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environment/2008/jan/17/ethicalliving.carbonfootprints | The green room: Sarah Beeny, TV presenter | What is your biggest guilty green secret? Plastic bags have to be among the most damaging forms of environmental pollution. I feel guilty about using them. Do you know your carbon footprint? It's probably quite big as I'm on the road a lot - although I nearly always take public transport. I recycle where possible and try to buy and use less. What was the last green thing you did? I spent Sunday with my children in London's Battersea Park, then planted three new trees at home. I'm helping with the Big Green Challenge, a £1m prize fund for communities that findthe best ways to tackle climate change. What is your favourite green habit? I use as few cleaning and beauty products as possible and I try to avoid using bleach. What wakes you up in a sweat in the middle of the night? My children. I also worry about the speed at which we seem to be damaging the environment. The fact that environmental issues often appear to be used as a way to make money rather than to improve our effect on the environment makes me fume. What skill do you have for a post-oil world? Through my job, I see many houses where people are fitting insulation and energy-saving appliances. But some people are not yet getting it. I hope I can help them see the difference that taking a little action can make. What would you save, apart from your family and friends, come the floods? My photo albums - I am a sentimentalist! · Sarah Beeny presents Channel 4's Property Ladder and is supporting the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts' Big Green Challenge (biggreenchallenge.org.uk) | ['environment/ethical-living', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'media/television', 'media/media', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'tv-and-radio/sarah-beeny', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2008-01-17T00:26:27Z | true | EMISSIONS |
world/2022/feb/06/sweden-returns-to-cold-war-tactics-to-battle-fake-news | Sweden returns to cold war tactics to battle fake news | A top official from Sweden’s new “psychological defence” agency said the country had decided to bring back the cold war-era government body amid fears over Russian aggression against Ukraine. Magnus Hjort, deputy director of the agency, which was re-established last month to combat foreign disinformation, said concerns were especially heightened ahead of Sweden’s general election in September, against the backdrop of Europe’s “deteriorating security situation”. Tensions are mounting in the region following Russia’s troop build-up near Ukraine’s border, prompting discussion over whether Sweden and Finland, which are not members of Nato, should join the military alliance. Last month Sweden strengthened its military presence on the strategically important island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. While Hjort said there was no immediate threat to Sweden, he warned: “We can’t rule out that Sweden can be attacked.” The previous iteration of the agency was closed down in 2008, but much of it was dismantled years earlier after the end of the cold war. While the new agency has been in the making since 2016, Hjort said the latest Russia/Ukraine crisis has put Sweden on alert ahead of its elections. “It could mean that security and defence will be more important in the election, and that could mean it could be more interesting for a foreign power to influence the way people are voting – to make sure that Sweden takes the ‘right measures’ in the way a foreign power sees it,” he said. “So there could be a bigger interest in affecting the general election. It’s possible because of the security situation in Europe right now.” The mission of the Swedish psychological defence agency, which has around 45 staff and is expected to grow, is to “safeguard our open and democratic society, the free formation of opinion, and Sweden’s freedom and independence.” Citing the 2016 US election and attempts to interfere with the 2017 election in France – which last year set up a similar agency to combat foreign disinformation and fake news – as examples, Hjort said: “Authoritarian states have for years been trying to influence elections. The difference today is that through social media you have better opportunities to influence people. That’s why we need to have the capacity to monitor for an interference in our democracy.” The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea prompted Sweden to start rebuilding its “total defence”, combining military, civilian and psychological security, he said. “What we have seen lately is that the security situation has deteriorated in our part of the world. It has become more tense.” Worsening relations in Europe have shown how disinformation and interference are a “vital part of the toolbox that authoritarian states use to achieve their objectives,” he said. He added: “We have to have something to analyse, to identify this and to be able to counter it and that’s why we are now establishing a psychological defence agency in Sweden.” While the election will be one of its most important tasks this year, the agency is intended to show a long-term commitment to “strengthening the resilience within the population”, including across government agencies and municipalities to identify interference by foreign states in freedom of opinion and expression. “Conflict between states will be there after this year as well,” he said. But he added: “This year could become particularly nasty and difficult.” Social media, Hjort said, has dramatically changed the nature of psychological defence, making Sweden “more vulnerable”. While he said the social media companies could “always do more” to protect from foreign intervention, psychological defence also lies in individual citizens being aware that they could be exposed to influence from foreign powers. Mats Engström, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said other Swedish agencies were already working in the field, but the creation of the psychological defence agency was “a further step in light of increased threats”. He said that Russian propaganda has been referring to Sweden negatively in recent years, including on issues such as immigration, but that fears of influence affecting the 2018 election did not appear to materialise. There were, he said, fears about how the new agency could impact free speech. “It will have to tread very carefully on controversial issues not to create the impression of the state trying to stifle critical views. Even if it is stated in the instructions that the new agency shall promote free speech, the line is not easy to draw.” | ['world/sweden', 'world/ukraine', 'world/russia', 'technology/cyberwar', 'uk/uksecurity', 'media/social-media', 'world/espionage', 'technology/hacking', 'world/world', 'world/france', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/miranda-bryant', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-02-06T06:30:17Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2023/dec/12/tell-us-have-you-installed-a-heat-pump-in-an-older-uk-home | Tell us: have you installed a heat pump in an older UK home? | We are interested in hearing from people who have installed, or tried to install, a heat pump in an older home in the UK. Did you manage it? How has it worked out? What type of heat pump do you have? Are you happy with the result, or do you have regrets? Have you seen savings on your bills – if so, how much? Is there anything you wish you had known? You can see the article that included respondents to this callout here. You can contribute to open Community callouts here or Share a story here. | ['environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/callout', 'campaign/callout/callout-older-homes-heat-pumps', 'profile/guardian-community-team', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-communities-and-social'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-12-12T10:32:03Z | true | ENERGY |
uk-news/2014/feb/12/storm-force-winds-flooding-weather-met-office | Red weather warnings issued as 100mph winds head towards UK | The Met Office has issued a rare red warning because of exceptionally strong winds that could reach 100mph in west Wales and north-west England. It said that winds in areas affected by the warning, which means take action, will reach 80mph over a wide area on Wednesday and pose a risk of structural damage, bringing down trees and leading to loss of power supplies. Additionally, coastal areas could be hit by large waves. Gale-force winds of up to 80mph are expected in southern England, creating an additional hazard for communities that have borne the worst of the flooding. The Met Office is also predicting a further spell of widespread rain, with a risk of 40mm on high ground of south Wales and south-west England, which it says will "exacerbate the current flooding situation". Shipping in the Shannon sea area, south-west of Ireland, have been warned of hurricane force winds. Amid intense criticism of the response to the flooding, David Cameron said on Tuesday that money was "no object" in tackling the crisis. But on Wednesday, the government sought to qualify the commitment, with the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, insisting that there would be no blank cheque. The prime minister chaired another meeting of the Cobra emergency committee on Wednesday morning. He was told that flooding could reach levels last seen in 1947 in some areas but thousands of military personnel were available at short notice if needed. Major General Patrick Sanders, who is co-ordinating the military response, told the meeting that about 2,000 military personnel were involved in the clean-up operation and support in Somerset was increased overnight. After criticism that soldiers turned up in Wraysbury, Surrey, without wellies and waders, Thames Valley police assistant chief constable John Campbell, who is co-ordinating the response in the area, promised improvement. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Wraysbury residents "will see a lot of staff on the ground". The Environment Agency said 70 properties had flooded along the River Thames – and about 1,000 had been evacuated – and the figure is set to rise; 100 properties remain flooded on the Somerset Levels. There remain 16 severe flood warnings in place – 14 along a 12-mile stretch of the Thames and two for the Somerset Levels. Another 122 flood warnings, indicating a less severe degree of risk, were also in place on Wednesday morning and the Environment Agency said groundwater flooding was expected in Hampshire, Kent and parts of London in coming days. The flooding and storms continue to cause major disruption to the rail network. On the Today programme, Robin Gisby, director of operations at Network Rail, warned of "another difficult day for passengers". He said flooding at Maidenhead meant that only five trains an hour could pass through, rather than the usual 12, and the gales meant that speed restrictions would be imposed in the south-west, Wales, and the north-west. First Great Western is warning of serious disruption and is urging passengers not to travel on its trains unless absolutely necessary. | ['uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/haroonsiddique', 'profile/matthewweaver'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-12T11:58:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
theobserver/2010/feb/14/climate-change-scepticism-robin-mckie | The big issue: global warming | Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, writing about my work as the chair of the first IPCC Scientific Assessment , quotes me as saying: "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen," thereby attributing to me and the IPCC an attitude of hype and exaggeration. That quote from me is without foundation. I have never said it or written it. Although it has spread on the internet, I do not know its origin. In fact I have frequently argued the opposite, namely that those who make such statements are not only wrong but counterproductive. This quote is doing damage not only to me as a responsible scientist but also to the IPCC which in its main conclusions has always worked to avoid exaggeration. I demand from Dr Peiser an apology that he failed to check his sources and a public retraction of the use he made of the fabricated quotation. Sir John Houghton Hadley Centre Meteorological Office, Exeter The exchange between Robin McKie and Benny Peiser revealed why it is so difficult to have a rational discussion with global warming deniers. The problem is that science is a sceptical discipline. Its conclusions are not absolute but are given in the form of probabilities based on the balance of evidence. Every scientific theory is constantly under sceptical attack from scientists in the attempt to move forward. Global warming is of this sort, so that words such as "likely" and "probable" are used when making predictions. For those who do not understand statistics, these sound weak compared with the unsubstantiated rhetorical certainties of the deniers. The situation might be compared to a doctor telling a patient that he is likely to die in a few weeks if he does not undergo certain treatment. The doctor is not being "alarmist" even though he knows that the patient might survive for longer than expected. Similarly, the patient would be extremely foolish to ignore the advice. Tony Hamilton Broadstone Dorset ■ Having whetted our appetite with a two-page debate between your science editor and Benny Peiser, please devote at least two pages to an exposition of the evidence that convinced Robin McKie. This would help intelligent readers, whose scientific knowledge may be only slightly less than Mr McKie's, to make up their own minds instead of relying on his say-so. Few people have access to the relevant scientists or have time to sift through IPCC reports, but we do want verifiable facts and reliable statistics from named sources. Eva Lawrence St Albans ■ Dr Peiser argues for less bias and more transparency in the climate policy debate. Perhaps he could begin by being transparent about who funds his Global Warming Policy Foundation. Then perhaps he can explain why his group's website promotes a graph of global average temperature that starts at 2001, thus concealing the marked warming recorded during the 20th century and the fact that nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred this decade. And then perhaps he can provide evidence to justify his assertion that climate change poses a risk that has "a low probability". Bob Ward, policy and communications director Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment London WC2 ■ Robin McKie says that "climate deniers" (an offensive phrase, designed to portray sceptics in the worst light) "blow up minimal bits of evidence to bursting point". Yet the recent revelations of mistakes by the IPCC and about the CRU suggest that we should be sceptical about all their pronouncements. We expect scientists to seek and tell the truth: if they fail to do so, it is far from "minimal". Tony Augarde Oxford | ['news/series/observer-big-issue', 'tone/letters', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'type/article', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/comment'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-02-14T00:05:35Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/blog/2014/mar/26/events-climate-change-extreme-weather | 'Events, dear boy, events' have put climate change back on the agenda | Tom Burke | British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, was once asked what was the most difficult thing about his job. ‘Events, dear boy, events’ was his now famous reply. Put more colloquially, and much less elegantly, stuff happens and politicians have to deal with it. Things that happen can transform the political landscape, for better or worse, in a flash as Margaret Thatcher discovered in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Her successful response to this event transformed a looming electoral defeat into victory. Analysis is a far less insistent driver of politics. Governments can, and often do, ignore analysis, even to the point of disaster. Successive US governments were warned time and again by intelligence analysts that they were losing the war in Vietnam. But this was never enough to stop the war. One unmanned Sputnik briefly circulating the planet was, however, enough to release billions of dollars into the successful American effort to put a man on the moon. Until the unfortunate climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 the politics of climate change was primarily driven by analysis. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up by governments in 1988. Its job is to advice the 120 participating governments on the science of climate change. In the subsequent 26 years it has published five assessment reports based on the published scientific literature on climate change. Its summary for policy makers is agreed line-by-line by governments and has so far led to climate legislation in 66 countries. Each report has increased confidence in the science of climate change and alerted politicians to the magnitude and urgency of the issue. Copenhagen, however, revealed the depth of the political difficulty of taking their advice. Combined with the aftermath of the banking crisis, this led to a significant lowering of climate change on the agenda of global leaders. This decline has now been reversed. Among the global leaders who have already put their mark on the issue in the run up to the climate summit in Paris in 2015 are President Obama, President Xi, Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. It is not new analysis that has led to the restoration of climate change to the leaders agenda. This has simply reinforced what we already know. It is events, in particular two successive years of extreme weather events all over the world, that are now drawing political leaders back to the issue. Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 was the most dramatic of a series of extreme weather events that have occurred over the past two years. It inflicted some $68 billion worth of damage to the United States and produced the extraordinarily rare sight of a prominent Republican praising President Obama. But Sandy was only a precursor to an exceptional year of extreme weather events in every part of the world. Temperatures were so high for so long in Australia in 2013 that the weathermen had to add an extra colour, purple, to the weather charts to warn of the dangers of extreme heat. The summer of 2014 has been even hotter. In the same year China had its wettest May for forty years; California recorded the hottest temperature, 54C, ever recorded anywhere on earth; there was another drought in Brazil; the strongest typhoon ever to strike land devastated the Philippines and Bangladesh recorded its lowest ever temperature. Parts of the UK are still underwater three months after the St Jude storm began an eight week period of continually violent weather. This is only a partial list of the weather extremes in 2013. Such events are natural occurrences. But not extreme weather events, everywhere on the planet, in the same year. These events contributed to an overall loss of about $125 billion in 2013 from natural catastrophes. They are a powerful reminder of the chapter headings in an early James Bond novel: ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.’ It is now clear that we are seeing the beginning of ‘enemy action’ by the climate as it responds to an increased burden of carbon in the atmosphere. The changes we are seeing today are a result of the carbon burden we had added by the end of the seventies. This has increased global average temperatures by 0.8C. If we continue our current dependence on fossil fuels we could find ourselves in a world that is more than 2C warmer before the middle of the century. Much of what is today considered an extreme weather event may by then be the new normal. In the face of this onrushing flood of events those politicians still subsidising the use of fossil fuels resemble nothing so much as a forlorn, and dangerously irrelevant, King Canute trying to hold back the tide. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/ipcc', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/tom-burke'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-03-26T12:31:59Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2008/apr/22/carbonemissions.carbonfootprints1 | E.ON builds energy-efficient semi | E.ON, one of Britain's big six energy suppliers, is teaming up with the University of Nottingham to build a replica 1930s house that will be used to test technologies aimed at improving the energy performance of Britain's ageing housing stock. The three-bedroomed semi-detached house on the university's "Green Close" will replicate what the partners describe as "many of the ageing and energy-inefficient domestic properties" in Britain. The government has set a target for new houses to be zero-carbon by 2016 but industry experts acknowledge big efforts will be needed to improve the energy performance of the existing housing stock. According to E.ON's head of research and development, Dave Clarke: "Homes are big contributors to the causes of climate change as they account for almost a third of the carbon dioxide emitted in the UK. The fact of the matter is that, even with the government's target for all homes to be zero-carbon from 2016, we'll need to retro-fit low-carbon measures to existing homes to significantly reduce our emissions." The house will use the latest low-carbon technology to generate and manage energy within the house and will have an extension designed to make the maximum use of solar panels. Dr Mark Gillott, research and project manager for creative homes at the university, said: "It will be lived in. We want to show the real savings, to get real data, from real people." He said that more than 21m homes - 86% of the current total - will still be in use in 2050. "It's vitally important that we identify and research technologies aimed at reducing the energy consumption associated with existing homes." | ['environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/greenbuilding', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'education/universityofnottingham', 'education/education', 'education/higher-education', 'type/article', 'profile/markmilner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2008-04-22T08:54:08Z | true | EMISSIONS |
business/2019/oct/16/volkswagens-75m-fine-over-diesel-emissions-scandal-rejected-as-outrageous-by-judge | Volkswagen's $75m fine over diesel emissions scandal rejected by judge | A $75m fine negotiated between Volkswagen and the consumer watchdog over the diesel emissions scandal could be increased by the federal court, after a judge reportedly rejected the deal as “outrageous.” The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the German car company presented the negotiated penalty along with a statement of agreed facts to the federal court in Sydney on Wednesday. It comes one month after Volkswagen settled a class action for between $87m and $127m with owners of some of the 100,000 cars that were affected by the emissions test cheating and subsequent global recall in Australia. Volkswagen has been fined more than €30bn ($49bn) worldwide since the scandal first came to light in 2015. This month, a class action with 470,000 owners of Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi and Seat began in Germany. The ACCC has been pursuing Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft (VWAG) and its Australian subsidiary Volkswagen Group Australia through the courts since 2016 over “false or misleading conduct” involving the use of software which prompted diesel vehicles to produce lower-emissions fuels under test conditions. About 11 million cars worldwide were sold as producing significantly lower emissions than they did under normal driving conditions. Related proceedings against Audi AG and Audi Australia, subsidiaries of VWAG, were filed by the ACCC in 2017. Volkswagen made no admissions in the agreed facts with regard to environmental or health impacts caused by higher emissions, and no admissions regarding the knowledge of its board. It accepted the $75m penalty, which is three times higher than the record $26.5m penalty in an ACCC case levied against training college Empower Institute last month. But federal court justice Lindsay Foster rejected the statement, saying, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review: “I don’t accept the submission, it’s outrageous.” Foster questioned the imputation that the top layers of the corporation would not have known about the emissions software. The ACCC declined to comment on the hearing beyond confirming it had submitted a statement of agreed facts and proposed orders to the federal court. “The proposed orders include a penalty of $75m but it is ultimately for the court to decide the appropriateness of the penalty,” a spokeswoman said. The decision has been reserved. | ['business/automotive-industry', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/pollution', 'money/consumer-rights-money', 'australia-news/australian-competition-and-consumer-commission', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-10-16T09:12:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/2020/dec/20/green-and-tonic-gin-in-paper-bottles-is-the-new-eco-tipple | Green and tonic: gin in paper bottles is the new eco-tipple | The world’s first gin in a paper-based bottle is set to go on sale in the UK early next year as packaging specialists jostle to step up production of eco-friendly alternatives to the traditional glass container. The UK manufacturer of the so-called “frugal” bottle – made from predominantly recycled paperboard with a food-grade liner inside – has received orders from around the world to make containers for sake and spirits in Japan, whiskey in the US and wine in Spain, Australia, Italy and France. Frugalpac, based in Suffolk, has recently partnered with Silent Pool Distillers in Surrey to produce the world’s first commercial gin in a paper bottle in early 2021, opening a new factory to increase production capacity. The new eco-friendly bottles – which can be recycled along with household waste – are a novel alternative to the carbon-intensive glass model devised by the Romans but which has remained largely unchanged since the 19th century. Although glass can be recycled, it is very carbon-intensive to make. The frugal bottle, made from recycled paperboard, is five times lighter than a glass one and has a carbon footprint up to six times (84%) lower than a glass bottle. New research shows that nearly two-thirds of wine drinkers in the UK said they would buy wine in a paper bottle, according to Frugalpac’s independent research. The survey by Survation found that 63% would buy it in a new-style container, while only 14% said they would not. Malcolm Waugh, chief executive of Frugalpac, said: “Our bottle seems to have really captured the imagination of drinks brands and customers. It’s clear that people want to drink more sustainably, and paper bottles are here to stay. Wine experts used to say people would turn their noses up at screw caps. But they’ve become the norm and we believe the paper bottle will prove just as popular.” The new product is based on the model for “bag in box” wines – dubbed “cardbordeaux” and “bagnums” – which enjoyed a sales surge in the UK during lockdown as Britons opted for better value for money and fewer trips to the supermarket. Frugalpac, which devised what it claimed was the world’s first fully recyclable coffee cup, was recently singled out by the UK Department for International Trade’s Great Britain campaign as “doing incredible things to help build a global sustainable future” in the run-up to next year’s COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow. | ['business/fooddrinks', 'society/alcohol', 'business/business', 'society/society', 'environment/environment', 'food/spirits', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'food/food', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-12-20T08:20:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/2018/oct/25/british-airways-data-breach-185000-more-passengers-may-have-had-details-stolen | British Airways: 185,000 more passengers may have had details stolen | British Airways has revealed that another 185,000 customers may have had personal details stolen in a data breach. Customers who made reward bookings using a payment card between 21 April and 28 July this year may be at risk, British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) said in a statement to the stock market. British Airways revealed last month that it had identified 380,000 payment cards at risk, although on Thursday it downgraded its estimate to 244,000 affected. On top of that, hackers may have stolen names, addresses, email addresses, card numbers, expiry dates, and card verification value (CVV) numbers for another 77,000 customers, British Airways said, potentially allowing purchases to be made. Another 108,000 may have had details stolen not including the CVV, the three-digit code which acts as an extra layer of protection for online transactions. All affected customers will be contacted via email before 5pm on Friday, a spokesperson for British Airways said. The spokesperson said the airline was unable to confirm details of how the data breach occurred, in order to avoid compromising the police investigation. IAG said it does not have “conclusive evidence” that any data has been removed from its systems, but advised customers to contact their bank or card provider “as a precaution”. British Airways has been “working continuously with specialist cyber forensic investigators and the National Crime Agency to investigate fully the data theft”, IAG added. However, British Airways said it has not yet received any verified reports of fraud in relation to the data breach. Alex Cruz, chairman and chief executive of British Airways, previously pledged to compensate any customers who suffer “financial hardship” because of the breach. He said the firm was “deeply sorry”, saying he takes “the protection of our customers’ data very seriously” when the possible theft was first announced in September. The breach marked the latest in a series of major computer issues for British Airways, after a systems outage in May 2017 forced it to cancel all flights for a day from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports. | ['business/britishairways', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'business/business', 'technology/technology', 'technology/data-protection', 'world/privacy', 'technology/hacking', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jasper-jolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-10-25T16:49:21Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2021/oct/07/country-diary-new-dawn-new-day-but-hardys-sheep-are-here-still | Country diary: Hardy’s sheep are still here on Colmer’s Hill | The low, green hills around Bridport enclose the town so closely that, as Thomas Hardy observed, “The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys.” Stand by the town hall looking down West Street, and one hillock in particular draws the eye. The sandstone cone of Colmer’s Hill rises in the mid-distance, shawled in bracken and topped with a clump of pine trees, like sprigs of holly on a Christmas pudding. Over the years, it has become the town’s unofficial emblem, reproduced on everything from jam pots to websites. Named after the Rev John Colmer, a 19th-century landowner, the landmark is about a mile outside Bridport in the small, golden-stone village of Symondsbury. There’s a path that goes up and over Colmer’s, which I take early on a crisp, russeting morning. Hardy’s sheep are here still – the grass is slippery with dew-wet droppings turned green by the autumn flush of grass. The bracken may be browning and crumpling, but nostalgic reminders of spring remain: a song thrush singing in the top of a holly tree, a chiffchaff calling, and wrens drilling their songs through the hedgerows. Halfway up the hill’s steep north side, the Channel heaves into view, a mild denim blue infill where the cliffs dip to shingle at Eype’s Mouth. The number of trees at the summit always surprises me. From afar, it looks like there are only four or five, but they are actually too numerous to count. Colmer’s was bare until 1918, when 21 Caledonian pines were planted in memory of local men who had died during the first world war. Then a few years ago the landowners added Monterey pine saplings. Today, the grove sighs sweet and resinous around a white flagpole and concrete trig point. I pause to watch a shoal of swallows and house martins skim over the grass, picking off stumbling craneflies, their white bellies flashing silver in the sunshine as they swoop and turn. Far below, children are racing around the school playground, wheeling in wide circles, shrieking and laughing. At three minutes to nine, a handbell rings and the day begins. • Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/autumn', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/sara-hudston', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-07T04:30:43Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sport/2009/mar/10/lalit-modi-india-premier-league-security | Cricket: IPL to use same security model from England's return to India after Mumbai bombings | The Indian Premier League has promised to replicate the security phalanx in place for England's tour of India last December in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist outrage and following the attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore last week. Though the schedule has yet to be finalised, the tournament is likely to begin as planned on 10 April and the venues will probably increase from eight to 11 or 12. A sum – believed to be about £5m – has been pledged to the government to ensure that security at the six-week event will be adequately funded. At a press conference at the Taj Land's End hotel in Mumbai, Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, said that two states – Maharashtra, home to the Mumbai Indians, and Rajasthan, which hosts the Royals – had agreed in writing to the new itinerary, which takes into account India's general elections, to be held in five phases from 16 April to 13 May. In an interview with the Hindu newspaper, Modi spoke extensively about the security plan. "Immediately after the Mumbai attacks last year, the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] undertook a comprehensive security review and has worked towards creating a security template in conjunction with an external agency that is widely known as the best in the field," Modi said. "It's on the Chennai security template that we were able to convince the ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] for England to return to India. We will apply this same template for player and spectator security." At his press briefing, Modi indicated that no expense would be spared to make sure the tournament went off without a hitch. "We are spending 10% more this year on security than what was spent last year," he said. Moli also said that there has still been no approach to the players' union, the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (Fica). There are concerns that the Board of Control for Cricket in India's refusal to deal directly with the players' association would dissuade some foreign players from travelling, but Modi was insistent on this point and there will be no Fica representative on the security committee. Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, will have two matches, though the town has never hosted an international and has no five-star hotels. Ahmedabad in Gujarat and the eastern coastal city of Visakhapatnam have also been confirmed as new venues. Dileep Premachandran | ['sport/ipl', 'sport/twenty20', 'sport/kevin-pietersen', 'world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack', 'sport/england-cricket-team', 'sport/englandinindia200809', 'world/mumbai-terror-attacks', 'sport/andrew-flintoff', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport', 'tone/news', 'type/article'] | world/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2009-03-10T08:34:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
technology/2023/apr/03/uks-offensive-hacking-unit-takes-on-military-opponents-and-terrorist-groups | UK’s offensive hacking unit takes on military opponents and terrorist groups | Britain’s newly created offensive hacking unit, the National Cyber Force, has said it is engaged daily in operations to disrupt terrorist groups, distributors of child sexual abuse material and military opponents of the UK. An official paper, Responsible Cyber Power in Practice, is the first policy statement from the body and is intended to describe how far the UK is prepared to fight back against growing organised online threats. Operational details remain sketchy, although the NCF says it is engaged in techniques to “undermine the tradecraft” of Russian, Chinese and other state-sponsored hackers and in “technical disruption” against terrorist groups, for example to prevent the dissemination of online propaganda. Other activities listed by the NCF include “disrupting networks and operational capabilities” of Britain’s enemies in support of the UK military, and “persistent campaigns” to remove images of child abuse, so making the illegal content harder to find online. Formally announced in 2020, the NCF is a joint operation between the GCHQ spy agency and the Ministry of Defence. It is the first time Britain’s cyber-attack capabilities have been grouped together in one acknowledged unit. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are all considered to promote hacker groups which aim to steal political and trade secrets online, or engage in online ransomware extortion attacks, where cybercriminals take control of a company’s systems and demand substantial payments to restore them. Last week, a leak of files from Moscow revealed that Russian spy agencies tasked an IT company, NTC Vulkan, to develop cyberwarfare tools aimed at taking down infrastructure networks and scouring the internet for vulnerabilities. The NCF says it is willing to try to knock out an adversary’s cyber capability if necessary, but argues that it can often be more effective to degrade their “ability to acquire, analyse and exploit the information they need”. It describes this as the “doctrine of cognitive effect”, by which it is hoped that it is possible to affect opponents’ “perception of the operating environment and weaken[ing] their ability to plan and conduct activities effectively”. Simply eliminating computer servers or networks may have a more dramatic impact in the short term, but the NCF says lost equipment can often easily be replaced, which is why a longer-term psychological strategy is favoured. Britain has been very coy about revealing any specific details about cyber operations, which could be interpreted by hostile states as a form of attack. But in the past officials have privately acknowledged hacking into computer networks run by Islamic State in 2017, before the NCF was unveiled. The hack obtained details about how IS was obtaining drones and related missiles, and how and where pilots were trained, enabling coalition forces to destroy the capability, and reduce the military threat to ground forces in Iraq and Syria. The NCF’s head, whose name is also being publicly revealed, is James Babbage, a GCHQ officer for the last 30 years, making him one of only four British spies whose names are in the public domain. The other three are the heads of Britain’s intelligence agencies, GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ, said publishing the policy paper was intended to demonstrate the UK was a “truly responsible cyber power”. The NCF, he added was necessary to allow the UK to “contest and compete with adversaries in cyberspace” and to “protect our free, open and peaceful society”. | ['technology/cyberwar', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/cybercrime', 'uk/uksecurity', 'uk/uk', 'technology/technology', 'uk/military', 'campaign/email/morning-briefing', 'politics/terrorism', 'type/article', 'profile/dan-sabbagh', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-04-03T21:00:27Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2011/apr/18/community-power-station-investment-sussex | UK's first local power station rattles the bucket for investment | The UK's first renewable "community power station" will on Tuesday begin raising money to install solar panels housed on the roof of a local brewery. If its backers can raise enough money to get it off the ground, the project will begin generating electricity for the local area later in the year. The planned 500 sq m installation in Lewes, near Brighton, will also use part of the revenue generated by the government's feed-in tariff scheme to fund community projects. But its future is in doubt because of a pending government review of the scheme. The seven directors – all local residents – have managed to raise more than £150,000 of their £300,000 target and hope to acquire the remainder from local investors at the launch of a share issue on Tuesday. Dirk Campbell, 65, a founding director of the Ouse Valley Energy Security Company (Ovesco), hopes the scheme will inspire others. He said: "We're doing this in order to create a model which will be exportable and replicable by people anywhere. The main focus of this is community ownership." Ovesco will be run by its directors as a non-profit society for community benefit. Investors will receive a 4% rate of return on their outlay, profiting from the government's feed-in tariff scheme that pays for the generation of renewable electricity. Under these terms, the directors of the 98 kilowatt (kW) installation hope to repay investors over 20 years. The energy generated will be used by Harveys, the local brewery, which has leased its roof in exchange for free electricity, which will be used primarily to cool its beer, Sunshine Ale. Any surplus will be sold back to the grid, and the additional revenue will be used to fund community projects. Without payment from the government's feed-in tariff scheme, which is currently under review, the project will not be financially sustainable. From 1 August, subsidies for schemes larger than 50kW will be slashed, meaning that Ovesco must install the panels within the next few months or face an unfeasibly low rate of return. Campbell said: "We're completely dependent on the feed-in tariffs scheme to make it work, so in that sense it's not sustainable. The government might renege on their commitment." Howard Johns, the managing director of Southern Solar, came up with the idea for Ovesco. He said: "We've finally got to a position where we've cracked a model that we think could work, and unfortunately the government have been meddling in the background." He added: "The government have effectively trashed the feed-in tariff system." Liz Mandeville, 65, another director of Ovesco, is investing more than £20,000 into the scheme with her partner because she believes "that climate change is the greatest single threat to human beings on the planet". She said: "We're both retired, we own this house, our children are all independent. We like Lewes. We don't like shopping, and we've got plenty of furniture – what better way for us to spend our money?" Caroline Lucas, Green party leader and MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "The government's reckless plan to review solar feed-in tariffs has created uncertainty in one of the few industries to have generated thousands of new green jobs. Proposals to slash financial support to solar projects over 50kW have further laid bare the shocking lack of ambition on solar energy. "The feed-in tariff scheme is crucial to helping projects like the Lewes community-owned power station get off the ground – but thanks to the uncertainty brought about by the review, it will be difficult for renewables companies or investors to trust the government again." | ['environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/ben-bryant'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2011-04-18T14:00:24Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2016/jun/06/surveillance-camera-laptop-smartphone-cover-tape | Why is everyone covering up their laptop cameras? | For the past half decade, the technology industry has been racing to build better cameras into the hardware we use every day. Yet the surveillance age has inspired an odd cottage industry battling against this trend: a glut of cheap stickers and branded plastic slides designed to cover up the front-facing cameras on phones, laptops and even televisions. For years, security researchers have shown that hackers can hijack the cameras to spy on whomever is on the other end. To put that in perspective, think of all the things your devices have seen you do. Such warnings have finally caught on. Last month, the FBI director, James Comey, told an audience: “I put a piece of tape over the camera because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera.” The corporate swag company Idea Stage Promotions describes its Webcam Cover 1.0 as “the HOTTEST PROMOTIONAL ITEM on the market today”. The cable channel USA Networks sent journalists a “Mr Robot” webcam cover for the popular hacker thriller’s upcoming season. Covering cameras isn’t new for those who know that the internet is always watching. Eva Galperin, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that since she bought her first laptop with a built-in camera on the screen, a MacBook Pro, in 2007, she’s been covering them up. EFF started printing its own webcam stickers in 2013, as well as selling and handing out camera stickers that read: “These removable stickers are an unhackable anti-surveillance technology.” “People purchase these regularly,” a spokesman said. The fear over web cameras has penetrated deep into popular culture. The trailer for Oliver Stone’s forthcoming biopic Snowden, on the US spy contractor, features a clip of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays the title character, looking nervously at his laptop camera during an intimate moment with his girlfriend. So are we all being paranoid? Well, it’s not science fiction. Researchers in 2013 showed how they could activate a Macbook’s camera without triggering the green “this-thing-is-on” light. One couple claimed a hacker posted a video of them having sex after hacking their smart TV. And federal court records shows that the FBI does know how to use laptop cameras to spy on users as well. So, naturally, where there’s fear, there is money to be made. The DC-based CamPatch describes itself as “the Mercedes Bens [sic] of putting tape over your webcam”. Its founders started the company in 2013 after hearing a briefing from Pentagon cybersecurity experts on how webcams were a new “attack vector”, said Krystie Caraballo, CamPatch’s general manager. Caraballo wouldn’t disclose financials other than to say the company has had “six-figure revenues for the last several years” and that it has distributed more than 250,000 patches. The company advertises bulk pricing “as low as $2.79”. Yet not everyone is on the camera-covering bandwagon. Brian Pascal, a privacy expert who has worked for Stanford and Palantir Technologies says a cost-benefit analysis led him conclude he’d rather have a usable camera, which he can use to record his son. But he acknowledged such stickers are a way for people signal that they too worry about Big Brother. “Security actions without threat modelling are just performative,” said Pascal. Others just haven’t gotten around to it yet. “Because I’m an idiot,” replied Matthew Green, an encryption expert at Johns Hopkins University when asked why he doesn’t cover his cameras. “I have no excuse for not taking this seriously ... but at the end of the day, I figure that seeing me naked would be punishment enough.” Of course, webcam paranoia is likely to be only the first of many awakenings as consumers bring more devices into their lives that can be turned into unwitting spies. Amazon.com has had enormous success with its Echo smart speaker that, by default, is always listening for its owners’ commands. Google plans to release a similar product this year called Google Home. In a hearing on Capitol Hill in February, the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, acknowledged how the so-called “internet of things” could be used “for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials”. | ['world/surveillance', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/smartphones', 'technology/laptops', 'technology/technology', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/danny-yadron', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-tech', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-06-06T12:52:38Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/blog/2011/jun/16/bonn-climate-talks-diary | Bonn climate summit diary | John Vidal | Bonn barred Who will lift the veil on these murky talks which we, the public, are barred even from observing? Decisions are – or are not – being made that will affect every human being on Earth, yet most of the discussions here are being held in closed session to which civil society, in the form of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the press, have no access. No transcripts of any meetings are made available, the sessions are not webcast, only three countries have given press conferences in the last eight days, draft texts are not put up on websites, video recordings of the plenaries are near impossible to access. And so on. Were it not for some admirable negotiators and individuals ferreting out information, this meeting might as well been held in a pitch black room on Mars. To add insult, heavies bar the entrance and check the identity of people trying to get into empty meeting rooms. Transparently wrong In the last few days, the murmuring against this Kafka-esque system that has so far failed utterly to do its job and reduce global emissions, have become a shout, and civil society groups have demanded far greater virtual transparency. An all-day meeting on transparency was held yesterday at which governments wrung their hands and sympathised, but of course, this being the UN, no decisions were made. And while the EU, Bolivia, Mexico, Australia came out in favour of more transparency and involvement by civil society, Saudi Arabia (surprise surprise), India (shame!), the US (double shame!) and bizarrely Antigua and Barbuda, all argued that civil society should be kept out of meetings. Most of the secretive countries have a track record, but what on earth have Antigua and Barbuda got to hide? Geo-engineers, unite! The world's small geo-engineering community is furious over the leaking to the Guardian of its plans to tell the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) next week how it wants to blast sulphates into the stratosphere, genetically engineer crops to be lighter in colour, and manipulate nature on a vast scale to reduce climate emissions. But now an anonymous member of the group going to Lima has come up with a round robin letter and invited everyone to sign. It too, has been leaked, and here it is: "We the undersigned represent a selection of the scientists, engineers and social & policy experts involved in the development of geo-engineering and its governance. We write with frustration at the sentiments expressed in the recent letter sent by ETC et al to the press and IPCC. As a result, we would like to express the following views on the IPCC's process on geo-engineering, and more generally: 1) We do not propose geo-engineering as a substitute for emissions cuts, and never have done. 2) We believe that research demonstrates that emissions cuts are necessary, but may not be sufficient to control dangerous climate change. 3) We note that several geo-engineering schemes have been proposed which appear to be workable, but that we currently lack the research necessary to determine the full extent of any role they may play in the future control of global warming. 4) We fear the deployment in emergency of poorly tested geo-engineering techniques. 5) We argue for the proper funding and testing of possible geo-engineering technologies, in order to better understand them. 6) We note that, despite the lack of clear geo-engineering solutions available for deployment at present, efforts to curtail emissions have thus far achieved little or nothing. As such, we believe that further research will not in itself raise climate risks due to any perceived panacea which the existence of the technology may wrongly appear to offer. Nevertheless, we note the IPCC's consideration of this issue represents a departure from its traditional pure science remit. We argue therefore for greater transparency of the process, the inclusion of experts from social policy fields in the process, and the opening up of sessions to external observers, notably civil society groups. So far, to our knowledge, no one has signed it. Perhaps tomorrow. Extreme spring Weather Underground, the massive climate tracking website set up by US meteorologist Jeff Masters, is said to be a popular site for homesick US negotiators. But instead of imagining sunny California or lovely Kansas, they now can see firsthand that the climate crisis that they are in Bonn to resolve seems to be hitting their own country hardest. According to Masters: "there's never been a spring this extreme for combined wet and dry extremes in the US since recordkeeping began over a century ago". Statistics released this week by the government's National Climatic Data Center show that a full 46% of the country has had abnormally (top 10%) wet or dry conditions over the last three months. "In addition, heavy one-day precipitation events – the kind that cause the worst flooding – have been at an all-time high in the spring of 2011," says Masters. Ringos and Fangos While the government meetings are all closed, it should be noted that the "observer" organisations and NGOs are all equally hopeless on transparency. Youngos (youth non-governmental organisations), Bingos (business and industry NGOs), Tungos (trade union NGOs), Engos (environmental NGOs) Ringos (research and independent NGOs), Fangos (farm NGOs) and Wingos (women and gender NGOs) are all meeting today. The daily programme says makes it clear that all their sessions are closed. | ['environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/environment', 'environment/blog', 'tone/blog', 'world/germany', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2011-06-16T16:18:32Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/28/ecuador-oil-extraction-amazon-yasuni | Oil: Can Ecuador see past the black stuff? | One of the most extraordinary people I have met in 10 days of travelling around Peru and Ecuador has been Alberto Acosta. He's head of Ecuador's leading research group now, but until 2007 was the second most powerful man in the country after the president, Rafael Correa. He was not only charged with masterminding the new constitution but was head of the assembly, or parliament, a founder of the ruling political party and minister of energy of the country that depends on oil. But Acosta will go down in my memory as the world's only serving oil minister to have ever proposed leaving some of a country's black stuff in the ground. That's like Dracula renouncing blood, or a sports minister saying it's better to play hide and seek than football. It just does not happen. He is the architect of the Ecuadorean government's plan to guarantee to leave 965m barrels of oil in the Yasuni national park in eastern Ecuador if the world contributes $100m in the next year and eventually around $3.6bn. The revolutionary economic idea to earn money by not exploiting a resource has been endorsed by the government and will be administered by the UN Development Programme. Acosta was accused of being crazy by some of his cabinet peers, but is clearly anything but. He's an old oil man, a trained economist and he argues vehemently that it makes political, economic and ecological sense to leave the oil in the ground. He calculates that if the Yasuni oil is drilled, it will earn Ecuador around $7bn. But against that must be put the incalulable cost of climate pollution, of trashing the Amazon rainforest, and of the conflict and devastation it will cause in one of the most diverse regions of the world. In addition, two uncontacted tribes believed to be in the vicinity of the exploration block where the oil has been found will almost certainly be made extinct. Acosta's thinking is not new but part of a growing body of global evidence for the phenomenom called "resource curse". This is the idea that mineral and oil-rich developing countries stay poor, foster corruption, encourage dictators and trash the environment. From Nigeria to Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea to Gabon, oil has distorted economies and led to trouble and human rights abuses. As the Venezuelan Juan Pablo Alfonso, one of the Opec founders, said: "You will see: oil will bring us ruin … oil is the devil's excrement." Acosta has written about this in his bestseller La Maldición de la Abundancia (The Curse of Plenty) and he is adamant that Ecuador is in danger of going the same way. "Yes, oil is very important to Ecuador," he told us. "But abundance is bad. We have extracted 4.5bn barrels so far, which provided us with $130bn. We've consumed half our oil and we have about half left. But while it has developed our infrastructure, we have not developed [as a country], or gained full advantage from it. Oil has brought us conflict and [billions of dollars of] environmental destruction; we are transforming the Amazon into a country where climate fluctuations will be terrible. Oil has not solved the problems. We must have a less extractive economy. "What we need to do in the medium to long-term is overcome this economic model of accumulation. We need another way to organise the economy, which is not so dependent on the exploitation of natural resources. We need to move from an extractive economic model, to one based in the knowledge, and forces, and needs of human beings, individual and collective. We also need another way of inserting ourselves into the world market that is more intelligent than simply providing raw materials. "In reality, we've been living off the rent of nature. In the last few decades, since the 1970s, Ecuador has had as its principal source of revenue the exploitation of oil – the extraction of crude oil and the export of oil into the international market. Ecuador needs to break with the extreme concentration of assets and income, and change the pattern. We need to achieve equality if there is to be justice and freedom. "I could see the [oil] monster from the inside. Ecuador is the producer of flowers, oil and bananas but it has never developed. Perhaps we are poor because of our resources. We should be an intelligent country. We cannot live without nature but nature can live without us. We must change our model of life. What about [Yasuni becoming] a sanctuary for nature, for humanity?" The race is now on. If Ecuador attracts $100m for Yasuni within the year, the oil will not be extracted. If it does not, then almost certainly President Correa, Acosta's old friend, will almost certainly say that he has no option but to send in a Chinese oil company to extract it. It will be the end of the two uncontacted tribes and a vast swathe of the most diverse forest in the world. Above all, however, it will be a tragedy for the world because the only country which has had the chance to reject the extractive development path and demonstrate what is possible, will have blown it. • This article was amended on 5 October 2010 to clarify an historical reference to the Acosta plan and what it covers. | ['global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oil', 'environment/energy', 'business/oil', 'world/ecuador', 'tone/blog', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-09-28T10:18:17Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2016/sep/17/digested-week-david-cameron-battered-legacy-bake-off-hinkley-point | David Cameron's shifting legacy and food-based catastrophe – Esther Addley | Monday David Cameron famously once said he wanted to be prime minister “because I think I’d be rather good at it”. (Spoiler alert: he really wasn’t.) Even that expensively acquired self-belief may have suffered a wobble, however, given the reaction to Cameron’s announcement that he was scarpering from Westminster (sample from the Telegraph’s James Kirkup: “petulant ... no big idea... a lack of seriousness” – you get the picture). It’s been a humbling few days for the former PM, forced to watch Theresa May coolly reversing his decisions, one by one. Grammar schools, opposed by Cameron, back on the agenda. The chair of the BBC Trust Rona Fairhead, whom he reappointed, gone. Now, the lowest blow of all. The Bullingdon Club, it has emerged, is threatened with extinction because nobody wants to join. “Every reasonable person thinks it’s a joke,” said a mole. Well, yes. Like we say, not a great week for Cameron. On the other hand, this fact alone may have cheered yours immensely, so every cloud and all that. Tuesday TV audiences have inevitably been smaller for the Paralympics than last month’s Olympics, which is a shame because there’s no doubt the games have showcased plenty of sporting brilliance. Consider, for example, the T13 1500m men’s final, won by the Algerian Abdellatif Baka in a world record time of 3:48.29. Ethiopia’s Tamiru Demisse and Kenyan Henry Kirwa claimed silver and bronze, while Baka’s brother Fouad just missed a medal in fourth. Runners in the T13 category are visually impaired, which makes it particularly striking that each of the first four finishers, had they been competing in the Olympics 1500m final on 20 August, would have beaten the entire field, including Matt Centrowitz who claimed gold for the US in a snail-like time of 3:50.00. The American’s victory came in a highly tactical race that got off to an unusually slow start, but still. Did someone say “backwards and in heels”? Wednesday A big week for food-based transportation calamity headline gags, which – speaking personally – has been just about the only thing that has got me through. First, of course, there was the embarrassing pasta disaster on the A5 near Shotatton in Shropshire, where a lorry slopped 20 tonnes of spaghetti bolognese across the carriageway. Then came that incident with the tanker transporting molasses off the Cumbrian coast which – dear reader, you are ahead of me – got stuck. Is it just possible, all the same, that we have overindulged just a little on the food puns with the news that a baking programme is moving channels? I mean, crumbs, newspapers do like to rise to the challenge when faced with these ingredients, but whether we kneaded quite so many overcooked puns about the Great British Bake Off’s BBC1 departure is a matter of taste. Let’s all agree: the BBC got burned, Mel and Sue were delicious and Breadxit means Breadxit. Now can we leave it there? I’m feeling queasy. Thursday So we are, after all, to have a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, after May declined to overturn her predecessor’s bafflingly unfavourable deal with its Chinese backers. For all their glee at the Hinkley contract, the real prize for Chinese investors is a potential new plant at Bradwell, on a sparse stretch of coast near Maldon in Essex. Bradwell, as it happens, has been of interest to incomers for some time. Just east of the power station site is a small stone building that could pass for a ramshackle old barn. It is, instead, the chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, built by St Cedd, a missionary from Lindisfarne, in 654, which makes it probably the second oldest church in Britain. Cedd’s builder-monks reused stones from the Roman fort of Othona, and the tiny, single-roomed chapel stands at the end of an arrow-straight stretch of Roman road, with just the North Sea behind. It feels like a miraculous survival from another time, perched on the very edge of the world. Do visit before the chaps in radiation suits and the three-eyed fish take over. Friday Sometimes life writes its own punchlines. So it must seem, at least, for Rebecca Moss, who sailed from Vancouver last month on board a container ship bound for Shanghai. Moss, 25, is an “absurdist artist” and her project “23 Days at Sea” was intended to examine the comedic friction between mechanical systems and nature. In a textbook case of “be careful what you wish for”, however, the Hanjin Shipping Company, which owns the tanker, went bust on 31 August, leaving the ship stranded at sea since port operators, afraid they won’t be paid, have refused to let them dock. Meat and drink for an absurdist artist, one might think. Maybe so, but when contacted by email on Friday for an update, it was clear the comedy of the situation was wearing thin for Moss. She is looking forward, she said, to “being out of this situation and to be in a position to reflect back on it. When you are in it, the stress is hard to manage.” Friday was the day she was due to disembark; her plan was to spend a few days with collaborators in Shanghai before flying home to London. “Now this is looking somewhat unlikely.” Quite enough absurdity for one lifetime. Digested week, digested: All at sea | ['politics/politics', 'uk-news/series/digested-week', 'politics/davidcameron', 'tv-and-radio/the-great-british-bake-off', 'uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'politics/theresamay', 'politics/conservatives', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/estheraddley', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2016-09-16T23:53:47Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2010/dec/08/cancun-climate-change-summit-japan | Cancún climate change summit: Japan stands Cancún climate change summit: Japan defiant in face of diplomatic pressure | A senior Japanese negotiator today said that it had come under intense diplomatic pressure to soften its stance at the UN climate talks in Cancún and admitted that it was causing a "big problem" for the negotiations. But he repeated the country's position that it would not compromise on its refusal to sign up to a second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol – the international treaty that legally binds rich countries to cut emissions. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Akira Yamada, ambassador for civil society in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the issue was a red line. "We are not moving. This is a fact. Many people have had the illusion that Japan might change its position. Well, we are sorry, but we are not going to. There is 0% possibility." With only two full days' full negotiation possible before the climate talks conclude and developing countries equally adamant that rich country pledges for emission cuts are needed if they are to sign up to a new deal, it is clear that the hosts Mexico will have to come up with a new text to save the summit from complete deadlock. The UK energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, will tell the plenary meeting: "With just two days to go, we're reaching a crunch point. Let me be clear: a car crash of a summit is in no one's interest. The answer has to be compromise. We cannot do everything here. But we can make progress on mitigation, deforestation, adaptation, finance, reporting and more. And restore momentum to the global process. Concrete steps to the treaty we want." He added that the Kyoto protocol was "vital" to the success of the negotiations. "But Kyoto alone is not enough to protect us from a temperature rise of more than 2C. "Along with the EU, we want a second commitment period as part of a wider outcome engaging all major economies, and as long as concerns around environmental integrity are met." Yamada said the only way forward for the summit would be for negotiators to find a new form of words in the final draft. "We need to find a form of words that is unsatisfactory for all but which is not unacceptable. We have to find some concrete wording, or new paragraphs. I admit [Japan] is making a big problem." "We are actively seeking common ground with other countries and with the chair. We are talking on a ministerial level, but also facilitators and others. We have come under intense pressure from many countries [to soften our position]". Asked why the principle of not signing up to a second period of Kyoto was so important, he only said: "It's difficult to explain." But he added that there was no reason why the talks should fail because of Japan's position. "We can have an agreement. But we just have to find good wording." Yamada's statement makes the Huhne's task of finding a diplomatic solution to the Kyoto protocol problem even harder. He had been personally asked by Mexico at the beginning of week two of the conference to consult other countries over the issue and to report back with options to break the deadlock. | ['environment/cancun-climate-change-conference-2010', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/mexico', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/environment', 'global-development/global-development', 'tone/news', 'environment/kyoto-protocol', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2010-12-08T18:12:25Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2010/mar/16/recycling-waste-disposal | Recycling still the most effective waste disposal method, report finds | Recycling is almost always the best way to get rid of waste, even when it is exported abroad, according to the biggest ever report on the industry for the UK government. The report, which addresses persistent claims that householders are often wasting their time recycling, calls for better recycling facilities but also an increase in incineration of waste, an option that is opposed by many environment groups. It also backed up last week's controversial report published by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs warning that biopolymer plastics made from crops should be recycled rather than put into compost, despite being widely marketed as "biodegradable". Wrap, the government's waste and packaging agency, said it had analysed 200 reports covering seven different materials: paper and cardboard, plastics, biopolymers, food, garden cuttings, wood and textiles. The experts then looked at the evidence for seven methods of disposal, including recycling, composting, incineration and landfill, measured by four different criteria: energy use, water use, other resource use, and greenhouse gas emissions. In more than four out of five cases, recycling was the clear winner, said Keith James, Wrap's environmental policy manager. But there were "different messages" for different materials, said James. "For biopolymers, I think the preferable option is recycling, which isn't what people have commonly thought," he said. "For textiles, there's not very many statistics, but what there is shows reuse is clearly optimal, followed by recycling and then energy recovery [incineration]. "For food and garden waste, anaerobic digestion looks preferable; then composting and incineration with energy recovery come out very similar. "For plastics, we have got strong evidence this time that recycling is the better option, because recycling has improved. "For wood, recycling looks preferable. "For paper and cardboard, what the statistics throw out is the importance of quality: the higher the quality [paper and cardboard], the better it is to recycle, but as you go down to the lower end, energy recovery [incineration] may be preferable." The good showing for incineration – preferred for a small number of items and often the next best option after recycling – will be controversial with some environmental campaigners who worry about the pollution from recycling plants, and that incineration becomes an easy option that deters investment in proper recycling. However, the option of incineration was only preferred when it was using the best technology and generating energy, preferably energy that was directly replacing fossil fuel use, which is blamed for the greenhouse gas emissions that help cause global warming, said James. "Energy recovery has a role to play, and if we're trying to divert more waste from landfill, we need to increase recycling and increase some energy recovery. But we need to make sure we get the right technologies," he said. As well as analysing recycling in the UK, the study also considered the impact of transporting waste to other countries – often China – for recycling. It found that overseas transport was still better than sending it to landfill. "The important thing is, because we're in an international economy ... [that if] we're sending metal back to China for recycling, it's coming back around the circle again," said James. According to Defra, in 2008-9 the total waste collected from the UK's 25m households dropped slightly to 24.3m tonnes, or 473kg per person. Of this, 9.1m tonnes – 178kg per person – was recycled, a bit more than a third. Almost all of the remainder went to landfill. Defra has a policy of encouraging more incineration, but no formal targets, said a spokesman. "We can't keep on sending waste to landfill," said the spokesman. "People are already reducing the amount of waste they produce, and are reusing and recycling more, and we are working hard to increase this. Some waste will always be produced, but it can be valuable in generating renewable energy through anaerobic digestion or incineration." In 2006, Wrap published a preliminary analysis of a different set of materials. But it used a much smaller collection of evidence. And it did not examine the newer energy-from-waste options of gasification and pyrolysis, both of which involve not burning but heating materials until a chemical reaction changes them into gases and residue. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/incineration', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/juliettejowit'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2010-03-16T06:00:02Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
science/audio/2010/feb/01/science-weekly-extra-kennedy-blankenship-mountaintop-mining-debate | Science Weekly Extra podcast: Robert Kennedy Jr takes on coal baron Don Blankenship | A debate took place recently at the University of Charleston in West Virginia on mountaintop mining. Stage left was Bobby Kennedy Jr, an environmental lawyer, son of the late attorney general and nephew of JFK. (He has a condition that makes his voice quavery). Stage right was one of America's biggest coal barons, chairman of Massey Energy Don Blankenship. The hour-long debate highlighted America's deep political and environmental divides. This podcast comprises edited highlights. Let us know what you make of the arguments in this clash between mining baron and eco warrior. Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive. Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science. Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed). | ['science/series/science', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'environment/mining', 'environment/coal', 'us-news/kennedys', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'type/audio'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2010-02-01T00:01:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2023/jul/04/fukushima-china-calls-for-suspension-of-japanese-plan-to-release-radioactive-water-into-sea | Fukushima plan to release water into ocean approved by UN watchdog | The UN’s nuclear watchdog has approved plans by Japan to release more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean, despite objections from local fishing communities and other countries in the region. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Tuesday that the body’s latest safety review of the planned discharge “makes the science of the treated water release clear for the international community and it answers the technical questions related to safety that have been raised”. The report said discharging the water would have “a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment”. “This is a very special night today,” Grossi told the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, before handing him a blue folder containing the final report. Kishida said Japan would “continue to provide explanations to the Japanese people and to the international community in a sincere manner based on scientific evidence and with high level of transparency”. Grossi later said the document was “neither a recommendation nor an endorsement” of the water release plans drawn up by Japan’s government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco). In a tweet, he said the IAEA would “continue our impartial, independent and objective safety review during and after the discharge phase”, adding that agency experts would “have a continuous on-site presence”. The end of the two-year safety review brings Japan closer to the start of the long operation to pump the treated water – a mixture of groundwater, rain that seeps into the area, and water used for cooling damaged nuclear fuel – into the Pacific Ocean. It is not clear when that process will begin, although there is speculation that it could be this summer. About 1.3m tonnes of water stored in huge tanks on the site has been filtered through Tepco’s advanced liquid processing system (Alps) to remove most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water. The “treated” water – Japanese officials object to the use of the word “contaminated” – will be diluted with seawater so that the concentration of tritium is well below internationally approved levels before being released into the ocean 1km from the shoreline via an undersea tunnel. The water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - becomes contaminated when it is used to cool fuel rods that melted after the plant was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The disaster triggered a triple meltdown, in the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chornobyl 25 years earlier. Discharging the water is expected to take 30 to 40 years to complete, pending the IAEA’s review and official approval from Japan’s nuclear regulatory body, which could come as early as this week. Attempts by Japanese government officials to win regional support for the plan have had limited success. China, which denounced the plan as “extremely irresponsible” when it was announced in 2021, reiterated its opposition on Tuesday, calling for the discharge to be suspended. Through its embassy in Japan, China said the IAEA’s report should not be interpreted as a “pass” for the water release. Last week, a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry said Beijing urged Japan to “take seriously both international and domestic concerns, stop forcibly proceeding with its ocean discharge plan” and “subject itself to rigorous international oversight”. Japan’s foreign ministry has said that it made multiple and repeated attempts to explain the science behind Tokyo’s stance to Beijing officials, but that its offers had been ignored. Local Japanese fishing communities have also objected to the plan, saying it would destroy more than a decade of work rebuilding their industry, with shoppers likely to shun their catch and send prices plummeting. Fukushima authorities have introduced some of the world’s strictest radiation testing regimes, but many consumers are yet to be reassured that fish and other produce from the region are safe. The government and Tepco claim the environmental and health impacts from the water release will be negligible because the treated water will be released gradually after it has been diluted by large amounts of seawater. Tritium is considered to be relatively harmless because it does not emit enough energy to penetrate human skin. But when ingested – via seafood, for example – it can raise cancer risks, a Scientific American article said in 2014. The IAEA says nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides. After visiting Fukushima Daichi on Wednesday, Grossi will travel to South Korea, where some people have been panic-buying sea salt over fears of contamination after the discharge begins. Grossi is also expected to visit New Zealand and the Cook Islands in an effort to ease concerns over the plan, according to media reports. • Reuters contributed to this report | ['world/japan', 'environment/fukushima', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/china', 'world/iaea', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-07-04T10:23:35Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2002/mar/07/globalwarming.climatechange | Denmark gives green post to global-warming denier | Denmark's self-styled "sceptical environmentalist", Bjorn Lomborg, is no stranger to controversy, but his recent elevation to one of the country's senior environment jobs has shocked green campaigners and politicians alike. His book, The Sceptical Environmentalist, in which he claims that the threats of global warming, overpopulation and deforestation have been vastly exaggerated, had the world's scientists clutching their lab coats with despair. But the appointment of the professor of political science and statistics at Aarhus university to head Denmark's new Institute for Environmental Evaluation in Copenhagen has reignited the uproar. Many believe that under his stewardship the institute will fail to dispense neutral advice to the government. One media source said: "He is not neutral, his views are extreme and he lacks the necessary qualifications." Jan Sondergard, of Greenpeace Denmark, sees the appointment as part of a trend by the government to downgrade environmental issues. Prof Lomborg, 37, is unfazed. "People are going to realise that I'm a nice guy," he said. "I don't eat small children and I don't cut down rainforests." | ['environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'world/denmark', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/andrewosborn'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2002-03-07T01:50:05Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2011/oct/05/malcolm-turnbull-china-india-climate | Malcolm Turnbull: China and India will become climate leaders | China and India will become the global leaders in action against global warming, according to the Australian politician who has been called a "climate change martyr". Malcolm Turnbull, who lost the leadership of the Liberal party for supporting a carbon emissions trading scheme, said the climate impacts on those nations will see them act. "China and India will take the global leadership on climate change: they are suffering for it," Turnbull told the Guardian. He warned that an "extraordinary war against science" in the US and elsewhere would see nations trailing in China's wake. "The paradox is that as the physical signs of climate change get stronger, the political will gets weaker in the US." "Look at countries like China, they are determined to dominate all clean technology areas, putting lots of money into wind, solar, electric vehicles and battery storage," he said. "America's political impotence, cause by their terrible partisanship, will see them left behind." Turnbull also lambasted Australia's Labour prime minister, Julia Gillard, for failing to sell the carbon trading system to the public successfully, and predicted the return of Kevin Rudd, who Gillard ousted, within four months. "The advocacy is just woeful," he said. "To get big reforms like carbon trading through, you have to understand it completely, be able to articulate it compellingly and the public have to believe you believe it." "The carbon trading debate [in Australia] has become a cost of living debate," Turnbull added. It will increase the cost of living by just 0.7%, he said. Climate change has become a more politically lethal issue in Australia than in any other nation, having toppled prime ministers and leaders of the opposition. Rudd pledged to deliver a carbon trading system, but as prime minister dropped it and lost his job. Gillard had opposed carbon trading but now is implementing it and, if Turnbull is right about his political opponent, will also lose her job. Turnbull himself worked on carbon trading legislation while in government, and backed it when leader of the opposition, but that cost him his post, losing by a vote to the climate-change sceptic Tony Abbott, leading the Sydney Morning Herald to call him a "climate change martyr". He is now shadow communications minister. Turnbull also criticised Rudd. "He abandoned the greatest moral challenge of our age," when he backed down on carbon trading, he said. "I lost my job because I stuck to my principles, he lost his by abandoning his. The difficulty is that if you keep on selling out your principles in politics, you get left with nothing." Winning the argument on cutting greenhouse gas emissions was a question of sticking to your guns, he said, as the idea of billions of people in emerging economies starting to use carbon-based energy at same level as western nations do now "is clearly not sustainable". | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'world/world', 'world/india', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'tone/news', 'world/asia-pacific', 'australia-news/malcolm-turnbull', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2011-10-05T15:52:31Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/dec/01/amazon-deforestation-surges-to-12-year-high-under-bolsonaro | Amazon deforestation surges to 12-year high under Bolsonaro | A vast expanse of Amazon rainforest seven times larger than Greater London was destroyed over the last year as deforestation surged to a 12-year high under Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. Figures released by the Brazilian space institute, Inpe, on Monday showed at least 11,088 sq km of rainforest was razed between August 2019 and July this year – the highest figure since 2008. Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, said the numbers were “humiliating, shameful and outrageous” – and a clear sign of the damage being done to the environment since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. “This is an area a third the size of Belgium – gigantic areas of forest that are being lost simply because under Bolsonaro those who are doing the destroying feel no fear of being punished,” Rittl said. “Bolsonaro’s great achievement when it comes to the environment has been this tragic destruction of forests which has turned Brazil into perhaps one of the greatest enemies of the global environment and into an international pariah too.” Brazil’s vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, tried to put a positive spin on the bleak figures as he visited Inpe’s headquarters in the city of São José dos Campos on Monday. Mourão claimed the annual increase of 9.5% was less than half the anticipated figure of about 20%. “We’re not here to commemorate any of this, because it’s nothing to commemorate. But it means that the efforts being launched [against Amazon deforestation] are starting to yield fruit,” Mourão claimed. Environmentalists, who blame Bolsonaro’s deliberate weakening of enforcement efforts for the rise, scoffed at that reading. “This number is an outrage – it doesn’t tell us anything positive about the Bolsonaro administration at all. On the contrary, it shows that despite the [Covid-19] quarantine, environmental crime has increased,” Rittl said. Mourão’s comment about the smaller-than-expected rise was “like saying that we were expecting 300,000 Covid deaths and we ‘only’ had 200,000,” Rittl added. Cristiane Mazzetti, a Greenpeace spokesperson for the Amazon, said: “This is an even worse number than 2019 and a direct reflection of the Bolsonaro administration’s anti-environmental policies which have weakened the monitoring agencies and used misguided strategies to fight deforestation, such as deploying the armed forces rather than environmental protection agents.” “These numbers show us that we are continuing to move in the wrong direction than the one needed to deal with the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis.” The Observatório do Clima group said soaring destruction came as no surprise to those “following the dismantling of environmental policy that has been underway in Brazil since January 2019”. “The numbers simply show that Jair Bolsonaro’s plan has worked. They are the result of a successful project to annihilate the ability of the Brazilian state and its monitoring agencies to care for our forests and fight crime in the Amazon,” it said in a statement. Mourão said the figures, which were produced with information from the Prodes satellite system, showed most of the devastation was occurring in four regions: Pará state, the north of Mato Grosso state, the south of Amazonas state and Rondônia. Pará, a longtime deforestation hotspot, was by far the worst-affected state accounting for almost 47% of the total deforestation. “Thanks to Inpe’s work we now have a perfect sense of where we need to focus our actions in order to prevent illegal activities occurring,” Mourão told reporters, praising its “brilliant scientists” for their efforts. But despite a growing “green” government propaganda campaign – which recently saw Mourão take foreign ambassadors on a tour of the Amazon region – environmentalists and foreign investors are skeptical about its efforts to protect the world’s biggest rainforest. During that three-day excursion ambassadors were not taken to any of the deforestation hotspots which Mourão detailed on Monday – and activists dismissed the visit as a “sham”. In May thousands of Brazilian troops were sent to the Amazon supposedly to fight environmental crime, although some believe they are merely making things worse. Rittl said one ray of light was the recent defeat of Bolsonaro’s key international ally, Donald Trump. “Without the backing of Trump in the US, the international pressure [on Bolsonaro over the environment] will increase and it will increase a lot,” he predicted. Bolsonaro is one of only a tiny group of world leaders who has yet to recognise Joe Biden’s victory and on Sunday claimed, without proof, that unnamed “sources” had convinced him the US election had been plagued with fraud. | ['environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/brazil', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tomphillips', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-11-30T23:43:59Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
business/2010/jul/28/centrica-energy | British Gas warns of rise in utility bills despite £585m profits this year | British Gas claimed today it would hold off from increasing utility bills as long as possible, hours after almost doubling profits in the first half of the year. The largest supplier of electricity and gas in the UK said that if recent increases in the cost of energy continued, customers would have to pay more. Nick Luff, the finance director of parent company Centrica, said energy costs for this winter and next year had risen significantly. "This potentially could have implications on retail prices," he said. "But we are looking to sustain the strong price position we have for as long as we can." A consumer group said customers would be outraged if British Gas raised bills this winter. Consumer Focus said its huge profits this year would sound alarm bells that suppliers were benefiting most from falls in the wholesale cost of energy. Audrey Gallacher, head of energy policy at Consumer Focus, said: "We are concerned that energy firms may actually raise prices this winter. With only small price cuts for customers in the last two years, despite wholesale prices being half what they were at their peak and beginning to fall again, customers will rightly be outraged if this happens. " British Gas, which offers the cheapest combined electricity and gas tariff on the market, made pre-tax profits of £585m for the first six months of the year, up 98% on last year. Following the coldest winter in 30 years, it enjoyed an operating margin of 13%, which equates to about £153 profit for each standard dual-fuel customer and is almost twice its target. Executives said it would make much smaller profits in the second half of the year, after it became the first supplier to cut prices in February and because energy costs have begun to rise. British Gas acts as a bellwether on utility bills as it tends to lead the industry in raising or cutting prices. Industry watchers pay close attention to its comments for indications about the next price move. Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of British Gas parent company Centrica, also appeared to set himself at odds with the government over the construction of a new generation of new nuclear reactors. Last year Centrica paid £2.3bn for a 20% stake in nuclear generator British Energy. But the industry says it is not economic to build new reactors under the UK's current energy regime. Companies such as Centrica and its partner EDF have successfully lobbied for the government to guarantee a minimum carbon price, similar to a carbon tax, which would make low-carbon forms of generation such as reactors more competitive compared to dirtier coal and gas plants. But Laidlaw said other "support mechanisms" were also needed. These could include capacity payments or a special feed-in tariff for reactors guaranteeing them an above-market rate for the electricity they generated, he said. Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, has promised that new reactors will not be built with public subsidy. This week he said it was inappropriate for the public sector to support the nuclear industry, as it did for renewables, because it was a mature technology. Laidlaw denied such support mechanisms for the nuclear industry amounted to a subsidy because consumers, and not the taxpayer, would foot the bill. "All low-carbon technologies with the exception of nuclear enjoy some form of support mechanism.You have to level the playing field. It's not about subsidising nuclear if you're discriminating against it." | ['business/centrica', 'money/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'tone/news', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'politics/chrishuhne', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2010-07-28T18:09:20Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/may/26/paved-paradise-book-americans-cars-climate-crisis | How to improve US cities and tackle the climate crisis? Get rid of parking spaces | What could New York achieve if it repurposed some of its 3m curbside parking spots? It could get rid of rats by moving trash off the sidewalks and into containers. It could create safe, cool play spaces for the more than 1m New Yorkers without easy park access. It could build bioswales to collect rainwater and prevent flooding during heavy storms. It could even help drivers kick their addictions to cars and avert climate catastrophe, writes Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. Instead, the city devotes most of its curb space – an area equivalent to 52 Central Parks, according to advocacy group Transportation Alternatives – to parking. “We have all this land that’s being currently allocated in one of the least efficient and least environmentally sound ways possible,” Grabar said. “If you begin to think about retrofitting and adapting that, the possibilities are endless.” Paved Paradise reveals how cheap and convenient car storage exacerbates the housing shortage (the US allocates more land to car storage than to housing), siphons public assets into private hands, blights downtowns and fuels the climate crisis. Grabar, a staff writer at Slate, grew up in Lower Manhattan in the 1990s. In the book, he recounts travails familiar to anyone who has ever looked for parking in New York: his father used to drop the family off in front of their building before he set off in search of a curbside spot; as a teenager, Grabar was often tasked with sitting behind the wheel of his parked family’s station wagon, “… hoping I would not have to move the car when the ticket cop came. I was too young to drive.” He has written about housing, transportation and urban politics for the last decade. “In story after story, I kept finding this hidden factor that seemed to be determinative of the way various projects turned out,” he said. “That system was parking.” Grabar traces much of the design and feel of modern US cities to the postwar era, when American car ownership soared and much of the middle class moved to the suburbs. “The question of where to park all these cars consumed American politicians, shop owners, traffic engineers, and urban planners in the 1950s and 1960s,” he writes. “Cities sought to emulate the suburban parking model and very nearly destroyed themselves in the process.” Today, Americans drive more than almost anyone else in the world, and transportation is the US’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. (Electric vehicles may reduce emissions, but the need for chargers brings a host of other parking challenges, Grabar notes.) Americans drive 60% more than Australians and Canadians – and, he writes, “we built a country with exceptional rewards for driving and punishments for getting around any other way”. Parking exacerbates the problem. When it’s free, there are often shortages. Across the country, zoning laws often require new developments to build a set number of off-street parking spots. Those rules, Grabar argues, create sprawl (which in turn incentivizes more driving) and fuel the current housing shortage. The US has the highest rate of road accidents of any OECD country, and traffic fatalities are on the rise. In 2021, about 43,000 people, including more than 7,000 pedestrians, died on US roads, making it an outlier among economically advanced nations. The problem is particularly acute in low-income and minority communities, which are less likely to have sidewalks, marked crossings and other designs meant to make spaces safe for pedestrians. Black pedestrians are nearly twice as likely to be struck and killed in traffic as white pedestrians. Low-income and minority communities are also disproportionately exposed to air pollution – often the result of traffic emissions – and suffer higher rates of asthma and other respiratory ailments. Grabar points out another, perhaps overlooked way that parking contributes to the climate crisis: cement is responsible for nearly 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Paving over our cities also makes them less able to adapt to a changing climate. Asphalt and cement contribute to the urban heat island effect, which means that these surfaces create areas that can be several degrees warmer than green spaces nearby. Because of historic redlining practices, minority and low-income communities are more likely to live in urban heat islands. These impervious surfaces also make cities more susceptible to flooding, another phenomenon on the rise as the planet warms. In Houston, Grabar writes, 50 years of unfettered growth “have sealed a Belgium-sized section of Texas grassland beneath asphalt, concrete, and land”. When Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 100bn tons of water on the state in 2017, the water had nowhere to go. But if Paved Paradise is an indictment of what parking has done to the modern American city, it’s also an invitation to imagine what else is possible. In 2011, when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation moved 1,200 employees to a new headquarters in Seattle, it began charging for on-site parking while offering free bike lockers and transit cards. The share of workers who drove to work fell from 90% to 34% in six years. In Paris, officials have removed thousands of curbside parking spaces, including in front of some 200 schools. Considering the New York proposal to convert curbside parking into trash containers, Grabar asked me to imagine a city with functional sanitation. “[Imagine] if the city said, ‘We found a way to create 150,000 extra parking spaces, but we’re going to throw the trash all over the sidewalk. You’re gonna have to walk through it, and there’s going to be a ton of rats,’” he said, describing the current state of affairs. “I don’t think anyone would say that’s a better system.” This article originally appeared in Nexus Media News. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/automotive-emissions', 'books/books', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/danielle-renwick', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2023-05-26T15:30:37Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2022/oct/24/narwhals-adapting-to-climate-crisis-by-delaying-migration-study-finds | Narwhals adapting to climate crisis by delaying migration, study finds | Narwhals have been delaying their seasonal migration because of the impact of the climate crisis, suggesting an ability to adapt to the changing Arctic but increasing the risk that they may become trapped in ice, according to new research. Narwhals, recognisable by their long spiralled tusk that has earned them the nickname “unicorns of the sea”, inhabit the Arctic waters of Greenland, Canada and Russia. They are a migratory species that spend summer months in ice-free coastal areas before moving to deeper waters between late September and mid-November. Researchers from the University of Windsor, in Canada, examined satellite data from 1997 to 2018 from 40 narwhals to explore how they moved around the Canadian Arctic and when they left their summer grounds. They compared this data with local and regional changes in temperature and ice formation. The findings suggest that narwhals have been delaying their migration by almost 10 days each decade, with a total of 17 days’ delay since 1997. Narwhals are also taking an average of about four extra days in the earliest phase of their migration transit, according to the study. The patterns in the narwhals’ delayed departure match the sea ice trends in the area, said Courtney Shuert, the study’s author and a researcher at the University of Windsor. For instance, the scholars mention other research showing that the ocean surrounding the Canadian archipelago froze over approximately five days later a decade. “There’s this general trend [towards delaying migration], but there’s also a lot of inter-annual flexibility, which highlights that they’re having this strategic approach to when they’re leaving and they’re tracking these broad-scale climate trends,” Shuert said. Narwhals – which live to about 50 years, with some living up to 100 – are more susceptible to the impacts of the climate crisis because they take longer to genetically evolve than animals with shorter lifespans. The suggestion that they are adapting to their changing environment was a positive sign, Shuert said. But it could also put the cetaceans at risk, especially as the climate changes and extreme weather events become more frequent. Adapting to leaving the coast a little later each year could leave narwhals more vulnerable to getting trapped in “landfast ice” – sea ice that is attached to the coastline and prevents the animals surfacing for air. “If you’re a narwhal going off clues [about when] to leave, you might not be able to factor in these sudden somewhat random extreme events,” Shuert said. Entrapment in ice can kill hundreds of animals. Delayed migration could also lead to more encounters with predators such as orcas, which can reach farther north, as well as ships able to access routes that would have previously been frozen over, the study concluded. More research was needed to understand the impact of the change in migration patterns, Shuert said. “We still don’t really understand the downstream effects of this shift.” The study’s findings add to research about how climate change is altering animal migratory patterns – a phenomenon that has also appeared among birds and terrestrial mammals. “The rate of change that we’re seeing now in the Arctic is a huge concern for a lot of animals because it could exceed how quickly the animals can adapt through evolution,” said Shuert. “But [these findings] really show this idea of behavioural flexibility and how important it can be to bolster these populations against change.” | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/arctic', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sofia-quaglia', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-10-24T19:00:14Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/mar/09/scott-morrison-circus-fails-to-impress-lismore-a-town-that-has-lost-everything | Scott Morrison circus fails to impress Lismore, a town that has lost everything | On a debris-lined street, not far from Lismore’s centre, Kym Strow and her wife, Sarah Jones, are staying well away from the Scott Morrison circus. “We don’t need someone picking up our hand to shake it,” Strow says. Instead, the pair are walking through their ruined home. They move slowly, still digesting. In spots, the floors are dangerous to walk on. The warped timber threatens to give way underfoot. Paint is peeling off the walls. Everything they owned is in a pile out on the street. But it’s not just their home. The cafe they’ve owned for nine years, Flock, is ruined too. Asked about Morrison’s visit to Lismore on Wednesday to see the flood damage, Strow says anger isn’t helpful right now. But it’s there, visceral in her voice, as she looks around at all that she’s lost. “This is desperation. We’re living in a fucking garage,” she says. “You need a leader who is going to stand up and say ‘I’m coming’ or ‘this is coming, you’re not alone’ and give hope. “People sure as fuck shouldn’t have to ask for it. It wasn’t even asking, it was begging.” Across town, at Morrison’s chosen public relations point – the emergency operations centre at Lismore’s council chambers – tensions were running high. A group of protesters were there to welcome him, staying for hours in the oppressive heat. Some brandished signs saying “this isn’t strange, it’s climate change” and “mental health crisis”. Morrison, unsurprisingly, didn’t stop to chat. His car ferried him around the back of the council chambers, while a line of police kept the protesters at bay. Inside, you could still hear them chanting. “The water is rising, no more compromising.” After an interminable wait, Morrison fronted the press to fend off criticism about the federal response, the inadequacy of the government’s effort on climate change, and the insufficient disaster payments, which, while now increased, are a drop in the ocean for those who lost everything. “It has taken everybody including the community by surprise, no one expected to get to those levels, and what we’re dealing with here is an extraordinary event,” the PM said. Then he left. In South Lismore, at the Norco ice-cream factory, a business ruined by the floods, Sarah Moran, a lone protester, waited for Morrison at his second scheduled appearance. Moran brandished a sign saying “SloMo”. She tells the Guardian her brother works in the Norco factory. Like most here, he lost his home in the floods. Moran waited two hours for Morrison’s arrival. “When I realised [he] would be a while I just stood out the front, showing the people of South Lismore my signs,” she tells Guardian Australia. “They gave them a toot. They know what he [Morrison] was there for, he’s here for the photo opp, but won’t actually talk to anyone.” When Morrison was driven in, Moran seized her opportunity. “I yelled at him for a good 10 minutes, because there was no one else here,” she says. “My chest hurt. He hasn’t even offered a living wage, and you’re talking about people who were poor before. How dare you. You’ve got people who work here, they make the ice-cream, they’ve got no homes.” Morrison, perhaps wary of the 2019 bushfires disaster, didn’t stop to shake hands with victims in front of the press. He denied allegations of stage-managing his visit, saying some people didn’t want cameras in their faces amid disaster. But he also didn’t stop to talk to others. Also outside the factory was Marcus and Leonie Bebb. “We copped the brunt of it,” Marcus Bebb says. “Everybody did, but … we got it from all directions, left, right and centre.” The Bebbs say they talked to a representative from Morrison’s office, asking for five minutes to chat with the prime minister. Marcus was told Morrison was “running late”. “He said they had a deadline, then got in one of the cars.” They lived 500 metres down the road in a part of South Lismore that was devastated by the floods. Marcus whips out his phone and plays a video of his house during the peak of the disaster. It’s shocking. In the darkness, Marcus and Leonie are wading through their inundated home, commentating as they go. “Push the fridge this way and follow the wall,” Marcus tells his wife, as they make their way through a flooded kitchen, appliances bobbing in the water. Leonie Bebb spent six hours on their roof. At one point, she saw a cow, desperate to survive, try to climb into a boat to escape the flood waters. Asked what they thought of Morrison’s visit, Marcus is frank. He’s not furious at the prime minister’s Lismore appearance, unlike others, and avoided the protest at the council chambers because it was political. Climate change isn’t his most pressing concern, he says. His family are homeless. “Yeah money is great, yeah making plans and rebuilding and fixing flood mitigation, yeah that’s stuff that’s got to be done,” he says. “But 4pm on a Wednesday, and I’m looking for a house. I’m looking for a roof. I’m looking for somewhere to put my family.” | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/christopher-knaus', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-09T09:06:55Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/article/2024/jun/03/michigan-data-centers-climate- | In threat to climate safety, Michigan to woo tech data centers with new laws | Michigan Democrats are poised to pass legislation aimed at attracting big-tech data centers, but opponents say the bills would destroy nation-leading climate laws the same legislators approved in November because the centers consume massive amounts of electricity. The November climate bills included an “offramp” that would keep gas or coal plants running if renewable sources could not handle the energy grid’s load, and the stipulation would almost certainly be triggered, opponents say. That would put an end to Michigan’s climate legislation that requires 100% renewable energy by 2040, and dramatically increase electric rates for residential customers, critics say. Meanwhile, the centers would potentially consume millions of gallons of water daily, an unprecedented draw from the Great Lakes, which hold 95% of the nation’s freshwater. The “sheer volume of electricity required by these things is almost unfathomable”, said Christy McGillivray, legislative director for the Sierra Club of Michigan, which is lobbying against the bills. “These are very clearly a nightmare, because they use so much energy and water that without mandatory protections for ratepayers and guardrails that require renewable energy buildout, we are not going to be able to cut emissions like we want to,” McGillivray said. The data-center bills would provide tax incentives to tech companies lobbying for them, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Democratic leadership recently pushed the bills through the house and senate, both controlled by Democrats, without environmental or consumer protections called for by progressive lawmakers. But environmental groups mobilized in May and peeled off enough support to stall the bills in reconciliation in the house. Progressive lawmakers are now in a last-ditch stand to add environmental protections to the bills. Big tech’s lobbyists are pushing legislators to quickly move the legislation, said Rosemary Bayer, a senator demanding the addition of environmental and consumer protections. “It’s very hard to stand up to pressure from big companies like that,” she said, noting the tech industry makes campaign contributions at the state level, though she said she did not see anything “transactional”. Michigan isn’t alone, as data centers are quickly emerging as a serious threat to the nation’s climate goals. Tech companies use them to store servers and networking equipment that process the world’s digital traffic, and artificial intelligence is driving a boom. The facilities demand up to 50 times more energy than the typical office building and the Department of Energy labeled them one of the most “energy-intensive building types”. Data centers worldwide may use more electricity than Japan by 2026. Similar centers have already derailed Virginia’s climate goals, Wisconsin is considering keeping fossil-fuel plants online to accommodate them and Omaha ratepayers are funding a gas plant being built largely to keep up with data-center-driven demand. Even without data centers factored into electric-use forecasts, Michigan’s largest utilities have claimed energy use will be so high in the coming years that fossil-fuel plants will need to stay open. Environmental groups and their allies in the Michigan legislature say simple amendments would address their concerns. One would require tech companies to either build their own renewable-generation sources or use clean-energy programs in place with local utilities. Progressives are also demanding protections for electric rate payers. Michigan in 2016 rewrote its energy laws and shifted the grid’s cost burden from industrial to residential customers, and consumer advocates fear a scenario in which residents are forced to subsidize tech companies’ electricity use and infrastructure buildout. “Our concerns are pretty valid, and we absolutely have to have ratepayer protection, renewable-energy generation and water conservation attached to it,” McGillivray said. Data centers can draw up to 5m gallons of water daily because most use evaporative cooling systems to cool their operations. In 2016, a Nestlé bottled-water facility in Michigan ignited an acrimonious controversy when it proposed pulling just 576,000 gallons daily from the Great Lakes basin. Alternative systems that do not require high levels of water are cost-effective and environmental groups are pushing for stipulations that prohibit evaporative cooling. Negotiations are continuing this week, Bayer, the senator, said, and Democratic leadership is eager to pass the bills before the June summer break. It is unclear why some Democrats have resisted including environmental and consumer protections. “The big companies that want to come here can afford to pay a little of the bill and we have to make sure we protect ratepayers and the state’s resources – that is critical,” Bayer said. In a statement sent after the original publication of this article, state senator Kevin Hertel, one of the bills’ authors, said the legislation includes “more language to address environmental concerns than any of the 30 other states that have this tax policy in place currently”. He noted required energy efficiency standards for the buildings, but the bill’s language does not address the issues raised by environmental groups. “We are continuing to work with environmental organizations and others to address the concerns around energy and water use and to protect rate payers,” he said. This article was amended on 7 June 2024 to include the statement from Kevin Hertel. | ['us-news/michigan', 'technology/technology', 'environment/environment', 'business/energy-industry', 'us-news/us-news', 'technology/google', 'technology/amazon', 'technology/microsoft', 'environment/energy', 'world/world', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-perkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-06-03T11:00:31Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2024/apr/11/church-bells-cicadas-france-countryside-rural-noise-legislators | Who complains about church bells or cicadas in France? You’d be surprised | Dale Berning Sawa | The French parliament is taking aim at noise complaints in the countryside. Lawmakers say they are well acquainted with the problem of residents who have moved to the countryside from the big cities bemoaning the way livestock, church bells and other rural sounds impinge on their newly claimed right to pastoral quiet. A new law aims to stop these néoruraux (rural newcomers) from taking farmers to court over farming activities that were already happening long before they arrived. Opposition MPs have derided the new bill as hot air, because it mostly just reorganises existing bits of legislation. But what is new is an emphasis on what the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, calls le vivre-ensemble: living together in a respectful way – something I feel is sorely needed. I grew up in Aix-en-Provence, a town that likes to think of itself as an extension of Paris. In 2016, Parisian tourists holidaying in nearby Carry-le-Rouet garnered national attention when they complained about the chant des cigales (cicadas) in summer. In my mind, it’s easy to trace a link between gentrification-inflated property prices in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region and these nonsense complaints, which this new legislation aims to curb. Aix is not where I come back to during school holidays now. For the better part of the past decade, my parents have lived in a tiny village on the edge of the Cévennes national park. The truly rural sounds here reflect the hard lives being lived. It’s where I am right now. It’s just gone 4pm; the Catholic church’s bells have just rung eight times. Despite there being as few as 300 year-round inhabitants, the bells ring the hour twice, just metres from our beds – even through the hours of complete darkness when the street lights are switched off. They ring once on the half-hour too. A full-on fanfare, meanwhile, marks the day’s main services at 8am, midday and 7pm. It takes visiting friends a few nights to get used to it. Yesterday, during lunch, we heard the tinkling sounds of a different type of bell and everyone – kids, parents, grandparents – jumped up and ran outside to watch the herd of sheep and barking patou sheepdogs trot down the road and across the bridge to the other side of the village, headed for pastures downstream. Often they walk down my parents’ actual street. They poop everywhere and eat my mother’s pansies. My parents’ neighbours talk to each other from their respective upstairs windows, across the expanse of the street. There’s no need to leave home for a chat. They can hear each other just fine. The butcher’s opens up on to the alley behind the house, which means we hear every word when he’s in a raging mood. Empathising with whatever existential despair might be built into the profession, though, isn’t that hard when you think about the fact that his is one of the few upright businesses in a diminutive local economy. Making a living in an emptying countryside is no joke. The storms rage, too; the wind howls; the rivers swell and rush and burst their banks and flood the cellars. Night-time is full of bats and frogs. During termtime the sound of children playing ebbs and flows as the village school fills up for lessons, empties for lunch and then fills again until hometime. At weekends, passing bikers rev through on their way up the mountain. The summer holidays are marked by seemingly interminable fêtes du village, which always start out low-key, with Nutella crêpes, churros from a circus van and a live brass band. By the early hours, they have transformed into a booming knees-up that can be heard throughout the village, the beat bouncing off walls built long before even running water was a thing. But they always end, and you do sleep eventually, and the house stands unmoved. Its walls are built a metre thick, of stones from the river. Not even floods can shake them loose. Summer nights can sometimes be punctuated by drunken parties of weekending teenagers, the only noise I know of that has elicited an official police complaint. The hostel-hotel across the street hosts the occasionally raucous two-night birthday party. There’ll be neighbourly mumbling about noise past 10pm or parking on private land. But mostly people speak to each other and sort it out. They really do live, respectfully, together. Once, on an early-morning walk up her favourite road out of the village, my mother found a lady leaning on the gate at the end of her garden. “We come here for peace and quiet,” she said, “and here he is.” She gestured across the river to a man chopping wood with a machine: a kerclunk-kerclunk-thud, kerclunk-kerclunk-thud ping-ponging between the stony wooded walls of the narrow valley. But here’s the thing. It’s freezing cold here in the winter. Even in the summer, those thick stone walls act like fridges, and no amount of government green incentives can make heating these ancient houses affordable. Gardening, foraging for chestnuts and cèpes, hunting in hi-vis, tractors hauling hay and sweets onions: this is making ends meet, and it’s a struggle. Farmers across the country have been upturning village signs – ours included – in protest at agroindustrial policies they say are crushing them. I know living somewhere and visiting are two different things. But I have lived here and loved every aural moment of it, even when I didn’t. This is countryside clamour that is restorative simply because it’s still alive – and that’s what matters. Dale Berning Sawa is a freelance writer based in London | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/france', 'environment/farming', 'environment/farm-animals', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/dale-berning-sawa', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-04-11T06:00:24Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sport/2023/nov/27/a-great-step-forward-cricket-ecb-signs-up-to-un-climate-framework | ‘A great step forward’: ECB signs up to UN climate framework | The England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed on Monday that it is joining the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, becoming the first national cricketing governing body to sign up. The ECB joins the county clubs Gloucestershire and Surrey, the MCC, Melbourne Cricket Club and the International League T20 team Desert Vipers – as well as more than 200 other sporting and broadcasting organisations from the World Flying Disk Federation to the Lawn Tennis Association. Signatories sign up to five principles, encouraging them to embed environmental thinking into their decision making, and includes key targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 and of reaching net zero by 2040. “The UN Sports for Climate Framework is symbolic and shows the ECB’s intent to join other leaders in world sport,” said Dr Russell Seymour, chair of the British Association for Sustainable Sport. “It has to be someone senior, usually the chief executive, that signs the commitment and the data must be publicly reported before submission, so it gives leadership and transparency. So it’s a great step forward, but it is now what they do with it that will count.” The new Environmental Sustainability Plan for Cricket recognises the threat that climate change poses to the game and commits the ECB to improve its own sustainability as well as working with the professional and recreational games to do the same, under the headings Tackling Climate Change, Managing resources and Protecting the Natural Environment. The link to nature and biodiversity will please many who have long seen cricket grounds as valuable green oases in overcrowded cities or over-managed countryside. The document follows the ECB’s publication of extreme heat regulations after record breaking temperatures during the 2022 summer, and the increasing success of the County Grants Climate Change fund in the recreational game. Money is available to clubs for energy saving, water management, electric mowers or rollers, and drought and flood resistance. In 2022, 37 clubs won grants for solar projects, which has risen to 64 in 2023. The ECB is particularly keen for clubs to engage with flood resilience in the hope of pre-empting what has become increasing – and costly – storm damage, with two in five clubs at risk. Storm Babet in October resulted in 23 clubs asking for emergency assistance. All this is days before the start of Cop28, on the back of the recent, sobering, Game Changer 2 report, a men’s World Cup marred by air pollution, and the International Cricket Council’s sponsorship deal with Aramco, the Saudi-owned oil company. | ['sport/ecb', 'campaign/email/the-spin', 'sport/cricket', 'sport/sport-politics', 'sport/sport', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/tanyaaldred', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/ecb | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-11-27T08:00:46Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2020/may/25/country-diary-the-wonder-of-mays-mossy-messy-alchemy | Country diary: the wonder of May's mossy, messy alchemy | Country diary | Above the thick canopy of oak, hazel and sycamore, the spring sun burns brightly, but by the time it reaches the understorey of the ghyll it has been diffused into a witchlike green glow. In this world below, it is a riot of life and dereliction. The mossy limbs of a collapsed hazel straggle anarchically across the foundations of a vanished structure, reminding me of the huge roots of a strangler fig constricting the ruins of an Angkor temple. Clumps of hart’s-tongue fern, their lurid fronds curling at the top, sprout from mossed-up rubble, leeching life from the lime mortar that once held a building together. The beck tumbles through old watermill workings, which are slowly being prised apart by ivy and erosion. Bricks, branches, mosses, trees, ferns and flowers pile on top of each other in a lush, lawless scramble, where the treasured distinction between “artificial” and “natural” has all but disappeared. The ruins that are slowly being digested in the green belly of the ghyll are probably from the 19th century, but here they look like the remnants of a lost rainforest civilisation. There is a strange sense of cultural amnesia. This ravine is a forgotten fold in the landscape, where sunken woodland surrounds abandoned mills that have been repurposed as scrapyards and rubbish dumps; the extinct industrial culture of northern England is being slowly composted by nature, or has rubbish heaped on its remains. But even so, the atmosphere is charged with the dark alchemy of May. Rot and soil are somehow transmuted into an open-air festival of new colour: flames of bluebell; white sparkles of greater stitchwort; lavish foams of hawthorn blossom that smell sweet and shocking at the same time. Most startling of all is the wild garlic (Allium ursinum). The globe-shaped heads of its star-shaped white flowers carpet the ghyll in their thousands, piling up like snow drifts, and almost completely swamping a precariously buckling bridge. Lit by splashes of sunlight, the flowers look impossibly bright and clean, but the pong they emit is anything but: a heady May miasma, created by the conjuring of new life from decay. | ['environment/rivers', 'environment/plants', 'environment/environment', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk-news/yorkshire', 'environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/forests', 'environment/spring', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/carey-davies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-05-25T04:30:41Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2024/oct/03/typhoon-krathon-makes-landfall-in-taiwan | Typhoon Krathon hits Taiwan, killing two people and wreaking destruction | Typhoon Krathon has made landfall in Taiwan, bringing destructive wind and rain to the island’s second biggest city. The storm has killed at least two people, with several more reported missing and more than 120 injured. After hovering off Taiwan’s south-west coast for several days, Krathon hit Kaohsiung at about 12.40pm local time on Thursday, with powerful storm surges and wind gusts of nearly 100mph that tore roofs from buildings, downed trees and tossed shipping containers around ports. At least nine people also died in a hospital fire on Thursday morning, just a few kilometres from where Krathon made landfall. The fire is not believed to be linked to the typhoon, but authorities battled to evacuate hundreds of patients from the hospital amid the severe weather conditions. Krathon had reached super typhoon status earlier in the week, after passing through the islands in the northern Philippines, but stalled in the open seas to Taiwan’s south-west and weakened before crossing the coastline as the equivalent of a category one typhoon. Residents received texts early on Thursday warning them to stay inside, but the Kaohsiung mayor, Chen Chi-mai, said there were still too many people outside. “Looking at surveillance cameras we can see there are a lot of people out riding scooters under such strong wind and rain, which is really very dangerous,” he said. Several landslides were also reported around the island, including in the far north-east, as the outer bands of the slow-moving storm covered much of Taiwan’s main island, bringing more than 1.6 metres of rain to some areas far from the storm’s centre. Authorities took extra precautions with this storm, after Taiwan was hit by the very strong Typhoon Gaemi, equivalent to a category 4 hurricane, in July. Gaemi killed 11 people in Taiwan, brought widespread flooding including to Kaohsiung’s city centre and grounded several ships. Offices, classes and financial markets were shut across all of Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday, and hundreds of flights were grounded. More than 38,000 troops had been placed on standby and almost 10,000 people evacuated from some mountainous areas. Two reported deaths occurred before the storm made landfall. Rescue authorities said on Wednesday afternoon that one man in his 70s had died after falling from a tree and two were missing – one having fallen into rough seas and another swept away by a river, according to government news services. On Thursday morning, a truck driver was reported killed after a falling boulder struck his vehicle. At least 70 injuries have also been reported, mostly in the east coast county of Taitung, which has been battered by high winds and rain. One person was reported missing in the central county of Yunlin. The storm’s impact zone mirrored a destructive 1977 storm that killed 37 people, with authorities citing this to urge extreme caution. While Taiwan is frequently hit by typhoons, it is rare for them to make landfall on the densely populated west coast. The storm is expected to weaken as it travels up the western plain of Taiwan, reverting back to a tropical depression before hitting the capital, Taipei, on Friday. | ['world/taiwan', 'weather/taiwan', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-03T11:41:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2011/jan/16/undercover-mark-kennedy-iceland-police | Undercover police officer accused Icelandic police of 'brutality' | Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who posed as an environmental activist for seven years and helped found the protest movement in Iceland, accused the country's police of brutality and inciting "potentially fatal" violence towards protesters. Kennedy made the accusations in an article he wrote for a book about the 2005 protest in Iceland against the Kárahnjúkar dam. It was so powerful that activists later used it in evidence against the police in a court case. In the article, Kennedy accused police of acting with "ignorance and [a] complete disregard for the safety of people around them". He added: "Their inability to address the situation could have been potentially fatal and certainly encouraged acts of violence by the security guards without fear of retribution. "The police's ignorance and inabilities is to our advantage," he warned. "Their lack of understanding is our element of surprise. "In effect they and their governmental and corporate puppet masters are startled and confounded by the tide of protest and direct action," he added. "The environmental destruction that is happening throughout Iceland and beyond will continue to be protested and fought against whatever police tactics or corporate intimidation." Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic parliament for the Movement party, was a co-editor of the book. "There were discussions about the book and who would or could write about different bits and pieces among the activists. Kennedy wanted to write about police brutality against the activists," she said. "I thought his piece was honest and was happy to include it." In an email Kennedy wrote to Jónsdóttir when he sent her the article, he explained why he felt compelled to write it: "I have not really done this before but really wanted to give my interpretation of the collusion between police and Impregilo [the construction company] and the subsequent danger that their actions brought to people on the second blockade." A campaigner who was at the 2005 protest and knew Kennedy well said the article was "very much in tune with the general feeling among the people in the camp at the time. But," he added, " I find it interesting how little attention he brings to … the reasons for taking this action." Ólafur Páll Jónsson, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland and author of a book on issues concerning the environment and democracy, said the article accurately describes the "utter inability of the police to deal decently with the situation". "It also draws out the close relation between the police and the private security guards that may be questionable," he added. "But I find it having little bearing on what I find to be the main issue, which is the relation to the UK police and their reasons for sending someone to Iceland." | ['uk/mark-kennedy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'world/iceland', 'world/protest', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/ameliahill', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-01-16T18:32:21Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2023/sep/07/sun-cable-mike-cannon-brookes-takes-charge-of-world-changing-solar-project | Sun Cable: Mike Cannon-Brookes takes charge of ‘world-changing’ solar project | The tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has renewed plans by the Sun Cable project to develop giant solar farms in inland Australia to supply electricity to Darwin – and to Singapore via an undersea cable. Grok Ventures, the private investment company of Cannon-Brookes, on Thursday finalised its acquisition of Sun Cable, months after a dispute between its billionaire backers threatened to derail the huge solar project. The company said Sun Cable was “well-progressed and in a strong position to deliver the AAPowerLink project” to Singapore via Indonesia. It planned to lodge a submission to Singaporean authorities as soon as this month to supply power to the island state. “The next commodities boom in this country will not be founded on coal,” Cannon-Brookes told a media call. “It will be founded on the generation and export of our renewable energy. Sun Cable is a world-changing project.” Sun Cable retained its earlier plans to supply electricity from a solar farm in the Northern Territory to Darwin by 2030 and by the early 2030s for Singapore. Costs remain confidential. Doubts about the viability of a project touted to cost $30bn or more, and involving an undersea cable of 4,300km in length, were confirmed earlier this year when Sun Cable was placed into administration. Cannon-Brookes and fellow billionaire and part-owner Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest also declared different objectives for the company. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Cannon-Brookes, a co-founder of Atlassian, beat Forrest in May for control of Sun Cable. He said Grok Ventures injected $65m into the company while it was in administration. “We’re focused on investing in climate tech and climate transition to create a better tomorrow,” he said, adding that companies such as Sun Cable “can deliver major CO2 reduction and outsized investment returns”. “Sun Cable’s projects are ambitious,” Cannon-Brookes said. “However, this ambition is proportionate to the challenges and opportunities of the renewable energy transition. “So while I acknowledge some people might think it’s too ambitious, we don’t believe it is. “Frankly, the technology exists to make this happen. We’re extremely confident that modern cable technology can reliably carry more electricity over long distances and through deeper waters than was possible in the past.” All up the firm aims to develop a solar farm that would eventually swell to 6 gigawatts of renewable energy. A first stage would have 900 megawatts of capacity to supply Darwin. A cable capable of connecting Singapore with 1.75 gigawatts of power would later be built and connected. There would also be “a significant amount of battery storage” to provide firming and electricity around the clock. Sun Cable would expand to be able to supply another 3 gigawatts of power to Darwin – making it the world’s largest solar array. Jeremy Kwong-Law, the chief executive of Grok Ventures, said the company had “a high degree of confidence” that Sun Cable and its power link would get the required funding as project milestones are reached. The company would also continue talks with the Indonesian government to obtain a licence to lay the cable through its territorial waters. Grok Ventures said Sun Cable had already received expressed interest for about six-times its first supply to Darwin, and more customer interest in Singapore for as much as 2.5GW – or 1.5 times the cable’s capacity – of power. Singapore’s government has a target to import at least 4GW of renewable sources by 2035. | ['environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/mike-cannon-brookes', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'world/singapore', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2023-09-07T08:12:15Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2019/oct/10/extinction-rebellion-labor-members-say-chilling-mass-arrests-have-echoes-of-bjelke-petersen-era | Extinction Rebellion: Labor members say 'chilling' mass arrests have echoes of Bjelke-Petersen era | Labor members from inner-Brisbane have unanimously passed a resolution condemning the mass arrests of climate activists and describing the Queensland government’s proposed crackdown as “eerily reminiscent” of the state’s authoritarian Bjelke-Petersen era. The Labor premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, this week announced plans to rush consultation on new laws that target climate change protesters, expanding police search powers and banning “locking” devices. A parliamentary hearing has been hastily organised and will take place on Friday. Public submissions have not yet been released. Guardian Australia understands the government’s proposals – in particular the decision to fast-track them – have created considerable unease within parts of the Labor movement. Senior Labor left figures have privately expressed concerns that the crackdown – justified by unsupported claims about activists and the government’s lack of patience with disruptive acts of civil disobedience – could be used as a precedent for a future conservative government to block union marches. “The right to protest or strike is part of what Labor was built on,” one state MP said. “There’s been a big push to say this is about safety, or dangerous devices, but at the same time the premier has made clear to everyone she’s fed up with the disruption. I shudder to think what happens next if we’re saying it’s OK to make laws because we don’t like someone or don’t like their protest tactics.” That sentiment was echoed this week by the party’s Annerley branch, in Brisbane’s inner-south. Rank-and-file members unanimously passed a motion that made clear their strong opposition to the government’s rhetoric and proposed laws. “It was chilling to see the mass arrests of people who had been protesting in Brisbane streets in August 2019, and to see the bail conditions imposed on them,” the resolution reads. “People in Queensland, and in Queensland Labor, have been fighting corruption in our institutions since it became entrenched during the Bjelke-Petersen government. During those times, we were willing to demonstrate in the streets against uranium mining, for Indigenous land rights, against the sacking of electricity workers and for the right to march in our streets. Many members of the Labor party were frequently arrested for exercising their basic democratic rights, and commonly charged with disobeying a police direction, along with other charges. “To learn that non-violent protest would be criminalised with special legislative measures, along with police powers of search of persons and vehicles suspected of carrying a device are eerily reminiscent of the powers given to police during the Bjelke-Petersen era. “As union members, we should be extremely concerned by the potential for harsh penalties imposed on innocuous activities such as trespass on agricultural land. Once that activity is penalised harshly it could lead to penalising union members and community supporters for blocking an entrance to a workplace as part of a picket line. If these proposed changes are implemented, any future Liberal National party government would strengthen these laws to be used against, and to the detriment of, the trade union movement in Queensland.” The resolution condemns the arrest of Extinction Rebellion activists and charges of refusing to obey police directions. It says branch members “deplore the imposition of bail conditions” with restrictive terms, such as prohibiting people from entering the Brisbane CBD, claiming they appear to contradict the state’s Human Rights Act. The resolution also calls on the government to “dispel the idea that nonviolent protest includes any tactics which may cause harm to emergency services workers” and to “respect our own history of dissent against injustice and reflect this in all laws they propose, to encourage - not discourage – the freedom of speech and assembly”. On Thursday, the party’s New Farm branch posted on social media that motor vehicles were “the type of dangerous device we should be tightening the laws for”. In its submission to parliament, the Australian Conservation Foundation said it was “deeply concerned” about the proposed bill. “Queensland Police already possess appropriate powers to search or detain protestors within the law,” the submission says. “Increased policing powers should be backed by a strong evidence base which details the need for additional power, especially where those powers erode important individual liberties. Otherwise, these proposed laws are unfounded, unnecessary and undemocratic.” “ACF is not aware of any evidence to justify the Queensland parliament imposing unnecessary and draconian policing powers and criminal penalties that will undermine democratic freedoms.” Palaszczuk has sought to defend her government’s record on climate change while at the same time – facing pressure from conservative local press – seeking to disrupt Extinction Rebellion protests that have grown in size and momentum. The state’s approach is under heavy scrutiny because of its position on new thermal coal mines and its pivot in support of the coal industry after the federal election. Queensland is home to the world’s most controversial coal proposal, and the climate-threatened Great Barrier Reef. | ['australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/brisbane', 'australia-news/labor-party', 'australia-news/annastacia-palaszczuk', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/queensland-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-10-10T02:55:08Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2016/nov/22/australia-failing-to-protect-great-barrier-reef-from-shipping-disasters-say-lawyers | Australia failing to protect Great Barrier Reef from shipping disasters, say lawyers | The government is failing to protect the reef from the effects of shipping disasters, according to environmental lawyers, who say inaction to secure remediation funds will become a bigger problem as shipping traffic increases. The issue could cause a problem for Australia when it reports to the Unesco world heritage committee within the next two weeks, on the state of the reef and how it is acting to protect it. When the Chinese coal carrier the Shen Neng 1 ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in 2010, it scraped a three-kilometre scar along the surface of the reef and left behind tonnes of toxic paint. Cleaning up the mess was delayed for six years, because the government didn’t have any funds available for restitution of “non-pollution” damage and the government had to initiate a lengthy court battle. In a press release announcing an out-of-court settlement in September, Russell Reichelt, the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, said: “It is clearly unsatisfactory that it has taken more than six years to reach this point of settlement with the owners of Shen Neng 1, the Shenzhen Energy Transport Company.” But that unacceptable delay had been acknowledged by government agencies as far back as 2014 and recommendations made back then have still not been implemented. In October 2014 the North-East Shipping Management Plan was published. It included a discussion of the problem and made a recommendation: “GBRMPA and AMSA [Australian Maritime Safety Authority] to investigate means of securing funding for restitution of non-pollution damage to coral reefs following a shipping incident.” In an exclusive interview with Guardian Australia, Reichelt said there had been discussions about trying to achieve that aim but nothing concrete had been developed. He said the likely scenario would be some sort of “sovereign fund” that could be drawn on immediately if there was an accident, allowing clean-up to occur before the ship owners were pursued for compensation. But he said the system was legally complex and the issue of shipping damage a serious one but not as high on his priority list as climate change and water quality. “So don’t hold your breath.” The recommendation in the shipping plan forms part of the government’s Reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan, which the government produced to avoid the reef being included on Unesco’s “list of world heritage in danger”. The government is required on its implementation of the plan to report to Unesco’s World Heritage Centre in less than two weeks and appears to have done nothing on the increasing risk from shipping accidents, said Ariane Wilkinson, a lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia. “Two years ago, the North-East Shipping Management Group made it clear that there must be sufficient money available to immediately clean up damage to the Great Barrier Reef from future ship groundings but nothing has been done,” Wilkinson said. “With the number of ships travelling through the reef only increasing, especially if the port of Abbot Point is expanded to ship coal from the proposed Carmichael mine straight through the reef, the next Shen Neng disaster is not a question of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when’.” Noni Austin, an Australian lawyer at US-based Earthjustice, said the world heritage committee was watching closely to make sure Australia was doing all it could to protect the Great Barrier Reef. “In December this year, the federal government must report to the committee on its progress in implementing the Reef 2050 plan, in which it committed to improving capacity to respond to shipping incidents,” Austin said. “The government prepared the Reef 2050 plan after the world heritage committee had such serious concerns about the future of the reef that it considered whether to place the reef on the ‘list of world heritage in danger’. “Since that time, the coral bleaching catastrophe killed almost a quarter of coral on the reef. If the government cannot demonstrate that sufficient money is available to immediately clean up the next shipping disaster, then it is simply failing to protect our reef.” Reichelt said GBRMPA was taking the issue seriously and had a number of meetings with the Department of Environment and Energy. “I think clearly if we get some movement on some new regime for faster response, that would be a good thing,” he said. Reichelt said he doubted Unesco would raise the issue directly in upcoming meetings, since shipping was not one of the headline issues. “I was at a meeting of world heritage property managers a couple of weeks ago and they didn’t ask me about that,” Reichelt said. “They were mainly worried about climate change and water quality and illegal fishing and other things. “And the other thing is, when you look around the world, I don’t think there are any places with higher shipping standards.” | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/queensland', 'world/world', 'world/unesco', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-11-21T19:08:17Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2014/may/29/world-weatherwatch-china-flood-pacific-hurricane-el-nino | World Weatherwatch | Widespread downpours have deluged southern China over the past week, leading to severe flooding and the evacuation of thousands of people. Worst affected have been Guangdong, Jiangxi and Guizhou Provinces where over 30 people have reportedly been killed and over 100,000 people displaced by floodwater. 600mm of rain has been recorded in less than a week in parts of Guangdong Province, which is roughly what London can expect in a whole year. The development of a strong El Niño has been much-reported over the past few months, a phenomenon marked by the strong warming of sea-surface water in the eastern Pacific and cooling in the west Pacific. El Niño can have huge impacts on Pacific, and even global, weather, with droughts in eastern Asia and Australia and abnormally wet conditions in western America. Another facet of El Niño is for more frequent east Pacific hurricanes to develop over the warmer waters. In the past week, hurricane Amanda developed off the Pacific coast of Mexico into a strong category 4 status with 155mph winds, making Amanda the strongest May hurricane on record in the east Pacific and giving a potentially ominous sign of an active season to come in the region. New Zealand has had its first significant snowfall of the autumn, with up to half a metre of snow falling on the South Island ski centres around Queenstown and Wanaka. It was reported that 30cm of snow closed Queenstown Airport, whilst the same weather system brought strong winds, heavy rain and falling trees to North Island, cutting off power to over 3000 homes in Wairarapa. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/flooding', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-05-29T20:30:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/jun/23/latest-diesel-car-models-remain-highly-polluting-tests-show | Latest diesel car models remain highly polluting, tests show | The latest diesel car models are failing to meet pollution limits when on the road, just three months ahead of stricter new tests, independent tests have found. Results show that none of six new 2017 diesel cars met the EU standard for toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution in real-world driving. The updated Equa Index, produced by the testing firm Emissions Analytics, shows that 86% of all diesel models put on to the British market since the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal failed to meet the official limit on the road, with 15% producing at least eight times more NOx emissions. Levels of NOx, emitted mostly by diesel vehicles, have been illegally high in 90% of the UK’s urban areas since 2010. The toxic fumes are estimated to cause 23,500 early deaths a year and the problem has been called a public health emergency by a cross-party committee of MPs. Ministers have already lost twice in the courts over the adequacy of government air quality plans and are being sued again over their latest proposals, which were published on 5 May but widely condemned as inadequate. The government’s own analysis shows clean air zones in urban centres, where charges deter the most polluting vehicles, are the most effective way to cut pollution quickly. But Nick Molden, CEO of Emissions Analytics, said the wide variation in real-world performance of diesel cars undermines such plans. The government has indicated that any charging plans would exempt cars meeting the latest Euro 6 standard. But while some new Euro 6 diesel cars, for example the BMW 5 Series, meet the official limit when on the road, others pump out far more pollution, with the Nissan Qashqai, for example, emitting 18 times the official limit. “These high-emitting vehicles will leave a long legacy and a dilemma for the proposed clean air zones: how can you change on the basis of Euro standards if there is such a wild divergence in performance?” Molden said. The latest Equa Index update, which adds 20 new models to its database, shows that 70% of the diesels launched in 2016 and 2017 emit at least double the official NOx limit when on the road. That level of emissions was the standard set for Euro 4 in 2005. The most polluting of the new 2017 models tested are Land Rover Discovery, Maserati Quattroporte and Suzuki Vitara models, though all meet current legal standards. The current official test for NOx emissions from diesel cars is laboratory-based, and carmakers have adapted their vehicles to pass this while emitting far more NOx in real-world driving. Volkswagen was caught cheating the test and other carmakers are still being investigated. Molden said software upgrades from manufacturers would quickly and significantly cut the emissions of many existing diesel cars. But apart from VW cars, few vehicles in Europe have been recalled. Julia Poliscanova, from the campaign group Transport & Environment, said: “Governments should require carmakers to recall and fix these dirty diesels. It would prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths every year in Europe and beyond.” She said the latest Equa Index data showed a continuing failure by regulatory authorities: “Only three months from the new rules and almost two years after Dieselgate exposed widespread cheating on diesel emissions, regulators continue to approve vehicles that are up to 12 times more polluting than the legal limit. This demonstrates the corrupt system where the purse of carmakers rules over public health.” From September, new diesel models will have to pass stricter, more realistic driving tests, although they will still be allowed to emit double the official limit to allow for suggested uncertainties in the measurements. Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which represents the UK motor industry, said: “What has been proven by official UK government emissions tests is that new cars meet legal requirements. A new, official and robust emissions test will be in place this September, with cars tested on the road for the first time, meaning industry is meeting the toughest standards in the world. He said: “Industry is committed to improving air quality across our towns and cities, and we look forward to working with government to encourage the uptake of the latest, low-emission vehicles, regardless of fuel type.” | ['environment/pollution', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'politics/transport', 'business/automotive-industry', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/air-pollution', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-06-23T10:33:14Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2003/feb/10/energy.nuclearindustry | Atomic energy is not the answer | The Royal Society are the most distinguished scientists of the British establishment, so when they demand that the government show "political courage" and build a new generation of nuclear power stations, it carries a lot of weight. The problem is that it this advice is completely wrong, and demonstrates how out of touch scientists are with the real world, and how careless they are about the future of Britain and the planet. In fact, it is worse than that. They out of touch with modern science, living in a sort of time warp, where nuclear power is the answer to limitless free power instead of being, as we know now, the most expensive form of electricity generation. The society's argument in favour of nuclear power appears to be that it is an industry which still has a great deal of promise, and is the only large scale method of generating power that does not pump large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If we are serious about tackling global warming, it argues, we need more nuclear stations. If the government needs political courage, it is to ignore their former chief scientific advisor, Lord May, president of the Royal Society, his distinguished colleagues and a chorus of other influential bodies, all of which support the nuclear camp. The Royal Society advances the defeatist and plain wrong argument that renewable energy sources will never never produce enough power to plug any gap left by closing nuclear stations. This supposes that by 2020, renewables could not be producing 20% of Britain's power. If we take just one renewable, wind power, which belatedly is getting the government and business support it deserves, the UK could be well on its way to 20% by 2020. Denmark, admittedly a smaller consumer of electricity, is already at that level, and will be at 40% soon. Other renewables - methane from rubbish and animal dung, wood-burning power stations and small scale hydro-power - are all valuable contributors, but would produce only a relatively small percentage of the total energy needed. The biggest opportunities are with the sun and sea. Solar is now a rapidly growing worldwide industry, which has potential in the UK. But it is to wave power and tidal turbines that any government with political courage should be looking. Brian Wilson, the energy minister, has given wave power a helping hand, 20 years after Margaret Thatcher killed research, after being advised by the scientific establishment of the day that it was too expensive. It now promises to cheaper than nuclear. Still in its infancy, tidal power uses deep sea currents round the British Isles. It is already a well understood technology - all it needs is investment and political will to allow a new world-beating industry to develop into providing power for perhaps 50% of the UK's needs. Energy policy for the last 50 years has been characterised by throwing good money after bad into the nuclear industry, with a bill exceeding £40bn just for dealing with the waste - a bill the taxpayer has yet to face. Just a fraction of that money could kick-start renewable industries, creating thousands of new jobs and harnessing the power of the sea to make the UK self sufficient in renewables. Add wind, wave, tidal power, and solar together and the UK has more than enough potential to be a net exporter of power to the continent. But that requires vision and political courage, neither of which the Royal Society appears to have. · Paul Brown is the Guardian's environment correspondent | ['environment/energy', 'education/science', 'environment/environment', 'education/higher-education', 'business/business', 'education/education', 'uk/uk', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/wave-tidal-hydropower', 'environment/biofuels', 'tone/comment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/green-economy', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2003-02-10T17:42:08Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/davehillblog/2012/apr/17/jenny-jones-green-party-london-mayoral-manifesto | How to go Green without ignoring your head | Jenny Jones is not going to be London's next mayor, but that doesn't mean casting a vote for her would be wasted. The joy of the supplementary vote system (SV) is that, like its longer relative the alternative vote system, it enables you to mark crosses on ballot papers in accordance with the different things your heart and your head might be telling you. Londoners get not one but two votes for mayor - a first and a second preference. An awful lot of people - including, it seems, some very august commentators - are unaware of this. A lot of those who are aware might not have figured out the implications in terms of what the opinion polls are telling us about the possible outcome of the mayoral race. It is absolutely plain that either Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone is going to win - they are miles ahead of the rest of the field - but if you like Jenny's policies best, you can still give her your first preference (the choice of the heart) and bestow your second preference on Boris or Ken depending on which of the two you like most or dislike least (the choice of the head). In this way you can vote according to principle and tactically at the same time, should you so wish - simultaneously honouring your electoral conscience and having a possibly crucial impact on who actually wins. Under SV it's almost certain that second preference votes for either of the two frontrunners will, in the end, be of equal value to them as first preferences. That is because neither frontrunner is on course to win the more than 50% of first preference votes he'd need in order to make second preferences irrelevant. The same "heart" option exists if you like Brian Paddick best, or Siobhan Benita or anyone else who isn't Boris or Ken. So why might your heart go Green? In my case, there are three main reasons. One: Transport polices that recognise that economic efficiency and environmental quality of life can and should be entirely consistent goals in modern cities. I don't share the apparent Green aversion to fossil fuelled motor vehicles, but I do think that our capitalist metropolis would function both more profitably and more pleasantly if many fewer clogged London's roads. That's why I like their proposal for a London-wide pay-as-you-go road-pricing system and accompanying pledge that the cost of travelling by public transport should always be lower than going by car. Two: A good vote yield for Jenny would further establish Green Party politics in the London politics mainstream. As London Assembly members, she and her colleague Darren Johnson have brought variety, industry, persistence and - most importantly - some good influence to bear on mayoral policy, particularly when Ken was mayor. Three: My unscientific judgement is that the Guardian's crowdsourced manifesto for a model mayor overlaps to a greater degree with Jenny's than with that of any other candidate. Something else they have in common is a high degree of idealism, though not to the point of outright impracticality. This is a good thing. Yes, the Greens can afford to dream big dreams because they know their own supporters do the same and because they also know that no amount of pragmatic positioning will win them City Hall anyway. But we need idealism. When I read the Green manifesto, an idealistic kind of London forms in my mind - a sort of hybrid of small-is-beautiful socialism, peaceful anarchism and humane thrift. Yes, I know it's a long way off, but where the heart is concerned why not aim high? Also, Vote Match says I'm more Green than anything else, with Ken in second place. Jen plus Ken on my mayoral ballot paper? Could be. | ['politics/jenny-jones', 'politics/livingstone', 'politics/brianpaddick', 'politics/london-mayoral-election-2012', 'politics/politics', 'politics/london', 'uk/london', 'politics/boris-johnson', 'politics/conservatives', 'politics/green-party', 'environment/green-politics', 'politics/labour', 'uk/davehillblog', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/davehill'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-04-17T14:18:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
lifeandstyle/2016/jul/29/stung-by-one-deadliest-creatures-earth-experience | Experience: I was stung by one of the deadliest creatures on Earth | I moved to Sydney, Australia, after finishing my master’s degree at Nottingham University. I was winging it: I just turned up with a suitcase. I got a couple of jobs, in internet marketing and as a private tutor, and met an Australian woman, Chloe. About a year after I arrived, I was off work on a beautiful summer’s day and fancied some peace and quiet, away from all the tourists who flock to Bondi. Chloe had told me about Gordons Bay, a small, secluded beach nearby, and I was looking forward to listening to music, reading and relaxing. There was hardly anybody there and I settled on some large rocks to sunbathe. It was postcard perfect: serene, azure sky and a calm, green sea. It was the hottest part of the day and, after reading for a while, I decided to cool off and jumped into the water. It was warm and I remember feeling happy. I swam away from the rocks and kicked back to float, looking at the sky. That’s when the pain struck. My first thought was that a shark had taken my right leg. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew I was in danger. I expected to see my blood billowing around me in the water, but there was nothing. This magnified my panic; I didn’t know what was causing the pain or which direction to swim to avoid it. My heart was racing and every one of my muscles tensed, then went into spasm. I was in blinding pain all over. I lost the ability to speak or think. My internal voice had stopped. I could barely breathe. I believed I was going to die. I tried to swim, but felt very tired. I thought that if I went to sleep, it would all be easier when I woke up. But I went into autopilot and somehow managed to get myself to the rocks. There were thin red lines across my right shin that looked as if they’d been drawn with a pen. A scuba diver ran over. He said he’d seen box jellyfish in the area. I wouldn’t have been able to see them in the water. I didn’t know then that they are one of the deadliest creatures on Earth. Their tentacles pump venom into the skin that attacks blood cells and can lead to cardiac arrest. He told me I’d been stung by one and needed to get to hospital immediately. All my conscious decision-making facilities had left me, and I wasn’t able to process what he said. I walked away. He called after me, but my only instinct was to get home. The next thing I knew, I was in my apartment with a bag of peas on my leg. I still don’t understand the sequence of events. I lay down, and for an eternity I didn’t move. I didn’t feel like I’d been awake or asleep. I couldn’t think of what to do or how to communicate. I was a prisoner in my own body. After a day or two, the poison began subsiding. My foot had swollen massively – my little toe was the size of a big toe. Those thin red lines had started corroding, and the poison had eaten away at my skin, revealing the muscle and bone underneath. It looked as if someone had taken a jagged axe and tried to chop off my foot. I managed to call Chloe and show her. The next thing I knew, we were on our way to hospital. The doctor asked why I hadn’t come in sooner. I tried to explain. I asked if there was anything he could do, but he said the toxins had gone through my system: there was nothing they could do except clean the wound. He told me I was lucky the jellyfish had stung me on my leg; if it had been on my chest, I would not have made it. I left Australia pretty quickly after that. I have a scar, still walk with a limp and have pain in my hip. I wonder about the long-term effect on my brain and body as a result of the toxins, but there’s very little data on this. I think my delay in getting treatment was down to the shock. Chloe and I are still friends, although the relationship didn’t work out. I now run a startup in Silicon Valley. Sometimes I think about setting up a box jellyfish survivors’ group – Indigenous Australians say that you inhabit the power of any animal that stings you. That makes us pretty indestructible. • As told to Sophie Haydock Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com | ['lifeandstyle/series/experience', 'society/health', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/features', 'society/society', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'lifeandstyle/swimming', 'lifeandstyle/fitness', 'type/article', 'profile/sophie-haydock', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/starters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/weekend'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-07-29T12:59:05Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/blog/audio/2010/oct/12/stephen-fry-windows-phone-7-audio | Tech Weekly podcast: Stephen Fry's verdict on Windows Phone 7. Flip Video, 4iP and Google Cars | Join Aleks Krotoski, Jemima Kiss and Charles Arthur on Tech Weekly for a programme about transformations: Microsoft takes the plunge into the mobile market, Google launches a car, and 4IP goes from online autonomy to being integrated into the public service Borg. Charles grills Ashley Highfield, head of Microsoft UK, about the Windows Phone 7, and gets a few choice words from comedian and polymath Stephen Fry, whose technophilia knows no bounds. Gareth Jones of Cisco tells Charles about the latest transformation in the Flip camera series. Spoiler alert: not much has changed since our July 2009 interview with the company. Oh dear. There's all the usual news, views and clever quips from the team that make this week's podcast simply unmissable. So please don't. Don't forget to ... • Comment below • Mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk • Get our Twitter feed for programme updates or follow our Twitter list • Join our Facebook group • See our pics on Flickr/Post your tech pics | ['technology/series/techweekly', 'technology/mobilephones', 'technology/microsoft', 'culture/stephen-fry', 'media/ashleyhighfield', 'technology/google', 'technology/motoring', 'media/channel4', 'media/digital-media', 'technology/startups', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/cisco', 'technology/digitalvideo', 'technology/technology', 'technology/blog', 'media/pda', 'media/media', 'tone/interview', 'type/podcast', 'type/audio'] | technology/digitalvideo | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2010-10-13T08:03:47Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
us-news/2024/oct/02/hurricane-helene-death-toll | Biden visits North and South Carolina as Hurricane Helene death toll rises | At least 166 people have died from Hurricane Helene, many are still missing and more than a million people remained without power as rescue and recovery efforts continued from the devastating storm. Hundreds of people were missing in Buncombe county, home to Asheville, earlier this week, and 85 people were missing in Tennessee, CNN reported. Joe Biden landed on Wednesday afternoon in Greer, South Carolina, where he was met by South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, Senator Lindsey Graham and the North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, among others.Before leaving Washington, the US president directed up to 1,000 active-duty troops to immediately deploy to assist with recovery efforts. Biden toured the impacted area from his Marine One helicopter, flying over flooded roads, down trees and rubble and emergency trucks and downed power lines. In one area, homes were partly under water, and it was hard to distinguish between lake and land. In Washington, Biden had said a strike by dockworkers in the US could make getting supplies to hard-hit areas more difficult. “Natural disasters are incredibly consequential. The last thing we need on top of that is a man-made disaster that’s going on at the ports,” Biden said. “We’re hearing from the folks regionally that they’re having trouble getting product that they need because of the port strike.” Meanwhile, Kamala Harris arrived in Georgia on Wednesday and praised the workers straining to “meet the needs of people who must be seen, who must be heard”. She will visit North Carolina in the coming days. Donald Trump traveled to Georgia earlier in the week. The vice-president was in the city of Augusta, where fallen trees littered the sides of the highway amid scenes of devastation. “I’ve been reading and hearing about the work you’ve been doing over the last few days, and I think it really does represent some of the best of what we each know can be done,” Harris said. “Especially when we coordinate around local, state, federal resources to meet the needs of people who must be seen, who must be heard.” She added: “I am now listening.” Nearly 1.3 million people were without power in several south-eastern states as of 7.30am ET, according to the site poweroutage.us, which tracks outages. That total includes more than 373,000 people in Georgia, nearly 494,000 in South Carolina, and more than 347,000 in North Carolina. More than 40,000 people were still without power in Florida and Virginia, as well as an additional 10,000 people in West Virginia. Several areas affected by the storm are also struggling to find drinking water. In Asheville, about 100,000 people were without running water, according to the Washington Post. Residents are boiling water and washing themselves and dishes in creeks, the Post reported. Fema delivered a cargo plane of food, water and emergency supplies on Tuesday, CNN reported. Residents of Augusta have also not had running water for three days and several are under a boil water advisory. Biden and some lawmakers from affected states, including Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, suggested earlier this week he would call on Congress, which is on recess, to pass additional disaster relief funding. But that does not seem likely. A stopgap funding measure Congress passed last month allows Fema to more quickly use $20bn in disaster relief funds. About $6bn of those funds, however, were expected to be used to address relief for previous disasters, including Vermont flooding and Hawaii wildfires, according to Roll Call. “Congress has previously provided the funds it needs to respond, so we will make sure that those resources are appropriately allocated,” House speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report | ['us-news/hurricane-helene', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'us-news/south-carolina', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/tennessee', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sam-levine', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | us-news/hurricane-helene | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-02T21:00:48Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/2014/feb/02/raining-men-tory-party-harriet-harman | It's raining men in the Tory party, says Harriet Harman after Ofsted sacking | Sally Morgan, the former head of government relations in Downing Street under Tony Blair, was the perfect candidate to chair Ofsted when Michael Gove was still in awe of the Labour leader he called The Master. In the autumn of 2010, when Gove was lining up Lady Morgan of Huyton for the highly sensitive Ofsted post, the new education secretary told the Guardian that his own reforms were inspired by the former prime minister. "I love A Journey, I have never read a book like it," Gove said of Blair's bestselling memoirs. Morgan was regarded as something of a hero among the arch-modernising Tories around David Cameron and George Osborne. They admired the way she helped Blair press ahead with public service reforms in the face of daily, and often hourly, sniping from Gordon Brown. But all that changed over the past 18 months as Gove faced immense pressure. One Whitehall observer said: "Michael Gove had become a big-tent person on education. That has changed over the last 12 to 18 months as he has become much more ideological, much more obsessed about his legacy, saying: 'How do I get this done faster and faster, we have only got a small period left. How many of these free schools can we open?' "He is not saying are they any good, are they going to change things, are they in the right place? But he is simply asking how many?" The move against Morgan followed the removal of a series of other non-Conservative figures from public bodies. The only difference was that Morgan was appointed by the coalition. The list includes Liz Forgan, the chair of the Scott Trust which owns the Guardian, who was replaced as chair of Arts Council England by Peter Bazalgette. Lady Andrews, a former adviser to Neil Kinnock, was removed as chair of English Heritage. She was replaced by Sir Laurie Magnus, an Old Etonian banker who is a baronet. Dame Suzi Leather was replaced as chair of the Charities Commission by the Old Etonian William Shawcross, who wrote the official biography of the Queen Mother. There is no suggestion that those three men are affiliated to the Conserv- ative party. But their appointments prompted Harriet Harman to say to Gove, in a joint appearance at the end of the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday: "My concern is we have a cull of senior authoritative women and they are all being replaced by men. "What is your problem in your government with women? It's like raining men in the Tory party." Labour has pointed out that Tories are being appointed to key posts. Andrew Sells, a venture capitalist and generous donor to the party, was last month confirmed as chair of the government's nature watchdog Natural England. David Prior, the Charterhouse-educated former chief executive of the Conservative party, was appointed chair of the Care Quality Commission last year. Lady Hanham, the former local government minister who was Tory leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, was appointed interim chair of the health regulator Monitor last month. And former Tory cabinet minister John Gummer – now ennobled as Lord Deben – was appointed head of the Committee on Climate Change in September 2012. | ['politics/michaelgove', 'politics/harrietharman', 'politics/davidcameron', 'politics/georgeosborne', 'politics/tonyblair', 'politics/education', 'politics/politics', 'education/ofsted', 'education/education', 'culture/peter-bazalgette', 'culture/culture', 'environment/committee-on-climate-change', 'environment/environment', 'tone/analysis', 'type/article', 'profile/nicholaswatt', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/committee-on-climate-change | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-02-02T22:22:01Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
money/2009/sep/05/climate-change-fund | Climate change funds: the next mega-trend? | It is being dubbed the next "mega-trend" for the stockmarket. Companies that focus on alternative energy and combating climate change will offer outstanding growth for investors, while the environmental laggards will face increasing pollution taxes and penalties. Surely this is a one-way bet for investors with both profits and principles in mind? Already British investors, even those with as little as £50 a month to invest, can choose from a number of funds promising to direct your cash into the environmental industries of the future. Schroders and HSBC were among the first to launch climate change funds in 2007, followed soon after by Virgin Money. Other big-name providers include F&C and BlackRock (formerly Merrill Lynch). This summer Clare Brook, the doyenne of the green sector, launched the Sustainability fund backed by WHEB Ventures, a leading cleantech venture capital house. Next month sees Tiburon Green, the first fund focusing on efforts to tackle climate change in Asia. Does this sound like a bandwagon? Yes, say critics, who warn that the climate change "story" is already in the price of the shares, so investors coming in today will be burned. For example, at the end of 2007, shares in Q Cells, the cutting-edge German maker of solar power panels, were trading at nearly €100 (£87). Today they are bumping along at €10. Meanwhile wind turbine maker Vestas, which closed its Isle of Wight plant, is trading at half its mid-2008 high. And does anyone remember Ballard, the Canadian zero-emission fuel cell maker, a one-time darling of the green energy sector? It traded at C$120 (£66) in February 2000, but if you invested then you'd have lost a fortune: it now trades at just C$1.70. There's a perception problem with environmental investing. Either (a) the technology fails and the shares become worthless; or (b) the technology works (like Q Cells) but the Chinese come in, massively over-produce, push down prices and wipe out profits. Financial advisers, traditionally conservative, tend to dismiss climate change funds as too narrow and specialist for mainstream investors. But the fact that hard-nosed fund managers at Britain's top investment houses are piling in suggests this is not just a product for bleeding-heart liberals. Simon Webber co-manages Schroder's Global Climate Change fund, one of the first to launch back in 2007. He says: "Climate change is not going to go away. It will require us to move to a low-carbon economy, and will affect sectors such as transport, agriculture, retailing and infrastructure. It touches almost everything in our lives." He acknowledges the problems with solar. "Last year we had no solar in the fund – we could see stocks were overpriced and the over-capacity coming along. That said, we will be changing our energy systems towards nuclear, wind and solar. It's hard to dispute." There are now at least 700 investable companies directly involved in climate change, says Schroders. HSBC has set up a FTSE 100-style index made up of companies involved in tackling climate change. Called the HSBC Climate Change Benchmark Index, it shows that, on average, since 2004, companies in the index have given investors a 48% gain (in dollar terms). But that conceals a rollercoaster ride. The index started at 100 in January 2004, soared to 235 in July 2007, then marched back down to 100.69 in March this year. Since then, it has leapt ahead again, and this week stood at 148.23. If that makes you fearful that you could be buying into a "sucker's rally", then don't despair, says Brook. She has run Jupiter's Ecology fund, set up NPI's Global Care funds, and managed Aviva's SRI funds. She took each one from virtually nothing to nearly £1bn in size. Sustainability is Brook's own fund and she says there's still a world of opportunity in environmental investing. She splits her fund between three "mega-themes" of climate change, water and demographics. What excites her most are the stocks that will benefit from the stimulus packages announced by governments to revive economies – many of which have distinct environmental promises. "The beneficiaries of stimulus spending will be infrastructure such as rail, water piping, smart metering, energy efficiency and insulation," she says. Water is a huge climate change issue which will force massive spending to manage dwindling supplies. Brook likes companies such as Itron, a supplier of automatic meter-reading technology, and Epure, a Singapore-based company working on improving China's drinking water quality. Even the Mayfair hedge funds are getting involved. Tiburon Partners specialises in "absolute returns" from Asian stocks, but is now launching a hedge fund focusing on renewable energy – making money from stocks that will rise and also from ones they think will fall. Managing partner Mark Martyrossian believes "there may be a good argument for going short German solar and long Chinese solar ... we're not saying smokestack China is going to disappear overnight, but the Chinese are introducing some great initiatives and it's happening at the local as well as national level." Tiburon is also launching a long-only version of the fund for more cautious investors. Playing your part Fund managers Clare Brook and Nicola Donnelly (left) of WHEB Sustainability have signed up to 10:10 campaign, supported by the Guardian, in which individuals pledge to cut 10% from their emissions by 2010. "We both cycle already and try to fly as little as possible, but we're going to try taking showers instead of baths and also will try turning the heating down," says Brook. "I'll be taking a leaf out of my grandparents' book, who kept an incredibly cold house and used to sit at the dining table wearing several huskies each!" You can commit individually to cutting your emissions at www.1010uk.org. Share your experience of trying to live a lower-carbon life and get advice from our experts at guardian.co.uk/10-10 | ['money/ethical-money', 'money/moneyinvestments', 'money/investmentfunds', 'money/money', 'environment/10-10', 'environment/environment', 'money/isas', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/water', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'money/investment-isas', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickcollinson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/money', 'theguardian/money/money'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-09-04T23:05:16Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/cif-green/2010/jun/08/rewards-for-recycling-create-waste | Rewards for recycling may encourage people to create waste | James Garvey | What is the best way to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills: the carrot or the stick? The Labour government considered both, taking some heat just for proposing the stick. Under pay as you throw schemes, electronic chips fitted to bins monitor and fine households which throw away too much. There was talk of Big Brother sifting through your rubbish and an unfair tax on large families. Unsurprisingly, the scheme was never taken forward. Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, says that the new government will not go ahead with penalties for overstuffed bins. Instead, individuals can earn points for putting out more recyclable waste – points worth up to £130 in local shops. It's the same chip and bin technology, but now you earn points rather than pay fines. In a reward scheme piloted in Windsor and Maidenhead, 70% of the families offered the chance to take part did so. With every kilo of recycled waste worth 5.5 reward points, almost 6m points have been racked up so far. Instead of protests over sinister, automated bin inspectors, the good people of Windsor and Maidenhead voluntarily and possibly happily increased their recycling by 35% in six months. By January 2011 the scheme will be up and running for all households in the community – 60,000 people will get the chance to join in. There's not much to choose between these two forms of behaviour modification. We've known for a while about reinforcing desired behaviour with rewards and extinguishing unwanted behaviour with punishments. A painful stimulus (a penalty charge) accompanying waste will lead to less wasteful behaviour. A pleasant stimulus (free stuff) accompanying recycling will lead to more recycling behaviour. There's almost no limit to what you can do with rewards and punishments. You could make a rat recycle the paper in its cage – it's just a matter of voltage. What you can't do with this method is convey an understanding of the importance of recycling to your subject and change behaviour based on reasons rather than reactions. That's precisely the trouble with the carrot and stick approach to dealing with waste, and that's precisely why aspects of this scheme are a little suspect. It rewards people to produce more recyclable waste, rather than take steps to reduce the amount they produce in the first place. It rewards individuals for recycling disposable stuff by giving them the chance to buy yet more disposable stuff. It does nothing at all about the behaviour of the source of most of our household waste: the unnecessary packaging used by shops and suppliers. What's needed from the government isn't behaviour modification with a system of rewards and punishments. What's needed is an understanding of the problem and some help to solve it. The point of recycling has to do with understanding the importance of reducing waste in a finite world. It costs energy and resources to make a plastic bottle, fill it with water, package it and ship it to your local shop. We currently get almost all of that energy by burning fossil fuels and doing damage to our climate. The resources which go into the bottle's production, distribution and disposal might have been used in other, better ways. Once empty, the bottle might take up space in a landfill or end up in the ocean. If you understand the value of reducing waste in a finite world – if you want to avoid a hand in wasting energy, causing climate change, squandering resources, poisoning oceans – you might think twice about buying a bottle of water. If you recycle because you earn reward points for doing so, you might just buy a lot of plastic bottles. What is the best way to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills? Something more subtle than carrots and sticks is needed. Recall that old bit of hippy wisdom: reduce, reuse, recycle. Recycling is third on the list. It's our last resort, the worst option. It's what we do if we can't help but use recyclable stuff in the first place. But there's a very great deal we can do instead. If the government is serious about meeting EU targets and cutting the waste we send to landfills by two thirds by 2020, it knows that it must do better than reward points for plastic bottles. It has to do something about the source of plastic bottles and the vast amount of waste produced by supermarkets each day. That's not to say it can ignore us. It also has to do something about the ordinary person's thought that buying a cabbage wrapped in plastic is a reasonable thing to do. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'tone/comment', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'type/article', 'profile/james-garvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2010-06-08T15:30:09Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2009/jan/21/recycling-waste | Councils reject 'pay as you throw' scheme to encourage recycling | The controversial "pay-as-you-throw" waste trial aimed at boosting recycling has been rejected by councils across the country, the government admitted today. The pilot would have seen up to five councils run financial incentive schemes which reward householders who recycle most and charge extra to those who leave the most rubbish out. Local authorities had been asked to apply to take part in the scheme, which would have begun in April, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said that no council had responded by today's deadline. Environment minister Jane Kennedy said: "The powers in the Climate Change Act, enabling up to five voluntary pilot schemes, were introduced at the request of local authorities and it is up to them whether they want to use them. "No local authorities have expressed an interest in piloting a scheme at this time. "It is absolutely right and laudable that local authorities are working hard to reduce the amount of waste thrown away and increase the amount recycled, and we have seen great progress over the last few years." The plans to give councils the power to levy charges on households that create the most waste were announced while Tony Blair was prime minister in 2007. When Gordon Brown became prime minister, the scheme was downgraded to being piloted by five local authorities, with the prospect of an England-wide roll-out set back until 2012/13. But the financial incentives scheme has proved controversial, with some councils and the Conservative party labelling them "bin taxes", and fears being raised of an increase in fly-tipping and public protests. Caroline Spelman, shadow communities and local government secretary, said: "Bin taxes are now dead in the water, in a major snub for Gordon Brown and his Labour ministers. "The bin tax laws should now be repealed and taken off the statute book. "These unpopular new taxes would harm the environment by fuelling fly-tipping and backyard burning, and hike tax bills for struggling families." Richard Kemp, deputy chairman of the Local Government Association, said his organisation had lobbied for councils to be able to introduce waste incentive schemes when it was right to do so and in a way that worked locally. "Evidence from America and the continent has shown these schemes can boost recycling and reward those households that do their bit for the environment. "It is unsurprising that no councils have come forward to take part in the pilots given that Defra has not published its rules for how they must operate. Susan Hall, head of environment services at Harrow council, west London, said: "I'm not surprised that no councils have come forward to take part in pay-as-you throw. I think the best way forward is to take residents with you by encouragement to recycle, not by handing out spot fines or extra bills. | ['environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'politics/localgovernment', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'society/localgovernment', 'society/society', 'type/article'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-01-21T13:52:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2013/nov/08/reviving-nuclear-power-debates-is-a-distraction-we-need-to-use-less-energy | Reviving nuclear power debates is a distraction. We need to use less energy | John Quiggin | There’s been a lot of buzz recently about a new film by controversialist documentary-maker, Robert Stone. Pandora’s Promise presents an environmentalist case for nuclear power, argued by a number of recent converts including Mark Lynas and George Monbiot. These converts have reached the conclusion that the dangers of global warming outweigh the health risks of nuclear power which have been exaggerated by opponents (including, in the past, themselves). The film spends a fair bit of time mocking this view, as represented by Dr Helen Caldicott, who apparently claimed more than a million deaths had resulted from the Chernobyl disaster (more conservatives estimates range from 4,000 to 500,000). It is correctly argued that the health damage associated with coal-fired electricity (disregarding those arising from climate change) far outweighs that of nuclear power, at least during the operational lifetime of power plants. The only surprising thing about this film is the release date. The makers and participants are apparently unaware that the rest of the world had this debate 10 to 15 years ago, and that, for the most part, the advocates of nuclear power were victorious. Environmentalists largely abandoned anti-nuclear campaigns and focused their energy on attempts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. While most environmentalists remained sceptical of, or opposed to, nuclear power, the end of active opposition paved the way for a range of pro-nuclear policy initiatives. In the years after the signing of the Kyoto protocol, most major countries, including the US, UK, Japan, China and India adopted or reinforced policies supporting nuclear power. Some European countries, notably including Austria and Germany, went the other way. Even in Europe, however, the long-stalled industry was revived with the start of construction on new plants in France and Finland. The really big developments were in the US. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed with bipartisan support and building on earlier initiatives of the Bush Administration, offered the nuclear power industry a range of incentives and subsidies that the developers of wind and solar power could only dream of. It includes authorising cost-overrun support of up to $2bn total for up to six new nuclear power plants, the extension of the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act through 2025, and huge loan guarantees. The shift in policy attitudes was widely acclaimed as heralding a "nuclear renaissance", with dozens of new plants being announced in the US and many more worldwide. So, why, a decade later, must a film like Pandora’s Promise campaign in favour of nuclear power? The answer is that the nuclear "renaissance" turned out to be more like a return to the nuclear dark ages of the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the new plants announced with such enthusiasm have been cancelled or deferred indefinitely. Those that have commenced construction have run over time and over budget, exactly as happened in the last big nuclear boom of the 1970s. The poster child is the Olkiluoto plant in Finland, originally announced in 2000, with a completion date of 2009 and a cost of 3bn euros. The current estimated completion date is 2015, and the cost has blown out to 8.5bn. A French plant with a similar design is having the same problems . In the US, only four new plants are being built, all at existing sites, and all behind time and over budget. It seems unlikely that any new projects will be undertaken much before 2020. Innovative ideas like small modular reactors are being explored, but any substantial application is decades away. The situation appears somewhat better in China and India, although past experience with construction projects in these countries has raised safety concerns. And even in these countries, targets for nuclear power expansion are being scaled back while those for renewable energy are being increased. So, the fact that the world has not turned to nuclear power as a solution to climate change is a matter of economics. In the absence of a substantial carbon price, nuclear energy can’t compete with coal and other fossil fuels. In the presence of a carbon price, it can’t compete with wind and solar photovoltaics. The only real hope is that, if coal-fired generation is reduced drastically enough, always-on nuclear power will be a more attractive alternative than variable sources like solar and wind power. However, much of the current demand for "baseload" power is an artifact of pricing systems designed for coal, and may disappear as prices become more cost-reflective. To put the point more sharply, if we are convinced by the arguments of Pandora’s Promise, what would the makers of the film have us do? Stop protesting against nuclear power? Most of us did so decades ago. Abandon restrictions on uranium mining and export? The Australian government has done so already, with barely a peep of protest. The only remaining restrictions on exports to India relate to concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation, not nuclear energy, and seem likely to be dropped in any case. Give nuclear power a level playing field to compete against renewables? In the US at least, nuclear power is already treated more favourably than alternatives, leaving aside the massive subsidies already handed out in the 20th century. The same is true in many other countries that have sought, with limited success, to promote a nuclear renaissance. Having done all of these things, the unfortunate facts are unchanged. The problem of climate change is not going away, and, in the absence of massive subsidies, no one is going to build nuclear power plants on a scale sufficient to make much of a difference. To address the problem of climate change, we need to use less energy, use it more efficiently and generate it more sustainably. Reviving 20th century debates about nuclear power is just a distraction. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/john-quiggin'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2013-11-08T01:18:15Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/jun/13/seals-use-whiskers-to-track-prey-in-deep-ocean-study-shows | Seals use whiskers to track prey in deep ocean, study shows | When they are in the deep, dark ocean, seals use their whiskers to track down their prey, a study has confirmed after observing the sea mammals in their natural habitat. It’s hard for light to penetrate the gloom of the ocean’s depths, and animals have come up with a variety of adaptations in order to live and hunt there. Whales and dolphins, for example, use echolocation – the art of sending out clicky noises into the water and listening to their echo as they bounce off possible prey, to locate them. But deep-diving seals who don’t have those same acoustic projectors must have evolutionarily learned to deploy another sensory technique. Scientists have long hypothesised that the secret weapons are their long, cat-like whiskers, conducting over 20 years of experiments with artificial whiskers or captive seals blindfolded in a pool, given the difficulties of directly observing the hunters in the tenebrous depths of the ocean. Now a study may have confirmed the hypothesis, according to Taiki Adachi, assistant project scientist of University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the lead authors of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Adachi and his team positioned small video cameras with infrared night-vision on the left cheek, lower jaw, back and head of five free-ranging northern elephant seals, the Mirounga angustirostris, in Año Nuevo state park in California. They recorded a total of approximately nine and a half hours of deep sea footage during their seasonal migration. By analysing the videos the scientists noted that diving seals held back their whiskers for the initial part of their dives and, and once they reached a depth suitable for foraging, they rhythmically whisked their whiskers back and forth, hoping to sense any vibration caused by the slightest water movements of swimming prey. (Elephant seals like to snack on squid and fishes, and spend a long time out at sea.) Then, on their swim back to the surface, the whiskers were curled back towards the face again. For less than a quarter of the time the seals were hunting, they could also see some bioluminescence – the light that some creatures deep underwater can emit thanks to chemicals in their bodies – to track down their meals using sight. But for the remaining 80% of their hunting spree, they were presumably just using their whiskers, according to Adachi. This technique isn’t dissimilar to rodents, Adachi noted. It’s just that, since water is much denser than air, the whisking speed is much slower in elephant seals. “This makes sense,” said Sascha Kate Hooker, a pinniped researcher from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at University of St Andrews, who was not involved in the study. “Among the deep-diving marine mammals, the elephant seal reaches the same depths as sperm and beaked whales, often well over a kilometre below the surface.” Guido Dehnhardt, the director of the Marina Science Center at the University of Rostock, and a pioneer in whisker-research who was not involved in the research, welcomed the findings but was cautious about how much new information they represented. “It was my group who had shown more than 20 years ago that the seal’s whiskers represent a hydrodynamic receptor system, and that the seals can use it, for example, to detect and follow the hydrodynamic trails of fish,” Dehnhardt said. The study is particularly interesting from a technical point of view, especially with regard to the cameras used being so small, said Dehnhardt, but there’s still too much speculation. “It would be a great story if the seals in addition to a head-mounted camera wore a hydrodynamic measurement system [a machine that can measure the movement of fluids] so that whisker movements and hydrodynamic events could be correlated.” In future Adachi would like to start comparing how other mammals use their whiskers, in order to better understand how some animals’ whisker superpower has shaped the foraging habits of the animal kingdom. | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/marine-life', 'science/animalbehaviour', 'science/biology', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/oceans', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sofia-quaglia', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-06-13T19:00:24Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
culture/2019/nov/26/ringside-seat-on-decade-with-greta-thunberg-first-protest | My ringside seat on the decade: 'At times it was just me and Greta' | I found out about Greta’s Instagram post on 20 August 2018, when a photo was reposted on Facebook. She was wearing her leopard-print leggings, and had that widely quoted flyer (which is in the picture above, under a stone), on why she was skipping school: “Of course, we children don’t do as you tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you adults are shitting on my future, I am doing the same, too.” The text had an angry voice, accusing and moralistic, not at all apologetic. I liked that attitude. I had been saying similar things to my friends that summer, ranting about why nobody was doing anything. There was hypocrisy and a lack of honesty on all levels – from the people around me, to trusted institutions and politics. I felt my friends were awkward, embarrassed. So it was great to see someone speaking in this direct way. I had been experiencing stress and guilt for not doing anything. I wanted to go to the parliament building, to see what was happening with Greta, and support her way of speaking out. Greta’s protest began that day, 20 August 2018. I was there every day from 21 August – when 12-year-old schoolboy Rolf Sauer was there too – and stayed until the penultimate day, three weeks later. I talked to people on the street about the issues we wanted to address. At the time I was a supply teacher, but I did not get into trouble from work. Neither did I get paid, of course. Greta was not as outspoken as I had assumed from the flyer. We talked mostly about specific issues regarding the climate crisis. I was impressed: she welcomed people and encouraged them to join in. Her rhetoric was great, as we have seen since. During those first days, a middle-aged man in a suit stopped and looked at us. I was preparing to make a snide comment, because usually the people who looked like him had been rude to us. But he said he could not understand why there had not been more protests like this. We had a long conversation. When he gave me his card, it turned out he was a senior government official. But other passersby were aggressive and accused Greta of being stupid, shouting, “Go back to school!” It was a new thing for me, being seen by so many people. I had no history of activism. The number of people varied. At times it was just me and Greta, but every day more people joined in for a while. I felt like giving up on several occasions. It was uncomfortable; sometimes it was cold and raining, and I felt my friends would think I was ridiculous. After three weeks of protesting, and following the election on 9 September, Greta reduced the protest to Fridays only. It was a long-term project and not everyone can go on strike every day. I did not follow Greta for a while after our protest ended. Actually, I tried not to think about the climate crisis. But then I started to see it everywhere in the papers. Even my mother started to talk about it. I moved from Stockholm to Gothenburg in October 2018, to study fine art. Most recently, I have been involved in direct action against a new natural gas infrastructure. In September this year we blocked trucks from accessing the entrance to the harbour. The company, Swedegas, had invested a lot of money and got building permission. But last month the government stopped it. It showed again that activism matters. • As told to David Crouch If you would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication). | ['culture/series/2010s-the-decade-in-review', 'environment/environment', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'world/protest', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/features2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/weekend'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-11-26T09:30:17Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
australia-news/commentisfree/2022/oct/31/raising-warragamba-dam-probably-cant-stop-floods-theres-a-simpler-solution-closer-to-home | Raising Warragamba Dam probably can’t stop floods. There’s a simpler solution closer to home | Warragamba Dam was built in 1960 to hold water from the Dyarubbin (Nepean-Hawkesbury River) as a water supply for Sydney. It also had some flood-mitigation potential, to hold back water when it wasn’t full. During droughts when the dam had “too little water”, a desalination plant was built at Botany Bay. Now, when it has “too much water” in floods, there is a push to raise the dam wall to increase its volume. The New South Wales premier has declared he will build it, with or without federal funding. There are several downsides to this proposal. First, it’s hideously expensive. The current cost estimate is $1.6bn. That could pay for a lot of social housing in western Sydney. Second, it will drown a vast area of ecological and Indigenous importance along the river, adding to the damage the dam has already done. Third, and worst of all, it’s highly doubtful that it could have a significant effect on flood mitigation – this needs to be managed very differently. Which raises the question: why don’t we use the dam for flood mitigation as it is, by lowering its water level now? We could use the dam in the same way that the “wall-raisers” suggest, only with better management and at far less cost. That would require making do with far less water storage for Sydney. Can we take away a substantial part of the dam’s role as a water supply and lower its regular height, so that it can perform the flood mitigation role? The answer is yes – but it requires a different way of thinking about water supply. Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup Water is a widely distributed resource. Rain is everywhere, like sunshine on solar panels. It falls, often heavily, all over Sydney, and can be trapped locally on a house-by-house basis in tanks. Collecting it from a wide area, aggregating it into a single dam to store it and then distributing back out to the city is a nonsense in terms of physics and economics. Using rainwater to substitute for the loss of dam water requires two things: encouraging the greater use of tank water, and pricing water to encourage everyone to minimise the use of dam water. More than half (55%) of the water in a house goes to non-potable uses – toilets, laundry and external (for example, gardens and car washing). Rainwater from a tank could be used instead. How to incentivise residents to swap? Well, water’s too cheap. We need a pricing policy that increases the cost with the amount used. A house could have 50% of its current average usage at low cost. More than that would be charged at a much higher rate, encouraging the use of alternative sources of water. A pricing policy is a far better way to encourage sensible use than the latest approach in Los Angeles, which is fitting flow restrictors to celebrity mansions. Most Sydney houses are freestanding homes but there would need to be carve-outs for how we define a single dwelling, and exemptions for apartments – which are already substantially more sustainable. Profligate users would pay their way, with the excess money set aside for times when the desalination plant (using high-energy reverse osmosis) is needed. It is, after all, “bottled electricity”, to cite the former premier Bob Carr’s memorable phrase. We know that 18 years of NSW Building Sustainability Index requirements have led to rainwater storage tanks being installed in almost every new individual dwelling, with a consequent reduction in mains water consumption. We also know that many tanks are permanently full and lying idle, with the water becoming a liability, not an asset. We need to ensure that all households that can have, or want to have, a tank have one; and we need an education campaign to ensure their optimal use. This is where we should direct a small portion of the “dam-raising moneys” – so every suburban house has an appropriate-sized tank, say 2,000 to 10,000 litres, which is used safely for all the purposes that do not need drinking water: toilets, washing machines and hoses. The NSW government could then turn the remaining savings into relocating residents hit hardest by the floods and urgently building evacuation roads in western Sydney for those remaining. Damn dam. Win win. This article was originally published in Architecture and Design magazine. Tone Wheeler is the principal architect at Environa Studio, an adjunct professor at UNSW and is the president of the Australian Architecture Association | ['australia-news/sydney', 'environment/water', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-10-30T14:00:30Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2009/oct/17/in-praise-of-woodland-trust | In praise of… the Woodland Trust | It is an everyday tale of citizen action, but the Woodland Trust's efforts to preserve and restore ancient woodland and show the rest of us why it matters so much are a triumph of what one determined individual can achieve. It is less than 40 years since a conservation-minded farmer, Kenneth Watkins, became alarmed at how swiftly broadleaf woodland was disappearing – sometimes under the plough, more often the developer's bulldozer or the Forestry Commission's hunger for commercial trees. Native woodland is one of those ingredients of biodiversity that looks entirely untended but requires constant vigilance. Intensive farming has led to nitrogen runoff and the flourishing of species like holly, which destroys all but the deepest shade-lovers beneath. Once, coppicing the new growth used to create a range of environments with varying amounts of light. Now the canopy is uniform and the ground beneath shady all summer long. But the Trust and – following its example – many other woodland owners have saved and restored more than 20,000 hectares of woodland across the UK. One such wood is Duncliffe in Dorset, bought by the Trust 25 years ago this autumn – an ancient woodland in Hardy country that is thought to contain the oldest living things in the county (a blow to Bournemouth). It has been rescued from the dreary non-native softwoods, restored partly by volunteer effort, and now it is open all the year round to anyone who wants a stiff turn uphill and, in the spring, a feast of bluebells. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'commentisfree/series/in-praise-of', 'tone/editorials', 'environment/biodiversity', 'science/science', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'travel/dorset', 'travel/travel', 'travel/england', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2009-10-16T23:05:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2020/jan/12/community-generated-green-electricity-to-be-offered-to-all-in-uk | Community-generated green electricity to be offered to all in UK | UK homes will soon be able to plug into community wind and solar farms from anywhere in the country through the first energy tariff to offer clean electricity exclusively from community projects. The deal from Co-op Energy comes as green energy suppliers race to prove their sustainability credentials amid rising competition for eco-conscious customers and “greenwashing” in the market. The energy supplier will charge an extra £5 a month over Co-op’s regular tariff to provide electricity from community energy projects and gas which includes a carbon offset in the price. Co-op, which is operated by Octopus Energy after it bought the business from the Midcounties Co-operative last year, will source the clean electricity for its new tariff directly from 90 local renewable energy generation projects across the UK, including the Westmill wind and solar farms in Oxfordshire. It plans to use all profits to reinvest in maintaining the community projects and building new ones. Phil Ponsonby, the chief executive of Midcounties Co-operative, said the tariff is the UK’s only one to be powered by 100% community-generated electricity and would ensure a fair price is paid to community generators too. Customers on the Community Power tariff will be able to “see exactly where it is being generated at small scale sites across the UK, and they know it is benefiting local communities”, he said. Co-op, which has about 300,000 customers, has set itself apart from a rising number of energy supply deals which are marked as 100% renewable, but are not as green as they seem. Consumer group Which? has found that many suppliers offer renewable energy tariffs but do not generate renewable electricity themselves or have contracts to buy any renewable electricity directly from generators. Instead, the “pale green” suppliers exploit a loophole in the energy market by snapping up cheap renewable energy certificates, without necessarily buying energy from renewables projects. The certificates are issued by the regulator to renewable energy developers for each megawatt generated, but these can be sold separately from the electricity for a fraction of the price. Which? warned that these suppliers appear to be greenwashing their energy tariffs, which could risk misleading customers. A survey conducted last year found that one in 10 people believe that a renewables tariff means that the supplier generates at least some of its electricity from its own renewable energy projects. Ponsonby said the wind and solar schemes that generate electricity for the Community Power tariff “plough the profits they make back into their neighbourhoods or into helping other similar projects get off the ground”. Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus Energy, said being able to buy locally-sourced clean, green energy is “a massive jump in the right direction” which will help grow the UK’s green electricity capacity. “Investing in more local energy infrastructure and getting Britain’s homes run by the sun when it’s shining and the wind when it’s blowing can end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels sooner than we hoped,” he said. “Local people investing in local people means that we can all muck in and put the work in to decarbonise where governments and large companies are slow to.” | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2020-01-12T19:47:18Z | true | ENERGY |
lifeandstyle/2020/dec/20/celebrities-rooting-for-veganuary-in-uk-to-combat-new-rise-in-meat-sales | Celebrities rooting for ‘Veganuary’ in UK to combat new rise in meat sales | A host of musicians, actors and sports stars have joined up with businesses and environmental groups in what they hope will be a successful push to get more people to ditch meat, fish and dairy in the new year. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Sir Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais, Lily Cole and Alan Cumming have all signed a letter calling for people to change their diet for “Veganuary” next month. “We cannot tackle climate change while we farm and eat animals on an industrial scale”, the open letter written by the Veganuary association says. Other signatories include Chris Packham, the environmental campaigner and TV presenter, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, cricketer Jason Gillespie, businesswoman Deborah Meaden and comedians John Bishop, Sara Pascoe and Jon Richardson. Packham said there was a clear link between the climate crisis, large-scale meat-eating and coronavirus. “This virus leapt from animals into us as Sars, Ebola and HIV did – all because we were abusing the natural environment and the animals that live there,” he told the Observer. “So nature has taught us a very harsh and cold lesson. If we don’t start understanding that we are all connected implicitly to nature, and that what we eat impacts on nature, we’re in deep trouble. That’s why the environmental aspect of veganism or vegetarianism – or anyone changing their diet – has come to the forefront.” Veganuary’s organisers hope to persuade 500,000 people to try veganism in January. Some 350,000 took part last year. Global meat sales had begun to decline in 2019, after rising from around 71 million tonnes a year in 1961 to 340 million tonnes in 2018, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. In the UK, sales of beef, lamb and pork dropped by up to 4% last Christmas, and supermarkets cater for rising numbers of “flexitarians” – those who cut back on meat. However, lockdown has fuelled a boom in meat consumption. According to researcher Kantar, sales of turkeys were up 36% on last year, and sales of red meat and poultry grew by more than 10% each month until September. The Veganuary letter sets out the environmental arguments against meat. “Animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14.5% of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions,” it says. “In recent years, more than 80% of deforestation in Brazil was to graze farmed animals, and still more forests are destroyed to grow crops to feed animals on farms around the world. Deforestation is serious for lots of reasons. It pushes wild species to extinction. It displaces indigenous peoples. It drives climate change. And it brings us in ever closer contact with wild animals and any viruses they may harbour, raising the risk of another pandemic.” Packham said there was evidence that soya produced in felled Brazilian rainforest had been used to feed chickens sold in UK supermarkets and fast-food outlets: “If you put that chicken in your mouth, you’re connecting yourself very directly with deforestation in South America.” But ethical eating was difficult even for vegans, he added. “Palm oil has led to the deforestation of Indonesia and Malaysia, and it’s in biscuits, shampoo … it’s frankly everywhere. We each of us consume 8kg to 9kg every year.” He said the solution was not for the whole population to turn vegan. “The people I call ultra-vegans just want to stop all meat consumption overnight. But that would be no good for meat farmers. It would be no good for our landscapes, where low-intensity, good-quality animal husbandry and livestock farming are actually good for biodiversity. What we need is a transition where we eat less meat and pay more for it so we can put the profit in the farmer’s pocket.” Toni Vernelli of Veganuary said that while 2020 had brought hardship and heartbreak, it had also brought “an opportunity to change and build a better future”. “Our united message is one of hope, but we must all act now.” • This article was amended on 20 December 2020 because changes made during the editing process led an earlier version to say that Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth wrote the letter. Those organisations were among the letter’s signatories, however, the letter itself was written by the Veganuary association. | ['lifeandstyle/veganism', 'food/vegan', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'lifeandstyle/celebrity', 'environment/friends-of-the-earth', 'environment/greenpeace', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/activism', 'food/food', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/james-tapper', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/greenpeace | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-12-20T08:00:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
weather/2009/jul/17/weatherwatch-captain-cook-resolution | Weatherwatch | Kate Ravilious | On 22 August 1780, Captain Cook's ship, the Resolution sailed into Stromness harbour in Scapa Flow on Orkney. The weather was wild and windy, and Stromness was the ship's first port of call to British soil, after a four-year voyage around the world. Sadly Captain Cook was no longer at the helm, having been stabbed to death in Hawaii 18 months previously. His loyal crew had wended their way home, continuing their unsuccessful search for the North-west Passage. Approaching the south coast of Great Britain on 9 August 1780, strong gales deterred them from entering the treacherous English Channel. Instead they continued up the rugged west coast, looking for a safe harbour. It wasn't until they reached the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland, that they could approach land. Protected by the towering bulk of the island of Hoy to the south-west, Orkney's mainland to the north and the island of South Ronaldsay to the east, the waters of Scapa Flow are accessible in all but the fiercest of storms. Lying at 59 degrees latitude, and exposed to the Atlantic Ocean, Orkney receives some of Britain's wildest weather, and Scapa Flow has provided vital refuge to ships on many occasions. During both world wars, it was a key base for British warships in the north Atlantic. And it continues to be much appreciated by sailors who venture that far north. • This article was amended on 17 July 2009. A typographical error in the original put the Orkneys at 5 degrees latitude. This has been corrected. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-07-16T23:01:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jan/28/a-bit-like-the-great-escape-activists-hold-out-in-euston-tunnel | 'A bit like The Great Escape': activists hold out in Euston tunnel | Environmental activists have held out for their second night in the Euston tunnel, but eviction officers have said the tunnel is close to gas and water pipes and that the activists are putting their own lives at risk. The tunnellers described how they constructed what is thought to be one of the largest tunnel networks to be occupied by protesters in one of the busiest parts of London without being detected. The network has two main tunnels going off in different directions from the downshaft and is said to be at least 100ft (30 metres) long. The tunnels were built over a period of several months following the establishment of a camp of environmental activists in Euston Square Gardens last August. They joined a community of street homeless people who were already camped there. Euston station is one of the busiest in London, serving trains, buses and the tube. It is on Euston Road, a main arterial through the centre of London. The Metropolitan police, British Transport Police, Network Rail, Camden council and Transport for London all denied it had been their responsibility to monitor the site for tunnel digging. HS2 said it took possession of the site on Wednesday. One of the activists, Ben Hartley, told the Guardian how the covert operation was carried out in plain sight. “It’s hardly a new idea for protesters to dig tunnels,” he said. “I’m fairly sure that the various organisations must have had an idea that something was going on.” He said the tunnel network, which he described as an “extensive protest labyrinth”, was thought to be one of the biggest of its kind. Hartley said the most dangerous time for activists in a tunnel was when bailiffs begin their excavation. He believes that at least two members of High Court Enforcement, the group carrying out the eviction, are highly trained in dealing with this type of action. He said of the digging operation: “It’s a bit like The Great Escape.” He said the main structure in which the activists in the camp lived in the months before this week’s eviction was a long, multi-roomed living space with a lockable front door. “If anyone came along who we didn’t like the look of, we just locked the front door,” he said. When the digging started under this living space, the activists piled the earth they removed on to the floor of their home. “By the end we were crouching down when we went from room to room,” said Hartley. “In some places the earth was piled 3ft high. We cut the wood to shore up the tunnel inside too so it could not be seen.” He said part of the aim of the protest was to raise awareness about the loss of a precious park in the middle of a very built-up part of the capital. “It’s a real shame that this park is being lost to build a temporary taxi rank,” he said. “We are intelligent and hardworking people and we want to raise awareness about the fact that this is part of the battle for the future of our species.” Howard Rees, a spokesperson for the tree protectors of Euston Square Gardens, said a citizens’ assembly was urgently required to address the climate emergency. “We need sensible British people to take the reins and guide us through this.” The activists in the tunnel have released footage of fractious exchanges with the eviction crew, whom they accuse of depriving them of sleep around the clock with their drilling and banging work. Larch Maxey, one of the occupiers, said this was a form of torture for the inhabitants of the tunnel. High Court Enforcement said: “The national eviction team has been engaged to lawfully remove activists from Euston Gardens. In their attempts to delay their removal, unlawful occupiers have occupied a crudely dug tunnel on the land. “We are aware through our risk assessment and their statements in various media today that they have previously experienced a collapse and water ingress to their tunnel. The unlawful activists appear to have put themselves in danger of a further tunnel collapse, and potentially of intercepting nearby gas and water pipes, leading to risks of suffocation, flooding and drowning. “To mitigate the hazards, we are using specialist air control compressors to circulate the air, and equipment to monitor air conditions. The activists have made no provision for this. We have engineers available onsite to evaluate whether the tunnel runs close to gas, water or other utilities pipes and cables.” | ['environment/activism', 'uk/london', 'uk/hs2', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dianetaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2021-01-28T14:50:29Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2012/mar/23/gamesa-offshore-windfarm | Gamesa announces plans to build £125m offshore windfarm facility | Spanish wind power company Gamesa will build a £125m offshore windfarm facility in the port of Leith, creating around 800 jobs, it said on Friday. The announcement comes just days after George Osborne said in his budget that "renewable energy will play a crucial part in Britain's energy mix", after warnings by major wind companies that their investments in the UK were under threat from political uncertainty. The manufacturing facility, on the northern edge of Edinburgh, will produce blades and generator units for offshore wind turbines, which David Cameron said at a major speech on Monday would be the focus for UK renewable energy because of energy security and the economic opportunity it presented. David Cameron today welcomed Gamesa's investment: "This is fantastic news for Scotland and shows that the UK remains an attractive place for foreign investment. Scotland benefits from UK-wide initiatives to promote renewables and access to the entire UK consumer market. That, coupled with the economic security that comes from being part of one of the world's most successful unions, makes Scotland an obvious place for companies like Gamesa to invest in." Alex Salmond, the first minister, said the facility would be a "welcome boost to Leith and to the wider Edinburgh and Lothians economy" and bring quality engineering jobs. "Gamesa's decision is also the latest in a series of inward investment announcements by major international companies that signal Scotland's leading position in the renewables revolution that is sweeping Europe and the wider world," he said. Gamesa, which had revenues of more than €3bn in 2011, already has an offshore wind R&D centre in Glasgow which opened last year, and an offshore wind HQ in London. Edinburgh was chosen earlier this month as the headquarters for the government's new green investment bank, along with operations in London. The bank will help projects including offshore windfarms. Jorge Calvet, Gamesa's chairman and chief executive, said: "I have only praise for the support we have received throughout this process from government ministers and agencies across the UK. We hope to play a central role in strengthening the UK's offshore wind energy sector and improving security of energy supply in the future." Environmental groups welcomed the Gamesa facility, with Greenpeace's chief scientist, Doug Parr, writing that it was "great news for [the] green economy." Niall Stuart, chief executive of trade association Scottish Renewables, said: "This is another fantastic vote of confidence in Scotland's renewable energy industry. We have fought off incredibly strong competition from other parts of the UK for the location of the company's manufacturing facility, which is a fantastic addition to the growing list of major employers in renewables in Scotland. This reinforces the massive benefits that renewables is having on our economy, and the role that the sector will play in getting out of the downturn and in getting the labour market moving again." | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'uk/uk', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/scotland', 'business/manufacturing-sector', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2012-03-23T12:17:32Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2022/jun/22/scientists-unveil-bionic-robo-fish-to-remove-microplastics-from-seas | Scientists unveil bionic robo-fish to remove microplastics from seas | Scientists have designed a tiny robot-fish that is programmed to remove microplastics from seas and oceans by swimming around and adsorbing them on its soft, flexible, self-healing body. Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles which fragment from the bigger plastic things used every day such as water bottles, car tyres and synthetic T-shirts. They are one of the 21st century’s biggest environmental problems because once they are dispersed into the environment through the breakdown of larger plastics they are very hard to get rid of, making their way into drinking water, produce, and food, harming the environment and animal and human health. “It is of great significance to develop a robot to accurately collect and sample detrimental microplastic pollutants from the aquatic environment,” said Yuyan Wang, a researcher at the Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University and one of the lead authors on the study. Her team’s novel invention is described in a research paper in the journal Nano Letters. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of such soft robots.” Researchers at Sichuan University have revealed an innovative solution to track down these pollutants when it comes to water contamination: designing a tiny self-propelled robo-fish that can swim around, latch on to free-floating microplastics, and fix itself if it gets cut or damaged while on its expedition. The robo-fish is just 13mm long, and thanks to a light laser system in its tail, swims and flaps around at almost 30mm a second, similar to the speed at which plankton drift around in moving water. The researchers created the robot from materials inspired by elements that thrive in the sea: mother-of-pearl, also known as nacre, which is the interior covering of clam shells. The team created a material similar to nacre by layering various microscopic sheets of molecules according to nacre’s specific chemical gradient. This made them a robo-fish that is stretchy, flexible to twist, and even able to pull up to 5kg in weight, according to the study. Most importantly, the bionic fish can adsorb nearby free-floating bits of microplastics because the organic dyes, antibiotics, and heavy metals in the microplastics have strong chemical bonds and electrostatic interactions with the fish’s materials. That makes them cling on to its surface, so the fish can collect and remove microplastics from the water. “After the robot collects the microplastics in the water, the researchers can further analyse the composition and physiological toxicity of the microplastics,” said Wang. Plus, the newly created material also seems to have regenerative abilities, said Wang, who specialises in the development of self-healing materials. So the robot fish can heal itself to 89% of its ability and continue adsorbing even in the case it experiences some damage or cutting – which could happen often if it goes hunting for pollutants in rough waters. This is just a proof of concept, Wang notes, and much more research is needed – especially into how this could be deployed in the real world. For example, the soft robot currently only works on water surfaces, so Wang’s team will soon be working on more functionally complex robo-fish that can go deeper under the water. Still, this bionic design could offer a launchpad for other similar projects, Wang said. “I think nanotechnology holds great promise for trace adsorption, collection, and detection of pollutants, improving intervention efficiency while reducing operating costs.” Indeed, nanotechnology will be one of the most important players in the fight against microplastics, according to Philip Demokritou, the director of the Nanoscience and Advanced Materials Research Center at Rutgers University, who was not involved in this study. Demokritou’s lab also focuses on using nanotechnology to get rid of microplastics from the planet – but instead of cleaning them up, they are working on substituting them. This week, in the journal Nature Food, he announced the invention of a new plant-based spray coating which can serve as an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic food wraps. Their case study showed that this starch-based fibre spray can fend off pathogens and guard against transportation damage just as well, if not better, than current plastic packaging options. “The motto for the last 40 to 50 years for the chemical industry is: let’s make chemicals, let’s make materials, put them out there and then clean the mess 20, or 30 years later,” said Demokritou. “That’s not a sustainable model. So can we synthesise safer design materials? Can we derive materials from food waste as part of the circular economy and turn them into useful materials that we can use to address this problem?” This is low-hanging fruit for the field of nanotechnology, Demokritou said, and as research into materials gets better so will the multi-pronged approach of substituting plastic in our daily lives and filtering out its microplastic residue from the environment. “But there’s a big distinction between an invention and an innovation,” Demokritou said. “Invention is something that nobody has thought about yet. Right? But innovation is something that will change people’s lives, because it makes it to commercialisation, and it can be scaled.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sofia-quaglia', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-06-22T11:47:17Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/live/2017/jan/05/recycling-rates-uk-declining | How can we reverse the UK's falling recycling rates? Read what happened during our Q&A | A couple of interesting questions from twitter about the not-so-good image of the waste and recycling sector: Our panel guests agreed on the need to try and change this: One reader has pointed out that recycling uses fossil fuels to transport and melt the plastics and that its effectiveness is very very low. In addition, they add, many plastic items are excluded from this process and end up in the waters and the oceans. They asked the panel guests: Isn’t the most effective solution to stop producing plastic packaging on such a devastating scale and denounce profiteering from plastic from the production to the recycling stage? In defence of plastics, Iain Ferguson, environment manager at Coop says: Plastic is a very valuable material for producing packaging. Without it we would have much more food waste and higher environmental impact. There are good WRAP reports showing the value of plastic packaging in reducing food waste. David from Suez agreed: Tim Hutchinson, director of Outpace, a packaging design consultancy asks: Why don’t Retailers make more use of Reusable packaging? Nearly all delivery companies and Couriers are under so much pressure to deliver their goods they don’t have time to wait for the empty packaging. We all know the likes of Amazon put tremendous pressure on their delivery contractors to deliver the often ‘over packaged’ products. This is increasing the amount of single use packaging that may or may not be recycled. Iain Ferguson, environment manager at Coop adds that while reusable packaging is great for some applications, it is hard for food. To be viable generally it has to fulfil three criteria: Easy for the customer. Cheaper for the customer. And financially viable for the retailer. One of our readers, Caroline, has asked why separate collections of food waste has not been made mandatory in England? Although Clare Usher from WRAP has just emailed to say: Just watching the live Q&A and to put the food waste collections in context, just wanted to let you know that 52% of local authorities in England provide a food waste collection (either separate food or mixed in with garden waste), which means around 44% of households have a service. In answer to why recycling rates are higher in Wales than rest of UK, the panel said: Are consumers interested in reducing packaging and waste? On the evidence of this story’s popularity the answer is a yes. It’s been read by more than a quarter of a million people so far and spiked interest from across the supply chain, including this tweet from Keith Weed, chief marketing officer at Unilever: Recycling rates in the UK have been stalling over the past five years. Government figures published in December show that the recycling rate in England actually fell from 44.8% in 2014 to 43.9% in 2015. This debate will explore potential solutions: how can producers and consumers be incentivised to recycle more? Would a tax on the manufacturers of packaging, for example, encourage better design? Do local authorities need clearer guidelines to prevent confusion among consumers? Join us and our panel of experts in the comments section of this page on Thursday 19 January at 1-2pm (GMT) to discuss. Helene Roberts, innovation director, LINPAC Chris Baker, european general manager, TerraCycle David Palmer Jones, CEO of SUEZ recycling and recovery UK Sophie Unwin, director, Remade in Edinburgh Iain Ferguson, environment manager, Coop Steve Morgan, technical manager, Recoup Make sure you’re a registered user of the Guardian and join us in the comments section below, which will open on the day of the live chat. You can send questions for the panel in advance by emailing tom.levitt@theguardian.com or tweeting @GuardianSustBiz using the hashtag #AskGSB | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/series/packaging', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/minutebyminute', 'tone/blog', 'profile/tom-levitt', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-professional-networks'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-01-19T14:24:34Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
politics/2005/jan/11/uk.tsunami2004 | PM moved to tears by tsunami disaster | The number of Britons likely to have died in the tsunami disaster now stands at 453, Tony Blair said yesterday, adding that he is raising the initial British direct aid to the region to £75m. Making his first statement to MPs since the tsunami, he ad mitted he had been moved to tears by the disaster and praised the generosity of the British people. The Queen will attend a memorial service, conducted in consultation with bereaved families, later this year. Mr Blair said 871 Britons were still unaccounted for in the region, down from 7,000 in the immediate wake of the disaster and from 2,000 last week. He called on the UN to publish regular updates about how much of the $2bn (£1bn) aid pledged around the world reaches the region. The total amount of British government cash committed in various aid packages, tax relief on charity donations and suspension of debt repayments from afflicted countries, plus British contributions to EU aid, came to about £200m. So far, of the £75m aid pledged by Britain directly, £30m has been disbursed to the UN and non-governmental bodies. Mr Blair promised none of this money would come from the Department for International Developments existing budget. He said further funds would be made available if requested after the World Bank's full reconstruction assessment. Oxfam warned that two development department emergency reserves were now empty and needed urgently to be refilled. "None of us will not have been moved to tears as each night we saw with mounting horror the human tragedy that followed the natural disaster," Mr Blair told MPs. He described the tsunami as a "force of nature so unimaginable in its power and catastrophic in its impact", adding: "It quite simply washed the life out of villages, towns, tourist resorts and anything alive on the water in areas across the entirety of the Indian Ocean." The estimated number killed now stood at more than 150,000. The international development secretary, Hilary Benn, said in a Foreign Policy Centre speech in London that said he feared the total death toll would rise since large numbers of islands have yet to be reached by the relief effort. Mr Blair said many bodies may never be identified. "Sadly many victims were swept away by the force of the tsunami and their remains may never be recovered. In other cases as time goes by forensic identification of the remains becomes extremely hard." Government officials confirmed Thailand is having to undertake DNA testing of 2,000 bodies to find their national origin. Mr Blair praised British staff dealing with the aspects of the disaster relating to Britons. The Conservative leader, Michael Howard, praised the response of the British people and the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, called for a review of the UN humanitarian operations. | ['politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'world/tsunami2004', 'global-development/global-development', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickwintour'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-11T09:11:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
politics/nils-pratley-on-finance/article/2024/jul/05/houses-pylons-labour-biggest-business-challenges | Houses and pylons: Labour’s biggest business challenges | A landslide victory for Labour was also a satisfactory result for the vigilantes of the bond market. A Conservative administration that served up Liz Truss’s reckless budget of unfunded giveaways in 2022 has been punished. A Labour party promising fiscal discipline, to the point where it ditched a previous flagship £28bn policy on green investment in case it scared the horses, has been rewarded. So, yes, one can see why the UK has suddenly acquired haven-like status in the eyes of financial markets. Unlike the US and France, for instance, international investors now know what they’re getting with the UK: a stable government anxious to demonstrate its market-friendly credentials. Meanwhile, inflation is falling and cuts in interest rates lie around the corner. “We believe UK government bonds (gilts) are attractive at current levels,” said Peder Beck-Friis, an economist at Pimco, the enormous bond fund manager. All that is very helpful for attracting investors, as the incoming chancellor, Rachel Reeves, emphasised throughout the campaign; the big-picture outlook for growth and investment could be worse. Here, though, are two detailed pro-growth targets that look hard to achieve but are central to Labour’s plans. First, the new government wants 1.5m homes to be built in England and Wales in the next five years. Second, it intends to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030. On houses, Labour starts from a position where as few as 150,000 might be built this year, half what it needs for a par annual score for its five-year target. Talk to the executives in the housebuilding sector and many think that the ministers will have done well if they get to the implied annual run rate of 300,000 by the end of parliament. The ingredient that ministers can directly influence is the planning rules. Reeves has called the planning system “the single biggest obstacle to our economic success” and Keir Starmer promised last year to “bulldoze through” the UK’s “restrictive planning system”. The taboo of building on the green belt – or, at least, the “grey” parts of it – will be challenged. So expect a return to local authorities being given mandatory targets for housebuilding, as a first step, and funding for planning officers to follow. Even so, the 1.5m target looks a stretch: supply chains cannot simply be turned on by government diktat. And Labour’s parallel demand for more affordable houses within the mix may cause tensions with big private-sector housebuilders, which dominate the market to a far greater degree than in the 1970s, the last time the UK was building at such a rate. On energy infrastructure, there is at least a blueprint for reform. Nick Winser, the electricity commissioner, delivered his report to the previous government last August. But note the size of the job, even when the Conservatives were pursuing a deadline of 2035. “In Great Britain, around four times as much new transmission network will be needed in the next seven years as was built since 1990,” said Winser’s report. The biggest impediment are blockages created by the “first come, first served” system of allocating hookups to the grid for new wind, solar and battery storage projects. Some developers have been waiting up to 15 years to produce power. The worry is that the system is being gamed by operators who are more interested in selling on a connection rather than building the infrastructure themselves. Ofgem, the regulator, now has rules to kick out such “zombie” schemes but, again, that process does not happen overnight. Now consider the scale of Labour’s ambition on the generating side: double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030. Meanwhile, Great British Energy – the state-owned company that will partner with local authorities in local power schemes and with the private sector in novel technologies such as floating off-shore wind – will take time to set up. Nor does its capitalisation of £8.3bn over the life of the parliament sound like gamechanging money when National Grid alone intends to invest £30bn in the same period. Analysts at the investment bank Jefferies think that “Labour’s goal to have a net zero grid by 2030 appears to be an unrealistic target, even with steady progress”. One energy expert it consulted concluded that “even if the new government executed every project in the pipeline, had linear interconnector growth, and electricity demand on the lowest end of the range, the country would still miss the target by 25%.” The 2030 ambition – one of the central manifesto pledges for growth – looks extremely challenging. | ['politics/general-election-2024', 'politics/labour', 'business/nils-pratley-on-finance', 'business/construction', 'society/housing', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'politics/politics', 'business/bonds', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'business/nationalgrid', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/uk', 'business/utilities', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/nilspratley', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-07-05T17:00:13Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2013/oct/11/britons-greenpeace-refused-bail-russia | Two Britons arrested on Greenpeace boat refused bail on piracy charges | A court in the northern Russian city of Murmansk has rejected bail appeals from two British nationals – a Greenpeace activist and a freelance journalist – before their trial on charges of piracy. Phil Ball, 42, and Kieron Bryan, 29, a freelance videographer, were among 30 people on board a Greenpeace vessel detained by Russian coastguards in the Arctic Pechora Sea after two activists tried to scale an oil rig as part of an environmental protest. Investigators accuse the group of trying to seize the Prirazlomnaya oil rig operated by state gas company Gazprom. They could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The Murmansk court has already rejected bail requests from four Russian nationals including Denis Sinyakov, a freelance photographer. On Monday the court will consider appeals from four people from Argentina, Italy, New Zealand and the United States. The group of 30, comprising people from 18 countries, including six Britons and two journalists, could face new charges. On Wednesday investigators said they had found narcotics including morphine and poppy seeds on board the ship. Greenpeace said the drugs were maritime regulation standard and stored for medical purposes. Vladimir Putin has publicly said he sees no grounds to classify those detained as pirates. The president's spokesman has cited this as evidence that Russia's courts are impartial. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said Friday's court ruling "flies in the face of all reason. We have offered the Russian courts significant sureties that would guarantee the return of all those accused if and when a trial took place. The decision of the court to refuse bail looks increasingly like the Russian authorities are meting out unnecessarily harsh punishment even before any trial. "In the case of Kieron Bryan, he is a professional journalist, travelling on the Greenpeace ship, witnessing a peaceful protest against oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean. He has committed no crime and should be released immediately." | ['environment/arctic-30-protesters', 'world/russia', 'world/world', 'environment/activism', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-10-11T12:09:31Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2015/dec/31/scotland-floods-storm-frank | UK floods claim first fatality as kayaker found dead in Scotland | Dozens of flood warnings remain across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England after Storm Frank left a trail of destruction and claimed its first fatality. Police Scotland confirmed they recovered the body of a kayaker who got into difficulties on the river Findhorn, near Inverness, on Wednesday. Emergency services were called to an area known as Elephant Rock when a member of the public alerted them to a kayaker who was in difficulty navigating the swollen river water. A body was recovered at 9am on Thursday with assistance of the coastguard. More than 60 flood warnings, two severe, were in place in Scotland, which bore the brunt of the latest deluge as many homes were evacuated and hundreds of people were left without power. Across the UK, from Bideford in Devon to Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands, there were 143 flood alerts and 95 flood warnings in place on Thursday, with two classed as severe, meaning there is a risk to life. However, the Met Office removed its remaining severe weather warnings overnight on Wednesday, meaning the worst of Storm Frank should have passed. Greg Dewhurst, a Met Office spokesman, said on Thursday morning: “[Storm Frank has] pretty much gone now. At 3am it left the UK and left just showers coming in from the west.” A band of heavy, thundery showers is expected to sweep eastwards across the UK on Thursday, potentially hampering efforts to shore up flood defences across northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Forecasters say the fresh rainfall is unlikely to have a major impact on already beleaguered homes. “As that squally band of showers goes through, people will notice it, but it shouldn’t last too long and it will stay dry for most of us,” Dewhurst said. “The rain cleared during the early hours. Even though there could be flooding issues around the country, they will be from river responses [rivers swelling from rainfall over the past 48 hours] rather than further rainfall. But it’s moving through pretty quickly and the showers should be fairly short lived.” The showers are expected to die out in north-west England into Thursday evening before a fresh band of rain arrives on New Year’s Day. Flood-hit homes in northern England may breathe a sigh of relief after the Environment Agency removed any severe weather warnings for the area, although scores of flood alerts remain in place centred on the river Ouse in York. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is to meet the agency’s emergency response team in York on Thursday morning. He is expected to ask why it has not deployed state-of-the art pumps, which were tested in September. The agency bought 10 high-volume pumps capable of pumping one cubic metre a second. The pumps, which are stored at a depot in Bridgwater, Somerset, were successfully tested months ago, according to agency documents. An Environment Agency spokesman said 30 additional pumps had been sent to the affected area, but the remaining new pumps were in different parts of the country. About 100 people spend the night in temporary accommodation after the river Dee in Aberdeenshire burst its banks late on Wednesday. As the river reached the highest level since 1928, residents on Riverside Drive and a nearby sheltered accommodation building were evacuated and a makeshift rest centre was opened at a hotel. About 100 people spent the night in a military barracks after the river also flooded in Ballater, east of the city. Local people helped make beds and open the kitchens to provide hot drinks and food for the evecuees. Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland from Victoria Barracks, Billy Begg described the speed with which the river burst its banks and flooded his home. “It was like a flash flood. The water was rising so quickly,” he said. “The firemen knocked on our door and threw a harness on to me and said ‘we’ve got to get you out’.” Begg said he and his wife had not had time to save anything from their home. “I just have what I’m standing in. I’m still in my slippers.” According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, 64 flood warnings were in place on Wednesday morning, two of them severe around the river Tweed in Peebles and the Whitesands area of Dumfries. Speaking to GMS, the Scottish environment minister, Aileen McLeod, said that although Wednesday was an extremely tough day, she had “not received any indication that Scotland’s flood defences were overwhelmed in the way that they were in England”. She added that the introduction of a new national flood risk assessment scheme meant a national picture existed for the first time. The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is to visit the south of Scotland to assess the damage in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders. | ['environment/flooding', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'uk-news/yorkshire', 'uk/greater-manchester', 'uk/scotland', 'uk-news/storm-frank', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/josh-halliday'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-12-31T12:42:35Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/jun/18/pollutionwatch-air-quality-benefits-of-lockdown-continue | Pollutionwatch: air quality benefits of lockdown continue | The start of the UK lockdown brought news of reduced air pollution. Did it last? Measurements from London show that initial improvements in nitrogen dioxide from traffic continued into April and May. Compared with the first 11 weeks of 2020 before lockdown, there was an average decrease of 31% on the capital’s roads. Greatest reductions were in central and inner London and followed improvements from the Ultra-Low Emission Zone. Spring is often the worst season for particle pollution across western Europe. Just six years ago Paris banned half of traffic to control a springtime smog. These are caused by air pollution from traffic and industry mixing with ammonia from farm fertilizer. This year was no different. London had five springtime smogs between the start of UK lockdown and mid-May, but reduced traffic and industry across the UK and Europe meant that maximum concentrations were around two-thirds of those in previous springs. Spring and summer are peak periods for ground level ozone; a pollutant synonymous with Los Angeles smogs. Nowadays, many of the pollutants that cause summer smogs come from solvents, inks and cleaning materials that we use in our homes. Unsurprisingly, the UK had several smog events in the sunny lockdown weather. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/london', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/air-pollution', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-06-18T20:30:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2023/oct/05/australian-farms-expected-to-take-financial-hit-as-prices-dive-and-dry-summer-looms | Australian farm incomes to be squeezed as prices dive and fears of a dry summer loom | Drier conditions combined with lower commodity prices and smaller crops are expected to reduce broadacre farm incomes by 41% on average this financial year, according to the latest Australian agricultural seasonal outlook. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences (Abares) forecasts average cash incomes to fall to $197,000 per broadacre farm in 2023–24, with beef cattle and sheep farms expected to be hit particularly hard. The forecast warns some farms will find it difficult to repay debt, which has increased over the past few years at the same time as interest rates have climbed. Recent Abares figures show farm debt has accelerated each year since 2016-2017, primarily for land and working capital, though farm equity remains strong due to rising land prices. It comes after El Niño climate pattern was declared and livestock markets plummet as farmers sell off stock to reduce herds ahead of an expected dry summer. But the latest Abares farm performance forecast says the expected income falls are relative to the record highs for farm incomes over the past two years. “Forecast farm incomes and profits for 2023–24 are still expected to be above those observed during recent drought years at a national average level,” it says. The forecast covers broadacre farms, which represent 95% of farmland in the country but a little over half of the value of production, because it excludes intensive industries such as dairy, horticulture and poultry. In 2023-24, below average farm profits are likely for parts of southern Victoria and South Australia, and Western Australia in areas affected by both adverse seasonal conditions and declining sheep, lamb, and wool prices. In northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, below average farm profits are expected to be primarily driven by the climate’s impact on crop production. However, central and central-north Australian conditions are forecast to remain more favourable, with expected farm cash incomes only forecast to decline 14% compared with 41% nationally. Neal Hughes, a senior economist at Abares, said the new forecast combines a farm simulation model with a drought early warning system linked to the Bureau of Meteorology’s seasonal weather forecasts and related crop and pasture growth estimates. “The commonwealth government relied pretty heavily on data from the BOM but drought is generally a lot more complicated than just rainfall,” he said. “Some of Aabres’s past research has shown … rainfall can only be weakly correlated with the actual agricultural impacts of drought.” Hughes said the new forecasting system will help government programs – such as the Farm Household Allowance and the Rural Financial Counselling Service – to plan for the needs of communities. But he said it was important to recognise that the commonwealth would not be returning to the old system where drought maps defined which farms were in “exceptional circumstances” and government assistance was paid according to certain criteria. “It’s important to emphasise that it’s not about returning to some kind of exceptional circumstances type trigger,” he said. “But the government has a lot of programs that are related to drought that could benefit from drought information. “If we can forecast where drought is happening, and what might happen in the future, potentially that could have helped them allocate resources.” | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'environment/farming', 'business/cattles', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'profile/gabrielle-chan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-10-05T02:45:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
lifeandstyle/2021/oct/15/hail-seitan-jackfruit-pepperoni-meat-free-lardons-plant-based-world-expo | Hail seitan: jackfruit pepperoni and meat-free lardons at Plant-Based World Expo | Heather Mills stood up on Friday morning at the Design Centre in Islington, before a modest but engaged audience, to give the keynote speech at the Plant-Based World Expo, the first exhibition of meat, fish and dairy alternatives in Europe. “I’ve got thousands of friends that are vegetarians,” she says, “but they just can’t get it over the line because of cheese.” Of the many things you may not know about Mills, if all you knew was that she was once married to Paul McCartney, the cheese made by V-Bites, the company she founded, is maybe the most surprising. “Look at the way it pulls into a string,” says Joe Hill as he brandishes a slice of Hawaiian pizza, featuring meat-free bacon lardons from This Isn’t Bacon. Hill runs One Planet Pizza, a family business in Norwich, with his father, Mike. “V-Bites is the gold standard. There are still a lot of bad cheese experiences out there.” Plant-based alternatives are in their wild west phase – an era of discovery, invention and mad rushes of blood to the head, though realistically, it is probably beetroot juice. Andrew Keeble founded Heck sausages, of regular meat, in 2013, and quickly commanded a large share of the premium processed pig market. “But the vegan and vegetarian markets are crazy,” he says, explaining why he diversified. Well, almost explaining: “No one’s making any money. There are these huge valuations: Beyond Meat was valued at $2.5bn, it’s a very noisy market, but small and very juvenile.” Such a jostling field is bound to have its skirmishes and these are the main faultlines. Are plant-based alternatives trying to turn everyone vegan, or play straight for the flexitarians, people who are just trying to take a day or two off eating meat? Pretty much only Mills is on an evangelical vegan kick. For everyone else, as Alice Edwards, head of retail at Jack & Bry, purveyors of gourmet jackfruit fake pepperoni among other things, puts it: “We’ve got to capture those meat eaters.” Vegans’ support has been banked, basically, and the big game is elsewhere. It’s a bit like being a member of the Labour party. It’s not nothing, this meat-free-Monday trend. The Committee on Climate Change estimated that if all carnivores were to swap only 20% of their meat intake for fake meat, that would be enough (with other behavioural changes) to get us to net zero. Michael Hunter, the managing director of Meatless Farms, is in the business of baby steps: if we all swapped out just one meal a week for a meat alternative, he says, the UK’s carbon footprint would drop by 8.4%. He then hands me a grilled “chicken breast” made of pea protein isolate. Pea is huge at the moment, ever since soy got a bad name, for health and sustainability reasons (it is impossible to overstate how bad this name is, now: “free from soy and other nasties” is a typical sentence). “Pea gives it the structure, wheat gives it the tear,” Hunter explains. The speed of tech development in this area is remarkable. I remember only five years ago eating meat substitutes that tasted like a practical joke. Now you can eat a prawn made of seaweed or a katsu curry made of seitan and, if you weren’t concentrating, you would be perfectly satisfied that a living creature had died for your lunch. The only lingering question is, since it’s not a prawn, why does it taste like one? They flavour the brine with herbs and some sugar. But (sotto voce) which herbs? Since when was there a prawn herb? Which brings us to the other big divide, between those trying to create textures and meat mimicry, or “frankenfood”: “burgers dripping with fake blood”, as Marcus Isaacs, Love Seitan’s sales manager describes. Seitan is, of course, also processed – wheat, gluten, nutritional yeast, chickpea flour, herbs and spices. But they’ve been eating it in Japan for hundreds of years. Pea protein isolate, on the other hand, and methyl cellulose – these are frontier products: you can love them or hate them, but they would not pass Michael Pollan’s test for good nutrition: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food.” On the flipside, there are those using regular ingredients and equipment no more complicated than a blender, to create foods that are merely shaped like meat (or fish). Gosh has an epic range of straight vegetables and pulses in patty shapes. Keeble has a fake sausage that has a very porky flavour, a number of pure vegetable-based sausage-shaped items, and a 60:40 meat and veg ratio, for the totally unabashed reducer, who only wants to eat a little less. “That’s like hiding vegetables on your kid’s plate,” Keeble says, “except you’re doing it to yourself.” Spare a thought in all this for Crackd, trying to reproduce the many magical qualities of an egg; or Mouse, approximating a camembert with cashew, salt, water and culture. Humans may be ingenious to the point of making your head spin, but chickens and cows have mysteries of their own, which we have not yet unlocked. Although, to be fair to the egg substitute, I tasted it in a quiche. So I may have been objecting to the fake bacon. | ['lifeandstyle/vegetarianism', 'lifeandstyle/veganism', 'environment/meat-industry', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'environment/farming', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'uk/heather-mills', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/zoewilliams', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-15T14:42:59Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2014/feb/16/uk-floods-troops-deployed-earlier-philip-hammond | UK floods: troops could have been deployed earlier, Philip Hammond says | Communities struggling to cope with the consequences of winter storms could have been offered support from the armed services much earlier, the defence secretary has said. Philip Hammond told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 that the armed forces could have arrived sooner, as he announced that another 5,000 troops were on standby. He also said Royal Engineers would be asked to compile a rapid assessment of the damage to Britain's infrastructure following weeks of high winds and torrential rain. Hammond's acknowledgement that troops could have been deployed more quickly will be seized upon as further evidence of government failures in responding to the floods. It is understood that the decision by the MoD to deploy troops is triggered by requests from government departments such as Eric Pickles' Department for Local Government or local authorities themselves - but few specific requests were forthcoming. Large parts of Britain remain on high alert as people battle to protect their homes and communities from the floodwaters, which are still expected to rise in places despite a break in the storms. The Environment Agency has 16 severe flood warnings in place for south-west England and the Thames Valley, as well as nearly 150 flood warnings and 230 flood alerts. Hammond said more than 3,000 troops were currently deployed and 5,000 more were available if needed. "We've agreed with the Environment Agency that we will use Royal Engineers to do a very rapid inspection of all the nation's flood defences," he said. "So we're going to try and do in five weeks what would be about a two-year programme of inspection. This series of weather events over the past two months has caused some quite serious damage to our flood defences." Hammond said the government's response to the crisis had been "proper", but that in future it would be likely to use troops earlier. "We're dealing with an extraordinary set of weather events. It's taken some time to mobilise the resources that are necessary to respond," he said. "We offered troops quite a long while ago to civil authorities who wanted them. What we've done over the last 10 days is push them a bit more aggressively at those civil authorities. "Putting military liaison officers into the gold commands so that they are embedded in the system has been a major step forward and I think probably we will want to make sure in future that we do that at a very early stage in any emerging problem." Hammond added that ministers were planning to spend more on flood defences. "We're spending more in this four-year period than we did in the previous four-year period. We'll spend more again in the next four-year period," he said. "But of course there has to be a proper balance of costs and benefits drawn. "Further targeted investment will mean that we become more and more resilient as events like this unfortunately probably will become more and more common." The government has appeared flat-footed over its response to the floods, which claimed two lives on Friday – James Swinstead, an elderly passenger on a cruise ship in the English Channel, and Julie Sillitoe, 49, a minicab driver whose car was hit by falling masonry in central London. In an interview with the Observer, Ed Miliband questioned why many Conservatives, including David Cameron, had appeared to backtrack on climate change rather than saying that it was a cause of the current weather-related problems. Asked to respond to Miliband's comments, Hammond said: "Climate change is clearly happening. It is clearly a factor in the weather patterns that we are seeing. That's why we are investing significant amounts of money in increasing our flood resilience in the UK. "Of course these floods are a terrible tragedy for all the people involved, but we should not forget that hundreds of thousands of people have been protected from flooding by the investment we have made over recent years." A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday found that six out of 10 voters thought the government had failed to get a grip on the flooding crisis. Both Cameron and Miliband have altered their travels plans so that they will remain in Britain this week. | ['uk/weather', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'world/natural-disasters', 'uk/military', 'politics/philip-hammond', 'politics/politics', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/rajeev-syal'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-02-16T12:37:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2014/may/30/undercover-police-and-policing-peter-francis | Women duped by undercover spies challenge police's 'delaying tactics' | Guardian Undercover Blog | The latest stage of the women's legal action against the police is due to be heard next Thursday and Friday in the High Court. It has been a long, drawn-out business so far. The women initiated their legal action in 2011 - and it has yet to reach the main trial. The case has so far been bogged down in a series of preliminary, legal hearings. The police have attempted to have the case thrown out and sent to a secretive court (see here and here, for more background). The women (see here and here) have characterised these legal manoeuvres as obstructive "delaying tactics". The latest hearing will centre on the police's use of a defence they call "neither confirm nor deny". The police argue that they have a policy of being unable to confirm nor deny whether a particular individual has been an undercover officer. This means, the police say, that they are unable to put up a defence to the women's legal action and are prevented from having a fair trial, and therefore, the case should be dismissed. On June 5 and 6, lawyers for the women will be challenging the validity of this defence, arguing that it is being used by the Metropolitan Police "as a cover to hide serious wrongdoing" (as this here explains in more detail). Harriet Wistrich, solicitor for the women, said: "We are making an application that the police must file a proper defence, in accordance with the civil procedure rules by which the defendant has to admit, not admit or deny each and every fact that you assert. To simply assert a policy of 'neither confirm nor deny' is not complying with the requirements of the civil procedure rules." She added :"If the court finds in our favour, then the police will have to disclose relevant documents in their possession and properly plead their defence by responding to each of the factual matters pleaded in the claim. This means the police will be required to answer questions rather than hide behind the supposed ongoing need for secrecy. " So far the case has been full of tortuous legal argument. But what this is really all about should not be forgotten - how undercover police officers deceived and betrayed women they had formed long-term relationships with for many years. Read this here, here and here for a reminder of how the women have been left devastated by the men's behaviour. If ever this case comes to trial properly, the women will be able to tell their stories in open court, and the conduct of the spies and their superiors will be examined in great detail. And that's an embarrassing prospect that police chiefs seem to wish to avoid. | ['uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans', 'tone/blog', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'uk/peter-francis', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'uk/police-and-crime-commissioners', 'uk/ukcrime', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'environment/activism', 'world/surveillance', 'world/espionage', 'uk/mark-kennedy', 'law/law', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/robevans'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2014-05-30T11:27:33Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
us-news/2024/sep/19/joro-spider-pennsylvania | Giant invasive joro spiders spotted for first time in Pennsylvania | The invasive joro spider has been spotted for the first time in Pennsylvania. Six of the giant, colorful spiders, which were already spreading across north-east states including New York and New Jersey, were seen in the yard of a home in Bucks county on 5 September, according to the interactive tracking system JoroWatch. A state entomologist then visited to confirm the location and identification. The species, Trichonephila clavata, is native to east Asia, primarily Japan. It measures up to 4in (10cm) with legs as long as 8in (20cm), and can spin large, golden webs up to 10ft (3m) wide. Females can be identified by their yellow abdomen and broad blue-green bands on their back, as well as yellow and red markings on their belly, according to JoroWatch. They also have long black legs that are often striped in yellow bands. Males are smaller, and mostly brown, with two long yellow stripes on both sides of their abdomen and a dark brown stripe in the middle. Joro spiders were first spotted in the US in north Georgia in 2014, though they probably arrived on shipping containers years before. According to a 2022 University of Georgia study, joro spiders differ from the golden silk spider, a close relative, as they have double the metabolism rate and a 77% higher heart rate. As a result, unlike the golden silk spider – which moved to the US south-east from the tropics 160 years ago, but has been unable to spread due to its inability to withstand cold temperatures – the joro spider is able to survive freezes. Despite their intimidating exterior, joros are considered fairly shy and harmless to people and pets. Last year University of Georgia scientists compared the responses of more than 450 spiders across 10 different species to a mild disturbance – a turkey baster that blew two puffs of air onto the spiders. While most species froze for less than a minute before resuming their normal activities, the joro spiders remained still for more than an hour. “They basically shut down and wait for the disturbance to go away,” the study’s lead author Andy Davis told the university newspaper. “These spiders are really more afraid of you than the reverse.” | ['us-news/us-news', 'us-news/pennsylvania', 'environment/spiders', 'environment/insects', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/invasive-species', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maya-yang', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-09-19T17:04:34Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2013/may/21/chad-oil-revenue-share-discontent | Missing oil revenue stirs discontent among Chad's poor | Félicité sees nothing unreasonable about her demands. Seated in one of the few shady spots in her yard, she details what she would like to obtain for her family: a decent wage, enough to eat, a health service and cheap building materials so everyone can have a home. "And school really free of charge for all children," adds this resident of Dembé, a poor neighbourhood of N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. Félicité and her husband arrived here 20 years ago. They are fortunate in having their own home: three huts accommodating the 10 members of the family. Otherwise, life is a struggle. Even as a public-sector worker, her pay does not cover their needs, particularly with the price increases of recent years. "With the oil money all that should have sorted itself out," she complains. Like many of their compatriots, Félicité's family cannot understand what went wrong. Ten years after the oil started to flow, Chad is still close to the bottom of the human development index, ranked 184th out of 187 by the UN in 2012. It may have started with a big handicap, but little has changed for most people, fuelling widespread discontent towards President Idriss Déby, in power for the past 22 years. In 10 years oil has earned the country $9.8bn. "On the international market oil prices have soared. We should not feel poverty so harshly," says Delphine Djiraibe, one of the heads of the Chadian Civil Society Network for Peace and Reconciliation (CSAPR) coalition of NGOs, established in 2002, that has repeatedly criticised the poor management of this windfall. "The resentment," she adds, "is particularly strong because oil revenue mainly benefits the elite." Hopes were high when the Doba oilfields came on stream in 2003, prompting the launch of a new development scheme. The World Bank part-funded buildinga 1,100km pipeline from Chad to Cameroon. In exchange the authorities undertook to pay 10% of the income into a fund for future generations. Of the remainder, 80% was to be allocated to priority development sectors, 5% to the Doba area and no more than 15% to the national budget. But the agreement was short-lived, the cash being primarily used to buy arms to combat various rebel movements. Peace was restored in 2009 and the focus of spending has shifted. Chad has signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which requires governments to publish details of mining revenues. "The problem now is governance," says Gilbert Maoundonodji of the Gramp/TC NGO, which monitors oil exports. He reckons 80% of revenue is being spent on infrastructure, particularly roads. "Massive, disproportionate investments," he adds, "often a legal way of capturing earnings." The authorities say that substantial amounts have been spent on development. As well as roads, many schools and hospitals have been built, with various schemes to support farming, which occupies over three-quarters of the population. "It's true," says a humanitarian worker, "but there is an acute lack of planning and supervision." Last year saw a massive public-sector strike from July to December. "The aim was to obtain a new pay scale, which the government promised in 2011 but never implemented," says trade union leader Michel Barka. Ultimately, an agreement was reached and the minimum wage was doubled. Despite the lingering resentment there seems little likelihood of a Chadian spring. Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, the majority of the country's youth are still rural. "And who would take the responsibility of calling for demonstrations?" asks Abderamane Gossoumian, a CSAPR official. "What's more, we can make all the demands we like, but there are no politicians to carry them forward." The recent military intervention in Mali, broadly supported by the Chadian population, has undoubtedly strengthened Déby's hand, but it leaves a bitter taste. "The operation was so dazzling," Djiraibe explains, "it makes us forget our difficulties at home." • This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from Le Monde | ['world/chad', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'environment/oil', 'environment/energy', 'tone/news', 'global-development/global-development', 'type/article', 'profile/charlotte-bozonnet'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2013-05-21T13:02:23Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2019/dec/31/convert-farmland-to-nature-climate-crisis | Convert half of UK farmland to nature, urges top scientist | Half of the nation’s farmland needs to be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife, according to a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government. Prof Sir Ian Boyd said such a change could mean the amount of cattle and sheep would fall by 90%, with farmers instead being paid for storing carbon dioxide, helping prevent floods and providing beautiful landscapes where people could boost their health and wellbeing. Boyd said the public were subsidising the livestock industry to produce huge environmental damage. The professor spent seven years at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs before stepping down in August. Half of farmland, mostly uplands and pasture, produces just 20% of the UK’s food and would be better for used other public goods, he said. Boyd, who became vegetarian during his time in Defra, said farmers were potentially “sitting on a goldmine” in terms of the payments they could receive for growing trees and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He said: “We need a large, radical transformation and we need to do it quickly, in the next decade. You can tick an immense number of boxes simultaneously.” Farmers argue that uplands and pasture where livestock are reared cannot be used to grow crops. But Boyd said: “It would be much better to store carbon and water, grow trees and make the land available for people to improve their health and welfare.” He said the 20% of food production lost by converting half of farmland could be made up by the development of vertical farms, where food is produced indoors in controlled and more efficient conditions. Boyd said: “I know there are big companies looking at how to really scale this up.” A series of studies have concluded that people in rich nations need to eat much less meat to tackle the climate emergency and improve their health. “Most of the livestock production in the UK is unprofitable without public subsidy,” said Boyd. “The public are subsidising the production of livestock to produce huge environmental damages, all the way from greenhouse gas emissions to water pollution. Why should we continue to do that? It’s not sensible. “If anybody asked me: ‘If there is one thing I can do to help save the planet, what would it be?’ I would say just eat a lot less meat. It’s the easiest thing to do. I’ve done it.” People could reduce the meat they eat by 90% and have a perfectly balanced diet, Boyd said: “Freeing up 50% of the land would probably result in a reduction in the amount of livestock by about that amount, because it would be mostly livestock land we would be taking out of production.” Farmers should be paid for changing the way land is used, he said. Current subsidies are largely based on the amount of land owned, but the government has pledged it will “move to a system based on public money for public goods” after the UK leaves the EU’s subsidy regime. Farmland covers 70% of the UK, meaning that converting half to woodlands and parks would create new landscapes across a third of the country. In May, a report from Rewilding Britain called for a quarter of the nation to be returned to natural habitat. The National Farmers Union recently published its plan to end the climate-heating emissions from agriculture by 2040. It said this could be done without cutting beef production or converting large areas of farmland into forest. Instead, the NFU said 75% of the UK’s agricultural emissions could be offset by growing plant fuel for power stations and then capturing and burying the carbon dioxide. Responding to Boyd’s proposal, Guy Smith, the NFU’s deputy president, said: “Urgent action is needed to tackle the climate emergency. British farmers are already some of the most sustainable in the world. For example, the beef produced in Britain is already 2.5 times more efficient than the global average. And they are committed to doing even more. “However, we will not halt climate change by curbing sustainable, British production and exporting it to countries which may not have the same climate ambition as we do here.” Boyd said: “This proposal is not about being negative about farmers. It’s about being positive about their futures and helping them to adapt and continue providing support for society, but in a different way from in the past.” | ['environment/farming', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'society/health', 'society/society', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/rewilding', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-12-31T07:30:29Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2014/nov/13/fukushima-11bn-cleanup-will-take-another-40-years | Fukushima £11bn cleanup progresses, but there is no cause for optimism | The man in charge of cleaning up the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has admitted there is little cause for optimism while thousands of workers continue their battle to contain huge quantities of radioactive water. The water problem is so severe that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], and its myriad partner firms have enlisted almost all of their 6,000 workers in the 2tn yen (£11bn) mission to bring it under control, almost four years after a deadly tsunami sparked a triple meltdown at the plant. But Fukushima Daiichi’s manager, Akira Ono, said he believed workers had turned a corner in the long road towards decommissioning. “For three years we were dealing with the aftermath of the accident, so there was no way we could plan ahead. “Even though I have no intention of being optimistic, it’s possible to say that we can now start to look forward,” Ono told the Guardian. Each day about 400 tonnes of groundwater streams from hills behind the plant and into the basements of three stricken reactors, where it mixes with coolant water being used to prevent melted fuel from overheating and triggering another major accident. Most of the contaminated water is pumped out and stored in tanks, but large quantities find their way to other parts of the site, including maintenance trenches connected to the sea. So far, the plant has accumulated about 500,000 tonnes of contaminated water, which is being stored in more than 1,000 tanks occupying a large swath of the Fukushima Daiichi complex. By comparison, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 produced 9,000 tonnes of toxic water. “The contaminated water is the most pressing issue – there is no doubt about that,” Ono said. “Our efforts to address the problem are at their peak now. Though I cannot say exactly when, I hope things start getting better when the measures start taking effect.” Previous versions of Tepco’s Alps [advanced liquid processing system] water treatment unit were plagued by technical hitches. In addition, tanks used to store the contaminated water were poorly assembled and suffered serious leaks, while plans to freeze water that has gathered in a trench near the damaged reactors are eight months behind schedule. Work has begun on a 1.5km frozen barrier to prevent groundwater from reaching the reactor basements, but some experts, including Dale Klein, a former chairman of the US nuclear regulatory commission who now advises Tepco, have questioned its viability. Despite doubts about its effectiveness, Tepco officials say the wall should be finished by next March, and completely frozen by May. Along with the underground “ice wall”, the utility is pinning its hopes on a new version of its Alps water treatment system that can remove more than 60 radioactive elements. Recent “hot testing” of the apparatus has been successful, raising hopes that a solution to the water problem may not be far off, said Shinichi Kawamura, head of risk communication at Fukushima Daiichi. “This is a high-performance system because it uses only filters and absorbents to remove the contaminants,” Kawamura said. “The old system depended on chemical agents, which caused problems and created a lot more waste. We have confidence in this machinery.” As Japan moves closer to a return to nuclear power after the local authorities on the southwestern island of Kyushu this month gave their approval for reactor restarts, Tepco can claim a significant victory in its efforts to improve safety at Fukushima Daiichi. This month, workers completed the removal of the 1,331 spent fuel assemblies from a storage pool in reactor No 4, which was badly damaged in a hydrogen explosion after the March 2011 disaster. The removal of the unused fuel rods should be complete by the end of the year. Some experts had warned of a potential catastrophe had the fuel rods collided or been damaged during the operation; Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, went as far as claiming that “the fate of Japan and the whole world” depended on the successful removal of spent fuel from reactor No 4. “This was a risky job, so when we removed the last fuel assembly we were delighted,” said Yuichi Kagami, who oversees fuel removal at the reactor. “This was a big step forward in the decommissioning process.” The most dangerous and difficult jobs lie ahead, however. Tepco has yet to begin removing melted fuel from reactors 1, 2 and 3, where radiation levels are too high for humans to enter. Tepco engineers admit they do not know exactly where the damaged fuel is located. Robots have been used to inspect debris inside reactor buildings, but none have been able to get anywhere near the melted fuel. The dangers posed by this unprecedented operation recently forced Tepco and the government to delay the planned start of fuel removal from reactor No 1 by five years, to 2025. Decommissioning the entire plant is expected to take at least 40 years. The operation, including compensation for tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes, will cost around 10tn yen (£55bn). | ['environment/fukushima', 'world/world', 'world/japan', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2014-11-13T13:03:38Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2017/jan/15/louisiana-bayou-bridge-pipeline-standing-rock | Protests escalate over Louisiana pipeline by company behind Dakota Access | Scott Eustis did not stop smiling for hours. The coastal wetland specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network was attending a public hearing in Baton Rouge. Its subject was a pipeline extension that would run directly through the Atchafalaya Basin, the world’s largest natural swamp. Eustis was surprised to be joined by more than 400 others. “This is like 50 times the amount of people we have at most of these meetings,” said Eustis, adding that the proposed pipeline was “the biggest and baddest I’ve seen in my career”. The company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), had seemed to turn its attention to Louisiana just one day after Native American protesters thwarted the company’s Dakota Access project last month. A spokeswoman for ETP, Vicki Granado, said the Bayou Bridge pipeline extension was announced in June 2015. If approved, the project will run though 11 parishes and cross around 600 acres of wetlands and 700 bodies of water, including wells that reportedly provide drinking water for some 300,000 families. At the public hearing in Baton Rouge on Thursday, the first speaker, Cory Farber, project manager of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, said it was expected to create 2,500 temporary jobs. When Farber then said the project would produce 12 permanent jobs, the crowd laughed heartily. “Those who have airboat companies and equipment companies that specialize in putting in equipment, they’re not opposed to pipelines because of the short-term jobs,” said Jody Meche, president of the state Crawfish Producers’ Association, one of dozens who spoke at the hearing. “But once that pipe is in there, the jobs are gone.” Other attendees applauded in favor of the pipeline, and former US senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a supporter, was in attendance. But Native Americans also dotted the crowd, many of them fresh from Standing Rock. “The Native Americans in North Dakota get a lot of credit for showing people their power,” Eustis said. Protester Cherri Foytlin, organizer of the pro-sustainability Bridge the Gulf project, brought her teenage daughters, Jayden and Erin. In November, Erin and 20 other kids from around the country filed a lawsuit against the federal government for ignoring climate change. The suit will soon go to trial. Meche not only makes his living in the Atchafalaya Basin, but he also calls it home. Where most in attendance worried about potential oil spills and their effect on drinking water, Meche was more concerned with ways existing pipelines have, he said, “crippled” the fishing industry. “They excavated the trench that they put the pipe in and then [they didn’t clean up] and it leaves a dam behind that blocks the water flow,” he said on the microphone, “until there’s not enough oxygen in the water for the crawfish, the fish, or anything.” Meche said these left-behind “spoil banks” also disintegrate and slip down into the interior of the swamp, filling it with silt. “Areas that were 8ft deep 20 or 30 years ago are now a hill,” he claimed, adding that it all increases flood risk to boot. After his three minutes were up, he left the microphone, breathing heavily. Debate was fierce. Pro-pipeline speakers – oil industry reps, state representatives, a retired Louisiana State University professor – pointed out that many pipelines already run through the Atchafalaya Basin and said pipelines were in general the safest way to transport oil – in the case of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, 280,000 barrels per day of crude to the Gulf coast region, with the potential for 480,000. At a pre-hearing teach-in outside in the long shadow of Baton Rouge’s capital building, Anne Rolfes and her Louisiana Bucket Brigade activists repeated how pipelines caused 144 accidents in Louisiana alone last year. Pipeline supporters countered by citing a Frasier institute study from 2015 that said rail transport of oil was more than 4.5 times more likely to experience an accident than pipelines, and that 99% of pipeline accidents from 2003 to 2013 did not damage the environment. Pipeline PR materials also say pipelines are cleaner and more environmentally safe than rail transport because they don’t burn fossil fuels. ETP’s new pipeline plans also acknowledge the need to deal with spoil banks, and include a suggested post-construction initiative to improve water quality and flow to the basin. If he thought this was true, Meche said, he would support the idea. “I have no problem with the pipeline if they do it right,” he said. “I do like my oil and gas.” He just suspected that ETP would not go the extra mile. “You know how much money you’re talking about, bringing tractors back in the basin to fix all that? They’re only going to pay what they are obligated to do, and nothing else.” Rolfes also scoffed at oil industry promises. “The best way to determine the future is to look at the past,” she said. “And you can see how honest they were about filling the old canals: there’s not a single example of them fixing the existing spoil banks.” At least, as activists see it, Louisiana residents are starting to really care about environmental issues and, more importantly, to make themselves heard. “A lot of times we don’t get this opportunity to speak up,” said Eustis, still admiring the surprisingly large crowd. “[These oil companies] want to just roll over us. “But after Katrina, and the BP spill, and the Baton Rouge flood last year – 100,000 people displaced from their homes because of climate change – I guess we’re finally just sick of this.” | ['environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/oil', 'us-news/louisiana', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/energy', 'us-news/dakota-access-pipeline', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/michael-patrick-welch', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2017-01-15T12:00:15Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2004/sep/14/naturaldisasters.weather | Ivan intensifies terrible hurricane year for insurers | The 2004 hurricane season is expected to be costly for insurers, with early estimates of $8bn (£4.5bn) of losses from just one of the storms that have hit the United States this year. The estimate by Aon does not include the impact of Hurricane Ivan, which was last night expected to hit Cuba after rampaging through Jamaica over the weekend before entering the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow. Shell was shutting down productions in the gulf as a precaution yesterday and oil prices were rising on fears that damage could lead to sustained reduced production. Nicholas Bollons, a catastrophe analyst at Aon, estimates that Hurricane Charley, which hit Florida in August, will lead to $5bn to $8bn of losses alone for insurers. Three million people were evacuated to avoid Charley but 25 lost their lives. Mr Bollons had expected 2004 to be worse than average because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had forecast up to 15 tropical storms with up to eight hurricanes, two to four of which would be severe. On average there are five to six hurricanes a year. Hurricane Alex was the first of 2004, followed by Charley and Frances in mid-September. Ivan is still raging and was not included in Aon's research. Aon has kept track of all the national disasters that have taken place to the end of August and identified more than 8,000 fatalities, with 355 of these being in August. The statistics do not just cover hurricanes but also monitor avalanches, fires, volcanic activity and earthquakes - like the one measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale which hit Turkey last month. Most of the analysis for August, however, focuses on hurricanes and finds that as the season is not due to end until November, the price could be high for insurers. Together, though, the hurricanes are not thought likely to surpass the $30bn of damage inflicted by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which resulted in insurer losses of $16bn. In any natural disaster not all the damage suffered will be covered by policies - which is why insurers attempt to estimate losses. But Mr Bollons noted: "With an increase in economic and insured assets in coastal areas due to population growth and increased affluence, damage from hurricanes and tropical storms is likely to continue." The increase in hurricane activity in 2004 may be part of a longer-term trend. Aon cited research by William Gray, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, who has found that the cycle of increased activity could last another 10 or 20 years. Hurricanes are fuelled by warm ocean waters; on average temperatures have been half a degree warmer than in the early 1990s. The Atlantic warmed up between 1926 and 1960, when there was increased activity, but hurricanes reduced between 1960 and 1995, when the water was cooler. | ['business/business', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'money/money', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article', 'profile/jilltreanor'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2004-09-14T08:15:49Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2019/dec/19/worlds-oldest-known-fossil-forest-found-in-new-york-quarry | World's oldest known fossil forest found in New York quarry | The world’s oldest known fossil forest has been discovered in a sandstone quarry in New York state, offering new insights into how trees transformed the planet. The forest, found in the town of Cairo, would have spanned from New York to Pennsylvania and beyond, and has been dated to about 386m years old. It is one of only three known fossil forests dating to this period and about 2-3m years older than the previously oldest known fossil forest at Gilboa, also in New York state. “These fossil forests are extremely rare,” said Chris Berry from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences. “To really understand how trees began to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we need to understand the ecology and habitats of the very earliest forests.” The forest would have been quite open and its ancient trees would appear alien to the modern eye. A walker would have encountered clusters of Cladoxylopsid, a 10m-tall leafless tree with a swollen base, short branches resembling sticks of celery and shallow, ribbon-like roots. The fossils also revealed a tree called Archaeopteris, something like a pine, but instead of needles the branches and trunk were adorned with fern-like fronds, giving it an almost hairy appearance. “It’s not something we can immediately recognise as a modern tree,” said Berry. Archaeopteris also featured enormous woody roots, which had not previously been seen in forests of this era. The prehistoric forest would have been sparse on wildlife. The first dinosaurs would only appear 150m years later and there were no vertebrates on land yet and no birds. The forest’s primary occupants were millipede-like creatures, called myriapods, and some other primitive insects that may or may not have begun to fly. “It’s funny to think of a forest without large animals. No birdsong. Just the wind in the trees,” said Berry. The emergence of forests is one of the most transformative events in Earth’s history, marking permanent changes to ecology, atmospheric CO2 levels and climate. Before forests, CO2 levels were far higher and the Earth’s climate was hotter with no ice caps. By the end of the Devonian period, about 350m years ago, there were glaciers and, soon after, polar ice became permanent. However, there have been so few fossil remains of early trees that scientists have had only a hazy idea of which trees dominated which habitats, how root systems altered soil chemistry and how forests opened up new ecological niches for animals. “These remarkable findings have allowed us to move away from the generalities of the importance of large plants growing in forests,” said Berry. “We are really getting a handle on the transition of the Earth to a forested planet.” Today, forests cover about 30% of the planet and are being cleared on a massive scale. Between 1990 and 2016, the world lost 502,000 square miles of forest, according to the World Bank – an area larger than South Africa – and about 17% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared over the past 50 years. Even without accounting for the impact of burning fossil fuels, deforestation could lead to profound changes to the world’s ecosystem and climate. “If you reverse that process [of forestation] you probably lose the ice,” said Berry. | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'science/archaeology', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/hannah-devlin', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-12-19T16:07:26Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
science/2016/feb/15/the-race-to-mine-asteroids | Expert debate: should there be a space race to mine asteroids? | CHRIS LEWICKI President and CEO of leading US asteroid-mining company Planetary Resources I left Nasa to join Planetary Resources because I was excited about what we could provide for the broader development of space: ice from near-Earth asteroids could provide oxygen, drinking water, rocket fuel, radiation shielding, while metals could be used to construct things in space. We’ve already operated our first spacecraft and by 2025 we hope to have robotic spacecraft produce the first litre of water in space. Mining asteroids is technically possible, but it’s not going to happen by itself; it needs innovators like ourselves to create the reality from what was previously science fiction. The new law has tackled the issue head on, and while there will always be people who worry about it, one of the exciting things for me is conveying to people that this isn’t something that might happen in the future – it’s under way. PROFESSOR LINDA FRENCH Planetary astronomer at Illinois Wesleyan University People have been talking about asteroid mining for 10 years or so, and back then I felt we should just leave things alone because we’ve not done all that good a job of stewarding our own planet. But what with the Osiris-Rex mission and the support from the Obama administration, it seems like this is the direction that things are moving in, and the major players involved in developing it seem to have advisers who are good scientists, so I haven’t decided to man the barricades against it. Harvesting water from asteroids, instead of lifting it off the Earth’s surface, would be a huge saving. But I have some concerns about the feasibility of, say, bringing platinum back to Earth. Still, more data is always welcome – we learned so much from bringing back the moon rocks. DR GBENGA ODUNTAN Senior lecturer in international commercial law, University of Kent I was surprised when the new US Space Act was signed into law with very little debate. I have the rather nasty impression that it was all hurriedly done. People might not notice what it really represents, which is the beginnings of unilateral claims over natural resources in outer space. This is out of line with the letter and spirit of space law, which are based on common ownership by mankind. My hope is that some member states will raise an issue about this at the next UN general assembly, because the same argument that allows the US to do this will also avail China and any other countries with the technical capability. The environmental concerns are also very frightening. I am not a scientist but I don’t see how you can employ swarms of robots to attach themselves to asteroids without contamination taking place. And when you’re dealing with private companies it’s much more difficult to attribute responsibility for potential damage. DR LEOPOLD SUMMERER Head of advanced concepts team, European Space Agency We already harvest resources from space to help with space exploration – solar energy, gravity etc – in my view it’s just a matter of time before we use other materials. At the ESA we’ve studied various forms of in situ resources utilisation, including fuel-production and 3D printing of habitats from lunar material. It’s impressive how much public interest and private funding have been generated around asteroid mining in the US. At the ESA, we have been exploring public-private partnerships since last year and, while none of them concerns asteroid mining, it might yet come. The ESA is the only one that has landed on an asteroid and is currently preparing an asteroid mission that would include the deployment of microlanders. Whatever we do, we have to do it responsibly, respecting the rights of future generations and the protection of scientifically valuable places. | ['science/asteroids', 'science/science', 'environment/mining', 'science/space', 'tone/features', 'environment/environment', 'business/mining', 'business/business', 'science/european-space-agency', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'law/law-us', 'profile/kit-buchan', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly', 'theobserver/observer-tech-monthly/observer-tech-monthly'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2016-02-15T07:30:03Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2015/jan/25/weatherwatch-arctic-little-auk-feeding-habits | Weatherwatch: The adaptable little auk | Sometimes the scale of climate change is so awesome that it seems incomprehensible. But the story of one small bird in the Arctic shows how temperatures are soaring, and also how it is adapting to an ecological disaster. The little auk is a black-and-white bird sometimes called “the penguin of the north”, which dives in the frigid waters of the Arctic and swims underwater with small wings, feeding on minuscule animals known as copepods that gather around the sea ice. According to the Journal of Global Change Biology, since 2005 summer sea ice in the birds’ habitat on the Russian Arctic coast has virtually disappeared and the numbers of copepods has plummeted. That should be bad news for the auks, but a recent study revealed that the birds have made a surprising switch – they now tend to feed on copepods that are stunned by cold, fresh water streaming down from melting glaciers on land. The birds have managed to adapt but there is less food to go around and, as their feeding habits have changed, the body mass of the adults has dropped an average of four per cent since the early 1990s, a sign of something going wrong. The little auk is especially vulnerable to climate change and is seen as a bellwether of the state of the polar north. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world; in this rapidly changing environment it is thought that some Arctic species may go extinct. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/birds', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/jeremy-plester', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-01-25T21:30:19Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
technology/2021/may/09/colonial-pipeline-shutdown-cyber-attack-gas-prices | Shutdown of US pipeline after cyber-attack prompts worry over gas prices | The hackers who caused the vast Colonial Pipeline to shut down on Friday reportedly began their cyber-attack against the top US fuel pipeline operator a day earlier and stole a large amount of data. The attackers are part of a cybercrime group called DarkSide and took nearly 100 gigabytes of data out of Colonial’s network in just two hours on Thursday, the Bloomberg news website reported late on Saturday, citing two people involved in the company’s investigation. The Biden administration responded on Sunday with an emergency loosening of regulations for the transport of petroleum products on highways as part of an “all-hands-on-deck” effort to avoid disruptions in the fuel supply. The shutdown is already prompting worries about a spike in gasoline and diesel prices ahead of the peak summer driving season if the outage does not end soon. Colonial did not immediately reply to an email from Reuters seeking comment outside usual US business hours. Colonial Pipeline shut its entire network after the breach of its computer networks, the source of nearly half of the US east coast’s fuel supply, after a cyber-attack that involved ransomware. The 5,500 miles of pipeline that runs from Texas to New York carries 45% of the east coast’s fuel supplies and travels through 14 southern and eastern US states. The pipeline transports gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The company’s website says it carries some 100m gallons of fuel each day and services seven airports. A third-party cybersecurity firm was hired to investigate the attack and federal agencies and law enforcement were informed. An eastern European-based criminal gang known as DarkSide may be responsible, a US official and another person familiar with the matter indicated to the Washington Post. Prices at the pump are not expected to rise unless the outage lasts more than three days, experts say. But a long-term shutdown could be significant given the size of the line. “The challenges brought on by the Colonial Pipeline shutdown would only develop after a few days of outage,” said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. He warned drivers against panic buying. “What could make a temporary pipeline shutdown much worse is if Americans wrongly fear shortages,” he said. The American Automobile Association said: “The shutdown can have a large impact if it is prolonged.” The Department of Transportation issued a regional emergency declaration on Sunday, relaxing hours-of-service regulations for drivers carrying gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products in 17 states and the District of Columbia. It lets them work extra or more flexible hours to make up for any fuel shortage related to the pipeline outage. | ['us-news/us-news', 'technology/cybercrime', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'technology/technology', 'technology/internet', 'technology/hacking', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-05-10T03:14:53Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2022/aug/15/discovered-in-the-deep-hairy-chested-hoff-crab | Discovered in the deep: the mini cities of hairy-chested Hoff crabs | In 2005, scientists exploring more than a mile underwater south of Easter Island in the south Pacific, found odd-looking white crabs with long, hairy arms. They named them yeti crabs. Several years later, in 2010, onboard a research ship in the Southern Ocean, surrounded by icebergs, fin whales and penguins, another science team contemplated the deep-sea crabs they had just found 2,500 metres beneath the surface. These were a variety of yeti crab, ranging from thumbnail- to fist-sized, but rather than having hairy arms they had luxuriant hairy chests. The scientists considered naming it after the James Bond actor Sean Connery, says Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist at Portsmouth University . But it was David Hasselhoff, from his days as a Los Angeles lifeguard in the 90s TV hit Baywatch, who won out and the “Hoff crab” was christened. Those hairy arms and chests are key to the crabs’ survival in one of the Earth’s most extreme habitats: scorching hydrothermal vents, also known as black smokers. Yeti and Hoff crabs do not chase around after prey or scavenge for dead scraps like most crustaceans. Instead, they graze on colonies of microbes that grow within their fur. These microbes harness energy from toxic chemicals, such as methane and hydrogen sulphide, that are churned out of the vent chimney stacks. The microbial process known as chemosynthesis is a dark alternative to plant-based photosynthesis and it goes on in the pitch black of the deep sea with no need for sunlight. “The adaptability of life is astounding,” says Roterman. A few years ago, when asked by a journalist which of his natural history curiosities he treasures the most, David Attenborough said he was especially fond of the Hoff crab encased in resin, like a paperweight, that sits on his desk. It was a gift from Roterman and a reminder, he said, that animals exist that have until recently had no contact with humans and have no concept of our existence. Much of what is known about these unusual crabs comes from video beamed up from remotely operated underwater vehicles exploring hydrothermal vent fields. Footage shows hundreds of male Hoff crabs clambering up vent chimneys. “We observed them sparring with each other, sizing up against each other and using their claws like callipers,” says Roterman. There can be more than 700 Hoff crabs per square metre, with the males tussling for prime real estate, vying to get nearest to the chemical-rich fluids that bathe their microbes and yield more food. They form mini cities under the sea, co-existing in a tiny area where it’s warm enough to live but not hot enough to boil. Life for female Hoff crabs is quite different. With clutches of fertilised eggs stuck on to their bodies they cannot afford to hang around the vents where the seawater is low in oxygen and their young would soon suffocate. So expectant females crawl away into the cold dark a few metres from the chimneys. There they sit and starve, lacking chemicals to nourish their microbial fur farm. They become paralysed by the cold water and are easy prey for predators. “We found these weird seven-armed starfish that would patrol the perimeter and eat the females,” says Roterman. One of the many mysteries that still surrounds Hoff crabs is whether females breed just once then die, or if they make it back to the vent chimneys to find another mate. “We have no idea if it’s a one-way trip,” he says. The low oxygen around hydrothermal vents could put yeti and Hoff crabs at particular risk of the climate crisis. The warming ocean is likely to become more stratified and stagnant, with less mixing of oxygen-rich shallow seawater down into the deep. “We know this is happening already,” Roterman says, “and it means that some of the first deep-sea species that could go extinct … could be hydrothermal vent species.” | ['environment/series/discovered-in-the-deep', 'environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/deep-sea-mining', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/helen-scales', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-08-15T05:00:30Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/jan/31/global-use-of-mosquito-nets-for-fishing-endangering-humans-and-wildlife | Global use of mosquito nets for fishing 'endangering humans and wildlife' | Anti-malarial mosquito nets are being used to catch fish around the world, according to the first global survey, risking harm to people and fish stocks. More research is urgently needed to assess these impacts, say the scientists, but they also caution that the draconian bans on mosquito net fishing seen in some countries may cause more harm than good, particularly where people rely on the fish caught to survive. More than 3 billion people around the world are at risk of malaria. Bed nets to repel the mosquitoes that transmit the deadly disease have played a huge role in cutting the toll it takes. The number of at-risk people able to sleep under nets rose from 2% to 49% in the decade to 2013, with malaria incidence falling by almost 40% over a similar period. Mosquito nets are often distributed for free and anecdotal evidence of their use for other purposes has been controversial. Examples of nets being used to protect crops, to make chicken coops and even as wedding veils have led to concern among medical professionals that public confidence in a life-saving programme could be undermined. The new research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, used questionnaires sent to more than 100 health, conservation and fisheries workers around the world to produce a rapid assessment of the prevalence of mosquito net fishing. The researchers found mosquito net fishing is seen across the globe. East Africa had the greatest concentration, but the practice was also seen from Bangladesh to the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. It was reported in both freshwater, as seen in Africa’s great lakes and in Nepal, and in the sea, in west Africa. “Whilst we are wholly supportive of the efforts of the healthcare community to tackle [malaria], which is so damaging to people’s lives, we would strongly advocate further research into the potential impacts of this unintended consequence,” said Rebecca Short of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), who led the new research. “If those nets aren’t being used for the purpose they are distributed for, then they are not reducing malaria.” said Nick Hill, also at ZSL. The fine mesh size of the nets could also mean young fish are being caught, which could damage stocks. But Hill also warned that crackdowns, as seen in Mozambique where mosquito net fishing can now be punished with three years in prison, may not be the best response. In a region in Mozambique where he works, Hill said women whose mosquito fishing nets were confiscated and burned then left their children at the police station, demanding that officers feed them instead. “If you put a young mum in prison for three years who is trying to look after young children, it could potentially have a hugely negative effect,” he said, adding that the root cause of lack of food needed to be addressed in such situations. The impact on malaria infections of mosquito net fishing is not known, although one small study in Kenya showed the nets were so plentiful that people could both fish and hang nets over their beds. But Hill warned that those nets might have been diverted from elsewhere. A World Health Organization spokesman said: “Misuse of nets is certainly a concern if and when it happens, but needs to be put into the context of the enormous benefit that their use of long lasting insecticide treated nets has had in terms of reducing the burden of malaria.” | ['environment/fishing', 'environment/food', 'world/malaria', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/marine-life', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-01-31T19:00:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2005/jan/27/tsunami2004.internationalaidanddevelopment26 | The expatriate (Thailand) | Trevor Fisher, 40, runs a business in Phuket I'm back in Manchester from Thailand until next week talking to various parties about building visitor centres in Phuket for people affected, and also meeting organisations like the Foreign Office to give them information on how we can improve our response if something like this happens again. The BBC in Manchester have given me a phone and internet access, which is really nice, as I've only got limited funds. I used to be a nurse in Denton, near Manchester, but I've lived in Phuket for seven years. I run a sound-system business there and all my cash-flow has disappeared, all the orders have been cancelled and my business partner pulled out because he got cold feet. You can't build a tsunami into a business plan. On the day of the tsunami I pitched up at my local hospital and offered my skills, but the Thai medical staff were coping fine so my role quickly moved into supporting people with missing relatives. So a month after the tsunami I also spoke to the people organising the Love From Manchester concert that's happening on Sunday. I've also been trying to get public-speaking engagements, and have been talking to charities about raising more immediate money to help people in Phuket get back on their feet. I'm also still supporting a few Norwegian families who I met on the day, ringing them and helping them by talking. I just can't wait to get home and give my wife a big hug. | ['world/tsunami2004', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-27T09:47:53Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2024/apr/04/global-deforestation-rainforest-climate-goals-brazil-colombia-agriculture | Global rainforest loss continues at rate of 10 football pitches a minute | The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show. An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling 37,000 sq km (14,200 sq miles), according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. This is a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, often driven by more land being brought under agricultural cultivation around the world. While Brazil and Colombia recorded large drops in forest loss of 36% and 49% respectively, under the environmental policies of presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, those falls were offset by big increases in Bolivia, Laos, Nicaragua and other countries. Canada also experienced a record-breaking loss of forest due to fire, losing more than 8m hectares (20m acres). Mikaela Weisse, director of Global Forest Watch at the WRI, said: “The world took two steps forward, two steps back when it comes to this past year’s forest loss. “Steep declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible, but increasing forest loss in other areas has largely counteracted that progress,” she said. “We must learn from the countries that are successfully slowing deforestation.” Changes in land use – of which deforestation is a central component – is the second-largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions and a main driver of biodiversity loss. Preserving rainforests is essential to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, according to researchers. Experts have warned that continuing deforestation means governments are dangerously off-track when it comes to meeting their climate and biodiversity commitments. At the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai, governments agreed on the need to halt and reverse the loss and degradation of forests by 2030, after a commitment by world leaders at Cop26 in Glasgow to end their destruction this decade. But the new figures show that the world is a long way from meeting this target, with little change in global forest loss for several years. While Brazil had significantly slowed its rate of forest loss, the country remained one of the top three countries for losing primary rainforest, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia. Together, they accounted for more than half of the total global destruction. Bolivia recorded a major surge in forest loss for the third consecutive year – despite having less than half of the forest of other major rainforest countries such as the DRC and Indonesia – driven largely by the expansion of soya farming. Laos and Nicaragua lost major chunks of their remaining untouched rainforest in 2023, clearing 1.9% and 4.2% respectively in a single year, which researchers said was because highly fragmented forests in countries that had already been cleared extensively can often be more quickly erased. In Laos, agricultural expansion is being fuelled by demand from China for commodities, while in Nicaragua, cattle ranching and expanding agriculture are to blame. Despite the lack of overall progress in the figures for 2023, researchers said the world could learn from the examples of Brazil and Colombia to meet deforestation targets. Prof Matthew Hansen, a specialist in remote sensing at the University of Maryland’s geography department, said: “I really believe the only way to maintain standing forests is a compensation fund for conserving standing rainforests. “Germany has floated the ‘Fair Deal’, which is meant to pay rainforest countries in this manner. Norway has engaged with Gabon in a similar way, using carbon sequestration as the measure. Couple that approach with robust governance and civil society engagement, and it might work,” he said. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/deforestation', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/environment', 'world/brazil', 'world/colombia', 'environment/conservation', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-04-04T06:00:07Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
politics/davehillblog/2011/dec/21/london-green-aprty-congestion-charging-report | London's Greens put congestion charging back on the road | From Boris Johnson's transport strategy: In the life of the strategy, the Mayor may consider road user charging schemes if other measures at his disposal are deemed insufficient to meet the strategy's goals and where there is a reasonable balance between the objectives of any scheme and its costs and other impacts. It's point E21 in the executive summary - see page 19. Similar material was present in previous mayor Ken Livingstone's transport strategy too. Some London Conservatives and Ken-haters, who'd convinced themselves that Transport for London was a conspiracy of Communist vegetarians, leaped upon this as proof of hidden agendas to ban go-faster stripes, cross-dress Mondeo Man, nationalise the Victoria sponge and so on. Such screams of outraged discovery have not been repeated under Ken's successor, despite the existence of point E21. This is unsurprising. Boris has cut the congestion charging zone in half and made plain his view that extending it to the suburbs would be "a blatant tax on the motorist." Please note in passing that Boris calls the C-charge a "charge" when he's feeding the media tales of billing Obama for his embassy's poor manners, but a "tax" when he's thinking of ballot boxes in Bromley. But whatever its name, he's against more of it. And so, for now at least, is Ken who has ruled out bringing back the western extension that Boris - in the end rather reluctantly - abolished should he re-take City Hall in May. This is a sad state of affairs given that estimates of the annual cost of congestion to London's economy range from £2 billion to £4 billion and that it is calculated that 4,000 Londoners a year die prematurely as a result of poor air quality generated mostly by road traffic. The report commissioned by the London Assembly's Greens published last Friday is therefore very welcome. Compiled by Professor John Whitelegg, it is called Pay-as-you-go: managing traffic impacts in a world-class city, and takes as its premise that Boris's ambition to make London the "best big city in the world" cannot be realised unless its road traffic is controlled more effectively. The report reviews research which has found congestion charging is effective wherever it's been introduced and looks at technological advances that would make a London-wide pay-as-you-go road pricing system technically possible. It addresses the problem of selling such a radical idea to the public as follows: Public support is very closely linked to concepts of fairness and equity. In the context of London with millions of trips being made by public transport, walking and cycling it is self-evidently fair to levy a charge on the much smaller number of car trips that cause a much larger environmental burden than non-car trips. If that revenue is then deployed for the benefit of all Londoners and for a cleaner, greener London then that is likely to win and retain public support. This may seem madly optimistic in view of recent public rejections of congestion charging in Manchester and Edinburgh, an issue explored by a man from London Travelwatch at the City Hall launch of the report. He reminded us that mayor Livingstone introduced charging in the face of opposition from everyone from (surprise, surprise) the Evening Standard to his own advisors and that not every politician is as single-minded and ready to take big risks as Ken. Still, as the report points out, road pricing is unusual in that it unites economists concerned with efficiency, environmentalists concerned with pollution and CO2 emissions, and social justice campaigners who want transport policies that help women, children and those on low incomes. There is also the question of London's need to raise money in the age of austerity. Professor Whitelegg reaches the following conclusion: The revenue benefits of a London-wide pay as you go scheme are substantial and it is highly unlikely that the objectives of the Mayor's Transport Strategy can be achieved in an era of declining public finance, rising costs of supplying and maintaining public transport operations and no significant increase in revenue from road pricing. Put in very clear language it is our view that a London-wide road pricing scheme is essential and without it congestion will worsen, air pollution will worsen, the legal consequences of failing to meet air quality standards will grow in severity and fall on the GLA, the health of Londoners will suffer, CO2 reduction targets will be missed and London will stand no chance whatsoever in achieving "best in class" status that it so richly deserves. Read the whole report here. | ['politics/congestioncharging', 'politics/politics', 'politics/green-party', 'politics/london', 'uk/london', 'environment/green-politics', 'uk/transport', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'media/london-evening-standard', 'environment/environment', 'politics/transport', 'uk/davehillblog', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/davehill'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2011-12-21T23:57:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2023/may/27/shops-will-close-soaring-cost-of-potatoes-batters-british-chippies | ‘Shops will close’: soaring cost of potatoes batters British chippies | Whether it’s fried, baked or mashed, potatoes have traditionally been a low-cost staple food in the UK – but not any more. A surge in costs is clobbering high street chippies, while in the supermarket, oven chips and the once humble baking potato are casualties of soaring grocery prices. Some fish and chip shops could opt to close after the cost of 25kg sacks more than doubled to £20, said Andrew Crook, who speaks for the industry as the president of the National Federation of Fish Friers. “People might just shut their shop due to all the other costs as well,” he said. “They were barely keeping their heads above water, so this is going to be a step too far. Some shops will close until potato prices settle down but some it may put under.” While figures this week revealed that the steadying of energy costs after a period of big increases had brought the UK’s annual inflation rate back down to 8.7% last month, food and drink prices are still rising at the fastest pace in more than 40 years, up 19% in the 12 months to April. Chippies buy potatoes in smaller quantities on the open market, so are more exposed to price moves than retailers and food manufacturers who secure long-term contracts. Even before this new pressure, official data had revealed that the price of a fish supper in the UK had risen to an average of £9 – up £1.44, or almost a fifth, compared with a year earlier – with shop owners hit by rocketing costs for fish, cooking oil and the electricity that powers the fryers. With rising energy, labour and ingredient costs affecting the whole food industry – and last year’s UK potato crop smaller than usual in part because of last summer’s drought – a snapshot of supermarket prices reveals the amount they are charging for potatoes and chips, traditionally an affordable and filling accompaniment to any meal, has jumped in one case by almost 60%. Once a cheap family staple, a four-pack of supermarket own-label baking potatoes now costs 25p more than a year ago at 69p. This works out as a 57% price increase, based on the average price across Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons, according to the data firm Assosia. Meanwhile, a bag of 1.2kg-1.5kg supermarket crinkle-cut oven chips is up 78p, or 49%, at £2.35. The sample also showed that the price of a 2.5kg bag of baking potatoes had risen by 28p or 18% to £1.83. These price rises contributed to the 24.8% increase in potato prices captured by the latest Office for National Statistics data released on Wednesday. Mark Taylor, the chair of the industry group GB Potatoes, said that in 2022 growers had faced a “perfect storm” as Brexit, Covid and the invasion of Ukraine pushed up production costs. Meanwhile, smaller crop yields in the UK and mainland Europe last year meant “there is a supply and demand equation going on as well”. The UK is “90%-plus self-sufficient” in potatoes, added Taylor, who said that while some farmers grew crops to contract, others sold on the open market. Prices in the latter were not only being influenced by the UK but by “exceptionally strong demand elsewhere in Europe because they are very short of potatoes at the moment”. The UK is very good at growing potatoes, which are still very affordable compared with pasta and rice, Taylor said. Pasta and rice are up by 27.7% and 14.9% respectively over the past 12 months, according to the ONS. “While we’ve seen an increase in prices on the shelves, we still do believe that potatoes are good value for money,” Taylor said. The price of European processing potatoes, which are used to make many of the french fries eaten in the UK, is up 66% on a year ago at €420 (£365) a metric tonne, according to Mintec, the commodities data group. English maris piper and packing whites, the varieties found in supermarkets, are up 123% and 284% respectively to £380 and £365 a metric tonne. “As supplies have decreased over the course of the season, good demand for fresh potatoes and finished products has led to buyers competing for dwindling stocks,” the Mintec analyst Harry Campbell said. “Chipping potatoes are typically not grown on contract which means any rises in free-buy prices are fully reflected in the prices paid by the shops. This has meant that chippies have seen major increases with little to no price stability.” The tightening of UK potato supplies meant chippies may have to source spuds from Cyprus or Spain, although that could mean paying more than £30 a sack, Crook said. “There is a [chip] shop in my town which says closed ‘until further notice’ on the window. I’m guessing that’s because of commodity prices.” | ['business/inflation', 'business/fooddrinks', 'environment/farming', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'business/economics', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'food/potatoes', 'business/cost-of-living-crisis', 'business/small-business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/zoewood', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-05-27T06:00:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sustainable-business/2014/sep/04/auto-industry-transportation-design-art-center-driverless-car | Redesigning transportation: can drivers end their love affair with cars? | On the outskirts of Los Angeles, home of epic traffic jams, live televised car chases and the Fast and the Furious original racing series, a graduate design school program is challenging car culture. Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, has one of the most respected car design programs in the world, with undergraduates who go on to work for top automakers. The halls are lined with automobile models that students have made over the years – many of them closely resembling cars on the roads today. But the new Graduate Transportation Design program has taken a radical turn from previous curricula. The master’s program, which graduated its first student this spring, focuses on designing for mobility at the systems level rather than drawing concepts of individual automobiles. “The beauty of design is being able to look at the bigger picture,” says Geoff Wardle, director of advanced mobility research at Art Center College of Design, who runs the program. Wardle wants students to question the very premise of the car industry – personal vehicles, which are incredibly inefficient. Cars are heavy and gas engines waste 75% of their fuel, he said. The average American weighs 150lbs (68kg) and a Toyota Camry weighs more than 20 times more than the driver at 3,000lbs (1,361kg), which means you need to purchase another 20 gallons (75 liters) of gas just to move the driver around, Wardle explained. Making cars more fuel efficient and designing them to be smaller at the product level isn’t enough to address their larger footprint on the planet. Cars are parked about 90% of the time, and entire cities are built around this underutilization problem, Wardle said. Infrastructure for vehicles takes up a major portion of urban areas. “Aerial photos of LA show that 25% of the land area is covered by roads, driveways and parking lots,” he said. Love affair But people love their cars. They call them fond names and anthropomorphize them. There’s even a popular Disney cartoon for children, Cars, which brings them to life. Automobiles are not like other products. “We have lots of affection for the car,” said Masanao Tomozoe, CEO of Toyota’s sales and marketing company, during a visit to Toyota’s national sales headquarters near Los Angeles this summer. Just think of all the classic cars that Americans keep, carefully preserved, in their garages, he pointed out. But all that affection may be getting in the way of thinking about the future of mobility. As Wardle points out: “The love of brand doesn’t translate into a love of driving.” Paradigm shift Halfway around the world at the Royal College of Art in London, Wardle’s alma mater, another future-focused car design program is gaining traction. Joe Simpson, research lead at Car Design Research, who supervises student research for the college’s vehicle design master’s program, tells his students to “forget about the current architecture of the car and think more systemically about how it fits into cities of the future”. New driverless car technology – such as Google’s – is causing a paradigm shift in design, he said. Driverless cars no longer need a steering wheel. The interior and exterior might be designed differently and the space can be “multi-functional and multi-personal”, he explained. Much of car design must meet strict crash-protection regulations and is currently “wrapped up in all these parts that protect you if you get in a wreck”, Simpson said.“If the car is driving itself, and it can’t crash, that opens up a whole new world.” The future now Innovations that prevent collisions, of course, are already on the market. Besides rear-view cameras, a variety of sensors and other offerings can scan the road for hazards. Autoliv Night Vision, for example, uses sensors and infrared cameras – which detect small temperature differences – along with sophisticated algorithms to help drivers detect different types of animals and pedestrians in the surrounding environment at night. The technology, which has military origins, is already available in certain models of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls Royce, and Night Vision hopes to expand from the European luxury market to mid-level vehicles in American and Asian markets once the technology becomes less expensive. “Driverless car technology is not really far off,” Simpson said. “To me it’s going to be a marketing and PR problem rather than a technology problem. Most car companies have this technology now and if they don’t, they will have it by 2020.” ‘Monolithic’ industry In the end, big changes in the “monolithic” auto industry are inevitable, Wardle said. “The legacy car industry is hand wringing at the moment,” he said. “They’ve had an extraordinarily long run – most industries haven’t lasted that long.” Not everyone, of course, is hand wringing: Wardle mentioned Tesla’s Elon Musk and Ford’s Bill Ford as two innovators who are changing the industry today. Cars will continue to evolve as technology integrates, automakers evolve and more students graduate from design programs encouraging them to think beyond individual product design. And as connected automated vehicles become the norm, drivers will need to rethink how they relate to their beloved cars. “By 2030, the majority of vehicles will be fully automated and only a few legacy vehicles will be left,” Wardle predicts.“It’s not simple, but in principle I believe [the transportation system] can only get better in the future.” Rachael Post is a writer, digital strategist and professor of emerging media in Los Angeles. The sustainable design hub is funded by Nike. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-design', 'sustainable-business/innovation', 'sustainable-business/cleantech', 'sustainable-business/cities', 'sustainable-business/transport', 'business/automotive-industry', 'business/technology', 'technology/technology', 'education/higher-education', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/rachael-post'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-09-04T13:00:27Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2016/jan/31/aberdeen-should-go-green-not-back-to-black-oil | Aberdeen should go green, not back to black | That the government should step in with £250m to help ailing Aberdeen, the centre of Britain’s oil and gas industry, seems right given the billions in tax revenues ministers have extracted from the North Sea over several decades. And though it might seem counterintuitive to come to the rescue of a city built on fossil fuels – given the threat of global warming – it also makes sense for Britain to keep producing its own oil and gas until it can find ways of doing without them. But the reality is that the £250m “city deal” from David Cameron, topped up with £254m from the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon – will do little to stem the crisis that has left oil workers in the city using food banks. Around 70,000 redundancies have already been made across the British oil and gas industry, and more will follow, given that the price of oil has fallen from $115 a barrel to $30 in a little more than 18 months. North Sea exploration and development drilling has dropped to a trickle, leaving rigs and other equipment laid up or moved elsewhere. The danger is that the North Sea becomes the Dead Sea, with business not returning even though there is plenty of oil and gas still under the waves. Some of the government cash will be used to find ways to extract small reserves profitably, before platforms and pipelines are abandoned. The oil price collapse has thrown Aberdeen into turmoil, but its decline has long been in sight. Ministers should have made the North Sea’s twilight years productive but transitional. A lot will depend on tax rates, which are already being cut. International companies make up the bulk of the North Sea operators, and they will stick around only if it is worth their while. This inevitably sticks in the craw of environmentalists, who see ministers rushing to the aid of Big Oil while slashing support for wind and solar energy, as well as ending carbon capture and storage projects. Ultimately the future of Britain’s energy should be green, not black. We need to find a new Aberdeen where low-carbon technologies are celebrated – and financed properly. | ['business/series/business-leader', 'business/oil', 'business/business', 'business/commodities', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'uk/aberdeen', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-01-31T11:18:56Z | true | ENERGY |
membership/2020/jan/04/guardian-b-corp-status-julie-richards-climate | What does the Guardian's new B-corp status mean? 'It's about long-term impact' | What does it mean to be a B Corp organisation? Why did we decide to sign up? The Guardian has always been a purpose-led organisation, and this year we committed to focusing on that even more. B Corporations are companies that value purpose as much as profit, so it felt like a natural fit with our own values. Being a B Corp means a few different things: it’s a way of having a rigorous, objective view of where we are doing well and where we need to work harder when it comes to our environmental and social impact. It’s a way of demonstrating to our readers what type of business we are and it’s also a community of like-minded businesses that want to share ideas and encourage each other. Why is this a significant step? A lot of companies are talking about the idea of “purpose” at the moment so it’s important to us that we can demonstrate to our readers that we are doing more than just talking – we are actually acting on things like our working practices, how we recruit, our environmental performance and how we support local communities. We believe we are the first major media organisation to become a B Corp anywhere in the world so we are proud to have taken this step. How many B Corp-certified organisations are there worldwide? There are currently about 3,000 certified companies globally. The certification started in the US and around half of all certified companies are based there, but it is growing quickly in Europe and beyond. The outdoor clothing brand Patagonia is one of the best known B Corps, the Body Shop recently certified and food company Danone is in the process of certifying all of its subsidiaries. There are also lots of smaller companies doing everything from law to teabags to wetsuits! It feels like consumer and business attitudes are changing really quickly and people increasingly want to know that companies are behaving in an ethical way. What are we committing to, and in what timeframe? We have committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 and we already have a target of eliminating the gender pay gap in the top half of our organisation by 2022. We’re already doing a lot of work to be a more diverse and representative employer, which will continue to be a priority. We’re currently working on a plan for what other specific improvements we want to achieve by the time we get reassessed in three years. How will our success be measured? The B Corp assessment measures our performance across five areas - governance, workers, community, environment and customers. We have to recertify every three years so we will be able to track our progress. We have also announced environmental commitments, as set out in the recent climate pledge. Is that tied to our B Corp status? Our climate pledge was really driven by our reporting on the severity of the climate crisis, and the strength of feeling among our readers and our staff. We believe that the world is in the grip of an environmental emergency but too many governments and businesses are not taking meaningful action to address it. The biggest way that we can play a role is through our reporting, highlighting the impact of the climate crisis on communities around the world and helping our readers to understand the issue. But it was also important to us that we held ourselves to account and made a commitment to improve our own performance. The more companies that commit to net zero, the more momentum there will be to develop solutions, and hopefully the more pressure it will put on governments to take meaningful action. How will we reach net zero emissions by 2030? We are currently in the process of doing a full audit of our carbon emissions, both within our own operations but also across our supply chain. We hope to complete that soon and then identify where we can make the biggest reductions in our footprint. One of the things we will be looking at is how we reduce the amount of air travel. We’ll also be looking at things like where all our energy supplies come from and how we could reduce emissions associated with our printing operations. For example, we previously switched the packaging for some of our weekend papers from plastic to compostable materials, but we are now looking at other alternatives that are easier to recycle. In what other ways will we reduce our carbon footprint? Our priority is to reduce the emissions that we cause. We will also look at ways that we can offset the emissions that we can’t remove. We want to approach that in a really thoughtful way as there are a lot of conflicting views about the merits of different offsetting options, and growing cynicism about the ways some companies are using it as a way of appearing green instead of making meaningful change to the way they operate. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it, but we want to make sure that we support schemes that are verifiable and have a real benefit. How can readers get involved? You can encourage the companies you buy from to become B Corps – it’s a rigorous certification and if all major companies did it then everything from labour standards to environmental performance would be a lot better! You can advocate for the government to implement stronger corporate standards so that companies are obliged to consider the long-term impact of their actions on employees, the environment and society alongside the impact on shareholders. And we hope that our climate pledge will inspire readers to take action in their own lives, whether it’s taking fewer flights, shopping more locally or reducing the amount of plastic in your life. Julie Richards is the delivery portfolio director at Guardian News & Media Support Guardian journalism today, by making a single or recurring contribution, or subscribing | ['membership/series/inside-the-guardian', 'media/theguardian', 'environment/series/guardian-climate-pledge-2019', 'media/media', 'membership/membership', 'media/national-newspapers', 'media/newspapers', 'media/pressandpublishing', 'environment/climate-camp', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'profile/sophie-zeldin-oneill', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/guardian-members', 'theguardian/guardian-members/guardian-members', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-membership'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-01-04T08:00:26Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
technology/shortcuts/2017/mar/27/stop-stealing-my-milk-an-office-fridge-security-camera-put-to-the-test | ‘Stop stealing my milk!’ – an office fridge security camera put to the test | When you head to your workplace fridge, only to find that some thoughtless colleague has nabbed your milk, what is the appropriate response? a) Shrug it off and say: “Oh well, that only cost me around 8p when you think about it”; b) Steal someone else’s milk, thus reinforcing this endless cycle of resentment; c) Resolve to find out the culprit and then plot their downfall over the coming weeks, months or even years using whatever underhand methods you deem necessary. If you answered a), congratulations on not being a psychopath. If you answered c), don’t worry – you’re not alone in your ludicrously OTT response. According to research by security provider ADT, having minor items taken can have a dramatic effect on people’s lives. Four per cent of 2,000 people surveyed said that they had broken up with someone over such petty pilfering, while 3% claimed to have moved house just so that they didn’t have to endure the pain of seeing their Hobnobs stolen. Inspired by this, the company has created a new alarm, designed not for protecting houses or cars, but any small item you don’t want to go missing. Whenever a thief comes within 50cm of the device, it takes a high-definition picture and sends it the owner an email warning them that their property is at risk. Even before I tested the device, it threw up awkward philosophical questions about this brave new world. Such as: do I want to catch the milk thief? I hate confrontation more than I hate losing 17ml of full-fat milk, and if a picture of the nice woman from the subeditors’ desk arrived in my inbox, I wouldn’t want to go up and shout at her. Then there’s the sheer weirdness of it all. I felt a pang of guilt while waiting for my inbox to provide me with a blurry photo of a colleague’s earlobe: the secret camera might have innocent intentions, but it felt pretty intrusive. Say I plucked up the nerve to confront the nice woman from the subs’ desk and she denied it – would I really bring out the hidden-camera shots of her committing the crime? If so, would she be in the wrong, morally? Or would I, the filthy fridge pervert, be the one who ended up doing time when it reached court? Thankfully, it never came to this. The prototype alarm relies on a mobile signal to send images, and that cut out as soon as the fridge door was closed. It was too big and cumbersome to attach to most items (who would try to steal a bar of chocolate that had a massive ADT alarm attached to it?), and would only really work in a very specific setup – say, catching your kids entering a forbidden cookie cupboard. For now, such alarms belong more to a vision of the future – one where anyone can film anyone doing anything, anywhere and have the evidence emailed to them. Sounds terrifying? At least you’ll never be unable to make tea. | ['technology/gadgets', 'tone/features', 'news/shortcuts', 'tone/blog', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'profile/timjonze', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-03-27T11:36:37Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2018/aug/29/world-weatherwatch-hurricane-lane-brings-severe-flooding-to-hawaii | World weatherwatch: Hurricane Lane brings severe flooding to Hawaii | Hurricane Lane battered Hawaii during the latter part of last week, bringing severe flooding and strong winds to an island state typically protected from serious tropical storms by relatively low sea surface temperatures. However, in part due to a developing El Niño, warmer than normal waters in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific helped to support the development of Lane. After producing more than one metre (3ft) of rain in places, strengthening winds caused a disruption to the hurricane circulation, and Lane was downgraded to a tropical storm on Friday night. As communities continue the struggle to recover from devastating flooding in the coastal south-west of India, there are stark contrasts elsewhere, with a lack of monsoon rainfall bringing the threat of drought. While the flood-hit state of Kerala has a rainfall surplus of about 40%, parts of Tamil Nadu in the south-east of the country have deficits of 20% to 60%. Large areas of wildfires continue to ravage the Canadian province of British Columbia, despite some relieving rainfall over the weekend. The area of burned land this summer stands at about 809,000 hectares (2m acres), the third highest on record for a wildfire season. | ['world/hurricanes', 'us-news/hawaii', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/drought', 'world/wildfires', 'weather/canada', 'weather/index/asia', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'weather/index/northandcentralamerica', 'world/world', 'science/meteorology', 'news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-08-29T20:30:37Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2016/dec/06/google-powered-100-renewable-energy-2017 | Google to be powered 100% by renewable energy from 2017 | Google’s data centres and the offices for its 60,000 staff will be powered entirely by renewable energy from next year, in what the company has called a “landmark moment”. The internet giant is already the world’s biggest corporate buyer of renewable electricity, last year buying 44% of its power from wind and solar farms. Now it will be 100%, and an executive said it would not rule out investing in nuclear power in the future, too. “We are convinced this is good for business, this is not about greenwashing. This is about locking in prices for us in the long term. Increasingly, renewable energy is the lowest cost option,” said Marc Oman, EU energy lead at Google. “Our founders are convinced climate change is a real, immediate threat, so we have to do our part.” Technology companies have come under increasing scrutiny over the carbon footprint of their operations, which have grown so fast they now account for about 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, rivalling the aviation industry. Oman said it had taken Google five years to reach the 100% target, set in 2012, because of the complexity involved with negotiating power purchase agreements. “It’s complicated, it’s not for everyone: smaller companies will struggle with the documents. We are buying power in a lot of different jurisdictions, so you can’t just copy and paste agreements.” The company’s biggest demand for energy is its data centres and it admits their overall thirst for power is growing, despite experiments to improve their efficiency through AI. In 2015, Google bought 5.7 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity, a little less than the 7.6TWh generated by all of the UK’s solar panels that year. The majority of the power comes from windfarms in the US. Oman said that while the falling price of solar and wind meant they had been the cheapest technologies to get to 100% by 2017, Google was now looking to sign 10-year agreements for low-carbon power that was not intermittent, such as hydro, biomass and nuclear. “We want to do contracts with forms of renewable power that are more baseload-like, so low-impact hydro; it could be biomass if the fuel source is sustainable, it could be nuclear, God forbid, we’re not averse. We’re looking at all forms of low-carbon generation.” But he said new nuclear power was “controversial”, the safety implications were much more “dramatic” than with renewables, and the price was “much more difficult [to ascertain]” than when funding solar panels and wind turbines. “We don’t want to rule out signing a nuclear contract if it meets our goals of low price, safety, additionality and in a sufficiently close grid, we don’t want to rule that out, but today we can’t positively say there are nuclear projects out there that meet this criteria,” he said. The company’s 100% renewable energy does not mean Google is getting all its energy directly from wind and solar power, but that on an annual basis the amount it purchases from renewable sources matches the electricity its operations consume. Jodie Van Horn, a campaigner at the Sierra Club, an environmental group, said: “By transitioning global operations to run entirely on renewable energy, Google is charting a course for other corporations, institutions, cities and communities to take bold action that will create jobs, save money, and protect families from dangerous fossil fuel pollution.” | ['environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'technology/google', 'environment/energy', 'technology/technology', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'technology/artificialintelligenceai', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-12-06T14:40:50Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/aug/21/epa-clean-power-plan-rollback-affordable-energy-rule | How the Trump administration is rolling back plans for clean power | What has the Trump administration done? “Did you see what I did to that? Boom, gone,” Donald Trump said about the clean power plan last year. Trump has long targeted the plan – the cornerstone of Barack Obama’s climate change agenda – by portraying it as disastrous for coal-producing regions in particular and the US economy in general. Trump wasn’t correct in saying it has gone away, though. The plan was halted by the US supreme court in 2016 and has never come into force. But it remains on the books as part of the EPA’s legally mandated role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. So it has to be replaced with something. This – the plan published on Tuesday – is that something. What are the main differences between the Trump administration’s proposals and the clean power plan? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which crafted the clean power plan, is now seeking to undo much of its previous work with a Trump administration alternative, called the affordable clean energy rule. The Obama-era clean power plan set national carbon pollution limits on coal-fired power plants, influencing states to adopt more renewable energy and shutter old, dirty facilities. The plan envisioned this would cut greenhouse gases from the power sector by around 32% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. The new EPA policy has no national emissions reduction target and barely mentions climate change. It will recommend a set of technologies to increase power plant efficiency, which individual states will then use to come up with plans of their own choosing. The EPA says should all states adopt these new efficiencies – it’s unlikely all will – emissions will go down by around 1% by 2030. Coal’s share of the energy market will grow slightly. What will it mean for clean air? The new plan will result in deaths. Up to 1,400 of them a year, in fact, by 2030. The EPA forecasts these extra deaths due to the cocktail of harmful chemicals that coal plants belch out during operation. A reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would go hand-in-hand with a reduction in soot and smog-forming materials from power plants. More CO2 emissions means more of the other harmful stuff. Why are they doing this? The EPA under the Trump administration argues its previous work is costly and unlawful, a position held by a coalition of states that sued the agency to stop the clean power plan. The federal government isn’t permitted by the Clean Air Act to trigger sweeping changes to the energy grid in the name of climate change, the administration says. Rather, it should help upgrade individual power plants and leave the energy mix down to the states. “We are getting us back in our lane,” said Bill Wehrum, the EPA’s clean air chief. Wehrum is a former lawyer for the fossil fuel industry. His boss, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal lobbyist. “We believe the clean power plan went beyond the EPA’s legal authority in some fundamental ways.” What does this mean for climate change? The bigger picture of the livability of the planet looms ominously. The US might well have missed its emissions reduction goals set in the Paris climate agreement even with the clean power plan in place. The transforming energy market – cheap, abundant natural gas is displacing more carbon-heavy coal – is helping keep a lid on emissions, but the new Trump administration plan does not provide any meaningful cuts and could even make the situation worse by propping up old coal plants. The US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions and, under Trump, has vowed to step away from the Paris deal and tear up various climate-related regulations. If the country doesn’t force down its planet-warming gases coming from power plants, vehicles, agriculture and other sources, the world is far more likely to careen into a challenging new climate marked by severe heatwaves, storms, flooding and displacement of millions of people. | ['environment/epa', 'us-news/trump-administration', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/explainers', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-08-21T17:43:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2007/oct/02/recycling.waste | Survey: Public prepared to pay for plastic bags | Almost three quarters of adults say they are prepared to pay for re-usable carrier bags according to an exclusive survey released today to Guardian Unlimited Environment by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB). If supermarkets stopped supplying free plastic bags, 14% of respondents said they would be prepared to pay £2 or more for a re-usable woven shopping bag that would last for up to a year, 64% said they would pay between 50p and £1, while 11% thought that 20p was a fair price. If supermarkets offered plastic re-usable bags that would last for about 10 shopping trips, 61% of respondents said they would be prepared to pay 5p (34%) or 10p (27%) for them. Only 11% admitted to throwing away a plastic bag after one use. Nearly two thirds of adults said they already re-used plastic bags and 23% already use the sturdier, paid-for re-usable shopping bags. Re-use of plastic bags was highest among the 16-24 age group (67%), dropping to 56% among the over –50s. The most popular reuse for plastic bags is as bin liners. While 61% of people wanted supermarket to stop supplying free plastic carrier bags, in order to cut down on rubbish, a third were opposed to the idea because either they thought people who forgot to bring their own bags shouldn't be penalised (20%) or they believed that supermarkets had a duty to supply free carrier bags to customers (13%). When the 30 cents (20p) plastic bag levy in the Republic of Ireland came into effect in March 2002, it resulted in a dramatic fall in plastic bag use from an estimated 328 bags per person a year to just 21. The 'plastax', as it was dubbed, also lead to a 95% decrease in plastic bag little. In the UK more than 13bn bags are issued every year to shoppers. This means that each person receives roughly 220 bags a year. Only one in 200 bags are estimated to be recycled. London councils are currently consulting the public over its proposals to introduce a London-wide ban, or levy on plastic bags. The consultation asks the public its views on a range of options – from doing nothing, to an outright ban on all throw away shopping bags. The consultation runs until Friday 26 October, and will help shape the final proposal that will go into the 10th London Local Authorities Bill, due to go before Parliament in November. The government is opposed to a ban or levy. Early this year it struck an agreement with retailers to cut back on bags by a quarter by the end of 2008, potentially reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by 58,500 tonnes - equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road for a year. "This agreement is working with retailers offering shoppers reusable bags for life. We don't think a ban or a levy is the right way to go," said a Defra spokeswoman. "In Ireland people just brought more bin liners to replace free carrier bags, so the volume of waste stayed the same." Despite the government's stance, some 50 towns, cities and villages across Britain are now in the process of imposing their own plastic bag ban, inspired by the Devon town of Modbury. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'business/supermarkets', 'type/article', 'profile/alisonbenjamin'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2007-10-02T11:33:50Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
politics/2021/may/18/uk-farmers-warn-post-brexit-trade-deal-with-australia-could-hit-livelihoods | Farmers warn post-Brexit trade deal with Australia could hit UK agriculture | Farmers are warning of “damage” to UK agriculture if Australian beef and lamb producers are granted tariff-free access to the UK as part of the first major post-Brexit trade deal. The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) assembled agricultural leaders from all four devolved nations on Tuesday afternoon to voice their concerns amid reports of a split in the cabinet over whether to approve a wide-ranging free trade deal with Australia. The trade secretary, Liz Truss, is racing to conclude negotiations ahead of the G7 summit, which the UK is hosting in Cornwall in June. The Australian deal is considered crucial, as it would mark the first free trade agreement negotiated since Brexit that was not a rollover of existing agreements with EU trade partners. UK farmers fear soaring imports of cheaply produced Australian beef, lamb and sugar, which they say would drive down the price of food produced to a higher standard, and at a higher cost, in Britain. They are warning of implications for animal welfare and environmental standards. Sheep and beef farmers in more remote parts of Scotland and Wales are considered most at risk. “I cannot the state the damage that I feel it would do,” said Minette Batters, president of the NFU, describing beef, lamb – and sugar – as “sensitive areas of trade”. Launching the negotiations last year, the government published a mandate in which it said the UK remained “committed to upholding our high health, environmental, labour, food safety and animal welfare standards”. Farmers say so-called “open access” would set a dangerous precedent for future trade deals with other countries. “The conversations I have with the US, with the New Zealanders, with the Canadians, they would definitely be looking for the same,” said Batters. “If we give away our negotiating capital to Australia, which is the second-largest exporter of beef in the world, second to Brazil, the others would most definitely want it.” The UK exported food and drink products worth £425m to Australia in 2020, while importing £384m worth of Australian food and drink, according to analysis of HMRC figures by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF). Wine accounted for the lion’s share of imports from Australia, worth £280m, with lamb and mutton imports worth £46m in second place. Any increase in lamb imports would have a “very disruptive impact”, according to Phil Stocker, chief executive of the National Sheep Association, and could “lead to a price war and price reductions”. He added: “Or it would mean suddenly having to look at more export markets for our lamb, which is produced to high standards, whilst bringing in lamb from the other side of the world, often produced in ways that our public wouldn’t allow in the UK.” The Department for International Trade said: “Any deal we sign with Australia will include protections for the agriculture industry and will not undercut UK farmers or compromise our high standards. We will continue to work with the industry, keeping them involved throughout the process and helping it capture the full benefits of trade.” | ['politics/trade-policy', 'environment/farming', 'environment/farm-animals', 'business/business', 'politics/politics', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'uk/uk', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'world/eu', 'environment/environment', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joanna-partridge', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-05-18T18:12:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2009/dec/01/ozone-antarctica | Antarctica may heat up dramatically as ozone hole repairs, warn scientists | The hole in the Earth's ozone layer has shielded Antarctica from the worst effects of global warming until now, according to the most comprehensive review to date of the state of the Antarctic climate. But scientists warned that as the hole closes up in the next few decades, temperatures on the continent could rise by around 3C on average, with melting ice contributing to a global sea-level increases of up to 1.4m. The western Antarctic peninsula has seen rapid ice loss as the world has warmed, but other parts of the continent have paradoxically been cooling, with a 10% increase in ice in the seas around the region in recent decades. Many climate change sceptics have used the Antarctic cooling as evidence against global warming. But John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey said scientists are now "very confident" that the anomaly had caused by the ozone hole above Antarctica. "We knew that, when we took away this blanket of ozone, we would have more ultra-violet radiation. But we didn't realise the extent to which it would change the atmospheric circulation of the Antarctic." These changes in weather have increased winds in the Southern Ocean region and meant that a large part of the continent has remained relatively cool compared with the western peninsula. But because the the CFC gasses that caused the ozone hole now been banned, scientists expect the damage to repair itself within the next 50-60 years. By then the cooling effect will have faded out and Turner said the Antarctic would face the full effects of global warming. This means an increase in average air temperatures of around 3C and a reduction in sea ice by around a third. The biggest threat to the continent comes from warming seas. Robert Binschadler, a glaciologist at Nasa who monitors Antarctic ice sheets, said: "The heat in the ocean is getting underneath the floating ice shelves, these floating fringes of the ice sheet that are hundreds of metres thick. That warm water is melting the underside of the ice shelf, reducing the buttressing effect." Thinning of the ice shelf at the fringes leads to glaciers moving more quickly. The retreat of ice from Antarctica has contributed around 10% to global sea-level rise in recent decades. "The danger is that this warmer water will get under these ice shelves and cause the ice streams to get faster and feed ice out into the ocean," said Turner. Published by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), a coalition of international experts that coordinates international research in the region, the report has been published to give negotiators in Copenhagen the most up-to-date science available. "Everything is connected — Antarctica may be a long way away but it is an important part of the Earth's system," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of SCAR. "It contains 90% of the world's ice, 70% of the world's fresh water and that is enough, if it melts, to raise sea levels by 63m." SCAR's review also corroborated recent work by Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany, that average sea-level rise will be closer to 1.4m by the end of the century. This is higher than the rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, said Turner, because the IPCC's forecasts did not include the impact of melting ice sheets on sea level rises. Many of the climate models used by the IPCC have also not taken the ozone hole into account in their simulations. | ['environment/ozone-layer', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'tone/news', 'science/science', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2009-12-01T09:06:24Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2020/oct/22/glitter-environment-microplastics-hazard | Glitter is an environmental abomination. It's time to stop using it | Adrienne Matei | Glitter is notorious for getting everywhere – touch one sparkly Christmas card and you’ll be finding flecks of the stuff in your food, hair and carpet for months. It’s so obnoxious some people even slather a mixture of it and Vaseline on political yard signs to punish thieves. But the real issue with glitter isn’t that it’s annoying – it’s that it truly does get everywhere: not just in your home, but also into the furthest-flung corners of the Earth. Glitter, usually made from a combination of aluminum and plastic, is a microplastic. However, unlike other microplastics, which are the tiny (between five millimeters and one micrometer) particles into which larger plastic items like bottles disintegrate over time, glitter is sold in its most environmentally hazardous format from the get-go, just for fun. We’ve known for years that microplastics are problematic, but new studies keep emphasizing just how much of an impact they are having on the environment. One study from June 2020 found microplastics can become airborne and come down in rain – literally rain down – on protected natural areas we expect would be pristine. This month, researchers from Australia’s national science agency found that 9.25m to 15.87m tons of microplastics are embedded in the seafloor. They’ve been found in core samples from Arctic ice, and in the bellies of whales. Humans are estimated to ingest about five grams of them (the equivalent of a credit card) every week. This year, several British retailers – including Morrisons, Waitrose and John Lewis – have announced there will be no glitter in their store-brand Christmas products such as crackers, wrapping paper and gift bags. “We’ve taken glitter and plastic out of our festive range this year – so that our customers can enjoy their festivities without worrying about the environmental impact,” Morrisons’ home director, Christine Bryce, explained during a statement about the decision, which will extend to the company’s non-seasonal offerings as well. This revelation is the latest in an anti-microplastic movement that also saw the UK ban microbeads (plastic spheres sometimes added to shower products, among other applications) in 2018. Here’s the thing: volume-wise, glitter itself does not significantly contribute to pollution. As the New York Times reports, glitter “makes up far less than 1 percent of the microplastics that pollute the environment”. While glitter is damaging – one recent study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials found it significantly harms the ecology of rivers and lakes – the enormously vast majority of microplastics are the crumbled remains of larger plastic items. So is glitter really a problem to focus on, or more of a sparkly scapegoat? The larger truth at hand is we’re making far too much garbage in general – especially around the holidays, when, by some estimates, we throw out 25%, or a million tons, more trash each week. Glitter may not be the biggest microplastic-filled fish we have to fry, but coating the rest of our junk in a fine confetti of even more hazardous debris does seem like we’re twisting the knife we’ve already lodged into the planet. It’s also salient to note that otherwise recyclable products, like wrapping paper, cannot be recycled when they incorporate glitter. Forgoing the sparkly stuff really seems like the absolute least we can do. In any case, low-waste holiday decor is becoming increasingly fashionable, with entertaining gurus like Martha Stewart offering guides on hosting low-waste parties and environmentally conscious TikTokers sharing tutorials for how to make festive (and compostable) decorative dried orange garlands. The holidays do not require an excess of plastics to be lovely and bright. Even if glitter isn’t what tips us into a complete environmental collapse, microplastics as a larger category of pollution are a serious scourge and we should cut down on them any way we can. Let’s ban the obnoxious nuisance once and for all. Legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward will discuss the Trump presidency at a Guardian Live online event on Tuesday 27 October, 7pm GMT. Book tickets here | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'profile/adrienne-matei', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-10-22T10:21:23Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/commentisfree/2017/nov/17/the-guardian-view-on-climate-talks-brexits-heavy-weather | The Guardian view on climate talks: Brexit’s heavy weather | Editorial | The tragedy of climate change, as the governor of the Bank of England has put it, is one of the horizon. The catastrophic impacts of altering the atmosphere impose an enormous cost on future generations that the current generation creates but has no incentive to fix. To focus the minds of today’s decision-makers the 2015 Paris agreement sent a clear signal that the era of fossil-fuel-powered growth was coming to an end. The signatories agreed to limit global warming to no more than a two-degree celsius rise, the threshold of safety, beyond which climate change is likely to become irreversible. The real genius of Paris is not that it is rooted in science but its timing and its structure. While the 2C target was binding, the national targets agreed by each nation were not. Those non-binding targets do not add up to a 2C world – they would, if followed to the letter, lead us to a 3C one, unthinkable in terms of the devastation it would cause. So upping them was part of the point of this year’s UN climate meeting in Bonn, which closed on Friday, and will be the main issue at next year’s, and the year after next. The US under Donald Trump reneged on the deal before this year’s talks began. There is some solace in the fact that Washington cannot formally withdraw until 4 November 2020, the day after the next presidential election. The rest of the world, rightly, is moving on. Given what is at stake, it is worth pausing to consider where – and how quickly – the globe is going. Backwards – if one considers that China will almost single-handedly cause global emissions of carbon dioxide to grow in 2017. Canada and Britain, meanwhile, began a new 19-nation alliance in Bonn aimed at phasing out the use of coal power by 2030. This sounds like an important move until one realises that members of the “powering past coal alliance” account for less than 3% of coal use worldwide. Germany, which is not a member, held the climate talks an hour’s drive from a village that is being demolished to make way for a coalmine. These green talks, which are fundamentally about ethical concerns, are nevertheless becoming more like discussions about trade. In the case of climate change these involve transitions from one way of producing, distributing and consuming energy to another, cleaner way of doing so. It would be good if this could be seen only as a process of mutual support. However, as the talks in Bonn show, they are also hard-nosed negotiations which revolve around the exchange of concessions. Such bargains can lead – once they are set in national plans – into the toxic politics of globalisation. Domestic politics is central to determining the way people live in a globalised world, and whether they like it. So an environmentally successful policy can end up politically dead if it is seen as unfair to the poor or disproportionately favourable to foreign industry, as happened with the Tory-led coalition’s support for low-carbon power. If Brexit goes ahead, Britain will nevertheless need to shape a green politics with devolution and social justice at its core. Outside the European Union, Britain will be less able to ensure the Paris agreement is enacted. EU environment laws do not stand alone – the European court of justice polices their implementation. So there is an open question about how British measures to tackle climate change will be overseen. Ministerial self-regulation will not be an adequate substitute. Outside the EU – the world’s most powerful trading bloc – Britain will almost certainly have to obey rules without being able to influence them. Britons will suffer if we cannot fashion electric vehicle markets to suit our car industry, for instance. We are healthier and better off as a result of EU protections, safeguards that could be lost if they become bargaining chips in a future post-Brexit trade deal. In the 1990s Britain was seen as the dirty man of Europe. We are now the continent’s leading decarboniser. The retreat from the EU must not mean that a fairer, greener future disppears from the field of view. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/bonn-climate-change-conference', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'uk/uk', 'world/eu', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'politics/politics', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2017-11-17T19:14:34Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2010/jan/05/he-yafei-china-climate-negotiator | Speculation over change in role for Chinese climate negotiator | A senior member of the Chinese negotiating team at Copenhagen has been shifted from his post, prompting speculation that he has been punished for the debacle of the climate talks. He Yafei, who was at the forefront of China's blocking actions on the final fraught day of the summit, has been removed as vice foreign minister, according to a short summary of government appointments by the Xinhua news agency. The agency gave no explanation, but the Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao suggests He has been punished with a shift to a post at the United Nations for failing to smooth relations between China, the US and Europe, particularly as tempers flared in the last hours of the talks. During the negotiations, He described his US counterpart as "lacking common sense", frustrated the US president, Barack Obama, at his inability to make decisions and astonished the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, by refusing to allow even rich countries to set a target to cut emissions by 2050. In public, China has hailed the "significant and positive" outcome of the Copenhagen accord, which committed the world to keeping global warming below 2C. Privately, however, officials are furious at the public relations disaster of the summit, which ended with Europe blaming China for sinking long-term goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Part of the problem was the vastly different expectations of the delegations. Britain and other European nations intended to bang heads together to achieve progress and to set ambitious targets during the two-week conference. China, however, was desperate to avoid any goals that might limit its economic expansion. Having announced its first carbon target shortly before the conference, China's negotiators hoped the event would be a chance for the world to applaud the progress the country has made to improve efficiency and boost renewable energy. The vastly different approaches led to several messy and fractious encounters, at which He Yafei was usually the fall guy. Although the premier, Wen Jiabao, was the most senior figure in the Chinese delegation, he refused to attend most of the negotiating sessions with other leaders. This was a defensive move rather than a snub. The premier did not want to be strongarmed into a deal he could not guarantee at home. In his place, he dispatched He, an experienced multilateral negotiator who previously served in senior posts at the United Nations and arms control talks, as well as running the North American department of the foreign ministry. But He lacked the authority to make decisions. In huddles with world leaders, who far outranked him, all he could do was block. President Obama is said to have declared in exasperation: "It would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions." When he rejected a European proposal that developed nations reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, Angela Merkel described the situation as ridiculous. The vice-minister also failed to endear himself to the chief US negotiator, Todd Stern, who suffered his undiplomatic wrath after stating that the US was not in historical debt to China because of climate change. "I don't want to say the gentleman is ignorant," He said. "I think he lacks common sense or is extremely irresponsible." In the angry aftermath of the conference, senior European diplomats accused China of "systematically wrecking the accord" with leaks and obstructionist tactics. | ['environment/copenhagen', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/china', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'profile/jonathanwatts', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2010-01-05T17:44:37Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
australia-news/2014/nov/21/lord-monckton-lends-support-to-victorian-micro-party-rise-up-australia | Lord Monckton lends support to Victorian micro-party Rise Up Australia | British climate change sceptic Christopher Monckton has thrown his support behind the hard-right, anti-multiculturalism party Rise Up Australia, one of many micro-parties hoping to win a seat in Victoria’s upper house. Lord Monckton has been in Melbourne for the past three months specifically to help the party with their campaign for the 29 November election. On Thursday night, Monckton was in the public gallery for the Casey council meeting to support councillor Rosalie Crestani, Rise Up’s upper house candidate for south-east metropolitan region. Crestani had a motion before the council proposing communications material supporting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities be banned on the grounds it discriminated against heterosexuals. The council rejected the motion. Rise Up leader and evangelical Christian pastor Daniel Nalliah is the party’s lead candidate for the region. It is the first time his party has stood in a Victorian election. “I met Monckton three years ago when he came to Australia and said he opposed the carbon tax, and so several months ago I called him up and asked if he’d be willing to help with our campaign,” Nalliah said. “He kindly accepted and has been here three months working with me closely, advising on policy, how to run an election campaign, and how to run the party.” Nalliah, who once said the Black Saturday bushfires were punishment for Victoria’s decriminalisation of abortion, and whose church hosted the controversial World Congress of Families conference in August, says he is confident of securing the seat thanks to preference deals. Eight regions make up the Victorian upper house, with five people elected to represent each. Family First, Australian Christians, Democratic Labor Party, Shooters and Fishers and No Smart Meters all plan to direct first preferences to Rise Up. By agreeing to direct preferences towards one party, analysts believe micro parties stand a chance in the upper house, with the potential of holding the balance of power. With 21 parties running this year – almost double the number from the 2010 election – there has been ample opportunity for so-called “preference harvesting” between micro parties. It was this sort of deal-making that allowed Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiasts party to be elected to the Senate in the federal election last year with just 0.5% of the primary vote. The regions where the micro-parties have the most chance include eastern Victoria, where the Liberal Democrats, Palmer United party, Rise Up, Australian Christians, Family First, Democratic Labor, No Smart Meters and Australian Cyclists are all directing their first preferences to the Shooters and Fishers. In northern Victoria, the Country Alliance have picked up a swath of preferences, while in Eastern metropolitan, the Australian Christians will have preferences directed their way from seven parties. In Western metropolitan and Northern metropolitan micro-party candidates also also have chances thanks to preference pooling. In state and federal elections, about 95% of people opt to vote above the line, with their preferences allocated according to the party’s choice. Unlike in the Senate, Victorians voting below the line need to rank only five candidates, theoretically making preference-harvesting less effective, but there is little awareness of this provision in the electorate. | ['australia-news/victorian-election-2014', 'australia-news/victorian-politics', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/melissa-davey'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2014-11-21T04:12:15Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
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