the One Nation MPs also calls for the government to boost green homes, cycle lanes and jobs training for the low-carbon economy and includes a greenhouse gas removal strategy. Mayhew suggested using overarching fiscal measures including an economy-wide carbon tax combined with a “carbon border tax” on imported manufactured goods to raise funds for the green infrastructure projects. One Nation member Anthony Browne MP, the former chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, said the fresh funds should be channelled not only to reducing energy demand and using cleaner sources to help remove greenhouse gases which are already in the atmosphere. By using carbon capture technology and the planting of 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of trees a year, more than six times the the government’s existing target, the UK should be able to capture and store 10m tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030, he said. The report calls for the government to set out a clear greenhouse gas removal strategy, which brings together carbon capture, tree planting and soil improvements to set out how it can contribute to the target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. “We have the opportunity to reboot our economy and create jobs, by accelerating the rollout of clean and resilient infrastructure and stimulating low-carbon industries across the UK,” Mayhew said. “A clear majority of the public supports this agenda too.” The latest report from the One National Conservatives follows previous reports published in recent weeks on spurring an economic recovery and boosting social mobility. | ['environment/paris-climate-agreement', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'business/automotive-industry', 'environment/carbon-capture-and-storage', 'business/business', 'politics/conservatives', 'uk/uk', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'politics/politics', 'environment/electric-cars', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2020-08-13T05:00:45Z | true | EMISSIONS |
sustainable-business/2015/jan/21/wealth-trap-davos-climate-change | Why Davos must shake off the shackles of wealth and entitlement | In Davos, Switzerland, the elite will not put up with anything other than perfect ski slopes – even if the climate change they are helping to create is stopping nature from doing the task herself. The World Economic Forum kicks off today surrounded by mountain slopes that owe some of their beautiful whiteness to 380 massive snow canons that have spent months pumping out hundreds of millions of litres of cold water mixed with air. It’s a powerful metaphor. As Florian Grimm, the local head of snow management, told a colleague recently: “Today nobody would accept stones any more, or spots of grass in spring. They just want to have white from the top to the valley, and they know we have a system to do this.” Despite all the talk, the wealthy elite gathered in Davos gain too much status, wealth and power from the maintenance of our destructive economic system to spearhead its transformation. I was discussing this issue yesterday with Nick Robins, co-director of UNEP’s inquiry into a sustainable finance system. He says the snow canons are a perfect analogy for the state of mind of political and business leaders – which is to prop up the existing system for as long as possible. That, of course, cannot succeed because denial hastens the very collapse they seek to avoid. We need a new way of thinking and we need it fast. “Creating man-made snow to keep the ski slopes open is what reactive adaptation looks like in reality,” says Robins. “Clearly we are going to need to work much more creatively to respond to the sustainability challenges rushing towards us and get to the root of the problem.” I also spoke to climate expert Jorgen Randers, co-author of the seminal 1972 report Limits to Growth, who worries about the lack of creative thinking at the gathering of powerful global leaders. “I am afraid the results will be limited, because Davos – for ideological reasons – tends to constrain itself to actions that are profitable from a business point of view. What is needed to solve the climate problem is a strong state which can put in place solutions that are not profitable, nor cost effective when using conventional measures.” This is not to decry the successes of the World Economic Forum, which Dominic Waughrey, WEF’s head of public-private partnerships, highlighted this week. It also is not to suggest that the business leaders attending Davos are bad people. They are not, and the more progressive leaders deserve respect for their attempts to bring about change. But most have been seduced by their lofty position in society: their wealth insulates them from the consequences of their actions. Perhaps we should coin a new phrase, “the prosperity trap”, for it is psychologically as debilitating in its own way as the poverty trap (although such a comparison in everyday life would be grotesque). For this reason, Davos, the winter playground of the rich, is perhaps one of the worst places in the world to bring together global leaders – because there is not the merest hint of the poverty suffered by billions of people. Without emotional connections, these leaders – the vast majority of whom are men – will use their intellectual prowess to find solutions with little attention trickling down to the greatest agent of change: our hearts. Tim Haywood, group finance director of Interserve, a multinational support service and construction company based in the UK, recently described how he woke up to the need to take action on sustainability only after his daughter repeatedly voiced her concerns. If only more children of the elite would shake off the shackles of entitlement and take the battle to limit climate change and social injustice to the breakfast table. Rather than only looking for solutions, it would also be a good idea for Davos delegates to start asking better questions. At a recent gathering of sustainability experts, someone took the disruptive step during a break of refashioning the scores of sticky notes highlighting upcoming specialist sessions into the words “we don’t know”. As Davos convened for 2015, Adriaan Kamp, founder of Energy For One World, said: “We need a revolution. We need to instil a new spirit in our companies, society and economies. Our present constellation of leadership and status quo simply won’t do. They have failed. The elite can’t change the elite. So the better question to ask ourselves is how we, the professionals in business and society, can organise ourselves differently to clean up this mess? How can we organise for true success and a true new growth?” Taking time to ponder questions such as these may be the most important activity this week in Davos. The answers that will emerge over time will help determine the world we live in. Thomas Mann, who visited Davos in the early 20th century, marvelled in his novel The Magic Mountain at “the towering marble statuary of the high Alps in full snow”. As the participants in Davos roll up their sleeves up and get to work, let them hold that image in their mind and recognise how important it is that those born in the 22nd century are able to witness such extraordinary majesty and get a taste of heaven on earth. This year’s Davos coverage is funded by The B Team. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “brought to you by”. Find out more here. | ['sustainable-business/series/davos-2015', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'business/economics', 'business/business', 'business/davos', 'business/davos-2015', 'tone/comment', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/corporate-governance', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'type/article', 'profile/joconfino'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-01-21T07:00:02Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2019/feb/21/teachers-to-join-climate-protests-to-demand-curriculum-reform | Teachers to join climate protests to demand curriculum reform | Teachers will follow on the heels of striking students on Friday with a protest to demand the national curriculum be reformed to make the climate and ecological crisis an educational priority. The Extinction Rebellion group will support the demonstration outside the Department for Education, which organisers describe as a “peaceful nonviolent protest that may involve civil disobedience”. It is intended as a show of solidarity for pupils who skipped classes last Friday to express their frustration at the failure of older generations to adequately address climate change. Organisers said more than 10,000 young people in at least 60 towns and cities in the UK joined the strike. More would be likely to follow, they said, if the government did not live up to a Paris climate agreement promise to enhance climate change education. Instead, they say, there is currently no requirement for children to be taught about the climate crisis so it is treated, at best, as a peripheral subtopic of subjects like geography and science. They are also unhappy that part of the curriculum appears to cast doubt on the evidence for man-made climate change, even though governments, the UN and the overwhelming majority of scientists accept that it is happening. Government guidelines for key stage 4 chemistry say pupils should be taught “evidence, and uncertainties in evidence, for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change”. Tim Jones, a secondary school teacher from Lewisham, said students in the state system could easily go through 11 years of compulsory education and hear climate change mentioned in fewer than 10 lessons out of approximately 10,000. Given the scale of the crisis, he believes this is “negligent”. “Climate and ecological breakdown will define the life of every child and student alive today. They and we are facing an unimaginable catastrophe. But when I tell my students, it’s hard for them to take me seriously when it plays almost no part in the content of their education,” he said. Earlier this month, the group Teachers for Climate Truth wrote to the DfE to request an overhaul of the current curriculum to prepare children for a future that will be shaped by ecological and climate crisis “When we have had the evidence for decades, why does it amount to little more than a footnote in our national curriculum – a vague and marginal concern?” asks the letter. “If we keep this information out of the public domain – out of schools, for example – perhaps we might avoid some awkward conversations in the years to come … after all, who wants to tell a child that, unless we make unprecedented changes to how we live, we are heading for societal collapse, famine, war and the increasing likelihood of human extinction?” The picture is not black and white. There is considerable scope for schools and teachers to go beyond guidelines. The government said the current curriculum already included many related issues including classes on seasonal changes, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, eco-systems, the composition of the atmosphere and the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate. “Children are very engaged, otherwise they would not be joining protests. That shows they are obviously being taught quite well,” said a government official. The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has criticised the young strikers. “Missing class won’t do a thing to help the environment; all they will do is create extra work for teachers,” he said. Friday’s demonstration is expected to draw between 100 and 200 teachers and academics, most of whom are on half-term holiday. Organisers are also in talks with unions to discuss how to increase support during the next global youth climate strike on 15 March, with possibilities ranging from a walkout by teachers to the setting of homework on climate topics. Extinction Rebellion will also offer workshops for students. Elsewhere, the stakes are growing. In Australia – which has seen waves of school walkouts in recent months – the New South Wales education minister, Rob Stokes, warned students and teachers that they will be punished if they skip classes to join a global climate rally on 15 March. The initiator of the school strike movement, Greta Thunberg, responded with a defiant tweet. “OK. We hear you. And we don’t care. Your statement belongs in a museum.” Last week, 200 academics expressed support for the youth activists in an open letter on the Guardian. Among the signatories was Alison Green, a doctor of psychology who resigned from her position as pro-vice chancellor of Arden University so that she could concentrate on climate activism. She will join the protest on Friday. “It’s incredibly brave for schoolchildren to confront what must be a terrifying prospect; that the future they hope for isn’t available to them,” she said. “We’ve been humbled that children have gone on strike despite threats of detentions and other punishments. We should at least match their courage.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'uk/uk', 'education/schools', 'education/education', 'environment/environment', 'education/department-for-education', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-02-21T07:00:08Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/earth-insight/2013/jul/02/nuclear-energy-crunch-uranium-peak-blackouts | The coming nuclear energy crunch | Nafeez Ahmed | As the British and American governments signal their renewed commitments to nuclear power as a clean, abundant source of energy that can fuel high growth economies, a new scientific study of worldwide uranium production warns of an imminent supply gap that will result in spiralling fuel costs in the next decades. The study, based on an analysis of global deposit depletion profiles from past and present uranium mining, forecasts a global uranium mining peak of approximately 58 kilotonnes (kton) by 2015, declining gradually to 54 ktons by 2025, after which production would drop more steeply to at most 41 ktons around 2030. The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, concludes: "This amount will not be sufficient to fuel the existing and planned nuclear power plants during the next 10–20 years. In fact, we find that it will be difficult to avoid supply shortages even under a slow 1%/ year worldwide nuclear energy phase-out scenario up to 2025. We thus suggest that a worldwide nuclear energy phase-out is in order." But just last week, in response to dire warnings of power blackouts within two years - the same time uranium production will peak according to this study - the UK government announced £10 billion in financial guarantees to the nuclear power industry. Now Energy Secretary Ed Davey promises, "Prices aren't going to spike: the lights are going to stay on because we've got a very well thought-through plan." The decision reinforces the government's focus on nuclear power as central to its national energy strategy. According to the government's high-nuclear scenario, nuclear power could provide 86% of the UK's electricity at 75GW of capacity by 2050. The new study acknowledges the dawn of a new production period in the last five years, during which a total of 250 ktons or uranium has been produced, but points out that increasingly producers must extract lower grade uranium which generates less energy than higher grades. On average, it finds, only 50-70% of initial uranium resource estimates can be extracted. Developing a model based on precise data about extraction rates and deposits for individual mines in Canada and Australia, the study concludes that planned new mines can only "partially compensate" a production decline from all mines currently in operation: "After 2015 uranium mining will decline by about 0.5 ktons/year up to 2025 and much faster thereafter... Assuming that the demand side will be increased by 1% annually, we predict both shortages of uranium and (inflation-adjusted) price hikes within the next five years." The study suggests that one way to delay the uranium supply crunch until 2025 would be a carefully coordinated "voluntary nuclear energy phase-out." Another alternative would be to open up access to "the still sizable quantities of the military uranium reserves from the USA and Russia especially after 2013." If countries do not voluntarily adopt a "slow phase-out scenario": "... we predict that the end of the cheap uranium supply will result in a chaotic phase-out scenario with price explosions, supply shortages and possible electricity shortages in many countries." Study author Dr. Michael Dittmar, a nuclear physicist at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, described the nuclear component of the UK's energy strategy to keep the national electric grid going even during the next 10 years as "effectively non-existent." The US, China, and India all plan to dramatically ramp up nuclear power production in coming decades, but like the UK, their energy strategies completely overlook potential uranium supply challenges. Dittmar pointed out that an agreement with Russia supplying the US with 50% of its uranium supply from Russian military reserves ends later this year. The US will either have to "reduce its aging nuclear power plants or to open American military reserves" which will only last "a few years." China faces similar challenges: "The euphoric growth of new nuclear power plant construction in China came to somewhat of a standstill since 2011. Compared to the years 2008 to 2010 when construction began for 6, 9 and 10 reactors, during the last years 2011, 2012 and 2013 so far only four new constructions were started in 2012. Nuclear plant construction in China was already running out of steam well before the Fukushima disaster." Dittmar said that such developments are consistent with specific warnings of decline he made years ago. On the UK nuclear energy strategy, he added: "I would suggest to ask the question how much uranium is required during the next 10 years , and where the uranium for the UK should come from during the next 10-20 years. The absence of an answer will already be telling enough." Putting this question to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), a spokesperson said that he could not supply an answer because the information was "commercially sensitive", and that the way the question was worded made it "technically impossible to answer." He then said: "Operation of nuclear power stations is the responsibility of the industry operators who will have their own strategies and processes for sourcing fuel. The majority of the UK fleet is owned and operated by EDF." Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed | ['environment/earth-insight', 'environment/series/guardian-environment-blogs', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'money/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'type/article', 'profile/nafeez-ahmed'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2013-07-02T05:56:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2021/feb/11/weatherwatch-how-typhoons-in-korea-made-california-wildfires-worse | Weatherwatch: how typhoons in Korea made California wildfires worse | Last year California suffered its worst series of wildfires, including five of the most destructive six fires on record, all driven by unseasonal winds. New research suggests that the driving winds originated from an unexpected source: typhoons in Korea. The study highlights how events in one region can create a domino effect felt thousands of miles away. A paper by South Korean and American scientists in Geophysical Letters points the finger at three massive storms that hit the Korean peninsula in quick succession over August and September. The researchers say a single typhoon would have little effect, but the unusual combination of three of them over just 12 days was sufficient to perturb the jet stream. This resulted in an effect known as an atmospheric wave train, which crossed the Pacific and changed the pattern of air flow over North America. The net result in California was a zone with the lowest atmospheric pressures seen for 40 years, with correspondingly powerful and enduring winds. These winds literally fanned the flames, turning minor wildfires into major conflagrations. The researchers point to the implication of interconnected global weather systems: in future we are likely to see increasing numbers of extreme weather events, some of which may have impacts far beyond the region where they occur. | ['world/wildfires', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/japan', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-02-11T06:00:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
film/filmblog/2013/jan/04/the-impossible-beautifully-accurate-film | The Impossible is 'beautifully accurate', writes tsunami survivor | Simon Jenkins, 24, is from Portsmouth, works as a social media specialist at Red Rocket Media, and posts on Twitter as @simonjenkins09. He was present in Thailand during the 2004 tsunami, his experiences mirroring those portrayed in the film The Impossible. When the Guardian's David Cox wrote about the film this week, highlighting its "whitewashing" of events (as did Alex von Tunzelmann's Reel History blog), Simon took issue with some of the points raised, posting them in this comment. We asked him to expand. I must admit that when I heard a film about the Asian tsunami was being made, I was hesitant about going to see it. I was on holiday in Khao Lak, Thailand, in 2004 with a group of friends and their families staying in some shoreline villas. When the first wave struck on Boxing Day, I was little more than 20 metres from the sea and was rapidly swept inland, propelled by the force and strength of the water. My girlfriend and I decided to go and see the film on its release date. Since the tsunami, I've never been hesitant to talk about it, or describe it to someone who asks, and was not therefore worried that it would unearth some suppressed memories. I had no real expectations about the film, but walked out of the cinema with an overriding sense of satisfaction. I was so pleased that The Impossible had been made. The story depicted in the movie was incredibly similar to my own. Both myself and the characters in The Impossible (based on Maria Belon and her family) were on the same beach and ended up in the same hospital (alongside many other, smaller similarities that I won't go into now). Furthermore, the detail portrayed throughout the entire film was simply mind-blowing, even down to the chairs used in the hospital scenes. Those close to me will know that I've never been one to reflect or reminisce over the events of 2004. Not for any emotional reasons – purely because for me (and this is very personal) nothing can be achieved from clinging on to these thoughts. I immediately took to social networking sites and began engaging with the film's director, JA Bayona, and various members of his crew. I just wanted to give thanks. Had I seen the film and thought: "It wasn't like that at all," I wouldn't have acted. As a result of these conversations, I began reading various reviews and opinion pieces online. As I must reiterate, I've never been the sort of person to revisit and analyse events of the past, but some of these articles frustrated me. Had this film been purely about the tale of a western middle-class family's "ruined" holiday then I would have agreed. For me, it was the exact opposite. Rather than concentrating on the "privileged white visitors", the film portrayed the profound sense of community and unity that I experienced in Thailand, with this family at the centre of it. Both for my (then) 16-year-old self and the Belon family, it was the Thai people who waded through the settled water after the first wave had struck to help individuals and families. There is immense subtext that goes with this. The Thai people had just lost everything – homes, businesses, families – yet their instinct was to help the tourists. This sentiment was also shown in the hospital, wherein about 60% of the film is based. The portrayal of the medical staff at Takua Pa hospital was also amazingly accurate. Their reactions to the event saved thousands of lives, including several of my friends' and my own. Aside from the native people of Thailand, The Impossible also showed how other communities came together in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. There are several wonderfully poignant instances throughout. I won't ruin these precious moments of the film. To put it bluntly, my parents (back in the UK) began to assume I was dead after footage emerging from south-east Asia began to show the true devastation of the natural disaster. It was not until I asked a man from Belgium if I could borrow his phone that my parents realised I was OK. These gestures, both in real life and in the film, may appear small to the viewer – but they should not be overlooked. Indeed, Bayona and his crew realised the true significance of these seemingly small gestures. I emailed the cast and crew of The Impossible earlier this week, thanking them for making such a beautifully accurate film. This should never be a case of race; it is a case of sensitively retelling one story from a disaster. | ['film/filmblog', 'film/actionandadventure', 'film/film', 'culture/culture', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/tsunamis', 'world/world', 'tone/blog', 'film/the-impossible', 'type/article'] | world/tsunamis | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-01-04T16:27:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2022/mar/03/tasmania-records-driest-summer-in-40-years-as-la-nina-swings-the-wind-around | Tasmania records driest summer in 40 years as La Niña ‘swings the wind around’ | While Queensland and New South Wales have been hit with historic rainfall and floods, Tasmania has endured its driest summer in 40 years. The island state’s west and south-west – both sparsely populated and typically wet – recorded their lowest levels of rainfall on record, the Bureau of Meteorology said. This meant that across the state it was driest summer since 1980-81, and the fourth driest since records began more than a century ago. Total rainfall was 43% below the long-term average. Parts of the south-west had between 200mm and 400mm less rain than they normally would in summer. This was consistent with projections of changed rainfall across the state due to rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions. A major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published this week found that global heating was expected to lead to more winter rain in Tasmania but a reduction in summer rain in the state’s west. Anna Forrest, a meteorologist with the bureau, said the impact of the La Niña weather pattern that has helped drive the extraordinary rain further north was likely to have played a role in reducing the amount of rain in Tasmania. During a La Niña event, strong trade winds blow west across the Pacific Ocean, pushing warm surface water towards Asia and the seas north of Australia. The warmer waters lead to increased rainfall across northern and eastern Australia but play a different role further south. “The predominant wind direction for Tasmania is westerly but this summer we’ve had a lot of easterly winds,” Forrest said. “It is highly unusual but that is the impact a La Niña has on Tasmania’s climate. It basically swings the wind around.” The Tasmanian dry spell coincided with one of the state’s hottest summers on record. The mean temperature across days and nights was 1.3C higher than average, making it the fifth warmest summer since records began. The average maximum day time temperature was 1.7C above the long-term average. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Across the country, it was the 17th warmest summer on record. It was 0.73C above the long-term average measured across the years 1961 to 1990, but cooler than some recent summers, reflecting La Niña’s impact. Summer rainfall was close to average for Australia as a whole. The IPCC last year reported that human activities were unequivocally heating the planet, affecting weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe and helping to cause increased heatwaves, heavier rainfall events and more intense droughts and tropical cyclones. In Australia it found that average temperatures above land had already increased by about 1.4C since 1910. Annual changes in temperature were now above what could be expected from natural variation in all regions across the continent. A scientific review has concluded that the frequency of El Niño, which is associated with higher temperatures in eastern Australia, and La Niña events were expected to increase under business-as-usual scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. | ['australia-news/tasmania', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'environment/la-nina', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/ipcc', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2022-03-03T04:29:49Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2005/aug/31/usa.naturaldisasters1 | Death toll rises amid the devastation | Hundreds of people were feared to have died in Hurricane Katrina as more bodies washed up in US Gulf coast cities yesterday in the aftermath one of the worst natural disasters America has faced in decades. President George Bush will cut short his holiday and return to Washington today to oversee recovery efforts in a region overwhelmed by floodwaters that have sent tens of thousands fleeing and left millions without power. In New Orleans, those who survived the initial impact of the hurricane faced new dangers yesterday as its dykes gave way under the pressure of the storm surge. With flood water reaching the eaves of some three-storey houses, rescue workers in boats and helicopters struggled to reach hundreds of victim trapped on roofs. Others were reported trapped in their attics across a city that is 70% below sea-level. There were no official estimates for casualties, but officials were thought to be preparing for the possibility of hundreds of fatalities. New Orleans officials moved the city administration out of town, and prepared to evacuate tens of thousands of people who had taken refuge in a sports stadium and in other shelters. The hurricane's impact was quickly felt further afield. Oil prices surged to record highs above $70 a barrel as the market quailed at the prospect of supply disruptions in the Mexican Gulf. Insurers were flinching at a clear-up cost estimated at $26bn, which would make Katrina the most expensive disaster in US history. "Right now, our priority is on saving lives, and we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations," Mr Bush said. "We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not possible at this moment." Many homes in New Orleans were submerged by the surge of floodwater brought on by the storm. The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, said bodies were floating in high waters that covered most of the city. "The city of New Orleans is in a state of devastation," he said on local television. "We probably have 80% of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet [6 metres]. We still have many of our residents on roofs. Both airports are under water." On Canal Street, looters waded through hip-deep water and ripped open the steel gates on the front of clothing and jewellery stores. "The looting is out of control. The French quarter has been attacked," said Jackie Clarkson, a New Orleans councillor. In Biloxi, on the Mississippi Gulf coast, hundreds were feared dead after a 30-foot (9 metre) wave surged through the city. Waterfront casinos were torn open, and the beach was littered with steel girders. Dazed residents foraged for food and water and sniffer dogs were brought in to help find the dead. "It was like our tsunami,"said Vincent Creel, the city spokesman. Asked how many people had died, he said: "It's going to be in the hundreds." A Biloxi man, Harvey Jackson, told a local television station, WKRG-TV, that he feared his wife had been killed when she was ripped from his grasp after their home had been split in half by the storm. "I held her hand as tight as I could," he said. "She told me, 'You can't hold me.' She told me to take care of the kids and the grandkids ... we ain't got nowhere to go. I'm lost. That's all I had." In neighbouring Hancock county, 35 people were missing after an emergency operations centre flooded. Across the Gulf coast, thousands of national guardsmen, some recently returned from Iraq, were mobilised to help with the search-and-rescue operation and to combat looting. Rigorous evacuation procedures meant that the human cost of the storm was unlikely to top Hurricane Camille in 1969, which took 256 lives, let alone the Galveston storm of 1900, which killed more than 6,000 people, the worst natural disaster in US history. However, Katrina could well become the most expensive storm the US has had to clean up, as it laid waste to much of the recent development along the Gulf coast. The region's oil production accounts for a fifth of the nation's needs. Two offshore oil rigs broke free of their moorings, and one hit a bridge in Mobile, Alabama. Katrina was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved north into Tennessee and Kentucky but it continued to wreak havoc, spawning at least seven tornadoes in its wake, and emptying heavy rain into the Mississippi. The flooding river was certain to worsen the problems in the Mississippi Delta and in New Orleans. More than 5 million people were left without electricity in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and in Florida, where Katrina first struck land last week. | ['world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/jamiewilson', 'profile/julianborger'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-08-31T12:59:07Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2019/jan/02/north-atlantic-right-whales-canadian-waters | No North Atlantic right whales killed in Canadian waters in 2018 | No North Atlantic right whales were killed in Canadian waters last year – a rare glimmer of hope for officials working to protect one of the world’s most endangered species. While the government protection measures appear to be working, the outlook for the whales remains bleak: only 411 are believed to remain worldwide, with fewer females giving birth than in previous years. The urgency in deploying environmental protections comes after a catastrophic 12 right whales were killed in Canadian waters in 2017 – the deadliest year on record for the species. Most of the deaths were the result of collisions with marine vessels. Rope entanglements from fishing boats were also suspected in two deaths. Another six were killed in American waters. Sweeping measures introduced last year by Canada’s government include a 100-meter buffer zone between the whales and boats, fishing closures and vessel slowdowns. Violations of the rules can run steep: fines range from C$100,000 ($73,000) to C$500,000 ($366,543) – with repeat offenders facing potential jail time. Large boats, including cruise ships, are required to slow their speed down to 10 knots in protection zones, reducing the risk of colliding with whales. The new limits have prompted some cruise ship companies to modify itineraries and bypass the region. The government has also implemented dynamic fishing closures, meaning fishermen must quickly pull up any traps, lines and ropes if whales are spotted in the area. The habitat range of right whales has become increasingly erratic and unpredictable, making it difficult to anticipate which areas are in need of closure. In recent years, right whales have become a common sight in the Gulf Saint Lawrence – Canada’s busy shipping thoroughfare – setting the stage for deadly interactions with marine traffic. The strict rules have frustrated both the fishing industry and residents in the Quebec and Newfoundland. Over the summer, Nadia Minassian, the prefect for the town of Rocher-Percé in Quebec, called the rules “draconian and uncompromising”. Fishing groups have argued the regulations are too broad and are in need of further refinement. While the government has acknowledged the protections have affected local economies, the rules are likely to remain in place for 2019. Adam Burns, the director-general of fisheries management at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, told the Canadian Press in the summer: “These measures have a real impact on fish harvesters, processors and communities in Atlantic Canada; however the long-term economic risks of not adequately protecting North Atlantic right whales is greater.” | ['world/canada', 'world/americas', 'environment/whales', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/leyland-cecco', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-01-02T18:14:41Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2022/aug/02/emma-thompson-greenwashing-climate-catastrophe-activism-fossil-fuel-advertising-sponsorship | Greenwashing is driving our descent into climate catastrophe. But we can stop it | Emma Thompson | Gondola trips are a traditional part of visiting Venice for those who can afford the steep tourist prices, but I went a little off-script on a recent visit and chose a different, but equally iconic, vessel. We Are Here Venice, an NGO that promotes the safeguarding of a city deeply affected by climate breakdown and countless human-made activities, invited me on board the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior, the purpose of whose visit was anything but touristic. I have taken part in two Arctic tours with Greenpeace: one on the Esperanza (now defunct, not my fault!) and another on the Arctic Sunrise. I had previously sailed with two of the crew who are now on the Rainbow Warrior, and there they still were, fighting for climate justice around the world. A couple of weeks ago, as Britain beat not only its own all-time temperature record, but Cuba’s, Singapore’s and Panama’s, there were still people shouting that it was all perfectly normal and just an ordinary sunny day. What sort of fantasy world do these people live in, and who built it for them? My trip to Venice helped me answer this question. I didn’t know it when I arrived, but Greenpeace activists were about to stage a protest that involved moving through the canals of the lagoon city on traditional boats, while carrying the logos of major European oil and gas firms that use greenwashing – marketing techniques that try to convince us they are environmentally friendly when the opposite is true : they want to keep us hooked on fossil fuels. This is killing the planet. The activists ironically announced it as the Last Tour of Venice, as the city is at risk of submersion due to climate impacts in the Mediterranean region, like the ones we’ve been recently witnessing with record-breaking heatwaves and wildfires raging across the region. Last October, Greenpeace and another 30 organisations launched a European citizens’ initiative calling for a new law banning fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship in the EU, similar to what happened with tobacco at the beginning of this century. If the petition collects a million signatures in a year, the European Commission is obliged to respond. Why is such a law important? Now, with widespread public support for climate action and the scientific community unreservedly pointing at the fossil fuel industry as largely responsible for the climate crisis, the oil and gas firms, which have for decades purposely slowed climate action, are at their most vulnerable. The industry is clinging on to advertising and sponsorship as one of the last ways of staying afloat. “Delay and deceive” is the new denial. Fossil fuel companies are pumping millions into greenwashing while making meaningless net zero promises and introducing false “solutions”, in order to gloss over their decades of destruction. They are falsely painting themselves as allies and extending the deadline of their obsolete business. Scientists have had enough. For the first time, this year an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report exposed the disinformation strategy by saying: “Who dominates the debate on media, and how open the debate can be, varies significantly across countries based on participants’ material and technological power. Fossil fuel industries have unique access to mainstream media via advertisements, shaping narratives of media reports and exerting political influence in countries like Australia and the US.” More than 450 scientists also signed a letter calling on PR and advertising agencies to stop working with fossil fuel firms and stop spreading climate disinformation. This is the first time so many scientists have called out the role of PR and advertising in fuelling the climate crisis. Oil and gas companies buy prestige by sponsoring museums, influencing the sphere of knowledge by putting money into universities, and gaining popularity when their logos are associated with sport. They invest a lot in buying a social licence to continue with business as usual by creeping into our everyday lives and disguising the damage. We need to urgently kick them out of our brains, hearts and communities. In the last year, thanks to relentless grassroots work, Harvard University said it would phase out its fossil fuel holdings. In the UK, the National Portrait Gallery and Scottish Ballet confirmed they wouldn’t do further sponsorship deals with BP. Tennis Australia has dropped gas firm Santos as a partner. At the beginning of this century the EU banned tobacco advertising and sponsorship after it was recognised they increased consumption and hid health warnings. Now, with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate breakdown and its indisputable link to fossil fuel companies, it is time to ban fossil fuel propaganda for being deadly and criminal, and driving us inexorably towards climate catastrophe. Activism works. Together we can tell people in power how we want to live, and what must change. Emma Thompson is an actor and activist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'world/world', 'world/venice', 'media/advertising', 'media/media', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/emma-thompson2', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2022-08-02T11:00:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
us-news/2017/sep/10/company-town-film-arkansas-koch-brothers | Company Town: 'quiet tragedy' of an Arkansas community vs the Kochs | The documentary Company Town opened in New York City on Friday night, for a short run at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. Introducing a sold-out screening, New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman said co-directors Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian had captured one of the “quiet tragedies that are taking place all across America all the time”. The film tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas, a small town dominated by a huge Georgia-Pacific paper mill owned by the Koch brothers, Charles and David, hugely influential Republican donors with a deeply contentious – activists would say appalling – record on the environment. People who live in Crossett blame the mill for the heedless dumping of cancer-causing chemicals they say pollutes drinking water and shortens already straitened lives. “This is a story that never gets told,” Schneiderman said, “and it takes tremendous commitment to get to the quiet tragedies that are taking place all across America all the time. “The environmental movement really has not done as good a job perhaps as we should have done carrying the essential message that people who are poor and without power are always on the front lines of pollution and environmental justice.” Kottke-Masocco, who describes herself as “a documentary film-maker and an activist”, went to Crossett in 2011 to work on a section of Koch Brothers Exposed, a film by Robert Greenwald. Learning of attempts by local pastor David Bouie to hold the Kochs and Georgia-Pacific to account, she stayed on the story. With Cheryl Slavant, a local environmental activist and “riverkeeper”, Bouie is a key presence in the resulting movie. In some of the film’s most striking passages, Kottke-Masocco and Sardarian show officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) floundering in the face of impassioned pleas from locals, inertia from state government and Georgia-Pacific and the Kochs’ predictable refusal to engage. Company Town was alarming enough when it premiered at the LA film festival in June 2016. In November, Donald Trump was elected president. In office, he appointed former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA. Federal environmental regulations have come under withering assault from within. “It’s made the film more urgent,” Kottke-Masocco told the Guardian. “It’s made the story more urgent, it’s made Crossett’s issue more important and urgent. We actually scrambled the last two months and updated the title cards in the film to make them more significant. “We want people to understand the gravity of Trump taking office because the EPA is threatened more than ever under Scott Pruitt, a man who as Oklahoma attorney general sued the EPA 14 times … this is a person who has a total neglect for the environment and for public health and is now in charge of protecting our citizens. So Crossett is more important than ever.” Schneiderman has pursued the president on fronts including the Trump University fraud case, which was settled for $25m; a lawsuit by 15 states over the decision to rescind protection against deportation for young undocumented migrants; and reported co-ordination with special counsel Robert Mueller in the investigation into links between Trump aides and Russia. The story of Crossett has been reported in depth by Newsweek, the New Yorker and other outlets, to whom Georgia-Pacific and Koch Industries have issued strongly worded denials. Company Town has received positive reviews by the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter. Schneiderman said the film showed what can happen when people with “no power, no money”, like Bouie, Slavant and the whistleblower Dickie Guice, a former Georgia-Pacific safety co-ordinator, range themselves “against the most malevolent, powerful forces in our country … with the courage to stand up and step up”. “To those who say, ‘Oh my goodness, things are so difficult right now,’” he said, “I’ll say that when you see these people, we can all keep going. “The filmmakers have, and I say this as a state law enforcement official, captured the way the rich and powerful bend government to their will. And the film sends a powerful message, that we need our state actors to stand up, particularly these days if the federal government is not going to do its job. The state actors are critical. “The federal government depends on the states, you see in the movie the EPA is very dependent on states to enforce the law. The [federal government] can’t enforce their laws, we see this in the sanctuary city fight, they can’t enforce their immigration laws without state and local government. “So this is an incredible story of courage and of wrongdoing but also a story about how we need to take our government back and our country back.” Company Town plays at Cinema Village, New York City, to Thursday. For more information on future showings, visit the film’s website | ['us-news/koch-brothers', 'environment/pollution', 'us-news/arkansas', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-politics', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/new-york', 'film/film', 'film/documentary', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'us-news/paul-manafort', 'profile/martin-pengelly', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-09-10T13:03:13Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2012/nov/28/us-coastal-cities-sea-level-rise | US coastal cities in danger as sea levels rise faster than expected, study warns | Sea-level rise is occurring much faster than scientists expected – exposing millions more Americans to the destructive floods produced by future Sandy-like storms, new research suggests. Satellite measurements over the last two decades found global sea levels rising 60% faster than the computer projections issued only a few years ago by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The faster sea-level rise means the authorities will have to take even more ambitious measures to protect low-lying population centres – such as New York City, Los Angeles or Jacksonville, Florida – or risk exposing millions more people to a destructive combination of storm surges on top of sea-level rise, scientists said. Scientists earlier this year found sea-level rise had already doubled the annual risk of historic flooding across a widespread area of the United States. The latest research, published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters, found global sea-levels rising at a rate of 3.2mm a year, compared to the best estimates by the IPCC of 2mm a year, or 60% faster. Researchers used satellite data to measure sea-level rise from 1993-2011. Satellites are much more accurate than tide gauges, the study said. The scientists said they had ruled out other non-climatic causes for the rise in water levels – and that their study demonstrated that researchers had under-estimated the effects of climate change. "Generally people are coming around to the opinion that this is going to be far worse than the IPCC projections indicate," said Grant Foster, a US-based mathematician who worked on the paper with German climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf. The implications are serious – especially for coastal areas of the US. Large portions of America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts are regarded as "hotspots" for sea-level rise, with water levels increasing at twice the rate of most other places on the planet. Scientists previously had expected a global sea-level rise of 1m by the end of the century. "But I would say that if you took a poll among the real experts these days probably they would say that a more realistic figure would be more than that," Foster said. "The study indicates that this is going to be as bad or worse than the worst case scenarios of the IPCC so whatever you were planning from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod in terms of how you were preparing for sea-level rise – if you thought you had enough defences in place, you probably need more," Foster said. A study published last March by Climate Central found sea-level rise due to global warming had already doubled the risk of extreme flood events – so-called once in a century floods – for dozens of locations up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It singled out the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego on the Pacific coast and Jacksonville, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia, on the Atlantic, as the most vulnerable to historic flooding due to sea-level rise. Sandy, which produced a 9ft storm surge at Battery Park in New York City, produced one example of the dangerous combination of storm surges and rising sea level. In New York, each additional foot of water puts up to 100,000 additional people at risk, according to a map published with the study. But tens of millions of people are potentially at risk across the country. The same report noted that more than half of the population, in some 285 US cities and towns, lived less than 1m above the high tide mark. "In some places it takes only a few inches of sea-level rise to convert a once in a century storm to a once in a decade storm," said Ben Strauss, who directs the sea-level rise programme at Climate Central. Large swathes of the mid-Atlantic coast, from Virginia through New Jersey, also faced elevated risk of severe flooding, because of climate change, he said. | ['environment/sea-level', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/coastlines', 'environment/flooding', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/new-york', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-11-28T00:01:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/mar/11/pollutionwatch-toxic-air-shortens-lives-by-20-months | Pollutionwatch: toxic air shortens lives by 20 months | Children will have their lives shortened by an average of a year and eight months from breathing polluted air, according to two new reports from the State of Global Air initiative. In some of the worst-affected countries, babies born today will, on average, lose more than three years of life unless air pollution improves. Air pollution was the fourth leading cause of death around the globe in 2019, at about 7 million early deaths. This is more than those from more well-known risks including smoking, malaria and poor hygiene. The worst-affected countries face the double challenge of poor outdoor air pollution and breathing smoke from household cooking and heating. India dominates the list of cities that have particle pollution more than 20 times the new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Rawalpindi in Pakistan also features, along with Cairo in Egypt and Kampala in Uganda. Data on Africa is sparse and the picture is incomplete. Dr Maria Neira, the WHO director for public health, environmental and social determinants of health, said: “These horrible numbers call for an ambitious, quick and bold action. The burning of fossil fuels is killing us, causing millions of premature deaths every year through air pollutants, costing the global economy billions of dollars annually, and fuelling the climate crisis. “Let’s fuel a healthy and green recovery instead by committing to 100% green stimulus spending and an end to all fossil fuel subsidies, while also ensuring energy access for all. In cities we need less cars and congestion, and more public transport powered by sustainable, clean energy. And very important, governments need to commit to the WHO’s new air quality guidelines.” Is this modern-day air pollution the worst that humanity has experienced? Although air pollution measurements only began about 100 years ago, we can estimate air pollution from early measurements of electrical properties of the atmosphere. Data from near Hyde Park from about 1790 suggests London’s particle pollution then was about half that in the most polluted cities in today’s India. By the late 1800s air pollution at the Kew Observatory on the edge of London was similar to the worst Indian cities today, though pollution in Paris was less than half this value. But even the worst cities in India today cannot match the UK’s air pollution in the 1920s when first routine measurements of particle pollution began. Central London was twice as polluted as contemporary Indian cities, and industrial Stoke-on-Trent was more than four times worse. At this time the UK was home to 44 million people. Today about 400 million people are exposed to the poor air in north India’s Ganges basin, making it a far larger air pollution crisis. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-03-11T06:00:24Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2023/aug/16/urban-trees-axe-champions-nature | Salute the tree saved from the axe because people showed they loved it. That’s the fighting spirit we need | Alys Fowler | There is a bent Scots pine on my cycle route into town that makes me smile every time I pass it. It is bent in an improbable manner, like it didn’t get the memo that street trees are mostly straight and restrained in their demeanour. It leans over the cycle path with one of its huge limbs stretching out horizontally before righting itself, like a seat for a giant. On a very ordinary stretch of road, it is an unexpected character. Surrounded by boring box units and universal architecture, where every city feels more or less similar, it is urban trees like this that bring identity to our world through colour, sound and seasonal change. This year, they are finally being celebrated as the Woodland Trust prepares to name its tree of the year. In the running, a series of city dwellers: a black poplar on a housing estate in Manchester that has thrived as industrial manufacturing polluted the soil and air, a holm oak in Exeter that survived the blitz, a walnut in Perth that, with its eye-catching boughs, is doing an excellent job of concealing a shopping centre, to name just a few. The role of trees like these in concrete environments is often overlooked. A city without trees is a city without birds, without autumn leaves to crunch, without new green to welcome spring, without somewhere to climb, to hide, to lean, to kiss, to cry, to sleep, to make memories. There’s a growing body of evidence to show how time spent with trees improves our wellbeing, to say little of what services they provide for us, too. A mature urban tree with a big canopy provides immediate shade on a hot day, and shelter from the rain and the wind. Well-planted trees also greatly reduce the risks of flooding. Trees and hedges capture and temporarily hold pollutants, both physical particles and gaseous ones, too. Leaf size, texture and arrangement matter, and not all species are created equal. Rough, hairy and needle-like leaves, like those found on a pine, capture more pollutants and a wider range of particles than simpler, smoother leaves. Scale matters, too: a large belt of trees can significantly reduce pollution. In urban areas, sweeping rows of trees are hard to come by. But exciting new planting methods show that urban forests still have a vital role to play. The Miyawaki method mimics the dense natural regeneration of a forest, with trees planted extremely closely together to encourage much faster growth. If you’re near the Horniman Museum in south-east London, then you can see head gardener Errol Fernandes’ version: a 300 sq metre microforest acting as a greenscreen to block out the view of the busy south circular road. The right plant in the right place is important. Trees need to thrive, not just survive, and urban trees have to withstand a lot: poor soil, higher urban temperatures, being knocked and tugged at, being used as a bike stand, or a noticeboard, among many other things. But if you can get the right tree into the environment it will benefit wildlife, even if it just makes a perch for a passing bird. The older a tree gets, the more it has to offer, with more nooks and crannies to become places to sleep, rest or nest – not just for birds, but also for moths, spiders, beetles and all manner of other insects, and fungi and lichen, too. A mature tree can be a whole ecosystem in itself – especially important in the depleted natural environment of our cities. More than 80% of the UK population lives in a city or town, and some of these places have an impressive number of trees, but sadly all too often these trees are undervalued. They are seen as taking up too much space, blocking progress in building roads, housing or infrastructure. Another of the contenders for tree of the year is an elm in Sheffield that was destined to be felled by the local council in 2017, but was saved when a rare white-letter hairstreak butterfly was found laying its eggs on it. It is one of 1,000 remaining mature elm that have survived Dutch Elm disease, which has killed 60 million others across Britain. We need to continue to protect these champions – the venerable and handsome elders – but also those wily, scrappy, less-than-perfect ones, too, who are working just as hard for us. Together, they make the forest we need to thrive in our cities. One of the best ways to do this is to notice them, to get to know them, to introduce other people to your favourites. The white hairstreak might have protected that elm, but it was saved because people loved it. It is a reminder of all the other creatures – the more-than-human, with whom we share our environment – who consider these urban giants part of their home, too. Alys Fowler is a gardener and Guardian columnist | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/forests', 'environment/urban-wildlife', 'cities/urbanisation', 'environment/wildlife', 'cities/cities', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/alys-fowler', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-08-16T11:00:46Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
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