id
stringlengths 16
182
| title
stringlengths 6
152
| body
stringlengths 284
6.92k
| tags
stringlengths 50
917
| extracted_from_tag
stringclasses 177
values | category
stringclasses 10
values | date
stringdate 1998-09-29 21:43:09
2024-12-31 13:00:45
| use
bool 1
class | label
stringclasses 10
values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
environment/2021/dec/16/plans-for-carbon-neutral-homes-in-england-are-a-step-back-say-experts | Plans for carbon-neutral homes in England are a step back, say experts | The government’s new building regulations were supposed to be the blueprint for carbon-neutral homes, helping the country reach net zero by 2030, but instead are a step backwards, industry experts have said. The government policy, published on Wednesday and due to be introduced by 2025, has mandated a 30% carbon cut in all new buildings and a 27% cut in others. The new rules will come into force in June in England, with a transition period to allow for planning applications that are in progress at the time. The housing minister, Eddie Hughes, said the change would pave the way for the future homes and future buildings standards in 2025 and would mean all future homes would be ready for net zero and not need any retrofit work. “The changes will significantly improve the energy efficiency of the buildings where we live, work and spend our free time and are an important step on our country’s journey towards a cleaner, greener built environment,” he said. However, construction industry experts said the new regulations are “a tiny and far cry from what is needed” especially considering Cop26 commitments. They argue, in particular, that allowing large building companies to use their own performance metrics does not bode well for a reduction in emissions. “From a first glance it may seem that the interim uplift is positive. From the face of it, it looks like buildings under the 2021 uplift will emit 30% less carbon,” explained Clara Bagenal George from LETI, a network of 1,000 built environment professionals that are working together to put London on the path to a zero carbon future. She argued that in fact, “due to the methodologies behind the regulation, this is more likely to translate into only a 5%-10% improvement in energy efficiency in practice”. Joe Baker, head of carbon management at Haringey council, reacted on Twitter to the regulations, saying: “This is disappointing and lacks ambition. Industry experts, investors, and citizens have shared with the government what is possible and what they want to see. They have given examples of where development is delivering better building far beyond this proposal. Showing the benefits to the industry, investors, and building occupiers. However, their views, expertise, and experiences, have been disregarded for a lower standard. “What happened to global Britain? Where is the global leadership in building a better zero carbon future? Using the UK’s skills and knowledge to deliver this ambition.” Experts have also argued that the new commitments don’t require existing housing stock to be retrofitted, which would reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency. Julie Godefroy at the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, explained: “CIBSE had many concerns about the consultation proposals, including performance metrics, the treatment of heat networks and the lack of ambition to retrofit the existing stock. Some of these concerns have been partially addressed and, in some cases, government has adopted the most ambitious option from the consultation. “However, the uplift is a significant missed opportunity to provide a meaningful step towards the future homes/buildings standard, and it risks adding to the legacy of buildings and networks which will need future retrofit. “New buildings are the easiest part of decarbonising the built environment, so we must get it right, and there is huge industry support for net zero, which government must build on.” Vanessa Scott, the climate change manager for West Oxfordshire district council, said: ‘‘At a local authority level, in order to achieve net-carbon homes, we needed government to be listening to experts and pushing forward with standards that will lead us towards this goal and sooner rather than later. Industry experts have shared with the government what is possible, but they have not been listened to.” | ['environment/carbon-emissions', 'business/construction', 'society/housing', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2021-12-16T18:29:11Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2011/feb/09/british-windfarms-vestas-profits-rise | British windfarms blow Vestas towards 25% profit rise | Strong demand from British windfarms helped the world's biggest turbine manufacturer, Vestas, raise profits by 25% over the past year and have boosted future prospects. UK equipment deliveries totalled 530MW – a leap from 120MW over the previous year – helped in particular by shipments for the 300MW Thanet windfarm, which is currently the largest offshore windfarm ever built. Shares in Vestas soared 5% as the Danish-based group reported net income of €156m for 2010, compared with €125m for the previous 12 months, while the overall order intake almost tripled to 8,673 MW. Vestas will claim its own world first later this spring, when it opens a £50m turbine research and development facility on the Isle of Wight, and is still weighing up the construction of a new manufacturing plant. In 2009 it closed Britain's only major wind turbine plant, which was based at Cowes, despite several weeks of protests. Ditlev Engel, the Vestas chief executive, is upbeat about new orders but said Britain was still failing to take advantage of the full potential of its wind resources, and he remained unconvinced that all the major "round 3" offshore wind farms would be built. Competitors Siemens and Gamesa have unveiled firm plans for blade construction factories on the east coast of Britain, but Engels said Vestas was still taking a wait-and-see approach. "We have taken no decision yet but we still have ample time as we do not expect to see any round 3 blades installed until 2014 or 2015," he explained. Separately, the government has given the green light for the first offshore wind farm for two years with permission granted to Germany's E.ON to construct a 230MW windfarm off the coast of Humberside. "A new wind farm off the Humberside coast will be a further jobs and investment boost for the region, hot on the heels of Siemens' announcement of plans to develop the Port of Hull, " said Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary. The Humber Gateway windfarm will generate enough electricity to power up to about 150,000 homes. The announcement came as energy minister Charles Hendry co-chaired the Offshore Wind Developers Forum in London, where windfarm developers discussed how the government's proposals for reforming the electricity market might help remove barriers to investment. | ['environment/vestas', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/green-jobs', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2011-02-09T16:39:00Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2022/sep/23/greta-thunberg-fridays-for-future-california-wildfires-video | ‘The climate crisis is now’: haunting video spotlights California wildfires | In a chilling new video released by Fridays for Future, the youth-led climate movement inspired by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, filmmakers capture how escalating wildfires have devastated California’s picturesque landscapes in the hopes of igniting an urgent call to action. The short video, titled “I love you, California,” sees the camera pan slowly over the aftermath of megafires: apocalyptic scenes of smoldering canyons, communities reduced to rubble and once lush hillsides turned to blackened moonscapes. The film is soundtracked by a haunting rendition of California’s state song, accompanied only by the sounds of quiet, rustling wind. “The regional anthem of California, adopted in 1951, celebrates the beauty of California’s rich, diverse natural landscape, from the redwood forests, to the natural exports of honey, fruit and wine,” filmmakers said in a statement. “Today, these lyrics ring more painful than joyous to residents who are forced to watch these same forests and fields of grains burn down year after year.” Fires have always been part of the landscapes across the US west, and are an essential part of many ecosystems that evolved alongside them. But the climate crisis has turned up the dial, fueling a brutal new kind of wildfire more likely to leave devastation in its wake. In the last six years, the state has seen its eight largest fires on record, 13 of the top 20 most destructive blazes, and three of the top five deadliest fires. The release of the film is timed with the global climate strike, a set of international demonstrations culminating around youth-led demands for policymakers to act, launching on Friday. Centered on the theme of #PeopleNotProfit, this year’s actions include calls for transformative justice reparations to address systemic inequities exacerbated by the climate crisis. While the video is just one part of the actions organized in the US, it highlights how life in the most populous US state has already been scarred by dangerous environmental shifts that are expected to intensify in the coming years. “The climate crisis is no longer an abstract future or a news article about a far-off country. It’s here – it’s now,” said Katharina Maier, national coordinator of Fridays for Future US, in a written statement, urging others to join the movement. Rising temperatures have escalated drought conditions across the American west, leaving parched plants primed to burn. Drying and dying vegetation has turned to tinder that spurs flames faster and higher, creating conflagrations that can’t be controlled. These types of fires are increasingly harmful to the environments they once helped, and far more dangerous to communities that lay in their paths. As conditions shift, fire season has also lengthened straining resources and fatiguing first responders. The problem is expected to worsen as the world continues to warm. “Growing up in California, it’s impossible not to see the devastating effects of the fires on everything around you,” said Kiyomi Morrison, a second-generation California native and junior art director for Fred & Farid, the LA-based agency that produced the video in collaboration with Fridays for Future. Hers is the voice heard echoing over the images, and she hopes it will inspire action toward a a different future. “As just one of the terrible realities of climate change,” she said, “I hope this can bring more awareness to the current path we’re heading down.” | ['world/wildfires', 'us-news/california', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gabrielle-canon', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-09-23T10:00:33Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2019/mar/13/heres-why-i-am-striking-from-school-on-friday | Here's why I am striking from school on Friday | Hugh Hunter | My name is Hugh Hunter. I am 15 years old and I live on a farm in Gunnedah in regional NSW. This Friday, I am joining hundreds of thousands of students around the world to strike from school and call for urgent political action to stop the climate crisis. Our message to politicians is simple: if you care about us, our kids and their kids, then please treat climate change for what it is – a crisis – and take urgent action to stop it. That means stopping Adani’s monstrous coal mine, saying no to all new fossil fuel projects and rapidly transitioning Australia to 100% renewable energy by no later than 2030. My principal doesn’t want me to join the strike, and I do see his point of view. But it wasn’t until I heard about the school strike that I felt I could do something about the climate crisis. When I walk out those gates on Friday I will be creating hope for myself and my generation. I am only at school for another two years but I will be feeling the effects of climate change for the rest of my life. It’s not only Gunnedah that is grappling with climate change. I see the impacts everywhere: the crippling drought that is pushing farmers to the brink, sea levels rising and increasing catastrophic events, yet still many people deny it is happening. The evidence is everywhere, and ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away. But this crisis isn’t just about us. It’s about the people and countries that are too poor to change or don’t have the right to ask for it. These are also the people we are standing up for because we all have to share this world, and at the moment some countries are suffering the worst when they contributed the least to the problem. The climate crisis is not a vague future threat. It is here and it is hurting people right now. The cause of all this is short term thinking. Our government wants what they think is good for Australia; however, this means profits come first and it seems that not much thought is given to the repercussions and long term impacts. I have friends and family that work in coal mining, and I don’t want to risk their livelihoods. But our governments must put in place strategies to transition to 100% renewables immediately. We have the sun and the space for renewables – and they don’t risk our water, communities and climate the way that fossil fuels do. In NSW, 14 new and expanding coal mine projects are in the approvals pipeline. This includes one right near me on the banks of the Namoi River. According to analysis by Lock the Gate these projects would together produce more carbon pollution than Adani’s mega mine proposed for Queensland, and contaminate our valuable water sources. Meanwhile, politicians are discussing the Narrabri Gas Field which is likely to open up our farms to more across the state. Why are these projects and Adani’s coal mine even up for discussion? Communities like mine are already grappling with climate change. Us young people shouldn’t have to go to bed each night worrying about how much worse off we’ll be if all these new coal and gas projects go ahead. As school students, we can’t vote yet. But it’s us who will have to clean up the mess that our politicians are leaving behind. This is not fair, and that is why we are striking. The scientists tell us we have just over a decade to turn the climate crisis around. I will not even be 30 by then. My whole life will be ahead of me, as will the lives of today’s almost 2 billion children. So on 15 March we strike – in over 50 locations across Australia and over 70 countries around the world. And then we go back to our communities to continue the hard work moving Australia beyond fossil fuels to a brighter future for everyone. See you at the strike! • Hugh Hunter is 15 years old and lives in Gunnedah | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'society/children', 'environment/environment', 'world/protest', 'australia-news/australian-education', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'profile/hugh-hunter', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-03-13T17:00:16Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2021/oct/10/nearly-half-of-britains-biodiversity-has-gone-since-industrial-revolution | Nearly half of Britain’s biodiversity has gone since industrial revolution | Almost half of Britain’s natural biodiversity has disappeared over the centuries, with farming and urban spread triggered by the industrial and agricultural revolutions being blamed as major factors for this loss. That is the shock finding of a study by scientists at London’s Natural History Museum, which has revealed that the UK is one of the worst-rated nations in the world for the extent to which its ecosystems have retained their natural animals and plants. “Britain has lost more of its natural biodiversity than almost anywhere else in western Europe, the most of all the G7 nations and more than many other nations such as China,” said Professor Andy Purvis, of the museum’s life science department. “It is very striking – and worrying.” The work by Purvis and his team has been published as negotiators prepare to begin online discussions for the UN biodiversity conference (Cop15) this week. These talks will then be followed by an international biodiversity summit next April in Kunming in China. Its aim will be to establish firm goals that would halt the loss of wildlife and the degradation of habitats that threatens to reach crisis levels across the planet in the near future. To aid these negotiations, Purvis’s team have drawn up a biodiversity intactness index (BII), which rates nations for how well their ecosystems have kept their natural diversity of animals, plants and fungi. This index revealed that across the developing world biodiversity tends to be at a high level but is often falling rapidly. By contrast, biodiversity has been stable in much of the developed world for the past 20 years but has been at a low level throughout that period – with the UK appearing near the bottom of this list. “Our analyses found the UK was consistently in the bottom 10% of nations in terms of biodiversity intactness,” said Dr Adriana De Palma, a senior researcher at the museum. As to the reason for Britain’s grim standing in the world biodiversity league, the team points to the fact that the agricultural and industrial revolutions started in the UK. “Basically, that triggered the mechanised destruction of nature in order to convert it into goods for profit,” Purvis said. “As a result, the UK has been among the most nature-depleted countries in the world for a long time.” Across the nation, woods and grassland have been ripped up and fields of single crops planted in their place. Over two-thirds of the UK is now used for agriculture and 8% has been built on, leaving little room for nature – although this is not a universal picture. The index reveals – not surprisingly – that in the remoter areas of northern England, Scotland and Wales, biodiversity is more intact than in areas such as south-east England, where farming tends to be more intense and where there are more people and more towns and cities. The world’s overall biodiversity intactness is estimated at 75%, which is significantly lower than the 90% average considered to be a safe limit for ensuring the planet does not tip into an ecological recession that could result in widespread starvation. On this scale, the UK’s index reading was 53%. Not surprisingly this has left dozens of species hovering on the brink of extinction. They include the Scottish wildcat and the pine marten, the natterjack toad, the turtle dove and insects such as the cicada. Even the existence of the once-ubiquitous hedgehog is threatened. Nor is the decline confined to animals: species of plants, fungi and soil micro-organisms have also suffered. Scientists believe it would be a relatively straightforward process for Britain to improve its biodiversity rating. However, they warn that should not be done by “offshoring” – letting developing nations shoulder the burden for providing our goods and growing our food while at the same time suffering the depletion of their own wildlife to ease pressure on our biodiversity. “Many people think of biodiversity as a luxury – as nice-to-have, charismatic, beautiful species. They are good for the soul but no more than that, these people argue,” Purvis said. “But biodiversity is so much more than that. It is the engine that produces everything that we consume. You can think of it like a wild supermarket that provides us with food and other gifts without us doing anything. The fact that we have several different varieties of apples, tomatoes and other foods is down to biodiversity – and when it is diminished we lose out.” The Natural History Museum has opened up the Biodiversity Intactness Index data through the Biodiversity Trends Explorer, which makes this data easy to find, understand, visualise, filter and download for anyone who wishes to use it. | ['environment/biodiversity', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/conservation', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/robinmckie', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-10T08:45:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2017/oct/11/sewage-plants-are-leaking-millions-of-tiny-plastic-beads-into-britains-seas | Sewage plants are leaking millions of tiny plastic beads into Britain's seas | Sewage plants are contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans with millions of tiny beads spilling into the seas around the UK, according to a new report. Dozens of UK wastewater treatment plants use tiny plastic pellets, known as Bio-Beads, to filter chemical and organic contaminants from sewage, according to a study from the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition (CPPC). The report found that many millions of these pellets, which are only about 3.5mm wide, have been spilled and ended up in the environment. The author of the report, Claire Wallerstein, said once the Bio-Beads had been released they are hard to spot and almost impossible to remove – yet can cause significant harm to marine wildlife. “We are learning more all the time about the environmental impact of consumer microplastics in wastewater such as laundry fibres, cosmetic microbeads and tyre dust,” said Wallerstein. “However, it now seems that microplastics used in the wastewater plants’ own processes could also be contributing to the problem.” However, South West Water said there was “no evidence that Bio-Beads are currently being released into the marine environment” from any of its sites. It said only nine of its 655 plants use Bio-Beads but did accept there had been spills in the past that “were subsequently cleaned up”. A spokesperson added: “We worked with the authors to encourage evidence-based rigour to this well-intentioned report. However, in parts, it remains anecdotal rather than factual, some of its conclusions are not supported by evidence and it insufficiently differentiates between nurdles [tiny pellets that form the basis of most plastic products] and Bio-Beads.” However, Wallerstein said samples had been analysed by a plastics expert who had been studying nurdles for 20 years and he had confirmed they were Bio-Beads. The Bio-Bead system is used in at least 55 wastewater treatment plants around the UK, according to CPPC. Wallerstein said the scale of the subsequent pollution could be far-reaching adding that in Cornwall Bio-Beads account for the majority of industrial plastic pellets found littering the beaches. “We know that these Bio-Beads have now reached the coast of northern Europe as well as the beaches here in the UK. What we need is more research into the scale of this problem and for a concerted effort by water companies to do something about it.” Industrial pellets and small bits of plastic such as Bio-Beads are mistaken for food by birds, fish, and other marine animals. These particles can kill animals, not only by causing digestive blockages, but also as a result of the high concentrations of pollutants, such as DDT and PCBs, which adhere to them in seawater. Plastic pollution can also enter the food chain. Last August, the results of a study by Plymouth University reported plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish. Wallerstein said: “We understand that Bio-Bead plants have been good at improving the quality of the effluent discharged by our wastewater plants – but this should not involve the risk of polluting our seas and waterways with microplastics, which could have long-term and far-reaching consequences.” Bio-Beads are used in the last step of the sewage cleaning process before treated effluent water is released back into rivers or straight into the sea. There is currently no mechanism in place to trap lost Bio-Beads in the event of a spill and the CPPC report details several spills and near misses in recent years. Wallerstein said: “We believe that the Bio-Bead system is far too vulnerable to losses. We are calling for a range of safeguards to be put in place at all plants using it, and ultimately for water companies to phase out its use altogether.” South West Water said it welcomed the report but called for more research. “We commend the report’s authors in raising this subject but they insufficiently acknowledge other potential sources of small plastic pellets on south-west beaches such as plastic manufacturing plants in the UK and abroad, or spills from container ships, all of which are worthy of further investigation.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'environment/oceans', 'uk/uk', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-10-11T10:20:54Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2016/jul/11/feel-summer-yet-migrating-birds-nearly-over-weatherwatch | We might not feel we've had a summer yet, but for migrating birds it's nearly over | July may not feel like autumn, but in the world of birds, the return migration has already started – bringing an autumnal tinge to the air. Species that breed around the Arctic Circle – mostly waders such as plovers and sandpipers – are already heading south, towards their winter quarters in sub-Saharan Africa. These birds may only have passed through Britain in the opposite, northerly direction a few weeks ago, in mid-to-late May. They have to time both their outward and return journeys very carefully, to coincide with a brief window of opportunity during the middle of the summer, lasting just a few weeks. From mid-June to late July, temperatures in these high latitudes rapidly rise. Because this coincides with almost 24-hour, round-the-clock daylight, there is a massive but short-lived abundance of food. These birds are able to take advantage of the glut to feed their growing chicks. Local weather conditions can play a crucial part in their success or failure. A late, cold spring might mean that they arrive too soon, and then need to wait until they can start nesting. But an early spring can be even worse: if the birds have arrived too late, the food supply will be on the wane. Should this happen, instead of attempting to breed, many waders simply cut their losses and fly straight back south. So from early July onwards look out for turnstones and knots, bar-tailed godwits and spotted redshanks, many of them still in their splendid breeding garb, as they drop off to feed on our coastal estuaries, marshes and wetlands. | ['environment/birds', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/environment', 'uk/weather', 'science/science', 'science/meteorology', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-07-11T20:30:42Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/shortcuts/2019/sep/19/burger-king-is-giving-up-on-free-plastic-toys-for-kids-when-will-others-follow | Burger King is giving up on free plastic toys for kids – when will others follow? | Plastic is the wonder product of the last century: durable, flexible, versatile and cheap to produce. It is also catnip to small children, to whom it can be used to sell anything from fast food to extravagantly priced magazines; typically a few sheets of newsprint with a tiny water pistol. But if parents think they are expensive, so may children in the future. “These toys are nothing but future landfill; the legacy our children will inherit,” says Sian Sutherland, the co-founder of A Plastic Planet, a group campaigning against pollution. “Fast-fix plastic toys are used for moments and exist for centuries.” Burger King is, at last, taking a stand against the plastic scourge by giving up on giving away small plastic toys. McDonald’s has demurred, while others in the retail, fast-food and children’s magazine industries are so far sitting on their hands. The toys are not just clogging up bins, landfills and oceans but recycling machines, too. Joe Allen, the chief commercial officer at First Mile recycling company, says: “Many aren’t recyclable at all, and will contaminate the mixed recycled collections that many households are offered by the council,” he says. “Even the toys that are made from easily recyclable plastic are usually too small, or have components that are too small, to be picked up by conventional recycling-sorting machinery. Their size also causes potential problems with the machinery itself because of blockages.” Julian Kirby, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth, says rules are needed to stem the plastic tide: “Companies [that give away the toys] must adopt a new business model that prioritises the safeguarding of the Earth’s limited resources for future generations – and if they won’t, the government should make them.” However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has no plans to ban or restrict the toys under incoming rules that will essentially remove straws, stirrers, cotton buds and other single-use plastics because technically the toys are meant for reuse. Allen disagrees. “These toys are usually made so cheaply that they don’t last long enough for reuse, and become single-use items – not the habits or attitudes we should be promoting to our children.” Few companies other than Burger King seems willing to step up and take the imaginative leap necessary to find ways to attract children innately attracted to any sort of novelty. They will need to soon, says Solitaire Townsend of the Futerra consultancy. “Kids themselves are becoming aware of it,” she says, having run focus groups that found recycling was the environmental issue that grabbed children most immediately. “Children like recycling, and they are aware of waste. You’re not selling plastic, you’re selling fun, play and an experience – why does that have to be plastic? There’s a massive advantage for the company that works out how to sell that experience in a better way than badly moulded plastic. Give away books instead.” | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'news/shortcuts', 'food/fast-food', 'business/burger-king', 'business/mcdonalds', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-09-19T14:23:42Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
news/2012/dec/18/weather | Weatherwatch: How do you make a cloud? | How do you make a cloud? It is a problem that has puzzled some of the finest minds, and last week scientists met at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to celebrate the man who invented the "cloud chamber" – Charles Thompson Rees Wilson. Wilson became captivated by clouds while staying at the Ben Nevis observatory for a fortnight in September 1894. This short-lived meteorological station (operational from 1883 to 1904) was situated at the summit of Britain's highest mountain, with meteorological readings taken every hour. During Wilson's visit a combination of sunlight from behind, cloud above and a steep drop in front of him created a number of "brocken spectres" – a multicoloured halo around the shadows. Determined to understand how these eerie optcal phenomena are formed, Wilson went back to Cambridge University and constructed a cloud chamber. Inside his special box clouds were created by rapidly expanding moist air. Wilson also found that he could create beautiful trails of droplets by firing x-rays into the box and ionising atoms. Brocken spectres were rather forgotten in the wake of this exciting discovery, and instead Wilson achieved celebrity for his incredible box, where people could watch the paths made by ionising particles. The cloud chamber became a vital tool for exploration of the microscopic world, and led Wilson to be the first person to speculate the existence of cosmic rays – penetrating radiation arriving from outer space. In 1927, Wilson was awarded the Nobel prize for his invention. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-12-18T16:29:55Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2005/may/20/science.tsunami2004 | Earth 'still ringing' from tsunami quake | The Indian Ocean earthquake that triggered the great Boxing Day tsunami literally shook the world and triggered a swarm of minor earthquakes 11,000 kilometres away in Alaska. It set new records - the longest fault rupture ever seen; the longest duration and the most energetic swarm of aftershocks ever observed. The calamity began with a sudden shift on average of more than 16.5ft (5 metres) along an 800 mile fault line deep below the ocean. Just off Banda Aceh in northern Sumatra, the ocean floor suddenly moved north-eastward, pushing as much as 20 metres under the Burma tectonic plate. It raised the tip of the Burma plate several metres, and it lifted the ocean itself, setting up a tsunami that slammed into the coasts of Sumatra, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka, killing 300,000 people. The earthquake was so catastrophic that its effects could be measured from space, according to scientists reporting today in the US journal Science. It rearranged the Earth's surface and caused measurable deformation almost 2,800 miles away. "The Earth is still ringing like a bell today," said Roland Bürgmann of the University of California, Berkeley. "We have never been able to study earthquakes of this magnitude before, where a sizable portion of the Earth was distorted. Normally, we see deformation of the surface a few hundred kms away. But here we see deformation 4,500 kms away, and five or six times the deformation we have seen in previous quakes." Seismologists now believe that the 9.15 magnitude earthquake was probably twice as powerful as previously estimated. The violence was also was more enduring: much of the movement along the fault line happened half an hour after the initial shock and continued for up to three hours. Readings from 41 GPS stations were used to reconstruct the biggest shock in 40 years. At one site, 45,000 kms from the epicentre, the surface shifted by just a millimetre. It shifted two cms in southern India. The shock waves caused the ground to rise and fall 9 cms in Sri Lanka. It moved massive slabs of rock 20 metres, along a 1,300km section of the fault. And it set the Earth ringing. "Just like thumping a watermelon to hear if it is ripe, after a big earthquake thumps our planet we measure the natural tones from seismograms to detect properties of the Earth's deep mantle and core," said Jeffrey Park of Yale University. "The Sumatran-Andaman earthquake produced the best documentation of the Earth's free oscillations ever recorded." Previous comparable earthquakes all occurred at least 40 years ago: in Kamchatka in Russia in 1952; the Aleutian islands in 1957; southern Chile in 1960 and Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1964. "This really is a watershed event. We've never had such comprehensive data for a great earthquake, because we didn't have the instrumentation to gather it 40 years ago. And then the sheer size of the event is so awesome. "It is nature at its most formidable, and it has been humbling to all of us who have studied it, " said Thorne Lay of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "Even among seismologists, we call this a monster earthquake." | ['world/world', 'science/science', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/earthquakes', 'type/article', 'profile/timradford'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-05-19T23:10:34Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
travel/2017/jun/15/tilos-greece-renewable-energy-wind-solar-power | Tilos, Greece: the first island in the Med to run entirely on wind and solar power | You’re more likely to run into friendly partridges, rare orchids and endangered eagles than people as you trek around Tilos. The entire Dodecanese island is a nature reserve, with more than 150 species of resident and migratory birds, over 650 plant varieties, and a permanent population hovering around 500. Tilos owes its extraordinary biodiversity to a network of underground springs that feed five wetlands – but also to the late mayor, Tassos Aliferis, a committed environmentalist who earned Tilos its reputation as “Greece’s green island”. Aliferis banned hunting in 1993. (He also conducted the first same-sex marriages in Greece in 2008 long before they became legal in 2015.) The current mayor, Maria Kamma, continues to champion sustainable development, and human rights. She has extended an open invitation to refugee families to settle on Tilos, working with the NGO SolidarityNow and the UNHCR to establish sheltered accommodation, language classes and mentoring schemes to help asylum-seekers set up organic farming businesses in partnership with locals. “We want to revive traditions that were dying out due to a dwindling population, like making cheese and gathering medicinal herbs,” says Kamma. “By integrating refugees, we can boost the local economy and encourage eco-tourism.” Soon Tilos could become even greener: it’s set to be the first island in the Mediterranean powered by wind and solar energy. The island currently relies on oil-based electricity from neighbouring Kos, via a submarine cable that is vulnerable to faults. Power cuts are frequent. By installing a single wind turbine and small photovoltaic park, Tilos is creating a hybrid micro-grid that will generate and store energy. Installation is under way and an 18-month pilot begins in September, as part of a €15m project largely funded by the European commission. Eventually, Tilos could export excess power to Kos, and the goal is to roll out similar projects on other small islands in Europe. Financial support has also been provided for Tilos Park, a non-profit residents’ association set up to protect and promote the island’s natural and cultural heritage, and upgrade the Information Centre, where visitors can pick up maps of nature trails, mountain bike routes, and the best spots for sighting rare birds, or sign up for canoe and kayak trips. It’s hoped that knock-on effects will include increased visitor numbers – which currently stand at 13,000 per year – particularly among eco-minded travellers. “Tilos has many loyal ‘fans’ who’ve come every year for 30 years,” says Kamma. “Now we’re getting a lot more interest from young people who have heard about Tilos because of the renewable energy project. They like what we are doing and want to support the island.” Kamma also hopes the positive publicity will help generate additional funding to install solar-powered street lighting, introduce electric bicycles and motorbikes for municipal staff, and charging stations for electric cars. “Usually it’s hard for a tiny island community to break with tradition, but on Tilos we’ve always welcomed alternatives,” she says. “If we can do it, anyone can.” | ['travel/greek-islands', 'travel/series/on-the-radar-travel', 'travel/greece', 'travel/green', 'travel/beach', 'travel/familyholidays', 'travel/europe', 'travel/travel', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/travel', 'theguardian/travel/travel', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-travel'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2017-06-15T10:15:37Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2009/jun/28/nuclear-industry-global-body-plans | Nuclear industry accused of hijacking clean energy forum | The nuclear power industry has been accused of trying to muscle in on plans to establish a global body to represent the renewable energy industry at a key meeting in Egypt tomorrow. France – a major user and exporter of nuclear technologies – is accused by critics of trying to win the top job inside the renewable organisation so it can move the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) towards being a promoter of "low-carbon" technologies – including atomic power. The talks in Sharm el-Sheikh are already threatening to become a major standoff between Germany and the United Arab Emirates over which country should win the right to have the headquarters of Irena based in its country. France, which recently signed a nuclear co-operation agreement with the UAE, is supporting Abu Dhabi. It also wants one of its own civil servants, Hélène Peloss, to be given the top role. Britain, which only signed up for membership on Friday, has given no indication whether it plans to cast its vote in favour of Bonn or Abu Dhabi, while the US is expected to join Irena in Egypt and then lend its support to Germany. Karsten Sach, an official in the German environment ministry with responsibility for Irena, said he was "very optimistic" that his country would be chosen but he refused to be drawn on the competition with Abu Dhabi or the role of France. "I think we have an excellent offer in terms of experience, policy frameworks and vibrant research but we are not campaigning against any other offer," he argued. Bonn is considered by many to be the more obvious location because the renewables agency was the brainchild of the Germans, who have led the way in the clean technology sector through its determined championing of solar power. The promoters of Bonn are also suggesting that the Danish renewables policy expert Hans Jørgen Koch should be chosen as director general. But Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, is pushing its claims to host Irena by emphasising its new commitment to clean technology through the construction of the hugely ambitious, low-carbon Masdar City project. It is also arguing that a developing country rather than the west is better placed to pursue the vital north-south dialogue needed to beat global warming. At previous planning meetings for Irena, the French have talked about "low-carbon" technologies, encouraging speculation about its ultimate motives. Eric Martinot, a senior research director with the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Tokyo, and a former environment specialist at the World Bank, told the Huffington Post, an online newspaper, that the French manoeuvres should be resisted. "An Irena located in Abu Dhabi under such circumstances would be 'nuclear tainted' because the negotiating process used to select a host country would be based on support for nuclear power," said Martinot. "Are the original goals of Irena being co-opted so that renewables become a mere appendage to a nuclear agenda? 'Sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power'?" he asked. More than 100 countries have signed up to the new organisation, although the US and China have yet to do so. Sach said he was hopeful that the US might join in Egypt and that China would eventually come on board. The renewable agency will have a mandate to disseminate knowledge, develop regulatory framework and to actively promote the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies around the world. It comes ahead of vital new talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year about how to tackle global warming and amid excitement that the US and China are finally starting to play more constructive roles compared with the past. | ['business/business', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'world/france', 'world/egypt', 'world/germany', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-06-28T13:52:09Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2021/nov/25/the-guardian-view-on-germanys-government-green-light-for-change | The Guardian view on Germany’s government: green light for change | Editorial | Confirmation that Germany will soon be governed by a three-party coalition led by the social democrat Olaf Scholz is an event to take seriously, and not just in Germany. That is especially true because once the coalition parties – social democrats, greens and liberals – have each voted their formal approval, Mr Scholz will take over from Angela Merkel, who has governed resourcefully for 16 years while providing great stability on the international stage. Mrs Merkel’s departure means her centre-right CDU-CSU alliance faces a period of eclipse and reinvention. The new administration, dubbed the traffic-light coalition because of the parties’ colours, will, however, provide continuity with the recent past, especially in foreign, European and defence policy. More problematically, the new finance minister, Christian Lindner of the liberal Free Democratic party, is now positioned to uphold Germany’s familiar fiscal orthodoxy and debt aversion in the face of future spending pressures from the other coalition parties, as well as on the EU budgetary stage. To an extent, such tensions are implicit in any three-way coalition. These should neither be exaggerated nor downplayed. Yet the new government and the EU will not easily survive any hasty German return to traditional austerity and debt avoidance, so the commitments in the coalition deal may prove more aspirational than achievable. The investment pledges on infrastructure and climate crisis measures will also challenge the culture of budgetary restraint. Ultimately, the test of the Scholz government will be how it deals with these tensions. Yet the coalition’s wider agenda, set out in the 178-page document hammered out since September’s general election, should not be dismissed as a steady-as-we-go programme. With the Green party heading a new ministry for economy and climate protection, targets will require 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030, the phasing out of coal “ideally” by the same deadline, and a sped-up abandonment of gas by 2040. Equally striking, especially seen from Britain, is the coalition’s pledge of a paradigm shift in migration and integration policy to make Germany “a modern country of immigration”. Promised measures include speeding up the visa process, easier passport entitlement and support for refugee quotas. Other important liberalisations include easing the process of gender change, lifting the ban on the sale of cannabis for recreational use and reducing the voting age from 18 to 16. Old party loyalties are breaking down across Europe, not just Germany, so this coalition should be watched as a possible shape of things to come. As ever, though, the best laid plans are vulnerable to immediate events. Germany’s Covid rates have hit record levels this month, and contentious lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations are on the agenda in some states. Mr Scholz and his government may not long enjoy the luxury of a honeymoon period. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/germany', 'world/angela-merkel', 'environment/green-politics', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-25T19:07:19Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2021/oct/13/a-burning-issue-for-guardianistas | A burning issue for Guardianistas | Brief letters | Yet more anti-science rhetoric on wood burning (Letters, 11 October). The World Health Organization estimates that every year, worldwide, 4 million people die prematurely as a consequence of burning domestic biomass. Yes, the extra CO2 burden from burning dry wood as compared with gas is not huge, but it is the particulates that kill people – and if they don’t kill you, they exacerbate bronchitis, asthma and other lung ailments. Sometimes I despair of my fellow Guardianistas! John Freeman Kingswinford, West Midlands • Jonathan Hewett’s defence of accepting poor writing skills is flawed (Letters, 7 October). Full stops and commas have a function: pauses, emphasis, nuance, organisation. Having spent many hours marking essays, one aim was to make writing and punctuation enjoyable, not to produce snobs. Have I wasted my life? Veronica Edwards Malvern, Worcestershire • When I woke up to read “Matt Hancock appointed UN special envoy to help Covid recovery in Africa” (Report, 12 October), I thought that I must have slept right through until 1 April next year. Harry Bower Rotherham, South Yorkshire • Your correspondent (Report, 11 October) says: “Bats are New Zealand’s only land based mammals.” Do all the people live in the sea? Francis Blake London • Daniel Trilling (Britain is learning the hard way that migration can’t be turned on or off like a tap, 12 October) quotes the party slogan: “Vote Tory to get a pay rise.” Tell that to the nurses. Ian Wishart London • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication. | ['environment/biofuels', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/pollution', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'education/english', 'politics/matt-hancock', 'world/newzealand', 'society/nursing', 'politics/conservatives', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-10-13T15:55:22Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/2014/oct/27/future-business-people-not-profit-sustainability | The future of business lies in people, not profit | Can business become a force for good? Even the question sounds like a suspect PR strategy, such is the depth of distrust of business. In the aftermath of the financial crisis there is soul-searching and this offers a golden opportunity for a different path. For some in the business world the remedy is minor course correction. They know that capitalism needs customers, and if to continue to make money business now has to factor in more social and environmental costs, then so be it. But there are also people who see that the problem goes deeper. They look at the way the market economy has developed over the last 25 to 30 years and see the obsession with subordinating all other aims to the sole goal of maximising profits as deeply warped. They know it has ended up exploiting people and society rather than serving them. Over the past couple of years a group from business and society have been working on a distinctive approach to this. Called a Blueprint for Better Business, it offers a way for businesses to renew and regain a sense of social purpose. The key question is why a business exists. The point this group focused on is that the true purpose of business is to solve problems and meet social needs. Profit is the result. Profit is not the purpose. If you go back to the 1950s this is how most business leaders thought and acted. The obsession with maximising shareholder value as the purpose of business is a recent, and deeply damaging aberration. It changes organisations, and it has skewed human motivation to focus unhealthily on status and material reward. Blueprint for Better Business, which draws on learnings from faith traditions and philosophy and then shapes these into an actionable framework with leading UK multinationals, has come up with five principles of a purpose driven business. The core of it is that a business must have a purpose that delivers long-term sustainable performance. That purpose – the ‘why’ – has to meet two societal tests: respect for human dignity and serving the common good. It is through developing products and services that are true to this purpose that the business delivers a fair return to investors. There is no trade off between purpose and profit, and no outsourcing of social purpose to CSR programmes. The identity and core purpose of the whole business is clear and directs everything the business does. But to deliver such a purpose requires people to bring the best of themselves to work. It needs both competence and character. It needs people at the top who care about others and enthuse the whole business by the quality of relationships they instil. It taps into the potential of people. It is both an axiom of many faith traditions and philosophy, and also increasingly evidenced through behavioural economics, neuroscience and positive psychology, that to be human is to be more than simply self-interested. We have a deep need for relationships with others, and there are common goods that only come into being through the commitments that people make to each other. Furthermore, we also yearn for meaning and fulfilment at work. The energy and creativity that fosters and encourages innovation often comes from the desire for joy and fulfilment in making a positive difference to the world. It is a paradox that we have ended up in our society with a lot of very talented people who shy away from the private sector because they think it is about making money with no meaning. And sometimes it is. But the deep desire to make a positive difference comes out in the amazing number of young people starting social enterprises and seeking to make a reasonable living through a purpose that serves society. Many are convinced that now there is a true opportunity to reframe the place of business in society. This Thursday there will be a call to action based on the Blueprint’s five principles of a purpose driven business. It’s a movement and it’s free. And to those who say business cannot change, my question is “why not?”. Charles Wookey is Acting CEO of Blueprint for Better Business and works part time as an assistant general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Read more stories like this: Six strategies for creating system change for a sustainable future Happiness and wellbeing trump material growth Challenging the old narrative that possessions equal prosperity Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/series/rethinking-prosperity', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'sustainable-business/behaviour', 'business/business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'environment/environment', 'world/ethics', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-10-27T14:56:35Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
politics/2005/sep/03/hurricanekatrina.usa | Letters: Storm hits the markets | It is instructive to juxtapose the current blind faith in markets to deliver freedom, happiness and economic development (Comment, September 2) with the US government's pathetic attempts to deal with the major disaster brought about by Hurricane Katrina. Markets cannot deliver aid to those who need it, although they can deliver excellent pictures of their suffering. Governments, including our own, must recognise that prior to being consumers demanding choice, people are citizens demanding adequate social services, citizens with rights and responsibilities. And people, including those advocating less government, must recognise that civilised life requires a properly functioning and properly funded state bureaucracy that can deliver services to its citizens. Prof Yiannis Gabriel Imperial College, London The recent surge in oil prices and the knock-on effect caused by hurricane Katrina will bring US petrol prices at the pump into line with those that UK consumers are used to. This will, perhaps, offer market discipline to help the US to wise up on climate change. Our research shows that UK consumers are responding to water shortages and rising energy prices by trying to live more sustainably. Perhaps consumers can make a virtue out of a necessity: as fossil fuel gets more expensive, at least the costs of going green fall. Ed Mayo National Consumer Council | ['politics/politics', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'politics/economy', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'tone/letters', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-02T23:29:07Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sustainable-business/2014/jul/11/hobby-lobby-birth-control-contraception-supreme-court-sexism-constitution | The Hobby Lobby shock: it's high time for an equal rights amendment | Last week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the US supreme court decided to protect the religious rights of closely-held corporations and their owners — at the expense of the rights of millions of women employees to contraception under the Affordable Care Act. The court found that Hobby Lobby was “substantially burdened” by the inclusion of certain contraceptives, in this case two types of morning-after pills and two types of intrauterine devices (IUD), in its employees’ health insurance. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, noted that the price of contraceptives discourages their use by many women. She pointed out that an IUD costs the equivalent of a month’s pay for women working full time at the minimum wage. According to a range of different studies, women of childbearing age spend between 40% and 69% more for out-of-pocket health costs than men of the same age. In truth, the Hobby Lobby decision will cause much more damage to women — 51% of the population — than a contrary result would have caused to religious freedom.
After all, including the contraceptives in employees' coverage is not the same thing as making the decision to use them. Even if they were offered, it is the women employed by the company — not the company — who would independently determine whether or not to access contraceptive services under the insurance. This “burden” of providing this coverage, which would likely add nothing to employers' insurance cost, pales in comparison to the burden on women resulting from the denial of coverage for these services. The supreme court could not have reached its decision if we had had an equal rights amendment in the US constitution. Depriving women of coverage for health services they need is sex discrimination, plain and simple. Also, the religious protections the court relied on were statutory, and a statute cannot override a constitutional provision. An equal rights amendment would have forced the court to consider thoroughly the harm to women of depriving them of contraception, and to recognize women’s fundamental right to freedom from sex discrimination. Unsurprisingly, the term “sex discrimination” appears nowhere in the court’s decision. Although the constitution should be read to protect women against discrimination – women, after all, are “persons” entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment – the standard for protection against sex discrimination is not as stringent as it should be. And for some members of the court, women don’t seem to count as constitutional “persons", even though corporations do. Justice Scalia, for example, has said: “Certainly the constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.”
The women’s health amendment to the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2009, is meant to ensure that women can obtain contraceptives, mammograms and other preventative care without additional cost. Increased access to contraception will reduce unintended pregnancies — which for some women could be life threatening — and enhance public health, women’s economic opportunity, and the dignity that comes with women’s ability to control their own reproductive choices. But it has taken hits, not only from the Hobby Lobby decision, but also from another recent supreme court action, involving Wheaton College, that came through just a few days later. Wheaton College, an evangelical Illinois school, objects not only to the idea of providing coverage for birth control, but also to the idea of filling out a government form that would essentially certify its religious objections to contraception and transfer the responsibility for this coverage to insurers. The school was able to get an injunction to keep it from having to fill out the form while the case was pending. The court considered that merely filling out the form might “substantially burden” Wheaton College’s religious freedom. The three women justices who dissented pointed out the absurdity of this claim. Once again, if we had an equal rights amendment in the constitution, the supreme court would have had to weigh the burden of the form on Wheaton College’s religious rights against the burden on women of denying them access to contraception, a burden that is serious and real and involves millions of women — and men. Sadly, Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College are just the latest in a long series of supreme court cases that have denied women protection from sex discrimination. In 1976, the supreme court ruled that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy was not sex discrimination, a ruling Congress overturned. In 2007, the court determined that Lilly Ledbetter could get back pay for only six months of the 20 years she was paid less than her male colleagues, a decision Congress also overturned. And in 2011, the court dismissed the action against Walmart for paying women less than men, making it more difficult for women to remedy sex discrimination against them. Although the 1972 effort to adopt the equal rights amendment failed, US Representative Carolyn Maloney has introduced a new equal rights amendment that would finally add the word “women” into the constitution. And Senator Ben Cardin and Representative Jackie Speier have introduced legislation to resuscitate the 1972 proposal. Those who think we don’t need the new amendment may want to think again in light of the Hobby Lobby and the Wheaton College decisions. For those who think we can’t get the equal rights amendment, ask why not. It’s high time for it — simple justice, long overdue. Elizabeth Holtzman is a former member of Congress. Jessica Neuwirth is president of the recently formed ERA Coalition. The social impact hub is funded by AngloAmerican. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. | ['business/business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'sustainable-business/health-and-wellbeing', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-07-11T13:00:05Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2016/feb/10/no-evidence-that-eus-illegal-timber-policy-is-working | ‘No evidence’ that EU's illegal timber policy is working | There is “no solid evidence” that an EU law has done anything to prevent the illegal timber trade or even that it has been implemented, according to a draft commission review seen by the Guardian. Nine EU countries have still not imposed penalties or taken action against timber traffickers and six others have yet to carry out checks on importers as required by the EU’s timber regulation. The review finds that “only a fraction” of private sector firms use independent monitoring groups to source their timber, and that loopholes anyway exempt many types of timber import from scrutiny. Alexandra Pardal, a spokeswoman for the campaign group Global Witness, said that the EU’s law had been a landmark in the fight against deforestation “but almost three years after its introduction, we haven’t seen a single prosecution in Europe.” “If EU member states are serious about cracking down on the drivers of illegal logging, they need to start abiding by their own laws – by seizing illicit timber and prosecuting the companies that import it.” Global Witness says that it has presented EU authorities with “clear evidence” of illegal timber being exported to Europe from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, but that no action was taken. Greenpeace is also demanding an Interpol investigation into a boat that it suspects of being laden with illegal timber, which is reportedly docked in Bilbao at present, after being towed away from the French coast. The global illegal logging industry is worth up to$100bn a year, according to Interpol estimates. The commission review did detect a drop in timber imports to the EU between 2010 and 2013, but found that this was mostly because of economic stagnation in Europe and high timber demand in Asia. “There is no solid evidence to show that the due diligence system obligation so far has been effective in preventing illegally harvested timber and that operators across the EU have consistently implemented their due diligence requirements to date,” it says. Part of the problem is that only the first seller of timber to the European market has to verify a product’s legality, so contraband spot checks tend to be ineffective. “Competent authorities do not yet have the capacity and resources they would need for effective application of the regulation,” the review says. It goes on: “Only a fraction of operators, with a rough estimate of 100 to 200, currently use a due diligence service with monitoring organisation support and verification services.” The findings chime with a recent European Court of Auditors study which reported that the regulation had been poorly designed, badly managed and largely ineffective. Government authorities are often too under-resourced to carry out its measures thoroughly. Greece and Hungary are currently facing legal proceedings for non-implementation of the law. “Proper checks on timber being traded in the EU are the keystone of the EU Timber Regulation,” said Emily Unwin, a lawyer for the green law firm, ClientEarth. “This law can and must prevent illegal logging around the world, but we have to get the enforcement right. Industry needs accountability. Governments must commit resources.” Illegal logging is thought to be responsible for around one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions, more than from all the world’s ships, trains, planes and cars combined. | ['environment/deforestation', 'environment/forests', 'environment/conservation', 'world/eu', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'environment/illegal-wildlife-trade', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arthurneslen'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-02-10T10:43:01Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/feb/10/loophole-allowing-for-deforestation-on-soya-farms-in-brazils-amazon | ‘Loophole’ allowing for deforestation on soya farms in Brazil’s Amazon | More than 400 sq miles (1,000 sq km) of Amazon rainforest has been felled to expand farms growing soya in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in a 10-year period, despite an agreement to protect it, according to a new investigation. In 2006, the landmark Amazon soy moratorium was introduced banning the sale of soya grown on land deforested after 2008. From 2004 to 2012, the clearing of trees in the Amazon fell by 84%. But in recent years deforestation has climbed steeply, reaching a 15-year high last year – encouraged, campaigners say, by President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-conservationist rhetoric and policies. With the moratorium applying only to soya, farmers have been able to sell the crop as deforestation-free, while still clearing land for cattle, maize or other commodities. To map the deforestation, researchers from the Brazilian NGO Instituto Centro de Vida, along with Greenpeace’s Unearthed and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, looked at satellite data of land where soya was being grown in Mato Grosso state, which stretches across the southern part of the Amazon. The state grows more soya than anywhere else in Brazil. They found that while studies show the moratorium had successfully stopped rainforest being directly converted into soya fields, deforestation had continued. Farmers were clearing land to grow commodities other than soya, with 450 sq miles of rainforest – equivalent in size to Greater Manchester – felled in Mato Grosso between 2009 and 2019, according to the research. Holly Gibbs, professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, said: “At the same time that soy farmers comply with the moratorium, they continue to deforest illegally for other purposes.” The revelations undermine claims by supermarkets that soya is no longer linked to the loss of Amazon rainforest. Soya is a key commodity used by dairy, cattle, pig and poultry farmers in Europe and the rest of the world to feed their livestock. The Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove), the main association for soya traders in Brazil, said the moratorium had resulted in significant reductions in deforestation in municipalities that produce soya. “If soy beans are planted in polygons [an area between a specified set of coordinates] with deforestation after 2008, the entire farm is considered noncompliant with the soy moratorium,” Abiove said a statement. Previous analysis has suggested more than 1m tonnes of soya used by UK livestock farmers to produce chicken and other food in 2019 could have been linked to deforestation. Gibbs said pressure from soya buyers in Europe and the US was needed to stop the deforestation. “Legislation in the EU, UK and the US raises the stakes of this ongoing deforestation on soy properties. The soy industry could consider broadening the Amazon soy moratorium to close the door to all deforestation connected to soy.” Prof Raoni Rajão, an agricultural specialist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, said the current regulations were insufficient. “Only the specific areas where soy is grown are monitored, not the entire property. Farmers have already noticed this loophole.” The Retail Soy Group, which represents leading retailers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl and Waitrose, acknowledged there were limitations to the moratorium and said the new allegations “further highlight the need to have strengthened legal protections of these vital ecosystems”. Sign up for the Animals farmed monthly update to get a roundup of the biggest farming and food stories across the world and keep up with our investigations. You can send us your stories and thoughts at [email protected] | ['environment/series/animals-farmed', 'environment/environment', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/food', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/andrew-wasley', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-02-10T06:01:12Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2013/mar/04/ships-sail-north-pole-2050 | Ships to sail directly over the north pole by 2050, scientists say | Ships should be able to sail directly over the north pole by the middle of this century, considerably reducing the costs of trade between Europe and China but posing new economic, strategic and environmental challenges for governments, according to scientists. The dramatic reduction in the thickness and extent of late summer sea ice that has taken place in each of the last seven years has already made it possible for some ice-strengthened ships to travel across the north of Russia via the "northern sea route". Last year a total of 46 ships made the trans-Arctic passage, mostly escorted at considerable cost by Russian icebreakers. But by 2050, say Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson at the University of California in the journal PNAS on Monday, ordinary vessels should be able to travel easily along the northern sea route, and moderately ice-strengthened ships should be able to take the shortest possible route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, passing over the pole itself. The easiest time would be in September, when annual sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is at its lowest extent. The scientists took two classes of vessels and then simulated whether they would be able to steam through the sea ice expected in seven different climate models. In each case they found that the sea routes opened up considerably after 2049. "The emergence of a … corridor directly over the north pole indicates that sea ice will become sufficiently thin such that a critical technical threshold is surpassed, and the shortest great circle route thus becomes feasible, for ships with moderate ice-breaking capability," says the paper. "The prospect of common open water ships, which comprise the vast majority of the global fleet, entering the Arctic Ocean in late summer, and even its remote central basin by moderately ice-strengthened vessels heightens the urgency for a mandatory International Maritime Organisation regulatory framework to ensure adequate environmental protections, vessel safety standards, and search-and-rescue capability," it adds. The northern sea route has been shown to save a medium-sized bulk carrier 18 days and 580 tonnes of bunker fuel on a journey between northern Norway and China. Shipowners have said it can save them €180,000-€300,000 on each voyage. A direct route over the pole could save up to 40% more fuel and time. | ['environment/travel-and-transport', 'environment/environment', 'environment/sea-ice', 'environment/poles', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/arctic', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-03-04T20:00:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
law/2012/mar/20/who-killed-hilda-murrell | Who really killed Hilda Murrell? | Michael Mansfield | Hilda Murrell was murdered in March 1984. Who killed her - and why - has already been the subject of books, plays and films, and the conviction of a man for her abduction and murder in 2005 failed to answer many of the questions surrounding her death. The reasons for this enduring enquiry are exposed at length in A Thorn In Their Side, a book being launched this week to mark the 28th anniversary of her death. The author is Hilda's nephew, Robert Green, with whom she had a close relationship and who was a commander in naval intelligence during the Falklands war. He has followed and chronicled the case meticulously. Was this just a random, bungled burglary by a lone 16-year-old - as the police would have it - or was it an operation involving several individuals on behalf of a government agency, namely the security services? The book cannot definitively answer this question, but it raises serious and substantial doubts about the criminal investigations to date. The accumulated concerns make an overwhelming argument for these to be reopened by an independent police force unconnected with any previous enquiries, or by an independent commission of inquiry. "Nuclear disaster is both avoidable and inevitable. Nuclear technologies have too many inherent risks and widespread consequences to be a sensible choice for energy production." The words are those of Rebecca Johnson, a former senior advisor to the Blix commission on weapons of mass destruction, writing about the disaster at Fukushima earlier this month. Back in 1984, this was exactly Hilda Murrell's position. Murrell was a respected horticulturist: a rose was named after her shortly before she was murdered at the age of 78. She was a committed environmentalist and regarded Margaret Thatcher's nuclear power policy as utterly misguided. She began campaigning against it, accumulating high quality information about the risks from scientists and activists, and intended to provide it in person to the Sizewell B public inquiry, where she had was accreditated as a witness. She was an outstanding and outspoken independent voice. The murder occurred before she could be heard. Her nephew's book chillingly reveals the threats, fears and surveillance she reported to others before she died. A central theme of her research was the hazardous nature of radioactive waste and the difficulty in managing it. This still besets the nuclear industry, to the extent that the US currently has a moratorium on new reactors in some states. Murrell was also acutely aware of the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979. Her critique embraced nuclear weapons as well. At which point we pan across to Commander Rob Green. The Argentinian cruiser, the General Belgrano, was sunk in 1982 during the Falklands war by HMS Conqueror, a nuclear submarine. Green was in naval intelligence. The truth about where the Belgrano was whether it was really necessary to sink her became a very hot political potato. A great deal of speculation and information entered the public domain that undermined the government's position. Although entirely without foundation, there must have been at least a suspicion that Green might in some way have been connected with the supposed leaks. Ultimately, the MP Tam Dalyell, who had been asking questions about the Belgrano's sinking just before her disappearance, was driven to tell the Commons that British intelligence lay behind Murrell's murder in their search for material they thought she may have secreted at her home. In the official version of her murder, Murrell was the victim of a demeaning and callous assault, abduction and murder by a young adolescent, on his own, without obvious motivation. The police version of the sequence of events is bizarre. On one and the same day, Hilda - having been assaulted in her home - is forced into her own car, driven through Shrewsbury in broad daylight past the police station and a number of witnesses, to a country lane some miles away. The car crashes into a verge with the driver's door jammed. The driver then exits via the passenger seat and takes Hilda with him, but not before she has retrieved the car keys and put them in her pocket. He assaults her again in a field, where she loses her hat and spectacles. She is then either dragged or pushed across a ploughed field over a fence into a copse where she is stabbed,although not fatally, and left to die of hypothermia. Her body was not found for two days. While DNA from the convicted man shows he was in Hilda's house, there are a huge number of other evidential matters that Rob Green has assembled which challenge the manner of this killing. Although many of them are not new, most have not been assembled in an intelligible format until now, and some have never been presented in court proceedings. A few of the features which tend to undermine the idea that only one person was involved are: (a) DNA discovered in relation to Hilda is not from the man convicted, but from at least two others; (b) Photographs of Hilda's body in the copse show that she was clearly visible, and confirm the striking evidence of a local landowner. Ian Scott took his dogs for a walk the day after the murder in the very area where the body was supposed to have been left. He saw nothing and has always maintained he would have done had she been there because he was carefully identifying trees for felling. (c) The 16-year-old could not drive and the descriptions given by witnesses of the driver do not fit him; (d) Changes at her house over the days of her disappearance. Until an independent inquiry takes place, the reader must be the judge. | ['law/criminal-justice', 'law/law', 'uk/series/justice-on-trial', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'world/nuclear-weapons', 'uk/ukcrime', 'uk/uk', 'uk/mi5', 'law/michael-mansfield', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/michael-mansfield'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2012-03-20T16:27:28Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/2021/may/13/colonial-pipeline-fuel-cyber-attack-outage | Colonial pipeline reaching full capacity after cyberattack, Biden says | Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the vast Colonial petrochemical pipeline stretching from Texas to New York was reaching full capacity again after resuming operations following a cyberattack. “This is not like flicking on a light switch. It’s going to take some time, and there may be some hiccups,” the US president said, adding that services were expected to return fully to normal this weekend. There have been conflicting reports about whether Colonial has paid a ransom to the hackers. Biden declined to comment on the issue when questioned by the media at the White House. Meanwhile, Biden noted that according to his intelligence briefings, the Russian state and Russian president Vladimir Putin were not involved in the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Co last week, which shut down its pipeline carrying gasoline and other petrochemical commodities, for six days. But the US believes that the cyber gang DarkSide, which has said it carried out the attack, emanates from Russia and has urged the Russian president to take action against such actors. Biden said on Thursday: “We are working to try to get to the place where we have international standards that governments, knowing that criminal activity is happening from their territory, that we all move on those criminal enterprises.” The US president is expected to meet with Putin in person next month when he makes his first trip overseas since winning the White House and visits the UK and the European Union, though a date and place for the meeting is not yet announced. “I expect that’s one of the topics I will be talking about with Putin,” Biden said of fighting cybercrime. Hours after the Colonial pipeline company moved some of the first millions of gallons of motor fuels after a six-day outage following a crippling cyber-strike, a report emerged claiming that the company paid an almost $5m ransom to eastern European hackers behind this high-tech attack. The outage spurred fuel shortages, driven in part by consumers panic-buying petrol–across east coast states. Bloomberg reported Thursday that Colonial paid this extortion fee in “untraceable cryptocurrency within hours after the attack”. After the ransomware hackers received this payout, they provided a decryption mechanism to enable the restoration of its computer system, Bloomberg reported. This decryption tool was so slow, however, that Colonial kept using its own backups to help relaunch its system, sources told the media outlet. Bloomberg’s report contradicts Reuters and Washington Post reports on Wednesday that the company had no immediate plans to pay up. These reports were also rooted in anonymous sources. The pipeline, which carries 100m gallons per day of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, resumed computer-controlled pumping late Wednesday after adding safety measures. The shutdown caused gasoline shortages and emergency declarations from Virginia to Florida, led two refineries to curb production, and had airlines reshuffling some refueling operations. “Relief is coming,” said Jeanette McGee, a spokeswoman for motor travel group AAA. Motorists’ tempers frayed as panic buying led stations to run out even where supplies were available. The average national gasoline price rose above $3 a gallon, the highest since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said, and prices in some areas jumped as much as 11¢ in a day. As FBI investigators dug into an attack that paralyzed a large part of the US energy infrastructure, the group believed to be responsible said it was publishing data from breaches at three other companies, including an Illinois technology firm. The FBI, which said the hackers were linked to a group named DarkSide, discourages the payment of ransoms, as there is no certainty that cyber-attackers will actually agree to the terms of an arrangement. Moreover, paying ransom provides incentive to other possible hackers, Bloomberg reported. Colonial has a type of insurance that typically covers ransom payments, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Thursday that ransom should not be paid by companies that are the victims of cyberattacks. “We don’t want people to think there’s money in it to threaten the security of a critical infrastructure in our country,” Pelosi said. Pelosi noted a “governance issue” in hardening US facilities against attacks. “This cannot be open-season for hackers who can make money off of a threat even if they don’t go as far as crippling the entity, as with Colonial,” she said. Pelosi referred to the incident as “Russian-oriented. We don’t know [whether it was] Putin-oriented.” | ['us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/technology', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joan-greve', 'profile/victoria-bekiempis', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2021-05-13T17:30:23Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2023/sep/22/orphans-children-derna-libya-floods | ‘The least we can do is care for their children’: Libyans rally to protect Derna’s orphans | People in western Libya have rallied round to provide care and breastmilk for young children orphaned by the devastating floods that hit the coastal city of Derna on 10 September. Hundreds of traumatised babies and young children are thought to have lost their parents in Derna, where whole neighbourhoods were wiped out after two dams broke. “Infant children do not wish to use artificial feeding bottles, which forced us to search for breastfeeding mothers,” said Mona Alashi, a volunteer. Nawal Alghazal, a 62-year-old resident of Benghazi, has started a campaign to collect breastmilk from women already breastfeeding their own children and distribute it to children whose mothers are dead or missing. “The least we can do for our country and the people in Derna is to take care of their children,” said Alghazal, who has taken 70 young children into her care since the disaster. Another woman, Marwa Abdelrazzaq, said she was willing to take in a Derna orphan and promised to provide the same care and attention as she does for her own daughter. According to Unicef, children who lose their parents or are separated from their families are more vulnerable to dangers such as violence and exploitation. Noura Eljerbi, a Libyan journalist, nevertheless cautioned against rushing to relocate children before the paperwork was completed to classify them as orphans, which would increase the likelihood of them being matched with relatives. Eljerbi estimated that about 400 children separated from their families in Derna are now living in two schools converted into shelters. Every day, desperate people come by the schools searching for missing relatives. In theory the ministry of social affairs is responsible for caring for orphaned children in the first instance and arranging their long-term care with foster families, but after years of political fracturing and violence, trust in institutions of the state is low. Abdelnabi Abu Araba, a civil activist, said he had received nearly a thousand offers of foster care through his Facebook page and phone contacts. While praising the empathy of his fellow citizens, he also expressed concern that some would-be fosterers were offering to help on impulse after being moved by the horrific scale of the flooding disaster. Abu Araba emphasised that the ability to provide financial support was not the sole criterion for becoming a foster carer, and that a person’s social situation and behaviour should also be assessed. He noted that the social affairs ministry would normally conduct a wide survey of a prospective fosterer before coming to a decision. The floods in Derna inundated as much as a quarter of the city, officials have said. Thousands of people were killed, with many dead still under the rubble or at sea, according to search teams. Government officials and aid agencies have given varied death tolls ranging from about 4,000 to more than 11,000. More than 43,000 people have been displaced in the area, including 30,000 in Derna, according to the UN’s migration agency. Many people have moved to other cities across Libya, hosted by local communities or sheltered in schools. Local authorities said they have isolated the worst-damaged part of Derna amid growing concerns about waterborne diseases. Health authorities have launched a vaccination campaign that initially targeted search and rescue teams along with children in Derna and other affected areas. On Monday hundreds of angry protesters gathered outside the main mosque in Derna, where they castigated the political class that has controlled Libya since the dictator Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed in a Nato-supported uprising in 2011. Bushra Kareem, a 37-year-old volunteer, is working to identify children who have made it out of Derna with and without their families and provide psychological support to help them integrate into schools before the academic year starts. Kareem said that even if children managed to make sense of what has happened to them, reality could become blurred with their imagination, making them susceptible to “severe disturbances” involving fear, anxiety, and other psychological symptoms. Several social media pages have shared heartbreaking accounts by children recounting the moment when they were swept away by the flood waters. Kareem said she was encouraging parents to seek the assistance of volunteer psychological support professionals for children and ensure that these children receive psychological support, either individually or in group sessions with other children. | ['world/libya-flood-2023', 'world/libya', 'environment/flooding', 'world/middleeast', 'world/natural--disasters', 'world/extreme-weather', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-09-22T04:00:08Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2024/apr/22/high-interest-rates-could-add-billions-to-uk-green-energy-transition-says-report | High interest rates could add billions to UK green energy transition, says report | A permanent shift to higher interest rates could add billions of pounds to the UK’s renewable energy transition, a leading thinktank has warned. Borrowing costs have soared since the easing of pandemic lockdowns and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the world’s leading central banks raised interest rates to tackle inflation – pushing up the costs of investment in infrastructure across advanced economies including for green power generation schemes. The Resolution Foundation said £29bn a year could therefore be added to household energy bills in 2050 in a scenario where interest rates persist at current elevated levels, relative to a situation where borrowing costs return to pre-pandemic levels. However, it said the green transition would still save consumers billions of pounds compared with current sky-high energy costs, and slowing down the pace of transition was not an option. The thinktank said a fourfold increase in investment in the UK’s power sector was required to provide the crucial next step in decarbonising the British economy, and a plan was needed to fund this investment in case interest rates stayed at current high levels. Its report comes amid a pushback against green policies by rightwing politicians who argue the costs of hitting net zero are too high. Labour earlier this year slashed its green investment plans amid concerns over higher borrowing costs and a campaign by the Conservatives to weaponise the affordability of its £28bn price tag. However, the Resolution Foundation said the green transition remained vital despite the higher costs of investment. Decarbonising the power sector is key to tackling global heating, it said, and would also help to reduce Britain’s dependence on volatile fossil fuel supplies, which risked exposing households to global energy shocks of the kind witnessed after the Russian invasion. “Responding by pausing or slowing the pace of power sector decarbonisation is not an option,” the report said. The government is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, with targets to decarbonise the power sector by 2035, and Labour promising to reach this goal five years earlier. The report, Electric Dreams, outlined two scenarios for future costs by 2050: a “high-cost” one with global interest rates remaining at current levels, and a “low-cost” alternative where borrowing costs fall back to pre-Covid levels. Compared with energy bills in 2023 – which are at a historically high cost – it said decarbonising the power sector would still save £14bn a year for households by 2050. However, larger savings of up to £47bn a year would be possible if interest rates returned to the levels seen in 2019. However, in comparison with 2019 levels – before the spike in wholesale energy markets – it said household bills would be £11bn a year higher by 2050 in the high-cost scenario. If interest rates fell back to levels comparable with 2019, households would save £18bn a year – a difference of £29bn between the two scenarios. The report called for a focus on keeping prices low when providing new investment, including pushing for the development of onshore wind – which can be cheaper than other renewable alternatives. It said some projects could be publicly funded, such as modernising the energy grid, because paying for investment via taxation – rather than through energy bills – could help to spread the costs more fairly across rich and poor households. It also called for the government to introduce a social tariff for lower-income households, which could help to protect poorer households who are high energy users in particular. Jonathan Marshall, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said policymakers could not count on interest rates falling back to pre-pandemic levels in future. “If interest rates stay high, energy costs will rise rather than fall in the years ahead,” he said. “So now is the time for planning on how we deliver the energy investment surge while protecting lower income households, with a greater focus on price reduction in contracts, price protection for vulnerable households, and rethinking the role of the state as an investor.” | ['business/energy-industry', 'business/resolution-foundation', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/environment', 'business/cost-of-living-crisis', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'uk/uk', 'politics/thinktanks', 'money/energy', 'money/money', 'business/interest-rates', 'tone/news', 'profile/richard-partington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-04-21T23:01:08Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2018/jan/20/supermarkets-organic-food-packaging | Why do supermarkets sell organic products wrapped in non-cyclable plastic? | My environmentally conscious wife Clare is the keenest recycler possible. She even collects and recycles the silver milk bottle tops that I tend to chuck out. But when it comes to organic food she’s furious. Why? Because she finds it is the worst culprit for wrapping almost everything in plastic and polywrap that cannot be recycled. How, she asks, did we reach the situation where the most environmentally produced food is also the worst for packaging and recycling? Like many others, the Brignall household despairs at the revelations over the past year that 86% of collected plastic is not actually recycled, and the Blue Planet claim that 8m tonnes of the stuff ends up in oceans. Yet when we pick up a packet of organic carrots, or apples, or avocados – in fact almost any organic fruit or veg in our local supermarket – it comes in plastic packaging that is not only unnecessary, it is almost always not recyclable. In Waitrose, organic beetroots that you could play football with without damaging, are packed in plastic trays surrounded in non-recyclable plastic sleeves. In Tesco this week organic mushrooms were housed in all-plastic containers, while the cheaper, conventional mushrooms could be bought in greener compostable trays. Organic apples and carrots that don’t need any packaging at all are almost always bagged in plastic that can’t be recycled. We don’t buy a lot of organic food in supermarkets as, in truth we can’t afford to, but we have been seriously wondering whether we should give up what we do buy, because the environmental benefits are overshadowed by the packaging it comes in. Take Morrisons, our family’s supermarket of choice. Its standard lettuces come in plastic wraps which we recycle separately. The organic lettuces, though, come in that crinkly packaging that can only be put in the bin, and this is replicated across the organic sector. Our unscientific study suggests Sainsbury’s is a little better than the others. But it is Waitrose’s Duchy Organic brand that disappoints us most for packaging. Red peppers, tomatoes and carrots are all bagged in non-recyclable plastic bags. If you’re a hedge fund manager and can afford the £3.30 for five organic Pink Lady apples, you’ll be putting the wrapping in the landfill bin. Two organic beetroots that could easily be in a paper, or compostable package, were covered in plastic. A spokeswoman for the Soil Association claimed organic food in supermarkets had to be packaged to prevent it being mixed with non-organic varieties. “While it is fair to say that there is a lot more to do on packaging when it comes to organic products, I would urge consumers not to give up on buying organic. The benefits to the environment, such as healthy soil, more wildlife and the protection of bees continue to be hugely important. We have convened a specialist working group of industry experts to come up with better packaging solutions, but it has to be done with other European certifiers,” she says. Waitrose said it didn’t believe its Duchy Organic products were packaged any differently to other organic brands. “We are actively looking at how we can reduce our use of plastic and package our products in more environmentally sustainable alternatives.” A final word from Clare. She says: “I simply don’t buy these arguments that organic food can’t be sold loose, or with minimal, greener packaging. It’s simple. Products covered in unnecessary, un-recyclable packaging should lose their organic status. Faced with that threat, suppliers would quickly find greener alternatives.” | ['environment/recycling', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/money', 'business/supermarkets', 'business/business', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'business/fooddrinks', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/waste', 'tone/features', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/milesbrignall', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/money'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-01-20T06:59:45Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
us-news/2015/sep/18/rescue-search-utah-boy-flash-flood | Rescue teams continue search for Utah boy after catastrophic flash flood | The sister towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, straddle one another’s borders and are often referred to as one place, Short Creek, a reference to the stream which passes through their rural neighborhoods. It’s typically a shallow river. On Thursday, it was almost dry. Car tires, tree limps, and other debris poke from its thick red mud. Search and rescue teams canvassed the riverbed on Thursday with shovels and cadaver dogs and dump trucks carried away tons of mineral deposit left by a wall of water that tore through earlier this week. Short Creek was the site of the catastrophic flash flood earlier this week, whose death toll hit 19 late on Thursday, after authorities found the body of a seventh person canyoneering in nearby Zion National Park. In the sister towns, three women and nine children were killed, as the search continues for a missing six-year-old boy. The National Weather Service is calling it Utah’s “hundred year storm”. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Darrin Bistline, a Hildale resident, told the Guardian. “There’s been some pretty good floods and everyone just comes to look every time. But never nothing like this.” According to the town’s mayor, the victims were returning from a park at the foot of nearby Maxwell Canyon when they approached an area of the road that had been washed upon by an overflowing flood channel. The families were all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamous religious sect. The three mothers and their children stepped out of the vehicles, apparently to assess the flood, when a second surge of water came through in a seven-foot torrent. Although the women and children climbed back in their vans, the water carried the vehicles over several embankments and the windows shattered. Three of the boys are known to have survived. Their mothers’ and siblings’ bodies were found in separate areas of the Short Creek riverbed, a seven-mile stretch where crews are still looking for the last missing child, Tyson Lucas Black, a six-year-old who is also the only child victim to be named. The other children ranged in age from four to 11. It’s unclear whether the mothers had cellphones to receive the flood warnings that were issued several hours before the event took place. Yet even if they did, rural desert areas like Short Creek have notoriously poor cellphone coverage, and many complain that they don’t receive the notices with any consistency. And since the region receives as many as 120 flash floods per year, when warnings do come out, locals have a tendency to ignore them or go investigate on their own. “I saw the storm before it came,” said Joseph Levis Jessop, 36. “It looked like a tornado that was miles wide. It was dark black-gray and it just looked like it was barreling this way. It don’t rain here very much so we’re like, ‘Let’s go four-wheeling in it.’” It’s almost a town tradition to go out when it’s storming and even walk to flood channel areas to see the water surge. Bristine had to stop his children from walking toward the flood as it unfolded. “It’s a fascination,” he said, “Just something to go see.” Short Creek sits at the foot of several slick rock canyons that offer a stunning vista – red bluffs rising 2,000 feet around the most of the town – but those petrified sandstone cliffs are a great danger to residents in the valley below, which is essentially a drainage zone with ground that doesn’t absorb water. “In Utah, the ground is rock hard – it’s like a parking lot – it doesn’t have much vegetation if any and it’s really steep slopes,” said Brian McInerney, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service. “The headwaters from this flash flood came down 2,000 feet and were only about two or three miles away from the town of Hildale. When you think of a drop like that, it’s always going to come down really fast, it’s really efficient (it doesn’t infiltrate), and it’s going to have a lot of speed to it.” In Hildale and Colorado City’s gas stations and sandwich shops, conversations about Monday’s tragedy focused mostly on disaster response, but there was also significant talk about a cooling of tensions between members of the FLDS church and family and friends in town who are former followers of the sect. Almost every resident of Short Creek was, or is, affiliated with the polygamous group that was famously run by self-proclaimed profit Warren Jeffs (currently serving a life sentence for child sexual assault). “The community members that are not in the faith are trying to show expressions of sympathy and love,” said Duane Barlow, a stout-chested man who hadn’t spoken to family members in the church for three years. “The only way we can express it is through posters and flowers and things like that,” he said, referring to memorials around town. “I think it’s the beginning of a long-term reconciliation.” During search and rescue missions, people outside the church volunteered with cousins, brothers and sisters in the sect who they hadn’t spoken to in years, canvassing Short River together instead of staying to their separate sides of Hildale and Colorado City. “It’s too bad that it takes death to bring people together,” said Todd Barlow. Asked about the detente, Darrin Bistline said, “I think it’s helped for a minute. I think it’s gonna go back how it was, quite honestly, but for this week we’ve been working together and everyone’s been doing what they can to recover the bodies.” | ['us-news/utah', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/daniel-hernandez'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-09-18T16:51:44Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/may/29/cut-air-pollution-avoid-second-coronavirus-peak-mps-urge | Cut air pollution to help avoid second coronavirus peak, MPs urge | Air pollution must be kept at low levels to help avoid a second peak of coronavirus infections, according to a cross-party report from MPs. There is growing evidence from around the world linking exposure to dirty air and increased infections and deaths from Covid-19. Lockdowns cut air pollution levels in many places, but the MPs said measures were needed to ensure it remains low. The report is based on evidence from scientists, businesses and local authorities and proposes a series of actions, including the continuation of home working, increased cycle lanes and training, more frequent public transport services to avoid crowding and the phasing out of wood and coal burning in homes. It also urges the rollout of clean air zones, currently delayed by the pandemic, and a scrappage scheme for dirty vehicles. The launch of the report also revealed new evidence of a biological mechanism that could explain how air pollution increases Covid-19 infections and the suggestion that pollution could help explain why certain minority ethnic groups have been more affected by the virus. “We need a wide-ranging air quality response as we emerge from lockdown and not an accentuated Covid-19 second peak because people get into their cars instead of using public transport or working from home,” said MP Geraint Davies, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution. “Some proposals can be introduced immediately and will help to ensure that a second peak does not overwhelm the NHS,” he said. “All will deliver cleaner air over subsequent years to help to ensure better public health and greater resilience against future pandemics.” Davies said measures to reduce pollution, such as travelling less, were the same as those that reduced contact between people and therefore the risk of infection. “They go hand in hand,” he said. The report will be submitted to government. Davies said: “This is something that should be on the prime minister’s desk and taken very seriously.” Prof Jonathan Grigg of Queen Mary University of London said: “It is increasingly likely that air pollution increases vulnerability to Covid-19 infection. Preventing the most polluting traffic from re-emerging on to our roads should therefore be part of Covid-19 policy.” He told the launch event that his new laboratory research had shown short-term exposure of airway cells to pollution particles from traffic increased the number of the ACE2 receptors that coronavirus hijacks to enter the body. “We showed a highly significant increase,” he said. The next step in the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, is to confirm that virus infection does increase in these cells. “I would be surprised if it didn’t,” Grigg said. Also speaking at the launch event were researchers from Harvard University in the US, whose research indicates that even a tiny, single-unit increase in particle pollution levels in the years before the pandemic is associated with a significant increase in the death rate. “Air pollution and Covid-19 are even more dangerous together,” said Rachel Nethery at Harvard. “This information can help us prepare by encouraging these populations in areas with higher air pollution to take extra precautions and allocating extra resources.” She said air pollution might help explain the differences being seen in Covid-19 mortality rates between different racial groups. “People of colour and poor people are disproportionately affected by air pollution,” she said. The Harvard team initially estimated the rise in death rate associated with a single-unit increase in fine particle pollution at 15%. But further analysis, taking into account a wider range of other factors, reduced this to 8%, still a significant increase. Xiao Wu, another member of the Harvard team, said the result was consistent between both rural and urban areas, and between different statistical approaches. The team have also found similar results for nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant produced by diesel vehicles and at illegal levels in most urban areas in the UK. Prof Alastair Lewis, at the University of York and chair of the UK government’s air quality expert group, also spoke at the launch event. He said: “The changes seen in some air pollutants during lockdown have been dramatic and give an indication of what should be possible for the UK in the future.” | ['environment/air-pollution', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-05-29T16:42:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2022/dec/21/governments-strike-78bn-deal-to-connect-snowy-20-and-nsw-renewable-zones-to-the-grid | Governments strike $7.8bn deal to connect Snowy 2.0 and NSW renewable zones to the grid | New South Wales’s renewable energy zones and the Snowy 2.0 hydro project will be plugged into the grid under a landmark $7.8bn agreement between the federal and NSW governments. The deal will be announced by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, on Wednesday, once the state parliament passes legislation to allow the capping of gas prices after Canberra’s plan to put downward pressure on energy prices passed through federal parliament last week. The federal government has committed $4.7bn to the plan, which is the latest announcement from its “rewiring the nation” commitment to connect more renewable power generation into the national electricity grid. The prime minister said thousands of jobs in the renewable energy sector will be created under the plan, as well as more reliable and affordable energy along the eastern seaboard. “The commonwealth has worked hand in glove with the states and territories to shield Australian households and businesses from the worst impacts of the energy crisis caused by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Albanese said. “But as well as that critical short-term action, the Australian economy can seize the opportunity of more affordable and reliable renewable energy over the long term – creating jobs in the regions that have always powered Australia and insulating ourselves from global fossil fuel shocks at the same time.” Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup He said support for critical infrastructure, like the Sydney Ring transmission link, the VNI West interconnector and HumeLink line – which are all included in the scheme – would help to “transform Australia into a renewable energy superpower”. Also included are the central-west Orana, Hunter-Central Coast and south-west renewable energy zones. Perrottet said the plan would support projected private investment in regional energy infrastructure of $32m over the next eight years. “This is our opportunity to invest in our future industries that will drive jobs and wealth creation in our state,” the premier said. Government modelling predicts the plan would support almost 4,000 jobs in regional NSW. The deal follows similar joint agreements made with Tasmania and Victoria. The NSW treasurer and energy minister, Matt Kean, described the deal as a “huge win” for the state. “This investment will support the delivery of our electricity infrastructure roadmap through fast-tracking the development of renewable energy zones and transmission infrastructure,” he said. The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, said making these investments now would save consumers into the future. “The best way to lower energy prices for Australian households and businesses is by increasing firmed renewables across our grid; it is the cheapest and most abundant form of energy across our vast continent,” he said. “Today’s announcement helps make that a reality by supporting the projects to plug Snowy 2.0 into the grid and linking renewable energy zones to ensure … energy can be supplied from wherever the wind is blowing and the sun is shining to where it’s used by households and industry.” The federal government has promised $20bn to “rewire the nation” by quickly building new electricity transmission links between states and regions to support the east coast’s transition from running predominantly on coal power to renewable energy. Perrottet will return from a short Christmas break to pass the energy laws in a special sitting of parliament on Wednesday before resuming his leave. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/energy', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tamsin-rose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-12-20T14:00:02Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/sep/08/extinction-rebellion-criminals-threaten-uks-way-of-life-says-priti-patel | Extinction Rebellion 'criminals' threaten UK way of life, says Priti Patel | The home secretary, Priti Patel, has claimed Extinction Rebellion activists are “so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals” who threaten key planks of national life. The government’s rhetorical venom against XR was triggered by the blockading of newspaper print works at the weekend, which disrupted the distribution of some newspapers and led to scores of arrests. The Guardian understands, however, that despite the government threatening to crack down on the climate emergency group, more than a year of talks between police and ministers about law changes has yet to produce any public plans. Patel described XR as an “emerging threat” in a speech to the annual conference of the Police Superintendents’ Association on Tuesday. She said XR was “attempting to thwart the media’s right to publish without fear nor favour”, and claimed their campaign of civil disobedience was “a shameful attack on our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority”. “I refuse point blank to allow that kind of anarchy on our streets,” the home secretary told the virtual conference. “The very criminals who disrupt our free society must be stopped. And together we must all stand firm against the guerilla tactics of Extinction Rebellion.” More than 100 protesters used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside the Newsprinters printing works at Broxbourne, in Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, near Liverpool, on Friday evening. It took until Saturday to fully remove them. The presses print the News UK titles including the Sun, Times, Sun on Sunday and Sunday Times, as well as the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and Daily Mail. Over the weekend government briefings floated the idea of classing XR as an “organised crime group”. Neither Patel nor the policing minister Kit Malthouse repeated that idea in the Commons on Monday, with police believing it is nonsense. The police regard XR as a non-violent group committed to civil disobedience that is time-consuming and costly for officers to deal with. One senior police source said officers had enough powers: “The powers are there. They [XR] are not an organised crime group. Part of the definition of an OCG is they commit violence in achieving their aims, and no one seriously suggests XR commit violence.” Police who dealt with the XR weekend action described it as “sophisticated” and a well-prepared military-style operation. One source said: “It takes hours to get them off. You have to go slowly and carefully.” Last year XR caused disruption in London with their campaigns, triggering talks between police chiefs and the Home Office about changes to specific sections of the 1986 Public Order Act. The Guardian understands that changes could include lowering the threshold at which police can place restrictions. One change could mean the prospect of “disruption” is enough to impose tough conditions, not “serious disruption” as the act currently states. Sarah Lunnon, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, said: “Our media and our government are captured by vested interests. They do not want to see change. Three companies alone own 87% of the national newspaper market. “These powerful vested interests are the real organised criminals. They are the true threat to our democracy. And it’s depressing – although no surprise – that so much of the political and media elite has jumped to their defence, and jumped at the opportunity to suppress people power and grassroots protest. We will not allow them to criminalise the noble tradition of non-violent civil disobedience.” | ['environment/extinction-rebellion', 'politics/priti-patel', 'uk/police', 'environment/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/protest', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/vikramdodd', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-09-08T16:33:18Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2015/jul/22/the-guardian-view-on-greening-the-economy-the-price-is-worth-paying | The Guardian view on greening the economy: the price is worth paying | Editorial | The government’s energy policy is chaotic. On the one hand, with time running out before the Paris climate change summit in December, it is committed to agreeing tough international targets, backed by demanding European and domestic programmes for carbon reduction and renewable energy growth. But then there are Treasury-driven cuts to subsidies for renewables, and a cabinet that looks set to back off from existing schemes such as the Green Deal to incentivise energy efficiency. It is easier to offer consumers a cheap fix for energy bills by removing the small element that pays for investment in renewables than it is to pay an incentive for boiler modernisation. Lower efficiency standards for starter homes have been announced, a new committee set up to take the decision on a third runway at Heathrow is packed with supporters, and fracking has the greenest of lights. Under cover of the drive for austerity, and reinforced by a desire to appease Tory voters opposed to onshore windfarms, the foundations of a green economy are being undermined one by one. Britain’s complex, interrelated package of incentives and subsidies for renewables has been remarkably successful in modifying behaviour. Together with other inputs, like an unexpectedly fast decline in the use of coal and the drop in demand caused by the recession, last month the independent Committee on Climate Change found that greenhouse gas emissions had fallen by 8% over the previous year, ahead of target. But the report sounded a cautionary note, not only because the rate of reduction was slowing. It was published after the new energy secretary, Amber Rudd, announced an end to subsidies for onshore wind and before she called time on those for solar power and other renewables, and it warned that without greater certainty over the long-term policy framework, investment will not happen. It is true that some of the incentives have been too successful. No one had anticipated quite how fast the cost of some renewables would come down, nor that offshore wind would generate so much more power. It is not fair that homeowners with a roof can get subsidised solar power not available to tenants or people in flats. But it is possible to build a system that reflects these variables and tapers subsidies. The green economy is a model of the kind of infrastructure development to which George Osborne so often sounds committed. An analysis by the lobbyists Green Alliance of the link between private-sector investment and GDP growth over the last parliament found it matched the investment in renewables. Just like fracking and nuclear, greening the energy supply needs intervention. It will not be cheap. But for future generations, not doing it will cost far more. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'money/energy', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/household-bills', 'money/money', 'environment/energy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/windpower', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'environment/solarpower', 'technology/politics', 'technology/technology', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'politics/economy', 'environment/green-deal', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2015-07-22T18:50:45Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2008/mar/26/recycling.waste | Pennon Group buys electricals recycling firm | Viridor, the waste management arm of the Pennon Group, has bought an electrical and electronic equipment recycling company, it said yesterday. Viridor is paying £23m in cash for Perth-based Shore Recycling in a deal which takes the company's acquisition spending to more than £100m in just over three months. As well as its facilities in Perth, Shore has recycling plants in Manchester and St Helens and a collection fleet. Viridor said its latest acquisition would fit in well with its operations in Scotland and the north-west of England and was in line with its plans to expand its waste management operations. "The UK's waste strategy demands ever increasing levels of recycling, particularly now in waste electrical and electronic equipment," Viridor chief executive Colin Drummond said. He expects the deal to enhance earnings, before intangibles, in its first full year. The government is keen to curb the amount of waste going to landfill. Electrical and electronic equipment, from computers and televisions to fridges and freezers, is also covered by the European Union's waste electrical and electronic equipment directive, which came into effect in the UK at the beginning of last year. Britain throws away 1.8m tonnes of such equipment every year, making it the fastest growing category of waste. The demand for recycling capacity is expected to increase. In December Viridor paid almost £80m for Grosvenor Waste Management, based in Kent, which handles 500,000 tonnes a year and owns Britain's biggest materials recycling plant, at Crayford. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'profile/markmilner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2008-03-26T00:04:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2015/jun/22/stop-sixth-mass-extinction-garden-grow-wild | I’m doing my bit to stop the sixth mass extinction – letting my garden go wild | Depressing news. The earth’s sixth mass extinction is on the way, and it’s our fault. I could have told you that ages ago, which is why my friend Clayden and I have been doing our bit to avert it and are clinging to the last remnants of biodiversity by letting our gardens grow rather wild. It’s easy for me, because it’s my garden. I can have frogs, foxes, nettles, dandelions and more bees if I so wish. But Clayden has the housing association contract gardeners to deal with, who like to shave the grass bald and hack everything else almost to death. This year he left a large notice out for them, saying, “No strimming,” and explained it to a neighbour. “I want part of the garden to be a grassy wildlife area.” “Boy scout,” mumbled the neighbour scornfully, and buzzed off. Clearly our government’s National Pollinator Strategy has not got through to everyone. Perhaps because it’s a bit wet – full of monitoring, promoting, securing awareness and commitments, workshopping and studying, and stopping funding this year for National Improvement Areas. I know voluntary action is cheaper and less bother for our leaders, but could I suggest they toughen up a bit, impose mandatory wild meadow areas for every council’s parks and verges, and enforce a strict ban on paving and shaving gardens, before the planet goes right down the pan? Even the Californians are beginning to give up on watering lawns in the desert and trying native, drought-tolerant plants, and then their gardens fill with darling humming birds and bumble bees. About time, too. I may sound a bit Fotherington-Thomas, but what does everyone want? To gaze at lovely flora and fauna, or die in a wasteland? “Why don’t you go over to China and tell them off,” says Fielding. “Their green programme is lamentable.” He calls himself a realist. That is our problem, people like Fielding. He has given up hope. I have not. I like to think we have a last, weeny chance to save ourselves. Or I might as well just go and bang my head on the nearest concrete patio. | ['lifeandstyle/series/michele-hanson-certain-age', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/comment', 'tone/features', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'type/article', 'profile/michelehanson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-06-22T13:31:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2022/apr/02/weatherwatch-varying-climate-of-dominican-republic | Weatherwatch: the varying climate of the Dominican Republic | The Dominican Republic – not to be confused with the much smaller Caribbean island of Dominica – forms the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti. It is the most mountainous of all the Caribbean islands, with the highest peak, Pico Duarte, reaching an altitude of 3,098 metres (almost 10,200ft). Like other islands in the region, the climate is tropical: warm throughout the year. There are two distinct seasons: hot and muggy from May to October, and cooler and more pleasant from December to March; with April and November lying somewhere in between. Rain, too, falls mainly in the spring and summer months, averaging between 640mm and 2260mm (25 to 90 inches) a year, depending on the location. Along the northern coast, which is exposed to the northerly trade winds, winters can also be fairly wet. However, because the rain falls mainly in intense bursts and thunderstorms, the climate is generally very sunny throughout, with between six and eight hours of daily sunshine throughout the year; slightly more in the south of the island. Up in the mountains, however, temperatures can drop to as low as single figures, especially in winter; when wind chill from the trade winds can make it feel even colder. On the coasts, sea temperatures are mostly warm all year round. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/dominicanrepublic', 'world/world', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-04-02T05:00:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2020/feb/21/california-drought-february-rain-snow-pack-sierra | Dry February sends California back to drought: 'This hasn't happened in 150 years' | San Francisco and Sacramento have not seen a drop of rain this February, and climate scientists are expecting that disturbing dry trend to hold, in what is typically one of the wettest months of the year for California. “This hasn’t happened in 150 years or more,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “There have even been a couple wildfires – which is definitely not something you typically hear about in the middle of winter.” Combined with warmer than average temperatures, the state is parched, and there is no moisture in the forecasts. “The dryness has picked up as the season has gone on,” said Swain. The year began with snowpack at 90% of its historical average. But less than two dry, warm months later, it’s hanging in at just 52% of average. “Those numbers are going to continue to go down,” said Swain. “I would guess that the 1 March number is going to be less than 50%.” That snow isn’t just the basis for the mountain tourism industry in the winter – it serves as a significant source of water for California cities and agriculture come spring melt. Last year’s snowpack at this time was more than 125% of average, an indicator of what Swain calls “precipitation whiplash”. California has long weathered these wet and dry cycles. The state’s future in the climate crisis looks warmer and drier not because of a lack of rain, but because of the extra heat drawing moisture out of the ecosystem. That heat is a major contributor to reduced snowpack, both as less snow falls, and as more of it melts more quickly. Climate science points to a California bound for a future that looks less like endless extreme drought alone. “We aren’t going to necessarily see less rain, it’s just that that rain goes less far. That’s a future where the flood risk extends, with bigger wetter storms in a warming world,” said Swain. The 2011-2017 drought was the worst since record-keeping began. It reshaped California’s landscape and its regulations, and memories of water rationing still loom large in the state’s memory. “Some folks will say you’re not in a drought until there’s water scarcity problems,” said Swain. “We have a fair bit of single-year drought resilience. No matter how severe it is, the cities and most of the [agriculture] zones won’t run out of water.” The more immediate impacts of this trend will be on the ecosystem and the inevitable fire season, as California’s grasslands and forests continue to dry out. | ['us-news/california', 'environment/drought', 'us-news/us-weather', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/susie-cagle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-02-21T11:00:52Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2021/sep/02/victorian-farmers-angry-at-government-permitting-camping-on-riverside-crown-land | Victorian farmers angry at government permitting camping on riverside crown land | A controversial scheme allowing camping on some crown land next to Victorian rivers has come into force but a list of approved sites has been delayed due to Covid, the state government says, and many farmers remain angry about the increased access. State environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, in August announced 27 sites across north-east Victoria were being assessed for camping access based on safety, environmental impact and their Aboriginal cultural heritage. The land under consideration is licensed for grazing and some are frustrated by what they say is a lack of transparency. Others are worried about public safety and protecting nearby private farmland. The first campsites were scheduled to be opened from 1 September, but a Victorian government spokesperson told Guardian Australia lockdown restrictions in regional areas had stalled the assessment process. “The initial site assessment along the Goulburn, Broken, Ovens, Campaspe, Loddon, and Murray rivers … will restart as soon as restrictions are lifted,” the spokesperson said. Southern Riverina Irrigators chief executive, Sophie Baldwin, said she was angry she still didn’t know where any of the potential sites were. Her property backs on to Gunbower Creek in northern Victoria – a natural carrier in the irrigation supply system and a popular site for kayakers, due to its birdlife and bush scenery. Baldwin said she feared if camping areas were opened along the creek her land – currently leased to a dairy farmer for hay and young stock – would be at risk. “Under these laws, I can’t stop anyone from going into my property to camp on the creek. What happens if these people leave the gates open and the stock get out? The cattle are worth between $2,000 and $3,000 an animal,” she said. “What happens if they have an accident on my property but I haven’t let them in there? Who’s liable? “I just don’t think people should be allowed to travel through my property to get to a camping area. My block isn’t open for everybody in town to come to. It’s a farming business, people make their livelihood off my block.” The public could already access river frontage crown land for limited activities like fishing, hiking and picnicking. The final regulations allow camping for 14 days at a designated site – down from a proposed 28 days. Sites must be at least 200 metres from dwellings – up from 100 metres. The Victorian government first promised in 2018 to open new camping and fishing areas for public access – with hundreds of potential sites to be investigated. The regulations received more than 1,100 submissions during the consultation period. A Victorian government spokesperson said the final regulations carefully balanced greater recreational access with protecting agricultural, environmental and Aboriginal cultural heritage. Permitting camping on licensed crown land areas wouldn’t allow people to access adjoining private or leased land, which would still constitute trespassing. The regulations include a 24-hour Victorian Fisheries Authority hotline via 13FISH for farmers to report poor camping behaviour. Fair Camping Laws co-conveners Belinda and Les Pearce say a hotline isn’t good enough. In May, the couple helped organise a rally against the regulations in Melbourne that attracted more than 120 protesters. The Pearces, who run a beef property in north-east Victoria’s Kiewa Valley with five kilometres of river frontage, have serious concerns about how the new rules would be implemented and managed. “We have fenced off and planted native plants along the entire river frontage,” Pearce said. “The insurance and public liability issue is just one of many. We’re worried about biosecurity threats, the potential for adverse outcomes between cattle, campers and dogs, gates getting left open and cows getting on to the road. “But also falling branches on campers, disposal of human waste and litter, campfire risks – the list goes on and on.” The Victorian government has said licensees would have public liability insurance since crown land on river frontages could already be accessed for recreation. The regulations also prohibit camping on licensed areas that have been revegetated. The state minister for fishing and boating, Melissa Horne, earlier this year argued: “The public has a right to enjoy public land. With these changes, campers will be welcome to use crown land with water frontage free and in harmony with licensees and the environment.” Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said the landowners with licenses affected by the 27 pilot sites weren’t properly consulted with farmers shut out of the process. “No one knows the land better than farmers who live and work on it every day. It’s a no-brainer to involve farmers in this process,” she said. “Farmers who will have to deal with the campfire that gets away, the spooked stock, gates left open and god forbid a serious injury or death. These are not cases of if, but when. Unfortunately, the notion of free camping doesn’t exist and farmers will be the ones left out of pocket dealing with issues such as broken gates and wrecked fences.” The Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) executive director, Matt Ruchel, said the final regulations released on Wednesday were a significant improvement on the initial policy. “It is more site-specific by only allowing camping in places designated following an assessment,” he said. “It’s still a bit light on detail for how ecological assessments will work, but it’s better. Initially, we were calling this an initiative for camping with cows.” Ruchel said the VNPA had feared the regulations would act as a disincentive for the proper management of riverside areas which are critical junctures of water and land. “The state has never wanted to manage these things directly for their ecological and cultural values so if it can incentivise better management, that’s a good outcome for our rivers. “The devil is always in the detail though. Twenty-seven sites isn’t a lot at this stage and there will need to be clarity on additional sites and how they are managed. They are really important places ecologically.” | ['australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/victoria', 'australia-news/victorian-politics', 'environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-09-02T03:08:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2019/mar/03/brazilian-mining-ceo-steps-down-amid-anger-over-dam-collapse-fabio-schvartsman-vale | Brazilian mining CEO steps down amid anger over dam collapse | The boss of the Brazilian iron ore mining firm Vale has resigned, following growing public and political anger over the collapse of a dam in which at least 186 people died. Fabio Schvartsman and several other senior executives resigned on a “temporary” basis on Saturday after prosecutors recommended their dismissal. The move came after a leak of official documents suggested that Vale knew the dam was at a heightened risk of collapse. In addition to the confirmed death toll, 122 people are still missing more than a month after the accident at the dam, which collected waste from an iron ore mine near the town of Brumadinho in Minas Gerais state. It was the second deadly burst at a Vale-linked tailings dam in Minas Gerais in four years. In 2015, an accident near the town of Mariana killed 19 people and led to Brazil’s worst-ever environmental catastrophe. Schvartsman started his term as Vale CEO in 2017 with the motto: “Mariana, never again.” The Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo reported that a Vale manager had told executives the integrity of the dam had worsened, although the company vigorously denied the report. In a letter to Vale’s board, Schvartsman said: “Even totally assured of my righteous ways and having fulfilled my duty, I request the board to accept my temporary leave in the benefit of the company’s continued operations.” He will be replaced by Eduardo Bartolomeo, an executive director, as the interim CEO. Vale’s head of ferrous minerals and coal, Peter Poppinga, its planning director, Lucio Flavio Gallon Cavalli, and the regional director Silmar Magalhães Silva also resigned. Vale said its board met on Friday night and Saturday morning following the prosecutors’ recommendation. Last month, Brazilian police arrested eight Vale employees accused of covering up weaknesses at the dam. The arrests and search warrants targeted employees of Vale as well as employees of German auditing firm TÜV SÜD, which had certified the dam as stable. Brazil’s mining authorities have started an inquiry into Vale over a possible cover-up regarding safety procedures, which could lead to a fine of up to 20% of its 2018 gross revenue. The maximum penalty could be around 25bn reals (£5bn), based on estimates of preliminary 2018 data. “The law is clear in punishing companies if they are found to have colluded to prevent proper government monitoring,” Brazil’s mining secretary, Alexandre Vidigal de Oliveira, told Bloomberg. “I’ve requested the start of the probe and now the mining agency has 180 days to present some conclusions.” | ['world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'business/mining', 'business/business', 'environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rupertneate', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2019-03-03T11:49:33Z | true | ENERGY |
uk-news/2016/mar/20/bioplastic-formcard-designer-peter-marigold-uk-mend-fix | Bioplastic encourages people to mend, not replace, says designer | There are incongruous dots of colour speckled around Peter Marigold’s kitchen in north London. Pots and pans hang from blue and yellow hooks while the edge of a shelf is rounded off and smoothed out with a distinct red material. It is a live test environment for Marigold’s creation, a piece of plastic called FORMcard that can be manipulated like putty after it is dropped in hot water. It can be used to fix objects such as broken door handles, or to make new objects like mobile phone holders and makeshift tools. Coming in pieces the size of a credit card, it is intended as a new and simple way to mend broken household items. It can be reshaped numerous times before it eventually hardens. “We have entered this world where people are throwing things away all the time for a small thing that is broken,” Marigold said. “It is not their fault. They know that if you try to get something fixed by a manufacturer, it is disproportionately expensive so people buy new things all the time. They eventually just get sick of them and then get rid of it.” Marigold, a designer who has worked on displays for galleries, installations and public art projects, developed the idea after becoming interested in plastics that melt at low temperatures and how they could be used in the home by consumers. The FORMcard is made with a bioplastic that becomes pliable once it is placed in boiling water for 30 seconds. “When it is floppy it is ready for you to use,” Marigold said. Once it is lifted out of the water with a spoon it can be moulded in a similar way to Blu-Tack or putty. It then hardens and becomes as strong as nylon.” The strength of a piece of the hardened plastic is illustrated in a video where a 10kg weight is shown hanging from a hook made from a FORMcard. “I really want people to have this in their kitchen drawer. I want them to have it in their back pocket when they need it,” Marigold said. “It is all about accessibility. You can get the raw granules but people don’t carry around the raw granules on holiday.” The amount of time it takes for the substance to become solid after it has been taken out of the water can vary, so Marigold urges users to trust their own intuition and take safety precautions. “Don’t put your fingers into hot water, use a spoon. Imagine you are working with a hot tea bag – just be sensible. If in doubt, let the water and the FORMcard cool down a bit. You can always reheat,” he said. When hot and pliable the FORMcard sticks to polyester and other plastics such as PVC, polycarbonates and ABS, which is used to make car bumpers. Since it went on sale in December, 60,000 of the cards have been sold. A packet of three costs £5 and a Canadian company is now pairing them with snow shovels to repair cracks. There has been renewed interest in fixing items instead of replacing them, especially among the “maker” community. Sugru, a malleable silicone rubber, is a similar product that has become popular. Marigold said he is aiming his product at the everyday person. “It is about making it as accessible to normal people as possible – so that my mum would have some,” he said. • You can read our archive of The innovators columns here or on the Big Innovation Centre website where you will find more information on how Big Innovation Centre supports innovative enterprise in Britain and globally. | ['business/entrepreneurs', 'uk/uk', 'environment/plastic', 'uk/london', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'artanddesign/design', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/shane-hickey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-03-20T15:23:29Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
technology/2022/may/18/crypto-crash-unlikely-to-reduce-its-climate-impact-expert-says | Crypto crash unlikely to reduce its climate impact, expert says | The crypto crash will not reduce the sector’s climate impact any time soon, an economist has warned, even though the environmental footprint of digital currencies is in theory set by their market value. “Unless bitcoin collapses further, there’s no reason to expect a decrease in environmental impact,” said Alex de Vries, a data scientist at the Dutch central bank and the founder of Digiconomist, which tracks the sustainability of cryptocurrency projects. His research shows that while the increase in a cryptocurrency’s price encourages more computer capacity to be dedicated to it – increasing carbon emissions – that capacity takes a long time to disappear after the value declines, so the climate impact persists. Cryptocurrencies work by validating their transactions through huge numbers of “miners”, who use their computers to solve extremely complex maths problems in exchange for the chance of getting tokens as a reward, in a highly energy-intensive process. De Vries estimates that the bitcoin network uses about 204 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, around the same as the energy consumption of Thailand and above that of all but 23 sovereign nations. Other cryptocurrencies add to that footprint: ethereum, the token that underpins the NFT boom and the “decentralised finance” sector, has an annualised footprint of around 104TWh (equivalent to Kazakhstan, more than all but 34 nations), while even dogecoin, a lighthearted spinoff of bitcoin famed for its community’s positive attitude, consumes an estimated 4TWh annually. Those figures have barely changed over the past month despite $1tn being wiped off the crypto sector, and other measures of the amount of processing power devoted to “mining” similarly show little decline. All major cryptocurrencies use electrical power in rough proportion to the price of the token because that dictates how much the reward given to miners is worth. For bitcoin, for instance, the reward for successful mining is 6.25 bitcoin every 10 minutes – currently, about $210,000. The higher the value of the reward, the more energy it is worth using to try to win it, ensuring that as the price of bitcoin rose from $8,000 in October 2019 to $60,000 two years later, the energy use of the sector rose too, from 73TWh to its current high. But while an increase in the price of cryptocurrency quickly leads to an increase in the carbon emissions of the sector, a crash like the one seen in past month doesn’t do the reverse. “It likely stops the environmental impact from going up any further,” said de Vries, “but a bitcoin price of $25,200 is sufficient to sustain an annual electricity consumption of 184TWh.” That’s because the cost of cryptocurrency mining is split over two main areas: buying the hardware, and paying for electricity. When prices are on the rise, miners buy new computers – expensive graphics cards for ethereum, or purpose-built “rigs” for bitcoin – but once they are already set up, it’s worth switching them off only when the cost of electricity alone is higher than the expected revenue. In a paper published in the journal Joule last year, de Vries estimated that a massive crash in the price of bitcoin, back down to $8,000, would be required to meaningfully reduce the total emissions of mining – and even then, it could sustain an energy consumption of up to 60TWh per year. The continued turmoil in the cryptocurrency markets means the sector may have further to contract. On Wednesday morning, tether, a stablecoin that effectively functions as a bank, paid out a further $1.5bn to depositors withdrawing their cash from its coffers. In the past week, the slow-motion bank run has seen $9bn of its reserves withdrawn, more than 10% of its total market cap and well over twice the cash-on-hand it declared it had at the beginning of the year. Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm and one of the key financial backers of the cryptocurrency sector, said on Tuesday that we may be entering a “crypto winter”, echoing a warning from the Coinbase chief executive, Brian Armstrong, that valuations may be depressed for some time. | ['technology/cryptocurrencies', 'technology/efinance', 'technology/internet', 'technology/technology', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'business/business', 'technology/bitcoin', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/alex-hern', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2022-05-18T15:25:40Z | true | EMISSIONS |
news/2019/may/03/weatherwatch-shackleton-in-an-open-boat-faces-a-cape-horn-roller | Weatherwatch: Shackleton, in an open boat, faces a Cape Horn roller | On 5 May 1916, explorer Ernest Shackleton and four of his men encountered a wave like no other. The crew of Shackleton’s ship Endurance were stranded on Elephant Island in the Antarctic. Shackleton hoped to get help from South Georgia by sailing a small lifeboat across the infamous Drake Passage, reputedly the roughest stretch of sea in the world. The weather was bad. “At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and south-west,” wrote Shackleton. “I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realised that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.” This wave was a Cape Horn Roller, bigger than any Shackleton had seen in 26 years at sea. There is uninterrupted sea at this latitude, so the fetch, or distance over which the wind produces waves, is extremely long and waves correspondingly high. Shackleton says the boat was “lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf.” Amazingly it survived the seething chaos, though it half-filled with water. After 10 minutes of desperate baling the crew were thoroughly soaked but safe. The lifeboat arrived at South Georgia three days later. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/antarctica', 'science/exploration', 'environment/poles', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-05-03T20:30:09Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2008/nov/18/medvedev-chavez-nuclear-russia-venezuela | Russia to build nuclear reactor for Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez | Russia's deepening strategic partnership with Venezuela took a dramatic step forward today when it emerged that Moscow has agreed to build Venezuela's first ever nuclear reactor. President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, during a visit to Latin America next week, part of a determined Russian push into the region. The reactor is to be named after Humberto Fernandez Moran, a late Venezuelan research scientist and former science minister, Chávez has announced. It is one of many accords he hopes to sign while hosting Medvedev in Caracas next week. The prospect of a nuclear deal between Moscow and Caracas, following a surge in Russian economic, military, political and intelligence activity in Latin America, is likely to alarm the US and present an early challenge to the Obama administration. "Hugo Chávez joins the nuclear club," Russian's Vedomosti newspaper trumpeted today. Venezuela's socialist leader said the reactor may be based in the eastern state of Zulia. He stressed that the project would be for peaceful purposes. As if to underline that point, four Japanese survivors from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs visited Venezuela this week at the government's invitation. The energy ministry, which is scouting locations, said the project was at a very early stage. A report which mooted a nuclear reactor long before Chávez came to power has been dusted off. Despite abundant oil reserves, Venezuela's energy infrastructure is creaking and prone to blackouts. A nuclear reactor would enable the country to utilise its rich uranium deposits and allay criticism that the government has neglected energy investment. More importantly for Moscow and Caracas, a nuclear deal will showcase a partnership which advocates creating new "poles" of power to check American hegemony. Nick Day, a Latin American specialist, said the nuclear deal was deliberately timed to pile pressure on the US administration during a moment of transition and weakness. "Russia is manoeuvring hard in the time between Obama's election and his inauguration. What the Russians are trying to do is to set up a chessboard that gives them greater mobility in negotiations when he [Obama] comes to power," Day said. He added: "Russia's message is: 'We can exert influence in your backyard if you continue to exert influence in our backyard. If you don't take your missiles out of Poland and end Nato expansion we're going to increase our influence in Latin America and do things to provoke you.'" According to Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's federal nuclear agency, no reactor can be built until both countries have signed a preliminary agreement on nuclear cooperation. This will be signed next week, Novikov told Vedomosti. Both presidents are also expected to firm up details of a Russian-Venezuelan energy consortium to jointly produce and sell oil and gas. Russian companies which are already exploring oilfields in Venezuela could then extend their reach to fields in Ecuador and Bolivia. Venezuela has bought $4bn of Russian arms, including Sukhoi fighter jets, making it one of Moscow's best clients. Chávez has spoken of also buying Project 636 diesel submarines, Mi-28 combat helicopters, T72 tanks and air-defence systems. Despite the spending spree, Venezuela's military has not tipped the regional balance of power. Chávez's armed forces lag behind that of Brazil, Chile and Colombia and analysts question Venezuelan effectiveness. For Russia's president, however, Caracas is a valuable springboard into Latin America. In addition to Venezuela, Medvedev will visit Peru, Brazil and Cuba — the first trip by a Russian leader to Havana in eight years. Moscow has spoken of reviving Soviet-era intelligence cooperation with the communist island and in a sign of dramatically improved ties, President Raul Castro last month attended the opening of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Havana. | ['world/venezuela', 'world/hugo-chavez', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/russia', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'world/dmitry-medvedev', 'world/europe-news', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'profile/rorycarroll', 'profile/lukeharding'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2008-11-18T20:55:57Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/blog/2007/dec/11/progressatbali | Progress at Bali | Things have moved fast today, with a second draft of the required Bali roadmap produced, and a third due later tonight. Tomorrow sees the start of the high level segment of the talks, with ministers getting to sit behind the national name badges. Disappointingly, there are no little flags (I checked). We UK hacks got our first briefing with environment secretary Hilary Benn and the rest of the British team this afternoon. The man from Daily Telegraph took advantage of this brief window in the secretary of state's packed diary to show him his holiday snaps. The man from the Guardian was in some of them. (They were from last week's press trip to Sumatra). Mr Benn is one of the few delegates here to persist with a suit and tie, though he doesn't have to sit in the overheated press room. Most people have followed the organisers' instructions to adapt to the sweltering climate by dressing down. Some have done it better than others. Some obviously thought they said dressing gown. At the negotiations, Europe and Britain are holding a firm line against attempts to water down the draft agreements, at least on the emissions targets. The 25-40% target for rich nations by 2020, which the US wants ditched, has taken on a totemic status, at least with the press, and is the first subject raised with politicians and officials from all sides. In the end, the target will probably be sacrificed (US involvement is too important to risk) and focusing on it too much could be a flawed way to judge the success or failure of the eventual agreement. For now, it's still there though. Today, the US is objecting to some pretty benign text on adaptation funding, which seems an odd move. Maybe it's a tactical ploy? To get what you really want you must concede something you don't. The trick is not letting the others know which is which. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/bali', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'profile/davidadam'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2007-12-11T13:57:41Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2018/mar/09/fukushima-communities-struggling | Town where nobody's home: Fukushima communities struggling to survive | Okuma, on Japan’s east coast, used to host a busy community of 10,500 people. But today the houses stand empty. The town is empty because it is one of the closest to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and – seven years after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a triple meltdown – it remains under evacuation orders with decontamination still not finished. However, Okuma is not totally deserted. It is patrolled by Jijii Butai, or The Old Man squad. A group of hardy retirees who keep watch over their beloved former home. Tsunemitsu Yokoyama, 65, stands a few metres from a pick-up truck and recalls how he and his friends responded when they spotted a strange person on their streets. “There was a suspicious person who was walking around the town one day and we noticed this suspicious person and we picked this person up and we put him on the truck,” says the mild-mannered former town hall worker. “If we notice any suspicious actions or people of course we alert [the authorities].” Yokoyama is one of six retirees who formed the squad five years ago, partly to allay the concerns of homeowners about potential break-ins and fires. He says the squad members are less worried about radiation exposure than the younger generation because “we don’t have many years ahead of us anyway”. Almost every day, they travel from their new homes one to two hours away and conduct volunteer patrols. Despite the early focus on suspicious activity, they are now more likely to be occupied by keeping the town clean and tidy, looking out for damage caused by wild boars, picking up any rubbish that may have accumulated in the waterways, and clearing away fallen trees. “We belong to the same generation, we are around the same age, so we can understand each other pretty well in terms of sharing the same goal and also the objective and hope for this town,” Yokoyama says of the bond they’ve formed. The long road home The streets are not as quiet as they used to be. In some parts of the town, residents are now allowed to enter to periodically check up on their homes – but they are not allowed to stay overnight. It’s clear, however, that it will be a long and difficult process to entice them back given they have set up new lives elsewhere. Even Shuyo Shiga, the leader of the Okuma town recovery project, expects that the rest of his family will stay away once the situation has been put back to relative normality. For starters, it won’t be a case of simply moving back into their old home: Shiga’s property is part of a parcel of land earmarked to become an interim storage facility for nuclear waste. In addition, he says one of his three children suffered great trauma from seeing their neighbours “swallowed up by the tsunami” as they tried to flee the powerful waters. They are now in their 20s. “I think a person that has that kind of difficult experience, it’s very hard for them to come back to Okuma,” Shiga says. “The children said they will not return … and my wife is talking about not returning, so I suppose it will be for me to return to Okuma as a single person – not with my family, not with my wife.” The town is starting its recovery with modest ambitions. Residential homes are being built for 50 households – the number that indicated on a questionnaire that they wanted to come back. Eventually, says Shiga, the town plans to build 100 detached houses. But this is just a fraction of the pre-disaster population. It tends to be older residents who wish to return, he adds. Elsewhere in Fukushima prefecture, the town of Namie is a stark example of the challenges of getting a former evacuation zone back on track. Authorities lifted the evacuation orders there on 31 March 2017, except for some districts. Compared with Namie’s previous population of 21,000, so far just 490 people have returned. Yohei Aota, an official with the Namie town government, reveals the figures as he looks out over the portside district of Ukedo – a low-lying area that was swamped by a 15.5-metre wave. His home was one of those destroyed. Painful reminders “Of course looking at the scenery reminds me of what happened,” he says from an elevated vantage point where the local elementary students successfully escaped the reach of the tsunami. Now the school building stands empty and most of the homes in the area have been demolished. “There used to about 1,900 people living here [in Namie’s Ukedo district] but 182 people died unfortunately from the tsunami,” Aota says. “And actually there are still 30 missing persons – no remains, no belongings have been found of these 30 missing persons.” Fukushima authorities area anxious to say that a lot of progress has been made since May 2012 when the number of evacuees from across the entire prefecture peaked at 164,865. That figure has fallen below 50,000. But people are not exactly rushing back. Rieko Watanabe, 65, who evacuated from Namie to Minamisoma, says everyone has their own reasons for why they have not returned. She commutes from Minamisoma to run her business called Grandma Kitchen which serves meals and bento boxes to residents and workers. Watanabe notes that the people in Namie are shy about their plans for the future. “But they often look around and if they notice a friend or an acquaintance or a neighbour returning they might say, ‘oh maybe it’s time for me to return as well and maybe I can do something’. We are praying every day and we are working hard every day so that this trend of people coming back to Namie would be strengthened and can be maintained.” She adds with a determined smile: “Never give up.” | ['environment/fukushima', 'world/japan', 'world/earthquakes', 'world/asia-pacific', 'environment/environment', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'environment/energy', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/daniel-hurst', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2018-03-09T03:36:44Z | true | ENERGY |
uk-news/article/2024/jul/24/head-of-kings-property-portfolio-given-pay-rise | Head of king’s property portfolio given 20% pay rise to £1.9m | King Charles’s property management company has given its chief executive a pay increase of almost 20% after tripling his pay packet over the previous three years. The crown estate, the royals’ ancient portfolio of land and property across England and Wales that includes the seabed around its coasts, paid Dan Labbad almost £1.9m for the last financial year amid a rise in profits powered by offshore wind developments. As a result of that doubling of annual profits to £1.1bn over the year, the king is now in line for an increase of more than 50% in his official annual income to £132m in 2025-26, which will be used to support the official duties of the royal family. Labbad’s latest payday is more than three and a half times the £517,000 he earned in 2019 when he stepped into the role, and more than three times the £622,000 paid to his predecessor Alison Nimmo in her final year in the job. The 19.6% salary rise was revealed in the annual report of the crown estate, which has a mandate to return income to the Treasury “for the benefit of the nation”, alongside the doubling of annual profits. The crown estate has benefited from the success of Britain’s offshore wind industry after demanding hefty option fees from renewable energy developers to secure areas of the seabed to build their windfarms. The monarchy receives 12% of the crown estate profits to fund its work as well as to pay for the 10-year, £369m renovation of Buckingham Palace. The arrangement will be reviewed in 2026-27 to reassess the sum handed over to the palace and ensure it is an “appropriate level”. The crown estate said the pay given to Labbad, which was well above the remuneration typically awarded to those who manage taxpayer funds, was benchmarked against the “lower quartile” of pay offered to FTSE bosses. Its annual report said: “Our approach to chief executive pay and reward seeks to ensure that the crown estate can attract and retain a world-class leader from a diverse pool of eligible candidates, with the ability to lead an organisation that, in value terms, would rank in the top 50 companies of the FTSE 100 if it were publicly listed. “At the same time, it recognises that some form of remuneration discount is appropriate in leading an organisation that serves the nation.” | ['uk-news/crown-estate', 'uk/prince-charles', 'business/business', 'uk/monarchy', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'business/energy-industry', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/realestate', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2024-07-24T09:50:35Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/may/12/pfas-forever-chemicals-societal-cost-new-report | Societal cost of ‘forever chemicals’ about $17.5tn across global economy – report | The societal cost of using toxic PFAS or “forever chemicals” across the global economy totals about $17.5tn annually, a new analysis of the use of the dangerous compounds has found. Meanwhile, the chemicals yield comparatively paltry profits for the world’s largest PFAS manufacturers – about $4bn annually. The report, compiled by ChemSec, a Sweden-based NGO that works with industry and policymakers to limit the use of toxic chemicals, partially aims to highlight how the “astronomical” cost of using PFAS is shouldered by governments typically forced to fund the cleanup of pollution and individuals who suffer from health consequences. “If you compare the profits that they make and the cost to society – it’s ridiculous,” said Peter Pierrou, ChemSec’s communications director. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. The chemicals are ubiquitous, and linked at low levels of exposure to cancer, thyroid disease, kidney dysfunction, birth defects, autoimmune disease and other serious health problems. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally degrade. The chemicals are thought to be contaminating drinking water for at least 200 million Americans, while watchdogs have identified thousands of industrial polluters. Similar widespread contamination persists throughout Europe. ChemSec found 12 companies account for most of the world’s PFAS production and pollution. Among them are 3M, Chemours, Solvay, Daikin, Honeywell, BASF, Merck and Bayer, though 3M this year announced it would discontinue making PFAS in part because of regulatory pressure and litigation. The report grew out of ChemSec’s work with investment firms to pressure companies to eliminate PFAS, Pierrou said. A letter on the issue circulated late last year and now signed by largely European Union investment firms holding $11tn in assets cites recent litigation brought against PFAS manufacturers, ever-increasing regulation that imposes strict limits on the chemicals’ use and the compounds’ public health threat. Investors have raised questions about companies’ PFAS production and uses, Pierrou added, but industry often tries to keep information around the chemicals from public view as it attempts to evade account or protect “trade secrets”. “There is low transparency and there is so much we don’t know,” Pierrou said. “[Investment firms] have the power to ask these questions because they own part of the company, so they have the right to ask ‘What’s going on here?’” The analysis broke down societal costs into four categories. Soil and water remediation are the most expensive, followed by healthcare costs and bio-monitoring of PFAS pollution. While the average market price of PFAS is about €19 (about $20.75) for each kilogram, the price spikes to about €18,734 ($20,456.78) for each kilogram when societal costs are factored in. Beyond profits and pollution, the analysis also provides a closer look at how the chemicals are used across the economy, and whether those uses are “essential” or “non-essential”. Those questions are likely to become a focal point in the debate over the chemicals’ use in upcoming years as proposed legislation in the EU would ban the chemicals except for essential uses, and a law passed in Maine that goes into effect in 2030 takes a similar approach. Banning non-essential uses would probably spell the end of the chemicals in most consumer goods and cut deeply into the industry’s profits. PFAS are used in thousands of consumer products, but public health advocates argue most of those uses are not essential because viable, safer alternatives exist. The chemicals are commonly used as waterproofing agents in clothing and textiles, applied to create non-stick barriers on cookware and utilized to greaseproof paper food packaging. Those functions can be achieved without PFAS, advocates note. However, the industry generally counters with claims that most PFAS produced are deployed for essential purposes, such as medical devices, energy production and pharmaceuticals. ChemSec agreed that many of those uses are essential, but still found just 8% of PFAS are used for “essential” purposes. Among those that it found to be essential were semiconductors, though researchers are already developing safe alternatives. “There are so many industry voices that are opposing the PFAS ban and they are using the ‘essential use’ concept as an excuse: ‘We cannot ban PFAS or everything will sink and go under,’” Pierrou said. “The parts that are ‘essential’ are really minor and there are so many uses we could do without.” • The subheading and text of this article were amended on 12 & 14 & 15 May 2023. ChemSec is based in Sweden, not in Belgium as an earlier version said. And misspellings of the company names of Daikin and Merck were corrected. | ['environment/pfas', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/today-us', 'environment/pollution', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-perkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-05-12T09:00:51Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/2015/jan/09/sustainable-leadership-three-types-resilience | Sustainable leadership: the three types of resilience you need | Resilience is the capacity for adapting to – and surviving – radically changing circumstances. This includes anything from climate change and economic collapse to the threat of international terrorism and pandemic disease. To meet these challenges sustainably, leaders must cultivate three types of resilience. Personal On the individual level, resilience is about developing the personal capacity to thrive and survive in the most challenging of times. Human beings are complex and we need to develop strength physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to be truly confident of facing whatever confronts us. To do that, it helps to see the work we are engaged in as an opportunity for self-actualisation. Achieving a task is important, but how that task is completed and the individual’s experience is equally significant – perhaps even more so. Supporting people in being able to see their work as a place of meaning and purpose requires creating time and space for reflection. Organisations need to encourage employees to have some time alone: to reflect, to contemplate, to generate responses rather than just reactions. Workplace quiet rooms are an obvious solution, but so is scheduling five-minute breaks between meetings, and creating conscious processes to open and close meetings. Practising mindfulness and presence is also beneficial but, to truly strengthen resilience, they need to be practiced in an environment where the employee’s personal values and ethics are also honoured. Mindfully carrying out tasks and actions that the employee does not value will only create dissonance and dissatisfaction. The group As individuals we can achieve a certain amount, but if we harness the intelligence of a group and develop its collective wisdom we can achieve so much more. To build group resilience, we need to consider questions such as: how is the group operating and what is my place within it? What enables the group’s energy to grow and what diminishes it? What is the atmosphere like in this meeting? How am I affecting, and being affected by, it? What type of leadership is emerging and how is it being taken and resisted? When are we being collectively intelligent and when stupid? Over the years many practices have been developed to assist groups in developing resilience, from “appreciative inquiry” which accentuates the positive, to Otto Scharmer’s “U Theory”. Each of these processes has its own methodology, but at their core is the desire and willingness to move beyond the ego and to offer one’s contribution in service to the whole. This means identifying more with the corporate vision and purpose than with individual career opportunities. It requires the intention and capacity to serve something beyond oneself. Global Finally, we need to put all our personal and collective efforts into a global context. How do major international challenges and changes impact us? Not only do they threaten our way of living and call into question many things we have taken for granted – such as cheap travel, an endless supply of water and secure pensions – they also call forth a response from us. What does the world need from our corporations now? What is their planetary purpose and contribution? If organisations are tuned into their responsibility for global resilience, this will mean writing a comprehensive range of policies on environmentally-friendly supply chains (energy, paper, food and so on), sourcing sustainable building materials, recycling practices, providing incentives for car pooling, walking and cycling, and developing corporate social responsibility plans that really make a difference. At the Findhorn Foundation ecovillage where I live, for example, we are pioneering a way of life that leaves one of the lowest measured ecological footprints in the developed world, at around 50% of the UK average. Developing resilience on personal, organisational and planetary levels is not only imperative at this time of global emergency, it will also lead to a deeper experience of personal wellbeing, to the harvesting of collective intelligence and wisdom, and to organisations starting to articulate and live their planetary purpose. Without this, both inner and outer indicators will show they have no future. Robin Alfred is chief executive of the Findhorn Consultancy Service Read more like this: Our obsession with heroic sustainability leaders will leave us all disappointed Does power lead to corruption? Brought to you by Xyntéo: Paul Polman: ‘We need to leverage the young to drive change’ The leadership hub is funded by Xyntéo. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled ‘brought to you by’. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox. | ['sustainable-business/series/leadership', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'business/business', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/corporate-governance', 'type/article', 'tone/features'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-01-09T17:00:01Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
news/2020/nov/16/weatherwatch-seabed-holds-clues-to-understanding-hurricanes | Weatherwatch: seabed holds clues to understanding hurricanes | Understanding the pattern of hurricane activity is important for predicting future events, but researchers never have enough data. For example, in Florida, hurricane records only go back to the 1850s, a mere moment ago in geological terms. Researchers from the Florida Gulf Coast University have been filling in the gaps in their data with paleotempestology – looking at the record left by hurricanes on the seabed. In normal conditions the tidal lagoons are full of dark mud, rich in organic matter. A powerful storm brings in quantities of lighter coloured sand, leaving a distinct layer. Even long after the organic matter has decayed, scientists can distinguish layers from the sizes of sand grains, observing fossilised storms in the deposits known as tempestites. The researchers took core samples from lagoons and applied radiocarbon dating and other techniques to date the storm deposits. Their findings suggest that the current pattern, where more hurricanes strike the Gulf coast than the Atlantic coast on the other side of the Florida peninsula, may date back thousands of years. This could be because of the higher water temperature in the Gulf, which drives hurricanes. The study also allows researchers to correlate the number of hurricanes with the sea temperature in a particular period, helping to determine the way the pattern of hurricanes changes with rises in sea temperatures. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/hurricanes', 'science/fossils', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-11-16T21:30:16Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2018/apr/09/transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbards-eligibility-under-scrutiny | Transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard's eligibility under scrutiny | New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard went into the women’s +90kg finals at the Commonwealth Games as favourite, expected not only to win but also perhaps break records. She finished the first half 7kg ahead of Samoa’s Feagaiga Stowers, but her efforts ended after she injured her elbow striving for a lift of 132kg. But the eyes the Gold Coast’s Carrara Sport and Leisure Centre were also on Hubbard for another reason, after public challenges to her eligibility because she is a transgender woman who had competed in men’s weightlifting prior to transitioning. Although no country lodged an official objection, many said they felt it was unfair for Hubbard to be going up against their athletes. “A man is a man and a woman is a woman and I know a lot of changes have gone through, but in the past Laurel Hubbard used to be a male champion weightlifter,” the Samoa head coach, Jerry Wallwork, told the ABC. Dr Kieren Keke, the chief de mission for the Nauru team, said the team had not discussed lodging any protest, but he objected in principle. “I think our view is that it’s a little bit unfair given that she began weightlifting as a man and has that experience in weightlifting as a male, then to carry on as a woman we think is a little bit unfair and gives her an unfair advantage,” Keke said. Australia’s weightlifting association tried unsuccessfully to have her selection overturned, but on Monday a spokesman for the team said they were just concentrating on the Australian competitor, Deb Lovely-Acason “doing the best she can” at the peak of a successful career. “Laurel Hubbard has been given the opportunity to represent her country because it was cleared by the Weightlifting Federation, also the Commonwealth Games Association, that she has abided the rules and New Zealand has abided the rules, and her testosterone levels are correct,” he said. A spokesman for the Cameroon team, Simon Molombe, said they also objected “in principle”. Being transgender, like being gay, is illegal in Cameroon. “I’m of the opinion that her past has an influence on her present output, and gives her an edge over others,” he said. “I therefore see it as playing without a level ground.” Hubbard led at the halfway stage of the finals, achieving her first lift of 120kg – 7kg more than Stowers – but then hurt her elbow in her shot at 132kg. After the break it was announced she had declined her lifts and was out. “At this stage we don’t know the exact details,” Hubbard said afterwards. “It seems likely I have ruptured a ligament. Until they do a scan we won’t know the details.” She said the support inside the arena spurred her on, even if her afternoon ended in disappointment. “The Australian crowd was magnificent,” she said. “It felt like just a big embrace. They really made me try to lift my best. I gave it everything and I regret I wasn’t able to make the lift today. “The Commonwealth Games here are a model for what sport can, and should, be. It’s an incredible environment and an amazing atmosphere. Without any doubt, they have lived up to the mantra of humanity, equality and decency.” Hubbard passed all requirements to make it into the games and compete in the women’s competition. Kirsti Miller, a transgender activist, dual-international athlete and educator, said the problem is those requirements can “harm the health of transitioned athletes like myself, and harm the health of XX transition males”. Miller said the International Olympic Committee guidelines are without proper scientific basis, particularly around testosterone limits. According to Miller the requirement that athletes show levels below a particular limit for 12 months prior to competition is beyond problematic, particularly with older people and those transitioning from a male gender. “We all transition at a different rate, and a big factor that plays a part in that is your age,” she said. “Twelve months as a policy for everyone is just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” The Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive, David Grevemberg, also noted Hubbard had passed requirements, but said there needed to be further discussion within the weightlifting community about the eligibility of transgender competitors. “This is something that members have expressed various opinions on and it’s something that the weightlifting community needs to come together and have some robust debate, discussion, on,” Grevemberg said. “I hope all New Zealanders ... would get behind one of their athletes that has gone through the pathway to achieve greatness, and within the rules of the sport,” he said. Miller watched Hubbard compete with tears in her eyes, and said she came through “an absolute winner”. “I just wish I could take some of the pressure off her ... She did everything she had to do to compete today. She gave it her all,” she said. “I was so pleased with the crowd’s reaction, they were cheering and clapping as loud as for anyone else ... Hopefully Laurel’s given some hope to some young trans kid sitting around the world.” • Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press | ['sport/weightlifting', 'sport/commonwealth-games-2018', 'world/newzealand', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'sport/sport', 'society/transgender', 'world/asia-pacific', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helen-davidson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | sport/commonwealth-games-2018 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-04-09T08:41:02Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2022/jul/18/court-orders-uk-government-to-explain-how-net-zero-policies-will-reach-targets | Court orders UK government to explain how net zero policies will reach targets | The high court has ordered the government to outline exactly how its net zero policies will achieve emissions targets, after a legal challenge from environmental groups. Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project had all taken legal action over the government’s flagship climate change strategy, arguing it had illegally failed to include the policies it needed to deliver the promised emissions cuts. In a judgment handed down late on Monday, Mr Justice Holgate said the strategy lacked any explanation or quantification of how the government’s plans would achieve the emissions target, and as such had failed to meet its obligations under Climate Change Act (CCA) 2008. Environmental campaigners called the ruling, which came as the UK faced record-breaking temperatures, a “landmark” and “a breakthrough moment”, claiming it showed the net zero strategy was in breach of the CCA. “We’re proud to have worked on this historic case,” said Katie de Kauwe, a lawyer with Friends of the Earth. “This landmark ruling is a huge victory for climate justice and government transparency. “It shows that the Climate Change Act is a piece of legislation which has teeth, and can, if necessary, be enforced through our court system if the government does not comply with its legal duties.” Sam Hunter Jones, senior lawyer at ClientEarth, said: “This decision is a breakthrough moment in the fight against climate delay and inaction. It forces the government to put in place climate plans that will actually address the crisis.” Holgate’s judgment did not find for the claimants on all grounds. But he ordered the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) to prepare a report explaining how the policies outlined in the net zero strategy would contribute towards emissions reductions, and to present it to parliament by April 2023. “The NZS did not go below national and sector levels to look at the contributions to emissions reductions made by individual policies (or by interacting policies) where assessed as being quantifiable,” Holgate said. “In my judgment it ought to have done so in order to comply with the language and statutory purposes of s.14 of the CCA 2008.” Holgate also found that Greg Hands, the energy minister, signed off the net zero strategy despite not having the legally required information on how carbon budgets would be met. The net zero strategy, published in October, included commitments to end the sales of new fossil fuel cars by 2030 and gas boilers by 2035. But it did not spell out how the strategy would be delivered or specify the cuts in emissions to be achieved in each sector. A Beis spokesperson said: “The net zero strategy remains government policy and has not been quashed. The judge made no criticism about the substance of our plans which are well on track and, in fact, the claimants themselves described them as ‘laudable’ during the proceedings.” | ['environment/activism', 'uk/uk', 'law/law', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damien-gayle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2022-07-18T18:06:13Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists | Brazil using coronavirus to cover up assaults on Amazon, warn activists | As the coronavirus pandemic eats its way into the Amazon, raising fears of a genocide of its vulnerable indigenous tribes, the government of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and its supporters are dismantling rules shielding protected reserves. Key environment officials have been sacked, and environmentalists and indigenous leaders fear the pandemic is being used as a smokescreen for a new assault on the rainforest. They say a presidential decree awaiting congressional approval and new rules at the indigenous agency Funai effectively legalise land grabbing in protected forests and indigenous reserves. “The indigenous peoples are alone and we have to fight against the virus, the loggers and the wildcat miners. We don’t know which is worse,” said Alessandra Munduruku, an indigenous leader from Pará state. Bolsonaro, notorious for racist remarks about indigenous people and a nationalist argument in favour of developing the Amazon, is popular among farmers, wildcat miners, loggers and land grabbers. He said the Yanomami indigenous reserve – Brazil’s largest – was too big and attacked environment agencies for fining people for environmental crimes. In December 2019 he issued a decree known as MP910, allowing farmers squatting up to 2,500 hectares within government-controlled reserves to legalise it. A previous law in 2017 allowed this for land squatted until 2011; Bolsonaro’s decree extended it until 2018. Critics called it the “land grabbers decree”. Grabbing land on federal reserves by deforesting it, burning the dead trees and putting cattle on it to consolidate possession is common practice in the Amazon. “The measure permits titling public areas which were illegally deforested with the objective of obtaining the land,” said Imazon, a non-profit environmentalist group. Federal prosecutors said it would further facilitate land grabbing, in a detailed analysis. The decree has until 19 May to be approved by Congress. Lawmakers from the agricultural lobby are pushing for a vote before then, in the midst of the pandemic, after proposing changes that will effectively make it even easier and cheaper to legalise squatted land – even if the landowner seeking title has already received a land title under “agrarian reform” schemes and sold it on. On 22 April, Funai published a new rule to allow land grabbers on indigenous reserves to regularise their land, provided the reserve has not completed the lengthy demarcation process. That process can take decades to complete and requires presidential approval – and Bolsonaro has vowed not to demarcate “one centimetre” more of indigenous land. The Funai employees’ association said the new rule “turns Funai into a real-estate notary for squatters, land grabbers and land developers in indigenous lands”. The National Council of Human Rights, an independent federal body, called for the rule be revoked, noting that 237 indigenous reserves had yet to complete the demarcation process and another six were “restricted use” areas with reports of isolated groups who have no immunity to common diseases such as the flu, never mind Covid-19. Landgrabbers could now claim title in all of these. In a rare move, 49 federal prosecutors across Brazil called for the Funai rule to be annulled for its “unconstitutionality, unconventionality and illegality”. Daniel Azevedo, one of the prosecutors involved, said it encouraged land grabbers who would expect similar decrees to follow. “The Amazon works like a stock market. What those in power in the country say really influences people’s behaviour,” he said. “This passes on a message that if you deforest now in 2020 or 2021, you will soon become owner of this area,” he added. “The tendency is the forest will be heavily devastated in the next few years.” Those defending titles for land grabbers argue they will help regularise the Amazon’s chaotic land ownership situation. Allowing farmers to title land they squatted in the past lets them access credit and improve productivity, reducing their need to expand further into the forest, farmers argue. Senator Irajá Abreu, who is guiding MP910 through Congress, told the Congress in Focus site that the land grabbers decree was a “good law for 99% of Brazilian families, for Brazilian producers, for people who create jobs”. Funai said its new rule would “correct unconstitutionalities detected in studies carried out”. Environmentalists challenged that argument. “The government has a project and it is advancing over the forest, over indigenous peoples, to benefit those who want the forest cut down,” said Mariana Mota, a public policy specialist at Greenpeace Brazil. Deforestation in Brazil began rising in 2013, after a decade of decline and a year after an overhaul of Brazil’s forest code by the leftist president Dilma Rousseff included an amnesty for people who deforested before 2008. Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has rocketed, reaching 9,800 square kilometres in the year to July 2019. As controversy over the new rules raged, Brazil’s environment agency Ibama sacked Renê de Oliveira and Hugo Loss, two high-level field specialists, weeks after they coordinated an operation to expel invaders on indigenous reserves in Pará state over fears they could spread Covid-19. The operation had featured on the popular television show Fantástico, which has also exposed pro-Bolsonaro land grabbers with political connections. Ibama’s director of protection, Olivaldi Azevedo, had already been sacked. Environmentalists said reducing protection and encouraging invasions of protected areas risked more violence against those who defend them. In March an indigenous teacher, Zezico Guajajara, was murdered in Maranhão state, the fifth killing in the area in six months. In April, Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, a teacher from the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reserve in the Amazon state of Rondônia, was murdered. He was one of a group that patrolled the tribe’s reserve, and had been threatened. “The invaders think they can enter the indigenous reserve because of the government agenda,” said Ivaneide Bandeira, of the non-profit group Kanindé, who has worked with the tribe for decades and knew Ari. “Covid is the cover and the excuse.” | ['world/brazil', 'world/indigenous-peoples', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/jair-bolsonaro', 'world/world', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dom-phillips', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-05-06T12:24:49Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2005/sep/10/hurricanekatrina.usa2 | International news in brief | Fishing industry counts the cost Louisiana's fishing industry faces a $1.1bn (£600m) drop in income over the next year because of hurricane damage. Boats, docks, ice plants and processing facilities were all hit by the storm. Reuters 689,000 still without power Some 689,000 electricity customers still lacked power 11 days after Katrina hit, according to area utilities and the US department of energy. Reuters National guard skip relief duty Only about 800 of the 2,500 soldiers of a Louisiana national guard brigade, which is coming home after a year in Iraq, have indicated they wish to help disaster-relief on their return, their commander said yesterday. Reuters Damage will run to nearly £70bn Damage caused by Katrina has been estimated at more than $125bn (£68bn). Risk Management Solutions said the insurance industry could face claims of up to $60bn. Associated Press Port to reopen next week The port of New Orleans plans to resume commercial operations by Wednesday after being shut for nearly two weeks by Katrina, but it could take six months for America's fourth-largest port to be fully operational. Reuters Katrina mirrors fictitious storm A hurricane simulation with uncanny parallels to Katrina predicted that a storm flooding south-east Louisiana would leave 61,290 dead and 384,257 injured or sick. Associated Press | ['world/world', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-10T22:58:37Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2012/oct/30/hurricanes-happen-more-and-more | Letters: Where hurricanes happen more and more | Has anyone heard Fox News or CNN use the words climate change (Hurricane Sandy, 30 October)? Of course no single weather event can be ascribed solely to climate change, but what will it take to make them take notice? Areas never threatened since New York was built are being inundated. In Delaware, 26 hurricanes were recorded in the 19th century – about one every five years. From 1900 to 1949, the rate rose slightly to one every four years. But 1950-74 saw almost one a year; and 1975-2000 over one a year. Since 2000, 27 have occurred – over two a year. The same statistics, with small variations, apply to New Jersey and New York. Anyone spot a trend? Or even a hockey stick? Professor Peter Gardiner Ringmer, East Sussex • When I was growing up in the Caribbean in the 1930s, the hurricane rhyme was: "June too soon, July stand by, August it must, September remember, October all over." Chris Birch London • Given that the consequences of Hurricane Sandy are being dealt with by firefighters, police, transport staff, soldiers and other public sector workers, will the Republicans still quote with approval Ronald Reagan's witticism: "The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help?'." Paul Hewitson Berlin, Germany • Is Sandy, the hurricane now threatening the US and at the forefront of our media, by any chance related to the hurricane, also called Sandy, which recently took 69 lives in Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean countries, but which was not similarly newsworthy? Peter McKenna Liverpool • If the storm had proved to be a damp squib, would the forecasters have been prosecuted for wasting time and money? Margaret Davis London | ['us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricanes', 'tone/letters', 'us-news/new-york', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-10-30T21:00:03Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/the-coral-triangle/2014/nov/27/coral-triangle-last-bastion-planets-beleaguered-reefs | Coral Triangle could be last bastion for planet's beleaguered reefs | Johnny Langenheim | If humans are driving earth’s sixth great extinction event, coral reefs will be one of the first and most visible ecosystems to succumb. Scientists estimate that by 2050, the ocean could be largely devoid of reefs as climate change and our relentless plundering of the sea set in motion geological changes not seen for millions of years. But according to the Catlin Seaview Survey, a multi-year project to map the world’s coral reefs, there may be evidence that certain reefs in the Coral Triangle could resist longer than others. The project is using cutting-edge camera technology and a big-data approach to establish baselines for key indicators like health, diversity, decline and resilience. The sponsor, Catlin, is an international insurance company specialising in property and casualty insurance. It says insurers should take a lead role in improving understanding of the potential for changes to the environment. “Studying coral reefs provides a better understanding of short-term risks on a local scale,” says Catlin Insurance Group chief executive, Stephen Catlin. “But, more importantly, [it] gives us better information about the long-term risks of climate change on a global scale. As insurers, we need to be ahead of the game.” Coral reefs represent just 1% of our oceans but support 25% of the species that live in them. This makes south-east Asia’s Coral Triangle bioregion the global epicentre of marine biodiversity on the planet, with 75% of all known coral building species, 6 out of 7 of the world’s turtle species and more than 3,000 species of fish. 120 million people depend on these reefs for their livelihoods – if they disappeared, the attendant loss of food security would drive economic migration on a massive scale. Over the last few months, Catlin Seaview Survey scientists have been assessing reefs in hotspots throughout the Coral Triangle, which encompasses the territorial waters of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. They believe the bioregion could become one of the last refuges on earth for coral reefs. According to the survey’s chief scientist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, reliable data is a vital first step towards mitigating human impacts. “Understanding the structure and function of such reefs is of the utmost importance if we are to underpin their resilience to global change,” he says. “If we don’t measure these corals, we can’t manage the impact of ocean changes.” Traditionally, marine biologists conduct transects using simple tape measures to survey reefs. But Catlin Seaview Survey’s SVII camera rig travels at 4km an hour, taking a 360-degree image every three seconds. The photos are then stitched together and published online. “Surveying that would have taken months using standard methods can now be completed in days,” says Catlin Seaview Survey director Richard Vevers. The team recently completed a three-week survey in the waters off Manado in Sulawesi, Indonesia – the geographic centre of the Coral Triangle, sitting directly on the equator. The coral reefs there have developed over millions of years, creating a unique repository of coral abundance and biodiversity. This combination could make them more resistant to coral bleaching caused by rising ocean temperatures. These reefs and others like them sit at the interface between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, where a coalescence of warm and cold currents causes the upwelling of nutrients partly responsible for making the region so fertile. Some corals may have adapted to shifting sea temperatures and repeated bleaching episodes, making them less susceptible. In the face of increasingly radical shifts in environmental conditions, they could hold the key to future marine management strategies. | ['environment/the-coral-triangle', 'environment/coral', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/series/guardian-environment-blogs', 'world/indonesia', 'world/world', 'world/philippines', 'world/malaysia', 'world/papua-new-guinea', 'world/solomonislands', 'world/timor-leste', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'tone/comment', 'profile/johnny-langenheim'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2014-11-27T12:06:06Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2016/jun/15/floods-southern-china-tornado-montana | Floods in southern China, while a powerful tornado hits Montana | Heavy rain and flooding is a common occurrence in southern China at this time of year, and the past week has proved no exception. Torrential rain affected Guizhou province late last week and over the weekend, which caused flooding and triggered landslides. Intense downpours also fell across Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday, where the city of Liuzhou recorded 137mm (5.4in) of rain in just a few hours. Severe flooding followed in the city and many vehicles were swept away. Further heavy rain is forecast to affect many areas over the coming days. In the US, an unusually powerful tornado struck eastern Montana on Saturday evening. The tornado, which lasted for about 10 minutes, touched down in the city of Baker and destroyed at least six houses, damaging about 50 others. It was classified as an EF-3 storm, equal to the strongest tornado ever recorded in Montana. The Enhanced Fujita tornado intensity scale categorises storms from EF-0 to EF-5, with an EF-3 storm generating winds of around 135 to 165mph. Storms of this strength are more commonly seen in the US across the Great Plains and the midwest, with Montana having seen EF-3 tornadoes only four times since 1950. Meanwhile, on the highest peaks of Hawaii there was the unusual summertime sight of a covering of snow on Tuesday. Cold air in the upper layers of the atmosphere moved over Hawaii, allowing passing showers to give a dusting of snow across the top of Mauna Kea, which stands 4,207m (13,800ft) above sea level, and neighbouring Mauna Loa. | ['news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'science/meteorology', 'us-news/us-weather', 'world/china', 'environment/flooding', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/tornadoes', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/tornadoes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-06-15T20:30:15Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/jun/23/gift-of-rare-basking-shark-to-victorian-scientists-fantastic-for-research | Gift of rare basking shark to Victorian scientists 'fantastic' for research | A basking shark, rarely seen in Australian waters, will be donated to scientists after it was caught by the Castella Rosa fishing trawler off Victoria’s south-west coast. The 3,500kg, 6.5-metre shark was being dissected by staff from Museum Victoria on Tuesday after being pulled in by the trawler on Sunday afternoon at Portland. The museum’s senior collections manager, Dianne Bray, said that although she would prefer the shark “alive and in the sea”, she was glad the owner of the trawler, who accidentally caught the shark in the Bass Strait, had donated it to science rather than discarding it. The challenge would be figuring out how to transport the giant to the museum and then preserve it properly for research, she said. “We’ve sent a team of five people from the museum down there, the artists and craftsmen who prepare models and make taxidermy specimens and retrieve whales and giant fishes,” Bray said. “Because this one is so large, they will dissect it on the wharf as we have nowhere to preserve such a large animal, and they will bring back the head, fins, stomach content, vertebrae, and tissue and skin samples.” Basking sharks are the second largest fish species in the world after the whale shark, growing up to 12 metres. Although they are a rare sight in Australia, they have been seen between Port Stephens in NSW and Busselton in Western Australia, including around Tasmania and off South Australia. The species is more commonly found in the temperate waters of the northern hemisphere, where its conservation status is listed as vulnerable. Very little is known about the gentle and slow-moving sharks, which feed on plankton and jellyfish, and have thin, weak jaws lined with tiny, 2mm-long teeth. Given the rarity of the shark in Australian waters it was an exciting addition to the museum, Bray said. Researchers from all over the world had already been in touch, including one who wanted to scan the shark’s brain. “We have colleagues at the CSIRO in Hobart who are doing genetic analysis, and colleagues in South Australia who want to look at the vertebrae, and then we’ll work with researchers around world,” she said. “We need to figure out how to preserve it, and our art preparators will also make a cast of the head and fins so we can make a model for exhibition purposes.” The museum already has some minor basking shark material, including teeth and skin taken from a specimen caught in 1883. That shark was such an exciting catch at the time that it was “driven up and down Swanston Street during race week”, Bray said. “There are [fewer] than 20 specimens across Australia so this is a fantastic opportunity and is also why we are so glad the skipper of the vessel is donating rather than discarding the shark,” she said. “Adding to our collection of basking shark specimens will help to inform us about their biodiversity, where they’re distributed and how they change over time, and we now have more modern research techniques available to give us this information.” A Flinders University shark researcher, Dr Charlie Huveneers, said it was hard to say what may have brought the shark to Victoria, or how many others might be in Australian waters. “Sharks tend to have fairly large migrations, usually driven by food or, in some cases, mating,” he said. “By preserving tissue samples for genetic analysis we may eventually be able to look at which population this shark may have come from, for example whether it is part of a population usually found on the eastern side of South America, or whether it may be part of a distinct population found in southern Australia. “We won’t know until we do extensive population genetics on this species.” | ['environment/sharks', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/cetaceans', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'australia-news/victoria', 'science/science', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/melissa-davey'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2015-06-23T07:01:13Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
global-development/2015/oct/02/lack-of-electricity-locks-people-in-poverty-low-carbon-energy-is-the-key | Lack of electricity locks people in poverty – low-carbon energy is the key | Mafalda Duarte | Steam billows from an energy plant in a stretch of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, about 180km north of the capital, Nairobi. But the white clouds rising from the tidy grid of pipes aren’t a sign of polluting greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. They are a signal that the country of more than 44 million, where some 65% of the population does not have access to electricity, is one giant step closer to delivering clean, reliable, renewable power to its people. The first phase of the $746m Menengai geothermal development project is well under way, with already proven steam resources capable of generating 130 megawatts of electricity and working toward commissioning the first power plants in 2016. At its full 400MW potential, the project aims to provide stable, low-cost power to about 500,000 households and 300,000 businesses, and avoid nearly 2m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually. The expansion of Menengai is just one of many projects the government is pursuing as part of its plan to generate 5,500MW of geothermal power by 2031. Kenya’s current geothermal capacity is 595MW, but the ministry of energy estimates the country has the potential to produce about 10,000MW. Across Africa and around the world, low-carbon renewable energy is emerging as the go-to green growth and poverty reduction strategy. Kenya’s neighbours Ethiopia and Tanzania are also pursuing geothermal power, while countries in the Middle East and north Africa are focusing their efforts on expanding solar power. Still others are exploring mini-grid and off-grid solutions in wind and solar to supply the poorest and hardest-to-reach rural communities. More than 1 billion people worldwide still lack access to electricity that could enable them to light their homes, cook or pump clean water. During my 15 years working in development in Africa and Asia, and now at the helm of Climate Investment Funds, I have seen how a lack of electricity handcuffs poor families to poverty – especially women and girls, who have to gather fuel and carry out the household chores. The success of every one of the 17 sustainable development goals, formally adopted at the UN in September, depends on a swell of renewable, sustainable and affordable energy. The greatest barrier facing Kenya and other developing countries is a lack of funding to develop their renewable energy potential. Renewable energy plants are expensive to build. But once they are up and running, they can deliver cheap flows of energy. Reaching that point, however, takes millions of dollars in investment that most poor countries cannot easily access. One way to surmount this barrier is to provide countries with the starter funds they need to get their renewable energy operations off the ground, supported by policies that inspire confidence and growth. Once countries have made progress, they can more easily convince new investors to chip in, especially from the private sector. Climate Investment Funds has provided $25m in concessional financing for Menengai in Kenya to help cover exploratory drilling – a critical but risky stage of development and a cost that most private investors are unwilling to bear. In fact, the company has earmarked $810m to advance geothermal power projects in 15 countries. This could potentially yield 3.5GW of new geothermal capacity, more than a quarter of current global installed capacity of almost 13 GW. Prospects are promising, and more than $10bn is expected from other financiers. This is a start, but so much more must be done to make geothermal and other renewable energy markets viable in developing countries. The risks are high, but so are the rewards if forward-thinking countries like Kenya and early investors, like Climate Investment Funds, are willing to lay the groundwork. Meeting the ambitious targets set in the SDGs, and fulfilling the commitments each country makes in a hoped-for global agreement after UN climate talks this winter, means developing countries have to advance along a low-carbon pathway. For the good of our planet and our people, we must invest in this progress. Mafalda Duarte is manager of Climate Investment Funds | ['global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/private-sector', 'global-development/access-to-energy', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/environment', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/geothermal', 'environment/energy', 'global-development/sustainable-development-goals', 'type/article', 'tone/comment'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2015-10-02T13:44:21Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/cif-green/2009/sep/17/low-carbon-sunday | Slow Sunday: The simple solution to global warming | Satish Kumar | The 10:10 movement supported by the Guardian is a wonderful way to empower ordinary people to participate in the great movement of mitigating global warming. We cannot wait until governments are enlightened enough to legislate and cap the carbon emissions. Matters are urgent. We have to act now, without any delay. The power of public opinion and citizen action will have a strong impact on the climate conference taking place in Copenhagen. One thing we can easily do to achieve this goal: we can declare Sunday to be a fossil fuel-free day or a low-carbon day or at least an energy-saving day. We can start this week, this month or in 2010. We can start individually and collectively. The long journey to cut carbon dioxide emissions can start in the here and now. Not long ago Sunday used to be a day of rest, a day of spiritual renewal, a day for families to come together, but we have changed Sunday from a day of rest to a day of shopping, flying and driving. However, in the context of excessive carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which are bringing catastrophic upheavals, we can and should restore Sunday to a day for Gaia, a day for the Earth. There will be no great hardship in cutting down all non-essential and non-urgent use of fossil fuels for one day a week. We can easily close supermarkets, department stores and petrol stations. We can reduce our mobility to the bare essentials and without harming the economy in any way. We can enjoy Sunday once more with our family and friends. We can engage in gardening, writing, painting, walking, baking bread or simply spending time in contemplation. This will be good for our personal health as well as for the health of the planet. We will have time for our friends, time to play with our children and time for the family. At a stroke, we can reduce 10% of our carbon emissions into the atmosphere by making Sunday a low-carbon day and at the same time make ourselves healthier and happier. So, let us make Sunday a day of rest and renewal rather than a day of travel and toil. Global warming or climate change is only a symptom of our deep-seated desire to consume, consume and consume. The external problem of carbon emissions is connected with the internal problem of desire. If we stay in the rat-race 24 hours, seven days a week, we are bound to pollute our inner space as well as the outer space. Speed is the curse of modern civilisation. The solution to global warming is simple: slow down. Slow is beautiful. Even if we cannot slow down every day, at least slow down on Sunday. If you are a Christian then Slow Sunday should be natural to you, if you are a Muslim make Friday your low-carbon day, if you are Jewish then Saturday can be your day to save energy, if you follow a secular way of life then choose your own carbon-free day. At least on Sunday we can be citizens rather than consumers. • Satish Kumar is the the editor of Resurgence magazine • You can sign up for 10:10 at www.1010uk.org | ['environment/10-10', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'tone/comment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'type/article', 'profile/satish-kumar'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2009-09-17T09:45:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
australia-news/2023/may/25/nsw-renewable-energy-zones-up-to-two-years-behind-schedule | NSW renewable energy zones up to two years behind schedule | New South Wales’ two main renewable energy zones will be delayed for as long as two years and cost more to build with landholder opposition to new transmission lines partly to blame, the energy minister, Penny Sharpe, has said. The Minns government briefed journalists about its network infrastructure strategy on Wednesday, revealing that the central-west Orana zone would not hit its “energisation date” until 2027-28, compared with an initial 2025 target. Similarly, the New England zone will now start in 2029 compared with an initial 2027 goal. The two zones account for the bulk of the new generation capacity laid out in the renewable energy roadmap, drawn up by the previous Coalition government. The central-west Orana area covers almost 21,000 square km, with the new network able to accommodate 4.5 gigawatts of capacity for new wind and solar farms at a cost of $3.2bn. The New England zone, covering almost 15,500 square km, will provide an initial network capacity of 2.4GW and cost $4.2bn. Initial costings in 2020 had put the cost of $400m-$800m for the central-west Orana alone, Sharpe said, adding “there was not a lot of information” about the network details before she took over the portfolio. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “This is the detailed work for the first time that’s been done, rather than what I would call a bit of a ‘back of the envelope’ and a bit of guessing that went on in 2020,” she said. The delays add to other hurdles in the race to build sufficient new generation capacity and storage in NSW and others states to replace coal-fired power stations as they close. This month Snowy Hydro admitted its giant pumped hydro plant would be delayed until as late as 2029 compared with a 2025 initial target. Sharpe, though, said the snags would not put the state at risk of power outages. “It’s very challenging as the incoming minister to be told that things are going to cost more and take longer,” she said. There’s “the need for us to look and squeeze the entire planning around this” and to ensure the plans won’t slip further. “We are not going to allow the lights to go off,” Sharpe said, “We are not going to be turning off [coal-fired] generation that needs to be made if this other stuff’s not in place.” Origin Energy’s plan to close its 2800-megawatt Eraring power station in August 2025 remains an issue for the government. Sharpe said delays in the renewable zones were because the previous government’s timetables “didn’t include the need to work with communities, and to do that properly”. Matt Kean, Sharpe’s predecessor and chief architect of the state’s renewables road map, said since the plan had been legislated in 2020, Covid triggered “huge labour shortages and massive supply chain cost escalations and capacity constraints in the broader market”. “This has been seen around the world on major infrastructure projects,” Kean said. The Coalition government had also increased the payments to landholders affected by new transmission lines, raising the fees from $5,000 a kilometre to $200,000, he said. The costs of the new transmission will be picked up by the network operators who will pass them to consumers. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/new-south-wales-politics', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'australia-news/rural-australia', 'australia-news/matt-kean', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-05-24T15:00:13Z | true | ENERGY |
uk/2010/mar/17/hunt-trevor-morse-fatal-gyrocopter | How hunting dispute led Trevor Morse to fatal encounter with gyrocopter | The terrible death of Trevor Morse was much the worst incident in the truculent standoff that has existed between hunt supporters and opponents since the chasing of foxes for sport was supposedly outlawed in 2004. Sliced through the head by a rotor blade whirling at 200mph, the self-employed gardener was a victim of claims and counter-claims which have surrounded the sport and the continuing meets held by dozens of hunts. Bryan Griffiths and his gyrocopter were used regularly by anti-hunting monitors to follow packs of hounds in the Midlands, and had been watching the Warwickshire hunt's last outing of the season when the incident happened in early March last year. The light aircraft's constant presence had grown to irk the hunt members, and the trial at Birmingham crown court, where Griffiths was today cleared of manslaughter, heard that the Warwickshire's organisers had agreed a plan to confront its pilot and the anti-hunt campaigners who took turns to fly as passengers, filming loopholes and possible breaches in the law. This swung into action when 55-year-old Griffiths, who lives on the hunt's territory at Bedworth, was seen altering course for Long Marston airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon. As arranged, Morse and Julie Sargeant, a fellow hunt supporter, headed off at speed in their Land Rover, to box in the gyrocopter as it refuelled and find out who was behind the flights. Longstanding and often bitter differences between the two sides underlay the confrontation, but hunt master Anthony Spencer told the jury that "buzzing" by the aircraft had frightened the hounds and was a safety hazard. The hunt's complaint to the Civil Aviation Authority on these grounds had prompted an investigation, which began the day before 48-year-old Morse was killed. Witness accounts of the death suggested intransigence on both sides, with Morse standing obdurately in front of the moving gyrocopter after his colleague had taken refuge in the Land Rover. Video and detailed descriptions left the jury to decide whether Griffiths was aiming carefully for a gap to avoid danger, as he told police, or whether mutual anger saw things spiral out of control. The case was downgraded some months before the three-week trial, when the original charge of murder was withdrawn. But prosecutor Gareth Evans QC still accused Griffiths of deliberately driving the gyrocopter at Morse, justifying a verdict of manslaughter by gross negligence. He told the jury: "Griffiths's actions were reckless in the extreme because the manoeuvre carried with it a very, very real risk that Mr Morse would come into contact with the revolving, unguarded rear propeller blades of the gyrocopter." In a graphic video taken by a fuel handler at the airfield, a voice is heard shouting to Morse: "You are obstructing him taking off, you have no right to do that, you have no right to do that." After a pause – the footage was cut before the instantaneous death of Morse – the jury then saw a clip of his body lying on the ground, as a voice said: "Oh dear, the twat didn't stand clear of it." Sargeant broke down in tears as she told the jury: "He just stood there. He just stood there." She described Morse as "Mr Nice Guy" but confirmed that he had acted uncompromisingly, driving the Land Rover right up to the nose of the gyrocopter. The court heard that Griffiths, an anti-hunting sympathiser, had been scared of violence from hunt supporters. Chatting just before the incident with a plane spotter at Long Marston, he said that he had been shot at three times from the ground while following hunts. The neutral evidence from Michael Tipping, an aircraft enthusiast without strong views on hunting, also underlined the tensions before the incident. He told the jury that Morse's "intrusive and aggressive" attitude when he tore up in the Land Rover had convinced him that the whole affair involved a drugs gang and possible revenge for a deal that had gone wrong. Since the tragedy Morse, who was a lifelong follower of the Warwickshire and helped to look after birds of prey which allowed it to use a loophole in the Hunting Act, has become something of a martyr on hunting websites. Opponents of the sport have been confirmed in their view that hunts are determined to continue to find any way to stay in action. | ['uk/hunting', 'world/animal-welfare', 'environment/activism', 'uk/uk', 'uk/ukcrime', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/martinwainwright'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2010-03-17T16:41:49Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2021/aug/13/pollutionwatch-olympic-flame-warning-sign-hydrogen-future | Pollutionwatch: Olympic flame is a warning sign for hydrogen future | The hydrogen flame above the Tokyo Olympic Stadium was symbolic of a zero-carbon future but illustrated a warning too. Hydrogen, created using zero-carbon methods, looks set to play a big role in decarbonisation as energy storage and fuel. It can then be used in fuel cells to generate electricity or burned in boilers or generators. One option to decarbonise home heating is to inject hydrogen into the existing natural (fossil) gas pipelines. Studies are under way to reduce the explosion risk from hydrogen leaks, but less attention is being paid to the air pollution from combusting hydrogen. It is widely claimed that burning hydrogen results in only water. While this is true of fuel cells it is not the case when hydrogen is burned. Like any high-temperate combustion, hydrogen flames lead to reactions between nitrogen and oxygen, and in turn to health-harming nitrogen dioxide pollution. It is unlikely that the nitrogen dioxide from hydrogen boilers will be worse than the fossil gas and oil used today, but it may not improve either. Replacing fossil gas heating with hydrogen may appear attractive compared with installing district heating, heat pumps and home insulation, but it would be a missed opportunity to reduce air pollution in towns and cities. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/hydrogen-power', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-08-13T05:00:22Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2022/mar/10/insurance-fine-print-may-mean-thousands-of-flood-victims-are-unable-to-claim-report-says | Insurance fine print may mean thousands of flood victims are unable to claim, report says | Thousands of victims of the floods in New South Wales and Queensland will be unable to claim on their insurance due to exclusions in policy fine print, the Financial Rights Legal Centre says. What is covered by insurance policies varies wildly between insurers because definitions of events including flood, rainwater runoff and wind damage are not standard, the group said in a new report. “There are going to be a lot of people who think they’re covered,” Drew MacRae, a policy officer at FRLC, said. But many will find they are not covered because the fine print excludes particular types of damage, MacRae said. He said this even applied to flood damage, which was given a standard definition after floods in Queensland in 2011, when the Brisbane River broke its banks and inundated low-lying Brisbane suburbs as well as regional centres. One insurer, NRMA, has included rainwater runoff in its definition of flooding, the FRLC report said. Residents “may have opted out of flood but have coverage for storm or rain”, MacRae said. “But if you couldn’t afford flood insurance, you may not be covered for rainwater runoff,” he said. In its report, Standardising General Insurance Definitions, FRLC found 65% of the insurers it examined considered flood and storm to be separate events but the rest lumped them in together. Some insurers also included wind, hail, rain and cyclone under the definition of storm but others did not. One insurer, RACV, also allows itself to remove flooding, rainwater runoff and storm surge damage from a policy if it deems a property at risk of these events, FRLC said. The research found that more than 75% of policies excluded damage to retaining walls, 25% excluded damage to bridges and 62% excluded damage to driveways or gravel paths. The majority of insurers (62%) excluded damage from “actions of the sea”, such as tidal surges, with only one, Defence, explicitly including it in their policies. Three insurers – NRMA, RACV and SGIC – said they would only pay for soil movement damage if it happened immediately as a result of the storm or rainwater runoff. The Insurance Council of Australia said 107,844 claims have been lodged over the floods in NSW and south-east Queensland, estimated to be worth $1.62bn. MacRae said the lack of standardisation also affected fire policies – something people discovered after the 2019-2020 bushfires ripped through large swathes of eastern Victoria and southern NSW. “In the black summer, some people were covered and some were not,” he said. “It comes down to whether it was fire with a flame, was it a bushfire? Sometimes they don’t cover smoke damage, sometimes they don’t cover heat damage.” He said terms needed standardising so that policyholders could use the new Consumer Data Right (CDR), which allows consumers to share their data with providers. “The CDR is there to help people switch, to get better deals,” he said. “The lack of standardisation makes it very difficult to do that.” Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning He said the problem had been obvious for years. “The industry will say we need innovation and competition but what is the point of innovation that means people aren’t covered for basics? “It really is another way of reducing costs.” The government committed to standardising insurance on the recommendation of a Senate inquiry in 2017 and began a consultation process in 2018. But progress stalled because treasury was focused on the banking royal commission, which kicked off in 2018, and its recommendations, which commissioner Kenneth Hayne handed to government in February 2019. “They still have not gone back to the work of standardising the definitions,” MacRae said. | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'business/insurance', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/queensland', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-butler', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-09T16:30:40Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/2022/feb/15/north-wales-coast-is-monitored-after-oil-pipeline-spillage | North Wales coast is monitored after oil pipeline spillage | Authorities are monitoring parts of the north Wales coast for an oil slick after hydrocarbons were released into the sea following a pipeline failure. The pipeline, which connects two oil installations in the Irish Sea, had a failure about 20 miles from the north Wales coast. According to Eni UK, the company that operates the pipeline, the incident involved less than 500 barrels and was reported on Monday. The company confirmed that hydrocarbons had been released from its pipeline running between Conwy and Douglas oil installations, sparking fears of an oil slick. It said: “Eni UK Ltd can confirm that a release of hydrocarbons from its pipeline between the Conwy and Douglas installations, approximately 33km from the north Wales coast, was reported on Monday 14 February.” It said the details of the incident were still being confirmed but the “Conwy to Douglas line was shut immediately and remains off”. It added: “All relevant authorities were promptly informed. There was no impact at any personnel on the installations. A further statement will be made as soon as more information becomes available.” A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said it was monitoring Eni UK’s response and assisting local authorities. News of the spill came on the 26th anniversary of what has been called Wales’ worst ecological disaster, when 72,000 tonnes of crude spilled from the Sea Empress oil tanker off the Pembrokeshire coast. Large numbers of seaweeds and invertebrates were killed on the beaches where it drifted ashore, and it took over a year to clean the slick. Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “This week marks the anniversary of the Sea Empress oil spill. A quarter of a century on, we still find that oil is a dirty business at every stage, whether that’s through planet-warming emissions or leakages like this that harm marine life. The ongoing environmental damage oil causes should be a major incentive to drive forward the cleaner, cheaper energy technologies that now exist.” Dr Richard Benwell, the CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “It’s 26 years to the day since the Sea Empress disaster wrought ecological havoc on the Welsh coast … Fossil fuel spills are again threatening the wildlife in our waters, which are already in a precarious state. The sooner we break our dependence on these dirty fuels the better.” | ['uk/wales', 'environment/oil-spills', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maya-wolfe-robinson', 'profile/damien-gayle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-02-15T18:24:06Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2020/aug/13/trump-rolls-back-methane-climate-standards-oil-gas-industry | Trump rolls back methane climate standards for oil and gas industry | The Trump administration is revoking rules that require oil and gas drillers to detect and fix leaks of methane, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet far faster than carbon dioxide. Methane has a much more potent short-term warming effect than CO2 and addressing it is critical to slowing global heating as the world is already on track to become more than 3C hotter than before industrialization. The Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, will announce the rollback from Pennsylvania, which has major oil and gas operations and is also a politically important swing state. The rule change is part of what Trump calls his “energy dominance” agenda. The Trump administration’s changes apply to new wells and those drilled since 2016, when President Barack Obama enacted the regulation in an effort to help stall climate change during a boom in fracking – a method of extracting fossil gas by injecting water and chemicals underground. The regulations required companies to regularly check for methane leaks from valves, pipelines and tanks. Large oil companies have argued for keeping the rules, saying they are needed so the industry can limit its climate footprint as it markets gas as a smart alternative to coal – which emits far more carbon dioxide. Roughly a quarter of global warming the planet has experienced in recent decades has been due to methane, said Robert Howarth, a researcher who studies methane at Cornell University. The oil and gas industry is the biggest source of the pollutant. “Methane is the second most important gas after carbon dioxide,” Howarth said. “For the time it’s in the atmosphere, it’s about 120 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide. There’s nowhere near as much of it in the atmosphere so it ends up being not quite as important overall, but it’s very powerful.” Methane emitted today is largely gone in 30 years and totally gone in about 60 years, but it has a big effect on the climate in the meantime. That effect is most significant in the first months methane is released, when it is about 120 times stronger than carbon. That drops to around 86 times more powerful over 20 years and 33 times more powerful if compared with carbon over 100 years, Howarth said. US methane emissions have become more concerning as scientists have begun to better understand their prevalence and impacts, and as gas production has continued to grow rapidly, increasing 10% last year. Average global temperatures are already more than 1C higher. And they are expected to be 1.5C to 2C higher within the next 10 to 25 years, Howarth said. Reductions in carbon have a delayed effect on temperatures. But reductions in methane have a more immediate impact. The world essentially cannot meet the near-term goals nations agreed to in an international climate agreement without reducing methane, Howarth said. Some experts have warned that gas could be an even bigger contributor to climate change than coal, depending on how much of its methane is leaked into the atmosphere. Progressive states and environmental groups will sue over the decision. If Joe Biden wins the White House in November, he could move to rewrite the rules, although that will be made more difficult by the Trump administration’s arguments that they were not justified in the first place. In either case, reinstating the regulations could take years. The methane rollbacks are part of a broad deregulatory campaign by the Trump administration, which has weakened environment and climate standards. Caitlin Miller, a lawyer with Earthjustice – one of the groups that plans to sue – said the rollback will also prevent broader action on methane emissions from existing oil and gas operations. Under US environment law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must first regulate air pollution from new sources within a category before regulation emissions from existing ones. By 2021, methane emissions from existing oil and gas operations could total 9.8m metric tons, Miller said, citing a report from the Environmental Defense Fund. EPA could cut that amount by 37%, or 3.6m metric tons. “By removing these pollution regulations, the Trump administration is just completely undermining EPA’s duties to protect public health and welfare – particularly for black and brown communities that bear the disproportionate burden of air pollution,” Miller said. “Now is not the time to be rolling back these regulations when these communities in particular are embattled by the two major health crises at the moment, both coronavirus and climate change.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/epa', 'us-news/trump-administration', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-politics', 'us-news/series/climate-countdown', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/emily-holden', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | us-news/series/climate-countdown | GLOBAL_CRISIS | 2020-08-13T15:16:40Z | true | GLOBAL_CRISIS |
commentisfree/2017/sep/12/why-hurricanes-harvey-irma-otherworldly-omens-human-trangression | Why do we see hurricanes like Harvey and Irma as otherworldly omens? | Philip Hoare | The strange and terrible news from our meteorological world seems to collide ominously in our unsettling times. Last week a scientific report was published, indicating that the remarkable and tragic stranding of 29 sperm whales on North Sea coasts last January may have been caused by solar storms that confused the animals’ geomagnetic navigation – and drove them on to shallow beaches to die. Meanwhile, the second apocalyptic weather event in as many weeks struck the Caribbean and the southern US. Even in our supposedly rational world, it is hard not to see these natural disasters as omens. Great whales dying because of the same solar activity that has sparked the beautiful but eerie curtains of northern lights in our skies. From creation myths to The Tempest, storms and sacrifices and signs go hand in hand with the way we try to understand our chaotic world. They wreak havoc – with lives, with political careers (witness George W Bush’s inept response to Hurricane Katrina). The modern expression “weather bomb” takes on an awful meaning. In his recent book Sea of Storms, the US academic Stuart B Schwartz observes that the uber-storms of the 21st century have a new power over us. “In a way, the hurricanes and how societies deal with them have become symbolic of competing world views.” East and west, north and south: the new world order encompassed by compass points. We account for disaster not in our own culpability as drivers of climate change and instigators of the Anthropocene, but in dreams and myths and faith. It is the sense of the unseen and the unpredictable that disturbs us. In the storms of 2014 that raked the soft southern coast of England – vulnerable shores lacking the rocky bulwarks of Cornwall, Wales or Scotland – we seemed to have been taken by surprise. Used to experiencing the world through the manipulable screens in our hands, those swirling patterns graphically represented in the nightly weather forecast had become vividly, dangerously alive. At least the sea is visible in its rage; the wind is an unseen monster. You do not hear the wind; you hear what it leaves in its wake. Its sound is defined by the shape of everything else – trees, buildings, waves; by what gets in its way. Perhaps that’s why it preys on our imagination so disturbingly. It is the sound of the world’s motion, as if the invisible spinning of the globe had suddenly become tangible; a world blown out of kilter. For what sins are we being punished? What have we done wrong? In Caribbean hurricanes during the 17th century, Spanish priests would toss crucifixes into the waves or hold the Host up into the wind, for fear that the transgressions of their flocks were responsible for God’s displeasure. The contemporary equivalent is the virally popular social media call from Ryon Edwards for his fellow Floridians to shoot at Irma - “LET’S SHOW IRMA THAT WE SHOOT FIRST” - despite warnings that their bullets would fall to earth, with fatal results. Sometimes it seems we have not moved far from such superstitious gestures at the elemental. In 1520 the German artist Albrecht Dürer travelled to the half-land, half-sea coast of Zeeland in the Netherlands, in search of a stranded whale. It had disappeared by the time he reached the location, but instead he caught a fever that would eventually take his life. That whale, whose demise we might now scientifically ascribe to astronomical forces, became aligned in Dürer’s mind with the omens he saw in the skies: comets and other phenomena that echoed or even predicted European fortunes, good or bad. The genderless angel in his celebrated engraving Melencolia I, looks up at just such a comet. Dürer sought to rationalise, even as he aestheticised, the natural world. Yet we still anthropomorphise the elements. We name “weather events” – storm Doris, hurricane Irma – as if to bring them into our dominion. Donald Trump creates a supposedly reassuring narrative by expressing his awe – “Hurricane looks like largest ever recorded in the Atlantic!” – as if a 140 character tweet will magically extend his power over the storm, like the Wizard of Oz, even as he denies our responsibility for it. His gesture is no more effective, perhaps even less so, than those Caribbean priests holding up their Hosts against the wind, or the call to shoot at Irma. Hurricane Katrina was an augury of the end for George W Bush. Who knows what these new storms will hold in store for our world leaders? • Philip Hoare is an author, whose books include Leviathan or, The Whale; The Sea Inside; and RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/hurricane-irma', 'tone/comment', 'us-news/hurricane-harvey', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-weather', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/philip-hoare', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | us-news/hurricane-harvey | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-12T07:00:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/apr/28/australias-first-rescued-food-supermarket-opens-in-sydney | Australia's first rescued-food supermarket opens in Sydney | Australia’s first rescued-food supermarket has opened in Sydney, providing donated or surplus produce to customers on a pay-what-they-can basis, in an effort to reduce the estimated $8bn to $10bn of food discarded each year. The OzHarvest Market provides food, from blemished apples to frozen sausage rolls, as well as other items such as sanitary products and toothpaste, which would otherwise be thrown out, sourced from the excess of major supermarket chains, caterers and cafes. In a small store in the suburb of Kensington, volunteers stack bulk displays of microwave spaghetti bolognese, Weet-Bix, noodles and rice. Fresh eggplant, mushrooms and a lone pineapple sit next to a rack of canned vegetables, while staff chat about how the big mover today seems to be green curry paste. Julie, a mother of two also babysitting her nephew, the store’s first ever customer, was returning for her second visit. “At the moment I’m experiencing some real financial hardship,” she said. “This is a place where I can come and pay a bit of money and still be able to get my shopping done. To go into a supermarket, the money goes very quickly.” “There are some things I can’t get here, they don’t have cheese or Halal meat, but it takes stress off the cost of the bill at the supermarket. While I’m in this financial hardship, I’d like to come here twice a week.” The market also stocks hygiene products, baby formula, toothpaste, shampoo and a mobile charging card that provides access to Ask Izzy, a directory of homelessness support services. Sarah, a customer who came with her infant daughter Millie, said she was pleasantly surprised by the baby supplies on offer. “When I saw that they had these here, it was a really big relief. The thing is, I was looking to buy these at the supermarket and they’re reasonably priced but still a bit over my budget. It takes the pressure off a little bit.” Jun, an international student at the nearby University of New Wales said she bought $20 worth of food, including coffee, curry paste and snacks, for $5. “It’s a good way to save money. I’m very close to my final exam and I stopped my part-time job, meaning my income has been reduced”. Alicia Kirwan, OzHarvest’s NSW manager, said the store has between five and 10 volunteers a shift and serves 150 people a day but expects more. Small signs around the store give food preservation tips (“Onions going bad? Simply dice and freeze.”) Michelle is a retiree who volunteers at the market once a week. “OzHarvest really drew me in with their food reclamation,” she said. “I just don’t like it when you walk into a regular supermarket and 30% of food is going to be thrown away. It’s terrible. I love the initiative of reclaiming food and providing people with food if they need it. “I like the big solid meals that provide nourishment for a whole family. One lady came in and I said ‘What do you like to cook?’, and she grabbed some noodles and said ‘I’d like to make a really huge pad thai’. I’d like to imagine her going home and making a huge pad thai”. Kirwan said the market receives 20 to 30 loaves of bread a day from the Bread and Butter Project, which provides baking apprenticeships and employment for asylum seekers. “Our bread is beautiful, we get their thirteenth loaf from their bakers dozen,” she said. She said the market would operate in its Kensington location for as long it has the site, which sits beneath a newly-established youth shelter, but was looking to find other sites to replicate the set-up. | ['environment/food-waste', 'business/supermarkets', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'business/retail', 'business/fooddrinks', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/naaman-zhou', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-04-28T06:32:45Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
travel/2012/oct/31/how-will-sandy-affect-usa-holiday | Sandy: latest US travel advice | New York "It's a tale of two cities," according to Paul Harris, the Guardian's US correspondent. "Everything above Lower Manhattan where there is power feels completely normal. It's busy, everything is open, including all the shops on Fifth Avenue. However, downtown is very different. Where there is no power there are few things open and indeed a lot residents – such as myself – have moved out to stay with friends. "The subways are not running but cabs and buses are. New York is great for walking and the bridges between Manhattan and Brooklyn are open, as is the George Washington Bridge between Manhattan and New Jersey. "Hotels will be very busy though. Some New Yorkers from downtown are staying in them and some have guests displaced from downtown hotels with no power. Capital region In Washington DC, roads are open and public transport has resumed; hotels are open and other local businesses and attractions were due to reopen today. All three airports – Dulles International, Reagan National, and BWI Marshall (in Baltimore) – were not damaged or flooded and are all open, although there are still flight delays (see below). Amtrak is still assessing its trains for the northeast corridor. Boston Boston wasn't hit nearly as hard as New York or New Jersey but there are hundreds of trees down, and a round-the-clock clean-up operation in place. No significant flooding was reported. Atlantic City James Clark, city desk editor at the Press of Atlantic City, said: "In the mainland communities debris is still being cleared after major wind and flood damage, and power lines are down. The city's 12 casinos remain closed, with no reopening date yet." Though Atlantic city airport, located in Egg harbor township is open, Clark said, "it could take weeks to get back to normal". But it was the Barrier Islands, a major tourism destination in the summer months, which bore the brunt of the damage. Access to the islands has only just reopened today, meaning home-and business-owners are only now beginning to assess the damage to their properties, including B&Bs and guest houses. Seaside Heights and Long Beach Island – two major tourism destinations about 40 miles north of Atlantic City – also suffered major damage and tourism businesses will be affected. Claims and compensation Galling as it was for travellers who had to abandon their holidays due to flight cancellations this week, at least they know they will get their money back. Once flights resume, travellers who simply don't want to travel after seeing endless images of devastation, will have no chance of a refund or alternative trip. "Your insurance policy won't cover you for disinclination to travel. If flights are going and you decide not to go, you won't be covered. That will pretty much be standard across all insurance policies," says Martin Rothwell, managing partner of World First Travel insurance (world-first.co.uk). If you go and you are delayed as a result of adverse weather conditions, you can claim compensation for the first 12 hours; or if you're delayed for more than 24 hours you can claim for abandonment. He said while insurers will not pay out, travellers who have booked accommodation separately may be able to cancel their booking at short notice, depending on the terms of the individual accommodation provider. "Some hotels will let you cancel up to the day of travel with no penalty," said Rothwell. Flights update Virgin All flights (New York, Boston and Washington flights) – bar early morning flights VS18 from Newark and VS26 from JFK – are running as scheduled. The airline put on an extra flight from Heathrow to JFK to bring stranded customers back. British Airways BA restarted flights to Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia this morning. It cancelled six flights today but plans to operate the remaining three to New York JFK and one to Newark later today. A spokesman said: "Where we can, we are looking at putting on larger aircraft to help customers come back as quickly as possible." It has been offering customers the option to re-book at a later date. American Airlines All five flights from Heathrow and one from Manchester to JFK are cancelled on 31 October. A spokeswoman said: "We are hoping to resume services to JFK as normal tomorrow [1 November]." United Airlines The airline has partly resumed its service. Today, six flights to Newark and Washington are cancelled (four from Heathrow, one for Manchester and on from Edinburgh) but it has resumed two flights from Heathrow to Newark and two to Washington, as well as Belfast-Newark and Manchester-Washington. Delta Airlines All flights are departing as normal: three flights from Heathrow to JFK. Its flights to Detroit, Boston, Atlanta and Minneapolis operated as normal throughout. More information Meanwhile, travel website Gadling reports that some of its readers who have struggled to get through to airline customer services by phone have had better luck using Twitter | ['travel/usa', 'travel/northandcentralamerica', 'travel/travel', 'us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/isabelchoat'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-10-31T17:58:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
society/2018/feb/28/two-wheels-bad-four-wheels-good | Two wheels bad. Four wheels good | Brief letters | Stuart Jeffries is perfectly entitled to rail against bikes on the pavement (Pavements are for everybody. Except pedestrians, 27 February), but not mobility scooters. Many, such as my wife’s, are not allowed on the road. What’s next on his hit list? Prams? Wheelchairs? Dr Howard Mason Manchester • What’s this recent trend of highlighting text in G2 about? There are four examples in today’s edition (27 February) and, try as I might, there’s seems to be no pattern or significance in their usage. A word of explanation wouldn’t go amiss as close textual analysis has failed to spot the underlying reason. Gus Pennington Stokesley, North Yorkshire • Simon Ingram (Country diary, 26 February) opines that we have acquired dale from the “earthy English” dell. Those of us with Viking heritage prefer to think that dale (at least in the north eg Langdale – “long valley”) is one of the many borrowings from Norse (cf dal in modern Danish). Professor Michael Fay Kingston, Surrey • While I heartily applaud those who are paying to holiday in Amsterdam and picking up plastic waste from the canals (Fishing for plastic: the Amsterdam canal tour with a difference, theguardian.com, 28 February), if anyone fancies a few days’ dredging nearer to home, I won’t charge them a penny. There might even be a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich provided. Ian Grieve Gordon Bennett, Shropshire Union canal • “Oh hell, another hour of Alan” was how we remembered the sides of the triangle in the sin, cos, tan formulas (Letters, 28 February). Alan was the maths master. Tom Frost London • Toys Were Us (Toys R Us expected to call in administrators, 28 February). Toby Wood Peterborough • Join the debate – email [email protected] • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | ['world/disability', 'lifeandstyle/cycling', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'society/society', 'media/theguardian', 'media/newspapers', 'media/pressandpublishing', 'media/national-newspapers', 'media/media', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'business/retail', 'business/business', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-02-28T17:08:29Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2020/oct/22/rooftop-solar-and-covid-shutdown-lead-to-record-lows-in-australian-electricity-use | Rooftop solar and Covid shutdown lead to record lows in Australian electricity use | Australians’ embrace of rooftop solar panels and the Covid-19 shutdown in Victoria have combined to reduce the amount of power being drawn from the national grid, with several states setting record lows for daily large-scale electricity consumption. The drop in electricity use contributed to wholesale electricity prices being 45% to 48% lower than at the same time last year in all eastern states and territories except Tasmania. Similarly, wholesale gas prices were nearly 50% less than in the third quarter of 2019, largely due to demand for the fossil fuel falling about 5% due to a decline in both gas-fired power generation and demand for liquified natural gas exports. The drop in gas consumption coincided with the Morrison government arguing that Australia needs more gas to drive the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The Australian Energy Market Operator said wholesale electricity and gas prices were at their lowest for this time of the year since 2014 and 2015 respectively. Aemo’s chief executive, Audrey Zibelman, said the uptake of residential and commercial-scale solar had continued at record pace and was largely responsible for new minimum records for operational demand in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. Several new benchmarks were set for renewable energy generation. Rooftop solar met 71% of SA’s total energy needs on 13 September and 31% of Victoria’s on 6 September. Zibelman said electricity prices had fallen due to reduced demand for large-scale generation, improved reliability of coal plants in New South Wales and Victoria, a reduction in the price of black coal generation and increased competition from new wind and solar coming into the system. Demand for power from the grid fell by 1.4%, or 313 megawatts, compared with a year earlier. About 70% of the fall was due to the increase in rooftop solar and 30% due to a drop in underlying demand linked to Covid, mostly in Victoria. She said gas prices were down due to lower demand across all sectors and the slump in international prices, which fell before the pandemic and dropped further after it hit. While wholesale prices have fallen sharply, the reduction in household bills is likely to have been smaller – wholesale costs usually make up about a third of what consumers are charged. The energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, took credit for the reduction and said it would be welcome relief for households and small businesses. “Falling wholesale electricity prices must be passed on to consumers and the government’s big stick legislation will ensure this happens,” he said. Renewable energy investment has reached record levels over the past three years. In the case of large-scale generation, this has largely been driven by a rush to fill the national 2020 renewable energy target, and helped by a dramatic reduction in the cost of solar and wind energy. While installations of earlier commitments continue, Reserve Bank economists and the clean energy industry have reported a 50% fall in renewable energy investment last year after the target, which required retailers to make clean energy about 23% of what they sold, was not extended or replaced. The industry has also blamed delays in new plants getting grid connections. Meanwhile, the rate of rooftop solar installations has continued to increase, with the Clean Energy Regulator reporting the number of homes with a system is approaching 2.5m. Its rise has so far offset the fall in large-scale investments. An Aemo roadmap of what an optimal national electricity market would look like to 2040 if it were designed with a focus on security, reliability and the lowest cost for consumers found that renewable energy may at times provide nearly 90% of electricity by 2035, but would need to be supported by a range of “dispatchable” power sources that can be turned on and off when needed. The amount of gas-fired power would be likely to fall as pumped hydro and batteries come online, and there would be no place for new coal-fired generation. According to the website Open NEM, about 32% of electricity over the past month has come from wind, solar and hydro energy. Coal provided 62% of generation and gas nearly 6%. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2020-10-21T22:50:25Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2020/dec/31/partying-dolphins-and-rare-sea-slug-among-2020-highlights-in-uk-seas | Partying dolphins and rare sea slug among 2020 highlights in UK seas | Sir David Attenborough has called for a halt to activities that damage the UK’s seas, as the Wildlife Trusts revealed the highs and lows of marine life around the British Isles during 2020. Highlights included thousands of Atlantic bluefin tuna in a rare run up the Channel from Cornwall to Kent, at some points accompanied by porpoises, minke whale and dolphins in a feeding frenzy, the trusts’ living seas marine review reported. Abby Crosby, of Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said: “No one who saw this intense display of the power, aggression and athletic prowess of bluefin tuna says they will ever forget it. People were utterly spellbound in anticipation of the next startling leap of these huge, metallic-silver creatures from beneath the ocean waves, and many simply couldn’t believe this was happening just off the English coastline.” An extremely rare sighting of a spectacular sea slug, Placida cremoniana, which measures just millimetres in length and resembles an orange glowing lump of coal covered in spikes, was spotted by a sharp-eyed volunteer in Cornish waters. It is more usually found in the Pacific or Mediterranean. In Northern Ireland, two orcas were seen on Strangford Lough, the first sightings since 1962. A rise in tern numbers was recorded at Cemlyn in north Wales, with Arctic tern pairs up 2,900% and sandwich tern pairs up 65%. Guillemot numbers were at their highest since 2004 on Handa island off Sutherland, Scotland. More than 30 bottlenose dolphins were seen “partying” off Saltburn pier on the Teesside coast for weeks during the summer. “This partying pod of dolphins were highly visible, playing, breaching vertically, racing along at top speed, with fin after fin arcing through the waves,” said Jacky Watson, of Tees Valley Wildlife Trust. There was rare evidence captured of a baby Risso’s dolphin born in Welsh waters off Anglesey. There was bad news, however, with disposable personal protective equipment, plastic, nurdles (plastic pellets roughly the size of lentils), litter and discarded fishing gear putting marine wildlife in greater peril. Attenborough, the president emeritus of the Wildlife Trusts, said the UK seas were marine protected areas, “but sadly this does not prevent damaging activities still occurring in these special places. Bottom-towed dredging and trawling destroys fragile sea fans and soft corals on the seabed, while dredging to install cables to offshore windfarms changes the seabed and its wildlife forever.” He said: “For too long we have taken from the sea with little regard for the consequences. We are all aware of the problems presented by plastic litter, but some pollutants and impacts are hidden from view beneath the surface of the waves. Our government needs to tackle these problems but we can all do our bit too.” Many people visited the UK coast after lockdown restrictions were lifted. “People delighted in seeing marine life and it lifted the hearts of millions in this difficult year,” said Joan Edwards, the Wildlife Trusts’ director of living seas. “However, we have taken these wonders for granted for too long and it’s vital we recognise that the future of life on earth is inseparable from the health of the sea.” | ['environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'tv-and-radio/david-attenborough', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/carolinedavies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-12-31T00:01:25Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2022/mar/25/pollutionwatch-the-unknown-threat-from-ultrafine-particles-ufps-who | Pollutionwatch: the unknown threat from ultrafine particles | The World Health Organization has called on governments to undertake more long-term measurements of ultrafine particles in the air. The average cubic centimetre of UK city air contains about 12,000 ultrafine particles (UFPs), and close to busy roads the average is about 30,000. Their small size – they are impossible to see – means they are missed by conventional monitoring techniques that measure the mass of particles, and therefore they are not covered by air pollution laws. The science on UFPs’ health impacts has been slow to evolve. Concern about the effects of inhaling large numbers of very small particles was raised in the mid-1990s but there has been a lack of funding for research. Last year the WHO reviewed evidence on health impacts of air pollution, including more than 75 studies on UFPs, but technical differences between the studies meant it could not set a standard. Prof Anna Hansell, of the University of Leicester, said: “We are concerned about UFPs as they are so small that they can evade a lot of the body’s particle capture mechanisms and get into the bloodstream. From there they can reach every part of the body. Breathing lots of UFPs over a short time (hours or less) can have impacts on the body. These include inflammation, heart functioning and increases in hospital admissions. However, studies on long-term health problems are inconclusive.” Prof Gerard Hoek of Utrecht University said: “New studies have provided increasing evidence of respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological effects and foetal development effects. The Dutch Health Council has recommended that the government take additional action to control emissions of UFP from sources including road traffic, aircraft, shipping and wood burning.” Some current pollution control technologies, such as those in vehicle exhausts and waste incinerators, are effective against UFPs. However, reducing UFP emissions would mean controlling some sources that are not directly regulated at the moment. These include aircraft and shipping, which stand out as large sources of burning fuel, as well as commercial cooking and home wood burning. The UK has a long-running national UFP monitoring network, and the UK Clean Air Programme is now adding to this. Some cities including Paris have also started to collect data. This needs to be supported by funding for health studies too. | ['environment/series/pollutionwatch', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/gary-fuller', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2022-03-25T06:00:20Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sport/2022/jun/14/rugby-union-dazzling-wizard-phil-bennett-converted-plenty-to-the-oval-ball-wales-the-breakdown | The Breakdown | Rugby’s dazzling wizard Phil Bennett converted plenty to the oval ball | Welcome to The Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly (and free) rugby union newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version every Tuesday, just pop your email in below: It can be hard to articulate why people love rugby union. It is not for everyone which, perversely, is one of its most compelling features. At its best, though, it offers more in the way of light and shade than any other team sport out there. And for those who grew up in the 1970s, the game’s most evocative, dazzling wizard will always be Phil Bennett. He was the pied piper who, singlehandedly, converted some of us to the oval ball. His former teammate Gerald Davies summed it up perfectly on the radio after the sad news of Bennett’s death at the age of 73. “He brought to life all the dreams we have of rugby football.” The pocket-sized illusionist, whose ability to spark the imagination enriched not just his own nation but the whole sporting world, specialised in the art of the possible. Which is why all those clips of Bennett playing rugby are such a precious part of the game’s heritage and soul. You did not have to be Welsh to cherish him because his sidestep transcended such parochial considerations. Then there was his impish stature. If ever there was a classic example of David – or Dai, in this case – giving armies of Goliaths the runaround it was the little genius wearing No 10. Pelé wore the same number, of course, but even the great Brazilian’s highlights are not as iconic as “that try” by the Barbarians against New Zealand in 1973. It just so happened to be the first televised game of rugby I’d ever watched. None of us were expecting much as the fly-half, in his black and white hooped jersey and distinctive scarlet socks, scampered back towards his own line to collect a capricious bouncing ball. His three subsequent sidesteps – “Brilliant, oh that’s brilliant …” – remain the finest example of turning defence into attack there has ever been. Modest to a fault, the great man played it down in later years: “If I’d been playing for Wales I’d have probably put that ball into touch somewhere by the halfway line – hopefully.” But instead he remembered how the All Black flanker Alistair Scown had come flying up at him during Llanelli’s famous 9-3 win over New Zealand and decided to dodge him again. By the time he had instinctively wrongfooted another couple of black jerseys, the “try of the century” scored by Gareth Edwards was on. There were so many special snapshots. Not least that other “worldie” try against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1977 which he finished off himself, chin resting on the ball as he lay beneath the posts for a contemplative moment as if trying to process what had just happened. The council house kid from Felinfoel, whose father was employed in the local steelworks while his mother worked in a car-pressing plant, always remained the most self-effacing and humble of men. In his early years he was such a fragile infant the local doctor told his father that “this one will never have the physique to play rugby”. But smashing people to a pulp was never remotely his game. One day, when Neath played Llanelli, he was due to toss the coin before the match with the imposing opposition captain, Brian Thomas. “What’s this rag doll?” Thomas said to the referee. “Send out a man to toss up.” It did not prevent him going on to captain the British & Irish Lions to New Zealand in 1977. Yet outweighing all his subsequent achievements was the manner in which he played. Has anyone, for example, ever kicked a tight spiral into touch quite like Bennett? There was something balletic about the way he would momentarily hop on his standing leg after making the sweetest of contacts with his outstretched right foot. Back home in the garden we would all try to copy his tiptoeing, soft-shoe shuffle goal-kicking style. Of course he played in a great Wales side. Of course he would be required to do a bit more tackling these days. But the passing of “Benny” should also serve as a reminder that rugby, at its most intoxicating, is a game of evasion as much as collision. While every twinkling stand-off needs a good, hard pack of bullish forwards to supply all-important quick ball, every great side needs a skilled matador to apply the killer touches. Not that Bennett, when occasion demanded it, was entirely averse to some straight talking. If his infamous speech as Wales captain to his team before they faced England in 1977 sounds a bit unlike him, it reflected the loyal, passionate Welshman within: “Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They’ve taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our homes and live in them for a fortnight every year. What have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We’ve been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English – and that’s who you are playing this afternoon.” Little wonder Wales won 14-9 on their way to the triple crown for a second successive year. And now he is sidestepping into rugby heaven, having already shown us a glimpse of what those Elysian fields look like. It is possible to be overly romantic about sport, to gloss over unglamorous realities and to concentrate excessively on flashy individualism. Bennett’s great gift to the world was to show that beauty, skill and pragmatism could come wrapped up in the same unassuming package. That it was possible to buck any trend, that size really doesn’t matter. We are all in his debt and some of us will for ever remain so. | ['sport/series/breakdown', 'sport/sport', 'sport/wales-rugby-union-team', 'sport/scarlets', 'sport/rugby-union', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/robertkitson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/wales-rugby-union-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-06-14T07:30:40Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2019/mar/10/environment-climate-change-movement-indigenous-minorities-sidelined | 'A lot at stake': indigenous and minorities sidelined on climate change fight | Bernadette Demientieff, a representative for the indigenous Gwich’in nation, finds Washington DC anxiety-inducing, especially compared to the wide open spaces and tall mountains of Alaska. She makes frequent trips to the US capital to fight oil drilling in what she considers sacred caribou calving grounds in the Arctic. But Demientieff is an outsider in the nation’s capital, where her concerns have fallen on deaf ears with the Trump administration. She’s also a bit of an outsider to the national environmental movement, too. “I’m not an activist. I’m not an environmentalist. I don’t like to be branded because I care about our land and our animals,” she said. She sees herself as a human rights advocate. And she doesn’t look like or have the same life experiences as many activists. “I feel that all of our voices are important, but it’s just, it’s personal for us. This is not a job for us. There’s just a lot at stake and it’s hard to explain to somebody that lives in New York or somebody that lives in DC.” Indigenous people and communities of color have historically seen the worst environmental degradation and biggest health risks from pollution, yet campaigns to protect the environment and fight climate change have often sidelined them. The mainstream movement has a well-documented diversity problem that is not quickly improving. As some Democrats propose a radical Green New Deal centered around justice and equity, backstage they’re facing a reckoning over the environmental movement’s homogeneity. According to the 2014 Green 2.0 report, people of color were 36% of the US population, but they made up no more than about 12% of environment organizations studied. A 2019 update to the report found that diversity actually got worse over the past few years. Some groups are taking steps to improve, but progress has not been even. One philanthropy fund – the Solutions Project – announced last week that it will direct almost all of its grants to organizations run by leaders of color and women, such as Scope, or Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, in South Los Angeles. The group aims to put low-income communities of color, where highways and oil wells converge, at the forefront of green jobs growth. “These women are working on the front lines of this issue because they are the ones who are going to be most greatly affected by it,” actor and Solutions Project board member Don Cheadle said. “They are actually making solutions for themselves when they are empowered to do so.” Research repeatedly shows communities of color are more likely to be subjected to pollution. The parts of the country with dangerous, cancer-related air pollution have lower percentages of white residents, according to an analysis by the Intercept. At the same time, most environment and climate change funding goes to groups with white leaders. Research has shown 95% of the $60bn in annual foundation funding for all causes goes to organizations led by white people and 70 to 80% goes to those led by men, the Solutions Project notes. Mustafa Santiago Ali, who coordinated environmental justice efforts under the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said “there’s no way to sugarcoat” the scope of the problem. “I don’t know how you go backwards, especially in the time that we’re living in when you definitely need folks coming together,” Ali said. Ali was recently named vice-president for environmental justice at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), a decades-old conservation group. “If an organization like NWF can make the investment at the senior level, there’s no reason why others can’t be doing the same thing,” he said. Julian Brave NoiseCat, a policy analyst for 350.org and a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen who writes for the Guardian, said the anti-fossil fuels group is “undergoing a transformation to become a multiracial organization”. NoiseCat believes the environmental movement historically has been “premised upon empire and colonization and racial exclusion”. Founding fathers of environmentalism, like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, he said, “had essentially racist views”, with the creation of national parks depending on the removal of indigenous people. “More recently the sort of core constituencies of the environmental movement have primarily been white, liberal, middle-class suburbanites,” he said. The representation problem stretches beyond environmental advocacy and into green energy. A recent survey of 173 solar organizations and businesses in the Washington area found that just three were minority or woman-owned. That disparity stems in part from banks’ legacy of withholding credit from people of color, said Jigar Shah, co-founder of Generate Capital and the former CEO of SunEdison. “There wasn’t a lot of attention paid to whether or not we were including women or whether or not we were marketing to the right groups,” he said. Things are beginning to change. Now that the solar sector’s more stable, “you’re seeing a tremendous amount of focus on how we serve the entire market, not just the folks who raise their hand initially. You’re seeing a lot of self-reflection,” Shah said. | ['world/indigenous-peoples', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/emily-holden', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-03-10T07:00:38Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2019/oct/21/waitrose-to-stop-selling-plastic-toys-in-christmas-crackers-from-2020 | Waitrose to stop selling plastic toys in Christmas crackers from 2020 | John Lewis and Waitrose are to stop selling Christmas crackers containing plastic toys and puzzles as part of a drive to reduce single-use plastics – but not until 2020. The retailers will announce on Monday that they would switch next year to crackers filled with toys and other items made from recyclable materials such as metal and paper, with the cardboard wrappers embossed rather than decorated with plastic glitter. With 65 days to go until Christmas, John Lewis has also joined the wider crackdown on glitter by reducing the the amount used to decorate its own-brand range of Christmas wrapping paper, gift bags and tags, advent calendars and crackers by two-thirds. Standard glitter is made from etched aluminium bonded to polyethylene terephthalate – a form of damaging microplastic that can enter the oceans and pose a danger to people and animals. Environmental campaigners have described the product – popular at Christmas to add sparkle to stationery and decorations – as an environmental scourge and called for it to be banned. Leading retailers have argued it is difficult to change product lines quickly as they are typically ordered more than a year in advance. Dan Cooper, the head Christmas buyer at John Lewis, said: “Reducing the amount of single-use plastic in products and packaging is really important to us and our customers. One of the challenges I face as a buyer is that we plan 18 months ahead, so it takes time for changes to become a reality. I’m always searching for new, more sustainable products which will make Christmas sparkle but won’t end up spoiling our environment.” This year, the retailer is selling three designs of “fill your own” crackers, which are becoming its most popular crackers, accounting for one in every three packets sold. Separately, it has removed the plastic wrapping from most individual cards it sells, which it estimates will save 8 tonnes of plastic a year. In December last year, Waitrose was the first leading UK retailer to pledge to ban glitter from all own-brand products. The supermarket chain said its own-label cards, wraps, crackers, tags, flowers and plants would either be glitter-free or use an environmentally friendly alternative by 2020. Tesco has switched to a plastic-free version for its Christmas trees, plants and flowers this year, also removing it from this year’s own-brand wrapping paper, tags and single Christmas cards. The discount chain Aldi has scrapped plastic glitter from this year’s Halloween range as well as from festive cards and wrapping paper. In August, Marks & Spencer announced it was banning glitter from this year’s Christmas cards, wrapping paper, calendars and crackers. Supermarkets are reflecting wider moves in society, with the BBC TV show Strictly Come Dancing banning the use of traditional glitter last year and growing numbers of nursery schools and music festivals also ending their use of the product. | ['environment/plastic', 'lifeandstyle/christmas', 'environment/pollution', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'business/waitrose', 'business/johnlewis', 'business/supermarkets', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'money/money', 'business/retail', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-10-21T05:00:19Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2015/aug/20/epa-abandoned-mines-toxic-spill | EPA says it isn't monitoring an estimated 161,000 abandoned mines | The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said it has no system for monitoring hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that pock the American landscape, or knowing which one could be the source of the next big toxic spill. “EPA does not maintain records of the number of mines or tailings dams in the US,” a spokesman for the federal agency told the Guardian. In the western US, the EPA estimates there may be 161,000 abandoned “hard rock” mines, where metals such as gold, silver and copper were once dug. But the nationwide threat left by these bygone miners remains largely unknown and unwatched. Over decades, old mines fill up with rainwater. The concern for the humans and habitats around them is that this water, filled with heavy metals leached from mineshaft walls, will one day find its way into river systems. This can happen slowly or through sudden collapse. Two weeks ago, three million gallons of poisonous, orange water gushed from the long dormant Gold King Mine and fouled Colorado’s Animas and San Juan rivers. “The spills are frustratingly difficult or impossible to predict,” said Ron Cohen, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado School of Mines. “I don’t want to say they happen every day, but they happen several times a year around the south-west US, some big and dramatic, some small and not press-worthy.” The Damocles sword left hanging above communities is not restricted to the US. Worldwide spill data is limited, but reports collected by one website indicate at least several major incidents happen every year. Cohen said: “Many of the spills are from a different feature than the Gold King Spill. Most are from failures of the dams that were poorly built for storing tailings.” He described seeing whole settlements in South Africa destroyed by such collapses. In Mexico last year, two major incidents shut off water to tens of thousands of people. The Mount Polley mine tailings dam collapse, one of Canada’s worst environmental disasters, occurred just weeks earlier. A recent study by environmental campaign group Earthworks found the rate of serious tailings dam disasters is increasing globally. According to the UN Environment Programme, abandoned mines and dams are a “major unresolved environmental and social problem for the industry”. In the US, tailings dams are monitored by state or federal agencies. But old mines are forgotten, unless someone sounds the alarm. “EPA does investigate or respond to incidents that are brought to our attention,” said the agency spokesman. John Hayden, a public affairs executive at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SMME), said quantifying the potential impact was impossible. “Funding cleanup efforts is also complicated. Unless a state agrees to a designation as a federal superfund site, the state is often left with funding cleanup with limited budgets,” he said. Unlike extractors of gas, oil and coal, hard rock mining companies do not pay a federal royalty. In 2012, a government report found the hard rock mining industry dug up $6.4bn worth of minerals in 2011. If it had paid comparable royalties to those levied on fossil fuel companies (about 12%), the government would have received $800m. Reformers argue this money could be used to clean up abandoned mine sites, but moves to change laws have met resistance from congressional Republicans and the industry. One such amendment was introduced in February by Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva. Grijalva said the Gold King Mine collapse focused attention on the major threat to lives, health and the environment posed by “the toxic legacy of mining in the west”. “While this particular incident was a mistake by EPA, the underlying problem is the huge number of abandoned hard rock mines that are effectively ticking time bombs threatening our rivers and our lands. Congress must provide robust funding to clean up these mines,” he said. Grijalva’s bill, which would skim a royalty of 8% from the income of mining companies who operate on federal land, remains in committee. Under laws passed in the late 1970s, new mines have to pay a bond to cover the eventual cleanup of the operation once it is done. A spokesman for the National Mining Association (NMA) said Grijalva’s proposed royalty “would likely be the highest of any competing mining region in the world and would kill new investment, high-wage jobs and tax revenue to local communities”. Instead, the industry prefers a “good Samaritan” approach in which miners would voluntarily clean up threatening sites as part of their social programme. Existing liability laws currently prevent even this approach. Both industry and environmentalists have been calling for these laws to be amended for years. But Bonnie Gestring, from Earthworks, said relying on the goodwill of miners and individuals “doesn’t solve the fundamental problem, which is the need for a dedicated funding source to deal with thousands and thousands of mines”. | ['environment/mining', 'us-news/us-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/epa', 'business/mining', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/karl-mathiesen'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2015-08-20T16:19:53Z | true | ENERGY |
books/2016/apr/27/chernobyl-prayer-sveltana-alexievich-review-witnesses-speak | Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich review – witnesses speak | I think it can be safely said that for the majority of Russians, over the greater part of recorded history, to have been born in that country has not been to draw one of the winning tickets in the lottery of life. A true history of its people need be no more than the howls of despair of millions of voices, punctuated by moments of incredible tenderness, courage and grim humour. Which is more or less the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich’s technique: her books are collections of hundreds of interviews with people who have been rolled over by the various incarnations of the Russian state. In Chernobyl Prayer each interview is usually a few pages long, and reads as a monologue – which is how they are described in the contents pages. “Monologue on how easy it is to return to dust”; “Monologue on how some completely unknown thing can worm its way into you”, and so on. On 26 April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, exploded and released 50m curies of radiation into the atmosphere, 70% of it falling on Belarus, but with plenty to spare for other countries not even vaguely adjacent. (Our dose started arriving on 1 May.) The scale of the devastation and its insidious nature are perhaps beyond the power of the individual mind to imagine, which is one good reason why the polyphonic form Alexievich has made her own (and for which she won the Nobel prize for literature last year) is so appropriate. Only the voice of the witness can do the events justice, and, in Chernobyl Prayer, after some useful facts about the explosion and its aftermath (“travelling through the villages, one is struck by the overspill of the cemeteries”), we launch into the testimony of the widow of one of the firefighters called in to deal with the explosion. The description of his death from radiation poisoning – two weeks of increasing agony – was so harrowing that I wondered if I would be able to proceed. What kept me going was the strength of her love for her husband, and the child she was carrying; the baby seemed to absorb the radiation meant for her as it was born dead. This is what pulls you through the book: the iterations of wisdom and bravery from its speakers. “Man is crafty only in evil, but he’s so simple and honest in his plain words of love,” says one. Another, quoting the Bolshevik slogan “with an iron fist we shall herd the human race into happiness”, calls it “the psychology of the rapist”. Chernobyl Prayer, first published in 1997 and then revised in 2013, is part of a project collectively entitled, with some irony, “Voices from Utopia”, which Alexievich has been working on since 1985. Other volumes deal with different aspects of Russian life: from the war in Afghanistan (Zinky Boys – the title refers to the zinc coffins dead soldiers were sent back to the motherland in) to life during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Second-Hand Time, to be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions next month). Alexievich’s documentary approach makes the experiences vivid, sometimes almost unbearably so – but it’s a remarkably democratic way of constructing a book. The authorial presence is invisible, except when she interviews herself on the significance of the disaster: “We cannot go on believing, like characters in a Chekhov play, that in a hundred years’ time mankind will be thriving,” she says, adding, “What lingers most in my memory of Chernobyl is life afterwards: the possessions without owners, the landscapes without people. The roads going nowhere, the cables leading nowhere ... It sometimes felt to me as if I were recording the future.” At which point, when you consider the extent to which she has been traversing the irradiated landscape, you realise she has put herself on the line in a way very few authors ever do. • To order Chernobyl Prayer for £7.99 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. | ['books/series/nicholas-lezard-choice', 'books/svetlana-alexievich', 'books/history', 'environment/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster', 'books/society', 'books/nobel-prize-2015', 'books/nobel-prize-literature', 'books/books', 'culture/culture', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'tone/reviews', 'books/paperbacks', 'books/series/book-of-the-day', 'type/article', 'profile/nicholaslezard', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/guardianreview', 'theguardian/guardianreview/saturdayreviewsfeatres', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/review'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2016-04-27T06:30:05Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2021/may/18/household-solar-uptake-meant-demand-on-australias-grid-in-summer-peak-fell-to-five-year-low | Household solar uptake meant demand on Australia’s grid in summer peak fell to five-year low | Pressure on the national electricity grid at the peak of last summer’s heat fell to its lowest level in five years due to the rising influence of household solar panels, a new analysis has found. Summer is usually the time of greatest strain on the electricity system due to the widespread use of energy hungry air-conditioners, but the demand on the hottest day dipped this year as more electricity came from decentralised rooftop solar systems, which sit outside the grid. An audit by the energy consultant Hugh Saddler, an honorary associate professor at ANU’s Crawford school of public policy, found that household solar contributed more to meeting consumer needs than some ageing coal plants, including the Liddell generator in New South Wales and Yallourn generator in Victoria. Saddler said it underlined the role solar power was playing in making coal-fired electricity unprofitable and increased the likelihood of early coal closures, a point also made by the head of the government’s Energy Security Board, Kerry Schott. “Anyone who has got any sense is talking about it,” Saddler said. “It’s just so obvious.” Saddler’s analysis, in his regular national energy emissions audit for the Australia Institute, aligns with a separate report published by the government’s Australian Energy Regulator and released on Monday. The regulator found that black coal-fired power fell to its lowest level on record for the first three months of the year, and gas-fired electricity slumped to its lowest level in 16 years. The regulator’s chair, Clare Savage, said it was the first time electricity from large-scale solar farms was greater than from gas. “The milder temperatures during the past summer period and an additional 2,500MW of rooftop solar capacity drove lower demand and lower wholesale prices, which is good news for consumers because it should lead to lower bills,” Savage said. Saddler found demand for electricity this financial year peaked on Sunday 24 January – the hottest day in many parts of eastern Australia. He said the grid was less stretched at the summer peak than in any year since 2014-15. This showed solar was reducing the need for additional back-up from expensive plants that are turned on only at peak times, particularly gas-fired stations, he said. At the peak, solar power provided more than five times the maximum capacity of the newly announced Tallawarra B gas-fired plant. “The lower level of the 2020-21 peak, relative to each of the previous five summers, is undoubtedly mainly caused by growing supply from rooftop solar,” Saddler said. The rapid growth in solar – about 20% of households now have it, up from 0.2% in 2007 – is the clearest example of an electricity grid that is now transforming more rapidly than what was not long ago considered a “step change” scenario by the Australian Electricity Market Operator. Over the past year, renewable energy has provided 28% of electricity. Four years ago some analysts believed it was unlikely that the national renewable energy target – roughly equivalent to 23% – would be met by 2020. The target was met in 2019 and has not been replaced. Some states have introduced their own targets and schemes, and the tumbling cost of solar has made it increasingly attractive for households to install. Savage said low demand for electricity from the grid due to increased rooftop solar generation could affect the stability of the network. She pointed to the situation in South Australia, when Aemo for the first time used new powers to help stabilise the network by turning off some rooftop solar. A draft deliberation by the Australian Energy Market Commission in March recommended that households with rooftop panels be charged for exporting electricity into the power grid at sunny times when it is not needed. The commission said it was needed to prevent “traffic jams” of electricity that could destabilise the network, and could allow more household solar systems and batteries to be connected to the grid and make the system fairer for all electricity users. Richie Merzian, the Australia Institute’s climate and energy program director, said the rise of solar was being driven by Australians wanting to put panels on their roof. He said it “defied any ideological interests”. He said he welcomed the conversation about how to deal with congestion in the grid but questioned why the proposed solution was to penalise solar households. “The reality is that we could be doing so much more,” he said. “We should be subsidising and supporting more of what we want.” Other findings of the Australia Institute audit include: Emissions from fossil fuel combustion fell by 7.3% over the year to February. More than half was due to the coronavirus pandemic. There is no evidence there was a fall in electricity use in Australia due to Covid-19 outside Victoria (where comparable data is not yet available). Petroleum emissions, mostly from transport, are expected to increase this year. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/coal', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2021-05-18T01:34:01Z | true | ENERGY |
science/2018/mar/27/lost-amazon-villages-uncovered-by-archaeologists | Lost Amazon villages uncovered by archaeologists | Once people thought the Amazon was a near-uninhabited rainforest before the Europeans turned up, but researchers say they have found new evidence that it was in fact a hive of human activity and home to millions of people. A new study has revealed details of 81 sites in the previously uncharted territory of the Amazon’s upper Tapajós Basin, with settlements ranging from small villages just 30m wide to a large site covering 19 hectares. Researchers say the new discoveries are helping to unpick what the Amazon would have been like before Europeans arrived. “The idea that the Amazon was a pristine forest, untouched by humans, home to scattered nomadic populations … we already knew that was not true,” said Dr Jonas Gregorio de Souza, first author of the study from the University of Exeter. “The big debate is how populations were distributed in pre-Columbian times in the Amazon.” Writing in the journal Nature Communications, de Souza and colleagues explain how the sites were first discovered by satellite imagery of the area, revealed by deforestation. And how they show evidence of human activity in the form of earthworks. These include ditches enclosing the sites for fortification, sunken roads, and earth platforms on which houses would have stood. The team checked 24 of the locations with boots on the ground. “Everything that we identified on satellite imagery that we tested was an archeological site,” said de Souza, adding that the team also came across fragments of ceramics, polished stone axes and a type of fertile dark earth that is an indication of long-term human habitation. Wood charcoal associated with ceramic fragments from one site was carbon-dated to between 1410 and 1460 AD; dates of many of the sites previously discovered in the southern rim of the Amazon show a peak of activity between 1250 and 1500. The researchers say the buildings themselves would have been made from wood, and the settlements might have been surrounded by wooden walls known as palisades – although no remains of such posts have been found. De Souza said the results are exciting because the newly discovered settlements were found near small streams, creeks and springs, adding weight to the idea that people were not only concentrated at sites on fertile floodplains on the edge of major rivers, as was long thought. “The idea was that in the areas that are located further away from the main rivers, populations maybe were actually smaller and they had a negligible impact on the environment,” said de Souza. “We demonstrated that these regions may have had pretty large populations as well in the past.” That, the authors write, also chimes with accounts from the 18th century which reported large villages and wide roads in such areas. Models based on the research suggest that at the time, the southern rim of the Amazon alone could have been home to between 500,000 and one million people. But, de Souza added, the arrival of Europeans quickly took its toll. “We know that diseases travelled much faster than people and probably this population was already weakened by diseases brought by Europeans even before the Europeans set foot on the area,” he said. The research, which was funded by National Geographic and the European Research Council project Past, also highlights that previously discovered earthworks in other regions along the southern rim of the Amazon were not isolated, but part of a stretch of human settlements running along 1,100 miles from east to west. But evidence including variations in ceramic styles suggest that populations living around the same time in these different regions had different cultures. “In each one of the regions of the southern Amazon, you find a different local expression of these architectural traditions – so there are different kinds of site layouts and artefacts that are found in each of the regions,” said de Souza. Further discoveries are likely: models suggest earthworks might be found over a 400,000 square kilometre area with more than 1,300 sites – more than 60% of which have yet to be found. | ['science/archaeology', 'science/science', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'world/brazil', 'world/americas', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/nicola-davis', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-science'] | environment/amazon-rainforest | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-03-27T15:51:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2024/mar/15/canada-moves-to-protect-coral-reef-that-scientists-say-shouldnt-exist | Canada moves to protect coral reef that scientists say ‘shouldn’t exist’ | Deep in the hostile waters off Canada’s west coast, in a narrow channel surrounded by fjords, lies a coral reef that scientists believe “shouldn’t exist”. The reef is the northernmost ever discovered in the Pacific Ocean and offers researchers a new glimpse into the resilience – and unpredictability – of the deep-sea ecosystems. For generations, members of the Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations, two communities off the Central Coast region of British Columbia, had noticed large groups of rockfish congregating in a fjord system. In 2021, researchers and the First Nations, in collaboration with the Canadian government, deployed a remote-controlled submersible to probe the depths of the Finlayson Channel, about 300 miles north-west of Vancouver. On the last of nearly 20 dives, the team made a startling discovery – one that has only recently been made public. “When we started to see the living corals, everyone was in doubt,” says Cherisse Du Preez, head of the deep-sea ecology program at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “Then, when we saw the expansive fields of coral in front of us, everybody just let loose. There were a lot of pure human emotions.” Despite existing in absolute darkness, the lights of the submersible captured the rich pinks, yellows and purples of the corals and sponges. The following year, the team mapped Lophelia Reef, or q̓áuc̓íwísuxv, as it has been named by the Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations. It is the country’s only known living coral reef. The discovery marks the latest in a string of instances in which Indigenous knowledge has directed researchers to areas of scientific or historic importance. More than a decade ago, Inuk oral historian Louie Kamookak compared Inuit stories with explorers’ logbooks and journals to help locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. In 2014, divers located the wreck of the Erebus in a spot Kamookak suggested they search, and using his directions found the Terror two years later. The lophelia corals that make up the reef are typical of those found deep in the Atlantic and swaths of the Pacific south of California. The largest reefs can span several miles, and take tens of thousands of years to mature. In the case of q̓áuc̓íwísuxv, the reef spans 10 hectares (25 acres) of “thriving” corals. “The Pacific has some of the oldest water in the world, meaning it has low levels of oxygen, which makes it hard for coral to survive,” says Du Preez. The north Pacific also has high levels of acidity, which dissolves the calcium carbonate structures of coral. “So for the longest time, we didn’t think the components necessary to support a reef existed here,” she adds. The team suspects the unique location of the reef, in a fjord with abnormally cold water, helps explain its ability to thrive. The ridge where the coral is found is also in an area of water column mixing, where highly oxygenated water is pushed down to the coral. “At first you think a reef like this must be one of a kind. But it can’t be. That’s not how nature works. So now we’re going to find the other ones that must be out there,” says Du Preez. Last week, Canada’s federal fisheries department announced all commercial and recreational bottom-contact fisheries, including mid-water trawl, could no longer fish in the area surrounding the reef. Despite efforts to protect the area, dead coral found along the periphery of the reef highlights how lophelia coral is uniquely vulnerable to warming waters and increased acidification – hallmarks of a changing climate. “These reefs are cemented to the rock and if you dissolve the base, it will literally slide off and crumble into the depths,” says Du Preez. “But if we can control all the activities that happen in the area, then we give this reef the best chance at surviving climate change – and maybe even colonising new areas.” Beside the lophelia coral, researchers also found a large glass sponge reef. It is unlikely that the two species have met anywhere else in the world. “In the deep ocean, there are no rules,” says Du Preez. “So you can get these two species living together, arguing or cooperating. Few things are more exciting for scientists than seeing things that seemed impossible happening right in front of us.” | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/coral', 'world/canada', 'world/indigenous-peoples', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/oceans', 'science/biology', 'science/science', 'world/americas', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tone/news', 'profile/leyland-cecco', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-03-15T13:09:43Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2020/may/22/michigan-dam-break-500-year-flood-escape-coronavirus | When the '500-year flood' hit Michigan, residents had to weigh risk of escape in a pandemic | Suzy Kastura had less than an hour to pack before the floodwaters gushed into her home in the central Michigan town of Midland. Her neighbor knocked on the door after the Edenville Dam failed on Tuesday, sending a deluge downstream toward the town where they live. They had to evacuate, fast. Kastura, 67, grabbed the essentials – medicine, a toothbrush, blankets, the cat. During most natural disasters, that would have been enough for a stay at an emergency shelter. But Kastura’s home flooded during the coronavirus pandemic: she didn’t have a mask. “I got out of the car and the people standing around all had masks on,” she said. “I’m like, ‘oh boy … What are they going to do?’” The coronavirus pandemic complicated the response to the disastrous flood that swallowed a series of small communities in mid-Michigan on 19 May. An ageing dam broke under the strain of another heavy rainfall during a long season of wet weather, causing a calamity officials call a “500-year flood” and one that appears more likely to become common on a planet in the grip of global heating. People like Kastura had to risk exposure to the coronavirus in order to escape. First responders had to keep a safe distance when going door-to-door ordering 11,000 people to evacuate. Flooded nursing homes sent residents into shelters, where Covid-19 could spread. The Midland hospital sent its ventilated Covid-19 patients to nearby hospitals in case the flood was worse than predicted. “Every decision you’re making, from a patient safety perspective and an employee safety perspective, you have to think ‘how does Covid affect this decision?’ and ‘how does Covid affect the execution of this?’” said Diane Postler-Slattery, the CEO of MidMichigan Health. “Certainly that made it more complicated in order to execute the flood directions.” Residents of Midland, Michigan, a county of 83,000 about 100 miles north of Detroit, won’t be the last to face the disparate, simultaneous blows of a pandemic and natural disaster. Climate change puts rising waters, devastating storms and brutal heatwaves on a collision course with Covid-19, the disease caused by the highly infectious virus that has sickened millions and killed hundreds of thousands worldwide. The virus will rage until scientists develop a vaccine or cure. At the same time, a warming atmosphere is fueling the likelihood and severity of floods, wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters that destroy homes and send people scattering to shelters and across the country. Researchers have predicted an “extremely active hurricane season” in the Atlantic region this year. “As long as there is warming in the air, especially in the ocean, storms are going to increase,” said Simon Wang, a Utah State University climate professor who studies extreme weather events. Storms have gotten stronger since the mid-1990s, Wang said. We are often not prepared to manage them, particularly with infrastructure built to handle a less punishing climate. “What we’ve seen since the 2000s is something engineers back in the 30s and 40s have never seen before,” Wang said. “They would not have thought a storm can dump so much rain.” The safest course of action during a natural disaster is exactly opposite of safe behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic. While avoiding traveling and not congregating indoors are key strategies to slow the virus’s spread, fleeing to a shelter or another part of the country often is the safest choice during a disaster. That’s why it’s important to follow the rules about social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands, especially if evacuating a disaster zone, Wang said. “When a natural event strikes, running away, evacuation, is the number one task,” he said. “If all the residents follow certain rules to curb Covid-19, they reduce the chance [of infection] even though they are congregating.” Volunteers armed with disinfectant paced around an emergency shelter in the basement of Midland high school on Wednesday night, disinfecting doorknobs and faucet handles and offering squirts of hand sanitizer to evacuees, many of whom are residents of a downtown Midland nursing home hit hard by the flood. Triple-than-normal cleaning was among the extra precautions local emergency management officials took to protect Midland flood victims from the coronavirus, said Brian Brutyn, a Midland public schools administrator managing the shelter. “It doubly complicates things,” Brutyn said. “The logistics of manning a shelter in a very fast order while also knowing you have a vulnerable population and also having to put in the proper protocols to protect them.” Officials had to find enough masks for the hundreds of people who visited to shower, eat and sleep. They stationed cots 6ft apart. They turned away enthusiastic volunteers to limit the number of people, and potential coronavirus, inside. “Having to put all those additional protocols in place doubly complicates what was already a complicated situation,” Brutyn said. “I’ve never had to manage a separate [emergency], but I can imagine it would be a little bit easier if you weren’t dealing with Covid-19.” | ['us-news/michigan', 'environment/flooding', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-05-22T12:42:22Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/oct/28/eu-carbon-border-levy-could-sabotage-climate-goals-says-thinktank | EU carbon border levy could sabotage climate goals, says thinktank | The EU could inadvertently “sabotage efforts” to limit global heating to 1.5C or 2C as a result of a controversial carbon border levy, a thinktank has said. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) said the EU’s proposed “carbon-border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM) – which would require importers of energy-intensive goods to pay a price for environmental damage – could lead to African producers selling into other markets with lower standards, hindering climate action. Under the EU proposal, companies importing iron, steel, aluminium, fertiliser, cement or electricity into the bloc would be required to buy carbon certificates. These certificates would reflect the same carbon prices faced by European producers under the EU’s emissions trading system. Long championed by France, the plan is intended to stop European manufacturers going bust when their international rivals are not subject to the same green standards. In such a situation, emissions are unchanged, a problem known as “carbon leakage”. While the policy would have the biggest financial impact on China, Russia and Ukraine, African countries that rely on a small number of industries are the most exposed, says the ECFR. Mozambique, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Cameroon are big exporters of aluminium, while Zambia and Zimbabwe sell a lot of steel and Algeria and Egypt’s fertiliser exports would be affected. The ECFR supports the border levy, but says the EU should redistribute CBAM revenues to low-income countries that are worst affected by the measure. African states “have limited fiscal headroom and face multiple development and pandemic-related challenges”, the researchers write. “As such it is understandable that they perceive CBAM, and the EU’s refusal to grant exemptions to the least developed countries, as a threat.” African exporters are unable to compete with Europeans on green innovation or research and development, they add. “These concerns could undermine the EU’s climate leadership, deepen mistrust between the bloc and countries in the global south, and sabotage efforts to achieve the Paris’ Agreement’s 1.5C or even 2C targets.” Alex Clark, a researcher at the University of Oxford and one of the ECFR report authors, said CBAM was “a good idea”, but the EU needed to complement it with measures to help African states secure investment for the green transition. He said Africa was “still essentially treated as a charity case” when it came to the EU’s approach to climate policy towards the continent. “It’s still really just the recipient of adaptation money rather than a genuine effort at economic transformation. If Africa’s place in the future global economy is going to be not limited to damage control and allow it to grasp some of the clear opportunities of the green transition, the EU will need to complement CBAM with some serious, well-thought-out, broad-based investment.” A “poorly managed CBAM” could lead to African producers selling into other markets with lower standards, while slowing political progress on the global climate effort, Clark said. Recent attempts by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to improve relations with the African Union had not gone beyond rhetoric, he argued. “There is a huge trust deficit in bilateral relations between the EU and African states, between EU member states and African states. Perhaps most obviously between the EU and the AU.” Despite the concerns over the border levy, the report says the EU has the potential to play a leading role in the global path to net zero emissions. “The EU is a powerful market economy and export market, a major donor, a regulatory superpower, and an essential source of expertise in intellectual property and infrastructure that can help other powers implement the green transition,” the authors write. The EU’s role in helping sustain a “fragile global consensus” on emissions reduction could be even more important if another US president hostile to climate action enters the White House after the 2024 elections, the report suggests. It also says that the EU should compete to balance China’s influence in Africa and Latin America, so developing countries have other routes to carbon neutrality. The authors praise Germany for its attempt to help South Africa phase out coal, arguing that the EU and other member states should take a similar approach, sharing finance and expertise to help the green transition in other African countries. A European Commission spokesman said all countries were treated equally under the proposed carbon-border adjustment mechanism and that leaving countries out would run counter to WTO rules. “To avoid new global dividing lines between third countries, the EU will continue to support [least developed countries] in targeted ways,” the spokesperson said listing technical assistance, technology transfer and financial support, among other measures. “To this end, the EU will continue in its role as one of the biggest contributors to climate financing in least [developed] and developing countries.” | ['environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'global-development/trade-and-development', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jennifer-rankin', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2021-10-28T09:05:48Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2021/oct/01/britons-find-more-joy-in-autumn-colours-than-christmas-study-finds | Britons find more joy in autumn colours than Christmas, study finds | The nights are drawing in and there is a chill in the air but research commissioned by a conservation charity suggests British people are increasingly finding solace at what can be a tricky time of year in the joy of autumn colour. About a third of people questioned said enjoying the burst of gold, red, purples russet and orange that accompanies autumn was their favourite thing about the season, ahead of looking forward to Bonfire Night, the television schedule or even Christmas. The National Trust said Britons were turning into “leaf peepers” – a pastime more usually associated with the US and Canada – and is hoping that, as long as it doesn’t get too stormy, a good season could be on the way. According to the research, carried out by YouGov, almost three-quarters of people say they take note of how the trees change through the year with more than a quarter saying they notice trees more than at the start of the pandemic. Celia Richardson, the director of communications and audience at the trust, said: “People are still saying they are closer to nature than they were before the pandemic began and we hope it’s here to stay. Connecting with nature is good for our health and wellbeing and makes people more likely to act to protect the natural world.” Pamela Smith, the trust’s national gardens and parks specialist, said she was hoping it would be a good year for leaf fans, especially in the north. “With above average sunshine levels for parts of northern England, most of Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland over the summer, we could see a fantastic autumn, particularly in these areas. “Autumn colour is not only determined by what the actual weather is doing now,” she said. “The weather patterns throughout the year are also key – particularly levels of sunshine, but also levels of rainfall. “Over the next two weeks we do need some more sunny days, more rain and colder temperatures – but staying above freezing – with no storms, to help boost what could be a really good year for autumn colour.” Smith said it was likely to be a good season for berries too. “In the wild, the sorbus trees – commonly known as mountain ash or rowan are full of berries this year. “This year is also a good year for our hawthorns. Their fruits, known as haws, highlight our hedgerows with their small, rose hip like fruits. Worth the search are the blackthorn fruits – sloes. These dark purple sharp fruits are a staple for foragers to make sloe gin.” | ['environment/autumn', 'environment/forests', 'lifeandstyle/foraging', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-10-01T05:00:22Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2022/jul/09/nsw-floods-government-names-recovery-coordinators-as-rain-and-big-surf-set-to-return | NSW floods: government names recovery coordinators as rain and big surf set to return | Flood waters and river levels dropped in areas west and north of Sydney on Saturday as sunshine broke over clean-up efforts at thousands of homes and businesses. The New South Wales government named two coordinators to oversee recovery efforts and said inspections of 2,285 premises so far had found 239 were not liveable. Traffic started flowing on the Windsor Bridge over the Hawkesbury River. Just days ago the bridge was submerged when the river peaked above the March flood level of 13.8 metres. Minor flooding was easing at Sackville, Windsor and North Richmond along the Hawkesbury and the Colo River. Emergency personnel from Victoria travelled to NSW on Saturday to help with rescue and clean-up efforts. The Bureau of Meteorology said rain would return to Sydney and Newcastle on Sunday with up to 20mm forecast, but the rest of the week would see showers with just a few millimetres likely each day. The meteorologist Jonathan How told the Guardian showers would push up into the Sydney area by late morning on Sunday, arriving in the Hunter around lunchtime or early afternoon. He said: “Thankfully there’s nothing that will cause further flooding. But because the soils are so wet, even a small amount of rainfall still leads to some water over roads.” By Sunday evening the showers should have cleared the Illawarra and Sydney. Some showers would return with a cold front on Tuesday that could also bring snow to the state’s central and southern tablelands, “but we’re not expecting any more big rainfall totals”. The clear skies could also bring cool days and cold mornings for inland areas with widespread frosts. The cloud band that had helped deliver flooding rains in the last week had now moved away off the coast, but a large low pressure system was still sitting off New Zealand’s South Island that was pushing southerly winds to Australia’s south-east. A warning for hazardous surf was issued for Sunday off the coast of Byron, Coffs, Macquarie, Hunter, Sydney, Illawarra, Batemans and Eden. The NSW emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, said on Saturday that former detective Dean Betts would oversee clean-up and rebuilding efforts in greater Sydney. The Resilience NSW director, Mel Gore, would take the same role for the state’s Central Coast, Hunter Valley and mid-north coast. “These appointments will help to ensure flood-affected communities receive support in a timely and efficient way,” Cooke said. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Almost 1,000 properties of the 2,285 premises so far examined by the state government were in need of repair. Cooke said immediate priorities were damage assessments of flooded homes and businesses, and making sure displaced residents could access emergency accommodation. Government recovery centres across greater Sydney, the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley and Central Coast would open in the coming days. Some 37 local government areas across NSW were under natural disaster declarations. Several roads reopened on Saturday in the Hawkesbury but flooding was still affecting some roads in greater Sydney, with closures at Heathcote Road, Pitt Town Road and the Yarramundi Bridge. | ['australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-07-09T07:00:06Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2020/jul/17/protest-black-lives-matter-database | Did you protest recently? Your face might be in a database | Evan Selinger and Albert Fox Cahn | In recent weeks, millions have taken to the streets to oppose police violence and proudly say: “Black Lives Matter.” These protests will no doubt be featured in history books for many generations to come. But, as privacy researchers, we fear a darker legacy, too. We know that hundreds of thousands of photos and videos of protesters have been recorded and uploaded online. They could remain there indefinitely, only to be dredged up decades later. It is for this reason that we must ask whether those photos could end up in a facial recognition database. We know that, in the United States, at least one in four law enforcement agencies are able to use facial recognition technology– considered one of the most dangerous surveillance tools by privacy researchers – with little oversight. While it may take months, even years, to know the full scope of how facial recognition has been used in the most recent protests, police departments have used everything from military grade drones to body-cams with live facial recognition capability. In New York City alone, the NYPD used facial recognition more than 8,000 times last year, including in conjunction with its so-called “gang database” of 42,000 New Yorkers, overwhelmingly New Yorkers of color. Police could potentially retaliate against protesters by adding their names to databases and singling them out for unjustified, follow-up monitoring and “selective enforcement of unrelated matters”, like minor traffic offenses. Aside from the ethics of diminishing people’s obscurity when they are in public and stripping away their right to do lawful things like protest anonymously, there is a real risk of misidentification through this technology. In recent weeks, we’ve begun to hear from victims of facial recognition – people like Robert Williams, who was wrongfully put behind bars because police were swayed by a biased and broken facial recognition algorithm that wrongfully matched him as the perpetrator of a crime he didn’t commit. Mr Williams’ case highlights how facial recognition can produce results that are prejudiced against Black and Latinx Americans and create disproportionately false “matches” and a higher risk of wrongful arrest for them. And just as importantly, Mr Williams explains that bias is only part of the problem: “Even if this technology does become accurate … I don’t want my daughters’ faces to be part of some government database. I don’t want cops showing at their door because they were recorded at a protest the government didn’t like.” Back in 2016, the police reportedly used facial recognition to find and arrest some people who protested about Freddie Gray’s death who they believed had outstanding arrest warrants. Today, police departments around the country and the FBI are asking for “videos or images” that can link protesters to violence and destruction. These requests are happening even though it’s well documented that law enforcement agencies, including the Minneapolis police department, have used Clearview AI’s facial recognition technology. This noxious company scraped the internet to compile a name-face database of 3bn faces, which is why Senator Ed Markey recently wrote the company’s chief executive to “ensure its product is not being used to monitor protests against police brutality.” While IBM announced it’s out of the facial recognition technology business, Amazon won’t sell facial recognition technology to the police for a year, and Microsoft won’t sell facial recognition to the police “until there is a strong national law grounded in human rights”, Clearview AI remains all in. Are the police definitely using facial recognition right now to track protesters? Nobody knows. Since law enforcement has been criticized for not being transparent about its use of facial recognition technology and the FBI and protesters are shining a spotlight on a lack of transparency as a systemic policing problem, every protester at a Black Lives Matter protest and every journalist covering one should assume they could be. What can be done? Facial recognition technology should be banned. This agenda needs as much support as can be mustered. Calls to defund the police and stop providing them with facial recognition technology are gaining momentum, which is a good first step. But as Tim Maughan rightly argues: “We must not allow private contractors and technology companies to seep in, fill the void, and repeat – or even exacerbate – the same disastrous mistakes.” This leaves risk-mitigation strategies in the hands of two groups. Protesters can help protect one another by using tools to obscure faces and erase metadata. And journalists shouldn’t publish any images that the police can use to track a protester’s identity unless they have explicit consent to do so. Journalists might be wary of stepping up. After all, outdated legal doctrines hold that people lack a reasonable expectation of privacy when they’re in public. As a result, journalists have a legal right to photograph whomever they choose at these newsworthy events. Furthermore, journalists might believe they are ethically barred from manipulating “the content of a photograph in any way”. But this restriction conflicts with their duty to “give special consideration to vulnerable subjects” and “minimize harm”. Journalists have the privilege and responsibility of doing what they can to protect protesters who are living in a society that has yet to come to terms with the fact that analog assumptions about what’s private and public no longer hold in the face of modern police surveillance. This isn’t the first time protesters are risking their safety and wellbeing standing up for justice. Sadly, it won’t be the last. Since facial recognition technology poses an unprecedented threat, every possible precaution needs to be taken. Evan Selinger is a professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology. Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (Stop) at the Urban Justice Center, a New York-based civil rights and privacy group and a fellow at the Engelberg Center for Innovation Law & Policy at NYU School of Law | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/facial-recognition', 'world/protest', 'us-news/us-news', 'technology/technology', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/evan-selinger', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-opinion'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2020-07-17T10:27:12Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2024/oct/28/sellafield-work-accidents-reeves-budget | Reeves urged not to cut Sellafield funds amid concern at rise in ‘near misses’ | Rachel Reeves has been urged not to carry out mooted funding cuts for nuclear sites including Sellafield amid safety concerns, as it emerged that the number of incidents where workers narrowly avoided harm had increased at the Cumbrian site. The GMB union has written to Reeves, the chancellor, before Wednesday’s budget to raise safety concerns after rumours emerged that the budget for the taxpayer-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) could be reduced, which could result in cuts at nuclear sites including Sellafield and Dounreay in Scotland. In the letter to Reeves, seen by the Guardian, union leaders warned that a safety incident at Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous industrial site, would “have devastating consequences far beyond the immediate community”. The NDA had a budget of £4bn in the last financial year. The warning came as recently released annual accounts for the NDA showed “near misses” at Sellafield had risen in the last financial year, and an “international nuclear event-scale” incident had occurred at the site, which is a vast dump for nuclear waste and also the world’s largest store of plutonium. The NDA said there was an “inadequate response” during an incident in 2023 as some staff did not follow procedures when an emergency alarm unexpectedly sounded inside the site’s hazardous chemical separation area. The report also said Sellafield, which employs 12,000 people, had received six enforcement letters from its regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and that in studying its safety record the “rate of significant near misses is higher across 2023-24”. It found that the impact on employees from work injuries had “often been significant” even if many of the incidents had appeared innocuous. In the letter, Denise Walker and Roger Denwood, of the GMB, wrote: “While operators and regulators work tirelessly to ensure safety, the inherent risks of the site mean that any lapse in safety standards could result in serious and far-reaching economic and ecological consequences.” They said radioactive “materials must be safely managed to prevent leaks or accidental releases of radiation. The health risks of radiation exposure, including cancer and other serious illnesses, are well documented.” They added: “Any reduction in funding would inevitably result in fewer resources for maintenance, monitoring, and emergency preparedness-heightening the risk of a serious incident.” The Guardian’s Nuclear Leaks investigation in late 2023 revealed a string of cybersecurity problems at Sellafield, as well as issues with its safety and workplace culture. Last week the National Audit Office said the cost of decommissioning the site had risen to £136bn, with major projects running years behind schedule. A spokesperson for the NDA and Sellafield said: “We have been engaging closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Treasury on our plans and requirements. We will always prioritise the safety and security of our employees, sites and communities while delivering our nationally important mission.” An NDA spokesperson said: “The increase in near misses does not relate to nuclear safety, it relates to conventional events, predominantly slips and trips in the workplace.” They added that its “group health and safety incident rate is in line with the wider industry” and work continued to improve safety performance. A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to the nuclear sector and will continue to support the NDA in its important mission to manage our nuclear legacy and clean up sites safely.” | ['business/series/nuclear-leaks', 'business/energy-industry', 'uk-news/autumn-budget-2024', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/nuclear-waste', 'environment/energy', 'uk-news/cumbria', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'uk/budget', 'profile/alex-lawson', 'profile/anna-isaac', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-10-28T06:00:23Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2011/jul/03/temperature-heat-climate-london | Weatherwatch: Heat and discomfort in the city | People who live in the centre of larger cities know that it is warmer than the countryside and exotic plants grow that would not thrive in rural Britain. But it is not all gain. The recent heat wave in London meant sleeping in the centre of the capital without air conditioning was difficult and, for the old and vulnerable, potentially dangerous. Measurements show that the urban heat island effect in London is most pronounced at night in summer, and that areas with tall buildings and least vegetation are the hottest. A perfect recipe for a stifling night is a sunny day, a windless night, with a cocktail of air pollution. The buildings and hard surfaces release the radiation stored during the day and the air pollution absorbs this heat and releases it back into the air. As a result, on average, Westminster is, on still summer nights, 7C hotter at 6 am than rural Bracknell in Berkshire. Hammersmith is 4C warmer and Heathrow and Kew only 1C. Scientists have been trying to work out how much worse this is getting as the climate warms. Temperatures are predicted to rise 3C to 4C this century across the country and bring a 40% increase in London's hot nights. There will be 50 summer nights when London will be on average 4C warmer than the countryside. But in still conditions the central London heat island districts with tall buildings will be 10C hotter at night than the countryside during July, August and September. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-07-03T22:04:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jul/07/australia-demands-world-heritage-experts-visit-great-barrier-reef-ahead-of-in-danger-list-decision | Australia demands world heritage experts visit Great Barrier Reef ahead of ‘in danger’ list decision | Australia is demanding world heritage experts carry out a monitoring mission to the Great Barrier Reef before an international committee decides if it should be placed on a list of global sites in danger. The Australian government on Monday night briefed international ambassadors and Paris-based delegates to Unesco as part of lobbying efforts to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the in-danger list. Australia’s ambassador to Unesco told the briefing the integrity of the entire world heritage system – which identifies places of significance to humanity – could be compromised if the 21-country committee placed the reef on the list when it meets later in July. The Morrison government is also inviting foreign diplomats to visit the 2,300km reef, off Queensland’s coast, before the meeting. At Monday night’s briefing, which Guardian Australia has viewed, the environment minister, Sussan Ley, said: “We will seek a proper reactive monitoring mission before this question can be properly assessed. “We seek your support in getting due process followed,” she said. Senior officials from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims) and the environment department also spoke during the hour-long briefing. Attendees were told Australia had a strong track record on fighting climate change, had invested heavily in reef conservation, and its emissions were falling at record levels. The most recent falls in Australia’s emissions were due to the economic slowdown caused by the Covid pandemic. Australia has said it wants its economic recovery to be driven by developments in the gas industry. Australia has not introduced a new greenhouse gas emissions target since 2015 and has been widely criticised for a lack of ambition. The country is also a major exporter of oil and gas. Australia’s Paris-based ambassador to Unesco, Megan Anderson, told the briefing the UN body had “rushed” its June recommendation to list the reef “before any reactive monitoring mission” had been carried out. “A rush to ‘in danger’ list the Great Barrier Reef – ahead of a mission, ahead of identifying a desired state of conservation and ahead of an agreed Unesco climate policy on world heritage – is not in the interests of the reef and nor is it in the interest of protecting the integrity of the world heritage system,” Anderson said. Anderson and ambassadors from 10 other countries last month wrote a letter to Unesco with their “collective concerns” over its decision-making process. The Morrison government said it was “blindsided” when Unesco revealed its recommendation, blaming a lack of due process and “politics”. But Unesco officials have flatly denied claims by Ley that it had given assurances the in danger listing would not be recommended – or that the process had been politicised. Dr Mechtild Rössler, director of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre in Paris, has said monitoring missions are not always needed before a danger listing is recommended. Unesco has characterised the “in danger” listing as a “call to action” that will alert the world to the plight of the reef and the importance of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Unesco pointed to impacts from climate change and a lack of progress on improving water quality as areas of concern. There are 53 natural sites on the “in danger” list, including Florida’s Everglades. Belize’s barrier reef – part of the world’s second-largest reef system – was on the list from 2009 to 2018. Australian officials at the Monday briefing said the Great Barrier Reef’s main threat was climate change, but international action on cutting emissions should centre on the UN’s climate change convention, and not the world heritage process. Rising ocean temperatures caused by fossil fuel burning have caused three mass coral bleachings – in 2016, 2017 and 2020 – since the reef was last considered by the world heritage committee in 2015. Aims’ chief executive, Paul Hardisty, said his institute’s long-term monitoring program was showing the beginnings of a “widespread recovery” which was expected after no major impacts since the 2020 bleaching – the most widespread on record. But he told the briefing an increase in the amount of coral on reefs was driven by faster-growing species that were susceptible to bleaching and “come and go fairly quickly”. Overall the number of reefs in good condition was falling, he said, while the number of reefs in bad condition was rising. China is the current chair of the committee and will host the virtual meeting from 16-31 July. A decision on the reef will likely be considered during a three-day block from 21 to 23 July. About 16 countries were represented at the briefing, an Australian government source said. In a statement to Guardian Australia, China’s permanent delegation to Unesco confirmed one of its officers had attended the briefing. As the host and chair of the committee, China was “attentive to all communication and sharing of information” ahead of the meeting “including the item on one of Australia’s inscriptions”. A spokesperson for Ley said the government had “extended an invitation to member states to see the reef” before the meeting. “We think it is important that, prior to the World Heritage Committee meeting, we offer member states that opportunity,” the spokesperson said. Last week, five leading reef scientists wrote to Unesco backing its decision to recommend the Great Barrier Reef be placed on the World Heritage in danger list. Among the five scientists was Australian Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who is the current chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation which, in 2018, received a controversial $443m government grant to co-ordinate efforts to build the reef’s resilience. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/unesco', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/sussan-ley', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-07-06T17:30:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
sustainable-business/uclh-adopts-low-carbon-procurement-strategy | University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - low-carbon procurement strategy | One area where the NHS can make a real difference to cut carbon emissions is in procurement. Carbon associated with the assembly, packaging, transport, storage and handling of products and materials consumed by the service's providers accounts for 60% of the entire carbon footprint of the NHS. It's a fact that was all too obvious to the University College London Hospitals Trust, an early member of the 10:10 campaign and one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK. In UCLH's case, carbon from procurement was even higher than the NHS national average, accounting for 76% of all emissions. Consequently, it partnered with the Carbon Trust to jointly produce low-carbon procurement guidelines for the public sector. The scheme initially involved a three-month pilot study intended to embed carbon reduction into UCLH's purchasing and introduce "whole life" carbon costing alongside quality and price considerations. As well as cutting the hospitals' own emissions, it would provide a blueprint to help other NHS trusts establish their own schemes. To tackle the issue, UCLH worked with partners to launch neutral vendor, a groundbreaking supply chain initiative . Working with other local NHS trusts, all goods are delivered by suppliers to a single warehouse and held centrally. Loads are consolidated before being transported, so fewer vehicles are needed to distribute goods to participating trusts. This reduces transport on the roads by about 15%, improves local air quality, noise levels and health in London and is expected to achieve year-on-year savings of 7,000 tonnes in CO2 – way beyond what could be achieved by solely using more efficient lighting or upgrading boilers, for instance. The UCLH trust's carbon reduction and innovation group (crig) supports neutral vendor and other projects that aim to achieve a total carbon reduction of 15,000 tonnes of CO2, or 50% of its carbon footprint. But this will be no mean feat, especially against a background of organisation growth and improved patient care. UCHL's six hospitals are situated in and around the borough of Camden and has a diverse estate of six hospitals, offering an extensive range of services. In just 12 months, however, the group achieved a 4,324 tonne reduction in CO2 emissions – 14% of the trust's footprint. Projects are selected using three main criteria: maximum carbon impact, minimum cost and greater collaboration. For example, the trust is also working in partnership to reduce the 3.5m patient transport miles travelled each year to cut both carbon and costs by 10%. Supported in these efforts by 60 volunteer carbon champions, the trust is also sourcing local fruit and vegetables, free range chicken and red-tractor certified meat, offering low-carbon menu options to staff and patients, at no extra cost. As a founder member of the carbon disclosure project, it is also raising awareness of the need to reduce the carbon intensity of goods and services among suppliers. Collaboration is the key, says UCLH. The aim is to find opportunities to reduce carbon as well as cost and to work in ways that enable others in the health, public and private sectors to do likewise. Lynn Beavis is part of the wordworks network This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'tone/resource', 'sustainable-business/best-practice-exchange/series/gsba-2011', 'sustainable-business/best-practice-exchange/series/gsba-carbon', 'sustainable-business/series/awards-2011-carbon', 'type/article'] | sustainable-business/series/awards-2011-carbon | EMISSIONS | 2011-05-26T10:00:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
australia-news/2016/jun/19/wentworth-activists-getup-to-mischief-with-malcolm-tunbulls-election-posters | Wentworth activists GetUp to mischief with Malcolm Turnbull's election posters | While the ordinary voters of Wentworth sheltered from the rain on Sunday afternoon, a small group of activists set out on a stealthy campaign against their local member, the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Dubbed the “guerilla street nannas” by GetUp climate campaign director, Sam Regester, the group, mostly comprised of women in their 60s, braved the weather to check on their latest endeavour: a set of corflute signs showing the torso of a man in a business suit crossing his fingers. More than 200 of the signs have been hung around the electorate below the smiling face of Turnbull’s own campaign posters, to make it appear he is crossing his fingers above the slogan “trust me on climate change”. The posters were hung early Saturday morning, and GetUp senior campaigner, Miriam Lyons, told Guardian Australia the group had a stack in reserve to replace those inevitably removed by the Liberal party. “We’ve got a group of very committed to members willing to put them back up if any are taken down,” Lyons said. Lyons said the signs were made to show disappointment in Turnbull’s failure to strengthen the Coalition’s policy on climate change, despite once saying he would not lead a party that was not as committed to dealing with climate change as he was. “A lot of Wentworth residents are waiting for the change in policy to match the change of face,” she said. “These older GetUp members who have been helping to put up these corflutes are pretty frustrated and running out of time for him to change his mind.” GetUp has also worked with the artist behind the “fizza” election posters to promote a climate change “fizza” rally to be held in Wentworth next Sunday, at the same time as the Liberal Party’s official campaign launch. Turnbull pledged not to change the substance of the Coalition’s climate change policy before being sworn in as prime minister in September. At the leadership debate on Friday night he said he was “absolutely committed to achieving a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to ward off unsafe global warming,” and said he was “satisfied” Australia could achieve its target of a 28% reduction in emissions by 2030 “with our existing set of policies”. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor would increase the target to 45% and accused Turnbull of softening on climate change since taking the Liberal party leadership. “Now all of a sudden, Tony Abbott’s his climate adviser,” Shorten said. Turnbull’s office declined to comment on the corflutes, but the Labor candidate for Wentworth, art dealer Evan Hughes, gleefully shared the signs on social media and requested that GetUp slim him down if they intended to do the same trick on his posters. Andrew Woodward, the Labor candidate for Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah, also took a minute to promote the signs on his way to Hughes’s campaign launch at the Bondi Pavilion on Saturday. A ReachTel poll of Wentworth, commissioned by Hughes in May, reportedly suggested Turnbull’s primary vote had fallen 10 percentage points from 63% to 53% but that he would still win the seat comfortably with a two party preferred vote of 58-42. According to Fairfax Media, the poll also found that 53% of the 626 respondents felt Turnbull had failed to live up to their expectations. | ['australia-news/australian-election-2016', 'australia-news/malcolm-turnbull', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'australia-news/tony-abbott', 'australia-news/bill-shorten', 'australia-news/labor-party', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/calla-wahlquist', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2016-06-19T08:10:08Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2014/nov/23/wind-farm-middlesbrough-fc-radar-row | Radar row at Middlesbrough FC threatens football wind farm plan | A row over aircraft safety near Middlesbrough’s home ground is blocking a plan to install wind turbines at top football clubs around the country. Robert Goodwill, the aviation minister, is among those sucked into the increasingly acrimonious dispute that has stopped the first turbine – a 136-metre installation at Riverside stadium –being built. Middlesbrough was to act as a testing ground for the Empowering Wind group, which hopes to roll out to top-flight grounds around the country. Paul Millinder, from the group, said it was a “disaster” that the local airport was asking for £700,000 over 20 years to pay for new radar it said was needed to prevent interference at Durham Tees Valley airport. “We applied a year ago to undertake this project, which would offset power drawn from the grid and reduce the cost to the stadium. It is a disaster that the position of [aircraft] safety is being misrepresented when our expert witness has shown there is no issue whatever,” he said. Millinder asked Goodwill to intervene after a report commissioned from a former National Air Traffic Service expert found that the turbine would not have any real effect on radar displays. Middlesbrough council has installed a condition in the planning agreement calling for the impact of the blades on plane safety to be made good, effectively backing the airport, run by the Peel Group. Millinder said he had expected to be able to install the wind turbine in the overflow car park at Middlesbrough FC last May but is unable to proceed as long as Empowering is going to have to make payments to upgrade their equipment. Other wind farms in the area have not been hit by similar demands, he claims. But the airport says Empowering has been aware of the problem since planning permission was given in 2008 but has made little attempt to come up with a solution of its own in the meantime. The airport added: “The siting of this proposed turbine is much more critical to airport operations than many of the operational turbines in the area. It is in critical airspace on the approach to our runway — just under two nautical miles from the runway centreline where aircraft normally begin their descent to the runway, approximately seven nautical miles from touchdown.” | ['environment/windpower', 'football/middlesbrough', 'football/football', 'uk-news/middlesbrough', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2014-11-23T16:28:47Z | true | ENERGY |
uk/2013/mar/04/risk-energy-shortages-blackouts-reactors | UK needs 'plan B' for new nuclear power, say MPs | The government needs a "plan B" on nuclear power, because of the danger that new reactors will not be built in time to avoid energy shortages and possible blackouts, an influential committee of MPs has warned. The warning follows concerns raised by Alistair Buchanan, the outgoing chief executive of the energy regulator, Ofgem, that the decommissioning of many of the UK's ageing fleet of power stations could sharply increase the risk of shortages within a few years. Already, the ambitions of the UK's nuclear industry have been dealt significant blows in recent months. The Horizon consortium fell apart and is seeking a buyer, possibly from China, and Cumbria's councillors rejected the building of a long-term waste repository there. EDF Energy, the French national energy company that will lead the building of the first plant, is in a stand-off with ministers over demands for higher prices for its energy, and work on the first potential reactor is likely to face further opposition, endangering the government's timetable for new plants. Any power shortages are unlikely to result in blackouts for consumers in the short term, but could affect businesses that are on contracts, forcing them to close if there is an imbalance between supply and demand, and this could be expensive. Tim Yeo, chairman of the energy and climate change select committee, said: "The government seems to be crossing its fingers that private companies will deliver a fleet of new nuclear power stations on time and on budget. Ministers need to urgently come up with a contingency plan in case the nuclear industry does not deliver the new power stations we need." Green campaigners fear that the government will try to fill the gap by encouraging the building of new gas-fired power stations, instead of more renewable power, and that this could put climate targets out of reach and leave consumers vulnerable to volatility in the price of imports. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2013-03-04T06:00:00Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2024/apr/12/carbon-price-should-be-set-at-70-a-tonne-and-rise-six-fold-by-mid-century-says-aemc | Carbon price should be set at $70 a tonne and rise six-fold by mid-century, says AEMC | New energy market laws should set a carbon price starting at $70 a tonne, rising steadily to six times that by mid-century, according to the agency that sets the nation’s electricity and gas market rules. In a report released without fanfare at the end of March, the Australian Energy Markets Commission (AEMC) announced an interim value of cutting emissions, starting at $70 per tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent in 2024. That price should increase steadily to reach $420/t CO-e by 2050, when Australia aims to reach net zero carbon emissions. The requirement for a carbon costing followed changes to national energy legislation that covers the electricity, gas and energy retail sectors. Federal, state and territory energy ministers agreed in May 2023 to make cutting carbon pollution an objective of key energy laws for the first time, with price and reliability among the other targets. “Emissions reduction is no longer considered only as part of the external context for our decision-making, but as one of the central considerations in determining if changes are in the long-term interest of consumers,” AEMC said in the report. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Alan Pears, an energy expert and industry fellow at RMIT University, said the emissions reduction “value” was in effect a shadow carbon price that could have an “enormous” impact on the energy sector. Australian Energy Market Operator officials told a webinar last week that the operator would need to amend its draft 2024 blueprint for the country’s energy future – the Integrated System Plan – to include the projected carbon price, Pears said. The final ISP is scheduled for release on 28 June. “Adding $70/t-plus is a lot,” he said. “You really change the economics of the AEMO model.” In particular, a carbon price would “make quite a difference” for the prospects of gas-fired generation that previous ISPs had assumed would play a bigger role as coal plants exit, Pears said. The Gillard Labor government implemented a $23/t carbon price that took effect from July 2012. It was scrapped by the Abbott coalition government two years later, making Australia the first nation to introduce and then rescind a price on greenhouse gases. There is no political appetite to re-introduce an economy-wide carbon price, despite many economists saying a “polluter pays” approach is the most efficient model. Still, several Albanese government policies do create penalties to nudge companies and consumers to emit less. For instance, the revamped safeguard mechanism aimed at capping and then reducing emissions from industry will reward firms with credits if they cut pollution faster. These credits could be traded to laggards, effectively setting a carbon price. The government’s proposed vehicle emissions standards would also create incentives for carmakers to outperform the targets that can be traded for firms falling short. The AEMC report said the interim carbon value may have impacts for emissions from facilities under the safeguard mechanism. “Any emissions reductions achieved under the amended objectives should be considered as complementary to the incentives provided” by that scheme, it said. A spokesperson for the ACT government backed the formula used to set the value of emissions reduction, saying it was not a cost levied on producers or consumers but intended to help energy market bodies “consider emissions reduction when exercising their respective powers and functions”. “Overall, the inclusion of the [value] in decision making will ensure that stronger climate action is prioritised in market body decision making,” the spokesperson said. Pears said that even without a formal carbon price in place, companies making long-term commitments had to assume some cost of future emissions. He noted the $70/t interim price was “conservative” compared with Europe’s carbon market where the price was currently more than $100/t. Europe’s plans to impose a tariff on carbon imports were also sending a signal. “As an investor in fossil fuels, I’d be starting to get quite nervous,” Pears said. The AEMC deflected Guardian Australian queries to the federal energy department. Guardian Australia also sought comments from federal, state and territory energy ministers. A spokesperson for the Western Australian government said the national electricity objective did not apply in that state. “WA is subject to its own electricity sector regulation overseen by the independent Economic Regulation Authority,” the spokesperson said. WA would soon introduce its own electricity objective that would not impose an equivalent emissions value. It would, though, “require decision makers to consider environmental outcomes, alongside reliability and price, when making decisions”. A statement by the energy ministers at the end of February noted the interim emissions price would remain in place until 30 June 2025 or until it is superseded “by an updated instrument, rule or regulation, whichever is earlier”. | ['australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/carbon-tax', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'business/economics', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peter-hannam', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/carbon-tax | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2024-04-11T15:00:26Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/shortcuts/2017/nov/17/lentils-glitter-alternatives-banned-christmas | Lentils are so 2013 – an on-trend guide to glitter alternatives | A nursery chain has identified glitter as a harmful pollutant, and banned children from using it when making Christmas decorations this year. Instead, Tops Day Nurseries is now promoting rice and lentils as substitute festive materials. However, not everyone has access to rice and lentils, so here are some other environmentally friendly glitter alternatives. Pasta When I was at nursery in the 80s, I glued some rigatoni to a cardboard circle, spraypainted it silver and gave it to my mum as a tree decoration. It remains in use, because a pasta Christmas decoration isn’t just for Christmas; it is for a lifetime of resentfully making your Christmas tree look as if it was furnished by a hamfisted berk. Quinoa Lentils are so 2013. If you really want kids to flaunt their lefty credentials, then it’s quinoa or nothing. A lentil-covered decoration says: “I care about the environment”, but quinoa says: “I care about the environment and recognising the ancestral practices of the indigenous Andean people”. Sausage roll particles Greggs ruined Christmas by ramming a sausage roll into a manger and passing it off as the baby Jesus. What an amazing PR move it would be for Greggs to obliterate its remaining stocks of sacrilegious pastry and hand out the remnants to children as a more thoughtful glitter proxy. Ground-up diamonds Pasta, quinoa and pastry are all well and good, but they just don’t glitter like glitter does. So here is what Tops Day Nurseries should do: encourage kids to rifle through their mothers’ jewellery, smash the prettiest items up with a hammer and glue whatever is left on to a Christmas card or whatever. Finally, Christmas can be twinkly again. Microbeads With the government’s ban on microplastics about to come into force, it presumably means that there will be a ton of microbeads suddenly milling around without purpose, freed from the lotions and toothpastes that once housed them. What better way to celebrate their newfound emancipation than by getting children to hurl fistfuls of the stuff at the sky, ground and sea? Merry Christmas! | ['environment/pollution', 'tone/features', 'news/shortcuts', 'tone/blog', 'environment/environment', 'society/children', 'education/schools', 'type/article', 'profile/stuart-heritage', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-11-17T13:38:39Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2012/oct/28/tory-retreat-on-climate-change-senseless | The Tory retreat on climate change is senseless | Ian Birrell | The year after David Cameron became Tory party leader, he did something party leaders normally never do: he spoke at a fringe meeting of his party conference, such was his passion for the subject under discussion. I remember it well, since I asked him to do the debate and chaired the event. The issue was the environment. Cameron disarmed an audience filled with green activists, impressing them as he batted back questions. This was, after all, the cause so central to his drive to decontaminate the Conservative party image; remember those husky pictures, the green logo, the exhortations to "Vote Blue, Go Green". Within days of taking office, Cameron declared his coalition would be "the greenest government ever". For all the froth of his detractors he can confidently back up this claim, the tone set from the start with support for the 10:10 campaign. Labour argued it was impossible to meet the target yet Whitehall exceeded it; within one year, it cut emissions by 13.8%. It is logical for Conservatives to set the pace on the environment; it is about conservation of resources, after all, while reducing Whitehall's carbon footprint cut government spending with lower energy bills. Margaret Thatcher, a scientist by training, was admirably far-sighted on this subject, warning 24 years ago of the danger greenhouse gases posed to the planet. By painting his party green, Cameron was true to her legacy. With each passing day, evidence grows that Lady Thatcher was right to raise the alarm. Most worrying was the extent of Arctic ice melt this summer, outpacing even the most dire predictions. September was the 331st consecutive month in which the globe's temperature exceeded last century's average; the odds of this happening by chance are greater than the number of stars in the universe. Given this rising tide of evidence and the overwhelming strength of scientific opinion, it is strange the Conservatives appear to be developing cold feet. There is a growing internal backlash against the green agenda, one threatening to torpedo both the public trust in politicians and the party's stuttering modernisation project. Most visible was the promotion of Owen Paterson to the environment portfolio – a man hailed by ConservativeHome editor Tim Montgomerie as the only senior British Tory who could easily win election as a US Republican. If that is not enough evidence against him for this job, he claims to be a "realist" on global warming, opposes wind farms and wants to cancel green energy plans. After hearing Paterson's risible speech to party conference earlier this month – which failed to mention climate change – one green-minded minister said to me: "Well, at least the battle lines are clear now." But his was not the only alarming move: John Hayes, who has also opposed wind farms, was moved to energy minister while Peter Lilley, one of the most hardline sceptics, was appointed last week to the Commons energy and climate change committee. Meanwhile the chancellor George Osborne is leading attempts to cut subsidies for renewable energies, abandon decarbonisation targets and embark on a huge expansion of gas power plants and shale gas development. The dispute inside the coalition over the forthcoming energy bill is so heated there has already been one special meeting of the "quad" group of senior ministers, with another pencilled in for this week. To his credit, Cameron mentioned green issues three times in his conference speech – unlike Ed Miliband, who despite being a former climate change minister ignored them in his own party address. But the prime minister is supporting Osborne on the energy bill, hoping a ban or tax on plastic bags will underline sufficiently their green credentials (although even this minor measure is causing concern that it might be seen as adding to the cost of living). Ill-informed loudmouths have long opposed policies to tackle climate change. Sadly, their views appear to be gaining ascendancy, such is the Tory leadership's desire to appease the right, combined with the fear of appearing elitist by endorsing measures that might affect the cost of living. "It has become a totemic issue," said one senior Tory. "Either you are a tough Essex man in touch with the people or you are dismissed as an effete metropolitan toff." The environment is far from the first concern of focus groups, although there is clear support for green policies. But if you believe humans are causing climate change, there can be no issue of comparable importance. Regardless, the debate has moved on in recent years: it is no longer about shackling business but about supporting a booming green economy that employs more people than the car and telecom industries combined, with huge export potential to the fastest-growing parts of the world. China alone is investing £1 trillion in the low-carbon economy over the next five years; little wonder foreign secretary William Hague has emerged as an unlikely cabinet champion. Meanwhile such is the political prevarication, global energy giants are threatening to withdraw massive investment in Britain. To be anti-green now is to be anti-growth. Cameron has not given a speech on the environment since taking office. Yet along with health, this was the issue most personally identified with his transformation of the Tories. We saw the damage caused by bungled health reforms; imagine the dismay and distrust caused by shooting badgers, stopping wind farms, supporting airport expansion and strangling the green economy. There is a danger the short-term search for favourable headlines blows away any long-term sense of strategy. This is why the prime minister must demonstrate his continuing passion for green politics, which played such a prominent role in making him his party's first prime minister for a generation. Whether politically, economically or scientifically, it would be senseless and self-defeating to give ground on this crucial cause. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'politics/davidcameron', 'politics/conservatives', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'politics/green-party', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'science/science', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/ian-birrell', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2012-10-28T21:30:23Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
australia-news/2022/mar/01/everyone-got-supper-drivers-stranded-by-floods-on-motorway-set-up-food-kitchens-for-fellow-travellers | ‘Everyone got supper’: drivers stranded by floods on motorway set up food kitchens for fellow travellers | When the farm workers came down the hillside, burrowing under a barbed wire fence to bring boxes of water and bananas to the hundreds stranded by flood waters on the highway below, they were a little surprised to find everyone so well fed. And in such high spirits. Forget Lord of the Flies. This was a thriving community of shared resources and resourcefulness, where truck drivers dished out food that had been destined for supermarkets to waylaid holidaymakers who cooked it on camping stoves. Not everyone has been so lucky, however. Potentially thousands of vehicles are stranded on the M1, the main motorway between Sydney and Brisbane. Several hundred have been stuck between Ballina and Tweed Heads for at least 30 hours since the road was cut south of the Tweed River about 7.30am Monday. On Tuesday, more reports came through of drivers becoming stranded between Ballina and Coffs Harbour as the deluge tracks south. Those stuck further north had to work together to arrange their vehicles on to a series of “road islands” as flood waters rose around them in various pockets overnight. How people have fared depends on how well stocked the fellow travellers on their particular island have been. When the Guardian joined Duranbah farm workers bringing fruit and water down a steep, rain-sodden hillside beside the highway, we stumbled upon one of the lucky groups. For one thing, this group of 100 vehicles, stuck on a stretch of road about 800 metres long, had the benefit of a short road tunnel that had provided shelter from the pouring rain as well as some lighting after nightfall. They also had Rahjah McNae, who was driving a truck full of raw chicken bound for Aldi. By dinner time on Monday, the truck doors had been thrown open and the chicken was being shared around. “Thankfully the four-wheel drive guys had the cooking equipment, they’ve been fabulous cooking for everyone. Everyone’s getting a hot breakfast, everyone got supper last night,” McNae says. Clark Luckman, from the Central Coast, was part of a convoy of five vehicles bound for Fraser Island. Luckman and his friends were set up under the tunnel running the impromptu community kitchen. “People were bringing up sausages and whatever they could,” Luckman says. “But they weren’t bringing it up for themselves, they were bringing it up for everybody. It’s been a real coming together, a team effort.” Formula for a four-month-old baby was sourced by truck drivers getting on the two-way radio. Fold-up chairs have been shared around, with elderly people or those unwell getting first choice. A raided removal truck provided a few more seating options. Despite the relative positivity, everyone is clearly weary and there is frustration at the lack of responsiveness from authorities. McNae says they were told by transport officials in person yesterday not to drive through the flood waters up ahead, but then the officials left and didn’t return. “We’re invisible to the authorities,” McNae says. “They’re very busy, I can appreciate that. But phone calls went unanswered to various government departments. The SES and NSW police are buried basically and we’re not on their radar.” Further along the highway, many are furious, as much at the lack of information as the dearth of food and water. Sheree Guyder, from Brisbane, spent the night with her three children aged eight to 16 after their holiday was cut short. “Google Maps said it would be a four-minute delay here … 24 hours later!” she said. Her comments are reflected widely. Locals lamented on Monday that Google Maps showed the Gold Coast was still within reach for travellers, despite the roads being closed. Darcy Chadwick is stuck further south near Pottsville, in a group of 50 people who spent the night on an overpass above the highway. Food there was in short supply, but still shared widely. “Someone – a local farmer I think – brought down a box of bananas and a box of passionfruit and then someone who was also stuck had like a tray of prawns in an esky. So we all got one prawn, a banana and a passionfruit,” Chadwick says. “And then a lady was offering what she had, which was like non-alcoholic gin spritz things. She was handing them around.” Chadwick, a Tweed local, knew the highway was closed but expected it to retreat with the high tide as has happened previously. What she couldn’t know was the sheer deluge of water coming their way. In Chinderah, near where the highway is cut, the major flood level is 2.0 metres. Last night it reached 2.95 metres, well beyond the floods of 2017 and 1954. By Tuesday lunchtime the river had retreated to 2.7 metres but there was still the prospect of people spending a second night sleeping in their cars. Kym and John Hardcastle have it better than most, having been camping with their dog Molly in their motorhome at Evans Head when they set off back for their Gold Coast home. “We’ve got luxury here, with the motorhome. Although I can’t say I’ve ever free-camped in the middle of the M1 before,” Kym says. “This is probably the riskiest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/queensland', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/conal-hanna', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2022 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2022-03-01T05:35:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/feb/02/it-is-devastating-uk-farmers-despair-as-sheep-thefts-soar | 'It is devastating': UK farmers despair as sheep thefts soar | Sheep farmer Mark Candy did not realise at first that he had been targeted by rustlers. His Romney ewes graze among trees and rough ground on a Wiltshire country estate, and it was not obvious at first that some were missing. “Then I sensed that something wasn’t quite right,” said Candy, whose family have farmed in the area for five generations. “I did a rough count and it became clear many of them had gone.” It turned out that 72 ewes had been taken in the night. Candy was amazed. “At night sheep are glued to the spot they are in,” he said. “They don’t like to move. To get those sheep out of there at night they must have had exceptionally trained dogs and very good stockmanship.” Candy’s loss is not an isolated one. Figures released this week by the rural insurer NFU Mutual reveal that farm animals worth £3m were stolen from UK farms in 2019. Large-scale sheep thefts in particular are on the rise, making rustling the most costly crime for Britain’s farmers after agricultural vehicle and machinery theft, according to the insurer. Candy’s theft was the third in rapid succession within a few miles. His ewes were taken shortly after Christmas from the Bowood Estate at Derry Hill, near Chippenham. The week before, 61 were stolen from a farm near Melksham, 10 miles away. Forty-five sheep were stolen in November from Lacock, just down the road from Bowood. The loss is hard to take for Candy. He and his wife, Vicky, have worked hard to earn special “high health” accreditation for their flock. It makes replacing the animals they lost harder as they have to source them from farms with the same accreditation or breed from their own animals. It may take two years for the Candys to get them back to where they were at Christmas. “The sheep that have been taken are very difficult to replace,” he said. Local farmers have started up a WhatsApp group to try to keep an eye out for each other. Candy said he did not believe the police took the issue seriously enough. “If tens of thousands of pounds was taken from a bank they’d be all over it,” he said. Hazel Coles could not believe her eyes when more than 50 of her sheep suddenly vanished from the fields of her Exmoor farm. “I ran round the neighbours to check if they had seen them. Could someone have left a gate open? But, no, they had just gone. The first emotion was disbelief. It’s something we’d heard about in other parts of the country but not around here.” Forty-two ewes and 10 lambs were taken, worth a total of £6,000. Among those taken were four of the farm’s 30 pure-bred Texels. “They are very much a foundation of the flock. They’re quite difficult to breed and in a few minutes they were gone,” said Coles. Her family has farmed on Exmoor for more than half a century and have never had animals stolen before. Securing the farm is not easy. “Padlocks and chains are next best to a waste of time. They’re too easy to cut.” Coles has placed bales across some gates in areas of the farm. “But I do worry,” she said. “I don’t really think the sheep are safe. It would be nice to have more police patrols as more of a deterrent but I know they don’t have the resources. You do your best, you put them where you think they’ll be safest but you can’t completely protect them.” Rebecca Davidson, a rural affairs specialist at NFU Mutual, said rustling caused suffering to farmers and to the animals. She said: “Rustling has always been an aspect of farming but 10 years ago we would rarely see claims of more than a dozen sheep taken in one go. We are now regularly getting reports of 50-100 sheep being taken in a single raid and it is devastating for farmers. “As well as causing untold suffering to sheep, which may be in lamb when they are stolen, rustling is causing high levels of anxiety for farmers who have built up their flocks over many years. “Rustlers are getting more skilled and organised, quickly loading sheep on to trailers and lorries late at night. We are concerned that gangs are now using working sheepdogs, which have also been stolen, to get the job done.” An alarming trend is the illegal butchery of animals in the field. Rather than having the bother of moving animals – and hiding them until they or their meat can be sold on – thieves sometimes prefer to kill them where they are, butcher the carcasses and leave the remains. Farmers and their families are devastated when they go to check their flocks to find the bloodied remains. Davidson added: “We believe that meat from stolen animals is being sold on the black market and undermining welfare standards.” The farmers are trying to fight back. Where possible, they are grazing animals away from roads. Some are setting up devices such as infra-red beams across gates that send alerts to mobile phones if broken. But it can be costly, time-consuming and not always effective. The police insist that they do take sheep thefts seriously and understand the wide-reaching impact. PC Emily Thomas, who is investigating the Wiltshire thefts, said: “While of course there is a financial loss to the farmers, this type of theft can also have an emotional impact as in some of these circumstances it would have taken years of breeding to establish the flock. Not knowing what may have happened to the animals can be extremely upsetting.” | ['environment/farming', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/farming | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-02-02T11:57:46Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
news/2013/nov/17/typhoon-haiyan-trees-global-warming | Weatherwatch: Carbon released in the Philippines might never be recovered | Just over a week ago Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the Philippines. Thought to be the strongest storm ever to make landfall, Haiyan's sustained 235kph winds brought devastation. More than 2,000 are known to have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are homeless. Meanwhile, Haiyan has brought environmental disaster too. Millions of uprooted trees will bump up global warming, by adding carbon to the atmosphere. It is too early to say how much carbon, but calculations for previous tropical cyclones show the figures can be huge. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina released an estimated 105 teragrams of carbon (well over half the amount absorbed annually by forests in the US), by tearing up around 320m trees. Haiyan's tally may be even higher, as the Philippines has greater average tree cover than the eastern US. But longer term forest regrowth may recapture the lost carbon. A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters shows that hurricane activity caused a net release of carbon in the eastern United States during the latter half of the 19th century (due to a string of large storms and the existence of larger forests), but became a carbon sink by the 20th century (as regrowth outweighed hurricane damage). Climate projections suggest tropical cyclones may become stronger and more frequent over coming decades. If that is the case then the carbon released by Haiyan and subsequent cyclones may never be recovered. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'world/typhoon-haiyan', 'weather/philippines', 'type/article', 'profile/kate-ravilious', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-11-17T21:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/2019/sep/24/frequent-flyers-could-face-extra-tax-under-plans-to-cut-emissions | Frequent flyers could face extra tax under plans to cut emissions | Flying will have to become more expensive, especially for frequent flyers, to avoid climate chaos and keep the UK within its carbon targets, the government has been warned, while going ahead with a new runway at Heathrow would all but rule out airport expansion in the rest of the country. Ministers are likely to have to choose among options including hikes to air passenger duty, new levies on frequent flyers and changes to air taxation relative to rail and road in order to limit burgeoning demand for cheap flights in the next few years. Aviation is likely to become the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2050, warned the Committee on Climate Change, the government’s statutory adviser, even though technological advances will reduce aircraft emissions. The committee wrote to Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, on Tuesday, setting out possible policy options for ministers to stay within the legally binding net-zero target. “If this is represented in the right way, it should not be unpopular and the vast majority of people need not be very affected,” said Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. “But it’s very important that the government is honest about aviation emissions. We have to plan for the whole economy.” The committee’s findings throw into doubt the government’s green light for a new runway at Heathrow, the consultation on which ended last week. The Department for Transport has previously conceded that the net-zero target, enacted by Theresa May after the Heathrow decision was taken, could provide arguments towards a review. While the committee stopped short of advising against Heathrow expansion, it warned: “Current planned additional airport capacity in London, including the third runway at Heathrow, is likely to leave at most very limited room for growth at non-London airports.” Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, said ministers must go back to the drawing board: “The government’s current aviation strategy is incompatible with our net-zero target and must be revised. The new strategy must focus on restricting demand growth, and will either require Heathrow’s third runway being cancelled or capacity restrictions on other airports to balance Heathrow’s expansion.” While improvements in aircraft fuel efficiency, and new technologies and designs, will reduce emissions from aviation substantially, this will not be enough to reduce emissions in line with a net-zero target because of the projected rise in flying, according to the committee. New technology such as biofuels cannot satisfy fuel needs as demand for flights rises, while speculative technology such as electric aircraft is a long way off, and capturing and storing the carbon emissions from conventional aircraft would be highly expensive. Flying at present is “very skewed” towards a small number of people, said Stark. About half of people in the UK do not fly in any given year but a minority fly often. On current trends, the number of flights taken in the UK would rise by 50% by 2050, but the committee advised this must be halved to a 25% increase to stay within the zero-carbon target. Many green campaigners want policies to focus on penalising frequent flyers and curtailing airport expansion, along with improvements in public transport to make rail a better option than flying on short journeys. Leo Murray, director at 10:10 Climate Action, said: “Most of the environmental damage from air travel is caused not by annual family holidays but by very frequent leisure flights by those at the top end of the income spectrum. A frequent flyer levy is the fairest and most effective way to keep aviation within safe limits, while protecting access to some air travel for all.” As a first step, the government could amend the law to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions from aviation and shipping are included in the net-zero carbon target for 2050. They are currently excluded, but Stark said there was “no practical barrier” to counting them. Shipping emissions could be brought down by new technologies, and international cooperation will be key, according to the letter. The committee also found that buying carbon offsets – by investing in measures and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere – or ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would still be needed to balance out the emissions remaining after the other measures to reduce emission from shipping and aviation had been undertaken. A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The fight against climate change is the greatest and most pressing challenge facing the modern world and this government recognises that aviation and shipping have a crucial role to play in tackling it. “The government has already made clear its commitment to zero emission shipping in the Clean Maritime Plan, which was published earlier this year. We are also committed to setting a clear ambition for the aviation sector and will carefully consider the advice of the Committee on Climate Change when we publish our position on aviation and climate change for consultation shortly.” | ['uk-news/heathrow-airport', 'environment/heathrow-third-runway', 'world/air-transport', 'business/theairlineindustry', 'environment/environment', 'uk/transport', 'travel/travel', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'environment/ethical-living', 'business/travelleisure', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-offset-projects | EMISSIONS | 2019-09-24T05:00:18Z | true | EMISSIONS |
australia-news/2019/mar/15/former-liberal-adviser-appointed-head-of-great-barrier-reef-marine-park-authority | Former Liberal adviser appointed head of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority | A former policy adviser to multiple Liberal party environment ministers has been appointed the new chief executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government body responsible for managing the reef. Josh Thomas, who worked as an adviser to current minister Melissa Price, as well as former environment ministers Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt, will start a five-year term in the role on 18 March with an annual salary of $353,180. In a statement on Friday, Price said “after a rigorous merit-based selection process Mr Josh Thomas has today been announced as the new chief executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority”. “Mr Thomas brings a strong understanding of the Authority with more than 15 years’ experience in the public and private sector and has academic qualifications in science and international affairs,” she said. Neither Price’s statement, nor a statement and biography published by the authority mentioned Thomas’s past work as a Coalition staffer. “His application received widespread support from non-government organisations and environmental groups and I am confident he will make a valuable contribution to the leadership of the authority,” Price said. She said the selection process was conducted by a public service panel and endorsed by the Australian Public Service Commissioner. Thomas is respected by both sides of politics and within the environment movement, and it has not been suggested he will display any partiality in his role. But his appointment will fuel accusations the government is moving to appoint its political allies to the top tiers of the public service before the May election. The government has faced scrutiny over recent appointments to the administrative appeals tribunal and the appointment of a former NSW Liberal MP to the post of high commissioner to New Zealand. The opposition’s environment spokesman, Tony Burke, said the government had rejected the idea of improving wages for ordinary workers “but rushes headlong to provide the best wage increases they can for anyone who has been associated with the Liberal party and this government”. Price said Thomas’s qualifications and those of shortlisted candidates were assessed independently by an external agency. Her office did not supply the names of the other candidates. “During the recruitment process, the government adhered to all requirements of the APSC Merit and Transparency Policy, and the process itself was endorsed by the Australian Public Service Commissioner,” she said. “Applicants who best met the position requirements and addressed the selection criteria were screened by an external executive search provider and a list of potentially suitable candidates was developed.” The marine park authority said in a statement Thomas had “15 years of high-level experience in the public and private sector in Australia and overseas, including leadership in environmental policies and programs”. “Mr Thomas is committed to enhancing Australia’s natural environment and has been a strong advocate for incorporating both contemporary science and Indigenous traditional knowledge into environmental management throughout his career,” the authority said. The appointment is part of a new governance structure for the authority that separates the roles of chairman and chief executive. A spokeswoman for GBRMPA said “the marine park authority as an organisation wasn’t involved in the recruitment process nor did we recommend any particular candidates”. She said the position was advertised in media and in online recruitment forums in July last year. “The Marine Park Authority chair, Dr Ian Poiner, was a member of the recruitment selection panel that provided advice to the minister for the environment.” “Questions relating to the selection process should be referred to the Department of the Environment and Energy, who coordinated the selection process.” | ['australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-03-15T07:18:44Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2019/aug/14/microplastics-found-at-profuse-levels-in-snow-from-arctic-to-alps-contamination | Microplastics ‘significantly contaminating the air’, scientists warn | Abundant levels of microplastic pollution have been found in snow from the Arctic to the Alps, according to a study that has prompted scientists to warn of significant contamination of the atmosphere and demand urgent research into the potential health impacts on people. Snow captures particles from the air as it falls and samples from ice floes on the ocean between Greenland and Svalbard contained an average of 1,760 microplastic particles per litre, the research found. Even more – 24,600 per litre on average – were found at European locations. The work shows transport by winds is a key factor in microplastics contamination across the globe. The scientists called for research on the effect of airborne microplastics on human health, pointing to an earlier study that found the particles in cancerous human lung tissue. In June, another study showed people eat at least 50,000 microplastic particles per year. Many millions of tonnes of plastic are discarded into the environment every year and are broken down into small particles and fibres that do not biodegrade. These particles, known as microplastics, have now been found everywhere from high mountains to deep oceans and can carry toxic chemicals and harmful microbes. The latest study was led by Dr Melanie Bergmann of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. She said: “We really need research on the human health aspect. There are so many studies being published now on microplastics but nothing on human health, and that is really strange in my opinion.” Bergmann added that microplastics should be included in air pollutant monitoring schemes. Bergmann had previously found 12,000 microplastic particles per litre in samples of Arctic sea ice: “So we asked where does it all come from?” Some is carried from populated regions by ocean currents, but analysis of snow samples shows much is blown by the wind. “Microplastic concentrations in snow were very high, indicating significant contamination of the atmosphere,” concluded the study published in the journal Science Advances. “It basically gets everywhere with the wind,” said Bergmann. Pollen and dust from the Sahara are already known to be blown over long distances. As well as the Arctic ice floes, the team’s 22 samples included snow from Svalbard, an island well north of the Arctic circle, the German and Swiss Alps and the city of Bremen. The team found that the smallest particles were the most abundant, but their equipment could not detect particles smaller than 11 microns. “I am convinced there are many more particles in the smaller size range beyond our detection limit,” said Bergmann. “The worry with smaller particles is they can be taken up by a greater range of organisms and, if they reach nano-scale, they could penetrate cell membranes and translocate into organs much more easily than the larger fraction.” Microplastics from polymer-based protective coatings on vehicles, buildings and ships were the most common of those frequently found by the researchers, followed by rubber, polyethylene and polyamides including nylon. The researchers cite a 1998 study as the only assessment of microplastic in human lungs. It found inhaled fibres were present in cancerous lung specimens and concluded: “These bioresistant and biopersistent plastic fibres are candidate agents contributing to the risk of lung cancer.” The European commission’s chief scientific advisers said in a report in April: “The evidence [on the environmental and health risks of microplastics] provides grounds for genuine concern and for precaution to be exercised.” Scientists not involved in the latest study expressed concern that supposedly pristine ecosystems such as the Arctic were contaminated. “The work is very important because it strengthens the argument for much more stringent regulations on the plastics industry and forcing the governments of the world to address the issue of plastic pollution,” said Steve Allen, at the EcoLab research institute in France. “With [microplastics] pouring into our environment, it is highly likely we will only find out the safe levels after we have exceeded them.” An earlier study published by Allen in April found significant microplastic quantities falling from the air in the Pyrenees, also implicating wind as a transport mechanism. The Bergmann-led research, however, is the first to look the contamination of snow. Just two previous studies have looked at the presence of microplastics in the air, one in Paris, France, and another in Dongguan, China. Both found a steady fall of particles. Other recent research has found microplastics raining down on the Rockies in North America and in farmland soils near Shanghai in China. | ['environment/pollution', 'environment/plastic-bags', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'world/arctic', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-08-14T18:00:19Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2024/feb/13/france-halts-100-a-month-electric-car-leasing-scheme-after-surge-in-demand | France halts €100-a-month electric car leasing scheme after huge demand | The French government has suspended an electric car leasing scheme after only six weeks following a surge in demand that more than doubled the number of vehicles required. Officials said the scheme, launched in December to help low-income households and cut carbon emissions, would be relaunched next year. Originally, 25,000 European-built electric cars were to be offered to lease from €100 (£85) a month, but this was doubled after massive demand. The government said it had received more than 90,000 applications by the end of January. “It’s a real success story and symbolic of French environmental policy. It is good for the wallet and good for the planet,” an adviser to President Emmanuel Macron said. Motorists who balked at the cost of buying an electric car – which are typically more expensive than a petrol or diesel vehicle – were offered a means-tested leasing scheme at a cost of €100-€150 a month for a vehicle worth €47,000 or under. Applicants had to be over 18, live in France, live at least 15km (9 miles) from their place of work and drive more than 8,000km a year as part of their professional activity and have a household taxable income of less than €15,400 a person. The three-year leasing contract can be renewed once with the option to buy the vehicle, which must have been manufactured in France or elsewhere in Europe. The government is subsidising each vehicle up to a maximum of €13,000. Less than six weeks after it was launched, the scheme that was part of Macron’s 2022 re-election manifesto had been a victim of its own success and overtaken its initial objective, the Élysée Palace said. The industry and energy minister, Roland Lescure, suggested the popular offer had been constrained by the number of electric vehicles being made in France and urged the country’s carmakers to speed up production. “Today, there is a great demand and we don’t yet have enough products made in France. That means French constructors need to step up the pace or commit to doing so,” Lescure told France 3. “What’s fantastic about this offer is that at the same time you give people who aren’t necessarily very well off access to an inexpensive electric vehicle and what’s more you do so by producing more French vehicles. We have to do both.” “It [the scheme] is a victim of its success. It all happened quicker than we thought. We’ll perhaps slow down a bit to give the French manufacturers some time and then, accelerate, accelerate, accelerate.” He added that details of the 2025 scheme would be published at the end of this year. A spokesperson for Christophe Béchu, the minister for ecological transition, said: “A new wave of orders will be put in place for 2025 because the government wants to increase the offer.” However, they said it was too early to decide whether the conditions would be more open. | ['world/france', 'environment/electric-cars', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'technology/motoring', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/kim-willsher', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2024-02-13T12:23:21Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2020/nov/03/how-are-you-helping-wildlife-in-your-garden-share-your-experiences | How are you helping wildlife in your garden? Share your experiences | Gardens are important habitats for a range of species including small mammals, songbirds and insects. Although it might seem a small contribution, gardening in a wildlife-friendly way can make a massive difference in counteracting biodiversity loss. In the UK, for example, gardens take up more space than all nature reserves combined. We want to see photos of what you’ve been doing to help. Perhaps you’ve built a bug hotel? Or made holes in the fence so hedgehogs can get through? Or conjured up a designer bird box? How to get in touch Share your photos and describe what you’ve been doing in up to 200 words by filling in the form below. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. One of our journalists may want to get in touch before we publish, so please do leave contact details. If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here. | ['environment/wildlife', 'environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/callout', 'profile/guardian-community-team', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-communities-and-social'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-11-03T14:19:10Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.