id stringlengths 16 182 | title stringlengths 6 152 | body stringlengths 284 6.92k | tags stringlengths 50 917 | extracted_from_tag stringclasses 177 values | category stringclasses 10 values | date stringdate 1998-09-29 21:43:09 2024-12-31 13:00:45 | use bool 1 class | label stringclasses 10 values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
technology/2017/oct/03/yahoo-says-all-of-its-3bn-accounts-were-affected-by-2013-hacking | Yahoo says all of its 3bn accounts were affected by 2013 hacking | Yahoo said on Tuesday that every one of its 3bn accounts was affected by a 2013 data theft at the tech company, tripling its earlier estimate of the largest breach in history. The company, now part of Verizon Communications, said last December that data from more than 1bn user accounts was compromised by hackers in August 2013. Yahoo included the finding in an update to its account security update page. The company said it will begin alerting accounts that were not previously notified of the attack. However, the company said the latest investigation indicated that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. “It is important to note that, in connection with Yahoo’s December 2016 announcement of the August 2013 theft, Yahoo took action to protect all accounts. The company required all users who had not changed their passwords since the time of the theft to do so. Yahoo also invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers so they cannot be used to access an account,” Yahoo said on Tuesday. The latest disclosure of the massive hack came on the same day that the former boss of credit agency Equifax was grilled in Congress over a breach in its systems that compromised the social security numbers, credit card details and other personal information of 145.5 million people. The hack has been a costly one for Yahoo and its executives. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s former chief executive, gave up her 2016 cash bonus following the incident and the company’s top lawyer, Ronald Bell, resigned in the wake of the hack and the other breaches. Some 43 consumer class-action lawsuits have been filed against the company, Yahoo said in a May filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Verizon in February lowered its original offer by $350m for Yahoo assets in the wake of two huge cyber-attacks at the internet company. The closing of the deal, which was first announced in July, had been delayed as the companies assessed the fallout from two data breaches that Yahoo disclosed last year. The company paid $4.48bn for Yahoo’s core business. A Yahoo official emphasized on Tuesday that the 3bn figure includes many accounts that were opened but never or only briefly used. | ['technology/yahoo', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/technology', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dominic-rushe', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-business'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-10-03T21:58:23Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2016/may/10/headlines-exaggerated-climate-link-to-sinking-of-pacific-islands | Headlines 'exaggerated' climate link to sinking of Pacific islands | Links between climate change and the sinking of five islands in the Pacific Ocean have been exaggerated, the author of a widely reported new study has said. The report, published on Friday, tracked the shapeshifting of 33 reef islands in the Solomon Islands between 1947 and 2014. It found that five had been washed away completely and six more had been severely eroded. The study blamed the loss on a combination of sea-level rise and high wave energy. Many media outlets, including the Guardian, jumped to the conclusion that the islands were lost to climate change. But this largely misinterprets the science, according to the study’s author, Dr Simon Albert. “All these headlines are certainly pushing things a bit towards the ‘climate change has made islands vanish’ angle. I would prefer slightly more moderate titles that focus on sea-level rise being the driver rather than simply ‘climate change’,” Albert told the Guardian. The major misunderstanding stems from the conflation of sea-level rise with climate change. As a scientifically robust and potentially destructive articulation of climate change, sea-level rise has become almost synonymous with the warming of the planet. However, as Albert’s paper points out, the ocean has been rising in the Solomon Islands at 7mm per year, more than double the global average. Since the 1990s, trade winds in the Pacific have been particularly intense. This has been driven partly by global warming and partly by climatic cycles - in particular the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. “These trade winds have basically pushed water up into western Pacific and have driven these exceptionally high rates of [sea-level rise] in the Solomons,” said Albert. “The trade winds are partly a natural cycle but also the recent intensification is related to atmospheric warming.” The proportion of the extra rise driven by climate change was not considered by Albert’s study. Areas of the Pacific where seas are rising at closer to the global average have not yet experienced the same loss of land as the Solomon Islands. A few studies, based on comparing aerial photos of islands from world war two with current satellite images, have thus far have been inconclusive. There is even a suggestion that atolls in the central Pacific are getting bigger. The loss of land in the Pacific is a totemic image of climate change. Residents of low-lying nations see incursions of the sea where it did not use to be and blame the burning of fossil fuels. This study shows that the issue is more complex than this. But it also contains a dire warning. By the second half of this century the sea-level rise across the Pacific will be close to the rate observed in the Solomon Islands in recent decades. Albert’s team also observed a disturbing trend of wave energy increasing along with local sea-level rise, meaning islands exposed to high seas were trounced into oblivion. In this respect, the drowning of these lands is a window into the future. For the first time, we can see clearly that the amount of sea-level rise we expect from climate change will overwhelm entire landscapes. “The key aspect I stand by is that these observations from the Solomons are a warning of things to come irrespective of if climate change alone caused it or a range of factors,” said Albert.It appears that in some cases journalists did not contact the researchers and instead quoted from a comment piece the authors wrote on The Conversation website. “This is the first scientific evidence,” said the authors, “that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people.” This was used to justify erroneous headlines. Albert told the Guardian: “I understand why these more dramatic titles are used and it does help bring attention to the issue that I firmly believe will become a major issue for the islands in the second half if this century from climate change.” | ['environment/series/eco-audit', 'environment/sea-level', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/solomonislands', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/karl-mathiesen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-05-10T12:50:23Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development/2016/jul/25/the-best-solution-move-the-mauritanian-capital-water-on-the-rise-in-nouakchott | 'The best solution? Move the Mauritanian capital': water on the rise in Nouakchott | Alex Duval Smith | The two events are not unrelated. As heads of state fly into Nouakchott’s new airport for the Arab League summit on Monday, Vieux Fall will be raising the roof – and the floor – of his family’s small compound. “The water table has risen more than usual this year. The toilets are overflowing. We are flooded again,” says the 36-year-old computer technician, standing in a shallow pool of water in his yellow-tiled courtyard. On the roof of the single-storey dwelling, a bricklayer is building a bedroom. In the street, another man is mixing cement. Downstairs, along all the walls, at a height of 70cm, Fall has drawn a line in blue pencil: the new level of the floor. Wedged between the advancing dunes of the Sahara and the rising Atlantic Ocean, the Mauritanian capital is a prisoner of climate change (pdf). Nouakchott has no mains drains. Much of the city is at or below sea level, protected from the ocean only by an eroding dune. In the past decade, local and international studies have warned that the city is in danger of being swallowed by the sea. Yet a frenzy of construction has preceded the summit, leading to fears of disastrous flooding when the rains come in August. “We are getting ready for the rain. We spend all our savings on masonry. It may seem like madness, but we cannot afford to move,” says Fall. He points out a tap, set in the wall just below knee height. “When I was a young man, it was level with my shoulder,’’ he says. “You see, we have raised the floor – and of course all the door frames – by about a metre in the past 15 years.” Fall shares the compound with his wife, his two children, his younger sister and his widowed mother. The family were allocated the property in the 1980s when Fall’s late father was a customs officer and the Socogim PS neighbourhood came into being as a leafy suburb for civil servants. “All the trees are dead. The water rising under Nouakchott is salty,” says Siré Camara, 48, the lucky occupant of the tallest building in Socogim PS – the two-storey culture centre he founded in 2006. From the roof, where he is building a third storey, he points out the skeletal trunks of the trees lining the roads. “The only patches of green are the tall reeds growing in the abandoned compounds, and in the primary school and dispensary that never reopened after flooding in 2013,” continues Camara. “The area is full of stinking ponds where people empty their waste water and throw their household waste. It is disgusting and unhealthy. We have dengue fever, which was completely unknown in Nouakchott before. The best solution would be to move the Mauritanian capital and start again. That is what would happen in a rich country.” Until 1960, Mauritania was not a mapped entity. Its French colonisers cared about the territory only as a sandy link between north Africa and present-day Senegal. Camel herders sipped green tea at a watering hole called Nouakchott (“the windy place”) with 200 residents and not enough annual rain to fill a thimble. Now Nouakchott has a population of 800,000, precipitation that registers on bar charts, drinking water piped from Senegal, but still no drains. Three years ago, so much rain fell on Mauritania during August and September that more than 2,000 people were left homeless. In the wake of the emergency, the German cooperation agency (GIZ) designed a network of ditches and pumping stations to evacuate surface water in areas like Socogim PS. Omnia Aboukorah-Voigt, GIZ project coordinator for climate change in Nouakchott, said: “I don’t think Nouakchott really needs a storm drain but it needs sanitation, better urban planning and management of the coastal zone. “We are talking about very few days of rain a year. But the number of rainy days is increasing and the problem is the large amount of rain that falls in a very short time. Given the fact that the ground water is really high, when it rains there is no place for the water to infiltrate the ground. The more you build – roads or buildings – the more you are laying a waterproof cover over parts of the city, which will lead to flooding elsewhere.” In Socogim PS, Camara says the pumps have been a disappointment. They have worked in the immediate run-up to the summit but previously they had not functioned, causing vast pools of stagnant water to build up. Hamzette Ould Amar, director general of the national water board said residents were to blame. “The problem is their behaviour. They throw solid waste in the canals. That creates huge problems for the pumps. We have now bought pumps with double the capacity – 120cm3 – and these will solve the problem.” He claimed a long-term solution – full sanitation – will be operational within three and a half years. However, residents and donors remain sceptical of the extent to which a much-vaunted government contract, signed with China last year, will result in a comprehensive drainage system for all residents of Nouakchott. | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/sanitation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/mauritania', 'world/africa', 'world/middleeast', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/alexduvalsmith', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2016-07-25T08:00:32Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2023/oct/12/shoplifting-facial-recognition-shops-police-surveillance-powers | Under cover of a shoplifting panic, the Tories are pushing through a shocking expansion of facial recognition | Akiko Hart | It would be hard to find a more stark illustration of the cost of living crisis than the fact that one in 10 young people say they have shoplifted to cope with rising costs. In one London borough, Calpol is the most shoplifted item. Elsewhere, parents say they are having to steal formula milk to feed their babies. These are startling statistics. But rather than offering families the support they need, the government is instead increasing the use of invasive facial recognition technology to track shoplifters. This feels like an attempt to criminalise poverty. Last month, Project Pegasus was launched. Ten of the country’s biggest retailers are planning to tackle the rise in shoplifting by handing over their CCTV images to the police, to be run through police databases using facial recognition technology. The plans have been fronted by the policing minister, Chris Philp, who also has his sights on setting up a national shoplifting database which can be used by police and retailers nationwide. Such a database could include the passport photos of 45 million adults in the country. This kind of facial recognition technology, which allows police forces to identify and track anyone they choose, regardless of suspicion, is already happening. Philp acknowledged a few weeks ago that all 45 police forces are currently using it. Types of this technology include “live facial recognition”, such as placing a camera on top of a police van that scans everybody who walks past in real time, and then running the images through a database of our “faceprints” – including images taken from social media accounts. It could be “operator-initiated”, which is when a police officer can scan anybody’s face using their phone and again run it through a database of our sensitive biometric data. Or it could be “retrospective”, where the technology can be used against pre-existing images, such as CCTV footage of literally anybody who entered a shop. Place this in the context of plummeting trust in UK policing and the picture gets ever more bleak. Not only is such technology ripe for misuse, history tells us surveillance tech will always be used to monitor and harass minority groups, and particularly people of colour. When the Metropolitan Police first trialled this tech, public deployments often took place in socially deprived areas and at events attended primarily by people of colour – such as the Notting Hill carnival. Since then we’ve seen it used at certain music concerts, but not others. Yet despite the weight of evidence against its use, the policing minister said earlier this month that CCTV from shops and burglaries should be checked against passport and immigration databases using facial recognition. Using our passport photos – something we’ve submitted for the purposes of travelling – to track us when we go to the shops to buy a pint of milk is an extreme invasion of our privacy. If these plans go ahead, it’s hard to overstate how much of an expansion this will be of government and police spy powers. They should worry anyone who wants to live in a society where everyone is treated with dignity and respect rather than suspicion, and can live freely without being watched by the state. It might be tempting for the government to try to police its way out of the cost-of-living crisis, but in reality, facial recognition technology will do nothing to tackle the root causes of the problem. The challenges that shoplifting creates are best addressed by understanding the impact rising costs and poverty are having on people across the country, who are are struggling to pay their bills and feed their children. Basic foods like bread, butter and cheese have risen in price by more than a third in the past year, alongside skyrocketing energy, housing and fuel costs. In recent months, we have seen commitments by John Lewis to continue to not use facial recognition in their stores. Nor are Liberty the only ones calling for a ban. Last week, dozens of cross-party MPs and peers joined calls led by Big Brother Watch for an immediate stop to the use of live facial recognition surveillance by police and private companies. We have seen time and again that when we give up our rights we rarely get them back. Regardless of how the government and police attempt to justify facial recognition, history shows that once a surveillance structure is in place for any reason, its use will expand well beyond its original justification. The surveillance powers that were created under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) were touted as targeting and preventing terrorism. In practice, they were used by some local authorities to carry out surveillance on people for illegally dumping waste in recycling centres. Far from keeping us safe, spy tech used on the general public undermines the rights and freedoms that protect us from state control and discrimination. The safest thing for everyone is to ban facial recognition technology. Akiko Hart is the interim director of the human rights organisation Liberty | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/facial-recognition', 'technology/technology', 'uk/police', 'business/cost-of-living-crisis', 'uk/ukcrime', 'world/surveillance', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/akiko-hart', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-10-12T12:30:08Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2007/dec/05/bali.climatechange | Every reason for optimism | As ministers from more than 180 countries meet in Bali this week for perhaps the most crucial round of climate change talks, the discussions are pivoting on impacts, adaptation and the urgent need for a post-2012 regime to reduce emissions. The role of forests and carbon markets and the need to finance a transfer of clean and green technology from the north to the south are also high on the agenda. If governments rise to their responsibilities, vulnerable communities from Bangladesh to Barbados will have cause to celebrate. It will also mean a transition to a low-carbon society, new industries and a different way of doing business on this planet, and that means jobs. The employment potential of combating climate change and of climate-proofing economies is only now coming to the fore. These are jobs not for just the middle classes, but also in a range of work from construction and agriculture to engineering and transport. A study by the US-based Management Information Services estimated that in 2005 the environmental industry in the US generated more than 5.3m jobs, over $340bn (£165bn) in sales and $47bn in tax revenue, and employed 10 times more workers than the pharmaceutical industry. In June this year, Eaga, which improves the energy efficiency of UK homes, floated on the London stock exchange. It employs 4,000 people in one of the UK's former coal-mining regions. A new report by the UN Environment Programme's (Unep) sustainable energy finance initiative estimates that investment in renewables has reached $100bn, and now represents 18% of new investments in the power sector. Hansen, a wind power gearbox maker owned by the Indian company Suzlon, has just built a factory in Tianjin, China, which will employ 600 people, and is building another in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, which will employ 800. New Delhi is introducing new eco-friendly compressed natural gas buses, which will create 18,000 jobs. Direct employment in tourism in Kenya - mainly based on wildlife, national parks and landscapes - is about 200,000. The wider impact on the economy and employment is estimated to be far greater. About 80% of young people questioned for a new survey in the US were interested in jobs that had a positive impact on the environment, and more than 90% said they would choose to work for environmentally friendly and socially responsible firms. A survey of workers in Brazil, China, Germany, India, the UK and the US found that employees who perceived their companies as socially responsible were happier and more likely to stay. Roland Berger, a consultancy in Munich, estimates that in Germany in 2020 more people will be employed in environmental technology industries than in the car industry. Working Capital, a financial report from Unep, says the market providing finance for clean and renewable energy could reach $1.9 trillion by 2020. A report by one of the world's largest law firm concludes that, in key cases, the investment community has the legal responsibility to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into investment decisions, and a Unep meeting this year in Brazil concluded that both institutional investors and "high net-worth individuals" were progressively realising the importance of ESG-inclusion in long-term investment. Kyoto's clean development mechanism could send $100bn from north to south for investment in carbon offsetting projects, such as renewable energy schemes and tree planting. An alliance of tropical forest countries is pressing for standing forests to be included in the carbon markets, which could generate jobs in conservation and tourism, and several countries, including Costa Rica, Norway and New Zealand, have pledged carbon neutrality, which will create more jobs. In the wider landscape, more creative market mechanisms are emerging, such as payment for ecosystem services: power companies with hydroelectric stations are paying farmers and communities to maintain forests and soil upstream in Costa Rica and Kenya, for example. With debt-for-nature swaps, countries have some debts cancelled, and some of the savings are invested in conservation and the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems. More than 20 states and some 300 cities in the US have adopted renewable energy standards and/or emission reduction targets in line with the Kyoto protocol. Last week, the National Development and Reform Commission and the commerce ministry in China announced bans and restrictions on foreign investment in mining and some energy sectors. In a recent report, US economist Roger Bezdek concluded that, with the right government incentives and investment in research and development, renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries could create 40m jobs in the US by 2030. Clearly, we stand on the edge of something quite exciting and transformational. If Bali maintains the momentum of 2007, there is every reason for those out of work from Merseyside to Mumbai and Birmingham to Bangkok to be optimistic. · Achim Steiner is UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Programme. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/bali', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/comment', 'society/society', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'profile/achimsteiner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/societyguardian', 'theguardian/societyguardian/societyguardian'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2007-12-05T10:21:34Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2011/may/19/glencore-in-dark-ages-says-ngo-boss | Glencore 'is in dark ages' compared with rivals, says NGO boss | Extracting minerals, coal and oil from the earth is never a clean business, but Glencore's vast mining operations have left the company open to mounting criticism as it swaps its private Swiss partnership structure for public company status. From Bolivia, where Glencore is accused of allowing harmful waste into local water supply, to Zambia, where Glencore is alleged to have inflated its operating costs to reduce its tax bill, Glencore's interests in some of the world's most remote regions and in countries where democratic institutions are feeble have raised questions over the company's ethical and environmental performance. Andreas Missbach, managing director of Berne Declaration, an NGO in Switzerland where the commodities giant is based, said Glencore stood out against others in the sector. "In terms of corporate responsibility, climate policy, CO2 emissions, Glencore is still in the dark ages compared to other major mining firms." Glencore has strongly contested these claims and is producing an annual sustainability report in an attempt to silence its critics. Although a spokesman said the company was legally limited in what it could say publicly because of the flotation, it has previously answered many of the claims against it. In the case of the Bolivian river pollution, the company has said it was an accidental pipe rupture that it immediately repaired. In Zambia, the company said when the complaint surfaced, it paid the correct amount of tax. It said claims it had not done so were based on "flawed analysis", carried out without visiting the mine. The company has been accused of a string of failures, including taking advantage of the lack of governance in Democratic Republic of the Congo to exploit mining concessions, and failing to adhere to safety standards in mines there. Two years ago the commodities trader paid a cash settlement to Aluminium Bahrain to resolve what it called a "controversy" over allegations of improper payments, although Glencore denies it ever paid bribes. A report last month based on publicly available negative news stories from sources including NGO websites and blogs listed more than 20 accusations against the company. There are questions over whether Glencore benefits people in the countries where it operates. "Take Zambia," said Missbach. "Glencore has a 73% stake in the Mopani copper mine there, yet they pay royalties to Zambia of just 0.6%. Meanwhile, Zambia is number 150 out of 169 on the UN's Human Development Index. The scandal is that this is not a scandal." Roger Moody, director of consultancy Nostromo Research, added the Mopani mine "raises serious questions in regards to its land use, safety record, and air and water pollution". Glencore has admitted the mine had a poor environmental record when it was acquired, but is taking steps to clean up. It rejects claims by two Swiss NGOs questioning safety at its Congolese mines, saying the problems were with artisanal miners with whom it has no relationship. The commodities giant is sensitive over charges of social and environmental failings. Oliver Classen, of Berne Declaration, recalls an unexpected phone call in 2008 from the famously low-profile chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, after the award of a satirical prize to the company for poor environmental and social responsibility. "I initially didn't believe it was him – he was the most invisible business figure in Switzerland, if not the world. He was thoroughly irritated by the award. He insisted Glencore behaved impeccably." "There's a lot we don't know, and a great deal we ought to know that has not been revealed," said Moody. But he doubts whether being a public company will result in Glencore being more public about its operations. | ['business/glencore', 'business/business', 'business/mining', 'environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'world/switzerland', 'world/zambia', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/helenpidd', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2011-05-19T19:44:19Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/may/11/england-fails-to-reach-household-waste-recycling-target | England fails to reach household waste recycling target | Recycling rates in England are falling and the government has failed to meet its target to recycle 50% of waste from households by 2020. But Wales has become a world leader, with the country recycling 56.5% of its household waste. Household recycling rates in England went down from 46% in 2019 to 44% in 2020. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the Covid pandemic had disrupted collections in some areas. The Welsh government said its high rate of household recycling had prevented more than 400,000 tonnes of CO2 a year from being released into the atmosphere and further accelerating climate change. Data shows that Wales was the only UK nation to reach the minimum 50% recycling target by 2020 set by the European Union. The minister for climate change in the Welsh government, Julie James, said: “Our recycling stats are world class thanks to a Team Wales effort. Despite the pandemic and all the challenges it bought with it, local authorities managed to prioritise recycling, the collectors worked heroically all the way through, and the fantastic people of Wales continued to recycle. “We must now continue to raise our ambitions to reach zero waste by 2050 and net zero carbon emissions so we can tackle the climate and nature emergencies in earnest, and pass on a resilient, green and prosperous planet to our future generations.” The amount of waste generated in the UK continues to rise. UK households produced 27m tonnes of waste in 2020, an increase of 2.1% from 2019. England is responsible for the vast majority of the waste, 22.6m tonnes, or 84% of the UK total. Most household waste is made up of food, paper, cardboard, glass bottles and plastics. Only 44% of the 2.5m tonnes of plastic packaging waste produced in 2021 was recovered for recycling, according to the data. The government has yet to introduce a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, which was promised in 2018 to reduce the pollution caused by the public’s use of 13bn plastic drinks bottles a year. It has consulted on a policy to ban more single-use plastic items but has yet to announce when this would come into force. The government said in a statement: “We want to recycle and reuse more of our waste, and support households to do so. Our Environment Act is transforming the way we deal with waste; we have already responded to our consultation on extended producer responsibility, we are introducing a deposit return scheme and we will shortly respond to our consultation on consistent collections in England.” In 2018, the government released its resources and waste strategy which said the UK would aim to process more of its waste domestically. Two years ago, Interpol reported an alarming increase in illegal plastic trade pollution across the world. The UK exports roughly two-thirds of its plastic waste. James Bevan, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, called recently for the UK to impose a complete ban on the export of waste to combat crime. “Sending certain kinds of waste abroad is legal, but is it right? Is it morally right to dump the waste we create on another country to deal with?” he said. Bevan was criticised by the Recycling Association, which said conflating waste crime with exports was wrong and failed to address the real reasons behind criminal activity. Bettina Gilbert, head of programme delivery at the government’s waste advisory body Wrap, said: “2020 was an unprecedented year with full lockdown and huge disruptions, which likely caused the decline. Priority was given to maintaining residual waste collections for health and safety reasons, while garden waste collections and recycling often had to be suspended or severely curtailed. “That the levels have not fallen further is testament to the amazing job done by the thousands of key workers continuing to collect our waste and recycling. Recycling helps protect our planet, so it’s crucial that we continue to recycle as much as we can.” | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'environment/environment-agency', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-05-11T11:44:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatrina.usa4 | Bush fails to stem anger | President George Bush returned to Louisiana yesterday to shore up both the relief effort and his embattled presidency as the death toll a week after Hurricane Katrina was predicted to rise as high as 10,000. The president flew to Baton Rouge and visited a church relief centre to talk to survivors and relief workers. "All levels of the government are doing the best they can," he said, before flying on to visit another devastated community along the coast in Mississippi. "So long as any life is in danger, we've got work to do." Many of the evacuees at the centre remained unimpressed. Mildred Brown, who has been there since Tuesday with her husband, mother-in-law and cousin, told the Associated Press: "I'm not interested in hand-shaking. I'm not interested in photo ops. This is going to take a lot of money." Bodies were yesterday being collected from swamped houses across New Orleans and brought to an improvised morgue in St Gabriel, 12 miles south of Baton Rouge, for identification. The coast guard continued its search for survivors trapped on rooftops or on the upper storeys of flooded buildings. "About 40,000 are unaccounted for," the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, told WLL radio. He told NBC that "it wouldn't be unthinkable to have 10,000 dead". The mayor warned that more than $1m (about £540,000) worth of natural gas was leaking into the gulf creating fresh hazards. Tens of thousands of residents of Jefferson parish, which adjoins the city, tried to return to their homes yesterday. They were being allowed in for 12 hours to collect belongings and assess damage in an area that their parish president, Aaron Broussard, described as "looking like Somalia or Iraq". Mr Bush's visit was his second to the disaster zone in four days, as more reports of government incompetence surfaced amid calls for the dismissal of top officials, particularly at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). The Chicago Tribune reported that a huge assault ship, the USS Bataan, had been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico when the hurricane struck. Despite the fact it had six operating rooms and 600 hospital beds, and was willing to help, Fema did not use it all week. A New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune, published an open letter to the president calling for every official at Fema to be fired, "director Michael Brown especially". | ['world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/louisiana', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/duncancampbell', 'profile/garyyounge', 'profile/julianborger'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-06T00:48:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2018/mar/15/uk-car-industry-must-pay-up-for-toxic-air-catastrophe-super-inquiry-finds | UK car industry must pay up for toxic air 'catastrophe', super-inquiry finds | The car industry must pay millions of pounds towards solving the UK’s toxic air crisis under the “polluter pays” principle, according to an unprecedented joint inquiry by four committees of MPs. The MPs call the poisonous air that causes 40,000 early deaths a year a “national health emergency” and are scathing about the government’s clean air plans. These judged illegal three times in the high court, with the latest plan condemned as “woefully inadequate” by city leaders and “inexcusable” by doctors. The government must bring forward the 2040 date by which sales of conventional diesel and petrol cars are to be banned, to match the ambition of other nations which have set dates around 2030, the 49 cross-party MPs concluded. They also accused ministers of avoiding tough action for “political convenience”. “The government’s latest plan does not present an effective response to the scale of the air quality catastrophe in the UK,” said Neil Parish MP, chair of the environment food and rural affairs committee, which joined with the health, transport and environmental audit committees in undertaking the inquiry. “Real change will require bold, meaningful action.” Andrew Selous MP, acting chair of the health committee, said: “It is [very] concerning that children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing health conditions are most at risk. Action must be taken to combat this national health emergency.” The report concludes: “The government cannot continue to put public health at risk. It needs to require the automobile industry to contribute to a new clean air fund, following the ‘polluter pays’ principle, on a scale that adequately compensates for the health costs of diesel pollution.” The report found the overall cost of air pollution to the UK is £20bn per year. After the dieselgate scandal in 2015, when Volkswagen was exposed as having cheated emissions tests in the US, the company agreed to pay out $15bn. Subsequently, it emerged that almost all diesel cars were emitting far more toxic nitrogen dioxide on the road than in lab-based regulatory tests. In Germany, VW, BMW and Daimler are now contributing €180m to a €1bn clean air fund. In contrast, VW in the UK has paid nothing in compensation, despite transport minister Jesse Norman stating in December: “We strongly believe [VW] vehicle owners should be compensated.” Neither have carmakers pledged money for a clean air fund, despite Norman stating: “An active role in this transition [to a low-emission future] by manufacturers is essential to restore trust in the industry.” “There are 6.5m dirty diesel cars and vans on the UK’s roads that spew toxic fumes with no effective controls,” said Greg Archer, clean vehicles director at campaign group Transport & Environment. “It is time the car industry either cleans up the emissions or pays up for others to do so. It is shameful that in the UK the industry is allowed to do nothing.” Rosie Rogers, at Greenpeace, said: “So far the car industry has managed to shake off its responsibility for the pollution crisis. The public was mis-sold highly polluting diesel cars [and] it’s high time manufacturers felt the heat. Contributing to a clean air fund is a good start.” Environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted the three legal defeats on ministers, and head of UK public affairs, Simon Alcock, said the MPs’ report was a landmark: “It highlights the lack of national leadership by successive governments to tackle this public health crisis – it was supposed to be resolved over eight years ago.” Mike Hawes, chief executive of motor industry trade body SMMT, said: “The UK automotive industry is investing billions in technology and other measures to help address the challenge. A clean air fund worth £220m has already been set up by government [and] in addition, vehicle manufacturers are funding scrappage schemes themselves to get the older vehicles off the road.” The UK government has set 2040 as the date for the end of diesel and petrol car sales, but the devolved government in Scotland has pledged to do so by 2032. The Netherlands will prohibit internal combustion engine cars by 2030 and India is considering the same date. “People who live in the UK deserve clean air just as much,” said Rogers. A government spokesman said: “Air pollution has improved significantly since 2010, but we recognise there is more to do and will set out further actions through a comprehensive clean air strategy later this year.” Other recommendations in the MPs report include a new legislation to enshrine the right to clean air in UK law after Brexit and a national health campaign to highlight the dangers of air pollution. The report said: “The debate on air quality is too often cast as a war against motorists, when in fact regular car users are among the worst affected. Pollution levels are often higher inside cars than on the street.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/transport', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-03-15T06:01:15Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
global-development-professionals-network/2014/aug/01/china-asia-pacific | Live Q&A: can civil society thrive in China? | A third of China's wealth is held by 1% of the population, research from Peking University Institute of Social Science revealed this week. When inequality grows in a nominally communist society, who watches out for the poorest? Millions have risen out of a hand-to-mouth existence over the last 30 years, but 12% still live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. And although China became the world's second largest economy in 2010 (and will soon overtake the US as the first), it ranks 83rd on per capita income, behind Botswana, Romania and Venezuela. As the economy grows, the state – which was originally set up to provide cradle-to-grave care – has become more tolerant of civil society and NGOs. The Economist reported in April 2014 that 500,000 NGOs have registered in China over the last 25 years, and there has been a loosening of restrictions on official registration over the last three years. Over a million more NGOs work without being registered, The Economist adds. Yet the political environment in China creates a challenging landscape for civil society. An unpredictable legal system, restrictions on protest and limitations on internet access as well as freedoms of speech, assembly and press, mean that is difficult for civil society to thrive. Some groups are navigating successfully around these restrictions. Environmentalists have made the most progress. The Green Volunteer League of Chongqing successfully stopped illegal logging in an ancient forest with the support of China's largest TV channel CCTV and won the first public interest case against the state to court in 2011. Human rights defenders however, are treated as enemies of the state. International and foreign-funded NGOs meanwhile are regarded with suspicion. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake marked a turning point as the government coordinated the emergency response with national and international NGOs. But the ensuing allegations of corruption at the Chinese Red Cross and limitations on fundraising mean the civil society-state relationship is still tense. How can Chinese civil society work with, or at least around, the state? What are the most reliable revenue streams that filter through the restrictions? Can China's growing middle class be persuaded to forgive the corruption scandal and make regular donations to the third sector? Or are China's two-million millionaires a more profitable source? Join us on Thursday 7 August, 1-3pm BST, to discuss. The panel Leigh-Anne Russell, Founder, Nestworks, Shanghai, China, @MakersForGood Born in the UK, Leigh-Anne has lived in China for 20 years and worked with Shanghai's government to create social enterprise incubator Gongyi Xintiandi (The Nest). Ruge (Sally) Gao, student, Cornell University, Beijing, China Ruge recently published a peer-reviewed paper on the relationship between Chinese environmental NGOs and the government. Mark Sidel, professor of law and public affairs, International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), Madison, USA, @marksidel Mark specialises in law and policy affecting non-profit and philanthropic organisations in China, India, Vietnam and the United States. Xi (Hank) Qizheng, director of programmes, Me to We, Shanghai, China, @hankxi Previously at the Orbis Institute, Hank now runs the China office of Me to We, which implements the holistic adopt-a-village development model in eight countries, including rural China. Maya Wang, China researcher, Human Rights Watch, Hong Kong, @wang_maya Maya is a researches human rights abuses for international advocates Human Rights Watch. Richard Hsu, adjunct profession, school of design and innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, @hsu901 Richard develops content and platforms for policymakers, creative industries and NGOs. Xinlin (Vivian) Song, researcher, Hong Kong University Shanghai Study Centre, Shanghai, China Xinlin is a researcher on urbanisation in China. Richard Brubaker, founder, Collective Responsibility, Shanghai, China, @richbrubaker Richard has spent the last 15 years in Asia and overseen over 200 projects focused on solving social, environmental, and economic challenges. Shiyin Cai, founder, Dialogue in the Dark, Shanghai, China Shiyin has a background in business and was chief operating officer of Dialogue Social Enterprise in Hamburg. She founded Dialogue in the Dark, a social enterprise for visually impaired people, in Shanghai in 2011. The live chat is not video or audio-enabled but will take place in the comments section (below). Get in touch via globaldevpros@theguardian.com or @GuardianGDP on Twitter to recommend someone for our expert panel. Follow the discussion using the hashtag #globaldevlive. Want to hear about more events like this? Join our LinkedIn community Join the community of global development professionals and experts. Become a GDPN member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['working-in-development/working-in-development', 'global-development-professionals-network/live-chats', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/china', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'society/voluntarysector', 'society/society', 'voluntary-sector-network/voluntary-sector-network', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'environment/environment', 'society/philanthropy', 'type/article', 'profile/anna-veronica-leach'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2014-08-01T18:18:00Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2012/jan/24/did-other-undercover-policemen-have-children-with-activists | Police spies secretly had children with activists | Rob Evans | Over the weekend we reported that two undercover police officers had secretly fathered children with political activists they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring. One of the officers was Bob Lambert who infiltrated animal rights and environmental campaigns in the 1980s, the other was not named. The disclosure kicked off a lot of discussion on Twitter. Outrage seemed to be the order of the day. It is fair to say that the vast majority of people were critical of the police's behaviour. Here's a quick sample of comments OwenJones84 :"This shocking episode of police infiltration of an activist group may be the tip of an iceberg": LuisaEtc :"The horrifying extent to which police spies have abused activist women they were sent to spy on"; murraygw :"Undercover police spies had children with activists. gu.com/p/34m2x < Yet still no public inquiry..."; MerrickBadger : "Undercover policing even worse than we thought." But now the question which is floating around is - were there other undercover police officers who had kids with activists? I would not be surprised if there were. A large number of police officers have been sent undercover in political groups over the last forty years. We still only know a fraction of what went on. | ['uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans', 'tone/blog', 'uk/mark-kennedy', 'environment/activism', 'uk/police', 'uk/ukcrime', 'world/surveillance', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'law/uk-civil-liberties', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'type/article', 'profile/robevans'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2012-01-24T11:48:53Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2022/apr/16/bristol-community-secures-funding-to-build-tallest-wind-turbine-in-england | Bristol community secures funding to build tallest wind turbine in England | A community group in one of the poorest parts of Bristol has met its funding target to build the tallest wind turbine in England, despite a lack of any central government funding for locally owned wind power generation. The group of residents from Lawrence Weston, a deprived housing estate on the edge of the West Country city, have secured £4m, and expect to begin groundworks for the turbine, which measures 150 metres from its base to the tip of its blade, in June. The wind turbine, which has a maximum capacity of 4.2MW, will sell energy to the grid. The group estimates it will bring in at least £100,000 a year. Mark Pepper, who grew up on the estate and helped found the Ambition Lawrence Weston charity to regenerate the area, said the turbine would make hundreds of thousands of pounds for community projects, including a new renewable energy skills training centre and a crisis fund to help local families trapped in fuel poverty. “The fantastically exciting work begins soon. I feel proud of the residents as there have been a lot of challenges along the way and a lot of barriers put in our way,” he said. “Yet the residents have stayed resolute because they know this could be a gamechanger for Lawrence Weston.” However, he added that the turbine, which will generate enough power for 3,000 homes, had taken eight years to build because the government had made it so difficult to get planning permission and provided no financial support for communities to generate their own power. “The government’s resistance to more onshore wind has been a problem,” he said. “It’s been a long slog but hopefully soon the residents will be able to reap the rewards of all their hard work.” Government research shows community-owned energy delivers 12 to 13 times more social and community benefits than equivalent commercial installations. The profits from the Lawrence Weston scheme will be partly used to help families on the estate unable to heat their homes and keep the lights on as energy prices shoot up. “A lot of residents here are on prepaid meters – if they can’t afford to put money on, they are effectively cut off,” said Pepper. “We see a lot of people running out of gas and electricity.” Other areas are keen to follow Bristol’s lead, with around one-third of the 220 local groups linked to Community Energy England interested in developing similar on-shore wind schemes. But the organisation is only aware of a handful of small-scale community-owned turbines that have been erected in England since David Cameron’s Conservative government tightened planning laws, requiring, unlike other infrastructure projects, proof of local backing, as well as ending financial support. Although wind projects were allowed to apply for subsidies again in 2020, only developers with commercial-scale windfarms were able to meet the minimum energy threshold. The government’s new energy strategy, which was published last week, disappointed many community energy campaigners. There is no ringfenced funding for community projects and no target for increasing on-shore wind power generation, even though it is regarded as the cheapest and quickest way to generate electricity. The strategy only promises to consult with “a limited number of communities” to develop turbine projects in return for lower energy bills. The Lawrence Weston turbine, which will be erected on Bristol city council-owned scrubland in nearby industrial Avonmouth, is expected to be completed next spring. The electricity it generates will be sold to the National Grid. The vast bulk of the funding comes from Thrive Renewables, a renewable energy investment company, which provided £4m for the project. Other funders included Bristol city council and the West of England Combined Authority. Andrew Garrad, visiting professor in renewable energy at the University of Bristol, said the turbine would be the “biggest in England”. Garrad, who is on the board of the energy company set up by Ambition Lawrence Weston, added the height and size of the turbine allowed it to catch the maximum amount of wind. “The energy gathered from a wind turbine goes up with the square of the diameter – so if you double the diameter, you get four times the energy,” he said. “And as you go higher, you get more energy because the wind blows more strongly.” A shorter turbine would have been uneconomical . David Tudgey, the project’s development manager, who took the turbine through planning and funding rounds, said: “We had to go for the tallest turbine possible for the site because there are no subsidies available – anything smaller wouldn’t have made enough money to benefit the local community.” Tudgey added that ministers should create a national community energy fund to allow others to copy Lawrence Weston: “Communities up and down the country need help to deliver similar schemes that address fuel poverty and climate change.” Matthew Clayton, managing director at Thrive Renewables, said the funding would enable them to get the turbine built and operational. “Locally owned projects such as these will play a fundamental role in the future energy system, providing clean electricity that will help to reduce bills and generate revenue that can be plugged back into the community,” he said. • This article was amended on 19 April 2022. The company who provided most of the funding for the turbine is called Thrive Renewables, not Thrive Energy as an earlier version said. | ['environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/bristol', 'uk/uk', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-wall', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/environmentnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2022-04-16T07:00:01Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2015/jul/08/weatherwatch-hot-cars-dogs-children-temperature | The lethal perils of hot cars | On a sunny day, cars can become lethal demonstrations of the greenhouse effect. Visible light passes through the windows, and some of it is converted into heat. Because the car is closed, the hot air does not rise and escape, and infrared wavelengths do not pass easily though window glass. Heat is trapped inside the vehicle and builds up rapidly. The effect can be dramatic even in relatively mild weather conditions. When it is 22C (72F) outside, a car can reach 47C (117F) in one hour; when it is 30C the car reaches 47C in less than half an hour. Leaving a window open a crack makes little difference, and even two open windows with a through draught will not bring the temperature down to a safe level. Children and animals have proportionately more surface area than adults, absorbing heat more rapidly. They can reach dangerous temperatures and die within minutes. In the UK, the RSPCA advises anyone who sees a dog in distress in a hot car to make an emergency call to 999 immediately. In the US, where temperatures are often higher, an average of 37 children have died each year since 1998 after being left in hot cars. In many cases, a distracted driver simply forgets having left a dog or toddler in the back. One easy solution is taking off a shoe and giving it to the child at the start of the journey, providing an an automatic reminder when you leave the car. The same trick also works with dogs – though your footwear may suffer. • This article was amended on 9 July 2015 to correct the draft/draught homophone. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'science/meteorology', 'science/science', 'lifeandstyle/parents-and-parenting', 'lifeandstyle/dogs', 'lifeandstyle/pets', 'lifeandstyle/family', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-07-08T20:30:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/jan/22/the-eco-guide-to-saving-the-whale | The eco guide to saving the whale | When the whalers of the mid-19th century harpooned the planet’s biggest marine mammals into near-oblivion, at least they took copious notes. These are now being used to better understand ocean science: if you enjoy a bit of historical ecology, you’ll find them at whaling.oldweather.org. I wish whaling was all historical, but right now the Japanese whaler Nisshin Maru is likely to be in hot pursuit of the Southern Ocean’s remaining whales. At least they face opposition from direct action charity Sea Shepherd, which recently launched Ocean Warrior, a new anti-whaling vessel. Commercial whaling was banned in 1986, but two loopholes still allow hunting on the grounds of scientific research (exploited by the Japanese) and indigenous subsistence (exploited by Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands). The first of Japan’s scientific programmes lasted 18 years and killed 6,800 whales without any clear scientific discoveries. In 2014, the international court of justice ruled that their new programme was unlawful, but Japan continues to issue its own permits. So far, so deadlocked. But there’s some hope on the horizon: the toxicity of whale meat means that its market is diminishing. Iceland’s biggest fleet did not hunt this summer due to a lack of market. Also, research scientists are getting very excited about whale faeces. Really. Adult blue whales consume in the region of two tonnes of iron-rich krill a day. This means whale poo is an extraordinary natural fertiliser for the Southern Ocean (known for being problematically anaemic), encouraging the growth of phytoplankton. Without it? Well, let’s just say the stability of this ocean is critical for the climate and the planet as a whole. Save the whale? We need to let the whale save us. The big picture: eyes in the sky Filmmaker Mark Devries is just one eco activist using drone cameras to provide the world with a clearer picture of the ecological fallout of factory farming. Others have shown illegal road clearances and habitat loss. But as the Columbia Journalism Review reports, new US laws are cracking down on this type of drone imagery, which gives an invaluable bird’s-eye view of what really goes on without us being aware. Well dressed: Po-zu feels the force It’s exciting when an alternative fashion brand you’ve championed scores a big success. I’ve waxed lyrical about UK shoe brand Po-zu for many years. As they explain, the pace of fashion is way too fast now: we buy more and more shoes just to throw them away. An average of three pairs of shoes per person is sent to landfill each year. But Po-zu have steadfastly stuck to renewable and natural shoe materials, including coconut and hemp, and have never compromised their ethical production and belief that shoes should have a long lifespan. Well, the launch of a co-brand with Star Wars means that the force is definitely with them. Po-zu will be producing official and obviously ethical replicas of the footwear in the new film. You’ll have to wait until August 2017 to get hold of them, but here’s a sneak preview of the Rey boot. Email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @lucysiegle | ['environment/series/its-not-easy-being-green', 'environment/series/ask-leo-lucy', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/features', 'environment/whales', 'technology/drones-non-military', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'profile/lucysiegle', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/magazine', 'theobserver/magazine/life-and-style', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-magazine'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-01-22T06:00:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2008/may/29/shanks.recycling | Shanks goes green as profits double | The chief executive of Shanks Group today committed the British waste management company to recycling more of its rubbish as it reported that profits in its UK business had more than doubled. Britain is one of the biggest users of landfill sites in Europe but taxes have made it more expensive to bury waste, while a European Union directive has reduced the amount of waste that councils can send to landfill sites. Local authorities have become increasingly reliant on the private sector to handle household waste, creating a booming market involving billions of pounds in government-backed private finance initiative projects. The landfill tax on waste rose to £24 a tonne of waste last month and is set to increase to £48 by 2010, raising demand for environmentally friendly waste disposal, such as recycling. This has boosted Shanks's UK business and profits soared 109% to £6.9m in the year to the end of March. Group headline pre-tax profit rose 11% to £44.8m. Tom Drury, group chief executive, said: "From being very cheap, landfill is getting expensive and will get more expensive as the government raises the [landfill tax]. "For companies like Shanks, it is now economic to use our European model to recycle and reprocess the waste." Shanks dumps just under three-quarters of its waste in UK landfill sites and recycles about 27%. However, Drury said the company was keen to import techniques used in greener Dutch and Belgian subsidiaries, which recycle 83% and 51% of their waste respectively. He added that Shanks was planning to build about half a dozen recycling and reprocessing centres in the UK. Shanks is also keen to increase the use of a natural waste treatment process, known as anaerobic digestion, in which micro-organisms digest organic waste to produce methane, which can be used as fuel to generate electricity. However, Michael Warhurst, senior waste and resources campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said waste management companies had little incentive to increase recycling while still making big profits from landfill sites. "The waste industry has been very conservative and has tended to push things it is used to, such as landfills," he said. "Then they say let's go for incineration, which doesn't make sense from a climate point of view and is very expensive for local government, but the waste industry makes quite a nice profit from it. "There is money [in recycling]; it is just a question of whether the waste management industry can change their mindsets towards quality recycling." | ['business/business', 'business/shanksgroup', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/nickhuber'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-05-29T17:01:16Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/blog/2007/oct/24/atoxicargument | A toxic argument | A BHP Billiton mine in South Australia. Photograph: AFP Can there really be a "moral imperative" that Britain pursues a new generation of nuclear power stations? These words were used by E.ON, the German utility which has become a large player in the gas and electricity supply business in Britain by taking over Powergen. Whatever the advantages may be in providing very large amounts of electricity from a relatively few number of atomic plants that generate less carbon emissions, it strikes me as dangerous language to use. Not least because a decision to leave my children's, children's, children's children a whole load of highly toxic waste does not strike me as a clear cut "moral" case, and secondly, because I am always queasy when big business talks about ethics. We all know who led the way when it came to talking about the "noble cause" of capitalism: John Browne, the chief executive of BP. And look what happened to him - bundled out of the door after telling big ones to a high court judge. Companies are set up with the task of making a good rate of return for their shareholders and nothing else. One would hope business leaders would realise that in today's more open world they need to keep happy a wider group of stakeholders, including governments, suppliers and their own staff. And if executives are going to wear their allegiance to corporate social responsibility on their sleeves - as most do these days - then it has got to be backed up by concrete action and not just used as soft marketing. Companies such as BHP Billiton, which would probably supply E.ON with uranium for any nuclear plants it wants to build, is increasingly mining in more remote parts of the developing world. They are often dealing with countries which often have relatively weak political structures which can easily be exploited by large multinationals away from the prying eyes of the better-funded and Western-based non-governmental organisations. Rio Tinto has trumpeted the "model" mining project that it has been developing in Madagascar. It has the support of the World Bank but the WWF and Friends of the Earth have recently raised all sorts of questions about the real benefits to local people of that particular scheme. No, being told by big mining or power companies that there is a moral imperative to pursue a course of action that they hope to make millions of pounds out of is a pretty toxic line of argument. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/terrymacalister'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2007-10-24T09:33:57Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2019/jun/04/waitrose-launches-packaging-free-trial | Waitrose launches packaging-free trial | Waitrose has unveiled its vision of environmentally conscious shopping, offering customers the chance to buy food and drink that is completely free of packaging as part of a ground-breaking trial for a large retailer. In a new drive to try to eliminate unnecessary plastic and packaging, shoppers will be able to fill their own containers with a range of products from a series of dispensers using a dedicated refill station, one of the first to be installed by a major UK supermarket. In a trial starting this week at a Waitrose supermarket in Oxford, customers are being given refillable options for products including wine and beer, rice and cleaning materials, with prices typically 15% cheaper than the packaged alternatives. A standalone pick and mix range of frozen fruit and a borrow-a-box scheme to help carry shopping home are other new retail formats being tested by Waitrose at the Botley Road shop. Waitrose has transformed the store by removing hundreds of products from their packaging, although shoppers will still be able to buy the packaged versions if they wish. Plastic waste has become a major environmental issue, with television programmes such as Blue Planet exposing its detrimental effects on the oceans, and media coverage highlighting the dangers of a global plastic binge. Waitrose is among the UK’s supermarkets which have signed up to the UK Plastics Pact – an industry-wide initiative to transform packaging and reduce avoidable plastic waste. However, retailers have been criticised for not doing more to tackle the issue at an earlier stage. “This test has potential to shape how people might shop with us in the future so it will be fascinating to see which concepts our customers have an appetite for,” said Waitrose’s Tor Harris. Ariana Densham, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “This is a genuinely bold step from Waitrose to trial food dispensers so customers can use refillable tubs and jars. Lots of supermarkets are starting to sell loose fruit and vegetables, but this kind of innovation could spark a refill culture that’s so desperately needed to cut plastics in mainstream shops. “The top 10 UK supermarkets produce 810,000 tonnes of throwaway packaging each year, so we need to see other major retailers taking plastic reduction seriously and following Waitrose’s lead.” A choice of 160 loose fruit and vegetables will be available, along with four different wines and four beers on tap to be taken home in reusable bottles and nearly 30 products including pasta, rice, grains, couscous, lentils, cereals, dried fruit and seeds available from dispensers. The “unpackaged” model relying on refills has already been adopted by some independent retailers, delicatessens and farm shops but this is the first time it is being used at a national supermarket chain. For the borrow-a-box scheme, customers will pay a £5 deposit which is refundable when the container is returned. A frozen pick and mix section initially selling fruit such as blueberries and mango will encourage shoppers to bring in their own containers. • This article was amended on 6 June 2019. An earlier version referred to the refill station in Waitrose as the first trial of its kind in a major UK supermarket. That overlooked Morrisons, which has a similar trial in two Yorkshire stores (Guiseley and Skipton), although it has chosen not to publicise these until they have been fully evaluated. | ['business/waitrose', 'business/retail', 'business/business', 'business/supermarkets', 'environment/plastic', 'business/packaging', 'environment/environment', 'business/fooddrinks', 'food/food', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-06-03T23:01:15Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2008/nov/22/food-biofuels-land-grab | Rich countries launch great land grab to safeguard food supply | Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies. The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people. Rising food prices have already set off a second "scramble for Africa". This week, the South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports. "These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government," said Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a Cambridge firm helping to arrange some of the big international land deals. Madagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the Daewoo deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment. The massive lease is the largest so far in an accelerating number of land deals that have been arranged since the surge in food prices late last year. "In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented," Atkin said. "We're used to seeing 100,000-hectare sales. This is more than 10 times as much." At a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more. But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, have opted not to wait for world markets to respond and are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries. According to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors. Arab investors, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture. The president of the UEA, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering large-scale agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply. Even China, which has plenty of land but is now getting short of water as it pursues breakneck industrialisation, has begun to explore land deals in south-east Asia. Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2m-3m hectares, or 15% of its viable farmland. Libya has secured 250,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, and Egypt is believed to want similar access. Kuwait and Qatar have been chasing deals for prime tracts of Cambodia rice fields. Eager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments desperate for capital in a recession. Madagascar's land reform minister said revenue would go to infrastructure and development in flood-prone areas. Sudan is trying to attract investors for almost 900,000 hectares of its land, and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has been courting would-be Saudi investors. "If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market," said Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research. "But the problem is, [in] this scramble for soil I don't see any place for the small farmers." Alex Evans, at the Centre on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: "The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land." Details of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations. Steve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the Overseas Development Institute, said: "There are very few economies of scale in most agriculture above the level of family farm because managing [the] labour is extremely difficult." Investors might also have to contend with hostility. "If I was a political-risk adviser to [investors] I'd say 'you are taking a very big risk'. Land is an extremely sensitive thing. This could go horribly wrong if you don't learn the lessons of history." | ['world/madagascar', 'environment/food', 'environment/biofuels', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'science/agriculture', 'world/north-korea', 'science/science', 'tone/news', 'world/international-land-deals', 'world/africa', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'profile/julianborger', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-11-22T00:01:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2019/jun/16/australian-based-companys-png-mine-could-pose-big-environmental-risk | Australian-based company’s PNG mine could pose big environmental risk | A gold and copper mine proposed for the Sepik region in Papua New Guinea by an Australian-based company threatens to destroy the health of a major river system, poison fish stocks and cause violent unrest, a report has found. The Chinese-owned company, PanAust, says the Frieda river project could have a 45-year life span and generate A$12.45bn in tax, royalties and production levies for the PNG government and landholders. But the report, from research centre Jubilee Australia and Project Sepik, raises serious environmental and social concerns about the mine. “The lack of information released by the company about its environmental management plans are continuing to cause uncertainty about whether the company’s environmental management plans will be fit for purpose,” it says. “The potential for this project to lead to damaging social conflict and unrest is real and must be taken seriously.” Papua New Guinea has a chequered mining history, including an environmental disaster when the BHP Ok Tedi copper mine’s tailings dam failed and the decade-long civil war on Bougainville, which was triggered by the Rio Tinto majority-owned Panguna copper mine and cost an estimated 20,000 lives. The report notes that one of the PanAust project’s biggest challenges will be building a safe storage facility for the mine’s tailings (waste material left over after separating the valuable mineral from the ore) to prevent acid rock drainage. That occurs when mine waste is exposed to oxygen and produces sulphuric acid, which dissolves heavy metals such as mercury from nearby rocks, which can then leach into rivers. The report says the size of the ore body, combined with the relatively low grade of copper in the deposit, means the mine will generate substantial tailings. “The inaccessibility of the terrain will pose challenges when it comes to finding a large enough site or sites for storage,” it says. “The extremely high rainfall in the area and the fact that the area is a site of seismic activity add to the risks of a dam collapse. The technical complexity of the feat facing the mining engineers, the extremely large costs involved, and the weather and seismic situation all adds up to a very expensive environmental management problem and one with considerable risks.” Locals also have concerns about environmental damage from an increase in the number of large vessels operating on the Freida river. PanAust promised in April it would shortly release an environmental impact statement to nearby villages, but researchers say it has not done so. In response to to questions from Guardian Australia, the company said PanAust had not received a copy of the Jubilee report and “as such, the company is not in a position to comment on its contents”. It did however say that PanAust had submitted its plans and an environmental impact statement to PNG regulators and was working with them on its approval. The report also accused PanAust of a flawed consultation process with indigenous communities downstream from the mine which has created an “atmosphere of animosity and lack of trust” and resulted in acts of sabotage. “There are reports of official (mainly police) intimidation of anti-mine activists,” the report says. “In 2017 a youth leader from Oum 2 village led a group of young men to attack a tugboat and pontoon with homemade wire sling shots.” In October researchers visited 23 nearby villages, where locals repeatedly raised concerns about river and fish health as a result of increased sedimentation from increased tugboat traffic connected with the project. The Freida river joins the 1,126km Sepik river, which flows across the provinces of West Sepik and East Sepik provinces. The local economy is built on the sale of sago (starch from a tropical palm stem), fish, freshwater prawn, eels, turtles and crocodile eggs. Crocodiles are also harvested for their skins and teeth. Locals are worried about the mine affecting their food security, the report says. In a company announcement in December, PanAust characterised the mine project as a “nation building development”. It has promised 5,000 jobs in construction and 2,100 in mining, and estimates there may be 30,000 more indirect jobs. “Host communities, especially in rural areas, will benefit from access to improved transport, telecommunications, health, education and government services that will support a higher quality of life and greater social participation,” the company said. “More broadly, training and employment of Papua New Guineans will provide the skills and capacity to support the nation’s future development and prosperity.” The company said a final investment decision would be linked to financing and fiscal terms agreed with the PNG government during the approvals phase. | ['australia-news/australia-news', 'world/papua-new-guinea', 'environment/environment', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/mining', 'type/article', 'profile/lisa-martin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-06-15T22:44:41Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/2023/may/23/low-birth-rate-linked-to-fear-about-the-future | Low birth rate linked to fear about the future | Letter | Polly Toynbee’s challenge to the theory presented by the MP Miriam Cates at the National Conservatism conference, that a low UK birthrate is an outcome of “cultural Marxism”, is fair enough as far as it goes (The great British baby drought has a simple cause. And it’s not ‘cultural Marxism’, 18 May). Ms Toynbee is surely right to point to the withdrawal of practical state support and nurturing for young families as an important issue. But why doesn’t she mention the general atmosphere of foreboding and anxiety about the future (equally an outcome of years of Tory neglect and misrule) as an even more powerful influence? As an older person who has been involved during the past four years in an organisation campaigning for urgent action on the climate crisis, I have been frequently startled (and dismayed) by the statements of young people from the UK and other countries, who say that they are reluctant or afraid to have babies when future prospects look so uncertain and daunting. The conception of a child is surely first and foremost an expression of hope. Many young people simply don’t have enough confidence that the world is a safe enough place to bring a child into. Chris Neill Extinction Rebellion activist, Godalming, Surrey • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['lifeandstyle/parents-and-parenting', 'lifeandstyle/family', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2023-05-23T15:39:28Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2021/aug/19/no-one-has-noticed-it-400-year-old-giant-coral-discovered-on-great-barrier-reef | Great Barrier Reef: scientists discover 400-year-old giant coral | At 10.5 metres wide, four centuries old and twice the size of its nearest cousin, an “exceptionally large” coral has been discovered on the Great Barrier Reef – the widest known in the area. The coral is 5.3 metres tall, “hemispherical in shape” and 2.4 metres wider than the next widest specimen. It is roughly the length and height of a modern double-decker bus. It is thought to have spawned on the reef between 421 and 438 years ago and its age means it not only predates the arrival of James Cook and the advent of colonisation in Australia, but the birth of Charles Darwin, the founding of the United States and the invention of the term “biology”. While it isn’t the largest coral in the world, the James Cook University adjunct associate professor and managing director of Reef Ecologic, Adam Smith, said it was significant to the ecosystem. “It’s like a block of apartments,” Smith said. “It attracts other species. There’s other corals, there’s fish, there’s other animals around that use it for shelter or for feeding, so it’s pretty important for them.” The coral was discovered off the coast of Goolboodi – the Indigenous name for Orpheus Island, part of the Palm Island group in Queensland – by a group of scientists and community members participating in a marine citizen science course. Smith said local fishers and researchers had known about the coral for some time but until that moment no one had looked closer. “It’s a bit like finding a giant redwood tree in the middle of a botanic gardens,” Smith said. “James Cook University has a research station at Orpheus Island and there’s been 600 scientific papers written on corals, fish and seaweed in the area. “Over the last 20 or 30 years, no one has noticed, or observed, or thought it newsworthy enough to share photos, or document, or do research on this giant coral.” The exact species of the coral is unknown as genetic testing has not been done to confirm, but it belongs to the genus Porites sp. The traditional custodians of Palm Island, the Manbarra people, have named the coral Muga dhambi. The name translates to “Big coral”. Muga dhambi has been described in the journal Scientific Reports this week with co-authors that included 17-year-old Kailash Cook, who helped measure the coral during the dive, and the “godfather of coral”, 76-year-old Dr Charlie Veron, who helped identify it. The authors have called for the coral to be monitored and the Great Barrier Reef to be protected given the “increasing” threats from climate change, declining water quality, overfishing and coastal development. Smith said “technically” there was nothing stopping the coral species living for 1,000 years, but noted most of its species on the Great Barrier Reef only lived to 450 or 460 years. “It’s lived through lots of cyclones, quite a few reefs and coral bleaching events – who knows? It’s a very diverse, hard environment on the Great Barrier Reef. It’s obviously an old resilient coral,” he said. “Whether that’s because it’s tough or lucky, I don’t know.” | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/coral', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/royce-kurmelovs', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-08-19T17:30:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2018/may/02/edf-plan-for-tallest-uk-onshore-wind-turbines-prompts-outcry | EDF plan for tallest UK onshore wind turbines prompts outcry | The first government-backed effort to revive onshore windfarms after ministers scrapped public subsidies for the technology has run into opposition in the western isles of Scotland. EDF Energy has said its plans for two major windfarms on the Isle of Lewis may need to reach heights normally the preserve of turbines at sea, prompting an outcry from residents. The French company’s renewables unit said it may need higher turbines for the project to be economically viable and win millions of pounds in government subsidies. Kerry MacPhee, the head of community liaison at Lewis Wind Power, the EDF-led joint venture behind the plan, told locals this week that one of the windfarms could be 200 metres (650ft) tall, with the other 187 metres, up from 150 metres and 145 metres previously. That would be taller than the UK’s largest existing onshore turbine (193.5 metres) and be on a par with some of the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbines, which are 60 metres taller than the London Eye. MacPhee said the potential changes were designed to increase the project’s chances of winning future auctions for low-carbon electricity and unlock “substantial benefits for Lewis”. The Conservatives ended subsidies for onshore windfarms shortly after coming to power in 2015, citing public opposition to them. However, last year the government announced onshore wind could compete for subsidies if built on remote islands, where they could benefit communities and generate large-scale clean power. Claire Perry, the energy minister, has also hinted at a return for the technology on the mainland, saying she is “looking carefully” at supporting onshore windfarms in Scotland and Wales – but not England. EDF said it was likely, but not guaranteed, that fewer turbines would be needed for the Lewis project than the original 36 planned. Bigger turbines would also require a new application for planning approval, allowing opponents a chance to air their opinions. Critics remain unimpressed, however. Four crofting groups have been battling EDF’s proposal, arguing that local people would benefit more if the island’s wind resource was harnessed by community-owned turbines. Rhoda MacKenzie, a spokesperson for the crofters, said: “It’s going to have a detrimental effect on tourism. The largest wind turbines in the UK? I hardly think that’s going to bring people here.” Calum MacDonald, a former MP who backs an expansion of community-owned wind power, said the turbine size was staggering. EDF has said there would be no case for more community windfarms without a new power cable to the mainland. The estimated £780m investment needed for such an interconnector would only be justified by electricity generation on the scale proposed by EDF. Wind power developers fighting in auctions for government subsidies across Europe are increasingly dependent on scale to win contracts by bidding with the lowest subsidy price. The next UK auction is scheduled for the spring of 2019. | ['business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/edf', 'uk/scotland', 'uk/uk', 'society/communities', 'society/society', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2018-05-02T15:32:44Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2017/jun/25/dozens-die-in-portugals-worst-forest-fire | Dozens die in Portugal's worst forest fire | The area of Pedrógão Grande in central Portugal experienced the worst forest fire the country has ever experienced last week, killing at least 64 people and injuring many more. The blazes broke out on the afternoon of Saturday 17 June and spread rapidly, trapping people in their cars. Some 350 soldiers and 1,600 firefighters battled the blaze, which is thought to have started from a dry thunderstorm triggered by the very hot, humid conditions of the days leading up to it as temperatures exceeded 40°C. Not only was the ground dry but the rain falling from the large cumulonimbus clouds evaporated before reaching the ground. Lightning strikes ignited the fire and strong gusts of wind acted as a fan to enhance and spread it. In contrast, there has been very heavy rain in New Zealand, flooding roads and trapping people in various settlements. Parts of the North Island had more than 70mm of rain in less than 12 hours. The area of low pressure responsible for bringing this spell of adverse winter weather continued to move southwards over the weekend, bringing plenty of rain to the South Island too. Putting the recent UK hot spell in the shade, the south-western US has been experiencing severe heatwave conditions with 47C recorded in Las Vegas on 20 June – just one of the temperature records broken in the region. This is due to a huge ridge of high pressure, associated with sinking air, trapping the heat being advected from the south. Excessive heat warnings have remained in place over the weekend, with seven fatalities being linked to the scorching weather. | ['world/wildfires', 'news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'environment/flooding', 'world/portugal', 'weather/portugal', 'world/newzealand', 'weather/newzealand', 'weather/usa', 'us-news/us-news', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-06-25T20:30:40Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/dec/12/bowhead-whale-arctic-recovery-scientists | Scientists cheered by bowhead whale recovery despite Arctic warming | In some rare good news from the top of the world, bowhead whale populations have rebounded and are nearing pre-commercial whaling numbers in US waters. Surprisingly, the whales’ recovery has actually accelerated as the Arctic warms, according to an update on the species published this week by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. “This is really one of the great conservation successes of the last century,” said J Craig George, a retired biologist with the North Slope borough department of wildlife management. Bowhead whales – the only baleen whale that lives in the Arctic year-round – were once on the brink of disappearing forever. The population near Alaska was targeted by commercial whalers beginning in the 1700s for their oil, blubber and baleen. Their large, rotund bodies and slow-moving nature made them easy targets, and they were nearly hunted to extinction by the turn of the 20th century. Once commercial whaling ceased, the western Arctic population living in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas began to rebound. The whales’ recovery has been in large part thanks to the natural inaccessibility of their ice-covered home, which has shielded them from commercial shipping and fishing activities that threaten their right whale cousins to the south. George also credits sustainable management and stewardship of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC), who have fought against offshore oil drilling and other activities that could harm the species. “No one has fought harder than the AEWC to protect bowhead habitat from industrial development in the US Arctic,” George said. Researchers work with Alaska native communities such as the Inupiat of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, who have hunted the whales at sustainable levels for at least 1,000 years, to monitor and study the species. “The general understanding of cetacean biology, anatomy and physiology and ecology has been greatly enhanced in the partnership with indigenous hunters,” George said. “It was the Inupiat captains that taught us how to properly count whales.” Bowhead whales can provide broader insights into Arctic marine ecosystem health. The species’ longevity and sensitivity to annual fluctuations help biologists track changes in the Arctic over long periods of time. Bowhead whales’ accelerated population expansion in recent decades has come as a surprise to biologists, who expected the cold-adapted whale species to suffer from the melting sea ice. Bowheads are highly specialized to their Arctic environment, with a pronounced bump on their heads used to break ice and blubber over a foot and a half (half a meter) thick. So far, however, the whales have proven resilient in the face of dramatic changes and have even benefited in unexpected ways. The Arctic is becoming more productive as temperatures rise and more light reaches the ocean surface layer where sea ice is thinner or absent. Less ice and more nutrients flowing north from the Bering Sea have led to an increase in bowhead whale foods like krill and copepods in northern latitudes. These changes have been helpful to bowheads around Alaska, resulting in fatter whales and more babies, according to Noaa. Bowheads have also been able to expand their territory north into waters where the ice was once too thick for them to break. While the western Arctic population was hunted down to just a few thousand individuals by the end of commercial whaling, they had rebounded to about 10,000 individuals by the turn of the 21st century and now number at least 16,800. But the species’ fate is far from certain as the Arctic rapidly transforms. Their thick blubber, which provides insulation against frigid icy waters, could become a disadvantage during warmer summers. They are also more likely to get tangled in fishing gear, face competition for food from other baleen whales, and attacked by their only natural predators – orcas – as the ice retreats and can no longer shield them. “They really are headed into an uncertain future,” George said. | ['environment/series/this-land-is-your-land', 'environment/whales', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/cetaceans', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/arctic', 'world/world', 'us-news/alaska', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rachel-fritts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-12T11:00:35Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-have-moral-obligation-to-act-after-un-climate-report | World leaders 'have moral obligation to act' after UN climate report | World leaders have been told they have moral obligation to ramp up their action on the climate crisis in the wake of a new UN report that shows even half a degree of extra warming will affect hundreds of millions of people, decimate corals and intensify heat extremes. But the muted response by Britain, Australia and other governments highlights the immense political challenges facing adoption of pathways to the relatively safe limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures outlined on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). With the report set to be presented at a major climate summit in Poland in December, known as COP24, there is little time for squabbles. The report noted that emissions need to be cut by 45% by 2030 in order to keep warming within 1.5C. That means decisions have to be taken in the next two years to decommission coal power plants and replace them with renewables, because major investments usually have a lifecycle of at least a decade. Mary Robinson, a UN special envoy on climate, said Europe should set an example by adopting a target of zero-carbon emissions by 2050. “Before this, people talked vaguely about staying at or below 2C – we now know that 2C is dangerous,” she said. “So it is really important that governments take the responsibility, but we must all do what we can.” The UK, which has gone further than most nations by cutting its annual emissions by 40% since 1990, will need to step up if the more ambitious goal is to be reached. Claire Perry, minister for energy, said the government would outline its next steps in the next few days: “I welcome the strong scientific analysis behind today’s IPCC report and its conclusions are stark and sober. As policymakers we need to work together to accelerate the low-carbon transition to minimise the costs and misery of a rapidly warming world.” But her failure to spell out how this would be achieved was criticised by Green party MP Caroline Lucas, who said the UK government has slashed support for renewables, pushed ahead with fracking and airport expansion, and continues to subsidise fossil fuels. “If ministers are serious about taking the action they admit is needed,” Lucas said, “the government would commit today to reversing the freeze on fuel duty announced last week and lifting the ban on onshore wind turbines. And crucially, Claire Perry must stop forcing fracking on communities who’ve rejected it.” Bob Ward, of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said the UK had a good track record but needed to be more ambitious, which would require action across a wider area of government: “More effort is needed from other departments. For instance, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government needs to be more proactive in ensuring that buildings become zero-carbon as soon as possible. And the Department for Transport must be more ambitious on developing electric vehicles.” Politicians, scientists and climate activists will hold a meeting chaired by Lord Krebs, former member of the Committee on Climate Change, in parliament on Wednesday to discuss the new 1.5C report and consider policy options. Among those attending will be Jim Skea, a co-chair of the IPCC working group on mitigation. “My biggest hope is that they [political leaders] take this seriously,” Skea said. “We can’t carry on with business as usual or minor changes.” But there is increasing pushback by the world’s powerful fossil fuel and agribusiness interests, who are supporting politicians who are apathetic or hostile to climate action. The new IPCC report stressed the urgent need for reforestation and greater forest protection, but within hours of its release the first round of the Brazilian presidential election ended with a huge lead for Jair Bolsonaro, who has promised to quit the Paris accord and open up the Amazon rainforest to farmers and miners. Donald Trump has also announced that the US will pull out of the climate deal. And in Australia, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said there was no money for “global climate conferences and all that nonsense”. So far, however, no government has actually dropped out and civil society groups say the new report by scientists will help them put pressure on leaders to aim for the safer, lower level of warming. “Any administration, and it would appear especially the US and Australia, that pushes damaging domestic policies and picks apart science consensus is a dangerous outlier by ignoring the deadly impacts now due to climate chaos,” said Rachel Kennerley of Friends of the Earth. “International cooperation is manifestly preferable but the rest of the world will have to double down on efforts – it’s a shortsighted block to the global efforts needed that this report sets out, but it’s not insurmountable either.” Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, said the urgent message of the report “must be carried into the halls of power and the negotiation rooms at COP24. This should be a moral imperative for all leaders around the world.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ipcc', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'world/unitednations', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2018-10-08T17:17:04Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2011/dec/01/the-year-of-living-ecologically | Letters: The year of living ecologically | At the end of this UN-led International Year of Biodiversity, I would like to thank the Natural History Museum for its efforts in bringing together the 450 or so organisations from across the worlds of environment, academia, faith groups, business and wider civil society, with the aim of engaging and exciting people about our wonderful natural environment. Since May, we have taken some real steps forward in highlighting how valuable the natural world is to our livelihoods and how close the link is between biodiversity, climate change, our economy and well-being. The success we achieved in reaching a new global conservation agreement in Nagoya (Report, 30 October) was one such step. It will halt the loss of habitats and species, helping to protect the planet's variety of life. And a package to help poorer nations fulfil their biodiversity obligations represents real progress. Of course there is still much more work to do. Next year we will publish the natural environment white paper. We want everyone to have their say in shaping its development and have been encouraged by the fantastic response to our discussion document, An Invitation to Shape the Nature of England. This shows that people really care about the natural environment and want a say in how it is managed – and we will take these views forward as we develop our new vision for the natural environment. Caroline Spelman MP Environment secretary | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'tone/letters', 'environment/nagoya', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2011-01-04T12:04:23Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2020/dec/14/ministers-would-be-wise-to-play-for-time-before-ordering-sizewell-c | Ministers would be wise to play for time before ordering Sizewell C | Nils Pratley | This is the government’s problem as it reopens talks on a proposed nuclear power station at Sizewell C in Suffolk: it is contemplating ordering a replica of Hinkley Point C before the Somerset original has produced a single megawatt of electricity. That is not a small point. Developer EDF’s pre-Hinkley version of its European pressurised reactor at Flamanville in Normandy is about a decade behind schedule. What’s more, EDF wants UK taxpayers or bill payers to bear more of the construction risks at Sizewell, a less-than-compelling offer when you remember that Flamanville is also €9bn (£8.2bn) over budget. Progress with construction at Hinkley is said to be smoother, even if costs have gone up, but one would prefer to see the thing humming before committing another £20bn. Actual production of electricity won’t happen at Hinkley until 2025 at the earliest and, arguably, the government needs to get a move on with meeting its low-carbon ambitions well before then – or so, the nuclear lobby will inevitably say. Ministers, though, should resist the temptation to make a quick decision. Remember the advice of the Infrastructure Commission in its last assessment of energy needs: a renewables-based system is the best bet and only one new big nuclear plant needs to be commissioned before 2025. That would seem to create space to string out the negotiations with EDF; however hard the French state-backed firm may press for speed. A slow pace would also allow Rolls-Royce to work on its plans for small modular reactors. If these smaller-scale units can turned into a financially competitive alternative to mega-plants of the Hinkley/Sizewell variety, the nuclear outlook would change radically. The Sizewell proposal comes with other problems, including local opposition, the suitability of the site and the still-unclear status of co-financing by China (surely impossible in the current political climate). In short, Sizewell should be viewed only as a last resort. AstraZeneca boss’s record suggests Alexion takeover will pay off The market has spoken on AstraZeneca’s plan to pay $39bn (£29bn) to buy the US biotech group Alexion Pharmaceuticals and, well, it’s not clear what it thinks. A 5.7% fall in AstraZeneca’s share price obviously doesn’t signal wild enthusiasm. But nor can one say it implies a definitive thumbs-down: in a deal of this size, and with two-thirds of the purchase price being paid in shares, an initial wobble is not unusual. There is work for the chief executive, Pascal Soriot, to do to convince his shareholders, one might say. The problem doesn’t seem to be the financial aspects of the deal, where Soriot could point to Alexion’s cash-generative qualities and the likelihood of a short-term boost to AstraZeneca’s earnings, despite offering a 45% takeover premium. Rather, the challenge is explaining the strategic thinking. Alexion is big in rare diseases, which AstraZeneca’s isn’t. On that score, though, Soriot can do little more than ask investors to accept his assessment that Alexion’s pipeline of new molecules is promising and that access to new technology could be useful within AstraZeneca’s existing immunology portfolio. That’s a “trust me” argument, which is not ideal. But AstraZeneca has been transformed on Soriot’s watch by backing the right science at the right moment, sometimes striking out in new directions. The long-term perspective on the share price is a trebling since 2012. That’s a very decent record: one suspects investors will come round in the end. BDO at least did its U-turn on furlough money quickly The 260 partners of BDO seem to have grasped that, if you’re going to perform an embarrassing U-turn, do so quickly. Last Thursday, they said they’d weighed the “moral debate” and thought it fine to keep £4m-worth of furlough receipts from the government – yes, even as they paid themselves an average of £518,000 per head, a grand total of £137m. At the weekend, they capitulated, “recognising the public mood”, and said they’ll send a cheque to HM Revenue & Customs pronto. At a push, one might say it is easier for the directors of Tesco et al to return money to the Treasury, since they’re handling shareholders’ money, rather than their own. But let’s not make excuses for BDO’s original stupidity. The government, when dishing out contracts for public sector work, is supposed to be trying to encourage second-tier firms such as BDO. High-profile own goals just give ministers an excuse to play safe and prefer the big four monopolists. • This article was amended on 15 December 2020. In an earlier version the picture caption misidentified Sizewell’s A and B reactors. | ['business/nils-pratley-on-finance', 'business/business', 'uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/edf', 'world/france', 'environment/energy', 'world/europe-news', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'business/utilities', 'business/astrazeneca', 'business/pharmaceuticals-industry', 'uk-news/suffolk', 'world/world', 'business/accountancy', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'business/sizewell-c', 'profile/nilspratley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2020-12-14T19:56:05Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/jan/17/paris-climate-deal-flame-of-hope-diplomacy-christiana-figueres | Paris climate deal offers flame of hope, says UN official | The Paris climate agreement kindled “a huge flame of hope”, establishing a new model of 21st-century diplomacy, the woman behind the deal has declared. In her first public reflections on the climate accord signed in December, Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change official, said that after two decades of meandering negotiations, countries had at last discovered their “higher purpose” and risen to the challenge of dealing with global warming. The Paris agreement, in which 195 countries committed to limiting the temperature increase to well below 2C, set a new standard for dealing with complex global problems, she said. “Climate change is a very, very good example of how we are moving to a completely new social contract from the last century,” Figueres told the Guardian at a conference hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) in Abu Dhabi. “The social contract that is going to underpin the 21st century has at least five very, very different ways of dealing with challenges and very different ways of delivering solutions. “To have Paris is a huge flame of hope. We can really take some confidence from there that if we decide we want to do something, then we can,” said Figueres, who will step down this summer after guiding the negotiations for six years. “We are not bound by situations we are confronted with. We can rise above them. It’s fantastic.” A number of key players in the Paris climate deal attended the annual Irena conference at the weekend. More than 80 countries committed in their climate plans in Paris to expand their use of solar and wind power as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These countries are now looking for financing and technological assistance to make the switch to cleaner energy sources. Figueres said countries had overcome multiple faultlines to arrive at a deal in Paris – the divide between rich and poor countries, between the public and private sector, between different regions. Unlike other negotiations, the Paris climate talks involved governments, business leaders and campaign groups. A number of foreign policy experts have held up Paris as a new model for diplomacy, and commentators have praised the French hosts for skilfully guiding the talks to a successful resolution. “It is the way that we are going to operate increasingly in the 21st century,” Figueres said. The agreement abandoned the idea of a traditional international treaty with clear rules and fixed obligations, in recognition that the US would never sign on to an agreement that needed approval from a Republican-controlled Senate. Instead, the agreement relied on countries to come forward with plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and then to review those plans at regular intervals to make even deeper cuts. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former US Department of State official and president of the New America Foundation, wrote of the deal in December: “By the standards of a traditional treaty, it falls woefully short. Yet its deficits in this regard are its greatest strengths as a model for effective global governance in the 21st century. The Paris agreement is a sprawling, rolling, overlapping set of national commitments brought about by a broad conglomeration of parties and stakeholders. It is not law. It is a bold move toward public problem-solving on a global scale. And it is the only approach that could work.” But there have also been a number of high-profile critics of the Paris agreement. James Hansen, the climate scientist, dismissed the agreement as a fraud. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential contender, said the deal went nowhere near far enough. Figueres said the 31-page agreement had exceeded her expectations. “The surprise for me was actually the clarity of the text and the way in which governments worked with each other to get to common ideas,” she said. “In previous negotiations, people have got so caught up with the wording itself – this comma, that comma, that verb – that they tripped over themselves and were not able to reach for the stars. In this case they first reached for the stars and then thought: how do we express that?” She said Paris was the first time in six such climate meetings that she never had a moment when she feared it would all end in a collapse. “At every other one there was at least one moment in which I thought we are going to lose this whole thing,” she said. “This was the first time in which it was so evident that there was overwhelming, not just political will, but political determination to actually come to an agreement.” And not just an agreement for the sake of it, she said. “The overriding current was getting to an agreement that they could all be proud of. It wasn’t just for a photo.” • Suzanne Goldenberg’s trip to the conference in Abu Dhabi was funded by Irena, the International Renewable Energy Agency. | ['environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris', 'world/unitednations', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/paris-climate-agreement', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2016-01-17T14:14:14Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
media-network/media-network-blog/2014/may/27/big-data-confusing-consumers-buzzwords | Why lifting the lid on data might save its reputation | The day Edward Snowden's NSA revelations were made public was the day data privacy became a global talking point. What was once a conversation confined to the tech-savvy became a dinner table conversation. The world is becoming privacy obsessed. Indeed, research shows that 89% of the UK population worry about their privacy online. The data privacy debate was ready to ignite, and the Snowden exposés simply flicked the switch. And the world moves quickly. With widespread attention comes the familiar influx of buzzwords. The world of data has been no exception. Before we knew it, a new data lexicon filtered into our daily lives. The problem is that buzzwords do not necessarily reflect the impact or purpose of the very concepts they are trying to explain. Seemingly, the sole purpose of this lexicon is to baffle and bemuse consumers. "Data is the new oil," people proclaim, leading to visions of a new landscape filled with data barons and information fracking. But, just as concerns around oil stem from the method and impact of extraction, so they do in the world of data. In order for the new world of data to thrive for the benefit of consumers and organisations, companies need to take a long-term ethical approach to the valuable commodity that has been entrusted to them. By demonstrating "data sustainability", businesses can help people feel more confident in sharing their information. This means being transparent about the information held, making consumers aware of the value exchange of providing their details and giving them control about how and where the data is used. With its "some things you'll share online; some things maybe not" campaign, Microsoft did just that, effectively using data transparency as a positive differentiator. "Big data" is another culprit guilty of misrepresentation. Bigger isn't always better. Nor is it representative of how data is used, or how it benefits consumers. What we are really talking about is smart data. By this I mean data with insights to make consumers' lives easier. Big data is smart because it harnesses customer behaviour to drive benefits for consumers and companies alike. For customers, it could mean making savings on what they buy; helping them to save time or make better decisions. For businesses that have the data and use it well, it enables them to act like a local business naturally would: recognising a loyal customer, anticipating their needs and rewarding them for their valued custom. So, how do we encourage people to embrace the true meaning of data? For people picking a bank to entrust with their savings, or parents choosing a dependable friend to act as godparent to their child, the overarching consideration will be trust. Likewise in data, trust remains the crucial determinant. Consumers should be able to feel safe in the knowledge that brands are essentially acting as "data stewards" or guardians of their information. But the ambiguities and complexities of data privacy create a huge trust barrier. With increased expectations and awareness, those that collect data need solid privacy frameworks that are written with consumers in mind, in language they can understand. Privacy policies should no longer be seen as small print written by lawyers, for lawyers. Company policies ought to provide a clear reference point, acting as a reliable source of information for consumers faced with a multitude of conflicting opinions, from politicians to the media. Consumers rightfully demand transparency around the collection and use of their data. This is a positive phenomenon. Therefore, if we are serious about the benefits data brings to consumers' daily lives, we owe it to them to make the subject transparent. Jeremy Henderson Ross is global privacy officer at Aimia To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership. All Guardian Media Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled Advertisement feature. Find out more here. | ['media-network/media-network', 'media-network/media-network-blog', 'technology/big-data', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'media-network/series/digital-marketing'] | technology/big-data | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2014-05-27T10:50:55Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
stage/2018/mar/28/to-pee-or-not-to-pee-the-rsc-now-has-more-cubicles-for-women | To pee, or not to pee, RSC now has more cubicles for women | Brief letters | We are sorry for the inconvenience experienced by Gill Glover (Letters, 27 March) in using the toilets at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. We are grateful to have been made aware of the “oversharing” of the men’s facilities, and will resolve the problem straight away through a judicious rehanging of the door. The redevelopment of the theatre in 2010 enabled us to more than double the women’s cubicles available: we now have 47, compared with paltry 19 before the works. Catherine Mallyon Executive director, Royal Shakespeare Company • Boris Johnson’s “if I have offended” apology (Report, 28 March) is quite inadequate. I can’t speak for Emily Thornberry but he offended John Bercow, and he offended me. The occasion called for an unconditional apology for yet another flouting of the normal rules of civilised behaviour. He is an embarrassment to us all. Betty Birch London • Good news that the governments of England and Scotland are to revert to the deposit scheme of 60 years ago (Report, 28 March). Say the wee boys’ warning with a Glaswegian glottal stop: “If yer faither goes teetottle / There’ll be naithin’ on the bottle.” Iain Mackintosh London • When I buy delicatessen or cheeses at Carrefour supermarkets in France, they are wrapped in paper, before being placed in biodegradable bags. Not only is no plastic involved but the bags are the right size and composition for reuse in compost caddies. Why can’t English shops do the same to save the planet from ruin and help the customer save money? Carola Zentner London • As I had passed my 11-plus in 1959 I was caned (once) by my teacher to “make the other [failed] pupils feel better”. I never did quite grasp the meaning of this psychological lesson (Letters, 28 March). Derek Middlemiss Collingham, Nottinghamshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['stage/rsc', 'stage/theatre', 'stage/stage', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'politics/emily-thornberry', 'politics/politics', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/plastic-bags', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'business/supermarkets', 'world/france', 'education/schools', 'education/education', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-03-28T16:53:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
technology/2008/jun/04/yahoo.yahoo | Yahoo takeover: I'll oust founder Jerry Yang from board, warns dissident Carl Icahn | Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang will be ousted from the board of the company he founded, dissident investor Carl Icahn said last night, as the embattled firm faced a showdown with frustrated shareholders. Icahn has proposed an alternative slate of directors that would approve a takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft and could be voted in at the annual shareholder meeting now set for August 1. The billionaire investor said in an interview with today's Wall Street Journal that he was "amazed at the lengths" that Yang and the board had gone to avoid a Microsoft takeover. "Nobody ever understood the magnitude of what Yahoo did to do avoid making a deal," added Icahn. "How can Yahoo keep saying they're willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they're completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone?" "In my opinion, you might have to get rid of Jerry and part of the board to bring back Microsoft." Icahn claimed Microsoft executives will have lost confidence in the current Yahoo board to pursue the necessary regulatory approval for any deal. "Microsoft will have to tie up $45bn for an entire year, and they might want to do it with someone they trust," he said. Icahn also referred to court papers made public in the US this week that showed the Yahoo board drafted a press release rejecting a Microsoft offer three months before it was officially put forward. The lawsuit also said the Yahoo board approved an expensive employee severance scheme that would complicate a Microsoft takeover by paying between four and 24 months' salary and benefits to staff who leave or are fired "without cause" after a merger. Icahn said the plan would have cost Microsoft an additional $2.5bn, although Yahoo put the cost between $462m and $2.1bn. In a statement issued last night, Yahoo said its board of directors, including Yang, had been "crystal clear that it would consider any proposal by Microsoft that was in the best interests of its shareholders". "To that end, Yahoo has engaged in extensive discussions with Microsoft over the last several months, culminating in Microsoft's decision not to pursue an acquisition of Yahoo. Mr Icahn's assertions ignore this clear factual record," the statement added. The company last night confirmed that the annual shareholder meeting would be held on August 1 after postponing from the original date of July 3. Microsoft withdrew its $47.5bn unsolicited takeover for Yahoo on May 3, but talks have since renewed over a smaller deal where Microsoft would take control of Yahoo's display advertising. · To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332. · If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". | ['media/mediabusiness', 'media/digital-media', 'media/media', 'technology/yahoo', 'technology/yahoo-takeover', 'technology/microsoft', 'technology/technology', 'business/business', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/jemimakiss'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-06-04T10:53:15Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2019/sep/16/american-midwest-floods-disaster-farmland | Weatherwatch: why slow-motion natural disasters don't make the news | Media interest in natural disasters concentrates on events such as hurricanes that happen over a short period in a specific area. Sometimes, though, destructive weather effects build up gradually across a region over many months, like the floods afflicting the American midwest this year. A blizzard described by the National Weather Service as “of historic proportions” in March added to already deep snow cover. Spring rains rapidly melted the snow and the inundation began. Above-average rainfall has continued through August, and a slow-motion disaster has played out. Farmlands and roads have been flooded, and communities evacuated. Emergencies were declared over a wide area, with 11 states requesting federal disaster relief. One Nebraska official described the flooding there as “biblical”. Satellite data indicated that the Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers had all reached record-breaking levels. Millions of acres of farmland have been underwater for months. There have been few deaths, though, and the communities affected are mainly in poor rural areas, so the floods rarely make the national news. The damage already runs to billions of dollars, but a full assessment is impossible until the waters recede and the impact on the harvest is known. Recovery is likely to take at least a decade, and this would be set back if there is further flooding during that period. | ['environment/flooding', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'us-news/arkansas', 'us-news/nebraska', 'us-news/mississippi', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-weather', 'media/media', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-16T20:30:07Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2015/nov/11/orcas-captive-seaworld-killer-whale-shows | Keeping orcas captive demeans us as humans | Philip Hoare | News that SeaWorld is to phase out its captive orca programme in San Diego sounds like a good thing, and so it is. Although its decision seems to be economic rather than ethical, the company’s latest announcement follows other damage limitation exercises such as the proclamation of new “environments” for its captive orca, and would also seem to be a clear response to the state of California having outlawed breeding of new animals, and their sale or transfer (although SeaWorld has announced that it will contest that). And yet the trade in capturing orca from the wild continues. Cathy Williamson, who observes captivity programmes for Whale and Dolphin Conservation as part of its ongoing campaign to stop the trade, notes that captures are continuing in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s far east. “At least 15 orcas have been captured between 2012 and 2015,” she says. She believes that “at least three orcas are now in Moscow, and that Russia has exported at least seven to China”. The Russians claim to be undertaking “research” on these animals as to why they “aggressively steal fishermen’s catch”. Yuri Blinov, deputy director of Tinro, the research facility, explained: “There was a recent problem in that killer whales have become parasites. They remove catches from longlines. The main goal now is to … find humane ways to isolate the killer whales from the fishermen.” Our human instinct to extend dominion over the natural world knows no bounds, apparently. As of October 2015, there are a total of 58 orca held in captivity, of which 24 were wild captured, and 34 captive bred, in 14 marine parks around the world, from the US to Japan, Canada, France, Russia, Argentina and Spain. It is a situation that not only demeans the animals, but demeans us, too. How can we be human, when we extend such cruelty to species so close to us – culturally, as well as genetically? I saw my first living cetacean in the dolphinarium at Windsor Safari Park in the 1970s, when I was a boy. My sisters and I had pestered our parents to take us there. We sat so eagerly in our plastic seats, watching the show. After the dolphins went through their paces – jumping through hoops, balancing balls on their beaks, catching fish in their mouths – they were cleared from the pool. I was already feeling uneasy about the whole experience. Then Ramu – “our other performer” – emerged from a big black gate at the other end of the pool. An orca – the apex predator of the ocean, a wild, intelligent, highly social cetacean, like its dolphin cousins. An emperor among animals, with the tallest dorsal fin in the sea – rising two metres tall in a male. What happened next shocked me out of my childish complacency. Ramu jumped through a hoop, balanced a ball on his beak, and caught fish in his mouth. It was pathetic. And as sign of his captivity – his emasculation – his fin flopped over backwards, detumescently. That was a moment of apostasy for me. I couldn’t look at a dolphin or orca again with innocent eyes. I came away from that afternoon with a brochure depicting Ramu. Next to it was an advertisement for Embassy cigarettes. Looking at it now, the one seems as outdated as the other. In many ways, these animals are their own worst enemies. We love them because they are clearly intelligent, because they are sleek, hydrodynamic, fantasy versions of our selves, because we can put them in a tank and have them perform for our entertainment. The graphic beauty of an orca has a cartoon quality: it looks like an object as much as an animal. And so we objectify it. The closeness of the distance between our species and theirs is both intimate and unbridgeable. And so we punish them for the sin of being free. The notion that, 40 years after Ramu swam in an overgrown municipal pool, his peers should be imprisoned – not just in SeaWorld, but also in countless facilities around the world (including the EU), speaks to our wondrous disconnection from the natural world. In her new book, Voices in the Ocean, Susan Casey investigates captive orca and the conditions in which they are kept. Until recently, one oceanarium in Switzerland, Connyland, boasted an inbuilt underwater nightclub with flashing lights and amplified music reverberating directly into the animals’ pool. It was, as one scientist described it, “a perversion of the highest degree”. Orca, when not “on display” are often kept in holding tanks, out of sight of their audience. Animals used to the three-dimensional vastness of the ocean cannot put themselves in a vertical position. Little wonder that individual whales show the signs of what would be seen as psychosis in human beings. Meanwhile, SeaWorld is expanding – eastwards. Perhaps trading on what it may perceive as less acute sensibilities towards captive cetaceans, the company is planning a new facility in Saudi Arabia. Its CEO, Joel Manby, told investors last week that the new venture is going ahead, regardless. “We are making progress. I don’t want anyone to think they’ve stopped.” It seems like Ramu’s benighted heirs have some way to go yet: cetaceans will continue to be traded as long as we pay to see them. In her book, Archipelago, the Caribbean writer Monique Roffey saw that “animals fill the gap between man and God”. Whether you believe in a deity or not, surely it’s time for us to stop playing God to what we perceive, in our hubris, as dumb animals. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/seaworld', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/whales', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/philip-hoare'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-11-11T09:34:30Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/aug/17/tidal-energy-support-ebbs-and-flows | Tidal energy support ebbs and flows | Letters | Steve Emsley is wrong when he compares tidal lagoons with Hinkley and asks why tidal energy is not even being discussed (Letters, 17 August). The latest estimated cost of the lagoon proposed for Swansea Bay is £1.3bn. Hinkley would produce 65 times as much electricity, all day, every day – true “baseload”. Tidal lagoons would produce variable amounts (four times as much on a spring tide as on a neap tide in Swansea and a bigger difference further up the Severn estuary) and the generation would be intermittent (four three-hour blocks a day) – that’s not “baseload”. Lagoons could only produce 8% (about 25TWh a year) of the UK’s electricity requirements (a figure challenged by tidal energy experts), if five others followed Swansea, each many times larger and much more costly than Swansea (many times more than £5bn in total). But consent for the next two (huge lagoons further up the Severn estuary off Cardiff and Newport) is most unlikely because of various EU environmental designations (special area of conservation, special protection area etc). As to why no one is discussing them: in fact, Charles Hendry is conducting a review of tidal lagoons to assess, among other things, whether they could play a cost-effective role in the UK energy mix (see www.hendryreview.com). Some think the review was prompted by belated government realisation that the figures bandied around for lagoons just don’t add up. Phil Jones Ynystawe, Swansea • The crown estate’s support for wind power and tidal energy (Report, 15 August) must receive full backing from government and public, in spite of any commitments to Hinkley Point. Zero-carbon economies must be top priority worldwide. Wind is already making a substantial contribution to renewable electricity supplies, in this country and elsewhere, but tidal energy seems to have been overlooked. Yet it is safe, sustainable, dependable, available at many places round our shores and in the wider world. It is also much cheaper and less obtrusive than Hinkley Point and similar projects. Elsa Woodward High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/wave-tidal-hydropower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/letters', 'uk/swansea', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-08-17T17:35:18Z | true | ENERGY |
film/2016/oct/10/shailene-woodley-arrested-north-dakota-pipeline-protest | Shailene Woodley arrested while protesting North Dakota oil pipeline | Actor Shailene Woodley, star of The Fault In Our Stars and the Divergent series, has been arrested along with 26 other people at the Standing Rock oil pipeline protest in North Dakota. Protesters and members of more than 90 Native American nations and tribes have been encamped on the banks of the Missouri river since May to demonstrate against the construction of a pipeline to transport fracked crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery near Chicago. The pipeline’s proposed route takes it across the river immediately upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, which opponents say would threaten the water supply. Its construction also takes it through sacred tribal burial sites. On Sunday, a federal appeals court ruling lifted a temporary injunction, allowing construction to resume.Rob Keller, a spokesman for the Morton County sheriff’s department, said Woodley was being charged with two misdemeanor counts: criminal trespassing and engaging in a riot. Keller said that standard practice was for the arrestees to be processed and then released the same day if they post bond. It is unclear whether Woodley has yet been released. The arrest was broadcast as it happened on Facebook Live from Woodley’s phone. In the video, a police officer can be seen telling her that she is being placed under arrest “for criminal trespass”. The full video, which has been viewed nearly 2m times, is below. The arrest happens at the two-hour mark. “You trespassed on the property, so you are being placed under arrest,” the officer tells her. “But hundreds of people did,” Woodley responds. “You were identified,” another officer tells her. Hundreds of activists and supporters have been arrested so far at the protests, including Dave Archambault, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux. Arrest warrants have also been issued for Democracy Now presenter Amy Goodman, as well as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka, who spray-painted “I approve this message” on a bulldozer when she visited the protest camp in September. Representatives for Woodley did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Associated Press contributed reporting. | ['us-news/dakota-access-pipeline', 'film/shailene-woodley', 'us-news/north-dakota', 'environment/oil', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/nicky-woolf', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2016-10-10T20:47:10Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/2023/nov/25/air-pollution-impacting-pregnancy-mens-reproductive-health | Prenatal exposure to air pollution may hurt reproductive health in adult men, study finds | In-utero exposure to common air pollutants may lower semen quality and increase the risk of reproductive system disease in men, new research finds. The peer-reviewed Rutgers University study looked at whether exposure to particulate matter called 2.5 (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxide may shorten the distance between the anus and genitals, or the anogenital distance, in developing fetuses and newborns. Crucially, anogenital distance is a marker of reproductive health related to hormone levels, lower semen quality, fertility and reproductive disorders, and the research identified a likely link between it and exposure to the pollutants. “When we see shorter anogenital lengths, it’s telling us there is lower testosterone activity in the womb … and it may have implications for fertility and reproductive health down the road,” said Emily Barrett, a biostatistics and epidemiology professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, and the study’s lead author. The findings come amid growing concern over global drops in semen quality, which have so far been tied to exposure to other toxins like PFAS and phthalates. Sperm concentration levels have dropped by 51% in recent decades, and the Rutgers study is among the first “to suggest that the air around is contributing to that, as well”, Barrett added. PM2.5 is among the most common and well-studied air pollutants, and is linked to cancer and respiratory and circulatory disease. Among common sources are diesel exhaust, heavy industry emissions and wildfires, and the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to lower ambient air limits as evidence of its toxicity at smaller exposures becomes clearer. Nitrogen oxide is a common toxin linked to cardiopulmonary disease, decreased lung function growth in children, asthma and other respiratory ailments. Among common sources are heavy industry, like power plants, and traffic. In animal studies, anogenital distance is used to determine developmental toxicity of pollutants – reduced distances are a sign that a toxic exposure is interfering with fetal testosterone production. Researchers suspected that the same might hold true in humans and pulled anogenital distance data from The Infant Development and Environment Study (Tides), an ongoing study of about 700 pregnant women and their children launched in 2010 in Minneapolis; Rochester, New York; San Francisco and Seattle. It tracks anogenital distance at birth in children, and at one year for boys. The study compared Tides data with air pollution levels in the residential neighborhoods where the study’s participants lived. Researchers identified a link between elevated PM2.5 exposure during the “male programming window” at the first trimester’s conclusion and anogenital distance. The male fetus typically develops testosterone during this period, and that affects anogenital distance at birth. “Testosterone is really important for the development of the male reproductive system, and anything that disrupts that normal testosterone surge during gestation has the potential to then have a cascade of effects that impacts all future reproductive development,” Barrett said. The researchers also found a link between PM2.5 exposure during “mini puberty”, a period in early infancy when hormone production is high, and shorter anogenital distance in males at one year old. PM2.5 may also carry other toxins, like cadmium and lead, that interfere with hormone production. Though the study didn’t include women, those women with longer anogenital distances are at higher risk of polycystic ovary syndrome, Barrett said. The best way for pregnant people to protect their fetuses is to follow air quality advisories and stay indoors when pollution levels are high. N95 masks can be used outdoors, and furnace filters with a rating of MERV 13 are effective at reducing indoor air pollution. Policymakers and regulators should also be doing more to rein in pollution and not leaving it to individuals to protect themselves, Barrett added. “This is a public health issue that impacts all of us and there should really be a nationwide and worldwide effort to reduce air pollution,” she said. | ['lifeandstyle/pregnancy', 'environment/air-pollution', 'science/medical-research', 'society/health', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-perkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-11-25T12:00:49Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2014/oct/22/british-families-waste-less-food-since-recession-government-survey-suggests | British families waste less food since recession, government survey suggests | More people are avoiding throwing away food because of financial pressures, according to a government survey. Total household food waste is down by 21% over the last seven years, while the proportion of people who claim to always avoid throwing food away is up from 48% to 58% over four years, said the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The agency’s 2014 Food and You study is the third in an ongoing research exercise carried out for the FSA, which quizzed adults about their eating, cooking and shopping habits. The survey suggests the recession has had a long-lasting impact on the nation’s eating habits, making us less likely to throw away leftovers, or “avoidable” food waste. More than a quarter of adults are buying more food on special offers, while householders are wasting less food by being better organised with shopping, planning meals and storing their food safely to maximise its shelf life. Only 57% of households still rely on one weekly main shopping expedition. The FSA said: “Overall, 52% of respondents said they had made at least one change in their buying or eating arrangements in the last six months for financial reasons.” The survey also found ignorance of food safety rules, with up to half of all householders putting their health at risk by being likely to store raw meat in a way that could lead to cross-contamination. In the UK, official studies have shown that households throw away about seven million tonnes of food a year, when more than half of it is perfectly good to eat. In value terms, the average UK family throws away food worth £700 each year. The FSA research exercise was carried out this year, consisting of 3,453 interviews from a representative sample of adults aged 16 and over across the UK. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'environment/food', 'money/family-finances', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-10-22T14:58:08Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2010/feb/17/tajikistan-water-shortages-climate-change | Tajikistan facing water shortages and climate extremes, report warns | It has been occupied by the Russians, the Mongols, the Turks, the Arabs and the Uzbeks, the Chinese, as well as Genghis Khan. But the ancient, mountainous state of Tajikistan, which has been at the crossroads of Asian civilisations for over a thousand years, is in danger of being overwhelmed by water shortages, rising temperatures and climate extremes. A report released today by Oxfam details fast-rising temperatures, melting glaciers in the Pamir mountains, increased disease, drought, landslides and food shortages. Temperatures plummeted to -20C for more than a month in 2008-09 – unheard of in what is, in places, a subtropical region – and temperatures in the south of the country near Afghanistan have risen several degrees above normal, said the report. About 20% of the country's 8,492 glaciers are in retreat and 30% more are likely to retreat or disappear by 2050, said Ilhomjon Rajabov, head of the state's climate change department. The largest glacier, Fedchenko, has lost 44 sq km, or 6% of its volume, in the last 34 years. "It is indisputable that glaciers in Tajikistan are retreating. It is also indisputable that if glaciers continue to retreat, and the country experiences more extreme weather, countless people will be dealt an even harder blow. Nearly 1.5 million people are already food-insecure and that figure will likely rise if climate change is not addressed. There could even be a dangerous ripple effect across Central Asia, with countries throughout the region potentially wrestling over dwindling water resources in coming decades," said Andy Baker, Oxfam Tajikistan's country director. Scientists and farmers have also observed significant changes in air temperatures, said Oxfam. There has been an increase in the number of days where temperatures have exceeded 40C in the past 50 years, a decline in thunderstorms and hailstorms and mean temperatures have increased in places 1.2C in 65 years – well above the global average which is around 0.8C in the past century. The implications of climate change stretch well beyond Tajikistan's borders, said Oxfam. Because its glaciers and mountains supply much of the water for the Aral Sea and and the vast, water-hungry, cotton-growing areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, there is a danger climate change will increase tensions between already water-stressed countries. The report cites a World Bank study which said: "The consequences of climate change ... would contribute to political destabilisation and trigger migration [in Central Asia]. As warming progresses, it is likely to intensify national and international conflicts over scarce resources." | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/drought', 'environment/water', 'environment/glaciers', 'world/tajikistan', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'environment/summer', 'world/south-and-central-asia', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2010-02-17T06:00:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2011/nov/20/edward-linacre-airdrop-bright-idea | Edward Linacre: it's possible to get water from thin air | Edward Linacre from the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne is the winner of the 2011 James Dyson award for his Airdrop – a low-cost, low-maintenance aid to the problems of farming in arid areas. James Dyson said: "Airdrop shows how simple, natural principles such as the condensation of water can be applied to good effect through skilled design and robust engineering." Linacre and his university department each received a £10,000 prize. What was your inspiration for the Airdrop? It came out of a project I was doing at university. There was a huge drought gripping Australia at the time, the worst in 100 years. I spent a lot of time talking to an orange farmer who explained to me the problems farmers were having because of the lack of water. What really drove it home to me were the increasing rates of suicide among farmers as a result of the years of mounting debt and failing crops. I started by looking at what was happening to the soil. All the water was evaporating from the soil and the water vapour was continuing up into the atmosphere and contributing to greenhouse gases. I thought that there had to be a way of capturing that water vapour and feeding it back down into the roots of the plants where it belongs – to hydrate the soil once more and stop it from reaching up into the atmosphere. You also found inspiration from how nature copes with arid conditions? I discovered that nature efficiently captures water from the air in countless ways. There's the self-irrigating desert rhubarb, which can harvest 16 times more water than other plants in the region where it grows by deep, water-channelling cavities in its leaves. Then there's the Namib desert beetle, whose habitat is one of the driest places on earth (half an inch of rain per year). It lives off the dew it collects on the hydrophilic skin of its back in the early mornings. These stories inspired me to investigate low-tech atmospheric water harvesting solutions. We need to look to nature for inspiration because these plants and creatures have been living for so long, overcoming many of the problems that man is tackling at the moment. How much water is there in desert air? It depends where you are. For example, in the Negev desert in Israel, the average humidity is 54% which means that in each cubic metre of air there is 11.5ml of water. What you need to do is get the temperature of that air down to a level where the air reaches 100% humidity – exactly what happens when you take a glass of iced water out on a cold day: the condensation forms on the outside of the glass. That's what the Airdrop does, but in reverse: it uses the temperature of the soil on the outside of its underground piping to create moisture on the inside of the pipes. Can you explain a little more about how the Airdrop works? It's a low-tech solar-powered system because I want farmers to be able to install and maintain it. First, a turbine draws air underneath the ground into a network of pipes. When the air reaches condensation point the water pours down into a underwater tank. A submersible pump pumps the water back up through the central column of the piping and this is pumped through to the roots of plants through a process called sub-surface drip irrigation – which is the most efficient method of irrigating crops because you don't get evaporation. What was the biggest design challenge you faced? Creating enough condensation. We made a huge breakthrough by putting copper wool inside the pipes. The wool was cooled by the pipes and this increased the surface area within the pipes that was cool enough to cause condensation to take place. How much can the Airdrop gather and what area could that irrigate? At the moment, the concept is in its early stages. We've proved the creation of water in a really efficient manner; the next step is to prove it works on a larger scale. There has been a lot of interest in manufacturing the Airdrop. I want to keep it local and support the Australian manufacturing industry. It needs further research and development – I need to find the right industrial partner. Up until now I've been building prototypes in my mother's backyard. Your grandfather was an industrial designer who designed systems for recycling plastics. Yes, he was able to see all the waste that was happening and took steps to look at that. Grandpa isn't with us any more but I would have liked him to experience this – my work upholds that creative side of the family. We lost my older brother a few years ago, and he always said you had to charge hard and never miss a moment, take every possible opportunity. After that happened, I haven't had a day off basically and I think this award is recognition for all those sleepless nights. I'll always live by my brother's legacy. | ['science/series/my-bright-idea', 'environment/drought', 'science/agriculture', 'environment/water', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'tone/features', 'tone/interview', 'type/article', 'profile/iantucker', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-11-20T00:05:55Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/apr/02/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-project-workers-face-layoff-power-station-investment-edf | Hinkley Point C nuclear project workers face layoff | As many as 400 workers at the site of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point face being laid off while the French owners of the project decide whether to make an investment in the £16bn project. EDF has almost completed the project’s preparatory earthworks, drainage, welfare facilities and roadworks, but is yet to decide on the investment to mark the beginning of the construction the plant in Somerset. The company said a decision would be reached in the coming months, and it has already launched a 45-day redundancies consultation, said the unions. Phil Whitehurst, the GMB union’s national officer, described the news as devastating. “The problem seems to be the stalled final investment decision. This should now be a wakeup call for the next UK government to take charge and manage the failing energy policy we have in place,” he said. “We cannot tolerate our energy new-build destiny being managed by companies who are in such disarray on funding when so deep into a project’s development. If we do, then the lights will surely go out,.” It is the first new new nuclear plant in the UK in decades and is scheduled to start producing electricity in 2023. EDF, however, is still negotiating with UK authorities about government debt guarantees for the project, along with decommissioning costs and other details. It is also negotiating with two Chinese utilities about their role in Hinkley Point and possible future UK nuclear projects with EDF. EDF said it had made good progress on work to finalise agreements which will enable a final investment decision. The company said it had invested significantly in preparing the site , with these works nearing completion. “The next phase of work on the site and in the associated developments will require a substantial increase in spending levels, and will begin as soon as the final investment decision has been made,” it said. Kevin Coyne of the Unite union said: “The growing energy needs of the UK demand a clear and coherent strategy to provide enough capacity for industry and consumers. “It is important, therefore, that the final investment decision is made as soon as possible and the announcement today of a delay in that process is disappointing, not least to those who are working on-site preparing the ground.” There will still be around 250 workers on the Hinkley Point C site after any layoffs, and EDF said work to ensure the project’s readiness will continue, including project planning, engineering design and supply chain activities. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'business/construction', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'business/edf', 'uk/uk', 'politics/tradeunions', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2015-04-02T15:37:38Z | true | ENERGY |
uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2011/oct/10/mark-kennedy-ratcliffe-surveillance | BBC on Mark Kennedy and Ratcliffe raid | Rob Evans | The BBC is broadcasting a programme tonight on police spy Mark Kennedy and the environmental campaigners who attempted to shut down a major power station. We have not seen the programme in advance but there is a taster on the BBC website here. The programme-makers appear to have got access to police footage of the raid in which more than 100 activists were pre-emptively arrested hours before the planned break-in at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. As we now know, police were acting on a tip-off from Kennedy who infiltrated the environmental movement for seven years. The BBC says the footage includes the moment Kennedy himself was arrested in the raid by fellow police officers. The concealment of surveillance tapes recorded by Kennedy later led to the quashing of the convictions of the campaigners by three court of appeal judges. Nottingham police are due to appear on the film justifying their actions. Kennedy's deployment is criticised on the programme by Peter Bleksley, a former undercover police officer who infiltrated drug gangs, who says : "Undercover police officers should be highly trained, rare resources, and in my opinion, they should only be used against the most serious of criminality, not against climate campaigners who even a judge described as being decent people". The BBC says the programme will air as an Inside Out Special in the East Midlands region at 7.30 on BBC1. | ['uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans', 'uk/mark-kennedy', 'world/surveillance', 'uk/ukcrime', 'environment/activism', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/robevans'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-10-10T13:47:10Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2015/aug/03/greenpeace-adds-a-new-string-to-its-bow-with-musical-protest-at-shell | Greenpeace performs Arctic requiem in effort to touch hearts over Shell drilling | Shell staff arriving for work in London were regaled with a new piece, Requiem for Arctic Ice, on Monday morning, performed by a string orchestra in protest at the energy giant’s plans to drill for oil under the ice cap. Greenpeace activists handed workers copies of the music and leaflets calling on them to blow the whistle, on what was the first day of a month-long protest outside Shell’s offices on the South Bank. Shell has invested billions into its Arctic drilling venture. A fleet of oil exploration vessels is currently standing by in the Alaskan Arctic waiting for its moment to start drilling into the sea bed. “This protest is about reaching into the hearts of Shell employees, and asking them to help Shell avert disaster,” said Mel Evans, the protest’s artistic director. Evans added: “It’s 2015, we’ve got the climate talks at the end of the year, we really have to send the strongest possible message to Shell that Arctic drilling is a no-go area.” The four-movement requiem, parts of which were written specially for the protest, is inspired by the story of the Titanic’s string quartet, which continued to play as the liner sank after being struck by an iceberg. Evans said passersby, a cab driver stuck in traffic caused by the demonstration, and even the Shell building’s head of security stood to watch as the Crystal Palace Quartet and supporting players performed the 20-minute piece. Environmentalists fear Shell is underestimating the risks it faces in the Arctic. Icebergs, storms and extremes of temperature make offshore drilling risky. Scientists have warned that a spill would be impossible to clean up and could devastate the region’s finely balanced ecosystem. Even as it approved Shell’s drilling plan, the US administration acknowledged a 75% chance of a large spill over the lifetime of the wells. In what could be a taste of things to come, this month Shell’s icebreaker, Fennica, was forced to limp back to port with a gash in its hull after hitting an underwater obstruction. Shell’s exploration fleet is waiting for the ship to return before it begins drilling. Plans to exploit Arctic oil come at a crunch time in efforts to limit the effects of global warming, activists say. Scientists have warned that unlocking the reserves is incompatible with an agreement to limit global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. In March, the lowest sea-ice maximum ever was recorded at the pole – a development which only makes it easier for oil explorers to reach further into the Arctic. Greenpeace campaigners believe their latest protest at Shell taps into a growing, global opposition to exploitation of dwindling and ever harder-to-reach oil reserves. At the South Bank, the musicians played from a spot on the pavement outside the entrance to the Shell building, which is protected by concrete barriers. Anna Jones, an activist, said the building’s head of security was among dozens who stopped to listen. Workers inside the building gathered at the windows to see the quartet and four supporting musicians, whose playing was amplified by a soundsystem, she said. Explaining the decision to use music rather than placards and slogans, Jones said: “People are moved by different things. Some people are moved by words and some people are moved by music. “It makes people stop and think for a while. It touches their hearts as well as their minds. It’s a beautiful piece of music and when we communicate what it’s about I think it has an extra resonance. It’s also showing that protest can take many forms and even musicians care about these things. Ordinary people throughout culture want Shell to stop their drilling.” The protest will continue every working day in August. Performances will be staged at different times in an effort to reach as many Shell workers and passersby as possible. A spokesman for Shell said the company respected Greenpeace’s right to protest, but accused the environmental group of mounting publicity stunts rather than engaging constructively in the debate about how to meet the world’s energy needs. Hydrocarbons will remain a major part of the world’s energy system for many years and offered a “path to prosperity for millions in the developing world,” he said. “We believe we can play an important role in developing the Arctic’s energy resources. We choose to explore there because we have the expertise and experience to operate responsibly and be profitable at the same time,” the spokesman said. “Many Arctic peoples and governments agree with that judgment. They support the opportunity to explore for oil and gas in their territories and those governments have awarded Shell the licenses to conduct those operations.” Listen to Requiem for Arctic Ice • This article was amended on 3 August 2015 to correct the spelling of the Crystal, rather than Chrystal, Palace Quartet. | ['environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'business/royaldutchshell', 'world/protest', 'world/arctic', 'us-news/alaska', 'business/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'music/music', 'music/classical-music-and-opera', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'profile/damien-gayle'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2015-08-03T12:13:10Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
australia-news/commentisfree/article/2024/may/31/barnaby-joyce-ditched-his-rm-williams-to-protest-green-energy-wait-until-he-finds-out-about-his-new-boots | Barnaby Joyce ditched his RM Williams to protest green energy … Wait until he finds out about his new boots | Calla Wahlquist | Earlier today, as I was reverse Google image searching a picture of Barnaby Joyce’s feet, I wondered if I was perhaps taking this too seriously. The National party MP has been attending parliament without his habitual RM Williams boots in protest against the owner of the classic Australian fashion brand, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, whose company Squadron Energy is building wind and solar developments across New South Wales and Queensland, including in Joyce’s electorate of New England. Joyce told 2GB radio on Wednesday that the idea came to him at Beef Week in Rockhampton. He said he had no issue with Forrest personally, but objected to the “swindle-factory so-called windfarms all over our area”. “I thought I’ll make a statement so people will say, ‘why are you doing that?’” he said. Well, mission accomplished. But I remain confused. Because in the place of the RMs at question time earlier this month was a pair of Ariat cowboy boots. Specifically, my image searching revealed, the Cowpuncher VentTEK in the dark brown/golden mustard colourway. According to the product description, the boots are designed to provide “a soft landing when you jump off the feed truck or off your horse”, while the vents in the scrolling “keeps you cool in the heat or in branding season”. This is fine. I’ve got nothing against a good pair of Ariats, though as a horse rider in the English disciplines my Ariats are a pair of half chaps. (That also precisely ages me, for anyone who follows equestrian fashion trends.) They’re also more comfortable than RM Williams – Joyce said as much in that interview. They’re a work boot, and he is at work, and as a person who wears farm boots literally everywhere I cannot begrudge him on an aesthetic level. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter But what perplexes me is why he chose Ariats. Ariat is a quintessentially American brand – it’s named for the racehorse Secretariat. This would be like an American politician trying to appeal to their patriotic base by wearing boots called Phar Lap. The main argument for Australian politicians wearing RM Williams is that they are an iconic Australian brand – although before Forrest bought it the brand was owned by LVMH, more commonly known as Louis Vuitton. The Australiana is, in the theatre of parliament, the whole point. We don’t give visiting dignitaries an Akubra and a Driza-Bone because they’re appropriate bureaucratic attire. If this can be cancelled out by a mining magnate following the economic winds and investing in renewable energy, a decision that whatever other motives you might ascribe is clearly that of a billionaire making a business decision, then we may as well have been wearing lace-ups this whole time. Ariat is also not necessarily a choice that signals disdain for renewable energy: the Fisher family, founders of the Gap, bought the equestrian apparel company in 2012. The Gap has an emissions reduction goal of 90% by 2030 and its chairman, Robert Fisher, is an environmentalist who sat for 20 years on the board of the National Resources Defense Council, an organisation which supports, among other things, federal tax incentives to boost the renewable economy and responsible construction of offshore windfarms. It is particularly perplexing because another boot option is right there: Gina Rinehart, who very loudly does not support renewable energy, bought Rossi Boots through her company S Kidman & Co in December. As the Australian Financial Review pointed out, this set the stage for the “battle of the billionaire boots”. You can now signal your allegiance simply by the stitching on your boot tug. Blundstone, which is still Australian-owned although they are no longer manufactured in Tasmania, is another option. Or Baxters, also Australian-owned and manufactured overseas. As an extremely dorky horse girl who was – and remains – incapable of tying shoelaces so they won’t become unravelled within 20 minutes, I have owned all of these boots. I have RMs for the office, Blundstones for walking through mud on the farm, and Dublin short boots (or Jodhpur or paddock boots or whatever you want to call them except for Chelsea boot) for riding. The key consideration, with the exception of the RMs, which my mum gave me for my 30th birthday when she realised I was turning up to the office in a pair of extremely beat-up 15-year-old Baxters, is cost of replacement. I wear my boots until my socks soak through and the average lifespan is about two years. Joyce’s Ariat roper boots ($450) or the standard shoe of Australian politics or consulting, the RM Craftsman ($649), are too expensive for such use. The latter are sale day boots, fancy boots – that’s the reason the National party started wearing them in the first place. You would never wear your work boots to a livestock sale or a dinner or a political meeting. The well-kept chestnut leather of a pair of RMs that spends the rest of the month sitting buffed clean in the wardrobe is a sign of respect. Despite the price tag, roper boots don’t really have that cachet. It’s one thing to pretend to be a working farmer, it’s another to cosplay as Clinton Anderson. But perhaps that’s the point. The Australian right is increasingly importing tactics from rightwing groups in the US, it may as well copy the footwear. As Joyce took to the stage at an anti-renewables rally in Canberra earlier this year, a man shouted into the microphone: “We need someone like Donald Trump to save us.” He may be a shoo-in. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/barnaby-joyce', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2024-05-30T15:00:12Z | true | ENERGY |
sustainable-business/investors-tackle-hidden-climate-impact-natural-gas | Investors tackle hidden climate impact of natural gas | Energy is big business in the US, but it's also by far the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. And in the hunt for lower-carbon energy investments, investors have flocked to natural gas. And why not? It's half as carbon intensive as coal, which has traditionally been the fuel of choice in the electric power sector. But a closer look at natural gas reveals a hidden and heavy carbon footprint from "fugitive" emissions. The primary component of natural gas is methane, the simple hydrocarbon compound you learned about in chemistry class. What you may not know is that methane has 72 times the climate impact of CO2 over a 20-year period, and it's leaking into the atmosphere throughout the natural gas product cycle, from the time gas is drilled to the time it's delivered. This equates to a double whammy on the climate and the operator's bottom line, because gas that leaks into the atmosphere cannot be sold. Up to this point, companies and regulators have failed to systematically manage methane risk, provoking concern among investors such as Trillium Asset Management. Last year, Trillium Asset Management LLC joined the Investor Network on Climate Risk and an international coalition of investors, representing more than $20tn (£20tn) in managed assets, in calling for action on fugitive methane. But an issue of this magnitude requires persistence. As active investors looking for positive returns and a positive impact on the planet, Trillium files shareholder proposals and engages with companies to reduce risk exposure and improve shareholder value creation. Fugitive methane is a key example of why we file. For more than a decade, we have pressed companies to address their direct impact on climate change – including filing the first proposal on environmental risk on Canadian oil sands and urging utility companies to shift from coal to more renewable energy. This year, our filings tackle methane risk, and we have asked Spectra Energy, Range Resources, and Oneok to implement programmes of measurement, mitigation, disclosure, and target setting. Natural gas assets are developing rapidly, and it's no surprise that companies have prioritised growth over operational efficiency, as regulators race to catch up. But in light of recent scientific findings, it's time to pull the ostrich up for air. Academic studies have identified methane leakage rates of up to 9%, over three times the original US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates, and five times industry estimates. This dissonance is particularly troubling since the short-term climactic benefit of natural gas over coal disappears when leakage exceeds 3.2%. Oil and gas sector emissions are growing rapidly, and human-generated methane emissions are estimated to contribute to 20% of short-term global warming impact. But, the reality could be worse. Measurement methodologies are under question and estimates may be grossly underestimated. In fact, the EPA's own watchdog group has highlighted the "questionable quality" of current estimates and called for a closer study of fracking emissions after their "auditor concluded current data is insufficient to make policy decisions." In the meantime, regulatory risk is mounting on a number of fronts: companies are required to report the methane emissions of their largest facilities for the first time; seven states are suing the EPA for failing to regulate methane; public and investor awareness is increasing; and the EPA's own watchdog group is pushing for greater inquiry. As sustainability-focused investors recognise emerging environmental risks for the benefit of our clients and the climate. Filing a shareholder proposal sharpens management's focus. The threat of regulation alone is reason to give a company pause as it weighs the strength of its environmental strategy. But in this case, there is also a clear profit motive to detect and capture leaking gas using currently available technologies. We hope engagement with companies will help protect their bottom lines and the climate. In the case of leaking natural gas, it's a no-brainer – there is already a bounty on fugitive emissions, companies just need to claim it. Natasha Lamb is vice president for shareholder advocacy and corporate engagement at Trillium Asset Management LLC This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/series/why-we-file-shareholders-and-sustainability', 'sustainable-business/low-carbon', 'sustainable-business/climate-change', 'tone/blog', 'type/article'] | sustainable-business/low-carbon | EMISSIONS | 2013-04-15T16:36:33Z | true | EMISSIONS |
politics/2023/may/18/rishi-sunak-arrives-japan-announce-defence-pact | Rishi Sunak arrives in Japan to announce defence pact | Rishi Sunak has arrived in Tokyo to announce a new defence partnership with Japan and support £18bn of private business deals, ahead of the G7 summit aimed at addressing the threats of Russia and China. Before the gathering of world leaders in Hiroshima on Friday, Sunak is meeting Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to discuss more defence cooperation in the face of China’s increasing belligerence towards Taiwan. They will unveil a pact, the Hiroshima accord, which involves a duty to consult each other on some military decisions and further exercises in the Indo-Pacific by the Carrier Strike Group, a Royal Navy unit. The UK prime minister is understood to view Japan as strategically important and a like-minded country that shares his interest in technology and innovation. The pair will discuss supply of semiconductors – used in cars, smartphones, medical devices and other gadgets – at a time of global concern about reliance on production in Taiwan when it is facing a threat from China. On Thursday, Sunak also visited a naval base and then hosted a UK business summit in Tokyo for Japanese corporations including Toshiba, Sumitomo and Mitsubishi, claiming they are committing £18bn of investment to the UK in windfarms, property and other projects. He will be accompanied by Octopus Energy, a UK utility supplier expanding to Japan, and Mott MacDonald, an engineering company advising on offshore wind projects, as well as at least three UK startups, Oxentia, Transreport and Winnow. However, he was pressed on Thursday about the attractiveness of the UK as a business destination after a leading carmaker said Brexit was proving an obstacle. Speaking to broadcasters, he said: “It’s something that car manufacturers across Europe, not just in the UK have raised as a concern. And as a result of that we are engaged in a dialogue with the EU about how we might address those concerns when it comes to auto manufacturing more generally. I’m going to be meeting the chief executive of Nissan later today … they’ve invested a billion pounds in the north-east for electric vehicle manufacturing. “Other Japanese business leaders are meeting today to announce a total investment of £18bn into the UK and part of that investment is coming because we’ve joined the trans-Pacific trade partnership that opens up opportunities for British car manufacturers and creates more jobs at home.” Defending himself against criticism that his optimism about the economy was not being felt by millions at home, he said: “I know things are tough right now but there are signs things are improving. A vote of confidence from Japanese companies creating jobs at home. That’s a good thing for the UK.” On his trip to the G7 Sunak is being accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, on their first official visit since he entered No 10. Sunak is likely to have one-on-one meetings with the French president, Emmanuel Macon, and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. However, No 10 is not expecting Sunak to meet bilaterally with the American president, Joe Biden, whose trip to Asia for the summit is being curtailed over uncertainty surrounding the US debt ceiling. Washington has taken a harder line against Beijing than some European countries, with Macron saying last month Europe should not get “caught up in crises that are not ours”. Sunak’s other priority will be pressing other world leaders to double down on support for Ukraine. | ['politics/foreignpolicy', 'politics/rishi-sunak', 'politics/defence', 'politics/trade-policy', 'world/japan', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/g7', 'politics/politics', 'environment/windpower', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2023-05-18T06:23:37Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2020/jun/26/new-plans-for-barwon-darling-river-system-still-prioritise-irrigation-over-environment | New plans for Barwon-Darling river system still prioritise irrigation over environment | New draft water sharing plans for the Barwon-Darling and its tributaries will still prioritise water for irrigation over environmental and social outcomes, falling short of the recommendations of the NSW government’s own agency, the Natural Resources Commission. Numerous environmental groups, including the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, the Environmental Defenders Office and the commission itself, have concluded that the new plans, about to be submitted to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, have failed to address the NRC’s concerns. The NRC, which has a brief to protect the state’s natural resources, conducted a review of NSW’s proposed water sharing plans, now called Water Resource Plans, and is believed to have concluded they did not meet the objectives of the Water Act. The failure of NSW’s stewardship of the rivers in the north-west of the state was starkly illustrated in January 2019 when tens of thousands of native fish, including 30-year-old Murray cod, died at Menindee. The NRC’s controversial report last year that found that extraction of water by cotton growers had pushed the river system into hydrological drought three years early. The combination of the 2012 water-sharing rules and changes in climate have increased the warming and drying trend in the basin and that these factors were combining to pose serious risks to the Barwon-Darling system, its consultant Dr Fran Sheldon concluded. “The most significant risk is the failure of water management approaches to meet the ‘maintenance’ flows for the Barwon-Darling, resulting in a loss of ecosystem resilience,” she said. It particularly highlighted the impact of the 2012 rules which allowed water to be taken by A class licence holders during low flows. While the NSW water minister, Melinda Pavey has adopted the main recommendations including a much more robust “cease to pump” rule to protect river flows when the river is low, the new approach from NSW still has some shortfalls. Environmental groups say the new plans do not give sufficient weight to connectivity in the river system. The NRC recommended a clear and transparent flow management plan for the Northern basin so that all users would know when protections would be put in place to protect flows from extraction. This is not included in the plans which deal with each catchment separately. Each of the nine plans deals with the rules surrounding water use in a catchment but according to the Environmental Defenders office, neither the old plans or the new ones take into account the impact on connectivity and people downstream in the catchment. “The same can also be true between catchments. For example, a WSP governing water extractions in an upstream catchment may not adequately consider the impacts of extraction on flows and users in downstream catchments, which are governed by separate WSPs,” special counsel Emma Carmody said. “This may result in unsustainably long periods of no or low flows, as well as insufficient volumes of water to regenerate downstream ecosystems after extended periods of drought,” she said. The Wentworth Group of concerned Scientists, which released a detailed critique on Friday, has raised concerns about a changed definition of “planned environmental water”, a proportion of water that is identified as being earmarked for the environment. Under the Murray-Darling Basin plan there must be no net reduction in this planned water, but the actual nuts-and-bolts protections are in state water plans. The proposed change to the definition by NSW “is likely to have a material impact on the legal protection as well as the quantity and effectiveness of PEW, and therefore may not comply with section 10.28 of the Basin Plan,” the Wentworth group said. “There is no known modelling or scientific analysis made publicly available that shows the contrary.” The Wentworth group has also questioned rule changes in the Namoi catchment which allow for increased access by irrigators to supplementary water from 10% to 50% during flood events. “A 2015 trial undertaken in the Namoi by NSW found that the 50:50 rule does “not provide adequate protection of the environmental component of the supplementary flow compared with the existing 90:10 rule,” the group said. The plans also did not adopt the NRC’s recommended timeframes to implement any future determinations on native title claims concerning water rights. It had also recommended an overhaul of the consultation arrangements to include all stakeholders. A Four Corners report on NSW’s administration of water in 2017 showed senior state water officials offering to share confidential documents with irrigators. Some believe the consultation processes still favour irrigators over other stakeholders such as townships dependent on the river system. “Various forums should be used to gain comprehensive insights and the full spectrum of water users must be represented. This should begin immediately and continue until after the plan is remade in 2023,” the NRC said. NSW is due to submit the remaining nine plans covering the major river catchments in the north west of the state by June 30. But there is growing pressure from environmental groups and some farming interests to have the MDBA reject them. The NSW independent MP Justin Field has also raised his concerns about whether the plans diminish the protection for planned environmental water, in breach of the water legislation. “These water plans have holes all through them. There have been reports from Vertessy, Keelty and the Natural Resources Commission describing a complete failure of water plans to protect our rivers and prepare communities for drought, but the government has chosen to largely ignore recommendations and these new plans would lock in another decade of water mismanagement in NSW. “The Murray-Darling Basin Authority should throw these plans back to the NSW water minister, Melinda Pavey, and tell her to start again,” he said. “If minister Pavey and the National party are not prepared to do the work and claw back the necessary water to protect our rivers, then the premier should step in and take the water portfolio from the National party.” | ['australia-news/murray-darling-basin', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/rivers', 'environment/drought', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/national-party', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/water', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/anne-davies', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-06-25T17:30:26Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2016/oct/17/waste-disposal-firm-biffa-cuts-flotation-price-brexit-jitters | Waste disposal firm Biffa cuts flotation price amid Brexit jitters | Biffa, the waste management company, has cut the price of its flotation due to market nerves caused by worries over the economic impact of Brexit. Britain’s second biggest disposer and recycler of waste said it would raise £262m before costs by selling new shares at 180p each. The initial public offering (IPO) of 47.2% of the company will value Biffa at £450m. When Biffa announced plans to float last month it was reported to be seeking a market valuation of about £1bn. But last week the company failed to get investor support for a sale at 220-270p a share, which would have valued it up to £675m. Investors have become increasingly concerned about the outlook for UK companies amid worries about Britain’s economic prospects, the plunging value of the pound and the government’s confrontational stance over Brexit. Biffa and its owners, including private equity fund Bain Capital, were said to be determined to push the float through, suggesting they did not think markets would revive soon. Biffa, which has an annual turnover of £927.5m and employs more than 7,000 people, works for many local authorities. It collects, processes and disposes of 6.6m tonnes of waste and recyclables for more than 95% of UK postcodes and 2.4 million households. The company announced its intention to float a month ago amid signs of a revival in the market for flotations, which froze in the first half of this year as companies waited for the result of the EU referendum held on 23 June. But several companies have since cancelled or shelved IPOs, including the fitness chain Pure Gym, which scrapped plans to raise £190m on 11 October. TI Fluid Systems, a maker of car parts, and the energy provider First Utility have also pulled their planned floats. The flotation will mark a return to the stock market for Biffa after it was bought by a group of private equity firms in 2008 in one of the last big buyouts as the financial crisis grew. The company, which was part of Severn Trent until 2006, was taken over by its lenders in 2012 to save it from collapse. Ian Wakelin, Biffa’s chief executive, said: “A return to the London Stock Exchange is a significant milestone for Biffa and a testament to the hard work of all our staff. This listing is an endorsement of Biffa’s business model, strategy, track record and prospects.” Biffa said the UK waste market was expected to grow 5% a year until 2020 as the population and number of households increase. Additional rules requiring separate collections and treatment of waste items would also lead to more business, it said. Conditional trading of the shares will start on Monday. Biffa said it expected to pay £19.6m in fees to advisers on the flotation and £16.8m for management incentives and other costs. | ['business/biffabusiness', 'business/ipos', 'business/ftse', 'business/business', 'business/stock-markets', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sean-farrell', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-10-17T08:24:46Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2021/may/11/the-rights-new-bogeyman-that-biden-will-take-americas-hamburgers-away | The right’s new bogeyman: that Biden will take America’s hamburgers away | Art Cullen | First President Obama was coming for your guns. Didn’t happen. Then President Trump said the socialists were going to take away our energy. The lights are on after 100 days, although it got dicey in Texas for awhile (and no, wind turbines didn’t cause the ice storm). But whoa, Nellie! We hear a Hamburglar will steal your right to beef before you can say “pass the ketchup”. Since I don’t even own a BB gun, I was not alarmed by Obama. Since I barely have enough energy to get out of bed I ignored Trump’s warning. But I can get worked up if you have your eyes on my ribeye. Turns out Fox News had to eat crow and retract a story claiming that Joe Biden will foreclose your divine right to slay a fatted calf. It was a Big Lie like all the rest – that your property rights will be denied for the sake of the endangered Topeka shiner minnow; that the election was fraudulent, except in Iowa where Trump won in a rout; that Obamacare would divorce you from your doctor. This lie started in the Daily Mail, which of course would know exactly what the US secretary of agriculture is thinking. The Daily Mail insisted that meat consumption would need to be cut 90% to meet President Biden’s climate goals, citing part of a University of Michigan study. Meanwhile, here is what the secretary, Tom Vilsack, is really thinking about: cow burps and pig poop. He wants more cattle on grass as part of a system with reduced emissions resilient to extreme weather. He is proposing money for methane digesters on hoghouses to power farms and sell dry compost – and getting a ton of flak from the left for it. After Biden’s first 100 socialist days, Tyson is running full tilt cranking out pork and turkey from Storm Lake with non-union labor. Hoghouses are going up everywhere, spreading up the Missouri into South Dakota. Chicken hind quarters were only 69¢ a pound at the grocery store last week. There are a fair number of NRA members deeply suspicious of Obama and Hillary Clinton who also want cleaner rivers and lakes, more grass buffers for habitat and limits on livestock confinements. They know the difference between BS and apple butter. And they sense the real threat to their way of life – including Saturday night sirloin – is an ossified oligopoly food system that teetered on the brink of collapse last spring when its workers were overcome by Covid. Meat prices shot up 50% when the Waterloo and Sioux Falls pork plants shut down for a week. There was no way they could let the squeal go out of Storm Lake. For the first time in my life, meat counters were empty. The system failed. We have wrung the diversity out of the food supply chain. Just a few producers and packers stand, and when one of them falls we are all the hungrier. The “take away your meat” scare belies the fear felt by Big Meat when its own, unsustainable system crashed up against its limits. Livestock can be sheltered humanely for efficient food production and better protection from disease. We can finish a lot more cattle on grass for the benefit of the planet. We can enhance food security with more diversity in production and open, competitive markets. Almost everyone in the midwest understands those basic facts. So when the meat scare is propagated it makes the messenger look stupid. It’s not going to sell, just like the idea that wind turbines kill geese. We know better. Eventually, the stupidity becomes obvious to the semi-zealous. The rush on bullets turned out to be a ruse from the ammo makers. It took a lot of shine off the gun lobby as the dues-paying members figured out they were getting played so prices could take a nice run. The organization’s membership dues are drying up accordingly. The more lies they tell, the worse they get. Eventually, people figure it out. Even the “QAnon shaman” who crashed the Capitol wearing a horn helmet realized he got duped when they didn’t serve organic in jail. Vilsack reassured the public that USDA loves it some more red meat. Biden gave a shout-out to cover crops in his address to Congress – foretelling a huge step in environmental progress broadly supported by agribusiness. In Iowa, Republicans and Democrats are working to strengthen small meat processors. Despite several fish kills from floods of manure in north-west Iowa rivers this spring, nothing will be done to prevent the next one. A meager fine will be assessed. People do care about that. They do care about antibiotic resistance and viral pandemics inherent in our system. They want reasonable solutions based on science and reality. When there is enough BS, they begin to think it stinks. That can have consequences. Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times in north-west Iowa, where he won the Pulitzer prize for editorial writing. He is a Guardian US columnist and author of the book Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America’s Heartland | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/environment', 'food/meat', 'food/food', 'environment/farming', 'environment/farm-animals', 'science/agriculture', 'us-news/joebiden', 'us-news/us-politics', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'profile/art-cullen', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-05-11T10:13:14Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
music/2018/feb/19/glastonbury-festival-ban-plastic-bottles-2019-emily-eavis | Glastonbury festival set to ban plastic bottles in 2019 | Glastonbury festival is to implement a site-wide ban on plastic bottles when it returns in 2019. “It’s an enormous project; it’s taking a lot of time to tackle with all the different people we work with,” organiser Emily Eavis told BBC 6 Music. In 2014, Glastonbury introduced environmentally friendly stainless steel bottles and water kiosks for the cost-free refill of any kind of receptacle, followed in 2016 by stainless steel pint cups designed to be “non-aerodynamic, to minimise injuries from throwing”. Use of these containers was optional. Glastonbury organisers have previously estimated that 1m plastic bottles are used during the event. In 2016, the festival implemented its “Love the farm ... leave no trace” initiative, asking punters to share transport to the festival, limit litter, recycle, refill water bottles and not to abandon their tents or urinate on the land. However, that year’s cleanup was thought to be one of the worst in its history, lasting more than two weeks after the end of the event. There is no Glastonbury festival this year, with the festival taking one of its regular “fallow years”. The event returns in 2019, and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020. Glastonbury is a long-term supporter of Oxfam. In the wake of recent allegations of sexual misconduct by employees in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, Eavis said the festival would continue to support the charity. “Like everyone else, we’ve been horrified at the reports in the news,” she wrote in a statement posted on the festival’s website. “Oxfam assure us they are continuing to take action to ensure a vigorous safeguarding plan for the future. But let us not forget that abuse of power is a wider issue in society.” Last year the Guardian spearheaded a campaign against plastic waste when it revealed that a million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will become as serious as climate change. | ['music/glastonbury', 'music/music', 'music/music-festivals', 'culture/festivals', 'culture/culture', 'music/emily-eavis', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/laura-snapes', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-02-19T09:53:53Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2016/jul/02/kitchen-encounters-erin-gleeson-california-dream | My kitchen is a cabin in the woods | Kitchen encounters | My kitchen is … a wood-panelled cabin in a forest in northern California. I love that it has a big sink, a skylight and a window to look out of while I do dishes. I have morning glory vines, edible nasturtium flowers and giant redwood trees growing outside the window, which make me happy. I wish I had an island or a bit more counter space, but it’s a sweet little kitchen. My favourite kitchen tool is … currently my spiralizer. I have a small handheld one that looks like a big pencil sharpener and I use it to make courgette or carrot salads. I mix pesto, mini mozzarella balls, and sunflower seeds into courgette “noodles”. My storecupboard staple is … avocados. We are lucky to get them year-round in our weekly local farm box (thanks, California!). It’s one of the only green things I can currently get our 1-year-old son, Ezra, to eat so I always have them on hand. We make avocado toast, throw chunks in smoothies, wrap mashed avocado in tortillas with beans, and even use them to make guacamole devilled eggs (my favourite cocktail-hour snack). When I’m starving I ... eat cheese. If I need a quick snack, I love a few pieces of cheese with fruit. Lately I’m crazy about goat gouda with nectarine slices. My culinary inspiration is … my weekly farm box. We get the most amazing produce all year, which keeps me endlessly inspired. Since everything grows abundantly in California, the offerings are quite vibrant. Most of the recipes for my blog and cookbooks were inspired by what comes in the box. Since my background is in art and photography, I am usually drawn to the most colourful item in the box. I start crafting recipes around that item, thinking both about how the colours and textures will look on one of my vintage plates, and how they will taste together. My best-kept kitchen secret is … to keep it simple. Just a little olive oil and salt can do wonders to bring out the natural flavour in a vegetable. I love to roast vegetables on a high heat with just extra virgin olive oil and coarse sea salt so they get a bit crisp around the edges. My current obsession is … smoked Maldon salt. It’s flaky and delicious and I put it on everything. I’m also really into the spiced salt mixture Old Bay. I’ve been putting Old Bay and olive oil on sliced cucumbers as a pre-dinner snack and it’s fantastic with a cocktail as you cook. Everything tastes better with ... wine! In the summer, I love rosé. When I go shopping I … usually stick to the perimeter (as my hero Mark Bittman suggests) and spend most of my time in the produce department, the deli, and the grains/legumes aisle. Unless I am cooking for a specific dinner party, I never have a list and instead just pick up what catches my eye. Shopping with a toddler isn’t always easy, so to keep Ezra entertained in the cart, I usually give him a whole apple to work on, which usually lasts until check-out. For dinner tonight ... I’m making these corn and cauliflower tacos from my first book, The Forest Feast. It’s one of my favourite spice mixtures and you can also (of course) top them with avocado. Erin Gleeson is an artist and cookbook author. The Forest Feast Gatherings (Abrams) is out in September 27 @theforestfeast. | ['lifeandstyle/series/kitchen-encounters', 'food/chefs', 'food/food', 'tone/features', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'profile/dale-berning-sawa', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/cook', 'theguardian/cook/cook', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/cook'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-07-02T05:00:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2022/mar/03/russian-forces-surround-ukraines-biggest-nuclear-plant-sparking-un-concerns | Russian forces surround Ukraine’s biggest nuclear plant, sparking UN concerns | The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Russian government had informed the agency that its troops had taken control of the area around the Zaporizhzhia plant in south-eastern Ukraine, the second biggest in Europe, housing six of the country’s 15 reactors. In their letter to the IAEA, Russian officials insisted that Ukrainian staff at the plant were continuing to “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation”. However, the Ukrainian state enterprise running the country’s nuclear industry, Energoatom, accused the Russian military of “openly terrorizing employees of the station and residents of its satellite city Energodar”. Video footage shared on social media by a Ukrainian official showed crowds of Ukrainians forming a barrier between the Russian forces and the nuclear plant, blocking their advance. The interior ministry official, Anton Gerashchenko, said in a Facebook post: “Russian generals – change your minds! Do not create conditions for the new Chernobyl! Radiation knows no nationalities, one does not spare anyone! Go around the Energodar and Zaporizhzhya.” Ukraine has asked the IAEA to declare a 30km safe zone around Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants. Grossi told the IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna: “It is of critical importance that the armed conflict and activities on the ground around Zaporizhihia nuclear power plant and any other of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in no way interrupts or endangers the facilities or the people working at and around them.” The IAEA also said that a feed of radiation data from Zaporizhzhia had been interrupted on Tuesday and that Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory inspectorate (SNRIU) was trying to find out the reason for the break and to restore the flow of data. Grossi also raised concern over a report from the SNRIU that since Russians took over the Chernobyl plant, site of the 1986 disaster in north western Ukraine near the Belarus border, the staff there had not been permitted to go home. The US deputy envoy to the IAEA, Louis Bono, said: “The Ukrainian staff at the site have not been allowed to leave and have been forced to work multiple shifts. This added stress on staff performing critical tasks further jeopardizes the safety and security of the site and the public.” In his remarks Grossi said: “It is of utmost importance that the staff working at [the Chernobyl plant] are able to do their job safely and effectively, and that their personal wellbeing is guaranteed by those who have taken control,” The remains of the reactor core which exploded in 1986 is buried under concrete at the site, and there are also spent fuel storage facilities and a large amount of radioactive dust in the topsoil of the surrounding area. The churning up of the soil by Russian military vehicles caused limited radiation spikes. In a statement, Energoatom said: “Being in the exclusion zone now and apparently not having the skills to ensure personal safety when working in radioactively contaminated areas, the invaders are exposed to significant external and internal radiation, which will undoubtedly manifest itself in the form of cancer.” On Sunday, the Ukrainian authorities said Russian missiles had struck the site of a radioactive waste disposal facility in Kyiv. The day before, an electrical transformer in another waste facility in Kharkiv was damaged. In both cases there was no radioactive release, but the incidents highlighted the potential threat of ecological disaster from a war underway in a country with an extensive nuclear industry. The American Nuclear Society (ANS), an association of industry professionals, is seeking to send material support to Ukraine to help nuclear workers there. “The staff at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants must be able to fulfill their duties without interruption undue pressure or the fear of being killed or injured,” the ANS said in a statement. “Ukraine’s nuclear workers need their rest between shifts, access to their homes and a peace of mind that their loved ones are safe. The society’s president, Steven Nesbit, said he hoped that the Russian invaders were aware of the dangers of a nuclear accident. “All I can say is it’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t have a sensitivity to the issues here,” Nesbit said. “Russia and Vladimir Putin need to be taking all steps they can to avoid becoming even more of a pariah nation than they have become.” | ['world/ukraine', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/environment', 'world/russia', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/julianborger', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2022-03-03T05:00:05Z | true | ENERGY |
fashion/2017/apr/08/fashion-sustainable-clothes-wwf-finland | Fashion in new bid to be truly sustainable | It is not a brand synonymous with style, but WWF in Finland, a branch of the world’s biggest conservation group, is teaming up with the Nordic Fashion Week Organisation in a project that aims to produce a truly sustainable clothing range. Those behind the project, codenamed “The New Normal” say a new way of producing textiles will become a necessity as global demand for clothing increases with population growth. “Currently, cotton production requires substantial amounts of water, chemicals, energy and land – while global natural resources dwindle in the warming climate,” says WWF Finland’s Miiju Sirviö. “Fossil fuels cannot be spun into polyester or other synthetic fabrics for ever, either. Yet, much clothing is discarded before the end of its life span and ends up in landfill sites. This project vows to drastically improve the ecological footprint of garments by encouraging and promoting tangible solutions.” The clothes for The New Normal project will use a highly durable material recycled from textile waste by a Finnish company called Infinited Fiber. The prototype of the collection will be shown at the Helsinki Fashion Week in July. It is not just the energy-intensive process of making the garments, the reality is that most of the clothes we wear end up in landfill. According to a recent Greenpeace report, the average European consumer now buys 60% more clothing items a year and keeps them for half as long as 15 years ago. Synthetic fibres are one of the biggest problems. Manufacturing polyester, for example, which is already present in 60% of clothing, produces almost three times more carbon dioxide than organic cotton, and it can take decades to degrade – as well as polluting marine environments with plastic microfibres. And around 21 million tons of polyester was used in clothing last year, up 157% from 2000. “Cheap fast fashion is a huge obstacle to a more sustainable industry,” says Tom Cridland, who started his own green fashion brand three years ago with a £6,000 government startup loan. “Theoretically, a 100% sustainable fashion collection is not impossible but we need more brands to promote buying less but buying better.” Cridland’s unique selling point is the 30-year guarantee he attaches to his T-shirts, jackets and trousers. The notion that we can buy an item of clothing and keep it for much longer is taking off, he says, with sales now over £1m a year. Karinna Nobbs, a lecturer at London College of Fashion, thinks WWF’ Finland’s involvement could make some difference, but ultimately sustainable fashion needs big-name front-runners to make it more of an industry norm. “If that doesn’t happen, I think we’re truly in danger of ruining the planet,” she says. Some big-name designers are already putting sustainability at the forefront of their brands. At a recent speech on sustainability at London College of Fashion Stella McCartney declared that her industry was “getting away with murder” yet even her latest collection is only 53% sustainable. One of the key barriers to consumer take-up is that the expense involved in turning every part of the life cycle of a garment green means the cost of sustainable clothing is out of the reach of most. Current prices at the online fashion community, AwayToMars, for example, range from £50 for a T-shirt to £390 for a wool jacket. Cridland’s signature 30-year jacket costs £190 while a T-shirt is £35. Of course Cridland and the sustainable fashion movement argue that you end up spending more in the long term with a fast-fashion route, but others say that is part of the attraction – the ability to buy clothes and discard them when fashions or fancies change. Fashion lecturer Nobbs believes the industry is close to a tipping point. “Prices will normalise – they will have to as more brands get involved in sustainable clothing,” she says. This article was substantially amended on 13 April 2017 to make clear that The New Normal Project is overseen by the Nordic Fashion Week Organisation in collaboration with WWF Finland. | ['fashion/fashion', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/environment', 'fashion/stella-mccartney', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'business/retail', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'fashion/sustainable-fashion', 'profile/rob-walker', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2017-04-08T23:04:14Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2024/oct/17/nsw-greater-glider-endangered-species-habitat | Greater gliders risk being wiped out after drastically undercounted government survey, campaigners say | New South Wales crossbenchers are threatening to withhold their support for legislation unless the Minns government moves to end native forest logging in the state, as greater glider populations remain at risk. The Legalise Cannabis MP Jeremy Buckingham and Greens environment spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said it was time for the premier, Chris Minns, to take the issue seriously. Higginson on Thursday said native logging was contentious within Labor, with many MPs and rank and file party members calling for a transition to logging only plantation forests. Plantations grown specifically for timber production are generally a single species of tree and are considered less likely to be home to animals such as greater gliders than native forests. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Higginson said expert advice was that more lucrative timber products came from plantations rather than “our previous public native” forests. “We know that the products coming out of our precious public native forest estates are not those high value products that people every day in NSW rely on,” she said. It comes after weeks of community protests over logging in endangered greater glider habitat, including at Bulga state forest in the state’s mid-north, and the release of new community surveys that detected triple the number of gliders than what was recorded by the state-owned forestry agency. Forest campaigners have called for an immediate moratorium on logging in greater glider habitat. The Forest Alliance of NSW said current regulations are a “licence to kill” the species, whose populations have already plummeted in the aftermath of the black summer bushfires. Their report, published on Thursday, said many of the 825 gliders they detected in four state forests where logging is scheduled could die because they would have insufficient protection under the state’s forestry protocols. The data was gathered through on-ground and thermal drone surveys at Tallaganda and Tuggolo forests in the state’s south and Bulga and Styx River in the north. There have been 16 arrests at Bulga state forest since campaigners began locking themselves to logging machinery about two weeks ago. The forest alliance’s community surveys found 825 gliders across the four forests, while the Forestry Corporation of NSW’s surveys found 229. The community surveys detected 170 glider den trees, compared to just 15 that were registered by the forestry agency. Den trees are significant because under state rules no logging is permitted within 50 metres of them. The report estimated less than 1% of den trees were being detected by the forestry corporation under the conditions of its logging approvals. Forestry Alliance of NSW spokesperson Justin Field called on the Minns government to save greater gliders from an industry that had “proven it cannot operate in our native forests without sending species towards extinction”. He said it should not be up to citizen scientists to do work state agencies were failing to do. “There is no doubt that a large proportion of the 825 greater gliders that the community has identified in these forests will be killed as a result of Forestry Corporation’s hopelessly inadequate procedures,” he said. “The state government is knowingly complicit in this destruction whilst it refuses to halt logging in these areas.” A Forestry Corporation spokesperson said: “The claim that over 800 greater gliders will not be protected and may die in the next few months is misleading and has no basis in fact. “Forestry Corporation assures the community it is protecting the habitat for gliders.” The report calls for an immediate moratorium on logging over all areas with a high density of greater gliders and for the Forestry Corporation to protect habitat at the location of all existing greater glider records – including records supplied by the community. The veteran forest campaigner Susie Russell, who was arrested after locking on to machinery at Bulga last week, said the government was wiping out greater glider habitat while promoting its “nature positive” agenda. “No one knows what they mean by nature positive if it doesn’t include protecting the known homes of our most iconic and endangered fauna,” she said. Forestry Corporation’s spokesperson said the agency’s ecologists had spent “more than 196 hours completing 418 spotlight surveys for gliders across more than 128km of forest roads, tracks and trails”. They said this supplemented existing protection measures under the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval, which required the agency to set aside trees with hollows irrespective of whether those trees are identified as dens. “All areas of state forest that are harvested for timber are regrowth forests that have been harvested and regrown many times in the past,” they said. “The fact that these forests continue to support strong populations of endangered species is testament to the effectiveness of the strict protection measures put in place by expert scientists.” A Minns government spokesperson said the alliance report had “informed which trees need to be protected and the data on dens has been uploaded into Bionet”. They said a consultation process was considering the future management of forestry operations, with an independent panel to advise on “how to best balance sustainable timber supply with environmental commitments”. | ['environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'profile/catie-mcleod', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/logging-and-land-clearing | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-10-17T03:12:52Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
fashion/2022/jun/19/mending-much-more-than-making-do-london-exhibition | Restoration revolution: how make do and mend turned into a fashion statement | Early in 2020 Claire Catterall, senior curator at London’s Somerset House, began exploring the potential of an exhibition about mending. Inspired by the proliferation of social media hashtags #visiblemending and #mendingmatters, and pop-up repair cafes, she observed a new generation of thrifty fashionistas wanting to preserve clothing using traditional methods and contemporary creativity. “There was growing interest in the craft of repair,” recalls Catterall. “Artists such as Celia Pym and Bridget Harvey spearheaded an artistic approach to the process, and mending felt relevant to all the conversations about sustainability.” An evolution of that early vision, Eternally Yours: An Exhibition about Care, Repair and Healing, opened at Somerset House last week. “Like many people, I was furloughed during the pandemic, and it was a rather dislocating experience. Ideas of repair and healing coalesced, focusing on the duty of care we have to our community, to ourselves, to the planet and to our possessions,” says Catterall. That fed into the idea of visible mending: an approach to repair where trauma or damage becomes part of the story – in people or objects or clothing.” It is a timely opening, coming as BBC TV’s Repair Shop attracts more than 7 million viewers per episode. The show marries specialist skills in restoring broken objects with the personal stories of their owners. It is comforting television in turbulent times, which Catterall believes resonates in a world emerging from a pandemic and traumatised by conflict. “It ties in to the idea of care,” she says. “I love the word ‘mend’: it talks of healing and the therapeutic mindfulness of fixing something.” As part of the exhibition, fashion brand Toast is offering workshops in mending skills. The company’s repair specialist, Jessica Smulders-Cohen, says: “Mending is about the journey travelled, not reinstating the impossible perfection of the new.” Toast began offering sessions in 2018, teaching customers Japanese stitching techniques such as boro, kantha and sashiko for repairing woven garments, then expanding to knitwear darning. The sessions continued online in lockdown. To date more than 7,000 people have participated, and the brand now offers a free mending service, for its own-label garments. “We now have seven in-store renewal hubs in England and Scotland,” says Madeleine Michell, Toast’s social conscience officer. “Since April 2021, our specialists have mended over 1,800 garments, often using surplus materials from our production process. Last February, all our shop windows showcased repaired garments, inspiring customers to bring cherished pieces in for some TLC.” Where previous generations mended as unobtrusively as possible, perhaps embarrassed by enforced thrift, new-wave repairers use a more decorative style of “visible mending”. Flora Collingwood Norris, a knitwear designer based in the Scottish Borders, reports growing demand for her colourful visible mending service. It’s an idea she began as a teenager, sourcing cashmere sweaters in charity shops, then embellishing any damage with her needle and thread. “I see a hole as an opportunity,” she says. “It forces me to be creative and think about the size, position and context on the garment, then I play with yarn textures, colours and a combination of traditional darning techniques, patches and embroidery to elevate it to a new design element. Everybody can do this: it’s affordable and accessible. Giving garments a unique quality and a new chapter brings immense satisfaction.” Although Collingwood Norris will repair items for a fee, she has also published a book, delivers Zoom workshops and downloadable video tutorials, and sells materials for those keen to repair for themselves – and this is the area she’s recently seen booming. Bookshops are brimming with titles such as Joyful Mending, Mending Matters, The Art of Repair and Modern Mending, while YouTube offers a wealth of tutorials for those wishing to learn how to darn, patch and fix for themselves. Given widespread supply chain issues and the cost of living crisis, many are being driven to “make do and mend” in a way not seen since the 1940s. There is, perhaps, a disconnect between mending as necessity and repair as a fashionable badge of honour – between someone struggling to keep a school jumper from falling apart and the fashionista using statement stitching to cover a moth hole in a designer item – but it may begin to reduce the stigma. It could also make people think about the disposability of fast fashion – and the 300,000 tonnes of clothing that goes to landfill annually in the UK. A growing army of businesses, including Mulberry, Barbour and Uniqlo, have in-house mending, and other brands partner with third-party repair specialists. The Restory offers quality repairs of designer garments, either direct to consumers or in partnership with brands such as Manolo Blahnik and retailers including Farfetch, Selfridges and Harrods. “We want clients to fall in love with their favourite things again, whether that means restoring the colour on a faded bag or repairing tears, holes, scuffs and other damage,” says founder and CEO Vanessa Jacobs, a New Yorker now based in London, who had the idea for The Restory after receiving shoddy service when she took a pair of favourite shoes to a high street mending chain. “Aftercare is the biggest market you’ve never seen. It’s worth $100bn but it hadn’t been digitised and streamlined to meet modern needs. We launched in 2017 and, by last year, we had done 60,000 repairs. The tech and logistics infrastructure has advanced and growth is rapid. Britain and continental Europe are our biggest markets – although everything is done out of the UK at present – and we’re talking to major players in the US with a view to operating there, too.” Mending may have the potential to earn big bucks for some, but it could also help heal the planet and its people. As artist Bridget Harvey says in her Manifesto for Making at Somerset House: “The contemporary repair maker demonstrates not only a care for the past but also an attitude firmly rooted in the future.” | ['fashion/fashion', 'culture/museums', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/green-economy', 'fashion/fashion-industry', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'culture/culture', 'artanddesign/exhibition', 'lifeandstyle/craft', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/karen-kay', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/focus', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-06-19T08:15:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2022/aug/05/we-want-plastic-to-become-taboo-the-rise-in-reusable-water-bottles | ‘We want plastic to become taboo’: the rise in reusable water bottles | With recent scorching temperatures forming an undeniable illustration of the climate crisis, consumer habits have been marked by an attendant interest in items relating to sustainablility. Among the most popular of eco accessories is the reusable water bottle. This summer, the bigger and more motivational your bottle, the better. In 2021, the global reusable water bottle market was valued at $8.64bn. This is expected to increase by 4.3% in 2022. A number of factors are at play, including a return to work coupled with heightened concern over plastic pollution and its potential to leach into water and food. Research shows that 75% of adults in the UK are concerned about the impact of the climate crisis. Among 2022’s success stories is Hydroflask, a favourite among Gen Z, whose 1.8-litre stainless steel bottles have contributed to a sales increase of 19% since last year. Bestselling “gorpcore” brand Nalgene, whose 909ml bottles are made from BPA-free plastic, is widely considered the bag-for-life of reusable bottles. Though the company was unable to disclose sales figures, Elissa McGee, Nalgene’s general manager, says they have seen “persistent demand since the pandemic as daily routines and travel returns to more conventional patterns”. The Hydrojug, another BPA-free shatterproof tankard that comes with a neoprene sleeve, has people carrying around a massive 2 litres of water and became famous after its appearance on Big Timber, a reality TV series on Netflix about a Canadian lumberyard. By comparison, the diminutive 1.1-litre stainless steel Adventure Quencher Travel Tumbler, made by venerable US brand Stanley, which specialises in camping gear, routinely sells out in the US (it reportedly has a 135,000-strong waiting list). Never slow to ride the wave of a trend, Khloe Kardashian is known to favour her two-litre resuable jug – some of which come with mindful affirmations scrawled down the side to encourage you to drink. The surge in popularity of these reusable vessels has also brought about water bottles that come with accompanying apps that monitor your intake and chastise you when you miss your goal, as well as smart bottles that cost £180 to keep your tea warm (as used by Rishi Sunak), these rainbow-hued bottles have turned hydration into a competitive sport. City to Sea, a Bristol-based nonprofit organisation that campaigns to prevent marine plastic pollution at source, has overseen the placement of 35,000 refillable water stations in stations, airports and beaches this year, an increase of 10,000 from 2019. Founder Natalie Fee thinks the spike in huge refillable bottles has as much to do with the recession as the climate. “Despite an obvious dip during the pandemic [we have since seen] a huge increase in awareness over the heatwave – from a health and staying-hydrated perspective, [but also] from a cost of living one.” Fee says the large bottles “are a bit weird but I can see why it’s happening”. In recent years, the status water bottle – stainless steel, BPA-free plastic or made from partially recycled materials and rendered in candy-colour hues – has become the go-to signifier of eco-credentials among young people. Keen to capitalise on the green pound, high-end brands followed suit – Prada’s £75 “milk urn” remains one of the most popular reusable water repositories on the market. Put simply, “the messaging is if you carry a reusable bottle you care”, says Nina Schrank, head of the plastics campaign at Greenpeace. “It helps if they look good, aesthetically. People will be more inclined to carry them about.” But despite a renewed interest in bottles made from materials such as stainless steel, global plastic use is expected to increase by almost 4% by 2030. Schrank is alarmed that plastic remains the dominant material. The health effects of BPA-free plastic, which is widely used in refillable water bottles, remains open to debate in bodily health and the environment. “Reusable stainless steel bottles are the best material, and while they’re becoming more prevalent they’re not yet displacing plastic ones” she adds, agreeing that cost is also a factor – plastic will always be cheaper than Prada. “What we want is for plastic bottles to become a bit of a taboo – like smoking.” | ['environment/ethical-living', 'fashion/fashion', 'environment/water', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/morwennaferrier', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-08-05T22:00:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2021/jul/05/small-majority-believe-there-is-still-time-to-avert-climate-disaster-survey | Small majority believe there is still time to avert climate disaster – survey | A small majority of people believe there is still time to make a difference and slow global heating, a survey of consumer attitudes in 16 countries reveals. People aged 55 and over believe most strongly that their behaviour can make a positive difference to the environment. People in Brazil, Spain, Canada, Italy, China and Thailand are the most optimistic that if we act now there is still time to save the planet, the survey by Mintel found. On average, 54% of those who were surveyed agreed that there was time to save the planet, and 51% believed their behaviour could make a positive difference to the environment. Japan was the most pessimistic: only 15% of people questioned believed their behaviour could make a difference and only 35% believed there was time to save the planet. The survey took place in 16 countries: Brazil, India, China, Japan, the UK, the US, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, Canada, Ireland, France, Poland and Germany. It found that consumers wanted companies to be clear about the environmental impact of their products so they could make an informed choice about whether to buy them or not. The survey found that 47% of people wanted labelling showing the environmental impact in terms such as amount of CO2 emitted in production, and 42% were looking for information measuring impact in understandable terms such as litres of water used or distance travelled. It found that 41% wanted to see recognisable certification to prove their standards, such as B Corp status, awarded to companies that sign up to a legal declaration to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community and the environment. The survey also revealed differing views on who was to blame for global heating. Consumers were more likely to think their own country was suffering from climate change than causing it, according to the research. An average of 44% of consumers from the 16 nations said the country where they lived was suffering from climate change, while an average of 33% believed that the country where they live was contributing to climate change. People in Italy (20%), Brazil (21%), South Korea (24%), and Spain (29%) were the least likely to believe their country was contributing to climate change. Those in the UK (44%), Germany (45%), the US (46%) and Canada (51%) were the most likely to believe their nation was culpable. The International Energy Agency highlighted the importance of the public understanding that their own consumption is integral to reducing emissions in its roadmap to net zero in May. It said more than half of the cumulative emissions reductions required to reach net zero were linked to consumer choices and behaviours. Richard Cope, a senior trends consultant at Mintel Consulting, said: “The good news is that in most countries a small majority still believe we have time for redemption, and where there is that optimism it is closely related to a sense that consumer behaviours can make the difference.” Despite the evidence of awareness among the buying public of climate responsibility and the impact of individual choices, the survey also revealed that in the 16 nations many individuals wanted solutions to make their lives easier, but which would put the planet more at risk. It also found that as temperatures rise around the world, increasing numbers of people are planning to install air conditioning, which drives up carbon emissions. “Global warming creates a vicious circle by increasing demand for air conditioning, which then uses more energy,” said Mintel’s report. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2021-07-05T06:00:42Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2020/jan/31/cropped-out-climate-activist-vanessa-nakate-urges-media-to-hear-africans | Cropped-out climate activist Vanessa Nakate urges media to hear Africans | The Ugandan climate activist who was cropped out of a press photo in Davos has said many African activists experience the same erasure but feel unable to speak up. The Associated Press apologised last week after it cropped Vanessa Nakate out of a photo she had posed for alongside fellow activists Greta Thunberg, Loukina Tille, Luisa Neubauer and Isabelle Axelsson. At a Fridays For Future press conference in Stockholm on Friday, the 23-year-old said: “This is something that has been going on for a long while and African activists are trying so hard to be heard. It gets so frustrating when no one really cares.” She said she had received messages from other activists who had experienced similar things but were too scared to speak out or who did not receive much attention when they did. “It’s really sad that the incident happened,” she said. “But when I look at it in a more positive way, it has actually made the world set their eyes on the activists in Africa and try as much as possible to listen to their stories. So I’m actually very optimistic about this and I believe that it is going to change the stories of different climate activists in Africa.” Nakate joined the press conference by videolink along with other African climate activists. Thunberg said at the event: “It’s quite obvious I get a certain kind of media attention. If I say something, it turns into a headline. Of course, that is not the case for pretty much all other climate activists, especially from the global south, unfortunately.” Speaking of what happened to Nakate at Davos, Thunberg said: “Since Vanessa is my friend, it was very hard to see what she had to experience there, and we tried to support each other through that.” Makenna Muigai, an activist from Nairobi, Kenya, told the press conference: “Africa at large is being affected by the negative impacts of climate change. A great example is the locust infestation in east Africa, which will soon lead to food insecurity. The sad thing is, lots of people from western countries are unaware as to why this is happening.” Ndoni Mcunu, a climate scientist from the Global Change Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, highlighted how the continent was already feeling the impact of the climate crisis. “Due to drought and other effects of climate change, we have seen almost 52 million people become food insecure in our continent,” she said. “How is it that we’re not being spotlighted in stories? That’s the main challenge we have as a continent. It is said that Africa only contributes 5% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, yet we are the most impacted.” | ['environment/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'world/uganda', 'world/race', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'media/media', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jessica-murray', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-01-31T13:19:09Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2011/nov/08/man-jailed-tyre-dump | Man jailed for record tyre dumps | A man has been jailed for 15 months for illegally dumping more than 1m tyres across England, a figure believed to be a record for one individual. Over the course of a year, Carl David Steele dumped tyres at remote locations in Essex, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Worcestershire and Lincolnshire, Lincoln crown court heard on Monday. Environment Agency officers initially found 3,000 tyres at a Lincolnshire site – later rising to 400,000 as investigations continued – which Steele had illegally dumped between October 2009 and January 2011 to avoid disposal costs at official waste sites. Four other sites with a total of 800,000 dumped tyres were found later. The Steele case is significantly bigger than the last major conviction for tyre dumping. In 2009, 175,000 tyres and 290 tonnes of tyre wire were dumped by three people across England and Wales. The clean-up costs for the site owners in that case were up to £122,000, suggesting the bill for this case could be more than half a million pounds. Landowners are having to clear up at their own expense. Around 55m waste tyres are legally disposed of annually, according to estimates from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Cost varies across the country, but on average, it costs 80p to legally dispose of a tyre. Flytippers illegally dumping tyres can face five years in prison, unlimited fines and confiscation of profits. Mat Crocker, head of waste and illegals at the Environment Agency, said: "Huge tyre dumps are not only an eyesore, but also present a serious risk to the environment and human health. Stockpiles are a significant fire risk, as they can burn for several years, releasing dangerous gases such as hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen cyanide and sulphur dioxide. The Environment Agency has specialist crime teams to target serious, organised waste criminals, and make sure that illegal operations such as these are shut down. We also seek to confiscate the profits of waste crime, making it clear that waste crime does not pay." A hearing next year will decide whether proceeds from Steele's crimes should be confiscated. A fine could also arise from the hearing. The agency said it was focusing on tyres as part of its ongoing crackdown on illegal waste, with nine national tyre dumping investigations currently running. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ukcrime', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2011-11-08T11:20:25Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2009/feb/26/recycling-waste-environment1 | Leo Hickman: How can I find out what happens to my recycling? | If you happen to have a spare GPS tracking device you could do what Greenpeace recently did and fix it to an item for recycling and then monitor its journey towards its final destination. When the pressure group did this with an old television set and left it - following a tip-off - at a recycling depot managed by Hampshire County Council, it was shocked to discover that, rather than being recycled in the UK or Europe as it should have been, it ended up being sold for scrap in Nigeria where, in all likelihood, it would have ended up in a local landfill after being stripped of its circuit boards. Greenpeace hoped to expose a weakness in the system - namely, that some operators are trying to avoid the costs of reprocessing potentially toxic waste materials legally within the UK or Europe by dumping them further afield - and has called for tighter monitoring. But the organisation still supports efforts to increase recycling rates. Last year, the Local Government Association, which represents the country's local authorities, said that while 200 of its members were certain where their contractors sent their recycling for processing, 20 members admitted not to know and a further 135 had yet to receive confirmation of where it was sent. Some local authorities do now go to considerable length to communicate such information to their residents. Maldon District Council in Essex, for example, lists the destinations of each waste stream on its website, as do many other authorities. The best advice is to ask your own local authority for details. If they are less than forthcoming, ask why, and then seek the information from their waste contractors (just look for the name on the side of your local recycling truck - Sita, Veolia, Biffa etc). If all else fails, or you have proof that your recycling is not being recycled, contact Wrap (helpline: 0808 100 2040, wrap.org.uk), or your regional environment agency. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'society/localgovernment', 'society/society', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'environment/landfill', 'environment/incineration', 'profile/leohickman', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-02-26T00:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2011/jun/21/music-festivals-glastonbury-green-environment | Can a music festival ever be considered 'green'? | Leo Hickman | Can a music festival ever really be "green", as some of them seem to be claiming? What's so green about tens of thousands of people travelling sometimes hundreds of miles to camp en masse in a field? I don't want to be too cynical, but the environmental impact of all those chemical toilets, rubbish bags filled with disposable cutlery and beer cans, and broken bottles trodden into the grass must be pretty huge. T Mear, by email Yes, the trash mountain created by festivals can take many days to clear up, but is that an argument that they shouldn't take place? What waste streams would festival-goers still be creating if they didn't attend? A number of festivals have made great play of the fact that they have attempted to clean up their act in recent years when it comes to recycling and promoting public transport as an alternative to arriving by car. Glastonbury, for example, says it recycled 49% of the rubbish it collected last year. It has also implemented the "Glastonbury Festival Green Traveller package" this year, which ensures anyone arriving by public transport gets exclusive use of solar showers and "access to compost toilets". If that's not incentive enough, I'm not sure anything will be. (Except half-price tickets, perhaps.) Is there anything else that festival organisers can realistically do to be "greener"? Could having a public transport-only policy ever really work? In 2008, Radiohead said that they no longer wanted to play at festivals without "a public transport infrastructure in place", essentially ruling out rural festivals such as Glastonbury. But is such an ambition fair to those fans living outside urban centres, or even realistic? And what about festival-goers? What actions can you take to reduce your own environmental impact? (Other than staying at home and watching the highlights on TV.) Will you be using biodegradable potato-starch tent pegs? Or, er, charging your phone with a T-shirt that generates electricity from its own piezoelectric panel? This column is an experiment in crowd-sourcing a reader's question, so please let us know your views, experiences and tips (as opposed to emailing them) and I will join in with some of my own thoughts and reactions as the debate progresses. I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate too. • Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk. Or, alternatively, message me on Twitter @LeoHickman | ['environment/series/ask-leo-lucy', 'environment/environment', 'music/glastonbury', 'tone/blog', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'type/article', 'profile/leohickman'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2011-06-21T08:00:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/may/15/solar-power-cycling-world | Why solar power can help us cycle round the world | In March 2007, acting on an ambitious whim, I found myself running the Marathon des Sables, a 151-mile (243km) six-day endurance race in the Sahara. The event, dubbed the "toughest footrace in the world" is notable not only for its searing temperatures but for its location in one of Earth's most unhospitable environments. There could have been no more dramatic introduction to the vast potential of solar power. It was neither the incredible heat, nor the desolate expanses of scorched earth that had left the greatest impression. Rather, it was the fact that, in the middle of nowhere and without seeing a plug socket for days, a tiny solar panel was all it took to charge my MP3 player. I had been a keen environmentalist for some time, starting up a sustainable-living blog in 2004. Now though, I turned my attention to solar energy. Investigations led me to the first solar-powered rickshaws operating in India. Always keen to seek out original challenges, I meandered onto the idea of taking one on a long distance journey. To my dismay, the rickshaw was not suitable for covering such distance. But the idea of undertaking an adventure to demonstrate solar around the world had taken root. If I couldn't do it on a rickshaw I would do it in another environmentally-friendly way: by bicycle. I began to read about new flexible nanosolar panels, which would be ideal to power my technology in places far from a plug. In my research, I eventually found G24 Innovations, a Cardiff-based company specialising in dye-sensitised flexible thin-film solar technology. I gave them a call. "Of course we can make solar panniers. We can attach the panels to almost any fabric." Really? Could I have a solar dress too? Sadly, the dress was deemed impractical but I convinced my friends Iain and Jamie to accompany me on this solar-powered journey. Today, starting in London on EU Solar Day, we set off for a 12,000-mile tour of solar power around the world. We are taking a satellite tracking device which, along with other communications equipment, will be powered using solar panels on our bike panniers. The independence of the solar kit will help us document the entire route - from Libyan sandstorms to ancient Iranian cities, 4000-metre passes in Kyrgyzstan to the lowest point of Death Valley - precisely and second by second. Our route has been chosen to take us through North Africa and the Middle East in order to visit a concentrated solar plant and profile the work of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), a project to supply huge amounts of green energy from the Sahara. We'll go past the Quidam basin, where the world's biggest PV solar power station is being built, across the pacific by cargo ship (we are hoping to be carried by Nippon who have just launched the first solar-assisted freighter) and on to America's solar heartland, the Nevada desert. I hope the trip will demonstrate the potential of solar power in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit this December. Follow us in real-time on The Solar Cycle Diaries, and wish us good luck with the weather. | ['environment/solarpower', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'tone/blog', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'type/article'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2009-05-15T12:07:46Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/may/22/energy-nuclear-renewables | Only renewables - not nuclear - could be too cheap to meter | Damian Carrington | "Too cheap to meter": that was the infamous boast of the nuclear power industry in its heyday. It has been catastrophically discredited by history. Yet the phrase may yet see a new life - not of course for nuclear power - but for renewable energy. As the UK government publishes its draft energy bill on Tuesday, acknowledged by all but ministers themselves as primarily an arcane way of getting new nuclear power stations built, I am in Germany. Already, on one particularly windy weekend here, the surge of electricity drove the price down to zero. Very soon, due to the 25GW of solar capacity Germany has already installed, hot summer's days will see the same effect: electricity too cheap to meter. Now hang on, I hear you say, free electricity is actually crazy as it means there's no incentive to invest in new, clean generation capacity, which almost every country needs as the world seeks to cut the carbon emissions driving climate change. Germany's renewable energy policy, which began with a feed-in-tariff in 1990, deals with this by continuing to pay the producer, even when the electricity is sold for nothing. Crazy again, right? No, says Andreas Kraemer, director of the Ecologic Institute, an energy research policy centre, because the tax benefit to the Germany, via 400,000 jobs in the €40bn-a-year renewables industry is outweighs than the cost of the subsidy. Furthermore, he says, the contribution of renewable energy in cutting peak prices mean the wholesale cost of electricity is 10% lower than it would be without them. "The money flowing out in FITs is less than the money saved by the end consumer," he says. And all the while a clean, sustainable energy system is built. But real problems do exist, and will intensify as Germany approaches its goal of 100% renewable electricity, from its current 20%. As that comes closer, the policies will have to change. Energy storage, already incentivised in Germany today, will need to be available, as will high-voltage interconnectors to move power around the continent and a smart grid to cleverly match demand to supply. It's an attractive vision: clean energy, securely supplied and coming down in price. Compare all this with the UK, where the nuclear industry is so embedded in government it supplies staff free-of-charge to work within the energy ministry. Perhaps it's no wonder that even when half of the UK's big six energy companies bale out of nuclear on cost grounds, ministers plough on regardless. The news that EDF, the French-state-owned giant that runs many of the UK's nuclear plants, wants to extend the lifetimes of their ageing reactors confirms their attraction to the so-called carbon floor price. This leg of government energy policy puts a minimum price on carbon emissions, delivering large windfalls to existing nuclear plants. New nuclear plants will also have to be subsidised, more than onshore wind and possibly more than offshore wind, according to recent analyses, which is shameful for a 60 year-old technology. "In general in industry," says Kraemer, "when the production of something doubles, the cost falls by about 15%. The only notable exception is the nuclear industry which gets more expensive the more you build." Recent reports, not denied by EDF, put the cost of their new plants in the UK at £7bn each, 40% higher than previously stated. So while mass-produced renewable energy technologies are pushing the costs downwards, nuclear energy is completing the journey from "too cheap to meter" to "too expensive to count". "It surprises me that something that is completely obvious to people in Germany is suppressed in the UK," says Kraemer. A final note. I am here with half a dozen of the UK's most senior energy policy academics. When I mention the guarantee repeatedly given by the coalition government that new nuclear plants in the UK will get "no public subsidy", the only response are roars of incredulous laughter. Energy bill payers, who fund all the energy schemes, are unlikely to be similarly amused. | ['environment/damian-carrington-blog', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2012-05-22T05:15:00Z | true | ENERGY |
global-development-professionals-network/2013/nov/12/typhoon-haiyan-disaster-relief-locally | Typhoon Haiyan: another example of too little, too late? | In the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan, the world's leading disaster relief agencies have swung into action in a bid to implement a globally-coordinated humanitarian response as quickly as possible. But can this kind of outside-in approach to disaster relief succeed in saving lives? While global intervention and direct action are absolutely vital, from a logistical perspective they are unlikely to be enough to cope with a humanitarian disaster on a similar scale to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian ocean or the Pakistan floods in 2010. The success of the aid mission will depend to a large extent on the capacity of local authorities and organisations in the Philippines to respond to the disaster, while drawing on much-needed international aid resources. As part of the local response to the environmental disaster, we know that the Philippine army is leading relief logistics in order to assess the extent of the devastation, restore vital infrastructure and ensure life-supporting aid reaches people in the worst-affected areas on the islands of Leyte and Samar, as well as in the remote areas in and around Cebu. What is uncertain is the extent to which local teams have trained and prepared for events such as this. Just days into the crisis, the emergency management office in the Philippines has declared that the country is in a state of calamity amid reports of looters attacking emergency convoys. Military teams from the US and other international support have been fielded to the country to support its local response. One of the main challenges for those involved in providing direct relief and support in the wake of this disaster is the urgent need to quickly establish a robust supply chain. This must be achieved at a time when communications systems are down or severely compromised. Getting such supply chains up and running demands strong local leadership and clear communication to ensure all organisations involved in the direct response know precisely what they are required to do, when and where. A report published by Oxfam recently concluded that demand for humanitarian action is increasing all the time. As a result it is becoming more important that action is led by the governments and civil authorities of the countries affected by the crisis. Shifting the centre of humanitarian action away from the western world to local and national control is key to improving the efficiency of aid programmes and ultimately, saving lives. First responders have a critical role to play in any major humanitarian response. As on the ground coordinators of a multilateral response, they need to be as agile as possible – taking account of the type of disaster that the population is facing, capacity issues in terms of response and taking appropriate action to save lives as quickly as possible. Time is the enemy in this initial response phase, as this is what ends up costing lives. Early responders also need to retain a strategic overview of relief work underway so the focus can be shifted when the disaster enters a new phase. In the days and weeks that follow the disaster, disease is likely to become an increasingly significant risk factor, potentially causing even more deaths among the local population. The World Health Organisation will work with local teams in the Philippines. As the crisis continues, local teams can play a critical role in directing relief to areas with larger populations where the spread of disease is likely to be quicker and more deadly. At this stage in the disaster relief programme, the logistical considerations are also likely to be shifting as roads and rail links are restored and the response capacity is optimised. At this stage in the disaster response, time-focused considerations are exchanged for considerations of efficiency and accuracy. Taking this approach ensures that maximum output in terms of saving lives is gained from any direct action taken. Delivering effective and efficient direct action in the face of Haiyan demands more than just disaster relief, it needs a well-organised, multilateral logistical response that is led locally and nationally, rather than internationally. Such direct action works best when those overseeing logistical delivery of the disaster response are equipped and trained to respond in an agile way. Michael Minall is a director at Vendigital, a firm of supply chain consultants operating globally and across industry sectors This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, sign up free to become a member of the Global Development Professionals Network | ['global-development-professionals-network/impact-effectiveness', 'working-in-development/working-in-development', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/typhoon-haiyan', 'world/world', 'world/philippines', 'world/asia-pacific', 'global-development/aid', 'society/society', 'global-development/global-development', 'tone/comment', 'world/hurricanes', 'global-development-professionals-network/humanitarianshumanitarians', 'type/article'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-11-12T16:40:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2018/aug/16/air-pollution-london-mayor-backs-new-inquest-into-girls-asthma-death | Air pollution: London mayor backs new inquest into girl's asthma death | The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has written to the attorney general asking him to back a new inquest into the death of a nine-year-old girl whose severe asthma attacks coincided with spikes in air pollution. The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah has fought a long campaign to highlight the role she believes illegal air pollution played in her daughter’s death in 2013. In July, an expert in respiratory medicine backed her campaign, stating there was a “striking association” between Ella’s hospital admissions and the most severe episodes of air pollution around her home in south London. Khan is calling on the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, to authorise a new inquest “to ensure that the most ambitious measures are taken at every level of government so that – if air pollution was the cause – no other child ever again dies as a result of the air they breathe”. The attorney general will only authorise a new inquest if he is satisfied there is “sufficient admissible evidence that there is a reasonable prospect of the high court being persuaded to order a new inquest”. A spokeswoman for his office said Cox expressed his “sincere sympathies to Ella’s family”. She added: “I can confirm that an application for approval to apply for a fresh inquest has been received by the attorney general’s office regarding Ella’s case and we will review the evidence.” Ella’s mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, said she was extremely grateful to the mayor of London, who is an asthma sufferer himself, for his support for the family’s calls for a fresh inquest. “Since Ella’s death I have become so much more aware of the deadly threat posed by air pollution. A second inquest has the potential to help us better understand this threat and prevent other mums and dads having to go through the trauma of losing a child to this invisible killer,” she said. The family’s lawyer, Jocelyn Cockburn of Hodge Jones & Allen, said it was an important moment in the family’s fight for justice. “The attorney general will find it extremely persuasive that the mayor of London, who himself has air quality duties, has added his weight to the call for a new inquest into Ella’s death.” She added: “As the mayor of London indicates, there is a real need to understand what role air pollution played in this child’s death – not least to learn lessons to ensure that other children do not suffer the same fate.” New evidence has been submitted to the attorney general by Stephen Holgate, a professor of immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton. In it, he states there was a “real prospect that without illegal levels of air pollution Ella would not have died”. Holgate mapped Ella’s admissions to hospital against spikes in air pollution levels around her home. The serious episode that culminated in her death on 15 February 2013 coincided with one of the worst air pollution surges in her local area. He said nitrogen dioxide levels, primarily from diesel vehicles around Ella’s home near the notoriously busy south circular road were consistently above the legal limit of 40µg/m3. He gave his “firm view” that Ella’s death certificate should reflect air pollution as a causative factor. “The dramatic worsening of her asthma in relation to air pollution episodes would go a long way to explain the timing of her exacerbations across her last four years,” Holgate said. “There is a real prospect that without unlawful levels of air pollution Ella would not have died.” A cause of death linked to air pollution in Ella’s case would be a legal first. As concern over the threat from toxic air and the government’s failure to act grows, increasing numbers of people are considering legal action both in the workplace and against the state. Air pollution, labelled a public health emergency by the World Health Organisation, leads to the premature deaths of at least 40,000 people a year in the UK – 9000 in London. It is known to be a major risk factor for childhood asthma and other respiratory conditions and there is also a growing body of evidence linking toxic air to a range of other deadly conditions from heart disease to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia. | ['environment/air-pollution', 'society/asthma', 'uk/uk', 'politics/sadiq-khan', 'uk/london', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-08-16T11:38:34Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2015/feb/21/ed-miliband-climate-change-issue-national-security | Climate change is more than an environmental issue | Ed Miliband | The general election means 2015 is a critical year for Britain. It is also a critical year for the world on climate change. Within months of Britain voting, the UN is holding a summit in Paris to agree a binding global agreement to tackle climate change. But there is a real danger that this great chance to achieve action is going to slip by, without the world even noticing. That might suit some politicians at home but it will be a disaster for our country and the world. Over recent months the EU, the US and, most importantly, China, have all made substantial commitments to cut the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. They represent important progress but we need to challenge every country to be as ambitious as possible. Because even if agreement can be achieved, it may not be enough to address the scale of the challenge we face. This would make it all the more likely that we will not do what is necessary to meet our obligations to future generations. As the floods in Britain showed last year, this is an issue of national – as well as global – security. We must be guided by the science, which shows that emissions are higher than anticipated and some effects are coming through more quickly than foreseen. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said, if the world is to hold warming below 2C, global emissions need to peak not long after 2020 and then decline rapidly to reach net zero in the second half of this century. The weaker the action now, the more rapid and costly the reductions will need to be later. I do not want to see Britain or any country having to adopt crisis measures to halt the slide into global catastrophe because we missed this critical opportunity now. A strong coalition for a weak deal will fail us all. So this is the agreement I will work for if I am prime minister: • Ambitious emissions targets for all countries, reviewed every five years, based on a scientific assessment of the progress towards the 2C goal. • A goal of net zero global emissions in the second half of this century. • Transparent, universal rules for measuring, verifying and reporting emissions with all countries adopting climate change adaptation plans. • An equitable deal in which richer countries provide support to poorer nations in their efforts to combat climate change. To support me in this task I have asked John Prescott to advise me on how we can achieve the best deal at the summit in Paris. His abilities and experience, as one of the architects of the Kyoto protocol in 1997, must be used at this critical time for our future and there is no one better than John at bashing heads together to get a deal. I also hope the millions of British people who care about climate change will join with others across the world to hold governments and political leaders including me, to account. This moment of opportunity must not be missed. Climate change has never been just an environmental issue. It affects the economy, migration and living standards too. There is no trade-off between tackling climate change and building an economy in which working families succeed. Indeed, success on one will help us achieve the other. Before the last election, the UK was a world leader in the transition to a green economy, with strong growth and investment in offshore wind turbine and nuclear power equipment manufacture. This government, which has long abandoned the pretence of being the “greenest ever”, has cut and delayed investment in green technology. While Tory MPs flirt with climate change denial, confused and contradictory signals on energy policy from ministers have caused deep uncertainty for investors. If Labour wins in May, we will put that right. The last Labour government was the first in the world to put carbon targets into law. The next Labour government will commit Britain to making our electricity supply carbon free by 2030. The last Labour government helped to create new markets for thousands of British companies and more than a million new jobs in the green sector. The next Labour government will give business certainty to invest so we can create another million such jobs over the next decade. All this will be a part of Labour’s better plan for working families: resetting the energy market to keep household bills as low as possible, creating new high-skill, high-wage jobs that can help to pay down the deficit, and investing in green technology that can power Britain’s economy into the future. I know the challenge of tackling climate change is not just a global responsibility, it is an economic necessity. It is the single most important thing we can do for our children and our grandchildren. And it will be one of the highest priorities in the government I lead. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'politics/labour', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'tone/comment', 'environment/environment', 'politics/economy', 'environment/ipcc', 'politics/politics', 'business/economicgrowth', 'business/economics', 'politics/general-election-2015', 'type/article', 'profile/ed-miliband', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/comment'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-02-21T19:00:03Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2021/oct/31/i-warn-you-this-column-contains-filth-sewage | I warn you – this column contains filth | Stewart Lee | The majestic shores and tinkling streams of our island kingdom are engulfed by filth. I am self-constipating to stem the tide of sewage, reducing my own filth output by eliminating fibre and water from my diet, and eating only dairy products, and so should you if you are a true patriot. Laurence Fox has already switched to a diet consisting solely of shirred eggs, baked in his own individual porcelain ramekins, while his Reform UK co-face, Richard Tice, has vowed to eat only bar-snack pickled eggs from “a rightwing pub, with free speech and rightwing comedy, and only British food, and no vaccine passports, and no masks”, until the filth tide retreats. But mass public self-induced constipation is not a long-term answer to decades of chronic underinvestment in filth infrastructure by privatised water companies. I am, however, already seeing massive personal savings on my toilet roll and Toilet Duck expenditure. In fact, my toilet is so rarely used now I am thinking of encouraging an actual duck to live in it, though gathering the eggs might be a challenge. Normally, a national filth engulfment would be a handy metaphor for political corruption. But we have reckoned without Boris Johnson’s Covid-Brexit government’s ongoing talent for making nightmare reality and puns about “this septic isle” aren’t up to the task of addressing the magnitude of their complicit criminality. I sit down to a breakfast of six coddled eggs and, keen to complete my column so I can prepare a light lunch of 30 blockage-inducing persimmon fruits, ponder the irony of the situation. In the week we host the Cop26 climate catastrophe conference, on the success of which no less than the future of all life on Earth depends, Johnson dismissed his own government’s recycling policy as useless to a class of bewildered schoolchildren; Shipley’s Conservative MP, Philip Davies, said our attempts to reduce Britain’s emissions are “utterly futile, virtue signalling gesture politics”, drawing emaciated polar bears and dead Northumbrian seabirds into a culture war against the imagined hessian-munchers of north London; a clockwork contrarian called Mike Graham, on the Conservatives’ client radio station talkRadio, appeared to suggest that concrete, like trees, could be “grown”; and 268 Conservative MPs voted to block a Lords’ amendment aimed at preventing water companies from discharging 3.1m hours’ worth of sewage, based on last year’s filthometer readings, into filthy Brexit Britain’s filth-filled seas and rivers. Was it only in May 2018 that Michael Gove sniffily declared we could have “higher environmental standards outside the EU”? Was it only that year that Johnson stated he was “leading the way in protecting the world’s oceans”? Were they lying? God forbid! Apparently, Brexit Britain’s broken supply lines mean the water purification chemicals aren’t getting through. But principally it appears that water companies can’t be expected to pay the £150bn needed to fix their outmoded sewerage system, which they have run into the ground since 1991 while paying £57bn to shareholders, so they have to funnel the filth-spill into our rivers and seas. You don’t have to be Joseph Bazalgette, whose public sewerage system emerged from the Great Stink of 1858, to see that decades of investment, rather than decades of dividends, could probably have averted the problem; you don’t even have to be his great-great- grandson, Peter Bazalgette, who pumped the cultural sewage of the Dutch reality TV show Big Brother into our homes, to recognise the asset-degrading actions of the water companies as evidence of a corrupt kleptocracy; you probably don’t even have to be his other great-great-grandson, Edward Bazalgette, who played guitar on the Vapors’ 1980 sensitively Asian styled song Turning Japanese, to know that the moral response to the filth crisis is to make the water companies correct their neglect and not to pass the costs on to the consumer. And yet the Conservatives’ justification for supporting the ongoing filth-discharge was that as the customer will have to pay for the sewage system upgrade it’s best not to bother with it after all. I gobble down my persimmons and head out into Dalston high road to find more. Even the most fashionable north London health food shops seem to have no persimmons left, but is it evidence of Brexit shortages or of patriots attempting to solidify their bowels? Hopefully, the delegates at the Cop26 won’t find out about the British filth crisis or Johnson’s latest gaffes. But, given that we recently learned the Irish border agreement, in his oven-ready Brexit deal, was laid down with the premeditated intent of being broken, who among the hopeful international idiots coming to Glasgow to save the planet would trust either Brexit Britain’s words or deeds. Meanwhile, in September 2020, an unnamed purchaser imported 30,000 tonnes of Dutch sewage sludge, containing Dutch human waste, to spread on British arable land, a process illegal in Holland itself. It appears Brexit Britain’s farmers could become the grateful recipients of millions of tonnes of European excrement. Unlike many moaning Remoaners, I graciously accept Brexit was the will of the people, but we need joined-up thinking to make it the unqualified success it can be. Why are we discharging our own British excrement directly into our British waterways at the same time as buying European excrement to spread on our land? Shouldn’t we just pull over, whenever we feel the urge, and defecate patriotically into our own British fields al fresco? Nothing speaks of Brexit’s sunny uplands more movingly than the image of Ann Widdecombe, with her bloomers round her ankles in a Kent market garden, shatting on to some strawberries. I can’t find any more persimmons anyway and eggs make me sick. Gardyloo! Rescheduled 2022 dates of Stewart’s 2020 tour are on sale; stewartlee.co.uk/live-dates/ He also appears with director Michael Cumming at live screenings of King Rocker, their documentary about Birmingham’s post-punk survivors the Nightingales, in cinemas in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds in November and December linktr.ee/kingrocker | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'culture/culture', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'politics/conservatives', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/stewart-lee', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/agenda', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-10-31T10:00:25Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
technology/2008/may/04/microsoft.yahoo | Microsoft's attempt to buy internet company Yahoo has collapsed after the software firm refused to meet Yahoo's asking price | Microsoft's attempt to buy internet company Yahoo has collapsed after the software firm refused to meet Yahoo's asking price. Announcing he was pulling out of the purchase, Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, said in a letter to his Yahoo counterpart, Jerry Yang, that Microsoft had raised its offer to $47.5bn or $33 per share but was unprepared to meet the $53bn Yahoo wanted. That would have been nearly double Yahoo's share price of $19.18 at the time Microsoft declared its interest three months ago. Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo to enable it to compete with Google in the lucrative market for internet advertising, worth $40bn in 2007 and predicted to double in value by 2010. Ballmer said: "Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5bn, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer." "After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders, to withdraw our proposal." Many analysts had predicted Microsoft would go direct to shareholders in order to secure Yahoo. Microsoft's approach came a year after the two companies held talks over a possible tie-up to challenge search engine Google, although Yahoo rejected those proposals because it hoped to reap benefits from an overhaul of the business. The software giant hoped the latest move would offer greater choice to advertisers, increased research and development spending and a route to removing overhead costs. Ballmer admitted this weekend that a deal with Yahoo would have accelerated the company's strategy, but said Microsoft still had the tools to move forward. He said: "We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners." The company could renew its bid later this year if Yahoo continues to struggle and its share price remains under pressure. Yang said: "With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximise our potential to the benefit of our shareholders, employees, partners and users." He has projected that Yahoo's revenues will rise by 25% in 2009 and 2010, helped by an expanded internet advertising network and more sophisticated tools to target consumers. | ['technology/yahoo-takeover', 'business/business', 'media/digital-media', 'media/mediabusiness', 'media/media', 'technology/yahoo', 'technology/technology', 'technology/microsoft', 'type/article'] | technology/yahoo-takeover | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2008-05-04T09:36:37Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2022/jul/20/uk-government-gives-go-ahead-to-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant | UK government gives go-ahead to Sizewell C nuclear power plant | The UK government has given planning consent to the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk. The decision by the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, which had been repeatedly delayed, was finally announced on Wednesday and went against the advice of the independent Planning Inspectorate. French energy company EDF wants to build the 3.2 GW, two-reactor plant next to its existing site at Sizewell B, which began operating in 1995. However, the proposals have faced fierce opposition from local campaigners, who have argued against the project because of the environmental impact and the cost to energy billpayers. Campaigners now have six weeks to decide whether to appeal against the decision. Planning permission was seen as a key hurdle for the project which remains subject to a further final investment decision, expected next year. It is hoped the plant can generate enough power for six million homes. The approval process for Sizewell C has so far included four rounds of public consultation which began in 2012 and has involved more than 10,000 East Suffolk residents. The Planning Inspectorate rejected the scheme because of concerns over the plant’s impact on protected species and habitats, and the long-term water supply at the site. EDF worked with Chinese state-backed nuclear specialist CGN on the first phase of the project. However, it is understood the UK government is keen to ease CGN out amid concerns over Chinese involvement with sensitive assets. Bankers at Barclays have been hired to secure new financial backing for the project alongside EDF and the UK government. Boris Johnson’s government put £100m of funding behind the project in January to support its development. Carly Vince, the project’s chief planning officer, said: “Sizewell C will be good for the region, creating thousands of opportunities for local people and businesses. It will boost local biodiversity and leave a legacy Suffolk can be proud of.” Julia Pyke, the director of financing for Sizewell C, said: “Energy costs will be lower with nuclear in the mix, so today’s decision is good news for billpayers. The tried and tested funding arrangement we are proposing means that, by paying a small amount during construction, consumers will benefit in the long-term. “Sizewell C will give a big boost to jobs and skills in nuclear supply chain companies across the country. It will strengthen the UK’s energy security and play a key role in our fight against climate change.” Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C campaign, said: “The wrong decision has been made but it’s not the end of our campaign to Stop Sizewell C. Not only will we be looking closely at appealing this decision, we’ll continue to challenge every aspect of Sizewell C, because – whether it is the impact on consumers, the massive costs and delays, the outstanding technical questions or the environmental impacts – it remains a very bad risk.” Beccy Speight, the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “The construction of the proposed development will be damaging and it has been granted with insufficient consideration for the effects on nature as described by the government’s own experts. This is a ludicrous decision for an interim government to make.” Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, called the project a “red herring energy solution” as the UK attempts to move towards a low-carbon energy system. Tom Greatrex, the chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said the decision “significantly strengthens the pipeline of new nuclear capacity in Britain”. Hinkley Point C in Somerset, also backed by EDF, has been beset by delays and cost over-runs. The French government said on Tuesday it was prepared to pay €10bn (£8.5bn) to fully nationalise EDF amid concerns over its finances. Ministers in France want to keep a handle on soaring energy bills. Johnson has set a target of making investment decisions on eight new nuclear projects by the end of the decade. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'politics/planning', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'business/sizewell-c', 'profile/alex-lawson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-07-20T15:40:13Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/may/06/boaty-mcboatface-ship-to-be-called-rrs-sir-david-attenborough | 'Boaty McBoatface' ship to be called RRS Sir David Attenborough | Britain’s new polar research ship is to be named RRS Sir David Attenborough, despite Boaty McBoatface topping a public vote. The decision to name the £200m state-of-the-art vessel after the naturalist comes days before his 90th birthday, and is in recognition of his legacy in British broadcasting. The name Boaty McBoatface will live on in the form of the ship’s remotely operated submarine, which will be dispatched from RRS Sir David Attenborough to allow the research crew to collect data and samples from the Arctic and Antarctic. The science minister Jo Johnson tweeted on Friday: The RRS Sir David Attenborough is being built on Merseyside – the biggest commercial shipbuilding contract in Britain – and is due to set sail in 2019. It will provide the UK with the most advanced floating research fleet in the world, looking at the world’s oceans and issues of climate change. A public call for names by the UK’s natural environment research council (NERC) attracted more than 7,000 suggestions. Boaty McBoatface received more than 124,000 votes, the second place contender, Poppy-Mai – for a toddler with incurable cancer – received more than 34,000 votes, and Attenborough’s name received more than 11,000. The naming follows an Evening Standard campaign to honour Attenborough, backed by two former environment secretaries, two former culture secretaries and the polar explorer Dan Byles. In a statement, Johnson said: “The public provided some truly inspirational and creative names, and while it was a difficult decision I’m delighted that our state-of-the-art polar research ship will be named after one of the nation’s most cherished broadcasters and natural scientists. “This vessel will carry the Attenborough name for decades to come, as it fulfils its mission to explore the oceans and put Britain at the forefront of efforts to preserve our precious marine environment.” He said the ship had captured the imagination of millions, “which is why we’re ensuring that the Boaty name lives on through the sub-sea vehicle”. In a career spanning six decades, Attenborough has presented critically acclaimed wildlife documentaries on the BBC including The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet. He said he was honoured by the naming decision and hoped all those who suggested a name felt just as inspired to follow the ship’s progress. “I have been privileged to explore the world’s deepest oceans alongside amazing teams of researchers, and with this new polar research ship they will be able to go further and discover more than ever before,” he said. Prof Duncan Wingham, the chief executive of NERC, will appear before the Commons science and technology committee on Tuesday to field questions about the Name Our Ship competition. Johnson announced on Friday that the government would be investing up to £1m in a new polar explorer programme to engage young people and inspire them to pursue careers in science and engineering. | ['environment/poles', 'science/science', 'world/arctic', 'tv-and-radio/david-attenborough', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/nadia-khomami', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-05-06T09:08:44Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2020/jan/24/tesco-to-stop-sale-of-plastic-wrapped-multipacks-in-stores | Tesco to stop sale of plastic-wrapped multipacks in stores | Tesco is banishing shrink-wrapped multipacks of baked beans, soup and tuna from its aisles as part of a drive to slash its use of plastic packaging. The store-cupboard staples are among the biggest selling groceries in UK supermarkets. Tesco said shoppers would not end up paying more because the packs would be replaced with permanent multi-buy deals on individual tins. The packaging is being removed from Tesco’s own label products as well as from major brands such as Heinz, Green Giant, John West and Princes. Shoppers will begin to see the changes in store from March when Tesco will cease to order products that are in plastic-wrapped multipacks. For the time being, Heinz, part of the US food giant Kraft Heinz, will continue to supply other supermarkets with wrapped multipacks. It would need to invest in reconfiguring its manufacturing lines if the initiative was going to be scaled up, the company said. “Heinz is committed to reducing packaging wherever possible whilst continuing to offer great value,” said a spokesman. “We see this as a positive and important step to help reduce our impact on the planet.” Tesco has begun the huge task of removing non-recyclable and excess packaging from its business. Where packaging cannot be removed, for example where it prevents food waste, Tesco says it is working with its suppliers to reduce it to an absolute minimum. Last summer Tesco said it would not carry brands that used excessive packaging, with the decision to call time on multipacks saving 350 tonnes of plastic a year. Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said: “We are removing all unnecessary and non-recyclable plastic from Tesco. Removing plastic-wrapped multipacks from every Tesco store in the UK will cut 350 tonnes of plastic from the environment every year. This is part of our plan to remove 1bn pieces of plastic in 2020.” Paula Chin, sustainable materials specialist at WWF, said companies needed to remove unnecessary single-use plastic wherever possible. “If we want to protect nature we need more businesses to follow Tesco’s lead, before we run out of time,” she said. | ['business/tesco', 'business/packaging', 'environment/plastic', 'business/supermarkets', 'uk/uk', 'environment/waste', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'business/retail', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/zoewood', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-01-24T00:01:09Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/2021/may/26/california-windfarms-coast-biden-administration | California could launch the west coast’s first commercial offshore windfarms | California has taken a major step towards launching the first commercial offshore wind energy program on the west coast, a project that would open the state’s waters to hundreds of floating turbines and could eventually power 1.6m homes. The state announced an agreement with the US government on Tuesday that would open federal waters off California’s central and northern coasts to new windfarms, and put the state and the country in a better position to meet ambitious climate targets. “California, as we all know, has a world-class offshore wind resource, and it can play a major role in helping to accelerate California’s and the nation’s transition to clean energy,” said Gina McCarthy, the White House’s national climate adviser. The new projects, if approved and built, would provide a major expansion of offshore wind power in the US. Currently, there are just two working offshore windfarms – off Block Island in Rhode Island and off Virginia – but more than two dozen others are in development. The announcement is part of Joe Biden’s plan to create 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. California separately set a goal to produce all electricity by 2045 through renewable energy resources and zero-carbon generating facilities. The plan includes floating 380 windmills across a nearly 400 sq-mile (1,035 sq km) expanse of roughly 250,000 acres north-west of Morro Bay. The agreement comes two weeks after the Biden administration announced a $3bn project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts that would power 400,000 homes with 84 turbines. Another proposed project, Ocean Wind, off New Jersey would create 1,100-megawatts of power. Those windfarms would be dwarfed by the scale of the California projects. The California windfarms would produce a combined 4.6 gigawatts, with the Morro Bay operation providing two-thirds of that output. State officials have spent years trying to advance plans for wind development and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, noted that the Trump administration inhibited those efforts. He praised the plan, saying that developing offshore wind would be a “gamechanger to achieving California’s clean energy goals and addressing climate change”, and promised to expedite the state’s environmental review process to hasten production. He also said he included $20m in his revised budget proposal this month to invest in the project. “We value process but not the paralysis of a process that takes years and years and years that can be done in a much more focused way,” Newsom said. The US has lagged behind Europe on developing offshore wind power, and advocates of the plan have cited their successes as examples. But the plan is not without opposition and key obstacles remain. For one, the Pacific Ocean is far deeper than the Atlantic, where infrastructure can be built directly on to the seafloor. California’s wind energy will have to rely on floating turbines, and the technology is still fairly new. Fishermen are also concerned that construction and operation of projects on this scale could disrupt the ecosystem. They claim that they were not consulted on the impact the locations could have on their industry. “We feel we’ve not been invited to have a seat at the table. We feel we’re on the menu,” said Mike Conroy, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. The area off Morro Bay is a fishery for tuna and swordfish and he is concerned that the floating turbines could change migratory patterns of whales and other species. If blue and humpback whales, for example, are forced closer to shore, it could bring closures of Dungeness crab fishing. Opposition is also expected from coastal property owners who have expressed dismay over the impact floating turbines may have on their ocean views – and ultimately their property values. The project is expected to take years to establish, as the interior department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees this kind of development, will process and respond to public feedback on the plan. But, some of those hurdles have already been handled. The Department of Defense, which resisted California’s attempts to develop a wind energy program in the area for years, due to its use of the area for training and operations, is now on board. Environmental groups, including Audubon and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which have expressed concerns about how the plan could impact wildlife, also issued statements in support of the project with the caveat that fish, seabirds and marine mammals are protected. The Environmental Defense Center, which was founded in Santa Barbara after a massive offshore oil spill in 1969, echoed that sentiment, calling for minimal harm to species and coastal communities. With support from those groups, the Department of the Interior plans to finalize the site next month, and could open leasing by next year. “Today’s announcement reflects months of active engagement and dedication between partners who are committed to advancing a clean energy future,” said the US interior secretary, Deb Haaland, in a statement. “The offshore wind industry has the potential to create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs across the nation, while combating the negative effects of climate change.” Agencies contributed | ['us-news/california', 'environment/windpower', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/gabrielle-canon', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2021-05-26T20:03:14Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/article/2024/aug/30/emissions-from-coal-fired-power-stations-rise-as-wind-and-hydro-dip | Emissions from Australian coal-fired power stations rise as wind and hydro dip | Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s ageing coal-fired power plants rose slightly in the first half of the year, reversing years of declining pollution from the power section and raising questions about the country’s ability to meet its climate targets. An increase in electricity consumption across the country and lower than usual wind and hydro output led to an increase in coal generation. It pushed up emissions from the electricity grid between January and June. Climate pollution from the east coast power grid had previously been falling steadily as renewable energy pushed out coal and gas, lifting the share of solar, wind and hydro to about 40%. Though at this stage only a short-term trend, the rise in electricity emissions is at odds with official government projections, which had forecast that coal-fired generation would continue to fall by about 10 terra-watt hours a year. In reality, coal plant output is up about 3.5% this year. It meant that while Australia’s total national emissions were down a fraction over the year to March – by 0.6% – they increased in the March quarter and, based on preliminary data, the June quarter. According to the latest quarterly greenhouse gas update, Australia’s emissions are 440.2m tonnes, which is 28.2% less than they were in 2005 – the baseline year against which it has made domestic and international commitments. The Albanese government has legislated a reduction targets of 43% by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Scientists say Australia should be making cuts even more rapidly to play its part in the goal of aiming to limit average global heating by 1.5C. Electricity remains the biggest source of emissions by sector in the national economy despite having fallen by about 23% since 2005 as renewables have replaced coal. Other parts of the fossil fuel economy have either flatlined in pollution output or, in the case of transport, increased CO2 emissions. The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said emissions in the March quarter were affected by warmer than average temperatures pushing up electricity demand. He emphasised the longer-term trend, and said the latest inventory showed the government’s plan to bolster renewables, including a 32 gigawatt underwriting program, “is working” after a “decade of denial and delay” under the Coalition. “We must continue to drive action across all sectors of the economy,” he said, pointing to changes to the “safeguard mechanism” that is meant to limit emissions from major industrial sites and national vehicle emissions standards that will take effect in January. The Coalition’s climate spokesman, Ted O’Brien, said the report showed national emissions had increased 1% since Labor came to office. This period, since May 2022, included a period in which emissions rebounded to previous levels after Covid-19 lockdowns in some states cut pollution from transport and some industry. But O’Brien said it showed Labor’s energy plan had “failed”. The Greens said the data showed emissions “aren’t coming down” under Labor and that this was “putting a safe climate out of reach”. “Labor’s commitment to coal and gas will see Australia blow any chance of meeting safe climate targets,” the party’s Senate leader, Larissa Waters, said. Labor has set a target of reaching 82% electricity from renewable energy by 2030, and the Australian Energy Market Operator has said 90% of remaining coal plants were likely to shut by 2035 and that investments in renewables needed to be delivered “on time and in full” to maintain a reliable grid. Most of the estimated emissions reductions across the country continue to be due to land and forests having become a carbon sink, absorbing more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit. These changes have had little, if anything, to do with climate change policy. Without them national emissions across the rest of the economy are down only 1.3% since 2005. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coal', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-08-30T13:50:40Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/feb/14/johnson-must-make-climate-a-priority-or-cop26-will-fail-say-leading-figures | PM must prioritise climate or Cop26 will fail, say leading figures | Boris Johnson must put the climate crisis at the top of his government’s agenda if crunch UN talks this year are to be a success, leading international figures have told the Guardian. Alok Sharma was appointed on Thursday as the business secretary and president of Cop26, the UN talks on the climate crisis to be held this November in Glasgow. Some climate experts are concerned that he won’t be able to stand up to governments reluctant to make strong commitments to cut greenhouse gases, while at the same time supporting British businesses struggling in the turmoil of Brexit. Lord Stern, former World Bank chief economist, said he had confidence in Sharma, having worked with him closely on international development issues. “[Sharma] has worked with developing countries, and has shown he can build up the relationships he needs,” he said. “He has the knowledge and the ability to form the relationships that are needed with developing countries that will be essential to the success of Cop26.” The appointment of Sharma has encouraged civil servants who were concerned that Cop26 had slipped down the government’s agenda. Insiders said the appointment of Sharma – a well-regarded secretary of state for international development – would kickstart the process of international diplomacy needed to make the Cop26 climate conference a success. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said: “This is an excellent choice and we at the IEA are looking forward to working together with minister Sharma and his team to support the Cop26 process in order to reach a successful outcome in Glasgow for our international climate goals. We will work together to make sure 2019 is remembered as the year of peak emissions so that the 2020s become the decade that global emissions decline quickly.” Campaigners are concerned, however, that the dual role may get in the way of a successful outcome. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The new business secretary has a herculean task on his hands. Not only has he got to get the UK delivering on its carbon budgets, but he’s also got to get the world behind more ambitious climate action. “At home, he needs to unblock the expansion of on- and offshore wind currently sandwiched between various government departments and backbench MPs, as well as tackling carbon emission from 30m draughty buildings. Globally, he’s got to deal with leaving the EU and signing international trade deals while also cajoling countries to get behind solving the climate emergency. This will only work if Boris Johnson steps in and puts the full weight of No 10 behind it.” Aaron Kiely, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “It’s hard to be optimistic about the UK’s presidency of the UN climate conference, when the man given the job is expected to do it as a side project. Leading international talks on the climate crisis is easily the most important role in government right now, yet Alok Sharma is expected to take it on at the same time as being business secretary. If the presidency is being treated as a part time gig then what next? Perhaps the conference venue will be expected to share space with a wedding fair.” He added: “The government really needs to start taking this seriously. At the very least this means giving someone the organisation role as a full-time job, and proper cooperation with the Scottish government.” | ['environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/environment', 'politics/alok-sharma', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2020-02-14T19:05:59Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
australia-news/2023/feb/09/its-different-australian-farmers-staffless-self-service-butcher-where-customers-pay-by-app | ‘It’s different’: Australian farmer’s staffless, self-service butcher where customers pay by app | Jake Wolki realised he had to shake things up when he started having trouble finding people to process his farm’s meat. After buying a local shopfront, he hired some butchers and they began their own processing operation. Wolki wanted to sell the produce there too but says it wasn’t viable to open a staffed store. “We just didn’t have the throughput to make it worthwhile,” he says. “I then scratched around the internet, put a few different apps and systems together and came up with this 24/7, staffless butchery.” Customers can access the butchery with a unique member code, which is free of charge after taking a tour of Wolki Farm to understand its regenerative values and sustainable farming practices. They can then pick items from fridges and shelves and pay for them with an app. The butchery has been running for almost two years and has had zero theft. After Wolki explained his butchery model on TikTok, the post went viral. But he was also criticised for taking away jobs in country towns. With four employees across his business working on the farm and as butchers, Wolki says he values his workers’ skillset. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter “We are trying to free up our time so we aren’t sitting in our shop selling our wares, so that we can get back on the fields and work in the pastures, and actually steward our animals and our environment the way we want to do it,” he says. “We want more jobs, we just don’t want them inside. We want to be doing things outside. That’s why we’re farmers.” According to the Regional Australia Institute, job vacancies in regional Australia reached a new high last year of more than 94,000 for the month of October. Liz Ritchie, chief executive of the RAI, says she is seeing more and more entrepreneurs such as Wolki in regional towns, and that this is just another way the bush is battling staff shortages. “Examples like this are just outstanding, it’s a different way of operating,” she says. “[Wolki] clearly cares very much about employment – it’s where you put the employment that matters. “He’s still employing butchers, he’s just not making them do the interface – so you could actually say he’s allowing them to do what they’re good at.” Ritchie says 24/7 businesses aren’t a new concept for regional Australians. The rise in the popularity of 24-hour access to gyms is just one example of moving beyond the nine to five, with businesses focusing on the consumer. “More and more it’s becoming available, certainly in larger regional centres,” Ritchie says. “And it’s about consumers. People work at all hours of the day, it’s not always convenient to do your shopping at consumer hours, the traditional nine to five. “Adopting technology to build business is incredibly smart and actually enables access in ways that wouldn’t have been possible previously.” Smaller rural towns battling the rise in job vacancies have the added pressure of limited opening times. With less foot traffic moving through, it becomes less viable to pay workers beyond regular hours. Sue and John Duggan, the owners of the Black Stump Butchery in the western NSW town of Coolah, are trialling their own answer to limited opening times. A meat-vending machine has been prominently placed next to the central storefront, where locals and passersby can readily access cryovaced, fresh meat. In a town with a population of 1,290, the couple didn’t see it as practical to open the butcher over weekends. “This way we are able to supply the community with 24-hour access to that quality product,” Sue says. “In Coolah we have shift workers and farm workers, and people who are not necessarily in town in shop hours. “We don’t open on weekends for obvious reasons with staffing. It’s just way too difficult in a small country town, plus with all your rates on weekends.” The Black Stump Butchery has NSW’s third meat-vending machine, which has been trialed since December 2022. “I think it’s definitely leaning into the future,” Sue says. “It’s the way to go because it’s convenient for everybody. We’ve had other butchers and business owners call into the shop to ask questions, who are very interested in the concept.” | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'food/meat', 'environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'business/australia-economy', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/emily-middleton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-02-08T14:00:18Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2008/apr/05/recycling.waste | Green sweep | I am incapable of throwing away carrier bags. They'll come in handy one day, I think, as they sit in the "guilt-dump": the pre-recycling area in our kitchen full of bottles, cereal packets, newspapers. Plus those plastic bags, of course: all 221 of them. But this little domestic landfill is causing some pain. I live in a small central London flat with my partner and two children, and on top of all the recycling, I hoard. I blame a thrift-consciousness, schooled in the 70s when you ate everything on the plate, turned off lights and took back bottles - habits given new legs by today's green imperative. I was interested, then, to discover that there's a profession dealing with the domestic disorder caused by eco-virtue. One key proponent is Romaine Lowery, a no-nonsense power coach from Northern Ireland. "Most clients complain that they're trying to be green, but have landed up with a great pile of stuff in the corner of the room," she says. "It's definitely added to the amount of clutter that people have in their homes. And for people who are majorly cluttered, it's another excuse." I ask her to drop by to free me from my eco-grief. "Get things out of the kitchen, particularly the things for recycling," Lowery says, producing a brushed aluminium box to put the plastic bags in: quite natty, but incapable of coping with 221 of the things. "Use them or lose them," she orders. "Keep things in circulation, but aim to stop stuff coming into the house in the first place. Don't go for overpackaged goods." With that, she hoists several days' worth of newspapers, bottles etc into a three-compartment bin (main picture, Trio recycle bin, £145, from aplaceforeverything.co.uk), then turns her attention to my spice rack. Already, I'm having to stop myself yelling, "Whose kitchen is it anyway?" But Lowery claims her £60 an hour fee is justified: "What a professional organiser does is important. I see people at the end of their tether. They feel so depressed, but don't know why. It's clutter." I find it hard to get rid of electrical goods. Don't ask why. But they've got to go, in an environmentally-conscious way. "There's two ways of going about it," Lowery says. "Either eBay them" - yes, eBay is now a verb - "or, if you think no one's going to want them, put them in the metal section of your local council dump." Lowery's a fan of dumps. "They're good these days," she trills. "Some have separate sections for old computers." Dumps vary in worthiness: some are palaces of recycling efficiency while others are undiscriminating slagheaps. Go to recyclenow.com, enter your postcode into its finder, and out will come smart local options for your cast-offs. Batteries, to which I have the same attitude as plastic bags, can also go to the council, as can printer cartridges and old computer tat. Or get on to a household recycling network such as recyclemore.co.uk, wastewatch.org.uk or freecycle.org. "They list every object and how to get rid of it," Lowery says. Thanks to the internet, she says, there's a place for everything now: furniture goes to the Furniture Re-use Network (frn.org.uk), clothes to a swapping site - try whatsmineisyours.com - or to swapping parties. Re-circulate books with friends, or swap them online at readitswapit.co.uk. "Or use the library," Lowery says. We often have too many duplicates, such as light bulbs and rubber bands. Get these sorted, Lowery says, and important things may emerge; lost passports, say. "Clients find things they thought were lost for ever." My partner has to leave the flat when Lowery turns to our mismatched, junk-shop glasses - "Glasses go in rows," she says. "Most people have far too many glasses of different sorts." Instead, take the surplus to a charity shop, she advises. "Remember, charity shops are part of a recycling habit." Lowery says there are many types of hoarder. "People who grew up in the second world war era are inveterate keepers. They find it difficult to throw anything away, and you find that when they pass on, their relatives have a real problem." Meanwhile, the post-80s generation has "too much stuff because of consumerism gone mad". Either way, there's a problem. It's a relief when Lowery leaves, her words ringing in my ears: that it's "brave" to fix your clutter "because it opens up your life to change". I'm off to hide in the shed... with my collection of carrier bags. Romaine Lowery, 07834 338568, clutterclinic.co.uk Oliver Bennett is a devoted recycler with a problem - a surfeit of plastic bags, bottles, cans and 'spare' kettles cluttering up his life. Until he calls in an expert... Main pictures: Beth Evans Eco clutter solutions 1 Donate unwanted furniture and appliances to the Furniture Re-use Network for people in need. Furniture must conform to safety standards and appliances should be in working (or easily mendable) order (televisions must have remotes); 0845 602 8003, frn.org.uk. 2 Join the Freecycle Network, a not-for-profit swapping movement; freecycle.org. 3 Give your PC to charity via donateapc.org.uk. 4 Crump (Campaign to Recycle Unwanted Mobile Phones) sells old phones for recycling and gives the money to charity - 0800 083 2103, childadvocacyinternational.co.uk, or send phones (in a padded envelope) to Freepost Crump. 5 Swap clean, wearable clothes through whatsmineisyours.com or send worn-out gear to textile recycling banks; Recycle Now, 0845 331 3131, recyclenow.com. 6 Sell it on eBay. If you can't face doing it yourself, get a specialist company to do it for you - for a fee. Try trading4u.com (020-7617 7141), serialsellers.com (0870 061 0000) or stuffusell.co.uk (0800 075 0015). 7 Get your kitchen recycling in order with one of these natty containers (left, from top): compost crock, £12.99, from Lakeland, 01539 488100, lakeland.co.uk; recycling bags, £10 for three, from Next, 0844 844 8000, next.co.uk; and translucent stacking recycle bin, £17 for three, from Store, 0870 224 2660, aplaceforeverything.co.uk. Or try homerecycling.co.uk for more ideas. Charlotte Abrahams | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/features'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-04-04T23:05:49Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2011/jun/15/secret-policeman-mark-kennedy-infiltration | Secret policeman Mark Kennedy offers to help infiltration inquiry | Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who infiltrated environmental campaign groups, has offered to co-operate with an independent inquiry into aspects of his deployment, hinting he has potentially explosive information surrounding the prosecution of activists accused of planning to break into a power station. Kennedy, who spent seven years undercover, was among 114 activists who were arrested by Nottinghamshire police two years ago during a gathering at a school, hours before some of them planned to occupy Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. Only 26 activists were ever charged with conspiring to commit trespass. The other 87 campaigners arrested were eventually released without charge, leading some to suspect that individuals were singled out for a malicious or political prosecution. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Kennedy said the inquiry into the controversy should be expanded to consider how police and prosecutors selected those who were charged. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer announced the independent inquiry last week, two days after the Guardian revealed the Crown Prosecution Service was suspected of misleading courts over the collapse of a trial against six of the activists. A retired judge is expected to investigate allegations that prosecutors suppressed surveillance tapes secretly recorded at the school by Kennedy which may have exonerated the activists. Kennedy said the inquiry – which is the eighth official investigation into the controversy surrounding undercover police officers – should go further. "If I can contribute to the independent inquiry, then I have some confidence that those questions which are being raised might be answered," he said. "I would be interested in seeing what the decision-making process was to [charge] those 26 people out of the 114," he said. "That would be quite interesting. I think that is an important question that needs to be asked." Asked if he had a "private theory" as to why only 26 were charged, Kennedy said he did have information that he would convey to the senior judicial figure running the inquiry. In another interview, Kennedy suggested that police planned to "fit up" the activists involved in the Ratcliffe protest. "There was a plan that, this time around, instead of charging people for the usual offences like trespassing and minor criminal damage, which involves going to a magistrates' court and getting a conditional discharge or a small fine, they were going to set them up with conspiracy charges which were far more serious," he said. Rebecca Quinn, who was one of the 114 but was not charged and is involved in the campaign group No Police Spies, said: "Kennedy implies that the 26 who were charged were not selected based on the evidence, but potentially something more political, taking us into very disturbing territory indeed. Any truly independent inquiry would have to look into this aspect of the case." The trial of the six campaigners, who denied conspiring to break into the power station, was abandoned in January after defence lawyers began requesting disclosure about Kennedy's operation. The CPS told the court that "previously unavailable information" that could assist the defence had come to light just two days earlier. The supposedly new information is now known to be a transcript of Kennedy's secret recordings, which police say was handed over to prosecutors more than a year earlier. Kennedy said he was "quite surprised" at the CPS claim to only have become aware of the transcript in January, saying he believes they would have known about his deployment 18 months earlier. The other 20 activists who were charged accepted they planned to break into the power station, but told a jury they were acting to prevent massive carbon emissions. They were convicted in December, but are now challenging the verdicts at the court of appeal. | ['uk/mark-kennedy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'uk/police', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'type/article', 'profile/paullewis', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-06-15T19:40:16Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/article/2024/jul/16/instead-of-crisps-kids-could-eat-snacks-from-the-sea-the-forager-chef-looking-to-revolutionise-chiles-diet | ‘Instead of crisps, kids could eat snacks from the sea’: the forager chef looking to revolutionise Chile’s diet | Rodolfo Guzmán produces a carrot-shaped pod of algae from one of the packed shelves in his test kitchen in the Chilean capital, Santiago: “Put it on your tongue for five seconds,” he instructs. An explosion of salty flavour ensues. “Imagine getting more kids to eat stuff like this!” he says, eagerly. “Instead of processed snacks like Pringles, they could eat something healthy and delicious from the sea.” With 4,000 miles (6,400km) of coastline, Chile is the world’s largest producer of wild seaweed, harvesting 405,000 tonnes annually, and contributing more than $100m (£79m) to the economy. The Humboldt Current, which flows along the coastline, ensures the water is cold and nutrient-rich – an ideal climate for a thriving and diverse seaweed population. However, most of Chile’s seaweed is exported to world markets for use in industrial and pharmaceutical industries, with its gastronomical potential largely untapped. Guzmán is working to change this. The renowned chef’s restaurant, Boragó, is frequently listed among the top 50 restaurants in the world. His culinary vision draws from Chile’s diverse and unexplored landscapes, with ingredients such as desert wildflowers, forest mushrooms and seaweeds featuring on his menus. The “sea carrot” is one of his current favourites, an affectionate nickname he has given to a kelp float (a gas-filled bulb that enables the seaweed to float to the surface). Guzmán describes it as a “pure, natural umami bomb”. “We’ve been able to crystallise amino acids, making it like a natural MSG,” he says. Known for his experimental style, Guzmán is obsessive in his ambition to tame seaweed’s unruly textures and harness its unique salty flavour. His research team includes a division called Original Processes, which focuses on innovation from four ingredients: fungi, rock plants, sea animals and seaweeds. Of all the unusual foods he’s worked with, one seaweed – the luga (Sarcothalia crispata) – has proved the most challenging. With its rubbery, sheet-like texture, the luga’s sliminess and bitter taste initially made it inedible. Yet its abundance and ethereal appearance had Guzmán hooked. “We spent two months working with the seaweed every single day, repeating thousands of experiments.” He tried to poach it, dehydrate it and cook it on embers, but the offputting taste stubbornly remained. Guzmán decided on 10 final experiments, in which he finally found the answer: spraying a kefir solution on the luga as it cooked, balancing the food’s pH while enriching the flavour. In the Boragó menu, the luga is used as a mini empanada filling; a minute version of a savoury stuffed pastry enjoyed throughout South America. Guzmán refers to his breakthrough as a potent example. “It shows how knowledge can change the reality about raw materials and ingredients, and transform them into something delicious.” Julio Vasquéz, a marine ecologist at the Universidad Católica del Norte in Coquimbo, is delighted by Guzmán’s ambition to bring seaweed to Chilean palates. Vasquéz estimates there are more than 800 endemic seaweed species in Chile. “There’s a tremendous variety and all are fit for human consumption. What is lacking are bold chefs who can experiment with this resource.” Vasquéz points to Chile’s well-regulated cultivation industry, where local fishers and seaweed collectors can collectively request exclusive fishing areas ranging up to 100 hectares (247 acres). Guzmán has partnerships with a team of more than 200 foragers nationwide, including Gisella Olguín, who collects seaweeds from Bucalemu, a small bay on Chile’s central coast. Every morning, she scales the rocky coasts of Chile’s cold Pacific Ocean, scissors in hand, snipping, tugging and collecting the algae washed to shore. Her partner dons a wetsuit and braves the chilly waters to haul seaweeds on to the beaches. They usually collect cochayuyo, also known as koyof, which is consumed in Chile and exported for industrial use. Guzmán’s left-field requests for unusual seaweeds initially baffled Olguín. “I was like, ‘why do you want weird things? No one buys that!’” She has worked with Guzmán for more than a year, sending sea carrots, cochayuyo, and rock plants to the restaurant weekly. The fresh ingredients are sent by public bus to Santiago, where they are picked up by Boragó staff at the city’s bustling terminals. It’s an unconventional but effective way of working that skips the middlemen, resulting in better pay for artisanal collectors such as Olguín. “It is very fair,” she says. Olguín is from a family of fishers; she grew up eating seaweed as a snack in salads or for seasoning. “It’s an ancestral ingredient,” she says, referring to the Chilean Indigenous group the Mapuche, who have eaten seaweed for thousands of years. Today, seaweed consumption is rare outside small coastal communities and minority Indigenous populations. “It’s not a product that sells on a large scale,” she says. “This is largely because it has never been given the importance and relevance it deserves.” The government has launched an initiative to increase annual seafood consumption over the next three years, including a public school food programme called From the Sea to Your School. It has incorporated seaweed and seafood into school meals. Seaweed is a common lunchbox snack in Asia, from Thailand’s tao kae noi to Japan’s nori senbei, so Guzmán’s dream of creating a healthy algae snack for kids is not without precedent. However, his breakthroughs in seaweed have yet to influence wider eating patterns outside fine-dining circles. He insists that knowledge must come first, before scale. “At the end of the day, we’re a tiny restaurant,” he says. “We are still trying to figure out the next step to feed more people. All I know is that it tastes really good.” | ['environment/series/on-our-plate', 'environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'food/seafood', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'world/chile', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'food/restaurants', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/foraging', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/charis-mcgowan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-07-16T06:00:09Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/mar/24/florida-coral-reef-new-port-philippe-cousteau-fort-lauderdale | Dredging Florida coral reef is ‘lunacy’ says Philippe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques | A plan to expand a port near the continental US’s only barrier reef is “lunacy” and risks devastating the ailing coral ecosystem, Philippe Cousteau, grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, warned on Wednesday. The US army corps of engineers plans to deepen and widen shipping channels to allow more ships to access Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The $374m plan, which has been sent to Congress for approval, would mean vast tracts of seabed will be dug up and deposited out at sea starting next year. Proponents of the plan contend it will bring jobs, as well as larger ships, to Florida, but environmentalists bitterly oppose the dredging project, given its potential impact upon the only barrier reef off the contiguous US. Recent dredging of the port of Miami, also undertaken by the US army corps of engineers, layered as much as 14cm (5.5in) of sediment on to the seafloor nearby, clogging parts of the Florida reef. There are fears that a repeat of this dredging will wipe out rare corals on the world’s third largest reef, which stretches from the Atlantic coast the Gulf of Mexico. “This dredging is lunacy, it’s just common sense to not repeat a failed plan,” Cousteau told the Guardian. The film-maker and conservationist took part in a diving tour off the Fort Lauderdale coast this week. “There are reefs elsewhere off the US coast, but this is the key one really. The reef is already heavily degraded, and we are very concerned because the dredging for the port of Miami was a disaster by any environmental standards. We can’t afford to make these kinds of mistakes and not learn from them.” The Caribbean, including Florida, has been stripped of about 80% of its coral since the 1970s through a combination of pollution, marine debris, anchor damage and a decline in the number of fish that tend to the ecosystem. Ocean warming, driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions, has also put the coral at risk of dying off – a gradual ecosystem collapse that is happening worldwide. Dredging adds a further level of stress because the sediment it throws up can smother corals, cutting off vital sunlight and making it hard for them to feed. Corals host a riot of marine biodiversity, and provide a vital coastal buffer to storms. Miami Waterkeeper, a not-for-profit conservation group that invited Cousteau to the area, is currently embroiled in a legal fight over the Miami dredging. It wants to force the US army corps of engineers to replant the estimated 250 acres of lost coral. “We are worried we are going to have another situation where massive quantities of coral reef is killed off,” said Rachel Silverstein, executive director of the group. “These reefs are like the redwood of California, they belong to all of us and we should protect them. “We are trying to save the last vestiges of the Florida reef tract. By piling sediment upon them, we could be pushing them to extinction. There is a possibility the reef system could disappear in our lifetimes.” The US army corps of engineers was approached for comment. The headline of this article was amended on 24 March 2016. An earlier version incorrectly identified Philippe Cousteau as the son of Jacques Cousteau. | ['environment/environment', 'environment/coral', 'us-news/florida', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/marine-life', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-03-24T12:00:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2018/may/30/japanese-hunters-kill-120-pregnant-minke-whales-during-summer-months-report | Japanese hunters kill 120 pregnant minke whales during summer months – report | More than 120 pregnant whales were killed during Japan’s annual “research” hunt in the Southern Ocean last summer, a new report has revealed. Of the 333 minke whales caught during the controversial 12-week expedition, 181 were female – including 53 immature ones. Figures show that of the 128 mature female whales caught in the hunt, 122 were pregnant. “Apparent pregnancy rate of sampled animals was high (95.3%) and no lactating animal was observed in this survey,” said a technical report submitted to the International Whaling Commission. Conservationists seized on the document as further evidence of the “abhorrent” whaling programme, which Japan argues is conducted for scientific purposes. “The killing of 122 pregnant whales is a shocking statistic and sad indictment on the cruelty of Japan’s whale hunt,” Alexia Wellbelove, a senior program manager at Humane Society International, said in a statement. “It is further demonstration, if needed, of the truly gruesome and unnecessary nature of whaling operations, especially when non-lethal surveys have been shown to be sufficient for scientific needs.” In 2014, the international court of justice ordered a temporary halt to the annual slaughter of whales in the Southern Ocean, finding that the Japanese programme known as Jarpa II was not for for scientific purposes. But Japan resumed whaling in the region two years later under a revamped whaling plan, that included reducing its catch quota to about a third. “Research effort began 60 minutes after sunrise and ended 60 minutes before sunset, with a maximum 12 hour per day,” said the report, prepared by representatives of the Institute of Cetacean Research – a whale research agency that is associated with Japan’s fisheries ministry. It was co-written with authors from the fisheries processing company Kyodo Senpaku and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. “One or two minke whales were sampled randomly from each primary sighted school using harpoons with a 30g penthrite grenade,” it said, referring to an explosive material. “Sampled whales were immediately transported to the research base vessel, where biological measurements and sampling were carried out.” The report said 11 targeted whales managed to get away before being hit, mainly because they had moved into an area where sea ice was dense. Wellbelove called on Australia and other anti-whaling countries to send “the strongest possible message to Japan that it should stop its lethal whaling programs”. | ['world/japan', 'environment/whales', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/daniel-hurst', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-05-30T05:24:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
artanddesign/2019/sep/06/hurricane-dorian-bahamas-high-rock | The town turned to rubble by Hurricane Dorian – in pictures | The town of High Rock on Grand Bahama island, with its secluded, shimmering white sand beaches and stretches of coral reef, has drawn tourists for years. But after two days of Hurricane Dorian’s pounding winds, sometimes reaching 220mph, it has been reduced almost entirely to rubble. The category 5 storm was the most powerful hurricane to ever hit the Bahamas and left a trail of destruction and death across its northern archipelago. Top: A damaged house in High Rock, on the eastern part of Grand Bahama island. Bottom: The High Rock police station. All photos by Angel Valentin. Local residents who stayed behind each have their own survival stories. Some clung to tree branches for days on end; others witnessed their neighbors swept away in the winds. Many were left desperately searching for loved ones who went missing in the storm, with several bodies found and dozens unaccounted for. The surrounding forests were blasted so hard there are hardly any leaves left on trees. Of the handful of homes still standing, most are without roofs. Top: Sherman Roberts, 62, takes a break from cleaning a friend’s house. Bottom: Inside the house of Ishmael Laing, which suffered extensive water damage. Some residents, including Euridice Kemp, were quick to link the ferocity of hurricane Dorian to the global climate crisis. Kemp, who returned to the town to salvage what she could from her grandparents’ home, said: “What we’re doing to Mother Earth and the way this turns around on areas like here … I just can’t. Never … never in my life. My heart is broken. I’m in shock.” Top left: Euridice Kemp outside her grandparents’ destroyed home. Top right: A portrait of her grandparents, Horatio and Hazel Baillou, who survived. Bottom: Residents in a truck going to their homes. The sheer force of the winds was enough to transform this area for the foreseeable future. Trees that have stood for generations were uprooted. Large structures, including a nearby lighthouse, are partially or completely destroyed. Many here are only beginning to come to terms with what they have lost. Hardly anyone knows what will happen next: whether to rebuild, or start over. A destroyed home in High Rock. | ['world/hurricane-dorian', 'artanddesign/photography', 'world/extreme-weather', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/bahamas', 'world/americas', 'artanddesign/artanddesign', 'artanddesign/series/guardian-picture-essay', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/laughland-oliver', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/hurricane-dorian | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-07T02:06:40Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2018/jan/06/the-hands-of-thomas-and-making-good-in-a-disposable-world | Repair cafes and 'making good' in a disposable world | Anna Sublet | Here are the hands of Thomas, delving deep into the belly of the fan, coils cast out, covers ripped asunder. They work among scattered mouse poo pellets and spanners. Discarded surgical gloves give the scene a slightly sinister air. But that’s before I have really settled in. I have entered a room packed full of workers, the repairers, and expectant repairees at the St Kilda Repair Cafe in Melbourne. Held at the EcoCentre on the second Sunday of each month, the repair cafe exists to promote repairing and recycling of household goods, to foster an appreciation of “making good”, repairing to restore functionality. Thomas picks up a mouse poo pellet using a scrunched up latex glove. It looks like he’s holding a tiny turd with a condom. Flick. Away with you, mouse poo! There’s the necessary output of the disassembled toasters, brought to bare their innards to a community of fixers. Fixer-upper-ers. Or nerds. Earnest workers. Carers. People who care. Possible carriers of genius. Men closely inspecting the bellies of toasters, burnt crumbs spilling from within, women turning kettles upside down, dragging a needle through old cushion fabric, righting a zipper, making a curtain edge seem new again. There’s a slight lifting of heads, a turning of eyes, a scrunched nose: “What is burning? Can anyone smell that burning?” An iron glides across old cotton. Around us, the ripped open sides of toasters. Lights flickering on in an old lamp. The slightly unnerving buzz of electrical sizzle. A surprised yelp of excitement, a head held atilt in wonder. As a community service, I can feel the change being wrought as I sit face to face with a stranger, who has it in his power to fix my goods, or not. In the process, does he work something on my being too? Is he drawing me out as he delves deep into the oscillating column? Pieces I would never have seen are pulled out of the internal cavities: a heavy, bound cylinder encased in gleaming metal, tiny washers, threatening to fall from the end of the screw. My mind goes to words to describe a foreign country of physics and forces: capacitor. What does it even mean? I drop the word, like an offering, but it turns out to be more like a piece of mouse poo. It’s no capacitor. I’m messing with the lingo, swirling words in my mouth as I watch Thomas work. We talk of Seattle, and the night he met his girlfriend at a band, 17 years ago. He is wearing a T-shirt, which holds all the Washington state cities within a lexicon map of Australia. Words at right angles and twisted around coastlines to fit. He has shaped himself now to St Kilda, where he is making sense, or not, of my old retro fan. His white sticky name tag, THOMAS, sits just above Queensland, over his left nipple. At the end of the bench, a repair man is cradling his head, looking perplexed and murmuring, “I feel so embarrassed … I can’t fix it. I feel … so embarrassed.” It’s like a confessional. There is support, no condemnation, a gathering around of the clan. Still, he seems inconsolable, in a quiet, devastated way. My fan had stopped spinning over those hot weeks in November, and now Thomas has found out why: a metal bridge, built to hold the spinning shaft in a central position between magnets, has snapped. There would be no way to get parts for this old fan. It’s an Aiko, op shop-bought, certified safe, but now bound for the bin. Someone comes to offer his wisdom, dispensing a second opinion: “We’d need a 3D printer to fix that. If we had one, we could print the part.” My mind starts whirring. Something transformative has happened in the unmaking and the surrender, the opportunity to again create from what has been deemed worthless rubbish. The room is filled with common purpose, shared wisdom, care, respect, wonder, delight – I think it’s a thing called community, and it’s been a while since I have sat in its embrace. I entrust to Thomas one of my belongings, he deconstructs it, and it disgorges pieces across the table, sprawled among the pellets and spanners. At a certain point I realise we have crossed over the line of where the piece can be reassembled and made to work anew. A sense of surrender gently moves through me and the hands of Thomas. My mind turns to art, and what could be made with the bits of cast off metal, the decorative covers, the plastic propeller. With some springs from a broken toaster, or a lamp shade … There’s a thought. Recycled art prospects for future creations. So many things to make, connections to work on, community to foster. Art from rubbish, and yes, a 3D printer would be handy, thanks. So I shake the hand of Thomas and say goodbye and start thinking about the next session, when I can bring in that dinky old lamp that had belonged to my great-grandmother. I’m sure we can make it shine again, and if not, we’ve at least shared something over its innards, a little ray of communal hope. • Anna Sublet is a freelance writer | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'lifeandstyle/diy', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/anna-sublet', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-01-06T23:29:53Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2024/jan/08/government-response-flooding-stare-out-window-labour-says | Government response to flooding was to ‘stare out the window’, Labour says | Ministers have been accused of doing little more than “staring out of the window and watching the rain come down” as it was revealed that 2,000 homes have been flooded by Storm Henk. Labour called for a new taskforce to be created that would meet before the winter storms hit to pinpoint the areas most at risk and protect threatened homes and businesses. It also expressed concern at the state of many flood defences and said that millions of pounds allocated to protect communities was not reaching some of the places it was most needed. The claims came as much of southern Britain was warned to be careful of ice and snow. The Met Office issued a yellow severe weather warning from 3pm on Monday to 3am on Tuesday. It said there could be temperatures as low as -9C in rural Scotland and -6C in parts of Wales. As of Monday night, there were still more than 250 flood warnings and alerts in place in England and Wales. During a visit to Loughborough in Leicestershire, one of the places devastated by Storm Henk, Keir Starmer said the government’s response to flooding was not good enough and said Labour would take pre-emptive action to get ahead of the problem. He said: “What that means [is] earlier in the year, in the autumn, having a taskforce that brings together local authorities, emergency response, local people, to ensure that the prevention work is done. The response wasn’t quick enough. I just don’t think it’s good enough for the government to come after the event again and express empathy.” In the House of Commons, the minister for water and rural growth, Robbie Moore, said 2,000 homes had been flooded, with the worst impact in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. He said the Trent, Thames, Severn and Avon had seen “record or close to record levels as they drained huge volumes of rain from across their river catchments”. Moore had been to Alney Island near Gloucester, where residents had been flooded by the third highest water level in the last 100 years. He said there had been the highest ever levels in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, and in Loughborough. The minister said the Environment Agency deployed more than 1,000 members of staff to affected areas, set up 125 pumps and put more than seven miles of temporary and semi-permanent defences in place. He said that since 2010 the government had invested more than £6bn to better protect more than 600,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion. The shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed, said: “The government’s failure to act effectively has cost the economy billions of pounds since 2010. Homeowners must be horrified that the government has done little more than stare out of the window and watch the rain come down.” He said that more than 4,000 flood defences in England were last year rated “poor or very poor” and there was an underspend of £310m in the flood protection programme. Reed said that in one of the places hit by flooding this year in Nottinghamshire, only 1% of the money allocated had actually been spent. He added: “Enough of this government’s sticking-plaster politics. We need to get ahead of the problem, not just clean up afterwards.” In response, Moore said a resilience taskforce was not needed as there was already coordination between the Environment Agency, local authorities and resilience forums. Caroline Lucas of the Green party called for a more fundamental change. She said: “Ministers are actively planning to pursue energy policies to make extreme weather events worse. We’re about to debate the obscene offshore petroleum licensing bill. Where on earth is the joined-up thinking?” | ['environment/flooding', 'uk-news/england', 'uk/wales', 'world/extreme-weather', 'uk/uk', 'politics/labour', 'politics/conservatives', 'environment/environment', 'environment/environment-agency', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-01-08T20:48:56Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2024/mar/12/csiro-claims-new-record-for-energy-efficiency-in-lightweight-printed-solar-cells | CSIRO claims new record for energy efficiency in lightweight printed solar cells | Flexible, thin solar cells that are lightweight and portable may be a step closer to reality after Australian researchers claimed a new record for the amount of sunlight they can capture and turn into energy. While traditional solar panels are rigid and heavy, the lightweight solar cells are made by printing ink on to thin plastic films. “It’s the best demonstration that this is a viable method of making the solar cells,” said CSIRO’s renewable energy systems group leader, Dr Anthony Chesman. The scientists, working in collaboration with researchers from four universities, claimed an efficiency record for fully roll-to-roll printed cells, in which all of the layers of the product were made using printing methods. For a small-scale device they achieved efficiency of 15.5% and for a larger device measuring 50cm sq they achieved efficiency of 11%. The results of the research have been published in the journal Nature Communications. Lead author and CSIRO’s principal research scientist, Dr Doojin Vak, said the efficiencies were made possible by integrating machine learning into the production process. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “We developed a system for rapidly producing and testing over 10,000 solar cells a day – something that would have been impossible to do manually,” he said. Vak said the team’s research had also removed the need for some expensive materials in production of the cells, such as gold, by using specialised carbon inks that could reduce production costs. The emerging technology still trails the efficiency of conventional silicon solar panels and its potential use in the market is still some years away. But Chesman said there were potential real-world applications for the lightweight cells in settings where conventional solar power might be less suitable. He said this included scenarios where solar power needed to be deployed and transported quickly, such as disaster relief, or at construction, mining or agricultural operations where portable power might be required. “There are people who want to use solar in spaces where silicon isn’t suitable,” he said. He said the next steps were working towards production at a larger scale and commercialisation. CSIRO has commissioned construction of a pilot-scale printing facility – a larger-scale printer that will allow for printing of cells in a single line. The agency is also looking for industry partners to work with to further develop and commercialise the technology. “We’re very interested in the niche applications we can move towards now,” Chesman said. The chief executive of the Smart Energy Council, John Grimes, said the technology could be applied in settings where traditional solar panels were too heavy. “A good application is in places like chicken farms where the structure is not engineered to take heavy solar on the roof,” he said. “Another is in scenarios like emergencies where you need deployable power.” | ['environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/csiro', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-03-12T09:56:22Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2008/may/25/mexico.mexico | Mexico will spend £21m to clean up Acapulco | President Felipe Calderón this weekend pledged £21m to 'rescue' Acapulco, the Pacific resort whose sewage-stained beaches are barely recognisable from its 1950s heyday. Calderón said he would spend 440m pesos over four years to improve sanitation services in Acapulco, which is struggling with an explosion in its local population and of the luxury hotels that draw hordes of US spring break tourists and weekend visitors from Mexico City. Tourism is one of Mexico's main economic motors and Calderón vowed during his 2006 election campaign to restore the Pacific coast resort to its former glory. Once a sparkling playground for the Hollywood set, including Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth, Acapulco has grown grubbier as the city has expanded and its tourism industry has ballooned. Six million tourists visit the resort each year. But barely treated sewage and waste water flow into its famous bay, leaving the sea murky brown and foamy in places, and egg-like odours hang over the port's pretty central square. The lack of infrastructure means poor families living in the city's outskirts suffer water shortages while foreigners splash about in bubbling hot tubs and landscaped swimming pools in hotels along the seafront. Calderón said he would bring clean water to poor neighbourhoods, improve the city's drains and upgrade sewage treatment plants. 'This is an indispensable step to improve the quality of life for all the local residents as well as the more than six million national and international tourists,' he said. Acapulco, famed for its huge crescent-shaped bay, has also been scarred by the presence of child-sex tourists and by rising crime after being sucked into a turf war between violent drug cartels. | ['world/mexico', 'travel/mexico', 'world/world', 'travel/travel', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-05-24T23:01:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/jul/04/melissa-price-approved-uranium-mine-knowing-it-could-lead-to-extinction-of-12-species | Melissa Price approved uranium mine knowing it could lead to extinction of 12 species | The former environment minister Melissa Price acknowledged that approval of a uranium mine in Western Australia could lead to the extinction of up to 12 native species but went ahead with the decision anyway. The admission is contained in a statement of reasons signed by the minister before she approved the Yeelirrie uranium mine, 500km north of Kalgoorlie, the day before the federal election was called in April. The document also shows the environment and energy department recommended conditions that would require the developer, Cameco, to ensure the project would not result in the extinction of up to 11 stygofauna, which are tiny groundwater species. But Price instead adopted a weaker set of conditions aimed at reducing the risk to groundwater species but which the department said contained “significant uncertainties” as to whether or not they would be successful. Price acknowledged the department had recommended tougher conditions but said in the statement that if they were imposed there was “a real chance that the project would not go ahead”. “In making this recommendation, the department considered only the environmental outcomes, and did not weigh the environmental risks against the social and economic benefits of the project,” she said. “Rather, as the department’s briefing noted, this balancing exercise was for me to do”. Price wrote that she “accepted that there was a risk” that species could be lost but that the department’s advice was this was not “inevitable” if the project went ahead. The statement of reasons also notes that the project could lead to the wipeout of the entire western population of a species of saltbush, known as the Atriplex yeelirrie. The saltbush has just two distinct populations, the western and eastern population, both of which are found on Yeelirrie station. The statement of reasons says the western population occurs entirely within the proposed area for the mine and there is a risk the development would clear all of it. The Australian Conservation Foundation, which requested Price’s statement of reasons, described the document as “an extraordinary piece of decision making”. Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning “The statement of reasons shows very clearly that the minister was advised of an extinction threat for multiple species,” Dave Sweeney, the ACF’s nuclear free campaigner, said. “There is a direct and proven extinction threat which is effectively ignored or at least absolutely undervalued.” Sweeney said Price’s decision to rush out two environmental approvals – the Yeelirrie decision and the groundwater decision for Adani’s Carmichael development in Queensland – was a case of “political imperatives over good public policy”. In particular, he said the Yeelirrie case highlighted how ministerial discretion could be used to favour weaker environmental outcomes. “What it highlights is how weak across the board federal environmental laws are,” he said. “In that statement of reasons, she says she considered everything but she does very little to protect.” Neither the stygofauna nor the saltbush are listed species under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. But any development proposal that is considered a nuclear activity triggers a full environmental assessment under the EPBC Act. After Price gave the project her approval in April, Cameco released a statement saying market conditions were challenging and would need to improve for the project to go ahead. The project also received approval from the Barnett government in WA, two weeks before going into caretaker mode before the 2017 state election, which it lost. The state EPA had also warned the project could cause extinctions and had recommended it be rejected. A legal challenge to the state approval by three Tjiwarl traditional owners and the Conservation Council of WA was rejected by the WA supreme court last year, but the groups are fighting the decision in the court of appeal. Guardian Australia sent questions to Price, who is now defence industry minister, asking why she deemed the possibility of extinction as an acceptable risk. “The statement of reasons has been published,” she said. “My focus now is delivering on the Coalition government’s $200 billion investment in defence industry capability.” | ['environment/mining', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/western-australia', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/coalition', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-07-04T02:10:26Z | true | ENERGY |
money/2012/nov/14/call-time-utilities-milking-consumer | Letters: Let's put an end to utilities milking the consumer | Downing Street is promising "swingeing fines" on energy companies if allegations of manipulating the market in wholesale gas prices are proven – a nice little earner for the Treasury (Davey warns energy firms, 14 November). Fining utility and transport companies hurts only one group: their customers, for whom prices will rise further in order to meet the cost of paying fines. What is appropriate in such cases is penalties that will really hurt those responsible – jail terms for fraud, disqualification and personal fines against directors, and orders from the court to suspend all dividend payments for a period of, say, three years and for any resulting cash balances, protected from accounting trickery, to be repaid to consumers in the form of rebates. However, the endemic consumer-milking culture of the privatised energy, utility and transport companies – reports over the weekend highlighted the scandal that is our water industry – could be ended through renationalisation by a bold enough government. Does any political party have the bottle? Nigel Beatty Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex • Your report correctly described how price opacity in gas-trading markets sets a context in which price manipulation can occur (FSA examines whistleblower's claims, 13 November). Moreover, the government is about to introduce an energy bill implementing electricity market reform which will make the precise amount of subsidies paid to nuclear and renewable energy sources very difficult to calculate, and hand over more control of the renewables market to the major electricity players. In the process this reform will effectively prevent independent developers from setting up renewable energy projects. Independent analysts have already warned that the complex and highly opaque system of "contracts for differences feed-in tariffs", that is proposed by the government, will create favourable conditions for major electricity companies to make money out of the complexity. Currently we have a relatively transparent method of calculating how much extra is paid for renewable energy, but this will disappear as the funding for "low carbon" energy sources is pooled together. What a coincidence it is that we will find it difficult to calculate exactly how much extra (on top of market rates) is paid for nuclear power. Proposals for a much simpler and cheaper "fixed feed-in tariff" (used in Germany) have been sidelined. Dr David Toke University of Birmingham • The decision to defeat Labour in its bid to delay an increase in fuel duty of 3p a litre planned for January is yet another kick in the teeth for businesses who rely on the roads to function and operate (Report, 13 November). Can we please recognise the negative effect this is going to have on the haulage industry and the potential loss of jobs. Given the amount of fuel consumed on a daily basis, even a small hike in price means our costs increase significantly. We can't always pass on these costs to customers, so we take the hit in an industry which has seen 50% of its market wiped out since 2008. The continued squeeze on costs will ultimately affect job creation and the expansion of businesses at a time when the country should be encouraging growth. Al Bingle Managing director, Bishop's Move | ['money/energy', 'tone/letters', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'technology/energy', 'technology/technology', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'politics/fuel-duty', 'politics/politics', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/utilities', 'world/road-transport', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2012-11-14T21:00:05Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2015/mar/27/groundwater-records-should-not-be-kept-confidential-in-drought-prone-california | Groundwater records should not be kept confidential in drought-stricken California | Laurel Firestone and Thomas Harter | Imagine having two bank accounts with money for your everyday needs, only one of them – the one you draw from when the primary account runs low – is a virtual black box. You really have no idea what the balance is, and there is no record of deposits and withdrawals. This is how water is managed in California, with 38mn people and the world’s eighth largest economy. In years of “normal” precipitation, the semi-arid state gets most of its water supply from winter rain and spring snowmelt. However, when this “primary account” of surface water supply dwindles during droughts, farms and communities rely heavily on a mystery account called groundwater, which truly is out of sight and, unfortunately, out of mind. Few people have information about the underground stores that provide up to 60% of the state’s water supply during droughts, including water to about 600,000 relatively shallow domestic wells, located mostly in rural areas. State records that provide information needed to characterize groundwater aquifers are kept confidential under a 64-year-old law that considers them proprietary to well drillers. Known as well logs, the records contain data that is public in every other western state – details such as where wells are located, their depth, potential pumping rates, diameter and descriptions of the groundwater-bearing sediments and rocks they are bored through. Because the state’s database of 800,000 well logs is not publicly available, local agencies, consultants, academics and communities looking for safe water supplies must develop their own information in order to develop groundwater models, discover the water quality characteristics of a basin, or determine which wells are likely to go dry. Where local agencies can’t afford it, the costs of this restrictive policy have prevented local basin characterization altogether. Meanwhile, residents reliant on wells are running out of water across the state, from the small farm communities of Orange Center and Easton in the San Joaquin Valley to the foothill communities of the Sierra Nevada. In homes that have run completely out of water, families must use a bucket or a bottle of water to brush their teeth, make coffee, wash dishes, flush a toilet, and even wash their hands. In the Tulare County town of Poplar, which has a population of 2,500, groundwater levels have dropped so much that the community had to draw from a backup well known to be contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural fertilizer. And all too often, neither the well owners nor local water managers have the information they need to protect their wells and predict when and where wells will go dry – as the community of East Porterville discovered last summer when more than 600 wells failed. The lack of information is a major impediment to stewardship of the resource. California wells went dry by the thousands last year and thousands more will follow suit this coming summer, but communities can’t access data about what parts of the groundwater system around them have been tapped, which wells are at risk or what the water quality is. This information is needed to understand how drought and groundwater development impact local water supply and how to respond quickly and effectively. When the state legislature passed historic groundwater legislation last year, it stopped short of changing the law and providing critical information needed for sustainable groundwater management. The lack of transparent well log data is holding back innovation and solutions at a time when they are needed most. Making these records publicly available would incentivize better data management on this important resource and better science to understand both groundwater supply and pollution. At best, the lack of publicly accessible well logs is slowing down progress toward sustainable groundwater management. At worst, it’s thwarting progress entirely. Making well logs accessible would create opportunities to invest in groundwater management projects and public-private partnerships that will develop more effective and cost-efficient solutions for California’s groundwater. Over the last year, the state has spent more than $20 million in emergency drought relief to help communities like East Porterville. Without access to the data and tools necessary to prevent acute drought impacts in the state’s most vulnerable communities, however, the intensified drought will cost the state and local residents far more this coming summer. The California Assembly passed a resolution earlier this month to celebrate “the public’s commitment to openness”. The first line of the resolution reads: “California has a long tradition in support of open government and access to government records”. Senate Bill 20, introduced by State Senator Fran Pavley in December, would make well log data publicly available in California. Perhaps as more community and farm wells dry up this summer, the legislature will extend its enthusiasm for transparency to the critical information needed for more equitable and sustainable management of our groundwater. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/water', 'us-news/california', 'environment/drought', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/laurel-firestone', 'profile/thomas-harter'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-03-27T12:07:34Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/apr/01/financial-help-for-airlines-should-come-with-strict-climate-conditions | Financial help for airlines 'should come with strict climate conditions' | Financial help from taxpayers to airlines hit by the coronavirus crisis must come with strict conditions on their future climate impact, the former EU climate commissioner and a group of green campaigners have said. “It must be conditional, otherwise when we recover we will see the same or higher levels of carbon dioxide [from flying],” said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU climate commissioner who led the bloc to the Paris agreement, in an interview with the Guardian. “We know the level of emissions we have to commit to [under Paris]. They [airlines] are worried about survival and will need lots of support, lots of liquidity – that gives them a big responsibility.” A group of 26 civil society groups in the UK have written to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, demanding “stringent conditions” on any rescue, including strict targets on greenhouse gases in line with the Paris agreement and measures to help workers. “Public money must be used to address social and environmental priorities, as well as economic needs,” they wrote. Aviation has all but ceased in some countries and flights are vastly down in most others, owing to the lockdowns and other suppression measures. Airlines have been appealing to governments for bailouts as fleets have been grounded. But campaigners and experts fear that after the Covid-19 outbreak has waned, the sector could bounce back with the aid of public money and send emissions soaring. In their letter to the chancellor, the campaigners – including Greenpeace, Flight Free, the IPPR and New Economics Foundation thinktanks, and Tax Justice – call for the government to take equity stakes in airlines rather than handing out cash or loans. They want to see social benefits with workers’ rights enforced, including a living wage and no mass redundancies a condition of any rescue. In the longer term, they want to see support for a “just transition” for workers to move to jobs in lower carbon industries. They also want a new fiscal regime that includes a frequent flyer levy or air miles levy, replacing air passenger duty, which would reduce demand without removing access to flights from those with limited alternatives or limited resources, by shifting the tax burden to frequent leisure flyers. About half of people in the UK do not fly in any given year, but 1% of people take a fifth of all flights. Rebecca Newsom, head of political affairs at Greenpeace UK, said: “Emergency funding must be used to tackle emergencies, not to support business as usual. Conditions are needed to protect workers’ rights, prevent public money from being diverted into the pockets of shareholders, and reduce demand gradually over time through a frequent flier levy, so that the sector operates within safe limits for the climate.” Attaching conditions to any bailout could take several forms. Cañete wants to see a carbon tax or emissions trading system such as the one operating under the EU. “Market mechanisms are needed,” he said. Airlines UK, a trade body, said the industry was already taking steps to reduce their environmental impact before the coronavirus crisis hit. “The UK aviation sector has already committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 – the only national aviation industry to do so,” said a spokesperson. “This will be achieved via a range of measures, including airspace modernisation, the development and commercialisation of sustainable aviation fuels, new cleaner planes, and the UN carbon offsetting scheme Corsia.” Airlines face difficult choices ahead. More efficient aircraft will help to reduce emissions, but the impact will be limited. Biofuels offer a possible answer, but they are still expensive and there are difficulties in ensuring that the sources are environmentally sustainable. Electric planes are still some way in the future, and solar-powered flight a distant dream. “We need to stimulate research and development into things like hydrogen fuel,” said Barbara Buchner, managing director of the Climate Policy Initiative. “We need more proactive thinking from airlines – they can’t imagine we will go back to the way they were before.” The coronavirus disruption may also bring about permanent changes in people’s habits, some experts hope. Business flying has stopped meetings from happening, but people have found ways to work with video conferencing and other cheap technology, forcing businesses to question whether their staff need to fly as much in future. “We are not flying as much – why not keep not flying?” asked Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at Manchester University. “Why not reinforce the good things that are coming out of Covid-19?” One effect of the coronavirus crisis has yet to be felt. Under the Corsia (Carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation) system adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, airlines would have to curb their future emissions using efficiencies, alternative fuels and offsetting, such as investing in forests, renewable energy or other carbon-cutting projects. Before the coronavirus crisis emerged, airlines pushed for the average emissions in the years 2019 and 2020 to be used as the baseline by which future emissions would be judged. In any years from 2021 onwards, when emissions from the sector exceed the average of 2019 and 2020, the difference between actual emissions and the baseline will have to be offset, meaning airlines will have to buy carbon credits from carbon-cutting projects. Choosing 2019 and 2020 should have made those targets easy to meet for airlines if air travel had continued to rise this year as it has in recent years. With the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the disruption to travel means emissions are likely to be drastically lower than envisaged for 2020 – meaning Corsia’s future carbon targets will be much tougher for them to reach, if the scheme goes ahead without changes. | ['environment/environment', 'world/world', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/paris-climate-agreement', 'politics/rishi-sunak', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-offset-projects | EMISSIONS | 2020-04-01T10:00:18Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/insideguardian/2009/oct/21/building-carbon-footprint-calculator | How (and why) we built the Guardian's new carbon calculator | We want to help our users understand the carbon impact of their lifestyle, and suggest how they can live more sustainably. Our new carbon calculator is the first in a series of tools we're producing to illustrate the issues around carbon emissions and climate change. I'm a product manager at guardian.co.uk and I work with the environment editorial team to use technology to support our journalism. I've been working with Duncan Clark, one of our editorial consultants, and the team at Guardian Professional's Digital Agency to develop a Flash-based tool which aims to show your carbon footprint, based upon typical figures for the average UK citizen. Carbon stats were provided by Small World Consulting. Duncan has written about the data and methodology, but I wanted to give a bit insight into how we built the tool itself. Our starting point was a spreadsheet with the breakdown of the average UK citizen's carbon footprint into home, travel, food and drink, shopping and indirect emissions. This aimed to cover all of the activities that we do in our personal lives, including things like your use of public services, which often aren't covered in carbon footprint calculations. We then split each of these out into categories, and broke them down into a range of responses. This was quite difficult - is it realistic that someone might use absolutely no electricity? We decided that for nearly everyone there is some electricity use. How high should the ranges go? What about people who eat out for every meal, every day? They would go off the scale. Again, we felt that this was a minority of people. For indirect emissions, we considered making this a range based upon whether you used a lot of public services a lot, but ultimately we decided to make everyone use the average UK figure. This is because it's very hard to know how you compare to the average and there's not much you can do to change it. While we argued over the data and the labelling, we were working with designers and flash developers to come up with the tool itself. We knew we wanted to allow you to compare your footprint against the UK average and other people around the world. We also wanted to give you a long term goal for cutting your footprint. We went for a goal of 3.1 tonnes CO2e by 2050 in line with the UK government's statement to cut emissions by 80% by that time. We showed these as colour-coded bubbles. The sliders for the categories were more difficult. There was a lot to fit into a small space, and some quite contentious topics! Our compromise for space was to put information about the scale as tooltips on your mouse pointer when you drag a slider, and to put the in-depth information in help bubbles to the side of each slider. The great thing about how the developers built the tool was that all of the text and data was held in XML, rather than being baked into the Flash file itself. That meant we were able to change the labels, the help text, the values, etc. We did some user testing with an early version and were given a lot of suggestions for improvement, which we were able to implement very easily. So, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do! I hope we've inspired you to try to reduce your footprint. Environmentguardian.co.uk has advice and guidance on how to reduce your footprint, plus the latest news and features on climate change, greener living and all the hot environmental topics of the day. | ['environment/carbonfootprints', 'help/insideguardian', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/maireadoconnor'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2009-10-21T16:47:53Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2024/nov/12/ofgem-approves-five-more-subsea-power-cables | Subsea cables to help Britain meet green energy goal get green light | Projects to lay five subsea power cables capable of powering millions of homes have been given the green light as Great Britain prepares to use its giant offshore windfarms to become a net exporter of green electricity in the 2030s. The energy regulator, Ofgem, has approved three subsea cable projects linking Great Britain to power grids in Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland to help share renewable electricity across borders. Ofgem has also agreed to plans for new cables to connect Britain to offshore windfarms in Dutch and Belgian waters. The high voltage power cables, known as interconnectors, are considered a crucial part of the Labour government’s plan to create a clean power system by 2030, and become a net exporter of green electricity in the decades ahead. Currently, Great Britain has interconnectors with a combined capacity of 11.7 gigawatts already operating or under construction, or enough to meet the power needs of more than 11m UK homes. The new projects will take this total to 12GW in 2030 as the projects begin to operate, before reaching 18GW by 2032. The new power cable projects will move ahead a week after the National Energy System Operator said Britain could become a net exporter of green electricity by the end of the decade at no extra cost to the energy system if ministers take urgent steps to tackle the UK’s sluggish regulation and planning procedures. Akshay Kaul, the Ofgem infrastructure director, said the project, which will be paid for through energy bills, were carefully assessed so that only those which will “deliver for consumers in terms of value, viability and energy security” were approved. “As we shift to a clean power system more reliant on intermittent wind and solar energy, these new connections will help harness the vast potential of the North Sea and play a key role in making our energy supply cheaper and less reliant on volatile foreign gas markets and associated price spikes,” Kaul said. Kaul added that the new cables would also provide greater access to energy imports to “provide vital backup energy sources when renewable generation is more limited here”. | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/environment', 'business/ofgem', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-11-12T12:14:01Z | true | ENERGY |
sport/2022/oct/15/brave-wallaroos-defy-red-cards-to-beat-scotland-in-rugby-world-cup-thriller | Brave Wallaroos defy red cards to beat Scotland in Rugby World Cup thriller | Australia have put their Women’s Rugby World Cup hopes back on track with an Ashley Marsters try in the 73rd minute, securing a thrilling comeback win in their second match of the campaign against Scotland in Whangarei, New Zealand. After their heartbreaking implosion against New Zealand’s Black Ferns in the opening round, the Wallaroos trailed all game against Scotland only to cross twice in the final 20 minutes of game time to post a crucial first victory of the campaign. Australia’s Eva Karpani, Grace Hamilton and Sharni Williams were standouts in the triumph. Wallaroos skipper Shannon Parry said it “wasn’t pretty” but lauded her players for the way they stayed in the fight. “It was nerve-wracking. It was a real tough battle against Scotland, they really showed us how to play some footy there today,” Parry told Stan Sport. “I’m immensely proud. We gutted it out all the way to the end – an 80-minute performance – and to come away with that victory, it’s a really good reward. “We didn’t play as good, as clinical as we wanted to but we’ll take the points. We’re still alive in this tournament, and that’s what matters.” The Wallaroos’ win consigned the Scots to consecutive last-gasp defeats. Taking part in their first Rugby World Cup in 12 years, Scotland last week lost a heartbreaker in the opening round against Wales, kicked from what might have been a famous comeback victory into a narrow 85th-minute 18-15 defeat by a Keira Bevan’s post-siren penalty. Scotland showed they were chasing revenge when they started with gusto, rocking the Wallaroos by jumping to an early lead when veteran front-rower Lana Skeldon charged over in the ninth minute from the maul for the opening five-pointer, 11 years after making her Test debut for Scotland against the Netherlands. In the 18th minute, dominant Scottish flier Rhona Lloyd scooted away for what seemed a certain try. Somehow recovering from the bone-rattling tackle of Iliseva Batibasaga to retrieve the lost ball behind her, Lloyd then ducked under a pack of gold defenders into yawning space, then flew into a yawning gap with the line wide open. But, in desperate scenes, Wallaroos winger Maya Stewart then fullback Lori Cramer swooped from left and right to hit Lloyd from either side and spilled the ball free just before she crossed. It was a massive save and proved crucial to the final result. Especially when the Scots extended their lead in the 27th minute with a penalty try, after a forward drive to the line was collapsed by Adiana Talakai who compounded the seven-point gift by being sent to the bin with a yellow card. It took Scotland’s lead to 12-0 at half time and left Australia’s World Cup hanging by a thread. In their first pool match at Eden Park, the Wallaroos had defended stoutly and taken their chances in attack and counterattack, to seize on New Zealand mistakes and go 17-0 at half time. But before over 40,000 Kiwi fans, the Wallaroos had let that lead slip, conceding 41 unanswered points to the Black Ferns in the second stanza. Against Scotland at half time, they found themselves similarly flummoxed but for very different reasons. Australia had made 239-metres to Scotland’s 142 with 110 passes to Scotland’s 32, as 19-year-old Bienne Terita, in just her third Test, caused havoc and veteran Sharni Williams tore up the midfield in her fourth World Cup. Despite 63% possession in the first half the Wallaroos had given up 65% of territory to the Scots in the opening 4o minutes. The other remarkable stat was the Australians had made just 22 of 28 tackles whereas their rivals had executed a massive 81 of 97 tackles. Despite making all the running, the Wallaroos were still trailing. Twenty minutes into the second stanza, Australia still hadn’t bothered the scorers. But with the strong Whangarei wind at their back they were finishing fast. Arabella McKenzie was stopped just short of the stripe, then Eva Karpani was held up as Australia hammered beyond 10-phases under a penalty advantage. Finally, the blue wall cracked as Scotland ran out of numbers and a cutout ball from McKenzie found Terita for a simple finish to make it 12-7 with the conversion. In the 71st minute Australia knocked Scotland off the ball to win a new penalty and spurned three points for an attacking scrum 30-metres out. A fantastic carry off the scrum win from Terita took it the 22 before Scotland infringed in front of the posts. Australia opted for another scrum and went left, eventually finding Marsters charging in on an angled run at first receiver to split the line and crash over. Cramer added the extras to put Australia 14-12 in front with eight minutes to play. But when Marsters was red-carded for head-on-head contact with Sarah Law in the 76th minutes, the game took another twist as Australia were asked to hang on with 14 players. There was another red card in the closing stages as Talakai’s tackle took her yellow into the red zone and saw Australia down to 13. Although the Scots launched fresh waves of attack, the gold line held firm to the end to secure a brave Wallaroos victory. Although those late red cards to both hookers leave Australia vulnerable going forward, they now prepare to face Wales at Northland Events Centre in Whangarei next Saturday knowing that a win should ensure progression to the quarter-finals. Scotland’s task just gets harder, as they face New Zealand in their final pool game. | ['sport/womens-rugby-world-cup-2021', 'sport/scotland-womens-rugby-union-team', 'sport/australia-women-s-rugby-union-team', 'sport/sport', 'sport/rugby-australia', 'sport/womens-rugby-union', 'sport/rugby-union', 'sport/australia-sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/angus-fontaine', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/sport', 'theobserver/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-sport'] | sport/australia-women-s-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-10-15T05:23:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
football/2021/jun/15/greanpeace-protester-avoids-accident-after-parachuting-into-germany-v-france | Greenpeace apologises for injuries caused by parachuting protester at Euro 2020 | Greenpeace has apologised for the injuries caused by a protester whose parachute landing “did not go as planned” before Germany’s game against France at the European Championship. Uefa said “several people” were treated in hospital after the man connected with overhead camera wires and caused debris to fall on to the pitch and main grandstand. The Greenpeace spokesperson Benjamin Stephan said “that was never our intention. The paraglider was to fly over the stadium and drop a latex ball with a message of protest on to the field.” The protester’s parachute had the slogan “KICK OUT OIL!” and “Greenpeace” on it. Stephan said “technical difficulties meant the pilot was forced to land in the stadium. We deeply regret that this put people in danger and apparently injured two persons.” The protester landed heavily on the pitch and was given medical attention before being escorted away by security. Uefa called the action “reckless and dangerous” and said “law authorities will take the necessary action”. France’s head coach, Didier Deschamps, was seen ducking out of the way of a large piece of equipment near the dugout. “Shortly before the start of tonight’s Euro 2020 match between France and Germany in Munich, a protester briefly entered the stadium from the air and tried to land on the pitch,” said Uefa in a statement. “This inconsiderate act – which could have had very serious consequences for a huge number of people attending – caused injuries to several people attending the game who are now in hospital and law authorities will take the necessary action. “Uefa and its partners are fully committed to a sustainable Euro 2020 tournament and many initiatives have been implemented to offset carbon emissions. The staging of the match was fortunately not impacted by such a reckless and dangerous action, but several people were injured nonetheless.” Greenpeace’s German Twitter account confirmed that the stunt was a protest against the tournament sponsor Volkswagen, demanding an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars. When the match got under way it was won 1-0 by France after a Mats Hummels own goal in the first half. | ['football/euro-2020', 'football/european-championship', 'football/football', 'sport/sport', 'football/france', 'football/germany', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'world/protest', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/guardian-sport', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2021-06-16T08:31:52Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
politics/2024/jan/04/dutch-flower-growers-call-for-delays-to-uk-post-brexit-border-checks | Dutch flower growers call for delays to UK post-Brexit border checks | Dutch flower growers have called on the UK government to delay post-Brexit border controls on plants and food set to come in from this month, claiming exporters are not ready and that any delays at customs could result in “substantial damages and losses”. VGB, the Dutch association of wholesalers in floricultural products, has written to the UK government warning it of “significant concerns” about industry readiness for the changes, saying they will cause disruption on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, the peak season for the sector. The checks, which make up part of a new post-Brexit border regime, will require European importers to provide health certificates for “medium and high risk” animal and plant products from 31 January, while physical inspections of these goods will start at the end of April. Chrysanthemums, carnations and orchids are among the flowers that will now need to be checked because they are classed as medium risk. Currently, officers visit garden centres after delivery, meaning plants can be cared for while they await inspection. After April, physical controls will happen at the port, meaning lorries and their consignments could be held for hours, putting perishable goods at risk. The Horticultural Trades Association chair, James Barnes, said Brexit had already introduced delays to imports, and that these could get worse under the new regime. He said the number of steps to import a petunia had increased from 19 to 59 since the UK left the EU: “You used to be able to pick up the telephone to a Dutch supplier and place an order of petunias and your goods would be with you on a lorry in 48 hours. “What will happen from the first of April, these checks will happen at the port rather than destination, and lorries will be stopped and opened and cause delay.” The introduction of extra import controls has already been delayed by the government on five occasions. But VGB is calling for a further grace period, with physical checks postponed until September 2025. It also wants a review of which flowers should be deemed high risk. In a summary of the letter shared with the Guardian, the VGB director, Matthijs Mesken, said: “We wish to express our concern regarding the impending introduction of phytosanitary certificates on medium-risk products, scheduled for 31 January 2024. “This timing coincides with the absolute peak of the seasons, which poses challenges for our industry.” He said that while only five types of flowers would be considered “medium risk”, these were present in nearly 85% of the shipped consignments due to mixed bouquets and would cause issues for Dutch exporters. The new certification in January will be followed by more stringent physical checks on products from 30 April. The letter said the April checks could mean delays in products getting to their destination, and could also lead to substantial damage to plants during border checks. Mesken said: “The introduction of [checks] … right in the midst of the planting season and just before the spring bank holiday raises additional concerns.” He explained that the considerable daily volumes passing the borders during this period coincided with the most vulnerable state of plants, during flowering, and would mean that any delays could result in “substantial damages and losses”. The government has said the border strategy was to “protect the UK against biosecurity threats” and the new controls would use “Brexit freedoms to simplify import controls on goods from across the globe”. However, VGB said that Britain currently boasted “Europe’s most efficient border”, and it was crucial this was maintained for the entire logistics network. VGB suggested the UK government push back physical checks of plant imports until at least September 2025. There have been widespread concerns that the new checks could risk pushing up food and plant prices as importers are unable to absorb the new costs linked to the new checks. The Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), an industry body that claims to speak for 70% of the UK’s fresh produce supply chain, estimated additional annual costs of more than £10m stemming from import charges would have to be passed on to consumers. A spokesperson at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “The controls the border target operating model (BTOM) introduces are vital for keeping the UK safe by protecting our food supply chains and agricultural sector from disease outbreaks that would cause significant economic harm. The BTOM makes use of technology and data to make it simple for businesses to trade, limiting administrative burdens and keeping down costs. “We are working closely with stakeholders across all affected sectors within the UK, across the EU and with trading partners around the world to support readiness for the BTOM.” | ['business/internationaltrade', 'politics/trade-policy', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'business/business', 'world/netherlands', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'world/europe-news', 'business/retail', 'environment/farming', 'lifeandstyle/valentines-day', 'lifeandstyle/mothers-day', 'world/eu', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jack-simpson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-01-04T16:05:41Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2008/aug/04/centricabusiness.utilities | Centrica mulls British Energy merger | Centrica confirmed today that it could try to merge with British Energy if French energy giant EDF does not launch a fresh bid for the UK's nuclear power generator. In a statement released at lunchtime, the owner of British Gas said that it was considering several options regarding British Energy, which runs eight nuclear power stations in the UK. This includes partnering on the construction of new nuclear power plants, or even a full-blown merger, it said. Centrica had been expected to take a 25% stake in British Energy if EDF's bid had gone through. It confirmed today that it was "in discussions with a third party with a view to taking a minority ownership position in British Energy", adding that it would only consider a merger if this third party - presumably EDF - dropped its plans. Centrica admitted, though, that it has not opened formal discussions with British Energy. British Energy's future has been in doubt since EDF abandoned a £12bn takeover bid last Friday. This threw the government's plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants into confusion, as British Energy's sites are seen as the most likely places to site new reactors. The government, which owns 35% of British Energy, is reportedly putting pressure on EDF to return to the negotiating table, but the company is thought to be reluctant to bid again only to run into a further rebuff. Its earlier bid collapsed because two shareholders, Invesco and M&G, felt that EDF's 765p-a-share price was too low. It has been suggested that an offer of over £8 a share might be needed to for success. Both Invesco and M&G are also shareholders in Centrica. As reported by the Guardian today, industry sources expect the issue to be discussed when chief executive Sam Laidlaw meets with the two investors. Centrica does not have the financial firepower to launch a cash bid, so a merger would have to involve shares – which could be less attractive to shareholders. | ['business/centrica', 'business/utilities', 'business/business', 'environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/markmilner'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2008-08-04T14:15:18Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2017/dec/21/dolphins-british-joy-hope-coast-conservation-whales-cornwall | These British dolphins are a source of joy – and a cause for hope | Philip Hoare | The notion of a new tribe of dolphins being identified off the English coast is enough to make anyone’s heart leap. For a long time we’ve known their Celtic cousins – the bottlenose dolphins of Cardigan Bay in Wales, or the same leaping species of Spey Bay near Inverness (where I’m convinced they’ve grown so huge – up to a whale-like 12 feet long – by sitting at the mouth of the salmon-rich river with their mouths open and just letting the fish swim in). But the amazing work done by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust in identifying 28 individual animals off St Ives – with occasional forays to Devon and Dorset – underlines that human observation and conservation really can affect cetaceans’ lives for the better. Anecdotal reports of increased numbers of humpback whales off the southern and western coasts of Ireland are matched by an upward global trend for this species, which seems to be a clear vindication of the internationally observed decision to stop the hunting of great whales in 1983. Only now is that brave move coming to fruition. I witnessed that personally in March this year, off Sri Lanka, when, together with my dive partner Andrew Sutton, I found myself swimming in a pod of 150 sperm whales – many of them in the act of mating. This is not the whole picture – there are many anthropogenic effects inflicted on the world’s oceans that endanger whales: noise and plastic pollution, overfishing, acidifying seas add up to an uncertain future, to say the least. Scientists now fear that species such as the North Atlantic right whales, with which I am very familiar from the waters off Cape Cod, may go the way of the eastern Atlantic population off our English shore, and go extinct by the middle of this century. But if we are to live with this world, we need a sense of hope. Even more important than the statistics is the sense of human encouragement implicit in these reports. Now, more than ever before, we need to be reminded that we can do good; that the effort is worthwhile, in the face of an inevitably pessimistic picture. The endomorphin kick that this communion with another, sentinent, social, and accultured creature gives us is vital reassertion of the optimism we need. Indeed, it is reflected in our own culture. When she was a young girl holidaying in St Ives, Virginia Woolf saw what she called “porpoises” playing offshore. That vision – of a distant fin, passing far out at sea – came to obsess her, symbolising, for her, the elusive draw of her creative power. She would acknowledge the experience of its secret lure as the impetus behind two magnificent works of modernism, To the Lighthouse and The Waves. She even associated the cetaceans, sensuously, with her lover Vita Sackville-West, in a wondrous, anthropomorphic appropriation. Now we have Blue Planet II to commodify and mediate that watery allure – the conduit of ecstasy despite the counsel of despair. Through the work of Sir David Attenborough and his colleagues, we are far more accustomed to seeing the sea as animated by these animals. They exhibit our shared mammalian kinship by leaping out of the water. In that moment of miraculous witness, they reconnect us to our atavistic environment – the elemental powerhouse that drives our life on this planet. They become the visible emblem of an alien ocean in which 90% of Earth’s biomass resides. I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons we are so drawn to dolphins is because we share a similar scale – as if they are like us, only in a dolphin wet suit: streamlined, carefree versions of the creatures we’d like to be, if only we could be set free. But of course, dolphins, like robins, are not deserving of such dreamy idolisation. They may look cute and smiley, but they murder, take drugs, and have promiscuous sex – even with other species. Yet surely that’s the point? The more we learn about these animals, the more we recognise ourselves, and our failings, in them. And in turn, we are reminded that as human as they sometimes appear, we humans are animals, too. There is a glory in that, and we should embrace it. • Philip Hoare is an author whose books include Leviathan or The Whale | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/dolphins', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'environment/cetaceans', 'uk-news/cornwall', 'type/article', 'profile/philip-hoare', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-12-21T11:00:43Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2021/aug/27/hopes-autumn-glory-season-arrives-early-parts-southern-england | Hopes of autumn glory as season arrives early in parts of southern England | The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is rolling in earlier than usual across parts of the south and south-east of England due to the soggy and sunny summer, according to forestry experts. Ripening blackberries, sweetening chestnuts and burgeoning forest fruits – typically seasonal hallmarks of autumn normally seen from mid-September – are all evident, said Forestry England, which manages publicly owned forests. And with them come hopes of a spectacularly colourful autumnal display. The cold, sunny spring followed by the damp summer have combined to hasten autumn, as Met Office data shows the south and south-east experienced a particularly wet June, July and August, with about double the average rainfall in places. “This rain, coupled with above average sunshine, has meant that we are already noticing signs of autumn within our forests,” Forestry England said. At Alice Holt forest, near Farnham in Hampshire, “we are already finding ripe blackberries in the undergrowth, our rowan trees are full of big juicy berry-like fruit, and lots of fungi are popping up on the forest floor,” said Mike Pittock, the head of environment and planning for the organisation’s south district. “These are signs that we would expect to see in mid-September. “The abundance of rain means all the trees are looking lush and green, but the acorns, conkers and sweet chestnuts are ripening, getting ready for their time to fall.” Experts predicted that could result in a fine autumn display as the leaves turn, as trees require a healthy balance of sunlight and rain throughout the growing season to produce the sugars that create the autumnal colours in their leaves. “The conditions that make for a spectacular autumn are a moist growing season followed by a dry autumn with warm sunny days and cool nights,” said Mark Ballard, the curator at Westonbirt arboretum in Gloucestershire. “The rain and the sun we have experienced throughout the spring and summer means that the trees will have been able to produce the sugars which create the colours in their leaves. “This should mean we see a spectacular autumn display. The length of the display relies heavily on the weather throughout the autumn. Once the autumn season arrives, leaves need time for the buildup of chlorophyll to entirely fade and their dormant pigments to fully take over.” Forestry England experts said that with a warming climate and change in precipitation patterns, the country could expect to see a change in autumn into the future. “A longer growing season will likely keep trees greener later into the autumn, however the risk of a sudden frost remains, which can cause vegetation to shed their leaves before they reach their full potential,” said Dan Luscombe, the collections manager at Bedgebury pinetum in Kent. To enhance the richness of autumn colour in its forests, Forestry England said it was working hard to plant lots of different species of trees in many woodlands that will fare well in the climate conditions predicted over the coming decades. “Sycamore, wild cherry, hornbeam, small-leaved lime, and oak, to name a few, should bring a riot of colour to our countryside for visitors to enjoy well into the future,” a spokesperson said. | ['environment/autumn', 'environment/forests', 'uk-news/england', 'uk/weather', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/carolinedavies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-08-27T11:45:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
culture/2017/jul/05/bone-vounteers-invited-rebuild-whale-skeleton-london-museum | Bone to pick: volunteers invited to rebuild 157-year-old whale skeleton | The public is invited to help reassemble a giant jigsaw in a London museum, 157 years after two Somerset fishermen went out to catch a “great fish” and brought back a northern bottlenosed whale more than eight metres (26ft) long. Their catch was a local sensation: the carcass went on a west country tour then the skeleton was displayed for years hanging from the ceiling of the museum in Weston-super-Mare. It was dismantled in 1948 and transferred to the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in London. As there has never been space to reassemble it, the bones have been scattered across cupboards, drawers and racks in several storerooms at two sites, with only the skull on display. The museum manager, Jack Ashby, said though the whale was the largest specimen in its collection, because all the bones have never been laid out, the weekend will be the first chance to check if it is the complete skeleton. Any gaps would not be surprising in a collection that includes a rare but unfortunately three-legged quagga – now restored and standing on a 3D-printed replica fourth leg – and half a dodo rediscovered in a drawer labelled as a crocodile. All the whale bones will be brought together for cleaning this weekend and the public is invited to drop in to help: there is 157 years of grime to remove as well as the bones to sort and lay out. “The vast majority of most museums’ specimens are not on public display,” Ashby said. “The Whale Weekender will allow people to get very hands-on with one of those specimens – and we are really excited about it.” The whale, whose scientific name is Hyperoodon ampullatus, is rarely spotted as it dives for fish and squid in the deepest seas. However, one made headlines in 2006 when it swam up the river Thames into the heart of London. Despite attempts to get it safely back out to sea, the animal died. It is now in the Natural History Museum’s collection. The Grant’s whale will probably have to go back into the storeroom – but this time cleaned, checked and safe for another century. In a museum packed with specimens from floor to ceiling, there was still no room to display the animal’s full splendour, Ashby said. The Whale Weekender, free at the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in London, takes place from 12-4pm on 8 and 9 July | ['culture/museums', 'environment/whales', 'science/archaeology', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'culture/culture', 'education/museums', 'education/education', 'science/science', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maevkennedy', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-07-05T06:00:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2021/dec/14/mps-call-for-halt-to-britains-incinerator-expansion-plans | MPs call for halt to Britain’s incinerator expansion plans | MPs are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of new waste incineration plants just days before councils in London vote on awarding a contract to build a huge new plant in Edmonton. A report by the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution says expansions should be halted immediately to protect human health and cut carbon emissions. The report concludes that ultrafine particles released by incineration at scale constitute a significant health hazard. Geraint Davies, Labour MP and chair of the group, said the expansion of the Edmonton incinerator and others should be stopped. “Air pollution already kills 64,000 people across the UK each year, so government planning that will double incineration capacity by allowing the construction of 50 new waste incinerators by 2030 … should be immediately halted as it will give rise to a significant growth in ultrafine particulates, which are the most dangerous to human health,” he said. “Of critical importance is that it is the number of particulates, as opposed to their combined mass, that is the key determinant for human ill health. The smallest particulates act like a gas and penetrate seamlessly into the blood stream and organs, creating damage to the hearts, brains, and lungs of victims.” There are at least 90 incinerators in the UK and 50 more proposed or in development, according to government data and data collected by the anti incineration group United Kingdom Without Incineration Network. The group of MPs heard evidence from Ruggero Ridolfi, an oncologist with more than 40 years of clinical experience, who found heavy metals in the toenails of children living near incinerators and highlighted the link with acute childhood leukemia. Research by Kirsten Bouman, of ToxicoWatch, an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness of toxic hazards, found dioxins in chicken eggs up to 10km from incinerators that emit them. The report was published days before seven councils in north London will be asked to vote for a contract to be awarded to rebuild and expand the capacity of the Edmonton incinerator, run by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA), by 200,000 tonnes. Protests against the Edmonton incinerator include demonstrations by doctors in the area who are calling on council leaders to support cleaner, alternative ways of dealing with local waste. Recycling rates in north London are just 30% and more than half of the incinerated waste is readily recyclable, according to Defra. Dr Ed Tranah, medical registrar at North Middlesex hospital, said: “If this goes ahead you are looking at 35-50 years of continued incineration of waste, much of which does not need to be incinerated and is recyclable. “We are burning all sorts of materials and we don’t even have a study into how the fumes are affecting people working and living in the area.” Haringey council recently called for the expansion to be paused citing concerns over air pollution. A recent report from the National Infrastructure committee warned rising greenhouse gas emissions from waste incineration would prevent the UK meeting its net zero targets by 2050. Highlighting the carbon impact of waste incineration, the APPG report called for tax measures to be introduced to restrict incinerator expansion. Dr Dominic Hogg, who founded the environmental consultancy Eunomia, told the MPs a 700,000-tonne incinerator pumps out about 700 tonnes of NOx (nitrogen oxides) a year. He said incineration – like landfill – should be taxed in relation to the carbon content of the feedstock and the emissions of NOx, SOx (sulfur oxides), particulate matter and other pollutants. They should also be part of the emissions trading scheme. Davies said poorer communities already suffered worse health outcomes from disproportionately higher levels of air pollution and inequality. Recent research by Greenpeace showed poorer communities were three times more likely to have an incinerator in their area than more affluent areas. He said: “Plans to increase incineration in London and elsewhere should be put on hold to prevent excess capacity driving the burning of recyclable waste. “The protection and improvement of air quality must become a central strategy to combat climate change and to improve human health nationally and globally. “We must apply the precautionary principle to new waste incineration in urban locations so that the cumulative health risks of ultrafine particulates to dense populations do not materialise.” Clyde Loakes, chair of NLWA, said: “We’re absolutely clear that our facility will be the safest and cleanest in the country, using state-of-the-art technology to protect residents’ health and eliminate pollution to effectively zero. “An incineration tax and inclusion within an Emissions Trading Scheme, this would just hit cash-strapped local councils and not tackle the root cause of the problem. “The key target has to be all the rubbish that’s produced in the first place. That’s why we’re investing in state of the art of recycling infrastructure, the biggest investment into such infrastructure in London for decades. But what we really need is systemic change: for businesses to stop churning out single-use plastics, and for [the] government to stop years of dithering and get on with urgent reforms we’ve been calling on for years. This means compulsory recycling now and a deposit return scheme now.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'environment/incineration', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'society/childrens-health', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-12-14T06:00:42Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
music/2023/aug/28/romancing-the-60s-on-londons-goodge-street | Romancing the 60s on London’s Goodge Street | Brief letters | Grace Dent, in her review of the restaurant 64 Goodge Street (‘You can imagine a Helena Bonham Carter character lunching here’, 25 August), suggests that “no one has ever purred seductively” about Goodge Street. I suspect that she is far too young to remember Donovan’s Sunny Goodge Street – not seductive perhaps, but certainly a moving romantic picture of 1960s London. As is her review of the restaurant. Nigel Roseveare London • Further to Alys Fowler’s article on collecting seeds, I strongly recommend adding rocket, Eruca vesicaria, to her list (Never buy vegetable seed again!, 24 August). From an original sowing in 2010, I have been collecting seeds annually and sowing them the following year. These germinate rapidly, the leaves can be cut repeatedly, a succession of sowings can be made throughout the growing season and it is a source of nectar for pollinating insects. Dr John Osley Abergele, Conwy • Re your report on NS&I bonds (Ethical savings: NS&I raises rate on green bond to 5.7%, 26 August) , the government recently changed the definition of green energy to include nuclear energy. Readers may want to consider whether they wish their savings to go to constructing uneconomic, morally doubtful and potentially dangerous nuclear power stations. Shayne Mary Mitchell Cambridge • The ousted NatWest chief Alison Rose is to receive a £2.4m pay packet (Report, 23 August). Just wondering what sort of package Wilko workers will get (Wilko to close ‘majority of stores’ with loss of thousands of jobs, 23 August)? Allan Brown Peterborough • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['music/music', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'lifeandstyle/gardeningadvice', 'environment/energy', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'money/pay', 'uk/london', 'business/retail', 'business/natwest-group', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2023-08-28T15:14:50Z | true | ENERGY |
sport/2023/nov/30/rugby-players-to-apply-for-class-action-lawsuit-in-legal-case-over-brain-injuries | Rugby players to apply for class action lawsuit in legal case over brain injuries | It is almost three years to the day since the England 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Steve Thompson sent shock waves through the sport by revealing that he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, and opened the door for hundreds of other players with similar stories. At the high court in London on Friday, up to 295 players – including Thompson – will apply for a class action lawsuit as they attempt to take a major step forward in their legal battle with rugby union’s governing bodies. The players, who are seeking damages from World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) for negligence and failing to protect them, are applying for their cases to be heard together as a group litigation order (GLO). That, in essence, would mean their compensation claims become one group action case, rather than hundreds of individual claims, in any future hearings. The case file is understood to refer to 268 players, with another 27 issuing proceedings earlier this week and who would be included under a GLO. However, several hurdles lie ahead. It may take until February or March for the GLO to be granted, and a full hearing may not take place before the end of 2024. Crucially, the players will then have to prove on the balance of probabilities that the game’s authorities are directly to blame for their conditions. The players’ solicitor, Richard Boardman, has insisted that the governing bodies were negligent, as they failed to take reasonable action to protect players from permanent brain injuries caused by repetitive concussive and sub-concussive blows. “This is about a systemic failure by the governing bodies, those at the top of the pyramid who create and enforce the rules and regulations,” he said. “It is not limited to a one-off breach, but instead it is about the whole ecosystem that the sport’s governing bodies have put in place.” The high court is expected to hear two other applications from the players’ legal team. The first concerns whether some claimants can remain anonymous in future hearings, while the second regards whether their legal team can use 45 cases in a future hearing as a proxy for all 295 players. That last point is expected to prove particularly contentious given that in GLO cases both sides have to agree. Boardman said that the 45 cases contained a full range of different diagnoses, as well as male and female players, international and amateurs, and cases from before 2011 and after. However, in a statement, World Rugby, the RFU and the WRU made it clear the two legal teams were still at loggerheads. “We remain saddened to hear the stories of former players who are struggling,” they said. “Despite court orders to do so, the players’ lawyers have yet to provide full details of the claims being made against us. “Therefore we cannot comment on the ongoing legal action, nor reach out to the players directly. We would want players involved to know that we listen, we care and continue to champion player welfare as the sport’s No 1 priority.” The players involved in the action were offered support by the former England international Courtney Lawes. “I do feel for those guys, especially because you just didn’t know at the time what sort of repercussions there would be from playing rugby,” he said. “It’s not like they signed up for it, because they had no idea. I suppose none of us do really, but if you’ve got some awareness you might think twice.” But the 34-year-old, who retired from the international game after the Rugby World Cup, also said: “There’s never going to be no concussions. We play a physical contact sport, a rough game. As long as people understand that there are risks in playing this game, they can make a decision whether they want to do it.” | ['sport/rugby-union', 'sport/concussion-in-sport', 'sport/sport', 'campaign/email/the-breakdown', 'sport/sport-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/seaningle', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/concussion-in-sport | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-11-30T20:00:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.